In the primitive church nothing is so striking as the abundance and variety of spiritual gifts (several of which have ceased with the exigencies that ren dered them desirable) [CHARISMATA], and the liberty of individual action. A greater contrast can hardly be imagined than the cumbrous ecclesiastical machinery of later ages. Every church was go verned by a union of elders or overseers chosen from among themselves, and we find among them no individual distinguished above the rest who pre sided as a primus inter pares, though probably in the age immediately succeeding the apostolic, of which we have unfortunately so few authentic memorials, the practice was introduced of applying to such an one the name of irrio-anros, by way of distinction' (Neander).
After narrating the proceedings of the Council at Jerusalem, the writer of the Acts confines himself entirely to the missionary labours of St. Paul and his associates. Of St. Peter we catch a glimpse at Antioch, when the apostle of the Gentiles with stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed' (Gal. ii. t x). But from that time to his martyrdom under the Neronian persecution at Rome, nothing is known with certainty (Ewald, p. 616 ; Schaff. ii. 17, 29). Of the other apostles a few traditionary notices remain, which will be found under their re spective names. Most of them seem to have laboured in the East, though one of their number, Simon Zelotes, is said to have travelled westward as far as Britain, where he ended his days by cruci fixion (Schaff. ii. 45). James, the brother of the Lord, alone remained at Jerusalem, and was re garded as the head of the church there, if not with the official dignity of bishop (though that is claimed for him by Epiphanius and some other writers), yet commanding the universal reverence of his country men by the superior sanctity of his character (Lechler, p. 296 ; Ewald, p. 200 ; Stanley, 29' 335). The martyrdom of St. Paul is placed by tradition in the same year as that of Peter, and ac cording to some witnesses, on the same day. No long after this event, those hostilities began which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish polity. Judaism, as a political and religious power, received its death-blow. The effect on the Palestinian Christians must have been great. It is well known that the members of the church at Jerusalem, shortly before the final catastrophe, took refuge in Pella, where they would come in contact with Gentile Christians, and were no longer under the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim, which had re moved its seat to Jamna, on the shores of the Mediterranean. The ties were broken that con nected the Jewish Christians with the ancient theocracy. On the first promulgation of Chris tianity, the synagogue was a most favourable medium for communicating not only with the native Jews, but through the proselytes who at tended its service with the Gentiles ; and we find that St. Paul in his missionary labours always availed himself of its aid. But, gradually, the antagonism of the old and the new, of the spiritual and the formal, of the transitory and that which re maineth ' (2 Cor. iii. i 1), became more intense, and towards the close of the first century, the synagogue and the church displayed the bitterest animosity to each other (Ewald, p. 380 ; Lechler, p. 290).
The materials for the history of the second period of the Apostolic Age are very scanty, as there is almost an entire absence of contemporary docu ments. Besides the Talmudical writings which may illustrate the state of the Jews and the Jewish Christians, we have only those of St. John (his Epistles and Revelation), the Epistle of Jude, and the second Epistle of Peter, which furnish rather hints than direct historical information. The Epistle of Barnabas and the first Epistle to the Corinthians of Clement, belong in spirit to the post-apostolic period (Lechler, p. 442). The principal person who stands before us with historic clearness is the Apostle John. We know not how early he took up his permanent abode at Ephesus, probably not till after the death of St. Paul, certainly not before that Apostle's Epistle to the Ephesians was written (about A. D. 62). Eusebius, on the authority of tradition, states that he was banished to Patmos in the fourteenth year of Domi tian's reign, and returned to Ephesus in the reign of Nerva (Euseb. iii. 23; Clem. Alex. Quz;r diver :alma § 42). The Apocalyptic Epistles, and the fact that the apocalypse, as a whole, was addressed to the seven churches, prove that the apostle's sphere of labour extended over a number of the Asiatic Churches, and the traditional notices of him shew that he was engaged in frequent and severe conflicts with false teachers, those grievous wolves' of whom St. Paul warned the Ephesian elders ; his language in his first epistle respecting the many antichrists' attests the same fact. Accord ing to Irenraus, Eusebius, Jerome, and others, John died a natural death at Ephesus at the advanced age of ninety or upwards, in the reign of the Emperor Trajan. With him the apostolic age of the church closes. The church was henceforth left to itself without any human guidance but under the invisible protection of the Lord, to form itself to spiritual maturity, and after a full development of opposing influences, to attain the higher and conscious unity which distinguished the spirit of the Apostle John' (Neander).
Schaff. History of the Apostolic Church, 2 vols. 8vo., Edin. 1854; Neander's History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church, etc., trans lated by J. E. Ryland, 2 vols. 1851 (Bohn's edition) ; Dr. J. P. Lange, Das Apostolische Zeit alter, 1853 ; Lechler, Das Apostolische and das Nachapostolische Zeitalter, etc., 2d ed. Stuttgart 1857 (The first part of this work (p. 1-270) presents a very luminous and discriminating view of the different types of the apostolic doctrine) ; Stanley, Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age, Oxford 1847 ; Davidson, The Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament unfolded, 2d ed. Lond. Stoughton, Ages of Christendom, London 1857 ; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 2 vols. 2d ed., London 1858 (especially ch. xiii. vol. I) ; Herzog, Real-Encyclopadie, i. 439, Art. Apostolisches Zeitalter ; Ewald, Geschichte des Apostolischen Zeitalters his cur ZerstUrung Yeru salem's Gottingen 1858.—J. E. R.