with structure came power. and with that power came the final foundation stone of what we recognize today as the church, the authority to define what is sacred scripture and what is heresy? surely by the end of the 1st century the letters of paul have been collected. the gospels, matthew, mark, luke and john, and likely other gospels as well had been written, but it would take another several centuries before the canon of the church as we know it today finally took shape. different christian communities had different gospels that they read during the worship services. eventually, as it turned out, of course, only four gospels made it into the new testament. and scholars are fairly convinced that these four, in fact, are the four earliest gospels. with dozens of other gospels circulating, how did church leaders ensure the survival of
from the ruins of the temple, two separate and distinct faiths emerged. some people have thought that this destruction of jerusalem in the year 70 led to a major break between judaism and christianity. in part because there were many jews who didn t want to side with the jewish rebels in fighting against the romans, because for these followers of jesus, salvation doesn t come by overthrowing the romans. salvation comes by believing in jesus. at the end of the 1st century, christian leaders decided they needed a new holy scripture. they started writing down what jesus had said and done, and now
official religion. he did make it a favored religion, and he started giving lands to christian bishops and supplying funds for the building of churches and so forth. this made it a very popular thing to become a christian, especially to become a christian leader. so from going to being a persecuted small sect, it turned into an important religion that was favored by the emperor. ultimately, the decision is made by some kind of a vote. ultimately, it has to do with power and with politics. and that s how people decide who is on the inside and has the right way of thinking and who is on the outside as the other and should be excluded as a heretic? some 300 years after jesus, christianity was now the dominant religion of europe, and it would spread around the world.
christians rose on the day of jesus s a death and not on the sabbath. paul speaks that the christians gathered on the first day of the week and apparently sang hymns, they apparently read scripture, they took a collection for the poor, and celebrate what came to be known as the eucharist. this is my body which will be given up for you. eucharist from the greek word meaning thanksgiving was the early christian celebration. a re-creation of the last supper. the one ritual that jesus established for his communities was to share bread and wine in remembrance of him. do this in memory of me. [ bell ] and throughout all the christian communities, whether they were jewish christians or
assembly. early christians, early followers of jesus would have met in private homes. they might have met in public buildings. they began in a synagogue. they broke from a synagogue, and they met in houses. in corinth, where you have very wealthy gentile christian and jewish christian leaders, you would have a villa. and maybe a villa could host 75 or 100 people at one time. baptism took place at home and also the eucharist. the eucharist has its roots in the last supper. but who presided over these rituals was then an open question. the earliest christian churches were not organized according to a hierarchal structure such as we think of today where there might be a pope, for example, in the catholic church or bishops over churches or priests or even