What is said of the period after the death of St. Paul? Between what years is there very little history? What companions of St. Paul were living at the time of his death? What became of these men? Wherein was the church of a later period different from that of the earlier time? What reason is assigned for these changes? Name the four principal events in the period under consideration. When did the rebellion of the Jews against the Roman empire begin? What was the result of this rebellion? What became of the Christians in Jerusalem at the opening of the Jewish war? What was the after history of Jewish Christianity? What was the effect of the fall of Jerusalem on the relations between Christianity and Judaism? Who was the last of the twelve apostles on the earth? Where did he live? What was his character? What is said as to his death? What divisions in the church arose at this period? Of what were these divisions the result? What country was the home of the heresies? Who were the Ebionites? Who were the Gnostics? What good result came from these controversies? What evil result followed them? What persecution arose during this period? At what time? Under what emperor did the persecution begin? How did it compare with the earlier persecution under Nero? What general causes may be given for the series of imperial persecutions of the Christians? Wherein was heathenism hospitable, and Christianity exclusive? How was idolatry interwoven with the affairs of life? How was this fact adverse to the Christians? How did Christianity come to be looked on with suspicion in the empire? How did the worship of the emperor affect the Christians? What is this worship called in the New Testament? Did these persecutions stop the progress of the church? PART TWO Let us consider the =condition of the church= at the end of the first century, seventy years after the Ascension of our Lord. I. =Its Numbers= cannot be definitely stated; but the church was very large, and growing with marvelous rapidity. Sources of information: 1.) _The catacombs_; cemeteries under and around Rome where Christians only were buried, and wherein they met in times of persecution; occupied between 100 and 400 A. D.; containing in three centuries two million graves of Christians. 2.) A letter of Pliny, Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus in Asia Minor, 112 A. D., stating that "the temples were almost deserted," "an incredible number of professors." Evidences point to the church, A. D. 100, having already a large proportion of the population of the Roman empire.