The apostolic ministry continued in the Primitive Church for about sixty years after the death of Christ, or nearly to the end of the first century of the Christian Era. For some time thereafter the Church existed as a unified body, officered by men duly invested by ordination in the Holy Priesthood, though, even during the lifetime of some of the Apostles, the leaven of apostasy and disintegration had been working. Indeed, hardly had the Gospel seed been sown before the enemy of all righteousness had started assiduously to sow tares in the field; and so intimate was the growth of the two that any forcible attempt to extirpate the tares would have imperiled the wheat. The evidences of spiritual decline were observed with anguish by the Apostles who, however, recognized the fulfilment of earlier prophecy in the declension, and added their own inspired testimony to the effect that even a greater falling away was imminent. The apostasy progressed rapidly, in consequence of a cooperation of disrupting forces without and within the Church. The dreadful persecution to which the early Christians were subjected drove great numbers of Christians to renounce their allegiance to Christianity, thus causing a widespread apostasy from the Church. But far more destructive was the contagion of evil that spread within the body, manifesting its effects mainly in the following developments: (1) The corrupting of the simple principles of the Gospel of Christ by admixture with the so-called philosophical systems of the times. (2) Unauthorized additions to the rites of the Church, and the introduction of vital changes in essential ordinances. (3) Unauthorized changes in Church organization and government. The result of the degeneracy so produced was to bring about an actual apostasy of the entire Church. The Apostasy Predicted Isaiah beheld in vision the condition of mankind during the darkness of the spiritual night; and he pictures the earth as languishing in desolation: "The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." (Isa. 24:1-6). That the general transgression meant something more than a violation of Mosaic statutes is evident from the fact that nowhere in Scripture is the Law of Moses called an "everlasting covenant," but to the contrary, the covenant of the Gospel is clearly differentiated from the Law. The prophet Amos foresaw the time of famine and thirst, the day of futile search for the Word of God. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." (Amos 8:11-12).