PERIOD OF THE EARLY CHURCH MISSION (100-313)

The period following the death of Apostles was not one of great leaders so
much as of many leaders. The whole church was imbued with the spirit of
witnessing, and in the course of ordinary social intercourse, travel,
and commerce. The gospel spread far and wide and little companies of
believers sprang up in many lands. From Ephesus the work extended through Asia Minor
and seven churches mentioned in the Apocalypses were established and
became self supporting and self propagating. Pontius of Alexandria came
in India and found Christian who posses a Hebrew gospel of St. Mathew, Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, and Carthage and successively Rome became the great missionary centre of the first three centuries. The growth of Christians and persecution: By the opening of the 4th
century, Christian missions had so covered the then known world. The
Christian was not numerical growth but morally and intellectually. Constantine noted "I could not be ignored".
Ten distinctive persecutions are usually recognized, ranging at
intervals b from A.D. 64, under Nero A.D. 303, under Diocletian,"
Hundred of thousands of Martyrs was sealed their testimony with their
blood. Among the earlier and most need of whom were Paul Ignatius,
Polycarp, and Justin Martyr. In the catacombs of St.Sebastian in Rome
rest the bodies of tens of thousands of Christians, many of them
martyrs nor were there by any means but all who loved their Master even
unto death! The blood of the Martyrs proved then as it has proved ever
since to be the seed of the church7.