Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/11



To the student of general history Christianity makes its appearance as a Greek religion. The first Christian communities of any considerable size had their home in the great Greek cities on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. In Alexandria, in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Smyrna, in Corinth—all near the sea, and in easy communication with one another—the little Churches came into being and developed their organisation. The whole Ecclesiastical vocabulary is Greek. Bishops, Priests, Deacons, the Laity, Baptism, the Eucharist, all the terms are Greek in origin. It is the same with literature. From the alien religion out of which Christianity had sprung the Church inherited her Sacred Books in a Greek translation, and the writings of Christians that after a time were added on to the Canon of