Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/15

Rh Christianity. Alas, it is only a glimpse! The great catastrophe of the Jewish War, culminating with the sack of Jerusalem, finally separated the Church and the Synagogue. The Jewish state came to an end, and with it perished the primitive Semitic Christianity. The Christians of Judaea fled to the mountains, and when the troubles were over the survivors seem to have mingled themselves with the Greek-speaking urban population. Thus the one community which might have preserved the earliest traditions was swallowed up. So far as we can find out, Christianity ceased in the land of its birth, save that a small colony about which we only know the Greek names of its Bishops is said to have struggled on in Jerusalem. The shadow of their names falls across the page of Eusebius, but no deed or word is assigned to the silent figures.

Thus it has come to pass that our information even about the outward events of our Lord's ministry is so painfully scanty. The story of the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth and of the first days of the infant community was known to the