{"product_id":"2940150975217","title":"How First Christians Lived","description":"How the First Christians Changed the World \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What We Can Learn from Them)\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e By:  Fr. Michael Giesler Christians even went to the street corners of cities like Rome and Corinth and took into their homes the infants that had been abandoned there. No wonder the numbers of Christians spread so rapidly, while the numbers of pagan families diminished.\u003cbr\u003eChristians were married in Roman civil ceremonies but believed that they were receiving a sacrament that bound them to each other in fidelity for all of their lives. In the words of Tertullian, Christian married couples are people \"who sustain one another in the way of the Lord, who pray together, who go together to God's table, and who face all their ordeals together\" (qtd. in Henri Daniel-Rops, The Church of the Apostles and Martyrs, 233). \u003cbr\u003eCertain heretical groups, like the Gnostics and the Encratists, scorned marriage and children; they considered matter evil and opposed to their intellectual liberation. They were condemned by the first generation of Christian writers who were loyal to the Church, particularly St. Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria. \u003cbr\u003eMany Christian women were married to pagan men; these women had a tremendous capillary effect on pagan society because they raised their children in the faith and because often their husbands converted. Consider the immense influence that St. Monica had on her husband and sons, especially Augustine. Monica's story was lived by thousands of women in many different times and places for five centuries. As a result Christian marriage literally produced a new race of people, with a completely different view of life and love, who revolutionized the ancient world. \u003cbr\u003ePray without Ceasing\u003cbr\u003eThe prayer life of the first Christian disciples was continuous and intense. In part they shared this with all the ancients, who in general had a much greater awareness of the sacred and supernatural than people of the modern world, dulled by centuries of rationalism and empiricism. Christians inherited the Judaic belief in the angels and spoke of them in a very spontaneous way as frequently acting upon earth and individuals (cf. Acts 12:15). These spiritual beings provide continual and often hidden service for leading a virtuous life. For example, The Shepherd of Hermas, an early second-century document, speaks of the \"angel of righteousness\" guiding every person (Bk. II, Command. 6, 2). The Christians prayed to the saints and venerated their relics and place of burial, believing in their intercessory power before God. They did so with a firm conviction that all of them, living or deceased, were united in the one Body of Christ. \u003cbr\u003eThe desire for God's constant presence also applied to their daily work and other activities. St. John Chrysostom, writing in the fourth century, described the conversion of a Christian's work into prayer in this way:\u003cbr\u003eA woman busy in her kitchen, or sewing some cloth can always lift her thoughts to heaven and invoke the Lord with fervor. One who goes to the market or travels alone can easily pray attentively. Another in his wine cellar, busy sewing wineskins, is free to raise his heart to the Master . . . No place is lacking in decorum for God. (4th Homily on Anna, Mother of the Prophet Samuel, 6)\u003cbr\u003eThe historical and spiritual root of this attitude is the life of Christ himself, who had spoken many times in his parables of ordinary life and its intimate connection to the kingdom of God. Jesus, too, led a life of humble labor. In his hometown of Nazareth he was simply known as \"the carpenter, the son of Mary\" (Mark 6:3). \u003cbr\u003eBe in the World, Not of It\u003cbr\u003eWe see no evidence in the earliest centuries of Christianity of any desire to leave the world. Instead, they considered it a mandate of Christ to change the society around them. As Jesus said to his followers: \"I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from evil\" (John 17:15). They lived the mandate given by Christ to his apostles: \"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations\" (Matt. 28:19). After converting, they remained where they were, with their families and their occupations, and if they were slaves, with their masters. Except for their clean living and charity, they distinguished themselves in no way from their neighbors. As one second-century document puts it:\u003cbr\u003eChristians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by either country, speech, or customs; the fact is, they nowhere settle in cities of their own; they use no particular language; they cultivate no eccentric mode of life . . . To say it briefly: What the soul is in the body, that the Christians are in the world. The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and the Christians throughout the cities of the world. (Letter to Diognetus, qtd. in Quasten, Patrology, 250-251)","brand":"M.M.Snyder","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47109770150128,"sku":"2940150975217","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940150975217_p0.jpg?v=1763757214","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940150975217","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}