Apostolic Order and Unity Author:Robert Bruce Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. THE THIED GENEEATION. The second of the three generations into which the history of the first century of the Christian Church divides itself, ends wit... more »h the martyrdoms of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. James the Lord's brother, about A.D. 68, and the entire disappearance from contemporary history of the names of all the other apostles, with the exception of St. John. The third generation covers a period of thirty-two years, from A.D. 6 8 to A.d. 100. The Epistle to the Hebrews forms the link between the first and second generation, and throws light on the organisation of the Church in the third, rather than in the second generation. It was probably written, about A.D. 68, to prepare the disciples for the change which must follow the destruction of the holy city and temple. The Epistle To The Hebrews. Let us take our stand among the Christians in Jerusalem two years before the fall of the city. The Church in Jerusalem is still regarded by all Churches as the mother Church. To it the greatApostle of the Gentiles, at the close of each of his missionary journeys, returned, ever striving to bind each infant Church, by the bonds of love, to the mother Church. The organisation of each Christian congregation or church was on the model of the Jewish synagogue, with a college of presbyters and deacons, and not on that of the temple, with high priest, priests, and Levites. To an Israelite this would seem to be no organisation at all. The central idea which bound them together as an Ecclesia was not the synagogue but the temple. The possibility of a universal Ecclesia with no central city or earthly house of God was inconceivable to them. They were beginning to realise the approaching doom of city and temple as foretold by Christ. To them, as well as to the Jew, the words city, ...« less