A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL BY LYFORD PATERSON EDWARDS The Collegiate Press GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY MENASHA, WISCONSIN 1919...

When Christianity came into the world it found a number of different political theories already in existence. These various conflicting concepts; Hebrew, Greek and Roman, influenced Christianity in varying degrees and in varying degrees were influenced by Christianity. Christianity as such added no new ideas to the current stock of political notions. The Hebrew Christian retained his Jewish theory; as did the Greek and the Roman in perhaps a less degree. The development of the Christian concepti

The Chiliasm of the early Christians had a direct bearing upon their attitude toward the property institutions and property concepts of the time. Neither the declension of Chiliasm nor the progressive socialization of the Church can be understood without some consideration of the attitude of the Christians toward property, and conversely the effect of the existing economic system upon the Christians. The early Church made its appearance in a world where the institution of private property was su

The transformation of early Christianity from an eschatological to a socialized movement was the result of the interaction of three social groups—three 'publics'—the Jewish, the Pagan, and the Christian. It was a single movement, working itself out through these three 'crowds'. Christianity, like all other great religions, was in its first beginnings essentially a mob phenomenon—that is to say it was a very slow movement which had a long history back of it. Perhaps no current opinion is more unf

Perhaps the most pronounced characteristic of pre-Christian, Judaistic Chiliasm is its nationalistic or ethnic patriotism. Of course any attempt to rigidly differentiate the nationalistic and religious concepts of the Hebrews of the two centuries preceding the advent of Christianity would be foredoomed to failure. Never perhaps were patriotism and religion more nearly synonymous than at this period among this people. That their Chiliasm has a strongly nationalistic content is therefore natural a

We have seen that in the first generations of the Church's existence the rapidly approaching end of the world was a doctrine firmly held by almost all Christians. We have seen how by the fifth century this doctrine, though doubtless still believed by small numbers of individuals and isolated groups, was practically dead. We have endeavored to show some of the more important political, economic, social, and religious effects of this belief and of its declension. The changes which took place almos