ABSTRACT
Christianity was only on the way to becoming a stabilised religion, when the church became conscious of being an independent entity in its own right or rather when circumstances compelled it to become so. If Christianity was to be stabilised, the organisation of the communities had to become strong and fixed. There is no doubt that in the first generation the work of unification and stabilisation only proceeded in a very jerky fashion for one very important reason. Like pneumatism all the eschatological beliefs and convictions possessed by the first generation of Christians that they were living on the eve of a great cosmic revolution were of necessity obstacles to any process of stabilisation. The various forms of authority which found a place in the stabilised church were reunited into one bundle by the doctrine of the apostolate which was modified to satisfy new conditions.
