ABSTRACT
The earliest Christians had, strictly speaking, nothing that authors could call political theory at all. They constituted a small body of the faithful, living in constant expectation of the Second Coming and holding themselves aloof from the world and its affairs. Towards the rulers of the strange land in which they were sojourners they owed implicit obedience, in everything that did not directly touch their religion. The abandonment of the Greek idea of a positive moral function of the secular state came more naturally because this function was thought of as primarily belonging to another body or set of authorities, the Church. It is probable that the idea of the Church as an organised body with its own organs of government was the element in Christianity which made the most difference to political thinking.
