Jar,
Whenever I bring this up I'm utterly ignored but I keep wondering. Paul and the Gospel authors report an expectation of the return of Jesus within the lifetime of at least some of the people living then. I wonder the effect on the church as the years stretched on.
I also note one thing about fundamentalist as they turn to a solely Bible based religion they expect Jesus to return in their lifetime, I suspect because that is what they are reading in the Bible, that was how the religion seems to have been represented.
I suspect the Catholic church made changes in doctrine in part because they had to fill in for an absent Jesus. It appears that Christianity wasn't expected to last long. No need to marry etc because the world was ending any day. That may have also been a factor in the matyrs?
Well, just curious about this.
lfen