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Mediterranean, including those founded by Paul, started appointing leaders who would be in charge and make decisions (rather than having every member as “equally” endowed with the Spirit); rules began to be formulated concerning how the community was to live together, practice its sacred rites (e.g., baptism and eucharist), train new members, and so on. Soon documents started being produced that indicated how the churches were to be ordered and structured. These so-called church orders became increasingly important in the second and third Christian centuries, but already by about 100 C . E . the first (to our knowledge) had been written and widely disseminated, a book called The Didache [Teaching] of the Twelve Apostles. Soon it had numerous successors.
    Christian Apologies
    As the Christian communities became established, they sometimes faced opposition from Jews and pagans who saw this new faith as a threat and suspected its adherents of engaging in immoral and socially destructive practices (just as new religious movements today are often regarded with suspicion). This opposition sometimes led to local persecutions of Christians; eventually the persecutions became “official,” as Roman administrators intervened to arrest Christians and try to force them to return to the old ways of paganism. As Christianity grew, it eventually converted intellectuals to the faith, who were well equipped to discuss and dismiss the charges typically raised against the Christians. The writings of these intellectuals are sometimes called apologies, from the Greek word for “defense” ( apologia ). The apologists wrote intellectual defenses of the new faith, trying to show that far from being a threat to the social structure of the empire, it was a religion that preached moral behavior; and far from being a dangerous superstition, it represented the ultimate truth in its worship of the one true God. These apologies were important for early Christian readers, as they provided them with the arguments they needed whenthemselves faced with persecution. Already this kind of defense was found in the New Testament period, for example, in the book of 1 Peter (3:15: “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you to give an account of the hope that is in you”) and in the book of Acts, where Paul and other apostles defend themselves against charges leveled at them. By the second half of the second century, apologies had become a popular form of Christian writing.
    Christian Martyrologies
    At about the same time that apologies began to be written, Christians started producing accounts of their persecutions and the martyrdoms that happened as a result of them. There is some portrayal of both matters already in the New Testament book of Acts, where opposition to the Christian movement, the arrest of Christian leaders, and the execution of at least one of them (Stephen) form a significant part of the narrative (see Acts 7). Later, in the second century, martyrologies (accounts of the martyrs) began to appear. The first of them is the Martyrdom of Polycarp, who was an important Christian leader who served as bishop of the church of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, for almost the entire first half of the second century. The account of Polycarp’s death is found in a letter produced by members of his church, written to another community. Soon afterward, accounts of other martyrs began to appear. These too were popular among Christians, as they provided encouragement to those who were also persecuted for the faith, and guidance about how to face the ultimate threats of arrest, torture, and death.
    Antiheretical Tractates
    The problems Christians faced were not confined to external threats of persecution. From the earliest times, Christians were aware that a variety of interpretations of the “truth” of the religion existed within their own ranks. Already the apostle Paul rails against “false