Jesus had commissioned his disciples to go into all the world, and Paul had laid down his life opening the door of the church for the Gentiles. In a sense catholic Christianity was simply a development of Jesus’ plans and Paul’s efforts. We call the years between A.D. 70 and A.D. 312 the Age of Catholic Christianity because this thought dominates Christian history between the death of the apostles and the rise of the Christian emperors. Though the universality of Christianity is a common idea in