During the Middle Ages and the Ancien Régime, the form of political organization in Europe was the hereditary monarchy, sustained by the feudal mode of production. Inside these monarchies, political power were scattered through several political centers, with their own laws and relative administrative autonomy. Society was hierarchically organized, with almost none social mobility. This kind of political organization was radically changed by the Enlightenment idea of “social contract”, which stated that political power were transferred from the people to the monarch, who, since then, ruled definitively as the unique source of rights and obligations, therefore, centralizing the political and legislative power in the king himself. Although, the king should guarantee a certain level of individual freedom, being the social contract limited by this goal.
Contents. The Book of Acts clearly focuses on the beginnings of the church, and two people… The apostle Peter, and the one who actually possessed the courage to go to the farthest parts of the known world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, his name was Paul the Apostle. The Gospel spread from Israel, northward to Antioch, and then westward to Asia Minor, Greece, and finally Rome, the heart of the Roman Empire.
The first 12 chapters of the book of Acts deal with Peter, and the remainder of the book, the last 16 chapters is devoted to the apostle Paul.
The major areas of history with which the author has dealt are :
1) The establishment and progress of the church at Jerusalem until the dispersion which arose at the time of Stephen's death (Acts 1-7);
2) The preaching of the gospel to the surrounding area, including its introduction to the Gentiles (Acts 8-12) ;
3) The preaching tours of Paul and the struggle to define the church's position with regard to the law of Moses (Acts 13:1-21:16); and
4) Paul's imprisonment, which began in Jerusalem and was concluded in Rome (Acts 21:17-28 :30).
<span>Greeks lived in independent sity-states
like Athens, Sparta, Thebes and others. For a long time, there was
rivalry among these states that led to Spartan hegemony and then a short
lived Thebes hegemony.</span>
