Book 2 — Chapter 3 — The Teaching Spreads through the Inhabited World
The death of Stephanos does not extinguish the proclamation. Those scattered from Yerushalayim carry the Word into surrounding regions. Paulos, first a persecutor, is confronted on the road to Damascus and becomes one of the movement's most active emissaries. Kepha receives the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household after the vision concerning people whom Elohim has cleansed, a turning point in the inclusion of non-Yehudi households. Antioch becomes a major center, and the talmidim are first publicly called “Christians” there in the received Acts terminology. Eusebius views these rapid developments as evidence that the proclamation had a force disproportionate to the social power of its messengers. The movement grows not through imperial patronage but while its principal witnesses remain vulnerable to local and governmental opposition.