This chapter focuses on the development of early Christian thinking on the political order. According to a strong and influential research tradition, there were mainly three concepts that were the basis for early Christian thinking as to 'church and state'. All three, it is said, can be traced back to current Hellenistic Jewish attitudes towards the Roman empire. As their main representatives, on the one hand, rank the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, a great admirer of the Roman empire, and, on the other, the apostle Paul, and his younger Jewish contemporary, Rabbi Hananiah. Paul and Hananiah shared the opinion that the empire is a God-given institution, destined to protect and discipline humanity. The Christian attitudes towards the Roman empire during the first three centuries CE seem to have generally followed what the bipartite Christian Bible recommended. Christians have to intercede for the 'Romans' in order that the horrors preceding the millenarian rule be delayed.