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 ATHENAEUM 
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 IB 

 
 A KEY 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 Pontoon Waterloo Place 
 
 rfort High Street 
 
 Trinity Street
 
 A KEY 
 
 tfje 0arrati6e of 
 
 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 
 
 BY JOHN PILKINGTON NORRIS, M.A. 
 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 , (Dxforb, vmb 
 
 1871
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE CHURCH OF THE UPPER CHAMBER . . I 
 
 II. THE GIFT OF THE PARACLETE . ' . . 7 
 
 III. EXTERNAL TRIALS OF THE CHURCH . . 14 
 
 IV. INTERNAL TRIALS OF THE CHURCH . . 22 
 
 V. THE FIRST MARTYR 28 
 
 VI. PHILIP THE EVANGELIST .... 35 
 
 VII. THE CONVERSION OF SAUL . . . . 4! 
 
 VIII. THE MIDDLE WALL OF PARTITION BROKEN 
 
 DOWN 47 
 
 IX. FOUNDATION OF THE ANTIOCH CHURCH AND 
 
 FLIGHT OF THE APOSTLES FROM JERUSALEM 54 
 
 X. THE FIRST MISSION TO THE GENTILES . . 60 
 
 XI. THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL . 68 
 
 XII. CHRIST LEADING HIS APOSTLE INTO EUROPE 77 
 
 XIII. ST. PAUL IN GREECE ANTICHRIST AND THE 
 
 RESTRAINER 85 
 
 XIV. ORGANIZATION OF THE GREEK CHURCHES . 93 
 
 xv. ST. PAUL'S SUFFERINGS AT THIS PERIOD . 102 
 
 XVI. ST. PAUL ON HIS DEFENCE , . . IIO 
 
 23034 JO
 
 (SLonttnts 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. THE APPEAL TO C^SAR 
 
 . 117 
 
 XVIII. THE VOYAGE TO ROME 
 
 123 
 
 CONCLUSION .... 
 
 131 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I. ON THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL . 135 
 
 II. ON THE SYNAGOGUE AND THE ECCLESIA . 14! 
 
 III. HAD THE SANHEDRIM THE POWER OF LIFE 
 
 AND DEATH? 145 
 
 IV. NARRATIVE OF THE ACTS ILLUSTRATED FROM 
 
 OTHER HISTORIANS 149 
 
 V. ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE ACTS . . 1 54
 
 IT has been well said that the religious know- 
 ledge vouchsafed before the Christian era was like 
 the gradual dawning of light, which leads us to 
 anticipate the rising of the sun ; that Christ's 
 advent, when at length He came in humiliation, 
 was like a sunrise obscured by cloud ; and that 
 only when the ' rushing mighty wind ' of Pente- 
 cost had blown aside those earlier mists, could 
 men behold Him, as indeed He is, the source of 
 all their light and joy. 
 
 Therefore in the ' Acts of the Apostles,' much 
 more than in the Gospels, have we Christ revealed 
 to us in the fulness of His strength, reigning, as 
 He still reigns, 'at the right hand of power.' And 
 it may well be that St. Luke meant to imply this 
 in that opening phrase of his ' second treatise,' 
 where he alludes to his Gospel as containing but 
 the beginnings of all that Jesus did and taught. 
 The Apostles had received a promise that they 
 should see ' greater things than these ' hereafter.
 
 Intrxrbttftixm 
 
 unspeakable value : it bridges over, by a most 
 gradual transition, what otherwise would have 
 been a hopeless gulf, the interval that separates 
 the Church of the upper chamber from the 
 Churches of Europe. If our New Testament were 
 blank between the close of the Gospels and St. 
 Paul's Epistles to Greece and Rome, is it too 
 much to say that we should find a very serious 
 difficulty in connecting the two together 1 ? Nay, 
 further, considering how few and meagre are the 
 allusions in the Epistles to any of the events of 
 our Lord's Ministry, should we not feel that there 
 was an almost painful break in the continuity of 
 the New Testament, that we could hardly recog 
 nise in the spiritual Christ of the Epistles the 
 Jesus of Nazareth of the four Gospels 1 
 
 We open the Acts, and all is clear ; we perceive 
 at once that the main purpose of this book is to 
 trace all through this interval the continued action 
 of the risen Lord. We see, on the one hand, how 
 carefully St. Luke connects his narrative with that 
 of his Gospel, taking up the thread at the very 
 point where he had laid it down, with that com- 
 mission on Mount Olivet and the return of the 
 Eleven to the upper chamber ; we see, on the 
 other hand, how gradually but most designedly
 
 he is ever drawing our attention away from Jeru- 
 salem and the Apostles of Israel, fixing it more 
 and more on the Apostle of that Western world 
 which was to be the home of the maturer Church. 
 Above all, we see how careful he is, in tracing the 
 Church's progress, to show that it was Christ, not 
 His Apostles, who led the way ; as in His suffer- 
 ings, so now in His triumphs, ' Jesus going before 
 them, and they amazed as they followed' 1 . It 
 was no impulse of his own that made Philip 
 accost the Ethiopian stranger 2 ; it was a shock 
 and scandal to Peter to find himself called to 
 eat bread with a Roman soldier 3 ; it was with 
 fear and alarm 4 that the Apostles received Saul of 
 Tarsus into their number ; it took them all by 
 surprise to hear that 'the hand of the Lord' was 
 gathering together a Gentile Church at Antioch 5 ; 
 it was not St. Paul's free choice or determination, 
 but 'the Spirit of Jesus' 6 , overruling his plans, 
 that pushed him onward into Europe; it was the 
 Lord Himself who made him stay in Corinth, 
 saying, ' Be not afraid, for I am with thee, and 
 have much people in this city' 7 . When he came 
 
 1 Mark x. 32. - Acts viii. 26, 29. 3 Acts x. 14, xi. 3. 
 4 Acts ix. 26. 6 Acts xi. 21, 22, and page 55. 
 6 Such is the reading of the three oldest MSS. in Acts xvi. 7. 
 " Acts xviii. 9, 10.
 
 to Jerusalem expecting only bonds and death 1 , it 
 was the same glorified Form that again stood 
 beside him, saying, ' Be of good cheer, Paul ; for 
 as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must 
 thou bear witness also at Rome' 2 . 
 
 Thus plainly does the inspired writer reveal to 
 us the guiding hand of Christ in the ever westward 
 progress of His Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome. 
 
 And did the guidance of Christ cease when the 
 inspired record of it ceased ? Enlightened by the 
 teaching of this book, may we not for ourselves 
 discern the direct action of our Lord in every 
 great crisis of the Church's subsequent progress 1 
 How else can we explain the unextinguishable 
 vitality of that Light which the Church has handed 
 clown from generation to generation ? Crushed at 
 one time by persecution, dimmed and shamed at 
 another by worldliness, often narrowed to a single 
 spark, still, sheltered by an unseen hand, and fed 
 from secret sources, it has ever emerged and re- 
 vived, to burn once more with heavenly radiance. 
 
 The martyrs of the third century were sus- 
 tained by the same consciousness of Christ's pre- 
 sence that supported Stephen in the first : 'He 
 is not alone who has Christ for his companion,' 
 1 Acts xx. 23-25, xxi. 13. * Acts xxiii. II.
 
 Entr.oiuttii.oit 
 
 wrote Cyprian 1 to the sufferers at Carthage. And 
 as St. Luke is at pains to show us how ' the perse- 
 cution that arose about Stephen' was overruled to 
 spread abroad the Gospel, so Tertullian 2 , two 
 centuries later : ' The more you mow us down, 
 the more do we increase ; the blood of Christians 
 is their seed.' 
 
 In that great crisis of the Church when her 
 courtier Bishops, one and all, were for accepting 
 the creedless compromise urged upon them by 
 Constantius, and one true Confessor 'alone 
 against the world' maintained the Church's inde- 
 pendence, are we not reminded of that earlier 
 crisis at Antioch, when all were led away 3 save 
 one, and he alone maintained the freedom of 
 Christ's Gospel 1 
 
 When the darkness of barbarism swept over the 
 empire, and drove Christianity into the asylum of 
 its monasteries, what secret impulse sent forth 
 those noble missionaries from the monasteries of 
 these islands to evangelize the Germans in their 
 native forests 4 ? Was it not the same constraining 
 Spirit who urged St. Philip along the desert road 
 
 1 Ep. 56. 2 Apolog. 50. 3 Gal. ii. 11-13. 
 
 4 See Neander's account of Columban and Boniface in his 
 Memorials of Christian Life.
 
 Introbttctifltt 
 
 of Gaza, and moved St. Paul to ' picture forth the 
 Crucified' 1 before the fickle Celts of Asia? 
 
 When the Church had triumphed over bar- 
 barism, and her very splendour was corrupting 
 her, may we not in St. Francis of Assisi's noble 
 protest recognise the spirit of him who shamed 
 the traders in godliness 2 , by working with his own 
 hands that he might be chargeable to none 3 ? 
 And may we not in both discern the impulses of 
 Him ' who for our sakes became poor' * 1 
 
 In that yet louder protest which three hundred 
 years later shook Europe to her centre, are we not 
 reminded of the same Apostle, and of his thrilling 
 protest at Corinth 1 ' He shook his raiment, and 
 said unto them, Your blood be upon your own 
 heads ; I am clean : from henceforth I will go 
 unto the Gentiles. And he departed from the 
 Synagogue, and entered into a certain man's house 
 named Justus' 5 . It was not that he willingly 
 seceded from the Synagogue of his forefathers. 
 But the question at issue seemed to him, as it 
 seemed to Luther, a vital one : Is salvation by 
 
 1 St. Paul's own expression, Gal. iii. I. 
 
 2 2 Cor. ii. 17, xi. 13, 20 ; I Tim. vi. 5. 
 
 3 2 Cor. xi. 7-9, and 2 Thess. iii. 8. Cp. Acts xviii. 3, 
 and xx. 34. 
 
 2 Cor. viii. 9.' 6 Acts xviii. 6, 7.
 
 Entrobttciion 
 
 faith, or by outward observances 1 1 And Christ 
 stood by His Apostle in his secession : ' Be not 
 afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace : for I 
 am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to 
 hurt thee' 2 . And did not the Reformer of Witten- 
 berg as certainly feel the strengthening presence 
 of the Lord in his great crisis ? 
 
 No less divinely guided, and happier far, our 
 English Church reforming, not seceding finds 
 her parallel not at Corinth, but at Berea : ' These 
 were more noble ... in that they received the 
 word with all readiness of mind, and searched the 
 scriptures daily, whether those things were so' 3 . 
 And the result was that the whole synagogue in 
 a body adopted the purer teaching of the Apostle, 
 and secession was unnecessary. 
 
 And, lastly, if the crisis of our own day be the 
 removal of political safeguards, leaving national 
 Churches free to stand or fall according to their 
 hold upon the national conscience, let the student 
 of the Acts take courage as the culminating pur- 
 pose of this book more and more reveals itself : 
 to prepare that first generation of Christ's Church 
 for a shock far greater, far more trying to their 
 faith, than any that has since befallen, the down- 
 
 1 Gal. v. 6. - Acts xviii. 9, 10. 8 Acts vii. 11.
 
 fall of Jerusalem, the ' Let us go hence' 1 of that 
 great catastrophe, the slowly matured fulfilment of 
 Christ's prophecy, the coming of that hour when 
 neither in this place nor in that, but wherever 
 two or three were met together in His Name, 
 the true worshippers should worship the Father 
 in spirit and in truth. 
 
 1 Jos. Wars, vi. 5. 3.
 
 &tts of the 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ^Lht (Sthnuh of tlte <Epp.er Chamber 
 
 ELEVEN men standing on Mount Olivet with 
 upturned faces, watching, first in wonder, then 
 in adoration, some One who is rising heavenward 
 rising bodily, His hands still uplifted as in the act of 
 giving them His blessing rising slowly, until a cloud 
 comes between, and they can see Him no more. 
 Their gaze and their attention are recalled to earth 
 by a voice speaking to them ; and they become aware 
 that two angels are by their side in white apparel, 
 who also said, ' Men of Galilee, why stand ye looking 
 into the heaven ? this Jesus, who was received up from 
 you into the heaven, shall so come in the manner in 
 which ye beheld Him going into the heaven.' These 
 few words were enough : all was explained. ' Shall 
 so come as they had seen Him go.' ' In the clouds 
 of heaven,' as Daniel had said ; as Christ Himself 
 had said, ' They shall see the Son of Man coming in 
 the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.' 
 That cloud then which had just received Him was 
 the cloud of glory, the cloud which they had seen 
 once before on the Mount of Transfiguration, when 
 ' the voice came out of the excellent glory,' the ancient 
 
 s
 
 of the 
 
 Shechinah 1 , or symbol of Jehovah's presence ; and He 
 who, as then so now, had been withdrawn into it ; He 
 who but now had been by their side, touching them, 
 breathing on them ; He who for months and years 
 had been their Teacher on the hills of Galilee, whom 
 they had accepted indeed from the first as their Mes- 
 siah, but about whose person there had hung a further 
 mystery which they had never fully penetrated, was 
 in some transcendent way one with Him who in this 
 selfsame cloud of glory had led their fathers through 
 the wilderness ! All their previous intercourse with 
 Jesus was by this one glance transfigured. No wonder 
 they worshipped Him ; no wonder they returned to 
 Jerusalem not with sorrow, as men who have lost a 
 friend, but 'with great joy' 2 , as men who feel that 
 their Lord God is more than ever near to them 3 ! 
 
 1 The word Shechinah does not occur in the Bible, only 
 in the Targums ; but the luminous cloud is frequently men- 
 tioned, and always as the visible sign of the Divine presence. 
 Compare in the Old Testament, Ex. xiii.2i, xix. 9, 18, xxiv. 16, 
 xl. 34, I Kings viii. 10. In Isa. iv. 5 it is prophesied that 
 the Shechinah should reappear in the days of the Messiah, 
 and that it did so see Luke ii. 9, John i. 14, Mark ix. 7, 
 compared with 2 Pet. i. 1 7 ; and that it will reappear at the 
 Second Advent see Matt. xxiv. 30, xxvi. 64, and this pas- 
 sage (Actsi. II). 
 
 ' That the Angel of the Lord who preceded the children of 
 Israel from Egypt in the cloud and in the fire, was (agree- 
 ably to Ex. xiii. 21, 22, compared with xiv. 19, 20; Numb. 
 xx. 6) the Lord himself, possessor of the incommunicable 
 Name Jehovah; and that this Angel of the Covenant (as He 
 is termed in Mai. iii. I, compared with Gen. xlviii. 15, 16) is 
 the Uncreated Word, who appeared in visible form to Jacob 
 and Moses, and who was in the fulness of time incarnate in 
 the person of Jesus Christ, is the known undoubted faith of 
 the Church of God.' Mill on the Mythical Interpretation 
 of the Gospels, Appendix E. 
 
 2 Luke xxiv. 52. 
 
 8 What is the key to that promise of a speedy return to
 
 'UTlte (Elxurch of tht (Spptr Chamber 3 
 
 And now they have rejoined the rest in the upper 
 chamber ; in ' the upper room,' St. Luke says, not 
 'an upper room' ; meaning doubtless the same that 
 he had mentioned before more than once in his 
 Gospel, the large room which had been placed at the 
 Lord's disposal by some disciple for His last supper ; 
 Joseph or Nicodemus it may well have been. Here 
 they assembled daily, 120 in all. Among them, be- 
 sides the Eleven, were ' the Lord's brethren ' (believers 
 now 1 ), he of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Cleopas, Barsabas, 
 Matthias, and others ; the holy women too, and 
 among them, last not least, now for the last time men- 
 tioned in Holy Scripture, Mary, the blessed mother of 
 our Lord. 
 
 It was no unusual thing for the Jews thus to form 
 themselves into separate congregations. There were 
 so many of these congregations or synagogues in 
 Jerusalem, each having its own chamber, that the for- 
 mation of a new one would attract but little notice. 
 By the rest of the people they would be regarded 
 simply as a new sect, who held that the Prophet of 
 Nazareth, who had lately made so great a sensation, 
 was the looked-for Messiah. Their deeper faith con- 
 cerning Him that He was the Lord of the whole 
 earth had not yet been publicly confessed. Many 
 
 abide with them for ever which pervades the Paschal dis- 
 course (John xiv.-xvi.) ? Surely the thought that our Lord 
 in going to His Father became nearer to them than ever, for 
 in Him 'we live and move and have our being.' ' In that day 
 ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I 
 in you.' This is the key-note of that discourse, and the key- 
 note also of this Book of the Acts. 
 
 1 Compare John vii. 5. They are mentioned here too as 
 distinct from the Eleven Apostles. They were doubtless 
 sons of Joseph by a former marriage. See Professor Light- 
 foot's Essay in his Commentary on Galatians.
 
 JUts at tht 
 
 of the Pharisees, even members of the Sanhedrim, 
 were known to favour them ; their only declared ene- 
 mies were the Sadducees, who were specially irritated 
 by their assertion that Jesus had risen from the dead. 
 Daily, therefore, without much fear of molestation, 
 this group of believers (men and women together) 
 might meet in their upper chamber for their private 
 devotions. At the hours of public prayer they re- 
 paired, like other devout Jews, to the Temple, where 
 the women would of course be separate from the men. 
 As every synagogue had its Elders or Presbyters, 
 occupying the semicircular seat at the end of the 
 chamber facing the congregation, the Eleven Apostles 
 would naturally be the Presbyters of the Christian 
 congregation. Our Lord's last command was that 
 they should not depart from Jerusalem until the pro- 
 mise of the Father of which He had so often spoken 
 should be fulfilled. For that new 'power from on 
 high,' for that Baptism of the Holy Spirit ' not many 
 days hence,' they are waiting. 
 
 Meanwhile one obvious duty is before them. He, 
 their Master, had chosen Twelve, had meant them to 
 be Twelve, had ever spoken of Twelve on thrones here- 
 after ; and one is wanting ! But how to replace him ? 
 Which of all the disciples shall it be ? Two only they 
 find of their whole number who fulfil the necessary 
 conditions witnesses of the whole Ministry from its 
 commencement to its close. But which of the two 
 shall it be ? Christ Himself had chosen each of them. 
 How shall they dare to choose for Him ? 
 
 They turn instinctively to Him, as confidently, as 
 naturally, as if He were still standing visibly among 
 them : ' Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all, 
 show whether of these two Thou hast chosen !'
 
 tlu Church of the ctpptr Chamber 5 
 
 And they cast lots for them, and the name of 
 Matthias came forth in answer to their prayer ; so he 
 was numbered with the Eleven Apostles. 
 
 Twelve, now, once more, ready to bear their witness 
 to the twelve tribes of Israel so soon as they shall be 
 endued with power from on high. For that they wait 
 from day to day, continuing with one accord in prayer 
 and supplication to their Lord that He will remember 
 and fulfil His promise. 
 
 Two things especially we may notice in this first 
 group of believers : their courage and their joy. Their 
 courage, for surely it was an act of no common 
 courage to take upon themselves to elect and consecrate 
 a new Apostle. How many of us would have thought 
 it safer to leave all exactly as Christ had left it ! Not 
 so these hundred and twenty : they see the wisdom of 
 St. Peter's counsel that they should at once complete 
 their organization ; and they act upon it, certain that 
 their unseen Lord and Master will stay them if they 
 are wrong. And clearly they were right ! Dead things 
 only are fixed and stationary. Living things are ever 
 growing and acting. Life, and life means growth, 
 is the essential condition of Christ's Church ; growth 
 by action, by a courageous energy. This is the first 
 lesson they teach us. And let us mark next their joy. 
 'They returned' from Olivet 'with great joy,' St. Luke 
 tells us. Christ was more to them now than H.e had 
 ever been, in humiliation no longer, but on His 
 throne, all power given to Him in heaven and in 
 earth. 
 
 During these ten days of prayerful watching and 
 waiting, we may well believe that the thought of His 
 great glory was their one, their only thought, absorb- 
 ing into itself for the moment all their other thoughts.
 
 3Ut0 at tht Qyosths 
 
 His joy was fulfilled, and they were partakers of His 
 joy. Never till now had they known how deeply they 
 loved Him. It is often so : we do not realize our love 
 till he whom we love is withdrawn. 
 
 They loved Him not as a human friend, but with 
 that far deeper and more spiritual love which God 
 alone can draw forth from us. And here was the 
 secret of their joy. All along there had been a 
 mystery about Him ; and now in these last days it 
 had been more and more borne in upon them that He 
 into whose friendship, into whose communion, into 
 whose joy they had been admitted, was none other 
 than He in whom Abraham trusted, the Angel of the 
 Covenant who spake with Moses ; that in worshipping 
 the Lord Jesus they were worshipping the God of their 
 fathers. 
 
 And would we know what their prayer was during 
 those ten days between the day on Olivet and the day 
 of Pentecost ? Surely in substance none other than 
 our own at that same season of the year : ' O God, 
 the King of Glory, who hast exalted Thine only Son 
 Jesus Christ with great triumph into Thy kingdom in 
 Heaven ; we beseech Thee leave us not comfortless, 
 but send to us Thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and 
 exalt us unto the same place (*'.*., into that higher 
 communion) whither our Saviour Christ is gone be- 
 fore, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy 
 Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.'
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 (gift of tht 
 
 IN the first chapter we endeavoured to picture to 
 ourselves that Church of the upper chamber, con- 
 sisting exclusively of those who had known our Lord 
 on earth, 120 in all, continuing from day to day in 
 prayerful expectation of the promised gift of power 
 from on high. Nor had they to wait long ; on the 
 tenth day after the Lord's ascension came the great 
 feast of wheat-harvest Pentecost or Fiftieth Day (as 
 the Greek-speaking Jews called it), when Jerusalem 
 was once again, as at the Passover, filled to overflow- 
 ing with foreign Jews and proselytes from almost 
 every nation under heaven. 
 
 In another and far higher sense it was to prove, ere 
 nightfall, a day of harvest, a day of first-fruits, to the 
 Christian Church. Early in the morning 1 they had 
 assembled as usual, the 120, doubtless the holy 
 women among them, in their upper chamber, for their 
 daily worship ; the thought of their Lord's resurrec- 
 tion in their minds, for it was the first day of the 
 week ; and, blending with it perhaps, the thought of 
 the giving of the Law, as on this day, in fire and 
 storm on Sinai ; when suddenly a sound from heaven 
 as of a rushing mighty wind entering and filling the 
 whole house ! and over the head of every one of them 2 , 
 
 1 Acts ii. 5. 
 
 2 Aug. in yohan., xcii. ; Chrys. Horn, in Ada, iv.
 
 gUts of the 
 
 men and women 1 , a separate flame of light, not mo- 
 mentary, but abiding for some minutes ! And along 
 with these outward symbols each one felt himself im- 
 pelled by some new power to ejaculate prayer and 
 praise in languages which he had never heard 2 . 
 
 Like the school of the prophets of old who went 
 forth to meet king Saul, so this new school of prophets 
 go forth into the streets of Jerusalem, and meet the 
 crowds who would be already assembling for the 
 Temple service. 
 
 The foreigners, amazed to hear these Galileans 
 chanting in their several languages the praises of God, 
 rapidly gather round them with murmurs of wonder ; 
 while the Jews of Jerusalem, not understanding the 
 strange sounds, set it down to intoxication. 
 
 Then St. Peter, with the Eleven around him, filled 
 with the new inspiration, addressed to the assembled 
 multitude his first Christian sermon : 
 
 ' This sudden ecstasy (he said) was no intoxication ; 
 the early hour of the day might satisfy them on that 
 point ; no ! it was that pouring forth of God's Spirit 
 which Joel had foretold, as a sign of the last days, 
 and of impending judgment.' Having thus awakened 
 attention, and dwelt for a while on the terribleness of 
 that approaching judgment, he pointed to the one only 
 salvation, to 'call upon the Name of the Lord.' And 
 who was the Lord upon whom they were to call ? That 
 Messiah whom they had rejected, that Messiah whom 
 
 1 That women as well as men received special gifts of the 
 Spirit appears from Acts xxi. 9. 
 
 2 ' Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but 
 to them that believe not' (l Cor. xiv. 22) ; on which 
 Chrysostom remarks that the purpose of the gift was ' to 
 astonish, not to instruct. ' Horn, in I Cor. , xxxvi. i.
 
 of the $aradcte 
 
 by Gentile hands they had crucified and slain ! For, 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, was clear 
 from the i6th Psalm ; when David said, ' Thou shalt 
 not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt Thou suffer 
 Thy Holy One to see corruption,' he could not be 
 speaking of himself : David had seen corruption : 
 clearly he was speaking of the promised Messiah. 
 And Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled the prophecy. 
 Did they require proof? First, there were twelve 
 eye-witnesses before them who could attest His resur- 
 rection ; and, secondly, this sudden outpouring of the 
 Holy Ghost, which all Jerusalem was now witnessing, 
 was abundant proof that He was even now at God's 
 right hand, uninjured by death and the grave. 'There- 
 fore (he concluded) let all the house of Israel know, 
 assuredly that God hath made Him both Lord and 
 Messiah, even this Jesus whom ye crucified.' 
 
 So Peter spoke in all the power of his new inspira- 
 tion. His words went right to the heart of that great 
 multitude as to the heart of one man. They were stung 
 v*ith remorse. They had, then, crucified their Mes- 
 siah ! The wrath of God might even now break forth 
 upon them ! They came crowding round Pqter and 
 the rest : ' Sirs, brethren, what shall we do ?' ' Re- 
 pent !' was the Apostle's reply ; 'repent, and be bap- 
 tized every one of you, in the Name of Jesus the Christ, 
 for remission of sins : so shall ye too become sharers 
 of this gift of the Holy Ghost ! For (as Joel testified) 
 the promise is to you and to your children, and to 
 those of every land, even as many as the Lord our 
 God shall call !' 
 
 Such was the first sermon of Christ's Church, and 
 mark the effect : three thousand were there and then 
 gathered into covenant with God in Christ by Baptism.
 
 at tht Qyosttltts 
 
 Was it Peter's eloquence, or Peter's power, that so 
 wrought upon that multitude ? Yes, but not this 
 alone : there was One unseen (as the last verse of this 
 chapter tells us), who, in the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 was moving among them. 
 
 We must not suppose that the consciences of all 
 were equally awakened. As in the parable of the 
 Sower, so here, the Word of God fell on hearts very 
 variously prepared to receive it. And we shall hear 
 almost immediately of the unworthiness of some of 
 those who were admitted to Baptism. 
 
 But in most of them clearly it was no mere emotion, 
 or gush of feeling, but a real conversion of the heart, 
 showing itself in an outward as well as an inward 
 change of life. Not only was ' the fear of God on 
 every soul,' but we read also that ' they continued 
 steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, 
 in breaking of bread, and in prayers.' 
 
 All these four notes of the primitive Church of 
 Jerusalem deserve attention. 
 
 First, they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
 doctrine or teaching. Numbers of them, probably 
 the majprity of them, were Jews from foreign parts, 
 pilgrims to the feast, who knew little or nothing of 
 Christ's ministry. They had much to hear and learn. 
 Diligently they attended the expositions and catechiz- 
 ing of the Apostles. Some brief outline of the main 
 facts of Christ's life on earth, as brief perhaps as the 
 Apostles' Creed, would form the text of these daily 
 lectures ; and along with this the fulfilment of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures would be shown. 
 
 Then, secondly, they were steadfast in the Apostles' 
 communion or fellowship bound together as one 
 family, not only by their common faith and worship,
 
 ift of the fttouiete 
 
 but also by an enthusiastic wish to share everything 
 in common, which the Apostles from the first encour- 
 aged, and of which we shall have more to say here- 
 after. 
 
 Thirdly, ' in the breaking of bread.' We need not 
 for one moment hesitate to assign to these words a 
 most definite meaning. Again and again five times 
 we have distinct mention of it * the Lord Jesus had 
 sanctified a meal by the solemn act of breaking bread 
 with thanksgiving. On the most memorable of those 
 occasions He had invested the act with a deep and 
 mysterious significance, adding the command, ' Do 
 this in remembrance of Me.' 
 
 Daily when they met together in their several con- 
 gregations for they must now have outgrown their 
 one upper chamber they seem to have remembered 
 this command at the conclusion of their evening meal. 
 We know from subsequent allusions to it 2 , that it was 
 felt to be their most sacred pledge of union both with 
 one another and with their Lord. 
 
 Lastly, they continued steadfast in their prayers. 
 For the word is in the plural number, implying that 
 they had fixed times of devotion 3 : fixed hours for 
 the daily assembling of these several congregations : 
 besides their attendance as devout Israelites at the 
 Temple ritual. 
 
 Such was the daily life of this inspired community. 
 No wonder that such harmony and ' singleness of 
 heart ' made a deep impression on all who witnessed 
 it, and won them ' favour with all the people.' It was 
 as though, after a long cessation, the times of open 
 
 1 Matt. xiv. 19, xv. 36, xxvi. 26 ; Luke xxiv. 30 ; John xxi. 13. 
 
 4 I Cor. x. 16, 17, 21. 
 
 3 Pearson's Lectures on the Acts, i. 13.
 
 JUts of the 
 
 vision had returned, and a new school of prophets had 
 arisen. Nor were miracles wanting. The historian 
 expressly mentions that ' many wonders and signs were 
 done by the Apostles.' And then, after his manner, 
 he singles out one by way of sample, either as the most 
 remarkable, or because it led to the first outbreak of 
 persecution. How soon after Pentecost we know not, 
 but on one of those early days, the two friends, Peter 
 and John, were as usual approaching one of the gates 
 of the Temple at the hour of afternoon prayer, when 
 a poor cripple, well known to all, asked an alms of the 
 two Apostles. ' Look on us,' was Peter's reply. And 
 he gave heed, expecting to receive something. ' Silver 
 and gold I have none ; but, what I have to give, give 
 I thee : In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise 
 and walk.' Reaching his hand to him, Peter raised 
 him as he spoke ; and at once the faith of the cripple 
 evidently responding the hitherto helpless tendons 
 and ankles were strengthened, and the man sprang to 
 his feet ; and, as though trying his new strength, went 
 bounding into the Temple, praising and blessing God 
 for his cure. 
 
 Every one recognised him, for he had lain all his 
 life in that corner of the gateway. Every one spoke 
 of the miracle. Again the astonished crowd gathered 
 round the Apostles, and again St. Peter preached to 
 them in the great cloister of Solomon, with the poor 
 cripple for his text. And again the burden of his 
 sermon was the same the glory of the risen Lord. 
 Yes, He it was, not the Apostles, who had cured the 
 man before them, He whom they had delivered up, 
 and denied in the face of Pilate, and slain (thus he 
 struck home to the conscience), He it was, raised 
 now to the right hand of power on high, who had
 
 (Sift of the $araclet* 13 
 
 given the cripple this perfect soundness in the pre- 
 sence of them all. Then relenting, and opening the 
 door to repentance : ' And now, my brethren, I know 
 that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your 
 rulers. Repent ye, therefore, and turn again, that your 
 sins may be blotted out, that the times of refreshment 
 may be hastened ; and He whom the heavens must 
 till then receive even the Lord Jesus return to re- 
 store all things, as God hath prophesied by the mouth 
 of all His prophets.' 
 
 Then St. Peter unfolded all the Scriptures from 
 Moses downwards, tracing the eternal purpose of the 
 Messiah's sufferings in type and sacrifice and pro- 
 phecy, and the woe of those who rejected Him, and 
 the blessedness of those who should receive Him. 
 ' Yea, unto you first, God sent this offer of blessedness 
 to redeem you from your sins.' ... So the Apostle 
 was pressing home his argument, when his sermon 
 was rudely interrupted. 
 
 Such a concourse, such a miracle, such a sermon, 
 could not but excite the attention of the authorities. 
 It must not be allowed. The priests, who had been 
 busy with the evening sacrifice in the adjoining shrine, 
 taking with them the captain of the Levite guard 
 (whose duty it was to keep order in the Temple), and 
 some of the Sadducean members of the Sanhedrim, 
 came upon the two Apostles, and arrested them. 
 
 The sun was setting, it was too late to bring them 
 before the Sanhedrim that night. They were thrown 
 into the Temple prison, there to await the reassembling 
 of the Sanhedrim on the morrow.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 (External trials at thz Chtwxh 
 
 WE have now to hear of the first trials of the 
 Church. The Apostles' public preaching in 
 the Temple courts has drawn down on them the fiery 
 trial of persecution. How will they bear it ? While 
 their Lord and Master was with them bodily, they 
 had quailed under persecution : ' Master, the Jews of 
 late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither 
 again 1 ?' They were amazed when they saw Him 
 resolute; 'and as they followed, they were afraid' 2 . 
 When the storm burst upon them, ' they all forsook 
 Him and fled' 3 ! 
 
 How will they stand it now that His bodily pre- 
 sence is withdrawn ? We shall see. 
 
 At the point where we left off our narrative, St. 
 Peter and St. John were under arrest for the night in 
 the Temple prison, awaiting trial before the Sanhedrim 
 so soon as day should dawn. 
 
 The historian implies that special pains were taken 
 to have a full gathering of the Sanhedrim. All who 
 were of the high-priestly race were summoned and 
 attended. They were Sadducees. This is to be 
 noticed. Before Christ's resurrection the Pharisees 
 were His bitterest foes. Now, when the resurrection is 
 the burden of the Apostles' preaching, the Sadducees, 
 
 1 John xi. 8. 3 Mark x. 32. 3 Mark xiv. 50.
 
 (External trials of ilte 
 
 hating the doctrine, are their persecutors, and the Pha- 
 risees (as we shall see) are disposed to take their part. 
 
 At early dawn the two Apostles were placed at the 
 bar in the centre of the semicircular court, and were 
 asked in what Name they professed to have wrought 
 the miracle on the cripple. 
 
 The special meaning of the question will be under- 
 stood by a reference to Deut. xiii. A miracle had 
 been done, and what did the law say about miracles ? 
 ' If there arise among you a prophet, and give thee a 
 sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to 
 pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go 
 after other gods, which thou hast not known, and serve 
 them, then thou shalt not hearken unto the words of 
 that prophet.' 
 
 So spake the law : therefore if the Apostles pro- 
 fessed to have worked the miracle in the Name, not 
 of Jehovah, but of Jesus, then they were drawing the 
 people after other gods, and the miracle was to be 
 ascribed to the evil one. Hence the question 'in 
 whose Name?' 'Jesus or Jehovah?' The issue be- 
 tween the new synagogue and the old could not have 
 been more distinctly raised. And verily if these 
 Apostles were preaching some new god, then was the 
 Sanhedrim mosf righteous in denouncing them. Let 
 the issue be tried therefore. 
 
 What was Peter's answer ? Say, rather, what was 
 the answer of that Holy Ghost who filled him (we are 
 told) as he stood before his judges ? ' Rulers of the 
 people and elders of Israel ! if we this day be ques- 
 tioned about the good deed done to this cripple, be it 
 known unto you all, that in the Name of Jesus Christ 
 the Nazarene, whom ye crucified, whom God raised, 
 doth this man stand whole before you ! '
 
 1 6 t&ht JUt* of the 
 
 ' What, then,' the whisper would run round, ' he 
 confesses it was not in the Name of Jehovah !' Nay, 
 but the Apostle had not ended. Out of their own 
 Scriptures, out of the most confessedly Messianic of 
 all the Psalms, St. Peter proved to them that their 
 rejection of Jesus was the seal and sign that He was 
 that Messiah to whom Jehovah had promised to give 
 His own incommunicable Name. The stone which 
 the builders rejected, now the Head Stone of the 
 Corner. Nor was there salvation in any other Name. 
 In the person of Jesus, Jehovah Himself had visited 
 His people 1 . 
 
 Amazed by Peter's inspired reply, so like the replies 
 of Him who spake as none other ever spake 2 , and 
 now recognising the prisoners as the two men who 
 had followed Jesus into that same Judgment Hall not 
 long ago, they consult in private ; and, afraid of using 
 violence, lest there should be an uproar, agree to 
 threaten them, and compel them to be silent. St. 
 Peter, who once before in that same Hall had trem- 
 bled before a maid-servant, will he be daunted now ? 
 
 He speaks, and John speaks with him, ' Whether it 
 be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you 
 rather than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but 
 speak the things which we have seen^nd heard.' 
 
 Nor was the courage of their companions less, when 
 they heard how they were threatened ; with one 
 accord in their upper chamber they lifted up their 
 voice to God, and prayed that with all boldness they 
 might still preach His word, and that signs and won- 
 ders might continue to be done in the Name of Jesus. 
 
 And as they rose from their knees, the chamber was 
 shaken where they were assembled ; and they were 
 1 See note 1 on p. 2. * John vii. 46.
 
 (External trials of the Church 
 
 filled with a. fresh access of the Holy Ghost ; and 
 going forth, they spake the Word of God with bold- 
 ness. 
 
 Their prayer had been heard ; and it was answered. 
 When next they stood in Solomon's colonnade, the 
 effect of their inspired preaching was greater than 
 ever. ' Multitudes both of men and women ' were 
 gathered into the Church, ' added to the Lord' is 
 St. Luke's phrase. It seems to have been a season of 
 much epidemic sickness ; as the Apostles passed along 
 the streets, the people came out from their doors, with 
 their sick on beds and couches. Still foremost among 
 the Twelve, the greatest concourse was ever round St. 
 Peter ; his very shadow seemed to the poor sufferers 
 instinct with healing virtue, their own faith really 
 saving them 1 . From all the towns and villages round 
 about they poured into Jerusalem, bringing their in- 
 valids and those that were possessed, and all were 
 healed. 
 
 Such were the results of that prayer in the upper 
 chamber ! a shaking of the earth indeed ! And such 
 the courage of these twelve men ! And whence was 
 it ? Can we doubt ? Could they doubt for one moment 
 the unseen presence of their Lord ? Those long lines 
 of sick healed, restored (as of old in the streets of 
 Capernaum) who had done it ? Had they? No, it 
 was the Lord 'working with them' 2 ! Those sermons 
 of such unwonted power, were the words that issued 
 from their lips their own? No! They_/// it was 
 not they who spake, but His Spirit that spake in 
 them 3 . Those multitudes who crowded to their 
 Baptism, were they their own converts ? No ! it 
 
 1 Luke vii. 50 ; xxviii. 42. 
 
 2 Mark xvi. 20. 3 Matt. x. 20.
 
 1 8 ^he JVcts of the 
 
 was 'the Lord, adding to them daily such as were 
 being saved' 1 . 
 
 The contrast between the faint-heartedness of these 
 same Apostles during our Lord's ministry and their 
 noble courage now is to be explained thus : then He 
 was with them in humiliation ; now He is with them 
 in power and in glory, and in the Holy Ghost. Un- 
 less we realize this we shall not understand a single 
 chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 A yet more startling proof of the presence of their 
 Lord in glory, mighty to save, is given in the fifth 
 chapter. We are going now to read of something 
 new, quite unlike anything in the four Gospels. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the people, the rapid spread of 
 the belief that the crucified Jesus was really risen and 
 was their Messiah, was more than the Sadducees 
 could brook. They laid their hands now on all the 
 Twelve, and cast them into the common prison, sum- 
 moning the Sanhedrim and elders again to meet at 
 day-break for their trial. 
 
 The morning came ; the officers were sent to the 
 prison to bring the prisoners into court. JBut they re- 
 turned without them, ' the prison truly found we shut 
 with all security, and the keepers standing without 
 before the doors, but when we had opened we found 
 no man within ! ' Astonished and perplexed, the 
 High Priest turned to the captain of the guard, and 
 the captain to the head-priests 3 , to know what had 
 best be done, when one came into court with news, 
 
 1 Acts ii. 47. If our Translators had remembered that 
 'salvation' in the New Testament nearly always means 
 something present not final, they would not have feared to 
 give the literal rendering of this passage. 
 
 2 The heads of the twenty-four courses of priests.
 
 (External trials at the Church 19 
 
 ' Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing 
 in the Temple and teaching the people ' ! 
 
 How was this ? The officers could give no explana- 
 tion, but the Christian historian explains all. That 
 self-same night the Angel of the Lord had opened the 
 prison-doors, and brought forth those twelve faith- 
 ful men, and bidden them go stand once more in 
 the Temple and preach to the people the word of 
 life. 
 
 This miraculous deliverance is .to be noted as 
 something new. Never during His humiliation had 
 Christ exerted His miraculous power to deliver Him- 
 self or His Apostles from their enemies. Now He is 
 in glory, and it is otherwise : He gives them this re- 
 assuring sign that He will henceforth mightily defend 
 them. And yet we must note this too, that the rescue 
 of the Apostles was not His chief purpose ; but rather 
 their encouragement and the deepening of their faith. 
 This faith, that He was ever with them though unseen, 
 thus deepened into conviction, was to be enough for 
 them. They were not intended, nor are we intended, 
 to look for Angels' interventions. Nay, this very day 
 they were to learn how insufficient is the help of 
 Angels, how all-sufficient the presence of Christ in 
 His Holy Spirit. 
 
 Hardly had the Angel left them, hardly had they 
 recommenced their teaching in the Temple, when 
 once more they were arrested, and thrown back again 
 (as it would seem) into their enemies' power. The 
 captain of the Temple guard had surrounded them 
 with his band, and was conducting them to the bar of 
 the Sanhedrim. What then ? Was the Angel's work 
 in vain? No, we shall see how entirely its true and 
 higher purpose was accomplished : as St. Paul felt
 
 &tts of tht Qyoatlte 
 
 before Nero, 1 so they felt before the Sanhedrim (with 
 a power of conviction which made their very judges 
 quail), that ' the Lord stood with them, and strength- 
 ened them.' We almost hear the faltering tone of 
 Caiaphas when he put the question, ' Did we not 
 straitly command you that ye should not teach in this 
 Name ?' The name of Jesus he durst not utter. The 
 memory of One who on that very spot had said, ' I 
 am, and hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man coming 
 in the clouds of heaven ! ' did it not unnerve him ? 
 His next words seem to indicate as much: 'Ye are 
 meaning to bring on us the blood of this Man ! ' This 
 Man he durst not name, this Son of Man, now haply 
 (what if it were true ?) at the right hand of Power ! 
 If Caiaphas quailed before the inspired look of these 
 mysterious men, much more might he quail at their 
 inspired reply : ' We ought to obey God rather than 
 men !' It may be noticed that this is given as the 
 joint reply of all the Twelve. If the Holy Spirit put 
 it into their mouth, may it not have been so ? ' When 
 they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye 
 shall speak, ... for it is not ye that speak, but the 
 Holy Ghost' 
 
 Their judges were cut to the heart ; a guilty con- 
 science, working on a cowardly cruel nature, goaded 
 them into the one savage wish to destroy these men 
 who so awed them. 
 
 But one among them, a Pharisee and not a Saddu- 
 cee, a man of higher culture and of nobler nature 
 than the rest, the friend perhaps of Nicodemus, though 
 not like him a believer, stood up to plead for justice 
 and moderation. The Apostles were removed from 
 the court ; but to one of the judges, to one of the 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 17.
 
 (External trials of the Clumh 
 
 youngest members of the Sanhedrim, the pupil of that 
 very Gamaliel, St. Luke may well have owed his 
 knowledge of what passed. Possibly to the young 
 Pharisee of Tarsus Gamaliel's counsel seemed to 
 savour of the timidity of age : ' Let them alone,' 
 Gamaliel said, ' for if this counsel or this work be of 
 men, it will come to naught ; but if it be of God, ye 
 cannot overthrow it ; lest haply ye be found even to 
 fight against God.' 
 
 May we not recognise in this speech of Gamaliel 
 the deep impression which St. Peter's words not many 
 weeks before had made upon the Rabbi's mind : 
 ' This is the stone which was set at naught of you 
 builders, which is become the head of the corner'? 
 Nay, may he not have heard that very psalm so 
 applied before ? May he not well have been one of 
 the Sanhedrim's deputation who asked Jesus by what 
 authority He acted, and had been answered out of that 
 same psalm, with the terrible addition, ' and whosoever 
 shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whom- 
 soever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder' ? Well 
 may Gamaliel have wished to insure his future, lest 
 haply he should be found fighting against God ! 
 
 So the Pharisee's counsel was adopted, and the 
 Sadducees compromised the matter by having the 
 Apostles scourged and then released with further 
 threats. And the Twelve departed from the presence 
 of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy 
 to suffer shame for the Name of the Lord.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Internal trials of tht Church 
 
 SUCH were their trials from without, and such the 
 spirit in which the Apostles met them. But 
 meantime still more trying dangers were menacing the 
 Church from within. 
 
 To understand what follows we must glance at a 
 much debated question : What about the temporalities 
 of this infant Church ? and what does St. Luke mean 
 by saying that ' they had all things in common '? 
 
 Many have understood that in these early years the 
 Jerusalem Christians surrendered all their property as 
 individuals into one common stock, that communism 
 was, in fact, their principle. But was this so ? Three 
 reasons may be given for rejecting this interpreta- 
 tion : 
 
 I. If so, the Apostles were introducing not only a 
 religious, but also a social revolution. And this was 
 directly opposed to Christ's teaching : ' Render to 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the 
 things that are God's ;' and again, enjoining confor- 
 mity in all external social matters, ' the Scribes and 
 the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat ; all therefore what- 
 soever they bid you observe, that observe and do' 1 . 
 His kingdom was ' not of this world.' No, these early 
 Christians were not social innovators, were not re- 
 garded as separatists ; they still conformed to the 
 1 Matt, xxiii. 2.
 
 Internal trials of the Church 
 
 observances of their fathers, circumcising their chil- 
 dren and keeping their sabbaths, good citizens in all 
 respects, and ' in great favour with the people.' With 
 such conduct a communistic mode of life would have 
 been hardly compatible. 
 
 2. But further, we have clear evidence that they did 
 not enforce any such rule of surrendering private pro- 
 perty. St. Peter expressly explains to Ananias that 
 he had not been obliged to sell his property, nor yet 
 after it was sold to surrender the proceeds of the sale. 
 And again, later, we hear of one of their number, 
 Mary, the mother of John Mark, continuing to be 
 the proprietor of a large house in the city. 
 
 3. There is a third reason, equally conclusive, and 
 one that will lead us to a far more probable interpreta- 
 tion of St. Luke's words. Communism and alms- 
 giving are of course incompatible. And almsgiving 
 on a very large scale was the characteristic practice 
 of the early Church. The Apostles understood the 
 spirit of their Lord's teaching far too well to convert 
 what He meant to be a voluntary grace into an en- 
 forced rule. 
 
 And surely this points to St. Luke's real meaning : 
 he is describing not an institution but the temper and 
 spirit of these early converts. So completely had they 
 ' one heart and one soul,' he tells us, that none of them 
 could endure to regard his property as his own while 
 his brother was in want. It is not in the original 
 'had all things in common,' but 'all things were to 
 them common.' And that he means this, that all 
 things were regarded by them as common, seems 
 clear from what follows : ' neither said any of them that 
 aught of the things which he possessed was his own.' 
 
 So enthusiastic was their charity that those who had
 
 24 "(Ehe JUts x>f tht Apostles 
 
 property converted it into money as rapidly as they 
 could, to enable them to give the more largely into the 
 alms-chest of the Apostles. Nay, some of them, like 
 Joseph Barnabas, a landowner of Cyprus, brought the 
 whole proceeds of his sale and poured it at the 
 Apostles' feet. 
 
 Now mark the danger to which this very enthusiasm 
 exposed their community. Wherever there is sincere 
 enthusiasm there is sure to arise and mingle with it a 
 counterfeit. 
 
 Such a counterfeit was Ananias. He pretended to 
 emulate both the enthusiasm and the munificence of 
 Barnabas. False in both : he was trifling with men, 
 wishing to win credit for more than he had really 
 done ; he was trifling with God trying to serve both 
 God and Mammon. 
 
 Most necessary it was that such corruption should 
 be crushed ere it spread. Peter's inspired eye pierced 
 to the liar's heart, and terrible was his rebuke. They 
 had lied not to men but to God. And God smote 
 them, and they fell down dead. Whether or no St. 
 Peter when he first spoke foreknew the fearful effect 
 which the Holy Spirit would give to his words, we 
 know not. 
 
 Whether he did or not, the necessity and righteous- 
 ness of the doom are clear. Treason in the camp in 
 a crisis of danger must be visited with death. In the 
 ' great fear which came upon all,' we seem to see the 
 purifying, as by fire, of the conscience of the infant 
 Church. And doubtless it was needed. Ananias and 
 Sapphira were not the only ones, we may be sure, 
 thus tempted to be false. Satan desired to sift the 
 baptized as wheat ; and from the very first this sifting 
 was permitted.
 
 Internal trials xrf the (Chni-ch 25 
 
 And is he not still sifting us? Are we not from 
 time to time shocked and astonished by the collapse 
 of some seeming respectability ? Nay more, are we 
 not at times shocked and startled to see how near, 
 .how very near, we ourselves have been to the sin of 
 Ananias ? nay, worse, shocked and startled to find 
 that we have actually sinned his sin, only saved from 
 shame because society failed to find it out ; worst of 
 all, not shocked and not startled by the discovery, and 
 why ? Because it was our own conscience only, and 
 not society, that made the discovery ! There is our 
 comfort : we lied to God only ! One who finds com- 
 fort in this, in the fact that none but God found him 
 out, that he lied to God only, is he not sinning the 
 very sin of Ananias ? These modern sins of our 
 plausible Christian society, profits made, fortunes 
 realized, reputations inflated, by means that will not 
 bear scrutiny, all having their cankered root in the 
 desire to seem rather than to be, to seem righteous in 
 the world's eye rather than be righteous in God's eye, 
 is it not well for us thus to see them in the burning 
 light of an Apostle's indignation ? 
 
 Such was the first great trial of the Church from 
 within, containing a warning for all time. And now 
 we hear of a second ; and this time, too, arising from 
 matters connected with the Church's temporalities. 
 
 We have heard of the common alms-fund of the 
 Apostles, and how the poorer members of the Church 
 were thus supported by the richer. Such an adminis- 
 tration was likely, sooner or later, to give rise to 
 jealousies ; and so it came to pass. 
 
 ' There was a murmuring ' on the part of some that 
 their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.
 
 26 "Che JUts of the 
 
 The way in which the difficulty was met is full 
 of instruction to the rulers of the Church in all 
 ages. 
 
 Hitherto the twelve Apostles seem to have been 
 themselves responsible for all the affairs of the Church. 
 What could be better ? Why make any change ? 
 least of all, make change to please a few discontented 
 people ? let them rather be rebuked and silenced. 
 And, besides, who were these malcontents ? Not the 
 Hebrew Christians of the Holy Land, but Hellen- 
 ists 1 , converts from among the foreign Jews, only 
 quite lately admitted to the Church, the last who 
 ought to have a voice. And their complaint that 
 their widows received less than their due from the 
 common offertory fund, it was mere jealousy, an un- 
 warrantable reflection on the Apostolic College. To 
 yield to such a complaint would be a mere compro- 
 mise with what was evil, a yielding of principle to 
 expediency which could never be right ! 
 
 So possibly some of us might have reasoned. But 
 so reasoned not the Apostles ; on the contrary, with 
 diviner insight into the laws of God's Providence, they 
 saw intuitively that a growing society needs growth 
 of institutions ; that if its organization is to be pre- 
 served, it must not be stereotyped but expanded from 
 time to time ; and in this very murmuring they saw a 
 sign that the time had come. 
 
 Christ may have said nothing about this new order 
 
 1 Jews born and bred among the Greek-speaking popula- 
 tions of the Roman Empire are called Hellenists in the Greek 
 Testament. Our translators always render the word by 
 ' Grecians ;' so distinguishing them from ' Greek,' by which 
 latter word they always mean Gentiles. See Appendix, 
 chap. i. p. 135.
 
 Internal xErinls of tht Church 27 
 
 of ministers 1 , but Christ had said plainly that His 
 Church was to go on growing and expanding like the 
 branches of the mustard-tree, ever assimilating new 
 elements ; and that for these new elements the old 
 forms might not suffice ; new wine must not be put 
 into old bottles. 
 
 1 The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world' 8 . 
 
 All this is deeply instructive. What we call ' the 
 force of circumstances' was to the Apostles the 
 guiding Hand of their unseen Lord. Nor less instruc- 
 tive is the way in which they sought His guidance, 
 not in their chamber with closed doors, but rather in 
 the assembled congregation there most of all His 
 Holy Spirit dwelt. The Twelve called together the 
 multitude of the disciples (we read), and explained to 
 them the need of a division of labour, and threw upon 
 them the responsibility of choosing seven fnen of 
 honest report, whom they might appoint over this 
 business the almsgiving of the Church. 
 
 Seven men were chosen, all bearing Hellenist names 
 (it may be noticed) ; all therefore acceptable to the 
 aggrieved party ; ' whom they set before the Apostles ; 
 and when the Apostles had prayed, they laid their 
 hands upon them.' Let us mark too their solemn 
 ordination : the choice was left to the multitude, and 
 wisely for that they should possess the confidence of 
 the multitude was essential ; their consecration was 
 reserved to the Apostles. 
 
 1 On the question whether the Seven were Deacons or not, 
 see Appendix, chap. ii. pp. 144-5. 
 
 2 Morte Arthur.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Ike Jfirat 
 
 OF two only of the Seven have we any particular 
 record : of Stephen and of Philip. 
 
 Of St. Stephen's earlier history we have no informa- 
 tion, but St. Luke bears witness to the deep impres- 
 sion which his saintly life had left upon all who knew 
 him : he was ' full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost ;' 
 'full of grace and power ;' irresistible ' in spirit and 
 wisdom.' One longs to believe, and one may almost 
 venture to believe (for a reason that will appear in the 
 sequel), that he had known our Lord on earth, that he 
 had been one of the 120, or one of the 500, who had 
 seen the Risen Lord. 
 
 But however this may be, enough is told us here to 
 mark him out as (next to the Apostles) the most 
 brilliant saint of God the Church has ever known. 
 
 His appointment as one of the Seven at once 
 opened to him an enlarged sphere of action. He 
 could not minister to the bodily wants of men without 
 ministering to their spiritual needs also. He pro- 
 claimed the Gospel far and wide. ' Great wonders 
 and miracles' were done by him. His labour as an 
 Evangelist seems to have been chiefly among the 
 foreign Jews : the three synagogues whose hostility 
 he specially provoked were all Hellenist synagogues, 
 a synagogue of Roman Jews, libertini, as they were 
 called, being freedmen, a synagogue of African Jews,
 
 <aChe cjfirst Jttartgr 29 
 
 and a synagogue of Jews from proconsular Asia 
 and Cilicia. The special mention of this last is to be 
 noted ; one member of that Cilician synagogue, a 
 member also of the Sanhedrim, is not unknown to us, 
 was not unknown, alas ! to Stephen. With these 
 foreign Jews men of far higher culture than the Jews 
 of Palestine Stephen was engaged in daily contro- 
 versy. And ' none could resist the wisdom and the 
 spirit with which he spake.' Even in the heart of that 
 young Cilician Pharisee some seeds of conviction may 
 have been sown 1 , though destined to bear no fruit as 
 yet. 
 
 1 That Stephen's teaching made a deep impression on 
 Saul's mind deeper, perhaps, than he was aware of at the 
 time is shown not only by his touching allusion to him in 
 Acts xxii. 20, but also by the reappearance of so many of 
 Stephen's phrases in the language of the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. St. Paul's speech at Antioch reminds us through- 
 out of Stephen's defence. In his address at Athens he uses 
 Stephen's very words, that ' God dwelleth not in temples 
 made with hands.' The difficult phrase in Gal. iii. 19, 
 6 v6/Jios . . . Siarayels Si' ayytXuv, corresponds with Stephen's 
 Adhere rbv v6y.ov els Siarayas ayy<?\wv ; while ev xeipl 
 peo-iTov is explained by the 38th verse of Stephen's apology. 
 St. Stephen's ' uncircumcised in heart' seems to reappear 
 in St. Paul's ' true circumcision is that of the heart.' And 
 lastly, St. Paul, when death approached, prayed like 
 Stephen for those who bore him ill-will, ' I pray God that 
 it may not be laid to their charge' (2 Tim. iv. 16). 
 
 That Saul was present, and a member of the Sanhedrim, 
 is shown by his expression in Acts xxii. 20 (the self-same 
 phrase as that of the historian, Acts viii. i), ' consenting to 
 his death,' explained by the phrase, ' I gave my vote ' (as a 
 member of the Sanhedrim), in Acts xxvi. 10. 
 
 ' Indeed it is not unlikely that we owe the preservation of 
 the speech (St. Stephen's), as we have it in this chapter, to 
 St. Paul. For among the hostile audience of the martyr, 
 who besides would be likely to treasure it up or to com- 
 municate it to the evangelist?' Humphry on the Acts.
 
 30 ^hc JUts of tht 
 
 Baffled in argument they had recourse to slander. 
 Words that Stephen may well have spoken, about the 
 impending judgment foretold by Christ, were misre- 
 presented as blasphemy against Moses and against 
 God. He ' ceaseth not,' they said, ' to speak blas- 
 phemous words against this Holy Place and the Law.' 
 
 Such was the charge they laid before the Sanhedrim, 
 bringing Stephen with some violence, it would seem, 
 to the bar of the court. And all the seventy judges, 
 when they looked at the prisoner, saw his face lighted 
 with a gleam of glory, the glory of that Holy Spirit 
 who was even then filling and strengthening his heart. 
 
 There was a pause while the witnesses gave their 
 evidence ; and then the high priest, as the presiding 
 judge, appealed to him, 'Are these things so?' The 
 willingness to hear the Christian is doubtless to be 
 ascribed to the fact that the Sanhedrim was still in- 
 fluenced by the counsel of Gamaliel ; and the Phari- 
 sees (as we have seen) were at first less hostile to the 
 Christians than the Sadducees 1 . But as Stephen's 
 defence proceeded, turning not on their favourite 
 doctrine of a resurrection, but rather on the world- 
 wide aspect of their Messiah's kingdom, which this 
 Hellenist Christian seems to have preached more 
 clearly than any before him, a doctrine which the 
 Pharisees abhorred, all their forbearance was at an 
 end ; one and all became bent on his destruction. 
 
 From the sudden break at the 5ist verse, it seems 
 
 1 Chrysostom suggests that they were awed into listening 
 by the preternatural beauty of Stephen's countenance : ' For 
 there is a power,' he says, ' there is a power in countenances 
 filled with the grace of God, which makes them beautiful to 
 those who love them, but awful and terrible to those who 
 hate them.' Horn, in Acta, xv.
 
 Jitrst <fttartgt 31 
 
 clear that he was there interrupted by some burst of 
 execration ; and in the words of bitterness which this 
 interruption forced from Stephen, there broke forth 
 the underlying thought which had suggested all that 
 had gone before : ' Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised 
 in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ! 
 as your fathers did, so do ye !' 
 
 'As your fathers did, so do ye !' these words con- 
 tain the key to the whole of his defence. Adopting 
 the historical 1 method as more likely than any other 
 to win attention, he had designed to trace the descent 
 of the promise from Abraham down to its fulfilment, 
 showing how their recent rejection of the Messiah 
 
 1 It is interesting and instructive (as bearing on the general 
 question of inspiration) to notice that St. Stephen, in his 
 historical allusions, seems to depend on his own unaided 
 memory, and sometimes follows traditions which do not 
 altogether agree with the Hebrew Scriptures. For instance, 
 he speaks of the God of glory appearing to Abraham in 
 Mesopotamia, agreeing with the tradition preserved in 
 Nehemiah (ix. 7) and in Philo, but not with Genesis (xii. i) ; 
 again, he speaks of his leaving Haran after his father s death, 
 whereas, according to Genesis, it was sixty years before 
 Terah's death (xi. 26, xii. 4, and xi. 32) ; again, he seems to 
 join together what God said to Abraham (Genesis xv. 13, 14) 
 with what God said to Moses (Exodus iii. 12), and speaks 
 of seventy-five souls going into Egypt instead of seventy, fol- 
 lowing the Septuagint, which inadvertently includes the five 
 sons of Manasseh and Ephraim born in Egypt ; *again, he 
 mentions Sychem (instead of Machpelah or Hebron) as the 
 burial-place of the patriarchs, and speaks of it as having been 
 bought by Abraham instead of Jacob (Genesis xxxiii. 19) ; 
 and lastly, he gives the exact age of Moses at the time of 
 his flight, and the fact of his being learned in all the wisdom 
 of the Egyptians, neither circumstance being recorded in our 
 Scriptures. These variations are most instructive as show- 
 ing that there is a human as well as a divine element in Holy 
 Scripture.
 
 32 lEhe &cis at the Qyastlts 
 
 had been rendered only too probable by their rejec- 
 tion of every one in whom their Messiah had been 
 typified. ' He came unto His own, and His own re- 
 ceived Him not.' So it had been with Joseph : ' moved 
 with envy, they sold him into Egypt ;' so it had been 
 with Moses : not Stephen but their fathers it was who 
 had blasphemed him, thrusting him away and saying, 
 ' Who made thee a ruler and judge over us ?' so it had 
 been with all the prophets : which of the prophets 
 had they not persecuted ? And if they had rejected 
 or slain every one ' who had shown before of the com- 
 ing of the Just One,' what wonder that when He, the 
 Messiah, came, they had been His betrayers and His 
 murderers ? 
 
 Nor did his hearers fail to see that this was the 
 terrible conclusion upon which his merciless logic was 
 rapidly converging that it was even so : they had 
 murdered their Messiah ! They were cut to the heart, 
 and gnashed upon him with their teeth, drowning his 
 conclusion in their yells of rage. Another moment 
 and they are hushed ; what is it ? Surely again that 
 light ! again that unearthly radiance on Stephen's 
 countenance ! and he is speaking, but not to them, 
 his upturned eye is on Another, not on them : ' Be- 
 hold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
 standing on the right hand of God !' 
 
 Ah ! have any who read these pages ever seen the 
 maddening effect of the thought of God on what is 
 purely evil ? Their savage yell burst forth anew ; they 
 stopped their ears, and flew upon him, and dragged him 
 to the city gate ; and there, probably on the very site 
 of our Lord's Crucifixion, they stoned him, one of their 
 youngest members, Saul of Tarsus, being deputed 
 apparently to see the sentence executed, and the wit-
 
 (External trials of tht Church 33 
 
 nesses summoned according to the law to cast the 
 first stone 1 . And Stephen, calling upon his Lord, 
 and saying, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !' kneeled 
 down, and crying with a loud voice, ' Lord, lay not 
 this sin to their charge ! ' sank beneath the second 
 crash of stones, and fell asleep. 
 
 The very narrative seems hushed ; the excited 
 crowd have dispersed and gone ; under the starry sky 
 loving hands are committing that sleeping body to its 
 rest. And the saint of God, where is he? With 
 Him who said, 'I go to prepare a place for you,' 
 ' that where I am there ye may be ; ' with Him to 
 whom he had prayed, ' Lord Jesus> receive my spirit ;' 
 with Him on whom his eye had gazed all through that 
 dying agony ! Of all that blessed company whom 
 our Lord had gathered round Him on earth, the first 
 to be gathered unto Him in Heaven. For that 
 Stephen had known the Lord on earth is surely pro- 
 bable, else why and how that instant recognition 
 when the opening Heaven revealed Him, so unlike the 
 ' Who art thou, Lord ?' of Saul of Tarsus ? or why those 
 self-same words upon his dying lips that had fallen from 
 the cross ? Yes, surely we may ' take knowledge of him 
 that he had been with Jesus ; ' that he was one of those 
 younger disciples whom Jesus had 'looked upon and 
 loved.' marking him even then, it may be, as one to 
 be gathered early, in His mind's eye when He prayed, 
 
 1 Most of the commentators have argued, from John xviii. 
 31, that the whole proceeding was illegal and tumultuary. 
 St. Paul's phrase in Acts xxvi. 10, so clearly implying that 
 in his persecutions he was authorized to put numbers to 
 death, seems to me conclusive that the Jews retained the 
 power of capital punishment, and that St. Stephen's execu- 
 tion was a judicial proceeding. For a fuller discussion of 
 the question, see Appendix, chap. iii. 
 C
 
 34 ^hc 3U*s of tht Qyosthe 
 
 ' Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given 
 me be with me where I am ; that they may behold 
 my glory, which Thou hast given me.' 
 
 Oh ! blessed, thrice blessed privilege, to be the first- 
 born of that Church in Heaven, who, clothed in white 
 raiment, circle round the throne of Him who liveth 
 for ever and ever ! Blindly we think of them as taken 
 prematurely from their work on earth ! Christ's work 
 on earth ! and has not Christ a work in Heaven, a 
 higher, holier ministry for which He needeth minis- 
 ters ? Faithful over a few things here below, are they 
 not rulers over many things in the world of light ? 
 Prematurely sanctified if we will, but not prematurely 
 admitted to that higher ministry which is the joy of 
 their Lord in glory ! 
 
 Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here on 
 earth, we may steadfastly look up to Heaven, and by 
 faith behold the glory that shall be revealed, after the 
 example of Thy first Martyr, St. Stephen, praying to 
 Thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the Right 
 Hand of God !
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 the 
 
 ST. STEPHEN'S martyrdom must have been in 
 Tertullian's mind when he penned his memo- 
 rable saying that ' the blood of Christians is seed,' 
 the seed of Christ's Church. For never was it so 
 strikingly true as in the case of Stephen's death, so 
 immediate was the growth of Christianity which sprang 
 from his blood-shedding. Far and wide the divine 
 seed was scattered, ' They were all scattered] scat- 
 tered as seed is scattered by the sower : it is the very 
 word chosen by the historian, 'scattered abroad 
 throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except 
 the Apostles: 
 
 On the Apostles themselves this persecution does 
 not seem to have fallen. They were Hebrews, and 
 (as we have more than once been reminded) con- 
 stant in their attendance at the Temple-worship, and 
 in favour with all the people. 
 
 Not so was it with the Hellenist converts, who looked 
 up to Stephen and his colleagues as their leaders. We 
 have seen in Stephen's defence how they struck out 
 into bolder views of the wide-embracing scope of the 
 Gospel, and maintained its entire independence of 
 the Temple ritual. Upon them, therefore, the per- 
 secution burst, and the people cared not to befriend 
 them. They fled from Jerusalem. Accompanied, 
 doubtless, by their chosen ministers, the six survivors
 
 36 i;!u JUts of the ;& pasties 
 
 of the Seven, they made their way into Samaria, and 
 towards the Roman towns along the coast. Our his- 
 torian, after his manner, selects one, Philip, by way of 
 sample of the rest, and to show us how signally Christ 
 overruled this persecution for-the greater glory of His 
 Church. 
 
 In a city of Samaria, Sychar possibly, where Christ 
 Himself, some eight years before, had spent two 
 memorable days, foretelling this harvesting of the 
 Gospel seed, we now find this Evangelist proclaim- 
 ing the great news of His glorification. 
 
 These Samaritans, true to their Assyrian descent, 
 were an impressible, superstitious people. An impos- 
 tor, named Simon, taking advantage of the general ex- 
 pectation of a Messiah 1 , was at this time by his ma- 
 gical arts persuading them to receive himself as ' some 
 great one,' as ' the power of God that is called great,' 
 one (that is) of a higher order than the Angels. 2 But 
 the far greater wonders which they now saw Philip 
 performing, evil spirits cast out, the palsied cured, 
 lame men healed, drew the multitude away from Simon 
 after Philip. And Simon himself, conscious of his own 
 falsehoods, stood aghast at these genuine miracles of 
 the Christian teacher, and envied him his power. This 
 lower motive, mingling doubtless with other better 
 motives, led him to seek Baptism and profess Christi- 
 anity. His admission by Philip is a fact that throws 
 light on the history of the early Church, showing that 
 real conversion of the heart to God did not always 
 accompany Baptism. St. Paul says, ' With the mouth 
 confession is made unto salvation,' meaning by ' sal- 
 
 1 John iv. 25. 
 
 2 The expression seems to belong to the Gnostic phraseo- 
 logy.
 
 the 
 
 vation ' (as usual) admission to Baptism. And it is 
 clear that this open and public profession of Christi- 
 anity, requiring as it did no little courage and self- 
 denial, was accepted as presumptive proof of sincerity. 
 We can hardly wonder that of the multitudes thus 
 charitably admitted, thousands perhaps in a single 
 day, some, like Simon, proved unworthy of their high 
 calling. How Simon's worldly ambition resisted God's 
 grace we shall hear in the sequel. 
 
 The news of Philip's success among the Samaritans 
 reached the ears of the Apostolic College at Jerusalem. 
 Was it even so ? Were others then besides the twelve 
 tribes of Israel to be included in the Kingdom ? This 
 unfolding of Christ's purpose was new to them, and 
 called for careful inquiry and prayer. The two chief 
 Apostles, Peter and John, hastened at once to the 
 scene of Philip's labours. ' Into any city of the Sama- 
 ritans enter ye not ' 1 , Christ had once said to them ; 
 and yet on the Ascension Day there had been that 
 other charge, ' Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in 
 Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria.' They 
 will leave the solution to their risen Lord. They will 
 visit these converts, and pray for them ; and if the 
 Holy Ghost descends on them too, as on the Jewish 
 converts, then their doubt will be answered. And so 
 it was. They prayed for them ; and laid their hands 
 upon them, and they received the H oly Ghost. That this 
 descent of the Holy Ghost was accompanied by some 
 outward and visible manifestation is clear, for we read 
 that ' when Simon saw that through laying on of the 
 Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered 
 them money ' for it. If it had been an inward experi- 
 ence only, no such desire would have risen in Simon's 
 1 Matt. x. 5.
 
 JUts of the Qposilts 
 
 carnal mind. Plainly some outward startling effect at- 
 tended it. For his own self-glorifying purposes Simon 
 coveted the gift. An age of miracles could hardly escape 
 this danger, that many would covet the new power for 
 unworthy purposes. Simon's case is singled out by the 
 historian to show us how the Apostles dealt with such 
 corrupt motives. Well may Simon have trembled at 
 the holy indignation of St. Peter ! well may he, con- 
 science-stricken, have entreated the Apostle to inter- 
 cede for him ! How far his repentance was sincere 
 we know not. The Church has branded with his name 
 the sin of Simony, which is properly the sin of seeking 
 appointment to any holy function from corrupt 
 motives. 
 
 How long the two Apostles remained in the towns 
 of Samaria we are not told. When they had testified 
 and preached the word of the Lord, confirming the 
 converts whom Philip and his companions had 
 baptized (as St. Paul longed to confirm the Roman 
 converts by 'imparting to them some spiritual gift' 1 ), 
 they returned to Jerusalem. 
 
 Thus did the Church by a sudden expansion push 
 her frontier over the villages and towns of Samaria ; 
 and this not by man's design ; but clearly by the 
 overruling of Him who in heaven, that is, in the unseen 
 spiritual world, was ever at the side of His Apostles,, 
 directing all. 
 
 Nor was the movement confined to Samaria. Into 
 Damascus, into Antioch in the far north, these 
 Hellenist refugees carried their glad tidings. Nay, 
 ' the Morians' land ' Ethiopia was soon to ' stretch 
 out her hands unto God.' 
 
 One of St. Luke's rapid characteristic anecdotes 
 'Rom. i. ii.
 
 Philip tlu (Ebangeltst 39 
 
 shows how plainly this too was the direct act of 
 Christ. 
 
 ' The Angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, 
 Arise, and go toward the south, unto the way that 
 goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. 
 And he arose and went,' went on foot, apparently, 
 along that desolate way towards the Egyptian frontier, 
 wondering what this new purpose of his unseen Lord 
 might be. One other traveller Christ's Providence 
 was also guiding across that lonely tract a proselyte 
 to Judaism, who had been attending the feast at Jeru- 
 salem, the chamberlain of the Ethiopian Queen. 
 
 He is in his chariot, reading aloud the sacred book. 
 Philip feels a sudden impulse of the Holy Spirit to 
 overtake the chariot. Like Elijah of old, he runs, and 
 coming alongside overhears the swarthy African 
 reading aloud the Greek version of Isaiah, the 53d 
 chapter, so prophetic of Him whom as yet he knew 
 not. 
 
 Under the same impulse Philip accosts him : 
 'Dost thou heed what thou dost read?' 1 The 
 chamberlain, thinking this was some pilgrim Rabbi, 
 invites him to sit by his side in the chariot, and the 
 Evangelist explains the passage, and, making it his 
 text, ' preached Jesus unto him.' 
 
 The chamberlain's heart was opened to the truth 2 , 
 and by his own desire he was baptized, and went on 
 his way rejoicing ; went on his way, to plant, perhaps, 
 the Church of Christ in that distant Abyssinia, where 
 
 1 Our translation loses the play on the words, yivdo-iceis & 
 
 2 Bishop Bumet's account of the last hours of Lord 
 Rochester, how by this same chapter of Isaiah his heart 
 was softened, and his sceptical mind convinced, will occur 
 to those who have read it.
 
 Qti* at the 
 
 our English soldiers, three years ago, found a fading 
 lamp of Christian truth still flickering. 
 
 But for Philip Christ had further work ; all through 
 those towns of the Mediterranean sea-board, he 
 worked his way back to the great Roman seaport of 
 Csesarea, where twenty years later we shall find him 
 living with his family 1 . 
 
 Thus north and south, far and wide, the Christians 
 spread. Wherever there was a synagogue of Jews 2 
 there some Christian, standing up to read in turn, 
 found occasion to preach Jesus the Messiah. 
 
 When tidings of this reached the Sanhedrim, when 
 they found that by stirring the fierce fire of persecu- 
 tion they had but scattered its embers, and so kindled 
 the new light far and wide, well might the words of 
 Gamaliel occur to some, ' What if haply they were 
 fighting against God 1 ' 
 
 1 Acts xxi. 8, 9. 2 Acts ix. 20, xxii. 19.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 'iElte Cnnbnrsitftt o 
 
 WHETHER any such misgivings, whether any 
 recollections of the dying look and words of 
 Stephen were even now haunting the conscience of 
 that young Pharisee who had acted as sheriff of the 
 Sanhedrim in Stephen's execution, and who was now 
 the fiercest persecutor of the Christians, we know not. 
 Possibly it was so possibly (for such is human nature) 
 a secret and growing uneasiness was goading Saul 
 onward, to stifle such whisperings of conscience in the 
 excitement of religious passion. 
 
 Armed with letters of authority from the Sanhedrim, 
 as their chief inquisitor, we find him setting forth on 
 a commission to Damascus a five or six days' 
 journey for over the synagogues of the Dispersion 
 the Sanhedrim seems to have had a kind of jurisdiction 1 
 to hold court there, and make search for heretics, 
 and bring them bound, men or women, to Jerusalem. 
 
 In the enforced leisure of such a journey, under the 
 reaction of solitude on a mind so finely strung, with- 
 drawn now from the daily stimulus of the sights and 
 sounds of conflict, and the impassioned harangues of 
 the Sanhedrim, one may well imagine that a thousand 
 unbidden thoughts were troubling him ; and, above 
 all, the image of that dying man and the echo of his 
 1 See Appendix, chap. iii. p. 149.
 
 42 m* gUts of the Qyosttts 
 
 words, 'the heavens opened' and 'Jesus standing at 
 the right hand of God.' 
 
 It may have been so ; and any other historian 
 might have sought thus to fix our attention on the 
 workings of Saul's heart. Not so St. Luke : not one 
 word of this. Not on Saul, nor on the workings of 
 Saul's heart, but on One unseen, and on the counsels 
 of His Providence, St. Luke would fix our attention : 
 he can never forget that this history is but a continua- 
 tion of that ' former treatise,' that it is the continued 
 working of the Lord Jesus that he is inspired to reveal 
 to us. The method of that divine working has already 
 been variously illustrated. We have seen how their 
 unseen Lord was ever acting, guiding the lot, answer- 
 ing the prayer, pouring forth His Spirit in the upper 
 chamber, prompting words that none could withstand, 
 attesting those words with signs of power, touching 
 the hearts of thousands in the Temple, overruling the 
 priests' counsel in the Sanhedrim, baffling their malice 
 in the prison, restraining persecution till the central 
 Church was consolidated ; then, when all was ripe for 
 dispersion, permitting it ; guiding them in this disper- 
 sion, now by a sudden inspiration, now by an angel's 
 ministry ; ever ' working with them ' (such is St. Luke's 
 phrase), with them in the upper chamber, with them 
 in the Temple, with them before rulers, with them in 
 the dungeon, with them in their solitude, with them in 
 the crowd ; such has been the Lord's method of 
 working hitherto, as revealed in St. Luke's narrative : 
 an ever-present Power, though unseen. 
 
 And now a crisis has arrived ; and ' the arm of that 
 Lord,' whom the heavens had received, must be 
 ' revealed ' yet more directly and visibly. 
 
 On that young Pharisee, on that chief persecutor of
 
 C<mtost0n of .Sattl 43 
 
 His Church, as he journeys to Damascus, the Lord's 
 eye is fixed. He is a chosen vessel, and the Lord has 
 need of him. The Lord Jesus Himself will speak to 
 him, will appear to him. For he is not only to hear 
 and believe, but he is also to be an eye-witness of the 
 Resurrection of the Lord. Therefore that flash of 
 light, outshining even the noontide sun ; and there- 
 fore in the centre of the light, discerned by Saul only 1 , 
 that Form, that Countenance, which once seen could 
 never be forgotten. ' Have I not seen the Lord Jesus ?' 
 he wrote twenty years after this. And those words, a 
 mere sound as of thunder perhaps to the bystanders 2 , 
 but to Saul clear and distinct, calling him by name in 
 his own Hebrew tongue, and saying, ' Saul, Saul, why 
 persecutes! thou Me!' And again, in answer to his 
 trembling question, ' I am Jesus whom thou art perse- 
 cuting.' And then in proverb and in parable (as so 
 often with the Twelve of old), ' 'Tis hard for thee to 
 kick against the goad,' reminding us of His other 
 proverb, ' Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be 
 broken.' Christ's power was irresistible. Irresistible ! 
 how this conviction must have been borne in upon the 
 soul of Saul in that terrible hour ! For the first time 
 in his life brought face to face with God, not with 
 his idea of God, but with God Himself ! 
 
 Was it a dream ? The voice said, ' Rise and stand 
 upon thy feet ! ' And he rose from the earth, and 
 opened his eyes to look around, and he was blind ! 
 This was no dream. Blind ! Had he not been blind 
 to God, blind spiritually, up to this very hour ? and 
 now he knows it. He had thought to be a leader, and 
 now he is groping for a hand to guide him, blind and 
 utterly dependent. That Law to which he had trusted 
 
 1 Comp. Acts ix. 7> and xxii. 9. a Comp. John xii. 29.
 
 of 
 
 in his pride, it has slain him ! Ordained to life, he 
 has found it to be unto death ! O wretched man ! 
 who shall deliver him from the body of this death ? 
 
 So for three days, blind, prostrate body and soul, 
 eating nothing, drinking nothing, in that house of 
 Judas in Damascus, whither his servants had conveyed 
 him. Will no relief be given him in this utter misery ? 
 Yes; ' lie prayeth.^ Praying the prayer which never 
 fails, the prayer of a broken and a contrite heart, 
 there comes to him in a vision one named Ananias 
 putting his hand upon his eyes, and healing him. 
 And this, too, is it a mere dream in his blindness? 
 Anxiously he waits, and on the third day the vision is 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Ananias (one of the despised brotherhood whom he 
 had meant to carry bound to Jerusalem) is at the door, 
 is by his side : ' Brother Saul, receive thy sight ! ' and 
 lo ! his eyes are opened ; he wakes from his three 
 days' darkness, from the valley of the shadow of that 
 spiritual death in which for three days he had lain ; 
 he rises on this third day to newness of life, and in 
 Holy Baptism his sins are washed away. 
 
 Looking back in after years on this crisis of his life, 
 one only phrase could he find to describe it : he had 
 been crucified with Christ, and with Christ he had 
 risen again. The thought and the phrase are peculiar 
 to St. Paul. Are we wrong in feeling very sure that 
 the three days' interval helped to suggest it ? And, 
 once suggested, how the thought would grow upon him 
 that this was the deep meaning of the crisis ! He had 
 learned to know Christ by ' being made conformable 
 to His death ' (Phil. iii. 10), ' a partaker of His suffer- 
 ings ' (2 Cor. i. 7), ' crucified with Christ ' (Gal. ii. 20), 
 ' the world crucified to him and he to the world ' (vi.
 
 '(Ehc (Dinbcrsicm of <Sattl 45 
 
 14), ' the old man crucified with Christ ' (Rom. vi. 6), 
 ' dying with Christ,' ' buried with Him by baptism 
 into death ' (vi. 4), ' rising with him to newness of 
 life,' ' even as Christ was raised up from the dead 
 by the glory of the Father.' Henceforth his life is 
 ' hidden with Christ in God ' (Col. iii. 3), the life he 
 lived was not his own, ' I am crucified with Christ, 
 nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me ' 
 (Gal. ii. 20). 
 
 All through his Epistles the idea is ever reappearing, 
 bearing witness to the spiritual anguish of those three 
 days, in which his whole past self with all its pride 
 and wilfulness had been crushed to death within 
 him ; and bearing witness also to the deep joy and 
 peace of his humbled spirit when from the waters of 
 Baptism he seemed to rise as by a new birth into the 
 sunshine of God's forgiveness. 
 
 Deeply instructive it is, especially for those who are 
 apt to think that God's grace may accomplish its 
 whole work suddenly in the heart of man, to know 
 that ten long years elapsed before the Holy Ghost 
 said ' Separate me Saul for the work whereunto I have 
 called him,' ten long years before he was ordained 
 by the laying on of hands for the work of an Apostle. 
 After a retirement into Arabia for how long we know 
 not, he seems to have returned to Damascus, and there 
 to have essayed to preach the word. But his time 
 was not yet come. The Jews would fain have assassi- 
 nated him, and the Governor or Ethnarch 1 placed 
 
 1 Damascus, on the re-arrangement of eastern affairs 
 that followed the accession of Caius and the banishment of 
 Antipas, seems to have been made over to Aretas,the Arabian 
 chief, who reigned at Petra, and governed by his Ethnarch 
 or Vizier. At least so Wicseler argues ; conclusively, in the
 
 46 ^hi JUts of the 
 
 soldiers at their disposal for this purpose. The Chris- 
 tians lowered Saul from the window of a house upon 
 the city wall, and he escaped to Jerusalem. 
 
 This visit to Jerusalem, so briefly noticed in St. 
 Luke's narrative, is full of interest. Barnabas, whom 
 he may have known in his youth (for between Tarsus 
 and Cyprus there was constant communication), in- 
 troduced him to St. Peter and St. James 1 , the other 
 Apostles being apparently absent from Jerusalem. 
 He seems to have been St. Peter's guest 2 , and to have 
 intended to bear his witness at once to the Jews, under 
 an impression that his close connection with the per- 
 secutors in former days would incline them to listen 
 to him 3 . But the Lord Jesus knew better the impla- 
 cable hatred of the Jews, and how at that moment the 
 Hellenists were plotting to kill him ; and, appearing to 
 him in the Temple, commanded him to leave Jeru- 
 salem instantly. So on the fifteenth day his visit was 
 abruptly ended, and the disciples conveyed him to the 
 sea-coast to take ship for Tarsus. 
 
 There for many years we lose sight of him. 
 
 While Christ was thus slowly and silently maturing 
 the future Apostle of the Gentiles, others were to 
 carry on the work of the Gospel ; and to the labours 
 of St. Peter, during this interval, our narrative now 
 turns. 
 
 opinion of Dean Howson. If this be so, St. Paul's conversion 
 must have nearly coincided with the last year of Tiberius. 
 
 1 The Lord's brother, and counted as an Apostle, though 
 not one of the Twelve. 
 
 8 The word used in Gal. i. 18 is properly to 'visit,' and 
 this agrees with St. Luke's expression, ' coming in and going 
 out ' with the Apostles implying daily intercourse. 
 
 8 Such seems to be his thought in Acts xxii. 19, 20.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Sall of Pariitixm broken totott 
 
 IN looking back at the crisis in the development of 
 the Church which we have now reached in our 
 narrative, we may partly perceive how necessary was 
 St. Paul's banishment by his Divine Master from 
 Jerusalem at this conjuncture. 
 
 He seems to have come there with one absorbing, 
 self-accusing thought, that he owed it to his Lord 
 to take up and carry on the work of ' His martyr 
 Stephen,' which in his blindness he had cut short. 
 With this view he had thrown himself into the syna- 
 gogues of the Hellenists, and already in this brief fort- 
 night rekindled the fierce conflict between those who 
 embraced and those who rejected the Gospel. 
 
 Nor was that all ; it is clear from the allusions to 
 this visit in the Epistle to the Galatians, that the 
 relations in which he stood to the Elder Apostles 
 were full of difficulties which might even threaten the 
 internal peace of the Church. 
 
 The times were not ripe, nor were the minds of the 
 elder Apostles prepared for that larger Gospel with 
 which Paul was charged. The Twelve had thus far 
 only known Christ as the Messiah of Israel. We can 
 hardly realize at this distance of time what a shock 
 and surprise to them was the admission of uncircum- 
 cised Gentiles to the Church. That the Jews of the 
 Dispersion should be gathered into the Church they
 
 gUts of the 
 
 expected ; that with them numbers of Gentiles, who, 
 as proselytes, had adopted Judaism and been circum- 
 cised, should also be included, they were led to expect 
 by many of their Lord's Parables ; but that those Par- 
 ables pointed to the direct admission of uncircumcised 
 Gentiles, this had never occurred to them. Gradually 
 and slowly, partly by direct and partly by indirect 
 leadings of Providence, Christ was revealing it. 
 
 To trace the growth of this new idea in the Apostles' 
 minds, and to show how their Jewish prejudices were 
 broken down, by what we call the force of circum- 
 stances, is clearly one of St. Luke's main purposes in 
 these early chapters of his history. 
 
 First, we have the deep impression made by the 
 Pentecostal miracle on thousands of foreign Jews or 
 Hellenists ; we find St. Peter confessing that the pro- 
 mise was not to the seed of Israel only, but ' to them 
 that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God 
 shall call.' We find him soon after consenting to the 
 separate organization of these Hellenist Christians with 
 officers of their own. Then in the speech of Stephen 
 we have a specimen of the broad comprehensive views 
 of Christianity put forth by these foreigners. We see 
 them dispersed by the persecution which his words 
 provoked, and carrying the glad tidings of the Gospel 
 far beyond the limits of the Apostles' preaching, to 
 the very frontiers of Judaism. We see one of them, 
 by a bold venture, proclaiming Christ in the heart of 
 Samaria, and the Apostolic College accepting his suc- 
 cess as a sign of Christ's approval ; and soon after an 
 Ethiopian proselyte is baptized by the same ever- 
 forward Evangelist. 
 
 Still the Hellenist, the Samaritan, the Proselyte, 
 were all circumcised, Jews by adoption if not by birth,
 
 '(Elte ,|aii>ble gHall of partition hnrken iofam 49 
 
 and therefore within the pale of Israel. Some further 
 revelation of Christ's great purpose was needed. And 
 the time was ripening for it : for already there might 
 be heard the muttered thunder of that storm which 
 thirty years later was to burst upon Jerusalem. Tibe- 
 rius was dead. His crazy successor, in spite of the 
 warnings of his friend Herod Agrippa, and the embassy 
 of the learned Philo, was bent on being worshipped in 
 Jerusalem, and was goading the Jews to frenzy by his 
 attempts to set up his statue in their Temple 1 . Petro- 
 nius was marching against them with his two legions 
 to enforce the mad resolution of the Emperor. While 
 this yet more dreaded enemy was thus engrossing the 
 attention of the Sanhedrim, we may well understand 
 that their persecution of the Christians would be sus- 
 pended ; moreover, the two great actors in the crime 
 of the Crucifixion had just been removed, Pilate ban- 
 ished, Caiaphas deposed. Thus it was that the four 
 years of Caius's reign, miserable as they were to the 
 rest of the world, brought peace to the Christians. 
 ' The Churches had rest throughout all Judea, and 
 Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified ; and walking 
 in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy 
 Ghost, were multiplied.' 
 
 During this lull of persecution Christ was preparing 
 His Apostles for the loosening of the Gospel from 
 Jerusalem. We see it in this ' multiplication of the 
 churches' 2 , in this description of them as the churches 
 of 'Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria,' in the more 
 
 1 That this outrage of Caligula may have suggested the 
 description of 2 Thess. ii. 4, is possible ; but that he was the 
 4 man of sin ' (as Grotius supposed) is impossible, for he died 
 before the Epistle was written. 
 
 2 Whether we read 'church ' or ' churches ' in Actsix. 31, 
 the meaning is the same. 
 
 . D
 
 50 <i&ht &cts 0f tht Qyosttlts 
 
 frequent absence of the Twelve on missionary tours, 
 most of all perhaps in their appointment of James, 
 the Lord's brother, to be the stationary head (or 
 in the language of a later day the Bishop) of the 
 Jerusalem Church, as though the Twelve no longer 
 regarded the Holy City as their permanent home. 
 
 Still, in Peter and James's hesitation to receive Saul, 
 only overcome by the intercession of Barnabas, in the 
 anxiety and doubt with which they received news of 
 what was going on in Samaria and afterwards in Anti- 
 och, in the jealousy and anger with which the Hebrew 
 Christians heard that Peter had eaten bread with the 
 uncircumcised, we perceive plainly how ill prepared the 
 Jerusalem Church was to accept the larger Gospel 
 with which St. Paul was charged, and how any pre- 
 mature announcement of it might (humanly speaking) 
 have threatened the Church with disruption within 
 twelve years of its foundation the Hebrew Christians 
 cleaving to James and the Holy City on the one side, 
 and on the other the Hellenist converts seceding under 
 Barnabas and Saul and the survivors of the Seven. 
 
 We are now to hear how the ever-watchful care of 
 the risen Lord overruled the crisis, and prepared the 
 elder Apostles ' to give the right hand of fellowship ' 
 to the Apostle of the uncircumcision. 
 
 St. Peter on a tour of visitation had been travelling 
 through the towns of the great plain of Sharon. At 
 Lydda he had healed the paralytic ^Eneas, and all 
 who saw the miracle had embraced the faith. At 
 Joppa he had restored Dorcas to her sorrowing friends 
 by a yet more astounding effort of divine power, for 
 the lifeless form was being laid out for burial. 
 
 The fame of these miracles may or may not have 
 reached the Roman garrison at Caasarea. On an
 
 '"UThc Dibble SSJixU of partition broken botoit 51 
 
 officer of that garrison, an Italian bearing the name 
 of one of the noblest Roman families, our attention is 
 now fixed. Through Cornelius the Apostle's mind is 
 to be opened to accept the approaching development 
 of Christ's Church. 
 
 No careful reader of the Acts can fail to notice how 
 similar was Christ's method of working in the two 
 cases of Saul's conversion and that of Cornelius. In 
 both cases two simultaneous revelations are made, 
 one to him who is to be converted, the other to him 
 who is to baptize the convert. The purpose is evi- 
 dent. Saul in his vision saw a man named Ananias 
 coming in to give him sight. Cornelius in his vision 
 is directed to send for one Simon surnamed Peter. 
 Thus a sign or token is given to each whereby he 
 may know that the vision is no mere dream. How 
 irresistible must have been the conviction of this, 
 when Saul at Damascus and Cornelius at Caesarea 
 found the promised messenger at their doors, saying 
 they too had had their visions and had been divinely 
 instructed to come ! We may notice, too, in both 
 cases, the minute particularity of the commission. 
 The same Lord who on earth had directed Peter and 
 John to the street of Jerusalem and the very house 
 where they should see the man with the pitcher of 
 water, now, at the right hand of God in heaven, knows 
 no less minutely where to find His saints : directing 
 Ananias to the street called Straight, to the house of 
 Judas where Saul lodged ; directing Cornelius to send 
 to Joppa to the house of one Simon the tanner, by the 
 sea-side, where Peter should be found. 
 
 Nor does the parallelism end here : in both cases 
 Christ's minister is at first reluctant ; Ananias an- 
 swered, ' Lord, I have heard by many of this man,
 
 52 Ihe $,cts of the 
 
 how much evil he hath done to Thy saints.' But the 
 Lord said to him, ' Go thy way, for he is a chosen 
 vessel unto Me.' St. Peter too : ' Not so, Lord ; for I 
 have never eaten anything that is common or un- 
 clean ; ' and the answer, ' What God hath cleansed, 
 that call not thou common.' 
 
 And one point more, full of instruction : in both 
 cases he for whose salvation the Lord in Heaven is 
 thus caring, has been praying : ' Behold, he prayeth,' 
 is Christ's brief description of Saul's state of mind ; 
 ' Cornelius, thy prayer is heard,' is the blessed an- 
 nouncement to the centurion. 
 
 In one respect, necessarily, the two cases are in 
 contrast : in the one the effect on the convert is every- 
 thing, and of the minister we hear no more : in the 
 other case the effect on the Apostolic minister is all- 
 important, and of the convert Cornelius we hear no 
 more. 
 
 Whether, when the Italian cohort was ordered 
 home, Cornelius was instrumental in founding the 
 Church at Rome, which St. Paul addressed sixteen 
 years later, as being men of some standing, we cannot 
 telL 
 
 All the interest of the narrative turns upon SL Peter. 
 The question was forced upon him, ' Shall I preach 
 Christ to this uncircumcised Roman ? ' True, the 
 Roman was a worshipper of the God of Israel, one of 
 those who in later times came to be called proselytes of 
 the gate, and clearly a most devout one ; but he was not 
 a proselyte of the Covenant, he was not circumcised. 
 Should the Apostle preach Christ to him ? The vision 
 left him no option. It was the Lord's will. But a 
 further question remained : If he listened, and believed 
 on Jesus, should he be baptized without being first
 
 Snail of partition broken baton 53 
 
 circumcised ? Before the question arose, the Lord 
 had answered it. Ere Peter's discourse was ended the 
 Holy Ghost had fallen, as on the 120 in the upper 
 chamber, so now on this Gentile and his household 
 and friends. Whether the light was seen now, as then, 
 over the head of each, we are not told. It is most pro- 
 bable, for it is implied that the outpouring was in 
 some way visible; and certainly it was accompanied 
 by the same gift of tongues. How could Peter forbid 
 the Baptism by water of those whom Christ had thus 
 Himself baptized with the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 Thus Peter defended what he had done on his 
 return to the Hebrew Christians at Jerusalem. That 
 one of the Apostles should have eaten bread in the 
 house of a Gentile, and preached Christ to him, and, 
 most strange of all, admitted him to baptism, shocked 
 ' them that were of the circumcision.' Not until St. 
 Peter had shown how clearly he had followed the 
 guiding hand of Christ in all this, did their scruples 
 give way. Who was Peter that he should withstand 
 God? 
 
 Deeply interesting is the candour with which they 
 accept the new truth : ' When they heard these things 
 they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, 
 Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repent- 
 ance unto life.' 
 
 Thus was the Lord preparing the minds of the 
 Apostles for the fulness of the great truth which He 
 had Himself taught the woman of Samaria, that in 
 no one place more than another, by no one nation 
 more than by another, was God to be worshipped.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 of the Qntiath Church aitb dfltfiht of 
 the Apostles from JTeromUm 
 
 WHETHER it was before or after Christ's con- 
 version of Cornelius we cannot say, but about 
 this time tidings reached the Jerusalem Church which 
 but for this all-important revelation to St. Peter 
 might have caused grievous dissension and difficulty. 
 From the general tenor of St. Luke's narrative, he 
 seems to intend us to understand that the facts which 
 he is proceeding to relate had occurred before or 
 during St. Peter's mission to Joppa and Caesarea, but 
 that the report of them did not reach Jerusalem until 
 after his return. 
 
 The facts were these : The Hellenist Evangelists, 
 who had been dispersed (as we have seen) after the 
 death of their great leader, St. Stephen, had planted a 
 Church in the great capital of the Syrian province, 
 Antioch, in the far north. In rank and population 
 Antioch was the third city of the Empire. Luxurious 
 Romans had built their villas along the banks of its 
 beautiful river. A crowd of Greek adventurers and 
 Jewish impostors ministered to their vices and super- 
 stitions. A greater contrast to Jerusalem could not 
 be. But Antioch lay on the great thoroughfare of the 
 nations in constant intercourse with Rome ; and was 
 destined for many years to be the great mission-centre 
 of Christ's Church. 
 
 Hither then these Cyprian and Cyrenian refugees
 
 ,4fo:ttnbati0tt of the Qntioch <htxrch 55 
 
 found their way with the tidings of the Gospel, and had 
 gathered together a congregation of believers. For 
 a while none but the circumcised Jews or proselytes 
 had been admitted, and their reception would be 
 simply a matter of congratulation to the mother-Church. 
 But presently the news reached Jerusalem that the 
 uncircumcised Gentiles l also of Antioch were being 
 converted to the faith. 
 
 ' The Kingdom of Heaven was suffering violence, 
 and the violent were taking it by force.' 
 
 We see now how providentially, by the revelation to 
 St. Peter, the Lord had been preparing His Apostles 
 for what otherwise would have been an insuperable 
 shock to them. As it is, they hesitate. It did not 
 certainly follow that because the Holy Ghost had 
 claimed Cornelius for Christ He was also sanctioning 
 the Baptism of these Antioch Gentiles. They resolve 
 to send one of their number to see and report whether 
 it be really so, and whether the hand of the Lord is in 
 it Barnabas is selected, one whom they could trust, 
 and one who at the same time would be likely, both 
 as a Cypriote and as the friend of Saul, to be favour- 
 ably inclined to them. The effect on Barnabas must 
 be told in St. Luke's words : ' When he came, and 
 had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and exhorted 
 them all, that they should cleave resolutely to the 
 Lord. For (St. Luke adds) Barnabas was a bene- 
 volent man, and full of the Holy Ghost and faith,' 
 not one therefore to regard with jealousy this influx 
 of the uncircumcised. 
 
 At once he seemed to see that here at last was an 
 
 1 Acts xi. 20. That Greeks, not Grecians, is the correct 
 reading, and for the distinction between the two, see 
 Appendix, chap, i., and note on page 135.
 
 56 Ulu 3Uts of the 
 
 opening for his friend, who at Tarsus was still waiting 
 for his promised call, to enter upon his work as the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles. He hastened to Tarsus, and 
 returned with Saul to Antioch. A whole year the two 
 friends worked there together, adding daily new con- 
 verts to the Synagogue of Christians. For here first, 
 in the Romanized city of Antioch, they got their 
 Latin name of 'Christians.' Heretofore they had 
 made their converts so exclusively from among Jews 
 or Judaizers, that the Romans, always contemptuously 
 indifferent to foreigners, had not cared to distinguish 
 them from any other Jewish sect. But now, when 
 numbers of their own people were joining them, they 
 gave them that separate name by which the Church 
 has ever since been known. 
 
 Thus, in the Jerusalem Church (where the pre- 
 judice was strongest) by direct revelation, and in the 
 Antioch Church by what some might call an impulse 
 of religious zeal in which we learn to recognise an 
 inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the barrier, the middle 
 wall of partition, was broken down, and the doors of 
 Christ's Church were thrown wide open to the outlying 
 Gentile world. Looking back we may well see how 
 needful it was that the Church should be thus gradu- 
 ally weaned from its first cradle. But the Apostles, 
 with the Temple still standing, clinging, as for years 
 they did, to its ritual and hours of prayer, were slow 
 to learn the lesson. One more step was needed 
 to force the lesson home to their minds they must 
 themselves be scattered. And thus it came to pass. 
 Herod Agrippa * had returned from the Imperial 
 
 1 St. Luke calls him Herod, Josephus calls him Agrippa ; 
 the Syriac translation has ' Herod who was surnamed 
 Agrippa,' in Acts xii. I.
 
 of tht Qntiach Chttrdt 57 
 
 Court on the accession of Claudius (A.D. 41), to 
 mount the throne of his grandfather. That throne, 
 which he had won by flattery of the Emperor, he 
 would fain secure by flattery of the Jewish people. 
 Already he had procured for them a promise from the 
 besotted Caius that he would no longer force upon 
 them the worship of his image 1 . His next flattery was 
 to indulge their hatred of the Christians by once more 
 turning upon them the sword of persecution. The 
 Passover of A.D. 44 having apparently brought the 
 Apostles again to Jerusalem, ' he killed James the 
 brother of John with the sword.' 
 
 With such striking brevity is the martyrdom of 
 one of the three chiefest Apostles noticed ! St. 
 Luke's purpose was clearly not to write biographies ; 
 but rather to trace continuously the main course of 
 the Gospel's progress from Jerusalem to Rome. 
 Hence the minute account of Stephen's death, so 
 closely connected with Saul's heavenly commission ; 
 and hence this merest allusion in passing to St. 
 James's death, lying as it did out of the course of his 
 main purpose. Clement of Alexandria, writing only 1 50 
 years afterwards, vouches for the truth of an anecdote 
 too beautiful to be lost ; .how the prosecutor was 
 so moved by the Martyr's good confession, that he 
 declared himself a Christian on the spot, and both 
 were led away to execution ; on the road, the penitent 
 man asked forgiveness of St. James, who, looking 
 awhile upon him, said, 'Peace be unto thee !' and 
 kissed him. And so both were beheaded 2 . 
 
 Seeing that the death of James ' pleased the people, 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. xviii. 8. 8. 
 
 2 The anecdote is preserved by Eusebius in his Eccles. 
 Hist. ii. 9.
 
 58 Hht JUts of the 
 
 Herod proceeded further to take Peter also.' The 
 Roman soldiers hurried him to prison, and a guard 
 was told off to watch him till after the Feast, when he 
 was to be delivered to the Sanhedrim that they might 
 do their worst. How prayer was unceasingly offered 
 for his deliverance, how the prayer was heard, how in 
 the dead hour of the night Peter was awakened by 
 the sudden light, and felt the angel's hand upon him, 
 and the chains falling from his wrists, and was led 
 forth between the sentries and through the great iron 
 door that opened of its own accord, and how, awaken- 
 ing from his trance, he found himself in the streets 
 under the full Paschal moon, and made his way to 
 Mary's house, where the Church was still assembled 
 for prayer, all this is told most strikingly. Nor does 
 the historian omit to mention the fearful retribution 
 which not many months later overtook the persecutor 
 of Christ's Apostle, recorded also by Josephus 1 , who 
 tells us how in the theatre at Caesarea the rays of the 
 rising sun falling on the silver lace of the king's robe, 
 his flatterers shouted that he was a god, and how 
 Herod, accepting their blasphemy, was seized with a 
 horrible disease, and died on the fifth day. 
 
 Not on Herod, however, but on Peter and the rest 
 of the Apostles, our interest is now fixed. After de- 
 claring how the Lord had delivered him, he bids the 
 brethren report it all to James the other Apostles 
 having doubtless fled when they saw how they 
 specially were being singled out for persecution and 
 then himself leaves Jerusalem. 
 
 Whither St. Peter went we are not told. Some 
 have said to Rome. But the absence of all allusion 
 to any such founder of their Church in St. Paul's 
 1 Ant. xix. 8. 2.
 
 xrf th* ^pastks 59 
 
 Epistle to the Romans, and, still more conclusively, 
 his anxiety to visit them himself that he might impart 
 to them those Pentecostal gifts 1 which none but an 
 Apostle could bestow, render it improbable, if not im- 
 possible, that Peter can have journeyed thither. 
 
 It is enough for us to know that the Apostolic College 
 was broken up by this persecution. Jerusalem was no 
 longer a safe home for them. A few months later, 
 when Barnabas and Saul brought the contributions of 
 the Antioch Church to the poor Christians of Jeru- 
 salem in the time of the famine, they found none but 
 the Presbyters 2 in charge of the Jerusalem Church. 
 
 The Apostles were gone : whither we know not. 
 Once again, and once only, so far as appears, they 
 were to meet in the Holy City, at the time of the 
 Council. But Jerusalem is no more their home. 
 Christ's lesson is now complete. No earthly centre 
 can be needed for His Church, while His promise 
 holds, that wherever two or three are gathered to- 
 gether in His Name, there is He in the midst of them. 
 
 1 Rom. i. 16. - Acts xi. 30.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TEhe ^irst Jtttssion io tht (Gentiles 
 
 WE are now entering upon the second portion of 
 the Acts of the Apostles. Hitherto the 
 growth of the Hebrew-Christian Church, spreading 
 gradually over the Holy Land with Jerusalem for its 
 centre, under the direction of the Apostolic College, 
 has been our subject. We are now to trace the for- 
 mation of the Gentile-Christian Churches, having 
 Antioch as their centre and St. Paul for their founder. 
 
 To some it has seemed a strange thing that St. 
 Luke at this point of his narrative should so com- 
 pletely forsake the elder Apostles, and devote himself 
 henceforth so exclusively to the Apostle Paul. But 
 to one who rightly understands the purpose of this 
 Book there is nothing strange in this, but rather a 
 proof of divine inspiration so striking and so convinc- 
 ing that one can only wonder that it has not attracted 
 more attention. 
 
 For one moment let us divest ourselves of all our 
 knowledge of the subsequent history of Christ's 
 Church. Let us forget our Western Europe, and put 
 ourselves back in the position of a Jewish historian 
 1800 years ago, and suppose him uninspired. To him, 
 with the Temple still standing, his nation still a terri- 
 torial nation, to him the Holy Land, the soil of Asia, 
 would be still the Land of Promise ; there would he
 
 ^Lhc (dffirst Jtlissinn txr the (Scuttles 61 
 
 look for the Messiah's reign, and to Asia for His field 
 of conquest. Not westward into Europe, but east- 
 ward, would all his interest, all his aspirations, go, 
 to the old home of Abraham, and across the great 
 river, the river Euphrates, to the cradle of mankind, 
 to the Eden of his holy Book, to the lost tribes of 
 Israel in their dispersion, thither surely he must fol- 
 low (most of all) the missionary work of Christ's 
 Apostles : must follow St. Thomas to Parthia, St. Peter 
 to Babylon, St. Bartholomew further still into the 
 very heart of India 1 . Such naturally, necessarily, al- 
 most inevitably, would have been the scheme of his- 
 tory which a Jewish Christian of that first age would 
 instinctively (if left to himself) have adopted. Asia 
 would be to him everything ; Europe nothing. 
 
 Not so St. Luke. As if the history of the future of 
 Christendom were all before him as an open scroll, 
 as if to his inspired eye Asia and its fortunes were 
 already fading, and the glory of Western Christendom 
 already dawning on his vision, all those labours of the 
 elder Apostles are passed over, Jerusalem itself for- 
 gotten, and he presses on with the youngest Apostle 
 on his western career of missionary conquest, as if 
 that were all in all. Surely we have here a convinc- 
 ing proof that the historian was powerfully overruled 
 by One who knew the future of His Church ! And 
 how thankful, how deeply thankful, may we be ! It 
 is almost as though St. Luke had been writing ex- 
 pressly for us western people ; as if he had foreknown 
 all, and for the sake of after ages had adopted our 
 western point of view and made it his own ! Thus 
 clearly do we see the guiding hand of Christ in these 
 later chapters of the Acts. In the palm of that Hand 
 1 Kuseb. Eccles. Hist. i. 13 ; iii. i ; v. 10.
 
 62 <Hht ^Uts of the 
 
 which led St. Paul westward from Antioch instead of 
 eastward, were the destinies of modern Christendom, 
 of Rome, of the great Anglo-Saxon Church, of the un- 
 born Churches of the Pacific Ocean, and of a New 
 World. 
 
 We have seen how Antioch became the centre and 
 metropolis of a Hellenist Church. We have seen how 
 its prophet-teachers were hurried, by what a modern 
 might call the force of circumstances, into the admis- 
 sion of uncircumcised Gentiles. Before they were 
 well aware of the immense consequences of what they 
 were doing, the Christians of Antioch found themselves 
 committed to a principle, of which none of Hebrew 
 race had ever dreamed, that the Kingdom of Heaven 
 was a world-wide kingdom, 'open to all believers.' 
 But already the unseen Lord had in St. Peter's vision 
 given His divine sanction to this principle. However 
 ' marvellous in their eyes,' it was ' the Lord's doing.' 
 
 Boldly the Christians of Antioch went forward in 
 the new career thus opened. Foremost among them 
 were some Greek-speaking Jews of Cyprus. How 
 wistfully would their eyes turn to their own island, 
 lying as it did within sight of the seaport of Antioch. 
 Among those blue hills seen from Seleucia they had 
 friends and kinsmen. Were they not calling to them 
 across the water ? 
 
 Should "they not send to them the glad tidings? 
 They will wait upon the Lord to know His will. 
 With fasting and solemn services of prayer they seek 
 for guidance. And not in vain. 
 
 Clear and distinct came the answer of the Holy 
 Ghost by the mouth of their prophets 1 . 'Yes, 
 
 1 This is.Chrysostom's explanation (5th Horn, in Tim.) 
 He quotes the passage in illustration of St. Paul's allusion
 
 "SEhx Jirst Jttiaefum to the nvtiks 63 
 
 separate me Barnabas and Saul for this work, where- 
 unto I have called them !' How Barnabas, himself 
 a Cypriote, would rejoice ! How Saul, his chosen 
 friend, would think of his own old home and kins- 
 folk, who lay beyond, within easy reach from Cyprus ! 
 And this then was what the vision in the Temple l 
 had meant : ' Depart ! I will send thee far hence unto 
 the Gentiles !' At last the time was come. Again 
 fasting and praying, the congregation met and ordained 
 the two men with imposition of the hands of the whole 
 Presbytery ; and the two Apostles (as they are now 
 for the first time called) 2 set forth. 
 
 And with them, as their deacon, they took Bar- 
 
 (l Tim. i. 18) to the similar prophesyings which accom- 
 panied Timothy's ordination. ' In those days,' he says, 
 ' nothing was done without divine direction. By prophesy- 
 ing they chose their priests. And when I say prophesying, 
 what do I mean ? I mean the Holy Ghost. For prophecy 
 relates to present things as well as future. It was by pro- 
 phecy that Saul was pointed out when lying hid among the 
 vessels of the Church. For God thus makes known His 
 will to His Saints. Those words then spoken were a pro- 
 phecy : " Separate me Paul and Barnabas," and so also was 
 Timothy selected.' 
 
 Chrysostom's explanation is confirmed by St. Peter's 
 expression in Act's i. 16. As the rejection of an Apostle is 
 there ascribed to the Holy Ghost, speaking by the mouth of 
 David, so here the selection of the two Apostles is ascribed 
 to the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of His Antioch 
 prophets. 
 
 That the Holy Ghost retains His personality when speak- 
 ing by the mouth of man, is shown by our Lord's words 
 (Mark xiii. n) : 'It is not ye that speak, but the Holy 
 Ghost : ' just as the evil spirit Legion retained his person- 
 ality when speaking by the mouth of his victim. The pro- 
 phecy, ' Separate me Barnabas and Paul,' was prefaced 
 doubtless as that of Agabus was (xxi. n): 'Thussaith the 
 Holy Ghost.' Compare also xx. 23, xxviii. 25, and xvi. 6, 7. 
 
 1 Acts xxii. 17-21. 2 Acts xiv. 4, 14.
 
 64 '(Ehe Qcts of the 
 
 nabas's near kinsman, John Mark, whom they had 
 brought probably from Jerusalem. 
 
 It was a tour of one or two years ; and three times 
 the special interposition of Christ, opening the door 
 to the uncircumcised Gentiles, was most signally 
 manifest. Christ's first great conquest over the Ro- 
 man Empire, which His Gospel was now invading, 
 was at Paphos, the capital of Cyprus, perhaps the most 
 heathen of all heathen cities. A message and an 
 invitation there reached the Apostles from the Roman 
 Proconsul to attend his Court. Nothing like this had 
 happened before. Sergius Paulus, a Roman of noble 
 family, was a mere Roman philosopher. From 
 curiosity he had listened to a Jewish impostor, Bar- 
 jesus, the magician. Hearing that two Rabbis of the 
 same race were visiting the island, he sends for them. 
 Bar-jesus, fearing exposure, jealous of the new-comers, 
 tries to prejudice the Governor against them. Then 
 Paul comes to the front, and transfixing the false pre- 
 tender with his inspired look, in the name of the 
 Messiah whom he dared deny strikes him blind in the 
 very presence of the Proconsul. Then turning to 
 Sergius Paulus he preaches Jesus, and the Roman 
 nobleman is numbered among the Lord's disciples. 
 Such was Christ's first victory, and it was won by the 
 younger Apostle, by Paul, and not by Barnabas. 
 Paul henceforth takes precedence in the narrative ; 
 and is called not by his Hebrew name, but by that 
 other Roman name, which as a citizen of the Empire 
 he had borne in his old home at Tarsus probably 
 from childhood. 
 
 Forsaken by John Mark why, we know not, one 
 who had put his hand to the plough ought not thus 
 to have turned back, the two Apostles now passed
 
 'iEhc cdffirst Jftbsion to the <&tntihs 65 
 
 over to the mainland, and pushed onward to the 
 Pisidian town of Antioch. To the synagogue on 
 the Sabbath-day the Apostles repaired, according to 
 their constant custom. And there St. Paul preached 
 his first recorded sermon. No Bible student can 
 fail to find in it the deepest interest. As he reads 
 it, the thought of St. Stephen must be ever in his 
 mind, in every sentence he will be reminded of 
 that inspired defence before the Sanhedrim. Truly 
 the Martyr's mantle had fallen on his persecutor ! 
 Nor can the thoughtful reader fail to discern in this 
 first sermon the very germ of St. Paul's Epistles, 
 that one characteristic thought, which runs through 
 St. Paul's Epistles, and is found in no other writer 
 of the New Testament, the connection of Christ's 
 resurrection with our justification, that ' He rose 
 again for our justification.' 
 
 The 'Jesus of Nazareth going about doing good, 
 and healing all,' was St. Peter's chief thought. Not 
 so St. Paul's. The Jesus he knew was the risen glori- 
 fied Jesus only, who had appeared to him on the road 
 to Damascus, and who that hour had saved him from 
 his sins ; the Resurrection and the justifying power 
 of that Resurrection was therefore emphatically the 
 Gospel of St. Paul ; what he knew by blessed ex- 
 perience, and what we too, we Gentiles of Europe, 
 may equally know by experience, that we have a living 
 Saviour behind the veil, this was his glad tidings. 
 
 On this first Sabbath his discourse made a profound 
 impression ; both Jews and Proselytes crowded round 
 him, and followed him to his lodging, beseeching that 
 they might hear the same words on the following 
 Sabbath. But on the following Sabbath what a scene 
 presented itself ! The synagogue was filled with 
 E
 
 66 Ike gUt* 0f tlw 
 
 Gentiles, for among them too Paul and Barnabas had 
 been labouring all through the week. The Jews were 
 angrily offended ; all their pride and jealousy were 
 excited. What part or lot in Israel's Messiah had 
 these uncircumcised Gentiles ? So now, as ever, 
 they turned round upon the Apostles, ' contradicting 
 and blaspheming,' and expelled them from their 
 synagogue. Bitter was the protest of the Apostles : 
 ' Since ye judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, 
 lo, we turn to the Gentiles !' 'And when the Gentiles 
 heard this they were glad, and glorified the word of 
 the Lord.' Thus a distinct Gentile Church was founded. 
 
 At Iconium the same thing happened. The Jews 
 rejected the Gospel, the Gentiles embraced it. Thus 
 wonderfully was Christ developing the Church of the 
 future. 
 
 But a third manifestation was yet needed. Driven 
 from Antioch and Iconium, the Apostles sought- refuge 
 among the half-civilized people of the hill-country of 
 Lycaonia. Here was no synagogue of the Jews. 
 
 One Jewish family Paul found. The Jewess Eunice 
 had married one of these Gentile mountaineers, and 
 was living there with her good mother Lois, and her 
 son, of whom we are to hear more hereafter. With 
 them, doubtless, the Apostles lodged. 
 
 And here, among these rude tribes, equally as in the 
 court of the Roman Governor of Cyprus, the Lord Jesus 
 was with them. The miraculous healing of a paralytic 
 man had so excited the superstitions of the crowd, that 
 they wouldfain have worshipped and offered sacrifices 
 to the Apostles, as though they were gods in human 
 form ; and were only stayed by the indignant protest of 
 St. Paul, when the meaning of their Lycaonian shout 
 was explained to him. Angrily and moodily the crowd
 
 \Che Jfirst gtisasion to tht t&tntihs 67 
 
 retired. And when the Jews of Antioch and Iconium 
 arrived in pursuit of the Apostles, they found no diffi- 
 culty in turning the fickle people against them ; calum- 
 niating them doubtless, as their nation had calumniated 
 the Lord Himself, ascribing His mighty works to the 
 powers of darkness. With that rapid revulsion of 
 feeling and of passion, which our missionaries know 
 so well among the heathen, they set upon them, and 
 stoned Paul on the spot ; dragging him, bruised and 
 stunned, outside the city walls, and leaving him to die. 
 
 But not so would the Lord forsake His servant. 
 When the crowd dispersed and the converts gathered 
 round him, he rose and was able to walk into the city, 
 and go forward the next day on his journey with Bar- 
 nabas. His resting place was Derbe. His Jewish 
 enemies, thinking him dead, had abandoned their pur- 
 suit. At Derbe he made many disciples, and stayed 
 long enough to regain his strength, and allow time for 
 the persecution to subside. He was now not far 
 from the mountain passes which led down into Cilicia 
 and to his native Tarsus. But ' the care of the 
 Churches which he had founded forbade him to seek 
 rest.' He and Barnabas must return, and in Lystra, 
 Iconium, and Antioch, confirm the souls of their con- 
 verts, and strengthen them to bear those tribulations 
 through which ' we must enter the Kingdom of God.' 
 Moreover, these infant Churches needed organization. 
 We read how the two Apostles appointed Presbyters 
 for each Congregation ; and then with fasting and 
 prayer ' commended them to the Lord on whom they 
 had believed.' 
 
 Returning by sea to the Syrian Antioch, the head- 
 quarters now of the Gentile Church, they related all that 
 they had done, and how God had worked with them, 
 and had opened to the Gentiles a door of faith.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ^ht Jerusalem Council 
 
 ^pHESE facts related by the two Apostles on their 
 J- return, spoke to the conscience of the Antioch 
 Church more eloquently than any argument. Not 
 human wisdom, but the finger of God had broken 
 down for ever the barrier between Jew and Gentile. 
 The Gospel of Christ had invaded the Roman Empire, 
 and had there won victories such as the Jerusalem 
 Church could not parallel. But ere the Gospel 
 could pursue further its majestic march towards 
 Rome, a vital question must needs be determined. 
 Hitherto the word Church had been used in the 
 singular number only, it is so in all the earlier chap- 
 ters of the Acts 1 : the Church of the elder Apostles 
 whose centre was Jerusalem. 
 
 Now, as we enter on St. Paul's labours, and in all 
 the succeeding chapters, we have the word in the plural 
 number, ' the Churches of Christ.' Did Christ mean 
 His Church to be one or many ? And if one, as His 
 words on earth ever implied, then one in what sense ? 
 One as having one earthly centre ? Or one as having 
 one heavenly centre? A vital question. And here, 
 divesting ourselves of all that the centuries have 
 taught us, can we wonder that many clung to the 
 
 1 It is not until the first missionary journey of St. Paul 
 that the plural is used. All the best MSS. have the singular 
 in Acts ix. 31.
 
 JJwttsstlem dlonndl 69 
 
 inotion of an earthly centre? Can we wonder that 
 those who from childhood had looked upon Mount 
 Zion as the Messiah's destined throne, to which the 
 redeemed from every land were to come with songs 1 , 
 the joy of the whole earth 2 , still clung to the idea that 
 this was meant to be the Church's centre ? that 
 it was by incorporation with God's Israel that the 
 Gentiles were to be saved ? True, at Cassarea, and at 
 Antioch, and now in the cities of Asia Minor, a door 
 had been opened to the Gentiles ; but surely these 
 distant congregations were all to subordinate them- 
 selves, affiliate themselves, to the Mother Church which 
 Christ Himself had founded, else the unity of Christ's 
 Church would be broken. 
 
 We can hardly wonder that numbers of the original 
 Hebrew Christians, drawn largely as they were from 
 the ranks of the Pharisees, thus reasoned. Had St. 
 Paul made this sufficiently plain to his converts, they 
 asked with some jealousy ? A door of faith had been 
 opened to them, that they could not deny ; to have 
 refused them admission to Baptism would have been 
 to fight against God's Providence. But being thus 
 admitted they must be circumcised, and conform to 
 the law of God's ancient people. Had not Christ 
 Himself said, He came not to destroy but to fulfil the 
 Law? 
 
 So reasoned the Christian Pharisees who came down 
 from Jerusalem to Antioch soon after the return of 
 Paul and Barnabas. And what was Paul's answer ? 
 Such was not the Gospel he had preached. He did 
 not consider himself the Apostle of the Jerusalem 
 Church. He was the Apostle of Christ in Heaven. 
 Therefore, like St. Stephen before him, he had 
 1 Isa. li. II. 2 Ps. xlviii. 2.
 
 70 me 3Uts of 
 
 proclaimed that not this place, nor that place, but 
 Heaven was God's throne, and earth His footstool ; 
 that Christ's Church needed no earthly temple for 
 her centre ; that her centre was in Heaven ; that 
 while she held fast by her Divine Head she was 
 essentially one, and needed no other unity. One Lord, 
 one Faith, one Baptism, but many earthly taber- 
 nacles : one flock under one Shepherd, but many 
 folds 1 . 
 
 Such was St. Paul's doctrine ; and such too was the 
 belief of the Christians at Antioch. Their Church had 
 not been founded by any of the Apostles. They felt 
 themselves to be entirely independent of the Hebrew 
 Church at Jerusalem ; bound to them by their 
 common faith, by the closest bonds of love, as their 
 contributions during the famine showed, but stand- 
 ing to them in the relation of an independent equality. 
 Therefore it had never occurred to them to oblige 
 their Gentile members to conform to the Mosaic Law, 
 or to observe the hours and days of Jewish worship, 
 as the Church at Jerusalem continued to do. 
 
 But this peace and harmony at Antioch was destined 
 to be disturbed by a fierce and bitter controversy ; a 
 controversy which for years to come was to divide 
 the Church of Christ into two hostile camps ; a con- 
 troversy which infused an element of bitterness into 
 nearly all the Epistles of St. Paul ; a controversy 
 which was only ended by the downfall of Jerusalem. 
 So untrue is it that the days of primitive Christianity 
 were days of peace and unity, and that only in these 
 latter days has the Church been divided ! 
 
 1 The reader need hardly be reminded that in John x. 
 1 6, ' one fold ' is a mistranslation. It should be ' one 
 flock.'
 
 TChe Jerusalem Comtcil 71 
 
 We are now to trace the first beginning of the 
 schism. 
 
 In these days of captious criticism delighting to 
 lower what is sacred there have not been wanting 
 commentators who would fain persuade us that this 
 schism divided even the Apostles themselves, that 
 on one side there were ranged Paul and Barnabas, 
 and on the other James and the Apostles of the 
 circumcision. How entirely untrue this is will best 
 appear from a careful examination of St. Luke's narra- 
 tive, with the help of the side-light which St. Paul's 
 account of the same events in the 2d chapter of 
 Galatians casts upon it. 
 
 ' Certain men,' St. Luke tells us, ' came down from 
 Judea ' to Antioch, and began to teach the brethren 
 that except they were circumcised after the manner 
 of Moses they could not be saved. 
 
 Who were these men ? Had they been sent by the 
 Apostles at Jerusalem? No; the Apostles themselves 
 soon after speak of them as ' men to whom we gave 
 no such commandment' 1 . St. Paul does not scruple 
 to call them ' false brethren' 2 . And St. Luke is careful 
 to explain how they came by their rigid notions : they 
 were of the sect of the Pharisees, he tells us (xv. 5), 
 who in embracing Christianity had not laid aside 
 their Pharisaism. 
 
 Such were the men who came to Antioch, troubling 
 the peace of the Church with their false teaching. 
 The 'dissension and disputation' which thus arose 
 led the Antioch Christians into much perplexity. 
 
 A ' revelation,' vouchsafed either to St. Paul or to 
 the prophets of the congregation (Gal. ii. 2), deter- 
 mined them to lay the matter before the Apostles and 
 1 Acts xv. 24. * Gal. ii. 4.
 
 Wit gUts of the Qiposths 
 
 Presbyters of Jerusalem. A deputation was appointed, 
 Paul and Barnabas being the leading members, and 
 Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile convert, among their 
 companions. The Church set them on the way, so 
 commending them after their manner to the grace of 
 God. They travelled by the coast road through 
 Phoenicia and Samaria, publishing as they went the 
 glad tidings of the extension of the Church in Asia 
 Minor. 
 
 At Jerusalem the whole Church assembled to receive 
 them, and listened with attention to their account how 
 God had blessed their missionary efforts among the 
 Gentiles. The Pharisaic party protested that the new 
 converts ought to be circumcised ; this raised the 
 whole question. The Apostles and Presbyters of 
 Jerusalem did not take upon themselves to decide the 
 question authoritatively, but convened a meeting 1 
 ' to consider of this matter.' Peter was the first to 
 speak. He reminded them how manifestly, some 
 ten years before, God's blessing had rested on the 
 conversion of the uncircumcised Gentile Cornelius 
 and his household, how God had sealed it with 
 the Holy Ghost, showing that they must not regard 
 as unclean those whom faith in Christ had cleansed. 
 Therefore if they began now to require of Gentiles 
 a fulfilment of that law which neither they nor 
 their fathers had ever been able to fulfil, it was 
 simply a tempting of God, and a mistrust of the free 
 
 1 That this Council included the laity is clear ; for though 
 according to the best MSS. the decree ran in the name of 
 the Apostles and Presbyters only, yet the whole multitude is 
 spoken of in the I2th verse, and in the 22d the whole Church 
 is mentioned as taking part in the consultation with the 
 Apostles and Presbyters.
 
 Jerusalem GTomtdl 73 
 
 grace of Christ, which alone could save either Jew or 
 Gentile. 
 
 Thus St. Peter gave his opinion clearly against the 
 Pharisees, and in favour of the Gentile party. Next, 
 amid general silence, Paul and Barnabas gave an 
 account of their mission, laying stress on the miracles 
 which the Lord had enabled them to work a clear 
 proof that the Holy Ghost had been with them. The 
 blinding of Elymas, the signs and wonders at Iconium, 
 the cure of the paralytic at Lystra, were doubtless 
 cited as proofs of the divine approval. It remained 
 for the president to sum up. James the Just declared 
 his agreement with Peter, appealing to the prophet 
 Amos, whose words showed that the promised restora- 
 tion of the Tabernacle of David found its true fulfil- 
 ment in this conversion of the Gentiles. Wherefore it 
 ought to be freely accepted as the predestined purpose 
 of God ; and the Gentiles ought not to be troubled 
 with any Jewish obligations, except such as were 
 plainly essential, as safeguards against idolatry and 
 its accompanying licentiousness. For such elemen- 
 tary restrictions the teaching of the Synagogues of 
 the Dispersion had abundantly prepared the Gentile 
 world 1 ; and without them the Jewish and Gentile 
 Christians could not have taken their meals in 
 common. 
 
 From the Epistle to the Galatians it would appear 
 that this public conference had been preceded by 
 private interviews between St. Paul and the three 
 leading Apostles of Jerusalem, in which the latter 
 pledged themselves to a friendly partition of labour, 
 that Peter, James, and John should henceforth address 
 themselves to the Israelites, and Paul and Barnabas to 
 1 See Appendix, chap. i. p. 138.
 
 74 Ifte gtcte of the Qpostlts 
 
 the Gentiles, with one reservation, to which St. Paul 
 cordially agreed, that the Gentiles should still be 
 exhorted to minister to the wants of the Jerusalem 
 Church. 
 
 Hence the perfect harmony and unanimity of all 
 the Apostles in the public conference. The decree 
 ran in the name of the Apostles and Presbyters, 
 brethren 1 , to their Gentile brethren of Antioch, Syria, 
 and Cilicia : strongly commending to them their 
 beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who had hazarded 
 their lives for Christ ; and in the name of the Holy 
 Ghost decreeing that no Jewish obligation need rest 
 upon them, save only to abstain from the feasts and 
 licentiousness of the Heathen temples. 
 
 How needful it was thus to assert the perfect accord 
 of the elder Apostles with Paul and Barnabas appears 
 only too plainly from the Epistles of St. Paul, in which 
 he is ever alluding to the wicked attempts of the 
 Judaizers to represent them as heads of opposite 
 factions. 
 
 The fact that the decree is addressed to the Churches 
 of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia by name, seems to show 
 that it was drawn up to meet a special difficulty affect- 
 ing special Churches, and was not meant to be of 
 universal obligation. With this agrees the fact that 
 St. Paul in writing to other Churches never alludes 
 to it ; and further, in his letter to the Corinthians 
 (i Cor. x. 27) and in that to the Romans (xiv. 2), he 
 speaks of one of its rules (about eating things offered 
 to idols) as an open question, to be answered by 
 each man's conscience on principles of evangelical 
 expediency. 
 
 i The best MSS. read 'the Apostles and Presbyters, 
 brethren.'
 
 "Che Jerusalem Cxrancil 75 
 
 Two men gifted with prophecy belonging to the 
 Hebrew Church were chosen by the whole body of 
 Jerusalem Christians to return with the Antioch depu- 
 tation to enforce the purport of the decree by word of 
 mouth. One of them, Silas, became St. Paul's com- 
 panion on his second journey. Of the other, Judas 
 Barsabas, we hear no more. 
 
 But before the Apostle set forth on that great mis- 
 sion which brought the Gospel into Europe, two pain- 
 ful scenes were witnessed at Antioch, one of which 
 belongs properly to this chapter. 
 
 St. Peter appears to have repaired to Antioch soon 
 after the Council. On arriving there, St. Paul tells us, 
 in his Epistle to the Galatians, he lived on friendly 
 terms with the Gentile converts. But on the arrival 
 of certain men from James, the head of the Jerusalem 
 Church, men, it would appear, who retained their old 
 Jewish prejudices, Peter, afraid of giving them offence, 
 withdrew from the society of the Gentiles, and would 
 eat with them no longer. Others, too, even Barnabas, 
 followed his example. St. Paul saw at once that this 
 was undoing all the good effected by the decree of the 
 Council ; and therefore publicly expostulated with 
 Peter, censuring his conduct strongly. ' When I saw,' 
 he writes to the Galatians, ' that they were diverging 
 from the straight path of the Gospel truth, I said to 
 Peter before all, If you, born and bred a Jew, dis- 
 card Jewish customs, how unreasonable to impose 
 them on Gentiles 1 ! ' 
 
 What the effect on St. Peter was we are not told ; 
 enough for us to know that afterwards in his Epistle 
 we find St. Peter speaking of him who had thus re- 
 proved him as ' our beloved brother Paul ;' and of 
 i Gal. ii. 14.
 
 76 ^Lht ^Uts of the 
 
 1 the wisdom given unto him ;' enough to know that if 
 for the moment they were divided, yet in their deaths 
 they were not divided, that, side by side on the Ostian 
 way according to some, certainly in the same great 
 Neronian persecution, they suffered for the sake of 
 their dear Lord. God's grace may not save His 
 saints from falling, but most surely they will fall to 
 rise again the stronger. So it was with St. Peter and 
 St. Paul. 
 
 And such, too, as we shall see in the next chapter, 
 was the result of the second painful difference between 
 God's saints at Antioch.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Christ kabinjj gjis Qyosth into (Extrape 
 
 HOW often, in studying the biography of God's 
 saints, may we perceive that what at the mo- 
 ment seemed a check and disappointment in their 
 career, was really the clearing away of what would 
 have proved a hindrance ! 
 
 Bitterly at the time may St. Paul have regretted 
 that, just when he seemed most to need the sympathy 
 and help of his old friend Barnabas, his com- 
 panionship was denied him ! But would Barnabas 
 have proved a really wise and helpful associate in the 
 mission to the far West on which the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles was now entering ? If Paul had put Jehu's 
 question 1 to him, ' Is thine heart right, as my heart is 
 with thy heart ' in this matter ? could his friend have 
 honestly given him his hand, and said, ' It is ' ? Have 
 we not seen that in the dispute with the Judaizers 
 Barnabas had been ' carried away with their dis- 
 simulation'? Whether this was from narrowness of 
 view or from want of moral courage, clearly his com- 
 panionship would have embarrassed Paul in the 
 organization of the Gentile Churches. And thus again 
 and again, in the history of Christ's Church, evil has 
 been overruled for good. But in itself the difference 
 which parted them was evil. It thus arose : Bar- 
 nabas wished again to take as their travelling com- 
 1 2 Kings x. 15.
 
 78 <!&ht glcte of 
 
 panion his cousin, John Mark. Paul disapproved. 
 He had deserted them on their former tour. ' The 
 contention was so sharp between the two Apostles 
 that they departed asunder one from the other.' 
 Barnabas with Mark sailed to visit the Churches of 
 his native Cyprus. Paul chose as his companion the 
 prophet Silas 1 . And so they parted. Six years after- 
 wards, writing to the Corinthians 2 , St. Paul mentions 
 Barnabas as an example of Christian self-denial. 
 Eleven years afterwards this same John Mark was 
 Paul's fellow-labourer and comforter in his captivity 
 at Rome 3 . If they parted in bitterness for a season, 
 it was to come together again in joy. 
 
 On this second most eventful journey of the 
 Apostle we now enter. Little did he and Silas know 
 when they set forth whither the guiding hand of 
 Christ would lead them. The intention of the Apostle 
 was simply to go again and visit the Churches he had 
 founded, and see how they fared. Amid the prayers 
 and blessings of the Antioch Christians commended 
 by the brethren to the grace of God he set forth 
 with his chosen companion by the great Roman road 
 across the plain of Cilicia, pausing doubtless in his 
 old home at Tarsus, and so through the narrow defile 
 and over the passes of Mount Taurus into the high 
 plain of Derbe and Lystra. 
 
 At Lystra the temple of Jupiter outside the city 
 gate would remind him of his former visit ; to Silas 
 he might point out the spot whither they had dragged 
 his bruised body. Another companion he would now 
 
 i 1 From the narrative of the imprisonment at Philippi, it 
 has been inferred by Dean Howson that Silas was a Roman 
 citizen like St. Paul. 
 
 a I Cor. ix. 6. 3 Philem. 24 ; Col. iv. 10.
 
 Christ leading gi* Qyazth into (gmoyt 79 
 
 ' have to go forth with him.' The youthful Timothy 
 seems to have won the heart and love of the Apostle. 
 His mother was a Jewess, but his father a Gentile, 
 and Timothy uncircumcised. At first it may seem 
 strange that Paul should circumcise him when he had 
 so resolutely refused to circumcise Titus ; and yet on 
 second thoughts it is full of instruction. 
 
 What St. Paul had contended for at Antioch and 
 in the Jerusalem Council was, that circumcision was a 
 thing in itself indifferent, and in things indifferent 
 expediency is the highest principle. Therefore to the 
 Gentiles of Antioch he became as a Gentile, refusing 
 to circumcise Titus, that he might gain the Gentiles ; 
 to the Jews of Asia Minor he became as a Jew, cir- 
 cumcising Timothy that he might so win admission 
 for him into their synagogues 1 . 
 
 Whether Timothy was ordained now or later we 
 cannot be sure. If now, then the hands laid upon 
 him were the hands of those Presbyters whom Paul 
 had ordained before in Lystra and Iconium, and the 
 prophecies accompanying his ordination, of which the 
 Apostle also reminds him in his last letter, may have 
 been some utterances of the Holy Spirit by the mouth 
 of the prophet Silas promising a blessing on his 
 ministry. 
 
 Leaving Lycaonia the three Christian missionaries 
 seem to have followed the Roman military road, still 
 used by the Turkish caravans, through Phrygia and 
 the Roman province of Galatia, where they were re- 
 ceived ' as angels of God ' by that fickle Celtic race. 
 Detained by sickness 2 , possibly in Ancyra, their 
 
 1 i Cor. ix. 20. 
 
 2 ' By reason of my bodily sickness ' is the correct trans- 
 lation of Gal. iv. 13.
 
 8o llht &ti& of tht 
 
 capital, Paul preached Christ to them. There was 
 nothing they would not do for him. They would have 
 ' plucked out their eyes and given them ' to him. From 
 Galatia they journeyed on towards the yEgean Sea. 
 From the high chalk downs of Mysia they saw the 
 populous plain of the Asian province on their left, 
 with its seven great cities destined one day to be 
 known as the Seven Churches ; should they descend 
 into those cities, and there preach their Gospel ? No ! 
 they were mysteriously hindered by the unseen hand 
 that was guiding them. Should they turn to the 
 right, then, into Bithynia? They essayed to do so, 
 but the Spirit of Jesus 1 suffered them not. Through 
 the gift of prophetic utterance with which Silas was 
 endowed 2 , possibly, or perhaps by a vision vouchsafed 
 to Paul, as in the sequel, it was made plain to them 
 that such was not Christ's will. One course, and one 
 course only, Christ left open to them, and that wasy<?r- 
 ward: forward to the beach of that narrow strait which 
 divides the world of Asia from the world of Europe. 
 
 What could this guiding hand intend ? Were these 
 three servants of Christ really to cross over and pro- 
 claim His holy Name to the Greeks of Europe? 
 Christ left them not in doubt. Resting by the shore, 
 in the visions of the night Paul saw a man of Mace- 
 donia praying him and saying, ' Come over into 
 Macedonia and help us !' 
 
 And St. Luke continues, ' And after Paul had seen 
 the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into 
 Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had 
 called us for to preach the Gospel unto them.' We 
 must note the change of pronoun ; ' they ' no longer, 
 
 1 Such is the reading of all the oldest MSS. in Acts xvi. 7. 
 * Acts xv. 32.
 
 Christ leasing ^)is Apostle into (Europe 81 
 
 but 'we :' 'we endeavoured.' St. Luke himself there- 
 fore had here joined them 1 . 
 
 It has been suggested 2 that the physician Luke may 
 have joined St. Paul because of his recent sickness. 
 How faithfully he attended him in all his future 
 journeyings and captivities (with one brief interval) 
 we know from the Epistles. At Troas they found a 
 ship, and with a favouring wind 3 set sail for the coast 
 of Europe. 
 
 The narrative henceforth has all the vividness and 
 circumstantiality of, what in fact it is, a traveller's 
 journal. And yet it is to us the Word of God. 'What 
 makes it this to me ? ' is a question that every reader 
 should ask himself. And the more carefully we read 
 the more clearly will come forth the answer : This 
 writer, whose pages we are turning over, writes invari- 
 ably as one who is conscious that underneath the 
 daily occurrences which he is so simply and plainly 
 recording in his journal, there lies an ever-growing pur- 
 pose; and as one, moreover, who was enabled to dis- 
 cern, in what to another would have seemed the mere 
 chances of travel, the clear directions of a personal 
 Providence of Christ behind the veil. Our familiar- 
 ity from childhood with these inspired narratives has 
 in some measure educated us to have the same dis- 
 cernment ; but we must not forget that in St. Luke 
 it was a new thing, a lesson he had never learned in 
 his youth, a gift given him at a certain date in his 
 life which he could well remember, an inspiration. 
 
 1 This is pointed out by Irenaeus (iii. 14. i). 
 
 2 By Wieseler. 
 
 3 This is implied in the Greek word, ' they ran before the 
 wind,' and explains how they accomplished the distance 
 from Troas to Philippi in two days ; in Acts xx. 6 we read 
 that it took five days. 
 
 F
 
 82 t&ht Uis x>f the 
 
 If in reading his journal we note well what he omits, 
 and what he tells, and his manner of telling it, we 
 shall learn the lesson which God intends us to learn, 
 how to discern His Providence in the daily occur- 
 rences of life. 
 
 We must observe then carefully these phrases, 
 ' they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost,' ' they as- 
 sayed to go, but were not suffered,' ' they assuredly 
 gathered that the Lord called them.' Even the favour- 
 ing wind to the shores of Europe, in contrast to the 
 previous checks, is to be noticed. 
 
 The great ' Egnatian way ' along which they were 
 now travelling, teeming with Roman troops and Roman 
 merchandise ; the new sights and sounds that now met 
 them, all bespeaking greater nearness to Rome ; the 
 historical associations of Philippi, whose elder citizens 
 had heard their fathers speak of the famous battle 
 which had established the Empire ; the city itself in 
 constitution a miniature of Rome 1 , ruled by its Duum- 
 virs or Praetors ; Latin, not Greek, their official lan- 
 guage ; all this, so sure to have found_ place in a 
 modern journal, is omitted by St. Luke. 
 
 But we have most carefully recorded the Proseucha 
 or Jewish oratory, by the river-side outside the city 
 walls ; how St. Paul there spoke of the Messiah ; how 
 it pleased the Messiah to 'open the heart' of one 
 of his listeners, so that 'she attended to the things 
 which were spoken,' her conversion ascribed, we ob- 
 serve, not to Paul, but directly to Christ ; how she was 
 baptized with all her household, and in her gratitude 
 humbly pressed her teachers to make her house their 
 home ; how the second convert of Europe was also a 
 woman, of far humbler rank, a poor slave girl, a vagrant 
 1 All military colonies were modelled after Rome.
 
 Christ leading g)is Jtpostk into (Exmxp* 83 
 
 fortune-teller of the market-place, whose crazed utter- 
 ances were nevertheless so overruled as to testify to 
 the divine mission of the Christian strangers ; how 
 He whose word brought peace to the Gadarene de- 
 moniac, brought peace, too, to this poor Thracian ; 
 how her enraged masters dragged Paul and Silas 
 before the Praetors, and how the Praetors, ignorant of 
 their citizenship, bade the lictors strip and scourge 
 them, and then thrust them, all bleeding as they were, 
 into the cold damp underground cell of the dungeon ; 
 how at midnight, as they prayed and sang praises 
 unto God, their fellow-prisoners listening, ' the Lord 
 looked down from His sanctuary, out of Heaven did 
 the Lord behold the earth, that He might hear the 
 mournings of such as are in captivity, and deliver the 
 children appointed unto death ;' how 'when they cried 
 unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivered them 
 out of their distress ; for He brought them out of 
 darkness, and out of the shadow of death, and brake 
 their bonds asunder ;' how, ere their prayer was ended, 
 the answer came in the earthquake, and the prison 
 walls rocked, and the gates swung open, and the 
 staples of the prisoners' chains fell from the walls ; 
 and the effect of this on the Roman gaoler, calling 
 for a light, and leaping down into the cell, trembling 
 and falling on his knees before Paul and Silas, ask- 
 ing as he led them out, ' Sirs, what must I do to 
 be saved ? ' so entirely did he feel that he was in the 
 power of that unknown God who could thus hear 
 and answer prayer ; and their reply, ' Believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy 
 house,' saved not from the earthquake only, but 
 saved from that impending wrath to come, of which 
 the whole Roman Empire at this time seems to have
 
 84 <3nw 3Ute at 
 
 been dimly conscious: all this is told, most vividly 
 told, by St. Luke, and it is God's word to us, enabling 
 us to see His unseen hand in all that befalls us, in 
 what we call the ordinary occurrences of our life. 
 
 For it behoves us to note that there was nothing 
 in all this extraordinary. Men's journeyings are 
 still controlled by unforeseen hindrances, our course 
 is still shaped by circumstances, the words of the 
 preacher still reach the heart, deep impressions are 
 still made, it may be by the word spoken, it may be 
 by the storm or earthquake ; Christ is now as cer- 
 tainly as then, through all these things, directing and 
 overruling the career of His servants and His Church 
 on earth. 
 
 To open our eyes thus to read the vision of our lives 
 and of the times in which we live, is surely the divine 
 purpose of this narrative.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 <St. $ttttl in (Stem Antichrist anb the 
 
 ALONG the great Roman road that led through 
 the Macedonian cities, the unseen hand of 
 Christ was now drawing the Gospel further and fur- 
 ther away from what we call the Bible lands, nearer 
 to the centre of the then civilized world, nearer to 
 Rome, nearer therefore to the great stream of the 
 world's history, with which in a few generations it was 
 to mingle, with consequences which God alone fore- 
 knew. 
 
 From Philippi demanding an apology from the 
 Prsetors for the violence they had done them, which 
 they readily accorded when they found that they were 
 Roman citizens, Paul and Silas, with their young 
 companion, journeyed on a hundred miles or more 
 to Thessalonica, there to find that their worst 
 enemies were by no means the civil magistrates, but 
 their own countrymen. Three weeks or^Jy had they 
 been in the place when the Jews, gathering a com- 
 pany ' of the baser sort,' 'set all the city on an uproar,' 
 and assaulting the house where Paul and Silas lodged, 
 dragged their host Jason before the magistrates 1 , who 
 
 1 Thessalonica, being a 'free city,' and not a 'colony,' 
 retained its native magistracy. St. Luke as usual shows his 
 minute accuracy, calling them Politarchs. See Appendix, 
 P- 153-
 
 86 t&ht 3Ute ot the Apostles 
 
 took bail of Jason, and so allayed the tumult. Not 
 content, the baffled Jews pursued the Apostle to 
 Berea, and stirring up the people there against him 
 drove him onward into Greece. 
 
 Thus was St Paul's route overruled and changed ; 
 not onward now to Rome, that must be postponed ; 
 the recent tumults in the capital, which had just led 
 Claudius to expel the Jews, made this no fitting time 
 for St. Paul's mission there; he is turned aside 
 therefore, and finds himself at Athens, confronted 
 with the world's keenest intellects in the heart of 
 Greece. 
 
 A crowd of thoughts rush into the mind at the 
 mention of Athens ; sacred and profane history seem 
 to be brought into such startling contact. But to 
 indulge such thoughts would contribute nothing to 
 the right understanding of the simple narrative before 
 us. Nor was the Athens, which St. Paul visited, the 
 Athens of our Greek History. Greece, or rather 
 Achaia, to give it the name it now bore, was a mere 
 province of the Roman Empire ; Corinth its capital ; 
 Athens frequented only for the sake of its schools of 
 philosophy. Rome sent her youths to study at 
 Athens as we send ours to Oxford or Cambridge. 
 But politically the city was of no importance ; and 
 St. Paul's brief sojourn there, though full of vivid 
 interest, is but an episode, as it were, in what may be 
 called his spiritual invasion of the Roman Empire. 
 
 As he traversed the streets of Athens his eager 
 spirit was stirred within him by the Pagan sights 
 that met his eye on every side. No city of the 
 Empire was so crowded with statuary. The Greek 
 religion, gratifying a highly cultivated taste by its 
 sculpture, and feeding the national love of excitement
 
 <St. $vml in <&utct 87 
 
 by its pageantry, was altogether unconnected with 
 morality ; and St. Paul was simply shocked by it. 
 In the market-place, where the Athenians resorted 
 daily to hear the news and enjoy their unrivalled 
 climate, the Apostle spoke earnestly, and was soon 
 surrounded by the students eager to hear what the 
 Eastern stranger had to say. Catching from his 
 mouth the often repeated words 'Jesus' and ' Resurrec- 
 tion,' they thought these were new divinities that he 
 was trying to introduce. And though many laughed 
 there was a real curiosity to hear him ; and that they 
 might do so the more conveniently they adjourned 
 from the market to the adjoining amphitheatre of 
 stone seats, where the court of Areopagus used to hold 
 its sittings in the open air. We must not suppose 
 that the court was now sitting, though some of the 
 Areopagites were among the listeners. St. Paul's 
 speech was followed by no sentence, nor is it like the 
 defence of one upon his trial. He had been asked to 
 give a public address, and he does so with a skill and 
 with an eloquence which have excited the admiration 
 of our greatest orators. Doubtless what St. Luke 
 gives us is but a brief abstract, but every word sug- 
 gests the power of the original. He begins with his 
 characteristic courtesy 1 , seeking some common ground 
 with his hearers, whereon he may build up his great 
 argument. It is difficult to say which is most admir- 
 able, the persuasiveness with which he speaks, or the 
 courage with which he sets before them the falseness 
 of their creature-worship, of their idolatry, of their 
 1 The reader need hardly be reminded that the word ren- 
 dered ' too superstitious ' ought to be translated 'scrupulously 
 religious,' being said in praise, as Chrysostom long ago 
 pointed out, citing it in illustration of St. Paul's own precept 
 in Col. iv. 5, 6. Horn. xi. in Coloss.
 
 88 Iht gUte xrf the Jtpxrstks 
 
 proud exclusiveness, and the certainty of a coming 
 judgment. 
 
 While Paul spoke of natural theology, and even of 
 a future judgment, they listened ; but when he ap- 
 proached the distinctive doctrine of the Gospel, that 
 this future Judge would be One whom God had 
 recently raised from the dead, they interrupted him, 
 and did not care to listen longer ; it was foolishness 
 to them. Some mocked, while others more civilly 
 said they would listen to the rest of what he had to 
 say some other time. A few, a very few, ' clave to 
 him,' and sought to hear more. But for the rest, the 
 whole tone and temper of the Athenians, intellectual 
 as they were, was too childish to understand the 
 earnestness of the inspired Hebrew man ; and St. 
 Paul went on to Corinth. And here in the Romanized 1 
 capital of Greece for a full year and a half he made 
 his home. 
 
 The period of six years on which we are now enter- 
 ng was perhaps the season of St. Paul's greatest 
 spiritual and intellectual exertion. Excepting only 
 the hurried visit to the Holy Land in A.D. 54, he spent 
 these years among the Greeks, Corinth and Ephesus 
 being his headquarters. To this period belong his 
 six greatest Epistles, the two to the Thessalonians, 
 the two to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Gala- 
 tians, and, greatest of all, that to the Romans. In 
 all of them there breathes a consciousness of the 
 grandeur of the work before him, a conviction that 
 here emphatically westward not eastward lay the 
 
 1 The old Greek Corinth had been shamefully destroyed 
 by Mummius two hundred years before. C. Julius Caesar 
 had refounded and rebuilt it ; and it was in St. Paul's time 
 altogether Roman.
 
 in 
 
 field of labour to which the Lord had called 
 him. 
 
 The side-light which these Epistles throw upon the 
 narrative of the Acts is invaluable. 
 
 It is indeed a privilege to be permitted at this crisis 
 of St. Paul's life thus to look into his very mind, and 
 see what thoughts most occupied him on finding him- 
 self for the first time in these great cities of the 
 Roman Empire. His two letters to the Thessalonians 
 were written in the early weeks of his sojourn at 
 Corinth. 
 
 We open them, and what do we find ? In the 
 midst of very great depression of spirits, we find his 
 thoughts ever recurring to the Second Advent of the 
 Lord Jesus ; and, as connected with it, he seems to 
 be thinking of the destiny of this great Roman Em- 
 pire, so powerful in its perfect organization for good 
 or evil ; and there is a third thought, he seems to 
 have now felt, more intensely than at any other period 
 of his life, the fearful wickedness the mystery of 
 iniquity of the Jews. Never in any other of his 
 writings do we meet with such an outburst of anger 
 against the Jews as that in the first Epistle : men 
 ' who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own pro- 
 phets, and have persecuted us, hateful to God, 
 enemies of mankind, doing all they could to hinder 
 the salvation of the Gentiles, filling up the measure 
 of their own sins, bringing down upon themselves the 
 wrath of God to the very uttermost.' 
 
 Of these things, and especially of the Second Advent, 
 he seems to have spoken freely at Thessalonica ; 
 ' Remember ye not,' he writes in his second letter, 
 ' that when I was yet with you, I told you these things.' 
 This explains, what might else have perplexed us in
 
 90 IJTIu JUts of the 
 
 St. Luke's narrative, the charge the Jews there brought 
 against him. They seem to have taken advantage of 
 what he had said of the royal state of the Messiah's 
 return, and twisted it into treason against the 
 Emperor. For when the magistrates asked what the 
 disturbance meant, the mob replied that Paul and 
 Silas were doing ' contrary to the decrees of Caesar,' 
 and were for setting up ' another King, one Jesus.' 
 
 Warned by such misrepresentations of the danger 
 of speaking freely of these subjects, he is careful in 
 his Epistle to veil his reference to them in that 
 enigmatical form which has so perplexed commen- 
 tators. 
 
 That the revelations vouchsafed to St. Paul at this 
 period are to have a further fulfilment in the latter 
 days we cannot doubt ; but that they were in the first 
 instance suggested, and to some extent fulfilled, by 
 the circumstances under which he was then living 
 must be clear to any one who realizes those circum- 
 stances. 
 
 For mark his words : 
 
 He speaks of a ' mystery of iniquity,' already work- 
 ing ; and he speaks of a restraining power which was 
 then (while he wrote) hindering the full consummation 
 of that great impiety. 
 
 Now remembering how the Jews of late had been 
 manifesting their ever increasing hostility to Christ's 
 Kingdom, pursuing the Apostle from city to city, inflam- 
 ing the populace against him, first at Thessalonica, 
 then at Berea, and now at Corinth ' opposing and blas- 
 pheming ' so malignantly that he shook his raiment, 
 saying ' Your blood be upon your own heads ;' remem- 
 bering all this, we can hardly fail to perceive that this 
 was the mystery of iniquity which the Apostle saw even
 
 Antichrist aiib the ^tstraincr 91 
 
 now developing itself, to culminate ere long in some 
 yet deadlier form of Antichrist in Jerusalem itself. 
 
 And meantime what would St. Paul most naturally 
 understand by the restraining power of his visions ? 
 
 Surely his recent experience would leave him in no 
 doubt. Though he could not fail to see how rapidly 
 the government of the Roman Empire was degener- 
 ating, still, again and again, he owed to it his safety. 
 At Philippi his appeal to his Roman citizenship had 
 been respected. At Thessalonica the forms of law 
 had held the Jews in check. Now at Corinth, when 
 they dragged him before the Proconsul, they were 
 denied even a hearing, and expelled ignominiously 
 from the Court. The conduct of the mob, falling on 
 the Jewish Elder, and with their blows helping the 
 lictors to eject him, shows how entirely they shared 
 Gallio's contempt for Jewish fanaticism 1 . 
 
 Fresh from such scenes as these, we cannot wonder 
 that St. Paul saw in these outbreaks of Jewish rancour 
 a foreshadowing of the Antichrist, and in the Roman 
 Government that ' restraining power,' which hindered 
 as yet its full development. Christ had assured him 
 it should be so in this very city of Corinth soon after 
 his arrival, in the visions of the night, He had appeared 
 to him, and promised that the malice of his persecu- 
 tors should be thus restrained ' Be not afraid,' He 
 said, 'but speak and hold not thy peace, for I am 
 with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, 
 for I have much people in this city.' 
 
 1 Gallio is described by his brother Seneca as one of 
 the most amiable and good-natured of men. St. Paul's 
 habitual deference to those in authority would contrast 
 favourably in his eyes with the turbulence of the Jews. See 
 Appendix, p. 153.
 
 92 l&ht gUts of the Apostles 
 
 As in the Temple at Jerusalem 1 fourteen years before, 
 so now in his lodging at Corinth, the Lord Jesus is 
 with His servant. But we must mark well the contrast 
 of his words : in the Temple, ' Get thee quickly out 
 of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony 
 concerning Me ;' now at Corinth, ' Speak and hold not 
 thy peace, for I have much people in this city.' 
 
 How wonderfully, how mysteriously, was Christ 
 fulfilling His purposes ! As the darkness of the ap- 
 proaching doom seemed more and more to gather over 
 the land of his forefathers, how clearly must St. Paul 
 have seen that the horizon westward was ever more 
 and more opening into light ! 
 
 Overpowering at times must have been the thought 
 that he, a poor earthen vessel, was charged with this 
 ministration of Glory : but no less inspiring that Voice 
 behind the Veil in these great cities of the Roman 
 Empire, ' Be not afraid, for I am with thee.' 
 
 1 Acts xxii. 1 8.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 (Organisation of the rtek (SLhmcchts 
 
 T ET us endeavour in this chapter to glean all that 
 -* ' we can about the organization of those Greek 
 Churches founded by St. Paul. In the case of Ephesus 
 we may trace the growth of the Christian congrega- 
 tion very clearly by the help of St. Luke's narrative. 
 
 Leaving Corinth in the spring of A.D. 54, with 
 Aquila and Priscilla, St. Paul had paid a hurried visit 
 to Ephesus, and had spoken with such effect in the 
 Jewish synagogue that they pressed him to stay 
 among them. But this he could not then do. Anxious 
 to keep the approaching feast of Pentecost at Jeru- 
 salem possibly in connection with his vow at Cen- 
 chrea 1 , he bade them farewell, promising that if God 
 permitted he would soon return to them. Accordingly, 
 
 1 The subject of St. Paul's vow (for that it was St. Paul's 
 and not Aquila's, is now generally agreed) is full of difficulty. 
 Modern commentators have added little to what Home 
 wrote half a century ago : 
 
 ' Similar to the Nazarite vow was the vow frequently 
 made by devout Jews on their recovery from sickness, or 
 deliverance from danger or distress ; who, for thirty days 
 before they offered sacrifices, abstained from wine and shaved 
 the hair of their head. This usage illustrates the conduct of 
 Paul as related in Acts xviii. 1 8. The Apostle, in conse- 
 quence of a providential deliverance from some imminent 
 peril, not recorded by the sacred writer, bound himself by 
 a vow which the law in this case required him to pay at 
 Jerusalem. In consequence of this transaction Luke relates 
 that he shaved his head ' [shaved is the word in xxi. 24, but 
 not here. Paul did not shave, but cut short his hair,] ' at
 
 94 ^h* 2Vrts of the 
 
 after keeping the feast at Jerusalem, and spending a 
 few weeks at Antioch, he returned to Ephesus, and 
 found that during his three or four months' absence a 
 good beginning had been made. His friends Aquila 
 and Priscilla, whom he had left at Ephesus, had not 
 been idle. In their weekly attendance at the synagogue 
 they had been charmed and attracted, like many others, 
 by the fervid eloquence of a Rabbi, named Apollos, 
 who had lately arrived from Alexandria. Years ago, 
 when 'Jerusalem and all Judea' were going forth 
 into the wilderness to listen to the Baptist's proclama- 
 tion that the Messiah, who should ' baptize with fire 
 and the Holy Ghost,' might be recognised in Jesus of 
 Nazareth, Apollos seems to have been of the number ; 
 but of the subsequent events of Christ's ministry and 
 death, and resurrection, he seems to have known but 
 little, except such hearsay as had reached Alexandria ; 
 
 Cenchrea. Paul in his intended journey afterwards to Judea, 
 says, he must needs go to Jerusalem, for the laws respecting 
 the Nazarite's vow required the person who had entered into 
 this engagement, if he were in a foreign country when he first 
 laid himself under this solemn obligation, to go up to Jeru- 
 salem to accomplish it. Here several appointed sacrifices 
 were offered, and a certain course of purifications and re- 
 ligious observances was prescribed and performed. This 
 appears from another passage in the same sacred writer (Acts 
 xxi. 23-27). Josephus (Wars, ii. 15. i) presents us with an 
 instance parallel to this of Paul, in the person of Bernice, who 
 went to Jerusalem, in order to perform a vow which she had 
 made to God.' Home's Introd. to the Study of Scripture. 
 
 N.B. The words about the Feast in xviii. 21. are absent 
 from the oldest MSS., but they are found in the Cambridge 
 MS. and in the Syriac version, and are retained by Alford, who 
 gives Wieseler's reasons for supposing the Feast was Pente- 
 cost. It could not be the Passover, for navigation was not 
 considered safe until the vernal equinox (Livy, xxxvii. 9), 
 nor Tabernacles, for his voyage to Athens a year and a half 
 before must then have been in mid-winter.
 
 of the CSmk Churches 95 
 
 nor had he ever heard whether the promised outpour- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost had been as yet fulfilled. Him 
 Aquila and Priscilla invited to their house, where a 
 small knot of Christians seem to have already gathered, 
 and ' expounded unto him the way of God more per- 
 fectly,' and sent him onwards into Achaia, there to water 
 the Churches which St. Paul had planted. Twelve 
 disciples of this Apollos St. Paul found at Ephesus 
 on his return. To them he explained, as Aquila and 
 his wife had explained to Apollos, the fuller doctrine 
 of Christian baptism, and by laying on of hands 
 imparted to them the gifts of that Holy Spirit of whose 
 effusion they had not previously heard. 
 
 Thus a church was founded. For we must observe 
 carefully that what Aquila and Priscilla and their 
 friends had done was only by way of preparation. 
 No Church could properly be founded until the arrival 
 of an Apostle. None but an Apostle could by laying 
 on of hands impart those spiritual gifts which were 
 essential to the organization of a Church 1 . 
 
 These twelve men, prophesying and speaking with 
 tongues, were the first ordained of those Ephesian 
 Presbyters whom three years afterwards Paul gathered 
 round him at Miletus. The appointment and ordina- 
 tion of Christian Presbyters, as distinct from the 
 Jewish Presbyters, would be the first and immediate 
 consequence of St. Paul's open secession from the 
 Jewish synagogue. St. Paul's first effort here, as else- 
 where, was to bring over the whole Synagogue bodily 
 to embrace Christianity. At Berea he seems to have 
 succeeded in this ; and there doubtless the existing 
 Presbyters of the synagogue would be the Presbyters 
 
 1 That the spiritual gifts determined the choice of church- 
 officers, is implied in I Cor. xii. 28-31.
 
 96 ^lu Jtcte of the Apostles 
 
 of the Christian Church. But in most cases, as at 
 Corinth and here at Ephesus, secession became neces- 
 sary, and then separate Presbyters would have to be 
 appointed. For three months St. Paul had laboured 
 in the Ephesian synagogue, arguing and endeavour- 
 ing to persuade them to enrol themselves in the 
 Messiah's Kingdom. ' But when divers were har- 
 dened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way 
 before the multitude, he departed from them and 
 separated the disciples] adjourning to the lecture-hall 
 of one of the wealthier converts, and there organized 
 his Christian Church. Of its constitution St. Luke's 
 brief narrative tells us nothing further, beyond the 
 one fact that they assembled themselves together, not 
 once a week only, but daily. 
 
 We long to hear more of the habits and customs of 
 these Greek Churches of St. Paul's planting, of their 
 public worship and government and discipline ; and 
 providentially we have at this very point of our narra- 
 tive a flood of additional light in one of St. Paul's 
 letters written to the Corinthians during this three 
 years' residence at Ephesus. 
 
 The rise of the Corinthian Church had been pre- 
 cisely similar to that of the Ephesian. The Apostle 
 had been compelled to secede from the Jewish syna- 
 gogue, and in the house of one of the disciples hard 
 by had organized his separate congregation, which 
 had grown into the great Church of Corinth. The 
 constitution of the one Church doubtless corresponded 
 to that of the other ; and of this constitution, even in 
 its minute details, we may glean much from the 
 Epistle. We are enabled to picture them in their 
 assembly, the women veiled 1 , the men alone allowed 
 1 i Cor. xi. 5.
 
 of the >mk Churches 97 
 
 to speak 1 ; we seem to hear the psalm r the doctrine, 
 the rapt utterance of those who spake with tongues 2 ; 
 we seem to see the effect on the bystander joining in 
 spite of himself in their worship, and going home to 
 report to his friends that God is of a truth in that 
 congregation 3 . We see them too at their evening meal 
 or ' love-feast,' the poor partaking of the contributions 
 of the rich ; we hear the loud Amen at the giving of 
 thanks 4 , and when all have partaken, the blessing of 
 the cup, and the solemn breaking of the bread in 
 remembrance of the Lord, felt by all to be a veritable 
 communion in His Body and in His blood 5 . We 
 learn something too of their discipline, how any who 
 had a matter against another was exhorted to bring it 
 before the saints for arbitration 6 ; we know the terrible 
 form of excommunication for gross offences against 
 morality, ' in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in 
 full assembly, to deliver such an one unto Satan for 
 the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be 
 saved in the day of the Lord Jesus' 7 . Something is 
 told of their finances, how the laity were expected to 
 contribute to the support of the Ministry 8 , and how 
 every Lord's Day there was an offertory for the poor 
 of Judaea 9 . 
 
 Alas ! we see also only too plainly, in this same 
 Epistle, the dangers to which these Gentile Churches 
 were exposed, dangers from which the Churches of 
 Palestine were exempt, the temptation to join in the 
 revelry that followed the Heathen sacrifices 10 , or at 
 
 1 I Cor. xiv. 34. 2 I Cor. xiv. 26. 3 I Cor. xiv. 25. 
 4 I Cor. xiv. 16. s i Cor. x. 16. 6 I Cor. vi. I. 
 
 7 I Cor. v. 4, 5. " i Cor. ix. II, 14. 9 I Cor. xvL 2. 
 10 I Cor. x. 7, 20, 21. 
 
 G
 
 98 t&ht lcts at 
 
 any rate to imitate it in their own festivals 1 , the spe- 
 culative doubts which the Greek sophists were ever 
 whispering in their ear 2 , the perplexities of their 
 domestic life 3 . 
 
 All these details, gathered from one single Epistle, 
 enable us to picture to ourselves very vividly the daily 
 life of the Christians of these Greek Churches. 
 
 Some additional information respecting their organi- 
 zation is furnished by the Epistles which St. Paul 
 wrote to Timothy ten years later, when he left him in 
 charge of this same Ephesian Church. At that later 
 date we find distinct mention of a second order in the 
 ministry, of deacons ordained to help the Presbyters 
 or Bishops, with very careful rules for their selection 4 
 and promotion into the Presbytery 5 . We hear also of 
 deaconesses 6 , and of widows, as intrusted with special 
 functions of hospitality and almsgiving 7 , widows above 
 sixty years of age being supported out of the common 
 fund. To Timothy at that later date was intrusted the 
 general oversight of this Ephesian Church, and the 
 ordination of its several ministers ; and though it would 
 be an anachronism to call him a Bishop in our sense of 
 the word, and inconsistent with the temporary nature of 
 his commission, yet the employment of such occasional 
 delegates by the Apostle may well have suggested the 
 permanent Episcopate of the next generation 8 . 
 
 1 I Cor. xi. 20, 21, where the rich are reproved for 
 snatching greedily their own contributions at the love-feast, 
 so that while they committed excess, the poor got nothing. 
 
 2 I Cor. xv. 3 I Cor. vii. * I Tim. iii. 6 I Tim. iii. 13. 
 fl i Tim. iii. 1 1 (according to Jerome, Chrysostom, Alford, 
 
 Ellicott, Wordsworth). 7 I Tim. v. 10. 
 
 8 On the development of the Episcopate, see Appendix,- 
 p. 145, and Prof. Lightfoot's Essay in his Commentary on. 
 Philippians.
 
 rgattis'aiixm xrf the (imk (Churches 99 
 
 Thus, however imperfectly, we fill up the outline of 
 the outward form and constitution of these Churches 
 which St. Paul was organizing. But if this be difficult, 
 how far more difficult is it to realize to ourselves at 
 all adequately the intense spiritual energy which ani- 
 mated them ! 
 
 Never were St. Paul's own miraculous powers more 
 astonishingly displayed. Writing from Corinth, he 
 hardly trusted himself to speak of those things which 
 Christ was working by him, ' through mighty signs 
 and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God' 1 . 
 ' Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among 
 them (the Corinthians) in signs and wonders and 
 mighty deeds' 2 . At Ephesus it seemed as though a 
 healing virtue streamed forth from the Apostle, as 
 from his Divine Master of old ; ' so that from his 
 body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or 
 aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and 
 the evil spirits went out of them ' 3 . Counterfeit 
 exorcisms were put to open shame, as in the case of 
 the seven sons of the priest Sceva 4 ; and the Ephe- 
 sians, who might at first have confounded the works 
 of the Spirit with the popular magic of the day, con- 
 fessed their error by a costly sacrifice 5 , burning their 
 books of incantations before the eyes of all. ' So 
 mightily grew the word of God and prevailed ' 6 . 
 
 Nor were these powers confined to the Apostle. 
 There was a general outpouring of the Holy Ghost on 
 all. Both at Corinth and at Ephesus, St. Paul freely 
 imparted to others the Pentecostal gifts, laying his 
 
 1 Rom. xv. 18, 19. 2 2 Cor. xii. 12. 
 
 3 Acts xix. 12. 4 Acts xix. 13, 14. 
 
 5 The value of the books may be estimated at 1770 of 
 
 our money. 6 Acts xix. 19, 20.
 
 gtcte of tht Qpostlt* 
 
 hands upon them so that they prophesied and spake 
 with tongues. Great must have been the public sensa- 
 tion created by the unwonted spectacle of such a com- 
 pany of prophets, such an inspired community, daily 
 increasing in numbers and influence in the heart of 
 a Greek city ! But on the converts themselves Paul 
 was ever labouring to impress the comparative un- 
 importance of these transitory gifts, and the far higher 
 value of the graces of the Spirit, of the Faith and Hope 
 and Love which were to be the abiding*- marks of the 
 Christian Church. Such was St. Paul's first work of 
 organization in the Ephesian Church, laying anew 
 the foundations of their faith and unfolding the true 
 significance of Christian baptism ; and such was the 
 outward form and constitution which he gave to their 
 communion. Hitherto they had continued to be mem- 
 bers of the Jewish Synagogue. And while there was 
 any hope of the whole Synagogue being Christianized, 
 St. Paul was unwilling to separate himself from it. 
 But at the end of three months it was clear to him 
 that this hope was vain. So, after his manner, pre- 
 cisely as he had done at Corinth, he withdrew with 
 his disciples ; and borrowing the lecture-hall of one 
 of the wealthier converts, he established there his 
 separate Christian Synagogue or Church. There daily 
 they assembled themselves together for instruction and 
 for breaking of bread and for prayer. For two years 
 Paul laboured, and with what effect we know. With 
 all their faults and infirmities, how strikingly these 
 early Christian congregations were distinguished from 
 the surrounding population by their purity and holi- 
 ness of life, is clear from the opening sentences of 
 almost all St. Paul's Epistles. 
 
 1 I Cor. xiii. 13.
 
 of the mk Chawhcs 
 
 Christ's Church need not for one moment regret the 
 cessation of miraculous powers, if she retain this 
 more excellent gift of holiness. By this test must we 
 answer to ourselves the question whether we have re- 
 ceived the Holy Ghost since we believed 1 . And if to 
 some it seems as though the lamp of the Holy Spirit 
 has paled since those early days, let us remember 
 that a lamp may seem to lose its lustre when trans- 
 ferred from darkness into daylight. Let us at any 
 rate thank God that we are no longer surrounded by 
 such dark immorality of private life and public opinion 
 as that from which these Churches of Corinth and 
 Ephesus were struggling to emerge. 
 
 1 Acts xix. 2.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 <St. Rani's cSttffmngs at this 
 
 IN the narrative of the next twelve months of the 
 Apostle's life we have most vividly brought be- 
 fore us the constant strain, both of body and of mind, 
 in which his work involved him. 
 
 In the persecution which drove him from Ephesus 
 we have a sample of the dangers from without which 
 ever threatened him ; in his own account of his journey 
 into Macedonia we see how ' the care of all the 
 Churches ' exhausted and oppressed him ; in the same 
 letter (2 Cor.), and in that to the Galatians, we have 
 allusions to painful bodily sickness ; in the journal of 
 his voyage to Jerusalem he seems conscious that the 
 brightest portion of his ministry is over, and that 
 henceforth bonds and afflictions await him. 
 
 And first, the Ephesian persecution, to which he 
 seems to allude in his letter to the Corinthians, ' I 
 have fought (so to speak 1 ) with beasts at Ephesus.' 
 Nothing can be more graphic than St. Luke's descrip- 
 tion of the outbreak : the fury of the silversmiths 
 when they found their trade deserting them ; their 
 anger with ' this Paul,' who ' throughout all Asia was 
 
 1 This seems to be the real force of the qualifying words 
 translated 'after themanner of men, 'showing that he is speak- 
 ing metaphorically. So Tertullian, paraphrasing a very simi- 
 lar passage, clearly metaphorical (i Cor. iv. 9) : ' Nos Deus 
 Apostolos novissimos elegit velut bcstiarios.' De Pud. 14.
 
 (St. Caul's (Sufferings at this pmoii 103 
 
 persuading people that they be no gods which are 
 made with hands ' ; the confusion in the* theatre, 
 ' some crying one thing and some another, and the more 
 part not knowing wherefore they were come together' ; 
 how the stewards of the games 1 helped to dissuade 
 Paul from adventuring himself among them ; how the 
 Jew Alexander would fain have disclaimed all connec- 
 tion with the Christians, but could get no hearing ; 
 and how at last the town-clerk appeased the people, 
 flattering their vanity as guardians of the great god- 
 dess, laughing at the idea of their temple having any- 
 thing to fear from a few strangers, who (they must con- 
 fess) had never attempted to profane it, reminding the 
 craftsmen that if they had any complaint the assizes 
 were then going on, and that the Proconsuls of Asia 
 were always ready to do men justice, and that by such 
 unseemly riots they would only incur the displeasure of 
 the Romans. St. Luke continues : ' and after the up- 
 roar was ceased, .Paul called unto him the disciples, 
 and embraced them, and departed for to go into Mace- 
 donia : and when he had gone over those parts, and 
 had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece, 
 and there abode three months.' 
 
 And thus in two brief verses he passes over what we 
 know to have been one of the most painfully anxious 
 seasons of the Apostle's life. For St. Paul's own ac- 
 count of it we must turn to the second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. 
 
 We there learn how from Ephesus, in great depres- 
 sion of mind, he went to Troas, and there awaited 
 Titus's return from Corinth. Titus had been the bearer 
 
 1 Such is the meaning of the word translated ' certain of the 
 chief of Asia. ' Their protection of the Apostle is to be noted, 
 showing the success of his ministry among the higher classes.
 
 104 ^h cUis of tht 
 
 of his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 . St. Paul's 
 anxiety to hear how they had received his reproofs 
 had been quickened to intensity by news that had 
 reached him in the interval, news that wounded his 
 sensitive nature to the quick, how some Judaizer was 
 making a party against him in Corinth, questioning 
 his claim to be an Apostle 2 , and even his personal 
 integrity 3 . Pentecost came, but no Titus arrived. 
 Sick with suspense, he tells us how he pushed on into 
 Macedonia to meet him : ' I had no rest in my spirit 
 because I found not Titus my brother ' 4 . ' When we 
 were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, 
 but we were troubled on every side ; without were 
 fightings, within were fears' 5 . 
 
 When at length Titus met him with far better tidings 
 than he had dared to hope for, the reaction in his mind 
 is no less vividly expressed : ' I am filled with com- 
 fort,' ' God who comforts them that are cast down, 
 comforted me by the coming of Titus ' 6 . 
 
 Titus was despatched at once with the second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Apostle followed 
 by way of Illyricum. But hardly was he relieved from 
 one anxiety when another came upon him. On his 
 arrival at Corinth tidings reached him of the apostasy, 
 or all but apostasy, of the Galatian Church. There 
 too, his inveterate enemies the Judaizers, who had 
 never forgiven him his victory over them at Antioch, 
 had dogged his steps, undermining his authority 
 and undoing his work. And to the Galatians from 
 
 1 This is Dean Stanley's opinion, and is ably maintained 
 by Prof. Lightfoot in the Camb. Journal of Class, and Sacred 
 Philology, of June 1855. 
 
 * 2 Cor. xii. II, 12. s 2 Cor. xii. 17, 18. 
 
 4 2 Cor. ii. 13. * 2 Cor. vii. 5. 6 2 Cor. vii. 6.
 
 (St. p-.tttl's (Sufferings at this prnub 105 
 
 Corinth 1 he sent the severest of all his Epistles. 
 In this Epistle we see how his controversy with the 
 Judaizers occupied all his thoughts. The most vital 
 principles of Christianity seemed to him at stake. 
 Most interesting is it to see how the controversy, 
 which began by being a personal one (as we see it in 
 his second Epistle to the Corinthians), deepened at 
 once in St. Paul's mind into a doctrinal one (in his 
 Epistle to the Galatians) ; and how out of it there 
 emerged, for the instruction of the Church in all time, 
 the great argument of the Epistle to the Romans, of 
 which the Epistle to the Galatians may be considered 
 the rough draft. The contrast in tone between the 
 two, between the impassioned invective of the one 
 and the calmer logic of the other, is at once explained 
 when we remember that one was sent to the fickle 
 half-barbarous Gauls of Asia Minor, the other to the 
 highly civilized Romans, whom, though personally 
 still unknown to them, he had ' desired these many 
 years ' 2 to visit. 
 
 Such persecutions as that which drove him from 
 Ephesus, such mental anxieties as those which op- 
 pressed him afterwards, could not fail to impair the 
 Apostle's health, never very strong. In his second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians 3 and in that to the Gala- 
 tians 4 , he seems to allude to severe bodily suffering 
 of some kind. That it was acutely painful is clear 
 from the expression he uses, suggesting the idea of a 
 sharp point piercing him 5 . ' Thrice (he says) he be- 
 
 1 See Prof. Lightfoot's Galatians, 
 
 2 Rom. xv. 23. 8 2 Cor. xii. 7. 4 Gal. iv. 14. 
 
 5 It escaped the attention of Dr. J. Brown, in favour of 
 his most ingenious argument to prove that it was intense 
 pain in the eyeballs, impairing his eyesight, that the phrase 
 cr/c6\07res tv 6<f>0a\fj.ois occurs in Numb, xxxiii. 55.
 
 io6 l&ht gUts at iht Apostles 
 
 sought the Lord that it might depart from him ; but 
 the Lord replied, My grace is sufficient for thee, for 
 my strength is made perfect in weakness.' 
 
 Strange it may well seem to our first thoughts that 
 one gifted with such marvellous powers for the heal- 
 ing of the diseases of others should have been wholly 
 unable to cure his own. 
 
 But this is entirely consistent with what the whole 
 of the New Testament seems to teach us, that mira- 
 culous powers were given, not for the advantage of 
 those who possessed them, but solely ' for the glory 
 of God, that the Son of God might be glorified there- 
 by'. St. Paul seems to have been wholly unable to 
 restore either Epaphroditus 1 or Trophimus 2 to health, 
 when to have done so would have been the greatest 
 comfort to him. Nor does our blessed Lord appear 
 to have ever used His divine power to shield Himself 
 from harm. To make such use of it was the sugges- 
 tion of the Tempter in the wilderness. Not unmind- 
 ful of the warning, St. Paul calls his malady a 
 temptation, a buffeting of Satan : and in the reply, 
 ' My grace is sufficient for thee,' he recognised the 
 voice of Him who Himself had crushed the tempta- 
 tion with the words, ' Man shall not live by bread 
 alone,' ' the cup which My Father hath given me shall 
 I not drink it ? ' 
 
 Not one of Christ's Apostles had learned the lesson 
 of the Cross more profoundly than St. Paul. In the 
 arena 3 of persecution, in spiritual discouragement, in 
 acute bodily pain, he had taken up his cross daily. 
 And now it was more and more borne in upon him 
 that his time had come for being made ' conformable ' 
 
 1 Phil. ii. 27. 
 
 2 2 Tim. iv. 20. 3 i Cor. iv. 9 ; xv. 32.
 
 ,St. Haiti's (Sufferings at this ptnab 107 
 
 to his Lord and Master by a yet nearer ' fellowship of 
 suffering' 1 . 
 
 We see it in the concluding words of his Epistle to 
 the Romans, written on the eve of his departure from 
 Corinth : ' Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord 
 Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that 
 ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for 
 me, that I may be delivered from them that do not 
 believe in Judea ' 2 . We see symptoms of their increas- 
 ing hatred in their plot to destroy him on his em- 
 barkation 3 , obliging him to take the longer route 
 through Macedonia. 
 
 We see how the sense of approaching danger was 
 more and more casting its shadow over the Apostle's 
 mind in his affecting farewells to the several Churches 
 where he paused on his coasting voyage. First at 
 Troas, where so many of his faithful friends rallied 
 round him, and where, upon the Lord's Day, when 
 they came together to break bread, Paul preached to 
 them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued 
 his speech until midnight, and talking a long while, 
 even till break of day, so departed. A Sunday never 
 to be forgotten by his friends ! He who had restored 
 life to the poor youth who had fallen through the 
 window of their lighted chamber, had no power to 
 assure his friends of the safety of his own life ! 
 
 So again touching at Miletus, and to save time, 
 requesting the Ephesian Presbyters to meet him on 
 the shore, how affecting is the leave-taking! 'And 
 now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, 
 not knowing the things that shall befall me there ; 
 save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, 
 saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But 
 
 1 Phil, ill 10. 2 Rom. xv. 30. 8 Acts xx. 3.
 
 IOS 'Wdt &tt8 Of 
 
 none of these things move me, neither count I my 
 life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course 
 with joy, and the ministry which I have received of 
 the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of 
 God. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among 
 whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, 
 shall see my face no more. 
 
 ' And he kneeled down and prayed with them all ; 
 and they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and 
 kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which 
 he spake, that they should see his face no more. And 
 they accompanied him unto the ship.' 
 
 No less touching was the farewell at Tyre : failing 
 to dissuade him from his steadfast purpose to go up 
 to keep the approaching feast at Jerusalem, they here 
 too accompanied him to the beach ; ' and they all 
 brought us on our way, with wives and children, till 
 we were out of the city ; and we kneeled down on the 
 shore and prayed ; and so took leave.' So at Ptole- 
 mais, so at Cassarea ; but nothing is suffered to un- 
 nerve him. At this ,last place, in the house of Philip 
 the evangelist, one of his friends, gifted with pro- 
 phecy, but not gifted with wisdom, seized his girdle, 
 saying, ' Thus shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the 
 man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him to 
 the Gentiles.' 'And when we heard this,' St. Luke 
 adds, ' we besought him not to go.' ' What mean ye 
 to weep and to break mine heart?' was St. Paul's 
 only answer ; ' for I am ready not to be bound only, 
 but to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord 
 Jesus.' 
 
 Yes, it was even so ; it was the Lord Jesus who was 
 in all his thoughts. And in our thoughts also surely, 
 as we read the narrative. For is it not so? This
 
 <St. ^nul's (Sttffmnjgs at this ytnob 109 
 
 solemn progress to Jerusalem, from point to point, told 
 in such detail, the Apostle with such full and vivid 
 consciousness of the sufferings which there awaited 
 him ; his friends clinging round him, and with tears 
 dissuading him, what is it that we are all reminded of? 
 Surely of Him who near thirty years before had set 
 His face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem ! ' Master, 
 of late the Jews sought to kill Thee, and goest Thou 
 thither again?' Christ knew it: 'the Son of Man 
 must suffer many things, and be delivered to the 
 Gentiles;' and still He journeyed onward. 'Let us 
 also go that we may die with Him ; ' and as they fol- 
 lowed they were afraid. How closely is the Apostle 
 now treading in his Master's steps ! rejoicing that 
 there was some space left for him to fill in the great 
 measure of the afflictions of Christ, for His Body's 
 sake, the Church 1 . 
 
 1 Col. i. 24.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 <St. $3ttl on his 
 
 'AND when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, 
 t~\. saying, The will of the Lord be done!' And 
 so they journeyed onward, St. Paul and his faithful 
 friends, of whom St. Luke himself was one. 
 
 At Jerusalem, as he foreknew, the storm burst upon 
 him. And yet he sought not persecution. Nay, he 
 did all that in him lay to disarm and conciliate his 
 enemies. To understand this we ought to read again 
 those latter chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, 
 written at the beginning of this same year, and re- 
 mind ourselves of what we are apt to forget, that while 
 St. Paul was a Christian, he was also a most faithful 
 Israelite. ' Two objects ' (it has been well said 1 ) ' were 
 dearer to him than his life, first, to testify of Him 
 whom God had raised from the dead ; and, second, 
 to prove that in so doing he was a faithful Israelite ;' 
 that, after all, it was ' for the hope of his fathers ' that 
 he was contending. 
 
 Hence his anxiety to vindicate his loyalty to his 
 nation, acceding to the suggestion of St. James and 
 the Presbytery, and paying for the offerings of those 
 four poor Nazarites, and appearing before the priests 
 on their behalf ; and then in the uproar which his 
 appearance in the Temple occasioned, addressing the 
 
 1 Article on St. Paul by the Rev. J. LI. Davies, in Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary,
 
 <St. 
 
 Jews in their own dialect ; reminding them that he 
 had been as zealous a Jew as any of his hearers, as the 
 high priest and all the estate of the elders could testify ; 
 but that the God of their fathers had revealed to him 
 the Just One ; and finally defending his mission to the 
 Gentiles, as commanded by their own Messiah in that 
 very Temple. 
 
 Nothing could be more admirable, nothing more 
 skilful, than St. Paul's endeavour to win the ear of his 
 countrymen. But he failed. 
 
 The mystery of iniquity was already working ; the 
 mention of the hated Gentiles inflamed them : ' Away 
 with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that 
 he should live ! ' And again, as at Thessalonica, as 
 at Corinth, as at Ephesus, so now at Jerusalem, the 
 restraining power was the Roman Government. 
 Nothing can be more graphic than the contrast between 
 the tempers of the two nations in what follows : 
 ' And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and 
 threw dust into the air, the chief captain ' Claudius 
 Lysias, the tribune of the cohort that garrisoned the 
 Fort Antonia ' brought him into the castle, and bade 
 that he should be examined by scourging ; that he might 
 know wherefore they were thus crying out against him. 
 And as they were binding him down with thongs, 
 Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it 
 lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman 
 citizen, and uncondemned ? When the centurion heard 
 that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, 
 Take heed what thou doest : for this man is a Roman. 
 Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell 
 me, art thou a Roman ? He said, Yea. And the 
 chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained 
 I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free-
 
 3Ut of the Qyosths 
 
 born.' The examination by torture was counter- 
 manded at once by Lysias, alarmed to find how nearly 
 he had violated the liberty of a Roman citizen 1 : but 
 to protect St. Paul from the fury of the people he kept 
 him in custody. 
 
 The even-handed justice of the Roman law, while it 
 protected the citizen of the Empire, respected also the 
 constituted authorities of the conquered Province. 
 Therefore on the morrow Lysias convened the San- 
 hedrim, and Paul was arraigned before his country- 
 men. 
 
 Again therefore St. Paul is on his defence, at the bar 
 of that Court where he himself, some two-and-twenty 
 years before, sat in judgment upon Stephen ; at the 
 bar of that Court where a greater One than Stephen 
 had been condemned to die for blasphemy ; for the 
 iniquity of that Court is not yet full, and it must be so 
 ere the wrath of God came upon them to the utter- 
 most 2 . 
 
 For a moment it was but for a moment the brutal 
 conduct of the High Priest made St. Paul forget him- 
 self, but instantly recovering his temper, and apologiz- 
 ing, he showed in his defence the same anxiety that 
 he had shown the day before, to identify himself with 
 whatever remnant there might be in Israel of truth or 
 nobler aspiration. 
 
 ' Brethren,' he cried, ' I am a Pharisee, the son of 
 Pharisees ; of the hope and resurrection of the dead 
 I am called in question.' 
 
 The effect of this appeal to the nobler portion of his 
 
 1 ' O nomen dulce libertatis ! O jus eximium nostrae 
 civitatis ! . . . . Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum, scelus, 
 verberari.' Cicero, in Verrem ii. v. 63, 66. 
 
 3 i Thess. ii. 16.
 
 (St. $awl rrn his gtftnct 113 
 
 judges was instantaneous. The Pharisees hated the 
 Sadducees even more than they hated the Christians, 
 and would not condemn the man who thus confessed 
 their favourite doctrine. There arose a loud shout 
 from their side of the hall, that they found no fault in 
 him, but if what he said yesterday were true, and 
 an angel or spirit had really spoken to him . . . 
 the rest 1 was drowned in uproar and fierce tumult ; 
 and Lysias, afraid lest Paul should be pulled in pieces 
 by them, ordered his troops to rescue him, and 
 lodge him in their own quarters in the adjoining 
 fortress. 
 
 That very night, as he lay sleepless on a soldier's 
 pallet, conscious of having again failed in his defence 
 of the Gospel, with the fearful scenes through which 
 he had passed still swimming before his eyes, the loud 
 execrations of those men of sin still ringing in his 
 ears, there came to him the still small voice he knew 
 so well. His dear Lord was by his side, as at Corinth, 
 so here too, in his extremity ; and still He called him 
 westward : ' Be of good cheer, for as thou hast testi- 
 fied of Me unto Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness 
 also unto Rome.' 
 
 After that day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of 
 blasphemy, in that dark night of utter defeat, as it 
 seemed to him, how this vision of his Lord, bid- 
 ding him be of good cheer, must have beamed upon 
 his soul, like a single star when all the sky is wrapt in 
 gloom ! Through all the darkness of the two years' 
 imprisonment that followed, through all the storms of 
 Hadria, and the long winter at Melita, what a pole-star 
 of hope must that one word have been to him, again 
 
 1 The words ' Let us not fight against God ' seem to have 
 been supplied by a copyist, thinking of Gamaliel. 
 H
 
 ii4 ^hc 3M S of the 
 
 and again recurring to his memory, ' Be of good cheer, 
 for unto Rome too thou shall bear My witness.' 
 
 To Rome ! It was the very word which, had Paul 
 now died, would have been found engraven on his 
 heart. And now he had his Lord's assurance that his 
 one dear hope should be fulfilled, Christ's word had 
 gone forth, ' to Rome,' and it could not return unto 
 Him void. 
 
 But if in his inspired moments a man's thoughts 
 may be as God's thoughts, his ways of accomplishing 
 them are seldom as God's ways. God loves to fulfil 
 His great purposes through humble unlooked-for in- 
 struments. 
 
 We know nothing, absolutely nothing, of that sister 
 of St. Paul, or how she came to be near him (sister- 
 like) in the hour of his extremes! peril, at Jerusalem, 
 with her boy. But that boy saved the life of him 
 on whom the evangelization of Europe now depended. 
 St. Luke's unrivalled narrative must not be altered 
 in a single word : 
 
 'When it was day, the Jews banded together, and 
 bound themselves under a curse, saying that they 
 would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 
 . . . And when Paul's sister's son heard of their 
 lying in wait, he came and entered the castle, and told 
 Paul. Then Paul called one of the centurions, and 
 said, Take this youth to the chief captain, for he hath 
 something to tell him. So the centurion took him, 
 and brought him to the chief captain, and said, The 
 prisoner Paul called me, and prayed me to bring this 
 youth unto thee, as having something to tell thee. 
 Then the chief captain took the boy by the hand, and 
 stepped aside, and privately asked him, What is it 
 thou hast to tell me ? And he said, The Jews have
 
 (St. $3ttl on his "gtftnct 115 
 
 agreed to desire of thee that thou wouldst to-morrow 
 biing down Paul into the Sanhedrim, as though 
 for the purpose of gaining 1 some more accurate in- 
 formation concerning him. But do not thou yield to 
 them : for there lie in wait for him of them more than 
 forty men, who have bound themselves with an oath, 
 neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him ; 
 and now they are ready, looking for a promise from 
 thee. So the chief captain let the youth depart, after 
 charging him, See thou let it not out to any that 
 thou hast given me this information. 
 
 ' And he called two of his centurions, and said, Make 
 ready two hundred heavy armed soldiers to go to 
 Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and 
 two hundred spearmen, at nine o'clock to-night, and 
 provide pack-horses 2 for the prisoner Paul to ride, 
 that they may convey him safely to Felix the Pro- 
 curator.' 
 
 Then follows the letter reporting the circumstances 
 to 'his Excellency.' They marched all through the 
 night, reached Antipatris by daybreak ; and pressing 
 on with the cavalry, the centurion was able to report 
 himself at the head-quarters of the province (Cassarea), 
 the following afternoon. 
 
 It is worth while to notice the rank and importance 
 attached by these Romans to their prisoner, nor could 
 it fail to impress the Jews ; this large military escort, 
 and official despatch, and above all the summoning 
 of the High Priest and others of the Sanhedrim, to 
 
 1 This translation suits the various readings equally. 
 
 2 From the use of the plural it may perhaps be inferred 
 that some of Paul's friends were allowed to accompany him. 
 The expression ' came (ira.payfv6/j.fvos) into the Castle ' in 
 Acts xxiii. 1 6, seems to imply that St. Luke was with him 
 in the Fortress of Antonia.
 
 ii6 HEIte Mts of the 
 
 appear as prosecutors in the Roman Court at Caesarea. 
 Would they have made that journey of seventy miles, 
 or engaged that Roman pleader, in the case of any of 
 the twelve Galilean Apostles ? 
 
 For the third time the Apostle is on his defence, 
 and this time in the Roman Court. But it is not to 
 the coarse and slavish mind of Felix 1 , but to the 
 conscience of those Sanhedrists that he addresses 
 himself. 
 
 Tertullus had charged Paul with creating a dis- 
 turbance, with being a heretic a Nazarene, and 
 with profaning the Temple. On all these points St. 
 Paul replies : As to disturbance he defies them to 
 prove it ; as to heresy, he worshipped the God of his 
 fathers, believing all things in the Law and the Pro- 
 phets, and holding, as his accusers also held, the 
 doctrine of a resurrection ; and as to profaning the 
 Temple, he was there with alms and oblations after 
 due purification ; so false was the accusation of those 
 Asiatic Jews. 
 
 In every one of St. Paul's conciliatory phrases we 
 see that his heart's desire is still towards Israel, that 
 they might be saved. O that his people would have 
 hearkened unto him, even in this last hour of their 
 visitation ! but it is too late. ' Unto Jerusalem ' no 
 longer ; ' unto Rome ' must he now bear his witness ! 
 
 1 This is the character given to Felix by Tacitus ; 
 'saevitia,' 'libido,' 'servile ingenium.' Hist. v. 9.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 'Ch.e Qpytnl to <a?sar 
 
 TWO whole years the irresolute Felix was per- 
 mitted to keep St. Paul in military custody at 
 Cassarea, often sending for him and conversing with 
 him, partly in the hope of receiving a bribe to release 
 him, partly out of curiosity, partly because the super- 
 stitious man was fascinated while he trembled, as Paul 
 reasoned of righteousness and temperance and a judg- 
 ment to come. That 'something after death' has 
 made cowards of many bolder men than Felix. 
 
 And meanwhile did it seem to the Apostle that his 
 Lord was slack concerning His promise ? No ; he 
 well remembered how, again and again in his past 
 experience, it was by such apparent hindrances as this 
 that the cause of the Gospel had been most furthered. 
 And in a career of such incessant exertion this pause 
 may well have been needed to restore his broken 
 health and refresh his weary spirit. The holiest, too, 
 need such seasons of retirement for more sustained 
 communion with their Lord. 
 
 It has been suggested 1 and with much probability, 
 for reasons that need not be here recounted that St. 
 Luke's Gospel, certainly composed under St. Paul's 
 superintendence, was written during the leisure of 
 
 1 By the younger Thiersch, I believe, in his Christian 
 Church.
 
 u8 <Hht Qctz at 
 
 these two years. Certain it is that 'none of his 
 acquaintance were forbidden to minister or come unto 
 him ;' and if so we may be sure St. Luke would be 
 ever at his side. Festus's exclamation, ' Thy much 
 learning,' or thy incessant study, 'hath turned thy 
 brain,' may have been suggested by the books and 
 parchments which the Apostle in this as in another 
 imprisonment 1 had asked for. If it was so, and if the 
 two had been really occupied on their Gospel, it is 
 interesting to note how the concluding words of St. 
 Paul's great speech before Agrippa in the last week of 
 his confinement, are the very echo of the last words 
 of the Gospel : 
 
 ' And Jesus said unto them, These are the words 
 which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, 
 that all things must be fulfilled which were written in 
 the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the 
 Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their 
 understanding, that they might understand the Scrip- 
 tures ; and said unto them, Thus it is written, and 
 thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the 
 dead the third day ; and that repentance and remis- 
 sion of sins should be preached in His name among 
 all Nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' If St. Paul and 
 his companion were fresh from the inditing of these 
 words, how naturally does the thought recur in the 
 Apostle's speech : 
 
 ' Witnessing both to small and great, saying none 
 other things than those which the Prophets and Moses 
 did say should come ; that Christ should suffer, and 
 that He should be the first to rise from the dead, 
 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 13. This is Dean Howson's explanation of 
 Festus's exclamation. For connecting it with the writing of 
 the Gospel, the Dean is not responsible.
 
 Jtpyeal to QCjesar 119 
 
 and should show light unto His People and to the 
 Nations' 1 . 
 
 But in speaking of this speech before Agrippa, we 
 are anticipating the narrative. 
 
 When at length Felix was superseded and Porcius 
 Festus succeeded to the Province, the protecting Pro- 
 vidence of Christ was again needed to shield His 
 Apostle from imminent peril. 
 
 For the Jews, thinking to take advantage of Festus's 
 ignorance of the circumstances, sent a petition to the 
 new Viceroy that, as a favour, he would give up to 
 them the prisoner Paul, and send him back to Jeru- 
 salem, meaning (so implacable was their hatred) to 
 waylay and assassinate him on the road. Festus, 
 with much dignity, replied that it was not the manner 
 of the Romans to surrender any man to his prosecu- 
 tors uncondemned ; but if they chose to come down 
 to Caesarea he should be confronted with his accusers. 
 
 Again, therefore, St. Paul was on his defence, and 
 repelled their charges, proving to the satisfaction of 
 the Procurator that neither against the Jewish law, 
 nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar, had he 
 offended. 
 
 And did he then really owe his safety to his judge ? 
 No ; like Pilate of old, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, 
 Festus would even now have given way, and Paul ere 
 
 1 The correspondency is the more striking, because the 
 thought is a very deep one, that the sufferings and resur- 
 rection of the Messiah were foreshown by Moses as well as 
 by the prophets ; a thought that could only be fathomed 
 by one who had accustomed himself to see in the Anointed 
 people, with their continual sacrifices never making the 
 comers thereunto perfect, one continued type of the Anointed 
 One who by one all-sufficient sacrifice should perfect for 
 ever Himself (by Resurrection from the dead) and all who 
 came to Him.
 
 gift* at the 
 
 night fell would have been in the grasp of his assassins, 
 had not One above given him in this hour a mouth 
 and wisdom which his adversaries could neither gain- 
 say nor resist : 
 
 ' I stand before Caesar's tribunal, and there ought 
 my trial to be. To the Jews I have done no wrong, 
 as thou knowest full well. If I am guilty, and have 
 done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die ; 
 but if the things whereof these men accuse me are 
 nought, no man may give me up to them. / appeal 
 unto Ccesar? 
 
 Festus conferred a moment with his Council, and saw 
 that he had no power to question the appeal. ' Thou 
 hast appealed unto Caesar, to Caesar shalt thou go.' 
 
 Often had this appeal, so powerful in the mouth of a 
 Roman citizen, been heard before ; why has it so much 
 more grandeur in the mouth of Paul? Surely the 
 thought that filled and inspired him at this moment 
 was the thought of Him who had stood beside him in 
 the Fortress of Antonia. ' To Rome,' he had his 
 Lord's word for it, he must bear his witness. Hence 
 the holy confidence, the solemnity of his appeal. In 
 his thought he was appealing, not to Caesar, but to 
 Christ. 
 
 This word ' appello" 1 suspended all further proceed- 
 ings in a Roman Court of Law ; it only remained for 
 Festus to report the case to the Emperor. But in 
 his ignorance of Jewish theology, he was perplexed, 
 and only too gladly availed himself of the accidental 
 presence on a visit of Herod Agrippa II., king of 
 Chalcis 1 , who by education was a Jew, to obtain help 
 in explaining the matter to Nero. Agrippa was inter- 
 
 1 The son of the King Herod Agrippa I., who put to death 
 James the brother of John, and died A.D. 44 (see Acts xii.)
 
 ested, and expressed a wish to hear the prisoner him- 
 self. 
 
 On the morrow therefore they came with great state ; 
 and the audience-chamber was filled with officers and 
 courtiers to listen to the eloquent Apostle. 
 
 It is the last great speech of St. Paul recorded in 
 Holy Scripture, and the greatest. He was speaking 
 not only ' before rulers and kings,' but also to one 
 who would report his words to Rome. He seems to 
 have felt, too, that it was in some sense his farewell 
 to the land of his fathers ; an apologia pro vitd sud 
 therefore. 
 
 With that gesture of the hand with which the orators 
 of antiquity invited attention 1 , and turning with marked 
 courtesy to the king as to one ' expert in all Jewish 
 customs and questions,' he proceeded to maintain the 
 perfect consistency of his manner of life from his 
 youth upward. It was he, not his accusers, that was 
 the faithful Israelite. For what was the one constant 
 hope of the twelve tribes ? Was it not the hope of a 
 Messiah who should suffer and yet live for ever ; and 
 through whom God's true Israel, after all their suffer- 
 ings, should also rise again to an eternal life ? And 
 yet it was for clinging to this hope that he was now 
 accused, and that by Jews' 2 . Would they know the 
 ground on which he believed that such a resurrection 
 had now been realized ? He will tell them. 
 
 Then he related in minute detail how the risen Jesus 
 had appeared to him, had convinced him, in spite of 
 all his inveterate and passionate prepossessions, that 
 
 1 Wetstein quotes several passages in illustration of this. 
 Apuleius says that pleaders extended the first and second 
 fingers, closing the third and fourth. 
 
 2 There is no article in the best MSS.
 
 lEIte Jtct* uf the 
 
 He was the Messiah, and solemnly commissioned him 
 to publish to all men, Jews and Gentiles, what he had 
 seen and heard, that they too might turn from dark- 
 ness to light, and by faith in the risen Lord lay hold 
 of the divine life so offered to them. 
 
 It was for the discharge of this commission, thus laid 
 upon him by their own Messiah, that the Jews had 
 seized him'in their temple and endeavoured to kill him. 
 
 Therefore, summing up, he repeated what he had 
 begun by asserting, that in preaching the death and 
 resurrection of Christ, he was but witnessing to the 
 fulfilment of all their holy Scriptures, and approving 
 himself a true and consistent Israelite. 
 
 To Festus, fresh from Rome, and ignorant of the 
 Jewish religion, all this was the merest infatuation. 
 To Agrippa therefore St. Paul made one more solemn 
 appeal, but it was in vain. The only answer he got 
 from the voluptuary was a mocking one, ' Thou wilt 
 soon be trying to persuade me to become a Christian.' 
 ' Would to God,' was St. Paul's noble reply, ' that, soon 
 or late, not thou only, but all who hear me this day, 
 might become such as I am, except,' he added, lift- 
 ing up his chained wrists, ' except these bonds.' 
 
 And so the audience was concluded, all agreeing 
 after conference that he had done nothing deserving 
 death, or even imprisonment ; Agrippa adding that the 
 man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed 
 to Caesar. As it was, they had no option but to put him 
 on board ship with a gang of other prisoners for Rome. 
 
 And thus both the rancour of the Jews and the care- 
 less indifference of the Romans were alike overruled, 
 in order to secure the fulfilment of the divine purpose. 
 And it was because of his own inspired appeal to 
 Caesar that he was sent to Rome.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 to 
 
 THE ancient merchant ships of the Mediterranean 
 were not much smaller than our own ; the 
 'Castor and Pollux' carried 276 men 1 , besides her 
 cargo. They had usually one mast, and one large 
 sail, fastened to an enormous yard, which could be 
 raised or lowered 2 . They were steered by paddle- 
 rudders 3 , one on either side. Mr. Smith of Jordanhill, 
 whose well-known work on the Voyage and Shipwreck 
 of St. Paid has almost exhausted this subject, thinks 
 that they could sail within seven points of the wind 4 , 
 and might therefore beat to windward in good weather. 
 Before the wind their rate of sailing seems to have 
 been about seven knots in the hour. But without 
 compass, and without charts, their voyages were 
 usually coasting voyages ; and from Michaelmas 5 to 
 Lady Day, when whole days might pass and ' neither 
 sun nor stars appear' 6 , navigation was if possible sus- 
 pended. 
 
 Bearing these few points in mind, we shall under- 
 stand St. Luke's journal of the voyage, for he as well 
 
 1 Acts xxvii. 37. There were 600 on board the ship in 
 which Josephus was wrecked. See his Life, ch. 3. 
 
 8 Acts xxvii. 40. 3 Ibid. 4 Acts xxvii. 15. 
 
 4 Corresponding with the Fast, i.e. the day of Expiation : 
 Acts xxvii. 9. 
 
 ' Acts xxvii. 20, and Livy xxxvi. 9.
 
 124 TOc 3Uis of tht 
 
 as Aristarchus of Thessalonica accompanied St. 
 Paul. 
 
 Touching at Sidon, where the courtesy of the cen- 
 turion Julius allowed the Apostle to see his friends, 
 they coasted northward till the hills of Cilicia, which 
 he knew so well, rose before them. Then, rounding 
 Cyprus, under the lee of the island, they reached 
 Myra, where the centurion transferred his prisoners to 
 an Alexandrian vessel bound for Rome. The north- 
 westerly gales continuing, they, imprudently perhaps, 
 ran to the south to get under the lee of Crete. 
 
 By this course they were committed to an open sea 
 voyage on leaving Crete ; and the Fast-day 1 being 
 already passed, Paul warned them they had best 
 winter where they were, at ' Fair Havens,' else there 
 might be much damage and loss of life. But the 
 sailors thought they might at least hold on as far as 
 Phoenix. And, a south breeze springing up, they 
 ' thought they had obtained their purpose ;' when, 
 without a moment's warning, a furious wind* from the 
 mountains 3 struck the ship, and, whirling her round, 
 drove her out to sea. Fearing lest this terrible 
 Levanter should carry them right across to the dangers 
 of the African coast, they took advantage of a brief 
 lull under the lee of the island of Clauda, to make all 
 tight for weathering the storm. With difficulty they 
 got their boat on board ; then they secured their 
 timbers by undergirding^ ; and lastly they lowered 
 
 1 See note 5 on preceding page. 
 
 4 Called ' Eurakylon ' (i.e., Euro-aquilon in Latin), for such 
 is the reading of the best MSS., North-easter. 
 
 8 The words ' against it ' in our translation ought to be 
 rendered ' down from Crete.' 
 
 4 Passing ropes round the hull, to keep the planks from 
 starting under the strain of rough weather.
 
 to glume 
 
 the yard-arm, and took in sail 1 . And so lying-to, the 
 vessel drifted westward. The very next day she seems 
 to have leaked, for we find them lightening the ship ; 
 and on the third day all lent a hand Paul and his 
 companions included in throwing out the gear. 
 
 For a whole fortnight they thus drifted, under an 
 overcast sky, giving themselves up for lost, with no 
 heart to eat their food or make further effort to save 
 their ship. 
 
 But while the sailors despaired the Apostle prayed, 
 prayed to Him whom he believed in, not only as 
 the Messiah of his nation, but also as the Lord and 
 ' maker of heaven and earth and sea, and all that in 
 them is' 2 ; prayed to Him who had said, ' Unto Rome 
 also shalt thou bear My witness' 3 . And his prayer 
 was heard. That very night He to whom he prayed 4 
 stood by him, saying, ' Fear not, Paul ; thou must 
 stand before Caesar ; and lo ! God hath given thee all 
 who sail with thee ! ' 
 
 The light of the vision was on his face, when at day- 
 break he gathered the crew around him, this mysteri- 
 ous Jewish prisoner, whose words had come so true ; 
 and as they listened with that deepening faith in the 
 Unseen which danger brings, he told them of his vision, 
 and of the Divine assurance that though their ship 
 must be lost, yet they should all be saved, in answer 
 to his prayer, on a certain island. 
 
 At the end of the fortnight a sound of breakers in 
 
 1 Not 'strake sail,' but 'shortened sail.' 'Lowered 
 the gear ' is Alford's translation. 
 
 2 Acts iv. 24. * Acts xxiii. n. 
 
 * ' An Angel of my God ' was St. Paul's phrase, suiting 
 his language to his hearers. But that it was the Lord 
 Himself, the Angel of the Covenant, is probable from the 
 analogy of all St. Paul's other visions.
 
 126 1&he &ttst at the 
 
 the middle of the night told them they were near 
 to land. They sounded, and found it even so. Fear- 
 ing lest they should be dashed on rocks, they let go 
 four anchors from the stern, and anxiously waited fcr 
 the day. 
 
 The sailors attempted to escape in the boat ; but 
 Paul, who was now virtually in command, insisted on 
 the necessity of their remaining to work the ship ; so 
 the soldiers cut adrift the boat which they were already 
 lowering. The Apostle's next care was to restore 
 their strength for the exertions of the morrow ; repeat- 
 ing his assurance that ' not a hair of their head ' 
 should perish, he exhorted all to make a meal, him- 
 self setting the example, breaking bread and 'giving 
 thanks to God before them all.' 
 
 When daylight came they lessened the ship's draught 
 by casting out her freight of corn ; then cutting her 
 cables and hoisting sail, they loosened their rudders, 
 and steered her for a point of the shore that seemed 
 convenient for stranding her. 
 
 Thus she was run aground, and soon began to go to 
 pieces in the surf. The soldiers were for killing the 
 prisoners ; but, anxious to save Paul, the centurion 
 prevented it, and bade all, by swimming, or as best 
 they could, make for the shore. So all were saved. 
 
 That the island on which they were wrecked was that 
 which is known to us as Malta, is now proved. The 
 islanders were Phoenicians, under a Roman governor ; 
 and most hospitably they entertained the shipwrecked 
 strangers through the three remaining winter months. 
 St. Paul from the very first they regarded with venera- 
 tion, awe-struck by the way in which he had cast off 
 a deadly viper. And he was able to repay them abun- 
 dantly for their hospitality. Those same hands which
 
 ^ogagc to JRomt 127 
 
 had helped to work the ship, and gather firewood on 
 the shore, were laid upon their sick with prayer, and 
 they recovered. In their gratitude they loaded them 
 with kindnesses ; and when at length the spring came, 
 and they were embarking once more in another Alex- 
 andrian ship, the islanders supplied them with all 
 things that they needed for their voyage. 
 
 This second voyage was accomplished without ad- 
 venture, through the straits of Messina, and along the 
 lovely coast of Italy. Little did St. Paul think as they 
 anchored in the Bay of Naples, that the green and 
 peaceful mountain on his right would so soon break 
 forth in fire and ashes, and bury in its first eruption 
 the Jewish princess who had so often conversed with 
 him in his imprisonment at Caesarea 1 . 
 
 Such is St. Luke's narrative of St. Paul's voyage 
 and shipwreck, a narrative of such vivid interest that 
 it charms the child no less than the most experienced 
 seaman 2 ; a narrative so unassailable in its minute 
 accuracy, that readers who dare to reject all the rest 
 of the New Testament record, are fain to admit that 
 they find here imbedded in it a fragment of self- 
 evident authenticity. 
 
 But to us who accept this Book of the Acts as God's 
 word, intended to make us ' wise unto salvation,' there 
 is a question behind of no small difficulty. Let us 
 state it unreservedly : Here is an inspired writer 
 occupying himself wholly, throughout a long chapter, 
 with details of geography and navigation, of havens 
 and islands, of rocks and shallows, of winds and cur- 
 rents, of sails and rudders, of nautical terms, of sailors' 
 
 1 See Conybeare and Howson. 
 
 2 Dean Howson relates, on private authority, that Nelson 
 read it on the morning of the Battle of Copenhagen.
 
 128 ^lu JUts of the &9osth8 
 
 hopes and fears ; scarce a word added of directly 
 spiritual purport. How is it ? ' The minuteness of the 
 narrative may be accounted for by the circumstance 
 that St. Luke himself was on board the ship, and kept 
 a diary' 1 . Granted ; but why was he inspired to embody 
 it all in Holy Scripture ? He who afforded no space 
 for St. Paul's evangelization of Galatia and Illyricum, 
 who compressed into a single verse three months of 
 ministry at Corinth, why is he permitted to fill a whole 
 chapter at the close of his book with these so-called 
 secular details ? 
 
 First : Holy Scripture knows not this modern dis- 
 tinction between what is religious and what is secular. 
 The Bible claims all for God, as in history, so in daily 
 life : ' that saith of Cyrus ' 2 , no less than of Moses 3 , ' he 
 is God's shepherd'; that bids us, 'whether we eat or 
 drink, or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God.' 
 Those hands of Paul, whether weaving the tent- 
 cloth, or imparting the gifts of the Spirit, whether 
 helping to lighten the ship, or lifted in prayer for his 
 fellow-passengers, were equally serving his Lord and 
 Master. 
 
 And as with that Lord and Master, we know not 
 which to value most, those touching traits of His 
 humanity, or those mighty evidences of His divinity, 
 so with His Apostle, the sons of toil and busy brains 
 of modern Europe are grateful for the knowledge that 
 their great Evangelist was one of themselves, a brother 
 man, who wrestled with the unspiritual necessities of a 
 hard life. When such a one speaks to us of the God 
 'whose he is, and whom he serves' 4 , he speaks with 
 power. 
 
 1 Olshausen. * Isa. xliv. 28. 
 
 3 Isa. Ixiii. II. * Acts xxvii. 23.
 
 <<Ehe Itfjage to ^amt 129 
 
 And secondly : This voyage was a crisis, or rather 
 the crisis, of St. Luke's whole narrative. For what 
 had he proposed to himself ? To trace the fulfilment 
 of those words of the Lord which he records on his 
 first page, to narrate the Apostles' witness, first in 
 Jerusalem, then in Judea, then in Samaria, and then 
 ' to the uttermost part of the earth.' He wrote in 
 Rome for Western Christendom. To show how the 
 Gospel came there was the great purpose he kept 
 steadily in view from first to last. From St. Paul 
 himself he had learned to regard Rome as the goal of 
 his course 1 ; when his history had reached it he felt 
 that his task would be done. 
 
 How naturally, therefore, his narrative, at first 
 sketchy and discursive, comes to confine itself more 
 and more to hjm who was specially intrusted with 
 this westward mission ; narrowing at last to a single 
 thread of biography, as it becomes more and more 
 evident that the fulfilment of the mission hangs upon 
 this one life. And how naturally, when at length the 
 Apostle is embarked on the final voyage, the interest 
 culminates, and every peril becomes invested with 
 critical importance ! 
 
 And another thought suggests itself. May not St. 
 Luke have felt that there was a curious correspondency 
 between his narrative here, and that of his Gospel ? 
 
 We have already remarked how St. Paul's last 
 journey up to Jerusalem, he so steadfast, his friends 
 so anxious to dissuade him, reminds us of that final 
 ' ascending up ' 2 to Jerusalem of our Lord, on which 
 St. Luke in his Gospel dwells at so much length. 
 
 We have seen how on his arrival the Apostle, like 
 
 1 Acts xix. 21, xxiii. n ; Rom. xv. 23. 
 z Luke xix. 28.
 
 130 Ito Jtcta of the JlpostUs 
 
 his Lord, was tried first in the Jewish, then in the 
 Roman Court, witnessing in both his 'good confes- 
 sion.' We have seen him ' delivered into the hands 
 of the Gentiles.' 1 We have seen how the Roman 
 Governor found no fault in him, but wavered at the cry, 
 ' Away with him ! he is not fit to live !' We have 
 seen lastly how his final rejection by his own people 
 was the immediate cause, under God's providence, of 
 his passing into the larger, freer, more spiritual life of 
 Western Christendom. 
 
 Had any analogy occurred here also to St. Luke ? 
 Perhaps not ; and yet, unconsciously, he may have 
 felt that, as in his Gospel, it was vitally important, by 
 the most detailed particularity, to establish the con- 
 tinuity of the Resurrection-life with the life which went 
 before, so in the Acts he owed it to the Western 
 Church to make good each link, however minute, of 
 the chain that bound that Church to the land of the 
 Incarnation. 
 
 However this may be, one thing is clear, that to 
 St. Luke this voyage was one of the most vivid 
 interest. As on each succeeding dawn he gazed at 
 the waters of the Mediterranean, breaking in sparkles 
 round their ship, the ' path ' that led St. Paul to Rome 
 must have seemed to him ' as the shining light, that 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' 
 
 1 Compare Acts xxi. n, with Lukexviii. 32.
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 IT was in the spring of A.D. 61 that St. Paul landed 
 at Pozzuoli, in the Bay of Naples. Some Chris- 
 tians who were there besought the Apostle to rest seven 
 days among them. Thus there was time for the 
 news of his arrival to reach Rome before him ; and 
 his friends there Aquila and Priscilla no doubt 
 among them set forth along the Appian Way to meet 
 him. The meeting between Appii Forum and The 
 Three Taverns, some twenty miles from Rome must 
 indeed have been full of holy joy. ' And when Paul 
 saw them, he thanked God, and took courage,' are 
 St. Luke's simple words. 
 
 At Rome, the centurion Julius would deliver his 
 prisoner and his despatches to Burrus, the Praetorian 
 Prefect 1 , who gave permission that St. Paul should 
 dwell with the soldier who guarded him in a lodging 
 of his own, as one awaiting trial. And here his friends 
 had free access to him. 
 
 We need not be surprised that numbers of Christians, 
 who, like Aquila and Priscilla, or Andronicus and 
 Junias,had been converted in the East, should have con- 
 gregated at Rome. In writing to them from Corinth, 
 St. Paul does not address them as ' a Church,' nor 
 had they as yet received the Pentecostal gifts of the 
 Spirit 2 . Though they may have met for prayer in 
 each others' houses, as in that of Aquila 3 , they do not 
 
 1 See Appendix, chap. v. p. 155. 
 
 2 Rom. i. n. s Rom. xvi. 5.
 
 132 <at!w glete of the 
 
 seem to have withdrawn from the Jewish synagogue 
 until St. Paul's visit The occasion of this secession, 
 the first step in the organization of a Church, St. 
 Luke is careful to relate. 
 
 To the synagogue, on the third day after his arrival, 
 St. Paul addressed himself, inviting the elders to come 
 to him, as he could not go to them. Briefly he 
 explained to them how he came to appeal to the 
 Emperor. It was not from disloyalty to his own 
 nation. The disloyalty was theirs who had delivered 
 him, a faithful Israelite, into the hands of the Romans. 
 They had driven him to this appeal in self-defence. 
 His only offence was that he would not surrender his 
 faith in Israel's Messiah. 'For the hope of Israel 
 am I bound with this chain,' he said, holding up his 
 chained wrist. 
 
 They listened, and wished to hear more another 
 time. So a day was fixed, and there was a large 
 gathering at his lodging. 
 
 Long and earnestly, 'from morning till evening,' 
 the Apostle reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. 
 
 But almost in vain. Though some hearkened, the 
 most part refused to believe. And St. Paul, having 
 delivered his testimony, formally withdrew from their 
 communion, saying, ' The salvation of God is sent to 
 the Gentiles, they will hearken to it.' 
 
 How St. Paul proceeded to build up that great 
 Roman Church, the establishment of which the Lord 
 Jesus had taught him to regard as the consummation 
 and crowning of his Apostolic labours, St. Luke does 
 not relate. It was abundantly known to those for 
 whom he was writing. Two years he awaited his trial 
 before Nero ; and doubtless during those two years, 
 and under his supervision, this narrative was written.
 
 133 
 
 And now in closing it we may ask what is our deep- 
 est impression ? what the chief lesson which through 
 these inspired chapters the Holy Spirit has vouch- 
 safed to teach our English Church ? For as at Corinth, 
 as at Ephesus, as at Rome, so here in England, there 
 is a Church of Christ, which, though it may be 
 indirectly, owes its origin to the life and labours of 
 the great Apostle of the Gentiles. What then is the 
 lesson that we as a Church are to learn ? 
 
 Surely this above all, that Christ is with us ! with 
 us in our prosperity, with us in our adversity, over- 
 ruling temporary evils, whether external or internal, 
 making all things work together, often in most un- 
 looked-for ways, for the good of His Saints and the 
 furtherance of His Kingdom. 
 
 This is the grand lesson of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 For in the records of these first years we see reflected, 
 as in a small mirror, the whole eighteen centuries of 
 the Church's history. And no century so vividly as our 
 own. For what distinctive feature of the Church of 
 this age is not typified in this Book ? 
 
 We look at our great commercial towns, and think of 
 Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth, in which St. Paul was 
 so anxious to establish strong centres. We look at our 
 railways, and bethink us of those great highways with 
 which the Roman Empire was traversed, and without 
 which St. Paul would never have accomplished his 
 work ; our distant missions remind us of the Apostle's 
 tours through Asia Minor, our Anglo-Saxon Bible of 
 the Septuagint of the Dispersion ; our great debates 
 and congresses help us to realize the Council at Jerusa- 
 lem ; our Hospitals and Charities recall the alms-chest 
 of the Jerusalem Church and St. Paul's collections for 
 the poor of Judaea ; our extreme opinions too find
 
 134 ^ta JUts of tht 
 
 their parallels : the overbearing rationalism of the 
 Sadducees, the exclusive bigotry of the Pharisees, 
 something even of the wild spiritual extravagance of 
 an Elymas or a Simon Magus, may be found among 
 us. 
 
 Our divisions were anticipated at Corinth, where 
 some were of Paul, and some of Apollos, and some of 
 Cephas ; is Christ more divided now than then ? Nay, 
 are the misunderstandings which sometimes divide 
 and distress our best and holiest, more sad than the 
 sharp contention between St. Paul and Barnabas, or 
 that later breach, when St. Paul withstood Peter to 
 the face, because he was to be blamed ? The trials of 
 faith in this our age are at least no greater than the 
 trials and difficulties, both internal and external, with 
 which the primitive Church had to contend. 
 
 And as surely and clearly as the unseen Lord was 
 guiding, controlling, overruling all then, so surely, so 
 clearly, is the same unseen Lord guiding, controlling, 
 and overruling all now, for the purifying and strengthen- 
 ing and extending of His kingdom among men. 
 
 That there are Antichrists now as then threatening 
 us, that the mystery of iniquity is even now working, 
 that the ' restraining power ' of our settled government 
 cannot and will not always restrain, that a day of 
 decision, more trying to the Church than any she has 
 known, must come before the End, all this is true. 
 But Christ is with us. Therefore let His Church take 
 heart ! ' He is in the midst of her, therefore shall 
 she not be removed ; He shall help her, and that 
 right early. He is her hope and strength, therefore 
 will we not fear. The Lord of Hosts is with us, the 
 God of Jacob is our refuge.'
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 n the $3rnpTrattxm of the 
 
 THE three classes of hearers to whom the Gospel was 
 preached are called, in the language of our Translators, 
 'Hebrews,' 'Grecians,' and ' Greeks.' 
 
 By Hebrews are meant the /iome-]ews, Jews born and bred 
 in Palestine, able therefore to attend the Temple ritual as 
 well as the Synagogue, speaking Aramaic, a dialect of 
 Hebrew. To these the Twelve, and especially Peter, James 
 (the Lord's brother), and John, addressed themselves. 
 
 By Grecians are meant the foreign Jews, or Jews of the 
 Dispersion, Jews born and bred in foreign parts, whose reli- 
 gion had become a faith rather than a ritual, speaking Greek 
 (the social language of the Roman Empire, as Latin was the 
 official language), called Hellenists in the Greek Testament, 
 ' Hellen' being a Greek, and Hellenist being a Jew who 
 Hellenized. To these Stephen, Barnabas, and Saul first 
 addressed themselves. 
 
 By Greeks are meant sometimes natives of Greece, as in 
 Acts xviii. 1 7, but more usually Gentiles, as opposed to Jews ; 
 for the conquests of Alexander had spread the Greek lan- 
 guage through all the countries bordering on Palestine. To 
 these Paul and his companions addressed themselves. 
 
 Thus the word Greek is properly opposed to jfeiu ; the 
 word Grecian is properly opposed to Hebrew 1 . 
 
 1 It is a question of much interest whether ' Greeks' or ' Grecians ' 
 'EAArji/as or 'EAAiji/ioras is the true reading in Acts xi. 20. 
 
 If, as is assumed in Chap. ix. of the Narrative, the former be the true
 
 [36 
 
 Of these three classes, it is clear that the first and second, 
 being of the circumcision, were after the first few years obsti- 
 nately opposed to the Gospel, while the third class, the Gen- 
 tiles, eagerly received it. 
 
 Surely this fact, that the Gentiles so readily accepted the 
 Gospel, is at first view a paradox, and needs explanation. 
 How is it to be explained ? 
 
 To some minds it may be enough to answer, ' God so 
 willed it; and this appears from the unanimous voice of 
 prophecy.' But to those who delight to trace the providen- 
 tial arrangement of secondary causes by which God ever 
 works out the fulfilment of His prophetic Word, the ques- 
 tion remains, ' How was it ? By what predisposing circum- 
 
 reading, then the first Gentile Church was formed at Antioch, and was 
 formed, moreover, by what has been termed the force of circumstances, 
 without the intervention of any Apostle, a direct act of Christ, as it 
 were. This is clearly a matter of much interest. The grounds for be- 
 lie ving'EAArji'as (Greeks, or Gentiles) to be the true reading are the 
 following : 
 
 1. There is a strong presumption in favour of 'EAA-qva?, for the word 
 is opposed to the word Jews in the preceding verses, not to Hebrews : 
 whereas between Hellenists and Jews there is of course no opposition, 
 the Hellenists being Jews. 
 
 2. Though the authority of the oldest MSS. is divided the Alexan- 
 drine reading 'EAArji'as, and the Vatican 'EAAijvioras yet it is notice- 
 able that both these MSS. insert <eal, showing that the converts about to 
 be mentioned were of an exceptional kind. 
 
 3. We turn with much interest to the Sinaitic MS., and here the Eng- 
 lish reader, who has only the Tauchnitz New Testament to refer to, will 
 be misled. For Tischendorf, usually so correct, represents both Vatican 
 and Sinaitic MSS. as reading ' Grecians.' But a reference to his large 
 quarto edition of the Sinaitic MS. will, if I mistake not, decide the 
 question in favour of 'EAAiji/ay, and also indicate what, so far as I 
 am aware, has never been observed the way in which the reading 
 'EAAiji/ioras crept into the text. For the original scribe of the Sinaitic 
 MS., by a mere clerical error, having the following word euayye\i^6/Li6vot 
 running in his head, wrote evayye\icrraj. And the scribes of the Vati- 
 can and Alexandrine MSS. (confessedly much influenced by the Sinaitic), 
 finding evayyeXioras, and seeing that it made nonsense, corrected it to 
 the word which came nearest to it in sound, namely, eAA7)vi<rra. 
 Whereas our copy of the Sinaitic MS. exhibits in later ink the true cor- 
 rection, eAAijcos.
 
 <!Dtt tht $rxrpagrttioit 0f the osptl 137 
 
 stances was this ready acceptance of St. Paul's Gospel by 
 the Gentiles brought about ?' And the problem is not easily 
 solved. For what are the facts ? 
 
 St. Paul, an unknown stranger, one of a despised race, 
 arrives in a Greek city ; collects a group of curious intellec- 
 tual Greeks around him ; tells them the story of Jesus of 
 Nazareth, how a thousand miles off He lived and died and 
 rose again ; asks them to believe that He is now ' the Lord 
 of all,' of Gentiles as well as Jews, and will presently return 
 to judge the world. Hearing of Christ thus, by the report 
 of a stranger only, is it not a matter of some surprise that 
 numbers of them should at once believe Paul's words, and 
 at the risk of much persecution seek for Baptism ? 
 
 St. Paul's miracles, and the gift of tongues which the im- 
 position of his hands conferred, are not enough to explain it ; 
 for pretension to supernatural powers was common in those 
 days, and in none of St. Paul's discourses or Epistles does 
 he lay much stress on the evidence of miracles. As signs to 
 the unbeliever (l Cor. xiv. 22), that is, for the purpose of 
 exciting curiosity and attention, miracles were useful ; but 
 as proof of the truth of doctrine they are seldom appealed to 
 by the Apostle. And in many places numbers were con- 
 verted where no miracles had been wrought. 
 
 Clearly, therefore, some causes must have been at work 
 predisposing these Gentiles to listen to the Gospel tidings. 
 What were these predisposing causes ? 
 
 We must connect this question with another : If St. Paul 
 in his discourses and Epistles does not appeal to miracles, 
 what does he appeal to, in proof of the truth of his gospel ? 
 Uniformly to the Old Testament Scriptures : and this, be it 
 carefully observed, when he is addressing mixed audiences, 
 as though the Gentile as well as the Jewish portion would 
 appreciate this kind of evidence. The Epistles to the Gala- 
 tians and to the Romans, for instance, are clearly addressed 
 to Churches in which the Gentile element preponderated ; 
 and yet in both he appeals to the Old Testament Scriptures, 
 as familiar to all his readers. Still more striking is it in his
 
 138 
 
 speech at Antioch in Pisidia ; his argument there is entirely 
 drawn from the Old Testament ; but we read that the Gen- 
 tiles, after listening to it, came crowding round him, beseech- 
 ing him that these words might be again preached to them 
 the next Sabbath ; ' And the next Sabbath came almost 
 the whole city together to hear the Word of God.' And to 
 them Paul pointed out how Isaiah had distinctly prophesied 
 the conversion of the Gentiles, ' And when the Gentiles 
 heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the 
 Lord.' 
 
 Now this is merely a sample of what occurred in nearly 
 all these Gentile cities. In all of them St. Paul seems to 
 have found large numbers of Gentiles already familiar with 
 the Old Testament, especially with its prophetic portions, and 
 so predisposed to listen to St. Paul's account of the fulfilment 
 of those prophecies. 
 
 If this fact can be substantiated that numbers of the Gen- 
 tiles were at this time familiar with, and much interested by, 
 the sacred books of the Jewish nation the problem which 
 is before us is solved. 
 
 And that it was so may be thus proved : 
 
 I. First we must realize to ourselves the extent of the 
 Jewish Dispersion. Philo 1 tells us that not less than one 
 million Jews lived in Alexandria and in that part of the 
 country which extended from the plains of Libya to Ethiopia. 
 He then goes on to describe the populousness of his nation 
 as spread through the world. At Rome the whole of that 
 part of the city which lay beyond the Tiber was inhabited 
 by Jews (called Libertint], Petronius the Proconsul, when 
 expostulating with Caligula about the worship of his statue, 
 urged that the Jews ' were dispersed through all the pro- 
 vinces both of the continent and islands, so as almost to 
 equal the indigenous inhabitants in number. ' Again, Agrippa, 
 writing to Caligula, says, ' Jerusalem is indeed my country, 
 but it is the metropolis not of one region, but of many, of 
 
 1 In his two treatises els ^AaxKov and wepi 'Apcrwv, quoted in Lyall's 
 Propeedia.
 
 <0it the propagation of the <5osp*I 139 
 
 Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and the chief 
 parts of Asia, as far as Bithynia and the most remote shores 
 of the Euxine. ' ' Thessaly, Boeotia, Corinth, Peloponnesus, 
 the whole of Greece, the continent as well as the islands of 
 Euboea, Cyprus, Crete, are full of Jewish colonists. ' 
 
 Now this presence of Jewish traders in all the cities of the 
 Empire, carrying with them, wherever they went, the Greek 
 version of their Scriptures, and, in their anxiety to make 
 Proselytes, freely admitting the Gentiles to the reading and 
 expounding of those Scriptures in their synagogues, could 
 not fail to interest, and have its effect on, the Gentiles. 
 
 2. Professor Westcott does not exaggerate the effect of 
 all this on the Gentile world, when he writes, ' Under the 
 influence of this wider instruction, a Greek body grew up 
 around the Synagogue, not admitted into the Jewish Church, 
 and yet holding a recognised position with regard to it, 
 which was able to apprehend the Apostolic teaching, and 
 ready to receive it' 1 . 
 
 Numbers had thus been led to throw off polytheism, and, 
 like Cornelius, to become worshippers of the true God, and 
 students of the Scriptures. The well educated among them 
 could not fail to see how striking had been the fulfilment of 
 those prophecies which specially concerned the Gentile world, 
 the degradation of Egypt, the destruction of Tyre and 
 Babylon, the rise of the Macedonian and Roman Empires ; 
 and, seeing how truly these predictions had been accom- 
 plished, they could not fail to watch anxiously for the fulfil- 
 ment of those more mysterious Messianic prophecies which 
 they found bound up with them. 
 
 And that, in point of fact, the whole Gentile world was at 
 this time thus led (clearly by the dissemination of the Jewish 
 Scriptures) to expect the rise of some great Prince in the 
 East, is abundantly proved out of the writings of Virgil, 
 Tacitus, and Suetonius. 
 
 That Virgil 2 , in his description of Him who is to inaugu- 
 
 1 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, art. HELLENIST. 
 
 2 Virgil, Pollio, and ;En, vi. 791.
 
 140 
 
 rate a new golden age, borrows the imagery and language of 
 Isaiah, is admitted by all. 
 
 Tacitus 1 says, 'It was the persuasion of most persons, 
 that the ancient books of the priests contained passages, 
 which implied that the East would become powerful, and 
 that some person or persons would arise in Judaea who 
 would obtain the empire of the world. ' 
 
 Suetonius 2 says, ' There had been circulating throughout 
 the East an ancient and constant opinion, that a person or 
 persons were destined to appear at this time in Judaea, who 
 should obtain the government of the world. ' 
 
 Passages to this effect might be multiplied ; but it is need- 
 less. It is abundantly clear that the Apostle of the Gentiles 
 found the Gentiles in anxious expectation of some great 
 Deliverer who should arise in the East, and should deliver 
 them from that profound despondency of human affairs which 
 seems at this time to have brooded like a curse over the 
 whole Roman Empire. Numbers, too, he found in every city, 
 who had thus been impelled to a diligent study of those 
 Scriptures which every Sabbath were read and expounded in 
 the Jewish Synagogues 3 . And thus, by the overruling Provi- 
 dence of God, the Gentile world had by the ministry of the 
 Synagogues of the Dispersion, been marvellously prepared 
 to receive the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 It was its acceptance by the Gentiles that (humanly speak- 
 ing) determined the Jews to reject it. And thus on both 
 sides was Prophecy fulfilled ; and the problem, which can- 
 not fail to force itself on every careful reader of the Acts, is 
 solved. 
 
 1 Hist. v. 13. 2 Vespas. iv. 
 
 8 See the words of St. James in the Jerusalem Council, Acts xv. 21.
 
 (Drt tht (Sjmagogtte ani ilu (EccUsia 141 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 (On the (Sjmagtfjjue ani the (Eccksia 
 
 IN the interval between the Captivity and the Christian 
 era, to meet the necessity of the case (for the Jews were 
 now dispersed throughout the world, millions of them far 
 out of reach of the Temple and its priestly ritual) there had 
 risen up a new institution, the Synagogue, with a ministry 
 of its own (drawn from any tribe), entirely distinct from the 
 Levitical priesthood. The Synagogue was simply an ob- 
 long chamber, usually pointing towards Jerusalem ; its only 
 furniture a chest containing a copy of the Law and Pro- 
 phets, and a pulpit. No altar, no sacrifice, no priests. 
 Here, every sabbath-day, or oftener, the Jews met ; the men 
 on one side, the women on the other (or in a separate 
 gallery) ; the Elders of the congregation on seats at the 
 Jerusalem end of the chamber, facing the people (Matt. 
 xxiii. 6). These 'Elders' (Zkenim or Presbyters, called 
 also Parnasim or Pastors) formed a sort of college or 
 chapter, varying in number according to the number of 
 Jewish residents (Mark v. 22; Luke vii. 3). They exer- 
 cised a judicial power over the community, trying offenders 
 (Luke xii. II, xxi. 12), scourging them (Matt. x. 17, 
 Mark xiii. 9) on the spot, or sending them for trial to Jeru- 
 salem (Acts ix. 2, xxii. 5)* r excommunicating them 
 (John xii. 42, xvi. 2) 1 . One of their number was respon- 
 sible for conducting the worship of the Synagogue ; he was 
 called ' Sheliach,' or delegate, or spokesman (Luke viii. 
 41, 49, xiii. 14; Acts xviii. 8, 17); he led the form of 
 prayer, e.g., the ' Hear, O Israel' of Deut. vi. 4, and the 
 
 1 See also Matt, xviii. 17, where our Lord sanctions the continuation 
 of this excommunication by the congregation (ecch'sia) among Chris- 
 tians.
 
 142 
 
 eighteen blessings, with a chanted Psalm ; then a first lesson 
 from the Law (' Moses was read in the Synagogues every 
 sabbath-day,' Acts xv. 21), and a second lesson from the 
 Prophets (Luke iv. 1 7) were read, followed by an exposition 
 by any Rabbi who might be present (Luke iv. 20 ; Acts 
 xiii. 15). On the evening of the sabbath there was a feast. 
 Besides the chief elder or delegate, and the other elders, 
 there was also a servant or deacon (Matt. v. 25 ; Luke 
 iv. 20), whose duty it was to look after the building, and 
 act as schoolmaster during the week. 
 
 Such was the Synagogue, as described to us by the labours 
 of Buxtorf (de Synagoga Judaica] and of Vitringa, from 
 whose great work {de Synagoga vetere) the above account 
 has been mainly taken. 
 
 That the Synagogue, not the Temple, furnished the 
 pattern for the organization of the Christian Church, seems 
 probable. In the very interesting passage about excom- 
 munication in Matt, xviii. 17, our Lord appears to take it 
 for granted that it would be so, thereby implying His own 
 divine sanction. And what could be more natural ? The 
 Apostles had sabbath after sabbath attended the Synagogues 
 of Galilee with their Master ; had there seen Him continu- 
 ally take His part as a Rabbi in the service, standing up to 
 read the lesson of the day, and sitting down to expound it 
 (Luke iv. 17, 20) ; had there, after His departure, them- 
 selves too found their readiest means of proclaiming His 
 doctrines. On arriving at any of the great towns of Greece 
 or Asia Minor, the Apostle naturally (and probably by 
 Christ's command) betook himself to the Synagogue : 
 ' They came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the Syna- 
 gogue on the sabbath-day, and sat down. And after the 
 reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the 
 Synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, 
 ifc ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. 
 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand, said, 
 Israelites and Proselytes, give audience.' So at Iconium, 
 so at Thessalonica, so at Athens, so at Corinth, so at
 
 <Dn the. %nxQO(jvte ani the (Ecclests 143 
 
 Ephesus ; so wherever they went, week after week, month 
 after month, so long as the congregation would suffer them. 
 If, as at Bersea, the whole or greater part of the Elders and 
 congregation listened and were converted, there the Syna- 
 gogue at once, with all its officers and forms, became a 
 Christian Church 1 . If, as at Thessalonica and Corinth, the 
 majority rejected the new doctrine, then the Apostles with- 
 drew with the minority into a neighbouring house belong- 
 ing to one of the converts, the house of a Jason, or of a 
 Justus ; and there continued their sabbath-day readings 01 
 Law and Prophets with Christian exposition. Hence the 
 phrase we meet with so commonly, ' The Church in thy 
 house.' From the Synagogue was borrowed the term 
 ' Presbytery, ' a word unknown in classical Greek (applied 
 in its Jewish sense in Luke xxii. 66 ; Acts xxii. 5, and in 
 its Christian sense in I Tim. iv. 14) ; the term Angel (of 
 Rev. i. 20, ii. i) ; the name of Shepherds or Pastors (of 
 Eph. iv. II, and I Pet. v. 4); the Scripture Lesson and 
 the Sermon ; the loud ' Amen' of the congregation (see 
 I Cor. xiv. 1 6, and the famous passage in Justin's Apology, 
 c. 67) ; the chanting of the Psalms in order ; the Ter Sanctus 
 Hymn of Isaiah vi. ; as well as the discipline (Matt, xviii. 17 ; 
 i Cor. vi.) ; the sentence of excommunication (i Cor. v. 4) ; 
 and the collection of alms (i Cor. xvi. 2). 
 
 So far and no further the Jewish Synagogue seems to have 
 been the model of the Christian Ecclesia. Vitringa carries 
 his theory too far when he finds a type of the threefold 
 Christian ministry in the Jewish Synagogue. There were 
 Presbyters in the Synagogue, and there were Presbyters, cor- 
 responding to them both in name and in office, in the Chris- 
 tian Ecclesia. But there the parallel ends ; there was 
 nothing in the constitution of the Synagogues corresponding 
 to the oversight which the Apostles at first, and in the 
 second generation the Bishops, exercised over groups ol 
 
 1 The very name was retained (James ii. 2) : 'If there come into 
 your Synagogue." (See also Heb. x. 25, and Ign. ad Trail. 5. ad 
 Polyc. 3.)
 
 144 
 
 Churches ; nor was there anything in the Synagogue cor- 
 responding to the Diaconate of St. Paul's Pastoral Epistles. 
 For there was but one Chazzan or Servitor for each Syna- 
 gogue, and his office was more like that of a Parish Clerk 
 than that of a Deacon. 
 
 To trace the growth of the three orders of ministry in the 
 Christian Church is by no means easy. 
 
 The word Deacon was clearly applied in the early years 
 to all Christian ministers. The Apostles apply it to them- 
 selves repeatedly 1 . 
 
 The seven men whose ordination is so carefully narrated 
 in Acts vi. , are nowhere called Deacons distinctively. As a 
 distinctive term, marking a particular order in the ministry, 
 it first occurs in Philip, i. I, and in the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 From the narrative in the Acts it is quite clear (i.) that 
 there had been a dispensation of alms from the very first ; 
 and (2. ) that the Apostles had never undertaken it. For 
 when a murmuring arose, the Apostles said at once that 
 they could not be expected to undertake it. Some officers, 
 therefore, distinct from the Apostles, there must have been 
 from the first. Who were they ? 
 
 From the way in which St. Luke, in Acts xi. 30, speaks 
 of the Presbyters of the Jerusalem Church, mentioning their 
 existence as a matter of course, without having ever de- 
 scribed their first appointment, and from the way in which 
 he describes St. Paul, also as a matter of course, ordaining 
 Presbyters in all the new churches of Asia Minor (Acts 
 xiv. 23), it seems by far most probable, that from the very 
 first, whenever the Christians met in congregation, some were 
 set apart to occupy the seats at the upper end of the room, 
 corresponding to the Presbyters' seats in the Synagogue. 
 On these doubtless devolved the task of baptizing those 
 many thousands on the day of Pentecost, and again after the 
 healing of the cripple (Acts iv. 4). And on them doubtless 
 
 1 See (in the Greek) Acts i. 17, 25, vi. 4, xx. 24, xxi. 19 ; Rom. 
 xi. 13 ; i Cor. iii. 5, xii. 5 ; 2 Cor. vi. 3, 4 ; Eph. iii. 7, iv. 12 ; Col. 
 i. 7, 23, 25.
 
 JJotoer of the cSimheirim 145 
 
 devolved the office of presiding at the daily 'breaking of 
 bread ' in Holy Communion. 
 
 From the careful way in which the appointment of the 
 Seven is described it would appear to have been a special 
 ministry to meet a special need. 
 
 The constitution of the Diaconate as an order separate 
 from the Presbyterate, cannot be traced earlier than the 
 period of St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome. 
 
 As to the Episcopate, it is clear that the words Bishop and 
 Presbyter are used synonymously in the New Testament * ; 
 and no less clear to all who have impartially considered the 
 question, that before the end of the first century, in the 
 Churches of Antioch and Ephesus 2 , and early in the second 
 century in the Western Churches 3 , the Episcopate had come 
 to be a separate order of the ministry. 
 
 On this question the exhaustive essay of Professor Light- 
 foot, in his Commentary on Philippians, leaves nothing to 
 be said. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 gtjab the cSimlubrim the ftohwr of pfe anb 
 
 IN the Key to the Gospels (p. 79), the common opinion 
 (maintained by Lardner,) was adopted, that the Sanhedrim 
 lost the power of inflicting capital punishment when Judaea 
 became a Roman Province j and that this was the meaning 
 
 1 Compare, in Acts xx., 17 with 28 ; and again, in Tit. i., 5 with 7. 
 
 2 Repeated proofs of this may be found in the earliest text of Ignatius ; 
 see, for instance, his letter to Polycarp, section 6, ' Heed your Bishop, 
 that God may heed you ; I give my life for those who obey their Bishop, 
 Presbyters, and Deacons.' 
 
 3 Professor Lightfoot shows that, in the list of Roman Bishops given 
 by Irenaus (iii. 3. 3), the predecessors of Anicetus were chief-presbyters 
 rather than Bishops. Clement of Rome never alludes to the Episcopal 
 office, but uses the word as synonym of Presbyter (section 42). That 
 Anicetus, however, was Bishop in our sense, when the aged Polycarp 
 visited him (A.D. 162), is clear. 
 
 K
 
 146 
 
 of the Jews' reply to Pilate (John xviii. 31), ' It is not lawful 
 for us to put any man to death.' 
 
 The question is a difficult one. Most commentators, from 
 Lardner and Grotius down to Alford and Andrews 1 , insist 
 that the reply of the Jews quoted above admits of no other 
 explanation ; and support it by a passage quoted from the 
 Talmud by Selden and Lightfoot, to the effect that ' forty 
 years before the Temple was destroyed, judgment in capital 
 cases was taken away from Israel ' (Jerusalem Gemara, 
 quoted by Selden de Synedriis, ii. 15. n). 
 
 If this be so, Pilate's words, ' Take ye Him, and judge 
 Him according to your law,' must be understood as a taunt, 
 spoken in bitter irony ; and the death of Stephen must have 
 been a tumultuary outbreak, in defiance of Roman authority. 
 
 But the other side is defended by Biscoe in a very elaborate 
 argument, in which Mr. Humphry and Dr. Dollinger 2 concur. 
 
 1. It is far more natural to suppose that Pilate was speak- 
 ing seriously. He was quite serious in his other efforts to 
 evade the responsibility of putting Jesus to death ; and he 
 was far too anxious not to offend the Jews, to taunt them 
 with their loss of freedom, when they were so excited. And 
 if he was speaking seriously, his words clearly imply that the 
 Sanhedrim could inflict capital punishment, unless indeed 
 the Procurator interposed his veto. 
 
 2. Both Augustine (Tract, cxiv. in Joan.} and Chrysos- 
 tom (Horn. Ixxxiii. in Joan.) interpret the Jews' reply to 
 mean, ' it is not lawful for us to put any one to death at 
 this holy festival :' just as they had used the self-same 
 phrase before, ' it is the sabbath day : it is not lawful for thee 
 to carry thy bed.' Clearly St. John's own comment on their 
 reply ' that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which 
 He spake, signifying what death He should die ' implies 
 that it was by no means a matter of course that our Lord, if 
 put to death, would be put to death by the Romans. Our 
 
 1 The Life of our Lord upon the Earth, by Rev. Samuel J. Andrews 
 (Strahan & Co., 1869), a work that deserves to be better known. 
 
 2 First Age cfthe Church, vol. ii. Appendix ii.
 
 JJotocr of iht <Satthtbrim 147 
 
 Lord's own special prediction of the manner of His death 
 (Matt. xx. 19), and the careful way in which St. John here 
 shows how that prediction came to be fulfilled, seem to 
 imply that if things had been left to their usual course, the 
 sentence of the Sanhedrim would have been executed by 
 stoning so soon as the Feast was over. But after what they 
 had witnessed on Palm Sunday, the Priests dared not run 
 the risk (see Matt. xxvi. 5), and resolved therefore to force 
 Pilate to execute Jesus in the Roman manner, thus fulfilling 
 the prophecy. 
 
 3. Many other passages seem to imply that the Sanhedrim 
 had the power of inflicting death (John v. 18, vii. 32, 51, 
 viii. 5, 7, 59. xi. 53, xii. 10). Tertullus, in his oration 
 before Felix (Acts xxiv. 6), complains to the Procurator that 
 Lysias had interposed to prevent the Sanhedrim from judg- 
 ing Paul according to their own law. And that this meant 
 death is clear not only from Acts xxvi. 31, but also from the 
 nature of the offence (' profaning the Temple'), as we shall 
 see in the sequel. Tertullus, a Roman lawyer, addressing 
 a Roman Governor, would never have spoken thus, if the 
 claim of the Sanhedrim had been illegal. 
 
 The death of James the Just, as recorded by Josephus 
 (Ant, xxi. 8. i), is another case in point. For when the Pha- 
 risees complained to Albinus that their high priest, Ananus 
 (a Sadducee), ' had acted not rightly ' in putting James to 
 death, no question of Roman law was in their mind, but 
 only a deep reverence for the character of St. James. 
 
 4. In reply to those who quote the passage from the 
 Talmud, Biscoe shows that the passage was understood by 
 Selden himself to mean, that for forty years before the fall 
 of Jerusalem capital punishment had been, not altogether 
 forbidden 1 , but much disused, owing to the venality of the 
 Roman Procurators, who were constantly bribed to interfere 
 in the criminal's favour. 
 
 5. That favoured Provinces were often allowed to live 
 1 This notion Selden calls ' hallucinatio manifesta.' There was a 
 
 ' desuetude,' not a ' sublatio judiciorum capitalium.'
 
 148 
 
 under their own laws is clear. Cicero, speaking of some 
 Asiatic cities, writes, ' All these states, when once allowed to 
 live under their own laws, seemed to draw fresh life from 
 this privilege of self-government ' ( ' omnes, suis legibus et 
 judiciis usae, avrovo/j-lav adeptae revixerunt.' Ep. ad Attic. 
 vi. 2.) And that Judaea was so favoured, is plain from 
 Josephus. He tells us ( Wars, ii. 2. 3) that the Jews peti- 
 tioned Augustus, on the fall of the Herodian family, to place 
 them under a Roman Governor, in order that they might 
 retain their own laws. And, that in point of fact they did 
 retain them, is no less clear from the speeches of Titus 
 ( Wars, vi. 6. 2. and 2. 4), who reminded them how indul- 
 gent the Emperors had been to them, allowing them to live 
 under their own laws, and to put to death any one who pro- 
 faned their Temple, even though he were a Roman citizen. 
 This last passage explains at once the claim which Tertullus 
 made on behalf of the Sanhedrim to judge and punish Paul 
 for profaning the Temple. 
 
 6. But the crowning proof that the Sanhedrim had the 
 power is the case of Stephen. For that it was a judicial 
 proceeding, and not a mere tumultuary outbreak, is rendered 
 probable from the narrative : he was taken outside the 
 walls ; the witnesses seem to have cast the first stone, accord- 
 ing to law (Deut. xvii. 7) ; Saul (as junior member of the 
 Sanhedrim, perhaps) was commissioned to superintend the 
 execution, like an English Sheriff. And, finally, the ques- 
 tion is surely decided by St. Paul's own reference to the 
 proceeding in Acts xxvi. 10, where, alluding to the death of 
 Stephen and those who suffered in the same persecution, he 
 says : ' And when they were put to death I gave my vote ' 
 (for such is the word in the original, clearly implying a 
 judicial procedure,) ' against them'. 
 
 That the Sanhedrim's exercise of the power might at all 
 times be stayed by the Procurator must of course be ad- 
 mitted. And perhaps, on the whole, the safest conclusion 
 is Dean Milman's, ' formed' (he says) ' on the study of the 
 contemporary Jewish history,' that ' the power of the Sanhe-
 
 ^Llu &ds> illustrates from other ^istodaus 149 
 
 drim, at this period of political change and confusion, on 
 this, as well as on other points, was altogether undefined. ' 
 
 One other point, in this connection, may be noticed : it 
 has been often asked, ' how came the High Priest or Sanhe- 
 drim to have jurisdiction over the Jews resident in Damascus, 
 so that they could commission Saul to bring them bound to 
 Jerusalem for punishment?' For Damascus was the second 
 city of the Roman Province of Syria, and was entirely inde- 
 pendent of Judaea. 
 
 Biscoe's answer seems to be the true one, that the decrees 
 of C. Julius Cossar, given by Josephus (in Ant. xiv. 10), 
 granted to Hyrcanus and his successors this power ; and 
 that it extended to Jews in foreign cities seems clear from 
 the decrees being ordered to be posted up in all the great 
 cities of the Levant. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 of the Qtis illustrate*) from othvc 
 
 UNLIKE the Gospel narrative, which covers a few years 
 only, and is confined within the narrow limits of the Holy 
 Land, the Book of the Acts embraces more than thirty years, 
 and conducts the reader into many provinces of the Roman 
 Empire. It is therefore necessarily in continual contact with 
 the general history of the period ; and it becomes a matter 
 of much interest to inquire how far its statements and allu- 
 sions are in harmony with those of other writers. 
 
 One of the most learned men of the last century, who 
 devoted many years to this inquiry, thus sums up the result 
 of his researches : ' I dare be bold to say, there is no book 
 extant in the world which has so much evidence of its truth, 
 and so little to be urged against it, as this Book has' 1 . 
 
 Perhaps the simplest way of enabling the reader to judge 
 for himself in this matter, will be to select a few of the many 
 
 1 Biscoe, History of the Acts confirmed from other Authors, 1743.
 
 150 
 
 points in which St. Luke's narrative challenges this kind of 
 criticism, and bring together what is said by other writers 
 on each point, leaving the reader to compare it with what he 
 finds in St. Luke. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the men of most note mentioned 
 in the course of the Acts. 
 
 Of Caius Caligula and his mad attempt to set up his 
 statue in the Jewish temple in the last year of his reign, we 
 hear nothing in the New Testament ; but of his uncle 
 CLAUDIUS, who (according tojosephus) owed his succession 
 to the Empire (Jan. 24, A.D. 41) to the influence of his 
 friend Herod Agrippa, we hear twice in the Acts (xi. 28 
 and xviii. 2). With respect to the famine mentioned in the 
 first passage, both Dion Cassius (Ix. n) and Tacitus (Ann. 
 xii. 13) tell us that there were frequent famines in the reign 
 of Claudius ; and Josephus (Ant. xx. 5- 2 ) mentions a 
 famine in Syria in the fourth year of his reign, which 
 Eusebius (ii. 12) identifies with that foretold by Agabus. 
 The second allusion to Claudius is in connection with the 
 Jews' banishment from Rome. Suetonius (Claud. 25) makes 
 express mention of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, 
 and curiously connects it in some way with Christianity : 
 ' Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma ex- 
 pulit', the Jews "who at the instigation of one Chrestus, 
 were making constant disturbances, he expelled from Rome. 
 Claudius was poisoned October 13, A.D. 54, and was suc- 
 ceeded by Nero. 
 
 HEROD, grandson of Herod the Great, was called Agrippa 
 by the Romans, in compliment to Agrippina, daughter of 
 the great Agrippa. He it was who put James to death, and 
 imprisoned Peter. That he was king of Judaea at this time 
 we know from Josephus, who tells us (Ant. xix. 5. i) that 
 one of the first acts of Claudius was to reward his friend 
 Agrippa for his services by giving him all the dominions of 
 his grandfather Herod. Judaea, therefore, which since A. D. 6 
 had been governed by Roman Procurators (such as Pilate), 
 had now a king. This was in A.D. 41. Three years after- 
 wards he was smitten with the horrible disease which ended
 
 ^hc gUts illustnttcb from other historians 151 
 
 his life. Josephus's account of his death (given at p. 58) 
 corresponds strikingly with that of St. Luke, differing pre- 
 cisely as an uninspired narrative might be expected to differ 
 from one inspired. 
 
 HEROD AGRIPPA II. was at Rome (aged 17) at the time 
 of his father's death. Judaea again became a Roman Pro- 
 vince under Procurators. But in A.D. 50 Claudius gave 
 young Agrippa the kingdom of Chalcis, and afterwards that 
 of Trachonitis and Abilene (Jos. Ant. xx. 7. i). Josephus 
 also tells us how careful this Agrippa was to stand well with 
 the Romans, and to pay his respects to newly appointed 
 Roman Governors. Thus he tells us how ' King Agrippa 
 went to Alexandria to salute Alexander, who had been sent 
 by Nero to govern Egypt' {Wars, ii. 15. i). And again, 
 how his sister Bernice used to accompany her brother on 
 these state occasions, as for instance when ' they went to- 
 gether to Berytus with the intention of meeting Gessius, the 
 Roman Governor of Judaea ' (Life, n). Gessius Florusheld 
 the same office that Felix held. The parallel therefore to 
 Acts xxv. 13 is very complete. 
 
 FELIX (called Antonius Felix by Tacitus) was the fourth 
 of the Procurators who governed the province of Judaea after 
 the death of King Herod Agrippa I. St. Paul, in his de- 
 fence before him (A.D. 58), alludes to his having been for 
 many years a governor of Judaea (Acts xxiv. 10). Accord- 
 ing to Josephus (Ant. xx. 7. i), Claudius sent out Felix on 
 the banishment of Cumanus (A.D. 53). This would give 
 five years, which would perhaps suffice for St. Paul's phrase; 
 but Tacitus tells us that he had been previously joint-Gover- 
 nor with Cumanus (Ann. xiu 54), which would still better 
 account for St. Paul's language. His hope to receive a 
 bribe from St. Paul (suggested perhaps by what Paul had 
 said about the sum of money with which he had come to 
 Jerusalem, xxiv. 1 7'), is quite consistent with what Tacitus 
 tells us of his mean unprincipled character (Hist. v. 9). He 
 well might wish to win, if possible, the favour of the Jews on 
 1 This coincidence was first pointed out by Lardner, quoted in 
 Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences, p. 320 (6th ed. )
 
 152 
 
 leaving the province (Acts xxiv. 27), for Josephus tells us 
 what reason he had to dread their resentment, and how 
 ' when Porcius Festus was sent by Nero to succeed him, the 
 chief Jews of Csesarea went to Rome to accuse Felix ; and 
 he would certainly have been brought to punishment, unless 
 Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his 
 brother Pallas, who was at that time in high favour ' (Ant. 
 xx. 8. 9). Josephus also tells us that during the procurator- 
 ship of Felix, an Egyptian impostor persuaded a multitude 
 of miscreants (the 4000 of Acts xxi. 38) to go out from 
 Jerusalem with him into the wilderness. Having increased 
 their numbers to 30,000, he led them round about and back 
 to the Mount of Olives, where Felix attacked and defeated 
 them (Wars, ii. 13. 5, compared with Ant. xx. 8. 6). This 
 must have happened some short time before the arrest of 
 Paul, agreeing perfectly with the remark of Claudius Lysias. 
 
 Josephus further tells us how Felix, through the interven- 
 tion of one Simon, a Magician 1 , contrived to persuade Dru- 
 silla (Agrippa's other sister) to be his wife ; compare Acts 
 xxiv. 24. 
 
 PORCIUS FESTUS is mentioned by Josephus, in the passage 
 above quoted, as successor to Felix, in agreement with Acts 
 xxiv. 27. From another passage in Josephus ( Wars, ii. 14. i), 
 it would seem that Festus was an upright governor, which 
 accords with his straightforward conduct in the matter of 
 St. Paul. 
 
 The recall of Felix and succession of Festus is one of the 
 most important dates in the Acts of the Apostles. By very 
 elaborate argument, Anger and Wieseler have proved it to 
 be A.D. 60 ; the harmony of this date with very numerous 
 coincidences in the Acts of the Apostles must strike every one 
 who goes through these investigations. 
 
 GALLIO is mentioned by St. Luke as Procurator of the 
 
 province of Achaia at the time of St. Paul's first visit to 
 
 Corinth (A.D. 54). That this was the 'Junius Annaeus 
 
 Gallic ' (brother of the philosopher Seneca), mentioned 
 
 1 Whom some identify with the Simon Magus of the Acts.
 
 'Che JUts iUttstnttcb from other historians 153 
 
 several times by Tacitus and other Roman writers, can 
 hardly be doubted. It appears from one of Seneca's Epistles 
 (Ep. 104) that his brother Gallic had resided in Achaia, and 
 left the province because the climate did not suit his health ; 
 and in his book De Consol. (cap. 16) he alludes to Gallio as 
 one who had borne high office. His conduct, too, as it 
 appears in St. Luke's narrative, resolutely refusing to be 
 either beguiled (xviii. 13) or provoked (17) into abetting the 
 Jews' violence, quite agrees with the epithet ' dulcis ' (good- 
 tempered) which both Seneca and Statius apply to him. 
 
 Such are a few of the coincidences of St. Luke's narrative 
 with the general history of the period. The more minute 
 coincidences are innumerable. St. Luke's accurate designa- 
 tion of all Roman or Greek magistrates whom he has occa- 
 sion to mention has been remarked by scholars repeatedly. 
 A province was under a Proprietor (with Procurators under 
 him, Tjye/j.uv') if it belonged to the Emperor, under a Pro- 
 consul (avdiLnraros} if it belonged to the Senate. The frequent 
 transference of the provinces from the Senate to the Emperor, 
 or from the Emperor to the Senate, rendered it difficult to be 
 always sure of the proper style of the Governor. But St. 
 Luke has never once been found in error. For instance, he 
 calls Sergius Paulus Proconsul (Deputy in our translation) of 
 Cyprus : and from Dion Cassius (liii. 12 and liv. 4, con- 
 firmed by a coin) we learn that Cyprus, though at first re- 
 served to the Emperor by Augustus, was afterwards made 
 over to the Senate. So with Achaia ; Tiberius made it im- 
 perial (Tac. Ann. i. 76), but Suetonius tells us (Claud. 25) 
 that Claudius in his fourth year gave it to the Senate. 
 Therefore Gallio (in A.D. 54) is rightly termed Proconsul. 
 
 Again : a city that was a military colony, like Philippi, 
 was governed by Duumvirs or Praetors (Cic. de Leg. Agrar. 
 34), whereas a free city, like Thessalonica, continued under 
 its native constitution. Most accurately therefore does St. 
 Luke (in Acts xvi. ) speak of the ' Printers ' (ffrpariryol} of 
 Philippi, and of the Popular assembly (5??,uos) and Politarchs
 
 154 
 
 of Thessalonica. On a Roman arch still standing at Thessa- 
 lonica, this very title of its magistrates may be seen inscribed 1 . 
 
 Even in speaking of the Roman Governor of the remote 
 island of Melita, St. Luke's never-failing accuracy may be 
 noticed : not only do we know that it had been conquered 
 by the Romans in the second Punic War, but in an inscrip- 
 tion dug up in the island, the very title which St. Luke gives 
 to Publius is found applied to its governor (irp&ros MeXtra/wc). 
 The fact of the inhabitants speaking a Punic dialect (akin to 
 Hebrew) accounts at once for St. Luke calling them ' bar- 
 barians ' (i.e., foreigners to Greece and Rome), and for St. 
 Paul being able to make himself understood by them. 
 
 Almost the only historical inaccuracy attributed to St. 
 Luke occurs in Acts v. 36. He there makes Gamaliel allude 
 to an insurrection of one Theudas, about forty years before 
 that time. As Josephus (Ant. xx. 5. i) happens to mention 
 an insurrection headed by a man of the same name about 
 ten years after this speech of Gamaliel, St. Luke is charged 
 with an anachronism. But Theudas was a common name ; 
 and Josephus himself tells us of many insurrections as 
 having occurred at the time alluded to by Gamaliel (Ant. 
 xvii. 10. 4-8) under nameless leaders, one of whom may 
 well have been the Theudas to whom Gamaliel alluded. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 <Dtt thx QrimmxrJflga of the 
 
 THE Chronology of the Acts is full of difficulty. 
 
 I. One date only can be fixed with certainty the death 
 of Herod Agrippa. 
 
 Josephus tells us (Wars, ii. 11. 6) that he died after 
 reigning three years. As he tells us elsewhere (Ant. xix. 8. 2) 
 that he received his kingdom immediately after the accession 
 of Claudius, early in A.D. 41, the date of his death must be 
 in the spring of A.D. 44. From St. Luke's narrative we 
 1 Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul.
 
 (Dn the (SLhwnoloQ'Q at the Qcts 155 
 
 gather that it was after the Passover. This date therefore 
 is clearly fixed for us. 
 
 All the events of the first twelve chapters have to be 
 arranged between the date of our Lord's Ascension (A. D. 29 
 or 30) and A. D. 44. 
 
 II. One dther date may be fixed with a great amount of 
 probability the recall of Felix. 
 
 Josephus tells us (Ant. xx. 8. 9) that Felix was followed 
 to Rome by his accusers, and only saved from punishment 
 by the influence of his brother Pallas, ' who at that time was 
 held in the greatest honour by Nero.' Now we know from 
 Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 65) that Nero killed Pallas for the sake 
 of his wealth in A. D. 62. Josephus also mentions that Burrus 
 was then living, and Burrus died not later than February 
 62 (Ann. xiv. 51). 
 
 These accusers must have gone to Rome therefore in the 
 preceding summer (while the sea was still open) at latest. 
 On the other hand Felix's recall cannot well have been be- 
 fore A. D. 60, for two years previously St. Paul had spoken 
 of him as having been for many years in Judaea (Acts xxiv. 10), 
 and we know that he was appointed in A. D. 53. Putting 
 these facts together, it appears that Felix must have been re- 
 called A. D. 60 or 61. One more note of time remains, which 
 seems to make 61 impossible. St. Paul reached Rome in 
 the spring of the year following the recall of Felix ; and he 
 was delivered, not to the Prefects, but to the Prefect (Acts 
 xxviii. 16). Now, if he had arrived in the spring of 62, he 
 would have found two Prefects of the Praetorians (Rufus and 
 Tigellinus, Tac. Ann. xiv. 51) ; but in the previous year 
 there was but one, viz. Burrus. Therefore St. Paul's arrival 
 is fixed in the spring of 61 ; and therefore Felix's recall 
 must be dated 60. 
 
 With these two leading dates to guide us, 44 for the 
 death of Herod Agrippa, and 60 for the recall of Felix, it 
 remains to deduce the rest of the Chronology. 
 
 III. Starting from the last-named year, and calculating 
 backwards, we obtain the following dates from St. Luke's 
 narrative :
 
 156 
 
 A.D. 
 
 58. (Acts xxiv. 27) Just before Pentecost ; his arrival at 
 Jerusalem ; three months of the preceding winter 
 in Greece (Acts xx. 3). 
 
 57. (Spring) Paul leaves Ephesus (see p. 102). 
 54. Commencement of Paul's three years at Ephesus 
 
 (Acts xx. 31). 
 
 52. (Autumn) Commencement of his eighteen months at 
 Corinth (Acts xviii. II). Allowing two years for 
 the 'teaching and preaching' at Antioch (Acts 
 xv. 35), and for the journeyings of Acts xvi. and 
 xvii., we obtain 
 
 50 for the Council at Jerusalem. 
 
 Adopting this date, A.D. 50, as a new starting-point, and 
 identifying Paul's visit to the Council in that year with the 
 visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal. ii. I, we obtain from 
 that verse 
 
 A.D 
 
 38, reckoning the fourteen years inclusively 1 , for St. Paul's 
 fifteen days' visit to St. Peter, Gal. i. 18 ; and 
 
 35 for his conversion, or 36 if we reckon the three years 
 of Gal. i. 1 8 inclusively. 
 
 That his conversion was A,D. 36 is probable for two 
 reasons : 
 
 1. In that year Pilate was sent to Rome, and Vitellius (to 
 whom Damascus as second city of Syria belonged) visited 
 Jerusalem, and did all he could to win the favour 2 of the 
 Jews. Thus the difficulty of Saul's commission to Damascus 
 is explained. 
 
 2. In the year 37 Vitellius was ordered to march against 
 Aretas, but desisted 3 on hearing of the death of Tiberius. 
 Aretas may then have occupied Damascus, which would 
 explain the allusion to St. Paul's escape in 2 Cor. xi. 32, 
 Aretas being anxious to outbid Vitellius for the Jews' 
 favour. 
 
 1 In reckoning a term of years the Jews counted the fragments of 
 years at each end of the term as whole years. 
 
 2 Jos. Ant. xviii. 4. 3. 3 j os . Ant. xviii. 5. 3.
 
 (Dn the. Qthvonolcicw of the ^Uts 157 
 
 It will be observed how well the date 50 for the Council 
 harmonizes with the date independently assigned to Herod 
 Agrippa's death. Starting from Herod's death, and follow- 
 ing St. Luke's narrative, we obtain 
 A.D. 
 
 44. Herod's death (Acts xii. 23). 
 
 45. The famine 1 , and Paul and Barnabas's mission with 
 
 alms to Jerusalem, which seems to have been after 
 Herod's persecution of the Apostles, for in Acts 
 xi. 30 they are said to have found the Presbyters 
 only, not the Apostles .(see Acts xii. 17) at Jeru- 
 salem. The opening words of Acts xii. go back to 
 the time of the prophecy, not its subsequent fulfil- 
 ment, which is mentioned by way of anticipation 
 in Acts xi. 29, 30. 
 
 46. Paul and Barnabas's missionary tour in Asia Minor, 
 occupying about two years. (The narrative seems 
 to imply a long sojourn at Derbe. ) 
 48. Their return. 'They abode a long time ' at Antioch, 
 
 two or three years probably, bringing us again to 
 50 as the date of the -Council at Jerusalem. 
 Thus, relying on our two leading dates Herod's death 
 in 44, and the recall of Felix in 60 and for the rest on such 
 scattered notes of time as the narrative supplies, we may 
 construct with some degree of confidence the following 
 Chronological Table, which will be found to differ but little 
 from that of Wieseler, confessedly the greatest authority on 
 the subject. 
 
 As in the Key to the Four Gospels, the old traditional 
 date of our Lord's Crucifixion, which the Fathers of the first 
 five centuries seem to have adopted without hesitation, is 
 here assumed, fixing it in the consulship of the Gemini 2 , i.e., 
 A.n. 29, thirty-two years and a quarter after our Lord's 
 birth. 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. xx. 5. 2, in the Procuratorship of Fadus, i.e., after 44. 
 
 2 See Tertull. Adv. Jud. viii. ; Aug. De Civ. Dei, xviii. 54 ; and 
 Epiphanius (quoted by Greswell, I. 444). For the consulship of Ru- 
 bellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, see Tac. Ann. v. i.
 
 158 
 
 A.D. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ACTS 
 
 
 TIBERIUS, Emperor since Aug. 19, 
 
 
 
 
 A.D. 14, 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 Pontius Pilate, Procurator since A. D. 
 
 
 
 
 26, 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 Caiaphas, High Priest since A.D. 25, 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 Ascension, 
 
 I 
 
 i. 9 
 
 
 Pentecost 
 
 7~ 
 
 2. I 
 
 
 Lame Man healed, 
 
 12 
 
 3- i 
 
 
 Arrest of Peter and John, 
 
 14 
 
 4- i 
 
 
 Death of Ananias and Sapphira, 
 
 2 4 
 
 5- * 
 
 
 The Twelve imprisoned, 
 
 18 
 
 5. 18 
 
 34 
 
 Appointment of the Seven, 
 
 27 
 
 6. i 
 
 36 
 
 Pilate ordered to Rome by Vitellius, 
 
 
 
 
 Vitellius visits Jerusalem ; deposes 
 
 
 
 
 Caiaphas, ..... 
 
 
 
 
 Stephen's Martyrdom, . 
 
 33 
 
 7- i 
 
 
 Saul's Persecution, 
 
 
 8- 3 
 
 
 Dispersion ; Philip's Ministry, 
 
 35 
 
 8. 4 
 
 
 Foundation of Church in Samaria, . 
 
 37 
 
 8. 14 
 
 
 Saul's Conversion, 
 
 
 9- i 
 
 37 
 
 CAIUS CALIGULA, Emperor, Mar. 16, 
 
 
 
 
 Vitellius abandons war with Aretas, 
 
 
 ... 
 
 38 
 
 Saul escapes from Damascus (2 Cor. 
 
 
 
 
 xi. 32), 
 
 46 
 
 ... 
 
 
 His brief visit to Jerusalem (Gal. i. 
 
 
 
 
 18), 
 
 46 
 
 9. 26 
 
 
 He retires to Tarsus, 
 
 
 9- 3 
 
 39 
 40 
 
 Herod Agrippa visits his Tetrarchies, 
 Herod Antipas banished to Lyons, 
 Caius orders his Statue to be set up 
 
 
 
 
 in the Temple, .... 
 
 49 
 
 .*. 
 
 
 The Churches of Judaea, Samaria, 
 
 
 
 
 and Galilee 'have rest,' 
 
 
 9- 3 1 
 
 
 Peter's Visit to Cornelius, 
 
 51 
 
 10. I 
 
 
 Rise of Gentile Church at Antioch, 
 
 54 
 
 II. 20 
 
 
 Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus, 
 
 56 
 
 ii. 25 
 
 
 Agabus prophecies a Famine, 
 
 
 ii. 28 
 
 41 
 
 CLAUDIUS, Emperor, Jan. 24, 
 Herod Agrippa made King of 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 Judssa, . 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 (Dit tlte Chronxrlogg of ike 
 
 i59 
 
 A.D. 
 
 
 'AGE 
 
 ACTS 
 
 44 
 
 He kills James and imprisons Peter, 
 Peter (and all the Apostles ?) leaves 
 
 57 
 
 12. I 
 
 
 Jerusalem 
 
 eg 
 
 12. 17 
 
 
 Herod's Death ; Cuspius Fadus, 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 Procurator, . ... 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 The Famine, 
 
 
 
 
 Barnabas and Saul go with Alms 
 
 
 J " 3 
 
 
 to Jerusalem, . . ."J -v^i! 
 
 
 < 12. 25 
 
 46 
 
 Ordination of Barnabas and Saul, . 
 
 62 
 
 13- 3 
 
 
 Their Missionary Tour to the Gen- 
 
 
 
 
 tiles, 
 
 64 
 
 
 48 
 
 Their return to Antioch, and abode 
 
 
 
 
 there 
 
 67 
 
 14. 28 
 
 
 Ananias made High Priest, 
 
 w 
 
 
 49 
 
 Herod Agrippa II., King of Chalcis, 
 
 
 ... 
 
 50 
 
 Council at Jerusalem, 
 
 7 1 
 
 15- I 
 
 
 Peter rebuked by Paul at Antioch 
 
 
 
 
 (Gal. ii. II), 
 
 75 
 
 
 Si 
 
 Paul sets forth on Second Mission 
 
 
 
 
 with Silas, 
 
 78 
 
 15. 40 
 
 
 Finds Timothy at Lystra, .. - j, 
 
 79 
 
 16. i 
 
 
 Founds Galatian Churches, ; '- .. * r 
 
 
 16. 6 
 
 52 
 
 Crosses over into Europe, 
 
 81 
 
 16. ii 
 
 
 Founds Churches of Philippi and 
 
 
 
 
 Thessalonica, .... 
 
 82 
 
 17. i 
 
 
 Paul at Athens, .... 
 
 86 
 
 17- 15 
 
 
 Reaches Corinth late in the year, . 
 
 88 
 
 18. i 
 
 53 
 
 Writes I and 2 Thess., . 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 (Felix, Procur. ); H. Agrippa II., 
 
 
 
 
 King of Trachonitis, . 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 Quits Corinth in spring ; a few days 
 at Ephesus, .... 
 
 93 
 
 18. 18 
 
 
 Keeps Pentecost at Jerusalem, 
 
 
 1 8. 22 
 
 
 A few weeks at Antioch, 
 
 
 
 
 Arrives at Ephesus, 
 
 94 
 
 19. I 
 
 
 Founds Ephesian Church (3 years) ; 
 
 
 
 
 writes I Cor., .... 
 
 96 
 
 ... 
 
 57 
 
 Leaves Ephesus in spring ; writes 
 
 
 
 
 2 Cor., 
 
 1 02 
 
 20. I 
 
 
 NERO, Emperor, Oct. 13, 
 
 
 ...
 
 i6o ^.ppcnbix Chronologg at the JUts 
 
 A.D. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ACTS 
 
 
 Three months at Corinth ; writes 
 
 
 
 
 Gal. and Rom., .... 
 
 I0 5 
 
 20. 3 
 
 58 
 
 Passover at Philippi ; a week at 
 
 
 
 
 Troas 
 
 TO7 
 
 20. 6 | 
 
 
 Farewell Address to Ephesian Pres- 
 
 iu/ 
 
 
 
 byters, . . 
 
 
 20. 17 
 
 
 Arrives at Jerusalem, 
 
 no 
 
 21. 17 
 
 
 Arrested about Pentecost (May 9), 
 
 III 
 
 21. 33 
 
 
 Defence before Sanhedrim ; sent to 
 
 
 
 
 Csesarea, 
 
 "5 
 
 23- i 
 
 
 Defence before Felix and Ananias, 
 
 116 
 
 24. i 
 
 
 Two years' imprisonment at Csesarea, 
 
 117 
 
 
 60 
 
 Festus succeeds Felix as Procurator, 
 
 119 
 
 24. 27 
 
 
 Paul accused by Jews, appeals to 
 
 
 
 
 Caesar, . 
 
 1 20 
 
 25. i 
 
 
 Defence before Agrippa and Festus, 
 
 121 
 
 26. i 
 
 
 Embarks for Italy (Autumn), . 
 Shipwreck ; three winter months in 
 
 123 
 
 27. i 
 
 
 Melita, 
 
 126 
 
 
 61 
 
 Lands at Puteoli ; reaches Rome 
 
 
 
 
 (Spring),. ... 
 
 J 3 r 
 
 28. 14 
 
 
 Two years in Military Custody at 
 
 
 
 
 Rome, 
 
 132 
 
 
 
 Writes Ephes., Coloss., Philem., 
 
 
 
 
 and Philip., ...... 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 Martyrdom, of James 'the Lord's 
 
 
 
 
 Brother,' 
 
 M7 
 
 
 68 
 
 Paul again imprisoned .at Rome, 
 
 
 
 
 Martyrdom of St. Peter and St Paul 
 
 
 
 
 in the last year of Nero according 
 
 
 
 
 to Jerome, ..... 
 
 76 
 
 ... 
 
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