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ATHENAEUM
CANCELLED.
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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