THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.,
Editor of "The Expositor."
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
BY
G. T. STOKES, D.D.
NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON,
51 EAST TENTH STREET
(NEAR BROADWAY).
1891.
THE
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
BY THE REV.
G. T. STOKES, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN,
AND VICAR OF ALL SAINTS', BLACKROCK.
NEW YORK:
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON,
51 EAST TENTH STREET
(NEAR BROADWAY).
1891.
PREFACE.
This volume contains an exposition of the Acts
of the Apostles down to, but not including, the
conversion of St. Paul and the baptism of Cornelius.
There is a natural division at that point. Prior o
these events, the inspired narrative is engaged with
what the late Bishop Lightfoot of Durham called great
"representative facts," prophetical or typical of the
future developments of the Church, whether among
Jews or Gentiles;See the treatise on the Christian Ministry in his Philippians, p. 186.
while the subsequent course of the
history deals almost entirely with missionary work
among the heathen and the labours of St. Paul.Dr. Goulburn, in his Acts of the Deacons, suggested this view of
the Acts of the Apostles nearly thirty years ago.
We are dependent for the story of these earliest days
of the Church's life upon the Acts of the Apostles. I
have endeavoured, however, to illustrate the narrative
by copious references to ancient documents, some of
which may appear of dubious value and authority,
such as the Acts of the Saints and the writings of the
mediæval Greek hagiologist, Simeon Metaphrastes, who
lived in the tenth century.For an account of Simeon Metaphrastes the English reader should
consult Dr. Schaff's valuable Encyclopædia of Historical Theology.
The latter writer has
been hitherto regarded as more famous for his imagination
than for his historical accuracy. This age of
ours is a noted one, however, for clearing characters
previously regarded as very doubtful, and Simeon Metaphrastes
has come in for his own share of this process
of rehabilitation. The distinguished writer just referred
to, Dr. Lightfoot, as we have shown in a note on
p. 218, has proved that Metaphrastes embodied in his
works valuable early records, dating back to the second
century, which in critical hands can shed much light
upon primitive Christian history.See Professor Ramsay on "The Tale of Saint Abercius" in the
Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. iii., p. 338, for a full account of this new
source of early Church history which his travels and excavations have
brought to our notice.
In fact, students of
Holy Scripture and of early Christianity are learning
every day to look more and more to ancient Greek,
Syriac, and Armenian writers, and to the libraries of the
Eastern Churches, for fresh light on these important
subjects. It is only natural we should do so. Writers
like Simeon Metaphrastes and Photius, the student
Patriarch of Constantinople, lived a thousand years
nearer the apostolic times than we do. They flourished
in an age of the highest civilization, when precious
literary works, in hundreds and thousands, which are no
longer known amongst us, lay all around them and at
their command. These men and their friends gathered
them up and extracted them, and common sense alone
teaches that a critical study of their writings will
reveal to us somewhat of the treasures they possessed.
The libraries of the East again form a great field
for investigation. During the last fifty years we have
paid some little attention to them, which has been
amply rewarded. The recovery of the complete works
of Hippolytus and of Clement of Rome, the discovery
of the Teaching of the Apostles and of the Diatessaron of
Tatian, are only specimens of what we may yet hope
to exhume from the dust of ages.
The testimony, too, borne by these finds has been
of the greatest importance. The Diatessaron alone has
formed the most triumphant reply to the argument
against the Gospels, specially against St. John's Gospel,
formulated some years ago by the author of Supernatural
Religion. And the process of discovery is still
going on. I have said something in the notes to the
final lecture of the present volume concerning the latest
discovery of this kind which throws some light upon the
composition of the Acts. I refer to the lost Apology of
Aristides, which has just been brought to light. Let
me very briefly tell its story and show its bearing on
the age and date of the Acts. Eusebius, the historian
of the fourth century, mentions in his Chronicle, under
the year 124, the two earliest apologies written in
defence of Christianity; one by Quadratus, a hearer of
the Apostles, the other by Aristides, a philosopher of
Athens. Now this year 124 was about twenty years after
St. John's death. These apologies have hitherto been
best known by this historian's notice, though Eusebius
says they were widely circulated in his time. The
Apology or defence of Aristides has often been sought
for. In the seventeenth century it was said to have been
extant in a monastery near Athens,Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs Ecclésiastiques, i., 403.
but no Western had
ever seen it in a complete shape in modern times. Two
years ago, however, Professor J. Rendel Harris, M.A.,
of Cambridge and of Haverford College, Pennsylvania,
discovered it in a Syriac version in the library of the
convent of St. Catharine on Mount Sinai, whence he
has published it with an English translation in a new
series of Texts and Studies in Biblical and Patristic
Literature, the first number of which has appeared at
Cambridge within the last few weeks.Mr. Harris's discovery is not the first find of this ancient apologist
in modern times. The Armenian Mechitarites of Venice published
what they called two sermons of Aristides in 1878; which Cardinal
Pitra, the learned librarian of the Vatican, reprinted in 1883, in his
Analecta Sacra, t. iv., pp. x, xi, 6-11, 282-86. One of these sermons
was a fragment of the Apology of Aristides, which the Mechitarites
scarcely at first recognised as such. M. Rénan, in his Origines de
Christianisme, vol. vi., p. vi (Paris, 1879), scoffed at this fragment,
declaring that, from the technical theological terms, such as Theotokos,
therein used, it was evidently posterior to the fourth century. Doulcet,
in the Revue des Questions Historiques for October 1880, pp. 601-12,
made an effective reply with the materials at hand at the time; but Mr.
Harris's publication of the complete work triumphantly demonstrates
that M. Rénan's objections were worthless (see Harris, pp. 2, 3, 27).
It is another proof that Christians have everything to hope and nothing
to fear from such discoveries of early documents. Mr. Harris's preface
is specially interesting, because it shows that we have had the Apology
of Aristides all the time, though we knew it not, as it was worked
in the quasi-oriental tale of Barlaam and Joasaph printed among the
works of St. John of Damascus.
I need not go farther into the story of the recovery
of this document, which raises high our expectations of
others still more interesting. The Apology of Quadratus
would be even more important, as it bore direct
testimony to the miracles of our Lord. The brief
extract from it which Eusebius gives in his History,
book iv., chap. 3, proves how precious would be the
complete work. "The deeds of our Saviour, says
Quadratus, were always before you, for they were
true; those that were healed, those that were raised
from the dead, who were seen, not only when healed
and when raised, but were always present. They
remained for a long time, not only whilst the Saviour
was sojourning with us, but likewise when He had been
removed. So that some of them have also survived to
our own times."
In the Apology of Quadratus we should obtain a picture
of the popular theology of the Church during that dark
period which elapsed between the days of Clement of
Rome and Ignatius, and those of Justin Martyr. The
Apology of Aristides which has been found reveals
something indeed in the same direction, but is more
occupied with an attack upon paganism than in a statement
of the Christian faith. Here, however, consists its
bearing on the Acts of the Apostles, not directly, but
by way of contrast. Let me explain what I mean. In
lecture xvii., when treating of the story of Simon Magus,
I have shown how the simple narrative of the Acts
concerning that man became elaborated in the second
century till it formed at last a regular romance; whence
I conclude that if the Acts had been written in the
second century the story of Simon Magus would not
be the simple matter we read in St. Luke's narrative.
Now our argument for the date of the Acts derived
from the Apology of Aristides is of much the same kind.
This document shows us what the tone and substance
of second century addresses to the pagans were. It is
the earliest of a series of apologies extending over the
whole of that century. The Apology of Aristides, the
numerous writings of Justin Martyr, specially the
Oratio and the Cohortatio ad Græcos attributed to him,
the Oration of Tatian addressed to the Greeks, the
Apologeticus and the treatise Ad Nationes of Tertullian,
the Epistle to Diognetus, the writings of Athenagoras,
all deal with the same topics, the theories and absurdities
of Greek philosophy, the immoral character of
the pagan deities, and the purity of Christian doctrine
and practice.The apologists of the second century will be found in a collected
shape in Otto's Corpus Apologetarum, in nine vols. (Jena, 1842-72).
Most of those mentioned above will be found in an English shape in
Clarke's Ante-Nicene Library. See also Harnack in Texte und Untersuchungen,
bd. i., hft. i. (Leipzig, 1882).
If the Acts of the Apostles had been
composed in the second century, the address of St.
Paul to the Athenians would have been very different
from what it is, and must necessarily have partaken of
those characteristics which we find common to all the
numerous treatises addressed to the heathen world
of that date. If the Acts were written in the second
century, why does not the writer put arguments into St.
Paul's mouth like those which were current among the
Christian apologists of that time? The philosophical
argument of Aristides, which is followed by Justin
MartyrSt. Jerome, in Ep. 70, addressed to Magnus, a Roman rhetorician,
expressly says that Justin Martyr imitated Aristides. The
Cohortatio ad Græcos attributed to him is much liker the treatise of
Aristides than Justin's admitted first and second apologies.
and the later apologists, when contrasted with
the simplicity of St. Paul, is a conclusive proof of the
early date of the composition of the Acts.Overbeck, Zeller, and Schwegler fix the composition of the Acts
between 110 and 130, the very date of the Apology of Aristides. See
Zeller's Acts of the Apostles, p. 71 (London: Williams & Norgate,
1875).
But this is
not the only argument of this kind which modern
research furnishes. Aristides shows us what the
character of Christian controversy with the pagans
was in the generation succeeding the Apostles. We
can draw the same conclusion when we examine
Christian controversy as carried on against the Jews
of the same period.
We have a number of treatises directed against the
Jews by Christian writers of the second century: the
Dialogue of Justin Martyr with Trypho the Jew, of Jason
and Papiscus, and the treatise of Tertullian directed
Ad Judæos. When compared with one another we find
that the staple arguments of these writings are much
the same.For an account of the Jewish controversy in the second century see
Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte, bd. i., hft. 3 (Leipzig, 1883), where
Harnack seeks to critically restore the substance of the dialogue between
Jason and Papiscus. An article on "Apologists" in the Dictionary of
Christian Biography, vol. i., pp. 140-47, and another on "Theophilus"
(13) in the same work, vol. iv., p. 1009, should be consulted.
They were evidently framed upon the model
of St. Stephen's address at Jerusalem, of St. Paul at
Antioch in Pisidia, and of the Epistle to the Galatians.
They deal with the transitory and temporary character
of the Jewish law, they enter very largely into the
fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, and they notice
Jewish objections. The second century works are,
however, elaborate treatises, dealing with a great controversy
in a manner which experience had showed
to be far the most effective and telling. The Jewish
controversy in the Acts, whether in the mouth of St.
Peter, St. Stephen, or St. Paul, is treated in a much
simpler way. The speakers think, speak, write, like
men who are making their first essays in controversy,
and have no experience of others to guide them. Had
the Acts been written in the second century, the writer
must have composed the addresses to the Jews as well
as those to the Gentiles after the model of the age
when he was writing. The more carefully, however, we
examine and contrast these two controversies, as conducted
in the Acts and in the writings of the second
century respectively, the more thoroughly shall we be
convinced of the apostolic date of St. Luke's narrative,
of its genuine character, and of its historic worth.
I have written this book from my own standpoint
as a decided Churchman, but I hope that I have said
nothing which can really hurt the feelings of any one
who thinks otherwise, or which may tend to widen those
differences between Christians which are such a terrible
hindrance to the cause of true religion and its progress
in the world.
I have tried to use the Revised Version consistently
throughout my expositions, but I fear that my attempt
has been but vain. In my formal quotations I think
I have succeeded. But then, in commenting upon
Scripture, a writer constantly refers to and quotes
passages without formal reference. Here is where
I must have failed. The Authorized Version is so
bound up with all our earliest thoughts and associations
that its language unconsciously colours all our ideas
and expressions. Any one who at present makes such
an attempt as I have done will find illustrated in himself
the phenomena which we behold in writings of the
fifth and sixth centuries. St. Jerome published a Revised
Version of the Latin translation of the Scripture
about the year 400 A.D. For hundreds of years afterwards
Latin writers are found using indiscriminately
the old Latin and the new Latin translations. St.
Patrick's Confession, for instance, was composed about
the middle of the fifth century. Quotations from both
versions of the New Testament are found in that
document, affording a conclusive indication of its date;
just as the mixture of the Revised and Authorized
Versions will form a prominent feature in theological
works composed towards the close of the nineteenth
century.
I have to acknowledge the kind assistance of the
Rev. H. W. Burgess, LL.D., who has patiently read
all my proofs, and called my attention to many a
solecism or mistake which might have otherwise disfigured
my pages; and of Mr. W. Etienne Phelps, B.A.,
deputy keeper of Primate Marsh's Library, who has
compiled the index.
GEORGE T. STOKES.
All Saints' Vicarage, Blackrock,
May 27th, 1891.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. |
THE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. |
Acts i. 1, 2. |
| PAGE |
Title—Apocryphal Acts—Paul and Thecla—Evidence of Tertullian—His Chronological Position—Modern Analogies—Muratorian Fragment and Bobbio—Epistle from Lyons—Pothinus an Apostolic Man—Marcion and St. Luke—Defects of German Criticism—Growth of New Testament Canon—Newly-discovered Second Century Documents—Scillitan Martyrs—Primitive Christians and Biblical Criticism—Advantages of Uncertainty on Theology—Theological Accuracy of St. Luke | 1‑22 |
CHAPTER II. |
THE CONVERSATIONS OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS. |
Acts i. 6-9. |
Subject-Matter Revealed in the Acts—Our Lord's Post-Resurrection Appearances—Apostolic Curiosity—Messianic Idea among Jews—Books of Enoch and of Jubilees—Evidence for Inspiration of New Testament—Christianity a Practical Religion—Contrast with Paganism—Mithraism—Spiritual Blessing of Christ's Reticence concerning the Future—Antinomies in Scripture—Bad Effects of Human Curiosity—At Thessalonica—In the Middle Ages—In Last and Present Centuries—Irvingism—Holy Ghost alone the Source of Spiritual Power | 23‑42 |
CHAPTER III. |
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST, AND ITS LESSONS. |
Acts i. 9. |
Position of Doctrine of Ascension in Epistles—And in Apostolic Teaching—Curious and Foolish Questions about it—The Unseen Universe—Fitness of the Doctrine—And Necessity if the Church was to rise out of Judaism into Christianity—Illustrations, London and the Papacy—Rénan's Theory—The Ascension Glorified Human Nature—Paganism Degraded It—Gladiatorial Shows and Story of the Monk Telemachus—Tacitus and Slavery—Cato the Censor and the Treatment of Slaves—The Ascension and Darwinism | 43‑60 |
CHAPTER IV. |
THE ELECTION OF MATTHIAS. |
Acts i. 24-26. |
Expectation Days—Principle of Divine Delay—Christian Seasons and Judaism—Pentecost and Sinai—Continuity of the Divine Purposes—Christian Chronology—Tatian's Oration—The Apostles and the Upper Room—Narratives of Epiphanius and Cyril of Jerusalem—Christianity Supra-local—Last Notice of the Blessed Virgin—Doctrine of the Assumption—Self-restraint of Scriptural Writers—Choice of New Apostle—St. Peter's Proposition—His Character—Privilegium Petri—Reasons for the Election—The Christian Ministry and the Resurrection—C. Leslie's Short and Easy Method—History of St. Matthias—Apocryphal Gospels—Papias on Fate of Judas Iscariot | 61‑81 |
CHAPTER V. |
THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING. |
Acts ii. 1-4. |
Origin and History of Pentecost—Gnosticism and Antinomianism—Modern Aspect of Ancient Heresies—Ancient Union and Modern Divisions of Christendom—Jeremy Taylor's Prayer—The Fiery Tongues—Protest against Persecution and Penal Laws in Religion—Ussher and Baxter, Mistakes of—Death-Scene of Queen Caroline—Importance of Corporate Aspect of Christianity—Clergy and Laity in Apostolic Church—Gift of Tongues and Irvingism—Modern Theories about Pentecost—Hypnotism—Greek and Latin not Universal Languages in Apostolic Times—Ramsay's Geography of Asia Minor | 82‑106 |
CHAPTER VI. |
ST. PETER'S FIRST SERMON. |
Acts ii. 14. |
Reports of Ancient Sermons, how Derived—Use of Shorthand among Ancients—St. Peter's Auditory—Celts of Britain at Crucifixion—Jews in Arabia—Homerite Martyrs—St. Peter's Conduct at Pentecost an Evidence for the Resurrection—Contrast with his Action at Antioch—St. Peter's Universal Conceptions and Language—A Protest against Ebionism and Unitarianism—St. Peter and Christ's Descent into Hades—Apollinarianism and the True Doctrine of Our Lord's Humanity—David's Sepulchre and Christ's Resurrection—Jewish Traditions | 107‑126 |
CHAPTER VII. |
THE FIRSTFRUITS OF PENTECOST. |
Acts ii. 37-39. |
Contrast between Our Lord's Preaching and that of His Apostles—Proof of Extraordinary Work of the Spirit—Evidence of Tacitus—Spiritual Power a Different Thing from Religious Knowledge—Character of St. Peter's Teaching—Repentance—Modern Antinomianism—Williams, Baxter, Stillingfleet, Wesley—St. Peter and Baptism—Baptism in the Didache—Story of that Manual and its Discovery—The Baptismal Formula—Immersion—Infant Baptism—St. Peter and the Power of the Keys | 127‑147 |
CHAPTER VIII. |
FIRST RECORDED MIRACLE AND FIRST PERSECUTION. |
Acts iii. 1-6. |
The Acts a Mirror of Church History—Pause after Pentecost, Reason of—Need of Pastoral Work—Relapses in Mission Field—The Corinthian Case—Rest and Spiritual Growth—Evils of Excitement—Contrast of Christianity with the Montanists and Cynics—True Religion not, however, Purely Contemplative—Circumstances of First Miracle—Which was Typical of Church's Future Work—Among the Poor and Sick—Story of St. Crispin—St. Chrysostom's Sermons—First Franciscans Contrasted with Early Methodists—Medical Missions—Place of Miracle—Solomon's Porch—St. Peter's Address Model for Preachers—Shows Divinity of Christ—Exalts Christ—Is Bold and Prudent withal | 148‑172 |
CHAPTER IX. |
THE FIRST PERSECUTION. |
Acts iv. 1-3, 5-7. |
St. Peter's Teaching in Solomon's Porch and the Captain of the Temple—The Romans and Jewish Law—Discovery of Temple Tablet—The Sadducees and the Work of Opposition—Sadduceism and Modern Theories—Sceptics and Religious Intolerance—Pliny and the Martyrs—Trial of the Apostles—Constitution of the Sanhedrin—Sadduceism and the Priesthood—St. Peter's Defence and Christ's Promise—Afford no Support to Unprepared Teaching in Ordinary Life—St. Peter and the Power of Christ's Name—The Sanhedrin and Miracles—The Jews and Magic—Reverence towards the Name of God—Early Symbolism and Christ's Name—Salvation through Christ and the Wider Hope | 173‑192 |
CHAPTER X. |
THE COMMUNITY OF GOODS. |
Acts iv. 32-35. |
The Holy Scriptures and the Errors of their Heroes—Controversy between St. Jerome and St. Augustine—A Mistaken View of Christ's Second Advent the Source of Community of Goods—Communism and the Essenes—And Anabaptists—And Plymouthism—Source of Poverty in Jerusalem Church—Warning to Missionary Churches—Apostolic Constitutions—And Primitive Missions—Fayûm Documents—Evils of Indiscriminate Almsgiving—True Christian Charity—Post Office Savings Banks—Jerusalem Communism and Modern Legislation and Ideals—A Warning and yet a Noble Conception—Connection of Enthusiasm and Spiritual Power | 193‑210 |
CHAPTER XI. |
HONESTY AND PRETENCE IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. |
Acts iv. 36, 37; v. 1-6. |
Hebrews and Hellenists in the Synagogue and in the Church—Original Christians were Hebrews—Introduction of Hellenists—Who became the Bridge whereby Christianity was Communicated to the World—Barnabas and Greek Culture—A Native of Cyprus—His Personal Appearance—And History according to Simeon Metaphrastes—Personal Character—Story of Ananias—His Sin and Punishment—Proved that Christianity had a Stern as well as a Loving Side—Dr. Vaughan's Application of this Incident | 211‑228 |
CHAPTER XII. |
GAMALIEL AND HIS PRUDENT ADVICE. |
Acts v. 38-40. |
The Apostles again Brought before Sanhedrin—Because of St. Peter's Miracles—Note on the Miraculous Effects of St. Peter's Shadow and Hypnotism—St. Peter and Angelic Deliverances—Jortin's Theory—The Incarnation Rendered the Age a Special Time—The Sadducees and Materialism—Gamaliel a Pharisee—Effect of a Spiritual Creed on the Character—His Address—Cases of Judas and Theudas—Modern Illustrations—Gamaliel's Family History—Gamaliel in the Clementine Recognitions and in Greek Christian Tradition—Gamaliel and Nicodemus in the Bibliotheca of Photius—Gamaliel and the Spirit of Toleration—St. Augustine and Cornelius à Lapide—Conduct of the Apostles | 229‑245 |
CHAPTER XIII. |
PRIMITIVE DISSENSIONS AND APOSTOLIC PRECAUTIONS. |
Acts vi. 1-4. |
The Election of the Seven a Crisis in Church History—Date of St. Stephen's Martyrdom—Occasion of it—Primal Relation of Judaism to Christianity—Not Mutually Exclusive—Illustrated by those of First Methodists to Church of England—Tyranny and Deposition of Pilate—Multiplication of Christians led to Murmuring and thence to Choice of Seven—Showing Benefits and Drawbacks of Prosperity—Imperfections of Apostolic Church—Fallacy of Roman à priori Argument for Infallibility—Reciprocal Influence of Church and World—Various Meanings of Term "World"—Murmuring arose from Racial and Linguistic Differences—Hebrews and Hellenists—Modern Analogies—Diversity of Functions in Church—Serving of Tables Differs from Ministry of Word—Which Demands Study, Meditation, and Prayer—Weakness of Modern Pulpit Accounted for—Election of Deacons and Number—The Diaconate and Cardinalate | 246‑267 |
CHAPTER XIV. |
ST. STEPHEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. |
Acts vi. 5, 6; 8-11. |
The Seven were Scriptural—Origin of Diaconate—Bishop Lightfoot's View—Influence of the Synagogue upon the Church—Illustrated by Marcionites—And by Pilgrim Fathers in New England—Constitution of Synagogues—Jewish Almoners or Deacons—Evidence to Diaconate of Apostolic Fathers—Of Pliny—Of Irenæus—Connection of Community of Goods with the Eucharist—Poor Law among Jews—And Christians—Testimony of Lucian—Christianity Viewed from the Outside—Difference between Ancient and Modern Office—Life-long Diaconate in Ancient Celtic Church—St. Patrick's Father—Election of Deacons in the Synagogues—Imposition of Hands and Ordination—Names of Deacons and Nicolas of Antioch—St. Stephen and the Charge of Blasphemy—Every True Teacher must expect Misrepresentation | 268‑292 |
CHAPTER XV. |
ST. STEPHEN'S DEFENCE AND THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. |
Acts vi. 12-14; vii. 1, 2. |
Derivation and Meaning of Name "Stephen"—Libertine Assailants of St. Stephen—United with Cilicians—St. Paul and the Sanhedrin—Selden on Sanhedrin—Use of Shorthand among the Ancients—The Acts of the Martyrs and Investigations of M. le Blant—Effective Character of Stephen's Apology—Analysis of it—Naturally Irritating to Jewish Officialism—Charity towards Persecutors—Reverence towards the Past—A Good Thing, but may be Pressed too far—Lessons for our Age—Science and Religion—Mistakes in the Martyr's Speech—Natural—Useful, too, as Testifying to Honesty of Report—And Teaching True Doctrine of Inspiration—Dr. Vaughan on St. Stephen's Mistakes—St. Stephen and Freedom of Church Worship—Christian Universalism not Inconsistent with Sacred and Consecrated Buildings | 293‑321 |
CHAPTER XVI. |
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM. |
Testimony of Church of Lyons to St. Stephen's Martyrdom—Earliest Celtic Martyrdoms and Celtic Assemblies—Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day—Christmas Season and Three Classes of Martyrs—Dies Natalis and the Liturgies—Immediate Cause of St. Stephen's Death—Locality of the Martyrdom—Newly-discovered Church of St. Stephen—Survey of Western Palestine—Jewish Stonings—St. Stephen died under Forms of Law—Christianity and Human Law—Testimony of St. Clement's Epistle—St. Stephen and Prayer to Jesus Christ—Doctrine of Book of Common Prayer—St. Stephen's Funeral—Early Christian View of Resurrection—Story told by John Malalas—Persecution and Church Extension | 322‑345 |
CHAPTER XVII. |
SIMON MAGUS AND THE CONVERSION OF SAMARIA. |
Prominence of Hellenists in the Church's Earliest Days—Apostles and Deacons Contrasted—Source of St. Luke's Knowledge of Early Church History—St. Philip at Cæsarea—Exact Locality where Philip taught in Samaria—Our Lord's Ministry in Samaria a Failure—Why?—Because the Spirit was not yet given—Presence of the Holy Ghost the Condition of Permanent Blessing—St. Philip and Simon Magus—Story of Simon as told by Justin Martyr—Evidence for Early Date of the Acts—Justin and Simon's Statue—Simon a Sorcerer—Jews and Sorcery—Jewish Gnosticism—Fayûm Manuscripts and Magic—Contrast between Philip's Miracles and Simon's Magic—Need of Miracles at Outset of Christianity—Philip's Doctrine Concerning the Kingdom of God—What it involved—Church's Prosperity Dependent entirely upon Christ—Threefold Result of Philip's Teaching—John Keble on Christian Joy | 346‑368 |
CHAPTER XVIII. |
THE APOSTLES AND CONFIRMATION. |
Apostolic Mission to Samaria—Development of Church—Position of St. Peter—False Decretals—Confirmation, Origin of—New Testament is not an Exhaustive Manual of Rites and Ceremonies—Tertullian on Standing at Prayer—Conservative Character of Church Ritual—Illustrated by Cases of Dean Hook, J. H. Newman, Tate and Brady, and the Plymouth Brethren—Apostolic Example Perpetuated in Second Century Practice—And in Case of Confirmation—Calvin on its Apostolic Origin | 369‑384 |
CHAPTER XIX. |
ST. PETER AND SIMON MAGUS. |
Acts viii. 18, 19. |
Change in Confirmation at Reformation—Yet the Rite remained Essentially the Same as of Old—Importance of Tertullian's Testimony for its Primitive Origin—Cyprian's and Augustine's View—Relation of Cyprian to Tertullian—Imposition of Hands United with Prayer in Ancient and Modern Church—Utility and Blessings of the Rite—Improvement which might be made in its Administration—Conduct of Simon Magus—He was Intellectually Convinced but Spiritually Unconverted—Application of his Example to Foreign Missions—Late Controversy Concerning Educational Missions—Simon's Conduct and Simony—Definition of Simony—Sin not Confined to Established Churches—Takes Subtle Shapes in Every Community—St. Peter's Exhortation to Simon Magus—Corrects a Modern Error | 385‑397 |
CHAPTER XX. |
EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THE PHILISTINE'S LAND. |
Acts viii. 26-28; ix. 32. |
Those Passages Typical of Evangelistic Efforts and Qualifications for Success in them—St. Philip Contrasted with St. Peter—Need of Education for Mission Field—Christian Missionaries of Early Centuries Partook of Highest Culture—Pantænus—Origen—Clement—These Texts show Importance of Clear Conception in Theology—Clear Views need not be Narrow Views—Distinction between St. Philip's Guidance and that of St. Peter—Reasons for Angelic Interference—Archbishop Trench on John v. 4.—Apostolic Labours all tended Westward—Philip's Mission towards Gaza—Obstinate Paganism of Gaza—Proved by Survey of Palestine—Ethiopian Eunuch—Candace and her Kingdom—St. Philip's Doctrines—Abyssinian Traditions—Revised Version and the Eunuch's Confession—Creed of Apostolic Church—Witness of Aristides' Apology | 398‑419 |
INDEX | 421‑424 |
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
"The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus
began both to do and to teach, until the day in which He was received
up, after that He had given commandment through the Holy Ghost
unto the apostles whom He had chosen."—Acts i. 1, 2.
These words constitute the very brief preface
which the writer thought sufficient for the earliest
ecclesiastical history ever produced in the Church of
God. Let us imitate him in his brevity and conciseness,
and without further delay enter upon the consideration
of a book which raises vital questions and
involves all-important issues.
Now when a plain man comes to the consideration
of this book one question naturally strikes him at once:
How do I know who wrote this book, or when it was
written? What evidence or guarantee have I for its
authentic character? To these questions we shall
apply ourselves in the present chapter.
The title of the book as given in our Bibles does
not offer us much help. The title varies in different
manuscripts and in different ancient authors. Some
writers of the second century who touched upon
apostolic times call it by the name our Bibles retain,
The Acts of the Apostles; others call it The Acts of the
Holy Apostles, or at times simply The Acts. This title
of "Acts" was indeed a very common one, in the second
and third centuries, for a vast variety of writings purporting
to tell the story of apostolic lives, as an abundance
of extant apocryphal documents amply proves.
The Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Acts of St. Thomas,
of St. Peter, and of St. John, were imitations, doubtless,
of the well-known name by which our canonical book
was then called. Imitation is universally acknowledged
to be the sincerest form of flattery, and the
imitation of the title and form of our book is an evidence
of its superior claim and authority. One of the
oldest of these apocryphal Acts is a document celebrated
in Christian antiquity as the Acts of Paul and Thecla.
We know all about its origin. It was forged about the
year 180 or 200 by a presbyter of Asia Minor who was
an enthusiastic admirer of the Apostle St. Paul. But
when we take up the narrative and read it, with its
absurd legends and its manifold touches and realistic
scenes drawn from the persecutions of the second century,
and well known to every student of the original
records of those times, we can at a glance see what
the canonical Acts of the Apostles would have been
had the composition been postponed to the end of the
second century. The Acts of Paul and Thecla are
useful, then, as illustrating, by way of contrast in
title and in substance, the genuine Acts of the New
Testament which they imitated.See a copious account of this strange second-century forgery in
Dr. Gwynne's article on Thecla in the fourth volume of the Dictionary
of Christian Biography. Dr. Salmon, in his Introduction to the N.T.,
chap. xix., gives a most interesting description of the apocrypha Acts of
the Apostles, which even the unlearned can enjoy.
But then, some one might say, how do we know that
the genuine Acts of the Apostles existed prior to the
Acts of Paul and Thecla and the time of Tertullian,
who first mentions these apocryphal Acts, and tells us
of their forged origin? The answer to that query is
easy enough. Yet it will require a somewhat copious
statement in order to exhibit its full force, its convincing
power.
Tertullian is a writer who connects the age of
apostolic men, as we may call the men who knew the
Apostles—Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Rome, and
such like—with the third century. Tertullian was born
about the middle of the second century, and he lived
till the third century was well advanced. He was one
of those persons whose chronological position enables
them to transmit historical facts and details from one
critical point to another. Let me illustrate what I
mean by a modern example. Every unprejudiced
thinker will acknowledge that the Rev. John Wesley
was a man who exercised an extraordinary religious
influence. He not only originated a vast community
of world-wide extent, which calls itself after his name,
but he also imparted a tremendous impetus to spiritual
life and work in the Church of England. After the
departure of Mr. Wesley from this life his mantle fell
upon a certain number of his leading followers, men
like Adam Clarke, the commentator; Jabez Bunting, the
organizer of modern Wesleyanism; Thomas Coke,
Robert Newton, and Richard Watson, the author of the
Institutes of Theology. Several of these men lived far
into this century, and there are at the present day
thousands still alive who recollect some of them, while
there are many still alive who can recollect all of them.
Now let us draw a parallel with all reverence, and yet
with perfect fairness. John Wesley began his life at
the beginning of the eighteenth century as our Lord
began His human life at the beginning of the first
century. John Wesley's immediate disciples perpetuated
their lives till the middle of the present century.
Our Lord's apostles and immediate followers perpetuated
their lives in some cases till well into the second
century. At the close of the nineteenth century there
are hundreds, to say the least, who remember Adam
Clarke and Thomas Coke, who in turn were personally
acquainted with John Wesley. In the last quarter of
the second century there must have been many still
alive—apostolic men, I have called them—whose youthful
memories could bear them back to the days when
the Apostle St. John, and men like St. Mark, and St.
Luke, and St. Ignatius, still testified what they had
personally seen and heard and known. Why, the
simple fact is this, that in the year 1950 there will be
still living numerous persons who will be able to say
that they have personally known many individuals who
were the friends and acquaintances of John Wesley's
immediate disciples. Four long lives of ninety years,
the one overlapping the other, will easily cover three
centuries of time.
Let us dwell a little more on this point, for it bears
very directly on Tertullian's witness, not only to the
canon of the New Testament, but also to the whole
round of Christian doctrine. It is simply wonderful
what vast tracts of time can be covered by human
memory even at the present day, when that faculty
has lost so much of its power for want of exercise,
owing to the printing-press. I can give a striking
instance from my own knowledge. There is at present
an acquaintance of mine living in this city of Dublin
where I write. He is hale and hearty, and able still
to take the keenest interest in the affairs of religion
and of politics. He is about ninety-five years of age,
and he has told me within the last twelve months that
he remembers quite well a grand-aunt of his born in
the reign of Queen Anne, who used to tell him all the
incidents connected with the earliest visits of John and
Charles Wesley to Ireland about 1745. If Tertullian's
experience was anything like my own, he may quite
easily have known persons at Rome or elsewhere who
had heard the tale of St. Paul's preaching, labour, and
miracles from the very men whom the Apostle had
converted at Antioch, Damascus, and Rome. I can
give a more striking instance still, which any reader can
verify for himself. Mr. S. C. Hall was a writer known
far and wide for the last seventy years. About the
middle of this century Mr. Hall was at the height of
his popularity, though he only passed to the unseen
world within the last year or so. In the year 1842 he,
in union with his accomplished and well-known wife,
composed a beautifully-illustrated work, published in
three volumes, called Picturesque Ireland, which now
finds an honoured place in many of our libraries. In
the second volume of that work Mr. Hall mentions the
following curious fact bearing on our argument. He
states that he was then (in 1842) staying at the house
of a gentleman, Sir T. Macnaghten, whose father had
commanded at the siege of Derry in 1689, one hundred
and fifty-three years before. Yet vast as the distance
of time was, the explanation which he offered was easy
enough. The Macnaghten Clan was summoned to
assist in the celebrated siege of Derry. They refused
to march unless headed by their chief, who was then a
boy of seven. The child was placed on a horse and
duly headed his clan, who would follow him alone.
That child married when a very old man, and his
eldest son attained to an equally patriarchal age,
carrying with him the traditions of Jacobite times down
to the reign of Queen Victoria. I could give many
other similar instances, illustrating my contention that
vivid and accurate traditions of the past can be transmitted
over vast spaces of time, and that through
persons who come into living contact with one another.The Irish people are very Oriental in the tenacity with which they
retain ancient traditions, transmitting them intact to posterity. Abundant
instances have proved this, the traditions having been perpetuated
in some cases for five hundred years or more. The following case has
come under the writer's notice in his own neighbourhood. There is near
Dublin a village called Finglas, celebrated for its ancient Abbey. A cross
stood there which had been venerated from the earliest times. When
Cromwell's soldiers were advancing to attack Dublin about the year
1648, their iconoclastic fame reached the inhabitants of Finglas, who
took the ancient cross and buried it in one of the glebe fields. Some
one hundred and sixty years later a vicar of Finglas of antiquarian tastes
heard traditions of this event. He learned from an extremely old
man that his grandfather when a boy had been present at the burial of the
cross, and had shown him the spot where it was concealed. The vicar
made excavations, and duly found the cross, which he re-erected some
time about 1810, in a spot where it is still to be seen. This instance
will show how two long lives could cover the space between St. Paul's
middle age and Tertullian's mature years. See Fingal and its Churches,
by Rev. R. Walsh, D.D., pp. 147-49. Dublin, 1888. St. Jerome, De
Vir. Illust., 53, mentions a similar case in his time. St. Jerome knew
an old man who when young had himself known one of St. Cyprian's
secretaries. St. Jerome wrote about A.D. 400, St. Cyprian died in 257;
the difference exactly between Tertullian and St. Paul.
Tertullian must have had ample means, then, of
ascertaining the facts concerning the books of the
New Testament from living witnesses. There is again
another point we must bear in mind, and it is this:
the distance of time with which Tertullian's investigations
had to deal was not so vast as we sometimes
imagine. It was by no means so great as the spaces
we have just now referred to. We naturally think of
Tertullian as living about the year 200, and then,
remembering that our Saviour was born just two
centuries before, we ask, What is the value of a man's
testimony concerning events two centuries old? But
we must bear in mind the exact point at issue. We
are not enquiring at all about events two centuries old,
but we are enquiring as to Tertullian's evidence with
respect to the canonical Gospels and the Acts; and
none of these was one hundred years old when
Tertullian was born, about 150 A.D., while the Gospel
of St. John may not have been more than sixty years
old, or thereabouts, at the same date. Now if we take
up the writings of Tertullian, which are very copious
indeed, we shall find that the Acts of the Apostles are
quoted at least one hundred times in them, long
passages being in some cases transcribed, and the
whole book treated by him as Scripture and true
history. If we accept the ordinary view, that the Acts
were written previously to St. Paul's death, the book
was only a century old at Tertullian's birth. But we
can come nearer to the apostolic times.
The Muratorian Fragment is a document which came
to light by chance one hundred and fifty years ago.
It illustrates the age of the Acts, and shows what
wondrous testimonies to the New Testament scriptures
we may yet gain. Its story is a very curious and interesting
one for ourselves. St. Columbanus was an Irish
missionary who, about the year 600 A.D., established
a monastery at Bobbio, a retired spot in North Italy.
He gathered a library there, and imparted a literary
impulse to his followers which never left them.See two articles on St. Columbanus and his library in the
Expositor for June and August 1889.
Some
Irish monk a hundred years later than Columbanus
employed his time in copying into a book an ancient
manuscript of the second century giving a list of the
books of the New Testament then received at Rome.
This second-century manuscript enumerated among
these the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and
thirteen Epistles of St. Paul. Concerning the Acts of
the Apostles, the Roman writer of this document, who
lived about A.D. 170, says: "The Acts of all the
Apostles are written in one book. Luke explains
to the most excellent Theophilus everything which
happened in his presence, as the omission of Peter's
martyrdom and of Paul's journey into Spain manifestly
proves;" a passage which clearly shows that about the
middle of the second century the Acts of the Apostles
was well known at Rome, and its authorship ascribed
to St. Luke.Dr. Salmon, in his Introd. N.T., pp. 48-54, describes the Muratorian
Fragment.
But this is not all. We have another
most interesting second-century document, which proves
that at the very same period our canonical book was
known and authoritatively quoted far away in the south
of France. It is hard to exaggerate the evidential value
of the Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne
written about the year 177, and addressed to their
brethren in Asia Minor. That letter quotes the books of
the New Testament in the amplest manner, and without
any formal references, just as a modern preacher or writer
would quote them, showing how common and authoritative
was their use. Leader-writers in the Times or
the Saturday Review often garnish their articles with
a scriptural quotation; the late Mr. John Bright, in his
great popular orations, loved to point them with an
apt citation from Holy Writ; but he never thought it
necessary, nor do journalists ever think it necessary,
to prefix a formal statement of the place whence their
texts have been derived. They presume a wide
knowledge and a formal recognition of the text of the
Bible. So it was in this epistle written from Lyons
and Vienne, and in it we find an exact quotation from
the Acts of the Apostles—"According as Stephen the
perfect martyr prayed, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge."
But this is not the whole of the argument which
can be derived from the Epistle of the Lyonnese
Christians, which is given to us at full length in the
fifth book of the Church History of the celebrated
historian Eusebius. Their incidental notice of the
Acts involves a vast deal when duly considered. The
Epistle from Lyons implies that the Acts were received
as authoritative and genuine in the churches of towns
like Ephesus, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Miletus, where the
memories and traditions of the Apostles were still vivid
and living. Then, too, the Bishop of Lyons had suffered
in this persecution. His name was Pothinus. He was
the first Bishop of the Church of Lyons, and he died
when he was more than ninety years of age, and may
have been a disciple of an apostle, or of one of the
first generation of Christians. At any rate, his memory
would easily carry him back to the days of Domitian
and the times of the first century; and yet the Church
over which this first-century Christian presided accepted
the Acts of the Apostles. The testimony of Pothinus
helps then to carry back the Acts of the Apostles to
the year 100 at least. But we can go farther still, and
closer to apostolic times.
The Gospel of St. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles
are, we may say, universally admitted to be by the
same writer. The reference of the Acts to the Gospel,
the unity of style and tone of thought, all demonstrate
them to be the production of one mind. Any circumstance
therefore which proves the early existence of
the Gospel equally proves the existence of the Acts of
the Apostles. Now we have proof positive that the
Gospel of St. Luke occupied an authoritative position
and was counted an apostolic and sacred writing at
Rome in the early years of the second century, say
between 100 and 150, because when Marcion, whom
we might call a primitive Antinomian, wished to compile
a gospel suited to his own purposes, he took
St. Luke's Gospel, cut out whatever displeased him,
and published the remainder as the true version. The
perversion and mutilation of St. Luke's work shows
that it must already have held a high position in the
Church at Rome, or else there would have been no
object in mutilating it. Marcion's treatment of St. Luke
proves the use and position the Gospel and the Acts
must have occupied in days when the converts and
companions of the Apostles were still alive.See Dr. Sanday's The Gospels in the Second Century, and Dr.
Salmon's Introd. N.T., pp. 204-208.
That
is as far as we can go back by external testimony.
But then we must remember what these facts involve—that
the Gospel and the Acts occupied authoritative
positions in various parts of the world, and specially
in Rome, Gaul, Africa, and Asia Minor, in the generation
next after the Apostles. Then let us take up
the Book of Acts itself, and what does this book,
known at Rome and throughout the Christian world
at that early period, tell us? It informs us that it was
the work of the writer of the Gospel, and that the
writer was a companion of the Apostle Paul throughout
the portion of his career sketched in the latter
part of the book. The Christian Church has never
pinned its faith to the Lukian authorship of either the
Gospel or the Acts. The question of the authorship of
these books is an open one, like that of the Epistle to
the Hebrews. The Acts has been attributed to Silas,
to Timothy, to Titus; but I may say, without going into
any further details on this question, that every attempt
to ascribe the Acts to any one else save to the beloved
physician has failed, and must fail, because he was the
real author, well known to the living tradition of the
Church of Rome in the early part of the second century,
as that tradition is handed down to us in the language
of the Muratorian Fragment.
If we were writing a critical treatise, we should of
course have to enter upon the full discussion of many
questions which might here be raised. The Acts of
the Apostles in its latter chapters plainly claims to be
the work of an eye-witness. In its opening words,
placed at the head of this dissertation, it claims to be
the work of the author of the Gospel. All the facts fall
into a simple, natural order if we accept the traditional
testimony of the Church that the Acts and the Gospel
were both of them written before the martyrdom of
St. Paul, and were indited by the hands of St. Paul's
companion St. Luke. Any other solution is forced,
unnatural, and involves inconsistencies on every side.
We may turn aside from this brief outline of the
critical question, to some more purely spiritual reflections,
simply referring those who desire more
information on the questions of date and authorship
to such exhaustive works as those of Dr. Salmon's
Introduction to the New Testament; Dr. Westcott on
the New Testament Canon; Dr. Charteris on Canonicity,
or Meyer's Introduction to the Acts.
First, then, it may strike the intelligent reader, how
comes it that we have not much fuller testimony in
early Christian writers to the Acts of the Apostles, and
to all the books of the Old Testament? How is it
that the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement of
Rome, do not abound with references, not merely to the
Acts, but also to the four Gospels and to the other
works of the New Testament? How is it that we
have to depend on this obscure reference and that
dubious quotation? These are questions which have
often puzzled my own mind before I had investigated,
and must often have raised anxiety and thought in
other minds sincerely desirous of being rooted and
grounded in the truth. But now, after having investigated,
and thought, I think I can see solid reasons why
things are as they are; clear evidences of the truth
of the Christian story in the apparent difficulties.
Historic imagination is one of the necessary requisites
in such an investigation, and historic imagination is
one of the qualities in which our German cousins, from
whom most of the objections to the canon of the New
Testament have been derived, are conspicuously deficient.
They are gifted with prodigious industry, and
an amazing capacity for patient investigation. They
live secluded lives, however, and no one is a worse
judge of practical life, or forms wilder conclusions as
to what men actually do in practical life, than the
academic pure and simple. A dear friend, now with
God, himself a distinguished resident of a well-known
college, used often to say to me, "Never trust the opinion
of a mere college fellow or professor upon any practical
point; they know nothing about life." This dictum,
begotten of long experience, bears on our argument.
German thought and English thought offer sharp and
strong contrasts on many points, and on none more
than in this direction. English students mix more
in the world, are surrounded by the atmosphere of
free institutions, and realize more vividly how men
spontaneously act under the conditions of actual
existence. The German thinker evolves his men of
the past and the facts of their existence out of his
own consciousness, without submitting them to the
necessary corrections which experience dictates to his
English brother; and the result is, that while we may
be very ready to accept the premises of the Germans,
we should be in general somewhat suspicious of their
conclusions. Scholarship alone does not entitle a man
to pronounce on questions of history. It is only one
of the elements requisite for the solution of such problems.
Knowledge of men, experience of life, enabling
a man to form a just and true mental picture of the
past and of the motives by which men are influenced,—these
are elements equally necessary. Now let us
try and throw ourselves back by an effort of historical
imagination into the age of Polycarp, Ignatius, and
Clement of Rome, and I think we shall at once see
that the omission of such abundant references to the
New Testament as men at times desiderate was quite
natural in their case.
Let us reflect a little. The manner in which the early
Christians learned the facts and truths of Christianity
was quite different from that which now prevails. If
men wish now to learn about original Christianity
they resort to the New Testament. In the age of
Polycarp they resorted to the living voice of the
elders who had known the Apostles, and had heard
the truth from their lips. Thus Irenæus, who had
the four Gospels before him, tells us: "I can recall
the very place where Polycarp used to sit and teach,
his manner of speech, his mode of life, his appearance,
the style of his address to the people, his frequent
references to St. John and to others who had seen
our Lord; how he used to repeat from memory the
discourses which he had heard from them concerning
our Lord, His miracles, and His mode of teaching;
and how, being instructed himself by those who were
eye-witnesses of the Life of the Word, there was in
all that he said a strict agreement with the Scriptures."
And it is very natural that men, though possessed of
the Gospels, should thus have delighted in the testimony
of elders like Polycarp. There is a charm in
the human voice, there is a force and power in living
testimony, far superior to any written words. Take,
for instance, the account of a battle contributed to a
newspaper by the best-informed correspondent. Yet
how men will hang on the lips and follow with breathless
attention the narrative of the humblest actor in
the actual contest. This one fact, known to common
experience, shows how different the circumstances of
the early Christians were as touching the canonical
books from those which now exist, or existed in the
third and fourth centuries. Again, we must remember
that in the age of Polycarp there was no canon of the
New Testament as we have it.The latest enquiries and discoveries confirm this view, which may
be deduced from a study of the apostolic Fathers, with which should be
compared the new second-century documents belonging to Ephesus and
Rome discussed in Texte u. Untersuch. of Gebhardt and Harnack for
1888. Their titles are the tract De Aleatoribus, by Pope Victor I., and
the Martyrdoms of Carpus and Papylus, Companions of St. Polycarp.
Pope Victor gives a long extract from the Shepherd of Hermas, and
calls it "Divine Scripture;" which shows that the canon was not closed
at Rome in the last fifteen years of the second century.
There were a number
of books here and there known to have been written
by the Apostles and their immediate followers. One
Church could show the Epistle written by St. Paul to
the Ephesians, another that written to the Colossians.
Clement of Rome, when writing to the Corinthians,
expressly refers them to the First Epistle to the
Corinthians, which possibly was treasured by them as
their one sacred document of the new covenant; and
so it was doubtless all over the Christian world till
well-nigh the close of the second century. The New
Testament was dispersed in portions, a few leading
Churches possessing perhaps all or most of the books,
and a few remote ones probably only a few detached
epistles, or a solitary gospel. A Greek document
found in the National Library at Paris within the
last few years illustrates this point. The Scillitan
martyrs were a body of Africans who sealed their testimony
to the faith by suffering martyrdom in the year
180, about three years after the sufferings of the
Christians of Lyons and Vienne. North Africa, now
the chosen home of the false prophet, was then the
most fruitful field for the religion of the Crucified,
yielding doctors, saints, confessors, in multitudes. The
document which has now come to light tells the story
of these north Africans and their testimony to the
truth. The details of their judicial examination are
there set forth, and in one question, proposed by the
heathen magistrate, we have an interesting glimpse
of the very point upon which we are insisting, the
scattered and detached nature of the New Testament
writings at that period. The President of the Roman
Court, in the course of his examination, asks the leader
of the martyrs, St. Speratus, "What are those books
in your cases?" "They are," he replied, "the epistles
of that holy man Paul." So that apparently the
Scillitan Church depended for instruction, in the closing
years of the second century, upon the Epistles of St.
Paul alone.An interesting account of this second-century document will be
found in the Texts, edited by Gebhardt and Harnack, or in the Dict.
Christ. Biog. under "Scillitan Martyrs." Every scrap of second century
evidence is of the greatest importance for biblical criticism.
The canon of the New Testament grew up by degrees
somehow thus. While the Apostles and their followers
and the friends of their followers lived and flourished,
men naturally sought after their living testimonies,
consulting doubtless such documents as well which lay
within their reach. But when the living witnesses and
their friends had passed away, the natural instinct of the
Church, guided by that Spirit of Truth which in the
darkest times has never wholly left Christ's Spouse,
led her to treasure up and dwell with greater love upon
those written documents which she had possessed from
the beginning. It is no wonder, then, that we do not
find large quotations and copious references to the
canonical books in the earliest writers—simply because
it was impossible they should then have occupied the
same place in the Christian consciousness as they now
do. Rather, on the contrary, we should be inclined to
say that, had they been largely quoted and frequently
referred to by Polycarp, Ignatius, or Clement, men
might naturally have derived therefrom a forcible argument
against the genuine character of the works of
these primitive Fathers, as such quotations would have
been contrary to the principles of human nature. It is
very important for us to remember these facts. They
have a very clear bearing upon present-day controversies.
Friends and foes of Christianity have often
thought that the truth of our religion was bound up
with the traditional view of the canon of the New
Testament, or with some special theory of inspiration;
forgetting the self-evident truth that Christianity existed
at the beginning without a canon of the New Testament,
that the early Christians depended upon personal
testimony alone, and that if the Apostles and their
friends had never written a line or left a solitary document
behind them, yet that we should have abundant
information concerning the work and teaching of our
Lord and His Apostles in the writings of the successors
of the Apostles, compared with and fortified by contemporaneous
pagan testimony. Men have sometimes
thought and spoken as if the New Testament descended
from heaven in its present shape, like the image that
fell down from Jupiter which the Ephesians worshipped,
forgetting the true history of its upgrowth and
origin. The critical theories that have been advanced
in abundance of late years would have troubled a
second-century Christian very little. If the Johannine
authorship of the fourth Gospel were denied, or the
Pauline authorship of Colossians or Ephesians questioned;
what does it matter? would have been his
reply. These documents may have been forgeries, but
there are plenty of other documents which tell the
same story, and I have myself known many men who
have suffered and died because they had embraced the
truths, from the lips of the Apostles themselves, which
they have taught me. The simple fact is, that if all the
books of the New Testament were proved impudent
forgeries except the Epistle to the Romans, the two
Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Galatians, which
every person admits, we should have ample and convincing
statements of Christian truth and doctrine.
The devout Christian may, then, make his mind easy,
certain that no efforts and no advances in the field of
biblical criticism are likely to ruffle even a feather of
the faith once delivered to the saints.
But then, some one may come forward and say, is
not this a very uncomfortable position for us? Would
it not have been much more easy and consoling for
Christians to have had the whole canon of Scripture
infallibly decided by Divine authority once for all, so
as to save all doubts and disputations on the whole
subject? Would it not have been better had the Acts
of the Apostles expressly named St. Luke as its author,
and appended ample proofs that its statement was true?
This objection is a very natural one, and springs up at
times in every mind; and yet it is merely part and
parcel of the larger objection, Why has Revelation been
left a matter of doubt and disputation in any respect?
Nay, it is part of a still wider and vaster question, Why
has truth in any department, scientific, philosophical,
ethical, or historical, been left a matter of debate?
Why has it not shone forth by its own inherent light
and compelled the universal consent of admiring mankind?
Why has not the great fundamental truth of
all, the existence and nature of God, been made so
clear that an atheist could not possibly exist? A
century and a-half ago Bishop Butler, in his immortal
Analogy, disposed of this objection, which still crops
up afresh in every generation as if that work had
never been written.See Butler's Analogy, Part II., chap. vi.
God has placed us here in a state
of probation, and neither in temporal nor in spiritual
matters is the evidence for what is true, and right,
and wise so clear and overwhelming that no room is
left for mistake or error. As it is in every other
department of life, so is it especially with reference to
the canon of Scripture. It would doubtless be very
convenient for us if the whole question were settled
authoritatively and no doubts possible, but would it
be good for us? would it be wholesome for our
spiritual life? I trow not. We have, indeed, a living
and speaking example of the blessings of uncertainty
in the state of the Roman Catholic Church, which has
tried to better the Divine method of training mankind,
and banish all uncertainty. That communion undertakes
to settle infallibly all questions of theology, and
to leave nothing in doubt; and with what result?
The vast body of the laity take no interest whatsoever
in theological questions. They regard theology as
outside their sphere, and belonging to the clergy
exclusively. The clergy in turn believe that the Pope,
in his office of infallible and universal pastor and
teacher, has alone the right and authority to settle
doctrines, and they leave it to him. They have made
a solitude, and that they call peace, and the pretence
alone of an authority which undertakes to release man
from doubt and the need of investigation has paralysed
theological inquiry among Roman Catholics.
The same results on a vastly larger scale must have
happened throughout the Christian world had God made
His revelation so clear that no doubt could arise concerning
it. Man is a lazy animal by nature, and that
laziness would at once have been developed by the very
abundance of the light vouchsafed. Religion would have
been laid aside as a thing settled once for all. All interest
would have been lost in it, and human attention
would have been concentrated on those purely mundane
matters where uncertainty arises, and therefore imperiously
demands the mind's thought and care. The
blessings of uncertainty would offer a very wide topic
for meditation. The man of vast wealth whose bread is
certain can never know the childlike faith whereby the
poor man waits upon his God and receives from Him
day by day his daily dole. The uncertainties of life hide
from us much future sorrow, teach us to walk by faith,
not by sight, and lead us to depend completely on the
loving guidance of that Fatherly Hand which does all
things well. The uncertainties of life develop the
spiritual life of the soul. The doubts and questions
which arise about religion bring their own blessings
with them too. They develop the intellectual life of
the spirit. They prevent religion becoming a matter
of superstition, they offer opportunities for the exercise
of the graces of honesty, courage, humility, and love;
and thus form an important element in that Divine
training by which man is fitted here below for the
beatific vision which awaits him hereafter. Human
nature ever craves with longing desire to walk by
sight. The Divine method evermore prescribes, on the
contrary, that man must for the present walk by faith.
Very wisely indeed, and with truest spiritual instinct,
the poet of the Christian Year has sung, in words
applicable to life and to theology alike:—
"There are who, darkling and alone,
Would wish the weary night were gone,
Though dawning morn should only show
The secret of their unknown woe:
Who pray for sharpest throbs of pain
To ease them of doubt's galling chain:
'Only disperse the cloud,' they cry,
'And if our fate be death, give light and let us die.'
"Unwise I deem them, Lord, unmeet
To profit by Thy chastenings sweet,
For Thou wouldst have us linger still
Upon the verge of good or ill,
That on Thy guiding hand unseen
Our undivided hearts may lean,
And this our frail and foundering bark
Glide in the narrow wake of Thy belovèd ark."J. Keble, "The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany."
The thoughts with which we have hitherto dealt
connect themselves with the opening words of the text
with which we have begun this chapter, "The former
treatise I made, O Theophilus." There are two other
points in this passage which are worthy of devout
attention. The writer of the Acts took a thoroughly
historical view of our Lord's life after the resurrection
as well as before that event. He considered that our
Lord's person, no matter how it may have been modified
by His death and resurrection, was still as real
after these events as in the days when He ministered
and wrought miracles in Galilee and Jerusalem. His
whole life was continuous, from the day of the birth
in Bethlehem "until the day He was taken up."
Then again St. Luke recognises the dual personality
of our Lord. As we shall afterwards have frequently
to notice, St. Luke realized His Divine character. In
the opening verses of this book he recognises His
complete and perfect humanity—"After that He had
given commandment through the Holy Ghost unto
the Apostles." There was an ancient heresy about the
nature of our Lord's person, which denied the perfection
of our Lord's humanity, teaching that His Divinity
took the place of the human spirit in Christ. Such
teaching deprives us of much comfort and instruction
which the Christian can draw from a meditation upon
the true doctrine as taught here by St. Luke. Jesus
Christ was God as well as man, but it was through the
manhood He revealed the life and nature of God. He
was perfect Man in all respects, with body, soul, and
spirit complete; and in the actions of His manhood, in
the exercise of all its various activities, He required
the assistance and support of the Holy Ghost just as
really as we ourselves do. He taught, gave commandments,
worked miracles through the Holy Ghost. The
humanity of the Eternal Son required the assistance of
the Divine Spirit. Christ sought that Divine aid in
prolonged communion with His Father and His God,
and then went forth to work His miracles and give His
commandments. Prayer and the gift of the Spirit and
the works and marvels of Christ were closely connected
together, even before the open descent of the Spirit
and the wonders of Pentecost. There was a covenant
blessing and a covenant outpouring of the Spirit peculiar
to Christianity which was not vouchsafed till
Christ had ascended. But the Divine Spirit had been
given in a measure long before Christ came. It was
through the Spirit that every blessing and every gift
came to patriarchs, prophets, warriors, teachers, and
workers of every kind under the Jewish dispensation.
The Spirit of God came upon Bezaleel and Aholiab,
qualifying them to work cunningly for the honour and
glory of Jehovah when a tabernacle was to be reared.
The Spirit of God came upon Samson, and roused his
natural courage when Israel was to be delivered. The
Spirit of God could rest even upon a Saul, and convert
him for a time into a changed character. And just as
really the Holy Ghost rested upon the human nature
of Jesus Christ, guiding Him in the utterance of
those commandments, the outcome and development of
which we trace in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
CHAPTER II.
THE CONVERSATIONS OF THE GREAT FORTY
DAYS.
"They therefore, when they were come together, asked Him, saying,
Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And He
said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the
Father hath set within His own authority. But ye shall receive power,
when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa and Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth."—Acts i. 6-9.
The conversations and intercourse between our
Lord and His apostles during the forty days
which elapsed from the resurrection to the ascension
must have been of intensest interest, yet, like so much
that we should esteem interesting concerning the heroes
of Scripture and their lives, these things are wrapped
round with thickest darkness. We get a glimpse of
the risen Christ here and there. We are told He was
conversing with His disciples touching the things concerning
the kingdom of God. And then we are practically
referred to the Acts of the Apostles if we wish
to know what topics His resurrection discourses dealt
with. And when we do so refer to the Acts we find
that His disciples moved along the line of Christian
development with steps sure, unfaltering, and decided,
because they doubtless felt themselves nerved by the
well-remembered directions, the conscious guidance of
the Eternal Son of God, vouchsafed in the commandments
given by Him in the power of the Holy Ghost.
Let us reflect for a little on the characteristics of
Christ's risen appearances to His disciples. I note
then in the first place that they were intermittent, and
not continuous,—here and there, to Mary Magdalene
at one time; to the disciples journeying to Emmaus,
to the assembled twelve, to five hundred brethren at
once, at other times. Such were the manifestations
of our Lord; and some may feel inclined to cavil at
them, and ask, Why did He not dwell continuously
and perpetually with His disciples as before His
resurrection? And yet, reading our narrative in the
light of other scriptures, we might expect the resurrection
appearances of Christ to have been of this description.
In one place in the Gospel narrative we
read that our Lord replied thus to a section of His
adversaries: "In the resurrection they neither marry
nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in
heaven." Now we often read of angelic appearances
in Holy Scripture, in the Old and New Testament
alike. We read too of appearances of Old Testament
saints, as of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration.
And they are all like those of our Lord
Jesus Christ after His resurrection. They are sudden,
independent of time or space or material barriers,
and yet are visible and tangible though glorified.
Such in Genesis was Abraham's vision of angels at
the tent door, when they did eat and drink with him.
Such was Lot's vision of angels who came and lodged
with him in wicked Sodom. Such was Peter's vision
when an angel released him, guided him through the
intricate mazes of Jerusalem's streets; and such were
Christ's appearances when, as on this occasion, His
disciples, now accustomed to His risen and glorified
form, tested Him as of old with the question, "Lord,
dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to
Israel?"
I. Now let us here notice the naturalness of this
query concerning the restoration of the kingdom. The
Apostles evidently shared the national aspirations of
the Jews at that time. A large number of books have
come to light of late years, which show what a keen
expectation of the Messiah's kingdom and His triumph
over the Romans existed at the time, and prior to the
time, of our Saviour. The book of Enoch, discovered
one hundred years ago in Abyssinia, and translated
into English in the beginning of the present century,
was written a century at least before the Incarnation.The book of Enoch was translated into English by Archbishop
Laurence, and was first published about seventy years ago. There is
an exhaustive article on the subject in the second volume of the
Dictionary of Christian Biography, written by Professor Lipsius of
Jena.
The book of Jubilees was written in Palestine about
the time of our Lord's birth; the Psalter of Solomon
dates from the same period. All these works give us
clearest glimpses into the inner mind, the religious tone,
of the Jewish nation at that time.The book of Jubilees has never been published in English. An
interesting account of it will be found in the later editions of Kitto's
Biblical Cyclopædia. The reader will find another account of the
book of Jubilees in the Dict. Christ. Biog., iv., 507. The Psalms of
Solomon are contained in the Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test. of J. A. Fabricius.
There is a brief notice of them in the Dict. Chris. Biog., iv., 508, under
the title "Pseudepigrapha."
The pious unsophisticated
people of Galilee were daily expecting
the establishment of the Messianic kingdom; but the
kingdom they expected was no spiritual institution, it
was simply an earthly scene of material glory, where
the Jews would once again be exalted above all surrounding
nations, and the hated invader expelled from
the fair plains of Israel. We can scarcely realize or
understand the force and naturalness of this question,
"Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to
Israel?" as put by these Galilean peasants till one
takes up Archbishop Laurence's translation of the
book of Enoch, and sees how this eager expectation
dominated every other feeling in the Jewish mind of
that period, and was burned into the very secrets of
their existence by the tyranny of Roman rule. Thus,
let us take the forty-seventh chapter of the book of
Enoch, which may very possibly have been in the
thoughts of the Apostles as they presented this query
to their Lord. In that chapter we read the following
words, attributed unto Enoch: "There I beheld the
Ancient of Days, whose head was like white wool; and
with Him another, whose countenance resembled that
of man. His countenance was full of grace, like that
of one of the holy angels. Then I inquired of one of
the angels who went with me, and who showed me
every secret thing concerning this Son of Man, who
He was, whence He was, and why He accompanied
the Ancient of Days. He answered and said to me,
This is the Son of Man, to whom righteousness
belongs, with whom righteousness has dwelt, and
who will reveal all the treasures of that which is concealed.
For the Lord of Spirits has chosen Him, and
His portion has surpassed all before the Lord of Spirits
in everlasting uprightness. This Son of Man whom
thou beholdest shall raise up kings and the mighty
from their couches, and the powerful from their thrones;
shall loosen the bridles of the powerful, and break in
pieces the teeth of sinners. He shall hurl kings from
their thrones and their dominions, because they will not
exalt and praise Him, nor humble themselves before
Him, by whom their kingdoms were granted to them.
The countenance likewise of the mighty shall He cast
down, filling them with confusion. Darkness shall be
their habitation, and worms shall be their bed; nor
from that their bed shall they hope to be again raised,
because they exalted not the Name of the Lord of
Spirits." This is one specimen of the Messianic expectations,
which were just then worked up to fever
pitch among the Galileans especially, and were ever
leading them to burst out into bloody rebellion against
the power of the Romans. We might multiply such
quotations fourfold did our space permit. This one
extract must suffice to show the tone and quality of
the religious literature upon which the souls of the
Apostles had fed and been sustained, when they proposed
this query, "Dost Thou at this time restore the
kingdom to Israel?" They were thinking simply of
such a kingdom as the book of Enoch foretold.
This very point seems to us one of the special and
most striking evidences for the inspiration and supernatural
direction of the writers of the New Testament.
Their natural, purely human, and national conception
of the kingdom of God was one thing; their final,
their divinely taught and inspired conception of that
kingdom is quite another thing. I cannot see how,
upon any ground of mere human experience or human
development, the Apostles could have risen from the
gross, material conceptions of the book of Enoch,
wherein the kingdom of the Messiah would have simply
been a purified, reformed, and exalted copy of the
Roman Empire of that day, to the spiritual and truly
catholic idea of a kingdom not of this world, which
ruled over spirits rather than over bodies.The strongest argument, from a mere literary point of view, for the
existence of a supernatural element in Christianity and primitive Christian
literature will be derived from a contrast between the Jewish
literature of the period of the Christian era and the New Testament.
Take, for instance, the book of Jubilees. It was written about the time
of our Lord, and probably in Galilee. It represents the current tone
of Jewish religion, and shows us, with its narrowness and absurdities,
what the New Testament would have been had it been the product of
unassisted human nature. The book of Jubilees or of Enoch is the
strongest argument for the inspiration of the New Testament. I cannot
even imagine what explanation can be offered of the difference in tone
between the Christian and the Jewish writings save that of the inspiration
of the Christian.
Some
persons maintain that Christianity in its doctrines,
organisation, and discipline was but the outcome of
natural forces working in the world at that epoch.
But take this doctrine alone, "My kingdom is not of
this world," announced by Christ before Pilate, and
impressed upon the Apostles by revelation after revelation,
and experience after experience, which they only
very gradually assimilated and understood. Where
did it come from? How was it the outcome of natural
forces? The whole tendency of Jewish thought was in
the opposite direction. Nationalism of the most narrow,
particular, and limited kind was the predominant idea,
specially among those Galilean provincials who furnished
the vast majority of the earliest disciples of
Jesus Christ. Our minds have been so steeped in the
principles of Christian liberalism, we have been so
thoroughly taught the rejection of race-prejudice, that
we can scarcely realize the narrow and limited ideas
which must have ruled the minds of the first Christians,
and therefore we miss the full force of this argument
for the Divine character of the Christian religion. A
Roman Catholic peasant from Connaught, an Ulster
Orangeman, a Celtic Presbyterian Highlander, none
of these will take a wide, tolerant, generous view of
religion. They view the question through their own
narrow provincial spectacles. And yet any one of them
would have been broad, liberal, and comprehensive when
contrasted with the tone and thought of the Galilean
provincials of our Lord's day. They lived lonely, solitary
lives, away from the din, the pressure, and the
business of daily life; they knew nothing of what the
great outside world was thinking and doing; they fed
their spirits on the glories of the past, and had no room
in their gloomy fanaticism for aught that was liberal
and truly spiritual. How could men like them have
developed the idea of the Catholic Church, boundless
as the earth itself, limited by no hereditary or fleshly
bonds, and trammelled by no circumstances of race,
climate, or kindred? The magnificence of the idea, the
grandeur of the conception, is the truest and most
sufficient evidence of the divinity of its origin. "In
Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor
free, male nor female," the rapt expression of an inspired
and illuminated Apostle, when compared with this
query, "Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom
to Israel?" the darkened utterance of carnal and uninspired
minds groping after truth, furnishes to the
thinking soul the clearest evidence of the presence of a
supernatural power, of a Divine enlightenment, vouchsafed
to the Apostles upon the Day of Pentecost. If
this higher knowledge, this nobler conception, this
spiritualised ideal, came not from God, whence did it
come?
I do not think we can press this point of the
catholicity and universality of the Christian idea and
the Christian society too far. We cannot possibly make
too much of it. There were undoubtedly Christian
elements, or elements whence Christian ideas were developed,
prevalent in the current Judaism of the day.
Many a clause of the Lord's Prayer and of the Sermon
on the Mount can be paralleled almost word for word
from the Jewish teachers and writings of the times
immediately preceding our Lord. There was nothing
in Christ of that petty vanity of little minds which craves
after complete originality, and which will be nothing if
not completely new. He was indeed the wise and the
good householder, who brought forth out of His treasures
things old as well as things new. Many a teacher
and thinker, like Philo, whose ideas had been broadened
by the Divine training of banishment and enforced exile
in Alexandria or in Asia Minor, had risen to nobler and
wider views than were current in Palestine. But it was
not among these, or such as these, that the catholic ideas
of the gospel took their rise. Christianity took its rise
among men whose ideas, whose national aspirations,
whose religious hopes, were of the narrowest and most
limited kind; and yet, amid such surroundings and
planted in such a soil, Christianity assumed at once a
world-wide mission, rejected at once and peremptorily
all mere Judaic exclusiveness, and claimed for itself the
widest scope and development. The universality of
the Gospel message, the comprehensive, all-embracing
character of the Gospel teaching, as set forth in our
Lord's parting words, is, we conclude, an ample evidence
of its Divine and superhuman origin.
II. In this passage again there lies hidden the wisest
practical teaching for the Church of all ages. We
have warnings against the folly which seeks to unravel
the future and penetrate that veil of darkness by which
our God in mercy shrouds the unknown. We have
taught us the benefits which attend the uncertainties
of our Lord's return and of the end of this present
dispensation. "It is not for you to know times or
seasons." Let us endeavour to work out this point,
together with the manifold illustrations of it which
the history of the Church affords.
(a) The wisdom of the Divine answer will best be
seen if we take the matter thus, and suppose our Lord
to have responded to the apostolic appeal fixing some
definite date for the winding-up of man's probation
state, and for that manifestation of the sons of God
which will take place at His appearing and His kingdom.
Our Lord, in fixing upon some such definite
date, must have chosen one that was either near at
hand or else one that was removed far off into the
distant future. In either of these cases He must have
defeated the great object of the Divine society which
He was founding. That object was simply this, to
teach men how to lead the life of God amid the children
of men. The Christian religion has indeed sometimes
been taunted with being an unpractical religion,
turning men's eyes and attention from the pressing
business and interests of daily life to a far-away
spiritual state with which man has nothing to do, at
least for the present. But is this the case? Has
Christianity proved itself unpractical? If so, what has
placed Christendom at the head of civilization? The
tendencies of great principles are best shown in the
actions of vast masses. Individuals may be better or
worse than their creeds, but if we wish to see the
average result of doctrines we must take their adherents
in the mass and enquire as to their effect on them.
Here, then, is where we may triumph. The religions
of Greece and of Rome are identical in principle,
and even in their deities, with the paganism of India,
as the investigations of comparative historians have
abundantly shown.The most curious instance of the essential identity of the nature
deities of the West and East will be found in Mithraism. The worship
of Mithras was originally the worship of the sun. It started from
India, passed into Persia, thence found its way to Asia Minor, and
about 70 B.C. was introduced into Rome, where it became, about A.D.
200, the great rival of Christianity, imitating the sacraments of baptism
and holy communion in rites of its own. Mithraism easily combined
with the worship of Apollo, or the Sun-God. Apollo, Mithras, and
Baal were fundamentally one and the same. Tertullian, Justin Martyr,
and Origen call Mithraism a demoniacal imitation of Christianity.
See more on this point in the article on Mithras in the Dictionary of
Christian Biography, vol. iii., p. 925.
Compare Christendom and India
from the simply practical point of view, and which
can show the better record? The paganism of India,
Persia, and Western Asia was the parent of the
paganism of Greece and Rome. The child has passed
away and given place to a noble and spiritual religion,
while the parent still remains. And now what is the
result? Can the boldest deny that while barbarism,
decay, and death reign over the realms of Asiatic
paganism, though starting with every advantage upon
its side, concerning the religion of the Cross, which is
taunted with being an unpractical religion, and concerning
that religion alone, can it be said in the language
of the rapt Jewish seer, "Wheresoever the waters of
that river have come, behold there is life," and that the
fair plains, and crowded cities, and the massive material
development and civilisation of Europe and of America
alike proclaim the truth, that Christianity has the
promise of the life which now is as well as of that
which is to come?
(b) Our Lord's answer to His Apostles was couched
in words suited to develop this practical aspect of
His religion. It refused to minister to mere human
curiosity, and left men uncertain as to the time of His
return, that they might be fruitful workers in the
great field of life. And now behold what ill results
would have followed had He acted otherwise! The
Master in fact says, It is not well for you to know
the times or seasons, because such knowledge would
strike at the root of practical Christianity. Uncertainty
as to the time of the end is the most healthful state for
the followers of Christ. Christ holds out the prospect
of His own return for a twofold purpose: first, to
comfort His people under the daily troubles of life—"Rejoice
in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice.
Let your forbearance be known unto all men. The
Lord is at hand;" "Whatever our hope or joy or crown
of glorying, are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus
Christ at His coming;" "If we believe that Jesus Christ
died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen
asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him,"—these and
dozens of other passages, which will recur in a moment
to every student of St. Paul's writings, prove the power
to comfort and sustain exercised by the doctrine of
Christ's second coming. But there was another and
still more powerful influence exercised by this doctrine.
It stirred men up to perpetual watchfulness and untiring
care. "Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day
nor the hour;" "Therefore be ye also ready, for in an
hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh;" "The
night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore
cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the
armour of light,"—these and many a similar exhortation
of the Master and of his chosen Apostles alike,
indicate to us that another great object of this doctrine
was to keep Christians perpetually alive with an intense
anxiety and a sleepless watchfulness directed towards
the person and appearing of Christ. The construction
of the gospel narrative shows this.
(c) There are in the New Testament, taken as a whole,
two contrasted lines of prophecy concerning the Second
Coming of Christ. If in one place the Lord Jesus
speaks as if the date of His coming were fixed for His
own generation and age, "Verily, I say unto you, this
generation shall not pass away till all these things
shall be fulfilled," in the very same context He indicates
that it is only after a long time that the Lord of the
servants will return, to take account of their dealings
with the property entrusted to them. If St. Paul in
one place seems to indicate to the Thessalonians the
speedy appearing of Christ and the end of the dispensation,
in another epistle he corrects such a misapprehension
of his meaning. If the Revelation of St. John
in one place represents the awful Figure who moves
amid the Churches, watching their works and spying out
their secret sins, as saying, "Behold, I come quickly,"
the same book pictures a long panorama of events, extending
over vast spaces of time, destined yet to elapse
before the revelation of the city of God and the final
triumph of the saints. The doctrine of Christ's second
appearing is like many another doctrine in the New
Testament. Like the doctrine of God's election, which
is undoubtedly there, and yet side by side with election
appears as really and truly the doctrine of man's free will;
like the doctrine of God's eternal and almighty love, side
by side with which appears the existence of a personal
devil, and of an abounding iniquity and sorrow which
seems to contradict this doctrine; like the doctrine of
the Godhead itself, where the Unity of the Divine Nature
is most clearly taught, yet side by side therewith
appears the manifold personality of Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost as existing in that Nature;—so too is it
in the case of the doctrine of Christ's Second Coming.
We have a twofold antinomy. In one line of prophecy
we have depicted the nearness and suddenness of
Christ's appearing; in another line we behold that
tremendous event thrown into the dim and distant
future. And what is the result upon the human mind
of such opposite views? It is a healthy, useful, practical
result. We are taught the certainty of the event,
and the uncertainty of the time of that event; so that
hope is stirred, comfort ministered, and watchfulness
evoked. We can see this more clearly by imagining
the opposite. Suppose Christ had responded to the
spirit of the apostolic query, "Dost Thou at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?" and fixed the precise
date of His coming? He would in that case have
altogether defeated the great end of His own work and
labour. Suppose He had fixed it a thousand years
from the time of His Ascension. Then indeed the
doctrine of Christ's Second Coming would have lost all
personal and practical power over the lives of the
generation of Christians then living, or who should live
during the hundreds of years which were to elapse till the
date appointed. The day of their death, the uncertainty
of life, these would be the inspiring motives to activity
and devotion felt by the early Christians; while, as a
matter of fact, St. Paul never appeals to either of them,
but ever appeals to the coming of Christ and His
appearing to judgment as the motives to Christian
zeal and diligence. But a more serious danger in any
such prediction lurks behind. What would have been
the result of any such precise prophecy upon the minds
of the Christians who lived close to the time of its
fulfilment? It would have at once defeated the great
end of the Christian religion, as we have already defined
it. The near approach of the great final catastrophe
would have completely paralysed all exertion, and
turned the members of Christ's Church into idle, useless,
unpractical religionists. We all know how the near
approach of any great event, how the presence of any
great excitement, hinders life's daily work. A great
joy or a great sorrow, either of them is utterly inconsistent
with tranquil thought, with steady labour, with
persistent and profitable exertions. The expectation
of some tremendous change, whether it be for happiness
or misery, creates such a flutter in the spirit that
steady application is simply out of the question. So
would it have been in our supposed case. As the time
fixed for the appearance of our Lord drew nigh, all
work, business, labour, the manifold engagements of
life, the rearing of families, the culture of the ground,
the development of trade and commerce, would be
considered a grand impertinence, and man's powers
and man's life would be prostrated in view of the
approaching catastrophe.
(d) Again and again has history verified and amply
justified the wisdom of the Master's reply, "It is not
for you to know times or seasons." It was justified
in apostolic experience. The Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians is a commentary on our Lord's teaching
in this passage. The Christians of Thessalonica
imbibed the notion from St. Paul's words that Christ's
appearance to judgment was at hand. Perhaps St.
Paul's words in his first Epistle led them into the mistake.
The Apostle was not infallible on all questions.
He was richly inspired, but he knew nothing of the
future save what was expressly revealed, and beyond
such express revelations he could only surmise and
guess like other men.The miraculous gifts of the Spirit possessed by the Apostles did
not guard them against mistakes as to the future, nor override the
exercise of private judgment and common sense, nor enable them to
work miracles or cure sicknesses for their own purposes. St. Paul, for
instance, was obliged to depend upon the assistance of St. Luke when
he was ill. The miraculous powers were restrained, as in our Lord's
example, to cases where God's glory was specially advanced by their
exercise.
The Thessalonians, however,
were led by him to expect the immediate appearance
of Christ, and the result was just what I have depicted.
The transcendent event, which they thought impending,
paralyzed exertion, destroyed honest and useful labour,
scandalized the gospel cause, and compelled St. Paul to
use the sternest, sharpest words of censure and rebuke.
The language of St. Paul completely justifies our line
of argument. He tells us that the spirits of the
Thessalonians had been upset, the natural result of
a great expectation had been experienced as we might
humanly have predicted. The beginning of the second
chapter of his Second Epistle proves this: "Now we
beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto
Him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from
your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or
by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day
of the Lord is present." See here how he dwells
on mental perturbation as the result of high-strung
expectation; and that is bad, for mental peace, not
mental disturbance, is the portion of Christ's people.
Then again he indicates another result of which we
have spoken as natural under such circumstances.
Idleness and its long train of vices had followed hard
upon the mental strain which found place for a time at
Thessalonica, and so in the third chapter of the Epistle
he writes, "Now we command you, brethren, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves
from every brother that walketh disorderly;" and
then he defines the disorderliness of which he complains,
"For we hear of some that walk among you
disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies."
Or, to put the matter in a concise shape, and interpret
St. Paul into modern language, the expectation of
the near approach of the judgment and the personal
appearing of Christ had upset the spirits of the
Thessalonians; it had so fluttered them they could
not attend to ordinary business. Human nature then
asserted itself. Idleness resulted from the mental disturbance.
Idleness begot gossip, disorder, and scandals.
The idlers indeed professed that they ceased from
labour in order to give their whole attention to devotion.
But St. Paul knew that there was no incompatibility
between work and prayer, while he was convinced
there was the closest union between idleness and sin.
Idleness put on an appearance of great spirituality, but
St. Paul effectually met the difficulty. He knew that
an idler, no matter how spiritual he pretended to be,
must eat, and so he strikes at the root of such mock
religion by laying down, "If any will not work, neither
let him eat,"—a good healthy practical rule, which
soon restored the moral and spiritual tone of the
Macedonian Church to its normal condition.
(e) The experiences of Thessalonica have been often
repeated down through the ages till we come to our
own day. I remember a curious instance that I once
read of exactly the same spirit, and exactly the same
method of cure, as St. Paul used, in the case of an
Egyptian monastery in the fifth century. The monks
were then divided into two classes. There were
monks who laboured diligently and usefully in communities,
and there were others who lived idle lives
as solitaries, pretending to a spirituality too great to
permit them to engage in secular pursuits. A solitary
one day entered a monastery presided over by
a wise abbot. He found the monks all diligently
employed, and, addressing them from his superior
standpoint, said, "Labour not for the meat that
perisheth." "That is very good, brother," said the
abbot. "Take our brother away to his cell," he said
to one of his attendants, who left him there to meditate.
Nature, after a time, began to assert its sway, and the
solitary became hungry. He heard the signal for the
midday meal, and wondered that no man came to
summon him. Time passed, and the evening meal
was announced, and yet no invitation came. At last
the solitary left his cell and proceeded in search of
food, when the wise abbot impressed on him the Pauline
rule that it was quite possible to unite work and worship,
labouring for the bread that perisheth while feeding on
the bread that is eternal.
The tenth century again verified the wisdom of the
Divine denial to reveal the future, or fix a date for
Christ's second coming. The year 1000 was regarded in
the century immediately preceding it as the limit of the
world's existence and the date of Christ's appearing.
The belief in this view spread all over Europe, and
the result was just the same as at Thessalonica. Men
abandoned all work, they left their families to starve,
and thought the one great object worth living for was
devotion and preparation for their impending change.
And the result was widespread misery, famine, disease,
and death, while, instead of working any beneficial
change upon society at large, the terror through which
men had passed brought about, when the dreaded
time had gone by, a reaction towards carelessness
and vice, all the greater from the self-denial which
they had practised for a time. And as it was in the
earlier ages so has it been in later times. The people
of London were, in the middle of the last century,
deluded into a belief that on a certain day the Lord
would appear to judgment, with the result that the
business of London was suspended for the time. The
lives of John Wesley and his fellow-evangelists tell us
how diligently they seized the opportunity of preaching
repentance and preparation for the coming of
Christ, though they shared not the belief in the prediction
which gained them their audience. While again
in the present century there was a widespread opinion
about the year 1830 that the coming of Christ was at
hand. It was the time when the Irvingite and Darbyite
bodies sprang into existence, in which systems the
near approach of the Second Coming forms an important
element. Men then thought that it was a mere matter
of days or weeks, and in consequence they acted just
like the Thessalonians. In their ardour their minds
were upset, their business and families neglected, and,
as far as in them lay, the work of life and of civilisation
was utterly destroyed. While when again we
come to later times experience has taught that no men
have been more profitless and unpractical Christians
than the numbers, by no means inconsiderable, who
have spent their lives in vain attempts to fix now for
this year, and again for that day, the exact time
when the Son of Man should appear. The wisest
Christians have acted otherwise. It is told of a
foreign bishop, eminent for his sanctity and for the
wise guidance which he could give in the spiritual
life, that he was once engaged in playing a game of
bowls. One of the bystanders was of a critical disposition,
and was scandalized at the frivolity of the bishop's
occupation, so much beneath the dignity, as it was
thought, of his character. "If Christ was to appear
the next moment, what would you do?" he asked the
bishop. "I would make the next stroke the best
possible one," was the wise man's reply. And the reply
involved the true principle which the Lord Himself by
His refusal to gratify the Apostles' curiosity desired to
impress on His people. The uncertainty of the time
of Christ's coming, combined with the certainty of the
event itself, should stir us up to intensity of purpose,
to earnestness of life, to a hallowed enthusiasm to do
thoroughly every lawful deed, to think thoroughly
every lawful thought, conscious that in so doing we are
fulfilling the will and work of the great Judge Himself.
Blessed indeed shall be those servants whom the Lord
when He cometh shall find so doing.
III. Christ, after He had reproved the spirit of vain
curiosity which strikes at the root of all practical effort,
then indicates the source of their strength and the
sphere of its activity. "Ye shall receive power after
the Holy Ghost is come upon you." They were
wanting then, as yet, in power, and the Holy Ghost
was to supply the want. Intellect, talent, eloquence,
wit, all these things are God's gifts, but they are not the
source of spiritual power. A man may possess them
one and all, and yet be lacking in that spiritual power
which came upon the Apostles through the descent of
the Spirit. And the sphere of their appointed activity
is designated for them. Just as in the earliest days of
Christ's public ministry He spake words indicative of
the universal spirit of the gospel, and prophesied of a
time when men from the east and west should come
and sit down in the kingdom of God, while the children
of the kingdom should be cast out, so, too, one of
His few recorded resurrection sayings now indicates
the same: "Ye shall be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem,
and in all Judæa, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth." Jerusalem, Judæa,—the Apostles
were to begin their great practical life of witnessing at
home, but they were not to stay there. Samaria was
next to have its opportunity, and so we shall find it to
have been the case; and then, working from home as
centre, the uttermost parts of the earth, a distant Spain
from Paul, and a distant India from Thomas, and a
barbarous Scythia from Andrew, and a frigid, ocean-girt
Britain from a Joseph of Arimathæa,See my Ireland and the Celtic Church for the traditions about
St. Joseph of England.
were to
learn tidings of the new life in Christ.The line of argument followed in this chapter was originally suggested
to me by a sermon for the First Sunday in Advent, printed in a
volume of Sermons at the Octagon Chapel, Bath, by the Rev. W. C.
Magee, B.D., now Archbishop of York. London, Hatchards, 1858.
CHAPTER III.
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST, AND ITS LESSONS.
"When He had said these things, as they were looking, He was
taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight."—Acts i. 9.
In this passage we have the bare literal statement
of the fact of Christ's ascension. Let us now
consider this supernatural fact, the Ascension, and
meditate upon its necessity, and even naturalness,
when taken in connection with the whole earthly
existence of Incarnate God, and then strive to trace
the results and blessings to mankind which followed
from it in the gift of the new power, the covenanted
gift of the Spirit, and in the spread of the universal
religion.
I. The ascension of our Lord is a topic whereon
familiarity has worked its usual results; it has lost
for most minds the sharpness of its outline and the
profundity of its teaching because universally accepted
by Christians; and yet no doctrine raises deeper questions,
or will yield more profitable and far-reaching
lessons. First, then, we may note the place this doctrine
holds in apostolic teaching. Taking the records
of that teaching contained in the Acts and the Epistles,
we find that it occupies a real substantial position.
The ascension is there referred to, hinted at, taken as
granted, pre-supposed, but it is not obtruded nor dwelt
upon overmuch.The incarnation and the ascension are, in this respect, very much
on a level in St. Paul's writings. The incarnation and birth of our
Lord are referred to incidentally, but only incidentally, in Rom. i. 3;
Gal. iv. 4; 1 Tim. iii. 16; yet the facts of the birth and incarnation
must have occupied a great share of St. Paul's attention, if we are to
judge of his teaching by the Gospel of St. Luke, his disciple and companion.
The Apostle never formally states the doctrine of the incarnation
as St. Luke set it forth, because it was well known by all to whom
he wrote as the very foundation of his system. A bare reference was
therefore enough. It was just the same with the doctrine of the
ascension.
The resurrection of Christ was the
great central point of apostolic testimony; the ascension
of Christ was simply a portion of that fundamental
doctrine, and a natural deduction from it. If Christ
had been raised from the dead and had thus become the
firstfruits of the grave, it required but little additional
exercise of faith to believe that He had passed into that
unseen and immediate presence of Deity where the
perfected soul finds its complete satisfaction. In fact,
the doctrine of the resurrection apart from the doctrine
of the ascension would have been a mutilated fragment,
for the natural question would arise, not for one age but
for every age, If Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the
dead, where is He? Produce your risen Master, and
we will believe in Him, would be the triumphant taunt
to which Christians would be ever exposed. But then
when we closely examine the teaching of the Apostles,
we shall find that the doctrine of the ascension was just
as really bound up with all their preaching and exhortations
as the doctrine of the resurrection; the whole
Christian idea as conceived by them just as necessarily
involved the doctrine of the ascension as it did that of
the resurrection. St. Peter's conception of Christianity,
for instance, involved the ascension. Whether in his
speech at the election of Matthias, or in his sermon on
the day of Pentecost, or in his address in Solomon's
Porch after the healing of the crippled beggar, his
teaching ever presupposes and involves the ascension.
He takes the doctrine and the fact for granted. Jesus
is with him the Being "whom the heavens must receive
until the times of restoration of all things." So is
it too with St. John in his Gospel. He never directly
mentions the fact of Christ's ascension, but he always
implies it. So too with St. Paul and the other apostolic
writers of the New Testament. It would be simply
impossible to exhibit in detail the manner in which
this doctrine pervades and underlies all St. Paul's
teaching. The ascended Saviour occupies the same
position in St. Paul's earliest as in his latest writings.
Is he speaking of the lives of the Thessalonians in his
First Epistle to that Church: "they are waiting for God's
Son from heaven." Is he pointing them forward to
the second advent of Christ: it is of that day he speaks
when "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven."
Is he in Rom. viii. dwelling upon the abiding security
of God's elect: he enlarges upon their privileges
in "Christ Jesus, who is at the right hand of God,
making intercession for us." Is he exhorting the
Colossians to a supernatural life: it is because they
have supernatural privileges in their ascended Lord.
"If ye then were raised with Christ, seek the things
above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God."
The more closely the teaching of the Apostles is
examined, the more clearly we shall perceive that the
ascension was for them no ideal act, no imaginary or
fantastic elevation, but a real actual passing of the risen
Saviour out of the region and order of the seen and
the natural into the region and order of the unseen
and supernatural. Just as really as they believed
Christ to have risen from the dead, just as really did
they in turn believe Him to have ascended into the
heavens.
II. But some one may raise curious questions as to
the facts of the ascension. Whither, for instance, it
may be asked, did our Lord depart when He left this
earthly scene? The childish notion that He went up
and up far above the most distant star will not of
course stand a moment's reflection. It suits the apprehension
of childhood, and the innocent illusion should
not be too rudely broken; but still, as the advance of
years and of wisdom dispels other illusions, so too will
this one depart, when the child learns that there is
neither up nor down in this visible universe of ours,
and that if we were ourselves transported to the moon,
which seems shining over our heads, we should see
the earth suspended in the blue azure which would
overhang the moon and its newly-arrived inhabitants.
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles does not describe
our Saviour as thus ascending through infinite space.
It simply describes Him as removed from off this
earthly ball, and then, a cloud shutting Him out from
view, Christ passed into the inner and unseen universe
wherein He now dwells. The existence of that inner
and unseen universe, asserted clearly enough in Scripture,
has of late years been curiously confirmed by
scientific speculation. Scripture asserts the existence
of such an unseen universe, and the ascension implies
it. The second coming of our Saviour is never
described as a descent from some far-off region. No,
it is always spoken of as an Apocalypse,—a drawing
back, that is, of a veil which hides an unseen
chamber. The angels, as the messengers of their
Divine Master, are described by Christ in Matt. xiii.
as "coming forth" from the secret place of the Most
High to execute His behests.See Archbishop Trench on the Draw-net in Notes on the Parables,
p. 145, 10th ed.
What a solemn light
such a scriptural view sheds upon life! The unseen
world is not at some vast distance, but, as the ascension
would seem to imply, close at hand, shut out
from us by that thin veil of matter which angelic hands
will one day rend for ever. And then how wondrously
the speculations of that remarkable book to which I
have referred, The Unseen Universe, lend themselves to
this scriptural idea, pointing out the necessity imposed
by modern scientific thought for postulating some
such interior spiritual sphere, of which the external
and material universe may be regarded as a temporary
manifestation and development.We now live so fast that it may perhaps be necessary to explain
that the Unseen Universe was a book written some ten or eleven years
ago by two eminent scientists, showing how that it was needful, on
the principles, of modern science, to postulate the existence of an unseen
universe, out of which the seen universe has been derived, and into
which it is in turn passing.
The doctrine of the
ascension, when rightly understood, presents then no
difficulties from a scientific point of view, but is rather in
strictest accordance with the highest and subtlest forms
of modern thought. But when we advance still closer
to the heart of this doctrine, and endeavour, quite apart
from all mere carping criticism, to realize its meaning
and its power, we shall perceive a profound fitness,
beauty, and harmony in this mysterious fact. Laying
apart all carping criticism, I say, because the critical
spirit is not appreciative, it is on the look-out for faults,
it necessarily involves a certain assumption of superiority
in the critic to the thing or doctrine criticised; and most
certainly it is not to the proud critic, but to the humble
soul alone, that the doctrines of the Cross yield of their
sweetness, and make revelation of their profound depths.
We can perceive a fitness and a naturalness in the
ascension; we can advance even farther still, and behold
an absolute necessity for it, if Christ's work was to be
perfected in all its details, and Christianity to become,
not a narrow local religion, but a universal and catholic
Church.
III. The ascension was a fitting and a natural termination
of Christ's earthly ministry, considering the Christian
conception of His sacred Personality. When the
Second Person of the Eternal Trinity wished to reveal
the life of God among men, and to elevate humanity by
associating it for ever with the person of Him who was
the Eternal God, He left the glory which He had with
the Father before the world was, and entered upon the
world of humanity through a miraculous door. "The
Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from
everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and
of one substance with the Father, took Man's nature in
the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance."
These are the careful, accurate, well-balanced words of
the second Article of the Church of England, in which all
English-speaking Christians substantially agree. They
are accurate, I say, and well-balanced, avoiding the
Scylla of Nestorianism, which divides Christ's person,
on the one side, and the Charybdis of Eutychianism,
which denies His humanity, on the other. The Person
of God, the Eternal Word, assumed human nature, not
a human person, but human nature, so that God might
be able, acting in and through this human nature as His
instrument, to teach mankind and to die for mankind.
God entered upon the sphere of the seen and the
temporal by a miraculous door. His life and work were
marked all through by miracle, His death and resurrection
were encompassed with miracle; and it was
fitting, considering the whole course of His earthly
career, that His departure from this world should be
through another miraculous door. The departure of the
Eternal King was, like His first approach, a part of a
scheme which forms one united and harmonious whole.
The Incarnation and the Ascension were necessarily
related the one to the other.
IV. Again, we may advance a step further, and say
that not only was the ascension a natural and fitting
termination to the activities of the Eternal Son manifest
in the flesh, it was a necessary completion and finish.
"It is expedient," said Christ Himself, "that I go away;
for if I go not away the Comforter will not come to
you." For some reason secret from us, but hidden in the
awful depths of that Being who is the beginning and
the end, the source and the condition of all created
existence, the return of Christ to the bosom of the
Father was absolutely necessary before the outpouring
of the Divine Spirit of Life and Love could take place.
How this can have been we know not. We only know
the fact as revealed to us by Jesus Christ and affirmed
by His Apostles. "Being therefore by the right hand
of God exalted, and having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath poured forth this
which ye see and hear," is the testimony of the illuminated
Apostle St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, speaking
in strict unison with the teaching of Jesus Christ
Himself as reported in St. John's Gospel. But without
endeavouring to intrude into these mysteries of the
Divine nature, into which even the angels themselves
pry not, we behold in the character and constitution of
Christ's Church and Christ's religion sufficient reasons to
show us the Divine expediency of our Lord's ascension.
Let us take the matter very plainly and simply thus.
Had our Lord not ascended into the unseen state
whence He had emerged for the purpose of rescuing
mankind from that horrible pit, that mire and clay of
pollution, immorality, and selfishness in which it lay at
the epoch of the Christian era, He must in that case
(always proceeding on the supposition that He had
risen from the dead, because we always suppose our
readers to be believers) have remained permanently or
temporarily resident in some one place. He might have
chosen Jerusalem, the city of the great King, as His
abode, and this would have seemed to the religious
men of His time quite natural. The same instinct of
religious conservatism which made the Twelve to tarry
at Jerusalem even when persecution seemed to threaten
the infant Church with destruction, would have led the
risen Christ to fix His abode at the city which every
pious Jew regarded as the special seat of Jehovah.
There would have been nothing to tempt Him to
Antioch, or Athens, or Alexandria, or Rome. None of
these cities could have held out any inducement or put
forward any claim comparable for one moment with
that which the name, the traditions, and the circumstances
of Jerusalem triumphantly maintained. Nay,
rather the tone and temper of those cities must have
rendered them abhorrent as dwelling-places to the
great Teacher of holiness and purity.
At any rate, the risen Saviour, if He remained upon
earth, must have chosen some one place where His
presence and His personal glory would have been
manifested. Now let us contemplate, and work out in
some detail, the results which would have inevitably
followed. The place chosen by our Lord as His visible
dwelling-place must then have become the centre of
the whole Church. At that spot pilgrims from every
land must necessarily have assembled. To it would
have resorted the doubter to have his difficulties resolved,
the sick and weak to have their ailments cured, the men
of profound devotion to bathe themselves and lose
themselves in the immediate presence of Incarnate
Deity. All interest in local Churches or local work
would have been destroyed, because every eye and
every heart would be perpetually turning towards the
one spot where the risen Lord was dwelling, and where
personal adoration could be paid to Him. All honest,
manly self-reliance would have been lost for individuals,
for Churches, and for nations. Whenever a difficulty
or controversy arose, either in the personal or ecclesiastical,
the social or political sphere, men, instead of
trying to solve it for themselves under the guidance of
the Divine Spirit, would have hurried off with it to the
Fount of supernatural wisdom, as an oracle, like the
fabled pagan ones of old, whence direction would
infallibly be gained. Judaism would have triumphed
and the dispensation of the Spirit would have ceased.
The whole idea, too, of Christianity as a scheme of
moral probation would have been overthrown. Christ
as belonging to the supernatural sphere would of course
have been raised above the laws of time and space.
For Him the powers of earth and the terrors of earth
would have had no meaning, and heavenly glory, shooting
forth from His sacred Person, would have compelled
obedience and acceptance of His laws at the
hands of His most deadly and obstinate foes. Sight
would have taken the place of faith, and the terrified
submission of slaves would have been substituted for
the moral, loving obedience of the regenerate soul.
The whole social order of life would also have been
overthrown. God has now placed men in families,
societies, and nations, that they might be proved by the
very difficulties of their positions. The probation which
God thereby exercises over men extends not to those
alone who are subject to government, but to those as
well who are entrusted with government. God by His
present system tries governors and governed, kings and
subjects, magistrates and people, parents and children,
teachers and pupils, all alike. Any one who has
ever made the experiment knows, however, how impossible
it is to give full play to one's power and
faculties, whether of government or of teaching, when
overlooked by the conscious presence of one who can
supersede and control all the arrangements made or all
the instructions offered. Nervousness comes in, and
paralyzes the best efforts a man might otherwise make.
So would it have been had Christ remained upon earth.
Neither those placed in authority nor those set under
authority would have done their best or played their
part effectually, feeling there was One standing by
whose all-piercing gaze could see the imperfection of
their noblest actions. A modern illustration or two will
perhaps exhibit more plainly what we mean. London,
with its enormous and ever-growing population, constitutes
in many respects a portentous danger to our
national life. But thoughtful colonists often see in it
a danger which does not strike us here at home.
London has a tendency to sap the springs of local
interest and local self-reliance. Every colonist who
attains to wealth and position feels himself an exile till
he can get back to London, which he regards as the
one centre of the empire worth living at; while the
colonies, viewing London as the centre of England's
wealth, power, and resources, feel naturally inclined to
fling upon London the care and responsibility of the
empire's protection, in which all its separate parts
should take their proportionate share.
Or again, let us take an illustration from the ecclesiastical
sphere. M. Renan is a writer who has
depicted the early history of the Church from a sceptical
point of view. He has done so with all the skill of a
novelist, aided by the resources of immense erudition.
Before Renan became a sceptic he was a Roman
Catholic, and a student for the priesthood in one of
those narrow seminaries wherein exclusively the Roman
Church now trains her clergy. Renan can never, therefore,
view Christianity save through a Roman medium,
and from a Roman Catholic standpoint. Descended
himself from a Jewish stock, and trained up in Roman
Catholic ideas, Renan, sceptic though he be, is lost in
admiration of the Papacy, because it has combined the
Jewish and the ancient imperial ideas, so that Rome
having taken the place which Jerusalem once occupied
in the spiritual organisation, has now become the local
centre of unity for the Latin Church, where Christ's
vicar visibly bears sway, to whom resort can be had
from every land as an authoritative guide, and whence
he and he alone dispenses with more than imperial
sway the gifts and graces of Divine love. Rome is for
the Latin Church the centre of the earth, and upon
Rome and its spiritual ruler all interest is concentrated
as Christ's earthly representative and deputy. Now
what London is to our own colonists, what Rome
is for its adherents, such, and infinitely more, would
the localised presence of Jesus Christ have been for
the Christian world had not the ascension taken place.
The Papacy, instead of securing the universality of
the Church, strikes a deadly blow at it. The Papacy,
with its centralised ecclesiastical despotism, is not the
Catholic Church, it is simply the local Church of Rome
spread out into all the world; just as Judaism never
was and never could have been catholic in its ideal,
no matter how widely spread it was, from the shores
of the British Islands in the West to the far-distant
regions of China in the East. Its adherents, like the
eunuch of Ethiopia, never felt a local interest in their
religion,—their eyes ever turned towards Zion, the
city of the great King. And so would it have been
with the bodily presence of Christ manifested in one
spot; the Christian Church would still have remained
a purely local institution, and the place where the
risen Saviour was manifested would have been for
Christian people the one centre towards which all
their thoughts would gravitate, to the complete neglect
of those home interests and labours in which each
individual Church ought to find the special work
appointed for it by the Master. It was expedient
for the Church that Christ should go away, to deepen
faith, to strengthen Christian self-reliance, to offer play
and scope for the power and work of the Holy Ghost,
to render life a testing-ground, and a place of probation
for the higher life to come. But above all, it
was expedient that Christ should go away in order
that the Church might rise out of and above that narrow
provincialism in which the Jewish spirit would fain
bind it, might attain to a truly universal and catholic
position, and thus fulfil the Master's magnificent prophecy
to the woman of Samaria, when, viewing in spirit
the Church's onward march, beholding it bursting all
local and national bonds, recognising it as the religion
of universal humanity, He proclaimed its destiny in
words which shall never die—"Woman, believe Me,
the hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor
in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. God is a
Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and in truth." The ascension of Jesus Christ
was absolutely necessary to equip the Church for its
universal mission, by withdrawing the bodily presence
of Christ into that unseen region which bears no special
relation to any terrestrial locality, but is the common
destiny, the true fatherland, of all the sons of God.The line of thought here worked out was originally suggested to me
by Canon Liddon's sermon on "Our Lord's Ascension the Church's
Gain," in his first series of University sermons.
V. We have now seen how the ascension was needful
for the Church, by rendering Christ an ideal object
of worship for the whole human race, thus saving it
from that tendency to mere localism which would
have utterly changed its character. We can also trace
another great blessing involved in it. The ascension
glorified humanity as humanity, and ennobled man
viewed simply as man. The ascension thus transformed
life by adding a new dignity to life and to life's
duties.
This was a very necessary lesson for the ancient
world, especially the ancient Gentile world, which Christ
came to enlighten and to save. Man, considered by
himself as man, had no peculiar dignity in the popular
religious estimate of Greece and Rome. A Greek or a
Roman was a dignified person, not, however, in virtue of
his humanity, but in virtue of his Greek or Roman citizenship.
The most pious Greeks or Romans simply
despised mankind as such, regarding all other nations
as barbarians, and treating them accordingly. Roman
law exempted Roman citizens from degrading and cruel
punishments, which they reserved for men outside the
limits of Roman citizenship, because that humanity
as humanity had no dignity attached to it in their
estimation. The gladiatorial shows were the most
striking illustration of this contempt for human nature
which paganism inculcated.The gladiatorial shows form an interesting standard by which we
may compare the practical effects of Christian and the very highest
pagan sentiment. Tertullian denounced them in the strongest language
in his treatise De Spectaculis. Cicero, in the Tusculan Disputations, ii.
17, defends them warmly as the best discipline against fear of pain and
death.
It is a notable evidence, too, of the firm grasp upon
the popular mind this contempt had taken, of the awful
depths to which the fatal infection had permeated the
public conscience, that it was not till four hundred
years after the Incarnation, and not till one hundred
years after the triumph of Christianity, that these
frightful carnivals of human blood and slaughter
yielded to the gentler and nobler principles of the
religion of the Cross. No name indeed in the long
roll of Christian martyrs, who for truth and righteousness
have laid down their lives, deserves higher
mention than that of Telemachus, the Asiatic monk,
who, in the year 404, hearing that the city, where the
blessed Apostles Peter and Paul had suffered, was still
disgraced by the gladiatorial shows, made his way to
Rome, and by the sacrifice of his own life terminated
them for ever within the bounds of Christendom.
Telemachus rushed between the combatants in the
arena, flung them asunder, and then was stoned
to death by the mob, infuriated at the interruption
of their favourite amusement.The original authority for the story of Telemachus is Theodoret's
Eccles. Hist., v. 26. It is vigorously told by Gibbon in the thirtieth
chapter of his Decline and Fall.
A tragic but glorious
ending indeed, showing clearly how little the Roman
mob realized as yet the doctrine of the sanctity of
human nature; how powerful was the sway which
paganism and pagan modes of thought held as yet
over the populace of nominally Christian Rome; the
tradition of which even still perpetuates itself in the
cruel bull-fights of Spain. From the beginning, however,
Christianity took exactly the opposite course,
declaring to all the dignity and glory of human nature
in itself. The Incarnation was in itself a magnificent
proclamation of this great elevating and civilising
truth. The title Son of Man, which Christ, rising
above all narrow Jewish nationalism, assumed to Himself,
was a republication of the same dogma; and
then, to crown the whole fabric, comes the doctrine
of the ascension, wherein mankind was taught that
human nature as joined to the person of God has
ascended into the holiest place of the universe, so
that henceforth the humblest and lowliest can view his
humanity as allied with that elder Brother who in the
reality of human flesh—glorified, indeed, spiritualised
and refined by the secret, searching processes of death—has
passed within the veil, now to appear in the
presence of God for us. What new light must have
been shed upon life—the life of the barbarian and
of the slave—crushed beneath the popular theory
of St. Paul's day!The doctrine of the sanctity of human life was unknown under
paganism. Tacitus tells us, about the year A.D. 61, how that Pedianus
Secundus, prefect of the city, having been murdered by one of his slaves,
the whole body of his slaves, numbering more than four hundred persons,
of every age and sex, were put to death (Annals, xiv., 42-45).
What new dignity this doctrine
imparted to the bodies of the outcast and despised,
counted fit food only for the cross, the stake, or
the arena! Man might despise them and ill-treat
them, yet their bodies were made like unto the one
glorious Body for ever united to God, and therefore
they were comforted, elevated, enabled to endure as
seeing Him who is invisible. Cannot we see many
examples of the consoling, elevating power of the
ascension in the New Testament? Take St. Paul's
writings, and there we trace the influence of the
ascension in every page. Take the very lowest case.
Slaves under the conditions of ancient society occupied
the most degraded position. Their duties were of the
humblest type, their treatment of the worst description,
their punishments of the most terrible character.We have no idea of the frightful character of pagan slavery. The
worst form which negro slavery ever took never approached it. The
following story will give our readers some idea of it. Cato, the censor,
wrote a treatise, very little read or known, called De Re Rustica, treating
of farming operations. In this he gives directions concerning the
economical management of slaves, and among other things tells how
wine for their winter consumption was to be prepared. "Put into a
cask ten amphoræ of sweet wine, two amphoræ of sour vinegar, and
as much wine boiled down by two-thirds. Add fifty amphoræ of pure
water. Mix all together with a stick three times a day for five consecutive
days. After this add sixty-four amphoræ of stale salt and
water."
Yet for even these oppressed and degraded beings
the doctrine of the ascension transformed life, because
it endowed that menial service which they rendered
with a new dignity. "Servants, obey in all things your
masters according to the flesh; not with eye service,
as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing
God." And why? Because life has been enriched
with a new motive: "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily
as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of
the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance;
for ye serve the Lord Christ." Ye serve the Lord
Christ. That was the supreme point. The cooking
of a dinner, the dressing of an imperious lady's hair,
the teaching of a careless or refractory pupil—all these
things were transfigured into the service of the
ascended Lord. And as with the servant, so was it
with their masters. The ascension furnished them
with a new and practical motive, which, at first leading
to kindly treatment and generous actions, would one
day, by the force of logical deduction as well as of
Christian principle, lead to the utter extinction of
slavery. "Masters, render unto your servants that
which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have
a Master in heaven." The doctrine of the ascension
diffused sweetness and light throughout the whole
Christian system, furnishing a practical motive, offering
an ever-present and eternal sanction, urging men upwards
and onwards; without which neither the Church
nor the world would ever have reached that high
level of mercy, charity, and purity which men now
enjoy. Perhaps here again the present age may see
the doctrine of the ascension asserting its glory and
its power in the same direction. Much of modern
speculation tends to debase and belittle the human
body, teaching theories respecting its origin which have
a natural tendency to degrade the popular standard.
If people come to think of their bodies as derived from
a low source, they will be apt to think a low standard
of morals as befitting bodies so descended. The doctrine
of evolution has not, to say the least, an elevating
influence upon the masses. I say nothing against it.
One or two passages in the Bible, as Gen. ii. 7,
seem to support it, appearing, as that verse does, to
make a division between the creation of the body of
man and the creation of his spirit.See St. George Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 282. The whole
chapter (xii.) on Theology and Evolution is well worth careful study.
But the broad
tendency of such speculation lies in a downward
moral direction. Here the doctrine of the ascension
steps in to raise for us, as it raised for the materialists
of St. Paul's day, the standard of current conceptions,
and to teach men a higher and a nobler view. We
leave to science the investigation of the past and of
the lowly sources whence man's body may have come;
but the doctrine of the ascension speaks of its present
sanctity and of its future glory, telling of the human
body as a body of humiliation and of lowliness indeed,
but yet proclaiming it as even now, in the person of
Christ, ascended into the heavens, and seated on the
throne of the Most High. It may have been once
humble in its origin; it is now glorious in its dignity
and elevation; and that dignity and that elevation shed
a halo upon human nature, no matter how degraded
and wherever it may be found, because it is like unto
that Body, the firstfruits of humanity, which stands at
the right hand of God. Thus the doctrine of the ascension
becomes for the Christian the ever-flowing fountain
of dignity, of purity, and of mercy, teaching us to call
no man common or unclean, because all have been made
like unto the image of the Son of God.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ELECTION OF MATTHIAS.
"They prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all
men, shew of these two the one whom Thou hast chosen, to take the place
in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he
might go to his own place. And they gave lots for them; and the lot
fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles."—Acts
i. 24-6.
We have selected the incident of this apostolic
election as the central point round which to
group the events of the ten days' expectation which
elapsed between the Ascension and Pentecost. But
though this election is a most important fact, in itself
and in the principles involved therein, yet there are
numerous other circumstances in this waiting time which
demand and will amply repay our thoughtful attention.
I. There is, for instance, the simple fact that ten days
were allowed to elapse between Christ's departure and the
fulfilment of His promise to send the Comforter to take
His place with His bereaved flock. The work of the
world's salvation depended upon the outcome of this
Divine agent. "Tarry ye in the city till ye be endued
with power from on high;" and all the time souls were
hurrying on to destruction, and society was becoming
worse and worse, and Satan's hold upon the world was
daily growing in strength. God, however, acted in
this interval according to the principles we see illustrated
in nature as well as in revelation. He does
nothing in a hurry. The Incarnation was postponed
for thousands of years. When the Incarnation took
place, Christ grew up slowly, and developed patiently,
till the day of His manifestation to Israel. And now
that Christ's public work on earth was done, there is no
haste in the further development of the plan of salvation,
but ten days are suffered to elapse before His promise
is fulfilled. What a rebuke we read in the Divine
methods of that faithless unbelieving haste which marks
and mars so many of our efforts for truth and righteousness,
and specially so in these concluding years
of the nineteenth century. Never did the Church stand
more in need of the lesson so often thus impressed
upon her by her Divine Teacher. As Christ did not
strive nor cry, neither did any man hear His voice in
the streets, so neither did He make haste, because He
lived animated by Divine strength and wisdom, which
make even apparent delay and defeat conduce to the
attainment of the highest ends of love and mercy.
And so, too, Christ's Church still does not need the
bustle, the haste, the unnatural excitement which the
world thinks needful, because she labours under a sense
of Divine guidance, and imitates His example who kept
His Apostles waiting ten long days before He fulfilled
His appointed promise. What a lesson of comfort,
again, this Divine delay teaches! We are often inclined
to murmur in secret at the slow progress of God's
Church and kingdom. We think that if we had the
management of the world's affairs things would have
been ordered otherwise, and the progress of truth be one
long-continued march of triumph. A consideration of
the Divine delays in the past helps us to bear this
burden, though it may not explain the difficulty. God's
delays have turned out to His greater glory in the past,
and they who wait patiently upon Him will find the
Divine delays of the present dispensation equally well
ordered.
II. Then again, how carefully, even in His delays,
God honours the elder dispensation, though now it had
grown old and was ready to vanish away. Christianity
had none of that revolutionary spirit which makes a
clean sweep of old institutions to build up a new fabric
in their stead. Christianity, on the contrary, rooted
itself in the past, retained old institutions and old
ideas, elevating indeed and spiritualising them, and
thus slowly broadened down from precedent to precedent.
This truly conservative spirit of the new dispensation
is manifest in every arrangement, and specially
reveals itself in the times selected for the great events
of our Lord's ministry—Easter, Ascension, then the
ten days of expectation, and then Pentecost. And
it was most fitting that it should be so. The old
dispensation was a shadow and picture of the higher
and better covenant one day to be unfolded. Moses
was told to make the tabernacle after the pattern shown
to him in the mount, and the whole typical system of
Judaism was modelled after a heavenly original to
which Christ conformed in the work of man's salvation.
At the first Passover, the paschal lamb was offered
up and the deliverance from Egypt effected; and so, too,
at the Passover the true Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ,
was presented unto God as an acceptable sacrifice, and
the deliverance effected of the true Israel from the
spiritual Egypt of the world. Forty days after the
Passover, Israel came to the mount of God, into which
Moses ascended that he might receive gifts for the
people; and forty days after the last great Paschal
Offering, the great spiritual Captain and Deliverer
ascended into the Mount of God, that He, in turn,
might receive highest spiritual blessings and a new
law of life for God's true people. Then there came the
ten days of expectation and trial, when the Apostles
were called to wait upon God and prove the blessings
of patient abiding upon Him, just as the Israelites
were called to wait upon God while Moses was absent
in the mount. But how different the conduct of the
Apostles from that of the more carnal Jews! How
typical of the future of the two religions—the Jewish
and the Christian! The Jews walked by sight, and not
by faith; they grew impatient, and made an image, the
golden calf, to be their visible Deity. The Apostles
tarried in patience, because they were walking by faith,
and they received in return the blessing of an ever-present
unseen Guide and Comforter to lead them, and
all who like them seek His help, into the ways of truth
and peace. And then, when the waiting time is past,
the feast of Pentecost comes, and at Pentecost, the feast
of the giving of the old law, as the Jews counted it, the
new law of life and power, written not on stony tables,
but on the fleshy tables of the heart, is granted in the
gift of the Divine Comforter. All the lines of the old
system are carefully followed, and Christianity is thus
shown to be, not a novel invention, but the development
and fulfilment of God's ancient purposes.See on this point Dr. John Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ, Acts ii. 1;
and a sermon by the learned Joseph Mede of Cambridge on Deut.
xvi. 16, 17, in his Works, vol. i., p. 350 (London, 1664).
We
can scarcely appreciate nowadays the importance and
stress laid upon this view among the ancient expositors
and apologists. It was a favourite taunt used by the
pagans of Greece and Rome against Christianity that it
was only a religion of yesterday, a mere novelty, as compared
with their own systems, which descended to them
from the dawn of history. This taunt has been indeed
most useful in its results for us moderns, because it led
the ancient Christians to pay the most careful attention
to chronology and historical studies, producing as the
result works like The Chronicle of Eusebius, to which
secular history itself owes the greatest obligations.
The heathens reproached Christians with the novelty
of their faith, and then the early Christians replied by
pointing to history, which proved that the Jewish
religion was far older than any other, maintaining at
the same time that Christianity was merely the development
of the Jewish religion, the completion and
fulfilment in fact and reality of what Judaism had
shadowed forth in the ritual of the Passover and of
Pentecost.See this point worked out in Dr. Salmon's article Chronica, in the
first volume of the Dict. Christ. Biog., and in the opening of his
article on The Chronicle of Eusebius in the second volume of the
same work. A brief extract from one of the earliest and most learned
apologists, who lived about the middle of the second century, will
show how the Christians elaborated this argument. Tatian, in ch. xl.
of his Oration to the Greeks, speaks thus: "Therefore from what
has been said it is evident that Moses was older than the ancient
heroes, wars, and demons. And we ought rather to believe him, who
stands before them in point of age, than the Greeks, who, without
being aware of it, drew his doctrines as from a fountain. For many
of the sophists among them, stimulated by curiosity, endeavoured to
adulterate whatever they learned from Moses, and from those who
philosophised like him, first that they might be considered as having
something of their own, and secondly, that covering up by a certain
rhetorical artifice whatever things they did not understand, they might
misrepresent the truth as if it were a fable. But what the learned
among the Greeks have said concerning our polity and the history of
our laws, and how many and what kind of men have written of these
things, will be shown in the treatise against those who have discoursed
of Divine things."
III. We notice again in this connection the place
where the Apostles met, and the manner in which they
continued to assemble after the ascension, and while
they waited for the fulfilment of the Master's promise:
"They returned unto Jerusalem, and they went up
into an upper chamber." Round this upper room at
Jerusalem has gathered many a story dating from very
early ages indeed. The upper room in which they
assembled has been identified with the chamber in
which the Last Supper was celebrated, and where
the gift of the Holy Ghost was first received, and
that from ancient times. Epiphanius, a Christian
writer of the fourth century, to whom we owe much
precious information concerning the early ages of the
Church, tells us that there was a church built on this
spot even in Hadrian's time, that is, about the year
120 A.D.Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures, ch. xiv.
The Empress Helena, again, the mother of
Constantine the Great, identified or thought she identified
the spot, and built a splendid church to mark it
out for all time; and succeeding ages have spent much
care and thought upon it. St. Cyril of Jerusalem was
a writer little referred to and little known in our day,
who yet has much precious truth to teach us. He
was a learned bishop of Jerusalem about the middle of
the fourth century, and he left us catechetical lectures,
showing what pains and trouble the Early Church
took in the inculcation of the fundamental articles of
the Christian creed. His catechetical lectures, delivered
to the candidates for baptism, contain much valuable
evidence of the belief, the practice, and the discipline
of the early ages, and they mention among other points
the church built upon Mount Zion on the spot once
occupied by this upper room. The tradition, then,
which deals with this chamber and points out its site
goes back to the ages of persecution; and yet it is
notable how little trouble the book of the Acts of the
Apostles takes in this matter. It is just the same with
this upper chamber as with the other localities in which
our Lord's mighty works were wrought. The Gospels
tell us not where His temptations occurred, though man
has often tried to fix the exact locality. The site of the
Transfiguration and of the true Mount of Beatitudes has
engaged much human curiosity; the scene of Peter's
vision at Joppa and of St. Paul's conversion on the
road to Damascus,—all these and many other divinely
honoured localities of the Old as well as of the New
Testament have been shrouded from us in thickest
darkness, that we might learn not to fix our eyes upon
the external husk, the locality, the circumstances, the
time, which are nothing, but upon the interior spirit,
the love, the unity, the devotion and self-sacrifice
which constitute in the Divine sight the very heart
and core of our holy religion.The traditions about the upper chamber are given at length in
Fr. Quaresmius, Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio, t. ii., p. 119 (Antwerp, 1639),
with which may be compared Bingham's Antiquities, bk. viii., ch. i.,
sec. 13; Mede's Discourse Of Churches in his Works, vol. i., p. 408; and
Bishop Milles' notes on Cyril's Catech., xvi. 2, in his edition of that
writer, p. 225.
They assembled themselves,
too, in this upper chamber in a united spirit,
such as Christianity, though only in an undeveloped
shape, already dictated. The Apostles "continued
steadfastly in prayer, with the women also, and Mary,
the mother of Jesus." The spirit of Christianity was,
I say, already manifesting itself.
In the temple, as in the synagogues to this day,
the women prayed in a separate place; they were not
united with the men, but parted from them by a screen.
But in Christ Jesus there was to be neither male nor
female. The man in virtue of his manhood had no
advantage or superiority over the woman in virtue of
her womanhood; and so the Apostles gathered themselves
at the footstool of their common Father in union
with the women, and with Mary the mother of Jesus.
How simple, again, this last mention of the Blessed
Virgin Mother of the Lord! how strangely and strongly
contrasted the scriptural record is with the fables and
legends which have grown up round the memory of
her whom all generations must ever call blessed.
Nothing, in fact, shows more plainly the historic character
of the book we are studying than a comparison
of this last simple notice with the legend of the assumption
of the Blessed Virgin as it has been held since
the fifth century, and as it is now believed in the Church
of Rome. The popular account of this fabled incident
arose in the East amid the controversies which rent
the Church concerning the Person of Christ in the fifth
century. It taught that the Holy Virgin, a year or so
after the ascension, besought the Lord to release her;
upon which the angel Gabriel was sent to announce her
departure in three days' time. The Apostles were thereupon
summoned from the different parts of the world
whither they had departed. John came from Ephesus,
Peter from Rome, Thomas from India, each being
miraculously wafted on a cloud from his special sphere
of labour, while those of the apostolic company who
had died were raised for the occasion. On the third
day the Lord descended from heaven with the angels,
and took to Himself the soul of the Virgin. The Jews
then attempted to burn the body, which was miraculously
rescued and buried in a new tomb, prepared
by Joseph of Arimathea in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
For two days the angels were heard singing at the
tomb, but on the third day their songs ceased, and the
Apostles then knew that the body had been transferred
to Paradise. St. Thomas was indeed vouchsafed a
glimpse of her ascension, and at his request she dropped
him her girdle as a token, whereupon he went to his
brother Apostles and declared her sepulchre to be
empty. The Apostles regarded this as merely a sign
of his customary incredulity, but on the production of
the girdle they were convinced, and on visiting the
grave found the body was gone.See, for a fuller account, Salmon's Introduction N. T., 4th ed.,
pp. 384-86, and the references there given.
Can any contrast be greater or more striking
between the inspired narrative, composed for the purpose
of ministering to godly life and practice, and such
legendary fables as this, invented to gratify mere
human curiosity, or to secure a temporary controversial
triumph? The Divine narrative shrouds in thickest
darkness details which have no spiritual significance,
no direct bearing on the work of man's salvation. The
human fable intrudes into the things unseen, and revels
with a childish delight in the regions of the supernatural
and miraculous.
What a striking likeness do we trace between the
composition of the Acts and of the Gospels in this
direction! The self-restraint of the evangelical writers
is wondrous. Had the Evangelists been mere human
biographers, how they would have delighted to expatiate
on the childhood and youth and earlier years of Christ's
manhood. The apocryphal Gospels composed in the
second and third centuries show us what our Gospels
would have been had they been written by men destitute
of an abundant supply of the Divine Spirit. They
enter into the most minute incidents of our Lord's childhood,
tell us of His games, His schoolboy days, of the
flashes of the supernatural glory which ever betrayed
the awful Being who lay hidden beneath. The Gospels,
on the other hand, fling a hallowed and reverent
veil over all the details, or almost all the details, of our
Lord's early life. They tell us of His birth, and its
circumstances and surroundings, that we might learn
the needful lesson of the infinite glory, the transcendent
greatness of lowliness and humiliation. They
give us a glimpse of our Lord's development when
twelve years old, that we may learn the spiritual
strength and force which are produced through the
discipline of obedience and patient waiting upon God;
and then all else is concealed from human vision till
the hour was come for the manifestation of the full-orbed
God-Man. And as it was with the Eternal Son,
so was it with that earthly parent whom the consensus
of universal Christendom has agreed to honour as the
type of devout faith, of humble submission, of loving
motherhood. Fable has grown thick round her in mere
human narrative, but when we turn to the inspired
Word, whether in the Gospels or in the Acts,—for
it is all the same in both,—we find a story simple,
restrained, and yet captivating in all its details, ministering
indeed to no prurient curiosity, yet rich in
all the materials which serve to devout meditation,
culminating in this last record, where the earthly
parent finally disappears from out of sight, eclipsed by
the heavenly glory of the Divine Son:—"These all
continued stedfastly in prayer, with the women, and
Mary, the mother of Jesus."
IV. And then we have the record of the apostolic election,
which is rich in teaching. We note the person
who took the first step, and his character, so thoroughly
in unison with that picture which the four Gospels
present. St. Peter was not a forward man in the bad
sense of the word, but he possessed that energetic,
forcible character to which men yield a natural leadership.
Till St. Paul appeared St. Peter was regarded
as the spokesman of the apostolic band, just as during
our Lord's earthly ministry the same position was by
tacit consent accorded to him. He was one of those
men who cannot remain inactive, especially when they
see anything wanting. There are some men who can
see a defect just as clearly, but their first thought is,
What have I to do with it? They behold the need, but
it never strikes them that they should attempt to rectify
it. St. Peter was just the opposite: when he saw a
fault or a want his disposition and his natural gifts
at once impelled him to strive to rectify it. When
our Lord, in view of the contending rumours afloat
concerning His ministry and authority, applied this
searching test to His Apostles, "But whom do ye say
that I am?" it was Peter that boldly responded,
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Just
as a short time afterwards the same Peter incurred
Christ's condemnation when he rebuked the Saviour
for the prophecy of His forthcoming death and
humiliation. The character of St. Peter as depicted
in the Gospels and the Acts is at unison with itself.
It is that of one ever generous, courageous, intensely
sympathetic, impulsive, but deficient, as impulsive and
sympathetic characters often are, in that staying power,
that capacity to bear up under defeat, discouragement,
and darkness which so conspicuously marked out the
great Apostle of the Gentiles, and made him such a
pillar in the spiritual temple of the New Jerusalem.
Yet St. Peter did his own work, for God can ever find
employment suitable to every type of that vast variety
of temperament which finds shelter beneath the roof of
Christ's Church. St. Peter's impulsiveness, chastened
by prayer, solemnized by his own sad personal experience,
deepened by the bitter sorrow consequent on
his terrible fall, urged him to take the first conscious
step as the leader of the newly-constituted society.
How very similar the Peter of the Acts is to the Peter
of St. Matthew; what an undesigned evidence of the
truth of these records we trace in the picture of St.
Peter presented by either narrative! Just as St. Peter
was in the Gospels the first to confess at Cæsarea, the
first to strike in the garden, the first to fail in the high
priest's palace, so was he the first "to stand up in these
days in the midst of the brethren," and propose the
first corporate movement on the Church's part.
Here again we note that his attitude at this apostolic
election proves that the interviews which St. Peter held
with Christ after the Resurrection must have been
lengthened, intimate, and frequent, for St. Peter's whole
view of the Christian organization seems thoroughly
changed. Christ had continued with His Apostles
during forty days, speaking to them of the things concerning
the kingdom of God; and St. Peter, as he had
been for years one of the Lord's most intimate friends,
so he doubtless still held the same trusted position in
these post-resurrection days. The Lord revealed to him
the outlines of His kingdom, and sketched for him the
main lines of its development, teaching him that the
Church was not to be a knot of personal disciples,
dependent upon His manifested bodily presence, and
dissolving into its original elements as soon as that
bodily presence ceased to be realized by the eye of
sense; but was rather to be a corporation with perpetual
succession, to use legal language, whose great
work was to be an unceasing witness to Christ's resurrection.
If Peter's mind had not been thus illuminated
and guided by the personal instruction of
Christ, how came it to pass that prior to the descent of
the Spirit the Apostles move with no uncertain step
in this matter, and unhesitatingly fill up the blank
in the sacred college by the election of Matthias into
the place left vacant by the terrible fall of Judas? The
speech of St. Peter and the choice of this new Apostle
reflect light back upon the forty days of waiting. No
objection is raised, no warm debate takes place such
as heralded the solution of the vexed question concerning
circumcision at the council of Jerusalem; no
one suggests that as Christ Himself had not supplied
the vacancy the choice should be postponed till after
the fulfilment of the Master's mysterious promise,
because they were all instructed as to our Lord's wishes
by the conversations held with Christ during His risen
and glorified life.
Let us pause a little to meditate upon an objection
which might have been here raised. Why fill
up what Christ Himself left vacant? some short-sighted
objector might have urged; and yet we see
good reason why Christ may have omitted to supply
the place of Judas, and may have designed that the
Apostles themselves should have done so. Our Lord
Jesus Christ gifted His Apostles with corporate
power; He bestowed upon them authority to act
in His stead and name; and it is not God's way of
action to grant power and authority, and then to
allow it to remain unexercised and undeveloped. When
God confers any gift He expects that it shall be used
for His honour and man's benefit. The Lord had
bestowed upon the Apostles the highest honour, the
most wondrous power ever given to men. He had
called them to an office of which He Himself had
spoken very mysterious things. He had told them
that, in virtue of the apostolic dignity conferred upon
them, they should in the regeneration of all things
sit upon thrones, judging the twelves tribes of Israel.
He had spoken, too, of a mysterious authority with
which they were invested, so that their decisions here
upon earth would be ratified and confirmed in the
region of heavenly realities. Yet when a gap is made
by successful sin in the number of the mystical twelve
who are to judge the twelve tribes, He leaves the
selection of a new Apostle to the remaining eleven,
in order that they may be compelled to stir up the
grace of God which was in them, and to exercise the
power entrusted to them under a due sense of responsibility.
The Lord thus wished to teach the Church
from earliest days to walk alone. The Apostles had
been long enough depending on His personal presence
and guidance, and now, that they might learn to exercise
the privileges and duties of their Divine freedom,
He leaves them to choose one to fill that position
of supernatural rank and office from which Judas
had fallen. The risen Saviour acted in grace as God
ever acts in nature. He bestowed His gifts lavishly
and generously, and then expected man to respond to
the gifts by making that good use of them which
earnest prayer, sanctified reason, and Christian commonsense
dictated.
St. Peter's action is notable, too, in another aspect.
St. Peter was undoubtedly the natural leader of the
apostolic band during those earliest days of the
Church's history. Our Lord Himself recognised his
natural gifts as qualifying him to fulfil this position.
There is no necessity for a denial on our part of
the reality of St. Peter's privilege as contained in
such passages as the verse which says, "I will give
unto thee (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven."
He was eminently energetic, vigorous, quick in
action. But we find no traces of that despotic authority
as prince of the Apostles and supreme head
over the whole Church with which some would
fain invest St. Peter and his successors. St. Peter
steps forward first on this occasion, as again on the
day of Pentecost, and again before the high priest
after the healing of the impotent man, and yet again
at the council of Jerusalem; for, as we have already
noted, St. Peter possessed in abundance that natural
energy which impels a man to action without any
desire for notoriety or any wish to thrust himself
into positions of undue eminence. But then on every
occasion St. Peter speaks as an equal to his equals.
He claims no supreme authority; no authority, in fact,
at all over and beyond what the others possessed.
He does not, for instance, on this occasion claim the
right as Christ's vicar to nominate an Apostle into the
place of Judas. He merely asserts his lawful place
in Christ's kingdom as first among a body of equals
to suggest a course of action to the whole body which
he knew to be in keeping with the Master's wishes, and
in fulfilment of His revealed intentions.
V. The address of St. Peter led the Apostles to practical
action. He laid the basis of it in the book of Psalms,
the mystical application of which to our Lord and His
sufferings he recognises, selecting passages from the
sixty-ninth and the one hundred and ninth Psalms as
depicting the sin and the fate of Judas Iscariot;Peter may have learned this mystical mode of interpretation from
our Lord Himself in His conversations. See Luke xxiv. 44-9.
and
then sets forth the necessity of filling up the vacancy in
the apostolic office, a fact of which he had doubtless
been certified by the Master Himself. He speaks as if
the College of the Apostles had a definite work and
office; a witness peculiar to themselves as Apostles,
which no others except Apostles could render. This is
manifest from the language of St. Peter. He lays
down the conditions of a possible Apostle: he must
have been a witness of all that Jesus had done and
taught from the time of His baptism to His ascension.
But this qualification alone would not make a man an
Apostle, or qualify him to bear the witness peculiar to
the apostolic office. There were evidently numerous
such witnesses, but they were not Apostles, and had
none of the power and privileges of the Twelve. He
must be chosen by his brother Apostles, and their
choice must be endorsed by Heaven; and then the
chosen witness, who had known the past, could testify
to the resurrection in particular, with a weight, authority,
and dignity he never possessed before. The apostolic
office was the germ out of which the whole Christian
ministry was developed, and the apostolic witness was
typical of that witness to the resurrection which is not
the duty alone, but also the strength and glory of the
Christian ministry; for it is only as the ministers and
witnesses of a risen and glorified Christ that they differ
from the officials of a purely human association.The intimate connection between the Christian ministry and the
miraculous facts of Christianity has been powerfully argued by Charles
Leslie in his Short and Easy Method with the Deists. He contends that
the existence of the Christian ministry is a standing evidence of the
supernatural facts of the gospel which can alone explain that existence.
If the facts never happened, how did the Christian ministry arise?
Hence he concludes the perpetual character and obligation of the
ministry for Christians, or, to quote his own words, "Now the Christian
priesthood, as instituted by Christ Himself, and continued by succession
to this day, being as impregnable and flagrant a testimony to the truth
of the matter of fact of Christ as the sacraments or any other public
institutions; besides that, if the priesthood were taken away, the sacraments
and other public institutions which are administered by their
hands, must fall with them: therefore the devil has been most busy,
and bent his greatest force, in all ages, against the priesthood, knowing
that if that goes down, all goes with it."—Leslie's Works, vol. i., p. 27.
After St. Peter had spoken, two persons were selected
as possessing the qualifications needful in the successor
of Judas. Then when the Apostles had elected they
prayed, and cast lots as between the two, and the final
selection of Matthias was made. Questions have sometimes
been raised as to this method of election, and
attempts have been sometimes made to follow the
precedent here set. The lot has at times been used to
supersede the exercise of human judgment, not only in
Church elections, but in the ordinary matters of life;
but if this passage is closely examined, it will be seen
that it affords no justification for any such practice.
The Apostles did not use the lot so as to supersede the
exercise of their own powers, or relieve them of that
personal responsibility which God has imposed on men,
whether as individuals, or as gathered in societies civil
or ecclesiastical. The Apostles brought their private
judgment into play, searched, debated, voted, and, as
the result, chose two persons equally well qualified for
the apostolic office. Then, when they had done their
best, they left the decision to the lot, just as men
often do still; and if we believe in the efficacy of
prayer and a particular Providence ordering the affairs
of men, I do not see that any wiser course can ever
be taken, under similar circumstances, than that which
the Apostles adopted on this occasion. But we must
be careful to observe that the Apostles did not trust
to the lot absolutely and completely. That would have
been trusting to mere chance. They first did their
utmost, exercised their own knowledge and judgment,
and then, having done their part, they prayerfully left
the final result to God, in humble confidence that He
would show what was best.
The two selected candidates were Joseph Barsabas
and Matthias, neither of whom ever appeared before
in the story of our Lord's life, and yet both had
been His disciples all through His earthly career.
What lessons for ourselves may we learn from these
men! These two eminent servants of God, either
of whom their brethren counted worthy to succeed
into the apostolic College, appear just this once
in the sacred narrative, and then disappear for ever.
Indeed it is with the Apostles as we have already
noted in the case of our Lord's life and the story of the
Blessed Virgin, the self-restraint of the sacred narrative
is most striking. What fields for romance! What
wide scope for the exercise of imagination would the
lives of the Apostles have opened out if the writers of
our sacred books had not been guided and directed by
a Divine power outside and beyond themselves. We
are not, indeed, left without the materials for a comparison
in this respect, most consoling and most
instructive for the devout Christian.
Apocryphal histories of all the Apostles abound on
every side, some of them dating from the second century
itself. Many of them indeed are regular romances.
The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions form a
religious novel, entering into the most elaborate details
of the labours, preaching, and travels of the Apostle
Peter. Every one of the other Apostles, and many of
the earliest disciples too, had gospels forged in their
honour; there was the Gospel of Peter, of Thomas, of
Nicodemus, and of many others. And so it was with
St. Matthias.The literature of the apocryphal Gospels is very extensive. Those
who wish to pursue this subject will find abundant materials in an
article on "Gospels, Apocryphal" in the second volume of the Dictionary
of Christian Biography, written by Professor Lipsius of Jena; or in
Dr. Salmon's Introduction to the New Testament, Lect. XI. Origen
mentioned the Gospel of Matthias, while again Eusebius (H. E., iii., 25)
describes it as heretical. See Fabricius, Cod. Apoc. N. T. p. 782. The
apocryphal Acts of Andrew and Matthias may be seen in Tischendorf's
Acta Apoc., p. 132. Nelson's Fasts and Festivals tells, in a convenient
shape, the traditions about St. Matthias and the other Apostles.
Five hundred years after Christ the
Gospel of Matthias was known and repudiated as a
fiction. A mass of tradition, too, grew up round him,
telling of his labours and martyrdom, as some said in
Ethiopia, and as others in Eastern Asia.
Clement, a writer who lived about the year 200, at
Alexandria, recounts for us some sayings traditionally
ascribed to St. Matthias, all of a severe and sternly
ascetic tone. But in reality we know nothing either
of what St. Matthias did or of what he taught. The
genuine writings of apostolic times carry their own
credentials with them in this respect. They are
dignified and natural. They indulge in no details to
exalt their heroes, or to minister to that love of the
strange and marvellous which lies at the root of so
much religious error. They were written to exalt
Christ and Christ alone, and they deal, therefore, with
the work of Apostles merely so far as the story tends to
increase the glory of the Master, not that of His servants.
Surely this repression of the human agents, this withdrawal
of them into the darkness of obscurity, is one
of the best evidences of the genuineness of the New
Testament. One or two of the earliest witnesses of
the Cross have their story told at some length. Peter
and Paul, when compared with James or John or
Matthias, figure very largely in the New Testament
narrative. But even they have allotted to them a mere
brief outline of a portion of their work, and all the rest
is hidden from us. The vast majority even of the
Apostles have their names alone recorded, while nothing
is told concerning their labours or their sufferings. If
the Apostles were deceivers, they were deceivers who
sought their rewards neither in this life, where they
gained nothing but loss of all things, nor in the pages
of history, where their own hands and the hands of
their friends consigned their brightest deeds to an
obscurity no eye can pierce.The dignified self-restraint of the Acts is nowhere more manifest
than in its reference to Judas Iscariot. The only notice bestowed upon
him is connected with the election of Matthias. Papias was a writer of
the beginning of the second century. He knew some of the Apostles
and early disciples, and gathered diligently every tradition about the
Church's early days. Papias made an attempt to harmonise the account
of the death of Judas given by St. Peter with that told in St. Matthew,
which has been preserved for us by two Greek commentators, Œcumenius,
who lived in the tenth, and Theophylact, who flourished in the
eleventh century. The difficulty is this. St. Matthew says that Judas
hanged himself; St. Peter says that he burst asunder. Papias harmonises
the two by telling that Judas first of all hanged himself on a
fig-tree, but the halter broke. He was then seized with a terrible
dropsy, and swelled up to an enormous size, so that when endeavouring
to pass where a waggon could go he burst asunder. The narrative of
Papias is given in Theophylact on Matt. xxvii., and Œcumenius on
Acts i. Dr. Routh, in his Reliquiæ Sacræ, vol. i., pp. 9, 25, points
out that the horrid details of the story, which cannot be here printed,
are due to the Greek commentators enlarging on the simple facts stated
by Papias. Origen, with characteristic daring, suggests that Judas
committed suicide as soon as he saw that our Lord was condemned, in
order that he might arise in the region of the dead before Him, and
there seek His forgiveness. There is a curious Latin book, published
in 1680, which gives all the traditions about the traitor. Its title is
Kempius, On the Life and Fate of Judas Iscariot.
But they were not
deceivers. They were the noblest benefactors of the
race, men whose minds and hearts and imaginations
were filled with the glory of their risen Redeemer.
Their one desire was that Christ alone should be magnified,
and to this end they willed to lose themselves
in the boundless sea of His risen glory. And thus they
have left us a noble and inspiriting example. We are
not apostles, martyrs, or confessors, yet we often find
it hard to take our part and do our duty in the spirit
displayed by Matthias and Joseph called Barsabas.
We long for public recognition and public reward.
We chafe and fret and fume internally because we
have to bear our temptations and suffer our trials and
do our work unknown and unrecognised by all but
God. Let the example of these holy men help us to
put away all such vain thoughts. God Himself is our
all-seeing and our ever-present Judge. The Incarnate
Master Himself is watching us. The angels and the
spirits of the just made perfect are witnesses of our
earthly struggles. No matter how low, how humble,
how insignificant the story of our spiritual trials and
struggles, they are all marked in heaven by that Divine
Master who will at last reward every man, not according
to his position in the world, but in strict accordance
with the principles of infallible justice.
CHAPTER V.
THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING.
"And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all
together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound
as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where
they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting
asunder (or distributing themselves), like as of fire; and it sat upon
each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance."—Acts ii. 1-4.
In these words we find the record of the event which
completed the Church, and endowed it with that
mysterious power which then was, and ever since has
been, the source of its true life and of its highest
success.
The time when the gift of the Spirit was vouchsafed
is marked for us as "when the day of Pentecost was
now come." Here again, as in the fact of the ascension
and the waiting of the Church, we trace the outline of
Christianity in Judaism, and see in the typical ceremonial
of the old dispensation the outline and shadow
of heavenly realities.
What was the history of the Pentecostal feast?
That feast fulfilled in the Jewish system a twofold
place. It was one of the great natural festivals whereby
God taught His ancient people to sanctify the
different portions of the year. The Passover was the
feast of the first ripe corn, celebrating the beginning of
the barley harvest, as again the Pentecostal loaves set
forth, solemnized, and sanctified the close of the wheat
harvest. No one was permitted, according to the
twenty-third of Leviticus, to partake of the fruits of
the earth till the harvest had been sanctified by the
presentation to God of the first ripe sheaf, just as at
the greatest paschal festival ever celebrated, Christ, the
first ripe sheaf of that vast harvest of humanity which
is maturing for its Lord, was taken out of the grave
where the rest of the harvest still lies, and presented
in the inner temple of the universe as the first-fruits
of humanity unto God. At Pentecost, on the other
hand, it was not a sheaf but a loaf that was offered
to signify the completion of the work begun at the
Passover. At Pentecost the law is thus laid down:
"Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave
loaves of two tenth parts of an ephah: they shall be of
fine flour, they shall be baken with leaven, for first-fruits
unto the Lord" (Lev. xxiii. 17). Pentecost,
therefore, was the harvest festival, the feast of ingathering
for the Jews; and when the type found its
completion in Christ, Pentecost became the feast of
ingathering for the nations, when the Church, the
mystical body of Christ, was presented unto God to be
an instrument of His glory and a blessing to the world at
large. This feast, as we have already intimated, was
a fitting season for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and that
for another reason. Pentecost was considered by the
Jews as a festival commemorative of the giving of the
law at Mount Sinai in the third month after they had
been delivered from the bondage of Egypt. It was a
fitting season, therefore, for the bestowal of the Spirit,
whereby the words of ancient prophecy were fulfilled,
"I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their
heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they
shall be My people" (Jer. xxxi. 33).In the last lecture I have already given the reference to Lightfoot's
and Mede's works where this point is fully worked out.
The time when the Spirit was poured out on the
assembled body of Christians, and the Church's foundations
laid deep and strong, revealed profound reverence
for the old dispensation, raising by anticipation a protest
against the heretical teaching which became current
among the Gnostics in the second century, and has
often since found place in Christian circles, as amongst
the Anabaptists of Germany and the Antinomians at
the time of the Reformation. This view taught that
there was an essential opposition between the Old and
the New Testament, some maintainers of it, like the
ancient Gnostics, holding that the Old Testament
was the production of a spiritual being inferior and
hostile to the Eternal God. The Divine Spirit guided
St. Luke, however, to teach the opposite view, and is
careful to honour the elder dispensation and the old
covenant, showing that Christianity was simply the
perfection and completion of Judaism, and was developed
therefrom as naturally as the bud of spring
bursts forth into the splendid blossom and flower of
summer. We trace these evidences of the Divine foreknowledge,
as well as of the Divine wisdom, in these
Pentecostal revelations, providing for and forecasting
future dangers with which, even in its earlier days, the
bark of Christ's Church had desperately to struggle.The same view has practically been taught by some modern sects,
who have proclaimed that all of the Old Testament and the whole of our
Lord's teaching till He died were intended for Jews only, and have no
relation to Christians. It is hard to say how such persons regard the
Old Testament and the greater part of the four Gospels, save as interesting
fossils to be hung up in a museum of comparative religion.
I. Now let us take the circumstances of the Pentecostal
blessing as they are stated, for every separate
detail bears with it an important message. The place
and the other circumstances of the outpouring of the
Spirit are full of instruction. The first disciples were all
with one accord in one place. There was unity of spirit
and unity in open manifestation to the world at large.
Christ's disciples, when they received the gifts of
heaven's choicest blessings, were not split up into
dozens of different organizations, each of them hostile
to the others, and each striving to aggrandise itself at
the expense of kindred brotherhoods. They had keenly
in remembrance the teaching of our Lord's great
Eucharistic supplication when He prayed to His Father
for His people that "they may all be one; even as Thou
Father, art in Me, and I in Thee ... that the world may
believe that Thou didst send Me." There was visible
unity among the followers of Christ; there was interior
love and charity, finding expression in external union
which qualified the disciples for the fuller reception
of the spirit of love, and rendered them powerful in
doing God's work amongst men. The state of the
Apostles and the blessing then received have an important
message for the Christianity of our own and of
every age. What a contrast the Christian Church—taking
the word in its broadest sense as comprising
all those who profess and call themselves Christians—presents
at the close of the nineteenth when compared
with the opening years of the first century. May not
many of the problems and difficulties which the Church
of to-day experiences be traced up to this woeful contrast?
Behold England nowadays, with its two hundred sects,
all calling themselves by the name of Christ; take
the Christian world, with its Churches mutually hostile,
spending far more time and trouble on winning proselytes
one from the other than upon winning souls
from the darkness of heathenism;—surely this one fact
alone, the natural result of our departure from the
Pentecostal condition of unity and peace, is a sufficient
evidence of our evil plight. We do not purpose now
to go into any discussion of the causes whence have
sprung the divisions of Christendom. "An enemy
hath done this" is a quite sufficient explanation, for
assuredly the great enemy of souls and of Christ has
counterworked and traversed the work of the Church
and the conversion of the world most effectually thereby.
There are some persons who rejoice in the vast variety
of divisions in the Church; but they are shortsighted
and inexperienced in the danger and scandals which
have flowed, and are flowing, from them. It is indeed
in the mission field that the schisms among Christians
are most evidently injurious. When the heathen
see the soldiers of the Cross split up among themselves
into hostile organizations, they very naturally say that
it will be time enough when their own divergences
and difficulties have been reconciled to come and
convert persons who at least possess internal union and
concord. The visible unity of the Church was from
the earliest days a strong argument, breaking down
pagan prejudice. Then, again, not only do the divisions
of Christians place a stumbling-block in the way of the
conversion of the heathen, but they lead to a wondrous
waste of power both at home and abroad. Surely one
cannot look at the religious state of a town or village
in England without realizing at a glance the evil results
of our divisions from this point of view. If men believe
that the preaching of the Cross of Christ is the power
of God unto salvation, and that millions are perishing
from want of that blessed story, can they feel contentment
when the great work of competing sects consists,
not in spreading that salvation, but in building up their
own cause by proselytising from their neighbours, and
gathering into their own organization persons who
already have been made partakers of Christ Jesus?
And if this competition of sects be injurious and
wasteful within the bounds of Christendom, surely
it is infinitely more so when various contending
bodies concentrate all their forces, as they so often
do, on the same locality in some unconverted land,
and seem as eagerly desirous of gaining proselytes
from one another as from the mass of paganism.
Then, too, to take it from another point of view,
what a loss in generalship, in Christian strategy, in
power of concentration, results from our unhappy
divisions? The united efforts made by Protestants,
Roman Catholics, and Greeks, are indeed all too small
for the vast work of converting the heathen world if
they were made with the greatest skill and wisdom.
How much more insufficient they must be when a
vast proportion of the power employed is wasted, as
far as the work of conversion is concerned, because
it is used simply in counteracting and withstanding
the efforts of other Christian bodies. I say nothing
as to the causes of dissensions. In many cases they
may have been absolutely necessary, though in too
many cases I fear they have resulted merely from
views far too narrow and restrained; I merely point
out the evil of division in itself as being, not a help, as
some would consider it, but a terrible hindrance in the
way of the Church of Christ. How different it was in
the primitive Church! Within one hundred and fifty
years, or little more, of the ascension of Jesus Christ
and the outpouring of the Divine Spirit, a Christian
writer could boast that the Christian Church had
permeated the whole Roman empire to such an extent
that if the Christians abandoned the cities they would
be turned into howling deserts. This triumphant march
of Christianity was simply in accordance with the
Saviour's promise. The world saw that Christians
loved one another, and the world was consequently
converted. But when primitive love cooled down, and
divisions and sects in abundance sprang up after the
conversion of Constantine the Great, then the progress of
God's work gradually ceased, till at last Mahometanism
arose to roll back the tide of triumphant success which
had followed the preaching of the Cross, and to reduce
beneath Satan's sway many a fair region, like North
Africa, Egypt, and Asia Minor, which once had been
strongholds of Christianity. Surely when one thinks
of the manifold evils at home and abroad which the
lack of the Pentecostal visible union and concord has
caused, as well as of the myriads who still remain
in darkness while nominal Christians bite and devour
one another, we may well join in the glowing language
of Jeremy Taylor's splendid prayer for the whole
Catholic Church, as he cries, "O Holy Jesus, King of
the saints and Prince of the Catholic Church, preserve
Thy spouse whom Thou hast purchased with Thy right
hand, and redeemed and cleansed with Thy blood. O
preserve her safe from schism, heresy, and sacrilege.
Unite all her members with the bands of faith, hope,
and charity, and an external communion when it shall
seem good in Thine eyes. Let the daily sacrifice of
prayer and sacramental thanksgiving never cease, but
be for ever presented to Thee, and for ever united to
the intercession of her dearest Lord, and for ever
prevail for the obtaining for each of its members grace
and blessing, pardon and salvation."Prayer for all estates of men in the Holy Catholic Church, in
Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, chap. iv., sec. vii.
II. Furthermore, we have brought before us the
external manifestations or evidences of the interior
gift of the Spirit really bestowed upon the Apostles at
Pentecost. There was a sound as of a rushing mighty
wind; there were tongues like as of fire, a separate
and distinct tongue resting upon each disciple; and
lastly there was the miraculous manifestation of speech
in divers languages. Let us take these spiritual phenomena
in order. First, then, "there came from heaven a
sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled
all the house where they were sitting;" a sign which
was repeated in the scene narrated in the fourth chapter
and the thirty-first verse, where we are told that "when
they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they
were gathered together; and they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost." The appearances of things that were
seen responded to the movements and powers that
were unseen. It was a supernatural moment. The
powers of a new life, the forces of a new kingdom, were
coming into operation, and, as the result, manifestations
that never since have been experienced found place
among men. We can find a parallel to what then
happened in scientific investigations. Geologists and
astronomers push back the beginning of the world and
of the universe at large to a vast distance, but they
all acknowledge that there must have been a period
when phenomena were manifested, powers and forces
called into operation, of which men have now no experience.
The beginning, or the repeated beginnings,
of the various epochs must have been times of marvels,
which men can now only dream about. Pentecost was
for the Christian with a sense of the awful importance
of life and of time and of the individual soul a far
greater beginning and a grander epoch than any mere
material one. It was the beginning of the spiritual
life, the inauguration of the spiritual kingdom of the
Messiah, the Lord and Ruler of the material universe;
and therefore we ought to expect, or at least not to
be surprised, that marvellous phenomena, signs and
wonders even of a physical type, should accompany
and celebrate the scene. The marvels of the story
told in the first of Genesis find a parallel in the
marvels told in the second of Acts. The one passage
sets forth the foundation of the material universe, the
other proclaims the nobler foundations of the spiritual
universe. Let us take it again from another point of
view. Pentecost was, in fact, Moses on Sinai or Elijah
on Horeb over again, but in less terrific form. Moses
and Elijah may be styled the founder and the refounder
of the old dispensation, just as St. Peter and the
Apostles may be called the founders of the new dispensation.
But what a difference in the inaugural
scene! No longer with thunder and earthquake, and
mountains rent, but in keeping with a new and
more peaceful economy, there came from heaven the
sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind. It is not,
too, the only occasion where the idea of wind is connected
with that of the Divine Spirit and its mysterious
operations. How very similar, as the devout mind will
trace, are the words and description of St. Luke, when
narrating this first outpouring of the Spirit, to the
words of the Divine Master repeated by St. John,
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh,
and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of
the Spirit."
There appeared, too, tongues, separate and distinct,
sitting upon each of them. The outward and visible
sign manifested on this occasion was plainly typical
of the new dispensation and of the chief means of its
propagation. The personality of the Holy Ghost is
essentially a doctrine of the new dispensation. The
power and influence of God's Spirit is indeed often
recognised in the Old Testament. Aholiab and Bezaleel
are said to have been guided by the Spirit of God as
they cunningly devised the fabric of the first tabernacle.
The Spirit of Jehovah began to move Samson at
times in the camp of Dan; and, on a later occasion,
the same Spirit is described as descending upon him
with such amazing force that he went down and slew
thirty men of Ashkelon. These and many other similar
passages present to us the Jewish conception of the
Spirit of God and His work. He was a force, a power,
quickening the human mind, illuminating with genius
and equipping with physical strength those whom God
chose to be champions of His people against the surrounding
heathen. Aholiab's skill in mechanical operations,
and Samson's strength, and Saul's prophesying,
and David's musical art, were all of them the gifts of
God. What a noble, what a grand, inspiring view of
life and life's gifts and work, is there set before us. It
is the old lesson taught by St. James, though so often
forgotten by men when they draw a distinction between
things sacred and things secular, "Every good gift and
every perfect boon is from above, coming down from
the Father of light." A deeper view, indeed, of the
Divine Spirit and His work on the soul can be traced
in the prophets, but then they were watchers upon
the mountains, who discerned from afar the approach
of a nobler and a brighter day. "The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor." That was Isaiah's
statement of his work as adopted by our Lord; and
now, at the very foundation of the Church, this deeper
and nobler tone of thought concerning the Spirit is
proclaimed, when there appeared tongues like as of
fire sitting upon each of them.
The sign of the Holy Spirit's presence was a tongue
of fire. It was a most suitable emblem, pregnant with
meaning, and indicative of the large place which the
human voice was to play in the work of the new dispensation,
while the supernatural fire declared that the mere
unaided human voice would avail nothing. The voice
needs to be quickened and supported by that Divine
fire, that superhuman energy and power, which the
Holy Ghost alone can confer. The tongue of fire pointed
on the Pentecostal morn to the important part in the
Church's life, and in the propagation of the gospel,
which prayer, and praise, and preaching would hereafter
occupy. It would have been well, indeed, had
the Church ever remembered what the Holy Ghost
thus taught, specially concerning the propagation of
the gospel, for it would have been thereby saved many
a disgraceful page of history. The human tongue,
illuminated and sanctified by fire from the inner sanctuary,
was about to be the instrument of the gospel's
advancement,—not penal laws, not the sword and fire
of persecution; and so long as the divinely-appointed
means were adhered to, so long the course of our holy
religion was one long-continued triumph. But when
the world and the devil were able to place in the hands
of Christ's spouse their own weapons of violence and
force, when the Church forgot the words of her Master,
"My kingdom is not of this world," and the teachings
embodied in the symbol of the tongue of fire, then
spiritual paralysis fell upon religious effort; and even
where human law and power have compelled an external
conformity to the Christian system, as they undoubtedly
have done in some cases, yet all vital energy, all true
godliness, have been there utterly lacking in the religion
established by means so contrary to the mind of Christ.
Very good men have made sad mistakes in this matter.
Archbishop Ussher was a man whose deep piety
equalled his prodigious learning, yet he maintained that
the civil sword ought to be used to repress false
doctrine; the divines of the Westminster Assembly
have left their opinion on record, that it is the duty
of the magistrate to use the sword on behalf of Christ's
kingdom; Richard Baxter taught that the toleration
of doctrines which he considered false was sinful; and
all of them forgot the lesson of the day of Pentecost,
that the tongue of fire was to be the only weapon
permissible in the warfare of the kingdom whose rule
is over spirits, not over bodies. The history of religion
in England amply proves this. The Church of
England enjoyed, about the middle of the last century,
the greatest temporal prosperity. Her prelates held
high estate, and her security was fenced round by a
perfect bulwark of stringent laws. Yet her life-blood
was fast ebbing away, and her true hold upon the
nation was speedily relaxing. The very highest ranks
of society, whom worldly policy attached nominally to
her communion, had lost all faith in her supernatural
work and commission. A modern historian has shown
this right well in his description of the death-scene of
Queen Caroline, a woman of eminent intellectual qualities,
who had played no small part in the religious life
of this nation during the reign of her husband George II.
Queen Caroline came to die, and was passing away
surrounded by a crowd of attendants and courtiers.
The whole Court, permeated by the spirit of earthliness
which then prevailed, was disturbed by the death of
the Queen's body, but no one seems to have thought
of the Queen's soul, till some one mildly suggested
that, for decency's sake, the Archbishop of Canterbury
should be sent for that he might offer up prayer with
the dying woman. Writing here in Ireland, I cannot
forget that it was just the same with us at that very
period. Religion was here upheld by worldly power;
the Church, which should have been viewed as simply
a spiritual power, was regarded and treated as a mere
branch of the civil service, and true religion sank to
its lowest depths. And we reaped in ourselves the
due reward of our deeds. The very men whose voices
were loudest in public for the repression of Romanism
were privately living in grossest neglect of the offices
and laws of religion and morality, because they in their
hearts despised an institution which had forgotten the
Pentecostal gift, and sought victory with the weapons
of the flesh, and not with those of the spirit. May God
for evermore protect His Church from such miserable
mistakes, and lead her to depend more and more upon
the power of the blessed and ever-present Pentecostal
gift!
A separate and distinct tongue, too, sat upon each
individual assembled in the upper room,—significant of
the individual character of our holy religion. Christianity
has a twofold aspect, neither of which can with
impunity be neglected. Christianity has a corporate
aspect. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not so much to
teach a new doctrine as to establish a new society,
based on newer and higher principles, and working
towards a higher and nobler end than any society
ever previously founded. This side of Christianity was
exaggerated in the Middle Ages. The Church, its
unity, its interests, its welfare as a corporation, then
dominated every other consideration. Since the Reformation,
however, men have run to the other extreme.
They have forgotten the social and corporate view of
Christianity, and only thought of it as it deals with
individuals. Men have looked at Christianity as it
deals with the individual alone, and have forgotten and
ignored the corporate side of its existence. Truth is
many-sided indeed, and no side of truth can with
impunity be neglected. Some have erred in dwelling
too much on the corporate aspect of Christianity;
others have erred in dwelling too much on its individual
aspect. The New Testament alone combines
both in due proportion, and teaches the importance and
necessity of a Church, as against the extreme Protestant,
on the one hand, who will reduce religion to a mere
individual matter; and of a personal religion, an individual
interest in the Spirit's presence, as here indicated
by the tongues which sat upon each of them, as against
the extreme Romanist, on the other hand, who looks
upon the Church as everything, to the neglect of
the life and progress of the individual. This passage
does not at the same time lend any assistance to those
who would thence conclude that there was no distinction
between clergy and laity, and that no ministerial
office was intended to exist under the dispensation of
the kingdom of heaven. The Spirit, doubtless, was
poured out upon all the disciples, and not upon the
Twelve alone, upon the day of Pentecost, as also upon
the occasion of the conversion of Cornelius and his household.
Yet this fact did not lead the Apostles and early
Christians to conclude that an appointed and ordained
ministry might be dispensed with. The Lord miraculously
bestowed His graces and gifts at Pentecost and
in the centurion's house at Cæsarea, because the gospel
dispensation was opened on these occasions first of
all to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. But when,
subsequently to the formal opening, we read of the
gifts of the Spirit, we find that their bestowal is connected
with the ministry of the Apostles, of St. Peter
and St. John at Samaria, or of St. Paul at Ephesus.
The Holy Ghost was poured out upon all the company
assembled in the upper room, or in the centurion's
house; yet the Apostles saw nothing in this fact inconsistent
with a ministerial organization, else they
would not have set apart the seven men full of faith
and of the Holy Ghost to minister to the widows at
Jerusalem, nor would they have laid hands upon elders
in every church which they founded, nor would St. Paul
have written, "He that seeketh the office of a bishop
desireth a good work," nor would St. Peter have exhorted
the elders to a diligent oversight of the flock
of God after the model of the Good Shepherd Himself.
St. Peter clearly thought that the Pentecostal gifts did
not obliterate the distinction which existed between
the shepherds and the sheep, between a fixed and
appointed ministry and the flock to whom they should
minister, though in the very initial stages of the
miraculous movement the Spirit was bestowed without
any human agency upon men and women alike.In the primitive Church the gift of preaching or prophesying seems
to have been widely diffused and exercised among what we should
call the laity, while at the same time a fixed and appointed ministry
exercised the pastoral office, including therein the celebration of the
sacraments and the exercise of Church discipline. This seems the
explanation of the phenomena we behold in St. Paul's Epistles, in
the manual called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, and in that
curious production of the primitive Church called the Shepherd of
Hermas. But though preaching and prophesying were at first very
freely exercised, the disorders which arose at Corinth and other places
quickly taught the necessity for fixed rules. It was just the same in
the synagogue. The ritual and worship was conducted by the officials.
Preaching was free and open to all, but subject to the control and
direction of the ruler of the Synagogue, as the case of St. Paul at
Antioch in Pisidia proves (Acts xiii. 15).
III. Lastly, in this passage we find another external
proof of the Spirit's presence in the miraculous gift of
tongues. That gift indicated to the Apostles and to
all ages the tongue as the instrument by which the
gospel was to be propagated, as the symbol fire indicated
the cleansing and purifying effects of the Spirit.Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ, Acts, chap. ii., ver. 3, notes that "there
is a form of prayer in the Jewish writings which was used on the solemn
fast of the ninth month Ab, one clause of which illustrates the Divine
symbol, 'Have mercy, O God, upon the city that mourneth, that is
trodden down and desolate, because Thou didst lay it waste by fire,
and by fire wilt build it up again.'"
The gift of tongues is one that has ever excited much
speculation, and specially so during the present century,
when, as some will remember, an extraordinary
attempt to revive them was made, some sixty years
ago, by the followers of the celebrated Edward Irving.
Devout students of Scripture have loved to trace in this
incident at Pentecost, at the very foundation of the new
dispensation, a reversal of that confusion of tongues
which happened at Babel, and have seen in it the
removal of "the covering cast over all peoples, and the
veil that is spread over all nations."Isa. xxv. 7. See Lightfoot, Horæ Heb., on Acts ii.
The precise
character of the gift of tongues has of late years exercised
many minds, and different explanations have been
offered of the phenomena. Some have viewed it as a
miracle of hearing, not of speaking, and maintained that
the Apostles did not speak different languages at all,
but that they all spake the one Hebrew tongue, while
the Jews of the various nationalities then assembled
miraculously heard the gospel in their own language.
The miracle is in that case intensified one hundredfold,
while not one single difficulty which men feel is
thereby alleviated. Meyer and a large number of
German critics explain the speaking with tongues as
mere ecstatic or rapturous utterances in the ordinary
language of the disciples. Meyer thinks too that some
foreign Jews had found their way into the band of
the earliest disciples. They naturally delivered their
ecstatic utterances, not in Aramaic, but in the foreign
tongues to which they were accustomed, and legend
then exaggerated this natural fact into the form which
the Acts of the Apostles and the tradition of the
Christian Church have ever since maintained.Meyer on Acts (ii. 4), vol. i., pp. 67, 68. Clark's translation.
It is,
indeed, rather difficult to understand the estimate
formed by such critics of the gift of tongues, whether
bestowed on the day of Pentecost or during the subsequent
ministrations of St. Paul at Corinth and
Ephesus. Meyer is obliged to confess that there were
some marvellous phenomena in Corinth and other
places to which St. Paul bears witness. He describes
himself as surpassing the whole Corinthian Church in
this particular gift (1 Cor. xiv. 18), so that if St. Paul's
testimony is to be relied upon,—and Meyer lays a great
deal of weight upon it,—we must accept it as conclusively
proving that there existed a power of speaking in
various languages among the first Christians. But
the explanation offered by many critics of the gift of
tongues as undoubtedly exercised at Corinth reduces
it to something very like those fanatical exhibitions
witnessed among the earliest followers of the Irvingite
movement, or, to put it plainly, to a mere uttering of
gibberish, unworthy of apostolic notice save in the
language of sternest censure, as being a disorderly
and foolish proceeding disgraceful to the Christian
community.
Meyer's theory and that of many modern expositors
seems, then, to me very unsatisfactory, raising
up more difficulties than it solves. But it may be
asked, what explanation do you offer of the Pentecostal
miracle? and I can find no one more satisfactory than
the old-fashioned one, that there was a real bestowal
of tongues, a real gift of speaking in foreign languages,
granted to the Apostles, to be used as occasion required
when preaching the gospel in heathen lands. Dean
Stanley, in his commentary on Corinthians, gives, as was
his wont, a clear and attractive statement of the newer
theory, putting in a vigorous shape the objections to
the view here maintained. I know there are difficulties
connected with this view, but many of these
difficulties arise from our ignorance of the state and
condition of the early Church, while others may spring
from our very imperfect knowledge of the relations
between mind and body. But whatever difficulties
attend the explanation I offer, they are as nothing
compared with the difficulties which attend the modern
explanations to which I have referred.The speculations and discussions now rife concerning hypnotism
ought to teach modesty of assertion as to what is or is not possible.
On the 28th of March there appeared in an eminent medical authority,
the Lancet newspaper, a review of a number of works on hypnotism,
acknowledging the wonders of the subject, and containing this expression
of opinion: "It is quite impossible to assign any limits to the influence
of mind upon body, which is probably much more potent and far-reaching
than we are usually prepared to admit." Now among the
works reviewed in that article was one by Dr. Albert Moll of Berlin,
published in the "Contemporary Science Series." That book makes
statements about hypnotism which would quite cover Scripture miracles
at which even devout people have stumbled, such as the miracles
wrought by the shadow of St. Peter, or by handkerchiefs brought from
the body of St. Paul (Acts v. 15, and xix. 12), which Meyer regards
as mere legendary accretions to the genuine story. Moll, however,
makes quite as wondrous statements about hypnotism. On page 1
he thus begins his History of Hypnotism: "In order to understand the
gradual development of modern hypnotism from actual magnetism we
must distinguish two points: firstly, that there are human beings who
can exercise a personal influence over others, either by direct contact or
even from a distance; and, secondly, the fact that particular psychical
facts can be induced in human beings by certain physical processes.
This second fact especially has long been known among the Oriental
peoples, and was utilized by them for religious purposes. Kiesewetter
attributes the early soothsaying by means of precious stones to hypnosis,
which was induced by steadily gazing at the stones. This is also true of
divination by looking into vessels and crystals, as the Egyptians have
long been in the habit of doing, and has often been done in Europe:
by Cagliostro, for example. These hypnotic phenomena are also found
to have existed several thousand years ago among the Persian magi,
as well as up to the present day among the Indian yogis and fakirs,
who throw themselves into the hypnotic state by means of fixation of
the gaze." The phenomena mentioned in the Acts, whether as to
the tongues or to miracles worked through inanimate objects, may be
compared with Moll's statements on pp. 5, 6, 84, and 362.
What, then, is
our theory, which we call the old-fashioned one? It
is simply this, that on the day of Pentecost Christ
bestowed upon His Apostles the power of speaking in
foreign languages, according to His promise reported
by St. Mark (xvi. 17), "They shall speak with new
tongues." This was the theory of the ancient Church.
Irenæus speaks of the tongues as given "that all
nations might be enabled to enter into life;" while
Origen explains that "St. Paul was made a debtor
to different nations, because, through the grace of the
Holy Spirit, he had received the gift of speaking in the
languages of all nations." This has been the continuous
theory of the Church as expressed in one of the most
ancient portions of the Liturgy, the proper prefaces
in the Communion office. The preface for Whit Sunday
sets forth the facts commemorated on that day, as the
other proper prefaces state the facts of the Incarnation,
the Resurrection, and Ascension. The fact which Whit
Sunday celebrates, and for which special thanks are
then offered, is this, that then "the Holy Ghost came
down from heaven in the likeness of fiery tongues,
lighting upon the Apostles, to teach them, and to lead
them to all truth; giving them both the gift of divers
languages, and also boldness with fervent zeal constantly
to preach the gospel unto all nations."The proper preface in the Book of Common Prayer is longer and
more minute than the corresponding one in the Missal. The Reformers
extended the ancient form, inserting a special reference to the gift of
tongues.
Now this traditional interpretation has not only the
authority of the past on its side; we can also see
many advantages which must have accrued from a gift
of this character. The preface we have just cited
states that the tongues were bestowed for the preaching
of the gospel among all nations. And surely not merely
as a striking sign to unbelievers, but also as a great
practical help in missionary labours, such a gift of
tongues would have been invaluable to the Church
at its very birth. There was then neither time, nor
money, nor organization to prepare men as missionaries
of the Cross. An universal commission and work
were given to twelve men, chiefly Galilean peasants,
to go forth and found the Church. How could they
have been fitted for this work unless God had bestowed
upon them some such gift of speech? The
vast diversity of tongues throughout the world is now
one of the chief hindrances with which missionary
effort has to contend. Years have often to elapse
before any effective steps can be taken in the work
of evangelisation, simply because the question of the
languages bars the way. It would have been only in
accordance with God's action in nature, where great
epochs have been ever signalised by extraordinary
phenomena, if such a great era-making epoch as the
birth of the Church of Christ had been marked with
extraordinary spiritual powers and developments, which
supplied the want of that learning and those organizations
which the Lord now leaves to the spiritual
energies of the Church itself. But it is sometimes said,
we never hear of this power as used by the Apostles
for missionary purposes. Nothing, however, is a surer
rule in historical investigations than this, "Never trust
to mere silence," specially when the records are but
few, scanty, fragmentary. We know but very little
of the ways, worship, actions of the Apostles. Silence
is no evidence either as to what they did or did not
do. Some of them went into barbarous and distant
lands, as history states. Eusebius (III., 1) tells us that
St. Thomas received Parthia as his allotted region, while
St. Andrew taught in Scythia. Eusebius is an author
on whom great reliance is justly placed. He is one,
too, whose accuracy and research have been again and
again confirmed in our own day by discoveries of every
kind. I see, then, no reason why we should not depend
upon him upon this point as well as upon others. Now
if the Apostles taught in Scythia and Parthia, what an
enormous advantage it must have given them in their
work among a strange and barbarous people if, by
means of the Pentecostal blessing, they could at once
proclaim a crucified Saviour. It is sometimes said, however,
the gift of speaking with foreign languages was
not required by the Apostles for missionary purposes,
as Greek alone would carry a man all through the
world, and Greek the Apostles evidently knew. But
people in saying so forget that there is a great difference
between possessing enough of a language to travel
over the world, and speaking with such facility as
enables one to preach. English will now carry a man
over the world, but English will not enable him to
preach to the people of India or of China. Greek might
carry Apostles all over the Roman Empire, and might
enable St. Thomas to be understood by the courtiers
of the great kings of Parthia, where traces of the ancient
Greek language and civilization, derived from Alexander's
time, long prevailed. But Greek would not enable a
primitive Christian teacher to preach fluently among the
Celts of Galatia, or of Britain, or among the natives of
Spain or of Phrygia, or the barbarians of Scythia.It is a completely mistaken notion, which no one would cherish
who had read history with a full-orbed mental eye, realizing the past
with its circumstances, that Latin and Greek superseded all other
languages throughout the empire. Local dialects and languages continued
to flourish all the time, save amongst the official classes. Else
how did Welsh survive to this day in England? How did Celtic
survive in France side by side with Latin? The two celebrated cases
of Gregory of Tours and of St. Patrick show that their Latin was of a
very rude and corrupt kind; their real spoken language was Celtic, the
tongue of the mass of the people. In a learned work just published I
note a confirmation of this view. Professor Ramsay, in his Historical
Geography of Asia Minor, p. 24, avows how his mind has changed on
this question in regard to Asia Minor. "Romans governed Asia Minor,
because with their marvellous governing talent they knew how to adapt
their administration to the people of the plateau. It is true that the
great cities (of Asia Minor) put on a Western appearance, and took
Latin or Greek names. Latin and Greek were the languages of government,
of the educated classes, and of polite society. Only this superficial
aspect is attested in literature and in ordinary history, and when I began
to travel the thought had never occurred to me that there was any other.
The conviction has gradually forced itself on me that the real state of
the country was very different. Greek was not the popular language
of the plateau, even in the third century after Christ; the mass of the
people spoke Lycaonian, and Galatian, and Phrygian, although those
who wrote books wrote Greek, and those who governed spoke Latin."
See again pp. 98, 99 for much more on the same subject, showing the
prevalence of the native languages of Asia Minor down to the year
A.D. 500.
We
see from St. Paul's case how powerful was the hold
which the Aramaic language had over the people of
Jerusalem. When the excited mob heard St. Paul
speak in the Hebrew tongue they listened patiently,
because their national feelings, the sentiments which
sprang up in childhood and were allied with their
noblest hopes, were touched. So must it have been all
the world over. The Pentecostal gift of tongues was a
powerful help in preaching the gospel, because, like the
Master's promise to assist their minds and their tongues
in the hour of need, it freed the Apostles from care,
anxiety, and difficulties, which would have sorely
hindered their great work. But while I offer this
explanation, I acknowledge that it has its own difficulties;
but then every theory has its difficulties, and
we can only balance difficulties against difficulties,
selecting that theory which seems to have the fewest.
The conduct, for instance, of the Corinthians, who seem
to have used the gift of tongues simply to minister to
the spirit of display, not to edification or to missionary
work, seems to some a great difficulty. But after all
is not their conduct simply an instance of human sin,
perverting and misusing a divine gift, such as we often
see still? God still bestows His gifts, the real outcome
and work of the Spirit. Man takes them, treats them
as his own, and misuses them for his own purposes of
sin and selfishness. What else did the Corinthians
do, save that the gift which they abused was an
exceptional one; but then their circumstances, times,
opportunities, punishments, all were exceptional and
peculiar. The one thing that was not peculiar was
this, the abiding tendency of human nature to degrade
Divine gifts and blessings. There must, we again
repeat, be difficulties and mystery connected with this
subject, no matter what view we take. Perhaps, too,
we are no fitting judges of the gifts bestowed on the
primitive Church, or the phenomena manifested under
such extraordinary circumstances, when everything,
every power, every force, every organization, was
arrayed against the company of the twelve Apostles.
Surely miracles and miraculous powers seem absolutely
necessary and natural in such a case.Christians often give their sceptical opponents an advantage over
them by allowing them to state the difficulties of Christianity and never
retorting the difficulties of scepticism. There is no historical fact of
the distant past that cannot be encumbered with numerous difficulties,
deduced, in most cases, from our own ignorance. No difficulty on our
side is so great as that which the sceptic has to meet in undertaking
to explain, on purely natural grounds, the rise and success of Christianity
on the very spot and at the very time its Author had been crucified.
The Christian story is simple and natural; the sceptical explanation
forced, unnatural, and surrounded by a thousand appalling difficulties.
We are not
now sufficient or capable judges of events as they
then existed. Perhaps, too, we are not sufficient
judges because we do not possess that spirit which
would make us to sympathise with and understand
the state of the Church at that time. "They were all
together in one place." The Church was then visibly
united, and internally united too. A nineteenth century
Christian, with the endless divisions of Christendom, is
scarcely the most fitting judge of the Church and the
Church's blessings when the Spirit of the Master pervaded
it and the prayer of the Master for visible unity
was fulfilled in it. Christendom is weak now from its
manifold divisions. Even in a mere natural way, and
from a mere human point of view, we can see how
its divisions destroy its power and efficacy as Christ's
witness in the world. But when we take the matter
from a spiritual point of view, we cannot even guess
what marvellous gifts and endowments, needful for
the edification of His people and the conversion of the
world, we now lack from want of the Divine charity
and peace which ruled the hearts of the twelve as they
assembled in the upper room that Pentecostal morn.
We shall better understand primitive gifts when we
get back primitive union.
CHAPTER VI.
ST. PETER'S FIRST SERMON.
"But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and
spake forth unto them, saying, Ye men of Judæa, and all ye that dwell
at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and give ear unto my
words."—Acts ii. 14.
This verse contains the opening words of St.
Peter's address to the multitude who were roused
to wonder and inquiry by the miraculous manifestations
of Pentecost. That address is full of interest when
viewed aright, freed from all the haze which the long
familiarity of ages has brought with it. In this second
chapter we have the report of a sermon preached within
a few days of Christ's ascension, addressed to men
many of whom knew Jesus Christ, all of whom had
heard of His work, His life, and His death, and setting
forth the apostolic estimate of Christ, His miracles,
His teaching, His ascended condition and glory. We
cannot realize, unless by an intellectual effort, the
special worth of these apostolic reports contained in
the Acts. Men are sometimes sceptical about them,
asking, how did we get them at all? how were they
handed down? This is, however, an easier question
to answer than some think. If we take, for instance,
this Pentecostal address alone, we know that St. Luke
had many opportunities of personal communication
with St. Peter. He may have learned from St. Peter's
own mouth what he said on this occasion, and he could
compare this verbal report with the impressions and
remembrances of hundreds who then were present.
But there is another solution of the difficulty less
known to the ordinary student of Holy Scripture.
The ancients made a great use of shorthand, and
were quite well accustomed to take down spoken
discourses, transmitting them thus to future ages.
Shorthand was, in fact, much more commonly used
among the ancients than among ourselves. The
younger Pliny, for instance, who was a contemporary
of the Apostles, never travelled without a shorthand
writer, whose business it was to transcribe passages
which struck his master in the books he was perpetually
studying. The sermons of Chrysostom were
all extemporaneous effusions. In fact, the golden-mouthed
patriarch of Constantinople was such an
indefatigable pulpit-orator, preaching almost daily,
that it would have been impossible to have made any
copious preparation. The extensive reports of his
sermons which have come down to us, the volumes
of his expositions on the books of Scripture which
we possess, prove that shorthand must have been
constantly used by his hearers.I read the other day the report of an eminent Unitarian divine who
was lecturing upon the Gospels. He was upholding the view that it
was impossible that reports of the discourses of Christ and of His
Apostles could have been handed down in anything like their shape
as given in the New Testament, because it was an age without shorthand.
The lecturer is an eminent metaphysical and philosophical
critic, but he is evidently not versed in the social life of the ancients.
Had the lecturer but referred to Prof. J. E. B. Mayor's edition of
Pliny's Letters, Book iii., p. 96, he would have found abundant
references proving that shorthand was a usual accomplishment among
educated men long prior to the Christian era.
Now what would
we give for a few shorthand reports of sermons
by Clement of Rome, by St. Luke, by Timothy, by
Apollos, preached in Rome, Alexandria, or Antioch?
Suppose they were discovered, like the numerous
Egyptian manuscripts which have of late years come
to light, deposited in the desert sands, and were found
to set forth the miracles, the ministry, and the person
of Christ exactly as now we preach them, what a
marvellous confirmation of the faith we should esteem
them! And yet what should we then possess more
than we already have in the sermons and discourses
of St. Peter and St. Paul, reported by an eye and ear-witness
who wrote the Acts of the Apostles?
I. The congregation assembled to listen to this first
Gospel discourse preached by a human agent was a
notable and representative one. There were Parthians,
and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia
and in Judæa,—or, as an ancient expositor
(Tertullian) puts it, in ArmeniaTertullian, Against the Jews, chap. vii.
and Cappadocia,—in
Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt
and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers
of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians.
The enumeration of the various nationalities listening
to St. Peter begins from the extremest east; it proceeds
then to the north, from thence to the south, terminating
with Rome, which represents the west. They were
all Jews or Jewish proselytes, showing how extremely
wide, at the epoch of the Incarnation, was the dispersion
of God's ancient people. St. Paul, in one
profound passage of the Epistle to the Galatians, notes
that "God sent forth His Son in the fulness of time," that
is, at the exact moment when the world was prepared
for the advent of the truth. This "fulness of time" may
be noted in many directions. Roman roads, Roman
law, commerce, and civilization opened channels of
communication which bore the tidings of the gospel
into every land. A sweet singer of our own time, the
late Sir Samuel Ferguson, has depicted in his Lays of
the Western Gael this diffusion of the gospel through
the military organization of Rome. He represents a
Celt from Ireland as present at the crucifixion. This
may seem at first somewhat improbable, as Ireland
was never included within the bounds of the Roman
Empire; and yet the poet's song can be justified from
history. Though never included formally within the
Empire, Irishmen and Scotch Highlanders must often
have served in the ranks of the Roman army, just
as at the present day, and especially in India, men
of foreign nationalities are often found serving in the
ranks of the British army. In later times Irishmen
most certainly formed a Roman legion all to themselves.
St. Jerome tells usAdv. Jovin., lib. ii., cap. 7, in Migne's Pat. Lat., t. xxiii., col. 296.
that he had seen them acting in
that capacity at Treves, in Germany. They were noted
for their bravery, which, as Jerome believes, they sustained
by consuming human flesh. Three hundred
years earlier Irishmen may often have enlisted in the
service of those British legions which the Romans
withdrew from Britain and located in the East; and
thus Sir Samuel Ferguson does not pass the bounds
of historic credibility when he represents a certain
centurion, who had been present at the crucifixion, as
returning to his native land, and there proclaiming the
tidings of our Lord's atoning sacrifice:—
"And they say, Centurion Altus, when he to Emania came,
And to Rome's subjection called us, urging Cæsar's tribute claim,
Told that half the world barbarian thrills already with the faith,
Taught them by the God-like Syrian, Cæsar lately put to death."I have worked out this point at some length in Ireland and the
Celtic Church, chap. i., pp. 14-20.
The dispersion of the Jews throughout not only the
Roman Empire, but far beyond its limits, served the
same end, and hastened the fulness of time needed for
the Messiah's appearance. We must remember, however,
that the long list of varied nationalities present
at this Pentecostal feast were not Gentiles, they were
Jews of the dispersion scattered broadcast among the
nations as far as Central Asia towards the east, as far
as southern Arabia and Aden on the south, and Spain
and Britain on the west. The course of modern investigation
and discovery amply confirms the statement of
this passage, as well as the similar statement of the
eighth chapter, which represents a Jewish statesman of
Abyssinia or Ethiopia as coming up to Jerusalem for the
purposes of devotion. Jewish inscriptions have been
found in Aden dating back long before the Christian
era. A Jewish colony existed ages before Christ in
the region of Southern Arabia, and continued to flourish
there down to the Middle Ages.The history of the Jewish settlement in the south of Arabia is
very little known by the average student of the Acts, and yet it is a
wonderful confirmation of its accuracy both here and in the account
of the Ethiopian eunuch. This colony existed in Arabia long before
the Christian era. They claimed, indeed, to have been a portion of
the Jews of the Captivity. They established an independent kingdom
in Southern Arabia, which bitterly persecuted the Christians about the
year 500. A full account of this little-known persecution, and of the
Homerite martyrs who suffered in it, will be found by those curious in
such matters in that great monumental work the Acta Sanctorum of
the Bollandists, vols. x. and xii. for October, under the names of
St. Arethas and St. Elesbaan. Large quantities of manuscripts about
this Jewish colony were discovered some years ago in the mosques of
Southern Arabia. A considerable number of Jews still find a place
there. See, for an account of the Jewish kingdom in Arabia, an article
on Elesbaan, in vol. ii. of the Dictionary of Christian Biography.
Gibbon in his forty-second and fiftieth chapters has much about it.
At Rome, Alexandria,
and Greece the Jews at this period constituted an
important factor in the total population.The Jewish cemeteries discovered at Rome date back to the time
of our Lord, or even before it. They were the models on which the
Christians made the catacombs. The symbols of Judaism appear in the
Christian tombs. See Northcote's Epitaphs of the Catacombs, and
Brownlow and Northcote's Roma Sotteranea.
The dispersion
of the Jews had now done its work, and brought
with it the fulness of time required by the Divine purposes.
The way of the Messiah had been effectually prepared
by it. The Divine seed fell upon no unploughed
and unbroken soil. Pure and noble ideas of worship
and morality had been scattered broadcast throughout
the world. Some years ago the Judgment of Solomon
was found depicted on the ceiling of a Pompeian house,
witnessing to the spread of scriptural knowledge
through Jewish artists in the time of Tiberius and of
Nero. A race of missionaries, too, equipped for their
work, was developed through the discipline of exile.
The thousands who hung upon Peter's lips needed
nothing but instruction in the faith of Jesus Christ,
together with the baptism of the Spirit, and the finest,
the most enthusiastic, and the most cosmopolitan of
agencies lay ready to the Church's hand. While, again,
the organization of synagogues, which the exigencies
of the dispersion had called into existence, was just
the one suited to the various purposes of charity,
worship, and teaching, which the Christian Church
required. Whether, indeed, we consider the persons
whom St. Peter addressed, or the machinery they had
elaborated, or the diffusion of pure religious ideas they
had occasioned, we see in this passage a splendid
illustration of the care and working of Divine Providence
bringing good out of evil and real victory out of
apparent defeat. Prophet and psalmist had lamented
over Zion's ruin and Israel's exile into foreign lands,
but they saw not how that God was thereby working
out His own purposes of wider blessing to mankind at
large, fitting Jews and Gentiles alike for that fulness
of time when the Eternal Son should be manifested.
II. The brave, outspoken tone of this sermon evidences
the power and influence of the Holy Spirit upon
St. Peter's mind. St. Chrysostom, in his famous lectures
on the Acts of the Apostles, notes the courageous tone
of this address as a clear evidence of the truth of the
resurrection. This argument has been ever since a
commonplace with apologists and expositors, and yet it
is only by an effort that we can realize how very strong
it is. Here was St. Peter and his fellow Apostles standing
up proclaiming a glorified and ascended Messiah.
Just seven weeks before, they had fled from the messengers
of the High Priest sent to arrest their Master,
leaving Him to His fate. They had seen Him crucified,
knew of His burial, and then, feeling utterly defeated,
had as much as possible withdrawn themselves from
public notice. Seven weeks after, the same band, led by
St. Peter, himself a short time before afraid to confess
Christ to a maidservant, boldly stand up, charge upon
the multitude, who knew all the circumstances of Christ's
execution, the crime of having thus killed the Prince of
Life, and appeal to the supernatural evidence of the gift
of tongues, to which they had just listened, as the best
proof of the truth of their message. St. Peter's courage on
this occasion is one of the clearest proofs of the truth of
his testimony. St. Peter was not naturally a courageous
man. He was very impulsive and very sympathetic.
He was the creature of his surroundings. If he
found himself in the midst of Christ's friends, he was
the most forward to uphold Christ's cause, but he had
not much moral stamina. He was sadly deficient in
staying power. His mind was very Celtic in its tone,
to draw an illustration from national characteristics.
The Celtic mind is very sympathetic, ardent, enthusiastic.
It is swept along in moments of excitement,
either of victory or of defeat, by the dominating power
of numbers. How often has this quality been manifested
by the French people, for instance? They are
resistless when victorious; they collapse utterly and
at once when defeated. St. Peter was just the same.
He was sympathetic, ardent, enthusiastic, and fell, in
later as well as in earlier age, into the perils which
attend such temperaments. He denied his Master when
surrounded by the menials of the high priest. He
was ready to die for that Master a few hours before,
when sitting surrounded by Christ's disciples in the
secrecy of the upper room. Divine grace and the
baptism of the Spirit did not at all change his natural
character in this respect. Divine grace, whether granted
in ancient or in modern times, does not destroy natural
character, which is God's gift to man. It merely refines,
purifies, elevates it. We find, indeed, a striking
illustration of this law of the Divine life in St. Peter's
case.
One of the most convincing proofs of the truth of the
New Testament is the identity of character we behold
in the representations given of St. Peter by writers who
produced their books quite independently of each other.
St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians long prior
to any of the Gospel narratives. Yet St. Paul's picture
of St. Peter in the Epistle to the Galatians is exactly
the same as that drawn by the four Evangelists alike.
St. Paul depicts him as the same intensely sympathetic,
and therefore the same unstable person whom the
Evangelists describe. The brave scene in the upper
chamber, and the scene of cowardice and disgrace in
the high priest's palace, were in principle re-enacted
twenty years after, about the year A.D. 53, at Antioch.
St. Peter was very bold in maintaining the right of
Gentile freedom, and hesitated not to live like the
Gentile Christians of Antioch, so long as none of the
strict Jewish Christians of Jerusalem knew about it.
St. Peter wished, in fact, to stand well with both parties,
and therefore strove to conciliate both. He was, for the
time, a type of that famous character Mr. Facing-two-ways.
He lived, therefore, as a Gentile, until some
of the Jerusalem brethren arrived at Antioch, when
he at once quailed before them and retreated, betraying
the cause of Christian freedom, and sacrificing, just as
men do still, Christian principle and honesty upon the
altar of self-seeking popularity. St. Peter, we therefore
maintain, always remained at heart the same
character. He was bold and forward for Christ so
long as all went well, because he was intensely
sympathetic; but he had very little of that power of
standing alone which marked St. Paul, and nerved him,
even though a solitary witness, when the cause of truth
was involved. This somewhat lengthened argument
is absolutely necessary to show the strength of our
conclusion: that it must have been an overpowering
sense of the awful reality of Christ's resurrection and
ascension which alone could have overcome this natural
weakness of St. Peter, and make him on the day of
Pentecost as brave in proclaiming Jesus Christ to his
red-handed murderers as he was bold to propose a
new Apostle in place of the hapless traitor to the
assembled disciples in the upper chamber. St. Peter
evidently believed, and believed with an intense, overwhelming,
resistless conviction, in the truth of Christ's
resurrection and ascension, which thus became to him
the source of personal courage and of individual power.
III. Again, the tone of St. Peter's sermon was remarkable
because of its enlarged and enlightened spirituality.
It proved the Spirit's power in illuminating the human
consciousness. St. Peter was rapidly gaining a true
conception of the nature of the kingdom of God.
He enunciates that conception in this sermon. He
proclaims Christianity, in its catholic and universal
aspect, when he quotes the prophet Joel as predicting
the time when the Lord would pour out His Spirit
upon all flesh. St. Peter does not indeed seem to
have realized all at once the full significance of his own
teaching. He did not see that his words applied to
the Gentiles equally with the Jews, sounding the death-knell
of all national exclusiveness in religion. Had he
seen the full meaning of his own words, he would not
have hesitated so much about the baptism of Cornelius
and the admission of the Gentiles. It has been found
true, not only of St. Peter, but of teachers, reformers,
politicians, statesmen, that they have not at once
recognised all the vast issues and undeveloped principles
which lay wrapped up in their original message.
The stress and trial of life alone draw them out, at
times compelling their authors to regret their earlier
actions, at other times leading them to follow out with
intensified vigour the principles and movements which
they had themselves set in operation. Luther, when he
protested against indulgences; Erasmus, when he ridiculed
the ignorance of the monks and advocated the study
of the Greek New Testament; John Hampden, when he
refused to pay ship money; or Bishop Ken, when he
declined obedience to the orders of King James II.;—none
of them saw whereunto their principles would
necessarily grow till time had thoroughly threshed their
teaching and their actions, separating the husk of
external circumstances, which are so variable, from the
kernel of principle, which is eternally the same, stern,
severe, inexorable, in its operations. So it was with
St. Peter, and still earlier with the prophets. They
sang of and preached a universal religion, as in this
passage, but yet none of them realized the full scope
and meaning of the words they had used, till a special
revelation upon the housetop at Joppa compelled St.
Peter to grasp and understand and apply the principles
he had been already proclaiming.
In this respect, indeed, we recognise the greatness,
the divinity of the Master Himself towering above the
noblest of His followers; above even Peter himself,
upon whom He pronounced such an eulogium, and
bestowed such privileges. Our Lord Jesus Christ
taught this universality of Christianity, and expressly
recognised it. St. Peter indeed taught it in this sermon,
but he did not recognise the force of his own words.
Jesus Christ not only taught it, but realized the meaning
of His teaching. It was indeed no part of Christ's
earthly ministry to preach to the Gentiles. He came
to the house of Israel alone. Yet how clearly He
witnesses, how distinctly He prophesies of the future
universality of His kingdom. He heals a centurion's
servant, proclaiming at the same time that many shall
come from the east and west, and sit down in the
kingdom, while the children of the kingdom shall be
cast out. He risks His life among the inhabitants of
the city where He had been brought up, in order that
He may deliver this truth. He repeats it to the
woman of Samaria, in order that He may chase away
her national superstition. He embodies it in His
great eucharistic prayer for His Apostles and for His
Church at large. The more carefully and the more
devoutly we study Christ's words, the more lofty will
be our conception of His personality and character,
who from the very beginning recognised the full force
of His message, the true extent of that Divine society
He was about to establish. The avowed catholicity
of Christ's teaching is one of the surest proofs of
Christ's divinity. He had not to wait as Peter waited,
till events explained the meaning of His words; from
the beginning He knew all things which should happen.
Still the tone of St. Peter's sermon proved that the
Spirit had supernaturally enlightened him. He had
already risen to spiritual heights undreamt-of hitherto,
even by himself. A comparison of a few passages
proves this. In the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew
we have narrated for us the scene where our Lord
extracts from St. Peter his celebrated confession, "Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and then
soon after bestows upon him the equally celebrated
rebuke, "Get thee behind Me, Satan! thou art a
stumblingblock unto Me: for thou mindest not the
things of God, but the things of men." St. Peter, with
his horror-struck opposition to the very idea of Christ's
death and suffering, evidently cherished the same notions
of the kingdom of God, which Christ had come to establish,
as James and John did when they petitioned for
the highest place in the Master's kingdom. This carnal
conception of a temporal kingdom and earthly forces and
human weapons St. Peter retained when he armed himself
with a sword and prepared to defend his Master
in the Garden of Gethsemane; and even later still when,
after the resurrection, the Apostles, acting doubtless
through Peter as their spokesman, demanded, "Dost
Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
But the Spirit was vouchsafed, and new power, of
which the Master had spoken, was granted, and that
power raised Peter above all such low Jewish ideas,
and the kingdom announced to the Jews is no longer
a kingdom of earth, with its carnal weapons and
its dignities. He now understood what the Master
had taught when He witnessed before Pontius Pilate
His good confession, "My kingdom is not of this
world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would
My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the
Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence." The
carnal conception passes away under the influence of
the heavenly solvent, and St. Peter proclaimed a kingdom
which was a purely spiritual dominion, dealing with
remission of sins and a purified interior life, through
the operation and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The
power of the Holy Ghost was shown in St. Peter's
case by the vast and complete change which passed at
once over his spiritual ideas and outlook. The thoughts
and expectations of the pious Jews of Galilee—the very
class from whom St. Peter sprang—were just then
shaped and formed by the popular apocalyptic literature
of the period, as we have already pointed out in the
second lecture. The Second Epistle of St. Peter and
the Epistle of Jude prove that the Galileans of that time
were careful students of works like the Assumption of
Moses, the Book of Enoch, and the Ascension of Isaiah,
which agree in representing the kingdom of God and
the reign of the Messiah as equivalent to the triumph
of the Jewish nation over all foreign dominion and
bondage. St. Peter and the other eleven Apostles shared
these natural ideas and expectations till the Spirit
was poured out, when they learned in a profounder
spiritual comprehension to estimate aright the scope
and meaning of our blessed Lord's teaching. St. Peter
dwells, therefore, in his sermon on Christ's person, His
sufferings, His resurrection, His ascension, no longer
indeed for the purpose of exalting the Jewish nation,
or predicting its triumph, but to point a purely spiritual
lesson. "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your
sins; and ye shall receive"—not honour, riches, temporal
freedom, but "ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost." The subject-matter of St. Peter's sermon, the
change in his tone of teaching, is another great proof of
a supernatural force and power imparted on the Day
of Pentecost.
IV. Let us look somewhat farther into the matter of
this earliest Christian sermon, that we may learn the
apostolic view of the Christian scheme. Some persons
have asserted that the earliest Christians were
Ebionites,The term Ebionite is thus well explained by the Rev. J. M. Fuller
in the Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. ii., p. 25: "The term Ebionism expresses
conveniently the opinions and practices of the descendants of the
Judaizers of the apostolic age, and is very little removed from Judaism.
Judaism was for them not so much a preparation for Christianity as
an institution eternally good in itself, and but slightly modified in
Christianity. Whatever merit Christianity possessed, was possessed
as the continuation and supplement of Judaism. The divinity of the
old covenant was the only valid guarantee for the truth of the new.
Hence the tendency of this class of Ebionites to exalt the old at the
expense of the new, to magnify Moses and the prophets, and to allow
Jesus Christ to be 'nothing more than a Solomon or a Jonas'
(Tertull., De Carne Christi, c. 18); 'Legal righteousness was to them
the highest type of perfection; the earthly Jerusalem, in spite of its
destruction, was an object of adoration, as if it were the House of God'
(Irenæus, Adv. Hær., i., 26); its restoration would take place in the
millennial kingdom of Messiah, and the Jews would return there as the
manifested chosen people of God."
and taught a system of doctrine akin to
modern Unitarianism. This theory can best be tested
by an appeal to the Acts of the Apostles. What, for
instance, was the conception of Christ's life, work, and
ascended state, which St. Peter presented to the astonished
multitude? We must not expect, indeed, to find
in this sermon a formulated and scientific system of
Christian doctrine. St. Peter was as yet far too near
the great events he declared, far too close to the
superhuman personality of Christ, to co-ordinate his
ideas and arrange his views. It is a matter of every-day
experience that when a new discovery is suddenly
made, when a new revelation takes place in the region
of nature, men do not grasp at once all the new relations
thereby involved, all the novel applications whereof
it is capable. The human mind is so limited in its
power that it is not till we get some distance away
from a great object that we are enabled to survey it
in the fulness of its outline. Inspiration assisted St.
Peter, elevated his mind, raised his tone of thought
to a higher level, but it did not reverse this fundamental
law under which the human mind works. Yet
St. Peter's discourse contains all the great principles
of Catholic Christianity as opposed to that low view
which would represent the earliest Christians as preaching
the purely humanitarian scheme of modern Unitarianism.
St. Peter taught boldly the miraculous
element of Christ's life, describing Him as "a man
approved of God by mighty works and wonders and
signs which God did by Him." Yet he did not dwell
as much as we might have expected upon the miraculous
side of Christ's ministry. In fact, the earliest
heralds of the Cross did not make as much use of the
argument from miracles as we might have expected
them to have done. And that for a very simple reason.
The inhabitants of the East were so accustomed to the
practices of magic that they simply classed the Christian
missionaries with magicians. The Jewish explanation
of the miracles of our Lord is of this description.
The Talmudists do not deny that He worked miracles,
but assert that He achieved them by a special use of
the Tetragammaton, or the sacred name of Jehovah,
which was known only to Himself. The sacred writers
and preachers refer, therefore, again and again to the
miracles of our Saviour, as St. Peter does in the second
chapter, as well-known and admitted facts, whatever
explanation may be offered of them, and then turn to
other aspects of the question. The Apostles had,
however, a more powerful argument in reserve. They
preached a spiritual religion, a present peace with God,
a present forgiveness of sins; they point forward to
a future life of which even here below believers possess
the earnest and the pledge. We, with our minds
steeped in ages of Christian thought and teaching, can
have no idea of the convincing self-evidencing force of
teaching like that, to a Jew reared up in a system of
barren formalism, and still more to a Gentile, with
spiritual instincts longing for satisfaction, and which he
was expected to satisfy with the bloodstained shows of
the amphitheatre or with the immoralities and impure
banquetings of the pagan temples. To persons in that
condition, an argument derived from a mere wonderful
work brought little conviction, for they were well
accustomed to behold very marvellous and apparently
miraculous actions, such as to this day the wandering
jugglers of India exhibit.See Moll's Hypnotism, p. 216, in the "Contemporary Science Series."
But when they beheld lives
transfused by the love of God, and heard pure spiritual
teaching such as responded to the profoundest depths
of their own hearts, then deep answered unto deep.
The preaching of the Cross became indeed the power
of God unto salvation, because the human soul instinctively
felt that the Cross was the medicine fittest for its
spiritual maladies.
V. Again, this sermon shows the method of interpreting
the Psalms and Prophets popular among the
pious Jews of St. Peter's time. St. Peter's method
of interpretation is identical with that of our Lord, of
St. Paul, and of the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. He beholds in the Psalms hints and types
of the profoundest doctrines of the Creed. We can see
this in both the quotations which he makes. St. Peter
finds in the sixteenth Psalm a prophecy of the intermediate
state of souls and of the resurrection of our
Lord. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades" is a
text which has furnished the basis of the article in the
Apostles' Creed which teaches that Christ descended
into hell. It is a pity indeed that the translation which
the last revisers have adopted, "Hades" instead of
"Hell," was not used in the English translation of the
Apostles' Creed; for the ordinary reading has misled
many a thoughtful and serious soul, as if the Creed
taught that the pure and sinless spirit of the Saviour
had been made partaker of the horrors of eternal
misery. Whereas, in truth, the doctrine of Scripture
and of the Creed alike merely asserts that our Lord's
spirit, when separated from the body, entered and
thereby sanctified and prepared the place or state
where Christian souls, while separated from their
bodies, await the general resurrection of the just and
the completion of their happiness. The doctrine of
the intermediate state, as taught by Bishop Pearson
and other great divines, is primarily based on two
texts, the passage before us and the words of our
Saviour to the penitent thief, "To-day shalt thou be
with Me in Paradise" (Luke xxiii. 43). This doctrine
accurately corresponds with the catholic doctrine of
our Lord's Person. The Arian heresy denied the true
deity of our Lord. The second great heresy was
the Apollinarian, which denied His true and perfect
humanity. The orthodox doctrine taught the tripartite
nature of man, that is, that there was in man, first, a
body, secondly, the animal soul which man possesses
in common with the beasts, and which perishes at
death, and, lastly, the human spirit which is immortal
and by which he maintains communion with God.
Now the Apollinarian heresy asserted that Jesus
Christ possessed a body and a soul, but denied His
possession of a spirit. Its theory was that the Divine
nature took the place of a true human spirit in Christ,
so that Christ was unlike His brethren in this respect,
that when the body died, and the animal soul perished,
He had no human spirit by which He might enter into
Hades, or dwell in Paradise. The Divine nature was
the only portion of the Incarnate Lord which then
survived. Against this view the words of St. Peter
testified beforehand, teaching, by his adaptation of
David's prophecy, that our Lord possessed the fulness
of humanity in its threefold division, whereby He was
enabled to share the experience and lot of His brethren,
not only in this life, but also in the intermediate state
of Hades, wherein the spirits of the blessed dead await
re-union with their bodies, and expect in hope the
second advent of their Lord.See the article on "Apollinaris the Younger" in the Dict. Christ.
Biog., vol. i., for a concise account of the Apollinarian heresy.
St. Peter's interpretation again of the Psalms recognised
in David's words a prophecy of the resurrection:
"Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption,"—a
rendering of the New Testament revisers
which, however literal, is not nearly as vigorous or
suggestive as the old translation, "Neither wilt Thou
suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption." St. Peter then
proceeds to point out how impossible it was that this
prediction could have been fulfilled in David. David's
flesh undoubtedly did see corruption, because every one
knew where his tomb was. St. Peter's speech here
touches upon a point where we can confirm his accuracy
out of ancient historians. David was buried, according
to ancient writers, in the city of David (2 Kings ii. 10).
The Rabbis went even further, they determined the
time of his death. According to a writer quoted by
that great seventeenth-century teacher, Dr. John Lightfoot,Horæ Hebraicæ on Acts ii. 29.
"David died at Pentecost, and all Israel bewailed
him, and offered their sacrifices the day following."
After the return from Babylon the site of the sepulchre
was known, as Neh. iii. 16 reports, telling us that
Nehemiah the son of Azbuk repaired the wall over
against the sepulchre of David; while still later JosephusSee Josephus, Antiqq., XIII., viii., 4; XVI., vii., 1; Wars, I., ii., 5.
tells us that Hyrcanus, the high priest, and Herod the
Great opened David's tomb, and removed vast treasures
from it. St. Peter's words on this occasion possess an
important evidential aspect, and suggest one of the
gravest difficulties which the assailants of the resurrection
have to face. St. Peter appealed to the evidence
of David's tomb as demonstrating the fact that he was
dead, and that death still held him in its power. Why
did not his opponents appeal to the testimony of Christ's
tomb? It is evident from St. Peter's argument that
Christ's tomb was empty, and was known to be empty.
The first witnesses to the resurrection insisted, within
a few weeks of our Lord's crucifixion, upon this fact,
proclaimed it everywhere, and the Jews made no attempt
to dispute their assertions. Our opponents may
indeed say, we acknowledge the fact of the emptiness
of the tomb, but the body of Christ was removed by
St. Peter and his associates. How then, we reply,
do you account for St. Peter's action? Did conscious
guilt and hypocrisy make him brave and enthusiastic?
If they say, indeed, Peter did not remove the body, but
that his associates did, then how are we to account
for the conversations St. Peter thought he had held
with his risen Master, the appearances vouchsafed to
him, the close converse, "eating and drinking with him
after He was risen from the dead"? St. Peter, by his
appeal to David's tomb, and its bearing on the sixteenth
Psalm, proves that he believed in no ideal resurrection,
no phantasm,—no ghost story, to put it plainly; but
that he taught the doctrine of the resurrection as the
Church now accepts it.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRSTFRUITS OF PENTECOST.
"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and
said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we
do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise,
and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call unto Him."—Acts ii. 37-39.
The sermon of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost
and the sermon of our Lord present a striking
contrast. Our Lord's sermons were of various kinds;
they were at times consoling, yet full of instruction and
direction. Such, for instance, was the Sermon on the
Mount. At other times His discourses were stern, and
full of sharp reproof. Such was His teaching in His
parting addresses to the Jews delivered in the temple,
recorded in the synoptic Gospels. Yet they apparently
failed, for the time at least, in producing any great
practical results. In fact, His temple discourses served
only to irritate His foes, and arouse their hostility.
St. Peter delivered a sermon on the day of Pentecost
which was quite as stern and quite as calculated to
irritate, and yet that discourse was crowned with
results exceeding those ever achieved by our Lord,
though His discourses far surpassed St. Peter's in
literary skill, in spiritual meaning, in eternal significance
and value. Whence came this fact? It simply
happened in fulfilment of Christ's own prophecy
recorded by St. John, where He predicts that His
Apostles shall achieve greater works than He had
achieved, "because I go unto the Father" (John xiv.
12). The departure of Christ into the true Holy of
Holies opened the channel of communication between
the eternal Father and the waiting Church; the Spirit
was poured out through Christ as the channel, and the
result was conviction and conversion; leading the
people to cry out, in response to St. Peter's simple statement
of facts, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
I. One of the first qualifications absolutely necessary,
if a man is to write history tellingly and sympathetically,
is a historical imagination. Unless a man can, from a
multitude of separate and often independent details,
reconstruct the past, realize it vividly for himself, and
then depict it with life and force to his readers, he will
utterly fail as a historian. The same historical imagination
is needed, too, if we wish to realize the full
force of the circumstances we are considering. It is
hard even for those who do possess such an imagination
to throw themselves back into all the circumstances
and surroundings of the Apostles at Pentecost; but
when we succeed in doing so, then all these circumstances
can only be explained on the supposition—the
orthodox and catholic supposition—that there must
have happened a supernatural occurrence, and that
there must have been granted a supernatural power
and blessing on the day of Pentecost.
The courage of St. Peter when preaching his sermon
is, as we have already noticed, a proof of the descent
of the Spirit. The resurrection of his Master had
doubtless inspired him with all the power of a new
idea. But St. Peter's history, both before the day of
Pentecost and after it, amply proved that mere intellectual
conviction could be united with grievous moral
cowardice. We cannot doubt, for instance, that St.
Peter was intellectually convinced of the justice of the
Gentile claims, and their right to a full equality with the
Jews, when St. Paul felt compelled to withstand him at
Antioch. Yet he was possessed with no such spiritual
enthusiasm on the question as that which moved St.
Paul, or else he never would have fallen into such
lamentable hypocrisy as he displayed on that occasion.
The gift of the Spirit was needed by St. Peter before
an intellectual conviction could be transformed into an
overwhelming spiritual movement, which swept every
obstacle from its path. Again, the conduct of the
people is a proof of the descent of the Spirit. St. Peter
assails their actions, charges upon them the murder of
the Messiah, and proclaims the triumph of Christ over
all their machinations. Yet they listen quietly, respectfully,
without opposition, as mobs do not usually listen
to speeches running counter to their prejudices. Some
wondrous phenomena, such as the gift of tongues, combined
with divinely persuasive eloquence, flinging the
ægis of their protection over the preacher's defenceless
person, must have so struck the minds of these fanatical
Jews as to keep them quiet while St. Peter spoke. But
the result of St. Peter's speech was the chiefest evidence
that something extraordinary must have happened
at Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church's
history. Secular history tells us, as well as the sacred
narrative, that Christianity rose again from what seemed
its grave at the very spot where, and at the very
moment when, the crucifixion had apparently extinguished
it for ever.
The evidence of the historian Tacitus is conclusive
upon this point. He lived and flourished all through
the time when St. Paul's ministry was most active.
He was born about the year 50, and had every opportunity
of becoming acquainted with the facts concerning
the execution of Christ and the rise of Christianity, as
they were doubtless laid up in the imperial archives at
Rome. His testimony, written at a period when, as
some maintain, neither the Acts of the Apostles nor
the Gospels of the New Testament were in existence,
exactly tallies with the account given by our sacred
books. In his Annals, book xv., chap. 44, he writes
concerning Christianity: "Christus, from whom the
name of Christian has its origin, suffered the extreme
penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one
of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous
superstition, thus checked for the moment,
again broke out in Judæa." So that the Pagan historian,
who knew nothing about Christianity save what
official pagan documents or popular report told him,
agrees with the Scriptures that Christianity was checked
for a moment by the death of its founder, and then
gained its earliest and most glorious triumph on the very
scene of its apparent defeat where—and this is a very
important part of the argument—previously the most
marvellous wisdom and the most striking signs and
wonders had utterly failed to gain any large measure
of success. Whence, then, can we explain this fact,
or how account for this conscience-stricken cry, "Men
and brethren, what shall we do?" unless we assume,
what the narrative of our text declares, that the Holy
Ghost, in all His convincing and converting power, had
been poured out from on high?
And surely our own personal experience daily corroborates
this view. There may be intellectual conviction
and controversial triumph without any spiritual enthusiasm.
Sermons may be clever, powerful, convincing,
and yet, unless the Spirit's power be sought, and an
unction from on high be vouchsafed, no spiritual harvest
can be expected. St. Peter's sermon, if viewed from a
human standpoint, could no more have been expected
to succeed than the Master's. The one new element,
however, which now entered into the combination,
explains the difference. The Spirit was now given,
and men therefore hearkened to the servant where
they had turned a deaf ear to the Master. It is a
lesson much needed for our generation, especially in
the case of the young, and of our Sunday-school system.
The religious instruction of youth is much more carefully
looked after than it used to be. Primers, handbooks,
elementary commentaries, catechists' manuals,
are published in profusion, and many think that provided
a Sunday or day school distinguishes itself in the
examination list, which is now the one great educational
test, religious knowledge has been secured. The
contrast between St. Peter's success and our Lord's
failure warns us that there is a vast difference between
religious life and religious knowledge. The most irreligious
people, the most bitter opponents of Christianity,
have been produced by schools and systems where
religious knowledge was literally crammed down the
throats of the children in a hard, mechanical, unloving
style. But let there be no mistake. I do not object to
organised religious instruction. I think, in fact, that
a vast amount of Sunday-school teaching is utterly
worthless for want of such organization. Our Sunday-school
system will, in fact, be thoroughly inefficient, if
not useless, as a system, till every Sunday-school has
its teachers' meeting, presided over by a competent
instructor, who will carefully teach the teachers themselves
in a well-ordered, systematic course. But after
all this has been done, we must still remember that
Christianity is something more than a system of doctrine,
or a Divine scheme of philosophy, which can be worked
up like Aristotle's Ethics or Mill's Logic. Christianity
is a Divine power, a power which must be sought in
faith, in humiliation, and in prayer; and till the Holy
Ghost be duly honoured, and His presence be humbly
sought, the finest system and the most elaborate
organizations will be found devoid of any fruitful life
and vigour.
II. There are many other points of interest in this
passage; let us take them one by one as they offer themselves.
The people, seized by conviction and in acute
pain of conscience, cried out, "What shall we do?"
St. Peter replied, "Repent, and be baptized." Repent
is the Apostle's first rule,—contrasting very strongly
with some modern systems which have been devised on
a plan very different from that of our Lord and of His
Apostles. The preaching of the New Testament is ever
the same. John the Baptist came, and his teaching
was briefly summed up thus, "Repent ye, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." John was removed,
and Christ came. The lamp ceased to shine, and then
the true Light stood revealed; but the teaching was
the same, and the Messiah still proclaims, "Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The system of
teaching to which I refer parries the force of our Lord's
example, as well as of the Baptist's words, by saying,
that was the old dispensation. Till Christ died, the
new covenant did not come into force, and therefore
Christ taught in His public ministry merely as a Jew,
speaking on Jewish grounds to Jews. But let us see
whether such an explanation, which makes void our
Lord's personal teachings and commands, is tenable.
A reference to this passage sufficiently settles this
point. The Master departs and the Spirit is outpoured,
and still the apostolic and inspired teaching
is just the same. The cry of the multitude, "Men
and brethren, what shall we do?" produces, from
the illuminated Apostle, the same response, "Repent,"
coupled with a new requirement, "Be baptized, every
one of you, for the remission of sins." And the same
message has ever since continued to be the basis of all
real spiritual work. Simon Magus is found by St. Peter
with his mind intellectually convinced, but with his
affections untouched and his heart spiritually dead. To
Simon Magus Peter delivers the same message, "Repent
of this thy wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the
thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee." John
Wesley was one of the greatest evangelists that ever
lived and worked for God. During the whole sixty
years of his continuous labours, from the time when he
taught his pupils in Oxford College and the prisoners
in Oxford jail down to the last sermon that he preached,
his ministry and teaching were modelled upon that of
the New Testament,—it was ever a preaching of repentance.
He counted it utterly useless and hopeless to
preach the comforts of the gospel before he had made
men feel and wince beneath the terrors of the law and
the sense of offended justice. Modern times have seen,
however, a strange perversion of the gospel method,
and some have taught that repentance was not to be
urged or even mentioned to Christian congregations.
This is one of the leading points which the Plymouth
Brethren specially press in the course of their destructive
and guerilla-like assaults upon the communions of
reformed Christendom. The apostolic doctrine of repentance
finds no place in their scheme; while again
their teaching on this subject, or something very like
it, is often reproduced, all unconsciously it may be, by
the conductors of those mission services so common
throughout the country. It is as hard now to preserve
a just balance in teaching, as it was in the days of
St. Paul and St. James. It is no easy matter so
to preach repentance as not to discourage the truly
humble soul; so to proclaim God's forgiving love as
not to encourage presumption and carelessness.
I have said, indeed, that the doctrine of the Plymouth
body on this point is a modern one. It is modern,
indeed, when compared with the genuine teaching of
the New Testament; but still it is, in fact, ancient,
for it dates back to the Antinomians, who, two hundred
and fifty years ago, created a great sensation among
the Puritan divines. A brief historical narrative will
prove this. The sermons of Dr. Tobias Crisp and
Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity are books whose
very titles are now forgotten, and yet the diligent
student will there find all those ideas about repentance,
justification, and assurance which are now produced as
marvellous new truths, though reprobated two centuries
ago as earnestly by Churchmen, like Bull, Beveridge,
and Stillingfleet, as by Howe, and Baxter, and Williams
among the Nonconformists and Puritans. The denial
of the necessity for Christian repentance was based, by
the logical Antinomians of the olden time, upon the
theory that Christ bore in His own person the literal
sins of the elect; so that an elect person has nothing
whatsoever to do with his sins save assure himself, by
an act of faith, that his sins were forgiven and rendered
completely non-existent eighteen hundred years ago.
The formula which they delight in and I have heard
used, even by Churchmen, is this: "Believe that you
are saved, and then you are saved." The result of
this teaching in every age, wherever it has appeared,
is not far to seek. The main stress of all Christian
effort is devoted not to the attainment of likeness to
Christ, or that pursuit of holiness without which the
beatific vision of God is impossible. The great point
urged by this party in every age is the supreme
importance of assurance which they identify with
saving faith.This point has been admirably discussed by Dr. Salmon in his
sermon on "Present Salvation" in his volume of sermons styled The
Reign of Law, pp. 295-99.
Therefore it is that they discourage,
aye, and go farther, utterly reject, all teaching of repentance.
The words of one of those old writers puts
the matter in its simplest form. In the reign of
James II. and William III. there arose a great controversy
in London touching this very point. Dr. Williams,
the founder of the well-known library in Grafton Street,
London, was the leader on one side, while the sermons
of Tobias Crisp were the rallying-point on the
other. Williams and Baxter maintained the importance
of repentance and the absolute necessity of good
works for salvation. On the opposite side, the views
and doctrines which we have seen pressed in modern
times were explicitly stated, but with far more fearlessness
and logical power than are ever now used. Here
are a few of the propositions which Dr. Williams felt
himself bound to refute. I shall give them at some
length, that my readers may see how ancient is this
heresy. "The elect are discharged from all their sins
by the act of God laying their sins upon Christ on the
cross, and consequently that the elect upon the death
of Christ ceased to be sinners, and ever since sins
committed by them are none of their sins, they are the
sins of Christ." Again, the Antinomians taught, in
language often still reproduced, "Men have nothing to
do in order to salvation, nor is sanctification a jot the
way of any person to heaven. Nor can the duties and
graces of the elect, nor even faith itself, do them the
least good, or prevent the least evil; while, on the other
hand, the grossest sins which the elect commit cannot
do them the least harm, nor ought they to fear the
least hurt from their own sins." While again, coming
still closer to the point on which we have been insisting,
they declared, according to Dr. Williams, that "the
covenant of grace hath no condition to be performed
on man's part, even though in the strength of Christ.
Neither is faith itself the condition of this covenant,
but all the saving benefits of this covenant actually and
really belong to the elect before they are born, yea,
and even against their will;" while as to the nature of
faith, they taught "that saving faith is nothing else
but our persuasion or absolute concluding within ourselves
that our sins are pardoned, and that Christ is
ours." Hence they derived a dogma of their own,
directly and plainly contradictory of the teaching of
the New Testament on the subject of repentance, "that
Christ is offered to blasphemers, murderers, and the
worst of sinners, that they, remaining ignorant, unconvinced,
and resolved in their purpose to continue such,
may be assured they have a full interest in Christ;
and this by only concluding in their own minds that
Christ is theirs." It is plain to any one fully acquainted
with modern religious thought, that all the special
doctrines of Plymouthism concerning justification, repentance,
and faith, are involved in the statements
which Dr. Williams set himself to refute, and which he
does refute most ably, in works long since consigned to
the oblivion of our great libraries, though well worthy
of careful study amid the troubles of the present age.This controversy between the Antinomian party and the London
Nonconformists of the orthodox sort is now almost unknown, and yet
it created great excitement in religious circles, conformist and nonconformist,
in the time of William III. Bishop Stillingfleet of Worcester,
the aged Baxter, and many of the leading divines, joined in it. The
echoes of it will be found resounding in the more modern controversy
between John Wesley and Fletcher on the one side, and Rowland Hill
and Lady Huntingdon on the other, about the year 1770. A brief
account of Dr. Daniel Williams will be found in Schaft's edition of
Herzog's Cyclopædia; see also Calamy's Life i., 323.
Assurance, a present knowledge of a present salvation,
present peace, these are the only topics pressed upon the
unconverted. If the multitude at Jerusalem had asked
the same question from our modern teachers which
they asked from the Apostles, "Men and brethren, what
shall we do?" the reply would have been, "Do you
know you are saved? If not, believe that you are
saved, believe that Jesus died for you." But not one
of them would have given the apostolic reply, "Repent,
and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost," because the doctrine of repentance and
the value and use of the sacrament of baptism find no
place in this new-fangled scheme.
III. "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins."
These words form the basis of a well-known clause
in the Nicene Creed, which says, "I acknowledge one
baptism for the remission of sins." They suggest in
addition some very important discussions. The position
which baptism occupies in apostolic teaching is
worthy of careful notice. It is pressed upon the multitude
as a present duty, and as the result there were
three thousand persons baptized in that one day. It
was just the same with Cornelius the centurion, and
with the Philippian jailer whom St. Paul converted.
Baptism did not then succeed a long course of preparatory
training and instruction, as now is the case in the
mission field. When men in apostolic times received
the rudiments of the faith, the sacrament of baptism
was administered, as being the channel or door of
admission into Christ's Church; and then, being once
admitted into God's house, it was firmly believed that
the soul's life would grow and develop at a vastly
accelerated rate. A grave question here suggests itself,
whether baptism of converts from paganism is not often
too long delayed? The Apostles evidently regarded
the Church as an hospital where the wounds of the
soul were to be healed, as a Divine school where the
ignorance of the soul was to be dissipated, and therefore
at once admitted the converts to the sacrament
upon the profession of their rudimentary faith. The
Church soon reversed this process, and demanded an
amount of spiritual knowledge and a development of
spiritual life as the conditions of baptism, which should
have been looked for as the result of admission within
her sacred ranks, forgetful of that great missionary law
laid down by the Master Himself, which places baptism
first and teaching afterwards, "Go ye, therefore, and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you." We freely admit that there
may have been a quickened spiritual vitality, a stronger
spiritual life, in the case of the earliest converts, enabling
them in the course of a few hours to attain a spiritual
level which demanded a more prolonged effort on the
part of the later disciples. When we come to the times
of the later apostolic age, and inquire from such a book
as the lately-discovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
what the practice of the Church was then, we see
that experience had taught a more regular, a less
hasty course of action.As some readers may not know what the work called the Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles is, let me explain its history in a few words.
Early Christian writers, from the year A.D. 200, speak of a work called
the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles in the highest terms. It was evidently,
as known by them, a manual used in the catechetical instruction of the
young. This manual was known to all the early ages, but disappeared
from the view of the Western Church during the middle ages. Nearly
twenty years ago it was discovered in Constantinople by the learned
Greek Bishop Bryennios, and published by him about ten years ago. It
is assigned by some critics to the concluding years of the first century.
A convenient and cheap edition of it will be found in the second volume
of the Apostolic Fathers in Griffith and Farran's "Ancient and Modern
Library." It is called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or else the
Didache, using a Greek title, which has the advantage of being shorter.
The law of baptism in the
Didache, as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is
usually called, runs thus: "Now concerning baptism,
thus baptize ye; having first uttered all these things,
baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, in running water. But if thou
hast not running water, baptize in other water; and
if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou
hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the
name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But
before the baptism let the baptizer and the baptized
fast, and whatever others can; but the baptized thou
shalt command to fast for one or two days before."
From these words it is plain that the immediate
baptism of converts had ceased probably with the first
organization of the Church. A pause was instituted
between the first conviction of the truth and the complete
initiation which baptism involved, but not such a
period of delay as the months and even years over
which the preparation for baptism was subsequently
spread. This delay of baptism sprang out of a mistaken
view of this Divine sacrament. Men came to
look on it as a charm, whereby not merely admission
was obtained to the Divine society which our Lord had
founded, but also as bringing with it a complete purgation
from the sins of a careless life. Men postponed
it, therefore, to the very last, so that all sins might
be swept away at once. The Emperor Constantine
was a good example of this mischievous extreme. He
was a man who took a kind of interest in theological
matters. Like our own King James I., he considered
it his duty to settle the religious affairs of his empire,
even as his predecessors had done in the days of
paganism. He presided over Church councils, dictated
Church formularies, and exercised the same control in the
Church as in the State, being all the time unbaptized.
He was scarce aught but a pagan too in disposition
and temper. He retained pagan symbols, titles, and
observances, and imbrued his hands, Herod-like, in the
blood of his own family. Yet he delayed his baptism
to the very last, under the notion that then there could
be thus effected at one stroke the complete removal of
the accumulated sins of a lifetime.
IV. The comparison of the passage just quoted from
the Teaching of the Apostles with the words of my text
suggests other topics. The Plymouth Brethren, at
least in some of their numerous ramifications, and other
sects, have grounded upon the words, "be baptized,
every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ," a tenet
that baptism should not be conferred in the name of
the Trinity, but in that of Jesus alone. It is indeed
admitted that while our Lord commanded the use of
the historic baptismal formula in the concluding words
of St. Matthew's Gospel, the formula itself is never
expressly mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Not
merely on the day of Pentecost, but on several other
occasions, Christian baptism is described as if the Trinitarian
formula was unknown. In the tenth chapter
Cornelius and his household are described as "baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ." In the nineteenth
chapter St. Paul converts a number of the Baptist's
disciples to a fuller and richer faith in Christ. They
were at once "baptized into the name of the Lord
Jesus." But a reference to the newly-discovered
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles explains the difficulty,
offering an interesting example of the manner in which
modern discoveries have helped to illustrate and confirm
the Acts of the Apostles. In the Didache, as in
the Acts, the expression "baptism in the name of the
Lord" is used. The Didache lays down with respect
to the communion, "Let no one eat or drink of your
Eucharist except those baptized into the name of the
Lord." Yet this does not exclude the time-honoured
formula of Christendom. The same apostolic manual
lays down the rule, a little before this prohibition which
we have just quoted, "Baptize into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and then
in the tenth chapter describes baptism thus administered
in the threefold name, as baptism in the name of the
Lord; and thus it was doubtless in the case of the
Acts. For the sake of brevity St. Luke speaks of
Christian baptism as baptism in the name of Christ,
never dreaming at the same time that this was exclusive
of the divinely appointed formula, as certain moderns
have taught. The Acts of the Apostles, and the Didache
prove their primitive character, and show that they
deduce their origin from the same early epoch, because
they both describe Christian baptism as performed
in the name of Christ; and yet this fact does not
exclude, according to either, the use of the threefold
Name. It is evident that, whether in the Acts or
in the Didache, baptism in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost was regarded as baptism
especially in the name of Jesus Christ, because while
the Father and the Spirit were known to the Jews,
the one new element introduced was that of the name
of Jesus, whom God had made both Lord and Christ.
Baptism in the Triune Name was emphatically baptism
in the name of the Lord. This passage, when compared
with the Didache, sheds light on another point.
The mode wherein baptism should be administered
has been a point often discussed. Some have maintained
the absolutely binding and universal character
of immersion; others have stood at the opposite
extreme, and upheld the method of sprinkling. The
Church of England, in union with the ancient Church,
has laid down no hard-and-fast rule on the subject.
She recognises immersion as the normal idea in a
warm Eastern climate, but she allows pouring (not
sprinkling) of water to be substituted for immersion,
which has, as a matter of fact, taken the place
in the Western Church of the more regular and
ancient immersion.The method of sprinkling is completely unknown to the Church
ancient or modern, and should be absolutely rejected, as tending to a
disuse of the element of water at all.
The construction of the ancient
Churches, with their baptisteries surrounded with curtains,
and the female assistants for the service of their
own sex, amply proves that in the ancient Church,
as to this day in the Eastern Church, baptism was
ordinarily administered by immersion. The Church
proved its Eastern origin by the mode wherein its initial
sacrament was at first applied. But it also showed its
power of adaptation to Western nations by allowing
the alternative of pouring water when she dealt with the
needs of a colder climate. Yet from the beginning the
Church cannot have made the validity of her sacraments
depend upon the quantity of water that was
used. Take the cases reported in the Acts of the
Apostles, or the rules prescribed in the apostolic
manual, the Didache. In the latter it is expressly said
that pouring with water shall suffice if a larger quantity
is not at hand. On the day of Pentecost it was clearly
impossible to immerse three thousand persons in the
city of Jerusalem. The Ethiopian eunuch baptized by
St. Philip in the wilderness could not have been immersed.
He came to a stream trickling along, scarce
sufficient to lave his feet, or perhaps rather to a well
in the desert; the water was deep down, and reached
only, as in the case of Jacob's well, by a rope or
chain. Even if the water could have been reached,
common sense, not to speak of any higher motive,
would have forbidden the pollution of an element so
needful for human life. The baptism of the eunuch
must have been by pouring or affusion, as must also
have been the case with the Philippian jailer. The
difficulties of the case are forgotten when people
insist that immersion must necessarily have been the
universal rule in ancient times.The case of Perpetua and Felicitas, and the other famous martyrs of
Carthage in the beginning of the third century, proves that pouring
with water must have sufficed for baptism in a Church so intensely
conservative as the Church of North Africa. Tertullian in his
writings often reproves its members for the superstitious extremes
to which they pushed their conservative feelings, imitating every
ancient Christian custom, rational or irrational. Felicitas and her
friends were baptized in prison, where they were thrust into a
noisome dungeon. How could they have been immersed in such
a place? This case is good evidence for the practice of the second
century as well.
Men and women
were baptized separately, deaconesses officiating in the
case of the women. When immersion was used the
men descended naked, or almost so, into the baptistery,
which was often a building quite separate and
distinct from the church, with elaborate arrangements
for changing garments.See the articles on Baptism and Baptistery in Smith and Cheetham's
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. i.
The Church, in the days of
earliest freedom and purity, left her children free in
those points of minor detail, refusing to hamper
herself or limit her usefulness by a restriction which
would have equally barred entrance to her fold in the
burning deserts or in the ice-bound regions of the
frozen north, where baptism by immersion would have
been equally impossible.
Again, the extent of the baptismal commission is indicated
in this passage. "Make disciples of all the nations
by baptism" are the words of our Lord. "Be baptized,
every one of you, for the promise is to you and to your
children, and to all that are afar off," is St. Peter's
application of this passage. St. Peter's language
admits of various interpretations. Like much of Scripture,
the speaker, when uttering these words, meant
probably one thing, while the words themselves mean
something much wider, more catholic and universal.
When Peter spake thus he proclaimed the world-wide
character of Christianity, just as when he quoted the
prophet Joel's language he declared the mission of the
Comforter in its most catholic aspect, embracing Gentiles
as well as Jews. "I will pour out My Spirit upon all
flesh." But St. Peter never thought of the full scope
of his words. He meant, doubtless, that the promise
of pardon, and acceptance, and citizenship in the
heavenly kingdom was to those Jews that were
present in Jerusalem, and to their children, and to all
of the Jews of the dispersion scattered afar off amid
the Gentiles. Had Peter thought otherwise, had he
perceived the wider meaning of his words, he would
have had no hesitation about the reception of the
Gentiles, and the baptism of Cornelius would not have
demanded a fresh revelation.
We often, indeed, invest the Apostles and the writers
of Holy Scripture with an intellectual grasp of a supernatural
kind, which prevents us recognising that growth
in Divine knowledge which found place in them, as it
found place in the Divine Master Himself. We silently
vote them infallible on every topic, because the Spirit's
presence was abundantly vouchsafed. The inspiration
they enjoyed guided their language, and led them to
use words which, while expressing their own sentiments,
admitted a deeper meaning and embraced a
wider scope than the speaker intended. It was just
the same with the Apostles' words as with their conduct
in other respects. The presence and inspiration of
the Spirit did not make them sinless, did not destroy
human infirmities. It did not destroy St. Peter's moral
cowardice, or St. Paul's hot temper, or St. Barnabas's
family partiality and nepotism; and neither did that
presence illumine at once St. Peter's natural prejudices
and intellectual backwardness, which led him long to
restrain the mercies and lovingkindness of the Lord to
His ancient people, though here on the day of Pentecost
we find him using language which plainly included
the Gentiles as well as the Jews within the covenant
of grace. A farther question concerning the language
of St. Peter here arises. Do not his words indicate
that children were fit subjects for baptism? Do they
not justify the practice of infant baptism? I honestly
confess that, apart from the known practice of the Jews,
St. Peter's language would not necessarily mean so
much. But then when we take the known practice of
the Jews into consideration; when we remember that
St. Peter was speaking to a congregation composed of
Jews of the dispersion, accustomed, in their own missionary
work among the heathen, to baptize children as
well as adults, we must admit that, in the absence of
any prohibition to the contrary, the effect of the words
of St. Peter upon his hearers must have been this;
they would have acted when Christians as they had
already done as Jews, and baptized proselytes of every
age and condition on their admission to the Christian
fold. (See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., St. Matt. iii. 6.)
V. Such was St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost.
The results of it in the unity of doctrine and
discipline and the community of goods will come before
us in subsequent chapters. One thought stands out
prominent as we survey this second chapter. Here in
very deed we find an ample fulfilment of our Lord's
promise to St. Peter which has been so completely
misused and misunderstood, "I will give unto thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" a passage which
has been made one of the scriptural foundations of the
monstrous claims of the See of Rome to an absolute
supremacy alike over the Christian Church and over
the individual conscience. In this respect, however,
Scripture is its own best interpreter. Just reflect how
it is in this matter. Christ first of all defines, in the
celebrated series of parables related in the thirteenth of
St. Matthew, what the kingdom of heaven is. It is
the kingdom He had come to reveal, the society He
was establishing, the Church and dispensation of which
He is the Head and Chief. To St. Peter he gave the
keys, or power of opening the doors, of this kingdom;
and this office St. Peter duly executed. He opened
the door of the kingdom of heaven to the Jews on
the day of Pentecost, and to the Gentiles by the conversion
and baptism of Cornelius. St. Peter himself
recognised on one occasion the special Providence
which watched over him in this matter. He points
out, in his speech to the brethren gathered at the
first council held at Jerusalem, that "a good while
ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth
the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel;" a
passage which seems a reminiscence of the earlier
promise of Christ, which Peter must have so well
remembered, and a humble recognition of the glorious
fulfilment which that promise had received at the Divine
hand.See Dr. John Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ, St. Matt. xvi. 19.
The promise was a purely personal one peculiar
to St. Peter, as purely personal as the revelation made
to him on the housetop at Joppa, and as such received
a complete fulfilment in the Church's infant days. But
Rome's vaulting ambition would not be content with the
fulfilment which satisfied St. Peter himself, and on this
text has been built up a series of claims which, culminating
in the celebrated traffic in indulgences, precipitated
the great revolution involved in the German Reformation.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST MIRACLE.
"Now Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of
prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man that was lame from
his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the door of
the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered
into the temple; who seeing Peter and John about to go into the
temple, asked to receive an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon
him, with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them,
expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, Silver and
gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk."—Acts iii. 1-6.
The Acts of the Apostles considered as the first
history of the Church may be viewed as typical of
all ecclesiastical history. It is in this respect a microcosm
wherein, on a small scale, we see represented the
triumphs and the mistakes, the strength and the weakness,
of God's elect people throughout the ages. Thus
in the incident before us, embracing the whole of the
third chapter and the greater portion of the fourth,
we have set forth a victory of the Apostles, their
subsequent persecution, together with the blessing and
strength vouchsafed in and through that persecution.
The time of these events cannot be fixed with any
great exactness. They occurred probably within a few
weeks or months of the day of Pentecost. That is
the nearest we can approach to a precise date. There
seems indeed to have been a pause after the excitement
and success of Pentecost, and for this we think
that we can see a good reason. The Apostles must
have had plenty to do with the vast multitude gathered
upon the day of Pentecost, striving to lead them into
a fuller knowledge of the faith. We are apt to
imagine at first sight that supernatural enlightenment
was vouchsafed to these earliest converts, superseding
any necessity for careful and patient instruction, so
that upon their baptism the whole work was completed.
But when we reflect upon other cases in
the New Testament, we can easily see that the three
thousand souls converted by St. Peter's speech must
have needed and received a great deal of teaching.
The Church of Corinth was one of St. Paul's own
founding, and upon it he lavished careful attention for
a year and a half; yet we see from his Epistles to the
Corinthians how much guidance was needed by them
even in elementary questions of morals, how rapidly
the Church fell into grossest licence when deprived
of his personal ministrations. Theophilus again, to
whom the Acts were addressed by St. Luke, is reminded,
in the preface of the Gospel, of the catechetical
instruction in Christian truth which he had received.The apostolic manual called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
to which we have already referred, proves that the Church of the
Apostles' day required catechisms and introductory formularies just as
much as we do.
Assuredly, then, the small band of the twelve Apostles
and their few male assistants must have had their
hands full enough for many weeks after Pentecost,
endeavouring to give their converts such an insight
into the great principles of the faith as would enable
them to carry back to their various distant homes a
competent knowledge of the laws and doctrines of the
new dispensation. A few moments' reflection will
show that the newly-baptized had much to learn about
Christ,—the facts of His life, His doctrines, sacraments,
the constitution of His Church, and the position
allotted to the Apostles,—before they could be considered
sufficiently rooted and grounded in the faith.
And if this was so with converts from Judaism, then
how much more must such careful instruction after
baptism have been found needful in the case of the
Gentiles when the time came for their admission?
Much preparatory work had been done for the Jews
by their Old Testament training. They had not much
to learn from the Apostles in practical morality; they
had a right conception of God, His character, and His
service. But as for the Pagans, their whole intellectual
and spiritual life, all their notions and conceptions
about God, and life, and morals, were all hopelessly
wrong. The Apostles and the earliest teachers had
then, and missionaries amongst the heathen have still,
to make a clearance of the whole pagan ground, laying
a new foundation, and erecting thereon a new structure,
intellectual, moral, and spiritual. St. Paul recognised
the vast importance of such diligent pastoral work and
catechetical training after baptism when writing his
pastoral Epistles, because bitter experience had taught
him their value. At Corinth for more than two years,
and at Ephesus for three years, he had laboured diligently
in building up his converts. And notwithstanding
all his exertions, how quickly the Corinthians fell
away into pagan habits of unbridled licence as soon
as he left them! The Acts of the Apostles by this
pause in evangelistic work which we here trace, strikes
a note of warning concerning the future missionary
work of the Church, speaking clearly about the necessity
of diligent pastoral care, and prophesying of the
certain relapses into wild excesses which may be
expected to occur among those who have only been
just rescued from the mire of paganism. This is one
explanation of the pause in apostolic work we here
seem to perceive.
Again, the analogy of the faith, the laws of human
nature, suggest the need of a period of restful calm after
the Pentecostal excitement, and previous to any new
and successful advance. So it has been in God's
dealing in the past. The excitement connected with
the first attempts made by Moses to rescue his people
was followed by the forty years' exile in Midian, which
again led to their triumphant rescue from bondage.
Elijah's victory over Jezebel and her idol priests was
followed by the retreat of forty days to Horeb. The
excitement of our Lord's baptism was succeeded by the
forty days' fast in the wilderness. The human mind
cannot be ever on the strain. Excitement must be
followed by repose, or else the course of action adopted
will be hurried, imperfect, transient in its results. The
works of God in nature are never such. As a modern
poet has nobly sung:—
"One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee;
One lesson which in every wind is blown;
One lesson of two duties kept at one,
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity;—
Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity;
Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry."Sonnet by Matthew Arnold on Rural Work.
There is great calm and dignity in nature; and there
was great calm and dignity in grace when God was
laying the foundations of His kingdom by the hands
of His Apostles. There never was an age which
more needed this lesson of nature and grace alike
than this nineteenth century.This line of thought has been already touched upon in Lect. IV.,
pp. 61-3.
The religion of the
age has been infected by the Spirit of the world, and
men think that the fortresses of sin and ignorance will
fall, provided there be used a sufficient quantity of
noise, of puffing, and of excitement. I do not wish
to find the slightest fault with energetic action. The
Church of Christ has been in the past perhaps a little
too dignified in its methods and operations. It has
hesitated, where St. Paul never would have hesitated, to
adapt itself to changed circumstances, and has ofttimes
refused, like a timorous lawyer, to venture on some new
and untried sphere because there was no precedent.
The Reformers and their first followers were an illustration
of this. The utter lack of missionary spirit and
effort among the Reformers is one of the darkest blots
upon their history. How sadly they contrast with the
Jesuit Society, which started into existence at the same
period of the world's history. No one is more keenly
alive to the faults and shortcomings of that world-renowned
Society than I am, yet I heartily admire the
energy and devotion with which, from its earliest days,
the Society of Jesus flung itself into missionary work,
endeavouring to repair the losses which the Papacy
sustained in Europe by fresh conquests in India, China,
and America. The Reformers were so busy in bitter
controversies among themselves, and so intent upon endeavouring
to fathom God's decrees and purposes, that
they forgot the primary duty of the Church to spread
the light and truth which it has received; they were
deficient in Christian energy, and thus brought upon
themselves the blight and curse of spiritual barrenness.
Controversy evermore brings with it the desolation of
spiritual leanness. Men cease to really believe in a
religion which they only know upon paper, and only
think of as a thing to be discussed. Living contact
with human souls and human wants saves religion,
because it translates it from a mere dead dogma into
a living fact. A man who has come to doubt doctrinal
statements which he has never verified, will be brought
back to faith by the irresistible evidence of sinful lives
changed and broken hearts comforted.
The Church of England has again and again manifested
this spirit. In Ireland she refused to give the
nation the Liturgy and the Bible in the Irish tongue.
In Wales she hesitated in condescending to vulgar
wants, and long refused to bestow a native episcopate
upon the Celts of England, because the evil tradition
of centuries, down from the age of the Norman conquest,
had ordained that no Welshman should be a
bishop. But still, while I am opposed to the Church
binding itself in fetters of that kind, I am equally of
opinion that there is a middle course between dignified
idleness and extravagant carnal sensationalism.
I have heard efforts advocated for home missionary
work which, I am sure, would never have met with the
approbation of the first missionaries of the Cross. The
Church must be energetic, but the Church need not
adopt the methods of quack medicine-sellers, or of the
strolling circus. Such methods were not unknown in
the primitive ages of the Church.
The preachers of the stoic philosophy strove in the
second century to counteract the efforts of the Christian
Church by reforming paganism, and by preaching it
vigorously. They adopted every means to attract the
public attention and interest—eccentricity, vulgarity,
coarseness; and yet they failed, and were defeated by
a society which trusted, not in human devices and carnal
forces, but in the supernatural power of God the Holy
Ghost.This episode in the history of paganism in the second century is
very little known. It has been well depicted in an interesting little
book, The Age of the Antonines, by the Rev. W. W. Capes, M.A.,
which only costs a couple of shillings. Chap. VIII. should specially
be consulted.
The Montanists again, towards the close of the
second century, fell into the same error. The Montanists
are in many respects one of the most interesting
of the early Christian sects. They tried to retain the
customs and the spirit of apostolic Christianity, but they
mistook the true methods of action. They confounded
physical excitement with spiritual fervour, and strove
by weird dances and strange cries, borrowed from the
pagans of the Phrygian mountains, to bind to themselves
the sweet influences of the Heavenly Comforter.
The Church of that period diligently avoided the error
of pagan stoics and of Christian schismatics. As it
was in the second century, so was it just after Pentecost.
The Church followed close upon its Master's
footsteps, of whom it was said, "He shall not strive
nor cry, neither shall any man hear His voice in the
streets," and developed in quietness and retirement the
spiritual life of the thousands who had crowded into
the door of faith which Peter had opened.
Again there is a lesson in this period of pause and
seclusion, not merely for the Church in its corporate
capacity, but for individual souls. The spirit of interior
sanctity is nourished most chiefly during such
times of retirement and obscurity. Obscurity has
indeed many advantages when viewed from the standpoint
of the spiritual life. Publicity and high station
and multiplicity of affairs bring with them many disadvantages.
They deprive us of that peace and calm
which enable a man to contrast the things of time
with those of eternity, and to value them in their true
light. Over-activity, fussiness, even in the most
spiritual matters, is a dire enemy of true heart belief,
and therefore of true strength of spirit. The Master
Himself felt it so. There were many coming and
going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
Then it was He said, "Come ye into the desert, that
ye may rest awhile." The excitement and strain of
Pentecost, and all the subsequent efforts which Pentecost
entailed, must have told seriously upon the
Apostles, and so they imitated the Master, that they
might renew their exhausted vigour at its primal
fountain. How many a man, busy in missions, or
preaching, or the thousand other forms which evangelistic
and religious work now takes, would be infinitely
better if this apostolic lesson were duly learned.
How many a terrible scandal has arisen simply from
a disregard and contempt for it. If men will think
they can labour, as this passage shows the Apostles
could not, without thought and reflection, and interior
communion with God; if they will spend all their
strength in external effort and never make time and
secure seasons for spiritual replenishment, they may
create much noise for a time, but their toil will be
fruitless, and if they are saved themselves it will only
be as by fire.
The period of retirement and obscurity came however
to an end at last. The Apostles never intended to form
an order purely contemplative. Such an idea, in fact,
never could have entered into the mind of one of those
early Christians. They remembered that their Master
had expressly said, "Ye are the salt of the earth," and
salt is useless if kept stored up in a vessel by itself,
and never applied to any object where its curative
properties might have free scope. When the spirit of
Eastern gnosticism, springing from the dualism of
Persia, invaded the Church, and gained a permanent
hold within it, then men began to despise their bodies
and life, and all that life entails. Like Eastern fanatics,
they desired to abstract themselves as much as possible
from the things and duties of the present, and they
invented, or rather adopted from the farther East, purely
contemplative orders, which spent useless lives, striving,
like their prototypes of India, to rise superior to the
positions which God had assigned them. Such were
not the Apostles. They used rest, contemplation, they
did not abuse them; and when their tone and power
was restored, they issued forth again upon the field of
religious activity, and joined in the public worship of
the crowd. "Peter and John went up together into
the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour."
The action of Peter and John in thus frequenting
the temple worship gives us a glimpse into the
state of feeling and thought which prevailed then and
for a great many years after in the Church of Jerusalem.
The Church of that city naturally clung longest of all
to the old Jewish connection. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical
History (iv. 5), tells us that the first fifteen
bishops of Jerusalem were Hebrews, and that all the
members of the Church were Hebrews too. It was
only, in fact, upon the final destruction of Jerusalem,
which happened under Hadrian, after the rebellion of
Barcochba, A.D. 135, that the Church of Jerusalem
shook itself completely free from the trammels of
Judaism.See the article on Barcochba in the Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. i.
But in those earliest days of the Church the Apostles
naturally could not recognise the course of the Divine
development. They cherished the notion that Judaism
and Christianity would be found compatible the one
with the other. They had not yet recognised what
St. Stephen first of all, and then St. Paul, and most
chiefly the author of the Hebrews, came to recognise,
that Judaism and Christianity as full-blown systems
were absolutely antagonistic; that the Jewish dispensation
was obsolete, antiquated, and must utterly and
for ever fade before a nobler dispensation that was
once for all to take its place. It is hard for us to
realize the feelings of the Apostles at this great
transition epoch, and yet it is well for us to do so,
because their conduct is full of lessons specially
suited for seasons of transition. The Apostles never
seem to me more clearly under the direction of the
Divine Spirit than in their whole course of action at
this time. They proceeded in faith, but not in haste.
They held firmly to the truths they had gained, and
they waited patiently upon God, till the course of His
providence showed them how to co-ordinate the old
system with the new truths,—until He had taught them
what parts of the ancient covenant should be dropped
and what retained. Their conduct has instruction very
suitable for the present age, when God is giving His
Church fresh light on many a question through the
investigations of science. Well, indeed, will it be for
Christian people to have their hearts grounded, as
the Apostles' were, in a spirit of Divine love, knowing
personally in whom they have believed; and then, strong
in that inner revelation of God to the spirit, which
surpasses in might and power all other evidences, they
may patiently wait the evolution of His purposes.
The prophetic declaration is true for every age, "He
that believeth will not make haste."
The circumstances of the first apostolic miracle were
simple enough. Peter and John were going up into the
temple at the hour of the evening sacrifice. They
were entering the temple by the gate well known to all
dwellers at Jerusalem as the Beautiful Gate, and there
they met the cripple whom they healed in the name and
by the power of Jesus of Nazareth. The spot where
this miracle was performed was familiar to the Jews of
that day, though its precise locality is still a matter of
controversy. Some hold that this Beautiful Gate was
one described by Josephus in his Wars of the Jews
(v. 5, 3) as surpassingly splendid, being composed
of Corinthian brass, and called the Gate of Nicanor.
Others think that it was the gate Shushan, which
stood in the neighbourhood of Solomon's Porch; while
others identify it with the gate Chulda, which led into
the Court of the Gentiles. It was most probably the
first of these which was situated on the eastern side
of the outermost court of the temple, looking towards
the valley of Kedron.See Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ, Acts iii. 2. De Voguë in his
great work on the Temple of Jerusalem, fully gives the traditions which
attached themselves to this gate. In the fourth century it was celebrated
by the Christian poet Prudentius, and in the fifth or sixth a gate called
the Golden Gate was erected on its site. This gate still remains, and
De Voguë in his plates vii. to xii. gives a series of views of it.
Here was gathered a crowd of
beggars, such as then frequented the temples of the
pagans as well as of the Jews, and such as still throng
the approaches of Eastern and many Western churches.
Out of this crowd one man addressed Peter and John,
asking an alms. This man was well known to the
regular worshippers in the temple. He was a cripple,
and one long accustomed to haunt the same spot, for
he was above forty years old. Peter replied to his
prayer in the well-known words, "Silver and gold
have I none: but what I have, that give I thee. In
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk;" and
then he performed one of the few miracles ascribed
to the direct action of St. Peter. Here it may be asked,
Why was this miracle of healing the cripple at the
temple gate the only one recorded of those earliest
signs and wonders wrought by apostolic hands? The
answer seems to be threefold: this miracle was typical
of the Church's future work; it was the occasion of
St. Peter's testimony before the Sanhedrin; and it led
up to the first persecution which the Jewish authorities
raised against the Church.
Viewing the Acts of the Apostles as a type of what
all Church history was to be, and a Divine exposition
of the principles which should guide the Church in
times of suffering as well as in times of action, we can
see good and solid reasons for the insertion of this
particular narrative. First, then, this miracle was
typical of the Church's work, for it was a beggar that
was healed, and this beggar lay helpless and hopeless
at the very doors of the temple. The beggar typified
humanity at large. He was laid, indeed, in a splendid
position,—before him was extended the magnificent
panorama of hills which stood round about Jerusalem;
above him rose the splendours of the building upon
which the Herods had lavished the riches and wonders
of their gorgeous conceptions,—but he was nothing the
better for all this material grandeur till touched by the
power which lay in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
And the beggar of the Beautiful Gate was in all these
respects the fittest object for St. Peter's earliest public
miracle, because he was exactly typical of mankind's
state. Humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, lay at the
very gate of God's temple of the universe. Men could
discourse learnedly, too, concerning that sanctuary, and
they could admire its beauteous proportions. Poets,
philosophers, and wise men had treated of the temple of
the universe in works which can never be surpassed,
but all the while they lay outside its sacred precincts.
They had no power to stand up and enter in, leaping,
and walking, and praising God. It is very important,
in this age of material civilization and of intellectual
advance, that the Church should insist vigorously upon
the great truth taught by this miracle. The age of
the Incarnation must have seemed to the men of that
time the very acme of civilization and of knowledge;
and yet the testimony of all history and of all literature
is that just then mankind was in the most deplorable
state of moral and spiritual degradation. The witness
of St. Paul in the first chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans is amply borne out by the testimony, conscious
and unconscious, of pagan antiquity. A writer of the
last century, now to a great extent forgotten, Dr.
Leland by name, investigated this point in the fullest
manner in his great work on the necessity of a Divine
revelation, demonstrating that mankind, even when
highly civilized, educated, cultured, lies like a beggar
at the door of the temple, till touched by the hand and
power of the Incarnate God.
This miracle of healing the beggar was typical of the
Church's work again, because it was a beggar who thus
received a blessing when the Church roused itself to
the discharge of its great mission. The first man
healed and benefited by St. Peter was a poor man,
and the Church's work has ever led her to deal with
the poor, and to interest herself most keenly in their
well-being. This first miracle is typical of Christian
work, because Christianity is essentially the religion of
the masses. At times, indeed, Christian teachers may
have seemed to rank themselves on the side of power
and riches alone; but then men should take good
care to distinguish between the inconsistent conduct
of Christian teachers and the essential principles of
Christianity. The founder of Christianity was a carpenter,
and its earliest benediction pronounced the
blessedness of those that are poor in spirit, and ever
since the greatest triumphs of Christianity have been
gained amongst the poor. Christian hagiology, Christian
legend, and Christian history alike, have combined
to attest this truth. The Church calendar is decorated
with lists of saints, some of them of very doubtful character,
while others of them have stories connected
with their careers full of meaning and rich with lessons
for this generation. Thus, for instance, October 25th
is the feast of a martyr, St. Crispin, from whom the
great trade of shoemakers is designated. "The sons of
St. Crispin" is a title going back to the earliest ages
of the Church's love. St. Crispin was a Roman senator,
brought up and nourished amid all that luxury with
which pagan Rome surrounded the children of the
highest classes. Crispin became acquainted with the
faith of the followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth amid
the dire persecutions which marked the final struggle
between Christianity and paganism under the Emperor
Diocletian during the earliest years of the fourth century.
He was baptized, and feeling that a life of gilded idleness
was inconsistent with his Master's example, he
resigned his place, position, and property, retired into
Gaul, and there devoted himself to the trade of shoemaking,
as being one which could be exercised in great
quietness. Manual toil was at that time considered an
occupation fitted only for slaves, for we ought never to
forget that the dignity of labour is no human invention,
nor is it part of the religions of nature. Nay, rather,
the dignity of idleness was the doctrine of Greek and
Roman paganism. St. Crispin recognized the great law
of labour taught by Christ and taught by His Apostles,
and became the most successful of shoemakers, preaching
at the same time the gospel with such success that
the persecutors selected him as one of their earliest
victims in that district of Gaul where he resided.The story of St. Crispin is told at length by the Bollandists in the
Acta Sanctorum for October, vol. xi., pp. 495 to 540. St. Chrysostom
in one of his orations paints a vigorous picture of two imaginary cities,
one where all the people were rich, with an abundance of slaves, and
therefore dependent on others for all the necessaries and conveniences
of life; the other city inhabited by none but poor freemen, where everyone
laboured at manual toil and provided for his wants by his own
exertions. He then asks which is the happier; unhesitatingly giving
the palm to the city of poverty, labour, and freedom.
It
has been just the same in every age. The true power
of the Church has been ever displayed in preaching the
gospel to the children of toil. An interesting example
of this may be gathered from an age which we are apt
to think specially dark. In mediæval times the secular or
parochial clergy became very lax and careless throughout
these islands. The mendicant friars, the followers
of St. Francis, came and settled everywhere in the
slums of the great towns, devoting themselves to the
work of preaching to the poor. And they speedily
attained a marvellous power over men. The Franciscans
in the thirteenth century were exactly like the
early Methodists in the last century. Both societies
placed their chapels among the abodes of want; there
they laboured, and there they triumphed, because they
worked in the spirit and power indicated by this first
recorded miracle of the beggar healed at the temple
gate.The analogy I have drawn between the early Methodists and the
Franciscans will be amply borne out if one will take the trouble, in any
of our large towns, to notice where the Franciscans have left traces of
their existence. The name Francis Street and the ruins of Franciscan
foundations will almost always be found just outside the original walls,
among the slums of the people. This point is noticed by Mr. Brewer
in his interesting introduction to the Monumenta Franciscana, in the
Rolls Series. He says, on p. xvii, "In London, York, Warwick,
Oxford, Bristol, Lynn, and elsewhere, the Franciscan convents stood in
the suburbs and abutted on the city walls. They made choice of the
low, swampy, and undrained spots in the large towns, amongst the
poorest and most neglected quarters." The Franciscans proved that
splendid material structures are not necessary for great spiritual triumphs.
An investigation of the topography of our older towns would show
exactly the same great truth about early Methodist chapels. They
were almost always placed in poor localities, as the name of Preaching
Lane, often still connected with them, shows. See my Ireland and the
Anglo-Norman Church, pp. 331-34, for more on this point.
It will be a bad day for religion and for society
when the Church ceases to be the Church and champion
of the weak, the down-trodden, the destitute. Here,
however, lies a danger. Its work in this direction must
be done in no one-sided spirit. Christianity must never
adopt the language or the tone of the mere agitator. I
fear that some who now pose as specially the champions
of the poor are missing that spirit of mental balance and
fairness which will alone enable them to be Christian
champions, because seeking to do justice unto all men.
It is easy enough to flatter any class, rich or poor;
and it is specially tempting to do so when the class so
flattered chances to hold the reins of political power.
It is very hard to render to all their due, shrinking
not from telling the truth, even when unpleasant, and
reproving the faults of those whose side we favour. A
Christianity which triumphs through appeals to popular
prejudices, and seeks a mere temporary advantage by
riding on the crest of popular ignorance, is not the
religion taught by Christ and His Apostles.
But yet, again, the conversion of this beggar was
effected through his healing; and here we see a type
of the Church's future work. The Church, then, as
represented by the Apostles, did not despise the body,
or regard efforts after bodily blessing beneath its
dignity. Spiritual work went hand in hand with healing
power. This has been a lesson which Christian
people, at home and abroad, have been slow enough to
learn. The whole principle, for instance, of medical
missions is covered by this action on the part of the
Apostles. For a long time the Church thought it was
its solitary duty to preach the gospel by word of mouth,
and it has only been in comparatively modern days that
men have learned that one of the most powerful means
of preaching the gospel was the exercise of the healing
art; for surely if the gift of healing, conveyed from
God by supernatural means, could be an effective help
towards evangelistic work, the same gift of healing,
conveyed from precisely the same source by natural
channels indeed, but channels none the less truly Divine,
can still be effective to the same great end. The
Church should count no human interest beyond its
sway, and should take the keenest interest and claim
a living share in every portion of life's work. At home
or abroad the bodies of men are her care as well as
their souls, because bodies as well as souls have been
redeemed by Jesus Christ, and both alike await their
perfection and glorification through Jesus Christ.
Schools, hospitals, sanitary and medical science, the
dwellings and amusements of the people, trade, commerce,
all should be the care of the Church, and
should be based on Christ's law, and carried out on
Christian principles. The Incarnation of Christ has
given a deeper meaning than he ever dreamt of to the
pagan poet's words,—
"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."
We think, furthermore, that this miracle has been
divinely recorded because it was the occasion of St.
Peter's testimony both to the people and to their rulers.
Let us strive to realize the circumstances and the
locality. Peter and John, going up to the temple, met
this impotent beggar at the entrance to the Court of the
Women, into which the Beautiful Gate led. Our modern
notions about churches confuse all true conceptions concerning
the temple. The vast majority of people, when
they think of the temple, form to themselves an idea
of a vast cathedral, when they ought instead to think
of a large college, with square succeeding square and
court following court. As Peter and John ascended
the temple hill they came first to the Court of the
Gentiles, which served as a market, and in which a
crowd of mendicants were assembled to solicit alms.
Out of this Court of the Gentiles the Beautiful Gate
led into the Court of the Women, which was reserved
for the ordinary religious offices of the Jewish people.See Lightfoot on the Court of the Women in his Chorography of the
Holy Land, chap. xix. in his Works, vol. ii., p. 29. The best modern description
will be found in Count de Voguë's Le Temple de Jérusalem,
pp. 53-6 (Paris, 1864), with which may be compared a paper on the site
of the Temple by Colonel Warren in the Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archæology, vol. vii., pp. 308-30.
One of the beggars addressed the Apostles, soliciting a
gift; whereupon the Apostles worked the miracle of
healing. Upon this a crowd collected, attracted by the
excited conduct of the man who had received such an
unexpected blessing. They ran together after the
manner of all crowds which assemble so easily and so
rapidly in a city, and then, hurrying into the cloister,
called Solomon's Porch, which was a remnant of the
ancient temple, heard the address of St. Peter. It must
have been a spot filled with cherished memories for the
Apostle. Every Jew naturally venerated this cloister,
because it was Solomon's; just as men in the grandest
modern cathedral still love to point out the smallest
relic of the original structure out of which the modern
building grew. At San Clemente, in Rome, the priests
delight to show the primitive structure where they
say St. Clement ministered about the year A.D. 100.In the new edition of Clement of Rome, by Bishop Lightfoot, vol. i.,
pp. 92, 93, there is an account of this ancient church.
At York the vergers will indicate far down in the
crypt the fragments of the earliest Saxon church, which
once stood where that splendid cathedral now rears
its lofty arches. So, too, the Jews naturally cherished
this link of continuity between the ancient and the
modern temples. But for St. Peter this Solomon's Porch
must have had special memories over and above the
patriotic ideas that were linked with it. He could not
forget that the very last feast of the Dedication which
the Master had seen on earth, He walked in this porch,
and there in His conversation with the Jews claimed
an equality with the Father which led them to make
an attempt on His life.
Here, then, it was that within twelve months the
Apostle Peter makes a similar claim on his Master's
behalf, in a discourse which extends from the twelfth to
the twenty-sixth verse of the third chapter. That discourse
has two distinct divisions. It sets forth, first the
claims, dignity, and nature of Christ, and then makes
a personal appeal to the men of Jerusalem. St. Peter
begins his sermon with an act of profound self-renunciation.
When the Apostle saw the people running
together, he answered and said, "Ye men of Israel, why
marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us,
as though by our own power or holiness we made this
man to walk?" The same spirit of renunciation
appears at an earlier stage of the miracle. When the
beggar solicited an alms, Peter said, "Silver and gold
have I none: but what I have, that give I thee. In the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." One point is
at once manifest when St. Peter's conduct is compared
with his Master's under similar circumstances. St. Peter
acts as a delegate and a servant; Jesus Christ acted as
a principal, a master,—the Prince of Life, as St. Peter
calls Him in the fifteenth verse of this third chapter.
The distinction between the miracles of Christ and the
miracles of the Apostles declares the New Testament
conception of Christ's dignity and person. Compare,
for instance, the narrative of the healing of the impotent
man at the Pool of Bethesda, told in the fifth chapter of
St. John, with that of the healing of the impotent man
laid at the temple gate. Christ said, "Rise, take up
thy bed, and walk." He made no appeal, He used no
prayer, He invoked no higher name. He simply spake
and it was done. The Apostle Peter, the rock-man,
the leader of the apostolic band, takes the greatest
care to assure the multitude that he had himself neither
power nor efficacy in this matter, and that all the power
lay in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Now,
leaving aside for the moment any question of the truth
or reality of these two miracles, is it not manifest
from these two parallel cases that the New Testament
writings place Jesus Christ on an exalted standpoint
far above that of any human being whatsoever; in a
position, in fact, which from the boldness and magnificence
of its claims can only be fitly described in the
language of the Nicene Creed as "God of God, Light
of Light, Very God of very God."
St. Peter's words teach another lesson. They are
typical of the spirit which should ever animate the
Christian preacher or teacher. They turn the attention
of his hearers wholly away from himself, and
exalt Christ Jesus alone. And such has ever been and
ever must be the secret of successful preaching. Self-consciousness,
in fact, injures the effect of any kind of
labour. The man who does not lose himself in his work,
of whatever kind—political, philanthropic, or religious—his
work may be, but is ever thinking of himself and
the results of his actions upon his own prospects, can
never become an enthusiast; and it is only enthusiasm
and enthusiastic action which can really affect mankind.
And surely the preacher of Christian truth who thinks of
himself rather than of the great subject of his mission,
who only preaches that he may be thought clever or
eloquent, debases the Christian pulpit, and must be an
awful failure in that day when God shall judge the secrets
of men by Jesus Christ. St. Peter here, John the
Baptist in still earlier days, ought to be the models for
Christian teachers. Men came to the Baptist, did him
homage, yielded him respect; but he pointed them from
himself to Christ. He was a lamp, but Christ was the
light; and the Baptist's teaching reached its highest,
noblest level when he turned his disciples' gaze away
from himself, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world." Let me, however,
not be mistaken. I do not mean to say that a Christian
teacher, whether writer or speaker, should never allow
a single reflex thought as to his own performances to
rise in his mind, should never desire to preach ably or
eloquently. A man who could set up such a standard
must be ignorant of human nature and of Scripture
alike. One cannot, for instance, read St. Paul's Second
Epistle to the Corinthians without noting how sorely he
was touched by his own unpopularity amongst them
and the successful machinations of his opponents.
Daily experience will prove that no attainments in
the spiritual life will prevent a man from valuing the
esteem and recognition of his fellow men. But such a
desire to please and be successful must be kept in stern
control. It must not be the great object of a Christian.
It must never lead him to keep back one jot or tittle
of the counsel of God. The natural desire to please
must be closely watched. It easily leads men to
idolatry, to the installation of human fame, power,
influence, gold, in the place of that Eternal Saviour
whose worship ought to be the great end and the true
life of the soul.
St. Peter, after his act of abnegation and self-humiliation,
then proceeds to set forth the claims and to
narrate the history of Jesus Christ, and in doing so
enters into the particulars of His trial and condemnation,
which he charges boldly home upon his listeners,
who, as distinguished from his audience on the day of
Pentecost, were most probably the permanent residents
in Jerusalem. The Apostle narrates the events of our
Lord's trial just as we find them in the Gospels—His
interviews with Pilate, the outcry of the people, the
choice and character of Barabbas. He asserts His
resurrection, and implies, without asserting, His ascension,
by the words, "Whom the heavens must receive
until the times of the restitution of all things." The
primitive gospel of St. Peter was just like that taught
by St. Paul, as he puts it forward in the fifteenth
chapter of First of Corinthians, "Brethren, I declare unto
you the gospel which I have received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures: and that
He was buried, and that He rose again." The earliest
message, proclaimed by St. Paul or St. Peter, was one
and the same; it was a declaration of certain historical
facts, and what it was then such it must ever remain.
Whenever the historical facts are disbelieved, then men
may speak beautifully of the spiritual ideas and the
moral truths symbolised by Christianity, just as Hypatia
and the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria could speak in
picturesque language concerning the deep poetic meaning
of the old pagan legends. Poetry and legends are, however,
the veriest husks wherewith to support an immortal
soul under the great trials of life; and when that day
comes for any soul when the great historical facts set
forth in the Creed are rejected, then Christianity may
remain in name and appearance, but it will cease to be
the gospel of joy and peace and comfort, for the human
soul can only sustain itself in the supreme moments
of sorrow, separation, and death by the solid realities
of fact and truth.
St. Peter, again, in this sermon leaves us a type of
what Christian sermons should be. He was plain
spoken, yet he was tender and sympathetic. He was
plain spoken. He does not hesitate to state the crimes
of the Jews in the most vigorous language. God had
glorified His servant Jesus, but they delivered Him up
to the agents of the idolatrous Romans; they denied
Him, desired a murderer to be granted in place of the
Prince of Life; urged His death when even the Roman
judge would have let Him go,—and all this they had
done to the long-expected and long-desired Messiah.
Peter is not wanting in plainness of speech. And
the Christian teacher, whether clergyman or layman,
whether a pastor in the pulpit, a teacher in the Sunday-school,
or the editor of a newspaper at his desk, ought
to cultivate and exercise the same Christian boldness
and courage. The true Christian ideal will be attained
by following St. Peter's example on this occasion. He
combined boldness and prudence, courage and gentleness.
He spoke the truth in all honesty, but he did
not adopt an attitude or use language which would
arouse unnecessary opposition. What courtesy, what
sympathetic, charitable politeness is manifest in St.
Peter's excuse, which he offers in the course of his
sermon for the Jews, rulers and people alike! "And
now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as
did also your rulers." Some men think that prudence
is an idea which should never enter the head of a
messenger of Christ, though no one impressed more
frequently the necessity of that great virtue than did
the Master, for He knew how easily imprudence may
undo all the good that faithfulness might otherwise
attain. Wisdom like the serpent's, gentleness like the
dove's, was Christ's own rule for His Apostles. Boldness,
and courage, and honesty, are blessed things,
but they should be guided and moderated by charity.
Earthly motives easily insinuate themselves in every
man's heart, and when a man feels urged on to declare
some unpleasant truth, or to raise a violent and determined
opposition, he should search diligently, lest that
while he imagines himself following a heavenly vision
and obeying a Divine command, he should be only
yielding to mere human suggestions of pride, or partisanship,
or uncharitableness.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
"And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of
the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that
they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection
from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold
unto the next day: for it was now eventide.... And it came to pass on
the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, and Annas the
high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as
were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at
Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By
what power, or by what name, have ye done this?"—Acts iv. 1-3, 5-7.
The fourth chapter of the Acts brings the Apostles
into their first contact with the Jewish state
organisation. It shows us the secret springs which
led to the first persecution, typical of the fiercest that
ever raged against the Church, and displays the calm
conviction and moral strength by which the Apostles
were sustained. The historical and local circumstances
narrated by St. Luke bear all the marks of truth.
I. The miracle of healing the lame man had taken
place in Solomon's porch or portico, which overlooked
the Kedron valley, and was an usual resort as a promenade
or public walk, specially in winter. Thus we read,
in St. John x. 22, 23, that our Lord walked in Solomon's
porch, and it was winter. Solomon's porch looked
towards the rising sun, and was therefore a warm and
sunny spot. It was popular with the inhabitants of
Jerusalem for the same reason which led the Cistercians
of the Middle Ages, when building magnificent fabrics
like Fountains Abbey, to place their cloister garths,
where exercise was taken, on the southern side of their
churches, that there they might receive and enjoy the
heat and light of our winter sun.
The crowd which was collected by Peter soon
attracted the attention of the temple authorities, who
had a regular police under their control. The Jews
were permitted by the Romans to exercise the most
unlimited freedom within the bounds of the temple
to secure its sanctity. In ordinary cases the Romans
reserved to themselves the power of capital punishment,
but in the case of the temple and its profanation they
allowed it to the Sanhedrin.
An interesting proof of this fact has come to light of
late years, attesting, in a most striking manner, the
accuracy of the Acts of the Apostles. Josephus, in his
Antiquities (xv. xi. 5), when describing the Holy Place,
tells us that the royal cloisters of the temple had
three walks, formed by four rows of pillars, with which
they were adorned. The outermost walk was open to
all, but the central walk was cut off by a stone wall,
on which were inscriptions forbidding foreigners—that
is, Gentiles—to enter under pain of death. Now in
the twenty-first chapter of the Acts we read that a
supposed breach of this law was the occasion of the
riot against St. Paul, wherein he narrowly escaped
death."Moreover he brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath
defiled this holy place. For they had before seen with him in the
city Trophimus the Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had
brought into the temple" (Acts xxi. 28, 29).
The Jews were actually about to kill St. Paul when
the soldiers came upon them. To this fact, Tertullus
the orator, when speaking before the governor Felix,
alludes, and that without rebuke, saying of St. Paul,
"Whom we took, and would have judged according to
our law."Acts xxiv. 6.
Here comes in our illustration of the Acts
derived from modern archæological research. Some
few years ago there was discovered at Jerusalem, and
there is now laid up in the Sultan's Museum at Constantinople,
a sculptured and inscribed stone, containing
one of these very Greek notices upon which the Apostles
must have looked, warning Gentiles not to enter
within the sacred bounds, and denouncing against
transgressors the penalty of death which the Jews
sought to inflict upon St. Paul.I have never seen a notice of this interesting biblical discovery in
any English magazine or journal. There is an account of it in the
Revue Archéologique for 1885, series iii., t. v., p. 241, by Clermont-Ganneau,
its original discoverer. He calls it an authentic page of the
New Testament.
Now it was just the
same about the other details of the temple worship.
Inside the sacred area the Jewish law was supreme,
and Jewish penalties were enacted. In order, therefore,
that the temple might be duly protected the
priests watched in three places, and the Levites in
twenty-one places, in addition to all their other duties
connected with the offering of the sacrifices and the
details of public worship. These guards discharged
the duties of a sacred or temple police, and their
captain was called the captain of the temple, or, as
he is denominated in the Talmud, "The ruler of the
mountain of the House."
Much confusion has, indeed, arisen concerning this
official. He has been confounded, for instance, with
the captain of the neighbouring fortress of Antonia.
The Romans had erected a strong square castle, with
lofty walls, and towers at the four corners, just north
of the temple, and connected with it by a covered way.
One of these flanking towers was one hundred and five
feet high, and overlooked all the temple area, so that
when a riot began the soldiers could hurry to quell it.
The captain of the garrison which held this tower is
called, in our version, the chief captain, or, more properly,
the chiliarch, or colonel of a regiment, as we should put
it in modern phraseology. But this official had nothing
whatever to say to questions of Jewish law or ritual.
He was simply responsible for the peace of Jerusalem;
he represented the governor, who lived at Cæsarea, and
had no concern with the disputes which might arise
amongst the Jews. But it was quite otherwise with
the captain of the temple. He was a Jewish official,
took cognisance of Jewish disputes, and was responsible
in matters of Jewish discipline which Roman law
respected and upheld, but in which it did not interfere.
This purely Jewish official, a priest by profession,
appointed by the Jewish authorities, and responsible
to them alone, appears prominently on three distinct
occasions. In the twenty-second of St. Luke's Gospel
we have the account of the betrayal by the traitor
Judas. When he was meditating that action he went
first to the chief priests and the captains to consult with
them. A Roman commander, an Italian, a Gaul, or
possibly even a Briton,—as he might have been, for
the Romans were accustomed to bring their Western
legionaries into the East, as in turn they garrisoned
Britain with the men of Syria,—would have cared very
little whether a Galilean teacher was arrested or not.
But it was quite natural that a Jewish and a temple
official should have been interested in this question.
While again on this occasion, and once more upon
the arrest of the Apostles after the death of Ananias
and Sapphira, the captain of the temple appears as one
of the highest Jewish officials.See more on this point in Dr. John Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ,
Luke xxii. 4 and Acts iv.
II. We see too the secret source whence the opposition
to apostolic teaching arose. The priests and the
captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon
them. The captain was roused into action by the
Sadducees, who were mingled in the crowd, and heard
the words of the Apostles proclaiming the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, "being grieved that they taught the
people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection
from the dead." It is noteworthy how perpetually
the Sadducees appear as the special antagonists of
Christianity during these earliest years. Our Lord's
denunciations of the Pharisees were so often repeated
that we are apt to think of them as the leading
opponents of Christianity during the apostolic age.
And yet this is a mistake. There was an important
difference between the Master's teaching and that of
His disciples, which accounts for the changed character
of the opposition. Our Lord's teaching came specially
into conflict with the Pharisees and their mode of
thought. He denounced mere external worship, and
asserted the spiritual and inner character of true
religion. That was the great staple of his message.
The Apostles, on the other hand, testified and enforced
above everything else the risen, the glorified, and the
continuous existence in the spirit world of the Man
Christ Jesus. And thus they came into conflict with
the central doctrine of Sadduceism which denied a
future life. Hence at Jerusalem, at least, the Sadducees
were ever the chief persecutors of the Apostles,
while the Pharisees were favourable to Christianity,
or at least neutral. At the meeting of the Sanhedrin
of which we read in the fifth chapter, Gamaliel, a
Pharisee, proposes the discharge of the imprisoned
Apostles. In the twenty-third chapter, when St. Paul
is placed before the same Sanhedrin the Pharisees
take his side, while the Sadducees are his bitter
opponents. We never read of a Sadducee embracing
Christianity; while St. Paul, the greatest champion of
the gospel, was gained from the ranks of the Pharisees.
This fact sheds light on the character of the apostolic
teaching. It was not any system of evanescent
Christianity; it was not a system of mere ethical
teaching; it was not a system where the facts of
Christ's life were whittled away, where, for instance,
His resurrection was explained as a mere symbolical
idea, typifying the resurrection of the soul from the
death of sin to the life of holiness; for in that case the
Sadducees would not have troubled themselves on
this occasion to oppose such teaching. But apostolic
Christianity was a system which based itself on a risen
Saviour, and involved, as its fundamental ideas, the
doctrines of a future life and of a spiritual world, and
of a resurrection where body and soul would be again
united.
Some strange representations have been from time to
time put forward as to the nature of apostolic and specially
of Pauline Christianity, but one of the strangest is
what we may call the Matthew Arnold theory, which
makes the apostolic teaching a poor, emasculated thing,
devoid of any real foundation of historical fact. If Christianity,
as proclaimed by St. Peter and St. Paul, was of
this type, why, we ask, was it so bitterly opposed by the
Sadducees? They at any rate understood the Apostles
to teach and preach a Jesus Christ literally risen from
the dead and ascended in the truth of human nature
into that spiritual and unseen world whose existence
they denied. For the Sadducees were materialists
pure and simple. As such they prevailed among the
rich. The poor, then as ever, furnished very few
adherents to a creed which may satisfy persons who
are enjoying the good things of this life. It has very
few attractions, however, for those with whom life is
dealing hardly, and to whom the world presents itself
in a stern aspect alone. It is no wonder the new
teaching concerning a risen Messiah should have excited
the hatred of the rich Sadducees, and should have
been welcomed by the poorer classes, among whom the
Pharisees had their followers. The system of the
Sadducees was a religion indeed. It satisfied a want,
for man can never do without some kind of a religion.
It recognised God and His revelation to Moses. It
asserted, however, that the Mosaic revelation contained
nothing concerning a future life, or the doctrine of
immortality. It was a religion, therefore, without fear
of a future, and which could never indeed excite any
enthusiasm, but was very satisfactory and agreeable
for the prosperous few as long as they were in prosperity
and in health. Peter and John came preaching
a very disturbing doctrine to this class of people. If
Peter's view of life was right, theirs was all wrong.
It was no wonder that the Sadducees brought upon
them the priests and the captain of the temple, and
summoned the Sanhedrin to deal with them. We
should have done the same had we been in their
position. In every age, indeed, the bitterest persecutors
of Christianity have been men like the Sadducees. It
has often been said that persecution on the part of
a sceptic or of an unbeliever is illogical. The Sadducees
were unbelievers as regards a future life. What
matter to them was it, then, if the Apostles preached
a future life, and convinced the people of its truth?
But logic is always pushed impetuously aside when
it comes in contact with deep-rooted human feeling, and
the Sadducees instinctively felt that the conflict between
themselves and the Apostles was a deadly one; one
or other party must perish. And so it was under the
Roman empire. The ruling classes of the empire
were essentially infidel, or, to use a modern term, we
should rather perhaps style them agnostic. They
regarded the Christian teaching as a noxious enthusiasm.
They could not understand why Christians
should not offer incense to the deity of the emperor, or
perform any act of idolatry which was commanded by
state law, and regarded their refusal as an act of
treason. They had no idea of conscience, because they
were essentially like the Sadducees.Pliny in his Letters, x., 97, writes to the Emperor Trajan expressing
this view when telling how he dealt with the Christians of Bithynia:
"I asked them whether they were Christians: if they admitted it, I
repeated the question twice, and threatened them with punishment; if
they persisted, I ordered them to be at once punished: for I was persuaded,
whatever the nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious
and inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved correction." A philosopher
could not understand a man keeping a conscience in opposition to the
law. The martyrs vindicated the freedom of the Christian conscience.
So was it again
in the days of the first French Revolution, and so we
find it still. The men who reject all spiritual existence,
and hold a Sadducean creed, fear the power of Christian
enthusiasm and Christian love, and had they only the
power would crush it as sternly and remorselessly as
the Sadducees desired to do in apostolic times, or as
the Roman emperors did from the days of Nero to those
of Diocletian.
III. The Apostles were arrested in the evening and
put in prison. The temple had an abundance of
chambers and apartments which could be used as
prisons, or, as the Sanhedrin were accustomed to sit
in a basilica erected in the court outside the Beautiful
Gate, and inside Solomon's porch or cloister, there was
probably a cell for prisoners connected with it. The
next morning St. Peter and St. John were brought
up before the court which met daily in this basilica,
immediately after the hour of the morning sacrifices.
We can realize the scene, for the persons mentioned as
having taken part in the trial are historical characters.
The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle, with the president
in the centre, while opposite were three benches for
the scholars of the Sanhedrists, who thus practically
learned law. The Sanhedrin, when complete, consisted
of seventy-one members, comprising chief priests, the
elders of the people, and the most renowned of the
rabbis; but twenty-three formed a quorum competent
to transact business.It would take more space than we can now afford to explain the
constitution of the Sanhedrin. There is an admirable and concise
article on the subject in Schaff's edition of Herzog's Cyclopædia, and
another in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia. Dr. John Lightfoot describes
it in his Horæ Hebraicæ, which we so often quote. The most extensive
and minute account of it will, however, be found in Latin in Selden's
treatise De Synedriis, illustrated with plates.
The high priest when present,
as Annas and Caiaphas both were on this occasion,
naturally exercised great influence, though he was not
necessarily president of the council. The sacred writer
has been accused, indeed, of a historical mistake, both
here and in his Gospel (iii. 2), in making Annas high
priest when Caiaphas was actually occupying that office,
Annas, his father-in-law, having been previously deposed
by the Romans. St. Luke seems to me, on the
other hand, thus to prove his strict accuracy. Caiaphas
was of course the legal high priest so far as the Romans
were concerned. They recognised him as such, and
delivered to him the high priest's official robes, when
necessary for the fulfilment of his great office, keeping
them safe at other times in the tower of Antonia. But
then, as I have already said, so long as the Roman law
and constitutions were observed on great state occasions,
they allowed the Jews a large amount of Home Rule
in the management of their domestic religious concerns,
and were not keen in marking offences, if only the
offences were not thrust into public notice. Annas
was recognised by the Sanhedrin and by the Jews at
large as the true high priest, Caiaphas as the legal or
official one; and they kept themselves on the safe side,
as far as the Romans were concerned, by uniting them
in their official consultations in the Sanhedrin. The
Sadducees, doubtless, on this occasion made every
effort that their own party should attend the council
meeting, feeling the importance of crushing the rising
sect in the very bud. We read, therefore, that with
the high priest came "John, and Alexander, and as
many as were of the kindred of the high priest."Dr. John Lightfoot, in his Horæ Hebraicæ, chap. iv., verse 6, identifies
John mentioned in this passage with Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai,
the priest who lived till after the destruction of Jerusalem, and prophesied
of that event forty years before it occurred. He was, however,
a Pharisee, though the vast majority of the priests were Sadducees.
Lightfoot tells the following story of him from the ancient Jewish books:
"Forty years before the destruction of the city, when the gates of the
temple flew open of their own accord, Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai
said, O Temple, Temple, why dost thou disturb thyself? I know thy
end, that thou shalt be destroyed, for so the prophet Zechary hath
spoken concerning thee, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may
devour thy cedar." He lived to be one hundred and twenty years old.
He was permitted by Titus to remove the Sanhedrin to Jabneh on the
destruction of the city, where he presided over it.
The priestly families were at this period the aristocracy
of the Jews, and they all belonged to the Sadducees, in
opposition to the democracy who favoured the Pharisees.
These latter, indeed, had their own representatives in
the Sanhedrin, as we shall see on a later occasion,—men
of light and leading, like Gamaliel; but the permanent
officials of the Jewish senate were for the most part
Sadducees, and we know how easily the permanent
officials can pack a popular body, such as the Sanhedrin
was, with their own adherents, when any special end is
to be attained.
It was before such a hostile audience that the Apostles
were now called to witness, and here they first proved
the power of the Divine words, "When they deliver you
up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it
shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
speak."St. Matt. x. 19.
St. Peter threw himself upon God, and found
that his trust was not in vain. He was at the moment
of need filled with the Holy Ghost, and enabled to
testify with a power which defeated his determined
foes. He had a special promise from the Master, and
he acted upon it. But we must observe that this
promise was a special one, limited to the Apostles and
to those in every age placed in similar circumstances.
This promise is no general one. It was given to the
Apostles to free them from care, anxiety, and forethought
as to the matter and form of the addresses which they
should deliver when suddenly called to speak before
assemblies like the Sanhedrin. Under such circumstances
they would have no time to prepare speeches
suitable for ears trained in all the arts of oratory as
then practised amongst the ancients, whether Jews or
Gentiles. So their Master gave them an assurance of
strength and skill such as none of their adversaries
could equal or resist. "It is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." This
promise has been, however, misunderstood and abused
when applied to ordinary circumstances. It was good
for the Apostles, and it is good for Christian men placed
under similar conditions, persecuted for the sake of
their testimony, and deprived of the ordinary means
of preparation. But it is not a promise authorising
Christian teachers, clerical or lay, to dispense with
careful thought and industrious study when communicating
the truths of Christianity, or applying the great
principles contained in the Bible to the manifold
circumstances of modern life. Christ certainly told the
Apostles not to premeditate beforehand what they
should say. When relying, however, upon the promises
of God, we should carefully seek to ascertain how
far they are limited, and how far they apply to ourselves;
else we may be putting our trust in words
upon which we have no right to depend. A presumptuous
trust is next door to an act of rebellion, and
has often led to unbelief. Our Lord said to the
Apostles, "Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in
your purses," because He would provide for them; but
He did not say so to us, and if we go out into life presumptuously
relying upon a passage of Scripture that
does not belong to us, unbelief may overtake us as a
strong man armed when we find ourselves disappointed.
And so, too, with this promise of supernatural guidance
which the Apostles enjoyed, and which saints of every age
have proved true when placed in similar circumstances;
it is a special one for them, it does not apply to us.
Christian teachers, whether in the pulpit, or the Sunday
school, or the home circle, must still depend as completely
as the Apostles did upon the Holy Ghost as the
source of all successful teaching. But in the case of
the Apostles the inspiration was immediate and direct.
In the case of ordinary Christians like ourselves placed
amid all the helps which God's providence gives, we must
use study, thought, meditation, prayer, experience of
life, as channels through which the same inspiration is
conveyed to us. The Society of Friends, when George
Fox established it, testified on behalf of a great truth
when it asserted that the Holy Ghost dwelt still, as in
apostolic times, in the whole body of the Church, and
spake still through the experience of Christian people.
Their testimony was a great truth and a much-needed
one in the middle of the seventeenth century, when
Churchmen were in danger of turning religion into a
great machine of state police, such as the Greek Church
became under the earlier Christian emperors, and when
Puritans were inclined to smother all religious enthusiasm
beneath their intense zeal for cold, rigid scholastic
dogmas and confessions of faith. The early Friends
came proclaiming a Divine power still present, a Church
of God still energised and inspired as of old, and it
was a revelation for many an earnest soul. But they
made a great mistake, and pushed a great truth to a
pernicious extreme, when they taught that this inspiration
was inconsistent with forethought and study on
the part of their teachers as to the substance and
character of their public ministrations. The Society of
Friends teaches that men should speak forth to their
assemblies just what the Holy Ghost reveals on the
spot, without any effort on their own part, such as
meditation and study involve. They have acted without
a promise, and they have fared accordingly. That
Society has been noted for its philanthropy, for the
peaceful, gentle lives of its members; but it has not
been noted for expository power, and its public teachers
have held but a low place among those well-instructed
scribes who bring forth out of God's treasures things
new and old.The decay in the numbers of the Society of Friends may be traced
to several causes. The Society has done its work. Its testimony has
borne its appointed fruit, and, like other systems which have sufficiently
acted their part, it is passing away. One of the most evident causes
of its decline is the decay of preaching consequent upon their notion of
immediate inspiration. The advance of general education has told on
their members, who cannot endure the unprepared and undigested
expositions which satisfied their fathers. The decay in the preaching
power of the Evangelical party in the Church of England may, in many
cases, be traced to much the same source. No Church or society can
now hope to retain the allegiance of its educated members which does
not recognise that the help of the Holy Spirit is vouchsafed through
the ordinary channels of study and meditation.
Expositors of Scripture, teachers of Divine truth,
whether in the public congregation or in a Sunday-school
class, must prepare themselves by thought,
study, and prayer; then, having made the way of the
Lord clear, and removed the hindrances which barred
His path, we may humbly trust that the Holy Ghost
will speak by us and through us, because we honour
Him by our self-denial, and cease to offer burnt
sacrifices unto the Lord of that which costs us
nothing.As a Sunday school teacher for more than thirty years I feel bound
to say that half the teaching in Sunday schools is useless from want of
preparation on the part of teachers. A large proportion of them never
think of opening their Bibles beforehand and studying the appointed
lessons, jotting down a number of leading questions to assist their
memories. The result is, that after a few questions suggested by the
text, the teacher turns to read a story or indulge in gossip with his
pupils. A well-prepared teacher will never find an hour too long for
the work appointed. I have already said something on pp. 131, 132,
above, upon this subject, which is an extremely important and practical
one.
IV. The address of St. Peter to the Sanhedrin is
marked by the same characteristics as we find in those
directed to the people. It is kindly, for though the
Apostles could speak sternly and severely just as their
Master did at times, yet they have left in this special
direction an example to public speakers and public
teachers of truth in every age. They strove first of all
to put themselves in sympathy as much as possible
with their audience. They did not despise the art of
the rhetorician which teaches a speaker to begin by
conciliating the good feelings of his audience towards
himself. To the people St. Peter began, "Ye men of
Israel;" he recognises their cherished privileges, as
well as their sacred memories,—"Ye are the children
of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made
with our fathers." To the bitterly hostile audience of
the Sanhedrin, where the Sadducees largely predominated,
Peter's exordium is profoundly respectful and
courteous, "Ye rulers of the people, and elders of
Israel." The Apostles and the earliest Evangelists
did not despise human feelings or outrage human
sentiment when setting out to preach Christ crucified.
We have known men so wrong-headed that they were
never happy unless their efforts to do good or spread
their peculiar opinions eventuated in a riot. When
evangelistic work or any kind of attempt to spread
opinions evokes violent opposition, that very opposition
often arises from the injudicious conduct of the promoters;
and then when the opposition is once evoked
or a riot caused, charity departs, passion and violent
feelings are aroused, and all hope of good evaporates
for the time. There was profound practical wisdom in
that command of our Lord to His Apostles, "When
they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another,"
even taking the matter only from the standpoint of a
man anxious to spread his peculiar sentiments.
The Apostle's address was kindly, but it was plain-spoken.
The Sanhedrin were sitting as a board of
inquisitors. They did not deny the miracle which had
been wrought. We are scarcely fit judges of the
attitude of mind occupied by an Eastern, specially by
an Eastern Jew of those earlier ages, when confronted
with a miracle. He did not deny the facts brought
under his notice. He was too well acquainted with
magic and the strange performances of its professors
to do so. He merely inquired as to the sources of
the power, whether they were Divine or diabolical.
"By what power or by what name have ye done
this?" was a very natural inquiry in the mouth of
an ecclesiastical body such as the Sanhedrin was. It
was disturbed by facts, for which no explanation
such as their philosophy furnished could account.
It was upset in its calculations just as, to this day,
the performances of Indian jugglers or the weird
wonders of hypnotism upset the calculations of the
hard, narrow man who has restricted all his investigations
to some one special branch of science, and
has so contracted his horizon that he thinks there is
nothing in heaven or in earth which his philosophy
cannot explain. We should mark the expression, "By
what name have ye done this?" for it gives us a
glimpse into Jewish life and practice. The Jews were
accustomed in their incantations to use several kinds
of names; sometimes those of the patriarchs, sometimes
the name of Solomon, and sometimes that of the
Eternal Jehovah Himself. Of late years vast quantities
of Jewish and Gnostic manuscripts have come to light
in Egypt and Syria containing various titles and forms
used by the Jewish magicians and the earlier Christian
heretics, who were largely imbued with Jewish notions.
It is quite in keeping with what we know of the spirit
of the age from other sources that the Sanhedrin
should ask, "By what power or by what name have ye
done this?" While again, when we turn to the book
of the Acts of the Apostles itself we find an illustration
of the council's inquiry in the celebrated case of the
seven sons of Sceva, the Jewish priest at Ephesus,
who strove to use for their own magical purposes the
Divine name of Jesus Christ, and suffered for their
temerity. St. Peter's reply to the question of the
court proves that the Christian Church adopted in all its
Divine offices, whether in the working of miracles then
or of baptism and of ordination, as still, the invocation
of the Sacred Name, after the Jewish model. The
Church still baptizes and ordains in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Christ
Himself had adopted the formula for baptism, and the
Church has extended it to ordination, pleading thus
before God and man alike the Divine power by which
alone St. Peter healed the cripple and the Church sends
forth its ministers to carry on Christ's work in the world.
St. Peter's address was, as we have already said,
very kindly, but very bold and plain-spoken in setting
forth the power of Christ's name. He had learnt by
his Jewish training the tremendous importance and
solemnity of names. Moses at the bush would know
God's name before he went as His messenger to the
captive Israelites. On Sinai God Himself had placed
reverence towards His name as one of the fundamental
truths of religion. Prophet and psalmist had conspired
together to teach St. Peter that holy and reverend was
the name of God, and to impress upon him thus the
power and meaning which lies in Christ's name, and
indeed in all names, though names are things we count
so trifling. St. Peter dwells upon this point all through
his addresses. To the people he had said, "His
name, through faith in His name, hath made this man
strong." To the rulers it was the same. It was "by
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified,
this man doth stand here before you whole."
"There is none other name under heaven whereby
we must be saved." The Sanhedrin understand the
importance of this point, and tell the Apostles they
must not teach in this name. St. Peter pointedly
refuses, and prays, when come to his own company,
"that wonders may be done through the name of Thy
holy servant Jesus."
St. Peter realized the sanctity and the power of
God's name, whether revealed in its ancient form of
Jehovah or its New Testament form of Jesus Christ.
Well would it be if the same Divine reverence found a
larger place amongst ourselves. Irreverence towards the
sacred name is far too prevalent; and even when men
do not use God's name in a profane way, there is too
much lightness in the manner in which even religious
men permit themselves to utter that name which is the
expression to man of supreme holiness,—"God bless
us," "Lord help us and save." How constantly do even
pious people garnish their conversations and their
epistles with such phrases or with the symbols D.V.,
without any real feeling that they are thereby appealing
to Him who was and is and is to come, the Eternal.
The name of God is still holy as of old, and the name
of Jesus is still powerful to calm and soothe and bless
as of old, and Christian people should sanctify those
great names in their conversation with the world.The primitive Christians had a profound reverence for the names
of our Saviour, which they delighted to depict in different ways, some
of them so secret as to defy the curiosity of the pagans. They used the
symbol I.H.S., which I have known to arouse the susceptibilities of
suspicious Protestants, though nothing but a Latin or Western adaptation
of the three first letters of the Greek word ΙΗΣΟΥΣ written in capitals.
The fish, again, was a favourite symbol, because each letter of the
Greek word ιχθύς stood for a different title of our Lord, Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός,
Θεός, Υιός, Σωτήρ, or Jesus, Christ, God, Son, Saviour.
St. Peter was bold because he was daily comprehending
more and more of the meaning of Christ's work
and mission, was gaining a clearer insight into the
dignity of His person, and was experiencing in himself
the truth of His supernatural promises. How could a
man help being bold, who felt the Spirit's power within,
and really held with intense belief that there was salvation
in none other save Christ? Personal experience of
religion alone can impart strength and courage and
boldness to endure, to suffer, and to testify. St. Peter
was exclusive in his views. He would not have suited
those easy-going souls who now think one religion just
as good as another, and consequently do not regard it
as of the slightest moment whether a man be a follower
of Christ or of Mahomet. The earliest Christians had
none of this diluted faith. They believed that as there
was only one God, so there was only one Mediator
between God and man, and they realized the tremendous
importance of preaching this Mediator. The Apostles,
however, must be cleared from a misconstruction under
which they have at times suffered. St. Peter proclaims
Christ to the Sanhedrin as the only means of salvation.
In his address to Cornelius the centurion of Cæsarea,
he declares that in every nation he that feareth God
and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him. These
passages and these two declarations appear inconsistent.
Their inconsistency is only superficial, however, as
Bishop Burnet has well explained in his exposition of
the Thirty-Nine Articles, a book not read very much
in these times.See Burnet's exposition of the eighteenth Article in his commentary
on the Thirty-Nine Articles.
St. Peter taught exclusive salvation
through Christ. Christ is the only means, the only
channel and way by which God confers salvation.
Christ's work is the one meritorious cause which gains
spiritual blessing for man. But then, while there is
salvation only in Christ, many persons may be saved by
Christ who know not of Him consciously, else what
shall we say or think about infants and idiots? It is
only by Christ and through Christ and for His sake
that any soul can be saved. He is the only door of
salvation, He is the way as well as the truth and the
life. But then it is not for us to pronounce how far
the saving merits of Christ may be applied and His
saving power extend. St. Peter knew and taught that
Jesus Christ was the one Mediator, and that by His
name alone salvation could be obtained. Yet he did not
hesitate to declare as regards Cornelius the centurion,
that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness is accepted of Him. It ought to be
sufficient for us, as it was for the Apostles, to believe that
the knowledge of Christ is life eternal, while satisfied to
leave all other problems in the hands of Eternal Love.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMMUNITY OF GOODS.
"And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and
soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he
possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with
great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. For neither was
there among them any that lacked: for as many as were possessors of
lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that
were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet: and distribution was
made unto each, according as any one had need."—Acts iv. 32-5.
The community of goods and its results next
claim our attention in the course of this sacred
record of primitive Church life. The gift of tongues
and this earliest attempt at Christian communism were
the two special features of apostolic, or perhaps we
should rather say of Jerusalem, Christianity. The
gift of tongues we find at one or two other places,
at Cæsarea on the first conversion of the Gentiles, at
Ephesus and at Corinth. It then disappeared. The
community of goods was tried at Jerusalem. It lasted
there a very short time, and then faded from the
ordinary practice of the Christian Church. The
record of this vain attempt and its manifold results
embodies many a lesson suitable to our modern
Christianity.
I. The book of the Acts of the Apostles in its earliest
chapters relates the story of the triumph of the Cross;
it also tells of the mistakes made by its adherents.
The Scriptures prove their Divine origin, and display
the secret inspiration and guidance of their writers, by
their thorough impartiality. If in the Old Testament
they are depicting the history of an Abraham or of a
David, they do not, after the example of human biographies,
tell of their virtues and throw the mantle of
obscurity over their vices and crimes. If in the New
Testament they are relating the story of apostolic
labours, they record the bad as well as the good, and
hesitate not to tell of the dissimulation of St. Peter,
the hot temper and the bitter disputes of a Paul and a
Barnabas.
It is a notable circumstance that, in ancient and
modern times alike, men have stumbled at this sacred
impartiality. They have mistaken the nature of inspiration,
and have busied themselves to clear the
character of men like David and the holy Apostles,
explaining away the plainest facts,—the lie of Abraham,
the adultery of David, the weaknesses and infirmities
of the Apostles. They have forgotten the principle
involved in the declaration, "Elijah was a man of
like passions with ourselves;" and have been so jealous
for the honour of scriptural characters that they have
made their history unreal, worthless as a living
example. St. Jerome, to take but one instance, was a
commentator upon Scripture whose expositions are of
the greatest value, specially because he lived and
worked amid the scenes where Scripture history was
written, and while yet living tradition could be used
to illustrate the sacred narrative. St. Jerome applied
this deceptive method to the dissimulation of St. Peter
at Antioch of which St. Paul tells us in the Galatians;
maintaining, in opposition to St. Augustine,See an interesting letter from St. Augustine to St. Jerome on this
question in the Letters of St. Augustine (Clark's edition), vol. i., pp. 30-2.
With which compare Bishop Lightfoot on Galatians, p. 128.
that St.
Peter was not a dissembler at all, and that the whole
scene at Antioch was a piece of pious acting, got up
between the Apostles in order that St. Paul might have
the opportunity of condemning Judaizing practices.
This is an illustration of the tendency to which I am
referring. Men will uphold, not merely the character
of the Scriptures, but the characters of the writers of
Scripture. Yet how clearly do the Sacred Writings distinguish
between these things; how clearly they show
that God imparted His treasures in earthen vessels,
vessels that were sometimes very earthy indeed, for
while in one place they give us the Psalms of David,
with all their treasures of spiritual joy, hope, penitence,
they in another place give us the very words of the
letter written by King David ordering the murder of
Uriah the Hittite. This jealousy, which refuses to
admit the fallibility and weakness of scriptural personages,
has been applied to the doctrine of the
community of goods which finds place in the passage
under review. Some expositors will not allow that it
was a mistake at all; they view the Church at Jerusalem
as divinely guided by the Holy Spirit even in matters
of temporal policy; they ascribe to it an infallibility
greater and wider than any claimed for the Roman
Pontiff. He claims infallibility in matters pertaining
to faith and morals, when speaking as universal doctor
and teacher of the Universal Church; but those writers
invest the Church at Jerusalem with infallibility on
every question, whether spiritual or temporal, sacred
or secular, because the Holy Ghost had been poured
out upon the twelve Apostles on the day of Pentecost.
Now it is quite evident that neither the Church of
Jerusalem nor the Apostles themselves were guided by
an inspiration which rendered them infallible upon all
questions. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit which
was granted to them was a gift which left all their
faculties in precisely the same state as they were before
the descent of the Spirit. The Apostles could make
moral mistakes, as Peter did at Antioch; they were not
infallible in forecasting the future, as St. Paul proved
when at Ephesus he told the Ephesian elders that he
should not again visit their Church,Cf. Acts xx. 25; 1 Tim. i. 3, iii. 14, iv. 13; 2 Tim. i. 18. St.
Paul's address to the Ephesian elder was delivered in the spring of
58 A.D. He twice revisited Ephesus, six years later, in 64 A.D. See
Lewin's Fasti Sacri, pp. 314, 334,—a book of marvellous learning and
research, which every critical student of the Acts should possess,
together with the same author's Life of St. Paul.
while, indeed,
he spent much time there in after years. The whole
early Church was mistaken on the important questions
of the calling of the Gentiles, the binding nature of the
Levitical law, and the time of Christ's second coming.
The Church of Jerusalem, till the conversion of Cornelius,
was completely mistaken as to the true nature of the
Christian dispensation. They regarded it, not as the
new and final revelation which was to supersede all
others; they thought of it merely as a new sect within
the bounds of Judaism.
It was a similar mistake which led to the community
of goods. We can trace the genesis and upgrowth of
the idea. It cannot be denied that the earliest Christians
expected the immediate return of Christ. This
expectation brought with it a very natural paralysis of
business life and activity. We have seen the same
result happening again and again. At Thessalonica
St. Paul had to deal with it, as we have already noted in
the second of these lectures. Some of the Thessalonians
laboured under a misunderstanding as to St. Paul's
true teaching: they thought that Jesus Christ was
immediately about to appear, and they gave up work
and labour under the pretence of preparing for His
second coming. Then St. Paul comes sharply down
upon this false practical deduction which they had
drawn from his teaching, and proclaims the law, "If
any man will not work, neither shall he eat." We have
already spoken of the danger which might attend such
a time. Here we behold another danger which did
practically ensue and bring forth evil fruit. The first
Christian Pentecost and the days succeeding it were
a period of strained expectation, a season of intense
religious excitement, which naturally led to the community
of goods. There was no apostolic rule or
law laid down in the matter. It seems to have been
a course of action to which the converts spontaneously
resorted, as the logical deduction from two principles
which they held; first, their brotherhood and union in
Christ; secondly, the nearness of Christ's second advent.
The time was short. The Master had passed into the
invisible world whence He would shortly reappear.
Why should they not then, as brethren in Christ, have
one common purse, and spend the whole time in waiting
and watching for that loved presence? This seems a
natural explanation of the origin of a line of policy
which has been often appealed to in the practical life
of modern Europe as an example for modern Christians;
and yet, when we examine it more closely, we can see
that this book of the Acts of the Apostles, while it
tells of their mistake, carries with it the correction of
the error into which these earliest disciples fell.The communism of the early Christians was not a novel notion.
The Essenes, a curious Jewish sect of that time, had long practised it;
see Bishop Lightfoot's essay on the Essenes in his commentary on
Colossians, 3rd ed., p. 416. Josephus, in his Antiqq., XVIII., i., 5, and
in his Wars, II., viii., 3, describes the communism of the Essenes in language
that would exactly apply to that of the early Christians. Thus
in the latter place he says: "These men are despisers of riches, and
so very communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is there to be
found any one among them who hath more than another; for it is a
law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have
be common to the whole order; insomuch that among them all there
is no appearance of poverty or excess of riches, but every one's possessions
are intermingled with every other's possessions, and so there is,
as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren."
The
community of goods was adopted in no other Church.
At Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, we hear nothing of it
in those primitive times. No Christian sect or Church
has ever tried to revive it, save the monastic orders,
who adopted it for the special purpose of completely
cutting their members off from any connection with
the world of life and action; and, in later times still,
the wild fanatical Anabaptists at the Reformation
period, who thought, like the Christians of Jerusalem,
that the kingdom of God, as they fancied it, was immediately
about to appear.The thirty-eighth Article of the Church of England is directed against
the Anabaptist theory. A paralysis of ordinary life and action was
temporarily produced at Jerusalem after the day of Pentecost. This
quickly led to the community of goods, with its evil results. The
paralysis produced at Jerusalem by the excitement and expectation of
those early days was reproduced in this century at the time when
Irvingism and Plymouthism took their first rise, some sixty years ago.
The best illustration of the practical effects of such one-sided spiritual
expectation will be found in a book forgotten by this generation, The
Letters and Papers of Lady Powerscourt, published in 1838. She was
eminent in the religious world of her day, and was intimately mixed up
with the prophetical movement out of which Irvingism and Plymouthism
were developed. The fundamental doctrine of both these sects was the
immediate personal appearance and reign of Christ on earth. Lady
Powerscourt's correspondence shows the results on an ardent mind of
such an idea. She gave up society, separated herself from the world
in a hermit's cottage at Lough Bray in the deepest recesses of the
Wicklow Mountains, and there occupied herself in writing to her friends
exhortations to cease from life's work, such as the following, which we
find on p. 235: "There is much seemingly to be said for the things of
this world being sanctified to heavenly uses; yet I cannot help feeling
more and more assured every day that a divorce must take place,—that
God and the world cannot be joined,—that it behoves us to make
plain that we are the risen ones by our portion not being in any degree
from hence,—that we are not struggling upwards through mire and dirt,
but we are as let down from heaven. We take our stand in the kingdom
of heaven, looking from above at earth, not from earth at heaven."
When people begin to "look from above at earth," the step to
communism is not a long one. Vast numbers of persons never recovered
themselves from the strain of that time (A. D. 1830), but remained all
their lives in a state of dreamy disappointment. I have enlarged on
this subject in an article on J. N. Darby in the Contemporary Review
for 1885.
The Church of Jerusalem, as
the apostolic history shows us, reaped the natural
results of this false step. They adopted the principles
of communism; they lost hold of that principle of
individual life and exertion which lies at the very root
of all civilisation and all advancement, and they fell, as
the natural result, into the direst poverty. There was
no reason in the nature of its composition why the
Jerusalem Church should have been more poverty-stricken
than the Churches of Ephesus, Philippi, or
Corinth. Slaves and very humble folk constituted the
staple of these Churches. At Jerusalem a great company
of the priests were obedient to the faith, and the
priests were, as a class, in easy circumstances. Slaves
cannot at Jerusalem have constituted that large element
of the Church which they did in the great Greek and
Roman cities, simply because slavery never reached
among the Jews the same development as in the Gentile
world. The Jews, as a nation, were a people among
whom there was a widely diffused comfort, and the
earliest Church at Jerusalem must have fairly represented
the nation. There was nothing to make the
mother Church of Christendom that pauper community
we find it to have been all through St. Paul's ministry,
save the one initial mistake, which doubtless the Church
authorities found it very hard afterwards to retrieve; for
when men get into the habit of living upon alms it is very
difficult to restore the habits of healthy independence.
II. This incident is, however, rich in teaching for the
Church of every age, and that in very various directions.
It is a significant warning for the mission field. Missionary
Churches should strive after a healthy independence
amongst their members. It is, of course,
absolutely necessary that missionaries should strive to
supply temporal employment to their converts in places
and under circumstances where a profession of Christianity
cuts them off at once from all communication
with their old friends and neighbours. The primitive
Church found it necessary to give such temporal relief,
and yet had to guard against its abuse; and we have
been far too remiss in looking for guidance to those
early centuries when the whole Church was necessarily
one great missionary organization. The Apostolic
Canons and Constitutions are documents which throw
much light on many questions which now press for
solution in the mission field. They pretend to be
the exact words of the Apostles, but are evidently the
work of a later age. They date back in their present
shape, at latest, to the third or fourth centuries, as is
evident from the fact that they contain elaborate rules
for the treatment of martyrs and confessors,—and
there were no martyrs after that time,—directing that
every effort should be made to render them comfort,
support, and sympathy. These Constitutions prove
that the Church in the third century was one mighty
co-operative institution, and an important function of
the bishop was the direction of that co-operation. The
second chapter of the fourth book of the Apostolic Constitution
lays down, "Do you therefore, O bishops, be
solicitous about the maintenance of orphans, being in
nothing wanting to them; exhibiting to the orphans
the care of parents; to the widows the care of husbands;
to the artificer, work; to the stranger, an house; to the
hungry, food; to the thirsty, drink; to the naked, clothing;
to the sick, visitation, to the prisoners, assistance."
But these same Constitutions recognise equally clearly
the danger involved in such a course. The wisdom of
the early Church saw and knew how easily alms promiscuously
bestowed sap the roots of independence,
and taught therefore, with equal explicitness, the absolute
necessity for individual exertion, the duty of
Christian toil and labour; urging the example of the
Apostles themselves, as in the sixty-third Constitution
of the second book, where they are represented as
exhorting, "Let the young persons of the Church
endeavour to minister diligently in all necessaries;
mind your business with all becoming seriousness,
that so you may always have sufficient to support
yourselves and those that are needy, and not burden
the Church of God. For we ourselves, besides our
attention to the Word of the Gospel, do not neglect
our inferior employments; for some of us are fishermen,
some tent-makers, some husbandmen, that so we
may never be idle." In the modern mission field
there will often be occasions when, as in ancient times,
the profession of Christianity and the submission of
the converts to baptism will involve the loss of all
things.An interesting illustration of ancient missionary work and its likeness
to modern efforts turned up a few years ago among the Fayûm
papyri. It was a document containing the curse pronounced by a
pagan mother upon her son who had turned Christian, solemnly cutting
him off from his kith and kin. It will be found in a translated shape in
the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology for 1884, Part I.
Modern converts, too, just like the ancient, have often to suffer the loss
of all things for Christ's sake.
And, under such circumstances, Christian
love, such as burned of old in the hearts of God's
people and led them to enact the rules we have now
quoted, will still lead and compel the Church in its
organized capacity to lend temporal assistance to those
that are in danger of starvation for Christ's sake; but
no missionary effort can be in a healthy condition
where all, or the greater portion, of the converts are so
dependent upon the funds of the mission that if the
funds were withdrawn the apparent results would
vanish into thin air. Such missions are utterly unlike
the missions of the apostolic Church; for the converts of
the apostolic age were made by men who went forth without
purse or scrip, who could not give temporal assistance
even had they desired to do so, and whose great
object ever was to develop in their followers a healthy
spirit of Christian manliness and honest independence.
III. Then, again, this passage teaches a much-needed
lesson to the Church at home about the methods of
poor relief and almsgiving. "Blessed," says the
Psalmist, "is he that considereth the poor." He does
not say, "Blessed is he that giveth money to the poor,"
but, "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." Well-directed,
wise, prudent almsgiving is a good and
beneficial thing, but indiscriminate almsgiving, almsgiving
bestowed without care, thought, and consideration
such as the Psalmist suggests, brings with it far
more evil than it prevents. The Church of Jerusalem
very soon had experience of these evils. Jealousies
and quarrels soon sprang up even where Apostles were
ministering and the supernatural gifts of the Spirit were
present,—"There arose a murmuring of the Grecians
against the Hebrews because their widows were
neglected in the daily ministrations;" and it has been
ever since the experience of those called to deal with
questions of temporal relief and the distribution of alms,
that no classes are more suspicious and more quarrelsome
than those who are in receipt of such assistance.
The chaplains and managers of almshouses, asylums,
charitable funds, and workhouses know this to their
cost, and ofttimes make a bitter acquaintance with
that evil spirit which burst forth even in the mother
Church of Jerusalem. Time necessarily hangs heavy
upon the recipients' hands, forethought and care are
removed and cease to engage the mind, and people
having nothing else to do begin to quarrel. But this
was not the only evil which arose: hypocrisy and
ostentation, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira,
deceit, thriftlessness, and idleness showed themselves
at Jerusalem, Thessalonica, and other places, as the
Epistles of St. Paul amply testify. And so it has been
in the experience of the modern Church. I know
myself of whole districts where almsgiving has quite
demoralised the poor and eaten the heart out of their
religion, so that they value religious ministrations, not
for the sake of the religion that is taught, but solely
for the sake of the temporal relief that accompanies it.
I know of a district where, owing to the want of
organization in religious effort and the shattered and
broken character of Protestant Christianity, the poor
people are visited and relieved by six or seven competing
religious communities, so that a clever person
can make a very fair income by a judicious manipulation
of the different visitors. It is evident that such
visitations are doing evil instead of good, and the
labour and money expended are worse than useless.
The proper organization of charitable relief is one of
the desirable objects the Church should set before it.
The great point to be aimed at should be not so much
the ministration of direct assistance to the people as
the development of the spirit of self-help. And here
comes in the action of the Christian State. The institution
of the Post Office Savings Bank, where the
State guarantees the safety of the depositor's money,
seems a direct exposition and embodiment of the
principle which underlay the community of goods in
the apostolic Church. That principle was a generous,
unselfish, Christlike principle. The principle was
right, though the particular shape which the principle
took was a mistaken one. Experience has taught
the Church of Christ a wiser course, and now the
system of State-guaranteed Savings Banks enables
the Church to lead the poor committed to her care
into wiser courses. Parochial and congregational
Savings Banks ought to be attached to all Christian
organizations, so as to teach the poor the industrial
lessons which they need. We have known a district in
a most thriftless neighbourhood, where immense sums
used to be wasted in indiscriminate almsgiving, and
yet where the people, like the woman in the Gospels,
were never one whit the better, but rather grew worse.
We have seen such a district, in the course of a few
years, quite regenerated in temporal matters, simply
by the action of what is called a parochial Penny
Savings Bank. Previously to its institution the slightest
fall of snow brought heart-rending appeals for coal
funds, blankets, and food; while a few years of its
operation banished coal funds and pauperism in every
shape, simply by teaching the people the magic law of
thrift, and by developing within them the love and the
power of self-respecting and industrious independence.
And yet efforts in this direction will not be destructive
of Christian charity. They tend not to dry up the
springs of Christian love. Charity is indeed a blessing
to the giver, and we should never desire to see the
opportunity wanting for its display. Ill indeed would
be the world's state if we had no longer the poor, the
sick, the needy with us. Our sinful human nature
requires its unselfish powers to be kept in action, or
else it quickly subsides into a state of unwholesome
stagnation. Poor people need to be taught habits of
saving, and this teaching will require time, and trouble,
and expense. The clergy and their congregations may
teach the poor thrift by offering a much higher interest
than the Post Office supplies, while, at the same time,
the funds are all deposited in the State Savings Bank.
That higher interest will often demand as much money
as the doles previously bestowed in the shape of mere
gifts of coal and food. But then what a difference in
the result! The mere dole has, for the most part, a
demoralising tendency, while the money spent in the
other direction permanently elevates and blesses.It is not generally known that the Post Office offers special facilities
for the establishment of such Penny Savings Banks as I advocate. The
Post Office will supply books for depositors and permit a deposit account
to be opened without any limit. I have seen in my own parish the
beneficial working of such an institution, increasing annually in its
results for the last twenty years.
IV. But there is a more important lesson still to be
derived from this incident in the apostolic Church.
The community of goods failed in that Church when
tried under the most favourable circumstances, terminating
in the permanent degradation of the Christian
community at Jerusalem; just as similar efforts must
ever fail, no matter how broad the field on which they
may be tried or how powerful the forces which may be
arrayed on their behalf. Christian legislatures of our
own age may learn a lesson of warning against perilous
experiments in a communistic direction from the
disastrous failure in Jerusalem; and there is a real
danger in this respect from the tendency of human
nature to rush to extremes. Protestantism and the
Reformation accentuated the individual and individual
independence. The feeling thus taught in religion
reacted on the world of life and action, developing an
intensity of individualism in the political world which
paralysed the efforts which the State alone could make
in the various matters of sanitary education and social
reform. In the last generation Maurice and Kingsley
and men of their school raised in opposition the banner
of Christian socialism, because they saw clearly that
men had run too far in the direction of individualism,—so
far, indeed, that they were inclined to forget the
great lesson taught by Christianity, that under the
new law we are members one of another, and that all
members belong to one body, and that body is Christ.
Men are so narrow that they can for the most part take
only one view at a time, and so now they are inclined
to push Christian socialism to the same extreme as at
Jerusalem, and to forget that there is a great truth in
individualism as there is another great truth in Christian
socialism. Dr. Newman in his valuable but almost
forgotten work on the Prophetical Office of the Church
defined the position of the English Church as being a
Media Via, a mean between two extremes. Whatever
may be said upon other topics, the office of the Christian
Church is most certainly a Via Media, a mean
between the two opposite extremes of socialism and
individualism. Much good has been effected of late
years by legislation based upon essentially socialistic
ideas. Reformatory and industrial schools, to take but
one instance, are socialistic in their foundations and
in their tendencies. The whole body of the State
undertakes in them responsibilities and duties which
God intended individuals to discharge, but which individuals
persistently neglect, to the injury of their
innocent offspring, and of society at large. Yet even
in this simple experiment we can see the germs of the
same evils which sprang up at Jerusalem. We have
seen this tendency appearing in connection with the
Industrial School system, and have known parents
who could educate and train their children in family
life encouraged by this well-intentioned legislation to
fling their responsibilities over upon the State, and
neglecting their offspring because they were convinced
that in doing so they were not only saving their own
pockets but also doing better for their children than they
themselves could. It is just the same, and has ever been
the same, with all similar legislation. It requires to be
most narrowly watched. Human nature is intensely
lazy and intensely selfish. God has laid down the law
of individual effort and individual responsibility, and
while we should strive against the abuses of that law,
we should watch with equal care against the opposite
abuses. Foundling hospitals as they were worked in the
last century, for instance, form an object-lesson of the
dangers inherent in such methods of action. Benevolent
persons in the last century pitied the condition of poor
children left as foundlings. There was, some sixty
years ago, an institution in Dublin of this kind, which
was supported by the State. There was a box into
which an infant could be placed at any hour of the
day or night; a bell was rung, and by the action of a
turn-stile the infant was received into the institution.
But experience soon taught the same lesson as at
Jerusalem. The Foundling Hospital may have temporarily
relieved some deserving cases and occasionally
prevented some very painful scenes, but the broad results
upon society at large were so bad, immorality was so
increased, the sense of parental responsibility was so
weakened, that the State was compelled to terminate
its existence at a very large expense. Socialism when
pushed to an extreme must necessarily work out in
bad results, and that because there is one constant
and fixed quantity which the socialist forgets. Human
nature changes not; human nature is corrupt and
must remain corrupt until the end, and so long as the
corruption of human nature remains the best-conceived
plans of socialism must necessarily fail.
Yet the Jerusalem idea of a voluntary community
of goods was a noble one, and sprang from an unselfish
root. It was purely voluntary indeed. There was no
compulsion upon any to adopt it. "Not one of them
said that aught that he possessed was his own," is St.
Luke's testimony on the point. "While it remained,
did it not remain thine own? And after it was sold,
was it not in thy power?" are St. Peter's words,
clearly testifying that this Christian communism was
simply the result and outcome of loving hearts who,
under the influence of an overmastering emotion, had
cast prudence to the winds. The communism of
Jerusalem may have been unwise, but it was the proof
of generous and devout spirits. It was an attempt,
too, to realize the conditions of the new life in the new
heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,
while still the old heaven and the old earth
remained. It was an enthusiasm, a high, a holy,
and a noble enthusiasm; and though it failed in some
respects, still the enthusiasm begotten of fervent Christian
love succeeded in another direction, for it enabled
the Apostles "with great power to give witness to the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus." The union of these
two points in the sacred narrative has profound
spiritual teaching for the Church of Christ. Unselfishness
in worldly things, enthusiasm about the kingdom
of Christ, fervent love to the brethren, are brought into
nearest contact and united in closest bonds with the
possession of special spiritual power over the hearts
of the unbelievers. And then, again, the unselfishness
existed amongst the body of the Church, the mass of
the people at large. We are sure that the Apostles
were leaders in the acts of self-denial. No great work
is carried out where the natural and divinely-sent
leaders hang back. But it is the love and enthusiasm
of the mass of the people which excite St. Luke's
notice, and which he illustrates by the contrasted cases
of Barnabas and Ananias; and he connects this unselfish
enthusiasm of the people with the possession
of great power by the Apostles. Surely we can read
a lesson suitable for the Church of all ages in this
collocation. The law of interaction prevails between
clergy and people still as it did between the Apostles
and people of old. The true minister of Christ will
frequently bear before the throne of God those souls
with whom the Holy Ghost has entrusted him, and
without such personal intercession he cannot expect
real success in his work. But then, on the other hand,
this passage suggests to us that enthusiasm, fervent
faith, unselfish love on the people's part are the conditions
of ministerial power with human souls. A people
filled with Christ's love, and abounding in enthusiasm,
even by a mere natural process produce power in their
leaders, for the hearts of the same leaders beat quicker
and their tongues speak more forcibly because they feel
behind them the immense motive power of hallowed
faith and sacred zeal. But we believe in a still higher
blessing. When people are unselfish, brimming over
with generous Christian love, it calls down a supernatural,
a Divine power. The Pentecostal Spirit of love
again descends, and in roused hearts and converted
souls and purified and consecrated intellects rewards
with a blessing such as they desire the men and women
who long for the salvation of their brethren, and are
willing, like these apostolic Christians, to sacrifice their
dearest and their best for it.
CHAPTER XI.
HONESTY AND PRETENCE IN THE PRIMITIVE
CHURCH.
"And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which
is, being interpreted, Son of exhortation), a Levite, a man of Cyprus by
race, having a field, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the
apostles' feet."—Acts iv. 36, 37.
"But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a
possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it,
and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter
said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost,
and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained,
did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy
power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart?
thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these
words fell down and gave up the ghost; and great fear came upon all
that heard it. And the young men arose and wrapped him round, and
they carried him out and buried him."—Acts v. 1-6.
The exact period in the history of the apostolic
Church at which we have now arrived is a most
interesting one. We stand at the very first origin of a
new development in Christian life and thought. Let us
observe it well, for the whole future of the Church is
bound up with it. Christianity was at the beginning
simply a sect of Judaism. It is plain that the Apostles
at first thus regarded it. They observed Jewish rites,
they joined in the temple and synagogue worship,
they restricted salvation and God's favour to the children
of Abraham, and merely added belief in Jesus of
Nazareth as the promised Messiah to the common
Jewish faith. The Spirit of God was indeed speaking
through the Apostles, leading them, as it led St. Peter
on the day of Pentecost, to speak words with a meaning
and scope far beyond their thoughts. They, like the
prophets of old, knew not as yet what manner of
things the Spirit which was in them did signify.
"As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven,
So thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given."
Their speech had a grander and wider application
than they themselves dreamt of; but the power of
prejudice and education was far too great even for
the Apostles, and so, though the nobility and profuseness
of God's mercy were revealed and the plenteousness
of His grace was announced by St. Peter himself,
yet the glory of the Divine gift was still unrecognised.
Jerusalem, the Temple, the Old Covenant, Israel after
the flesh,—these things as yet bounded and limited the
horizon of Christ's Church. How were the new ideas
to gain an entrance? How was the Church to rise
to a sense of the magnificence and universality of its
mission? Joseph, who by the Apostles was surnamed
Barnabas, emerges upon the scene and supplies the
answer, proving himself in very deed a son of consolation,
because he became the occasion of consoling the
masses of mankind with that truest comfort, the peace
of God which passes all understanding. Let us see
how this came about.
I. The Christian leaders belonged originally to the
extreme party in Judaism. The Jews were at this
time divided into two sections. There was the Hebrew
party on the one hand; extreme Nationalists as we
might call them. They hated everything foreign.
They clung to the soil of Palestine, to its language
and to its customs. They trained up their children
in an abhorrence of Greek civilisation, and could see
nothing good in it. This party was very unprogressive,
very narrow-minded, and, therefore, unfit to
recognise the developments of God's purposes. The
Galileans were very prominent among them. They
lived in a provincial district, remote from the influences
of the great centres of thought and life, and missed,
therefore, the revelations of God's mind which He is
evermore making through the course of His providential
dealings with mankind. The Galileans furnished the
majority of the earliest Christian leaders, and they were
not fitted from their narrowness to grasp the Divine
intentions with respect to Christianity and its mission.
What a lesson for every age do we behold in this
intellectual and spiritual defect of the Galileans. They
were conscientious, earnest, devout, spiritually-minded
men. Christ loved them as such, and devoted Himself
to their instruction. But they were one-sided and
illiberal. Their very provincialism, which had sheltered
them from Sadduceism and unbelief, had filled them
with blind prejudices, and as the result had rendered
them unable to read aright the mind of God and the
development of His purposes. Man, alas! is a very
weak creature, and human nature is very narrow.
Piety is no guarantee for wisdom and breadth, and
strong faith in God's dealings in the past often hinders
men from realizing and obeying the Divine guidance
and the evolution of His purposes amid the changed circumstances
of the present. The Galilean leaders were
best fitted to testify with unfaltering zeal to the miracles
and resurrection of Christ. They were not best fitted
to lead the Church into the possession of the Gentiles.
There was another party among the Jews whom God
had trained by the guidance of His Providence for this
purpose. The Acts of the Apostles casts a strong
and comforting light back upon the history of the
Lord's dealings with the Jews ever since the days of the
Babylonish Captivity. We can see in the story told
in the Acts the reason why God permitted the overthrow
of Jerusalem by the hands of Nebuchadnezzar,
and the apparent defeat for the time of His own designs
towards the chosen people. The story of the dispersion
is a standing example how wonderfully God
evolves good out of seeming ill, making all things
work together for the good of His Church. The dispersion
prepared a section of the Jews, by travel, by
foreign civilization, by culture, and by that breadth
of mind and sympathy which is thereby produced, to
be mediators between the Hebrew party with all their
narrowness, and the masses of the Gentile world whom
the strict Jews would fain have shut out from the hope
of God's mercy. This liberal and progressive party is
called in the Acts of the Apostles the Hellenists. They
were looked at askance by the more old-fashioned
Hebrews. They were Jews, children of Abraham indeed,
of the genuine stock of Israel. As such they had
a true standing-ground within the Jewish fold, and as
true Jews could exercise their influence from within
much more effectually than if they stood without; for
it has been well remarked by a shrewd observer, that
every party, religious or political, is much more powerfully
affected by movements springing from within
than by attacks directed from without. An explosive
operates with much more destructive force when acting
from within or underneath a fortification than when
brought into play from outside. Such was the Hellenistic
party. No one could deny their true Jewish character,
but they had been liberalized by their heaven-sent contact
with foreigners and foreign lands; and hence it is
that we discern in the Hellenistic party, and specially in
Joseph who by the Apostle was surnamed Barnabas,
the beginnings of the glorious ingathering of the
Gentiles, the very first rift in the thick dark cloud of
prejudice which as yet kept back even the Apostles
themselves from realizing the great object of the gospel
dispensation. The Hellenists, with their wealth, their
culture, their new ideas, their sense and value of Greek
thought, were the bridge by which the spiritual life,
hitherto wrapped in Jewish swaddling clothes, was to
pass over to the masses of the Gentile world. The
community of goods led Joseph Barnabas to dedicate
his substance to the same noble cause of unselfishness.
That dedication led to disputes between Hellenists and
Hebrews, and these disputes occasioned the election of
the seven deacons, who, in part, at least, belonged to the
more liberal section. Among these deacons we find St.
Stephen, whose teaching and martyrdom were directly
followed by St. Paul and his conversion, and St. Paul
was the Apostle of the Gentiles and the vindicator of
Christian freedom and Christian liberty. St. Barnabas
and his act of self-denial and self-sacrifice in surrendering
his landed estate are thus immediately connected
with St. Paul by direct historic contact, even if they had
not been subsequently associated as joint Apostles and
messengers of the Churches in their first missionary
journeys; while again the mistaken policy of communism
is overruled to the world's abiding benefit and blessing.
How wonderful, indeed, are the Lord's doings towards
the children of men!
II. We have thus suggested one of the main lines
of thought which run through the first half of this
book of the Acts. Let us now look a little more
particularly at this Joseph Barnabas who was the
occasion of this great, this new departure. We learn
then, upon consulting the sacred text, that Joseph was
a Levite, a man of Cyprus by race; he belonged, that
is, to the class among the Jews whose interests were
bound up with the maintenance of the existing order of
things; and yet he had become a convert to the belief
proclaimed by the Apostles. At the same time, while
we give full credit to this Levite for his action, we must
not imagine that either priests or Levites or Jews at
that period fully realized all the consequences of their
decisions. We find that men at every age take steps
blindly, without thoroughly realizing all the results which
logically and necessarily flow forth from them. Men
in religious, political, social matters are blind and cannot
see afar off. It is only step by step that the purposes
of God dawn upon them, and Joseph Barnabas, the
Levite of Cyprus, was no exception to this universal
rule. He was not only a Levite, but a native of Cyprus,
for Cyprus was then a great stronghold and resort of
the Jewish race. It continued to be a great centre of
Jewish influence for long afterwards. In the next
century, for instance, a great Jewish rebellion burst
forth wherever the Jews were strong enough. They
rose in Palestine against the power of the Emperor
Hadrian, and under their leader Barcochba vindicated
the ancient reputation of the nation for desperate and
daring courage; while, in sympathy with their brethren
on the mainland, the Jews in Cyprus seized their arms
and massacred a vast multitude of the Greek and
Roman settlers, numbering, it is said, two hundred
and forty thousand persons. The concourse of Jews to
Cyprus in the time of the Apostles is easily explained.
Augustus Cæsar was a great friend and patron of
Herod the Great, and he leased the celebrated copper
mines of the island to that Herod, exacting a royalty
upon their produce, as we learn from Josephus, the well-known
Jewish historian (Antiqq., xvi. iv. 5). It was
only to be expected, then, that when a Jewish monarch
was leaseholder and manager of the great mining
industry of the island, his Jewish subjects should
flock thither, and it was very natural that amongst the
crowds who sought Cyprus there should be found a
minister of the Jewish faith whose tribal descent as
a Levite reminded them of Palestine, and of the City
of God, and of the Temple of Jehovah and of its solemn,
stately worship.Philo was a contemporary of the Apostles. He has left us many
works dealing with this period. He speaks of the Jews of Cyprus
in the account of his embassy to the Emperor Caius Caligula. See
Milman's History of Jews, iii., 111, 112, and Conybeare and Howson's
Life of St. Paul, chap. v.
This residence of Barnabas in Cyprus
accounts for his landed property which he had the
right to sell just as he liked. A Levite in Palestine
could not, according to the law of Moses when strictly
construed, possess any private landed estate save in
a Levitical city. Meyer, a German commentator of
great reputation, has indeed suggested that Jer. xxxii.
7, where Jeremiah is asked to redeem his cousin's
field in the suburbs of Anathoth, proves that a member
of the tribe of Levi could possess landed estate in
Palestine. He therefore concludes that the old explanation
that the landed property of Barnabas was
in Cyprus, not in Palestine, could not stand. But the
simple fact is that even the cleverest German expositors
are not familiar with the text of their Bibles, for had
Meyer been thus familiar he would have remembered
that Anathoth was a city belonging to the priests and the
tribe of Levi, and that the circumstance of Jeremiah the
priest possessing a right to landed property in Anathoth
was no proof whatsoever that he could hold landed
property anywhere else, and, above all, affords no ground
for the conclusion that he could dispose of it in the
absolute style which Barnabas here displayed.See Lightfoot's Horæ Heb., Acts iv. 36; cf. Josh. xxi. 18.
We conclude
then that the action of Barnabas on this occasion
dealt with his landed estate in Cyprus, the country where
he was born, where he was well known, and where
his memory is even still cherished on account of the
work he there performed in conjunction with St. Paul.
III. Let us see what else we can glean concerning
this personage thus prominent in the early Church, first
for his generosity, and then for his missionary character
and success. It is indeed one of the most fruitful and
interesting lines upon which Bible study can be pursued,
thus to trace the scattered features of the less known
and less prominent characters of Scripture, and see
wherein God's grace specially abounded in them.
The very personal appearance of Barnabas can be
recalled by the careful student of this book.The early history of Barnabas is thus described by Metaphrastes,
an ancient Greek writer. Barnabas was born in Cyprus, of rich parents,
who sent him to be trained at Jerusalem under Gamaliel. There he
formed an early friendship with St. Paul. He was a witness of our
Lord's miracles, and was converted by the healing of the impotent man
at Bethesda. He then was the means of converting his sister Mary and
her son Mark, who was the young man with the pitcher of water whom
our Lord commanded His disciples to follow when He was sending
them to prepare the Passover. Mary's house was the place where the
upper room was situated, and continued to be the meeting-place of the
Christians, as we find from Acts xii. Metaphrastes had formerly a
very bad reputation as regards truthfulness, but modern investigation has
shown that his Lives contain some very ancient documents, going back
to the second century at least. See Bishop Lightfoot's address to the
Carlisle Church Congress in Expositor 1885, vol. i., p. 3; Prof. Ramsay
in Expositor 1889, vol. ix., p. 265 and refs., and Cave's Lives of the
Primitive Fathers, p. 35.
Though
it lies a little out of our way, we shall note the circumstance,
as it will help us to form a more lively image of
Barnabas, the Son of Consolation. The two Apostles,
Paul and Barnabas, were on their first missionary
tour when they came to the city of Lystra in Lycaonia.
There the multitude, astonished at the miracle wrought
upon the cripple by St. Paul, attempted to pay divine
honours to the two Christian missionaries. "They
called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because
he was the chief speaker." It must have been their
physical characteristics as well as the mode of address
used by the Apostles which led to these names; and from
the extant records of antiquity we know that Jupiter
was always depicted as a man with a fine commanding
presence, while Mercury, the god of eloquent speech,
was a more insignificant figure. Jupiter, therefore,
struck the Lycaonian people as the fittest name for
the taller and more imposing-looking Apostle, while
St. Paul, who was in bodily presence contemptible,
was designated by the name of the active and restless
Mercury. His character again shines through every
recorded action of St. Barnabas. He was a thoroughly
sympathetic man, and, like all such characters, he was
ever swept along by the prevailing wave of thought or
action, without allowing that supreme place to the judgment
and the natural powers which they should always
hold if the feelings and sympathies are not to land us in
positions involving dire ruin and loss. He was carried
away by the enthusiasm for Christian communism
which now seized upon the Jerusalem Church. He
was influenced by the Judaizing movement at Antioch,
so that "even Barnabas was carried away with the
Petrine dissimulation." His sympathies got the better
of his judgment in the matter of St. Mark's conduct in
abandoning the ministry to which St. Paul had called
him. His heart was stronger, in fact, than his head.
And yet this very weakness qualified him to be the Son
of Consolation. A question has, indeed, been raised
whether he should be called the Son of Consolation or
the Son of Exhortation, but, practically, there is no
difference. His consolations were administered through
his exhortations. His speech and his advice were of a
consoling, healing, comforting kind. There are still
such men to be found in the Church. Just as all other
apostolic graces and characteristics are still manifested,—the
eloquence of a Paul, the courage of a Peter, the
speculative flights of a John,—so the sympathetic power
of a Barnabas is granted to some. And a very precious
gift it is. There are some good men whose very tone
of voice and bodily attitudes—their heads thrown back
and their arms akimbo, and their aggressive walk—at
once provoke opposition. They are pugnacious Christians,
ever on the look out for some topic of blame and
controversy. There are others, like this Barnabas, whose
voices bring consolation, and whose words, even when
not the clearest or the most practical, speak counsels of
peace, and come to us thick-laden with the blessed dews
of charity. Their advice is not, indeed, always the wisest.
Their ardent cry is always, Peace, peace. Such a man
on the political stage was the celebrated Lucius Carey,
Lord Falkland, in the days of the great civil war, who,
though he adhered to the Royalist cause, seemed, as
the historian tells us, to have utterly lost all heart once
that active hostilities commenced. Men of this type
appear in times of great religious strife. Erasmus, for
instance, at the time of the Reformation, possessed a
good deal of this spirit which is devoted to compromise,
and ever inclined to place the interests of peace and
charity above those of truth and principle, just as
Barnabas would have done at Antioch were it not for
the protest of his stronger and sterner friend St. Paul.
And yet such men, with their sympathetic hearts and
speech, have their own great use, infusing a healing,
consoling tone into seasons of strife, when others are
only too apt to lose sight of the sweet image of Christian
love in pursuit of what they consider the supreme
interests of religious or political truth. Such a man
was Barnabas all his life, and such we behold him on
his first visible entrance upon the stage of Church
history, when his sympathies and his generosity led
him to consecrate his independent property in Cyprus to
his brethren's support, and to bring the money and lay
it down at the Apostles' feet.
IV. Now for the contrast drawn for us by the inspired
pen of St. Luke, a contrast we find oft repeating itself
in Church history. Here we have the generous sympathetic
Son of Consolation on the one side, and here,
too, we have a warning and a type for all time that the
tares must evermore be mingled with the wheat, the
false with the true, the hypocrites with real servants
of God, even until the final separation. The accidental
division of the book into chapters hinders casual readers
from noticing that the action of Ananias and his wife
is set by the writer over against that of Barnabas.
Barnabas sold his estate and brought the price, the
whole price, and surrendered it as an offering to the
Church. The spirit of enthusiastic giving was abroad,
and had seized upon the community; and Barnabas
sympathized with it. Ananias and Sapphira were
carried away too, but their spirits were meaner. They
desired to have all the credit the Church would give
them for acting as generously as Barnabas did, and yet,
while getting credit for unselfish and unstinting liberality,
to be able to enjoy in private somewhat of that
which they were believed to have surrendered. And
their calculations were terribly disappointed. They
tried to play the hypocrite's part on most dangerous
ground just when the Divine Spirit of purity, sincerity,
and truth had been abundantly poured out, and when
the spirit of deceit and hypocrisy was therefore at once
recognised. It was with the Apostles and their spiritual
natures then as it is with ourselves and our physical
natures still. When we are living in a crowded city we
notice not strange scents and ill-odours and foul gases:
our senses are dulled, and our perceptive powers are
rendered obtuse because the whole atmosphere is a
tainted one. But when we dwell in the pure air of the
country, and the glorious breezes from mountain and
moor blow round us fresh and free, then we detect at
once, and at a long distance, the slightest ill-odour or
the least trace of offensive gas. The outpoured presence
of the Spirit, and the abounding love which
was produced thereby, quickened the perception of St.
Peter. He recognised the hypocrisy, characterized the
sin of Ananias as a lie against the Holy Ghost; and
then the Spirit and Giver of life, seconding and supporting
the words of St. Peter, withdrew His support
from the human frame of the sinner, and Ananias
ceased to live, just as Sapphira, his partner in deceit,
ceased to live a few hours later. The death of Ananias
and Sapphira have been ofttimes the subject of much
criticism and objection, on the part of persons who do
not realize the awfulness of their position, the full
depths of their hypocrisy, and the importance of the
lesson taught by their punishment to the Church of
every age. Their position was a specially awful one, for
they were brought into closest contact, as no Christian
can now be brought, with the powers of the world to
come. The Spirit was vouchsafed during those earliest
days of the Church in a manner and style which we
hear nothing of during the later years of the Apostles.
He proved His presence by physical manifestations, as
when the whole house was shaken where the Apostles
were assembled; a phenomenon of which we read
nothing in the latter portion of the Acts. By the gift of
tongues, by miracles of healing, by abounding spiritual
life and discernment, by physical manifestations, the
most careless and thoughtless in the Christian community
were compelled to feel that a supernatural power
was present in their midst and specially resting upon the
Apostles. Yet it was into such an atmosphere that the
spirit of hypocrisy and of covetousness, the two vices
to which Christianity was specially opposed, and which
the great Master had specially denounced, obtruded
itself as Satan gained entrance into Eden, to defile
with their foul presence the chosen dwelling-place
of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost vindicated His
authority therefore, because, as it must be observed, it
was not St. Peter sentenced Ananias to death. No
one may have been more surprised than St. Peter
himself at the consequences which followed his stern
rebuke. St. Peter merely declared his sin, "Thou
hast not lied unto men, but unto God;" and then it is
expressly said, "Ananias hearing these words fell down,
and gave up the ghost." It was a stern action indeed;
but then all God's judgments have a stern side.
Ananias and Sapphira were cut off in their sins, but
men are every day summoned into eternity in precisely
the same state and the same way, and the only difference
is that in the case of Ananias we see the sin which
provoked the punishment and then we see the punishment
immediately following. Men object to this
narrative simply because they have a one-sided conception
of Christianity such as this period of the world's
history delights in. They would make it a religion of
pure unmitigated love; they would eliminate from it
every trace of sternness, and would thus leave it a poor
weak flabby thing, without backbone or earnestness, and
utterly unlike all other dispensations of the Lord, which
have their stern sides and aspects as well as their
loving.
It may well have been that this incident was inserted
in this typical Church history to correct a false idea
which would otherwise have grown up. The Jews
were quite well accustomed to regard the Almighty as
a God of judgment as well as a God of love. Perhaps
we might even say that they viewed Him more in the
former light than in the latter. Our Lord was obliged,
in fact, to direct some of His most searching discourses
to rebuke this very tendency. The Galileans, whose
blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, the men
upon whom the tower of Siloam fell,—neither party
were sinners above all that were at Jerusalem, or were
punished as such. Such was his teaching in opposition
to the popular idea. The Apostles were once quite
ready to ascribe the infirmity of the man born blind to
the direct judgment of the Almighty upon himself or
upon his parents. But men are apt to rush from one
extreme to another. The Apostles and their followers
were now realizing their freedom in the Spirit; and
some were inclined to run into licentiousness as the
result of that same freedom. They were realizing,
too, their relationship to God as one of pure filial
love, and they were in great danger of forgetting
that God was a God of justice and judgment as well,
till this stern dispensation recalled them to a sense
of the fact that eternal love is also eternal purity
and eternal truth, and will by no means clear the
guilty. This is a lesson very necessary for every
age of the Church. Men are always inclined, and
never, perhaps, so much as at the present time, to
look away from the severe side of religion, or even to
deny that religion can have a severe side at all. This
tendency in religious matters is indeed simply an exhibition
of the spirit of the age. It is a time of great
material prosperity and comfort, when pain is regarded
as the greatest possible evil, softness, ease, and enjoyment
the greatest possible good. Men shrink from the
infliction of pain even upon the greatest criminals; and
this spirit infects their religion, which they would fain
turn into a mere matter of weakly sentiment. Against
such a notion the judicial action of the Holy Ghost in
this case raises an eternal protest, warning the Church
against one-sided and partial views of truth, and bidding
her never to lower her standard at the world's call.
Men may ignore the fact that God has His severe aspect
and His stern dispensations in nature, but yet the fact
remains. And as it is in nature so is it in grace: God
is merciful and loving to the penitent, but towards the
hypocritical and covetous He is a stern judge, as the
punishment of Ananias and Sapphira proved.
V. This seems one of the great permanent lessons for
the Church of every age which this passage embodies,
but it is not the only one. There are many others,
and they most important. An eminent modern commentator
and expositorC. J. Vaughan, D.D., The Church of the First Days, pp. 105-12.
has drawn out at great length,
and with many modern applications and illustrations,
four great lessons which may be derived from this
transaction. We shall just note them, giving a brief
analysis of each. (1) There is such a thing as acting
as well as telling a falsehood. Ananias did not say
that the money he brought was the whole price of his
land; he simply allowed men to draw this conclusion for
themselves, suggesting merely by his conduct that he
was doing exactly the same as Barnabas. There was
no science of casuistry in the apostolic Church, teaching
how near to the borders of a lie a man may go without
actually being guilty of lying. The lie of Ananias
was a spiritual act, a piece of deception attempted
in the abyss of the human soul, and perpetrated, or
attempted rather, upon the Holy Spirit. How often
men lie after the same example. They do not speak
a lie, but they act a lie, throwing dust into the
eyes of others as to their real motives and objects,
as Ananias did here. He sold his estate, brought
the money to the Apostles, and would fain have got
the character of a man of extraordinary liberality and
unselfishness, just like others who truly sacrificed their
all, while he enjoyed in private the portion which he
had kept back. Ananias wished to make the best of
both worlds, and failed in his object. He sought to
obtain a great reputation among men, but had no regard
to the secret eye and judgment of the Almighty. Alas!
how many of our actions, how much of our piety and
of our almsgiving, is tainted by precisely the same vice.
Our good works are done with a view to man's approbation,
and not as in the sight of the Eternal God.
(2) What an illustration we find in this passage of
the saying of the Apostle, "The love of money is the
root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they
have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves with
many sorrows!" The other scriptures are full of warnings
against this vice of covetousness; and so this typical
history does not leave the Church without an illustration
of its power and danger. Surely if at a time when
the supernatural forces of the unseen life were specially
manifested, this vice intruded into the special sphere of
their influence, the Church of every age should be on
its perpetual guard against this spirit of covetousness
which the Bible characterises as idolatry.
(3) What a responsibility is involved in being brought
near to God as members of His Son's Church below!
There were hypocrites in abundance at Jerusalem at
that time, but they had not been blessed as Ananias
had been, and therefore were not punished as he.
There is a reality in our connection with Christ which
must tell upon us, if not for good, then inevitably for evil.
Christ is either the savour of life unto life or else the
savour of death unto death unto all brought into contact
with Him. In a far more awful sense than for
the Jews the words of the prophet Ezekiel are true,
"That which cometh into your mind shall not be at
all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the
families of the countries, to serve wood and stone;"Ezek. xx. 32.
or
as the poet of the Christian Year has well put it in his
hymn for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity:—
"Fain would our lawless hearts escape,
And with the heathen be,
To worship every monstrous shape
In fancied darkness free.
Vain thought, that shall not be at all,
Refuse we or obey;
Our ears have heard th' Almighty's call,
We cannot be as they.
We cannot hope the heathen's doom
To whom God's Son is given,
Whose eyes have seen beyond the tomb,
Who have the key of Heaven."
(4) Lastly, let us learn from this history how to cast
out the fear of one another by the greater and more
awful fear of God. The fear of man is a good thing
in a degree. We should have respect to the opinion
of our fellows, and strive to win it in a legitimate way.
But Ananias and his consort desired the good opinion
of the Christian community regardless of the approval
or the watchful eye of the Supreme Judge, who interposed
to teach His people by an awful example that
in the new dispensation of Love, as well as in the old
dispensation of Law, the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom, and that they and they alone
have a good understanding who order their lives according
to that fear, whether in their secret thoughts or in
their public actions.
CHAPTER XII.
GAMALIEL AND HIS PRUDENT ADVICE.
"And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them
alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown:
but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply
ye be found even to be fighting against God. And to him they agreed:
and when they had called the Apostles unto them, they beat them and
charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go."—Acts
v. 38-40.
We have set forth in these verses an incident in
the second appearance before the council of
the Apostle Peter and the other Apostles, conspicuous
among whom must have been James the brother of John.
It is almost certain that James the son of Zebedee was
at this time very prominent in the public work of the
Church, for we are told in the opening of the twelfth
chapter that when Herod would vex and harass and
specially weaken the Church, it was neither Peter nor
John he first arrested, but he laid hands on James,
and placed on him the honour of being the earliest
martyr from amongst the sacred band of the Apostles.
Peter we may, however, be sure was the centre of
Sadducean hate at this period, and one of the most conspicuous
members of the Church. We should at the
same time beware of exaggeration, and strive to estimate
the events of these earliest days of the Church, not as
we behold them now, but as they must have then
appeared unto the members of the Sanhedrin. The
deaths of Ananias and Sapphira seem now to us extraordinary
and awe-inspiring, and sufficient to strike
terror into the hearts of all unbelievers; but probably
the story of them had never reached the ears of
the authorities. Human life was but little accounted
of among the Romans who ruled Palestine. A Roman
master might slay or torture his slaves just as he
pleased; and the Romans, scorning the Jews as a
conquered race, would trouble themselves but little
concerning quarrels or deaths among them, so long as
public order and the stated business of society were
not interfered with. The public miracles which St.
Peter wrought, these were the things which brought
matters to a crisis, and called afresh the attention of
the Sanhedrin, charged as they were with all religious
authority, as the miracle of healing wrought upon
the impotent man had led to the arrest of the Apostles
on a previous occasion.Acts v. 12-16 states that St. Peter wrought many miracles, and
further that men sought to place their sick in such a position that even
his shadow might fall upon them, thinking that it brought healing
with it. This statement has been spoken of as a demonstrative
proof of legendary growth by Zeller in his work on the Acts, and is
weakly apologised for by Meyer. But the analogy of hypnotism at the
present time, when cures are wrought and extraordinary influence exercised
without corporeal contact, is quite sufficient to vindicate St. Luke's
account from the charge of legend. If moderns can produce marvellous
results without immediate touch; if, for instance, hypnotised patients when
blindfolded can read a book by means of their stomachs or their noses
(Moll, p. 366, already quoted), or blisters can be raised by a piece of
white paper merely by suggestion, as stated by Moll, pp. 114-22,
surely the statement of St. Luke is no necessary proof of legend and
old wives' fables. See my remarks on p. 100 above.
It is a mistake often made,
in studying the history of the past, to imagine that
events which we now see to have been important and
epoch-making must have been so regarded by persons
living at the time when they happened. Men are never
worse judges of the true value of current history than
when they are placed in the midst of it. It is always
the on-lookers who see most of the play. Our minds
are so limited, our thoughts are so completely filled
up with the present, that it is not till we have got
away from the events, and can view them in their
due proportion and symmetry, surrounded with all
their circumstances, that we can hope to form a just
appreciation of their relative importance. I have often
seen a hill of a few hundred feet in height occupying
a far more commanding position in men's eyes than a
really lofty mountain, simply because the one was near,
the other far off. The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira
are recorded therefore at full length, because they bring
eternal lessons of justice, judgment, and truth along
with them. The numerous public miracles wrought by
Peter when "multitudes came together from the cities
round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folk and them
that were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were
healed every one," seemed to the Sanhedrin and the
religious public of Jerusalem the all-important topics,
though they are passed wholly over in the Scriptures
as matters of no spiritual interest. If it requires a vast
exercise of patience and wisdom to estimate events
aright in their mere worldly aspect, it requires the
operation and guidance of the Holy Ghost to form a
sound judgment upon the relative spiritual value of
events falling within the sphere of Church history; and
there indeed it is most true that matters which seem
all-important and striking to man are judged by God as
insignificant and unworthy of notice. So contradictory
are ofttimes the ways of God and the opinions of man.
The public miracles wrought by St. Peter had this
effect,—the only one noted at length by the sacred
writer: they led to the fresh arrest of Peter and the
other Apostles by the High Priest and the sect of the
Sadducees, and to their incarceration in the public
prison attached to the temple. Thence they were
delivered by an angel and sent to speak publicly in
the temple, where their adversaries officially assembled;
just as on a later occasion Peter, when imprisoned by
himself, was released by angelic interference. Men looking
back upon the history of the primitive Church, and
judging of it as if it were the history of an ordinary
time and age, have objected to the angelic interventions
narrated here and in a few other places in the New
Testament. They object because they do not realize
the circumstances of the time. Dr. Jortin was a shrewd
writer of the last century, now too much neglected. He
remarked in one place that, suppose we admit that a
special revelation of the good powers of the heavenly
world was made in Christ, it was natural and fair that
a special manifestation of the powers of evil should
have been permitted at the time of Christ's Incarnation,
in order that the triumph of good might be the greater;
and thus he would account for the diabolical possessions
which play such an important part in the New Testament.
The principle thus laid down extends much
farther indeed. The great miracle of the Incarnation,
the great manifestation of God in Christ, naturally
brought with it lesser heavenly manifestations in its
train. The Incarnation raises for a believer the whole
level of the age when it occurred, and makes it an
exceptional time. The eternal gates were for a moment
lifted up, and angels went in and out for a little; and
therefore we accept without endeavouring to explain
the words of the narrative which tells us that an angel
opened the prison doors for the Apostles, bidding them
go and speak in the temple all the words of this life.
And then from the temple, where they were teaching
early in the morning, about daybreak of the day following
their arrest, they are led by the officers before the
Sanhedrin which was sitting in the city. Here let us
pause to note the marvellous accuracy of detail in
St. Luke's narrative. The Sanhedrin used to sit in
the temple, but a few years before the period at which
we have arrived, four or five at most, they removed
from the temple into the city, a fact which is just
hinted at in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter,
where we are told that the rulers, and elders, and
scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem, that is,
in the city, not in the temple; while again in this
passage we read that when the High Priest came and
convened the council and all the senate of the children
of Israel, they sent their officers to bring the prisoners
before them. These officers after a while returned with
the information that the Apostles were preaching in
the temple. If the Sanhedrin were meeting in the
temple, they would doubtless have learned this fact as
soon as they assembled, especially as they did not
sit till after the morning sacrifice, several hours after
the Apostles appeared in the temple.See Dr. John Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ, on the Acts, iv. 5. Cf.
his remarks on St. Mark xv. 1, where that learned Hebraist seems to
support this view, though admitting that there is something to be said
on the other side, viz., that the council met in the temple as of old.
When brought
before the council the Apostles boldly proclaimed their
intention to disregard all human threats, and persevere
in preaching the death and resurrection of Christ.
The majority would then have proceeded to extreme
measures against the Apostles, and in doing so would
only have acted after their usual manner.
The greater part of the Sanhedrin were Sadducees,
and they, as Josephus tells us, were men of a bloodthirsty
character, ever ready to proceed to punish in the most
cruel manner. The simple fact is this, the Sadducees
were materialists. They looked upon man as a mere
animated machine, and therefore, like the pagans of the
same period, they were utterly regardless of human
sufferings or of the value of human life. We little
recognise, reared up as we have been in an atmosphere
saturated with Christian principles, how much of our
merciful spirit, of our tender care for human suffering,
of our reverent respect for human life, is owing to the
spiritual ideas of the New Testament, teaching as it
does the awful importance of time, the sanctity of the
body, and the tremendous issues which depend upon life.
Sadducees and pagans knew nothing of these things,
because they knew nothing of the inestimable treasure
lodged in every human form. Life and time would
have been very different for mankind had not the
spiritual principles inculcated by Pharisee and by
Christian alike triumphed over the cold stern creed
which strove on this occasion to stifle the religion of
the Cross in its very infancy. When the Sadducees
would have adopted extreme measures, the words of
one man restrained them and saved the Apostles, and
that one man was Gamaliel, whose name and career
will again come before us. Now let us apply ourselves
to the consideration of his address to the Sanhedrin.
Gamaliel saw that the large public gathering to whom he
was speaking were thoroughly excited and full of cruel
purposes. He therefore, like a true orator, adopts the
historical method as the fittest one for dealing with them.
He points out how other pretenders had arisen, trading
on the Messianic expectations which then existed all
over Palestine, and specially in Galilee, and how they
had been all destroyed without any action on the part of
the Sanhedrin. He instances two cases: Judas, who
lived in the days of Cyrenius and the taxing under Augustus
Cæsar; and Theudas, who some time previous to that
event had arisen, working upon the religious and national
hopes of the Jews, as the persons now accused before
them seemed also to be doing. He points to the fate
of the pretenders he had mentioned, and advises the
Sanhedrin to leave the Apostles to the same test of
Divine Providence, confident that if mere impostors,
like the others, they will meet with the same death at
the hands of the Romans, without any interference on
their part.
It is evident that Gamaliel must have had some
special reason for selecting the risings of Theudas
and Judas, beyond the fact that they were rebels
against established authority. The closing years of
the kingdom of Herod the Great were times when
numberless rebellions took place. Josephus gives us
the names of several leaders who took part in them,
but, as he tells us (Antiqq., XVII. x. 4), there were
then "ten thousand other disorders," into the details of
which he did not enter. All these risings had, however,
these distinguishing features, they were all unsuccessful,
and they were all quenched in blood. Gamaliel must
have seen some feature common to the Christian movement
and to those headed by Theudas and Judas some
thirty years earlier, leading him to adduce these examples.
That common feature was their Messianic character.
They all alike proclaimed new hopes for Israel, and
appealed to the religious expectations which then excited
the people, and still are embodied in works like the
book of Enoch, produced about that period; while all
the other attempts were animated by a mere spirit of
plunder or of personal ambition. But here we are met
with a difficulty. The rationalistic commentators of
Germany have urged that St. Luke composed a fancy
speech and put it into the mouth of Gamaliel, and in
doing so made a great historic mistake. They appeal
to Josephus as their authority. He states that a
Theudas arose about A.D. 44, some ten years later than
this meeting of the Sanhedrin, and drew a large number
of adherents after him, but was defeated by the Roman
governor. On the other hand, the words of Gamaliel
refer to the case of a Theudas who lived half a century
earlier, and preceded Judas the Galilean. To put the
matter plainly, St. Luke is accused of having composed
a speech for Gamaliel, and, when doing so, of having
committed a great blunder, representing Gamaliel as
appealing to an incident which did not happen till ten
years later.See, for instance, Zeller on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. i., p. 228
(Norgate and Williams: London, 1875), where he says: "We must therefore
maintain the possibility that our author, after the fashion of ancient
historians, freely invented Gamaliel's speech; and it is a question how
much of it belongs to history at all, and especially whether Gamaliel
delivered the discourse in favour of the Christian cause;" with which
statement the whole context, pp. 223-32, should be compared. The
report of Gamaliel's speech is due of course to St. Paul, who was doubtless
present during its delivery.
This circumstance has long attracted the notice of
commentators, and has been explained in different
ways. Some maintain that there was an older Theudas,
who headed an abortive Messianic rebellion previous
to the time of Cyrenius and the days of the taxing.
This is a very possible explanation, and the identity
of names constitutes no valid objection. The same
names often occur in connection with the same movements,
political or religious. In the third century, for
instance, the Novatian heresy arose at Carthage, and
thence was transferred to Rome. It was headed by
two men, Novatus and Novatian, the former a Carthaginian,
the latter a Roman presbyter. What a fine
subject for a mythical theory, were not the facts too
indisputably historical! How a German critic would
revel in depicting the impossibility of two men with
names so like holding precisely the same office and
supporting exactly the same views in two cities so
widely separated as Rome and Carthage! Or let us
take two modern instances. The Tractarian movement
is not yet quite sixty years old. It has not therefore
yet passed out of the sphere of personal experience.
It started in Oxford during the thirties, and there in
Oxford we find at that very period two divines named
William Palmer, both favouring the Tractarian views,
both eminent writers and scholars, but yet tending
finally in different directions, for one William Palmer
became a Roman Catholic, while the other remained
a devoted son of the Reformation. Or to come to still
more modern times. There was an Irish movement in
1848 which numbered amongst its most prominent
leaders a William Smith O'Brien, and there is now
an Irish movement of the same character, and it also
numbers a William O'Brien amongst its most prominent
leaders. A Parnell leads the movement for repeal of
the Union in 1890. Ninety years earlier, a Parnell
resigned high office sooner than consent to the consummation
of the same legislative union of Great
Britain and Ireland. We might indeed produce parallel
cases without number from the range of history, specially
of English history, showing how political and
religious tendencies run in families, and reproduce
exactly the same names, and that at no distant intervals.
But the very passage before us, the speech of Gamaliel
and its historical argument, affords a sufficient instance.
Gamaliel adduced the case of Judas the Galilean as
an illustration of an unsuccessful religious movement.
Every one admits that here at least Josephus and the
Acts of the Apostles are at one. Judas the Gaulonite,
as Josephus styles him in one place, or the Galilean as
he calls him in another place, was the founder of the
sect of the Zealots, who "have an inviolable attachment
to liberty, and say that God is to be their only ruler
and Lord" (Josephus, Antiqq., XVIII., i. 6). Judas
was defeated at the time of the taxing under Cyrenius,
and yet more than forty-five years later we find his
sons Simon and James suffering crucifixion under the
Romans because they were following their father's
example.The family of Gamaliel himself illustrates the principle for which
we are contending, viz., that families have a tendency to reproduce
exactly the same political and religious tendencies. Gamaliel himself
was grandson of the Jewish patriarch Hillel I., who presided over the
Sanhedrin long before the Christian era. Gamaliel's grandson, Gamaliel
II., was president of the Sanhedrin during the first twenty years of
the second century. He was distinguished by the same liberal principles
as characterised his grandfather. Gamaliel II. was succeeded by his
son Simon. So that the presidency of the Sanhedrin continued in the
same family for nearly two centuries. It is a notable fact, and not
without its bearing on some modern controversies, that the Jewish
canon of the Old Testament was not finally closed till the time of the
presidency of Gamaliel II., that is, about the year 117 A.D. "Up to
this time the members of the Sanhedrin themselves, in whom was
vested the power to fix the canon, disputed the canonicity of certain
portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus the school of Shammai
excluded Ecclesiastes and the Canticles from the text of Holy Writ,
declaring that they proceeded from Solomon's uninspired wisdom. It
was the Sanhedrin at Zabne which decided that these books are
inspired, and that they form part of the canon."—See Mr. Ginsburg's
article on Gamaliel II. in the Dictionary of Christian Biography,
vol. ii., p. 607.
Another explanation has also been offered. It has
been suggested that Theudas was simply another
name for one of the many rebels whom Josephus
mentions,—for Simon, for instance, who had been a
slave of Herod the Great, and had upon his death
headed a revolt against authority. Either explanation is
quite tenable, as opposed to the view which represents
St. Luke as committing a gross historical error. And
we are the more justified in offering these suggestions
when we reflect upon the numberless instances where
modern research has confirmed, and is every year confirming,
the minute accuracy of this writer, who doubtless
derived his information concerning what passed in
the Sanhedrin, on this occasion, from St. Paul, who
either as a member of the council or a favourite pupil
of Gamaliel may have been present listening to the
debates, or even sharing in the final decisions.Upon the question of the historical accuracy of the Acts of the
Apostles, the appendix to the late Bishop Lightfoot's collected essays on
Supernatural Religion (London, 1889) should be consulted. The
opening paragraph bears directly upon our point. "In a former
volume M. Renan declared his opinion that the author of the third
Gospel and the Acts was verily and indeed (bien réellement) a disciple
of St. Paul.... Such an expression of opinion, proceeding from a
not too conservative critic, is significant; and this view of the authorship,
I cannot doubt, will be the final verdict of the future, as it has
been the unbroken tradition of the past. But at a time when attacks
on the genuineness of the work have been renewed, it may not be out
of place to call attention to some illustrations of the narrative which
recent discoveries have brought to light. No ancient work affords so
many tests of veracity, for no other has such numerous points of contact
in all directions with contemporary history, politics, topography,
whether Jewish, or Greek, or Roman."
Let us now turn from the purely historical side of
Gamaliel's speech, and view it from a spiritual standpoint.
The address of Gamaliel was so favourable to the
Apostles that it has helped to surround his name and
memory with much legendary lore. It was the tradition
of the ancient Greek Church from the fifth century that
he was converted to Christianity and baptized, along
with his son Abibus and Nicodemus, by St. Peter and
St. John.We learn this from the Bibliotheca of Photius, Cod. 171. Photius
was a very learned Greek patriarch of the ninth century. He was a
diligent student, and made an analysis of every book he read. These
extracts have been gathered into one volume called his Bibliotheca or
Library, and can now be consulted in any collection of the Greek
fathers. Photius reports his story about Gamaliel and Nicodemus from
two earlier writers, Chrysippus and Lucian, presbyters of Jerusalem.
This story of Gamaliel's secret adherence
to Christianity goes even much farther back. There is
a curious Christian novel or romance, which dates back
to close upon the year 200, called the Clementine Recognitions.
We find the same tradition in the sixty-fifth
chapter of the first book of these Recognitions.For an account of the Clementine Recognitions see Dr. Salmon's
Introduction to the N. T., 4th ed., pp. 14-19, 373-75. Translations,
both of the Recognitions and Homilies, can be consulted in Clark's
Ante-Nicene Library.
But the sacred narrative itself gives us no hint of all
this, contenting itself with setting forth the prudent
advice which Gamaliel gave to the assembled council.
It was wise advice, and well would it have been for the
world if influential religious and political teachers in
all ages had given similar counsel. Gamaliel was a
man of large scholarship, combined with a wide mind,
and he had learned that time is a great solvent, and
the greatest of tests. Beneath its influence the most
pretentious schemes, the most promising of structures,
fade away if built upon the sand of human wisdom,
while opposition only tends to consolidate and develop
those that are built upon the foundation of Divine
strength and power. The policy of patience recommended
by Gamaliel is a wise one, either for the
Church or for the state, in things spiritual and things
secular alike. And yet it is one from which the
natural man recoils with an instinctive repugnance.
It speaks well for the Jewish Sanhedrin that on this
occasion they yielded accord to the advice of their
president. We are glad to recognise this spirit in these
men, where we so often have to find matter for blame.
Well would it have been for the Church and for the
credit of Christianity had the spirit which moved even
the Sadducean majority in the Jewish council been
allowed to prevail; and yet how little have the men of
tolerant mind been regarded in moments of temporary
triumph such as the Sanhedrin just then enjoyed.
Gamaliel's advice, "Refrain from these men and let
them alone. If the work be of man it will be overthrown;
if of God, ye will not be able to overthrow
them," strikes a blow at the policy of persecution, which
is essentially a policy of impatience. The intolerant
man is an impatient man, not willing to imitate the
Divine gentleness and long-suffering, which waits,
endures, and bears with the sins and ignorance of the
children of men. And the Church of Christ, when she
became intolerant, as she did as soon as ever Constantine
placed within her reach the sword of human
power, forgot the lesson of the Divine patience, and
reaped within herself, in a shallow religion, in a poorer
life, in a restrained intellectual and spiritual grasp, the
due reward of those who had fallen away from an
imitation of the Divine example to a mere human level.
It is sad to see, for instance, in the case of a man so
thoroughly spiritual as St. Augustine was, how easily
he fell into this human infirmity, how quickly he
became intolerant when the secular arm was ranged
on the side of his own opinions. The Church in his
own boyhood, during the days of Julian, had to strive
against the intolerance of the pagans; the orthodox,
who upheld the Catholic view of the nature of the Godhead
and the scriptural doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
had to struggle against the intolerance of the Arians.
Yet as soon as power was placed in St. Augustine's
own hand he thought it right to exercise compulsion
against those who differed from him.
It was exactly the same in later days. Men may take
up commentators of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike. There
they will find many remarks, acute, devout, heart-searching,
but very few of them will be found to
have arrived at the mental fairness and balance involved
in those words, "Refrain from these men, and
let them alone." Cornelius a Lapide was a Jesuit commentator
of those times. He wrote many valuable
expositions of Holy Scripture, including one dealing
with this book of the Acts, filled with thoughts suggestive
and stimulating. It is, however, almost ludicrous
to notice how he strives to evade the force of Gamaliel's
words, and to escape the application of them to his
own Protestant opponents. The Sanhedrin were quite
right, he thinks, in adopting Gamaliel's advice, and in
showing themselves tolerant of the apostolic preaching
because the Apostles worked miracles; and so,
though they were unconvinced, still they had just reason
to suspend their judgment. But as for the Protestants
of his time, they were heretics; they were the opponents
of the Church, the bride of Christ, and therefore
Gamaliel's words had no application to them; as if the
very question that was raised by the Protestants was
not this—whether Cornelius a Lapide himself and his
Jesuit brethren did not represent Antichrist, and whether
the Protestants were not the true Church of God, who
therefore on his own principles were quite justified in
persecuting their Romish opponents. It is very difficult
to get men to acknowledge their own fallibility.
Every party, when triumphant, believes that it has a
monopoly of truth, and has a Divine right of persecution;
and every party when downcast and in adversity
sees and admires the beauties of toleration. Verily
societies, churches, families, as well as individuals,
have good right diligently to pray, "In all time of our
wealth, good Lord, deliver us," for never are men in
greater spiritual danger than when prosperity leads
them to vote themselves infallible, and to practise intolerance
towards their fellow-men on account of their
intellectual or religious opinions.
The sentiment of Gamaliel on this occasion may
however be pushed to a mischievous extreme. He
advised the Sanhedrin to exercise patience and self-control,
but he did not apparently go any farther. He
did not recommend them to adopt the noblest course,
which would have been unprejudiced examination into
the claims put forward by the Christian teachers.
Gamaliel's advice was good, it was perhaps the best he
could have given, or at least which could have been
expected under the circumstances, but it was not the
highest or noblest conceivable. It was the kind of advice
always given by men who do not wish to commit themselves
untimely, but who are waiters upon Providence,
postponing their decision as to which side they shall
join until they first see which side will win. Opportunists,
the French call them; men who are sitting
upon the fence, we in homelier phrase designate them.
It is well to be prudent in our actions, because true
prudence is only Christian wisdom, and such wisdom
will always lead us to take the most effectual ways of
doing good. But then prudence may be pushed to the
extreme of moral cowardice, or at least the name of
prudence may be used as a cloak for a contemptible
desire to stand well with all parties, and thereby advance
our own selfish interests. Prudence should be united
with moral courage; it should be ready to take the
unpopular side, and to champion truth and righteousness
even when in a depressed and lowly condition.
It was easy enough to side with Christ when the
multitude cried, "Hosanna in the Highest." But the
test of deepest love and unfailing devotion was when
the women stood by the cross, and when the Magdalen
sought out the grave in the garden that she might
anoint the dead body of her loved Lord.
Finally, let us just notice the conduct of the Apostles
under those circumstances. The Apostles were freed
from the pressing danger of death, but they did not
entirely escape. The Sanhedrin were logically inconsistent.
They refrained from putting the Apostles to
death, as Gamaliel advised, but they flogged them as
Roman laws permitted; and a Jewish disciplinary
flogging, when forty stripes save one were inflicted, was
so severe that death sometimes resulted from it.St. Paul, as he tells us in 2 Cor. xi. 24, was five times flogged by
the Jews. When the Jews inflicted this punishment the culprit was
tied to a pillar in the synagogue; the executioner, armed with a scourge
of three distinct lashes, inflicted the punishment; while an official standing
by read selected portions of the law between each stroke. Thirteen
strokes of the threefold scourge was equivalent to the thirty-nine stripes.
This was the flogging the Apostles suffered on this occasion.
Man
is a curiously inconsistent being, and the Sanhedrin
showed on this occasion that they had their own share
of this weakness. Gamaliel advised not to kill the
Apostles, but let time work out the Divine purposes
either of success or failure. They adopt the first part
of his advice, but are not willing to allow Providence
to develop His designs without their interference, and
so by their stripes endeavour to secure that failure
shall attend the apostolic efforts. But it was all in
vain. The Apostles were living under a realized sense
of heavenly things. The love of Christ, and communion
with Christ and the Spirit of Christ, so raised them
above all earthly surroundings that what things seemed
loss and shame and grief to others were by them
counted highest joy, because they looked at them from
the side of God and eternity. Human threats availed
nothing with men animated by such a spirit,—nay,
rather as proofs of the opposition of the evil one, they
only quickened their zeal, so that "every day, in the
temple and at home, they ceased not to teach and to
preach Jesus as the Christ." How wondrously life
would be transformed for us all did we view its
changes and chances, its sorrows and its pains, as the
Apostles regarded them. Poverty and disgrace, undeserved
loss and suffering, all alike would be transfigured
into surpassing glory when endured for Christ's
sake, while our powers of labour and work, and our
active zeal in the holiest of causes, would be quickened,
because, like them, we should walk and live and toil in
the loved presence of One who is invisible.
CHAPTER XIII.
PRIMITIVE DISSENSIONS AND APOSTOLIC
PRECAUTIONS.
"Now in these days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying,
there arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews,
because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And
the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It
is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables.
Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good
report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over
this business. But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the
ministry of the word."—Acts vi. 1-4.
The sixth chapter of the Acts, and the election
of the Seven, mark a distinct advance in the
career of the early Church. This sixth chapter is
like the twelfth of Genesis and the introduction of
Abraham upon the stage of sacred history. We feel
at once as if the narrative of Genesis had come into
contact with modern times, leaving the mysterious
period of darkness all behind. So is it with the Acts
of the Apostles. The earliest days of the primitive
Church were quite unlike all modern experience. The
Church had received a great blessing and a wondrous
revelation, and had been enriched with marvellous
powers. But just as men act when they have experienced
a surpassing joy or a tremendous calamity,—they
are upset for a time, they do not realize their
position, they do not take all the circumstances in at
once, nor can they quite settle what their future course
shall be; they must get a little way distant from the
joy or the sorrow before they make their future arrangements,—so
was it with the Apostles during that space
of time which elapsed from the Pentecostal outpouring
down to the election of the Seven. We are so accustomed
to think of the Apostles as inspired men, that we
forget that inspiration did not destroy their natural
powers or infirmities, but rather must have acted in
consonance with the laws of their constitution. The
Apostles must, to a certain extent, have been upset by
the extraordinary events they had witnessed. They
sought and found daily guidance in the power of the
Spirit; but they had made no settled plans, had not
compared or arranged their ideas, had formed no
scheme of doctrine or teaching, had realized nothing
concerning the future of the society they were unconsciously
building up under the Divine leading. God
had His plans; the ascended Lord had spoken to the
Apostles concerning the future of the Kingdom of
Heaven; but it would be making the Apostles more
than men of like passions and like infirmities with ourselves
to imagine that during those stirring and eventful
days they had consciously realized the whole scheme
of Christian doctrine and government. That period of
a few months—for it could not have been more—was a
period of Divine chaos, out of which the final settlement
of the Church of God began slowly to evolve itself
under the direction of God the Holy Ghost. How
long, it may be asked, did this period of unsettlement
last? A question which resolves itself into the further
one bearing directly on our present subject,—what was
the date of the election and subsequent martyrdom of
Stephen? The answer to this throws much light on
the apostolic history and the events recorded in the
first five chapters of this book.
I. St. Stephen was put to death some time in the year
37 A.D., after Pontius Pilate had been recalled from the
government of Palestine, and before his successor had
arrived to take up the reins of power.See the authorities for the chronology of this period as given in
Lewin's Fasti Sacri, pp. 247-53.
The Jewish
authorities took advantage of the interregnum in order
to gratify their spite against the eminent orator who
was doing so much damage to their cause. Under
ordinary circumstances the Jewish Sanhedrin could not
put a man to death unless they had received the fiat
of the Roman authorities. Now, however, during this
interval, there was no supreme authority from whom
this fiat could be secured, and so they seized the opportunity
and executed Stephen as a blasphemer, according
to the method prescribed in the law of Moses. This
happened in the year 37 A.D., about four years after the
Crucifixion. We must, however, observe another point.
During the latter years of his administration, Pontius
Pilate had been acting in a most tyrannical manner.
This fact explains a circumstance which must strike
the most casual reader of the Acts. We there read
that the supreme Jewish council made two attempts
to restrain the Apostles; the first after the healing of
the cripple at the Temple Gate, and the second when
Gamaliel dissuaded them from their purposes of blood.
After that they allowed the Apostles to pursue their
course without any hostility. This appears to the
casual reader more striking, more difficult to understand,
than it was in reality. We are now obliged to
think of Judaism and Christianity as opposed and
mutually exclusive religions; we cannot conceive of
a man being a Jew and a Christian at the same time.
But it was not so with the Apostles and their followers
at the period of which we are writing. This may seem
contradictory to what I have elsewhere stated as to
the antagonistic character of the two religions. But the
apparent inconsistency is easily explained. As full-blown
and realized systems, Judaism and Christianity
are inconsistent. The one was a bud, the other an
expanded flower. The same individual bulb cannot be
at the same moment a bud and a flower. But the
Apostles had not as yet realized Christianity as a full-blown
system, nor grasped all its consequences. There
was no inconsistency when they made a conjoint profession
of Judaism and Christianity. The Apostles
and their followers were all scrupulous observers of
the law of Moses; and no dwellers in Jerusalem were
more regular attendants at the Temple worship than
the persons who had as yet no distinct name, and were
known only as followers of the Prophet of Nazareth.
To take an illustration from modern ecclesiastical
history, the Apostles and the early Jerusalem Church
must have been simply known to the Jewish authorities,
just as the first Methodists at Oxford were known to
the Church authorities of John Wesley's earlier days,
as stricter members of the Church of England than the
usual run of people were. This fact alone lessens the
difficulty we might find in accounting for the statements
made as to the continued activity of the Apostles,
and the freedom they enjoyed even after they had
been solemnly warned by the Sanhedrin. Neither the
Apostles themselves nor the Jewish council recognised
as yet any religious opposition in the teaching of Peter
and his brethren. The Apostles themselves had not
yet formulated their ideas nor perceived whither their
principles would ultimately lead them. No one indeed
would have been more surprised than themselves had
they foreseen the antagonistic position into which they
would be ultimately forced; and as for the Sanhedrin,
the only charge they brought against the Apostles was
not a religious one at all, but merely that they were
challenging the conduct and decision of the authorities
concerning the execution of Jesus Christ, and, as the
High Priest put it, "intend to bring this Man's blood
upon us."The Church during its earliest years called itself merely the Way,
not recognising the term Christian at all. This is brought out clearly
in the Revised Version, as in Acts ix. 2, xix. 9, 23, xxiv. 14. The
adoption of the name Christian probably marked the more distinct
separation of the Church from the synagogue.
But then history reveals to us some other
facts which completely explain the difficulty and vindicate
the historical accuracy of the sacred narrative.
St. Stephen was put to death in the year 37. At that
time he may have been acting as a deacon for two,
or even three, years, during which Christian teaching
and views made very rapid progress, all unopposed by
the Jewish authorities, simply because their attention
was concentrated on other topics of much more pressing
interest. Pilate was appointed governor of Palestine
in 26 A.D. He ruled it for ten years, till the end
of 36 A.D., when he was recalled. God causes all
things to work together for good, and overrules even
state changes to the development of His purposes.
Pilate's whole period of rule was, as I have already
said, marked by tyranny; but the concluding years
were the worst. The members of the Sanhedrin were
then specially excited by two actions which touched
themselves most keenly. He seized on the accumulated
proceeds of the Temple-tax of two drachmas, about
eighteen pence, paid by every Jew throughout the world,
which then amounted to a vast sum, expending it in
making an aqueduct for the supply of Jerusalem. This
action affected the pecuniary resources of the Jewish
authorities. But he attacked them on a dearer point
still, for he set up the images of the emperor in the
Holy City, and thus wounded them in their religious
feelings, introducing the abomination of desolation into
the most sacred places.See Josephus, Antiqq., XVIII., iii., 1, 2.
All the attention of the priests, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, and the people, was concentrated upon
the violent deeds of Pilate. They had no time to
think of the Apostles,—who, indeed, must themselves
have shared in the national enthusiasm and universal
hostility which Pilate's attempts excited. A common
opposition stilled, for the time, the internal strife and
controversy about the prophet of Nazareth which had,
for a little, rent asunder the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Let us now repeat the dates to which we have attained.
St. Stephen was executed in 37 A.D.; his election took
place probably in 34 A.D. The first seven chapters of
the Acts set before us, then, all we know of the history
of the earliest four years of the Church's life and work;
and yet though very briefly told, that history tallies
with what we learn from writers like Josephus and
Philo.
II. Let us now return to the text of our narrative.
This sixth chapter offers a very useful glimpse into
the inner life of the primitive Church. It shows us
what led up to the election of the Seven in these words:
"Now in these days, when the number of the disciples
was multiplying, there arose a murmuring of the
Grecian Jews against the Hebrews, because their
widows were neglected in the daily ministration."
(a) The election sprang out of the multiplying, and
the multiplying begat a murmuring among the disciples.
There is here teaching for the Church of all time, plain
and evident to every reader, a lesson which history
has repeated from age to age. Increase of numbers
does not always mean increase of happiness, increase
of devotion, increase of true spiritual life, but has
often brought increase of trouble and discontent alone.
What a lesson of patient submission under present
trials the wise man may here read. God has made all
things double one against another; and when He
bestows such notable increase as He granted to the
apostolic Church, He adds thereto some counter-balancing
disadvantage to keep His people low and
make them humble. Undiluted joy, unmitigated success,
is not to be the portion of God's people while
tabernacling here below. How often has the lesson
been repeated in their experience of the past as in our
own personal experience as well!
The trial of the apostolic Church was typical of the
trials which awaited future ages. The Church in the
Diocletian persecution, for instance, was wasted and
torn. The records of that last great trial through
which the Church passed, just prior to her final triumph
over Paganism, are lighted up by the fires of the most
determined attempt ever made to crush the faith of the
Crucified One. How often during that last persecution
God's faithful ones must have wept in secret over the
ruin of the holy places and the threatened destruction
of the faith! Yet the trials of the hours of adversity
were as nothing compared with the dangers which
beset the Church when the faith triumphed under
Constantine, and the multitude of the disciples was
increased and multiplied by the power of imperial
patronage. The trials of the day of persecution were
external, and utterly powerless to affect the spiritual
life of Christ's mystical body. The trials of a multiplying
and enlarging Church were internal; they arose
from unbelief, and hypocrisy, and want of Christian
love, and were destructive of the life of God in the
human soul. The dangers of success, the subtle
temptations of prosperity, making us proud, contemptuous
of others, self-conscious, dependent wholly upon
man and independent of God, are the lessons, ecclesiastical,
social, and personal, pressed upon us by the
opening words of this sixth chapter.
(b) These words, again, correct a popular mistake,
and reproduce a warning of our Master too often forgotten.
When the disciples were increasing, and the
hearts of the Apostles all aglow with the success
vouchsafed them, "a murmuring arose between the
Grecian Jews and the Hebrews." What a glimpse we
get here into the very heart and centre of early Christian
social life. It is often the hardest task in historical
researches to get such a glimpse as here is given. We
know the outer life of societies, of families, of dynasties.
We see them in their external form and symmetry:
we behold them in their company dress and in their
public appearances; but till we get to know and realize
their common every-day life, how they ate, drank, slept,
how their social intercourse was maintained, we fail
to grasp the most important side of their existence.
The primitive Church is often thought of and spoken
of as if its social and spiritual life were wholly unlike
our own; as if sin and infirmity were entirely absent,
and perfect holiness there prevailed. This expression,
"Now in these days there arose a murmuring," shows
us that the presence of supernatural gifts, the power
of working miracles and speaking with other tongues,
did not raise the spiritual level of individual believers
above that we find in the Church of the present day.
The distribution of alms is always attended by jealousies
and disputes, rendering the work one of the most
unpleasant tasks which can be undertaken by any man.
No matter how earnestly one strives to be fair and just,
no matter how diligently one may seek to balance
claim against claim and righteously to satisfy the wants
of those who seek relief, still there will always be
minds that will never be content, and will strive to
detect injustice and wrong and favouritism, no matter
how upright the intention may be. What a comfort
to God's servant striving to do his duty is the study
of this sixth chapter of the Acts! Fretting and worry,
weary days and sleepless nights, are often the only
reward which the Christian philanthropist receives in
return for his exertions. But here comes in the Acts
of the Apostles to cheer. It was just the same with
the Apostles, for they must have been the chief almoners
or distributers of the Church's common fund prior
to the election of the Seven. The Apostles themselves
did not escape the accusation of favouritism, and we
may be well content to bear and suffer what the
Apostles were compelled to endure. Let us only take
heed that like them we suffer wrongfully, and that our
conscience testify that we have striven to do everything
in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ; and then, disregarding
all human murmuring and criticism, we
should calmly proceed upon our work, in no way
discouraged because the recipients of Christian bounty
still act as even the primitive Christians did. This is
one important lesson we gain from this passage.
(c) We may, again, learn another great truth from
this incident, and that is, that the primitive Church
was no ideal communion, but a society with failings
and weaknesses and discontent, exactly like those which
exist in the Church of our own times. The favourite
argument with controversialists of the Church of
Rome, when trying to draw proselytes from among
Protestants, is, as logicians say, of an à priori type.
They will enlarge upon the importance of religion
and religious truth, and upon the awful consequences
which will result from a mistake on such a vital question,
and then they will argue that God must have
constituted a living infallible guide on such an important
topic, and that guide is in their opinion the Pope,
as the head of the Catholic Church. The Scriptures
are full of warnings—unnoticed warnings they often
are, but still they are full of them—as to the untrustworthy
character of all such kind of arguments. In this
sixth chapter, for instance, the thoughtful and meditative
student can see a specimen of these providential
admonitions, and a reason for its insertion in the sacred
story. Christ came to establish the Christian Church
upon earth. For this purpose He lived and suffered and
rose again. For this purpose He sent forth the Third
Person of the Holy Trinity to lead and guide and dwell
in His Church; and surely, à priori, we might as well
conclude that in the Church so founded, so guided, so
ruled by Peter and the rest of the Apostles, there
would have been found no such thing as favouritism,
or murmuring, or discontent,—sentiments which might
exist in the unregenerate world, but which should find
no place in the kingdom of the Spirit. But, when
we turn to the sacred record of Christ's sayings, and the
inspired history of Christ's Church, we find that all our
à priori presumptions and all our logical anticipations
are put to flight, for the Master warns us in the thirteenth
of St. Matthew, when speaking His wondrous parables
concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, that sin and
imperfection will ever find their place in His Church;
and then the history of the Acts of the Apostles comes
in to confirm the inspired prophecy, and we see from
this chapter how the primitive Church of Christ was torn
and racked with mere earthly feelings and mere human
infirmities, like the ordinary worldly societies which
existed all around; "there arose a murmuring" even in
the Church where Apostles taught, where the Holy Ghost
dwelt, and where the Pentecostal gifts were displayed.
The occasion of the murmuring, too, is noteworthy
and prophetic. It was like the trial under which man
fell and by which Christ was tempted. It was a mere
material temptation. Even in the primitive Church,
living as it did in the region and presence of the supernatural,
expecting every day and hour the return of
the ascended Lord, even there material considerations
entered, and the world and the things thereof found a
place, and caused divisions where they would seem to
have been strictly excluded by the very conditions of
the Church's existence. The Church and the world
there touched and influenced one another; and so it
must be always. There is a world indeed against
which the Church must ever protest—the world of
impure lusts and wicked desires, the world of which
Paganism was the presiding genius; but then there is
a world in which the Church must exist and with
which it must deal, the world which God has created
and ordained, the world of human society and human
wants, feelings, desires, appetites. With these the
Church must ever come in contact. Monasticism and
asceticism have endeavoured indeed in the past to
get rid of this world. They cut men and women off
from marriage and separated them from society, and
reduced human wants to a minimum; and yet nature
asserted itself, and the corruptions of monasticism
have been a divinely-ordered protest against foolish
attempts to separate between things spiritual and things
secular, between the Church founded by Christ and
the world created by God.The term world is one that has very various meanings in Scripture,
and good people have often made serious practical mistakes by confounding
these meanings. I once met a serious young man disposed to
the views of the "Brethren," who gravely told me that he thought it
wrong to admire beautiful scenery because it was written, "Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world." There are three
distinct uses of the term "world" in Scripture: as expressing, (1) the
material earth, Psalm xxiv. 1, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein;" (2) the people on the
earth, John iii. 16, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son" for it; (3) the impure lusts and desires which found
full scope under paganism, and still intrude themselves into the
kingdom of Christ, 1 John ii. 15, 16, "Love not the world, neither
the things that are in the world.... For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is
not of the Father, but is of the world." It is evident that if we
take the bad meaning of world in this last passage and apply it to the
other two we shall end in the old Manichean view that the material
world and the men on it are the handiwork of a bad or inferior deity,
and therefore should be entirely rejected. I know that some very
grave and serious people have fallen into this confusion, and have thus
banished all sweetness and light from their own lives and from those of
their families. It is a curious circumstance, too, that we read in
ancient writers that the Manichean heresy always recommended itself
to persons of a similar temperament, who in consequence led lives of a
very strict and puritanical type. They looked upon the world and all
that was in it as the devil's creation. How then could they smile upon,
love, or enjoy anything therein? See the article "Manicheans" in the
Dict. Christ. Biog.
The murmuring arose
on this occasion because the Apostles made no such
mistake, but recognised fearlessly that the Church of
Christ took cognizance of such a question as the daily
distribution and the temporal wants of its disciples.
The apostolic Church did not disdain a mere economic
question, and yet the Church of our own time has been
slow enough to follow its example; but, thank God,
it is learning more and more of its duty in this respect.
The time has been when nothing was considered worthy
of the notice of the Christian pulpit or of Church synods
and Church courts save purely spiritual and doctrinal
questions. The vast subjects of education, of the social
life, of the amusements of the people, the methods of
legislation or statesmanship, were thought outside the
region of Christian activity, and were utterly neglected
or else left wholly to those who made no profession
at least of being guided by Christian principle. But
now we have learned the important truth that the
Church is a Divine leaven placed in the mass of human
society to permeate it through and through; and perhaps
the present danger is that the clergy should forget
the apostolic warning, true for every age, that while
the Church in its totality, priests and people, should
take an active interest in these questions, and strive
to mould the whole life of man on Christian principles,
it is not at the same time "fit that the ministry should
forsake the word of God and serve tables."
III. But we have not yet done with this murmuring
or with the lessons it furnishes for the Church of the
future. What lay at the basis of this murmuring, and
of the jealousy thereby indicated? "There arose a
murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews;"
a racial question developed itself, and racial, or perhaps
we should rather say, in this case, social and
linguistic, differences found place in the apostolic Church,
and gave rise to serious quarrels even where the Spirit
in fullest measure and in extraordinary power was
enjoyed. There was bitter dissension between Jews
and Samaritans, though they believed in the same God
and reverenced the same revelation. Political circumstances
in the past sufficiently explain that quarrel.
There was almost, if not quite, as bitter hostility
between the Grecians and the Hebrews, because they
spoke different languages and practised diverse customs,
and that though they worshipped in the same temple
and belonged to the same nation. The origin of these
differences in the Christian Church of Jerusalem goes
back to a very distant period. Here comes in the use
of the Apocrypha, "which the Church doth read for
example of life and instruction of manners." If we
wish to understand the course of events in the Acts we
must refer to the books of Maccabees, where is told the
romantic story of the struggle of the Jews against the
Greek kings of Syria, who tried to force them into conformity
with the religion of Greece, which then was
counted the religion of civilization and of culture. The
result was that the intensely national party became
bitterly hostile to everything pertaining to Greece and
its civilization. The Jews of Palestine of that period
became like the purely Celtic Irish of the Reformation
epoch. The Irish identified the Reformation with
England and English influence, just as the Jews
identified Paganism with Greece and Syria, and Greek
influence; and the result was that the Irish became the
most intensely ultramontane nation, and the Palestinian
Jews became the most intensely narrow and prejudiced
nation of their time. The Palestinian or Hebrew
Jews, speaking the Aramaeic or Chaldee tongue, scorned
Greek language and all traces of Greek civilization,
while the Jews of the Dispersion, specially those of
Alexandria, strove to recommend the Jewish religion
to the Gentile world, whose civilization and culture
they appreciated, and whose language they used. The
opposition of the Hebrew to the Grecian Jews was very
bitter, and expressed itself in language which has come
down to us in the Talmudic writings. "Cursed be he
who teacheth his son the learning of the Greeks," was
a saying among the Hebrews; while again, we hear of
Rabban Simeon, the son of Gamaliel, St. Paul's teacher,
who used to embody his hatred of the Grecians in the
following story: "There were a thousand boys in my
father's school, of whom five hundred learned the law
and five hundred the wisdom of the Greeks; and there
is not one of the latter now alive, excepting myself
here and my uncle's son in Asia."Lightfoot's Horæ Heb., Acts vi. 1, where there is a long and learned
discussion, extending over several pages, upon the distinction between
the Hebrew and the Grecian Jews.
Heaven itself was
supposed by the Hebrews to have plainly declared
its hostility against their Grecian opponents. Hence,
naturally, arose the same divisions at Jerusalem. There
were in that city nearly five hundred synagogues, a
considerable proportion of which belonged to the
Grecian Jews. All classes and all the synagogues,
Hebrew and Grecian alike, contributed their quota to
the earliest converts won by the Apostles; and these
converts brought their old jealousies and oppositions
with them into the Church of Christ. The Hebrew or
the Grecian Jew of yesterday could not forget, to-day,
because he had embraced a belief in Jesus of Nazareth as
the Messiah, all his old feelings and his old hereditary
quarrels, and hence sprang the Christian dissensions of
which we read, prophetic of so many similar racial and
social and linguistic dissensions in the Church down to
the present time. The Acts of the Apostles is a kind
of magic mirror for Church history. In the olden times
men dreamt of a magic mirror into which one could
look and see the course of their future life depicted.
We can see something of the same in this inspired
book. The bitter dissensions which racial and linguistic
differences have made in the Church of every age are
here depicted in miniature. The quarrels between East
and West, between Greeks and Latins, between Latins
and Teutons, between Teuton and Celt, between Roman
Catholic and Protestant, between the Whites and
Negroes, between European Christians and Hindoo
converts; the scandalous scenes still enacted round
the Holy Place at Jerusalem, where peace is kept
between nominal Christians only by the intervention
of Mahometan soldiers,—all turn upon the same points
and embody the same principles, and may best find
solution upon the lines laid down by the Apostles.
And what were these lines? They laid down that
there are diversities of functions and of work in the
Church of Christ; there is a ministry of the word, and
there is a serving of tables. One class should not
absorb every function; for if it does, the highest function
of all, the ministry of the word and prayer, will
inevitably suffer. Well, indeed, would it have been had
this lesson been far more laid to heart. How many a
schism and rent in the visible Church of Christ has been
caused because no work, no spiritual function, was
found for a newly-awakened layman anxious to do
something for Him who had done so much for his soul.
The principle here laid down in germ is a very fruitful
one, suitable for every age. A new crisis, a fresh
departure, an unexpected need, has arisen, and a new
organization is therefore at once devised by the Apostles;
and well would it have been had their example found
closer imitation. We have been too much in the habit
of looking upon the Church of Christ as if it were once
for all stereotyped in apostolic times, and as if there
were nothing to be done in the living present save to
adapt these ancient institutions to our modern needs.
The Roman Catholic Church has been in many respects
more true to apostolic principles than the children of
the Reformation. With all her intense conservatism
Rome has never hesitated to develop new organizations
as new needs have arisen, and that in the boldest
manner. It has often been remarked that the Church
of Rome would never have lost John Wesley and the
Wesleyans as the Church of England did. She would
have put a brown cassock upon him, and girded him
with a rope, and sent him forth as the head of a new
order, to do the work to which he felt impelled and
for which God had qualified him. Experience has
taught us, however, that we cannot safely neglect
apostolic precedent; and the warning implied in the
words of the Apostles, "it is not fit that we should
forsake the word of God and serve tables," has been
amply fulfilled. The highest ministry of the word has
been injured by the accumulation of all public work in
the Church on one class alone. What minister of Jesus
Christ does not feel that, even with the wider and more
apostolic views now prevalent, with all the recognition
of the service which godly Christian laymen render,
the old tradition is still strong, and clergymen are too
absorbed in the mere serving of tables, to the neglect of
their higher functions? The laity often complain of the
poor, thin, meagre character of the preaching to which
they are compelled to listen; but how can it be otherwise
when they demand so much purely secular service, so
much serving of tables from those whose great work is
to teach? The Church of England, in her service for
the ordination of priests, demands from the candidates
whether they will devote themselves to the study of the
Word of God, and such other studies as bear upon the
same. I often wonder how her clergy are now to
fulfil this solemn vow, when frequently they have not
a night in the week at home, save perhaps Saturday
evening, and when, from early morning to late at night,
all their energies are swallowed up in the work of
schools, and clubs, and charitable organizations, and
parochial visitation, leaving little time and still less
energy for the work of meditation and thought and
study. The clergy are the Lord's prophets, watchmen
upon the walls of Zion. It is their great business
to explain the Lord's will, to translate the ideas of
the Bible into the language of modern life, to apply
the Divine principles of doctrine and discipline laid
down in the Bible to the ever-varying wants of our
complex modern civilization; and how can this function
be discharged unless there be time for reading and for
thinking, so as to gain a true notion of what are these
modern wants, and to find out how the eternal principles
of the Scriptures are to be applied to them? We require
a great deal more organized assistance in the work
of the Church, and then, when that assistance is forthcoming,
we may expect and demand that the highest
ministry of all, "the ministry of the Word and prayer,"
shall be discharged with greater efficiency and blessing.
The Apostles in meeting this crisis, laid down a law of
true development and living growth in the divine society.
The Church of Christ is ever to have the power to
organize herself in face of new departures, while at the
same time they proclaim the absolute necessity and
the perpetual obligation of the Christian ministry in its
highest aspect; for surely if even for Apostles it was
needful that their whole time should be devoted to
the ministry of the word of God and prayer, and the
Church of that time, with all its wondrous gifts, demanded
such a ministry, there ought to exist in the
modern Church also an order of men wholly separated
unto those solemn duties.
IV. The Apostles having determined upon the creation
of a new organization to deal with a new need, then appeal
to the people for their assistance, and call upon them
to select the persons who shall be its members; but
they, at the same time, reserve their own rights and authority,
and, when the selection has been made, claim the
power of ordination and appointment for themselves.
The people nominated while the Apostles appointed.
The Apostles took the most effective plan to quiet the
trouble which had arisen when they took the people
into their confidence. The Church has been often
described as the mother of modern freedom. The
councils of old time were the models and forerunners
of modern parliaments. The councils and synods of
the Church set an example of open discussion and of
legislative assemblies in ages when tyrannical authority
had swallowed up every other vestige of liberty. The
Church from the beginning, and in the Acts of the
Apostles, clearly showed that its government was not
to be an absolute clerical despotism, but a free Christian
republic, where clergy and people were to take counsel
together. It is a noteworthy thing indeed, that even
in the Roman Catholic Church, where the exclusive
claims of the clergy have been most pressed, the recognition
of the rights of the laity in the matter of Church
councils and debates has found place down to modern
times. The representatives of the Emperor and other
Christian princes took their seats in the Council of
Trent, jointly with bishops and other ecclesiastics; and
it was only at the Vatican Council of 1870 that this
last lingering trace of lay rights finally disappeared.
The Apostles laid down by their action the principle
of Church freedom, and the mutual rights of clergy and
people; but they also gave a very practical hint for
the peaceful management of organizations, whether
ecclesiastical, or social, or political. They knew
what was the right thing to do, but they did not
impose their will by the mere exercise of authority;
they took counsel with the people, and the result
was that a speedy solution of all their difficulties was
arrived at. How many a quarrel in life would be
avoided, how many a rough place would be made
smooth, were the apostolic example always followed.
Men naturally resist a law imposed from without without
any appearance of consultation with them or of
sanction on their part; but men willingly yield obedience
to laws, even though they may dislike them, which
have been passed with their assent and appeal to their
reason. In Church matters especially would this rule
apply, and the example of the Apostles be most profitably
followed. Autocratic action on the part of the
clergy in small matters has often destroyed the unity
and harmony of congregations, and has planted roots
of bitterness which have ruined ministerial usefulness.
While steadily maintaining great fundamental principles,
a little tact and thought, a wise condescension to human
feeling, will often win the day, and carry measures
which would otherwise be vigorously resisted.
Finally, the Apostles enunciate the principles which
should guide the Church in its selection of officials,
specially when they have to deal with the temporal
concerns of the Society. "Look ye out therefore from
among you seven men of good report." Attempts have
been made to explain why the number was fixed at
seven. Some have asserted that it was so determined
because it was a sacred number, others because there
were now seven congregations in Jerusalem, or seven
thousand converts. Perhaps, however, the true reason
was a more commonplace one, and that was that seven
is a very convenient practical number. In case of a
difference of opinion a majority can always be secured
on one side or other, and all blocks avoided. The
number seven was long maintained in connection with
the order of deacons, in imitation of the apostolic
institution. A council at Neo-Cæsarea, in the year
314, ordained that the number of seven deacons should
never be exceeded in any city, while in the Church of
Rome the same limitation prevailed from the second
century down to the twelfth, so that the Roman
Cardinals, who were the parochial clergy of Rome,
numbered among them merely seven deacons down to
that late period. The seven chosen by the primitive
Church were to be men of good report because they
were to be public functionaries, whose decisions were
to allay commotions and murmurings; and therefore
they must be men of weight, in whom the public had
confidence. But, further, they must be men "full of
the Spirit and of wisdom." Piety was not the only
qualification; they must be wise, prudent, sound in
judgment as well. Piety is no security for wisdom,
just as in turn wisdom is no security for piety; but
both must be combined in apostolic officials. The
Apostles thereby teach the Church of all time what are
the qualifications necessary for effective administrators
and officials. Even in charitable distributions and
financial organizations the Church should hold up the
high standard set before her by the Apostles, and seek
out men actuated by religious principle, guided by
religious truth, swayed by Divine love, the outcome
of that Spirit whose grace and blessing are necessary
for the due discharge of any office, whether of service,
of charity, or of worship, in the Church of Jesus
Christ; but possessed withal of strong common sense
and vigorous intellectual power, for love and zeal
separated from these often fall into mistakes which
make religion and its adherents a laughing-stock to
the world and a hindrance to the cause of truth and
holiness. God can indeed make the weak things of
this world to confound the high and mighty, but it
would be presumptuous in us to think that we can do
the same, and therefore must seek out the instruments
best suited in every way to do God's work and
accomplish His purposes.
CHAPTER XIV.
ST. STEPHEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE
CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
"And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose
Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and
Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a
proselyte of Antioch: whom they set before the Apostles: and when
they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.... Stephen, full of
grace and power, wrought great wonders and signs among the people.
But there arose certain of them that were of the synagogue called the
synagogue of the Libertines, and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians,
and of them of Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen. And
they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which
he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard
him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God."—Acts
vi. 5, 6; 8-11.
The names of the seven chosen on the suggestion
of the Apostles raises very naturally the question,
To what office were they appointed? Did the seven
elected on this occasion represent the first beginning
of that office of deacon which is regarded as the third
rank in the Church, bishops being first, and presbyters
or priests second. It is agreed by all parties that the
title of deacon is not given to them in the sixth chapter
of the Acts, and yet such an unprejudiced and fair
authority as Bishop Lightfoot, in his Essay on the
Christian Ministry, maintains that the persons selected
and ordained at this crisis constituted the first origin
of the diaconate as it is now known.Bishop Lightfoot, commenting on Philippians, p. 186, says: "I
have assumed that the office thus established represents the later
diaconate; for though this point has been much disputed, I do not see
how the identity of the two can reasonably be called in question. If the
word deacon does not occur in the passage, yet the corresponding verb
and substantive, διακονεῖν and διακονία, are repeated more than once.
The functions, moreover, are substantially those which devolved on the
deacons of the earliest ages, and which still in theory, though not altogether
in practice, form the primary duties of the office. Again, it seems
clear, from the emphasis with which St. Luke dwells on the new institution,
that he looks on the establishment of this office, not as an isolated
incident, but as the institution of a new order of things in the Church.
It is, in short, one of those representative facts of which the earlier part
of his narrative is almost wholly made up."
The Seven
are not called, either here or wherever else they are
mentioned in the Acts, by the name of deacons, though
the word διακονεῖν (serve), which cannot be exactly rendered
into English, as the noun deacon has no equivalent
verb answering to it, is applied to the duties
assigned to them. But all the best critics are agreed that
the ordination of the Seven was the occasion of the rise
of a new order and a new office in the Church, whose
work dealt more especially with the secular side of the
ministerial function. The great German critic Meyer,
commenting on this sixth chapter, puts it well, though
not so clearly as we should like. "From the first
regular overseership of alms, the mode of appointment
to which could not but regulate analogically the practice
of the Church, was gradually developed the diaconate,
which subsequently underwent further elaboration."
This statement is somewhat obscure, and thoroughly
after the manner of a German critic; let us develop it
a little, and see what the process was whereby the distributers
of alms to the widows of the earliest Church
organization became the officials of whom St. Laurence
of Rome in the third, and St. Athanasius of Alexandria
in the fourth century were such eminent examples.
I. The institutions of the synagogue must necessarily
have exercised a great influence over the minds of the
Apostles and of their first converts. One fact alone
vividly illustrates this idea. Christians soon began to
call their places of assembly by the name of churches
or the Lord's houses, but the old habit was at first
too strong, and so the churches or congregations of the
earliest Christians were called synagogues. This is
evident even from the text of the Revised Version of
the New Testament, for if we turn to the second
chapter of the Epistle of James we read there, "If
there come into your synagogue a man with a gold
ring,"—showing that in St. James's day a Christian
church was called a synagogue. This custom received
some few years ago a remarkable confirmation from the
records of travel and discovery. The Marcionites were
a curious Christian sect or heresy which sprang up
in the second century. They were intensely opposed
to Judaism, and yet so strong was this tradition that
even they seem to have retained, down to the fourth
century, the name of synagogue as the title of their
churches, for some celebrated French explorers have
discovered in Syria an inscription, still in existence,
carved over the door of a Marcionite church, dated A.D.
318, and that inscription runs thus: "The Synagogue
of the Marcionites."See Le Bas and Waddington's Voyage Archéologique, vol. iii., p.
583, Inscriptions, No. 2558; and Dr. Salmon's article on Marcion in
Smith's Dict. Christ. Biog., iii., 819. There is one passage in the
Epistles which shows that not merely the name but the organization of
synagogues was adopted by the early Church. In 1 Cor. vi. 1 it is
written, "Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbour, go to
law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?" This verse
cannot be rightly understood unless we remember that every synagogue
had its own judicial tribunal, composed of ten men, who decided on
Mondays and Thursdays every controversy among the Jews, inflicting
immediate corporal punishment on the condemned. The Romans
permitted and supported this domestic jurisdiction, just as the Turkish
Empire, which has inherited so many of the Roman traditions, allows
the Greek and other Eastern Churches to exercise jurisdiction over
their own members in all questions touching religion, supporting their
decisions by force if necessary. St. Paul, in this passage, wishes the
members of the Christian synagogues to act like those of the Jewish, and
avoid the scandal of Christians going to law with their brethren before
pagans.
Now seeing that the force of tradition was so
great as to compel even an anti-Jewish sect to call
their meeting-houses by a Jewish name, we may be
sure that the tradition of the institutions, forms,
and arrangements of the synagogue must have been
infinitely more potent with the earliest Christian believers,
constraining them to adopt similar institutions
in their own assemblies. Human nature is always
the same, and the example of our own colonists
sheds light upon the course of Church development
in Palestine. When the Pilgrim Fathers went to
America, they reproduced the English constitution
and the English laws in that country with so much
precision and accuracy that the expositions of law
produced by American lawyers are studied with great
respect in England. The American colonists reproduced
the institutions and laws with which they were
familiar, modifying them merely to suit their own
peculiar circumstances; and so has it been all the
world over wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has settled—they
have done exactly the same thing. They have
established states and governments modelled after the
type of England, and not of France or Russia. So
was it with the early Christians. Human nature
compelled them to fall back upon their first experience,
and to develop under a Christian shape the institutions
of the synagogue under which they had been trained.
And now when we read the Acts we see that here
lies the most natural explanation of the course of
history, and specially of this sixth chapter. In the
synagogue, as Dr. John Lightfoot expounds it in his
Horæ Hebraicæ (Matt. iv. 23), the government was in
the hands of the ruler and the council of elders or
presbyters, while under them there were three almoners
or deacons, who served in the same capacity as the
Seven in superintending the charitable work of the
congregation. The great work for which the Seven
were appointed was distribution, and we shall see that
this was ever maintained, and is still maintained, as
the leading idea of the diaconate, though other and
more directly spiritual work was at once added to
their functions by St. Stephen and St. Philip.Bishop Lightfoot, in his well-known Essay on the Christian
Ministry, from which we have already quoted, does not admit any
likeness between the office of the diaconate in the Church and any
similar office in the synagogue. He refuses to recognise the Chazzan
or sexton of the synagogue as in any sense typical of Christian deacons.
But he has not noticed the three almoners or deacons attached to every
synagogue, whom his seventeenth-century namesake, Dr. John Lightfoot,
in his tract on synagogues (Horæ Hebr., St. Matt. iv. 23), considers the
origin of the Christian deacons.
Now
just as our colonists brought English institutions and
ideas with them wherever they settled, so was it with
the missionaries who went forth from the Mother
Church of Jerusalem. They carried the ideas and
institutions with them which had been there sanctioned
by the Apostles, and thus we find deacons mentioned
in conjunction with bishops at Philippi, deacons joined
with bishops in St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, and the
existence of the institution at Corinth, and its special
work as a charitable organization, implied in the description
given of Phœbe to the Roman Christians in
the sixteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
St. Paul's directions to Timothy in the third chapter
of his first Epistle deal both with deacons and
deaconesses, and in each case lay down qualifications
specially suited for distributers of charitable relief,
whose duty called upon them to visit from house to
house, but say nothing about any higher work. They
are indeed "to hold the mystery of the faith in a pure
conscience;" they must be sound in the faith like
the Seven themselves; but the special qualifications
demanded by St. Paul are those needed in almoners:
"The deacons must be grave, not double-tongued, not
given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre."
So far as to the testimony of Scripture. When we pass
beyond the bounds of the canonical books, and come
to the apostolic fathers, the evidence is equally clear.
They testify to the universality of the institution, and bear
witness to its work of distribution. Clement of Rome
was a contemporary of the Apostles. He wrote an
Epistle to the Corinthians, which is the earliest witness
to the existence of St. Paul's Epistles to the same
Church. In Clement's epistle we find express mention
of deacons, of their apostolic appointment, and of the
universal diffusion of the office. In the forty-third
chapter of his epistle Clement writes to the Corinthians
concerning the Apostles:—"Thus preaching through
countries and cities they appointed bishops and
deacons for those who should afterwards believe,"
clearly implying that deacons then existed at Rome,
though we have no express notice of them in the epistle
written by St. Paul to the Roman Church.
There is a rule, however, very needful for historical
investigations. Silence is no conclusive argument
against an alleged fact, unless there be silence where,
if the alleged fact had existed, it must have been
mentioned. Josephus, for instance, is silent about
Christ and Christianity. Yet he wrote when its
existence was a matter of common notoriety. But
there was no necessity for him to notice it. It was
an awkward fact too, and so he is silent. St. Paul
does not mention deacons as existing at Rome, though
he does mention them at Philippi. But Clement's
words expressly assert that universally, in all cities
and countries, this order was established wherever the
Apostles taught; and so we find it even from pagan
records. Pliny's letter to Trajan, written about A.D. 110,
some fifteen or twenty years later than Clement, testifies
that the order of deacons existed in far distant Bithynia,
among the Christians of the Dispersion to whom St.
Peter directed his Epistle. Pliny's words are, "I therefore
thought it the more necessary, in order to ascertain
what truth there was in this account, to examine two
slave-girls who were called deaconesses (ministræ), and
even to use torture." (See the article Trajanus in the
Dict. Christ. Biog., iv., 1040.) It is exactly the same
with St. Ignatius in the second chapter of his Epistle to
the Trallians, which dates about the same period. The
spiritual side of the office had now come more prominently
into notice, as the occasion of their first appointment
had fallen into disuse; but still Ignatius recognises
the origin of the diaconate when he writes that "the
deacons are not deacons of meats and drinks, but
servants of the Church of God" (Lightfoot, Apost.
Fathers, vol. ii., sec. i., p. 156). While again Polycarp,
in his Epistle to the Philippians, ch. v., recognises
the same qualities as necessary to deacons which St.
Paul requires and enumerates in his Epistle to Timothy.
Justin Martyr, a little later, twenty years or so, tells us
that the deacons distributed the elements consecrated
in the Holy Communion to the believers that were
absent (Justin, First Apol., ch. lxvii.). This is most
important testimony, connecting the order of deacons
as then flourishing at Rome and their work with the
Seven constituted by the Apostle. The daily distribution
of the Apostle's time was closely connected
with the celebration of the Eucharist, which indeed
in its meal or food, common to all the faithful, and its
charitable collections and oblations, of which Justin
Martyr speaks, retained still some trace of the daily
distribution which prevailed in the early Church, and
occasioned the choice of the Seven. The deacons
in Justin Martyr's day distributed the spiritual food to
the faithful, just as in earlier times they distributed
all the sustenance which the faithful required, whether
in their spiritual or their temporal aspect. It is
evident, from this recital of the places where the
deacons are incidentally referred to, that their origin
was never forgotten, and that distribution of charitable
relief and help was always retained as the essence, the
central idea and notion, of the office of deacon, though
at the same time other and larger functions were by
degrees entrusted to them, as the Church grew and
increased, and ecclesiastical life and wants became
more involved and complex.The community of goods may have evolved itself naturally enough
out of the celebration of the Eucharist. Just let us realize what must
have happened, say, on the day of Pentecost and the few succeeding
days. The Apostles seem to have been living a common life during the
ten days of expectation. They dwelt in the house where the upper room
was. The day after Pentecost there must have been a great deal to
do, in prayer, baptism, and celebration of the Eucharist. Their converts
would join with them in the eucharistic feast, from day to day celebrated
after the primitive fashion at the end of a common meal. Some
enthusiast may then have suggested that, as the Master might at any
moment appear, they should always live and eat in common. After a
time, as the numbers increased, this arrangement had to be modified,
and a daily distribution was substituted for daily common meals. The
community of goods may thus have been developed out of the spiritual
feast of the Eucharist, which they took in common. When the daily
distribution terminated by the exhaustion of the funds, the Agape or
lovefeast took its place, remaining as a fragment or relic of the earlier
custom. Pliny in his letter mentions the Agape, and rightly distinguishes
it from the worship of the Christians which was celebrated
in the early morning. "After these ceremonies they used to disperse,
and assemble again to share a common meal of innocent food."
History bears out this
view. Irenæus was the disciple of Polycarp, and
must have known many apostolic men, men who had
companied with the Apostles and knew the whole
detail of primitive Church government; and Irenæus,
speaking of Nicolas the proselyte of Antioch, describes
him as "one of the seven who were first ordained to
the diaconate by the Apostles." Now Irenæus is one
of our great witnesses for the authenticity of the Four
Gospels; surely then he must be an equally good
witness to the origin of the order of deacons and the
existence of the Acts of the Apostles which is implied
in this reference. It is scarcely necessary to go
farther in Church history, but the lower one goes the
more clearly we shall see that the original notion of the
diaconate is never forgotten. In the third century we
find that there were still only seven deacons in Rome,
though there were forty-six presbyters, a number which
was retained down to the twelfth century in the seven
cardinal deacons of that Church.In the twelfth century the number of cardinal deacons was fixed at
fourteen, at which it has ever since remained.
The touching story
of the martyrdom of St. Laurence, Archdeacon of Rome
in the middle of the third century, shows that he was
roasted over a slow fire in order to extort the vast
sums he was supposed to have in charge for the
purpose of relieving the sick and the poor connected
with the Roman Church; proving that the original
conception of the office as an executive and charitable
organization was then vigorously retained; just as it is
still set forth in the ordinal of the Church of England,
where, after reciting how the deacon's office is to help
the priest in several subordinate positions, it goes
on to say, "Furthermore, it is his office, where provision
is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and
impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates,
names, and places where they dwell, unto the curate,
that by his exhortation they may be relieved by the
alms of the parishioners."
The only objection of any value which has been
raised to this line of argument is based on a mere
assumption. It has been said that the Seven were
appointed for a special emergency, and to serve a
temporary purpose connected with the community of
goods which existed in the early Church of Jerusalem,
and therefore when this arrangement ceased
the office itself ceased also. But this argument is
based on the assumption that the Christian idea of
a community of goods wholly passed away, so that
services of an order like the Seven were no longer
required. This is a pure assumption. The community
of goods as practised at Jerusalem was found by experience
to be a mistake. The shape of the idea was
changed, but the idea itself survived. The old form
of community of goods passed away. The Christians
retained their rights of private property, but were
taught to regard this private property as in a sense
common, and liable for all the wants and needs of their
poor and suffering brethren. A charitable order, or
at least an order charged with the care of the poor
and their relief, must inevitably have sprung up among
the Jewish Christians. The relief of the poor was a
necessary part of the duty of a synagogue. The Jewish
domestic law enforced a poor-rate, and collected
it through the organization of each synagogue, by
means of three deacons attached to each. Selden, in
his great work on The Laws of the Hebrews, bk. ii.,
chap. vi. (Works, i., 632), tells us that if "any Jew
did not pay his fair contribution he was punished
with stripes." As soon as the Jewish Christians began
to organize themselves, the idea of almoners, with
their daily and weekly distributions, after the synagogue
model, was necessarily developed.See Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia, articles on Synagogue and Deacon,
or Schaff's edition of Herzog's Cyclopædia, article on Synagogues.
We have an
unexceptionable piece of evidence upon this point.
The satirist Lucian lived at the close of the second
century. He was a bitter scoffer, who jeered at every
form of religion, and at Christianity above all. He
wrote an account of a certain Syrian named Peregrinus
Proteus, who was an impostor trading upon the
religious principles of various philosophical sects, and
specially on those of the Christians. Lucian tells us
that the Christians were the easiest persons to be
deceived, because of their opinions. Lucian's words are
interesting as showing what a second-century pagan, a
clever literary man too, thought of Christianity, viewing
it from the outside. For this reason we shall quote
a little more than the words which immediately bear
upon the subject. "It is incredible with what alacrity
these people (the Christians) support and defend the
public cause. They spare nothing, in fact, to promote it.
These poor men have persuaded themselves that they
shall be immortal, and live for ever. They despise
death therefore, and offer up their lives a voluntary
sacrifice, being taught by their lawgiver that they
are all brethren, and that, quitting our Grecian gods,
they must worship their own sophist, who was
crucified, and live in obedience to His laws. In compliance
with them, they look with contempt on all
worldly treasures, and hold everything in common—a
maxim which they have adopted without any reason
or foundation. If any cunning impostor, therefore, who
knows how to manage matters, come amongst them, he
soon grows rich by imposing on the credulity of those
weak and foolish men." We can see here that the
great outer world of paganism considered a community
of goods as still prevailing among the Christians.
Their boundless liberality, their intense devotion to
the cause of their suffering brethren, proved this, and
therefore, because a practical community of goods
existed amongst them, an order of men was required
to superintend the distribution of their liberality in the
Second Century just as truly as the work of the Seven
was needed in the Church of Jerusalem.
II. We thus can see that the office of deacon, as
now constituted, had its origin in apostolic times, and
is built upon a scriptural foundation; but here we are
bound to point out a great difference between the
ancient and the modern office. An office or organization
may spring up in one age, and after existing for
several centuries may develop into a shape utterly
unlike its original. Yet it may be very hard to point
out any special time when a vital change was made.
All we can say is that the first occupants of the office
would never recognise their modern successors. Take
the papacy as an instance. There has been at Rome a
regular historical succession of bishops since the first
century. The succession is known and undoubted.
Yet could one of the bishops of Rome of the first three
centuries,—above all, could a first-century bishop of
Rome like St. Clement, by any possibility recognise
himself or his office in the present Pope Leo XIII.?
Yet one would find it difficult to fix the exact moment
when any vital change was made, or any unwonted
claims put forward on behalf of the Roman See.The College of Cardinals offers another illustration of this. The
Cardinals were originally the parochial clergy of Rome. As Rome's
ecclesiastical ambition increased, so did that of her parochial clergy, who
came to imagine that, standing so close to the Pope, who was the door,
they were themselves the hinges (cardines) on whom the door turned.
I wonder if one of the original presbyters of Rome would be able to
recognise his office in that of a modern cardinal claiming princely rank
and precedence!
So
was it in the case of deacons and their office. Their
modern successors may trace themselves back to the
seven elected in the primitive Church at Jerusalem, and
yet the office is now a very different one in practice
from what it was then. Perhaps the greatest difference,
and the only one we can notice, was this. The
diaconate is now merely the primary and lowest rank
of the Christian ministry; a kind of apprenticeship, in
fact, wherein the youthful minister serves for a year,
and is then promoted as a matter of course; whereas
in Jerusalem or Rome of old it was a lifelong office, in
the exercise of which maturity of judgment, of piety,
and of character were required for the due discharge of
its manifold duties. It is now a temporary office, it
was of old a permanent one. And the apostolical
custom was much the best. It avoided many difficulties
and solved many a problem. At present the office of the
diaconate is practically in abeyance, and yet the functions
which the ancient deacons discharged are not in
abeyance, but are placed upon the shoulders of the other
orders in the Church, already overwhelmed with manifold
responsibilities, and neglecting, while serving tables, the
higher aspects of their work. The Christian ministry
in its purely spiritual, and specially in its prophetical
or preaching aspect, is sorely suffering because an
apostolic office is practically set aside. In the ancient
Church it was never so. The deacons were chosen to
a life-office. It was then but very seldom that a man
chosen to the diaconate abandoned it for a higher function.
It did not indeed demand the wholesale devotion
of time and attention which the higher offices of the
ministry did. Men even till a late period, both in
East and West, combined secular pursuits with it.
Thus let us take one celebrated instance. The ancient
Church of England and of Ireland alike was Celtic in
origin and constitution. It was intensely conservative,
therefore, of ancient customs and usages derived from
the times of persecution, when Christianity was first
taught among the Gauls and Celts of the extreme West.
The well-known story of the introduction of Christianity
into England under St. Augustine and the opposition
he met with prove this. As it was in other matters, so
was it with the ancient Celtic deacons; the old customs
remained; they held office for life, and joined with it at
the same time other and ordinary occupations. St.
Patrick, for instance, the apostle of Ireland, tells us that
his father Calpurnius was a deacon, and yet he was a
farmer and a decurion, or alderman, as we should say,
of a Roman town near Dumbarton on the river Clyde.
This happened about the year 400 of the Christian
era.I have expanded this subject in Ireland and the Celtic Church,
ch. ii., viii., ix.; and in Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, pp.
352-70.
Here indeed, as in so many other cases, the Church
of Christ needs to go back to scriptural example and
to apostolic rule. We require for the work of the
Church deacons like the primitive men who devoted
their whole lives to this one object; made it the subject
of their thoughts, their cares, their studies, how
they might instruct the ignorant, relieve the poor and
widows, comfort the prisoners, sustain the martyrs in
their last supreme hour; and who thus using well the
office of a deacon found in it a sufficient scope for
their efforts and a sufficient reward for their exertions,
because they thereby purchased for themselves a good
degree and great boldness in the faith of Jesus Christ.
The Church now requires the help of living agencies
in vast numbers, and they are not forthcoming. Let
her avail herself of apostolic resources, and fall back
upon primitive precedents. The real diaconate should
be revived. Godly and spiritual men should be called
upon to do their duty. Deacons should be ordained
without being called to give up their ordinary employments.
Work which now unduly accumulates upon
overburdened shoulders should be assigned to others
suitably to their talents, and thus a twofold blessing
would be secured. Christian life would flourish more
abundantly, and many a rent and schism, the simple
result of energies repressed and unemployed, would be
destroyed in their very commencement.
We have devoted much of our space to this subject,
because it is one of great interest, as touching the origin
and authority of the Christian ministry, and also because
it has been a subject much debated; but we must hurry
on to other points connected with the first appointment
to the diaconate. The people selected the person to
be ordained to this work. It is probable that they
made their choice out of the different classes composing
the Christian community. The mode of election of the
Seven, and the qualifications laid down by the Apostles,
were derived from the synagogue. Thus we read in
Kitto's Cyclopædia, art. "Synagogue:"—"The greatest
care was taken by the rulers of the synagogue and of
the congregation that those elected almoners should be
men of modesty, wisdom, justice, and have the confidence
of the people. They had to be elected by the
harmonious voice of the people." Seven deacons
altogether were chosen. Three were probably Hebrew
Christians, three Grecian Christians or Hellenists, and
one a representative of the proselytes, Nicolas of
Antioch. This would have been but natural. The
Apostles wanted to get rid of murmurs, jealousies, and
divisions in the Church, and in no way could this have
been more effectually done than by the principle of
representation. Had the Seven been all selected from
one class alone, divisions and jealousies would have prevailed
as of old. The Apostles themselves had proved
this. They were all Hebrew Christians. Their position
and authority might have secured them from blame.
Yet murmurings had arisen against them as distributers,
and so they devised another plan, which, to have been
successful, as it doubtless was, must have proceeded
on a different principle. Then when the seven wise
and prudent men were chosen from the various classes,
the Apostles asserted their supreme position: "When
the Apostles had prayed, they laid their hands on them."
And as the result peace descended like a shower upon
the Church, and spiritual prosperity followed upon
internal peace and union.
III. "They laid their hands on them." This statement
sets forth the external expression and the visible
channel of the ordination to their office which the
Apostles conferred. This action of the imposition of
hands was of frequent use among the ancient Jews.
The Apostles, as well acquainted with Old Testament
history, must have remembered that it was employed in
the case of designation of Joshua as the leader of Israel
in the place of Moses (Num. xxvii. 18-23; compare
Deut. xxxiv. 9), that it was used even in the synagogue
in the appointment of Jewish rabbis, and had been
sanctioned by the practice of Jesus Christ. The Apostles
naturally, therefore, used this symbol upon the solemn
appointment of the first deacons, and the same ceremonial
was repeated upon similar occasions. Paul
and Barnabas were set apart at Antioch for their
missionary work by the imposition of hands. St. Paul
uses the strongest language about the ceremony. He
does not hesitate to attribute to it a certain sacramental
force and efficacy, bidding Timothy "stir up the gift
of God which is in thee through the laying on of my
hands" (2 Tim. i. 6); while again when we come down
a few years later we find the "laying on of hands"
reckoned as one of the fundamental elements of religion,
in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But
it was not merely in the solemn appointment of officials
in the Church that this ceremony found place. It was
employed by the Apostles as the rite which filled up
and perfected the baptism which had been administered
by others. Philip baptized the Samaritans. Peter and
John laid their hands on them and they received the
Holy Ghost. The ceremony of imposition of hands
was so essential and distinguishing a point that Simon
Magus selects it as the one he desires above all others
effectually to purchase, so that the outward symbol
might be followed by the inward grace. "Give me
also this power, that on whomsoever I lay my hands,
he may receive the Holy Ghost," was the prayer of the
arch-heretic to St. Peter; while again in the nineteenth
chapter we find St. Paul using the same visible ceremony
in the case of St. John's disciples, who were first baptized
with Christian baptism, and then endued by St. Paul
with the gift of the Spirit. Imposition of hands in the
case of ordination is a natural symbol, indicative of
the transmission of function and authority. It fitly indicates
and notifies to the whole Church the persons
who have been ordained, and therefore has ever been
regarded as a necessary part of ordination. St. Jerome,
who was a very keen critic as well as a close student
of the Divine oracles, fixes upon this public and solemn
designation as a sufficient explanation and justification
of the imposition of hands in ordinations, lest any one
should be ordained without his knowledge by a silent
and solitary prayer. Hence every branch of the Church
of Christ has rigorously insisted upon imposition of
hands after the apostolic example, in the case of
ordinations to official positions, with one or two apparent
and very doubtful exceptions, which merely prove the
binding character of the rule.
IV. The list of names again is full of profit and
of warning. How completely different from human
histories, for instance, is this Divine record of the first
doings of the Church! How thoroughly shaped after
the Divine model is this catalogue of the earliest officials
chosen by the Apostles! Men have speculated whether
they were Hebrews or Grecians, whether they belonged
to the seventy sent forth by Christ or to the hundred
and twenty who first gathered into the upper room at
Jerusalem. All such speculations are curious and interesting,
but they have nothing to do with man's
salvation; therefore they are sternly put on one side
and out of sight. How we should long to know the
subsequent history of these men, and to trace their
careers! yet Holy Writ tells us but very little about
them, nothing certain, in fact, save what we learn about
St. Stephen and St. Philip. God bestowed Holy Scripture
upon men, not to satisfy or minister to their
curiosity, but to nourish their souls and edify their spirits.
And surely no lesson is more needed than the one
implied in the silences of this passage; there is in truth
none more necessary for our publicity-seeking and
popularity-hunting age than this, that God's holiest
servants have laboured in obscurity, have done their
best work in secret, and have looked to God alone
and to His judgment for their reward. I have said
indeed that concerning the list of names recorded as
those of the first deacons, we know nothing but of
St. Stephen and St. Philip, whose careers will again
come under our notice in later chapters. There is,
however, a current tradition that Nicolas, the proselyte
of Antioch, did distinguish himself, but in an
unhappy direction. It is asserted by Irenæus in
his work Against Heresies (Book I., ch. 26), that
Nicolas was the founder of the sect of Nicolaitans
denounced in the Revelation of St. John (ch. ii., 6, 16).
Critics are, however, much divided upon this point.
Some clear Nicolas of this charge, while others uphold
it. It is indeed impossible to determine this
matter. But supposing that Nicolas of Antioch was
the author of this heresy, which was of an antinomian
character, like so many of the earliest heresies
that distracted the primitive Church, this circumstance
would teach us an instructive lesson. Just as there
was a Judas Iscariot among the Apostles, and a Demas
among St. Paul's most intimate disciples, so was there
a Nicolas among the first deacons. No place is so
holy, no office so sacred, no privileges so great, but that
the tempter can make his way there. He can lurk
unseen and unsuspected amid the pillars of the temple,
and he can find us out, as he did the Son of God Himself,
amid the wilds of the desert. Official position and
exalted privileges confer no immunity from temptation.
Nay, rather, they bring with them additional temptations
over and above those which assail the ordinary
Christian, and should therefore lead everyone called to
any similar work to diligent watchfulness, to earnest
prayer, lest while teaching others they themselves fall
into condemnation. There is, however, another lesson
which a different version of the history of Nicolas
would teach. Clement of Alexandria, in his celebrated
work called the Stromata (Book II., chap. 20, and
Book III., chap. 4), tells us that Nicolas was a most
strictly virtuous man. He was extreme even in his
asceticism, and, like many ascetics, used language that
might be easily abused to the purposes of wickedness.
He was wont to say that the "flesh must be abused,"
meaning that it must be chastised and restrained. One-sided
and extreme teaching is easily perverted by the
wicked nature of man, and men of impure lives, listening
to the language of Nicolas, interpreted his words
as an excuse for abusing the flesh by plunging into
the depths of immorality and crime. Men placed in
official positions and called to the exercise of the
clerical office should weigh their words. Extreme
statements are bad unless duly and strictly guarded.
The intention of the speaker may be good, and a
man's own life thoroughly consistent, but unbalanced
teaching will fall upon ground where the life and intention
of the teacher will have no power or influence,
and bring forth evil fruit, as in the case of the
Nicolaitans.
V. The central figure of this whole section of our
narrative is St. Stephen. He is introduced into the
narrative with the same startling suddenness which we
may note in the case of Barnabas and of Elijah. He runs
a rapid course, flings all, Apostles and every one else,
into the shade for a time, and then disappears, exemplifying
those fruitful sayings of inspiration, so true in
our every-day experience of God's dealings, "The first
shall be last, and the last first." "Paul may plant,
Apollos may water, but it is God alone that giveth
the increase." Stephen, full of grace and power, did
great signs and wonders among the people. These
two words, grace and power, are closely connected.
Their union in this passage is significant. It was not
the intellect, or the eloquence, or the activity of St.
Stephen which made him powerful among the people
and crowned his labours with such success. It was
his abundant grace. Eloquence and learning, active
days and laborious nights, are good and necessary
things. God uses them and demands them from His
people. He chooses to use human agencies, and therefore
demands that the human agents shall give Him of
their best, and not offer to Him the blind and lame
of their flock. But these things will be utterly useless
and ineffective apart from Christ and the power of His
grace. The Church of Christ is a supernatural society,
and the work of Christ is a supernatural work, and in
that work the grace of Christ is absolutely necessary
to make any human gift or exertion effectual in carrying
out His purposes of love and mercy. This is an
age of organizations and committees and boards; and
some good men are so wrapped up in them that they
have no time to think of anything else. To this busy
age these words, "Stephen, full of grace and power,"
convey a useful warning, teaching that the best organizations
and schemes will be useless to produce Stephen's
power unless Stephen's grace be found there as well.
This passage is a prophecy and picture of the future
in another aspect. The fulness of grace in Stephen
wrought powerfully amongst the people. It was the
savour of life unto life in some. But in others it was
a savour of death unto death, and provoked them to
evil deeds, for they suborned men "which said, We
have heard him speak blasphemous words against
Moses, and against God."
We get in these words, in this false accusation, even
through its falsehood, a glimpse into the character of
St. Stephen's preaching. A false accusation need not
be necessarily altogether false. Perhaps rather we
should say that, in order to be effective for mischief,
a twisted, distorted charge, with some basis of truth,
some semblance of justification about it, is the best
for the accuser's purpose, and the most difficult for
the defendant to answer. St. Stephen was ripening
for heaven more rapidly than the Apostles themselves.
He was learning more rapidly than St. Peter himself
the true spiritual meaning of the Christian scheme.
He had taught, in no ambiguous language, the universal
character of the Gospel and the catholic mission
of the Church. He had expanded and applied the
magnificent declarations of the Master Himself, "The
hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in
Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father;" "The hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth." And then
the narrow-minded Grecian Jews, anxious to vindicate
their orthodoxy, which was doubted by their Hebrew
brethren, distorted Stephen's wider and grander conceptions
into a charge of blasphemy against the
holy man. What a picture of the future of Christ's
best and truest witnesses, especially when insisting
on some nobler and wider or forgotten aspect of truth.
Their teaching has been ever suspected, distorted,
accused as blasphemous; and so it must ever be. And
yet God's servants, when they find themselves thus
misrepresented, can realize to themselves that they are
but following the course which the saints of every age
have run, that they are being made like unto the image
of Stephen the first martyr, and of Jesus Christ Himself,
the King of Saints, who suffered under a similar
accusation. The mere popularity-hunter will, of course,
carefully eschew such charges and suspicions. His
object is human praise and reward, and he shapes his
teaching so as to carefully avoid giving offence. But
then the mere popularity-hunter seeks his reward here
below, and very often gets it. Stephen, however, and
every true teacher looks not for reward in this world.
Stephen taught truth as God revealed it to his soul. He
suffered the consequence, and then received his crown
from that Almighty Judge before whose awful tribunal
he ever consciously stood. Misrepresentation must ever
be expected by God's true servants. It must be discounted,
borne with patiently, taken as a trial of faith
and patience, and then, in God's own time, it will
turn out to our greater blessing. One consideration
alone ought to prove sufficient to console us under
such circumstances. If our teaching was not proving
injurious to his cause, the Evil One would not trouble
himself about it. Let us only take good heed lest
our own self-love and vanity should lead us to annoy
ourselves too much about the slander or the evil report,
remembering that misrepresentation and slander is
ever the portion of God's servants. Jesus Christ and
Stephen were thus treated. St. Paul's teaching was
accused of tending to licentiousness; the earliest Christians
were accused of vilest practices; St. Athanasius
in his struggles for truth was accused of rebellion and
murder; the Reformers were accused of lawlessness;
John Wesley of Romanism and disloyalty; William
Wilberforce of being an enemy to British trade; John
Howard of being an encourager of crime and immorality.
Let us be content then if our lot be with the
saints, and our portion be that of the servants of the
Most High.
Again, we learn from this place how religious zeal can
overthrow religion and work out the purposes of evil.
Religious zeal, mere party spirit taking the place of real
religion, led the Hellenists to suborn men and falsely
accuse St. Stephen. They made an idol of the system
of Judaism, and forgot its spirit. They worshipped
their idol so much that they were ready to break the
commandments of God for its sake. The dangers of
party spirit in matters of religion, and the evil deeds
which have been done in apparent zeal for God and
real zeal for the devil, these are still the lessons, true
for the future ages of the Church, which we read in this
passage. And how true to life has even our own age
found this prophetic picture. Men cannot indeed now
suborn men and bring fatal charges against them in
matters of religion, and yet they can fall into exactly
the same crime. Party religion and party zeal lead
men into precisely the same courses as they did in the
days of St. Stephen. Partisanship causes them to
violate all the laws of honour, of honesty, of Christian
charity, imagining that they are thereby advancing the
cause of Christ, forgetting that they are acting on the
rule which the Scriptures repudiate,—they are doing evil
that good may come,—and striving to further Christ's
kingdom by a violation of His fundamental precepts.
Oh for more of the spirit of true charity, which will
lead men to support their own views in a spirit of
Christian love! Oh for more of that true grasp of
Christianity which will teach that a breach of Christian
charity is far worse than any amount of speculative
error! The error as we think it may be in reality
God's own truth; but the violation of God's law
implied in such conduct as Stephen's adversaries displayed,
and as party zeal now often prompts, can
never be otherwise than contrary to the mind and
law of Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER XV.
ST. STEPHEN'S DEFENCE AND THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION.
"[The Grecian Jews] stirred up the people, and the elders, and the
scribes, and came upon him, and seized him, and brought him into the
council, and set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to
speak words against this holy place, and the law: for we have heard him
say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change
the customs which Moses delivered unto us."—Acts vi. 12-14.
"And the high priest said, Are these things so? And he said,
Brethren and fathers, hearken."—Acts vii. 1, 2.
St. Stephen and St. Philip are the two prominent
names among the primitive deacons. Stephen,
however, much surpasses Philip. Devout expositors
of Scripture have recognised in his name a prophecy
of his greatness. Stephen is Stephanos, a garland or
crown, in the Greek language. Garlands or crowns
were given by the ancient Greeks to those who rendered
good services to their cities, or brought fame to
them by winning triumphs in the great national games.
And Stephen had his name divinely chosen for him by
that Divine Providence which ordereth all things, because
he was to win in the fulness of time an imperishable
garland, and to gain a crown of righteousness, and
to render highest services to the Church of God by his
teaching and by his testimony even unto death. St.
Stephen had a Greek name, and must have belonged
to the Hellenistic division of the Jewish nation. He
evidently directed his special energies to their conversion,
for while the previous persecutions had been
raised by the Sadducees, as the persons whose prejudices
had been assailed, the attack on Stephen was
made by the Grecian Jews of the synagogues belonging
to the Libertines or freedmen, in union with those from
Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia. The Libertines
had been slaves, Jewish captives, taken in the various
wars waged by the Romans. They had been dispersed
among the Romans at Rome and elsewhere. There
in their captivity they had learned the Greek language
and become acquainted with Greek culture; and now,
when they had recovered their freedom through that
suppleness and power of adaptation which the Jewish
race has ever displayed, they returned to Jerusalem in
such numbers that a synagogue of the Libertines was
formed. Their captivity and servitude had, however,
only intensified their religious feelings, and made them
more jealous of any attempts to extend to the Gentiles
who had held them captives the spiritual possessions
they alone enjoyed. There is, indeed, an extremely interesting
parallel to the case of the Libertines in early
English history, as told by Bede. The Saxons came to
England in the fifth century and conquered the Christian
Celts, whom they drove into Wales. The Celts,
however, avenged themselves upon their conquerors,
for they refused to impart to the pagan Saxons the glad
tidings of salvation which the Celts possessed.See Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book ii., chap. 2.
But the
Libertines were not the only assailants of St. Stephen.
With them were joined members of synagogues connected
with various other important Jewish centres.
Jerusalem was then somewhat like Rome at the present
time. It was the one city whither a race scattered
all over the world and speaking every language tended.
Each language was represented by a synagogue, just
as there are English Colleges and Irish Colleges and
Spanish Colleges at Rome, where Roman Catholics of
those nationalities find themselves specially at home.
Among these Hellenistic antagonists of St. Stephen we
have mention made of the men of Cilicia. Here, doubtless,
was found a certain Saul of Tarsus, enthusiastic
in defence of the ancient faith, and urgent with all
his might to bring to trial the apostate who had dared
to speak words which he considered derogatory of the
city and temple of the great king.
Saul, indeed, may have been the great agent in
Stephen's arrest. It is a nature and an intellect like
his that can discern the logical results of teaching like
St. Stephen's, and then found an accusation upon the
deductions he makes rather than upon the actual words
spoken. Saul may have placed the Church under
another obligation on this occasion. To him may be
due the report of the speech made by Stephen before
the Sanhedrin. Indeed, it is to St. Paul in his unconverted
state we feel inclined to attribute the knowledge
which St. Luke possessed of the earlier proceedings of
the council in the matter of the Christians.I have already said something on p. 181 of the meetings of the
council, but not perhaps quite enough to explain St. Paul's relation to
St. Luke as far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned. The Sanhedrin
sat in a semicircle. In the centre of the arc the president was placed;
at either extremity there sat a scribe, while the disciples or pupils of
the Sanhedrists were arranged in three rows appropriate to their
respective attainments. In Selden's Works, i., 1323, in his treatise
on the Assemblies of the Hebrews, the reader can see a plan of the
Sanhedrin when sitting. St. Paul, as a favourite pupil of the President
Gamaliel, would have the best place among the disciples, if he were not
actually one of the council. Selden says that the disciples were arrayed
in this prominent position not only that they might be instructed in
law, but also might be available for serving on the council if any
member died suddenly or was taken ill. St. Paul probably made
numerous notes of the speeches delivered before him, and could supply
St. Luke with notices written and verbal. The article in Schaff's
Theological Cyclopædia on Sanhedrin should be consulted for more
information and references on this point, as well as the other references
on p. 181.
After St.
Paul's conversion we get no such details concerning the
deliberations of the Sanhedrin as we do in the earlier
chapters of the Acts, simply because Saul of Tarsus,
the rising champion and hope of the Pharisees, was
present at the earlier meetings and had access to their
inmost secrets, while at the later meetings he never
appeared save to stand his trial as an accused person.
The question, How was Stephen's speech preserved?
has been asked by some critics who wished to decry
the historic truth of this narrative, and to represent the
whole thing as a fancy sketch or romance, worked up on
historic lines indeed, but still only a romance, written
many years after the events had happened. Critics
who ask this forget what modern research has shown
in another department. The Acts of the martyrs are
sometimes very large documents, containing reports of
charges, examinations, and speeches of considerable
length. These have often been considered mere fancy
history, the work of mediæval monks wishing to
celebrate the glory of these early witnesses for truth,
and sceptical writers have often put them aside without
bestowing even a passing notice upon them.
Modern investigation has taken these documents,
critically investigated them, compared them with the
Roman criminal law, and has come to the conclusion
that they are genuine, affording some of the most
interesting and important examples of ancient methods
of legal procedure anywhere to be found. How did
the Christians get these records? it may be asked.
Various hints, given here and there, enable us to
see. Bribery of the officials was sometimes used.
The notaries, shorthand writers, and clerks attendant
upon a Roman court were numerous, and were always
accessible to the gifts of the richer Christians when
they wished to obtain a correct narrative of a martyr's
last trial. Secret Christians among the officials also
effected something, and there were numerous other
methods by which the Roman judicial records became
the property of the Church, to be in time transmitted
to the present age.M. Le Blant is one of the greatest living authorities on ancient art
and history. He has been head of the French Archæological School at
Rome. He has published an extremely able work on the subject of the
Acts of the martyrs, in which he treats them in a strictly scientific
manner. He confronts them with the processes of Roman law, the facts
of chronology and history, and triumphantly shows the vast amount of
truth contained in these documents. He also explains how the Christians
got possession of the Roman magistrates' notes, which they then
inserted in the local Church records, and dispersed amid other Churches,
after the manner of the Epistle of the Lyonnese Church, to which
reference has been already made. Le Blant, on p. 9 of his memoir,
quotes one ancient document, which incidentally mentions that "inasmuch
as it was necessary to collect all the records of the martyrs'
confessions, the Christians paid one of the javelin men two hundred
denarii for the privilege of transcribing them." We are apt to forget
that both Jews and Romans conducted all their persecutions under strict
judicial forms. We sometimes think that the persecutions were mere
outbursts of popular rage, managed after the manner of a street riot.
The examples of the magistrates at Corinth and Ephesus in the Acts
of the Apostles ought to dispel this illusion. The Romans had a perfect
horror of civil commotions, and sternly repressed them. If a sect was
to be put down, it should be put down in a legal manner, with questions
and answers and due records of the proceedings.
Now just the same may have been
the case with the trials of the primitive Christians, and
specially of St. Stephen. But we know that St. Paul
was there. Memory among the Jews was sharpened
to an extraordinary degree. We have now no idea
to what an extent the human memory was then
developed. The immense volumes which are filled
with the Jewish commentaries on Scripture were in
those times transmitted from generation to generation
simply by means of this power. It was considered,
indeed, a great innovation when those commentaries
were committed to writing instead of being intrusted
to tradition. It is no wonder then that St. Paul could
afford his disciple, St. Luke, a report of what Stephen
said on this occasion, even if he had not preserved any
notes whatsoever of the process of the trial. Let us,
however, turn to the consideration of St. Stephen's
speech, omitting any further notice of objections based
on our own ignorance of the practices and methods of
distant ages.
I. The defence of St. Stephen was a speech delivered
by a Jew, and addressed to a Jewish audience.
This is our first remark, and it is an important one.
We are apt to judge the Scriptures, their speeches,
arguments, and discussions, by a Western standard, forgetting
that Orientals argued then and argue still not
according to the rules of logic taught by Aristotle, nor
by the methods of eloquence derived from the traditions
of Cicero and Quinctilian, but by methods and rules
essentially different. What would satisfy Westerns
would have seemed to them utterly worthless, just as
an argument which now seems pointless and weak
appeared to them absolutely conclusive. Parallels,
analogies, parables, mystical interpretations were then
favourite methods of argument, and if we wish to understand
writers like the authors of the scriptural books
we must strive to place ourselves at their point of view,
or else we shall miss their true interpretation. Let us
apply this idea to St. Stephen's defence, which has
been often depreciated because treated as if it were
an oration addressed to a Western court or audience.
Erasmus, for instance, was an exceedingly learned man,
who lived at the period of the Reformation. He was
well skilled in Latin and Greek learning, but knew
nothing of Jewish ideas. He hesitates not, therefore,
to say in his Annotations on this passage that there
are many things in Stephen's speech which have no bearing
on the question at issue; while Michaelis, another
German writer of great repute in the earlier days of
this century, remarks that there are many things in
this oration of which we cannot perceive the tendency,
as regards the accusation brought against the martyr.
Let us examine and see if the case be not otherwise,
remembering that promise of the Master, given not to
supersede human exertion or to indulge human laziness,
but given to support and sustain and safeguard His
persecuted servants under circumstances like those amid
which Stephen found himself. "But when they deliver
you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak;
for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall
speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of
your Father that speaketh in you." What, then, was
the charge brought against Stephen? He was accused
of "speaking blasphemous words against Moses, and
against God," or, to put it in the formal language used
by the witnesses, "We have heard him say that Jesus
of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change
the customs which Moses delivered unto us." Now
Stephen, if merely a man of common sense, must
have intended to reply to this indictment. Some
critics, as we have just noted, think that he failed
effectually to do so. We are indeed often in great
danger of paying too much attention and lending
too great weight to objections of this kind urged by
persons who assume to themselves the office of critics;
and to counteract this tendency perhaps it is as well
to note that a leading German writer of a rationalistic
type, named Zeller, who has written a work to decry the
historical character of the Acts, finds in St. Stephen's
words an oration "not only characteristic, but also
better suited to the case and to the accusation raised
against him than is usually supposed."
Disregarding, then, all cavils of critics whose views are
mutually destructive, let us see if we cannot discern in
this narrative the marks of a sound and powerful mind,
guided, aided, and directed by the Spirit of God which
dwelt so abundantly in him. St. Stephen was accused
of irreverence towards Moses, and hostility towards the
temple, and towards all the Jewish institutions. How
did he meet this? He begins his address to the
Sanhedrin at the earliest period of their national history,
and shows how the chosen people had passed through
many changes and developments without interfering
with their essential identity amid these changes. His
opponents now made idols of their local institutions
and of the buildings of the temple, but God's choice
and God's promise had originally nothing local about
them at all. Abraham their great father was first
called by God in Ur of the Chaldees, far away across
the desert in distant Mesopotamia. Thence he removed
to Charran, and then, only after the lapse of years,
became a wanderer up and down in Canaan, where he
never possessed so much of the land as he could set
his foot upon. The promises of God and the covenant
of grace were personal things, made to God's chosen
children, not connected with lands or buildings or
national customs. He next takes up the case of
Moses. He had been accused of blasphemy and
irreverence towards the great national law-giver. His
words prove that he entertained no such feelings; he
respected and revered Moses just as much as his
opponents and accusers did. But Moses had nothing
to say or do with Canaan, or Jerusalem, or the temple.
Nay, rather, his work for the chosen people was done in
Egypt and in Midian and on the side of Horeb, where
the presence and name of Jehovah were manifested not
in the temple or tabernacle, but in the bush burning
yet not consumed.
The Grecian Jews accused Stephen of irreverence
towards Moses. But how had their forefathers treated
that Moses whom he recognised as a divinely-sent
messenger? "They thrust him from them, and in
their hearts turned back again into Egypt." Moses,
however, led them onward and upward. His motto
was hope. His rod and his voice ever pointed forward.
He warned them that his own ministry was not the
final one; that it was only an intermediate and temporary
institution, till the prophet should come unto
whom the people should hearken. There was a chosen
people before the customs introduced by Moses. There
may therefore be a chosen people still when these
customs cease, having fulfilled their purpose. The
argument of St. Stephen in this passage is the same
as that of St. Paul in the fourth chapter of Galatians,
where he sets forth the temporary and intermediate
character of the Levitical law and of the covenant of
circumcision. So teaches St. Stephen in his speech.
His argument is simply this:—I have been accused
of speaking blasphemous words against Moses because
I proclaimed that a greater Prophet than he had come,
and yet this was only what Moses himself had foretold.
It is not I who have blasphemed and opposed Moses:
it is my accusers rather. But then he remembers that
the accusation dealt not merely with Moses. It went
farther, and accused him of speaking blasphemous words
against the national sanctuary, "saying that Jesus of
Nazareth shall destroy this place." This leads him to
speak of the temple. His argument now takes a
different turn, and runs thus. This building is now the
centre of Jewish thoughts and affections. But it is a
mere modern thing as compared with the original choice
and promise of God. There was no chosen dwelling-place
of the Almighty in the earliest days of all; His
presence was then manifested wherever His chosen
servants dwelt. Then Moses made a tent or tabernacle,
which abode in no certain spot, but moved hither and
thither. Last of all, long after Abraham, and long
after Moses, and even after David, Solomon built God
an house. Even when it was built, and in all its
original glory, even then the temporary character of the
temple was clearly recognised by the prophet Isaiah,
who had long ago, in his sixty-sixth chapter, proclaimed
the truth which had been brought forward as an accusation
against himself: "Heaven is My throne, and earth
is My footstool; what house will ye build Me, saith the
Lord, or what is the place of My rest? Hath not My
hand made all these things?"—a great spiritual truth
which had been anticipated long before Isaiah by King
Solomon, in his famous dedication prayer at the opening
of the temple: "But will God indeed dwell on the
earth? Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that
I have builded" (1 Kings viii. 27). After St. Stephen
had set forth this undeniable truth confirmed by the
words of Isaiah, which to the Pharisaic portion of his
audience, at least, must have seemed conclusive, there
occurs a break in the address.
One would have thought that he would then have
proceeded to describe the broader and more spiritual
life which had shone forth for mankind in Christ, and
to expound the freedom from all local restrictions
which should henceforth belong to acceptable worship
of the Most High. Most certainly, if the speech had
been invented for him and placed in his mouth, a
forger would naturally have designed a fuller and more
balanced discourse, setting forth the doctrine of Christ
as well as the past history of the Jews. We cannot
tell whether he actually entered more fully into the
subject or not. Possibly the Sadducean portion of his
audience had got quite enough. Their countenances
and gestures bespoke their horror of St. Stephen's
doctrine. Isaiah's opinion carried no weight with them
as contrasted with the institutions of Moses, which
were their pride and glory; and so, borne along by
the force of his oratory, St. Stephen finished with that
vigorous denunciation which led to his death: "Ye
stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye
do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did,
so do ye." This exposition of St. Stephen's speech
will show the drift and argument of it as it appears
to us. But it must have seemed to them much more
powerful, plain-spoken, and aggressive. He vindicated
himself to any right-thinking and fair mind from the
accusation of irreverence towards God, towards Moses,
or towards the Divine institutions. But the minds
of his hearers were not fair. He had trampled upon
their prejudices, he had suggested the vanity of their
dearest ideas, and they could not estimate his reasons or
follow his arguments, but they could resort to the remedy
which every failing though for the present popular
cause possesses,—they could destroy him. And thus
they treated the modern as their ancestors had treated
the ancient prophets. What a lesson Stephen's speech
has for the Church of every age! How wide and
manifold the applications of it! The Jewish error is
one that is often committed, their mistake often
repeated. The Jews identified God's honour and
glory with an old order that was fast passing away,
and had no eyes to behold a new and more glorious
order that was opening upon them. We may blame
them then for their murder of St. Stephen, but we
must blame them gently, feeling that they acted as
human nature has ever acted under similar circumstances,
and that good motives were mingled with
those feelings of rage and bigotry and narrowness
that urged them to their deed of blood. Let us see
how this was. Stephen proclaimed a new order and
a new development, embracing for his hearers a vast
political as well as a vast religious change. His forecast
of the future swept away at once all the privileges
and profits connected with the religious position of
Jerusalem, and thus destroyed the political prospects
of the Jewish people. It is no wonder the Sanhedrin
could not appreciate his oration. Men do not ever
listen patiently when their pockets are being touched,
their profits swept away, their dearest hopes utterly
annihilated. Has not human experience often repeated
the scene acted out that day in Jerusalem? On the
political stage men have often seen it,—we ourselves
have seen it. The advocates of liberty, civil and
religious, have had to struggle against the same spirit
and the same prejudices as St. Stephen. Take the
political world alone. We now look back and view
with horror the deeds wrought in the name of authority
and in opposition to the principles of change and innovation.
We read the stories of Alva and the massacres
in the Netherlands, the bloody deeds of the seventeenth
century in England and all over Europe, the miseries
and the bloodshed of the American war of independence,
the fierce opposition with which the spirit of liberty
has been resisted throughout this century; and our
sympathies are altogether ranged on the side of the
sufferers,—the losers and defeated, it may have been,
for the time, but the triumphant in the long run.
The true student, however, of history or of human
nature will not content himself with any one-sided
view, and he will have some sympathy to spare for
those who adopted the stern measures. He will not
judge them too harshly. They reverenced the past as
the Jews of Jerusalem did, and reverence is a feeling
that is right and blessed. It is no good sign for this
age of ours that it possesses so little reverence for the
past, thinks so lightly of the institutions, the wisdom,
the ideas of antiquity, and is ready to change them
at a moment's notice. The men who now are held up
to the execration of posterity, the high priest and the
Sanhedrin who murdered Stephen, the tyrants and
despots and their agents who strove to crush the
supporters of liberty, the writers who cried them down
and applauded or urged on the violent measures which
were adopted and sometimes triumphed for the time,—we
should strive to put ourselves in their position, and
see what they had to say for themselves, and thus seek
to judge them here below as the Eternal King will
judge them at the great final tribunal. They knew
the good which the old political institutions had worked.
They had lived and flourished under them as their
ancestors had lived and flourished before them. The
future they knew not. All they knew was that changes
were proposed which threatened everything with which
their dearest memories were bound up, and the innovators
seemed dangerous creatures, obnoxious to God
and man, and they dealt with them accordingly.
So it has been and still is in politics. The opponents
of political change are sometimes denounced in the
fiercest language, as if they were morally wicked.
The late Dr. Arnold seems a grievous offender in this
respect. No one can read his charming biography
by Dean Stanley without recognising how intolerant he
was towards his political opponents; how blind he was
to those good motives which inspire the timorous, the
ignorant, and the aged, when brought face to face with
changes which appear to them thickly charged with
the most dangerous results. Charity towards opponents
is sadly needed in the political as well as in the religious
world. And as it has been in politics so has it been
in religion. Men reverence the past, and that reverence
easily glides into an idolatry blind to its defects and
hostile to any improvement. It is in religion too as in
politics; a thousand other interests—money, office, expectations,
memories of the loved and lost—are bound
up with old religious forms, and then when the prophet
arises with his Divine message, as Stephen arose
before the Sanhedrin, the ancient proverb is fulfilled,
the corruption of the best becomes the worst, the good
motives mingle with the evil, and are used by the poor
human heart to justify the harshest, most unchristian
deeds done in defence of what men believe to be the
cause of truth and righteousness. Let us be just and
fair to the aggressors as well as to the aggrieved, to
the persecutors as well as to the persecuted. But let
us all the same take good heed to learn for ourselves
the lessons this narrative presents. Reverence is a
good thing, and a blessed thing; and without reverence
no true progress, either in political or spiritual things,
can be made. But reverence easily degenerates into
blind superstitious idolatry. It was so with the
Sanhedrin, it was so at the Reformation, it has ever
been so with the opponents of true religious progress.
Let us evermore strive to keep minds free, open,
unbiassed, respecting the past, yet ready to listen
to the voice and fresh revelations of God's will and
purposes made to us by the messengers whom He
chooses as He pleases. Perhaps there was never an
age which needed this lesson of Stephen's speech and
its reception more than our own. The attitude of
religious men towards science and its numerous and
wondrous advances needs guidance such as this incident
affords. The Sanhedrin had their own theory
and interpretation of God's dealings in the past. They
clung to it passionately, and refused the teaching of
Stephen, who would have widened their views, and
shown them that a grand and noble development was
quite in accordance with all the facts of the case, and
indeed a necessary result of the sacred history when
truly expounded. What a parable and picture of the
future we here find! What a warning as to the
attitude religious men should take up with respect
to the progress of science! Patience, intellectual and
religious patience, is taught us. The Sanhedrin were
impatient of St. Stephen's views, which they could
not understand, and their impatience made them lose
a blessing and commit a sin. Now has it not been
at times much the same with ourselves? Fifty or sixty
years ago men were frightened at the revelations of
geology,—they had their own interpretations of the
past and of the Scriptures,—just as three centuries ago
men were frightened at the revelations and teaching
of modern astronomy. Prejudiced and narrow men
then strove to hound down the teachers of the new
science, and would if they could have destroyed them
in the name of God. Patience here, however, has done
its work and has had its reward. The new revelations
have been taken up and absorbed by the Church of
Christ. Men have learned to distinguish between
their own interpretations of religion and of religious
documents on the one hand and the religion itself on
the other. The old, human, narrow, prejudiced interpretations
have been modified. That which could be
shaken and was untrue has passed away, while that
which cannot be shaken has remained.
The lesson taught us by these instances of astronomy
and geology ought not to be thrown away. Patience is
again necessary for the Christian and for the scientist
alike. New facts are every day coming to light, but
it requires much time and thought to bring new facts
and old truths into their due correlation, to look round
and about them. The human mind is at best very
small and weak. It is blind, and cannot see afar off,
and it is only by degrees it can grasp truth in its
fulness. A new fact, for instance, discovered by science
may appear at first plainly contradictory to some old
truth revealed in Scripture. But even so, we should not
lose our patience or our hope taught us by this chapter.
What new fact of science can possibly seem more
contradictory to any old truth of the Creeds than St.
Stephen's teaching about the universal character of
God's promise and the freeness of acceptable worship
must have seemed when compared with the Divine
choice of the temple at Jerusalem? They appeared
to the Sanhedrin ideas mutually destructive, though
now we see them to have been quite consistent one
with another. Let this historic retrospect support us
when our faith is tried. Let us welcome every new
fact and new revelation brought by science, and then,
if they seem opposed to something we know to be true
in religion, let us wait in confidence begotten of past
experience that God in His own good time will clear
up for His faithful people that which now seems difficult
of comprehension. Patience and confidence, then,
are two lessons much needed in this age, which St.
Stephen's speech and its reception bring home to our
hearts.
II. We have now spoken of the general aspect of the
discourse, and the broad counsels we may gather from
it. There are some other points, however, points of
detail as distinguished from wider views, upon which
we would fix our attention. They too will be found
full of guidance and full of instruction. Let us take
them in the order in which they appear in St.
Stephen's address. The mistakes and variations which
undoubtedly occur in it are well worthy of careful
attention, and have much teaching necessary for these
times. There are three points in which Stephen varies
from the language of the Old Testament. In the
fourteenth verse of the seventh chapter Stephen speaks
thus: "Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob
to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen
souls;" while, if we turn to the Pentateuch, we shall
find that the number of the original Hebrew immigrants
is placed three times over at seventy, or threescore
and ten, that is in Gen. xlvi. 27, Exod. i. 5, and
Deut. x. 22. This, however, is only a comparatively
minor point. The Septuagint or Greek version of the
Pentateuch reads seventy-five in the first of these
passages, making the sons of Joseph born in Egypt
to have been nine persons, and thus completing the
number seventy-five, at which it fixes the roll of the
males who came with Jacob. The next two verses,
the fifteenth and sixteenth, contain a much more serious
mistake. They run thus:—"So Jacob went down into
Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, and were
carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that
Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of
Emmor the father of Sychem." Now here there occur
several grave errors. Jacob was not carried over and
buried at Sychem at all, but at the cave of Machpelah,
as is plainly stated in Gen. l. 13. Again, a plot of
ground at Sychem was certainly bought, not by
Abraham, however, but by Jacob. Abraham bought
the field and cave of Machpelah from Ephron the
Hittite. Jacob bought his plot at Sychem from the
sons of Emmor. There are in these verses, then, two
serious historical mistakes; first as to the true burial-place
of Jacob, and then as to the purchaser of the plot
of ground at Sychem. Yet, again, there is a third
mistake in the forty-third verse, where, when quoting
a denunciation of Jewish idolatry from Amos v. 25, 26,
he quotes the prophet as threatening, "I will carry you
away beyond Babylon," whereas the prophet did say,
"Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond
Damascus." St. Stephen substituted Babylon for
Damascus, two cities between which several hundred
miles intervened. I have stated the difficulty thus as
strongly as possible, because I think that, instead of
constituting a difficulty, they are a real source of living
help and comfort, as well as a great practical confirmation
of the story. Let us take this last point first. I
say that these mistakes, admitted mistakes which I
make no vain attempt to explain away, constitute a
confirmation of the story as given in the Acts against
modern rationalistic opponents. It is a favourite theme
of many of these writers that the Acts of the Apostles
is a mere piece of fancy history, a historical romance
composed in the second century for the purpose of
reconciling the adherents of St. Paul, or the Gentile
Christians, with the followers of St. Peter, or the Jewish
Christians. The persons who uphold this view fix the
date of the Acts in the earlier half of the second century,
and teach that the speeches and addresses were composed
by the author of the book and put into the mouths
of the reputed speakers. Now, in the mistake made
by St. Stephen, we have a refutation of this theory.
Surely any man composing a speech to put into the
mouth of one of his favourite heroes and champions
would not have represented him as making such grave
errors when addressing the supreme Jewish senate. A
man might easily make any of these slips which I have
noticed in the heat of an oration, and they might have
even passed unnoticed, as every speaker who has much
practice in addressing the public still makes precisely
the same kind of mistake. But a romancer, sitting down
to forge speeches suitable to the time and place, would
never have put in the mouth of his lay figures grave
errors about the most elementary facts of Jewish history.
We conclude, then, that the inaccuracies reported as
made by St. Stephen are evidences of the genuine
character of the oration attributed to him. Then again
we see in these mistakes a guarantee of the honesty
and accuracy of the reports of the speech. The other
day I read the objections of a critic to our Gospels.
He wished to know, for instance, how the addresses of
our Lord could have been preserved in an age when
there was no shorthand. The answer is, however,
simple enough, and conclusive: there was shorthand
in that age.See p. 108 above, where I have touched on this point.
Shorthand was then carried to such
perfection that an epigram of Martial (xiv. 208), a
contemporary poet, celebrating its triumphs may be
thus translated:—
"Swift though the words, the pen still swifter sped;
The hand has finish'd ere the tongue has said."
While even if the Jews knew nothing of shorthand, the
human memory, as we have already noted, was then
developed to a degree of which we have no conception.
Now, whether transmitted by memory or by notes, this
address of St. Stephen bears proofs of the truthfulness
of the reporter in the mistakes it contains. A man
anxious for the reputation of his hero would have
corrected them, as parliamentary reporters are accustomed
to make the worst speeches readable, correcting
evident blunders, and improving the grammar.
The reporter of St. Stephen's words, on the contrary,
gave them to us just as they were spoken.
But then, I may be asked, how do you account for
St. Stephen's mistake? What explanation can you
offer? My answer is simple and plain enough. I
have no other explanation to offer except that they
are mistakes such as a speaker, filled with his subject,
and speaking to an excited and hostile audience, might
naturally make; mistakes such as truthful speakers
every day make in their ordinary efforts. Every man
who speaks an extemporaneous discourse such as
Stephen's was, full of references to past history, is
liable to such errors. Even when the memory retains
the facts most accurately, the tongue is apt to make
such lapses. Let a number of names be mingled up
together in a speech or sermon where frequent mention
has to be made of one now and of another again,
how easily in that case a speaker substitutes one for
another. But it may be objected that it is declared of
Stephen that he was "full of the Holy Ghost and
wisdom," that "he was full of faith and power," and
that his adversaries "were not able to resist the wisdom
and the spirit with which he spake." But surely
this might be said of able, devoted, and holy men at
the present day, and yet no one would say that they
were miraculously kept from the most trivial mistakes,
and that their memories and tongues were so
supernaturally aided that they were preserved from the
smallest verbal inaccuracies. We are always inclined
to reverse the true scientific method of enquiry, and
to form notions as to what inspiration must mean,
instead of asking what, as a matter of fact, inspiration
did mean and involve in the case of the Bible heroes.
People when they feel offended by these mistakes of
St. Stephen prove that they really think that Christianity
was quite a different thing in the apostolic days
from what it is now, and that the words "full of the
Holy Ghost" and the presence of the Divine Spirit
meant quite a different gift and blessing then from
what they imply at the present time. I look upon the
mistakes in this speech in quite a different light. St.
Luke, in recording them exactly as they took place,
proves, not merely his honesty as a narrator, but he
also has handed down to us a most important lesson.
He teaches us to moderate our notions and to chasten
our à priori expectations. He shows us we must come
and study the Scriptures to learn what they mean by
the gift and power of the Holy Spirit. St. Luke
expressly tells us that Stephen was full of the Holy
Ghost, and then proceeds to narrate certain verbal
inaccuracies and certain slips of memory to prove to
us that the presence of the Holy Ghost does not
annihilate human nature, or supersede the exercise of
the human faculties. Just as in other places we find
Apostles like St. Peter or St. Paul spoken of as equally
inspired, and yet the inspiration enjoyed by them did
not destroy their human weakness and infirmities, and,
full of the Holy Ghost as they were, St. Paul could
wax wroth and engage in bitter dissension with
Barnabas, his fellow-labourer; and St. Peter could
fall into hypocrisy against which his brother Apostle
had publicly to protest. It is wonderful how liable
the mind is, in matters of religion, to embrace exactly
the same errors age after age, manifesting themselves
in different shapes. Men are ever inclined to form
their theories beforehand, and then to test God's actions
and the course of His Providence by those theories,
instead of reversing the order, and testing their theories
by facts as God reveals them. This error about the true
theory of inspiration and the gifts of the Holy Ghost
which Protestants have fallen into is exactly the same
as two celebrated mistakes, one in ancient, the other
in modern times. The Eutychian heresy was very celebrated
in the fifth century. It split the Eastern Church
into two parts, and prepared the way for the triumph of
Mahometanism. It fell, too, into this same error. It
formed an à priori theory of God and His nature. It
determined that it was impossible for the nature of
Deity to be united to a nature which could feel hunger
and thirst and weakness, because that God cannot be
affected by any human weakness or wants. It denied,
therefore, the real humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the reality of His human life and actions; teaching that
His human body was not real, but merely a phenomenal
or apparent one, and then explaining away all the
statements and facts of Gospel history which seemed
to them to conflict with their own private theory. In
the West we have had ourselves experience of the
same erroneous method of argument. The adherents
of the Church of Rome argue for the infallibility of
the Pope in the same way. They dilate on the awful
importance of religious truth, and the fearful consequences
of a mistake in such matters. Hence they
conclude that it is only natural and fitting that a living,
speaking, teaching, infallible guide should be appointed
by God to direct the Church, and thence they conclude
the infallibility of the Pope; a method of argument
which has been amply exposed by Dr. Salmon in his
work on the Infallibility of the Church. The Roman
Catholics form their theory first, and when they come
to facts which conflict with their theory, they deny
them or explain them away in the most extraordinary
manner.
Protestants themselves, however, are subject to the
same erroneous methods. They form a theory about
the Holy Ghost and His operations. They conclude, as
is true, that He is Himself right, and just, and true in
all His doings, and then they conclude that all the men
whom He chose in the earliest age of the Church, and
who are mentioned in Scripture as endued with His
grace, must have been as free from every form of error
as the Holy Spirit Himself. They thus fashion for
themselves a mere à priori theory like the Eutychian and
the Romanist, and then, when they apply their theory to
passages like St. Stephen's speech, they feel compelled
to deny facts and offer forced explanations, and to reject
God's teaching as it is embodied in the divinely taught
lessons of history. Let us be honest, fearless students
of the Scriptures. St. Stephen was full of the Holy
Ghost, and as such his great, broad, spiritual lessons
were taught by the Spirit, and commend themselves as
Divine teaching to every Christian heart. But these
lessons were given through human lips, and had to be
conveyed through human faculties, and as such are not
free from the imperfections which attach themselves to
everything human here below. Surely it is just the
same still. God the Holy Ghost dwells with His people
as of old. There are men even in this age of whom
it still may be said, that in a special sense "they are
full of the Holy Ghost," a blessing granted in answer
to faithful prayer and devout communion and a life
lived closely with God. The Holy Spirit speaks
through them and in them. Their sermons, even on
the simplest topics, speak with power, they teem with
spiritual unction, they come home with conviction to the
human conscience. Yet surely no one would dream of
saying that these men are free from slips of speech and
lapses of memory in their extemporaneous addresses,
or in their private instructions, or in their written
letters, because the Holy Ghost thus proves His presence
and His power in His people as of old. The
human heart and conscience easily and at once distinguish
between that which is due to human weakness
and what to Divine grace, according to that most
pregnant saying of an Apostle himself gifted above all
others, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that
the excellency of the power may be of God and not of
us." This view may be startling to some persons who
have been accustomed to look to the Bible as some
persons look to the Pope, as an oracle which will give
them infallible guidance on every topic without the
exercise of any thought or intelligence on their own
part. Yet it is no original or novel notion of my own,
but one that has been luminously set forth by a devout
expositor of Scripture, dealing with this very passage
many years ago. Dr. Vaughan, in his lectures on the
Acts, preaching at Doncaster when vicar of that place,
thus states his conclusions on this point:—"Now I will
address one earnest word to persons who may have
noticed with anxiety in this chapter, or who may have
heard it noticed by others in a tone of cavil or disbelief,
that in one or two minor points the account here given
of Jewish history seems to vary from that contained in
the narrative of the Old Testament. For example, the
history in the book of Genesis tells us that the burying-place
bought by Abraham was in Mamre or Hebron, not
at Sychem; and that it was bought by him of Ephron
the Hittite, Jacob (not Abraham) being the purchaser of
the ground at Shechem of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's
father. My friends, can you really suppose that a difference
of this nature has anything to do, this way or that,
with the substantial truth of the gospel revelation? I
declare to you that I would not waste the time in endeavouring
(if I was able) to reconcile such a variance.
It is to be regretted that Christian persons, in their zeal
for the literal accuracy of our Holy Book, have spoken
and written as if they thought that anything could
possibly depend upon such a question. We all know
how easy it is to get two witnesses in a court of justice
to give their stories of an occurrence in the same words.
We know also how instant is the suspicion of falsehood
which that formal coincidence of statement brings upon
them. Holy Scripture shows what I may indeed call
a noble superiority to all such uniformity. Each book
of our Bible is an independent witness; shown to be
so, not least, by verbal or even actual differences on
some trifling points of detail. And they who drink
most deeply at the fountain head of Divine truth learn
to estimate these things in the same manner; to feel
what we might describe as a lordly disdain for all
infidel objections drawn from this sort of petty, paltry,
cavilling, carping, creeping criticism. Let our faith at
last, God helping us, be strong enough and decided
enough to override a few or a multitude of such objections.
We will hear them unmoved; we will fearlessly
examine them; if we cannot resolve them, then, in the
power of a more majestic principle, we will calmly turn
from them and pass them by. What we know not
now, we may know hereafter; and if we never know
we will believe still." These are wise words, very
wholesome, very practical, and very helpful in this
present age.
III. Let us briefly gather yet another lesson from this
passage. The declaration of the Church's catholicity
and the universal nature of Christian worship contained
in verses 47-50 deserve our attention. What did St.
Stephen say?—"But Solomon built Him a house.
Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made
with hands; as saith the prophet, The heaven is My
throne, and the earth the footstool of My feet; what
manner of house will ye build Me? saith the Lord; or
what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make
all these things?" These words must have sounded
as very extraordinary and very revolutionary in Jewish
ears, because they most certainly struck at the root
of the exclusive privilege claimed for Jerusalem, that it
was the one place upon earth where acceptable worship
could be offered, and where the Divine presence could
be manifested. It seems no wonder that they should
have roused the Sanhedrin to the pitch of fury which
ended in the orator's judicial murder. But these words
have been at times pressed farther than Stephen
intended. He merely wished to teach that God's
special and covenanted presence was not for the future
to be limited to Jerusalem. In the new dispensation of
the Messiah whom he preached, that special covenanted
presence would be found everywhere. Where two or
three should be gathered in Christ's name there would
God's presence be found. These words of Stephen
have sometimes been quoted as if they sounded the
death-knell of special places dedicated to the honour
and glory of God, such as churches are. It is evident,
however, that they have no such application. They
sounded the death-knell of the exclusive privilege of
one place, the temple, but they proclaimed the freedom
which the Church has ever since claimed, and the
Jewish Church of the dispersion, by the institution of
synagogues, had led the way in claiming teaching that
wherever true hearts and true worshippers are found,
there God reveals Himself. But we must bear in mind
a distinction. Stephen and the Apostles rejected the
exclusive right of the Temple as the one place of
worship for the world. They asserted the right to
establish special places of worship throughout the world.
They rejected the exclusive claims of Jerusalem. But
they did not reject the right and the duty of God's people
to assemble themselves as a collective body for public
worship, and to realize Christ's covenanted presence.
This is an important limitation of St. Stephen's statement.
The absolute duty of public collective worship
of the Almighty cannot be too strongly insisted upon.
Men neglect it, and they support themselves by an
appeal to St. Stephen's words, which have nothing to do
with public worship more than with private worship.
The Jews imagined that both public and private worship
offered in the Temple had some special blessing attached,
because a special presence of God was there granted.
St. Stephen attacked this prejudice. His words must,
however, be limited to the exact point he was then
dealing with, and must not be pressed farther. Private
prayer was binding on all God's people in the new and
freer dispensation, and so, too, public worship has a
special covenant blessing attached to it, and the blessing
cannot be obtained if people neglect the duty. Public
worship has been by Protestants looked at too much,
as if it were only a means of their own edification, and
thus, when they have thought that such edification could
be as well or better attained at home, by reading a better
sermon than they might chance to hear in the public congregation,
they have excused their absence to their own
conscience. But public worship is much more than a
means of edification. It is the payment of a debt of
worship, praise, and adoration due by the creature to
the Creator. In that duty personal edification finds a
place, but a mere accidental and subsidiary place. The
great end of public worship is worship, not hearing, not
edification even, though edification follows as a necessary
result of such public worship when sincerely offered.
The teaching of St. Stephen did not then apply to the
erection of churches and buildings set apart for God's
service, or to the claim made for public worship as an
exercise with a peculiar Divine promise annexed. It
simply protests against any attempt to localise the
Divine presence to one special spot on earth, making
it and it alone the centre of all religious interest. St.
Stephen's words are indeed but a necessary result of
the ascension of Christ as we have already expounded
its expediency. Had Christ remained on earth, His personal
presence would have rendered the Church a mere
local and not an universal institution; just as the doctrine
of Roman Catholics about the Pope as Christ's Vicar,
and Rome as his appointed seat, has so far invested
Rome with somewhat of the characteristics of Jerusalem
and the Temple. But our Lord ascended up on high
that the hearts and minds of His people might likewise
ascend to that region where, above time, and sense, and
change, their Master evermore dwells, as the loadstone
which secretly draws their hearts, and guides their
tempest-tossed spirits across the stormy waters of this
world to the haven of everlasting rest.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM.
"And they cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses
laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And
they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice,
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this,
he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting unto his death."—Acts vii.
58-60; viii. 1.
The apology of Stephen struck the keynote of
Christian freedom, traced out the fair proportions
of the Catholic Church, while the actual martyrdom of
Stephen taught men that Christianity was not only the
force which was to triumph, but the power in which
they were to suffer, and bear, and die. Stephen's career
was a type of all martyr lives, and embraces every possible
development through which Christ's Church and
His servants had afterwards to pass,—obscurity, fame,
activity, death, fixing high the standard for all ages.
I. We have in this passage, telling the story of
that martyrdom, a vast number of topics, which have
formed the subject-matter of Christian thought since
apostolic times. We have already remarked that the
earliest quotation from the Acts of the Apostles connects
itself with this scene of Stephen's martyrdom. Let us
see how this came about. One hundred and forty
years later than Stephen's death, towards the close of
the second century, the Churches of Vienne and Lyons
were sending an account of the terrible sufferings
through which they had passed during a similar sudden
outburst of the Celtic pagans of that district against the
Christians. The aged Pothinus, a man whose life and
ministry touched upon the apostolic age, was put to
death, suffering violence very like that to which St.
Stephen was subjected, for we are told expressly by
the historian Eusebius that the mob in its violence
flung missiles at him. "Those at a distance, whatsoever
they had at hand, every one hurled at him,
thinking it would be a great sin if they fell short in
wanton abuse against him."Epistle of the Church of Lyons in Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., v. 1. This
letter relates the earliest Celtic martyrdoms of which we have any knowledge.
They took place at the annual Convention of the Celtic tribes of
Gaul, which assembled at Lyons and Vienne. These conventions were
much the same as the assembly at Tara in Meath, where St. Patrick
began the work of converting Ireland. See my Ireland and the Celtic
Church, chap. iv., and also p. 9 above.
The Church of Lyons,
according to the loving usage of those early times, sent
an account of all their trouble to the brethren in Asia
and Phrygia, that they might read it at the celebration
of the Eucharist for their own comfort and edification.
They entered into great details, showing how wonderfully
the power of God's grace was manifested, even in
the weakest persons, sustaining their courage and enabling
them to witness. The letter then goes on to
note the marvellous humility of the sufferers. They
would not allow any one to call them martyrs. That
name was reserved to Jesus Christ, "the true and faithful
Martyr," and to those who had been made perfect
through death. Then, too, their charity was wonderful,
and the epistle, referring to this very incident, tells how
they prayed "like Stephen, that perfect martyr, Lord,
impute not this sin to them." The memory of St.
Stephen served to nerve the earliest Gallic martyrs,
and it has ever since been bound up with the dearest
feelings of Christians. The arrangements of the Calendar,
with which we are all familiar, are merely an expression
of the same feeling as that recorded in the
second-century document we have just now quoted.
Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day are closely
united,—the commemoration of Christ's birth is joined
with that of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, because of a
certain spiritual instinct. Christmas Day records the
fact of the Incarnation, and then we have according to
the order of the Calendar three holy days, St. Stephen's,
St. John's, and the Holy Innocents' Day, which follow
one another in immediate succession. Many persons
will remember the explanation of an old commentator
on the Calendar and Liturgy, of which Keble makes a
very effective use in his hymns in the Christian Year
set apart for those days. There are three classes of
martyrs: one in will and deed like St. Stephen,—this
is the highest class, therefore he has place next to
Christ; another in will, but not in deed, like St. John
the Divine, who was ready to suffer death but did not,—this
is the second rank, therefore his place comes
next St. Stephen; and lastly come the Holy Innocents,
the babes of Bethlehem, martyrs in deed but
not in will, and therefore in the lowest position. The
Western Church, and specially the Church of Northern
Europe, has always loved the Christmas season, with
its cheerful fires, its social joys, its family memories;
and hence, as it was in the Church of the second century,
so with ourselves, none has a higher or dearer
place in memory, doubtless largely owing to this conjunction,
than the great proto-martyr. Men have
delighted, therefore, to trace spiritual analogies and
relationships between Stephen and Christ; fanciful perhaps
some of them are, but still they are devout fancies,
edifying fancies, fancies which strengthen and deepen
the Divine life in the soul. Thus they have noted that
Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day are both natal
days. In the language of the ancient Church, with its
strong realizing faith, men spoke of a saint's death or
martyrdom as his dies natalis. This is, indeed, one of
the many traces of primitive usage which the Church
of Rome has preserved, like a fly fixed in amber, petrified
in the midst of her liturgical uses. She has a
Martyrology which the ordinary laity scarcely ever see
or use, but which is in daily use among the clergy and
the various ecclesiastical communities connected with
that Church. It is in the Latin tongue, and is called
the Martyrologium Romanum, giving the names of the
various saints whose memories are celebrated upon each
day throughout the year, and every such day is duly
styled the natal or birthday of the saint to whom it is
appropriated. The Church of Rome retains this beautiful
custom of the primitive Church, which viewed the
death-day of a saint as his birthday into the true life,
and rejoiced in it accordingly. That life was not, in the
conception of the primitive believers, a life of ghosts and
shadows. It was the life of realities, because it was the
life of eternity, and therefore the early Christians lived for
it, they longed for it, and counted their entrance upon
it their true natal or birthday. The Church brought
the two birthdays of Christ and Stephen into closest
union, and men saw a beautiful reason for that union,
teaching that Christ was born into this lower world in
order that Stephen might be born into the heavenly
world. The whole of that dreadful scene enacted at
Jerusalem was transformed by the power of that
beautiful conception. Stephen's death was no longer a
brutal murder; faith no longer saw the rage, the violence,
the crushed body, the mangled and outraged
humanity. The birthday of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation
of the Master, transfigured the death-scene of
the servant, for the shame and sufferings were changed
into peace and glory; the execrations and rage of the
mob became angelic songs, and the missiles used by
them were fashioned into messengers of the Most
High, ushering the faithful martyr through a new birth
into his eternal rest. Well would it be for the Church
at large if she could rise to this early conception more
frequently than she commonly does. Men did not then
trouble themselves about questions of assurance, or
their Christian consciousness. These topics and ideas
are begotten on a lower level, and find sustenance in a
different region. Men like Stephen and the martyrs of
Vienne and Lyons lived in the other world; it was the
world of all their interests, of all their passionate
desires, of all their sense of realities. They lived the
supernatural life, and they did not trouble themselves
with any questions about that life, no more than a man
in sound physical health and spirits cares to discuss
topics dealing with the constitution of the life which
he enjoys, or to debate such unprofitable questions as,
How do I know that I exist at all? Christians then
knew and felt they lived in God, and that was enough
for them. We have wandered far enough afield,
however; let us retrace our steps, and seek to discover
more in detail the instruction for the life of future ages
given us in this first martyr scene.
II. We have brought before us the cause of the
sudden outburst against Stephen. For it was an outburst,
a popular commotion, not a legal execution.
We have already explained the circumstances which
led the Sanhedrin to permit the mob to take their own
course, and even to assist them in doing so. Pilate
had departed; the imperial throne too was vacant in
the spring or early summer of the year 37; there
was an interregnum when the bonds of authority were
relaxed, during which the Jews took leave to do as they
pleased, trusting that when the bonds were again drawn
tight the misdeeds of the past and the irregularities
committed would be forgotten and forgiven. Hence the
riot in which Stephen lost his life. But what roused
the listeners—Sanhedrists, elders, priests, and people
alike—to madness? They heard him patiently enough,
just as they afterwards heard his successor Paul, till
he spoke of the wider spiritual hope. Paul, as his
speech is reported in the twenty-second chapter, was
listened to till he spoke of being sent to the Gentiles.
Stephen was listened to till he spoke of the free, universal,
spiritual character of the Divine worship, tied to
no place, bounded by no locality. Then the Sanhedrin
waxed impatient, and Stephen, recognising with all an
orator's instinct and tact that his opportunity was over,
changes his note—charging home upon his hearers the
same spirit of criminal resistance to the leadings of
the Most High as their fathers had always shown. The
older Jews had ever resisted the Holy Ghost as He
displayed His teaching and opened up His purposes
under the Old Dispensation; their descendants had now
followed their example in withstanding the same Divine
Spirit manifested in that Holy One of whom they had
lately been the betrayers and murderers. It is scarcely
any wonder that such language should have been the
occasion of his death. How exactly he follows the
example of our Saviour! Stephen used strong language,
and so did Jesus Christ. It has even been urged of
late years that our Lord deliberately roused the Jews
to action, and hastened His end by His violent language
of denunciation against the ruling classes recorded in
the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew. There is,
however, a great lesson of eternal significance to be derived
from the example of St. Stephen as well as of our
Lord. There are times when strong language is useful
and necessary. Christ's ordinary ministry was gentle,
persuasive, mild. He did not strive nor cry, neither
did any man hear His voice in the streets. But a time
came when, persuasion having failed of its purpose, the
language of denunciation took its place, and helped to
work out in a way the Pharisees little expected the
final triumph of truth. Stephen was skilful and gentle
in his speech; his words must at first have sounded
strangely flattering to their prejudices, coming from one
who was accused as a traitor to his race and religion.
Yet when the gentle words failed, stern denunciation,
the plainest language, the keenest phrases,—"Stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears," "Betrayers
and murderers of the Righteous One,"—prove
that a Christian martyr then, and Christ's martyrs and
witnesses of every age, are not debarred under certain
circumstances from the use of such weapons. But
it is hard to know when the proper time has come for
their employment. The object of every true servant
and witness of Christ will be to recommend the truth
as effectually as possible, and to win for it acceptance.
Some people seem to invert this course, and to think
that it is unworthy a true follower of Christ to seek
to present his message in an attractive shape. They
regard every human art and every human motive or
principle as so thoroughly bad that men should disregard
and despise them. Human eloquence, or
motives of policy and prudence, they utterly reject.
Their principles lead some of them farther still. They
reject the assistance which art and music and literature
can lend to the cause of God, and the result is that men,
specially as they grow in culture and civilisation, are
estranged from the message of everlasting peace. Some
people, with a hard, narrow conception of Christianity,
are very responsible for the alienation of the young and
the thoughtful from the side of religion through the
misconceptions which they have caused. God has made
the doctrines of the cross repugnant to the corrupt
natural feelings of man, but it is not for us to make
them repugnant to those good natural principles as well
which the Eternal Father has implanted in human
nature, and which are an echo of His own Divine self
in the sanctuary of the heart. It is a real breach of
charity when men refuse to deal tenderly in such
matters with the lambs of Christ's flock, and will not
seek, as St. Stephen and the apostles did, to recommend
God's cause with all human skill, enlisting
therein every good or indifferent human motive. Had
St. Stephen thought it his duty to act as some unwise
people do now, we should never have had his immortal
discourse as a model for faithful and skilful preaching.
We should merely have had instead the few words of
vigorous denunciation with which the address closed.
At the same time the presence of these stern words
proves that there is a place for such strong language in
the work of the Christian ministry. There is a time and
place for all things, even for the use of strong language.
The true teacher will seek to avoid giving unnecessary
offences, but offence sharp and stern may be an absolute
duty of charity when prejudice and bigotry and
party spirit are choking the avenues of the soul, and
hindering the progress of truth. And thus John the
Baptist may call men a generation of vipers, and Paul
may style Elymas a child of the devil, and Christ
may designate the religious world of His day as
hypocrites; and when occasion calls we should not
hesitate to brand foul things with plain names, in order
that men may be awakened from that deadly torpor
into which sin threatens to fling them. The use of
strong language by St. Stephen had its effect upon his
listeners. They were sawn asunder in their hearts,
they gnashed their teeth upon the martyr. His words
stirred them up to some kind of action. The Gospel
has a double operation, it possesses a twofold force—the
faithful teaching of it cannot be in vain. To some
it will be the savour of life unto life, to others the
savour of death unto death. Opposition may be indeed
unwisely provoked. It may be the proof to us of
nothing else save our own wilfulness, our own folly
and imprudence. But if Christian wisdom be used,
and the laws of Christian charity duly observed, then
the spirit of opposition and the violence of rage and
persecution prove nothing else to the sufferers than
that God's word is working out His purposes, and
bringing forth fruit though it be unto destruction.
III. Again, the locality, the circumstances, and the
surroundings of Stephen's martyrdom deserve a brief
notice. The place of his execution is pointed out by
Christian tradition, and that tradition is supported
by the testimony of Jewish custom and of Jewish
writings. He was tried in the Temple precincts, or
within sight of it, as is manifest from the words of the
witnesses before the council, "He ceaseth not to speak
against this holy place. We have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place." The
mob then rushed upon him. Under ordinary circumstances
the Roman garrison stationed in the neighbouring
town of Antonia, which overlooked the temple,
would have noticed the riot, and have hastened to
intervene, as they did many years after, when St. Paul's
life was threatened in a similar Jewish outburst. But
the political circumstances, as we have already shown,
were now different.See chap. xiii., p. 248, above.
Roman authority was for the
moment paralysed in Jerusalem. People living at great
centres such as Rome once was, or London now is,
have no idea how largely dependent distant colonies or
outlying districts like Judæa are upon personal authority
and individual lives. In case of a ruler's death the
action of the officials and of the army becomes necessarily
slow, hesitating; it loses that backbone of energy, decision,
and vigour which a living personal authority
imparts. The decease of the Roman Emperor synchronising
with the recall of Pontius Pilate must have
paralysed the action of the subordinate officer then
commanding at Antonia, who, unaware what turn events
might take, doubtless thought that he was safe in
restraining himself to the guardianship and protection
of purely Roman interests.
The scene of Stephen's murder is sometimes located
in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, near the brook Kedron,
under the shadow of Olivet, and over against the
Garden of Gethsemane. To that spot the gate of
Jerusalem, called the Gate of St. Stephen, now leads.See Survey of Western Palestine, iii., 126 and 383-88, where an
account is given of the ruins of the ancient church erected in honour of
St. Stephen by the Empress Eudocia, about A.D. 440. It is on the
north side of Jerusalem.
Another tradition assigns the open country north-east
of Jerusalem, on the road to Damascus and Samaria,
as the place consecrated by the first death suffered for
Jesus Christ. It is, however, according to the usual
practice of Holy Scripture to leave this question undecided,
or rather completely disregarded and overlooked.
The Scriptures were not written to celebrate
men or places, things temporary and transient in
themselves, and without any bearing on the spiritual
life. The Scriptures were written for the purpose of
setting forth the example of devotion, of love, and of
sanctity presented by its heroes, and therefore it shrouds
all such scenes as that of Stephen's martyrdom in
thickest darkness. There is as little as possible of
what is merely local, detailed, particular about the
Scriptures. They rise into the abstract and the general
as much as is consistent with being a historical narrative.
Perhaps no spot in the world exhibits more
evident and more abundant proofs of this Divine wisdom
embodied in the Scriptures than this same city of
Jerusalem as we now behold it. What locality could
be more dear to Christian memory, or more closely
allied with Christian hope, than the Holy Places, as
they are emphatically called—the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre and its surroundings? Yet the contending
struggles of Roman Catholics, Greeks, and Armenians
have made the whole subject a reproach and disgrace,
and not an honour to the Christian name, showing
how easily strife and partisanship and earthly passions
enter in and usurp the ground which is nominally set
apart for the honour of Christ Jesus. It is very hard
to keep the spirit of the world out of the most sacred
seasons or the holiest localities.
Stephen is hurried by the mob to this spot outside
the Holy City, and then they proceed in regular judicial
style so far as their fury will allow them. Dr.
John Lightfoot, in his great work Horæ Hebraicæ, dealing
with this passage, notes how we can trace in it the
leading ideas and practices of Jewish legal processes.
The Sanhedrin and their supporters dragged St.
Stephen out of the city because it was the law as laid
down in Lev. xxiv. 14—"Bring forth him that hath
cursed without the camp." The Jews still retained
vivid memories of their earlier history, just as students
of sociology and ethnology still recognise in our own
practices traces of ancient pre-historic usages, reminiscences
of a time, ages now distant from us, when our
ancestors lived the savage life in lands widely separated
from our modern homes. So did the Jews still recognise
the nomad state as their original condition,
and even in the days of our Saviour looked upon
Jerusalem as the camp of Israel, outside of which the
blasphemer should be stoned.
Lightfoot then gives the elaborate ceremonial used
to insure a fair trial, and the re-consideration of any
evidence which might turn up at the very last moment.
A few of the rules appointed for such occasions are
well worth quoting, as showing the minute care with
which the whole Jewish order of execution was regulated:
"There shall stand one at the door of the
Sanhedrin having a handkerchief in his hand, and an
horse at such a distance as it was only within sight.
If any one therefore say, I have something to offer on
behalf of the condemned person, he waves the handkerchief,
and the horseman rides and calls the people back.
Nay, if the man himself say, I have something to offer
in my own defence, they bring him back four or five
times one after another, if it be a thing of any moment
he has to say." I doubt, adds Lightfoot, they hardly
dealt so gently with the innocent Stephen. Lightfoot
then describes how a crier preceded the doomed man
proclaiming his crime, till the place of execution was
reached; where, after he was stripped of his clothes, the
two witnesses threw him violently down from a height
of twelve feet, flinging upon him two large stones.
The man was struck by one witness in the stomach,
by the other upon the heart, when, if death did not at
once ensue, the whole multitude lent their assistance.
Afterwards the body was suspended on a tree. It will
be evident from this outline of Lightfoot's more prolonged
and detailed statement that the leading ideas
of Jewish practice were retained in St. Stephen's case;
but as the execution was as much the act of the people
as of the Sanhedrin, it was carried out hurriedly and
passionately. This will account for some of the details
left to us. We usually picture to ourselves St. Stephen
as perishing beneath a deadly hail of missiles, raised
upon him by an infuriated mob, before whom he is flying,
just as men are still maimed or killed in street riots;
and we wonder therefore when or where St. Stephen
could have found time to kneel down and commend his
spirit to Christ, or to pray his last prayer of Divine
charity and forgiveness under such circumstances as
those we have imagined. The Jews, however, no matter
how passionate and enraged, would have feared to incur
the guilt of murder had they acted in this rough-and-ready
method. The witnesses must first strike their
blows, and thus take upon themselves the responsibility
for the blood about to be shed if it should turn out
innocent. The culprits, too, were urged to confess their
sin to God before they died. Stephen may have taken
advantage of this well-known form to kneel down and
offer up his parting prayers, which displaying his steadfast
faith in Jesus only stirred up afresh the wrath of
his adversaries, who thereupon proceeded to the last
extremities.Dr. John Lightfoot in his Horæ Hebraicæ on Acts vii. 58, when dealing
with this incident, enters into copious details as to the Jewish
method of execution by stoning.
Stephen's death was a type of the vast majority of
future martyrdoms, in this among other respects: it was
a death suffered for Christ, just as Christ's own death
was suffered for the world at large, and that under the
forms of law and clothed with its outward dignity.
Christianity proclaims the dignity of law and order, and
supports it—teaches that the magistrate is the minister
of God, and that he does a divinely-appointed work;
but Christianity does not proclaim the infallibility of
human laws or of human magistrates.The termination of St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, discovered
some few years ago, is most instructive on this point. It is a
litany or liturgical prayer used in the primitive Roman Church. Bishop
Lightfoot, in his new edition of Clement, vol. i., p. 382, commenting
on it, has some very interesting thoughts on the relation between early
Christianity and the Roman State.
Christianity
does not teach that any human law or human magistrate
can dictate to the individual conscience, or intrude itself
into the inner temple of the soul. Christianity indeed
has, by a long and bitter experience, taught the contrary,
and vindicated the rights of a free conscience, by
patiently suffering all that could be done against it by
the powers of the world assuming the forms and using
the powers of law. Christians, I say, have taught the
dignity of law and order, and yet they have not hesitated
to resist and overturn bad laws, not however so much
by active opposition as by the patient suffering of all
that fiendish cruelty and lust could devise against the
followers of the Cross. Just as it was under the forms
of law that our Saviour died and Stephen was executed,
and Peter and Paul passed to their rest, so was it
under the same forms of law that the primitive Church
passed through those ten great persecutions which
terminated by seating her on the throne of the Cæsars.
Law is a good thing. The absence of law is chaos.
The presence of law, even though it be bad law, is better
than no law at all. But the individual Christian conscience
is higher than any human law. It should yield
obedience in things lawful and indifferent. But in
things clearly sinful the Christian conscience will honour
the majesty of law by refusing obedience and then by
suffering patiently and lovingly, as Stephen did, the
penalty attached to conscientious disobedience.
IV. Let us now briefly notice the various points of
interest, some of them of deep doctrinal importance,
which gather round St. Stephen's death. We are told,
for instance, that the martyr, seeing his last hour
approaching, "looked up steadfastly into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right
hand of God." Surely critics must have been sorely in
want of objections to the historical truth of the narrative
when they raised the point that Stephen could not
have looked up to heaven because he was in a covered
chamber and could not have seen through the roof!
This is simply a carping objection, and the expression
used about St. Stephen is quite in keeping with the
usus loquendi of Scripture. In the seventeenth of St.
John, and at the first verse, we read of our Lord that
"lifting up His eyes to heaven" He prayed His great
eucharistic prayer on behalf of His Apostles. He
lifted His eyes to heaven though He was in the
upper chamber at the time. The Scriptural idea of
heaven is not that of the little child, a region placed
far away above the bright blue sky and beyond the
distant stars, but rather that of a spiritual world
shrouded from us for the present by the veil of matter,
and yet so thinly separated that a moment may roll away
the temporary covering and disclose the world of realities
which lies behind. Such has been the conception of
the deepest minds and the profoundest teaching. St.
Stephen did not need a keen vision and an open space
and a clear sky, free from clouds and smoke, as this
objection imagines. Had St. Stephen been in a dungeon
and his eyes been blind, the spiritual vision might
still have been granted, and the consolation and strength
afforded which the sight of his ascended Lord vouchsafed.
This view of heaven and the unseen world is
involved in the very word revelation, which, in its
original Greek shape, apocalypse, means simply an uncovering,
a rolling away of something that was flimsy,
temporary, and transient, that a more abiding and nobler
thing may be seen. The roof, the pillars, the solid
structure of the temple, the priests and Levites, the guards
and listeners, all were part of the veil of matter which
suddenly rolled away from Stephen's intensified view,
that he might receive, as the martyrs of every age have
received, the special assistance which the King of Martyrs
reserves for the supreme hour of man's need. The
vision of our Lord granted at this moment has its own
teaching for us. We are apt to conjure up thoughts of
the sufferings of the martyrs, to picture to ourselves a
Stephen perishing under a shower of stones, an Ignatius
of Antioch flung to the beasts, a Polycarp of Smyrna
suffering at the stake, the victims of pagan cruelty
dying under the ten thousand forms of diabolical
cruelty subsequently invented; and then we ask ourselves,
could we possibly have stood firm against such
tortures? We forget the lesson of Stephen's vision.
Jesus Christ did not draw back the veil till the last
moment; He did not vouchsafe the supporting vision
till the need for it had come, and then to Stephen,
as to all His saints in the past, and to all His saints
in the future, the Master reveals Himself in all His
supporting and sustaining power, reminding us in our
humble daily spheres that it is our part to do our duty,
and bear such burdens as the Lord puts upon us now,
leaving to Him all care and thought for the future,
content simply to trust that as our day is so shall our
grace and our strength be. Stephen's vision has thus
a lesson of comfort and of guidance for those fretful
souls who, not content with the troubles and trials
of the present, and the help which God imparts to bear
them, will go on and strive to ascertain how they are to
bear imaginary dangers, losses, and temptations which
may never come upon them.
Then, again, we have the final words of Stephen, which
are full of important meaning, for they bear witness unto
the faith and doctrine of the apostolic Church. They
stoned Stephen, "calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit;" while again a few moments
later he cried, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."
The latter petition is evidently an echo of our Lord's
own prayer on the cross, which had set up a high
standard of Divine charity in the Church. The first
martyr imitates the spirit and the very language of the
Master, and prays for his enemies as Christ himself
had done a short time before; while the other
recorded petition, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,"
is an echo likewise of our Lord's, when He said,
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." We
note specially about these prayers, not only that they
breathe the spirit of Christ Himself, but that they
are addressed to Christ, and are thus evidences to us
of the doctrine and practice of the early Church in the
matter of prayer to our Lord. St. Stephen is the first
distinct instance of such prayer, but the more closely we
investigate this book of the Acts and the Epistles of St.
Paul, the more clearly we shall find that all the early
Christians invoked Christ, prayed to Him as one raised
to a supernatural sphere and gifted with Divine power,
so that He was able to hear and answer their petitions.
St. Stephen prayed to Christ, and commended his soul
to Him, with the same confidence as Christ Himself
commended His soul to the Father. And such commendation
was no chance expression, no exclamation
of adoring love merely. It was the outcome of the
universal practice of the Church, which resorted to God
through Jesus Christ. Prayer to Christ and the invocation
of Christ were notes of the earliest disciples.
Saul went to Damascus "to bind all that called upon
the name of Jesus" (ch. ix. 14). The Damascene Jews
are amazed at the converted Saul's preaching of Jesus
Christ, saying, "Is not this he that in Jerusalem made
havoc of them which called on this name?" (ch. ix.
21). While again Rom. x. 12 and 1 Cor. i. 2 prove
that the same custom spread forth from Jerusalem to
the uttermost parts of the Church. The passage to
which I have just referred in the Corinthian Epistle is
decisive as to St. Paul's teaching at a much later period
than St. Stephen's death, when the Church had had
time to formulate its doctrines and to weigh its teaching.
Yet even then, he was just as clear on this point
as Stephen years before, addressing his Epistle to the
Church of God at Corinth, "with all that call upon the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ in every place;" while
again, when we descend to the generation which came
next after the apostolic age, we find, from Pliny's
celebrated letter written to Trajan, describing the practices
and ideas of the Christians of Bithynia in the
earliest years of the second century, that it was then the
same as in St. Paul's day. One of the leading features
of the new sect as it appeared to an intelligent pagan
was this: "They sang an hymn to Christ as God."
St. Stephen is the earliest instance of such worship
directly addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ, a practice
which has ever since been steadily maintained in every
branch of the Church of Christ. It has been denied,
indeed, in modern times that the Church of England in
her formularies gives a sanction to this practice, which
is undoubtedly apostolical. A reference, however, to
the collect appointed for the memorial day of this blessed
martyr would have been a sufficient answer to this
assertion, as that collect contains a very beautiful prayer
to Christ, beseeching assistance, similar to that given to
St. Stephen, amid the troubles of our own lives. The
whole structure of all liturgies, and specially of the
English liturgy, protests against such an idea. The
Book of Common Prayer teems with prayer to Jesus
Christ. The Te Deum is in great part a prayer
addressed to Him; so is the Litany, and so are collects
like the prayer of St. Chrysostom, the Collect for the
First Sunday in Lent, and the well-known prayer for
the Third Sunday in Advent—"O Lord Jesu Christ,
who at Thy first coming didst send Thy messenger to
prepare Thy way."See on this point a note in Liddon's Bampton Lectures, 14th
edition, pp. 531-43, on the worship of Jesus Christ in the services
of the Church of England.
The Eastern Church indeed addresses
a greater number of prayers to Christ directly.
The Western Church, basing itself on the promise of
Christ, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My
Name, He will give it you," has ever directed the greater
portion of her prayers to the Father through the Son;
but the few leading cases just mentioned, cases which
are common to the whole Western Church, Reformed
or unreformed, will prove that the West also has
followed primitive custom in calling upon the name
and invoking the help of the Lord Jesus Himself.
And then when Stephen had given us these two
lessons, one of faith, the other of practice; when he
had taught us the doctrine of Christ's divinity and the
worship due to Him, and the practice of Christian
charity and the forgiving spirit which flows forth from
it, even towards those who have treated His servants
most cruelly, then Stephen "fell asleep," the sacred
writer using an expression for death indicative of the
new aspect which death had assumed through Christ,
and which henceforth gave the name of cemeteries to
the last resting-places of Christian people.
V. The execution of St. Stephen was followed by his
funeral. The bodies of those that were stoned were
also suspended on a tree, but there was no opposition
to their removal, as afterwards in the great persecutions.
The pagans, knowing that Christians preached the doctrine
of the resurrection of the body, strove to prove the
absurdity of this tenet by reducing the body to ashes.
The Christians, however, repeatedly proved that they
entertained no narrow views on this point, and did not
expect the resurrection of the identical elements of
which the earthly body was composed. They took
a broader and nobler view of St. Paul's teaching in
the fifteenth of 1st Corinthians, and regarded the
natural body as merely the seed out of which the resurrection
body was to be developed. This is manifest
from some of the stories told us by ancient historians
concerning the Christians of the second century.
The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons have been already
referred to, and their sufferings described. The pagans
knew of their doctrine of the resurrection of the
body, and thought to defeat it by scattering the ashes
of the martyrs upon the waters of the Rhone; but
the narrative of Eusebius tells us how foolish was this
attempt, as if man could thus overcome God, whose
almighty power avails to raise the dead from the ashes
scattered over the ocean as easily as from the bones
gathered into a sepulchre. Another story is handed
down by a writer of Antioch named John Malalas,
who lived about A.D. 600, concerning five Christian
virgins, who lived some seventy years earlier than
these Gallic martyrs, and fell victims to the persecution
which raged at Antioch in the days of the Emperor
Trajan, when St. Ignatius perished. They were
burned to death for their constancy in the faith, and
then their ashes were mingled with brass, which was
made into basins for the public baths. Every person
who used the basins became ill, and then the emperor
caused the basins to be formed into statues of the
virgins, in order, as Trajan said, that "it may be seen
that I and not their God have raised them up."See Malalas' Chronographia, lib. xi., and the article on Malalas in
the Dict. Christ. Biog., where this story is given at length.
But while it is plainly evident from the records of
history that the earliest Christians had no narrow views
about the relation between the present body of humiliation
and the future body of glory, it is equally manifest
that they paid the greatest attention to the mortal remains
of their deceased friends, and permitted the fullest
indulgence in human grief. In doing so they were only
following the example of their Master, who sorrowed
over Lazarus, and whose own mortal remains were
cared for by the loving reverence of Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea. Christianity was no system
of Stoicism. Stoicism was indeed the noblest form
of Greek thought, and one which approached most
closely to the Christian standpoint, but it put a ban
upon human affection and feeling. Christianity acted
otherwise. It flung a bright light on death, and
illuminated the dark recesses of the tomb through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the prospect for
humanity which that resurrection opens up. But it
did not make the vain attempt of Stoicism to eradicate
human nature. Nay, rather, Christianity sanctified
it by the example of Jesus Christ, and by the brief
notice of the mourning of the Church for the loss of
their foremost champion, St. Stephen, which we find
in our narrative. Such a gratification of natural feeling
has never been inconsistent with the highest form
of Christian faith. There may be the most joyous
anticipation as to our friends who have been taken
from us joined with the saddest reflections as to our
own bereavement. We may be most assured that
our loss is the infinite gain of the departed, and for
them we mourn not; but we cannot help feeling that
we have sustained a loss, and for our loss we must
grieve. The feelings of a Christian even now must be
thus mixed, and surely much more must this have
been the case when "devout men buried Stephen and
made great lamentation over him."
The last results we note in this passage of Stephen's
death are twofold. Stephen's martyrdom intensified
the persecution for a time. Saul of Tarsus was made
for a while a more determined and active persecutor.
His mental position, his intellectual convictions, had
received a shock, and he was trying to re-establish
himself, and quench his doubts, by intensifying his
exertions on behalf of the ancient creed. Some of the
most violent persecutions the Church has ever had to
meet were set on foot by men whose faith in their own
systems was deeply shaken, or who at times have had
no faith in anything at all. The men whose faith had
been shaken endeavoured, by their activity in defence
of the system in which they once fully believed, to
obtain an external guarantee and assurance of its truth;
while the secret unbeliever was often the worst of
persecutors, because he regarded all religions as equally
false, and therefore looked upon the new teachers as
rash and mischievous innovators.
The result then of Stephen's martyrdom was to render
the Church's state at Jerusalem worse for the time.
The members of the Church were scattered far and
wide, all save the Apostles. Here we behold a notable
instance of the protecting care of Providence over His
infant Church. All save the Apostles were dispersed
from Jerusalem. One might have expected that they
would have been specially sought after, and would have
been necessarily the first to flee. There is an early
tradition, however, which goes back to the second
century, and finds some support in this passage, that
our Lord ordered the Apostles to remain in the city of
Jerusalem for twelve years after the Ascension, in order
that every one there might have an opportunity of
hearing the truth.See Eusebius, v. 18; Clem. Alex., Strom., vi. 5.
His protecting hand was over the
heads of the Church while the members were scattered
abroad. But that same hand turned the apparent trial
into the Church's permanent gain. The Church now,
for the first time, found what it ever after proved to
be the case. "They that were scattered abroad went
about preaching the word." The Church's present loss
became its abiding gain. The blood of the martyrs
became the seed of the Church. Violence reacted on
the cause of those who employed it, as violence—no
matter how it may temporarily triumph—always reacts
on those who use it, whether their designs be
intrinsically good or bad; till, in a widely disseminated
Gospel, and in a daily increasing number of disciples,
the eye of faith learned to read the clearest fulfilment
of the ancient declaration, "The wrath of man shall
praise God, and the remainder of wrath shalt Thou
restrain."St. Augustine, in his sermons on the festival of St. Stephen, concisely
puts the matter thus: "Si Stephenus non nasset, ecclesia
Paulum non haberet" ("If St. Stephen had not prayed, the Church
would not have had St. Paul").
CHAPTER XVII.
SIMON MAGUS AND THE CONVERSION OF SAMARIA.
"And Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed unto
them the Christ.... But there was a certain man, Simon by name, which
beforetime in the city used sorcery, and amazed the people of Samaria,
giving out that himself was some great one: to whom they all gave
heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is that power of
God which is called Great."—Acts viii. 5, 9, 10.
The object of the earlier part of this book of the
Acts is to trace the steady, gradual development
of the Church among the Jews, the evolution, never
ceasing for a moment, of that principle of true catholic
and universal life which the Master implanted within
her, and which never ceased working till the narrow,
prejudiced, illiberal little company of Galileans, who
originally composed the Church, became the emancipated
Church of all nations. This process of development
was carried on, as we have already pointed out, through
the agency of the Hellenistic Jews, and specially of
the deacons who were so intimately connected with
that class. We have in the last few lectures surveyed
the history of one deacon, St. Stephen; we are now
led to the story of another, St. Philip. His activity,
as described in the eighth chapter, runs upon exactly
the same lines. St. Stephen proclaims the universal
principles of the gospel; St. Philip acts upon these
principles, going down to the city of Samaria, and
preaching Christ there. The prominent position which
the deacons had for the time taken is revealed to us
by two notices. Philip leaves Jerusalem and goes to
Samaria, where the power of the high priest and of
the Sanhedrin does not extend, but would rather be
violently resisted. Here he is safe for the time, till the
violence of the persecution should blow over. And yet,
though Philip has to leave Jerusalem, the Apostles
remain hidden by the obscurity into which they had for
a little fallen, owing to the supreme brilliancy of St.
Stephen: "They were all scattered abroad except the
Apostles." The deacons were obliged to fly, the Apostles
could remain: facts which sufficiently show the relative
positions the two classes occupied in the public estimation,
and illustrate that law of the Divine working which
we so often see manifesting itself in the course of the
Church's chequered career, the last shall be first and
the first last. God, on this occasion, as evermore,
chooses His own instruments, and works by them as
and how He pleases.
I. This reticence and obscurity of the Apostles may
seem to us now somewhat strange, as it certainly does
seem most strange how the Apostles could have remained
safe at Jerusalem when all others had to fly. The
Apostles naturally now appear to us the most prominent
members of the Jerusalem, nay, farther, of the Christian
Church throughout the world. But then, as we
have already observed, one of the great difficulties in
historical study is to get at the right point of view, and
to keep ourselves at that point under very varying
combinations of circumstances. We are apt to fling
ourselves back, or, if the expression be allowed, to
project ourselves backwards into the past, and to think
that men must always have attributed the same importance
to particular persons or particular circumstances
as we do. We now see the whole course of events,
and can estimate them, not according to any mere
temporary importance or publicity they may have
attained, but according to their real and abiding
influence. Viewing the matter in this light, we now
can see that the Apostles were much more important
persons than the deacons. But the question is, not how
we regard the Apostles and the deacons, but how did
the Sanhedrin and the Jews of Jerusalem in Stephen's
and Philip's time view these two classes. They knew
nothing of the Apostles as such.The very name Apostle connotes for us an extraordinary office and
dignity, placing the Twelve upon an exalted plane far above all others.
But the Jewish Council knew nothing of this. The term Apostle was
in common use amongst the Jews. To us it seems almost presumptuous
to apply the name to any but the Twelve, though the New Testament
applies it more widely. The title Apostle was given among the Jews
to the legate or Church officer who attended on every synagogue
and discharged its commands. It was also specially bestowed upon
the messengers of the Jewish high priest or patriarch who collected
the temple tax while the temple existed, and afterwards the poll tax
or tribute paid by every Jew throughout the world towards the support
of the patriarch and the Sanhedrin. The name Apostle is found in this
sense in the Theodosian Code down to so late a period as the fifth
century. Our Lord and the early Church simply adopted this title
Apostle from the synagogue, as they adopted so many other rites and
usages, baptism, holy communion, the various orders of the ministry,
and a liturgical service.
They knew of them
simply as unlearned and ignorant men who had been
once or twice brought before the Council. They knew
of Stephen, and perhaps, too, of Philip, as cultured
Grecian Jews, whose wisdom and eloquence and persuasive
power they were not able to resist; and it is
no wonder that in the eyes of the Sadducean majority,
who then ruled the Jewish senate, the deacons should
be specially sought out and driven away.
The action of the Apostles themselves may have conduced
to this. Here let us recur to a thought we have
already touched upon. We are inclined to view the
Apostles as if the Spirit which guided them totally
destroyed their human personality and their human
feelings. We are apt to cherish towards the Apostles
the same reverential but misleading feeling which the
believers of the early Church cherished towards the
prophets, and against which St. James clearly protested
when he said, "Elijah was a man of like passions with
ourselves." We are inclined to think of them as if there
was nothing weak or human or mistaken about them,
and yet there was plenty of all these qualities in their
character and conduct. The Apostles were older than
the deacons, and they were men of much narrower
ideas, of a more restricted education. They had less of
that facility of temper, that power of adaptation, which
learning and travel combined always confer. They
may have been somewhat suspicious too of the headlong
course pursued by Stephen and his fellows. Their
Galilean minds did not work out logical results so
rapidly as their Hellenistic friends and allies. They
had been slow of heart to believe with the Master.
They were slow of heart and mind to work out principles
and to grasp conclusions when taught by His
servants and followers. The Apostles were, after all,
only men, and they had their treasure in earthen vessels.
Their inspiration, and the presence of the Spirit within
their hearts, were quite consistent with intellectual
slowness, and with mental inability to recognise at once
the leadings of Divine Providence. It was just then
the same as it has ever been in Church history. The
older generation is always somewhat suspicious of the
younger. It is slow to appreciate its ideas, hopes,
aspirations, and it is well perhaps that the older generation
is suspicious, because it thus puts on a drag
which gives time for prudence, forethought, and patience
to come into play. These may appear very human
motives to attribute to the Apostles, but then we lose a
great deal of Divine instruction if we invest the Apostles
with an infallibility higher even than that which Roman
Catholics attribute to the Pope. For them the Pope is
infallible only when speaking as universal doctor and
teacher, a position which some among them go so far
as to assert he has never taken since the Church was
founded, so that in their opinion the Pope has never
yet spoken infallibly. But with many sincere Christians
the Apostles were infallible, not only when teaching,
but when thinking, acting, writing on the most trivial
topics, or discoursing on the most ordinary subjects.
II. Let us now turn our attention to Philip and his
work, and its bearing on the future history and development
of the Church. Here, before we go any farther,
it may be well to note how St. Luke gained his knowledge
of the events which happened at Samaria. We do
not pretend indeed, like some critics, to point out all
the sources whence the sacred writers gathered their information.
Any one who has ever attempted to write
history of any kind must be aware how impossible it
often is for the writer himself to trace the sources of his
information after the lapse of some time. How much
more impossible then must it be for others to trace the
original sources whence the sacred or any other ancient
writers derived their knowledge, when hundreds and
even thousands of years have elapsed. Our own
ignorance of the past is a very unsafe ground indeed
on which to base our rejection of any ancient document
whatsoever.
It is well, however, to note, where and when we can,
the sources whence information may have been gained,
and fortunately this book of the Acts supplies us with
instruction on this very point. A quarter of a century
later the same Saul who, doubtless, helped to make St.
Philip fly on this occasion from Jerusalem, was dwelling
for several days beneath his roof at Cæsarea. He was
then Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, who bore in his
own person many marks and proofs of his devotion to
the cause which Philip had proclaimed and supported
while Paul was still a persecutor. The story of the
meeting is told us in the twenty-first chapter of this
book. St. Paul was on his way to Jerusalem to pay
that famous visit which led to his arrest, and, in the
long run, to his visit to Rome and trial before Cæsar.
He was travelling up to Jerusalem by the coast road
which led from Tyre, where he landed, through Cæsarea,
and thence to the Holy City. St. Luke was with him,
and when they came to Cæsarea they entered into the
house of Philip the Evangelist, with whom they abode
several days. What hallowed conversations St. Luke
must there have listened to! How these two saints,
Paul and Philip, would go over the days and scenes
long since past and gone! How they would compare
experiences and interchange ideas; and there it was
that St. Luke must have had abundant opportunities
for learning the history of the rise of Christianity in
Samaria which here he exhibits to us.
Let us now look a little closer at the circumstances
of the case. The place where Philip preached has
raised a question. Some have maintained that it was
Samaria itself, the capital city, which Philip visited
and evangelized. Others have thought that it was
a city,—some indefinite city of the district Samaria,
probably Sychar, the town where our Lord had taught
the Samaritan woman. Some have held one view, some
the other, but the Revised Version would seem to incline
to the view that it was the capital city which St. Philip
visited on this occasion, and not that city which our
Lord Himself evangelized. It may to some appear an
additional difficulty in the way of accepting Sychar as
the scene of St. Philip's ministry, that our Lord's work
and teaching some five years previously would, in that
case, seem to have utterly vanished. Philip goes down
and preaches Christ to a city which knew nothing of
Him. How, some may think, could this have possibly
been true, and how could such an impostor as Simon
have carried all the people captive, had Christ Himself
preached there but a few short years before, and converted
the mass of the people to belief in Himself?
Now I maintain that it was Samaria, the capital, and
not Sychar, some miles distant, that Philip evangelized,
but I am not compelled to accept this view by any
considerations about Christ's own ministry and its
results. Our Lord might have taught in the same
city where Philip taught, and in the course of five
years the effect of His personal ministry might have
entirely vanished.
There is no lesson more plainly enforced by the
gospel story than this, Christ's own personal ministry
was a comparatively fruitless one. He taught the
Samaritan woman, indeed, and the people of the city
were converted, as they said, not so much by her
witness as by the power of Christ's own words and
influence. But then the Holy Ghost was not yet
given, the Church was not yet founded, the Divine
society which Christ, as the risen Saviour, was to
establish, had not yet come into existence; and therefore
work like that done at Samaria was a transient
thing, passing away like the morning cloud or the
early dew, and leaving not a trace behind. Christ came
not to teach men a Divine doctrine, so much as to
establish a Divine society, and, till this society was
established, the work done even by Christ Himself
was a fleeting and evanescent thing. The foundation
of the Church as a society was absolutely necessary if
the doctrine and teaching of Christ was to be preserved.
The article of the creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic
Church," has been neglected, slighted, and undervalued
by Protestants. I have heard even of avowed expositors
of the Apostles' Creed who, when they came to this
article, have passed it over with a hasty notice because
it did not fit into their narrow systems. And yet here
again the Supreme wisdom of the Divine plan has been
amply vindicated, and the experience of the New Testament
has shown that if there had not been a Church
instituted by Christ, and established with Himself as
its foundation, rock, and chief corner-stone, the wholesome
doctrine and the supernatural teaching of Christ
would soon have vanished. I am here indeed reminded
of the words and experience of one of the greatest
evangelists who have lived since apostolic times. John
Wesley, when dealing with a cognate subject, wrote
to one of his earliest preachers about the importance
of establishing Methodist societies wherever Methodist
preachers found access, and he proceeds to urge the
necessity for doing so on precisely the same grounds
as those on which we explain the failure of our Lord's
personal ministry, so far at least as present results
were concerned. Wesley tells his correspondent that
wherever Methodist teaching alone has been imparted,
and Methodist societies have not been founded as well,
the work has been an utter failure, and has vanished
away.
So it was with the Master, Christ Jesus. He bestowed
His Divine instruction and imparted His Divine
doctrine, but as the time for the outpouring of the
Spirit and the foundation of the Church had not yet
come, the total result of the personal work and labours
of the Incarnate God was simply one hundred and
twenty, or at most five hundred souls. It constitutes,
then, to our mind no difficulty in the way of regarding
Sychar as the scene of Philip's teaching, that Christ
Himself may have laboured there a few years before,
and yet that there should not have been a trace of
His labours when St. Philip arrived. The Master might
Himself have taught in a town, and yet His disciple's
preaching a few years later might have been most
necessary, because the Spirit was not yet given. The
plain meaning, however, of the words of the Acts is
that it was to the city of Samaria, the capital city, that
Philip went; and it is most likely that to the capital
city a character like Simon would have resorted, and
not to any smaller town, as affording him the largest
field for the exercise of his peculiar talents, just as
afterwards we shall find, in the course of his history,
that he resorted to the capital of the world, Rome
itself, as the scene most effectual for his purposes.Samaria, the capital, was at this period called by the Romans
Sebaste. Herod the Great rebuilt it in honour of the emperors, and
erected a splendid temple there, which he inaugurated with games and
gladiatorial shows. It was a suitable spot for the peculiar talents
of a man like Simon Magus, as in turn it would have been specially
repugnant for every reason to a strict Jew. But a Divine instinct was
leading Philip on to the revelation of God's purposes of love and
mercy. See Joseph., Antiqq., XV., viii., 5; Stanley's Sinai and Palestine,
p. 245.
III. St. Philip went down, then, to Samaria and
preached Christ there, and in Samaria he came across
the first of those subtle opponents with whom the
gospel has ever had to struggle,—men who did not
directly oppose the truth, but who corrupted its pure
morality and its simple faith by a human admixture,
which turned its salutary doctrines into a deadly
poison. Philip came to Samaria, and there he found the
Samaritans carried away with the teaching and actions
of Simon. The preaching of the pure gospel of Jesus
Christ, and the exercise of true miraculous power,
converted the Samaritans, and were sufficient to work
intellectual conviction even in the case of the Magician.
All the Samaritans, Simon included, believed and were
baptized. This is the introduction upon the stage of
history of Simon Magus, whom the earliest Church
writers, such as Hegesippus, the father of Church history,
who was born close upon the time of St. John,
and flourished about the middle of the second century,
and his contemporary Justin Martyr, describe as the
first of those gnostic heretics who did so much in the
second and third centuries to corrupt the gospel both
in faith and practice. The writings of the second and
third centuries are full of the achievements and evil
deeds of this man Simon, which indeed are related by
some writers with so much detail as to form a very
considerable romance. Here, then, we find a corroborative
piece of evidence as to the early date of the
composition of the Acts of the Apostles. Had the Acts
been written in the second century, it would have given
us some traces of the second-century tradition about
Simon Magus; but having been written at a very early
period, upon the termination of St. Paul's first imprisonment,
it gives us simply the statement about
Simon Magus as St. Luke and St. Paul had heard it
from the mouth of Philip the Evangelist. St. Luke
tells us nothing more, simply because he had no
more to tell about this first of the celebrated heretics.
When we come to the second century Simon's story is
told with much more embellishment. The main outlines
are, however, doubtless correct. All Christian
writers agree in setting forth that after the reproof
which, as we shall see, Simon Peter the Apostle bestowed
upon the magician, he became a determined
opponent of the Apostles, especially of St. Peter, whose
work he endeavoured everywhere to oppose and defeat.
With this end in view he went to Rome, as Justin
Martyr says, in the reign of Claudius Cæsar, and as
other writers say, in the time of Nero.
There he successfully deceived the people for some
time. We have early notices of his success in the
Imperial city. Justin Martyr is a writer who came close
upon the apostolic age. He wrote an Apology for the
Christians, which we may safely assign to some year
about 150 A.D. At that time he was a man in middle
life, whose elder contemporaries must have been well
acquainted with the history and traditions of the previous
century. In that first Apology Justin gives us many
particulars about Christianity and the early Church,
and he tells us, concerning Simon Magus, that his
teaching at Rome was so successful in leading the
Roman people astray that they erected a statue in his
honour, between the two bridges. It is a curious fact,
and one, too, which confirms the accuracy of Justin,
that in the year 1574 there was dug up on the very
spot indicated by Justin, the island in the Tiber, a
statue bearing the inscription described by Justin,
"Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio." Critics, indeed, are
now pretty generally agreed that this statue was the
one seen by Justin, but that it was originally erected
in honour of a Sabine deity, and not of the arch-heretic
as the Apologist supposed; though there are
some who think that the appeal of Justin to a statue
placed before men's eyes, and about which many at
Rome must have known all the facts, could not have been
made on such mistaken grounds. It is not altogether
safe to build theories or offer explanations based on
our ignorance, and opposed to the plain, distinct statements
of a writer like Justin, who was a contemporary
with the events of which he speaks. It seems indeed
a plausible explanation to say that Justin Martyr mistook
the name of a Sabine deity for that of an Eastern
heretic. But there may have been two statues and
two inscriptions on the island, one to the heretic,
another to the ancient Sabine god. Later writers of
the second and third centuries improved upon Justin's
story, and entered into great details of the struggles
between Simon and the two Apostles, St. Peter and
St. Paul, terminating in the death of the magician when
attempting to fly up to heaven in the presence of the
Emperor Nero. His death did not, however, put an
end to his influence. The evil which he did and taught
lived long afterwards. His followers continued his
teaching and proved themselves active opponents of the
truth, seducing many proselytes by the apparent depth
and subtlety of their views. Such is the history of
Simon Magus as it is told in Church history, but we are
now concerned simply with the statements put forward
in the passage before us.The story of the quarrels between Simon Magus and St. Peter has
been used by the Tübingen school of critics in Germany to support
their theory of a fundamental opposition between St. Paul and St.
Peter. See Dr. Salmon's Introduction, chap. xix., for a full statement
of this strange view.
There Simon appears as a
teacher who led the Samaritans captive by his sorcery,
which he used as the basis of his claim to be recognised
as "that power of God which is called Great."
Magic and sorcery have always more or less prevailed,
and do still prevail, in the Eastern world, and have
ever been used in opposition to the gospel of Christ,
just as the same practices, under the name of Spiritualism,
have shown themselves hostile to Christianity
in Western Europe and in America. The tales of
modern travellers in India and the East, respecting the
wondrous performances of Indian jugglers, remind us
strongly of the deeds of Jannes and Jambres who withstood
Moses, and illustrate the sorcery which Simon
Magus used for the deception of the Samaritans. The
Jews, indeed, were everywhere celebrated at this period
for their skill in magical incantations—a well-known
fact, of which we find corroborative evidence in the
Acts. Bar-Jesus, the sorcerer who strove to turn the
proconsul of Cyprus from the faith, was a Jew (Acts
xiii. 6-12). In the nineteenth chapter we find the
seven sons of Sceva, the Jewish priest, exercising the
same trade of sorcery; while, as is well known from
references in the classical writers, the Jews at Rome
were famous for the same practices.
These statements of writers sacred and secular alike
have been confirmed in the present age. There has
been a marvellous discovery of ancient documents in
Egypt within the last twelve or fifteen years, which were
purchased by the Austrian government and duly transferred
to Vienna, where they have been investigated.
They are usually called the Fayûm Manuscripts.See about the Fayûm MSS. and their contents a series of articles
in the Records of the Contemporary Review from December 1884, and
in the Expositor for 1885 and 1888. These Fayûm documents go
back to the remotest times, one of them being dated so long ago as
1200 B.C. It is very curious that this extraordinary discovery has
been apparently overlooked by the great majority of English learned
societies.
They
contain some of the oldest documents now existing,
and embrace among them large quantities of magical
writings, with the Hebrew formulæ used by the Jewish
sorcerers when working their pretended miracles. So
wondrously does modern discovery confirm the statements
and details of the New Testament!
It is not necessary now to discuss the question
whether the achievements of sorcery and magic, either
ancient or modern, have any reality about them, or
are a mere clever development of sleight of hand,
though we incline to the view which admits a certain
amount of reality about the wonders performed, else
how shall we account for the doings of the Egyptian
magicians, the denunciations of sorcery and witchcraft
contained in the Bible, as well as in many
statements in the New Testament? A dry and cold age
of materialism, without life and fire and enthusiasm,
like the last century, was inclined to explain away
such statements of the Scriptures. But man has now
learned to be more distrustful of himself and the extent
of his discoveries. We know so little of the spirit
world, and have seen of late such strange psychological
manifestations in connection with hypnotism, that the
wise man will hold his judgment in suspense, and not
hastily conclude, with the men of the eighteenth century,
that possession with devils was only another name for
insanity, and that the deeds of sorcerers were displays
of mere unassisted human skill and subtlety.Moll's work on hypnotism, which we have already several times
quoted, admits the reality of Eastern magic, accounting for the mango
trick which Indian jugglers perform, and which every Indian resident
has seen, on the ground that even vegetables can be hypnotised. It
may be hard for us to admit it, but such books compel us to allow that
there may be more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our
philosophy. The presence of the grand heathen temple at Sebaste or
Samaria would have made it the fitter scene for Simon's magical incantations.
Magic and Paganism always flourished side by side, as we see
at Ephesus.
As it
was with the Jews, so was it with the Samaritans. They
were indeed bitterly separated the one from the other,
but their hopes, ideas, and faith were fundamentally
alike. The relations between the Samaritans and the
Jews were at the period of which we treat very like those
which exist between Protestants and Roman Catholics
in Ulster,—professing different forms of the same faith,
yet regarding one another with bitterer feelings than
if far more widely separated. So it was with the Jews
and Samaritans; but the existing hostility did not
change nature and its essential tendencies, and therefore
as the Jews practised sorcery, so did Simon, who
was a native of Samaria; and with his sorcery he
ministered to the Messianic expectation which flourished
among the Samaritans equally as among the Jews.
The Samaritan woman testified to this in her conversation
with our Lord, and as she was a woman of a low
position and of a sinful character, her language proves
that her ideas must have had a wide currency among
the Samaritan people. "The woman saith unto Him,
I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ:
when He is come, He will declare unto us all things."
Simon took advantage of this expectation, and gave
himself out to be "that power of God which is called
Great;" testifying by his assertion to the craving which
existed all through the Jewish world for the appearance
of the long-expected deliverer, a craving which we again
find manifesting itself in the many political pretenders
who sprang up in the regions of more orthodox
Judaism, as Josephus amply shows. The world, in fact,
and specially the world which had been affected with
Jewish ideas and Jewish thought, was longing for a
deeper teaching and for a profounder spiritual life than
it had as yet known. It was athirst for God, yea, even
for the living God; and when it could find nothing
better, it turned aside and strove to quench the soul's
desires at the impure fountains which magic and sorcery
supplied.
IV. Philip the Evangelist came with his teaching into
a society which acknowledged Simon as its guide, and
his miracles at once struck the minds of the beholders.
They were miracles worked, like the Master's, without
any secret preparations, without the incense, the incantations,
the muttered formulæ which accompanied the
lying wonders of the magician. They formed a contrast
in another direction too,—no money was demanded, no
personal aims or low objects were served; the thorough
unselfishness of the evangelist was manifest. Then, too,
the teaching which accompanied the miracles was their
best evidence. It was a teaching of righteousness, of
holy living, of charity, of humility; it was transparently
unworldly. It was not like Simon's, which gave out that
he himself was some great one, and treated of himself
alone; but it dealt with "the kingdom of God and
the name of Jesus Christ;" and the teaching and the
miracles, testifying the one to the other, came home to
the hearts of the people, leading them captive to the
foot of the Cross. It has often been a debated question
whether miracles alone are a sufficient evidence of the
truth of a doctrine, or whether the doctrine needs to
be compared with the miracles to see if its character
be worthy of the Deity. The teaching of the New
Testament seems to be plainly this, that miracles, in
themselves, are not a sufficient evidence. Our Lord
warns His disciples that deceivers shall one day come
working mighty signs and wonders, so as to lead astray,
if it be possible, even the very elect; and He exhorts His
disciples to be on their guard against them. But while
miracles alone are no sufficient evidence of the truth of
a doctrine, they were a very needful assistance to the
doctrines of the gospel in the age and country when and
where Christianity took its rise. Whether the sorcery
and magic and wonders of Simon, and the other false
teachers against whom the Apostles had to contend,
were true or false, genuine or mere tricks, still they
would have given the false teachers a great advantage
over the preachers of the gospel, had the latter not
been armed with real divine supernatural power which
enabled them, as occasion required, to fling the magical
performances completely into the shade. The miraculous
operations of the Apostles seem to have been
restricted in the same way as Christ restricted the
working of His own supernatural power. The Apostles
never worked miracles for the relief of themselves or
of their friends and associates. St. Paul was detained
through infirmity of the flesh in Galatia, and that
infirmity led him to preach the gospel to the Galatian
Celts. He did not, perhaps he could not, employ his
miraculous power to cure himself, just as our Lord
refused to use His miraculous power to turn stones
into bread. St. Paul depended upon human skill and
love for his cure, using probably for that purpose the
medical knowledge and assistance of St. Luke, whom
we find shortly afterwards in his company.See Acts xvi. 6-10, compared with Gal. iv. 13.
Miraculous
power was bestowed upon the first Christian teachers,
not for the purposes of display or of selfish gratification,
but simply for the sake of God's kingdom and man's
salvation.
And as it was with St. Paul so was it with his companions.
Timothy was exhorted to betake himself to
human remedies to cure his physical weakness, while
when another apostolic man, Trophimus, was sick, he
was left behind by the Apostle at Miletus till he should
get well (2 Tim. iv. 20). Miracles were for the sake of
unbelievers, not of believers, and for this purpose we
cannot see how they could have been done without,
under the circumstances in which the gospel was
launched into the world. Man's nature had been so
thoroughly corrupted, the whole moral atmosphere had
been so permeated with wickedness, the whole moral tone
of society had been so terribly lowered, that the Apostles
might have come preaching the purest morality, the most
Divine wisdom, and it would have fallen on ears so deaf,
and eyes so blind, and hearts so seared and hardened,
that it would have had no effect unless they had possessed
miraculous power which, as occasion demanded,
served to call attention to their teaching. But when the
preliminary barriers had been broken down, and the
miracles had fulfilled their purpose, then the preaching
of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ
did their work. Here again a thought comes forward
on which we have already said a little. The subject
matter of Philip's preaching is described in the fifth
verse as Christ, "Philip went down to the city of
Samaria, and proclaimed unto them the Christ," and
then in the twelfth verse it is expanded for us into
"the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ."
These two subjects are united. The kingdom of God
and the name of Jesus Christ. The Apostles taught
no diluted form of Christianity. They preached the
name of Jesus Christ, and they also taught a Divine
society which He had established and which was to
be the means of completing the work of Christ in the
world. Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles recognised
the great truth, that a mere preaching of a
philosophical or religious doctrine would have been of
very little use in reforming the world. They therefore
preached a Church which should be the pillar and
ground of the truth, which should gather up, safeguard,
and teach the truth whose principles the Apostles set
forth. To put it in plain language, the Evangelist St.
Philip must have taught the doctrine of a Church of
Jesus Christ as well as of a doctrine of Jesus Christ.
Had the doctrine of Jesus Christ been taught without and
separate from the doctrine of a Church, the doctrine of
Christ's person and character might have vanished, just
as the doctrine of Plato or Aristotle or that of any of
the great ancient teachers vanished. But Jesus Christ
had come into the world to establish a Divine society,
with ranks, gradations, and orderly arrangements; He
had come to establish a kingdom, and they all knew
then what a kingdom meant. For the Greek, Roman,
or Jewish mind, a kingdom meant more even than it
does for us. It meant in their conceptions a despotism
where the king ordered and did just what he liked.
The Romans, in fact, abominated the name king, and
invented the term emperor instead, because for them the
word king connoted what it does not connote for us,
the possession and exercise of absolute power. Yet,
for all this, the Apostles preached Christ as a King and
His society as a kingdom, because in that new society
which He had called into existence, the graces, the
gifts, the offices of the society are totally dependent
upon and entirely subservient to Jesus Christ alone.
How wondrously the life, the activity, the fervour
and power of the Church would have been changed
had this truth been always recognised. The Church
of Jesus Christ, as regards its hidden secret life,
is a despotism. It depends upon Christ alone. It
depends not upon the State, not upon man, not upon
wealth or position or earthly influences of any kind:
it depends upon Christ alone. The Church has often
forgot this secret of its strength. It has trusted in
the arm of flesh, and has relied upon human patronage
and power, and then it has grown, perhaps, in grandeur
and importance as far as the world is concerned; but, as
it has grown in one direction, it has lost in the other,
and that the only direction worthy a Church's attention.
The temptation to rely on the help of the world alone
has assailed the Church in various ways. It assails
individual Christians, it assails congregations, it assails
the Church at large. All of them, whether individuals,
congregations, or churches, are apt to imagine that
power and prosperity consist in wealth, or worldly
position, or the number of adherents, forgetting that
Christ alone is the source of power to the Church or
to individual souls, and that where He is wanting, no
matter what may be the outward appearance, or the
numerical increase or the political influence, there
indeed all true life has departed.
V. The results of Philip's teaching and work in
Samaria were threefold.
(1) The Samaritans believed Philip, and among
the believers was Simon. There are some people
who teach faith and nothing else, and imagine that
if they lead men to exercise belief then the whole
work of Christianity is done. This incident at the
very outset of the Church's history supplies a warning
against any such one-sided teaching. The Samaritans
believed, and so did Simon the Magician, who had for
long deceived them. The very same word is used here
for the faith exercised by the Samaritans and by Simon,
as we find used to describe the belief of the three
thousand on the day of Pentecost, or of the Philippian
jailer who accepted St. Paul's teaching amid all the
terror of the earthquake and the opened prison. They
were all intellectually convinced and had all accepted
the Christian faith as a great reality. Intellectual
faith in Christ is the basis on which a true living
faith which works by love is grounded. A faith of the
heart which is not based on a faith of the head is
very much akin to a superstition. Of course we know
that there are people whose faith is deep-rooted and
fruitful who cannot state the grounds of their belief,
but they are well aware that others can thus state it,
that their faith is capable of being put into words and
defended in argument. Intellectual faith in Christianity
must ever be regarded as a gift of the Holy Ghost,
according to that profound word of the Apostle, "No
man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Ghost."
But intellectual faith in the truth and reality of
Christ's mission may exist in a heart where there is
no sense of sin and of spiritual want, and then belief
in Christ avails nothing. There were cravings after
righteousness and peace in Samaritan bosoms, but there
was none in one heart, at least, and that heart was
therefore unblessed. The results of St. Philip's work
teach us that faith is not everything in the Christian
life.
(2) Again we find that another result was, that the
Samaritans were all baptized, including their arch-deceiver
Simon. Philip, then, in the course of his
preaching of Christ, must have told them of Christ's
law of baptism. The preaching of the name of Jesus
Christ and of the kingdom of God must have included
a due setting forth of His laws and ordinances. We
do no honour to Christ when we neglect any part of
His revelation. If God has revealed any doctrine or
any practice or any sacrament, it must be of the very
greatest importance. The mere fact of its revelation
by Him makes it of importance, no matter how we,
in our short-sighted wisdom, may think otherwise.
Philip set forth therefore the whole counsel of God,
and as the result all the Samaritans were baptized,
including Simon; but then again, as Simon's case taught
that faith by itself availed not to change the heart,
so Simon's case teaches that baptism, neither alone
nor in conjunction with intellectual faith, avails to
convert the soul and purify the character. God offers
His graces and His blessings, faith and baptism, but
unless there be receptivity, unless there be consent of
the will, and a thirst of the soul and a longing of the
heart after spiritual things, the graces and gifts of the
Spirit will be offered in vain.
(3) And then, lastly, the final and abiding result of
Philip's work was, there was great joy in that city.
They rejoiced because their souls had found the truth,
which can alone satisfy the cravings of the human
heart and minister a joy which leaves no sting behind,
but is a joy pure and exhaustless. The joys of earth
are always mixed, and the more mixed the more unsatisfying.
The joy of a Christian soul which knows
Christ and His preciousness, which has been delivered
by Christ from deceit and impurity and vice, as these
Samaritans had, and which feels and enjoys the new
light thrown on life by Christ's revelations, that joy is
a surpassing one, ravishing the soul, satisfying the
intellect, purifying the life. There was great joy in
that city, and no wonder, for as the poet has well sung,
contrasting the "world's gay garish feast" with God's
sacred consolations bestowed upon holy souls,—
"Who, but a Christian, through all life
That blessing may prolong?
Who, through the world's sad day of strife,
Still chant his morning song?
"Such is Thy banquet, dearest Lord;
O give us grace, to cast
Our lot with Thine, to trust Thy word,
And keep our best till last."The Christian Year, 2nd Sunday after Epiphany.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE APOSTLES AND CONFIRMATION.
"Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that
Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and
John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they
might receive the Holy Ghost: for as yet He was fallen upon none of
them: only they had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."—Acts
viii. 14-18.
In the last lecture we noticed the work of Philip in
Samaria, the present one will deal with the mission
of the Apostles Peter and John to complete and perfect
that work.
The story, as told in the sacred narrative, is full of
instruction. It reveals the ritual of the apostolic Church,
the development of its organization and practice, the
spiritual lessons which the earliest gospel teachers
imparted and the latest gospel teachers will find
applicable. Philip converted the Samaritans and laid
the basis of a Christian Church. Word was at once
brought of this new departure to the Apostles at
Jerusalem, because it was a new step, a fresh development
which must have given a great shock to the strict
Jewish feeling, which regarded the gospel as limited by
the bounds of orthodox Judaism. The Apostles may
have felt some surprise at the news, but they evidently
must have acknowledged the Samaritans as standing on
a higher level than the Gentiles, for they do not seem to
have raised any such objections to their baptism as were
afterwards urged against St. Peter when he preached
to and baptized Cornelius. "Thou wentest in to men
uncircumcised," was the objection of the Jerusalem
Church urged against St. Peter as regards Cornelius.
The Samaritans were circumcised, and therefore this
objection did not apply. The Jews, indeed, of Judæa
and of Galilee hated the Samaritans with a perfect
hatred, but neither hatred nor love is ever guided by
reason. Our feelings always outrun our judgment, and
the judgment of the Jews compelled them to recognise
the Samaritans as within the bounds of circumcision,
and therefore the Apostles tolerated, or at least did
not except against, the preaching of the gospel to the
Samaritans, and their admission by baptism into the
Messianic kingdom. It is a phenomenon we often see
repeated in our own experience. A brother or a
relation alienated is harder to be won and is more
bitterly regarded than a total stranger with whom we
may have quarrelled, though, at the same time, reason,
perhaps even pride and self-respect and regard for
consistency, compel us to recognise that he occupies a
different position from that of a perfect stranger. The
conversion of the Samaritans must be viewed as one
of the divinely-appointed steps in the plan of human
unification, one of the divinely-appointed actions gently
leading to the final overthrow of the wall of partition
between Jew and Gentile which the earlier chapters of
this book trace for us. How beautiful the order, how
steady and regular the progress, that is set before us!
First we have the call of the strict Jews, then that
of the Hellenistic Jews, next that of the Samaritans,
and then the step was not a long one from the admission
of the hated Samaritans to the baptism of the devout
though uncircumcised Gentile, Cornelius. God does His
work in grace, as in nature, by degrees. He teaches
us that changes must come, and that each age of the
Church must be marked by development and improvement;
but He shows us here in His word how changes
should be made,—not rashly, unwisely, impetuously, and
therefore uncharitably, but gently, gradually, sympathetically,
and with explanations abundantly vouchsafed
to soothe the feelings and calm the fears of the weaker
brethren. This method of the Divine government
receives an illustration in this passage. God led the
Church of the first age very gradually, and therefore we
see the apostolic college steadily, though perhaps blindly
and unconsciously, advancing on the road of progress
and of Christian liberality.
We have in this section of primitive Church history
a two-fold division: the action of the Apostles on one
side, the attitude and conduct of Simon Magus on the
other. Each division has quite distinct teaching. Let
us in this chapter take note of the Apostles.
I. The Apostles who were at Jerusalem heard of the
conversion of Samaria, and they at once sent thither
Peter and John to supervise the work. The deacons
had, for a time, appeared to supersede the Apostles
before the world, but only in appearance. The Apostles
retained the chief government in their own hands,
though to the men of the time others seemed the more
prominent workers. The Apostles gave free scope to
the gifts entrusted to their brilliant subordinates, but
none the less they felt their own responsibility as rulers
of the Divine society, and never for a moment did they
relinquish the authority over that society which God
had entrusted to them. They felt that Christ had
instituted an organized society with ranks and offices
duly graduated, with officials—of whom they were themselves
the chief—assigned to their appointed tasks, and
never did they surrender to any man their divinely-given
power and authority. Philip might preach in
Samaria; but though he was successful in winning
converts, the Apostles claimed the right of inspecting
and controlling his labours. They successfully solved
a problem which has often proved a very troublesome
one. They combined the exercise of power with the
free play of enthusiasm, and the result was that the
enthusiasm was shielded from mistakes, and the power
was vivified by the touch of enthusiasm and prevented
from falling into that cold, heartless, ice-like thing
which autocratic rule, in Church and State alike, has
so often become. What a picture and guide we here
behold for the Church of all ages! What a needed
lesson is here taught! What errors and schisms would
have been avoided throughout the long ages which
have since elapsed, had the example of the apostolic
Church been more closely followed, had power been
more sympathetic with enthusiasm, and enthusiasm
more loving, obedient, and submissive as regards
authority!
The Apostles recognised their own responsibility and
acted upon their own sense of authority, and they sent
forth Peter and John to minister in Samaria and supply
what was wanting as soon as they heard of the work
done by St. Philip. The persons whom the college
of Apostles thus despatched are worthy of notice, and
have a direct bearing on some of the great theological
and social problems of this age. They sent Peter and
John. Peter, then, was the messenger of the Apostles,—the
sent one, not the sender. We can find nothing
of the supremacy of Peter in these early apostolic days
of which men began to dream in later years. The
supreme authority in the Church and the burden of
the Christian ministry were laid upon the twelve
Apostles as a whole, and they, as a body of men entrusted
with co-equal power, exercised their functions.
They knew nothing of Peter as the prince of the
Apostles; nay, rather, when occasion demanded, they
sent Peter as well as John as their delegates. The
choice of these two men, just as their previous
activity, depended again upon spiritual grounds, upon
their love, their zeal, their Christian experience, not
upon any official privilege or position which they enjoyed
above the other Apostles.
Surely in this view again the Acts of the Apostles
may be regarded as a mirror of all Church history. The
pretended supremacy of St. Peter above his brethren
has been the ground on which the claim of Roman
supremacy over all other Christian Churches has been
urged. That claim has been backed up by forgeries
like the False Decretals, where fictitious letters of
Popes dating from the first century downwards have
been used to support the papal assertions. But plain
men need not go into abstruse questions of Church
history, or into debates upon disputed texts. We have
one undoubted Church history, admitted by all parties
who profess and call themselves Christians. That history
is the Acts of the Apostles, and when we examine
it we can find nothing about St. Peter, his life or
his actions, answering in the remotest degree to that
imperial and absolute authority which the papacy claims
in virtue of its alleged descent from that holy Apostle.
The Acts knows of St. Peter sometimes as the leader
and spokesman of the Apostles, at other times as their
delegate, but the Acts knows nothing and hints nothing
of St. Peter as the ruler, the prince, the absolute, infallible
guide of his fellow Apostles and of the whole
Church.
Peter and John were the persons despatched as the
apostolic delegates to complete the work begun by Philip.
We can see spiritual reasons which may have led to
this choice. Peter and John, with James his brother,
had been specially favoured with Christ's personal communications,
they had been admitted into His most
intimate friendship, and therefore they were spiritually
eminent in the work of Christ, and peculiarly fitted to
do work like that which awaited them in Samaria,—pointing
Christian men to the great truth, that eminence
in Christ's Church and cause will evermore depend,
not upon official position or hierarchical or ministerial
authority, but upon spiritual qualifications and the
vigour of the interior life. How wonderfully has the
prophecy involved in the pre-eminence of Peter, James,
and John been fulfilled. When we look back over the
ages of Christian labour which have since elapsed,
whose are the foremost names? Whose fame as
Christian workers is the greatest? Not popes or
princes, or bishops of great cities, but an Augustine, the
bishop of an obscure African see; an Origen, a presbyter
of Alexandria; a Thomas à Kempis whom no
man knows; or presbyters like John Wesley, or George
Herbert, or Fletcher of Madeley, or John Keble;—men
like them, holy and humble of heart, obscure in station
or in scenes of labour, they have lived much with God
and they have gained highest places in the saintly
army, because they were specially the friends of Jesus
Christ. The world knew nothing of them, and the
men of affairs and the children of time, whose thoughts
were upon rank, and place, and titles, knew nothing of
them; and such men had their reward perhaps, they
gained what they sought; but the despised ones of the
past have had their reward as well, for their names
have now become as ointment poured forth, whose
sweet fragrance has filled the whole house of the Lord.
II. And now why were Peter and John sent to Samaria
from Jerusalem? They were doubtless sent to inspect
the work, and see whether the apostolic approval could
be given to the step of evangelizing the Samaritans.
They had to form a judgment upon it; for no matter
how highly we may rate the inspiration of the Apostles,
it is clear that they had to argue, debate, think, and
balance one side against another just like other people.
The inspiration they enjoyed did not save them the
trouble of thinking and the consequent danger of disputation;
it did not force them to adopt a view, else
why the debates we read of concerning the baptism
of Cornelius, or the binding character of circumcision?
It is clear, from the simple fact that controversy and
debate held a prominent place in the early Christian
Church, that there was no belief in the existence of
infallible guides, local and visible, whose autocratic
decisions were final and irreversible, binding the whole
Church. It was then believed that the guidance of the
Holy Spirit was vouchsafed through the channel of
free discussion and interchange of opinion, guided and
sanctified by prayer. Peter and John had to go down
to Samaria and keenly scrutinize the work, so as to
see whether it bore the marks of Divine approval,
completing the work by the imposition of their hands
and prayer for the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The
Apostles duly discharged their mission, and by their
ministry the converts received the gift of the Holy
Spirit, together with some or all of those external signs
and manifestations which accompanied the original
blessing on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. This
portion of our narrative has been always regarded by
the Church, whether in the East or the West, as its
authority for the practice of the rite of confirmation.
The assertion of the Church of England, in one of the
collects appointed for use by the bishop in the Confirmation
Service, may be taken as expressing on this
point the opinion of the Churches—Roman, Greek, and
Anglican. "Almighty and everliving God, who makest
us both to will and to do those things that be good and
acceptable unto Thy Divine Majesty; We make our
humble supplications unto Thee for these Thy servants,
upon whom (after the example of Thy holy Apostles)
we have now laid our hands, to certify them (by this
sign) of Thy favour and gracious goodness towards
them." Let us reflect for a little on these words. The
reference to apostolic example in this collect is not,
indeed, merely to this incident at Samaria. The example
of St. Paul at Ephesus, as narrated in the
nineteenth chapter, is also claimed as another case in
point. There we find that St. Paul came to a place
where he had previously laboured for a short time.
He discovered in Ephesus some disciples who had
received the imperfect and undeveloped form of teaching
which John the Baptist had communicated. A sect
had apparently been already formed to continue John's
teaching, such as we still find perpetuated amid the
wilds of distant Mesopotamia, in the shape of the semi-Christian
society which there practises daily baptism
as a portion of its religion.See about this curious sect of the Hemero-baptists Lightfoot's
Colossians, pp. 402-407.
St. Paul explains to them
the richer and fuller teaching of Christ, commands them
to be baptized after the Christian model, by one of his
attendants, and then, like Peter and John, completes the
baptismal act by the imposition of hands and prayer
for the gift of the Spirit. These two apostolic incidents
are not, however, the only scriptural grounds which can
be alleged for the continued use of confirmation. It
might be said that the practice of the Apostles was
not sufficient to justify or authorize confirmation as a
scriptural rite, unless it can be shown that the imposition
of hands, after baptism and as its completion,
passed into the ordinary usage of the early Church.
Let me here make a brief digression. The New Testament
cannot be used as a guide-book to the whole life
and practice of the early Church, because it was merely
a selection from the writings of the Apostles and of
their companions. If we possessed everything that the
Apostles wrote, we doubtless should have information
upon many points of apostolic doctrine and ritual
concerning which we now can only guess, some of
which would doubtless very much surprise us. Thus,
to take an example, we should have been left without
one single reference to the Holy Communion in all
the writings of St. Paul, had not the disorders at
Corinth led to grave abuses of that sacrament, and
thus caused St. Paul incidentally to mention the subject
in the tenth and eleventh chapters of his first epistle
to that Church.
Or to take another case. The Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles has been already referred to and described.
It is manifestly a manual dealing with the Church
of apostolic times, and there we find reference to
customs which were practised in the Apostolic Church,
to which no reference, or at least very slight reference,
is made in the Epistles or other books of the New
Testament. The Apostles practised fasting as a preparation
for important Church actions, as we learn from
the account of the ordination of Paul and Barnabas
at Antioch. The Teaching of the Apostles shows us
that this practice, derived from the Jews, was the rule
before baptism (of this we read nothing in the New
Testament), as well as before ordination (of this we
do read something), and that not only by the persons
to be baptized, but by the ministers of baptism as well.The order for adult baptism in the Book of Common Prayer was
drawn up by the divines of the Restoration. They must have been
well skilled in Christian antiquity, for they lay down expressly the same
rule as the Teaching of the Apostles. They order that notice shall be
given of an adult's baptism a week at least beforehand, that the persons
to be baptized may be duly exhorted to prepare themselves by prayer
and fasting for that holy ordinance.
It mentions Wednesday and Friday fasts as instituted
in opposition to the Monday and Thursday fasts of the
Jews; it shows us how the lovefeasts of the Primitive
Church were celebrated, and sheds much light upon
the Order of prophets and their activity, to which
St. Paul barely alludes. If we could regain the
numberless writings of the Apostles and other early
Christians which have perished, we should doubtless
possess information upon many other practices and
customs of early Church life which would much surprise
us. The New Testament cannot then be used
as an exhaustive account of the Primitive Church;
its silence is no conclusive argument against apostolic
origin or sanction as regards any practice, any more
than the Old Testament is to be regarded as an exhaustive
history of the Jewish nation. And yet,
though we speak thus, confirmation or laying on of
hands upon the baptized as the completion of the initial
sacrament is not left without notice in the Epistles.
The imposition of hands as the complement of baptism
did not cease with the Apostles and was not tied to them
alone, any more than did the use of water in the sacrament
of baptism itself cease with the Apostles, as some
of the Society of Friends have contended, or the imposition
of hands in ordination terminate with apostolic
times, as others have argued. This appears from two
passages. St. Paul, in the twenty-second verse of the
fifth chapter of 1 Timothy, when dealing with Timothy's
conduct in the usual pastoral oversight of the Church,
lays down, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." These
words referred not to ordination, for St. Paul had passed
from that subject and was treating of Timothy's ministerial
conduct towards the ordinary members of his flock,
directing how he was to care for their souls, reproving
publicly the notorious transgressor, and putting him
to open shame. We admit, indeed, at once that this
notice of the imposition of hands may refer to another
use of it which was practised in the early Church.
St. Paul may be referring to the imposition of hands
when a lapsed or excommunicated member was readmitted
into the Church; or both uses of the ceremony,
in confirmation as well as in absolution, may be included
under the one reference. But in any case we have
another distinct, though incidental, mention of this rite,
and that at a time, in a manner, and in a book which
clearly proves the practice to have passed into the
general custom of the Church. Let us see how this is.
The Epistle to the Hebrews was written by one of
the second generation of Christians, one of the generation
who could look back to and wonder at the miracles
and gifts of the apostolic age. The writer of the
Hebrews tells us himself that he was in this position;
for when speaking, in the opening of the second chapter,
concerning the danger of neglecting the Gospel message,
he describes it as a "great salvation; which having at
the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed
unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness
with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold
powers, and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His
own will." So that it is evident that the Church of the
Hebrews was the composition of a man who belonged
to a time when the Church had passed out of the fluid
state in which we find it in the earlier chapters of the
Acts. It had passed into a condition when rites and
ceremonies and Church government and ecclesiastical
organisations had crystallised, and when men repeated
with profoundest reverence the forms and ceremonies
which had become associated with the names and
persons of the earliest teachers of the faith; names
and persons which now were surrounded with all that
sacred charm and halo which distance, and above all
else, death, lend to human memories. There is an
interesting passage in Tertullian which shows how this
feeling worked among the early Christians, making
them anxious in divine worship to repeat most minutely
and even absurdly the circumstances of the Church's
earliest days. In Tertullian's works we have a treatise
on Prayer, in which he expounds the nature of the
Lord's Prayer, going through it petition by petition,
proving conclusively that Tertullian and the Christians
nearest the apostolic age knew nothing of that
modern absurdity which asserts that the Lord's Prayer
should not be used by Christians. He then proceeds
to explain certain useful customs, and to reprove
certain superstitious ceremonies practised by the
Christians of his day. He approves and explains the
custom of praying with hands outstretched, because
this is an imitation of our Lord, whose hands were
outstretched upon the cross.There is no ceremony which proves more conclusively the identity
between the ritual of apostolic ages and, say, of the year 200, than this
custom of standing at public prayer with hands outstretched. St. Paul,
writing to Timothy (1 Tim. ii. 8), says, "I desire therefore that the
men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands," and then he prescribes
rules for the women. This passage will not be understood
in its full force till one grasps the notion of an early Christian at prayer,
as described by Tertullian in the treatise on Prayer to which I have
referred. Tertullian lays down, with other writers of the second century,
that Christians should pray in public on the Lord's Day standing with
the hands lifted up and the arms stretched out horizontally. On this
point the practices of the East and West alike were identical, and had
not changed one atom from St. Paul's to Tertullian's time. From the
way some people speak one would think that the Christians of the
second century were wild revolutionaries, who were only too anxious
to change the ritual derived from apostolic days. Tertullian's works
prove that they were, on the other hand, almost too slavish in their
adherence to ancient customs. Human nature is the same in every
age, and a moment's reflection will show us that whether in England,
Scotland, or Ireland, the ritual of old-fashioned congregations of every
denomination is the same to-day as in the seventeenth century. A few
instances occur to me which illustrate this. Dean Hook, in a letter
dated April 5th, 1838, tells us that the old Presbyterian way of administering
the Holy Communion, carrying the elements to the communicants
sitting in their pews, still existed in the parish church of Leeds.
The custom had been introduced early in the seventeenth century, and
never was discontinued, notwithstanding a plain rubric forbidding it.
I have read that the same custom prevailed at St. Mary's in Oxford,
when Newman became Vicar. Again, down to a few years ago, in the
country parts of Ulster and Connaught, the separation between the
sexes in public worship continued among the Methodists, in obedience
to John Wesley's law made one hundred and twenty years before. It
is two hundred years since Sternhold and Hopkins' version of the
Psalms was authoritatively laid aside, and Tate and Brady substituted.
Yet I have within the last ten years seen Prayer-books in use at Bolton
Abbey in Yorkshire, with Sternhold and Hopkins attached to them.
Surely the early Christians were at least as Conservative as their
modern followers.
He disapproves of the
practice of washing the hands before every prayer,
which Tertullian says was done in memory of our
Lord's Passion, when water was used by Pilate to wash
his hands, and designates as superstitious the custom
of sitting down upon their couches or beds after they
had prayed, in imitation of Hermas who wrote the
Shepherd, of whom it was said, that after finishing his
prayer, he sat down on his bed.See Tertullian on Prayer, in his Works, vol. i., pp. 188-92, as translated
in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library.
Now this last instance
exactly illustrates what must have happened in the case
of the second generation of Christians, to whom the
Epistle to the Hebrews was directed. Men at the end
of the second century, when Tertullian lived, looked
back to the Shepherd of Hermas with the same profound
reverence as to the Apostles. They imitated,
therefore, every action and ceremony practised by the
Shepherd, whom they regarded as inspired, reading
his writings with the same reverence as those of the
Apostles.
Human nature is ever the same. The latest sect
started in the present generation will be found acting
on the same principles as the Christians of the apostolic
age. The practices and ceremonial of their first founders
become the model on which they shape themselves, and
every departure from that model is bitterly resented.
Human nature is governed universally by principles
which are essentially conservative and traditional.I was much struck the other day with a modern instance of this.
The Plymouth Brethren boast themselves as the least traditional of
sects. They are, however, just at present split all the world over into
two divisions, the great subject of debate being the writings of a Mr.
Raven. He has ventured upon some perilous speculations concerning
the nature of Christ's person. I have seen a formal indictment drawn
out by his opponents, in which his opinions are contrasted with statements
in the writings of their founder, the late J. N. Darby, which are
evidently the final authority and standard of appeal for them.
So
it must have been with the immediate followers of
the Apostles; they conformed themselves as exactly
as they could to everything—rite, ceremony, form
of words—which the Apostles delivered or practised.
And the Apostles certainly delivered precepts and laid
down rules on various liturgical questions, of which we
have now no written record. St. Paul expressly refers
to traditions and customs which he had delivered or
intended to deliver, some of which we know, others
of which we know not.Thus in 1 Cor. xi. 2 St. Paul says, "Now I praise you that ye
remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I
delivered them to you," and then goes on to discuss the question of
veiling of women, showing the character of the traditions thus delivered.
With this verse may be compared similar references in 1 Cor. vii. 17,
2 Thess. ii. 15 and iii. 9.
Now wherefore have we
made this long excursion into the dim regions of
primitive antiquity? Simply to show that it is à priori
likely that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and men like him of the second and third generation
of Christians, would have followed the example of the
Apostles, and practised imposition of hands together
with prayer for the gift of the Spirit in the case of
those baptized into Christ, merely because the Apostles
had beforetime practised it. And then, when we come
to the actual study of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and
read the sixth chapter, we find our anticipations fulfilled.
In the first two verses of that chapter the writer
lays down the first principles of Christ, the foundation
doctrines of the Christian system, which he takes for
granted as known and acknowledged by every one;
they are, repentance from dead works, faith towards
God, the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of
hands, and of the resurrection of the dead and of
eternal judgment. Here the imposition of hands cannot
refer to ordination, because, as all the other points
are matters of personal religion and individual practice,
not of ecclesiastical organisation, so we must restrict
the imposition of hands referred to as a principle of
the Christian religion, to some imposition of hands
needful for every Christian, not for the few merely
who should be admitted to the work of the ministry.
While, again, its close connection with baptism clearly
points to the imposition of hands in Confirmation,
which the Apostles practised and the primitive Christians
adopted from their example. And then, when we pass
to ecclesiastical antiquity and study the works of Tertullian,
the earliest writer who enters into the details
of the practices and ritual established in the Churches,
we find imposition of hands connected with baptism
exactly as stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and
viewed as the channel by which the gift of the Holy
Ghost is conveyed,See Tertullian on Baptism, chap. vi., where he says, "Not that in
the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit, but in the water, under the
influence of the angel, we are cleansed, and thus prepared for the Holy
Spirit." And again, in chap. viii. he describes the course followed after
baptism thus: "In the next place the hand is laid on us, invoking and
inviting the Holy Spirit through the words of benediction." To pass
from Tertullian to a very different witness, we may note that Calvin in
his commentary on Heb. vi. 2 says, "This one place abundantly
testifies that the origin of this ceremony (imposition of hands on the
baptized) came from the Apostles." He differs from Tertullian, however.
Calvin does not view it so much as a channel of Divine grace as a
rite for profession of faith and solemn prayer, and as such would have
confirmation continued as a necessary complement of infant baptism.
not in the shape of miraculous gifts,
but in all that edifying, consoling, and sanctifying power
which every individual needs, and in virtue of which
the New Testament writers, in common with Tertullian,
call baptized men temples of the Holy Ghost and
partakers of the Holy Ghost.Compare 1 Cor. vi. 19 with Heb. vi. 4, 5.
CHAPTER XIX.
ST. PETER AND SIMON MAGUS.
"Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the Apostles'
hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give
me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may
receive the Holy Ghost."—Acts viii. 18, 19.
We have in the last exposition endeavoured to
explain the origin of the rite of Confirmation
and to connect its development in the second century
with the first notice of its rise in germ and principle at
Samaria. There have been from time to time modifications
and changes in the ordinance. The Church
has availed itself of the power she necessarily possesses
to insist upon different aspects of Confirmation at
different periods. The Church of England at the
Reformation brought out into prominence the human
side of Confirmation as we may call it, which views
the rite as a renewal and strengthening of the baptismal
vows of renunciation, faith, and obedience,
which had fallen too much out of sight, while still
insisting on the Divine side as well, which regards
Confirmation as a method of Divine action, a channel
of Divine grace, strengthening and blessing the soul.
Yet no one can imagine that the Reformers invented a
new ordinance because they insisted on a forgotten and
latent side of the old rite. So it was during the second
century and in Tertullian's time. The exigencies of
the Christian Church of that age had led to certain
modifications of apostolic customs, but the central idea
of solemn imposition of hands continued, and was
regarded as of apostolic appointment. If we descend
a little lower this is plain enough. St. Cyprian, the
contemporary and disciple of Tertullian, expressly
attributes the institution of the rite to the action of
the Apostles at Samaria, a view which is subsequently
attested by those great lights of the ancient Church,
St. Jerome and St. Augustine.The evidence from these writers will be found in a collected shape
in Bingham's Antiquities, book xii., chap. iii., sec. vi. St. Augustine,
in his Tract VI., on 1 St. John iii., expressly deals with the objection
that because the Apostles imparted miraculous gifts by the imposition
of hands, therefore their conduct forms no precedent for us. "In
the first age the Holy Ghost fell on them that believed; and they
spake with tongues which they had never learned, as the Spirit gave
them utterance. These were signs proper for that time; for then it was
necessary that the Holy Ghost should be thus demonstrated in all kinds
of tongues, because the gospel was to run throughout the whole world
in all sorts of languages. But this demonstration once made, it ceased."
I have above called Cyprian the disciple of Tertullian, because we learn
from St. Jerome that Cyprian when asking for the works of Tertullian
always said, "Da Magistrum," "Give me the master."
As my object is,
however, not to write a treatise on Confirmation, but
to trace the evolution and development of apostolic
customs and ritual, and to show how they were
connected with the Church of the second century, I
restrain myself to Tertullian alone.
I cannot see how this argument is to be evaded without
rejecting the testimony of Tertullian and denying
what we may call the historic memory and continuity
of the Church at the close of the second century.
Upon the testimony of Tertullian we very largely
depend for our proof of the canonicity of the books of
the New Testament. Men when impugning or rejecting
Tertullian's witness on this or any similar question,
should bear in mind what the results of their teaching
may be; for surely if Tertullian's clear evidence avails
not to prove the apostolic character of confirmation, it
cannot be of much use to establish the still more important
question of the canon of the New Testament or the
authorship of the Gospels and Acts. We think, on
the other hand, that Tertullian's references to this
practice are naturally and easily explained by our theory
that the Churches established by the Apostles followed
their example. The first converts that were made after
the Apostles had founded a Church were treated by
the resident bishop and presbyters exactly as the
Apostle had treated themselves. Timothy at Ephesus
acted as he had seen St. Paul do. Timothy completed
his converts' baptism by the imposition of hands, and
then his successor followed the example of Timothy,
and so confirmation received that universal acceptation
which the writings of the Fathers disclose.
I. Let us now return to the consideration of the actual
doings of Peter and John at Samaria, and the lessons
we may draw from thence as touching the manner in
which men should follow the example left by them at
this crisis in Church history. The Apostles prayed for
those that had been baptized into the name of the
Lord Jesus, and then they laid their hands upon them,
and the baptized received the Holy Ghost. Prayer
went before the imposition of hands, to show that there
was nothing mechanical in their proceedings; that it
was not by their own power or virtue that any blessing
was granted, but that they were only instruments by
whom the Lord worked. The Apostles always acted,
taught, ordained, confirmed, in the profoundest confidence,
the surest faith that God worked in them and
through them. St. Paul in his address to the elders
of Miletus and Ephesus, whom he had himself ordained,
spoke of their ordination, not as the work of man, but
of the Holy Ghost. He pierced the veil of sense and
saw, far away and behind the human instrument, the
power of the Divine Agent who was the real Ordainer.
"Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, in
the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops."
And so again in his words to Timothy there was not a
shadow of doubt when he bid him "stir up the gift
of God, which is in thee through the laying on of
hands:" a gift which was doubtless no miraculous
power, but the purely spiritual endowment, needful now
as in ancient times for the edification and strengthening
of human souls. As it was in ancient times so is it
still, the Church of Christ unites prayer with imposition
of hands. She cannot recognise any difference in the
methods of God's dealing with human souls in apostolic
times and in modern ages. Human wants are the
same, human nature is the same, the promises of God
and the ministry of God are the same; and therefore
as in Samaria, so in England, the work of baptism
is completed when further prayer is offered, and the
imposition of hands by the chief ministers of God's
Church signifies her holy confidence in the abiding
presence and work of the Divine Spirit.
We desire to insist upon this devotional side of confirmation,
because the rite of confirmation has been too
often treated as a mere mechanical function, just indeed
as men in times of spiritual deadness and torpor come
to regard all spiritual functions in a purely mechanical
aspect. The New Testament brought to light a religion
of the spirit; but human nature ever tends to become
formal in its religion, and therefore has persistently
striven, and still persistently strives, to turn every external
function and office in a mechanical direction. The
Apostles prayed and then laid their hands upon the
Samaritan converts, and we may be sure that these
prayers were intense personal supplications, dealing
directly with the hearts and consciences of the individuals.
Confirmation, united with fervent prayer, public and private,
with searching addresses directed to the conscience,
with personal dealing as regards individual hearts,
followed by public imposition of hands,—surely every
one must acknowledge that such a solemnisation and
sanctification of the great crisis when boyhood and
girlhood pass into manhood and womanhood must
have very blessed effects. Experience has, indeed,
proved the wisdom of the ancient Church concerning
this ordinance. Confirmation has not developed itself
exactly in the East as we know it in the West. In
the Eastern Church, as amongst the Lutherans of Germany,
confirmation can be administered by a presbyter
as well as by a bishop, to whom alone the Western
Church limits the function. But whether in the East
or West, confirmation is regarded as the transition step
connecting baptism and the Eucharist. Christian bodies
which have rejected the ancient customs have felt
themselves obliged to adopt a similar method. Preparation
for first Communion has taken the place of
confirmation. There has been the same earnest dealing
with conscience, the same fuller instruction in Christian
truth and life, and the one thing lacking has been that
following of the apostolic example in solemn imposition
of hands, which would have thrown back the young
mind to the days of the Church's earliest life, and
helped it to realize something of the continuity of the
Church's work and existence.
Many, as I know, ministering in societies where
confirmation after the ancient model has been rejected,
have bitterly lamented its disuse as depriving them
of a solemn appointed time when they should have
been brought into closer contact with the lives, the
feelings, and the consciences of the lambs of Christ's
flock. I am bound to confess, at the same time, that
no one is more alive than I am to the many defects and
shortcomings in the modes and fashions in which confirmation
is sometimes viewed and conferred. The mere
mechanical view of it is far too prevalent. Careful and
prayerful preparation, systematic instruction in the field
of Christian doctrine, is still in many cases far too little
thought of. Confirmation offers a splendid opportunity
when an earnest pastor may open out to young minds
eager to receive truth, a fuller acquaintance with the
deep things of God. Alas! how miserably such earnest
young minds are sometimes met. It is stated that it
was by injudicious treatment at such a time that the
ardent, enthusiastic mind of the late Charles Bradlaugh
was alienated from Christian truth. Intelligent
sympathy is what the young desire and crave for at
such seasons. Then it is that the man who has kept
his mind fresh and active by wide and generous study
finds the due reward of his labours. He does not
attempt to meet doubts and difficulties by foolish
denunciations. He knows that such doubts are in the
air; that they meet the young in the newspapers,
magazines, conversations of the day. He proves by
his instructions that he knows of them and enters into
them. He encourages frank discussion of them, and
thus often proves himself at a very trying time the
most helpful and consoling friend to the young and
troubled spirit.
Confirmation, if viewed merely from the purely human
side, and if we say nothing at all about a Divine blessing,
offers a magnificent opportunity for a wise pastor of
souls. He will, indeed, treat different ranks in different
ways. A class of ploughboys or of village lads and
girls need plain speaking on the great facts of life and
of the Gospel, while the higher and more educated or
sharper inhabitants of cities and towns require teaching
which will embrace the problems of modern thought,
as well as the foundation truths of morals. A perfunctory
repetition of the Church Catechism, as in some
parishes, or a brief study of a portion of the Greek
Testament, as in some of our public schools, is a miserable
substitute for that careful preparation embracing
devotional as well as intellectual preparation, which
such an important function demands.It seems to me a great pity that, owing to the modern public school
system, the confirmation of boys of the upper and middle classes is almost
entirely passing from their own home pastors to the masters of public
schools, and not always with happy results. This tends to increase the
hard mechanical view of confirmation against which I protest.
Then, again,
the method in which confirmation is administered calls
for improvement and change. The confirmation of
immense crowds at central churches tends to confirm
the mere mechanical idea about confirmation. Parochial
confirmations, a confirmation of the young of each
congregation in presence of the congregation itself,
that is the standard at which we should aim. The
Church of Rome can give us wise suggestions on this
point. Some time ago I noticed an account of a
Roman Catholic confirmation in the west of Ireland.
It was held in a town of twelve or fifteen thousand
inhabitants. The bishop took a week for the confirmations
in that town, examining all the children beforehand,
bringing them thus into direct contact with
himself as their supreme pastor, and assuring himself
of the sufficiency of their preparation.
II. We have now noted some of the defects connected
with modern confirmations; but the conduct of Simon
Magus and this incident at Samaria remind us that defects
and shortcomings must ever exist, as they existed
in the Church of the Apostles. We note here Simon's
offer and St. Peter's address. Simon Magus had believed,
had been baptized, and doubtless had also been
confirmed by the Apostles. In the case of some of the
Samaritans, at least, the presence of the Holy Ghost
must have been proved by visible or audible signs,
for we are told that when Simon saw that through the
imposition of apostolic hands the Holy Ghost was
given, he offered them money to enable him to do the
same. His offer sufficiently explains the nature of
his faith. He was convinced intellectually of the truth
of certain external facts which he had seen. He knew
nothing of spiritual want, or the power of sin, or a
desire for interior peace and sanctity. He looked
upon the Apostles as cleverer jugglers and sorcerers
than himself, accessible to precisely the same motives,
and therefore he offered them money if they would
endow him with the knowledge and power they possessed
and exercised. The Acts of the Apostles, as a mirror
of all Church history, thus selects for our instruction an
event which sounds a warning needful for every age.
Simon Magus had a mere intellectual knowledge of
the truth, and that mere intellectual knowledge, apart
from a moral and spiritual conception of it, plunged
him into a deeper fall than otherwise might have been
the case. Simon Magus was a typical example of this,
and successive centuries have offered many notable
imitations. Julian the Apostate was brought up as a
Christian clergyman, and used to read the lessons in
Church, whence he would adjourn to join in the polluting
rites of paganism; and so it has been from age to
age, till in our own time some of the bitterest opponents
of Christianity, at home or in the mission field, have
been those who, like Simon, knew of the Gospel facts
but had tasted nothing of the Gospel life.
We may derive from this incident guidance in a difficult
controversy which has of late made much stir. Men
have asserted that Christian missionaries were giving far
too much time to mere intellectual training of pagans,
instead of devoting themselves to evangelistic work.
A writer who has never visited the mission-field has
no right to pass judgment on such a matter. But
cannot we read in this passage a warning against such
a tendency? Intellectual conviction does not mean
spiritual conversion. Of course we know that no
human effort can ensure spiritual blessings, but if
intellectual training of clever pagan youths, and not
spiritual work, be regarded as the great object of
Christian missions; if the Holy Ghost be not honoured
by being made the supreme lord of heart and life and
work, we cannot expect any blessed results to follow.
We read very little in the earliest ages of the Church
about educational missions. The work of education
was not despised. The school of Alexandria from the
earliest times held high the standard of Christian
scholarship. But that school, though open, like all
ancient academies, to every class, was primarily intended
for the training of Christian youth, placing before all
other studies the Divine science of theology.
The offer, again, of Simon Magus has given a
name to a sin which has been found prevalent in
every age and in every country. The sin has, indeed,
taken different shapes. Simony, throughout the Middle
Ages, was a common vice against which some of the
more devout popes strove long and vigorously. In
England and according to English law simony means
still the purchase of spiritual office or spiritual functions.
It would be simoniacal for a bishop to receive money
for conferring holy orders or for appointment to a
living. It would be an act of simony for a man to
offer or give money to attain either holy orders or a
living. How then, it may be said, does the unhallowed
traffic in Church livings continue to flourish? Simply
because, through colourable evasions, men bring themselves
to break the spirit of the law while they keep
within its strict letter. Simony, however, is a much
more extensive and far-reaching corruption than the
purchase of ecclesiastical benefices. Simony can take
subtler shapes and can adapt itself to conditions very
different from those which prevail under an established
Church. Every one recognises, in word at least,
the scandalous character of money traffic in Church
offices. Even those who really practise it, hide from
themselves, by some device or excuse, the character of
their action. But the simoniacal spirit, the essence of
Simon's sin, is found in many quarters which are never
suspected. What is that essence? Simon desired to
obtain spiritual power and office, not in the Divine
method, but in low earthly ways. Money was his way
because it was the one thing he valued and had to offer;
but surely there are many other ways in which men
may unlawfully seek for spiritual office and influence in
the Church of Christ. Many a man who would never
dream of offering money in order to obtain a high place
in the Church, or would have been horrified at the very
suggestion, has yet resorted to other methods just as
effective and just as wrong. Men have sought high
position by political methods. They have given their
support to a political party, and have sold their talents
to uphold a cause, hoping thereby to gain their ends.
They may not have given gold which comes from the
mine to gain spiritual position, but they have all the
same given a mere human consideration, and sought
by its help to obtain spiritual power; or they preach
and speak and vote in Church synods and assemblies
with an eye to elections to high place and dignity. An
established Church, with its legally-secured properties
and prizes, may open a way for the exercise of simony
in its grosser forms. But a free Church, with its
popular assemblies, opens the way for a subtler temptation,
leading men to shape their actions, to suppress
their convictions, to order their votes and speeches, not
as their secret conscience would direct them, but as
human nature and earthly considerations would tell
them was best for their future prospects. How many
a speech is spoken, how many a sermon is preached,
how many a vote is given, not as the Holy Ghost
directs, but under the influence of that unhallowed
spirit of sheer worldliness which led Simon to offer
money that he too might be enabled to exercise the
power which the unworldly Apostles possessed. The
spirit of simony may just as really lead a man to give
a vote or to abstain from voting, to make a speech or
keep silence, as it led men in a coarser and plainer age
to give bribes for the attainment of precisely the same
ends. In this respect, again, as warning against the
intrusion of low earthly motives in the concerns of the
Divine society, the Acts of the Apostles proves itself a
mirror of universal Church history.
Then we have the address of St. Peter to this
notorious sinner. It is very plain-spoken. The Apostle
had been himself a great sinner, but he had not been
harshly or roughly dealt with, because he had become
a great penitent. St. Peter was most sympathetic, and
could never have spoken so sharply as he did to Simon
Magus had he not perceived with quick spiritual insight
the inborn baseness and hollowness of the man's
character. Still he does not cut him off from hope.
He speaks plainly, as Christ's ministers should ever
do when occasion requires. Simon Magus was a man
of great influence in Samaria, but there was no "fear
of man which bringeth a snare" about the Apostles, and
so St. Peter fearlessly tells Simon his true position.
"He was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity."
He indicates to him, however, the steps which, whether
then or now, a person in that position should take if he
desires to escape from the due reward of his deeds.
"Repent therefore of this thy wickedness." Repentance,
then, is the first step which a man whose heart
is not right in God's sight has to take. There was no
hesitation, as we have already remarked when speaking
of St. Peter's preaching at Jerusalem, about pressing
upon men the duty of hearty, sincere repentance, embracing
sorrow for sin and genuine amendment of life.
Then having exhorted to repentance, the Apostle proceeds,
"And pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of
thy heart shall be forgiven thee." Prayer is the next
step. First comes repentance, then prayer, and then
forgiveness. There was nothing in St. Peter's teaching
which lends the least countenance to the modern error
which teaches that an unconverted man should not pray,
that his one duty is to believe, and, till he does so, that
his prayer is unacceptable to God. Simon Magus was
as estranged from God as a human soul could well have
been, yet St. Peter's word to him then, and his word
to every sinner still, would be an exhortation to diligent
prayer. "Pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart
shall be forgiven thee." The exhortation of Peter was
blessed, for the time, to the sinner. It awoke a temporary
sense of sin, though it wrought no permanent change.
It has left, however, an eternal blessing and a permanent
direction to the Church of Christ. In his preaching
on the day of Pentecost to the Jews of Jerusalem, he
shows us how to deal with those who are not as yet
partakers of the Christian covenant. "Repent ye, and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ," was his message to the devout Jews of Jerusalem;
"Repent and pray" is his message to the
sinner who has been brought, all unworthy, into the
kingdom of light and grace, but knows nothing of it in
heart and life. St. Peter valued the blessings of belief
in Christ and admission by baptism into His kingdom,
but he knew that these benefits only intensified a
man's condemnation if not realized in heart and lived
in practice. St. Peter's visit to Samaria in company
with St. John has much to teach the Church on many
other points, as we have pointed out, but no lesson
which can be derived from it is so important as that
which declares the true road for the returning sinner
to follow, the value of repentance, the efficacy of heartfelt
prayer, the supreme importance of a heart right in
the sight of God.
CHAPTER XX.
EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THE PHILISTINES' LAND.
"But an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go
toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto
Gaza: the same is desert. And he arose and went: and behold, a
man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of
the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasure, who had come to
Jerusalem for to worship; and he was returning and sitting in his
chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah."—Acts viii. 26-8.
"And it came to pass, as Peter went throughout all parts, he came
down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda."—Acts ix. 32.
I have united these two incidents, the conversion
of the Ethiopian eunuch and the mission of St.
Peter to the people of Lydda, Sharon, and Joppa, because
they relate to the same district of country and
they happened at the same period, the pause which
ensued between the martyrdom of St. Stephen and the
conversion of St. Paul. The writer of the Acts does
not seem to have exactly followed chronological order
in this part of his story. He had access to different
authorities or to different diaries. He selected as best he
could the details which he heard or read, and strove to
weave them into a connected narrative. St. Luke, when
gathering up the story of these earliest days of the
Church's warfare, must have laboured under great
difficulties which we now can scarcely realize. It was
doubtless from St. Philip himself that our author learned
the details of the eunuch's conversion and of St. Peter's
labours. St. Luke and St. Paul tarried many days
with St. Philip at Cæsarea. Most probably St. Luke
had then formed no intention of writing either his Gospel
or his apostolic history at that period. He was urged
on simply by that unconscious force which shapes our
lives and leads us in a vague way to act in some
special direction. A man born to be a poet will unconsciously
display his tendency. A man born to be
a historian will be found, even when he has formed
no definite project, note-book in hand, jotting down
the impressions of the passing hour or of his current
studies. So probably was it with St. Luke. He could
not help taking notes of conversations he heard, or
making extracts from the documents he chanced to
meet; and then when he came to write he had a mass
of materials which it was at times hard to weave into
one continuous story within the limits he had prescribed
to himself. One great idea, indeed, to which we have
often referred, seems to have guided the composition
of the first portion of the apostolic history. St.
Luke selected, under Divine guidance, certain representative
facts and incidents embodying great principles,
typical of future developments. This is the golden
thread which runs through the whole of this book, and
specially through the chapters concerning which we
speak in this volume, binding together and uniting in
one organic whole a series of independent narratives.
I. The two incidents which we now consider have
several representative aspects. They may be taken
as typical of evangelistic efforts and the qualifications
for success in them. Philip the deacon is aggressive,
many-sided, flexible, and capable of adapting himself
to diverse temperaments, whether those of the Grecian
Jews at Jerusalem, the Samaritans in central Palestine,
or the Jewish proselytes from distant Africa. Peter
is older, narrower, cannot so easily accommodate
himself to new circumstances. He confines himself,
therefore, to quiet work amongst the Jews of Palestine
who have been converted to Christ as the result of the
four years' growth of the Church. "As Peter went
throughout all parts, he came down also to the saints
which dwelt at Lydda." This incident represents to
us the power and strength gained for the cause of
Christ by intellectual training and by wider culture.
It is a lesson needed much in the great mission field.
It has hitherto been too much the fashion to think that
while the highest culture and training are required for
the ministry at home, any half-educated teacher, provided
he be in earnest, will suffice for the work of
preaching to the heathen. This is a terrible mistake,
and one which has seriously injured the progress of
religion. It is at all times a dangerous thing to
despise one's adversary, and we have fallen into the
snare when we have despised systems like Buddhism
and Hindooism, endeavouring to meet them with inferior
weapons.The primitive Church never made this mistake. The great
missionaries who dealt with the heathen in the second century were
profoundly skilled in philosophy, several of them being philosophers by
profession. Aristides, whose long-lost Apology has just been recovered,
Justin Martyr, and Tatian were Christian philosophers in the second
century, and consecrated their powers to missionary labours. Pantænus,
Clement, and Origen, profound scholars of Alexandria, took the greatest
trouble to understand Greek paganism before they proceeded to refute
it. I think that candidates in training for foreign missions might be
taken with great advantage through a course of the second century
apologists. Clement and Origen never poured indiscriminate abuse
on the system they opposed; their teaching was no bald negative controversy;
they always strove, like St. Paul at Athens, to ascertain
what was good and true in their opponents' position, and to work
from thence. See pp. 214, 215 above, where much the same line of
thought has been insisted upon.
The ancient religions of the East are
founded on a subtle philosophy, and should be met by
men whose minds have received a wide and generous
culture, which can distinguish between the chaff and the
wheat, rejecting what is bad in them while sympathising
with and accepting what is good. The notices of
Philip and Stephen and their work, as contrasted with
that of St. Peter, proclaim the value of education, travel,
and thought in this the earlier section of the Acts, as
the labours of St. Paul declare it in the days of Gentile
conversion. The work of the Lord, whether among
Jews or Gentiles, is done most effectually by those
whose natural abilities and intellectual sympathies have
been quickened and developed. A keen race like the
Greeks of old or the Hindoos of the present, are only
alienated from the very consideration of the faith when
it is presented in a hard, narrow, intolerant, unsympathetic
spirit. The angel chose wisely when he selected
the Grecian Philip to bear the gospel to the Ethiopian
eunuch, and left Peter to minister to Æneas, to Tabitha,
and to Simon the tanner of Joppa; simple souls, for
whom life glided smoothly along, troubled by no
intellectual problems and haunted by no fearful doubts.
II. Again, we may remark that these incidents and
the whole course of Church history at this precise
moment show the importance of clear conceptions as
to character, teaching, and objects. The Church at this
time was vaguely conscious of a great mission, but it
had not made up its mind as to the nature of that
mission, because it had not realized its own true character,
as glad tidings of great joy unto all nations.
And the result was very natural: it formed no plans
for the future, and was as yet hesitating and undecided
in action. It was with the Church then as in our every-day
experience of individuals. A man who does not
know himself, who has no conception of his own talents
or powers, and has formed no idea as to his object or
work in life, that man cannot be decided in action, he
cannot bring all his powers into play, because he neither
knows of their existence, nor where and how to use
them. This is my explanation of the great difference
manifest on the face of our history as between the
Church and its life before and after the conversion of
Cornelius. It is plain that there was a great difference
in Church life and activity between these two periods.
Whence did it arise? The admission of the Gentiles
satisfied the unconscious cravings of the Church. She
felt that at last her true mission and her real object
were found, and, like a man of vigorous mind who at
last discovers the work for which nature has destined
him, she flung herself into it, and we read no longer of
mere desultory efforts, but of unceasing, indefatigable,
skilfully-directed labour; because the Church had at
last been taught by God that her great task was to make
all men know the riches hidden in Christ Jesus. We
have in this fact a representative lesson very necessary
for our time. Men are now very apt to mistake mistiness
for profundity, and clearness of conception for
shallowness of thought. This feeling intrudes itself into
religion, and men do not take the trouble to form clear
conceptions on any subject, and they lapse therefore
into the very weakness which afflicted the Church prior
to St. Peter's vision. The root of practical, vigorous
action is directly assailed if men have no clear conceptions
as to the nature, the value, and the supreme
importance of the truth. If, for instance, a man
cherishes the notion, now prevalent in some circles,
that Mahometanism is the religion suited for the natives
of Africa, how will he make sacrifices either of time,
of money, or of thought, to make the Gospel known
to that great continent? I do not say that we should
seek to have sharp and clear conceptions on all points.
There is no man harder, more unsympathetic with the
weak, more intolerant of the slightest difference, more
truly foolish and short-sighted, than the man who has
formed the clearest and sharpest conceptions upon the
profoundest questions, and is ready to decide offhand
where the subtlest and deepest thinkers have spoken
hesitatingly. That man does not, in the language of
John Locke, recognise the length of his own tether.
He wishes to make himself the standard for everyone
else, and infallibly brings discredit on the possession
of clear views on any topics. There are vast tracts
of thought upon which we must be content with doubt,
hesitancy, and mistiness; but the man who wishes to
be a vigorous, self-sacrificing servant of Jesus Christ
must seek diligently for clear, broad, strong conceptions
on such great questions as the value of the soul, the
nature of God, the person of Jesus Christ, the work of
the Spirit, and all the other truths which the Apostles'
Creed sets forth as essentially bound up with these
doctrines. Distinct and strong convictions alone on
such points form for the soul the basis of a decided and
fruitful Christian activity; as such decided convictions
energised the whole life and character of the blessed
apostle of love when writing, "We know that we are
of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one."
III. Now turning from such general considerations,
we may compare the two incidents, St. Philip's activities
and St. Peter's labours, in several aspects. We
notice a distinction in their guidance. Greater honour is
placed on Philip than upon Peter. An angel speaks
to Philip, while St. Peter seems to have been left to
that ordinary guidance of the Spirit which is just as
real as any external direction, such as that given by
an angel, but yet does not impress the human mind or
supersede its own action, as the external direction does.
Dr. Goulburn, in an interesting work from which I
have derived many important hints,The Acts of the Deacons, p. 276. This work discusses Philip's
dealings with the eunuch at very great length. The reader desirous
of seeing the spiritual teaching of that incident fully drawn out
should consult it.
suggests that the
external message of the angel directing Philip where
to go may have been God's answer to the thoughts and
doubts which were springing up in His servant's mind.
The incident of Simon Magus may have disturbed
St. Philip. He may have been led to doubt the propriety
of his action in thus preaching to the Samaritans
and admitting to baptism a race hitherto held accursed.
He had dared to run counter to the common opinion
of devout men, and one result had been that such
a bad character as Simon Magus had crept into the
sacred fold. The Lord who watches over His people
and sees all their difficulties, comes therefore to his
rescue, and by one of His ministering spirits conveys
a message which assures His fainting servant of His
approval and of His guidance. Such is Dr. Goulburn's
explanation, and surely it is a most consoling one, of
which every true servant of God has had his own
experience. The Lord even still deals thus with His
people. They make experiments for Him, as Philip
did; engage in new enterprises and in fields of labour
hitherto untried; they work for His honour and glory
alone; and perhaps they see nothing for a time but
disaster and failure. Then, when their hearts are cast
down and their spirits are fainting because of the way,
the Lord mercifully sends them a message by some
angelic hand or voice, which encourages and braces
them for renewed exertion.
An external voice of an angel may, in the peculiar
circumstances of the case, have directed St. Philip.
But the text does not give us a hint as to the appearance
or character of the messenger whom God used
on this occasion. The Old and New Testament alike
take broader views of Divine messengers, and of
angelic appearances generally, than we do. A vision,
a dream, a human agent, some natural circumstance
or instrument, all these are in Holy Scripture or in
contemporary literature styled God's angels or messengers.
Men saw then more deeply than we do, recognised
the hand of a superintending Providence where
we behold only secondary agents, and in their filial
confidence spoke of angels where we should only recognise
some natural power. Let me quote an interesting
illustration of this. Archbishop Trench, speaking, in
his Notes on the Miracles, of the healing of the Impotent
Man at Bethesda, and commenting on St. John v. 4, a
verse which runs thus, "For an angel of the Lord
went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled
the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of
the water stepped in was made whole, with whatsoever
disease he was holden," thus enunciates the principle
which guided the ancient Christians, as well as the
Jews, in this matter. He explains the origin of this
verse, and the manner in which it crept into the text of
the New Testament. "At first, probably, a marginal
note, expressing the popular notion of the Jewish Christians
concerning the origin of the healing power which
from time to time the waters of Bethesda possessed, by
degrees it assumed the shape in which we now have
it." The Archbishop then proceeds to speak of the
Hebrew view of the world as justifying such expressions.
"For the statement itself, there is nothing in it
which need perplex or offend, or which might not find
place in St. John. It rests upon that religious view of
the world which in all nature sees something beyond
and behind nature, which does not believe that it has
discovered causes when, in fact, it has only traced the
sequence of phenomena, and which everywhere recognises
a going forth of the immediate power of God,
invisible agencies of His, whether personal or otherwise,
accomplishing His will."The verse John v. 4 of the Authorised Version has now been
relegated to the margin of the Revised Version.
The whole topic of angelic
agencies is one that has been much confused for us by
the popular notions about angels, notions which affect
every one, no matter how they imagine themselves
raised above the vulgar herd. When men speak or
think of angelic appearances, they think of angels as
they are depicted in sacred pictures. The conception
of young men clad in long white and shining raiment,
with beautiful wings dependent from their shoulders
and folded by their sides, is an idea of the angels and
angelic life derived from mediæval painters and sculptors,
not from Holy Writ. The important point,
however, for us to remember is that Philip here moved
under external direction to the conversion of the eunuch.
The same Spirit which sent His messenger to direct
Philip, led Peter to move towards exactly the same
south-western quarter of Palestine, where he was to
remain working, meditating, praying, till the hour had
come when the next great step should be taken and the
Gentiles admitted as recognised members of the Church.
IV. This leads us to the next point. Philip and Peter
were both guided, the one externally, the other internally;
but whither? They were led by God into
precisely the same south-western district of Palestine.
Peter was guided, by one circumstance after another,
first to Lydda and Sharon, and then to Joppa, where the
Lord found him when he was required at the neighbouring
Cæsarea to use the power of the keys and
to open the door of faith to Cornelius and the Gentile
world. Our narrative says nothing, in St. Peter's case,
about providential guidance or heavenly direction, but
cannot every devout faithful soul see here the plain
proofs of it? The book of the Acts makes no attempt
to improve the occasion, but surely a soul seeking for
light and help will see, and that with comfort, the
hand of God leading St. Peter all unconscious, and
keeping him in readiness for the moment when he
should be wanted. We are not told of any extraordinary
intervention, and yet none the less the Lord guided
him as really as He guided Philip, that his life might
teach its own lessons, by which we should order our
own. And has not every one who has devoutly and
faithfully striven to follow Christ experienced many a
dispensation exactly like St. Peter's? We have been
led to places, or brought into company with individuals,
whereby our future lives have been ever afterwards
affected. The devout mind in looking back over the past
will see how work and professions have been determined
for us, how marriages have been arranged, how
afflictions and losses have been made to work for good;
so that at last, surveying, like Moses, life's journey
from some Pisgah summit, when its course is well-nigh
run, God's faithful servant is enabled to rejoice in Him
because even in direct afflictions He has done all things
well. A view of life like that is strictly warranted by
this passage, and such a view was, and still is, the sure
and secret source of that peace of God which passeth
all understanding. Nothing can happen amiss to him
who has Almighty Love as his Lord and Master. St.
Peter was led, by one circumstance after another, first
to Lydda, which is still an existing village, then, farther,
into the vale of Sharon, celebrated from earliest time
for its fertility, and commemorated for its roses in
the Song of Solomon (Cant. ii. 1, Isa. xxxiii. 9), till
finally he settles down at Joppa, to wait for the further
indications of God's will.
But how about Philip, to whom the Divine messenger
had given a heavenly direction? What was
the message so imparted? An angel of the Lord
spake unto Philip, saying, "Arise, and go toward the
south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem
unto Gaza: the same is desert." Now we should
here carefully remark the minute exactness of the
Acts of the Apostles in this place, because it is only
a specimen of the marvellous geographical and historical
accuracy which distinguishes it all through,
and is every year receiving fresh illustrations. Gaza
has always been the gateway of Palestine. Invader
after invader when passing from Egypt to Palestine has
taken Gaza in his way. It is still the trade route to
Egypt, along which the telegraph line runs. It was in
the days of St. Philip the direct road for travellers like
the Ethiopian eunuch, from Jerusalem to the Nile and
the Red Sea. This man was seeking his home in
Central Africa, which he could reach either by the Nile
or by the sea, and was travelling therefore along the
road from Jerusalem to Gaza. The Acts, again, distinguishes
one particular road. There were then, and
there are still, two great roads leading from Jerusalem
to Gaza, one a more northern road, which ran through
villages and cultivated land as it does to this day. The
other was a desert road, through districts inhabited then
as now by the wandering Arabs of the desert alone.
Travellers have often remarked on the local accuracy
of the angel's words when directing Philip to a road
which would naturally be taken only by a man attended
by a considerable body of servants able to ward off
attack, and which was specially suitable, by its lonely
character, for those prolonged conversations which must
have passed between the eunuch and his teacher.
Cannot we see, however, a still more suggestive and
prophetic reason for the heavenly direction? In these
early efforts of the Apostles and their subordinates we
read nothing of missions towards the east. All their
evangelistic operations lay, in later times, towards the
north and north-west, Damascus, Antioch, Syria, and
Asia Minor, while in these earlier days they evangelised
Samaria, which was largely pagan, and then worked
down towards Gaza and Cæsarea and the Philistine
country, which were the strongholds of Gentile and
European influence,—the Church indicated in St.
Luke's selection of typical events; the Western, the
European destiny working strong within. It already
foretold, vaguely but still surely, that, in the grandest
and profoundest sense,
"Westward the course of Empire takes its way;"
that the Gentile world, not the Jewish, was to furnish
the most splendid triumphs to the soldiers of the Cross.
Our Lord steadily restrained Himself within the strict
bounds of the chosen people, because His teaching was
for them alone. His Apostles already indicate their
wider mission by pressing close upon towns and cities,
like Gaza and Cæsarea, which our Lord never visited,
because they were the strongholds and chosen seats
of paganism.See Dean Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 263, where this thought
is further worked out. It is curious that notwithstanding the preaching
of St. Philip and St. Peter in its neighbourhood, Gaza remained true to
paganism longer than any other city of Palestine. The old Philistine
opposition to Israel seems to have perpetuated itself in a pagan opposition
to Christianity. Even in the fifth century, when St. Jerome boasted
that Bethlehem was so completely Christian that the very ploughmen
sang psalms and hymns as they laboured, Gaza still remained devoted
to idol-worship. The inhabitants of Gaza, in union with those of Askelon,
even rose in rebellion in defence of paganism towards the end of the
fourth century (see Neander's Church History, iii., 105, Bohn's ed.).
An interesting illustration of its obstinate paganism has come to light
of late years. There were in Gaza eight public temples of idols,
including those of the Sun, Venus, Apollo, Proserpine, Hecate, Fortune,
and Marnas, dedicated to the Cretan Jupiter, believed by the people
to be more glorious than any other temple in the world. All these
temples were destroyed by the influence of the Empress Eudoxia,
about A.D. 400; the words of the edict which overthrew the temples
of Gaza can be read in the Theodosian Code, book xvi., title x., law
16. The statue of Marnas was then hidden by the pagans in the sand
outside the city, where it was discovered in 1880. It is now figured
and described in the Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, vol. iii.,
p. 254. It is especially interesting to us Christians, as being a statue
which was almost certainly seen by St. Philip. See Selden, De Dis
Syris, p. 215, and Murray's Handbook for Palestine, pp. 271-73.
The providential government of God
ordering the future of His Church and developing its
destinies can thus be traced in the unconscious movements
of the earliest Christian teachers. Their first
missionary efforts in Palestine are typical of the great
work of the Church in the conversion of Europe.
V. St. Philip was brought from Samaria, in the
centre, to the Gaza road leading from Jerusalem to
the coast; and why? Simply in order that he
might preach the Gospel to one solitary man, the
eunuch who was treasurer to Candace, Queen of the
Ethiopians. Here again we have another of those
representative facts which are set before us in the
earlier portion of this book. On the day of Pentecost,
Jews from all parts of the Roman Empire, and
from the countries bordering upon the east of that
Empire, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and Arabians,
came in contact with Christianity. Philip had ministered
in Samaria to another branch of the circumcision, but
Africa, outside the Empire at least, had as yet no
representative among the firstfruits of the cross. But
now the prophecy of the sixty-eighth Psalm was to be
fulfilled, and "Ethiopia was to stretch out her hands
unto God." We have the assurance of St. Paul himself
that the sixty-eighth Psalm was a prophecy of the
ascension of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy
Ghost. In Eph. iv. 8 he writes, quoting from the
eighteenth verse, "Wherefore He saith, when He
ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and
gave gifts unto men." And then he proceeds to enumerate
the various offices of the apostolic ministry, with
their blessed tidings of peace and salvation, as the gifts
of the Spirit which God had bestowed through the
ascension of Jesus Christ. And now, in order that no
part of the known world might want its Jewish representative,
we have the conversion of this eunuch, who,
as coming from Ethiopia, was regarded in those times
as intimately associated with India.
Let us see, moreover, what we are told concerning this
typical African convert. He was an Ethiopian by birth,
though he may have been of Jewish descent, or perhaps
more probably a proselyte, and thus an evidence of
Jewish zeal for Jehovah. He was an eunuch, and treasurer
of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians. He was like
Daniel and the three Hebrew children in the court of the
Chaldæan monarch. He had utilised his Jewish genius
and power of adaptation so well that he had risen to high
position. The African queen may have learned, too, as
Darius did, to trust his Jewish faith and depend upon
a man whose conduct was regulated by Divine law and
principle. This power of the Jewish race leading them
to high place amid foreign nations and in alien courts
has been manifested in their history from the earliest
times. Moses, Mordecai and Esther, the Jews in Babylon,
were types and prophecies of the greatness which
has awaited their descendants scattered among the Gentiles
in our own time. This eunuch was treasurer of
Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians. Here again we
find another illustration of the historical and geographical
accuracy of the Acts of the Apostles. We learn
from several contemporary geographers that the kingdom
of Meroë in Central Africa was ruled for centuries by
a line of female sovereigns whose common title was
Candace, as Pharaoh was that of the Egyptian monarchs.See the article "Meroë" in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography, for a long account of the land whence the eunuch came.
There were, as we have already pointed out,
large Jewish colonies in the neighbourhood of Southern
Arabia and all along the coast of the Red Sea. It was
very natural, then, that Candace should have obtained
the assistance of a clever Jew from one of these settlements.
A question has been raised, indeed, whether the
eunuch was a Jew at all, and some have regarded him as
the first Gentile convert. The Acts of the Apostles,
however, seems clear enough on this point. Cornelius
is plainly put forward as the typical case which decided
the question of the admission of the Gentiles to the
benefits of the covenant of grace. Our history gives
not the faintest hint that any such question was even
distantly involved in the conversion and baptism of
the Ethiopian. Nay, rather by telling us that he had
come to Jerusalem for the purpose of worshipping God,
it indicates that he felt himself bound, as far as he
could, to discharge the duty of visiting the Holy City
and offering personal worship there once at least in his
lifetime. Then, too, we are told of his employment
when Philip found him. "He was returning, and
sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet." His
attention may have been called to this portion of Holy
Scripture during his visit to the temple, where he may
have come in contact with the Apostles or with some
other adherents of the early Church. At any rate he was
employing his time in devout pursuits, he was making
a diligent use of the means of grace so far as he knew
them; and then God in the course of His providence
opened out fresh channels of light and blessing, according
to that pregnant saying of our Lord, "If any man will
do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine." The soul
that is in spiritual perplexity or darkness need not
and ought not to content itself with apathy, despair, or
idleness. Difficulties will assault us on every side so
long as we remain here below. We cannot escape
from them because our minds are finite and limited.
And some are ready to make these difficulties an excuse
for postponing or neglecting all thoughts concerning
religion. But quite apart from the difficulties of
religion, there are abundant subjects on which God
gives us the fullest and plainest light. Let it be ours,
like the Ethiopian eunuch, to practise God's will so far
as He reveals it, and then, in His own good time, fuller
revelations will be granted, and we too shall experience,
as this Ethiopian did, the faithfulness of His own
promise, "Unto the righteous there ariseth up light in
the darkness." The eunuch read the prophet Esaias as
he travelled, according to the maxim of the rabbis that
"one who is on a journey and without a companion
should employ his thoughts on the study of the law."
He was reading the Scriptures aloud, too, after the
manner of Orientals; and thus seeking diligently to
know the Divine will, God vouchsafed to him by the
ministry of St. Philip that fuller light which he still
grants, in some way or other, to every one who diligently
follows Him.
And then we have set forth the results of the
eunuch's communion with the heaven-sent messenger.
There was no miracle wrought to work conviction.
St. Philip simply displayed that spiritual power which
every faithful servant of Christ may gain in some
degree. He opened the Scriptures and taught the
saving doctrine of Christ so effectually that the soul of
the eunuch, naturally devout and craving for the deeper
life of God, recognised the truth of the revelation.
Christianity was for the Ethiopian its own best evidence,
because he felt that it answered to the wants and yearnings
of his spirit. We are not told what the character
of St. Philip's discourse was. But we are informed what
the great central subject of his discourse was. It was
Jesus. This topic was no narrow one. We can gather
from other passages in the Acts what was the substance
of the teaching bestowed by the missionaries of the Cross
upon those converted by them.Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew was written about
a hundred years after the eunuch's conversion. It is a good specimen
of the methods adopted by the early Church in dealing with the
Jews. St. Philip's teaching was doubtless of much the same kind.
Justin upheld the application to Christ and its fulfilment in Him alone
of the fifty-third of Isaiah, repeatedly quoting large portions of it, in the
Dialogue, as, for instance, in chap. xiii. The apology of St. Stephen
furnished the model upon which all subsequent missionaries to the
Jews framed their arguments. They all dealt largely with the transitory
and typical character of the Levitical law. The apologies addressed to
the Gentiles were quite different, as was natural. They dealt with the
true nature of God, the conceptions men ought to form of Him, and the
immoralities of the pagan deities. The newly-discovered Apology of
Aristides, which I have described in the preface, dating from about 124
A.D., set a fashion which we find reproduced in Justin Martyr, Tatian's
Oration to the Greeks, and in Tertullian's Apology and Address, Ad
Nationes. The moral proofs of Christianity and its adaptation to the
soul's wants are their leading topics. I have treated more of this point
in the preface.
He must have set
forth the historic facts which are included in the
Apostles' Creed, the incarnation, the miracles, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the institution
of the sacrament of baptism as the means of entering
into the Church. This we conclude from the eunuch's
question to Philip, "See, here is water; what doth
hinder me to be baptized?" Assuredly Philip must
have taught him the appointment of baptism by Christ;
else what would have led the eunuch to propound such
a request? Baptism having been granted in response
to this request, the eunuch proceeded on his homeward
journey, rejoicing in that felt sense of peace and joy and
spiritual satisfaction which true religion imparts; while
Philip is removed to another field of labour, where
God has other work for him to do. He evangelised
all through the Philistine country, preaching in all the
cities till he came to Cæsarea, where in later years he
was to do a work of permanent benefit for the whole
Church, by affording St. Luke the information needful
for the composition of the Acts of the Apostles.The eunuch's name, according to Ethiopian tradition, was Indich
or Indicus. He is believed by the Abyssinians to have converted
Queen Candace, and then to have departed into India, where he
taught in Ceylon. See Ludolf's History of Ethiopia, book iii., chaps. i.
and ii.; and Bzovius' continuation of Baronius' Annals, A.D. 1524,
where there is a long correspondence between the pope and the king
of Abyssinia in that year. The Abyssinians retain to this day a great
many Jewish customs mixed with their Christianity. The Abyssinian
tradition is incorrect, however. Modern Abyssinia is not the same as
the ancient Meroë. The conversion of Abyssinia is due to the labours
of a shipwrecked merchant in the time of St. Athanasius, and derived
its faith from Egypt. The Coptic Church retains still many Jewish
rites. See "Ethiopian Church" in Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. ii.
VI. Let us in conclusion note one other point. Our
readers will have noticed that we have said nothing
concerning the reply of Philip to the eunuch's question,
"What doth hinder me to be baptized?" The Authorized
Version then inserts ver. 37, which runs thus:
"And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart,
thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God." While if we take up
the Revised Version we shall find that the Revisers have
quite omitted this verse in the text, placing it in the
margin, with a note stating that some ancient authorities
insert it wholly or in part. This verse is now given up
by all critics as an integral part of the original text,
and yet it is a very ancient interpolation, being found
in quotations from the Acts as far back as the second
century. Probably its insertion came about somehow
thus, much the same as in the case of John v. 4,
to which we have already referred in this lecture.
It was originally written upon the margin of a
manuscript by some diligent student of this primitive
history. Manuscripts were not copied in the manner
we usually think. A scribe did not place a manuscript
before him and then slowly transcribe it, but a single
reader recited the original in a scriptorium or copying-room,
while a number of writers rapidly followed his
words. Hence a marginal note on a single manuscript
might easily be incorporated in a number of copies, finding
a permanent place in a text upon which it was originally
a mere pious reflection. Regarding this thirty-seventh
verse, however, not as a portion of the text
written by St. Luke, but as a second-century comment
or note on the text, it shows us what the practice of the
next age after the Apostles was. A profession of faith
in Christ was made by the persons brought to baptism,
and probably these words, "I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God," was the local form of the baptismal
creed wherever this note was written. Justin Martyr in
his first Apology, chap. 61, intimates that such a profession
of belief was an essential part of baptism, and this
form, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,"
may have been the baptismal formula used in the ritual
appointed for these occasions. Some persons indeed
have thought that this short statement represented the
creed of the Church of the second century. This
raises a question which would require a much longer
treatment than we can now bestow upon it. Caspari, an
eminent Swedish theologian, has discussed this point at
great length in a work which the English student will
find reviewed and analysed in an article by Dr. Salmon
published in the Contemporary Review for August 1878,
where that learned writer comes to the conclusion that
the substance of the Apostles' Creed dates back practically
to the time of the Apostles. And now, as I am
concluding this volume, an interesting confirmation of
this view comes to us from an unexpected quarter.
The Apology of Aristides was a defence of Christianity
composed earlier even than those of Justin Martyr.
Eusebius fixes the date of it to the year 124 or 125 A.D.
It was at any rate one of the earliest Christian writings
outside the Canon. It has been long lost to the
Christian world. We knew nothing of its contents,
and were only aware of its former existence from
the pages of the Church History of Eusebius. Two
years ago it was found by Professor J. Rendel Harris,
in Syriac, in the Convent of St. Catharine on Mount
Sinai, and has just been published this month of May
1891 by the Cambridge University Press. It is a
most interesting document of early Christian times,
showing us how the first Apologists defended the faith
and assailed the superstitions of paganism. Professor
Harris has added notes to it which are of very great
value. He points out the weak points in paganism
which the first Christians used specially to assail.
Aristides' Apology is of peculiar value in this aspect.
It shows us how the first generation after the last
Apostle was wont to deal with the false gods of Greece,
Rome, and Egypt. It is, however, of special importance
as setting forth from a new and unexpected source how
the early Christians regarded their own faith, how they
viewed their own Christianity, and in what formularies
they embodied their belief. Professor Harris confirms
Dr. Salmon's contention set forth in the article to
which we have referred. In the time of Aristides
the Christians of Athens, for Aristides was an Athenian
philosopher who had accepted Christianity, were
at one with those of Rome and with the followers
of Catholic Christianity ever since. Aristides wrote
according to Eusebius in 124 A.D., according to Professor
Harris in the earliest days of Antoninus Pius,
that is, before 140 A.D.; but still we can extract from
his Apology all the statements of the Apostles' Creed in
a formal shape. Thus Professor Harris restores the
Creed as professed in the time of Aristides, that is,
the generation after St. John, and sets it forth as
follows:—
We believe in one God Almighty,
Maker of Heaven and Earth:
And in Jesus Christ His Son,
* * * * *
Born of the Virgin Mary.
* * * * *
He was pierced by the Jews,
He died and was buried:
The third day He rose again:
He ascended into Heaven.
* * * * *
He is about to come to judge.Texts and Studies, edited by J. A. Robinson, M.A. (Cambridge:
University Press, 1891). There are several passages in Justin's Dialogue
with Trypho which seem to be extracts from the primitive Creed.
Thus in chap. xvii. we read the following words of Justin to Trypho:
"For after you had crucified Him ... when you knew that He
had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven." In chap. xxxviii.
Trypho objects to Justin: "For you utter many blasphemies, in that you
seek to persuade us that this crucified Man was with Moses and Aaron,
and spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud; that He became man,
was crucified, and ascended up to heaven, and comes again to earth and
ought to be worshipped." The date of the Apology of Aristides is fixed
by the Armenian version of the Chronicle of Eusebius at 124 A.D.
The Paschal Chronicle apparently assigns it to 134 A.D.
* * * * *
This Apology of Aristides is a most valuable contribution
to Christian evidence, and raises high hopes as
to what we may yet recover when the treasures of the
East are explored. The Diatessaron of Tatian was a
wondrous find, but the recovery of the long-lost Apology
of Aristides endows us with a still more ancient document,
bringing us back close upon the very days of the
Apostles. As this discovery has only been published
when these pages are finally passing through the press,
I must reserve a farther notice of it for the preface to
this volume.
INDEX.
Abercius, St.,
vi.
Acta Sanctorum,
111,
162.
Acts of the Apostles, authenticity of,
11.
—— authorship of,
8,
11.
—— title of,
1.
Altus, centurion,
110.
Ananias and his wife, chap,
xi.,
225-228.
Antinomians,
134.
Apocryphal Acts,
2.
——
Gospels,
79.
Apollinarian heresy,
124.
Apostles' Creed,
417.
Apostolic constitutions,
201.
Arian heresy,
124.
Aristides'
Apology, see Preface and
400,
419.
Aristotle's
Ethics,
132,
298.
Arnold, Dr.,
306.
Arnold, Matthew,
Sonnets,
151,
178.
Ascension of Isaiah, The,
119.
Assumption of B. V. Mary,
68.
Assumption of Moses, The,
119.
Athanasius, St.,
270,
291,
416.
Augustine, St.,
Letters,
195,
242,
386.
Barcochba,
157.
Barlaam and Joasaph,
viii.
Barnabas, early life of,
218.
—— personal appearance of,
219.
Baxter,
134,
137.
Bede,
Eccles. Hist.,
294.
Beveridge,
134.
Bingham,
Antiquities,
67,
386.
Bollandists,
111,
162.
Brady, Tate and,
Psalms,
381.
Brownlow and Northcote,
Roma Sotteranea,
112.
Buddhism,
400.
Bull,
134.
Bunting, Jabez,
3.
Burgess, Rev. H. W., LL.D.,
xiii.
Burnet, Bishop,
Commentary on the Thirty-Nine Articles,
192.
Butler, Bishop,
18.
Bzovius,
Continuation of Baronius' Annals,
415.
Calvin,
384.
Candace,
411,
412.
Capes, Rev. W. W., M.A.,
The Age of the Antonines,
154.
Cardinals, College of,
280.
Cato,
de Re Rustica,
58.
Cave,
Lives of Fathers,
219.
Charteris, Dr.,
11.
Chrysostom, St.,
113.
Cicero,
Tusc. Disp.,
56,
298.
Cistercians,
174.
Clarke, Adam,
3.
Clement of Alexandria,
286,
344.
Clement of Rome,
3,
273,
280,
400.
Clementine literature,
79.
Coke, Thomas,
3.
Columbanus, St.,
7.
Confirmation, rite of, chaps.
xviii.,
xix.
Contemporary Review,
199,
359,
417.
Conybeare and Howson,
Life and Epistles of St. Paul,
217.
Coptic Church,
416.
Cornelius à Lapide,
242.
Court of the Gentiles,
158.
Crisp, Tobias, Dr.,
Sermons,
134.
Crispin, St.,
161.
Cyprian, St.,
386.
Cyprus,
216.
Cyril, St., of Jerusalem,
66.
Darby, J. N.,
382.
David, tomb of, opened,
125.
Deacons, choice and work of, chaps.
xiii.,
xiv.
De Voguë,
Le Temple de Jérusalem,
158,
165.
Dictionary of Christian Biography,
xi,
2,
16,
25,
32,
65,
79,
112,
120,
125,
157,
239,
257,
259,
270,
274,
342.
—— ——
Antiquities,
144.
—— ——
Greek and Roman Geography,
412.
Didache,
97,
139,
149,
377.
Douket, in
Rev. des Quest. Hist.,
viii.
Ebionites,
120.
Emania,
110.
Egypt,
38.
Enoch, Book of,
25,
28,
119.
Epiphanius,
on Weights and Measures,
66.
Ethiopian eunuch, chap.
xx.
Eusebius,
Chronicle of,
vii,
65,
419.
——
Hist. Eccles.,
viii,
9,
79,
102,
156,
323,
344,
418.
Eutychianism,
48,
314.
Expositor, The,
359.
Fabricius,
Cod. Apoc.,
79.
——
Cod. Pseud. V. T.,
25.
False Decretals,
373.
Fayûm MSS.,
359.
Ferguson, Sir S.,
Lays of Western Gael,
110.
Fingal and its Churches,
6.
Fisher,
Marrow of Modern Divinity,
134.
Fox, George,
185.
Franciscans,
163.
Friends, Society of,
185,
186.
Fuller, Rev. J. M.,
120.
Gamaliel,
232-242.
Gate of Temple (Chulda),
158.
Gaza,
401.
Gibbon,
History,
57.
Golden Gate,
158.
Goulburn, Dean,
Acts of the Deacons,
v.,
404.
Gwynn, Dr.,
2.
Hadrian, Emperor,
66.
Hall, S. C.,
5.
Harnack,
Texte u. Untersuch.,
x,
xi.
Harris, Professor,
vii,
viii,
418.
Helena, Empress,
66.
Herzog,
Encyclopædia,
137,
181,
278.
Hippolytus,
vii.
Hook, Dean,
381.
Howard, John,
291.
Hyreanus,
125.
Indich,
415.
Irenæus,
13,
276,
286.
——
Adv. Hær.,
121.
Irish longevity,
5.
Irvingites,
198.
Jason and Papiscus,
xi.
Jerome, St.,
x,
xii,
6,
110,
194,
386.
Jesuits,
152.
John, St.,
Acts of,
2.
Jortin,
232.
Josephus,
Antiqq.,
125,
174,
198,
217,
235,
236,
238,
251,
274,
354.
——
Wars,
125,
158,
198.
Jubilees, Book of,
25,
28.
Judas Iscariot,
80,
81.
Julian the Apostate,
393.
Justin Martyr,
ix,
x,
xi,
275,
355,
400,
414,
417.
Keble, John,
Christian Year,
21,
227,
324,
368.
Kingsley, Charles,
206.
Kitto,
Bib. Cyclop.,
25,
181,
278,
282.
Le Bas and Waddington,
Voyage Archéolog.,
270.
Le Blant,
297.
Leslie, Charles,
Short and Easy Method with the Deists,
77.
Lewin,
Fasti Sacri,
196,
248.
Liddon, Canon,
University Sermons and Bampton Lectures,
55,
340.
Lightfoot, Bishop,
Apostolic Fathers,
274.
—— ——
Clement of Rome,
166,
335.
—— ——
Essays,
268.
—— ——
Supernatural Religion,
239.
—— ——
Commentaries on Epistles,
v,
195,
269,
376.
Lightfoot, Dr. J.,
Horæ Hebraicæ,
64,
84,
97,
125,
147,
158,
177,
181,
182,
233,
260,
272,
333,
335.
Lipsius, Professor,
25.
Locke, J.,
402.
Lucian,
278.
Ludolf,
Hist. of Ethiopia,
415.
Luke, St., authorship of Gospel,
10.
Lyons, Epistle of the Church of,
8.
Mahometanism,
314,
402.
Malalas,
Chronographia,
342.
Marcion,
10,
270.
Marnas, the God of Gaza,
410.
Martial,
Epigrams,
312.
Martyrologium Romanum,
325.
Matthias, election of,
73,
77,
78,
79.
Maurice, F. D.,
206.
Mechitarites,
viii.
Mede, Joseph,
Works of,
64,
67,
84.
Meroë,
412.
Metaphrastes, Simeon,
vi,
218.
Meyer on the Acts,
98,
217,
230.
Mill, J. S.,
Logic,
132.
Milles, Bishop,
Works of St. Cyril,
67.
Milman,
History of the Jews,
217.
Mithraism,
32.
Mivart, St. George,
Genesis of Species,
60.
Moll, Dr. A., on
Hypnotism,
100,
123,
230,
360.
Montanists,
154.
Monumenta Franciscana,
163.
Muratorian Fragment,
7.
Nelson,
Fasts and Festivals,
79.
Neo-Cæsarea,
266.
Nestorianism,
48.
New Testament, Canon of,
16.
Newman, Cardinal,
381,
206.
Newton, Robert,
3.
Nicanor, Gate of,
158.
Nicodemus,
240.
Nicolas, proselyte of Antioch,
286.
Northcote,
Epitaphs of the Catacombs,
112.
Novatianus,
237.
Novatian heresy,
237.
Novatus,
237.
Origen,
79,
101,
400.
Otto,
Corp. Apologet.,
x.
Overbeck,
x.
Palmer, William,
237.
Pantænus,
400.
Papias,
80.
Papiscus,
xi.
Patrick, St.,
Confession,
xii.
—— his family,
281.
Paul, St.,
Acts of,
2.
—— at Thessalonica,
37.
Peregrinus Proteus,
278.
Peter, St.,
Acts of,
2.
—— character of,
71.
Phelps, W. E. C.,
xiii.
Philip, St., chaps.
xvii.-xx.
Philo,
30.
Photius,
vi.
Pilate, Pontius,
250.
Pitra, Card.,
Analecta Sacra,
viii,
240.
Pliny,
Letters,
108,
180,
274,
276.
Plymouth Brethren,
133,
198,
382.
Polycarp,
3,
274.
—— teaching of,
14.
Pothinus,
9.
Powerscourt, Lady,
Letters and Papers of,
198.
Prudentius,
158.
Quadratus,
Apology of,
vii,
viii,
ix.
Quaresmius, Fr.,
Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio,
67.
Quinctilian,
298.
Ramsay, Professor,
Historical Geog. of Asia Minor,
103.
—— in
Jour. Hellenic Studies,
vi.
Reformers,
152.
Rénan,
viii,
53.
Revue Archéologique,
175.
Robinson, J. A.,
Texts and Studies,
419.
Routh, Dr.,
Reliquiæ, Sacræ,
81.
Salmon, Dr.,
Introduction to N.T.,
2,
8,
10,
11,
69,
79,
358.
—— in
Cont. Review,
417.
——
Sermons,
135.
Sanday, Dr.,
10.
Savings Banks,
205.
Schaff,
Theological Encyclopædia,
v,
296.
Schwegler,
x.
Scillitan Martyrs,
15.
Second coming of Christ, discussion about,
36.
Selden,
De Synedriis,
181,
278,
295.
Shepherd of Hermas,
97,
382.
Shushan Gate,
158.
Simon Magus, chaps.
xvii.,
xix.
Simony,
394.
Solomon,
Psalms of,
25.
Speratus, St.,
15.
Stanley, Dean,
Sinai and Palestine,
354.
Stephen, St., chaps.
xiv.,
xv.,
xvi.
Sternhold and Hopkins,
Psalms,
381.
Stewart and Tait,
The Unseen Universe,
47.
Stillingfleet,
134,
137.
Stoics,
153,
342.
Stokes, G. T.,
Celtic Church,
111,
282,
323.
—— ——
Norman Church,
163,
282.
Survey of Western Palestine,
331.
Tacitus,
Annals,
58,
130.
Talmud,
175.
Tatian,
vii,
65,
400,
415,
419.
Taylor, Jeremy,
Holy Living,
89.
Telemachus, St.,
56.
Tertullian,
3,
7,
56,
109,
381,
382,
384,
386,
415.
——
De Carne Christi,
121.
Texts and Studies,
viii,
419.
Theodoret,
Eccles. Hist.,
57.
Theodosian Code,
348.
Theophylact,
81.
Thomas, St.,
Acts of,
2.
Tischendorf,
Acta Apoc.,
79.
Tractarian movement,
237.
Transactions of the Society of Bibl. Arch.,
166,
202.
Trench, Archbishop,
Notes on the Parables,
47.
—— ——
Notes on the Miracles,
405.
Twelve Apostles, Teaching of (see Didache),
97,
139,
149,
377.
Unseen Universe, The, by Messrs. Stewart and Tait,
47.
Vatican Council,
265.
Vaughan, C. J., D.D.,
The Church of the First Days,
226,
317.
Victor I., Pope,
14.
Watson, Richard,
3.
Wesley, John,
3,
137,
291,
381.
Wilberforce, William,
291.
Williams, Dr.,
134,
135,
137.
Zeller,
Acts of the Apostles,
230,
326.
Indexes
Index of Scripture Commentary
Index of Citations
- Acta Apoc.:
1
2
- Acta Sanctorum:
1
2
3
- Acts:
1
2
3
4
5
- Acts of:
1
2
3
- Acts of the Apostles:
1
2
3
- Acts of the Deacons:
1
2
- Acts of the Saints:
1
- Ad Judæos:
1
- Ad Nationes:
1
2
- Adv. Hær.:
1
2
- Adv. Jovin.:
1
- Against Heresies:
1
- Against the Jews:
1
- Analecta Sacra:
1
2
- Analogy:
1
2
- Annals:
1
2
3
4
- Antiqq.:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
- Antiquities:
1
2
3
4
5
- Apocryphal Acts:
1
- Apologeticus:
1
- Apology:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
- Apology of:
1
- Apost. Fathers:
1
- Apostolic Fathers:
1
- Apostolic constitutions:
1
- Ascension of Isaiah, The:
1
- Assemblies of the Hebrews:
1
- Assumption of Moses, The:
1
- Bampton Lectures:
1
- Bib. Cyclop.:
1
- Biblical Cyclopædia:
1
2
3
- Bibliotheca:
1
2
3
- Canonicity:
1
- Catech.:
1
- Celtic Church:
1
- Cf.:
1
2
- Chorography of the Holy Land:
1
- Christian Year:
1
2
3
4
- Chronica:
1
- Chronicle:
1
2
- Chronicle of:
1
- Chronographia:
1
2
- Church History:
1
2
- Clement of Rome:
1
2
- Clementine Recognitions:
1
2
- Cod. Apoc.:
1
- Cod. Apoc. N. T.:
1
- Cod. Pseud. V. T.:
1
- Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test.:
1
- Cohortatio ad Græcos:
1
2
- Colossians:
1
- Commentaries on Epistles:
1
- Commentary on the Thirty-Nine Articles:
1
- Confession:
1
2
- Cont. Review:
1
- Contemporary Review:
1
2
3
4
- Continuation of Baronius' Annals:
1
- Corp. Apologet.:
1
- Corpus Apologetarum:
1
- Cyclopædia:
1
2
3
4
- De Aleatoribus:
1
- De Carne Christi:
1
2
- De Dis Syris:
1
- De Re Rustica:
1
- De Spectaculis:
1
- De Synedriis:
1
2
- De Vir. Illust.:
1
- Decline and Fall:
1
- Dialogue:
1
2
3
4
- Diatessaron:
1
2
3
- Dict. Chris. Biog.:
1
- Dict. Christ. Biog.:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
- Dictionary of Christian Antiquities:
1
- Dictionary of Christian Biography:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography:
1
- Didache:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
- Discourse Of Churches:
1
- Eccles. Hist.:
1
2
3
4
- Ecclesiastical History:
1
2
- Encyclopædia:
1
- Encyclopædia of Historical Theology:
1
- Enoch, Book of:
1
- Ep.:
1
- Epigrams:
1
- Epistle to Diognetus:
1
- Epitaphs of the Catacombs:
1
2
- Essays:
1
- Ethics:
1
2
- Expositor:
1
2
3
4
- Expositor, The:
1
- False Decretals:
1
- Fasti Sacri:
1
2
3
- Fasts and Festivals:
1
2
- Fingal and its Churches:
1
2
- First Apol.:
1
- Galatians:
1
- Genesis of Species:
1
2
- Geography of Asia Minor:
1
- Gospels:
1
- Greek and Roman Geography:
1
- H. E.:
1
- Handbook for Palestine:
1
- Hist. Eccles.:
1
- Hist. des Auteurs Ecclésiastiques:
1
- Hist. of Ethiopia:
1
- Historical Geog. of Asia Minor:
1
- Historical Geography of Asia Minor:
1
- History:
1
2
- History of Ethiopia:
1
- History of Hypnotism:
1
- History of Jews:
1
- History of the Jews:
1
- Holy Living:
1
2
- Homilies:
1
- Hor. Heb.:
1
- Horæ Heb.:
1
2
3
- Horæ Hebr.:
1
- Horæ Hebraicæ:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
- Hypnotism:
1
2
- Inscriptions:
1
- Institutes of Theology:
1
- Introd. N.T.:
1
2
- Introduction:
1
- Introduction N. T.:
1
- Introduction to N.T.:
1
- Introduction to the Acts:
1
- Introduction to the N.T.:
1
- Introduction to the New Testament:
1
2
- Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church:
1
2
- Ireland and the Celtic Church:
1
2
3
4
- Jour. Hellenic Studies:
1
- Journal of Hellenic Studies:
1
- Jubilees, Book of:
1
- Lancet:
1
- Lays of Western Gael:
1
- Lays of the Western Gael:
1
- Le Temple de Jérusalem:
1
2
- Letters:
1
2
3
4
5
- Letters and Papers of:
1
- Library:
1
- Life:
1
- Life and Epistles of St. Paul:
1
- Life of St. Paul:
1
2
- Lives:
1
- Lives of Fathers:
1
- Lives of the Primitive Fathers:
1
- Logic:
1
2
- Lyons, Epistle of the Church of:
1
- Marrow of Modern Divinity:
1
2
- Martyrdoms:
1
- Martyrologium Romanum:
1
2
- Monumenta Franciscana:
1
2
- Muratorian Fragment:
1
- New Testament Canon:
1
- Norman Church:
1
- Notes on the Miracles:
1
2
- Notes on the Parables:
1
2
- On Weights and Measures:
1
- On the Life and Fate of Judas Iscariot:
1
- Oratio:
1
- Oration:
1
2
- Oration to the Greeks:
1
2
- Origines de Christianisme:
1
- Paschal Chronicle:
1
- Pat. Lat.:
1
- Philippians:
1
- Picturesque Ireland:
1
- Privilegium Petri:
1
- Psalms:
1
2
3
- Recognitions:
1
2
3
- Reliquiæ Sacræ:
1
- Reliquiæ, Sacræ:
1
- Rev. des Quest. Hist.:
1
- Revue Archéologique:
1
2
- Revue des Questions Historiques:
1
- Roma Sotteranea:
1
2
- Saturday Review:
1
- Sermons:
1
2
- Sermons at the Octagon Chapel, Bath:
1
- Shepherd:
1
- Shepherd of Hermas:
1
2
3
- Short and Easy Method:
1
- Short and Easy Method with the Deists:
1
2
- Sinai and Palestine:
1
2
3
- Sonnets:
1
- Strom.:
1
- Stromata:
1
- Supernatural Religion:
1
2
3
- Survey of Western Palestine:
1
2
3
- Talmud:
1
- Teaching of the Apostles:
1
2
3
4
- Teaching of the Twelve Apostles:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
- Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio:
1
2
- Texte:
1
- Texte u. Untersuch:
1
- Texte u. Untersuch.:
1
- Texte und Untersuchungen:
1
- Texts:
1
- Texts and Studies:
1
2
3
- Texts and Studies in Biblical and Patristic Literature:
1
- The Acts of the Deacons:
1
- The Age of the Antonines:
1
2
- The Christian Year:
1
- The Chronicle of Eusebius:
1
2
- The Church of the First Days:
1
2
- The Gospels in the Second Century:
1
- The Laws of the Hebrews:
1
- The Letters and Papers of Lady Powerscourt:
1
- The Reign of Law:
1
- The Unseen Universe:
1
2
- Theological Cyclopædia:
1
- Theological Encyclopædia:
1
- Times:
1
- Transactions:
1
2
- Transactions of the Society of Bibl. Arch.:
1
- Tusc. Disp.:
1
- Tusculan Disputations:
1
- Twelve Apostles, Teaching of:
1
- University Sermons and Bampton Lectures:
1
- Unseen Universe:
1
- Unseen Universe, The:
1
- Voyage Archéolog.:
1
- Voyage Archéologique:
1
- Wars:
1
2
3
- Wars of the Jews:
1
- Works:
1
2
3
4
5
6
- Works of:
1
- Works of St. Cyril:
1
- bien réellement:
1
- cf.:
1
- de Re Rustica:
1
Index of Latin Words and Phrases
- Media Via:
1
- Via Media:
1
- dies natalis:
1
- ministræ:
1
- usus loquendi:
1
- à priori:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Index of Pages of the Print Edition