The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 1

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 /cite>, 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, [1] See the treatise on the Christian Ministry in his Philippians, p. 186.

[2] Dr. Goulburn, in his Acts of the Deacons, suggested this view of the Acts of the Apostles nearly thirty years ago.

[3] For an account of Simeon Metaphrastes the English reader should consult Dr. Schaff's valuable EncyclopÆdia of Historical Theology.

[4] 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.

[5] Ceillier, Hist. des Auteurs EcclÉsiastiques, i., 403.

[6] 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.

[7] 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).

[8] St. 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.

[9] 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).

[10] 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.

[11] 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.

[12] 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.

[13] See two articles on St. Columbanus and his library in the Expositor for June and August 1889.

[14] Dr. Salmon, in his Introd. N.T., pp. 48-54, describes the Muratorian Fragment.

[15] See Dr. Sanday's The Gospels in the Second Century, and Dr. Salmon's Introd. N.T., pp. 204-208.

[16] 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.

[17] 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.

[18] See Butler's Analogy, Part II., chap. vi.

[19] J. Keble, "The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany."

[20] 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.

[21] 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."

[22] 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.

[23] 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.

[24] 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.

[25] See my Ireland and the Celtic Church for the traditions about St. Joseph of England.

[26] 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.

[27] 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.

[28] See Archbishop Trench on the Draw-net in Notes on the Parables, p. 145, 10th ed.

[29] 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.

[30] 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.

[31] 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.

[32] 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.

[33] 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).

[34] 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."

[35] See St. George Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 282. The whole chapter (xii.) on Theology and Evolution is well worth careful study.

[36] 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).

[37] 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."

[38] Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures, ch. xiv.

[39] 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.

[40] See, for a fuller account, Salmon's Introduction N. T., 4th ed., pp. 384-86, and the references there given.

[41] Peter may have learned this mystical mode of interpretation from our Lord Himself in His conversations. See Luke xxiv. 44-9.

[42] 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.

[43] 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.

[44] 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.

[45] In the last lecture I have already given the reference to Lightfoot's and Mede's works where this point is fully worked out.

[46] 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.

[47] Prayer for all estates of men in the Holy Catholic Church, in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, chap. iv., sec. vii.

[48] 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).

[49] 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.'"

[50] Isa. xxv. 7. See Lightfoot, HorÆ Heb., on Acts ii.

[51] Meyer on Acts (ii. 4), vol. i., pp. 67, 68. Clark's translation.

[52] 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.

[53] 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.

[54] 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.

[55] 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.

[56] 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.

[57] Tertullian, Against the Jews, chap. vii.

[58] Adv. Jovin., lib. ii., cap. 7, in Migne's Pat. Lat., t. xxiii., col. 296.

[59] I have worked out this point at some length in Ireland and the Celtic Church, chap. i., pp. 14-20.

[60] 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.

[61] 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.

[62] 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."

[63] See Moll's Hypnotism, p. 216, in the "Contemporary Science Series."

[64] See the article on "Apollinaris the Younger" in the Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. i., for a concise account of the Apollinarian heresy.

[65] HorÆ HebraicÆ on Acts ii. 29.

[66] See Josephus, Antiqq., XIII., viii., 4; XVI., vii., 1; Wars, I., ii., 5.

[67] 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.

[68] 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.

[69] 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.

[70] 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.

[71] 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.

[72] See the articles on Baptism and Baptistery in Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. i.

[73] See Dr. John Lightfoot's HorÆ HebraicÆ, St. Matt. xvi. 19.

[74] 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.

[75] Sonnet by Matthew Arnold on Rural Work.

[76] This line of thought has been already touched upon in Lect. IV., pp. 61-3.

[77] 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.

[78] See the article on Barcochba in the Dict. Christ. Biog., vol. i.

[79] 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.

[80] 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.

[81] 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.

[82] 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.

[83] In the new edition of Clement of Rome, by Bishop Lightfoot, vol. i., pp. 92, 93, there is an account of this ancient church.

[84] "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).

[85] Acts xxiv. 6.

[86] 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.

[87] See more on this point in Dr. John Lightfoot's HorÆ HebraicÆ, Luke xxii. 4 and Acts iv.

[88] 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.

[89] 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.

[90] 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.

[91] St. Matt. x. 19.

[92] 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.

[93] 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.

[94] 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 ??S??S written in capitals. The fish, again, was a favourite symbol, because each letter of the Greek word ????? stood for a different title of our Lord, ??s???, ???st??, Te??, ????, S?t??, or Jesus, Christ, God, Son, Saviour.

[95] See Burnet's exposition of the eighteenth Article in his commentary on the Thirty-Nine Articles.

[96] 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.

[97] 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.

[98] 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."

[99] 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.

[100] 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.

[101] 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.

[102] 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.

[103] See Lightfoot's HorÆ Heb., Acts iv. 36; cf. Josh. xxi. 18.

[104] 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.

[105] C. J. Vaughan, D.D., The Church of the First Days, pp. 105-12.

[106] Ezek. xx. 32.

[107] 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.

[108] 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.

[109] 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.

[110] 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.

[111] 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."

[112] 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.

[113] 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.

[114] 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.

[115] See the authorities for the chronology of this period as given in Lewin's Fasti Sacri, pp. 247-53.

[116] 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.

[117] See Josephus, Antiqq., XVIII., iii., 1, 2.

[118] 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.

[119] 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.

[120] 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, d?a???e?? and d?a????a, 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."

[121] 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.

[122] 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.

[123] 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."

[124] In the twelfth century the number of cardinal deacons was fixed at fourteen, at which it has ever since remained.

[125] See Kitto's Biblical CyclopÆdia, articles on Synagogue and Deacon, or Schaff's edition of Herzog's CyclopÆdia, article on Synagogues.

[126] 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!

[127] 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.

[128] See Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book ii., chap. 2.

[129] 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.

[130] 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.

[131] See p. 108 above, where I have touched on this point.

[132] 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.

[133] See chap. xiii., p. 248, above.

[134] 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.

[135] 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.

[136] 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.

[137] 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.

[138] See Malalas' Chronographia, lib. xi., and the article on Malalas in the Dict. Christ. Biog., where this story is given at length.

[139] See Eusebius, v. 18; Clem. Alex., Strom., vi. 5.

[140] 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").

[141] 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.

[142] 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.

[143] 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.

[144] 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.

[145] 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.

[146] See Acts xvi. 6-10, compared with Gal. iv. 13.

[147] The Christian Year, 2nd Sunday after Epiphany.

[148] See about this curious sect of the Hemero-baptists Lightfoot's Colossians, pp. 402-407.

[149] 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.

[150] 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.

[151] See Tertullian on Prayer, in his Works, vol. i., pp. 188-92, as translated in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library.

[152] 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.

[153] 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.

[154] 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.

[155] Compare 1 Cor. vi. 19 with Heb. vi. 4, 5.

[156] 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."

[157] 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.

[158] 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.

[159] 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.

[160] The verse John v. 4 of the Authorised Version has now been relegated to the margin of the Revised Version.

[161] 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.

[162] See the article "MeroË" in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, for a long account of the land whence the eunuch came.

[163] 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.

[164] 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.

[165] 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.

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