i^; 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Alfred C. Barnes 
 
Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN 
 
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Cornell University 
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THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON ■ BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW VOEK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA ■ SAN FHANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltu. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA 
 
 A COURSE OF LECTURES 
 
 ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND EARLY 
 CONCEPTIONS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 AND FOUR SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT D.D. 
 
 LADY MARGARET'S READER IN DIVINITY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 
 MAOMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1908 
 V. 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
First Edition, 1897. 
 Reprinted 1898, 1900, rgoS. 
 
 ^<>t^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book consists in the first place of a course 
 of lectures delivered by Dr Hort as Lady 
 Margaret Professor in the Michaelmas Terms of 1888 
 and 1889 on 'The Early History and the Early 
 Conceptions of the Christian Ecclesia'. The plan 
 of the lectures is the same as that of the Lectures 
 on Judaistic Christianity. 
 
 They contain a careful survey of the evidence to 
 be derived from the literature of the Apostolic age for 
 the solution of a fundamental problem. 
 
 The title ' Ecclesia ' was chosen, as the opening 
 lecture explains, expressly for its freedom from the 
 distracting associations which have gathered round its 
 more familiar synonyms. It is in itself a sufficient 
 indication of the spirit of genuine historical enquiry 
 in which the study was undertaken. 
 
 The original scheme included an investigation into 
 the evidence of the early Christian centuries, and the 
 book is therefore in one sense no doubt incomplete. On 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the other hand it is no mere fragment. The lectures 
 as they stand practically exhaust the evidence of the 
 New Testament, at least as far as the Early History 
 of Christian institutions is concerned. And Dr Hort's 
 conclusions on the vexed questions with regard to 
 the ' Origines ' of the different Orders in the Christian 
 Ministry will no doubt be scanned with peculiar 
 interest. It is however by no means too much to say 
 that it was the other side of his subject, 'the Early 
 Conceptions of the Ecclesia', that gave it its chief 
 attraction for Dr Hort. And on this side unfortunately 
 the limitations of lecturing compelled him to leave 
 many things unsaid to which he attached the greatest 
 importance. 
 
 An effort has been made to supply this deficiency 
 by including in the volume four Sermons dealing 
 with different applications of the fundamental con- 
 ception preached on different occasions during the 
 last twenty years of his life. Two of these Dr Hort 
 at one time intended to incorporate in the same 
 volume with his Hulsean Lectures ^The Way, The 
 Truth, The Life'. The other two were printed by 
 request directly after they had been delivered. The 
 last has a special interest as the last public utterance 
 of its author. It is the expression in a concentrated 
 form of the thought of a lifetime on the vital condi- 
 tions of Church life in special relation to the pressing 
 needs of to-day. 
 
 The course in 1889 began with a somewhat full 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 recapitulation of the course delivered in 1 888. I have 
 not thought it worth while to print this recapitulation 
 at length. A few modifications have however been 
 introduced from it into the text of the original lectures, 
 and a few additions appended as footnotes. Otherwise 
 the Lectures are printed, with a few necessary verbal 
 alterations, as they stand in the Author's MSS. I am 
 further responsible for the divisions of the text, for the 
 titles of the Lectures, and for the headings of the 
 separate paragraphs. 
 
 My best thanks are due to the Rev. F. G. Masters, 
 formerly scholar of Corpus Christi College, Cam- 
 bridge, for much help in revising the proof-sheets 
 and for the compilation of the index. 
 
 J. O. F. MURRAY. 
 
 Em.manuel College, Cambridge. 
 March. 12th, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND THE 
 EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF THE ECCLESIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 The word Ecclesia. 
 
 Its sense in the Old Testament. — Its sense in the Gospels. — The 
 Ecclesia (without the name) in the Gospels. . . pp. i — 21. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Apostles in relation to the Ecclesia. 
 
 The term ' Apostle' in the Gospels. — The Last Supper. — The utter- 
 ances after the Resurrection. — The new Apostolic mission. 
 
 pp. 22 — 41. 
 
 III. 
 
 Early Stages in the Growth of the Ecclesia. 
 
 The witness in Jerusalem.— The appointment of the Seven.— The 
 Ecclesia spreading throughout the Holy Land. . . pp. 42—58. 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 IV, 
 
 The Ecclesia of Antioch. 
 
 The Origin of the Ecclesia. — Sending help to Jerusalem. — The 
 
 Antiochian Mission. — The first missionary journey The Conference 
 
 at Jerusalem. — The letter and its reception. — St Peter at Antioch. 
 
 PP- 69—75- 
 
 V. 
 
 The Exercise of Authority. 
 
 St James and his position.^The Authority of the Jerusalem Elders 
 and of the Twelve. — The Twelve and the Gentiles. — The Government 
 of the Ecclesia of Antioch. pp. j6 — ^i, 
 
 VI. 
 
 St Paul at Ephesus. 
 
 The later history of the resolutions of the Conference. — The founding 
 of the Ecclesia of Ephesus — St Paul's discourse to the Ephesian Elders 
 at Miletus. — St Paul's reception at Jerusalem and at Rome. 
 
 pp. 92 — 106. 
 
 VII. 
 The 'Ecclesia' in the Epistles. 
 
 The uses of the word. — Individuals not lost in the Society Classes 
 
 of Christian Societies termed Ecclesiae The many Ecclesiae and the 
 
 °"^- pp. 107 — 122. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Earlier Epistles of St Paul. 
 
 The Epistles to the Thessalonians.— The Epistles to the Corinthians. 
 — The Epistle to the Romans. .... pp. 123 13^. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The one Universal Ecclesia in the Epistles of 
 THE First Roman Captivity. 
 
 The Epistle to the Philippians. — ^The Epistle to the Ephesians. — ■ 
 The image of the body. — Husband and Wife. . . pp. 135—152. 
 
 X. 
 
 'Gifts' and 'Grace.' 
 
 The meaning of the terms. — The source of the Gifts. — 'Functions' 
 not formal ' Offices. ' — The image of the ' Body.' — The image of ' build- 
 ing.' — ' The foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.' — The Universal 
 Ecclesia and the partial Ecclesiae pp. 153 — 170. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Titus and Timothy in the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 The interpretation of i Tim. iii. 14 f. — The Mission of Titus in 
 Crete.— Timothy's Mission in Ephesus. — Timothy's antecedents. — 
 Timothy's original appointment. — Timothy's xa/i'i^/ia. PP- 171 — 188. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Officers of the Ecclesia in the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 The qualifications of an Elder in Crete. — Elders in Ephesus accord- 
 ing to I Timothy.— What is required of 'Deacons.' — The words Siokovos 
 and SuiKovia. — The function of ' Deacons ' in Ephesus.- — ^The salutation 
 in Phil. i. i. — 'Laying on of hands' in i Tim. v. 12. — 'Laying on of 
 hands' in ordination. pp. 189 — 217. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Brief Notes on various Epistles, and 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 Directions for public prayer in i Timothy. — Various evidence of 
 James, i Peter, Hebrews, Apocalypse. — Problems of the Second Century 
 and later. — Recapitulation. pp. 218 — 233. 
 
 FOUR SERMONS. 
 
 I. AT AN ORDINATION OF PRIESTS 
 
 AND DEACONS pp. 237—249. 
 
 II. AT A UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 
 
 OF BENEFACTORS pp. 250—264 
 
 III. IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. . pp. iSj—^yy. 
 
 IV. AT THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP 
 
 WESTCOTT pp. ,78-294. 
 
 Appendix. Decoration of Emmanuel College Chapel pp. 295—297. 
 ^'^"^^ pp. ^99-306. 
 
F> LECTURE I. 
 
 The Word Ecclesia. 
 
 The subject on which I propose to lecture this 
 term is The early conceptions and early history of the 
 Christian Ecclesia. The reason why I have chosen 
 the term Ecclesia is simply to avoid ambiguity. The 
 English term church, now the most familiar repre- 
 sentative of ecclesia to most of us, carries with it 
 associations derived from the institutions and doc- 
 trines of later times, and thus cannot at present 
 without a constant mental effort be made to convey 
 the full and exact force which originally belonged 
 to ecclesia. There would moreover be a second 
 ambiguity in the phrase the early history of the 
 Christian Church arising out of the vague com- 
 prehensiveness with which the phrase ' History of the 
 Church' is conventionally employed. 
 
 It would of course have been possible to have 
 recourse to a second English rendering 'congregation', 
 which has the advantage of suggesting some of those 
 
 H. E. I 
 
 n 
 
2 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 elements of meaning which are least forcibly sug- 
 gested by the word ' church ' according to our present 
 use. ' Congregation' was the only rendering of eV/cXT^o-ta 
 in the English New Testament as it stood throughout 
 Henry VIII. 's reign, the substitution of 'church' 
 being due to the Genevan revisers ; and it held its 
 ground in the Bishops' Bible in no less primary a 
 passage than Matt. xvi. i8 till the Jacobean revision 
 of 1611, which we call the Authorized Version. But 
 ' congregation ' has disturbing associations of its own 
 which render it unsuitable for our special purpose ; 
 and moreover its use in what might seem a rivalry to 
 so venerable, and rightly venerable, a word as 
 ' church ' would be only a hindrance in the way of 
 recovering for 'church' the full breadth of its 
 meaning. ' Ecclesia ' is the only perfectly colourless 
 word within our reach, carrying us back to the 
 beginnings of Christian history, and enabling us in 
 some degree to get behind words and names to the 
 simple facts which they originally denoted. 
 
 The larger part of our subject lies in the region of 
 what we commonly call Church History ; the general 
 Christian history of the ages subsequent to the 
 Apostolic age. But before entering on that region 
 we must devote some little time to matter contained 
 in the Bible itself. It is hopeless to try to under- 
 stand either the actual Ecclesia of post-apostolic 
 times, or the thoughts of its own contemporaries 
 about it, without first gaining some clear impressions 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 3 
 
 as to the Ecclesia of the Apostles out of which it 
 grew; to say nothing of the influence exerted all 
 along by the words of the apostolic writings, and by 
 other parts of Scripture. And again the Ecclesia of 
 the Apostles has likewise antecedents which must not 
 be neglected, immediately in facts and words recorded 
 by the Evangelists, and ultimately in the institutions 
 and teaching of the Old Covenant. 
 
 In this preliminary part of our subject, to say the 
 least, we shall find it convenient to follow the order of 
 time. 
 
 I am sorry to be unable to recommend any books 
 as sufficiently coinciding with our subject generally. 
 Multitudes of books in all civilised languages bear 
 directly or indirectly upon parts of it : but I doubt 
 whether it would be of any real use to attempt a 
 selection. In the latter part of the subject we come 
 on ground which has been to a certain extent worked 
 at by several German writers within the last few 
 years, and I may have occasion from time to time to 
 refer to some of them : they may however be passed 
 over for the present. 
 
 The sense of the word in the Old Testament. 
 
 The Ecclesia of the New Testament takes its name 
 and primary idea from the Ecclesia of the Old Testa- 
 ment. What then is the precise meaning of the term 
 Ecclesia as we find it in the Old Testament.? 
 
 The word itself is a common one in classical Greek 
 
4 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 and was adopted by the LXX. translators from Deu- 
 teronomy onwards {itot in the earlier books of the 
 Pentateuch) as their usual rendering of qdhdl. 
 
 Two important words are used in the Old Testa- 
 ment for the gathering together of the people of Israel, 
 or their representative heads, 'edhdh [R.V. congrega- 
 tion] and qdhdl [R.V. assembly]. 
 
 I.vvw^m^r) \Synagoge\ is the usual, almost the 
 universal, LXX. rendering of 'edhdh, as also in the 
 earlier books of the Pentateuch of qdhdl. So closely 
 connected in original use are the two terms Synagogue 
 and Ecclesia, which afterwards came to be fixed in 
 deep antagonism ! 
 
 Neither of the two Hebrew terms was strictly 
 technical : both were at times applied to very different 
 kinds of gatherings from the gatherings of the people, 
 though qdhdl had always a human reference of some 
 sort, gatherings of individual men or gatherings of 
 nations. The two words were so far coincident in 
 meaning that in many cases they might apparently 
 be used indifferently : but in the first instance they 
 were not strictly synonymous, 'edhdh (derived from 
 a root y'dh used in the Niphal in the sense of gathering 
 together, specially gathering together by appointment 
 or agreement) is properly, when applied to Israel, 
 the society itself, formed by the children of Israel or 
 their representative heads, whether assembled or not 
 assembled. 
 
 On the other hand qdhdl is properly their actual 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. s 
 
 meeting together : hence we have a few times the 
 phrase q'hal 'edhah 'the assembly of the congregation' 
 (rendered by the LXX. translators in Ex. xii. 6 trav to 
 Tfh.rjQo'i avvar^di'^r]^ vlwv ^\apwr\K, ia Num. xiv. 5 where 
 no equivalent is given for q'hal ■jra<jr]<; crvpayayfj'; v'loov 
 'Ia-paij\) and also g^Ml 'dm 'the assembly of the 
 people' (rendered in Judg. xx. 2 eV eKKkT^aia tov Xaov 
 Tov 6eov, in Jer. xxvi. (LXX. xxxiii.) 17 Trda-rj rfi 
 crvvayioyf] tov Xaov). The special interest of this 
 distinction lies in its accounting for the choice of the 
 rendering eicKKr](TLa: qdkdl is derived from an obsolete 
 root meaning to call or summon, and the resemblance 
 to the Greek KaXeco naturally suggested to the LXX. 
 translators the word 6KKXr]a-la, derived from KaXeco (or 
 rather iKKoXea)) in precisely the same sense. 
 
 There is no foundation for the widely spread notion 
 that iKKXtjaua means a people or a number of individual 
 men called out of the world or mankind. In itself the 
 idea is of course entirely Scriptural, and moreover it 
 is associated with the word and idea 'called,' 'calling,' 
 'call.' But the compound verb eKKoXio) is never so 
 used, and eKKXrjcrCa never occurs in a context which 
 suggests this supposed sense to have been present to 
 the writer's mind. Again, it would not have been 
 unnatural if this sense of calling out from a larger 
 body had been as it were put into the word in later 
 times, when it had acquired religious associations. 
 But as a matter of fact we do not find that it was so. 
 The original calling out is simply the calling of the 
 
6 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 citizens of a Greek town out of their houses by the 
 herald's trumpet to summon them to the assembly 
 and Numb. x. shews that the summons to the Jewish 
 assembly was made in the same way. In the actual 
 usage of both qdhal and iKKKi)ala this primary idea of 
 summoning is hardly to be felt. They mean simply 
 an assembly of the people; and accordingly in the 
 Revised Version of the Old Testament ' assembly ' is 
 the predominant rendering of qdhal. 
 
 So much for the original and distinctive force of 
 the two words, in Hebrew and Greek. Now we must 
 look a little at their historical application in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 'edhdh is by far the commoner word of the two 
 in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Joshua, but it is 
 wholly absent from Deuteronomy. The two words 
 are used in what appears to be practically the same 
 sense in successive clauses of Lev. iv. 13; Num. xvi. 
 3 ; and they are coupled together, iv ^i^ea-ai eKKX7]cria<; 
 KoX crvva^oo'^ri';, in Prov. v. I4(LXX.). Both alike are de- 
 scribed sometimes as the congregation or assembly of 
 Israel, sometimes as the congregation or assembly of 
 Jehovah ; sometimes as the congregation or the 
 assembly absolutely. In the later books 'edhdh goes 
 almost out of use. It is absent from Chronicles ex- 
 cept once in an extract from Kings or the source of 
 Kings (2 Chr. v. 6). It recurs (in the sense of con- 
 gregation of Israel, I mean) but two or three times in 
 the Psalms and the same in the Prophets. 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 7 
 
 In these, and in the poetical boolcs, qdhdl is hardly 
 more common, but it abounds in Chronicles, Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. It would seem that after the return from 
 the Exile this, the more definite and formal word, came 
 to combine the shades of meaning belonging to both. 
 Thus eKKXrjaia, as the primary Greek representative 
 of qdhdl would naturally for Greek-speaking Jews 
 mean the congregation of Israel quite as much as 
 an assembly of the congregation. 
 
 In the Apocrypha both a-vvw^ai'^r) and kKKXrjcria 
 are to be found : but it would take too long to ex- 
 amine the somewhat intricate variations of sense 
 to be found there'- But with regard to these words, 
 like many others of equal importance, there is a 
 great gap in our knowledge of the usage of Greek 
 Judaism. Philo gives us no help, the thoughts which 
 connect themselves with the idea of a national e/t- 
 KXrjcria being just of the kind which had least interest 
 for him; and Josephus's ostentatious classicalism de- 
 prives us of the information which a better Jew in 
 his position might have afforded us. For our purpose 
 it would be of peculiar interest to know what and 
 how much the term eKKXricria meant to Jews of the 
 Dispersion at the time of the Christian Era : but here 
 again we are, I fear, wholly in the dark. 
 
 1 There is an indication tliat avva-Yoiyfi was coming to mean tlie 
 local congregation in Sir. xxiv. 23 and especially in Ps. Sal. x. 7. 8. 
 
8 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 The sense of the word in the Gospels. 
 
 It is now time to come to the New Testament and 
 its use of lKKki)aia, bearing in mind that it is a word 
 which had already a history of its own, and which 
 was associated with the whole history of Israel. It is 
 also well to remember that its antecedents, as it was 
 used by our Lord and His Apostles, are of two kinds, 
 derived from the past and the present respectively. 
 Part, the most important part, of its meaning came 
 from its ancient and what we may call its religious 
 use, that is from the sense or senses which it had 
 borne in the Jewish Scriptures; part also of its 
 meaning could not but come from the senses in which 
 it was still current in the everyday life of Jews. We 
 may be able to obtain but little independent evidence 
 on this last head : but it needs only a little reflexion 
 to feel sure that in this as in other cases contemporary 
 usage cannot have been wholly inoperative. 
 
 The actual word kKKk7]aLa, as many know, is in 
 the Gospels confined to two passages of St Matthew. 
 This fact has not unnaturally given rise to doubts as 
 to the trustworthiness of the record. These doubts 
 however seem to me to be in reality unfounded. If 
 indeed it were true that matter found in a single 
 
 o 
 
 Gospel only is to be regarded with suspicion as not 
 proceeding from fundamental documents common to 
 more than one, then doubtless these passages would 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 9 
 
 be open to doubt. But if, as I believe to be the true 
 view, each evangelist had independent knowledge or 
 had access to fresh materials by which he was able to 
 make trustworthy additions to that which he obtained 
 from previous records, then there is no a priori 
 reason for suspecting these two passages of the First 
 Gospel. 
 
 It is further urged that these passages have the 
 appearance of having been thrust into the text in 
 the Second Century in order to support the growing 
 authority of the Ecclesia as an external power. An 
 interpolation of the supposed kind would however be 
 unexampled, and there is nothing in the passages 
 themselves, when carefully read, which bears out the 
 suggestion. Nay, the manner in which St Peter's 
 name enters into the language about the building of 
 Messiah's Ecclesia could not be produced by any 
 view respecting his office which was current in the 
 Second Century. In truth, the application of the term 
 eicK\.r)ala by the Apostles is much easier to understand 
 if it was founded on an impressive saying of our 
 Lord. On the other hand, during our Lord's lifetime 
 such language was peculiarly liable to be misunder- 
 stood by the outer world of Jews, and therefore it is 
 not surprising if it formed no part of His ordinary 
 public teaching. 
 
 It will be convenient to take first the less impor- 
 tant passage, Matt, xviii. 17. Here our Lord is 
 speaking not of the future but the present, instructing 
 
10 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 His disciples how to deal with an offending brother. 
 There are three stages of eXe^^t?, or bringing his fault 
 home to him ; first with him alone, next with two or 
 three brethren; and if that fails, thirdly with the 
 eKH\7)<T[a, the whole brotherhood. The principle holds 
 good in a manner for all time. The actual precept is 
 hardly intelligible if the i/cKXTjaia meant is not the 
 Jewish community, apparently the Jewish local com- 
 munity, to which the injured person and the offender 
 both belonged. 
 
 We are on quite different ground in the more 
 famous passage. Matt. xvi. i8. At a critical point in 
 the Ministry, far away in the parts of Csesarea 
 Philippi, our Lord elicits from Peter the confession, 
 " Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," 
 and pronounces him happy for having been Divinely 
 taught to have the insight which enabled him to make 
 it : " Yea and I say to thee," He proceeds, " that thou 
 art Peter (IleTyoo?, keplia), and on this ireTpa I will 
 build my Ecclesia and the gates of Hades shall 
 not prevail against it." 
 
 Here there is no question of a partial or 
 narrowly local Ecclesia. The congregation of God, 
 which held so conspicuous a place in the ancient 
 Scriptures, is assuredly what the disciples could 
 not fail to understand as the foundation of the 
 meaning of a sentence which was indeed for the 
 present mysterious. If we may venture for a moment 
 to substitute the name Israel, and read the words as 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. ii 
 
 "on this rock I will build my Israel,' we gain an 
 impression which supplies at least an approximation 
 to the probable sense. The Ecclesia of the ancient 
 Israel was the Ecclesia of 'God ; and now, having been 
 confessed to be God's Messiah, nay His Son, He could 
 to such hearers without risk of grave misunderstanding 
 claim that Ecclesia as His own. 
 
 What He declared that He would build was in 
 one sense old, in another new. It had a true con- 
 tinuity with the Ecclesia of the Old Covenant ; the 
 building of it would be a ^'^building'. Christ's work in 
 relation to it would be a completion of it, a bestowal 
 on it of power to fulfil its as yet unfulfilled Divine 
 purposes. 
 
 But it might also be called a new Ecclesia, as 
 being founded on a new principle or covenant, and 
 in this sense might specially be called the Ecclesia of 
 Messiah, Messiah actually manifested ; and under 
 such a point of view building rather than rebuilding 
 would be the natural verb to use. It is hardly 
 necessary to remind you how these two contrasted 
 aspects of the Gospel, as at once bringing in the new, 
 and fulfilling and restoring the old, are inseparably 
 intertwined in our Lord's teaching. 
 
 Hence we shall go greatly astray if we interpret 
 
 ' Cf. Acts XV. i6, where James quotes Amos ix. ii, "In that day 
 will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the 
 breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in 
 the days of old." 
 
12 THE WORD ECCLESJA. 
 
 our Lord's use of the term Ecclesia in this cardinal 
 passage exclusively by reference to the Ecclesia known 
 to us in Christian history. Speaking with reference 
 to the future, He not only speaks (as the phrase is) 
 "in terms of" the past, but emphatically marks the 
 future as an outgrowth of the past. Here however a 
 question presents itself which we cannot help asking, — 
 asking in all reverence. How came our Lord to make 
 choice of this particular word, or a word belonging 
 to this particular group .■" Common as are the two 
 Hebrew words which we have examined, 'edhdh and 
 qahal, they do not occur in any of the important 
 passages which describe or imply the distinctive 
 position of Israel as a peculiar people. Their use is 
 mainly confined to historical parts of the historical 
 book. They have no place in the greater prophecies 
 having what we call a Messianic import. From all 
 parts of the book of Isaiah they are both entirely 
 absent. ' People,' 'am, \a6<;, is the term which first 
 occurs to us as most often applied to Israel in this 
 as well as in other connexions, and which has also, 
 under limitations, considerable Apostolic sanction 
 as applied to the Christian Ecclesia. But on reflexion 
 we must see, I think, that ' people ' was a term which, 
 thus applied, belonged in strictness only to that past 
 period of the world's history in which the society of 
 men specially consecrated to God was likewise a 
 nation, one of many nations, and in the main a race, 
 one of many races. It would have been a true word, 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 13 
 
 but, as used on this occasion, liable to be misunder- 
 stood. This impression is confirmed by examination 
 of the passages of the New Testament in which \a6<i 
 (people) is applied to the Christian Ecclesia. It will 
 be found that they almost always include a direct 
 appropriation of Old Testament language ^ 
 
 If the term 'people' was not to be employed, 
 qahal {kKicKrjaia) was, as far as we can see, the fittest 
 term to take its place. Although, as we saw just now, 
 the use of the two words which we translate ' congre- 
 gation ' and ' assembly' in the Old Testament, is almost 
 wholly historical, not ideal or doctrinal, there is one 
 passage (Ps. Ixxiv. 2) in which one of them wears 
 practically another character. It is not a conspicu- 
 ous passage as it stands in the Psalter ; but the 
 manner in which St Paul adopts and adapts its 
 language in his parting address to the Ephesian 
 elders at Miletus (Acts xx. 28) amply justifies the 
 supposition that it helped directly or indirectly to 
 facilitate the use of eKKkiijcrla to denote God's people 
 
 1 Rom. ix. 25 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; Tit. ii. [4 ; i Pet. ii. 9, 10 ; Heb. 
 viii. 10 ; Ap. xviii. 4 ; xxi. 3. 
 
 In Heb. iv. 9 ; xiii. 1 1 the term includes the ancient people, and is 
 in fact suggested by the purpose of the Epistle as being addressed 
 exclusively to Christians who were also Jews. 
 
 In Acts XV. 14 6 dehs iireffK^^aro Xa^eiv i^ idt/uf \adv T(jj dv6/JXLTL 
 airoO (Revised Version paraphrastically " God did visit the Gentiles, to 
 take out of them a people for his name "J, the paradox of a people of 
 God out of the Gentiles explains and justifies itself 
 
 Nor lastly is it a real exception when the Lord tells St Paul in a 
 dream at Corinth that He has " Xads ttoXiJs in this city" (Acts xviii. 10). 
 
14 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 of the future. " Remember thy congregation which 
 thou didst purchase of old, didst redeem to be the 
 tribe of thine inheritance." 
 
 The original here is 'edhdk, and the LXX. ren- 
 dering for it avvayui'yri. St Paul substitutes eKKKjjO-ia 
 as he also substitutes -TrepteTroirja-aTo (' purchased ') for 
 the too colourless eKT^a-o) ('acquired') of the LXX., 
 while he further gives the force of the other verb 
 • redeem ' by what he says of the blood, through which 
 the purchase was made. The points that concern us 
 are these. Not 'people' but 'congregation' is the 
 word employed by the Psalmist in his appeal to God 
 on behalf of the suffering Israel of the present, with 
 reference to what He had wrought for Israel in the 
 time of old, when He had purchased them out of 
 Egypt, ransomed them out of Egyptian bondage, to 
 be a peculiar possession to Himself; these images 
 of ' purchase ' and ' ransom ' as applied to the Divine 
 operation of the Exodus being taken primarily from 
 the Song of Moses (Exod. xv. 13, 16) ; and then fresh 
 significance is given to the Psalmist's language by the 
 way in which St Paul appropriates it to describe how 
 God had purchased to Himself a new congregation 
 (now called eKKX'qaia) by the ransom of His Son's 
 lifeblood. This seventy-fourth Psalm is now generally 
 believed to be a very late one ; it is not unlikely that 
 in speaking of God's congregation rather than God's 
 people, the Psalmist was following a current usage 
 of his own time. If so, there would be an additional 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 15 
 
 antecedent leading up to the language which we 
 read in St Matthew. But to say the least, the Psalm 
 shews that such language was not absolutely new'- 
 
 But the fitness of this language by no means 
 depends only on the Psalm or on what the Psalm 
 may imply. These words denoting ' congregation ' 
 or ' assembly ' had belonged to the children of Israel 
 through their whole history from the day when they 
 became a people. In the written records of the Old 
 Testament they first start forth in this sense in 
 connexion with the institution of the Passover 
 (Ex. xii.): they continue on during the wanderings 
 in the wilderness, in the time of the Judges, under 
 the Kings, and after the Captivity when the kingdom 
 remained unrestored. Moreover they suggested no 
 mere agglomeration of men, but rather a unity 
 carried out in the joint action of many members, 
 each having his own responsibilities, the action of 
 each and all being regulated by a supreme law or 
 order. To Greek ears these words would doubtless 
 be much less significant : but what they suggested 
 would be substantially true as far as it went, and 
 it was not on Greek soil that the earliest Christian 
 Ecclesia was to arise. 
 
 This primary sense of \KiiKr)cria as a congregation 
 
 ' The four passages of the Talmud quoted by Schiirer [Eng. Tr. n. ii. 
 p. 59] to shew that qdhal came to have a high ideal character do not at 
 all bear him out. 
 
i6 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 or assembly of men is not altered by the verb "build" 
 {oUooofiy'iau}) associated with it. It is somewhat 
 difficult for us to feel the exact force of the combina- 
 tion of words, familiar as we are with the idea of 
 building as applied to the material edifice which we 
 call a church, and natural as it is for us to transfer 
 associations unconsciously from the one sense to the 
 other. To speak of men as being built is in accord- 
 ance with Old Testament usage. Thus Jer. xxiv. 6 ; 
 I will build them, and not pull them down ; and I 
 will plant them, and not pluck them up (cf. xlii. lo); 
 xxxiii. 7, I will cause the captivity of Judah and the 
 captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as 
 at the first; and elsewhere. But no doubt the singular 
 (jLov TTjv eKKXTjalav is meant to imply more distinctly 
 the building up of the whole body in unity. 
 
 What our Lord speaks of however is not simply 
 building, but building "upon this rock." It is im- 
 possible now to do more than say in the fewest words 
 that I believe the most obvious interpretation of this 
 famous phrase is the true one. St Peter himself, yet 
 not exclusively St Peter but the other disciples of 
 whom he was then the spokesman and interpreter, 
 and should hereafter be the leader, was the rock 
 which Christ had here in view. It was no question 
 here of an authority given to St Peter ; some other 
 image than that of the ground under a foundation 
 must have been chosen if that had been meant. Still 
 less was it a question of an authority which should 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 17 
 
 be transmitted by St Peter to others. The whole 
 was a matter of personal or individual qualifications 
 and personal or individual work. The outburst of 
 keenly perceptive faith had now at last shown St 
 Peter, carrying with him the rest, to have the prime 
 qualification for the task which his Lord contemplated 
 for him. 
 
 That task was fulfilled, fulfilled at once and for 
 ever so far as its first and decisive stage was concerned, 
 in the time described in the earliest chapters of the 
 Acts. The combination of intimate personal ac- 
 quaintance with the Lord, first during His Ministry 
 and then after His Resurrection, with such a faith as 
 was revealed that day in the region of Csesarea 
 Philippi, a faith which could penetrate into the 
 heavenly truth concerning the Lord that lay beneath 
 the surface of His words and works, these were the 
 qualifications for becoming the foundations of the 
 future Ecclesia, In virtue of this personal faith 
 vivifying their discipleship, the Apostles became 
 themselves the first little Ecclesia, constituting a living 
 rock upon which a far larger and ever enlarging 
 Ecclesia should very shortly be built slowly up, living 
 stone by living stone, as each new faithful convert 
 was added to the society. 
 
 But the task thus assigned to St Peter and 
 the rest was not for that generation only. To all 
 future generations and ages the Ecclesia would 
 H. E. 2 
 
1 8 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 remain built upon them, upon St Peter and his fellow 
 disciples, partly as a society continuous with the 
 Society which was built directly upon them in their 
 lifetime, partly as deriving from their faith and ex- 
 perience, as embodied in the New Testament, its 
 whole knowledge of the facts and primary teachings 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 The Ecclesia {without the name) in the Gospels. 
 
 We must not linger now over the other details of 
 our Lord's words to St Peter ; though the time we 
 have already spent on those points in them which 
 most directly concern our subject is hardly out of 
 proportion to their importance in illustration of it. 
 But we have not yet done with the Gospels. Though 
 they contain the word eKKkrjcria but twice, and refer 
 directly to the Christian Ecclesia but once, in other 
 forms they tell much that bears on our subject, far 
 more than it is possible to gather up within our limits. 
 This is one of the cases in which it is dangerous to 
 measure teaching about things by the range of the 
 names applied to things. Much had been done to- 
 wards the making of the elements of the Ecclesia 
 before its name could with advantage be pronounced 
 otherwise than under such special circumstances as 
 we have just been considering. 
 
 One large department of our Lord's teaching, 
 sometimes spoken of as if it directly belonged to our 
 subject, may, I believe, be safely laid aside. In the 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 19 
 
 verse following that which we have been considering, 
 our Lord says to St Peter " I will give thee the keys 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven." Without going into 
 details of interpretation, we can at once see that the 
 relation between the two verses implies some im- 
 portant relation between the Ecclesia and the Kingdom 
 of Heaven : but the question is, what relation ? The 
 simplest inference from the language used would be 
 that the office committed to St Peter and the rest 
 with respect to the Ecclesia, would enable him and 
 them to fulfil the office here described as committed to 
 him, with respect to the Kingdom of Heaven. But the 
 question is whether this is a sufficient account of the 
 matter. Since Augustine's time the Kingdom of 
 Heaven or Kingdom of God, of which we read so often 
 in the Gospels, has been simply identified with the 
 Christian Ecclesia. This is a not unnatural deduction 
 from some of our Lord's sayings on this subject taken 
 by themselves ; but it cannot, I think, hold its ground 
 when the whole range of His teaching about it is 
 comprehensively examined. We may speak of the 
 Ecclesia as the visible representative of the Kingdom 
 of God, or as the primary instrument of its sway, or 
 under other analogous forms of language. But we 
 are not justified in identifying the one with the other, 
 so as to be able t« apply directly to the Ecclesia 
 whatever is said in the Gospels about the Kingdom of 
 Heaven or of God. 
 
 On the other hand, wherever we find disciples and 
 
20 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 
 
 discipleship in the Gospels, there we are dealing with 
 what was a direct preparation for the founding of the 
 Ecclesia. We all know how much more this word 
 'disciples' sometimes means in the Gospels than 
 admiring and affectionate hearers, though that forms 
 a part of it ; how a closer personal relation is further 
 involved in it, for discipleship takes various forms 
 and passes through various stages. Throughout there 
 is devotion to the Lord, found at last to be no mere 
 superior Rabbi, but a true Lord of the spirit ; and 
 along with and arising out of this devotion there is a 
 growing sense of brotherhood between disciples. 
 
 Chief among the disciples are those Twelve who 
 from certain points of view are called Apostles, but very 
 rarely in the Gospels; sometimes ' The Twelve ', more 
 often simply 'The Disciples'. We do the Evangelists 
 wrong if we treat this use of terms as fortuitous or 
 trivial. It is in truth most exact and most instructive. 
 Not only was discipleship the foundation of apostle- 
 ship, but the Twelve who were Apostle? were precisely 
 the men who were most completely disciples. Here 
 we are brought back to the meaning of the building 
 of Christ's Ecclesia upon St Peter and his fellows. 
 The discipleship which accompanied our Lord's 
 Ministry contained, though in an immature form, 
 precisely the conditions by which the Ecclesia sub- 
 sisted afterwards, faith and devotion to the Lord, felt 
 and exercised in union, and consequent brotherly 
 love. It was the strength, so to speak, of St Peter's 
 
THE WORD ECCLESIA. 21 
 
 discipleship which enabled him, leading the other 
 eleven disciples and in conjunction with them, to be 
 a foundation on which fresh growths of the Ecclesia 
 could be built. 
 
 This point needs a little further examination, the 
 exact relation of the Apostles to the Ecclesia, ac- 
 cording to the books of the New Testament, being 
 a fundamental part of our subject. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 The Apostles in relation to the 
 ecclesia. 
 
 The term 'Apostle' in the Gospels. 
 
 I SAID towards the close of my last lecture 
 that the term 'Apostles' as applied to the Twelve 
 was rare hi the Gospels. Let us see what the 
 passages are. The first is a very pregnant one, 
 though simple enough in form, Mark iii. 13-16. Our 
 Lord goes up into the mountain, and " calls to Him 
 whom He Himself would, and they departed unto 
 Him. And He made twelve, whom He also named 
 Apostles, [such is assuredly the true reading, though 
 the common texts create an artificial smoothness by 
 omitting the last clause] that they should be with 
 Him, and that He should send ia-KocneXKri) them to 
 preach and to have authority to cast out the demons ; 
 and He made the Twelve... Peter (giving this name 
 to Simon) and James etc." Here by what seems 
 to be a double process of selection (though the 
 
APOSTLES IN RELATION TO THE ECCLESIA. 23 
 
 word selection is not used), proceeding wliolly from 
 Himself, our Lord sets aside twelve for two great 
 purposes, kept apart in the Greek by the double Iva : 
 the first, personal nearness to Himself "that they 
 should be with Him": the second, "with a view to 
 sendirvg them forth", this mission of theirs having 
 two heads, to preach, and to have authority to cast 
 out the ' demons ', these two being precisely the two 
 modes of action which St Mark has described in 
 i. 39 as exercised by the Lord Himself in the 
 synagogues of all Galilee, just as in the previous 
 verses i. 14-34 he had described a succession of acts 
 which came under these heads, the second head 
 evidently including the healing of the sick. Lastly 
 we learn that our Lord Himself, apparently on this 
 occasion, called these twelve chosen men 'Apostles' 
 or ' envoys '. 
 
 Whether they were or were not sent forth im- 
 mediately after this their selection, St Mark does 
 not expressly tell us. But it is morally certain that 
 he intended to represent the actual mission as not 
 immediate. Such is the natural force of 'iva airo- 
 cniXkri " with a view to sending them forth ", and 
 moreover more than one hundred verses further 
 on (vi. 7) we read how when our Lord was going 
 round the villages teaching, He called to Him- 
 self the Twelve, " and began to send them forth by 
 two and two"; and so, after a brief account of His 
 charge to them we read (vi. 12 f) '' and they went 
 
24 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 out and preached that men should repent, and they 
 cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many 
 that were sick and healed them " : — again the two heads 
 of what they were to do when sent forth. Then 
 comes the story of Herod and John the Baptist ; and 
 then (vi. 30) " and the Apostles are gathered together 
 (avvdyoi'Tai) unto Jesus, and they told Him all 
 things whatsoever they had done and whatsoever 
 they had taught" (again the two heads emphatically 
 distinguished). Henceforward the word atroa'voXo'i 
 disappears from St Mark's Gospel ; so that he 
 evidently used it only in the strictest sense, with 
 reference to this one typical mission to preach and to 
 heal, at the beginning of it and at the end of it. 
 When he wishes afterwards' to mark them out sharply 
 from the other disciples, he calls them " the Twelve." 
 
 Next, St Luke's Gospel is interesting both by its 
 resemblances and by its differences. First comes a 
 passage (vi. 12 ff.) which includes in itself both like- 
 ness and unlikeness to St Mark. " It came to pass 
 in these days that He went out unto the mountain 
 to pray, and He continued all night in His prayer 
 to God. And when it was day, He called His 
 disciples, and choosing from them twelve, whom 
 He also named Apostles, Simon..., and going 
 down with them, He stood on a level place." Here 
 
 1 See St Mark ix. 35 ; x. 32 ; xi. 11 ; xiv. 17: besides the Judas 
 passages (xiv. 10, 20, 43). 1 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 25 
 
 the selection by our Lord is mentioned, and the 
 name ' Apostles ' which He gave : but nothing is 
 said of either purpose or work. The selection is 
 associated with the Sermon on the Mount. We do 
 hear however (vi. 17 f.) of the great crowd who 
 were present " to hear Him " (the correlative of 
 preaching) " and to be healed of their diseases ", 
 " unclean spirits " being mentioned in the next 
 sentence. Then, after a considerable interval, we 
 read (ix. i) how He called together the Twelve (the 
 addition " Apostles " has high authority but is 
 probably only an Alexandrine reading), and gave 
 them power and authority over all demons and to 
 cure diseases, and sent them forth {atrkaniX^v) to 
 preach the kingdom of God and to heal. After a 
 charge of three verses only, we read (ix. 6) " And they 
 going forth went throughout the villages, preaching 
 good tidings and healing eve.rywh.e.x&" . (Thus the two 
 heads are twice repeated). Then Herod is spoken 
 of for three verses, and in v. 10 (just as in Mark vi. 
 30) we have the Twelve on their return described 
 as Apostles, " And the Apostles when they had 
 returned recounted to Him what they had done.'' 
 If we pursue the narrative a little further, we shall 
 hardly think this limitation of usage accidental. Two 
 verses later (ix. 12) it is the Twelve who are said to 
 come to our Lord and bid Him dismiss the multitude. 
 \n V. 14 they are called " His disciples ', in vv. 16, 18 
 " the' disciples ", and so on. 
 
26 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 In this Gospel however the term is not throughout 
 confined to this limited usage. Three times afterwards^ 
 it speaks of " the Apostles ", without any perceptible 
 reference to that mission, while it also speaks of ' the 
 Twelve' once^ and of 'the Eleven' twice'. The ex- 
 planation, I suppose, is that St Luke, having probably 
 in his mind the writing of the Acts, which is (see 
 Acts i. I f ) a kind of second part to the Gospel, in 
 these three places used by anticipation the title which, 
 as we shall see presently, acquired a fresh currency 
 after the Ascension : in each of the three cases the 
 accompanying language bears no trace of coming 
 from a common source with anything in the other 
 Gospels ; so that the wording is probably entirely 
 St Luke's own. The anticipatory use thus supposed 
 has no doubt an instructiveness of its own. It 
 serves to remind us how all that period, in which the 
 Twelve seemed to be only gathering m personal gdHns 
 to heart and mind by their discipleship, was in truth 
 the indispensable condition and, as it were, education 
 for their future action upon others. 
 
 St Matthew on the other hand gives even less 
 prominence to the title 'Apostles' than St Mark. 
 He tells us (x. i) that our Lord "calling His twelve 
 disciples unto Him gave them authority over unclean 
 
 ^ See St Luke xvii. 5; xxii. 14 (the right reading) ; xxiv. 10. 
 ^ St Luke xviii. 31, besides the reference to Judas, xxii. 47. 
 '^ St Luke xxiv. 9 (just before Toii^ d7ro<rT6Xoi;s), 33. 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 27 
 
 spirits so as to cast them out and to heal every 
 disease and every sickness." " Now the names of the 
 twelve Apostles," he adds, " are these. ..." In the other 
 two Gospels we have had two separate incidents, the 
 selection on the mountain, and the subsequent mission 
 among tjie villages. Here in St Matthew the first 
 incident is dropped altogether, so that in the first words 
 of chap. X. " His twelve disciples " are spoken of as an 
 already known or already existing body to whom 
 powers are now given, and the list of names is prefixed 
 to the account of their mission. We are not told that 
 our Lord called them 'Apostles' nor is any other 
 indication given that the term had a special meaning : 
 nay, the word in this context might with at least as 
 great propriety be translated 'envoys' as 'Apostles'. 
 The nature of their mission is not expressly described, 
 though our Lord's own previous action is spoken of 
 (ix. 35) as "teaching in their synagogues and preaching 
 the Gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease 
 and every sickness." But St Matthew places here 
 the well-known charge, introducing it with the words 
 " These twelve Jesus sent (dTricxTeiXev) charging them 
 saying," etc., and the charge itself almost at once 
 puts forward the same heads of mission which we 
 have found in the other Gospels. Thenceforward 
 St Matthew never uses the term 'Apostle'. When 
 he needs a precise designation, it is usually', " His 
 
 ' See St Matt. x. i ; xi. i ; xx. 172/./.; xxvi. 20 v. L 
 
28 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 twelve disciples " or " the Twelve^ ", and once (xxviii. 
 i6) "the eleven disciples". 
 
 St John's usage, as is well-known, is more remark- 
 able still. He never calls the Twelve "Apostles", 
 unless it be by indirect allusion (xiii. i6) "A servant 
 is not greater than his lord ; neither an envoy (one 
 sent) greater than he that sent him." Of the Twelve 
 he speaks in vi. Sj, 70 "Jesus said therefore to the 
 Twelve ' Will ye also go } ' " " Did not I choose you 
 the Twelve, and one of you is a Sid^oXo^ ^ " ; besides 
 his use of the term to describe Judas (vi. 71) and 
 Thomas (xx. 24). 
 
 Taking these facts together respecting the usage 
 of the Gospels, we are led, I think, to the conclusion 
 that in its original sense the term Apostle was not in- 
 tended to describe the habitual relation of the Twelve 
 to our Lord during the days of His ministry, but 
 strictly speaking only that mission among the villages, 
 of which the beginning and the end are recorded for 
 us ; just as in the Acts, Paul and Barnabas are called 
 Apostles (i.e. of the Church of Antioch) with reference 
 to that special mission which we call St Paul's First 
 Missionary Journey, and to that only. At the same 
 time this limited apostleship was not heterogeneous 
 from the apostleship of later days spoken of in the 
 Acts, but a prelude to it, a preparation for it, and as 
 
 ^ See St Matt. xx. i-] v. L; xxvi. 20 v. I. besides the Judas passages, 
 xxvi. 14, +7. 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 29 
 
 it were a type of it. Such sayings as that difficult 
 one (Matt. xix. 28 || Luke xxii. 30) about sitting on 
 twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, are 
 indications that a distinctive function was reserved 
 for the Twelve throughout, over and above their 
 function as the chiefest disciples. It remains true 
 that the habitual, always appropriate, designations of 
 the Twelve during our Lord's ministry were simply 
 "the disciples" or "the twelve'' or "the twelve dis- 
 ciples ". 
 
 And this use of names points to corresponding 
 facts. Discipleship, not apostleship, was the primary 
 active function, so to speak, of the Twelve till the 
 Ascension, and, as we shall see, it remained always 
 their fundamental function. The purpose of their 
 being with Him (with the Lord) stands first in that 
 memorable sentence of St Mark, and is sharply 
 distinguished from the Lord's second purpose in 
 forming them into a body, viz. the sending them 
 forth to preach and to work acts of deliverance. But 
 the distinction does not rest on those words alone. 
 A far larger proportion of the Gospels is taken up 
 with records of facts belonging to the discipleship 
 than with records of facts belonging to the apostle- 
 ship, so far as it is possible to distinguish them. 
 
 The Last Supper. 
 
 When the Ministry is over, and the end is begin- 
 ning, the importance of the special discipleship of the 
 
30 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 Twelve in relation to the future Ecclesia soon comes 
 to light. The Last Supper is the most solemn and 
 characteristic gathering together of the Twelve with 
 the Lord at their head. There in the upper room 
 they are completely '' with Him" and completely 
 separated from all others. The words and acts at 
 this supper, which constitute the institution of the 
 Holy Communion, were addressed to the Twelve, and 
 no others are spoken of as recipients of the command. 
 Whatever directions for the future are present here 
 are contained within the simple imperatives addressed 
 to the Twelve, "take," "eat," "drink," and (if we add 
 St Paul and the interpolation in St Luke's text 
 derived from him) " do this." Of whom then in after 
 times were the Twelve the representatives that evening.? 
 If they represented an apostolic order within the 
 Ecclesia then the Holy Communion must have been 
 intended only for members of that order, and the rest 
 of the Ecclesia had no part in it. But if, as the men 
 of the Apostolic age and subsequent ages believed 
 without hesitation, the Holy Communion was meant 
 for the Ecclesia at large, then the Twelve sat that 
 evening as representatives of the Ecclesia at large : 
 they were disciples more than they were Apostles. 
 
 That central event of the Last Supper, as we all 
 know, is not mentioned by St John : but there is a 
 close connexion between its meaning and much of 
 the contents of those five chapters of his Gospel, from 
 the thirteenth to the seventeenth, which begin with the 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 31 
 
 washing of St Peter's feet, and end with the Lord's own 
 last prayer before His departure from the city for the 
 garden. Though the word ecclesia does not occur 
 in these chapters, any more than in the rest of the 
 Gospel, the inward characteristics of the Christian 
 Ecclesia according to Christ's intention are virtually 
 expounded in not a few of their verses. The seclusion 
 of the Twelve, soon becoming the Eleven, with their 
 Lord away from all other men, makes itself felt 
 throughout : but it is equally clear that the little band 
 of chosen ones, with whom those marvellous discourses 
 were held, was destined to become no mere partial 
 order of men but a people of God, an Ecclesia like the 
 ideal Israel. The feet-washing in act, and the new 
 commandment in words, lay down the primary law 
 for the mutual action of the members of the Ecclesia, 
 humility and love ; the similitude of the vine and the 
 branches lays down their common relation to their 
 Divine Head. The promise of the other Paraclete, 
 the Spirit of the Truth, and the exposition of His 
 working, are a new and pregnant revelation of life and 
 light for the Ecclesia. In the last prayer the goal of 
 unity is set forth in a sentence (xvii. 20) which expressly 
 recognises the growth of the future Ecclesia from that 
 little band : " Neither for these only do I pray, but 
 for them also that believe on me through their word ; 
 that they may all be one ; even as Thou, Father, art in 
 me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us ; that 
 the world may believe that Thou didst send me." 
 
32 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 These last words bring out the purpose of the Ecclesia 
 in God's counsels : it is to draw the rest of mankind 
 to its own faith and love; to carry on a work of 
 salvation, in the power of the salvation wrought by its 
 Head : " as Thou didst send me into the world, I also 
 sent them into the world." The whole Ecclesia shares 
 alike in that transmitted Mission. 
 
 The utterances after the Resurrection. 
 
 Before we pass from the Gospels we must look for 
 a moment at one or two famous passages belonging 
 to the days after the Resurrection, especially to the 
 last five verses of St Matthew, and to our Lord's 
 appearance among the disciples on the evening of the 
 first day of the week (John xx. 19-23), when He 
 breathed on them and said " Receive ye the Holy 
 Spirit..." To discuss the contents of these passages 
 would carry us into matters which it is happily not 
 necessary to our purpose to examine in detail. But 
 it is needful to point out the bearing of the results at 
 which we have hitherto arrived, on the question as to 
 the recipients of these two famous sets of words. 
 Much stress is often laid on the supposed evidence 
 afforded by the words of the evangelists that they 
 were addressed exclusively to the Apostles. Dr 
 Westcott has shown how, when we look below the 
 surface, indications are not wanting that others were 
 not improbably likewise present, at all events on the 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 33 
 
 occasion recorded by St John, when his narrative is 
 compared with that of St Luke (xxiv. 33 ff.). 
 
 But in such a matter the mere fact that doubt 
 is possible is a striking one. It is in trutli difficult 
 to separate these cases from the frequent omission 
 of the evangelists to distinguish the Twelve from 
 other disciples ; a manner of language which, as we 
 have seen, explains itself at once when we recognise 
 how large a part discipleship played in the function 
 of the Twelve. 
 
 Granting that it was probably to the Eleven 
 that our Lord directly and principally spoke on 
 both these occasions (and even to them alone when 
 He spoke the words at the end of St Matthew's 
 Gospel), yet it still has to be considered in what 
 capacity they were addressed by Him. If at the 
 Last Supper, and during the discourses which followed, 
 when the Twelve or Eleven were most completely 
 secluded from all other disciples as well as from the 
 unbelieving Jews, they represented the whole Ecclesia 
 of the future, it is but natural to suppose that it was 
 likewise as representatives of the whole Ecclesia of 
 the future, whether associated with other disciples or 
 not, that they had given to them those two assurances 
 and charges of our Lord, about the receiving of the 
 Holy Spirit and the remitting or retaining of sins 
 (howsoever we understand these words), and about 
 His universal authority in heaven and on earth, on 
 the strength of which He bids them bring all the 
 
 H. E. 3 
 
34 THE APOSTLES IN RELA TION 
 
 nations into discipleship, and assures them of His 
 own presence with them all the days even to the 
 consummation of the age. 
 
 This interpretation is not affected by the special 
 language used in Matt, xxviii. 19, where bringing all 
 the nations into discipleship is coupled with baptizing 
 them into the Threefold Name. In the most literal 
 sense of these words, they apply to the bearers of the 
 message of the Gospel, chief among whom, ideally 
 at least, were the Apostles; though the personal act 
 of baptizing is somewhat markedly disconnected from 
 evangelistic work by St Paul in i Cor. i. 14-17. In 
 a word, the action of the Apostles is the most obvious 
 expression, so to speak, of the charge then given. 
 But the work of the Ecclesia in relation to the world 
 is itself a missionary work ; and it is to the Ecclesia 
 itself as the missionary body that Christ's charge 
 is ultimately addressed. 
 
 The new Apostolic mission. 
 
 On entering the Acts of the Apostles, we come at 
 once to the term ' apostles '. It continues with us all 
 through the book with the rarest exceptions'. This 
 
 1 When the excitement caused by the miracle of Pentecost leads to 
 St Peter's first discourse to the people it is said, "And Peter standing 
 ■with the Eleven lifted up his voice and spake forth to them." So when 
 the neglect of the Greek-speaking widows led to the appointment of the 
 seven whom we call deacons, it is "the Twelve" who are said to call to 
 them "the multitude of the disciples " (vi. 2). And once we have the 
 compound term (i. 26), when Matthias is said to have been numbered 
 "with the eleven Apostles", 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 35 
 
 fact suggests that a change has passed upon the work 
 or office of the Twelve : and such we actually find. 
 
 Two points especially require notice. Their 
 original mission, from which apparently proceeded 
 the title 'apostle' given them by our Lord, was 
 strictly confined to Judsa (Matt. x. S f ), " Go not into 
 any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city 
 of the Samaritans : but go rather to the lost sheep of 
 the house of Israel." And the same charge which 
 opens with these words contains the remarkable and 
 by no means easy sentence (Matt. x. 23), " When they 
 persecute you in this city, flee into the next ; for 
 verily I say unto you. Ye shall not have gone through 
 the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." 
 The limitation of the original apostolic mission here 
 indicated is maintained strictly in the Gospels 
 throughout the Ministry. Whatever tokens or express 
 declarations of the destination of the Gospel for all 
 nations may be recorded by the Evangelists in this 
 part of their books, in no case, I believe, is any 
 reference there made to the agency of the Apostles in 
 extending the sphere of the message of salvation. 
 No doubt it is sometimes said that the prediction of 
 the Apostles being brought before rulers and kings 
 (^Yfi/uwe? and ySao-tXet?), which St Matthew places in 
 that same first charge to the Apostles which we have 
 just been looking at (x. 18), and St Mark and St 
 Luke in the discourse of judgement pronounced on 
 the Mount of Olives in the last week (Mark xiii. 9; 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 Luke xxi. 12), it is said, I say, that this prediction 
 must refer to the heathen magistrates and potentates 
 who withstood the Gospel in various parts of the 
 Roman Empire. The words are however quite as 
 naturally applicable to heathen rulers who, no less 
 than the Jewish authorities, would be found hostile in 
 Judaea itself The allusion is, I strongly suspect, to 
 the enemies of Jehovah and His Anointed, called in 
 Ps. ii. 2 " the kings of the earth and the rulers " (LXX. 
 ap')(ovTe<i), a description which the Apostles recognise 
 as fulfilled in Herod and Pontius Pilate as gathered 
 together against our Lord Himself (Acts iv. 27), 
 thus making a hostile combination of Gentiles with 
 Jews. 
 
 The extension of the range of the apostolic 
 mission takes place between the Resurrection and the 
 Ascension. Not to dwell again on the last charge at 
 the end of St Matthew's Gospel, nor to refer by more 
 than a word to the version of it preserved in a record 
 of such uncertain authority as the Appendix to St 
 Mark's Gospel, we read in Luke xxiv. 45 ff. how our 
 Lord opened their mind to understand the Scriptures, 
 and said to them that " thus it is written," not only 
 "that the Christ should suffer and rise again on the 
 third day," but also " that repentance unto remission of 
 sins should be preached (or proclaimed) in His Name 
 unto all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem." " Ye 
 are witnesses," he adds, "of these things." 
 
 This language is strikingly guarded. The going 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 37 
 
 forth of the message of salvation is set forth as involved 
 in the vision of the future which the prophets were per- 
 mitted to see; but it is set forth wholly impersonally: 
 nothing connects the Apostles themselves with it but 
 the single saying "Ye are witnesses' of these things"; 
 a saying which perfectly well admits of meaning no 
 more than that the fundamental testimony of " these 
 things " (itself an elastic phrase) was to be given by 
 the Apostles, without further implying that they were 
 to be themselves the bearers of the message founded 
 on that testimony to heathen lands. 
 
 Of less ambiguous import are the words which we 
 read in Acts i. 8 as spoken to them by the Lord just 
 before the Ascension, " Ye shall be my witnesses both 
 in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and unto 
 the utmost part of the earth." Here the utmost range 
 seems to be given to the testimony which they are to 
 bear in person ; and this, the most obvious sense, is 
 confirmed by the previous sentence, "But ye shall 
 receive power by the Holy Spirit coming upon you," 
 such power from above being evidently intended to 
 sustain them in their long and troubled course 01 
 bearing witness. Thus universality is a characteristic 
 of the new apostolic mission. 
 
 In what manner the Twelve understood themselves 
 afterwards to be charged with this enlarged responsi- 
 bility, it is difficult to make out. The admission of the 
 Gentiles was assuredly not accepted at once without 
 hesitation as a necessary consequence of the terms of 
 
38 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 
 
 the Lord's commission. But the mere recognition of 
 His having at this solemn time so expressly dwelt on 
 the ultimate world-wide destination of His Gospel, 
 must have been enough to affect deeply the character 
 of their work, even in its first and narrowest sphere 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 The second characteristic of the new apostolic 
 mission is that which has already come before us 
 in connexion with its universality, — its work of 
 bearing witness. This comes out with especial clear- 
 ness in St Peter's address to the brethren respecting 
 providing a successor to Judas: "Of the men," he 
 says (i. 21 f.), "that companied with us all the time 
 that the Lord Jesus came in and went out unto us, 
 beginning from the baptism of John unto the day 
 that He was received up from us, of these must one 
 become a witness with us of His Resurrection." This 
 is the one essential condition mentioned, to be a 
 witness of the Resurrection. The prayer that follows 
 describes the office itself as "the place of this minis- 
 tration and mission" (t??? SiaKovla^ ravrr]^ Kal airo- 
 aTo\i]'i) just as St Peter had previously {v. 17) called it 
 " the lot of this ministration." But this does not alter 
 the statement as to the indispensable qualification. 
 Nor does this passage stand alone. Everyone must 
 remember the persistency with which this apostolic 
 witness-bearing to the crowning events of Gospel 
 history is reiterated in the Acts, and especially in the 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 39 
 
 early speeches in the Acts (ii. 32, iii. 15, iv. 33, v. 32, 
 X. 39-41, xiii. 31). 
 
 This mark of apostleship is evidently founded 
 on direct personal discipleship ; and as evidently 
 it is incommunicable. Its whole meaning rested 
 on immediate and unique experience; as St John 
 says, "that which we have heard, that which we 
 have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, 
 and our hands handled" (i John i. i). Without a 
 true perceptive faith, such a faith as shewed itself in 
 St Peter, all this acquaintance through the bodily 
 senses was in vain. But the truest faith of one who 
 was a disciple only in the second degree, however 
 precious in itself, could never qualify him for bearing 
 the apostolic character. 
 
 Apart from this unique function of being witnesses 
 of the Resurrection, it is difficult to find in the New 
 Testament any clear definition of the Apostolic office 
 from the records of the time between the Resurrection 
 and the Ascension. In the second verse of the Acts we 
 read of our Lord giving them command (evretXa/iei'o?) 
 on the day of His Ascension: but what were the 
 contents of that commandment we know not, unless 
 it was the charge to continue at Jerusalem awaiting 
 the promise of the Father, the Pentecostal gift (i. 4, 
 5 ; Luke xxiv. 49). So again in v. 3 we hear of His 
 "appearing to them and saying to them the things 
 concerning the kingdom of God": but more than this 
 we do not learn. What Scripture says, and what it 
 
40 THE APOSTLES IN RE LA TION 
 
 leaves unsaid, together suggest that the new stage of 
 Apostleship was inaugurated by no new act of 
 appointment analogous to the original designation of 
 the Twelve on the mountain, these commands, and 
 teachings that we hear of being rather like the 
 subsequent charge to the Apostles on their going 
 forth among the villages. On this view it was the 
 Crucifixion (interpreted as always by the Resurrection) 
 which constituted the real inauguration of the re- 
 newed apostleship. We saw the other day how the 
 work assigned to the Twelve, when first sent forth 
 among the villages, was a repetition, so to speak, 
 of the work which our Lord Himself was then 
 pursuing, consisting of two heads, preaching and 
 casting out demons, including the healing of sickness; 
 or in other words, proclaiming the kingdom of God 
 by word, and manifesting and illustrating it by 
 significant act. The work that lay before them 
 when His Ministry on earth was ended was not in its 
 essence different from before : they had still to make 
 known the kingdom of God by words and by deeds ; 
 and this is the sole conception of their work put 
 before us in the Acts. But there were two great 
 changes. First, He Himself would no longer be 
 visibly in their midst, so that the responsibility of 
 guidance descended upon them, subject only to the 
 indications of His Will, and enlightened by His Spirit. 
 Moreover, this responsibility was not for a limited 
 mission of short duration, but by its very nature was 
 
TO THE ECCLESIA. 41 
 
 continuous and permanent. Second, He Himself, in 
 His Death and His Resurrection, was now become a 
 primary subject of their teaching and action : in the 
 light of Him the kingdom of God put on a new 
 meaning, and He was Himself the living repre- 
 sentative of it. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Early stages in the growth of the 
 ecclesia. 
 
 We now enter on the narrative of the time which 
 followed the Ascension, limiting ourselves as far as 
 possible to those parts of St Luke's record which 
 illustrate the characteristics of the new Ecclesia and 
 the stages of its growth ; but not neglecting either 
 pieces of evidence relating to the Ecclesia under other 
 names and descriptions, or the history of the use of 
 the name ecclesia itself 
 
 On the return from the Mount of Olives the 
 eleven remaining Apostles go up into the upper 
 chamber where they were staying (i. 13), and thus 
 renew, as it were, their coherence as a definite body. 
 
 A somewhat larger body is next mentioned 
 as "attending steadfastly with one accord upon 
 ' the prayer '," certain women, and the Lord's mother 
 and brethren, being associated with the Apostles. 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 43 
 
 This peculiar phrase taken in conjunction with " the 
 prayers" (ii. 42) and "the prayer" (vi. 4) suggests 
 that a definite custom of common prayer is intended, 
 a bond of Christian fellowship. 
 
 Next in f. 15 we read of a larger assembly, pro- 
 bably the whole body of ' brethren,' as they are em- 
 phatically called, about 120 in number. " In the midst 
 of the brethren," St Luke says, St Peter rose up and 
 declared the need of filling up the place left vacant 
 by Judas. 
 
 The next chapter relates the appearance of the fiery 
 tongues on the day of Pentecost, St Peter's discourse, 
 and the results of it. The hearers, or some of them, 
 are pricked to the heart and ask Peter and the other 
 Apostles, whom they recognise as brother Israelites 
 (avBpe<i dSeX(l>ol), " What shall we do ? " The answer 
 is " Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptised in 
 the name of Jesus Christ unto remission of your sins, 
 and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit : for 
 to you is the promise and to your children and to all 
 that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall 
 call unto Him." The other recorded words of his 
 exhortation are significant, " Save yourselves from 
 this crooked generation." This phrase ' crooked gene- 
 ration ' comes, you may remember, from what is said 
 of the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness in Deut. 
 xxxii. 5. There is not a word against the ancient 
 Ecclesia or people. The crooked generation of the 
 unbelieving present, which perverts and misinterprets 
 
44 EARL Y STA GES IN 
 
 the ancient covenant, is the evil sphere to be 
 abandoned. 
 
 These men accept his discourse and are bap- 
 tised. That is the definite • act which signifies at 
 once their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and thereby 
 their joining of themselves to the society of His 
 disciples; and on the other hand the acceptance of 
 them by the Ecclesia. " And there were added on 
 that day about three thousand souls." 
 
 Then comes the description of the characteristic 
 acts and practices by which these new members lived 
 the life of members of the new brotherhood. " They 
 continued attending steadfastly upon {-n pocncapTepovv- 
 re'i) the teaching of the Apostles and upon the com- 
 munion, upon the breaking of the bread and upon the 
 prayers." In the centre we see the apostolic body, a 
 bond of unity to the rest. Their public teaching, 
 replacing the public teaching of the scribes, carries 
 on the instruction of converts who have yet much to 
 learn, and attendance upon it is at the same time 
 a mark of fellowship. Next comes what is called 
 ' the communion ', conduct expressive of and resulting 
 from the strong sense of fellowship with the other 
 members of the brotherhood, probably public acts by 
 which the rich bore some of the burdens of the poor. 
 Thirdly we have 'the breaking of the bread,' what 
 we call the Holy Communion, named here from the 
 expressive act by which the unity of the many as 
 partakers of the one Divine sustenance is signified. 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 45 
 
 Lastly we have 'the prayers', apparently Christian 
 prayers in common, which took the place of the 
 prayers of the synagogues. 
 
 In the next group of verses we hear not merely of 
 these new disciples, but of the whole body of which 
 they had now become members. " All that believed 
 together" says St Luke (this is his peculiar but 
 pregnant description of membership), "all that be- 
 lieved together had all things common ; and they 
 sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to 
 all, according as any man had need." This general 
 statement is qualified and explained later. Evidently 
 there was no law of the society imposing such sale : 
 but the principle of holding all in trust for the benefit 
 of the rest of the community was its principle of 
 possession. "And day by day'', the narrative proceeds, 
 " attending steadfastly with one accord in the temple, 
 and breaking bread at home, they partook of their 
 food in exultation (a'^dXKLacre.C) and singleness of 
 heart, praising God and having favour with all the 
 people. And the Lord added to their company day 
 by day them that were saved " (or Revised Version, 
 ■' were being saved " : neither rendering satisfactory). 
 Such is St Luke's account of the inward spirit and 
 outward demeanour of the new Ecclesia, not yet in 
 any antagonism to the old Ecclesia but the most living 
 portion of it, and manifestly laying claim by attend- 
 ance in the temple to be a society of loyal sons of 
 Israel. 
 
46 EARLY STAGES IN 
 
 Thus far St Luke has been picturing to us the 
 Christian Ecclesia of Jerusalem antecedent to all 
 persecution, moved simply by its own inherent 
 principles. A fresh impulse towards consolidation 
 comes from the onslaught of the Jewish authorities, 
 due to the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful 
 Gate of the Temple, an event which had at once 
 caused an increase in the number of Christian be- 
 lievers so that they reached five thousand (iv. 4). 
 Peter and John, threatened by the Council, return " to 
 their own company" (toi;? ISlov;), almost certainly, 
 I think, the apostolic company ; and together they 
 pour forth a prayer in which they recognise that now 
 they too are having to encounter the same opposition 
 which by God's own providence had fallen upon His 
 holy servant Jesus whom He anointed ; and they ask to 
 be enabled to speak His word with all boldness while 
 He stretches forth His hand for healing, and for signs 
 and wonders to come to pass through the name of 
 His holy servant Jesus : thus attesting once more in 
 the most solemn way the two original heads of the 
 active functions assigned to them. 
 
 In St Luke's narrative this incident is followed by 
 an emphatic statement that the multitude (ttXtJ^o?) 
 of them that believed had but one heart and soul, 
 and a renewal in more precise terms of the former 
 statement about their having all things common. 
 " And with great power," he proceeds (iv. 33), " did the 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 47 
 
 Apostles of the Lord Jesus deliver their testimony of 
 His Resurrection, and great joy was upon them all ". 
 The absence of want among them {ovhe yap eVSe?;? 
 Tts ^i') is given as a reason for'this joy, the needs of 
 the poor being provided for by the sale of lands or 
 houses. In the former passage of similar import (ii. 
 44 f), we read only of a distribution of the purchase 
 money by the members of the community at large, or 
 possibly by the vendors themselves. Here on the 
 other hand we read that the purchase money was 
 brought and laid at the Apostles' feet for distribution, 
 and further that Joseph, whom the Apostles called Bar- 
 nabas for his power of exhortation, sold a field and 
 laid the price at the Apostles' feet. This is the first 
 indication of the exercise of powers of administra- 
 tion by the Apostles, and, so far as appears, it was not 
 the result of an authority claimed by them but of a 
 voluntary entrusting of the responsibility to the 
 Apostles by the rest. It was probably now felt that 
 the functions and powers Divinely conferred upon 
 them for preaching and healing as witnesses of the 
 Resurrection, marked them out likewise as the fit 
 persons to deal with the responsibilities of adminis- 
 tration in carrying out the mutual bearing of burdens. 
 The manner in which Barnabas's name is introduced 
 is remarkable, as also the express mention of his 
 laying the value of his field at the Apostles' feet. It 
 does not seem unlikely that this important step on 
 the part of the Ecclesia was taken at Barnabas's 
 
48 EARL y STAGES IN 
 
 suggestion ; just as with no less boldness and fore- 
 thought he brought St Paul into close relations with 
 the Twelve at Jerusalem (ix. 27), and encouraged the 
 newly founded Ecclesia at Antioch at a sufficiently- 
 critical time (xi. 22-24). 
 
 The event which comes next, the falsehood and 
 death of Ananias and Sapphira, is for our purpose 
 instructive in more ways than one. First, St Peter's 
 words "While it (the land) remained, did it not remain 
 thine own ? and after it was sold was it not in thine 
 own power (or right, tfoi/o-ta)? " exhibit the real nature 
 of the community of goods at this time practised in 
 the Christian community. There was no merging of 
 all private possessions in a common stock, but a 
 voluntary and variable contribution on a large scale. 
 That is to say, the Ecclesia was a society in which 
 neither the community was lost in the individuals, nor 
 the individuals in the community. The community 
 was set high above all, while the service and help to 
 be rendered to the community remained a matter of 
 individual conscience and free bounty. Next, the 
 reality of the bond uniting together the members of 
 the Christian community was vindicated in the most 
 impressive way by the Divine judgment which fell on 
 Ananias and Sapphira by the shock at the discovery 
 of their deceit. Falsehood or faithlessness towards 
 the Holy Spirit, as St Peter calls it, was involved in 
 their faithlessness to the community, affecting as they 
 did to take part to the full in the lofty life of mutual 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 49 
 
 help, while their hypocritical reservation made bro- 
 therly fellowship an unreality. In consequence of 
 this occurrence " great fear/' we are told, " fell on the 
 whole Ecclesia, and all that heard these things." Up 
 to this time, as Bengel points out, St Luke has used 
 only such descriptive phrases as " they that believed ", 
 " the brethren " etc. Now for the first time he speaks 
 of the Ecclesia. Whether it was so called at the time, 
 it is not easy to tell. No approach to separation from 
 the great Jewish Ecclesia had as yet taken place. On 
 the other hand our Lord's saying to St Peter must 
 have been always present to the minds of the Apostles, 
 and can hardly have been without influence on their 
 early teaching. If St Luke used the word here by 
 anticipation, it was doubtless with a wish to emphasise 
 the fact that the death of Ananias and Sapphira 
 marked an epoch in the early growth of the society, 
 a time when its distinctness, and the cohesion of its 
 members, had come to be distinctly recognised without 
 as well as within. 
 
 A short period of prosperity follows (v. 12 ff.). By 
 the hands of the Apostles many miracles are wrought 
 among the people. They were all with one accord in 
 the great arcade called Solomon's Porch, reaching 
 along the whole east side of the vast Temple precinct. 
 " Of the rest," says St Luke, meaning apparently those 
 who elsewhere are distinguished from "the people", 
 the priests, rulers, elders, scribes, " no one dared to 
 
 u. E. 4 
 
50 EARLY STAGES IN 
 
 cleave to them (i.e. however much he may have 
 secretly become in conviction a Christian), but the 
 people magnified them, and yet more were added to 
 them, believing the Lord, multitudes of men and 
 women ". Even the neighbouring towns, we read, con- 
 tributed their sick and possessed, who came to be 
 healed. This fresh success leads to a fresh imprison- 
 ment of the Apostles ; but by Gamaliel's advice they 
 are dismissed with a scourging and warning. But 
 they continue day by day in the Temple and in 
 private houses to proclaim the good tidings. 
 
 The appointment of the Seven. 
 
 We now come to an incident which concerns us 
 both as itself a step in the organisation of the Eccle- 
 sia, and as a prelude to an event which had decisive 
 effects on the position of the Ecclesia as a whole, the 
 martyrdom of Stephen. This incident is the appoint- 
 ment of the Seven, answering to a great extent to 
 those who were later called deacons. As the disciples 
 multiplied, complaints were made by the Greek- 
 speaking Jews settled in Jerusalem that their widows 
 were neglected in the daily ministration (SiaKovia) for 
 the relief of the poor, in comparison with the widows 
 belonging to the Hebrew part of the community. 
 The Twelve call to them the multitude (to ir'Krjdo';) 
 of the disciples and say " It is not right (or desirable 
 apearov) that we, leaving the word of God, should serve 
 tables {BiaKovelv rpa-Tre^ai^) : but look ye out, brethren. 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 51 
 
 men from among yourselves of good report, seven in 
 number, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we 
 will set over this office (or need, ^pe/a? means either) : 
 but we will attend diligently upon the prayer and 
 upon the ministration (StaKovla) of the word." The 
 suggestion found favour with all the multitude. They 
 chose out seven, including a proselyte from Antioch, 
 and set them before the Apostles, who prayed and 
 laid their hands on them. It is impossible not to 
 connect this act with the laying of the contributions 
 at the Apostles' feet. As being thus constituted 
 stewards of the bounty of the community they were 
 in a manner responsible for the distribution of the 
 charitable fund. But the task had outgrown their 
 powers, unless it was to be allowed to encroach on 
 their higher Divinely appointed functions. They pro- 
 posed therefore to entrust this special part of the 
 work to other men, having the prerequisites of de- 
 voutness and wisdom, to be chosen by the Ecclesia at 
 large. How much this new office included is not 
 easy to say. All the seven names being Greek, it 
 seems probable that they were Hellenists, as otherwise 
 it would be a strange coincidence that there should 
 be no Hebrew names ; and if so, it would also seem 
 likely that they were charged only with the care of 
 relief to Hellenists. We do not hear however of 
 any analogous office for the Hebrew Christians, nor 
 whether any general superintendence of the funds was 
 still retained by the Apostles. Nor again do we 
 
52 EARL Y STA GES IN 
 
 afterwards hear anything more of these Seven in 
 relation to their special work. The definite recogni- 
 tion of special claims of Christian Hellenists was the 
 essential point. Stephen's miracles and preaching 
 were no part of his office as one of the Seven, though 
 they may have led to his selection ; and Philip in 
 like manner is known only as doing the work of an 
 evangelist. 
 
 But the appointment was not only a notable 
 recognition of the Hellenistic element in the Ecclesia 
 at Jerusalem, a prelude of greater events to come, but 
 also a sign that the Ecclesia was to be an Ecclesia 
 indeed, not a mere horde of men ruled absolutely by 
 the Apostles, but a true body politic, in which different 
 functions were assigned to different members, and a 
 share of responsibility rested upon the members at 
 large, each and all ; while every work for the Ecclesia, 
 high and low, was of the nature of a ' ministration ', a 
 true rendering of a servant's service. 
 
 Once more we hear that " the word of God grew, 
 and the number of disciples in Jerusalem multiplied 
 exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests 
 obeyed the faith." A little while ago it would seem 
 that they were among those mentioned in v. 13 as not 
 daring to cleave or join themselves to the Ecclesia. 
 But now their faith had grown stronger and deeper ; 
 and one after another they obeyed its call, and took 
 the risks of joining the Christian congregation. 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 53 
 
 The Ecclesia spreading throughout the Holy Land. 
 
 We may pass over the discourse and martyrdom 
 of Stephen. But the verse which follows the recital 
 of his death (viii. i) deserves our special attention for 
 its language, and the facts which account for its 
 language. " There came in that day a great persecu- 
 tion upon the Ecclesia which was in Jerusalem (j-qv 
 eKKk7]aiav ttjv ev 'lepocroXvfj.oi';) : all were scattered 
 abroad about the regions of Juda:a and Samaria save 
 the Apostles". In the single place where the word 
 Ecclesia has before occurred in the Acts (v. 11), there 
 has been no question of more than the one Ecclesia of 
 all Christ's disciples. Here we have that same identical 
 body, differing only by the reception of more numerous 
 members, so described as to give a hint that soon 
 there were to be in a true sense of the word (though 
 not the only true sense) more Ecclesiae than one. 
 The materials for new Ecclesiae were about to be 
 formed in consequence of this temporary scattering 
 of the original Ecclesia ; and moreover this first wide 
 carrying of the Gospel through Judjea and Samaria 
 was not the work of the Apostles : they are specially 
 excepted by St Luke. Parenthetically in viii. 3 we 
 read how Saul ravaged the Ecclesia, entering in house 
 by house: and here the Ecclesia just spoken of, that 
 of Jerusalem, seems to be meant, his prosecution of 
 the persecution elsewhere even to Damascus being 
 probably later. Of the work of one of the scattered 
 
54 EARLY STAGES IN 
 
 Christians, Philip the evangelist, we hear specially, its 
 sphere being the representative city of Samaria. 
 Tidings of his successful preaching and his baptizing 
 of men and women having reached the Apostles at 
 Jerusalem ("hearing that Samaria hath received the 
 word of God" viii. 14), they depute Peter and John to 
 go down. They found apparently no reason to doubt 
 the reality and sincerity of the conversions. But the 
 recognition of Samaritans as true members of the 
 Christian community, hitherto exclusively Jewish, was 
 so important a step outwards from the first, and now 
 by long custom established, state of things that they 
 evidently shrank from giving full and unreserved wel- 
 come to the new converts, unless they could obtain 
 a conspicuous Divine sanction, what is called in this 
 book receiving the (or a) Holy Spirit. What is meant 
 is shown clearly by comparison with x. 44-48 and 
 xix. 6, 7, viz. the outward marvellous signs of the 
 Spirit, such as manifested themselves on the Day of 
 Pentecost, speaking with tongues, with or without 
 prophesying. " These which received the Holy Spirit 
 even as we did" (x. 47) is the phrase in which St Peter 
 describes the Divine sanction which justified recogni- 
 tion for Christian discipleship and membership. In 
 this case the baptism of the Samaritan converts had 
 been followed by no such tokens from heaven, and so 
 they prayed for them that they might receive the 
 Holy Spirit, and then laid their hands on them (the 
 human symbolic act answering to the Heavenly act 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 55 
 
 prayed for) and they received the Holy Spirit {ekdix- 
 j3avov not eXa/3ov), that is, shewed a succession of 
 signs of the Spirit. After the interlude of Simon 
 Magus the Apostles return to Jerusalem, and on the 
 way they themselves preach the Gospel to many 
 Samaritan villages. 
 
 We need not examine the story of Philip and the 
 eunuch, or even the conversion of St Paul, his 
 recovery from blindness, preaching at Damascus, 
 escape from attempted murder, admission to the 
 confidence of the Apostles by the instrumentality of 
 Barnabas, and on a fresh attempt to kill him, his 
 departure for his native Tarsus. In passing it is 
 worth notice that the man who lays hands on St Paul 
 and baptizes him is no Apostle or even evangelist, 
 but a simple disciple of Damascus, Ananias (ix. 17, 
 18). The last verse of the story (ix. 31) is this : " So 
 the Ecclesia throughout all Judaea and Galilee and 
 Samaria had peace, being built ; and walking by the 
 fear of the Lord and by the invocation {irapaKKria-K) of 
 the Holy Spirit (probably the invoking His guidance as 
 Paraclete to the Ecclesia), was multiplied." Here again 
 the Ecclesia has assumed a wider range. It is no longer 
 the Ecclesia of Jerusalem nor is it the several Ecclesiae 
 of Jerusalem and Sa.ma.na. and other places. That is 
 language which we shall find in St Paul, but not in 
 the Acts, except as regards regions external to the 
 Holy Land. The Ecclesia was still confined to 
 Jewish or semi-Jewish populations and to ancient 
 
156 EARLY STAGES IN 
 
 Jewish soil ; but it was no longer the Ecclesia of a 
 single city, and yet it was one: probably as corre- 
 sponding, by these three modern representative 
 districts of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria, to the ancient 
 Ecclesia which had its home in the whole land of 
 Israel. 
 
 These limits however were soon to be crossed. 
 The first step takes place on a journey of St Peter 
 through the whole land {hiepxofJ^evov ^la -rravTav, ix. 
 32), which shews that he regarded the whole as now 
 come within the sphere of his proper work, as it had 
 to all intents and purposes been within the sphere 
 of his work in the prelusive ministrations accom- 
 panying the Lord's own Ministry. On his way down 
 to the coast he is said to have come to " the saints " 
 or " holy ones " that dwelt at Lydda. The phrase 
 is a remarkable one. It has occurred once already 
 a few verses back (ix. 13) in Ananias's answer to the 
 word of the Lord spoken to him in a dream, " I 
 have heard concerning this man (Saul) how much 
 evil he did to iky saints at Jerusalem." Members of 
 the holy Ecclesia of Israel were themselves holy by 
 the mere fact of membership, and this prerogative 
 phrase is here boldly transferred to the Christians by 
 the bold Damascene disciple. Its use is the correlative 
 of the use of the term Ecclesia, the one relating to 
 individuals as members of the community, the other 
 to the community as a whole. It occurs once more 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 57 
 
 in the same little group of events (ix. 41), and once on 
 St Paul's own lips in the bitterness of his self-aqcusa- 
 tion for his acts of persecution, in his defence before 
 King Agrippa (xxvi. 10), probably in intentional 
 repetition of Ananias's language respecting those 
 same acts of his. It was a phrase that was likely 
 to burn itself into his memory in that connexion. 
 All know how commonly it occurs in the Epistles 
 and Apocalypse, but its proper original force is not 
 always remembered. 
 
 Then comes the story of Cornelius, the Roman 
 Centurion in the great chiefly heathen seaport of 
 C^sarea, and his reception and baptism by St Peter, 
 on the double warrant of the vision at Joppa and 
 the outburst of the mysterious tongues while Peter 
 was yet speaking. This was the act of Peter on his 
 own sole responsibility, and at first it caused disquiet 
 among some at least of the original members of the 
 Ecclesia. We read (xi. i) "Now the apostles and the 
 brethren that were in Judaea (or rather perhaps, all 
 about Judsea, Kara rrjv 'lovBaCav) heard that the 
 Gentiles also had received the word of God." And 
 when Peter went up to Jerusalem they of the " circum- 
 cision" (i.e. probably those spoken of in x. 45, who 
 had accompanied St Peter, for as yet there is no 
 sign of uncircumcised believers) disputed with Peter 
 for eating with men uncircumcised. This was ap- 
 parently a complaint preferred in the presence of the 
 
S8 EARL y STAGES IN GRO WTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 
 
 Apostles and brethren, but we hear nothing of any- 
 formal assertion of authority either by St Peter him- 
 self, or by the Apostles generally, or by the Apostles 
 and brethren together. St Peter simply seeks to 
 carry the whole body with him by patient explana- 
 tion of the circumstances and considerations belonging 
 to the case. And he has his reward : the objectors 
 hold their peace {rjavxaaav, a word which points to 
 the objectors) and glorify God for having given the 
 Gentiles also repentance unto life. It was a great 
 step that was thus taken ; but it did not lie outside 
 the local limits of the ancient Ecclesia. Cornelius 
 was a sojourner in the land of Israel, and moreover 
 one of them that feared or reverenced God, as it was 
 called, a proselyte of the less strict sort. 
 
LECTURE IV, 
 
 The Ecclesia of Antioch. 
 
 The Origin of the Ecclesia. 
 
 The pause before the local limits of the ancient 
 Ecclesia were overstepped was of short duration. St 
 Luke's next section tells us how fugitives from the per- 
 secution which began with Stephen had preached the 
 word all along the Syrian coast up to Antioch, and by 
 this time a large number of disciples had been gather- 
 ed together. In other words, here was a great capital, 
 including a huge colony of Jews, in close relations 
 with all the Greek-speaking world and all the Syriac- 
 speaking world ; and in its midst a multitude of 
 Christian disciples had come into existence in the 
 most casual and unpremeditated way. No Apostle 
 had led or founded a mission; no Apostle had taught 
 there. But there the Christian congregation was, and 
 its existence and future could not but be of the highest 
 interest to the original body of Christians. What the 
 
6o THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 relations would be between the two bodies was cer- 
 tainly not a question that could be answered off hand. 
 " Hearing the tidings ", we read (xi. 22), " the Ecclesia 
 which was at Jerusalem " (here once more we have 
 a narrower title, doubtless with a view to the anti- 
 thesis of Jerusalem and Antioch) "sent forth Barnabas 
 to Antioch." Barnabas, as we know, was not one of 
 the Twelve. Probably the Twelve themselves felt that 
 at the present moment it might be imprudent to take 
 part personally in the affairs of Antioch, and to put 
 forth even the semblance of apostolic authority there. 
 But they (and not they only but the whole Ecclesia) 
 sent a trusted envoy whose discretion could be relied 
 on. He came and recognised what St Luke calls 
 " the grace that was of God " (tt^i; xdptv Trjv rod Oeov), 
 (the repetition of the article in the true text is full of 
 meaning), the merciful extension of the area of saving 
 knowledge and faith, and that by a kind of instru- 
 mentality which could be referred to nothing but the 
 Providence of God. Accordingly, as a true son of 
 encouragement or exhortation, Barnabas exhorted 
 {irape/caXei) all to abide by the purpose of their heart 
 in the Lord, and many fresh conversions were the 
 result of his teaching. But feeling apparently that 
 this was a work for which St Paul's experience 
 peculiarly fitted him, he fetched him from Tarsus, 
 and together at Antioch they spent a year. The 
 disciples, we are told, were there first called Christians; 
 but there is reason to believe that St Luke does not 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 6i 
 
 mean that the name was assumed by themselves. 
 He does speak of Paul and Barnabas being "hospita- 
 bly received^ in the Ecclesia", thereby recognising the 
 disciples at Antioch as forming an Ecclesia — a signi- 
 ficant fact as regards both the recognition of this 
 irregularly founded community at Antioch, and the 
 changes in the use of the term ecclesia itself Still 
 however it was a community of men who were in 
 some sense or other Jewish Christians : the widely 
 spread opinion to the contrary rests on the wrong 
 reading "EWTjvai; in xi. 20. 
 
 Sending help to Jenisalem. 
 
 Before long an opportunity came for a practical 
 exhibition of fellowship between the two communities. 
 The famine in Judaea led to the sending of help (et? 
 hiaKovlav) by the disciples at Antioch to the brethren 
 in Judaea. It was sent by Barnabas and Paul, and 
 sent to "the elders" (xi. 30). Who were they.? And 
 why was it not sent to the Apostles ? Both questions 
 have been practically answered by Dr Lightfoot. 
 He points out^ that St Luke's narrative of the perse- 
 cution by Herod in xii. 1-19 (his vexing of certain 
 of them of the Ecclesia) comes in parenthetically in 
 
 ^ Such is the least difficult explanation of the curious word am- 
 axSrivai, as in Matt. xxv. and (with eh rdv oIkov, els riiv olKlav) some 
 Old Testament passages ; also their original 'asdph (lo gather) in Ps. 
 xxvii. 10. 
 
 2 GalatianSj p. 123, u. 3, p. 126. 
 
62 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 connexion with this mission to Jerusalem, but pro- 
 bably preceded it in order of time. After the murder 
 of James the son of Zebedee, St Peter, we are told 
 (xii. 17), on being delivered from prison (after prayer 
 being earnestly made by the Ecclesia) " went to 
 another place": and it is likely enough that the 
 other ten did the same. It is possible that on 
 their departure they appointed elders to whom to 
 entrust the care of the Ecclesia in their absence. It is 
 also possible that the Ecclesia itself may have pro- 
 vided itself with elders when the Apostles departed. 
 But it is more likely that they were in office already, 
 and merely assumed fresh responsibilities under the 
 stress of circumstances. Some have even thought 
 that they were the Seven under another name. This 
 is a very improbable hypothesis. But it is at least 
 conceivable, supposing the Seven to have been 
 appointed for the Hellenists alone, that there were 
 already elders, and that these supposed elders at that 
 time chiefly represented the Hebrew part of the 
 community. This however is quite uncertain ; nor is 
 it important to know. In any case it is but reason- 
 able to suppose' that the Christian elders were not a 
 new kind of officers, but simply a repetition of the 
 ordinary Jewish elders, z^qentm, irpea^vTepoi, who con- 
 stituted (as Dr Lightfoot says) the usual government 
 of the Synagogue. "Hence," he adds, "the silence of 
 St Luke. When he first mentions the presbyters, he 
 
 ' See Lightfoot, Philipfians, 191 -3. 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 63 
 
 inti'oduces them without preface, as though the insti- 
 tution were a matter of course. ' 
 
 The Antiochian Mission. 
 
 From this point the distinctive work of St Paul 
 begins, and the first stage of it has a remarkable 
 inauguration. At Antioch, " in the Ecclesia which was 
 there ", there were certain prophets and teachers, five 
 being named, Barnabas first and Paul last. The 
 prophets here spoken of are probably the same, 
 wholly or in part, as the prophets mentioned before in 
 xi. 27 as having come down from Jerusalem to 
 Antioch, Agabus being one of them. While they are 
 holding some solemn service (described as Xeirovp- 
 yovvTCLip Tw Kvpim) and fasting, the Holy Spirit speaks, 
 evidently by the mouth of a prophet, " Separate me 
 Barnabas and Saul unto the work unto which I have 
 called them." The service here denoted by the verb 
 'XeLTovpyio} was probably a service of prayer. The 
 context suggests that it was not a regular and cus- 
 tomary service (like "the prayer" at Jerusalem earlier, 
 see p. 45 ) but a special act of worship on the part of a 
 solemn meeting of the whole Ecclesia, held expressly 
 with reference to a project for carrying the Gospel 
 to the heathen. Thus the voice would seem to have 
 sanctioned the niission of particular men, perhaps 
 also even the project itself: but not to have been a 
 sudden call to an unexpected work. The persons 
 
64 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 who are thus represented as doing service to the 
 Lord are almost certainly the prophets and teachers 
 mentioned just before. With fasting, prayer, and 
 laying on of hands, Barnabas and Saul are let go. It 
 is disputed whether the recipients of the prophetic 
 word and performers of the last-mentioned acts of mis- 
 sion, were the prophets and teachers, or the Ecclesia. 
 But on careful consideration it is difficult to doubt 
 that the mouthpieces of the Divine command should 
 be distinguished from those who have to execute it. 
 In other words the members of the Ecclesia itself are 
 bidden to set Barnabas and Saul apart ; and it is the 
 members of the Ecclesia itself that dismiss them with 
 fast and prayer and laying on of hands, whether the 
 last act was performed by all of them, or only by 
 representatives of the whole body, official or other. 
 So also on their return they gather the Ecclesia to- 
 gether (xiv. 27) and report what has befallen them. 
 
 This mission is no doubt specially described as 
 due to a Divine monition : the setting apart comes 
 from the Holy Spirit (to which in all probability the 
 later words in xiii. 4 "being sent forth by the Holy 
 Ghost " refer back) ; but the mission is also from 
 the Christians of Antioch, whether directly or through 
 the other three prophets and teachers, since the Holy 
 Spirit, Himself the life and bond of every Ecclesia, 
 makes the Christians of Antioch His instruments for 
 setting Barnabas and Paul apart. It is with reference 
 to this mission that, as I mentioned before, St Luke 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 65 
 
 applies the name Apostles to Paul and Barnabas ; and 
 under no other circumstances does he apply the name 
 to either of them. Thus his usage both illustrates 
 and is illustrated by 2 Cor. viii. 23 ("apostles of 
 churches ") and Phil. ii. 25 (" your apostle," viz. Epa- 
 phroditus). 
 
 The first missionary journey. 
 
 We need not follow the details of the journey, 
 memorable for the turning from the Jews to the 
 Gentiles at the Pisidian Antioch, and so beginning 
 the preaching of the Gospel to heathen Gentiles in 
 their own land. But we must not overlook one 
 important verse, xiv. 23. Having preached success- 
 fully at Lystra, Iconium and the Pisidian Antioch on 
 the way out, they visit these cities again on the way 
 home, stablishing (eTrto-TTj/at'^oi'Te?) the souls of the 
 disciples. Then " having chosen for them iyeipoTovr]- 
 (ravTe<; — the confusion with ■x^eipoOeaia is much later 
 than the Apostolic age) elders in each Ecclesia (/car' 
 eKKkTja'iav), having prayed with fastings, they com- 
 mended them to the Lord on whom they had believed." 
 Here first we find that these infant communities are 
 each called an Ecclesia, not indeed (so far as appears) 
 from the first preaching, but at least from the second 
 confirmatory visit. Further, Paul and Barnabas follow 
 the precedent of Jerusalem by appointing elders in 
 Jewish fashion (elders^ being indeed an institution of 
 
 1 Lightfoot, Philippiatis 193. 
 H. E. S 
 
66 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 Jewish communities of the Dispersion as well as of 
 Judaea), and with this simple organisation they en- 
 trusted the young Ecclesiae to the Lord's care, to 
 pursue an independent life. Such seems to be the 
 meaning of the phrase "they commended them to 
 the Lord on whom they had believed" (xiv. 23), 
 which resembles some of the farewell words spoken 
 to the Ephesian Elders at Miletus (xx. 32). 
 
 On their return to Antioch,"from whence", St Luke 
 takes care expressly to remind us — "from whence they 
 had been committed to the grace of God for the 
 work which they fulfilled ", they at once proceed to 
 give an account of the task entrusted to them. They 
 call together the Ecclesia and relate what God had 
 done with them and how he had opened to the 
 Gentiles a door of faith. No defence or explanation 
 was necessary here. They had done what they had 
 been sent to do. The turning to the Gentiles (xiii. 46) 
 had evidently been contemplated from the first as a 
 probable contingency, though the Jews were to be 
 addressed first. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that these events, 
 which happened about the year 50 A.D., constitute 
 one of the greatest epochs, perhaps the greatest, 
 in the history of the Ecclesia at large. Henceforth 
 it was to contain members who had never in any 
 sense belonged to the Jewish Ecclesia. There was 
 henceforth no intelligible limit for it short of univer- 
 sality : and thus, while it never cut itself off from its 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 67 
 
 primitive foundation, it entered on a career which 
 imposed on it totally new conditions. 
 
 The Conference at Jerusalem. 
 
 In the steps hitherto taken the Ecclesia of Antioch 
 had acted independently and apparently without 
 difference of opinion. But soon a troubling of the 
 peace came from without, from Judaea. It is worth 
 notice that we hear nothing of complaints against the 
 Ecclesia of Antioch as having exceeded its legitimate 
 powers. The appeal of the envoys from Judaea was 
 simply to the Jewish law as binding on all Christians, 
 " Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, 
 ye cannot be saved" (xv. l). Evidently the heathen 
 converts made by St Paul and St Barnabas had not 
 been circumcised, and this proceeding had been ac- 
 cepted by the Ecclesia of Antioch, and was evidently 
 intended to guide their future action in regard to 
 converts from the heathen. To act thus was to 
 decide that Judaism was not the necessary porch of 
 entrance into the discipleship of the Gospel, and that 
 Gentiles might pass at once into the Christian fold 
 without doing homage to the Jewish law, and without 
 any obligation to future allegiance to it. It would 
 have been surprising indeed if all the Jewish Chris- 
 tians of Palestine had been ready at once, either to 
 accept this as the right course to adopt, or to acquiesce 
 in leaving the Christians of Antioch free to pursue 
 their own way without hindrance or remonstrance. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 What view the Twelve took of the matter, we do not 
 know. It is hardly hkely that the Jewish zealots 
 within the Ecclesia of Jerusalem would commence an 
 agitation at Antioch in person without having first 
 tried to induce the leading men at Jerusalem to take 
 action. If they did so, we know that they failed: 
 nothing can be clearer in this respect than the words 
 of the epistle recorded further on in the chapter (xv. 24), 
 " Forasmuch as we have heard that certain of our 
 number (rivh e^ '^fj.wv, so the rather startling right 
 reading, meaning doubtless 'some members of our 
 Ecclesia') — that certain of our number troubled you 
 with words, disturbing your souls, fo whom we gave no 
 charge" (0I9 ov SteareiXd/xeda, ' we' being the Apostles, 
 Elders, and the whole Ecclesia). But if the Twelve 
 and other leading men refused to abet the Judaizing 
 zealots, it does not follow that they already were firm 
 and clear on behalf of the policy of Antioch : later 
 incidents render it improbable that they were. Doubt- 
 less they were not prepared to come to a final decision 
 without taking time. 
 
 What might have easily become a schism of 
 impassable depth was averted by the forbearance of 
 the brethren at Antioch. The disputes between the 
 Judaizers and Paul and Barnabas led them to send 
 Paul and Barnabas, with others, to hold a consultation 
 with "the Apostles and Elders" at Jerusalem. It 
 would seem as though St Paul himself hesitated at 
 first about going, doubtless from a fear of compro- 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 69 
 
 mising- the cause which he was determined that no 
 Jerusalem authority should lead him to abandon. "I 
 went up ", he says (Gal. ii. 2), " in obedience to a reve- 
 lation." The envoys set out, " speeded on their way 
 by the Ecclesia " (Acts xv. 3). They passed through 
 Phoenicia and Samaria, telling the tale of the conver- 
 sion of the Gentiles, and " caused great joy to all the 
 brethren": to those regions the scruples of Jerusalem 
 had not spread. At Jerusalem " they were received 
 by the Ecclesia and the Apostles and the Elders '', the 
 three being carefully enumerated, as if to mark the 
 formality of the reception, and its completely repre- 
 sentative character. Before the assembly the envoys 
 repeated the tale of the successful mission, and then 
 the gainsayers, now described as of the sect of the 
 Pharisees (xv. 5), rose up to maintain the necessity of 
 circumcision and the retention of the Law, as obligatory 
 on the Gentiles. Then the discussion would seem to 
 have been adjourned. It was probably before the 
 assembly met again that those private conferences 
 with the leading Apostles took place to which alone 
 St Paul makes explicit reference in his narrative in 
 Galatians'. 
 
 The final assembly is described by St Luke (xv. 6) 
 at the outset as a gathering together of the Apostles 
 and the Elders to see concerning this discourse (\6yov, 
 practically, this matter). It can hardly be doubted 
 that the Ecclesia at large was in some manner like- 
 
 * See Lightfoot, Galatians 134 f. 
 
70 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 wise presents This follows not only from the associa- 
 tion of " the whole Ecclesia" with the Apostles and the 
 Elders in the sending of a deputation to Antioch (v. 22), 
 but still more clearly from the words "and all the 
 multitude held their peace" in v. 12, since it is incon- 
 ceivable that the body of Elders should be called " the 
 multitude." On the other hand St Luke could hardly 
 have omitted to mention the Ecclesia in that initial 
 V. 6, unless the chief responsibility had been recog- 
 nised as lying with the Apostles and the Elders. 
 
 Every one knows the order of incidents, the 
 opening speech by St Peter appealing to the very 
 similar event of his own Divinely sanctioned admis- 
 sion of Cornelius, and arguing against tempting God 
 by laying on the neck of the disciples a yoke which 
 neither their own Jewish fathers nor themselves had 
 had strength to bear; next the recital by Paul and 
 Barnabas of the signs and wonders by which God 
 had set His seal to the work among the Gentiles ; 
 then James's renewed reference to Peter's argument, 
 confirmation of it from the prophecy of Amos, and 
 final announcement of his own opinion (Sto iyw 
 Kpivw) against troubling Gentile converts, but in 
 favour of sending them a message (or possibly, en- 
 joining them, eTTtareiXai) to observe four abstinences. 
 These need not be considered now''. It is enough 
 
 ^ Solren. cont.Haer. III. xii. 14 cum. ..universa ecclesia convenisset 
 in unum. 
 
 ^ See Hort's Jitdaiitic Christianity , pp. 68 ff. 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 71 
 
 to say that on the two points at issue, circumcision 
 and the bindingness of the Jewish law, they give 
 no support to the demands of the Judaizers. Whether 
 the abstinences here laid down be of Jewish or even 
 Mosaic origin or not, at most they are isolated 
 precepts of expediency, not resting on the principle 
 which was in dispute. And lastly we have the decision 
 of " the apostles and the elders and all the ecclesia " 
 to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas two chosen 
 envoys from their own number, " leading men among 
 the brethren ", Judas Barsabbas and Silas, and with 
 them a letter. 
 
 The letter and its reception. 
 
 The salutation at the head of the letter is from 
 " the apostles and the elder brethren to the brethren 
 who are of the Gentiles throughout Antioch and 
 Syria and Cilicia" (such seems to be the force of Ka-ra 
 with a single article for the three names), the central 
 and in every way most important, Antioch, being 
 placed at the head, and then the rest of Syria, and 
 the closely connected region of Cilicia. The Ecclesia 
 is not separately mentioned in the salutation ; on the 
 other hand the unusual phrase " the elder brethren " 
 (for such is assuredly not only the right reading but 
 the right punctuation) indicates that they who held 
 the office of Elder were to be regarded as bearing the 
 characteristic from which the title itself had arisen, and 
 were but elder brothers at the head of a great 
 
7i THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 family of brethren. The letter, after the salutation, 
 begins by repudiating the agitators who had gone 
 down to Antioch. Next it states that it had been 
 agreed in common to send back chosen men with 
 Barnabas and Paul, who are spoken of in emphati- 
 cally warm language, with indirect recognition of 
 their mission as that for which they had exposed 
 their lives : this was in fact a deputation from Jeru- 
 salem, exactly answering to the deputation from 
 Antioch to Jerusalem. Thirdly, in a fresh sentence 
 the letter gives the names of the two envoys (Judas 
 and Silas), and the exact purpose of their mission, 
 to repeat in person what had just been recited in 
 writing (to. avra), probably also with the inclusion of 
 what comes next, or fourthly, " For it seemed good 
 to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no further 
 burthen save these necessary things, vi^. the four 
 abstinences ; from which if ye keep yourselves it 
 shall be well with you. Fare ye well." 
 
 To some points involved in this letter and the 
 accompanying circumstances we must return just 
 now. But first we should glance at the historical 
 sequel, under the two heads of St Luke's and St 
 Paul's narratives. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas ' go down ' to Antioch (the 
 phrase is significant, — Jerusalem is still the central 
 height). They gather together the multitude of the 
 brethren {to TrXrjdo^) and gave them the epistle 
 {eTTeBcoKav) ; ^ a phrase which shews that, as might 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 73 
 
 indeed be gathered from the terms of the salutation, 
 it was to the Ecclesia at large that the letter was 
 addressed. Having read it they rejoice at the en- 
 couragement (jrapaKXrjaei) ; a vague word, it might 
 seem, but an appropriate one : it expressed the 
 " God speed you " (so to speak) which had been pro- 
 nounced on their own work and on the conditions 
 of freedom under which it had been begun. The 
 effect of the letter is reinforced by the personal 
 representatives of Jerusalem : Judas and Silas, them- 
 selves also prophets, with much discourse encouraged 
 (or exhorted, irapeKoXeaav) the brethren and stablished 
 [them] {iire<TTr]pi^av). They stay some time, and then 
 are dismissed by the brethren with peace and return 
 to those that sent them (the a-noaroKovi of the Textus 
 Receptus and the Authorised Version is certainly a 
 wrong reading). Meanwhile Paul and Barnabas con- 
 tinue in Antioch, teaching and preaching the good 
 tidings of the word of the Lord, along with many 
 others also (xv. 35). 
 
 St Peter at Antioch. 
 
 Such is St Luke's account, a history of smooth 
 water. It did not enter into his purpose to wake up 
 the memories of an incident on which the Ecclesia 
 had been well-nigh wrecked, but which happily had 
 ended in a manner which enabled it to pursue 
 its course uninjured, or rather we must suppose 
 strengthened. Nothing, we may be sure, but the 
 
74 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 conviction that the whole future of the Gentile 
 Ecclesiae was bound up in the vindication of his 
 own authentic Apostleship, would have induced St 
 Paul to commit to paper the sad story of his conflict 
 with St Peter. St Peter, it would seem, had after 
 a while followed the four envoys to Antioch. Nothing 
 was more natural and expedient than that he should 
 visit the vigorous young community in person, and 
 establish friendly relations on the spot. A personal 
 visit like this, which might once have been imprudent, 
 had now become expedient. At first all went well. 
 He carried out completely the purpose of the Jeru- 
 salem letter by associating on equal terms with the 
 Gentile converts ; he " ate with them ", just as he had 
 done (to the scandal of many) at Csesarea (xi. 3). 
 But when certain came down from James, he withdrew 
 himself in fear of them of the circumcision. This 
 conduct St Paul plainly calls "acting a false part" 
 {vTr6icpi<Ti<i Gal. ii. 13), pretending to be that which he 
 was not : but it was shared by the rest of the Jewish 
 Christians at Antioch and even at length, strange to 
 say, by Barnabas. St Paul alone stood firm, and 
 rebuked St Peter to his face in the presence of them 
 all. To go into the various questions arising out of 
 this account, as I did to a certain extent two years ago', 
 would be out of the question now. What specially 
 concerns our own subject is that the point of principle 
 really at stake was, under one aspect, the question 
 
 ^ See Judaistic Christianiiy, pp. 76 ff. 
 
THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 75 
 
 whether membership of the Christian Ecclesia could 
 be of two orders or degrees, an inner for Jewish 
 Christians only, and an outer. The position practi- 
 cally taken up for a while by St Peter and his 
 associates must not be confounded with the position 
 taken up by the uncompromising Judaizers who had 
 been repudiated in the letter from Jerusalem. There 
 is not the least sign that he affected to wish to 
 exclude heathen converts from baptism or most 
 other Christian privileges. But he did persuade 
 himself that, for the time at least, uncircumcised 
 Christians should not be allowed to sit at table with 
 circumcised ; in other words that they might in a 
 certain sense be members of the Christian brother- 
 hood but not be recognised as full members, unless 
 by first becoming Jews, and accepting Jewish customs 
 as binding on them. St Paul does not tell us how 
 the matter ended. That was unnecessary, for all the 
 subsequent history shewed that this compromise, 
 the fruit of timorous and untimely prudence, must 
 have quickly collapsed, and left the policy represented 
 by St Paul now more firmly established than before 
 St Peter's arrival. Thus the freedom of Gentile 
 Christian communities was assured anew in the 
 completest form. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 The exercise of a uthority. 
 
 St yames and his position. 
 
 We have already spent much time on the Jerusalem 
 conference and letter, and its sequel. But'there remain 
 some points which concern our subject too closely to 
 be passed over. First, about St James. This is the 
 second of the three occasions on which his name 
 appears in the Acts. When St Peter was released 
 by the angel from prison, after the martyrdom of 
 the Apostle James the brother of John, he said to the 
 disciples assembled in the house of John Mark " Tell 
 these things to James and to the brethren" (xii. 17). 
 He must then have already been in some manner 
 prominent among the disciples. As the chief among 
 the Lord's own brethren, and one to whom the Lord 
 vouchsafed a separate appearance after the Resurrec- 
 tion (i Cor. XV. 7), doubtless the appearance to which 
 the well-known story in the Gospel according to the 
 Hebrews refers (Lightfoot, Gal. 265), and, if so, at 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 77 
 
 which his unbelief probably came to an end, he would 
 evidently be held in a peculiar kind of respect in the 
 infant Ecclesia. St Paul alone speaks of him as an 
 Apostle (Gal. i. 19: and probably by implication 
 I Cor. XV. 7), and the contexts seem to me distinctly 
 to exclude that looser sense of the term referred to 
 before by which mere 'Apostles of Ecclesiae' were 
 meant, while it is hardly less clear that he did not 
 anticipate the later theory which made him to have 
 been from the first one of the Twelve. It would seem 
 then that, possessing as he did in an eminent degree 
 the primary apostolic qualification of being a witness 
 of the Lord's life, death and resurrection, he was at 
 some early time after the persecution by Herod taken 
 up into the place among the Twelve vacated by his 
 namesake. The silence of St Luke, as compared 
 with his explicitness about Matthias, may be due to 
 the fact that in this instance it was no matter of 
 choice, calling for all the process described in Acts i., 
 but a natural result of the combination of circum- 
 stances, such as might itself well be treated as a 
 sufficient intimation of the Divine will. On the other 
 hand no Apostleship of St James is recorded or 
 implied by St Luke, though he three times mentions 
 him in a way which marks him out as, to say the 
 least, a leading and prominent person. But this is less 
 surprising than it might otherwise be, if the promin- 
 ence was due to personal circumstances, which con- 
 tinued to operate after his admission to the Apostolate, 
 
78 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 just as antecedently they had procured his admission 
 to it. In other words, the prominence which he has 
 in the Acts would not be due to his having become 
 an Apostle : nay, his admission to that joint responsi- 
 bility might rather tend to diminish any exclusiveness 
 oi prestige which he may have acquired outside the 
 Apostolate, and so independently of it. 
 
 Was then the prominence of St James due solely 
 to personal qualifications and history, not to any re- 
 cognised function .' That would be too much to say. 
 That at the time of his death he was practically the 
 ruler of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem is the least open to 
 doubt among the particulars of the traditions current in 
 the Second Century about him, by whatever name we 
 choose to call his government ; and at least the origin 
 of such a position is likely to have some connexion 
 with the facts mentioned or implied by St Luke. 
 The clearest fact about him attested by the New 
 Testament, Acts and St Paul alike, but enormously 
 exaggerated at a later time, is that he was at least 
 more closely' connected in sentiment with the more 
 Jewish part of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem than were 
 the rest of the Apostles ; and it may well be that the 
 veneration in which he is said to have been held at 
 the time of his death even by unbelieving Jews, had 
 its roots in an early popularity which would make 
 him a valuable mediator between the stififer sort of 
 Hebrew Christians and the other Apostles. Such a 
 passage as that just cited from St Peter's words after 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 79 
 
 his release might, taken alone, be quite sufficiently 
 explained by purely personal prominence. So also 
 the fact that in Gal. ii. 9 the order is "James and 
 Cephas and John " might well be due to the fact that 
 the adherence of James on the occasion referred to 
 was even more significant than that of the other two, 
 on account of his closer relations with the Jewish 
 party. But the two other passages of the Acts are 
 best understood as implying that he held some 
 recognised office or function in connexion with the 
 Ecclesia of Jerusalem : and it does not seem unlikely 
 that on his admission to the Apostolate it was ar- 
 ranged that, unlike the rest, he should exercise a 
 definite local charge. Such a charge would of neces- 
 sity become more distinct and, so to speak, monar- 
 chical when the other Apostles were absent from 
 Jerusalem. His own circumstances were unique, and 
 the circumstances of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem were 
 no less unique. A peculiar function founded on 
 peculiar qualifications is what the narrative suggests. 
 
 There is nothing in St Luke's words which bears 
 out what is often said, that St James presided over 
 the conference at Jerusalem. If he had, it would 
 be strange that his name should not be mentioned 
 separately at the beginning, where we read only that 
 "the Apostles and the Elders" were gathered together. 
 In the decisive speeches at the end the lead is taken 
 by St Peter, the foremost of the Twelve. After 
 Barnabas and Paul have ended their narrative, James 
 
So THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 takes up the word. What he says is called an answer 
 {a-rctKpiOrj laKco/So? Xk'^atv xv. 1 3), probably as replying 
 to words uttered earlier by the more Jewish section of 
 the assembly during the dispute mentioned in v. 7, 
 His opening words suggest that his first appeal is to 
 them, and that he makes it as one to whom they might 
 be more willing to listen than to St Paul, " Brethren 
 (ai'Bpe<; dSeXcjjoi), listen to me " ; he then refers to 
 Peter's exposition, calling him not only by his original 
 name, but by the strictly Hebrew form of it, Symeon, 
 as though to bespeak their goodwill for what Peter 
 had said. Then again the words which begin his 
 conclusion, " Wherefore my judgement is," cannot 
 reasonably be understood as an authoritative judg- 
 ment pronounced by himself independently: the 
 whole context and what is said in v. 22 about the 
 actual decision makes that interpretation morally 
 impossible. The sense is doubtless " I for my part^ 
 judge,'' " this is my vote " as we should say. The 
 point then is that, guardian though he was of the 
 honour of Israel in the Ecclesia, he here throws his 
 voice on the side of liberty. It is no objection to 
 this view that he says simply eyoo not Kaym : owing 
 to his mention of the four abstinences his proposal 
 could not be simply identical with that of St Peter. 
 
 1 Wetstein in loc. quotes Thuc. iv. 16 for a still weaker us eyii Kplvui, 
 explained by the scholiast as us iyO> vo^ifw, and the same use of Kplvia 
 occurs elsewhere in the Acts (xiii. 46; xvi. 15; xxvi. 8): here the sense 
 seems to be intermediate. Cf. the old latin version of Irenseus cont. 
 Haer. III. xii. 14 'Ego secundum me iudico.' 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORtTY. ii 
 
 We saw just now that he is not named at the 
 gathering of the assembly. It is just the same 
 afterwards : the decision is said to be made by the 
 Apostles and the Elders with the whole Ecclesia ; the 
 letter proceeds from the Apostles and the elder 
 brethren : apart then from these two classes he can 
 hardly have exercised authority in this matter. 
 
 The Atitliorify of tlie Jerusalem Elders and of 
 the Twelve. 
 
 When we pass from St James to the Apostles and 
 Elders, the question arises, " What kind of authority 
 they here put forth over the brethren in Antioch and 
 the surrounding region .'' " The answer cannot be a 
 simple one. The letter itself at once implies an 
 authority, and betrays an unwillingness to make a 
 display of it. In the forefront are set anxious friend- 
 liness, courteous approval. Whatever is in any sense 
 imperative comes after this and subsidiary to it, and 
 is set forth as what had seemed good " to the Holy 
 Spirit and to us ", the human authority, whatever it be, 
 being as it were appended to that which is presumed 
 to be Divine. Further, the semblance of a command 
 is softened off at the end into a counsel ; " from which 
 if ye keep yourselves it shall be well with you." 
 
 So again in the next chapter (xvi. 4) the phrase 
 used, "the decrees which had been ordained of the 
 Apostles and Elders", seems to refer back, 'the 
 
 H. E. 6 
 
§2 THE EXERCISE OP Authority. 
 
 decrees' (Boy/xaTo) to the twice repeated eSo^ev of 
 XV. 22, 25, 'ordained' {KeKpi-fieva) to St James's Kpivoa 
 in XV. 19'. A6<yfj,a in Greek (properly only what 
 seems, or seems good) is one of those curiously 
 elastic words which vary in sharpness of meaning 
 according to the persons to whom a thing is said 
 to seem good, and to the other circumstances of 
 the case. The dogma of an emperor or a legislative 
 assembly or the Amphictyonic council is a decree, 
 the dogma of a philosopher is what seems to him 
 to be true ; and between these extremes are various 
 shades of meaning. Here the probable sense is 
 nearly what we should call a ' resolution ', as passed 
 by any deliberative body, not in form imperative but 
 intended to have a binding force. The New Testa- 
 ment is not poor of words expressive of command, 
 ivreXKofiai, eiriTdaaa), irpoaTaaao}, BbaTaacrco, SiaaTeX- 
 Xofiat and their derivatives, to say nothing of KeXeva 
 and TrapajyeWai : yet none of them is used. It was 
 in truth a delicate and difficult position, even after 
 the happy decision of the assembly. The independ- 
 ence of the Ecclesia of Antioch had to be respected, 
 and yet not in such a way as to encourage disregard 
 either of the great mother Ecclesia, or of the Lord's 
 own Apostles, or of the unity of the whole Christian 
 body. Accordingly we do not find a word of a hint 
 
 ^ In the later reference (xxi. 25) we have no stronger term than 
 direo-reiXa^uec (or ^?r£crreIXa/iey) Kptvcwres : cf. St James's Kptvw...iin(TTe1\ai, 
 (xv. 19 f.). 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 83 
 
 that the Antiochians would have done better to get 
 sanction from Jerusalem before plunging into such 
 grave responsibilities. But along with the cordial 
 concurrence in the release of Gentile converts from 
 legal requirements there goes a strong expression of 
 opinion, more than advice and less than a command, 
 respecting certain salutary restraints. A certain 
 authority is thus implicitly claimed. There is no 
 evidence that it was more than a moral authority ; 
 but that did not make it less real. 
 
 The bases of authority differ for the two bodies 
 united in writing to Antioch, the Elders and the 
 Apostles. The Elders are to all appearance the local 
 elders of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem. It is impossible 
 that, as such, they could claim any authority properly 
 so called over the Ecclesia of Antioch. But they had 
 a large voice, backed as they were by the great body 
 of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, in saying whether the 
 Ecclesia of Jerusalem would accept the brethren at 
 Antioch, and specially the Gentile converts among 
 them, as true brethren of their own, and true disciples 
 of Jesus Christ. There is no making of formal con- 
 ditions of fellowship, but the Elders, as taking the 
 lead in making so great a concession on the part of 
 Jerusalem, might well feel that they had a right to 
 expect that the four restraints which had been set 
 forth would be accepted. Such a deference on the 
 part of Antioch would be the more proper since Paul 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 and Barnabas, the representatives of Antioch, had 
 evidently accepted the resolution as a whole (see 
 their conduct in xvi. 4). 
 
 The authority of the Apostles was of a different 
 kind. There is indeed, as we have seen, no trace in 
 Scripture of a formal commission of authority for 
 government from Christ Himself Their commission 
 was to be witnesses of Himself, and to bear that witness 
 by preaching and by healing. But it is inconceivable 
 that the moral authority with which they were thus 
 clothed, and the uniqueness of their position and 
 personal qualifications, should not in all these years 
 have been accumulating upon them by the spontaneous 
 homage of the Christians of Judaea an ill-defined but 
 lofty authority in matters of government and adminis- 
 tration ; of which indeed we have already had an 
 instance in the laying of the price of the sold proper- 
 ties at their feet. What is not so easy to find out is 
 the extent to which an apostolic authority of this 
 kind is likely to have been felt and acknowledged 
 beyond the limits of the Holy Land. On the one 
 hand all Christian discipleship, wherever it sprang up, 
 must have come directly or indirectly from the central 
 community at Jerusalem, and it is difficult to see any 
 form the Gospel could take in transmission in which 
 the place of the still living Apostles would not be a 
 primary one. On the other hand we cannot forget 
 that it was of James and Peter and John that St Paul 
 wrote those guarded but far-reaching words (Gal. ii. 6) 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 85 
 
 " but from those who were reputed to be somewhat — 
 (of whatsoever sort {otroloi) they were, it maketh no 
 matter to me : God accepteth not a man's person) 
 they, I say, who were of repute imparted nothing (or 
 nothing farther) tome(6/iot ovhev irpoa-aveOevTo)": words 
 which shew that with all his unfailing anxiety to have 
 the concurrence of the Twelve, and not of them only 
 but of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem at large, he was not 
 prepared to obey if the Twelve had insisted on the 
 requirement of circumcision and the Law. Hence in 
 the letter sent to Antioch the authority even of the 
 Apostles, notwithstanding the fact that unlike the 
 Jerusalem elders they exercised a function towards 
 all Christians, was moral rather than formal ; a claim 
 to deference rather than a right to be obeyed. 
 
 The Twelve and the Gentiles. 
 
 In this connexion there is special force in that 
 familiar statement by St Paul in the context just 
 referred to (Gal. ii. 7-12), "when they saw that I had 
 been entrusted with the Gospel of the uncircumcision, 
 even as Peter with (a Gospel) of the circumcision 
 (IleT/aos rij? 7reptTo/x^9, not to tj;?), for He that wrought 
 by Peter (that seems to be the sense of ivepyTjcra<; 
 Her pep, rather than either "in Peter" or "for Peter") 
 unto an Apostleship (no Trjv) of the circumcision (t^? 
 TrepiTo/j.rj'i) wrought by me also unto (or for, ek) t^e 
 Gentiles : — and when they perceived (yvovre';) the 
 grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and 
 
86 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me 
 and Barnabas right hands of fellowship (/cotz/tai'ta?), 
 that we (should be, or should go ; no verb) unto the 
 Gentiles, and themselves unto the circumcision : only 
 they would that we should remember the poor {i.e. 
 poor Christians of Palestine) ; which I also for this 
 very reason took pains to do." 
 
 Our familiarity with the idea of St Paul as the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles makes us in reading slide over 
 this arrangement as though it were the obvious thing 
 to be done. In one sense it was : but what is its relation 
 to the universal mission of the Twelve.' Was it indeed 
 to the circumcision only that our Lord had appointed 
 them to bear witness of Himself by word and act .'' It 
 is difficult to think so when we read of words which 
 He spoke between the Resurrection and the Ascen- 
 sion. Those other words about the twelve thrones, 
 and about not having gone through the cities of 
 Israel, doubtless remained, not abrogated. But in 
 some sense or other the twelve Apostles were surely 
 to be for the Gentiles as well as for the old Israel ; 
 not merely through the Ecclesia which was founded 
 on them, but in themselves. They had a relation to 
 the ideal twelve tribes of the new Israel as well as to 
 those of the old, which long before the time of the 
 Christian era had become hardly less ideal. 
 
 , Here comes in the purely historical question. Had 
 the Twelve or any of them preached beyond the limits 
 of Palestine up to this time t High authorities give 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 87 
 
 this extension to St Luke's simple if vague words 
 about St Peter after his deliverance from prison, how 
 he "went out {i.e. out of John Mark's house at Jeru- 
 salem) and went his way unto another place" (xii. 17). 
 About twelve years are said to have then elapsed 
 since the Ascension, and reference is made to one of 
 the traditions current in the Second Century, to the 
 effect that our Lord had bidden the Apostles go forth 
 into the world after twelve years. There is, however, 
 nothing connected with the tradition which gives it 
 substantially more weight than the other fictions 
 about the Apostles which soon flourished luxuriantly 
 and in endless contradictions to each other. The 
 omission of such a cardinal event from St Luke's 
 narrative is, I think, inconceivable ; and his whole 
 story of the doings of the Ecclesia of Antioch and 
 St Paul's first mission becomes unintelligible if 
 similar missionary journeys of Apostles had preceded. 
 We must, I think, conclude that up to the date of the 
 great conference the Twelve had not believed them- 
 selves to have received any clear Divine intimation 
 that the time was come for them to go forth in person 
 among the nations. 
 
 But now, independently of any action on their 
 own part, the whole horizon was changed by the 
 action of the Ecclesia of Antioch and the labours of 
 Paul and Barnabas. It was no merely human series 
 of acts which came before them for recognition. 
 They doubtless accepted the mission from Antioch 
 
88 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 as proceeding in the first instance from the Holy 
 Spirit speaking by the mouth of prophets, and as 
 subsequently sanctioned from heaven by the signs 
 and wonders which Paul and Barnabas were enabled 
 to work. Here then at last the Divine monition 
 to themselves had come, though probably in an 
 unexpected form. In the person of St Paul, long 
 since welcomed by themselves as a fellow-worker, 
 God had now raised up a mighty herald of the Gospel 
 for the Gentiles. He was no delegate of theirs: his 
 commission was direct: but by recognising him as 
 specially called to do apostolic work among the 
 Gentiles, they were enabled to feel that by agreement 
 and fellowship with him they were in effect carrying 
 out through him that extension of their sphere which 
 it is incredible that they should ever have dismissed 
 from their minds ; and meanwhile they were them- 
 selves able without misgiving to continue their work 
 in the narrower sphere in which they had already 
 laboured so long. Whether this limitation was at 
 the time contemplated as permanent or as temporary, 
 we have of course no means of knowing : but indeed 
 there was no need to decide ; in the future, no less 
 than in the present, the needful guidance was to be 
 looked for from heaven. In any case this agreement 
 with St Paul, made in private conference, must be 
 kept in mind when we are reading the epistle to 
 Antioch which was agreed to and written so shortly 
 after. They remarkably supplement each other. On 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 89 
 
 the one hand the Twelve could not have so written 
 had they meant henceforth to hold themselves dis- 
 charged from every kind of responsibility towards 
 Gentile Christians generally : on the other the agree- 
 ment with St Paul and St Barnabas excluded them 
 for the present from working personally among the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 It must be noticed that the limit drawn is 
 religious, not geographical : it is between the circum- 
 cision and the Gentiles, not between the land of Israel 
 and Gentile lands. Thus St James was still acting 
 quite according to the agreement when, while re- 
 maining at the head of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, 
 he wrote an Epistle to Jewish Christians of the 
 Dispersion. But we hear nothing of evangelistic 
 journeys by the Twelve for preaching to the Jews of 
 heathen cities ; and it is most unlikely that any such 
 were made. The distribution of fields of work involved 
 in the agreement itself passed away in due time by the 
 force of circumstances: we know of at least three of the 
 Twelve who can be shown on trustworthy evidence to 
 have laboured eventually in heathen lands. But that 
 lies outside the Acts. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that we have now reached 
 the last appearance of the Apostles collectively, or 
 of any one of them except St James, in St Luke's 
 narrative. His remaining chapters are wholly silent 
 about them. By this time the work which most 
 charactepistically belonged to them, their special con- 
 
90 THE EXERCIi^E OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 tribution to the building up of the Ecclesia, though 
 not yet ended, was not henceforth to present new- 
 features. What remained of their work in Palestine 
 would be a continuation of such work as St Luke 
 had already described. On them the Ecclesia of 
 the mother city had been built. 
 
 The government of tJie Ecclesia of Antioch. 
 
 One other supplementary observation should be 
 made before we leave this fifteenth chapter. In all 
 that we read there and previously about the young 
 Ecclesia of Antioch we learn absolutely nothing about 
 its government or administration. The prophets and 
 teachers have, as such, nothing to do with functions of 
 this kind. Doubtless a man like Barnabas, coming as 
 an envoy of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem (so, not simply 
 of the Apostles, xi. 22) and shewing such sympathy 
 with the local conditions of things, would acquire by 
 the mere force of circumstances a considerable moral 
 authority ; and this would presently be shared with 
 St Paul, when he too had come out of his Cilician retire- 
 ment. Of course by its very nature this position was 
 temporary as well as informal. Strange to say, we 
 hear nothing about Elders. Since we know that the 
 Ecclesia of Jerusalem had long had Elders, and St Paul 
 on returning from his first journey in Asia Minor had 
 appointed Elders for each local Ecclesia, it is hardly 
 credible that they were wanting at Antioch, to say 
 nothing of the influence of the precedent of the great 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 91 
 
 Jewish population. But in the Acts we hear only of 
 " the brethren " (xv. i, 32, 33) or "the disciples " (xi. 26, 
 29; xiv. 28) or "the multitude" (xv. 30) or "the ec- 
 clesia " (xi. 26 ; xiii. i ; xiv. 27). Evidently at this 
 time the general body of disciples at Antioch must 
 have taken at least a large share in the acts of the 
 Christian community. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 St Paul at Ephesus. 
 
 The later history of the resolutions of the conference. 
 
 The rest of the Acts need not occupy us long. 
 After certain days Paul said unto Barnabas " Let us 
 return now and visit the brethren in every city 
 wherein we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see 
 how they fare." This journey then proceeded from 
 no act of the Ecclesia of Antioch nor (so far as 
 appears) from a special Divine monition. It was 
 apparently in intention, and certainly as regards the 
 first part of it, merely supplementary to the former 
 journey. As we know, St Paul and Barnabas had a 
 division of opinion, and separated, Paul taking Silas, 
 one of the envoys of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, and 
 himself a prophet. At Lystra a still more important 
 fellow-labourer was added to his company in the 
 person of Timothy, whom for prudential reasons he 
 circumcised ; doubtless because, though hitherto form- 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 93 
 
 ally outside the old covenant, he had been from child- 
 hood to all intents and purposes a Jew\ As they went 
 through the cities they delivered to them (masculine : 
 to the disciples there) the resolutions which had been 
 decided on {ja iojfiara ra KeKpifj,ei'a) by the Apostles 
 and Elders that were at Jerusalem. The region through 
 which they were now travelling had nothing to do 
 with the provinces associated with Antioch, vz3. 
 Syria and Cilicia, to which the Jerusalem letter had 
 been addressed. But the conversions which had taken 
 place in that very region formed the first link in the 
 chain of circumstances which led to the writing of the 
 letter : and if the Ecclesia of Antioch were to accept 
 loyally the restraints on neophytes imposed by the 
 letter, it was impossible that their missionary, on now 
 at once revisiting the scene of his mission, should fail 
 to press these requirements upon his converts. But 
 (with the exception of an allusion by St James or 
 the Jerusalem Elders in xxi. 25) this is the last 
 that we hear of these requirements in the Acts, 
 and St Paul in his Epistles makes no allusion to them 
 directly or indirectly. It is of course possible that 
 St Luke's silence on this point for the rest of this 
 journey, and for all the subsequent journeyings, was 
 not intended to be expressive. He may have wished 
 the single instance given at the outset to be under- 
 stood as carried on through the rest of his narrative. 
 But the manner in which the one statement is made 
 
 ^ See JudaisHc Christianity., pp. 84 ff. 
 
94 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 does not suggest such an extension ; nor is it likely 
 that St Luke would have failed to repeat it for at 
 least one region now first entered on, had he wished 
 it to be carried forward by his readers. But St Paul's 
 own silence is more significant still. The truth 
 probably is that he accepted the four restraints 
 appended to the main purpose of the letter, but did 
 not really care for them, preferring to seek the same 
 ends by other means ; and so that he did not attempt 
 to enforce them with respect to Christian converts 
 for which the Ecclesia of Antioch was in no sense 
 responsible ; having perhaps already found reason in 
 Lycaonia to doubt their expediency, though, faithful 
 to his trust, he introduced them there. At all events 
 the great liberative measure to which the Apostles 
 joined with the Elders and Ecclesia of Jerusalem in 
 setting their hands stood fast, and determined the 
 character of by far the greater part of the new 
 Ecclesia, while these petty adjuncts to it, having 
 served their purpose, dropped away, though many in 
 ancient, and even in modern times, have tried to 
 persuade themselves that they are still binding on 
 all Christians. 
 
 The next verse to that which we have no\y been 
 examining tells us simply that " the Ecclesiae {i.e. 
 the congregations of the Lycaonian region) were 
 strengthened (or solidified, iarepeovvTo) by their faith, 
 and multiplied in number daily" (xvi. s). This is 
 
sr PAUL AT EPHESUS. 95 
 
 the last time that the word eicKXTjala is used by 
 St Luke, except for that of Jerusalem and in the 
 peculiar case of the Ephesian Elders at Miletus. 
 
 How St Paul and his companions came to extend 
 their journey beyond Lycaonia, we are not told. 
 When they had passed through Phrygia and Galatia 
 and reached Alexandria Troas the vision of the 
 Macedonian beckoned them across the Hellespont, 
 and so they entered Europe. As everyone will 
 remember, the chief places of their preaching were 
 Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, Corinth. Not 
 a word here of Ecclesiae, for the Christian communi- 
 ties were only in their earliest stage of existence. 
 
 T/te founding of the Ecdesia of Ephesus. 
 
 On his way back to the east St Paul diverged 
 rapidly from his course to snatch a visit to Ephesus, 
 where he dropped Priscilla and Aquila, and there he 
 began to argue with the Jews in the synagogue, but 
 quickly took leave. If, as the following narratives sug- 
 gest, this was the beginning of Ephesian Christianity, 
 it is much to be remembered as a bona fide m?X-A.ricz of 
 a great central capital which could legitimately claim 
 an Apostle as the founder of its Christian community. 
 It will be remembered that shortly after leaving 
 Lycaonia, Paul and his friends are said to have been 
 "hindered by the Holy Spirit from speaking the 
 word in Asia," i.e. Proconsular Asia ; which implies 
 that personally they (or Paul) had been desiring to 
 
96 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 preach there, and doubtless specially in Ephesus. 
 The deferred wish was now to be fulfilled, though 
 still, so to speak, only in a representative manner, for 
 there was no time for effectual preaching. Promising 
 to return if God will, St Paul hurries across the 
 Mediterranean to Csesarea, goes up to Jerusalem and 
 greets the Ecclesia there (here simply called r^y e«- 
 icKy]<jiav, Jerusalem itself being indicated only by the 
 word dva^d<; ' goes up '), and then returns to Antioch 
 for some time; he sets out afresh through Phrygia and 
 Galatia, " stablishing all the disciples " made on his 
 last journey, and so at last reaches Ephesus in good 
 earnest and makes a long stay, in which he becomes 
 the founder of Christian Ephesus in very deed. 
 
 One early incident of this stay is mentioned which 
 specially concerns us. After St Paul had been 
 preaching and arguing in the synagogue for the space 
 of three months, when at length some of the Jews 
 become hardened in disbelief and publicly revile 
 ' the Way,' he forms a separate congregation of the 
 disciples, probably Jewish Christians and Gentile 
 Christians alike, and carries on his public disputations 
 in what was probably a neutral building, the a-xoXri 
 or ' lecture hall ' of Tyrannus. 
 
 The period of from two to three years then spent 
 at Ephesus and in the surrounding region was full of 
 dangers and troubles, of which the Epistles alone 
 afford us some glimpses. They mark St Paul's 
 anxiety to build up carefully and solidly the Ecclesiae 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 97 
 
 of the most important region of that great peninsula 
 now called Asia Minor, which he had in a manner 
 made peculiarly his own, and which from childhood 
 must have had a special interest for him from the 
 proximity of Tarsus to the Cilician Gates, the pass by 
 which the greater part of the peninsula was entered 
 from the south. The last incident of that period 
 mentioned by St Luke brings us face to face with 
 another sort of Ecclesia from those whose origin we 
 have been tracing. He employs the word eicKkrjaia 
 not only for the regular assembly of the Ephesian 
 people (xix. 39), but, by a very unusual way of 
 speaking, for the tumultuous gathering on behalf of 
 the Ephesian goddess (xix. 32, 41). Before that last 
 incident St Paul had meditated a fresh journey of 
 great length, first a visit to the European Christian 
 communities founded by him on his former westward 
 journey, then to Jerusalem once more, where he 
 wished to find himself at Pentecost, the great national 
 festival, and lastly to Rome (xix. 21). 
 
 Si Paul's discourse to the Ephesian Elders at 
 Miletus. 
 
 The incidents of the journey, with one important 
 exception, do not concern our purpose. Anxiety not 
 to spend time in Proconsular Asia made St Paul 
 refrain from going back to Ephesus on his way to 
 Palestine. But, touching at Miletus, he thence, we 
 are told, "sent to Ephesus and called to him the 
 
 H. E, 7 
 
98 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 Elders of the Ecclesia." St Luke speaks of them 
 simply thus, as though no further explanation were 
 needed. We have seen already how St Paul insti- 
 tuted an administration by Elders in the smaller 
 Ecclesiae which he founded in Lycaonia, and it is but 
 natural to conclude that he would pursue the same 
 plan elsewhere. Whether the institution took place 
 at an early date in his long stay (so that they would 
 be acting along with and under him), or took place 
 only on his departure, as seems best to suit the 
 former precedent, we have no means of knowing. 
 Superficially it might seem as if the early verses 
 of his address favoured the first mentioned view, 
 but in reality they are neutral, what is there said 
 of the Elders' knowledge of St Paul's acts and 
 teaching from the day of his arrival being, to say 
 the least, addressed to them in their character of 
 Christian disciples, not of Christian Elders. More 
 is contained in xx. 28, partly about the Elders of 
 the Ecclesia, partly about the Ecclesia itself. " Take 
 heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the 
 Holy Spirit set you as hnaKOTtov^l' 
 
 First, how are we to understand this last word t 
 No one, I suppose, doubts now that the persons 
 meant are those first mentioned as " Elders of the 
 Ecclesia." Have we then here a second title ? The 
 only tangible reasons for thinking so (apart from 
 certain passages in Philippians and the Pastoral 
 Epistles, which must presently be considered) are that 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 99 
 
 in the Second Century the word was certainly used as 
 a title, though for a different office ; and that it was 
 already in various use as a title in the Greek world. 
 But against this we must set the fact that both in the 
 Bible (lxx., Apocrypha, and the New Testament 
 itself, I Pet. ii. 25) and in other literature (including 
 Philo) it retains its common etymological or descrip- 
 tive meaning ' overseer ', and this meaning alone gives 
 a clear sense here. The best rendering would I 
 think be, "in which the Holy Spirit set you to have 
 oversight", the force being distinctly predicative. We 
 shall have, as I said just now, to consider the word 
 again in connexion with Philippians and the Pastoral 
 Epistles, but for the present we had better remain 
 at Miletus or rather Ephesus. 
 
 Secondly, the Elders are said to have been set 
 in the flock of Ephesus to have oversight of it by the 
 Holy Spirit. Neither here nor anywhere else in the 
 address is there any indication that St Paul himself 
 had had anything to do with their appointment, 
 the contrast in this to the Pastoral Epistles being 
 very remarkable. It is no doubt conceivable that he 
 might describe such an act of his own as coming 
 from the Holy Spirit: but apart from prophetic 
 monitions, of which there is no trace here, it would 
 be hard to find another example^ 
 
 Again, it is conceivable that this language might 
 be used without any reference to the mode of ap- 
 
 ^ I Cor. vii. 40 is obviously quite different. 
 
 7—2 
 
loo ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 pointment, the Holy Spirit being regarded simply as 
 so to speak, the author of all order. 
 
 But the manner in which the Holy Spirit is 
 elsewhere associated with joint acts, acts involving 
 fellowship, suggests that here the appointment came 
 from the Ecclesia itself Doubtless, as far as we can 
 tell, such was not the case in those Lycaonian com- 
 munities where (outside of Palestine) we first read 
 of the appointment of Elders. But the case of 
 comparatively small communities, recently formed 
 and rapidly visited, might well induce St Paul in the 
 first instance to start them with Elders of his own 
 choice : while in such a capital as Ephesus, having 
 probably already made a long stay there, he might 
 well think the Ecclesia ripe for the responsibility. 
 In so doing he would be practically following the 
 precedent set at Jerusalem in the case of the Seven 
 (vi. 3-6). In that case the appointment of the Seven 
 was sealed, so to speak, by the Apostles praying and 
 laying hands of blessing on the Seven ; and so it 
 may well have been here. 
 
 Thirdly, the function of the Elders is described 
 in pastoral language (' take heed to... the flock,' ' tend,' 
 'wolves. ..not sparing the flock'). Such language, as 
 we might expect, was probably not unknown as 
 applied to Jewish elders. Apparently' (though not 
 
 1 See the passages in Levy and Fleischer's Lex. iv. 120 f. The 
 Aramaic verb (used only for men) is D3"lS, the substantive DJ"1S the 
 sense Uke that of the biblical T\sr\^ including the sense of tending or 
 leading and feeding. 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. Toi 
 
 quite clearly) it is applied in the Talmud to them 
 as well as to other guides and rulers. But it was 
 impossible that this aspect of the office should not 
 assume greater weight, under the circumstances of 
 a Christian Ecclesia. The unique redemption to 
 which the Ecclesia owed its existence involved the 
 deepening and enlarging of every responsibility, and 
 the filling out what might have been mere adminis- 
 tration with spiritual aims and forces. But the precise 
 form which the work of the Elders was to take is 
 not clearly expressed. The side of shepherding most 
 expressed by 'tending* {Troi/j,aiva>) is government and 
 guidance rather than feeding^; nor is there any other 
 distinct reference to teaching, the two imperatives 
 being " take heed to yourselves and to the flock," and 
 "watch ye" or "be wakeful" (yprjyope'tTe xx. 31), 
 spoken with reference to the double danger of grievous 
 wolves from without, and men speaking perverse 
 things from within. But this 'watching' does in- 
 directly seem to involve teaching, public or private, 
 in virtue of the words which follow, "remembering 
 that for a space of three years night and day I ceased 
 not to admonish each one," the practical form taken 
 by the Apostle's vigilance being thus recalled to 
 mind as needing to be in some v/ay carried on by 
 themselves. Moreover it is hard to see how the 
 work of tending and protection could be performed 
 
 ^ See John xxi. 16 where 'tending' (■Troi/uui'e) is contrasted with 
 'feeding ' (j36trKe) both in the preceding and in the following verse. 
 
I02 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 without teaching, which indeed would itself be a 
 necessary part of the daily life of a Christian, as of a 
 Jewish community ; and it does not appear by whom 
 it was to be carried on mainly and regularly if not by 
 the Elders, or at least by some of them. No other 
 office in the Ecclesia of Ephesus is referred to in 
 the address. 
 
 Next for the Ecclesia of Ephesus itself. 
 
 Early in the term we had occasion to notice 
 the significance of this phrase " the Ecclesia of God 
 which He purchased by the blood of His own," as 
 joining on the new society of Christ's disciples to the 
 ancient Ecclesia of Israel, and marking how the idea of 
 the sacrificial redemption wrought by the Crucified 
 Messiah, succeeding to the Paschal redemption of 
 the Exodus, was bound up in the idea of the Christian 
 Ecclesia. Here we evidently are carried into a loftier 
 region than any previous use of the word Ecclesia in 
 the Acts would obviously point to. This language 
 was but natural, since the words then spoken were 
 then supposed to be last words. They are part of 
 St Paul's solemn farewell to the cherished Ecclesia 
 of his own founding. He begins with the actual 
 circumstances of the moment, the local Ephesian com- 
 munity, which was the flock committed to the Ephesian 
 Elders, and then goes on to say that that little flock 
 had a right to believe itself to be the Ecclesia of God 
 which He had purchased to be His own possession 
 at so unspeakable a price. Of course in strictness 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 103 
 
 the words belong only to the one universal Christian 
 Ecclesia: but here they are transferred to the indi- 
 vidual Ecclesia of Ephesus, which alone these Elders 
 were charged to shepherd. In the Epistles we shall 
 find similar investment of parts of the universal 
 Ecclesia with the high attributes of the whole. This 
 transference is no mere figure of speech. Each 
 partial society is set forth as having a unity of its 
 own, and being itself a body made up of many 
 members has therefore a corporate life of its own : 
 and yet these attributes could not be ascribed to it as 
 an absolutely independent and as it were insular 
 society : they belong to it only as a representative 
 member of the great whole'. 
 
 In XX. 32, which follows the calling to mind of 
 St Paul's own former admonitions, he commends the 
 Elders " to the Lord and to the word of His grace", 
 just as he and Barnabas, on leaving the Lycaonian 
 churches with their newly appointed Elders, had 
 commended them to 'the Lord on whom they had 
 believed' (xiv. 23). "The word of His grace" here 
 is what is called in v. 24 " the Gospel of the grace of 
 God", doubtless with special reference to the grace 
 by which Gentiles were admitted into covenant with 
 God. Firm adherence to that Gospel would be the 
 
 1 The phrase 'Ecclesia of God,' which we find here, adopted and 
 adapted as we have seen from the Old Testament, has a similar local 
 reference at the head of both the Epistles to the Corinthians as also in 
 I Tim. iii. 5, not to speak of i Cor. x. 32 ; xi. 12, where, as we shall 
 see [p. 117], the phrase appears to have a double reference. 
 
I04 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 most essential principle to guide them, after his 
 departure, in their faith in God. 
 
 Then he adds words which define for the future 
 the two provinces of activity for the Ecclesia, its 
 action within and its action without, 'building up' 
 and ' enlargement' The word of God's grace, he says, 
 is indeed able^ to build up^ to build up the Ecclesia 
 and each individual member thereof within (cf ix. 31), 
 and likewise to bestow on those who had it not 
 already the inheritance' among all the sanctified, all 
 the saints of the covenant. 
 
 His last words are a gentle and disguised warning, 
 again with reference to his own practice, against the 
 coveting of earthly good things, and in favour of 
 earning by personal labour not only the supply of 
 personal needs but the means of helping those who 
 have not themselves the strength to labour. These 
 are words that might well be addressed to the whole 
 Ecclesia : but there is no turn of language to indicate 
 a change from the address to the elders ; and various 
 passages in the Epistles confirm the prima facie im- 
 pression that it is to them in the first instance that 
 the warning is addressed. 
 
 He ends with the saying of the Lord Jesus, or 
 (it may be) the summing up of many words of His, 
 " Happy is it rather to give than to receive." 
 
 ^ TiJ Bwafiivcii assuredly goes, as the Greek suggests, with XA^iji, not 
 with kvplij! (or 0£(f}. 
 
 ^ No accusative, that the reference may be perfectly general. 
 ' See especially xxvi. 18 ; Eph. i. 18 ; Col. i. 12. 
 
ST PAUL AT EPHES US. 105 
 
 St Paul's reception at Jerusalem and at Rome. 
 
 We may pass over the journey to Jerusalem with 
 all its warnings of danger. At Jerusalem Paul and 
 his company were joyfully received by " the brethren " 
 however widely or narrowly the term should be 
 limited in this context. Next day they went in to 
 James, and all the Elders were present. Of the other 
 Apostles we hear nothing. In all probability they 
 were in some other part of Palestine. James clearly 
 here has an authoritative position. The presence of 
 all the Elders shews that the visit was a formal one, a 
 visit to the recognised authorities of the Ecclesia of 
 Jerusalem, and the primary recipient is James, the 
 elders being only spoken of as present. On the other 
 hand not a word is distinctly said of any act or say- 
 ing of James separately. After St Paul has finished 
 his narrative, " they " (we are told, with a vague in- 
 clusive plural) "glorified God and said to him... (xxi. 
 20)." Not improbably James was the spokesman : 
 but if so, he spoke the mind of the rest. Deeply 
 interesting as this address was, the only point which 
 concerns us is the final reference to the letter sent to 
 Antioch. " But as touching the Gentiles which have 
 believed, we ourselves (rifiek') sent (or wrote, or en- 
 joined) judging that they should beware of what is 
 offered to idols, etc." This is said in marked contrast 
 to the suggestion that St Paul should manifest by his 
 own example his loyalty to the Law in the case of 
 
io6 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 
 
 born Jews. It was in effect saying that his different 
 teaching respecting Gentiles was what they of Jeru- 
 salem could not condemn, seeing they had themselves 
 sanctioned for the Gentiles only certain definite 
 restraints which did not involve obedience to the 
 Law. This accounts for the general form 'the 
 Gentiles which have believed '. To refer to Antioch 
 and Syria and Cilicia would have been irrelevant ; 
 and moreover the regions actually addressed were 
 the only regions which at the time of the letter con- 
 tained definitely formed Ecclesiae. 
 
 This is practically the end of the evidence de- 
 ducible from the Acts. After this one scene on the 
 second day at Jerusalem, James and the Elders 
 disappear from view, as the other Apostles had 
 disappeared long before. All that happened at 
 Jerusalem, at Cffisarea, and on the voyage to Rome 
 lies outside our subject. We hear of ' brethren ' at 
 Puteoli and at Rome, but the word Ecclesia is not 
 used. The breach with the unbelieving Jews at 
 Rome recalls that at the Pisidian Antioch, and ends 
 with a similar setting forth of the Gentile reception of 
 the Gospel, making up for the Jewish hardness of 
 heart. Beginning at Jerusalem, the centre of ancient 
 Israel and the home of the first Christian Ecclesia, the 
 book points forward to a time when the centre of the 
 heathen world will as such be for a time the centre of 
 the Ecclesia of God. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 The 'Ecclesia' in the Epistles. 
 
 The uses of the word. 
 
 Thus far we have followed St Luke's narrative, 
 with scarcely any divergence into the illustrative 
 matter to be found in the Epistles. The Epistles 
 however contain much important evidence of various 
 kinds, while they also sometimes fail us in respect of 
 information which we perhaps might have expected 
 to find, and certainly should be glad to find. Much 
 of the evidence will be best considered under the 
 several Epistles successively : but, in beginning with 
 the uses of the word Ecclesia itself, we shall find it 
 clearer to take them in groups. 
 
 Everyone must have noticed St Paul's fondness 
 for adding tov deov to eKKXtjaia, "the Ecclesia (or 
 Ecclesiae) of God ". We saw just now the significance 
 of the phrase in the adaptation of Ps. Ixxiv. 2 by 
 St Paul in addressing the Ephesian elders, as claiming 
 for the community of Christians the prerogatives of 
 
io8 THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 God's ancient Ecclesia. With the exception however 
 of two places in i Tim. (iii. 5, 15), where the old name 
 is used with a special force derived from the context, 
 this name is confined to St Paul's earlier epistles, the 
 two to the Thessalonians, the two to the Corinthians, 
 and Galatians. It is very striking that at this time, 
 when his antagonism to the Judaizers was at its hottest, 
 he never for a moment set a new Ecclesia against 
 the old, an Ecclesia of Jesus or even an Ecclesia of 
 the Christ against the Ecclesia of God, but implicitly- 
 taught his heathen converts to believe that the body 
 into which they had been baptized was itself the 
 Ecclesia of God. This addition of toO Qeov occurs in 
 several of the groups of passages. Naturally, and 
 with special force, it stands in two out of three of the 
 places in which the original Ecclesia of Judsea is 
 meant, and is spoken of as the object of St Paul's 
 persecution. But more significant is the application 
 to single Ecclesiae (the various Ecclesiae of Judaea 
 I Thes. ii. 14; or Corinth i Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. i); or 
 to the sum total of all separate Ecclesiae (2 Thes. i. 4; 
 I Cor. xi. 16); or lastly to the one universal Ecclesia 
 as represented in a local Ecclesia (i Cor. x. 32; xi. 
 22). 
 
 On the other hand, that second aspect ol the 
 Ecclesia of God under the new Covenant, by which it 
 is also the Ecclesia of Christ (as He Himself said " I 
 will build my Ecclesia") is likewise reflected in the 
 Epistles. The most obvious instances are the two 
 
THE 'ECCLESTA' IN THE EPISTLES. 109 
 
 passages in which the Ecclesiae of Judaea are referred 
 to. "Ye, brethren," St Paul writes to the Thessa- 
 lonians (i Thes. ii. 14) "became imitators of the 
 Ecclesiae of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus " 
 (viz. by suffering like them for conscience sake). 
 They were Ecclesiae of God, but their distinguishing 
 feature was that they were " in Christ Jesus ", having 
 their existence in Jesus as Messiah. It is as though 
 he shrank from altogether refusing the name 'Ecclesiae 
 of God ' to the various purely Jewish communities 
 throughout the Holy Land. The next verses (i Thes. 
 ii. 15, 16) contain the most vehement of all St Paul's 
 language against the Jews: but these are the individual 
 men, the perverse generation ; and for their misdeeds 
 the Jewish Ecclesia would not necessarily as yet be 
 responsible, the nation's final refusal of its Messiah 
 not having yet come. But, apart from this possible 
 or even probable latent distinction, the Christian 
 Ecclesiae of God would be emphatically Ecclesiae of 
 God in Christ Jesus, He in His glorification being the 
 fundamental bond of Christian fellowship. The other 
 passage which mentions these Judsean Ecclesiae is 
 Gal. i. 22, " and I continued unknown to the Ecclesiae 
 of Judffia that are in Christ": the phrase here is 
 briefer, but the added rats iv Xpiartp gives the char- 
 acteristic touch. Echoes of these two clear passages 
 occur with reference to other Ecclesiae. That of the 
 Thessalonians is in both Epistles said to be " in God 
 the (or our^ Father and tlje Lord Jesus Christ ". The 
 
no THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 men of Corinth are said to be "hallowed in Christ 
 Jesus " (i.e. brought into the state of ' saints ' in Him). 
 The men of Philippi " saints in Christ Jesus ". The 
 men of Ephesus " saints and faithful in Christ Jesus " ; 
 and so the men of Colossae " saints and faithful bre- 
 thren in Christ". And for the men of Rome also 
 there is the analogous statement (i. 6) " among whom 
 are ye also, called of Jesus Christ." 
 
 With these forms of speech we may probably 
 associate the difficult and unique phrase of Rom. 
 xvi. i6, "All the Ecclesiae of the Christ salute you." 
 This is the one place in the New Testament, apart 
 from our Lord's words to Peter, where we read of 
 " Ecclesiae of Christ " (or " of the Christ "), not " of 
 God " : for the singular number we have no example. 
 The sense which first suggests itself, " all Christian 
 Ecclesiae" is very difficult to understand. That all 
 the Ecclesiae of not only Palestine, but Syria, 
 various provinces of Asia Minor, Macedonia and 
 Greece should have recently, either simultaneously 
 or by joint action, have asked St Paul to convey 
 their greetings to the Roman Christians is barely 
 credible, and the addition of iraaai (omitted only in 
 the later Syrian text and by no version) clinches 
 the difficulty'- Observing this difficulty (which in- 
 
 ^ I Cor. xvi. ig, 20 is no true parallel, for such joint action of the 
 Ecclesiae (or principal Ecclesiae, — there is no wacai.) of Proconsular 
 Asia would be quite possible, and the second phrase (v. 20) " all the 
 brethren " must by analogy mean all the individual brethren in the 
 midst of whom St Paul was writing from Ephesus the capital. 
 
THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. iii 
 
 deed had evidently been felt long ago by Origen), 
 some of the older commentators suppose some 
 such limitation as "all the Ecclesiae of Greece": 
 but this the Greek cannot possibly bear. It seems 
 far more probable that by "the Ecclesiae of the 
 Christ" the Messiah, St Paul means the Ecclesiae of 
 those " of whom as concerning the flesh the Messiah 
 came" (Rom. ix. 5), and to whom His Messiahship 
 could not but mean more than it did to Jews of the 
 Dispersion, much less to men of Gentile birth : in a 
 word that he means the Ecclesiae of Judsea, of whom 
 as we have seen, he has twice spoken already in other 
 epistles. It might easily be that all these had been 
 represented at some recent gathering at Jerusalem, 
 and had there united in a message which some 
 Jerusalem colleague or friend had since conveyed to 
 him. 
 
 This supposition gains in probability when we 
 notice that, whatever may be the case elsewhere, 
 o ypicyTO!; is never used in this Epistle without some 
 reference to Messiahship, though not always quite on 
 the surface'. The least obvious, but for our purpose 
 the most interesting, is xiv. 18, where the whole stress 
 lies on iv tovtw (cf 2 Cor. xi. 13 f, 22 £), and the mode 
 of service of the Messiah just described is implicitly 
 contrasted with a pretended service of the Messiah. 
 The significance of the phrase comes out when it 
 occurs again in that curious guarded postscript 
 
 1 See Rom. vii. 4 ; ix. 3, } ; v- 3 and 7 taken together'. 
 
112 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 against the Judaizers which St Paul adds after his 
 greetings (xvi. 17-20). " Such men," he says, " serve 
 not the Christ who is our Lord, but their own belly " 
 (i.e. by insisting on legal distinctions of meats), while, 
 he means to say, they pretend to be the only true 
 servants of the Messiah. Now the salutation im- 
 mediately preceding this warning contains the words 
 which we are considering. To you, Romans, he seems 
 to say, I am bidden to send the greetings of all the 
 true Ecclesiae of the Messiah. But you need to be 
 warned about some who may hereafter come troubling 
 you, and falsely claiming to be Messiah's only faithful 
 servants, as against me and mine. Thus the enigmatic 
 form of the salutation may arise out of the inevitably 
 enigmatic form of the coming warning. 
 
 Individuals not lost in the Society. 
 
 Another interesting point which it is convenient 
 to notice here is that twofold aspect of an Ecclesia 
 which came before us early in the Acts, as being on 
 the one hand itself a single body, and on the other 
 made up of single living men. Here too there is an 
 interesting sequence, though not a perfect one, in the 
 order of the Epistles. 
 
 The salutation to i and 2 Thessalonians is simply 
 to the Ecclesia of the Thessalonians in God [our] 
 Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (this last phrase, 
 we may note in passing, may be considered to inglude 
 the Tov Oeov of I and 2 Corinthians), 
 
THE 'ECCLESIA ' IN THE EPISTLES. 113 
 
 In I Cor. i. 2 on the other hand we find the two 
 aspects coupled together by a bold disregard of 
 grammar t^ eKKh/rjaia tow 6eov ry oiiarj iv Kopivdcj), 
 Tjyiaa-fj.kvoi'; iv 'Kpicrrm 'I'r}a-ov, kXtjtoj? ayLoi<; : the 
 single Ecclesia in Corinth is identical with men who 
 have been hallowed in Christ Jesus, and called to 
 be saints. 
 
 In 2 Cor. i. i there is a seeming return to the form 
 used to the Thessalonians, the reason probably being 
 that the name ' saints ' was reserved for the following 
 (Tvv T04S dyioi'! TTaaiv rot? oixriv iv oKrj ry 'A^ota 
 (only partially parallel to the aiiv iraa-iv etc. of 
 I Corinthians) : there may also be a distinction be- 
 tween the single Ecclesia of the great city Corinth 
 and the scattered saints or Christians of the rest of 
 Achaia. 
 
 The case of Galatians is peculiar. Here St Paul 
 was writing, not to a city alone, or to a great city, 
 the capital of a region, but to a region containing 
 various unnamed cities. He writes simply to "the 
 Ecclesiae " (plural) of Galatia : to attach to this 
 feminine plural a masculine plural would have been 
 awkward and puzzling (in Acts xvi. 4 the change 
 of gender from TroXet? to avToh explains itself) : and 
 moreover the tone of rebuke in which this Epistle 
 is couched has rendered its salutation in various 
 respects exceptional. 
 
 But when we come to Romans, the term Ecclesia 
 disappears from the salutation, and the designation 
 
 H. E. 8 
 
114 THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 of it by reference to its individual members, which in 
 I Corinthians we found combined with Ecclesia, now 
 stands alone, "to all that are in Rome beloved of 
 God, called to be saints," each word "beloved^" and 
 "saints^" expressing a privilege once confined to 
 Israel but now extended to the Gentiles. It is the 
 same in Philippians ("to all the saints in Christ 
 Jesus that are in Philippi ") ; and " Ephesians " (" to 
 the saints that are [[in Ephesus]] and faithful in 
 Christ Jesus") ; and finally Colossians ("to the saints 
 and faithful brethren, or holy and faithful brethren, 
 in Christ that are at Colossae"). 
 
 This later usage of St Paul is followed by St Peter 
 (^eKXeKToli 7rap6TriS7j/j,oi,^ hiaairopa,'; followed after a 
 few words by ev ayiaafia 7rvev/j,aTo<;), and by St Jude 
 (rot? ev 6eai TraTpl rjyaTrrjfievoK, koI ^Itjctov ^pi,ar& 
 TeTijpr]fj,evoi<; KXrjToh). 
 
 Connected with this carefulness to keep individual 
 membership in sight, is the total absence of territorial 
 language (so to speak) in the designations of local 
 Ecclesiae. Three times the Ecclesia meant is desig- 
 nated by the adjectival local name of its members, 
 viz. in the salutations to i and 2 Thessalonians (t»; 
 eKKkTjala %eaaa\ovLicea>v, "of Thessalonians": this per- 
 sonal description being in effect a partial substitute 
 for the absence of anything like kXt^toi? djloi.(;), and 
 
 ^ See Rom. xi. 28 in ccjjinexion with Deut. xxxiii. 12 and other carts 
 of the Old Testament. 2 ggg p, j,q_ 
 
THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 115 
 
 in a reference to the Ecclesia "of the Laodicenes " (t^ 
 AaohiKeosv eKKXria-ia) in Col. iv. 16. In all other cases 
 of a single city the Ecclesia is designated as " in " that 
 city : so the salutations of l and 2 Corinthians, 
 Romans, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians; also 
 Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. i), and each of the seven 
 Ecclesiae of the Apocalypse. When the reference is 
 to a whole region including a number of cities and 
 therefore of Ecclesiae the usage is, on the surface, not 
 quite constant. Twice "in" is used, for Judaea 
 (i Thess. ii. 14), and Asia (Apoc. i. 4): while in each 
 case the form used can be readily accounted for by 
 the accompanying words which rendered the use of 
 "m" the only natural mode of designation, twv 
 eKK\7)cnmv tov 0eov twv oixtwv ev rrj lovSaia ev 
 lK.pi(7Ta> 'Itjctov, and rai? kiTTa eKKXr]aiai^ rat? ev rfj 
 'Aala. In all the other (six) cases, however, these plural 
 designations of a plurality of Ecclesiae are designated 
 by a genitive of the region ; the Ecclesiae of Judsa, 
 Gal. i. 22 ; of Asia, i Cor. xvi. 19 ; of Galatia, i Cor. 
 xvi. I and the salutation to the Galatians ; of 
 Macedonia, 2 Cor. viii. i ; of the nations or Gentiles 
 generally (tcSz' eOvwv), Rom. xvi. 4. In these collective 
 instances the simple and convenient genitive could 
 lead to no misunderstanding. But we find no in- 
 stance of such a form as " the Ecclesia of Ephesus " 
 (a city) or " the Ecclesia of Galatia " (a region). No 
 circumstances had yet arisen which could give pro- 
 priety to such a form of speech. 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 It may be well now for the sake of clearness, to 
 reckon up separately, without detail, the various 
 classes of Christian societies to which the term Ec- 
 clesia is applied in the Epistles and Apocalypse. 
 
 1. (sing, with art.). The original Ecclesia of 
 Jerusalem or Judsea, at a time when there was no 
 other:— Gal. i. 13; i Cor. xv. 9; Phil. iii. 6: the 
 occasion of reference in all three cases being St Paul's 
 own action as a persecutor. 
 
 2. (sing, with art.). The single local Ecclesia of 
 a city which is named : — Thessalonica (i Thess. i. i ; 
 2 Thess. i. i); Corinth (i Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. l); 
 Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. i) ; Laodicea in Asia Minor 
 (Col. iv. 16) ; each of the seven Ecclesiae of Proconsular 
 Asia in Apoc. ii. iii. 
 
 3. ri iKKXrjcria (sing, and with art.), referring to 
 the individual Ecclesia addressed ; or in one case the 
 Ecclesia of the city from which the Epistle was 
 written : — i Cor. vi. 4 ; xiv. 5, 12, 23 ; Rom. xvi. 23 ; 
 I Tim. V. 16 ; James v. 14; 3 John 9, 10. 
 
 4. eKK\,r)aia (sing, no art), referring to any in- 
 dividual Ecclesia: — i Cor. xiv. 4; i Tim. iii. 5, 15 ; 
 and similarly iv 'wdcrrj eKKk'qa-La I Cor. iv. 17 ; ovBe/j,ia 
 eKKXrjo-ia, Phil. iv. 15. 
 
 5. (plur.). The sum of individual Ecclesiae in a 
 named region: Judsa (i Thess. ii. 14; Gal. i. 22); 
 Galatia (i Cor. xvi. i ; Gal. i. 2) ; Macedonia (2 Cor. 
 viii. i) ; Asia (Proconsular) i Cor. xvi. 19 ; Apoc. 
 i. 4 (and practically vv. 11, 20 dis) ; or without a 
 
THE 'ECCLESIA ' IN THE EPISTLES. 117 
 
 name, but apparently limited to a region named or 
 implied in the context. Macedonia (2 Cor. viii. 19) 
 and Proconsular Asia (Apoc. end of each epistle, 
 ii. 23 (though with Trdcrai), and xxii. 16). 
 
 6. (plur.). Not of a definite region, nor yet the 
 sum of all individual Ecclesiae ; 2 Cor. xi. 8 (aXXa? 
 iKKXr]aia<;) ; viii. 23 (airoo-ToXot eKKXijcridov) ; and 
 more collectively irda-ai ai eKKXijatai rwv idvwv of 
 Rom. xvi. 4, and al eKKKrjcrlai Tracrai rov ■)^pi(TTOv 
 of Rom. xvi. 16, which we have s.een probably refer 
 to the Judsean Ecclesiae. 
 
 7. (plur.). The sum of all individual Ecclesiae 
 (or all but the one written to) ; usually with Trdcrat 
 (i Cor. vii. 17, xiv. 33 [with roSv dyiwv added] ; 2 Cor. 
 viii. 18, 24; xi. 28) ; with Xonral, (2 Cor. xii. 13); or 
 simply with rov 6eov (2 Thess. i. 4 ; i Cor. xi. 16). 
 
 8. (sing.). The one universal Ecclesia as repre- 
 sented in the local individual Ecclesia (as in the 
 address to the Ephesian elders). This is confined 
 to I Cor. (x. 32 ; xi. 22 ; and probably xii. 28). 
 
 9. (sing.). The one universal Ecclesia absolutely. 
 This is confined to the twin Epistles to Ephesians 
 and Colossians (Eph. i. 22 ; iii. 10, 21 ; v. 23, 24, 25, 
 27, 29, 32 ; Col. i. 18, 24). 
 
 10. (sing.). What may be called a domestic 
 Ecclesia. This is a subject on which more will pro- 
 bably be known hereafter than at present. Thus far 
 it seems pretty clear that St Paul's language points 
 to a practice by which wealthy or otherwise im- 
 
ii8 THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 portant persons who had become Christians, among 
 their other services to their brother Christians, allowed 
 the large hall or saloon often attached to (or included 
 in) the larger sort of private houses, to be used as 
 places of meeting, whether for worship or for other 
 affairs of the community. Accordingly the Ecclesia 
 in the house of this or that man, would seem to mean 
 that particular assemblage of Christians, out of the 
 Christians of the whole city, which was accustomed 
 to meet under his roof The instances are these, 
 Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus (i Cor. xvi. 19) ; the 
 same pair afterwards at Rome (Rom. xvi. 5) ; Nym- 
 pha (or some would say Nymphas) at Colossae 
 (Col. iv. 15) ; and Philemon also at Colossae (Philem. 
 
 2). 
 
 1 1. An assembly of an Ecclesia, rather than the 
 iKK\.7](Tia itself This use is at once classical and 
 a return to the original force of qdhdl. To it belongs 
 the h) TOAS iKKXrjalaL<i of I Cor. xiv. 34 (Let the 
 women be silent in the Ecclesiae) ; as also, the semi- 
 adverbial phrases when eKKXriala in the singular with- 
 out an article is preceded by a preposition (ev e'«- 
 KXtja-ia I Cor. xi. 18 ; xiv. 19, 28 ; evairiov eKKXTjaiai 
 3 John 6 ; analogous to the iv avva'ycoyf of John 
 vi. 59 ; xviii. 20). 
 
 TAe many Ecclesiae and the one. 
 
 In many of the passages here cited, as also in 
 many passages of the Acts, we have had brought dis- 
 
THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 119 
 
 tinctly before us the individuality of the several local 
 Ecclesiae in the various cities. On the other hand, apart 
 from those passages which speak of the one universal 
 Ecclesia, whether absolutely, or as its attributes are 
 reflected in a particular Ecclesia, we have varied 
 evidence as to the pains taken by St Paul to coun- 
 teract any tendency towards isolation and wantonness 
 of independence, which might arise in the young 
 communities which he founded, or with which he 
 came in contact. The Epistle which contains most 
 evidence of this kind is i Corinthians, the same Epistle 
 which more than any other is occupied with resisting 
 tendencies towards inward division. The spirit of 
 lawlessness would evidently have a disintegrating 
 effect in both spheres alike, as between the members 
 of the individual Ecclesia, and as between it and 
 the sister Ecclesiae of the same or other lands. The 
 keynote as against isolation is struck in the very 
 salutation (i. 2). Without going into all the ambi- 
 guities of language in that verse, we can at least see 
 that in some manner the Corinthians are there taught 
 to look on themselves as united to " all who in every 
 place invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ " ; and 
 I believe we may safely add that " theirs and ours " 
 means " their Lord and ours," the one Lord being set 
 forth as the common bond of union, and obedience 
 to His will as Lord, the uniting law of life. Then 
 in V. 9, after giving thanks for those gifts of theirs 
 which they were in danger of allowing to lead them 
 
120 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 astray, he assures them " Faithful is the God through 
 whom ye were called into fellowship of His Son 
 Jesus Christ our Lord," — fellowship of Him, not only 
 fellowship with Hiin, though that also, but fellowship 
 one with another and with all saints, derived from 
 that fellowship with Himself which was common 
 to them all. 
 
 Having put before the Corinthians this funda- 
 mental teaching at the beginning of the Epistle, 
 St Paul repeatedly afterwards gives it a practical 
 application by his appeals to Christian usage else- 
 where. The authorities to which he appeals are 
 of various kinds, e.g. traditions which he had 
 himself first received and then passed on to them 
 and to others, his own personal qualifications for 
 judgment, expediency or edification, the teaching of 
 " nature " : but in addition to these he condemns 
 Corinthian practices or tendencies by reference to 
 the adverse practice of other Ecclesiae. Of the pray- 
 ing of women unveiled he says (xi. i6) "We have 
 no such custom, neither the Ecclesiae of God." En- 
 joining order in the prophesyings (or according to 
 another punctuation the silence of women in the 
 assemblies), he adds (xiv. 33) " as in all the Ecclesiae 
 of the Saints," and with reference to the latter 
 point asks indignantly (y. 36) "Is it from you that 
 the word of God came forth, or is it unto you alone 
 that it reached .' " In a different and calmer tone 
 he simply seeks a precedent for what he would 
 
THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 121 
 
 have the Corinthians do in the matter of the col- 
 lection for Judaea (xvi. i); "as I directed for the 
 Ecclesiae of Galatia, so do ye also." For a much 
 larger matter of practice and principle, the remaining 
 of each convert? in the relation of life in which he 
 previously found himself, he urges (vii. 17) "and so 
 
 1 direct in all the Ecclesiae"; while in an earlier 
 passage, he binds up this principle of community with 
 the obligations created by his personal relation as a 
 founder (iv. 14 — 17), bidding them be imitators of 
 him, as their true father in respect of their new life, 
 and telling them that he sends them in Timothy 
 another beloved child of his, "who shall put you in 
 mind of my ways that are in Christ Jesus, as I teach 
 everywhere in every Ecclesia." 
 
 In other places we find the community between 
 Ecclesiae brought out from a different point of view 
 by St Paul's warm thanksgivings for the going forth 
 of the faith and love of this or that Ecclesia towards 
 other Ecclesiae, so as to be known and to bear fruit 
 far beyond its own limits (i Thess. i. 7 f. ; iv. 9 f ; 
 
 2 Thess. i. 3 f. ; 2 Cor. iii. 2 ; Rom. i. 8 ; Col. i. 4). 
 I need not repeat the details of the special pro- 
 minence given by St Paul to the "'collection for the 
 Saints " as a means of knitting the Gentile and 
 Jewish Christians together. One practical result of 
 friendly intercommunion between separate Ecclesiae 
 would be the cultivation of hospitality, the assurance 
 
122 THE ' ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 
 
 that Christians who had need to travel would find a 
 temporary home and welcome wherever other Chris- 
 tians were gathered together (cf. Rom. xii. 13 ; i Pet. 
 iv. 9 ; Heb. xiii. 2 ; 3 John 5-8). Again, St Paul had 
 doubtless a deliberate purpose when he rejoiced to 
 convey the mutual salutations of Ecclesiae (i Cor. xvi. 
 19 ; Rom. xvi. 4, 16 ; Phil. iv. 22) ; himself commended 
 Phoebe to the Romans as one who ministered to the 
 sister Ecclesia at Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. I, 2) ; gave 
 orders for the exchange of epistles of his, addressed 
 to two neighbouring Ecclesiae (Col. iv. 16) ; and made 
 this or that Ecclesia a sharer, so to speak, in his own 
 work of founding or visiting other Ecclesiae by al- 
 lusions to his being forwarded by them {irpoTrefx.- 
 (pdrjvai,: I Cor. xvi. 6 ; 2 Cor. i. 16 ; Rom. xv. 24). By 
 itself each of these details may seem trivial enough : 
 but together they help to shew how St Paul's re- 
 cognition of the individual responsibility and sub- 
 stantial independence of single city Ecclesiae was 
 brought into harmony with his sense of the unity 
 of the body of Christ as a whole, by this watchful 
 care to seize every opportunity of kindling and keep- 
 ing alive in each society a consciousness of its share 
 in the life of the great Ecclesia of God. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The Earlier Epistles of St Paul. 
 
 We must now pass to the Epistles themselves, 
 taken mainly in chronological order, without however 
 attempting to notice more than a very few of the 
 most instructive passages bearing on our subject. 
 Strictly speaking a large part of them all has a 
 bearing on it, as we must see when once we recognise 
 that in the Apostle's eyes all true life in an Ecclesia 
 is a life of community, of the harmonious and mutually 
 helpful action of different elements, so that he is giving 
 instruction on the very essence of membership when 
 in each of the nine Epistles addressed to Ecclesiae he 
 makes the peace of God to be the supreme standard 
 for them to aim at, and the perpetual self-surrender 
 of love the comprehensive means of attaining it. 
 
 The Epistles to the Thessalonians. 
 
 To begin with l Thessalonians. At the outset 
 St Paul dwells much on the marks of God's special 
 love (i, 4), His special choice or election of them 
 (doubtless chiefly at least their election as a com- 
 
124 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 munity), as attested in the warmth with which under 
 severe trials they had embraced the Gospel, and 
 become imitators of himself and his associates and of 
 the Lord ; so that from them the word of the Lord 
 had sounded forth anew far and wide. This was 
 how they came to be an Ecclesia. 
 
 Of the temper and attitude which should always 
 govern the members of an Ecclesia towards each 
 other preeminently and then further towards all 
 men, he has much to say in various places, the 
 foundation being 'love' in accordance with the Lord's 
 own new commandment, and the comprehensive re- 
 sult, His gift of peace' : where, as in iv. 9, (j)iXaSeX,<j}ia 
 comes in, it connotes the special principle of action as 
 between Christian and Christian, not ' brotherly love ', 
 as A.V. usually has it, i.e. love like that of brethren, 
 but actual ' love of brethren ' as being brethren. 
 
 Two closely related passages, one in each Epistle, 
 deserve attention. 
 
 In 2 Thess. iii. 6 — 16 is a remarkable warning 
 against some brethren among the Thessalonians who 
 walked ' in an irregular and disorderly way ' (araKTo)^, 
 the word carrying with it the association of the verb 
 araKTeca applied to soldiers who leave their ranks 
 or who do not keep in rank) : they walked, he says, 
 " not according to the tradition which ye received from 
 us." The special point would seem to be that on 
 ' See I Thess. iii. iz; iv. 9 — 11, &c. 
 
THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 125 
 
 some plea or other, whether of sanctity or gifts of 
 teaching or the like (we are not told which) they 
 claimed a specially privileged position, particularly 
 the privilege of being supported by others. Against 
 this pretension St Paul sets his own deliberate practice 
 when among them, how he followed no irregular and 
 exceptional ways {ovk riTatcTrja-aiiev iv ifiiv), but in 
 spite of the right which he might have acted on, 
 worked for his own bread, that he might shew in his 
 own person an example for all to copy, as well as 
 not to burden any of them. " And if any," he adds, 
 " hearkeneth not to our word through the epistle, note 
 that man not to company with him, that he may be 
 ashamed (ivrpaTry) ; and count him not as an enemy, 
 but admonish him as a brother. And may the Lord 
 of peace Himself give you His peace at all times in 
 every way.'' Here we have the beginning of the '' dis- 
 cipline" of an Ecclesia, exercised by the community 
 itself Seclusion from the society of its members 
 is seen illustrating by contrast what membership of 
 an Ecclesia means on its practical side. 
 
 The other passage is in i Thess. v. 11 — 15, 23. 
 Here the practised life of membership is the starting 
 point. " Wherefore encourage ye one another (jrapa- 
 KoXelre aW'^Xovif), and build ye up each' the other 
 
 ' The Greek here {els rbv Iva) is remarkable, and may be illustrated 
 by I Cor. iv. 6 tva /j.tj ets iirkp rou ^vbs (pvaiouade Kark tov ir^pov, 
 St Paul's point iAere being the dividing effect of inflatedness or puifing 
 up, as Acre the uniting effect of mutual building up. 
 
126 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 as also ye do." Then come two verses in which 
 St Paul interrupts his words to and about the 
 Thessalonian Christians generally, in order to call 
 their attention to a special class among them : 
 " But we ask you, brethren, to keep in knowledge 
 (elSivai) them that labour among you and guide 
 you in the Lord (-TrpolaTa/jLevov; vfxwv ev Kvpiai) and 
 admonish you, and to esteem them very exceed- 
 ingly (as we should say ' in a special way ' virepeic- 
 wepiaaov or -(u?) because of their work. Be at peace 
 in (or among) yourselves." Though it is morally 
 impossible that 'npoi(TTap,evov<i^ can here be the tech- 
 nical title of an office standing as it does between 
 "labouring" and "admonishing", yet the persons meant 
 are to all appearance office-bearers of the Ecclesia. 
 The reference is the more interesting because else- 
 where in St Paul's Epistles (Pastoral Epistles and 
 the salutation in Phil. i. i excepted) we find no other 
 mention of such persons as actually existing in any 
 individual church. It can hardly be doubted that 
 Elders are meant, though no title is given. The 
 characteristics assigned to them are three. Their 
 labouring {jco'mmvTa';) is doubtless specially meant 
 to be opposed to the conduct of such persons as we 
 have seen denounced in the Second Epistle (iii. ii). 
 Then comes their guidance, Trpo'i(TTa/j,evov<!, a word 
 
 ^ This common assumption is further negatived by the prevailing 
 usage of Trpolarii/iM (especially in the present) both in ordinary Greek 
 and in the Nevf Testament, 
 
THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 127 
 
 usually applied to informal^ leaderships and manag- 
 ings of all kinds, rather than to definite offices, and 
 associated with the services rendered to dependents 
 by a patron^, so that (as in Romans) helpful leader- 
 ship in Divine things would be approximately the 
 thought suggested. Third comes their work of ad- 
 monition or warning. Of any other form of teaching 
 nothing is said ; and probably all three descriptions 
 should be taken as setting forth services rendered 
 to the individual members of the Ecclesia, rather 
 than to the Ecclesia as a whole. 
 
 After this digression St Paul takes up (l Thess. v. 
 14) the thread dropped after z;. 1 1 : "But we exhort you, 
 brethren, admonish the disorderly (ara/cToi/? again), 
 encourage the fainthearted, sustain the weak, be long- 
 suffering towards all." The services then which have 
 just been mentioned as specially rendered by the 
 Elders, were not essentially different from services 
 which members of the Ecclesia, simply as brethren, 
 were to render each other. They too were to ad- 
 monish the disorderly, as also to do the converse 
 work of encouraging the feebleminded. They too 
 were to make the cause of the weak^ their own, to 
 sustain them, which is at least one side, if not more, 
 
 ^ Cf. Rom. xii. 8 6 irpo'CaTdfi.evos Iv <rwovdy between two very different 
 clauses. 
 
 '■' Cf. Rom. xvi. 2 Kcd y&p airr] (Phoebe) irpoardTis iroWuii' iyer^Orj 
 Kal i/jMv aiiToS. See p. 207. 
 
 • Cf. Chrysostom on Rom. xii. 6; Acts xx. 35 (addressed to the 
 Ephesian Elders oiircds Koiri,(ovTat 5et dvrtKafi^dveadai ruiv dcrdefoOvTuv), 
 
128 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 of the ' helpful leadership ' of the Elders ; as well as 
 to shew long suffering towards all. And again to- 
 wards the close it is "the God of peace Himself" 
 that St Paul prays may hallow and keep the Thes- 
 salonians. 
 
 The Epistles to the Corinthians. 
 
 The next Epistle, l Corinthians, is perhaps the 
 richest of all in illustrative matter: but we must 
 pass through it very quickly. Of late years it has 
 been the occasion of an interesting theory. Many 
 people seem to find a difficulty in believing that the 
 Ecclesiae founded by St Paul in the west, or perhaps 
 even further east among heathen populations, were 
 founded on a Jewish basis, such as the Acts seems 
 to imply, in at least the earlier cases. It has been 
 pointed out that evidence is fast accumulating (chiefly 
 from inscriptions) respecting the existence of mul- 
 titudes of clubs or associations, religious or other, in 
 the Greek cities of the Empire ; and it has been 
 suggested that in such places as Corinth, the Chris- 
 tian congregation or society was an adaptation rather 
 of some such Greek models as these than of any Jewish 
 congregation or society. The presence of these heathen 
 brotherhoods in the same cities with the new Chris- 
 tian brotherhoods is in any case a striking fact ; and 
 it may be that hereafter traces of their influence may 
 be detected in the Epistles. But I must confess that 
 at present, as far as I can see, it is the paucity and 
 
THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PA UL. 129 
 
 uncertainty of such traces that are chiefly surprising. 
 It would not have been right to pass over so plausible 
 a suggestion in silence : but I fear it will give us no 
 help towards interpreting the evidence of the Epistles 
 themselves. 
 
 The first few verses of i Corinthians (i. 4 — 9) after 
 the salutation give us its main theme. St Paul thanks 
 God for the gifts in which these typical Greeks of the 
 Empire were rich, 'speech' and 'knowledge,' and then 
 goes on to warn them against the natural abuse of 
 these gifts, the self-assertion fostered by glibness and 
 knowingness, and the consequent spirit of schism or 
 division, the very contradiction of the idea of an 
 Ecclesia. The habit of seeming to know all about 
 most things, and of being able to talk glibly about 
 most things, would naturally tend to an excess of 
 individuality, and a diminished sense of corporate 
 responsibilities. This fact supplies, under many dif- 
 ferent forms, the main drift of i Corinthians. Never 
 losing his cordial appreciation of the Corinthian en- 
 dowments, St Paul is practically teaching throughout 
 that a truly Christian life is of necessity the life of 
 membership in a body. 
 
 After the thanksgiving he exhorts them (i. 10 — 17) 
 by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bond of a 
 common service, that they all say the same thing, 
 and there be in them no rents or divisions {i^xicr- 
 jjiaTo), but that they be perfected in the same mind 
 and in the same judgment. He has heard that there 
 
 H. E. 9 
 
130 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 are strifes among them, due to partisanships adorned 
 with Apostolic names. To all this he opposes the 
 Cross of the Messiah. Presently (iii. l6 f.) he ac- 
 counts for all by their forgetfulness that they were a 
 temple, or shrine of God (for His Spirit by inhabiting 
 their community or Ecclesia made it into a shrine of 
 Himself), and he reminds them that this marring of the 
 temple of God by their going each his own way was 
 making them guilty of violence against the hohness 
 of God ; and again further on (iv. 6) he points out 
 that the party factions which rent the Ecclesia, while 
 they seemed to be in honour of venerated names, were 
 in reality only a puffing up of each man against his 
 neighbour. 
 
 With the fifth chapter the concrete practical ques- 
 tions begin. First comes the grievous moral offence 
 which the Corinthian Christians were so strangely 
 tolerating in one of their own number. St Paul's 
 language, circuitous as it may sound, has a distinct 
 and instructive purpose when closely examined. 
 The condemnation that he pronounces is not from 
 a distance or in his own name merely : twice over 
 he represents himself as present, present in spirit, 
 in an assembly where the Corinthians and his spirit 
 are gathered together with the power of our Lord 
 Jesus. That is, while he is peremptory that the in- 
 cestuous person shall be excluded from the community, 
 he is equally determined that the act shall be their 
 own act, not a mere compliance with a command 
 
THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PA UL. 131 
 
 of his : " do not ye judge them that are within," he 
 asks, " while them that are without God judgeth ? 
 Put away (Deut. xxii. 24) the evil man out of your- 
 selves." 
 
 How little this zeal for the purity of the commu- 
 nity involved a pitiless disregard of the individual 
 offender we may see from 2 Cor. ii. 
 
 The next chapter (vi.) contains a rebuke at once of 
 the litigious spirit which contradicted the idea of a 
 community, and of the consequent habit of having 
 recourse to heathen tribunals rather than the arbitra- 
 tion of brethren. 
 
 The eighth chapter lays down the social rule that 
 a man is bound not by his own conscience only, but 
 by the injury which he may do to the conscience of 
 his brethren. 
 
 The next three chapters (ix. — xi.) set forth in 
 various ways the entrance into the one body by 
 baptism, and the sustenance of the higher life by that 
 Supper of the Lord^ in which the mutual communion 
 
 ^ In X. 16 — 21, in arguing against complicity with idolatry through 
 offered meats, he appeals to the one bread which is broken as a Com- 
 munion of the body of the Christ, and then explains why : " because " he 
 says, "we the many are one bread, one body, for we partake all of us 
 [of bread] from the one bread." 
 
 The Holy Communion is more directly the subject of xi. 17 — 34, the 
 special occasion being the injuries done to Christian fellowship by the 
 practices which were tolerated at the Communion feast still identical 
 with the Agape. 
 
 To these differences he applies the same term ffxia/iara (v. 18) which 
 in the first chapter he had applied to the parties glorying in Apostolic 
 
132 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 of members of the body, and the communion of each 
 and all with the Head of the body are indissolubly 
 united. 
 
 For our purpose the central chapter is the twelfth, 
 starting from the differences of gifts and proceeding to 
 the full exposition of the relation of body and members. 
 But to this we shall have to return presently, as also 
 to the closing verses setting forth the variety of func- 
 tions appointed by God in the Ecclesia. Then comes 
 the familiar thirteenth chapter on love, which in the 
 light of St Paul's idea of the Ecclesia we can see to 
 be no digression, this gift of the Spirit being incom- 
 parably more essential to its life than any of the gifts 
 which caught men's attention. 
 
 Yet these too had their value subordinate as it 
 was, and so in ch. xiv. St Paul teaches the Corinthians 
 what standard to apply to them one with another, 
 these standards being chiefly rational intelligibility, 
 edification, i.e. the good of the community, and fitness 
 for appealing to the conscience of heathen spectators. 
 
 2 Cor. contains little fresh but the peculiar verse, 
 ix. 13. The concluding section (xii. 19 — xiii. 13) 
 implies the same fears as to breaches of unity as 
 the first Epistle ; and it is worth notice from this 
 point of view that in the final benediction the love of 
 God and the communion of the Holy Spirit is added 
 to the usual grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Galatians likewise calls now for no special remark. 
 
THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 133 
 
 The Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 St Paul's peculiar position towards the Romans 
 invests his Epistle to them with an interest of its 
 own. We saw before that the Ecclesia of Antioch 
 was founded by no Apostle, and, as the Epistle 
 shews, it is the same with that of the mighty Rome, 
 which had sprung up no one knows how, no one knows 
 when, from some promiscuous scattering of the seed 
 of truth ; though a later age invented a founding of 
 both by St Peter. The contrast in St Paul's tone, 
 its total absence of any claim to authority, illustrates 
 how large a part of the authority which he exercised 
 towards other Ecclesiae was not official, so to speak, 
 but personal, involved in his unique position as 
 their founder, their father in the new birth. Here 
 (i. 1 1 f.) telling the Romans that he longs to see them 
 that he may impart to them some spiritual gift that 
 they may be stablished, he instantly explains himself, 
 " that is ^^.X. I with you^ may be comforted in you, each 
 of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine." 
 
 Almost the whole Epistle is governed by the 
 thought which was filling St Paul's mind at this time, 
 the relation of Jew and Gentile, the place of both in 
 the counsels of God, and the peaceful inclusion of 
 both in the same brotherhood. On the one hand 
 the failure and the obsoleteness of the Law in its 
 letter is set forth more explicitly than ever ; on the 
 
 ' Cf. XV. 32 "and together with you find rest." 
 
134 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 
 
 Other the continuqus growth of the new Ecclesia out 
 of the old Ecclesia is expounded by the image of 
 the grafting of the wild Gentile olive into the ancient 
 olive tree of Israel. 
 
 The apparently ethical teaching of chapters xii. 
 and xiii. is really for the most part on the principles 
 of Christian fellowship, and rests on teaching about 
 the body and its members, and about diversity of 
 gifts resembling what occurs in i Corinthians, and 
 will similarly need further examination presently. 
 
 Again ch. xiv. may be taken with i Cor. x. 
 
 Lastly, the fifteenth and parts of the sixteenth 
 chapter illustrate historically, as other chapters had 
 done doctrinallyS St Paul's yearnings for the unity of 
 all Christians of East and West, and its association in 
 his mind with his carrying the Gentile offering to 
 Jerusalem, and, if he should then escape death, with 
 his own presence at Rome, the centre and symbol of 
 civil unity. 
 
 ' Note how here also the application of the principle of fidelity to 
 Christian fellowship in xv. 7 to "mutual reception'' (Trpo<T\a/j,^dve(T$6 
 dXXiiXous, cf. xiv. 1 , 3 ; xi. 15) is specially connected with the relations 
 of Jewish to Gentile Christians ; and how once more the same principle 
 is illustrated from another side by the remarkable section xvi. 17 — 20 
 which St Paul interposes as by an afterthought before the original final 
 salutation, with its warnings against the (unnamed) Judaizers from whom 
 he feared the introduction of divisions (Sixoffracrias) and stumblingblocks, 
 and its confident hope that nevertheless the God of peace would shortly 
 bruise Satan under their feet, Satan the author of all discord and cunning 
 calumny, of all that is most opposed to the purposes for which the 
 Ecclesia of God and His Christ had been founded. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 The One Universal Ecclesia in the 
 Epistles of the First Roman Captivity. 
 
 We now enter on that period of the Apo- 
 stolic Age which begins with St Paul's arrival at 
 Rome. His long-cherished hope was at last fulfilled, 
 though not in the way which he had proposed to 
 himself. He had met face to face the Christian 
 community which had grown up independently of all 
 authoritative guidance in the distant caf)ital ; and, on 
 the way, the Gentile offering which he carried to the 
 Christians of Jerusalem had been accepted by their 
 leaders, and he had escaped, though barely escaped, 
 martyrdom at the hands of his unbelieving country- 
 men. Delivered from -this danger, and shut up for 
 two years at Caesarea, probably with great advantage 
 to the cause for which he laboured, he had reached 
 Rome at last as the prisoner of the Roman authorities. 
 Here he spent another period of two years in another 
 enforced seclusion, which still more evidently gave 
 
136 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 him a place of vantage for spreading the Gospel such 
 as he could hardly have had as a mere visitor (see 
 Lightfoot, Phil. i8 f). The four extant Epistles 
 belonging to this period are pervaded by a serenity 
 and a sense of assurance such as are rarely to be 
 found in their six predecessors, even in Romans, and 
 this increased happiness of tone is closely connected 
 with St Paul's thoughts and hopes about the various 
 Ecclesiae and about the Ecclesia. 
 
 The Epistle to the Philippians. 
 
 We begin with the Epistle to the Philippians. The 
 last words of the opening salutation (i. i) gvv i-maKo- 
 Troi<i Kal BtaKovoi'i, " with the bishops (or overseers) and 
 deacons" (R.V.), will be examined to better effect 
 after we have considered the usage of the same words 
 in the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 The special joy which fills the Apostle's mind in 
 his outpourings to the Philippian Christians is called 
 forth by their warm and active fellowship or commu- 
 nion with him, not simply as the messenger of truth 
 to themselves at a former time, but as now and in the 
 future the chief herald of the Gospel to other regions \ 
 Their sympathies and aspirations were not shut up 
 within their own little community. 
 
 St Paul has likewise much to say to the Philippians 
 on the inward relations of the Ecclesia, for this is the 
 purport of his varied and strenuous exhortations to 
 
 1 See i. 5—7; 12—20; 25 f.; ii. x?— 30; iv. 3, 10, 14—19. 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 137 
 
 unity, and that on the basis of a corporate life worthy 
 of the Gospel of Christ. Such is doubtless the force of 
 the pregnant phrase in i. 27 [R. V. Mg.] ' behave as 
 citizens worthily of the Gospel of the Christ ' {fjiovov 
 afia)9 Tov evayyeXiov tov ^(pLaTOV 'TroXiTevecrOe), iroKi- 
 Tevofjiai retaining its strict sense' 'to live the life of 
 citizens ', not merely the weaker late sense [R. V. text] 
 ' to behave, conduct themselves '. It is thus closely 
 connected with the familiar ' citizenship ' {iroKiTevfia) of 
 iii. 20, the new commonwealth having its centre in 
 Heaven, to which Christians belong, being implicitly 
 contrasted with the terrestrial commonwealth centred 
 at Jerusalem, resting on laws about mere externals 
 such as circumcision and distinctions of meats. And 
 the same contrast underlies this exhortation to live a 
 community life {iroXiTeveaOe) worthy of the Gospel of 
 the Christ, one directed not by submission to statutes 
 but by the inward powers of the spirit of fellowship ; 
 as St Paul himself explains within the same sentence, 
 "that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul 
 wrestling together through the faith of the Gospel " 
 (the faith which it teaches and inspires); and more 
 fully still in the following section (ii. i — 11). 
 
 1 This strict sense is similarly the right one, in the only other place 
 of the New Testament where the verb occurs, Acts xxiii. i, St Paul 
 there using it of himself as one who had loyally lived the life of a true 
 Jew. Various places in some books of the Apocrypha, in Josephus, and 
 nearly a century later in Justin's dialogue with the Jew Trypho, shew 
 thai it must have been commonly used by the Jews in this familiar sense 
 
138 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 The Epistle to the ' Ephesians! 
 
 We now come to the three Epistles which the 
 same messenger carried into Asia Minor, the Epistles 
 to the ' Ephesians ', to the Colossians, and to Philemon. 
 
 The Epistle to Philemon concerns us only by the 
 speaking testimony which it bears to the reality of 
 the Ecclesia as a brotherhood as shown in the new 
 footing on which it was possible for master and slave 
 to stand towards each other without any interference 
 with the status and legal conditions of servitude. 
 
 Nor will it be worth our while to give time 
 separately to the Epistle to the Colossians, nearly all 
 that it contains directly pertinent to our subject being 
 contained likewise in ' Ephesians '. 
 
 On the other hand ' Ephesians ' is peculiarly rich in 
 instructive materials and would repay a much more 
 complete examination than could be attempted within 
 our limits'. He would be a bold man who should 
 suppose himself to have fully mastered even the 
 outlines of its teaching : but even the slightest patient 
 study of it must be fruitful, provided we are willing to 
 find in it something more than we have brought to it. 
 On the other hand it is only too easy to exaggerate 
 its exceptional character. Its teaching is, so to speak, 
 the culmination of St Paul's previous teaching, not a 
 wholly new message divided by a sharp line from 
 what had been spoken before. If we enquire into the 
 cause of this culmination, it is not enough to try to 
 
 ^ See further in Hort's Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians. 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 139 
 
 account for it solely by mental progress in St Paul, 
 by ampler experience and riper thought. Such 
 progress, wrought by such causes of progress, must of 
 course have existed in the case of a man in whom the 
 free ilow of inward life was so little hampered by 
 languor or obstruction ; and, if so, it would naturally 
 reflect itself in his writings. But we have also to 
 remember the significant hint given us in i Cor. ii. that 
 the teaching which he addressed to unripe communi- 
 ties was purposely cut down to be proportional to 
 their spiritual state, and that all the while he was 
 cherishing in his own mind a world of higher thoughts, 
 " a wisdom '', he calls it, which could rightly be pro- 
 claimed only to maturer recipients ; though here and 
 there, for instance in some passages of Romans, he 
 could not refrain from partially admitting others to 
 these inner thoughts. This being the case, he might 
 well desire to make some Christian communities 
 depositaries of this reserved wisdom before he died, 
 and the Ecclesiae of Ephesus and other cities of that 
 region may have seemed to him to have now reached 
 a sufficiently high stage of discipleship to enable them 
 to receive with advantage what he now wished to say. 
 The primary subjects of this higher teaching may be 
 described as the relation of the Son of God to the 
 constitution of the Universe, and to the course of 
 human history, and in connexion with such themes it 
 was but natural that the Ecclesia of God should find 
 a place. 
 
HO THE ECCLESJA AS ONE. 
 
 But there were other reasons why St Paul should 
 think and write about the Ecclesia at this time, 
 reasons arising in part at least out of concrete con- 
 temporary history. We have already seen how in the 
 period preceding his two captivities his mind was 
 filled with the antithesis of Jew and Gentile within 
 the Christian fold, and with the steady purpose of 
 averting division by his dangerous last journey to 
 Jerusalem, after which he hoped to crown his missions, 
 as it were, by friendly intercourse with the Christians 
 of Rome. The abiding monument of this aspiration is 
 the Epistle to the Romans, and ' Ephesians ' is a corre- 
 sponding monument of the same thoughts from the 
 side of fulfilment instead of anticipation. It is hardly 
 a paradox to say that neither of these two great 
 Epistles is really intelligible without the other. To a 
 Jew, or a Christian brought up as a Jew, there could 
 be no such cleavage among mankind as that between 
 the people within the old covenant and the promiscu- 
 ous nations without it. A Christian who understood 
 his own faith could not but believe that the death on 
 Calvary had filled up the chasm, or (in St Paul's 
 figure) dissolved the middle wall of partition. But 
 all would seem to have been done in vain if the work 
 of God were repudiated by wretched human factious- 
 ness, and if Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians 
 renounced and spurned each other. This worst of 
 dangers was now to all appearance averted, and so 
 St Paul could expound to the Gentiles of Asia Minor 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 141 
 
 the uniting counsel of God without serious misgivings 
 lest perverse human facts should frustrate the great 
 Divine purpose. 
 
 A phrase or two must suffice to quote from 
 ii. II — 22, "He is our peace who made the both 
 {to, dfMiporepa neuter) one"; again, "that He might 
 found the two in Himself into one new man, 
 making peace, and might reconcile the both {roin; 
 afK^orepov; masc.) in one body to God through 
 the Cross." Hitherto the Acts and Epistles have 
 been setting before us only a number of separate inde- 
 pendent little communities each called an Ecclesia: 
 at least this holds good for Gentile Christendom 
 from Antioch outwards, and perhaps even for Pales- 
 tine. Now however the course of events has led the 
 Apostle to think of all Jewish Christians collectively, 
 and all Gentile Christians collectively, and of both 
 these two multitudes of men as now made one in the 
 strictest sense, " one new man ". But this fusion is no 
 mere negative or destructive process. To take away 
 the distinction of ]evf and Gentile without putting 
 anything better in its place would have been deadly 
 retrogression, not progress : fusion takes place because 
 Jewish and Gentile believers alike are members of a 
 single new society held together by a yet more solemn 
 consecration than the old, and that new society is 
 called " the Ecclesia " : in other words for Christians it 
 is true to say that there is one Ecclesia, as well as to 
 say that there are many Ecclesiae. 
 
142 THE ECCLESTA AS ONE. 
 
 It would seem accordingly that to St Paul, when 
 writing this Epistle, " the Ecclesia" was a kind of sym- 
 bol or visible expression of that wondrous ' mystery ', 
 to use his own word, which had been hidden through- 
 out the ages but was now made manifest, that the 
 Gentiles were fellow-heirs and of the same body, and 
 partakers of the same promises in Christ Jesus through 
 the Gospel, and hence that it was likewise a symbol 
 or visible expression of the Wisdom, as he calls it, by 
 which God was working out His purpose through 
 diversities of ages and by means which seemed for 
 the time to foil Him. This subject is in some respects 
 more fully expounded in Rom. ix. — xi., but without 
 clear mention of the Ecclesia. It is probably in 
 reference to it that St Paul speaks (iii. lo) of the 
 "manifoldly diverse" (or resourceful ■koK.vttoIkCKo^ 
 wisdom of God, as being made known to the heavenly 
 powers through the Ecclesia, i.e. through beholding 
 the Ecclesia and considering the light which its very 
 existence threw back on dark places of the world's 
 history in the past. Nay through the Apostle's 
 guarded words we may probably gather that the 
 Ecclesia, with these associations attached to it, was to 
 him likewise a kind of pledge for the complete 
 fulfilment of God's purpose in the dim future. Ideally 
 the Ecclesia was coextensive with humanity : all who 
 shared the manhood which Christ had taken were 
 potentially members of the Ecclesia : its ideals were 
 identical with the ideals of a cleansed and perfected 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 143 
 
 humanity. In ascribing glory to Him who is able to 
 do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think according to the power which is inwrought in 
 us, he lets us see (iii. 20 f.) what present facts were 
 inspiring this reaching forward of hope, by adding 
 "in the Ecclesia and in Christ Jesus (the Divine 
 Head of the Ecclesia) unto all the generations of 
 the age of the ages." 
 
 But if the securing of the union of Jewish and 
 Gentile Christians on equal terms was one cause of 
 St Paul's distinct recognition of the Ecclesia as one at 
 this time, his position at Rome must have been 
 another. Although his language in Romans shews 
 that he had no intention of treating the community 
 at Rome as having no legitimate position till he 
 should give it some sort of Apostolic authorisation, 
 he evidently did naturally feel that his function as 
 Apostle of the Gentiles had a certain incompleteness 
 till he had joined in Christian work and fellowship in 
 the capital of the Gentile world, and brought the 
 Roman community into closer relations of sympathy 
 with other Christian communities through the bond 
 of his own person. Writing now from Rome he could 
 not have divested himself, if he would, of a sense of 
 writing from the centre of earthly human affairs ; all 
 the more, since we know from the narrative in 
 Acts xxii. that he was himself a Roman citizen, and 
 apparently proud to hold this place in the Empire. 
 
144 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 Here then he must have been vividly reminded of the 
 aheady existing unity which comprehended both Jew 
 and Gentile under the bond of subjection to the 
 Emperor at Rome, and similarity and contrast alike 
 would suggest that a truer unity bound together in 
 one society all believers in the Crucified Lord. Some 
 generations were to pass before the Christian Ecclesia 
 and the Roman Empire were to stand out visibly in 
 the eyes of men as rivals and at last as deadly 
 antagonists. But even in the Apostolic age the 
 impressiveness of the Empire might well contribute 
 to the shaping of the thoughts of a St Paul about 
 his scattered fellow-believers. 
 
 Besides these two causes for the transition from 
 the usage of applying the term Ecclesia only to an 
 individual local community to this late use of it in the 
 most comprehensive sense, we must not forget the 
 biblical associations with the Ecclesia of Israel which 
 were evidently suggestive of unity, and perhaps a 
 similar mode of speech as regards the Christians of 
 Palestine before the Antiochian Ecclesia had come 
 into existence. But apparently these influences did 
 not affect current usage till changed circumstances 
 pointed to the use of a collective name. 
 
 The image of the body. 
 
 'Ephesians' contains however other definitions of 
 the Ecclesia which are in hke manner led up to by 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 145 
 
 corresponding language in earlier Epistles. The most 
 important of these is the image of the body. The 
 cardinal passages are two, in i Cor. xii. and in Rom. 
 xii. : the interesting but difficult allusion in i Cor. x. 
 16, 17 may be passed over. In i Cor. xii. St Paul 
 deals with the vexed question of spiritual powers, 
 and counteracts the disposition to treat the more ex- 
 ceptional and abnormal kinds of powers as peculiarly 
 spiritual, by treating all powers as merely different 
 modes of manifestation of the same Spirit, and each 
 power as a gift bestowed on its recipient, with a 
 view to what is expedient (Trpo? to (TV[i<pepov). From 
 the Spirit and its manifestations he then descends to 
 the recipients themselves. The reason, it is implied, 
 why they have received different powers is because 
 there are different functions to be discharged answer- 
 ing to these several powers ; and the meaning of 
 this difference of functions is explained by the fact 
 that together they constitute a body, of which each is 
 a different member " for {v. 1 3) in one Spirit we were 
 all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, 
 whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of 
 one Spirit." He points out that in a body the whole 
 is dependent on the diversity of office of the several 
 members, and that each member is dependent on the 
 office of the other members. Then he adds, " But ye 
 are a body of Christ {aw/xa 'K.pia-Tov), and members 
 severally." (The next verses we must come to 
 presently.) Here evidently it is the Corinthian 
 
 H. E. 10 
 
146 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 community by itself that is called a ' body of Christ' : 
 this depends not merely on the absence of an article 
 but on ii/iet9, which cannot naturally mean "all ye 
 Christians." 
 
 In Rom. xii. 3—5 all is briefer, but the ideas 
 are essentially the same. The central verse is, "As 
 in one body we have many members, and all the 
 members have not the same office (action), so we the 
 many are one body in Christ, and severally members 
 one of another." Here the language used is not 
 formally applied to the Roman community in par- 
 ticular: but the context shews that St Paul is still 
 thinking of local communities, and of the principles 
 which should regulate the membership of the Roman 
 community, as of all others. 
 
 In ' Ephesians ' the image is extended to embrace 
 all Christians, and the change is not improbably 
 connected with the clear setting forth of the relation 
 of the Body to its Head which now first comes before 
 us. In the illustrative or expository part of the 
 passage of I Cor. indeed (y. 21) the head is men- 
 tioned ; but only as one of the members, and nothing 
 answers to it in what is said of the body of Christ and 
 its members. And again in the rather peculiar 
 language of ^. 12 (outo)? koX o 'x^piaTO';') Christ seems 
 to be represented by a natural and instructive varia- 
 tion of the image, as Himself constituting the whole 
 body (in accordance with the Pauline phrase iv 
 Xpiaro)), without reference positively or negatively to 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 147 
 
 the head. This limitation was the more natural in 
 these two cases because in both the main purpose was 
 rather a practical than a doctrinal one, the repression 
 of vanities and jealousies by vivid insistence on the 
 idea of diversity and interdependence of functions. 
 The comparison of men in society to the members of 
 a body was of course not new. With the Stoics in 
 particular it was much in vogue. What was dis- 
 tinctively Christian was the faith in the One baptizing 
 and life-giving Spirit, the one uniting body of 
 Christ, the one all-working, all-inspiring God. 
 
 In ' Ephesians ' and Colossians the change comes 
 not so much by an expansion or extension of the 
 thought of each local Ecclesia as a body over a wider 
 sphere as by way of corollary or application, so to 
 speak, of larger and deeper thoughts on the place of 
 the Christ in the universal economy of things, ante- 
 cedent not only to the Incarnation but to the whole 
 course of the world. According to St Paul, as Christ 
 " is before all things and all things (ra irdvra) in Him 
 consist" (Col. i. 17), so also it was God's purpose in the 
 course of the ages "to sum up all things in Him, the 
 things in the heavens and the things on the earth" 
 {dvaKe<f)d\aia)aaadat, Eph. i. 10 : cf. Col. i. 20). Part 
 of this universal primacy of His (jrpwreiKov Col. i. 1 8), 
 involved in His exaltation to the right hand of God 
 as the completion of His Resurrection, was (Eph. i. 
 22 f.) that God " gave Him as Head over all things 
 to the Ecclesia which is His body, the fulfilment of 
 
148 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 Him who is fulfilled all things in all"; or as in 
 Col. (i. 1 8) "Himself is the Head of the body, the 
 Ecclesia." The relation thus set forth under a figure 
 is mutual. The work which Christ came to do on 
 earth was not completed when He passed from the 
 sight of men : He the Head, needed a body of 
 members for its full working out through the ages : 
 part by part He was, as St Paul says, to be fulfilled in 
 the community of His disciples, whose office in the 
 world was the outflow of His own. And on the other 
 hand His disciples had no intelligible unity apart 
 from their ascended Head, who was also to them the 
 present central fountain of life and power. 
 
 Here, at last, for the first time in the Acts and 
 Epistles, we have "the Ecclesia" spoken of in the 
 sense of the one universal Ecclesia, and it comes more 
 from the theological than from the historical side ; 
 i.e. less from the actual circumstances of the actual 
 Christian communities than from a development of 
 thoughts respecting the place and office of the Son of 
 God : His Headship was felt to involve the unity of 
 all those who were united to Him. On the other 
 hand it is a serious misunderstanding of these 
 Epistles to suppose, as is sometimes done, that the 
 Ecclesia here spoken of is an Ecclesia wholly in the 
 heavens, not formed of human beings. In the closest 
 connexion with the sentences just read St Paul in 
 both Epistles goes on to dwell on the contrast be- 
 tween the past and the present state of the Gentiles 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 149 
 
 to whom he was writing (and in Eph. ii. 3, in the 
 spirit of the early chapters of Romans, he intercalates 
 a similar contrast as true of Jewish converts like 
 himself), and describes these Gentiles as now " made 
 alive with the Christ, and raised with Him, and made 
 with Him to sit in the heavenly regions in Christ 
 Jesus"; — difficult words enough, but clearly turning on 
 the spiritual union of men actually on earth with One 
 called their Head in the heavens. Moreover this 
 passage of Colossians, by what it says (i. 20) of His 
 making peace through the blood of His Cross, com- 
 pared with Eph. ii. 13 — 18, shews that this new 
 language about the Ecclesia was really in part 
 suggested by the new assurance that Jew and Gentile, 
 those near and those far off, were truly brought 
 together in the one Christian brotherhood. 
 
 Once more the identity of the Ecclesia before 
 spoken of as 'the body of the Christ' with actual 
 men upon earth, is implied in Col. i. 24, when St Paul 
 says, " Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake 
 (i.e. assuredly, for the sake of you Gentiles), and then 
 goes on " and fill up on my part that which is lacking 
 of the afflictions of the Christ in my flesh for His 
 body's sake which is the Ecclesia, whereof I was made 
 a minister, according to the dispensation of God which 
 was given me to youward " etc. 
 
I50 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 Husband and Wife. 
 
 Again the unity of the Ecclesia finds prominent 
 expression in various language used by St Paul on 
 the relation of husband and wife (Eph. v. 22 — 33). The 
 conception itself he inherited from the later prophets 
 of the Old Testament, especially with reference to the 
 covenant established between Jehovah and His people 
 at Mount Sinai, e.g. Jer. ii. 2 ; Ez. xvi. 60 ; Is. liv. 5 
 " Thy Maker is thine husband ; the Lord of hosts is 
 His name and the Holy One of Israel is thy Re- 
 deemer ; the God of the whole earth shall He be 
 called." Language of this kind would easily fit itself 
 on in due time to the Ecclesia of Israel for Greek- 
 speaking Jews, or the 'edhah (fern.) for Hebrew-speaking 
 Jews : it is involved in the allegorical interpretation 
 eventually given by Jewish commentators to the Book 
 of Canticles, but there is no reason to think that this 
 interpretation was as old as the Apostolic age. St 
 Paul had already applied the prophetic language or 
 idea to single local Ecclesiae, that of Corinth (2 Cor. 
 xi. 2 " I espoused you to one husband to present you 
 to him a chaste virgin, even to the Christ"), and 
 implicitly that of Romr (Rom. vii. 4). He had also 
 in I Cor. xi. 3 expressed the relation of husband to 
 wife by the image of the head, associating it in the 
 same breath with a Headship of the Christ in relation 
 to each man or husband, and a Headship of God in 
 relation to Christ. The lowest of these three headships 
 
THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 151 
 
 was probably suggested by the story of the origin of 
 Eve in Genesis ; and the intermediate Headship was a 
 natural application of the idea of the Christ as the 
 second Adam, the true spiritual Head of the human 
 race and so of each member of it : the word ' KetfioKr] ' 
 doubtless borrowing for the purpose something of the 
 largeness and variation of sense of the Heb. ro's/i. 
 
 Now, in Eph. v. these various thoughts are brought 
 together in order to set forth what high duties were 
 by the Divine constitution of the human race involved 
 in the relations of husband and wife. That Headship 
 of the human race which was implied in the Christ's 
 being called the Second Adam carried with it a forti- 
 ori His Headship of the Ecclesia, that chosen portion 
 of the human race, representative of the whole, which 
 is brought into close relation to Himself, and is the 
 immediate object of His saving and cherishing and 
 purifying love, attested once for all by His willing 
 self-sacrifice. St Paul's primary object in these 
 twelve verses is to expound marriage, not to expound 
 the Ecclesia : but it is no less plain from his manner of 
 writing that the thought of the Ecclesia in its various 
 higher relations was filling his mind at the time, and 
 making him rejoice to have this opportunity of 
 pouring out something of the truth which seemed to 
 have revealed itself to him. If we are to interpret 
 "mystery" in the difficult 32nd verse, as apparently 
 we ought to do, by St Paul's usage, i.e. take it as 
 a Divine age-long secret only now at last disclosed, 
 
152 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 
 
 he wished to say that the meaning of that primary 
 institution of human society, though proclaimed in 
 dark words at the beginning of history, could not be 
 truly known till its heavenly archetype was revealed, 
 even the relation of Christ and the Ecclesia, which 
 just before has been once more called His body, and 
 individual Christians members of that body. Taking 
 this passage in connexion with the various references 
 to the Ecclesia v/hich have preceded in the Epistle, 
 it may be regarded as morally certain that the Eccle- 
 sia here intended is not a local community, but the 
 community of Christians as a whole. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 'Gifts' and 'Grace' 
 
 Having thus examined the chief passages of Ephe- 
 sians, which now for the first time in St Paul's extant 
 Epistles clearly set forth the conception of a single 
 universal Ecclesia, we must return to the passages of 
 various dates in which he expounds his doctrine of 
 Xapl'a'lJ'aTa, and exemplifies it by various functions 
 within the Ecclesia. The three passages are i Cor. 
 xii. 4 — II and 28 — 31 ; Rom. xii. 6 — 8; Eph. iv. 
 7 — 12. 
 
 The meaning of the terms. 
 
 XdpicTfjia comes of course from '^^api^ofiai ; it 
 means anything given of free bounty, not of debt, 
 contract, or right. It is thus obviously used in Philo, 
 and as obviously in Rom. v. 1 5, vi. 23 (the gift of God 
 is eternal life) ; and less obviously but with I believe 
 essentially the same force in the other passages of 
 St Paul, as also in the only other New Testament 
 place, I Pet. iv. 10. In these instances it is used to 
 
1 54 ' GIFTS > AND ' GRA CE.' 
 
 designate either what we call 'natural advantages' 
 independent of any human process of acquisition, or 
 advantages freshly received in the course of Provi- 
 dence ; both alike being regarded as so many various 
 free gifts from the Lord of men, and as designed by 
 Him to be distinctive qualifications for rendering 
 distinctive services to men or to communities of men. 
 In this sense they are Divine gifts both to the indi- 
 vidual men in whom so to speak they are located, and 
 to the society for whose benefit they are ordained. 
 This conception underlies not only the passages of 
 St Paul which refer directly to membership of a body, 
 but the various usages of the remaining passages, in 
 which on a superficial view the word might be sup- 
 posed to be used arbitrarily. (The usage of the 
 Pastoral Epistles we shall have to examine separately 
 by-and-by.) Thus in Rom. xi. 29 ("The gifts and 
 the calling of God are beyond repentance," He cannot 
 change His purpose in respect of them) we have a 
 saying of the utmost universality respecting God's 
 "Xapicrixara in general, the special application being to 
 the various privileges granted to Israel for the benefit 
 of mankind. In i Cor. vii. 7 %apto-/ia is the proper 
 gift which each man has from God as bearing on 
 marriage or celibacy, probably with reference to what 
 St Paul believed to be involved in his own special 
 \dpLcs-fia as the wandering herald of the truth to the 
 Gentiles. In 2 Cor. i. 11 (cf vv. 3 — 7, 9, 13 f) it is his 
 recent deliverance from impending death regarded as 
 
' GIFTS ' AND ' GRA CE.' I S 5 
 
 a gift bestowed on him for the sake of the Gentiles to 
 whom he had yet to preach. And in the anxiously 
 reserved language of Rom. i. 1 1 it seems to be some 
 advantage connected with his personal history and 
 work, which he wished to share with the Romans 
 (fi6TaSa>) by meeting them face to face, for the streng- 
 thening of their faith (cf i Thess. ii. 8). 
 
 This conception of %apto-/cia is essentially the same 
 as that of the talents in the Parable, if only we go 
 behind the somewhat vulgarised modern associations 
 of the word talents to its full sense in the Gospel ; 
 with the difference that the Pauline 5(;ajOt(r/iaTa, cover- 
 ing the members of a body, have a more distinct 
 reference to variety of use. Perhaps the clearest ex- 
 position is St Peter's (i Pet. iv. 9 — 11, "Each, as he 
 received a '^^dpia-fia, ministering it to one another as 
 good stewards of a manifold bounty (■x^dpiros:) of 
 God") ; the instances given being hospitality and 
 teaching. The single fountain of God's bounty or 
 grace is thus represented as dividing itself manifoldly 
 through all the inequalities of human faculty and 
 possessions, that it may be the better distributed by 
 the individual men as stewards each of what he has 
 received, that it may be for the beneiit of the great 
 household. 
 
 It is important to notice that the associations 
 connected with the term 'grace' as inherited by us 
 from Latin theology, denoting a spiritual power or 
 
IS6 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE? 
 
 influence, whether received by individuals according 
 to their need or appropriated permanently to a sacred 
 ordinance or a sacred office, whatever may be the 
 truth of the idea in itself, are only misleading in the 
 interpretation of the biblical language respecting 
 %a/3t9 and yapicTfia. The dominant conception of 
 X^P^''^ in the Acts and the Epistles is the free bounty 
 of God as exhibited in the admission of the Gentiles 
 although they stood without the original covenant ; 
 and this is constantly associated in St Paul's mind 
 with the free bounty of forgiveness shown to himself 
 the persecutor, making him the fittest of all heralds of 
 the free %ap£9, so preeminently in his own person a 
 recipient of %aj0f9. And moreover the language in 
 which he is accustomed to speak of the %apt? shown 
 (in biblical language ' given ') to him is by him trans- 
 ferred to those parts or aspects of the %apt? shown to 
 Christians generally which constitute separate %a/3(cr- 
 \juaTa. From this point of view it is well worth while 
 to compare i Cor. iii. lo; Gal. i. 15, ii. 9; Rom. i. 5, 
 xii. 3, XV. 1 5 ; Eph. iii. 2, 7, 8 ; and then to notice 
 how in I Cor. i. 4 — 6 St Paul similarly thanks God, 
 " for the grace of God which was given you in Christ 
 Jesus ; that in everything ye were enriched in him, in 
 all utterance and all knowledge,... so that ye fall short 
 in no x^piafia" : and again how Rom. xii. 6, "having 
 yapia-fj.ara in accordance with the %a/3t? that was 
 given (shown) to us, different [%a/3to-/iaTa]," looks back 
 to V. 3, and how Eph. iv. 7 looks back to iii. 2, 7, 8. 
 
' GIFTS' AND ' GRACE.' 1 57 
 
 The source of the ' Gifts.' 
 
 To come now to the instances given of various 
 'Xapiaixara within the Ecclesia, or of the persons to 
 whom such ■x^apicr/xaTa were assigned, we may look 
 chiefly at i Cor. xii. and Eph. iv. First should be 
 noticed the two verbs by which God's relation to the 
 various functions is expressed in the two Epistles 
 severally. In i Cor. the leading thought is of the 
 Divinely ordained diversity of members in the Christ- 
 ian body ; hence in z/. 1 8 " God edero (not merely ' set ' 
 but ' placed,' set as part of a plan) the members, each 
 one of thenj in the body as He willed " ; and so in v. 
 28 the same verb is repeated with obvious reference to 
 the preceding exposition, " And some God placed in the 
 Ecclesia, first apostles, etc." In Ephesians the Divine 
 X'^pi-'i or free bounty is the leading thought, each 
 function being pronounced to be a Divine gift. Ps. 
 Ixviii. 18, in the form in which it is quoted in v. 8, 
 supplies the verb ' gave ' (" and gave gifts to men "), 
 and so St Paul proceeds, "And Himself gave some as 
 apostles, and some as prophets, etc." The word 
 -Xapiafxa does not occur in Ephesians : but eSw/cev in 
 this connexion, associated with 77 %a/3i9, is exactly the 
 i^aplcraro implicitly contained in x'^piap.a. 
 
 ' Functions ' not formal ' Offices! 
 
 Then come the functions themselves. Much pro- 
 fitless labour has been spent on trying to force the 
 
IS8 ' GIFTS' AND ' GRACE! 
 
 various terms used into meaning so many definite 
 ecclesiastical offices. Not only is the feat impossible, 
 but the attempt carries us away from St Paul's 
 purpose, which is to shew how the different functions 
 are those which God has assigned to the different 
 members of a single body. In both lists apostles and 
 prophets come first, two forms of altogether excep- 
 tional function, those who were able to bear witness of 
 Jesus and the Resurrection by the evidence of their 
 own sight — the Twelve and St Paul — and those whose 
 monitions or outpourings were regarded as specially 
 inspired by the Holy Spirit. Each of these held one 
 kind of function, and next to these in i Cor. come all 
 who in any capacity were " teachers " (hihda icdXoC) 
 without any of the extraordinary gifts bestowed on 
 apostles and prophets. In Ephesians this function is 
 given in a less simple form. First there are " evange- 
 lists," doubtless men like Titus and Timothy (2 Tim. 
 iv. s) and Tychicus and Epaphras, disciples of St Paul 
 who went about from place to place preaching the 
 Gospel in multiplication and continuation of his 
 labours without possessing the peculiar title of apostle- 
 ship. Probably enough in St Paul's long imprison- 
 ment this kind of work had much increased. Then 
 come " pastors and teachers," men who taught within 
 their own community, and whose work was therefore 
 as that of shepherds taking care for a flock. Here 
 the list in Ephesians ends, while that in i Cor. pro- 
 ceeds to various functions unconnected with teaching 
 
' GIFTS' AND ' grace: 159 
 
 and belonging rather to action, first, extraordinary 
 powers and what St Paul calls gifts of healings ; then 
 two types of ordinary services rendered to members 
 of the community, first helps' (dvTiX'j/u,yjrei<i), anything 
 that could be done for poor or weak or outcast brethren, 
 either by rich or powerful or influential brethren or by 
 the devotion of those who stood on no such eminence ; 
 and secondly guidances^ or governments {icv^epvijaei<i), 
 men who by wise counsels did for the community what 
 the steersman or pilot does for the ship. Then last 
 comes an exceptional class of extraordinary powers or 
 manifestations, neither properly didactic nor properly 
 practical, what are called 'tongues'. The enumera- 
 tion earlier in the chapter (z'v. 8 — -lo) not only omits 
 apostles and helps and guidances, but, with other 
 variations, seems to subdivide the function of teachers 
 under three different qualifications, what are called 
 "an utterance (\d709) of wisdom," "an utterance of 
 knowledge," and " faith " : and in Rom. xii. there are 
 analogous subdivisions, among which occurs "minis- 
 tration" (hiaKovia), a very comprehensive word, 
 including e.g. (i Cor. xvi. 15) the way in which 
 apparently the household of Stephanas laid them- 
 selves out (era^av eavTov<;) to be hospitable and 
 helpful to Christian strangers visiting Corinth. 
 
 ' Cf. Acts XX. 35 dvTtXa/ipdpeffBai t&v iaBevoiuTav, some places in 
 LXX., but especially Ecclesiasticus [xi. 12 ; li. 7]. 
 
 ^ See especially its use in the LXX. version of Proverbs as the 
 apparently exactly literal rendering of takhbuldth (see Del. on Prov. 
 i. 5), three times rendered ' v^ise guidance ' in R.V. 
 
i6o ' GIFTS' AND ' GRA CE.' 
 
 All this variation of enumeration, and also the 
 variation in the form of description (persons and so to 
 speak things being terms of a single series), becomes 
 intelligible and natural when we understand clearly 
 that St Paul is not speaking at all of formal offices or 
 posts in the Ecclesia, much less enumerating them. 
 The chief reason why he seems to do this is because 
 apostles stand at the head in the two chief lists, and 
 the apostolate of the Twelve and St Paul was in an im- 
 portant sense a definite and permanent office. But it 
 was part of St Paul's purpose to shew that the service 
 which they were intended to render to the Ecclesia 
 of that age was on the one hand, as in the other 
 cases, the service^ of members to a body to which 
 they themselves belonged, and on the other was too 
 peculiar to be included under any other head. What 
 is common in substance to all the terms of the series 
 is that they are so many kinds of partial service, and 
 from this point of view it was immaterial whether 
 there were or were not definite offices corresponding 
 to any or all of these kinds of service ; or again 
 whether two or more kinds of service were or were 
 not, as a matter of fact, ever performed by the same 
 persons. Hence these passages give us practically no 
 evidence respecting the formal arrangements of the 
 Ecclesiae of that age, though they tell us much of the 
 forms of activity that were at work within them, and 
 
 1 Cf. J Cor. iii. 5— p, ai>(} indeed —15, on Apollos and Paul. 
 
'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' i6i 
 
 above all illustrate vividly St Paul's conception of an 
 Ecclesia and of the Ecclesia. 
 
 The image of the 'Body! 
 
 The passage of Ephesians which we have been 
 examining (iv. 7 — 11) begins the second portion of a 
 section which rings with the proclamation of the great 
 supreme Christian unities. But the purpose for which 
 they are set forth is to sustain an exhortation on the 
 fundamental practical duty attached to membership 
 of the Christian body, to walk worthily of the vocation 
 wherewith ye were called (explained by Col. iii. 15, 
 " Let the peace of the Christ preside in your hearts, 
 unto which ye were also called in [one] body " — better 
 to read "in a body," i.e. to be members of a body) 
 with all lowliness and meekness etc., giving diligence 
 to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace : 
 one body and one Spirit, he proceeds in the familiar 
 words which seem to glide from exhortation addressed 
 to Christians of a few cities of Asia into aiifirmation 
 respecting the whole body of Christians. But it would 
 seem as though he dreaded the very semblance of 
 representing an Ecclesia of God as intended to be a 
 shapeless crowd of like and equal units. Accordingly 
 he turns within, to claim as it were all varieties and 
 inequalities as so many indications of divers functions 
 needed to work together to a true unity. "To each 
 one of us," he says emphatically ('Ez^t Se J/cao-rco rjix&v), 
 " was given the grace according to the measure of the 
 
1 62 ' GIFTS ' AND ' GRA CE.' 
 
 bounty of the Christ." Then comes the quotation 
 from the Psalm and the rapid setting forth of apostles, 
 prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers as so 
 many various gifts of God to men ; and then in the 
 same breath their present and their ultimate purposes ; 
 their present purpose the /caTapTto-/no?, or perfecting 
 and accomplishing of the saints (i.e. the individual 
 members of the great community) unto a work of 
 ministration (i.e. those more conspicuous functions 
 were meant to train and develop analogous functions 
 of ministration, in each and all) ; then secondly, as a 
 single aim of this manifold accomplishing, the building 
 up of the body of the Christ ; and finally, as the 
 ultimate purpose of these processes, the attainment of 
 all together {pi iravre';), unto the unity of the faith and 
 of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
 [full-grown] man, unto a measure of stature [maturity] 
 of [such as belongs to] the fulfilment of the Christ. 
 Even here the sentence does not end. From the lofty 
 heights of his own thought St Paul descends to its 
 practical purport, the rising out of the old heathen 
 state of distracted beguilement by unworthy teachers, 
 and through a life of truthful intercourse one with 
 another in the power of love (see 25 ff.) growing up 
 into Him in all things who is the Head, Christ. 
 Then he ends with a description of the action so to 
 speak of the Head on the body of the Ecclesia, the 
 fitting together and knitting together of the whole, 
 the spreading of life as from a centre through every 
 
' GTFTS' AND ' GRA CE.' 163 
 
 joint by which it is supplied, the action of each part 
 in due measure in appropriating and using the life so 
 supplied, and as the result the growth of the Body 
 unto building up of itself in the power of love. 
 
 The image of ' building! 
 
 Twice here the image of the body has been sup- 
 plemented by the image of building. In various 
 forms this other image is widely spread through the 
 apostolic writings, not only in the simple thought of 
 building up as opposed to the contrary process of 
 pulling down or dissolving and to the simulative 
 process of puffing up ; but as exhibiting the ranging 
 of human beings side by side so as to form together a 
 stable structure of various parts, all resting on a 
 foundation. But the ruling element in the idea comes 
 naturally from the special purpose of the building. 
 It is a dwelling-place or house, and its inhabitant is 
 God ; so that it is further a sanctuary i^aoi) or temple 
 of God. When our Lord Himself said in the temple 
 at Jerusalem, " Destroy (dissolve, Xvaari) this temple 
 and in three days I will raise it up," interpreted by 
 St John to refer to the temple of His body. He must 
 surely have been chiefly thinking of that temple, that 
 body of His which St Paul identifies with the Ec- 
 clesia, for from the day of the Passion the temple of 
 stones lay under doom. Such at all events was 
 Stephen's teaching so far as the old temple is con- 
 cerned, when to the words of i Kings viii. how Solomon 
 
t04 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 
 
 built Jehovah a house, he added the comment, " How- 
 beit the Most High dwelleth not in things made with 
 hands," appealing to Is. Ixvi. " Heaven is my throne," 
 etc. Such was also the teaching of his persecutor 
 and disciple St Paul when at Athens he repeated how 
 the Creator, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth 
 not in temples made with hands. The positive side 
 of the same teaching we have in St Paul's adaptation 
 of Lev. xxvi. in 2 Cor. vi. i6, " For we are a sanctuary 
 of a living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and 
 walk in them, apd I will be their God, and they shall 
 be my people," where that second phrase, " and walk in 
 them " marks the indwelling spoken of to be not of a 
 carved image or of a vaguely conceived presence but 
 of a living God. Here as also in the yet more 
 familiar passage i Cor. iii. i6 f. ("Know ye not that 
 ye are a sanctuary of God, and the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you ? "), the individual local community is 
 itself addressed as a sanctuary of God ; and the same 
 conception, if we are not to disregard both grammar 
 and natural sense, is expressed with great generality 
 in Eph. ii. 21 f "in whom [i.e. Christ Jesus as Corner- 
 stone] each several building (R.V.) (jraaa oLKoBofir]) 
 fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in 
 the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a 
 habitation of God in the Spirit." Indeed, if I mistake 
 not, the thought of a universal spiritual temple of 
 God is, to say the least, not definitely expressed 
 anywhere by St Paul. 
 
'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 165 
 
 The foundation of the Apostles and Froplicts. 
 
 Before we leave the language derived from a 
 building, one very familiar phrase in Ephesians ii. 20 
 claims notice, "built upon the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets," which may be interpreted and 
 has been interpreted in several different ways. To 
 find who are meant by the apostles and prophets we 
 must first take this passage with another (iii. 5 f ), " the 
 mystery of the Christ, which in other generations was 
 not made known to the sons of men as it was now 
 revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit, 
 that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and of the same 
 body," etc. etc. The position of " prophets " as second 
 in both places puts the Old Testament prophets out 
 of the question, unless indeed they were likewise 
 meant by " the apostles ", which in c. iii. is impossible. 
 It seems to me that both the sense of both places and 
 the collocation of words in c. iii. determine the apostles 
 themselves to be the prophets meant. It is truly said 
 that we cannot lay much stress on the absence of a 
 second article before 'prophets'; but in iii. 5 the 
 prefixing of ayioK and subjoining of avrov to aTro- 
 aroXoi^ is difficult to account for, if the prophets 
 meant were a second set of persons. Such a passage 
 as Gal. i. 15' is enough to suggest that St Paul 
 regarded the office of the old prophets as in some 
 way repeated in himself; and if we consider such 
 
 ^ Cf. Is. xlix. I. 
 
i66 ' GIFTS' AND ' GRACE} 
 
 sayings jpf our Lord on the last evening as John xiv. 
 26; XV. 26 f.; xvi. I3ff. on the office of the second 
 Paraclete in relation to the disciples, we must see 
 that so far as the words had a first and special 
 reference to the apostolic band, their witness-bearing 
 to Christ was conditioned by the interpretative and 
 enlightening operation of the Holy Spirit, and further 
 that utterances proceeding from such an operation 
 exactly answer to what the Bible calls prophecy. In 
 a word, the specially chosen disciples had need to be 
 prophets in order to be in the strict sense apostles. 
 The full revelation respecting the Gentiles to which 
 St Paul refers in Eph. iii. 6 ff. was not obviously 
 involved from the first in the charge to preach the 
 Gospel to all nations. It was to St Paul himself 
 doubtless that this prophetic illumination came in the 
 first instance : but he might well rejoice to merge his 
 own individuality in the concordant acceptance of 
 what he had proclaimed by the twelve at Jerusalem, 
 an acceptance which might well itself be referred to 
 the inspiration of the prophetic spirit. The enumera- 
 tion in iv. II, "And Himself gave some to be apostles, 
 and some prophets " is not a serious difficulty in the 
 way of this interpretation, for, as we saw before, the 
 enumeration is not of classes of persons or formal 
 offices, but of classes of functions ; and though in the 
 true sense there were no apostles but the twelve and 
 St Paul, we know there were many others who were 
 called prophets. 
 
'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 167 
 
 But in what sense were the heathen converts of 
 Asia " built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets "? The phrase might mean either the foun- 
 dation on which the apostles and prophets had been 
 built, or the foundation laid by them, or themselves as 
 the foundation. That Christ Himself is here meant 
 as the foundation, as i Cor. iii. 1 1 might suggest, is 
 very unlikely, when the next clause makes Him 
 cornerstone without any indication that there is a 
 transition from one figure taken from building to 
 another with reference to the same subject. The 
 previous verse in i Cor. (iii. 10) and the other passage 
 of Eph. (iii. 5) suggest that the apostles and prophets 
 were the builders who laid the foundation ; but it 
 remains difficult to see what foundation they can be 
 said to have laid, in connexion with which Christ 
 could be called a cornerstone. It would seem then 
 that they themselves constituted the foundation in 
 the sense which the Gospels led us to recognise, the 
 chosen band of intimate disciples, the first rudi- 
 mentary Ecclesia, on which the Ecclesia of Palestine 
 was first built, and then indirectly every other 
 Ecclesia, whether it had or had not been personally 
 founded by an apostle. The reason why they are 
 designated here by this full and double title is 
 because the reference here is to the building up of 
 Gentile Ecclesiae, and because the admission of the 
 Gentiles on absolutely equal terms was in St Paul's 
 mind associated with what were to him leading 
 
i68 ' GIFTS' AND ' GRACE: 
 
 characteristics of apostleship and of prophecy under 
 the New Covenant. 
 
 The Universal Ecclesia and the partial Ecclesiae. 
 
 We have been detained a long time by the im- 
 portance of the whole teaching of ' Ephesians ' on the 
 Ecclesia, and especially of the idea now first definitely 
 expressed of the whole Ecclesia as One. Before 
 leaving this subject, however, it is important to notice 
 that not a word in the Epistle exhibits the One Eccle- 
 sia as made up of many Ecclesiae. To each local 
 Ecclesia St Paul has ascribed a corresponding unity 
 of its own ; each is a body of Christ and a sanctuary 
 of God : but there is no grouping of them into 
 partial wholes or into one great whole. The members 
 which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities 
 but individual men. The One Ecclesia includes all 
 members of all partial Ecclesiae ; but its relations to 
 them all are direct, not mediate. It is true that, as 
 we have seen, St Paul anxiously promoted friendly 
 intercourse and sympathy between the scattered 
 Ecclesiae ; but the unity of the universal Ecclesia as 
 he contemplated it does not belong to this region : it 
 is a truth of theology and of religion, not a fact of 
 what we call Ecclesiastical politics. To recognise 
 this is quite consistent with the fullest appreciation 
 of aspirations after an external Ecclesiastical unity 
 which have played so great and beneficial a part in 
 the inner and outer movements of subsequent ages. 
 
'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 169 
 
 At every turn we are constrained to feel that we can 
 learn to good effect from the apostolic age only by 
 studying its principles and ideals, not by copying its 
 precedents. 
 
 I said just now that the one Ecclesia of Ephesians 
 includes all members of all partial Ecclesiae. In other 
 words, there is no indication that St Paul regarded 
 the conditions of membership in the universal Ecclesia 
 as differing from the conditions of membership in 
 the partial local Ecclesiae. Membership of a local 
 Ecclesia was obviously visible and external, and we 
 have no evidence that St Paul regarded membership 
 of the universal Ecclesia as invisible, and exclusively 
 spiritual, and as shared by only a limited number 
 of the members of the external Ecclesiae, those, 
 namely, whom God had chosen out of the great mass 
 and ordained to life, of those whose faith in Christ 
 was a genuine and true faith. What very plausible 
 grounds could be urged for this distinction, was to 
 be seen in later generations : but it seems to me 
 incompatible with any reasonable interpretation of 
 St Paul's words. On the other hand, it is no less 
 clear that this Epistle, which so emphatically ex- 
 pounds the doctrine of the Christian community, is 
 equally emphatic in recognition of the individual life 
 of its members. The universal Ecclesia and the 
 partial Ecclesiae alike were wholly made up of men 
 who had each for himself believed, whose baptism 
 was for each the outward expression of what was 
 
170 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 
 
 involved in his belief, for his past and for his future ; 
 and who had a right to look on the fact that they 
 had been permitted to be the subjects of this mar- 
 vellous change, as evidence that they had each been 
 the object of God's electing love before the founda- 
 tions of the world were laid. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 Titus and Timothy in the Pastoral 
 Epistles. 
 
 Leaving now the Epistles of the Roman Captivity 
 we come to the Pastoral Epistles. On the questions 
 of their authenticity and integrity I shall say no more 
 now than that in spite of by no means trivial 
 difficulties arising from comparison of the diction 
 of these and the other Epistles bearing St Paul's 
 name, I believe them to be his, and to be his as they 
 now stand. The supposed difficulties of other kinds 
 seem to me of no weight. About St Paul's life after 
 the time briefly noticed in the last verse of Acts, we 
 know absolutely nothing from any other source 
 beyond the bare fact of his death at Rome : and it 
 is to the interval between the Roman Captivity 
 mentioned in Acts and his death that the Epistles, 
 with the recent incidents referred to in them, must 
 assuredly belong. They differ essentially from all his 
 Epistles except Philemon by being addressed to 
 individual men, not to communities ; while they differ 
 
172 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 no less from Philemon in having the welfare of 
 Christian communities as indirectly a large part of 
 
 their subject-matter. 
 
 The interpretation of i Tim. iii. \\f. 
 
 This is definitely expressed in an important passage 
 which we may well consider first, as it is the chief 
 passage in which the term eKKKrja'ia occurs, I Timothy 
 iii. 14 f "These things I write to thee, hoping to come 
 unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long, that thou 
 mayest know how men ought to behave themselves 
 in a household of God, which is an Ecclesia of a 
 living God, a pillar and stay of the truth." 
 
 The A. V. (and R. V. marg.) rendering "how thou 
 oughtest to behave thyself" is doubtless a survival of 
 the Vulgate quomodo te oporteat, a translation of the 
 Western ere. But though the special dva<7Tpo(f>ri of 
 Timothy is included, the avaa-rpo^r} of each class 
 mentioned and of all members of the Ecclesia is 
 likewise included. 'AvaaTpocpij, for which there is no 
 good English equivalent, includes all conduct and 
 demeanour in converse with other men. Thus St 
 Paul here describes his purpose in writing so as to 
 point out what is a well-ordered life for Christian men 
 in converse with each other. The force of the words 
 that follow is only weakened and diluted by treating 
 the absence of articles as immaterial. The close and 
 obvious relations subsisting within each single Chris- 
 tian community aftbrd the framework, as it were. 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 173 
 
 for the teaching; and in instructing its members to 
 regard it as invested with these high attributes St 
 Paul was but doing as he had done to other Ecclesiae 
 before. 
 
 The ' house of God ' here spoken of is doubtless 
 not His dwelling-house or sanctuary but (as several 
 recent commentators) His household'. It is the same 
 ten verses back, " If a man knoweth not how to rule 
 his own household, how shall he take care of an 
 Ecclesia of God"? The same sense 'household' 
 occurs also in Heb. iii. 5 f, x. 21 (from Num. xii. 7) 
 and probably in i Pet. iv. 17. It is also implied in 
 St Paul's own use of the adjective oIk^Io'^, probably 
 in Gal. vi. 10, "them that are of the household of the 
 faith"; certainly in Ephesians ii. 19, "fellow citizens 
 with the saints, and of the household of God." Hence 
 the dvacrTpo(pi^ or converse described as the subject of 
 this part of the Epistle, is the converse of members 
 of a household of which God is the Householder or 
 Master. 
 
 Further it is described as " an Ecclesia of a living 
 God." Often the (a) living God is spoken of in 
 contrast to dead idols : but sometimes (e.g. Heb. iii. 
 12 ; ix. 14 ; xii. 22) it implies a contrast with the true 
 God made practically a dead deity by a lifeless and 
 rigid form of religion ; with the God in short in whom 
 
 ^ The word 'house' is not incorrect, but only ambiguous : in Acts 
 xvi. 34 both senses stand together, the jailor at Philippi brings Paul and 
 Silas inio his house, and rejoices greatly with all his house. 
 
174 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 too many of the Jews virtually believed. Such is pro- 
 bably the force here as it evidently is in iv. lo. 
 
 The last designation here given to a local Chris- 
 tian community is " a pillar and stay of the truth." 
 
 There are few passages of the New Testament in 
 which the reckless disregard of the presence or absence 
 of the article has made wilder havoc of the sense than 
 this. To speak of either an Ecclesia or the Ecclesia, as 
 being the pillar of the truth, is to represent the truth 
 as a building, standing in the air supported on a 
 single column. Again there is no clear evidence that 
 the rare word eSpaico/xa ever means 'ground" ' = " foun- 
 dation." It is rather, in accordance with the almost^ 
 universal Latin rendering firmamentum, a " stay " or 
 "bulwark". 
 
 St Paul's idea then is that each living society of 
 Christian men is a pillar and stay of " the truth " as 
 an object of belief and a guide of life for mankind, 
 each such Christian society bearing its part in sus- 
 taining and supporting the one truth common to all. 
 
 But while at least two of the Pastoral Epistles, and 
 in a certain sense all of them, have thus the Ecclesiae 
 for themselves to a great extent as the subject 
 matter, they are still more truly in substance no less 
 than in obvious form, instructions to individual men, 
 
 ^ Probably translated by Tyndale from Luther's Grundfeste. 
 ^ Fundamentum occurs in Iren. lat. [in. i. i ; but possibly as a 
 translation ol <rT^piyfji,a, see III. xi. 8. Ed,] 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 175 
 
 having special responsibilities of leadership or guid- 
 ance, and, as regards two of the Epistles, entrusted 
 definitely with the special charge of Ecclesiae, though 
 only for limited and temporary purposes. The pur- 
 poses in the two cases were by no means identical, 
 though they had much in common. 
 
 The mission of Titus in Crete. 
 
 The case of Titus is the simplest. He had been 
 a convert from heathenism, made by St Paul himself 
 {yvTjaLcp reicvq), i. 4), we do not know in what region. 
 St Paul had taken him with him from Antioch to 
 Jerusalem at the time of the great conference, and 
 had refused to yield to pressure and let him be cir- 
 cumcised. He had employed him on a confidential 
 mission to the Corinthian Ecclesia. This is all that 
 is known of his antecedents : in the Acts he is not 
 mentioned by name. After a long interval he now 
 re-emerges into light, though only somewhat dim 
 light. During a journey subsequent to the first 
 Roman Captivity he had accompanied St Paul on a 
 visit to the island of Crete. There are various indi- 
 cations in the Epistle that the Christian faith must 
 have gained ground in the island long before this time : 
 but at what time, and by whose preaching, we know 
 not. It would seem that St Paul found the state of 
 things unsatisfactory, but that he had no time to stay 
 in person to attempt to rectify it. Accordingly he 
 left Titus behind to correct, he says, the deficiencies 
 
176 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 and to appoint Elders in the several cities. Thus 
 Titus was in this respect to do what Paul and 
 Barnabas had done in the cities of Southern Asia 
 Minor on their return from the first Missionary 
 journey. But the circumstances were very different. 
 The natural inference is that up to this time the 
 Christians of Crete had gone on without any kind of 
 responsible government, and that this anarchic con- 
 dition was one considerable cause of the evidently 
 low -moral condition to which they had sunk. 
 Accordingly the appointment of elders was a neces- 
 sary first step towards raising the standard of 
 Christian life generally. Zenas and Apollos were 
 now starting on a journey in the course of which they 
 were to touch at Crete, and so St Paul takes the 
 opportunity of sending this letter, partly to remind 
 Titus of the chief things to be attended to in this 
 Mission, partly to prepare him for rejoining St Paul 
 with all possible speed at Nicopolis so soon as 
 Artemas or Tychicus should come to him. When 
 2 Timothy was written, he had gone to Dalmatia 
 (iv. lo). Why Artemas or Tychicus was to be sent 
 to Titus, is not mentioned ; but in all probability 
 whichever of them went was intended to take Titus's 
 place, and give the scattered Ecclesiae of the island 
 the benefit of a little longer superintendence till 
 the newly appointed Elders should have gained some 
 really effective influence under the difficult circum- 
 stances of their new office. 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 177 
 
 Timothy^ s mission in Epkesus. 
 
 The immediate occasion of Timothy's mission 
 resembled that of Titus's mission. He too was 
 evidently journeying with St Paul when they came 
 to Ephesus, and the state of things in the Ephesian 
 Ecclesia appeared to call for a longer and more 
 comprehensive treatment than St Paul had himself 
 time to apply, as he was journeying on to Macedonia. 
 Accordingly he left Timothy behind, specially to 
 resist the growth of certain barren and unprofitable 
 teachings which were evidently gaining much ground 
 at Ephesus. He was in hopes (iii. 14) of rejoining 
 Timothy shortly, but in case of possible delay he 
 desired to keep before Timothy's mind the true aims 
 which he should follow in helping to guide the 
 Ephesian Ecclesia into right and salutary ways. 
 
 With the second Epistle we have little to do. It is 
 silent about the affairs of an Ecclesia except so far as 
 they are involved in the qualifications of an evangelist 
 and associate of St Paul. Much of the first Epistle is 
 an outpouring of St Paul's thoughts for his cherished 
 disciple, and the second Epistle is almost wholly of 
 this character, with the added force that came from 
 a sense of his own impending martyrdom. We do 
 not even know with any certainty whether Timothy 
 was still at Ephesus, though probably enough he 
 was: that is, the supposition would harmonise with 
 some of the details respecting other persons, though 
 
 H. E. 12 
 
178 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 in other respects the supposed indications are quite 
 worthless. Wherever Timothy was, St Paul urges his 
 making a point {cnrov^aaov) of coming to him quickly 
 (2 Tim. iv. 9), bringing Mark with him, for he was left 
 alone. It is probable enough that the sending of 
 Tychicus to Ephesus mentioned in iv. 12 was intended 
 to carry on further Timothy's work there : but we 
 learn no particulars. 
 
 Timothy's antecedents. 
 
 On the other hand a special interest attaches to 
 the language used in several places of both Epistles 
 respecting Timothy himself. Every one will remem- 
 ber how closely he is associated with St Paul's labours 
 and writings from the time of the ' second missionary 
 journey' in Asia Minor, so that his name stands with 
 St Paul, at the head of six of the earlier epistles, and 
 occurs in" two others of them. Behind this confiden- 
 tial intercourse and cooperation, however, there lay 
 the exceptional circumstances out of which they arose. 
 These circumstances are but imperfectly known to us, 
 but something of their significance comes clearly out 
 in comparison of St Luke's account in the Acts 
 (xvi. I — 4) and the language of the Pastoral Epistles, 
 each of which illustrates the other. When Paul and 
 Barnabas after returning from the Jerusalem Con- 
 ference had been for some time preaching at Antioch, 
 St Paul proposed to Barnabas that they should 
 revisit the brethren in the various cities of Asia Minor 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 179 
 
 where they had founded Ecclesiae. The dispute 
 about Bamabas's cousin St Mark made it impossible 
 to carry out the plan as first intended. Barnabas and 
 his cousin went off to his native Cyprus. St Paul 
 chose for his companion Silas, one of the Jerusalem 
 envoys who had accompanied the returning Anti- 
 ochian envoys, a man having prophetic gifts ; and 
 "being commended" we read "to the grace of the 
 Lord by the brethren, he (Luke does not say ' they,' but 
 ' he ') passed through Syria and Cilicia confirming the 
 Ecclesiae. In due time he reached Lycaonia, specially 
 its cities Derbe and Lystra : " And behold " (says St 
 Luke, a phrase which when writing in his own person 
 and sometimes even in speeches he reserves for 
 sudden and as it were providential interpositions'), 
 " And behold a certain disciple was there, Timothy by 
 name, son of a Jewish woman that believed and a 
 Greek father, one who had witness borne to him 
 (ifuipTvpeiTo) by the brethren that were at Lystra and 
 Iconium : him St Paul willed to go forth with him 
 (rovrov ^OeXijcreu 6 IlaOXo? aiiv avrm i^eXOeiv) and he 
 took and circumcised him, because of the Jews that were 
 in those parts, for all of them {airavrei) knew that his 
 father was a Greek. And as they (plural) went on 
 their way through the cities they delivered them the 
 Boy/iara to keep, which had been resolved on (Keicpi- 
 fiiva) by the apostles and elders that were at Jeru- 
 salem ". This narrative needs but little paraphrase to 
 * See i. 10 ; viii. 27 ; x. 17 ; xii. 7. 
 
 12— a 
 
i8o TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 become transparent, as far as it goes. Timothy's 
 Greek father like many Greeks and Romans of wealth 
 or position in those days, had married a Jewish wife. 
 He allowed his wife to bring up their boy in her own 
 faith, but not to brand him with what to Greek eyes 
 was the infamous brand of circumcision. As a result 
 of the preaching of Paul and Barnabas on the former 
 missionary journey, mother and son had passed from 
 devout Judaism to the Christian faith, and the son 
 came to be highly honoured by the Christians of 
 more than one city, St Paul now resolved to take 
 this young Timothy with him on his onward journey, 
 and with this purpose (so the order clearly implies) 
 he circumcised him in order to avoid giving a handle 
 for misrepresentation to the Jews of those parts. In 
 everything but the external rite Timothy was a bona 
 fide Jew. If he was to go forth to stand by St Paul's 
 side in Jewish synagogues as Barnabas the Levite 
 had done, to have let him remain uncircumcised 
 would have been to court the imputation of taking 
 advantage of an accident of education to extend to a 
 Jew the Pauline exemption of Gentiles from circum- 
 cision. Yet it was a bold and startling act, and the 
 fact that St Paul performed it, when he might have 
 avoided it by choosing some other associate, shews 
 that he must have had overmastering reasons indeed 
 for fixing absolutely on this Lycaonian youth for a, 
 place of such peculiar responsibility. 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. i8i 
 
 Timothy's original appointment. 
 
 What those reasons were Luke does not tell us, 
 beyond the good testimony of Timothy's Christian 
 neighbours. But an early verse (i. i8) of the first 
 Epistle gives the clue. "This charge I commit to 
 thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies 
 which led the way to thee, that in them (i.e. in their 
 power) thou mayest war the good warfare, holding 
 faith and a good conscience." "The prophecies 
 which led the way to thee" this (R.V. marg.) is 
 much the most natural rendering of KaTo, ra^ irpo- 
 ayovawi iirl (re Trpo^ijreia^. Doubtless it would be a 
 strong phrase to use if the occasion referred to were 
 the leaving behind at Ephesus, which is indeed by no 
 means suggested by the very general words that 
 follow of the good warfare, faith and a good con- 
 science. But it fits in excellently with what his 
 narrative suggests as at least a probable course of 
 circumstances. The first missionary journey had 
 been inaugurated at Antioch under circumstances of 
 peculiar solemnity in which Paul and Barnabas were 
 jointly charged with a momentous commission. The 
 journey had been rich in truitful results, which involved 
 the opening up of a whole new world to be leavened 
 by the Gospel ; and the new advance had been ratified 
 after full consideration by the Twelve and by the 
 Ecclesia of Jerusalem. The new journey was pre- 
 ceded apparently by no fresh inauguration ; it came 
 
i82 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 simply from St Paul's spontaneous desire to revisit 
 the Ecclesiae which they had jointly founded. But 
 now the actual journey was begun under the most 
 disheartening circumstances. Barnabas, whose name 
 had originally stood first, had now withdrawn from 
 the work immediately in hand, and St Paul might 
 well feel that, while he must needs go forward, it must 
 be with a sense of foredoomed failure unless the 
 breach in what had been at the outset a Divinely 
 appointed enterprise were in some way closed up by 
 a no less Divine interposition. He had indeed Silas 
 with him : but this was by his own selection, and 
 apparently Silas stood on the same subordinate 
 footing as Mark had originally done (xiii. 5 vTn^peTrjv), 
 though in the course of the journey the difference of 
 footing seems to disappear. St Paul's words in the 
 Epistle suggest that while he was journeying on in 
 some such state of mind as this, mysterious monitions 
 of the kind called prophetic seemed to come to him, 
 whether within his own spirit, or through the lips of 
 Silas, or both ; and that these voices taught him the 
 course to take by which he should at last find a 
 Divinely provided successor to Barnabas. Such 
 prophecies as have been here supposed would in the 
 strictest sense lead the way to Timothy, just as the 
 heavenly voice in the vision seen by Ananias at 
 Damascus led the way to Paul himself in the house of 
 Judas in the street called Straight (ix. 10 f, 17), or 
 the similar voice in the vision seen by Cornelius at 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 183 
 
 Csesarea led the way to St Peter in the house of 
 Simon the Tanner at Joppa. When at last St Paul 
 reached Derbe and Lystra {KaTrjVTTjaev is St Luke's 
 expressive word, as though these cities were in some 
 way a goal to him), the testimony which the young 
 Timothy received from the brethren might well seem 
 to be a human echo of a Divine choice already no- 
 tified by prophecy. 
 
 But we may reasonably go a step farther. If 
 St Paul received Timothy as Divinely made the 
 partner of his work in place of Barnabas, it would be 
 at least not unnatural that there should be some 
 repetition of the solemn acts by which human ex- 
 pression had been given to the Divine mission in the 
 first instance. If this explanation of "the prophecies" 
 is right, they must on the one hand have in substance 
 included some such message as " Separate for me 
 Timothy for the work whereunto I have called him " ; 
 and on the other hand that separation or consecration 
 would naturally take outward form in fasting and 
 prayer and laying on of hands by the representatives 
 of the Lycaonian Ecclesiae, in repetition of what had 
 been done at Antioch (xiii. 3). In this case however 
 one additional element would be present, viz. the 
 special relation in which St Paul stood to Timothy : 
 he was Timothy's father in the faith, and his sub- 
 sequent language shews that this essential fact was 
 to be of permanent significance. It would be natural 
 therefore that as Jewish Rabbis laid hands on their 
 
i84 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 disciples, after the example of Moses and Joshua, so 
 not only the representatives of the Lycaonian Ecclesiae 
 but also St Paul himself should lay hands on the 
 disciple and spiritual son now admitted to share his 
 peculiar commission. 
 
 Timothys ^(apia-iia. 
 
 Taking with us these antecedents, we shall be in a 
 better position to understand the verse (iv. 14) in 
 which St Paul bids Timothy, "Neglect not the 
 gracious gift (;^a/3t<r;u.aTo?) which is in thee, which was 
 given thee (8ta Trpo^T^Teiay), through prophecy with 
 laying on of the hands of the body of Elders (rov 
 irpea^vrepiov). In i. 18 ra? 7rpoayovaa<; iirl ere 
 irpo(^7)reLa<; would be an extraordinary phrase to 
 describe prophecies the purpose of which was to 
 induce St Paul to leave behind him at Ephesus his 
 coadjutor and often companion of many years ; while 
 Luke's narrative in Acts xvi. enables it to be so inter- 
 preted as to give each word exact force ; and if the 
 prophecies of i. 18 are the prophecies which accom- 
 panied the early part of St Paul's second journey, it 
 must be at least worth while to consider whether the 
 reference is different in iv. 14. Now if we think of 
 St Paul's own account of Timothy's present mission at 
 Ephesus, and its temporary and as it were occasional 
 character, we must see that a laying on of hands by 
 the Ephesian elders (and it is difficult to think of any 
 others on this supposition) would be scarcely a 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 185 
 
 probable though no doubt a possible act under the 
 circumstances, and the addition of prophecy does but 
 increase the incongruity. 
 
 If, however, the body of Elders meant was that 
 formed by the Elders of Timothy's own city or 
 neighbourhood, as representing the Ecclesia which 
 sent him forward in conjunction with St Paul to win 
 new regions for the Gospel, the '7rpo(pr)TeLa spoken of 
 is likewise explained by the prophecies of i. 18. 
 
 So too what is said of the '^dpia-fia or gracious gift 
 of God in Timothy, which had been given him by 
 prophecy with the laying on of hands, harmonises well 
 on this view with the idea running through all the 
 Pauline uses of the word ^ajoio-yaa. It was a special 
 gift of God, a special fitness bestowed by Him to 
 enable Timothy to fulfil a distinctive function. Speak- 
 ing generally the base of this function was preaching 
 the Gospel to those who had not yet heard it, the 
 work of an Evangelist. But it was further limited by 
 the peculiar circumstances: Timothy was to be not 
 merely an Evangelist, but St Paul's special associate 
 in Ms quite unique evangelistic work. 
 
 In its origin it was apparently a substitute for the 
 function discharged by Barnabas on the first journey. 
 But owing to the difference of age and personal 
 history between Barnabas and Timothy it must from 
 the first have involved a subordination to St Paul 
 which did not exist in the case of Barnabas. And on 
 the other hand the vast increase in both the range 
 
1 86 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 
 
 and the importance of St Paul's personal work 
 brought about by the force of circumstances since 
 that time involved a corresponding expansion in the 
 responsibilities laid on Timothy. An expansion but 
 not a change of characteristics. It was still the 
 original 'x^dpia-fia to and in Timothy which St Paul 
 would fitly desire Timothy to kindle anew. 
 
 In the second Epistle (i. 6) a similar admonition is 
 couched in partly different language. Here St Paul 
 passes from a thanksgiving to the God to whom he 
 has himself done service as his forefathers had done 
 (d-TTo irpoyovcov) in a pure conscience, to the thought 
 of the channels through which Timothy had in like 
 manner inherited his unfeigned faith, his grandmother 
 Lois and his mother Eunice. Then from this foun- 
 dation laid in Timothy's childhood he seems to pass 
 to that which had been built upon it. "For which 
 cause (i.e. because I am persuaded that in thee also 
 dwells unfeigned faith) I put thee in remembrance 
 to wake into life (ava^wirvpelv) the yapuTyi.a of God, 
 which is in thee by the laying on of my hands : for God 
 gave us (you Timothy and me Paul, us the heralds of 
 His Gospel) not a spirit of fearfulness but of power 
 and of love and of chastened mind. Be not therefore 
 ashamed of the testimony,(/tta|OTvptoz/, usually testimony 
 in act) of our Lord nor of me His prisoner, but suffer 
 hardship with the Gospel" &c. Here the context 
 excludes the thought of a x^'P'^'^t*-"' meant specially 
 for Ephesian administration or teaching, to which 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 187 
 
 there is no allusion whatever. The antecedents of 
 Timothy's ')^dpiafj,a lay in the atmosphere of unfeigned 
 faith in which he had been bred up, a faith doubtless 
 constantly put to severe trial through his mother's 
 position as the wife of a heathen ; and the waking of 
 Timothy's ■^dpicr/jLa into fresh life now desired by 
 St Paul was to shew itself in a spirit which should 
 animate Timothy's whole personal being. 
 
 It is therefore no wonder that in this second 
 Epistle the laying on of hands of which he speaks is 
 the laying on of his own hands. In i Timothy, the 
 Epistle which teaches how men ought to behave 
 themselves in an Ecclesia of a living God, it was 
 natural, especially in the immediate context of iv. 14, 
 that St Paul should make mention of the laying on of 
 hands of the body of Elders of the Ecclesia which 
 then sent Timothy forth. But in the second Epistle 
 the personal relation between the two men is every- 
 thing ; and so the human instrumentality to which he 
 here refers, the reception of the ')(^dpia/j,a or gracious 
 gift which he [here] first describes emphatically as 
 "the gracious gift of God," is that act, the traditional 
 symbol of blessing, by which he, already Timothy's 
 father in the faith and henceforth to have Timothy 
 always joined with him as also a younger brother, had 
 borne his part in solemnly inaugurating the beginning 
 of his new career of duty. 
 
 No passages in the least like those which we have 
 
i88 TITUS AND TIMOTHY. 
 
 been now examining occur in the Epistle to Titus. 
 It is no doubt possible that this is due to accident. 
 But it cannot be said that this Epistle is poor in 
 contexts when such passages would be quite in place, 
 supposing them to refer to matters concerning Titus 
 as much as Timothy. It is moreover remarkable that 
 language so similar should be found in quite different 
 contexts in two Epistles, themselves so differing in 
 character as i and 2 Timothy. All these circum- 
 stances however explain themselves naturally if the 
 passages in the two Epistles to Timothy refer to a 
 single absolutely exceptional solemn act by which 
 the one man Timothy received a commission to go 
 forth as St Paul's chosen colleague, because a pro- 
 phetic oracle had singled him out for this unique 
 function. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 Officers of the Ecclesia in the 
 Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 From Titus and Timothy themselves we pass 
 naturally to the ofScers of the Ecclesiae of which 
 they were set for a time in charge. 
 
 In Crete, as we saw before, there were apparently 
 no Elders previously; and the duty most definitely 
 named as laid on Titus was to set (or establish or 
 appoint) Elders in the several cities. The verb KaOia- 
 Trjfii, is used in Acts vi. 3 for the Apostles setting or 
 appointing the Seven over the business of attending 
 to the widows of the Greek speaking part of the 
 community at Jerusalem : it is a word implying an 
 exercise of authority, but has no technical force. In 
 I and 2 Timothy it is not used, nor any other word 
 approximately similar in sense. 
 
I go OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 The qualifications of an Elder in Crete. 
 
 The first qualifications mentioned (Titus i. S — 9) 
 are not capacities but, so to speak, primary moral 
 conditions affecting men's personal or family relations, 
 " if a man is under no charge or accusation (avefy/cXi^To?, 
 probably not 'blameless' but 'unblamed'), the husband 
 of one wife, having children that believe (i.e. Christian), 
 who are not accused of riotous living, or, unruly. 
 
 Then St Paul goes on, Aet '^ap tov Itv'kjkoitov avey- 
 KkrjTov elvat, " For the i'!rLcncoTro<; must needs be under 
 no charge." It is now pretty generally recognized by 
 those who [do] not break up the Pastoral Epistles into 
 fragments that we have not here a different office, 
 held by one person in contrast to the plural ' Elders,' a 
 view which implies an incredible laxity in St Paul's 
 use of particles. But it is hardly less erroneous to 
 take eTTio-KOTTo? as merely a second title, capable of 
 being used convertibly with irp€crl3vTepo<i. In ex- 
 amining the language of Acts xx. we found reason to 
 think that when St Paul, addressing at Miletus those 
 who in z^. 17 are called the Elders of the (Ephesian) 
 Ecclesia, says, "take heed to yourselves and to all 
 the flock in which the Holy Spirit set you as eiri- 
 a-Koirov;," he used this word as descriptive, not as a 
 second title, so that we might render it "set you to 
 have oversight." It is exactly the same here, only on 
 clearer evidence. If eVtWoTroy is a title of office, the 
 article before it is withQi^t, nj.qtive, and avi'^Kk'rjTovt 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 191 
 
 elvM following it is a tame repetition when eX Tts 
 iarlv aveyKXrjTO'i has preceded. But taken descrip- 
 tively it supplies a link which gives force to every 
 other word. 'A man who is to be made an Elder 
 should be one who is aveyKXriTo<;, for (yap) he that 
 hath oversight must needs be aveyKkriro^ as a steward 
 of God.' 'Elder' is the title, ' oversight' is the function 
 to be exercised by the holder of the title within the 
 Ecclesia. The nature of the oversight is not defined 
 except as being that exercised by a steward in a 
 household of God. But, as we saw before, the general 
 conception of the word is closely akin to that 
 suggested by the pastoral relation, if we are to take 
 as our guides the usage of the LXX. the Apocrypha 
 and Philo, and especially l Pet. ii. 25 rov iroLixeva 
 
 Kal iTTUCTKOTTOV T&V ^IrV^WV V/JL&V. 
 
 Then follow five negative moral qualifications, " not 
 self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no 
 striker, not greedy of filthy lucre " ; then six positive 
 moral qualifications (the first alone worthy of special 
 comment), "given to hospitality (lit. a lover of strangers, 
 (piXo^evov), a lover of good, soberminded, just, holy, 
 temperate." 
 
 Last comes a quite different qualification, "holding 
 fast (if that is the meaning here of the difficult word av- 
 revo/J'evov) by the word which is faithful according to 
 the teaching (BtSax^v), that he may be able both to 
 exhort in the doctrine {SiBaaKoXta) that is healthful 
 ^nd to con\'ict the gainsayers," Without pausing at 
 
192 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 the various difficulties of this verse, we can see that at 
 least it requires in the Cretan Elders a hold on 
 Christian principles of at least morality or religion, 
 such as would enable them to give hortatory instruc- 
 tion of a salutary kind to all, and likewise to give 
 competent answers to gainsayers, who are described 
 more particularly in the following verses. On "the 
 doctrine that is healthful " I may be able to say a word 
 farther on'. It is clear that St Paul here contemplates 
 his Elders as having (at least normally) an office of 
 teaching, both of a positive and of a negative kind. 
 Apart from this, and from what may be included in 
 the comprehensive words ' having oversight,' it is 
 difficult to find any distinctive characteristics men- 
 tioned. The moral qualities, positive and negative, 
 are such as men officially representing the Ecclesia 
 and having charge of its members would be expected 
 to shew more than other men. But they are no less 
 among the obvious qualities to be looked for in all 
 members of the community. If hospitality seems at 
 first sight a virtue specially pertaining to the leading 
 men of the Ecclesia, we must also remember how it is 
 inculcated on all alike in Rom. xii. 13, i Pet. iv. 9, 
 Heb. xiii. 2. Respecting any other officers than the 
 Elders Titus receives no directions. 
 
 ' See p. 2^0. 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 193 
 
 Elders in Ephesus according to i Timothy. 
 
 The same subject is approached in a very different 
 way in i Tim., as might be expected from the 
 different circumstances. The earlier of the specific 
 charges given by St Paul to Timothy, which begin 
 with chap, ii., will need a word further on. Having 
 spoken on prayer, and on men and women, St Paul 
 comes in iii. i to another theme affecting the 
 Ephesian Ecclesia, " If any man seeketh after eVt- 
 cTKOTT?;? (a function of oversight), he desireth a good 
 work. He therefore that hath oversight must needs 
 be free from reproach (Sej ovv rov kTrLcnco-wov dveTri- 
 XTj/nirrov ehao)." So I think we should naturally 
 interpret the words in any case on account of the 
 article. But if the passage stood alone we could not 
 tell whether the office intended was one held by one 
 person or by many, and the influence of later usage 
 might naturally suggest that it was held by one, i.e. 
 was what we call an episcopate. In v. 17 ff there are 
 some secondary references to Elders, but nothing to 
 shew either identity with the eVtcr/coTro? of chap. iii. 
 or their difference. Again the seven careful verses on 
 him that hath oversight (iii. i — 7) are followed by six 
 equally careful verses on SiaKovoi, whom we may for 
 convenience call ' deacons '. Now if the i'irurKoiro<; of 
 this Epistle were a single officer, superior to all others^ 
 the only way of accounting for St Paul's passing next 
 to the BiaKovui, neglecting the Elders here, and dealing 
 
 H. E. 13 
 
194 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 with them in a quite different way farther on, would 
 be to suppose, as some have of late on other grounds 
 supposed, that the eVtcr/coTro? and hcaKovoi exercised 
 one kind of functions and the Elders exercised another 
 altogether different. But none of these suppositions 
 can stand in the face of Tit. i., for the correspondence 
 of language forbids us to give the word an essentially 
 different sense in the two passages. It follows that 
 the two consecutive careful passages in iii. refer 
 to Elders and to SiaKovoi respectively, and that the 
 references to Elders by name in chap. v. are, as we 
 should expect, practically supplementary in cha- 
 racter. 
 
 In this Epistle Paul is not providing for the 
 institution of an order of Elders but giving instruction 
 respecting a long existing order. Throughout these 
 verses (iii. i — 13) there is not a word addressed to 
 Timothy, directing him what he himself should do 
 in respect of men holding these offices. There is 
 simply, as in all the earlier part of the Epistle, a 
 setting forth in general terms of what ought to be. 
 But it is remarkable how considerably the qualifi- 
 cations recited here agree in essentials with the 
 qualifications laid down in respect of Crete, though 
 there are many differences both of words and of ar- 
 rangement. The only negative qualities here men- 
 tioned are "no brawler (violent, petulant person), no 
 striker"; the omissions generically being of funda- 
 mental qualities too obvious to be forgotten at 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. igj 
 
 Ephesus, such as the final triad "righteous, holy, 
 temperate " ; while the moral qualities now added are 
 of the calm and peaceful type. The long final clause 
 of Titus about teaching is replaced by the single 
 word hihaKTiKov, " apt to teach," in the middle of the 
 list, following "a lover of hospitality", while at the 
 end of this list stands now the clause "one that 
 ruleth well his own house, having his children in 
 subjection with all gravity " (expounded further in the 
 next verse). Then come two other qualifications, 
 one negative, " no novice {ve6<f>VTov), lest he be puffed 
 up," etc.; and one positive, in a separate sentence, 
 " Moreover he must be well witnessed of by them 
 that are without," etc., an emphatic expansion and 
 extension of the first requirement, that he be without 
 reproach. Here too we learn singularly little about 
 the actual functions, except what is contained 
 in the former word 'oversight', and in the phrase 
 "have charge (iTri/jLekijcreTai,) of an Ecclesia of 
 God." Doubtless it was superfluous to mention 
 either the precise functions or the qualifications 
 needed for definitely discharging them. What was 
 less obvious and more important was the danger lest 
 official excellencies of one kind or another should 
 cloak the absence of Christian excellencies. To St 
 Paul the representative character, so to speak, of 
 those who had oversight in the Ecclesia, their con- 
 spicuous embodiment of what the Ecclesia itself was 
 meant to shew itself, was a more important thing 
 
 13—2 
 
196 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 than any acts or teachings by which their oversight 
 could be formally exercised. 
 
 Before we consider the BiaKovoi who are mentioned 
 next, it will be best to take what further is said of 
 the Elders in chap. v. The 'Elder' of v. i is doubtless 
 one so called not for any office or function but merely 
 for age. It is otherwise in vv. 17, 18, " Let the Elders 
 that preside excellently (/caXco? Trpoeo-TooTe?) be counted 
 worthy of double honour, especially they that labour 
 {icoTnwvTe'i, i.e. not merely work, but work laboriously) 
 in speech and teaching ; for the Scripture saith, 
 ' Thou shalt not muzzle an ox that treadeth out the 
 corn ' and ' The labourer is worthy of his hire.' " This 
 word ' TrpoecTTcSTe? ' standing at the head, includes 
 more than "ruling" (so all English versions). The 
 sentence implies that this was a function common to 
 all the Elders. Those who discharged it not merely 
 well {ev) but KaX(o<i, excellently, are to be esteemed 
 worthy of double honour, an honour exceeding that 
 due to their office ; and such honour, he hints, should 
 be shown by a care on the part of the Ecclesia not to 
 neglect the maintenance of those who labour on its 
 behalf Special honour, St Paul adds, is due to those 
 Elders, coming under this description, who labour 
 in speech and teaching. The distinction implies with 
 tolerable certainty that teaching was not a universal 
 function of the Elders of Ephesus. On the other 
 hand, the language used does no( suggest that therq 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 197 
 
 were two separate and well-defined classes, teaching 
 Elders and non-teaching Elders. Teaching was doubt- 
 less the most important form in which guidance and 
 superintendence were exercised. But to all appear- 
 ance the Ephesian Ecclesia used freely the services of 
 men who had no special gift of this kind, but who 
 were well qualiired to act as Elders in other respects. 
 
 Then in v. ig comes the converse case of Elders 
 worthy not of praise but of blame. First, an Elder's 
 office and position should secure him against coming 
 into suspicion through mere random talk : Timothy, 
 now first addressed directly in this connexion, was 
 to give attention to no accusation which was not 
 supported by the security provided by the Jewish 
 law in accordance with manifest justice, the testimony 
 of three or at the least two witnesses. On the other 
 hand, those who sinned (in this context it can hardly 
 be doubted that the reference is to Elders who sinned). 
 Timothy was to rebuke publicly, that the rest also 
 might have fear. 
 
 In all this Timothy is manifestly clothed for the 
 time with a paramount authority, doubtless as the 
 temporary representative of St Paul guided by St 
 Paul's instructions, St Paul himself having the au- 
 thority of a founder, and that founder one who had 
 seen the Lord Jesus. But he is not content to leave 
 these instructions about Elders without a further 
 warning. In an adjuration of peculiar solemnity, as 
 though guarding against a danger which might only 
 
198 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 too easily invade Timothy, he charges him against 
 letting himself be guided in these matters by any 
 praejudicium, and especially against meting out honour 
 or censure on the ground of his own personal 
 preferences. 
 
 What is required of ' Deacons.' 
 
 Returning now to chap, iii., after the seven verses 
 on "him that hath oversight," viz. one of the 
 presbyters, we read in a sentence which has no 
 principal verb (the Sel elvai being carried on from ii.), 
 "Aid/covoi in like manner [must be] grave, not double- 
 tongued'," Si,x6yov<;, not addicted to much wine, 
 not I given to filthy lucre, having the secret of their 
 f^ith in a pure conscience [said probably with special 
 reference to their opportunities for dishonest gain]; 
 and let these also [these BiaKovot, no less than the 
 Elders] first be proved, then let them minister (act 
 as BiaKovoi) if they lie under no accusation. Then 
 comes, "Women in like manner (evidently not as 
 A.V. the wives of Siclkovol, but as Bishop Lightfoot 
 shewed forcibly some years ago at a Diocesan 
 Conference, women who are SiaKovoi), grave, not 
 backbiters, sober (probably as Bishop Ellicott in the 
 literal sense, vrjcpa\lov<;), faithful in all things." These 
 four qualities are either repetitions or characteristic 
 modifications of the four moral qualities required for 
 
 ' Or perhaps ' tale-bearers " ; see Lightfoot on Poljyc. 5. 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 199 
 
 men who are Zmkovoi ; gravity {pr^yi-voTrji) being 
 required of both, freedom from backbiting answering 
 to freedom from talebearing, soberness, freedom from 
 addiction to much wine, and faithfulness or trust- 
 worthiness in all things to freedom from filthy lucre. 
 Then St Paul returns once more to the men SiaKovoi 
 in order to lay stress on the importance of their 
 conduct of their own family relations. " Let BcdKovoi 
 be husbands of one wife, ruling (or guiding, ■jrpo'ia-Td- 
 fievoi) their children well and their own households. 
 For they that have ministered (served as hiaKovoi) 
 well gain to themselves a good standing (/3a6fi6v) and 
 great boldness in the power of faith, even the faith 
 that is in Christ Jesus." 
 
 This is all that we learn about Smkovoi from the 
 Pastoral Epistles. The Epistle to Titus in prescribing 
 the appointment of Elders says nothing about SiaKovoi. 
 Probably the Christian communities of Crete were 
 not yet mature enough to make the institution as 
 yet desirable. 
 
 Taking the six verses together, it is clear that we 
 have to do not with mere voluntary rendering 
 services of whatsoever kind, but with a definite class 
 of men, not merely ministering to the Ecclesia or its 
 members but formally recognised by the Ecclesia as 
 having an office of this kind. This is implied partly 
 in the parallelism to the Elders just above, partly in 
 the imperative form, partly in the requirement of 
 probation, whether that means probation in the work 
 
20O OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 itself or careful examination of qualifications and 
 antecedents. The moral requirements are substantially 
 the same as for the Elders, so far as they go, except that 
 these alone include the absence of talebearing for the 
 men, backbiting for the women, faults which evidently 
 might easily have place in men who came much in 
 contact with various individual Christians and families, 
 but less so in men entrusted with oversight and 
 teaching. On the other hand we find nothing cor- 
 responding to three marked qualifications of Elders, 
 viz. cheerful hospitality, capacity for teaching, and 
 freedom from reproach or accusation, to say nothing 
 of positive good testimony from outsiders, while on the 
 other hand equal stress is laid in the two cases on 
 the domestic qualifications implied in " a husband of 
 one wife" (however we interpret this ambiguous phrase) 
 and in " excellent control of children and household." 
 Evidently a man whose own family constituted a bad 
 example for the rest of the community was to be held 
 disqualified for either kind of office in the Ecclesia, 
 whatever his personal capacities might be. It is a 
 striking illustration of what is practically taught by 
 many parts of the Apostolic Epistles, that the true 
 Ecclesiastical life and the true Christian life and the 
 true human life are all one and the same. To return 
 to the three omissions. The silence about freedom 
 from reproach or accusation in the case of the 
 SLaKovoL explains itself if their work, unlike the Elders ', 
 had usually little publicity or conspicuousness. So 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 201 
 
 too the silence about hospitality is natural for men 
 whose place in the Ecclesia did not seem to impose 
 this as a duty upon them more than on the members 
 of the community generally. The silence about 
 teaching may in like manner be safely taken as 
 sufficient evidence that teaching formed no part of 
 the duty of a Sta/coi/o?. 
 
 The clause "holding the mystery of the faith in 
 a pure conscience," cannot when carefully examined, 
 be safely interpreted as having reference to a mystery 
 of doctrine which they are to 'hold' in the sense of 
 'holding fast' To fivaTripiov ri)? Trto-rsiu?, undoubtedly 
 a difficult phrase, is probably (as Weiss explains it) 
 the secret constituted by their own inner faith, not 
 known to men but inspiring all their work ; and then 
 the stress lies on "in a pure conscience" (see the 
 association of faith and a pure or good conscience in 
 i. S, 19). Thus in this clause a true inward religion 
 and a true inward morality are laid down as required 
 for the office of Suzkovoi, ; that is, the external nature 
 of the services chiefly rendered by them was not to 
 be taken as sanctioning any merely external efficiency. 
 The lowest service to be rendered to the Ecclesia and 
 to its members would be a delusive and dangerous 
 service if rendered by men, however otherwise active, 
 who were not themselves moved by the faith on 
 which the Ecclesia rested and governed by its 
 principles. This however has nothing to do with 
 teaching on the part of the Buxkovoi, to which there is 
 
202 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 no reference in the whole passage. On the other 
 hand we may safely say that it would have been 
 contrary to the spirit of the Apostolic age to prohibit 
 all teaching on the part of any Biukovoi who had 
 real capacity of that kind. But this would be no part 
 of their official duty, and so it naturally finds no 
 mention here. 
 
 The last verse, iii. 13, has been often understood 
 to say that excellent discharge of the duties of a 
 StcLKovo'; would rightly entitle him to promotion to a 
 higher kind of work, doubtless that of an Elder. 
 BaO/Moi undeniably means a step, and so might easily 
 be used for a grade of dignity and function. But the 
 rest of the verse renders this interpretation unnatural ; 
 and the true sense doubtless is that Su'ikovoi, by excel- 
 lent discharge of their duties may win for themselves 
 an excellent vantage ground, a " standing " (R.V.) a 
 little, as it were, above the common level, enabling 
 them to exercise an influence and moral authority to 
 which their work as such could not entitle them. 
 
 The words Bia.Kovo'i and BiaKovia. 
 
 We must turn now to the word or words by which 
 their function is designated. The primary sense of 
 SiaKovof, as it meets us in Greek prose literature 
 generally, is a servant or slave within the household, 
 whose chief duty consists in waiting on his master at 
 table, and sometimes in marketing for him. Origin- 
 ally perhaps he was a messenger : but if so, that 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 203 
 
 sense was at least too obsolete long before the 
 Christian era to be important to us. Further, to 
 Greek' ears the word almost always seems to suggest 
 relatively low kinds of offices, whether rendered (in 
 the literal original sense) to a master, or (figuratively) 
 to a state. Our word ' menial ' nearly answers to the 
 sense thus practically predominant. It is a strange 
 mistake of Archbishop Trench's (his article on this 
 word and its synonyms being indeed altogether less 
 careful than usual) to say that Bid.Kovo'i does not 
 represent the servant in his relation to a person. 
 The true proper Greek sense is preserved in several 
 places of the Gospels, e.g. Lk. xii. 37, "he shall gird 
 himself, and make them sit down to meat, and shall 
 come and serve them " (piaicovrjaei. avTOi<;) ; or again, 
 xxii. 26 f And this last passage leads to what is 
 really the same sense in the great saying (Mt. xx. 28 
 II Mk.), "The Son of man came not to be ministered 
 unto but to minister." 
 
 One great exception there is to the Greek con- 
 tempt for all pertaining to a 8iaKovo<;, but it is an 
 exception in appearance only, it is used of Athenian 
 statesmen who had saved their country. Aristeides'^ 
 
 1 Two or three passages of Plato in particular bring out the associa- 
 tion connected with it : Gofg. 518 A, 521 a; Jiep. 370 f. In Gorg. 518A 
 we have the significant series of epithets SouXoTr/jexeis re kolI SiaKoviK6.s 
 Kal i,veKevdipovi. There are clear echoes of these passages in the same 
 sense long after in Pint. Mor. 11. 794 A and Aristeid. Orat. 46 (pp. 152 f, 
 187, 193), and doubtless elsewhere; and the same feeling shews itself 
 in a number of passages in Aristotle's Politics. 
 
 2 Orat. 46, pp. 198 f. 
 
204 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 refuses to call them hiaKovoi of the state, but 
 will gladly call them Su'ikovoi of the Saviour Gods 
 who had used their instrumentality ; and in several 
 remarkable passages Epictetus (Diss. iii. 22, 69 ; 24, 
 65 ; iv. 7, 20; cf. iii. 26, 28) makes it the truest dignity 
 of a man to be a BiaKovo^ of God. The Gospel gave 
 the word a still higher consecration of the same kind. 
 The Christian, even more than the Jew, felt himself 
 to be the servant of a heavenly Lord, nay of a Lord 
 who had taken on Himself the form of a servant ; 
 and thus for Him every grade and pattern of service 
 was lifted into a higher sphere. It would be su- 
 perfluous to enumerate the passages in which men are 
 called hicLKovoL of God or of Christ, the least obvious 
 being Rom. xiii. 4, when the civil magistrate bears 
 this title. Ministration thus became one of the 
 primary aims of all Christian actions (cf Eph. iv. 12; 
 
 1 Pet. iv. lof ; i Cor. xii. 5 ; Rom. xii. 7). Apostle- 
 ship, the highest form of ministration, is repeatedly 
 designated thus (Acts i. 17, 25; xx. 24; xxi. 19; 
 
 2 Cor. iv. i; v. 18; vi. 3 (cf 4); Rom. xi. 13); 
 sometimes with the special reference ministration " of 
 the Gospel" (Eph. iii. 7; Col. i. 23); or "of the 
 Ecclesia" (Col. i. 25). But naturally Apostleship 
 does not stand alone in this respect. In I Cor. iii. 5 
 St Paul calls ApoUos and himself alike hiaKovov 
 through whose instrumentality the Corinthians had 
 believed. In 2 Tim. iv. 5 Timothy is bidden, " Be 
 thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 205 
 
 of an evangelist, bring to fulfilment (■7rXt}pocf)6prjaov) 
 thy ministration " ; and the Colossian Christians (Col. 
 iv. 17) are bidden to tell Archippus, "Look to the 
 ministration which thou receivedst in the Lord, that 
 thou fulfil it " (irXripols:). 
 
 Again, there are a few passages in which the 
 words are used very differently, viz. for ministrations 
 rendered not to God but to St Paul himself Thus 
 Acts xix. 22 calls Timothy and Erastus Svo twv 
 BcaicovovLiTwv avTo) on the occasion of his sending 
 them forward from Ephesus to Macedonia. It is 
 probably in the same sense that Tychicus is called 
 not only a beloved brother but a faithful SidKovo<; in 
 the Lord (Eph. vi. 21 ; Col. iv. 7). So in 2 Tim. 
 (iv. 1 1) St Paul calls Mark right useful to himself ek 
 htaKoviav, and tells Philemon (13) how he had 
 purposed to keep with him Onesimus Xva virep crov 
 fioi SiaKopr} in the bonds of the Gospel ; and appeals 
 to Timothy's knowledge (2 Tim. i. 18) how great had 
 been the ministrations of Onesiphorus at Ephesus, 
 evidently (as the context shews) chiefly though 
 perhaps not exclusively to St Paul himself 
 
 It is doubtful whether this last ministration of 
 Onesiphorus to St Paul was by public labours of 
 some kind or by personal attendance and help to 
 St Paul as a man. At all events this latter sense is 
 likewise amply represented in the Acts and Epistles 
 with reference to the supply of material wants, thus 
 connecting itself directly with what we saw to be the 
 
2o6 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESTA 
 
 most exact sense of these words in Greek daily life. 
 A specially interesting passage for our purpose is 
 Acts vi. I, 2, 6, the account of the institution of the 
 Seven at Jerusalem. The widows of the Greek- 
 speaking Jews, we hear, had been neglected (eV rfi 
 SiuKovia Tfj Ka9r)ixepi.vfi), the daily provision of food 
 for the poor at a common table. The Twelve object 
 to leaving the Word of God in order htaKovelv 
 rpaire^at'^, and propose by the appointment of the 
 Seven to be able to devote themselves to prayer and 
 Trj SiuKovia Tov Xoyov. This last phrase is probably 
 used in intentional antithesis to the ministration of 
 tables or of meat and drink, to indicate that the 
 Twelve were not refusing to accept the evangelical 
 function of ministering, but only to neglect the mini- 
 stration of the higher sustenance for the sake of the 
 lower sustenance. In Acts xi. 29, xii. 25, the mission 
 of Barnabas and Saul from Antioch to carry help to 
 the brethren of Judea in the famine is called a hiaKovla; 
 and St Paul himself several times uses the same word, 
 usually with toI^ a^tot? or et? tov'; djoov; added, for 
 the Gentile collections for a similar purpose which 
 occupied so much of his thoughts at a later time 
 (Rom. XV. 25, 31 ; 2 Cor. viii. 4 ; ix. i, 12, 13). 
 
 Another instructive passage is i Cor. xvi. 15, 
 " Now I beseech you, brethren (ye know the house of 
 Stephanas, that it is a firstfruit of Achaia, and [that] 
 they laid themselves out eh BiaKovlav rot? a<yioLi), — 
 [I beseech you] that ye also be subject (^vTroToaa-qade) 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 207 
 
 to such, and to everyone that helpeth in the work and 
 laboureth." These words suggest that Stephanas was 
 a wealthy or otherwise influential Corinthian who 
 with his household made it his aim to use his position 
 for the benefit of Christians travelling to Corinth from 
 a distance, all of whom in Apostolic language were 
 saints or holy, as all alike members of a holy com- 
 munity, and consecrated to a holy life. Services like 
 these rendered by a man of social eminence made it 
 good for the members of the Corinthian Ecclesia to 
 look up to him as a leader. He was in fact affording 
 an example of what St Paul meant by o TrpoLaTa./j.evo'i 
 in Rom. xii. 8. The same kind of service is implied 
 under other words in what is said of Prisca and 
 Aquila in Rom. xvi. 3 f And so we come to Phoebe, 
 the subject of the two preceding verses, Rom. xvi. i f 
 " But I commend to you," St Paul writes, " Phcebe our 
 sister, who is also a Siclkovo^ of the Ecclesia that is at 
 Cenchreae ; that ye receive her in the Lord worthily 
 of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever 
 matter she may have need of you : for she herself 
 also shewed herself a Tr/jocrTart? (patroness) of many, 
 and of mine own self" These last words shew pretty 
 plainly that Phcebe was a lady of wealth, or position. 
 She had been a Tr/joo-Tart? of many, including St Paul. 
 It is most unlikely that St Paul would have applied 
 to her a word suggestive of the kind of help and 
 encouragement given by wealthy benevolent people 
 to dependents or helpless strangers if she had been 
 
2o8 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 only a humble member of the community, who 
 shewed kindness to other Christians no more favour- 
 ably placed. We may safely conclude that what 
 Stephanas had done at Corinth she had done at 
 Cenchrese, its seaport on the east, nine miles off. 
 But if this was her position, it is certainly possible, 
 but hardly likely, that SuIkovov rf? iKK\'r]cria<; etc. 
 means " a deaconess of the Ecclesia that is at 
 Cenchreffi." The Kal before huccKovov, which is almost 
 certainly genuine, points likewise to this term as 
 conveying not a mere fact about Phcebe but a second 
 ground of commendation parallel to her being one 
 whom St Paul admitted to the distinction of being 
 called his sister (as he spoke of Timothy and others 
 as d aSeX^d?). Hence we may naturally take it in 
 the ordinary, not the later technical sense, as one who 
 ministered to the Ecclesia at Cenchrese, the nature of 
 the ministration being described in the next verse. 
 To call her a SiaKovov meant thus what was meant by 
 saying that the house of Stephanas laid themselves 
 out ek SiaKovlav. One passage more, from a later 
 writer, remains. The Hebrews are assured (Heb. vi. 
 lo) that " God will not forget their work and the love 
 which they shewed, looking unto His name, in that 
 they had ministered to the saints, and still dici 
 minister," 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 209 
 
 TJie function of ' Deacons ' in Ephesus. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted that the officers of the 
 Ephesian eKKKriala, who in i Tim. are called BidKovoi, 
 had for their work in like manner, chiefly, perhaps 
 even exclusively, the help of a material kind which 
 the poorer or more helpless members of the body 
 received from the community at large. It is difficult 
 to account for the word, used thus absolutely, in any 
 other way. They would share with the Elders the 
 honour and blessing of being recognised ministers of 
 the Ecclesia. But that would be nothing distinctive. 
 Ministration to the bodily wants of its needy members 
 would be distinctive, and would obviously tally with 
 the associations most familiar to Greek ears in 
 connexion with the word. The analogy of the Seven 
 at Jerusalem points the same way. There is, of 
 course, no evidence for historical continuity between 
 the Seven and either the Ephesian BcaKovoi or the 
 developed order of Deacons of later times. The New 
 Testament gives not the slightest indication of any 
 connexion. But the Seven at Jerusalem would of 
 course be well known to St Paul and to many others 
 outside Palestine, and it would not be strange if the 
 idea propagated itself. Indeed analogous wants 
 might well lead to analogous institutions. There is 
 very little reason to think that the Biclkopoi of i Tim. 
 had its origin in Jewish usage. Some critics have 
 been attracted by the similarity of title for the 
 
 a. E. 14 
 
210 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 IJazdn hakkneseth, or servant of the synagogue. 
 He is doubtless the official called virTjpeTT]'; in Luke 
 iv. 20. Now vTTTjpeTri'; and BidKovo<; are often used 
 interchangeably (though vTrr]peTT}<; is the vaguer word 
 of the two), and Epiph. 13S A speaks of 'A^avircov 
 T&v Trap avrol'i Siukovcov epfirjvevofievaiv rj virTjpeTcov. 
 But the duties of the Hazin were different, and 
 apparently confined to the walls of the synagogue. 
 
 Still less could the office have had a heathen origin, 
 despite the two inscriptions cited by Hatch p. 50, 
 C.I.G. 1793 d. add. at Anactorium in Acarnania, where 
 Bi.dicovo<i is one of ten offices evidently connected with 
 sacrificial feasts, standing between fidyeipo'; and dp^oi- 
 voxov<; ; and 3037 at Metropolis in Lydia, where twice 
 over we have a lepev';, a iepeia, a (female) Bi,dKovo<i, and 
 two (male) SiaKovoi. 
 
 In the Apostolic conception of an Ecclesia such 
 a function as that of these Ephesian BuaKovoi had a 
 sufficiently lofty side ; the BoaKovoi, were the main 
 instruments for giving practical effect to the mutual 
 sympathy of the members of the body. 
 
 Had then the word already become technical 
 when I Tim. was written ? It is not easy to answer 
 quite precisely. We cannot safely argue back from 
 later usage without knowing whether later usage was 
 affected by this very passage. But the office can 
 hardly have been without a title from the first, and 
 no other title for the office occurs in the Epistle, 
 while St Paul evidently assumed no other designation 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 211 
 
 or description to be necessary. It seems pretty cer- 
 tain, therefore, that Ziaicovo^ was already a recognised 
 title among the Christians of Ephesus. On the other 
 hand it seems equally probable that in this context 
 St Paul uses it with express reference to its ordinary 
 associations in antithesis to eTria-KOTrrj'i and iirlcrKO'irov 
 above. That is, he treats the two offices as character- 
 istically offices, the one of government, the other of 
 the reverse of government 'service '. How natural this 
 contrast would seem to Greeks we can readily see by 
 a passage of Aeschines {c. Ctesiph. 13) respecting the 
 classification of public offices at Athens according to 
 the authorities which elected or nominated to them. 
 Thus tested, the lower class of offices, he says, is not 
 an a.p')(r) but eiriiMekela Ti<i Kol hiaKovia, and similarly, 
 further on, he uses the phrase ov BiuKovelv dX)C 
 apxeiv. Assuredly the liriaKO-KT] of the Elders would 
 count as an dpyr) or government, and thus the 
 contrast would need no explicit comment. 
 
 The salutation in Phil. i. i. 
 
 Let us now return for a moment to the salutation 
 of Philippians, which it would have been unsatisfac- 
 tory to consider in detachment from the illustra- 
 tion afforded by the Pastoral Epistles. "Paul and 
 Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in 
 Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, <tvv iiria-KOTroi'; koX 
 Smkovok." If the verse stood alone, no one would 
 hesitate before assuming that these are two titles of 
 
 14 — 2 
 
212 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESTA 
 
 two offices, iiria-KOTToi, and hudKovoi. Of course it 
 would not follow that 67rto-«;o7ro« bears here its later 
 monarchical sense: the plural (being addressed to a 
 single Ecclesia) and what is known of the arrangements 
 of the Apostolic age generally would shew the office to 
 be one shared by at least a plurality of persons in the 
 same Ecclesia. But then we have to face the fact that 
 this Epistle stands chronologically between St Paul's 
 words at Miletus and his letter to Titus and i Tim., 
 which agree in using eTrtWoTro?, not as a title synony- 
 mous with the title irpeajdvrepo'i, Elder, but as a word 
 describing the function of the persons entitled Elders. 
 In otherwords, 6'7rKr«:o7rot9,ifatitle in Philipp.i. I, would 
 imply a more advanced state of things than that of 
 the Pastoral Epistles. The clue to what seems the 
 right interpretation is given by those thirteen verses 
 of I Tim. iii. which we were considering lately. St Paul 
 does not mean simply two different offices, but two 
 contrasted offices, or (to speak more correctly) two 
 contrasted functions, "with them that have oversight, 
 and them that do service [minister]." On the com- 
 mon view he would be simply sending salutations to 
 the two sets of men independently of the salutation to 
 the ' saints ' at Philippi generally : and in that case we 
 might find it hard to explain why such a salutation is 
 withheld in writing to other Ecclesiae. In reality he 
 is probably thinking less of the men coming under 
 either head than of the Ecclesia as a whole : these two 
 functions are to him the main outward manifestations 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 213 
 
 that the community of saints was indeed an organised 
 body, needing and possessing government on the one 
 side and service on the other. It would matter little 
 how many offices there were, with or without titles, 
 two, or three, or twenty. That was a matter of 
 external arrangement, which might vary endlessly 
 according to circumstances. The essential thing was 
 to recognise the need of the two fundamental types 
 of function. 
 
 It might perhaps be suggested that sufficient ac- 
 count has not here been taken of the usage of early 
 Christian writers outside the New Testament. But 
 the fact is, their evidence is of little help. To the 
 best of my belief the only place where eVtV/coTroi 
 a/one is used of Elders is in the Didache 1 5, " Choose 
 therefore for yourselves to be i'lrta-KOTrov; koI SiaK6vov<; 
 men worthy of the Lord, meek, not lovers of money, 
 etc." ; where the precise nature of the usage is as 
 ambiguous as in Philippians, from which Epistle indeed 
 the combination is probably borrowed, whether rightly 
 understood or not. On the other hand both Clement 
 and Hermas use both 67rtcr/co7ro? and ■jrpea^vTepo';, 
 and apparently in just the same way as St Paul at 
 Miletus and in the Pastoral Epistles : in Clem. 44 rov 
 ovo/j.aTO'i TTJ'i e'TTi.aKOTrrj';, as both Lightfoot and Harnack 
 rightly assume, does not mean the title iiriaKOTro'; but 
 the dignity attaching to the function of e-iriaKoiTri, ac- 
 cording to the frequent biblical sense of ' name '. 
 
214 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 ' Laying on of hands ' in I Tim. v. 22. 
 
 We have not quite done with the Pastoral Epistles, 
 though nearly so. One verse should be mentioned 
 here, because it has been so often understood in a sense 
 bearing on this subject of offices in the Ecclesia, v. 22, 
 " Lay hands hastily on no one, neither be in fellow- 
 ship with sins of others : keep thyself pure." This 
 verse stands next to the adjuration against the 
 shewing of favour or prejudice by Timothy in his 
 sanctioning special honour for some Elders, and him- 
 self receiving accusations and uttering rebukes in the 
 case of others. It is followed by the verse bidding 
 Timothy be no longer a water-drinker. Thus it 
 stands between five verses relating to Elders and a 
 single verse relating to Timothy's own imprudent 
 adoption of a questionable form of ayveia or cere- 
 monial purity. In this position the laying on of 
 hands is by most commentators, as also by such 
 Greek fathers as notice the verse, interpreted of or- 
 dination, i.e. of the Elders previously mentioned : the 
 other equally familiar laying on of hands, that con- 
 nected with baptism and eventually known as Confir- 
 mation, being evidently out of place here. This view 
 is certainly possible, but it suits rather imperfectly the 
 strong phrase " be not partaker in sins of others " ; 
 and it makes an additional precept about Elders come 
 in after that solemn adjuration, the natural place of 
 such a precept being before the adjuration. There is 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 215 
 
 much greater probability in the view taken by some 
 Latin fathers, by our own Hammond (who defends it 
 at great length), and by a few recent critics, including 
 Dr Ellicott, that the laying on of hands, the act 
 symbolical of blessing, was here the act of blessing by 
 which penitents were received back into the com- 
 munion of the faithful (cf 2 Cor. ii. 6 f). The 
 practice was certainly widely spread among Christians 
 not more than four or five generations later, and as 
 Hammond points out, the principle of it is involved 
 in the laying on of hands on the sick accepted from 
 others and practised by our Lord Himself repeatedly, 
 as also by St Paul (Acts xxviii. 8), even as by Ananias 
 in restoring St Paul's own sight (Acts ix. 12, 17), and 
 probably implied in James v. 14 (Trpocrev^dcrOuicrav eV 
 avTov). 
 
 'Laying on of hands' in ordination. 
 
 Neither here then nor elsewhere in the New 
 Testament have we any information about the manner 
 in which Elders were consecrated or ordained (the 
 exact word matters little) to their office ; the %ei/3o- 
 Tovrj(TavTe<; of Acts xiv. 23 having of course no 
 reference to a solemn act of appointment but to the 
 preceding choice, just as in 2 Cor. viii. 19 ■)(^eipoTovr]6ek 
 means that Titus had been chosen by the Ecclesiae to 
 travel with St Paul. The only passages of the New 
 Testament in which laying on of hands is connected 
 with an act answering to ordination are four, viz. Acts, 
 
2i6 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 
 
 vi. 6, the laying on of the hands of the Twelve on the 
 Seven at Jerusalem at their first appointment ; Acts 
 xiii. 3, the laying on of the hands of the representa- 
 tives of the Ecclesia of Antioch on Barnabas and Saul 
 in consequence of a prophetic monition sending them 
 forth ; and the two passages about Timothy, likewise, 
 as we have lately seen, due in all probability to another 
 prophetic monition sending him forth on a unique 
 mission intimately connected with that former mission. 
 Jewish usage' in the case of Rabbis and their disciples 
 renders it highly probable that (as a matter of fact) 
 laying on of hands was largely practised in the Ec- 
 clesiae of the Apostolic age as a rite introductory to 
 ecclesiastical office. But as the New Testament tells 
 us no more than what has been already mentioned, it 
 can hardly be likely that any essential principle was 
 held to be involved in it. It was enough that an 
 Ecclesia should in modern phrase be organised, or in 
 the really clearer Apostolic phrase be treated as a 
 body made up of members with a diversity of func- 
 tions ; and that all things should be done decently 
 and in order. 
 
 1 The transference of the Semichah to the Sanhedrin and Patriarch 
 is of later date : see Hamburger, Art. Ordinirimg ii. 883 ff. 
 
 [The Semichah was the ceremony accompanying the appointment of 
 a Rabbi and admission to the Sanhedrin. The root Samach is used of 
 Moses laying his hands on Joshua at his appointment, Nu. xxvii. 18, 23 
 and of putting the hand on the sacrifices, Lev. i. 4, iv. 4, etc. 
 
 See Buxtorf, Lex. 1438. Selden, de Synedriis ii. 7. J 
 
IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 217 
 
 We must not stop now to examine the sixteen 
 verses on widows which open chap, v., merely noticing 
 the way in v/hich the Christian community of Ephesus 
 was at this time caring for its most helpless and at 
 the same time deserving members. A widow of at 
 least sixty fulfilling certain moral conditions, among 
 others that of having laid herself out to help other 
 members of the community in their needs, was to be 
 placed on the roll {v. 9 KaTaXeyeadai), evidently (see v. 
 16) the Ecclesia at large was to be charged with their 
 support. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Brief Notes on various Epistles and 
 Recapitula tion. 
 
 Directions for public prayer in i Timothy, 
 
 Rf:turning for a moment to chap, ii., from the 
 continuation of which in chap. iii. we have already 
 learned so much, we come in its opening verses to the 
 first part of the charge which St Paul was specially- 
 desirous to give now to Timothy for his guidance. 
 For the worship of the Ecclesia this charge of inter- 
 cession (ii. I — 4) takes precedence of all others. These 
 various forms of prayer and thanksgivings are to be 
 offered up by its members, and there is to be no 
 exclusiveness in the subject of them. Christians are 
 to pray not only for Christians and Christian com- 
 munities, but for all mankind ; then he adds (you will 
 remember that Nero was reigning) " for kings and all 
 that are in high places." The order of society, and 
 those who had (as our Lord told Pilate) received 
 
BRIEF NOTES AND RECAPITULATION. 219 
 
 authority over it from above, were not to be foreign 
 to Christians' goodwill and prayers, much less to be 
 hated and prayed against. This last monition repeats 
 in another shape what had been written by St Paul 
 to the Romans, the echo of which in few but forcible 
 words is to be heard from St Peter. It inspires one 
 of the most striking parts of the magnificent prayer 
 contained in the newly recovered portion of Clement's 
 Epistle, and the same strain sounds repeatedly in the 
 Second Century. But that former monition about 
 prayer for all mankind, with the reason given for it in 
 vv. 3, 4, is even more characteristic of St Paul's con- 
 ception of the function of the Ecclesia in the world. 
 The prominence of the words meaning ' saving ' in the 
 Pastoral Epistles has often been noticed, and assuredly 
 it is not accidental. Doubtless the various thoughts re- 
 lating to Christ's relation to the universe, to humanity, 
 and to the Ecclesia which found expression in Ephe- 
 sians, indeed to a certain extent some years before in 
 Rom. xi., were in themselves likely to deepen and 
 expand St Paul's sense of saving as the comprehensive 
 term to describe the Divine action upon and for man- 
 kind. But at the time when he wrote the Pastorals he 
 was further, if I mistake not, under a peculiarly strong 
 sense of the evil likely to penetrate into the Christians 
 of Crete and Ephesus from Rabbinism, not from the 
 old mistaken zeal for Law and Circumcision, but from 
 the new casuistry and fabling of the Jewish doctors. 
 This is I believe the key to various peculiarities of 
 
220 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 these Epistles, and not least to their frequent insis- 
 tence on what was healthful (" sound ") as opposed to 
 a morbid occupation with unprofitable trifles (i Tim. 
 vi. 4, voa&v Trepl ^rjT^aeK;, etc.). Now one marked 
 characteristic of the rabbinical spirit was its bitter 
 exclusiveness, the exclusiveness of men who, as St 
 Paul told the Thessalonians (i Thess. ii. 15 f.) were 
 "contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the 
 Gentiles that they may be saved." And so St Paul 
 teaches the new Ecclesiae of God that He whom they 
 worship is emphatically the Saviour God, who willeth 
 that all men should be saved and come to the know- 
 ledge of truth, and thus leads them to feel that the 
 work of an Ecclesia of His as towards the world is 
 likewise to save ; even as the Gospel which he was 
 himself commissioned to preach to the Gentiles had 
 for its subject Him who had given Himself a ransom 
 not for His chosen people only but for all. This 
 topic may seem not a little remote from the obviously 
 ecclesiastical questions about Elders and Deacons ; but 
 it bears very closely on St Paul's conception of a 
 Christian Ecclesia. 
 
 Various evidence of James, i. Peter, Hebrews, 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 St James's Epistle will not detain us long. To him 
 the ideal twelve tribes of the ancient Israel, whether 
 in Palestine or in the Dispersion, were still a reality 
 though doubtless he reckoned none but Christians as 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 221 
 
 rightly representing them. To the yet wider Christian 
 Ecclesia he makes no I'eference. But he shews a true 
 sense of what was meant by membership of an Ecclesia 
 in the narrower sense. It is latent in his rebuke of 
 the old misuse of the poor by the rich in the congre- 
 gation for worship, still called ' synagogue ' (chap. ii.). 
 It comes out more clearly in the last chapter, where 
 the fellowship of the whole body in one of its members 
 who is sick and thus cut off from the rest, is expressed 
 and made active by the intercessions of those who 
 are expressly called not simply ' the Elders ' but ' the 
 Elders of the Ecclesia,' in this as in other ways the 
 vehicles of the sympathy of the whole brotherhood ; 
 and where again the reality of this fraternal relation is 
 at once tested and strengthened not only by mutual 
 intercession but by mutual confession of sins. 
 
 St Peter can hardly be said to add any distinctly 
 new element to what we have already found in St 
 Paul, unless it be the bold but luminous comparison 
 by which in ii. 4, 5, instead of filling out the image of 
 a body with thoughts connected with building, he 
 boldly substitutes the building as the primary image, 
 shaping it to his purpose by adding the thought of 
 living stones " coming to " a living corner-stone. But 
 he sets forth with special vividness the prerogatives of 
 God's new or Christian Ecclesia as having now suc- 
 ceeded to the ancient titles of Israel (ii. 4 — 10; see 
 especially his use of the ancient designation of Israel 
 
222 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 as a kingly priesthood) ; and again the conception of 
 various x°'P'^l^^'^'^ (iv. 9 f-) to be ministered to all by 
 the several members of the community as stewards of 
 a manifold grace of God. The first four verses of 
 chap. V. must be addressed to 'Elders' in the usual 
 official sense, for they speak of " the flock of God " 
 and of " the chief shepherd," and lay down instructions 
 for the right tending of the flock. But St Peter seems 
 to join with this the original or etymological sense 
 when he calls himself a fellow-elder, apparently as one 
 who could bear personal testimony to the Christ's 
 sufferings, and when (v. s) he bids the younger be 
 subject to the elder. (For a similar combination see 
 Polycarp 5, 6, where vecoTepo? comes between deacons 
 and elders.) 
 
 Hebrews I shall venture to pass over. The rela- 
 tions of its teaching to our primary subject are 
 complicated by the peculiarity of the position of the 
 Christians of Palestine at the time. No one can miss 
 the indications of a spirit of brotherhood in chap, xiii., 
 or its allusions to rulers of the Ecclesia vaguely called 
 ol Tiyov/Mevoi. 
 
 The Apocalypse I must still more reluctantly pass 
 over, or nearly so, from sheer want of time. In i. 6 ; 
 V. 10, we have the Hebrew form of that phrase of 
 Exodus which St Peter repeated from the LXX. 
 The seven Ecclesiae of Asia met us once before ; and 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 223 
 
 we must leave them now without remark. Perhaps the 
 most interesting point in relation to our subject is the 
 vividness and elaboration with which the representa- 
 tion of the new Ecclesia as the- true Israel is worked 
 out, especially in chapters vii., xxi. It is especially 
 noteworthy that in chap, vii., if I mistake not, the 
 twelve thousand from every tribe, described as spoken 
 of by the angel, not as seen by John, are identical 
 with the great multitude which his eyes beheld, the 
 actual multitude out of every nation and tribe etc., 
 the members of a now universal Ecclesia. 
 
 On St James's last days I should like to have said 
 a little more : but the most essential points respecting 
 him had to be examined in connexion with the Je- 
 rusalem conference ; and what remains, though it 
 belongs to the Apostolic age, belongs also to literature 
 outside the New Testament, and so may fitly find a 
 place elsewhere if I should be permitted to lecture on 
 the remaining part of our subject another time. 
 
 As regards St John's later writings it must suffice 
 to remind you once more of chapters xiii. — xvii. of 
 the Gospel as on the whole the weightiest and most 
 pregnant body of teaching on the Ecclesia to be found 
 anywhere in the Bible. 
 
224 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 Problems of the Second Century and later. 
 
 Here I fear we must break off" the examination of 
 the several Epistles, this being the last lecture of 
 the course. At the outset I had hoped at least to 
 be able to deal with the chief ecclesiastical prob- 
 lems of the Second Century, with the material of 
 this kind supplied by Clement of Rome and Hermas, 
 the Didache of the Apostles, Ignatius and Polycarp, 
 Justin Martyr and Irenseus (to name only the chief 
 names). I wished especially to shew how much of 
 the controversial differences of later ages on this 
 subject had their root in the actual necessary ex- 
 perience of those early days, and in the natural falling 
 apart of ideas which in the Apostolic writings are com- 
 bined and complementary to each other. Without 
 some clear thoughts on these matters it is impossible 
 to understand the real significance of the enormous 
 changes which had begun indeed before the end of the 
 Second Century, but which for the most part belong 
 to a later time (for the West the names of Cyprian, 
 Ambrose, and Augustine will be sufficiently repre- 
 sentative). I can do no more now than ask you 
 to think of the diff"erent lights in which Church mem- 
 bership might naturally present itself, first when 
 Christians were only scattered sojourners in the 
 midst of a suspicious and often hostile population ; 
 next, when they had become, though a minority, 
 yet an important and a tolerated minority ; then 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 225 
 
 when they were set on a place of vantage by the 
 civil power, and so were increased by hosts of mere 
 timeservers ; and lastly when they had come to con- 
 stitute practically the whole population, and a 
 Christian world had come into existence. The funda- 
 mental perplexing fact throughout was the paradox 
 of a holy Ecclesia consisting in part of men very 
 unholy. In at least three great sectarian movements 
 of the early ages this is an important element, in 
 Montanism, Novatianism, Donatism : but the funda- 
 mental thoughts which in this respect governed these 
 movements are to be found in the writings of justly 
 venerated Fathers. 
 
 This is all that I can attempt to say now. If I 
 am permitted to lecture in the Michaelmas Term of 
 next year, and no strong reason for preferring another 
 subject intervenes, I shall hope to carry forward the 
 beginning made this term. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 In the few remaining minutes I should be glad to 
 gather up with extreme brevity some of the leading 
 results at which we seem to have arrived thus far. 
 The greater part of our time has been taken up with 
 what belongs to the early history rather than the 
 early conceptions of the Christian Ecclesia, but, as 
 was to be expected, what the Gospels offered us 
 belongs almost wholly to the region of conceptions. 
 H. E. 15 
 
226 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 The one single saying in which our Lord names the 
 new or Christian Ecclesia marks at once its continuity 
 with the Ecclesia of Israel and its newness as His 
 own, the Messiah's, Ecclesia. It marks also its unity. 
 Lastly it marks its being built on Peter and the other 
 eleven, now ascertained to be fit for this function of 
 foundations by the faith in which they had recognised 
 His Messiahship. We saw how the last evening 
 before the Passion, the evening on which began the 
 transition, so to speak, from the Ministry of Christ to 
 the Ministry of His Ecclesia, was one long unfolding 
 of the inner nature of the Ecclesia, by the feast of 
 Holy Communion (as in Matthew, Mark, Luke), and 
 (as in St John) by the symbolic feetwashing, the 
 conversations and discourses which followed (especi- 
 ally the New Commandment, the Vine and the 
 Branches, and the promise of the other Paraclete), and 
 lastly the prayer that the disciples themselves, the re- 
 presentatives of the future Ecclesia of disciples, and all 
 who should believe on Him through their word, may 
 be One ; with the assurance that as the Father sent 
 Him into the world, so He Himself sent them into 
 the world ; so that their work was not for themselves, 
 but for the saving of mankind. So too for the new 
 members of the Ecclesia of whom we read in the 
 early chapters of Acts the condition of entrance is the 
 same, personal faith leading to personal discipleship, 
 discipleship to a now ascended Lord. And again the 
 life lived is essentially a Hfe of community, in which 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 227 
 
 each felt himself to hold a trust for the good of all. 
 At first the oneness of the Ecclesia is a visible fact 
 due simply to its limitation to the one city of Jerusa- 
 lem. Presently it enlarges and includes all the Holy 
 Land, becoming ideally conterminous with the Jewish 
 Ecclesia. But at length discipleship on a large scale 
 springs up at Antioch, and so we have a new Ecclesia. 
 By various words and acts the community of purpose 
 and interests between the two Ecclesiae is maintained : 
 but they remain two. Presently the Ecclesia of An- 
 tioch, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit speaking 
 through one or more prophets, sets apart Barnabas 
 and Paul and sends them forth beyond Taurus to 
 preach the Gospel. They go first to the Jews of the 
 Dispersion but have at last to turn to the Gentiles. 
 On their way home they recognise or constitute 
 Ecclesiae of their converts in the several cities and 
 choose for them Elders. Thus there is a multiplication 
 of single Ecclesiae. We need not trace the process 
 further. We find St Paul cultivating the friendliest 
 relations between these different bodies, and some- 
 times in language grouping together those of a single 
 region : but we do not find him establishing or no- 
 ticing any formal connexion between those of one 
 region or between all generally. He does however 
 work sedulously to counteract the imminent danger 
 of a specially deadly schism, viz. between the Ecclesiae 
 of Judea (as he calls them) and the Ecclesiae of the 
 Gentile world. When the danger of that schism has 
 
228 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 been averted, he is able to feel that the Ecclesia is 
 indeed One. Finally in Ephesians, and partly Colos- 
 sians, he does from his Roman habitation not only set 
 forth emphatically the unity of the whole body, but 
 expatiate in mystic language on its spiritual relation 
 to its unseen Head, catching up and carrying on the 
 language of prophets about the ancient Israel as the 
 bride of Jehovah, and suggest that this one Ecclesia, 
 now sealed as one by the creating of the two peoples 
 into one, is God's primary agent in His ever expanding 
 counsels towards mankind. 
 
 As regards the mutual relations between its mem- 
 bers, these are set forth in many passages which are apt 
 to be read only as belonging to ethics or to individual 
 religion. We are apt to forget (i) that according to 
 the New Testament (and especially Ephesians) the 
 Christian life is the true human life, and that Christians 
 become true men in proportion as they live up to it, 
 (2) that the right relations between the members of 
 the Christian Society or Ecclesia are simply the 
 normal relations which should subsist between mem- 
 bers of the human race, and therefore (3) that all the 
 relations of life, being baptised into Christ, become 
 parts and particular modes of Christian membership, 
 and can be rightly acted out only under its condi- 
 tions, while Christian fellowship further creates a bond, 
 independent of the ordinary family and other such 
 relations, which has a sacredness of its own. Hence 
 the true life of the Ecclesia consists for the most 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 229 
 
 part in the hourly and daily converse and behaviour 
 of all its members, in just that element of human 
 existence, in short, which rarely crystallizes into what 
 we call events, notable incidents such as find a place 
 in histories. The Ecclesia as clothed with those high 
 attributes set forth by St Paul is realised, as it were, 
 in those monotonous homelinesses of daily living 
 rather than in administration or business, though it 
 were business of the highest kind, the formulation 
 of creeds, or laws, or policies. 
 
 While therefore matters belonging to what is called 
 the organisation of the Ecclesia are undoubtedly an 
 important part of the subject, it would be a serious 
 mistake to treat them as the whole. There is indeed 
 a certain ambiguity in the word 'organisation' as 
 thus used. Nothing perhaps has been more promi- 
 nent in our examination of the Ecclesiae of the 
 Apostolic age than the fact that the Ecclesia itself, 
 i.e. apparently the sum of all its male adult mem- 
 bers, is the primary body, and, it would seem, even 
 the primary authority. It may be that this state of 
 things was in some ways a mark of immaturity ; and 
 that a better and riper organisation must of ne- 
 cessity involve the creation of more special organs of 
 the community. Still the very origin and funda- 
 mental nature of the Ecclesia as a community of 
 disciples renders it impossible that the principle 
 should rightly become obsolete. In a word we cannot 
 properly speak of an organisation of a community 
 
230 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 from which the greater part of its members are ex- 
 cluded. The true way, the Apostolic way, of re- 
 garding offices or officers in the Ecclesia is to regard 
 them as organs of its corporate life for special pur- 
 poses : so that the offices of an Ecclesia at any 
 period are only a part of its organisation, unless 
 indeed it unhappily has no other element of organi- 
 sation. 
 
 In the Apostolic age we have seen that the offices 
 instituted in the Ecclesia were the creation of suc- 
 cessive experiences and changes of circumstance, in- 
 volving at the same time a partial adoption first of 
 Jewish precedents by the Ecclesia of Judea, and then 
 apparently of Judean Christian precedents by the 
 Ecclesiae of the Dispersion and the Gentiles. There is 
 no trace in the New Testament that any ordinances 
 on this subject were prescribed by the Lord, or that 
 any such ordinances were set up as permanently 
 binding by the Twelve or by St Paul or by the Ec- 
 clesia at large. Their faith in the Holy Spirit and 
 His perpetual guidance was too much of a reality to 
 make that possible. 
 
 The Apostles, we have seen, were essentially per- 
 sonal witnesses of the Lord and His Resurrection, 
 bearing witness by acts of beneficent power and by 
 word, the preaching of the kingdom. Round this, 
 their definite function, grew up in process of time 
 an indefinite authority, the natural and right and 
 necessary consequence of their unique position. It 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 231 
 
 is difficult to think how the early Ecclesia of Judea 
 could possibly have staggered on without that apo- 
 stolic authority ; but it came to the Apostles by the 
 ordinary action of Divine Providence, not (so far as 
 we can see) by any formal Divine Command. The 
 government which they thus exercised was a genuine 
 government, all the more genuine and effectual be- 
 cause it was in modern phrase constitutional : it did 
 not supersede the ' responsibility and action of the 
 Elders or the Ecclesia at large, but called them out. 
 About the exceptional position of James there will 
 be a word to say just now. 
 
 The Apostles were not in any proper sense officers 
 of the Ecclesia. The first officers who are definitely 
 mentioned are the Seven. I need not repeat the 
 precise purpose of their appointment. It was for a 
 strictly subordinate and external function, though 
 men of wisdom and a holy spirit were needed for it. 
 Of officers in some respects analogous under the 
 name SiaKovoi, ministrants, deacons, we have been 
 hearing at Ephesus in I Tim., and at least in some 
 sense at Philippi. 
 
 But though the Seven of Jerusalem are the first 
 officers mentioned, we found reason to suspect that 
 of still earlier date (certainly not much later) were 
 the Elders. This apparently universal institution, for 
 administration and in part for teaching, was adopted 
 by Christians apparently universally. We have dis- 
 tinct evidence for it in the New Testament at Jeru- 
 
232 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 
 
 salem, in Lycaonia, at Ephesus, in Crete, and pro- 
 bably at Thessalonica : it is mentioned in the Epistles 
 of St James addressed to Jewish Christians of the 
 whole Dispersion, and of St Peter addressed to the 
 Christians of Asia Minor. Of officers higher than 
 Elders we find nothing that points to an institution 
 or system, nothing like the episcopal system of later 
 times. In the New Testament the word eVtcTKOTro? as 
 applied to men, mainly, if not always, is not a title, 
 but a description of the Elder's function. On the other 
 hand the monarchical principle, which is the essence 
 of episcopacy receives in the Apostolic age a practical 
 though a limited recognition, not so much in the 
 absolutely exceptional position of St Peter in the 
 early days at Jerusalem, or the equally exceptional 
 position of St Paul throughout the Ecclesiae of his 
 own foundation, as in the position ultimately held 
 by St James at Jerusalem, and also to a limited 
 extent in the temporary functions entrusted by 
 St Paul to Timothy and Titus when he left them 
 behind for a little while to complete arrangements 
 begun by himself at Ephesus and in Crete respect- 
 ively. 
 
 In this as in so many other things is seen the 
 futility of endeavouring to make the Apostolic history 
 into a set of authoritative precedents, to be rigorously 
 copied without regard to time and place, thus turning 
 the Gospel into a second Levitical Code. The Apo- 
 stolic age is full of embodiments of purposes and 
 
AND RECAPITULATION. 233 
 
 principles of the most instructive kind : but the re- 
 sponsibility of choosing the means was left for ever 
 to the Ecclesia itself, and to each Ecclesia, guided 
 by ancient precedent on the one hand and adaptation 
 to present and future needs on the other. The lesson- 
 book of the Ecclesia, and of every Ecclesia, is not 
 a law but a history. 
 
FOUR SERMONS. 
 
 I. AT AN ORDINATION OF PRIESTS AND DEACONS. 
 
 II. AT A UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION. 
 
 III. IN A COLLEGE CHAPEL. 
 
 IV. AT THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP WESTCOTT. 
 
A SERMON PREACHED IN THE NAVE OF ELY 
 CATHEDRAL AT AN ORDINATION SERVICE 
 ON JUNE IS, 1873. 
 
 John xxi. 17 — 19. 
 
 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
 thou mel Peter 7uas grieved because he said unto him 
 the third time, Lovest thou me i And he said unto him. 
 Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that L love 
 thee. Jesus saith unto him. Feed my sheep. Verily, 
 ve7-ily, I say unto thee. When thou wast young, thou 
 girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest : but 
 when thou shall be old, thou shall stretch forth thy 
 hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee 
 whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, sig7iifying by 
 what death he should glorify God. And when he had 
 spoken this, he saith unto him. Follow me. 
 
 Every high crisis in our lives is or ought to be to us 
 the lifting of a veil ; perhaps the lifting of many veils. 
 Our ordinary occupations of mind and body do not 
 force upon our sight anything beyond that world of 
 
238 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 near and familiar circumstance in which we are all 
 evidently moving. Either some seclusion from the 
 common life or some rare stirring of our own inner 
 nature is usually needed to bring within our ken the 
 great, deeply seated powers which move the world 
 and which move ourselves. When the crisis has 
 passed, the exceptional faculty of sight which it 
 conferred grows dim. But not in vain, not without 
 God's appointment. If the vision departs leaving us 
 unchanged, the fault is our own. It was given us for 
 a little space that it might be converted by the 
 alchemy of life into imperishable knowledge, the 
 foundation of an ever tried and ever renewed faith. 
 
 This the often repeated experience of our little 
 individual lives is an imperfect image of God's 
 manner of unsealing the eyes of the human race 
 through the Incarnation of His Son. The story of 
 that single all-sufficient unveiling of the heavenly 
 kingdom was entrusted to faithful witnesses, that, 
 cherished in our memories, it may enable us to stretch 
 our vision beyond the limits of earthly sight. It 
 gives support and meaning to every glimpse of things 
 unseen to which in any manner we ourselves attain ; 
 and, by shewing us the Divine order ruling our whole 
 mixed existence, it enables the daily way of life to 
 minister to our growth in wisdom. 
 
 This purpose of God in our Lord's manifestation 
 to His disciples comes out with especial force in the 
 records of the last few weeks of His sojourn on earth. 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 239 
 
 After the Resurrection He was no longer dwelling 
 habitually within their sight. He appeared to them 
 only on special occasions ; now to one singly, now to 
 various groups. By His appearances and disappear- 
 ances He trained them through their bodily senses to 
 know the reality of an existence and a presence of 
 which their bodily senses could at most times tell them 
 nothing ; and accustomed them to obtain from the 
 brief moments of higher vision the needed enlighten- 
 ment for the long spaces when no exceptional 
 endowment was vouchsafed to them. Fear and 
 amazement came upon them when they suddenly 
 found their Lord in the midst of them. But these 
 were not the emotions which it was His chief purpose 
 to awake. The repeated blessing " Peace be , to you " 
 is the dominant word of this His latest converse. In 
 heavenly calm, unruffled by any accompanying sight 
 or sound of wonder, He comes and goes and acts and 
 speaks. With the strength of the finished victory 
 over death and sin He anoints them for the life-long 
 contest to which He sends them forth anew. With 
 the rest following on His accomplished work He 
 encompasses the approaching toil and effort of their 
 work for Him. Yet He speaks not as though hence- 
 forth removed from participation in their doings. All 
 their days He will still be with them ; no longer 
 indeed Himself subject to the troubles of mortal life, 
 but drawing them all the while to Himself, and keeping 
 them within the tabernacle of His own eternal peace. 
 
240 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 The Epilogue to St John's Gospel, as read at 
 Morning Prayer, has already brought before us in 
 unusual detail one of these final manifestations of our 
 Lord to His disciples. That single chapter offers 
 itself to our hearts as a Divine message concerning 
 the sacred service upon which we are all now entering, 
 and the life-long dedication of which it will be for 
 some of us the beginning. By dwelling now for a 
 little while on some few heads chosen out of its 
 manifold instruction, we may be better able in silent 
 after meditation to embrace its testimony, the last 
 testimony delivered by Christ's elect evangelist. 
 
 Those early appearances of the Lord at Jerusalem, 
 in which He shewed that He was indeed risen from 
 the dead, had done their appointed work. The 
 anxious days spent in the midst of the multitudes 
 gathered for the Paschal solemnity were all ended. 
 The disciples had returned to their homes in Galilee 
 for the weeks which were to pass before the approach 
 of Pentecost should summon them again to the holy 
 city. The departure to Galilee had been by a 
 command received from the Lord Himself, accom- 
 panied by a promise that they should see Him there. 
 At the opening of St John's last narrative we find 
 seven out of the eleven resuming their work as 
 fishermen, probably for the first time. We may well 
 imagine them as just ending their journey in the 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 241 
 
 evening at the shore of the lake ; and St Peter's rapid 
 announcement "I go a fishing " as guiding them on 
 the instant to a renewal of their old occupation. 
 Thus the hours of darkness and solitude on the water 
 and the fruitless labour would be their first experience 
 of the new time. 
 
 As day dawned, they found that they were not 
 indeed alone. The increasing light revealed to them 
 One standing near on the beach. We all remember 
 the question, the answer, the counsel, the ' laden net ', 
 the recognition by St John followed by St Peter's 
 hasty wading to the shore while the other disciples 
 continued the labour to which the Lord had given 
 success. 
 
 The second part of the narrative introduces a 
 fresh miracle and a fresh lesson. Immediately on 
 landing, the disciples behold not only a fire already 
 lighted, but a fish already laid thereon and bread. 
 Jesus bids them bring of the pfoduce of their haul. 
 Rejoicing to obey a personal command, St Peter 
 hastens to drag the net up on the land to the Lord's 
 feet; and none of the living spoil is lost. Yet the 
 disciples' draught was not to be for their own use, 
 Jesus invites them as a host invites his guests, that 
 they may break their fast after the toilsome night 
 with the fish and the bread of His providing. As He 
 prospered their toil, so also He gives from His own 
 hand the food which is to restore their strength. 
 
 Then it was, while the awe and the joy were still 
 
 H. E. 16 
 
242 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 new, that Christ turned to the disciple whose true zeal 
 had borne some marks of self-will and self-assertion, 
 with the searching question, "Simon, son of John, 
 lovest thou me more than these ? " Was Peter 
 cherishing a thought that, because he had hurried 
 from his work and his brethren to enjoy his Master's 
 presence, he must needs love Him more than they 
 did ? Had he forgotten that promise of exceeding 
 fidelity, of which the sequel had been the thrice 
 repeated denial ? His love might possibly be in some 
 sense greater than theirs, and yet it might be less 
 precious to the perfect Lord, because less ripened by 
 self-conquest from a natural impulse into a far-sighted 
 devotion of spirit. 
 
 The humbling hours of the Passion had not left 
 Peter unchanged. He dared not claim pre-eminence 
 in affection, but standing as it were alone before his 
 Lord, he could fearlessly say that he did indeed hold 
 his Master dear. The reply reminded him why he 
 had been called into that intimacy of personal rela- 
 tion. It was not that he might enjoy for himself the 
 felicity of being close to the tenderest of friends and 
 most merciful of saviours, nor even that he might be 
 able to cultivate in himself all heavenly graces by 
 means of that hallowing intercourse. It was that he 
 might render faithful service to a Divine Shepherd by 
 rendering faithful service to His flock. 
 
 Two different kinds of service to the flock are 
 hidden behind the one word "feed". The first and 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 243 
 
 the last of the three commands speak of "feeding" 
 the lambs or the sheep in the strict sense : they 
 enjoin that care which consists in the providing fit 
 pasture. The second time St Peter is bidden rather 
 to tend the sheep, to exercise that care of them of 
 which the shepherd's rod and staff in the twenty-third 
 Psalm are the symbols, the care of government and 
 guidance. Thus while the Lord disowns that devotion 
 to Himself which does not include devotion to the 
 needs of His people. He suggests the varied gifts in 
 ever changing use which are required for its exercise, 
 the patient love and studious solicitude presupposed 
 by a service having such ends in view. But it is His 
 own person, words, and acts that supply the ruling 
 standard under which all this pastoral language has 
 to be brought and without which it becomes little 
 more than casual imagery. He who speaks is the 
 Shepherd of shepherds, the Good Shepherd, newly 
 risen from the grave into which He had been brought 
 by laying down His life to the uttermost for His 
 sheep. The feeding and governing of the sheep are 
 but parts of that wonder-working sacrifice ; when any 
 other spirit reigns in them, they fall away from the 
 love of Christ. 
 
 Thus the commands which Christ lays on His 
 apostle, in reply to the proffered love, are in no sense 
 a slighting of personal bonds in comparison of official 
 duties. They are a warning alike against sinking the 
 man in the apostle or the apostle in the man. With- 
 
 16 — ? 
 
244 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 out a pause Christ goes on from the charge to feed 
 His sheep to words that tell only of God's dealings 
 with the individual life: "Verily, verily, I say unto 
 thee, when thou wast younger, thou girdedst thyself 
 and walkedst whither thou wouldest : but when thou 
 shalt be old, thou shalt stretch out thy hands and 
 another shall gird thee and bear thee where thou 
 wouldest not." The words in part describe the 
 natural course of age as it comes upon every man 
 who reaches the full term of years. On the beginning 
 of manhood are bestowed free choice and spontaneous 
 movement. The fetters which the world without and 
 decay within are thenceforth without ceasing forging 
 in secret, must at length tighten their pressure as the 
 last passive and helpless stage draws on. But in 
 St Peter's case this natural bondage to circumstance 
 had already put on a higher form. Already he had 
 used the freedom of his manhood to give himself over 
 to a Divine master. From the hour when he first 
 forsook his nets to follow Jesus, he had surrendered 
 the youthful power of choosing to what tasks he 
 should gird himself and of going whither he would. 
 Nay, as he went forward in his chosen course, he 
 could not but rouse against himself a host of gain- 
 sayers and enemies. A violent death like his Lord's 
 should crown a life of restraint. 
 
 These were not words of doom : they were part of 
 an approving consecration. It had not been in vain- 
 glorious self-confidence that Peter had called on the 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 245 
 
 all-knowing Lord to read his heart: because he did 
 love Him, therefore it was that he was worthy to 
 feed and guide His sheep. Then followed the setting 
 of the seal. " When he had thus spoken, he saith unto 
 him. Follow me." The two words summoned up for 
 St Peter the life of all his past from the day when his 
 brother Andrew had come to him and said, " We have 
 found the Messiah", and that other day beside the 
 lake when the nets were forsaken. Discipleship in 
 those its earliest beginnings was shut up in the two 
 words, and the outward act which they denoted. 
 Since that time the whole Ministry of word and deed 
 had intervened, and then the Passion and Death, and 
 then the Resurrection. But now, after all his added 
 experiences concerning Christ and concerning himself, 
 the same words remained the truest. A new world 
 of meaning had unfolded itself in the idea of following 
 Christ, and yet more in his knowledge of Christ's 
 own Person and Nature. With the warning prophecy 
 ringing in his ears, and the recollections of the last 
 days at Jerusalem thronging his heart, the command 
 came upon him with an unearthly solemnity. But it 
 came also with the unearthly peace of assured forgive- 
 ness and the unearthly hope of a high and ever 
 higher calling. 
 
 Today we listen with hushed and abashed hearts 
 to the mysterious colloquy between the Lord and the 
 
246 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 Apostle. We cannot but be aware how much of its 
 meaning is still obscure to us : but to our consciences 
 it finds its way with a piercing clearness. We shall 
 soon hear it repeated to us in other language in the 
 forms by which the Church admits new members into 
 her undying apostolate. The commission now to be 
 given looks back to an earlier probation, and a yet 
 earlier call. In all cases in which the acceptance of 
 the holy commission has not been a grievous profana- 
 tion, there has been beforehand some drawing towards 
 the presence and service of Christ ; sometimes perhaps 
 dating only from later days, but oftener to be traced 
 back to the aspirations which spring from a pure and 
 devout home. This unripened love of Christ has 
 perhaps suffered much in the first years of manhood ; 
 has been chilled, stunted, forgotten, dishonoured, even 
 denied. Yet now it has renewed its growth once 
 more, and desires to be accepted and employed. 
 Whoever offers himself, as here today, must have 
 ah-eady heard Christ saying to him, "Lovest thou 
 me ? " and must have already dared to say, knowing 
 that he is uttering the innermost desire of his heart, 
 Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. 
 
 Then follows the charge itself It is first an 
 acceptance of the offered love. It is then the reward 
 of the offered love by the gift of appropriate service 
 to be rendered. It is a prohibition of that delusive 
 counterfeit of love which refuses to see Christ in all 
 whom He died to redeem. It opens to love a bound- 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 247 
 
 less future by linking it to an inexhaustible world 
 of duty. 
 
 Yet with these life-giving promises there is mingled 
 the unfaltering sentence of restraint and tribulation. 
 They who deliberately take upon them vows like 
 these must surely have counted well the cost. They 
 must have searched well and found in themselves firm 
 readiness not merely to take up joyfully the labours 
 and responsibilities of their work, but to embrace loss 
 of pleasures, loss of gains, undeserved shames, and 
 mortifications, it may be (in the lawless times to 
 come) yet worse injuries, as the natural accompani- 
 ments of true and faithful service. The season of 
 self-girding is doomed to pass quickly away. 
 
 When this stern condition of heavenly ministry 
 upon earth has been heard and accepted, the voice of 
 the Chief Shepherd lifts up all hearts once more with 
 the single summons, Follow me. Now we know of a 
 truth what it is to follow Him, because we have 
 learned to know Himself, and the purposes of His 
 work, and the means by which He brings them to 
 pass. And thus we can treasure the summons in our 
 memories, and humbly bow down our heads to receive 
 power from on high. 
 
 And so when we go forth to execute Christ's 
 Ministry, we shall learn to measure the range and 
 requirements of our office by nothing less than the 
 standard of His own infinite dealings with man. On 
 the one hand we shall learn to neglect whatever 
 
248 ORDINATION SERMON 
 
 cannot be used for the feeding or the guiding of His 
 sheep ; while on the other hand we shall discover how 
 varied a world of action is contained within those 
 twin functions when they are rightly understood in 
 their full breadth, what manifold materials for building 
 up towards Divine ends we may find both within 
 ourselves and strewed around us, and what unwearied 
 advances in wisdom and charity we shall need to be 
 able to employ them aright. We shall remember 
 that the whole nature of those committed to our 
 charge is worthy of being brought to perfection in 
 Christ, and therefore has a claim on us for such food 
 for mind and spirit as we can supply. We shall not 
 shrink from the heavy responsibility of guidance and 
 government, as the first conditions of Christian society, 
 and the best safeguards of unity and freedom ; but 
 we shall know that they are difficult and anxious 
 tasks laid upon us for the welfare of the flock, not 
 privileges to be enjoyed in the ignoble lust of 
 domination. 
 
 We turn once more to ourselves ; but in so doing 
 we do not turn away from our work. This is the 
 prerogative of the Christian ministry, that it coincides 
 with the highest form of personal life, embracing as it 
 does the whole range of our nature, and working 
 towards unity and perfection through communion 
 with our Divine Head. To feed and tend Christ's 
 sheep and to follow Him are but different sides of the 
 
IN ELY CATHEDRAL. 249 
 
 same life-long striving. We feel that this is indeed 
 their true relation, when following St John's guidance 
 we look onward beyond ourselves, beyond Christ's 
 flock, beyond Christ Himself to that which was the 
 ultimate end of His own work for man's salvation, 
 even the Glory of God. 
 
 Today it is easy to keep thoughts like these in 
 mind. After a while there is danger that they may 
 come to seem unreal. The brutishness or triviality in 
 which millions around us pass their lives, and perhaps 
 the chilling inroads of professional routine in our own 
 work, not to speak of sadder and deeper causes, may 
 render it hard for us to rule or judge the petty doings 
 of each day by the words which Christ spoke to His 
 Apostle. The veil which is now drawn asunder may 
 close over us again. If so it should be, let us think of 
 the disciples at their unprofitable toil on the water. 
 Let us mark the slow recognition of the Lord 
 standing on the firm land beyond the water, the 
 completed work, the partaking of His food. Let us 
 bathe His words afresh in the dewy brightness of the 
 early summer morning by the Galilean lake. So we 
 may come to know the power of the new life of which 
 that peaceful brightness was the sacrament, the new 
 life that dawned on mankind when God raised His 
 Son from the dead. 
 
A SERMON PREACHED AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, OCT. 
 31, 1875. 
 
 Psalm cxlix. 2 (part). 
 
 Let Israel rejoice in him that made him. 
 
 We are met today for a twofold service of praise ; 
 the praise of God and the praise of men. Such has 
 been the clear and ample teaching of the consecrated 
 words appointed for our guidance. In the praise of 
 God all the varying strains of the Psalter meet 
 together, and we have begun our worship^ with singing 
 the last three of those closing hymns of the Psalter 
 which set forth the praise of God in one unbroken 
 strain. On the other hand we have next listened Ho the 
 opening verses of that Hymn of the Fathers, as an 
 ancient title calls it, which bids us now praise famous 
 men and our fathers that begat us, and declares that the 
 
 ^ The special Psalms appointed for the University Commemoration 
 of Benefactors are Ps. cxlviii. Ps. cxlix. Ps. cl. 
 
 ° The special Lesson is Ecclesiasticus xliv. i — 15. 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 251 
 
 people will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation 
 will shew forth their praise. Both praises rested on 
 the same foundation, and the one led to the other. 
 The Hallelujah Psalms came forth after long centuries 
 of trial and vicissitude : they are the voice of chastened 
 and restored Israel looking back over the mighty 
 works of Jehovah wrought through patriarchs, chief- 
 tains, kings, and prophets. It is under the inspiration 
 of these Psalms, and others like them, that the son of 
 Sirach' lifts up the praises of famous men, the fathers 
 of Israel. First he speaks in such words as these : 
 " Though we say many things, we shall never attain ; 
 and the end of words is. He is the whole" 
 (Ecclus. xliii. 27). " Who hath seen Him, and shall 
 declare it? and who shall magnify Him as He is? 
 Many things yet hidden are greater than these, for 
 we have seen but a few of His works. For all 
 things were made by the Lord, and to the godly gave 
 He wisdom " (xliii. 3 1 ff.). Then he exalts the 
 supreme praise by joining it with the memory of 
 Enoch, Noah, Moses, and the rest, ending with Simon 
 the High Priest, men permitted to have a share in 
 God's work of making Israel, and endowed with the 
 wisdom which springs from fearing His holy name. 
 
 Even so is it always. By love and thankfulness 
 
 and reverence towards human parents and teachers 
 
 we first learn what it is to worship God ; and the 
 
 lesson is quickly either unlearned or falsified as soon 
 
 1 See Ecclesiasticus xliii. 27, 32 ; xlv. 16 — 1. 24. 
 
252 SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 as we strive to banish all lower homages that He 
 may be adored alone. With the growing perception 
 of fresh subordinate objects for thankful praise grows 
 also the power to praise Him according to His 
 excellent greatness ; and in the welcoming of these 
 many rights over our hearts His praise is sustained 
 and fulfilled. Not the least of the blessings conferred 
 by enlargement of knowledge is the discovery of 
 hidden companies of benefactors in the teeming past. 
 According as the circles of immediate time or neigh- 
 bourhood are overpassed, and we gain some true 
 sense of the various great societies into some of which 
 we are all born or early incorporated, and then of the 
 deep debts which the present life of each society owes 
 to far reaching lines of wise counsels and great deeds 
 in bygone days, all history becomes to us full of 
 occasions for a purifying and invigorating joy, by 
 reason of its multiplied demands on our gratitude to 
 elder brethren of old. And the multiplied homage 
 thus awakened, just and reasonable and helpful 
 though it be known to be, is found fugitive and 
 unsatisfying unless it is blended into a deeper praise 
 of the one King of the ages, by whose counsel the 
 ministries of each generation are appointed and 
 marshalled for that future towards which we too have 
 the privilege of bending our lives. 
 
 It is in the ancestries of a Church or a nation, 
 to say nothing of the larger ancestries of the Church 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 253 
 
 Universal or of mankind, that the blessing of the two- 
 fold praise is best discerned. Yet it is provided for us 
 in ample measure in the history of that lesser society 
 which it is our pride here to serve. Today's worship 
 invites us to take to ourselves the blessing, and 
 through it to seek light and strength for the tasks of 
 the coming year and the coming age. There is ro 
 danger now of being estranged from present realities 
 by looking dutifully and gratefully back to whatever 
 we can find worthy of admiration in our long annals. 
 Rather shall we so be enabled in some measure to 
 rise above the pettinesses and blindnesses which 
 absorbing work creates as much as it dispels, and to 
 obtain some impulse and guidance towards such wide 
 and high purposes as can alone confer the power 
 either of perceiving our true duties or of accomplishing 
 them. The true enemy of the future is not the past 
 but the tyrannous present, often usurping the sem- 
 blance of the past to disguise its own oppressions. It 
 is possible for either the love of the past or the love 
 of the future to exist apart : but it is not possible for 
 either to accomplish beneficent and lasting results 
 without the other. 
 
 The names to be recited today represent directly 
 one kind of benefits, chiefly the gifts of property by 
 which institutions of various kinds essential to our 
 work have been founded or maintained. Among 
 these names occur not a few belonging likewise to 
 another cl&s^ pf bfoef&ctors whose memory we cannot 
 
2S4 SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 but yet more dutifully cherish, members of our own 
 body and therefore forefathers in a stricter sense, who 
 gave to the University or its studies the gift of their 
 own lives and energies. Other names we shall hear 
 of men who went forth from among us in manhood 
 to various callings in life ; but though long removed 
 from any of the enchantments which might be 
 thought to invest the University with an illusive 
 glory to the eyes of those who make it their home, 
 could yet after their fullest experience find no way 
 so sure for bestowing their bounty for the public 
 good as by strengthening or enlarging the resources 
 of University study. The remaining names belong 
 to benefactors who never lived within our walls, and 
 therefore were bound to us by no filial tie, yet recog- 
 nised from a distance the almost hidden source of 
 powers indispensable to the life of the common- 
 wealth. With these let us join in thought the founders 
 of our Colleges, not formally commemorated here, 
 doubtless because specially commemorated in their 
 several Houses, but worthy of being remembered 
 among the foremost when we pass in review the 
 obligations of the University itself to earlier ages. 
 They have a peculiar claim to be remembered now 
 because their gifts are the memorials of successive 
 restorative reforms carried on at no long intervals 
 through more than three hundred years, in the midst 
 of which the Revival of Letters and the Reformation 
 appear only as episodes, and the continuous life of 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 255 
 
 the University reflects the continuous hfe of the 
 nation from the days of the first Edward to those 
 of Ehzabeth. 
 
 Once more, if we may rightly count among bene- 
 factors those to whom the removal of abuses and the 
 introduction of improvements and expansions of 
 administration is mainly due, there are many in the 
 last three or four generations nearest to our own 
 times whom it would be base indeed to put out of 
 remembrance just now. When we hear the University 
 extolled for awaking out of slumber to a tardy sense 
 of neglected duty, we may think it vain to attempt to 
 appreciate the worth of either the reproof or the 
 praise so far as it affects ourselves. But we cannot 
 forget that from a time long before any of us were 
 born the University and its Colleges have been going 
 silently and steadily onward, often perfecting existing 
 work, often entering on new fields of work : and 
 further we know that this progress has been set 
 forward and guided entirely from within, first com- 
 mended and laboured for by far-sighted rulers or 
 leaders, and then sooner or later obtaining from 
 others the needful amount of consent. The praise 
 belongs not to us but to our fathers who begat us, 
 and yet more to Him who has granted to us not only 
 the heritage of long ages but the privilege and help of 
 walking in the footsteps of men who in their day 
 approved themselves worthy heirs, 
 
2s6 SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 It remains for us, brethren, by God's grace to work 
 out our thanksgiving to its rightful fruits. The offering 
 of praise has no meaning except as the offering of 
 ready and vvilHng hearts. Every thanksgiving ren- 
 dered to our fellow men, whether living or dead, is an 
 acknowledgement that we are appointed to be links 
 in a spiritual chain of transmitted blessing, bound 
 and glorified by the fundamental law of possession 
 under the Gospel, Freely ye have received, freely 
 give. Every thanksgiving to God is an acknowledge- 
 ment of a bestowed capacity for higher or more 
 effectual service. 
 
 It cannot then be unfitting to join with our 
 present thanksgivings of today some thoughts on the 
 office which seems traced out for our society, partly 
 by our own history, partly by the actual wants of 
 English society at large. Not a few of the matters 
 which are now constantly discussed among us, inter- 
 mingling with the round of necessary employments, 
 must ultimately be ruled by principles of which it is 
 seasonable to speak in the House of God, most of all 
 in this House of God which was for so long the place 
 of meeting for our ancient assembly. Neither on this 
 subject nor on any other is it possible that all the 
 beliefs expressed here should find universal assent 
 among us. But if, as is surely true, our main 
 differences of view respecting academic policy resolve 
 themselves into different assignments of proportional 
 value to objects ^IJ recognised as good, we may justly 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 257 
 
 hope to be led on the way to more complete harmony 
 by bringing our counsels into the presence of Him 
 whose Lordship governs into unity all several agencies 
 within each society, and all several societies within 
 His universal family ; Him to whose making and 
 remaking we, like Israel, must at last refer, whatever 
 as time goes on we may be enabled to be. 
 
 The popular voice commends us for beginning to 
 render the University more national than heretofore. 
 All our habits teach us to distrust a sonorous word 
 until it has been studied and tried ; but they do not 
 forbid us to accept the study and trial of it as 
 belonging to our immediate duty. We should cer- 
 tainly have no right to leave our forefathers under the 
 imputation of having a less national spirit than our- 
 selves because the recipients of their direct teaching 
 did not for the most part belong to the classes forming 
 the larger proportion of the nation. It would be 
 helping to keep alive a dangerous delusion to speak 
 as if all members of the body had the same office, 
 and the member which duly discharged its own office 
 were not thereby ministering to the rest. So far as 
 any particular classes received from the University 
 qualifications to do the work required of them on 
 behalf of the whole, the service which it rendered 
 to them was in fact rendered to the whole. Unless 
 we hold firmly this the Christian conception of a 
 body politic, and rule ourselves consistently by it 
 now and always, we shall but condemn ourselves and 
 
 H. E. 17 
 
258 SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 our University to poor and trivial uses, blind leaders 
 of the blind, as well as unjust and undutiful de- 
 scendants of those to whose place we have succeeded. 
 
 But when we have taken this principle to guide 
 us, we shall not find ourselves thereby absolved from 
 the responsibility of considering how far applications 
 of it which were tolerably adequate once will suffice 
 under changed circumstances. It is not enough to 
 maintain that we are discharging a national function 
 in the truest sense : we are bound to go on to enquire 
 whether other functions remain for which we have the 
 requisite capacity without abandoning our present 
 employments, and which it would be for the ad- 
 vantage of the nation that we should undertake. If 
 such should prove to be the case, we cannot limit the 
 standard of duty by the sufficiencies of a former state 
 of things. 
 
 At the outset we are compelled to remember that 
 it is chiefly action of our own that has given birth to 
 the comments which we feel to be half untrue. It is 
 because we have already for years past been leaving 
 behind us the old boundaries that we are coming to 
 be estimated not so much by the appropriateness or 
 value of our work as by its breadth of visible distribu- 
 tion. Wants have been gradually perceived which 
 we have been glad to attempt to supply. Examina- 
 tions cautiously extended have enabled us to help in 
 elevating and directing a vast amount of teaching in 
 which it was impossible for us to take any other part. 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 259 
 
 Members of our body have lately carried personal 
 teaching in the name of the University into centres of 
 dense population. Few among us will regret these 
 steps, and yet it is no wonder they suggest to be- 
 holders that the goal towards which we are moving is 
 that equalised and diffused utility which is assumed 
 to be the test of a national spirit. 
 
 But if these recent extensions of labour are easily 
 misinterpreted, they are at the same time modes of 
 fulfilling an office which may justly be called national. 
 In so far as they lead all classes to see in the Uni- 
 versity a common friend and guide, the bestower of 
 valued instruction and knowledge, the University 
 becomes a bond between class and class, such as old 
 bitternesses render it unhappily vain to seek elsewhere 
 just now. Before personal contact many alienations 
 melt away which would otherwise aggravate the 
 deadliest diseases of the commonwealth. But above 
 all, if only the University remains true to its proudest 
 boast of upholding at all costs the supreme worth of 
 liberal education, and perseveringly translates the 
 significant watchword into varying applications ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of various classes, it is 
 thereby strengthening and consolidating every good 
 influence already at work. To supply fresh weapons 
 for strife, or even fresh means for subsistence, is no 
 part of its vocation : in purchasing favour by such 
 gifts as these, it would cast away its proper beneficent 
 virtue. By presenting knowledge as none of these 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 things, — nor yet as a luxury for the idle, which may 
 be prudently let alone till all other cravings are 
 satisfied, but as then most to be prized for its own 
 sake when it has to compete with the cares and 
 conflicts of life, the University at once proclaims its 
 own unvarying characteristic, and becomes a potent 
 restorer of social order. 
 
 These considerations will amply justify us in 
 regarding the University as charged with the re- 
 sponsibilities of a fresh national office by virtue of its 
 widened operations, however strongly we may feel 
 the unsoundness of the grounds on which others 
 arrive at what wears the appearance of being the 
 same result. There are however different and even 
 graver national responsibilities which though not new, 
 have now a rapidly increasing claim to be embraced, 
 and for the discharge of which we cannot too anxi- 
 ously provide in all present and future arrangements. 
 Perhaps our greatest danger now is of frittering away 
 force in too various activity, and suffering external 
 work to sap that energy of progressive study within 
 our own precincts which is for our purposes the very 
 breath of life. Thus the farther we enlarge the outer 
 and remoter borders of our domain, the greater the 
 need to concentrate the resources for the cultivation 
 of the higher departments of knowledge here in the 
 midst. The inherited employment of educating cer- 
 tain limited classes, the members of which are destined 
 in due time to stand where the effects of their nurture 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 261 
 
 for good or ill will deeply affect all classes around 
 them, has lost none of its old value ; and we are 
 rightly glad to add to their number from the best 
 representatives of other classes. But this employ- 
 ment would lose none of its usefulness if it were 
 associated with an influence felt by the adult and 
 scattered members of the educated classes elsewhere 
 no less than by those who are passing in youth 
 through a University course. 
 
 If it is a pernicious error to treat liberal knowledge 
 as a luxury for the citizen, still less, at whatever cost 
 of seeming to magnify our office in delusive conceit, 
 dare we speak or act as though a metropolis of liberal 
 knowledge were a luxury for the nation. In some 
 states of society the ethical and properly spiritual 
 forces may suffice to resist dissolution ; but with the 
 spread of loose and unsifted promiscuous knowledge 
 they cannot long hold their ground alone on the large 
 scale. It would be difficult to over-estimate the 
 auxiliary remedial virtue of calm and mature know- 
 ledge, vivified by careful and independent thought, 
 except when it is unnaturally divorced from a high 
 ethical standard. In the University as its natural 
 home such salutary knowledge should grow freely 
 and abundantly, not maintaining a difficult existence 
 among surrounding hindrances, as when it springs up 
 sporadically elsewhere, but fostered and nourished by 
 the dominant influences of the place. Where the 
 ascertainment, the preservation, and the communica- 
 
262 SERMON AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 tion of truth are made the primary business of Hfe by 
 a varied society of men, regulated and united by the 
 performance of known duties, a better ideal and a 
 sounder exercise of knowledge would assuredly arise. 
 The evils which spring from partial and dispro- 
 portionate knowledge would be neutralised by the 
 mutual correction and combination of the various 
 provinces of knowledge ; and though such a society, 
 like every society devoted chiefly to a single purpose, 
 would be liable to perils of its own, this is but the 
 universal condition of a finite world where all things 
 are done by part and part. Nor would it be a small 
 safeguard that the office of teaching must as a rule be 
 jealously retained and enforced as heretofore, for 
 reasons not needing comment here. Not exemption 
 from sometimes unwelcome labour is to be desired for 
 members of an English University, but freedom to 
 pursue a student's life from stage to stage, and to die 
 humble learners. 
 
 Doubtless the true nature and use of such an 
 institution would never be widely understood or 
 valued. It has been well said that it belongs to a 
 University to be the refuge for unpopular doctrines, 
 the storehouse where truths long said to have been 
 exploded are preserved from oblivion till their hour 
 comes round again once more. This is in other 
 words to claim for a University the high privilege of 
 escaping subjection to each surging wave of opinion 
 as it hides the ocean before it follows its predecessor 
 
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 263 
 
 out of sight, of welcoming the truth and right in each 
 of two or more contending sides, and of maintaining 
 by preference that cause, which finds fewest spokes- 
 men in the world without. The description may at 
 least be accepted as applicable to a University in 
 proportion as it takes its stand on truth and the 
 harmony of truth ; and surely it is needless to urge 
 how opportune a corrective to recklessness and faction 
 such a capacity and temper might supply. Nor is 
 there any real danger in this age of the world lest 
 seclusion should breed estrangement from current 
 thoughts and ways. The danger lies rather in the 
 other direction, in the morbid fear of being branded 
 as pedants if we do not mimic the tones prevailing in 
 circles of society which are inspired by altogether 
 different principles. Fidelity to a special function is 
 always a primary duty ; while on the other hand the 
 function of a University imperatively demands that 
 its members should take vigilant note of the leading 
 phases of movement around them, as foremost 
 materials for dispassionate examination ; unable per- 
 haps to join in any popular cry, but ready to find 
 instruction in all. 
 
 On that which is perhaps the greatest question of 
 all, the relation of the University to the Church and 
 to all that the Church represents, it is better to say 
 nothing today than such few and insufficient words as 
 
264 COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 
 
 would alone be possible now. In this time of distrust 
 and separation, when diversities of work are eagerly 
 embittered into oppositions of nature, God has granted 
 peace to our Israel. Be it our care that it bring forth 
 the Divine fruits of peace to the glory of His holy 
 Name. 
 
 We have been led this morning to think much of 
 the lofty ends which our University may perhaps in 
 due time be called to fulfil. It does not seem too 
 rash a hope, when we think on the past which we 
 commemorate in this service of praise, the latent 
 powers which we find not to have wholly departed 
 from among us, the open field of an ancient nation 
 reawakening to the thirst for knowledge. We know 
 that, the past was not all glorious. We know better 
 still our own weaknesses, follies, sins. When we 
 think of them, it seems as though we were fated to 
 disappoint any hopes that we might cherish for our 
 society. Yet He in whose hands the future lies is 
 with us still. In the power of the Gospel of His 
 eternal Son we learn even through humiliation to 
 rejoice in Him that made us, and to trust that through 
 humiliation still, if in no other way. He will make us 
 always even to the end. 
 
THE GROWTH OF A COLLEGE INTO A 
 TEMPLE IN THE UNIVERSAL TEMPLE. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE 
 CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE, ON FEB. 34, 1889. 
 
 Ephesians iv. 4. 
 One Body. One Spirit. 
 
 Ephesians ii. 21. 
 
 In whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth 
 into a holy temple in the Lord. 
 
 These words meet our eyes every time that we 
 enter this chapel. Their first or immediate purpose 
 as they stand there is to set forth in consecrated 
 language the guiding principles on which the windows 
 and walls of the chapel have been peopled with the 
 forms and names of men of other generations^ ; to set 
 us on the right way for following the arrangement of 
 the various parts which make up the whole ; and to 
 suggest to us the thoughts through which they be- 
 come far more than adornments or curiosities. The 
 words are no mere key to the details of a material 
 
 ' See Appendix. 
 
266 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 fabric. They point rather to that invisible structure 
 of living stones which gathers beneath its roof, hold- 
 ing up to us the highest aspect of the purposes for 
 which our College itself exists. They press upon us 
 the thought of its relation to God's whole purpose 
 concerning mankind. What the texts teach as 
 eternal and unchanging truth is echoed back and 
 exemplified by the message of the walls and windows, 
 by which the College is visibly linked to the spiritual 
 history of Christendom. 
 
 It will be worth our while this morning to consider 
 these pregnant words of Scripture in this their appli- 
 cation to the lessons of the building in which we meet 
 together for worship. I do not propose to speak 
 singly of the lives or works of the forty men of other 
 days who for one reason or another are commemo- 
 rated here, full of interest as the recital would in most 
 cases be. We shall have enough to occupy us in 
 tracing out the fundamental teachings which they 
 together suggest to us, and by which they speak to 
 us for our help and guidance in the difficulties and 
 duties of our own day. 
 
 Many of us perhaps will be glad to be reminded 
 of the general plan on which the memorial adorn- 
 ments of the chapel have been arranged. The two 
 western pairs of windows and the western pair of 
 panels are devoted to the commemoration of illustri- 
 ous sons of the College itself The two eastern pairs 
 of both windows and panels carry back the spiritual 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. 267 
 
 ancestry of the College to early Christian days. Within 
 the narrow limits of our space a few only can find 
 room out of a great host. These few are the chosen 
 representatives of chosen periods out of the long line 
 of centuries. They were men of the most various 
 characters compatible with singleness of Christian 
 purpose, moulded by the most various circumstances, 
 thinking the most various thoughts and speaking the 
 most various words. In their united voice we hear 
 echoed the endless manifoldness of the one compre- 
 hensive truth ; and with scarcely any exceptions they 
 have all this characteristic that they were men con- 
 sciously on a forward march, zealous for new good, 
 labourers in the cause of a better future. 
 
 A thousand years of Christian faith are spanned 
 in the two eastern windows. The Fathers, as they 
 are called, of Christian theology have for their spokes- 
 men two men of rare goodness and rare genius, who 
 have at different times exercised a singular power in 
 moulding the thoughts of other ages on the highest 
 subjects, a power far from being exhausted yet, Origen 
 the Alexandrian Greek of the third century, and 
 Augustine the Carthaginian Latin of the fifth century. 
 These are men of the old world. Beside them in the 
 same windows stand precursors of the new world ; 
 John the monk from Ireland, who revived the deeper 
 thoughts of ancient Greek theology ; and Anselm the 
 righteous Archbishop, from whom the Latin theology 
 of the Middle Ages chiefly took its rise. 
 
268 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 The next pair of windows sets before us that great 
 change not in the theology only, but in the whole 
 life, of Northern Europe which we call the Reforma- 
 tion of the 1 6th Century, an event which must have a 
 peculiar interest for ourselves because it led to the 
 foundation of our College. The age of the English 
 Reformation is represented to us by four wholly 
 different men, two of whom were early workers on 
 behalf of practical reforms, while they left the existing 
 framework of belief and Church politics unquestioned ; 
 and the other two were active leaders in the Reforma- 
 tion itself. Beside Colet with his grave Christian 
 humanism, and Fisher with his zeal for the restoration 
 and propagation of learning, stand Tyndale, one of 
 the many simple students whose hearts were kindled 
 by the new fire, holding our first printed English New 
 Testament, which he bequeathed to us with his blood ; 
 and Cranmer the statesman prelate, whose best monu- 
 ment is the First English Prayer-book, a true symbol 
 of all the better elements in his tragically mixed 
 career. The witness of the last three of these four 
 was consummated at last in that highest form of 
 witness which can be held up to a luxurious and 
 easy-going age : they laid down their lives for con- 
 science sake : they received the martyr's crown. 
 
 Thus far we have been gathering up some of the 
 teaching of the two eastern pairs of windows : the 
 panels have likewise a story of their own to tell. The 
 two Elizabethan Colleges, of which Emmanuel was 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. 269 
 
 the earlier, were built on the site and even on the 
 ruins of the convents belonging to the two great 
 orders of friars, that is, 'brethren', who had gone 
 forth from Southern Europe early in the 13th century 
 to be in different ways the messengers of a more 
 energetic and popular form of religious life through 
 Western Christendom. Between that time and the 
 Reformation these two orders had for the most part 
 fallen away from their early greatness : but mean- 
 while they had been able to count among their 
 members no small proportion of the most illustrious 
 theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages. 
 With good reason therefore are our easternmost 
 panels inscribed with the names of Dominic, founder 
 of the Preaching Friars or Dominicans, to whose 
 home in Cambridge we of this College have suc- 
 ceeded ; and of Francis of Assisi, founder of the 
 Friars Minor or Franciscans ; and with the names of 
 a chosen few out of each order, ending in each case 
 with the name of one who was in some manner an 
 unconscious herald of the coming Reformation. 
 
 But the renewal of life and light by the Reforma- 
 tion is not the only great renewal with which God in 
 His manifold goodness has blessed the churches and 
 peoples of Europe in these later centuries. Step by 
 step He has opened to us two wide universes of know- 
 ledge, the knowledge of man and the knowledge of 
 nature, for the progressive education and enrichment 
 of the human race, and not least for its better know- 
 
270 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 ledge of Himself and His dealings with His creatures. 
 In our middle panels are commemorated some of the 
 great pioneers in the restoration or establishment of 
 knowledge in these two wide worlds. On the South 
 stand the names of some of those who in the central 
 culmination and the late decay of the Middle Ages, 
 from Dante onwards, contributed most to that growing 
 expansion of the human mind and spirit which took 
 definite shape in a new knowledge of all that is 
 written in the literature and art of other generations. 
 The opposite panel on the North side is a record of 
 that upgrowth of disciplined study and imagination 
 which has given us the ever deepening knowledge of 
 nature ; commemorating the two chief prophets of its 
 early growth, and two illustrious representatives of its 
 achievements in the organic and the inorganic realms. 
 In the remaining windows and panels we learn to 
 cherish the memory of some of those members of our 
 College who, by their aspirations and words and 
 deeds for their own day, have shown themselves 
 worthy heirs of the great heritage of the past. They 
 illustrate three great waves of religious movement 
 which passed over England during the first lOO years 
 of the existence of the College, each governed by a 
 limited or onesided view of truth, yet all contributing 
 to its perfect sum. First, as many know, came that 
 strenuous and compact system of belief and practice 
 which was first worked out at Geneva, an attempt to 
 organise Christian faith and Christian life entirely 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. 271 
 
 anew on the basis of the letter of the Old and New 
 Testaments without regard to history or to existing 
 institutions. After a while there arose, preeminently 
 within our own walls, a generation of men to whom 
 the rigid barriers erected by the elder school were an 
 offence ; men who rejoiced to recognise traces of 
 God's light and God's love far and wide among 
 mankind, and read the universe afresh by the spirit 
 of Divine sonship, but who hardly faced the more 
 complex problems of Christian thought, or took 
 account of the needs and conditions of fellowship in 
 the Christian body. And then, thirdly, came the men 
 of the Restoration, less directly entrusted than their 
 predecessors of either school with the championship 
 of a new message of truth or life, but moved by a 
 strong reaction against the negative and destructive 
 elements in the religious policy of the Commonwealth, 
 and a natural zeal and affection for ancient institu- 
 tions and customs which had for the time been sup- 
 pressed. Among our Emmanuel worthies all these 
 movements have fit representatives ; while some of 
 the number are yet more worthy to be remembered 
 for their own lives or writings. 
 
 Thus far we have been proceeding from East to 
 West. But, through at least the whole course of the 
 windows, the North and South sides have for the 
 most part each a character of its own. It would be 
 scarcely wrong, borrowing the ancient Greek anti- 
 thesis, to say that on the North are chiefly ranged the 
 
272 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 men of action, on the South the men of contempla- 
 tion. The men on the North were mainly illustrious 
 in government or other direct and visible service 
 rendered to their brethren : in theology, their common 
 characteristic was a love of form and definiteness. 
 The men on the South were mainly students, whose 
 work was done by the written or spoken word or 
 by personal influence ; and who as theologians, in 
 their search for ultimate principles, feared not to 
 explore reverently the more mysterious regions of 
 thought, at the risk of being called mystics, or suffer- 
 ing worse reproaches from those who preferred to 
 walk only in beaten ways. 
 
 If now, leaving the sides of the chapel, we turn to 
 the East end, where each of the two lines meets an 
 independent justification in an apostolic sentence 
 below, we shall see that they end above in a double 
 form of apostolic words, in which they find their 
 mutual harmony and mutual necessity. We read 
 there One Body, One Spirit: and those who look 
 down upon us from the northern windows have 
 earned our veneration preeminently by their service 
 to the Body of Christ, and they of the southern 
 windows preeminently by their service to the Spirit 
 of Christ. 
 
 One Body, One Spirit. Each implies the other. 
 In the religious life of men the Bible knows nothing 
 of a Spirit floating, as it were, detached and un- 
 clothed. The operation of the Spirit is in the life 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. 273 
 
 and harmony of the parts and particles of the body in 
 which, so to speak, it resides. And conversely a 
 society of men deserves the name of a body in the 
 Scriptural sense in proportion as it becomes a perfect 
 vehicle and instrument of the Spirit. 
 
 What then is this One Body, wtum corpus, %v 
 aaixa} It is possible that, taken in their context, 
 these two words refer first to the local body formed 
 of those Christians to whom the Epistle was addressed. 
 But at least they derive their ultimate force from 
 a reference, tacit if it be not express, to the one 
 universal Body and the one universal Spirit of which 
 St Paul speaks elsewhere. That body is, I need 
 hardly say, the Universal Church made up of men in 
 great part divided from each other by all sorts of 
 earthly conditions, but united by the confession of the 
 One Lord, which unfolds itself into the one faith, 
 and is sealed and consecrated by the one baptism ; 
 appointed to be the representatives of God and His 
 presence to mankind, the leaven which is to work 
 till all humanity is leavened. This comprehensive 
 society is described by the image of a body with 
 reference to two equally vital truths ; the mutual 
 need and mutual service of the individual Christians 
 who are its members ; and the dependence of each 
 and all for unity and life and all things on Him who 
 is in St Paul's language the Head. " For as the body 
 is one," he writes to the Corinthians (i Cor. xii. 12 ff.), 
 "and hath many members, and all the members of 
 H. E. i3 
 
274 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 
 For in one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, 
 whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free ; and 
 were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body 
 is not one member, but many." 
 
 But while St Paul thus raises our thoughts to the 
 contemplation of that universal Body which now 
 stretches through so many centuries and among such 
 countless races, he at the same time brings its re- 
 ligious import very close to us in the narrow circles of 
 our own surroundings. " In Christ Jesus," he told the 
 Ephesians, "each several building fitly framed to- 
 gether groweth into a holy temple in the Lord ; in 
 whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of 
 God in the Spirit." 
 
 We must pause for a moment to observe that the 
 image here is changed. We seem to hear now not of 
 a body but of a building. But elsewhere in the 
 Epistle the two images are carefully interwoven one 
 with another : — " unto the building up of the body of 
 Christ" (iv. 12): "maketh the increase of the body 
 unto the building up of itself in love" (iv. 16). So 
 also by a bold paradox St Peter makes mention of 
 "living stones built up into a spiritual house." The 
 image of the body speaks to us of life, movement, 
 growth, feeling, diversity of functions : the image of 
 the building speaks to us of permanence, of founda- 
 tion and superstructure, of the fitting and compacting 
 of sharply individual units, but most of all of habita- 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAPEL. 275 
 
 tion ; the universal body formed of Christian men, 
 not a stone fabric built by human hands, being ac- 
 cording to the New Testament the true dwelling 
 place of God on earth. 
 
 But what should specially be noticed in the text 
 which we are now considering is that the truth taught 
 by St Paul with reference to the highest sphere is 
 a principle of universal application for every society, 
 great or small, which with others goes to make up the 
 supreme society. Each several building formed by 
 the gathering together of Christians into one society 
 shares all the privileges of the one all-comprehending 
 building or body. Its unity and its strength come 
 from the invisible Lord in the heavens who holds it 
 together: in fulfilling its own limited purpose it be- 
 comes a holy temple in the midst of which, to use the 
 figurative language which alone is possible on such 
 high themes, God Himself makes His abode. 
 
 It is wholly therefore within the spirit of St Paul's 
 meaning to apply his words to that little local society 
 of which we now present are members. Assuredly 
 our life here, with all its work and all its intercourse, 
 will be sound and bright, rich in present and in future 
 good, in proportion as we look on the College of 
 living men as a body made one by heavenly bonds, 
 an invisible fabric, the shrine of a Divine presence. 
 
 The thought is doubtless a difficult one. Yet 
 surely we have great helps towards grasping it 
 afforded us by the windows and walls of this chapel, 
 
276 A SERMON PREACHED IN 
 
 the place where we meet as members of a body, and 
 join in worship founded on the recognition of Jesus 
 Christ as the Head of His Church. Those forms and 
 names which represent to us the first fifteen Christian 
 centuries, however scanty their number, do in some 
 sort set before us, first, the great universal society 
 which St Paul beheld in its infancy; and then that 
 portion of it which has the highest claims on us as 
 Englishmen, our own national Church in the days of 
 the Reformation. Nor, in passing from the one to 
 the other, need we so misinterpret the necessary nar- 
 rowing of scope as to forget our fellowship, then and 
 now, with the Christians and the Churches of other 
 lands. A second narrowing meets us, a narrowing to 
 a far smaller Christian society, when we go on in 
 mind to that part of the Chapel in which our own 
 brethren of Emmanuel are commemorated. The 
 College, we all I hope know, was founded only about 
 a generation after the close of that former stormy 
 time ; and the purpose of it was to add a new and 
 vigorous member to the body of the University, itself 
 a primary organ for the fostering of the spiritual 
 and intellectual life of the whole body of Christian 
 Englishmen. And surely, if our hearts are not cold 
 or our imaginations dull, we shall find in the various 
 gifts and various labours of these our own brethren 
 some help towards recognising that high tasks indeed 
 are laid on the members of an English College, and 
 that the promise of bringing forth blessing tq their 
 
EMMANUEL COLLEGE CHAFEL. 277 
 
 own and later generations is assured to them in so far 
 as they are faithful to the high ideal which the silent 
 teaching of this Chapel holds up to them. Is it 
 indeed for mere personal aims, worthy or unworthy, 
 that we come up here, that we sojourn here for the 
 few years during which we are learning (or making 
 believe to learn) the knowledge that is to fit us for 
 the duties and responsibilities of life? or agiin is it 
 for mere personal aims, worthy or unworthy, that we 
 make our home here in later years? To men who 
 follow such aims alone, be they idle or laborious, 
 disorderly or respectable, churlish or companionable, 
 arrogant or humble, St Paul's language to the Ephe- 
 sians must of course seem unpractical trifling. Too 
 often indeed we all of us speak and act as though we 
 made the same assumption. But in our heart of hearts 
 we know that all human fellowship, nay all our single 
 individual life so far as it deserves to be called 
 human, rests at last on some such basis as St Paul 
 has here made known. Now, far more than three 
 centuries ago, in spite of all changes of outward cir- 
 cumstance and inner mind, his language is lit up and 
 enforced by the needs and aspirations of the time. 
 Now, more than ever, the members of an ancient and 
 historic College like ours are warned against forgetting 
 that they are living stones in a building ' which, what- 
 ever other purposes it may serve, was designed 
 through all good purposes to be for ever growing into 
 a holy temple in the Lord. 
 
THE SENSE AND SERVICE OF MEMBERSHIP 
 THE MEASURE OF TRUE SOUNDNESS IN 
 THE BODY. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY AT 
 BISHOP WESTCOTT'S CONSECRATION, ON THE 
 FESTIVAL OF ST PHILIP AND ST JAMES, 1890. 
 
 Ephesians iv. 12, 13. 
 
 For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, 
 unto the building up of the body of Christ ; till we 
 all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the know- 
 ledge of the Son of God. 
 
 These words are spoken to us out of the past, 
 a past which is in one sense becoming ever more 
 remote. Already the nineteenth of the centuries 
 which are reckoned from the coming of Christ our 
 Lord is drawing perceptibly near to its end. The 
 long interval which actually separates us from the 
 Apostolic age grows unremittingly longer; while the 
 sense of distance gains steadily in force with the 
 knowledge that the human race, within and without 
 
SERMON IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 279 
 
 Christendom, is setting forth on new and untrodden 
 ways. 
 
 Yet this remoteness of time and of circumstance 
 is swallowed up in a greater nearness. It is hardly 
 too bold to say that through all these centuries 
 no generation of Christians has had the Apostolic 
 writings so nigh to them as our own. That in- 
 stinctive turning to the primary deposit of Christian 
 truth, which has often been noticed as an accom- 
 paniment of times of religious convulsion and per- 
 plexity, could hardly fail to be called forth to an 
 unwonted degree by these later days. Other in- 
 fluences have been at work in the same direction 
 with perhaps equal power. The study of the New 
 Testament by professed students has been pursued 
 for many years with increased carefulness, circum- 
 spection, and regard for evidence. What is more 
 important still, the Apostolic epistles have been 
 gaining immeasurably in freshness and felt reality 
 by the growing anxiety to read them in the light 
 of the personal and historical circumstances out of 
 which they sprang. With good reason Christian 
 men have looked to them for present help, true 
 though it be that they belong to a single age, and to 
 peculiar conjunctures of outward and inward events. 
 For that was indeed a chosen period in the world's 
 history ; and they whose words have been thus 
 handed down for our instruction were chosen agents 
 in the unique spiritual revolution which was then 
 
28o A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 accomplished. Not a Divine enlightenment alone, 
 but also a Divine ordering of the meeting and parting 
 streams of human affairs, enabled epistles called 
 forth by immediate needs to become a perpetual 
 fountain of light ; whether through teachings that 
 in the letter were temporary, and therefore would 
 call for varying embodiments of their spirit according 
 to varying conditions, or through the setting forth 
 of verities that by the very nature of their subject- 
 matter are incapable of change. 
 
 Among the books of the New Testament the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians in particular has been of 
 late years drawing to itself the earnest attention of 
 many. Enigmatic as might be its language under 
 this or that head, they have felt that it gave promise 
 of at least a partial answer to some anxious per- 
 plexities of this present time, and of both sanction 
 and guidance to some of its highest aspirations. It 
 holds in truth a peculiar position among St Paul's 
 epistles ; and not in his epistles alone, but in the 
 drama of his distinctive mission. No other writing 
 of his is so little affected in shape or scope by 
 temporary conditions of place or person. It is the 
 harmonious outpouring of thoughts that had long 
 been cherished, but had not as yet found right and 
 profitable opportunity for full utterance ; thoughts 
 that doubtless had grown and ripened while they lay 
 unspoken, and now had been kindled afresh by the 
 conjuncture which had at length been reached in the 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 281 
 
 Divine ordering of events ; for now, after weary years 
 of struggle and anxiety, what St Paul recognised as 
 sure pledges for the essential unity and essential 
 universality of the Church of Christ had been visibly 
 bestowed from on high. 
 
 Both St Paul's character and his work are griev- 
 ously misjudged when they are interpreted exclusively 
 by his zealous championship of Gentile liberties. 
 This fidelity to the special trust which he had re- 
 ceived was balanced by an anxiety to avert a breach 
 between the Christians of Palestine, for whom the 
 Law remained binding while the Temple was still 
 standing, and the Gentile Christians of other lands ; 
 to promote kindly recognition on the one side and 
 brotherly help on the other. Such a breach, he 
 doubtless felt, would have cut Gentile Christianity 
 away from its Divinely prepared base, and sent it 
 adrift as a new religion founded by himself 
 
 Already in the Epistle to the Romans we find 
 the two great sections of mankind ranged carefully 
 on equal terms for condemnation and for salvation. 
 St Paul's bitter heartache at his brethren's unbelief 
 is quenched in his conviction that the gifts and the 
 calling of God are without repentance, and in his 
 faith in the riches of wisdom whereby God would 
 make a way for His mercy at last. And then, look- 
 ing in the face the more than possibility of death 
 in the intended visit to Jerusalem which his plans 
 for the preservation of unity required, he uses words 
 
282 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 of singular impressiveness to convey to the Romans 
 the joy with which he would afterwards come among 
 them, should he escape with his life. We all know 
 by what an unexpected way God brought him to 
 Rome at last, and that with the purpose of his visit 
 to Jerusalem long accomplished. 
 
 To this new vantage-ground St Paul had attained 
 when he wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians. He 
 wrote in the thankful sense that, first, the dreaded 
 breach had been averted, and then that, through his 
 having now been permitted to join in fellowship and 
 work with the Christians of Rome, the Gospel to the 
 Gentiles had in the person of its chosen representa- 
 tive obtained a footing in the imperial city, the centre 
 of civilised mankind, and thus received, as it were, 
 a pledge of a world-wide destiny. 
 
 The foundation of the teaching now poured forth 
 by the Apostle to the beloved Ephesian Church of 
 his own founding, and doubtless to other Churches 
 of the same region, is laid in high mysteries of theo- 
 logy, the eternal purpose according to which God 
 unrolled the course of the ages, with the coming of 
 Jesus as Christ as their central event, and the sum- 
 ming up of all heavenljr and earthly things in Him. 
 That universal primacy of being ascribed to Him 
 suggests His Headship in relation to the Church 
 as His Body. Presently unity is ascribed to the 
 Church from another side; not indeed a unity such 
 as was sought after in later centuries, the unity of 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 283 
 
 many separate Churches, but the unity created by the 
 abolition of the middle wall of partition between Jew 
 and Gentile in the new Christian society, a unity 
 answering to the sum of mankind. Thus the Church 
 was the visible symbol of the newly revealed largeness 
 of God's purposes towards the human race, as well as 
 the primary instrument for carrying them into effect. 
 Its very existence, it seems to be hinted in the 
 doxology which closes this part of the Epistle, was 
 a warrant for believing that God's whole counsel was 
 not even yet made known. 
 
 From this doxology St Paul passes at once to 
 the precepts of right living which he founds on the 
 loftiness of the Christian calling. The great passage 
 which gathers up seven unities of Christian faith and 
 religion is but accessory to the exhortation to "give 
 diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
 of peace " ; in other words, to maintain earnestly the 
 moral and spiritual basis of true Church membership. 
 Then follows the correlative truth involved in Church 
 membership, the place of the individual in the com- 
 munity. He is not to be lost in the community, as in 
 so many societies of the ancient world. His in- 
 dividuality is not to be smoothed away and treated 
 as some capricious blemish of nature. Rather it is to 
 determine the character of his service. " But to each 
 one of us" — the words are studiously emphatic — 
 "to each one of us was given the grace according to 
 the measure of the gift of Christ." Already St Paul 
 
284 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 has spoken of his own unique function of Apostle 
 to the Gentiles as itself a " grace '', a special gift of 
 God bestowed upon him for the sake of the Gentiles ; 
 and now he claims the same Divine origin for the 
 particular function of service which each member of 
 the body was to render to the body or its other 
 members. Then, with free adaptation of words from 
 the Psalter, he points to the ascended Lord as the 
 Giver of gifts " to men ", and after a short digression 
 applies them to certain typical classes of "gifts to 
 men ", gifts intended for the good of men. Some of 
 the gifts which Christ bestowed from on high were 
 apostles, and some prophets, — the two types of ex- 
 ceptional and temporary functions ; and some evan- 
 gelists, and some pastors and teachers, — two corre- 
 sponding types of ordinary and permanent functions. 
 Here St Paul breaks off his list of examples. In 
 other epistles he classes with these as functions of 
 service to be rendered by individual members of a 
 Church works of a less definite and official character, 
 while he treats all alike as so many different functions 
 of Church membership. And so what is expressly 
 said here of the men exercising the highest functions, 
 the functions of Christian teaching, was doubtless 
 meant to be believed for all functions alike ; that the 
 purpose for which God "gave" them was "the per- 
 fecting of the saints unto a work of ministering, unto 
 the building up of the body of Christ." 
 
 The perfecting here spoken of is chiefly the train- 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 285 
 
 ing of stunted powers or organs into their proper 
 activity. It is a process of culture and development, 
 but not with the man himself for its ideal end. Its 
 end is " a work of ministering '', some form of service 
 to be rendered to others. For ministering is the one 
 universal function of all " saints ", all individual mem- 
 bers of the Church, the common element in all functions. 
 
 But this various perfecting of the individual mem- 
 bers for their several works of ministering had a 
 single end beyond itself, even "the building of the 
 body of Christ". The body of Christ was there 
 already, but it was ever needing to be more and more 
 " built ", to be " compacted " in constant renewal in 
 such wise as best to aid the flow of life from "the 
 Head " through " every part ", and make provision for 
 a ceaseless " growth ". 
 
 But beyond the long process St Paul contemplates 
 the end, " till we all attain unto the unity of the faith 
 and of the knowledge of the Son of God." Till all 
 have attained this unity, the unity which governs life 
 and thought when, first, the faith of the Son of God, 
 and then the learning of what is wrapped up in that 
 faith, are lifting them out of distraction, the building 
 of the body of Christ must go on, the perfecting of its 
 several members for a work of ministering must be 
 the aim of its wisest members. 
 
 Such is the vision of the Church in which St Paul 
 saw the appointed instrument for the fulfilment of his 
 
286 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 own best hopes for mankind, and which he desired to 
 bequeath to his most cherished converts, that it might 
 expand their faith and uplift the purpose of their 
 hves. Can we now say that this vision has been 
 clearly present to the minds of even the leaders of the 
 Church through the intervening centuries ? Is it not 
 rather in no small degree one of those truths which 
 the new reading of the Bible by the light of new 
 questionings is now causing to be newly discerned ? 
 Can it be doubted that from an early time a dispro- 
 portion grew up among men's various thoughts con- 
 cerning the Church, so that St Paul's fundamental 
 teaching concerning it receded into the background, 
 becoming little more than a single conventional item 
 of Christian ethics ? Such a change in the propor- 
 tion observed in thought would be the natural, almost 
 the inevitable, outcome of the corresponding change 
 in the proportion observed in actual policy and prac- 
 tice. It is easy to understand how the most pressing 
 difficulties and dangers of the several Churches would 
 come to be met with the most obviously compendious 
 and effective resources, without adequate regard to 
 the less obtrusive and more delicate yet also more 
 vital elements of Church life. In a word, in carrying 
 out the necessary work of building itself up as a cor- 
 poration, the Church would have needed rare and 
 far-seeing wisdom indeed to save it from uncon- 
 sciously giving insufficient heed to building itself up 
 as a true body. 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 287 
 
 Whatever the truth may be respecting the forces 
 that were at work in those ancient days which still 
 exercise so subtle and manifold a power over the 
 minds and ways of Christians, the present state of 
 things is not less the result of other influences be- 
 longing to far later centuries. Thus much at least 
 is too sadly evident that, be the causes what they 
 may, St Paul's teaching, which we have been con- 
 sidering to-day, obtains but a secondary part in both 
 the theory and the practice of our Church member- 
 ship. And if so, can we desire a better ground for 
 hope and consolation than the fact that this mighty 
 resource still cries out to be tried, a resource which by 
 its very nature proclaims its conformity with all that 
 is most full of life within the Churches of Christendom, 
 and with the purest among the aspirations of the 
 uneasy multitude who as yet refuse the fellowship of 
 the Gospel? 
 
 On so vast a theme it would be unbecoming here 
 to go beyond the barest suggestion of some general 
 lines of thought. The most obvious need of all is the 
 need of a conscious and joyful sense of membership 
 as taught by St Paul, its dignity and its responsi- 
 bilities, to be felt by men, women, and children, in 
 every position and of every degree. Were this sense 
 present in many, did many feel it imparting an 
 unimagined life to every Holy Communion, and re- 
 ceiving back an unimagined life in double measure, 
 it would readily find modes of expressing itself in 
 
288 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 individual and social action ; and in due time more 
 fixed and systematic forms of service would come 
 into use, while the service of each lesser unity would 
 go to make up the service of some greater unity in 
 a manifold order. But it is in the widest sphere that 
 this sense of membership, and this practice of it, 
 would perhaps be most powerful for good. Did sin- 
 cere Christians habitually recognise that they were 
 united not merely by a common faith, but by mem- 
 bership of one world-wide society built upon that 
 faith, they could hardly be content with a fitful and 
 trifling use of their collective responsibilities to other 
 men. 
 
 The experience of the last few years has shown 
 how little salutary force could permanently be looked 
 for in what is called a Christian world, a realm of 
 habit and language sustained of late for the most part 
 by vague and aimless convention, though permeated 
 by Christian sentirtient, and partly derived in the first 
 instance from Christian traditions. For now, helped 
 by the right and wise tolerance which Christians have 
 been learning to practise, many who have lost their 
 Christian faith, or grown up in estrangement from it, 
 are relinquishing usages in which it is expressed or 
 presupposed. A yet graver fact is the increasing ac- 
 quiescence of Christian households in similar licence 
 for themselves. And these are but tokens and ready 
 examples of a chaotic condition which is spreading 
 deeply under the surface of society. Remedies might 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 289 
 
 no doubt be found without going beyond the accus- 
 tomed hnes. The press, the pulpit, the lecture-room, 
 the school, the home, may all afford opportunities 
 for wholesome and temperate guidance. But what 
 we have to deal with is not a teaching, such as might 
 be encountered by another teaching. It is a confused 
 and disorganised state, affecting to a greater or less 
 degree the whole inward being of men, the whole 
 range of their conduct. Here the one entirely fitting 
 corrective must surely be looked for in the harmonious 
 and effectual working of a common life, inspired by a 
 common faith ; even the common life and common 
 faith of a community of men whose eyes have been 
 opened to the reality and claims of the fellowship 
 which embraces them. 
 
 But again, though this corrective action of the 
 Church as a community is what is most evidently 
 invited by present necessities, we can never forget 
 that it is but one side of its positive mission of 
 bringing home to all mankind the light and the life 
 of which it has been permitted itself to partake. 
 Here the Apostolic word transcends our narrow hori- 
 zon. We can but rest on the assurance that the 
 universal mission of the Church springs from the 
 same counsels as the universality of the redemption. 
 
 Doubtless it may be feared by some that the 
 office which has seemed to be marked out for the 
 Church as a community by its Apostolic credentials 
 is one that could not in practice be exercised without 
 
 H. E. 19 
 
290 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 danger to the spiritual liberties of mankind. The 
 yoke of petty religious communities, where such have 
 existed, has sometimes been undeniably heavy in 
 former days, and the yoke of more powerful religious 
 communities might be regarded as likely to be here- 
 after found yet heavier. Some again might doubt 
 whether the sphere thus assigned to the Church as a 
 community is not altogether wider than the region of 
 human nature with which it is naturally and properly 
 conversant. The answer to both these grave doubts 
 is given implicitly by the breadth of aim and interest 
 which a Church taught by the Apostles must needs 
 claim for itself The story of those small commu- 
 nities of like-minded men, possessed by a dark theory 
 of God's dealings with men, and of the kind of service 
 which He requires of them, can tell us little of what 
 may be expected from large and composite communi- 
 ties of the future, enlightened by those riper con- 
 ceptions of the province of religion which have been 
 granted to these later times. Through the same 
 better teaching we have come to learn that the right- 
 ful province of the Church can be no narrower than 
 the entire world of humanity, because God in Christ 
 has claimed for His kingdom all things human 
 except the evil that corrupts them, has included all 
 things in the range of service well pleasing to Him- 
 self, and has set His special seal of recognition on the 
 service rendered to mankind. Nor is it otherwise 
 with the ideal which a Church should hold up to its 
 
W WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 291 
 
 members and to those without ; for the true Christian 
 life has no special or limited type, being in very deed 
 the true human life, seen in relation to the true Lord 
 and Saviour of man's whole being. 
 
 If it is true that the essential relations of life 
 and service between the members of a Church one 
 with another, or of each with the whole, have been 
 obscured by the greater permanence and definiteness 
 of what we are accustomed to call its organisation, 
 yet a reviving sense of their true purport, leading the 
 way to temperate effort to put it in practice, need 
 involve no real breach with the past, no subversion of 
 long venerated order. All true progress in the future 
 must be conditioned by an intelligent use, not of the 
 Apostolic writings alone, but of the varied stores of 
 experience with which the Church of Christ has been 
 enriched in each successive period of its long and 
 changeful existence. On the other hand it could 
 hardly be that a revival of varied corporate service, in 
 which the members at large had their several parts, 
 could fail to make itself felt in that province of service 
 which belongs to organisation. Sooner or later none 
 could be blind to the imperfection, the weakness, the 
 barren divorce from sustaining sympathies, which 
 must cling to an organisation in which the greater 
 part of the members of the community have no per- 
 sonal share. 
 
 Thoughts akin to these must surely be present 
 
 19 — 2 
 
292 A SERMON PREACHED 
 
 to the minds of many worshippers in this ancient 
 house of God to-day. We are encompassed by the 
 walls and treasured memorials which repeat to hear- 
 ing ears what noble works the Lord God of our 
 fathers has done in their days and in the old time 
 before them. In a sanctuary thus doubly hallowed, 
 can we believe that in the time to come He will leave 
 this Church and " kingly commonwealth of England " 
 unblessed with the full richness of those "gifts" of 
 His " to men," all pointing to that one gift of the Son 
 of His love out of which they flow? Uplifted and 
 yet more humbled by those memories, dare we doubt 
 that, save through our own faithlessness or sinful 
 shortcomings, it will in one way or another be granted 
 to this our ancestral community to heal the sorest 
 breaches of our nation, to learn and to teach the way 
 of inward and of outward peace ? 
 
 But if these voices from our own English past 
 give response to the message which has been speak- 
 ing to us from the height of the Apostolic age, the 
 occasion which gathers us together as one congrega- 
 tion has another concordant voice of its own. We 
 are met together from north and from south, from the 
 old Northumbrian diocese and the central capital of 
 the realm and many a scattered parish, to join in the 
 act of worship by which a Chief Pastor of the Church 
 is to be hallowed for his office to-day ; for the office 
 which, more than any other, links past and present 
 visibly together ; the office which, varying in preroga- 
 
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 293 
 
 tives and in sphere of action from age to age, is now 
 more perhaps than ever before the organ of active 
 unity, the chief power by which all scattered powers 
 that make for building up are drawn forth and 
 directed. 
 
 In commending him now to your prayers, I iind 
 my lips sealed by a sacred friendship of forty years 
 from speaking as I might otherwise perhaps have 
 desired to do. But in truth there can be little need 
 that a single voice should attempt to utter what is 
 already in the mind of thousands. Yet a few words 
 must be ventured on for the sake of others. One 
 who has laboured unceasingly to bring his country- 
 men face to face with the New Testament Scriptures ; 
 one for whom Christian truth is the realm of light 
 from which alone the dwellers on earth receive what- 
 ever power they have to read the riddle of the world 
 or choose their own steps aright ; one to whom the 
 Christian society is almost as a watchword, and who 
 hears in every social distress of the times a cry for the 
 help which only a social interpretation of the Gospel 
 can give ; such a one assuredly will not fail to find 
 channels by which these and other like " gifts " from 
 the ascended Giver may flow forth for the common 
 good. 
 
 Under these auspices he goes forth to carry for- 
 ward the enterprise which has dropped from the 
 hands of the cherished friend, united with him as in 
 a common work and purpose so as the object of 
 
294 SERMON IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 reverent love and trustful hope. There must be many 
 present here to-day whose recollections of the twin 
 day eleven years ago are full of the echoes of some of 
 the words then spoken from this pulpit. What other 
 last words could speak to us now with so grateful a 
 sacredness ? 
 
 The pilgrims' psalm which was then made to 
 guide our thoughts " brings before us," we heard, " the 
 grace and the glory of sacrifice, of service, of progress, 
 where God alone, the Lord of Hosts, is the source and 
 
 the strength and the end of effort The Lord God 
 
 is a sun to illuminate and a shield to protect. In the 
 pilgrimage of worship that which is personal becomes 
 social. The trust of the believer passes into the trust 
 of the Church. The expectation of one is fulfilled in 
 the joy of all." " There must be in the outward life," 
 we were finally reminded, "checks, lonelinesses, de- 
 fects. We cannot always keep at the level of our 
 loftiest thoughts. But for the soul which offers itself 
 to God, which accepts — because it is His will — the 
 burden of command, which claims — because it is His 
 promise — the spirit of counsel and the spirit of pro- 
 phecy, the words shall be fulfilled through the dis- 
 cipline of disappointment and the joy of sacrifice, 
 from strength to strength. 
 
 " Lord God of Hosts, blessed is the man that 
 putteth his trust in Thee!'* 
 
 * From strength to strength: a Sermon preached... at the consecra- 
 tion of J. B. Lightfoot...by B. F. Westcott..., i87() and 1890, pp. 3, 18. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE DECORATION* OF THE EMMANUEL 
 COLLEGE CHAPEL. 
 
 The subjects of the windows of the Chapel, from East 
 to West, are first theologians representative of the Early and 
 Middle Ages and of the two earliest stages of the English 
 Reformation, and then theologians educated at Emmanuel 
 College. The windows on the North side commemorate 
 services rendered chiefly to the organisation of institutions 
 and to systematic theology : the windows on the South side 
 commemorate services rendered chiefly to inward life and 
 thought and to speculative theology. 
 
 NORTH SIDE SOUTH SIDE 
 
 FIRST WINDOW FIRST WINDOW 
 
 EARLY AND MIDDLE AGES EARLY AND MIDDLE AGES 
 AUGUSTINUS ORIGENES 
 
 ANSELMUS JOANNES SCOTUS ERIUGENA 
 
 SECOND WINDOW SECOND WINDOW 
 
 THE ENGLISH REFORMA TION THE ENGLISH REFORM A TION 
 
 JOHN FISHER JOHN COLET 
 
 THOMAS CRANMER WILLIAM TINDALE 
 
 * This decoration was carried out in 1 884 at the time of the College 
 Tercentenary in accordance with a scheme suggested by Dr Hort. The 
 description printed above was drawn up by him for the account of the 
 Tercentenary Festival published the same year. 
 
296 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NORTH SIDE 
 
 THIRD WINDOW 
 
 THEOLOGIANS EDUCA TED A T 
 
 EMMANUEL COLLEGE 
 
 LAURENCE CHADERTON 
 JOHN HARVARD 
 
 FOURTH WINDOW 
 
 THEOLOGIANS EDUCA TED A T 
 
 EMMANUEL COLLEGE 
 
 WILLIAM BEDELL 
 
 WILLIAM SANCROFT 
 
 SOUTH SIDE 
 
 THIRD WINDOW 
 
 THEOLOGIANS EDUCATED AT 
 
 EMMANUEL COLLEGE 
 
 BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE 
 
 PETER STERRY 
 
 FOURTH WINDOW 
 
 THEOLOGIANS EDUCATED AT 
 
 EMMANUEL COLLEGE 
 
 JOHN SMITH 
 
 WILLIAM LAW 
 
 The panels of the walls of the Chapel are inscribed 
 according to an arrangement corresponding with the 
 arrangement of the windows. The North and South sides 
 are united by texts inscribed in the panels of the East wall. 
 
 NORTH 
 
 EAST 
 
 WALL 
 
 SOUTH 
 
 VNVM 
 
 SVRSVM 
 
 CORDA 
 
 VNVS 
 
 CORPVS 
 
 
 
 SPIRITVS 
 
 IN QVO OMNIS 
 
 
 
 IN IPSO 
 
 AEDIFICATIO CONPACTA 
 
 
 
 VITA ERAT 
 
 CRESCIT IN TEMPLVM 
 
 
 
 ET VITA ERAT 
 
 SANCTVM IN DOMINO 
 
 
 
 LVX HOMINVM 
 
 VOCABITVE. NOMEN EIVS EMMANVEL 
 NOBISCVM DEVS 
 
 The narrow panels flanking the East wall contain 
 
 NORTH 
 
 The pastoral staff resting on the 
 
 cross, with the olive above. 
 
 SOUTH 
 
 The vine twined around the cross, 
 
 with the pomegranate above. 
 
 The panels between the first and second windows 
 represent the two great reforming Orders of the thirteenth 
 century, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, on the site of 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 297 
 
 whose Houses in Cambridge the two Elizabethan founda- 
 tions of Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex College were 
 established. The last name on each panel is that of a 
 precursor of the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The panels between the second and third windows 
 represent the Revival of Letters and the Sciences relating 
 to man, and the Revival of the Sciences relating to nature. 
 
 The panels between the third and fourth windows 
 commemorate services rendered by men educated at 
 Emmanuel College to the Sciences relating to man, and 
 to the Sciences relating to nature. 
 
 NORTH SIDE 
 
 FIRST PANELS 
 ORDO FRATRVM PRAEDICATORVM 
 
 DOMINICUS 
 
 THOMAS AQUINAS 
 
 ALBERTUS MAGNUS 
 
 HIERONYMUS SAVONAROLA 
 
 SOUTH SIDE 
 
 FIRST PANELS 
 ORDO FRATRVM MINORVM 
 
 FRANCISCUS 
 
 BONAVENTURA 
 
 JOANNES DUNS SCOTUS 
 
 WILLELMUS OCKHAM 
 
 SECOND PANELS 
 
 INSTAVRATIO SCIENTIARVM 
 
 NATURALIVM 
 
 RENE DESCARTES 
 FRANCIS BACON 
 
 JOHN RAY 
 ISAAC NEWTON 
 
 SECOND PANELS 
 
 INSTAVRATIO SCIENTIARVM 
 
 HVMANARVM 
 
 DANTE ALIGHIERI 
 
 PICO DI MIRANDULA 
 
 JOHANN REUCHLIN 
 
 DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 
 
 THIRD PANELS 
 INQVISITIO NATVRALIS 
 COLLEGII EMMANVELIS 
 
 JEREMIAH HORROX 
 
 JOHN WALLIS 
 
 JOHN MARTYN 
 
 THOMAS YOUNG 
 
 THIRD PANELS 
 
 INQVISITIO HVMANA 
 
 COLLEGII EMMANVELIS 
 
 ROGER TVSTYSDEN 
 
 EDMUND CASTLE 
 
 RALPH CUDWORTH 
 
 WILLIAM CELL 
 
INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Exodus 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i IS 
 
 6 S 
 
 XV. 13, 16 14 
 
 LevltlcuB iv. 13 6 
 
 xxvi. II f 164 
 
 Numbers x 6 
 
 ™- 7 173 
 
 xiv. S s 
 
 xvi. 3 6 
 
 Deuteronomy xxii. 24 131 
 
 xxxii. 5 43 
 
 xxxiii. 12 114 
 
 Judges XX. 2 5 
 
 1 Kings vi. 1 i63f 
 
 2 Cbronlcles V. 6 6 
 
 Psalms ii. 2 150 
 
 xxvii. 10 61 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Psalms Ixviii. 18 157 
 
 Ixxiv. i i3(f, 107 
 
 Proverbs v. 14 6 
 
 Isaiah xlix. i 165 
 
 liv. 5 150 
 
 Ixvi. I f 164 
 
 Jeremiah ii. 2 150 
 
 xxiv. 6 16 
 
 xxvi. 17 5 
 
 xxxiii. 7 16 
 
 xlii. 10 16 
 
 EzeMel xvi. 60 150 
 
 Amos ix. II II 
 
 Ecclesiastlcus xi. 12 159 
 
 xxiv. 23 7 
 
 Ii- 7 169 
 
 Ps. Sal. X. 7f 7 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Matthew 
 ix- 35 
 
 X. I . 
 
 5 • 
 18 
 
 23 
 xi. I ... 
 
 27 
 
 26f 
 
 •■27. 35 
 
 35 
 
 35 
 
 27 
 
 Matthew 
 
 xvi. 18 2, 10 ff, 108, no 
 
 19 19 
 
 xviii. 17 9f 
 
 xix. 28 29 
 
 XX. 17 27 f 
 
 28 203 
 
30O 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Matthew PAGE 
 
 XXV. 32 fir 
 
 xxvi. 14 28 
 
 20 27f 
 
 26f 30 
 
 47 28 
 
 xxviii. 16 28 
 
 18 ft- 33f 
 
 Mark 
 
 i- 14—34 ■23 
 
 39 n 
 
 iii. 13 — 16 22 
 
 vi- 7 • 23 
 
 i2f 23 
 
 30 ■24^ 
 
 ix. 35 24 
 
 X. 32 24 
 
 45 203 
 
 xi. II 24 
 
 xiii. 9 35 
 
 xiv. 7 24 
 
 10 24 
 
 20 24 
 
 ■22 30 
 
 43 24 
 
 [xvi. ijff] 36 
 
 Luke 
 
 iv. 20 210 
 
 vi. 12 IT 24f 
 
 I7f-; 25 
 
 ix. 1 25 
 
 6 25 
 
 10 25 
 
 12 25 
 
 14 25 
 
 16, 18 25 
 
 xii. 37 203 
 
 xvii. 5 26 
 
 xviii. 31 26 
 
 Luke PAGE 
 
 xxi. 12 36 
 
 xxii. 14 26 
 
 [19] •■■■i° 
 
 26f 203 
 
 30 29 
 
 47 26 
 
 xxiv. 9 26 
 
 10 26 
 
 33 2'' 
 
 33ff 33 
 
 45ff 36f 
 
 49 39 
 
 John 
 
 ii. 19 ff 163 
 
 vi. 59 118 
 
 67, 70 28 
 
 71 28 
 
 xiii. — xvii 223 
 
 xiii. I fF 31 
 
 16 28 
 
 34 31 
 
 xiv. 26 166 
 
 XV. iff 31 
 
 26f 166 
 
 xvi. 7ff 31 
 
 I3ff 166 
 
 xvii. 2of 3if 
 
 xviii. 20 118 
 
 XX. 19—23 32 
 
 24 28 
 
 xxi. 16 loi 
 
 Acts 
 
 i. if 26 
 
 ■i 39 
 
 3 39 
 
 4f 39 
 
 8 37 
 
 10 179 
 
INDEX. 
 
 301 
 
 Acts PAGE 
 
 i. i3f 42 
 
 15 43 
 
 17 38. 204 
 
 2if 38 
 
 25 204 
 
 26 34 
 
 ii 43f 
 
 14 34 
 
 32 39 
 
 42 43ff 
 
 43ff 45. 47 
 
 i»- 15 39 
 
 iv. 27 36 
 
 33 39> 46 
 
 V. I — II 48f 
 
 II S3 
 
 I2ff 49f 
 
 13 52 
 
 32 39 
 
 vi 5off 
 
 1 f 206 
 
 2 34 
 
 3 — 6 100 
 
 3 189 
 
 4 43. 46 
 
 6 206, 216 
 
 7 52 
 
 ^dii. I 53 
 
 3 53 
 
 i4ff 54f 
 
 27 179 
 
 ix. lof 182 
 
 12 215 
 
 13 56 
 
 i7f 55 
 
 17 182, 215 
 
 27 48 
 
 31 ,....,...,...,,,...55. 104 
 
 Acta PAGE 
 
 ix. 32 56 
 
 41 57 
 
 X. 5 l82f 
 
 17 179 
 
 39ff 39 
 
 44ff 54 
 
 45 57 
 
 xi. iff 57 
 
 3 74 
 
 18 68 
 
 20 61 
 
 22ff 48, 60 
 
 22 90 
 
 26 91 
 
 27 63f 
 
 29 91, 206 
 
 30 61 
 
 xii. I — 19 6if 
 
 7 179 
 
 17 62, 76,87 
 
 25 206 
 
 xiii. iff 63 
 
 I 91 
 
 3 183, 216 
 
 4 64 
 
 5 182 
 
 31 39 
 
 46 6(,, 80 
 
 xiv. 23 655, 103, 215 
 
 26 (,6 
 
 27 64. 91 
 
 28 91 
 
 XV 67 ff 
 
 I 67. 91 
 
 3f 69 
 
 5 69 
 
 6 69f 
 
 7 80 
 
303 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Acts PAGE 
 
 XV. 12 70 
 
 i3f 80 
 
 14 13 
 
 16 II 
 
 19 80, 82 
 
 22 70, 82 
 
 23ff 71 f 
 
 24 68 
 
 25 82 
 
 28f 81 
 
 3off 7^-f 
 
 30 91 
 
 32 91 
 
 33 91 
 
 36 92 
 
 xvi. I — 4 i7Sf 
 
 I 183 
 
 4 8iff, 93, 113 
 
 S 94 
 
 6 9S 
 
 15 80 
 
 34 173 
 
 xvii. 24 164 
 
 xviii. 10 13 
 
 22 96 
 
 xix. 6f 54 
 
 9 96 
 
 21 97 
 
 22 205 
 
 32 97 
 
 39 97 
 
 41 97 
 
 XX. 17 97 f 
 
 24 103, 204 
 
 28 13, 98 f, 102, 190 
 
 31 •• loi 
 
 32 66, io3f 
 
 35 "6, IS9 
 
 Acts PAGE 
 
 xxi. i7f 105 
 
 19 204 
 
 20 ■. 105 
 
 25 82, 93, losf 
 
 xxii. 27f 143 
 
 xxiii. }. 137 
 
 xxvi. 8 80 
 
 18 104 
 
 xxviii. 8 215 
 
 14 106 
 
 17 106 
 
 James 
 
 ii. 2 ff 221 
 
 V. 14 116, 215, 221 
 
 1 Peter 
 
 i. I f 114 
 
 ii. 4 221 f 
 
 9f 13 
 
 10 22rf 
 
 25 99> 191 
 
 iv. 9 122, IJ5, 192, 222 
 
 10 153 
 
 lof 204 
 
 17 173 
 
 V. I — 5 222 
 
 1 Jolrn 
 
 i- ' 39 
 
 3 John 
 
 5 — 8 122 
 
 6 118 
 
 gf 116 
 
 Jude 
 
 I 114 
 
 Komaus 
 
 i-S 156 
 
 6 no 
 
 7 "4f 
 
 8 121 
 
INDEX. 
 
 303 
 
 Romans page 
 
 i- iif 133 
 
 II 15s 
 
 V- 15 153 
 
 vi- ^3 153 
 
 vii. 4 Ill, 150 
 
 ix. — xi 143 
 
 ix. 3 Ill 
 
 6 Ill 
 
 25 13 
 
 xi, 13 204 
 
 15 134 
 
 28 114 
 
 29 154 
 
 xii., xiii 134 
 
 xii. 3—5 146 
 
 3 156 
 
 6—8 153 
 
 6 156 
 
 7 2°4 
 
 8 liS, 307 
 
 13 122, 192 
 
 xiii. 4 204 
 
 xiv 134 
 
 I. 3 134 
 
 18 Ill 
 
 XV., xvi 134 
 
 XV. 3 Ill 
 
 7 III. 134 
 
 15 156 
 
 24 122 
 
 25 206 
 
 31 206 
 
 32 133 
 
 xvi. if. 122, 207 
 
 I iisf 
 
 2 126 
 
 3f 207 
 
 4 1151 117. i«« 
 
 Komana page 
 
 xvi. 5 118 
 
 16 no, 117, 122 
 
 17 — 20 122, 134 
 
 23 1x5 
 
 1 Corinthiaus 
 
 i. 2 103, 108, no, 113, 
 
 iiSf, 119 
 
 4—6 156 
 
 4—9 "9 
 
 9 iigf 
 
 10 — 17 129? 
 
 ii. 2f. 139 
 
 iii. 5— 15 160 
 
 10 156 
 
 II 167 
 
 15 204 
 
 i6f 130, 164 
 
 iv. 6 126, 13° 
 
 14 — 17 116 
 
 17 116 
 
 V i3of 
 
 18 131 
 
 vi 131 
 
 4 116 
 
 vii- 7 154 
 
 17 117, 121 
 
 40 99 
 
 viii 131 
 
 23 65 
 
 ix. — xi 13 if 
 
 i 134 
 
 16, 21 131 
 
 32 103, 108, 117 
 
 xi. 3 150 
 
 16 108, 117, 120 
 
 17—34 131 
 
 18 118 
 
 22 103, 108, 117 
 
304 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 1 Corlntliiana page 
 
 xi. 24f 30 
 
 xii 132 
 
 4— II 153 
 
 5 204 
 
 8—10 159 
 
 12—27 I45f 
 
 18 157 
 
 28 117, 157 
 
 28—31 153 
 
 xiii 132 
 
 xiv 132 
 
 4f 116 
 
 12 116 
 
 19 118 
 
 23 116 
 
 28 118 
 
 33 117. 120 
 
 34 "8 
 
 36 120 
 
 XV. 7 75f 
 
 9 116 
 
 xvi. I iisf, 121 
 
 6 122 
 
 15 159' 2o6f 
 
 19 iisf, 118, 122 
 
 i9f no 
 
 2 Corinthians 
 
 i. I ...103, 108, 113, 115 f 
 
 II 154 
 
 16 122 
 
 ii-Sff 131 
 
 6f 215 
 
 iii- i, 121 
 
 iv. I 204 
 
 V. 18 204 
 
 vi. 3f 204 
 
 16 164 
 
 viii. I ..,,..,, , 115^ 
 
 2 Connthians faue 
 
 viii. 4 206 
 
 18 117 
 
 19 117. 215 
 
 23 117 
 
 24 "7 
 
 ix. I 206 
 
 12 f 206 
 
 13 132 
 
 xi. 2 150 
 
 8 117 
 
 I3f "I 
 
 22f Ill 
 
 28 117 
 
 xii. 13 117 
 
 19 — xiii. 13 132 
 
 xiii. 14 132 
 
 Galatlans 
 
 i. ■'■ 113) "5. 116 
 
 13 "6 
 
 15 156, 165 
 
 19 77 
 
 22 log, 115, 116 
 
 ii. 2 d^ 
 
 6 84f 
 
 7—12 85f 
 
 9 156. 179 
 
 13 ff 74 
 
 vi. 10 173 
 
 Epheslans 
 
 i. I no, 114, 115 
 
 10 147 
 
 18 104 
 
 22 117 
 
 22 f 147 
 
 ii- 3 149 
 
 II — 22 141 
 
 13—18 149 
 
 19 ■.■.:: 173 
 
INDEX. 
 
 IPS 
 
 Ephesiaus page 
 
 ii. «o 165 
 
 2if 164 
 
 iii- ■'; 7. 8 156 
 
 Sf- 165, 167 
 
 6ff 166 
 
 10 117, 142 
 
 20f 142 
 
 21 117 
 
 iv. 7—12 ...153, 157 f, 161 f 
 
 II 166 
 
 12 204 
 
 25 fif 162 
 
 V. 22—33 isoff 
 
 33ff 117 
 
 27 117 
 
 29 117 
 
 S'^ "7 
 
 vi. 21 205 
 
 Fliilippians 
 
 i. I ...no, ii4f, 126, 136, 
 
 2Ilff 
 
 5—7 136 
 
 12 — 20 136 
 
 25f 136 
 
 27 137 
 
 ii. I — II 137 
 
 17—30 136 
 
 25 65 
 
 iii. 6 116 
 
 20 137 
 
 iv. 3, 10 136 
 
 14—19 136 
 
 15 "6 
 
 22 122 
 
 Colossians 
 
 i, 2 no, ii4f 
 
 4 121 
 
 12 104 
 
 H. E. 
 
 Colossians page 
 
 i- 17 '47 
 
 18 117, I47f 
 
 20 147, 149 
 
 23 204 
 
 24 "7. 149 
 
 25 204 
 
 iii. 15 161 
 
 iv. 7 205 
 
 15 118 
 
 16 iisf. 122 
 
 17 205 . 
 
 1 Thessaloniaus 
 
 i. I 109, 112, 114, n6 
 
 4 "3 
 
 7f 121 
 
 ii- 8 155 
 
 14 loSf, iisf 
 
 i5f 109, 220 
 
 iii. 12 124 
 
 iv. 9 124 
 
 pf. 121, 124 
 
 V. II— 15 I25ff 
 
 23 128 
 
 2 Thessalomans 
 
 i. 1 109, 112, 114, 116 
 
 3f 121 
 
 4 108, 117 
 
 iii. 6 — 16 I24f 
 
 II 126 
 
 Hebrews 
 
 iii. sf 173 
 
 12 173 
 
 iv. 9 13 
 
 vi. 10 208 
 
 viii. 10 13 
 
 ix. 14 173 
 
 X. 21 173 
 
 xii. 22 173 
 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hebrews page 
 
 xiii. 1 I23, 192 
 
 13 13 
 
 17 222 
 
 1 Timothy 
 
 i- 5 "^oi 
 
 18 i8iff 
 
 19 201 
 
 ii. I — 4 iiSSf 
 
 iii- I— 13 I93ff 
 
 S 103. 108. "6, 173 
 
 7—13 i98f 
 
 9 201 
 
 13 202 
 
 14 f I72ff 
 
 14 177 
 
 15 108, 116 
 
 iv. 10 174 
 
 14 i84ff 
 
 V. I 196 
 
 3 — 16 216 f 
 
 16 116 
 
 i7ff i93f. iq6 
 
 19 197 
 
 22 2I4f 
 
 vi. 4 220 
 
 2 Timothy 
 
 i. 6 i86f 
 
 2 Timothy page 
 
 i. 18 205 
 
 iv. 5 158, 204f 
 
 9 178 
 
 10 176 
 
 n 205 
 
 12 178 
 
 Titua 
 
 i- 4 I7S 
 
 5—9 '9off. 194 
 
 ii- 14 13 
 
 Philemon 138 
 
 2 ii8 
 
 13 '205 
 
 Apocalypse 
 
 i. 4 "Sf 
 
 6 222 
 
 II, 20 116 
 
 ii. I, 8, 12, 18 iisf 
 
 7, II, 17, 29 117 
 
 23 "7 
 
 iii- i, 7. 14 iisf 
 
 6, 13, 22 117 
 
 V. 10 222 
 
 vii 223 
 
 xxi 223 
 
 xxii. 16 117 
 
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