i'ii''tH;-?iui'i!i-!i!UU3JH{IU?!!Ji'i'jni;^ ll*!'}iftiL.riTot xiii ikXiktb) Kcti Tirroi, Apoc, xvii. 14." Heidegger, Corpus Theol. Christiance, Iccus xxvi. 6. '^ John viii. 56. 3 Neh. ix. 7 ; Heb. xi. 8. Throughout these lectures I quote, as a rule, from the Revised Version (1881-1885), and use the Revisers' Greek text as given Ijy I'almer (Oxford 1881). ABRAHAM S POSITION IN SCRIPTUEE. 3 example of his faith and obedience. " Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord : . . . Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you ; for when he was but one, I called him, and I blessed liim, and made him many." " But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend ; thou whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the corners thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away ; fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." " So then, they which be of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham." ^ The more we study what is said in Scripture of Abraham and the events of his life, the more we shall be struck with the peculiarity and loftiness of the position which he holds. His name stands out from the first as a mighty landmark in the history of redemption. It has been calculated that in the later books of the Old and Xew Testament there are about one hundred references to the covenant made with Abraham, as compared with some eight or ten references to the covenants with Adam and with Noah.^ Those earlier covenants were very great and momentous transactions. Adam conies before us as the first natural head of the human family, and is dealt with as such by God, both before and after the Fall. Noah is treated as the head and representative of our race in the Divine covenant after the Flood, regarding the stability of the ordinances of nature. Yet the covenant with Abraham is referred to at least ten times as often in the later Scriptures. And of all Old Testament names, with perliaps the single exception of that of Moses, Abraham's occurs oftenest in the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. More is made of the brief narrative of his life in the teaching of our Lord and His apostles, than of the chapters and books devoted to the history of Joshua, Samuel, David, and all the kings of Israel and Judah put together. In two long sections of his two great theological Epistles, — Romans and Galatians, — the Apostle Paul draws or illus- ' Isa. li. 1 f., xli. 8-10; Gal. iii. 9. * Stuart Koljinson, Discoiir-ien on Redemption, 2nd eJ. p. 76. ■4 THE CHURCH IX THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. trates his reasonings al30ut the most vital doctrines of the Christian faith from what is said in Genesis of Abraham. James, the Lord's brother, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews do the same. How are we to explain this ? Not from personal achievements. Abraham founded no kingdom. He wrote no part of Scripture. He is called " a prophet ; " but no prophetic utterance has come down to us under his name.^ Nor can we find the explanation in Abra- ham's personal character or holiness of life. He does not stand out in the history as a perfect man. His faith was not always strong. Something of that tendency to craft and falsehood which came out so plainly in several of his descend- ants is seen also in Abraham. Other lives recorded in Scripture, such as those of Joshua and Daniel, are more blameless than his. Undoubtedly there is much that is striking about Abraham's character. We see in him a noble simplicity and strength of faith, a generosity and unselfishness, a spiritual greatness, well suited to the great position which he holds in the history of revelation. But these things are not the reason of that position. The explanation becomes clear when we read the history of Abraham in the light of those New Testament passages, to some of which reference has already been made ; espe- cially when, to use a vivid image of Calvin's, we " follow Paul, going before us with his torch held up." ^ In that light certain things stand out plainly which have a direct bearing on the subject of these lectures. I. " The Gospel " was " preached beforehand unto Abra- ham," and received by him. The apostle's whole argument with the Galatiau Christians, in the third chapter of his Epistle to them, is, that if they do not know Abraham's Gospel, they do not know the Gospel of God's grace at all. ■• Gen. XX. 7 ; Ps. cv. 15. It may have been through Abraham, as Dr. Dykes suggests, that Rebekah "inquired of Jehovah," as recorded in Gen. xxv. 23, and received the brief enigmatic oracle concerning the future of her two sons, then unborn ; but this cannot be said to bo more than a conjecture, although a probable one. Dykes, Abraham, the Friend of God, 3rd ed. p. 315. ^ " Nisi facem nobis praatulisset Paulus." Calvin, Gomment. in Gen. xv. 5. Abraham's position in scmrTURE. 5> He reasons to a like effect throiigliout the fourth chapter of Eomans. II. The covenant wliich God made with Abraham and his seed was the very covenant of grace and peace whereby we also, if we are true believers, inherit the promises. " The blessing of Abraham," Paul tells the Galatians, " has come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus." We are heirs of the blessing only as we are " Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise " given to him and his.^ If we are not in that " covenant confirmed beforehand by God," ^ we are not in the covenant at all. III. In the history of Abraham we see a little company of believers gathered together on the ground of God's gracious word and covenant, in the world, yet not of it, united for common worship and witness -bearing, with work to do for God, which has relation to a future of blessing, in which, through them, all the world is to share, with a solemn sacra- ment of admission into this fellowship applicable both to themselves and to their infant seed. In other words, the Church of God, built upon the Gospel and the covenant of grace, was distinctly and visibly set up in connection with God's dealings with Abraham. In these facts we have the key to the unparalleled position assigned to Abraham both in the Old and New Testament; and under these three heads we may consider the chief " momenta " for the Scripture doctrine of the Church which appear in the patriarchal period of the history of revelation. It is worth noting for a moment at this point how, as the centuries of that history roll on, the call and the obedience of Abraham stand out more and more clearly, as forming in many respects the greatest epoch between the Fall and the coming of the Saviour.' At each great step taken afterwards 1 Gal. iii. 14-19, 29. - Gal. iii. 17. The us Xpurrii, "with respect to Christ," of the TextusReceptns in this verse is no doubt, critically considered, a gloss, and is rightly excluded from the text by the R. V. But the whole context and scope of the passage show as clearly that it is a correct interpretation. ^ As it has been well put by an honoured father of our Church, the Moderator of last General Assembly, "The transmission of the true religion, and all the salvation which the world will ever experience, shall yet be traced back, with 6 THE CHUKCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. in the development of God's purposes of grace towards men there is some reference to the revelation made to Abraham. At each great revival of spiritual life among God's people, at each turning-point in their history, there is a fresh taking hold of the covenant made with Abraham, and of the promises given to him and to his seed. When Israel cried to God from the iron furnace of Egypt, *' God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them." His first word concerning Himself to Moses at the bush was : " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. , . . Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you ; this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." ^ It is here that Moses finds his chief argument when pleading for the people in the crisis brought about by their sin beneath the mountain of the law : " Eemember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self. . . . And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." ^ So in the parting charge of Joshua to the children of Israel in Canaan ; so in the religious movements under Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah ; ^ so repeatedly in the words of psalmists and prophets, whether speaking to Israel in their own land or to Israel in the exile.^ The same thing comes out strikingly in connection with the new beginnings of national and religious life after the return from Babylon under Ezra and Nehemiah. Listen to the magnificent doxology in which the feelings of the time found expression : " Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting : and blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. . . . Thou wonder, gratitude, and joy, to that morning dawn when 'the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.' " Piincipal Brown of Aberdeen, Romans, ed. 1883, p. 42. 1 Ex. ii. 23 ; iii. 6, 15. » Ex. xxxii. 13 f. 3 2 Chrou. XX. 7 ; xxx. 6. * Ps. xlvii. 9, 10 ; cv. 6-10, 42. ABRAHAM S POSITION IX SCWPTL'KE. 7 art the Lord the God who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham ; and foundest his heart faithful before Thee, and niadest a covenant with him . . . and hast performed Thy words, for Thou art righteous." ^ Pass on to the final stage of revelation ; the very first sentence of the first Gospel takes us back to Abraham. This is the life of " His seed, which is Christ." " The Book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." "^ When the birth of the Saviour was first announced to those who " waited for the consolation of Israel," and the Spirit gave them utterance, they saw and said that this was the performance of the covenant made with Abraham, the fulfil- ment of the " good tidings preached beforehand " unto him. " My soul doth magnify the Lord," Mary says, " and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. ... He hath holpen Israel His servant, that He might remember mercy (as He spake unto our fathers) toward Abraham and his seed for ever." ^ " Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel ; for He hath visited and wrought redemption for His people ... to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He sware unto Abraham our father, to grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days ... to give knowledge of salvation unto His people in the remission of their sins." * So, too, when the Holy Ghost had come in power upon the apostles at Pentecost, it is noteworthy how often they turn in their first public addresses to Abraham and the Church in his house. As the master builders of the Church of God, under the New Testament dispensation, they seem carried back over all the temporary peculiarities of the Sinaitic legislation to build afresh on the broad lines of the covenant of grace witli Abraham and with his seed for ever. Listen to Peter on the day of Pentecost speaking to repentant children of Abraham, 1 Nch. ix. 5, 7 f. ■ Matt. i. 1 ; Gal. iii. 16. 3 Luke i. 46 f., 54. * Luke i. 67 f., 72-77. 8 THE CHUKCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. " devout men, Jews and proselytes. Eepent ye and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him." ^ Listen to the same apostle in the temple after the healing of the lame man : " The God of Abraham, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Servant Jesus. ... Ye are the sons of the covenant which God made with your fathers {rrj<; Bta6rJK7]7 f."^ The idea of the " seed," in short, in this aspect of it, as seen by the apostle in New Testament light, corresponds to that which he embodies in other passages of his writings, which we shall have occasion to consider at a later stage in these lectures. It corresponds to the conception, developed in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, of " the Church which is Christ's body," or to that in 1 Cor. xii. 12 f . : " As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is Christ," that is. He and His people together.^ " For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks." The covenant, then, was made by God with Abraham, but not with him as an individual merely. It was with ^ Fairbairn, lb. p. 460 ; see also Rainy, Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 338-340. Comp. Pfleiderer, Hihhert Ltd. 1885, p. 126 : "This Hue of argiiuient (as to the promise to Abraham having reference to Christ as his seed) seems surprising at first sight ; but the strangeness of it is lessened when we consider that in Paul's view Christ was not a mere individual like others, but the archetypal Head of the sons of God generally, and thereby the one Representative of all those for whom the Divine promises of grace are intended." ^ Comp. Principal Edwards on this verse: "Christ is here regarded as the ])ersonal subject, the ' Ego ' whose body is the Church. In modern form the a[iostlc might have said : As the person is one, while the members of his body are many, so also Christ is One, but the members of His mystical body, the Church, are many." First Corinthians, 2nd ed. p. 324 f. ; see also Godet in Expositor, 3rd series, i. p. 293 f. 38 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. Abraham as one with " his seed, which is Christ." He was " the son of David," as the first Gospel says in its first sentence, " the son of Abraham." But just as David's Son was David's Lord, according to the psahn by which Christ put the Pharisees to silence ; so Abraham's seed was Abraham's Lord as well. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was born, I am {Trpiv ^A^paa/j, yeveaOai, 'Ejco eifii)." ^ And so, as the old divines of the Eeformed Church loved to point out from this passage, the covenant, in one aspect of it, was made with Him before it was made with Abraham. It was "a covenant confirmed beforehand by God"^ to Christ in the eternal counsels of peace that were betwixt them both in the beginning, ere ever the world was. But looking now at the covenant as specially revealed and confirmed to Abraham, we see that it was between God as a God of grace on the one hand, and on the other the patriarch as a believing man and a representative of believers, laying hold by faith of the promises of God to him and his, laying hold of God Himself to be his God and theirs in an everlasting covenant. 3rd. The tokens or signs of the covenant. When Abraham thus " believed in the Lord, He reckoned it to him for righteousness." The covenant of Divine accept- ance and friendship was formed then ; and God in gracious condescension bound Himself to perform all that it implied, and gave a visible sign of this, a token for Abraham's faith to grasp, by making His glory to pass between the sacrifices which the patriarch at His command had prepared. It was the first time since the fall that the visible presence of God — the Shekinah, as the Jewish teachers called it — had been manifested to men. The appearance, as of " a smoking furnace and a flaming torch," recalls " the flame of a sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." ^ In both revelations there was an element of majesty and terror as well as of grace, as afterwards in the pillar of cloud and fire. 1 John viii. 58. " Gal. iii. 17. » Gen. iii. 24 ; xv. 16-18. THE TOKENS OF THE COVENANT. 3^ Again, when, some thirteen years afterwards, that fuller and more explicit proclamation of the covenant came, of which we have the record in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, Abraham and all who were his received, as the apostle says, " the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteous- ness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircum- cision." ^ Thereby Abraham, for himself and all whom he represented, formally accepted his side of the covenant, binding its obligations upon himself and them. What the special significance was of circumcision as a token of the covenant may be more suitably considered under the next head, when we look at it as the appointed ordinance of admission into the covenant fellowship. ]\Ieanwhile observe that in thus openly and deliberately taking hold of God's covenant, Abraham acted, in the first place, only for himself and those of his family, whose covenant standing was by reason of age and position bound up for the time with his own. But, as the apostle shows so fully in the passages on which we have been dwelling, in another aspect of the transaction all the faithful are to recognise Abraham as their representative in the covenant. He is " the father of all them that believe." " If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise ; " ^ in other words, if we are of the same faith, we are in the same covenant, and heirs of the promises which it made sure. Only we have to transact for ourselves, separately, with the Lord, the Author and Administrator of the covenant, the same in Abraham's days and in ours, as to our own personal interest in it.^ We have to do, in short, just as Gentile sojourners had to do before they could receive that ordinance which was the sign and " seal of the righteousness of faith." They had to come first " to put their trust under the wings of the Lord God of Israel," to "join themselves unto the 1 Rom. iv. 11. » Rom. iv. 11; Gal. iii. 29. ' As Augustine says of those who entered in by the door into the sheepfold before Christ came in the flesh : " The times are diverse, not the faitli " (Tempora variata sunt, non fides). Aug. In Joannis Evangel. Tractatwi, xlv. 9. 40 THE CHUKCII IX THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. Lord," to " love the name of the Lord," before they received the token of the Lord's covenant with Abraham and his Christians now, as the apostle's words teach us, get to Abraham and to Abraham's covenant-standing and blessing through Christ, not to Christ through Abraham. Members of Abraham's family by natural descent, such as Esau, although circumcised as children, when one with their father from age and position in the house, might by their own act separate themselves afterwards from the blessing. All the children of Abraham were not " reckoned for a seed," but " in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Only to " those who were of faith " was the ordinance of circumcision what it was to Abraham himself, and to Isaac, not only a sign but a seal of the righteousness of faith and of the covenant of spiritual blessing. It is worthy of note in this connection how, once and again, when some man or woman had come to our Lord in faith for bodily or spiritual healing. He emphasized in their case that very relation to Abraham which He denied, as we have seen, in the case of the Jews who prided themselves on their natural descent from him. " Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath ? " " To-day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham ; for the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." ' " The God before whom Abraham and Isaac did walk, the angel that redeemed them from all evil," has been made known to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him the Gospel and the covenant are brought nigh to us. " Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen, in whom my soul deligliteth : I have put my Spirit upon Him ; he shall bring ' Ruth ii. 12 ; Ex. xii. 48 ; Isa. Ivi. 3, 6. In the Rabbinical writings circumcision in the case of proselytes and their cliihlren is called "the seal of Abraham" (omax TC^ lOmn), or "the seal of the holy covenant" {\:^ipr\ nnn bi:^ lOmn), Shemoth rabba, c. 19. Weber, Sijstem der altsi/nafjogalenPalanlinischen Theolo'jie aiis Taryuin, Midrash u. Talmud dar- rjtstellt, Leipzig 1880, S. 75. - Luke xiii. 10 ; xix. 9 f. THE TOKENS OF THE COVENANT. 41 forth judgment to the Gentiles. ... I the Lord will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant to the people, for a light to the Gentiles." " That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." ^ The covenant with Abraham was thus sealed on both sides by sacrifice and shedding of blood. God Himself came forward in this way, as we have seen, at the first great ratification of the covenant, wlien His glory passed between the divided sacrifices.^ Abraham, on his part, from the first offered sacrifice. " The lamb for the burnt-offering " was the form of sacrifice in the worship of God with which his children and his servants were most familiar.^ Sacrifice always meant giving something. In the sacrifice of the lamb life was offered to God, the life of one of those creatures Mhich He had " given " to man " for food," — and life with the blood, the special vehicle and representative of the life, which had a peculiar sacredness, because by the covenant with Noah and his seed it had not been given for food, but solemnly reserved in some sense for God.* But in the supreme crisis in the history of Abraham as a believing man, he was taught that sacrifice meant giving to God, not only something, not only what was of value, but what was absolutely best. It meant giving what included everything, what was dearer to him than his own life. And it was when Abraham's faith came forth victorious in that supreme trial, when his heart was found right with God, withholding nothing from him, that the heart of God was most fully revealed to Abraham. It was on Mount Moriah that the covenant of blessing was most strongly confirmed. It was there that " God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, interposed with an oath, that by two immutable things," the word and the oath of the covenant, they " might have strong encouragement." ^ The Promiser became the Surety. " By myself have I sworn, saith the ' Gen. xlviii. 15 ; Isa. xlii. 1, 6 ; Gal. iii. 14. 2 Gen. XV. 17. * Gen. xxii. 5-8. ^ * Gen. ix. 1-7. * Heb. vi. 17 f. 42 THE CHURCH IX THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. Lord ; because thou Last done this thing, and hast not with- held thy son, thine only son : that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea- shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies : and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ; because thou hast obeyed my voice." ^ What Abraham himself saw of " the day of Christ " from this " mount of the Lord " we cannot tell. That he did see something of that day afar off, and rejoiced in it, our Lord Himself assures us.^ But no Christian can fail to see the light of that day thrown before in this wonderful history of the offering of Isaac. In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ we see the heart of God revealed. We hear Him saying to every sinner who has believed in the love of God manifested in that great sacrifice, and has made that Saviour his : " By myself I have sworn, that in blessing I will bless thee." " It is God that justifieth ; Who is he that shall condemn ? " " He who spared not his His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things ? " ^ 1 Gen. xxii. 16-18. 2 joj^ viii. 56. ^ Rom. viii. 32 f. " Judaism sees in the offering or the binding of Isaac (pnV mpy) a transaction full of meritorious efRcacy for all times, and availing with God for the good of Israel. Where the Church prays : ' For the sake of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ,' the synagogue prays : 'For the sake of the binding of Isaac' This greatest temptation (jVOj) of Abraham is held by her to be the banner (dj) of Israel ; and it is so in truth, but only in the light of its antitype which the synagogue still disowns." Dtditzsch, Genesis, 3te Ausg. S. 418. CHAT TEE ITT. THE CHUKCII OF GOD VISIBLY SET UP IX THE TIME OF ABEAHAM. IN the history of Abraham we see the Church of God visibly set up, built upon the Gospel declared to him, and the covenant made with him and his seed. There had been believing men and " preachers of righteous- ness" before Abraham. Abel offered sacrifice in faith, and obtained witness from God that he was righteous in His sight. Enoch walked with God and bore witness for Him, and " had this testimony, that he pleased God." Noah " became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith." There had been altars raised before the flood ; men had " called upon the name of the Lord," as it seems, in common worship.^ But now, for the first time in the record of revelation, we find God by His word and providence distinctly separating to Himself a little company of men " called, and chosen, and faithful." At a time when the dark history of the world before the flood threatened to repeat itself, when the clouds seemed gathering again over the future of mankind, God makes His bow of promise to appear in the cloud. He calls and sepa- rates to Himself this little fellowship of believers together with their children, not for the destruction of the world, but that, in the end, the world through them might be saved. " To Abraham and to his seed are the promises spoken," — promises which comprise, as we have seen, the very same Gospel of salvation which was to be made known afterwards to the Gentiles in Jesus Christ. God establishes these promises by solemn covenant made, not with Abraham only nor with Abraham as a representative of believers only, but ^ Heb xi. 4-7 ; Gen. iv. 26 ; comp. Candlish, Genesis, 2nd ed. i. p. 281 fif. 44 THE CHUKCH IN THE TIME OF ABKAHAM. with " his seed, which is Christ." As Abraham himself was " the father of all them that believe," so " the Church in his house " with its simple Gospel " preached beforehand " to him and his, with its sacrament of admission common to the believer and his infant seed, with its worship under the open heaven beside the altar of sacrifice, with its testimony for God and its influence on all around, was the true mother Church of all the Churches in which those " called of God and chosen and faithful " have been joined together in all ages and all lands for common worship and spiritual fellow- ship, for work and witness-bearing. If we turn to the symbolical books of Eeformed Christen- dom for their most careful definition of " the visible Church Catholic," we find that it " consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children," and is " the house and family of God." ^ We can hardly fail to recognise what answers closely to this definition in the picture which Scripture gives of Abraham and his household and of his relations with all, such as Melchisedec, in whom the knowledge and the fear of God were found in his time. The lines of likeness stand out the more clearly the more we look into the history, using especially the light which apostolic interpretation throws upon it. Bishop Lightfoot shows in an interesting way how Paul in this matter avoids the errors fallen into, in opposite directions, by Alexandrian Judaism on the one hand and Palestinian Judaism on the other, and how he combines all that was true in the teaching of both. After a careful examination of the references to Abraham's life and character in the writings of Philo, the great representative of the Alexandrian school of Jewish theology, Dr. Lightfoot con- cludes : " If we look only to the individual man, faith with Philo is substantially the same as faith with St. Paul. The lessons drawn from the history of Abraham by the Alexandrian Jew and the Christian apostle differ very slightly. Faith is the postponement of all present aims and desires, the sacrifice of all material interests to the Infinite and Unseen. But the philosopher of Alexandria saw no ^ Westminster Conf. xxv. 2. THE CHURCH IN ABRAHAM'S HOUSE. 45 historical bearing in the career of Abraham. As he was severed from the heart of the nation, so the pulses of national life had ceased to beat in him. The idea of a chosen people retained scarcely the faintest hold on his thoughts. Hence the only lesson which he drew from the patriarch's life had reference to himself. Abraham was but a type, a symbol of the individual man. The promises made to him, the rich inheritance, the numerous progeny, had no fulfilment except in the growth of his own character. The Alexandrian Jew like the heathen philosopher was exclusive, isolated, selfish. With him the theocracy of the Old Testament was emptied of all its meaning ; the covenant was a matter between God and his own spirit. The idea of a Church did not enter into his reckoning. He appreciated the significance of Abraham's faith ; but Abraham's seed was almost meaningless to him. " On the other hand, Judaism proper was strong where Alexandrian Judaism was weak, and weak where it was strong. The oppressive rule of Syrians and Eomans had served only to develop and strengthen the national feeling. ' We are Abraham's sons ; we have Abraham to our father : ' such was their religious war-cry, full of meaning to every true Israelite. It was a protest against selfish isolation. It spoke of a corporate life, of national hopes and interests, of an outward community, a common brotherhood, ruled by the same laws and animated by the same feelings. In other words, it kept alive the idea of a Church. This was the point of contact between St. Paul's teaching and Eabbinical Judaism. But their agreement does not go much beyond this. With them, indeed, he upheld the faith of Abraham as an example to Abraham's descendants. But while they interpreted it as a rigorous observance of outward ordinances, he understood by it a spiritual state, a stedfast reliance on the unseen God. With them, too, he clung to the fulfilment of the promise, he cherished fondly the privi- leges of a son of Abraham. But to him the link of brother- hood was no longer the same blood but the same spirit ; tliey only were Abraham's sons who inherited Abraham's faith." ^ 1 Liglifoot, Galatianx, 5th ed. p. 163. 46 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. Consider for a little the worship of the patriarchal Church, its ordinance of admission, the gracious character of its fellowship with God, and the practical fruits in it of the Gospel preached beforehand to Abraham and received by him and his. 1st. Its worship. " Abraham," as Calvin says finely, " bore with him every- where an altar in his heart." ^ That spirit of faith in God and reverence before Him, which so marks the patriarch's life, found natural expression in those simple altars which he built wherever his tents were pitched, under the tree of Moreh, by the well of the oath, beneath " the oaks of Mamre which are in Hebron." With these altars Abraham took possession of the land for God. These with " the lamb for a burnt-offering " ^ formed the centre of the worship of his great household when he gathered them together to " call upon the name of the Lord, the everlasting God," and to " command his children and his household to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, to the end that the Lord might bring upon him " and them " that which he had spoken." ^ "Nothing is more characteristic," says a great German interpreter, " of the spirit of the worship of Abraham and his descendants than the custom of everywhere raising simple altars, without images or temple, under the open heaven. These were enough where men believed in an unseen God in the heavens, and corresponded in their simplicity with a religion as true as it was simple." Ewald adds one of his many memorable sayings, full of characteristic insight, to the effect that Monotheism is the most natural faitli, just because of its truth. The man who really meets with God hiiows that it is One Power that meets hira.'^ 1 " Ferebat ipse altare in corde suo," Calvin, In Genes, xiii. 18. - Gen. xxii. 5-8. The words of Abraham to the servants show that " worship " to him and them implied sacrifice ; those of Isaac seem to indicate what he looked for at any altar, what was the most common form of sacrifice in his father's house. 3 Gen. xxi. 33 ; xviii. 19. ■• Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 3te Ansg. i. S. 459 f, E. Tr. i. p. 320. ITS WORSHIP. 47 " Abrara passed through the land," we read in reference to his first setting foot in that country wliich God promised to give him for an inheritance, " unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. . . . And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land : and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east ; and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord." ^ " The Lord appeared unto Abram." This, as has been noted,^ is the first Theophany recorded in Scripture since the time when " Adam and his wife heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden." The previous call of Abraham, like the revela- tions to Noah, is represented as having taken place in the way of a word coming from the Lord, — an inward voice, it may be, which he who heard it knew beyond question to be from God Himself. " The Lord said unto Abram " — " the Lord had spoken unto him." ^ But now, in yet more condescending grace, the Lord ajypears ; and Abram builds his first altar in the promised land " to the Lord who appeared unto him." It is striking that it should have been in that very " place of Shechem " where, hundreds of years afterwards, our Lord, " the son of David, the son of Abraham," said to the woman by the well : " The hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. But the hour cometh, and now is, M'hen the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." ■* God had sought and found such worshippers long ago in Shechem, in Abraham and his house.^ " They which be of ^ Gen. xii. 6-8. ^ Delitzsch, in loco. ' Gen. xii. 1, 4. * John iv. 23-25. •^ There, too, Jacob "came in peace," and there he dug the well that bore his name ever after, and "drank thereof, himself, and his sons, and his cattle j" "and 48 THE CHURCH IX THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. faith," — the whole household of faith in all lands, — so worship Him to-day and are accepted and " blessed with the faithful Abraham." ^ 2nd. Consider the ordinance of admission into this fellow- ship of faith. This was touched upon under a previous head,^ but may be taken up more fully now. 1. Circumcision, as the appointed sign of God's covenant with Abraham and his seed, corresponded, of course, with the nature of that covenant itself and of the blessings which the covenant made sure ; that is to say, it had primarily a spiritual meaning and force. It was designed and suited for the purposes of such a fellowship as was set up on the basis of the Gospel and the covenant revealed to Abraham.* That the ordinance was not a mere Jewish one is plain at first sight from the very time of its institution. " Circumcision," our Lord said to the Jews, " is not of Moses, but of the fathers." * When taken up into the later economy, it retained its essential character. Hence, both in the Old Testament and the New, stress is laid upon its spiritual significance. " And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good ? . . . Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as at this day. Circumcise^ therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked." "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel," Gen. xxxiii. 18-20 ; John iv. 10. 1 Gal. iii. 9. ^ See above, pp. 32 f., 39. ^ Attempts have been made, chiefly by Anti-Paedobaptist writers, to prove circumcision to be a mere carnal ordinance connected with purely temporal promises. It is unnecessary to refer to these in the text. For a full reply to them, see Bannerman, Church of Christ, ii. pp. 81-89, 96-99. Wardlaw, In/ant Baptism, 3rd ed. pp. 25-89. ■* John vii. 22. ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION. 49 to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." " For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but of God." " He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all them that believe." ^ 2. As to the special meaning of the rite of circumcision, it is clear that it spoke emphatically of purity. Aljraham and all who should be " heirs with him of the same promises " were to " cleanse themselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." ^ t f The first appointment of circumcision was introduced by a fresh revelation of God in His majesty and holiness : " The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty ; walk before Me (under My eye, as conscious of My Presence), and be thou perfect (blameless). And I v;ill make My covenant between Me and thee." ^ Then follow the promises of the covenant (vv. 4-9). Then the sign and seal of it is appointed : " This is My covenant which ye shall keep, between Me and you, and thy seed after thee ; /every male among you shall be circumcised. It shall be a token of a covenant betwixt Me and you. My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. . . . And the uncir- cumcised male, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his fore- skin, that soul shall be cut off from his people ; he hath broken My covenant."* The ordinance thus solemnly established spoke to all who received it both of privilege and responsibility. It spoke to them of a covenant fellowship with God and with His people, in which they " had to do with higher powers and higher objects than those of corrupt nature," in which they were called to " walk in His presence and be blameless." It spoke of " nature purged from its uncleanness, nature raised above ^Seut. X. 12-16 ; xxx. 6 ; Jer. iv. 4 ; ix. 25 f. ; Rom. ii. 28 f. ; iv. 11. Comp. I oairn, Typoloyy, 6th ed. i. p. 368 f. . Cor. vii. 1. 3 Gen. xvii. 1 ff. « Geu. v. 10 f., 13 f. D \3 50 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. itself, in league with the grace of God, and bearing on it the distinctive impress of His character and working." ^ " It implied that nature was impure, and could not produce the promised seed. It was a sign at once of the unfitness of nature to generate its own Saviour, and of God's intention to give this saving and blessing seed. Nature must be cut off, renounced, if God's gift is to be received. As a seal of the covenant it was handed down from father to son, and so kept the whole series and each individual in an unbroken connec- tion with the original establishment of the covenant, so that each might feel. It is to me God's promise is made." ^ 3. Circumcision by Divine appointment was administered to the infant seed of Abraham, as well as to all who were " the men of his house " and worshippers of his God. This fact, of course, raises for those who hold an individualistic theory of the way of salvation, all the difficulties which have been felt by some in connection with the Baptism of the infant children of believers under the Christian dispensation. " The sign of circumcision," the apostle expressly tells us, was " a seal of the righteousness of faith." ^ Yet it was administered to infants incapable of faith. It pledged him who received it to obedience to God's revealed will. " I testify," the same apostle writes, " to every man that receiveth circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law." * Yet it was dispensed to an unconscious child, eight days old, who could do neither good nor evil, and could in his own person undertake no obligation to do anything. Such difficulties are at once removed by recognising here the application and embodiment of that principle of representa- tion which runs through all God's dealings with men from the beginning of the history of revelation onwards. The Church of God on earth is not merely " the sum of individual converts." The grace of God and the blessings of His covenant are not confined to the one channel of conscious intelligence. " The Gospel," which was " preached beforehand unto Abraham," was to bring blessing, not to individuals only, but to " all the families of the earth." Its central prom,' % 1 Fairbnirri; ut siqyra, i. p. 368. * Dods, Genesis, p. 76 f. ' Rom. iv. 11. ' Gal. v. 3. ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION. 51 the sum of the everlasting covenant revealed to Abraham, was, " I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee." ' It was in express and direct connection with that promise that the sign of circumcision was appointed "as a token of the covenant." ^ And accordingly, as administered to infants such as Isaac, this " seal of the righteousness of faith " spoke unmistakeably of blessing to the infant members of the family through their believing head and representative, and on the ground of his faith. The ordinance testified to the existence by Divine appointment of a fellowship of believers on earth to which all who had faith in the God of Abraham were to join themselves, to which the promises of blessing were made, and in which the infant children of His people liad a special place and standing. Their connection vvith that fellowship was to be recognised then by circumcision, as it is ^ recognised now by Baptism.^ " If indeed," as it has been well expressed by one whose name will ever be held in honour in our Church, and who was the first lecturer under this Trust, " the visible Church were a mere voluntary association, — a union formed by men of their own accord, — the idea of a transmitted right or a transmitted duty might seem unreasonable and unfair. To make me a member of such a body in my infancy, and with- out my consent, might be held to be an unwarrantable infringement on my freedom of choice. But if the visible Church be God's ordinance, and not a mere contrivance or expedient of man, there is no absurdity and no injustice in the arrangement. If, while yet unconscious and incapable of consenting, I am enrolled and registered, stamped and sealed, as one of the household of God, visible on earth ; if with His sanction and by His authority I am marked out from the womb as peculiarly His — His, in the same sense in which the Christian profession of my parents makes them His — His, by privilege, by promise, and by obligation, — no wrong is done to me, nor is any restriction put on me, more than by the circumstance of my being born in a home of piety and peace rather than in a haunt of profligacy and crime. ^ "If God makes me by birth the scion of a noble stock, the ^ Gen. xvii. 7, 10. '■' Comp. Fairbairn, ut supra, i. p. 373. 52 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. child and heir of an illustrious house, then by ray birth I am necessarily invested with certain rights, and I am bound to certain duties. In so far, I have no discretion. When I am old enough to understand my position in society, I find it in a reat. And still, whether I take advantage of it or not, my birth, in the plan and purpose of God's providence, had a meaning which might have actually stood me in good stead, if I had so chosen and so willed it. So also in regard to circumcision or Baptism. If God makes me, by such an initiatory rite, such a seal or pledge of grace, imparted to me in infancy, a member of the society on earth which bears His name, I may never be in reality what that rite should signify me to be. But not the less on that account has the rite a significancy as implying a spiritual title and spiritual benefits, which are in themselves intended and fitted for my o-ood. And if afterwards I wilfully refuse them or cast them away, with the badge of them upon my person, it is with ■v^ ^aggravated guilt, and at my own increased peril." ^ Anti-Pa3dobaptists have declared that " the Gospel has nothing to do with infants, nor have Gospel ordinances any respect to them ; " that " the salvation of the Gospel is as much confined to believers as Baptism is," that " by the Gospel no infant can be saved." ^ Such statements must apply to another and a narrower Gospel than that which was " preached beforehand unto Abraham." " As we understand it," says an eminent American divine of the present day, " the Gospel is much more and better than the proclamation of the terms on which God will save those who are capable of believing." (It includes that, but it includes much more.) " It is the declaration of His infinite love to a fallen world, the revela- tion of the way in which He seeks and saves that which was 1 Candlish, Genenh, 2nd ed. i. p. 287 f. 2 Carson, Baptism in its Mode and Sidijeds, Lond. 1844, p. 173. ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION. 53 lost. We deny that any one, infant or adult, is regenerated by the proclamation of the Gospel. We are born again by the Holy Spirit, whose influences, the purchase of Clirist's death and intercession, are not confined to words nor to any outward means, but, like the wind which bloweth where it I listeth, works when and where and how He wills." ^ " The blessing of Abraham," as the apostle tells the Gala- tians, had special reference to " the promise of the Spirit " which " came upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus," a promise wliich was " unto them and to their children." " And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." "^ To limit " those who are Christ's," w^ho form " His seed, the travail of His soul, which He saw and was satisfied," to " those whom we can see, and from whom we can hear the confession of their faith, is to bound the vision and the purpose of Christ by our finite senses. The only restrictions we are authorized to put upon redeeming grace are those which God Himself has expressly imposed. We may not exclude any whom He has not excluded. He has excluded those who hear the Gospel and believe not-j But He has not excluded any infants as such. Here the silence of Scripture is profoundly significant, and it is exactly analogous as it is co-extensive with their silencelin regard to the Baptism of infants. Their Baptism and tneir salvation rest upon the same broad foundations. The silence in both cases is underlaid and pervaded by a multitude of good and necessary inferences, and re-echoes with the sweetest utterances of the still small voice of God. It is a silence and an infinitude like that which we feel on the seashore, where the waves that murmur and break at our feet are as nothing to the fulness which stretches in our thoughts beyond the bounds of our horizon. ' There's a wideness in God's mercy Like the wideness of the sea.' " ' ■ Van Dyke, " The Scripture Warrant for the Baptism of Infants," a very able artick' in the Presbyterian Review for Jan. 1885, p. 56 f. "^ Gal. iii. 14, 29 ; Acts ii. 38 f. ^ Van Dyke, ut supra, ji. 58 f. To the objection which might be suggested, " Wliy then not baptize all infants dying in infancy { " Dr. Van Dyke 54 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. But if the silence of Scripture speaks thus graciously con- cerning all infants dying in infancy, much more do its express utterances in word and sign speak in special grace to God's believing children concerning their little ones. For them, ever since He established visibly a Church for Himself in the world, God has given special promises and tokens for good, and has assigned to them a special place in the covenant- fellowship of His people on earth. The rite of circumcision in the patriarchal Church, like the later sacrament which the apostle calls " the circumcision of Christ," ^ might be defined as a holy ordinance of Divine appointment, " wherein by sensible signs " the blessings of God's grace and covenant " were represented, sealed, and applied " to believers and their infant seed." Before leaving this point, we may note the significant and, as it has been rightly called, " sacramental " change of name which took place in the case both of Abram and Sarai in connection with the institution of circumcision and the formal establishment of the covenant-fellowship of which it was the token. We are not warranted probably to lay much stress npon the suggestion of Delitzsch, that the import of the change is to be found in its being made by combining the funda- mental letter of the name nin\ " the star and centre of the wondrous future which lay before tliem and theirs," with the names which Abram and Sarai had hitherto borne.^ But undoubtedly the change carried significance with it. This also was a token of God's covenant and of the gracious fellowship established by Him with the patriarch and all who were his. And whereas, from the nature of the ordin- might probably answer that he would feel warranted in doing so if he knew certainly that they were to die, and so to be cast simply on the Fatherhood of God in Christ. Compare a sxiggestive passage in Dr. John Owen's treatise, "Of Infant Baptism and Dipping," which is referred to by Dr. Van Dyke, Works (Goold's ed.), xvi. p. 259 f. ' Col. ii. 11 f. ^ Westm. Shorter Catech. 92. Comp. Dr. Candlish's remarks on the sacra- mental terms used in Genesis and the N. T. in reference to circumcision and the cup in the Lord's Supper ; also what he says regarding the wilful neglect of ordinances involving exclusion from the visible Church, Genet>i'i, 2nd cd. i. p. 280 f. » Delitzsch, Gtnesis, 3te Ausg. S. 382. Comp. Dods, in loco. SACRAMENTAL CHANGE OF NAME. 5o ance, circumcision extended only to the males of Abraham's family, — the women being held to be represented by them, in this as in many other instances in Old Testament history, on the general principle that " the head of the woman is the man," ^ — as regards the change of name, Sarah, as being one with Abraham in faith and in the covenant, received a like sign and seal from God. " She " too " counted Him faithful who had promised," ^ and received, along with her hu.sband, this abiding sacramental pledge from the great Promiser that their faith was not in vain. " The sacramental character of a name, as of an institution or ordinance, consists," to use the words of a writer who has studied " the Personal names of the Bible" with much care, "in its Divine appointment to represent, commemorate, and testify some special grace and blessing, and so to be a permanent pledge of its bestowal, ... It was this property of perpetuity and of constant daily use which rendered a proper name so peculiarly suitable as a medium by which the gracious pur- poses and promises of God might be exhibited and remembered. It was a sign and seal of what the Lord had spoken, which was necessarily understood and recognised as such by all. It became therefore a token of profession of faith or of gratitude on the part of those wlio bore it, and of those connected with them who were interested in its significance. ... It was God's testimony of Himself, or of His will to and by those who were His, and their testimony concerning Him to the world." ^ The covenant name Abraham, '' father of a multitude," according to what seems the most probable interpretation,* commemorated the promises, the import of which we have already considered, that the patriarch should be " the father of many nations," " a great multitude that no man could number," and that " in him and his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed." The name Sarah, " princess " or ' 1 Cor. xi. 3. • Hob. xi, 11. * Wilkinson, Personal Xanies in the Bihle, Lond. 1866, p. 313 ff. * " Vater einer drohnenden Menge," Delitzscli. The author of the apocryphal book known as " Ecclesiasticus " seems to favour the rendering, "high father of a multitude," 'A/S/Jaa^ |Utya; varnp itV-ihui ii'yalv, EccluS. xliv. 19. 56 THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF ABRAHAM. " queen," was associated with God's promise, given in connec- tion with the establishment of His covenant and its token in the ordinance of circumcision : " I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations ; kings of peoples shall be of her." ^ It was doubtless from this significant event in the history of Abraham and Sarah, and of Isaac as the child of promise, that the custom arose among their descendants of giving the child its name, or at least publicly declaring the name already given at the time of its circumcision. We have instances of this in New Testament times in connection with the circum- cision of John the Baptist, and that of our Lord Himself. The name of the child, as of one who was now formally and publicly recognised as belonging to the fellowship of the house of Abraham, was fitly associated with the solemn religious ordinance which had marked the beginning of that fellowship in the covenant made by God with his great forefather and his seed for ever, and in connection with which a new and covenant name had been given both to Abraham and Sarah. 3rd. Look now at the character of the fellowship between God and man seen in the history of Abraham, and enjoyed on the footing of God's grace revealed and His covenant established with him and his. Compare it with the relation of God to the highest and most religious minds among the heathen. To them He is " the unknown God," standing over against man, obscure, invisible, inarticulate, silent.^ But here God " appears " to Abraham, speaks with him and his ; and they speak with God as a man with his friend, as children with a father. Think of those marvellous pictures in Genesis, ' Gen. xvii. 16. Comp. Wilkinson, ut supra, pp. 316-322. * See a fine passage in Ewald, i?ew/aD> from \Z'€\ to dwell) means literally dwelling-place. It is closely allied to the impressive name used in the Targums and by the Jewish Rabbis, for the glory in the midst, the visible manifestation of the Divine Presence, or for God Himself as dwelling in the Tabernacle or Temple, viz. the Shekinah (n3''3B'). Tabernacle (|3t^0) is a loftier and more poetic word in itself than "tent" (priN), which is often translated "tabernacle" in our A. V. "Temple," again (^aTl), conveys the thought that the "tent," the "house," is royal, the dwelling-place of "the great king." Comp. Dean Plumptre on the word and its synonyms in his art. "Tabernacle," in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. * Ex. XX. 24; xxxiii. 9 ff., 14-23; xxxiv. 5-9 ; 1 Kings viii. 27-30 ; Deut, X. 14-17 ; xii. 11 ; 2 Chron, vi. 18-21 ; Isa. vi. 1-5 ; Ixvi. 1. Compare the striking answer of one of the wiser Rabbis when pressed to solve THE TENT OF MEETING. 79 This brings us to that weighty and pregnant expression — " the tent of meeting." Among the many good services done by the Old Testament Company of Eevisers, not the least is this, that they have in great measure removed the obscurity which the A. V. left resting for English readers over what it called " the tabernacle of the congregation " pV^o -'^i*), but which is now recognised as " the tent of meeting." ^ The significance of the great revelation in Ex. xxix, 42-4G, stands out now in a much clearer light. The tent or taber- nacle was to be known as " the tent of meeting," because there Jehovah said, " I will meet with you to speak there unto thee. There I will meet with the children of Israel : and the tent shall be sanctified by My glory. And I will sanctify the tent of meeting and the altar ; Aaron also and his sons will I sanctify to minister unto Me in the priest's office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God." the difficulty of God's working on the Sabbath day — " May not a man walk through his own house on the Sabbath ? The house of God is the whole realm above and the whole realm below." — Cited by Westeott on John v. 17. * The resources of the English language were probably inadequate to carry the Revisers farther on the right road without aid from a humbler sister-tongue. But the Hebrew verb from which the substantive *7j;iO comes (IV^^ in Niphal and Hiphil Hyii and l^yin) suggests especially the idea of meeting hy appoint- ment or midxial agreement. "The Scottish Revisers," one of their number tells us, "often regretted that the old word 'tryst,' still well known in their country, was inadmissible ; it expresses so shortly and precisely what is wanted. And, moreover, it would have conducted us straight to the best conceivable rendering of another noun of the same family (with my, to which the writer has been referring), namely lyiD, grossly mistranslated in the extremely frequent expression 'tabernacle of the congregation,' whereas its meaning is 'trysting tent' or 'tent of tryst,' according to the promise, There I will meet with thee {u€* ^^ ^myiJI), namely, by appointment, Ex. xxv. 21 ; xxix. 42 f. ; XXI. 6, 36 ; Num. xvii. 4. Not being able to employ this word, we took ' tent of meeting,' this noun answering to the verb in these verses quoted. But this was the smaller part of our difficulty and cause of regret." The Reviser goes on to show "what a flood of light" this word tryst would have thrown for English— or at least Scottish — readers, on the whole subject of the "feasts of the Lord," headed by the weekly Sabbath, in the Old Testament. —Principal Douglas, " Revision of the English 0. T.," in Monthly Interpreter, Aug. 1885, p. 255 tf. 80 THE CHURCH FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXILE. There is an evident reference in these words to the great central promise of the covenant made by God with Abraham. This was the nearest typical fulfilment of it which could be given at that stage in the history of redemption. It was a sort of sacramental pledge and foretaste of what should be afterwards, an outward sign through which faith laid hold of the thing signified. God's Presence was visibly revealed in majesty and yet in grace over the mercy-seat in the tent of meeting. Each man of Israel was encouraged to bring his own oblation (i^^li^, his corban) to the door of the tent of meeting " that he might himself be accepted before the Lord," if his oblation was a burnt-offering (npy) ; that his oblation might be " of a sweet savour before the Lord," if it was a meal-offering (•i^'^P), or a peace- or thank-offering (Q'P^p nar). Careful provision was made that an acceptable offering in some form of all the three different classes was within easy reach of the poorest among the people.^ Each man for himself, in bringing the primary sacrifice which Abraham used, was " to lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall kill it before the Lord ; and the priests shall present the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting." ^ There the priests, representing the people, drew near to God continually in the ritual of the daily oblations, and of the sin and trespass-offerings, with incense and the blood of sacrifice. Yet more special access into the immediate presence of the Lord was vouchsafed to Israel once a year in the person of their chief representative, the High Priest, who entered within the veil into the Holiest of all with the blood of sin-offerings on the great day of Atonement " for himself and for his house, and for all the assembly of Israel." ^ Through these means the true Israel attained a large ^ Lev. i. 3, 10, 14; ii. 1 f., 4 f., 7. Comp. Boiiar, Leviticus, pp. 12-15. Cave, Sacrifice, Edin. 1884, p. 468 f. 2 Lev. i. 4 f. 3 ^i^-ij^] ^Oi?"^3 ""^^^ in'? *^V?^ i""]!? '^r'?1' ^^'''- ^^'i- l'- ^°"iP- David- son, Ilebravs, p. 172 f. FELLOWSIIir WITH GOD IN HIS HOUSE. 81 measure of spiritual fellowship with God, which was good for th-e time then present, and which was an earnest of better things to come. Many a believing spirit among the children of Abraham turned in after times towards " the tent of meeting," and grasped the promises which the God of their fathers had given in connection with it. In many a Psalm we hear the longings and the joy of their faith, — " One thing I of the Lord desired, and will seek to obtain, That all days of my life 1 may within God's house remain ; That I tlie beauty of tlie Loril behold may and admire, And that I in His holy place may reverently inquire. For He in His pavilion shall me hide in evil days, In secret of His tent me hide, and on a rock me raise. And now, even at tliis present time, mine head shall lifted be Above all those that are my foes, and round encompass me : Tlierefore into His tabernacle I'll sacrifices bring Of joyfulness : I'll sing, yea, I to God will praises sing." " My table Thou hast furnished in presence of ray foes ; My head Thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup overflows. Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me ; And in God's house for evermore my dwelling-place shall be." ^ To God thus revealed in His house the faith of the Hebrew exiles looked, as they prayed, like Daniel, with " the windows open in their chamber toward Jerusalem." " Their heart's desire and prayer were that they " might see His power and His glory so as they had looked upon Him in the sanctuary," as " they had thought upon His loving - kindness in the midst of His temple," that "this God should be their God for ever and ever, that He should be their guide even unto death." ^ The answer to such prayers of faith was given in such assurances as the exiles received from the lips of Ezekiel. In a vision, recorded in the eleventh chapter of his book, the prophet is taken to " the east gate of the Lord's house " in Jerusalem. He is made to see the ungodliness that ^ Ps. xxvii. 4-6 ; xxiii. 5 f., Scottish Metrical Version. Comp. xv. 1 f. ; xxvi. 8 ; Ixi. 4 ; Ixxvi. 2 ; lx.xviii. 60 ; Ixxx. 1 f. ; Ixxxiv. 1-5, 10 f. ; xcii. 13 f. ; xcix. 1 ir. ; c. 4 f. ; cx.xxii. 7 f. * Dan. vi. 10. ' Ps. Ixiii. 2 ; xlviii. 9, 14. F 82 THE CHURCH FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXILE. prevailed among the remnant of Israel there, and how evil counsels were given in the city, and scornful words spoken by the inhabitants of Jerusalem concerning the community of the exiles, — the Dispersion in distant lands, with whom Ezekiel himself was specially identified, — as being " far from the Lord " and from His house. To that fellowship of the Dispersion, " them of the captivity," " thy brethren, the men of thy kindred ("^^p^^, ' of thy redemption '), and all the house of Israel," this message of comfort is now sent : " Thus saith the Lord God, Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations, and whereas I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for a little while (or, as margin of E. V., which is the rendering of Ewald and many good authorities : ' Yet have I been to them a sanctuary ') in the countries where they are come." And then follows one of the most gracious republications, which we find in all Scripture, of tlie promises made, and the Gospel preached beforehand to Abraham : " Thus saith the Lord God, I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel, . . . And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you ; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh ; that they may walk in My statutes and keep Mine ordinances, and do them : and they shall be My people, and I will be their God." And the vision closes with " the glory of the Lord," the Shekinah, departing from the midst of the city of Jerusalem, and moving towards the east. " And the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chald?ea, to them of the captivity. Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had showed me." ^ "The house of Israel" met with God in "His house." His Presence was " the glory in the midst of Jerusalem, and a wall of fire round about." ^ More and more clearly through the teaching of God's word and Providence His people learned practically that it was the Lord's Presence only 1 Ezek. xi. 1 ft' ]3-25. « ^gch. ii. 5, 10 ff. ; Isa. iv. 5. THE HOUSE OF GOD AND HOUSE OF ISRAEL. 83 wliich made the place lioly and glorious, that the Lord Him- self loas the sanctuary, and that wherever He revealed Him- self in grace, there was " the House of God and the gate of heaven." The ancient promise gathered a new breadth and depth of meaning : " In every place where I record j\Iy name (or ' cause My name to be remembered,' Marg.), I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." ^ The Lord made His name to be remembered among them in strange lands. He promised and proved Himself " to be a sanctuary to the house of Israel " in all countries in which they sought His Face. It is not yet expressly said that wherever a company of true believers were gathered together in His Name, there He was in the midst of them, that the house of Israel in truth were the Lord's house. In such passages as those last cited, it is evident how closely the two conceptions were approaching each other. Not perhaps till we reach New Testament ground can we say that they absolutely coincide." But there they unmistakeably do so. One memorable utterance of the wilderness period — already cited in part in another connection — marks the transition. In the twelfth chapter of Numbers we hear how Aaron and Miriam sought to place themselves on a level with Moses as regards closeness of relation with God. " Hath the Lord indeed spoken only with Moses ? Hath He not spoken also with us ? " A vindication of the superiority of Moses was given. The Lord appeared in a pillar of cloud at the door of the tent of meeting, and as the three stood before Him, He said : " If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make Myself known unto him in a vision, I will speak unto him in a dream. j\Iy servant IMoses (6 depdircov fiov, LXX.) is not so ; he is faithful in all Mine house {iu 6X(p rat oiKUi fiov). . . . Wherefore then were ye not afraid to 1 Ex. XX. 24. Comp. Ps. xc. 1. * In one Old Testament passage (Hosea viii. 1), according to the most probable interpretation of it, Israel seems to be spoken of as "the Lord's house," in the sense of being the family among the nations which belongs specially to Him. ]?ut they are spoken of by this name only to l)c told that they are cast off by the Lord, " because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My law. . . . Now are they among the nations as a vessel wherein is no pleasure." 84 THE CHUr.CH FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXILE, speak against My servant, against Moses ? " ^ This declaration as to the position of Moses in the house of God is expressly cited by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who then proceeds : " Moses indeed was faithful in all His house, as a servant (0)9 depuTroyv), for a testimony of those things ■which were afterward to be spoken ; but Christ as a Son over His house ; whose house are we (ou oZacc? ia-fiev ^/neU), if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end." ^ Again, in the First Epistle to Timothy we read : " These things write I unto thee . . . that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And confessedly great," the apostle goes on, brin<7ing into the closest connection with the house of God that Divine Presence in the midst of it which is its glory, as the Shekinah was " the glory of the former house," " is the mystery of godliness : He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory." ' The conclusion, then, to which we are led by our examina- tion of Scripture teaching on this point is this, that the Church of God or the fellowship of believers, as fully estab- lished in privilege, and receiving " the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, the promise of the Spirit through faith," * is that which the tent of meeting and the temple, " the holy and beautiful house of the Lord,"^ under the old economy, typified, and for which they prepared the way. The Church under the New Testament is the special abode of God's gracious Presence as revealed in Christ ; it is " builded together in Him for an habitation of God (et Eph. ii. 19-22 ; 1 Pet. ii. 3 ; iv. 17 ; Heb. iii. 1 ; viii. 1 flF. In Luke xiii. 25-29, the "house " into which Christ exhorts all men to strive to enter, the door of which will one clay be shut by the Master of the house {oiKoSiaxerns), is represented as equivalent to "the kingdom of God," in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets have their place. Cremer is right, as against Delitzsch, who says "that 'n 0^3, »'^«o( ^<>" ^"''j is the invari- able Biblical designation of the Church of God" {Htbrdtrhrii'f, S. 481), in stating that " its use to denote the Church occurs first in the New Testament because the UxXni^'ia. is that which the temple in the Old Testament typified, the abode of God's Presence." Biblico-Thtol. Lexicon of Xtw Testament Greek 3rd ed., Edin. 1880. Sub voce, oikcs. • Hupra, p. 76 f. 86 THE CHURCH FKOM THE TIME OF ABEAHAM TO THE EXILE. house like olKia, namely, in Luke xii. 39 : ' would not have suffered his house {rov oIkov avrov) to be broken through,' where Matt, xxiv, 43 has oUiav. And even here the idea intended by St. Luke to be conveyed by the word o2ko fiov) ; DISTINCTION BET^VI•:E^^ 04AC09 AND OtKia. 87 while ' in my Father's house/ in a different sense, is eV t^ oIklo, tov irarpo'^ fiov. ... So also ot«:o would by no means apply. Take, for example, any Sanhedrin of twenty or thirty members ; take any meeting of men from among the people for the performance of this or that action whether in things sacred or civil, — my would apply to them, but not h7\\i ; for the latter term always denotes a number of persons so joined together as to form a unity, such as a city or a commonwealth. " When used in its wider sense, hr\\) signifies just what the Hebrews and the Eomans expressed by ^V, ' populns,' and sometimes also by "T'V, ' civitas.' Cicero's words may be suitably adduced here : ' Populus est non omnis coetus multi- tudinis, sed coetus juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus.' ^ . . . Again, hr\p taken more strictly denotes very often the whole body of the people called together to con- sider regarding the most important affairs of the common- ^ Tiench, Syvo7iyms of the N. T. p. 3 ff. Cremer, Biblico-Theol. Lex. of N. T. Greek, 3rd Eng. ed., sub voce ixxXno-Za. Schiirer, History of Jewish People, E. Tr. 1885, ii. p. 59. Kostlin makes niy " an assembly in general, and pnp an assembly for Divine worship," art. "Church" in SchafTs Relhj. Encyclop. (based on Herzog). 2 De Repuhlka, quoted by Augustine, De Civit. ii. 21. 2. DISTINCTION BETWEEN m]) AND ^Hp. 9 1 wealth. The Romans had their ' comitia calata/ which cor- responded closely to the Hebrew conception of br\p in the stricter sense. Thus we read in Lev, xvL 3 3 of ''i^i^n Dy, ' the people of the assembly.' The most illustrious instance of this in the history of Israel was the assembly at Sinai when God gave them commandments and laws, ''•^i^n 0^3 (Deut. ix. 10), ' die calatorum comitiorum,' rjfMepa iKKKria-ia^, as the LXX. rightly translate. It is to this that Stephen refers when he says of Moses : ' This is he who was in the assembly in the M'ilderness (eV t^ iKKkfjaia iv ry ipi^fiw).' ^ . . . Every con- vocation or comitium is of course an my, a ccetus or meeting, and may be called so. But the term my in itself, and without aid from the context, never indicates the whole body of any people or community. The term hr^p, on the contrary, always does so. What is done in the comitia of the people may be said to be done in a meeting or gathering (in coetu) ; but it would be a wrong conclusion from this that the words meeting and comitia do not differ in meaning.^ . . . " The term ' kahal ' may be used of any species of people if only that species is considered as a M'hole, as forming some sort of unity or society in itself. Suppose we have a thousand Dutchmen living in Constantinople, men of one and the same species of people. Let them all meet together to consult and take action, either in spiritual or civil matters, with a view to their common interests in the place. They would, in that case, constitute a ' kahal,' a comitium, just as much as the many thousands of Dutchmen formed into a community elsewhere, and holding council in the interests of the common- wealth of Holland. So, too, the people of each of the seven Provinces, if viewed separately as forming a community, may with equal right be called a ' kahal.' So also if in any Pro- vince there are men belonging to a distinct political or ecclesi- astical party, who are bound together by certain laws and form one body, these again may be designed by the same name ' kahal.' . . . The Jews to this very day use the phrase ra? ayt.a'i €KKXr]aia^ (^vHi?) in reference to the community of believers in the Jewish faith as existing in different localities. Thus, ' Vitringa, De Sijnagoga vetere, Franequerae, 1696, i. p. 80 f. « Jb. p. 83. 92 THE CHURCH FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXILE. too, we find them designating the place where their rehgious books are printed : ' Here in the holy Church of Cracow ' (spsnp NL*'"'np N^npnD), or ' in the holy Church of Frankfort ' (Dinpm N:^'''^P N^npn). The thing is so well known that there is no need to dwell upon it. So also in Codex Bera- koth (fol. ix. col. 11), a sentence of E. Jose Ben Eliakim is recorded, which is pronounced ' in the name of the Holy Church which is at Jerusalem' (n^lsc'nm t^cnp i6np DID'd). And although the word ^np does not occur in the Plural in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, yet the Jews are quite accustomed to speak in their writings of ' the Holy Churches ' (nitJ^np ni^np), just as the apostles use the term eKKXTjala in the Plural.^ . . . " The Hebrew my corresponds to the Greek awayco'yi] as bnp does to eKKXrjaLa. It seems very clear, therefore, why Christ and the apostles prefer to speak of the company of Christians under the name e/cKXrjo-La rather than that of avvajco'y)]. It was not so much in order to distinguish the Christian Church from the Jewish, as some of later times have supposed, for the Jews themselves were wont to call their meetings €KK\rjaLa<;, as we have shown ; but because the word eKK\r)aLa was in itself much more suitable for setting forth the conception which they desired to express. Swaycoyi], like my, always means a meeting assembled or congregated, although possibly bound together by no special tie ; but eKKKr^a-ia, like ^np, denotes a number of persons who form a people, joined together by laws and other bonds, although it may often happen that they are not assembled together, and that it is impossible that they should be so. When, for example, believers are scattered through different parts of a country, so that they have no opportunity of meeting together, then indeed they cease to be an my, a avva<^w'^i] ; but they do not cease to be a h^v^p, an eKKkr^a-la. In other words, they do not, in such a case, cease to form one body, which is united together in the very closest bonds by the Holy Spirit and faith." ^ 1 Vitr. p. 86 f. So in moileni translations of tlic N. T. into Hebrew, iK»x».naii>. -rpe! *apmi, Ex. ill. 16-18 ; iv. 29 ; xii. 21, etc. ^ ^N"iL"'"n'iy hr}p hb Ex. xii. 3, 6, 21. 98 THE CHURCH FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXILE. and the manna has been given, the rulers of the congregation (ot apj(pvTe prefects or overseers, from 1t2t?' to write, the art of writing having a special importance in public and legal proceedings in primitive times. Hence the LXX. render it here by the familiar term "scribes," -rpifflivrspoi toZ Xa.IS3^ taa* Ex. xii. 19. Comp. vv. 43-49 and Num. ix. 14 ; xv, 15 f. " For tlie assembly (pnpn) there shall be one statute for you aiul for the stranger that sojourneth with you ("lan laS), a statute for ever throughout your generations ; as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one ordinance shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you." The LXX. in these and other passages generally renders 13 by -rfotnXuTt; ; sometimes, as in the first verse cited above, using the word yutre's art. "Proselytes," in Smith's Diet, of the Bible, is, as lie states, largely drawn. 2 Weber, S. 75. ^ Leyrer, Proselyten, S. 242. The subject of Jewish Proselyte Baptism is one of considerable interest and importance. Questions regarding the manner and date of its origin have been discussed with much learning and at great length, in connection especially with the Anti-Pa^dobaptist theory, since the close of the 17th century. See Scliiirer, ii. pp. 319-324. and remarks on the subject below. Part iv. chap. ii. 1st, 2, note. ♦ Weber, S. 75 f. 120 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. Simon ben Gamaliel said : " Our wise men teach that if a Gentile seeks to enter the covenant, we should reach out the hand to him, and bring him under the wings of the Lord." ' Such utterances spoke the feelings of the more generous and spiritually - minded of the Jewish teachers. ]\Iany sayings, however, as already stated, might be quoted of a different kind, expressing contempt and dislike for the pro- selytes.^ The general result of this whole movement of things which we have been considering, as regards the religious fellowship of Israel after the exile, both in the Holy Land and in the Dispersion, was a widened and widening membership. But of far greater importance were the widening and elevation of thought, the increase of spiritual insight on the part of Israel, into the gracious purposes of the God of Abraham, who was also " the God of the whole earth." There rose before their eyes the vision of a mighty fabric, like that of the temple of old rising without sound of axe or hammer, " a spiritual house," a great fellowship of brethren, speaking different tongues, dwelling in different and distant lands, but united by the strongest bonds in faith and life, having all been drawn by the God of Abraham to Himself and to His true people, forming one great Ecclesia Dei (mn"' ^np), although its members only met together from Sabbath to Sabbath in their little appointed meetings (my, arvvaywryq) in widely separated parts of the earth, remembering each other then, but never all to see each other's faces in one assembly at Jerusalem. The striking words of the last of the prophets are best interpreted by the facts of the Diaspora, which were familiar to every Jew of that generation. Malachi spoke from that standpoint. There was much before his eyes in the Jerusalem of the returned exiles which was discouraging to a spiritual mind, and which called for rebuke in the name of the Lord. It was a far more hopeful sight that opened to the prophet as he looked beyond the narrow limits of Jewish Palestine, to those communities of his fellow-countrymen now -spreading in such a marvellous way into all the lands of the known ' Leyrer, S. 242. Conip. Ruth ii. 12. " See above, p. 117 THE PROSELYTES. 121 world, where Gentiles were drawn to "join themselves to the Lord" and to His people, and where in humble meeting- places believing hearts were lifted up with one accord to God in prayers and praises, which were " to Him as incense and as the evening sacrifice." ^ It was an earnest of a glorious future for all the earth. " For, from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, My name is great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense is offered unto My name, and a pure offering ; for My name is great among th^ Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts." ^ Many a " devout proselyte " rejoiced to offer this incense and pure offering to God in that great and wonderful Name which he learned to know from the representatives of the true Israel in the Dispersion. For them — to use the words of a distinguished German interpreter of the Old Testament — " a certain fence of outward rites still narrowed the entrance into the full privileges of citizenship in God's kingdom; but the conception of that kingdom rose more and more above merely national limitations. The religion of Israel and its requirements, no longer natural descent from the fathers of the nation, formed the conditions of being a child of God and a member of the kingdom of heaven (die Bedingung um ein Kind Gottes, ein Glied des Himmelreichs zu sein). A world-wide community of God must have presented itself before the eyes of the godly in Israel, and that no longer a national kingdom of the Messiah to which the other nations brought homage and were in subjection, but a Messianic kingdom of a religious kind, in which all who received the ' Ps. cxli. 2 ; comp. some of the sayings of the Jewish teaclicrs : " He who prays in a synagogue is regarded as though he had presented a pure ' niinclia,' " Jer. Berachoth 3. "The study of the Torah is greater than the bringing of the 'Tamid offering,' " ]\Iegilla 4, etc., cited in Weber, altsyn. Paiastin. Theol. S. 39. The hours of prayer were arranged so as to correspond with those of the daily sacrifices in the tenii)le. -' Mid. i. 11, 14. It makes no difference in meaning whether we translate with the Revisers' text : "is great," or with their margin : "shall be great." The eye of the prophet saw the future in the present. He spoke of it in terms of present or past experience, so speaking to the mind and heart of his own generation to whom he bore God's message. Comp. Dods on " The Prophets and Prophecy," in his introduction to the The Post-Exilian Prophets, Ediu. 1879, pp. 27-32. 122 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. true religion could become true and fully privileged members. All the sound impulses of this period point to a breaking down of the Old Testament walls of partition, to the transition from a national to a universal religion." ^ This movement, fraught with such moral and spiritual significance, and carrying in it such wonderful powers of growth and expansion, found organization and permanence iu the synagogue system. ' Suhulz, A. T. Theol, 2te Ausg. S. 782. CHAPTER III. THE SYNAGOGUE SYSTEM. 1. Orifjiii ami general Characteristics. IN apostolic times the synagogue system was regarded as one of venerable antiquity. " From generations of old " (e/c yevewv apxaicov), one of the leaders of the Hebrew Christian Church at Jerusalem said in the assembly of the apostles and elders there, " Moses hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." ^ How far back do these " generations " go ? Vitringa, in the first book of his great work, Be Synagoga Vetcrc, con- siders witli characteristic thoroughness all the references to worship in the Old Testament from the creation onwards, and searches diligently for the synagogue in connection with each of them.^ He discusses especially the way in which the Sabbath was kept, the position of the priests and Levites in Israel, the injunction given in Deuteronomy to " the priests and all the elders of Israel " to read the law to the people once in seven years.^ He inquires carefully into the special means for religious instruction used by Jehoshaphat, and into the meetings of a religious kind with prophets like Elisha, on Sabbaths and new moons, but fails to find the synagogue any- where before the exile.* We may recognise a preparation for » Acts XV. 21. * Vitringa, pp. 271-413. ' Deut. xxxi. 9-13. * 111 Ps. Ixxiv. 8 we read, " They have burnt up all the synagogues of God in the laud " (^X~nyilD~^3, all the places of tryst, or appointed meeting). The LXX. render Ko.ra.'ra.viruim rki U^Tas xufiov i-ro rns ySf. Vitringa, like most other competent interpreters, regards this reference as too obscure in meaning and too uncertain in date to form the basis of any decided conclusion (pp. 396-405). Calvin and others are disposed to assign the Psalm to the time of the Maccabees. One difficulty in connection with that view is, that, strangely enough, as 123 12-1 THE CIIUKCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. the synagogue system before that date, that the same objects were sought and attained by other means in a partial and preliminary way ; but not until the time of the return from the captivity do we find what seems the origin of the institu- tion itself. In the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, in the striking scene of the gathering of the people " as one man " for worship, and the reading of the law " in the broad place that is before the Water Gate " at Jerusalem, all the elements of a synagogue service present themselves. We have public prayer and thanksgiving "in the congregation," for which the ancient and sacred term {bnp, iKK\r]aia) is used, and which consists of "men and women and all that could hear with under- standing." ^ We have the people themselves taking earnest part in the service, and answering " Amen " at the close of the prayers. We have the reading and explanation of the Scriptures by Ezra and other teachers from a raised pulpit or platform of wood, with marked impression and spiritual results among the audience.^ Here, in all likelihood, we see the commencement of the synagogue system. Like many other great things, it began in a very simple way. The returned exiles naturally took steps to continue, in different places and on a smaller scale, those gatherings of the congregation, which they found so profitable in those memorable days of the seventh month in Jerusalem, to which they had been led under the guidance Vitringa points out (p. 416 f.), we find no mention of synagogues as places of worship in the books of the Maccabees, and the autlior of the first of these books makes no allusion to the destruction of synagogues in his list of the calamities of the time (1 Mace. i. 38-51, 54-57). A proseucha or house of prayer is mentioned as being erected at Ptolemais (in Egypt) in 3 Mace. vii. 20, and a statement is made in one of the "Psalms of Solomon" (63-48 B.C.) which probably refers to the age of the Maccabees: "Those who loved the assemblies of the saints {(ruvayuyas ocriav) wandered (reading 'frXecvuvTo) in deserts," Ps. Sol. xvii. 19. * " Ezra brought the law before the congregation (pnpH ^JD^)," Neh. viii. 2, hu'TriiDi T^s ixxx»irias, LXX. Comp. the covenant with God made by the con- gregation with the religious services recorded in the two next chai)ters, c. ix. x. It was a fresh beginning of the religious life of the community of Israel, as in "the Church in the wilderness " in the day of the assembly at Horeb. - Neh. viii. 1-12, 18 : ix. 2-5. THE SYNAGOGUE SYSTEM. 125 of men Divinely raised up, and on whose action in tliis matter it was plain that the blessing of God had signally rested. " It obviously met a want which had begun to make itself felt during the captivity. The captives longing for home had awakened in them the outcasts' thirst for God ; and on their return to their fatherland they longed to hear that which alone made it home to them, the voice of their Father. Listening to this voice, articulate in ample promises and in minute arrangements for their welfare, they felt as they had never felt before, that in the reception of that voice lay their true unity as a people. And when they scattered once more through the land, when no master's voice broke the stillness of the Sabbath morning, could anything be more natural than the wish that again they might listen to the Word of their Deliverer and King ? It was this desire which gradually formed the meetings associated with the name of the synagogue, the greatest and most beneficial of Jewish institu- tions." ^ Once begun in such circumstances as attended the religious gatherings at Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, it is easy to understand how the synagogue system spread rapidly. This was especially tlie case in all the centres of the Disper- sion both in the East and West. The germs of such stated meetings for worship aiid instruction may already be seen in the gatherings of elders and others, during the captivity, to hear God's word from prophets such as Ezekiel." The seed would spring up into vigorous life under the tidings of the religious movement at Jerusalem, and of the arrangements for worship and the study of the law which had been adopted tliere.^ Eor some time, indeed, the synagogue system spread and ^ Dods, Preshyterianism older than Christianity, Edin. 1873, p. 13 f. Vitringa lias some suggpstive remarks on the different causes which probably combined to give rise to the synagogue system at this time, p. 425. - Ezek. viii. 1 ; xiv. 1 11'. ; xx. 1-4, 27-31 ; xxxiii. bO-32. ' Kuenen and others are disposed to hold that the sj'nagogue system arose independently in liabylonia, "whether before the end of the captivity or among those who then remained behind." Kuenen, Volksrdvjion und Wdt- reli'jion (Hibbert Lect.), Berlin 1883, S. 171. 126 THE CnUIlCIl FKO.M TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. prospered more in foreign lands than in Palestine. In the latter, where the returned exiles formed for a long time a comparatively small community, religious interest centred visibly in the restored temple and within the walls of Jerusalem, rebuilt with such special effort under Nehemiah. Meetings for worship were naturally held in the temple courts, or, as the first had been, in the broad places near the gates of the city. This would lead to few or no synagogues — in the later sense of " houses of prayer " — being erected through the country for a considerable time, and may explain the fact, to which I have adverted above, that the books of the Maccabees make no mention of such structures as existing in the Holy Land, nor any reference to their destruction as taking place among the other disasters of the period.^ But in the regions of the Diaspora it was otherwise. There the necessity of a separate place of meeting, however simple, was felt from the first. The temples used by the heathen, and their buildings for civil purposes, were of course not open to the Jews. Sometimes, therefore, by river-sides, under the open sky, sometimes in groves, sometimes in a large room or hall in the house of some wealthier member of their community, the little congregations of the Dispersion met to worship the God of their fathers and to hear His word.^ In such centres as Alexandria and Antioch, where the Jews were strong in numbers and influence, and could count on the forbearance or favour of the civil authorities, separate buildings were erected by them at an early date. These were some- times of large size and splendidly furnished ; and in connec- tion with them probably the transition took place by which the word " synagogue " [avvaywy/]), which in the canonical ' See note at p. 123 f. As there pointed out, the only "house of prayer," apart from the Temple, to which the books of Maccabees refer, is one erected at Ptolemais in Egypt. ^ The apocryphal book known as "Susanna," or "the Judgment of Daniel," in Theodotion's revision of the LXX., speaks of such a hall in the house of Joiakim, a wealthy Jew at Babylon, serving as a i)lace of meeting for his fellow- countrymen, in which elders preside and disputes are heard and settled. The work is a sort of religious romance, but no doubt reflects the customs and expe- riences of the Jews of the Dispersion at the time when the apocryphal additions to Daniel took shape. Hist, of Susanna, 4-7. THE SYNAGOGUE SYSTEM. 127 writings of the Old Testament always means the congregation itself, came by the time of Josephus and the New Testament writers very often to denote also the building or place of worship in which the congregation met.^ Long before the Christian era every little town in I'ales- tine had its synagogue. In Jerusalem itself, " according to one tradition (Shir liabba 20), tliere were in the time of the second temple four hundred and eighty synagogues. According to another tradition (Eeha liabba 52a), each of these syna- gogues had attached to it a school for the exposition of the Holy Scriptures, and for the Mishna." ' This no doubt is an iunnense exaggeration ; but that different nationalities of the Dispersion had different synagogues of their own at Jerusalem in our Lord's time is evident from what is said in the sixth chapter of the Acts as to Stephen's opponents coming from five different Hellenistic synagogues in the city.^ In the chief seats of the Diaspora also there were several synagogues, sometimes, as in Alexandria, where there were " many of them," Philo writes, " in each division of the city," regularly united under a common government. To use tlie words of Strabo, already cited, " it was not easy to find a })lace in the habitable world which had not received this race of the Jews, and was not taken possession of by them." And everywhere the sign of their infeftment in it was the establishment of a synagogue or a place of prayer. It was not, indeed, without risk that they thus raised the banner of their religion and drew public attention to their position in the town. Hated as the Jews generally were by the populace throughout the Eoman Empire for their success in money- ' Josephus tells us that the successors of Antiochus Epiphanes bestowed everj'thing of brass among the spoils taken by him from the Temple of Jeru- t^alem upon the Jews of Antioch, to be placed by them in their synagogue [i'l; rh* ffuvccyuyh* auTu* ava^ivT-,-), and allowed them to have equal riglits of citizenship with the Greeks. Btll. Jiul. vii. 21. The splendours of the chief synagogue of the Jews at Alexandria {fiiyirTti *aJ TifurnucTccTv) are referred to by Philo, Letj. cul Caium, § 20. They are celebrated by the Talmudic writers in their usual exaggerative style. ^ Weber, S. 38. "Scripta quidem," as Yitringa says of similar statements, "ut Jud;ei solent, v-rippaXncus, sic tamcu ut Veritas per fictiones eorum facile pelluceat," p. 428. 5 Acts vi. 9. 128 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. making, their usurious practices, and especially for what was counted intolerable religious pride and bigotry, a Jewish synagogue was, as Eeuss calls it, " a sort of natural lightning conductor for sudden storms of popular feeling." And " the magistrates often shared the prejudices of the mob, or were willing to pander to them from some petty regard to tem- porary advantage." ^ A good illustration of this may be seen in the way in which the charge is brought against Paul and Silas at Philippi by the owners of the slave girl : " These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or observe, being Ptomans ; " and in the easy success which so vague an accusation met with at the hands of the prtetors, in the belief that the accused were only Jews.^ The word " synagogue " {crvvaycoyi]), as already observed, primarily denotes the congregation itself, or the meeting of the congregation, just as the word " Church " {eKKXrjcria) does, although both came in time by a natural transition to mean also the building in which the congregation met. The names more properly used by the Jews for the place of worship were " the house of meeting" (np33n-n''3) and " the house of prayer" (n?Drin-n''Zi), with their Greek equivalents in Hellenistic con- gregations (ot«;o9 tt}? f,iuv). In the last of these, doubtless, the Scriptures were still read in the original, not as else- where in the Alexandrian translation. Sometimes, again, synagogues received graceful and significant names, "the synagogue of the Olive," "of the Vine" {(rwa-yuiyh 'EXa/aj, N32131 Nnt^^JD). Comp. Schlirer, ii. pp. 74, 247 f. 2 Acts xvi. 19-23 ; of. 37-39. * " Proseucha " seems often to denote a smaller or less formal erection than a synagogue. It might mean four walls by a river-side under shade of trees, or beneath the open sky, such as the "place of prayer" at Philippi may have THE SYXAGOGUE SYSTEM. 129 These two simple but expressive names, " the house of meeting " and " the house of prayer," embody the leading ideas of the institution of the synagogue. It provided a place where " the whole congregation of Israel," " the congregation of the Lord," in all its separate parts, met with God in prayer and in His Word at appointed times, and met also with each other for mutual profit. The arrangements within these houses of prayer were of the simplest kind. A chest or press at one end of the building to hold the rolls of the law and the prophets, a teacher's seat on a slightly raised platform, or " pulpit of wood made for the purpose," ^ seats for the congregation, lamps for evening meetings, two collecting-boxes, one for local objects and one " for the land of Israel," — these were all the requirements.^ It was in a village synagogue, with such simple furnishings, that our Lord worshipped week by week for nearly thirty years with His earthly parents and " His brethren and sisters" at Nazareth. It was thither that " He entered in, as His custom was, on the Sabbath day," after His public ministry had begun, and His fame as a teacher in the synagogues of Galilee had spread abroad ; and there, at the fitting point in the service, He " stood up to read ; and there was delivered unto Him a roll of the prophet Isaiah." ^ been in which the Gospel was first preached by Paul in Europe (Acts xvi. 13, 16). But Josephus speaks of the synagogue in Tiberias, "a very large edifice, and capable of holding a great multitude," as a proseucha. On the whole, Schiirer's conclusion seems correct, that "no material distinction can be estab- lished between the two expressions." Hist, of Jeiviak People, ii. p. 73. Comp. Vitringa, pp. 115-133. Leyrer, art. "Synagogen," in Herzog, xv. S. 303. ^ Neh. viii. 4 ; ix. 4. ^ Sfc Vitringa, pp. 174-212. Schiirer, ii. p. 74 f. Ten was said to be the ijunrum of worshippers needful for a synagogue. According to the Rabbis, a synagogue must not be set up in any Jewish community unless there could be found there ten "men of leisure " (D'3^J33). What stores of learning have been lavished on the elucidation of this phrase may be seen — by those who are themselves men of leisure — in the treatises of llhenford and Vitringa, De decern odoais symujoga-, Franequerae 1686, and De decemvirls otiosis, do. 1687 both writing against Lightfoot in his Horce Hebraicce. 3 Luke iv. 15 ff. 130 THE CHUIiCII FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. 2. The WorsJii2J of the Synafjoguc, The worship of the synagogue was essentially just what it was in the great religious gatherings under Ezra and Nehemiah, in which, as we have seen reason to believe, the institution took its rise. The reading and exposition of the Scriptures, with prayer and praise, formed the centre and sub- stance of the whole. In this the power and solemnity of the synagogue meetings were felt to lie by all the worshippers who, like Simeon, were " righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel," ^ and by all the more spiritually- minded of the Jewish teachers. " Wherever ten persons pray together," it was said, " there the Shekinah is in the midst of them." " Wherever Israel prays and studies in its synagogues and schools, wherever the wise men, the elders, and the prophets are, there the Shekinah is also present to bless them." ^ We must beware of taking our impressions of the synagogue system from the dreary follies of the Talmud,^ and from the spiritual deadness, the chilling formality and irreverence which too often characterize the modern Jewish synagogue. In its best days it was very different. In our Lord's time, in particular, there can be no doubt that, with whatever intermixture of lower elements, all that was deepest and highest both in the intellectual and religious life of Israel centred in the synagogue. Its plan of worship and instruction, while making sufficient provision, as we shall see presently, for order and central control, was characterized by an admirable spirit of freedom. Although the synagogue liturgy as a whole cannot be assigned to a very early date, several elements in it can be traced back with considerable certainty to the New Testament period. Foremost among these is the recitation of the " Shema," as a sort of simple and popular creed or confession of faith in the unity of God, and in Jehovah as the God of Israel, to be ^ Luke ii. 25. -' Berakoth 6a ; Pesikta 193a, b ; Vayyikra rabba 11, cited in Weber, S. 182. * " The ocean of the Talmud," as the Rabbis called it, is one whose waters cast up not a little mire and dirt. Its [)earls and precious things are few and far between, however well they may look when drawn from their native surroundings and grouped together by a skilful hand. THE WORSHIP OF THE SYXAGOGUE. 131 acknowledged with love and thanksgiving as the God of redemption, " who brought them out of the land of Egypt to be their God." This is distinctly referred to by Josephus.^ liound this centre-point the rest of the Hebrew liturgy gradually grew up. Some of the oldest prayers, such as the " Kaddish " and the " Shemoneh Esreh," seem to have early assumed a fixed shape, and to belong, at all events in substance, to the time of our Lord. Two at least of the petitions in the prayer which He taught His disciples appear to be taken from the striking formula of the " Kaddish," with which they were in all probability familiar from child- hood.^ For materials of praise recourse was naturally had to ' the treasury of the Hebrew Psalter.^ Along with this permanent element in the synagogue ser- vice, room was given for free prayer, both by the congregation in silence and by those who led their devotions. The usual 1 Josephns, AiHiq. iv. 8. 13. Schiirer, ii. p. 84 f. The Shema iucludes tlie three passages, Deut. vi. 4-9 ; xi. 13-21 ; and Num. xv. 37-41. - The first and second petitions. Compare the beginning of the Kaddish : "May His great name be magnified and hallowed in the world which He hath created according to His will. May His kingdom come in power " (lit. be made to reign) " in your life and in your days, and in the life of all the House of Israel speedily and in a short time. And say ye, Amen " (X3"l rII:Dt^' t;'"lpn'1 b'^ilV n'3 ^3"! *»nn^ pa'oi"'?^ P3''?n3 nn^aSo '^''^^l\ ^ri^y-ia Nin-n xro^ya •(|0N nONI nnp ;DI31 5<^3J?3 bipb'\. Hamburger, Real- Enajd. fur Bihel u. Talmud, art. "Kaddisch," ii. S. 603 fT. Vitringa, pp. 962, 1077 f., 1098: " Sanctissima ilia precationis formula, quse in initio et fine actuum quoinimque sacrorum recitabatur, et forte omnium, quas synagoga hujus teniporis habet, precationum antiquissima ; Chaldaice concepta ut a plebe ignani Hebr.Tje linguae et ab ipsis quo(iue gentibus Syriace peritis intelligeretur, et omnes inde perci- perent quoe Judieoruni de futura sanctificatione et glorificatione Divinre nominis in orbe terrarum spes sit." Schiirer gives a translation of the "Shemoneh Esreh," sometimes called kxt iloxrty " the Prayer " (n^ann), ii- PP- 85-87. It is to be found, as well as the " Kaddish," in all prayer-books of the orthodox Jews. Dr. Edersheim points out how closely the hymn of Zacharias corresponds in .several points with the "Shemoneh Esreh." Life and Times of Jesiis the Me-ffiah, i. p. 159. Zunz, Jiitus des synaijof/a/en Oottesdienstes, Berlin 1859, S. 2 f., and his GottendienstUche Vortrwje, S. 366 ff. * Compare Philo's account of the responsive singing of the Essencs in their Sabbath services. "They sing hymns to the praise of God, conq)osed in ditferent kinds of metre and verse, now witli one moutli, now with antiphonal hymns and harmonies." De Vita contcmpl. p. 901, cd. Frankof. Art. " Autiphon," in Diet, of Christ. Autiq. i. p. 94. 132 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. practice was to pray standing, with the face turned towards Jerusalem, or to the Temple. None of the prayers were repeated by the members of the congregation generally, but by some one acting as the mouthpiece of the rest. But the congregation made certain brief responses, uniting audibly in particular in the " Amen " at the end of the prayer, in accordance with Scripture precept and example.^ Some of the Jewish teachers in the first century — possibly influenced by the example of greater freedom and gifts of utterance in tlie Apostolic Church — saw danger in the growth of the liturgical element in the synagogue worship. Kabbi Eliezer of Lydda {circa 80-115 a.d.) taught that no form of prayer was binding in the public services, and urged that the leaders of prayer in the synagogue should give up even the well-known " eighteen " blessings or prayers, — the " Shemoneh Esreh," — and should pray from the heart as they might be enabled at the time.^ After the reading of the law and the prophets, either by an official of the synagogue or by some qualified person or persons in his place, there followed an exposition of Scrip- ture, or " word of exhortation," as it was called by the rulers of the synagogue at Antioch when they invited Paul and Barnabas to speak to the congregation there.^ The rulers of the synagogue, or their president as representing them, were themselves responsible for this part of the service. But the address might be entrusted by them to any suitable person among the audience, as in the case at Antioch now mentioned.* " Thus " — in theory at least — as Dr. Dods put it, " every man's gift became available for the whole congregation. No know- ledge, no happy interpretation of Scripture, no significant 1 Deut. xxvii. 15; 1 Chron. xvi. 36 ; Neh. viii. 6 ; Ps. xli. 13 ; Ixxii. 19; cvi. 48 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 16. Comp. Schiirer, ii. p. 77 f. Zunz, Ritiis, S. 15, ^ See Leyrer, art. " Synagogen," in Herzog, Eeal-Encycl. xv. S. 307. "In later times the leaders in prayer {die Vorbeter) claimed the riiti'') (the dis- cretionary or alterable elements in the service) as a free sphere for their own unfettered utterances {fur eigene Production). " 3 Acts xiii. 14 ff. * In Philo's interesting picture of a synagogue Sabbath service in his time the address or exposition of Scripture is given by " one of the priests who may be present, or one of the elders," and is of considerable length, tuv 'npiuv n; o Tafuv % ruv yipovTut iTs itayivuffx'.i tov; lipov; vo/jlou; auroTs, xxi Ka6' 'ixaffroy i^riyUTai ftixpi .onsent, in the appointment of governors and rulers of different sorts in the provinces, giving as his reason for this "that the Christians and the Jews were wont to act thus in the nomination of tlit-ir priests for ordination (in prsedi- f-andis sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt), and that the rule should much more be observed in the appointment of rulers to whom the goods and lives of men were to be entrusted." Scriptores Hixt. Aufjiist. (Hcrm. Peter's ed.), Lipsise 1884, i. p. 283 ; c. xlv. 7. Comp. c. xix. p. 261, as to the Emperor's practice in the appointment of senators. ^ Weber, S. 130. Leyrer in his art. "Synagogen," in Herzog (xv. S. 312), gives an excellent summary of the position and functions of the synagogue elders. Their names of office, as grouped together by him, are especially note- worthy from their close correspondence with the names of the office-bearers of the apostolic Church as seen in the New Testament. ' The distinction between the ordinary elders and the trained teachers with 136 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. t'oimcl for office, a single teacher might preside in a syna- gogue ; but he could give no authoritative decision, either on doctrinal or practical questions, until colleagues were associated with him, "An individual Eabbi can decide nothing," ^ One passage alone in the New Testament, and that of uncertain interpretation, may possibly refer to a case of a single ruler only being found in a synagogue.^ Among the rulers of the synagogue was one known as tlie " legate " or " deputy of the congregation " (ii3>* n^^Jt^),* His special duty was to lead in the public prayer.s of the synagogue. Whether this, however, was assigned in early times to one distinct official may be questioned. Certainly the office of " Sheliach Tsibbur " seems to have varied con- siderably in respect of dignity at different periods, being some- times united with that of " Chazzan " or synagogue attendant, while at other times his position is described in high terms as being one to which a peculiarly representative character belonged.^ The importance attached to his functions would naturally increase in proportion to the growth of the litur- gical element in the synagogue services. It is Maimonides whom they were associated is frequently brought out. We have it, e.g., in an Imperial enactment of Honorius and Theodoi^ins, inscribed, "To the teacher and elders of the Jews (' Didascalo et Majoribus Judaeorum ')," Vitringa, p. 590 ; of. Hausrath, JV^. T. Times, i. p. 8. In the modern Jewish synagogue a single Rabbi or teacher is often associated with a body of ' Parnasim ' (lit. rshepherds) or elders, representatives of and chosen by the people, in whose hands the management of the affairs of the synagogue congregation is placed. This consistory of Parnasim can meet without the Rabbi, but if j^resent he presides ex officio. They are chosen yearly, but may be re-elected, Vitr, pp. 513 ff., 578 f., 605 f. It is plain how closely this arrangement corresponds to the " Deacons' Court " of our own Church, and to the joint meetings of elders and deacons in the Dutch and other branches of the Reformed Church. 1 Weber, SS. 131-140. Schiirer, i. p. 323. Vitringa, pp. 549-565, 573 f., 590. Litton gives a clear summary of tlie general conclusions arrived at by Vitringa, Church of Christ, Lond. 1851, j.. 252 f. ^ Luke xiii. 14. This may be just such a case as that referred to in the note above, where the teaching elder (the "didascalus") is distinguished from the rest as the president or head of the syn.agogue, o af^nruvayayos. ^ According to Schiirer, this word ~|!i2i*, which is frequent in the Mishuah, generally denotes the Church or Congregation, ' ' not as a community, but only as an aggregate in contrast to the individual," ii. p. 59. * Dr, Dods suggests, as the best rendering for "Sheliach Tsibbur, "the phrase "representative elder," aud ideutihes him pretty decidedly with "the angel OFFICIALS OF THE SYNAGOGUE. 137 and other late writers who make most of his position, and of its pre-eminently representative character. In their time it was held to be of vital importance that every word and syllable of the prescribed prayers and readings should be given in exact accordance with the traditional rules. The " Sheliach Tsibbur," as head of the liturgical department, was responsible for this.^ It is worthy of note that a Jewish priest as such had no special [ilace or rights in the synagogue. If suited in other respects to be an elder or teacher in the congregation, he niiglit be chosen to that jDosition ; but his priesthood in itself (with one exception, to be noted immediately) gave him no peculiar privileges. It was expressly enjoined that " no one was to presume to wear the dress of a priest in the service of the synagogue." ^ The only exceptional mark of honour paid in the synagogue to tlie priesthood rested on the ancient rule that " the priests, the sons of Aaron, were to bless the people." If one or more members of a priestly family were present at the service, they were asked to come of the Church" in the Revelation, Pre-shyteriau'ism, p. 17. In this latter view he agrees witli Vitringa, pp. 911-913. Bishop Lightfoot, on the other hand, regards the legate of the synagogue as "an inferior officer," — which he certainly was in the first century at least, — aiul prefers an ideal interpretation of the apocalyptic ayyix^; rr.i UxXnria;, Plnlippians, 3rd ed. p. 197 f. Schiirer seems to go to an opposite extreme in being disposed to deny the separate existence of such a functionary altogether, although it may be true that " whoever said tlie prayer in the name of the congregation was called the DvC^ -)^3V. the 'plenipotentiary of the congregation,' " ii. p. 67. There were no doubt, as Vitringa shows, ordinary and occasional leaders in prayer, pp. 893, 903-908. Leyrer's conclusion is marked by his usual discrimination: "A function which at an earlier period any qualified member of tlie college of elders undertook, namely, to be the mouth of the congregation in prayer and in reading the holy Scriptures, came in process of time to be transferred to a qualified man specially appointed for the jturpose, who was then called 'Shcliiich ha-Tsibbur,' nuncius, legatus ecclesia', the deputy (Abgeordnete), also the scribe of the synagogue. K. Gamaliel says : ' Legatus ecclesiai fungitur officio pro omnibus, et officio hoc rite perfunctus omnes ab obligatione liberat.' . . . His importance grew with the development of the public worsliip of the synagogue, and witli the decrease of the knowledge of the Hebrew language," art. 'Synagogen," in Herzog, Real-Encyl. xv. S. 313. ^ It is to this that the passages from Maiiuonides, adduced by Dr. Dods in support of his view, refer. Vitringa, pp. 893, 905. - Schiirer, i. p. 277. 138 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. forward and pronounce with uplifted bands the closing benediction : " The Lord bless thee and keep thee ; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace;" to which the whole congregation answered, Amen. If no one of priestly descent happened to be in the con- gregation, the blessing was spoken in the form of a prayer by one of the rulers of the synagogue, the Sheliach Tsibbur.^ (2.) The president of the eldership. In the consistory or council of elders by which each synagogue was governed, one was appointed president or chairman. He was called the head of the session or con- sistory (ny^ ti'i^i), or in the Hellenistic congregations the gerusiarch (yepova-idp'^'rjs:), from his presiding over the elder- ship or presbytery {^epovala)^ He appears generally to have held this position ad vitam aut culpam., but could be removed from it for a time or permanently by the votes of his - Num. vi. 22-27. Vitringa, pp. 1114-1120. Scliiirer, ii. p. 82 f. If the high priest himself were in the congregation and rose to read, the roll was handed to him in token of permission by the president of the synagogue,— the archisynagogus or riD33n t^X"l, — as in the case of any other member of the congregation held competent for the duty ; and he read standing. Schlirer, ii. p. 64; comp. Luke iv. 16, "He stood up to read." As a matter of courtesy, precedence was also generally given to those known to be of priestly or Levitical descent in reading the Scriptures in the congregation. " The following things have been ordained for the sake of peace : the priest is first to read ; then the Levite ; then the Israelite, for the sake of peace," Gittin v. 8, in Schlirer. ^ Schlirer, Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, Leipzig 1879, S. 18. This name seems to answer also to the "head of the synagogue" (nD33n tJ'Xh) ill Hebrew congregations, and possibly to the apxn^utayuyos of the N. T. , although both of these words seem used also in a more general sense to denote any who held a prominent position among the elders of the synagogue, who were, e.g., members of the Executive or Acting Committee of its eldership, commonly spoken of in Hellenistic synagogues as the archons {apxovris), from whom the president was usually chosen. This is e.specially clear as to the N. T. usage of archisynagogus. Thus in Luke viii. 41 and 49 the names a.fX'"^ T>is cu^'ayuyris and a.px"'"^'^y"y'>' ^'^^ used interchangeably ; and there is repeated evidence of the existence of several archisynagogi in one congrega- tion. In some of the inscriptions in Jewish cemeteries, on the other hand, the two titles archon and archisynagogus are conjoined, showing that a man might in some cases hold both positions, and that a distinction was recognised between the two. The archisynagogus may sometimes have been the chairman of the archons, as the gerusiarch was of the whole eldership, somewhat in the same way as the President of a large "General Committee," and the chairman of its THE PRESIDENT OF THE ELDERSHIP. 139 colleagues, subject, as it seems, to the intervention of the Sanhedrin, where the decision was not a unanimous one, or if the matter was referred to them from the inferior court.^ The Executive, or the Moderator of a Church Session, and the Convener of a Sessional committee, are often represented by different persons among ourselves. Schurer inclines, chieHy on the ground of the Koman inscriptions discussed in his valuable monograph, to understand by the archisynagogiis, in every case in which the terra is used, one of the elders or archons specially entrusted with the charge of public worship, the ''head of the synagogue" in that whole department. This is a feasible hypothesis as to the meaning of the word in some instances, but does not seem to correspond with the N. T. use of it, to which reference is made above. Bishop Lightfoot goes rather beyond the evidence of the passages which he cites, in saying : "In the New Testament, at all events, apx>"""^y'^y'>s is only another name for the elder of the synagogue (Mark v. 22 ; Acts xiii. 15 ; xviii. 8, 17 ; comp. Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. c. 137)." No doubt every archisynagogus was an elder, but it does not follow that every elder was an archisynagogus, nor that he was an archon. In the case of Jairus (Luke viii. 41-49), the names archon and archisynagogus are applied to the same person, apparently as equivalent in meaning, by an evangelist who is peculiarly accurate in his use of official titles ; but there is no N. T. instance of archisynagogus and elder being used as synonymous. Dr. Light- foot admits that apart from the N. T. we seem to have instances of afx"t'*<^y''y<>i denoting the president of the council of elders, Philipiiians, p. 205, note. Josephus and Philo, both contemporary with the N. T. writers, distinguish clearly between the general body of the Sanhedrin,— the iSauXtt/rai,— and the ii^;^o»r£f who formed its executive. The latter were ol 'iy»>y'>s *«t' ilax,r,*, and that he was the person referred to as the "head of the synagogue, of the congregation, of the Church" (nDJDH CNT ^r\^7^ '-I, 112i*n '"I), M. Jom. vii. 1; Sot. vii. 7, etc. Art. "Syuagogen," in Herzog, xv. S. 312. The curious term Sia/Siof (regarding which see note at p. 150) occurs in several Jewish inscriptions as indicating an official of the synagogue. Garucci {Disnertazioni, ii. p. 187, cited by Schurer) holds that the archisynagogus is referred to in such cases ; Schiirer prefers to supply "archon." It appears from a Neapolitan inscription that such a liafiies might at the same time be a yipoundpxi' (Ti. Claudius Philippus dia viu et gerusiarchee). In such a case, therefore, on Garucci's theory, the two distinct positions of President of the presbytery (gerusiarch) and Chairman of its Executive or Com- mittee of Archons (archisynagogus) had been held by the same man, and it was desired to note the double honour upon his monument. On Schiirer's view, the deceased had been an archon for life, and had also been president of the presbytery. Schiirer, Gemeindevtrf. S. 23 f. 1 Schiirer, ii. pp. 185 f., 370. Selden, De Synedriii^, Loudini 1655, lib. iii. c. 2, pp. 17-22, 37. Vitringa, pp. 832 f., 851 f. 140 THE CHUECH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. same rule held in the case of the president of the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, of which we shall speak presently ; only with this difference, that as the Sanhedrin was the highest court, there was in it no room for reference or intervention,^ As to the position and functions of the presidents of the Jewish synagogue elderships, Vitringa sums up his careful examination of the evidence bearhig on this point as follows : "There were presidents of this kind in those greater con- sistories which flourished both before and after the overthrow of Jerusalem in Canaan, and in the more celebrated places beyond Canaan such as Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, and in Babylonia. It is not to be denied that such a president was distinguished by a dignity and authority beyond the other presbyters who along with him constituted the synedrium. But it is to be observed — " {a) That the president of a council (senatus) of this kind was always held to be of the same order and office (ordinis et officii) with the rest of the council of which he was the most distinguished member ; and, what is more, that he was always subject to the council, who could remove him from his office at their pleasure (quotiescunque volebat). We must there- fore compare this president of a Jewish presbytery with the presidents of civil or legal courts, such as we find in many countries. In such cases the dignity of the president's position obtains for him a greater authority and honour with the public, and gives him certain other prerogatives ; but he is not thereby removed from the order and class of the other members of the court over which he presides. The rectors of our modern universities supply an illustration of this. Thus all the members of the great and venerable supreme council in Jerusalem, the president not excepted, were alike included under the names ' Sanhedrin,' ' House of Judg- ment,' Elders, Presbytery, Gerusia, and such other titles proper to that court. It is therefore sufficiently clear that each of those ecclesiastical councils of which we speak con- stituted a homogeneous body of men, of the same class and order (ejusdem generis et ordinis). For any superior dignity attach- ' Coinp. Vitringa, p. 832 f. Selden, De Syned. lib. iii. c. 1, p. 5 f. THE PRESIDENT OF THE ELDERSHIP. 141 ing to the president was reflected upon the whole council from whom he derived it. " (h) In those ordinary ecclesiastical consistories (nu'C''') which existed in less populous places, the dignity of the head of tlie consistory (nn-C"' t'Si) was hardly greater than that of any of his colleagues. He was first in the consistory, and its standing chairman (pneses perpetuus), but was of the same order and office with the rest of his colleagues, and of the same power, since he could do nothing save with them and through them. He was distinguished from them in point of dignity in no respect whatever, save that he held the first place among a body of men of his own order, rank, and office." ^ (3.) Functions of the elders of the synagogue. In each synagogue the duties of the eldership thus con- stituted under their president were comprehended under the two general departments of teaching and ruling. To the first of these some reference has already been made. It may be added here, that in connection with it a learned or professional class naturally grew up, known as the scribes (a''iSiD, rypafxiia- Tet9, vofiiKOL, vofioStBdaKaXoi). These were men specially trained in the knowledge of Scripture law and its traditional ^ De Syii. Vet. lib. ii. c. 12, p. 604. Scliiirer's investigations leatl liim to the same conclusion as to the gerusiarch wlio appears so often in the Jewish inscriptions at Rome and elsewhere: " Er wird unter der a^;^a»T£; nur der primus inter pares gewesen sein," Gemeindevcrf. S. 20. Vitringa goes on to indicate with his usual lucidity and fairness how these facts bear upon the ecclesiastical polity of the Christian Church, and how naturally sucli presidents of presbyteries developed in the early centuries by a gradual process into prelates or monarchical bishops. His conclusions on the subject are in substance those expressed in the following sentences from Bishop Lightfoot : " The Episcopate [Dr. Lightfoot means, of course, the prelatic or monarchical Episcopate] was formed not out of tlie apostolic order by localization, but out of the presbyteral by elevation ; antl the title (bishop), which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief among them. . . . The existence of a council or college necessarily supi)oses a presidency of some kind, whether this presidency be assumed by each member in turn or lodged in the hands of a single person. It was only necessary, therefore, for him [the Apostle John at Ephesus, according to Dr. Lightfoot's theory, of which again] to give permanence, deliniteness, stability to an office whicli already existed in germ. There is no reason, however, for supposing that any direct ordinance was issued to the Churches." Philippians, 3rd ed, pp. 194, 205. Conip. Dods, Prcsbyttrianma, p. 29 f. 142 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. interpretation. Ezra was at once a priest of the line of Aaron, and also " a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord the God of Israel had given." ^ But it is in the latter capacity that he is chiefly spoken of, and as such he was fore- most in "bringing the Scriptures before all the congregation" in the sreat gatherings at Jerusalem after the restoration, " afivinsr the sense and causing them to understand the reading." ^ But in later times the systematic study and exposition of the Scriptures, from causes on which we cannot dwell here, passed more and more into the hands of men who were not of priestly families, but sprung from the ranks of the people. Their influence grew with the spread of the synagogue system. The scribes were the natural leaders in a religious community. Their lives might often be unworthy of their position, but the theoretic value of their teaching was acknowledged by our Lord Himself : " The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat : all things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these observe and do ; but do ye not after their works : for they say, and do not. . . . They love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the market- places, and to be called of men, Eabbi." ^ As indicated in the words of Christ now cited, these trained teachers filled the highest places in the synagogue elder- ships. The scribe or scribes in every congregation were those among its elders specially qualified to speak on religious sub- jects, and ordinarily expected to do so when the Scriptures were read on sabbaths or week-days. " The lectures and exhortations in the synagogues were not indeed confined to appointed persons. Any one capable of doing so might stand up to teach in the synagogue at the invitation of the ruler. But as in the courts of justice the learned doctors of the law were preferred to the laity, so too in the synagogue their natural superiority asserted itself." * By the influence and under the presidency of the scribes, schools for the regular instruction of the young in Scrip- ture knowledge grew up in connection with almost every synagogue, where the most hopeful of the youth of Israel 1 Ezra vii. 6. * Neh. viii. 1-9. 8 Matt, xxiii. 2 f., 6 f. * Suhiirer, i. 328. THE SCRIBES, OR TRAINED TEACIIEKS. 143 sat eagerly at the feet of the teachers of the law.* Touch- ing instances are recorded of the thirst for sacred learning, and of persistent self-denial in order to obtain it, in con- nection with the poorest faniilies.^ Through tlie teaching of the scribes especially, both in the school and the congregation, tlie synagogues became centres of religious instruction and influence for the ends described in such glowing terms by one of themselves. " What are our houses of prayer {irpoaevKTripia) in every town," he asks, " but places of instruction in prudence and manhood, temperance and righteousness, piety and holiness, and every virtue with respect both to things human and things Divine ? " ' The contrast which sometimes existed between the ideal and the actual in this matter may be seen in the words of an apostle who was contemporary with Philo, and who liad sat at the feet of Eabban Gamaliel, " the glory of the Law : " " Thou bearest the name of a Jew and restest upon the law, and gloriest in God, and knowest His will, and approvest the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, an in- structor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. Thou there- ^ Schiirer, ii. j)p. 48 ff. Scliurcr makes a curious slip here in quoting 2 Tim. iii. 15 : a.-ro fipi^svs Upx y^fifixTx oTia;, as a proof that "in Christian communi- ties also children were instructed in the Holy Scriptures." No doubt that is a fair inference; but Timothy was trained in a Jeivish home. "Seeing that the Jews," says the great scribe of Alexandria, "regard their laws as utterances from God, and are instructed in this species of knowledge from their earliest childhood {Ik ■rpuTtis ftkixias), they bear the image of the things enjoined upon them in their very souls. They are taught, as it were, from their very swaddling-clothes (i; auraiy rf'oTov rua, ff-rntpyaiiui) by their parents, tutors, and teachers {Taihayuiyut *«/ u^>iy»T*v), even before they are instructed in tlie holy laws and the unwritten traditions, to believe in one God, the Father and Maker of the world." Philo, Lcf/at. ad Caium, p. 31. * As, e.g., in the story of Hillel sitting outside the window of the schools in snow to hear the words of his teachers when he had not even the small sum needful to pay the gate-keeper for admission. C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, Cambridge 1877, p. 34. * Philo, Life of Mose.% iii. p. 27. See on the whole subject of the scribes, Schiirer, i. pp. 312-328. Hausrath, i. p. 89 f. 144 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. fore that teacliest another, teachest thou not thyself ? . . . Thou who gloriest in the law, through thy transgression of law dishonourest thou God ? For the name of God is blas- phemed among the Gentiles because of you." ^ Under the head of " ruling " in the synagogue came the control of everything connected with the arrangements and order of worship in the congregation, the administration of discipline among its members, the management of its financial affairs, and the care of the poor and afflicted in connection with it.^ Meetings of the congregation and of the elders were held not only on Sabbaths and fasts and festivals, but on Mondays and Thursdays, the usual market days of the week, when the country people came with their wares to the town, and. took the opportunity of joining in the services, hearing religious questions discussed, and sometimes of bringing their disputes before the elders in the synagogue.^ A vigorous discipline was exercised. Offending members were dealt with in various ways, and in the last resort were " cast out of the synagogue " or excommunicated. This in- fliction corresponded to the Old Testament penalty of being " cut off from the congregation or assembly of Israel " and " of the Lord," * and was deeply dreaded by every pious Jew. 1 Rom. ii. 17-21, 23 f. '^ Vitringa, lib. iii. c. 5, pp. 667 ff. Leyer, art. " Synagogen," in Herzog, XV. S. 312. » Hausrath, i. pp. 83, 86. Schiirer, ii. p. 83. Dr. Hatch in his valuable work, The Organization of the early Christian Churches, gives an interest- ing sketch of the Jewish communities in the apostolic age as "meeting probably in the same place, in two capacities and with a double organiza- tion " (p. 58 f.). He seems to regard the week-day meetings as purely secular, " for the ordinary purposes of a local court." But this is certainly incorrect. See, to the contrary, Hausrath and Schiirer as above, with the references given by them. Compare also Liike xviii. 12 with the Teaching of the Tivelve Apostles, c. 8 : "Let not yovir fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second day of the week and on the fifth." "In the larger congregations there were daily meetings at the times of sacrifice in the Temple." Leyrer, art. " Synagogen," in Herzog, xv. S. 305. Zunz, Kitus des syn. Gottesd. S. 123. * This was the opposite of " entering into the assembly of the Lord," i.e. being received as a member in full standing in the religious fellowship of Israel. See Deut. xxiii. 2 tf. etc. Compare the expression used of the pious dead, " gathered to his people," Gen. xxv. 8, etc. ; and see Candlish, Kingdom of God, p. 54. Bannerman, Church of Christ, i. p. 121 f. DISCIPLINE IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 145 It represented to his mind separation from the fellowship and privileges of the covenant people of God. The fear of it, as we read in the Gospels, kept many, especially among those in the better social positions, from acting upon their real convictions as to the Divine mission of Jesus of Nazareth. " Even of the rulers many believed on Him ; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue (airoavvdycoyoL yivoovTai)" Our Lord, in His last words of warning to His disciples regarding the trials in store for them after His departure, speaks of this as something which must needs be to them a specially bitter and painful experience. " These things have I spoken unto you that ye should not be made to stumble. They shall put you out of the synagogues (^a.TTocrvva'yco'yov'; iroL-qcovaiv vfiao<; ovSe eh, not one DDR) "who shall be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers ? " " " The whole synagogue system," as a leading German authority on the subject (Schiirer) expresses it, " presupposes above all things the existence of a religious community ; " and in the Providence of God, from the very first, over by far the greater extent of the field in which that system established itself, it was to the moral and religious sphere that the action of the synagogue eldership was practically limited. And even in those parts of Palestine, — the purely Jewish as dis- tinguished from the Hellenistic districts, — where a certain mixture of secular jurisdiction took place, this was more and ' An illustration of what has now been said is supplied by an edict of Arcadius and Honorius, cited by Vitringa, in which, on the one hand, all ordinary jurisdiction and jwwer of inflicting punishments are expressly with- held from the Jews, " in his causis (^uaj tam ad superstitionem eoruni quam ad forum et leges ac jura pertinent ; " but, on the other hand, recognition is accorded to their custom of arbitration among themselves : " Si (jui vero ex his communi pactione ad similitudinem arbitrorum apud Juda'os in civili duntaxat negotio putaverint litigandum, sortiri eorum judicium jure publico non vetentur. Eorum etiam sententias judices exe<|uantur tauquam ex sententia cognitoris arbitri dati fuerint." Vitringa, p. 817. Comp. Hatch, Onjanization of Early Christ. Churches, pp. 67 f., 72. - 1 Cor. vi. 5 f. ; comp. Acts xviii. 4-8. 148 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. more eliminated in the process of events, and the influence of the elders came increasingly to depend upon their religious character and position.^ The other officials of the synagogue were of a subordinate kind. They consisted of an attendant, known as the "chazzan" (ijn), or, in the Hellenistic synagogues, the 11777] peT7]<;, -whose duties were very much those of the modern " Church officer " or " beadle," ^ and one or two collectors of alms and offerings (D'5<3a or '^P^'^ ''^?3),^ in cases where that work was not done by the chazzan. It only remains to refer to the relations of the different synagogues to each other, and to the position held by the great Sanhedrin or supreme council at Jerusalem. (4.) Kelations of diff'erent synagogues to each other. Where a synagogue stood alone it was governed, as we have seen, by its own eldership. Where several synagogues arose in one city or district, their relations to each other seem to have varied considerably according to circumstances. In some ' Schiirer discusses the point, " Whether in the time of Christ the civil and religious community were so separated in Palestine that the latter possessed an independent organization." There is no question that all the synagogues of the Dispersion possessed it. "With respect to Palestine, his conclusion is that there was such an independent religious organization in every part of the Holy Land where the Jews were either excluded from civic rights or shared these with non- Jews. This was the case in all the Hellenistic towns and districts, e.g. in the old Philistian and Phoenician regions, in Joppa, Csesarea, Ptolemais, Damascus, Gadara, Gerasa, Samaria, Antipatris, Caisarea Philippi, Tiberias, etc. As regards places with predominantly Jewish population the case is not so clear. Tliere may have been, in such instances, no definite distinction between the elders of the town and those of the synagogue, and the old local Sanhedrin may have had charge of the affairs of the synagogue congregation and appointed its officials. "At least there was no urgent reason for the formation of a college of elders for each separate synagogue, although with the scantiness of our materials we have to concede the possibility of this being done. Nay, in one ca.se it is even probable, for the Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem, the libertines, Cyrenians, Cilicians, and Asiatics evidently formed separate communities, having five synagogues." i. pp. 57-149. The Helleimtic Toirns, ii. p. 55 ff. ' Vitringa, pp. 890-90S. Schiirer, ii. p. 66 f. As in the case of a capable Church ofiicer, especially in a small congregation, a great variety of work often fell into the hands of the chazzan, from cleaning the lamps, and officiating in the infliction of the "forty stripes save one," to teaching a sort of Sabbath school, or reading the Scriptures and leading in prayer and praise in the congregation. 3 Vitringa, lib. i. Pars 1, c. 10 ; lib. iii. Pars 1, c. 13, pp. 211 f., 811-814. Leyrer, "Synagogen," in Herzog, xv, S. 313 f. LARGER AND SMALLER PRESBYTERIES. 149 cases eacli synagogue, witli its body of office-bearers, was apparently established on an independent footing, and we have no evidence of any formal or organic connection snl)- sisting between it and the neighbouring congregations. In other cases, the collective eldership of all the synagogues in question seems to have formed the presbytery {jepovaia or trpecr^vTepiov) of the city or district, and exercised authority and oversight over all the congregations. In the Jewish community at liome, for example, under the Cnesars, we have abundant evidence, as recently brought out by Schlirer in his interesting monograph, of a thorough congregational organization on a Presbyterian system. Each synagogue had its own session or consistory of elders (17 yepovaia) ; its president of the consistory, or moderator of session (0 yepova-iup-xTji;) ; its executive, or acting committee of session (0/ ap^ovre^) ; its dp^ia-vvajcoyo^, — possibly in the Pioman synagogues the elder specially in charge of the depart- ment of worship, or else the chairman of the executive ; ^ its synagogue attendant {vTrrjpirr]^'). " But no trace has been found as yet," Schlirer writes, " of a general united organiza- tion of the whole Jewish community at Rome under one yepova-ia. This is a very remarkable phenomenon when we compare it, for instance, with the organization of the Jews at Alexandria, The Jewish community there, although much more numerous than at Rome, was united in a most complete organization, in the earlier period with an ethnarch at its head (Strabo in Josephus, Aiitiq. xiv. 7. 2), at a later date under a yepovaia (Philo, In Flacc. § 10). This was possible at Alexandria, where the Jews took from the first a much more dominant position than at Rome. . . . Here they were obliged to content themselves with the more modest position of individual religious societies {collegia, or clubs)." ' In every Jewish presbytery of any size, whether it had the oversight merely of one congregation or of several, the plan was usually adopted of having an executive or acting committee for the more efficient transaction of business. This was obviously in itself a reasonable arrangement. It corre- ^ See note above, p. 138 f. 2 Schlirer, Gemtindevtrf. der Juden in Bom, S. 15, 18-25. Vitringa, p. 559 f. 150 THE CHURCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD, sponded to the well-known threefold division of the Greek communes (S?;/!©?, ^ovkrj, ap'XpvTes;) ; and it was commended to the Jewish mind and feeling by such precedents- from the history of Israel as that of the seventy men chosen from the general eldership of the people to bear the burden along M'ith Moses, and that of the central board appointed by Jehoshaphat.^ The members of this executive were chosen from time to time by the congregation from the general body of the elders. There was thus a distinction which appears repeatedly in the inscriptions on Jewish tombs between one who was merely an elder of the synagogue, — which seems to have been a position held ad vitam met culpam, — and one who, in addition, was an " archon," or member of the executive of the eldership or presbytery. The election of archons was usually an annual one, being held as a rule in September, which was the beginning of the civil year with the Jews, and also the season of their greatest religious fast and festival, the day of Atonement and the feast of Tabernacles.^ Any archon might be re-elected ; and the appointment was sometimes for a period of years, or even, as it seems, for life. Such a mark of confidence on the part of the members of the synagogue was naturally held to be a special honour, to be noted as such in the inscription on the tomb of the office-bearer who had enjoyed it.^ ^ See above, p. 110. 2 Schiirer quotes a passage on this point from a Homily ascribed to Chrj-- sostom, which specially refers to the state of matters in Italy under the Emperors: "Inter hnec intuendte sunt temponim qualitates et gesta morum ; et primum perfidia Jud.Torum, qui semper in Deum et in Mosem contumaces exstiterunt, qui cum a Deo secundum Mosem initium anni mensem Martium acceperunt, illi dictum pravitatis sive superbise exercentes mensem Septembrem ipsum novum annum nuncupant, quo et mense magistratiis sibi designant quos archontas vocajit." Hist, of Jewish People, ii. p. 250. * Inscriptions such as the following often occur : Si; ^pz'"^) "■px'^^ -^affy,; rifins, ap^cif S/a fiieu or licc^iH. The last-named phrase Sclnirer interprets with considerable probability to mean that the archon in question had held office for life. Gemeindeverf. S. 23. Hist, of Jewish People, ii. p. 250 f. See note above, p. 139. Dr. Hatch jioints out that in some Greek cities the executive of the /3au>.»] was known as the ytpovtrla, and that the two bodies seem sometimes to have had separate chairmen, the ^oii^apx's and the "jrpoaTu.Tris yipovn'ta.;. Hatch, p. 64. THE SAXIIEDUIN AT JERUSALEM. 151 Among the synagogues of Palestine itself, as was to be expected, we find a more fully developed organization. At the head of all stood the high court of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. (5.) The great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. As to the historic origin of this body, much uncertainty prevails. The name " Sanhedrin " (from the Greek avvehpiov) probably points to the Macedonian period as that during which the institution first arose ; ^ there are other grounds for the same conclusion. The first mention of it by Josephus occurs in connection with the reign of Antiochus III. (223-187 B.c.).2 But there is reason to believe that it had been in existence before the time of that king, and had probably taken definite shape during the eighty years or more when Palestine was under the favouring sway of the Ptolemies (from 301 to about 218 B.C.). A council of elders or presbytery (yepovcria) at Jerusalem appears thrice in the religious romance of Judith, and repeatedly in the historical books of the Maccabees.'^ In the New Testament history frequent reference is made to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem as a well-known and influential body, composed of priests, scribes, and elders of the people, under the presidency of the high priest. It is repeatedly spoken of under its technical designation "the Presbytery," " the Presbytery of the People " (i.e. of Israel), or " the Sanhedrin," especially by the N. T. writer who is most careful in his use of official and technical names and titles. Its members are spoken of under the general name of 1 Livy mentions that the members of the Macedonian senate were called " Synedri." " Pronuntiatura quod ad statum Macedoniaj pertinebat senatores quos synedros vacant, legeudos esse, quornn\ consilio republica administraretur," xiv. 32. * Antiq. xii. 3. * Judith iv. 8 ; xi. 14 ; XV. 8 ; 1 Mace. xii. 6, 35 f. ; comp. vii. 33 ; xi. 23 ; xiv. 20; 2 Mace. i. 10; iv. 44; xi. 27. Reuss puts the date of Judith "in the evil days that followed the death of Simon" (i.e. circa 140-130 B.C.), and Tpfjards the reference in this work to the .synedrium as the first mention of it by a contemporary writer, although "the establishment of such a senate or collc^'c of elders may well belong to a time a century or more' earlier." Gesch. (lerheiL SchriJ^ai A. T.,S. 610-615. * TO 'Tfiff^VTifioi Taw XaaZ, i oX»», Matt. xxvi. 59 ; Mark xiv. 55 ; Luke xxii. 66 ; Acts xxii. 5 ; iv. 15 ; v. 21, 27, 34, 41 ; vi. 12, 15 ; xxii. 30 ; xxiii. 1, 6, 15, 20, 38 ; xxiv. 20. 152 THE CHURCH FEOM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUR LORD. " councillors " {^ovkevral)} More specifically they are " the chief priests, elders, and scribes " {ap'^iepeU, 'Kpea^vrepoi, ^pafifxaTeh, or with scribes before elders),^ the archons, elders, and scribes {apxovre^, rrpea^., rypafi/x.),^ or " the chief priests and archons " {ap')(^Lepeh k. ol dp'^^ovre^).'^ Sometimes the term Sanhedrin {a-vvehpiov) is used to denote a meeting of the council (a " session " or " sederunt "j as well as the council itself.^ It is evident that the Sanhedrin was thus a thoroughly representative body, in which three elements were combined : first, the chief priests, including the past and present occupants of the chair of the high priest, and also probably the heads of the twenty-four priestly " courses ; " secondly, ^ Luke xxiii. 50 ; Mark xv. 43. 2 Matt, xxvii. 41 ; Mark xi. 27 ; xiv. 43-53 ; xv. 1. ^ Acts iv. 5. Corap. ver. 8 : "Archons of tlie people and elders ;" and ver. 23, "chief priests and elders." * Luke xxiii. 13 ; xxiv. 20. ^ Thus, e.g., in John xi. 47, the priests and Pharisees held a Sanhedrin {(rvvriyayov irunlpiav). In Acts V. 21 we have the peculiar expression, "they called the Sanhedrin together, and all the eldership of the children of Israel (to ffuvihfiov K. •jTaaoM t>iv yiftva'iav tui v'lav 'irpitriX)." Reuss regards this as a " singular tautology which betrays a narrator who stands far from the events which he records" (Gesch. der heil. Schr. A. T., S. 616). Archdeacon Farrar finds the phrase " somewhat perplexing, because we know nothing of any Jewish 'senate' apart from the Sanhedrin, and because if yiptviria be taken in an etymological rather than a political sense, the Sanhediin included the elders " {St. Paid, i. p. 106). Schiirer, too, finds some difficulty in the words. He rightly says that the natural explanation of them is that "the author of the Acts supposed that the e-uv'ilpiav was of a less comprehensive character than the yipovff'ia," but thinks that this supposition was erroneous on his part, ii, p. 172. But the historian of the Acts was more familiar than his critics are with the methods and practice of a " Presbyterianism older than Christianity," and from a Presbyterian standpoint his phrase presents not the slightest difficulty. No doubt " elders "were included in the Sanhedrin; "the elders," as distinguished from "the chief priests" and "the scribes," formed one of its three constituent sections; but not "all the elders of the children of Israel," not even all the elders of all the synagogues in Jerusalem. Only a certain number of elders were ordinary members of the high council ; but it was open to the Sanhedrin on special occasions to ask the presence of others as assessors for the time, "even the whole eldership of the sons of Israel," in and around Jerusalem. Nothing is more common at this day in all the Reformed Churches which hold the Presbyterian system, when a Presbytery, Synod, or General Assembly takes up some subject of practical importance and general interest, than for the court to invite to its aid in conference "all ministers and elders not members," in other words, " the whole eldership " of the city or district. THE PRESBYTERY OF ISRAEL. 153 the scribes or professional teachers of the law, the experts in Scripture knowledge, and in the traditions of the Jewish schools of sacred learning ; and tliirdly, the elders, a certain proportion of leading and representative men taken probably from the eldership of the different synagogues in Jerusalem, and it may be from other parts of the country/ The total number of the members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was seventy-one ; in what proportion the three constituent sections were respectively represented we do not know. Under this supreme court, and connected with it more or less closely, were several local or provincial Sanhedrin of smaller size and less authority. In Jerusalem itself, accord- ing to the Talmud, there were two such subordinate courts of twenty-three members each. Every town containing more than one hundred and twenty Jewish heads of families had the right to have such a Sanhedrin established in it. We hear also in Josephus and elsewhere of local Sanhedrin, in which the quorum was seven, and from which cases were referred to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, when the judges in the local council could not agree among themselves.^ The great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem unquestionably held an imposing position in the eyes of every member of the fellow- ship of Israeh It exercised a powerful authority not only over the synagogues of the Holy Land, but by letters and deputies over all the synagogues of the Dispersion. To it they all looked, e.g. for authoritative information as to the ^ The word of the Pha-nicians usually convened in Tripolis (Diodor. xvi. 41) ; the *«» c-yy'S^/ai- of ancient Lycia, which was composed of representatives from twenty- three different towns (Strabo, xiv. 3. 3) ; and the auniipiaf xoitev of the province of Asia. . . . The senators of the four Macedonian districts, who, according to Livy, were called 5. GEXEKAL RESULTS OF SYNAGOGUE SYSTEM. l."5 4. General results of the Synagogue System in its relation to the Scripture doctrine of the Church ; princijilcs cinhoclicd in and illustrated hy it. These may be summed up as follows : — 1. A transition from the symbolical in worship to the real, from the vicarious to the direct. "We can hardly overestimate the practical importance of the change for the great body of the ordinary members of the fellowship of Israel, when it came to be to the synagogue and not to the temple that their minds naturally turned when they thought of the worship of God. It was a visible and tangible transition from outward symbols to spiritual realities, from worship in the hands of a human priesthood, a distinct religious caste, to worship by the members of the congregation themselves, led by men whom they chose for themselves, M'ithout regard to Levitical or priestly descent, as their best qualified representatives, " elder brethren," acting and speak- ing for them and with them.^ There was ordinarily no reading or exposition of Scripture in the temple until the synagogue and its teachers, as it were, took possession of its courts. There were no altars, no incense, no separate priest- hood, no material sacrifices of any kind in the synagogue, and no place within its walls more holy than another through any visible symbol of the presence of God. The tabernacle and the temple served great religious pur- poses in their time. What some of these were we saw before.^ Psalmists and prophets taught the spiritually-minded in Israel to rise from the signs to the things signified in the material " house of God " with its temporary priesthood, " its ordinances of Divine service, and its sanctuary which was of this world." ^ But now in history and Providence tlie Lord of the sanctuary taught these lessons in a yet • As to the reading and rendering adopted by the Revisers in Acts xv. 23, on which Dean Burgon pours out the vials of his ^v^ath in such characteristic fashion in the Quarterly Review (July 1885), we may have something to say at a later stage. The phrase " the elder brethren " at all events well expresses the feelings of a pious Israelite towards those who presided and took the lead in the synagogue congregation in which he worshipped from week to week. - Supra, pp. 78-85. ' Heb. ix. 1. 156 THE CIIUKCH FROM TIME OF EXILE TO THAT OF OUE LORD. more effective way for the great mass of the members of the house of Israel. God had " of old tinie spoken unto their fathers by divers portions and in divers manners (TroXtJixep6!)ret Scripture except according to the unanimoiis consent of tlie Fathers." How then were members of tlie Vatican Council to interpret the text : Tu es Petrus, etc., whicli they read inscribed in gigantic letters of Mosaic liigh above their heails in the dome of St. Peter's ? Littiedale, Plain lieagons against joining the Church of Rome, Lond. 1881, it. p. 26 f. Still ingfleet, Doct. and Pract. of Church of Rome (Cunuinghaui's ed. ), p. 135 ff. » Meyer, in loc. =» Ver. 22. 174 THE CHUECH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. " I will build My Church " (Mov ryjv iKKXTjalav). There can be no doubt as to the general meaning which that well- known term would convey to the minds of the disciples who heard it thus used by their Master. As Eothe expresses it : " The conception of the Church in its most general outlines had already grown up on the soil of the Old Testament. The theocratic community of the people of Israel regarded itself in that capacity as the iKKkr^crla rou Oeov (bni^, niy, nin''_ J<"jpp), i.e. as the holy congregation chosen by God out of all other nations of the world, and called to be His peculiar people (Deut. v. 22 ; Ps. xxii. 23 f. ; xxvi. 12 ; Acts vii. 38). And the Redeemer appropriates to Himself this conception of the Church, inasmuch as He declares that He will build for Himself an iKKXtjo-ia over which the gates of Hell shall not prevail." ^ Cremer, in his careful examina- tion of the use of the term eKKXrjala in the New Testament, speaks to the same effect with still greater precision : " 'EKKXijaca denotes the New Testament community of the redeemed in its twofold aspect : First, the entire congregation of all who are called by and to Christ, who are in the fellow- ship of His salvation, the Church. That the application of the word to the Church universal is 2Jrwiary, and that to an individual Church secondary, is clear from the Old Testament use of the word, and from the fundamental statement of Christ in Matt. xvi. 18. . . . Secondly, the New Testament Church as confined to particular places. . . . When Christ says olKoSo/j,7]aco Mov rrjv etCKkif^aiav, we are scarcely reminded that eKKk-qala denoted in profane Greek the place of assembly as well as the assembly itself, but rather that the Old Testa- ment community was ' the house of Israel.' " " The powerful and impressive figure of " the gates of Hades " would naturally suggest the idea of mighty forces coming from the realm of the unseen, the kingdom of death and the world of spirits, marshalled by deliberate counsels such as were held in the gates of Eastern cities.'^ 1 Rothe, Dogmatlk; Heidelberg 1870, iii. 2te Th. 2te Abth. § 2, S. 17. 2 Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, E. Tr., Ediu. 1880, p. 334. ^ There seems to be no sufficient reason for departing from the usual exegesis of the words T^Xa; Ulou al x,'j:.Tiixx,xi(rouiitv alrns, the gates of Hades shall not THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 175 The general conviction, therefore, which the j^romise was fitted to convey to the minds of the disciples was to this effect, that the congregation or Cliurch of Israel, the fellow- ship of God's covenant people, was to be built up by the Son of God Himself in tlieir time upon a rock-fast founda- tion, and that no powers of evil from the unseen future and the unseen world, the region of death and destruction, should ever prevail against it.^ " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The Future, as in " I will build," points to a time when ])revail against or overpower the-Church. Meyer admits tliat this interpreta- ti(jii is equally correct with his own in point of grammar, and that it is given by the great majority of cxegetes, but prefers a different one. He renders : " The gates of Hades will not be able to resist it, will not prove stronger than it," and holds that the main idea is that of a comparison between the strength of the Church and the strength of Hades, without any direct reference to attack or effort on either side. Hades is the embodiment of strength and impregna- bility. Yet the Churcli of Christ as now to be built upon the rock shall prove to be yet stronger. Its members in Hades .shall be brought out, and the iron gates burst open. In the name of Jesus the things of the worhl below shall do liomage, Phil. ii. 10. But this appears a somewhat artificial and far-fetched interpretation, and much less suitable to the context. It is adopted also by Weiss, Biblical Theol. of N. T., 3rd ed., E. Tr., 1882, i. pp. 140, 156, note. ^ The exposition of this passage given by Krauss is a superficial and un- satisfactory one. According to him, Peter is the rock, " Peter as confessing Christ, but still Peter." Therefore the iKKXnc'ni must be one actually built on the confessing Peter, and what is to happen after his death the passage does not indicate ; whether we are to look for a successor to Peter, a college of pres- byters, a number of independent congregations, or a free development of life in different forms. " We must go back to the historical sense of the words, and explain them in relation to the historical circumstances in which they were spoken." Certainly, and therefore it is a bad omen for the success of Professor Krauss's in(iuiry that he begins with a blunder as to the historical sense and use of rni? and prip (pointed out above, ji. 94), and goes on to commit himself to the assertion that "Jesus spoke these words looking only to the position of things at that moment (im Hinblick auf den augenblick- lichen Stand dcr Dinge)." How then account for the use of the future : "I will build, 1 will give," and for the comprehensive character of the promise: "that the gates of Hades should not prevail in the future against this Church, which was yet to be built"? Proteslanlitiche Do'jma v. dcr u/mchtbaren Kirclte, S. 124-128. 176 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. Christ should no longer be present with His disciples as He was now, and the phrase carries on the metaphor implied in oUoSofujaco. It indicates the position of things which would arise in His Church when He, the Master of the house (o olKoheaiTOTri^), as He describes Himself in several of His parables,' should have departed from it for a season, giving authority to His servants in the house, and to every man his work, until He should return. The Church of Christ — here spoken of as one with, or at least most closely related to, " the kingdom of heaven " — is referred to as a house ia which Peter is to hold the position of steward or overseer [oIkov6/xo<; or TUfMia';), and in token of this "the keys," a familiar Old Testament symbol for authority and government, are to be entrusted to him. He is to decide in His Master's name who are to belong to the household, and who are to be excluded from it ; who may enter freely into the house, and against whom its doors must be closed.' " And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth sliall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This clause confirms the power conveyed in the gift of the keys, and explains the nature of it. The decisions of the steward in the house, as given in the Master's name, are to carry His full authority. When thus given on earth, they 1 Luke xii. 42 ff. ; xix. 12 ff. '^ Comp. Isa. xxii. 15-23. Shebna, " the steward which is over the house " (n^Hrrijy ItJ'X pbn, « raffia.;, LXX.), has become unwortliy of his office, "the shame of his Lord's house." The prophet, in the name of Jehovah, declares that he is to be removed from office, and a worthier man, Eliakim, the servant of the Lord, set in his place. " I will commit thy government" (rJiv eiK»vo/u.iav aov, LXX.) " into his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; lie shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall oi)en." Compare also what Christ snys of the scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses' seat, but not like him faithful servants in all the house of God : "Ye shut tlie kingdom of heaven against men," Matt, xxiii. 13. In the parallel passage in Luke xi. 52, tliis is described as their "taking away the key of knowledge." In Rev. iii. 7 our Lord speaks of Himself as " He that hath the key of David, that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none oi)eneth." He has not merely the keys of the house of David, but of David himself. It is no vicarious authority, but that of the a<i; himself, direct and supreme. BINDING AND LOOSING. 177 shall be at that very momuiit ratified and registered in heaven.^ The phrase to bind and loose p?5J and '^''^'}, Beetu and Xveiv) was a familiar one in the Jewish synagogues and schools, in the sense of to forl)id and to allow. There can be no doubt, I think, that that is its meaning here. It was the one in which the first disciples, accustomed from their earliest youth to the phraseology of the synagogues, would naturally understand the words.^ The steward in Christ's house and kingdom, using the power of the keys, is to decide authoritatively what is to be forbidden and what allowed within it ; in other words, he is to settle the conditions of membership and the rules of the house. As to the nature of the things forbidden and allowed, and as to the way in which the authority is to be exercised, whether by the steward alone or in conjunction with others, nothing is said here. Only this mucli is evident from the words themselves, that the authority is a delegated and ministerial one. It is the power of a man who is himself " under authority," of a " steward," not of the master of the house. Further, as we saw, Peter had spoken as the representative of the rest of the disciples. We may infer, therefore, that he is addressed as such by their Lord. Fuller light is given on some of these points by Christ's teaching in the passage which we have now to consider. 2nd. "And if thy brother sin against thee, go show him his fault between thee and him alone : if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the Church : and if he refuse to hear the Church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and tlie ' "Kirrai SsSi/*£y«v . . . X'.kvfi'ivov, " shall bc already a tliiiif]; bound . . . loosed." The two transaLtion.s, below and above, absolutely coincide. As we look up from what has taken jdace in the Church on earth, behold, it is alread}- done in heaven also. C'onip. Meyer, in loco. '^ See Vitringa, p. 754 f. Hausrath, N. T. Times, i. pp. 97-104. Meyer, E. Tr. i. p. 423 1". Julius Miiller's arguments against the general consensus ot interpreters on this point do not seem at all conclusive. Do'jinalische Abhand- liui'jcn, Bremen 1870, S. 504-513. 178 THE CHURCH ix our lord's teachixg. publican. Yerily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. " Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt, xviii. 15—20. These words were spoken shortly after our Lord's first great utterance concerning His Church. They belong to the very close of His Galiltean ministry, to the time just before His last journey to Jerusalem. The disciples had come to Him with questions as to high position in the kingdom of heaven. In reply, Christ spoke to them concerning the spiritual conditions needful in men ere they could enter into that kingdom at all, concerning occasions of stumbling given to little ones who believed on Him, and concerning the love and care of His heavenly Father and theirs for such little ones.^ He passes on now by a natural transition to speak upon a kindred sub- ject, namely, in what spirit and by what method sins and occasions of stumbling among fellow-believers should be dealt with by His disciples. " If thy brother shall have sinned against thee," " Thy brother " (6 aSe\(f)6, not simply an n*iy^ an " ecclesia," not merely a " coetus." The disciples must be " gathered together in My name " {a-vvr^y- fxevoL et9 TO e^ov ovofia), with express reference to My name, trusting in it, and all that it implies for the ends of their present meeting, whether it be for worship and edification, for counsel, or for discipline in the Church. The disciples meet CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE CHURCH. 189 as disciples, looking unto Jesus, trusting in Him as their Lord and Saviour, owning in word and deed all that Peter's con- fession said, that this is indeed tlie Christ, the Son of the living God. His name is the token and bond of union between them as they meet thus together. His name makes His Church. It is the attractive power of that name which has drawn these disciples out of the world and brought them into Christ's eKKXTjcria, the fellowship of those called, and chosen, and faithful to Him. His name, revealed to them as to Peter, not by flesh and blood merely, but by His Father in heaven, has brought them into one and keeps them so. They are the called and kept of Jesus Clirist. His name is the reason of this their present meeting, and the secret of the solemnity and power which they feel breathing in it. " For where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there He is in the midst of them." " These great words of our Lord," Dr. Dale says well, " are no less true in our days than they were in the days of the apostles. There is no limitation to suggest tliat they were intended as a promise of exceptional honour and blessedness to the Christians of the first century. Indeed they are not a promise at all, but the revelation of a fact. Christian men are so related to each other as well as to (.'hrist, that when they are ' gathered together in His name,' He is 'in the midst of them.' They find Him when they find each other." ^ This explains the strange and at first sight startling autho- rity ascribed by our Lord to the decisions of the Church in this passage and some others. Tlie power entrusted to the disciples in their Church capacity is just because of and in proportion to their loyalty to Christ Himself. They are met as one with Him, gatliered together in and unto His name, pleading it in prayer.' Christ Himself is present with ' Dale, Manual of Congregational Princiiihs, London 1884, p. 17. Sec the wliole of Dr. Dale's able and impressive treatment of this point, pp. 10-12, 17 f., 42 f. • "Quodcunque petimns adversus utilitatem salntis non petimus in nomine Salvatoris. Et tamen Ipse Salvator est non solnm (piando facit quod petimus, verum etiam (luando non facit ; quoniam (|Uod vidct peti contra saluteni, non faciendo potius se exhibet Salvatorem." See the whole of this passage in which 190 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHIXG. His believing people when thus met, even when they are hut two or three. He is an Actor — the chief Actor — in what is done. The decision to which they are led in the exercise of faith and prayer, under the teaching of the S])irit sent by Christ to open to them the Word and the Providence of God, is His decision. Let all remember it, both those who are called to speak and act in sucli circumstances, and those on whom their decision specially bears.^ No doubt the promise in ver. 19 applies to all united prayer by believers. The two disciples who agree in their request may not be met in a Church capacity in the ordinary sense of the word. They may not be actually met at all, although they have agreed together touching the thing they would ask, and perhaps the time when they are to offer up their petition. But we are bound to remember that this promise is given by Christ in close connection with rules for discipline in His Church, and with the previous pro- mise regarding the authority of Church decisions, and that the ground of both promises is one and tlie same, namely, the presence of Christ Himself where disciples are " gathered together in His name," not in the same sense and to the same effect where they are separately. The smallest possible assembly of disciples has express promises and encourage- ments from the Master which are not given to a solitary Christian. " For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Augustine shows finely what it is to ask in Christ's name, Tract, in Joanii. Ixxiii. 3, ed. Migne, p. 1823 f. ^ " 'There am I in tlie midst of them' (comp. 1 Cor. v. 4), as the Mediator through wliom their prayer is heard, as the Giver of that wliich they ask, as the Confirmer of that which conies forth from them as a testimony either publicly or privately. Christ certainly speaks here already in the same sense as in John xiv. 13 f., and we have here already a prospective glance into tlie period of His heavenly Omnipresence, which in Matt, xxviii. 20 He promised when about to ascend to the Father. ' This must signify a spiritual presence or nothing, but it is a stupendous expression ' (Pfenninger). . . . Could there be a severer judgment pronounced against all pseudo-Catholicism than is given in this word, and again a more friendly consolation, a stronger call to make use of tliis power, addressed to the weak Protestantism which seeks the invisible Church elsewhere than upon earth in the assembly of the faithful, which never remains invisible, from which the testimony of the ' There am I ' goes forth ever anew to the world " ? Slier, in loco. Christ's puesence in the chuucii. 191 We have already considered some of the Old Testament promises regarding the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, the house of God, the " place where His name was recorded," the Lord Himself being for a sanctuary to the exiles in all countries whitlier they came while the temple lay in ruins.^ These promises received a fuller meaning now in this great utterance of Christ concerning His Church. Not in Jerusalem only, or in the temple henceforth, would the true worshippers I'ully realize their access to the Father.^ " In every place where I record My name," God said of old to Israel, " I will come unto you, and I will bless you." ^ It was now revealed to the true Israel where that name was recorded in truth, even in every place where two or three of Christ's disciples should be gathered together in His name, the name of "the Christ, the Son of the living God." * These weighty and pregnant utterances of our Lord, which we have now briefly considered, form, as has been well said, " the Magna Charta of His Church." " They set before us the great central facts concerning Himself, His work on earth, and His relations to God and men, on which the Church of Christ is built, and the great principles to be applied and acted ou by the Church, through its office-bearers and members, in all the varying circumstances and emergencies of its history on earth. Let us now place alongside of these utterances another saying of our Lord's which has been very generally recognised as having a close relationship to them. It was addressed to the disciples in Jerusalem on the evening ' See above, pp. 79-8.5. * " Wie konnte es audi auJers sein,"says Beyschlag, speaking of tlie powers of government and discipline entrusted to the Church, " da in dein 'mitten unter ihnen ' des erliijhten Cliristus das Ideal des alten Bundcs, das walirhaftige and niclit mehr bless symbolische Wohnungniachen Jehovah's in seinem Volke erfiillt ist, also der Geist des Hen-n ausgegossen iiber alles Flcisch und Beide, Klein und Gross, von Gott gelehrt, die ganze Gemeinde ein Kiinigreich von Priestern, ila somit hier alle die Unterschiede principiell wegfallen, welche im alten Bunde zwischen Priestern und Volk, zwischen Propheteu und Laien bestan- den ?" Chrintl. Gemeimleverf. im Zeitalter des X. T., S. 14. 3 Ex. XX. 24. * Comp. Weiss, Biblical Theol. of N. T., E. Tr. i. p. 142 : "The Messianic Church." " Beyschlag, S. 13. 192 THE CHURCH IX OUR lord's teaching. of the day of the Eesurrection, when for the first time Christ met with them as a company after He had risen from the dead. 3rd. "Jesus therefore said to them again, Peace be unto you : as the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained," John xx. 21-23.^ Do these words convey the same authority as is implied in the power of binding and loosing, spoken of in the two passages in Matthew already considered ? They have been held to do so by many most competent interpreters of Scripture;^ but on a careful examination of the three passages in question I find myself unable to adopt that view, at least in its full extent. It seems to me that, while all the three are related to each other, and throw light upon each other respectively, there is yet a distinct difference between the first two and the third, both as regards the parties primarily addressed by our Lord and the nature of the power conferred upon them. The power to bind and to loose, as we saw, was given first of all to Peter, as representing the rest of the apostles in his faith and confession ; and then to all the apostles, as representing the Church or company of believers, and acting with it, in connection especially with the course to be adopted in dealing with offences arising within the Christian fellow- ship. The gift of power to bind and to loose was confirmatory and explanatory of the power of the keys, the power of a steward or overseer in the master's house. It meant a right to declare with authority in the Master's name the conditions of entrance and the rules of the household, to declare what was lawful for its members and what forbidden, what was and what was not compatible with a man's remaining within the ' With respect to the authenticity and historicity of the Fourth Gospel, see Dr. Salmon's masterly discussion of " the Johannine Books," Introduction to theN. T., Lond. 1885, pp. 249-365; also Westcott, St. John's Gospel, Lond. 1882, pp. v.-lxxxvii. - Among others, by Chrysostom, Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Neander, I]leek, Olshausen, Jul. Miiller, Bannerman {Church of Christ, ii. pp. 190 tf.). POWER TO FORGIVE AND RETAIN SINS. 193 liouse ill full enjoyment of its privileges. More than this, it seems to me, we are not warranted in saying that the words directly convey.^ But the connection of this with yet higher and deeper (juestions is very close. From the essential nature of Christ's Church as a fellowship of believers in Him, as " the Christ the Son of the living God," of men trusting in Him as a ])ivine Saviour from sin in all its effects and consequences, this power of binding and loosing has to do with sins, with spiritual offences, sins against the brethren and against the laws which the Master of the house has given in the name of God, His Father in heaven. It is conferred in direct and express connection with the rules i'or dealing with such sins within tlie Church [eav dfiapTi^arj 6 «Se\iit in the s])irit it is gathered together in one faith and one Gospel, under one Head, who is Jesus Christ. ... In this Christendom, wherever it is, there is forgivenes-s of sins ; it is a kingdom of grace and of the true absolution (des rechteu Ablass). And out of tliis Christendom there is no salvation nor forgiveness of sins, but eternal death and condemnation ; ay, although there may be great show of holiness and many good works, yet all is lost notwithstanding (so ists doch alles verloren)." Bekenntniss vom Abemlmnhl Christi, Werke (Erlanger Ausg.), xxx. S. 369. * Matt, xxviii. 18-20. 200 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. "The eleven," indeed, stand out in this passage with special prominence (ver. 16), as leading the movement into Galilee to meet the Lord there in " the mountain where He had appointed them." But the meeting itself was in all likelihood the one referred to by Paul as consisting of " upwards of five hundred brethren at once." ^ This explains the fact mentioned by Matthew, that at the inter- view in the mountain in Galilee " some doubted " (oi 8e ehla-Taaav)? We cannot suppose that such doubts existed at this stage in the minds of the eleven, although they might very naturally arise in the case of some individuals in so large a gathering of the disciples generally. The " them " in ver. 1 8 of Matthew's narrative must therefore be held to include all the disciples present at the appointed meeting in Galilee,^ not merely the eleven, although no doubt with special reference to them from their representative and official position. Moreover, this interpretation alone corresponds with what is said in the parallel passages in the other three Gospels. "We have seen already that it was to the disciples generally that the words were spoken : " As My Father sent Me, even so send I you." The scene referred to in Mark xvi. 14, when the Lord " was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat," is evidently to be identified with that in Luke xxiv. 37-43. It is in connection with that scene, both in the second and third Gospels, that the world-wide commission is recorded as given to the disciples then assembled.^ But these, we are expressly told, were " the eleven, and they that were with them," as well as Cleophas and his unnamed associate, that is to say, the general company of the disciples.^ These were bidden to tarry at Jerusalem until they should be clothed with power from on high by ^ 1 Cor. XV. 6. - Matt, xxviii. 17. ^ The knowledge of this meeting having been appointed was not confined to the eleven. The angel at the sepulchre said to the women: "Fear not ye, for I know tliat ye seek Jesus. ... Go quickly and tell His disciples, He is risen from the dead, and, lo. He goeth before you into Galilee ; there shall ye see Him ; lo, 1 Lave told you," Matt, xxviii. 5 ff. Comp. ver. 10 and Mark xvi. 7. * Mark xvi. 14-18 ; Luke xxiv. 33-49. * Luke xxiv. 33. COMMISSION FULFILLED BY CHUKCII AS SUCH. 201 receiving " tlie promise of the Father." They tarried accord- ingly, being " a multitude of persons gathered together, about a hundred and twenty." ^ To them, not to the apostles merely, the Holy Spirit is given at Pentecost. " And they went forth," the second evangelist says, — after recording that " the Lord Jesus after He had spoken unto them " (giving the great commission) " was received up into heaven," — " They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed." ^ It was certainly not " the eleven " alone who did this, and received such tokens of the Lord's presence and blessing in their work, as a glance at the narrative of the Acts and at the apostolic epistles shows. They who thus fulfilled the Lord's commission were just those to whom it was first given, or to whom it was lianded on in the succession of faith.'' Many inferences might be drawn from our Lord's teaching regarding His Church in the three pregnant passages which wc have now considered. I shall refer here to one of these only. " Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." It follows surely that if this highest power is entrusted to the Church or fellowship of believers as a whole, no lower ones essential for the existence or well-being of that fellowship on earth can, in case of need, be wanting to it. The powers, for instance, of appointment to office in the Church, and of administration of ordinances, must in the last resort have their seat in the Church or company of believers, as well as the power to forgive and to retain sins. The ordinary exercise of these powers of appointment and administration may, not only for the sake of order but by the will of Christ, be vested in the office-bearers where such exist. Yet, in case of need, it follows by " good and necessary consequence," from our Lord's gift and promise to His Church on the evening of His Resurrection, that the Church itself, the "congregation of faithful men," is fully entitled to recognise the special gifts I Acts i. 15. * Mark xvi. 19 f. 3 Acts ii. 1-4, 17 f. ; iv. 31 ; vi. 8-10 ; viii. 4 f. ; xi. 19-21, etc. ; 1 Cor. i. 4-7 ; Phil. i. 14-18 : Col. i. 5 f. ; 1 Thcss. i. 8 ; Heb. ii. 3 1". 202 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. and grace of Christ in some of its ordinary members, and to call and set them apart to office among their brethren. The same conclusion may be drawn from our Lord's teaching in the two passages in the first Gospel, which have been under consideration. It is to the Church as such that the promise of perpetuity refers, not to the office-bearers. It follows, therefore, that the Church must have within herself at all times, by Christ's gift, power to do everything that is needful to perpetuate herself in strength and efficiency for her work and warfare on earth amidst all the opposition of the gates of Hades. It is to the Church as such — although no doubt with special reference to the work of discipline, in which, if it is to be done efficiently, the Church must speak and act to a great extent through representatives — that the promise is given of her Lord's unfailing presence, even although the gathering in His name be the smallest possible. Where Christ is in the midst of His disciples, and where they are truly gathered together in His name, what can be wanting that is really needed for the life and the successful working of His Church in this world ? " The conclusion stands fast," as an eminent German theologian expresses it, " because Christ has reserved the government in His Church for Himself (Matt, xviii. 20 ; xxiii. 10), therefore the Church, which is spiritually and therefore freely ^ ruled by Him, is as such, in the last resort, the only lawful visible depositary of Church power, — of course on the basis of His name (Matt, xviii. 20), that is to say, His historic revelation of Himself, which must harmonize with the continuous revelation of Himself by the Spirit, in such a way that the two mutually attest each other. It was doubtless foreseen by Him that this self-government of the Church in His name and Spirit would, in accordance with the Divinely ordered nature of things and the diversity of gifts, seek and shape out its own forms.^ But He who was not as • On the principles and in the spirit of freedom (freiheitlich). - What provision had been made for guidance in this field also has been shown above (Part II. chap. iii. ; Part III. chap, iii.) ; how it was used in the apostolic Church we shall see at a later stage (Part V. chap. iii. ; Part VI. chap. iv.). DEPOSITAUY OF CIIUUCII I'OWEH. 203 Moses a giver of laws, Imt the Giver of life and of the Spirit, did not prescribe these forms beforehand, but — apart from the institutions of Baptism and tlie Lord's Supper, which are more than mere forms of Church life, which are the enduring memorials of His historic life, and pledges of His glorified working — confined Himself to the simple indication of general principles, and entrusted the application of these to the Spirit whom He was to send." ^ In yet weightier and older words: "The visible Church, which is catholic, or universal, under the Gospel, consists of all those tliroughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children. . . . Ifnto this catholic visible Church Christ hath fjivcn the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life to the end of the world, and doth by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise, make them effectual thereunto." " Besides these three great and outstandiiig passages in our Lord's teaching concerning His Church, there is much else in what He said which bears directly or indirectly upon our subject. It is impossible here even to indicate all the points to which reference might be made in a more exhaustive survey of the ground. The following passages, however, may he touched upon. 4th. Passages bearing on the unity of the Church in Christ's conception. The nature and ground of this unity, and how it is mani- fested in diversity of time, place, and circumstances, are indicated, as already noted, in the two great fundamental passages for our Lord's doctrine of the Church which we have in the sixteenth and eighteenth chapters of Mattliew's Gospel, In these passages we have plainly two aspects of the Church set before us, a catholic and a local one. There is first of all the Church which Christ will build upon the rock, against 1 Beysclilag, Ckristl. Gemeindererf. im Zeilalter des X. T., S. 21 f. - Westminster Conf. of Faith, xxv. 2 and 3. Conip. Bannermaii, Church <,f Christ, i. pp. 262-275 : "The Primary Subject of Church Power;" Essay on "Sacerdotal Absolution," in Princeton Essays, Loud. 1S46, i. pp. 352-366. 204 THE CIIUKCII IX OUR LOUD'S TEACHING, which the gates of Hades shall never prevail. It is clear that that promise is given to no local visible society existing at any particular time, but to the whole body of those who are chosen, and called, and faitliful throughout the world and in all time. There is also, secondly, the local society in which that Church catholic takes shape and becomes accessible to the individual believer living at any given time and place. It is to it that the disciple who feels that a trespass has been committed against him by a brother, by one who is by profession a member of the same Christian fellowship, is to bring his case, after certain preliminary steps prescribed by Christ. We have these two aspects of the Church set before us, the catholic and the local ; but it is one Church in the mind and heart of the Lord Himself. It should be so also in the thoughts and feelings of His disciples. Wherein its unity consists is brought out by Him in many a deep saying and similitude. To some of these let us now turn. 1. In the ninth chapter of the fourth Gospel we read tliat Christ had healed one born blind at Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. The man thus healed is brought " to the Pharisees," met possibly, as it seems to have been on the Sabbath, in one of the synagogue courts, or as some commentators hold, in the great Sanhedrin itself,^ to answer regarding the breach of the Sabbath alleged to have been committed in connection witii his cure. He is examined as to the facts and as to his own view of the claims of Jesus, and is then remanded. His parents are called before the court and examined also. They know that the dominant party among the Jewish rulers have agreed among themselves that any one who confesses Jesus to be the Messiah shall be put out of the synagogue or excom- nmnicated.^ The father and mother naturally shrink from ^ So Tlioluek, Lange, LutharJt, and Brown. Certainly John refers to the Sanliedrin more than once in a general way as "the Pharisees," from their being the dominant party in it, and identified with it in the popular mind (vii. 47; xi. 46). Other exegetes, as Llicke and Westcott, hold that the reference in the text is to one of the two lesser Sanhedrin mentioned above, I'- If- - ndn yap ffvviTihivTi) o'l 'loucaToi 'tvx idv ri; oclrcy oiji.o'Koy% lU '/v of John xi. 52. " La fin du verset (*«( : et ainsi il y aura . . .) montre clairement que I'idee du Seigneur est tout autre (than that of 'feeding,' as held by Meyer, Luthardt, and Weiss) ; c'cst celle d'amener ces brebis pour les joindre aux premieres. La Vulgate traduit done avec raison adducere. . . . C'est essentiellement roeuvre tie Saint Paul, avec les travaux des missionnaircs qui Tout suivi jusqu'^ nos jours, qui decrit ce terme ' amener.' Cette troisieme similitude, annonqant I'appcl des paiens, correspond ainsi a la premiere qui dt^crivait la sortie des croyants de la synagogue." Godet, iii. p. 178. 208 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD's TEACHING. which He had instituted the Lord's Supper was left by Him and the eleven after the " Arise, let us go hence," with which the fourteenth chapter closes, these words must have been spoken while the little company were on their way to the garden beyond the Kidron, In that case, some vine on the terraced slopes on either side of the ravine may have suggested the image. Or if Christ led His disciples that night to Gethsemane, as some have thought, by the Courts of the Temple, the great golden vine on its gates, " which was at once the glory and the type of Israel," ^ would afford a natural starting-point, according to our Lord's custom, for this discourse. In many a prophetic utterance the vine had been used as an emblem of the people of God in Old Testa- ment times.^ Its full significance is here interpreted by the Lord Himself. Christ is the true, the ideal Vine (rj a/jLir. rj aXrjdivi]), and His disciples are the branches. Some, who are " in Him " in a sense, have but an outward and temporary connection with Him.^ They bear no fruit, and are taken away, cast forth (il3Xr'^6r) e^tu) as withered branches ; " and they," whose office it is, " gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." Those disciples, on the other hand, M'ho are in real and living union with the Lord Himself, abide in Christ, and He abides in them. There are chastenings and spiritual dis- cipline appointed fur them by the Father, even as the husbandman prunes and trains the fruit-bearing branches in the vine ; but these things work, as they are designed, for good. Cleaving to the Lord, and receiving His words in faith and singleness of heart, such believers learn what to pray for and how to pray. They ask what they will and ^ Westcott. Conip. Scliurer, i. p. 253. 2 Ps. Ixxx. 8-14 ; Isa. v. 1-7 ; Jer. ii. 21 ; Ezek. xix. 10-14 ; Hosea X. 1. * Tat xkz/Lta it l/uoi ^>) ipipov xapviv, a'l'pu avTO, Jollll XV. 2. "Si Ull exemplt' s'offre aux yeux de Jesus ce ne pent etre que celui de Judas et de ees disciples qui avaient rompu au ch. vi. le lien qui les unissait a lui. En tout cas, il pense a I'avenir de son Eglise ; il voit d'avance ces professants de I'Evangile qui tout en etant exteiieurement unis a lui, u'en vivront i)as nioins sepaies de lui intericurement. " (Jodet, iii. p. 423. UNITY OF CHURCH IN DIVINE ELECTION. 209 it is done for theni.^ They hrln^ forth inufh fruit, and shall become more and more disciples of Christ indeed, lovingly owned by Him as such (/cat jevrjaeaOe ifiol fxaOrjTai).' 3. In all the Gospels, but especially in that of John, we thid this great idea of the unity of the Church in Christ grounded in the idea of an election and gift of the Church by the Father to Him. In such passages as those noted below,^ we are led to look beyond the Church or company of believers as existing in the world at any given time, above and beyond even the vast multitude of " all those who have been, are, or shall be gathered into one in Christ" on earth, and to learn that all these separately and as a collective unity have from the l»eginning been chosen in Christ, and given to Him by the Father. The "calling" and the "faithfulness" of which men may take note in time, are the result of a gracious Divine " choosing " which goes back far beyond all time. And yet along with this high and mysterious truth, and in the closest connection with it, in almost every passage, it is as clearly tauglit that each believer has had his own separate spiritual history, his own free personal relations with the Lord Jesus, which have been different from those which have subsisted between Him and any other of His people. It is " a new name " of the Son of God that is written in ' As Godet .says truly and beautifully : " Les paroles de J^sus m^dit^es avec recueillement deviennent cliez le fidele I'aliinent des saintes pens^es et des pieux desseins, des celestes aspirations, et parla la source des vraies prieres. En les nu'ditatit il comprend I'leuvre de Dieu ; il en mesure la profondeur et la hauteur, la longueur et la largeur, et il rtjclanie avec ardeur I'avancement de cette ctuvre, sous la forme deterniinee qui repond aux hesoins actuels. Une priere ainsi formee est fiUc du cicl ; c'est la promesse de Dieu (la parole de J(5sus) transforrnee en supplication ; dans cette condition son ex.aucement est certain, et la promesse si absolue : ' Cela vous sera fait,' n'a plus rien qui (5tonne," iii. p. 428. 2 "The dative ifioi is more emphatic ami more tender than the genitive i/iau would have been. ' You shall belong to Me in a closer and closer bond as My own disciples.' We must always be hpcomiv ovo/xarL aov w BeSa)Kd avToi;, John xvii. 26. 222 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACIIIXG. members iu all the work and warfare appointed for them, " dum hie viat in patriam." ^ 5th. Passages bearing on the relation of the members of the Church to each other and to the world. Several points which might have been brought under this head have been touched upon in connection with sayings of our Lord which have been already under consideration. As He Avas during His earthly life, so the members of His Church were to be, in the world and acting upon it power- fully for good, yet not of it. The servants were to be as their Master, the disciples as their Lord. Few tilings are more striking in the Gospel history than the way in which Christ, while revealing and enforcing moral and spiritual truths and principles, which, wherever they were received could not but have the greatest and most far- reaching results in the field of social and political life, yet stood absolutely free from all entanglements in the politics of the day. Again and again His adversaries tried to induce Him to take a position, or give an opinion which would have brought Him into this region, but were invariably foiled.^ The attempt to prove before the Eoman governor and the tetrarch of Galilee that He had stirred up the people against the established civil authorities broke down utterly for want of even an appearance of evidence.^ As Christ was in this respect, ia spirit, attitude, and action, so His Church ought to be in this world. His great cardinal utterances on this subject separate once and for all the two spheres so often and so hurtfuUy confounded with each other. " Eender unto Ciesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the tilings which are God's." " My kingdom is not of this world ; if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants (ot vTnjpeTat ol €^101, My officers ^) light that I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is My 1 Wiclif. ^ Matt. xxii. 15-22 ; Mark xii. 13 If. ; Luke xiii. 1-5 ; xx. 1-S, 19-26. * Luke xxiii. 4-15. ■• "The use of the word uvrifiTtt; (here only of Christians in the Gospels; cornp. 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; Acts xiii. 5) corresponds with the royal dignity which Christ assumes." Wcstcott, in loco. EELATION OF THE CIIUKCII TO THE WOKIJ). 223 kingdom not from lience." Pilate therefore siiid unto Him, " Art Thou a king then ? Jesus answered, Thou say est that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." ^ In these and other sayings of Christ a broad and clear line of division is drawn between the field of things out- ward and civil, and that of things inward and spiritual, the things that belong to the moral and religious life ; and it is clearly indicated that it is with the latter alone that His Church has directly to do. In full accordance with this, we find that the laws laid down by our Lord for the fellowship of His disciples are of a different sort, and are to be enforced by a different authority than in the case of the laws of the State. In the latter sphere it is the power of the sword that rules ; in the former, the power of conscience, of love, and of a spiritual authority, " the power of the keys " in the House of God, administered in the name of Christ. There is abundant evidence that our Lord's teaching in this respect was not fully understood or received by His disciples almost to the last moment of His intercourse with them." After one instance of such misconception on the ^ Matt. xxii. 21 ; Jolin xviii. 36 f. The attempt made by one of the last Bampton lecturers to get over the testimony of this text against his own theory of Church and State is an instructive illustration of the process known to (^lerman exegetes as " hineinexegcsiren." Canon Fremantle thinks that the emphasis must be laid strongly on "this," and that it must be held to mean " this sort of : " " My kingdom is not of thh world ; " " this present evil stale of things in which empires are built up by fraud and violence." See p. 109 f. of 7'Ae World as the Aiilijvct of Redemption, being an attempt to set forth the fanctiona of the Church o-s designed to embraee the whole race of mankind. ISampton Lect. for 1883, imblished London 1885. The book is an interestiiig and able work from the school of Arnold, Coleridge, and Kingsley, nnicli, but not slavishly influenced by Rothe's Ethik. Canon Fremantle argues for a theory of Anglican Erastianism on a democratic basis, his ideal of the Church being the Elizabethan "Church and Realm of England" with some practical im- provements. Apart from its Erastianism, the chief weakness of the book is the absence of any solid exegetical or theological foundation. Its author ignores entirely, as was to be expected, the distinction between the Churcli and the Kingdom of God so carefully handled by Professor Candlish. 2 Matt. xvi. 21-24; xviii. 1-4; xx. 20-28; Mark ix. 31-35; x. 35-45; l.uke ix. 46-48 ; xxii. 24-26 ; Acts i. 6. 224 THE CHUItCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. part of two of the most favoured apostles, wliich occurred within a few days of His crucifixion, " Jesus called the twelve unto Him and said : Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you ; but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister (BidKovo Matt, xxiii. 1-3, 5-11. 2 Calvin's exposition of our Lord's words in the verse in question is a good instance of the masculine judgment and soundness of discrimination wliich • haracterize him as an interpreter of Scripture: " Hac clausula ostendit se 11011 sophistice litigasse de vocibus, sed rem potius spectasse, ne quis ordinis -ui oblitus plus quam par est sibi usurpet. Pronuntiat igitur summam in Kcclesia dignitatem esse non imperium sed ministerium. Quisquis in liSc mensura se continet ncc Deo nee Christo quicquam eripit, quocunque ornetur titulo. Sicuti rursum frustra servi elogio fucatur potcstas, qujc Christi magis- terio derogat. Quid enim prodest quod Papa tyraunicis legibus oppressurus misei-as animas, se ' servum servorum Dei ' praifatur, nisi ut palam insultct Deo, et hominibus probrose illudat ? Ca;tcrum ut vocibus non insistit Christus, ita pra'cise hoc suis mandat ne altius aspircnt vel consccndere appetant quam ut sub Patre Cadesti jequaliter fratcrnaiu colant societatem, et qui honore pollent se aliis exhibcant miiiistros." P 226 THE CHUKCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. five cities " only.^ The apostles under His training become as "scribes made disciples unto the kingdom of heaven" (ypafi- /u.aT6t9 fiadr)T€vdevTe<; ry ^aaiXela tmv ovpavoyv), as " heads of households {olKoheairorai), bringing forth out of their trea- sure things new and old."^ They and others like them are to be sent thereafter in this capacity by the ascended Saviour to their fellow - countrymen. Speaking to the people and their religious leaders, the scribes and Pharisees, in the temple courts at Jerusalem a few days before His death, our Lord said : " Behold, I send unto you {i airo- areWo) tt/jo? v/xa<;) prophets and wise men and scribes : some of them shall ye kill and crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar." ^ Our Lord here uses the titles familiar in every synagogue, as 1 Matt. V. 19 ; Luke xix. 11-26. * jyi^tt. xiii. 52. * Matt, xxiii. 34 f. Comp. the parallel passage Luke xi. 49 ff. : "There- fore also .said the Wisdom of God, I will send unto them {iToimXu ih avTou;) prophets and apostles ; and some of them they shall kill and persecute: that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel," etc. It is worth noting that "the "Wisdom of God" is a name of Christ used by Paul (1 Cor. i. 24), with whom Luke was so closely associated. Some hold {e.g. Meyer, Luka-s, 5te Aufl. S. 424) that Luke is citing here a previous saying of Jesus, given by Matthew in more direct and original form, with this formula of citation: "Therefore also said the Wisdom," etc. In that case vv. 49-51 form a parenthesis, and the discourse of Christ is resumed in the first person, according to Luke's own report in ver. 52. It seems more natural, however, to take it all as Luke's own narrative. The evangelist introduces this new section, with its solemn forewarnings of judgment, by applying to Christ a name which his sense of the Divine power and insight of the utterance made him feel to be peculiarly befitting: "The Wisdom of God;" just as in ver. 39 we have "And the Lord said," in that tone of authority and majesty which showed His right to the title. Godet holds that our Lord refers here to the passage regarding the voice of Wisdom in Trov. i. 20-31, and that He repeats the substance of it, both as to promise and threatening ; only, "instead of the breath of the Spirit, which God promises in that passage to send to the people to instruct and reprove them, Jesus speaks of the living organs of the Spirit, His apostles and prophets." L'Eravgile de St. Luc, 2de «^'d. ii. p. 109 f. The explanation has some attractions, but on the whole I prefer that given above. WISE MEN AND SCRIBES SENT BY CHRIST. 227 applied to the Jewish teachers of the day, " wise men and scribes " (onSDI D''DDn, ao(f)ol Kal ypafi/jbaTei^;), as well as the title "prophets," which was held in yet higher honour as designating the great teachers of the Church of the past. Such teachers Christ was now^ to send to Israel in His name, men who, from tlieir gifts and commission, deserved even more respect and deference than what He bid His disciples and the multitude show to the scribes of their time, as " sitting in Moses' seat." And yet the treatment wliich they would receive from the synagogue authorities would be persecution, scourging, and martyrdom. Teachers, therefore, there were to be in the fellowship of Christ's people, men worthy of at least the position and honour which the " wise men and scribes " of the synagogue were entitled to receive.^ And from the nature of the case it was evident that there must be office-bearers of some kind, with functions of rule and administration as well as teaching, in the society of the disciples. Such ofhce-bearers are needed in every society which has definite work to do. They were certainly needed in a society which had to discharge the duties expressly laid by Christ upon His Church on earth. The commands, for example, which we have already considered regarding offences within the pale of the Church (Matt, xviii. 15-18), carried with them the warrant by Christ's authority for all that was essential to their being put into execution. Now, it is perfectly obvious that for the orderly exercise of such government and discipline in the Church as our Lord there enjoined, it was essential that there should be office- bearers of some sort, men to act as leaders and representatives of their brethren.^ But all these differences in position and function in the Church of Christ, as contemplated by Himself, are of such a nature only as is compatible witli the great fundamental truth * It is clear, therefore, that "the prohibitions in vv. 8 10 have reference to the hierarrhiral meaning and usage which were at that time associated with the titles in (question. The teacher's titles in themseli-eii are as legitimate and necessary as his functions ; but the hierarchy in the form which it assumed in the (Roman) Catholic Church with ' the Holy Father ' at its head is contrary to the spirit and mind of Josus." Meyer, in loco, E. Tr. ii. p. 103. « Couip. Binuie, The Church, p. "l26 f. 228 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORDS TEACHING. that all His disciples are truly brethren, the children of one Father in heaven, gathered into one by the power of His Word and Spirit in Christ, the common Lord and Saviour. Special gifts from God for loving service of the brethren and of the Lord's cause, special diligence and zeal in using these gifts, make the sole difference between them. " In one word, the Church of Jesus was meant to be a ' com- munitas fratrum ' (eine Briidergemeinde) in the full sense of the term (Matt, xviii. 15 ; xxiii. 9), in which He alone governs, but that in a free fashion, ruling from within by His Spirit of love ; and in which all others seek in the same Spirit of love to serve one another, and all together to serve the world, in such a way that the individual member shall be willingly subject to the whole body, and the individual congregation to the whole Church, as to the more complete and adequate organ of ' the Lord, who is the Spirit.' " ^ 1 Beyschlag, S. 16. CHAPTER IT. CHRIST'S TEACHING REGARDING THE CHURCH IN INSTITUTIONS OR APPOINTMENTS. IN this chapter we shall consider, in their relation to our subject, the nature of the two sacraments appointed by Christ for His Church, the nature of the great commission entrusted to the Church by Him, and the special position and functions assigned by Him to His apostles. The three first-named appointments stand in close relation to each other. It was in connection with Christ's great commission to His Church that the command to baptize, and the formula for Baptism, were expressly given by Him to His disciples. And in His words on the same occasion a reference to the Lord's Supper, as already instituted, seems clearly implied.^ 1st. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. "What we have to do with at present is not, of course, the general subject of the sacraments, but only one particular aspect of it. In what relation do these two ordinances, and the command to preach the Gospel and make disciples, with which in their first institution they were closely linked, stand to the conception of the Church as it appears in our Lord's oral teaching, and what light do they throw upon it ? 1. Both Baptism and the Lord's Supper emphasize to all ^ Matt, xxviii. 19 f. : "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all tlie nations, baptizing them into the name of tlie Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you." His last command to them before His Passion had been : " This do in remembrance of Me," Luke xxii. 19 ; Matt. xxvi. 26 ff. ; Mark xiv. 22 ff. It was among the first things which the first converts were "taught to observe." "They continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers," Acts ii. 42. 229 230 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TFACHIXG. who share in the ordinance, or witness its administration, the essential importance of a direct and personal relation to the Lord Himself. They embody this truth in speaking signs, and enforce it not to the ear only, but also through the avenues of the eye, and hand, and taste. The sacraments are " a visible word " from Christ Himself first of all, and most expressly concerning this. And this, as we have seen, lies at the very I K foundation of all our Lord's teaching concerning His Church. " Jesus came and spake unto them," — the assembled com- pany of His disciples, — " saying, All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name (ek to ovo/xa) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world "^/ (the consummation of the age, ea)9 T% o-vvTekeiaq rov aiwvo Luke xxii. 19 f. NATURE OF CHRIST S GREAT COMMISSION. 243 table, and His action in rising from it and washing their feet spoke of brotherly love and mutual service.^ The order of communion generally observed in the lieformed Church, by keeping close to the example of the original institution, brings out this aspect of the truth taught in the ordinance in an impressive way. The communicants sit side by side with each other at a common table, the children of the congregation and other non-communicants being present and looking on. The bread and the cup pass among those at the Table from hand to hand. Each communicant both receives and gives the consecrated symbols. Each one breaks the bread in turn, and gives it to the brother or sister sitting next to him at the Table ; and they again do the same. The disciples of the Lord Jesus, thus gathered together in His name, and doing with one accord the things which He com- mandetl, are visibly one and yet many. The sacrament thus dispensed is " a visible word " from the Lord Himself to all who partake of it, and to all who look on, concerning unity and brotherly kindness in His Church. It represents and seals a brotherly covenant of mutual love and service among Christ's people. 2nd. Christ's great commission to His Churcli. The nature of the great commission corresponds with that of the two sacraments. Alike they contemplate a world- wide Church. Disciples are to be made among all nations, and everywhere the Lord's presence is to be realized in con- nection with the observance of what He has commanded His disciples to do. IJaptism and the Lord's Supper are fitted for a world-wide religion ; they are not like the passover, which needed Jerusalem and a material altar and a sacrilicing priest ; and circumcision, which needed the temple and its offerings to complete its idea.^ ' Luke xxii. 24-27 ; John xiii. 4-17. 2 I may say here that I cannot agree with Prof. Candlish in what he says as to the uncertainty thrown upon the wording of our Lord's last commission, by the fact that the apostolic Church had difficulties about receiving the Gentiles into full fellowship with themselves without circumcision. Prof. Candlish's argument seems neither a sufficient nor a well-grounded one. He holds that while "we can hardly doubt" that the Evangidists have cast our 244 THE ciiUKCH in our lords teaching. In tlie two sacraments of the New Testament we see first and chiefly what Christ is and has done for His people ; but we see also what He calls them to be and to do for Him and for each other. In His ordinances, as in His word, He speaks to His disciples of Himself and of His work for them and in them ; but He speaks also of the work which they are to do for Him and with Him, of what is really implied in being His disciple, and entering into that covenant fellowship with the Lord and witli the brethren, which is the Church of Christ. So it has been ever since the visible Church of God was formally set up on earth in the days of Him who was " the father of all them that believe." Lord's words on the subject into "a form substantially true, and faithful to their real meaning and intention," yet that if He had spoken so plainly as appears from Mark xvi. 15 and Matt, xxviii. 19, such doubts and scruples as are recorded in Acts xi. 2 f., xv. 1 ff., could not have arisen. Khi{/dom of God, ].. 152 f. Weiss in his Biblical Theol. of X. T. (E. Tr. Edin. 1882, i. p. 139) takes the same view. But, in point of fact, the objection raised by "them of the circumcision" to Peter's proceedings in the house of Cornelias was not to his "preaching of Christ to the Gentiles," as Dr. Candlish puts it, but to his "going in to men uncircumcised and eating with them" (Acts xi. 3). It was not settled by our Lord's words in Mark xvi. or Matt, xxviii. that His disciples were to enter into such intimate fellowship with the uncircumcised, nor that the nations were not to be brought into the Christian Church so far on the old terms. Was not Christianity just "Judaism with the Messiah come"? Circumcision and Baptism, as there is reason to believe, went together at this time in the admis- sion of Jewish proselytes ; why not in the admission of Christian ones? The great commission did not say that circumcision was to cease, although Baptism was to be used and to have more prominence than hitherto. Both ordinances had been administered side by side during Christ's lifetime. His disciples had baptized in His name (John iv. If.); and circumcision had continued in their families as before. Their Master had never made light of it ; why should they do so ? "VVas it not a Divine ordinance ? Had not Christ Himself been circum- cised as well as baptized ? The Gospel was, no doubt, to be preached to all nations after a full beginning had been made at Jerusalem (Luke xxiv. 47). The Gentiles were to be made proselytes to Christ ; but why should they not enter by the same door with the Jews ? The general terms of the great com- mission did not at all dispose of the particular diHiculties which were certain to arise from the standpoint of the first disciples as soon as they began to preach the Gospel to others than "Jews and proselytes." Inferences from our Lord's words, which seem inevitable to us now, cannot be fairly said to be so when we place ourselves in the historical circumstances of the apostles. Comp. Meyer's reply to the same difficulties as those felt by Prof. Candlish, Matthew, E, Tr. ii. p. 301. See also Mr. Robert Mackintosh's remarks in his interesting and suggestive monograph, Christ and the Jcwitv,) some to be apostles, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." « Matt. iv. 19 ; Luke v. 10. » John x. 1 f., 7 f. * Bov re et8€9 fie), and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee (et? ou? iyoo aTroariWoy ere)." ^ That I'aul saw Christ after His resurrection in as real a sense and in the same objective way as the other members of the apostolic college, he himself lias not the shghtest doubt : " He appeared to Cephas (Jo^Or) Krij>a) ; tlien to the twelve ; then He appeared to above five Imndred brethren at once . . . last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He appeared to me also {wc^Orj Ka/MoC). For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." " Am I not an apostle ? " he says again ; " Have not I seen (ov-x} icopaxa) Jesus Christ our Lord ? " ^ From the nature of the case, such eye and ear witnesses of Christ there could only be once and for all. In this capacity 1 Acts ij. 32 ; iii. 15 ; v. 29-32 ; x. 40 f. =* Acts xxvi. It) r. 3 1 c^Jr_ ^v. 5-9 ; ix. 1. 256 THE CHURCH IN OUR lord's teaching. the apostles could not possibly have successors. Their testi- mony is recorded for the Church of all time in the writings of the New Testament, and in the historical facts of the rise, and growth, and victory of Christianity after the death of Christ. 2. The same thing holds of the second great condition of the apostleship, namely, a direct commission from the Lord Himself, The twelve were called and " sent " by Christ, without the intervention of human instrumentality, even as Christ was by the rather. The name " apostles " was expressly given to them by Himself in connection with their original appoint- ment : " He chose from among His disciples twelve, whom also He named ' apostles.' " ^ As Christ is the great " Apostle and High Priest of our confession," so they are " His apostles."^ The fourth evangelist does not expressly mention the formal appointment of the twelve by Christ, as the three synoptists do. But he takes it for granted, as soon as he reaches the stage in our Lord's ministry to which it belongs. "The twelve" appear in John's Gospel as a well-known body, distinct from the rest of the " disciples." ^ " Did not I choose you the twelve ? " * In like manner Paul uses the same phrase to denote the apostolic company when in point of fact there were only ten present, Judas being dead and Thomas absent : " He appeared unto Cephas, then to the twelve." We have an instance of the same sort in the ninth chapter of Acts, where it is said that " Barnabas took Saul and brought him to the apostles," i.e. introduced him to the apostolic company as such, although, as we learn from his own account in the first chapter of Galatians, only one repre- sentative of that body, namely Peter, was actually seen by him at that time.^ ^ Luke vi. 13. Comp. Matt. X. 1 f., 5 {toutov; rau; S«5Ss«a airiimiXif o 'lutroZ;) ; Mark iii. 14 {iToittrt "huhiKix, 'Iva uvt fur aiiTou, xai "va a.-ro(TriXX7i tthroui xtipuffffuv) ; John xvii. 18 ; xx. 21. 2 Heb. iii. 1 ; Acts i. 2 ; Epli. iii. 5. •' The first mention of them is in John vi. 67 f. ; but the number is implied in ver. 13 : " They filled twelve baskets with the broken pieces from the five barley loaves." " La critique a demande d'ou venaient les douze corbeilles. Le nombre fiiit supposer que c'etaient les paniers de voyage des apotres." Godet, ii. p. 479. * Oux. lyii i/fio.; rou; S*S=«a l^iXi^dfinv, John vi. 70. * 1 Cor. XV. 5 ; Acts ix. 57 ; Gal. i. 17. "There is no difficulty in under- CONDITIONS OF THE APOSTLESHIP. 257 The title, when first given by our Lord, must, as Bishop Light- foot has shown, have conveyed to the minds of the recipients, and of Christ's followers generally, the idea of some important mission to be entrusted to the twelve. " Applied to persons, the word denotes more than ayyeXo'i. The ' apostle ' is not only the messenger, but the delegate of the person who sends him. He is entrusted with a mission, has power conferred upon him. Beyond this the classical usage of the term gives no aid towards understanding the meaning of the Christian apostolate. . . . The term occurs but once in the LXX. in 1 Kings xiv. G as a translation of n=i^'^, where it has the general sense of a messenger, though with reference to a commission from God.^ With the later Jews, however, and it would appear also with the Jews of the Christian era, the word was in common use. It was the title borne by those who were despatched from the mother city by the rulers of the race on any foreign mission, especially such as were charged with collecting the tribute paid to the temple service. After the destruction of Jerusalem the ' apostles ' formed a sort of council about the Jewish patriarch, assisting him in his deliberations at home and executing his orders abroad." ^ There could be no doubt, therefore, in the minds of the early disciples that the twelve whom Christ set solemnly apart from their number, and on whom He expressly bestowed this significant name, were designated thereby to some special and important work, and that all powers needful for the discharge of it would be conferred upon them by their Lord. standing ' the twelve ' to be a designation of the apostolic college in the same way as ' the eleven ' in Athens meant a body of oflicers. , . . Wliether St. Paul includes James ('the Lord's brother') among 'the apostles' or not, it is im- possible to say. It happens that the same uncertainty hangs over every other ])assage in which James is named with the apostles." Principal Edwards, First Corinthiam, 2nd ed. pp. 39.5, 397. 1 It occurs in the words of the prophet Ahijah to the wife of Jeroboam : " I am sent to thee with heavy tidings," which the Alexandrian translators render : lyu t'lfii axirrokos ■rpoi ffi rxXvpif. '^ Lightfoot, (Jalatians, 5th ed. p. 92 f. In illustration of the Jewish use of the term "apostle," Bishop Lightfoot refers to Eusebius {Montf. Coll. Nor. ii, 425); Jerome, Cumm. cul Gal. i. 1 ; Cod. Theodox. xvi. Tit. viii. 14 ; Julian, Epist. 25; Epijihanius, Iherts. xxx. p. 123. Comp. also Vitringa, Dc Syu. \'tl. pp. 577, 56(5. B 2c)8 THE CHURCH in our lords teaching. That a direct commission of this sort from Christ Himself vas essential to make any one an apostle in the proper sense of the word as used in the New Testament, is signally confirmed — as in respect to tlie first condition — by the two cases which might seem at first sight to be exceptions to the rule. In the election of Matthias, while the company of the disciples " put forward two " from the number of those who, from the beginning, had been eye-witnesses of Christ's earthly life, and who now could attest His resurrection, as in their judgment suitable for the place to be filled, the choice and the appointment to the apostolic office were put directly into the hand of the Lord Himself. " They prayed and said. Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show of these two the one whom Thou hast chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship {top tottov tt)? BiaKovia ^np) in the highest sense. Its members may cease to be a avva^w'^'l) (an my), a gatliered meeting. Their inward and real unity may not be able from circumstances to find almost any visible expression. They may be widely scattered, unseen, and unknown in great part to each other, as the hidden seven thousand in Israel were to Elijah. But they can never cease to be an eKKXrja-ia, truly one in Christ tlieir Lord, and seen to be so in the eyes of God, His Father and their Father, His God and their God.^ 2. In a second and lower aspect the Cluirch comprehends all professing believers on earth at any given time, together with their infant seed. This is the Church catholic visible. Here we have the outward and visible answer to Christ's call in the Gospel, men and families gathered together in His name, separating themselves so far from the world by a pro- fession of faith in Christ and obedience to Him. Here elements of human sin and self-deception inevitably come in, as they did in the inner circle of our Lord's personal disciples. The profession does not always answer to the reality. There may be an outward connection with Christ for a time, which to the eyes even of true disciples seems close and true, but which ends in final separation and destruction, because there has never been any real or vital union with Him.- 3. We have the local Church, representing the Church ■universal in both its aspects, the higher and the lower at any given time, with an outward and visible unity more or less complete according to circumstances. It may be confined to one congregation, or may comprise several with more or less of organization, but it has at any rate a certain practical and visible unity from local or geographical circum- stances. It is the Church of a town, or district, or country. > See above, pp. 174, 206 f., 210, 217-222. - Sl-c above, pp. 197-203, 208, 241 f., 250 f. 266 THE CHURCH IN OUR LORD'S TEACHING. Its members might meet together, at least to a large extent. It is a Church which can act as one either directly or through its representatives speaking and acting in its name, as we have seen was the case with the congregation or assembly of Israel in Old Testament times.^ ' See above, pp. 181 f., 23!^ f. PARTS V. AND VI. THE CHURCH IN THE ACTS, THE EPISTLES, AND THE REVELATION. WE luive seen that in the Gospels our Lord refers to His Church even towards the end of His public ministry as bein^, in some sense at least, a thing in the future : " On this rock / vnll build My Church ;" "I will give unto thee the keys," etc. ; " "What things soever ye shall hind on earth," etc. In the Acts and the Epistles, on the other hand, from the day of Pentecost onwards, we find the Church of Christ a tiling in the present, actually and historically existent, and constantly spoken of as such.^ Beginning with the fiftli chapter of Acts, the Epistle of James and the Epistles to the Thessalonians, the word " Church " (eKKXrjaia) occurs with increasing frequency alike in the narrative, the epistolary and the prophetic portions of the New Testament. In the latest apostolic epistles, and in the Book of the Eevelation, the term and the conception which it embodies have special prominence. It seems suitable at this stage in our discussion to give in a note ^ all the instances in which the word " Church " is used in the Xew Testament, — one hundred and fourteen in all, — classifying these under three general heads in accordance with the conclusions already reached as to the threefold aspect of the Church in the teaching of Christ Himself. It will be found that these three divisions embrace every subse- quent instance of the use of the expression in Scripture, with the exception of three examples of its classical use in the nineteenth chapter of Acts; and this fact lends additional ' The term UxXxa-ia in the Received text of Acts ii. 47 is probably a gloss. ]?ut it is at least a correct expression of the fact that the Christian Church was now visibly in existence, growing and developing with each increase of converts. * Note A in Appendix. 267 268 THE CHURCH in the acts, epistles, and revelation. confirmation to the results of our investigation as to tlie purport of our Lord's teaching on this subject. A few brief exegetical remarks are added here and there where it seemed desirable to indicate the grounds of classification. Some of the more important passages will receive closer consideration when they come up again in their historical connection. We turn now to the Church as it appears historically in the book of the Acts and in the rest of tlie New Testament. The narrative of the Acts, as has often been pointed out, divides itself naturally into two sections. It leads us first from Jerusalem to Antioch (i.— xii.), and then from Antioch to Eome (xiii.-xxviii.). The historical progress of events corre- sponds precisely with the prophetic words of Christ to His disciples immediately before His Ascension. " Eepentance and remission of sins must be preached in My Name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." " Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you ; and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Juda?a and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." ^ In the first twelve chapters of the Acts we see the results of the preaching of the Gospel and of the power of the Holy Ghost in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, including Damascus. We pass from the Church of the upper chamber at Jerusalem, " where the eleven were gathered together and they that were with them," as described in the first chapter, to the picture in the end of the ninth chapter of " the Church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria," which " had peace, being edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost was multiplied." " Towards the end of this period we get a glimpse of things beyond the limits of the Holy Land ; ^ and questions connected with the admission of the Gentiles begin to rise up and threaten difficulty.* But throughout this first section of the Acts everything begins from Jerusalem and returns thither ; the Church is still essentially on Hebrew ^ Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts i. 8. - Acts ix. 31 ; the significance and importance of the reading « ixKXr.iria (instead of al UxXvirlm), rightly adopted by the Revisers in this passage, will be referred to again. 3 Acts xi. 19-30. * X. 28, 45 ; xi. 1-3, 22-24. THE HEBREW CIIKISTIAN CllUIiClI. 2G9 i^TOunJ, witli tlie Jewish ur Hebrew Christian element indis- putably predominant.' Besides what we have in the first part of the Acts, we learn much regarding the Hebrew Christian Church in the writings of " those who seemed to be pillars " in the fellow- ship of the disciples at Jerusalem, Peter, John, and James the Lord's brother, and in some of the earlier epistles of Paul. ' For a very thorough and conclusive defence of tlie lii.storiial trustworthi- ness of tlie book of Acts in view of the most recent investigations and results of Cernian criticism, see K. Schmidt, Die Apontetfjexchichte unter dem Haupt- i/t'sichtxpunkic Hirer Glaubwiirdiijkeit, Erlangen 1S82. Conip, Lechler, apos- toli.'iclie u. nachapoHtolhche Zeitaltcr, 3te Aull., Karlsruhe u. Leipzig 1885, S. 7-21. Eng. transl., Edin. 1886. See also Prof. Salmon's able discussion of the subject. Introduction to the N. T., London 1S85, jip. 3(36-407. The general grounds for relying on the truthfulness of the narrative in Acts are well summed up l>y Beyschlag, Chrhtl. Gemelndectrf. im Zeitult. dts X. T., S. 23 f. PART Y. FROM JERUSALEM TO AXTIOCH: THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. CHAPTEK I. THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN ITSELF, AS SEEN IN LIFE AND ACTION. OUK first glimpse of the disciples of Christ after His Ascension shows them gathered together, men and women alike, in a large upper chamber or hall at Jerusalem. It is spoken of as a well-known place of meeting, " the upper chamber where they were continuing," and was, in all likeli- hood, the same " large upper room furnished " in which the eleven had kept the passover with their Master, and had partaken of the first Lord's Supper, the same also in which the risen Saviour had twice appeared to His disciples as a body.^ As on the evening of the Eesurrection, the company comprises " the eleven and them that were with them," " the number of the names together being about an hundred and twenty." They are "gathered together in the name" of Jesus Christ " with one accord " (ofModvfjLaBov),^ one in their faith in Him as the Messiah foretold in the Scriptures, ^ Ei'j TO vTipuov avi(i9t^;, Jo}in Xviii. 37. ♦ Cotnp. Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antioch, 4th eil. pp. 75 f., 155 f. 280 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. acting in His name. Christ's promises that it should be so, and that especially through the coming and work of the Holy Spirit/ were signally fulfilled in the history of this period. This truth meets us in the opening words of the book of Acts. Its author marks his sense of the historic unity and continuity of the work which he records in his two successive treatises : " The former treatise I made, 0 Tlieo- philus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day in which He was received up." ^ The beginnings of the acts and the teaching of Clirist, these form the subject of the first part of Luke's history. In the second, while narrating " Acts of Apostles " ^ and other dis- ciples of the Lord, he is recording as truly " Acts of Christ," the things which Jesus continued both to do and to teach to the apostles and by them. In the first section of the Acts and the relative Epistles, we see the Saviour still "with His people all the days," " giving commandment through the Holy Ghost unto the apostles whom He had chosen," proving how " all power is committed unto Him on earth," as well as " in heaven," working by His Spirit in and through His disciples. The Presence of Christ in the midst of the Church is not more clearly brought out in the history than is the fact that that Presence was revealed and made effectual by the Holy Spirit. Our Lord had foretold that it should be so. " He shall not speak for Himself. ... He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you." It was " expedient " for the disciples and for Christ's cause on earth that His own visible Presence should be withdrawn, and that " the Paraclete " — the Advocate, the Helper and Strengthener — should come to them, " sent by Himself from the Father." * " Greater works " than those which marked Christ's own public ministry should His disciples do when ^ Matt, xxviii. 20 ; John xiv. 18-23 ; xvi. 7-16. => Acts i. 1 f. * Upihis aToffToXu)) is the simplest and oldest title of the book. • John xvi. 7, 13 f. See Canon Westcott's note on ^apaKXnTo;, Goi^pel of St. John, pp. 211-213. Christ's presence in the ciiukch. 281 this stage of things was readied. Yet the very words in which tills promise is given show tliat these greater works are His also, though done by the hands and through the faith of disciples : " Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask Me anything in My name, that will I do." ^ There is to be no absence on the Lord's part that would involve distance from His people or inaction as regards the guidance and work of His Church. It is " in His name " that His disciples are to gather together ; in His name they are to pray, and to act in all matters that concern His cause and people. So meeting, they are to find that He is in the midst of them ; so asking and acting, they shall have the petitions which they desire of Him. He will do the work through them. We see the practical fulfilment of these promises in the narrative of the Acts. Far greater spiritual results followed the preaching of the Gospel after Pentecost than those which followed the preaching of our Lord Himself. More thousands of converts could be counted probably within a year from the Ascension than hundreds during the three years of the Saviour's earthly ministry. The unseen Leader was followed as He never had been when He companied with His disciples in the flesh. The voice of Christ risen and ascended was heard, and understood, and obeyed, although that same voice in other days fell so often upon dull and regardless ears. Illustrations of this meet us in every scene in the history of the apostolic Church from the first. In the election of Matthias, while the company of disciples, on the proposal of Peter, " put forward " two men who seemed to them most fit, the actual appointment is placed directly in the hands of Christ Himself, as present unseen in the midst of them. He must choose this apostle as He had chosen the rest. " They prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts ' John xiv. 12-14. "The meaning of the phrase (•» d<;) ; and that He was buried ; and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. . . . Whether it were I or they," Paul wrote in one of his earliest epistles, speaking of the relation between him and the original apostles, " so we preach, and so ye believed." ^ We find clear evidence of this diligent searching into the meaning of the things written in all the Scriptures con- cerning Christ in the first apostolic utterance after the Ascension, the address of Peter to the little company in the upper chamber. We see it also in the preface to the third Gospel. The historian writes to Theophilus, " concerning those matters which have been fully established among us " (t(ov 7r€7r\7]po(f)opr]fi€vcov iv rj/xlv Trpay/xuTcov), even as they ^ Luke xxiv. 27. * John XX. 22 ; Luke xxiv. 45 ff. ; 1 Cor. xv. 1-11. ' This rendering — which is that of the K. V. Margin, with most of the Fathers and such modern exegetes as Calvin, Erasmus, Ewakl, Alford, and Meyer (5th ed.) — seems preferable to that of the Vulgate, " quiv in nobis com- pletae sunt," which is followed by the R. V. text. Godet's criticisms of Meyer's argument from 2 Tim. iv. 17 seem valid. That particular text docs not sui)port the conclusion in behalf of which Meyer cites it. But the other grounds adduced in favour of the conclusion appear sufficient to establish it notwithstanding. Godet, UEvangile de S. Luc, 2nde ed. p. 70 f. 296 THE HEBREW CHKISTIAN CHURCH. delivered tliein unto us which from the becjinnincc were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word ^ . . . that thou niightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed " (KaTrj^i'^Brj'i, taught by word of mouth). ^ It was thus that the inner life of the apostolic Church grew strong. It was nourished and built up by the testimony of those who had been eye and ear witnesses of the teaching, the deeds, and the sufferings of Christ, and by that further " ministry of the Word " which opened to eager listeners the meaning of familiar Scriptures which they " had known from childhood," and heard " read in the synagogues every Sabbath day," " the things written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms concerning Christ." ^ Along with such exposition of the Old Testament there were given by the apostles and others fitted by the Spirit for the work, words of practical guidance and exhortation, in which the teaching of Christ and of the ancient Scriptures was applied to present circumstances and duty. It was doubtless from his special gifts in this respect that Joseph of Cyprus " was by the apostles surnamed Barnabas, which is, being interpreted, Son of exhortation." ■* The original disciples and the new converts were thus welded into one loving fellowship by the Spirit of God working through the ministry of the Word. " The multitude 1 01 aw afx^i avTovrai xxi l-Trnflrat ytto/^ctvoi. " Serviteurs-det^eiuis, dit lit- t^ralement le texte. Cette expression fait contraste avec la pr^c^dente. Ces liommes out commence plus tard h, etre serviteurs de la parole ; ils ne le sont dtvewus que depuis la Pentecote. C'est alors que leur role de ttJmoins s'est transform^ en celui de pr^dicateurs." Godet, p. 72 f. 2 Luke i. 1-4. ^ 2 Tim. iii. 15 ; Acts xv. 21 ; Luke xxiv. 44. "The written Gospel of the iirst period of the apostolic age was the Old Testament iuterjjreted by the vivid recollections of the Saviour's ministry. The preaching of the apostles was the unfolding of the law and the prophets." Westcott, Iiitrod. to Study of Gospels, otli ed. p. 169. * Acts iv. 36 ; comp. xi. 23, nN^3J"")3, "'"f "^apaKXnaius. How wide the compass of this gift might be, and how high those endowed with it might rise, we see in the author of the Epistle to the Hebrew.s, who puts his whole letter under the category of "the word of exhortation" (tow x'oyov rUf irapuKXriirtus), Heb. xiii. 22. RELATION OF ITS MEMBERS TO EACH OTHER. 297 of them that believed ^ve^e of one heart and soul." They were " nourished," as the apostle desired that Timothy and his hearers should he, " in the words of the faith, and of the good and healthful teaching," " the healthful words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching which is according to godliness." ^ The effect was manifest in the thoroughly healthful character of the life of the Church. Amid the highest tide of spiiitual enthusiasm everything like fanaticism was avoided. Nothing is more striking in the narrative than the sober self-control which marks the speech and conduct of the leaders of the Church. The apostles are seen to be new men in this as in other respects. Both in the private meetings of the brethren and in public, in the temple courts and before the Sanhedrin, they bear themselves in a spirit and manner which are in the strongest possible contrast to their former hesitations, mistakes, and stumblings as recorded by the Evangelists. From the very height of the spiritual excitement of the day of Pentecost, Peter speaks words of the most clear and well-ordered argument. All the actions of the Church under apostolic guidance are wise and well- considered. The Spirit which the Pdsen Saviour gave to His disciples when gathered together in His name, and seeking to know and do His will in the world, was " a spirit not of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind." 4tb. Consider the relation of the members of the apostolic Church of this period to each other, and the spirit which prevailed among them. Looking at the Hebrew Christian Church from this point of view, we cannot fail to recognise the truthfulness of the picture which our Lord had drawn of it beforehand in words already considered. " One is your Teacher and your Master, even the Christ ; and all ye are brethren." " By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." ^ We see in the Pentecostal Church one great com- pany of brethren, joined together in love and in an unwritten brotherly covenant, listening daily to the voice of the unseen ' Acts iv. .32 ; 1 Tim. iv. 6 ; vi. 3 ; 2 Tim. iv. 3. 2 Matt, xxiii. 8-10 ; John xiii. 3o. See above, pj). 22-1-228. 298 THE HEBREW CIIRISTIAX CHURCH. Master, who was felt to be really present in the midst of them by His Word and Spirit as they met together in His name. No paraphrase can equal the beauty and power of the simple words in which the historian of the Acts describes this aspect of the apostolic Church. " And all that believed were together, and had all things common ; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need. And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. . . . And the multituile of them that believed were of one heart and soul : and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there among them any that lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet : and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need." ^ " Thirty years later, from the midst of a Church often wet now with blood and tears, a Church which all over the Medi- terranean lands had already begun its death-grapple with the pagan world, — fresh from its perilous labours, perhaps at the very side of its chief missionary as he lay chained in a Eomau prison, Luke cast back his eyes on the sweet prime and glad day-dawn to draw this picture, which has ever since entranced the weary, fighting Church of God, and shines in our far retrospect, as it shone in his, with the light of a golden age." ' One emphatic word in the sentence that describes the spirit of the new converts at Pentecost, seems specially to refer to this beautiful aspect of the apostolic Church, its common life of brotherly love. " They continued sted- fastly in the apostles' teaching and in the fellowsliip (rfj KOivwvia)." It would be a mistake to limit the meaning of 1 Acts ii. 44-47 ; iv. 32-35. 2 Dykes, From Jeru>^alem to Antioch, 4th cd. p. 104. THE SPIRIT OF FELLOWSIlir. 299 this word here siinjily to Christian liberality. That may be its special though not its only reference in some of the Epistles, which speak of the history of a much later period. But here the term evidently has a broader and deeper significance. It describes what was a most real and ever memorable experience to every one who was " added to the Lord," and to the company of His disciples in Pentecostal times, namely, the wonderful atmosphere of fellou'ship in which they found themselves. The word embodies every manifestation of the warm brotherly love of the early disciples, their childlike joy in the Holy Ghost, their freedom and simplicity of heart.^ This spirit of fellowship found expression at Jerusalem in what has been called, in a somewhat misleading way, " the community of goods." It was in reality just a strong effort, on tlie part of the members of the Church in Jerusalem, to carry out practically their glowing love to all the brethren, to give outward expression in the ordinary matters of daily life to their real unity with them through the Holy Spirit in the common Lord. They vjere all one family in Him, and they sought to live as such from day to day in a family fellowship (rj? Koivcovia). It is easy to see how naturally this thought arose and took this particular form of outward embodiment in the existing circumstances. During the public ministry of our Lord, He and the inner circle of His disciples formed one family, moving together from place to place, eating together, sup- ported from a common purse, which was in the keeping of a trusted member of the Twelve. The bounds of this little company widened as time went on, and one and another heard and obeyed the special call of Christ : " Follow ]\Ie ; " " Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come, follow Me." The women " who were with Him and the Twelve in Galilee, and ministered unto them of their substance," and "who 1 See Lechler, Das apostolixche u. das nachapostolische Zeitalter, 3te Aufl., Karlsruhe u. Leipzig 1885, S. 39 f. Conip. Dr. Rijrg on "The Fellowship of the Primitive Church," in Comparative Vitw of Church OrganiTations, Primitive ami Prott.i(ant, Lond. 1887, p. 11 f. 300 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. followed Him to Jerusalem," belonged to this family circle of disciplesliip. We see from the circumstances connected with the first institution of the Lord's Supper, that Jesus was wont to keep the Passover at Jerusalem as the head of a household, with its members gathered round Him. The same relations seem to have been continued among " the eleven, and them that were with them," in the upper chamber after the Ascension, when the number usually present is stated as " about a hundred and twenty." ^ There was still the common centre, the " home " of the brotherhood. There were still, in all likelihood, a common purse and a common table. What more natural impulse for the disciples after Pentecost than simply to widen the circle of the common life, — the Koivwvla, — so as to take in the new brethren and sisters into the fullest and closest fellowship that was possible ? Again, the converts of Pentecost were drawn largely from the pilgrims who came from foreign lands to keep the feast at Jerusalem. The poorest Jews were often — then as now — the most zealous in making such pilgrimages. Many of these converts would doubtless cling to the Church in Jerusalem, after the scanty means which they brought witli them were exhausted. Most of them were probably deprived of the usual hospitalities of their fellow-countrymen to which they had trusted. It was the first form of persecution which these young disciples had to bear for Christ's sake and the Gospel. Was it not fitting that their richer brethren in the Lord should receive them joyfully to the common table, and pour their money with an unstinted hand at the apostles' feet, that "distribution might be made to each, according as any one had need " ? There was the case, too, of the apostles themselves. Once they had left all to follow Christ. Now they were leaving all for the sake of His cause and Church, — that they " might give themselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word " among the brethren, and to witness-bearing to their fellow-countrymen. There were also, as we learn, 1 Matt. viii. 18-22 ; ix. 9 ; Mark x. 21 ; xiv. 12-16 ; xv. 40 f. ; Luke viii. 1-3 ; ix. 57-62 ; xxiv. 33 ; John xii. 4-6 ; xiii. 29. THE SO-CALLED "COMMUNITY OF GOODS." 301 at an early stage in the history, not a few widows connected with the Christian coniniunity.^ There must have been aged and feeble persons and young children, whose natural means of subsistence had been withdrawn from them because of their connection with the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or whose poverty and sickness specially appealed to Christian sympathy. Such cases might have been met in other circumstances — as they were in point of fact in the apos- tolic Church at a later date — by some special organization.^ But all that was needful for them was abundantly supplied, in the first place, by this irresistible outflow of Christian love. As regards the idea of there being here anything like what is ordinarily meant by a " community of goods," two things may be noted, — 1. It is plain that tlie wliole movement was entirely voluntary and spontaneous. The Twelve never urged or recommended this special mode of action. No express approval of it even on their part is recorded. " "Whiles it remained," Peter said to Ananias, " did it not remain thine own ? And after it was sold, was it not in thy power ? " ^ All that we hear of the apostles doing in the matter was to receive the money brought to them, and to regulate and arrange for the distribution. 2. The words of the narrative do not seem to imply that there was an actual division of the property of all the disciples into equal shares, or that it was held in common in a literal sense. It is certain at least that if such a state of things did exist at first in Jerusalem it soon ceased there ; and nothing like it is found anywhere else in the records of the apostolic age. What took place in the Pentecostal Church seems to have been this : The necessities of the poor and suffering were relieved. The general spirit was such that " not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own,'* for they had all things ' Acts vi. 1. - Acts vi. 1-4; Koiii. xvi. 1 f. ; 1 Tim. v. 9-16. 3 Acts V. 4. * The things were still his ])ossession (toi urapxttTa. airZ), altliough he did not speak nor act as if they were so. It has licen truly pointed out that we hear of 302 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. common. , . . Neither was there among them any that lacked : for distribution was made to each according as any one had need." The richer disciples, in particular, regarded their possessions as common property, until all such cases of want were fully met. For this end they sold freely their possessions and goods, lands and houses, and poured the money thus obtained into a common treasury over which the apostles presided. Inquiry seems to have been made as far as possible into the different cases.^ The burden of investigation and distribution which was thus brought upon the Twelve, was soon brought forward by them as a conclusive reason for having fit men specially " appointed over this business." That private property with its rights and privileges con- tinued to exist among the Christians at Jerusalem is plain from such passages as Acts xii. 12 and Eom. xv. 26. From the first of these we learn that Mary the mother of Mark, kinswoman of Barnabas, had servants, and a house of her own in the city. In the second of the passages to which I refer, the apostle Paul mentions incidentally that " it had pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints (et? tou? tttcoxov^; TcSv dyiwv) that are at Jerusalem," and that he was on his way thither in charge of the money. This statement implies, as plainly as words can do, that all the believers there were not on the same level socially, but that there were both rich and poor members of the Church at Jerusalem. At an earlier date we find the same apostle going up with Barnabas from Antioch to Jerusalem on a similar errand, although the contributions in this case had a somewhat wider destination.^ The distinction between rich and poor is taken none of the poorer disciples saying that the tilings which their richer brethren possessed were theirs. There is the widest possible difference between the spirit here described and that of many schemes of communism. It is one thing for a man to say to his friend, " What is mine is thine," and another for the friend to claim, "All that is thine must be mine." 1 Acts ii. 44 f. ; iv. 32, 34 f. - Acts xi. 29 f. ; xii. 25. The money was "for the relief of the brethren that dwelt in Judaea" under pressure of famine, and was "sent to the elders (there) by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." The capital was no doubt included OUTBURST OP CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY. 303 for grnnteJ in all the apostolic epistles, as one which continued to exist within the fellowship of believers, and which gave rise to relative duties of permanent obligation. In the epistle, for example, of James the Lord's brotlier, who filled so pro- minent a place in this very Church of Jerusalem, we find him assuming as a matter of course that there would be rich men and poor ones in every Christian assembly, and giving rules for the guidance of both.^ But although the movement now under consideration is wholly misinterpreted when it is regarded as akin to com- nmnistic schemes of later centuries, it is in itself of very great and permanent significance. It formed a distinctive part of the witness for Christ which His disciples were enabled to bear, " after that the Holy Ghost came upon them, both in Jeru- salem, and in all Juda-a and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." ^ To the Church itself it taught the great lesson that the springs of Christian liberality within its own membership, when opened by the Lord's hand, are amply sufficient to meet all its temporal necessities, and to do so with the ease and overflow of a mighty perennial stream. The experience of the Pentecostal Church speaks courage and confidence in this matter to the Church of Christ in all ages ; wherever, as in the Church at Jerusalem, the Gospel is preached with the power of God's Spirit so as to awaken in the scope of their mission, as well as the country districts and smaller towns. Jerusalem would naturally be the headquarters of the deputies during their visit, and it was "to Jerusalem" or " from " it to Antioch that " they returned when they had fulfilled their ministration." Comp. R. V. Margin, and Westcott and Hort on chap. xii. 25. It seems probable from this and other indications in the narrative, that although no formal arrangements for the relief of the poor were made in the first outburst of Christian love and liberality at and after Pentecost, the movement presently took the form of a conunon fund for the general purposes of the Church, and in particular for the behoof of the poor among the saints at Jerusalem and around it. This would corresi>ond closely with the arrange- ment familiar to the original discdples when they lived in fellowshij) with their Master in Galilee and Judfea. The common store and purse, which we hear of then, were for certain recognised purposes, among which was the relief of the poor ; while yet John had " his own home," and Peter and the rest their houses, and l)oats, and other private property. Matt. viii. 14 ; xv. 34 ; xvi. 5 ; Mark i. 20, 29 ; vi. 38 ; viii. 5 ; Luke v. 3-11 ; xiii. 29 ; xxii. 36 ; John xiii. 29 ; xvi. 32 ; xix. 27 ; xx. 10 ; xxi. 3. 1 Jas. i. 9-11 ; ii. 1-3, 15 f. ; v. 1-3. ''Acts i. 8. 304 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CnURCII. and convert the souls of men, wherever there are believing prayer and the ministry of the Word so as to nourish and build up believers in faith, and holiness, and knowledge of the truth, there no outward straits need be feared by the fellow- ship of Christ's people on earth,-^ " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," and there the hearts of the disciples are " enriched in everything unto all liberality." Their givings to Christ's cause and for the needs of His people are like those of the apostolic Church, or like the offerings of the Israelites for the tabernacle in the wilderness, needing to be moderated and guided rather than stimulated.^ To the unbelieving world in Jerusalem, and soon through- out the Eoman empire, the testimony borne by the apostolic Church in this aspect of its daily life was one which filled Jews and Gentiles alike with amazement. The moral and spiritual facts thus presented could neither be overlooked nor denied. This wonderful tide of unselfish love and liberality began to flow at Pentecost, but its effects were seen and felt wherever the Gospel was preached. The passion for money, so deep-seated in the Jewish mind and heart, was utterly vanquished by this new principle of love to the Lord and to the brethren. It was an illustration on a crucial point of the power of Christ made known by the Spirit. It was assuredly not the least of " the signs following " by which " the Lord wrought with them everywhere, confirming the Word." It ^ Our own Church, in that portion of its historj^ which has passed since 1843, has specially learned that lesson, and has been the means in God's Providence of teaching it to others. Principal Cunningham, with whose honoured name these lectures are associated, bore emphatic testimonj' to this etfect within a year of the Disruption, on his return from a first visit to the American Churches. "I have seen," he said in the General Assembly of 1844, "much that is fitted to modify the impressions, which some of us may once have entertained, of the importance of State assistance to the Church of Christ and the cause of religion. I have seen much, yea abundant, evidence that a vast deal of good, and good in the highest sense, may be done by Churches which liave no State assistance ; and I have seen much to confirm me in the belief that there is nothing to which the energies of the Church of Christ, wlien animated by the Spirit of Christ, are not fully ade(juate." Rainy and Mac- kenzie, Life of Principal Cunninrjham, London, 1871, p. 217. - 2 Cor. iii. 17 ; ix. 11 ; Ex. xxxv. 20-29 : xxxvi. 2-7. FOHEW.VRXINGS OF PERSECUTION. 305 was among the " greater works " than His, which lie fore- told His disciples sliould perform under the dispensation of tlie Paraclete.^ Hundreds were now found ready to do at once, and with joy, for tlie sake of tlie unseen Saviour, what the young ruler felt to be too hard for him when face to face with Christ in the days of His flesh, to " sell all that he had and give to the poor, and follow Jesus." And so, in the midst of avaricious Pharisees^ and worldly Sadducees and Herodians, in the midst of Greeks and Romans with whom Jewish greed had passed into a proverb, the apostolic Church stood forth visibly " a new creature in Christ." With them " old things had passed away ; behold, all things were be- come new." ^ In such ways as these the new life of the Pentecostal Church found free and beautiful expression. The believers " did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people." * While such was the feeling of the general public in Jeru- salem, the spirit and power which dwelt in the fellowship of Christ's disciples were so manifestly of God and not of men, that for a season their enemies, and the Jewish rulers in particular, feared to lift their hands against them. Through such fear and favour combined, their unseen Lord secured that a time of peaceful growth and consolidation should be given to His Church. Warnings soon came from Him, showing that persecutions were in store for them, and showing also where alone the secret of joy and strength lay. The union must be in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, — not in the Church merely. The flame of love must be kindled and fed from aljove. It must be a real and spiritual, not an imitative and earthly glow. The disciples met first in the upper chamber under the shadow of such a warning. The roll of the apostles, given in the first chapter of Acts, had been ] (Urged since it was last recorded. A name was missing from the list which we find in Luke's " former treatise." ' Mark xvi. 20 ; John xiv. 12 f. ^ " And the Pharisees, which were lovers of inoney, Iicanl all these things, and they scoHed at Him," Luke xvi. 14. » 2 Cor. V. 17. * Acts ii. 46 f. 306 THE HEBKEW christian church. A place was empty among the twelve. They were all " men of Galilee " now ; the traitor was probably the only apostle from Judsea.^ Other warnings of like kind followed, in the incidents of Ananias and his wife at Jerusalem, and of Simon the sooth- sayer at Samaria. " The eleven and they that were with them," when " the names together were about an hundred and twenty," were few in number ; but they were united in faith and love, in earnest prayer and searching of the Scriptures. The emphatic and suggestive term ofioOv/xaSov, " with one accord," first meets us here in the New Testament. It is repeated to mark the same spirit of unity as still pervading the Church, when its membership had multiplied thirty-fold from the fruits of the day of Pentecost. The word occurs eleven times in the book of Acts, — seven of these being in reference to the Church,^ — and only once again elsewhere. It expresses strongly and beautifully this great characteristic of the apostolic Church, that " the multitude of them that be- lieved were of one heart and soul," and that this inward unity could not but show itself outwardly in worship, and work, and witness-bearing in all manner of ways, some of which were new and strange, but wonderfully impressive and attractive. In this our Lord's prayer for His disciples was visibly answered : " 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, . . . that they may be perfected into one : that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me." ^ That perfect and ineffable oneness of heart and will in the Godhead was truly, although faintly, reflected in the apostolic Church ; and the effect upon the world around was mighty. It was felt for generations. And wherever, in ■* Luke vi. 13-16 ; Actsi. 11, 13. As to Judas Iscariot being from Judcea, see Bruce, Training of the Tiuelve, 2nd ed. pp. 33, 363 f. 2 Acts i. 14 ; ii. 1, 46 ; iv. 24 ; v. 12 ; viii. 6 ; xv. 25. In the second of these instances, the preferable reading is «^oy, "together," instead of "with one accord." => John xvii. 21, 23. TERMS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. 30 7 the liistory of the Churcli, seasons of great spiritual quickening and revival have been given by God, this experience of Pente- cost has always been repeated. There has been a wonderful spirit of love and unity among all the brethren ; and an awe and a silence, so to speak, have fallen for a time upon the world, as in the presence of something manifestly Divine. Believers in all ages may well plead and strive for the fulfil- ment of that petition of our Lord, and join in the prayer of an apostle who had himself seen and felt the unity of the I'entecostal Church : " Now the God of patience and of com- fort grant you to be of the same mind one with another, according to Christ Jesus ; that, with one accord {ofxoOvfiahov), ye may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." ^ oth. The terms of admission to and exclusion from mem- bership in the apostolic Church. These were very simple, and founded upon principles almost self-evident. What had made a man to be recognised as a disciple of Jesus during our Lord's visible ministry on earth ? Just these two things : first, that he professed belief in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah ; and secondly, that he showed himself practically willing to obey His commands. In some instances, His commands required a literal following of His footsteps in Galilee and Judtea, as in the case of the twelve ; in others, all that was asked was obedience to His l)recepts at home, as with the healed demoniac of Gadara. But, in every case, the essential points were that Jesus should be ]^ersonally known and trusted as a Saviour, and that He should be openly acknowledged and obeyed as a Master. "Come unto Me," and " follow thou Me," were the two sentences which, on His lips, summed up the conditions of discipleship."'^ If these were really and from the heart complied with by any man, he was a true disciple of Christ. If there was a credible- appearance of compliance with them, as in the case of Judas, the man was received into the company of the disciples, and was treated like the rest on the ground of his own profession, ' Rom. XV. 5 f. * Matt. iv. 13-22 ; ix. 9 ; xix. 21 ; Mark i. 17 f.; ii. 14 ; John i. 35-43, etc. 308 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. seriously made, while there was nothing in his outward life, so far as appeared, to give the lie to it.-^ This clear and simple principle was invariably acted upon in the apostolic Church, so far as the New Testament records carry us, with respect to the admission of new members. All who were " added to the Lord," " those that were being saved," were also " added day by day," under His guidance and the teaching of His Spirit, to the collective body of the disciples (eVt TO avTo), the fellowship of believers gathered together in His name.^ Those who could make Peter's confession from the heart, as he did at Cffisarea Philippi, had certainly entered into the true Church of Christ which He was now so manifestly building upon the rock. They had full right, therefore, to enter into the visible fellowship of His disciples. All who professed such faith in Jesus, and willingness to obey His commands, were joyfully welcomed into the Pentecostal Church. "They then that received his word (ot /xei^ ovv airohe^d^evoL rov Xoyov avrov) " — the truth concerning Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, of which Peter was the first preacher, as well as the first confessor among the disciples — " were baptized ; and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls," ^ No terms of admission except this simple " profession of faith in Christ and obedience to Him " * seem to have been proposed to applicants ; and no test of sincerity required, beyond the very sufficient one involved in the circumstances of the apostolic Church and of the times, in which to profess allegiance to Christ implied a willingness to suffer, and even to die for Him. It was on this footing that the converts on the day of Pentecost were received forthwith into the fellow- ship of the Church by Baptism. The same rule seems to have been followed at all the subsequent stages of the history at which we hear of large additions being made to the mem- ^ I may refer on this point to my little work, Grounds and Methods of Admission to Staling Ordinances, Edin. 1882, pp. 25-30. - Acts ii. 47 ; conip. ver. 40 ; v. 14 ; vi. 7. ' Acts ii. 41. * " Baptism is not to be administered to any tliat are out of the visible Chnrcli till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him," Westminster Shorter Catechism, Qu. 95. ADMISSION AND EXCLUSION. 309 bership of the Christian comnumity. So it was evidently, for example, as regards the liaptisnis under I'hilip in Samaria. The particular case, singled out by the historian, is plainly to be regarded as illustrating the method and principles of admission acted upon with respect to others. " Simon," the soothsayer, " also himself believed, and being baptized, he continued with Philip." The apparent conversion, and the profession of belief, proved in this instance not to be of a genuine kind ; and Simon was publicly declared to have "neither part nor lot" with the disciples of Christ. But no blame whatever seems imputed to the evangelist for insufficient caution in dealing with the case. On the contrary, we find him soon afterwards, under the express guidance of the Spirit, proceeding on precisely the same principles in the admission of the Ethiopian treasurer, in whose case there was no time for probation at all, and no test of sincerity required, except what was involved in the fact that all considerations of a merely eartiily sort were against his taking the step of publicly professing himself a disciple of Jesus. The same remarks apply to the Baptism of Cornelius and his friends at Ciesarea,^ As regards exclusion from the fellowship of the Church, our Lord Himself, as we have seen,'^ had given very distinct intimations of His mind. He had shown the serious nature of such a separation from communion, both by laying down in unusual detail the successive steps to be taken in reference to a brother who had trespassed, before recourse should be had to the final one of exclusion, and also by using the strong expressions regarding the offender when thus excluded, that he was to be held henceforth " as the Gentile and the pub- lican," I need not repeat here what was said in connection with the exposition of the passage in question, but may simply observe that we have clear evidence in this first section of the history of the apostolic Church as to the sense in which such injunctions were understood and acted upon. In tlie case of Ananias and his wife the purity of the ^ Acts viii. 5-23, 26-40 ; x. 44-48 ; xi. 17 f. Admuision to Ordinances, pp. 30-32. ^ See above, pp. 177-194. 310 THE IIEBKEW CHRISTIAN CHUIICII. Chuvcli was vindicated, and discipline administered with awful severity by the hand of the unseen Lord.^ In the case of the Samaritan soothsayer, a man who had been formally admitted to all the privileges of the Church was, in conse- quence cf open and daring sin, authoritatively separated from its communion. He himself and his money were alike cast out by the indignant voice of the apostle into the region of death and corruption, in which all were perishing who had. not yet truly come to repentance and faith in Christ. Simon was publicly declared to have neither part nor lot in the fellowship of Christ's people, to belong now in name, as all along in truth, not to the Church, but to the world, having thus openly proved himself to be a servant of the god of this world. He was " still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity." ^ We have here a good illustration of the right use by the apostle Peter of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, entrusted to him and other stewards of the Lord's house by Christ in words which we have already considered.^ We see also the sense in which sins were to be forgiven and retained in the Church. Simon is solemnly shut out from Christian fellow- ship and privilege, because of open sin. But the conditions of forgiveness and restoration are clearly and authoritatively set before him: "Thy heart is not right before God. Eepent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee." Such events led to wholesome awe and self-examination among the disciples of Christ, as when He said to those who sat with Him at His last Passover : " Verily, verily, I say imto you, that one of you shall betray Me. The disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake." * Through such experiences as these the spiritual life of the apostolic Church deepened, and gathered reverence, without losing its gladness and freedom. They did not sensibly break the joyful confidence in the Lord and in each other, which so marked the early disciples, and further examples of which we shall see presently ; but they brought out more strongly one characteristic feature of the Hebrew Christian Church to 1 See above, pp. 283-280. 2 Acts viii. 20-23. » See above, pp. 175-177. ■* John xiii. 21 f. TIIK FEAU OF THE LOUD. 311 wliicli attention may be suitably called at this point. I mean its reverential fear of Christ. This is emphasized in the striking and suggestive sentence in which the history of this first period is summed up towards the end of the ninth chapter of Acts : " So the Church throughout all Judtea, and Galilee, and Samaria had peace, being edified ; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied." ^ These words are important in more respects than one. We must return to them when we come to consider the growth of the Church in numbers, and how far its inward unity found expression in its outward development and organization. Meanwhile observe how clearly they bring out one great characteristic of the apostolic Church of this perioil, namely, that all its worship and brotherly fellowship, its testimony and service, were pervaded with this spirit, the fear of the Lord Jesus as the Son of the living God. That holy and loving fear of Jehovah, of which the Hebrew prophets and psalmists speak so often, had been the heart and life of Old Testament religion from the days of Abraham onward. " The fear of the Lord," God's people had found, " is a fountain of life. In the fear of the Lord is strong con- fidence, and His children shall have a place of refuge." ^ The elite of the Old Testament Church, those " who looked for the consolation of Israel," had now received the Redeemer promised to their fathers. They had joined themselves to the company of Christ's disciples, and had become the Christian Church of the Holy Land. And tliey carried this spirit of deep and loving reverence with them. The God of Abraham and of Israel, the God of their fathers, was now revealed to them in the Lord Jesus Christ. The fear of the Lord with them was what Paul expressly calls " the fear of Christ." ^ Saul of Tarsus had seen it in that Hebrew Christian Church of Judsea, Galilee, and Samaria. He learned it first for himself, on the Damascus road, in the presence of One around whom there shone a light above the brightness of the noonday sun ; " and he, trembling and astonished, said : What shall I do. Lord ? And the Lord said unto him : Arise, 1 Acts ix. 31. 2 prov. xiv. 26 f. ^ Epli. v. 21. 312 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. and go into Damascus ; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do." ^ The two leaders of the Church, with whom Paul tells us he was brought into special contact on his first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, were the apostle Peter and James the Lord's brother. The fear of the Lord doubtless held as marked a place in their oral teaching as it does in their epistles.^ This was the spirit which was seen in such special measure in the apostolic Church of this first period of the history of the Acts, and which was deepened and strengthened by such manifestations of the Lord's presence, and of His will concern- ing the purity of His Church, as those to which we have now referred. It was not a spirit of bondage, but one of deep and loving reverence. The Son of the living God had been " manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory." ^ He was withdrawn for a season from the eyes of His disciples, but was soon to come again, in like manner as the eleven had seen Him go into heaven. Meanwhile He was with them unseen, in the midst of their assemblies, making His presence known and felt as they sought to " do all the things that He had commanded," " with them all the days, even to the end of the world." They learned of Him from apostles who had seen His face in the flesh, and they, too, had fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father. They knew Him as one " full of grace and truth," full of majesty as well as of love.* " So had the Church peace and was edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of tlie Holy Ghost, was multiplied." 6 th. The position held in the apostolic Church during this period by women. All through this section of the history, from the opening ' Acts xxii. 8 ff. == Comp. 1 Pet. i. 17 ; ii. 13, 17 ; iii. 4, 15 ; iv. 17 ff. ; v. 5 f . ; Jas. i. 21 ; V. 6 f., 10, 15 ; V. 8 f. =» 1 Tiin. iii. 16. * John i. 14, POSITION ASSIGNED TO WOMEN. 313 scene in the upper chamber at Jerusalem to the closing ones in Peter's tour of visitation among the saints at Lydda and Joppa, and in connection with his deliverance from Herod's prison-house, believing women hold a significant place. It has often, and justly, been pointed out how, among other results of the moral revolution which Christianity wrought in the world, it brought suddenly and powerfully to the front what may be called " the feminine virtues." On the lips of ethnic moralists, " virtue," as the word itself implies, meant the qualities that make " a man." Virtue with them was just manliness. But now in the life of the Lord Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, along with all that forms the strength and glory of manhood, there were revealed, in as full development, all the graces which belong to the feminine side of human character, and wliich had hitherto been held proof in a man of weakness and effeminacy. Jesus of Xazareth claimed for Himself in the highest sense the name of " the Son of Man," ^ as well as that of " the Son of God." And there were seen in Him, " in loveliness of perfect deeds," lowliness of mind, gentleness, patience, thought- ful and tender love, readiness to forgive, self-sacrifice to the uttermost. These and kindred graces had been held incon- sistent with " that stately group of virtues which made up the antique ideal — foresight, fortitude, justice, and self-control. It was their combination in Jesus which rectified the judgment of humanity, and restored to us a symmetrical image of character. . . . Manliness in Jesus is everywhere taken for granted ; womanliness in its best sense is made conspicuous.^ The cross of the Man of Sorrows confutes the ancient pre- ferences of the world." ^ 1 Comp. Dr. Brute's note on this title, Humiliation of Ckruiit, pp. 476-487 ; Canon Westcott, Uoxjjd of St. John, pp. 33-35 ; Dr. Snieaton, JJoct. of the Atonement as tamjitt by Christ irnmelf, pp. 80-87, 402-406. ^ See some suggestive remarks in Mackintosh's Christ and the Jeivish Law, as to the sense in which our Lord's ethic is in contrast to Old Testament ethic : "Christ taught Jews. It was inevitable that He should lay more stress on those Christian virtues, which they were hereditarily apt to disregard, than on those to which they were already trained. It was inevitable that He should often correct the assumptions which limited the Old Testament outlook, while rarely affirming its attainments," pp. 98-102. ' Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antioch, 4th ed. p. 339. The Church in later 314 THE HEBREW CIirJSTIAN CHUKCII. It was no wonder that the hearts of women were drawn to such a Saviour in the days of His earthly life. When we think how the quick intuitions of womanhood in moral and spiritual things, its swift instinctive recognition of truth and purity, holiness and love, when embodied in living character, often far outstrip the colder reasonings and conclusions of men, we shall easily understand how the best and purest of the daughters of Israel were among the first to see, or rather to feel in their inmost souls, the glory of Christ, and to receive Him as their Lord and Saviour. They failed, doubtless, in many cases to understand His words, or to attain to clear views of His Person and of the nature of His work on earth. But they knew that He was the Lord, their Lord, to be absolutely trusted and obeyed. They followed Him through good report and evil. And they loved Him with a love that was stronger than all womanly dread of harm and insult, or fear of death and the grave. The evangelists tell us of no woman who ever came to Christ and went back from Him again, of none who betrayed or denied her Saviour, of none even who in any special manner forsook Him at the end. From the beginning of the history of revelation, and especially in the Old Testament Church since its visible establishment in the days of Abraham, women had held a place of importance very different from that assigned to them in the ethnic religions of the East. In the long list of those who in the records of Scripture have " obtained a good report through faith," many of the brightest names are those of believing women, who, sometimes as judges and prophetesses raised up and guided by God, but more often as daughters, wives, and mothers, in quiet family circles, " wrought right- centuries faileel to see and study in the life of our Lord this jierfect combination of all that makes the truest manhood and the truest womanhood in one. Thus it was that the fair, attractive form of the " Virgin Mother, full of grace," rose gradually into a place not hers ; and Christ, as Luther says, was "set afar off upon the rainbow," as " the Judge." Those who have studied that marvellous picture, Michael Angelo's " Last Judgment," in the Sistine, will remember a wonderfully powerful illustration of the tendency to which I refer. It has found what may be fairly called a blasphemous expression in one of the modern frescoes in the Vatican gallery, which depicts tlie coronation of the Virgin in heaven. PLACE AND WORK OF WOMKX. 315 eousness and obtaiiu'd promises, out of weakness were made strong . . . received their dead by a resurrection ; and others were tortured, not accepting tlieir deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." ^ The Gospel history leads us first to the homes of those who were the true heirs and representatives of tlie Old Testament Church, walking in the fear of the Lord, and " looking for the consolation of Israel." In Elizabeth at Hebron, and Mary at Nazareth, we have a picture of a Hebrew matron and a Hebrew maiden worthy ' to be put beside those of Sarah and Miriam, Euth and Hannah, in the olden times of Israel. And as the history goes on, and the Church is built by the unseen hand of Christ upon the rock of personal relation to Himself, and personal confession of Him before men, we get one glimpse after another of pure and gracious womanly character, of quick insight and readiness to serve, of women with all the olden spirit of faith and devout reverence, rising up now in the liberty wherewith Christ and His Spirit had made them free, to serve the Lord and the brethren in new ways, with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. We see in the Acts and the Epistles how the position of women became more assured, and how their ministry widened, and was more thankfully owned and honoured in the Church. It was at our Lord's own feet that the women of the Gospels first found the place they could fill, and the work they could do, for Him and for His cause. We see what that place and work were in the case of ]\Iary of Magdala,* 1 Heb. xi. 33-35. Comp. 2 JIacc. vii. 1-29, and Dr. John Ker's noble sermon on "The Better Kesurrection." Sermons, second series, Edin. 1887, p. 336 ff. * The name of Marj^ Magdalene has been most unfairly identified by the Church of Rome— and the tradition survives in some Protestant circles where the Bible should be better known— with " the woman which was in the city a sinner," and who washed the feet of Christ in the Pharisee's house (Luke vii. 37-50). There is no Scripture ground whatever for holding that the two were the same, nor for the supposition that our Lord ever placed one, who had recently been an open profligate, in the position towards Himself which was held by the ministering women who followed His steps in Galilee, and were associated with His mother at the Cross. For the woman who washed His 316 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CIIUKCII. Mary the mother of James ami Joses, Salome, Joanna the wife of Herod's chamberlain, Susanna, and other ministering women who followed the Saviour to the end.^ His visible presence was withdrawn from them after the Ascension, but they especially knew and felt how surely He was with His people still, unseen, according to His promise. They rejoiced to sit at His feet and hear His words still, as Mary did at Bethany, wherever two or three of His disciples were gathered together in His name. " These all with one accord," we read of the Church in the upper chamber, " continued stedfastly in prayer with the women, and Alary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren." ^ They found happy service, as Martha did, in ministering to Christ in those whom He had called " His brethren and sisters," in the poor, the suffering, the bereaved, the aged,^ and in the little ones whom He had called to come to Him in their mother's arms, and whom He bid those who loved Him feed as the lambs of His flock.^ feet with her tears at Simon's feast, for the woman of Samaria b}' the well, for her whom the Pharisees brought to Jesus for condemnation, a difiierent path of service was appointed. Christ came to seek and save such lost ones, to call such sinners to repentance and to Himself. For all such He had gracious words of forgiveness, whenever they truly turned to Him as a Saviour from sin. ' ' Neither do I condemn thee ; go thy way : from henceforth sin no more." " Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee. Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace." But our Lord gave them no call to any kind of service which would have brought them at once before the eyes of men, or into any prominence in the fellowship of His discijjles. Their names are not once recorded in the pages of the Gospels. The significance of this fact is brought out with much beauty and delicacy of thought by Mrs. Charles in her poems on "The Unnamed Women of the Gospels" [The Women of the Gospels, Lond. 1868, pp. 53-63). See Dean Plumptre's article "Mary Magdalene," in Smith's Bible Dictionary, and comp. Luke vii. 37-50 ; xv. 1 f. ; John iv. 7-29, 42 ; viii. 3-11. As regards the last-named passage, — the ■Tnpixo-^h 'rifi ^(>;;^aXiS«f, — whatever the comparative weakness of the external attestation, few can fail to feel that the self-evidencing power of the narrative is almost proof sufficient, although it stood alone, that we liave here indeed the words and the action of our Lord Himself. See Canon Wustcott'a note on the section in his Gospel according to St. John, p. 141 f. 1 Mark xv. 40 f. ; xvi. 1, 9 ; Luke viii. 2 f. ; xxiii. 27, 49, 55 ; xxiv. 10. Comp. Schiifer, Weibliche Diakonie, Stuitgart 1887, 2te Autt. S. 25 f. '^ Acts i. 14. 3 Matt. xii. 48 f. ; xxv. 34-40 ; Mark iii. 33-35 ; John xii. 8. * Luke xviii. 15 f. See above, p. 210, note. SPECIAL CARE FOR WIDOWS. 317 Those women whom God in His Providence liad brought into the position of the mother of the Lord herself, being " widows indeed and desolate," were treated from the first with a peculiar tenderness ; and a special provision was made for their wants from the common treasury. It was the idea, whether well-founded or not, that " their widows were neglected in the daily ministration," which gave rise to the first murmur- ing of one section in the apostolic Church against another.^ It was to the widows among the saints in Joppa that the love of Dorcas specially turned. " She whom the people called, both in their homely Aramaic and in their Greek speech, by the name of 'the Gazelle,' because that loveliest of Syrian animals was from early times, to the poets of the East, a favourite emblem for a beautiful woman, has fitly bequeathed her name of Dorcas to express, not the gift of personal beauty in her sex, but the Cliristian ornament of meek and gracious charity. Dorcas was no deaconess ; the age of Church organization had not yet come. But whatever she was, maid or widow, she had learned of Jesus Christ her Lord His best lesson,^ and was enough of a woman to discover how she could most fitly practise it. By quiet feminine handiwork it was her wont to work for Christ.^ Among the desolate and friendless of her own sex she found suitable objects for her unobtrusive aid. Her death was to the saints of Joppa a common grief. It brought out for the first time how much she had been to them. It was not the widows only who missed their benefactress, but the whole congregation lost one who was to them ' a living epistle ' of Jesus Christ."* The incident of the raising of Dorcas from the dead stands fittingly towards the close of the section which records the history of the Hebrew Christian Church, and immediately after the words which sum up the chief characteristics of its life and growth. It shows by what fruits of faith, by what » Acts vi. 1 f. 2 "She is called imfrirfla." Dr. Dykes notes, "a word of late Greek, only here used in the New Testament. " ' "Comp. the Imperfect {'ira. tTeni) in ver. 39." * Dykes, F)-om Jerusalem to Antioch, 4th ed. p, 340, 318 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. loving service the Church of the Holy Land was edified and multiplied. It shows also how dear to Christ Himself, and how highly honoured by Him, such ministering women were. When Dorcas was raised from the dead, and given back to the fellowship of the saints at Joppa, " a seal was set of purpose by the Lord on that new department of charitable labour within His Church which Dorcas had made so much her own." ^ The very last scene in this first period of the apostolic Church is laid in a widow's house.^ It is a time of peril and anxiety. Herod Agrippa, now sole ruler of Palestine, has " put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church." His action is the more formidable because supported, at this juncture, by popular feeling among the Jews.^ He has slain one of the foremost apostles, and has seized another, hitherto the most influential leader of the Christian com- munity, the loss of whom would be a still heavier blow. Peter is in prison closely guarded, and on the eve of execu- tion. His death might be expected to give the signal for another outburst of general persecution of all Christians without distinction of sex, such as followed the death of Stephen. To human eyes the future of the Church seemed at that moment as dark and threatening as it well could be. But the courage and self-devotion of a Christian woman stand out in face of the gathering storm. Mary, the mother of Mark, seems, like several of the ministering women from Galilee, to have been a person of some wealth and social position. Her house was within a few streets of the prison. In spite of the danger thereby brought upon herself, she made it a centre and meeting - place for the persecuted disciples. In its largest room " many were gathered together, and were praying," continuing in prayer all night. Very possibly, as has been suggested, her kinsman Barnabas was among them, and it may be also his fellow-deputy from Autioch, Saul of Tarsus. It is to Mary's house that Peter naturally turns first, on his deliverance out of prison ; and in the picture which the narrative of his reception there gives us of the young servant girl Ehoda, with her instant recogni- 1 Dykes, p. 342. ^ _A.cts xii. ' Comp. vv. 3 and 11. POSITION OF CHILDRKN IN THE CllUUCII. 310 tion of the apostle's voice, and her eager message to tlie gathering of disciples within, we have another slight but suggestive glimpse of the position held by women in the apostolic Church,^ 7th. What was the position held in the fellowship of the disciples during this period by the cliildren of believers, the little ones to whose homes such new light and gladness had been brought by the Gospel ? The strength and simplicity of faith, the union of childlike freedom and reverence of spirit which marked the Hebrew Christian community, recall strongly what we saw before to be characteristic of the patriarchal Church in the days of Abra- ham.^ lieferences to his name, and to God's covenant with him and his seed, are frequent, as was formerly pointed out, on the lips of the apostles in their first public addresses, after the Holy Spirit was given in fulness.'" Was the visible fellowship of the Church to be narrower than it was in Abraham's time, and in the congregation of Israel and of the Lord since then ? Was there to be no acknowledged place in it for the infant seed of God's people, no token of His gracious covenant for them as heretofore ? The burden of proof certainly lies with those who maintain the negative on this question. Beyond all controversy, there had been such a place and token assigned to the children of believers hitherto, under " the Gospel preached beforehand unto Abraham," and " the covenant confirmed beforehand by God," which the law, coming centuries after, " did not dis- annul," and to which, as regards conditions, " nothing was to be added." ^ The natural inference is, that the privileges accorded to the children of believers under that Gospel and that covenant were to be continued, unless expressly with- drawn. No such withdrawal is recorded, and all the indica- tions of the mind of Christ and the practice of the apostolic ' On the general subject of the influence of Christianity on the position of women, sec C. Sclimidt, Social Remits of Early C/irisfianili/, E. Tr., Lend. 1885, pp. 161 flf., 188 ff. Storr's Dirine Oriijin of Christianity indicated by i7.-s /fi.storical Effects, Lond. 1885, pp. 94-99, 300-308. Brace, Gesta Christi, •2nd ed. pp. 35 ff., 107 ff. ^ See above, p. 57 f. ^ See above, p. 7 f. ' Gul. iii. 8, 15-17. 320 THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Church, both positive and negative, point in the same direction as formerly. " The blessing of Abraham," as an apostle, who was him- self " an Hebrew of the Hebrews," wrote afterwards to a Gentile Christian Church, " has come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." ^ It came, first of all, upon the Jews and proselytes of Gentile birth at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. That promise was declared then by Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, speaking to " devout men from all the nations, Jews and proselytes," to be " to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him." ^ The Lord's call into the fellowship of His people on earth had hitherto unquestionably emljraced the parent and his infant child ; " the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith," ^ was for them both. The Saviour during His earthly life had shown special favour to the little ones by word and sign. Once and again, He had given blessing to an un- conscious child, expressly on the ground of the parent's faith.* He had recognised and acted upon that principle of representa- tion, or covenant headship, so familiar to the Jewish mind, as we have seen, from Old Testament times.® The father or mother was the head of the family. The children were dealt with in respect of privilege and blessing as being one in many ways with the parents. "This day is salvation come to this house " (to3 oUa rovrw), our Lord said, when Zacchreus had received and confessed Him as his Saviour and 1 Gal. iii. 14. 2 'Ti«r» ya.0 l(TTiv h I'ra.yyiX'U., xa.) to"!; riicvoi; ii/u.eov, xai Tasi roi; sij ftaxpuv, offou; av ■jrpoffKo.x'Krma.t nvpto; o Si'os vif^uv, Acts ii. 39. " Wlieu God took Abraham into covenant, He said, ' I will he a God to thee and to thy seed ; ' and accordingly every Israelite had his son circumcised at eight days old. Now it is proper for an Lsraelite, when he is by Baptism to come into a new dispensa- tion of this covenant, to ask : What must Ije done with my children ? Must they be thrown out, or taken in with me ? Taken in, says Peter, by all means ; for the promise, that great promise, of God's being to you a God, is as nmch to you and to your children now as ever it was." Matthew Henry, in loco. » Rom. iv. 11. * Mark vii. 29 ; ix. 2-3 f. ; John iv. 48 ff. * See above, pp. 31-38, 64, C9, 101 f. POSITION OF CHILDKEK IX THE CHUKCII. 321 Master, " for that lie also is a son of Abraham." ' Christ had " called " not only adults but babes in their mothers' arms to Himself. " And they brought unto Him also their halves that He should touch them ; but when the disciples saw it they rebuked them. But Jesus called them — the babes — unto Him,'^ saying : Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God." " And He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying His hands upon them." ^ Our Lord counted it a " call " to the babes, although it reached them only in and through their parents. He counted it as " their coming," in some real sense, " unto Him," when they were brought in their mothers' arms. He gave them, a>- thus brought to Him, a visible sign of His special love, which was never, so far as we know, given to any disciple of riper years. Was there then to be no longer any token of such privileges for the children of believers in the Church, as there had been hitherto from the time when the Scrip- ture first tells us clearly of the visible Church of God being set up in this world at all ? It has been already pointed out how the command to " make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," would sound to the first followers of Christ ;* but it is worth while to recall to our minds here a little more fully the situation of the members of the Hebrew Christian Church in this respect. The position of the infants of believers in the Old Testament Church was to them not a theory, but a fact of everyday ' Luke xix. 9. Comp. the message by the angel to Cornelius: "He shall speak unto thee words whcrcl>y thou shalt be saved, thou and all thy house (»5,- 0 oJkIi; cov)," Actsxi. 14 ; and Paul's assurance to the Philippian jailor : " Believe on the Lord .lesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house {aptism," but from its being already in use along with circumcision — as there seems good reason to believe — in the admission of proselytes with their children into the communion of the Old Testament Church.' The apostle's words needed no explanation when at Pentecost, in immediate connection with an exhortation to be baptized, he assured those sons of Abraham — some by nature as well as faith ; others by faith only — that the promise was " to them and to their children." The Messiah promised to their fathers had not come to cast the children of believers out of their ancient birthright. Only "in Christ there was to be neither male nor female ; " and the token of the covenant %vas to be a gentler and more gracious one, as became Him who " called the babes to Himself," and said : " Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God."" 1 See above, pp. 118 f., 235-238. 2 It is worth noting that the term used bj' the narrator, in describing the Baptisms wliich followed Peter's address at Pentecost, is one which makes room for the children. "Then they that received his word were baptized ; and there were added unto them in that day about three thou.sand .souls," Acts ii. 41. It is the term usually employed in Scripture when women and children, families as well as heads of families, are included in the enumeration. "Give me the souls," the King of Sodom says to Abraham, referring to all the captives, young and old, "and take the goods to thy.self." "All the souls of the house of Jacob which came into Egy])t were threescore and ten," i.e. including the "little ones" as well as the adults, "his sons and his sons' sons with him, his daughters and his sons' daughters, and all his seed," Gen. xiv. 21 ; xlvi. 5, 7, 27. So here it is not said that three thousand men were added, but so many men and heads of families as along with their little ones — baptized afterwards, in all likelihood as opportunity oflcred, "at home" (xcct oIko*) — might make up in all "about three thou.sand souls, added unto them" through that days work. 324 THE HEBKEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Unless some positive prohibition of infant or family Baptisms had been given to the first disciples, their whole l*rovidential training and previous religious experience made it inevitable that they should understand the terms of the great commission of Christ in this way. When the Anti- Piedobaptist, therefore, maintains that the command to " make disciples of all the nations, hcqjtizing them," is narrower in its scope than a command to "make disciples, circumcising them," would have been, the burden of proof clearly lies with him. And no proof is forthcoming in the only two forms in which it could be received, namely, either an express revocation of the privileges hitherto accorded to the children of believers, or an express instance in any part of the New Testament of a child of believing parents growing up without Baptism and being baptized as an adult.^ It is important to observe that all the cases of individual Baptisms recorded in the New Testament are cases in which, if they occurred to-day, the ministers of every branch of the catholic Church, Eeformed or un-Eeformed, would baptize without hesitation, unless where, as with " the Society of Friends," the permanent obligation of the ordinance is denied. In all the Eeformed Churches, in particular, there is full agreement regarding the proper conditions and results of Baptism in cases like those of the men and women who heard Peter's address at Pentecost, like those which our missionaries meet now in heathen lands. There should be just what is described in the narrative of the Acts : First, plain instruction in the leading facts and truths of the Gospel, these being pressed earnestly on the hearts and consciences of 1 It is, of course, no proof whatever to quote half a text, — "He that believeth and is baptized sliall be saved," Mark xvi. IGw, — and to argue that as infants cannot believe they ought not to be baptizi-d. For (1) the argument would be equally valid that their incapacity for belief excludes them from salvation. And (2) the command was spoken to men who knew that adults were admitted to the Old Testament Church by circumcision and baptism only when they professed their faith in the God of Abraham, yet that the infant of a proselyte received the sign of admission equally with himself on the ground of the father's profession of faith. Abraham, as a believing man, had a right to "the sign and seal of the righteousness that is by faith " for his infant son as well as for himself. Why sliou'd it be otherwise now ? Comp. Bannerman, Church of Chrid, li. P[.. 100-10(3. ADULT AND FAMILY BAPTISMS. 325 the hearers ; secondly, a helicving reception of the truth and of the Saviour now made known to them ; thirdly, some proof of sincerity, as was given in apostolic times by a public pro- fession of faith in Christ at risk of persecution and death ; fourthly, Baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. with profession of what makes a disciple, personal faith in Christ as a Divine Saviour, and in the leading truths taught by Him concerning the Father and Himself and the Holy Spirit ; and lastly, stedfast continuance in faith and obedience, and in waiting upon the means of grace. These are the principles on which our missionaries administer Baptism now in heathen and ^lohammedan countries. The great majority of Baptisms in those fields are of that kind. They fill tiie foreground of our missionary reports. It is by such adult Baptisms that definite progress is marked. Following after these, less frequent at first and much less conspicuous from the nature of the circumstances, come the cases of household or family Baptism, where the convert happens to be the head of a young family and is not hindered — as may often happen — by domestic opposition I'rom bringing his little ones for dedication to the Lord and for the sign of His covenant blessing. And so, too, in the Acts and the Epistles, we hear presently of cases of family Baptism, where Lydia or the jailor believes, and immedi- ately, without mention of any one in the family believing except its head, we read : " She was baptized, and her house (o ot/co? avTrj<;) ; " " he was baptized, and all his, straightway [i^aTTTLadri avT6<; nal ol avrov ciTravre^i Trapa- This latter point is the only one about which, as regards the subjects of Baptism, a difference of opinion has arisen in the Church. Our Baptist — or more correctly Anti-Piedobaptist — brethren,- while agreeing with us in many much more important ' Acts xvi. 15, 34. Conip. 1 Cor. i. 14-16, and note the bTkcs in the last verse, as coinpiired with »<'«/« in chap. xvi. 15, where the members of the household of Stephanas in the wider sense are spoken of. See below, Part VI. chap. ii. 5. '■' Our objection to the position of our " Baptist " friends really is tliat they do not baptize cnouj,'!!, — that they narrow the scope of our Lord'.s command in the great commission by omitting one important class of persons who ought to 3'26 THE HEBREW CIIKISTIAN CHURCH. and fundamental doctrines of Scripture, dissent from the belief and practice of the rest of Christendom on this point. There is no difference between us as to " believers' Baptism" in such circumstances as existed at Pentecost, and as exist now in heathen lands. We both agree that the children of parents who are not — either of them — believers ought not to be baptized.^ The only question in dispute is : What is to be done with the infant children of believers ? Our Anti- Psedobaptist brethren hold that there is no warrant for giving them any token of the covenant, nor for recognising them as having any place in the Church, until they grow up and make a personal profession of faith for themselves. The great majority of Christians in all ages, on the contrary, hold that there is sufficient Scripture evidence to prove that the infant seed of believers in the New Testament Church ought to receive the token of God's covenant of grace, as it is admitted they did in the Church under former dispensations. On the be baptized, in accordance, as we believe, with the mind of Christ, and with the practice of the Church of God from the days of Abraliani. It is interesting to note how the strong Christian common sense of John Bunyan dealt with this matter. He was pastor of a church "whicli," as its present minister writes, "had from the beginning taken up a position of neutrality on this question." Their one decided and unanimous conviction about it apparently was that, whoever were right, the "close communion Baptists" at least were so clearly and so far wrong that they in Bedford "could not even recognise their congregations as Churches of Christ," nor transfer their members to them. Whether John Bunyan himself was theoreti- cally in favour of the Baptism of the infants of believers or not may be disputed. Theie can be no doubt at least as to what his practice was. He had his own children baptized in infancy and by sprinkling. His youngest child Joseph was so baptized in Bedford in the end of 1672, after Bunyan had been for some time formally the pastor of the Nonconformist congregation there. "You ask me," he writes to his close communion opponents in the following year (1673), " how long is it since I was a Baptist ? I must tell you I know none to whom that title is so proper as to the disciples of John. And since you would know by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you I would be and hope I am a ' Christian,' and choose, if God should count me worthy, to be called a Christian, a believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost." Brown, Life of Bunyan, Londo7i 1885, pp. 235-241, 249. Comp. p. 421 f. 1 I speak here from the standpoint of the Reformed Church. In cases of adoption, orphans, mission children, etc., Baptism is given on the ground of some Christian person standing to the children in loco parentis, and becoming responsible for their Christian education, becoming, in short, their "God- father" or "God-mother" in the true and original sense of the phrase. Comp. "Admission to Oidinances," p. 40 ff. BAPTISM OF THE INFANTS OF BELIEVEIIS. 327 grounds now indicated, and on others to which reference may be made again, I believe that this is the right view, that " liaptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible Church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him ; but the infants of such as are members of the visible Church are to be baptized." ^ ' Westminster Shorter Catscli. Qu. 95. CHAPTEE II. WOESHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH, ORDINANCES OR INSTITUTIONS SPECIALLY CONNECTED THEREWITH. THE first glimpse which we get of tlie disciples, after the Ascension, in the narrative of the Acts, shows them " all with one accord " in the upper room at Jerusalem, "continuing stedfastly in prayer" and searching of the Scriptures. Our last glimpse of them, after the Ascension, in the Gospel of Luke, shows them " continually {8ia7ravT6'.fi(rav) by his enemies. IX THE TE.MI'LE. 333 sacrifice began to be ofiered ; but neither here, nor anywhere else in the New Testament, is it called " the hour of sacrifice," as in corresponding references in the Hebrew Scriptures.^ We have seen already how all that was best and highest in the religious life of Israel had, since the exile, come to centre in the synagogue rather than in the temple." In the Pentateuch, as noted before, there is hardly one express injunction to pray, while precepts regarding sacrifices, and the duties and privileges of the priests, meet us on almost every page ; ^ and in the later historical books of Scripture, everything centres round the temple in Jerusalem, with its priesthood and elaborate sacrificial system. The synagogue worship, on the other hand, needed neither sacrifice nor priest. Now when we pass to the worsliip of our Lord's time, we find that a silent revolution has taken place. Not only is the institution of the synagogue with its eldership every- where in the foreground, — perfectly on a level, to say the least, in practical importance, witli that of the temple with its priesthood ; but a significant change is apparent as regards the temple worship itself. In it, too, those elements are now conspicuous which specially belonged to the syna- gogue, prayer, confession of sins, exposition of the Scriptures, and oral popular address. Here, too, the teacher has to a great extent taken the place of the priest. The old sacrificial system indeed still goes on. Devout parents present their little ones in the temple, and offer sacrifice according to the law. The blood of the worshippers from Galilee is " mingled by Pilate with their sacrifices." Cleansed lepers show themselves to the priest, and offer for their cleansing as !Moses appointed.^ But there is a manifest change with respect to the place and importance assigned to the material and ceremonial, as compared with the spiritual elements in worship. There is hearing of teachers, and asking them questions concerning Scripture, in the temple courts. The earliest scene recorded in any of the Gospels is that of a priest, making supplication in the holy place, " and the whole multitude of tlie people ' E.g. 1 Kings xviii. 29, 36. ' See above, pp. 155 f., 161 f. =» See above, p. lf.6. ♦ Luke i. 24 ; v. 14 ; xiii. 1. 334 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CEIURCH. praying without at tlie time of incense." Anna the pro- phetess " departs not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day." Pharisee and publican alike " go up to the temple to pray." ^ The daily liours of worship in the temple, although fixed by the burnt- offerings, were yet, in the language and hearts of the people, " the hours of prayer," and not " of sacrifice." It is easy to see how these synagogue aspects — so to speak — of the temple worship must have had special attractions for the Hebrew Christians. None of the original apostles, and few at least of the other members of the hundred and twenty who formed the nucleus of the Pente- costal Church, belonged to Jerusalem.'"^ They had been used, like their Master, to worship in the synagogue every Sabbath day, without the media either of sacrifices or priest- hood. What their exact position now was toward the temple sacrifices, it is difficult to say with certainty. That they still continued generally to take part in them, and to regard that as the proper course for all Israelites by birth who were within reach of the temple, seems a natural inference irom the case of Paul and the four believers who had taken the vow of the Nazarite, at the time of his last visit to Jerusalem.^ In what light Paul himself, long before this time, had learned to look upon the temple sacrifices, so far as they bore upon the way of a sinner's acceptance with God, we see clearly from his earliest epistles, and from his attitude at Antioch and Jerusalem, in the great controversy as to the manner in which the Gentiles were to be admitted into the fellowship of the Church,^ That Stephen, at a still earlier date, had grasped and ^ Luke i. 10, 13 : " Fear not, Zacharias, because thy supplication is heard ; " ii. 37 ; xviii. 10. ^ " Are not all these which speak Galiljeans ? " Acts ii. 7. ' The presentation in the temple of " the offering for everyone of them," which, according to the Levitical rule, included a burnt-offering, a sin-ofTering, and a peace-offering, with other accompaniments (Lev. vii. 12 f.), was to be tlie proof in the eyes of the myriads of Hebrew Christians who were "zealots of the law," that "Paul himself also," like themselves, "was wont to walk orderly, keeping the law," Acts xxi. 23 f., 26. * Rom. ii. 28 f. ; iii. 20-30 ; vii. 6 ; x. 4 ; xii. 1 ; Gal. ii. 3 ff. ; v. 3 f. ; vi. 15 f. : 1 Cor. ix. 20 f. now THE TEMPLE SACItlFICES WERE REGARDED. 335 taught the same truths, there can be little doubt. They are embodied, in all likelihood, in a perverted form, in the state- ment of the false witnesses before the Sanhedrin : " This man ceaseth not to speak words against this holy place and the law ; for we have heard him say tliat tliis Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us."^ In what light " the apostles of the circumcision," and other leading teachers of the Hebrew Christian Church, regarded the question of material sacrifices, when it came to be fully considered and expounded by them, may be seen in the Epistles of Peter and of John, of James and of Jude the brother of James, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In none of these is any spiritual significance for believers attached to the temple sacrifices or priesthood. There is no reference to them, save as furnishing figures to set forth New Testament truths. There is not the slightest indication that the writers of those epistles held that the Christians, to whom they wrote, were under any oblirjation whatever with respect to material sacrifices or a human priesthood, whatever they might do individually, as Paul at times did, on grounds of old associa- tion or expediency. The apostle Peter, in his epistle " to the elect wlio are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," speaks of Christians being " redeemed not with corruptible things, . , . but with precious blood as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ." Believers are " an holy and royal priest- hood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." " Christ His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that w^e having died to sins might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." " Christ suffered for sins once, the Eighteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." ^ The apostle knows nothing of any human priesthood among the Christians to whom he writes, save that common to all believers. But he takes it for granted that, in all the Churches, there will be elders or presbyters, with appointed 1 Acts vi. 13 f. 2 1 Pet. i. 1, 18 f. ; ii. 5, 9, 24 ; iii. 18. 336 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. functions of oversight and pastoral care, similar to those which had been entrusted to himself by Christ in words which his language recalls. " The elders among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder. . . . Tend (shepherd) the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight (or doing a bishop's office therein), not of constraint, but willingly, according unto God ; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind ; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away." ^ The apostle John, in his first Epistle, speaks of "Jesus Christ the Eighteous " as " the Advocate with the Father," and " the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." " The blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanseth ns from all sin. ... If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." There is not the faintest hint of any place lieing left now, as under the old economy, for the mediation or intercession of an order of human priests, nor for any visible sacrifice, in connection with the forgiveness and cleansing of which the writer speaks. " Ye know that '^ \l^tfji,a,Ma.Ti TO Iv iif/,.v voi/uviov tov hou, i'mrxovovvTi; . . . /WjjS as xxraxupnuovTts ■tuv Khnpau aXXa. tu-jtoi yivof/.ivoi rou -jrei/nvlov, 1 Pet. V. 1-4. Coilip. Luke xxii. 25-27 ; John xxi. 15-18. Comp. also Paul's charge to the presbyters of one of the Churches to which this circular letter of Peter's was sent, the mother Church of Asia. "He sent to Ephesus, and called to him the elders of the Church, and said unto them : ' Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to tend {voi/ixivui) the Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood,'" Acts xx. 28. We see from the narrative of the Acts, and the references in the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse, that the Christian communities in Asia, Galatia, etc., to which Peter wrote, although having their origin in almost every case from the local Jewish synagogue, or proseucha, with its circle of pro- selytes, were made up chiefly of Gentile converts. It is quite in accordance with this that several passages in Peter's epistle plainly take it for grantetl that many, or most of those to whom he wrote, had been Gentiles, "called out of darkness into His marvellous light, which in time past were no peoj)le, but now are the people of God," ii. 9 f. Comp. i. 14 ; iii. 6 ; iv. 3 f. But tlie apostle of the circumcision regards Jewish and Gentile believers as now one in Christ, forming together the covenant people of God, the Christian Diaspora. See Alford, ProlegoniPiia to 1 Peter, iv. 122 f. Hatch in art. "Peter, Epistles of," Enajcl. Brit. 9th ed. SACRIFICE AND PKIESTHOOD. 337 He was manifested to take away sins; and in Him is no sin." " Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for Tis ; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." " God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." ^ In the Apocalypse, the strongly Hebraic style and tone of which strike even a careless reader, there is the same entire absence of all reference to any sacrifice but that of Christ, and to any priesthood save that of the risen Saviour, — who appears in the opening vision with the symbols of priestly as well as of kingly dignity,^ — and that of all His true people. " He loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood, and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Pather." There is no temple in the New Testament seer's vision of the New Jerusalem, and there are signs there of but one sacrifice : " I saw in the midst of the throne a Lamb standing as though it had been slain." There are no priests with nearer access than others enjoy to the Holiest. The titles of the foremost representatives of the Church of the redeemed recall the fellowship of the synagogue, not the hierarchy of the temple. " Round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment ; and they had on their heads crowns of gold." '' James, the Lord's brother, the very ideal of a Hebrew Christian of the most antique type,"* writes to Hebrew Christians, " to the twelve tribes which are of the Dis- persion." With him " pure religion and undefded (Opr^aKeia, the ' cultus exterior,' the outward expression and embodiment of ' religion ' in the more modern sense of our English word) before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and > 1 John i. 7-9 ; ii. 1 f. ; iii. 5, IR ; iv. 10. ■i Rev. i. 13-16. * Rev. i. 5 f.; v. 6 ; xxi. 22 ; iv. 4, 10 ; v. 5-14 ; vii. 11-14 ; .\i. 1(3 f. < Conip. the well-known description of him by Hegesippus preserved in Euse- bius (ii. 23), with Lechler's comments upon it, Apost. u. nacfiapost. Zeitaiter, 3te Ausg. S. 51-57 ; also Sorley's criticisms, Jeivish ChrUtians and Judaism, Canib. 1881, p. 18 f. For an admirable summary of the evidence that "James, the Lord's brother," was not identical with "James the little" {i ftiKpis), the son of AlphiBus, and was not therefore one of the Twelve, see Bp. Lightfoot's dis- sertation on "The Brethren of the Lord," in his Commentary on Galatiaiu, 5th ed. pp. 255-290. T 3H8 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." ^ He speaks of prayer and confession of sins among believers, of the singing of praise, of elders of the Church, who are to be sent for in cases of sickness to pray for and minister to the sick, of Christian assemblies in synagogue fashion, of the special responsibilities of teachers, of the duty of both hearing and doing the word.^ He says nothing what- ever of priests or sacrifices. His only reference to an altar is to that on which " Abraham, our father," laid his son, proving thereby that his faith was not " barren " nor " dead," but as living and fruitful as when, long before, it was recorded of him that " Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness." ^ " Jude, the brother of James," does not state expressly for what class of Christians his short letter is designed. It is sent to " them that are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ," who have Him as " their only Master and Lord." But from the distinctly Hebraic tone of the Epistle, and its appeal, not merely to the Old Testament, but to Jewish traditions about Michael the archangel, and to the extra-canonical " Book of Enoch," we may reasonably infer that both the writer and those whom he addressed belonged to the Hebrew Christian Church. His only references to worship are to the duty of " prayer in the Holy Spirit," and to the distinctively Christian institution of the " love feasts." ^ The only teachers whom Jude expressly speaks of as such are ^ Jas. i. 27. "He is not herein affirming, as we sometimes hear, these offices to be the sura-total, nor yet the great essentials of religion, but declares them to be the body, the (pnTmia., of which godliness or the love of God is the inform- ing soul. His intention is somewhat obscured to the English reader, from the fact that 'religious' and 'religion,' by which we have rendered (priVKos and (fntrKiia., possessed a meaning once which they now possess no longer, and in that meaning are here employed. St. James would, in fact, claim for the Christian faith a superiority over the old dispensation, in that its very (priaxi'ia. consists in acts of mercy, of love, of holiness, in that ' it has lUjht for its gar- ment, its very robe being righteousness ; ' herein how much nobler than that old, whose ifmrKila, was merely ceremonial and formal, whatever inner truth it might embody." Trench, iV. T. Synonyms, p. 192 f. Comp. Coleridge, Aiih to Reflection, ed. 1848, i. p. 14. * Jas. i. 19-22 ; ii. 2 f.; iii. 13-16. ^ j,^g ij_ 20-23, 26. * Jude 1, 4, 9, 12, 14, 20. WORSHIP IN JUDE AND HEBREWS. 339 " the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ," There may possibly he an allusion to teachers in what lie says of some who, like Balaam, acted from selfish and sordid motives, and whose sin was like that of Korah, who at the love feasts of the believers were as " hidden rocks, shepherds that without fear feed themselves. . . . These are they who make separations, sensual, having not the Spirit." ^ There is as entire an absence of any reference to priesthood or sacrifices among the Christians to whom Jude wrote, as in the kindred Epistle of James. Finally, embodying the fullest development of inspired teaching on the subject of sacrifice and priesthood, we have the " Epistle to the Hebrews." This heading, its oldest his- toric title, corresponds exactly with what we gather from the contents of the document itself; and beyond what it conveys it is very difficult to go with any confidence. Some Jewish Christian community is addressed by the author. It has had a distinct history of its own, to which he makes special appeal. But whether we should look for them in Rome, or Alexandria, or some seat of the Dispersion in the East, it is not easy to say. The word " Hebrews " must be taken here, of course, in its wider sense, as meaning Israelites of whatever tongue and country, in contradistinction to believers of Gentile origin, not in tlie narrower one, in which it refers to Jews of tlie Holy Land, not belonging to its Hellenistic districts, or at least Jews who were accustomed to speak Hebrew or Aramaic, and to use the Hebrew Scriptures.' There is no reference whatever in this epistle to Gentile Christians. Among the special dangers to which its readers are exposed, are such as may arise from undue attention to ' Jude 17, 11 f., 19. The phrase in ver. 12, iipifiuf iavrols Toi/talvovri;, which the R. V. renders as ahove, might perhaps be more exactly translated " acting as shepherds to themselves without fear," or, as Dr. Salmon puts it, " not afraid to be their own shepherds." Comp. his note, Introd. to N. T. p. 600 f. - Thus Saul of Tarsus, notwithstanding his Cilician birth and Roman citizen- ship, was "an Hebrew of Hebrews," Pliil. iii. 5. And just as at Jerusalem there were separate synagogues for the Hellenists (comp. Acts vi. 9 with i.x. 29), so at Rome, as appears from the inscriptions, there was a " synagogue of the Hebrews." Schiirer, Hist, of JewiKh Ptople, Div. ii. vol. ii. p. 248. Comp. Rendall, Theol. of Ileb. Christians, pp. 64-69. 340 WOKSIIIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. " meats " and other unprofitable points alien from the message of grace which they had received from their first teachers.^ In one passage, indeed, the Christian Hebrews seem even " exhorted to sever all connection with their fellow-country- men, still practising the ceremonial observances " of the taber- nacle or temple system,' They are at least clearly warned of the danger of still " serving the tabernacle," i.e. allowing their religious life to be governed by the principles and rules of a system of things which had been superseded, inasmuch as they thereby cut themselves off from the right or power {i^ovala) to share in the benefits of Christ's sacrifice.^ On the other hand, many special features,* and the general tone and style of the epistle, seem to show that the author, himself probably a Hellenistic Jew, has before his mind readers who, while children of Abraham, both in the flesh and the spirit, belong to a Christian community of the Hellenistic type.^ There is no need for our present purpose to enter into the details of the great argument of this epistle. We simply call attention to the fact that in this letter, written probably before the fall of Jerusalem,'' and written certainly to Hebrew Christians, we have a full and clear exposition of the doctrine (if Christ's sacrifice and priesthood, of the abolition of the Old Testament sacrificial system, of how believers now have access as priests into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and of the nature of the spiritual sacrifices which they offer, and with \vhich God is well pleased/ 1 Heb. xiii. 7 tf. '^ Davidson, Hebreus, pp. 19, 253-257. ■' Heb. xiii. 10-16. * For example, the invariable use of tlie LXX. for ([notations from the Old Testament. * Comp. Davidson, Hebreics, pp. S» f., 15-18. ^ It was wliile there were yet " priests, who offer the gifts according to tlie law, and serve that which is the copy and shadow of the heavenly things," Hob. viii. 4 f. 7 Heb. ii. 16 ff. ; v. 1-12 ; vii. 10, 22 ; xiii. 10-16. In one passage— the only one in the whole N. T. — " the image is so far extended " that an " altar " is also spoken of in connection with the sjiiritual offerings of believers, Heb. xiii. 10. Bp. Lightfoot's remarks on this jwint may be given, as those of an exegete whose impartiality on such a question will be disputed by none. He protests against "transferring statements such as this from the region of metaphor to the region of fact." . . . " It is surprising that some should have interpreted euv, and ver. 16, the naming iv-roita xai Knyuua, iis the kind of sacrifice with which God is well jileased. The sense which I have assigned to it (that it means the congregation assembled for common worship) appears to suit the language of the context ; while at the same time it accords with the Christian phraseology of succeeding ages. So Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. 6 ; Ignat. Eph. iv. ; Ma(jn. 7, etc. Simi- larly Polycarp (c. iv.) speaks of the body of the widows as ivnairrripiov itoZ." Phillppians, 3rd ed. pp. 260, 263. Delitzsch, Alford, Davidson, and others, with more probability as it seems to me, hold that the altar here referred to is the cross of Christ. ' ii. 1-3 ; iv. 2, 11 f. ; v. 12-14 ; vi. 5 ; xiii. 7, 22. "' Heb. X. 25: T»iv Ixttrv^ntyuynv iavruv fih lyKxrocXiiTorif, Kx^aig ifios naif. ' Heb. xiii. 7-10, 17, 24. * " If the sacerdotal office be understood to imply the offtriiig of sacrijicen, then the Epistle to the Hebrews leaves no jdace for a Christian priesthood." Hp. Lightfoot, " Essay on the Christian Ministry," in Philippiau.s, 3rd ed. p. 264 f. See Dr. Bannerman's thorough discussion of the priestly and sacri- ficial theories in their Roman Catholic and Anglican forms, Church of Christ, ii. pp. 155-185. 342 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. How much of the truth regarding sacrifice and priesthood under the New Testament dispensation, afterwards set forth so himinously by the apostles and other teachers of the Church in Jerusalem and in the Dispersion, was but dimly seen even by themselves during the first months and years after Pentecost, and how much more was altogether hid from the " many thousands of Jews which had believed," it is impossible for us to say. The key to the whole subject had been given to the apostles in many a pregnant utterance of Christ, which shone out now in new light under the promised teaching of the Holy Ghost. It was given to them also in the speaking signs and actions of the Lord's Supper, which were repeated and explained from day to day in the assemblies of the Pentecostal Church by those who were with the Son of God when He instituted the ordinance, with ever-memorable words, on that night on which He was betrayed. Andrew and John had heard their first teacher, the Baptist, say of Jesus of Nazareth in His own presence : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." That significant testimony, which was twice repeated by the Baptist, sent them at once to Christ. From them it passed directly to Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and others of the twelve.^ The scene and the saying must often have been rehearsed and pondered in the inner circle of the original disciples, and by other followers of the Baptist who joined them after their master's death.^ They could hardly fail to ask the Lord Himself concerning the meaning of John's testimony to Him, and of His words to John regarding " the necessity of His fulfilling all righteousness," at some of the times when, " privately to His own disciples. He expounded all things," ^ Other deep sayings of Jesus concerning His sufferings and death would naturally link themselves in the minds of the apostles with the testimony of His Forerunner. " The Son of Man came to give His life (His soul, rr/i; -y^v-^-qv avrov) a ransom in room of many (Xvrpov dvrl ttoXXcov)."* " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son ' John i. 29-37, 40-49. " Matt. xiv. 12. ' Matt. iii. 15 ; Mark iv. 34. * Matt. xx. 2S ; Mark x. 45. THE SACRIFICE AXD PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 343 of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth may in Hiiu have eternal life." ^ " The bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world (vTrep Trj TfU nus iViouf ; vi. 3 ; ix. 17 ; xi. 1, 29 ; xii. 17. THE CHURCH AT HOME. 353 at Jerusalem, because the historian of the Acts, in the iirst section of his treatise, tells us comparatively little of what happened anywhere else. But the same process no doubt went on wherever, through our Lord's personal ministry or that of the twelve and the seventy under His guidance, or through pilgrims returning from Pentecost, a nucleus had already been formed of those " Churches of Judiua which were in Christ," to whom Saul of Tarsus — although well known in Jerusalem itself — " was still unknown by face " for years after his conversion. " The Churches of God, which are in Judiea in Christ Jesus," Paul wrote in his earliest epistle, had " suffered like things of the Jews," in the way of persecution, to those which the Thessalonian converts suffered at the hands of their Gentile fellow-country- men.^ In each isolated group of believers in Judiiea, Samaria, and Galilee, in each congregation comprehended in that Church of the Holy Land, which is spoken of towards the end of this period as forming a collective unity ,^ this two- fold life doubtless showed itself, clinging on the one hand with a touching loyalty to the synagogue, with its sacred associations and ancestral ways, until forced from it sooner or later by persistent persecutions ; and, on the other hand, developing itself more freely, under the guidance of Christ's Word and Spirit, in the eKKXrjaia kut oIkov, " the Church at home." What, then, were the elements of the worship of the apostolic Church in this specifically Christian form of its development ? They are all indicated in the comprehensive summary given us of the characteristics of the Christian community, as seen especially in the converts of Pentecost. " They continued stedfastly in the apostle's teaching and in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers. . . . All that believed were together. . . . And day by day continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home (kut oIkov), they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people." ^ * Gal. i. 22 ; 1 Thess. ii. 14. - See above, p. 311. ' Acts ii. 42, 44-47. Z 354 WORSHIP OF THE hebeew chkistian church. The inner life of the Church, after the Ascension of her Lord, went on, as it had begun, in an atmosphere of prayer and praise. From the opening scene of the hundred and twenty in the upper chamber, " all with one accord continuing stedfastly in prayer," to the closing scene in this section of the history, where we see " many gathered together " in the house of Mary " praying," the voice of united prayer rises continually in the apostolic Church. It is the unfailing resource in every difficulty and emergency in the Church's affairs, — in the choice of an apostle, in the training of young converts, in the appointment of the seven, in the consolida- tion of the Church among the Samaritans, for the success of the apostles' ministry in Jerusalem, when Peter and John are forbidden by the Sanhedrin to speak in the name of Jesus, when Peter is lying chained in Herod's prison, to be put to death on the morrow.^ Only a few fragments of these prayers are recorded, but they are enough to give us some idea of their general charac- ter. They are simple fervent utterances, breathing the Old Testament spirit of reverence and faith, combining direct petition with adoration and thanksgiving.^ Utterances of pure praise are also spoken of, — a setting forth by the Spirit of the " mighty works of God," " speaking with tongues and magnifying God ; " ^ but of these none have been expressly handed down to us. Christ and His apostles had been wont to sing together ; and Hebrew Christians, with the treasury of the Psalter in tlieir hands and memories, and with their hearts filled with the Holy Ghost and gladness, would certainly not forget His example, nor the precept which James, the Lord's brother, wrote afterwards to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion : " Is any cheerful among you ? Let him sing praise." * ^ Acts i. 24 ; ii. 42 ; iv. 23 f., 31 ; vi. 4, 6 ; viii. 15 ; xii. 5, 12. - Acts i. 24 f.; iv. 24-30. ' Acts ii. 4, 11, 47; x. 46 ; comp. xi. 15 ff. •* Slatt. xxvi. 30 ; Jas. v. 13. On the place and significance of the Psalms in the apostolic and post-apostolic Church, I may refer to my little work, Worship of tlie Preahyterian Church, Edin. 1884, p. 21 f. The fact that so many of the P.-alms seem to have been set, according to the traditional headings, to the melodies of well-known vintage and harvest songs, like that beginning "Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it" (Ps. Ixv. 8), would fit them the better to give ITS PItAYERS AND PEAISE. 355 The " Magnificat," the " Beiiedictus," and the " Nunc Diniittis," show us on what Hues the praise of Hebrew believers, when " filled with the Spirit," was likely to shape itself when it went beyond the Psalter. Augustine calls Mary, the mother of our Lord, " nostra tympanistria." She led the song of the New Testament Church with her " Magni- ficat," as Miriam did that of. Israel with her timbrel by the Red Sea. Of what sort the first " hymns and spiritual songs " of the apostolic Church were, we may gather, further, from such rhythmical passages as Eph. v. 14 and 1 Tim. iii. 16, which there seems reason to ascribe to this source. Like these passages, the unrecorded utterances of the first singers of the Hebrew and Gentile Christian Churches probably moved closely in the circle of the great foundation truths concerning Christ, " who He was, and from whom He came, and how He redeemed us." ^ But the central and highest place in the worship of the Church at home was given, as before noted,^ to " the ministry of the Word." First in the list of the spiritual characteristics of the converts of Pentecost it is recorded, that " they con- tinued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching." ^ As to the significance and effect of this something has been already said.^ It may be noted further in this connection, that there is a clear distinction made in the narrative between "preaching" and "teaching," between the proclamation of the Gospel, the design of which is to make men disciples of Christ, and the instruction, the spiritual nurture and edification of those who are already disciples. It was under these two expression to the feelings of the Hebrew believers at a time when they " rejoiced before the Lord, according to the joy in harvest." See Robertson Smith, Old Testament in Jeiciah Church, p. ]90 f. ' Compare in this respect the earliest hymns of the post-apostolic Church, s\ich as the "Gloria in Excelsis," the "Ter Sanctus," and the "TeDeum." Compare also Pliny's reference to the antiphonal singing of the Christians in Bilhynia (a.d. 112) : "On an appointed day (' state die,' no doubt the Lord's day) they are wont to meet together before dawn to sing a hymn responsively to Christ as God (carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invieem)." Epist. x. 97. See Bishop Lightfoot's note on Col. iii, 16, and his Apost. Fatfiern — JrjnatiiLs, i. pp. 31, 51. '^ See above, p. 28S f. ' n i.axovia tov \oyov, Acts vi. 4 ; couip. ver. 2. * Sec above, pp. 291-297. 356 WOKSIIIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIA.N CHUKCH. divisions, corresponding to the two parts of Christ's great commission to His Church, that " the ministry of the Word " was carried on.^ The two could not, of course, be kept apart by any hard line of separation ; it was natural and inevitable to pass from the one to the other. Foundation truths regarding the Saviour and the way of salvation needed constantly to be repeated, illustrated, and enforced, even in the case of those who had already professed to receive them. But, as a rule, the proclamation of the Gospel, the bearing witness to Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah foretold in Scripture, took place in the temple courts and in the synagogues ; whereas the gatherings of the Church at home formed the natural sphere for teaching and learning " all the things which Jesus had commanded ; " for searching the Scriptures in the lines opened to the disciples by the risen Saviour, and followed out in the upper room before Pentecost ; for utterances of the Spirit by prophets, such as Agabus, in reference to future events or present duty ; and for the purposes of Christian edification generally. In this " ministry of the Word," in the private assemblies of the brethren, as well as in speaking to mixed audiences in the temple precincts, the apostles held the foremost place. They were " from the beginning " the chief " eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, . , . concerning the things wherein catechumens were instructed." ^ The converts of Pentecost " continued stedfastly in the teaching of the apostles." It was the apostles' own sense of the weight and responsibility ^ The distinction is embodied in a variety of expressions. On the one hand, we have Christ's command : Knpu^an ri svayyiXiov -Tras-n rr kt/itu. '^lainrivtra.Ti TavTo. ra i^vti (Mark xvi. 15 ; Matt, xxviii. 19), and the record of how it was fnltillud in every page of the history of the apostolic Church : 'Ex«>i/|a» -ravTax"'' '• ^nfiafTupctTO x. -ircepixdXu : xarayyiXXiiv ; ivayyiXi^ofiivm tov XpKrrov "I., x.T.X. (Mark xvi. 20; Acts ii. 40; iv. 2; v. 42, etc.). On the other hand, we have Christ's further commands : AiidtrxtvTts avrehs rnptTv Tdtra 'dira iviTiiXafin* Ifiiv : /3a;, x.T X. (Acts ii. 42 ; iv. 2 ; v. 42 ; ix. 31, etc.) - Luke i. 2-4. SPEAKING WITH TONGUES. 357 of tliis spocial function of theirs which led, as we sliall see more in detail presently, to the lirst steps being taken towards further organization in the Church. " It is not fit," they said to the multitude of the disciples, " that we should forsake the Word of God and serve tables. . . . We will continue sted- fastly in prayer and in the ministry of the Word." ^ But from the very first the work of proclaiming the Gospel and of edifying the Church is not carried on by the twelve alone. The gifts of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost are bestowed on the whole company of disciples in the upper chamber. " They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance," " speaking the mighty works of God," so that men of all nations received the message " each in his own language." ^ This one particular characteristic of the " first speaking with tongues " may, indeed, have been a sign distinguishing the first advent of the Spirit in connection with that representative gathering of " men from every nation under heaven." It does not appear to have accompanied the " glossolalia " in the Church at Corinth, to which Paul refers so often in his first epistle to the Corinthians. There is in fact no evidence whatever of its being continued or repeated at any other point in the history of the apostolic Church, with one possible exception, namely, in the account of what took place in the house of Cornelius, when the same apostle who spoke to the multitude of Jews and proselytes at Pentecost preached for the first time the same Gospel to the Gentiles.^ But whether with or without ' Acts vi. 2, 4. * Acts ii. 4, 6-8, 11. Cremer liolds that ver. 4 is to be understood as meaning "they began to speak with other languages," but hesitates to con- clude that this implies a speaking foreign languages, not learned in the usual way. He prefers the hypothesis of "a language produced by the Holy Ghost, specially for intercourse with God, which blended in one comprehensive expression, the various languages of mankind." Lexicon of N. T. Greek, 3rd ed. p. 163 f. ^ The fact of the Gentiles "speaking with tongues " through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon them, "even as on us at the beginning," is referred to by Peter both at the time and afterwards in such a way as to give the impression that the phenomena of Pentecost had remained unique hitherto in the experi- ence of the Hebrew Christian Church, and that now for the first time did they 358 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. the special signs which marked the coming of tlie Holy Ghost at Pentecost, there was no restriction of His gifts to the twelve alone. After Peter and John had returned from being examined and threatened by the Sanhedrin " to their own company," ..." They, when they heard the report of the apostles, lifted up their voice to God with one accord," . . . "And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of God with boldness. . . . And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus : and great grace was upon them all." ^ The prediction of Joel regarding the Messianic times, which Peter had cited in his first address to the multitude, was fulfilled continually in the experience of the Hebrew Christian Church. "Their sons and their daughters did prophesy." Prom the scantiness of our materials for information a good deal of obscurity rests upon several questions as to the nature of these prophesyings, and as to the points of resem- blance and difference between the prophets and prophetesses of the New Testament and those of the Old. One thing, however, may be noted here, that the chief, though probably not the exclusive sphere for the exercise of prophetic gifts fully recur. The speaking with tongues at Ctesarea may not, indeed, have gone beyond such rapturous and ecstatic utterances as we hear of at Corinth. But it may, on the other hand, have been in all respects parallel with the "glosso- lalia" of Pentecost, and have included utterances in language and dialects hitherto unknown to the speakers. It may have been on this account that the repetition now of the Pentecostal gifts in their entirety was hailed by the apostle as such an unmistakeable sign and seal from heaven, a clear token that it was the will of God that these Gentiles should be admitted at once to the same privileges as had been vouchsafed to Jewish believers in connection with the first advent of the Spirit at Pentecost. This would explain the more easily how it was at once accepted in that light also by "them that were of the circumcision" at Jerusalem, when Peter "expounded the matter unto them " in his own defence. Comp. Acts x. 45-47 with xi. 15-18. " It was the Pentecost of the Gentiles. . . . God would put the alien and so long 'unclean' nations on a platform no less high than that of the Jerusalem mother Church. He would authenticate by as solemn a Baptism from heaven their admission into the household and kingdom of His Son." Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antloch, 4th ed. p. 379 f. ' Actsiv. 23 f., 31, 33. PROPHESYINGS AND "THE WORD OF EXHORT ATIOX." 359 in apostolic times, was in the Christian assemblies "at liome." Save in the case of predictions of judgment by the apostles themselves, it is in that sphere alone that we have any instances recorded of Christian prophesyings at all. Agabus and the otlier " prophets which came down from Jerusalem unto Antioch " evidently spoke there, as they had been wont to do in the mother Church, in the meetings of the disciples. This holds good also of the second appearance of Agabus in the history, when he came down from Judaja and joined in the fellowship of tlie disciples at Ciesarea, in the house of " l*hilip the evangelist," who " had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy." ^ The apostle Paul himself heard both the recorded utterances of this prophet from Jerusalem. He had the best means of knowing the nature and design of prophecy, both in the Hebrew Christian and in the Gentile Churches, and no doubt speaks with respect to both when he says : " He that prophesieth speaketh unto men edification, and exhor- tation, and comfort (XaXel oIkoBo/mtjv k. irapaKK-rjaiv k. Trapa- fMuOiav). He that speaketh in a tongue edifietli himself ; but he that prophesieth, edifietli the Church, . . . Prophesy- ing is for a sign, not to the unbelieving, but to them that believe." '^ Closely akin to the gift of prophecy, if not absolutely blending into it, were spiritual gifts such as those possessed by Joseph of Cyprus, which gained for him from the apostles at Jerusalem the name of " Barnabas," " a son of exhorta- tion." He seems not to have been endowed, like Paul, with eloquence, or with the power of giving closely - reasoned addresses.^ The special gift which distinguished Barnabas in the Christian assemblies was that of warm and loving counsel and appeal, " that word of exhortation growing into a word of comfort, which only the Holy Ghost can give to the preacher." * It was this gift whicli l>arnabas used with such ' Acts xi. 27 f. Comp. xiii. 1 f. ; xxi. 8-11. * 1 Cor. xiv. 3 f., 22. ^ Observe the impression made by the two respectively upon tlie barbarous people of Lycaonia. "They called Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercury, because he was the chief speaker," Acts xiv. 12. * " Both these ideas," Dr. Dykes adds, " must be held fast in the xa^axXmrj,-, 360 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. happy effects among the new converts from the Gentiles in the Church at Antioch, when " he exhorted them all {irape- KoKet irdvraf;) that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." And then, seeing the need at Antioch of gifts and attainments beyond what he himself possessed, with characteristic humility and singleness of heart, Barnabas " went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul . . . and it came to pass that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the Church {ev rf} iKKkT^aia), and taught much people (SiSd^at 6-)(\ov Uavov)." ^ Less known disciples exercised kindred gifts "for edifica- tion, exhortation, and comfort," " as the Spirit gave them utterance " in the free and kindly atmosphere of the Church at home. " The fellowship " into which the converts of Pentecost were welcomed, and in which they abode so sted- fastly, was one which took voice, and uttered itself in words as well as deeds of Christian love and helpfulness. " The teaching of the apostles " came first. As " faithful and wise stewards," whom their Lord had " set over His household," they themselves " gave them their portion of food in due season," ^ and took the guidance and oversight of all that was done in this sphere. But many besides Barnabas came forward to lay spiritual contributions as well as money at the apostles' feet. In respect of spiritual gifts and religious experience, of insight into the meaning of the Word and the Providence of God, as well as in respect of more out- ward matters, "all that believed were together, were of one heart and soul, and had all things common." ^ Now it is true, as has been urged, that these characteristics and developments of the worship of the Hebrew Christian from which the Holy Spirit borrows His most characteristic New Testament title." From Jeruaakm to Antioch, 4th ed. p. 335. ' Acts xi. 23 f., 26. -' Luke xii. 42. ^ Acts ii. 42-47 ; iv. 31-37. The spirit and practice of the apostolic Church in this respect are reflected in an interesting way in one of the precepts given to catechumens in the Teachinrj of the Twelve Apoitles. "Thou shalt seek out from day to day the faces of the saints, that thou mayest be refreshed by their words," iv. 2. Harnack, Texte n. Untersachumjen, ii. 1, S. 14. SUBSTANTIALLY THAT OF THE SYNAGOGUE. 361 Church arose from the presence and working of tlie Holy Spirit in and with the apostles and the other believers. But it is true also — and it has not been sufficiently con- sidered by many writers — that tlie Spirit was guiding them in ways marked out beforehand by the Word and the Pro- vidence of God.^ The spiritual life of the Church availed itself of these forms and modes of worship, doing so naturally, as it were, and without constraint, under the impulse of that Spirit of the Lord, who is the Spirit of freedom. But the forms themselves had been moulded and proved for centuries in the Holy Land and the Diaspora. The men who took part in the services of the first Christian assemblies had been trained and prepared to do so by personal and hereditary experience. Whether Jews or proselytes, they had done the like, or seen and heard it done by others, ever since they first learned to call for themselves upon the name of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Lsrael. The worship of the apostolic Church at home was just in substance the worship of the Hebrew synagogue or proseucha. Two new institutions were added to what the first disciples and the converts of Pentecost had been used to in the synagogue services, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. But these, as we have seen, grew directly out of previous ordinances of Divine ' Rothe, e.g., holds that the Christians had no cultus of their own in the proper sense until after the destruction of Jerusalem. See his De primordiU cultiis ChrlMianorum, Bonn 1851. Even Lechler puts the case in a one-sided way when he says: " Der urchristliclie Gemeinde Gottesdienst hat sich ohne ausdruckliche Einsetzung des Erliisers, ohne gesetzliche Vorschrift, ohne bewussten Plan, von innen heraus, so zu sagen autononi gemacht ; er ist das freic Erzeugniss der Triebkraft des Geistes, wie Harnack [Th. Harnack, ChrM. Gemeinde Gottesdienst im apost. u. altkath. Zeitalter, S. Ill ff.] mit vollem Recht bemerkt," Apost. u. nachap. Zeilalt., 3te Ausg. S. 41. Dr. Dykes also fails to give due consideration to the facts to which 1 refer. " The characteristic of the earliest believers," he says, " was that they had no model, worked without precedent, and let rules arise as they were required. . . . Life shaped forms for itself as it wanted them. The Church took its external mould under the slow pressure of Providence. Through the inward impulse of Clirist's Spirit it grew as living things grow, freely, variously, everywhere." From Jerusalem to Antioch, p. 464 f. Dean Pluniptre arrives at a sounder conclusion : "It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the worship of the Church was identical with that of the synagogue, modified (1) by the new truths, (2) by the new institution of the Supper of the Lord, (3) by the sjnritual charismata." Art. "Synagogue," in Smith's Bible Did. iii. p. 1400o. 362 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. appointment in the Old Testament Church. And there was a new life from above breathing through all the elements of the service. But these elements themselves were the same. There was praise in the hallowed words of the Hebrew Psalter, sung or chanted to familiar and long-descended melodies ; praise also in warm and rapturous utterances by the Spirit, which yet, so far as we can gather from such fragments as have reached us, clothed themselves for the most part in grave and Scriptural language drawn from the Old Testament prophets and psalmists.^ There was prayer at every gathering of the Hebrew believers to the Lord God of their fathers. There were the reading and exposition of the Old Testament, of "the things written in Moses, and the Psalms, and the Prophets concerning the Christ." There were opportunities for free speech on Scripture questions, and for the interchange of spiritual experiences, for " the word of exhortation to the people " by fitting men. These were just the features of the synagogue services with which every disciple of Jewish birth had been familiar from childhood, with which every proselyte from the Gentiles associated the dawn of his religious life and its happiest experiences. The men who first stood up at the call of the apostles, or with an assenting sign from them, to read the Scriptures, to pray or to offer a word of exhortation in the gatherings of the Hebrew Christian Church, were the very men who had been used to do the same at the call of the rulers of the synagogues, in which they had hitherto been wont to worship every Sabbath day. They were such as Nico- demus, Joseph of Arimathasa, Barnabas, and Manaen the foster-brother of the tetrarch. Some of these men, like the two first named and Saul of Tarsus, had themselves been " rulers of the Jews " and " teachers of Israel " in the syna- gogue and Sanhedrin. They had been used to take their place as a matter of course on the seat set apart for " the doctors," " the wise men and scribes," the " teachers of Israel."^ The loving deference of their brethren naturally ' Comp. the " prayer-hymn," as it has been called, in Acts iv. 24-30. Lecliler, S. 119 ; and see above, p. 354 f. - Matt, xxvii. 57 ; Mark .\v. 43 ; xxiii. 50 f. ; Luke ii. 46 ; John iii. 1 f., FRUITS OF THE SYXAGOGUE SYSTEM. 363 set such men from tlie first in a like position in the Christian assemblies. They were obviously fitted to fill it aright by their approved gifts and by their Providential preparation and training, all now quickened and turned to the highest account l)y the breath of the Spirit of God. Such " leaders among the brethren " ^ proved themselves in the temple courts and in the meetings of the Church at home to be " scribes made disciples unto the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth out of their treasure things new and old." ^ The seal of the Divine blessing was signally given to the words of these men. The crown was set upon the old syna- gogue system of worship by the Lord raising up in connection with it, among His disciples, " prophets " such as were seen in Israel in the days when that system first arose by the rivers of Babylon, and among those who returned to the Holy Land with Ezra and Nehemiah. The Saviour's promise at the close of His own earthly ministry was manifestly fulfilled : " Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes."^ They might be opposed and rejected, as the Lord had foretold, when they spoke in the Jew^ish synagogue gatherings. There was all the more reason why the disciples of Christ should joyfully welcome and honour them in theirs. The name "synagogue," and the technical terms of its service, continued for years, and indeed for generations, on Hebrew Christian ground, and in the language of leaders of the Church, such as James, the Lord's brother, to be used as the natural and appropriate names for the Christian assembly and its arrangements for worship. " My brethren," James writes to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, "hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring in fine clothing . . . and ye say, Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, do ye not 10 ; vii. .50 f. ; xix. 38 f. ; Acts xiii. 1 f. Such action on the part of Paul and IJarnabas in the synagoj^ue of Antioch, in Pisidia, would explain how the luk-ra recognised them at once as men to whom an opportunity of speech, a " tacultas docendi," should be given. Acts xiii. 14 f. ^ at'ipai rtyouft'novs iv roT; aSiA^or,-, Acts XV. 22. Conip. ver. 32. * Matt. xiii. 52. ^ Matt, xxiii. 34. 364: WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. make distinctions, and become judges with evil thoughts ? " He warns his readers against the very abuses to which the freedom of speech granted within certain limits by the Jewish synagogue system was specially liable, and to which the same system in the Jewish Christian Church was likewise exposed. " Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment. ... If any stumble th not in word, tlie same is a perfect man. . . . Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. . . . Who is a wise man (cro0o?) and understanding among you ? Let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. . . . For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed." ^ So, too, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges the Jewish Christians to whom he wrote : " Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together (rrjv iTriavvaycoyrjv iavTMv), as the custom of some is ; but exhort one another, and so much the more as ye see the day drawing nigh." ^ 3rd. Observance of the two Christian sacraments, and of the Lord's Day. 1. Baptism. We have already considered the nature and meaning of this ordinance of Christ, and who were the subjects of it in the 1 Jas. i. 19 ; ii. 1-3 ; iii. 1 f., 13, 16. See above, pp. 130-133. " Even in patristic literature trwayuyi^ is sometimes used for the Christian congregation (Harnack, Zeitschi: fiir icissenschaftl. Theol. 1876, S. 104 ff., and his note on Hermas' Mandat. xi. 9, in Gebhardt and Harnack's ed. of the Patr. Apostol.). In Christian Palestinian Aramaic, NDC'ja, which answers to the Greek <7Viiayui,ytn, seems to have been the usual word for Church (see Land, Anecdota Syriaca, iv. p. 217. Zahn, Tatian's Diatessaron, p. 335). Schiirer, ii. p. 58. "Nam profecto," Augustine says in reference to the conduct of the Jews in putting the disciples of Christ out of the synagogues, " quia non erat ullus alius populus Dei quani illud semen Abrahae, si agnoscerent et reciperent Christum, tanquam rami naturales in olea permanerent (Rom. xi. 17) ; nee alia? fierent Ecclesife Christi, aliaj synagogaj Judseorum ; eiedem quippe essent, si in eodem esse voluissent," Tract, in Joann. xciii. 2. ^ Heb. X. 25. See above, pp. 339-341. It may be added here, that the injunction to mutual "exhortation" {vapctKaXoZ^ris), given also in iii. 13. " Exhort one another day by day," corresponds exactly both in plirase and substance to the synagogue usage as we have seen it carried out by the Hebrew Christians at Jenisalem. " Jeder ist an seinem Theil durch Wort u. Vorbild zur Erbauung der Gemeinde beizutragen verpflichtet," Delitzscli, Jlehraerbrief, S. 491. nAPTISM. 3G5 apostolic Churcli.' Let us consider now the place which it holds in the history of this period, the manner in which it is spoken of, and the indications which we have regarding the mode in which Baptism was administered and the persons by whom it was dispensed. (1.) It is evident at the first glance how closely Baptism is associated, from the earliest mention of it in the Acts, with the coming and work of the Holy Ghost. The apostle Peter in his address at Pentecost holds out " the gift of the Holy Ghost " to all who should " repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of their sins ; for to you is the promise, and to your children. . . . Then they that received his word were baptized; and there were added to them in that day about three thousand souls.""' Baptism was thus the outward sign of the inward change of heart and spirit wrought by the Holy Ghost in every man who truly " received the word " concerning " the name of Jesus Christ " as it was proclaimed by the apostles. It accompanied and sealed his public confession of faith in Christ and obedience to Him. Baptism with water "in the name of the Lord Jesus," or in the threefold name of God as revealed in and by Him, was the fitting embodiment in well-known Scriptural symbols of the new and blessed relation into which the believer and his house were now brought with God in Christ as the Giver of the Holy Spirit. It was " a visible Word " from the Lord, as when He said to one who had " received Him joyfully : " " This day is salvation come to this house ; forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham." " The promise," and the sign of the promise, "was to him and to his children." " The blessing of Abraham had come upon him in Christ Jesus, that he might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith," receiving it for himself and for all family duties and relations.^ The true connection between the sign and the thing signi- fied—between Baptism with water and Baptism with the Spirit—is brought out with unmistakeable clearness in the account of " the Pentecost of the Gentiles " in the house of ' See above, pp. 319-327. * Acts ii. 38, 41. ' Luke xix. 6, 9 ; Acts ii. 39 ; Gal. iii. 14. 366 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Cornelius at Ciesarea. " As I began to speak," Peter said when reporting the matter to the Church at Jerusalem, " the Holy Ghost fell on them, even as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. If, then, God gave unto them the like gift as He did also unto us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God ? " ^ Nothing could be plainer than the teaching of this passage, as of that which records the Baptism of Simon the soothsayer. There is no essential connection between the external rite of Baptism and the inward work of the Holy Spirit. The one may be where the other is not. They stand to each other as the sign and the thing signified. Coi'nelius and his friends had received neither the Old Testament nor the New Testa- ment ordinance of admission into the Church of God. They were neither circumcised nor baptized. Yet beyond all question, as the apostle felt, they were " acceptable to God," members of Christ's Church and " in fullest communion with the Head, since they have been introduced into fellowship by Christ's own hand, and sealed with His seal. Who can forbid the water, where He has not withheld the Spirit ? " ^ Baptism with water was not the means, nor even the accom- paniment, of these men's receiving the Baptism with the Spirit. But it followed as a fitting sign and seal where the substance of the blessing had been so manifestly and richly given. " Wherever, therefore, we find the fruits of the Holy Spirit of Christ, there on the authority of an apostle we are bound to recognise the Church of Christ — ' ubi Christus ibi ecclesia.' Churches which unchurch communions of believing and holy men because their ecclesiastical order is (supposed to be) not valid nor their episcopal descent continuous, appear on these principles to be guilty, not only of folly, but of schism. They misunderstand and then they rend the spiritual body of Christ. But if hierarchism and high-churchism accord ill with the transactions at Ctesarea, it fares little better with the ^ Acts xi. 15-17 ; comp. i. 5. - TO vlup ... TO ■jTMiZ/xu, Acts X. 47. Dykes, From Jerusahm to Antiocli, 4tLi ed, p. 3S0. BAPTISM AND THE GIFTS OF THE Sl'llUT. 307 ultra-spiritualism of those who despise Church order or deem of no account the due administration of the holy sacraments. Never save on that solitary occasion did the special gift of the Holy Gliost precede the Baptism of a convert. Even on that occasion tlie exceptional presence of the tiling signified did not render superfluous the observance of the sign. God is not bound even to His own order ; nor can Baptism possess any magical virtue to confer what God conferred without it. Yet the Church even then followed in the steps of her Lord, ratifying by her outward act what He had already done by inward grace." ^ We may compare with tliis passage another which, though it belongs in point of date to the second section of the Acts, yet refers to men who were probably Hebrew Christians, and who in point of religious training and experience belonged to the Church of the first days. At the beginning of Paul's work in Ephesus, he " found there certain disciples," men recognised as believers in Jesus and in fellowship with the infant Church of the place. " And lie said unto them, Did ye receive a gift of the Holy Ghost when ye believed ? And they said unto him, Nay, we did not so much as hear whether there is such a bestowment of the Holy Ghost.^ And he said, Into what then were ye baptized ? And they said. Into John's Baptism." On the apostle's explaining to them in what relation John's preaching and Baptism stood to faith in Jesus, " they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied." It will be seen at once in what an interesting and suggestive ' Dykes, p. 3S1. The fact to lie referred to present!}' (p. 374), that Peter left the administration of the sacrament of Baptism in the house of Cornelius to the six brethren from Joppa, is in perfect accordance witli the sub- ordinate position to be assigned to the ordinance. The apostle liad declared to the centurion "words whereby he should be saved, he and all his house" (c. xi. 14). By preaching the Gospel, Peter had done by God's blessing the essential spiritual work, and had seen the seal of the Holy Ghost set upon it from heaven. The mere outward rite, which expressed and embodied in symbol what had taken place, might well be left to otlier hands. Conip. 1 Cor. i." 14-17. * (I Tuvfix ayiot iXa/Stri nvziCffayrtt .... aXX' oiSi ti vtiZfca uyiev Itrii riKovaufiii, Acts .\ix. 2. See above, pp. lHo f., 271 f. 368 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. light this sets the sacrament of Baptism as administered to the infant seed of God's people. The believing father and mother are placed in a new position with new responsibilities, througli God's gift to them of children. They are called accordingly to cast themselves afresh by faith upon the cove- nant grace of God in Christ, and upon the foundation pro- mise of the covenant : " I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." They feel their special need of the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit for themselves and for their child, that they may have grace and wisdom to take this little one and nurse and train it for the Lord. Their heart's desire and prayer for the child is that from the very first he may be " washed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." ^ The Lord's answer to such desires and petitions of His servants is given in the apostle's assurance to those children of Abraham to whom he spoke at Pentecost, and in the ordinance in direct connection with which his words were spoken : " The pro- mise is to you and to your children." Baptism is the sign and seal of the promise in this special relation in which you stand now. You are to receive it as such. " If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." " The blessing of Abraham has come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that ye might receive the promise of the Spirit — for yourselves and for your children — through faith." " Ask, and ye shall receive," " If ye shall ask any- thing in My name, I will do it." " If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." ^ (2.) What was the mode of Baptism in the apostolic Church ? From the nature of the case, and from the whole spirit of the narrative in the passages which refer to the administration of Baptism, it is evident that this question, from the stand- point of Scripture, is an entirely subordinate one. The questions to which importance is attached by our Lord and His apostles are such as these : Into what name and unto ' 1 Cor. vi. 11. - Geu. xvii. 7 ; Acts ii. 38 f. ; Gal. iii. 14, 29 ; Matt. vii. 11 ; Luke .\i. 13. MODES OF BAPTISM. 369 wluit gifts is any one baptized ? In what spirit and on what grounds ought the applicant to seek the ordinance for himself and those that are his ? What are the true answers to these questions we have already seen. Further, we learn from the analogy of the Old Testament ordinances for puri- lication, and from such words as those of Peter lately cited. that Baptism is to be with water, as the Scriptural symbol of the Holy Spirit in His purifying and renewing power. But as to how the element is to be applied, and how much of it is to be used in Baptism, no express rule is given ; and no instance is recorded in the New Testament where the precise mode can be said to be more than a matter of probable inference.^ The natural conclusion is, that the mode is simply a question of Christian expediency, to be decided according to circumstances and in conformity with the two great New Testament canons for the minor arrange- ments of worship. " Let all things be done unto edification : " 1 One may still occasionally hear strong assertions, that to " baptize " means to immerse and nothing but to immerse; that "the mode here is the ordin- ance," and that no one therefore is or ever was baptized who was not immersed. That view has passed into au accepted tradition in some quarters ; but like many other traditions it is quite unreliable, and has been conclusively dis- proved. The question is not as to the use of the word /Sa^rr/^ai; and its cognates in the classics, but in Hellenistic Greek, such as that of the LXX., of the New Testament, and of most of the Greek fathers of the early centuries. Now it is quite clear that these writers repeatedly speak of sprinklings and pourings of different sorts as "baptisms," e.g. the sprinkling of the "water of puritication," of the ashes of the heifer, of the blood of Iambs, etc. ; and further, that tiicy often use the word " baptize " in a general sense, as meaning to wasli or purify in any way, whether by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion. There are other Greek words which mean to "immerse [and nothing but immerse," such as xaraSua and i^ivu ; and it is worth noting that the early ecclesiastical WTiters sometimes use these terms when they wish to call attention to the point that the Kaptism of which they speak took place by immersion, as was in point of fact the general custom in the post-apostolic age. The very fact that they do so is a proof that Baptism might be by other modes. These terms might have been used by our Lord and His apostles to show the mode of Bap- tism which Christians were to use. In that case there could have been no ditference of opinion. But the N. T. does not use these words in reference to the ordinance. It uses the words "baptize " and "baptism," which in that age were undoubtedly used in several senses, and very often to denote "washing " or "purifying" generally. Comp. President Beecher, 5a/>. 236-239. ^ John iv. 1 f. 374 WORSHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. highest functions, " the ministry of the Word and prayer." Their view of the relative importance of the different clauses in our Lord's great commission was like that of the apostle of the Gentiles when he said : " Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." ^ Christ's parting charge was addressed, as we have seen, to the Church as such, the whole company of the believers. When once there was sufficient evidence that the great end had been accomplished, that men had been really " made disciples " through the preaching of the Gospel, it was simply a matter of order and arrangement by whose hands this subordinate part of the commission should be carried out, and the converts formally received into fellowship by Baptism. In all likelihood there were few out of the hundred and twenty original disciples who had not work of this kind to do when the fruits of Peter's address on the day of Pentecost were being gathered in. Philip, " one of the seven," — whose later name, " the evangelist," was probably a result of his work at Samaria, — baptizes the Ethiopian chamberlain with his own hand. Those who received the Gospel from Philip at Samaria " were baptized, both men and women," either by himself or by his assistants, before the arrival of the apostolic deputies from Jerusalem. Peter, on the conversion of the centurion and his friends at Casarea, entrusts their Baptism to other hands, probably those of the six representatives of the Church at Joppa who had accompanied him. Saul of Tarsus is baptized in his lodging at Damascus by "a certain disciple there named Ananias." " The mother Church of Gentile Christendom was founded by the efforts of private disciples " telling the good news of the Lord Jesus " {eva'y- y^Xt^ofiepot rov Kvpiov 'Irjaovv). The men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who tirst crossed the line in Antioch and " spake unto the Greeks also," so that " a great number believed and turned unto the Lord," doubtless baptized these believers forthwith upon their profession of faith. There is no indica- tion whatever that Barnabas, on his arrival in the Syrian capital, found anything yet to be done as regards the admission of the converts into full communion. It was to ' 1 Cor. i. 17. -" Acts viii. 12-16, 38 ; xxi. 8 ; ix. 10, 18. PERSONS WHO BAPTIZED. 375 their further instruction in Christian truth that he and Saul specially devoted themselves lor the next year/ 2. The Lord's Supper. This ordinance appears twice over in the earliest description of the life of the I'entecostal Church. The first converts " continued stedfastly in the breaking of the bread (t^ K\ua€L Tou aprov), and the prayers." And with respect to " all that believed," we read that " day by day continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home (/cXwz/re? re Kar oIkov dprov), they did take tlieir food (rpoc^?;?) with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people." ' It seems clear tliat these statements imply that sort of twofold fellowship afterwards known under the designations of the " love feast " {dyuTTr}) and the " eucharist," and referred to under the former of these names in the Xew Testament by one of the leaders of the Hebrew Christian Church, Jude the brother of James, and also — according to the most probable reading — in the Second Epistle of Peter.'^ There was close and loving fellowship between all the disciples as brethren and sisters in one family. The token and pledge of this was the common table at which they took their food together daily. And this loving intercourse was fitly closed for the day with the Lord's Supper as the sign and seal of their fellowship with the common Lord and Saviour, unseen but really present in the midst of His disciples to bless them with all the gifts and blessings won for them by His life and death. Christ's own ordinance of remembrance was the crown and consummation of their communion (77 Koivcovia) with Him and with each other.'* It soon came to bear that name as its fitting designation. We find the word and the idea of this twofold ' Chap. xi. 19-26. "• Chap, il 42, 46 f. ■' Jude 12 ; 2 Pet. ii. 13. * "The Lord's Supper," in the wider sense, covered both the "love feast" and the eucharist, tlie former rising into the latter before abuses such as those censured by Paul in the Church at Corinth led to the separation of the two. it was "substantially a reproduction of Christ's last night with His apostles," in which the joyful fellowship of the Paschal meal rose into the new covenant onlinance of the bread and the cup blessed by the Lord. See Bp. Lightfoot, Ignatim, i. 386. Meyer on 1 Cor. xi. 20, E. Tr. i. p. 335. 376 WOESHIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. communion specially linked with the Lord's Supper in one of Paul's earliest epistles.^ We have no information regarding the question of who presided at the Table, or first broke the bread and gave the cup to his brethren. From the standpoint of the apostolic Church such points were of as little importance as the ques- tion by whose hand a convert should be baptized, or that of the precise mode in which the water should be applied, or the amount of it to be used in the ordinance. These were simply questions of arrangement to be settled by Christian common sense. The precedent of the first Lord's Supper was no doubt followed as nearly as circumstances would allow. One of the twelve would naturally preside in the meetings for worship in the upper room, or at any assembly for the breaking of bread where apostles were present. But the Pentecostal Church soon numbered its thousands ; and from the first different languages were represented in it. The meetings of the disciples were held in different houses in Jerusalem.^ Fellow-countrymen would doubtless keep together to " hear in their own tongue wherein they were born the mighty works of God." ^ Each little gathering had its own natural or appointed leaders, who took the initiative when in each different centre the ordinance of communion was observed, and the bread was broken, and the cup passed from hand to hand.'' 1 To ■roTr.piov Tr,s ivkoyias o ivXeyovfiiv ov^^i xoivuv'ia rod aifiocTOs rev Xpi/rr'w utti ; Tov aprov osi xX. Earn. xv. 4, 7. Comp. the apostle's words in 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Gal. vi. 15 t. THE OLD SABDATII AND THE LORD'S DAY. 381 without the knowledge of the disciples, so, too, there iiad fallen for them a shadow over the ancieut Sabbath, a shadow which was felt the more because of the surpassinjf brightness that now rested upon the day which followed. The one was on the dark, the other on the sunlit side of the mountain range ; and the faces of Christ's disciples were toward the sun- rising.^ The seventh day had terrible memories for " the eleven and them that were with them," memories of unfaith- fulness and unbelief, of desolation and despair. It had been the darkest day of the " Triduum moestosum." The first day of the week had brought light from heaven, and gladness never to pass away, " the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." It could never again be to any of the first disciples as a common day. More than this. The day of Christ's resurrection had been singled out, and sealed by Himself, ever since, in the most marked and significant way as the day on which especially He would meet with His disciples, and expected that they should be gathered together to meet with Him. Out of some twelve or thirteen recorded appearances of Christ to the dis- ciples between His Eesurrection and Ascension, six at least took place on the first day of the week.^ One of the twelve is not with the rest who were gathered together in Jerusalem on the day on which Christ rose from the dead, and does not therefore see the Lord when He appeared in the midst of His assembled disciples. They met doubtless for worship as they had been wont to do on the seventh day of that week, but Jesus did not come to them. Not until the liesurrection day returned, and the disciples again met together, " and Thomas with them," did the risen Saviour again meet w4th them, and reveal Himself to the doubting apostle. Other interviews, • "Thu pilgrim (after la- had been received into 'the House Beautiful') they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened toward the sun-rising ; and the name of the chamber was Peace ; where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang." Pilgrim's Progrts.s. ■ To Mary Magdaleiie, Mark xvi. 9 ; John xx. 14-18 ; to the other women, Matt, xxviii. 9 ; to the two on the road to Ennnaus, Mark xvi. 12 ; Luke xxiv. 13-31; to Peter, Luke x.xiv. 34; 1 Cor. xv. 5; to the disciples without Thomas, Luke xxiv. 36 if. ; John xx. 19-25 ; to the discii)les with Thomas, John XX. 26-29. 382 WORSHIP OF THE HEBKEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. such as that with the five hundred in Galilee, with respect to wliich no special note of the time is recorded, may very possibly have taken place also on the first day of the week. It was unquestionably the day on which Christ Himself during the forty days taught His disciples specially to expect His presence and blessing.^ The crown was put upon the sacred and inalienable position of this day above all others in the apostolic Church by the Advent of the Holy Spirit. The day of Christ's Eesurrection was to be as closely associated in the minds of the disciples with the coming and work of the Paraclete as with the presence of the Lord Himself in the midst of their assemblies. Pentecost that year fell on the first day of the week.^ By this time none of the disciples had failed to learn the lesson taught before to Thomas. " When the day of Pente- cost was now come, they were all together in one place." And to the Church thus gathered together with one accord in the name of the Lord Jesus, on the day of His Piesurrection, the Holy Spirit was sent in power and majesty.'^ "' It seems to have been held by some in the sub-apostolic and post-apostolic age that our Lord's Ascension as well as His Resurrection took place on the first day of the week. Thus in the Epistle of Barnabas the author, in arguing against Judaistic tendencies, cites Isa. i. 13, and goes on: "Ye perceive how God speaks : Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made, when giving rest to all things I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day, too, on which Jesus rose again from the dead, and, having manifested Himself, ascended into the heavens (h ^ xa.) o 'lr,(r/>v; avio-Tti ix tmv vtxpuv, xa) tpavifuh); avifin il; rous ovpavous), Ep. Bam, XV. 8. See Zahn, Geschichte des Sonntags, Hannover 1878, S. 61, Hefele, Patr. Apost. ed. 4, S. 41, and his Sendschreiben des Ap. Barn. S. 112 f. Whether the passage above cited really puts the Ascension on the first day of the week depends on the punctuation adopted. Dressel puts a full stop after ix v.xpuv, in which he is followed by Dr. Roberts and Principal Donaldson in the Ante- Nicene Library, i. p. 128. Canon Barry agrees with Hefele and Zahn, art. "Lord's Day," in Smith and Cheetham's Z>ic<. of Christ. Antlq. ii. p. 1043. Comp. "The Teaching of the Apostles," in Syriac Documents, p. 38, in Ante- Nicene Library, xx., Edin. 1871. But see Bp. Lightfoot's estimate of the value of these "Documents," which were first published in Dr. Cureton's posthumous work. Ancient Syriac Documents, Lond. 1864. Lightfoot, Ignatim, 1. p. 69 ; comp. his Philippians, p. 209. 2 Canon Barry, art. " Lonl's Day," in Dirt, of Christ. Ant. ii. p. 1043. Hessey, art. " Lord's Day," in Smith's Bible Diet. ii. p. 136, ^ Acts ii. 1-4, THE OLD SABBATH AND THE LORD'S DAY. 383 By tliis great series of facts and events, fur more powerful in their successive testimony than words, a threefohl seal was set upon the first day of the week as tlie great day of the new dispensation. On this day God the Father had given assurance unto all men concerning His Son and His holy servant Jesus by raising Him from the dead. The risen Redeemer had made it plain by many unmistakeable tokens, that on this day above all others it was His good pleasure to reveal Himself to His disciples. And on this day the Holy Ghost had been given. The threefold name of God into which believers were baptized, in which the Church assembled together, was written full and clear upon this day, separating it from all the rest. The day of Christ's Resurrection as kept by His disciples for Him was the constant memorial and representative in the worship of the Pentecostal Church of that to which the apostles bore witness in word, proclaiming Christ as risen from the dead and as the giver of the Holy Spirit. It preached Jesus and the Resurrection, and the power and fruits of the Resurrection. On all these grounds it is easy to understand how the first day of the week rose swiftly and silently, and as it were by the natural laws of the new world in wliich the disciples of the risen Saviour now moved, to the position, which we find it holding as a matter of course in the second section of the history, of the acknowledged day for Christian assemblies, and especially for the fellowship of the common table and of the Lord's Supper. Alongside of the Lord's Day, as already noted, all tlie members of the Hebrew Christian Church kept tlie old Day of Rest, although doubtless in that spirit of freedom which breathed in the teaching and example of Christ Himself. The place of the Sabbath in " the ten words " was sufficient of itself to secure that it should be kept. Our Lord had foretold in the plainest terms that the temple should be utterly destroyed. When that came to pass, as the disciples must have felt on pondering His words, it would be impossible to continue the sacrifices, and the priest's office would prac- tically be abolished. But Christ had never given the slightest oS-i WORSHir OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. indication that a time would ever come when the law of the ten words was to lose its authority over the consciences of men, or when one was to be taken out of the number. The ten commandments had no connection with the temple, nor with sacrifices and priesthood. They rested on reasons that arose out of the essential and permanent relations of man with his Maker, and of man with his fellows.^ The place of the ten commandments in the Sinaitic legislation made this plain to every member of the Hebrew Church. Before any other statutes were given, " God spake all these words," speaking them not through Moses, but directly to the people met in solemn assembly, and " He added no more ; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone, and delivered them unto Moses," ^ These ten commandments only were written with the finger of God on the tables of stone, as He had written that law in substance also on the hearts of all men. They only were kept within the ark beneath the mercy-seat in the inmost shrine of the Holiest of ^ All tlie four commandments of the first table, as has often been pointed out, are very closely connected with each other. They all deal with the worship of God ; its object, — " no other gods before Me ; " its means, — " not by idols or any way not appointed in His word ; " its manner, — "with reverence and godly fear ;" its time, — "especially one day in seven as a day of holy rest and service." Hoiv the Sabbath was to be kept in the Old Testament Church is indicated in the brief but suggestive commentary in the twenty-third chapter of Levi- ticus, where the Sabbath stands in a i)lace by itself before and apart from all " the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season." "The seventh day is a rest day of solemn rest, an holy convocation ; ye shall do no manner of work ; it is a rest day unto Jehovah in all your dwellings," Lev. xxiii. 3 ; comp. Isa. Iviii. 13 f. No doubt the Sabbath had a special place in the national covenant of Israel with God, as " a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever ; " and it was a special reason for Israel's keeping the Sabbath that God had redeemed them from the bondage of Egypt (Ex. xxxi. 13-17 ; Deut. v. 15) ; as in all ages each fresh experience of redemption is a new reason for keeping God's commandments. But this is not in the least inconsistent with the original ground of this com- mandment in the creation rest of God, and in His marking out the true relation for man between work and rest, and setting His blessing on the rest day. 2 " These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly (DD7np~^3"^X) in the Mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice ; and He added no more : and He wrote them upon two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me," Deut. v. 22; comp. Ex. xx. 1-22 ; xxxi. 18. THE SABBATH AND THE LORD'S DAV. 385 all, while all later legislation found its place in the roll with- out the ark.^ So far from giving the slightest hint that the ten connnanJ- ments were to lose this exceptional position of sanctity and authority, or that one of them was to be taken out of the list, our Lord repeatedly appeals to them as the supreme standard of right and wrong : " If thou wouldest enter into life, keep the commandments." " Why do ye transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition ? For God said : Honour thy father and mother." ^ And of all the commandments, not even excepting the fifth and seventh, the one which Christ most often selects for vindication from corruption and abuse, is that which embodies the ordinance of the day of rest. He takes it for granted, as we have already seen, that the keeping of a Sabbath is to continue in His Church at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, more than a generation after His own death.^ It is in a Hebrew Christian document, proceeding from one of the foremost leaders of the Church in Jerusalem, that we first meet the name " the Lord's Day," as applied to the day of Christ's Resurrection, and associated with the 1 Ex. XXV. 21 ; xl. 20 ; 1 Kings viii. 9 ; Rom. ii. 14 f. "The position of the Sabbath in the decalogue (where nothing is placed which was of merely Jewish concern, and which was not of fundamental importance) is a pre- sumption of perpetuity for every candid mind. The much disputed question of the ethical nature of the Sabbath law is not of so great moment as has been imagined. Moral or not, the weekly rest is to all men and at all times of vital importance ; therefore practically, if not pliilosoithically, of ethical value. The fourth commandment certainly differs from the others in this respect, that it is not written on the natural conscience. The utmost length reason could go would be to determine that rest is needful. Whether rest should be periodical or at irregular intervals, on the seventh day or on the tenth, as in revolutionary France, with its mania for the decimal system, the light of nature could not teach. But the decalogue settles that point, and settles it for ever for all wlio believe in the Divine origin of the Mosaic legisla- tion. The fourth commandment is a revelation for all time of God's mind on the universally important question of the proper relation between labour and rest." Bruce, Trainimj of the Twelve, Srd ed. p. 94. Comp. liannerman, Church of Clirist, i. pp. 397-401 ; and as to the union of a moral and a positive element in the fourth commandment, p. 393. See also Fairbairn, Typol. 6th ed. ii. pp. 124-152. « Matt. XV. 3 f. ; xix. 17 if. ' See above, pp. 379-381. Comp. Fairbairn, licrelation of Law in Scripture, pp. 235-242. 2 B 386 ^voRSHIP of the Hebrew christian church. last appearance of the risen Saviour on earth — an appear- ance made, like the first, upon that day.^ The title reminds us of the claim constantly made in the name of God, both in the legislative and the prophetic portions of the Old Testament, with respect to the ancient day of rest. " It is tlie Sabbath of the Lord thy God." " Ye shall keep My Sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary : I am the Lord your God." " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable . . . then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." ^ All days are the Lord's ; and all, so far as He Himself is concerned, are alike holy and blessed. When, therefore, in the beginning of the record of revelation, we read of one day in the seven that " God blessed and sanctified it," and find that He claims it henceforth as " His holy day," we see at once that this must have reference to man as made in the image of God, and for fellowship with Him, that " the Sabbath was made for man," that it was on his account, in his highest interests, that the day was set apart from the rest of the week, and crowned with special blessing from God. And so, too, in the later Scriptures, when we find the day of ^ i'yivo/u.>jv £v Tv'.uf/.ari Iv T>j Kupia.x.n yif^'ipci, Rev. i. 10. Dr. Hessey refutiis con- clusively the various and conflictiug interpretations of this phrase which have been given by writers who departed from ' ' the general consent both of Cliristian antiquity and of modern divines, which refers it to the weekly festival of our Lord's Resurrection." Art. "Lord's Day," in Smith's Bible Diet. ii. p. 135a. The most plausible of these divergent interpretations is perhaps that of Augusti, who understood it of the Day of Judgment, ii iif/ipa, Tou Kvp'iou, This view has more recently been advocated by the late justly revered Dr. Beck of Tubingen, Offenharung Johannis, Giitersloh 1884, S. 70 f. One is surprised to find that Bishop Lightfoot, in his latest work, indicates a leaning to tlie idea that by ■/> xupiaxri iifiipa in Rev. i. 10, " tlie day of judgment is intended," and that he adds, " If this be so, the passage before us [Ign. ad Magn. ix.] is the earliest extant example of its occurrence in this sense [i.e. KvpiaxTi— ' the Lord's Day '], Ignatius, ii. p. 129." This last statement, although jiublished in 1885, must surely have been written before the appearance of the Ailaxri in 1883. See the passage quoted from it on next page. Dr. Lightfoot himself places the A/Ba;^>) " in the later decades of the first century." Ignatius, i. p. 739. Comp. his paper read at the Carlisle Church Congress in 1884, and published in the Expositor, Jan. 1885, p. 6 f. '■^ Ex. XX. 10 ; Lev. xix. 30 ; xxvi. 2 ; Isa, Iviii. 13 f. Comp. Ezek. xx. 12 f., 16, 24 ; xxii. 8, 26 ; xliv. 24. THE SAr.BATH AND THE LORD's DAY. 38? Christ's liesurrection singled out from the rest as we have seen, and crowned with special blessing, and called " the Lord's Day," and the only day so called in the New Testament, we may surely gather tliat it was Divinely meant to hold a like place of honour to that held by the ancient rest day in tlie former dispensation, and that it has been Divinely separated and sanctified for the highest ends, as in the Old Testament " the Lord's House " was separated from common dwellings, and in the New Testament the Lord's Supper (to KvptaKov BeiTrvov) is separated from an ordinary meal. It is noteworthy in tliis connection that the same phrase meets us at once in what is probably the earliest extra- canonical utterance from the circle of the Jewish Christian Church, namely, the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles ; " but it meets us there with an interesting variation. Christians are there exhorted : " On each Lord's Day of the Lord (Kara KvpiaKTjv 8e Kvpi'ov) be ye gathered togetiier, and break bread, and give thanks." ^ The very phrase reminds us that there had been, and for the Hebrew Christians there still was, another " Lord's Day," a " Sabbath unto the Lord in all their dwellings." But a higher and holier consecration rested now upon the day on which they met to break bread and give thanks, the Lord's Day of the Lord Jesus.^ "What precisely was to be the relation between the new Lord's Day and the old " day of holy convocations," and " liest day unto Jehovah in Israel," was a point which was not naturally raised for the apostolic Church in the first period of its history. Deeper and more vital questions had the chief place in the minds and hearts of these early disciples. In many lesser matters they felt their way rather than saw it, and in this among the rest. The Lord Himself was in the midst of His Church and people, of that they were joyfully assured ; He was leading them, like Israel of old, by a right way, although it was a way that they knew not. One step at a time was enough for them to see, as they • Teachintj of the Apostltx, xiv. 1. 2 It is hardly fair, therefore, to call the phrase in (question " a pleonasm," as is done by Harnack, Ttxte, ii. 1, S. 53. 388 WORSHIP of the Hebrew christian church. went forward following Christ in gladness and singleness of heart. Of the members of the Pentecostal Cliurch, as of our forefathers in the times of Prelatic persecution, it might he said in the words of a Scottish poet : — " With them each day was holy ; every hour They stood prepared to die, a people doomed To death ; old men, and youths, and simple maids, With them each day was holy ; but that morn On which the angel said, ' See where the Lord Was laid,' joyous arose ; to die that day was bliss." '• As regards the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, it was clear that the privilege and duty of Aveekly rest remained for the followers of Jesus as before, and that practically they and their households, the stranger within their gates, their servants and their cattle, could rest only on the seventh day. Law and custom provided for that in the Holy Land, and to some extent over all the Roman Empire, wherever a Jewish settlement had estabhshed itself. The Hebrew Christians accordingly kept both days from the first ; although more and more distinctly and consciously, as time went on, the power and gladness of the new life of the Church gathered round "the Lord's Day of the Lord," the day of Christ's Ptesurrection, and of the Advent of the Holy Ghost ; whereas the old Hebrew Sabbath, the day of the disciples' fear and faithlessness, while Christ lay in the grave, came to be kept more as a day of preparation, and it might be of fasting.' The practical relation of this Sabbath and the Lord's Day upon Jewish Christian ground has been well stated by Canon Barry: "The idea of Christian worship would attach mainly 1 Graham, The Sabbath. 2 In the Eastern Church the festal aspect of the Sabbath, as a day of rest and refreshment, generally prevailed, except on what was called "the great Sabbath," namely, the day before the anniversary of our Lord's Resurrection (Easter Eve), which was always kept as a fast. In several parts of the West, on the other hand, especially in the Church of Rome, the custom was to fast regidarly on the seventh day of the week. This is referred to by Tertullian {De Jejitniis, xiv.), and at considerable length by Augustine in his very interesting letter to Casulanus on the question : " Utrum liceat Sabbato jejunare?" Ep. xxxvi. Aug. Opera, ed. Migne, ii. 136, E. Tr. (Dods' ed.)i. pp. 112-125. Comp. Barry, art. "Sabbath," in Smith and Cheetham's Diet, of Christ. Ant. ii. p. IS2i ff. THE SABBATH AND THE LOKD'S DAY. 3S9 to the one ; the oblij^Mtioii of rest would continue attached to the otlier; although a certain interchange of characteristics would grow up, as worship necessitated rest, and rest natu- rally suggested worship." It might be added, that for years at least the rest of the Jewish Sabbath brought full facilities of worship to the Hebrew Christians. So long as the syna- gogues and the temple courts were not closed against them, they resorted thither, " as their custom was," every Sabbath day. " Under these circumstances the two days would be regarded as festivals, perhaps at first almost co-ordinate ; afterwards the dignity of the Lord's Day must have con- tinually increased, and that of the Sabbath as continually decreased."^ That the Hebrew Christians, so long as they kept the spirit of the apostolic Church, did not shrink from ' Barry, art. "Lord's Day," ut supra, p. 1045a. Comp. the well-known passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians in the shorter Greek version— "the Middle Version," according to Bishop Lightfoot's nomenclature. The Christian comnumity at Antioch was of mixed origin, and believers of Gentile descent probably formed the majority from the first. Yet the Jewish Christian element was strongly represented also in the Church of the Syrian capital ; and Ignatius seems to speak here from the standpoint of believers who, like Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas, Menahem, and others of the first teachers of the Church at Antioch, were Jews by birth and religious training. " If those," he saj-s, " who were brought up in the ancient order of things (f» -raXaiolt ■Tfuyfiuir,*) have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day (/*>!*tT/ » vafain fiuiput), Oil Mwjll. C. IX., E. Tr. Ayite-NUene Library, i. p. 180 f. Comp. the "Apostolical Constitutions," V. 15, 18, 20 ; vii. 23, 36 ; viii. 33 ; Ante-Xkeiie Lihrary, xvii. pp. 134, 143, 186, 196 f., 246. The date of the main part of the "Apostolic Constitutions" is assigned by Harnack to the middle or end of the second century. Texte u. Untersuch. ii. 5, S. 55. 390 WOKSIIIP OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. the ancient name which our Lord had used of the day of rest, as His disciples were to obseive it more than a generation after His deatli, may be gathered from the use of it about that very time in the Epistle to the Hebrews. " There remaineth therefore a Sabbatli rest (or ' a Sabbath keeping,' airoXeiTrerai aa^(3aTL(Tix6.iut in ver. 10 is best referred to Christ : " ' For He that entered into His (own or God's) rest, Himself also rested from His works, like as God rested from His own,' and therefore our Forerunner having enteral this Sabbatism, it is reserved for us, the people of God, to enter into it with and because of Him." Alford, in loco. > Barry, art. " Lord's Day," ut supra, p. 1052a. Fairbairn, Revelation of Law in Scripture, p. 474. » See above, pp. 335-347. 392 WORSHIP of the hebeew christian church. slightest support in the New Testament records of the Hebrew Christian jDeriod. It is mentioned incidentally in one passage of the Acts, in reference to a time when, after the appointment of " the seven," " the Word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly," that " a great com- pany of the priests also were obedient to the faith." ^ It was most natural that this should be hailed as an encouraging proof of the progress of the Gospel ; for the Jewish priests as a class had hitherto been its most bigoted opponents. But there is no trace whatever of any special position in the Church being assigned to these converted priests as such. They would have received none in the synagogue.^ As Christians, those who had formerly executed the office of priests are never once called by that name. They took their places humbly and gladly alongside of their fellow-disciples in the ranks of the New Testament priesthood of all believers, at the feet of the High Priest of their confession, even Jesus.^ What the teaching of the apostles and of apostolic men was concerning the priesthood and the sacrifice of Christ, and con- cerning the position and privileges of all His people as made " an elect race, a royal priesthood " in Him, we may see in the epistles of the apostles of the circumcision, in the book of the Eevelation, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In these writings we have the explanation of the fact that there was no other priesthood named or known in the apostolic Church.* The fact itself stands out clear and unquestionable to all candid readers of the history of this period. In the words of Bishop Lightfoot : "The kingdom of ' UeXus ri o^ko; tuv lipiuiv Ittikivov t7, ■^ritmi, Acts vi. 7. ^ See above, pp. 137 f., 155, 160. ^ Heb. iii. 1. How little reason there is for ascribing the growth of sacer- dotalism in the post-apostolic Church to the influence of such priestly converts, or of the Jewish Christians generally, has been well shown by Bishop Lightfoot : " The earliest Jewish Christian writings contain no traces of sacerdotalism. . . . Indeed, the overwlielming argument against ascribing the growtli of sacerdotal views to Jewish influence lies in the fact that there is a singular absence of distinct sacerdotalism during the first century and a half, when alone on any .showing Judaism was powerful enough to impress itself on the belief of the Church at large." Lightfoot, Philippiam, 3rd ed. p. 258. ■* See above, pp. 336-341. ABSENCE OF THE SACEKDOTAL AND SACRIFICIAL. 393 Clirist is in the fullest sense free, conipreliensive, nniversal. It displays this character not only in the acceptance of all comers who seek admission irrespective of race, or caste, or sex, hut also in the instruction and treatment of those who are already its members. . . . Above all, it has no sacerdotal system. It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and man forgiven. Each individual member holds personal communion with the Divine Head. To Him immediately he is responsible, and from Him directly he obtains pardon and draws strength. . . . The priestly functions and privileges of the Christian people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated to these officers [of the Church]. They are called stewards or messengers of God, servants or ministers of the Church, and the like ; but the sacerdotal title is never once conferred upon them. The only priests under the Gospel, designated as such in the New Testament, are the saints, the members of the Christian brotherhood. . . . The sacerdotal view of the Ministry is a new principle, which is nowhere enunciated in the New Testament, but which notwithstanding has worked its way into general recognition, and seriously modified the character of later Christianity." ^ ^ Lightfoot, PJiilippians, pp. 179, 182, 243. By no living writer has the Scriptural doctrine on this subject been more powerfully stated and defended than by Bishop Lightfoot in this "Dissertation." It is to be regretted that he should so far have qualified his admirable statements and reasonings by one hesitating clause near the beginning of his essay, and two or three sentences to the same effect near the end. See Note B, "Bishop Lightfoot's attitude towards the sacerdotal theory of the Christian ministry.' C H A r T E r. HI. ORGANIZA.TION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH IN THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN PERIOD. EVERY fellowship or society of men, meeting for common objects and for united action, must have leaders and rules of some kind. This arises from the nature of men and things. If the society be small in numbers and with little to do, the position of the leader or leaders may be temporary and informal, and the rules unwritten and elastic. But some one to take the initiative, and some rules or common under- standings which amount practically to rules, there must always be. The necessity for further and firmer organization makes itself felt as soon as the society grows in numbers, and addresses itself to any definite and sustained action. This natural law finds illustration in the case of the apos- tolic Church. Its organization, at first simple and rudimen- tary, is seen to widen and strengthen itself in accordance with the growth of the society, the emergencies of its history, and the necessities for varied action which arise. Only the development of the organization in this case goes forward with a singular ease and certainty. There is an absence of mistakes. There is no retracing of steps, tentatively taken, which have proved to lead in a wrong direction, as in the early history of infant societies and commonwealths generally. In this fact we have evidence again that a higher wisdom than man's was present to guide the course of the apostolic Church, and that the hand of God in Providence and history had made the right path plain in the sphere of organization as in that of worship. Every step was taken, as we shall see, with prayer on the part of the disciples for guidance and blessing from the unseen Lord, in whose name they met. So doing, His leadership never failed them. SS4 THE CHURCHES TO BE OKCAXIZED. 395 Let us f,'lance for a little at the facts recorded rer^arding the growth and expansion of the apostolic Church during this first period ; and then note how the organization kept pace with the growth from stage to stage. 1st. The Churches to be organized. At the date of the Ascension, the fellowship of Christ's disciples was made up of the little company which met statedly in the upper room at Jerusalem, numbering about a hundred and twenty, and of the other disciples in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, who were the fruits of the personal ministry of Jesus, the Twelve and the Seventy, prior to the Crucifixion. What the number of these disciples beyond Jerusalem may have been it is impossible to say. But that it must have been considerable, various statements in the Gospels as to the results of Christ's preaching lead us to believe.^ Our Lord's command to His disciples, mentioned by the first two Evangelists, to meet Him in Galilee on " the mountain where He had appointed them," ^ His actual interviews with them there, as recorded by the first and fourth Evangelist and implied by the second,^ all go to prove that Galilee, which had been the chief sphere of Christ's teaching, was also the centre where His disciples were to be found in largest numbers at the time of His Ascension. This is confirmed by Paul's reference in First Corinthians to one of the appearances of the liisen Saviour at which upwards of five hundred brethren were present. This incident is in all likelihood identical with the interview in Galilee " on the mountain where Jesus had appointed them," at which, as Matthew tells us, " they (the disciples as a body) worshipped Him, but some doubted."* The number mentioned by Paul is more than four times as great as that of the disciples who were wont to meet in the upper room at Jerusalem ; and the " doubts," natural to men who saw ' Matt. iv. 23-25 ; viii. 1 ; ix. 35-38 ; xix. 16 ; xx. 29 ; with the parallels in the other Synoptic Gospels ; John iv. 1 f., 39-53 ; vii. 31 ; x. 42 ; xi. 45-50 ; xii. 11, 19-23, 42 f. = Matt, xxviii. 16 ; comp. Mark xvi. 7 ; Matt. xxvi. 32 ; xxviii. 7, 10. ' Matt, xxviii. 16-20 ; Mark xvi. 7 ; John xxi. * Matt, xxviii. 17. 396 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH, the Risen Lord for the first time, would not have been so, in the case of " the eleven and them that were with them," after the repeated appearances of the Saviour in Jerusalem on the Resurrection evening and the Lord's Day which followed. Of the growth of the Church in Judrea, Galilee, and Samaria, we have some incidental glimpses at a later stage ; to these we shall advert again. The narrative of the Acts, after a general reference to repeated interviews between the Lord and the apostles during the " forty days," ^ turns back with the Eleven after the Ascension from Olivet to the little company in the upper room where the disciples awaited the promised coming of the Holy Ghost. The history begins at Jerusalem, and for the greater part of the first section does not pass beyond it. First, then, let us look at the Church in Jerusalem in its successive stages of growth. After the Advent of the Spirit the growth in numbers was rapid and continuous. 1. As the result of the preaching of the Gospel on the Day of Pentecost, " there were added unto them about three thousand souls." ^ This, of course, must not be taken as a permanent addition to the Church in Jerusalem merely. A number of the pilgrims from the Diaspora, who received the truth that day, doubtless returned, after a longer or shorter stay in Jeru- salem, to their homes, and formed the nucleus of some of those Christian communities in the Dispersion to which the Epistle of James was afterwards sent. At least as large a proportion probably of the converts of Pentecost had come up from Judiea and Galilee to keep the feast in the Holy City. They went back also after a time carrying with them the new life and the gifts of the Spirit which they had received, and joined themselves to those who had already become dis- ciples of Christ in the scenes of His earthly ministry beyond Jerusalem. With all these deductions from the full number of three thousand, it still, no doubt, represented a very considerable 1 Acts i. 3. 2 Acts ii. 41. GUOWTII OF CHURCH IN JKRUSALF..M. 397 increase of the permanent membership of the Church in Jerusalem. And more followed : 2. " The Lord added to them day by day such as were being saved." ^ There was a steady and continuous influ.K of converts from the Day of Pentecost onwards. o. After Peter's address in connection with tlie healing of the lame man in the temple it is noted : " Many of them that heard the word believed, and the number of the men — apart from women and children — came to be about five thousand." ^ 4. Again, after a period during which " they " — the dis- ciples generally — " spake the Word of God with boldness," and " the apostles gave their witness to the resurrection of Christ with great power ; signs and wonders also being wrought by their hands among the people," the historian records as the general result that " believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." ^ This growing success led to a second attempt by the Sanhe- drin to check the progress of the truth.^ But the attempt failed, and then followed : 5. Another period, — how long, it is not said, — during which the counsels of Gamaliel practically prevailed, and the Church was . " let alone." The apostles used this opportunity with zeal and energy. " Every day in the temple and at home they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ." ^ The consequence was that the time was one marked for the Church by steady and continuous growth. " In tliese days, the number of the disciples was multiplying."'' This led to the appointment of " the seven " to relieve the apostles, by a division of labour, from a burden which growing numbers made too heavy for them. And the result again by God's blessing was — 6. A further expansion of the Church of a very rapid and signal kind — " The Word of God increased ; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly ; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." " ' Acts ii. 47. * Cliap. iv. 4. » Cliap. iv. 31-33 ; v. 12-14. * Chap. V. 17-31. * Chap. v. 42. * llXrifutotru* rui (Malr.TU^, vi. 1. ' Chap. vi. 7. o98 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. This was the crowning stage of the unbroken development of the Church in Jerusalem. There followed " the tribulation that arose about Stephen." The apostles, sheltered doubtless by faithful friends, remained in or near Jerusalem. But the members of the Church generally " were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judtiea and Samaria." ^ The perse- cution, however, although fierce while it lasted, does not seem to have been of long continuance. The mainspring of it was broken by the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Other Provi- dential events, such as the collision with the Eoman Emperor on matters connected with the temple worship,^ turned the minds of the Jewish rulers in a new direction. The strong national and patriotic feelings of the Hebrew Christians, whose homes were in Jerusalem or its neighbourhood, would induce them to return to the city as soon as God's hand seemed to open the way for their doing so. The fact that the leaders of the Christian community in Jerusalem had held their ground there through the worst of the storm mast have tended to quicken this movement. The Church which gathered again round the apostles after the persecution was doubtless at first much weaker in numbers than it had been before. But it had its full share in the time of refresliment and blessing described towards the close of the first section of the narrative — " Then the Church througliout all Judaea, and Galilee, and Samaria had peace, being edified ; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied." ^ The last reference which we have, after a long interval, to the numbers of the Church in the capital, is one which recalls the triumphant results of earlier years. " Thou seest, brother," the elders at Jerusalem said to Paul on his last visit to the city, " how many myriads there are among the Jews of them which have believed ; and they are all zealots of the law." * The language of this last passage, however, must not be limited to the Church in Jerusalem merely. It plainly includes all Jewish Christians from different parts of I'alestine '' Acts viii. 1 ; xi. 19 f. ^ See the graphic account of tliis in Archdeacon Farrar's .S'^ Pazd, i. pp. 243-255. ''Chap. ix. 31. ^ Chap. xxi. 20. GROWTH OF CHURCH BEYOND JI:RUSALE^r. 30 9 who had come up to Jerusalem for the feast, as distinguished from representatives of " the Jews wliich are among tlie Gentiles." ^ Secondly, looking now for a little, as tliis feature in the last statistical reference naturally leads us to do, at the progress of the Hebrew Christian Church beyond Jerusalem from the time of the Ascension onwards, we have — 1. The disciples in Judiea, Samaria, and Galilee, who were the fruits of Christ's personal ministry and that of the apostles and " the Seventy " during His earthly life. In Galilee especially, as noted above,^ these must have amounted to a considerable number. 2. The ranks of these "old disciples" throughout the Holy Land were reinforced by the converts of Pentecost. " The Galileans also went to the feast." "Dwellers in Judiea" were among the multitude who heard Peter speak on that memorable day. His first words expressly appealed to them, as forming a distinct and prominent element in the crowd : •' Ye men of Judiea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you." Many returned that summer to their homes in northern and southern Palestine, bringing with them the power of the new life and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The pulse of that life beat most strongly in Jerusalem under the personal ministry of the apostles. But wherever the converts of Pentecost went, the good news concerning the Christ was told, and disciples were made and drew together. And the life spread from every new centre where the Gospel was pro- claimed and received. 3. The multitudes who came " from the cities round about Jerusalem " bringing sick folks and demoniacs for healing, doubtless received spiritual blessing as well as temporal.^ 4. The immediate effect of the persecution which fell upon the Church in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen was to scatter the believers " throughout the regions of JucUea and Samaria," ..." and they went about preaching the Word," — evayyeXi^ofievoi roy \6jov, telling the message of the Gospel.* ' See above, p. 332. » See above, p. 395. 3 Acts V. 16. *Actsviii. 1,4. 400 OKGANIZATION OF THE HECllEW CHRISTIAN CIIUKCH. The witness for Christ by word and deed, borne l>y these confessors, must have been the means of adding largely to the number of the disciples already existing in Judaea and Samaria. One instance only is recorded in detail : 5. Philip preaches in Samaria, with the result that " the multitudes gave heed with one accord ; " and " when they believed the good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." ^ The work here demanded special attention, both from its being on so great a scale, and also from its taking place among a people who stood in such peculiar relations to the Jews as the Samaritans did. 6. The apostles therefore send a deputation of their number from Jerusalem, who confirm and complete the work begun by the evangelist, and, on their way homewards, carry it on upon the same lines by " preaching the Gospel to many villages of the Samaritans." ^ The significance of this apostolic over- sight of the Churches we may consider again ; meanwhile we simply note the fresh stage in the growth and expansion of the apostolic Church. 7. Philip " preaches the Gospel to all the cities " of the sea-coast " from Azotus till he came to Ctesarea." That large and important city seems to have become his headquarters for further work. We find him there with his family some twenty years afterwards in the midst of a Christian com- munity of some considerable size.^ The result of all this work of evangelization beyond Jeru- salem is seen in the subsequent history in two successive stages of development. (1.) The scattered disciples drew together into little com- panies or congregations. As such they went up together " with one accord " to the synagogues, as the disciples in Jeru- salem did to the temple and to the synagogues there ; and like them also they met for worship, to edify one another, and to break bread " at home." Such little companies, when considered separately, formed " the Churches of Judica which were in Christ," of which the ' Acts viii. 6, 12. ' Chap. viii. 14 ff., 25. ^ Chap. viii. 40 ; xxi. 8-16. SUCCESSIVE STEPS IN ORGANIZATION. 401 apostle I'aul speaks to the Galatians, and to the members of which he was " still unknown by face " after his first visit to Peter and James at Jerusalem ; they only heard say : " He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once made havoc." ^ They, too, had their experience of persecution, whether spreading from Jerusalem through the countr}' districts, or breaking out there from causes similar to those which gave rise to it in the capital." " Ye, brethren," Paul wrote in his earliest epistle, that to the Thessalonians, " became imitators of the Churches of God which are in Judasa in Christ Jesus ; for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews." (2.) We have these " brethren " and " Churches " in Judaea and Northern Palestine regarded as forming one Chris- tian fellowship or Church, enjoying common privileges, and knit together in ways which we shall consider presently. " So the Church throughout all Judiea, and Galilee, and Samaria had peace (j} fiev cvv iKKXrjala kuO' 0X779 t?)? 'IovBaLa<;, Kol ra\i\aia « r^ in Phil. i. 1 (Plur.); 1 Tim. iii. 2; and Tit. i. 7; and \^n m . m n, i„ 1 Tim. iii. 1. - Tlie term (c^nom . o^j "episkkopo," is retained only (in the Plural) in PauVs address to tlie elders of Eplie.sns, Acts xx. 28. 3 Acts ix. 29 f. ; 1 Pet. i. 1 ; v. 1-3. 410 OEGANIZA.TION OF HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. SO within reach of every sick person among them are " the elders of the Church," to whom he is exhorted to send that they may "pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." ^ John, the other member of " The Three," who held the foremost place among the leaders of the original Hebrew Christian community at Jerusalem, like Peter, calls himself an elder ; and in his great vision of heaven in the Apocalypse, four and twenty elders seated on golden thrones before God, appear as the highest represen- tatives of the Church of the redeemed above.^ As regards the nature of the office of elder in the Hebrew Christian Church, the natural presumption, apart from evi- dence, would be that it continued in substance what it had been hitherto under the Jewish synagogue system in its best days, with suitable modifications and developments in accord- ance with the free spirit of the Gospel, and the Providential circumstances in which the Christian congregations found themselves placed. This presumption is confirmed by all the evidence, direct and indirect, bearing upon the point in the New Testament documents which belong to this period of the history. In them all it is taken for granted — as in the passages above referred to — that the position and general functions of the eldership are those of a well- known and well-understood institution. "The elders (ot Tr/jeo-- Bvrepot) " appear, without introduction or explanation, as the permanent and responsible representatives of the Church in every locality of a wide district such as Judsea, to whose charge commissions from a distance are addressed. The apostle Peter applies to them the name of " shepherds " or " pastors," which was a familiar title of the synagogue elders.^ 1 Jas. i. 1 ; ii. 1 f. ; v. 13. "So finden wir audi im Jacobus-briefe, tliesem Spiegel uralter judisch-christlicher Verhaltnisse der Diaspora, die uuter starkem socialen Druck ilirer Volksgcnossen lebenden Juden-cliristen in eigner Synagoge, und dem cntsprechend unter eigneu Aeltesten ; beide Begriffe sind vermoge ihres liistorischen Ursprungs einander correlat." Beyschlag, Christl. Gemeinde- verf. im Zeitalter des N. T., S. 40. 2 2 John 1 ; 3 John 1 ; Rev. iv. 4, 10 ; v. 5 f., etc. The sense in which the word "angel " is used in the seven epistles in the Revelation will be considered again. See Part vi. chap. iv. 3 Vitringa, De Syn. Vet. pp. 621-640. See above, p. 135 f. DUTIES OF ELDKRS IX THE CHURCH. 411 As himself a fellow-elder {av^nrpea^vrepos:), he f,Mves them the same exhortation which Christ gave to him, bidding them do a shepherd's duty to the Hock of God which was among them, tending and feeding the lambs and the sheep, exercising the oversight, or doing a bishop's work among them {'jroi/xd- vare . . . iTriaKoirovvref;), not of constraint, but willingly, nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. So doing, their reward sliall be great from the hand of " the Chief Shepherd," — " the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls," as the apostle had previously called Him (Jloi.firjv k. 'Ettio-- KOTTOS:)} James refers to " the elders of the Church " as having among their ordinary duties those of visiting and praying with the sick. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, " the leaders " of the Christian community (oi ijyovfievoL vficiv, a term also applied to the Jewish elders ^) " speak to them the Word of God," and " watch in behalf of their souls, as those that shall give account." The believers are exhorted to " obey their leaders," and " submit to them." Salutations are sent to " your leaders," as being distinct from, and in position above, the ordinary members of the Church, " all the saints." lu other words, these leaders hold precisely the position and discharge precisely the functions attributed by Peter and James to those office-bearers whom they expressly call " the elders which are among you," " the elders of the Church." ^ 3. Appointment of " the seven." The circumstances which led to this step, the manner in which it was carried out, and the results which followed, are all so carefully noted in the narrative of the Acts as to ' Acts xi. 29 f. ; 1 Pet. ii. 25 ; v. 1-4. Comp. John xxi. 15-17. 2 See Vitringa, I.e. p. 647 f. Lcyrer, art. "Synagogen der Juden,"in Herzog, XV. S. 312. 3 Jas. V. 14 f. ; Heb. xiii. 7 f., 17, 24. Comp. the designation of Judas and Silas in tlie Church at Jerusalem, "men who were leaders among the brethren " {eivlpn ryovimoi i> roTi a.'itX(pt7f, Acts xv. 22). Meyer sums up the functions of the elders of the apostolic Church with his usual discrimination and clearness in his commentary on Acts xi. 30: "Die Presbyter, nach S3'nagogenweise (D'JpT) verordnet, waren die ordentlichen Lehraufseher (Ordner und Leiter, aber auch zum Lehren bestimmt) der einzelnen Geuiein- den, und sind im ganzen N. T. identisch mit den \inirKi*^»is, welche erst in der nachapostolischen Zeit als Inhaber der 06e?-aufsicht mit Unterordnung 412 ORGANIZATION OF HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. show clearly how much importance was attached to this event in tlie history of the Hebrew Christian Church. " In these days, when the number of the disciples was multiply- ing, there arose a murmuring of the Hellenists against tlic Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration (eV Trj hiaicovia rfj Kadrj/xepcvfj). And the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not fit that we should forsake the AVord of God, and serve tables {ZiaKovelv x/jaTre^at?). Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word (t^ hiaKovia tov \6yov). And the saying pleased the whole multitude : and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorns, and Nicanor, and Tinion, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch ; whom they set before the apostles (o&? earijaav ivoimov 7o)v aTroaroXcov) ; and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them. And the Word of God increased ; and the numbers of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly ; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." ^ The increase in numbers alone would have justified the measures taken ; but the need for them was the more pressing because of the differences of language, nationality, and training represented by the two words " Hellenists " and " Hebrews." ^ The great majority of the members of the Church in Jerusalem were Hebrews. All the apostles probably belonged to that section.^ So did those rulers of the Jews and elders of syna- der Presbyter geltend wurden. . . . TJebrigens erscheinen die Presbyter hier iiicht als Arnienpfleger (gegen Lange, Apost. Zeitalt. ii. S. 146), sondern die Gelder werden ihnen als dem Gemeindevorstande iibersandt. ' Omnia enim rite et ordine administrari opportuit,' Beza." Meyer, Apostelerience as men could possilily be, ... of an un- bounded credulity, . . . sitting immoveable at Jerusalem upon their seat of honour," etc., cannot withhold liis triliute of admiration liere : " Le tact qui guida en tout ceci la primitive Eglisc fut admirable. Ces hommes .simples et bons jetereut avcc une science profonde, parce qu'elle venait du ca-ur, les bases de la grande chose chr^tienne i)ar excellence, la charite. Rieu ne leur avait donne le mmlele de telles institutions. ... On sent que la pens^e encore vivante de J^sus remplit ses disciples et les dirige en tons leur actcs avec uno merveilleuse lucidit(5." Les Aj>6trc>i, pp. 50 f., 120 f. 416 ORGANIZATION OF HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. at large. " The Hebrews " formed the great majority of those who chose, but the men chosen by them were to a large extent, if not all — to judge from their names — of the Hellen- istic section of the Church. It was a delicately conveyed rebuke, if the complaints of the minority were really un- founded. It was a full proof at least, if there were some grounds for complaint, that the neglect had been entirely un- intentional. The Hebrews were perfectly willing to trust " their widows " to the care of the Hellenists, with full con- fidence in their brotherly love and faithfulness. The general scope of the office thus created is pretty clearly defined by the words employed in this passage. It was to embrace all that was involved in the work of " the daily ministration " (77 StaKovia rj KaOr^ixepivrj) and " the serving, or ministry, of tables " {htaKovelv Tpaire^^ais). Viewing these expressions in the light of what has been already said regard- ing the common or family life of the Church, and tlie common fund from which distribution was made, after suitable inquiry, according to the necessities of the disciples,^ it seems plain that the functions now assigned to " the seven " related to the care of the poor and needy within the Church, the dis- tribution of money from its treasury, and generally the charge of its outward affairs in their more practical aspects and details. " For ministry " (et? BiaKoviav) is the phrase used soon afterwards to denote the temporal relief sent by deputies from Antioch to " the brethren that dwelt in Judtea " in time of famine. Jerusalem was included in the mission of this deputation, and at the head of it was Joseph of Cyprus, who had taken part there in the appointment of the seven " for the ministry of tables." ^ A " table " is the natural and Scriptural symbol for the whole temporal requirements of a family. " To serve tables " in the apostolic Church meant to concern oneself about the daily temporal wants of the household of faith, the brotherhood of the disciples of Jesus. The duties entrusted to " the seven," in short, were just in substance those assigned to the office-bearers known as " deacons " in the times of Justin Martyr and other early patristic writers, and there seems no ground for reasonable ' See above, pp. 299-303. " Acts xi. 29 ; coinp. xii. 25. APPOINTMENT OF '• THE SEVEN." 417 doubt, on a survey of the whole evidence, that the unbroken tradition of such writers from Irenieus ' onwards is correct in declaring this to be the origin of the deaconship in the Chris- tian Church. The precise number proposed by the apostles for this ofHce was probably suggested by the familiar Jewish municipal institution of the local Sanhedrin, or " the seven good men of the city." These were " men of good report," and of busi- ness capacity, to whom were entrusted by the community all matters relating to public property, such as the sale of syna- gogue buildings and furniture, copies of the Scriptures, etc."^ Like these Jewish officials, the seven first deacons had no doubt the help of subordinates in matters of detail. The proposal of the apostles was that men should be chosen who were fit to be " appointed over this business " (oy? Karacrrrj- aofiev eVl t^? ^peia<; TavTr]<;). Tlie expression itself suggests that others were to be under them in the matter. " The seven " were to be at the head of the work. They were to be specially responsible for making the practical arrangements necessary, and seeing that these were efficiently carried out. But the younger men (ot vecoTepoi), who had been ready to do any lowly service hitherto at the bidding of the apostles, would fall naturally into the place of assistants to the » Iron. Adv. Hnr. i. 26. 3 ; iii. 12. 10; iv. 15. 1, E. Tr. {Ante-Nicme Lib.) i. pp. 97, 307 f., 419. Irenseus was a pupil of Polycarp, who was a personal disciple of the apostle John, one of the "pillars " of the Church in Jerusalem when the seven were appointed, and afterwards resident in Epliesus where "deacons" were appointed in accordance with Paul's instructions to Timothy, 1 Tim. iii. 8-13. Polycarp, in his letter, written about a.d. 116, to the Church at Philippi, which was then governed by " presbyters and deacons," as in Paul's time it was by "bishops and deacons" (Phil. i. 1), speaks of the deacons as a well-known class of office-bearers, and refers to their duties in terms which perfectly correspond with the view given above. Polyc. Ad Philipp. c. V. Comp. Bp. Lightfoot, Philippians, 2nd ed. p. 186. Irjnatius and Polycarp, ii. 914 f. The author of the "Teaching of the Apostles," our earliest extra-canonical witness regarding the polity of tlie Jewish Christian Churches, refers in like manner to "deacons" as a familiar class of office- bearers existing along with "bishops" in every congregation, and speaks of their election and qualifications in language which recalls tliat of Acts vi. : " Elect therefore unto yourselves bishops and deacons wortliy of the Lord ; men meek and not lovers of money, truthful and approved," chap. xv. 1. See Harnack, Texte, ii. 1, S. 56 fT. • llausrath, N. T. Tiiiv-s, 2nd ed. E. Tr. i. p. 83. Lumby, Acts, p. 153. 2 D 418 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. deacons in gathering up tlie contributions of the faithful, and distributing these under the direction of the seven. The apostles sought relief from the excessive burden laid upon them, as Moses had done in somewhat similar circum- stances in the wilderness, by a division of labour.'^ They handed over this special department of practical work to the seven and their young assistants, with the view of concentrat- ing their own strength in a more effective way on the higher objects of their spiritual ministry. But there is no reason to suppose that this implied that the twelve meant henceforth to resign that general oversight of the affairs of the Church in all their aspects which had been hitherto taken by them. And nothing is more plain than that the apostle Paul held it to be quite consistent with the position and functions of one, who was " not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles," to take the general oversight of collections in the Churches, and to give careful directions in the matter, although leaving to others the local arrangements needful for the actual gathering of the money, and associating others chosen by the Churches with himself in charge of the fund until it was handed over to " James and all the elders " at Jerusalem.'' The very next reference in the book of Acts to matters such as those with which " the seven " were put in charge is in connection with the collection made at Antioch " for ministration (et? hiaKovlav) to the brethren that dwelt in Judfea." The money raised for this purpose is sent by the hands of Barnabas and Saul " to the elders " in Judrea, as the highest permanent representatives of the Churches there in all their interests, outward as well as spiritual, and as the govern- ing body in each congregation. The share of the collection which went to the capital was doubtless laid at the feet of the apostles — if any of the twelve were then in the city — as well as of the elders associated with them, before " Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem [to Antioch] when they had fulfilled their ministration " ^ [TrXT^pcocrai/Te? rtjv hiaKovlav]. 1 See above, pp. 102, 150. 2 Acts xxi. 18 f. ; Rom. xv. 25-28 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4 ; 2 Cor. viii. 4ff., 19-23 ; ix. 1-5 ; xi. 5. ' Acts xii. 25. RELATION LETWEEN ELDERS AND DEACONS. 419 It may have appeared uncertain to the Church at Antiocli whether any of the twelve would be found in Jerusalem when the deputation arrived there. When Paul made his first visit to the capital after his conversion, Peter seems to have been the only representative of the apostles, strictly so called, tlien in the city.^ But there was no doubt at all in the mind of the Church at Antioch but that " elders " would be accessible in every Christian community which had been formed in Judica, whether in town or country ; and it is " to the elders " accordingly that the deputies receive their commission. It seems probable that throughout the country districts of Juda-a, elders were as yet the only office-bearers generally recognised in the assemblies of the Hebrew Chris- tians. In the great Church of the capital, with its multi- tudinous membership and overflowing treasury, there had been already a fuller organization and further division of labour by the appointment of deacons. The actual distribu- tion of the money in the city would naturally be entrusted by the elders there to the survivors of the original seven, with those who may afterwards have been added to their number. In the country districts this would be done by the elders themselves, with such help as was needful from " the younger men." ^ 1 Gal. i. 18 f. - The fact that the contributions from Antiocli were delivered in the first l>lace by the deputies "to the elders" in Judaea is thus not in the least in- consistent— as has been sometimes alleged, e.g. by Prof. Lindsay, Acts, p. 84 f. — with the view that " deacons " had already been appointed in Jeru- salem. The functions involved, although related, are quite distinct. "The jiresbyters," as Meyer says rightly, " do not appear here as havinj special chanje of (he poor ; but the money is sent to them as the go ve mi mj body in the Church. The funds are handed over to them in order that they may portion them out for distribution by the different persons to whom the personal care of the poor was entrusted." "The presbyterate retained the oversight and general guidance of the diaconate ; but the latter arose out of the former through the emergency descriljed in chap, vi., not rice versd." Apostelgeitch. 3te Ausg. S. 136, 243 f. To draw an illustration from the experiences of modern Church life : Suppose a sum of money sent to the " sessiou " of any of our congrega- tions for behoof of the poor. The best mode of dealing with the money would naturally be considered by the "Deacons' Court," t.e. the elders and deacons meeting together for the management of the temporal affairs of the Church ; and the actual distribution of it would be made by the deacons in their respective districts. 420 ORGANIZATIOX OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. The office of deacon in the Church was so far a new one, although formed upon Jewish analogies. It was not like that of elder, which passed over naturally and at once from the synagogue, and the nature and general functions of which needed no explanation to any Jewish Christian or proselyte accustomed to the synagogue worship and polity. The care of the poor and needy in Israel had been laid upon the people by God as a religious duty from the times of the earliest legislation. It had been powerfully enforced from age to age by inspired men, and by influential teachers in the synagogues and schools since the period of inspiration came to an end.^ All the members of the Pentecostal Church were familiar with various arrangements made in the interests of the poor and afflicted ; but none of these corresponded to the institution of the deaconship as here described, although it combined elements present in several of them. In New Testament times, in every Jewish com- munity of any size which had the right of self-government, there were officials " who went from door to door at stated times collecting for the poor either in money (collectors of the box) or in kind (collectors of the dish or platter).^ From the fund or store thus gathered, distribution was made under the direction of the " rulers." But these collectors as such had no place among the officials of the synagogue proper, although part of their work might in point of fact be done within the synagogue buildings. They were appointed and paid by the civil Sanhedrin or Jewish magistrates, by whom the amount to be contributed by each member of the com- munity was often iixed. The duties also of these collectors were of a quite subordinate sort, including the details of the work, but not its arrangement and oversight, answering to what might be done as a rule by " the younger men " (ot veoiTepoL) in the apostolic Church, rather than by the seven who were " appointed over this business." There seems no 1 See Vitririga, De Syn. Vet. pp. 806-809. - Known as npnv ""Xaa or "l^yn "Naj, "collectors of riglitcousncss"(/. calms), or "of the cit}\" ^ HQlpn '•N33 and >inon "Naj. See Vitringa, De Syn. Vet. pp. 211 f., 543- .">47. Schiirer, Hist, of Jewish PtO})k, Div. ii. vol. ii. p. 66. SYNAGOGUE COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS. 421 ground tlierefore to suppose, as some have done/ that these " city collectors " i'onued the pattern which was followed in the institution of the deacons of the Hebrew Christian Church. Collections were made also in various ways in connection with the synagogues. Two boxes commonly stood in all the synagogues of the Diaspora, one for alms for the poor of the place, and the other for contributions for the poor of the Holy Land. Heference is made repeatedly in the Gospel narratives to similar provision for receiving the gifts of the worshippers in the synagogues of Palestine and in the temple courts.^ The general arrangements with respect to these collections, and to the disposal of the funds thus raised, were made by the elders of the congregation who had the over- sight of its financial as well as religious affairs ; and the practical arrangements for gathering and distributing the money were sometimes entrusted to special collectors, but more commonly were left in the hands of the Chazzan or attendant.^ In many cases, especially in the smaller syna- gogues, a somewhat miscellaneous congeries of duties devolved upon this useful official.* Instances of this give a certain plausibility to the view of Hausrath and others, that the position of " the seven " was like that of the Chazzan of the synagogue, and that their number possibly corresponded to that of the separate centres of Christian worship, which existed at this time in Jerusalem.^ But although it may be ' See, e.g., Hausrath, .V. T. Times, 2nd ed. E. Tr. i. \\ 86. Comp. Vitringa, ut xupra, p. 932 f. 2 Vitringa, pp. 212, 809-815 ; Mark xii. 41-44 ; Luke xxi. 1-4 ; John viii. 20. In Matt. vi. 2 our Lord censures the ostentation of tlie Pharisees who were wont to "sound a trumpet before them in the synagogues and in the streets" when they "did alms." 3 "When the collection was made on the Sabbath, the scruples which prevailed among the Jews under Kabbinical teaching against handling money on that day were overcome by the Chazzan taking a promise to pay from the members of the congregation instead of the actual coin, Vitringa, p. 811 fiF. The rule against giving or receiving money on the Sabljath is referred to by Philo, Leg. ad Caium. * See above, p. 148. * See Zockler, Apontelgesch. S. 179. Vitringa holds that the "deacons" of the Pauline Epistles and of the early post-apostolic Church corresponded to the Chazzans of the synagogue, but that "the seven" were appointed to 422 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. perfectly true tliat there were cases in which a synagogue officer, being a man of proved honesty and tact, had a good deal of what might be called " deacons' work " entrusted to him, yet his position cannot be fairly said to correspond in essentials with that of " the seven." The difference is obvious between the single synagogue attendant, with his multifarious and often menial duties, and the body of responsible men, set apart to office in the Church with prayer and the laying on of hands, and appointed collectively over one distinct depart- ment of the Church's work. The office of the Chazzan, as stated in connection with our consideration of the synagogue system, was essentially that of the beadle, church officer, or caretaker of modern times. The name (y7n]p€Ti]<;) applied to the synagogue attendant in the New Testament is the term commonly used in the Gospels and Acts for an apparitor, lictor, or temple attendant.^ It is never used in reference to " the seven " in the Acts, nor in reference to the " deacons " of the apostolic Epistles. On the other hand, the office, the origin of which is so carefully narrated in the passage now under consideration, is a lower one indeed than that of " the ministry of the Word," and the oversight of the flock in spiritual things ; but it is an office distinctly in the Church and not outside of it, and one of importance and honour. The men who are to fill it are chosen on the ground of distinctively Christian qualifica- an extraordinary and temporary office, distinct from that of "deacon," as curators of the poor in the Hellenistic section of the Pentecostal community at Jerusalem, De S>/n. Vet. pp. 920-932. Ritschl, again, although speaking with some hesitation on the subject, is disposed to regard the office of "the seven" as comprising the duties assigned to both "elders" and "deacons" at a later period in the apostolic Church. In their appointment he sees implicitly the foundation of both of these offices as afterwards separately developed, EnMthuiig der alt. kath. Kirche, 2te Aufl. S. 354-357. Lechler agrees in substance with Ritschl, Apost. u. Nachap. Zeitalt. 3te Ausg. S. 78 f. Others, such as J. H. Bohmer in earlier, and Professor Lindsay in later times, have held that this was the first appointment in the apostolic Church of the office-bearers who ajipear soon afterwards (c. xi. 30) as "elders." None of these theories seem to me to meet all the facts of the case. ' Matt. V. 25 ; xxvi. 58 ; Mark xiv. 54, 65 ; Luke iv. 20 ; John vii. 32 ; xviii. 3 ; etc. ; Acts v. 22, 26. It is used also in reference to John Mark when acting as personal attendant to Barnabas and Saul on their first mis- sionary journey, Acts xiii. 5. QUALIFICATIONS OF DEACONS. 423 tions, as well as on those of trustworthiness and capacity for atJiiirs. They are put in charge of what formed, as we have already seen, a most important part of the fellowship (77 Koivcovia) of the Pentecostal Church, the practical expression of the spirit of Christian brotherhood by the relief of every one among them who was in need. The view of the otiice of " the seven " now given will be found to be confirmed if we examine a little more closely the qualifications required, aud the mode in which the appoint- ment was made. As to the qualifications for the office: First, those to be appointed must be members of the Church. " Look ye out, brethren, from among you seven men." It was not a matter for " them that are without," however upright and reliable in the ordinary relations between man and man ; nor was it to be delegated to a paid agency. It was work among brethren aud sisters, to be done by brethren in a spirit of brotherly love and willing service. Secondly, there must be several brethren joined together in tlie common charge. This was now the third time in the experience of the apostles that the love of money, or of advantages arising from it, and that in connection with a common fund, had led to most unhappy results. The temptations of the common purse, which Judas bore in the original circle of the disciples, had been the first occasion of his sin and fall. It was in connection with contributions to the treasury of the Church that Ananias and his wife had gone astray. And now this first dissension within the Christian brotherhood after Pente- cost had arisen from certain disciples seeing or supposing that they and theirs were not getting their full share of the benefits of the common fund. This charge was a burden too great, and associated with temptations too insidious, to allow of its being left with safety in the hands of one man. There must be joint responsibility, and united " oversight of this business" of apportionment and distribution from the common store. Thirdly, those appointed to this office must be " men of 424 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. good report " (aVSpe? fiapTvpovfievoi), of well-establislied character for honesty and uprightness. Any deficiency or uncertainty in this respect, the mere fact of any of the seven not being known to the Church generally in this capacity, would have been a preliminary bar to his election. It is easy to see how the circumstances of the Church gave special weight to this consideration. The apostles put it first in their statement of the personal quali- fications necessary. There was a spirit of jealousy and suspicion rising among the Hellenists. Let them choose men who would be owned on all sides as above suspicion, men whom they themselves could trust. Fourthly, " men full of the Spirit." Those who were to fill this office must be believers in whom were manifestly seen the fruits of that new Divine life which came to the Church with the advent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, in whom all impulses of selfishness and partiality were taken away by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit of God, and who would do the work entrusted to them faithfully and gladly from love to the Lord and the brethren. Fifthly, " men full of wisdom." Besides proved integrity and a Christian spirit, certain natural gifts were essential for the right discharge of the duties of the deaconship. The office demanded practical sagacity, discrimination, and prudence. Such qualities, when quickened and consecrated by the breath of the Divine Spirit, form the very features of that " wisdom from above " of which one of the chief leaders of the Church at Jerusalem afterwards wrote to the Jewish Christians of the Dispersion : " The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." ^ The facts recorded in the subsequent history regarding Stephen and Philip furnish no valid objection to the view now given of the office of deacon, as one in itself essentially distinct from the ministry of the Word and the oversight of the flock. That two out of the seven men first set apart to the deaconship in Jerusalem should have afterwards developed 1 Jas. iii. 17. DUTIES OF DEACONS. 425 gifts obviously fitting them for different and higher work in tiie cause of Christ, and should, under the guidance of the Spirit and the Providence of God, have done such work with signal success, constitutes no argument whatever against the conclusions as to the true nature and functions of the deacon's office in itself to which we have been led by the direct evi- dence bearing on the subject. There was nothing in the fact of the seven having been set apart specially for service in the deaconship to hinder them from using freely, like the other disciples, as they had opportunity, all spiritual gifts of utter- ance and exhortation which might be in them. On the contrary, the confidence shown them by their brethren, and the experience gained daily among " the poor of the saints which were at Jerusalem," in visiting the sick and dying, " the fatherless and widows in their affliction," were fitted to be spiritually helpful and stimulating to themselves in many ways. " They that have served well as deacons," was the testimony some thirty years later of one who had known both Stephen and Philip, "gain to themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus." ^ In those Reformed Churches in which at this day the deaconship exists in practical efficiency as an office which has to do essentially with the outwaid and temporal affairs of the Church, and especially with the care of the poor and needy, no facts are more familiar than these, — that the office itself gives many valuable opportunities for spiritual work to every man who holds it ; that it opens to him a wider sphere of Christian usefulness and inlluence than he had as a private member of the Church ; and that by the use and improvement of such opportunities men are constantly rising from the ranks of our deacons to fill with acceptance and success higher positions among the elders, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers of the Church.- ' 1 Tim. iii. 13. Conip. Rothe, Pastoralhrleje, 2tc AuH. i. 8, S. 68. ■•' See Mr. Macpherson's interesting sketch of " The Deaconship since the Keformation '' in Cath. Preshyt. ix. ](p. 443-450. The New Testament concep- tion of the ileaconship has unfortunately been lost in the Cliurch of Rome and the Church of England. With them the " deacon " is an "assistant clergyman." His chief public duties are to read the lessons and prayers in the Church, to jireach, to baptize, and to "instruct the youth in the Catechism." A faint 426 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. As to the mode of appointment, observe — 1. The proposal came not from any individual apostle, but from " the twelve " acting as a body. We do not even hear of Peter coming forward, with his wonted readiness, as the spokesman of the rest. It was no longer possible now, when the membership of the Church was counted by thousands, that all the disciples should be con- sulted from the first, as in the case of the election of Matthias in the upper chamber. The mind of the twelve had no doubt been ripened and gathered through previous conference among themselves, and probably with other " leaders among the brethren," and through prayerl'ul consideration of the crisis which had arisen in all its aspects. The suggestion, from whom- soever it first came, had approved itself to all the apostles. The proposal had taken definite shape, and is made now by " the twelve " in their collective capacity. From this point onward action is taken in precisely the same way as in the election of Matthias, already considered/ with one exception, namely, that there is now no use of the lot. 2. The emergency, and the method proposed for meeting it, are brought by the apostles before the members of the Church generally, in a full meeting called for the purpose. The nature of the proposal is clearly explained to the meeting ; and their unanimous approval of it is expressly recorded, " The saying pleased the whole multitude of the disciples." The initiative now passes into their hands. 3. The members of the Church choose the seven men from among themselves whom they count fittest for this office, and " put them before the apostles." 4. The apostles, concurring in the choice, set these brethren apart to the office with solemn prayer and laying on of hands, as the custom was in the ordination of elders in the synagogues. remii)iscence of the work of " the seven " may be seen in the Anglican "office for the ordering of Deacons," in the concluding clause : *' Furthermore, it is his office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates, names, and places where they dwell unto the curate, that, by liis exhortation, they may be relieved with the alms of the parishioners or others." Conip. Life, of Dr. Arnold, 7th ed. pji. 470, 494. ' See above, pp. 402-404. GENERAL RESULTS AS TO ORGANIZATION. 427 All these facts taken together seem to prove beyond doubt that we have here the first recorded appointment of ordinary office-bearers in the Christian community, that the nature of the office was as stated al)Ove, that it was in one sense a new one, and that therefore the grounds on which it was established, and the mode in which the first deacons were appointed, were carefully put on record for the future guidance of the Church, but that the office was framed on the lines of well-known Jewish institutions and arrangements, and embodied principles with which every member of the Pentecostal Church, as having been previously connected with some synagogue congregation, was thoroughly familiar. In one of its main aspects, the deaconship in the Hebrew Christian Church was just a prac- tical embodiment of that care for the poor and needy in the congregation of the Lord, and for the stranger within their gates, as a religious duty and privilege, which was no new thing in Israel, but which was now developed in a new and higher form, inspired and consecrated by the Spirit of Christ and of loving Christian fellowship. 3rd. General results as regards organization. Looking back now upon the section of the history of the apostolic Church which we have traversed, the general results of our survey of the evidence available under the two heads of worship and organization may be summed up as follows. Both in its worship and polity the Hebrew Christian Church was conformed in all essential respects to the model of the Hebrew synagogue. We have seen already how clearly this comes out as regards its worship. AVe are now so far in a position to see that the same thing holds as unniistakeably with regard to its organization. The form of polity which had been universally established for centuries in the Jewish Church, both in the Holy Land and the Diaspora, which in its central institution of the eldership and in many of its leading principles went back to the earliest days of the history of Israel, was " simply accepted and perpetuated by the apostles." ^ ' " This, then, is the reason why you do not find distinct traces in the New Testament of tiie creation of the Tresbyterian form of Church government. 428 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. The few modifications which they made were in perfect accordance with the principles and spirit of the system. What was to a certain extent new, as in the appointment of " the seven," grew naturally out of the old. The institution of the deaconship furnishes an admirable illustration of the remark last made. It was rather, as we have seen, a happy combination and elevation of existing elements into a higher unity, than a new creation in the strict sense of the word. And the whole manner of the appoint- ment was in the closest accordance with recognised precedents in the synagogue system. We have already noted the main principles embodied in the office itself as a collegiate one, and in the successive steps by which the first deacons were set apart to it,^ — the principle of representation and common responsibility, — of free election by the members of the com- munity,— of admission to office by those who were themselves already office-bearers, with the customary token of this in the imposition of hands, — that all power of jurisdiction and oversight in any department of public work should be en- trusted, not to one man merely, but to several, associated together for the purpose. With every one of these prin- ciples, both as to theory and practice, every member of a Jewish synagogue was perfectly familiar. And all the members of the Hebrew Christian Church had been members of synagogues, — most of them from their earliest childhood, like their fathers before them. There was therefore for them no breach of historic continuity, as, under the guidance of the Spirit of Christ and of God speaking through the apostles, the old passed gradually and almost insensibly into the new, and the Churches of Christ rose out of the congregations of Israel and of the Lord in which these " devout men, Jews and The apostles could not create what liad been in use some hundreds of years before they were born. They themselves were all of them Presbyterians before they were Christians. And these are the two facts, the knowledge of which makes us intelligent Presbyterians : First, that the form of government in the Church before Christ came was Presbyterian ; and secondlj', that this form of government was not abolished nor altered, but simply accepted and perpetuated by the apostles. It was extended to all groups of people who received Christ.' Dr. Marcus Dods, Preshyterianism older than Christianiti/, p. 22. 1 See above, pp. 423 f., 426. CONGREGATIOXAL ASPECTS OF SYNAGOGUE SYSTEM. 429 proselytes," together with their chihlren, had worshipped and found spiritual nurture and blessing hitherto. 1. The synagogue system in the Hebrew Christian Church, in its more congregational aspects. In cases where a whole synagogue, or the majority of its office-bearers and members, embraced the Gospel,^ the change in the experience of the congregation as regards the form and order of worship and government, even to the minutest out- ward details, must have been hardly perceptible. They still met, both on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, in the familiar place called by the old name, to worship the God of their fathers. The same eldership took the oversight of the congregation. The same men came forward at their call " before the ark," where the rolls of the law and the prophets were kept, to read the Scriptures, to lead in prayer, or to give " a word of exhortation to the people." The same familiar psalms were chanted. Only the worshippers had " found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets and psalmists did write," Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David and the Son of God. They heard of Him in tlieir synagogue, of His life and teaching, His death and resurrection, from the lips of "eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word." They realized His own Divine presence in the midst of them, and heard and felt how God had fulfdled the promise made of old to their fathers by sending now in full measure to their children " the blessing of Abraham " in the mission of Christ and the gift of the Holy Ghost.'"^ Through all the old familiar forms the Hebrew Christians felt the power of a new and glorious life. It met them in " the teaching of the apostles," " the fellow- ship " of the brethren, " the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers " and praises of the Church.^ The Lord fulHlled His promise and sent them, as in the best days of Israel, " prophets, and wise men, and scribes." * As Paul himself, " an Hebrew of the Hebrews," wrote afterwards to a Church which grew directly, ' Instances of this sort are recorded. See Selden, Dc Syned. Vtt. Ileb. lib. iii., Londini 1655, p. 318 f. Vitringa, De Syn. Vet. p. 448 f. Comp. Acts xviii. 10-12 ; xviii. 8 ; J;is. ii. 2. Hatch, Orjaniz. of Early Christ. Churches, p. 59 ff. - Acts iii. 24-26 ; Gal. iii 14. ■' Acts ii. 42. * Matt, xxiii. 34. 430 ORGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. like most of the Pauline Churches, out of a Jewish synagoirue, and only separated from it at length by constraint : " Christ gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangel- ists, and some pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering unto the building up of the body of Christ." ^ But no utterance of apostles or New Testa- ment prophets ever called upon any Hebrew Christian to leave his synagogue, if the synagogue would receive Jesus as the Messiah promised of old, or even tolerate in their meetings the proclamation of Christian truth from the ancient Scriptures. And when it proved necessary, in face of growing opposition and blasphemy, to " separate the disciples," along with those of " the synagogue rulers which believed," as Paul ultimately did at Corinth and at Ephesus, and to meet for worship else- where, there is not the slightest evidence that any other organization was set up among the believers in the Christian synagogue than just what they had been familiar witli from childhood in the Hebrew one, from which persecution had now driven them against their will, and no doubt with hopes of returning to it in happier days, when their brethren and kinsfolk according to the flesh should repent and believe the Gospel.^ For the apostles to have done otherwise, without an express command from Christ Himself, or some clear revelation of His will by the Holy Spirit, would have been to run counter to all the teaching of God's Providence in His dealings with Israel for centuries. God's voice in the history of His chosen people had spoken plainly in this matter. " His name had been recorded " in their " houses of prayer " and " of meeting " since the days of the Exile and the Eeturn. According to His ancient promise. He had " met with them and blessed them " wherever, from the time of Ezekiel and Ezra, Neliemiah and Malachi,^ they had gathered themselves together to hear His Word and confess their sins, to pray and to praise the ^ Acts xviii. 19 ff., 24-27 ; xix. 1-9 ; Eph. iv. 11 f. Even if, as is now gene- rally held, our " Epistle to the Ephesians " was originally sent as a circular letter to the Churches of Asia, it had special reference to the Christians of Ephesus, as forming tlie mother Church of the province. ^ Acts xviii. 4-11 ; xix. 8-10 ; Rom. ix. 1-5 ; x. 1 ff. ^ " He shows himself a true prophet when he contiasts the worthless ministry of NEW TESTAMENT PKESRYTEKIANIS.M. 431 name of their covenant God. His hand liad prepared and tested the framework for the polity of a world-wide Church in that synagogue system by which the scattered nation in the Dispersion, as well as in the Holy Land, had been able every- where to spread and prosper in spite of opposition and per- secution, and to hold their ground even against the power of Rome.i So far from the apostles having any command of Christ to discard the ancient system of worship and polity, tliere were not a few sayings of His which pointed in the opposite direc- tion. He had promised to raise up " prophets, and wise men, and scribes," i.e. teachers of the kind most honoured in Israel since the Exile, along with others of the old prophetic type, commissioned by Himself to labour especially " in the syna- gogues." He had spoken words of sympathy to His disciples regarding the special trial which, He foretold, was in store for them, in that their fellow-countrymen would " put them out of the synagogues " in which they had hitherto worshipped.' Our Lord's two great utterances regarding His own Church in its future development, as recorded by the first evangelist, correspond closely, as we saw before,^ with the two main conceptions of the fellowship of God's people which had gradually formed themselves in the religious consciousness of Israel in Old Testament times, under the progressive teaching of the Word and the Providence of God. Every devout Israelite was familiar with the conception of " the whole congregation or assembly of Israel," and " of the Lord," made up of all who were united in faith and obedience to the God of Abraham, the one true and living God. This great " ecclesia " had its centre and seat of authority in Jerusalem, and especially in the temple. It was there that the " elders of Israel " met in council in tlie great Sanhedrin, and in the schools of the teachers and masters of Israel. " Out of the unwilling priests with the ' pure offering ' of prayer and praise that rises from all corners of the Hebrew Dispersion." Robertson Smith, art. "Malachi,"in Enajd. Britann. 9th ed. xv. p. 3146. ' See above, pp. 148 ff., 160 f. ■^ Matt, xxiii. 34 ; John xvi. 2. See above, pp. 144 f., 226 f. 3 See above, pp. 161 f., 180 f., 264 If. 432 OUGANIZATION OF THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Zion went forth the law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Equally familiar to the Hebrew mind was the conception of the local " ecclesia," as the representative in each place of the authority and fellowship of " the congregation of the Lord." These became visible and accessible to the individual Israelite in the synagogue or synagogues of the local Jewish community to whicli he belonged, and in the eldership (|Zo ■ i ■ n, Acts xxvi. 14 f. '-■ Chap. xxvi. 11. ' Gal. i. 22 f. ; 1 Thess. ii. 1 1. 436 ORGANIZATION OF THE IIEBltEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH. themselves to be one in Christ Jesus, It is essential to the right discussion of the part of our subject now in hand that we should at the outset give its proper place to this funda- mental fact. It follows from the nature of the case that this real and essential unity which existed among the members of the Hebrew Christian Church would find ways of expressing itself outwardly, just as the unity of " the con- gregation of Israel " did in earlier times. Further, we should expect that the lines of development would be similar at least in both cases, but that the deeper and stronger con- sciousness of unity would create for itself new forms of expression where the old ones proved insufficient. We might have been sure that this would be so, even had the evidence as to what actually took place been much scantier than it is. (2.) The apostolic Church of this period is constantly spoken of as one. In the first twelve chapters of Acts the word " Church " (iKKkTjaia) occurs nine times : and in every case it is in the Singular, not the Plural.^ We have seen hnw rapid and steady was the growth of the Church in and around Jeru- salem during all that first period in its history which ends with the death of Stephen. From the day of Pentecost onward its membership was reckoned by thousands. The successive additions of large numbers at one time, and the intervening seasons of quiet and continuous growth, are care- fully noted by the historian.^ The disciples, during all this period, had their appointed meetings in public, as we saw before, in connection with the worship of the temple and synagogues. They had also their more private gatherings in the upper room and in the houses of different disciples, for the purposes of distinctively Christian worship.^ These latter assemblies were certainly " Churches in the house " {eKKkrja-laL kut oIkov), in the sense in which we find the phrase used in the Pauline epistles. Yet during the whole of the first twelve chapters of Acts the word used to denote the fellowship or society of the Hebrew Christians, ' See Note A, "Use of the word UkXyiiIci. in the X. T." "■ See above, p. 396 ff. ' See above, pp. 351 fl'. CHURCH SrOKEN OF AS ONE. 437 in its actual historical development in Jerusalem and around it, is " Church " in the Singular (»; iKKXrjaia). " Great fear came upon the whole Church." " There arose a great persecu- tion against the Church which was in Jerusalem." " Saul laid waste the Church, entering into every house {fcara tov<: olkov; €it>6i, Acts xi. 26. It was a Greek translation of a Hebrew word, with a Latin termina- tion,—reminding one of liow these three languages met in the inscription on the cross. " The Greek adjective from X^/ittoc would have been Xpur-ruos. It is true that vvU and nas are Greek terminations, but anus is mainly Roman, and there can be little doubt that it is due— not to the Doric diah-ct !— but to the j.revalence of Roman terminology at Antioch." Farrar, St. Paul, i. p. 296 f. Ewald holds that it was probably first given by the Roman magistrates in Antioch, and points out that in the only N. T. passage in wliich the word is used by an apostle (1 Pet. iv. 10) the reference is to persecution by the Roman civil authorities, Gesch. des Volts Israels, vi. S. 408. Comp. Lightfoot, Ignatius, i. pp. 401-404. " We take the explanation to be this," says Principal Brown, "that 'Christ' was so constantly upon the lips of the disciples and their preachers, that those with whom they came in contact talked of them as those ' Christ-people,' or Christians." Romans, Edin. 1883, p. x. An interest- ing parallel to this may be found in the annals of the Scottish Reformation, in the first half of the sixteenth century. It is recorded, in reference to the arrest of the martyrs of Perth who were put to death in 1544, that the name by wliich they were commonly called in derision by their enemies in the town was " the Christers," because they spoke so much of Christ. Calderwood, Hist, of Kirk of Scotland, i. p. 175. 462 THE GENTILE CHUISTIAN CHURCH. old and deep drawn lines of separation between Jew and Gentile were lost sight of in the deeper and higher unity of the Gospel and the Spirit of Christ. It was here that Paul first saw and realized what he wrote of in after days to the Churches of Galatia and Colossi, a spiritual brotherhood in the Lord, in which there was " not Greek and Jew, cir- cumcision and uncircumcision, barbaiian, Scythian, bondman, freeman ; but Christ is all and in all." ^ The features of such a time have been well portrayed by an eminent living minister, who has himself shared in the work and the joy of more than one great season of spiritual revival in the Churches of Christ in Britain : " Any one who has ever been privi- leged to witness a widespread quickening in the religious life of a community, or to come close to any large number of people, who have simultaneously and recently received the good news of salvation as a new thing, and for them most certainly a true thing, will not forget the unmistakeable and inimitable stamp of Divine gladness set upon men's faces, or the sweet simple affection with which brothers and sisters in Jesus greet one another, the tender sense of new pardoned guilt, the devout susceptibility to the Divine Word, the frank personal clinging to Jesus as to One quite near, the elevation above their usual carefulness and each petty vexa- tion of daily life, which are the beautiful marks of such a time. All this Barnabas had seen some years before. He had been present in Jerusalem, when the first unction of holy joy came from the Lord in heaven. He was himself one of those who had been carried away most completely with the enthusiastic love of those early days. Now at Antioch, in a heathen city, in the very stew of pagan uncleanness, he found himself, to his surprise, in the midst of the same wonderful young life in God. The very same fresh child- like sense of reconciliation and peace, the same pure devout joy, were filling the new - born Gentile Church, which had at first filled the new - born Hebrew Church. He recognised the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and was glad. Misgivings about Gentile unfitness, or the unclean- ness of uncircumcised men, could not live in such an 1 Col. iii. 11; Gal. iii. 28; vi. 15. ri;i-:i'AUATiON and ti;ansitiox. 463 atmosphere. The life was the life of Christ ; the air was the air of heaven." ^ All that savoured of separation disappeared of itself in such an atmosphere in the case of all open-hearted members of the Hebrew Christian Church who came to Antioch. Peter, " an Hebrew of the Hebrews," and " the apostle of the circumcision," felt that the seal of God was upon the fellowship of the disciples here, as certainly as when the Holy Ghost fell on those to whom he spoke at Ciesarea, and he " heard them speak with tongues and magnify God." " When he came to Antioch, he did eat with the Gentiles." Barnabas, Saul of Tarsus, and other Jewish Christians, whether Hellenists or Hebrews, did the same." It was no small part ot the preparation, whereby the Church in Antioch was fitted to be the first great centre of missions to the Gentiles, that in it, for years, the social and religious diffi- culties of mixed congregations had been practically solved by the spirit of Christian love and brotherly forbearance. It had been proved in Antioch, — and every missionary sent out from it could bear personal witness to the fact, — that Jewish and Gentile believers could live together as brethren, eating at one table in loving fellowship, partaking of one bread and cup of the Lord. The first united action of which we hear, on the part of the disciples at Antioch, was one in which they showed their thankfulness for spiritual benefits received from the Hebrew Christian Church, and their sense of spiritual unity with them, by sending temporal help in time of famine to the brethren in Judiea. The next common action recorded of them is in behalf of those who were in yet deeper poverty and need in the great heathen world. It was only to be expected that, in a Christian community, so largely composed of disciples of Gentile birth, the longing on their part for the salvation of their brethren and kinsfolk according to the ll(;sh should soon make itself felt, and should move the whole Church to special prayer and effort. The Christians of Antioch lived in a city wholly given to idolatry, and that of ' Dyke.s, From Jerusalem to Antioch, -Itli cd. p. 408 f. * Actsx. 41 ir. ; Gal. ii. 11-14. 464 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. the most corrupt and licentious sort, in the midst of a popula- tion which, as a whole, at this time was frivolous, immoral, and debased, beyond even that of Rome itself.^ Yet the Gospel had proved, and was every day proving itself in Antioch, to be " the power of God unto salvation to every one that believed, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." ^ Why should it not be so beyond the limits of the city ? It was most natural that the idea of a mission, which should address itself to Gentiles, as well as to Jews and proselytes, should first arise and take practical shape here. In no other Church probably, at this date, would it have been so warmly welcomed as at Antioch. In no other city would so many believing hearts have been lifted up to God in earnest and intelligent prayer when Paul and Barnabas " were committed to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled " in the first Gentile mission.^ The thing was of God. The first evangelists to the heathen were " separated and sent forth by the Holy Ghost, for the work whereunto He had called them," as is brought out with such care in the narrative. But God works by fitting means, and prepares His instruments for special ends ; and we see this principle of the Divine government strikingly illustrated in the way in which the Church of Antioch was prepared, and led to stretch out hands of love, not only towards Juda3a and Jerusalem, but towards the vast heathen world, and to become a fruitful mother of Churches drawn from amoncj the Gentiles. ^ Some of tlie points in M. Kenan's vivid, but not exaggerated, description of the morals of Antioch will not bear reproduction. Two or three of his graphic touches maybe given. "La Mgerit^ syrienne, le charlatanisme babylonien, toutes les impostures de I'Asie, se confondant a cette limite des deux mondes, avaient fait d'Antioche la capitale du mensonge, la sentine de toutes les in- famies. . . . L'avilissement des ames y ^tait elfroyable. . . . Ce fleuve de bone, qui, sortant par I'embouchure de I'Oronte, venait inonder Eome, avait la sa source princi pale." Les Apdtres, p. 218 if. The allusion in the last sentence is, of course, to the well-known line of Juvenal : — " Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes." 2 Rom. i. 16. Paul had seen its power in Antioch, before he wrote thus to believers living in Rome. 3 Acts xiii. 2 f. ; xiv. 26. PREPARATION AND TRANSITION. 465 2nd. How had the ajmstle of the Gentiles been prepared for his work ? It is impossible here even to name all the different elements which entered into the Providential preparation of Saul of Tarsus " for the work which he fultilled ; " much more is it impossible to enter into the details of the subject in any one of its aspects. To the apostle himself, as he looked back upon it afterwards, his whole previous history- seemed one long preparation, under the hand of God, for the great mission among the Gentiles, to which he was formally " separated " at the bidding of the Holy Ghost in the Church at Antioch. " It was the good pleasure of God," he said, " who separated me even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles." ^ His birth as " an Hebrew of the Hebrews," " a Pharisee and a son of Pharisees," his Eoman citizenship, the Hellenistic surround- ings and influence of Greek literary and commercial life at Tarsus, his training in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, his position as a trusted leader in the counsels and action of the Sanhedrin, — all this varied experience and education, not in schools merely, but in practical knowledge of the world, of men and of affairs, combined with natural gifts and capacities of the highest kind, to fit the future apostle for his work." Saul of Tarsus mingled doubtless in the keen debates, in which men of his own synagogue in Jerusalem — " the synagogue of Cilicians " — " disputed with Stephen, and were not able to withstand the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake." ^ That wonderful address before the Sanhedrin must have impressed a mind like that of Saul, so well fitted to appreciate its reasonings, and to feel the force of its appeals.* ' Gal. i. 15f. ■■^ Many of these points are admirably handleil in Stalker's Life of St. Paul, eJ. 1885, pp. 21-45. =» Acts vi. 9 f. ■• It has often been pointed out that there are distinct coincidences between the method, the leading ideas, and expressions of St. Stephen's speech on the one hand, and those of Paul's letters and addresses on the other. See Farrar, St. Paul, i. p. 163. 2 G 466 THE GENTILE CHKISTIAN CHURCH. He had seen the martyr's face, " as it were the face of an angel," cahn, confident, and rejoicing, lighted up with heavenly radiance, amid all the savage fury of his adversaries. He had heard Stephen speak of what he saw, as he " looked up stedfastly into heaven," had heard his dying prayer to the Lord Jesus for himself and for his murderers, and had seen how " he fell asleep." ^ These things, and other like scenes of the persecution, must surely have haunted Saul, even before his conversion ; after it, it is plain, they often returned upon him.^ He could not bring himself, as it seems, actually to lay hands on Stephen. Who can say with what strain put upon his natural feelings he stood by, " consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him," thinking he " did God service " thereby ? Yet, if it were right to do this, it was right to do more. Saul's next step, therefore, was to throw himself, heart and hand, into the work of rooting out this blasphemous heresy, as he deemed it, which had arisen in Israel concerning Jesus of Nazareth. It may have been in part from a half-conscious desire to stifle thought, and crush down doubts and questionings which arose within him, as he recalled the martyr's look and words, that Saul of Tarsus flung himself so fiercely into the whirl of excitement and energetic action, in which he lived during the months that followed Stephen's death. Persecution became the very breath of his life. " Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest," and " unto the whole presbytery " (o ap-^^ie- pevi KoX . . . irav to irpea-^vTepiov, Trap a)V i7naro\a<; Se^dfievo'i), and obtained from them written " authority and commission " to persecute " them of the way," even " unto foreign cities."" Then came the turning-point of Saul's life, his "seeing Jesus Christ our Lord " on the road to Damascus. The wolf thirsting for blood, " breathing slaughter," was at the very door of the sheepfold, crouching, as it were, for tlie fatal » Acts vi. 15 ; vii. 54-60. - Acts xxii. 19 f. ; xxvi. 10 f. ; Gal. i. 13 ; 1 Cor. xv. 9 ; 1 Tim. i. 13. ' Acts ix. 1 f. ; xxii. 5 ; x.xvi. 11 f. PREPARATION AND TRANSITION. 467 spring, when he was suddenly grasped by the strong hand of the Good Shepherd, and not struck down merely, but changed from a raging enemy, first into a humble follower of Christ, and then into the best and tenderest of the under shep- herds of His flock ; " de lupo, ovis ; de ove, pastor." " I was apprehended, I was laid hold on," — as he describes the event himself in one emphatic phrase, — " by Christ Jesus." ^ There followed three memorable days during which Saul " conferred not with flesh and blood." For three days, in fasting and darkness, he was like Moses on the mount, encompassed with a cloud, and communing alone with God. What inward struggles, what deep convictions of sin, what repentance towards God, and seeking after the grace of God in Christ, what mighty and far-reaching changes in Saul's whole spiritual being, made up for him the real history of those three days, who can tell ? A veil has been thrown, in great measure, over this period of the apostle's life, as over the kindred period of his sojourn in Arabia, which came shortly after. We may gather something of the process from the result, and from indications in his Epistles. The latter part of the seventh chapter of the Eomans, for example, shows how Paul passed from a false use of the law of God to the true, and from that to Christ. But to enter on this subject, deeply interesting and attractive as it is, would be foreign to our present purpose.^ Enough to say that the practical link between the two states of feeling described in that chapter, and exemplified in the apostle's own experience in Damascus, — between crying out under the burden of sin and death on the one hand, and rejoicing 1 KctrtXr.ipinv iro Xfiffrau 'inirou, Phil. iii. 12. 2 See tlie powerful and suggestive treatment of this subject by Principal Rainy in "Paul the Apostle," the first of the "Evangelical Succession" lectures, Edin. 1882, pp. 15-29. See also SUlker, Life of St. Paul, ed. 188.'^, pp. 52-63, 72-84. I differ from Dr. Rainy, and agree with Mr. Stalker,— as will be seen from what 1 have said above, — regarding the light thrown on Saul's mental attitude before his conversion by our Lord's words, " It is hard for thee to kick against the goad." Comp. the fine passage on this point in Pfleiderer, Influence, of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Chris- tianity (Hibbert Lect. 1885), p. 34 ff. 468 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. in Christ Jesus as our Lord and Saviour on the other, — is to be found in three words of the message which the Lord gave to Ananias concerning Saul of Tarsus : " Behold, he prayeth." ^ Light was arising in his soul out of darkness, the struggle was ending in victory, when true prayer began, the prayer of faith, and in the name of Jesus. And, while he was yet speaking in prayer, the answer was given from above. " He saw in a vision a man, named Ananias, coming in, and laying his hands on him, that he might receive his sight." The very name — meaning " the Lord is gracious " — may have seemed to Saul, as " an Hebrew of the Hebrews," a special token for good,^ After Saul's first bold confession and testimony for Christ in the synagogues of Damascus, he withdrew, for a period apparently of considerable length, into the solitudes of Arabia.^ This season of retirement and study, although fruitful doubtless in the highest spiritual results to Saul himself, was not marked by any outward events which have been recorded. From Arabia, he returned for a time to Damascus. " Then, after three years," he tells the Galatians, " I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days ; • . . and I saw also James, the Lord's brother." * ' 'iSoi/ yap, ■jrpoTiix.ira.i, Acts ix. 11. ^ Chap, ix, 13. 3 "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me ; but I went away into Arabia ; and again I returned unto Damascus," Gal. i. 16 f. The place where Paul's Arabian sojourn should be inserted in the condensed narrative of the ninth chapter of Acts, is probably after ver. 21 or 22. It cannot well be after ver. 25, in view of his own statement : " I returned Mjain to Damascus." This was after the interval referred to in the first clause of ver. 23 ; and the fact of his absence from the city during that interval, removes the difficulty of understanding how the Jews allowed "many days to be fulfilled" before "they took counsel together to kill him." On Saul's first appearance in the synagogue, to give testimony that "Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God," the Jews weie overawed and paralysed by the amazing character of the event. Before they had recovered from this first stupor, the bold witness was gone. But when, "after many days," he returned to Damascus, "increased in strength," and thoroughly able now to " prove " from Scripture "that this is the Christ," we cannot wonder that the irritation and alarm of the Jews led them to " take counsel together to kill him." * Gal. i. 18 f. Regarding the force of the il fj^r, in this passage, see above p. 448. PREPARATION AND TRANSITION. 469 It is easy to understand of what importance this personal and confidential intercourse with Peter and James must have been to Saul of Tarsus, as regards his preparation for his future work. He too, like " them which were apostles before him," had now " seeii the Lord Jesus," and " heard the voice of His mouth," but not, as they had, in the days of His humiliation. No better eye and ear witnesses to the facts of the life and death, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, could have been found than just the two with whom Saul held close converse during that memorable fortnight at Jerusalem. Peter could tell him of all the things concerning the Master, which were known in tlie inmost circle of the apostles, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when Peter went first into the open sepulchre, and, first of the Twelve, met with the risen Lord, and onward until the day when He was taken up from them on the Mount of Olives. James, the Lord's brother, could go back to an even earlier date, and tell of things known only in the home at Xazareth, how God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, how from the first He had " grown in wisdom as in age and in favour with God and man," how none of His brethren could " convict Him of sin," in that " He did always the things that were pleasing to his Father," how yet they had doubted, and held aloof from full recognition of His claims, until the resurrection removed all doubts, and " He appeared unto James." ^ 1 Luke ii. 51 f. ; John viii. 29, 46 ; 1 Cor. xv. 7. An additional evidence in support of the view whicli distinguishes James, the Lord's brother, from the Twelve may be found in the fact that Paul, in this passage, when enumerat- ing in order the successive appearances of the risen Saviour, places the appear- ance to James after both the interview with "the Twelve "and that with the five hundred. James was called " the Just " by Jews as well as Hebrew Chris- tians. Comp. Hegesippus in Euseb. ii. 23 ; Origcn, Contra Cds. i. 47. "No man was less likely to have been deceived or to have deceived." Edwards, First Cor. 2nd ed. p. 397. Holsten su|iposes that James was specially seen by Paul "because of the position which the brother of the Lonl already held in the Cluirch at Jeru- salem." There can be no doubt that his personal weight of character, and his peculiar relation to the Saviour, must have given him a position of special influence in the Apostolic Church from the first. But the facts above referred to, and the allusion iu 1 Cor. xv. 7 to our Lord's interview with 470 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. It is worth noting that both at Damascus, on his return from Arabia, and at Jerusalem, on this first visit after his conversion, Saul sought earnestly and perseveringly to find entrance as a witness for Christ among the Jews ; but his efforts met with little success. Everywhere, but especially among the Hellenists of his own synagogue in Jerusalem, he was regarded as a renegade of no ordinary stamp. The hope and pride with which his fellow-countrymen had once looked upon him, as the foremost pupil of Gamaliel, and a rising leader in the national cause, were changed into feelings of the bitterest enmity. " They went about to kill him." ' The conviction was forced on the mind of Saul, much against his will, that this door of usefulness was hopelessly closed against him. He still abode in Damascus, knowing that the Jews plotted against him, and " watched the gates day and night that they might kill him," until " his disciples took him by night, and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket." In Jerusalem he yielded only when the Lord's voice in vision lent authority to the urgency of brethren in the city who saw his danger. He was " brought down " by them to Ctesarea, and "sent forth" to his native Tarsus.^ His experience there seems to have been of a somewhat similar kind. We liear at least of no marked success, until at the invitation of Barnabas he came with him to the great Gentile city on the Orontes. There, for the first time, Saul found himself in the midst of a Church which was drawn chiefly from the Gentiles, and in which Jew and Gentile were walking lovingly together James after the Resurrection, suggest other reasons. It is a piece of perfectly gratuitous theorizing, witliout the slightest foundation in the facts, so far as recorded, when Holsten goes on to suppose that Paul told his Gospel for the heathen to Peter at this time, and that the latter, being startled by the announcement, called in James to the conference, "against Paul's original intention." Evang. des Paulas, Berlin 1880, S. 8 f. ^ Acts ix. 23 f., 29. It must surely be simply by inadvertence that Arch- deacon Farrar speaks of those Hellenists, who "disputed against Paul" at Jerusalem, and "went about to kill him," as "Jews who had embraced Christianity," and as "Christians, circumcised and Judaic." St. Paul, i. p. 126. 2 Acts ix. 24 f., 30. Comp. xxii. 17-21 ; Gal. i. 21 ; 2 Cor. xi. 32 f. rREPARATlON AND TUANSITION. 471 as yet, according to the rule, Mhich he himself gave after- wards for " the Israel of God," that in Christ Jesus " neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." ^ There, for the first time, so far as our records bear, since his conversion, the Lord set before him an open door for the work of the Gospel, and there, accordingly, " even for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul were gathered together with the Church, and taught much people." ^ Thus by the discipline of disappointment and of hope deferred, by successive lessons in humility, obedience, and self-denial faithfully learned, the i'uture apostle of the Gentiles had been prepared for the great enterprise, to which he was now to be sent forth from Antioch, That some arduous but honourable and successful work for Christ in a wide field was in store for Saul, had been once and again revealed to himself from the time of his conversion onwards, and was doubtless understood, to some extent, among the disciples in Damascus, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. That the work in question bore especially on the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, was known to Barnabas and others who had been especially brought into contact with Saul ; and this probably led to his being thought of at once, when the new field among the Greeks opened at Antioch.'^ The bitterness of Saul's disappointment, in having to give up all prospect of being a means of blessing to his brethren and kinsfolk in Jerusalem, was softened by a direct revelation from Christ, that a great future was before him, to which the Lord Himself was to " send him forth " in far distant regions " among the Gentiles." * But what form this work, among the heathen and their rulers, was to take, in what way, and from what centre, he was to be sent forth to it, and in what relation it was to stand to work among " the children of Israel," which was linked with it in the 1 Gal. V. 6 ; vi. 15 f. ' Acts xi. 26. ^ See Acts ix. 15 f. Compare Paul's abbreviated statement of this message to the Jewish mob from the castle steps in Jerusalem (xxii. 15) with the fuller summary of all the revelations from this period, bearing on his apostolic commission, which he gave before Agrippa (xxvi. 16 ff.). * Acts xxii. 17-21. 472 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. revelations to Ananias and to Saul himself, remained as yet unrevealed. But now, at last, after these years of waiting and prepara- tion, the hour had come. The converging lines, on which the great unseen Worker had been carrying forward His purposes of grace, met in Antioch. The Christian community there was by this time sufficiently established and built up in faith, and love, and knowledge of the truth, for its share in the work. The Church of Antioch was strong enough now to spare two of its leading teachers for a wider enterprise. And, on the other hand, that one of the two had been fully prepared for the work, whose name was soon to hold the foremost place in the heart and on the lips of the brethren at Antioch, although hitherto he had willingly seen others preferred there in honour to himself. As "a vessel of election to bear the name of the Lord Jesus before the Gentiles," ^ Saul of Tarsus had been shaped and moulded hitherto under the Lord's hand, through long and manifold discipline. He had been tested and refined in the furnace of trial. Like "the captain of his salvation," he "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." And now he was "a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use " in many lands.^ 3rd. How the great commission of Christ to His Church was taken up afresh at Antioch. As the prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch " ministered to the Lord and fasted," the command came from the Holy Spirit, speaking by the lips of some man of prophetic gifts in their assembly : " Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent tliem away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went down to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." ^ We have noted already what a spirit of intelligent and 1 2«=tJ«; iKkeyyi; irri fiai ovto;, Acts ix. 15. 2 Heb. ii. 10 ; v. 8 ; 2 Tim. ii. 21. * Acts xiii. 1-4. PltErARATIOX AND TRANSITION. 473 energetic Christian love and zeal characterized the members of the Church at Antioch, — how, before this time, they had shown themselves prompt to take action in the interests of Christ's cause beyond their own borders, and to look not to their own tilings merely, but the things of others. Antioch was at this date the most advanced post of Christianity, pushed far out from the Holy Land into the very centre of heathendom. There could not fail to be in such a Church not a little serious thought and prayer, especially among its leading men, regarding their responsibility and duty, not only with respect to their heathen fellow-countrymen in and around the city, who had proved themselves already so open to the Gospel, but with respect to the vast heathen world beyond, lying in darkness and sin. It seems probable that the special services mentioned in the passage above cited — the earnest waiting on the Lord, the concentration of spirit, and with- drawal from sources of outward distraction, which are implied in New Testament fasting — had some reference to this momentous problem, and the need of further light regarding it. The answer given by God seems to show the nature of the requests, which had gone up to Him from the hearts of the believers in Antioch. " As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost " spoke in their assembly, calling the men suited, above all others, to go as evangelists to the Gentile world, and leading the Church to recognise the call, and to act upon it. We have here the first formal appointment of missionaries in the apostolic Church. Let us note the connection and significance of the successive steps by which it took place. 1. The initiative, if we may so speak, comes from above. The call of the Holy Spirit to the work forms the primary and essential element in the commission of Barnabas and Saul ; ^ and this is received in connection with special and united waiting on the Lord, on the part of those called, and other believers in Antioch. "The middle force of T,> See above, pp. 114-117, 157 f. 2 Gal. iii. 7-H. * "God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to sliiae upon us, that Thy way may he known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations. Let the peoples praise Thee, 0 God, let all the peoples praise Thee." Ps. Ixvii. 1-3. Comp. Ps. xlvii. 8 ; Ixviii. 28-35, etc. * Actsxiii. 27 (in Paul's first recorded address on the Gentile mission); 2 Tim, i. 5 ; iii. 15 ; Ps. Ixxxvii. 3-6 ; Isa. ii. 1-5 ; xix. 23-25 ; xlii. 5-7 ; Jer. xxxi. 35 f. ; Micah iv. 1 f. ; Hag. ii. 6-9. * Luke ii. 31 f. Comp. Acts xiii. 47 ; xxvi. 23. ITS RELATION TO THE JEWS. 481 synagogue of the Diaspora ? Might it not be the crowning " glory of God's people Israel," " our twelve tribes earnestly serving God night and day," ^ to be His great instrument for the evangelization of tlie world, that so " in Abraham and in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed " ? It was not to be so for Israel, as a nation, at this time, rrophetic utterances, which pointed to this darker issue, seem more and more to have weighed upon the mind of Paul, as his work went on. But how natural that he should cling, as long as might be, to "the larger hope" for his brethren and kinsfolk according to the flesh, and that it should quicken and stimulate his efforts, as he turned unweariedly, in each new sphere of labour, " to the Jew first " ! ^ It was at all events his part to go on step by step, as the Lord opened up the way. It was at least right that the opportunity of receiving the Gospel for themselves, and being in their collective capacity the means of spreading the Gospel among the Gentiles, should be offered first to Israel in each of the great seats of the Dispersion, in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Eome. If the children of Abraham in these great representative centres of Jewish life despised their birthright, and refused the work of "a prophet unto the nations " for good, then the apostle might well turn finally to the Gentiles.'^ From one utterance of I'aul's after another in the Acts, and from a striking section in the Epistle to the Eomans, we may gather with what deep and thrilling feelings he pondered these things, as he beheld the purposes of God towards Israel and the Gentiles gradually unfolding before him in the facts of history and the experiences of his own ministry, and as he recognised the meaning of the facts, and the great principles of Divine sovereignty, election, and grace, which were embodied in them, reading all in the light which the Holy Spirit shed upon the Word and the Providence of God. Yes, Israel, as a people, had stumbled and fallen, as the prophets had foretold, but not for ever ; and meanwhile, 1 Acts xxvi. 7. ' Zech. viii, 20-23 ; xiv. 16-21. 8 This point is well developed by K. Schmidt, Apostelgesch. S. 480-486. 2 U 482 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. " by their fall, salvation had come imto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Their fall was the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles ; how much more their fulness ? . . . ' The receiving of them ' into the ibid of Christ, ' the grafting of them in again into their own olive tree,' should, when it came at last, be ' as life from the dead.' " ^ Yet even now there was " a remnant, an election of grace," from among the children of Abraham, according to the flesh. It was only '"' in part " — although, alas, the largest part — " that a hardening had befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved." There was a chosen company, like Obadiah and the seven thousand in Israel in Elijah's time, to whom the apostle's heart went out with a special warmth of love. They were " brethren," both " according to the flesh " and " in the Lord." " The election obtained that which Israel (the majority of the nation) seeketh for ; and the rest were hardened, according as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor . . . unto this very day." ^ Those who formed this " election of grace " did obtain the birthright, which should have been the portion of " all Israel." They both received themselves " the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus," and were most effective helpers to the apostle afterwards, in spreading that blessing among the Gentiles. Paul did not spend his strength in vain when labouring in every place, first of all, in the synagogue, although amid much opposition and disappointment. The only case in which no success in this field seems indicated, is that of the synagogue in Athens. And there, it is to be noted as an exceptional fact, the apostle began work simul- taneously in both spheres, and appears from the first to have given his main strength to the heathen. But, as a rule, in every Church planted by Paul during this period, there were more or fewer believers of Jewish origin, and others who had been proselytes under synagogue training. Among the apostle's best helpers in each Christian community on Gentile 1 Acts ix. 20, 29 ; xiii. 16 f., 26 f., 46 ; xvi. 3 ; xviii. 6 ; xxii. 1 ff. ; xxiv. 17 ; xxvi. 6 f. ; xxviii. 17-20, 25-28 ; Rom. ix. ; x. ; xi. =» Rom. ix. 6-8, 27 ; xi. 2-5, 7 f., 26. Paul's methods of mission work. 483 ground, not a few were like tlie tliree Jewish Christians, of whom he makes such emphatic mention in writing from Eome to Colossa3 : " Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision ; these only are my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, men that have been a comfort unto me." ^ The Jewish synagogue or proseucha, in every place to which the missionaries came, was the natural starting-point for their work. It gave a vantage ground, which was not needlessly to be thrown away. It was sure to afford some points of contact with those Gentiles, who were most open to the Gospel, through the proselytes, in the stricter or looser sense of the term, who had gathered round the local Jewish community. Besides working in the synagogue, until driven out by persecution, Paul and his associates made known the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles in the open air, in the market-place, in rooms hired or lent for their meetings, from house to house, and by whatever other way was open to them for the purpose.^ Whether specially designed for a synagogue audience or a Gentile one, the apostolic addresses, which have reached us from this period,^ are all framed on the same general lines. They consist essentially of an appeal to facts and to con- science, with an appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures, where these were known, and to natural religion, where the hearers have hitherto been without a written revelation. In other words, the same method is employed which was used by the Apostle Peter on Hebrew Christian ground ; only it is adapted now to the circumstances, not merely of Jewish, but of mixed or purely heathen audiences. The substance of Paul's message to his fellow-countrymen, and to those who, although of Gentile birth, had already come to fear God and know something of His Word, could not be 1 Col. iv. 10 f. - Acts xiii. 4'2 iY. ; xiv. 1 ff., 7 f., 13 ; xvi. 13 ; xvii. 17, 22 ; xviii. 7 ; xix. 7 f. ; XX. 8, 20. Comp. Lecliler, Apost. u. nachapost. Zdtcdter, 3te Aufl. S. 104-107, E. Tr. Edin. 1886, i. pp. 132-135. ' Some of these are mere fragments or notes of speeches ; all of them, pro- bably, are more or less summarized. 484 THE GENTILE CimiSTIAX CHURCH. more clearly summed up than in the two sentences which describe his work in Damascus. " Straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of God." Thereafter, as " Saul increased the more in strength," — possibly after his return from Arabia, — " He confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the Christ." ^ It was Peter's confession in both its clauses, taken up afresh by this powerful voice, this new and most un- challengeable witness. The rock, on which our Lord was to build His Church, stands out as strongly in the case of the future apostle of the Gentiles as it did in that of him who, under Christ, was the chief master builder in Pentecostal times.^ The confession meant even more on the lips of Paul than it had done on those of the earlier apostle. The twelve, in whose name Peter spoke, had learned first of all that Jesus of Nazareth was " the Messiah," " He of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write." They trusted and followed Him as such, with a growing conviction that He was absolutely trustworthy, " the Holy One of God." ^ To the end of their Lord's earthly life. His disciples felt rather than saiv the higher truths concerning His Person. Bat Saul of Tarsus had been led at once to the second and loftiest clause in that good confession. Mighty and terrible events had befallen since I'eter said to Jesus : " Thou art the Son of the living God." In the light of the judgment hall and the Cross, the words stood out now in a new way. Their meaning could not possibly be mistaken by men who knew how the conflict between Jesus of Nazareth and the rulers of Israel had shaped itself, and on what it had turned in the end. Once and again, the Jews had sought to stone Jesus during His public ministry, " because He called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." It was the very point on which, according to the concurrent testi- mony of all the four evangelists, He was condemned before the high priest and the Sanhedrin : " He hath spoken blas- » Acts ix. 20, 22. See above, p. 468. 2 See above, pp. 170-174. ■■' John i. 41 L, 45 ; vi. 67 fF. ; Mark viii. 29. PETER'S CONFESSION TAKEN UP BY PAUL. 485 phemy ; what farther need have we of witnesses ? ... He is worthy of death." " We have a law," His accusers said to the Itoman procurator, " and by that law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." It was the name cast in His teeth on the Cross. " If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross. ... He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him now, if He desireth Him ; for He said, I am the Son of God." " We remember," the chief priests said to I'ilate, " that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive. After three days I rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day." ^ It was on a charge of blasphemy in connection with this name, " the Son of God," that Jesus of Nazareth had been put to death. Every member of the Sanhedrin knew it ; and Saul of Tarsus had sat in the Sanhedrin. It was for the honour of the great and holy name of the Lord God of Israel that " he verily thought with himself that he ought " to persecute to the death all who joined the name of Jesus of Nazareth with the name of Jehovah. Wherever the report went concerning the followers of Jesus, — " this sect which is everywhere spoken against," as the leaders of the Jewish community in Home said, — all Jews knew that it was the charge of blasphemy that was brought against them. The charge had been appealed on both sides, if we may so speak, to the tribunal of God Himself. Was Jesus of Nazareth a blasphemer, or was He what He said ? The answer came from "the Throne of the Majesty in the heavens" on the morning of the third day. It was as Paul wrote afterwards in the first sentence of his greatest Epistle : " The Gospel of God is concerning His Son, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh, but declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holi- ness, by the Resurrection from the dead : even Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship unto obedience of faith among all the nations for His name's sake." ^ 1 Matt. xxvi. 63-66 ; xxvii. 40-43, 54 ; Mark xiv. 61-64 ; xv. 39 ; Luke xxii. 70 f. ; John v. 18 ; xix. 7 ; ^latt. xxvii. 63 f. =* Koni. i. 1-5. 486 THE GENTILE CHIIISTIAN CHUECH. We have seen already that the original apostles were witnesses, first of all and chiefly to Christ's Eesurrection. That one stupendous fact proved His Divinity. It settled for ever the whole controversy between Jesus and the rulers of Israel, as to who He was, and from whom He came. And now another witness was qualified to speak to this. " Last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He appeared to me also." ^ Paul had seen and heard Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead, clad with light as a garment, even the light of God- head, before one gleam of which all creatures were cast to the earth. Nothing henceforth could ever shake his belief in this truth, which he knew as he knew that he lived him- self. Other things might be dim to him, or altogether dark as yet. He needed much time and earnest study, ere he could speak of them as he did in after years. But one mighty truth stood out from the first clear as that " light, above the brightness of the sun," in which it was revealed to him on the Damascus road, namely, the Divinity of " the Lord, even Jesus who appeared unto him in the way." On this he could take his stand, as on a rock of adamant, against the whole world. At the bidding of the messenger sent him by the Lord, " Saul arose, and was baptized," " calling upon His name," receiving the assurance of the forgiveness of his sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. " And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of God." ^ Then as he went on " increasing the more in strength," in the gifts of the Spirit, and in knowledge and grasp of the Scripture statements bearing on the subject, he advanced from simple testimony to reasoning from facts of testimony, and from the Word of God. " He confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving (a-vfi/3i^a^(ov) that this is the Christ." He proved it, as the word implies, by " putting things side by side," ^ making comparisons and drawing conclusions. He did so with all the power and the resources of a mind trained, as his had been, in the highest learning of the Jewish schools, under the guidance of the foremost teacher of his day. Paul set the life, and death, ^ 1 Cor. XV. 8. 2 Acts ix. 17-20 ; xxii. 15 f. " Lumby, Acts, p. 199. Peter's confession taken up by paul. 487 and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth alongside of the picture, drawn by the prophets, of what the Messiah should be, aud do, and suffer, and drew the irresistible conclusion : " This is He that should come." Such was the method which Paul seems always to have followed on his missionary journeys, wherever he could assume some knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures on the part of those to whom he spoke. In Thessalonica, for example, where the number of persons of Gentile origin who frequented the synagogue seems to have been unusually great : " for three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scrip- tures, opening and settiug forth {irapaTtOeixevo'^) that it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded, and con- sorted with Paul and Silas ; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few." ^ It was most natural that Paul, in ordinary circumstances, should begin with what formed the second part of his work at Damascus, the proof from Scripture, and from the facts of our Lord's earthly life, that Jesus was the Christ. This was the path by which our Lord Himself had led His first dis- ciples in Galilee and Judaea, step by step, to know Him first as " the Christ," and then as " the Son of the living God." At what stage in the mission, in any particular place, it might be best to pass on, from the proof that Jesus was the j\Iessiuh, to the further proof that He was the Son of God, would depend on the circumstances of each case. To begin with that second thesis would probably, in most cases, have closed the doors of the synagogue at once against the preacher. How such discourses, as are indicated in outline in the passage last cited, were filled up in detail, may be seen in the specimen instance given us of Paul's preaching in the syna- gogue of Antioch in Pisidia.^ Starting, probably, from the portions of " the law and the ^ Acts xvii. 1-4. * Acts xiii. 14-41. There are minute touches in the account of tliis scone which seem to show that it came from an eye aiul ear witness. Conip. €. Acts ii. 32-39 ; v. 31 f. M Pet. i. 11, 18 f.; ii. 24 ; 1 John i. 7 ; ii. 1 f. =« Acts xvii. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 8. ' Rainy, " Paul the Apostle," p. 31, in Ecaiujdkal Suca axion LtrUurs, Edin. 1882. 494 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whicli the workl hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." ^ This is not the place to point out how natural it was that there should be this difference between Paul and the Twelve in this matter, and how strongly the fact that it exists, confirms the history of the different experiences through which they were respectively led to " receive grace and apostleship" from the Lord.^ It is enough for our present purpose to repeat, what we have already shown, that the Gospel message itself was one and the same, as carried to the circumcision by the Twelve, and to the Gentiles by their apostle, although with a certain difference in accent and emphasis, in the way and to the extent now indicated. It was on the broad and sure foundation of this one apostolic Gospel that " the Churches of the Gentiles," as Paul calls them,^ were founded and built up by him, as a wise master builder, and by other evangelists and teachers, who laboured in his spirit. And the same fruits followed, wherever their message concerning Christ wa,s received, as had been seen in Pentecostal days at Jerusalem. The same new life and joy in the Holy Ghost, the same brotherly fellowship, were manifest in every Gentile Christian Church. The same gifts of the Holy Spirit were received. Paul him- self had shared in the fellowship of the original Christian community at Jerusalem during the fifteen days spent by 1 1 Cor. i. 23 f. ; Gal. vi. 14. - " It is not exactly the Christ of the Gospels who comes before us in the ■writings of Paul. No doubt he lets us see that the vision, which the Gospels set before us, was also before his mind ; and words of our Lord, delivered in His earthly ministry, and preserved by those who heard Him, were precious to Paul, and were reverently reproduced to guide the Churches, as need required. Still, the Christ of Paul is the Lord who met him by the way. It is Christ dead, risen, and ascended ; it is Christ, with the reason and the result of His finished work made plain ; Christ, with the significance for believers of all His wonderful history shining out from Him : Christus vestitus Evangelio. ... No longer is He hedged about by the necessities of mortal life ; no longer tied by earthly bonds to some places, and some men, and one nation. He is glorified ; all fulness dwells in Him ; in Him all the purposes of God are seen to centre." See the whole of this fine and suggestive passage in Dr. Rainy's Lecture, cited above, p. 29 f. ^ Rom. xvi. 4. PRESENCE OF CIIIJIST IN THE CHURCH. 495 liira under Peter's roof, in the inmost circle of the Hebrew Christian Church ; again when, with Barnabas, he visited " the brethren which dwelt in Judrea ; " and yet again at the Council in Jerusalem. Some three years after that last visit, and not twenty-five years after Pentecost, he wrote his earliest epistle. In it he speaks of the Thessalonians, as " imitators (fiifirjTol ejevrjOrfTe) of the Churches of God which are in Judtiea in Christ Jesus." The immediate reference, indeed, is to fellowship in sufferings ; but it is clearly implied that the sufferings were borne in both instances in the same spirit; and what that was, in the case of the Thessalonians, the apostle states in tlie opening sentences of his letter : " Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance . . . and ye became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much afliiction with joy of the Holy Ghost." " The letters of the Apostle Paul," Lechler says truly, " are full of such notes of holy gladness, coming not only from his own heart, but from the hearts of the Churches founded by him." ^ We hear them rising from the narrative of the Acts also wherever it speaks of the first-fruits of the Gospel among the Gentiles.^ All the great characteristics which marked the apostolic Church on Hebi-ew Christian ground, reappear in this second period of its history, in the field of Gentile Christendom, 2nd. "We have still the I'resence of Christ Himself in the midst of the Church, speaking and acting in and through His servants. It is " the hand of the Lord " which is " upon Elymas," the first open opponent of the Gospel in the Gentile mission. It is " the teaching of the Lord " that is received by the proconsul. At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas " speak boldly in the Lord, which bare witness unto the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." " I will not dare " — Paul said, looking abroad, after years of mission work, ^ 1 Thess. ii. 14 ; i. 5 f. Lechler, Apost. u. nacJiap. Zeilalt. 3te Aufl. S. 34, E. Tr, i. p. 40. '■^ Comp. f.fj. Acts xiii. 48, 52 ; xv. 3 ; xvi. 34. 496 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. upon tlie world in which the Gospel was now being preached by many voices " to every creature under heaven " — " to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, so that from Jerusalem, and round about even unto lUyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ." ^ Christ's presence abides with the newly organized Churches of Lycaonia, when their first teachers had to leave them with little hope of seeing the faces of the brethren again in this world. "They com- mended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed." '"^ His presence and power are felt, according to His promise, wherever, on Gentile as on Hebrew ground, " two or three of His disciples are gathered together in His name." " In the name of our Lord Jesus," Paul writes to the Church at Corinth regarding the exercise of discipline in the case of a brother who had sinned, — the very connection in which the original promise was given,^ — " ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." * What was thus known and realized throughout the Gentile Churches in the facts of Christian experience, was developed in doctrinal form by the apostle of the Gentiles, especially in his later epistles. We see this in what he says -of " the building of God," "the House of the living God," "the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone, in whom each several building, 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." ^ Such truths regarding the relation of Christ to his Church are embodied in those images of vital union so powerfully used by Paul, — the Bridegroom and the Bride, the Head and the members of the body, etc.'^ ^ Acts xiii. 11 f. ; xiv. 3 ; Rom. xv. IS f. 2 Acts xiv. 23. Comp. xiii. 52. » See above, pp. 177 tf., 185-190, 193. < 1 Cor. V. 4 f. Comp. chaps, iv. 17 ; xi. 23 ; xiv. 37 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 3 ; Ai-t.s xvi. 7-10 ; xxiii. 11. •• 1 Cor. iii. 9 ; xi. 17 ; Eph. ii. 19-22. 6 Rom. xii. 4 f. ; Epli. iv. 15 f. ; v. 29-32 ; Col. i. 18, 24-28. SCKIPTURE Tllli SUPREME STANDARD. 407 But Upon this wide and interesting field we cannot enter here/ 3rd. The Word of God holds still the supreme place in the Church, as the one authoritative standard of appeal in all matters of faith and duty. We have seen how the Scriptures form the starting-point of every address of the apostle of the Gentiles wherever he could take for granted that his audience bad some acquaint- ance with the Old Testament. The teaching of Paul and Larnabas in the Church at Antioch, during the time which they devoted to the systematic instruction of the converts there, consisted, doubtless, like that of the twelve at Jerusalem after Pentecost, in an exposition of "the things written in Moses and the Psalms and the prophets concerning the Christ," read in the light of what eye and ear witnesses could tell of the words and deeds and sufferings of the Lord Jesus.^ The mother Church of Gentile Christendom was thus itself grounded and built up in the faith for years, before its two leading teachers could be spared for mission work. After their first Evangelistic tour, I*aul and Barnabas betook them- selves again, " for no little time," to their former work at Antioch. They returned to it a third time after the Church there had been shaken by controversy, and " tarried in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of the Lord, witli many others also." '^ The same process of regular Scripture teaching went on in every little community won to Christ from among the heathen. One of the most admirable parts of the Jewish synagogue system, its thorough training of the young in the knowledge of God's Word, " passed over," as a Christian writer of the fourth century says, " by tradition to us." * Children in Christian house- holds among the Gentiles were everywhere " trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," learning His command- ' See I5annerman, Church of Christ, i. pp. 194-200, -203-210. Beyschlag, Christt. Gtmindeverf. im Zeitult. des N. T., S. 51 H". '■' Conip. Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antioch, p. 409 f. •■' Acts .\i. 26 ; xii. 24 f. ; xiii. 1 ; xiv. 28 ; xv. 1 f., 35. * Hilary the deacon, quoted above, p. 292. See also pp. 142 f., 159 f. 2 I 498 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. merits.^ The amount of knowledge of the Old Testament, which Paul, Peter, and John take for granted in the case of every one of the Gentile Christian Churches to whom they write, is sufficient proof of the universality and the thoroughness of the instruction in the Hebrew Scriptures (of course in the Greek translation), which was given and received in every part of Gentile Christendom. Alongside of the Old Testament Scriptures are now set, first, the oral Gospel, of which Luke speaks, " the things " concerning the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, " as they delivered them unto us who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word;"^ and secondly, the writings of the apostles. No utter- ance of the Spirit in ordinary believers, not even on the part of those who claimed prophetic gifts, is allowed to rank in point of authority with the letters of " the apostles of the Lord." " If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet or spiritual," Paul wrote to the Church in which spiritual gifts of an extraordinary sort were most abundant, " let him take knowledge of the things that I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord." " We received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God ; which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth. . . . We have the mind of Christ." " I adjure you by the Lord that this Epistle be read unto all the brethren." " If any man obeyeth not our word by this Epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him." "When this Epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans ; and that ye also read the Epistle from Laodicea." " The Eevelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His servants. . . . Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein." ^ It was thus that the second part of Christ's great com- ' Eph. vi. 1-4. Corap. 2 Tim. iii. 14-17. - Luke i. 1-4. 3 1 Cor. ii. 12-16 ; xiv. 37 ; 1 Thess. v. 27 ; 2 Thess. iii. 14 f. ; Col. iv. 16 ; Rev. i. 1-3 ; xxii. 18 f. Comp. Bannermau, Inspiration, jip. 370-375, 386 f., 395. THE LIVING VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 499 mission was carried out in the Churches of the Gentiles, and believers were " taught to observe all things, whatsoever He commanded them ; " so doing. His disciples found that " He was with them all the days, even unto the end of the world." 4th. The living voice of the Church itself is now heard, speaking to all believers concerning present truth and duty, in the name of its Lord, and with an accent of authority ; and its utterances are received everywhere as carrying a peculiar weight, and deserving, ^rnm^i/aa'f, to be obeyed. This is one of the fruits of growing faith on the part of the Church in its unseen Lord and in the Holy Spirit, and of grow- ing experience of the certainty of the two great facts, already noted, — that Christ was really present with His people always when " gathered together in His name," and that in the written Word of God, along with the oral Gospel and teaching of the apostles, interpreted by the Spirit, the Church had a sufficient and unfailing rule for its guidance at all times. Throughout this second period of the history there is a manifest growth in Christian manhood on the part of the apostolic Church. Great questions, doctrinal and practical, are dealt with and decided aright in a spirit of believing courage, not in the light of any new revelation, but by careful application of the mind of the Church to interpret for itself the meaning of the Word and the Providence of God, to grasp and apply Scripture principles, already given, to new circumstances and emergencies. The means by which this is done, in dependence on the Lord's promised guidance, are simply the ordinary methods of conference and debate, and gradual ripening of the judgment of the Church through representative institutions, such as those with which all Hebrew Christians and their fathers before them liad been long familiar under the synagogue system. Questions are extricated from local entanglements, and referred for consideration and decision to the assembly of " the apostles and elders at Jerusalem," in the light of open, brotherly discussion, and under the guidance of the leading minds of the Church.^ The decision thus reached is authori- tative, and obedience is claimed for it, as sent forth to the ' Regarding the different steps in the transaction, see below, cliap. iv. 3rd. 500 THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. believers elsewhere, in virtue of the authority of the assemLly or council of the Church by which it was enacted. As Paul and his company passed through the Churches, " they delivered them the decrees for to keep, which were ordained of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem." ^ The decision was authoritative because coming from such a representative assembly, acting as the ordinance of Christ for such ends in His House. The voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking in the Scriptures, and speaking also in the work of grace among the Gentiles, was distinctly heard by the office- bearers of the Church met in Christ's name " to consider of this matter ; " and they were well assured, therefore, that their decision, reached after considerable difference of opinion, and by the ordinary means open to the Church in all ages, was in accordance with His will. " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost (as speaking in the Word, and setting His seal on the conversion of the Gentiles), and to us (as interpreting His mind thus conveyed to us, and ' having come at last to one accord ' in our interpretation ^), to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things." ^ They are assured that Christ's Presence has been " in the midst of them " when thus " gathered together in His name," and that His promise has been fulfilled, that " what things they have bound on earth have been bound in heaven, and what things they have loosed on earth have been loosed in heaven." * 5tL The position held by women in the Gentile Christian Church. Prom this important and interesting subject we must resolutely turn for the present. Two general remarks only may be made. In the second as in the first period of the history, there is the warmest and fullest recognition of the place and services of believing women in the Church. The lists of greetings in the Pauline Epistles alone would be enough to prove this. Yet certain differences appear in the Gentile Christian period, both in the way of lines ^ Acts Xvi. 4 f . * "Elo^iv hfiiy, y'.vofiivoi; ofioSuuecioM, ActS XV, 25. 3 Acts XV. 2-6, 22 f., 28 ; coinp. 1 Cor. xi. 16 ; 1 Tim. iii. 15. * See above, pp. 176 f., 185-190. POSITION AND WORK OF WOMEN. 501 being indicated, beyond which spiritual enthusiasm and con- sciousness of new gifts were not to carry Christian women, and also in the way of more formal recognition and organiza- tion of women's work in the Church. Our limits forbid our entering on either of these aspects of difference. With regard to the first, it might easily be shown, from a true exegesis of the passages in whicli it appears, that the restrictions laid by the apostle Paul, in particular, upon the public ministry of women are grounded by him not on temporary social customs, but on deeper and more abiding reasons connected with woman's physical constitution, and her relation to man as created.^ With respect to the further development and organization of women's work in the Church, we have the beginnings of deaconess work distinctly indicated. " Phoebe, a deaconess of the Church that is at Cenchreoe " {ovaa ZiaKovot t?}9 eKK\r)ala.n^:is, to which Paul refers in 1 Cor. xii. 28, could not work in any efficient way without being recognised as such by the Church ; and just in proportion to the size and scattered condition of the Christian community in Corinth is it unreasonable to deny the existence of such recognized rulers on the ground of a mere argument e sihntio. It is highly improbable that this Church at the time of the first Epistle, five years after its original foundation, was still without a body of stated office-bearers. And in addition to all this, we have the testimony of Clemens Romanus [before the end of the first century] writing iirecisely to this Church at Corinth, who, with special reference to the Corin- thians, expressly ascribes the institution of the office of rulers and helpers to the apostolic initiative." — Christliche Gemeiyidei^crf. S. 656. Comp. Dale, Congreg. Principles, pp. 64-67. Dr. Rigg's argument against this view seems weak and inconclusive, Church OrfjanizcUion, pp. 32-37. 2 L 530 CHURCH ORGANIZATIOX DURING SECOND PERIOD. to stated ordinances in the department of worship.-^ Tlie same thing is true with respect to ordinances and appointments relating to the spiritual oversight of the Church., its discipline, the general administration of its affairs, and orderly procedure in its assemblies. Careful provision is made for the interests of this whole department of Church life and action. General principles are laid down, especially by the apostle Paul, bearing upon this field, and capable of wide and varied application. " God is not a God of confusion," he reminds the Corinthians, " but of peace, as in all the Churches of the saints." " Let all things be done in seemly form, and according to order." " I beseech you, brethren, — ye know the household of Stephanas, that they have set themselves to minister unto the saints, et9 SiaKovLav rol'i djLOLurpose" (Lindsay, Acts, ii. p. 58). In Derbe, after they had been driven from Lystra by persecution, Paul and liarnabas "made many disciples." Acts xiii. H-52 ; .\iv. 1-21. 532 CHURCH ORGANIZATION DURING SECOND PERIOD. stated in the narrative. They returned in order that they might "confirm the souls of the disciples," that they might give them suitable counsel and encouragement in vievs^ of the persecutions to vi^hich they were exposed, and especially that they might organize the Christian communities, in each centre where converts had been made, by the appointment of elders. " And when they had appointed for them elders in every Church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed." ^ There could hardly be a more striking proof of the import- ance attached by Paul and his fellow-labourers to the right organization of the Churches of the Gentiles, and of their conviction that the steps which they took in this respect were in accordance with the mind and will of Christ for the spiritual good of His people. So far at least as regards this primary office of the eldership, the organization of the Church of Christ was not a matter to be left to chance, or to develop itself on different lines, according to circumstances and the predilections of the first converts in each locality. Whether the founders of these infant societies would ever be able to return to them again, after this second visit, was very doubtful. It might well be, as Paul said afterwards in similar circumstances to the elders of Ephesus, that " they all should see his face no more." ^ But, for the maintenance and propagation of this fundamental office of oversight and administration in the Church, the presence of an apostle was unnecessary. " These elderships, once established, were self-acting," ^ in the Chris- tian Church, as in the Jewish synagogue. They could take all needful steps, with the concurrence of the members of the congregation, to add to their number, or to form other elder- ships in congregations which might spring up in neighbour- ing localities around the mother Church. The blessing of Christ, and all needful gifts of the Spirit, might be confidently looked for from Plim in connection with His own ordinances for government and pastoral care in the Church, not, save in exceptional circumstances, apart from these, nor if oppor- ^ XiipornMrnTOLiTii Vi auroTs TpirfivTipovs xar ixxf.ririav, ■rp^trivldfiivoi fitra vriffTiiuv, Acts xiv. 21 ff. * Acts XX. 25-38. ' Lindsay, Acts, ii. p. 59. See above, pp. 134 S., 138 ff. APPOINTMENT OF ELDERS. 533 tunities for obtaining them were wilfully neglected. It was only after, at much personal risk, Paul and Barnabas had secured the appointment of elders in each of the Churches which they had been the means of founding among the Gentiles, and after special and solemn services in connection with their being set apart to office, that the eldership and the flock under their charge were together, in their mutual rela- tions, finally " commended to the Lord on whom they had believed." Similar action is, in all likelihood, covered by the general expressions used in reference to subsequent tours of visitation by Paul and his fellow-labourers among Christian communities which had been in existence for some time ; as when, after associating Silas with himself, " he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches." It is expressly included in the apostle's instructions to Titus, when left on a temporary mission in a district where the Churches were as yet in an unorganized condition. " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting" (or " left undone," A. V. marg.), " and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge." ^ It is interesting to observe, with respect to the first organization of the Churches of Gentile Christendom, that, in connection apparently with Paul's third visit to Lystra, the eldership or presbytery of that place, — which had been ap- pointed on his second visit, as above noted, — solemnly set apart Timothy for special service as a fellow-worker with the apostle in the field of the Gentile mission. He was a young man, well instructed in the Scriptures from his childhood, who had received the Gospel, along with older members of his family, probably on Paul's first visit. He was now " well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium," having done Christian work apparently at both places. In his ordination to office the action of laying on of hands was used, ' Acts XV. 41 ; comp. x\-i. 4 f.; xix. 1, etc.; Tit. i. 5 ; iii. 12. Titus was probably a Christian of Antiocb. He was, at all events, one who bad been closely associated with the apostle during his earlier niissionarj' journe)*s, and knew well the methods adopted by him in the orgauizatiou of "the Churches of the Gentiles." 534 CHURCH ORGANIZATION DURINCx SECOND PEKIOD. as in ordinations to the eldership in the synagogue, and as had been done when Barnabas and Saul were " separated unto the work " of the Gentile mission, at the bidding of the Holy Ghost, by the prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch. Paul speaks of this memorable event in the history of Timothy in his first letter to him, alluding to prophetic utter- ances in the Church, which had been given in connection with it, and which seem to have had to do with the call to special service being first addressed to him, and with his acceptance of it, — " according to the prophecies, which led the way to thee, that by them thou may est war the good warfare." " Till I come, give heed unto reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." ^ The apostle himself, — as may perhaps be gathered from another reference in his second letter to Timothy, and as was in every way likely in the circumstances, — apparently took part in the services, probably presiding at them, and joined with the pres- bytery in the laying on of hands on one who was " his true and beloved child in the faith." ^ From beginning to end, therefore, of the second period of the history of the apostolic Church, the appointment of elders is regarded everywhere as the first necessity in the matter of organization. We have seen that it was so in all the Churches of Pisidia and Lycaonia, and in every city of Crete. Elders appear in the second section of the Acts, equally with the first, as the recognized and responsible representatives and guides of the Church in every locality. It is in this capacity that the elders of Ephesus are appealed to by Paul on what he regards as his last visit to that region. It is taken for granted in the Epistle of James and in the first Epistle of Peter, that elders are to be found in office among all the twelve tribes of the Christian Dispersion, and that whether 1 Acts xvi. 1-4 ; 1 Tim. i. 18 (R. V. marg.) ; iv. 13 f. 2 1 Tim. i. 2 ; 2 Tim. i. 2, 6 f. Comp. Bannerman, Clnirch of ChriM, ii. pp. 284-288. For an admirable vindication of the authenticity and genuine- ness of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, see Prof. Salmon's Jntrod. to N. T., pp. 488-511. MODE IN WHICH ELDERS WERE APPOINTED. 535 the Jewish or the Gentile element predominated, — the latter probably being the case, as a rule, in the Churches of " Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." They are referred to, under equivalent titles, as existing in the Churches at Thessalonica, at Philippi, at Eome, (probably) at Corintli and Colossse,^ and in the Jewish Christian communities to wliich the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews addresses liimself.^ 1. Mode of appointment. From all our sources of information it appears that the principles on which the appointment of elders was made during the second section of the history of the apostolic Church, were those which we saw exemplified in the appoint- ment of the seven deacons at Jerusalem. The elders are chosen from the membership of the congregation in which tliey are to serve, after some experience had of their Christian character and gifts for the office. They are chosen, as it appears, by the members themselves, or indicated, with the concurrence of the brethren, by men of prophetic powers,""* or by the first founders of the Church on a subsequent visit for purposes of organization. They are formally ordained, or set apart to office, by men already holding similar or higher office in the Church. This is always done with religious services of a special kind, and generally, as it seems, with the laying on of hands in synagogue fashion. All these points, except that of the imposition of hands, are more or less distinctly brought out in the very first refer- ence to the appointment of elders in the Gentile Churches.'' (1.) The appointment of presbyters in the Churches of ' For Corinth, see note at p. 529. For Colosste, comp. Col. iv. 17 with I'hilem. 2. Archippus had received a definite "ministry in the Lord" at Colossoe, and had been definitely set apart to it {i» Tafixa^is). This ministry was one in which Paul counted him as "a fellow-soldier." The phrase does not suggest the deaconship. It was in all likelihood the same office of spiritual oversight and pastoral care of which the apostle spoke to the presbyters of Ephesus, the mother Church of the whole region in which Colossae lay. Comp. Beyschlag, S. 69 f. - Acts XX. 17, 28 ff.; 1 Tim. i. 3 ; iii. 1 f., 5 ; v. 17-20 ; Jas. v. H ; 1 Pet. i. 1 ; V. 1-4 ; Rom. xii. 7 f. ; Heb. xiii. 7 ; xvii. 2-J. 3 As in the case of Timothy. See last page. * Acts xiv. 21-23. 536 CHURCH ORGANIZATION DURING SECOND PERIOD. Lycaoiiia and I'isidia was made, as already noted, not on the tirst visit of Paul and Barnabas, but on the second. A period of from one to two years was interposed between the founda- tion of the Christian community in each place and its formal organization. Time and opportunity were thus given to develop and prove the Christian character and different gifts, natural and spiritual, of all the converts. Paul and Barnabas, in short, acted in this matter on the principles laid down at a later date in the Pastoral Epistles respecting the appointment of office-bearers. " Not a novice {ve6(^vToi2vn '-\, ^nj^n 'i, Chald. NnL*i33 t^^i), a consulting college, which had the charge of order and discipline in the synagogue, punished offenders by admoni- tion and exclusion (hence diroavvdycoyo'i, John ix. 22 ; xii. 42 ; xvi. 2), and managed also the care of the poor. ... Its members were also, no doubt, members of the local synedria (Vitr. p. 553 ff.; Maim. h. Taan. i. 17); but those of its number who were trained in the knowledge of the Scriptures, were, at the same time, as can be inferred from several passages in Philo and from 1 Tim. v. 17,^ the members of the congregation who specially officiated in public worship. They were consecrated to their office by x^ipodecria, probably by the dp'^iavvdycoyo'; and the rest of the elders (Acts vi. G ; xiii. 3, etc.)." The conclusion, even were there no further evidence of historic connection, would be irresistible. These names and functions correspond at every point with those which meet us in the Acts and the Epistles in reference to the elders or overseers (bishops) of the apostolic Church, both on Hebrew Christian and Gentile Christian ground. 3. Relation of the elders to each other. (1.) As already noted, the office of elder in the apostolic Church, as in the synagogue, was a collegiate one. Several elders, as we have seen, were appointed in every congregation. Unless by an apostle in special circumstances, and possibly, in like circumstances, by an apostolic deputy, such as Timothy, no act of government or discipline, no setting apart to office is recorded in the New Testament as done by one man ; and there is no instance whatever in the New Testament of a Church statedly governed by a single ruler. These functions are entrusted only to a collective body. The decision or action is that of the Church or its representatives. The principles of Old Testament Presby- ' Comp. Clem. Rom. ad Cor. xiii., xliv., liv., Ixiii., also the very ancient Homily known as his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, xvii. 19 ; Bishop Lightfoot, St. Clement of Borne, Lond. 1877, pp. 303 f., 333, 389. 2 M 546 CHURCH ORGANIZATION DURING SECOND PERIOD. terianisni are faithfully carried out. What concerns all in the Christian community is done, as far as possible, with the voice and concurrence of all. " For this purpose a college of elders is appointed, that the responsibility may be divided." ^ (2.) A difference of gifts and training is recognised among those who belonged to the one order of the eldership. This corresponded to the distinction in the synagogue presbyteries between the ordinary members of the court, who did a shepherd's work of guidance and oversight (d''d:id), and those who were trained teachers, " wise men and scribes." ^ All presbyters in the apostolic Church were overseers of the flock, and did a shepherd's of&ce therein, guarding and tending it, caring for its welfare, purity, and increase. In seeking to attain these ends, there was a wise division of labour. Each member of the eldership, as of the Church at large, was to use and cultivate the special gifts of nature and of grace which God had given him. " According as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God ; if any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God ; if any man ministereth, ministering as of the strength which God supplieth," "Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith ; or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry ; or he that teacheth, to his teaching ; or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting : he that giveth, let him do it with liberality ; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness."^ Neither in the synagogue nor the Church were all elders alike " apt to teach." That qualification grew more and more desirable as time went on. The extension of ' See above, pp. 99 f., 103, 134 f. "The apostolic plan of assigning a plurality of rulers to every Church, and the prelatic plan of assigning a plurality of Churches to one ruler, are as contrary as can be imagined." Binnie, The Church, p. 127 f. ^ See above, pp. 141-144. 3 1 Pet. iv. 10 f; Rom. xii. 6 ff. Comp. the interesting "Report on the Eldership" given in at the Third General Council of the Alliance of the Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian system, with the papers on the subject by Prof. Chancellor, and James A. Campbell, Esq., M.P., and the discussion that followed. Minutes and Proceedinfjs of Council at Belfast, pp. 374-401. Append, pp. 131-136. DIVISION OF LABOUR IN THE ELDERSHIP. 547 the Church made it less and less possible that each particular congregation should receive the benefit of direct apostolic instruction. The apostles themselves, and men endowed with extraordinary gifts through the laying on of the apostles' hands, were removed by death. And false prophets and teachers arose " to draw away the disciples after them." ^ Hence the growing emphasis laid in the later Epistles of Paul on the importance of having such teaching presbyters in every eldership. They were to be recognised as among the choicest gifts of Christ to His Church on earth ; and suitable provision was to be made for their support. " Having ascended oil high, He Himself gave some . . . shepherds and teachers" for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering unto the building up of the body of Christ." " Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the Word and in teaching. For the Scripture saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his hire." ^ ' Acts XX. 30 ; comp. Matt. xxiv. 11 ; 1 John iv. 1 ; 2 John 7 ff. * reui Ti 'Tei/iivai x. iilarxaXov;. The form of expression indicates that ' the two words describe the same office under different aspects." Bishop Lightfoot, Philippkms, 3rd ed. p. 192. Comp. DodwelFs valuable dissertation, "De I'resbyteris doctoribus," in Migne's Patrol, v. pp. 35-38. 3 Eph. iv. 11 f . ; 1 Tim. v. 17-19. The t4 CHURCH ORGANIZATION DURING SECOND PERIOD. 2nd, Deacons in the Gentile Christian Church. Office-bearers of this class do not appear so early, nor so often as elders, in the notices which we have regarding the organization of the Pauline Churches. This fact is easily- explained from the nature of the case, and from the circum- stances of the Gentile Christian communities. The care of the poor and afflicted, and the care of the Church's treasury, did not demand a separate organization so soon or so impera- tively as the requirements of spiritual oversight and teaching. Paul and his companions risked much, as we saw, in order to establish regular elderships at the earliest suitable time in the Churches of Lycaonia and Pisidia.^ But we do not hear of any appointment of deacons there. Neither does Titus receive any injunction to have deacons ordained in the cities of Crete, where Christianity was of comparatively recent growth. In such cases, especially where the congregations were small, deacons' work might be left for a time in the hands of the elders, according to the practice of the synagogue, with such arrangements as to collectors, etc., as were usual there.^ When growing numbers made the need of a further division of labour to be practically felt, the local eldership might be trusted to take suitable steps for an election and ordination of deacons, after the example of the mother Church at Jerusalem, and in accordance with the directions given to Timothy for Ephesns and the surrounding districts, where Churches had been longer established, and the membership was larger. Only one of the smaller Pauline Churches, so far as we know, that of Philippi, was organized apparently from an early date with both presbyter-bishops and deacons. It is interest- ing to note the fact that, perhaps as the result of this, the Philippian Church was specially distinguished both for its systematic liberality and for the effective way in which the contributions of its members were conveyed to the proper quarter.^ In writing to the Corinthians regarding the Church, under the figure of the body and its members, the apostle refers to those whom " God has set in the Church, first apostles, • See above, pp. 530-533. 2 ggg above, pp. 417-422. sphil. i. 1; ii. 25; iv. 15-19. DEACONS IN THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 555 secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments {avTiX^ylr€t<^cirance of this phenomenon marks the p)criocl of transition from the universal sacerdotalism of the New Testament to the p)aTtieular sacerdotalism of a later age" * 1 r. 244. 2 Dr. Lightfoot refers here to the seven Epistles which he now regards as the product of the genuine Ignatius, although at the date of the earlier editions of his commentary on Philippians he still regarded them as " interpolated and forged," yet originating not later than 150 a.d., and therefore "among the most important of early Christian documents," p. 232. ' P. 249. * Pp. 253-6. The italics are mine, except as regards the epithet "special." The passage is a significant one to all who are familiar with " the appearance of this phenomenon " in the Anglican prayer-book on the most favourable con- struction of its terms. One can hardly wonder that a canon of St. Paul's, even before he became bishop of Durham, should feel the stress of the dilemma between faithfulness to history and its lessons on the one hand, and respect for the formularies of his Church on the other. Several courses might naturally suggest themselves in the circumstances. The course adopted, for example, by BISHOP LIGHTFOOT ON SACERDOTALISM. 5 79 Cyprian was " the first champion of undisguised sacer- dotalism." It is an instructive coincidence, but Dr. Lightfoot, althougli with characteristic candour he notes the fact, does not draw the inferences which will suggest themselves to many minds, — that the parallel development of the organiza- tion of the Church in the direction of prelatic Episcopacy, which had been going on apparently from the time of Ignatius, received its consummation also — until taken up afresh by the bishops of Rome^ — from the hands of Cyprian. " As Cyprian crowned the edifice of episcopal power, so also was he the first to put forward, without relief or disguise, these sacerdotal assumptions ; and so uncompromising was the tone in which he asserted them, that nothing was left to his successors but to enforce his principles and reiterate his language." Dr. Lightfoot regards the view as " correct in the main " which ascribes " this divergence from primitive truth " not to Jewish Christian, but to Gentile influences. The sacerdotalism which was so fully developed by Cyprian was " imported into Christianity by the ever-increasing mass of heathen converts, who were incapable of shaking off their sacer- dotal prejudices, and appreciating the free spirit of the Gospel." the Reformed Episcopal Church of America is a courageous and consistent one. They expunge the term "priest," as applicable to a Christian minister, from their liturgj- altogether, and "condemn and reject as an eiToneous and strange doctrine, contrary to God's Word," the view "that Christian ministers are 'l)riests,' in another sense than that in which all believers are ' a royal priest- hocKl,' " {" Declaration of Principles of the Reformed Episcopal Church," prefixed to their "Book of Common Prayer," Phil ad. 1874). Dr. Lightfoot 's way of escape seems to be the theory of " a wider and looser sense, in which this unsafe nomenclature," he thinks, " cannot well be withheld from the ministry of the Church of Christ " (p. 265). ' "Whence were all those theocratic institutions and aristocratic forms derived, in which the [Roman] Catholic Church found ready to her hand the elements of her future organization ? . . , The true centre and living pillar of [Roman] Catholicism, the organizing and animating i)rinciple of the whole body corporate, is the episcopate. Now, the early idea of the episcopate [e.^r. in the Ignatian letters] was that the bishop was to be to the individual community of Christians, concretely and visibly, what the Jewish Messianic idea in its Christian development represented Christ as being for the Church general in His heavenly dignity. And thus, in the first beginnings of the episcopal con- stitution, we see before us the whole Papal hierarchy of the Middle Ages." Baur, Church Hist, of the First Three Centuncs, 3rd cd. E. T. (Theol. Tran.^1. Fund Library), 1878, p. 112. 580 NOTE B. . . . " The only High Priest under the Gospel, recognised by the apostolic writings, is our Lord Himself." Hence, for a considerable time, a scruple was felt as to applying this title to the bishop even after his presbyters, equally against the tenor of the New Testament, had become " priests." But the scruple was at length set aside. One step on a false path as usual led to another. The analogy of the Jewish hierarchy was too strong to be resisted. The bishop became the " pon- tifex," or " summus sacerdos." " Thus the analogy of the sacrifices, and the correspondence of the threefold order, supplied the material on which the sacerdotal feeling worked, and in this way, by the union of Gentile sentiment with the ordin- ances of the old dispensation, the doctrine of an exclusive priesthood found its way into the Church of Christ." -^ Secondly, at the close of all this conclusive demonstration from Scripture and Church history as to the errors and evils of the priestly theory, and its attendant phraseology, we find Dr. Lightfoot returning, although in a very few sentences, to that unfortunate idea of " a wider and looser acceptation of the word priesthood in which it cannot well be withheld from the ministry of the Church of Christ." If we define a priest as " one who represents God to man and man to God, and who is called by God," for " no man taketh this honour "to himself ; " or, more generally still, as " an officer appointed to minister for men in things pertaining to God," ^ — then we may call Christian ministers " priests." In other words, if we give a vague and arbitrary definition of priest, perfectly different from the distinct sense in which the term is used in Scripture, and which would apply equally well so far as it goes to apostles, prophets, elders, and even deacons (especially in the Anglican view of the last-named office), then, remembering all that this essay tells us of the origin and growth of sacerdotalism in the Church of Christ, we may use this " unsafe nomen- clature " with respect to the Christian ministry. " Only in this case," Dr. Lightfoot thinks, " the meaning of the terms should be clearly apprehended ; and it might have been better if the later Christian vocabulary had conformed to the silence of the apostolic writers, so that the possibility of confusion would 1 Pp. 256 f., 262. 2 p 265 ; comp. p. 243, note. BISHOP ligiitfoot's attitude to sacerdotalism. 581 have been avoided." Nearly eighteen centuries of Church history have shown how " the possibility of confusion," and worse than confusion, from this source is, in point of fact, a certainty. Two rather vague sentences, which seem to point in the direction of the necessity of "apostolical succession" in con- nection with " the threefold ministry," or at least to " our jealous adhesion to it," and suspicion of the Church standing of " Christian communities differently organized," are then balanced by an admirable and vigorous statement of the doctrine that the ministry is not essential to the existence of the Church, however closely connected with its vxll-hcing. " It may be a general rule, it may be under ordinary circum- stances a practically universal law, that the highest acts of congregational worship shall be performed through the principal officers of the congregation. But an emergency may arise, when the spirit and not the letter must decide. The Christian idea will then interpose, and interpret our duty. The higher ordinance of the universal priesthood will overrule all special limitations. The layman will assume functions which are otherwise restricted to the ordained minister." ^ And then the essay closes with an eloquent reference to the way in which the apostolic ideal of the Church and the ministry " was forgotten within a few genera- tions," and yet in spite of human imperfections and errors, the promise of Christ's Presence was fulfilled in the continuous history of the Church. It is to be regretted that the few unsatisfactory sentences to which I have referred should occur in an essay which, as a whole, is so valuable in its bearing on this question. They have not sufficed to avert some abuse from Dr. Lightfoot — for which he was probably prepared — for his " Protestantism ; " but they are certain to be taken advantage of by the sacerdotalists of the Church of England, who always seek the shadow of great names. Such men will ignore the whole of Dr. Lightfoot's powerful argument against sacerdotalism, and shelter themselves under his hesitating approval of a certain amount of sacerdotal phraseology. 1 r. 265 f. ; comp. the remarks in this work, pp. 201-203. 582 NOTE B. History often repeats itself in a curious way. We have an illustration of this in the present case in connection with an even greater name than that of the present eminent Bishop of Durham. Hooker, when defending the position of the Church of England in his Ecclesiastical Polity, evidently feels himself hard pressed by the vigorous onset of Cartwright and others upon this weak point, the sacerdotal phraseology of the Prayer-Book. He tries to minimize the importance of the question, and makes one concession after another. He admits that "when learned men declare what the word ' priest ' doth 'proimiy signify, according to the mind of the first imposer of that name, their ordinary scholies do well expound it to imply sacrifice." ^ He admits, in language which Dr. Lightfoot seems almost to repeat : " In truth, the word ' presbyter ' doth seem more fit, and in propriety of speech more agreeable than ' priest,' with the drift of the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . Seeing we receive the adoption and state of sons by their ministry whom God hath chosen out for that purpose, seeing also that when we are the sons of God our continuance is still under their care which were our progenitors, what better title could there be given them than the reverend name of presbyters, or fatherly guides ? The Holy Ghost throughout the body of the New Testament doth not anywliere call them ' priests.' " Hooker's only refuge, like that of Dr. Lightfoot, is to plead that an improper sense of the word may be allowed. St. Paul in one passage calls " fish " " flesh," because " it hath a proportionable correspondence to flesh, although it be in nature another thing." Why may not we, then, call a Christian minister a " priest," " although he be in nature another thing " ? " The Fathers of the Church of Christ with like security of speech call usually the ministry of the Gospel ' priesthood,' in regard of that which the Gospel hath proportionable to ancient sacrifices, namely, the communion of the blessed Body and Blood of Christ, although it have properly now no sacrifice. As for the people, when they hear ^ Hooker's note on this is: "'h^sua-a/, (vftarcti. Hesych. s.v. hpiiJirai. ' Christus homo dicitur quia natus est ; Propheta quia futura revelavit ; Sacerdos quia pro nobis hostiam se obtulit.' Isid. Orig. iii. 2." RICHARD HOOKER AND BISHOP JOLLY. 583 the name, it draweth no more their minds to any cogitation of sacrifice than the name of a senator or alderman causeth them to think npon old age, or to imagine that every one so termed must needs be ancient, because years were respected in the first nomination of both." ' How little truth there is in this last plea of Hooker's, that hearing constantly the word " priest," " draweth the people's minds to no cogitation of sacrifice," is plain from the history and literature of sacerdotalism in the Church of England from the time of Laud to that of Dr. Newman and Dr. Planning. Some twenty years ago the Dean of Canterbury could declare publicly, that " the majority of the members of Convocation are assertors of exclusive sacerdotalism." '^ And no one who is at all familiar with the teaching of the High Church and Ritualistic party for the last half century, both from pulpit and press, and with its results, can fail to see how effectively for practical purposes the argument can be used with the common people, that because the Prayer-Book calls ministers priests, therefore they really are priests, and offer a true and proper sacrifice at the altar.^ Take two instances only out of a multitude that might be given. The first is from the writings of a respected bishop of the Scotch Episcopal Church. It contrasts rather amusingly with Hooker's state- ment cited above, that " the Gospel hath properly now no sacrifice." " If we deny," says Bishop Jolly, " that there is any proper material sacrifice in the Christian Church, we pull down proper priesthood, and open a door to Socinianism. . . . While the Church of England retains the Christian priest- hood, she retains by implication the Christian sacrifice ; for every priest must have somewhat to offer : sacrifice and priest- hood being correlative terms, they stand or fall together." ■* The other instance is a passage taken, almost at random, 1 Hooker, Ecdes. Pol. v. 78. 2, 3. * Dean Alford, "The Union of Christendom in its Home Aspect," Conlemp. Revieio, Feb. 1868. * "The English of the Prayer-Book, till it is conformed to the English of the Bible, will continue to con\-ey to the congregations which use it, a view of the Christian ministry which the authors of the Prayer-Book would have been the first to repudiate." Binnie, The Church, p. 143. * Bishop Jolly, The Christian Sacrifice in the Eucharist, 2ud ed. p. 139. 584 NOTE B. from a volume entitled Essays on the Reunion of Christendom, edited by the Eev. F. G. Lee, the Secretary of the A.P.U.C, ■with a Preface by the late Dr. Pusey : " The marvel is that Eoman Catholics do not see the wisdom of aiding us to the uttermost. Admitting that we are but a lay body, with no pretensions to the name of a Church, we yet in our belief, — however mistaken, — that we are one, are doing in England that which they cannot do. We are teaching men to believe that God is to he worshijjped binder the form of Bread, and they are learning the lesson from us which they have refused to learn from the Eoman teachers who have been among us for the last three hundred years. . . . How many English Protestants have Eoman priests brought to confession com- pared with the Anglican clergy ? Could they have overcome the English dislike to ' mummery ' as we are overcoming it ? " ^ ^ Essays on Reunion, vii. p. 179 f. IXDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS. AnENDANA (Isaac), on ecclesiastical and civil polity of the Jews, 153. Abraham, Church in the time of, 1-64 ; his relation to the Church, 2 tt'. ; Gospel preached to, 9 ff., 56 H". ; his representative position, 10, 31 H"., 37 ff. ; nature of his faith, 17 ff., 61 ff. ; his covenant name, 54 ff. Alford (Dean), 282, 336, 371, 391, 443, 562. Apostles, meaning and use of the term, 257 ff. ; requisites for their office, 255 ff., 262 ff.; methods of preach- ing, 275 ff., 294 f., 355 ff; their study of the Scriptures, 288, 294 f., 499 ; witnesses of our Lord's resur- rection, 486. Augustine, 39, 90, 116, 189, 211, 217, 238, 364, 389. Bannermax (D. D.) on Sealing Ordin- ances, 308 f., 326, 414; on worship of the Presbyterian Church, 354, 370. Bannerman (Dr. James), on Church of Christ, 31, 48, 67, 144, 146, 192, 203, 23.% 324, 342, 370, 380, 385, 497, 508, 510 f., 551, 568 f . ; on Inspira- tion of the Scriptures, 11, 498. Baptism in relation to circumcision, 52 ff., 118 f.; Christ's teaching re- garding it, 229 ff. ; baptism of prose- Ivtes, 236 f. ; of Christian converts, 308, 324 f.; of infants, 320, 326 f., 510 ; baptism and work of the Spirit, 365 ff. ; mode of administration, 369 ff. ; apostolic teaching, 509. Barry (Canon) on the Lord's day, 382 f. , 389 39L Baur(F. c'.), 408, 528, 579. Beck (Dr. J. T.), 386. Beechcr (Dr. Edward) on B.aptism, 370. Bengel (John Albert), 169, 215, 221, 224, 233. Bcyschlag (Dr. W.) on the constitu- tion of the Church, 171, 191, 193. 203, 224, 228, 269, 410, 432, 497, 528, 540, 555. Binnie (Dr. 'William) on the Church, 105, 234, 248. Bishop, use of the term, 408, 541. Blondel (David), 538. Bonar (Dr. Andrew A.) on Leviticus, 80, 240. Boyd (Robert) of Trochrig, on Church government, 99. Brown (Dr. David) on Romans, 6, 16 ; on John's Gospel, 211. Bruce (Dr. A. B.) on the Humiliation of Christ, 313 ; on the Training of the Twelve, 169, 181, 215, 293, 306, 344, 385. Bruce (Robert) on the Sacraments, 239. Buchanan (Dr. James) on Justification, 19. Bunyan (John), Brown's memoir of, 326 ; Holy War, 346 ; Pilgrim's Pro- gress, 381. Burgon (Dean), 562. Calderwood (David), History of the Church of Scotland, 461, 478. Calvin (John), 5, 19, 46, 60, 123, 192, 224, 231, 291, 414, 443, 508 f. Candlish (Dr. James S.) on the king- dom of God, 34, 69, 71 f., 144, 243 f., 248. Caudlish (Dr. Robert S.) on Genesis, 13, 18, 22, 24, 43, 52, 54, 61, 379. Carson (Dr. Alex.) on baptism, 52. Castclli (D.) on the Messiah, 73. Chazzan, duties of, 148, 405, 421 f. Cheyne(Dr. T. K.), 21. Children, place in Old Testament dis- pensation, 49 ff. ; in the Christian Church, 232 ff., 320 f., 325 f., 368, 502, 508 ff. Church in time of Abraham, 1-64 ; Scripture definition, 1, 63 ; ordin- ance of admission, 39 ff., 48 ff. ; a 586 INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS. centre of blessing, 60 ff. ; from time of Abraham to Exile, 65-103 ; members chosen of God, 68 ft'. ; Old Testament designations, 75 ff. ; sacrificial ob- servances, SO ; spiritual fellowship, 81 ff.; organization, 97 ff. ; Church from Exile to time of Christ, 104-162 ; Christ's teaching, 163-266 ; founda- tion, 164, 171 ff.; power of binding and loosing, 164, 170, 175 ff., 185 ft'. ; unity, 161, 203 flf.; discipline, 177- 194; membership, 222 ff . ; institu- tion or appointments, 229-243 : pas- toral powers, 253 ff.; .special autho- rity, 261 ; representations in the Gospels, 264 ff. ; Church in the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalvpse, 267-269 ; New Testament use oi the term, 267 f. Hebrew - Christian Church, 270-449 ; early life and action, 270 ff.. 298 ft"., 310 ff., 415 ; unity of members, 270, 274, 287, 289, 297, 299, 306 f., 352, 401, 433 ff. ; position assigned to Scriptures, 271, 288, 291, 355, 402 ; growth, 273 f., 289 f., 305, 311, 393, 397 f., 400, 433 f.; work of Holy Spirit, 272 K, 280 tf., 294. 305 ff., 404, 433 : home life, 305, 316, 318, 330, 345, 351 flf.; membership, 307 ff. ; persecutions, 351, 399, 401 ; organizations, 402 f., 404 f., 412, 414 tf., 423, 427 ; first dissension, 413 f. Gentile-Christian Church, 450 - 569 ; characteristics, 451 ; new developments, 453 ; united action, 463 ft'. ; preaching of the Gos- pel, 487tT. ;scriptural standard, 497 If. ; conference, 499 ff. ; admission of con- verts, 502 ff.; edification, 512 ff.; woman's work, 500 ff. ; missionary centres, 520 ff. ; constituent elements, 524 ff. ; elasticity and freedom, 528 ff. ; appointment of elders, 530 ff. ; use of the term in New Testament, 571ft". Circumcision, 39 ff., 48 ff., 118 f., 232 ft"., 319 ft"., 332, 504, 509. Coleridge (Samuel Taylor), 338. Congregation, use of the term, 89 ff. Conybeare and Howson on St. Paul, 491, 523. Cox (Dr. Samuel), 58. Cremer(Dr. Hermann), 36, 85, 90, 94 f., 174, 357, 370. Cunningham (Dr. William) on Histo- rical Theology, 18 ; on Church and State, 304. Dale (Dr. R. W.) on Congregational Principles, 189, 231, 239, 529, 547. Davidson (Dr. A. B.) on Epistle to the Hebrews, 14, 26, 72, 80, 115, 340, 391, 440. Delitzsch (Dr. Franz) on Genesis, 14, 20, 42, 47, 54 f., 58, 60, 92, 341 ; on Epistle to the Hebrews, 85, 341, 364. Diaconate, first appointment, 411-427, 501 ; opinions of Bohmer, Lechler, Ritschl, and Vitringa, 422 ; later Christian Church, 554 ff. Diaspora, or Dispersion, 104-110 ; chief seats, 127 ; relation to Jeru- salem, 153 ; Epistles to, 363 ; basis of the Christian Church, 407 ft'. ; vitality, 431 ; pious homes, 480 ; instrument of evangelization, 481. Dillmann (Dr. August) on Genesis, 14, 60. Discipline, 144 f., 176 ft"., 201 ft". Dods (Dr. Marcus) on Abraham, 11, 50, 54 ; Post-Exilian Prophets, 121, 343 ; Presbyterianism, 125, 136 f., 141, 428. Dodwell (Henry), 547. Douglas (Dr. G. C. M.) on Tent of meeting, 79 ; on assembly and con- gregation, 95. Durham (James) on Revelation, 29 ; on the Visible Church, 250. Dykes (Dr. J. 0.) on Abraham, 4, 10, 21 f., 29 ; Early Christian Church, 279, 282 f., 286, 298, 313 f., 317 f., 331, 358 f., 361, 366, 378, 443, 448, 463, 497. Edwards (.Jonathan), 31. Edwards (Principal), 37, 257, 491, 507. Elders at time of exodus, 97 ff. ; in Synagogue, 134 ff. ; in New Testa- ment Church, 405 ff., 513 ft". ; elected by the congregation, 536 ff. ; functions and qualifications, 539 ff. ; identical with bishops, 541 ; difference of gifts, 546 ft". Ellicott (Bishop), 509. Eusebius of Ctesarea, 337, 469. Ewald (Heinrich) on Revelation, 22, 56 ; History of Israel, 46, 61. Fairbairn (Dr. Patrick) on Typology, 20, 32, 35 ft"., 49 ft"., 63, 385 t'., 517 ; Revelation of Law in Scrip- ture, 57, 391. Farrar (Dr. F. W.), 152, 398, 454, 461, 465, 470, 523. Fremantle(W. H.), 223. GiLLEsriE (George), 21. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS. 587 Godet(F.) on Church of Christ, 37 ; on St. John, 195, 206 ff. 213 f., 226, 252, 256 ; on 1 Corinthians, 376, 508 ; on Woman's Work, 501. Gospel preached to Abraliam, 9 ff., 56 fl". ; relation to Sinaitic legisla- tion, 66 ; j)reached by our Lord, 163 ff. ; in apostolic times, 270 ff., 305, 323 ff., 398 ff., 429, 175 f., 483, 516, 527. Hald.\xe (Robert) on the Sabbath, 516. Harnack (Dr. Adolf), 387, 390. Match (Dr. E.), 144, 336, 429, 563. Hausrath (A.), 143 f., 160, 417, 421. Hefele (Bishop C. J.), 382. Heidegger (J. H.), 2, 558. Hellenists: meaning of the term, 108 ff. ; relation to Hebrews, 412 f., 463, 478 ; Westcott's article, 110. Henry (Matthew), 320, 402. Hilary the Deacon on Scripture train- ing, 292, 497. Hodge (Dr. Charies), 18. Holsten (Cari), 448, 469. House : signification of the term, 75 ff., 86 ff. Howson (Dean) on deaconesses, 501. Ire.\j:us on Baptism, 610. Jacob (Dr. G. A.) on meaning of "house " in New Testament, 87 ff., 118. Jerusalem, 396 ff., 404 ff., 429, 442 ff. Josephus (Flavins), 106, 108, 116, 127, 129, 131, 151, 153, 160, 214. Justin Martyr, 117, 139, 158, 234, 236. Kaddlsh, in relation to the Lord's Prayer, 131. Kahal or Assembly : use of the term, 89 ff Kenrick (Archbishop), 173. Ker (Dr. John), 315. Kustlin(H. A.), 90. Kniuss(A. E.) on the Invisible Church, 2, 94, 175. Kuenen (Dr. Abr.), 109, 125. Lechler (Dr. G. V.) on Apostolic and Post-Ajtostolic Age, 269, 299, 331, 349, 406, 422, 441, 449, 483, 491, 495, 520. Leyrer (E.) on Proselytes, 110, 116 f., 119 f., 237 ; on the Synagogue, 135, 137, 139, 144, 411. Lightfoot (Bishop) on Galatians, 35 f., 45, 257 ff., 337 ; on Philippians, 137, 139, 141, 342, 392 f., 406, 417, 548, 550, 577 (Sacerdotal Theory) ; on Colossians, 355 ; on Ignatian Epistles, 376, 386, 389, 502 ; on Clement of Rome, 545. Lightfoot (Dr. John) on Baptism, 507. Lind.say (Dr. T. M.), 419, 422, 457. Littledale (Dr. R. F.), 173. Litton (E. A.) on Church of Christ, 68, 136, 553, 566. Lord's Day, institution of, 378 ff. ; observance ot, 514 ff. ; writers on, 383, 386, 517. Lord's Supi)er, Institution of, 337 ff. ; ordinance of public worship, 329, 342 f. ; observance of, 375 ff., 514. Lot, last used in electing ollice-bearers, 404. Love-Feast, 375, 515. Lumby(Dr. J. R.)on Acts, 417, 454, 460, 473, 486. Luther (Martin), 18, 199. Mackintosh (Robert) on Christ and the Jewish Law, 244, 250, 313. Macpherson (John) on the Deaconship, 425. Marriott (W. B.) on Baptism, 372, 511. Meyer (Dr. H. A. W.): Commentary on New Testament, 167 ff., 175, 177, 181 f., 185 f., 227, 244, 328, 402, 411, 419, 491, 501. Milligan (Dr. W.) on the Apocalypse, 440. Miracles, 283 f., 306, 310, 318, 357, 399, 459. Mishna, 159. Miiller (Dr. Julius) on Ecclesiastical discipline, 178, 183. Neaxder (Dr. August) on the Plant- ing of the Christian Church, 378, 405. Nitzsch (Dr. K. J.) on Mohler's Sym- bolism, 156, 263. O'Brie.n (Bishop) on Justification by Faith, 18 f. Oehler(Dr. G. F.) on Old Testament Theology, 30. Orelli (C. von) on Old Testament Pro- phecy, 73. Origen on Infant Baptism, 511. Owen (Dr. John) on Infant Baptism, 54 ; on the Lord's Day, 517. Pascal (Blaise) : Thoughts, 56. 588 INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS. Pastoral Epistles, autlienticity of, 534, 541 ff. PHeiderer (Otto) : Hibbert Lectures, 37, 467. Philo on Abraham, 44, 58 ; on the Diaspora, 106 f.. Ill ; on the Syna- gogue, 127, 139, 143, 421. Pliny's Letter to Trajan, 501. Pluniptre (Dean) on the Tabernacle, 78 ; on Proselytes, 115 f., 118 f., 238 ; on Mary Magdalene, 316 ; on the Synagogue, 361 ; on the Lord's Supper, 377, 514; on Woman's "Work, 501. Polycarp, 417. Praise, 354 f., 362, 377, 429, 434. Prayer in public worship, 332 tf., 354, 362, 429. Presbyterianism in the Synagogue, 134 ff., 141 tf., 149 f. ; in the Gen- , . tile Christian Church, 530 ff. ; Dr. Marcus Dods on Presbyterianism, 428. Princeton Essays, 203. Proselytes, 111-122. Rainy (Principal) on delivery and development of doctrine, 11, 21, 30, 37, 70, 73 ; Life of Dr. W. Cunning- ham, 304 ; on the Apostle Paul, 467, 493 f. ; on the Church of Scotland, 540. Kenan (Ernest) on the Apostles, 415, 448, 464. Kendall (Frederic) on the Theology of the Hebrew Christians, 339, 344. Reuss (Edouard) on Old Testament Writings, 106, 128, 151 f., 154 ; on New Testament, 452, 513. Khenford on the Synagogue, 129. Rigg (Dr. J. H.) on Church Organiza- tions, 299, 529. Ritschl (Albert) on deacons, 422. Robinson (Dr. Stuart), 3, 98. Rothe (Richard) on " Dogmatik," 174, 361. Sabbath, 129 ff., 362, 379 ff., 515. Sacerdotalism, 332 f., 335 f., 391 ff., 577 ff. Salmon (Dr. George) : Introduction to the New Testament, 192, 269, 339, 372 Sanday (Dr. W.), 568. Sanhedrin, its origin, constitution, and powers, 151 ff. ; relation to the Apostles, 354, 358, 415. Schaff(Dr. Philip), 373, 511. Schmidt (K.) on the Acts of the Apostles, 269, 475, 481, 490. Scliulz (Hermann) on Old Testament Theology, 122, 156. Schiirer (l5r. Emil) on the History of the Jewish People, 90, 98, 108, 116 f., 119, 128 f., 131, 134, 136 f., 148 ff., 152 ff'., 182, 339, 420, 455, 488. Selden (John), 139, 429. Severus (Alexander), life by Lampri- dius, 135, 538. Smeaton (Dr. George), 343. Smith (Dr. W. Robertson), 113, 355, 430. Smvth (Newman), 518. Stalker (James), 165, 465, 467. Stanton (V. H.) on the Messiah, 73. Stier (Rudolf) on the Words of the Apostles, 490. Stillingfleet (Bishop) on the Romish Church, 173; on "Angel of the Church," 566. Synagogue : meaning of the term, 107; origin and characteristics, 123 ff., 129 ; its worship, 130 ff., 350, 364 ; office-bearers, 134 ff., 148 ; instruc- tion, 142 ff., 159, 292, 497 ; juris- diction, 144 f., 153 ; government essentially Presbyterian, 148 ff., 427, 528 ; attendance of Jesus and His followers, 348, 409, 429. Tacitu.s, 455. Talmud, 127, 130. Targums, 94, Taylor (Dr. C), 116, 143, 156, 372 ff. Taylor (Isaac), on "Ancient Chris- tianity," 374. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 144, 231, 260, 360, 372, 387, 417. TertuUian on Baptism, 510. Tholuck (August), 35 f. Trench (Archbishop), on New Testa- ment Synonyms, 90, 93 f., 338 ; on the Miracles, 205. Van Dyke (Dr. H. J. ) on Infant Bap- tism, 53 f., 511. Vitringa (Campegius) on the Syna- gogue, 89, 91 f., 94, 99, 101, 108, 123 ff'., 127, 129, 135 ff., 147 f., 177, 410 f., 420 f., 429. Wakdlaw (Dr. Ralph) on Infant Baji- tism, 31, 35, 48, 235. Weber (Ferdinand) on the Theology of the Ancient Synagogue, 40, 99, 117, 119, 121, 127, 130, 135 f., 154. Weiss (Bernhard) on New Testament Theology, 287, 501. INDEX OF SUIUECTS AND AUTHORS. 589 Westcott (Ciinoii) : Introiliu'tion to the Gospels, 73, 296 ; coimneiitaiy on John's Gosi)el, 79, 195, 197 f., 206, 211, 219, 221 f., 280, 313, 316. Westniin-ster Shorter Catechism, 19, 54, 308, 327 ; Confession of Faith, 44, 67, 203, 249. Woman's jilace in the Church, 312 ff., 352, 500 t\: "Worship in patriarchal times, 46 If. ; in the wilderness, 80, 155 ; among the Di.spersion, 115-121, 124 ; in Temple, 126, 155 f., 328, 331. Wiin.sche (August) : the Babylonian Talmud, 137. Z.AHN (Theodor) on the Sabbath, 382. Zockler (Otto), 370, 421. THE END. MOKIUSON AND GIBB, EDINBL'RGH, PRI.NTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. T. and T. Clark's Ptiblications. In demy 8vo, Second Edition, price lOs, Cd., THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST, IN ITS PHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND OFFICIAL ASPECTS. Br A. B. 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Clark's Pziblications Just published, in extra Sfo, price 12s., THE SELF-REVELATION OF GOD. BY SAMUEL nARllIS, D.D., LL.D., rROFBSSOR OK SYSTEMATIC TIIEOI.OOY, YAI.B COLLEGE; AUTIIOK OV 'THE I'lIILOSOPIUCAL HASIS OF THEISM.' This work is a restatement of tlie evidence of the existence of God and of the reality of His revelation of Himself, as modified by and in harmony with the legitimate results of recent thought, and meeting scepticism in its present positions. The subject is divided into four parts, the first of which treats of the Revela- tion of God, in the experience or consciousness of man. Three remaining parts are concerned with the verification of this fundamental fact, by the other revela- tions which God makes of Himself, viz. — Part II. His Revelation of Himself as the Absolute Being. Part III. His Revelation of Himself as the Personal God in the Constitution and Course of Nature, and in the Constitution and History of Man. Part IV. His Revelation of Himself reconciling the World to Himself in Christ. ' A notaMy luiniuous ami conviiuiiie- volume' — Christian Leader. Just puhlishcd, in Two Vols., croum Svo, price 16.s., THE APOSTOLIC AND POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. Their Diversify and Unify in Life and Docfrine. By G. V. LECHLER, D.D. 3rf)irtJ eiiition, ttoroutj^^Ig IXcbisc^ nnti Bc^JLJCXrittcn. Traxslated by a. J. K. DAVIDSON. ' In tlio work before us, Lechler works out this conception with great skill, and with ample historical and critical knowledge. He has had the advantage of all the discussions of these forty years, and he has made good use of them. The book is up to date ; so thoroughly is this the case, that he has been able to make room for the results which have been won for the early history of Christianity by the discoverj- of the "Didachfe," and of the discussions to which it has given occasion. Nor is it too much to say that Dr. Lechler has neglected nothing fitted to throw light on his great theme. The work is of the highest value.'— Spectator. ' It contains a vast amount of historical information, and is replete with judicious remarks. ... By bringing under the notice of English readers a work so favourably thought of in Germany, the translator has conferred a benefit on theology.' — Athcmeiua. ' Scholars of all kinds will welcome this new edition of Dr. Lechler's famous work. It has for long been a standard authority upon the subject which it treats. ... The book has not only been "revised," but actually "re-written" from end to end.' — Litcrarii World. T. and T. ClarJis Publications. GRIMM'S LEXICON. Just puhlislied in demy 4/(^, j^^'i-cc 36a'., GIREJK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, BEING (Srimm's ISMiHu's ffl:iaijis Wobi STe'sta'menti. TRANSLATED, REVISED, AND ENLARGED BY JOSEPH HENRY THAYEE, D.D., BUSSEY PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION IN THE DIVINITY SCHOOL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. EXTRACT FROM PREFACE. TOWARDS the close of the year 1862, the " Arnoldische Buchhandlung " in Leipzig published the First Part of a Greek-Latin Lexicon of the New Testament, prepared, upon "the basis of the " Clavis Novi Testamenti Philologica" of C. G. Wilke (second edition, 2 vols. 1851), by Professor C. L. WiLiBALD Grimm of Jena. In his Prospectus Professor Grimm announced it as his purpose not only (in accordance with the improvements in classical lexico- graphy embodied in the Paris edition of Stephen's Thesaurus and in the fifth edition of Passow's Dictionary edited by Eost and his coadjutors) to exhibit the historical growth of a word's significations, and accordingly in selecting his vouchers for New Testament usage to shew at what time and in what class of writers a given word became current, bub also duly to notice the usage of the Septuagint and of the Old Testament Apocrypha, and especially to produce a Lexicon which should correspond to the present condition of textual criticism, of exegesis, and of biblical theology. He devoted more than seven years to his task. The successive Parts of his work received, as they appeared, the out- spoken commendation of scholars diverging as widely in their views as Hupfeld and Hengsteuberg ; and since its completion in 1868 it has been generally acknowledged to be by far the best Lexicon of the New Testament extant.' ' I regard it as a work of the greatest importance. ... It seems to me a work show- ing the most patient diligence, and the most carefully arranged collection of useful and helpful references.' — The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. ' The use of Professor Grimm's book for years has convinced me that it is not only unquestionably the best among existing New Testament Lexicons, but that, apart from all comparisons, it is a M'ork of the highest intrinsic merit, and one which is admirably adapted to initiate a learner into an acquaintance with the language of the New Testa- ment. It ought to bo regarded as one of the first and most necessary requisites for the study of the New Testament, and consequently for the study of theology in general.' — Professor Emil SchOrer. ' This is indeed a noble volume, and satisfies in these days of advancing scholarship a very great want. It is certainly unequalled in its lexicography, and invaluable in its literary perfcctness. ... It should, will, must make for itself a place in the library of all those students who want to bo thoroughly fm-nished for the work of understanding, expounding, and applying the Word of God.' — Evangelical Magazine. 'Undoubtedly the best of its kind. Beautifully printed and well translated, with some corrections and improvements of the original, it will be prized by students of the Christian Scriptures.' — Athenceum. Date Due .«".«-£ - te ":' J c 'd ^^^<^ '■• '~ "/ii ^S^lMi ii Urtfs:' • "»-' MAfi I ft iH ■ •r.?... ^ifiS3SiN«^ mm. JUL 1 1 '