The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles Volume Ii Part 6

We can in this incident see how the Church was slowly but surely developing itself under the Divine guidance. The incident when the order of deacons was inst.i.tuted was the primary step. There was then first manifested that combination of authority and freedom united with open discussion which, originating in the Christian Church, has been the source of all modern society, of modern governments, and modern methods of legislation. Now we see the same ideas applied to questions of doctrine and discipline, till we come in a short time to the perfection of this method in the celebrated Council of Jerusalem which framed the charter and traced out the main lines of development upon which the Church of the Gentiles and true gospel freedom were established.

II. The centre of Christian interest now s.h.i.+fts its position and fixes itself in the city of Antioch, where a further step in advance was taken. Our attention is first of all recalled to the results of St.

Stephen's death. "They therefore that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phnicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none save only to Jews.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus." This is clearly a case of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, and the question has been raised, Was the action of these men of Cyprus and Cyrene quite independent of the action of St. Peter or an immediate result of the same? Did the men of Cyprus and Cyrene preach the gospel to the Gentiles of Antioch of their own motion, or did they wait till tidings of St. Peter's action had reached them, and then, yielding to the generous instincts which had been long beating in the hearts of these h.e.l.lenistic Jews, did they proclaim at Antioch the glad tidings of salvation which the Gentiles of that gay and brilliant but very wicked city so much needed? Our answer to these queries is very short and plain. We think that the preaching of the h.e.l.lenists of Cyprus to the Gentiles of Antioch must have been the result of St. Peter's action at Caesarea, else why did they wait till Antioch was reached to open their mouths to the pagan world? Surely if the sight of sin and wickedness and civilised depravity was necessary to stir them up to efforts for the spiritual welfare of the Gentile world, Phnicia and Cyprus abounded with scenes quite sufficient to unseal their lips. But the force of national prejudice and of religious exclusiveness was too strong till they came to Antioch, where tidings must have reached them of the vision and action of St.

Peter at Caesarea.

It is easy to see why this information reached the missionaries at Antioch. Caesarea was the Roman capital of Palestine, and was a seaport. Antioch was the Roman capital of the province of Syria, an immense extent of territory, which included not merely the country which we call Syria, but extended to the Euphrates on the west and to the desert intervening between Palestine and Egypt on the south. The prefect of the East resided at Antioch, and he was one of the three or four greatest officials under the Roman emperor. Palestine was, in fact, a part of the province of Syria, and its ruler or president was dependent upon the governor of Syria. It is therefore in strictest accordance with the facts of Roman history when St. Luke tells in his Gospel (ii. 2) concerning the taxation of Augustus Caesar, "This was the first enrolment made when Quirinus was governor of Syria." Antioch being then the seat of the central government of the eastern division of the Roman Empire, and Caesarea being the headquarters of an important lieutenant of the Syrian proconsul, it is no wonder there should have been very constant intercourse between the two places. The great magazines of arms for the entire east were located at Antioch, and there too the money was coined necessary to pay the troops and to carry on commercial intercourse. It must have been very easy for an official like Cornelius, or even for any simple private soldier or for an ordinary Jew or Christian of Caesarea, to communicate with Antioch, and to send word concerning the proceedings of St. Peter and the blessings vouchsafed by G.o.d to any devout person who might be there seeking after light and truth.[84] It is quite natural therefore that, while the Christians dispersed into various lands by the persecution at Jerusalem restrained themselves to the Jews alone throughout their previous labours, when the men of Cyprus and Cyrene heard tidings at Antioch of St. Peter and his doings and revelations at Caesarea, they at last allowed free scope to their longings which long ago had found place in their more liberalised hearts, and testified to the Gentiles of Antioch concerning the gladsome story of the gospel. Here again we behold another instance of the value of culture and travel and enlarged intelligence. The h.e.l.lenists of Cyprus and Cyrene were the first to realise and act out the principle which G.o.d had taught St.

Peter. They saw that G.o.d's mercies were not restrained to the particular case of Cornelius. They realised that his was a typical instance, and that his conversion was intended to carry with it and to decide the possibility of Gentile salvation and the formation of a Gentile Church all over the world, and they put the principle in operation at once in one of the places where it was most needed: "When the men of Cyprus and Cyrene were come to Antioch, they spake unto the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus." The method of the Divine development was in the primitive ages very similar to that we often still behold. Some improvement is required, some new principle has to be set in motion. If younger men begin the work, or if souls notorious for their freer thought or less prejudiced understandings, attempt to introduce the novel principle, the vast ma.s.s of stolid conservative opposition and attachment to the past is at once quickened into lively action. But then some Peter or another, some man of known rect.i.tude and worth, and yet of equally well-known narrow views and devoted adherence to the past, takes some hesitating step in advance. He may indeed strive to limit its application to the special case before him, and he may earnestly deprecate any wider application of the principle on which he has acted. But it is all in vain. He has served the Divine purposes. His narrowness and respectability and personal weight have done their work, and have sanctioned the introduction of the principle which then is applied upon a much wider scale by men whose minds have been liberalised and trained to seize a great broad principle and put it into practical operation.

[84] Caesarea and Antioch were about two hundred miles distant from each other by sea. A Roman trireme travelling at express speed would easily have accomplished this distance in two or at most three days.

III. "When they came to Antioch, they spake the word to the Greek also." And verily the men of Cyprus and Cyrene chose a fitting spot to open the kingdom of heaven to the Greek world and to found the mother Church of Gentile Christendom, for no city in the whole world was more completely Satan's seat, or more entirely devoted to those works which St. John describes as the l.u.s.ts of the flesh, and the l.u.s.t of the eye, and the vain-glory of life. Let us reflect a little on the history and state of Antioch, and we shall then see the Divine motive in selecting it as the site of the first great Gentile Church, and we shall see too the Divine guidance which led St. Luke in this typical ecclesiastical history to select the Church of Antioch for such frequent notice, exceeding, as it does, all other Churches save Jerusalem in the amount of attention bestowed upon it in the Acts of the Apostles.[85]

[85] The various Lives of St. Paul and Gibbon in his _Decline and Fall_ give minute accounts of Antioch, its grandeur and wickedness; K. O. Muller's _Antiquities of Antioch_, Gottingen, 1839 is an exhaustive work on the subject; see also Mommsen's _Provinces_, Book VIII., ch. x.

Antioch and Alexandria were towns dating from the same epoch. They came into existence about the year 300 B.C., being the creation of Alexander the Great himself, or of the generals who divided his empire between them. The city of Antioch was originally built by Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the kingdom of Syria, but was subsequently enlarged, so that in St. Paul's time it was divided into four independent districts or towns, each surrounded by its own walls, and all included within one vast wall some fifty feet high, which surmounted mountain tops and was carried at vast expense across valleys and ravines. Antioch was in the first century counted the third city in the world, Rome being first, Alexandria second, and Antioch third. It had marvellous natural advantages. It was blessed with charming mountain scenery. The peaks rising up on all sides could be seen from every part of the city, imparting thus to life in Antioch that sense not merely of beauty and grandeur, but of the nearness of such beauty and grandeur combined with solitude and freedom from the madding crowd which seem so sweet to a man who pa.s.ses his life amid the noise and hurry of a great city. What a change in the conditions of life in London would be at once brought about could the scenery surrounding Edinburgh or Lucerne be transferred to the world's metropolis, and the toiler in Fleet Street and the Strand be enabled to look amid his daily labours upon cloud-piercing mountains or peaks clad in a robe of virgin white! Antioch was built upon the southern bank of the river Orontes, along which it extended about five miles.

The main street of the city, otherwise called the Street of Herod after the celebrated Herod the Great who built it, was four and a half miles long. This street was unrivalled among the cities of the world, and was furnished with an arcade on both sides extending its whole length, beneath which the inhabitants could walk and transact business at all times free from the heat and from the rain. The water supply of Antioch was its special feature. The great orator Libanius, a native of Antioch, who lived three hundred years later than St. Paul, while the city yet stood in all its grandeur and beauty, thus dwells on this feature of Antioch in a panegyric composed under the Emperor Constantius: "That wherein we beat all other is the water supply of our city; if in other respects any one may compete with us, all give way so soon as we come to speak of the water, its abundance and its excellence. In the public baths every stream has the proportions of a river, in the private baths several have the like, and the rest not much less. One measures the abundance of running water by the number of the dwelling-houses; for as many as are the dwelling-houses, so many are also the running waters. Therefore we have no fighting at the public wells as to who shall come first to draw--an evil under which so many considerable towns suffer, when there is a violent crowding round the wells and outcry over broken jars. With us the public fountains flow for ornament, since every one has water within his doors. And this water is so clear that the pail appears empty, and so pleasant that it invites us to drink."[86] Such was the description of a pagan who saw Antioch even as St. Paul saw it, and testified concerning the natural gifts with which G.o.d had endowed it. But, alas!

as with individuals, so is it with cities. G.o.d may lavish His best blessings, and yet instead of bringing forth the fruits of righteousness His choicest gifts of nature may be turned into fruitful seed plots of l.u.s.t and sin. Sodom and Gomorrha were planted in a vale that was well watered and fair and fruitful, even as the Garden of the Lord; but the inhabitants thereof were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly; and so it was with Antioch. This city so blessed in situation and in nature's richest and most precious gifts was celebrated for its wicked pre-eminence amid the awful corruption which then overspread the cities of the world. When the Roman satirist Juvenal, writing about this period of which we treat, would fain account for the excessive dissolution of morals which then prevailed at Rome, his explanation of it was that the manners of Antioch had invaded Rome and corrupted its ancient purity:

"Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes."[87]

[86] The same orator informs us that the streets of Antioch were lighted at night with public lamps. In this respect it stood alone among the cities of antiquity: see Libanius, I., 363, and the notes of Valesius on Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, xiv., 1, 9.

[87] Juv., _Sat._, iii., 62. See Farrar's _St. Paul_, ch. xvi., for a more minute account of the wickedness of Antioch than we can give in this place. He well remarks: "Cities liable to the influx of heterogeneous races are rarely otherwise than immoral and debased. Even Rome in the decadence of its Caesarism could groan to think of the dregs of its degradation--the quacks and pandars, and musicians and dancing girls--poured into the Tiber by the Syrian Orontes.... It seems as though it were a law of human intercourse that, when races are commingled in large ma.s.ses, the worst qualities of each appear intensified in the general iniquity."

Amid the general wickedness of Antioch there was one element of life and hope and purity. The Jews of Antioch formed a large society in that city governed by their own laws and preserving themselves by their peculiar discipline free from the abounding vices of Oriental paganism. It was at Antioch as it was at Alexandria and Damascus. The Jews at Alexandria had their alabarch to whom they owed special allegiance and by whom alone they were ruled; the Jews of Damascus had their ethnarch who exercised peculiar jurisdiction over them; and so too had the Jews of Antioch a peculiar ruler of their own, forming thus an _imperium in imperio_ running counter to our Western notions which in many respects demand an iron uniformity very foreign to the Eastern mind, and show themselves eminently deficient in that flexibility and diversity which found an abundant play even among the arrangements of the Roman Empire.[88] This Jewish quarter of Antioch had for centuries been growing and extending itself, and its chief synagogue had been glorified by the reception of some of the choicest temple spoils which the kings of Syria had at first carried captive from Jerusalem and then in a fit of repentance or of prudent policy had bestowed upon the Jewish colony in their capital city.

[88] We shall have frequent occasions to notice the numerous varieties of rule, privileges, and local liberties which prevailed under the Roman Empire. The Romans seem to have scrupulously respected ancient rights and customs wherever possible, provided only the supreme sovereignty of Rome was recognised.

Such was the city to which the men of Cyprus and Cyrene were now carrying the news of the gospel, intending, doubtless, to tell merely their Jewish fellow-countrymen and religionists of the Messiah whose love and power they had themselves experienced. Here, however, they were met by the startling information from Caesarea. They were, however, prepared for it. They were h.e.l.lenistic Jews like St. Stephen.

They had listened to his burning words, and had followed closely his epoch-making speeches whereby he confounded the Jews and clearly indicated the opening of a new era. But then G.o.d's dispensations seemed to have terminated his teaching and put a fatal end to the hopes which he had raised. Men then misread G.o.d's dealings with His servants, and interpreted His ways amiss. The death of Stephen seemed perhaps to some minds a visible condemnation of his views, when in reality it was the direct channel by which G.o.d would work out a wider propagation of them, as well as the conversion of the agent destined to diffuse them most powerfully. Apparent defeat is not always permanent disaster, whether in things temporal or things spiritual; nay, rather the temporary check may be the necessary condition of the final and glorious victory. So it was in this case, as the men of Cyprus and Cyrene proved, when the news of St. Peter's revelation and his decisive action arrived and they realised in action the principles of Catholic Christianity for which their loved teacher St. Stephen had died. And their brave action was soon followed by blessed success, by a rich harvest of souls: "The hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number that believed turned to the Lord." Thus were laid the foundations of the headquarters, the mother Church of Gentile Christianity.

IV. Now we come to another step in the development. Tidings of the action taken at Antioch came to Jerusalem. The news must have travelled much the same road as that by which, as we have indicated, the story of St. Peter's action was carried to Antioch. The intercourse between Jerusalem and Antioch was frequent enough by land or by sea; and no synagogue and no Jewish society was more liberal in its gifts towards the support of the supreme council and hierarchy at Jerusalem than the Jewish colony and its synagogues at Damascus. And the old custom of communication with Jerusalem naturally led the Nazarenes of Antioch to send word of their proceedings up to the apostles and supreme council who ruled their parent society in the same city. We see a clear indication that the events at Antioch happened subsequently to those at Caesarea in the manner in which the news was received at Jerusalem. There seems to have been no strife, no discussion, no controversy. The question had been already raised and decided after St. Peter's return. So the apostles simply select a fitting messenger to go forth with the authority of the apostles and to complete the work which, having been initiated in baptism, merely now demanded that imposition of hands which, as we have seen in the case of the Samaritan converts, was one of the special functions of the apostles and chiefs of the Church at Jerusalem. And in choosing Barnabas the apostles made a wise choice. They did not send one of the original Twelve, because not one of them was fitted for the peculiar work now demanded. They were all narrow, provincial, untravelled, devoid of that wide and generous training which G.o.d had given to Barnabas. It may be too that they felt restrained from going beyond the bounds of Canaan before the twelve years had elapsed of which ancient Christian tradition tells as the limit of their stay in Jerusalem fixed by our Lord Himself.[89] He was a h.e.l.lenistic Jew, and he could sympathise with the wider feelings and ideas of the h.e.l.lenists. He was a man of Cyprus, a friend and perhaps connexion of many, both Jews and Gentiles, among those whose new-born faith and hope were now in question. And above all he was a man of kindly heart and genial temper and loving thought and blessed charity, fitted to soothe jealousies and allay suspicions, and make the long alienated and despised Gentiles feel at home in the Church and family of Jesus Christ. Barnabas was a person peculiarly fitted to prove a mediator and uniting link in a society where divergent elements found a place and a.s.serted themselves. He was not the man to take a new step or to have decided the question of the admission of the Gentiles if it had not been already settled. He must have come therefore fortified by the authority of the apostles, and then, knowing right well what they approved, he was just the man to carry out the details of an arrangement requiring tact and skill and temper; though he was by no means suited to decide a great question on its own merits or to initiate any great movement. In the Church of G.o.d then, as in the Church of G.o.d still, there is a place and a work for the strong man of keen logic and vigorous intellect and profound thought. And there is too a place and a work for the man of loving heart and a charity which evermore delights in compromise. "Barnabas, when he was come, and had seen the grace of G.o.d, was glad; and he exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and faith; and much people was added unto the Lord." Barnabas had another virtue too. He knew his own weakness. He did not imagine like some men that he was specially strong where he was eminently weak. He felt his want of the active vigorous mind of his friend of boyhood the new convert Saul. He knew where he was living in comparative obscurity and silence; so after a little experience of the atmosphere of Antioch he departed to Tarsus to seek for him and bring him back where a great work was awaiting his peculiar turn of mind. There is an ancient historian of Antioch who has preserved for us many stories about that city in these apostolic and even in much earlier ages. His name is John Malalas; he lived about six hundred years after Christ, but had access to many ancient doc.u.ments and writers that are no longer known to us. He tells us many things about the primitive Church of Antioch. He has his own version of the quarrel between St. Paul and St. Peter which happened in that city; and he fixes even the very spot where St. Paul first preached, telling us that its name was Singon Street, which stood near the Pantheon. This may seem to us a minuteness of detail too great to be believed. But then we must remember that John Malalas expressly cites ancient chronologers and historians as his authorities, and he himself lived while as yet Antioch retained all the ancient arrangements of streets and divisions. And surely Saul, as he travelled from Tarsus responding at once to the call of Barnabas, must have seen enough to stir his love to Christ and to souls into heartiest exertion. He came doubtless by sea and landed at Seleucia, the port of Antioch, some sixteen miles distant from the city. As he travelled up to Antioch he would get distant glimpses of the groves of Daphne, a park ten miles in circ.u.mference, dedicated indeed to the poetic wors.h.i.+p of Apollo, but dedicated also to the vilest purposes of wickedness intimately a.s.sociated with that poetic wors.h.i.+p. Poetry, whether ancient or modern, can be very blessed, enn.o.bling and elevating man's whole nature. But the same poetry, as in ancient paganism and in some modern writers, can become a festering plague-spot, the abounding source to its votaries of moral corruption and spiritual death.[90]

[89] See Eusebius, _Eccles. Hist._, v., 18.

[90] There is a good description of Daphne as St. Paul may have seen it in Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, ch. xxiii. We borrow a few extracts from it to give a more vivid idea of Antioch in St.

Paul's day. "At the distance of five miles from Antioch the Macedonian kings of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places of devotion in the pagan world. A magnificent temple rose in honour of the G.o.d of light; and his colossal figure almost filled the capacious sanctuary which was enriched with gold and gems and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity was represented in a bending att.i.tude, with a golden cup in his hand, pouring out a libation on the earth, as if he supplicated the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous Daphne; for the spot was enn.o.bled by fiction, and the fancy of the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Perseus to the town of the Orontes." "The temple and village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circ.u.mference of ten miles, and proved in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth and the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odours; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the temptations of this sensual paradise, where pleasure, a.s.suming the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness of manly virtue." Gibbon's notes abound with ample proof of the statements he makes. To them we may refer the reader curious about the details of ancient paganism.

Daphne and its a.s.sociations would rouse the whole soul, the healthy moral nature of Saul of Tarsus, inherited originally from his ancient Jewish training, and now quickened and deepened by the spiritual revelations made to him in Christ Jesus. It is no wonder then that here we read of St. Paul's first long and continuous period of ministerial work: "It came to pa.s.s that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the Church, and taught much people." The results of the new force which Barnabas introduced into the spiritual life of Antioch soon became manifested. "The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." Saul of Tarsus possessed what Barnabas did not possess. He possessed a powerful, a logical, and a creative intellect. He realised from the beginning what his own principles meant and to what they were leading him. He taught not Judaism or the Law with an addition merely about Jesus of Nazareth. He troubled not himself about circ.u.mcision or the old covenant, but he taught from the very beginning Christ Jesus, Christ in His Divine and human nature, Christ in His various offices, Jesus Christ as the one hope for mankind. This was now at Antioch, as before at Damascus, the staple topic of St. Paul's preaching, and therefore the Antiochenes, with their ready wit and proverbial power of giving nicknames, at once designated the new sect not Nazarenes or Galileans as the Jews of Jerusalem called them, but Christians or adherents of Christ.[91]

Here, however, I prefer to avail myself of the exposition which one of the great spiritual teachers of the last generation gave us of this expression. The well-known and learned Archbishop of Dublin, Dr.

Trench, in his _Study of Words_ (21st Ed.: Lond. 1890), p. 189, thus draws out the lesson connected with this word and the time of its appearance: "'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.'

That we have here a notice which we would not willingly have missed all will acknowledge, even as nothing can be otherwise than curious which relates to the infancy of the Church. But there is here much more than a curious notice. Question it a little closer, and how much it will be found to contain, how much which it is waiting to yield up!

What light it throws on the whole story of the Apostolic Church to know where and when this name of Christians was first imposed on the faithful; for imposed by adversaries it certainly was, not devised by themselves, however afterwards they may have learned to glory in it as the name of highest dignity and honour. They did not call themselves, but, as is expressly recorded, they 'were called' Christians first at Antioch; in agreement with which statement the name occurs nowhere in Scripture, except on the lips of those alien from or opposed to the faith (Acts xxvi. 28; 1 Peter iv. 16). And as it was a name imposed by adversaries, so among these adversaries it was plainly heathens, and not Jews, who were its authors; for Jews would never have called the followers of Jesus of Nazareth 'Christians,' or those of Christ, the very point of their opposition to Him being, that He was not the Christ, but a false pretender to the name. Starting then from this point that 'Christians' was a t.i.tle given to the disciples by the heathen, what may we deduce from it further? At Antioch they first obtained this name--at the city, that is, which was the headquarters of the Church's mission to the heathen, in the same sense as Jerusalem had been the headquarters of the mission to the seed of Abraham. It was there and among the faithful there that a conviction of the world-wide destination of the gospel arose; there it was first plainly seen as intended for all kindreds of the earth. Hitherto the faithful in Christ had been called by their adversaries, and indeed were often still called 'Galileans' or 'Nazarenes'--both names which indicated the Jewish cradle wherein the Church had been nursed, and that the world saw in the new society no more than a Jewish sect. But it was plain that the Church had now, even in the world's eyes, chipped its Jewish sh.e.l.l. The name Christians or those of Christ, while it told that Christ and the confession of Him was felt even by the heathen to be the sum and centre of this new faith, showed also that they comprehended now, not all which the Church would be, but something of this; saw this much, namely, that it was no mere sect and variety of Judaism, but a Society with a mission and a destiny of its own. Nor will the thoughtful reader fail to observe that the coming up of this name is by closest juxtaposition connected in the sacred narrative, and still more closely in the Greek than in the English, with the arrival at Antioch, and with the preaching there, of that Apostle who was G.o.d's appointed instrument for bringing the Church to a full sense that the message which it had was not for some men only, but for all.

As so often happens with the rise of new names, the rise of this one marked a new epoch in the Church's life, and that it was entering upon a new stage of development." This is a long extract, but it sets forth in dignified and aptly chosen words, such as Archbishop Trench always used, the important lessons which the thoughtful student of the Acts may gather from the time and place where the term "Christians" first sprang into existence.

[91] The Antiochenes were always famous for the dangerous power of ridicule and giving nicknames. They quarrelled on this account with the emperors Hadrian, Verus, Marcus, Severus, and Julian. The last mentioned has celebrated these tendencies in his celebrated treatise ent.i.tled _Misopogon, or the Beard-hater_. Even in its final overthrow the city preserved this distinction. In the year 540 the Persian king Chosroes Nus.h.i.+rvan took it by storm. When he appeared before the city he was received with a shower of arrows mingled with obscene sarcasms, which so enraged him that he removed the inhabitants when he had taken the town to a new Antioch in the province of Susa.

Finally, we notice in connexion with Antioch that the foundation of the great Gentile Church was marked by the same universal impulse which we trace wherever Christ was effectually preached. The faith of the Crucified evermore produced love to the brethren. Agabus, a prophet whom we shall again meet many years after in the course of St.

Paul's life, and who then predicted his approaching arrest and captivity at Jerusalem, made his earliest recorded appearance at Antioch, where he announced an impending famine. Agabus exercised the office of a prophet, which implied under the New Dispensation rather the office of preaching than of prediction. Prediction, indeed, whether under the Old or the New Dispensation, formed but a small portion of the prophetical office. The work of the prophet was pre-eminently that of telling forth G.o.d's will and enforcing it upon a careless generation. Occasionally indeed, as in the case of Agabus, that telling forth involved prediction or announcement of G.o.d's chastis.e.m.e.nts and visitations; but far oftener the prophet's work was finished when he enforced the great principles of truth and righteousness as the Christian preacher does still. Agabus seems to have been specially gifted in the direction of prediction. He announced a famine as impending over the whole world, which came to pa.s.s in the age of Claudius, offering to the Gentile Church of Antioch an opportunity, of which they gladly availed themselves, to repay somewhat of the spiritual obligation which the Gentiles owed to the Jews according to St. Paul's own rule: "If the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister unto them in carnal things."[92] We can trace here the force and power of ancient Jewish customs. We can see how the mould and form and external shape of the Church was gained from the Jew. The Jewish colony of Antioch had been of old famous for the liberality of its gifts to the mother community at Jerusalem. The predominant element in the Church of Antioch was now Gentile, but still the ancient customs prevailed. The Gentile Christian community acted towards the Jerusalem Church as the Jewish community had been used to treat their countrymen: "The disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren that dwelt in Judaea: which also they did, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul."

[92] This famine is thoroughly historical. It is noticed by several who wrote of this time, as Dion, lx., 11; Suetonius, Claud., 20; Aurelius, Victor; and is confirmed by the testimony of the coins: see Eckhel, vi., 238, 239, 240. Cf. Lewin's _Fasti Sacri_, p. 274, A.D. 42.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE DEFEAT OF PRIDE._

"Now about that time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.... Immediately an angel of the Lord smote Herod, because he gave not G.o.d the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. But the word of G.o.d grew and multiplied."--ACTS xii. 1-3, 23-24.

The chapter at which we have now arrived is very important from a chronological point of view, as it brings the sacred narrative into contact with the affairs of the external world concerning which we have independent knowledge. The history of the Christian Church and of the outside world for the first time clearly intersect, and we thus gain a fixed point of time to which we can refer. This chronological character of the twelfth chapter of the Acts arises from its introduction of Herod and the narrative of the second notable persecution which the Church at Jerusalem had to endure. The appearance of a Herod on the scene and the tragedy in which he was the actor demand a certain amount of historical explanation, for, as we have already noted in the case of St. Stephen five or six years previously, Roman procurators and Jewish priests and the Sanhedrin then possessed or at least used the power of the sword in Jerusalem, while a word had not been heard of a Herod exercising capital jurisdiction in Judaea for more than forty years. Who was this Herod?

Whence came he? How does he emerge so suddenly upon the stage? As great confusion exists in the minds of many Bible students about the ramifications of the Herodian family and the various offices and governments they held, we must make a brief digression in order to show who and whence this Herod was concerning whom we are told, "Now about that time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church."

This Herod Agrippa was a grandson of Herod the Great, and displayed in the solitary notice of him which Holy Scripture has handed down many of the characteristics, cruel, bloodthirsty and yet magnificent, which that celebrated sovereign manifested throughout his life.[93] The story of Herod Agrippa his grandson was a real romance. He made trial of every station in life. He had been at times a captive, at times a conqueror. He had at various periods experience of a prison house and of a throne. He had felt the depths of poverty, and had not known where to borrow money sufficient to pay his way to Rome. He had tasted of the sweetness of affluence, and had enjoyed the pleasures of magnificent living. He had been a subject and a ruler, a dependant on a tyrant, and the trusted friend and councillor of emperors. His story is worth telling. He was born about ten years before the Christian era, and was the son of Aristobulus, one of the sons of Herod the Great. After the death of Herod, his grandfather, the Herodian family was scattered all over the world. Some obtained official positions; others were obliged to s.h.i.+ft for themselves, depending on the fragments of the fortune which the great king had left them. Agrippa lived at Rome till about the year 30 A.D., a.s.sociating with Drusus, the son of the Emperor Tiberius, by whom he was led into the wildest extravagance. He was banished from Rome about that year, and was obliged to retire to Palestine, contenting himself with the small official post of aedile of Tiberias in Galilee, given him by his uncle Herod Antipas, which he held about the time when our Lord was teaching in that neighbourhood. During the next six years the fortunes of Agrippa were of the most chequered kind. He soon quarrelled with Antipas, and is next found a fugitive at the court of Antioch with the Prefect of the East. He there borrowed from a money-lender the sum of 800 at 12-1/2 per cent. interest, to enable him to go to Rome and push his interests at the imperial court. He was arrested, however, for a large debt due to the Treasury just when he was embarking, and consigned to prison, whence the very next day he managed to escape, and fled to Alexandria. There he again raised another timely loan, and thus at last succeeded in getting to Rome. Agrippa attached himself to Caligula, the heir of the empire, and after various chances was appointed by him King of Trachonitis, a dominion which Caligula and subsequently Claudius enlarged by degrees, till in the year 41 he was invested with the kingdom of the whole of Palestine, including Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea, of which Agrippa proceeded to take formal possession about twelve months before the events recorded in the twelfth chapter of Acts.[94]

[93] The Herodian family form a notable instance of the modern doctrine of heredity, which yet is only the ancient principle of Divine action announced long ago in the Second Commandment, "Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." The moral taints which we behold in Esau, pa.s.sion, self-indulgence quenching all forethought, ostentation joined with magnificent generosity, displayed themselves in Herod the Great. In him they were joined with absolute power, and they produced their natural results. They made his heart, his life, his home a howling wilderness, and handed down to his descendants a legacy of wickedness which ceased not to bear fruit so long as his name survived. Herod's family cruelties were so celebrated that we are told by a pagan writer, named Macrobius, that when the Emperor Augustus heard of the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, thinking they were Herod's children, he jokingly said, "It were better to be Herod's pigs than Herod's children."

[94] See Lewin's _Fasti Sacri_, A.D. 41, p. 271, for the authorities on the subject of Herod's career.

Herod's career had been marked by various changes, but in one respect he had been consistent. He was ever a thorough Jew, and a vigorous and useful friend to his fellow-countrymen. We have already noticed that his influence had been used with Caligula to induce the Emperor to forgo his mad project of erecting his statue in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem.[95] Herod had, however, one great drawback in the eyes of the priestly faction at Jerusalem. All the descendants of Herod the Great were tainted by their Edomite blood, which they inherited through him. Their kind offices and support were accepted indeed, but only grudgingly. Herod felt this, and it was quite natural therefore for the newly appointed king to strive to gain all the popularity he could with the dominant party at Jerusalem by persecuting the new sect which was giving them so much trouble. No incident could possibly have been more natural, more consistent with the facts of history, as well as with the known dispositions and tendencies of human nature, than that recorded in these words--"Now about that time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword." Herod's act was a very politic one from a worldly point of view. It was a hard dose enough for the Jewish people to swallow, to find a king imposed upon them by an idolatrous Gentile power; but it was some alleviation of their lot that the king was a Jew, and a Jew so devoted to the service of the ruling hierarchy that he was willing to use his secular power to crush the troublesome Nazarene sect whose doctrine threatened for ever to destroy all hopes of a temporal restoration for Israel. Such being the historical setting of the picture presented to us, let us apply ourselves to the spiritual application and lessons of this incident in apostolic history. We have here a martyrdom, a deliverance, and a Divine judgment, which will all repay careful study.

[95] See p. 95 above.

I. A martyrdom is here brought under our notice, and that the first martyrdom among the apostles. Stephen's was the first Christian martyrdom, but that of James was the first apostolic martyrdom. When Herod, following his grandfather's footsteps, would afflict the Church, "he killed James the brother of John with the sword." We must carefully distinguish between two martyrs of the same name who have both found a place in the commemorations of Christian hope and love.

May-day is the feast devoted to the memory of St. Philip and St.

James, July 25th is the anniversary consecrated to the memorial of St.

James the Apostle, whose death is recorded in the pa.s.sage now under consideration. The latter was the brother of John and son of Zebedee; the former was the brother or cousin according to the flesh of our Lord. St. James the Apostle perished early in the Church's history.

St. James the Just flourished for more than thirty years after the Resurrection. He lived indeed to a comparatively advanced period of the Church's history, as is manifest from a study of the Epistle which he wrote to the Jewish Christians of the Dispersion. He there rebukes shortcomings and faults, respect for the rich and contempt of the poor, oppression and outrage and irreverence, which could never have found place in that first burst of love and devotion to G.o.d which the age of our Herodian martyr witnessed, but must have been the outcome of long years of worldly prosperity and ease. James the Just, the stern censor of Christian morals and customs, whose language indeed in its severity has at times caused one-sided and narrow Christians much trouble, must often have looked back with regret and longing to the purer days of charity and devotion when James the brother of John perished by the sword of Herod.

Again, we notice about this martyred apostle that, though there is very little told us concerning his life and actions, he must have been a very remarkable man. He was clearly remarkable for his Christian privileges. He was one of the apostles specially favoured by our Lord.

He was admitted by Him into the closest spiritual converse. Thus we find that, with Peter and John, James the Apostle was one of the three selected by our Lord to behold the first manifestation of His power over the realms of the dead when He restored the daughter of Jairus to life; with the same two, Peter and John, he was privileged to behold our Saviour receive the first foretaste of His heavenly glory upon the Mount of Transfiguration; and with them too he was permitted to behold his great Master drink the first draught of the cup of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. James the Apostle had thus the first necessary qualification for an eminent worker in the Lord's vineyard. He had been admitted into Christ's most intimate friends.h.i.+p, he knew much of his Lord's will and mind. And the privileges thus conferred upon St.

James had not been misused or neglected. He did not hide his talent in the dust of idleness, nor wrap it round with the mantle of sloth. He utilised his advantages. He became a foremost, if not indeed the foremost worker for his loved Lord in the Church of Jerusalem, as is intimated by the opening words of this pa.s.sage, which tells us that when Herod wished to hara.s.s and vex the Church he selected James the brother of John as his victim; and we may be sure that with the keen instinct of a persecutor Herod selected not the least prominent and useful, but the most devoted and energetic champion of Christ to satisfy his cruel purpose. And yet, though James was thus privileged and thus faithful and thus honoured by G.o.d, his active career is shrouded thick round with clouds and darkness. We know nothing of the good works and brave deeds and powerful sermons he devoted to his Master's cause. We are told simply of the death by which he glorified G.o.d. All else is hidden with G.o.d till that day when the secret thoughts and deeds of every man shall be revealed. This incident in early Apostolic Church history is a very typical one, and teaches many a lesson very necessary for these times and for all times. If an apostle so privileged and so faithful was content to do his work, and then to pa.s.s away without a single line of memorial, a single word to keep his name or his labours fresh among men, how much more may we, petty, faithless, trifling as we are, be contented to do our duty, and to pa.s.s away without any public recognition! And yet how we all do crave after such recognition! How intensely we long for human praise and approval! How useless we esteem our labours unless they are followed by it! How inclined we are to make the fallible judgment of man the standard by which we measure our actions, instead of having the mind's eye ever steadily fixed as James the brother of John had on His approval alone who, now seeing our secret trials, struggles, efforts, will one day reward His faithful followers openly! This is one great lesson which this typical pa.s.sage by its silence as well as by its speech clearly teaches the Church of every age.[96]

[96] The tradition of the second century has only one story to tell about this martyrdom. We find it in Eusebius, _H. E._, ii., 9, where we read: "Concerning this James Clement hands down a story worthy of remembrance in the seventh book of his Hypotyposes (or Outlines) delivering it from the traditions of his predecessors, that the messenger who led him to the judgment-seat, beholding his witness, was moved to confess himself a Christian.

Both were therefore led away, says he, and on the road (to execution) he asked forgiveness from James. And he, having considered for a little, said, Peace be to thee, and he kissed him tenderly. And thus both were beheaded together."

Again, this martyrdom of St. James proclaims yet another lesson. G.o.d hereby warns the Church against the idolatry of human agents, against vain trust in human support. Let us consider the circ.u.mstances of the Church at that time. The Church had just pa.s.sed through a season of violent persecution, and had lost one of its bravest and foremost soldiers in the person of Stephen, the martyred deacon. And now there was impending over the Church what is often more trying far than a time short and sharp of violence and blood,--a period of temporal distress and suffering, trying the principles and testing the endurance of the weaker brethren in a thousand petty trifles. It was a time when the courage, the wisdom, the experience of the tried and trusted leaders would be specially required to guide the Church amid the many new problems which day by day were cropping up. And yet it was just then, at such a crisis, that the Lord permits the b.l.o.o.d.y sword of Herod to be stretched forth, and removes one of the very chiefest champions of the Christian host just when his presence seemed most necessary. It must have appeared a dark and trying dispensation to the Church of that day; but though attended doubtless with some present drawbacks and apparent disadvantages, it was well and wisely done to warn the Church of every age against mere human dependence, mere temporal refuges; teaching by a typical example that it is not by human might or earthly wisdom, not by the eloquence of man or the devices of earth that Christ's Church and people must be saved; that it is by His own right hand, and by His own holy arm alone our G.o.d will get Himself the victory.

Yet again we may learn from this incident another lesson rich laden with comfort and instruction. This martyrdom of St. James throws us back upon a circ.u.mstance which occurred during our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem before His crucifixion, and interprets it for us. Let us recall it. Our Lord was going up to Jerusalem, and His disciples were following Him with wondering awe. The shadow of the Cross projecting itself forward made itself unconsciously felt throughout the little company, and men were astonished, though they knew not why. They simply felt, as men do on a close sultry summer's day when a thunderstorm is overhead, that something awful was impending. They had, however, a vague feeling that the kingdom of G.o.d would shortly appear, and so the mother of Zebedee's children, with all that boldness which affection lends to feminine minds, drew near and strove to secure a boon before all others for her own children. She prayed that to her two sons might be granted the posts of honour in the temporal kingdom she thought of as now drawing so very near. The Lord replied to her request in very deep and far-reaching language, the meaning of which she then understood not, but learned afterwards through the discipline of pain and sorrow and death: "Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" And then, when James and John had professed their ability, he predicts their future fate: "My cup indeed ye shall drink." The mother and the sons alike spoke bold words, and offered a sincere but an ignorant prayer. Little indeed did the mother dream as she presented her pet.i.tion--"Command that these my two sons may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left hand in Thy kingdom"--how that prayer would be answered, and yet answered it was. To the one son, James, was granted the one post of honour. He was made to sit on the Master's right hand, for he was the first of the apostles called to enter into Paradise through a baptism of blood. While to the other son, St. John, was granted the other post of honour, for he was left the longest upon earth to guide, direct, and sustain the Church by his inspired wisdom, large experience, and apostolic authority.[97] The contrast between the prayer offered up to Christ in ignorance and shortsightedness and the manner in which the same prayer was answered in richest abundance suggests to us the comforting reflection that no prayer offered up in sincerity and truth is ever really left unanswered. We may indeed never see how the prayer is answered. The mother of St. James may little have dreamt as she beheld her son's lifeless body brought home to her that this trying dispensation was a real answer to her ambitious pet.i.tion. But we can now see that it was so, and can thus learn a lesson of genuine confidence, of holy boldness, of strong faith in the power of sincere and loving communion with G.o.d. Let us only take care to cultivate the same spirit of genuine humility and profound submission which possessed the souls of those primitive Christians enabling them to say, no matter how their pet.i.tions were answered, whether in joy or sorrow, in smiles or tears, in riches or poverty, "Not my will, but thine, O Lord, be done."

[97] Bishop Lightfoot, in his celebrated essay on the Christian Ministry, _Philippians_, pp. 200-205, 2nd edition, regards Episcopacy as the work of St. John. "By whom was the new const.i.tution organised? To this question only one answer can be given. This great work must be ascribed to the surviving apostles.

St. John especially, who built up the speculative theology of the Church, was mainly instrumental in completing its external const.i.tution also, for Asia Minor was the centre from which the new movement spread." These words occur in his a.n.a.lysis of Rothe's views, with which Dr. Lightfoot substantially agrees.

II. We have again in this twelfth chapter the record of a Divine deliverance. Herod, seeing that the Jewish authorities were pleased because they had now a sympathetic ruler who understood their religious troubles and was resolved to help in quelling them, determined to proceed farther in the work of repression. He arrested another prominent leader, St. Peter, and cast him into prison. The details are given to us of Herod's action and Peter's arrest. Peter was now making his first acquaintance with Roman methods of punishment. He had been indeed previously arrested and imprisoned, but his arrest had been carried out by the Jewish authorities, and he had been consigned to the care of the Temple police, and had occupied the Temple prison. But Herod, though a strict Jew in religion, had been thoroughly Romanised in matters of rule and government, and therefore he treated St. Peter after the Roman fas.h.i.+on: "When he had taken him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quarternions of soldiers to guard him; intending after the Pa.s.sover to bring him forth to the people." He was delivered to sixteen men, who divided the night into four watches, four men watching at a time, after the Roman method of discipline.[98] And then, in contrast to all this preparation, we are told how the Church betook herself to her sure refuge and strong tower of defence: "Peter therefore was kept in prison; but prayer was made earnestly of the Church unto G.o.d for him." These early Christians had not had their faith limited or weakened by discussions whether pet.i.tion for temporal blessings were a proper subject of prayer, or whether spiritual blessings did not alone supply true matter for supplication before the Divine throne. They were in the first fervour of Christian love, and they did not theorise, define, or debate about prayer and its efficacy. They only knew that their Master had told them to pray, and had promised to answer sincere prayer, as He alone knew how; and so they gathered themselves in instant ceaseless prayer at the foot of the throne of grace. I say "ceaseless" prayer because it seems that the Jerusalem Church, feeling its danger, organised a continuous service of prayer. "Prayer was made earnestly of the Church unto G.o.d for him" is the statement of the fifth verse, and then when St. Peter was released "he came to the house of Mary, where many were gathered together and were praying," though the night must have been far advanced. The crisis was a terrible one; the foremost champion, St. James, had been taken, and now another great leader was threatened, and therefore the Church flung herself at the feet of the Master seeking deliverance, and was not disappointed, as the Church has never since been disappointed when she has cast herself in lowliness and profound submission before the same holy sanctuary.[99]

The narrative then proceeds to give us the particulars of St. Peter's deliverance, as St. Peter himself seems to have told it to St. Luke, for we have details given us which could only have come either directly or indirectly from the person most immediately concerned. But of these we shall treat in a little. The story now introduces the supernatural, and for the believer this is quite in keeping with the facts of the case. A great crisis in the history of the Jerusalem Church has arrived. The mother Church of all Christendom, the fountain and source of original Christianity, is threatened with extinction.