The Ancient Church. W. D. Killen
a bitter antipathy had hitherto existed. When Philip appeared among them, and preached Jesus as the promised Messiah, they listened most attentively to his appeals, and not a few of them gladly received Christian baptism. [57:1] It could now no longer be said that the Jews had "no dealings with the Samaritans," [57:2] for the gospel gathered both into the fold of a common Saviour, and taught them to keep "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
When the disciples were scattered abroad by the persecution which arose after the martyrdom of Stephen, the apostles still kept their post in the Jewish capital; [57:3] for Christ had instructed them to begin their ministry in that place: [57:4] and they perhaps conceived that, until authorised by some further intimation, they were bound to remain at Jerusalem. But the conversion of the Samaritans must have reminded them that the sphere of their labours was more extensive. Our Lord had said to them—"Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth," [57:5] and events, which were now passing before their view, were continually throwing additional light upon the meaning of this announcement. The baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, [57:6] about this period, was calculated to enlarge their ideas; and the baptism of Cornelius pointed out, still more distinctly, the wide range of their evangelical commission. The minuteness with which the case of the devout centurion is described is a proof of its importance as connected with this transition-stage in the history of the Church. He had before known nothing of Peter; and, when they met at Caesarea, each could testify that he had been prepared for the interview by a special revelation from heaven. [57:7] Cornelius was "a centurion of the band called the Italian band" [57:8]—he was a representative of that military power which then ruled the world—and, in his baptism, we see the Roman Empire presenting, on the altar of Christianity, the first-fruits of the Gentiles.
It was not, however, very obvious, from any of the cases already enumerated, that the salvation of Christ was designed for all classes and conditions of the human family. The Samaritans did not, indeed, worship at Jerusalem, but they claimed some interest in "the promises made unto the fathers;" and they conformed to many of the rites of Judaism. It does not appear that the Ethiopian eunuch was of the seed of Abraham; but he acknowledged the inspiration of the Old Testament, and he was disposed, at least to a certain extent, to observe its institutions. Even the Roman centurion was what has been called a proselyte of the gate, that is, he professed the Jewish theology—"he feared God with all his house" [58:1]—though he had not received circumcision, and had not been admitted into the congregation of Israel. But the time was approaching when the Church was to burst forth beyond the barriers within which it had been hitherto inclosed, and an individual now appeared upon the scene who was to be the leader of this new movement. He is "a citizen of no mean city" [58:2]—a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, a place famous for its educational institutes [58:3]—and he is known, by way of distinction, as "an apostle of the nations." [58:4]
The apostles were at first sent only to their own countrymen; [58:5] and we have seen that, for some time after our Lord's death, they do not appear to have contemplated any more comprehensive mission. When Peter called on the disciples to appoint a successor to Judas, he seems to have acted under the conviction that the company of the Twelve must still be maintained in its integrity, and that its numbers must still exactly correspond to the number of the tribes of Israel. But the Jews, after the death of Stephen, evinced an increasing aversion to the gospel; and as the apostles were eventually induced to direct their views elsewhere, they were, of course, also led to abandon an arrangement which had a special reference to the sectional divisions of the chosen people. Meanwhile, too, the management of ecclesiastical affairs had partially fallen into other hands; new missions, in which the Twelve had no share, had been undertaken; and Paul henceforth becomes most conspicuous and successful in extending and organising the Church.
Paul describes himself as "one born out of due time." [59:1] He was converted to Christianity when his countrymen seemed about to be consigned to judicial blindness; and he was "called to be an apostle" [59:2] when others had been labouring for years in the same vocation. But he possessed peculiar qualifications for the office. He was ardent, energetic, and conscientious, as well as acute and eloquent. In his native city Tarsus he had probably received a good elementary education, and afterwards, "at the feet of Gamaliel," [59:3] in Jerusalem, he enjoyed the tuition of a Rabbi of unrivalled celebrity. The apostle of the Gentiles had much the same religious experience as the father of the German Reformation; for as Luther, before he understood the doctrine of a free salvation, attempted to earn a title to heaven by the austerities of monastic discipline, so Paul in early life was "taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers," [59:4] and "after the strictest sect of his religion lived a Pharisee." [59:5] His zeal led him to become a persecutor; and when Stephen was stoned, the witnesses, who were required to take part in the execution, prepared themselves for the work of death, by laying down their upper garments at the feet of the "young man" Saul. [59:6] He had established himself in the confidence of the Sanhedrim, and he appears to have been a member of that influential judicatory, for he tells us that he "shut up many of the saints in prison," and that, when they were put to death, "he gave his voice, or his vote, [60:1] against them"—a statement implying that he belonged to the court which pronounced the sentence of condemnation. As he was travelling to Damascus armed with authority to seize any of the disciples whom he discovered in that city, and to convey them bound to Jerusalem, [60:2] the Lord appeared to him in the way, and he was suddenly converted. [60:3] After reaching the end of his journey, and boldly proclaiming his attachment to the party he had been so recently endeavouring to exterminate, he retired into Arabia, [60:4] where he appears to have spent three years in the devout study of the Christian theology. He then returned to Damascus, and entered, about A.D. 37, [60:5] on those missionary labours which he prosecuted with so much efficiency and perseverance for upwards of a quarter of a century.
Paul declares that he derived a knowledge of the gospel immediately from Christ; [60:6] and though, for many years, he had very little intercourse with the Twelve, he avers that he was "not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." [60:7] Throughout life he was associated, not with them, but with others as his fellow-labourers; and he obviously occupied a distinct and independent position. When he was baptized, the ordinance was administered by an individual who is not previously mentioned in the New Testament, [61:1] and when he was separated to the work to which the Lord had called him, [61:2] the ordainers were "prophets and teachers," respecting whose own call to the ministry the inspired historian supplies us with no information. But it may fairly be presumed that they were regularly introduced into the places which they are represented as occupying; they are all described by the evangelist as receiving the same special instructions from heaven; and the tradition that, at least some of them, were of the number of the Seventy, [61:3] is exceedingly probable. And if, as has already been suggested, the mission of the Seventy indicated the design of our Saviour to diffuse the gospel all over the world, we can see a peculiar propriety in the arrangement that Paul was ushered into the Church under the auspices of these ministers. [61:4] It was most fitting that he who was to be, by way of eminence, the apostle of the Gentiles, was baptized and ordained by men whose own appointment was intended to symbolise the catholic spirit of Christianity.
In the treatment of Paul by his unbelieving countrymen we have a most melancholy illustration of the recklessness of religious bigotry. These Jews must have known that, in as far as secular considerations were concerned, he had everything to lose by turning into "the way which they called heresy;" they were bound to acknowledge that, by connecting himself with an odious sect, he at least demonstrated his sincerity and self-denial; but they were so exasperated by his zeal that they "took counsel to kill him." [62:1] When, after his sojourn in Arabia, he returned to Damascus that city was in the hands of Aretas, the king of Arabia Petraea; [62:2] who seems to have contrived to gain possession of it during the confusion which immediately followed the death of the Emperor Tiberius. This petty sovereign courted the favour of the Jewish portion of the population by permitting them to persecute the disciples; [62:3] and the apostle, at this crisis, would have fallen a victim to their malignity had not his friends let him down "through a window, in a basket, by the wall," [62:4] and thus enabled him to escape a premature martyrdom. He now repaired to Jerusalem, where the brethren do not appear to have heard of his conversion, and where they at first refused to acknowledge him as a member of their society; [62:5] for he had been obliged to