The Christian Ecclesia: A Course of Lectures on the Early History and Early Conceptions of the Ecclesia and One Sermon [ThML]

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Title Page

iii

THE
CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA

A COURSE OF LECTURES

ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND
EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF
THE ECCLESIA

AND ONE SERMON

BY

FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT D.D.

LADY MARGARET’S READER IN DIVINITY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1914

First Edition, 1897.
Reprinted 1898, 1900, 1908.
Shilling Theological Library, 1914.

Prefatory Material

Preface

PREFACE.

THIS book consists in the first place of a course of lectures delivered by Dr Hort as Lady Margaret Professor in the Michaelmas Terms of 1888 and 1889 on ‘The Early History and the Early Conceptions of the Christian Ecclesia’. The plan of the lectures is the same as that of the Lectures on Judaistic Christianity.

They contain a careful survey of the evidence to be derived from the literature of the Apostolic age for the solution of a fundamental problem.

The title ‘Ecclesia’ was chosen, as the opening lecture explains, expressly for its freedom from the distracting associations which have gathered round its more familiar synonyms. It is in itself a sufficient indication of the spirit of genuine historical enquiry in which the study was undertaken.

The original scheme included an investigation into the evidence of the early Christian centuries, and the book is therefore in one sense no doubt incomplete. On vithe other hand it is no mere fragment. The lectures as they stand practically exhaust the evidence of the New Testament, at least as far as the Early History of Christian institutions is concerned. And Dr Hort’s conclusions on the vexed questions with regard to the ‘Origines’ of the different Orders in the Christian Ministry will no doubt be scanned with peculiar interest. It is however by no means too much to say that it was the other side of his subject, ‘the Early Conceptions of the Ecclesia’, that gave it its chief attraction for Dr Hort. And on this side unfortunately the limitations of lecturing compelled him to leave many things unsaid to which he attached the greatest importance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The course in 1889 began with a somewhat full recapitulation of the course delivered in 1888. I have not thought it worth while to print this recapitulation at length. A few modifications have however been introduced from it into the text of the original lectures, and a few additions appended as footnotes. Otherwise the Lectures are printed, with a few necessary verbal alterations, as they stand in the Author’s MSS. I am further responsible for the divisions of the text, for the titles of the Lectures, and for the headings of the separate paragraphs.

vii

My best thanks are due to the Rev. F. G. Masters, formerly scholar of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for much help in revising the proof-sheets and for the compilation of the index.

J. O. F. MURRAY.

EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

March 12th, 1897.

viii ix

Contents

CONTENTS.

LECTURES ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND THE
EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF THE ECCLESIA.

I.
The Word Ecclesia.
Its sense in the Old Testament. — Its sense in the Gospels. — The Ecclesia (without the name) in the Gospels	pp. 1–21.
II.
The Apostles in Relation to the Ecclesia.
The term ‘Apostle’ in the Gospels. — The Last Supper. — The utterances after the Resurrection. — The new Apostolic mission.	pp. 22–41.
III.
Early Stages in the Growth of the Ecclesia.
The witness in Jerusalem. — The appointment of the Seven. — The Ecclesia spreading throughout the Holy Land.	pp. 42–58.
xIV.
The Ecclesia of Antioch.
The Origin of the Ecclesia. — Sending help to Jerusalem. — The Antiochian Mission. — The first missionary journey. — The Conference at Jerusalem. — The letter and its reception. — St Peter at Antioch.	pp. 59–75.
V.
The Exercise of Authority.
St James and his position. — The Authority of the Jerusalem Elders and of the Twelve. — The Twelve and the Gentiles. — The Government of the Ecclesia of Antioch.	pp. 76–91.
VI.
St Paul at Ephesus.
The later history of the resolutions of the Conference. — The founding of the Ecclesia of Ephesus. — St Paul’s discourse to the Ephesian Elders at Miletus. — St Paul’s reception at Jerusalem and at Rome.	pp. 92–106.
VII.
The ‘Ecclesia’ in the Epistles.
The uses of the word. — Individuals not lost in the Society. — Classes of Christian Societies termed Ecclesiae. — The many Ecclesiae and the one.	pp. 107–122.
VIII.
The Earlier Epistles of St Paul.
The Epistles to the Thessalonians. — The Epistles to the Corinthians. — The Epistle to the Romans.	pp. 123– 134.
xiIX.
The one Universal Ecclesia in the Epistles of the First Roman Captivity.
The Epistle to the Philippians. — The Epistle to the Ephesians. — The image of the body. — Husband and Wife.	pp. 135–152.
X.
‘Gifts’ and ‘Grace.’
The meaning of the teens. — The source of the Gifts. — ‘Functions’ not formal ‘ Offices.’ — The image of the ‘Body.’ — The image of ‘building.’ — ’ The foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.’ — The Universal Ecclesia and the partial Ecclesiae	pp. 153–170.
XI.
Titus and Timothy in the Pastoral Epistles.
The interpretation of 1 Tim. iii. 14 f. — The Mission of Titus in Crete. — Timothy’s Mission in Ephesus. — Timothy’s antecedents. — Timothy’s original appointment. — Timothy’s χάρισμα.	pp. 171-188.
XII.
Officers of the Ecclesia in the Pastoral Epistles.
The qualifications of an Elder in Crete. — Elders in Ephesus according to r Timothy. — What is required of ‘Deacons.’ — The words διάκονος and διακονία. — The function of ‘Deacons’ in Ephesus. — The salutation in Phil. i. 1. — ‘Laying on of hands’ in 1 Tim. v. 22. — ‘Laying on of hands’ in ordination	pp. 189–217.
xiiXIII.
Brief Notes on various Epistles, and Recapitulation.
Directions for public prayer in 1 Timothy. — Various evidence of James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, Apocalypse. — Problems of the Second Century and later. — Recapitulation.	pp. 218–233.
SERMON PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP WESTCOTT	pp. 134-150.
Index	pp. 251-258.

Lecture I. The Word Ecclesia.

LECTURE I.

THE WORD ECCLESIA.

THE subject on which I propose to lecture this term is The early conceptions and early history of the Christian Ecclesia. The reason why I have chosen the term Ecclesia is simply to avoid ambiguity. The English term church, now the most familiar representative of ecclesia to most of us, carries with it associations derived from the institutions and doctrines of later times, and thus cannot at present without a constant mental effort be made to convey the full and exact force which originally belonged to ecclesia. There would moreover be a second ambiguity in the phrase the early history of the Christian Church arising out of the vague comprehensiveness with which the phrase ‘History of the Church’ is conventionally employed.

It would of course have been possible to have recourse to a second English rendering ‘congregation’, which has the advantage of suggesting some of those 2elements of meaning which are least forcibly suggested by the word ‘church’ according to our present use. ‘Congregation’ was the only rendering of ἐκκλησία in the English New Testament as it stood throughout Henry VIII.’s reign, the substitution of ‘church’ being due to the Genevan revisers; and it held its ground in the Bishops’ Bible in no less primary a passage than Matt. xvi. 18 till the Jacobean revision of 1611, which we call the Authorized Version. But ‘congregation’ has disturbing associations of its own which render it unsuitable for our special purpose; and moreover its use in what might seem a rivalry to so venerable, and rightly venerable, a word as ‘church’ would be only a hindrance in the way of recovering for ‘church’ the full breadth of its meaning. ‘Ecclesia’ is the only perfectly colourless word within our reach, carrying us back to the beginnings of Christian history, and enabling us in some degree to get behind words and names to the simple facts which they originally denoted.

The larger part of our subject lies in the region of what we commonly call Church History; the general Christian history of the ages subsequent to the Apostolic age. But before entering on that region we must devote some little time to matter contained in the Bible itself. It is hopeless to try to understand either the actual Ecclesia of post-apostolic times, or the thoughts of its own contemporaries about it, without first gaining some clear impressions 3as to the Ecclesia of the Apostles out of which it grew; to say nothing of the influence exerted all along by the words of the apostolic writings, and by other parts of Scripture. And again the Ecclesia of the Apostles has likewise antecedents which must not be neglected, immediately in facts and words recorded by the Evangelists, and ultimately in the institutions and teaching of the Old Covenant.

In this preliminary part of our subject, to say the least, we shall find it convenient to follow the order of time.

I am sorry to be unable to recommend any books as sufficiently coinciding with our subject generally. Multitudes of books in all civilised languages bear directly or indirectly upon parts of it: but I doubt whether it would be of any real use to attempt a selection. In the latter part of the subject we come on ground which has been to a certain extent worked at by several German writers within the last few years, and I may have occasion from time to time to refer to some of them: they may however be passed over for the present.

The sense of the word in the Old Testament.

The Ecclesia of the New Testament takes its name and primary idea from the Ecclesia of the Old Testament. What then is the precise meaning of the term Ecclesia as we find it in the Old Testament?

The word itself is a common one in classical Greek 4and was adopted by the LXX. translators from Deuteronomy onwards (not in the earlier books of the Pentateuch) as their usual rendering of qāhāl.

Two important words are used in the Old Testament for the gathering together of the people of Israel, or their representative heads, ‘ēdhāh [R.V. congregation] and qāhāl [R.V. assembly].

Συναγωγή [Synagogè] is the usual, almost the universal, LXX. rendering of ‘ēdhāh, as also in the earlier books of the Pentateuch of qāhāl. So closely connected in original use are the two terms Synagogue and Ecclesia, which afterwards came to be fixed in deep antagonism!

Neither of the two Hebrew terms was strictly technical: both were at times applied to very different kinds of gatherings from the gatherings of the people, though qāhāl had always a human reference of some sort, gatherings of individual men or gatherings of nations. The two words were so far coincident in meaning that in many cases they might apparently be used indifferently: but in the first instance they were not strictly synonymous. ‘ēdhāh (derived from a root y‘dh used in the Niphal in the sense of gathering together, specially gathering together by appointment or agreement) is properly, when applied to Israel, the society itself, formed by the children of Israel or their representative heads, whether assembled or not assembled.

On the other hand qāhāl is properly their actual 5meeting together: hence we have a few times the phrase q^ehăl ‘ēdhāh ‘the assembly of the congregation’ (rendered by the LXX. translators in Ex. xii. 6 πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος συναγωγῆς υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ in Num. xiv. 5 where no equivalent is given for q^ehăl πάσης συναγωγῆς υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ) and also q^ehăl ‘ăm ‘the assembly of the people’ (rendered in Judg. xx. 2 ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ λαοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, in Jer. xxvi. (LXX. xxxiii.) 17 πάσῃ τῇ συναγωγῇ τοῦ λαοῦ). The special interest of this distinction lies in its accounting for the choice of the rendering ἐκκλησία: qāhāl is derived from an obsolete root meaning to call or summon, and the resemblance to the Greek καλέω naturally suggested to the LXX. translators the word ἐκκλησία, derived from καλέω (or rather ἐκκαλέω) in precisely the same sense.

There is no foundation for the widely spread notion that ἐκκλησία means a people or a number of individual men called out of the world or mankind. In itself the idea is of course entirely Scriptural, and moreover it is associated with the word and idea ‘called,’ ‘calling,’ ‘call.’ But the compound verb ἐκκαλέω is never so used, and ἐκκλησία never occurs in a context which suggests this supposed sense to have been present to the writer’s mind. Again, it would not have been unnatural if this sense of calling out from a larger body had been as it were put into the word in later times, when it had acquired religious associations. But as a matter of fact we do not find that it was so. The original calling out is simply the calling of the 6citizens of a Greek town out of their houses by the herald’s trumpet to summon them to the assembly and Numb. x. shews that the summons to the Jewish assembly was made in the same way. In the actual usage of both qāhāl and ἐκκλησία this primary idea of summoning is hardly to be felt. They mean simply an assembly of the people; and accordingly in the Revised Version of the Old Testament ‘assembly’ is the predominant rendering of qāhāl.

So much for the original and distinctive force of the two words, in Hebrew and Greek. Now we must look a little at their historical application in the Old Testament.

‘ēdhāh is by far the commoner word of the two in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Joshua, but it is wholly absent from Deuteronomy. The two words are used in what appears to be practically the same sense in successive clauses of Lev. iv. 13; Num. xvi. 3; and they are coupled together, ἐν μέσῳ ἐκκλησίας καὶ συναγωγῆς, in Prov. v. 14 (LXX.). Both alike are described sometimes as the congregation or assembly of Israel, sometimes as the congregation or assembly of Jehovah; sometimes as the congregation or the assembly absolutely. In the later books ‘ēdhāh goes almost out of use. It is absent from Chronicles except once in an extract from Kings or the source of Kings (2 Chr. v. 6). It recurs (in the sense of congregation of Israel, I mean) but two or three times in the Psalms and the same in the Prophets.

In these, and in the poetical books, qāhāl is hardly more common, but it abounds in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. It would seem that after the return from the Exile this, the more definite and formal word, came to combine the shades of meaning belonging to both. Thus ἐκκλησία, as the primary Greek representative of qāhāl would naturally for Greek-speaking Jews mean the congregation of Israel quite as much as an assembly of the congregation.

In the Apocrypha both συναγωγή and ἐκκλησία are to be found: but it would take too long to examine the somewhat intricate variations of sense to be found there[1]. But with regard to these words, like many others of equal importance, there is a great gap in our knowledge of the usage of Greek Judaism. Philo gives us no help, the thoughts which connect themselves with the idea of a national ἐκκλησία being just of the kind which had least interest for him; and Josephus’s ostentatious classicalism deprives us of the information which a better Jew in his position might have afforded us. For our purpose it would be of peculiar interest to know what and , how much the term ἐκκλησία meant to Jews of the Dispersion at the time of the Christian Era: but here again we are, I fear, wholly in the dark.

The sense of the word in the Gospels.

It is now time to come to the New Testament and its use of ἐκκλησία, bearing in mind that it is a word which had already a history of its own, and which was associated with the whole history of Israel. It is also well to remember that its antecedents, as it was used by our Lord and His Apostles, are of two kinds, derived from the past and the present respectively. Part, the most important part, of its meaning came from its ancient and what we may call its religious use, that is from the sense or senses which it had borne in the Jewish Scriptures; part also of its meaning could not but come from the senses in which it was still current in the everyday life of Jews. We may be able to obtain but little independent evidence on this last head: but it needs only a little reflexion to feel sure that in this as in other cases contemporary usage cannot have been wholly inoperative.

The actual word ἐκκλησία, as many know, is in the Gospels confined to two passages of St Matthew. This fact has not unnaturally given rise to doubts as to the trustworthiness of the record. These doubts however seem to me to be in reality unfounded. If indeed it were true that matter found in a single Gospel only is to be regarded with suspicion as not proceeding from fundamental documents common to more than one, then doubtless these passages would 9be open to doubt. But if, as I believe to be the true view, each evangelist had independent knowledge or had access to fresh materials by which he was able to make trustworthy additions to that which he obtained from previous records, then there is no a priori reason for suspecting these two passages of the First Gospel.

It is further urged that these passages have the appearance of having been thrust into the text in the Second Century in order to support the growing authority of the Ecclesia as an external power. An interpolation of the supposed kind would however be unexampled, and there is nothing in the passages themselves, when carefully read, which bears out the suggestion. Nay, the manner in which St Peter’s name enters into the language about the building of Messiah’s Ecclesia could not be produced by any view respecting his office which was current in the Second Century. In truth, the application of the term ἐκκλησία by the Apostles is much easier to understand if it was founded on an impressive saying of our Lord. On the other hand, during our Lord’s lifetime such language was peculiarly liable to be misunderstood by the outer world of Jews, and therefore it is not surprising if it formed no part of His ordinary public teaching.

It will be convenient to take first the less important passage, Matt. xviii. 17. Here our Lord is speaking not of the future but the present, instructing 10His disciples how to deal with an offending brother. There are three stages of ἔλεγξις, or bringing his fault home to him; first with him alone, next with two or three brethren; and if that fails, thirdly with the ἐκκλησία, the whole brotherhood. The principle holds good in a manner for all time. The actual precept is hardly intelligible if the ἐκκλησία meant is not the Jewish community, apparently the Jewish local community, to which the injured person and the offender both belonged.

We are on quite different ground in the more famous passage, Matt. xvi. 18. At a critical point in the Ministry, far away in the parts of Cæsarea Philippi, our Lord elicits from Peter the confession, “Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” and pronounces him happy for having been Divinely taught to have the insight which enabled him to make it: “Yea and I say to thee,” He proceeds, “that thou art Peter (Πέτρος, kēphā’), and on this πέτρα I will build my Ecclesia and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

Here there is no question of a partial or narrowly local Ecclesia. The congregation of God, which held so conspicuous a place in the ancient Scriptures, is assuredly what the disciples could not fail to understand as the foundation of the meaning of a sentence which was indeed for the present mysterious. If we may venture for a moment to substitute the name Israel, and read the words as 11‘on this rock I will build my Israel,’ we gain an impression which supplies at least an approximation to the probable sense. The Ecclesia of the ancient Israel was the Ecclesia of God; and now, having been confessed to be God’s Messiah, nay His Son, He could to such hearers without risk of grave misunderstanding claim that Ecclesia as His own.

What He declared that He would build was in one sense old, in another new. It had a true continuity with the Ecclesia of the Old Covenant; the building of it would be a rebuilding[1]. Christ’s work in relation to it would be a completion of it, a bestowal on it of power to fulfil its as yet unfulfilled Divine purposes.

But it might also be called a new Ecclesia, as being founded on a new principle or covenant, and in this sense might specially be called the Ecclesia of Messiah, Messiah actually manifested; and under such a point of view building rather than rebuilding would be the natural verb to use. It is hardly necessary to remind you how these two contrasted aspects of the Gospel, as at once bringing in the new, and fulfilling and restoring the old, are inseparably intertwined in our Lord’s teaching.

Hence we shall go greatly astray if we interpret 12our Lord’s use of the term Ecclesia in this cardinal passage exclusively by reference to the Ecclesia known to us in Christian history. Speaking with reference to the future, He not only speaks (as the phrase is) “in terms of” the past, but emphatically marks the future as an outgrowth of the past. Here however a question presents itself which we cannot help asking, — asking in all reverence. How came our Lord to make choice of this particular word, or a word belonging to this particular group? Common as are the two Hebrew words which we have examined, ‘ēdhāh and qāhāl, they do not occur in any of the important passages which describe or imply the distinctive position of Israel as a peculiar people. Their use is mainly confined to historical parts of the historical book. They have no place in the greater prophecies having what we call a Messianic import. From all parts of the book of Isaiah they are both entirely absent. ‘People,’ ‘ăm, λαός, is the term which first occurs to us as most often applied to Israel in this as well as in other connexions, and which has also, under limitations, considerable Apostolic sanction as applied to the Christian Ecclesia. But on reflexion we must see, I think, that ‘people’ was a term which, thus applied, belonged in strictness only to that past period of the world’s history in which the society of men specially consecrated to God was likewise a nation, one of many nations, and in the main a race, one of many races. It would have been a true word, 13but, as used on this occasion, liable to be misunderstood. This impression is confirmed by examination of the passages of the New Testament in which λαός (people) is applied to the Christian Ecclesia. It will be found that they almost always include a direct appropriation of Old Testament language[1].

If the term ‘people’ was not to be employed, qāhāl (ἐκκλησία) was, as far as we can see, the fittest term to take its place. Although, as we saw just now, the use of the two words which we translate ‘congregation’ and ‘assembly’ in the Old Testament, is almost wholly historical, not ideal or doctrinal, there is one passage (Ps. lxxiv. 2) in which one of them wears practically another character. It is not a conspicuous passage as it stands in the Psalter; but the manner in which St Paul adopts and adapts its language in his parting address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (Acts xx. 28) amply justifies the supposition that it helped directly or indirectly to facilitate the use of ἐκκλησία to denote God’s people 14of the future. “Remember thy congregation which thou didst purchase of old, didst redeem to be the tribe of thine inheritance.”

The original here is ‘ēdhāh, and the LXX. rendering for it συναγωγή. St Paul substitutes ἐκκλησία as he also substitutes περιεποιήσατο (‘purchased’) for the too colourless ἐκτήσω (‘acquired’) of the LXX., while he further gives the force of the other verb ‘redeem’ by what he says of the blood through which the purchase was made. The points that concern us are these. Not ‘people’ but ‘congregation’ is the word employed by the Psalmist in his appeal to God on behalf of the suffering Israel of the present, with reference to what He had wrought for Israel in the time of old, when He had purchased them out of Egypt, ransomed them out of Egyptian bondage, to be a peculiar possession to Himself; these images of ‘purchase’ and ‘ransom’ as applied to the Divine operation of the Exodus being taken primarily from the Song of Moses (Exod. xv. 13, 16); and then fresh significance is given to the Psalmist’s language by the way in which St Paul appropriates it to describe how God had purchased to Himself a new congregation (now called ἐκκλησία) by the ransom of His Son’s lifeblood. This seventy-fourth Psalm is now generally believed to be a very late one; it is not unlikely that in speaking of God’s congregation rather than God’s people, the Psalmist was following a current usage of his own time. If so, there would be an additional 15antecedent leading up to the language which we read in St Matthew. But to say the least, the Psalm shews that such language was not absolutely new[1].

But the fitness of this language by no means depends only on the Psalm or on what the Psalm may imply. These words denoting ‘congregation’ or ‘assembly’ had belonged to the children of Israel through their whole history from the day when they became a people. In the written records of the Old Testament they first start forth in this sense in connexion with the institution of the Passover (Ex. xii.): they continue on during the wanderings in the wilderness, in the time of the Judges, under the Kings, and after the Captivity when the kingdom remained unrestored. Moreover they suggested no mere agglomeration of men, but rather a unity carried out in the joint action of many members, each having his own responsibilities, the action of each and all being regulated by a supreme law or order. To Greek ears these words would doubtless be much less significant: but what they suggested would be substantially true as far as it went, and it was not on Greek soil that the earliest Christian Ecclesia was to arise.

This primary sense of ἐκκλησία as a congregation 16or assembly of men is not altered by the verb “build” (οἰκοδομήσω) associated with it. It is somewhat difficult for us to feel the exact force of the combination of words, familiar as we are with the idea of building as applied to the material edifice which we call a church, and natural as it is for us to transfer associations unconsciously from the one sense to the other. To speak of men as being built is in accordance with Old Testament usage. Thus Jer. xxiv. 6; I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up (cf. xlii. 10); xxxiii. 7, I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first; and elsewhere. But no doubt the singular μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν is meant to imply more distinctly the building up of the whole body in unity.

What our Lord speaks of however is not simply building, but building “upon this rock.” It is impossible now to do more than say in the fewest words that I believe the most obvious interpretation of this famous phrase is the true one. St Peter himself, yet not exclusively St Peter but the other disciples of whom he was then the spokesman and interpreter, and should hereafter be the leader, was the rock which Christ had here in view. It was no question here of an authority given to St Peter; some other image than that of the ground under a foundation must have been chosen if that had been meant. Still less was it a question of an authority which should 17be transmitted by St Peter to others. The whole was a matter of personal or individual qualifications and personal or individual work. The outburst of keenly perceptive faith had now at last shown St Peter, carrying with him the rest, to have the prime qualification for the task which his Lord contemplated for him.

That task was fulfilled, fulfilled at once and for ever so far as its first and decisive stage was concerned, in the time described in the earliest chapters of the Acts. The combination of intimate personal acquaintance with the Lord, first during His Ministry and then after His Resurrection, with such a faith as was revealed that day in the region of Cæsarea Philippi, a faith which could penetrate into the heavenly truth concerning the Lord that lay beneath the surface of His words and works, these were the qualifications for becoming the foundations of the future Ecclesia. In virtue of this personal faith vivifying their discipleship, the Apostles became themselves the first little Ecclesia, constituting a living rock upon which a far larger and ever enlarging Ecclesia should very shortly be built slowly up, living stone by living stone, as each new faithful convert was added to the society.

But the task thus assigned to St Peter and the rest was not for that generation only. To all future generations and ages the Ecclesia would 18remain built upon them, upon St Peter and his fellow disciples, partly as a society continuous with the Society which was built directly upon them in their lifetime, partly as deriving from their faith and experience, as embodied in the New Testament, its whole knowledge of the facts and primary teachings of the Gospel.

The Ecclesia (without the name) in the Gospels.

We must not linger now over the other details of our Lord’s words to St Peter; though the time we have already spent on those points in them which most directly concern our subject is hardly out of proportion to their importance in illustration of it. But we have not yet done with the Gospels. Though they contain the word ἐκκλησία but twice, and refer directly to the Christian Ecclesia but once, in other forms they tell much that bears on our subject, far more than it is possible to gather up within our limits. This is one of the cases in which it is dangerous to measure teaching about things by the range of the names applied to things. Much had been done towards the making of the elements of the Ecclesia before its name could with advantage be pronounced otherwise than under such special circumstances as we have just been considering.

One large department of our Lord’s teaching, sometimes spoken of as if it directly belonged to our subject, may, I believe, be safely laid aside. In the 19verse following that which we have been considering, our Lord says to St Peter “ I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Without going into details of interpretation, we can at once see that the relation between the two verses implies some important relation between the Ecclesia and the Kingdom of Heaven: but the question is, what relation? The simplest inference from the language used would be that the office committed to St Peter and the rest with respect to the Ecclesia, would enable him and them to fulfil the office here described as committed to him, with respect to the Kingdom of Heaven. But the question is whether this is a sufficient account of the matter. Since Augustine’s time the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God, of which we read so often in the Gospels, has been simply identified with the Christian Ecclesia. This is a not unnatural deduction from some of our Lord’s sayings on this subject taken by themselves; but it cannot, I think, hold its ground when the whole range of His teaching about it is comprehensively examined. We may speak of the Ecclesia as the visible representative of the Kingdom of God, or as the primary instrument of its sway, or under other analogous forms of language. But we are not justified in identifying the one with the other, so as to be able to apply directly to the Ecclesia whatever is said in the Gospels about the Kingdom of Heaven or of God.

On the other hand, wherever we find disciples and 20discipleship in the Gospels, there we are dealing with what was a direct preparation for the founding of the Ecclesia. We all know how much more this word ‘disciples’ sometimes means in the Gospels than admiring and affectionate hearers, though that forms a part of it; how a closer personal relation is further involved in it, for discipleship takes various forms and passes through various stages. Throughout there is devotion to the Lord, found at last to be no mere superior Rabbi, but a true Lord of the spirit; and along with and arising out of this devotion there is a growing sense of brotherhood between disciples.

Chief among the disciples are those Twelve who from certain points of view are called Apostles, but very rarely in the Gospels; sometimes ‘The Twelve’, more often simply ‘The Disciples’. We do the Evangelists wrong if we treat this use of terms as fortuitous or trivial. It is in truth most exact and most instructive. Not only was discipleship the foundation of apostleship, but the Twelve who were Apostles were precisely the men who were most completely disciples. Here we are brought back to the meaning of the building of Christ’s Ecclesia upon St Peter and his fellows. The discipleship which accompanied our Lord’s Ministry contained, though in an immature form, precisely the conditions by which the Ecclesia subsisted afterwards, faith and devotion to the Lord, felt and exercised in union, and consequent brotherly love. It was the strength, so to speak, of St Peter’s 21discipleship which enabled him, leading the other eleven disciples and in conjunction with them, to be a foundation on which fresh growths of the Ecclesia could be built.

This point needs a little further examination, the exact relation of the Apostles to the Ecclesia, according to the books of the New Testament, being a fundamental part of our subject.

Lecture II. The Apostles in Relation to the Ecclesia.

LECTURE II.

THE APOSTLES IN RELATION TO THE ECCLESIA.

The term ‘Apostle’ in the Gospels.

I SAID towards the close of my last lecture that the term ‘Apostles’ as applied to the Twelve was rare in the Gospels. Let us see what the passages are. The first is a very pregnant one, though simple enough in form, Mark iii. 13-16. Our Lord goes up into the mountain, and “calls to Him whom He Himself would, and they departed unto Him. And He made twelve, whom He also named Apostles, [such is assuredly the true reading, though the common texts create an artificial smoothness by omitting the last clause] that they should be with Him, and that He should send (ἀποστέλλῃ) them to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons; and He made the Twelve . . . Peter (giving this name to Simon) and James etc.” Here by what seems to be a double process of selection (though the 23word selection is not used), proceeding wholly from Himself, our Lord sets aside twelve for two great purposes, kept apart in the Greek by the double ἵνα: the first, personal nearness to Himself “that they should be with Him”: the second, “with a view to sending them forth”, this mission of theirs having two heads, to preach, and to have authority to cast out the ‘demons’, these two being precisely the two modes of action which St Mark has described in i. 39 as exercised by the Lord Himself in the synagogues of all Galilee, just as in the previous verses i. 14–34 he had described a succession of acts which came under these heads, the second head evidently including the healing of the sick. Lastly we learn that our Lord Himself, apparently on this occasion, called these twelve chosen men ‘Apostles’ or ‘envoys’.

Whether they were or were not sent forth immediately after this their selection, St Mark does not expressly tell us. But it is morally certain that he intended to represent the actual mission as not immediate. Such is the natural force of ἵνα ἀποστέλλῃ “with a view to sending them forth”, and moreover more than one hundred verses further on (vi. 7) we read how when our Lord was going round the villages teaching, He called to Himself the Twelve, “and began to send them forth by two and two”; and so, after a brief account of His charge to them we read (vi. 12 f.) “and they went 24out and preached that men should repent, and they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them”: — again the two heads of what they were to do when sent forth. Then comes the story of Herod and John the Baptist; and then (vi. 30) “and the Apostles are gathered together (συνάγονται) unto Jesus, and they told Him all things whatsoever they had done and whatsoever they had taught” (again the two heads emphatically distinguished). Henceforward the word ἀπόστολος disappears from St Mark’s Gospel; so that he evidently used it only in the strictest sense, with reference to this one typical mission to preach and to heal, at the beginning of it and at the end of it. When he wishes afterwards[1] to mark them out sharply from the other disciples, he calls them “the Twelve.”

Next, St Luke’s Gospel is interesting both by its resemblances and by its differences. First comes a passage (vi. 12 ff.) which includes in itself both likeness and unlikeness to St Mark. “It came to pass in these days that He went out unto the mountain to pray, and He continued all night in His prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples, and choosing from them twelve, whom He also named Apostles, Simon . . . , and going down with them, He stood on a level place.” Here 25the selection by our Lord is mentioned, and the name ‘Apostles’ which He gave: but nothing is said of either purpose or work. The selection is associated with the Sermon on the Mount. We do hear however (vi. 17 f.) of the great crowd who were present “to hear Him” (the correlative of preaching) “and to be healed of their diseases”, “unclean spirits” being mentioned in the next sentence. Then, after a considerable interval, we read (ix. 1) how He called together the Twelve (the addition “Apostles” has high authority but is probably only an Alexandrine reading), and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and sent them forth (ἀπέστειλεν) to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. After a charge of three verses only, we read (ix. 6) “And they going forth went throughout the villages, preaching good tidings and healing everywhere”. (Thus the two heads are twice repeated). Then Herod is spoken of for three verses, and in v. 10 (just as in Mark vi. 30) we have the Twelve on their return described as Apostles, “And the Apostles when they had returned recounted to Him what they had done.” If we pursue the narrative a little further, we shall hardly think this limitation of usage accidental. Two verses later (ix. 12) it is the Twelve who are said to come to our Lord and bid Him dismiss the multitude. In v. 14 they are called “His disciples”, in vv. 16, 18 “the disciples”, and so on.

In this Gospel however the term is not throughout confined to this limited usage. Three times afterwards[1] it speaks of “the Apostles”, without any perceptible reference to that mission, while it also speaks of ‘the Twelve’ once[1] and of ‘the Eleven’ twice[1]. The explanation, I suppose, is that St Luke, having probably in his mind the writing of the Acts, which is (see Acts i. 1 f.) a kind of second part to the Gospel, in these three places used by anticipation the title which, as we shall see presently, acquired a fresh currency after the Ascension: in each of the three cases the accompanying language bears no trace of coming from a common source with anything in the other Gospels; so that the wording is probably entirely St Luke’s own. The anticipatory use thus supposed has no doubt an instructiveness of its own. It serves to remind us how all that period, in which the Twelve seemed to be only gathering in personal gains to heart and mind by their discipleship, was in truth the indispensable condition and, as it were, education for their future action upon others.

St Matthew on the other hand gives even less prominence to the title ‘Apostles’ than St Mark. He tells us (x. 1) that our Lord “calling His twelve disciples unto Him gave them authority over unclean 27spirits so as to cast them out and to heal every disease and every sickness.” “Now the names of the twelve Apostles,” he adds, “are these . . . .” In the other two Gospels we have had two separate incidents, the selection on the mountain, and the subsequent mission among the villages. Here in St Matthew the first incident is dropped altogether, so that in the first words of chap. x. “His twelve disciples” are spoken of as an already known or already existing body to whom powers are now given, and the list of names is prefixed to the account of their mission. We are not told that our Lord called them ‘Apostles’ nor is any other indication given that the term had a special meaning: nay, the word in this context might with at least as great propriety be translated ‘envoys’ as ‘Apostles’. The nature of their mission is not expressly described, though our Lord’s own previous action is spoken of (ix. 35) as “teaching in their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness.” But St Matthew places here the well-known charge, introducing it with the words “These twelve Jesus sent (ἀπέστειλεν) charging them saying,” etc., and the charge itself almost at once puts forward the same heads of mission which we have found in the other Gospels. Thenceforward St Matthew never uses the term ‘Apostle’. When he needs a precise designation, it is usually[1], “His 28twelve disciples” or “the Twelve[1]”, and once (xxviii. 16) “the eleven disciples”.

St John’s usage, as is well-known, is more remarkable still. He never calls the Twelve “Apostles”, unless it be by indirect allusion (xiii. 16) “A servant is not greater than his lord; neither an envoy (one sent) greater than he that sent him.” Of the Twelve he speaks in vi. 67, 70 “Jesus said therefore to the Twelve ‘Will ye also go?’” “Did not I choose you the Twelve, and one of you is a διάβολος?”; besides his use of the term to describe Judas (vi. 71) and Thomas (xx. 24).

Taking these facts together respecting the usage of the Gospels, we are led, I think, to the conclusion that in its original sense the term Apostle was not intended to describe the habitual relation of the Twelve to our Lord during the days of His ministry, but strictly speaking only that mission among the villages, of which the beginning and the end are recorded for us; just as in the Acts, Paul and Barnabas are called Apostles (i.e. of the Church of Antioch) with reference to that special mission which we call St Paul’s First Missionary Journey, and to that only. At the same time this limited apostleship was not heterogeneous from the apostleship of later days spoken of in the Acts, but a prelude to it, a preparation for it, and as 29it were a type of it. Such sayings as that difficult one (Matt. xix. 28 || Luke xxii. 30) about sitting on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, are indications that a distinctive function was reserved for the Twelve throughout, over and above their function as the chiefest disciples. It remains true that the habitual, always appropriate, designations of the Twelve during our Lord’s ministry were simply “the disciples” or “the twelve” or “the twelve disciples”.

And this use of names points to corresponding facts. Discipleship, not apostleship, was the primary active function, so to speak, of the Twelve till the Ascension, and, as we shall see, it remained always their fundamental function. The purpose of their being with Him (with the Lord) stands first in that memorable sentence of St Mark, and is sharply distinguished from the Lord’s second purpose in forming them into a body, viz. the sending them forth to preach and to work acts of deliverance. But the distinction does not rest on those words alone. A far larger proportion of the Gospels is taken up with records of facts belonging to the discipleship than with records of facts belonging to the apostleship, so far as it is possible to distinguish them.

The Last Supper.

When the Ministry is over, and the end is beginning, the importance of the special discipleship of the 30Twelve in relation to the future Ecclesia soon comes to light. The Last Supper is the most solemn and characteristic gathering together of the Twelve with the Lord at their head. There in the upper room they are completely “with Him,” and completely separated from all others. The words and acts at this supper, which constitute the institution of the Holy Communion, were addressed to the Twelve, and no others are spoken of as recipients of the command. Whatever directions for the future are present here are contained within the simple imperatives addressed to the Twelve, “take,” “eat,” “drink,” and (if we add St Paul and the interpolation in St Luke’s text derived from him) “do this.” Of whom then in after times were the Twelve the representatives that evening? If they represented an apostolic order within the Ecclesia then the Holy Communion must have been intended only for members of that order, and the rest of the Ecclesia had no part in it. But if, as the men of the Apostolic age and subsequent ages believed without hesitation, the Holy Communion was meant for the Ecclesia at large, then the Twelve sat that evening as representatives of the Ecclesia at large: they were disciples more than they were Apostles.

That central event of the Last Supper, as we all know, is not mentioned by St John: but there is a close connexion between its meaning and much of the contents of those five chapters of his Gospel, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth, which begin with the 31washing of St Peter’s feet, and end with the Lord’s own last prayer before His departure from the city for the garden. Though the word ecclesia does not occur in these chapters, any more than in the rest of the Gospel, the inward characteristics of the Christian Ecclesia according to Christ’s intention are virtually expounded in not a few of their verses. The seclusion of the Twelve, soon becoming the Eleven, with their Lord away from all other men, makes itself felt throughout: but it is equally clear that the little band of chosen ones, with whom those marvellous discourses were held, was destined to become no mere partial order of men but a people of God, an Ecclesia like the ideal Israel. The feet-washing in act, and the new commandment in words, lay down the primary law for the mutual action of the members of the Ecclesia, humility and love; the similitude of the vine and the branches lays down their common relation to their Divine Head. The promise of the other Paraclete, the Spirit of the Truth, and the exposition of His working, are a new and pregnant revelation of life and light for the Ecclesia. In the last prayer the goal of unity is set forth in a sentence (xvii. 20) which expressly recognises the growth of the future Ecclesia from that little band: “Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send me.” 32These last words bring out the purpose of the Ecclesia in God’s counsels: it is to draw the rest of mankind to its own faith and love; to carry on a work of salvation, in the power of the salvation wrought by its Head: “as Thou didst send me into the world, I also sent them into the world.” The whole Ecclesia shares alike in that transmitted Mission.

The utterances after the Resurrection.

Before we pass from the Gospels we must look for a moment at one or two famous passages belonging to the days after the Resurrection, especially to the last five verses of St Matthew, and to our Lord’s appearance among the disciples on the evening of the first day of the week (John xx. 19-23), when He breathed on them and said “Receive ye the Holy Spirit. . . .” To discuss the contents of these passages would carry us into matters which it is happily not necessary to our purpose to examine in detail. But it is needful to point out the bearing of the results at which we have hitherto arrived, on the question as to the recipients of these two famous sets of words. Much stress is often laid on the supposed evidence afforded by the words of the evangelists that they were addressed exclusively to the Apostles. Dr Westcott has shown how, when we look below the surface, indications are not wanting that others were not improbably likewise present, at all events on the 33occasion recorded by St John, when his narrative is compared with that of St Luke (xxiv. 33 ff.).

But in such a matter the mere fact that doubt is possible is a striking one. It is in truth difficult to separate these cases from the frequent omission of the evangelists to distinguish the Twelve from other disciples; a manner of language which, as we have seen, explains itself at once when we recognise how large a part discipleship played in the function of the Twelve.

Granting that it was probably to the Eleven that our Lord directly and principally spoke on both these occasions (and even to them alone when He spoke the words at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel), yet it still has to be considered in what capacity they were addressed by Him. If at the Last Supper, and during the discourses which followed, when the Twelve or Eleven were most completely secluded from all other disciples as well as from the unbelieving Jews, they represented the whole Ecclesia of the future, it is but natural to suppose that it was likewise as representatives of the whole Ecclesia of the future, whether associated with other disciples or not, that they had given to them those two assurances and charges of our Lord, about the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the remitting or retaining of sins (howsoever we understand these words), and about His universal authority in heaven and on earth, on the strength of which He bids them bring all the 34nations into discipleship, and assures them of His own presence with them all the days even to the consummation of the age.

This interpretation is not affected by the special language used in Matt. xxviii. 19, where bringing all the nations into discipleship is coupled with baptizing them into the Threefold Name. In the most literal sense of these words, they apply to the bearers of the message of the Gospel, chief among whom, ideally at least, were the Apostles; though the personal act of baptizing is somewhat markedly disconnected from evangelistic work by St Paul in 1 Cor. i. 14-17. In a word, the action of the Apostles is the most obvious expression, so to speak, of the charge then given. But the work of the Ecclesia in relation to the world is itself a missionary work; and it is to the Ecclesia itself as the missionary body that Christ’s charge is ultimately addressed.

The new Apostolic mission.

On entering the Acts of the Apostles, we come at once to the term ‘apostles’. It continues with us all through the book with the rarest exceptions[1]. This 35fact suggests that a change has passed upon the work or office of the Twelve: and such we actually find.

Two points especially require notice. Their original mission, from which apparently proceeded the title ‘apostle’ given them by our Lord, was strictly confined to Judæa (Matt. x. 5 f.), “Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And the same charge which opens with these words contains the remarkable and by no means easy sentence (Matt. x. 23), “When they persecute you in this city, flee into the next; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.” The limitation of the original apostolic mission here indicated is maintained strictly in the Gospels throughout the Ministry. Whatever tokens or express declarations of the destination of the Gospel for all nations may be recorded by the Evangelists in this part of their books, in no case, I believe, is any reference there made to the agency of the Apostles in extending the sphere of the message of salvation. No doubt it is sometimes said that the prediction of the Apostles being brought before rulers and kings (ἡγεμόνες and βασιλεῖς), which St Matthew places in that same first charge to the Apostles which we have just been looking at (x. 18), and St Mark and St Luke in the discourse of judgement pronounced on the Mount of Olives in the last week (Mark xiii. 9; 36Luke xxi. 12), it is said, I say, that this prediction must refer to the heathen magistrates and potentates who withstood the Gospel in various parts of the Roman Empire. The words are however quite as naturally applicable to heathen rulers who, no less than the Jewish authorities, would be found hostile in Judæa itself. The allusion is, I strongly suspect, to the enemies of Jehovah and His Anointed, called in Ps. ii. 2 “the kings of the earth and the rulers” (LXX. ἄρχοντες), a description which the Apostles recognise as fulfilled in Herod and Pontius Pilate as gathered together against our Lord Himself (Acts iv. 27), thus making a hostile combination of Gentiles with Jews.

The extension of the range of the apostolic mission takes place between the Resurrection and the Ascension. Not to dwell again on the last charge at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, nor to refer by more than a word to the version of it preserved in a record of such uncertain authority as the Appendix to St Mark’s Gospel, we read in Luke xxiv. 45 ff. how our Lord opened their mind to understand the Scriptures, and said to them that “thus it is written,” not only “that the Christ should suffer and rise again on the third day,” but also “that repentance unto remission of sins should be preached (or proclaimed) in His Name unto all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem.” “Ye are witnesses,” he adds, “of these things.”

This language is strikingly guarded. The going 37forth of the message of salvation is set forth as involved in the vision of the future which the prophets were permitted to see; but it is set forth wholly impersonally: nothing connects the Apostles themselves with it but the single saying “Ye are witnesses of these things”; a saying which perfectly well admits of meaning no more than that the fundamental testimony of “these things” (itself an elastic phrase) was to be given by the Apostles, without further implying that they were to be themselves the bearers of the message founded on that testimony to heathen lands.

Of less ambiguous import are the words which we read in Acts i. 8 as spoken to them by the Lord just before the Ascension, “Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judæa and Samaria and unto the utmost part of the earth.” Here the utmost range seems to be given to the testimony which they are to bear in person; and this, the most obvious sense, is confirmed by the previous sentence, “But ye shall receive power by the Holy Spirit coming upon you,” such power from above being evidently intended to sustain them in their long and troubled course of bearing witness. Thus universality is a characteristic of the new apostolic mission.

In what manner the Twelve understood themselves afterwards to be charged with this enlarged responsibility, it is difficult to make out. The admission of the Gentiles was assuredly not accepted at once without hesitation as a necessary consequence of the terms of 38the Lord’s commission. But the mere recognition of His having at this solemn time so expressly dwelt on the ultimate world-wide destination of His Gospel, must have been enough to affect deeply the character of their work, even in its first and narrowest sphere at Jerusalem.

The second characteristic of the new apostolic mission is that which has already come before us in connexion with its universality, — its work of bearing witness. This comes out with especial clearness in St Peter’s address to the brethren respecting providing a successor to Judas: “Of the men,” he says (i. 21 f.), “that companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out unto us, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that He was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of His Resurrection.” This is the one essential condition mentioned, to be a witness of the Resurrection. The prayer that follows describes the office itself as “the place of this ministration and mission” (τῆς διακονίας ταύτης καὶ ἀποστολῆς) just as St Peter had previously (v. 17) called it “the lot of this ministration.” But this does not alter the statement as to the indispensable qualification. Nor does this passage stand alone. Everyone must remember the persistency with which this apostolic witness-bearing to the crowning events of Gospel history is reiterated in the Acts, and especially in the 39early speeches in the Acts (ii. 32, iii. 15, iv. 33, v. 32, x. 39-41, xiii. 31).

This mark of apostleship is evidently founded on direct personal discipleship; and as evidently it is incommunicable. Its whole meaning rested on immediate and unique experience; as St John says, “that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled” (1 John i. 1). Without a true perceptive faith, such a faith as shewed itself in St Peter, all this acquaintance through the bodily senses was in vain. But the truest faith of one who was a disciple only in the second degree, however precious in itself, could never qualify him for bearing the apostolic character.

Apart from this unique function of being witnesses of the Resurrection, it is difficult to find in the New Testament any clear definition of the Apostolic office from the records of the time between the Resurrection and the Ascension. In the second verse of the Acts we read of our Lord giving them command (ἐντειλάμενος) on the day of His Ascension: but what were the contents of that commandment we know not, unless it was the charge to continue at Jerusalem awaiting the promise of the Father, the Pentecostal gift (i. 4, 5; Luke xxiv. 49). So again in v. 3 we hear of His “appearing to them and saying to them the things concerning the kingdom of God”: but more than this we do not learn. What Scripture says, and what it 40leaves unsaid, together suggest that the new stage of Apostleship was inaugurated by no new act of appointment analogous to the original designation of the Twelve on the mountain, these commands and teachings that we hear of being rather like the subsequent charge to the Apostles on their going forth among the villages. On this view it was the Crucifixion (interpreted as always by the Resurrection) which constituted the real inauguration of the renewed apostleship. We saw the other day how the work assigned to the Twelve, when first sent forth among the villages, was a repetition, so to speak, of the work which our Lord Himself was then pursuing, consisting of two heads, preaching and casting out demons, including the healing of sickness; or in other words, proclaiming the kingdom of God by word, and manifesting and illustrating it by significant act. The work that lay before them when His Ministry on earth was ended was not in its essence different from before: they had still to make known the kingdom of God by words and by deeds; and this is the sole conception of their work put before us in the Acts. But there were two great changes. First, He Himself would no longer be visibly in their midst, so that the responsibility of guidance descended upon them, subject only to the indications of His Will, and enlightened by His Spirit. Moreover, this responsibility was not for a limited mission of short duration, but by its very nature was 41continuous and permanent. Second, He Himself, in His Death and His Resurrection, was now become a primary subject of their teaching and action: in the light of Him the kingdom of God put on a new meaning, and He was Himself the living representative of it.

Lecture III. Early Stages in the Growth of the Ecclesia.

LECTURE III.

EARLY STAGES IN THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA.

WE now enter on the narrative of the time which followed the Ascension, limiting ourselves as far as possible to those parts of St Luke’s record which illustrate the characteristics of the new Ecclesia and the stages of its growth; but not neglecting either pieces of evidence relating to the Ecclesia under other names and descriptions, or the history of the use of the name ecclesia itself.

On the return from the Mount of Olives the eleven remaining Apostles go up into the upper chamber where they were staying (i. 13), and thus renew, as it were, their coherence as a definite body.

A somewhat larger body is next mentioned as “attending steadfastly with one accord upon ‘the prayer’,” certain women, and the Lord’s mother and brethren, being associated with the Apostles. 43This peculiar phrase taken in conjunction with “the prayers” (ii. 42) and “the prayer” (vi. 4) suggests that a definite custom of common prayer is intended, a bond of Christian fellowship.

Next in v. 15 we read of a larger assembly, probably the whole body of ‘brethren,’ as they are emphatically called, about 120 in number. “In the midst of the brethren,” St Luke says, St Peter rose up and declared the need of filling up the place left vacant by Judas.

The next chapter relates the appearance of the fiery tongues on the day of Pentecost, St Peter’s discourse, and the results of it. The hearers, or some of them, are pricked to the heart and ask Peter and the other Apostles, whom they recognise as brother Israelites (ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί), “What shall we do?” The answer is “Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ unto remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit: for to you is the promise and to your children and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him.” The other recorded words of his exhortation are significant, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” This phrase ‘crooked generation’ comes, you may remember, from what is said of the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness in Deut. xxxii. 5. There is not a word against the ancient Ecclesia or people. The crooked generation of the unbelieving present, which perverts and misinterprets 44the ancient covenant, is the evil sphere to be abandoned.

These men accept his discourse and are baptised. That is the definite act which signifies at once their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and thereby their joining of themselves to the society of His disciples; and on the other hand the acceptance of them by the Ecclesia. “And there were added on that day about three thousand souls.”

Then comes the description of the characteristic acts and practices by which these new members lived the life of members of the new brotherhood. “They continued attending steadfastly upon (προσκαρτεροῦντες) the teaching of the Apostles and upon the communion, upon the breaking of the bread and upon the prayers.” In the centre we see the apostolic body, a bond of unity to the rest. Their public teaching, replacing the public teaching of the scribes, carries on the instruction of converts who have yet much to learn, and attendance upon it is at the same time a mark of fellowship. Next comes what is called ‘the communion’, conduct expressive of and resulting from the strong sense of fellowship with the other members of the brotherhood, probably public acts by which the rich bore some of the burdens of the poor. Thirdly we have ‘the breaking of the bread,’ what we call the Holy Communion, named here from the expressive act by which the unity of the many as partakers of the one Divine sustenance is signified. 45Lastly we have ‘the prayers’, apparently Christian prayers in common, which took the place of the prayers of the synagogues.

In the next group of verses we hear not merely of these new disciples, but of the whole body of which they had now become members. “All that believed together” says St Luke (this is his peculiar but pregnant description of membership), “all that believed together had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need.” This general statement is qualified and explained later. Evidently there was no law of the society imposing such sale: but the principle of holding all in trust for the benefit of the rest of the community was its principle of possession. “And day by day”, the narrative proceeds, “attending steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they partook of their food in exultation (ἀγαλλιάσει) and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their company day by day them that were saved” (or Revised Version, “were being saved”: neither rendering satisfactory). Such is St Luke’s account of the inward spirit and outward demeanour of the new Ecclesia, not yet in any antagonism to the old Ecclesia but the most living portion of it, and manifestly laying claim by attendance in the temple to be a society of loyal sons of Israel.

Thus far St Luke has been picturing to us the Christian Ecclesia of Jerusalem antecedent to all persecution, moved simply by its own inherent principles. A fresh impulse towards consolidation comes from the onslaught of the Jewish authorities, due to the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, an event which had at once caused an increase in the number of Christian believers so that they reached five thousand (iv. 4). Peter and John, threatened by the Council, return “to their own company” (τοὺς ἰδίους), almost certainly, I think, the apostolic company; and together they pour forth a prayer in which they recognise that now they too are having to encounter the same opposition which by God’s own providence had fallen upon His holy servant Jesus whom He anointed; and they ask to be enabled to speak His word with all boldness while He stretches forth His hand for healing, and for signs and wonders to come to pass through the name of His holy servant Jesus: thus attesting once more in the most solemn way the two original heads of the active functions assigned to them.

In St Luke’s narrative this incident is followed by an emphatic statement that the multitude (πλῆθος) of them that believed had but one heart and soul, and a renewal in more precise terms of the former statement about their having all things common. “And with great power,” he proceeds (iv. 33), “did the 47Apostles of the Lord Jesus deliver their testimony of His Resurrection, and great joy was upon them all”. The absence of want among them (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐνδεής τις ἦν) is given as a reason for this joy, the needs of the poor being provided for by the sale of lands or houses. In the former passage of similar import (ii. 44 f.), we read only of a distribution of the purchase money by the members of the community at large, or possibly by the vendors themselves. Here on the other hand we read that the purchase money was brought and laid at the Apostles’ feet for distribution, and further that Joseph, whom the Apostles called Barnabas for his power of exhortation, sold a field and laid the price at the Apostles’ feet. This is the first indication of the exercise of powers of administration by the Apostles, and, so far as appears, it was not the result of an authority claimed by them but of a voluntary entrusting of the responsibility to the Apostles by the rest. It was probably now felt that the functions and powers Divinely conferred upon them for preaching and healing as witnesses of the Resurrection, marked them out likewise as the fit persons to deal with the responsibilities of administration in carrying out the mutual bearing of burdens. The manner in which Barnabas’s name is introduced is remarkable, as also the express mention of his laying the value of his field at the Apostles’ feet. It does not seem unlikely that this important step on the part of the Ecclesia was taken at Barnabas’s 48suggestion; just as with no less boldness and forethought he brought St Paul into close relations with the Twelve at Jerusalem (ix. 27), and encouraged the newly founded Ecclesia at Antioch at a sufficiently critical time (xi. 22-24).

The event which comes next, the falsehood and death of Ananias and Sapphira, is for our purpose instructive in more ways than one. First, St Peter’s words “While it (the land) remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold was it not in thine own power (or right, ἐξουσίᾳ)?” exhibit the real nature of the community of goods at this time practised in the Christian community. There was no merging of all private possessions in a common stock, but a voluntary and variable contribution on a large scale. That is to say, the Ecclesia was a society in which neither the community was lost in the individuals, nor the individuals in the community. The community was set high above all, while the service and help to be rendered to the community remained a matter of individual conscience and free bounty. Next, the reality of the bond uniting together the members of the Christian community was vindicated in the most impressive way by the Divine judgment which fell on Ananias and Sapphira by the shock at the discovery of their deceit. Falsehood or faithlessness towards the Holy Spirit, as St Peter calls it, was involved in their faithlessness to the community, affecting as they did to take part to the full in the lofty life of mutual 49help, while their hypocritical reservation made brotherly fellowship an unreality. In consequence of this occurrence “great fear,” we are told, “fell on the whole Ecclesia, and all that heard these things.” Up to this time, as Bengel points out, St Luke has used only such descriptive phrases as “they that believed”, “the brethren” etc. Now for the first time he speaks of the Ecclesia. Whether it was so called at the time, it is not easy to tell. No approach to separation from the great Jewish Ecclesia had as yet taken place. On the other hand our Lord’s saying to St Peter must have been always present to the minds of the Apostles, and can hardly have been without influence on their early teaching. If St Luke used the word here by anticipation, it was doubtless with a wish to emphasise the fact that the death of Ananias and Sapphira marked an epoch in the early growth of the society, a time when its distinctness, and the cohesion of its members, had come to be distinctly recognised without as well as within.

A short period of prosperity follows (v. 12 ff.). By the hands of the Apostles many miracles are wrought among the people. They were all with one accord in the great arcade called Solomon’s Porch, reaching along the whole east side of the vast Temple precinct. “Of the rest,” says St Luke, meaning apparently those who elsewhere are distinguished from “the people”, the priests, rulers, elders, scribes, “no one dared to 50cleave to them (i.e. however much he may have secretly become in conviction a Christian), but the people magnified them, and yet more were added to them, believing the Lord, multitudes of men and women”. Even the neighbouring towns, we read, contributed their sick and possessed, who came to be healed. This fresh success leads to a fresh imprisonment of the Apostles; but by Gamaliel’s advice they are dismissed with a scourging and warning. But they continue day by day in the Temple and in private houses to proclaim the good tidings.

The appointment of the Seven.

We now come to an incident which concerns us both as itself a step in the organisation of the Ecclesia, and as a prelude to an event which had decisive effects on the position of the Ecclesia as a whole, the martyrdom of Stephen. This incident is the appointment of the Seven, answering to a great extent to those who were later called deacons. As the disciples multiplied, complaints were made by the Greek-speaking Jews settled in Jerusalem that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration (διακονία) for the relief of the poor, in comparison with the widows belonging to the Hebrew part of the community. The Twelve call to them the multitude (τὸ πλῆθος) of the disciples and say “It is not right (or desirable ἀρεστόν) that we, leaving the word of God, should serve tables (διακονεῖν τραπέζαις): but look ye out, brethren, 51men from among yourselves of good report, seven in number, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will set over this office (or need, χρείας means either): but we will attend diligently upon the prayer and upon the ministration (διακονίᾳ) of the word.” The suggestion found favour with all the multitude. They chose out seven, including a proselyte from Antioch, and set them before the Apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. It is impossible not to connect this act with the laying of the contributions at the Apostles’ feet. As being thus constituted stewards of the bounty of the community they were in a manner responsible for the distribution of the charitable fund. But the task had outgrown their powers, unless it was to be allowed to encroach on their higher Divinely appointed functions. They proposed therefore to entrust this special part of the work to other men, having the prerequisites of devoutness and wisdom, to be chosen by the Ecclesia at large. How much this new office included is not easy to say. All the seven names being Greek, it seems probable that they were Hellenists, as otherwise it would be a strange coincidence that there should be no Hebrew names; and if so, it would also seem likely that they were charged only with the care of relief to Hellenists. We do not hear however of any analogous office for the Hebrew Christians, nor whether any general superintendence of the funds was still retained by the Apostles. Nor again do we 52afterwards hear anything more of these Seven in relation to their special work. The definite recognition of special claims of Christian Hellenists was the essential point. Stephen’s miracles and preaching were no part of his office as one of the Seven, though they may have led to his selection; and Philip in like manner is known only as doing the work of an evangelist.

But the appointment was not only a notable recognition of the Hellenistic element in the Ecclesia at Jerusalem, a prelude of greater events to come, but also a sign that the Ecclesia was to be an Ecclesia indeed, not a mere horde of men ruled absolutely by the Apostles, but a true body politic, in which different functions were assigned to different members, and a share of responsibility rested upon the members at large, each and all; while every work for the Ecclesia, high and low, was of the nature of a ‘ministration’, a true rendering of a servant’s service.

Once more we hear that “the word of God grew, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem multiplied exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests obeyed the faith.” A little while ago it would seem that they were among those mentioned in v. 13 as not daring to cleave or join themselves to the Ecclesia. But now their faith had grown stronger and deeper; and one after another they obeyed its call, and took the risks of joining the Christian congregation.

The Ecclesia spreading throughout the Holy Land.

We may pass over the discourse and martyrdom of Stephen. But the verse which follows the recital of his death (viii. 1) deserves our special attention for its language, and the facts which account for its language. “There came in that day a great persecution upon the Ecclesia which was in Jerusalem (τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τὴν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις): all were scattered abroad about the regions of Judæa and Samaria save the Apostles”. In the single place where the word Ecclesia has before occurred in the Acts (v. 11), there has been no question of more than the one Ecclesia of all Christ’s disciples. Here we have that same identical body, differing only by the reception of more numerous members, so described as to give a hint that soon there were to be in a true sense of the word (though not the only true sense) more Ecclesiae than one. The materials for new Ecclesiae were about to be formed in consequence of this temporary scattering of the original Ecclesia; and moreover this first wide carrying of the Gospel through Judæa and Samaria was not the work of the Apostles: they are specially excepted by St Luke. Parenthetically in viii. 3 we read how Saul ravaged the Ecclesia, entering in house by house: and here the Ecclesia just spoken of, that of Jerusalem, seems to be meant, his prosecution of the persecution elsewhere even to Damascus being probably later. Of the work of one of the scattered 54Christians, Philip the evangelist, we hear specially, its sphere being the representative city of Samaria. Tidings of his successful preaching and his baptizing of men and women having reached the Apostles at Jerusalem (“hearing that Samaria hath received the word of God” viii. 14), they depute Peter and John to go down. They found apparently no reason to doubt the reality and sincerity of the conversions. But the recognition of Samaritans as true members of the Christian community, hitherto exclusively Jewish, was so important a step outwards from the first, and now by long custom established, state of things that they evidently shrank from giving full and unreserved welcome to the new converts, unless they could obtain a conspicuous Divine sanction, what is called in this book receiving the (or a) Holy Spirit. What is meant is shown clearly by comparison with x. 44-48 and xix. 6, 7, viz. the outward marvellous signs of the Spirit, such as manifested themselves on the Day of Pentecost, speaking with tongues, with or without prophesying. “These which received the Holy Spirit even as we did” (x. 47) is the phrase in which St Peter describes the Divine sanction which justified recognition for Christian discipleship and membership. In this case the baptism of the Samaritan converts had been followed by no such tokens from heaven, and so they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, and then laid their hands on them (the human symbolic act answering to the Heavenly act 55prayed for) and they received the Holy Spirit (ἐλάμβανον not ἔλαβον), that is, shewed a succession of signs of the Spirit. After the interlude of Simon Magus the Apostles return to Jerusalem, and on the way they themselves preach the Gospel to many Samaritan villages.

We need not examine the story of Philip and the eunuch, or even the conversion of St Paul, his recovery from blindness, preaching at Damascus, escape from attempted murder, admission to the confidence of the Apostles by the instrumentality of Barnabas, and on a fresh attempt to kill him, his departure for his native Tarsus. In passing it is worth notice that the man who lays hands on St Paul and baptizes him is no Apostle or even evangelist, but a simple disciple of Damascus, Ananias (ix. 17, 18). The last verse of the story (ix. 31) is this: “So the Ecclesia throughout all Judæa and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built; and walking by the fear of the Lord and by the invocation (παράκλησις) of the Holy Spirit (probably the invoking His guidance as Paraclete to the Ecclesia), was multiplied.” Here again the Ecclesia has assumed a wider range. It is no longer the Ecclesia of Jerusalem nor is it the several Ecclesiae of Jerusalem and Samaria and other places. That is language which we shall find in St Paul, but not in the Acts, except as regards regions external to the Holy Land. The Ecclesia was still confined to Jewish or semi-Jewish populations and to ancient 56Jewish soil; but it was no longer the Ecclesia of a single city, and yet it was one: probably as corresponding, by these three modern representative districts of Judæa, Galilee and Samaria, to the ancient Ecclesia which had its home in the whole land of Israel.

These limits however were soon to be crossed, The first step takes place on a journey of St Peter through the whole land (διερχόμενον διὰ πάντων, ix. 32), which shews that he regarded the whole as now come within the sphere of his proper work, as it had to all intents and purposes been within the sphere of his work in the prelusive ministrations accompanying the Lord’s own Ministry. On his way down to the coast he is said to have come to “the saints” or “holy ones” that dwelt at Lydda. The phrase is a remarkable one. It has occurred once already a few verses back (ix. 13) in Ananias’s answer to the word of the Lord spoken to him in a dream, “I have heard concerning this man (Saul) how much evil he did to thy saints at Jerusalem.” Members of the holy Ecclesia of Israel were themselves holy by the mere fact of membership, and this prerogative phrase is here boldly transferred to the Christians by the bold Damascene disciple. Its use is the correlative of the use of the term Ecclesia, the one relating to individuals as members of the community, the other to the community as a whole. It occurs once more 57in the same little group of events (ix. 41), and once on St Paul’s own lips in the bitterness of his self-accusation for his acts of persecution, in his defence before King Agrippa (xxvi. 10), probably in intentional repetition of Ananias’s language respecting those same acts of his. It was a phrase that was likely to burn itself into his memory in that connexion. All know how commonly it occurs in the Epistles and Apocalypse, but its proper original force is not always remembered.

Then comes the story of Cornelius, the Roman Centurion in the great chiefly heathen seaport of Cæsarea, and his reception and baptism by St Peter, on the double warrant of the vision at Joppa and the outburst of the mysterious tongues while Peter was yet speaking. This was the act of Peter on his own sole responsibility, and at first it caused disquiet among some at least of the original members of the Ecclesia. We read (xi. 1) “Now the apostles and the brethren that were in Judæa (or rather perhaps, all about Judæa, κατὰ τὴν Ἰουδαίαν) heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.” And when Peter went up to Jerusalem they of the “circumcision” (i.e. probably those spoken of in x. 45, who had accompanied St Peter, for as yet there is no sign of uncircumcised believers) disputed with Peter for eating with men uncircumcised. This was apparently a complaint preferred in the presence of the 58Apostles and brethren, but we hear nothing of any formal assertion of authority either by St Peter himself, or by the Apostles generally, or by the Apostles and brethren together. St Peter simply seeks to carry the whole body with him by patient explanation of the circumstances and considerations belonging to the case. And he has his reward: the objectors hold their peace (ἡσύχασαν, a word which points to the objectors) and glorify God for having given the Gentiles also repentance unto life. It was a great step that was thus taken; but it did not lie outside the local limits of the ancient Ecclesia. Cornelius was a sojourner in the land of Israel, and moreover one of them that feared or reverenced God, as it was called, a proselyte of the less strict sort.

Lecture IV. The Ecclesia of Antioch.

LECTURE IV.

THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH.

The Origin of the Ecclesia.

THE pause before the local limits of the ancient Ecclesia were overstepped was of short duration. St Luke’s next section tells us how fugitives from the persecution which began with Stephen had preached the word all along the Syrian coast up to Antioch, and by this time a large number of disciples had been gathered together. In other words, here was a great capital, including a huge colony of Jews, in close relations with all the Greek-speaking world and all the Syriac-speaking world; and in its midst a multitude of Christian disciples had come into existence in the most casual and unpremeditated way. No Apostle had led or founded a mission; no Apostle had taught there. But there the Christian congregation was, and its existence and future could not but be of the highest interest to the original body of Christians. What the 60relations would be between the two bodies was certainly not a question that could be answered off hand. “Hearing the tidings”, we read (xi. 22), “the Ecclesia which was at Jerusalem” (here once more we have a narrower title, doubtless with a view to the antithesis of Jerusalem and Antioch) “sent forth Barnabas to Antioch.” Barnabas, as we know, was not one of the Twelve. Probably the Twelve themselves felt that at the present moment it might be imprudent to take part personally in the affairs of Antioch, and to put forth even the semblance of apostolic authority there. But they (and not they only but the whole Ecclesia) sent a trusted envoy whose discretion could be relied on. He came and recognised what St Luke calls “the grace that was of God” (τὴν χάριν τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ), (the repetition of the article in the true text is full of meaning), the merciful extension of the area of saving knowledge and faith, and that by a kind of instrumentality which could be referred to nothing but the Providence of God. Accordingly, as a true son of encouragement or exhortation, Barnabas exhorted (παρεκαλει) all to abide by the purpose of their heart in the Lord, and many fresh conversions were the result of his teaching. But feeling apparently that this was a work for which St Paul’s experience peculiarly fitted him, he fetched him from Tarsus, and together at Antioch they spent a year. The disciples, we are told, were there first called Christians; but there is reason to believe that St Luke does not 61mean that the name was assumed by themselves. He does speak of Paul and Barnabas being “hospitably received

THE CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA