sponsibility of decision. The less violent course was therefore followed; after the apostles had suffered the milder punishment of scourging; a punishment inflicted with great frequency among the Jews, yet ignominious to the sufferer; the persecution, for the present, ceased: the Apostles again appeared in public; they attended in the Temple; but how long this period of security lasted, from the uncertain chronology of the early Christian history (1), it is impossible to decide. Yet, as the jealousies which appear to have arisen in the infant community, would require some time to mature and grow to head, we should interpose two or three years between this collision with the authorities and the next which first embrued the soil of Jerusalem with the blood of a Christian martyr. Nor would the peaceful policy adopted through the authority of Gamaliel have had a fair trial in a shorter period of time; it would scarcely have been overborne at once and immediately by the more violent party. The first converts to Christianity were Jews (2), but of two distinct classes:-1, the natives of Palestine, who spoke the Syrian dialect, and among whom perhaps were included the Jews from the East; 2, the Western Jews, who having been settled in the different provinces of the Roman empire, generally spoke Greek. This class may likewise have comprehended proselytes to Judaism. Jealousies arose between these two parties. The Greeks complained that the distribution of the general charitable fund was conducted with partiality, that their "widows were neglected." The dispute led to the establishment of a new order in the community. The Apostles withdrew from the laborious, it might be the invidious, Institution office; and seven disciples, from whose names we may conjecture that they were chosen from the Grecian party, were invested by a solemn ceremony, the imposition of hands, as deacons or ministers, with the superintendence of the general funds. It was in the synagogues of the foreign, the African and Asiatic Jews, that the success of Stephen, one of these deacons, excited the most violent hostility. The indignant people found that not even the priesthood was a security against this spreading apos (1) There is no certain date in the Acts of the Apostles, except that of the death of Herod, A.D. 44., even if that is certain. Nothing can be more easy than to array against each other the names of the most learned authorities, who from the earliest days have laboured to build a durable edifice out of the insufficient materials in their power. Perhaps from Jerom to Dr. Burton and Mr. Greswell, no two systems agree. The passage in St. Paul, Gal. ii. 1., which might be expected to throw light on this difficult subject, involves it in still greater intricacy. In the first place, the reading, fourteen years, as Grotius and many others have shown, not without MS. authority, is by no means certain. Then, from whence is this period to be calculated ?-from the conversion, with Pearson and many modern of Deacors. A. D, 34. tasy many of that order enrolled themselves among the disciples of Christ (1). Whether the execution of this first martyr to Christianity was a legal or tumultuary proceeding,-whether it was a solemn act of the Sanhedrin, the supreme judicial as well as civil tribunal of the nation, or an outbreak of popular indignation and resentment, the preliminary steps at least, appear to have been conducted with regularity. He was formally arraigned before the Sanhedrin, of blasphemy, as asserting the future destruction of the Temple, and the abrogation of the Law. This accusation, although the witnesses are said to have been false and suborned, seems to intimate, that in those Hellenistic congregations Christianity had already assumed a bolder and more independent tone; that it had thrown aside some of the peculiar character which adhered to it in the other communities; that it already aspired to be an universal, not a national religion; and one destined to survive the local worship in Jerusalem, and the abolition of the Mosaic institutes (2). Whether inflamed by these popular topics of accusation, which struck at the vital principle of their religious influence, or again taking alarm at the progress of Christianity, the Pharisaic party, which we found after the resurrection had lost their supremacy in the council, appear, from the active concurrence of Saul, and from the re-awakened hostility of the multitude, over whom the Sadducees had no commanding influence, to have re-united themselves to the more violent enemies of the faith. The defence of Stephen recapitulated in bold language the chief points of the national history, the privileges and the crimes of the race of Israel, which gradually led to this final consummation of their impiety and guilt, the rejection of the Messiah, the murder of the Just One. It is evidently incomplete; it was interrupted by the fury of his opponents, who took fire at his arraigning them, not merely of the death of Jesus, but of this perpetual violation of the Law; "who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it (3)." This charge struck directly at the Pharisaic party; the populace ever under their control, either abandoned the Christians to their fate, or joined in the hasty and ruthless vengeance. The murmurs, the gestures of the indignant Sanhedrin, and of others, perhaps, who witnessed the trial, betrayed their impatience and indignation: they gnashed their teeth; and Stephen breaking off, or unable to pursue his continuous discourse, in a kind of prophetic ecstasy declared that at that instant he beheld the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Whether legal or tumultuary, the execution of Stephen was conducted with so much attention to form, (1) Acts, vi. 7. (2) Stephen has been called by some modern writers the forerunner of St. Paul. See Neander; Geschichte der Pflanzung der Christlichen Kirche, p. 41.; a work which I had not the advantage of consulting, when this part of the present volume was written. (3) Acts, vii. 53. the proto that he was first carried beyond the walls of the city (1); the wit- Death of nesses, whose office it was to cast the first stone (2), put off their martyr. clothes, and perhaps observed the other forms peculiar to this mode A. D. 34. of execution. He died as a true follower of Jesus, praying the divine mercy upon his barbarous persecutors; but neither the sight of his sufferings, nor the beauty of his dying words, allayed the excitement which had now united the conflicting parties of the Jews in their common league against Christianity. Yet the mere profession of Christianity did not necessarily involve any capital charge; or if it did, the Jews wanted power to carry the sentence of death into execution on a general scale (3). Though then they had either deliberately ventured, or yielded to a violent impulse of fury, on this occasion, their vengeance in other cases was confined to those subordinate punishments which were left under their jurisdiction; -imprisonment; public scourging in the synagogue; and that which, of course, began to lose its terrors as soon as the Christians formed separate and independent communities, the once awful Excommunication. The martyrdom of Stephen led to the most important results, not merely as first revealing that great lesson which mankind has been so slow to learn, that religious persecution which stops short of extermination, always advances the cause which it endeavours to repress. It showed that Christian faith was stronger than death, the last resort of human cruelty. Thenceforth its triumph was secure. For every death, courageously, calmly, cheerfully endured, where it appalled one dastard into apostasy, made, or prepared the minds of a hundred proselytes. To the Jew, ready himself to lay down his life in defence of his Temple, this self-devotion, though an undeniable test of sincerity in the belief of facts of recent occurrence, was less extraordinary; to the heathen it showed a delermined assurance of immortality, not less new, as an active and generally principle, than attractive and ennobling. The more immediate consequences of the persecution were no less favourable to the progress of Christianity. The Christians were driven out of Jerusalem, where the Apostles alone remained firm at their posts. Scattered through the whole region, if not beyond the precincts of Palestine, they bore with them the seed of the religion. The most important progress was made in Samaria: but the extent of their success in this region, and the opposition they encountered A. D. 36, visited Jerusalem A. D. 37, was receiv Paul of Tarsus. among this people, deeply tinged with Oriental opinion, will be related in another part of this work. Philip, one of the most active of the deacons, made another convert of rank and importance, an officer (1) who held the highest station and influence with Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. The name of Candace (2) was the hereditary appellation of the queens of Meroe, as Pharaoh of the older, and Ptolemy of the later Egyptian kings. The Jews had spread in great numbers to that region; and the return of a person of such influence, a declared convert to the new religion, can scarcely have been without consequences, of which, unhappily, we have no record. But far the most important result of the death of Stephen, was its connection with the conversion of St. Paul. To propagate Christianity in the enlightened West, where its most extensive, at least, most permanent, conquests were to be made; to emancipate it from the trammels of Judaism; a man was wanting of larger and more comprehensive views, of higher education, and more liberal accomplishments. Such an instrument for its momentous scheme of benevolence to the human race, Divine Providence found in Saul of Tarsus. Born in the Grecian and commercial town of Tarsus, where he had acquired no inconsiderable acquaintance with Grecian letters and philosophy; but brought up in the most celebrated school of Pharisaic learning, that of Gamaliel, for which purpose he had probably resided long in Jerusalem; having inherited, probably from the domiciliation of his family in Tarsus (3), the valuable privilege of Roman citizenship; yet with his Judaism in no degree weakened by his Grecian culture, Saul stood as it were on the confines of both regions, qualified beyond all men to develop a system which should unite Jew and Gentile under one more harmonious and comprehensive faith. The zeal with which Saul urged on the subsequent persecution, showed that the death of Stephen had made, as might have been expected, no influential impression upon a mind so capable, unless blinded by zeal, of appreciating its moral sublimity. The commission from the Sanhedrin, to bring in safe custody to Jerusalem such of the Jews of Damascus as had embraced Christianity, implies their unabated reliance on his fidelity. The national confidence which invested him in this important office, the unhesitating readiness with which he appears to have assumed it, in a man of his apparently severe integrity, and unshaken sense of duty, imply, in all ordinary human estimation, (1) The word "Eunuch" may be here used in its primary sense (cubicularius), without any allusion to its later meaning; as, according to the strict rites of the law, a Jewish eunuch was disqualified from appearing at the public assemblies (2) Regnare foeminam Candacen, quod nomen multis jam annis ad reginas transiit. Plin. vi. 29. Conf. Strabo, xvii. p. 1175. Dio. Cass. liv. (3) Compare Strabo's account of Tarsus. The natives of this city were remarkably addicted to philosophical studies; but in general travelled and settled in foreign countries: Οὐδ ̓ αὐτοὶ οὗτοι μένουσιν αὐτόθι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τελειοῦνται ἐκδημοῦντες, καὶ τελειωθέντες ξενιτεύουσιν ηδεως, κατέρχονται d'aigo.Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 673. that he had in no degree relaxed from that zeal which induced him to witness the execution of Stephen, if not with stern satisfaction, yet without commiseration. Even then, if the mind of Paul was in any degree prepared, by the noble manner in which Stephen had endured death, to yield to the miraculous interposition which occurred on the road to Damascus, nothing less than some occurrence of the most extraordinary and unprecedented character could have arrested so suddenly, and diverted so completely from its settled purpose, a mind of so much strength, and however of vivid imagination, to all appearance very superior to popular superstition. Saul set forth from Jerusalem, according to the narrative of the Acts, with his mind wrought up to the most violent animosity against these apostates from the faith of their ancestors (1). He set forth, thus manifestly inveterate in his prejudices, unshaken in his ardent attachment to the religion of Moses, the immutability and perpetuity of which he considered it treasonable and impious to question, with an austere and indignant sense of duty, fully authorised by the direct testimony of the Law, to exterminate all renegades from the severest Judaism. The ruling Jews must have heard with the utmost amazement, that the persecuting zealot who had voluntarily demanded the commission of the High Priest to repress the growing sect of the Christians, had arrived at Damascus, blinded for a time, humbled, and that his first step had been openly to join himself to that party which he had threatened to exterminate. The Christians, far from welcoming so distinguished a proselyte, looked on him at first with natural mistrust and suspicion. And although at Damascus this jealousy was speedily allayed by the interposition of Ananias, a leading Christian, to whom his conversion had been revealed by a vision, at Jerusalem his former hostile violence had made so deep an impression, that, three years after his conversion, even the Apostles stood aloof, and with reluctance admitted a proselyte of such importance, yet whose conversion to them still appeared so highly improbable. No event in Christian history, from this improbability, as well as its influence on the progress of the religion, would so demand, if the expression may be used, the divine intervention as the conversion of St. Paul. Paul was essentially necessary to the development of the Christian scheme. Neither the self-suggested workings of the imagination, even if coincident with some extraordinary but fortuitous atmospheric phenomena; nor any worldly notion of aggrandisement, as the head of a new and powerful sect; nor that more noble ambition, which might anticipate the moral and social blessings of Christianity, and, once conceived, would strike resolutely into the scheme for their advancement,-furnish even a plau.. (1) "Breathing threatenings and slaughter, against the disciples of the Lord.” Acts ix. 1—22. |