CHAP. II. Paul and Barnabas Antioch, where the body of believers assumed the name of Christians, became, as it were, the headquarters of the foreign operations of Christianity.* After the mission of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem during the famine (either about the time or soon after the Herodian persecution), these two distinguished teachers of the Gospel were invested, with the divine sanction, in the apostolic office. † But these foreign operations were at first altogether confined to the Jewish population, which was scattered throughout the whole of Syria and Asia Minor. On their arrival in a town, which they had not visited before, they of course sought a hospitable reception among their countrymen ; the first scene of their labours was the synagogue.‡ In the Island of Cyprus, the native country of Cyprus. Barnabas, a considerable part of the population must have been of Jewish descent.§ Both at Salamis at the eastern, and at Paphos on the western, extremity, and, probably, in other places during their journey through the whole length of the island, they found flourishing communities of their countrymen. To the governor, a man of inquiring and Sergius philosophic mind, the simple principles of Juda- Paulus. ism could not be unknown; and, perhaps, the * Acts, xi. 26. Acts, xiii. 2. Acts, xiii. 4-12. History of the Jews, iii. 12. In the fatal insurrection during the reign of Hadrian, they are said to have massacred 240,000 of the Grecian inhabitants, and obtained temporary possession of the island. The remarkable accuracy of St. Luke in naming the governor, proconsul, has been frequently ob- II. BOOK contrast between the chaste, and simple, and rational worship of the synagogue, and the proverbially sensual rites of Heathenism, for which Paphos was renowned, may have heightened his respect for, or increased his inclination to, the purer faith. The arrival of two new teachers among the Jews of the city, could not but reach the ears of Sergius Paulus; the sensation they excited among their countrymen awoke his curiosity. He had already encouraged the familiar attendance of a Jewish wonder-worker, a man who probably misused some skill in natural science for purposes of fraud and gain. Bar-Jesus (the son of Jesus or Joshua) was probably less actuated, in his opposition to the apostles, by Jewish bigotry, than by the apprehension of losing his influence with the governor. He saw, no doubt, in the apostles, adventurers like himself. The miraculous blindness with which the magician was struck, convinced the governor of the superior claims of the apostles; the beauty of the Christian doctrines filled him with astonishment; and the Roman proconsul, though not united by baptism to the Christian community, must, nevertheless, have added great weight, by his acknowledged support, to the cause of Christianity in Cyprus. * Jews in the cities of Asia Mi nor. From Cyprus they crossed to the southern shore of Asia Minor, landed at Perga in Pamphylia, and passed through the chief cities of that region. In the more flourishing towns they found a consider * Had he thus become altoge- assuredly have been mentioned by ther Christian, his baptism would the sacred writer. II. =} able Jewish population, and the synagogue of the CHAP. Jews appears to have been attended by great numbers of Gentiles, more or less disposed to embrace the tenets of Judaism. Every where the more rigid Jews met them with fierce and resentful opposition; but among the less bigoted of their countrymen, and this more unprejudiced class of proselytes, they made great progress. At the first considerable city in which they appeared, Antioch in Pisidia, the opposition of the Jews seems to have been so general, and the favourable disposition of their Gentile hearers so decided, that the apostles avowedly disclaimed all farther connection with the more violent party, and united themselves to the Gentile believers. Either from the number or the influence of the Jews in Antioch, the public interest in that dispute, instead of being confined within the synagogue, prevailed through the whole city; but the Jews had so much weight, especially with some of the women of rank, that they at length obtained the expulsion of the apostles from the city by the ruling authorities. At Iconium, to which city they retired, the opposition was still more violent; the populace was excited; and here many of the Gentiles uniting with the Jews against them, they were constrained to fly for their lives into the barbarous district of Lycaonia. Lystra and Derbe appear to have been almost entirely Heathen towns. The remarkable collision of the apostles with Paganism in the former of these places, will hereafter be considered. To Lystra, the hostility of the Jews pursued them, where, by some strange revulsion of popular feeling, Paul, a short time before worshipped as a God, was cast out of the city, half-dead. They proceeded to Derbe, and thence returned through the same cities to Antioch in Syria. The ordination of "elders*," to preside over the Christian communities, implies their secession from the synagogues of their countrymen. In Jerusalem, from the multitude of synagogues, which belonged to the different races of foreign Jews, another might arise, or one of those usually occupied by the Galileans might pass into the separate possession of the Christians, without exciting much notice, particularly as great part of the public devotions of all classes were performed in the Temple, where the Christians were still regular attendants. Most likely the first distinct community which met in a chamber or place of assemblage of their own, the first Church, was formed at Antioch. To the Heathen this would appear nothing more than the establishment of a new Jewish synagogue; an event, whenever their numbers were considerable, of common occurrence. To the Jew alone it assumed the appearance of a dangerous and formidable apostasy from the religion of his ancestors. The barrier was now thrown down, but Judaism rallied, as it were, for a last effort behind its ruins. It was now manifest that Christianity would no longer endure the rigid nationalism of the Jew, who demanded that every proselyte to his faith * Acts, xiv. 23. CHAP. II. should be enrolled as a member of his race. Circumcision could no longer be maintained as the seal of conversion*, but still the total abrogation of the Mosaic law, the extinction of all their privileges of descent, the substitution of a purely religious for a national community, to the Christianised Jew appeared, as it were, a kind of treason against the religious majesty of their ancestors: a conference became necessary between the leaders of the Christian community to avert an inevitable collision, which might be fatal to the progress of the religion. Already the peace of the flourishing community at Antioch †, had been disturbed by some of the more zealous converts from Jerusalem, who still asserted the indispensable necessity of circumcision. Paul and Barnabas proceeded as delegates from the community at Antioch ; and what is called the council of Jerusalem, a full Council of assembly of all the apostles then present in the A. D. 49. Metropolis, solemnly debated this great question. How far the earlier apostles were themselves emancipated from the inveterate Judaism does not distinctly appear, but the situation of affairs required * The adherence, even of those Jews who might here be expected to be less bigoted to their institutions, to this distinctive rite of their religion, is illustrated by many curious particulars in the history. Two foreign princes, Aziz king of Emesa, and Polemo king of Cilicia, submitted to circumcision, an indispensable stipulation, in order to obtain in marriage, the former Drusilla, the latter Bernice, princesses of the Herodian family. On one occasion the alliance of some It is uncertain whether James Jerusalem, |