The

Epistles would

grow in

of the Churches. We know too that the 'canonical Gospels' (as they soon were called) in the same way, authority. and at the same era, made themselves felt silently but very solemnly and effectually, from the time when the witnesses of the past became fewer; and unwritten gospels, 'brought to remembrance' by the Spirit, became rarer day by day, and many were taking in hand to set forth in order the things surely believed.'

But the

Church

oral teach

ing.

But though the writings in the possession of the first Churches reflect their history and express much of their life, we must not attempt to read in them the more fully defined system of a later time. How far a Christian Society then understood the laws of its own organic life, we may often doubt, as we read what is said in the Apostolic letters. Or in what degree Christians regarded those letters, at first, as Divine Revelation, may be much debated: still the truth shows itself at last. An organization however that lives and acts does not depend for vitality on knowing its own structure, or estimating at once the gifts of its teachers.

The Church may be said to have been slow and clung to the reluctant in supplementing the old oral guidance at the beginning of the second age; (just as it had painfully modified the hope of the return of Christ, on which true hearts had reposed till all the Apostles were gone.) Even at a much later time, and when the extant Apostolic literature was well known, and received as 'Scripture,' there was the same feelingd The first Apologists, in their appeals to the heathen, rested on the Christian facts as their foundation.

d See Routh, R. S. i. (Aristides and Quadratus).

II.] ITS LIFE GRADUALLY RECORDED.

S. Justin, indeed, argues with Jews from the old Scriptures, and makes large use also of Evangelic language; but even in a semi-Jewish Church like Hierapolis, we see that Papias their bishop looks with little favour on editions of Christian teaching which began to abound, and prefers what he 'had heard,' although unwritten. So Origen, in answering Celsus, still speaks of the facts of our Religion as its truest vindication. The Gospel, in a word, asserts itself; and its followers live the life of their Master in the power of His Spirit, and thus show the grace which He bequeathed to those who believe on Him to eternal salvation.'

Epistles

Churches

43

are records

But epistles, like S. Paul's to the various The Churches of Asia and Europe, have this advantage to the over formal treatises, that they coalesce with the living fact, the corporate Christianity already in- of their life. augurated. Far from coming into competition with the Church, they chronicle many of its traditions, and are the biography of its gifts, so far at least as they go. Hence the unanimity and zeal with which Christians prized and circulated them, as records of the growing spiritual family of Christ which had a charm and interest for every member. This helps to explain to us, what in its human Hence their aspect might be very unaccountable, the extent to lation, which the special influence of S. Paul, through his widely-spread writings, at once overshadowed the Church.

And then, as he urges, he was an 'Apostle;' and his claim to be such is always placed prominently on

wide circu

and the

assertion of

the front of his teachings, penetrating therefore whereever they are found. The deep import of that claim we shall have reason to remark as we proceede. If to the outer world, Christianity was the Church,-within, it was the Apostolate; and thus, we shall find, it was no personal vanity which urged S. Paul to claim to be everywhere. an 'Apostle;' it could only have been that it was a vital necessity to his work. On this ground alone, the Churches which he founded became his true 'epistles read and known of all,' while the letters' which he wrote to them were 'weighty and powerful.'

the Apo

stolate

The converts of S. Paul among the Gentiles soon preponderated in numbers: and the martyr of Antioch did but represent the mind (as it proved to be) of the century which followed him when he aspired to be found hereafter at the feet of Paul.' Ignatius confesses the subordination of himself and all who came after Christ's chosen messengers, when he says, 'Peter and Paul were Apostles; I do not command as they f.'

Perhaps it was not till the Apostles themselves had been withdrawn from the scene, that Christians sufficiently understood how they had been built on them as Foundations' of the City of God. The rising Apostolate had something more to do than to explain its powers: it had to use them. We shall see reason, however, as we advance, for that sensitive unwillingness to assert authority which, notwithstanding his Pentecost. Apostleship, is so conspicuous in S. Paul. He was resisted, indeed, even when urging it with great

The Apo

stolate is

a primary

fact of the Christi

anity of the

e Lect. VII. p. 236. f S. Ign. ad Rom. iv.; ad Eph. xii.

11.] S. PAUL'S CLAIM TO BE AN APOSTLE.

gentleness, and (as we are told) holding back the 'power which the Lord had given him.'

45

Doubtless the special gifts of the Spirit found among the faithful may partly have suspended much of the necessity of minute Apostolic direction. Until the fall of Jerusalem, the Master's well-known words may describe the Apostolic spirit-'my time is not yet fully come.' But the truth must not be understated: the Apostolate was the primary fact with which Christ had begun the Pentecost of His Church. • As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you;' (pp. 199, 250); 'ye shall go and bring forth fruit, and your fruit shall remain ;' neither pray I for you alone, but for them also that shall believe through your word;' the Spirit shall bring to your remembrance all that I have taught.' 'I will send you:''I am with you.'- His Apostolate is the conscious burden of S. Paul S. Paul's responsibility; Woe is me,' if I evade it. Apostolate, 'A dispensation is committed to me.'

A unity and warmth of life in the Christian Society which no formal charter could have given is thus found from the beginning. As the life-blood of the Abrahamic race united the Church of the Old Covenant, so in the Church of the New, God 'set first the Apostles;' and 'he that heareth you heareth Me,' was the voice of Christ Himself, securing His people's oneness in Him. S. Paul's right to be heard at all among Christians is absolutely based, therefore, on his being 'an Apostle.' Not as an Israelite, not as a philosopher, but as one Sent by Christ,' did he go forth to turn men from idols, to serve the living and true God.'

claims the

earnestly, and with

emphasis.

II.

S. Paul's

Christian

history.

II. Before we proceed, then, to gather further deplace in the tails of instruction to be found in the first Epistles, it seems imperative, (as a necessary parenthesis), to turn attention to the personal conscience and official credentials of this great Apostle, himself so important a fact of Christianity from the moment of his appearance in history. He had become a thorough convert' before he could say to others, I would to God that all who hear me were such as I am.' Happily we may gather from himself the chief circumstances of his story, admitted, it may seem, on all hands.

His

Born in Tarsus, a city at one time at the head of the commerce of Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia 5, and compared for its intellectual activity both with Athens and Alexandria, Saul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews,' the strictest of Pharisees,' and partly trained in Jerusalem under the most illustrious of Rabbies. Gamaliel his master was the pattern among the Pharisee of his day, with as much Greek learning, it is said, as was possible without a suspicion of Sadduceeism, and with a faithfulness to the Law worthy of the holiness of the 35th descendant from Moses, to whom had been committed the unwritten mysteries of God' on Mount Sinai.

education

Pharisees.

Phari

saism.

6

The Pharisaism in which Saul of Tarsus had been educated was no idle dream of schools. There is no

The teos of need to summarize from Josephus, or Philo, or from the Rabbies of later days, that debased and equivocal mixture of expediency and fatalism which was the accepted code of the sect. The ethical character, still g Strabo, xiv. 673.