_THE FIRST PERSECUTION._
"And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain
of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved
that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the
resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put
them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide.... And
it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and
scribes, and Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and
Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest,
were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them
in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye
done this?"--ACTS iv. 1-3, 5-7.
The fourth chapter of the Acts brings the Apostles into their first
contact with the Jewish state organisation. It shows us the secret
springs which led to the first persecution, typical of the fiercest
that ever raged against the Church, and displays the calm conviction
and moral strength by which the Apostles were sustained. The
historical and local circumstances narrated by St. Luke bear all the
marks of truth.
I. The miracle of healing the lame man had taken place in Solomon's
porch or portico, which overlooked the Kedron valley, and was an usual
resort as a promenade or public walk, specially in winter. Thus we
read, in St. John x. 22, 23, that our Lord walked in Solomon's porch,
and it was winter. Solomon's porch looked towards the rising sun, and
was therefore a warm and sunny spot. It was popular with the
inhabitants of Jerusalem for the same reason which led the Cistercians
of the Middle Ages, when building magnificent fabrics like Fountains
Abbey, to place their cloister garths, where exercise was taken, on
the southern side of their churches, that there they might receive and
enjoy the heat and light of our winter sun.
The crowd which was collected by Peter soon attracted the attention of
the temple authorities, who had a regular police under their control.
The Jews were permitted by the Romans to exercise the most unlimited
freedom within the bounds of the temple to secure its sanctity. In
ordinary cases the Romans reserved to themselves the power of capital
punishment, but in the case of the temple and its profanation they
allowed it to the Sanhedrin.
An interesting proof of this fact has come to light of late years,
attesting, in a most striking manner, the accuracy of the Acts of the
Apostles. Josephus, in his _Antiquities_ (xv. xi. 5), when describing
the Holy Place, tells us that the royal cloisters of the temple had
three walks, formed by four rows of pillars, with which they were
adorned. The outermost walk was open to all, but the central walk was
cut off by a stone wall, on which were inscriptions forbidding
foreigners--that is, Gentiles--to enter under pain of death. Now in
the twenty-first chapter of the Acts we read that a supposed breach of
this law was the occasion of the riot against St. Paul, wherein he
narrowly escaped death.[84]
[84] "Moreover he brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath
defiled this holy place. For they had before seen with him in the
city Trophimus the Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had
brought into the temple" (Acts xxi. 28, 29).
The Jews were actually about to kill St. Paul when the soldiers came
upon them. To this fact, Tertullus the orator, when speaking before
the governor Felix, alludes, and that without rebuke, saying of St.
Paul, "Whom we took, and would have judged according to our law."[85]
Here comes in our illustration of the Acts derived from modern
archæological research. Some few years ago there was discovered at
Jerusalem, and there is now laid up in the Sultan's Museum at
Constantinople, a sculptured and inscribed stone, containing one of
these very Greek notices upon which the Apostles must have looked,
warning Gentiles not to enter within the sacred bounds, and denouncing
against transgressors the penalty of death which the Jews sought to
inflict upon St. Paul.[86] Now it was just the same about the other
details of the temple worship. Inside the sacred area the Jewish law
was supreme, and Jewish penalties were enacted. In order, therefore,
that the temple might be duly protected the priests watched in three
places, and the Levites in twenty-one places, in addition to all their
other duties connected with the offering of the sacrifices and the
details of public worship. These guards discharged the duties of a
sacred or temple police, and their captain was called the captain of
the temple, or, as he is denominated in the Talmud, "The ruler of the
mountain of the House."
[85] Acts xxiv. 6.
[86] I have never seen a notice of this interesting biblical
discovery in any English magazine or journal. There is an account
of it in the _Revue Archéologique_ for 1885, series iii., t. v.,
p. 241, by Clermont-Ganneau, its original discoverer. He calls it
an authentic page of the New Testament.
Much confusion has, indeed, arisen concerning this official. He has
been confounded, for instance, with the captain of the neighbouring
fortress of Antonia. The Romans had erected a strong square castle,
with lofty walls, and towers at the four corners, just north of the
temple, and connected with it by a covered way. One of these flanking
towers was one hundred and five feet high, and overlooked all the
temple area, so that when a riot began the soldiers could hurry to
quell it. The captain of the garrison which held this tower is called,
in our version, the chief captain, or, more properly, the chiliarch,
or colonel of a regiment, as we should put it in modern phraseology.
But this official had nothing whatever to say to questions of Jewish
law or ritual. He was simply responsible for the peace of Jerusalem;
he represented the governor, who lived at Cæsarea, and had no concern
with the disputes which might arise amongst the Jews. But it was quite
otherwise with the captain of the temple. He was a Jewish official,
took cognisance of Jewish disputes, and was responsible in matters of
Jewish discipline which Roman law respected and upheld, but in which
it did not interfere. This purely Jewish official, a priest by
profession, appointed by the Jewish authorities, and responsible to
them alone, appears prominently on three distinct occasions. In the
twenty-second of St. Luke's Gospel we have the account of the betrayal
by the traitor Judas. When he was meditating that action he went first
to the chief priests and the captains to consult with them. A Roman
commander, an Italian, a Gaul, or possibly even a Briton,--as he might
have been, for the Romans were accustomed to bring their Western
legionaries into the East, as in turn they garrisoned Britain with the
men of Syria,--would have cared very little whether a Galilean teacher
was arrested or not. But it was quite natural that a Jewish and a
temple official should have been interested in this question. While
again on this occasion, and once more upon the arrest of the Apostles
after the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the captain of the temple
appears as one of the highest Jewish officials.[87]
[87] See more on this point in Dr. John Lightfoot's _Horæ
Hebraicæ_, Luke xxii. 4 and Acts iv.
II. We see too the secret source whence the opposition to apostolic
teaching arose. The priests and the captain of the temple and the
Sadducees came upon them. The captain was roused into action by the
Sadducees, who were mingled in the crowd, and heard the words of the
Apostles proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ, "being grieved
that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the
resurrection from the dead." It is noteworthy how perpetually the
Sadducees appear as the special antagonists of Christianity during
these earliest years. Our Lord's denunciations of the Pharisees were
so often repeated that we are apt to think of them as the leading
opponents of Christianity during the apostolic age. And yet this is a
mistake. There was an important difference between the Master's
teaching and that of His disciples, which accounts for the changed
character of the opposition. Our Lord's teaching came specially into
conflict with the Pharisees and their mode of thought. He denounced
mere external worship, and asserted the spiritual and inner character
of true religion. That was the great staple of his message. The
Apostles, on the other hand, testified and enforced above everything
else the risen, the glorified, and the continuous existence in the
spirit world of the Man Christ Jesus. And thus they came into conflict
with the central doctrine of Sadduceism which denied a future life.
Hence at Jerusalem, at least, the Sadducees were ever the chief
persecutors of the Apostles, while the Pharisees were favourable to
Christianity, or at least neutral. At the meeting of the Sanhedrin of
which we read in the fifth chapter, Gamaliel, a Pharisee, proposes the
discharge of the imprisoned Apostles. In the twenty-third chapter,
when St. Paul is placed before the same Sanhedrin the Pharisees take
his side, while the Sadducees are his bitter opponents. We never read
of a Sadducee embracing Christianity; while St. Paul, the greatest
champion of the gospel, was gained from the ranks of the Pharisees.
This fact sheds light on the character of the apostolic teaching. It
was not any system of evanescent Christianity; it was not a system of
mere ethical teaching; it was not a system where the facts of Christ's
life were whittled away, where, for instance, His resurrection was
explained as a mere symbolical idea, typifying the resurrection of the
soul from the death of sin to the life of holiness; for in that case
the Sadducees would not have troubled themselves on this occasion to
oppose such teaching. But apostolic Christianity was a system which
based itself on a risen Saviour, and involved, as its fundamental
ideas, the doctrines of a future life and of a spiritual world, and of
a resurrection where body and soul would be again united.
Some strange representations have been from time to time put forward
as to the nature of apostolic and specially of Pauline Christianity,
but one of the strangest is what we may call the Matthew Arnold
theory, which makes the apostolic teaching a poor, emasculated thing,
devoid of any real foundation of historical fact. If Christianity, as
proclaimed by St. Peter and St. Paul, was of this type, why, we ask,
was it so bitterly opposed by the Sadducees? They at any rate
understood the Apostles to teach and preach a Jesus Christ literally
risen from the dead and ascended in the truth of human nature into
that spiritual and unseen world whose existence they denied. For the
Sadducees were materialists pure and simple. As such they prevailed
among the rich. The poor, then as ever, furnished very few adherents
to a creed which may satisfy persons who are enjoying the good things
of this life. It has very few attractions, however, for those with
whom life is dealing hardly, and to whom the world presents itself in
a stern aspect alone. It is no wonder the new teaching concerning a
risen Messiah should have excited the hatred of the rich Sadducees,
and should have been welcomed by the poorer classes, among whom the
Pharisees had their followers. The system of the Sadducees was a
religion indeed. It satisfied a want, for man can never do without
some kind of a religion. It recognised God and His revelation to
Moses. It asserted, however, that the Mosaic revelation contained
nothing concerning a future life, or the doctrine of immortality. It
was a religion, therefore, without fear of a future, and which could
never indeed excite any enthusiasm, but was very satisfactory and
agreeable for the prosperous few as long as they were in prosperity
and in health. Peter and John came preaching a very disturbing
doctrine to this class of people. If Peter's view of life was right,
theirs was all wrong. It was no wonder that the Sadducees brought upon
them the priests and the captain of the temple, and summoned the
Sanhedrin to deal with them. We should have done the same had we been
in their position. In every age, indeed, the bitterest persecutors of
Christianity have been men like the Sadducees. It has often been said
that persecution on the part of a sceptic or of an unbeliever is
illogical. The Sadducees were unbelievers as regards a future life.
What matter to them was it, then, if the Apostles preached a future
life, and convinced the people of its truth? But logic is always
pushed impetuously aside when it comes in contact with deep-rooted
human feeling, and the Sadducees instinctively felt that the conflict
between themselves and the Apostles was a deadly one; one or other
party must perish. And so it was under the Roman empire. The ruling
classes of the empire were essentially infidel, or, to use a modern
term, we should rather perhaps style them agnostic. They regarded the
Christian teaching as a noxious enthusiasm. They could not understand
why Christians should not offer incense to the deity of the emperor,
or perform any act of idolatry which was commanded by state law, and
regarded their refusal as an act of treason. They had no idea of
conscience, because they were essentially like the Sadducees.[88] So
was it again in the days of the first French Revolution, and so we
find it still. The men who reject all spiritual existence, and hold a
Sadducean creed, fear the power of Christian enthusiasm and Christian
love, and had they only the power would crush it as sternly and
remorselessly as the Sadducees desired to do in apostolic times, or as
the Roman emperors did from the days of Nero to those of Diocletian.
[88] Pliny in his _Letters_, x., 97, writes to the Emperor Trajan
expressing this view when telling how he dealt with the Christians
of Bithynia: "I asked them whether they were Christians: if they
admitted it, I repeated the question twice, and threatened them
with punishment; if they persisted, I ordered them to be at once
punished: for I was persuaded, whatever the nature of their
opinions might be, a contumacious and inflexible obstinacy
certainly deserved correction." A philosopher could not understand
a man keeping a conscience in opposition to the law. The martyrs
vindicated the freedom of the Christian conscience.
III. The Apostles were arrested in the evening and put in prison. The
temple had an abundance of chambers and apartments which could be used
as prisons, or, as the Sanhedrin were accustomed to sit in a basilica
erected in the court outside the Beautiful Gate, and inside Solomon's
porch or cloister, there was probably a cell for prisoners connected
with it. The next morning St. Peter and St. John were brought up
before the court which met daily in this basilica, immediately after
the hour of the morning sacrifices. We can realize the scene, for the
persons mentioned as having taken part in the trial are historical
characters. The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle, with the president in
the centre, while opposite were three benches for the scholars of the
Sanhedrists, who thus practically learned law. The Sanhedrin, when
complete, consisted of seventy-one members, comprising chief priests,
the elders of the people, and the most renowned of the rabbis; but
twenty-three formed a quorum competent to transact business.[89] The
high priest when present, as Annas and Caiaphas both were on this
occasion, naturally exercised great influence, though he was not
necessarily president of the council. The sacred writer has been
accused, indeed, of a historical mistake, both here and in his Gospel
(iii. 2), in making Annas high priest when Caiaphas was actually
occupying that office, Annas, his father-in-law, having been
previously deposed by the Romans. St. Luke seems to me, on the other
hand, thus to prove his strict accuracy. Caiaphas was of course the
legal high priest so far as the Romans were concerned. They recognised
him as such, and delivered to him the high priest's official robes,
when necessary for the fulfilment of his great office, keeping them
safe at other times in the tower of Antonia. But then, as I have
already said, so long as the Roman law and constitutions were observed
on great state occasions, they allowed the Jews a large amount of Home
Rule in the management of their domestic religious concerns, and were
not keen in marking offences, if only the offences were not thrust
into public notice. Annas was recognised by the Sanhedrin and by the
Jews at large as the true high priest, Caiaphas as the legal or
official one; and they kept themselves on the safe side, as far as the
Romans were concerned, by uniting them in their official consultations
in the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees, doubtless, on this occasion made
every effort that their own party should attend the council meeting,
feeling the importance of crushing the rising sect in the very bud. We
read, therefore, that with the high priest came "John, and Alexander,
and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest."[90] The
priestly families were at this period the aristocracy of the Jews, and
they all belonged to the Sadducees, in opposition to the democracy who
favoured the Pharisees. These latter, indeed, had their own
representatives in the Sanhedrin, as we shall see on a later
occasion,--men of light and leading, like Gamaliel; but the permanent
officials of the Jewish senate were for the most part Sadducees, and
we know how easily the permanent officials can pack a popular body,
such as the Sanhedrin was, with their own adherents, when any special
end is to be attained.
[89] It would take more space than we can now afford to explain
the constitution of the Sanhedrin. There is an admirable and
concise article on the subject in Schaff's edition of Herzog's
_Cyclopædia_, and another in Kitto's _Biblical Cyclopædia_. Dr.
John Lightfoot describes it in his _Horæ Hebraicæ_, which we so
often quote. The most extensive and minute account of it will,
however, be found in Latin in Selden's treatise _De Synedriis_,
illustrated with plates.
[90] Dr. John Lightfoot, in his _Horæ Hebraicæ_, chap. iv., verse
6, identifies John mentioned in this passage with Rabban Jochanan
ben Zaccai, the priest who lived till after the destruction of
Jerusalem, and prophesied of that event forty years before it
occurred. He was, however, a Pharisee, though the vast majority of
the priests were Sadducees. Lightfoot tells the following story of
him from the ancient Jewish books: "Forty years before the
destruction of the city, when the gates of the temple flew open of
their own accord, Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai said, O Temple,
Temple, why dost thou disturb thyself? I know thy end, that thou
shalt be destroyed, for so the prophet Zechary hath spoken
concerning thee, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may
devour thy cedar." He lived to be one hundred and twenty years
old. He was permitted by Titus to remove the Sanhedrin to Jabneh
on the destruction of the city, where he presided over it.
It was before such a hostile audience that the Apostles were now
called to witness, and here they first proved the power of the Divine
words, "When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall
speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
speak."[91] St. Peter threw himself upon God, and found that his trust
was not in vain. He was at the moment of need filled with the Holy
Ghost, and enabled to testify with a power which defeated his
determined foes. He had a special promise from the Master, and he
acted upon it. But we must observe that this promise was a special
one, limited to the Apostles and to those in every age placed in
similar circumstances. This promise is no general one. It was given to
the Apostles to free them from care, anxiety, and forethought as to
the matter and form of the addresses which they should deliver when
suddenly called to speak before assemblies like the Sanhedrin. Under
such circumstances they would have no time to prepare speeches
suitable for ears trained in all the arts of oratory as then practised
amongst the ancients, whether Jews or Gentiles. So their Master gave
them an assurance of strength and skill such as none of their
adversaries could equal or resist. "It is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." This promise has been,
however, misunderstood and abused when applied to ordinary
circumstances. It was good for the Apostles, and it is good for
Christian men placed under similar conditions, persecuted for the sake
of their testimony, and deprived of the ordinary means of preparation.
But it is not a promise authorising Christian teachers, clerical or
lay, to dispense with careful thought and industrious study when
communicating the truths of Christianity, or applying the great
principles contained in the Bible to the manifold circumstances of
modern life. Christ certainly told the Apostles not to premeditate
beforehand what they should say. When relying, however, upon the
promises of God, we should carefully seek to ascertain how far they
are limited, and how far they apply to ourselves; else we may be
putting our trust in words upon which we have no right to depend. A
presumptuous trust is next door to an act of rebellion, and has often
led to unbelief. Our Lord said to the Apostles, "Provide neither gold
nor silver nor brass in your purses," because He would provide for
them; but He did not say so to us, and if we go out into life
presumptuously relying upon a passage of Scripture that does not
belong to us, unbelief may overtake us as a strong man armed when we
find ourselves disappointed. And so, too, with this promise of
supernatural guidance which the Apostles enjoyed, and which saints of
every age have proved true when placed in similar circumstances; it is
a special one for them, it does not apply to us. Christian teachers,
whether in the pulpit, or the Sunday school, or the home circle, must
still depend as completely as the Apostles did upon the Holy Ghost as
the source of all successful teaching. But in the case of the Apostles
the inspiration was immediate and direct. In the case of ordinary
Christians like ourselves placed amid all the helps which God's
providence gives, we must use study, thought, meditation, prayer,
experience of life, as channels through which the same inspiration is
conveyed to us. The Society of Friends, when George Fox established
it, testified on behalf of a great truth when it asserted that the
Holy Ghost dwelt still, as in apostolic times, in the whole body of
the Church, and spake still through the experience of Christian
people. Their testimony was a great truth and a much-needed one in the
middle of the seventeenth century, when Churchmen were in danger of
turning religion into a great machine of state police, such as the
Greek Church became under the earlier Christian emperors, and when
Puritans were inclined to smother all religious enthusiasm beneath
their intense zeal for cold, rigid scholastic dogmas and confessions
of faith. The early Friends came proclaiming a Divine power still
present, a Church of God still energised and inspired as of old, and
it was a revelation for many an earnest soul. But they made a great
mistake, and pushed a great truth to a pernicious extreme, when they
taught that this inspiration was inconsistent with forethought and
study on the part of their teachers as to the substance and character
of their public ministrations. The Society of Friends teaches that
men should speak forth to their assemblies just what the Holy Ghost
reveals on the spot, without any effort on their own part, such as
meditation and study involve. They have acted without a promise, and
they have fared accordingly. That Society has been noted for its
philanthropy, for the peaceful, gentle lives of its members; but it
has not been noted for expository power, and its public teachers have
held but a low place among those well-instructed scribes who bring
forth out of God's treasures things new and old.[92]
[91] St. Matt. x. 19.
[92] The decay in the numbers of the Society of Friends may be
traced to several causes. The Society has done its work. Its
testimony has borne its appointed fruit, and, like other systems
which have sufficiently acted their part, it is passing away. One
of the most evident causes of its decline is the decay of
preaching consequent upon their notion of immediate inspiration.
The advance of general education has told on their members, who
cannot endure the unprepared and undigested expositions which
satisfied their fathers. The decay in the preaching power of the
Evangelical party in the Church of England may, in many cases, be
traced to much the same source. No Church or society can now hope
to retain the allegiance of its educated members which does not
recognise that the help of the Holy Spirit is vouchsafed through
the ordinary channels of study and meditation.
Expositors of Scripture, teachers of Divine truth, whether in the
public congregation or in a Sunday-school class, must prepare
themselves by thought, study, and prayer; then, having made the way of
the Lord clear, and removed the hindrances which barred His path, we
may humbly trust that the Holy Ghost will speak by us and through us,
because we honour Him by our self-denial, and cease to offer burnt
sacrifices unto the Lord of that which costs us nothing.[93]
[93] As a Sunday school teacher for more than thirty years I feel
bound to say that half the teaching in Sunday schools is useless
from want of preparation on the part of teachers. A large
proportion of them never think of opening their Bibles beforehand
and studying the appointed lessons, jotting down a number of
leading questions to assist their memories. The result is, that
after a few questions suggested by the text, the teacher turns to
read a story or indulge in gossip with his pupils. A well-prepared
teacher will never find an hour too long for the work appointed. I
have already said something on pp. 131, 132, above, upon this
subject, which is an extremely important and practical one.
IV. The address of St. Peter to the Sanhedrin is marked by the same
characteristics as we find in those directed to the people. It is
kindly, for though the Apostles could speak sternly and severely just
as their Master did at times, yet they have left in this special
direction an example to public speakers and public teachers of truth
in every age. They strove first of all to put themselves in sympathy
as much as possible with their audience. They did not despise the art
of the rhetorician which teaches a speaker to begin by conciliating
the good feelings of his audience towards himself. To the people St.
Peter began, "Ye men of Israel;" he recognises their cherished
privileges, as well as their sacred memories,--"Ye are the children of
the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers." To
the bitterly hostile audience of the Sanhedrin, where the Sadducees
largely predominated, Peter's exordium is profoundly respectful and
courteous, "Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel." The
Apostles and the earliest Evangelists did not despise human feelings
or outrage human sentiment when setting out to preach Christ
crucified. We have known men so wrong-headed that they were never
happy unless their efforts to do good or spread their peculiar
opinions eventuated in a riot. When evangelistic work or any kind of
attempt to spread opinions evokes violent opposition, that very
opposition often arises from the injudicious conduct of the
promoters; and then when the opposition is once evoked or a riot
caused, charity departs, passion and violent feelings are aroused, and
all hope of good evaporates for the time. There was profound practical
wisdom in that command of our Lord to His Apostles, "When they
persecute you in this city, flee ye into another," even taking the
matter only from the standpoint of a man anxious to spread his
peculiar sentiments.
The Apostle's address was kindly, but it was plain-spoken. The
Sanhedrin were sitting as a board of inquisitors. They did not deny
the miracle which had been wrought. We are scarcely fit judges of the
attitude of mind occupied by an Eastern, specially by an Eastern Jew
of those earlier ages, when confronted with a miracle. He did not deny
the facts brought under his notice. He was too well acquainted with
magic and the strange performances of its professors to do so. He
merely inquired as to the sources of the power, whether they were
Divine or diabolical. "By what power or by what name have ye done
this?" was a very natural inquiry in the mouth of an ecclesiastical
body such as the Sanhedrin was. It was disturbed by facts, for which
no explanation such as their philosophy furnished could account. It
was upset in its calculations just as, to this day, the performances
of Indian jugglers or the weird wonders of hypnotism upset the
calculations of the hard, narrow man who has restricted all his
investigations to some one special branch of science, and has so
contracted his horizon that he thinks there is nothing in heaven or in
earth which his philosophy cannot explain. We should mark the
expression, "By what _name_ have ye done this?" for it gives us a
glimpse into Jewish life and practice. The Jews were accustomed in
their incantations to use several kinds of names; sometimes those of
the patriarchs, sometimes the name of Solomon, and sometimes that of
the Eternal Jehovah Himself. Of late years vast quantities of Jewish
and Gnostic manuscripts have come to light in Egypt and Syria
containing various titles and forms used by the Jewish magicians and
the earlier Christian heretics, who were largely imbued with Jewish
notions. It is quite in keeping with what we know of the spirit of the
age from other sources that the Sanhedrin should ask, "By what power
or by what name have ye done this?" While again, when we turn to the
book of the Acts of the Apostles itself we find an illustration of the
council's inquiry in the celebrated case of the seven sons of Sceva,
the Jewish priest at Ephesus, who strove to use for their own magical
purposes the Divine name of Jesus Christ, and suffered for their
temerity. St. Peter's reply to the question of the court proves that
the Christian Church adopted in all its Divine offices, whether in the
working of miracles then or of baptism and of ordination, as still,
the invocation of the Sacred Name, after the Jewish model. The Church
still baptizes and ordains in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost. Christ Himself had adopted the formula for
baptism, and the Church has extended it to ordination, pleading thus
before God and man alike the Divine power by which alone St. Peter
healed the cripple and the Church sends forth its ministers to carry
on Christ's work in the world.
St. Peter's address was, as we have already said, very kindly, but
very bold and plain-spoken in setting forth the power of Christ's
name. He had learnt by his Jewish training the tremendous importance
and solemnity of names. Moses at the bush would know God's name
before he went as His messenger to the captive Israelites. On Sinai
God Himself had placed reverence towards His name as one of the
fundamental truths of religion. Prophet and psalmist had conspired
together to teach St. Peter that holy and reverend was the name of
God, and to impress upon him thus the power and meaning which lies in
Christ's name, and indeed in all names, though names are things we
count so trifling. St. Peter dwells upon this point all through his
addresses. To the people he had said, "His name, through faith in His
name, hath made this man strong." To the rulers it was the same. It
was "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, this
man doth stand here before you whole." "There is none other name under
heaven whereby we must be saved." The Sanhedrin understand the
importance of this point, and tell the Apostles they must not teach in
this name. St. Peter pointedly refuses, and prays, when come to his
own company, "that wonders may be done through the name of Thy holy
servant Jesus."
St. Peter realized the sanctity and the power of God's name, whether
revealed in its ancient form of Jehovah or its New Testament form of
Jesus Christ. Well would it be if the same Divine reverence found a
larger place amongst ourselves. Irreverence towards the sacred name is
far too prevalent; and even when men do not use God's name in a
profane way, there is too much lightness in the manner in which even
religious men permit themselves to utter that name which is the
expression to man of supreme holiness,--"God bless us," "Lord help us
and save." How constantly do even pious people garnish their
conversations and their epistles with such phrases or with the
symbols D.V., without any real feeling that they are thereby appealing
to Him who was and is and is to come, the Eternal. The name of God is
still holy as of old, and the name of Jesus is still powerful to calm
and soothe and bless as of old, and Christian people should sanctify
those great names in their conversation with the world.[94]
[94] The primitive Christians had a profound reverence for the
names of our Saviour, which they delighted to depict in different
ways, some of them so secret as to defy the curiosity of the
pagans. They used the symbol I.H.S., which I have known to arouse
the susceptibilities of suspicious Protestants, though nothing but
a Latin or Western adaptation of the three first letters of the
Greek word ΙΗΣΟΥΣ written in capitals. The fish, again,
was a favourite symbol, because each letter of the Greek word
ἰχθύς stood for a different title of our Lord, Ἰησοῦς,
Χριστός, Θεός, Ὑιός, Σωτηρ, or Jesus, Christ, God,
Son, Saviour.
St. Peter was bold because he was daily comprehending more and more of
the meaning of Christ's work and mission, was gaining a clearer
insight into the dignity of His person, and was experiencing in
himself the truth of His supernatural promises. How could a man help
being bold, who felt the Spirit's power within, and really held with
intense belief that there was salvation in none other save Christ?
Personal experience of religion alone can impart strength and courage
and boldness to endure, to suffer, and to testify. St. Peter was
exclusive in his views. He would not have suited those easy-going
souls who now think one religion just as good as another, and
consequently do not regard it as of the slightest moment whether a man
be a follower of Christ or of Mahomet. The earliest Christians had
none of this diluted faith. They believed that as there was only one
God, so there was only one Mediator between God and man, and they
realized the tremendous importance of preaching this Mediator. The
Apostles, however, must be cleared from a misconstruction under which
they have at times suffered. St. Peter proclaims Christ to the
Sanhedrin as the only means of salvation. In his address to Cornelius
the centurion of Cæsarea, he declares that in every nation he that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him. These
passages and these two declarations appear inconsistent. Their
inconsistency is only superficial, however, as Bishop Burnet has well
explained in his exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, a book not
read very much in these times.[95] St. Peter taught exclusive
salvation through Christ. Christ is the only means, the only channel
and way by which God confers salvation. Christ's work is the one
meritorious cause which gains spiritual blessing for man. But then,
while there is salvation only in Christ, many persons may be saved by
Christ who know not of Him consciously, else what shall we say or
think about infants and idiots? It is only by Christ and through
Christ and for His sake that any soul can be saved. He is the only
door of salvation, He is the way as well as the truth and the life.
But then it is not for us to pronounce how far the saving merits of
Christ may be applied and His saving power extend. St. Peter knew and
taught that Jesus Christ was the one Mediator, and that by His name
alone salvation could be obtained. Yet he did not hesitate to declare
as regards Cornelius the centurion, that in every nation he that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him. It ought to
be sufficient for us, as it was for the Apostles, to believe that the
knowledge of Christ is life eternal, while satisfied to leave all
other problems in the hands of Eternal Love.
[95] See Burnet's exposition of the eighteenth Article in his
commentary on the Thirty-Nine Articles.