Apostles chiefly dwell on the history of St. Paul; but it seems certain
that everywhere they began by preaching to the dispersed Jews; and when
these rejected the offer of Salvation, they turned to the heathen, by
whom in general it was far more readily received. The Romans, heeding
this world's greatness more than any spiritual matter, were not inclined
to interfere with any one's religion, and only fancied the Church a sect
of the Jews. They usually gave the Apostles their protection if the Jews
raged against them; and their ships, their roads, and the universality
of their dominion, made the spread of the Gospel much more easy, so that
they were made to prepare the way of the Lord, even while seeking only
their own grandeur. It was about this time that the Emperor Claudius
came to Britain, and his generals won all the southern part of the
island, rooting out the cruel worship of the Druids in their groves
of oak, and circles of huge stones. He died in the year 55, and was
succeeded by his step-son, Nero, a half-mad tyrant, who used to show
off like a gladiator; racing in a chariot before all the Romans at the
games, collecting them all to listen to his verses, and putting those to
death who showed their weariness. He was so jealous and afraid of plots
on his life, that he killed almost all his relations, even his mother,
for fear they should conspire against him; and all the richer and nobler
Romans lived in terror under him, though the common people liked him
for being open-handed, and amusing them with the cruel gladiator shows.
LESSON XXII.
THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES.
"Of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by
him, and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell
between His shoulders."--_Deut._ xxxiii. 12.
After Saul's marvellous call from Heaven, he spent three years in
solitude in Arabia, ere entering on his work. Then returning to
Damascus, he began to set forth the Gospel. The Jews were so angry at
his change, that they stirred up the soldiers of the Arabian king,
Aretas, and he only escaped them by being let down over the wall in a
basket. Coming to Jerusalem, the gentle Levite, Barnabas, was the first
to welcome him, and present him to the company of the Apostles; but he
spent some years in retirement at his home at Tarsus, before Barnabas
summoned him to come and aid in his preaching at Antioch. There the Word
was heartily received, and the precious title of Christians was first
bestowed upon the disciples; there, too, on the occasion of a famine in
Judea, the first collection of alms for brethren at a distance was made.
At Antioch, a heavenly revelation signified that Paul and Barnabas were
to be set apart for a special mission; and after prayer and consecration
they set out on their mission, accompanied by the nephew of Barnabas,
John, surnamed Mark. Barnabas had once had great possessions in the isle
of Cyprus, and thither they first repaired, preaching in all the chief
places; and then going into Asia Minor, where they showed such power
from on high, that the rude people of Lycaonia fancied them gods in
the likeness of men, and had well-nigh done sacrifice to them, though
afterwards the spiteful Jews led the same men to draw Paul out of the
city, stone him, and leave him for dead. In such perils, Mark's heart
failed him, and he departed from them.
Returning to Antioch, they found the Church in doubt whether the
Christians of Greek birth were bound to obey the rites of the Jewish
Law. To decide this, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem, after fourteen
years' absence, taking with them a Greek, named Titus; and here was held
the First General Council of the Church, a meeting of her Apostles and
elders, in the full certainty that the Divine grace would inspire a
right judgment, according to the promise that Christ would be with those
who should meet in His Name. St. James presided, and St. Peter spoke;
and it was decided that the whole object of these rites had been
fulfilled, therefore that they were among the old things that had passed
away; and that no such rule need be imposed on the Gentiles, save that
given to Noah ere the parting of the nations. It was agreed that St.
Paul should go especially to the Gentiles, and St. Peter and St. John to
the scattered Jews, while St. James remained at Jerusalem. Two Jewish
Christians, Silas and Barsabas, went back with the two Apostles, to
notify the resolution to the Church at Antioch, and St. Peter shortly
followed them; but there continued to be a great tendency among the
Christians of Jewish blood to avoid their Gentile brethren, and St.
Peter was drawn in to do the same, so that St. Paul, always more
stedfast, was forced to rebuke him. Paul and Barnabas intended to set
out on a second journey, and Barnabas wished again to take his now
repentant nephew, but Paul would not trust him a second time; and after
a dispute on the subject, Barnabas left him, and took Mark to Cyprus,
where it is believed that the "Son of Consolation" was at length
martyred.
Paul, taking Silas as his companion, went over the former ground in Asia
Minor, and at Iconium ordained a disciple, named Timothy, whose father
was a Greek, but whose Jewish mother and grandmother had faithfully bred
him up in the knowledge of the Scriptures. A Greek physician, named
Luke, likewise at this time joined him; and with these faithful
companions, he obeyed a call sent him in a dream, and crossed over into
Macedon, where he gained many souls at Philippi and Thessalonica, but
the Jews stirred up such persecution, that he was forced to go southward
into Greece. Athens was no longer a powerful city, but it served as a
sort of college for all the youths of the Roman Empire who wished to be
highly educated; and it was full of philosophers, who spent their time
in the porticos and groves, arguing on questions of their own--such as
whether, this life being all of which they were sure, it was best to
live well or to live in pleasure. The Stoics were the philosophers who
upheld the love of virtue and honour; the Epicureans said that it was of
no use to vex themselves in this life, but that they might as well enjoy
themselves while they had time. St. Paul was well learned in all these
questions, and set forth to the Athenian students, in glorious words,
that the truth was come for which they had so long yearned, and declared
to them the Unknown God Whom they already worshipped in ignorance.
Some few believed, but the others were too fond of their own empty
reasonings, and Athens long continued the stronghold of heathenism. He
had better success at Corinth, where he spent eighteen months, working
at his trade as a tent-maker, and whence he wrote his two Epistles to
his Thessalonian converts, about the time that St. Luke was writing his
Gospel, it is thought by direct revelation, since neither he nor St.
Paul had been with our Lord. The Jews hunted them away at last; after a
short stay at Jerusalem, they went back to Asia Minor, and passed three
years at Ephesus, whence were written the Epistle to the Galatians,
against the Jewish practices, and the First to the Corinthians, on some
disorders in their Church. Ephesus was the chief city in Asia Minor, and
contained an image of the Greek goddess of the moon, Diana, placed in a
temple so beautiful, that it was esteemed one of the seven wonders of
the world, and thither came a great concourse of worshippers. There was
a silversmith who made great gain by selling small models of her temple;
and he, growing, afraid that his trade would be ruined if idols were
deserted, stirred up the mechanics to such a frenzy of rage, that for
two hours they shouted, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" and they
would have torn Paul to pieces, had they not been with much difficulty
appeased. He was obliged to leave the city, and go to Macedonia, whence
he again wrote to the Corinthians, to console them in their repentance,
and he also wrote to the Church at Rome, which he had never yet seen.
After visiting the Greek Churches, a Divine summons called him back to
keep the feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem, though well knowing that
bonds and imprisonment awaited him there; and on his way he had a most
touching meeting at Miletus, with the elders of Ephesus, who sorrowed
grievously that they should see his face no more. His beloved Timothy
was left with them as their bishop.
At Jerusalem, a terrible tumult arose against him for having, as the
Jews fancied, brought Greeks into the Temple, and he was only rescued
by the Roman garrison, who treated him well on finding that he was a
citizen. Then the Jews laid a plot to murder him, and to prevent this
he was sent to the seat of government at Cæsarea, where he was brought
before the procurator, Felix, and his wife, Drusilla, a daughter of
Herod Agrippa. His words made Felix tremble, but the time-server put
them aside, and neither released him nor sent him to Rome for judgment,
but on going out of office left him in prison. Festus, the new
procurator, could not understand his case, and asked the young Agrippa
and his sister Bernice, to help him to find out under what accusation to
send him to Rome. Again St. Paul's speech struck his hearers with awe,
and Agrippa declared himself almost persuaded to be a Christian, but
he loved too well the favour of the Jews and Romans, and his petty
tetrarchy of Trachonitis, to become one of the despised sect. The noble
captive would have been set free, but that he had sent his appeal to
Rome, and therefore could only be tried there.
On his way, coasting along as sailors did before the compass was known,
came his shipwreck at Malta, when the life of his shipmates was granted
to him. The Emperor Nero was so much more disposed to amusement than
business, that St. Paul's cause was not heard, but he lived in his own
hired house, under charge of a soldier seeing the Christians freely, and
writing three beautiful epistles, full of hope and encouragement, to his
children at Ephesus, Colosse, and Philippi, also a friendly intercession
for a runaway slave to Philemon, and letters of pastoral counsel to
Timothy at Ephesus, and to Titus, who was Bishop of Crete. It is thought
that the Epistle to the Hebrews, which shows how the Old Covenant points
throughout to the New, must be also of this date; but we have no longer
the inspired pen of St. Luke to tell of St. Paul's history, and it is
not certain whether he were ever at liberty again, though some think
that he was free for a short time, and went to Spain, Gaul, and even to
Britain. St. Peter had likewise come to Rome. He had met with St. Mark,
and taken him as his companion, and, as it is believed, assisted in
composing his Gospel. St. Peter likewise wrote two epistles to the Jews
dispersed abroad. But dark times were coming on the Church. St. James,
who left an epistle, was, in his old age, slain by the Jews, who cast
him from the top of the Temple, and then beat out his brains. The
Emperor Nero had also broken out in sudden rage. In a fit of folly, he
set Rome on fire to see how the flames would look, and then persuaded
the citizens that it was done by the Christians. St. Peter, who is
considered as the first Bishop of Rome, and St. Paul, were thrown into a
dungeon; and about that time Paul wrote his last letter, to call to
his side Timothy, and also the once weak Mark, now profitable to the
ministry, even as the ever faithful Luke. The fight was over, the crown
was ready, and on the same day, the two Apostles went to receive it; the
Roman citizen by the sword, the Jewish fisherman by the cross, esteemed
dishonour by the Romans, but over-much glory by the saint, who begged to
suffer with his head downwards, so as not to presume on the very same
death as that of his Master. Many Christians likewise perished; thrown
to wild beasts, or smeared with grease, and then slowly burnt, to light
the Romans at their horrible sports; but to them death was gain, and
the Church was only strengthened. St. Timothy went back to his post at
Ephesus, and St. Mark founded a Church at Alexandria, where, many years
later, he was martyred by being dragged to death through the streets.
LESSON XXIII.
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
"The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce
anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the
foundations thereof"--_Lam._ iv. 11.
In His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, oar Lord had wept for the woes
of the city which would not own Him, and had foretold that the present
generation should not pass away until His mournful words had been
fulfilled. One alone of His Apostles was left to tarry until this coming
for vengeance; the rest had all gone through the pains of martyrdom to
their thrones in Heaven. St. Andrew died in Greece, bound on a cross
shaped like the letter X, and preaching to the last. His friend, St.
Philip, had likewise received the glory of the Cross in Asia; and the
last of the Bethsaida band, St. Bartholomew, was tied to a tree and
flayed alive, in Armenia. St. Matthew and St. Matthias died in Ethiopia
or Abyssinia, leaving a Church which is still in existence; and St.
Thomas was slain by the Brahmins in India, where the Christians of St.
Thomas ever after kept up their faith among the heathen around. St. Jude
died in Mesopotamia, after writing an epistle to his flock; and his
brother, St. Simon Zelotes, also went by the same path to his rest; but
their deaths only strengthened the Church, and their successors carried
out the same work.
The judgments of God were darkening around Jerusalem. A procurator named
Florus was more cruel and insulting than usual, and a tumult broke out
against him. Agrippa tried to appease it, but the Jews pelted him with
stones, and drove him out of Jerusalem; they afterwards burnt down
his palace, and rose in rebellion all over Judea, imagining that the
prophesied time of deliverance was come, and that the warlike Messiah of
their imagination was at hand. Nero was much enraged at the tidings, and
sent an army, under a plain blunt general, named Vespasian, to punish
the revolt. This army subdued Galilee and Samaria, and was already
surrounding Jerusalem, when Vespasian heard that there had been a great
rebellion at home, and that Nero had been killed. He therefore turned
back from the siege, to wait and see what would happen, having thus
given the token promised by our Lord, of the time when the desolation
of Jerusalem should be at hand, when the faithful were to flee.
Accordingly, in this pause, all the Christians, marking well the signs
of coming wrath, took refuge in the hills while the way was still open.
Armies were seen fighting in the clouds; a voice was heard in the Holy
of Holies saying, "Let us depart hence!" the heavily-barred gate of the
Temple flew open of its own accord; and a man wandered up and down the
streets day and night, crying, "Woe to Jerusalem! Woe! woe!" The Jews
were hardened against all warning; they had no lawful head, but there
were three parties under different chiefs, who equally hated the Romans
and one another. They fought in the streets, so that the city was full
of blood; and fires consumed a great quantity of the food laid up
against the siege; yet still the blind Jews came pressing into it in
multitudes, to keep the now unmeaning Feast of the Passover, even at the
time when Vespasian's son, Titus, was leading his forces to the siege.
It was the year 70, thirty-seven years since that true Passover, when
the Jews had slain the true Lamb, and had cried, "His Blood be on us
and our children!" What a Passover was that, when one raging multitude
pursued another into the Temple, and stained the courts with the blood
of numbers! Meanwhile, Titus came up to the valleys around the crowned
hill, and shut the city in on every side, digging a trench, and guarding
it closely, that no food might be carried in, and hunger might waste
away the strength of those within. Then began the utmost fulfilment of
the curses laid up in the Law for the miserable race. The chiefs and
their parties tore each other to pieces whenever they were not fighting
with the enemy; blood flowed everywhere, and robbers rushed through the
streets, snatching away every fragment of food from the weak. The famine
was so deadly, that the miserable creatures preyed on the carcases of
the dead; nay, "the tender and delicate woman" was found who, in the
straits of hunger, killed her own babe, roasted, and fed upon him. So
many corpses were thrown over the walls, that the narrow valleys were
choked, and Titus, in horror, cried out that the Jews, not himself, must
be accountable for this destruction.
For the sake of the Christian fugitives in the mountains, these dreadful
days were shortened, and were not in the winter; and in August Titus's
soldiers were enabled to make an entrance into the Temple. For the sake
of its glorious beauty, he bade that the building should be spared; but
it was under the sentence of our Lord, and his command was in vain. A
soldier threw a torch through a golden window, and the flames spread
fast while the fight raged; the space round the Altar was heaped with
corpses, and streams of blood flowed like rivers. Ere the flames reached
the Sanctuary, Titus went into it, and was so much struck with its
beauty, that he did his utmost to save it, but all in vain; and the
whole was burnt, with 6,000 poor creatures, whom a false prophet had led
to the Temple, promising that a wonder should there be worked for their
deliverance. The city still held out for twenty more days of untold
misery; but at last the Romans broke in amid flames quenched in blood,
and slaughter raged everywhere. Yet it was a still sadder sight to find
the upper rooms of the houses filled with corpses of women and children,
dead of hunger; and indeed, no less than a million of persons had
perished in the siege, while there were 97,000 miserable captives,
12,000 of whom died at once from hunger. As Titus looked at the walls
and towers, he cried out that God Himself must have been against
the Jews, since he himself could never have driven them from such
fortresses. He commanded the whole, especially the Temple, to be leveled
with the ground, no two stones left standing, and the foundation to be
sown with salt; and he carried off the Candlestick, Shewbread Table, and
other sacred ornaments, to be displayed in his triumph. An arch was
set up at Rome in honour of his victory, with the likeness of these
treasures sculptured on it. It is still standing, and the figures there
carved are the chief means we have of knowing what these holy ornaments
were really like. He gave the Jews, some to work in the Egyptian mines,
some to fight with wild beasts to amuse the Romans, and many more to be
sold as slaves. Other people thus dispersed had become fused into other
nations; but it was not so with the Jews. "Slay them not, lest my people
forget it, but scatter them abroad among the heathen," had been the
prophecy of the Psalmist; and thus it has remained even to the present
day. The piteous words of Moses have been literally fulfilled, and among
the nations they have found no ease, neither has the sole of their foot
found any rest; but the trembling heart, and failing eye, and sorrowful
mind, have always been theirs. They have ever been loathed and
persecuted by the nations where their lot has been cast, ever craving
for their lost home, ever hoping for the Messiah of their own fancy.
Still they keep their Sabbath on the seventh day; still they follow the
rules of clean and unclean; and on each Friday, such as still live at
Jerusalem sit with their faces to the wall, and lift up their voice in
mournful wailing for their desolation. Their goodly land lies waste, the
sky above like brass, the earth beneath like iron; her fruitfulness
is over, and from end to end she is a country of ruins, a sign to all
nations! Some there are who read in the prophecies hopes for the Jews,
that they may yet return and learn Who is the Saviour. Others doubt
whether this means that they will ever be restored as a nation; and
still the Jews stand as a witness that God keeps His word in wrath as
well as in mercy--a warning that the children of the free New Covenant
must fear while they are thankful.
LESSON XXIV.
THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
"I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will
set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender
one, and will plant it on a high mountain and eminent."--_Ezekiel_,
xvii. 22.
In the year 70, the same in which Jerusalem was destroyed, happened the
first great eruption of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius, in which was killed
Drusilla, the wife of Felix. Her brother, Agrippa, ruled by favour of
the Romans for many years in the little domain of Chalcis. Titus was
emperor after his father. He was a very kind-hearted man, and used to
say he had lost a day whenever he had spent one without doing a good
action; but he was soon poisoned by his wicked brother, Domitian, who
succeeded to his throne in 81. Domitian was a savage tyrant, cruel to
all, because he was afraid of all. He hated the Jews; and hearing that
some persons of royal blood still existed among them, he caused search
to be made for them, and two sons of St. Jude were brought before him.
They owned that they came of the line of David; but they told him they
were poor simple men, and showed him their hands hardened with toil; and
he thought they could do him so little harm, that he let them go. He
also laid hands on the aged St. John, and caused him to be put into a
caldron of boiling oil; but the martyr in will, though not in deed, felt
no hurt, and was thereupon banished to the little Greek Isle of Patmos.
Here was vouchsafed to him a wonderful vision, answering to those of
Daniel, his likeness among the prophets. He saw the true heavenly
courts, such as Moses had shadowed in the Tabernacle, and which Ezekiel
had described so minutely; he saw the same fourfold Cherubim, and
listened to the same threefold chant of praise, as Isaiah had heard; he
saw the seven lamps of fire, and the rainbow of mercy round about the
Throne; and in the midst, in the eternal glory of His priestly robes, he
beheld Him on Whose bosom be had lain, and Who had called him beloved.
From His lips he wrote messages of counsel and warning to the angels, or
Bishops, of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor; and then came a succession
of wonderful visions, each opening with the Church in Heaven and in
earth constantly glorifying Him that sitteth on the Throne, and the
Lamb, for ever and ever; but going on to show the crimes in the world
beneath, and the judgments one after another poured out by the Angels;
the true remnant of the Church persecuted; and the world partly curbed
by, partly corrupting, the visible Church; then the destruction of the
wicked world, under the type of Babylon; the last judgment; the eternal
punishment of the sinful; the final union of Christ and His Church; and
the eternal blessedness of the faithful in the heavenly Jerusalem, with
the Tree of Life restored.
When Domitian was killed, in 86, St. John went back to Ephesus, and
there wrote his Gospel, to fill up what had been left out by the other
three Evangelists, and especially dwelling on the discourses of the Lord
of Life and Love. That same sweet sound of love rings through his three
Epistles; and yet that heart-whole love of his Master made him severe,
for he started away from a house he had entered, and would not go near
it while it contained a former believer who had blasphemed Christ. A
young man whom he had once converted fell into evil courses in his
absence, and even became a tobber. St. John, like the Good Shepherd,
himself went out into the wilderness to find him, and was taken by
the thieves When his convert saw him, he would have fled in shame and
terror; but St. John held out his arms, called him back, and rested
not till he had won him to repentance. So gentle was he to all living
things, that he was seen nursing a partridge in his hands, and when he
became too old to preach to the people, he used to hold out his hands in
blessing, and say, "Little children, love one another." He died in the
year 100, just before the first great storm which was to try the Church.