2. 44-48. CHAP. IV. Peter exhibited this organizing power of the new faith. According to the significant promise which was expressed Acts ii. 37-41; in his name1 he laid the foundations of the Jewish and the heathen churches, while the task of fixing or completing their future structure was left to others. His activity was not directed by a review of the conditions of man's out ward piety, or the requirements of his spiritual instincts, but sprung from his lively hope in a sovereign Lord. 1 Pet. i. 3. iii. The forms of thought current in the Apostolic age. JEW. Each of the great aspects of human life, outward and inward, in the individual and in society, are thus represented in the forms of apostolic teaching. The external service of God by works of charity, the internal sanctifica tion of man's powers by faith, and the perpetual maintenance of the rights and blessings of a Church, combine to complete the idea of Christianity as exhibited by the first circle of the Apostles; and we are naturally inclined to look for some analogous variety in the form of the inspired records of His life from whence the apostolic wisdom came. If we extend our view yet further beyond the limits of the Jewish people, these different tendencies which existed among the Apostles will be found exhibited on a much larger scale and in more distinct clearness. The univer sality of the Gospel was attested from the first by the fact that it was welcomed by representatives of every class: and without leaving the records of the New Testament we read that it found reception with the earnest Jew, who was 1 Cf. Pearson On the Creed, p. bear in mind the distinction between tis, sed exordium ab unitate proficisci tur [et primatus Petro datur, ut uns Christi Ecclesia et cathedra una monstretur. Et pastores sunt omnes, et grex unus ostenditur, qui ab ap stolis unanimi consensione pascatur ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur. The interpolation of this passage shews what Cyprian would have written if he had acknowledged any such claims as the Bishop of Rome makes now. Phil. iv. 12. HELLENIST Matt. ix. 9. 13]. Acts xviii. 24, the waiting for the consolation of Israel, and served God in CHAP. IV. the Temple with prayers and fastings day and night :- Luke ii. 25-37. with the retainer of Cæsar's household (Cf. Tac. Ann. xv. ROMAN. 44; xiii. 32), removed alike from the influence of tradition, feeling, or philosophy:-with the outcast publican, who stood afar off, as unworthy to approach his God:-with [Luke xviii. the Areopagite, awakened to a sense of a future judgment; Acts xvii. 34. and finally with the cultivated disciple of the Alexandrine ALEXANDRINE Schools, fervent in spirit and mighty in the Scriptures1. 25. And these are not merely individuals, but just types of As looking to the various classes into which the Roman world was divided in its religious aspect. The characteristic feelings which they embodied express the cardinal tendencies of men, and mark the great divisions of the apostolic work. The Apostles had to unfold and declare the significance of the Past. They had to point out the substance of Past, Christianity as shadowed forth in the earlier dispensation. They had to make known the mighty Lawgiver of a new covenant, the divine King of a spiritual Israel, the Prophet of a universal Church. They had to connect Christianity with Judaism. Yet more: they had to vindicate the claims of the Present, Present. They had to set forth the activity and energy of the Lord's life, apart from the traditions of Moriah and Sinai; to exhibit the Gospel as a simple revelation from heaven; to follow the details of its announcement as they were apprehended in their living power by those who followed most closely on the steps of Christ. They had to connect Christianity with History. From another point of view they had to proclaim the hopefulness of the Future. They had to shew that the Future. Gospel fully satisfies the inmost wants of man's nature; hat it not only removes the leprosy of castes and the 1 The phrase ἀνὴρ λόγιος (Acts viii. 24)-a learned man-carries us back to earlier notices of Egypt. CHAP. IV. blindness of pagan sensuality,' but gives help and strength to the hopeless sufferer, who has no one to put him in the healing waters, while it confers pardon on the returning prodigal and happiness on the believing robber. They had to connect Christianity with man. John v. 7. Luke xv. xxiii. 43. Eternal rela tions of Christianity. Nor was this all: many there were whom their deep searching of the human heart had taught to feel the want of a present God. These longed to see their ardent aspirations realized in the life of the Saviour whom they had embraced, and to find their hopes confirmed and directed by His own words. For such a spiritual history was needed; and the Christian teachers had to exhibit our Lord in His eternal Johni. 3. relations to the Father, alike manifested in the past, the present, and the future, as the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Judge. They had to connect Christianity with God. 15; xii. 48. By this variety the Gospel is ages, in which This variety in the forms of the Apostolic preaching adapted to all which was directed to meet the hope of the Jew and the energy of the Roman, to satisfy the cravings of our moral nature and the wants of our speculative reason, could not fail to influence the form in which the facts of the life of Christ were apprehended and grouped. These facts were the groundwork of all Christian teaching, and in virtue of their infinite bearings, admitted of being variously combined. In this way the common evangelic narrative was modified in the special labours of the different apostles, and that which was designed to meet the requirements of one period was fitted to meet the requirements of all. For it is not enough to acknowledge the marvellous adaptation of the Gospel to the apostolic age. It was equally destined for all times; and in this sense our present Gospels, the records of the apostolic preaching, combine to form a holy TЄTρаKTús, a fountain of eternal truth,' in a deeper sense than any mystic harmony of the ancient sage. oll forms of thought are reproduced. There are many whose thoughts still linger in the past, and who delight to trace with a vain regret 'the glories which CHAP. IV. have passed from earth.' To them St Matthew speaks, as he did to the Jew of old, while he teaches that all which was great and good in former days was contained in the spirit and not in the outward shape, and exhibits the working of providence in the course of national history. There are many, again, whose sympathies are entirely with the present, who delight in the activity and warmth of daily life, who are occupied with things around them, without looking far beyond their own age and circle. To them St Mark addresses a brief and pregnant narrative of the ministry of Christ, unconnected with any special recital of His birth and preparation for His work, and unconnected, at least in its present shape, with the mysterious history of the Ascension. Many, also, there must be in every age who dwell with peculiar affection on the Gospel of St Luke, who delight to recognize the universality of our faith, whose thoughts anticipate the time when all shall hear the message of Christianity, who know no difference of class and acknowledge no claims of self-righteousness, but admit the bonds of a common humanity, and feel the necessity of a common Saviour. And lastly, are there not those, even in an era of restless excitement, who love to retire from the busy scenes of action to dwell on the eternal mysteries which St John opened for silent contemplation: men of divine eloquence and mighty in the understanding of the word, who water the churches which others have planted? No 1 Cor. iii. 6. period of life, no variety of temperament, is left without its Gospel. The zealous and the pensive, the active and the thoughtful, may draw their peculiar support from the different Evangelists, and find in them their 'proper end and road. gelists in rela These reflections, however, anticipate in some degree 2. The Evanthe answer to the question which arises more directly from tion to these the previous remarks. The varieties of opinion and feeling of Christian which distinguished the apostolic age and the body of the original types faith. CHAP. IV. Apostles themselves, which were indeed only special forms of unchanging instincts of man's nature, suggest with more or less probability the antecedent likelihood of a manifold -even of a fourfold-Gospel. How far then, it may be asked, are our present Gospels fitted to represent the influence of these typical differences? How far are these differences implied in the character and position of our Evangelists? How far have they been historically recog nized either in the arbitrary conclusions of heretics or in the catholic teaching of the Church? i. The Evangelists generally not conspicu ous in history or tradition, yet widely separated in date and character. Acts iii. 1. On applying these questions to the Gospels the first feeling probably will be one of disappointment. It must appear strange that only one bears the name of an Apostle who is distinctly individualized in the events of the narrative itself. Nor is the obscurity of the early history of the Gospels relieved by the clearness of later records. With the exception of St John, no one of the Evangelists rises into any prominence in the memorials of the first age, and tradition adds little to the few casual notices in which their names are found. But if we look deeper this circumstance is itself a testimony to the simple truthfulness of the Ecclesiastical belief, when the names of the Gospels are contrasted with the more conspicuous titles of the Gospels of St James and Nicodemus, and the Preaching of St Peter and St Paul; and on the other hand, all that can be gathered from external sources as to the position occupied by the authors of the books points to their representative character. In the broadest features of time and position there can be no doubt but that the Evangelists were widely separated from one another. Whatever may have been the exact dates of the several books, they were certainly composed at long intervals, still longer if measured by the course of events and not by the lapse of years. The first probably was composed in its original form while the disciples went daily to the Temple at the hours of prayer; |