first of these journeys was made by Peter and John, who were sent to Samaria, when the news that a congregation had been formed there by Philip reached Jerusalem (VIII 14). This may be taken as a specimen of many similar journeys, one of which is recorded
The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III
(IX 32 f.) on account of the important development that took place in its course. It appears from Acts that Peter was the leading spirit in these journeys of organisation, which knit together the scattered congregations in Judea and Samaria. Hence the first great question in the development of the Church was presented to him, viz., whether Hebrew birth was a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah and membership of the Christian Church. That question must necessarily be soon forced on the growing Church; for proselytes were not rare, and the Christian doctrine, which was preached in the synagogues, reached them. It was difficult to find any justification for making the door of the Church narrower than the door of the synagogue, and there is no record that any one explicitly advocated the view that Christianity should be confined to the chosen people, though the condition and regulations on which non-Jews should be admitted formed the subject of keen controversy in the following years.
According to Acts, this great question was first presented definitely to Peter in the case of a Roman centurion named Cornelius; and a vision, which had appeared to him immediately before the question emerged, determined him to enter the house and the society of Cornelius, and set forth to him the good news, on the principle that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him” (X 35). Peter’s action was immediately confirmed by the communication of Divine grace to the audience in Cornelius’s house; and, though it was at first disputed in Jerusalem, yet Peter’s defence was approved of by general consent.
But this step, though an important one, was only the first stage in a long advance that was still to be made.
SEC 1. The Gentiles in the Church.
Cornelius was a proselyte; and Peter in his speech to the assembly in his house laid it down as a condition of reception into the Church that the non-Jew must approach by way of the synagogue (X 35), and become “one that fears God”.
Without entering on the details of a matter which has been and still is under discussion, we must here allude to the regulations imposed on strangers who wished to enter into relations with the Jews. Besides the proselytes who came under the full Law and entered the community of Moses, there was another class of persons who wished only to enter into partial relations with the Jews. These two classes were at a later time distinguished as “Proselytes of the Sanctuary” and “of the Gate”; but in Acts the second class is always described as “they that fear God”.1 The God-fearing proselytes were bound to observe certain ceremonial regulations of purity in order to be permitted to come into any relations with the Jews; and it is probable that these rules were the four prohibitions enumerated in XV 28, to abstain from the flesh of animals sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from animals strangled, and from marriage within the prohibited degrees (many of which were not prohibited by Greek or Roman law). These prohibitions stand in close relation to the principles laid down in Leviticus XVII, XVIII, for the conduct of strangers dwelling among the Israelites; and it would appear that they had become the recognised rule for admission to the synagogue and for the first stage of approximation to the Jewish communion. They stand on a different plane from the moral law of the Ten Commandments, being rules of purity.
1 φοβούμενοι or σεβόμενοι τόν θεόν
The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III
While no one, probably, urged that the Church should be confined to born Hebrews, there was a party in the Church which maintained that those non-Jews who were admitted should be required to conform to the entire “Law of God ”: this was the party of “champions of the circumcision,”1 which played so great a part in the drama of subsequent years. This party was silenced by Peter’s explanation in the case of Cornelius, for the preliminary vision and the subsequent gift of grace could not be gainsaid. But the main question was not yet definitely settled; only an exceptional case was condoned and accepted.
The Church Of Antioch then was in a somewhat anomalous condition. It contained a number of Greeks, who were in the position of “God-fearing proselytes,” but had not conformed to the entire law; and the question was still unsettled what was their status in the Church.
2. THE COMING OF BARNABAS AND THE SUMMONING OF SAUL.
(XI 22) AND THE REPORT CONCERNING THEM CAME TO THE EARS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM; AND THEY SENT FORTH BARNABAS AS FAR AS ANTIOCH: (23) WHO WHEN HE WAS COME, AND HAD SEEN THE GRACE OF GOD, WAS GLAD; AND HE EXHORTED THEM ALL THAT WITH PURPOSE OF HEART THEY SHOULD CLEAVE UNTO THE LORD (24) (FOR HE WAS A GOOD MAN, AND FULL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND OF FAITH); AND MUCH PEOPLE WAS ADDED UNTO THE LORD. (25) AND HE WENT FORTH TO TARSUS TO SEEK FOR SAUL; (26) AND WHEN HE HAD FOUND HIM, HE BROUGHT HIM UNTO ANTIOCH. AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT EVEN FOR A
1 οἰ ἐκ περιτομη, XI 2, Gal. II 12: “some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed,” XV 5.
SEC 2. The Coming of Barnabas.
WHOLE YEAR THEY MET IN THE ASSEMBLY, AND TAUGHT MUCH PEOPLE; AND THAT THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED “CHRISTIANS” FIRST IN ANTIOCH.
As in previous cases, an envoy was sent from the Church in Jerusalem to survey this new congregation, and judge of its worthiness; and Barnabas was selected for the purpose. The same test that had been convincing in the case of Cornelius satisfied Barnabas in Antioch: he saw the grace of God. Then he proceeded to exhort and encourage them, which he was qualified to do because the Divine Spirit was in him. Sparing as Luke is of words, he feels bound to state that Barnabas was qualified by grace for the work (see p. 174). The result of his course of ministration was a great increase to the congregation.
Mindful of his former short experience of Saul, Barnabas bethought himself that he was well suited to the peculiar circumstances of the Antiochian congregation: and he accordingly went to Tarsus, and brought Saul back with him to Antioch. This journey must apparently have been made in the early months of A.D. 43; and the rest of that year was spent by the two friends in Antioch. The date shows that the early stages of Christian history in Antioch were slow. The congregation must have grown insensibly, and no marked event occurred, until the attention of the Church in Jerusalem was called to its existence. The one important fact about it was that it came into existence in this peculiar way. But with the advent of Barnabas and Saul, its history enters on a new phase. It became the centre of progress and of historical interest in the Church.
It lies in Luke’s style to give no reason why Barnabas summoned Saul to Antioch. This historian records the
1 παρεκάλει, imperfect.
The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III
essential facts as they occurred; but he does not obtrude on the reader his own private conception as to causes or motives. But we cannot doubt that Barnabas, who became Saul’s sponsor at Jerusalem (IX 27), and related to the Apostles the circumstances of his conversion, knew that God had already called him “to preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal. I 16), and recognised that this congregation of the Gentiles was the proper sphere for Saul’s work. We find in Barnabas’s action the proof of the correctness of Paul’s contention in Epist. Gal., that his aim as an Apostle had been directed from the first towards the Gentiles; his sphere was already recognised.
As we shall see later, Paul must have spent nearly eight years at Tarsus. Why are these eight years a blank? Why were they such a contrast to the crowded hours of
