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CHAPTER II.

THE DAY OF PENTECOST-THE GALILEAN APOSTLES.

THE Acts of the Apostles, purporting to be written by the author of the third gospel, is first heard of late in the second century. Its contents disclose the pious design of constructing a history of the earliest days of Christianity from legendary materials, which assumed, in a credulous age, the form of attested facts. Free handling was, doubtless, indispensable to a coherent narrative; but the author drifts into historical romance when he puts speeches into the mouths of Peter, Stephen, and Paul, so much alike in form and substance, that we inevitably detect his own imaginative version of what ought to have been said on each occasion.

The opening chapter records the assembly at Jerusalem of the Apostles, with Mary the mother of Jesus and her female companions. They had quite recently conversed with the second person in the Trinity, from whom they might have learned lessons of priceless wisdom; and yet we find them occupied with the old superstition of prophetic fatality, adapting ancient Scripture to the actions and fate of Judas. According to Peter it was inevitable that the doomed apostle should betray his Lord and Master, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Jesus had taught the duty, and set the example of compliance with the demands of pro

phecy. Was Judas, therefore, a pious man, imitating Jesus in blind obedience to the will of the Deity; or a mere automaton in the grasp of prophetic fatality, predestined to crime, and therefore irresponsible for his actions ?

It was necessary to nominate a successor to Judas; so these men who might have referred the question a few hours previously to the Second, or a few hours later, to the Third person in the Trinity, proceeded to elect an apostle by drawing lots!

The compiler of the Acts, in harmony with the previous statement of Luke, unauthenticated by any other Evangelist, records that Jesus instructed his Apostles to wait at Jerusalem until invested with power from on high; but this mystical innovation has no affinity to the previous teaching of Jesus as recorded in the first two Gospels. When, according to Matthew, the twelve Apostles were sent forth to preach the Gospel, Jesus said to them :- But when they deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.'1 Jesus, therefore, knew nothing of the mysterious Being introduced into the Godhead after his death; and to him divine inspiration meant nothing more than the influence of the spirit of his Father on the minds of his disciples, possessed of the same divine efficacy during his lifetime as after his death.

The simplicity of Jesus could not, however, save his disciples from the superstitious delusions which corrupt all religions, when their founders have passed away from the scene of their labours. When the Day of

1 Matt. x. 19.

Pentecost was fully come, they were all together in one place, waiting for some novel manifestation of the miraculous. Long vigils spent in fasting and prayer had prepared them for the hallucinations of cerebral exhaustion. They fancied Jesus had predicted some sign from heaven; and the supposed prophecy produced its own fulfilment. Suddenly, there came a sound from heaven as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them '1-a clear case of thunderstorm. If they heard a sound like the wind, was it not the wind? If their faces were illuminated as if by fire, why not by flashing lightning? But was not the presence of the Holy Ghost fully attested by the miraculous gift of tongues, through which all present addressed a cosmopolitan crowd with colloquial fluency in several languages?

1

This sensational myth was, however, finally disposed of by Saint Paul in 1 Cor. xiv., according to which the fabulous gift of tongues were unintelligible sounds without meaning to speaker or auditor unless interpreted. Paul cherished extreme distrust of polyglottic mysticism; but, instead of openly condemning, he discussed the superstition with a dexterous diplomacy which was probably more effectual in its extirpation than avowed hostility. How great a master of subtle irony is Paul, when he assures the Corinthians that, although speaking with tongues more than any of them, he preferred five words of common sense to ten thousand spoken with tongues; and that there were

1 Acts ii. 2, 3.

three courses open to the possessor of the dubious gift -to find an interpreter, or interpret himself, or hold his tongue. These simple rules no doubt silenced many ambitious spiritualists, for Paul does not recur to the subject in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

The Day of Pentecost, therefore, witnessed a fanatical outburst of ecstatic devotion, seeking frenzied utterance in vocal sounds so destitute of meaning, that some irreverent spectators suggested new wine as the source of inspiration-an obviously impossible idea to men listening to words of wisdom in their native tongue.

But, as Peter rises to address the assembly, may we not expect so lucid an explanation from his inspired lips that our ignoble scepticism shall vanish as mists before the sun?

Marvellous to relate, this eminent Apostle, now the medium of Divinity, has added nothing to his ideas since last addressing us respecting Judas. He still moves in the fetters of prophetic fatality. The mysterious linguists of Pentecost are not drunk, for it is yet early in the day; but are simply fulfilling the predictions of the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; and your old men shall dream dreams; and on my servants, and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.'

Paul had, therefore, omitted to study Joel, and was ignorant of Peter's speech when he wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians; for he makes a marked distinction between prophecy and tongues, and sternly

denies to women the gift of spiritual utterance. Did Peter therefore err in connecting Joel with the Day of Pentecost; or does Paul discredit an inspired prophet, when he quenches the Spirit in female breasts?

The marvels of Pentecost converted three thousand souls--the natural result of religious excitement which, in modern times, assumes the form of 'Revivals,' as zealous as evanescent. Jesus placed practical morality above ecstatic mysticism, and but one hundred and twenty of his followers answered to the roll-call after his death. Peter persuaded himself and his auditors that they were under the spell of supernatural influence, and, forthwith, thousands were won by this novel and exciting superstition.

As one of the important results of the Day of Pentecost, it is recorded that all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.' The adoption of communism from the Essenes, no doubt assumed a reasonable aspect in the eyes of men expecting the second advent of Jesus within their own generation; but if the Apostles could have foreseen that nothing would be heard of the Messiah for nearly two thousand years, they would not have invited social chaos by encouraging the idle and improvident to live at the expense of the thrifty and industrious. We have implicit confidence in the honest fanaticism of primitive Christianity; but yet there may have been some among the motley crowd who preferred the excitement of ecstatic devotion to the drudgery of earning daily bread.

But was the experiment of communistic socialism a