what was

the Church," what was felt of Christian love and devotion, learnt, under the Spirit's teaching, of Christian truth, has not been revealed, and cannot be known. The intercourse was full of present comfort, and full of great consequences. But it did not last long. Fifteen days passed away, and the Apostles were compelled to part. The same zeal which had caused his voice to be heard in the Hellenistic Synagogues in the persecution against Stephen, now led Saul in the same Synagogues to declare fearlessly his adherence to Stephen's cause. The same

fury which had caused the murder of Stephen, now brought the murderer of Stephen to the verge of assassination. Once more, as at Damascus, the Jews made a conspiracy to put Saul to death: and once more he was rescued by the anxiety of the brethren.'

Reluctantly, and not without a direct intimation from on high, he retired from the work of preaching the Gospel in Jerusalem. As he was praying one day in the Temple, it came to pass that he fell into a trance,2 and in his ecstasy he saw Jesus, who spoke to him, and said, “Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me." He hesitated to obey the command, his desire to do God's will leading him to struggle against the hinderances of God's providence- and the memory of Stephen, which haunted him even in his trance, furnishing him with an argument. But the command was more peremptory than before: "Depart; for I will send thee far hence. unto the Gentiles." The scene of his apostolic victories was not to be Jerusalem. For the third time it was declared to him that the field of his labors was among the Gentiles. This secret revelation to his soul conspired with the outward difficulties of his situation. The care of God gave the highest sanction to the anxiety of the brethren. And he suffered himself to be withdrawn from the Holy City.

They brought him down to Cæsarea by the sea, and from Cæsarea they sent him to Tarsus. His own expression in the Epistle to the Galatians

1 Acts ix. 29, 30.

2 See Acts xxii. 17-21. Though Schrader is sometimes laboriously unsuccessful in explaining the miraculous, yet we need not entirely disregard what he says concerning the oppression of spirit, under the sense of being mistrusted and opposed, with which Saul came to pray in the Temple. And we may compare the preparation for St. Peter's vision, before the conversion of Cornelius.

* Compare the similar expostulations of Ananias, ix. 13, and of Peter, x. 14.

4 Olshausen is certainly mistaken in sup

posing that Cæsarea Philippi is meant. Whenever "Cæsarea" is spoken of absolutely, it always means Cæsarea Stratonis. And even if it is assumed that Saul travelled by land through Syria to Tarsus, this would not have been the natural course. It is true enough that this Cæsarea is nearer the Syrian frontier than the other; but the physical character of the country is such that the Apostle would naturally go by the other Cæsarea, unless, indeed, he travelled by Damascus to Antioch, which is highly improbable.

6 Acts ix. 30.

1

(i. 21) is that he went "into the regions of Syria and Cilicia." From this it has been inferred that he went first from Cæsarea to Antioch, and then from Antioch to Tarsus. And such a course would have been perfectly natural; for the communication of the city of Cæsar and the Herods with the metropolis of Syria, either by sea and the harbor of Seleucia, or by the great coast-road through Tyre and Sidon, was easy and frequent. But the supposition is unnecessary. In consequence of the range of Mount Taurus (p. 19), Cilicia has a greater geographical affinity with Syria than with Asia Minor. Hence it has existed in frequent political combination with it from the time of the old Persian satrapies to the modern pachalics of the Sultan: and "Syria and Cilicia" appears in history almost as a generic geographical term, the more important district being mentioned first. Within the limits of this region Saul's activities were now exercised in studying and in teaching at Tarsus, or in founding those Churches which were afterwards greeted in the Apostolic lette: from Jerusalem, as the brethren "in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia," and which Paul himself confirmed after his separation from Barnabas, travelling through "Syria and Cilicia."

Whatever might be the extent of his journeys within these limits, we know at least that he was at Tarsus. Once more we find him in the home of his childhood. It is the last time we are distinctly told that he was there. Now at least, if not before, we may be sure that he would come into active intercourse with the Heathen philosophers of the place. In his last residence at Tarsus, a few years before, he was a Jew, and not only a Jew but a Pharisee, and he looked on the Gentiles around him as outcasts from the favor of God. Now he was a Christian, and not only

1 This is well illustrated by the hopeless feeling of the Greek soldiers in the Anabasis, when Cyrus had drawn them into Cilicia; by various passages in the history of the Seleucids; by the arrangements of the Romans with Antiochus; by the division of provinces in the Later Empire; and by the course of the Mohammedan conquests.

Acts xv. 23, 41. When we find the existence of Cilician Churches mentioned, the obvious inference is that St. Paul founded them during this period.

The passage in Strabo, referred to above, Ch. I. p. 21, is so important that we give a free translation of it here. "The men of this place are so zealous in the study of philosophy and the whole circle of education, that they surpass both Athens and Alexandria and

every place that could be mentioned, where schools of philosophers are found. And the difference amounts to this. Here, those who are fond of learning are all natives, and strangers do not willingly reside here and they themselves do not remain, but finish their education abroad, and gladly take up their residence elsewhere, and few return. Whereas, in the other cities which I have just mentioned, except Alexandria, the contrary takes place for many come to them and live there willingly; but you will see few of the natives either going abroad for the sake of philosophy, or caring to study it at home. The Alexandrians have both characters; for they receive many strangers, and send out of their own people not a few."

a Christian, but conscious of his mission as the Apostle of the Gentiles. Therefore he would surely meet the philosophers, and prepare to argue with them on their own ground, as afterwards in the "market" at Athens with "the Epicureans and the Stoics." Many Stoics of Tarsus were men of celebrity in the Roman Empire. Athenodorus, the tutor of Augustus, has already been mentioned. He was probably by this time deceased, and receiving those divine honors, which, as Lucian informs us, were paid to him after his death. The tutor of Tiberius also was a Tarsian and a Stoic. His name was Nestor. He was probably at this time alive for he lingered to the age of ninety-two, and, in all likelihood, survived his wicked pupil, whose death we have recently noticed. Now among these eminent sages and instructors of Heathen Emperors was one whose teaching was destined to survive, when the Stoic philosophy should have perished, and whose words still instruct the rulers of every civilized nation. How far Saul's arguments had any success in this quarter we cannot even guess; and we must not anticipate the conversion of Cornelius. At least, he was preparing for the future. In the Synagogue we cannot believe that he was silent or unsuccessful. In his own family, we may well imagine that some of those Christian "kinsmen," whose names are handed down to us, possibly his sister, the playmate of his childhood, and his sister's son, who afterwards saved his life, were at this time by his exertions gathered into the fold of Christ.

Here this chapter must close, while Saul is in exile from the earthly Jerusalem, but diligently occupied in building up the walls of the "Jerusalem which is above." And it was not without one great and important consequence that that short fortnight had been spent in Jerusalem. He was now known to Peter and to James. His vocation was fully ascertained and recognized by the heads of the Judæan Christians. It is true that he was yet "unknown by face" to the scattered Churches of Judæa.5 But they honored him of whom they had heard so much. And when the news came to them at intervals of all that he was doing for the cause of Christ, they praised God and

1 Acts xvii. 17, 18.

2 See p. 42.

Rom. xvi. See p. 44.

+ About twenty years after this time (Acts xxiii. 17, 23) he is called "a young man," the very word which is used of Saul himself (Acts vii. 58) at the stoning of Stephen. It is justly remarked by Hemsen that the young man's anxiety for his uncle (xxiii. 16-23) seems to imply a closer affection than that resulting from relationship alone

See Gal. i. 21-24. The form of the Greek words seems to imply a continued preaching of the Gospel, the intelligence of which came now and then to Judæa. From what follows, however ("Then fourteen years afterwards "), St. Paul appears to describe in i. 23, 24, the effect produced by the tidings not only of his labors in Tarsus, but of his subsequent and more extensive labors as a missionary to the Heathen. It should be added, that Wieseler thinks he staid only half a year at Tarsus.

said, "Behold! he who was once our persecutor is now bearing the glad tidings of that faith which formerly he labored to root out; "" and they glorified God in him."

CHAPTER IV.

Wider Diffusion of Christianity.- Antioch. -Chronology of the Acts.-Reign of Caligula. – Claudius and Herod Agrippa I. - The Year 44. — Conversion of the Gentiles.— St. Peter and Cornelius. — Joppa and Cæsarea. - St. Peter's Vision. - Baptism of Cornelius. — Intelligence from Antioch. - Mission of Barnabas. — Saul with Barnabas at Antioch. The Name "Christian." - Description and History of Antioch.- Character of its Inhabitants. -Earthquakes.- Famine. - Barnabas and Saul at Jerusalem. - Death of St. James and of Herod Agrippa. - Return with Mark to Antioch. - Providential Preparation of St. Paul. -Results of his Mission to Jerusalem.

ITHERTO the history of the Christian Church has been confined within Jewish limits. We have followed its progress beyond the walls of Jerusalem, but hardly yet beyond the boundaries of Palestine. If any traveller from a distant country has been admitted into the community of believers, the place of his baptism has not been more remote than the "desert" of Gaza. If any "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel " have been admitted to the citizenship of the spiritual Israelites, they have been "strangers" who dwell among the hills of Samaria. But the time is rapidly approaching when the knowledge of Christ must spread more rapidly, when those who possess not that Book, which caused perplexity on the road to Æthiopia, will hear and adore His name, — and greater strangers than those who drew water from the well of Sychar will come nigh to the Fountain of Life. The same dispersion which gathered in the Samaritans, will gather in the Gentiles also. The "middle wall of partition" being utterly broken down, all will be called by the new and glorious name of "Christian."

And as we follow the progress of events, and find that all movements in the Church begin to have more and more reference to the Heathen, we observe that these movements begin to circulate more and more round a new centre of activity. Not Jerusalem, but Antioch,-not the Holy City of God's ancient people, but the profane city of the Greeks and Romans, is the place to which the student of sacred history is now directed. During the remainder of the Acts of the Apostles our attention is at least divided between Jerusalem and Antioch, until at last, after following St. Paul's many journeys, we come with him to Rome. For some time Constantinople must remain a city of the future; but we