though the Samaritans themselves claimed to be genuine Israelites, though they worshipped the Lord, practised circumcision, observed all the law of Moses, and lived in expectation of the Messianic kingdom, yet the Jews looked upon them as no better than heathen; and what is more, there was not a Jew, there was not a member of the community, not even Philip himself, who would have thought for a moment of reckoning them among the posterity of Abraham, for whom the Messiah and his salvation were supposed to be exclusively destined. So now the narrow circle was broken through for the first time, and the approach to the Messianic kingdom. thrown open to others than Jews. The honor of this decisive step belongs to Philip. Yet we must not for a moment suppose that he had definitely relinquished the idea of Israel's hereditary right to the kingdom of God, or was prepared to go forward, without shrinking, and accept and preach with full consciousness the principle of the abandonment of all privileges of birth or nationality, the principle of equality, as opposed to the national exclusiveness and pride of the Jews. Philip's large-heartedness was fostered, as we have seen, by the freer conceptions he had embraced, and he was conscious of acting in the true spirit of the Master;' but he was far from realizing the full significance of the step to which he was impelled by his love of Jesus and his zeal for the kingdom of God.

Details are wanting. Our author only cared to chronicle the fact itself. He does not even tell us the name of the city; he simply makes his usual statement that Philip performed miracles, such as the cure of many demoniacs, out of whom the devils came with piercing shrieks, and of many maimed and crippled ones, all which called general attention to his preaching, and caused great joy in the city.

After this we are told of another act of Philip, which bears witness to the same free spirit. The supernatural circuinstances by which it is surrounded were intended to make it more striking, and perhaps clothe it with the divine sanction. An angel of the Lord, we are told, commanded Philip to leave Samaria and hasten southwards, along the least frequented of the roads from Jerusalem to Gaza. He obeyed; and in doing so he overtook the travelling carriage of a distinguished Ethiopian, the chamberlain and first treasurer of the Queen of Meroë, who was called (after the usual custom of these Ethiopian princesses) Candace. Now, although

-

1 See p. 301.

this stranger was a heathen, that is to say, was uncircumcised, yet he worshipped Israel's God, and was now returning from a visit to the temple. There he sat, with a parchment-roll in his hand, reading to himself, but above his breath, as he drove along. The roll contained the prophecies of Isaiah in the Greek version, and the traveller was reading the verses that describe how the servant of the Lord is struck down without complaint or resistance.1 Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Philip walked beside the carriage, and asked the great officer whether he understood what he was reading; and he answered that he could not understand it without further instruction, begging him at the same time to take the seat beside him and explain whether the prophet was really speaking about himself or some one else. What better opening could there have been for the Evangelist to speak of Jesus, in whom that passage of Scripture was fulfilled? He found a grateful hearer in the chamberlain; and when a few hours had sped by, he announced himself a convert, and desired to be baptized. They were close by a stream; the Ethiopian ordered the carriage to stop; the two descended, and Philip consecrated his companion as a future citizen of the kingdom of God. But, just as they were stepping out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly snatched away the preacher miraculously, so that the other could not so much as take leave of him, but was left to continue his homeward journey full of deep joy in his new faith in Jesus. Meanwhile, Philip was transported to Ashdod, at a distance of five or six leagues, whence he journeyed through the cities near the sea-coast, preaching everywhere, till he came to Cæsarea, a city largely inhabited by heathen, where he took up his abode.

Still more important events remain. We heard just now of persecuted brethren scattered over Judæa and Samaria ; but there were also many who passed the boundaries of Jewish land and went to Phoenicia, the island of Cyprus, and Antioch, the magnificent capital of Syria. Now wherever they went they preached their faith to the Jews of the place, and of course to them only. At last, however, certain Cyprians and Cyrenæans, who had formerly been attracted to Jerusalem by religious zeal, and were now expelled from it by religious rancor, settled in Antioch, and there began to speak to heathen on the subject of their faith, and to preach Jesus and his principles and kingdom to them. They experienced God's 1 See vol. ii. pp. 420, 421.

2 Compare vol. ii. pp. 140, 152.

unmistakable support and blessing we are told, so that great numbers believed, renounced their idolatry and superstition, and were converted to the Lord. They were the first-fruits of the mighty harvest that the heathen world should yield!

What we said of Philip is still more applicable here. The step was of incalculable consequence; for the writer evidently means that these heathen were not compelled or even urged to submit to circumcision and other Jewish ordinances as a condition of their admittance. What freedom and boldness, what a fine spirit of humanity, what zeal for the cause of Jesus on the part of the preachers all this shows! We would gladly know more of them, but have only the name of one, Lucius the Cyrenæan, and at most can only conjecture that Barnabas the Cyprian was another. Yet, on the other hand, we must not suppose that these men had arrived at the conviction that the Law was annulled, that the distinction between Jew and heathen was abolished, and that henceforth faith must be the only condition of admission into the kingdom of God. The glory of first discovering and preaching this remains with Paul. Indeed, it would be impossible to accept the statement that a community of Grecian Jews and uncircumcised converts was formed at Antioch in any such way as would overshadow the services of Paul or rob his apostleship to the Gentiles of its originality.

Ere long we shall see the Apostle of the gentiles hurl down the wall of partition; but meanwhile our thoughts involuntarily turn to the second great condition which made it possible to preach the gospel in Greek society, the condition which must have moved the preachers already spoken of, and without which Paul, in spite of the might of his conviction, would have ploughed upon the rocks! This second condition was the sense of want on the part of the heathen world itself. The capacity for receiving the gospel lay in the longing for a deeper knowledge of the truth, a purer worship of the Deity, a mightier support for the moral life, and a firmer foundation for hope in the future than the ancient and superannuated religions could give.' Heathendom was ready to hear of the God of Jesus and the kingdom Jesus came to establish.

Had not the gentile world been straining for deliverance, how could the religion of a crucified Jew have found acceptance with it? The heathen then did not fail on their side to press for admission; and it was to this pressure perhaps, 2 See p. ?

1 Compare Galatians ii. 13.

more than to any thing else, that they owed their participation in the kingdom of God. This fact is set before our eyes in a miraculous story, from which we may perhaps make out the views of the liberal school before Paul as to the conversion of heathen. We will give it as it appears in the first Gospel, and there with close this chapter, as we opened it, with an emblematic scene:

Jesus was once journeying in a heathen land (Phœnicia1). A woman of the country came to him and cried: "Have pity on me, Lord, thou son of David! my daughter is grievously afflicted by a demon." But Jesus did not answer a word. Then his disciples came to him and said: "Send her away, for she is shouting after us;" upon which he said: "I am only sent to the lost sheep of Israel's house." But then the woman fell at his feet and cried imploringly : "Lord! help me!" Jesus still refused. "We may not take the children's bread," he answered, “and throw it to the dogs;" on which she said: "No, Lord! but the dogs may have the fragments that fall from the table of their masters." Then Jesus yielded. "O woman! great is your faith," he exclaimed; "your prayer is granted." And the sufferer was healed.

The meaning of this story, which Mark reproduces with sundry modifications, designed for the most part to soften the harshness of the expressions, is easy to perceive. Against its literal truth we might urge the title of" son of David” given to Jesus by a heathen woman; the implication that his mission was to cure diseases, and that it would prejudice his own nation if he helped a heathen who happened to be thrown in his way; the repulsive harshness and national arrogance here attributed to the Christ; and, finally, the performance of the cure at a distance. All these difficulties disappear if we accept it symbolically. The Phoenician woman becomes the heathen world beseeching the Christ to rescue her children from the power of Satan.2 In vain! The salvation of the kingdom of God is only offered to the children of the household (to Israel), not to the dogs (the heathen). But she perseveres; she is content if she may but pick up the chance fragments that fall within her grasp; and her perseverance wins the day.

that is to say,

Observe that this healing from a distance, this benefit conferred upon the heathen world by the emissaries of Jesus and not by him in person,*— is as it were wrung

1 See pp. 281 ff.

2 Acts xxvi. 18; compare pp. 322-324. 4 See p. 309.

See p. 389; Matthew vii. 6; 2 Peter ii. 22.

from him, that is from his community; and that as yet there is not the least idea of placing the heathen on the same level with the Jews. But at the same time the longing for salvation on the part of the heathen gives the actual proof of their equality, nay, their superiority for a time, to the unbelieving Israel. We are now to see the Apostle of the heathen vindicating their rights, and realizing the presentiment of Jesus.1

CHAPTER IV.

THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES.

GALATIANS I. 13-20; Acrs IX. 1-30.

HOM have we to thank for the fact that the name and

throughout the ancient world, triumphing alike over supreme indifference and furious hostility, over the brilliance of sarcastic wit and the bitterness of deadly hatred? Whose fault is it that the purpose of Jesus himself, who labored to found the kingdom of God and not "a religion," was thwarted by the rise under his name of a new and separate religion, - of the Christian church and the church's doctrines? One answer serves for both these questions, for they indicate the twin results of the rise and work of Paul.

Of Paul! After Jesus, to whom he himself declared that he owed all he was and all he had, we surely are acquainted with no mightier personality than Paul's. By turns received with acclamation and loaded with scorn and hatred, Paul, with his giant spirit and his restless energy, whether comprehended or not, has directly or indirectly dominated the development of Christianity; and to this very day the great majority of believers have not derived their knowledge of the Master and the influence it exercises upon them direct from the fountain head, that is to say from the Jesus of history himself, but rather from the channels cut out by Paul in his conception and preaching of the Christ.

And now that we come to speak of Paul we have firmer ground beneath our feet than we have hitherto trodden; for we have access to genuine and perfectly trustworthy sources

1 See pp. 301 ff., 235, 236.