Slike strani
PDF
ePub

THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEYS

ANTIOCH, ROME, SICILY, SPAIN, GAUL, AFRICA, AND THE MEDITERRANEAN ISLANDS

"Come! Pain ye shall have and be blind to the ending.
Come! Fear ye shall have with the skies overcasting.
Come! Change ye shall have for far are ye wending;
No crown shall ye have for your thirst and your fasting,
Save the kissed lips of love and sweet life everlasting.
Cry out! for One heedeth who leadeth you Home."

TH

William Morris

HERE can be but little doubt that these, or many among these of whom I have been writing, became the earliest missionaries of Christendom.

Long before the apostles themselves had left Jerusalem, either before or immediately after the conversion of St. Paul, the chief non-apostolic disciples of our Lordmany, probably, who had been of the number of the "Seventy "-with or without direct apostolic sanction, began carrying far and wide the news of Christ's Kingdom.

The only names given us in the Bible of which we can be certain are those of St. Luke, St. Stephen, St. Barnabas, and St. Philip, but we may safely conclude that all, or nearly all, were Hebrews, for at first they "preached the word to none but unto the Jews only," and we know also that none of the apostles were with them.

We are further told that much of this missionary work was the outcome of enforced dispersion occasioned by

the persecution which arose at the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

The passages referring to this are so definite and important that they may well be quoted entire :

"And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judæa and Samaria, except the apostles," and "they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts viii. 1, 4), and "now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them : and a great number believed, and turned to the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the Church which was at Jerusalem and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts xi. 19-26).

Perhaps few people who are generally acquainted with the Bible recognise who must have been the essential leaders of this great enterprise and how wide-reaching was its influence.

The scattered disciples who were its leaders would necessarily be those who had been living in Jerusalem or its vicinity both before and during the residence and

Passion of our Saviour, who were known to have been willing listeners to His teaching and to have been identified in some way with His ministry and discipleship. St. Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, St. Luke and St. Cleopas, St. Martha, St. Mary and St. Lazarus, Joanna who was living with them, and very probably her son; the man who had been born blind and was restored to sight by Jesus, Simon the Cyrenean and St. Philip-all of these (though but few of their names are actually mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles) would inevitably become the victims of Jewish suspicion and hatred and be of those who were forced to leave Jerusalem.1

The persons with whom we have been familiar in the Gospels have only been temporarily lost. Here we find them again some at least directly mentioned in Holy Scripture as among these early missionaries, and nearly all the rest (with many accessory names) traditionally associated in one way or another with this great exodus and missionary effort occurring within a short time after the stoning of St. Stephen.

Let us put ourselves-so far as we can-in the place of these first disciples. "Our Lord and Master has told us to 'go and teach all nations,' but before this he said, 'Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.' We have hitherto lived entirely in Palestine or have only wandered a little beyond its borders. In spite of the gifts of Pentecost we have no continuous gift of divers tongues ;2 and when forced by persecution to leave our country we must either turn to any scattered colonies of our people who

In the Gospel of St. John we read that "the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death, because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus." This would necessarily affect the whole of the disciples at Bethany (John xii. 10, 11).

See Bishop Gore's "Epistle to the Ephesians," p. 27

will hear us, or to other nations or peoples with whose language and customs we are more or less familiar.

"Most of us have lived in Galilee, on the borders of Syro-Phoenicia. The Phoenicians have been our neighbours, and many of them are our acquaintances and friends. Some of them have already seen our Lord and have believed in Him, and if they do not speak quite the same language as ourselves there is only a difference of dialect. They understand us and we can talk freely with them (Mark vii. 26). Whether employed by them or working as merchants with them, we are already identified with their colonisation and commerce. From the time of King Solomon, when the Hebrews and Phoenicians possessed a common navy, we have sailed the seas together. Wherever the Phoenician has gone the Hebrew has gone with him, and their colonies extend, as we know, along the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, embracing all the Mediterranean islands, and even extending through the 'pillars of Hercules' into the great Atlantic.

"Large populations of our race have permanently settled in Africa, in Egypt, and in the parts about Cyrene ; while in Tarshish [or Spain] and even the countries beyond it, our sailors who traded and lived there centuries ago have left colonies behind them, who undoubtedly still remember some of the language, traditions, and teaching of their forefathers.

"For the king [Solomon] had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks" (1 Kings x. 22).

According to an old legend, the Jews of Toledo in Spain addressed a letter to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem declaring against the crucifixion of our Lord (see "Spain," Jewish Encyclopædia). When the Moors first took Toledo, it is said to have been largely populated by Jews, to whom it was a place of refuge wben Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem (Tradition).

E

"Most of these colonies of the Dispersion have never been quite forgotten by the Hebrews in Palestine. Accredited messengers from Jerusalem have been in the habit of visiting them at regular intervals, and it is not difficult to obtain quite recent and reliable information regarding their work and condition and welfare.1

"Here, then, are the 'fields white unto harvest' spoken of by our Lord, ready for the reaping and waiting for the labourers.

"Others, more travelled and more full of pagan learning than ourselves, may hereafter preach the gospel in the great centres of Greece and Rome; we go, as Christ has bidden us, to our brethren and kinsfolk

over-seas.

"Christ was with us on the lake of Galilee, and He will still be with us on the Great Sea, though we may not see Him."2

The constitution and functions of these pre-Christian apostles are thus described by Harnack :—

1. They were consecrated persons of a very high rank.

2. They were sent out into the Diaspora to collect tribute for headquarters.

3. They brought encyclical letters with them, kept the Diaspora in touch with the centre and informed of the intentions of the latter (or of the patriarch); received orders relative to any dangerous movement and had to organise resistance to it.

4. They exercised certain powers of surveillance and discipline in the Diaspora ; and

5. On returning to their own country they formed a sort of Council which aided the patriarch in supervising the interests of the Law ("Expansion of Christianity," Moffatt's translation, vol. i. p. 412).

2 Phoenician or Phoenician and Jewish settlements were found at this period, on all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Tarsus in Cilicia (the birthplace of St. Paul) was a Phoenician city with Phoenician coinage and worship. In Cyprus the Phoenicians had established themselves for centuries; they had rebuilt the harbour at Citium (Larnaca) and thoroughly colonised the adjacent country.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »