critical professions. Before his eyes thy intentions are manifest. With sincere repentance for such wickedness, pray to God that he would be pleased to forgive thee this wicked design." This rebuke.made a great impression at the time on Simon's conscience, inclined more to superstition than to faith, and awakened a feeling not of repentance for the sinfulness of his disposition, but of apprehension of the divine vengeance. He entreated the apostles that they would pray to the Lord for him, that what they had threatened him with might not come to pass.

As is usual with such sudden impressions on the senses, the effect on Simon was only transient, for all the further notices we have of him show that he soon returned to his former courses. About ten or twenty years later, we meet with a Simon in the company of Felix the Roman Procurator of Palestine, so strikingly resembling this man, that we are tempted to consider them as identical. The latter Simon' appears as a heartless magician, to whom all persons, whatever their character, were welcome, provided they gave credit

2

from the kingdom of God, and thereby bring condemnation on himself. Hence we understand the word λóyos in the common New Testament meaning of the divine doctrine-"the doctrine or truth announced by us"-at the same time including ouvexdoxikŵs, all that a person would be authorized to receive by the appropriation of this doctrine. I am not convinced by what Meyer in his commentary urges against this interpretation, that it is at variance with the connexion, in which there is no mention made of the doctrine. For in the mind of the speaker, the power of working miracles could not be separated from the publication of the gospel and faith in it; and as Simon in the disposition of his mind was far from the gospel, and could stand in no sort of fellowship with it, it followed as a matter of course, that he could have no share in the ability to work such miracles.

1 On the other hand, there is the difference of country, for the Simon to whom we refer, and whom Josephus mentions (Antiq. book xx. ch. vii. § 2), was a Jew from Cyprus; but Simon Magus, according to Justin Martyr, himself a native of Samaria, was born at a place called Gittim, in Samaria. Yet this evidence is not decisive, for a tradition so long after the time, though prevalent in the country where Simon made his appearance, might be erroneous. What has been said since I wrote the above, against the identity of the two Simons, is not demonstrative, though I willingly allow, that since the name of Simon was a very common one among the Jews, and such itinerant yónra were not seldom to be met with, the time also not perfectly agreeing, the identity must be left rather doubtful.

2 μάγον εἶναι σκηπτόμενον, says Josephus.

to his enchantments. With equal arrogance, he disclaimed all respect for the ancient forms of religion, and for the laws of morality. He was a confidant of the Roman Procurator Felix, and therefore could never have opposed his vicious inclinations, but on the contrary made his magic subservient to their gratification; he thus bound him more closely to himself, as a single example will show. The immoral Felix had indulged a passion for Drusilla, sister of King Herod Agrippa, and wife of King Azizus of Emesa. Simon allowed himself to be the tool of Felix, for gratifying his unlawful desires. He persuaded Drusilla that by his superhuman power he could ensure great happiness for her, provided she married Felix, and managed to overcome her scruples of conscience against marrying a heathen. The character of this

Simon is stamped on the later theosophic goëtic sect of the Simonians, whose tenets were a mixture of the Oriental, Jewish, Samaritan, and Grecian religious elements. The germ of their principles may be plainly traced back to this Simon, though we cannot attribute to him the complete system of this sect as it existed in the second century.

The two apostles returned again to Jerusalem, and as what they had witnessed convinced them of the susceptibility of the Samaritans for receiving the gospel, they availed themselves of the opportunity of publishing it in all the parts of the country through which they passed. But Philip extended his missionary journey further, and became the instrument of bringing the first seeds of the gospel into Ethiopia, (the kingdom of Candace at Meroe,) though, as far as our knowledge of history goes, without any important consequences. But, what is more deserving of notice, he published the gospel in the cities of Palestine, on the southern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean, till at last, probably after a considerable time, he settled at Cæsarea Stratonis, where on his

1 It is still a question whether the introduction of Christianity was not partially made before the mission of Frumentius on another side, and in a different part of Ethiopia; whether many things in the doctrine and usages of the present Abyssinian church, with which we have been better acquainted by means of Gobat's Journal, do not indicate a Jewish-Christian origin. If I am not mistaken, the late Rettig has brought forward these questions in the “Studien und Kritiken." Perhaps intercourse with that ancient church will open to some sources of information for answering them.

arrival he found a Christian society already formed, which he built up in the faith.

Though the Christians of Jewish descent, who were driven by persecution from Jerusalem, were by that event induced to spread the gospel in Syria and the neighbouring districts, yet their labours were confined to Jews. On the other hand, the Hellenists, such as Philip and others, who originally came from Cyprus and Cyrene, made their way among the Gentiles' also, to whom they were allied in language and education, which was not the case with the Jews. They presented them with the gospel independent of the Mosaic law, without attempting to make them Jews before they became Christians. Thus the principles held by the enlightened Stephen, the truths for which, in part, he had suffered martyrdom, were by them first brought into practice and realized. And if in this way, independently of the exertions of the apostles in Judea, and the development of Christianity in a Jewish form, churches had been raised of purely Hellenistic materials among the heathen, free altogether from Judaism, and if Paul had then appeared to confirm and extend this mode of operation, one consequence might have been, that the older apostles would have maintained with greater stiffness their former standingpoint, in opposition to this freer direction of Christianity, and thus, by the overweight of human peculiarities in the first publishers of the gospel, a violent and irreconcileable opposition might have divided the church into two hostile parties. It could not have happened otherwise if the germinating differences, left altogether to themselves, as in later times, had been so developed as to exclude all hopes of a reconciliation; and the idea of an universal church, overcoming by its higher unity all human differences, could never have been realized. But this disturbing influence, with which the self-seeking and one-sided bias of human nature threatened from the beginning to destroy the unity of the divine work, was counteracted by the still mightier influence of the Holy Spirit, who never allows human differences to develop themselves to such an extreme, but is able to maintain unity in manifoldness. We may distinctly recognise the attractive divine power which

1 In Acts xi. 20, the common reading éλλnvoràs is evidently to be rejected, as formed from a false gloss, and the reading which refers to the Gentiles (AAŋvas) must be substituted as undoubtedly correct.

gives scope to the free agency of man, but knows exactly when it is needful, for the success of the divine work, to impart its immediate illumination, if we observe that at the precise moment when the apostles needed a wider development of their Christian knowledge for the exercise of their calling, and their former contracted views would have been highly injurious, what had been hitherto wanting was imparted to them, by a memorable coincidence of an internal revelation with a train of outward circumstances. The apostle Peter was the chosen instrument on this occasion.

Peter made a visitation from Jerusalem to the churches founded in Judea, Samaria, and towards the west near the Mediterranean. The cures effected by him in Christ's name in the large town of Lydda,' and in the city of Joppa (Jaffa), a few miles distant, drew upon him the universal attention of that very populous and extensive district on the coast of the Mediterranean, (the plain of Saron.) Many were converted by him to Christianity, and the city of Joppa became the central point of his labours. As the publication of his new doctrine made such an impression in these parts, information respecting it would easily spread to Cæsarea Stratonis, a town on the sea-coast about eight miles distant. In the Roman cohort which formed the garrison of this place, was a centurion, Cornelius by name, a Gentile who, dissatisfied with

2

1 According to Josephus (Antiq. xx. 6, § 2), a town as large as a city, in later times a considerable city under the name of Diospolis.

2 We must here take notice of what Gfrörer alleges against the historical truth of this narrative. He maintains, "that the principle, that the heathens were to be incorporated with the Christian church by baptism, without the observance of the Mosaic law, was first expressed by Paul, and that Peter was brought to acknowledge it by his influence. The conduct of Peter at Antioch, as it is described in the 2d chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, is inexplicable, if he attained his knowledge on this subject, in an independent manner, by a divine revelation. If, on the contrary, it was only impressed upon him from without, by the preponderating influence of Paul, it is then easy to account for his again wavering under the opposite influences of the adherents of James." But whoever understands the relation of the divine and the human to one another, in the development of the religious life, cannot be surprised, if in the soul of a man, who in general held a truth with divine confidence and clearness, the apprehension of it should, in an unfavourable moment, undergo a transient obscuration, by the influence of foreign elements, which would afterwards be removed by the return of divine light. But it is by no means evident, that Peter at that time

the old popular religion, and seeking after one that would tranquillize his mind, was led by acquaintance with Judaism to the foundation of a living faith in the one God. Having with his whole family professed the worship of Jehovah, he testified by his benefactions the sympathy he felt with his fellow-worshippers of the Jewish nation, and observed the hours of prayer customary to the Jews; so that there is scarcely any room to doubt that he belonged to the class of Proselytes of the Gate. Nor can we infer the contrary from held an erroneous conviction. It was only the violence of a sudden impression, which, through the peculiarity of his natural temperament, had too much power over Peter, and made him practically faithless to those principles which he had by no means abandoned from deliberate reflection. Paul even reproached him with thus acting in contradiction to his principles, that he who was living as a Gentile (¿Ovikŵs Šņs), now practically laid an injunction on the Gentile Christians, that they must submit to the Mosaic law. Certainly, a great change must have passed on Peter, if he had been brought so to act, that Paul could say to him that he himself had been living as a Gentile. But if this was not connected with some previous preparation in the peculiar religious development of Peter, it would be difficult to attribute it solely to Paul's influence. Paul nowhere asserts that Peter was first led by him to adopt these views on the contrary, he speaks of a revelation made by the Divine Spirit on this point to the apostles and prophets. Eph. iii. 5. If we look at the question in a purely psychological point of view, we may indeed presume, that Peter could not have arrived at a conviction of Christian truth on this point, without a severe mental struggle; and in this struggle of the divine and the human in his soul, that ecstatic vision would find its natural point of connexion, and occur at a critical juncture, to accomplish the victory of Christian truth, over the reaction of his Jewish mode of thinking. Nor can I with Gfrörer perceive in Acts xi. 3 the traces of a more correct account bearing evidence against the narrative. That Peter made no scruple of incorporating Gentiles by baptism with the Christian church, might unquestionably be inferred, if he shunned not to eat and drink with them. Still, we might with equal confidence infer, that a Jewish teacher, who had no scruple to administer baptism to Gentiles, might not come to the conclusion to consider them of equal rank in the Christian theocracy, and admit them to every kind of intercourse. But though Peter afterwards reckoned the publication of the gospel among the heathen as the special calling of Paul, and the publication of it among native Jews as his own, it is by no means contradictory, that he, when a special demand was made upon him, should exercise his ministry among the Gentiles; just as Paul, although the apostle of the Gentiles, gladly embraced the opportunity, when he could find an entrance among the Jews. But in Acts xi. 9 a different spirit speaks from that of the Petrine party, from whom, according to Gfrörer, this narrative, and in general the first part of the Acts, was derived.