church, a blind zeal for adherence to the letter and ceremonial services has been wont to interpret a highly spiritual state, which will not follow the rules of the reigning theological school, nor suffer itself to be confined by ancient dogmas, as mere fanaticism or blasphemy;* and so it was on this occasion. The members of the Sanhedrim stopped their ears, that they might not be defiled by his blasphemies. They threw themselves on Stephen, and dragged him out of the city in order to stone him as a blasphemer. It was sentence and execution all at once; an act of violence without regular judicial examination; especially as according to the existing laws, the Sanhedrim could decide only on disciplinary punishment, but was not allowed to execute a capital sentence without the concurrence of the Roman governor. With the same confidence with which Stephen, amidst the rage and fury of his enemies, saw the Saviour of whom he testified, ruling victorious-with the same confidence he directed his eyes towards him in the prospect of death, and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" And as he had only Him before his eyes, it was his Spirit which led him to adopt the Saviour's last words, thus making him a pattern in death, as he had been in life. He who, when carried away with holy zeal for the cause of God, had so emphatically censured the baseness of the Jews, now that their fury attacked his own person, prayed only that their sins might be forgiven.

Thus we see in the death of Stephen the new development of Christian truth apparently stopped; he died a martyr, not only for the truth of the gospel in general, but in particular for this freer and wider application of it, which began with him and seemed to expire with him. Yet from the beginning it has been the law of the development of the Christian life, and will continue to be down to the last glorious result, which shall consummate the whole with the final triumph over death-that out of death a new life comes forth, and martyrdom for the divine truth, both in its general and particular forms, prepares for its victory. Such was the issue here. This first new development of evangelical truth had to be checked in the germ in order to shoot forth with greater vigor, and to a wider extent, in the person of Paul; and the martyrdom of Stephen was

*Thus, at the Council of Constance, it was condemned as a violation of ecclesiastical subordination, that Huss had dared to appeal to Christ.

+ See Life of Christ, p. 412.

I can find no reason whatever for recognising (as Baur has done) in Stephen's manner of speaking and acting, instead of the image of Christ as impressed by his Spirit on his genuine disciples, nothing but the impress of the subjective fiction which makes Stephen a copy of Christ. To support the latter view, it is urged that such words as Stephen used occur in Luke xxiii. 34 and 46, and that this agreement could not be merely accidental, but points to one source. But I do not perceive that the literal agreement which exists here, can only be so explained, since it may be very naturally accounted for on the ground that the Spirit of Christ, which expressed itself in the words of Christ transmitted to us by Luke, caused Stephen to express himself in the same way. That false testimony against Christ, of which (Baur would have us believe) the false testimony against Stephen is an imitation, does not in so many words appear in Luke.

a necessary step in the process. If this new development had been fully exhibited at this time, the other publishers of the gospel would have been found unprepared for it, and not yet capable of receiving it. But in the meantime, these persons, by a variety of concurrent circumstances, were to be prepared in a natural way, under the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit, for this deeper insight into the truth.

The martyrdom of Stephen was important in its direct effects for the spreading of the faith, since it might be expected that, under the immediate impression made by the sight of such a witness, and of such a death, many minds not altogether unsusceptible, nor altogether deluded by the power of error, would be led to the faith; but yet the indirect consequences were still more important, by which the third violent persecution was raised against the new church at Jerusalem. This persecution must have been more severe and extensive than the former; for by the manner in which Stephen entered into conflict with Pharisaism, he had roused to hostility against the teachers of the new doctrine the sect of the Pharisees, who had the most credit with the common people, and were powerful and active, and ready to leave no means untried to attain their object whatever it might be. The persecution proceeding from this quarter would naturally mark as its special victims those who were colleagues in office with Stephen as deacons, and who resembled him in their Hellenistic origin and education. It was, however, the occasion of spreading the gospel beyond the bounds of Jerusalem and Judea, and even among the Gentiles. With this progressive outward development of the gospel was also connected its progressive inward development, the consciousness of the independence and intrinsic capability of Christianity as a doctrine destined without foreign aid to impart divine life and salvation to all men, among all nations without distinction. As we have frequently seen that the hostilities waged against a truth when first brought to light, with which its publishers have had to contend, have very much contributed to render their consciousness of it more clear and complete, and to make them better acquainted with the consequences that flow from it,-so here also the opposition of Pharisaical Judaism must have had a powerful and beneficial influence in developing freer views of the Gospel among the Hellenists.

Here, then, we stand on the boundary-line of a new era, both of the outward and inward development of Christianity.

BOOK II.

TRANSITION FROM THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS, TO ITS DEVELOPMENT AMONG HEATHEN NATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CHURCH AT JERUSALEM TO OTHER PARTS, AND ESPECIALLY AMONG THE HEATHEN.

*

SAMARIA, which had been the scene of Christ's personal ministry, was the first place out of Judea where the gospel was preached by his apostles. Though the people of this country received no part of the Old Testament as sacred excepting the Pentateuch, yet from this portion of the Scriptures they had learned to exercise faith in a Messiah who was to come; on him they placed their hopes, as the personage who was to bring back all things to their right relations, and thus to be the universal Restorer. Political considerations did not with them, as with the Jews, stand in the way of their right apprehension of the idea of the Messiah, an idea specially clung to by them in their mental and bodily misery; but they were deficient in that right understanding of it which could only be obtained from its progressive development in the Old Testament; nor could the deep feeling of the need of redemption and restoration be clearly developed among them. A lively, but indefinite, obscure longing of the religious nature always exposes men to manifold and most dangerous delusions, and in times of vague but earnest inquiry, various kinds of extravagance are likely to prevail. This was the case with the Samaritans. As at that time in other parts of the East, a similar indefinite longing after a new communication from Heaven -an ominous restlessness in the minds of men, such as generally precedes great changes in the history of mankind, was diffused abroad; so there were not wanting persons to misdirect and deceive this longing, while they falsely promised it satisfaction. Such were the Goëtæ, in whom was to be found a mixture of unconscious self-deception and intentional falsehood; with ideas, proceeding from an amalgamation of

* See Life of Christ, p. 180 ff.

See Gesenius's Weihnachtsprogramm De Samaritanorum Theologia, (of the year 1822), and his Carmina Samaritana, p. 75.

Jewish, Oriental, and Grecian elements, and with mystical, sounding formulas exactly suited to a vague religious longing, they made great pretensions, boasting of a special connexion with the invisible world; and by taking advantage of the unknown powers of nature, and by various arts of conjuration, they excited the astonishment of credulous people, and obtained credit for their boastful pretensions. Such persons found at that time an easy access to the Samaritans in their state of mental excitement. To this class of men belonged a Jewish or Samaritan Goës, named Simon, who, by his pretended magical powers, so fascinated the people, that they said he must be more than man, that he was the great power which emanated from the invisible God, by which the universe had been brought forth, now appearing on earth in a bodily form.*

The idea of such an Intelligence emanating from God, as proceeding from the first act of the divine self-revelation, the first link in the chain of developed life, prevailed just at that time in various oriental-Alexandrian and Alexandrian-oriental forms. The idea also of the incarnation of higher intelligences generally, and of this highest intelligence in particular, was by no means foreign to the notions prevalent in those parts. We can hardly consider everything of this kind as a mere copy of the Christian idea of the incarnation, or recognise in it a sign of the transforming power of the new Christian spirit over the intellectual world; for we find earlier traces of such ideas. But the prevalence of such ideas proves nothing against the originality of Christianity, or of any of its particular doctrines. On the one hand, we should not refuse to recognise what could grow from the germs already given in the Old Testament, which was the preparative covering of the New, or from its spirit and leading ideas, which were directed to Christ as the end of all the divine revelations. On the other hand, we must recollect, that as the new creation effected by Christianity was followed by a mighty agitation

Possibly the words of which this Goës made use, are contained in the apocryphal writings of the Simonians; see Jerome's Commentary on Matt. xxiv. "Ego sum sermo Dei (¿ λóyoç), ego sum speciosus, ego paracletus," "I am the word of God (ó 2óyos), I am the illustrious, I am the Advocate,"―(according to Philo, the Logos is Advocate, (παράκλητος, ἱκέτης,) since by the divine reason revealing itself in the phenomenal world (the νοητὸν παράδειγμα τοῦ κόσμου) the connexion between God and the phenomena is effected, what is defective in the latter is supplied; De Vita Mosis, 1. iii. 673; De Migra tione Abrahami, p. 406,)-"ego omnipotens, ego omnia Dei," "I am omnipotent, I, all things of God" (according to Philo, the Logos is the μετρόπολις πασῶν τῶν δυνάμεων τοῦ θεοῦ, chief of all the powers of God). Still this is uncertain, for the sect of the Simonians might easily borrow these expressions, as they had borrowed other things, from Christianity, and attribute them to Simon.

In a Jewish apocryphal writing, the pooεvxn 'Iwon, the patriarch Jacob is represented as an incarnation of the highest spirit living in the presence of the divine Original Being, whose true divine name was "Israel, man beholding God," 'Iopaǹλ, dvip óp☎v ledv, "the first-born of every living thing existing by God," πршτóуоvoç mùνтoç Çúov (wovμévov inò Oɛou, (similar expressions to those used by Philo respecting the Logos), "who was begotten before all angels, the first minister in the presence of God," ó év πрwσwñy Oεoũ λειτουργὸς πρῶτος. See Origen, t. ii. § 25.

both of kindred and hostile minds, so also it was preceded by the strong excitement of such minds as were unconsciously anticipating and yearning after some great approaching crisis, by a presentiment that there would be such a revelation of the spiritual world as had not yet been made to the human race. And from a teleological point of view, we recognise Christianity as the final aim of Divine Wisdom in the course of human development, when we at this period find the spiritual atmosphere surcharged with ideas, which served to prepare a more susceptible soil for Christianity and its leading doctrines, and to form a back-ground for the exhibition of the divine transactions which it announced.

Philip the Deacon, being compelled to leave Jerusalem by the persecution which ensued on Stephen's death, was induced to take refuge in Samaria. He came to a city of that country,* where Simon was universally esteemed, and looked upon with wonder and reverence as a supernatural being. When he saw the people so devoted to a destructive delusion, he felt impelled by his zeal for the cause of God and the salvation of men, to impart that to them which alone could give true satisfaction to their spiritual necessities. But men in this situation were not yet susceptible of the spiritual power of truth; it was needful to pave a way to their hearts by preparatory impressions on the senses. As Philip, by divine aid, performed things which Simon with all his magical arts could not effect, especially healing the sick (which he accomplished by prayer and calling on the name of Christ), he attracted the attention of men to Him in whose name and power he had effected such things for them, and in their sight; he then took occasion to discourse more fully of Him, his works, and the kingdom that he had established among men, and by degrees the divine power of truth laid hold of their hearts. When Simon saw his followers deserting him, and was himself astounded at the works performed by Philip, he thought it best to acknowledge a power so superior to his own. He therefore professed himself a disciple of Philip, and was, like the rest, baptized by him; but as the sequel proves, we cannot infer from this that the publication of the gospel had made an impression on his heart; it seems most probable that he interpreted what had occurred according to his own views. The miracles performed by Philip had led him to the conviction, that he was in league with some superhuman spirit; he looked on baptism as an initiation into the compact, and hoped that, by forming such a compact, he might obtain an interest in such higher power, and use it for his own ends; he wished, in short, to combine the new magic or theurgy with his own. As we have already remarked, it was a standing regulation in primitive

It is not quite clear that the city of Samaria is intended; for there is no reason, with some expositors of Acts viii. 5, to consider the genitive as the sign of apposition. As in the whole chapter Samaria is the designation of the country, it is most natural to understand it is so in this passage. In the 14th verse, by Samaria is certainly meant the country, and yet it does not follow that absolutely the whole land had received the gospel.