spectacle of faithfulness "unto death," and so were attracted to recruit themselves under the banner of the "Galilean." Those who fertilised the field with their martyr-blood were not lost to the Church, but gained in a new way. Their comrades early beganquite how early we do not know-to observe the anniversaries of their martyrdom as "birthdays"; and the inspiration of their noble example was intensified by the conviction that beyond the veil their intercessions for the Church militant arose before Him "to Whom all live." The "How long?' of the martyr-souls in the Apocalypse2 is a battle-cry for their fighting brothers.

The

And so it is not only on the positive side that we may discern a providential preparation for the Church: in that training of the Jews to mediate spiritual truths to all mankind, in that preparation through Hellenism of an intellectual and through Rome of a material medium for the spread of Christianity.

hindrances prove helps.

If the wind was with her, the tide was strong against her, and from the first launching of the Church all the qualities of seamanship were brought into play. Like Israel of old she was saved from the perils of an illusory progress: "By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land." The antagonism of her foes helped on, unconsciously, her true development: the friction of their persecution polished the shaft which the suffering servant of the Lord was to be; and, in the Psalmist's image, the Lord wrapped round Himself

4

the raging hostility of His enemies and wore it as a garment of victory :

"Surely the wrath of men shall praise Thee;

The residue of wrath shalt Thou gird upon Thee."1

1 Ps. lxxvi. 10.

THE

Antecedents and presuppositions.

CHAPTER II

THE CHURCH OF PENTECOST

HE "Day of Pentecost," which may in all probability be dated more precisely as May 28th in the year 29 A.D.,1 was in a very true sense the birthday of the Christian Church. That Church, as we have seen, had its ancestry in the Old Testament, even as its Lord and Head was "born of the seed of David according to the flesh":2 but, like Him, it was a new and virgin-birth, issuing from a mystical union between heaven and earth, having a celestial origin in virtue of the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. And the drama of the Lord's nativity and life and death and resurrection and ascension led up to this supreme moment in which the power of His incarnate life became embodied in a living organism indwelt by the Divine Spirit, and destined to spread His undying influence through all spaces and down all ages of the earth's existence. Here was fulfilled His promise, made on the night of the betrayal, of a coming of the Holy Ghost, in which He Himself was to come,3 and the further promise made before He ascended: "Lo I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the 1 See C. H. Turner, in Hastings' Dictionary, s. v. "Chronology," esp. p. 424. 2 Rom. i. 3.

3 John xiv. 16-18, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 7–15.

world." Here, too, was fulfilled the promise of history, towards which had been directed, on converging lines, that manifold providential preparation which we have sketched above. The "Kingdom of Heaven" —in a sense still expected to-day, as a future consummation, after more than nineteen Christian centuries —was, in another sense, definitely planted among men. The narrative of the Acts 2 is too familiar

The

to require repetition and too venerable to narrative admit of paraphrase. We can but sketch in the and summarise certain of its leading fea- Acts.

tures.

The rushing sound "as of a mighty wind" that shook the building where the Lord's expectant disciples were assembled-some six-score souls in all,3 the appearance of flame-like tongues resting upon the head of each, and the ecstatic utterances of the inspired band are described as making a great impression in the city. The polyglot crowd of Jews of the Dispersion who had assembled for the Feast at Jerusalem ran together at the rumour of the strange phenomenon, to fall under the spell of the speakers; and, by some magnetic influence of spiritual sympathy, found themselves in touch with the minds of the Galilean orators, who were themselves transported on to a higher and wider plane of expression. Spirit, it would seem, sprang into direct contact with spirit; and thus the effect produced was as though each listener, whether from Mesopotamia, Arabia, Crete, North Africa, or Rome, heard the message of

1 Matt. xxviii. 20. 3 Acts i. 15.

2 Acts ii.

But cf. 1 Cor. xv. 6, where 500 "brethren" are mentioned in Galilee.

God's wonderful dealings delivered to him in the familiar tongue of his adopted city.1

Practical signifi.

cance

of the miracle.

Whatever may be the psychological basis and explanation of this miracle (and to that point we may perhaps revert in a succeeding chapter),2 its practical significance is not far to seek. It represents the reversal (as the early Fathers truly observed) of that separative tendency of fallen humanity typified and summarised in the Old Testament story of Babel. The humility and self-devoting love of the Incarnate Christ is the antidote to that godless, selfaggrandising pride which has always been the most potent disintegrating influence in the human race. The Christian Church-the "extension," as it has well been called, " of the Incarnation "-endowed with the life of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate unifying principle, is destined to transcend all barriers of race, language, and tradition, and to make all one in Christ. From the Far East, from Persia, and from the great plain of the Two Rivers, where the original colonies, dating from the Babylonian captivity, had been reinforced by subsequent additions, through Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and North Africa, where Alexander the Great and his successors had planted flourishing groups of Hebrew traders, the catalogue of the pilgrims carries us westward to Rome itself, whither Pompey had transplanted a large number of Jewish families nearly a century ago, in 63 B.C. Thus the civilised world, in its extent and variety, was, as it were, typically represented by St. Peter's audience.

1 Acts ii. 5-11.

3 Gen. xi. 1-9.

2 See below, ch. xiv., p. 254 sqq.