The argument founded on t Cor. iv :9, com pared with verse 6, to prove that Apollos is termed an apostle, cannot bear a close examination. The only instance in which it seems probable that the word, as expressive of an office in • the Christian church, is applied to an individual whose call to that office is not made the subject of special nar ration, is to be found in Acts xiv t4, where Barnabas, as well as Paul, is termed an apostle. At the same time, it is by no means absolutely certain that the term aposaes, or messengers, does not in this place refer rather to the mission of Paul and Barnabas by the prophets and teachers at Antioch, under the impulse of the Holy Ghost (Acts xiii:t-4), than to that direct call to the Christian apostleship which we know Paul re ceived, and which, if Barnabas had received, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that no trace of so important an event should have been found in the sacred history, but a passing hint, which admits, to say the least, of being plausibly accounted for in another way. We know that on the occasion referred to, 'the prophets and teachers, when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul, sent them away ;' so that, in the sense in which we will immediately find the words occurring, they were apostles of the proph ets and teachers.
(6) Divinely Commissioned. The word 'apostle' occurs once in the New Testament (Heb. :1) as a descriptive designation of Jesus Christ : 'The apostle of our profession,' i. e., the apostle whom we profess or acknowledge. The Jews were in the habit of applying the correspond ing I Iebrew term to the person who presided over the synagogue, and directed all its officers and af fairs. The Church is represented as 'the house
or family of God,' over which he had placed, during the Jewish economy. Moses, as the super intendent,—over which he has placed, under the Christian economy, Christ Jesus. The import of the term apostle. is—divinely-commissioned snper intendent ; and of the whole phrase, 'the apostle of our profession.' the divinely-commissioned super intendent, whom we Christians acknowledge, in contradistinction to the divinely-appointed super intendent Moses, whom the Jews acknowledged.
(7) Messengers of the Churches. In 2 Cor. viii :23, we meet with the phrase, the messen gers of the churches. These 'apostles or !nesse!, gers of the churches' were those who were chosen of the churches to travel with the Apostle with the gift of the churches of Macedonia to the im poverished and persecuted saints of Jud:ra (2 Cor. viii:t-4, Theophylact explains the phrase thus: Those sent and chosen by 1111 churches.
With much the same meaning and reference Epaphroditns (Phil. ii:25) is termed cirkroXos a messenger of the Philippian Church having been employed by them to carry pecuniary assistance to the Apostles (Phil. iv 1 1- t8), The Canons and Constitutions, called apostoli cal, are generally admitted to be forgeries, proba bly of the fifth century.
In the early ecclesiastical writers we find the term ho ap-os'toh-los, the Apostle, used as the designation of a portion of the canonical books, consisting chiefly of the Pauline Epistles. 'The Psalter' and 'the Apostle' are often mentioned together.