APOSTOLIC AGE. The existence of the Christian church is to be dated from the day of Pentecost. Our Lord, during his personal minis try, spoke of the church as an institution about to be formed (olicokui7a6., }sou Matt. xvi. IS), and on one occasion referred to it pro spectively in reference to a supposed case of disci pline (Matt. xviii. 15-2o); but the term Ecelesia, as applied to an actual organization, occurs first in Acts ii. 47.
The apostolic age may be divided into two periods ; the first reaching to the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, the second terminating with the death of the apostle John about A. D. Ioo. Schaff makes a tripartite division—O.) The found ing of the church among the yews, in which the labours of St. Peter are conspicuous. (2.) The founding of the Gentile church, chiefly by the instrumentality of St. Paul, A. D. 44-64. (3.) The organic union of the Jewish and Gentile churches, the work mainly of St. John.
The Saviour, just before his ascension, charged his apostles to ' preach repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations, beginning at I Jerusalem' (Luke xxiv. 47), or as it is expressed more fully in the Acts (i. 8), Ye shall be my wit- ' nesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.' The meaning of this commission, however plain and explicit it may appear to us, was only made clear by degrees to the minds of the apostles. The promise of their Lord that the Spirit of Truth should guide (anrjo-et, John xvi. 13) them, evi dently indicates progressive illumination, rather than a revelation at once complete and final ; and with this, the facts of their history agree. The extraordinary effects produced by the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, the energy and elevation of character imparted to the apostles, to Peter especially, who then made good his title to the appellation of the Rock, are familiar to every reader of the New Testament. But it re quired a peculiar succession and combination of events, including the miraculous conversion and call of the great apostle of the Gentiles, and the twofold vision at Csesarea and Joppa, to imbue the first heralds of the gospel with its free and compre hensive spirit. Instead of going forth to the utter most part of the earth, the Twelve, for a long time, made Jerusalem their permanent abode. If for some special purpose they visited other places (and those not very distant), they speedily returned (Acts viii. 14, compared with 25 ; ix. 32, compared with xi. 2). The first Christian church was com posed entirely of Jews. On professing faith in Jesus as the Messiah, as him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote' (John i. 45), they did not separate themselves from Judaism, but continued strictly to observe the Mosaic ritual. Both before and after the day of Pentecost, the disciples were continually in the temple' (Luke xxiv. 53; Acts ii. 46); thither Peter and John resorted at the appointed hour of prayer (Acts 1), and when all the apostles were miraculously released from prison, they had an express divine command to go to the temple, and there proclaim ' all the words of this life' (Acts v. 20). By their unbelieving countrymen they were spoken of as the sect (ai'pecns) of the Nazarenes,' which though uttered reproachfully, implied that they were still, in a certain sense, within the pale of the Jewish church (Acts xxiv. 5; xxviii. 22: the same term is applied to the Pharisees, xv. 5; xxvi. 5: and to the Sadducees, v. 17). In their associate capacity as fellow-christians, Luke describes them as continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine,' that is, not simply adhering to what they had already been taught, but diligently attending to further instructions; ' and fellowship,' communion, sympathy, and interchange of kind offices; and in breaking of bread,' a phrase that includes the ordinary meal or agape [AGAPE]; and the Lord's Supper [SUPPER OF THE LORD] ; and in prayers.' The spirit of brotherly love and self-sacrifice was also shewn in a community of goods. To what extent this was carried, or how long it lasted, we do not know. It was a spontaneous act, not en forced by apostolic authority, as is shewn by Peter's address to Ananias (Acts v. 4). After a few years it had been abandoned, or was found insufficient, since relief from the more opulent Gentile church at Antioch was requested and promptly granted (Acts xi 29 ; Gal. ii. to). The dissension that arose between the Hellenist and Palestinian Jews in reference to the distribution of the common fund, led to the appointment of the Seven,' who, though not called deacons, have been regarded as the model and type of the later diaconate. The
choice was left with the body of the disciples, and ratified on the part of the apostles by prayer and the imposition of hands (Acts vi. 1-6). They were appointed to meet a special emergency (bi-/ it xpelas ramp), yet their spiritual qualifications (70+ pets 71-veil/taros itylot, scat fitted them for being more than almoners, and two of their num ber, Philip (the evangelist) and Stephen, were conspicuous as preachers of the gospel. * They are not mentioned again, except in Acts xxi. 8. The money collected at Antioch was delivered, not to the Seven,' but to the presbyters ; but probably, the latter were the treasurers, under whose direc tion the deacons acted. The early admission of Hellenists into the church was highly favourable for the spread of Christianity, for while the Pales tinian believers, on being dispersed by the persecu tion that followed on the death of Stephen, preached to none but the Jews only,' the Hellen ists (and such, no doubt, were the men of Cyprus and Cyrene') spice unto the Grecians' ("FAX7rts, the reading approved by Bengel, Dod dridge, Griesbach, De Wette, Neander, Winer, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Lechler, Alford, and Lange ; though Wordsworth argues strongly in favour of 'EXNum-reis., in his notes on Acts xi. 2o); and the scene of their labours was Antioch, the renowned capital of Syria, which speedily became the parent church of the Gentile world, and the centre of missionary operations. Two other re markable events, the baptism of Cornelius and the conversion of Paul, powerfully tended to the same issue—to break down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and to make in Christ of twain one new man, so making peace' (Eph. 15). The term Christian,' first used at Antioch, indicates the proportion of Gentiles to have been so great in the church there that they could no longer be regarded as a Jewish sect, but formed a genus tertium (Neander, De Wette, Lechler). Though to the apostle Peter was granted the dis tinction of opening the door of faith to the Gentiles by the baptism of Cornelius, yet his labours till A.D. 50 were for the most part confined to his brethren in Judxa (Acts ix. 32). It was reserved for St. Paul to be, in a special sense, the apostle of the Gentiles, to proclaim the gospel of the uncir cumcision ' (re daryAtov rip anpoptrr(as, Gal. ii. 7), and from the day when he, with Barnabas, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed into Seleucia ' (Acts xiii. 4), to the morning when he was consigned to the lower dungeon of the Mamer tine prison (if we accept an ancient tradition), the progress of Christianity for twenty of its earliest years is chiefly to be traced in the story of his un paralleled labours. [PAUL.] Of the erroneous tendencies that appeared in the Apostolic Age, the earliest was that of the Judaizers, an extreme party in the church at Jerusalem, who, though they professed faith in Jesus as the Messiah, differed little in other respects from those who re jected him. They not only adhered, like the rest of their brethren, to the Mosaic ritual, but strove to impose it on the Gentile converts, and asserted above all the indispensable obligation of circum cision. These were the false brethren' (itevaci SEXcbot, Gal. ii. 4 ; 2 Cor. xi. 26), to whom Paul would not give place, no, not for an hour' (Stan ley, 189-239 ; Schaff. ii. 358). The decision adopted by the Apostles and church at Jerusalem (Acts xv.) gave them only a temporary check. They followed in the apostle's track, intent on un dermining his authority, and counteracting his enlarged views of the Christian economy, in Corinth, among the churches of Galatia, and in Philippi. The erroneous teachers alluded to in the Pastoral Epistles, and in the Epistle to the Colossians, indi cate a transition from the Judaizing to the Gnostic tendency, though in a rudimentary state, so that we cannot identify their errors with the complete Gnostic systems of the second century. It might be anticipated that a religion designed to snake man every whit whole' should be confronted in its progress not by one form of error only, but by many forms scarcely less at variance with one another, than with the truth as it is in Jesus.' Accordingly, we meet in the apostolic writings with allusions more or less explicit to the false schemes of philo sophy, which were then becoming rife (Col. ii. 8), to ascetic practices (I Tim. iv. 3 ; Col. ii. 23); to antinomian sensuality (Gal. vi. 8 ; I Tim. iv. 3); and to a spiritualism which denied the great facts on which the Christian system rests (2 Tim. ii. 18 ; 2 Peter iii. 4 ; t John iv. 3 ; Schaff. ii. 352-380).