name that sent him. Thus Epaphroditus is called the apostle or messenger of the Philippians,' when sent by them to St. Paul at Rome. Thus Titus and his companions are stiled ἀπότολοι, the messengers of the churches." So our Lord; He that is sent,' årósolos, an apostle or messenger is not greater than he that sent him.' This, then, being the common notion of the word, our Lord fixes it to a particular use, applying it to those select persons whom he had made choice of to act by that peculiar authority and commission which he had derived upon them. Twelve, whom he also named apostles; that is, commissioners, those who were to be ambassadors for Christ, to be sent up and down the world in his name, to plant the faith, to govern and superintend the church at present, and, by their wise and prudent settlement of affairs, to provide for the future exigencies of the church. 3. The next thing then to be considered is the nature of their office; and under this inquiry we shall make these following remarks. First, it is not to be doubted but that our Lord in founding this office had some respect to the state of things in the Jewish church; I mean not only in general, that there should be superior and subordinate officers, as there were superior and inferior orders under the Mosaic dispensation; but that herein he had an eye to some usage and custom common among them. Now, among the Jews, as all messengers were called 'm, or apostles; so were 1 Phil. ii. 25; 2 Cor. viii. 23; John, xiii. 16. 2 Αποτόλους δὲ εἰσέτι καὶ νῦν ἔθος ἐτι Ιουδαίους ὀνομάζειν, τοὺς ἐγκύκλια γράμματα παρὰ τῶν ἀρχόντων αὐτῶν ἀνακοMiloμévovs.-Euseb. in Caten. M.S. apud Heins. exercit. in Luc. vi. they wont to dispatch some with peculiar letters of authority and commission, whereby they acted as proxies and deputies of those that sent them: Every" שרוחו של אדם כמותו thence their proverb man's apostle is as himself;" that is, whatever he does is looked upon to be as firm and valid as if the person himself had done it. Thus, when Saul was sent by the Sanhedrim to Damascus to apprehend the Jewish converts, he was furnished with letters from the high-priest, enabling him to act as his commissary in that matter. Indeed Epiphanius' tells us of a sort of persons called apostles, who were assessors and counsellors to the Jewish patriarch; constantly attending upon him, to advise him in matters pertaining to the law; and sent by him (as he intimates) sometimes to inspect and reform the manners of the priests and Jewish clergy, and the irregularities of country synagogues, with commission to gather the tenths and firstfruits due in all the provinces under his jurisdiction. Such apostles we find mentioned both by Julian the emperor,3 in an epistle to the Jews, and in a law of the emperor Honorius, employed by the patriarch to gather once a year the aurum coronarium, or crown gold, a tribute annually paid by them to the Roman emperors. But these apostles could not, under that notion, be extant in our Saviour's time; though sure we are there was then something like it. Philo the Jew, more than once mentioning the ἱεροπομποὶ καθ ̓ ἕκασον ἐνιαυτὸν χρυσὸν κ ἄργυρον πλεῖσον κομίζοντες εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν, τὸν ἀθροισθέντα ἐκ τῶν απαρχῶν, “ The sacred messengers annually Hæres. 30, p. 60. 2 Ibid. p. 63. 4 3 Epist. 25, p. 153. 4 L. 14. C. Th. de Judæis, lib. xvi. tit. 8. sent to collect the holy treasure paid by way of first-fruits, and to carry it to the temple at Jerusalem." However, our Lord in conformity to the general custom of those times, of appointing apostles or messengers, as their proxies and deputies to act in their names, called and denominated those apostles, whom he peculiarly chose to represent his person, to communicate his mind and will to the world, and to act as ambassadors or commissioners in his room and stead. 4. Secondly, we observe that the persons thus deputed by our Saviour were not left uncertain, but reduced to a fixed definite number, confined to the just number of twelve; he ordained twelve that they should be with him." A number that seems to carry something of mystery and peculiar design in it, as appears in that the apostles were so careful upon the fall of Judas immediately to supply it. The fathers are very wide and different in their conjectures about the reason of it. St. Augustine2 thinks our Lord herein had respect to the four quarters of the world, which were to be called by the preaching of the gospel, which being multiplied by three (to denote the Trinity, in whose name they were to be called) make twelve. Tertullian3 will have them typified by the twelve fountains in Elim; the apostles being sent out to water and refresh the dry, thirsty world with the knowledge of the truth; by the twelve precious stones in Aaron's breast-plate, to illuminate the church, the garment which Christ our great high-priest has put on; by 1 Mark, iii. 15. 2 Serm. iii. in Psalm 103, Col. 1192, tom. viii. vid. in Psalm 59, Col. 603. 3 Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. c. 13, p. 425. the twelve stones which Joshua chose out of Jordan, to lay up within the ark of the testament, respecting the firmness and solidity of the apostles' faith, their being chosen by the true Jesus or Joshua at their baptism in Jordan, and their being admitted into the inner sanctuary of his covenant. By others we are told, that it was shadowed out by the twelve spies taken out of every tribe, and sent to discover the land of promise; or by the twelve gates of the city in Ezekiel's vision; or by the twelve bells appendent to Aaron's garment,' their sound going out into all the world, and their words unto the ends of the earth.' But it were endless, and to very little purpose, to reckon up all the conjectures of this nature, there being scarce any one number of twelve mentioned in the Scripture, which is not by some of the ancients adapted and applied to this of the twelve apostles, wherein an ordinary fancy might easily enough pick out a mystery. That which seems to put in the most rational plea is, that our Lord, being now about to form a new spiritual commonwealth, a kind of mystical Israel, pitched upon this number in conformity either to the twelve patriarchs, as founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, or to the twelve puλápxaι, or chief heads, as standing rulers of those tribes among the Jews; as we shall afterwards possibly more particularly remark.' Thirdly, these apostles were immediately called and sent by Christ himself, elected out of the body of his disciples and followers, and received their commission from his own mouth. Indeed, Matthias was not one of the first election, being taken in 1 Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryphon. p. 260. 1 upon Judas's apostasy, after our Lord's ascension into heaven. But besides that he had been one of the seventy disciples, called and sent out by our Saviour, that extraordinary declaration of the divine will and pleasure that appeared in determining his election, was in a manner equivalent to the first election. As for St. Paul, he was not one of the twelve, taken in as a supernumerary apostle; but yet an apostle as well as they, and that 'not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ;' as he pleads his own cause against the insinuations of those impostors who traduced him as an apostle only at the second hand; whereas he was immediately called by Christ as well as they, and in a more extraordinary manner; they were called by him while he was yet in his state of meanness and humiliation; he, when Christ was now advanced upon the throne, and appeared to him encircled with those glorious emanations of brightness and majesty which he was not able to endure. I observe no more concerning this, than that an immediate call has ever been accounted so necessary to give credit and reputation to their doctrine, that the most notorious impostors have pretended to it. Thus Manes, the founder of the Manichæan sect, was wont in his epistles to stile himself the apostle of Jesus Christ, as pretending himself to be the person whom our Lord had promised to send into the world, and that accordingly the Holy Ghost was actually sent in him; and therefore he constituted twelve disciples always to attend his person, in imitation of the number of the apostolic college. And how often the Turkish impostor does upon this 1 Gal. i. 1. 2 Aug. de Hæres. c. 46, Col. 23. |