[40] 1.THE GENTILES IN THE CHURCH. (XI 19) THEY THEN THAT WERE SCATTERED THROUGH THE TRIBULATION THAT AROSE ON ACCOUNT OF STEPHEN TRAVELLED (i.e., made missionary journeys) AS FAR AS PHŒNICE AND CYPRUS AND ANTIOCH, SPEAKING .THE WORD TO JEWS AND NONE SAVE JEWS. (20) BUT THERE WERE SOME OF THEM, MEN OF CYPRUS AND CYRENE, WHO WHEN THEY ARE COME TO ANTIOCH, USED TO SPEAK TO GREEKS ALSO, GIVING THE GOOD NEWS OF THE LORD JESUS. (21) AND THE HAND OF THE LORD WAS WITH THEM, AND A GREAT NUMBER THAT BELIEVED TURNED UNTO THE LORD.

When Acts was written, the Church of Antioch was only about fifty years old, but already its beginning seems to have been lost in obscurity. It had not been founded, it had grown by unrecorded and almost unobserved steps. In the dispersion of the primitive Churchat Jerusalem, during the troubles ensuing on the bold action of Stephen, certain Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews, who had been brought up in Greek lands and had wider outlook on the world than the Palestinian Jews, came to Antioch. There they made the innovation of addressing not merely Jews but also Greeks. We may understand here (1) that the words used [41] imply successful preaching and the admission of Greeks to the Christian congregation, and (2) that such an innovation took place by slow degrees, and began in the synagogue, where Greek proselytes heard the word. The Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews began pointedly to include these Greeks of the synagogue in their invitations, and thus a mixed body of Jews and Greeks constituted the primitive congregation of Antioch; but the Greeks had entered through the door of the synagogue (see pp. 62, 85, 156).

In verses 19-21 the narrative for the moment goes back to a time earlier than X and XI 1-18, and starts a new thread of history from the death of Stephen (VII 60=rAC 7:60). That event was a critical one in the history of the Church. The primitive Church had clung to Jerusalem, and lived there in a state of simplicity and almost community of goods, which was an interesting phase of society, but was quite opposed to the spirit in which Jesus had said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation". For the time it seemed that the religion of Christ was stagnating into a sociological experiment. Stephen's vigour provoked a persecution, which dispersed itinerant missionaries over Judea and Samaria (VIII 1-4), first among whom was Philip the colleague of Stephen. New congregations of Christians were formed in many towns (VIII 14, 25, 40, 31, 32, 35, 42, X 44); and it became necessary that, if these were to be kept in relation with the central body in Jerusalem, journeys of survey should be made by delegates from Jerusalem. The first of these journeys was made by Peter and John, who were sent to Samaria, when the news that a congregation had been formed there by Philip reached Jerusalem (VIII 14). This may be taken as a specimen of many similar journeys, one of which is recorded [42] (IX 32 f.) on account of the important development that took place in its course. It appears from Acts that Peter was the leading spirit in these journeys of organisation, which knit together the scattered congregations in Judea and Samaria. Hence the first great question in the development of the Church was presented to him, viz., whether Hebrew birth was a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah and membership of the Christian Church. That question must necessarily be soon forced on the growing Church; for proselytes were not rare, and the Christian doctrine, which was preached in the synagogues, reached them. It was difficult to find any justification for making the door of the Church narrower than the door of the synagogue, and there is no record that any one explicitly advocated the view that Christianity should be confined to the chosen people, though the condition and regulations on which non-Jews should be admitted formed the subject of keen controversy in the following years.

According to Acts, this great question was first presented definitely to Peter in the case of a Roman centurion named Cornelius; and a vision, which had appeared to him immediately before the question emerged, determined him to enter the house and thesociety of Cornelius, and set forth to him the good news, on the principle that "in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him"(X 35). Peter's action was immediately confirmed by the communication of Divine grace to the audience in Cornelius's house; and, though it was at first disputed in Jerusalem, yet Peter's defence was approved of by general consent.

But this step, though an important one, was only the first stage in a long advance that was still to be made. [43] Cornelius was a proselyte; and Peter in his speech to the assembly in his house laid it down as a condition of reception into the Church that the non-Jew must approach by way of the synagogue (X 35), and become "one that fears God".

Without entering on the details of a matter which has been and still is under discussion, we must here allude to the regulations imposed on strangers who wished to enter into relations with the Jews. Besides the proselytes who came under the full Law and entered the community of Moses, there was another class of persons who wished only to enter into partial relations with the Jews. These two classes were at a later time distinguished as "Proselytes of the Sanctuary"and "of the Gate"; but in Acts the second class is always described as "they that fear God"1. The God-fearing proselytes were bound to observe certain ceremonial regulations of purity in order to be permitted to come into any relations with the Jews; and it is probable that these rules were the four prohibitions enumerated in XV 28, to abstain from the flesh of animals sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from animals strangled, and from marriage within the prohibited degrees (many of which were not prohibited by Greek or Roman law). These prohibitions stand in close relation to the principles laid down in Leviticus XVII, XVIII, for the conduct of strangers dwelling among the Israelites; and it would appear that they had become the recognised rule for admission to the synagogue and for the first stage of approximation to the Jewish communion. They stand on a different plane from the moral law of the Ten Commandments, being rules of purity.

[44] While no one, probably, urged that the Church should be confined to born Hebrews, there was a party in the Church which maintained that those non-Jews who were admitted should be required to conform to the entire "Law of God ": this was the party of "champions of the circumcision," 2 which played so great a part in the drama of subsequent years. This party was silenced by Peter's explanation in the case of Cornelius, for the preliminary vision and the subsequent gift of grace could not be gain-said. But the main question was not yet definitely settled; only an exceptional case was condoned and accepted.

The Church Of Antioch then was in a somewhat anomalous condition. It contained a number of Greeks, who were in the position of "God-fearing proselytes,"but had not conformed to the entire law; and the question was still unsettled what was their status in the Church.

FOOTNOTES:

1 {phoboumenoi} or {sebomenoi ton theon}.

2 {hoi ek peritonês}, XI 2, Gal. II 12: "some of the sect of thePharisees that believed," XV 5.