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| Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost Fifty Days After Christ’s Resurrection.
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Chapter
23.—Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost Fifty Days After Christ’s
Resurrection.
41. “Thereafter, having confirmed
the disciples, and having sojourned with them forty days, He
ascended up into heaven, as these same persons were beholding Him.
And on the completion of fifty days from His resurrection He sent
to them the Holy Spirit (for so He had promised), by whose agency
they were to have love shed abroad in their hearts,1473
to the end
that they might be able to fulfill the law, not only without the
sense of its being burdensome, but even with a joyful mind. This
law was given to the Jews in the ten commandments, which they call
the Decalogue. And these commandments, again, are reduced to two,
namely that we should love God with all our heart, with all our
soul, with all our mind; and that we should love our neighbor as
ourselves.1474
For that
on these two precepts hang all the law and the prophets, the Lord
Himself has at once declared in the Gospel and shown in His own
example. For thus it was likewise in the instance of the people of
Israel, that from the day on which they first celebrated the
passover in a form,1475
slaying and eating the sheep, with
whose blood their door-posts were marked for the securing of their
safety,1476
—from
this day, I repeat, the fiftieth day in succession was completed,
and then they received the law written by the finger of God,1477
under
which phrase we have already stated that the Holy Spirit is
signified.1478
And in the
same manner, after the passion and resurrection of the Lord, who is
the true passover, the Holy Ghost was sent personally to the
disciples on the fiftieth day: not now, however, by tables of stone
significant of the hardness of their hearts; but, when they were
gathered together in one place at Jerusalem itself, suddenly there
came a sound from heaven, as if a violent blast were being borne
onwards, and there appeared to them tongues cloven like fire, and
they began to speak with tongues, in such a manner that all those
who had come to them recognized each his own language1479
(for in
that city the Jews were in the habit of assembling from every
country wheresoever they had been scattered abroad, and had learned
the diverse tongues of diverse nations); and thereafter, preaching
Christ with all boldness, they wrought many signs in His name,—so
much so, that as Peter was passing by, his shadow touched a certain
dead person, and the man rose in life again.1480
| 1480 The reference evidently is
to Acts v. 15, where,
however, it is only the people’s intention that is noticed, and
that only in the instance of the sick, and not of any individual
actually dead. |
42. “But when the Jews perceived
so great signs to be wrought in the name of Him, whom, partly
through ill-will and partly in ignorance, they crucified, some of
them were provoked to persecute the apostles, who were His
preachers; while others, on the contrary, marvelling the more at
this very circumstance, that so great miracles were being performed
in the name of Him whom they had derided as one overborne and
conquered by themselves, repented, and were converted, so that
thousands of Jews believed on Him. For these parties were not bent
now on craving at the hand of God temporal benefits and an earthly
kingdom, neither did they look any more for Christ, the promised
king, in a carnal spirit; but they continued in immortal fashion to
apprehend and love Him, who in mortal fashion endured on their
behalf at their own hands sufferings so heavy, and imparted to them
the gift of forgiveness for all their sins, even down to the
iniquity of His own blood, and by the example of His own
resurrection unfolded immortality as the object which they should
hope for and long for at His hands. Accordingly, now mortifying the
earthly cravings of the old man, and inflamed with the new
experience of the spiritual life, as the Lord had enjoined in the
Gospel, they sold all that they had, and laid the price of their
possessions at the feet of the apostles, in order that these might
distribute to every man according as each had need; and living in
Christian love harmoniously with each other, they did not affirm
anything to be their own, but they had all things in common, and
were one in soul and heart toward God.1481
Afterwards these same persons also
themselves suffered persecution in their flesh at the hands of
the Jews, their carnal fellow-countrymen, and were dispersed
abroad, to the end that, in consequence of their dispersion, Christ
should be preached more extensively, and that they themselves at
the same time should be followers of the patience of their Lord.
For He who in meekness had endured them,1482
| 1482 Adopting the Benedictine version,
qui eos mansuetus passus fuerat, and taking it as a parallel
to Acts xiii. 18, Heb. xii.
3. There is, however, great variety of reading here. Thus
we find qui ante eos, etc. = who had suffered in
meekness before them: qui pro eis, etc. = who had
suffered in their stead: qui propter eos, etc. = who
had suffered on their account: and qui per eos, etc.
= who had suffered through them, etc. But the reading in the text
appears best authenticated. | enjoined them in meekness to
endure for His sake.
43. “Among those same persecutors
of the saints the Apostle Paul had once also ranked; and he raged
with eminent violence against the Christians. But, subsequently, he
became a believer and an apostle, and was sent to preach the gospel
to the Gentiles, suffering (in that ministry) things more grievous
on behalf of the name of Christ than were those which he had done
against the name of Christ. Moreover, in establishing churches
throughout all the nations where he was sowing the seed of the
gospel, he was wont to give earnest injunction that, as these
converts (coming as they did from the worship of idols and without
experience in the worship of the one God) could not readily serve
God in the way of selling and distributing their possessions, they
should make offerings for the poor brethren among the saints who
were in the churches of Judea which had believed in Christ. In this
manner the doctrine of the apostle constituted some to be, as it
were, soldiers, and others to be, as it were, provincial
tributaries, while it set Christ in the centre of them like the
corner-stone (in accordance with what had been announced beforetime
by the prophet),1483
in whom both parties, like walls
advancing from different sides, that is to say, from Jews and from
Gentiles, might be joined together in the affection of kinship. But
at a later period heavier and more frequent persecutions arose from
the unbelieving Gentiles against the Church of Christ, and day by
day was fulfilled that prophetic word which the Lord spake when He
said, ‘Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.’1484
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