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| Chapter XVII. Of the renunciation of the apostles and the primitive church.
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Chapter XVII.
Of the renunciation of the apostles and the primitive
church.
As if he (who, by his
assertion that he was endowed with the privileges of a Roman citizen
from his birth, testifies that he was no mean person according to this
world’s rank) might not likewise have been supported by the
property which formerly belonged to him! And as if those men who were
possessors of lands and houses in Jerusalem and sold everything and
kept back nothing whatever for themselves, and brought the price of
them and laid it at the feet of the apostles, might not have supplied
their bodily necessities from their own property, had this been
considered the best plan by the apostles, or had they themselves deemed
it preferable! But they gave up all their property at once, and
preferred to be supported by their own labour, and by the contributions
of the Gentiles, of whose collection the holy Apostle speaks in writing
to the Romans, and declaring his own office in this matter to them, and
urging them on likewise to make this collection: “But now I go to
Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For it has pleased them of
Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints
who are at Jerusalem: it has pleased them indeed, and their debtors
they are. For if the Gentiles are made partakers of their spiritual
things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal
things.”894
To the
Corinthians also he shows the same anxiety about this, and urges them
the more diligently to prepare before his arrival a collection, which
he was intending to send for their needs. “But concerning the
collection for the saints, as I appointed to the churches of Galatia,
so also do ye. Let each one of you on the first day of the week put
apart with himself, laying up what it shall well please him, that when
I come the collections be not then to be made. But when I come
whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, them I will send to carry
your grace to Jerusalem.” And that he may stimulate them to make
a larger collection, he adds, “But if it be meet that I also go,
they shall go with me:”895
meaning if your
offering is of such a character as
to deserve to be taken there by my
ministration. To the Galatians too, he testifies that when he was
settling the division of the ministry of preaching with the apostles,
he had arranged this with James, Peter, and John: that he should
undertake the preaching to the Gentiles, but should never repudiate
care and anxious thought for the poor who were at Jerusalem, who for
Christ’s sake gave up all their goods, and submitted to voluntary
poverty. “And when they saw,” said he, “the grace of
God which was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be
pillars, gave to me and to Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that
we should preach to the Gentiles, but they to those of the
circumcision: only they would that we should be mindful of the
poor.” A matter which he testifies that he attended to most
carefully, saying, “which also I was anxious of myself to
do.”896
Who then are the
more blessed, those who but lately were gathered out of the number of
the heathen, and being unable to climb to the heights of the perfection
of the gospel, clung to their own property, in whose case it was
considered a great thing by the Apostle if at least they were
restrained from the worship of idols, and from fornication, and from
things strangled, and from blood,897
and had
embraced the faith of Christ, with their goods and all: or those who
live up to the demands of the gospel, and carry the Lord’s cross
daily, and want nothing out of their property to remain for their own
use? And if the blessed Apostle himself, bound with chains and fetters,
or hampered by the difficulties of travelling, and for these reasons
not being able to provide with his hands, as he generally did, for the
supply of his food, declares that he received that which supplied his
wants from the brethren who came from Macedonia; “For that which
was lacking to me,” he says, “the brethren who came from
Macedonia supplied:”898
and to the
Philippians he says: “For ye Philippians know also that in the
beginning of the gospel, when I came from Macedonia, no church
communicated with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you
only; because even in Thessalonica once and again you sent to supply my
needs:”899
(if this was so)
then, according to the notion of these men, which they have formed in
the coldness of their heart, will those men really be more blessed than
the Apostle, because it is found that they have ministered to him of
their substance? But this no one will venture to assert, however big a
fool he may be.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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