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A.D. 33.

Before going farther into the History of the Church, we may pause to consider the account given us in Holy Scripture of Christian Worship and Discipline in the time immediately following the Day of Pentecost. The same chapter which contains the narrative of the Descent of the Holy Ghost, has also a short epitome of the daily life of the Apostles and their converts, during that brief interval of undisturbed peace which preceded the beginning of the bitter conflict between the Church and the world.

Holy Baptism. Apostolic Doctrine.

First we read of Holy Baptism as the source of the Christian Life[26], and then of steadfast continuance in the one Faith as taught by the Apostles, who were, so to speak, a kind of living Gospel to their converts. Oral teaching. None of the Books of the New Testament were as yet written, so that all instruction being oral, faithful must most fully have sought "the Law" of the Saviour at the "mouth" of His twelve chosen servants, who had listened to His gracious words, and had been themselves taught by Him Who is Wisdom. Value of tradition. The Apostles' Creed is a mighty instance of this traditional teaching, which has come down even to our own days; and many points of Church government, and discipline, and ritual, merely hinted at, or not even referred to in the writings of the New Testament, were preserved to the Church by means of spoken tradition. St. Paul several times mentions these oral traditions, and in one instance speaks of them to his converts as equally binding with the written words contained in his Epistles[27]. The substance of such important traditions became ingrained into the system and belief of the Church, and it was thus of comparatively little importance that their exact words were forgotten.

Apostolic fellowship. Faith and love towards God

To oneness of "doctrine" belonged also oneness of "fellowship." There was as yet "no schism in the Body;" and this inward Faith and Love found their outward expression both towards God and towards man. Towards God in "the Breaking of the Bread," the Daily Sacrifice and Thank-offering of the Holy Eucharist "at home[28]," i.e. in their own upper room, the first Christian Church, as well as in their constant attendance on the daily "Prayers" and praises still offered up in the Temple. Of the conduct of the first Christians towards each other we are told twice over, immediately after the Outpouring of the Day of Pentecost, and again after that increase of "boldness," which was granted to the earnest cry of the Church on the approach of persecution[29].

and towards man.

Both these accounts speak to us of their full realization of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. They "were together;" they "were of one heart and of one soul:" the need of one was the need of all; each felt his brother's wants, as if he himself suffered; and so great was the liberality of those who had "possessions and goods," that there was not "any among them that lacked." "They had all things common," as to the daily use of God's worldly gifts.

The Holy Eucharist as a Sacrifice

The Holy Eucharist was to the Church then, as it is still, the chief act and centre of Divine worship. In this new Sacrifice the Apostles showed forth and pleaded before God, the One Sufficient Sacrifice, which they themselves had seen "once offered," with unspeakable sufferings, and all-prevailing Blood-shedding upon the Cross of Calvary. and a means of union with Christ. In it they adored Him, Whom they now acknowledged with every faculty of their souls to be indeed their "Lord" and their "God;" in it they found again the Real and continual, though invisible, Presence of the Master and Friend for Whose sake they had forsaken all earthly ties; and by it they were brought into closer union with Him, than when of old they had walked and talked with Him beside the Galilean Sea, or beneath the olive-trees of Gethsemane; for now, they were indeed "nourished and cherished" by Him and made more and more "members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones[30]." Thankfulness of the first converts. What wonder, then, that we read of the "gladness and singleness of heart" of the Apostles and their converts thus living in the constant joy and presence of their Lord, and that "praising God" is mentioned as one of their distinguishing marks:—

"By 'Deo gratias,' as they pass'd,

The faithful folk were surest known;

That watchword for the daily strife

Might well their thoughts and tongues employ,

Who made the Church transform their life,

And the great Offering crown their joy[31]."

Continued attendance of the Apostles on the Temple Services.

We may here remark the many indications which are given us throughout the Book of Acts, that the Apostles, who were themselves Jews, did not, even after the Foundation of the Christian Church, oppose or neglect Jewish ordinances and worship, so long and so far as the union of the two dispensations was practicable. In this they followed the example of their Divine Master, Who, from His Circumcision upwards, paid obedience to that Law which He came to fulfil, and Who was a constant attendant at the services of the Temple and of the Synagogues. There was no violent rending away from the old Faith, until God, in His wisdom and justice, saw fit to ordain the destruction of the guilty city Jerusalem, and the overthrow of the Jewish Temple, and Altar, and Priesthood, none of which had then any further purpose to serve in the Divine plan for the redemption of mankind.

In the cases of St. Peter and St. John,

Thus we read of St. Peter and St. John going up to the Temple to worship at the ninth hour of prayer[32], and of their afterwards preaching to the people in that part of the Temple called Solomon's porch[33], of the daily preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles in the Temple[34], and of their constant resort to the Jewish Synagogues during their stay in such places as possessed them[35]. and of St. Paul. Even five and twenty years after the day of Pentecost we find that the very tumult which resulted in St. Paul's apprehension and consequent journey as a prisoner to Rome, was immediately excited by his having "entered into the Temple[36]," in performance of one of the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law.

Section 7. The First Schism and the Appointment of the Diaconate.

A. D. 33. The first deadly sin in the Church.

Great and deadly sin had already made its way into Christ's fold, and been cast out from the midst of it by a fearful judgment. Ananias and Sapphira had "lied unto God," and been struck dead for their impiety; and the "great fear" excited by this first display of the judicial powers of the Church had been followed by another influx of conversions; for "multitudes were added to the Lord[37]." A.D. 34. The first schism. And now came the first division in the body, "a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews[38]."

Distinction between "Grecians" (or Hellenists) and "Hebrews."

By the "Grecians" are meant those Jews of foreign birth and education who had adopted Greek customs and the Greek language so entirely, that some even of their most learned men did not understand Hebrew but read the Scriptures of the Old Testament in the Septuagint Version. They were much despised by the stricter and more narrow-minded "Hebrews," the natives of Palestine, or Syro-Chaldaic Jews; and the rivalries of these two Jewish sects were carried even into the bosom of Christ's Church. Complaint of the "Grecians." The Grecians, or "Hellenists" complained that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution of alms; perhaps grounding their complaint on the fact that the Twelve were all Hebrews. Deacons ordained. And the Apostles commanded that "seven men of honest report" should be chosen from the body of believers, and presented to them, that they might be ordained by Imposition of Hands to minister to the bodily wants of the poor and aged. This was the first institution of the Order of Deacons[39], the lowest of the three holy offices which were to be continually handed down and perpetuated in the Church. Thus did the Apostles begin to impart to others such a portion of the ministerial grace, of which they themselves had been at first the sole recipients, as might enable those whom they ordained to aid them, in a subordinate degree, in the work of building up the mystical Body of Christ.

Increasing conversions.

This fresh proof of the vitality of the Church through the active, living Presence of her Divine Head, was followed by a new feature in the still increasing conversions to her fold. It was no longer the poor and the unlearned only, or chiefly, who listened to the teaching of the Apostles, "a great company of the Priests were obedient to the Faith[40]," while, on the other hand, a growing and more bitter spirit of persecution was soon to develope itself.