dragged out the inmates to prison, visiting even on helpless women the
crime of believing as their consciences prompted, and without regard to
delicacy or decency, shutting them up in the public dungeons. As soon
as the storm began to burst on the new converts, those who were in any
special danger of attack very properly sought safety in flight from
the city, in accordance with the wise and merciful injunction laid upon
the apostles by their Lord, when he first sent them forth as sheep in
the midst of wolves,――“When they persecute you in one city, flee into
another.” The consequences of this dispersion, however, were such as to
turn the foolish rage of the persecutors to the solid advantage of the
cause of Christ, and to show in what a variety of ways God can cause
the wrath of man to praise him. For all those who were thus driven
out of their peaceful homes, became missionaries of the word of truth,
among the people of the various cities and countries through which they
were scattered. All those of whose wanderings we have any account, seem
to have journeyed northward and north-westward, probably all of them
foreign Jews, who naturally returned home when driven out of Jerusalem.
Some of these went, in this way, to the Phoenician coast, to Antioch,
and to Cyprus, all laboring to extend the knowledge of that truth for
which they were willing sufferers. But of all those who went forth
on this forced mission, none appear to have been more successful than
Philip, who stood next to the martyred Stephen on the list of the
seven Hellenist servants of the church, and who appears to have been
second not even to his great fellow-servant in ability and energy. His
home was in Caesarea, on the sea-coast; but he had higher objects than
merely to take refuge in his own domestic circle; for instead of thus
indulging his feelings of natural affection, he also turned his course
northward, and made his first sojourn in the city of Samaria, where
he immediately began to preach Christ to them, as the common Messiah,
so long desired by Samaritans as well as Jews. Here, the people being
ruled by no tyrannical sectaries, like the Pharisees and Sadducees,
and the various orders of ecclesiastical power in Jerusalem, were left
entirely to follow the impulse of their better feelings towards the
truth, without the fear of any inquisition into their movements. Under
these happy circumstances of religious freedom, they all with one
accord gave heed to the preaching of Philip, hearing and seeing the
wonderful works of kindness which he did. For foul spirits, which,
possessing many sufferers, had long wasted their bodies and deranged
their minds, now at the word of this preacher of Christ, came out
of many of them, crying with a loud voice in attestation of the
irresistible power which had overcome them. Many also that were
affected with palsies and that were lame, were healed in the same
miraculous manner; so that, in consequence of this removal of so many
bodily and spiritual evils, there was great joy in the city, at the
arrival of this messenger of mercy. But before the coming of Philip,
the people of Samaria had been the subjects of arts of a somewhat
different kind, from a man who could claim for his works none of the
holy character of disinterested humanity, which belonged to those of
the preacher of Christ. This was one Simon, a man who, by the use of
some magical tricks, had so imposed upon the simple-minded citizens,
that they were profoundly impressed with the notion, which he was
anxious to make them believe, namely, that he was a great man. To
him they all, both young and old, paid the deepest reverence, in
consequence of the triumphant ability displayed by him in the arts
of sorcery; and so low were their notions of the nature of miraculous
agency, that they concluded that the tricks which he played were tokens
of divine interposition in his favor, and universally allowed that
he was himself a personification of the mighty power of God. But when
Philip came among them, and exhibited the genuine workings of the holy
spirit of God, they immediately saw how much they had been mistaken in
their previous estimate of its operations, and changed their degraded
notions, for a more just appreciation of its character. On hearing the
word of truth so fully revealed and supported, they believed in the
new view which he gave them of the kingdom of God on earth, and in the
name of Jesus Christ; and were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon
himself, overwhelmed with the evidences of a higher power than any
that he knew, confessed the fallacy of his own tricks, and submissively
owned the power of God as manifested in the words and deeds of Philip,
with whom he now remained, a humble and wondering observer of the
miracles and signs wrought by him.

                         THE VISIT TO SAMARIA.

In the mean time, the apostles had remained at Jerusalem, apparently
not directly affected by the persecution against Stephen and his
friends, or at least not disturbed by it so as to be prevented from
remaining at their original post, in the discharge of duty. For, a
true regard for the instructions long ago given them by their Master,
would have required them to leave Jerusalem, if the opposition to
their preaching became so settled and extensive as to prevent them
from advancing the cause of Christ there, more rapidly than they
might in other places. The spirit with which they had been taught to
meet tyrannical opposition, was not one of idle bravado or useless
pertinacity, but of deliberate and calculating steadiness in their
plan, which knew when to prudently give way, as well as when to boldly
withstand. It is therefore fair to conclude, that the persecution here
referred to, was so limited as not to be directed against the apostles
themselves, nor to hinder their useful labors. If any of them had been
imprisoned during this persecution, certainly the rest would have been
blamable for not escaping; but the fact that they remained perfectly
free, appears from their leaving the city without delay, on the
occasion which now required their presence and assistance elsewhere.
For as soon as they heard of the preaching of Philip at Samaria, and of
the willingness with which the Samaritans had received and believed the
first communications of the word, they immediately sent to them Peter
and John, who, as the chief teachers of the doctrines of Christ, might
give the new converts a fuller preparation for their duties in their
calling, than could be expected from one so lately commissioned as the
zealous preacher who had first awakened them. These two great apostles,
having come down to Samaria, prayed for the believers there that they
might receive the Holy Spirit; for this heavenly gift had not yet been
imparted to them; the only sign of their acceptance into the new faith
having been their baptism by the hands of Philip, who does not seem to
have been empowered to indue others with the same divine spirit which
he had so abundantly received on himself. But the apostles laying their
hands on them, as they had before done with such powerful effect on
Stephen, Philip and their fellow-servants, now also inspired these
second fruits with the same divine energy, which was instantly made
manifest in them, by the usual signs. As soon as Simon saw the display
of the new powers, with which those were suddenly gifted who had been
made the subjects of this simple ceremony, he immediately concluded
that he had at last found out the means of acquiring those miraculous
powers at which he had been so deeply amazed, and which he thought
he could make vastly profitable to himself in his business, as a very
decided improvement upon his old tricks. Thinking only of the motive
which always moved _his_ mind to the bestowment of such favors, he
immediately took out the money he had gained by his impositions on
the people, and offered the apostles a handsome share of it, if they
would simply give him the valuable privilege of conferring this divine
agency on all upon whom he should lay his hands, in the same manner as
they. But his mercenary hopes were soon blasted by the indignant terms
in which Peter rejected his insulting proposal. “Thy money perish with
thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God could be bought
with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy
heart is not right in the sight of God. Change thy mind, therefore,
from this wickedness of thine, and ask God, if indeed there is any
possibility, that the iniquity of thy heart may be forgiven thee; for
I see that thou art still full of the bitterness of thy former poisons,
and bound fast in the chains of thy old iniquities.” Simon, hushed and
overawed in his impertinent offers by this stern rebuke, sunk into a
penitent tone again, and begged of them that they would pray for him,
that the doom to perish with his money, as declared by Peter, might
not fall on him. Of the depth and sincerity of his penitence, no good
testimony is left us; but his submissive conduct, at best, seems to
have been rather the result of a personal awe of the apostles, as his
superiors in supernatural powers, than prompted by any true regard
for their pure faith, or any just appreciation of their character and
motives. The apostles, however, waited no longer to enlighten the mind
of one so dark in his views of the divine agency; but after they had
borne witness to the truth of Philip’s words and doctrines by their own
preaching, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the gospel in many
villages of the Samaritans, on the way. Philip also, having had his
labors thus triumphantly crowned by the ministrations of the apostles,
left Samaria, and turned his course southwards, towards Gaza, under
the impulse and guidance of a divine spirit. On this journey, occurred
his most interesting adventure with the lord high treasurer of the
Ethiopian queen, after which Philip was found at Ashdod, on the sea,
from which place, journeying northwards again, he went preaching
through all the towns on the coast, till he arrived at his home, at
Caesarea.

  Illustration: JAFFA――JOPPA.

                        THE BEGINNING OF PEACE.

Soon after the return of the apostles to Jerusalem, an event occurred,
which had a more mighty influence on the progress of the Christian
religion than any other that had occurred since the ascension of Jesus.
The members of the church who still withstood the storm of persecution
in the city, were struck with no small amazement by the sudden
appearance, before them, of Saul of Tarsus, the most bloody persecutor
of their Hellenist brethren, who, having exhausted the opportunities
for the gratification of his spite against them in Jerusalem, had
gone to Damascus, to seize such as there supposed themselves safe in
following the new faith. This man, yet stained, as it were, with the
blood of Stephen, now presented himself to them as a convert to the
gospel, prepared to join them as a brother. The whole affair seemed
to bear so decidedly the aspect of a palpable imposition, that they
altogether refused to have any thing to do with him, and suspected
the whole to be a deep-laid snare, on the part of this bloody foe of
the gospel, who now appeared to be seeking, by false professions, to
get into their confidence, that he might have the means of betraying
them to utter ruin. But Barnabas, who was better acquainted with Saul,
detailed to the church all the wonderful circumstances so fully, that
they no longer hesitated to receive him as a brother and fellow-laborer.
This remarkable conversion was of vast benefit to the cause of the
gospel, not only by bringing to its aid the services of a laborer so
competent, but also by removing from among its adversaries one who had
been a leader and a contriver of every plot of mischief. As soon as
he left the ranks of the foe, the vindictive persecution, which had
raged ever since the death of Stephen, ceased, as though it had lost
its great author and main support, by the defection of Saul of Tarsus.
Indeed, the last act of this persecution, which is recorded, was
directed against this very man, who had once been a leader in it, and
drove him out of the city which had been the scene of his cruelties.
Therefore, the churches had rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee,
and Samaria, strengthening and advancing in piety, and filled with
the impulses of the Holy Spirit. This opportunity of quiet seemed
peculiarly favorable for a minute survey of the condition of these
scattered churches, most of which had grown up without any direct
agency of the apostles, and therefore needed their attention at this
critical period.

                      THE SURVEY OF THE CHURCHES.

The most proper person for this responsible charge, was the great
leader of the apostolic band; and Peter, therefore, taking the task
readily upon himself, went through all the churches, to give them
the advantages of the minute personal ministry of a chief apostle,
who might organize them, and instruct the disciples in their peculiar
duties as members of a new religious community. On this tour of duty,
passing down from the interior towards the sea-coast, he came to Lydda,
about forty or fifty miles from Jerusalem, and about twelve from the
sea. Here there was a company of the faithful, whom he visited, to
instruct them anew, and to enlarge their numbers, by his preaching and
miracles. A particular case is recorded as having occurred here, which
displayed both the compassion of Peter and his divine power to heal and
strengthen. Among the friends of Christ whom he visited here, was an
invalid, whose name, Aeneas, shows him to have been a Hellenist. This
man had for the long period of eight years been deprived of the use of
his limbs, by a palsy, which, during that tedious interval, confined
him to his bed. Peter, on seeing him, said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals
thee. Arise, and make thy bed for thyself.” The command to spread and
smooth the couch, which he now quitted in health, was given, that he
might show and feel, at once, how fully strength was restored to his
hands as well as his feet. This miracle soon became known, not only to
the citizens of Lydda, but also to the people inhabiting the extensive
and fertile plain of Sharon, which stretched to the northward of
Lydda, along the coast, from Joppa to Caesarea, bounded on the west
by the highlands of Samaria. The effect of this display of power and
benevolence, was such, on their minds, that, without exception, they
professed their faith in Christ.

  _Lydda._――This was a place of far more importance and fame,
  than would be supposed from the brief mention of its name in the
  apostolic narrative. It is often mentioned in the writings of
  the Rabbins, under the name of לוד (_Ludh_,) its original Hebrew
  name, and was long the seat of a great college of Jewish law
  and theology, which at this very period of Peter’s visit was
  in its most flourishing state. This appears from the fact that
  Rabbi Akiba, who raised the school to its greatest eminence,
  was contemporary with the great Rabban Gamaliel, who bears an
  important part in the events of the apostolic history. (The
  data of this chronological inference I find in Lightfoot.) It
  is easy to see, then, why so important a seat of Jewish theology
  should have been thought deserving of the particular notice
  and protracted stay of Peter, who labored with remarkable
  earnestness and effect here, inspired by the consciousness
  of the lasting and extensive good, that would result from an
  impression made on this fountain of religious knowledge. The
  members of the college, however, did not all, probably, profess
  themselves followers of Christ.

  It is also described as possessing some importance in addition
  to its literary privileges. Josephus (Antiquities XX. vi. 3.)
  mentions “Lydda” as “a village not inferior to a city in
  greatness.” Its importance was, no doubt, in a great measure
  derived from the remarkably rich agricultural district which
  surrounded it. This was the plain of Sharon, so celebrated in
  the Hebrew scriptures for its fruitful fields and rich pastures,
  ――its roses and its flocks. (Solomon’s Song ii. 1: Isaiah xxxiii.
  9: xxxv. 2: lxv. 10: 1 Chronicles xxvii. 29.) “All this country
  is described by Pococke as very rich soil, throwing up a great
  quantity of herbage; among which he specifies chardons, rue,
  fennel, and the striped thistle, ‘probably on this account
  called the holy thistle.’ A great variety of anemonies, he
  was told, grow in the neighborhood. ‘I saw likewise,’ he adds,
  ‘many tulips growing wild in the fields (in March;) and any
  one who considers how beautiful those flowers are to the eye,
  would be apt to conjecture that these are the lilies to which
  Solomon, in all his glory, was not to be compared.’”――[Modern
  Traveler, p. 57.] Its distance from Jerusalem is ascertained,
  by Lightfoot, to be one day’s journey, as it is stated with
  some circumlocution in the Mishna. It was destroyed, as Josephus
  relates, by Cestius Gallus, the Roman general, who marched his
  army through that region, in the beginning of the war, which
  ended in the destruction of Jerusalem. Under the peaceful times
  of the later Roman sway in Palestine, it was rebuilt, and called
  Diospolis. But like many other such instances, it has lost its
  temporary heathen name, and is now called by its old scripture
  appellation, _Ludd_. Travelers describe it as now a poor village,
  though the stones to be seen in the modern buildings show that
  it has been a place of great consequence.

  The New Testament name _Lydda_, (Λυδδα,) by which Josephus also
  mentions it, is only so much changed from the Hebrew _Ludh_,
  as was necessary to accommodate it to the regular forms and
  inflexions of the Greek language. Lightfoot well refutes the
  blunder of many modern geographers who make the two names refer
  to different places. This learned author is remarkably full in
  the description of this place, and is very rich in references
  to the numerous allusions which are made to it in the Talmudic
  writings. See his _Centuria Chorographica_, (Chapter 16,)
  prefixed to Horae Hebraica et Talmudicae in Matthew.

  _Aeneas._――This name is unquestionably Greek, which seems to
  show the man to have been a Hellenist; and that he was already
  a believer in Christ, would appear from the fact of Peter’s
  finding him among the brethren there.

                          THE VISIT TO JOPPA.

Hardly had this instance of divine favor occurred in Lydda, when a
new occasion for a similar effort presented itself, in the neighboring
seaport town of Joppa. A female disciple of the faith of Christ,
in that city, by name Tabitha, or in the Greek, Dorcas, (both names
meaning Gazelle,) had distinguished herself and honored her religious
profession, by the generous and charitable deeds which constantly
employed her hands. This lady, so respected by all, and so loved by the
poor, who gave witness to her goodness,――such an honor to the religious
community which she had joined,――seemed to have so nobly done her part
in life, that the order of Providence had apparently called her to rest
from these labors, in that sleep from which no piety nor usefulness can
save or recall their possessor. After a few days of illness, she died,
and was, after the usual funeral ablutions, laid in an upper chamber,
to await the burial. In the midst of the universal grief for this
sad loss, the members of the church at Joppa, knowing that Peter was
in Lydda, within a few hours’ journey, sent two messengers to him, to
beg his presence among them, as some consolation in their distress.
Peter, on hearing of this occasion for his presence, with great
readiness accompanied the messengers back, and on arriving at Joppa,
went straight to the house of mourning. He was immediately led into
the chamber, where he found a most affecting testimony to the nature of
the loss which the afflicted community had suffered. Around the dead,
stood the widows who, in their friendlessness, had been relieved by
the sympathy of Dorcas, now pouring their tears and uttering their
lamentations over her, and showing that even the garments which they
wore were the work of her industrious hand,――that hand which, once
so untiring in these labors of love, was now cold and motionless in
death. From that resistless doom, what mortal voice could ever recall
even one so amiable and useful? But, while they were sorrowing thus,
Peter ordered them all to leave him alone with the dead; and when all
witnesses were removed, he kneeled and prayed. The words of that prayer
are not recorded; and it is only by its successful efficiency that
we know it to have been that fervent effectual prayer of a righteous
man, which availeth much. It was such a prayer as, of old, the son
of Shaphat offered over the dead child of the Shunamite, when alone
with him; and its effect was not less mighty. Rising at length, and
turning towards the body, he said “Tabitha, arise!” Awaking from the
unbreathing sleep of death, as from a light slumber of an hour, she
opened her eyes, and when she saw the majestic man of God alone, and
herself robed for the tomb, she sat up and gazed in amazement. Peter,
then, giving her his hand, lifted her from the funeral couch, and
calling in the brethren and the widows; he presented her to their
astonished eyes, alive. Their overwhelming joy and wonder, we are left
to imagine. The story, when made known through the city, brought many
to acknowledge the truth of that religion whose minister could work
such wonders; and many believed in Christ. The field of labor which now
opened to Peter in this place, seemed so wide that he did not continue
his journey any further at that time, but took up his abode, for
several days, in Joppa, lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, whose
house stood by the sea, near the water.

  _Joppa_, now called _Jaffa_.――This was from very early times a
  place of great importance, from the circumstance of its being
  the nearest seaport to Jerusalem. It is mentioned in reference
  to this particular of its situation, in 2 Chronicles ii. 17,
  where it is specified (in Hebrew יפו _Japho_) as the port to which
  the cedar timber from Lebanon should be floated down in rafts,
  to be conveyed to Jerusalem for building the temple. It stood
  within the territories of the tribe of Dan, according to Joshua
  xix. 46, and lies about East-North-east from Jerusalem. Strabo,
  (xvi.) in describing it, refers to it as the scene of the
  ancient Grecian fable of Andromeda rescued from the sea-monster
  by Perseus. He describes its site as “quite elevated,――so much
  so, indeed, that it was a common saying that Jerusalem might
  be seen from the place; the inhabitants of which city use it
  as their seaport, in all their maritime intercourse.” Josephus
  mentions that it was added to the dominions of Herod the
  Great by Augustus. Its present appearance is thus described by
  travelers.

  “It is situated in latitude 32 degrees 2 minutes North, and
  longitude 34 degrees 53 minutes East, and is forty miles West
  of Jerusalem. Its situation, as the nearest port to the Holy
  City, has been the chief cause of its importance. As a station
  for vessels, according ♦to Dr. Clarke, its harbor is one of
  the worst in the Mediterranean. Ships generally anchor about a
  mile from the town, to avoid the shoals and rocks of the place.
  The badness of the harbor is mentioned, indeed, by Josephus.
  (Josephus, Antiquities, book xv. chapter 9.) * * * The road
  is protected by a castle built on a rock, and there are some
  storehouses and magazines on the sea-side. The coast is low,
  but little elevated above the level of the sea; but the town
  occupies an eminence, in the form of a sugar-loaf, with a
  citadel on the summit. The bottom of the hill is surrounded with
  a wall twelve or fourteen feet high, and two or three feet thick.
  * * * There are no antiquities in Jaffa: the place would seem to
  be too old to have any――to have outlived all that once rendered
  it interesting. The inhabitants are estimated at between four
  and five thousand souls, of whom the greater part are Turks
  and Arabs; the Christians are stated to be about six hundred,
  consisting of Roman Catholics, Greeks, Maronites, and Armenians.”
  [Modern Traveler, Palestine, pp. 41, 42.]

    ♦ “io” replaced with “to”

  _Dorcas._――This is the Greek translation of the old Hebrew צבי
  (_Tsebi_,) in the Aramaic dialect of that age, changed into תביתא
  (_Tabitha_,) in English, “_gazelle_,” a beautiful animal of the
  antelope kind, often mentioned in descriptions of the deserts
  of south-western Asia, in which it roams; and not unfrequently
  the subject of poetical allusion. The species to which it is
  commonly supposed to belong, is the _Antilopa Dorcas_ of Prof.
  Pallas, who named it on the supposition that it was identical
  with this animal, called by the Greeks, Δορκας, (_Dorkas_,) from
  Δερκο, (_Derko_,) “to look,” from the peculiar brightness of
  “its soft black eye.”

                       THE CALL TO THE HEATHEN.

The apostles had now, with great zeal and efficiency, preached the
gospel of Jesus Christ to the worshipers of the true God, beginning at
Jerusalem, and spreading the triumphs of his name to the bounds of the
land of Israel. But in all their devotion to their Master’s work, they
had never had a thought of breaking over the bounds of the faith of
their fathers, or of making their doctrine anything else than a mere
completion or accompaniment to the law of Moses; nor did they imagine
that they were ever to extend the blessings of the gospel to any who
did not bow down to all the tedious rituals of the ancient covenant.
The true power of their Lord’s parting command, “Go and teach _all
nations_,” they had never felt; and even now, their great chief
supposed that the change of heart and remission of sins, which he was
commissioned to preach, were for none but the devout adherents of the
Jewish faith. A new and signal call was needed, to bring the apostles
to a full sense of their enlarged duties; and it is among the highest
honors vouchsafed to Peter, that he was the person chosen to receive
this new view of the boundless field now opened for the battles and
triumphs of the cross. To him, as the head and representative of
the whole band of the apostles, was now spread out, in all its moral
vastness and its physical immensity, the coming dominion of that faith,
whose little seed he was now cherishing, with but a humble hope; but
whose stately trunk and giant branches were, from that small and low
beginning, to stretch, in a mighty growth, over lands, and worlds, to
him unknown. Thus far he had labored with a high and holy zeal, in a
cause whose vastness he had never appreciated,――every moment building
up, unwittingly, a name for himself, which should outlast all the
glories of the ancient covenant; and securing for his Master a dominion
which the religion of Moses could never have reached. He had never had
an idea, that he with his companions was founding and spreading a new
religion;――to purify the religion of the law and the prophets, and to
rescue it from the confusion and pollutions of warring sectaries, was
all that they had thought of; yet with this end in view, they had been
securing the attainment of one so far above and beyond, that a full
and sudden view of the consequences of their humble deeds, would have
appalled them. But though the mighty plan had never been whispered nor
dreamed of, on earth,――though it was too immense for its simple agents
to endure its full revelation at once,――its certain accomplishment
had been ordained in heaven, and its endless details were to be fully
learned only in its triumphant progress through uncounted ages. But,
limited as was the view which the apostles then had of the high destiny
of the cause to which they had devoted themselves, it was yet greatly
extended from the low-born notions with which they had first followed
the steps of their Master. They now no longer entertained the vagary
of a worldly triumph and a worldly reward; they had left that on the
mount where their Lord parted from them, and they were now prayerfully
laboring for the establishment of a pure spiritual kingdom in the
hearts of the righteous. To give them a just idea of the exalted
freedom to which the gospel brought its sons, and to open their hearts
to a Christian fellowship, as wide as the whole human family, God now
gave the apostolic leader an unquestionable call to tell to the world
the glad tidings of salvation, for all men, through a new and living
way, by change of heart and remission of sins. The incidents which led
to this revelation are thus detailed.

The peace and good order of Palestine were now secured by several
legions, whose different divisions, larger or smaller according to
circumstances, were quartered in all the strong or important places
in the country, to repress disorders, and enforce the authority of the
civil power, when necessary. Besides this ordinary peace-establishment
of the province, there was a cohort which took its name from the
circumstance that it had been levied in Italy,――a distinction, now so
rare, in consequence of the introduction of foreign mercenaries into
the imperial hosts, as to become the occasion of an honorable eminence,
which was signified by the title here given, showing that this division
of the Roman armies was made up of the sons of that soil which had
so long sent forth the conquerors of the world. Of all the variety
of service required of the different detachments of the army, in the
province which it guarded, by far the most honorable was that of being
stationed next the person of the governor of the province, to maintain
the military dignity of his vice-imperial court, and defend his
representative majesty. Caesarea, on the sea-shore, was now the seat
of the Roman government of Palestine; and here, in attendance on the
person of the governor, was this aforesaid Italian cohort, at the head
of a company in which, was a centurion named Cornelius. Though nothing
is given respecting his birth and family but this single name, a very
slight knowledge of Roman history and antiquities enables the historian
to decide, that he was descended from a noble race of patricians, which
had produced several of the most illustrious families of the imperial
city. Eminent by this high birth and military rank, he must have
been favored with an education worthy of his family and station. It
is therefore allowable to conclude, that he was an intelligent and
well-informed gentleman, whom years of foreign service, in the armies
of his country must have improved by the combined advantages of
a traveler and a disciplined warrior. Of his moral and religious
character such an account is given, as proves that his principles,
probably implanted in early life, had been of such firmness as to
withstand the numerous temptations of a soldier’s life, and to secure
him in a course of most uncommon rectitude in his duties towards God
and towards man. In the merciful exercise of his power over the people
whose safety and quiet he came to maintain, and, moreover, in the
generous use of his pecuniary advantages, he passed his blameless life;
and the high motive of this noble conduct, is discovered in the steady,
pure devotion, in which he employed many hours of daily retirement,
and in which he caused his whole family publicly to join, on proper
occasions. Thus is he briefly and strongly characterized by the sacred
historian: “devout, and fearing God with all his house; giving much
alms, and praying to God always.”

  _Noble race of patricians._――The _gens Cornelia_, or “Cornelian
  race,” was unequaled in Rome for the great number of noble
  families sprung from its stock. The Scipios, the Sullas, the
  Dolabellas, the Cinnas, the Lentuli, the Cethegi, the Cossi,
  and many other illustrious branches of this great race, are
  conspicuous in Roman history; and the Fasti Consulares, record
  more than sixty of the Cornelian race, who had borne the
  consular dignity previous to the apostolic era. This is always
  a _family_ name, and Ainsworth very grossly errs in calling it
  “the _praenomen_ of several Romans.” Every Roman name of the
  middle and later ages of the commonwealth, had at least three
  parts, which were the _praenomen_, marking the individual,――the
  _nomen_ marking the _gens_, (“race,” “stock,”) and the
  _cognomen_, marking the family or division of that great stock.
  Thus in the name “Publius Cornelius Scipio,” the _last_ word
  shows that the person belonged to the Scipio family, which by
  the _second_ word is seen to be of the great Cornelian stock,
  while the first shows that this member of the family was
  distinguished from his relations, by the name of Publius.
  (See Adams’s Roman Antiquities, on Names.) Wherever this name,
  Cornelius, occurs, if the whole appellation of the man is given,
  this comes in the middle, as the _nomen_, marking the race;
  as is the case with every one of those quoted by Ainsworth,
  in his blundering account of the word. See also Sallust, (The
  Catilinarian Conspiracy, 47, 55,) in defense of this peculiar
  limitation of the word to the _gens_. Not a single instance can
  be brought of its application to any person not of this noble
  patrician race, or of its use as a mere individual appellation.
  I am therefore authorized in concluding that this Cornelius
  mentioned in the Acts was related to this line of high nobility.
  It might, perhaps, be conjectured, that he had borrowed this
  name from that noble race, from having once been in the service
  of some one of its families, as was common in the case of
  freedmen, after they had received their liberty; but this
  supposition is not allowable; for he is expressly particularized
  as belonging to an _Italian_ division of the army, which fact
  excludes the idea of that foreign origin which would belong
  to a slave. The Jews having but one name for each man, seldom
  gave all of a Roman’s name, unless of a very eminent man, as
  Pontius Pilate, Sergius Paulus, and other official characters;
  but selecting any one of the three parts which might be most
  convenient, they made that the sole appellative, whether
  _praenomen_, _nomen_, or _cognomen_. As in Luke ii. 2: Acts
  xxiii. 24: xxv. 1: xxvii. 1: xxviii. 7, &c.

  Illustration:   JERUSALEM, FROM THE LATIN CONVENT.
                             Luke xxi. 24.

  _The Italian cohort._――The word Σπειρα (_Speira_) I translate
  “_cohort_,” rather than “_legion_,” as the older commentators
  did. Jerome translates it “_cohortem_,” and he must have known
  the exact technical force of the Greek word, and to what Latin
  military term it corresponded, from his living in the time when
  these terms must have been in frequent use. Those who prefer
  to translate it “legion,” are misled by the circumstance, that
  Tacitus and other writers on Roman affairs, mention a legion
  which had the distinctive appellation of “_the Italian Legion_;”
  while it has been supposed that these ancient authors make no
  mention of an Italian _cohort_. But the deeply learned Wetstein,
  with his usual vast classical research, has shown several such
  passages, in Arrian and others, in which mention _is_ made
  of an Italian cohort; and in Gruter’s inscriptions, quoted by
  Kuinoel, there is an account of “a volunteer cohort of _Italian_
  soldiers in Syria;” and Palestine was at this time included
  with Syria, under the presidency of Petronius. This inscription,
  too, justifies my remark as to the high character of those who
  served in this corps. “Cohors militum Italicorum _voluntaria_”
  seems to imply a body of soldiers of a higher character than the
  ordinary mercenary mass of the army, being probably made up of
  _volunteers_ from respectable families of Italy, who chose to
  enlarge their knowledge of the world by foreign military service,
  in this very honorable station of life-guard to the Roman
  governor, as Doddridge and others suppose this to have been.
  (See Doddridge on this passage; also C. G. Schwartz in Wolff,
  Cur. Philology in loc.) It is considered also as fairly proved
  that the “Italian _legion_” was not formed till a much later
  period; so that it is rendered in the highest degree probable
  and unquestionable, that this was a _cohort_, and, as Schwartz
  and Doddridge prove, not a mere ordinary cohort, making the
  tenth part of a common legion of 4200, but a distinct and
  independent corps, attached to no legion, and devoted to the
  exclusive honorable service above mentioned. (See Bloomfield,
  Kuinoel, Rosenmueller, &c.)

  _Devout._――Some have tried hard to make out that Cornelius was
  what they call “a proselyte of the gate;” that is, one who,
  though not circumcised, nor conforming to the rituals generally,
  yet was an observer of the _moral_ law. But Lardner very fully
  shows that there were not two sorts of proselytes; all who bore
  that name fully conforming to the Jewish rituals, but still
  called “strangers,” &c.; because, though admitted to all the
  religious privileges of the covenant, they were excluded from
  the civil and political privileges of Jews, and could not be
  freeholders. Cornelius must then have been a mere Gentile. (See
  Lardner in his life of Peter; also Kuinoel and Bloomfield.)

  _Caesarea._――This is another of those cities enlarged or rebuilt
  by the princes of the Herodian line, and honored with the
  names of the imperial family. This city stood on the sea-shore,
  about 30 miles north of Joppa; and (Modern Traveler) 62
  north-north-west from Jerusalem. (600 stadia Josephus.) It has
  been idly conjectured by the Rabbinical writers, that this was
  the same with Ekron, of the Old Testament, Zephaniah ii. 4;
  while the Arabic version gives it as Hazor, Joshua xi. 1,――both
  with about equal probability. The earliest name by which it
  can be certainly recognized, is Apollonia, which it bore when
  it passed from the Syro-Grecians to the Maccabean princes.
  Its common name, in the time of Herod the Great, was πυργος
  Στρατωνος, _turris Stratonis_, “Straton’s castle,” from the name
  of a Greek pirate who had built a strong hold here. Herod the
  Great made it the most splendid city in his dominions, and even
  in all the eastern part of the Roman empire; and in honor of
  Augustus Caesar, called it Caesarea Augusta. It was sometimes
  called Caesarea _Palestinae_, to distinguish it from Caesarea
  _Philippi_; for Palestine was then a name limited to the
  southern part of the coast of the Holy Land, and was bounded on
  the north by Phoenicia. This city was the capital of the whole
  Holy Land throughout the period of the later Herodian and Roman
  sway.

To this man was sent the first heavenly call, which ended in bringing
in the Gentiles to the knowledge of the truth revealed by Jesus. After
having fasted all day, he was employed in his regular devotions, at
the usual hour of prayer, (three o’clock in the afternoon,) when his
senses were overwhelmed by a vision, in which he had a distinct view
of a messenger of God, in shining garments, coming to him; and heard
him call him by his name, “Cornelius!” Looking at him as steadily as
he was able in his great alarm, Cornelius asked, “What is it, Lord?”
The heavenly visitant replied, in words of consolation and high praise,
“Thy prayers and thy alms have come up in remembrance before God. And
now send men to Joppa, and call for a man named Simon Peter, lodging
with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea-side. He, when he comes,
shall tell thee what it is right that thou shouldst do.” When the
surprising messenger had given this charge, he departed; and Cornelius,
without delay, went to fulfil the minute directions he had received.
He called two of his domestics, and a devout soldier of the detachment
then on duty near him, and having related to them all that he had just
seen and heard, he sent them to Joppa, to invite Peter according to the
order. The distance between the two places is about thirty-five miles,
and being too great to be easily traveled in one day, they journeyed
thither during a part of two days, starting immediately when they
received the command, though late in the afternoon. While they were
continuing their journey, the next day, and were now near to the city
of Joppa, Peter, without any idea of the important task to which he
was soon to be summoned, went up, as usual, to the Alijah, or place of
prayer, upon the house-top, at about twelve o’clock, mid-day. Having,
according to the usual custom of the Jews, fasted for many hours, for
the sake of keeping the mind clear from the effects of gross food on
the body, and at length becoming sensible that he had pushed himself to
the utmost limits of safe abstinence, he wished for food, and ordered
his dinner. While the servants were preparing it, he continued above,
in the place of prayer, where, enfeebled by fasting, and over-wrought
by mental effort, he fell into a state of spiritual excitement, in
which the mind is most susceptible of strong impressions of things
beyond the reach of sense. In this condition, there appeared to him
a singular vision, which subsequent events soon enabled him fully to
interpret. It seemed to him that a great sheet was let down from the
sky, to which it was fastened by the four corners, containing on its
vast surface all sorts of animals that were forbidden as food by the
Mosaic law. While the apostle gazed upon this vast variety of animals,
which education had taught him to consider unclean, there came a voice
to him, calling him by name, and commanding him to arise, kill, and
eat. All his prejudices and early religious impressions were roused
by such a proposal; and, resisting the invisible speaker as the agent
of temptation to him in his bodily exhaustion, he replied, in all the
pride of a scrupulous and unpolluted Jew, “By no means, Lord, because
I have never eaten anything improper or unclean.” The mysterious voice
again said, “What God hath cleansed, do not thou consider improper.”
This impressive scene having been twice repeated, the whole was
withdrawn back into heaven. This remarkable vision immediately called
out all the energies of Peter’s mind, in its explanation. But before
he had time to decide for himself what was meant by it, the messengers
of Caesarea had inquired out the house of Simon, and, coming to the
outside door, they called to learn whether Simon, who was surnamed
Peter, lodged there. And while the mind of Peter was still intently
occupied with the vision, he received an intimation from the unerring
spirit, that his presence was required elsewhere. “Behold! three men
are seeking thee, but rise up and go with them, without hesitation;
for I have sent them.” Thus urged and encouraged, Peter went directly
down to the men sent by Cornelius, and said, “Behold! I am he whom ye
seek. What is your object in coming here?” They at once unfolded their
errand. “Cornelius, a centurion, a just man, fearing God, and of good
repute among all the Jews, was instructed by a holy messenger, to send
for thee to his house, that he may hear something from thee.” Peter,
already instructed as to the proper reception of the invitation, asked
them in, and hospitably entertained them till the next day, improving
the delay, no doubt, by learning as many of the circumstances of the
case as they could give him. The news of this remarkable call was also
made known to the brethren of the church in Joppa, some of whom were so
highly interested in what they heard that evening, that they resolved
to accompany Peter the next day, with the messengers, to see and hear
for themselves the details of a business which promised to result so
fairly in the glory of Christ’s name, and the wide enlargement of his
kingdom. On the next day, the whole party set out together, and reached
Caesarea, the second day of their journey; and going straight to the
house of Cornelius, they found quite a large company there, awaiting
their arrival. For Cornelius, expecting them, had invited his relations
and his intimate friends, to hear the extraordinary communications
which had been promised him, from his visitor. The kindred here alluded
to were, perhaps, those of his wife, whom, according to a very common
usage, he may have married in the place where he was stationed; for it
is hardly probable that a Roman captain from Italy could have had any
of his own blood relations about him, unless, perhaps, some of them
might have enlisted with him, and now been serving with him on this
honorable post. His near friends, who completed the assembly, were
probably such of his brother officers as he knew to possess kindred
tastes with himself, and to take an interest in religious matters. Such
was the meeting that Peter found sitting in expectation of his coming;
and so high were the ideas which Cornelius had formed of the character
of his visitor, that, as soon as he met him on his entrance into the
house, he fell down at his feet, and paid him reverence as a superior
being;――an act of abasement towards the inhabitant of a conquered
country, most rare and remarkable in a Roman officer, and one to which
nothing but a notion of supernatural excellence could ever have brought
him, since this was a position assumed not even by those who approached
the emperor himself. Peter, however, had no desire to be made the
object of a reverence so nearly resembling idolatry. Raising up the
prostrate Roman, he said, “Stand up: for I myself am also a man.”
Entering into familiar discourse with him, he now advanced into the
house, and going with him to the great room, he there found a numerous
company. He addressed them in these words: “You know how unlawful it is
for a Jew to be familiar, or even to visit, with one of another nation;
but God has taught me to call no man vulgar or unclean. Wherefore, I
came at your summons, without hesitation. Now, then, I ask with what
design have you sent for me?” And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, I
was fasting till this hour; and at the ninth hour I was praying in my
house;” and so having gone on to narrate all the circumstances of his
vision, as given above, concluded in these words, “For this reason I
sent for thee, and thou hast done well in coming, for we are all here,
before God, to hear what has been imparted to thee, from God.” And
Peter began solemnly to speak, and said, “Of a truth, I perceive that
God is no respecter of persons; but that in every nation, he that
fears him and does what is right, is approved by him.” With this solemn
profession of a new view of this important principle of universal
religion, as a beginning, he went on to satisfy their high expectations,
by setting forth to them the sum and substance of the gospel doctrine,
of whose rise and progress they had already, by report, heard a vague
and partial account. The great and solemn truth which the Spirit had
summoned him to proclaim, was that Jesus Christ the crucified was
ordained by God the judge of both living and dead, and that through
him, as all the prophets testified, every one that believed should have
remission of sins. Of his resurrection from the dead, Peter declared
himself the witness, as well as of his labors of good will towards
man, when, anointed with the Spirit of God, he went about doing good.
Thus did Peter discourse, excited by the novel and divinely appointed
occasion, till the same divine influence that moved his heart and
tongue was poured out on his charmed hearers, and they forthwith
manifested the signs of change of heart and devout faith in Christ, as
the Son of God and the judge of the world; and made known the delight
of their new sensations, in words of miraculous power. At this display
of the equal and impartial grace of God, the Jewish church-members
from Joppa, who had accompanied Peter to Caesarea, were greatly amazed,
having never before imagined it possible for the influences of the
divine spirit to be imparted to any who had not devoutly conformed to
all the rituals of the holy law of old given by God to Moses, whose
high authority was attested amid the smoke and flame and thunder of
Sinai. And what change was this? In the face of this awful sanction,
these believing followers of Moses and Christ saw the outward signs
of the inward action of that Spirit which they had been accustomed
to acknowledge as divine, now moving with the same holy energy the
souls and voices of those born and bred among the heathen, without the
consecrating aid of one of those forms of purification, by which Moses
had ordained their preparation for the enjoyment of the blessings
of God’s holy covenant with his own peculiar people. Moved by that
same mysterious and holy influence, the Gentile warriors of Rome now
lifted up their voices in praise of the God of Israel and of Abraham,
――doubtless too, _their_ God and Father, though Abraham were ignorant
of them, and Israel acknowledged them not; since through his son Jesus
a new covenant had been sealed in blood, opening and securing the
blessings of that merciful and faithful promise to all nations. On
Jehovah they now called as their Father and Redeemer, whose name was
from everlasting,――known and worshiped long ere Abraham lived. Never
before had the great partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles been thus
broken down, nor had the noble and equal freedom of the new covenant
ever yet been so truly and fully made known. And who was he that had
thus boldly trampled on the legal usages of the ancient Mosaic covenant,
as consecrated by the reverence of ages, and had imparted the holy
signs of the Christian faith to men shut out from the mysteries
of the inner courts of the house of God? It was not a presumptuous
or unauthorized man, nor one thoughtless of the vastly important
consequences of the act. It was the constituted leader of the apostolic
band, who now, in direct execution of his solemn commission received
from his Master, and in the literal fulfilment of the prophetic charge
given therewith at the base of distant Hermon, opened the gates of the
kingdom of heaven to all nations. Bearing the keys of the kingdom of
God on earth, he now, in the set time of divine appointment, at the
call of his Master in heaven, so signally given to him both directly
and indirectly, unlocked the long-closed door, and with a voice of
heavenly charity, bade the waiting Gentiles enter. This was the mighty
commission with which Jesus had so prophetically honored this chief
disciple at CAESAREA _Philippi_, and here, at CAESAREA _Augusta_, was
achieved the glorious fulfilment of this before mysterious announcement;
――Simon Peter now, in the accomplishment of that divinely appointed
task, became the ROCK, on which the church of Christ was, through the
course of ages, reared; and in this act, the first stone of its broad
Gentile foundation was laid.

  _On duty about him._――This phrase is the just translation of the
  technical term προσκαρτερουντων, (_proskarterounton_,) according
  to Price, Kuinoel, Bloomfield, &c.

Of all the honors with which his apostolic career was marked, there is
none which equals this,――the revolutionizing of the whole gospel plan
as before understood and advanced by its devotees,――the enlargement of
its scope beyond the widest range of any merely Jewish charity,――and
the disenthralment of its subjects from the antique formality and
cumbrous ritual of the Jewish worship. And of all the events which the
apostolic history records, there is none which, in its far-reaching and
long-lasting effects, can match the opening of Christ’s kingdom to the
Gentiles. What would have been the rate of its advancement under the
management of those, who, like the apostles hitherto, looked on it
as a mere improvement and spiritualization of the old Mosaic form, to
which it was, in their view, only an appendage, and not a substitute?
Think of what chances there were of its extension under such views to
those far western lands where, ages ago, it reached with its benign
influences the old Teutonic hordes from whom we draw our race;――or of
what possibility there was of ever bringing under the intolerable yoke
of Jewish forms, the hundreds of millions who now, out of so many lands
and kindreds and tongues, bear the light yoke, and own the simpler
faith of Jesus, confessing him Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Yet hitherto, so far from seeing these things in their true light,
all the followers of Christ had, notwithstanding his broad and
open commission to them, steadily persisted in the notion, that the
observance of the regulations laid down by Moses for proselytes to
his faith, was equally essential for a full conversion to the faith of
Christ. And now too, it required a new and distinctly repeated summons
from above, to bring even the great chief of the apostles to the just
sense of the freedom of the gospel, and to the practical belief that
God was no respecter of persons. But the whole progress of the event,
with all its miraculous attestations, left so little doubt of the
nature of the change, that Peter, after the manifestation of a holy
spirit in the hearts and voices of the Gentile converts, triumphantly
appealed to the Jewish brethren who had accompanied him from Joppa, and
asked them, “Can any one forbid the water for the baptizing of these,
who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” Taking the unanimous
suffrage of their silence to his challenge, as a full consent, he gave
directions that the believing Romans should be baptized in the name of
the Lord, as Jesus in his parting charge had constituted that ordinance
for the seal of redemption to every creature, in all the nations to
whom the gospel should be preached. Having thus formally enrolled
the first Gentile converts, as the free and complete partakers of the
blessings of the new covenant, he stayed among them several days, at
their request, strengthening their faith, and enlarging their knowledge
by his pastoral instruction; which he deemed a task of sufficient
importance to detain him, for a while, from his circuit among the new
converts, scattered about in other places throughout Palestine, and
from any immediate return to his friends and converts at Joppa, where
this call had found him.

Meanwhile, this mighty innovation on the established order of sacred
things could not be long unknown beyond the cities of Caesarea and
Joppa, but was soon announced by the varied voice of rumor to the
amazed apostles and brethren at Jerusalem. The impression made on
them by this vague report of their great leader’s proceedings, was
most decidedly unfavorable; and there seem to have been not a few who
regarded this unprecedented act of Peter as a downright abuse of the
dignity and authority with which the special commission of his Master
had invested him. Doubtless, in that little religious community, as in
every other association of men ever gathered, there were already many
human jealousies springing up like roots of bitterness, which needed
but such an occasion as this, to manifest themselves in decided censure
of the man, whose remarkable exaltation over them might seem like a
stigma on the capacities or merits of those to whom he was preferred.
Those in whose hearts such feelings had been rankling, now found
a great occasion for the display of their religious zeal, in this
bold movement of their constituted leader, who herein seemed to
have presumed on his distinction and priority, to act in a matter of
the very highest importance, without the slightest reference to the
feelings and opinions of those, who had been with him chosen for the
great work of spreading the gospel to all nations. And so much of free
opinion and expression was there among them, that this act of the chief
apostle called forth complaints both deep and loud, from his brethren,
against this open and unexplained violation of the holy ordinances
of that ancient law, which was still to them and him the seal and
sign of salvation. Peter, at length, after completing his apostolic
circuit among the churches, of which no farther account is given to
us, returned to Jerusalem to meet these murmurs with the bold and clear
declaration of the truth. As soon as he arrived, the grumblers burst
out on him with open complaints of his offensive violations of the
strict religious exclusiveness of demeanor, which became a son of
Israel professing the pure reformed faith of Jesus. The unhesitating
boldness with which this charge of a breach of order was made against
Peter by the sticklers for circumcision, is a valuable and interesting
proof, that all his authority and dignity among them, did not amount to
anything like a _supremacy_; and that whatever he might bind or loose
on earth for the high sanction of heaven, he could neither bind the
tongues and opinions, nor loose the consciences of these sturdy and
free-spoken brethren. Nor does Peter seem to have had the least idea
of claiming any exemption from their critical review of his actions;
but straightway addressed himself respectfully to them, in a faithful
detail of his conduct, and the reasons of it. He distinctly recounted
to them the clear and decided call which he considered himself to
have received from heaven, by which he was summoned as the spiritual
guide of the inquiring Gentiles. And after the honest recital of the
whole series of incidents, and of the crowning act of the whole, the
imparting to them the outward sign of inward washing from their sins,
he boldly appealed to the judgments of his accusers, to say whether,
in the face of such a sanction, they would have had him do otherwise.
“When the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning, then
remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said,” (when parting
from us, on the top of Olivet, to rise to the bosom of his father,
prophetically announcing a new and holy consecration and endowment for
our work,) “John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost.” This peculiar gift thus solemnly announced, we
had indeed received at the pentecost, and its outward signs we had
thereby learned infallibly by our own experience; and even so, at
Caesarea, I recognized in those Gentiles the same tokens by which I
knew the workings of divine grace in myself and you. “Forasmuch, then,
as God gave them the like gift as to us, who believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ, what was I, that I should withstand God?”――This clear and
unanswerable appeal silenced the clamors of the bold assertors of the
inviolability of Mosaic forms; and when they heard these things, they
held their peace, and, softened from their harsh spirit of rebuke, they,
in a noble feeling of truly Christian triumph, forgot all their late
exclusiveness, in a pure joy for the new and vast extension of the
dominion of Christ, secured by this act, whose important consequences
they were not slow in perceiving. They praised God for such a beginning
of mighty results, and laying aside, in this moment of exultation,
every feeling of narrow Jewish bigotry, they acknowledged that “to the
Gentiles also, God had granted repentance unto life.”

                            HEROD AGRIPPA.

At this time, the monarch of the Roman world was Caius Caesar, commonly
known by his surname, Caligula. Among the first acts of a reign,
whose outset was deservedly popular for its numerous manifestations of
prudence and benevolence, forming a strange contrast with subsequent
tyranny and folly, was the advancement of a tried and faithful friend,
to the regal honors and power which his birth entitled him to claim,
and from which the neglectful indifference at first, and afterwards the
revengeful spite of the preceding Caesar, Tiberius, had long excluded
him. This was Herod Agrippa, grandson of that great Herod, who, by
the force of his own exalted genius, and by the favor of the imperial
Augustus, rose from the place of a friendless foreign adventurer, to
the kingly sway of all Palestine. This extensive power he exercised
in a manner which was, on the whole, ultimately advantageous to
his subjects; but his whole reign, and the later years of it more
particularly, were marked by cruelties the most infamous, to which he
was led by almost insane fits of the most causeless jealousy. On none
of the subjects of his power, did this tyrannical fury fall with such
frequent and dreadful visitations, as on his own family; and it was
there, that, in his alternate fits of fury and remorse, he was made the
avenger of his own victims. Among these numerous domestic cruelties,
one of the earliest, and the most distressing, was the murder of the
amiable Mariamne, the daughter of the last remnants of the Asmonaean
line,――

                  “Herself the solitary scion left
                   Of a time-honored race,”

which Herod’s remorseless policy had exterminated. Her he made his wife,
and after a few years sacrificed her to some wild freak of jealousy,
only to reap long years of agonizing remorse for the hasty act, when
a cooler search had shown, too late, her stainless innocence. But a
passionate despot never yet learned wisdom by being made to feel the
recoil of his own folly; and in the course of later years this cruelty
was equalled, and almost outdone, by a similar act, committed by him
on those whom her memory should have saved, if anything could. The
innocent and unfortunate Mariamne left him two sons, then mere children,
whom the miserable, repentant tyrant, cherished and reared with an
affectionate care, which might almost have seemed a partial atonement
for the injuries of their murdered mother. After some years passed in
obtaining a foreign education at the imperial court of Rome, these two
sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, returned at their father’s summons,
to his court, where their noble qualities, their eloquence and manly
accomplishments, as well as the interest excited by their mother’s fate,
drew on them the favorable and admiring regard of the whole people. But
all that made them admirable and amiable to others, was as powerless
as the memory of their mother, to save them from the fury of the
suspicious tyrant. Those whose interests could be benefited by such a
course, soon found means to make them objects of jealousy and terror
to him, and ere long involved them in a groundless accusation of
conspiring against his dominion and life. The uneasiness excited in
Herod by their great popularity and their commanding talents, led
him to believe this charge; and the miserable old tyrant, driven
from fear to jealousy, and from jealousy to fury, at last crowned
his own wretchedness and their wrongs, by strangling them both, after
an imprisonment of so great a length as to take away from his crime
even the shadowy excuse of hastiness. This was one of the last acts
of a bloody life; but ere he died, returning tenderness towards the
unfortunate race of Mariamne, led him to spare and cherish the infant
children of Aristobulus, the younger of the two, who left three sons
and two daughters to the tender mercies of his cruel father. One of
these was the person who is concerned in the next event of Peter’s life,
and whose situation and conduct in reference to that affair, was such
as to justify this prolonged episode. He received in infancy the name
of Agrippa, out of compliment to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the favorite
and minister of Augustus Caesar, and the steady friend of the great
Herod. This name was exclusively borne by this son of Aristobulus in
childhood, nor was it ever displaced by any other, except by some of
the Jews, who, out of compliment to the restoration of the Herodian
line of kings, in place of the Roman sub-governors, gave him the name
of his royal grandfather, so that he is mentioned only by the name
of Herod in the story of the Acts of the Apostles; but the Romans and
Greeks seem to have known him only by his proper name of Agrippa. The
tardy repentance of his grandfather did not extend to any important
permanent provision for the children of Aristobulus; but on his death a
few years after, they were left with the great majority of the numerous
progeny of Herod, to the precarious fortunes of dependent princes. The
young Agrippa having married his own cousin, Cypros, the daughter of a
daughter of Herod and Mariamne, sailed to Rome, where he remained for
several years, a sort of beggar about the court of Tiberius Caesar,
through whose favor he hoped for an advancement to some one of the
thrones in Palestine, which seemed to be prizes for any of Herod’s
numerous descendents who could best secure the imperial favor, and
depress the possessors in the Caesar’s opinion. Passing at Rome and
elsewhere through a romantic variety of fortune, this adventurer was
at last lucky in securing to himself the most friendly regard of Caius
Caesar, then the expected successor of the reigning emperor. This
afterwards proved the basis of his fortunes, which for a while, however,
were darkened by the consequences of an imprudent remark made to Caius,
expressive of a wish for the death of Tiberias, which was reported
to the jealous tyrant by a listening slave, and finally caused the
speaker’s close imprisonment during the rest of the emperor’s life.
The death of Tiberius, followed by the accession of Caius Caesar to
the throne, raised Agrippa from his chains to freedom, and to the
most intimate favor of the new monarch. The tetrarchy of Iturea and
Trachonitis, then vacant by the death of Philip, was immediately
conferred on him; and soon after, Herod Antipas having been exiled, his
territories, Galilee and Peraea, were added to the former dominions of
Herod Agrippa, and with them was granted to him the title of _king_,
which had never yet been given to any of the descendents of Herod the
Great. In this state were the governments of these countries at the
time of the events last narrated; but Herod Agrippa, often visiting
Rome, left all Palestine in the hands of Publius Petronius, the
just and benevolent Roman president of Syria. In this state, affairs
remained during all the short reign of Caius Caligula Caesar, who,
after four years mostly characterized by folly, vice and cruelty, ended
his days by the daggers of assassins. But this great event proved no
check to the flourishing fortunes of his favorite, king Herod Agrippa;
who, in the course of the events which ended in placing Claudius on
the throne, so distinguished himself in the preliminary negociations
between the new emperor and the senate, sharing as he did the
confidence and regard of both parties, that he was justly considered by
all, as the most active means of effecting the comfortable settlement
of their difficulties; and he was therefore deemed well deserving
of the highest rewards. Accordingly, the first act of Claudius’s
government, like the first of Caligula’s, was the presentation of a
new kingdom to this favorite of fortune,――Judea being now added to
the other countries in his possession, and thus bringing all Palestine
into one noble kingdom, beneath his extensive sway. With a dominion
comprising all that the policy of his grandfather had been able to
attain during a long and active life, he now found himself, at the
age of fifty-one, one of the most extraordinary instances of romantic
fortune that had ever occurred; and anxious to enjoy something of the
solid pleasure of visiting and governing his great and flourishing
kingdom, he set sail from Rome, which had been so long to him the
scene of such varied fortune, such calamitous poverty and tedious
imprisonment,――and now proceeded as the proud king of Palestine, going
home in triumph to the throne of his ancestor, supported by the most
boundless pledges of imperial favor. The emperor Claudius, though
regretting exceedingly the departure of the tried friend whom he had
so much reason to love and cherish, yet would not detain him from
a happiness so noble and desirable, as that of arranging and ruling
his consolidated dominion. Even his departure, however, was made the
occasion of new marks of imperial favor; for Claudius gave him letters
by which all Roman governors were bound to acknowledge and support him
as the rightful sovereign of Palestine. He arrived in Palestine shortly
after, and just before the passover, made his appearance in Jerusalem,
where he was received with joy and hope by the expecting people, who
hailed with open hearts a king whose interests would be identified
with theirs, and with the glory of the Jewish name. His high and
royal race,――his own personal misfortunes and the unhappy fate of
his early-murdered father, as well as his descent from the lamented
Mariamne,――his well-known amiability of character, and his regard for
the holy Jewish faith, which he had shown by exerting and even risking
all his favor with Caligula to prevent, in co-operation with the
amiable Petronius, the profanation of the temple as proposed by the
erection of the emperor’s statue within it,――all served to throw a most
attractive interest around him, and to excite brilliant hopes, which
his first acts immediately more than justified. The temple, though now
so resplendent with the highest ♦achievements of art, and though so
vast in its foundations and dimensions, was still considered as having
some deficiencies, so great, that nothing but royal munificence could
supply them. The Jews therefore seized the fortunate occasion of the
accession of their new and amiable monarch to his throne, to obtain the
perfection of a work on which the hearts of the people were so much set,
and the completion of which would so highly advance the monarch in the
popular favor. The king at once benignantly heard their request, and
gladly availing himself of this opportunity to gratify his subjects,
and secure a regard from them which might some day be an advantage to
him, immediately ordered the great work to proceed at his expense. The
satisfaction of the people and the Sanhedrim was now at the highest
pitch; and, ♠emboldened by these displays of royal favor, some of the
sage plotters among them hoped to obtain from him a favorable hearing
on a matter which they deemed of still deeper importance to their
religion, and in which his support was equally indispensable. This
matter brings back the forsaken narrative to consideration.

    ♦ “achievments” replaced with “achievements”

    ♠ “emboldenened” replaced with “emboldened”

  _Herod Agrippa._――All the interesting details of this richly
  romantic life, are given in a most delightful style by Josephus.
  (Antiquities, XVIII. v. 3,‒viii. 9. and XIX. i‒ix.) The same
  is more concisely given by the same author in another place.
  (Jewish War, II. ix. 5,‒xi. 6.) The prominent events of
  Petronius’s administration, are also given in the former.

                  THE PEACEFUL PROGRESS OF THE FAITH.

The apostles, after the great events last narrated, gave themselves
with new zeal to the work which was now so vastly extended by the
opening of the wide field of the Gentiles. Others of the refugees from
the popular rage, at the time of Stephen’s murder, had gone even beyond
the boundaries of Palestine, bringing into the sphere of apostolic
operations a great number of interesting subjects, before unthought of.
Some of the bold, free workers, who had heard of the late changes in
the views of the apostles, respecting the characters of those for whom
the gospel was designed, now no longer limited their efforts of love
to the children of the stock of Abraham, but proclaimed the faith of
Jesus to those who had before never heard his name. The gospel was
thus carried into Syria and Cyprus, and thence rapidly spread into many
other countries, where Macedonian conquest and Hellenic colonization
had made the Greek the language of cities, courts, commerce, and, to
a great extent, of literature. The great city of Antioch soon became
a sort of metropolis of the numerous churches, which sprang up in that
region, beyond the immediate reach of Jerusalem, now the common home of
the apostles, and the center of the Christian, as of the Jewish faith.
Grecians as well as Jews, in this new march of the gospel, were made
sharers in its blessings; and the multiplication of converts among
them was so rapid as to give a new importance, at once, to this sort
of Christians. The communication of these events to the apostles at
Jerusalem, called for some systematic action on their part, to confirm
and complete the good work thus begun by the random and occasional
efforts of mere wandering fugitives from persecution. They accordingly
selected persons especially fitted for this field of labor, and
despatched them to Antioch, to fulfil the duties imposed on the
apostles in ♦reference to this new opening. The details of the
operations of these new laborers, will be given in their lives
hereafter.

    ♦ “refereuce” replaced with “reference”

In performing the various offices required in their domestic and
foreign fields of labor, now daily multiplying, Peter and his
associates had continued for several years steadily occupied, but
achieving no particular action that has received notice in the history
of their acts; so that the most of this part of their lives remains a
blank to the modern investigator. All that is known is, that between
the churches of Syria and Palestine there was established a frequent
friendly intercourse, more particularly between the metropolitan
churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. From the former went forth preachers
to instruct and confirm the new and untaught converts of the latter,
who had been so lately strangers to God’s covenant of promise with his
people; while from the thriving and benevolent disciples of Antioch
were sent back, in grateful recompense, the free offerings of such aid
as the prevalence of a general dearth made necessary for the support
of their poor and friendless brethren in Jerusalem; and the very men
who had been first sent to Antioch with the commission to build up and
strengthen that infant church, now returned to the mother church at
Jerusalem, with the generous relief which gratitude prompted these new
sons to render to the authors of their faith.

                           ROMAN TOLERANCE.

These events and the occasion of them occurred in the reign of Claudius
Caesar, as Luke particularly records,――thus marking the lapse of time
during the unregistered period of the apostolic acts; which is also
confirmed by the circumstances of Herod Agrippa’s reign, mentioned
immediately after, as occurring “about that time;” for, as has been
specified above, Herod Agrippa did not rule Judea till the reign of
Claudius. The crucifixion of Jesus occurred three years before the
death of Tiberius; and as the whole four years of the reign of Caligula
was passed over in this space, it could not have been less than
ten years after the crucifixion, when these events took place. This
calculation allows time for such an advance of the apostolic enterprise,
as would, under their devoted energy, make the sect most formidable
to those who regarded its success as likely to shake the security of
the established order of religious things, by impairing the popular
reverence for the regularly constituted heads of Judaism. Such had been
its progress, and such was the impression made by its advance. There
could no longer be any doubt as to the prospect of its final ascendency,
if it was quietly left to prosper under the steady and devoted labors
of its apostles, with all the advantages of the re-action which had
taken place from the former cruel persecution which they had suffered.
For several years the government of Palestine had been in such hands
that the Sanhedrim had few advantages for securing the aid of the
secular power, in consummating their exterminating plans against the
growing heresy. Not long after the time of Pilate, the government
of Judea had been committed by the emperor to Publius Petronius, the
president of Syria, a man who, on the valuable testimony of Josephus,
appears to have been of the most amiable and upright character,――wholly
devoted to the promotion of the real interests of the people whom he
ruled. On several occasions, he distinguished himself by his tenderness
towards the peculiarly delicate religious feelings of the Jews, and
once even risked and incurred the wrath of the vindictive Caligula,
by disobeying his commands to profane the temple at Jerusalem by the
erection of that emperor’s statue within its holy courts,――a violation
of the purity of the place which had been suggested to his tyrannical
caprice by the spiteful hint of Apion, of Alexandria. But though
Petronius, in this matter, showed a disposition to incur every hazard
to spare the national and devotional feelings of the Jews so awful
an infliction, there is nothing in his conduct which would lead us
to suppose that he would sacrifice justice to the gratification of
the persecuting malice of the Jews, any more than to the imperious
tyranny of Caligula. The fairest conclusion from the events of his
administration, is, that he regulated his behavior uniformly by his
own sense of justice, with hardly any reference to the wild impulses,
either of popular or imperial tyranny. A noble personification of
independent and invincible justice; but one not beyond the range of
the moral conceptions of a Roman, even under the corrupt and corrupting
rule of the Caesars;――for thus wrote the great moral poet of the
Augustan age, though breathing the enervating air of a servile court,
and living on the favor of a monarch who exacted from his courtiers a
reverence truly idolatrous:

                Justum et tenacem propositi virum,
                Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
                Non vultus instantis tyranni
                Mente quatit solida. * * *

The moral energy of the Roman character made the exemplifications of
this fair ideal not uncommon, even in these latter days of Roman glory.
There were some like Petronius, who gave life and reality to this
poetical conception of Horace,――“A man just and resolute, unshaken
from his firm purpose alike by the wild impulses of popular rage, and
by the frown of an overbearing tyrant.” And these were among the chief
blessings of the Roman sway, to those lands in which it ruled,――that
the great interests of the country were not subjected to the blind
movements of a perverse public opinion, changing with each year,
and frustrating every good which required a steady policy for its
accomplishment,――that the majority of the people were not allowed to
tyrannize over the minority, nor the minority over the majority;――and
that a mighty power amenable to neither, but whose interest and glory
would always coincide with the good of the whole, held over all a
dominion unchecked by the demands of popular caprice. But, alas! for
the imperfections of all human systems;――among the curses of that Roman
sway, must be numbered its liability to fall from the hands of the wise
and amiable, into those of the stupid and brutal; changes which but
too often occurred,――overturning, by the mismanagement of a moment,
the results of years of benevolent and prudent policy. And in this
very case, all the benefits of Petronius’s equitable and considerate
rule, were utterly neutralized and annihilated by the foolishness or
brutality of his successors, till the provoked irritability of the
nation at last broke out with a fierceness that for a time overcame the
securities even of Roman dominion, and was finally quieted only in the
utter ruin of the whole Jewish nation. But during the period of several
years following the exit of Pilate, its beneficial energy was felt in
the quiet tolerance of religious opinion, which he enforced on all,
and which was most highly advantageous to the progress of the doctrine
of Christ. To this circumstance may justly be referred that remarkable
repose enjoyed by the apostles and their followers from all the
interference with their labors by the Roman government. The death of
Jesus Christ himself, indeed, was the only act in which the civil power
had interfered at all! for the murder of Stephen was a mere freak of
mob-violence, a mere Lynch-law proceeding, which the Roman governor
would not have sanctioned, if it had been brought under his cognizance,
――being done as it was, so directly in the face of those principles
of religious tolerance which the policy of the empire enforced every
where, excepting cases in which sedition and rebellion against their
dominion was combined with religious zealotism, like the instances
of the Gaulanitish Judas, Theudas, and others. Even Jesus himself,
was thus accused by the Jews, and was condemned by Pilate for his
alleged endeavors to excite a revolt against Caesar, and opposing the
payment of the Roman taxes,――as is shown by the statement of all the
evangelists, and more particularly by Pilate’s inscription on the cross.
The persecution which followed the murder of Stephen was not carried
on under the sanction of the Roman government, nor yet was it against
their authority; for they permitted to the Sanhedrim the punishment of
most minor offences, so long as they did not go beyond imprisonment,
scourging, banishment, &c. But the punishment of death was entirely
reserved to the civil and military power; and if the Jewish magnates
had ever formally transgressed this limitation, they would have been
instantly punished for it, as a treasonable assumption of that supreme
power which their conquerors were determined to guard with the most
watchful jealousy. The Sanhedrim, being thus restricted in their means
of vengeance, were driven to the low expedient of stirring up the
lawless mob to the execution of these deeds of desperate violence,
which their religious rulers could wink at, and yet were prepared to
disown, when questioned by the Romans, as mere popular ferments, over
which they had no control whatever. So they managed with Stephen; for
his murder was no doubt preconcerted among the chief men, who caused
the formal preamble of a trial, with the design of provoking the mob,
in some way, to this act; in which scheme they were too much favored
by the fiery spirit of the martyr himself, who had not patience enough
with their bigotry, to conceal his abhorrence of it. Their subsequent
systematic and avowed acts of violence, it should be observed, were
all kept strictly within the well-defined limits of their penal
jurisdiction; for there is no evidence whatever that any of the
persecuted Hellenists ever suffered _death_ by the condemnation of
the Sanhedrim, or by the sentence of a Roman tribunal. The progress
of these events, however, showed that this irritating and harassing
system of whippings, imprisonments and banishments, had a tendency
rather to excite the energies of these devoted heretics, than to
check or crush their spirit of innovation and denunciation. Among
the numerous instances of malignant assault on the personal rights of
these sufferers, and the cruel violation of the delicacy due to the
weaker sex, there must have been, also, many occasions in which the
ever-varying feelings of the public would be moved to deep sympathy
with sufferers who bore, so steadily and heroically, punishments
manifestly disproportioned to the offense with which they were
charged,――a sympathy which might finally rise to a high and resistless
indignation against their remorseless oppressors. It is probable,
therefore, that this persecution was at last allayed by other causes
than the mere defection of its most zealous agent. The conviction must
have been forced on the minds of the persecutors, that this system,
with all its paltry and vexatious details, must be given up, or
exchanged for one whose operations should be so vast and sweeping in
its desolating vengeance, as to overawe and appal, rather than awaken
zeal in the objects of the punishment, or sympathy in the beholders.
The latter alternative, however, was too hopeless, under the steady,
benignant sway of Petronius, to be calculated upon, until a change
should take place which should give the country a ruler of less
independent and scrupulous character, and more disposed to sacrifice
his own moral sense to the attainment of favor with the most important
subjects of his government. Until that desirable end should be attained,
in the course of the frequent changes of the imperial succession, it
seemed best to let matters take their own course; and they accordingly
dropped all active proceedings, leaving the new sect to progress as it
might, with the impulse gained from the re-action consequent on this
late unfortunate excitement against it. But they still kept a watchful
eye on their proceedings, though with hands for a while powerless; and
treasured up accumulating vengeance through tedious years, for the day
when the progress of political changes should bring the secular power
beneath their influence, and make it subservient to their purpose of
dreadful retribution. That day had now fully come.

                     PETER’S THREATENED MARTYRDOM.

The long expected favorite and friend of the Jewish people, having been
thus hailed sovereign by their grateful voices, and having strengthened
his throne and influence by his opening acts of liberality and devotion
to the national faith, now entered upon a reign which presented only
the portents of a course most auspicious to his own fame and his
people’s good. Uniting in his person the claims of the Herodian and
Asmonaean lines,――with the blood of the heroic Maccabees in his veins,
――crowned by the imperial lord of the civilized world, whose boundless
power was pledged in his support, by the obligations of an intimate
personal friendship, and of a sincere gratitude for the attainment
of the throne of the Caesars through his prompt and steady exertions,
――received with universal joy and hope by all the dwellers of the
consolidated kingdoms of his dominion, which had been long thriving
under the mild and equitable administration of a prudent governor,
――there seemed nothing wanting to complete the happy auspices of a
glorious reign, under which the ancient honors of Israel should be more
than retrieved from the decline of ages. Yet what avails the bright
array of happily conspiring circumstances, to prince or people, against
the awful majesty of divine truth, or the pure, simple energy of human
devotion? Within the obscurer corners of his vast territories, creeping
for room under the outermost colonnades of that mighty temple whose
glories he had pledged himself to renew,――wandering like outcasts from
place to place,――seeking supporters only among the unintellectual mass
of the people,――were a set of men of whom he probably had not heard
until he entered his own dominions. They were now suggested to his
notice for the first time, by the decided voice of censure from the
devout and learned guardians of the purity of the law of God, who
invoked the aid of his sovran power, to check and utterly uproot this
heresy, which the unseasonable tolerance of Roman government had too
long shielded from the just visitations of judicial vengeance. Nor did
the royal Agrippa hesitate to gratify, in this slight and reasonable
matter, the express wishes of the reverend heads of the Jewish faith
and law. Ah! how little did he think, that in that trifling movement
was bound up the destiny of ages, and that its results would send his
name――though then so loved and honored――like Pharaoh’s, down to all
time, a theme of religious horror and holy hatred, to the unnumbered
millions of a thousand races, and lands then unknown;――an awful doom,
from which one act of benign protection, or of prudent kindness, to
that feeble band of hated, outcast innovators, might have retrieved
his fame, and canonized it in the faithful memory of the just, till
the glory of the old patriarchs and prophets should grow dim. But,
without one thought of consequences, a prophetic revelation of which
would so have appalled him, he unhesitatingly stretched out his arm
in vindictive cruelty over the church of Christ, for the gratification
of those whose praise was to him more than the favor of God. Singling
out first the person whom momentary circumstances might render most
prominent or obnoxious to censure, he at once doomed to a bloody death
the elder son of Zebedee, the second of the great apostolic THREE. No
sooner was this cruel sentence executed, than, with a most remarkable
steadiness in the execution of his bloody plan, he followed up this
action, so pleasing to the Jews, by another similar movement. Peter,
the active leader of the heretical host, ever foremost in braving
the authority of the constituted teachers of the law, and in exciting
commotion and dissatisfaction among the commonalty, was now seized
by a military force, too strong to fear any resistance from popular
movements, which had so much deterred the Sanhedrim. This occurred
during the week of the passover; and such was king Agrippa’s profound
regard for all things connected with his national religion, that he
would not violate the sanctity of this holy festival by the execution
of a criminal, however deserving of vengeance he might seem in that
instance. The fate of Peter being thus delayed, he was therefore
committed to prison, (probably in castle Antonia,) and to prevent all
possibility of his finding means to escape prepared ruin again, he was
confined to the charge of sixteen Roman soldiers, divided into four
sets, of four men each, who were to keep him under constant supervision
day and night, by taking turns, each set an equal time; and according
to the established principles of the Roman military discipline, with
the perfect understanding that if, on the conclusion of the passover,
the prisoner was not forthcoming, the guards should answer the failure
with their lives. These decided and careful arrangements being made,
the king, with his gratified friends in the Sanhedrim and among the
rabble, gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the great national
festival, with a peculiar zest, hightened by the near prospect of the
utter overthrow of the advancing heresy, by the sweeping blow that
robbed them of their two great leaders, and more especially of him who
had been so active in mischievous attempts to perpetuate the memory
of the original founder of the sect, and to frustrate the good effect
of his bloody execution, by giving out that the crucified Jesus still
lived, and would yet come in vengeance on his murderers. While such
triumphant reflections swelled the festal enjoyments of the powerful
foes of Christ, the unhappy company of his persecuted disciples passed
through this anniversary-week with the most mournful reminiscences and
anticipations. Ten years before, in unutterable agony and despair, they
had parted, as they then supposed forever, with their beloved Lord; and
now, after years of devotion to the work for which he had commissioned
them, they were called to renew the deep sorrows of that parting, in
the removal of those who had been foremost among them in the great work,
cheering them and leading them on through toil and peril, with a spirit
truly holy, and with a fearless energy, kindred with that of their
divine Lord. Of these two divinely appointed chiefs, one had already
poured out his blood beneath the executioner’s sword, and the other,
their great leader, the _Rock_ of the church, was now only waiting
the speedy close of the festal week, to crown his glorious course, and
his enemies’ cruel policy, by the same bloody doom; meanwhile held in
the safe keeping of an ever-watchful Roman guard, forbidding even the
wildest hope of escape. Yet why should they wholly despair? On that
passover, ten years before, how far more gloomy and hopeless the glance
they threw on the cross of their Lord! Yet from that doubly hopeless
darkness, what glorious light sprang up to them? And was the hand that
then broke through the bands of death and the gates of Hades, now so
shortened that it could not sever the vile chains of paltry tyranny
which confined this faithful apostle, nor open wide the guarded gates
of his castle prison? Surely there was still hope for faith which had
been taught such lessons of undoubting trust in God. Nor were they
thoughtless of the firm support and high consolations which their
experience afforded. In prayer intense and unceasing, they poured
out their souls in sympathetic grief and supplication, for the relief
of their great elder brother from his deadly peril; and in sorrowful
entreaty the whole church continued day and night, for the safety of
Peter.

  _Castle Antonia._――For Josephus’s account of the position and
  erection of this work, see my note on page 95, (section 8.)
  There has been much speculation about the place of the prison
  to which Peter was committed. The sacred text (Acts xii. 10,)
  makes it plain that it was without the city itself, since after
  leaving the prison it was still necessary to enter the city by
  “the iron gate.” Walch, Kuinoel and Bloomfield adopt the view
  that it was in one of the towers or castles that fortified the
  walls. Wolf and others object to the view that it was without
  the walls; because, as Wolf says, it was not customary to
  have public prisons outside of the cities, since the prisoners
  might in that case be sometimes rescued by a bold assault from
  some hardy band of comrades, &c. But this objection is worth
  nothing against castle Antonia, which, though it stood entirely
  separated from the rest of the city, was vastly strong, and by
  its position as well as fortification, impregnable to any common
  force;――a circumstance which would at once suggest and recommend
  it as a secure place for one who, like Peter, had escaped once
  from the common prison. There was always a Roman garrison in
  Antonia. (Josephus, Jewish War, V. v. 8.)

In the steady contemplation of the nearness of his bloody doom, the
great apostle remained throughout the passover, shut off from all the
consolations of fraternal sympathy, and awaiting the end of the few
hours which were still allotted by the religious scruples of his mighty
sovran. In his high and towering prison in Castle Antonia, parted
only by a deep, broad rift in the precipitous rocks, from the great
terraces of the temple itself, from whose thronged courts now rung the
thanksgiving songs of a rejoicing nation, he heard them, sending up
in thousands of voices the praise of their fathers’ God, who still
remembered Israel in mercy, renewing their ancient glories under the
bright and peaceful dominion of their new-crowned king. And with the
anthems of praise to God which sounded along the courts and porches
of the temple, were no doubt heard, too, the thanks of many a grateful
Hebrew for the goodness of the generous king, who had pledged his
royal word to complete the noble plan of that holy pile, as suited
the splendid conceptions of the founder. And this was the king whose
decree had doomed that lonely and desolate prisoner in the castle, to
a bloody and shameful death,――as a crowning offering at the close of
the great festival; and how few among that vast throng, before whose
eyes he was to yield his life, would repine at the sentence that dealt
exterminating vengeance on the obstinately heretical preacher of the
crucified Nazarene’s faith! Well might such dark visions of threatening
ruin appal a heart whose enthusiasm had caught its flame from the
unholy fires of worldly ambition, or devoted its energies to the low
purpose of human ascendency. And truly sad would have been the lonely
thoughts of this very apostle, if this doom had found him in the spirit
which first moved him to devote himself to the cause which now required
the sacrifice of life. But higher hopes and feelings had inspired his
devoted exertions for _ten years_, and higher far, the consolations
which now sustained him in his friendless desolation. This very fate,
he had long been accustomed to regard as the earthly meed of his labors;
and he had too often been threatened with it, to be overwhelmed by
its near prospect. Vain, then, were all solemn details of that awful
sentence, to strike terror into his fixed soul,――vain the dark sureties
of the high, steep rock, the massive, lofty walls, the iron gates, the
ever-watchful Roman guards, the fetters and manacles, to control or
check the

             “Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!――
              Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
              For there thy habitation is the heart.”

Thus sublimely calm, sat Peter in his prison, waiting for death. Day
after day, all day long, the joyous feast went on beneath him:――the
offering, the prayer and the hymn varying the mighty course, from the
earliest morning supplication to the great evening sacrifice. Up rolled
the glorious symphony of the Levites’ thousand horns, and the choral
harmony of their chanting voices,――up rolled the clouds of precious
incense to the skiey throne of Israel’s God,――and with this music and
fragrance, up rolled the prayers of Israel’s worshiping children; but
though the glorious sound and odor fell delightfully on the senses of
the lonely captive, as they passed upwards by his high prison-tower,
no voice of mercy came from below, to cheer him in his desolation. But
from above, from the heaven to which all these prayer-bearing floods
of incense and harmony ascended, came down divine consolation and
miraculous delivery to this poor, despised prisoner, with a power and
a witness that not all the solemn pomp of the passover ceremony could
summon in reply to its costly offerings. The feeble band of sorrowing
Nazarenes, from their little chamber, were lifting unceasing voices
of supplication for their brother, in his desperate prospects, which
entered with his solitary prayer into the ears of the God of Hosts,
while the ostentatious worship of king Agrippa and his reverend
supporters, only brought back shame and woful ruin on their impious
supplications for the divine sanction to their bloody plans of
persecution. At last the solemn passover-rites of “the last great day
of the feast” were ended;――the sacrifice, the incense and the song,
rose no more from the sanctuary,――the fires on the altars went out,
the hum and the roar of worshiping voices was hushed, and the departing
throngs poured through the “ETERNAL” and the “BEAUTIFUL” gates, till at
last the courts and porches of the temple were empty through all their
vast extent, and hushed in a silence, deep as the ruinous oblivion to
which the voice of their God had doomed them shortly to pass; and all
was still, save where the footfall of the passing priest echoed along
the empty colonnades, as he hurried over the vast pavements into the
dormitories of the inner temple; or where the mighty gates thundered
awfully as they swung heavily together under the strong hands of the
weary Levites, and sent their long reverberations among the walls.
Even these closing sounds soon ceased also; the Levite watchmen took
their stand on the towers of the temple, and paced their nightly
rounds along the flat roofs, guarding with careful eyes their holy
shrine, lest the impious should, under cover of night, again profane
it, (as the Samaritans had secretly done a few years before.) And on
the neighboring castle of Antonia, the Roman garrison, too, had set
their nightly watch, and the iron warriors slumbered, each in his turn,
till the round of duty should summon him to relieve guard. Within the
_dungeon keep_ of the castle, was still safely held the weighty trust
that was to be answered for, on peril of life; and all arrangements
were made which so great a responsibility seemed to require. The
prisoner already somewhat notorious for making unaccountable escapes
from guarded dungeons, was secured with a particularity, quite
complimentary to his dexterity as a jail-breaker. The quaternion on
duty was divided into two portions; each half being so disposed and
posted as to effect the most complete supervision of which the place
was capable,――two men keeping watch outside of the well-bolted door
of the cell, and two within, who, not limited to the charge of merely
keeping their eyes on the prisoner, had him fastened to their bodies,
by a chain on each side. In this neighborly proximity to his rough
companions, Peter was in the habit of passing the night; but in the
day-time was freed from one of these chains, remaining attached to only
one soldier. (This arrangement was in accordance with the standard mode
of guarding important state-prisoners among the Romans.) Matters being
thus accommodated, and the watch being set for the next three hours,
Peter’s two _fast_ companions, finding him but indifferent company, no
doubt, notwithstanding his sociable position, soon grew quite dull in
the very tame employment of seeing that he did not run away with them;
for as to getting away _from_ them, the idea could have no place at
all in the supposition. These sturdy old veterans had probably, though
Gentiles, conformed so far to Judaical rituals as to share in the
comfortable festivities of this great religious occasion, and could
not have suffered any heathenish prejudices to prevent them from a
hearty participation in the joyous draughts of the wine, which as usual
did its part to enliven the hearts and countenances of all those who
passed the feast-day in Jerusalem. The passover coming so many months
after the vintage too, the fermentation of a long season must have
considerably energized “the pure juice of the grape,” so that its
exhilarant and narcotic powers could have been by no means feeble;
and if the change thus wrought by time and its own inherent powers,
at all corresponds to that which takes places in cider in this country
under the same circumstances, the latter power must have so far
predominated, as to leave them rather below than above the ordinary
standard of vivacity, and induce that sort of apathetic indifference
to consequences, which is far from appropriate in a soldier on duty
over an important trust. Be that as it may, Peter’s two room-mates soon
gave themselves quietly up to slumber. If any scruple arose in their
heavy heads as to the risk they ran in case of his escape, that was
soon soothed by the consideration of the vast number of impassable
securities upon the prisoner. They might well reason with themselves,
“If this sharp Galilean can manage to break his chains without waking
us, and burst open this stout door in spite of bars, without rousing
the sentinels who are posted against it on the outside, and make his
way unseen and unchecked through all the gates and guards of Castle
Antonia――why, let him. But there’s no use in our losing a night’s
rest by any uneasiness about such a chance.” So stretching themselves
out, they soon fell into a sound sleep, none the less pleasant for
their lying in such close quarters; for it is natural to imagine, that
in a chilly March night in Jerusalem, stowing three in a bed was no
uncomfortable arrangement. Circumstanced as he was, Peter had nothing
to do but conform to their example, for the nature of his attachment
to them was such, that he had no room for the indulgence of his own
fancies about his position; and he also lay down to repose. He slept.
The sickening and feverish confinement of his close dungeon had not
yet so broken his firm and vigorous frame, nor so drained its energies,
as to hinder the placid enjoyment of repose; nor did the certainty of
a cruel and shameful death, to which he was within a few hours to be
dragged, before the eyes of a scoffing rabble, move his high spirit
from its self-possession:――

                     “And still he slumbered
           While in ‘decree, his hours’ were numbered.”

He slept. And from that dark prison-bed what visions could beguile his
slumbering thoughts? Did fancy bear them back against the tide of time,
to the humble, peaceful home of his early days,――to the varied scenes
of the lake whereon he loved to dwell, and along whose changeful waters
he had learned so many lessons of immortal faith and untrembling hope
in his Lord? Amid the stormy roar of its dark waters, the voice of that
Lord once called him to tempt the raging deep with his steady foot, and
when his feeble faith, before untried, failed him in the terrors of the
effort, His supporting hand recalled him to strength and safety. And
had that lesson of faith and hope been so poorly learned, that in this
dark hour he could draw no consolation from such remembrances? No. He
could even now find that consolation, and he did. In the midst of this
“sea of troubles,” he felt the same mighty arm now upholding him, that
bore him above the waters, “when the blue wave rolled nightly on deep
Galilee.” Again he had stood by those waters, swelling brightly in
the fresh morning breeze, with his risen Lord beside him, and received
the solemn commission, oft-renewed, to feed the flock that was so soon
to lose the earthly presence of its great Shepherd. In the steady and
dauntless execution of that parting commission, he had in the course
of long years gone on in the face of death,――“feeding the lambs” of
Christ’s gathering, and calling vast numbers to the fold; and for the
faithful adherence to that command, he now sat waiting the fulfilment
of the doom that was to cut him down in the midst of life and in
the fullness of his vigor. Yet the nearness of this sad reward of
his labors, seemingly offering so dreadful an interpretation of
the mystical prophecy that accompanied that charge, moved him to no
desperation or distress, and still he calmly slept, with as little
agitation and dread as at the transfiguration, and at the agony of the
crucifixion eve; nor did that compunction for heedless inattention,
that then hung upon his slumbering senses, now disturb him in the
least. It is really worth noticing, in justice to Peter, that his
sleepiness, of which so many curious instances are presented in the
sacred narrative, was not of the criminally selfish kind that might
be supposed on a partial view. If he slept during his Master’s prayers
on Mount Hermon, and in Gethsemane, he slept too in his own condemned
cell; and if in his bodily infirmity he had forgotten to watch and pray
when death threatened his Lord, he was now equally indifferent to his
own impending destruction. He was, evidently, a man of independent and
regular habits. Brought up a hard-working man, he had all his life been
accustomed to repose whenever he was at leisure, if he needed it; and
now too, though the “heathen might rage, and the people imagine a vain
thing,――though the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers
took counsel together” against him, and doomed him to a cruel death,
――in spite of all these, Peter would sleep when he was sleepy. Not the
royal Agrippa could sleep sounder on his pavilioned couch of purple.
In the calm confidence of one steadily fixed in a high course, and
perfectly prepared for every and any result, the chained apostle gave
himself coolly to his natural rest, without borrowing any trouble from
the thought, that in the morning the bloody sword was to lay him in
“the sleep that knows no earthly waking.” So slept the Athenian sage,
on the eve of his martyrdom to the cause of clearly and boldly spoken
truth,――a sleep that so moved the wonder of his agonizing disciples,
at the power of a good conscience and a practical philosophy to sustain
the soul against the horrors of such distress; but a sleep not sounder
nor sweeter than that of the poor Galilean outcast, who, though not
knowing even the name of philosophy, had a consolation far higher, in
the faith that his martyred Lord had taught him in so many experimental
instructions. That faith, learned by the painful conviction of his own
weakness, and implanted in him by many a fall when over confident in
his own strength, was now his stay and comfort, so that he might say
to his soul, “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the
help of my countenance and my God.” Nor did that hope prove groundless.
From him in whom he trusted, came a messenger of deliverance; and from
the depths of a danger the most appalling and threatening, he was soon
brought, to serve that helping-God through many faithful years, feeding
the flock till, in his old age, “another should gird him, and carry him
whither he would not.” He who had prayed for him in the revelation of
his peculiar glories on Mount Hermon, and had so highly consecrated him
to the great cause, had yet greater things for him to do; and to new
works of love and glory he now called him, from the castle-prison of
his royal persecutor.

  _Ten years._――This piece of chronology is thus settled. Jesus
  Christ, according to all common calculation, was crucified as
  early as the _twentieth_ year of the reign of Tiberius. Irenaeus
  maintains that it was in the _fifteenth_ of that reign. Eusebius
  and Epiphanius fix it in the _eighteenth_, or, according to
  Petavius’s explanation of their meaning, in the _seventeenth_
  of his actual reign. Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Jerome,
  and Augustin, put it in the _sixteenth_. Roger Bacon, Paulus
  Burgensis, and Tostatus, also support this date, on the ground
  of an astronomical calculation of the course of the moon, fixing
  the time when the passover must have occurred, so as to accord
  with the requirement of the Mosaic law, that it should be
  celebrated on a new moon. But Kepler has abundantly shown
  the fallacy of this calculation. Antony Pagus, also, though
  rejecting this astronomical basis, adheres to the opinion of
  Tertullian, Jerome, &c. Baronius fixes it in the _nineteenth_
  of Tiberius. Pearson, L. Cappel, Spanheim, and Witsius, with
  the majority of the moderns, in the _twentieth_ of Tiberius. So
  that the unanimous result of all these great authorities, places
  it as early as this last mentioned year. A full and highly
  satisfactory view of all these chronological points and opinions,
  is given by the deeply learned Antony Pagus, in his great
  “Critical Historico-Chronological Review of Baronii.” Saecul. I.
  Ann. Per. Gr.‒Rom. 5525. ¶ 3‒13.

  Now, from Josephus it is perfectly evident that Agrippa did not
  leave Rome until some time after the beginning of the reign of
  Claudius, and it is probable not before the close of the first
  year. Counting backwards through the four years of Caligula,
  this makes _five_ years after the death of Tiberius, and _eight_
  on the latest calculation from the death of Christ; while
  according to the higher and earlier authority, it amounts
  to _nine_, _ten_, _eleven_, or to _twelve_ years from the
  crucifixion to Agrippa’s arrival in Judea. And moreover, it
  is not probable that the persecution referred to occurred
  immediately on his arrival. Indeed, from the close way in which
  Luke connects Agrippa’s death with the preceding events, it
  would seem as if he would fix his “going down from Jerusalem
  to Caesarea,” and his death at the latter place, very soon
  after the escape of Peter. This of course being in the end of
  Claudius’s _third_ year, brings the events above, down to the
  _eleventh_ or _twelfth_ from the crucifixion, even according to
  the latest conjecture as to the date of that event. Probably,
  however, the connection of the two events was not as close as
  a common reading of the Acts would lead one to suppose.

  So also Lardner, in his Life of Peter, says, “The death of
  Herod Agrippa happened before the end of that year,” in which he
  escaped. (Lardner’s Works 4to. Vol. III. p. 402, bottom.)

  Natalis Alexander fixes Peter’s escape in the _second_ year
  of Claudius, and the _forty-fourth_ from Christ’s birth, which
  is, according to his computation, the _tenth_ from his death.
  (Church History, Saec. I. Cap. vi.)

  _A chain on each side._――That this was a common mode of
  fastening such prisoners among the Romans, appears from the
  authorities referred to by Wolf, (Cur. Philology in Acts xii. 6,)
  Kuinoel and Rosenmueller, (quoting from Walch,) and Bloomfield,
  all in loc.

  _Quaternion._――That is, a band of _four_. See Bloomfield in
  defense of my mode of disposing them about the prison,――also
  Rosenmueller, &c. Wolf quotes appositely from Polybius; but
  Kuinoel is richest of all in quotations and illustrations.
  (Acts xii. 4, 5.)

                           THE DELIVERANCE.

Peter was now quietly sleeping between his two guards, when his rest
was suddenly broken by a smart blow on the side, too energetically
given to be mistaken for an accidental knock from the elbow of one of
his heavy bed-fellows. Rousing his senses, and opening his eyes, he
was startled by a most remarkable light shining throughout his dungeon,
which his last waking glance had left in utter darkness. In this
unaccountable illumination, he saw standing before him and bending over
him, a form in which he could recognize only the divine messenger of
deliverance. The shock of such a surprise must have been overwhelming;
――to be waked from a sound sleep by an appearance so utterly unearthly,
might have struck horror into the stoutest heart; but Peter seems to
have suffered no such emotion to hinder his attendance to the heavenly
call. The apparition, before he could exercise thought enough to sit
up of himself, had raised him up from his bed, and that without the
slightest alarm to his still slumbering keepers,――for “immediately the
chains fell from his hands,”――a motion which by the rattling of the
falling irons should have aroused the sleepers if any sound could have
impressed their senses. The impulse of the now unmanacled captive might
have been to spring forth his dungeon without the slightest delay, but
his deliverer’s next command forbade any such unnecessary haste. His
first words were, “Gird thyself; and tie on thy sandals.” Before laying
himself down, he had, as usual, thrown off his outer garments and
loosened his girdle, so that his under dress need not so much confine
him in sleep as to prevent that perfect relaxation which is necessary
for comfortable repose. Just as now-a-days, a man in taking up such a
lodging as often falls to a traveler’s lot, will seldom do more than
pull off his coat and boots, as Peter did, and perhaps unbutton his
waist-band and suspenders, so that on a sudden alarm from his rest, the
first direction would very properly be, to “gird himself,” (button his
trowsers,) “and tie on his sandals,” (put on his shoes or boots.) The
next direction given to Peter, also, “Cast thy garment about thee,”
(put on thy coat,) would be equally appropriate. The meaning of all
this particularity and deliberation was, no doubt, that there was no
need whatever of hurry or slyness about the escape. It was not to be
considered a mere smart trick of jail-breaking, by which Peter was to
crawl out of his dungeon in such a hurry as to leave his coat and shoes
behind him, but a truly miraculous providence insuring his deliverance
with a completeness and certainty that allowed him to take every
thing that belonged to him. Having now perfectly accoutred himself
in his ordinary style, Peter immediately obeyed the next order of his
deliverer,――“Follow me.” Leaving his two bed-fellows and room-mates
sleeping hard, without the slightest idea of the evacuation of the
premises which was so deliberately going on, to their great detriment,
Peter now passed out through the open door, following the divine
messenger in a state of mind altogether indescribable, but still with
just sense enough to obey the directions which thus led him on to
blissful freedom. The whole scene bore so perfectly the character of
one of those enchanting dreams of liberty with which painful hope often
cheats the willing senses of the poor captive in slumber, that he might
well and wisely doubt the reality of an appearance so tempting, and
which his wishes would so readily suggest to his forgetful spirit. But
passing on with his conductor, he moved between the sentinels posted
at the doors, who were also equally unaware of the movement going on
so boldly under their noses, or rather _over_ them, for they, too, were
faster bound in slumber than their prisoner had been in his chains; and
he now stepped over their outstretched bodies as they lay before the
entrances. These soldiers, too, evidently looked upon their duty as a
sort of sinecure, rationally concluding that their two stout comrades
on the inside were rather more than a match for the fettered and
manacled captive, and that if he should be at all obstreperous, or even
uneasy, the noise would soon enough awake them from their nap. And thus
excessive precaution is very apt to overshoot itself, each part of the
arrangement relying too much on the security of all the rest. The two
passengers soon reached the great iron gate of the castle, through
which they must pass in order to enter the city. But all the seeming
difficulties of this passage vanished as soon as they approached it.
The gate swung its enormous mass of metal self-moving through the air,
and the half-entranced Peter went on beneath the vacant portal, and now
stood without the castle, once more a free man in the fresh, pure air.
The difficulties and dangers were not all over yet, however. During all
the great feast-days, when large assemblies of people were gathered at
Jerusalem from various quarters, to guard against the danger of riots
and insurrection in these motley throngs,――the armed Roman force on
duty, as Josephus relates, was doubled and tripled, occupying several
new posts around the temple, and, as the same historian particularly
mentions, on the approaches of castle Antonia, where its foundations
descended towards the terraces of the temple, and gave access to the
colonnades of the temple. On all these places the guard must have been
under arms during this passover, and even at night the sentries would
be stationed at all the important posts, as a reasonable security
against the numerous strangers of a dubious character, who now thronged
the city throughout. Yet all these peculiar precautions, which, at
this time, presented so many additional difficulties to the escaping
apostle, hindered him not in the least. Entering the city, he followed
the footsteps of his blessed guide, unchecked, till they had passed
on through the first street, when all at once, without sign or word
of farewell, the mysterious deliverer vanished, leaving Peter alone
in the silent city, but free and safe. Then flashed upon his mind
the conviction of the true character of the apparition. The departure
of his guide leaving him to seek his own way, his senses were, by
the necessity of this self-direction, recalled from the state of
stupefaction, in which he had mechanically followed on from the prison.
With the first burst of reflection, he broke out in the exclamation,
“Now I know of a truth, that the Lord has sent forth his messenger,
and has rescued me out of the hand of Herod, in spite of all the
expectation of the Jewish people.” Refreshed and encouraged by this
impression, he now used his thoroughly awakened senses to find his
exact situation, and after looking about him, he made his way through
the dark streets to a place where he knew he should find those whose
despairing hearts would be inexpressibly rejoiced by the news of his
deliverance. This was the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where
the disciples were accustomed to assemble. Going up to the gate-way,
he rapped on the door, and at once aroused those within; for in their
sleepless distress for the imprisoned apostle, several of the brethren
had given up all thoughts of sleep, and, as Peter had suspected, were
now watching in prayer within this house. The noise of a visitant at
this unseasonable hour of the night, immediately brought to the door
a lively damsel, named Rhoda; who, according to the Jewish custom of
employing females in this capacity, acted as portress of the mansion
of Mary. Prudently requiring some account of the person who made this
late call, before she opened the door of the persecuted Christians to
an unknown and perhaps an ill-disposed character, she was struck with
almost frantic joy at hearing the well-known voice of the much mourned
Peter, craving admittance. In the highth of her thoughtless gladness,
she ran off at once to make known the delightful fact to the disciples
in the house, without even seeming to think of the desirableness of
admitting the apostle, perhaps because she very naturally wanted to
tell such pleasant news first herself. Bursting into the room where
the disciples were at prayer for their lamented leader, whom they
supposed to be then fast bound for death in the dungeon of Antonia,
she communicated the joyful fact, that “Peter was before the gate.”
A declaration so extravagantly improbable, at once suggested the
idea of her having lost her wits through her affectionate sorrow for
the sufferings and anticipated death of the great apostle, and they
therefore replied, “Thou art crazy.” Rhoda, somewhat excited by such a
provoking expression of incredulity, loudly repeated her slighted piece
of good news, and so gravely maintained the truth of it, that some of
the more superstitious at last began to think there must be something
in it, and seriously suggested, that it must be a supernatural
messenger come to give them notice of his certain doom,――“It is his
guardian angel.” Peter, however, was all this while standing outside
during this grave debate about his real entity, and shivering with
the cold of a chilly March night, grew quite impatient at the girl’s
inconsiderate folly, and knocked away with might and main, making
a noise of most unspiritual character, till at last the disciples
determined to cut short the debate by an actual observation; so opening
the door to the shivering apostle, the light brought his material
existence to a certainty beyond all doubt. Their amazement and joy
was bursting forth with a vivacity which quite made up for their
previous incredulity; when the apostle, making a hushing sign with
his hand,――and with a reasonable fear, too, no doubt, that their
obstreperous congratulations might be heard in other houses around, so
as to alarm the neighbors and bring out some spiteful Jews, who would
procure his detection and recapture,――having obtained silence, went
on to give them a full account of his being brought out of prison by
the Lord, and after finishing his wonderful story, said to them, “Tell
these things to James and the brethren.” From this it would seem that
the apostles were all somewhere else, probably having found that a
temporary concealment was expedient for their safety, but were still
not far from the city. His own personal danger was of so imminent a
character, however, that Jerusalem could not be a safe place for him
during the search that would be immediately instituted after him by
his disappointed and enraged persecutors. It was quite worth while,
therefore, for him to use the remaining darkness of the night to
complete his escape; and without staying to enjoy their outflowing
sympathies, he bade them a hasty farewell, and, as the historian
briefly says, went to ANOTHER PLACE. Where this “other place” was,
he does not pretend to tell or know, and the only certain inference
to be drawn from the circumstance is, that it was beyond the reach
or knowledge of the mighty and far-ruling king, who had taken such
particular pains to secure Peter’s death. The probabilities as to the
real place of his retirement will, however, be given, as soon as the
sequel of events in Jerusalem has been narrated, as far as concerns the
discovery of his escape.

  _Bright light._――Some commentators have attempted to make
  out an explanation of this phenomenon, by referring the whole
  affair to the effects of a sudden flash and stroke of lightning,
  falling on the castle, and striking all the keepers senseless,
  ――_melting_ Peter’s chains, and illuminating the place, so that
  Peter, unhurt amid the general crash, saw this opportunity for
  escaping, and stepping over their prostrate bodies, made his way
  out of the prison, and was out of sight before they _came to_.
  The most important objection to this ingenious speculation is,
  that it directly contradicts every verse in Luke’s account of
  the escape, as well as the general spirit of the narrative.
  Another weighty reason is, that the whole series of natural
  causes and effects, proposed as a substitute for the simple
  meaning, is brought together in such forced and uncommon
  coincidences, as to require a much greater effort of faith
  and credulity for its belief, than the miraculous view, which
  it quite transcends in incredibility. The introduction of
  explanations of miracles by natural phenomena, is justifiable
  only so far as these may illustrate the _accompaniments_ of
  the event, by showing the mode in which those things which are
  actually mentioned as physical results, operated in producing
  the impressions described. Thus, when thunder and lightning are
  mentioned in connection with miraculous events, they are to be
  considered as _real_ electrical discharges, made to accompany
  and manifest the presence of God; and where lambent flames
  are described as appearing in a storm, they, like the _corpos
  santos_, are plainly also results of electrical discharges.
  So too, when mighty winds are mentioned, they are most
  honestly taken to be _real_ winds, and not deceptive sounds or
  impressions; and when a cloud is mentioned, it is but fair to
  consider it a real cloud, made up, like all other clouds, of
  vapor, and not a mere non-entity, or a delusion existing only
  in the minds of those who are mentioned as beholding it. But
  where nothing of this kind is spoken of, and where a distinct
  personal presence is plainly declared, the attempt to substitute
  a physical accident for such an apparition, is a direct attack
  on the _honesty_ of the statement. Such attempts, too, are
  devoid of the benefits of such illustrations as I have alluded
  to as desirable; they bring in a new set of difficulties with
  them, without removing any of those previously obstructing the
  interpretation of the facts. In this case, the only circumstance
  which could be reasonably made to agree with the idea of
  lightning, is the mention of the bright light; while throughout
  the whole account, the presence of a supernaturally mysterious
  _person_, acting and speaking, is perfectly unquestionable. The
  violation of all probability, shown in this forced explanation,
  will serve as a fair instance of the mode in which many modern
  German critics are in the habit of distorting the simple,
  manifest sense of the sacred writers, for the sake of dispensing
  with all supernatural occurrences. (See Kuinoel for an enlarged
  view and discussion of this opinion. Other views of the nature
  of the phenomenon are also given by him, and by Rosenmueller, on
  Acts xii. 7.)

Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy
City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the
house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious
than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their
dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around,
whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the
eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and
at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced
the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the