his companion, preached especially at Antioch[1], the ancient capital of Syria. There the number of the faithful increased very much; and there, for the first time, the believers in Christ were called Christians[2], after the Name of their Divine Master and Founder Jesus Christ.
COMMENTARY.
The Catholicity of the Church. The events just related were of the highest importance for the development of the Church. The apostles had known that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles. Soon after their Lord’s Birth, Gentiles had come from afar to worship Him and hail Him as the Saviour of the world; and just before His Ascension Jesus had commanded His apostles to “go and teach all nations”; but the manner and conditions under which Gentiles were to be made Christians, were not yet clearly and distinctly perceived by the apostles. A further and special revelation was necessary to shew that nothing but sincere faith was required, and that none of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were to be imposed on them. Peter, therefore, was taught by this wonderful vision that the Jewish ceremonial law was done away with by our Lord; and God’s marvellous and direct interposition in the case of the call of Cornelius taught the apostle that the Gentiles were to be admitted directly into the Christian Church, without first submitting to the rite of circumcision. Thus the reception of Cornelius and his friends into the Church was a most important and decisive moment in her history, for it proved not only her Catholicity, but also her entire independence of Judaism. Moreover, by the conversion of the Roman centurion and his friends a link was formed between the Christian Church and Rome, the capital and mistress of the ancient world, and a road to the centre of civilisation was thrown open to the vicar of Jesus Christ; the development of the infant Church into the Church of the whole world being thus facilitated. God, by giving the impulse to her further development, by His direct intervention in the conversion of the first Gentiles, proved that He ever governs her, and that our Lord was faithful to His promise: “Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.”
The Primacy of Peter. Why was the revelation that the Old Law was done away with, and that Gentiles were to be received into the Church, given to Peter only, and not to the other apostles? And why
- ↑ Antioch. See Old Test. LXXXIV. The inhabitants of this city numbered about 700,000.
- ↑ Christians. The pagans had hitherto regarded the Christians as a mere Jewish sect, but they now perceived that theirs was a religion by itself, and an independent Church, to which the Jews were opposed, and into which both Jews and Gentiles were received. To make, therefore, a distinction between Judaism and Christianity, they gave the name of Christians to the followers of Jesus Christ.
