all the productions of the Apostles and Evangelists, or of other early Christians, any exhortations to scatter the written word among the masses, or to establish reading-schools, as is done to-day by Protestant missionaries among pagan nations. On the contrary, St. Irenaeus, a disciple of St. Poly carp, who was himself taught by St. John, has left written that the barbarians in his day believed in Christ without ink and paper (Adv. Haer. L. Ill, C. IV). Religion then was not designed to be learned from the Scriptures chiefly.
43. But Christ had made another provision to convert the world, and to secure both the extension of His religion into all lands, and its permanence in its integrity till the end of time, namely, by the establishment of His Church. (See n. 67.) He had formed a special body of select teachers, whom He had carefully prepared during His whole public career to continue the work after Him, and whom in due time He solemnly commissioned for this purpose, furnishing them supernaturally with such aids as eventually made their mission a success. Various stages in the formation and mission of this teaching body are clearly described in the New Testament.
1. St. Luke narrates how Christ prepared for the choice of His Apostles by a night spent in prayer: "He went out into a mountain to pray, and He spent the' whole night in the prayer of God. But when day was come, He called unto Him His disciples, and He chose twelve of them, whom also He called Apostles: Simon whom He surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who is called Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot who was the traitor" (VI, 12-16). These had
