The Beautiful Gate
The lame beggab. The hour of Prayer. Core effected bt Peter. His address to the multitude. Seizure of the Apostles. Arraigned before the Sanhedrim.
“On! champions blest, in Jesus’ name,
Short be your strife, your triumph full,
Till every heart have caught your flame,
And, lighten’d of the world’s misrule,
Ye soar, those elder saints to meet
Gathered long since at Jesus’ feet;
No world of passions to destroy,
Your prayers and struggles o’er, your task
“Everywhere we find these two Apostles, Peter and John, in great harmony together.” — Chrpsostom, Horn. viii.
“Methinks Erasmus’s reflection is here not unseasonable; that no honour or sovereignty, no power or dignity, was comparable to this glory of the Apostle; that the things of Christ, though in another way, were more noble and excellent than anything that this world could afford. And therefore he tells us that when he beheld the state and magnificence wherewith Pope Julius II. appeared — first at Bononia, and then at Rome — equalling the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar, he could not but think how much all this was below the greatness and majesty of St Peter, who converted the world, not by power or armies, not by engines or artifices of pomp and grandeur, but by fnith in the power of Christ, and drew it to the admiration of himself.” — Cave’s Live* of the Apostles, p. 111).
All praise and j->y.”
E are, in the present and succeeding chapter, H to have another and more signal instance brought before us of the new life which, since the Great Pentecostal effusion, animated St. Peter. Intrepidity sagacity, prudence, dignity, take the place of cowardice, vacillation, wayward impulse, loud bravado. That righteous man has become bold as a lion. From among the “many wonders and signs” which we are told were wrought by the Apostle immediately following the gift of tongues, the beloved physician selects one in which our Apostle occupies a prominent part. At the close of his own Gospel (Mark) he specially records the authority for the u boldness “with which we shall immediately find him acting. He remembered the words of his Divine Lord and Master, “And these signs shall follow them that believe. In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new, tongues.... They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark xvi. 17, 18). Similarly, at a much earlier period of the Divine ministry, it is recorded in the Gospel of St Matthew, that while the same gracious commission was given to them to heal the sick (Matt. x. 8.), there were two specific injunctions coupled with it. The one of these was to “provide neither gold nor silver in their purses; n the other was that they were to “go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” These three conditions seem remarkably to meet in the case of the lame mendicant we are now to consider, whose cure Peter was employed as the instrument in effecting. He was one that needed healing; he was a Jew, one of the lost sheep of the House of Israel; and, as we shall find, true to their Master’s charge as He equipped them for service, the Apostles, who were honoured in performing the miracle, had neither gold nor silver in their purses. The same Divine Lord who had spoken to His followers words of encouragement in the prosecution of their spiritual calling, had forewarned them also of great and imminent tribulation; and the inspired historian seems purposely, or, as an additional reason, to have selected the incident now to engage our thoughts, because it was the occasion of the first of those many fearful persecutions to which the Church, from that hour onwards, became too painfully familiarised.
The Beautiful Gate of the Temple, although it is impossible with absolute precision to indicate its position, seems with greatest likelihood to have been situated opposite the Gate Shushau, or eastern entrance.
If correct in this supposition, it would lead from the Great Court of the Gentiles into the Court of the Women, which, however, notwithstanding the name, was open to both sexes. It would face eastwards the marvellous porticoes or cloisters which, with their rich elaborations, formed the most costly contribution of Herod to the great building which crowned the summit of Moriah. These cloisters would recall to the modern traveller the Piazza of the great Roman Basilica, only on a more imposing scale, with tesselated pavemeuts and double rows of Corinthian columns — monoliths of dazzling marble — whose capitals were exquisitely carved with acanthus and lily, supporting a roof of cedar. A covered way was thus made round the vast quadrangle, the open porticoes affording agreeable retreats from rain and sultry sun; while to the- spectator standing at the Beautiful Gate on its elevated platform, the triple Mount of Olives would be seen rising behind, and apparently so near as if no Kedrou Valley intervened. Out of nine other similar entrances, adorned with plates of silver and gold, this appears to have been a triumph of artistic skill, the most magnificent of them all, and forming the main entrance to the Temple. So ponderous was the Gate, forty cubits high, that Josephus tells us “it could be with difficulty shut by twenty men.” The material composing it was of world-wide celebrity, being bas-relief lily-work of Corinthian brass, more precious than gold. It was approached by a flight of fifteen steps. Nearly two centuries before, the renowned city of Corinth had fallen before the armies of the Roman general Mummius. After being sacked it was burned to the ground,
1 See Josephus, Bel. r. 63. because of the insolence of the citizens towards ambassadors that had been sent to treat with them. It was set on fire in diverse places on the outskirts; and the flames, rolling towards the centre of the city, met with prodigious fury. There had been collected a vast number of images and statues in gold, silver, and copper. These, melted by the intense heat of the burning city, were fused, and ran down the streets in a gleaming molten stream. When the flames were extinguished, this novel combination received the name of Corinthian brass. It was prized in value beyond all other precious metals, being, it was said, beyond the imitation of art. Herod had secured a portion of the rare compound for the main entrance to the Jewish Temple. The Gate was of Greek design, and by some it was said to have been brought from Alexandria by Nicanor, and to have been called by his name.
Such was the scene of the coming miracle. If we are correct in the position we have assumed, it was in the most public and conspicuous position of the outer court of that vast pile which, a few weeks before, on one of those green eminences rising behind, had elicited
i “There is probably, from imperfect information respecting these gates, a general impression that the outer gate was meant, founded perhaps on the notion that beggars were not likely to be admitted into the Temple court, and that it is expressly said that this beggar was placed there to ask alms of those ’ that entered into the Temple; ’ but we have shown that no particular sanctity was attached to the other court, and that the second gate was properly the entrance into the Temple. There was nothing to prevent a beggar from being stationed there; and if he could be placed there, he was more likely to go there than to remain at the outer gate. These grounds of doubt cannot therefore stand, and we are at liberty to suppose that the gate really most beautiful was the one distinguished as the Beautiful Gate.’’ — Kitto’s Daily Bible Illustrations.
Lightfoot differs from most others in supposing it to he the Gate Hulda — “the Gate of Time” — situated at the west or opposite entrance to the court of the Gentiles. the exclamation even from the untutored and unsophisticated peasants and fishermen of Galilee, “Master, see what manner of stones and buildings are here.” No traveller who has crossed by the Bethany road to Jerusalem and seen that unparalleled view, traditionally (we may rather say undoubtedly) associated with Christ’s weeping over the city, but must have recalled the familiar description of Josephus. If the scene be so impressive even now amid ruin and desolation, what must it have been in the time of our narrative, when the gigantic pile stood forth in its fully completed magnificence after the toil of “forty-and-six years 1” “The outward face of the Temple in its front wanted nothing that was likely to surprise either men’s minds or their eyes; for it was covered over with plates of gold, which at the first rising of the sun reflected back such a splendour as made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn away their eyes, just as they would have done at the sun’s rays. This Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for those parts of it that were not gilt were exceeding white.” 1 It is interesting at the outset to note the lingering fondness the Apostles still had for the holy building and its services. They knew, from lips incapable of deceiving, that that mass of wondrous magnificence was too surely doomed to destruction. But with some feeling akin to the tender love which we bestow on an aged and beloved relative on whom disease and death have unknown set their irrevocable seal, they seem to have clung to the old venerated haunts that were within a few years to be razed to the ground. In common with the disciples
1 Bel. r. 5, 6. of the infant Church, they had doubtless their own lowlier places of assemblage for praise and prayer and the celebration of the last memorial rite; but these did not diminish their love for the gates of Zion. With the memory of all their pleasant Passover festivals, when they had “gone to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that kept holiday; “— with the more sacred remembrances also of Him who so often trod these Temple-courts and made them for ever fragrant with memorable words, they were still as ready as ever to say,” if I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy “(Ps. cxxxvii. 5, 6). It is a remarkable statement (ver. 46) “They continued daily with one accord in the Temple.” It is worthy of note, too, in connection with the miracle now to be considered, that it was at “the hour of prayer” the Apostles entered its gates. From this it would almost seem that they did more than merely visit the sacred locality as a place full of hallowed associations, or one also where they might have ampler opportunities of proclaiming the Name and cause that was dear to them. May we not be warranted in entertaining the thought, that they most probably were present joining in the Temple worship? In the truest sense of the word, indeed, these services, that ritual, had been abrogated, ever since the cry was heard on Calvary, “It is finished!” The object of their institution being fulfilled, the shadows were superseded by the substance; old things had passed away, and all things had become new. If, therefore, we think of the Apostles and followers of the Great Antitype standing by the huge altar of unhewn stone with its blazing fires, spectators of the bleating lamb, or by the brazen altar gazing on the ascending incense-cloud, — both of these had to them a new and more wondrous significance. They were no longer typical, but memorial, reminding them of the One Offering which had “perfected for ever them that are sanctified,” and the fragrance of those spotless merits ascending for them from no human altar but within the heavenly veil, whither the Great High Priest had entered, carrying with Him the virtues of His own precious Sacrifice.
There were three distinct hours of prayer among the Jews, each appointed (so ran an unauthorised tradition) by one of the patriarchs. The morning prayer, at nine o’clock, was said to have been instituted by Abraham; mid-day prayer, at twelve, by Isaac; and evening prayer, at three, by Jacob. It was at the latter of these stated hours of devotion, at the offering of the evening sacrifice, corresponding with our three o’clock, that Peter and John went up with the stream of worshippers.2 And here we have again to note the brotherly association of these two Apostles. Recent hours of sympathetic sorrow had brought and bound them closer together; and as, doubtless, in the secrecy of their common home they took sweet counsel together, so now “they walked to the house of God in company.” They would go, shall we suppose, by the Gate of Ophel,
i Cave.
* “Being the ninth hour.’’ 41 The division of the day into twelve hours — a mere conventional division — was unknown among the Jews until the Babylonish captivity. The first mention of it is in the Bonk of Daniel. Before that, the periods of the day were distinguished by natural appearances. a« morning, noonday, and evening. Herodotus informs us that the Babylonians were the first to divide the day into twelve parts.” — Dr Oloao on the Acts, vol. i. p. 93. and through the Stoa Basilica, to the court of the Gentiles. It was that same court which we find from sacred story was, on the great festal seasons, specially the Passover, with its crowds of pilgrims, ignominiously transformed into a scene of barter and exchange, — its tesselated pavement polluted with the erection of pens for cattle, and cages of doves for sacrifice, also tables and booths for the exchange of money, traffickers in live-stock and coins driving their usurious gains, and “making the Father’s house a place of merchandise,” It was not, doubtless, so thronged now; yet as there were few Jews who did not inherit the pride of their ancestral religion, and who failed to frequent their Temple at one at least of the hours of prayer, the Beautiful Grate was seldom without its complement of worshippers. Of all places, indeed, within or without Jerusalem, it was the likeliest rendezvous for the diseased and crippled, — those wrecks and outcasts of humanity, to be found in all cities and countries, who haunt the most public resorts in order to elicit the sympathy and the alms of the benevolent. “We know,” says Dr Kitto, “that the Pharisees and others in those days bestowed much alius in the most public places, that their ostentatious charity might be ’ seen of men and the perception of this weakness, in a class of people so wealthy, had doubtless considerable influence in causing the beggars of Jerusalem to resort in large numbers to places so public, and through which the Pharisees were so continually passing, as the gates of the Temple — these people being more constant than others ‘in their attendance at the sacred courts.” It seems to have been a privilege accorded in ancient times to such sufferers, even in pagan cities, to seat themselves at the doors or gates of the temples 1 — a custom which has lingered on to this day, as those can testify who are familiar alike with the Brahminical temple or the Mohammedan mosque, — in accordance, too, with the practice recommended by Chrysostom for Christian churches. Who, that is conversant with these cities, can fail to recall groups of importunate beggars or limping cripples outside the great basilicas of Florence, Venice, and Eomel In sad agreement with the scene here described by St Luke, there is no memory of Jerusalem more vivid to the writer of these pages than the rows of wretched men and women, mainly lepers, outside the Jaffa and Damascus gates, who to this day repeat this early story of the Acts. We read, in connection with the Jewish towns, of no hospitals, or infirmaries, or homes for such hapless out* easts. Indeed, the Jew was apt ungenerously and superstitiously to regard bodily infirmity and disease as the result of sin, or rather as a Divine judgment, — that those so circumstanced (and including among them the greatest Sufferer of all) were “stricken, smitten of God, and afllicted.”
Outside this “Beautiful Gate of the Temple” there sat one such hapless mendicant, who had been “lame from his mother’s womb.” For forty long years had he Buffered from his grievous infirmity; for many of these, we may suppose, he had been daily carried by his relatives and laid at the same portal During that dull, monotonous period, we cannot doubt that, as in the case of some privileged blind and lame in our own cities, he had become well known to the frequenters of the Temple; his features and tones of voice familiar as the gate itself; that morning, noon, and evening wor- Martial, quoted bj Barnes. shippers had often and again dropped their alms into the folds of his tattered garment as they passed through the gorgeous portal. They could entertain no doubt as to the reality of his infirmity. It was not a case of disease from sudden accident, involving a temporary dislocation of knee or ankle bone, which it was in the power of human skill to rectify. He was a born cripple. So long had he presented his dull, monotonous petitions, with these powerless limbs and outstretched hands, that not one of the thousands who walked daily past him, — proud Sadducee, or ostentatious Pharisee, or robed Levite, thus familiarised with his appearance, — but must have felt satisfied that restoration to health and deliverance from his ailment, would only be effected by a notable miracle, and by special Divine intervention. All ordinary means, we may suppose, had been employed in vain to effect his cure. It was now one of those “all things” possible only with God. The unhappy object himself had doubtless long ago given himself up to the abandonment of despair, only thankful that he was permitted to escape the additional miseries of abject penury by sheltering himself from a burning Palestine sun under the shady portico, and to claim the beneficence of the passengers at a spot where not the Pharisee only, actuated by the base motive of display, but where hearts, stimulated and quickened by the services of devotion at the holy altar, would be the more ready to relieve the necessities of the poor and suffering.2
1 Dean Alford remarks that “Luke the physician had made himself acquainted with the peculiar kind of weakness, and described it accordingly.”
* It has been well observed, with reference to the manner in which this whole narrative is recorded, that “when a story is told in general terms, It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the Bun was westering, and the shadows from the Beautiful Gate were projected along the variegated pavement of Solomon’s porch, that two men, whose faces were perhaps not unfamiliar, attired in the humble garb of Galilee peasants, stood before him, and from whom, uttering the wonted tale of distress, he asked an alma Some had passed with averted head; others, as aforetime, had tossed some small pittance into the sufferer’s lap to get rid of his importunity. But these two worshippers have paused under the portico; and one of them, in the emphatic words of the original, “fastened his eyes upon him;” a word significant of intensity of gaze, as if all at once the Apostle were seized with a Divine impulse, not his own, to use the authority which had been delegated to him, and make this familiar cripple a monument of Divine power and mercy. Could Peter at that moment have recalled a most remarkable, a strangely memorable, saying of his Master, when they were sitting in confidential fellowship around the Last Supper table — could that saying have prompted the
without date, or place, or an y circumstance which an inquirer might lay hold of to ascertain its reality, there is reason to suspect it to be a fiction, or at least, that the writer knows nothing about it but by vague and uncertain tradition. ... In the present case Luke does not content himself with saying that on a certain occasion the Apostles?, somewhere in Judaea, cured a lame man; but he points out the individual by such marks as are equivalent to giving his name. He is represented as a sort of public person, having been often seen by those who frequented the Temple; the gate at which he was wont to lie is specified; and thus an opportunity was given to every reader at that time to bring the narrative to the test. No reason can be conceived why Luke has inserted, in a history so concise, a circumstance apparently of so little importance as his being laid at the gate of the Temple called Beautiful, but his knowledge that what he was writing was true, and his willingness to subject it to the most scrupulous examination. Impostors do not write in this manner. They dread inquiry, and use every precaution to elude it.” - DicV on the Act*, pp. 48, 49. strong impulse to translate it into fact? “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I Bay unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John xiv. 11-13.) Be that as it may. “Look on us,” was the sudden command of Peter. Instantaneously were the eyes of the cripple uplifted to the speaker. But he had no thought other than receiving, from the limited means of those accosting him, a denarius or “penny.” Doubtless, it was with disappointed look he listened to the response to his earnest appeal, “Silver and gold have I none.“1 But the speaker added in brief, sententious words, yet in tones indicating unhesitating confidence and faith,” In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” — the very name which had been written in letters of scorn and derision on His cross — “rise up, and walk.” How different, we may remark in passing, from the formula used invariably by Peter’s Master, whether to winds and waves, or helpless paralytic, or raging demons, or death itself. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee: “” Peace, be still: “” / will, be
l A severely practical comment on the words of Peter, made by Thomas Aquinas to one of the alleged successors of the Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Christ,’’ is worth recording: — “Thomas Aquinas, surnamed the Angelical Doctor,’ who was highly esteemed by Pope Innocent IV., going one day into the Pope’s chamber, where they were reckoning large sums of money, the Pope, addressing himself to Aquinas, said, ‘You see that the Church is no longer in an age in which she can say, ‘Silver and gold ha*« J none ’ ‘It is true, holy Father, replied the Angelical Doctor, ‘nor can she now say to the lame man, ‘Rise up and walk.’ Quoted by Wctf, pp. 2S8-9. thou whole: “” / say unto thee, * Young man, arise: ’ n “Lazarus, come forth.” He spoke in no name but His own. Forth went the omnipotent fiat; storms were hushed, and demons chained, and sickness cured, and death uncrowned. But Peter, in this his first miracle, as in all subsequent ones, announces himself as merely the delegate and servant of a Greater. If that helpless, lame petitioner is restored, the cure is effected in the name of “Jesus the Nazarene.” We may imagine the man’s astonishment at the strange words which fell on his ears. Would he not likely have been in the same spot a few weeks before, when crowds were hurrying from every direction to Calvary to see the Prophet of Galilee die a malefactors death — the reputed Saviour and Restorer of others, unable to save or rescue Hi in self 1 ‘What,’ we may picture him exclaiming to himself, ’ are these Galileans adding insult and injury to this life long curse of God? How can the name of Him who perished by a felon’s death have any charm or potency to give strength to these shrivelled limbs? No, it is only mocking a miserable being with wild delusions. If silver and gold you have none to bestow, then go your way, and leave me to my fate.’ Or possibly these momentary thoughts may have been of an entirely different kind. The magic name, Jesus of Nazareth, may have awoke within him gleams of ardent hope. That Name could not have been strange to him as the wondrous Healer and Restorer of sick and diseased, blind and impotent and dead. May he not often have longed to hear spoken to himself the gracious word which had proved so efficacious in the case of others? He had, however, no time or leisure given him for such reflections, even if they had been tempted to arise: for iix a moment, Peter, without any parade of cabalistic words or mystic incantation, “caught him by the right hand, and lifted him up.” The cure is complete. “Immediately his feet and ancle-bones received strength,’’ and owned the might of the all-powerful word and Name. In the further artless description of the narrator,” he, leaping up, stood, and walked, and entered with them into the Temple, walking and leaping, and praising God.” With all the ecstatic feelings of a man who, after a night of hideous dreams, has suddenly awoke amid the glare of sunshine and singing of birds — the cripple cannot conceal or repress his jubilant emotions in the use of his new-born physical energies. With tears of gratitude and joy in his eyes, he leaps exultant to his feet; — recalling doubtless to the wondering spectators the words of the old prophet, never before more literally fulfilled, “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.” It is surely, moreover, worthy of note, that it was not Peter, the instrument in his deliverance, whom the restored one praised, but Peter’s God. In what words or songs he vented these praises, we are not told. But the Eucharistic hymn of the sweet singer of Israel might appropriately embody his marvellous experience, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit,
out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord “(Ps. xl. 1-3). How Peter, in his heart of hearts, must at that critical hour have re-echoed the subsequent utterance of his brother Paul, when he “thanked Go A and took courage 1”
It was in the truest sense of the word a crucial moment for the cause he had at heart. If, in that place of public resort, with no partial spectators gathered around, the attempt to perform this miracle had proved a failure — if the cripple, in attempting to rise, had only reeled back again to his old helpless seat on the steps of the gate — that cause, dear to both Apostles, could not fail to receive a damaging, or rather an irrecoverable blow. They would be denounced loudly as bold impostors. It would have confirmed most of the bystanders in the foregone conclusion, that the Name which had been solemnly pronounced over the cripple — the Name which by their rulers had been branded with scorn — was as powerless as they supposed it, or perhaps wished it to be. Peter, however, at once saw that a rare opportunity was now given him, as herald of the good tidings, of unfurling his banner, and advancing the cause and kingdom of his Divine Master. For as the grateful mendicant accompanied his benefactors to the Temple — the mouth speaking ‘out of the abundance of the heart ’ — the assembling worshippers heard the joyous outburst, and knew at a glance that it was he who sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate; and “they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.” They could not long be in doubt as to who his benefactors were. Most naturally is the scene depicted. The man “held Peter and John;’* partly, perhaps, as with faltering gait, half distrustful of his new power, he clung to their support; partly as keeping hold of his deliverers, that he might not be severed from them, and the better exhibit to the wondering crowd unto whom it was that he owed his cure. The throng of spectators rapidly increases. That a notable exercise of superhuman power had taken place, none could deny. They dared not resist the testimony of their senses. There was no room in such a case for artifice or collusion. The most persistent opposition, the most malignant prejudice, could not impugn the reality of the miracle transacted before their eyes. How great indeed (we cannot resist remarking parenthetically in passing) the contrast of the present with those pseudomiracles pretended to have been wrought in the earlier centuries and in the Middle Ages — or those which have their credulous supporters still in the lying wonders of an apostate Church — winking images, bleeding pictures, supernatural cures wrought at so-called “holy wells,” or by coming in contact with the bones and relics of departed saints! The cure of this mendicant was not done in a corner. It was effected in open light of day on the person of one too notorious to admit of his identity being questioned, or the alternative supposition that for forty years he bad been a successful deceiver. However tempted, therefore, to have their judgment swayed and perverted by prejudice, they dare not, in the presence of such an infallible proof, withhold the admission extorted from the magicians of Egypt, “This is the finger of God.”
There is a rush made from divers quarters to Solomon’s Porch. It was that singular spot in connection with the sacred building, which has its counterpart and resemblance still in the “precincts n of a few of our own and in many more foreign cathedrals, where shops and booths may be seen clinging as unsightly appurtenances to Gothic shafts and porticoes, for the sale of articles in connection with the religious services. In the case of Roman Catholic places of worship, such as at Rouen, Bruges, and Ghent, we have mean, wooden stalls for poor venders, driving their trade in rosaries, beads, crucifixes, wax tapers, and such like. In the Temple of Jerusalem, these were on a more extensive scale in front of Solomon’s cloisters. There were pens of cattle, and coops of doves, for offerings and sacrifice. There were money-changers with greedy eyes standing behind their “hhanoth” clutching the Roman drachm and stater, and giving in usurious exchange the only coin current in the holy place, the Jewish shekel. During the great festivals in the time of our Lord, that sacred platform had been degraded into a base, mercenary rendezvous for unseemly wrangling between buyer and seller, — scenes which those who have been in the bazaars and market-places of Alexandria and Cairo, Beyrout and Damascus can well understand, — and which drew down the withering rebuke from the Divine denouncer of such sacrilegious traffic, “Get you hence; make not My Fathers house a house of merchandise.”
The place, then, where the multitudes were now crowding, was one pre-eminently associated to the disciples with the teaching of their divine Master, for there He had proclaimed Himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world. It was that broad level platform or terrace, partly artificial, overhanging 200 feet the steep gorge of the Jehoshaphat valley, the work of the great King of Israel who gave it its designation. It was entered by the gate Shushan and buttressed by the Cyclopean stones still surviving in the Temple wall. The memory, we repeat, of .the Master’s presence and words, who there spake as never man spake, as well as His deeds of irresistible power, was well calculated to inspire His servant and give him “strength equal to his day.” The crowd had gathered, and had dow evidently become a dense multitude. Every eye was Listened with amazement on these wonder working Galileans, who had effected what the hierarchy of their own Temple, with all their religious and spiritual prestige, had been utterly unable to perform. Indeed it was a moment of .peril and temptation to the Apostles themselves. If Peter had not been recently re-baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and made strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus, we might almost have trembled as to the effect on his naturally bold, fervid, ambitions spirit. The unholy strife manifested only a few weeks previous as to who should be the greatest, might have now reasserted itself. The son of Jonas, borne on the plaudits of the multitude, might have arrogated to himself the glory of the miracle, claimed an apparently justifiable precedence, and antedated the arrogant pretensions thrust on him in after ages, as the Vicegerent of God and Prince of the Apostles. How different! With a holy jealousy for his Master’s honour, Peter repudiates every such claim for distinction, and ascribes the glory to whom alone it was due: — “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk 1” And then, having made this disclaimer, he proceeds to speak of the God who had given Jesus as not a strange God, but their own God — the God of their own patriarchs — disarming at the outset any opposition which might have arisen from the impression that they were striving to introduce a religion antagonistic to their ancestral faith, by assuring them that the author of the Mosaic was the author also of the Gospel dispensation: that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had in this miracle glorified His Son,1 and it was specially to attest and verify- the reality of His resurrection, that power had been delegated to himself and his fellow Apostles. In the performance of the present supernatural cure, they had invoked, not the name of God Almighty, but the name of Him whom their rulers had treated as a blasphemer and impostor, and had wickedly crucified, but who was truly the “Prince 99 or rather “Author of Life.” “Was it not an obvious inference from this view of the case, that Jesus of Nazareth was the very person whom He had announced Himself to be, the expected Saviour of Israel? Had He been still in the state of the dead, He could have imparted no extraordinary powers to His disciples, nor would there have been more virtue in His name than in that of any other deceased malefactor. It being manifest then, that He had triumphed over death and was invested with sovereign authority, the house of Israel were bound to acknowledge Him as the Messiah, and to embrace His religion. Thus the Apostles acted the part of faithful servants, concerned only for the glory of their Master, and willing to retire from view that He alone might be contemplated and admired. ‘Look not earnestly on us; but consider Jesus, whom the God of your fathers hath glorified.’” 2
1 Rather “His Servant.” The word is frats, not vl6s — the same word that is use 1 in St Matthew in the quotation, “Behold My Servant (irats) whom I have chosen” — the reference being not to His divine Person and nature, but to His official and mediatorial office «s the Father’s Servant — specially and frequently designated as such by the Evangelical prophet in his closing chapters. See Dr Gloag in loc, who adds, “In the Acts of the Apostles it occurs four times in reference to Christ.... The title is once applied to Israel and twice to David. None of the Apostles however is ever called vats Geod but only dovXos OeoO.”
* Dick on the Acts, p. 06.
Let the Apostle however speak in his own word’s. These vividly reproduce alike the style and theme of his great Pentecostal sermon — Jesus and the Resurrection. Moreover, as it has been observed, “while strikingly characteristic of Peter, it is also a proof of the fundamental harmony between his teaching and the more developed and systematic doctrines of St Paul“1” The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Je6us; whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you: and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And how, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did itp as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever
l Smith’s Bib. Diet, in loco.
He shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless yon, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”
This is a bold appeal, not surely in accordance with the dictates of human policy or worldly wisdom. Peter had too recently and vividly in his memory the scenes in the house of Caiaphas, the hall Gazith, and the place of public execution, not to know at what peril to himself and to his associate he uttered this strong indictment Had he been the disciple once familiar to us, he would have been less outspoken and courageous. But true to his new name, the Man of the Bock, he had in him the fear of God, and no other fear. At that moment too, he rose with the occasion, and takes advantage of an opportunity that may possibly never again recur. With a notable miracle appealing to their outer senses, he brings home to their consciences in the strongest language he can employ, the various aggravations of their guilt, by crucifying an innocent man, — that too iri defiance of the remonstrance of their own timid, irresolute judge, — and giving a preference to a base murderer (lit “a man, a murderer when they raised the infatuated cry, “Not this man, but Barabbas.w They had preferred (for there is this antithesis implied in his charge) the man that took away life, to the Divine
Author and Restorer of life. In such burning words he executed the prophet’s commission, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet”
At the same time, as on the previous occasion at Pentecost, he opens the door of mercy. There was this extenuation of their enormous crime, that in the case of many, possibly the majority, they “did it in ignorance.” They had blindly refused to weigh and estimate the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship. Their ideal Messiah was so different to that lowly Man of Sorrows. They would never have stooped to the committal of such a deed had they known that He whom they crucified was in truth the Lord of glory. Peter recals his Lord’s prayer on the cross, which had doubtless been repeated to him — “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” In the spirit of that prayer he makes a free unlimited offer of pardon and salvation that even with sins pf crimson and scarlet recorded against them in the Book of God, there was forgiveness in the cross of Christ, if they would repent and believe. The cripple had been cured in “the name of Jesus,” and that name, so potent in the cure of a physical malady, was still more potent to cancel the foulest guilt that had ever defiled a fallen earth. He used no flattering words, but yet he would doubtless gain their attention and conciliate their good will, by addressing them as “Brethren.” He points them onwards to those times of refreshing, of which their own prophets had spoken, and which alone would come through Him who had been “exalted at the right hand of God a Prince and a Saviour.” Standing as they were at that moment on the Temple area, with the proud traditions of the past vividly recalled, while he speaks in the first, instance to each individually, be addresses them in their national and corporate capacity. As the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with their fathers, he implores them to accept forthwith the Crucified One as their Messiah King, that so they might participate in the countless spiritual blessings of His reign — the regeneration of the world, “the restitution of all things.”
Among the last questions, it will be remembered, put by the Apostles to their Lord previous to His ascension, and to which we have alluded in a previous chapter, was this, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel V* Peter indirectly alludes to this in his present discourse with special reference to his brethren according to the flesh. And it was surely meet that the Apostle of the circumcision, Hebrew to the last in all his sympathies and yearnings, should, amid longings for the spread of Messiah’s cause, look forward with eager hope and expectation to the era of which his brother Apostle of the Gentiles afterwards spoke when “all Israel would be saved,” and when, the veil removed from their hearts, the Jewish nation would welcome in the Christ of Nazareth, as the promised Shiioe — the Son of David — the Lord of Glory — the Priuce of Peace.
The effect of the miracle and the discourse following was most powerful. We believe we may with reverence say, no miracle of Peters Great Master, not even His crowning one, the raising of Lazarus, produced such startling and astounding effects as did the present. The Pentecostal gift of the Spirit had been shared by many more than the Apostles and their followers. This divine influence, deepest in the centre, was sending its concentric waves all around. The Lord Lad given the word, and great was the company of them that received as wel as of them that published. “Many of them,” we read, “that heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand” (iv. 4), “When, at what time or in what place, were any other such sermons as these ever preached ) So far as we can see, Paul, a man of far greater genius and learning, never wielded a multitude after such a fashion. When he addressed an assembly of Greeks, t some mocked, and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.’ When he spoke to the Jews at Jerusalem, * they cried out, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live.’” 1
But while Peter is still speaking, his address is interrupted; the measured tread of soldiers is heard, coming from the direction of the adjoining barrack. The cause of this sudden change on the scene is not difficult to explain. The Jewish leaders, ever on the watch, had already noted the excited crowd which had gathered in one of their sacred cloisters. They begin to apprehend that the Nnzarene sect, which they had hoped had been effectually crushed and silenced, might re-assert the influence of recent months or years, and their doctrines again come into dangerous conflict with the ancestral beliefs. A new impulse had evidently been given to the former by the reported miracle. The “pestilent heresy” must be crushed at once, and its two abettors consigned to imprisonment for this fresh outrage; all the more daring, because perpetrated within the sacred ground of the Temple. It had long been found necessary to have a troop of soldiers
l life and Writings of St Peter,” 119, 120. stationed in the Castle of Antonia (the military fort contiguous to the north side of the Temple), in order to repress these popular, riots which so often took place in its courts, specially during the great festivals, when different religious interests were brought into unhappy conflict. It was the same spirit of religious animosity and rancour which still rages so fiercely in Jerusalem at the return of each Easter — the modern battlefield being transferred from the Old Temple to the Holy Sepulchre, requiring the presence of a Turkish Contingent to quell the commotion, and very frequently not without blood. Dr Kitto gives the following interesting account of the famous Tower of Antonia: “It stood at the north-east angle of the wall which parted ’ the mountain of the house ’ (or, the whole site of the Temple) from the city. It was erected by the High Priest Hyrcanus, who made it his residence, and was wont there to lay up the splendid garments of his office, whenever he put them off, after having discharged his duties in the Temple. Herod the Great repaired and strengthened this tower, at a -great expense, that it might be a sort of citadel to the Temple; and in honour of his patron Mark Antony, gave it the name of Antonia. As before, the holy robes continued to be laid up in this tower during all the reign of Herod, and that of Archelaus his sou. After his removal, the Romans took possession of the tower, and kept a garrison in it, for the guard of the Temple.... And although their proximity and supervision appear to have been very unpalatable to the Jews, the Romans seem on most occasions to have acted with temper and moderation, and with very much consideration for the peculiar feelings and customs of the people with whom
X they had to deal There was, however, one exception; for the Bomaus still insisted that the sacred robes should continue to be deposited in the Castle, under their power, until the procurator Vitellius was pleased to perform the popular act of restoring them to their own keeping. There were other companies of Roman soldiers stationed in different barracks about the city; but this one being, as it were, within the verge of the sacred edifice, was most odious to the Jews, as a heathen bridle upon their Temple and service, and the most galling badge of the subjection and servitude to which they were reduced.”1
From this military Castle there issue forth the Captain of the Guard, — the chief garrison officer, and his band, and apprehend the supposed authors and ringleaders of a religious riot. The narrative leaves no doubt as to the instigators in so sudden an exercise of military authority. “The Priests and Sadducees” — who had either been spectators of the miracle, or who had been otherwise informed of it — saw at a glance that “their craft was in danger.” They sped to these guardians of the public peace, and urged them to take the wilful offenders into custody. There are two reasons here specifically given for demanding intervention of the civil power. The first “count in the indictment” of the priestly accusers (if we may use a legal term) was that
1 Pictorial Bible, vol. It. p. 2*9. It is onlj right however to observe, that many able authorities, such as Olshausen, suppose that this Captain of the Guard was not a Roman but a Levite officer, who is called by Jewish writers, the Man of the Mountain of the House. If this were the case, then the ban i under him would be composed of priests, and not Roman soldiers. But I have preferred following the view of Lightfoot, Calvin, ami others. they “taught the people.”1 This was deemed an odious, unwarrantable assumption of authority on the part of these peasants of the North to put themselves in Moses* seat, — venturing, and that too under the very shadow of the Temple, to propound an ecclesiastical creed: — men, devoid at all events of the higher education, and of intellectual and social influence; who had never sat at the feet of a Gamaliel; unskilled in Rabbinical lore, who had never graduated in priestly or prophetic school. How dare they venture to assume functions for which birth and education alike unfit them 1 above all, how dare they aver that in another name than that of the Hebrew Jehovah they have wrought a miraculous cure? They are usurpers of the priestly office, and of those who are the divinely appointed expounders of the law, and “defenders of the faith.” Such unofficial functionaries wiuuing their way to popularity by subverting the authorised hierarchy, taking the name of the Lord their God in vain by the substitution of another, cannot for a moment be tolerated.2 But other informants combined with the incensed and indignant priesthood. The second count in the indictment was preferred by the Sudducees, the dominant religious sect of the hour, specially described by Josephus as being, even when compared with the Pharisees, haughty and cruel. They were more influential than any other in wealth and social station, and in their intellectual opinions, the advanced
1 Being grieved — “The word thus translated occurs but in one other place in the New Testament. Acts xvi. 18. It implies more than simple Morrow, it was a mingled emotion of ind gnation and anger.” — Barnes.
s The original appointment by King Darid of twenty-four courses of Priest* — each course having delegated to it the administration of the Temple ‘service for a week — was still in force school of the age. The ground of their complaint against the Apostles was, founding on the alleged miracle, that they taught the doctrine which of all others was most obnoxious and hateful to these rationalists of their day, “They preached through Jesus the Resurrection from the dead.” The rejection of this was the chief and distinguishing tenet of their “negative theology,” along with the denial of a spirit- world, and a state of rewards and punishments. “Their God,” as it has been well said, “was a God of the earth, of which it was their happiness and their virtue to possess a magnificent share. They laughed at all fables of a life beyond the grave; deriding the notion of angels and spirits; the sole heaven of which they had any knowledge being about them in the palaces of Zion, in the Gardens of Ophel, in the fountains of Siloam.”1 They were the conservative aristocrats of the age. They had no sympathy with revolutionary movements, and were jealous of popular power, and mob supremacy. The bulk of the nation might wince under the grasp of CflBsar, but they saw in the Roman supremacy the best security for their own wealth and ease. If the influence of priest and noble continued dominant, they did not trouble themselves about golden shields being suspended in their Temple, as the symbols of degradation; — the legions behind these shields were the safeguards of their own lands and riches. -If credence were now given to the startling truth, that the crucified Christ who had been buried in Golgotha a few weeks ago, had actually risen from His tomb, there was no resisting the logical inference as to the possibility of others similarly conquering
i “The Holj Land,” p. 171.
the power of death. Allow the truth also of the alleged miracle at the Beautiful Gate, and their favourite doctrine was immediately impugned and confuted. The Sadducees, spurned by the rigid and sanctimonious Pharisee as infidel and sceptic, prided themselves on being the philosophic representatives of the nation. 44 The honours of the state had for many years past been enjoyed almost exclusively by the Sadducees, not to say by a single family of the Sadducees, viz., by * Ananus, or Annas, and his five sons (Eleazar, Jonathan, Tbeophilus, Matthias, and Ananus), and his son-in-law Joseph or Caiaphas. Annas himself had been in the possession of the high priesthood for a lengthened period, and all his five sons were at different times advanced to the same dignity.” 1
The Apostles then, by the bold preaching of the Resurrection of their Master, attested and verified by so notable a miracle, indirectly poured scorn on the dogmas of this proud, influential sect, and increased against them the hostility of the peopla This moreover will account for the silence of the Pharisees on the present occasion, who during the Saviour’s ministry formed His most unscrupulous and bitter opponents. Probably not wishing to disturb their good understanding with the populace, among whom they stood high from an affectation of superior sauctity, and seeing their work so thoroughly done by others, they preferred with a prudent policy to abstain from active intervention, and to nurse their hostility for a future occasion. We shall come, by and by, to see that it was opposition, not withdrawn or modified, but simply deferred.
I Lewis’s Life of St Paul, i. p. 89.
As the evening sacrifice was proceeding, and the shadows lengthening, being somewhere about six o’clock in the afternoon, it was too late formally to secure a full session of the Sanhedrim, so that the Apostles were “put in hold:” — in other words, they had their first experience that night, of those imprisonments, of which, among other trials, their Lord had duly forewarned them, and which in a few years, under Nero and Domitian, were to leave so many sad blanks and memories among the faithful. We may imagine with what vehemence and intensity the united Sanhedrim nursed their indignation for the morrow. And yet they must have had their own fears and misgivings. A miracle, they dared not deny or attempt to controvert, had been performed, — the popular sympathies had been roused — a wound had been inflicted on their national faith, their judicial authority, their sectarian piida They must try, at ail events, by one ipold effort to stamp out the nascent flame.
The Court of the Sanhedrim, the chief ecclesiastical court of the nation, met in the Hall Gazith — the stone or paved chamber. Recalling the Areopagus at Athens, it is designated in the Mishna, as Beth Din, “House of Judgment.” It was the high court of appeal in all cases, civil, ceremonial, ecclesiastical, and its decisions were long considered absolute and final until its privileges in regard to the civil power were abridged by Herod the Great. Still its jurisdiction seems to have been left undisputed regarding doctrine and ritual. “Their edicts went far and wide; and just as a Papal decree may smite a sinner in either Prague, Dublin, or New York, a word launched from the Lishcath-ha-Gazith would chastise offenders in either Memphis, Babylon, or -Rhodes. They could still condemn a man to death; though they could only proceed to execution after their sentence had been confirmed by a Roman judge.”1 The seventy members of which it was com* posed were — including the heads of the twenty-four classes of Priests, — the Elders, — reverend Signiors, distinguished for their age, experience, and learning, — and the Sopliertm, scribes or lawyers — those thoroughly versed alike in civil and ecclesiastical law. It seems to have been constituted not of Jews resident in Jerusalem only, but to have had delegates also from the lands and cities of their dispersion, Greece, Babylon, and Egypt. The High Priest was not ex officio president, but he was by courtesy and usage generally elected to be so. The vice-president, called the “Father of the Council,” “Rector of the Great College/1 sat at the right hand of the chief dignitary, — both in robes of office. Two scribes were seated at the extremities of the semicircle, the one to register the votes for acquittal, the other for condemnation. The rest sat on opposite divans, while” the bar “for the accused, was naturally in the centre where the semicircular seats met Hence the accuracy of St Luke’s description here, when he speaks of the Apostle prisoners as being” set in the midst.” 2 The locality of the Stone Chamber, according to a scholarly and reliable authority on the topography of Jerusalem, was” situated near the spot where the ‘First Wall ’ of Joseph us abutted against the western wall of the Temple, with which it was no doubt connected, either by an intervening portico, or by actual junction. We learn from the Talmud that it was built upon piers and arches — in order no doubt to elevate it to the level of
Dixon, p. 843. See Bib. Diet. Art.
the Temple area. The present Mekhemeh or Council Chamber of the Turkish Divan, where the Mejlis or Congress of Jerusalem holds its deliberations, having one entrance directly into the Haram, and another into, the elevated causeway street, probably occupies its identical site; and the Sanhedrim like the Mekhemeh may have been built over the pool.”1
Such was the imposing assembly before which the two Apostles of Jesus were now arraigned. We have even the names of the leaders of these grave counsellors given us by the inspired writer: “And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexauder, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem” (Acts iv. 6). Annas was till A.D. 24 the ecclesiastical head of the nation; and though on that year deposed from the high priests hood by Valerius Gratus, from various favourable circumstances he continued to exercise even a greater influence on his countrymen than either his personal qualities or hereditary position would have entitled him Caiaphas. his son-in-law was now High Priest de facto, although the real power remained in the hands of Annas. There have been various conjectures regarding the two less known names here specified, John and Alexander. The former has been supposed to be the famous priest and rabbi John Ben Zacchai, who was said to have witnessed, shortly before this time, the bursting open, of its own accord by some miraculous agency, of another Gate of the Temple which faced “Beautiful,” and applied to it on the spot the prophetic words of Zechariah, “Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.” The
‘•» Barclay’s “City of the Great King,” jk 172. latter may not improbably be the brother of the Jewish writer Pbilo, a man of great wealth and distinction — one moreover, whop according to Josephns, must have specially ingratiated himself with all the Temple won shippers, as it was his riches which supplemented the munificent architecture of Herod, and covered these various gates with gold and silver ornament.
It is evident that the members of this assemblage were alive to the seriousness of the crisis. Between the period of the alleged resurrection of Christ and Pentecost, little had been -heard of the sect of the Nazarenes. The leaders of the Sanhedrim had therefore probably surmised that, like other bold sectaries who had appealed from time to time for popular, support, their little day. with its sudden outburst of zeal, had run its course; — that the teaching of Jesus would soon be numbered among the things of the past; and that His duped and despondent followers woulcj return back, if they had not already done so, humbled men, to their nets and their fishing-boats. But the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost had stirred afresh the ashes of the Nazarene heresy, and given proof that the cause was instinct with new life. The miracle of the previous day had given them fresh ground alike for grave alarm and for immediate interference. They could not but remember the gigantic impression made on the multitude by the resurrection of Lazarus. What would be the result of a portent not so stupendous in itself as the other, but performed in a more public place, and capable of the fullest and most irrefragable attestation?
On the accused taking their places at the bar, the
1 Ant. xviii. 8.; xix. 5. 1; xx. 5. 2. judicial interrogatory was put by the president. It will recal the similar abrupt method of questioning to which a greater than Peter was subjected — “By what power or by what name have ye done this?” Peter, no less than his judges, must have realised the gravity of his position. Standing in the reputed presence of all that was venerable and learned in his country’s capital, it would be with no ordinary emotion that he listened to the words now addressed to him. There were times of his former history now well known to us, when, on far more slender grounds, he would have given way to vacillation and bowed his head before the storm, but now, reckless of consequences, because strong in the rectitude of his cause and “full of the Holy Ghost,” he held his ground without flinching. His feet were not on the unstable wave of Gennesaret, but on the Rock of Cesarea Philippi; he had counted the cost, and deemed it worthy of all peril, even to martyrdom. Neither was there aught of insolent defiance in his look and mien. He had been taught by the highest authority to “render to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s; “and by an anterior natural law he would instinctively give honour to those of exalted rank and of reputed wisdom, to whom honour was due. Yet neither could he allow himself to forget that the men whose eyes were now upon him, flashing the indignation burning in their hearts, were most of them the very same who had leut their dominant influence to consummate a crime #f the deepest dye, and most wanton savagery. Both Annas and Caiaphas had been personally implicated in the trial and condemnation of the Divine Prisoner, and doubtless their most willing accomplices were seated on the couches by their side. Peter thus felt constrained by a divine, overmastering impulse, to bring home to the consciences of his judges the reality and enormity of their guilt Independent, too, of their hands being stained with the blood of the Innocent, he could not forget that it was these very representatives of reputed sauctity and venerable wisdom who had suborned others to invent and propagate the unscrupulous fabrication,” Say ye that His disciples came by night and stole Him away.” He could not, unless false to himself and his Master, with the authors of so infamous a lie gathered around him, have kept silence: had he done so, the very stones would have crie<l out, and he would have had cause to re-weep that night his old, bitter tears. This suggests yet other and sadder associations, which he could not fail to recal in connection with that place where he now stood. Not only was it there, as we have just noted, though in different circumstances, confronting the same judges, that his divine Master had been sisted before His surrender to the Roman Governor; not only would the place bring vividly before him a the visage more marred than any man’s, and the form more than the sons of men;” the meekness which no insults could ruffle, the patient endurance which no revilings or insults could shake; — but surely far more than this, with what still deeper pangs must these walls, and that circle of faces, have summoned before him the unworthy part he himself played in the terrible drama: how there he had probably skulked in cowardly shame from the glance of hostile eyes; — how, in order to escape detection, he had, by falsehood and oaths and curses, disclaimed all cognisance of the Innocent Sufferer, — refused to raise one note of protest against the cruel wrongs hurled on His guiltless Master. Might not the thought at the moment, like a lightning-flash, cross his nobler new-born nature, Now is the time and occasion to make all the poor reparation, I can, for that base hour of cowardice and denial. I shall vindicate the glories of the name I then forswore, and convert the place of my ignominious defeat, in a strength greater than my own, into a place of conquest and victory.
But to return from the accused to the accusers. Their demand is a peculiar and peremptory one. It is specially to be noted that they do not challenge or impugn the reality of the miracle. Tlmt it were hopeless to attempt, i But they are wishful to know whose name the arraigned Apostles have ventured to use in effecting the remedy — - was it a power lawful or unlawful? The Jews believe4 that cures were at times effected through the agency of devils or demons, and such exorcisms were strictly interdicted. The present may have been such a case, which the official obligations of the Sanhedrim will require them peremptorily to prohibit Hence the summary question, “By what powr, or by what names have ye done this.”1
1 The name of all others which the Jews deemed to hare most power In working supernatural cures, we need not say, was the sacred incommunicable Name, “Skem-ham-phorash,” the name of Jehovah (see “Pictorial Bible9 in loco); a name, the very letters of which they imagined to themselves they had consigned to a secrecy that could not be invadedw disclosed The pame authority mentions, that by a base and unworthy fabrication, the Jewish rabbis have for ages attributed the miracles of Christ to a surreptitious possession by Him of that sacred name and secret. The clumsy fable they have invented was to this effect; that a stone found graven with the mystic letters was hidden somewhere within the Holy of Holies; — that to guard its invio’able sacredness, the wise and pious of the day fashioned two lions of brass, one on each side of the entrance, so that should any one by stealth cross the holy precincts, and venturing to lay unhallowed hands on the stone discover the secreted name, in coming out, the lions would growl upon hint so fiercely, as to banish from memory what was thus unlawfully procured* That proud judicatory, doubtless* assembled under the impression that two timid followers of the Nazarene would crouch panic-stricken under, the imposing majesty of law* and volunteer an instant recantation. What must have their feelings been, when, without a glance pf timidity or quiver in his voice, in the rough burr and uncourtly patois of Galilee, the accused man replied, Doubtless, as he was about to utter what follows, be would remember the words of his great Lord — “And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall, say: For the Holy Gbost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say “(Luke xii. 11, 12). The cured cripple, the living trophy of Divine power, the reality of whose miraculous cure could not be gainsayed, was standing evidently in the crowd as his benefactor thus addressed his judges — “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be. examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made
Jesus, they alleged, by using certain incantations, contrived not only to steal within the forbidden portico, but to discover, the stone; and having copied the mystic name on a scrap of parchment, He made an incision in His flesh, and deposited the transcript under His skin — so that though the roar of the lions affrighted .Him, He was able thus to recal the priceless secret, and by the utterance of the ineffable Name to work all His miracles. This clumsy and puerile myth is quite unworthy of repetition, except to show, as it do ;s, bu what senseless fables the prejudices of the Jew have been based and perp tu.ited for generations; also to evidence how futile they felt the attempt to deny the reality of Christ’s miracles when thus driven to account for them on gro aids so utterly frivolous and contemptible. This account is given in the Sepher Totdoth Jesku, or “Book of the Generation of Jesus.” A spurious narrative,** says Dr Kitto, to whom we are indebted for the reference, “of Jewish fabrication, from which the Jews have for ages received their impressions concerning the life and character of Jesus Christ. An interesting account of this book may be found in (AUon’s Modern Juda&m/ch. xiv.” - ‘whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye” crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole” (Acts iv. 8-10). Every syllable was emphatic. Without attempt at recantation or subterfuge he repeats even more emphatically the offensive word of the preceding day — “By the name of Jesus;” adding to it the more offensive epithet still, that of Christ (the Anointed, the Messiah); yet, too, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” the despised and the lowly; who, though He claimed to be the “Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God,” was yet the reputed Son of a craftsman of Galilee, and who chose as His associates and mes* sengers such * unlearned and ignorant men ’ as those now prisoners at their bar. “Whom ye crucified.” These were bold words to hurl at the great religious council of the nation. How they must halve winced under them; and more especially if we suppose, as we are warranted to do, that many who had been spectators of the miracle on the previous day, and who by it had been converted to the faith of Jesus, were witnesses and auditors of the present scene. Their presence, while it could not fail to nerve the heart of the speaker, would add to the wrath and consternation of his judges. “Whom ye crucified.” As if he said, ‘Yes! It is the Man whose blood ye shed, around whose cross ye yelled your fiendish imprecations, that this cripple is now standing here before you whole. God raised His Son Jesus from the dead; and by the power of His resurrection we vindicate the reality of the cure performed at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.’
Nor is this all Peter proceeds still farther with his brief, sententious defence. There was a sentence in the great national Hallel hymn with which each one of these priests and Sadducees must have been familiar from childhood. Often had they sung it at their Paschal season and Feast of Tabernacles. The speaker makes the true Messianic application of it. It was a metaphor, moreover, not unfamiliar in other ways, for it was used by their greatest prophet in predicting the coming of Christ (Isa. xxviii. 1 6). Nay, further, it had a personal interest in the case of him who now quoted it. For the metaphor was that of a rock or stone. In thus specially selecting it on the present occasion, might not Peter have had indirectly in view the desire of repudiating all claim to any false interpretation that might have been put on his Lord’s words, by unequivocally declaring that that Rock — that stone — was Christ? u This is the Stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 11, 12). Little dreamt these unscrupulous listeners, that in the chanting of that noble psalm, they themselves were the predicted builders who had been guilty of the rejection of this Stone laid in Zion. In common with the vast majority of their countrymen, they had dreamt of the promised Messiah only as the great temporal Avenger of their nation’s wrongs, who would tear down the Roman eagles from the palaces on Zion, and reign in a splendour eclipsing that of David and Solomon and Hezekiah. But they could never recognise the fulfilment of that Messiahship in connection with one who lived an uncouspicuous life, and died a felon’s death.
Yet, says Peter, that rejected Stone, rejected by you, is now the corner-stone of the glorified Temple; and if you and yours seek salvation, that salvation is not to be found in pompous rites, and party shibboleths, and au abrogated ceremonial, but in the name of that once despised but now exalted and glorified Jesus.
These brief words constitute his defence. He need say no more. They form a compendium of Gospel truth, as perfect and beautiful as is to be found in any other portion of sacred Scripture.
We may imagine the momentary hush of the con* clave, and then the hum of voices, and the sullen, ill* suppressed indiguation. Indeed, we are expressly told the effect the peasant orator produced. Such a bold appeal burst upon them like a thunder-clap. They had come as judges, resolved to proceed against these idle dreamers with severity, and crush at once with menace or punishment, or both, the obnoxious sect. But the tables were turned on them. First, more irresistible than all the logic of the schools, or sophistries of their philosophic thinkers, there stood before them, and before the spectator audience, the living and incontrovertible evidence of miraculous agency; and then, instead of (as they expected) fear, pusillanimity, retractation, they were themselves assailed as the guilty abettors of a foul crime, the murderers of an innocent Man, the crucifiers of the Lord of Glory! Stripped of every plausible pretext to adopt extreme measures against the accused, their recorded emotions proclaimed their own condemnation: — “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took know* ledge of them that they had been with Jesus. And, beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it” (Acts iv. 13, 14. J1 “The order of things,” says a writer, “is reversed. The prisoners at the bar are the accusers, and the judges on the bench are the self -convicted crimir nals.,, The court was ordered to be cleared. The Apostles were conducted from it, to allow the members to consult in private, and solve, as they best could, their present perplexity.” What shall we do to these men V was the question put by the embarrassed president to his fellow-judges, “for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. But that it spread no further among the people, let us strait ly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name” (Acts iv. 16, 17), (lit., “let us threaten them with a threat “). It is possible that some occupying these semicircular benches might have known Peter’s recent antecedents — his timidity, and cowardice, and falsehood — and they might be under the impression that little would be required, by maintaining an attitude of firmness, to relieve themselves from their awkward dilemma.
Once more the Apostles were summoned in to hear the sentence. Amid breathless silence the deliverance was given.
“We command you not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus.”
Contenting themselves with a reprimand and caution, without inflicting any penalty, they have little doubt
l The word boldness properly denotes openness or confidence in speaking. It stands opposed to hesitancy and to equivocation in declaring oar sentiments. that they will manage adroitly to hush the gathering storm, and deter from any future outbreak; while at the same time they will preserve and vindicate their own dignity, and the majesty of that law of which they prided themselves to be the interpreters. But they had misjudged the temper and character of those with whom they had to deal. The expedient proved an ignominious failure. Peter, once more, rose with the occasion. Doubtless, his manly soul burned within him to hear these unworthy and unscrupulous enemies of his Master pretending to give sentence in the interests of truth, animated with a pretended zeal for the cause of religion; he felt a righteous indignation that they would try to gag the mouths of those who were the only true expounders of the way of salvation, and bind them down to ignoble silence. With a firm remonstrance and pro* test, which these assembled dignitaries could not gainsay, they refuse to accept liberty manacled and fettered with such conditions. “No,” is their joiut reply, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than tmto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’1 (Acts iv. 19, 20). It was the first noble assertion which the Church had made as to the, right of private judgment — the anticipation of that made in the following chapter — what has been well called u the watchword of martyrs” — “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts v. 29). And it would have been strange indeed if the disciples of Him who came to bear witness to the truth, had come short of a heathen’s maxim: “O ye men of Athens, I am obliged to you, and thank you,” said Socrates, “but I must obey God rather than you. And if you would dismiss me and spare my life, on Condition that I should cease to teach my fellow-citizens, I would rather die a thousand times than accept the proposal.” With a mock show of authority, but ill-disguised weakness, the discomfited Sanhedrim deliver once more one of their empty threats. They dared not lay a hand on the prisoners. It would have been more than hazardous, in the temper of the excited multitude, to proceed to the extremities to which their oWn impotent rage might have urged them; for the voices of the people, probably in open court, were unmistakably oU the side of the prisoners. They were therefore liberated unconditionally. “So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done” (Acts iv. 21).
Thus did the purposed measures of violence, threatened by the judges, recoil on themselves. Thus, too, Was the bark of the Church, launched on so stormy a sea, enabled by the Great Pilot to weather its first storm. God had given His servant, unskilled though he were in the arts of rhetoric — “the sorcery of eh* quence” — a mouth and wisdom which all his adversaries were unable to gainsay or resist. Does not the beautiful combination of conrtesy and manly boldness in delivering his testimony, appear yet again, like a personal illustration of that precept of his own, after* wards recorded, “Be ready to give to every man a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear*9 (1 Peter iii. 15). By this Christian grace of meek magnanimity he had put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Had he passively acquiesced without protest in the sentence of the Sanhedrim, he would have betrayed a sacred trust, and compromised himself and his cause. But by his noble adhesion to the right of public testimony and of private judgment, he at once foiled his adversaries, and “strengthened his brethren.”
Beautiful and touching is the sequel to the incident just described. The first impulse of Peter and John was naturally to hasten back to the gathered company of believers, who (probably in the same place where they held their Pentecostal meeting) were assembled, waiting with breathless anxiety to learn the result of the Sanhedrim trial. The liberated Apostles gave a rehearsal of the proceedings of the court “Not for their own glory,” is the comment of Chrysostom, “did they tell the tale, but what they displayed were the proofs therein exhibited of the grace of Christ. All that their adversaries had said, this they told: their own part it is likely they omitted.” Doubtless, at the same time, would they seek counsel of the brotherhood as to their future attitude and conduct; whether they should at once leave Jerusalem, where their doings were menaced and their footsteps were -dogged, and proclaim the truth elsewhere; or continue where they were, boldly and unswervingly, with a reliance on Divine aid, in the prosecution of their great mission.
We can have no doubt as to the alternative they resolve to adopt. The brief conference is closed and consecrated by the outpouring of united hearts in the following noble prayer and hymn of thanksgiving. In reading it we entertain the strong presumption, alike from the language employed and from the circumstances of the meeting, that the spokesman of these fervid utterances was none other than Peter himself: — “They lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is; Who by the mouth of Thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth, against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thy baud and Thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of Thy holy child Jesus.” This prayer testifies to the fortitude and unshaken faith which animated the infant Church. It is no wail of the disheartened and disspirited over a hopeless cause; no bleat of timid sheep when the wolf was prowling close by; no craven faltering cry of timid mariners when the clouds were gathering in the horizon, and the tempest moaning through the shrouds. It is rather the manifesto of a little band of patriot heroes, who have unsheathed their swords with the resolve to conquer or die; they merge all thoughts of personal safety in the triumph of the cause so dear to them, and the glory of Him whose they are, and whom they are resolved to serve. They know that He is faithful that promised, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Nor, be it further observed, does the prayer contain one imprecation of vengeance — one hard or malicious thought towards their persecutors. They have but one desire — the conquest of truth — the salvation of souls. Peter had been taught; on the most memorable night of his life, to put up the sword of retaliation in its sheath; and others, as well as he, would recall the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, “Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”, No sooner were the words of supplication uttered, than He who was thus devoutly invoked, made Himself known, by a renewed outward manifestation, as the Hearer and Answerer of prayer. The place of their assemblage was shaken. The Holy Ghost again descended upon them. His presence was revealed on this occasion in no visible shape or symbol, but by three different moral results, each of which is specifically mentioned — (1.) By imparting to these intrepid witnesses increased fortitude in proclaiming the Gospel message — “They spake the word of God with boldness, and with great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all” (2.) In their disinterested love. Great as as the aggregate of the Church now was, numbering, it has been computed, wellnigh 10,000 souls, the members were linked together by that most excellent gift of charity, which it was said elicited even from heathen lips the exclamation, “See how these Christians love one another!” “They were of one heart and one soul;” no jar or dissension interrupted their spiritual fellowship; fraternal kindness seemed the life and soul of the infant, society. “No doubt,” says Calvin,” their honesty and temperance, and modesty and
l The word which Is translated “was shaken” commonly denotes violent agitation, as the raging of the sea, the convulsion of an earthquake, or
trees shaken by the wind. Matt. xi. 7; Acts xvt SO; Heb. xil. 26. — Dartut on Act*, j>. 104. patience, and other virtues, did provoke many to bear them goodwill,” (3.) An additional outcome of this fervent brotherhood, was a voluntary assignment made of their property into one common fund. Not many mighty, not many wealthy were as yet called: the vast majority of these followers of the meek and lowly Jesus were doubtless composed of the poor, and those in the humbler ranks of Jewish life. Many, moreover, of the first converts, we may imagine, were Israelites from other countries who had been converted at the Feast of Pentecost. They would naturally be reluctant to leave the company and teaching of the Apostles; yet, having made no provision for a prolonged absence from their distant homes, they would be as dependent as the permanent poor and indigent on the alms and charity of others; while, again, many of the natives of Jerusalem, owing to the Jewish hatred of the Nazarene sect, would, by their espousal of the new doctrines, forfeit employment as tradesmen or servants, and be thrown into straits or destitution. But the few exceptional wealthy converts, those who were in affluent circumstances, possessors of lands and houses, came nobly to the aid of their dependent brethren. In an exemplary spirit of self-sacrifice, feeling that they were members of one great spiritual family who had been brought to count their earthly possessions as dross compared to the unsearchable riches of Christ, they realised their property, put the proceeds of sale into a common fund, and made the Apostles its almoners. This fact would almost lead us to conclude that they had by this time surrendered their long, fond dream of the temporal kingdom, otherwise they would not with such alacrity have parted with any portions of that land over which they imagined at one time Jesus was to reign in royal magnificence. Bather anticipating persecution, and the likelihood of being driven from their Judaean homes, those among them who were “owners of the soil w wisely converted their heritable into movable property. The one might be forfeited at any moment by the violence and caprice of their civil rulers; but the money realised by effecting a sale was a portable commodity, and might be carried with them at any moment of flight to be applied for their common benefit. The conquest of what forms with very many the strongest passion of the soul, and one that seems to have been deeply implanted in the Jewish nature, is a pleasing attestation alike to the spirit of faith, and love, and self-sacrifice which animated these single-hearted believers. Those who know what it is to forfeit a patrimonial home and heritage, may gauge the amount of self-devotion and self-denial which prompted these Christian landowners to part with their vineyards and oliveyards, and to esteem the reproach of Christ greater than all other riches. They accepted gladly, in one of its manifold forms, the injunction laid upon them by their great Lord and Master, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt xvi. 24). And yet again, “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke xiv. 33).