05. The Apostle
THE COMMISSION. JOHN THE ASSOCIATE OF PETER IN JERUSALEM AND SAMARIA. DISAPPEARS FROM THE HISTORY. EPHESUS. PATMOS. CLOSE OF HIS LIFE.
THE Lord's instructions to the Apostles on the eve of His Ascension were that they should go forth to all nations, telling what they knew concerning Him, and preaching repentance and remission of sins in His name wherever they went.
Of the two Christ-given words—carrying in them at once an awful Accusation and a most gracious Promise—the first was "*Repentance*." They were to proclaim it as a Divine requirement—as an absolute necessity, without which no life can be right, but must go on from bad to worse—as a blessed possibility through the gracious working of the Divine Spirit—with a kneeling-place provided for it, such as Esau found not. Speaking this word, they should have conscience and God on their side, the world over.
In the same breath they were to proclaim, "*Remission of sins*," through the ever-availing atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Christ Jesus—so that the scarlet should be made white as snow, and the crimson as wool.
Their preaching was to draw its force, not from the
"POWER FROM ON HIGH."
clearness and cogency of their reasoning, but from the authority of Him in whose name they spoke. Should men demand justification of the message, they were simply to tell that the Crucified and Risen One had bidden them publish it. It was for this mission that the Lord had chosen and educated them.
Not even yet, however, were they prepared to engage in it. "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high" (Luke xxiv. 49). The work is too great and difficult—one might say—too awful and tremendous; who is sufficient for it? And another might say, The world is perishing, and we have a message of salvation to bear abroad; let us go forth on our mission at once; not a day, no, not an hour is to be lost! Both these moods of mind the Lord meets. To the man overwhelmed with a sense of insufficiency He gives "the Promise of my Father." To the man who would hasten forth at once, he says, Wait—tarry—till endued with power from on high. More was needed than personal acquaintance with Jesus, such as the twelve had enjoyed for years; more, than to have seen Him risen, and to have heard the voice of His mouth; more, than opened understandings and knowledge of the Scriptures; more even than message and commission direct from the Lord Himself: there needed "power from on high." Tarry till ye obtain it, for it will assuredly be given. It was upon no fool's errand that they were to go forth; but on at once the sublimest and most daring—and the most rational—mission that men ever set their faces to.
It is worthy of being noticed that while the missionary idea was set forth in its grandly-simple elements, so that there is no need for revision or enlargement in any future century, yet outward arrangements were not prescribed, nor even shadowed out in the dimmest way. There is Divine
AFTER THE ASCENSION.
foresight in this. We in our narrow wisdom draw plans and construct machinery and form arrangements which, we fancy, shall be perpetual; not understanding how the “increasing purpose” that runs through the ages necessitates ever varying and enlarging methods. The consequence is that we become formal and commercial in our ways of working, and lose the fresh simple-heartedness, the enthusiasm, and the swiftness and freedom of action, which are of such value to workers for Christ. The very dress in which we clothe ourselves for Christian service is apt to prove cumbersome and inflexible—like mail—instead of yielding softly to every movement of life. Conflicts arise between the old and the new; friends are divided; and power is wasted. The Lord, sweeping His eye over the world and on to remotest time, is divinely silent about machinery and outward arrangements, leaving every successive generation of His people free to work in the manner best adapted to providential circumstances.* Under such conditions the Apostle John shares the mission of the twelve, given on the eve of the Ascension.
Ten days elapsed from the Ascension to Pentecost, days which must have been full of a strange, undefined hope, kindled by the mysterious words of Jesus, “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.” These days were spent by the Apostles with one accord in prayer and supplication, probably in the same upper room where Jesus had appeared to them after His resurrection, and where He had breathed on them, saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” John has his place in the
* One half of *our* legislation consists in repealing and re-forming past enactments: Christ’s laws remain unchanged, never falling into desuetude, never requiring re-statement, as applicable and as sovran to-day as in the lifetime of the Apostles.
PENTECOST.
gathering, his name occurring in the list in its usual order, one of the first three, "Where abode Peter, and James, and John" (Acts i. 13).
When the day of Pentecost was fully come, all the disciples were present with one accord in one place—not the Apostles only, but all the followers of Jesus then in Jerusalem. Doubtless the very significance of the Feast of Pentecost would excite their hopes to a very high pitch. Suddenly there came a sound from above, like the sound of a rushing, mighty wind; and it filled all the house where they were sitting.* Following the mighty sound, perhaps ere it died into silence, there appeared unto them fire-like tongues, luminous but not burning, "distributing themselves" † severally on the disciples, a fire-tongue resting upon each. These were the external signs: the inward reality was this—"they were all filled with the Holy Ghost"; all, and not the Apostles only. The immediate result was that they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, these "other tongues" being simply languages which were different from the native language of the speakers, and which had been unknown to them until now they were filled with the Holy Ghost.
Of all the Jewish feasts, Pentecost was the most largely frequented by worshippers from foreign parts, and at this time devout Jews were sojourning in Jerusalem out of every nation under heaven. A very short time sufficed to spread abroad the news of what was now taking place. Naturally there arose great excitement and concourse; the multitude
* It seems impossible to determine the movements that must have taken place. What was "the house" in which they were sitting? Not an apartment within the Temple enclosure. Yet Peter's address cannot have been spoken in the "upper room." But we cannot follow the disciples from the place where they first met to the place where Peter addressed the multitudes.
† For that is what the historian says, and not "cloven tongues."
FRIENDSHIP OF PETER AND JOHN.
came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language the wonderful works of God—doubtless those “wonderful works” which were associated with the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Various explanations were suggested, till at length Peter stood up with the Eleven, and lifted up his voice in that address which pricked the people in their hearts and resulted in the addition to the brotherhood of three thousand believing souls. The name of John is not mentioned, but as one of the Eleven he stood by the side of his brother Apostle—perhaps next him thereby participating in and endorsing his testimony.
For some time afterwards Peter and John appear in association as friends, working in concert for the furtherance of the Gospel. The beginning of their fellowship lay far back. They both belonged to the town of Bethsaida. They had both been fishermen on the sea of Galilee. They had both been disciples of the Baptist. They had both been drawn to Jesus about the same time. They had both followed Him in His journeyings. They had kept together during the last scenes. It was Peter who beckoned to John to ask, “*Who is it?*” at the last supper. It was Peter and John (together with James) who went with Jesus into Gethsemane. It was John who spake to the damsel that kept the door and procured admittance for Peter into the high priest’s palace. It was Peter and John to whom Mary Magdalene brought tidings of the empty sepulchre; and they both ran, by a common impulse, to examine it. And when Peter rose and followed Jesus by the sea of Galilee, John also followed unbidden. They keep company and work in concert still. It is difficult to define the sympathy or spiritual magnetism that drew and kept them together. They were widely unlike. They differed in age; there is every reason for thinking that Peter was much the elder
THE LAME MAN.
man.* They differed in their ways --the one now calm, contemplative, not given to ready speech or action; the other still blunt, outspoken, fervid, "rough, weather-beaten Peter." But it was a case in which two are better than one, each supporting the other and supplying what the other lacked.
The first instance of their association, brought under our notice in the book of Acts, is in the healing of a lame man at the gate of the temple. One afternoon, soon after Pentecost, they go up thither side by side at the hour of prayer. At the gate called Beautiful, the "gate of Nicanor," on the eastern side of the outermost court of the temple, there lay a man, above forty years of age, who had never walked. He was well known to the multitudes who frequented the temple, being laid there daily by his friends or others, who had compassion on him. By profession he was a beggar; and seeing the two apostles about to enter the temple, he would not lose the opportunity, but "asked an alms of them." The two apostles fastened their eyes upon him and said, "Look on us." The words were Peter's; but perhaps the more magnetic eyes were John's. The poor man gave heed, expecting to receive something; and he received more than he had asked for: "Silver and gold have I none," said Peter, "but such as I have give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." Immediately the man sprang to his feet, and clinging to Peter and John, holding their hands, one in each of his, entered the temple along with them, walking and leaping and praising God, with all a child's unrestrained delight. A
* "We talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two."
Wordsworth (The Fountain).
BEFORE THE COUNCIL.
wondering crowd speedily surrounded the three, to whom Peter declared by whose power the man had been healed, and preached repentance and forgiveness through the very Blood that sinful hands had shed.
It is Peter who is spokesman, but John stands by his side, concurring in his words, and thereby bearing witness in behalf of Jesus.
The apostles are still speaking to the people when the captain of the temple, commanding the temple guard,\* and the Sadducees, came upon them, apprehended them, and put them in hold until the morning. In the morning they are brought before the Council, which was dominated at the time by Sadducean influence, and the question is put to them by the president, "By what kind of power or by what kind of name have ye done this?" Peter at once answers that the cure had been wrought in the name of the crucified and risen Jesus, and proclaims Him the sole channel of salvation. Only the words of Peter are recorded, but John must have spoken also, for the "boldness," the free and brave speech of both, is said to have caused astonishment in the Council, not unmingled with perplexity, till they recollected that the two men "had been with Jesus."
After conferring among themselves, the Council can see nothing better to do (though it is a feeble conclusion) than to command the apostles not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus: a command to which the two apostles reply, *Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye; for to us it is impossible not to speak the things which we have seen and heard*—the words and works of Jesus. The command
\* Certainly not Roman, but Levitical, preserving order and tranquillity.
A PRIMITIVE CHURCH PRAYER.
of God cancels every command of man that stands opposed to it. This was a defiance to every earthly power and authority that would silence the preaching of the Gospel—as grand as “*Athanasius contra mundum*” was ever thought to be. Not knowing how to punish them, for fear of the people, the Council simply dismisses them with a threat; and being let go, they went unto their own company, and reported all that had taken place. With one accord, as if under a common inspiration, all joined with uplifted voices saying:
“Lord, Thou art He, who 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, to do whatsoever Thy hand 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 in the name of Thy Holy Child Jesus.”
A prayer grand in its very simplicity, with a tone of triumphant confidence in it, and grandly answered. The place in which they were assembled was shaken; they were all filled with the Holy Ghost; with boldness they spake the word of God; the whole body of believers were of one heart and of one soul, and shared their possessions in the free spirit of brotherly love; the Apostles witnessed to the resurrection
* *Haida*, as to condition, *Servant*.
THE GOSPEL IN SAMARIA.
of the Lord Jesus with resistless power ; and great grace was upon them all.
Soon after these things, tidings that must have been at once surprising and joyful were brought to Jerusalem— that “Samaria had received the word of God.” It had come about in this way. In the persecution that began on the day of Stephen’s martyrdom,\* the members of the church at Jerusalem were scattered abroad, except the Apostles ; and wherever they went, they preached the Gospel. Among the scattered was Philip, one of the Seven, who went down to a city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, doing many wonderful works at the same time. Doubtless the memory of Christ’s own visit was not forgotten, and His words were fructifying ; and so Philip was called, not to prepare the soil for the reception of the seed, but to reap a harvest. The people with one accord gave heed to what he said, and the city was filled with joy. Among those who stood forward as believers was a man of the name of Simon, who beforetime used sorcery and bewitched the people, giving out that himself was some great one, but leaving it to imagination to say what. Imagination played its part, and the Samaritans from the least to the greatest regarded him as “*the great Power of God*”—somewhat as Christ is called “the Power of God” and “the Wisdom of God.” When this man gave in his adhesion to Jesus of Nazareth, it seemed a mighty triumph of the Gospel, like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus shortly afterwards, or as if in more modern times a Voltaire or a Paine had become a humble believer.
When these things were reported in Jerusalem, the Apostles sent down the foremost two of their number, Peter and John, to Samaria, who when they were come, prayed for the believers whom Philip had baptized, that they might
\* In Acts viii. 1, it is not “*At that time*,” but “*In that day*,” there arose a great persecution. The tiger has tasted blood.
SIMON MAGUS.
receive the Holy Ghost. There is no warrant for the view that the mission of Peter and John arose from suspicion or incredulity respecting Philip's work. Rather it was designed that the church in Samaria should be livingly connected with apostolic ministry; and in the Divine purpose and arrangement, Samaria was the bridge to the Gentile world. One thing resulted from the visit that probably seemed very discouraging: the conversion of Simon Magus was shown to be spurious. When Simon saw that through laying-on of the Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money to purchase the same power: to whom Peter answered in awful words, "Thy money perish with thee! because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee; for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." The poor man answers in words that look like repentance but are not, "Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me:" and there the curtain falls. Having finished their mission, Peter and John return to Jerusalem, evangelizing many villages of the Samaritans on their way.
From this point of time John is not seen in any outward movement recorded in the history. When his brother James is slain with the sword, there is no mention made of him. When Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles respecting the obligation of the Mosaic law, he is indeed recognized as one of the "pillars,"* but he takes no part in the "much disputing" that arose on the
* Properly speaking, the expression marks the respect with which he was regarded at the time when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians. It is, "James, Cephas, and John, who seem (not seemed) to be pillars."
JOHN IN EPHESUS.
question, nor does he give forth his sentence as Peter and James do. On Paul's last visit to Jerusalem, "James and all the elders" are named, but there is silence as to John. When Church parties were formed, and one said, *I am of Paul*, and another, *I am of Apollos*, and another, *I am of Cephas*, and another, *I am of Christ*, we find no hint of any party calling itself after John's name. The fact would seem to be that he took but small share in outward movements, and appeared but seldom in the general eye,—his life flowing on deep and still. None the less profound and wide-reaching however would his influence be, that it was exerted so silently.
At what time he finally quitted Jerusalem, the New Testament does not inform us. Most probably it was soon after the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and before the troubles which resulted in the destruction of the city. It is possible he retired to Pella in north Gilead, when the Christians of Jerusalem took refuge there during the siege by the Romans. Whatever intermediate sojournings he may have made,* there seems no sufficient reason to doubt the tradition which reports him to have finally transferred his home to Ephesus.
No city in the world, not even Rome itself, could at that time have formed a better centre whence his apostolic influence should go forth. It had been the scene of the most fruitful of Paul's labours. The most heavenly of Paul's Epistles had been addressed to the saints there and in the surrounding region. The Gospel had taken deep root in it. It was the real metropolis of Asia Minor, and a city of great
* A vague notion got somewhat into currency that John once preached to the Parthians, and that his first Epistle was addressed to his converts among them. The earliest trace of this notion appears to be in the writings of Augustine who quotes from John's first epistle as "*the Epistle to the Parthians*."
DOCTRINAL TENDENCIES.
importance. Though now scarcely habitable,—the plain a pestilential swamp and the higher ground covered with jungle,—it then enjoyed “the finest sky and the sweetest climate in the world:” and health and plenty smiled around. It stood in connection with all the great thoroughfares of the world, east and west, north and south. It lay just in the great current of life; and its widely extended commerce drew to it a constant throng of visitors. Asia and all the realms toward the rising sun, Egypt and Libya and Cyrene, the Mediterranean with all its isles and shores, Greece and all Europe,—placed in Ephesus, the Apostle, as with the mighty-sounding trumpet of God, could summon them all, and invite them to Christ.
There were two tendencies in this region threatening the corruption of the Gospel, which had showed themselves as early as the time of Paul. On the one side there was Pharisaic legalism, asserting that unless men kept the law of Moses they could not be saved; on the other side there was the germ of Gnosticism, heathen at heart, which attempted a speculative solution of all theological problems, and at once fascinated and bewildered many a splendid intellect. The one tendency threatened to turn Christianity into little else than “baptized Judaism;” the other to make Jesus Christ merely the central phantom in a system of wild, misty dreams. The crowning service of John was to declare in words as wonderful for their childlike simpleness as for their depth and power, what he had seen and heard of the Lord, as the true antidote against both tendencies. The rich, fresh, fervid Christian life of the next century in that region (all drawbacks being allowed for) witnesses to the fulness with which he accomplished his work.
In the course of his residence here he was banished for a time to Patmos, a small, bleak, “disconsolate” islet in the Ægean Sea, of no note but for its connection with the
PATMOS.
Apostle. It is less than twenty miles in circumference, and its population is not over seven thousand, about half being from the neighbouring islands. Peaked, ridged, precipitous, it shows well from the sea, particularly under the red glory of sunset; so also the outlook from it is noble—as from the poor, tame island of Iona, which bears to it such curious points of resemblance. It may have been a little greener centuries ago. Its Middle Age name, *Palmosa*, indicates the presence of palm-trees at some period, but it is now rugged and barren; and, with the exception of a few olives and cypresses, there is little or nothing to relieve the look of desolation which it wears.* On a small scale, it was a kind of local state prison during the reign of Domitian, like the Bass Rock in the days of the Scottish Covenanters; and here John was confined “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Tischendorf writes: “My soul was moved. Silent lay the little isle before me in the morning twilight. From its foot to its summit it is covered with groups of houses of light-grey stone: here and there an olive breaks the monotony of the rocky waste. The sea was still as the grave;
* In 1677, Joseph Georgirenes, Archbishop of Samos, says that it “is well stored with vines, fig trees, lemon and orange trees, and corn sufficient for the inhabitants, if they could only keep what they have free from the robbery of pirates.” A recent account of it, by one who has resided in it, and knows every portion of it thoroughly, states that the produce is not now sufficient for the inhabitants. Whatever is grown in the island, however, is particularly fine and well-tasted. The school planted in the island was long renowned as one of the best in Greece. It was here that the Patriarch of Constantinople obtained the famous “Codex Alexandrinus” now in the British Museum. A political advantage possessed by the island over the neighbouring ones is that it has no Turkish governor, and its population is exclusively Greek. Tischendorf noted with astonishment that among the numerous manuscripts preserved in the island (and it is rich in such treasures), there was not a single document referring to the text of the Book of Revelation.—See his “Travels in the East” (*Excursion to Patmos*).
DATE OF THE BANISHMENT.
tmos reposed in it like a dead saint. An inexpressible arm lay in the whole picture that surrounded me. *John* that is the thought of the island. The island belongs to him; it is his sanctuary. Its stones preach of him, and in every heart he lives." Dr. E. D. Clarke thus describes a upset view of it: "Whatsoever, in the warmest fancies of the youth, imagination had represented . . . . was not only realized, but surpassed. Let the reader picture to his conception an evening sun, behind the towering cliffs of tomos, gilding the battlements of the Monastery of the localypse with its parting rays; the consecrated island surrounded by inexpressible brightness, seeming to float upon an abyss of fire; while the moon, in milder splendour, rising full over the opposite expanse. Such a scene I actually witnessed, with feelings naturally excited by all the circumstances of local solemnity."
It is not absolutely certain at what time the Apostle's punishment took place; it may possibly have been as early as the close of Nero's reign, but more probably in the time of Domitian (81-96), whose gloomy, suspicious, and bitter spirit, made itself felt throughout the Empire. It would be, if not entirely remove, certain difficulties connected with the difference in language between the Book of Revelation and the Gospel, if we could place John's exile in the name of Nero; but there seems no good ground for doing so. The testimony of Irenæus, whom it is not easy to believe mistaken, is clear and unhesitating: "Not long is it since the Revelation was seen, but almost in our own generation, about the end of Domitian's reign;"* and on the whole the preponderance of external evidence is on the same side—only obscure and later testimonies being in favour of the earlier period.
* The suggestion that as *Domitian* was one of the names of Nero, Irenæus may have referred to him, will not bear serious consideration.
THE REVELATION.
The duration of his exile—whether he was forced to labour in the quarries—how and when he was restored to liberty—and so on—we have no means of knowing. The one association of the island of which we have certainty is its association with the visions of the Apocalypse. Prisoners have solaced themselves in their solitude, or at least relieved the oppressive monotony, by many a strange device. They have learned to train insects, and to establish a kind of sympathy with them; they have watched the path of a ray of sunlight entering through some chink into their place of confinement, and slowly travelling over wall or floor; they have spent days in pouring water from one vessel into another, making some difference every time; they have carved the stones of their cells; they have cultivated prison flowers; they have written poems; and to a prison we owe the Dreamer's immortal allegory. For John the loneliness was filled with a mighty procession of scenes and figures; and the future, onward to the consummation, lived before him.
I have the idea that the opening vision that of the glorified Christ—took place early in his banishment; and that the visions which followed were not crowded into the space of the single "Lord's day" referred to in the first chapter of Revelation, but were spread over the greater part of his exile. If so, the scenes would pass, not hurriedly and tumultuously, but slowly before him,—what we read in a few seconds filling (it may be) hours of time—with an interval between one scene and another, allowing full opportunity to "write" the things seen and the words and voices heard.
We may regard it as probable that his exile ended not later than the close of Domitian's reign; and that he then returned to the scene of his former labours and influence in the province of Asia. Tradition has filled in numerous and
CLOSE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.
grotesque details, but there is nothing that we can accept as historic.
We pass onward to the close of the first Christian century. The aged Apostle, now the last survivor of those who had seen the Lord, dwells among his "little children" at Ephesus, and exercises his influence and guidance from thence as a centre. The earthly Jerusalem has perished almost a generation ago. The terrible days of Nero have become a distant memory. The mild sway of Nerva has given peace to the Church. The splendid dawn of Trajan's reign has begun, himself just and clement, though determined to uphold the majesty of Roman law and religion. The gospel of Jesus Christ has laid extensive and powerful hold upon all the great centres of intelligence and influence round the shores of the Mediterranean. Not long after, the younger Pliny writes from Bithynia, what was probably true of all the western parts of Asia Minor, that "this contagious superstition," as he regards it, "was not confined to the cities, but had spread its infection among the country villages," and at one time "the temples were almost deserted." The explanation of this marvellous success given by the early Christians themselves is, doubtless, the true one—that God was exercising His power to save men through Jesus Christ. It was (so to speak) the continuation and extension of the day of Pentecost.
Though from the outset the Church was condemned as a "secret society," and Christianity a *religio illicita* that lay under the "ban of outlawry," yet for a time its obscurity was its protection!—Jesus was merely "*one Christus*" to them;—but now and for ages to come it was to be tried in the fire, by a series of persecutions fierce and almost uninterrupted, aiming at its extermination.
The persecution under Nero (so vividly described in
TOLERATION AND PERSECUTION.
the Annals of Tacitus)* was merely the outburst of a savage and ferocious nature, not so much against Christianity as against men who were publicly odious and with whom nobody was likely to sympathize, and who therefore served as a convenient scapegoat to carry away public indignation from himself. Under Trajan, for the first time, the new religion was condemned by *express law*.† If Christianity could have been tolerant, it would have found no serious difficulty in obtaining toleration; for it was very much a matter of indifference to the ruling power what religion men were of, so long as they conformed to the State regulations, and practically submitted to the supremacy of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Emperor. As Gibbon puts it: "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as
* The passage is this (*Tac. Annal.*, xv. 44): "To get rid of the report [that the firing of Rome was by his order], Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burned, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle."
† The punishable crime was *obstinacy* in adhering, contrary to law, to the new superstition. There were easy evasions for those who had easy consciences. A few grains of incense cast upon a heathen altar would secure pardon. It was held undesirable to hunt for Christians, and informers were discouraged. But the profession of Christianity was illegal.
JOHN'S GOSPEL AND EPISTLES.
equally useful; and thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord."
But at every point the religion of Christ came into collision with what existed round about it. The Christian by his conduct accused and condemned the current morality. He stood up against the whole life of the world, and its ways. He could not be present at the celebration of heathen rites. He could not sit down at heathen banquets. He could not salute the statues of the gods, or cast incense upon their altars. He absented himself from shows, gladiatorial contests, religious fêtes, and all assemblies that tended to licentiousness. He thus ostracised himself from society; and his whole bearing was felt as an indignity to the sentiments of his neighbours and friends. Of course the world could not like him, and the world showed practically that it did not. For a time the persecutions were social rather than political, and it was not till the followers of Christ became numerous and influential that the arm of the civil power had to be exerted for putting them down. These days were now at hand.
At the same time dangers were rising within the Church, through the spirit of presumptuous speculation which loosened itself from conscience and reality, and which, out of Oriental fancies, Greek philosophy, and Gospel history, fashioned systems as fantastic, shifting, and unsubstantial as cloud-scenery at sunset.
In these circumstances the saintly Apostle, full of years, and ripe in experience and wisdom, wrote his Gospel and Epistles—the last and richest treasure of sacred literature. Judging from internal marks, I would set some of these writings down at an earlier date, as the product of his noble prime; but let the slight tradition stand which binds at least their publication to the close of the century or the beginning of the next. He does not in these writings attack error as
THE CLOSING YEARS.
a controversialist, who deals with fragments and detached assertions instead of wholes, but rather exhibits the positive truth in the presence of which error expires. The central thought, ruling all he says, is that of "the Word made flesh," "the Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us," whom he exhibits coming forth out of His eternity, passing through this mortal life, and again entering into that glory which He had with the Father before the world was, with the added glory of Redeemer.* According to the representation of Chrysostom, the Evangelist made ready his soul, as some well-fashioned and jewelled lyre, yielded for the utterance of something great and sublime to the Spirit. These writings are the crowning gift of Jesus Christ to the churches, bestowed through the instrumentality of His holy Apostle.
We must be content to leave the closing years unknown. It is a safe enough inference—and it is all we can maintain—that the general guidance of the churches, in thought and life, devolved on him, and that he was faithful even to the last.†
We are ignorant of the time and circumstances of his death. Conjecture ranges from A.D. 89 to A.D. 120. Chrysostom affirms that he was a hundred years old when he wrote his Gospel, and that he lived full twenty years after. It does not appear that he died by violence, but peacefully upon his bed, most probably in Ephesus, amidst his "little children." One likes to imagine the tranquillity of the last scenes, in keeping with the tenor of his life.
"The night-dews fall not gentler on the ground,
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft."
* Hence he is called John the Divine, i.e., not the theologian, but one who spoke and wrote of the Divinity of the Lord.
† Some of the legends and traditions respecting him are thrown together in an Appendix—enough to serve as a specimen.
WHERE HE SLEEPS.
In all likelihood, his dust lies somewhere amidst the wild jungle that has overspread the neighbourhood. With the setting of "that last Resplendence" the age of common history begins. The churches found it difficult to believe that he had really passed away; the saying had gone abroad among them that he should not die, but should continue until the appearing of the Lord; and so in course of time the legend already alluded to was framed—that he was not really dead, but only sleeping in his grave.* As has been said, it was not wholly an error; for "he lives and will ever live by his writings, and the future belongs to him even more than the past."
Though the last of the Apostles had gone, it was not "night," with only far-off stars in the "dun and naked sky": the great Presence remained, according to the assurance given on the eve of the Ascension, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world"; and the blessed "Comforter" carried on His gracious work, so that as truly as ever the Gospel was preached "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
* See page 62.
V.