Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

THE PENTECOST.

After the ascension, all the apostles seem to have removed their families and business from Galilee, and to have made Jerusalem their permanent abode. From this time no more mention is made of any part of Galilee as the home of Peter or his friends; and even the lake, with its cities, so long hallowed by the presence and the deeds of the son of man, was thenceforth entirely left to the low and vulgar pursuits which the dwellers of that region had formerly followed upon it, without disturbance from the preaching and the miracles of the Nazarene. The apostles finding themselves in Jerusalem the object of odious, or at best of contemptuous notice from the great body of the citizens, being known as Galileans and as followers of the crucified Jesus, therefore settled themselves in such a manner as would best secure their comfortable and social subsistence. When they came back to the city from Galilee, (having parted from their Master on the Olive mount, about a mile off,) they went up into a chamber in a private house, where all the eleven passed the whole time, together with their wives, and the women who had followed Jesus, and with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brethren. These all continued with one accord in this place, with prayer and supplication, at the same time no doubt comforting and instructing one another in those things, of which a knowledge would be requisite or convenient for the successful prosecution of their great enterprise, on which they were soon to embark. In the course of these devout and studious pursuits, the circumstances and number of those enrolled by Christ in the apostolic band, became naturally a subject of consideration and discussion, and they were particularly led to notice the gap made among them, by the sad and disgraceful defection of Judas Iscariot. This deficiency the Savior had not thought of sufficient importance to need to be filled by a nomination made by him, during the brief period of his stay among them after his resurrection, when far more weighty matters called his attention. It was their wish however, to complete their number as originally constituted by their Master, and in reference to the immediate execution of this pious and wise purpose, Peter, as their leader, forcibly and eloquently addressed them, when not less than one hundred and twenty were assembled. The details of his speech, and the conclusion of the business, are deferred to the account of the lives of those persons who were the subjects of the transaction. In mentioning it now, it is only worth while to notice, that Peter here stands most distinctly and decidedly forward, as the director of the whole affair, and such was his weight in the management of a matter so important, that his words seem to have had the force of law; for without further discussion, commending the decision to God in prayer, they adopted the action suggested by him, and filled the vacancy with the person apparently designated by God. In the faithful and steady confidence that they were soon to receive, according to the promise of their risen Lord, some new and remarkable gift from above, which was to be to them at once the seal of their divine commission, and their most important equipment for their new duties, the apostles waited in Jerusalem until the great Jewish feast of the pentecost. This feast is so named from a Greek word meaning “fiftieth,” because it always came on the fiftieth day after the day of the passover feast. Jesus had finally disappeared from his disciples about forty days after his resurrection,——that is forty-two days after the great day of the passover, which will leave just one week for the time which passed between the ascension and the day of pentecost. These seven days the apostolic assembly had passed in such pursuits as might form the best preparation for the great event they were expecting. Assembled in their sacred chamber, they occupied themselves in prayer and exhortation. At length the great feast arrived, on which the Jews, according to the special command of Moses, commemorated the day, on which of old God gave the law to their fathers, on Mount Sinai, amid thunder and lightning. On this festal occasion, great numbers of Jews who had settled in different remote parts of the world, were in the habit of coming back to their father-land, and their holy city, to renew their devotion in the one great temple of their ancient faith, there to offer up the sacrifices of gratitude to their fathers’ God, who had prospered them even in strange lands among the heathen. The Jews were then, as now, a wandering, colonizing people wherever they went, yet remained perfectly distinct in manners, dress and religion, never mixing in marriage with the people among whom they dwelt, but every where bringing up a true Israelitish race, to worship the God of Abraham with a pure religion, uncontaminated by the idolatries around them. There was hardly any part of the world, where Roman conquest had planted its golden eagles, to which Jewish mercantile enterprise did not also push its adventurous way, in the steady pursuit of gainful traffic. The three grand divisions of the world swarmed with these faithful followers of the true law of God, and from the remotest regions, each year, gathered a fresh host of pilgrims, who came from afar, many for the first time, to worship the God of their fathers in their fathers’ land. Amid this fast gathering throng, the feeble band of the apostles, unknown and unnoticed, were assembled in their usual place of meeting, and employed in their usual devout occupations. Not merely the twelve, but all the friends of Christ in Jerusalem, to the number of one hundred and twenty, were here awaiting, in prayer, the long promised Comforter from the Father. All of a sudden, the sound of a mighty wind, rushing upon the building, roared around them, and filled the apartments with its appalling noise, rousing them from the religious quiet to which they had given themselves up. Nor were their ears alone made sensible of the approach of some strange event. In the midst of the gathering gloom which the wind-driven clouds naturally spread over all, flashes of light were seen by them, and lambent flames playing around, lighted at last upon them. At once the anxious prayers with which they had awaited the coming of the Comforter, were hushed: they needed no longer to urge the fulfilment of their Master’s word; for in the awful rush of that mighty wind, they recognized the voice they had so long expected, and in that solemn sound, they knew the tone of the promised Spirit. The approach of that feast-day must have raised their expectations of this promised visitation to the highest pitch. They knew that this great national festival was celebrated in commemoration of the giving of the old law on Mount Sinai to their fathers, through Moses, and that no occasion could be more appropriate or impressive for the full revelation of the perfect law which the last restorer of Israel had come to teach and proclaim. The ancient law had been given on Sinai, in storm and thunder and fire; when therefore, they heard the roar of the mighty wind about them, the firm conviction of the approach of their new revelation must have possessed their minds at once. They saw too, the dazzling flash of flame among them, and perceived, with awe, strange masses of light, in the shape of tongues, settling with a tremulous motion on the head of each of them. The tempest and the fire were the symbols of God’s presence on Sinai of old, and from the same signs joined with these new phenomena, they now learned that the aid of God was thus given to equip them with the powers and energies needful for their success in the wider publication of the doctrine of Christ. With these tokens of a divine presence around them, their feelings and thoughts were raised to the highest pitch of joy and exultation; and being conscious of a new impulse working in them, they were seized with a sacred glow of enthusiasm, so that they gave utterance to these new emotions in words as new to them as their sensations, and spoke in different languages, praising God for this glorious fulfilment of his promise, as this holy influence inspired them.

An upper room.——The location of this chamber has been the subject of a vast quantity of learned discussion, a complete view of which would far exceed my limits. The great point mooted has been, whether this place was in a private house or in the temple. The passage in Luke xxiv. 53, where it is said that the apostles “were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God,” has led many to suppose that the same writer, in this continuation of the gospel story, must have had reference to some part of the temple, in speaking of the upper room as the place of their abode. In the Acts ii. 46, also, he has made a similar remark, which I can best explain when that part of the story is given. The learned Krebsius (Observationes in Novvm Testamentvm e Flavio Iosepho, pp. 162–164) has given a fine argument, most elegantly elaborated with quotations from Josephus, in which he makes it apparently quite certain from the grammatical construction, and from the correspondence of terms with Josephus’s description of the temple, that this upper room must have been there. It is true, that Josephus mentions particularly a division of the inner temple, on the upper side of it, under the name of ὑπερῳον, (hyperoon,) which is the word used by Luke in this passage, but Krebsius in attempting to prove this to be a place in which the disciples might be constantly assembled, has made several errors in the plan of the later temple, which I have not time to point out, since there are other proofs of the impossibility of their meeting there, which will take up all the space I can bestow on the subject. Krebsius has furthermore overlooked entirely the following part of the text in Acts i. 13, where it is said, that when they returned to Jerusalem, “they went up into an upper room where they had been staying,” in Greek, οὑ ησαν καταμενοντες, (hou esan katamenontes,) commonly translated “they abode.” The true force of this use of the present participle with the verb of existence is repeated action, as is frequently true of the imperfect of that verb in such combinations. Kuinoel justly gives it this force,——“ubi commorari sive convenire solebant.” But the decisive proof against the notion that this room was in the temple, is this. In specifying the persons there assembled, it is said, (Acts i. 14,) that the disciples were assembled there with the women of the company. Now it is most distinctly specified in all descriptions of the temple, that the women were always limited to one particular division of the temple, called the “women’s court.” Josephus is very particular in specifying this important fact in the arrangements of the temple. (Jewish War, V. 5. 2.) “A place on this part of the temple specially devoted to the religious use of the women, being entirely separated from the rest by a wall, it was necessary that there should be another entrance to this. * * * There were on the other sides of this place two gates, one on the north and one on the south, through which the court of the women was entered; for women were not allowed to enter through any others.” (Also V. 5, 6.) “But women, even when pure, were not allowed to pass within the limit before mentioned.” This makes it evident beyond all doubt, that women could never be allowed to assemble with men in this upper chamber within the forbidden precincts, to which indeed it was impossible for them to have access, entering the temple through two private doors, and using only one court, which was cut off by an impenetrable wall, from all communication with any other part of the sacred inclosure.

This seems to me an argument abundantly sufficient to upset all that has ever been said in favor of the location of this upper apartment within the temple; and my only wonder is, that so many learned critics should have perplexed themselves and others with various notions about the matter, when this single fact is so perfectly conclusive.

The upper room, then, must have been in some private house, belonging to some wealthy friend of Christ, who gladly received the apostles within his walls. Every Jewish house had in its upper story a large room of this sort, which served as a dining-room, (Mark xiv. 15: Luke xxii. 12,) a parlor, or an oratory for private or social worship. (See Bloomfield’s Annotations, Acts i. 13.) Some have very foolishly supposed this to have been the house of Simon the leper, (Matthew xxvi. 6,) but his house was in Bethany, and therefore by no means answers the description of their entering it after their return to Jerusalem from Bethany. Others, with more probability, the house of Nicodemus, the wealthy Pharisee; but the most reasonable supposition, perhaps, is that of Beza, who concludes this to have been the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, which we know to have been afterwards used as a place of religious assembly. (Acts xii. 12.) Others have also, with some reason, suggested that this was no doubt the same “upper room furnished,” in which Jesus had eaten the last supper with his disciples. These two last suppositions are not inconsistent with each other.

Tongues of fire.——This is a classic Hebrew expression for “a lambent flame,” and is the same used by Isaiah, (v. 24,) where the Hebrew is לשון אש (leshon esh,) “a tongue of fire;”——commonly translated, simply “fire.” In that passage there seems to be a sort of poetical reference to the tongue, as an organ used in devouring food, (“as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble,”) but there is abundant reason to believe that the expression was originally deduced from the natural similitude of a rising flame to a tongue, being pointed and flexible, as well as waving in its outlines, and playing about with a motion like that of licking, whence the Latin expression of “a lambent flame,”——from lambo, “lick.” Wetstein aptly observes, that a flame of fire, in the form of a divided tongue, was a sign of the gift of tongues, corresponding to the Latin expression bilinguis, and the Greek διγλωσος, (diglossos,) “two-tongued,” as applied to persons skilled in a plurality of languages. He also with his usual classic richness, gives a splendid series of quotations illustrative of this idea of a lambent flame denoting the presence of divine favor, or inspiration imparted to the person about whom the symbol appeared. Bloomfield copies these quotations, and also draws illustrations in point, from other sources.

My own opinion of the nature of this whole phenomenon is that of Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Paulus and Kuinoel,——that a tremendous tempest actually descended at the time, bringing down clouds highly charged with electricity, which was not discharged in the usual mode, by thunder and lightning, but quietly streamed from the air to the earth, and wherever it passed from the air upon any tolerable conductor, it made itself manifest in the darkness occasioned by the thick clouds, in the form of those pencils of rays, with which every one is familiar who has seen electrical experiments in a dark room; and which are well described by the expression, “cloven tongues of fire.” The temple itself being covered and spiked with gold, the best of all conductors, would quietly draw off a vast quantity of electricity, which, passing through the building, would thus manifest itself on those within the chambers of the temple, if we may suppose the apostles to have been there assembled. These appearances are very common in peculiar electrical conditions of the air, and there are many of my readers, no doubt, who have seen them. At sea, they are often seen at night on the ends of the masts and yards, and are well known to sailors by the name which the Portuguese give them, “corpos santos,”——“holy bodies,”——connecting them with some popish superstitions. A reference to the large quotations given by Wetstein and Bloomfield, will show that this display at the pentecost is not the only occasion on which these electric phenomena were connected with spiritual mysteries. No one would have the slightest hesitation in explaining these passages in other credible historians, by this physical view; and I know no rule in logic or common sense,——no religious doctrine or theological principle, which compels me to explain two precisely similar phenomena of this character, in two totally different ways, because one of them is found in a heathen history, and the other in a sacred and inspired record. The vehicle thus chosen was not unworthy of making the peculiar manifestation of the presence of God, and of the outpouring of his spirit;——nor was it an unprecedented mode of his display. The awful thunder which shook old Sinai, and the lightnings which dazzled the eyes of the amazed Israelites, were real thunder and lightning, nor will an honest and reverent interpretation of the sacred text allow us to pronounce them acoustical and optical delusions. If they were real thunder and lightning, they were electrical discharges, and cannot be conceived of in any other way. Why should we hesitate at the notion that He who “holds the winds in the hollow of his hand,” and “makes a way for the lightning of thunder,” should use these same awful instruments as the symbols of his presence, to strike awe into the hearts of men, making the physical the token of the moral power; and accomplishing the deep prophetic meaning of the solemn words of the Psalmist, “He walks upon the wings of the wind——he makes the winds his messengers——the lightnings his ministers.” For this is the just translation of Psalm civ. 4. See Lowth, Clarke, Whitby, Calmet, Thomson, &c. But Jaspis, Bloomfield, Stuart, &c., support the common version.

Were all assembled, &c.——It has been questioned whether this term, “all,” refers to the one hundred and twenty, or merely to the apostles, who are the persons mentioned in the preceding verse, (Acts i. 26, ii. 1,) and to whom it might be grammatically limited. There is nothing to hinder the supposition that all the brethren were present, and Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine and other ancient fathers, confirm this view. The place in which they met, need not, of course, be the same where the events of the preceding chapter occurred, but was very likely some one of the thirty apartments, (οικοι, oikoi, Josephus, Antiquities, viii. 3. 2,) which surrounded the inner court of the temple, where the apostles might very properly assemble at the third hour, which was the hour of morning prayer, and which is shown in verse 15, to have been the time of this occurrence. Besides, it is hard to conceive of this vast concourse of persons (verse 41,) as occurring in any other place than the temple, in whose vast and thronged courts it might easily happen, for Josephus says “that the apartments around the courts opened into each other,” ησαν δια αλληλων, “and there were entrances to them on both sides, from the gate of the temple,” thus affording a ready access on any sudden noise attracting attention towards them.

Foreign Jews staying in Jerusalem.——The phrase “dwelling,” (Acts ii. 5,) in the Greek κατοικουντες, (katoikountes,) does not necessarily imply a fixed residence, as Wolf and others try to make it appear, but is used in the LXX. in the sense of temporary residence; and seems here to be applied to foreign Jews, who chose to remain there, from the passover to the pentecost, but whose home was not in Jerusalem; for the context speaks of them as dwellers in Mesopotamia, &c. (verse 9.) A distinction is also made between two sorts of Jews among those who had come from Rome,——the Jews by birth and the proselytes, (verse 10,) showing that the Mosaic faith was flourishing, and making converts from the Gentiles there.

PETER’S SERMON.