[126] The College of Cardinals offers another illustration of this. The Cardinals were originally the parochial clergy of Rome. As Rome's ecclesiastical ambition increased, so did that of her parochial clergy, who came to imagine that, standing so close to the Pope, who was the door, they were themselves the hinges (cardines) on whom the door turned. I wonder if one of the original presbyters of Rome would be able to recognise his office in that of a modern cardinal claiming princely rank and precedence!
[127] I have expanded this subject in Ireland and the Celtic Church, ch. ii., viii., ix.; and in Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, pp. 352-70.
[128] See Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book ii., chap. 2.
[129] I have already said something on p. 181 of the meetings of the council, but not perhaps quite enough to explain St. Paul's relation to St. Luke as far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned. The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle. In the centre of the arc the president was placed; at either extremity there sat a scribe, while the disciples or pupils of the Sanhedrists were arranged in three rows appropriate to their respective attainments. In Selden's Works, i., 1323, in his treatise on the Assemblies of the Hebrews, the reader can see a plan of the Sanhedrin when sitting. St. Paul, as a favourite pupil of the President Gamaliel, would have the best place among the disciples, if he were not actually one of the council. Selden says that the disciples were arrayed in this prominent position not only that they might be instructed in law, but also might be available for serving on the council if any member died suddenly or was taken ill. St. Paul probably made numerous notes of the speeches delivered before him, and could supply St. Luke with notices written and verbal. The article in Schaff's Theological Cyclopædia on Sanhedrin should be consulted for more information and references on this point, as well as the other references on p. 181.
[130] M. Le Blant is one of the greatest living authorities on ancient art and history. He has been head of the French Archæological School at Rome. He has published an extremely able work on the subject of the Acts of the martyrs, in which he treats them in a strictly scientific manner. He confronts them with the processes of Roman law, the facts of chronology and history, and triumphantly shows the vast amount of truth contained in these documents. He also explains how the Christians got possession of the Roman magistrates' notes, which they then inserted in the local Church records, and dispersed amid other Churches, after the manner of the Epistle of the Lyonnese Church, to which reference has been already made. Le Blant, on p. 9 of his memoir, quotes one ancient document, which incidentally mentions that "inasmuch as it was necessary to collect all the records of the martyrs' confessions, the Christians paid one of the javelin men two hundred denarii for the privilege of transcribing them." We are apt to forget that both Jews and Romans conducted all their persecutions under strict judicial forms. We sometimes think that the persecutions were mere outbursts of popular rage, managed after the manner of a street riot. The examples of the magistrates at Corinth and Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles ought to dispel this illusion. The Romans had a perfect horror of civil commotions, and sternly repressed them. If a sect was to be put down, it should be put down in a legal manner, with questions and answers and due records of the proceedings.
[131] See p. [108] above, where I have touched on this point.
[132] Epistle of the Church of Lyons in Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., v. 1. This letter relates the earliest Celtic martyrdoms of which we have any knowledge. They took place at the annual Convention of the Celtic tribes of Gaul, which assembled at Lyons and Vienne. These conventions were much the same as the assembly at Tara in Meath, where St. Patrick began the work of converting Ireland. See my Ireland and the Celtic Church, chap. iv., and also p. 9 above.
[133] See chap. xiii., p. 248, above.
[134] See Survey of Western Palestine, iii., 126 and 383-88, where an account is given of the ruins of the ancient church erected in honour of St. Stephen by the Empress Eudocia, about A.D. 440. It is on the north side of Jerusalem.
[135] Dr. John Lightfoot in his Horæ Hebraicæ on Acts vii. 58, when dealing with this incident, enters into copious details as to the Jewish method of execution by stoning.