A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient)

by John Henry Blunt

The next journey of the great Apostle of the Gentiles led him first through Galatia and Phrygia, "strengthening" the Churches he had already founded, and then brought him to the rich and important maritime city of Ephesus, destined to be a third great centre of the Gentile Church, and to hold in Asia Minor the same position as did Corinth in Greece and Antioch in Syria. Here again St. Paul was forced to withdraw altogether from the Jewish synagogue, after three months of earnest preaching and teaching.

Ephesus was the great seat of the worship of the heathen goddess Diana, or Artemis, and was also full of those who practised "magical arts" or sorceries, so that its inhabitants were doubly enslaved by the Evil One. But the kingdom of darkness could not stand against the Kingdom of Light. Great power given to the Church. A.D. 57. A.D. 58. Great as was the power of Satan, still more mighty was the Power which the Lord Jesus gave to His Church. "Special miracles" were wrought in the place of "lying wonders;" the Jewish exorcists were confounded, and the sincerity of the Christian converts was proved by the costly sacrifice of their once-prized books of magic. "So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed[24]."

St. Paul passed between two and three years at Ephesus, during which time he is supposed to have founded the Church in Crete, leaving St. Titus as its Bishop, whilst Ephesus was placed under the episcopal charge of St. Timothy. But eventually the riot excited by Demetrius drove the Apostle from that city. A.D. 59. A.D. 60. His visitation charge to the Elders of Ephesus. On his return to the neighbouring city of Miletus, after his journey through Greece and Macedonia, we read of his sending to Ephesus for the clergy of that place, and delivering to them a solemn charge respecting their duties to the flock which God had entrusted to their care[25].

It is during St. Paul's long sojourn at Ephesus that we have the first indication of his intention to visit the remoter regions of the West, and more particularly its capital, imperial Rome[26]. He probably at that time expected to see its wonders under different circumstances than those of a prisoner, though before he finished his homeward journey to Jerusalem, he had supernatural warnings of what was coming upon him[27] from the malice of his Jewish enemies.

Section 6. St. Paul at Rome.

A.D. 60.

The anxiety which St. Paul ever felt to avoid giving unnecessary offence to his fellow-countrymen, and his readiness to follow the precepts of Judaism when they did not interfere with the liberty of Christianity, were, in God's good Providence, the indirect means of his being sent to preach the glad tidings of salvation, not in Rome only, but in still more distant countries. St. Paul goes to Rome. A.D. 63-65. It will not be necessary to enter into the particulars which drew upon St. Paul the unjust indignation of the Jews, and induced him to appeal from their persecutions and the popularity-seeking of Festus to the justice of the emperor: we need only remember that the conclusion of the Book of the Acts shows him to us a prisoner "in his own hired house" at Rome, and there preaching and teaching "with all confidence," first, as ever, to the Jews, and afterwards to the Gentiles.

Section 7. Extent of the Labours of the Apostles.

We are told but little in Holy Scripture as to the particulars of the Apostles' work in founding the Church of God, except in the case of St. Paul, and we are not allowed to trace even his labours to their end. Preaching of the Apostles in all known countries. From other sources we learn that the twelve visited almost every known country of the world, so as to give to each separate race of men then existing an opportunity of refusing or accepting the offer of the salvation of which they were the ministers and stewards. We are also told that all, except St. John and perhaps St. Matthew, crowned their life of toil in the service of their Lord by a martyr's death. St. Peter and St. Paul both suffered at Rome in the First Persecution under Nero, and most likely on the same day, A.D. 67.