The life and work of St. Paul

WORK AHD MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN. 79
who had been guilty of the murder of Jesus. They had not, indeed, stirred
one finger for His deliverance, and it is probable that many of them all those
hypocrites of whom both Jesus and John had spoken as a viper brood had
looked with satisfaction on the crime by which their political opponents had
gilonced their common enemy. Yet they did not fear that His blood would be
brought on them, or that the Apostles would ever hurl on them or their
practices His terrible denunciations. Though the Christians had their private
meetings on the first day of the week, their special tenets, their sacramental
institutions, and their common meal, there was nothing reprehensible in these
observances, and there was something attractive even to Pharisees in their
faitliful simplicity and enthusiastic communism. 1 In all respects they were
" devout according to the Law." They would havo shrunk with horror from
any violation of the rules which separated clean from unclean meats ; they not
only observed the prescribed feasts of the Pentateuch and its single fast, but
even adopted the fasts which had been sanctioned by the tradition of the oral
Law ; they had their children duly circumcised ; they approved and practised
the vows of the Nazarites; they never omitted to be on their knees in the
Temple, or with their faces turned towards it, at the three stated hours
of prayer. 8
It needs but a glance at the symbolism of the Apocalypse to see
how dear to them were the names, the reminiscences, the Levitical ceremonial,
the Temple worship of their Hebrew fellow-citizens. Not many years later,
the " many myriads of Jews ^vho believed were all zealous of the Law," and
would have thought it a disgrace to do otherwise than " to walk orderly." a
The position, therefore, which they held was simply that of one synagogue
more, in a city which, according to the Rabbis, could already boast that it
possessed as many as 480. They might have been called, and it is probable
that they were called, by way of geographical distinction, "the Synagogue of
tho Nazarenes."
But this acceptance with tho people could only be temporary and deceptive.
If, indeed, the early believers had never advanced beyond this stand-point,
Christianity might have been regarded to the last as nothing more than a
phase of Pharisaism, heretical for its acceptance of a crucified Messiah,
but worthy of honour for the scrupulosity of its religious life. But had
Christianity never been ruoro than this, then the olive branch would have died
with the oleaster on which it was engrafted. It was as necessary for the
Church as for the world that this hollow semblance of unison between
religions which, hi their distinctive differences, were essentially antagonistic,
should be rudely dissipated. It was necessary that all Christians, whether
1 The Jewa would have regarded them at that time as Chabertm, a body of people
associated, quite harmlessly, for a particular object.
2 Called mnrc, skachritk, at 9; nma, minckah, at 3.30; and l^sn. mear'b, at dark
(Acts ii. 1 ; iii. 1 ; x. 30).
3 Acts xxl. 20, 24. See for the facts In the previous paragraphs, Acts x. 9, 14, 80 ;
alii. 2, 3 ; xviii. 18, 21 ; xx. 6, 10 ; xxii. 3 ; Bom. riv. 5; Gal. iv. 10 ; v. 2 ; Phil. ii>- 2;
Rev. ii. 9 ; iii. 9 ; vii. 15 ; xi. 19, &o. ; Eeuss. Th&ol. Chrit. i. 291, who quotes Sulpio.
Sever, ii 81, " Christum Deura sub legia observatione credebaat."