ON THE DIVISION OF THE APOSTLES
IN THE YEAR 40 OF THE COMMON ERA.
HISTORICO-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
The Division of the Apostles (SS.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. Where this Division is venerated, and in what manner it was made.
Although the ancient Fathers of the Church, and other writers both Greek and Latin, have often made mention of this Division of the Apostles, nevertheless they assign to it no fixed nor festal day. The Greeks indeed, in the Menaia, in the Basilian Synaxarion, The cult of this feast from the Usuardine supplements, and in other Menologies, most solemnly celebrate on the XXX of June the synaxis or festivity of the holy Apostles, as we have indicated among the things Passed Over on that day; but since they then make mention also of the other disciples of Christ, they do not seem properly to venerate the feast of the Division of the Apostles, of which we must here treat. From the Plantinian Bede, from the appendix of Ado, and from the supplements of Usuard, I first gather that the memory of that Division was celebrated on the Ides of July with an annual festivity. The Plantinian Bede, whom we also sometimes call the supposititious one, on this day says simply: The Dispersion of the Apostles; but the Appendix to the Martyrology of Ado in our Rosweyde has it thus: On the same day, the Division of the Apostles. Almost the same words are given by Usuard of Hérin, and by the Rosweydine of nearly the same age, so that the institution of the festivity seems at least older than the twelfth century. Other Usuardine codices, citing the testimony of Bede, have added the year of the Division, as may be seen in the Usuard illustrated not so long ago. More prolix than the rest is this announcement of the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard: The Division of the Apostles for preaching the word of God throughout the whole world; which, as Bede writes, was made in the twelfth year after the Passion of the Lord. Peter came to Antioch, then settled at Rome, and there is crucified. Paul illumined the world with his preaching, and is beheaded at Rome. Andrew is crucified in Achaia. James the son of Zebedee is beheaded at Jerusalem. John dies in peace at Ephesus. Philip is stoned and crucified in Phrygia. James the son of Alphæus is slain with a fuller's club. Bartholomew is flayed and beheaded in India. Thomas is pierced through in another India, which is at the end of the world. Simon and Thaddæus are slain in Persia. Matthew is transfixed with a lance before the altar in Ethiopia. Matthias completed his martyrdom in Judea. This Division was made by the command of Christ, that the word of the Psalmist might be fulfilled: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
[2] Peter de Natalibus, Bishop of Equilio, also relates this Division at sufficient length, by the Bishop of Equilio, and explains the celebration of that feast more distinctly thus, in book 6, chapter 99. The Division of the Apostles for preaching is celebrated on the Ides of July; because on that day, in the twelfth year after the Ascension of the Lord, they are said to have been divided to evangelize the word of God throughout the world, that the oracle of the Psalmist David might be fulfilled: Because their sound went out into all the earth, etc. For the East fell to Thomas and Bartholomew; the South to Simon and Matthew; the North to Philip and Thaddæus; the middle of the world to Matthias and James the Just; the provinces of the Mediterranean Sea to John and Andrew; the kingdoms of the West to Peter and James the son of Zebedee; the whole world was given to Paul the Apostle, according to what the Church asserts in his collect, saying: O God, who by the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul didst teach the whole world, etc. And there is sung at this feast, in the Mass, the Epistle: For with the heart man believeth unto justice. Rom. X. And the Gospel: Going into the whole world, Mark, in the last chapter, which best suit the solemnity. Concerning the partition of the provinces, which is set down in this and the preceding number, we shall treat afterward, when we shall have first laid out those things which pertain to the cult, the manner, and the time of the Division.
[3] From the sources indicated above, unless I am mistaken, Maurolycus drew what he has, and by more recent Martyrologists, and Ferrarius in his General Catalogue, and other more recent Martyrologists, among whom Saussay on this day in his Gallican Martyrology celebrates that feast in these words: The Division of the holy Apostles, long since renowned in the churches of Gaul, which trace back to it the beginnings of their foundation, because several of them are held to have been established by certain Apostles and apostolic men, after they departed from Jerusalem to imbue the world with evangelical preaching, as had been commanded them by the Lord. Whatever may be the truth of this apostolic foundation of the Gallican churches, which has been examined in its own place and will be further examined, it is certain that in Gaul the festivity of this Division was once celebrated, and that its memory, according to the testimony of Gallican writers, is even now preserved in the college of Montaigu at Paris. I find, moreover, the Office of that Division in the ancient Breviary of Auxerre, of Verdun, and of Besançon, which was printed in the year 1590. I scarcely doubt that the same Office was once recited in other dioceses of the Most Christian Kingdom and of the neighboring regions.
[4] I conjecture that the Belgians too recited an Office concerning this Division of the Apostles long ago, chiefly from our manuscript Florarium, and by proper Offices which, written in Belgium in the fifteenth century, has it thus: The Division of the Apostles, of IX lessons. After this there are added in the same place various things concerning the time of the Division and the preaching of the Apostles, which will afterward be discussed from more ancient writers. In the Missal, moreover, of the distinguished church of Liège, which was printed at Paris in the year 1509, there is read at this feast the following collect: O God, who by thy providence didst foreordain that the Division of thy Apostles should take place on this present day, that in the one grace of faith the Church, scattered among the nations, might be called together; grant us, through their supplication, to obtain pardon of our sins, through whose true preaching we have come to the knowledge of thy name. Through the Lord, etc. The same collect is read in the Breviary of Tongeren, which seems to be of about the same age as the Missal of Liège. A proper Office of the same feast is also found in the Breviary of Lille, which was printed in the year 1533 for the use of the distinguished collegiate church of St. Peter. This festivity of the Division of the Apostles continues to this day in the Metropolitan church of Mechelen, as may be seen in the proper Offices of that church, and we in the diocese of Antwerp, on account of another feast occurring on the XV, keep the same yearly on the XVIII of July, and in it we recite the collect, which differs little from the one of Liège shown above.
[5] it is shown from various churches. The veneration of this same day penetrated even to the northern nations: for the Poles, in the proper Offices of the patrons of the kingdom of Poland, printed at Antwerp in the year 1643, celebrate that feast under a double rite, and read the following prayer: O God, who didst found thy Church, distributed throughout the world, by the preaching of the holy Apostles, mercifully grant that, as we this day recall their distinctions under one celebration, so we may experience their intercession in all our necessities. Through the Lord, etc. The diocese of Wrocław in Silesia uses plainly the same Office. In Denmark and in the other northern regions, before they were infected with the Lutheran plague, I gather that this feast was solemnly celebrated, from the Breviary of Schleswig, which, printed in the year 1512, thus begins its proper Lessons: The Division of the Apostles is solemnly celebrated by many on the Ides of July, because on that same day, after the Ascension of the Lord, they are said to have been divided throughout the world. But the church of Ratzeburg, situated in Lower Saxony, in its Breviary of the year 1506, prefixes this Rubric to the proper Office: On the Division of the Apostles, a supreme feast. If there were leisure to turn through all the Breviaries of our Museum, without doubt the memory of that festivity would occur in most parts of the Christian world. But these will suffice to show the cult of this present feast. Now let us first see in what manner this division of the provinces was made.
[6] That the Apostles met at Jerusalem before the Division It is very probable that the Apostles, who had preached chiefly to the Jews in Judea and Syria, met at Jerusalem before they were dispersed throughout the whole world to announce the Christian faith to the most distant nations. Among others, St. Justin Martyr seems to indicate this, who in his oration to Antoninus thus relates: From Jerusalem twelve men went forth into the world; and these indeed unlearned and by no means eloquent, but by the power of God they announced to the human race that they had been sent by Christ to teach all men the word of God. Without doubt also, before this division, they established a certain common symbol of the faith, by which Christians might be recognized as by a military watchword, and lest any disparity, even apparent, should seem to exist among them in the announcement of the Gospel. Rufinus, priest of Aquileia, attests this at the beginning of his commentaries on the symbol, in these words: About to depart, therefore, from one another, (the Apostles) first establish for themselves in common a rule of their future preaching, lest perchance, drawn one in one direction and another in another, they should set forth something different to those who were being invited to the faith of Christ. All therefore, being placed together and filled with the Holy Spirit, by bringing into one that brief token of their future preaching, as we have said, each contributing what he felt, compose it, and establish this as the rule to be given to believers. The same is taught by Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, in his letter against the Bishop of Laon.
[7] It is a common tradition, which Baronius defends in his Annals at the year of Christ 44, number 17, that the individual Apostles composed the individual articles of the Symbol. and that it is probable each composed a single article of the Symbol; Although I know that this opinion is not certain, yet I marvel that Tillemont, in Volume 1 of his Ecclesiastical Memoirs, page 649, dared to write that it rests on no foundation, and that Baronius, to uphold it, alleges only a sermon wrongly ascribed to St. Augustine. I marvel, I say, that Tillemont asserts these two things: For in the first place Baronius, in the cited passage, adds this: These things are in Augustine; although, whether that sermon be St. Augustine's, is called into doubt by some. But whose it is matters nothing, since, concerning the distinct eulogies of each of the twelve Apostles, there are at hand the testimonies also of others. Then he cites St. Leo the Pope, Venantius Fortunatus, and others. Is this to allege only an apocryphal sermon of St. Augustine? Next, can it rightly be said that the opinion rests on no foundation, which Rufinus, related above, indicates in these words? By bringing into one that brief token of their future preaching, as we have said, each contributing what he felt, they compose it. More clearly does St. Leo the Great deliver the same matter, in his letter 27, elsewhere 13, to Pulcheria Augusta, where, near the end, concerning the obstinacy of Eutyches, he speaks thus: This most foolish insult * dares to assail, that our Lord in the Church willed no one of either sex to be ignorant. Since indeed the brief and perfect confession of the Catholic symbol itself, which is marked with as many sentences as there are twelve Apostles, is furnished with such heavenly fortification, that all the opinions of heretics can be cut down by its sword alone. Venantius Fortunatus, in book 11, about to expound the symbol, has nearly the same things as Rufinus. Whence it is clear that this opinion of Baronius is not utterly destitute of all probability, although these testimonies are not so clear as to compel us to embrace the opinion of Baronius. It is another question, whether the Apostles by common consent so composed the symbol, just as it was preserved in the Roman Church. On that matter there was sharp dispute between Gerard Vossius the heterodox, in his book on the three Symbols, Dissertation I, and Noël Alexandre the Dominican, century 1 of Ecclesiastical History, Dissertation II. One may also see Christianus Lupus, Volume 1, chapter 2, in his Notes on the Council of Nicæa, and Baronius in the cited passage.
[8] The Tillemontian criticism goes still further, and calls into doubt it is at least proved against Tillemont's cavils, whether the symbol was composed by the Apostles. He is compelled to confess that the ancient Fathers of the Church attributed it to the Apostles. But he would wish that some objection be answered by these same Fathers, which he proposes thus: After, he says, the Catholic faith had wholly triumphed over the Arian heresy, they used in the East the symbol which had been proposed by the Council of Nicæa and augmented by that of Constantinople. Nay, the councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon forbade anyone to use another; nor is it found, as I think, that the symbol of the Apostles was excepted from that prohibition. But it is difficult to believe that they would thus in some way have wished to abolish the symbol which they had thought to have been composed by the Apostles for directing the whole Church. This difficulty may seem great; meanwhile it will be no less, if anyone believes only that this symbol was anciently received in the Church as the doctrine of the Apostles, of which nevertheless no one doubts. Thus he. But to what end, I pray, does Tillemont raise these doubts from slight conjectures, which he ought himself to have resolved, unless he would admit that not even the very doctrine of the Apostles is contained in the symbol, or that it is not older than the Council of Chalcedon. But now let us, in place of the Fathers, satisfy this man who desires a response from the Fathers, which he knew existed nowhere, and let us remove the scruple.
[9] [that the symbol is older than the Synod of Chalcedon, and was handed down by the Apostles,] If the Fathers had foreseen that so insipid a doubt would be objected to them by posterity, they would have answered that the mind of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon was only to prohibit formulas of faith at variance with the Nicene symbol, so that in this way they might fortify Catholics against the frauds of heretics, who daily devised new formulas of faith, and by a crafty profession of faith cloaked their errors. Nor was there need that the symbol of the Apostles should be excepted from this prohibition, which, being beyond all exception, the Nicene Fathers had only explained more fully, and, on account of the heresies that arose, the Council of Ephesus together with that of Chalcedon had, when augmented, prescribed to all, that Catholics might be distinguished from heretics. For, as St. Augustine testifies in his book on the symbol, chapter 1, under those very few words set down in the symbol most heretics have tried to hide their poisons. So even today the Catholic Church does not except the symbol of the Apostles, when, according to the varying exigency of matters, she proposes certain formulas of faith. Thus Gregory XIII exacts a peculiar profession of faith from the Greeks, with no mention made of the symbol of the Apostles. But let us declare this response by a manifest example, ad hominem.
[10] which is declared by an argument ad hominem, Pius IV, the supreme Pontiff, after the rise of the heresies of Luther and Calvin, prescribed a certain formula of faith for all who were to be promoted to the masterships of the liberal arts, to ecclesiastical benefices, and to the dignities of the Regular and Military orders, to which, in the Bullarium, Volume 2, page 130, he prefixes these words: We, willing…, that the profession of one and the same faith be uniformly exhibited by all, and that one and a certain form of it be made known to all, that the part of our solicitude be found lacking to no one in this, do strictly command and enjoin, by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of the present, that the form itself, annotated in the present document, be published and everywhere among the nations received and observed by those to whom it pertains by the decrees of that Council (namely the Tridentine) and the others aforesaid, and that under the penalties enacted by the Council itself against transgressors, the aforesaid profession be solemnly made according to this and no other form, under this tenor. Here follows the formula of faith itself, in which, after the Nicene symbol has been recited, the various errors of Luther and Calvin are condemned. If Tillemont, revived after a thousand years, were to read that the supreme Pontiff had commanded that the profession of one and the same faith be uniformly exhibited by all, and that one and a certain form of it be made known to all, and that according to this and no other form the profession of faith be made, he would certainly think that he had a solid reason for doubting whether in the time of Pius IV the symbol of the Apostles existed, or whether it was received in the Church as handed down by the Apostles; especially since the Pontiff did not except the symbol of the Apostles from this one and certain form, according to which and no other the profession of faith ought to be made. For, to use the fallacious reasoning of Tillemont, it is difficult to believe that he would thus in some way have wished to abolish the symbol which he had thought to have been composed by the Apostles for directing the whole Church. Behold with how slight an argument the ancient tradition of the Church is assailed.
[11] If anyone perchance say that in these last centuries it is sufficiently established from elsewhere that the Church uses this symbol, and it is confirmed by ancient testimonies. and therefore that it ought not to have been excepted by Pius IV; I answer that the same was sufficiently known in antiquity: for this the old writers indicate, whose briefer testimonies I here set forth. To pass over Irenæus and Tertullian, about whose interpretation there is dispute, St. Ambrose, in book 1, Letter 7 to Pope Siricius, clearly writes thus: Let credit be given to the symbol of the Apostles, which the Roman Church always keeps and preserves inviolate. St. Augustine, in his book on the symbol, chapter 1, has it thus: But the Catholic faith is known to the faithful in the symbol, and committed to memory, as far as the matter allowed, by brevity of speech, etc. Celestine I, in his letter to Nestorius, calls it the symbol handed down by the Apostles. The Council of Ephesus, in its Report to Theodosius Augustus concerning the deposition of Nestorius, speaks thus: The faith delivered in the beginning by the holy Apostles, but afterward set forth by the three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the metropolis of Nicæa, that is, the Apostolic symbol, and the Nicene. The words of Rufinus and of Leo the Great we have given above. Add that the Apostles did not commit their symbol to writing, for various reasons, which Christianus Lupus gives in Volume 1, in his Notes on the Council of Nicæa, chapter 2. Rufinus, in his Commentaries on the symbol, assigns this cause of that matter: Therefore they handed it down that these things should not be written on papers and parchments, but retained in hearts, so that it might be certain that no one had learned these things from reading, which is wont sometimes to reach even the unbelieving, but from the tradition of the Apostles. Hence also Jerome, in his letter to Pammachius against John of Jerusalem, thus writes: In the symbol of our faith and hope, which was handed down by the Apostles, is not written on paper and with ink, but on the fleshly tables of the heart, after the confession of the Trinity and the unity of the Church, the whole mystery of Christian doctrine is concluded with the resurrection of the flesh. Let these suffice; now let us proceed to a question of lighter moment.
[12] Socrates, in book 1 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 19, in the edition of Valesius, writes thus, that the Apostles distributed the provinces among themselves by lot: Baronius denies that the Apostles divided the provinces among themselves by lot; When the Apostles, about to go forth to the nations for the sake of preaching, divided them among themselves by lot, Thomas indeed obtained the apostolate of Parthia, but Matthew that of Ethiopia; to Bartholomew fell India, which borders on Ethiopia. This opinion of his the most eminent Cardinal Baronius attacks with many arguments in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 44. We omit, he says, to recount here the fables which are read in the pseudo-Prochorus, from which perhaps those took their cue who relate that the provinces were divided by lot, as Socrates and others… The Fathers do not admit that, after receiving the Holy Spirit, who was to teach them all things and suggest all things to them, the Apostles committed to lot matters to be done, and those especially of so great weight… We say, therefore, by the example of other things which were done by them, that all these same things concerning the division of the provinces were accomplished by the special instinct of the Holy Spirit: for if concerning Paul and Barnabas, before they were sent together to preach the Gospel to the nations, the Holy Spirit said (as Luke has it): Separate me Saul and Barnabas unto the work whereunto I have taken them; how much more, when all the Apostles were to be sent, did the same Holy Spirit declare whither each was to go? Nay more, since the ordinations of individuals were wont to be made by the Apostles only with preceding prophecies and special admonitions of the Holy Spirit (as we shall say in its place), did they in so great a matter and of so great bulk neglect to consult him? If moreover an angel was sent to Philip to baptize one man, and admonished him whither he should go; when the Apostles were to be sent for the salvation of the whole human race, did the Lord cease to show, through an angel or otherwise divinely, whither each was to go? By similar examples he confirms the same throughout the following number.
[13] which nevertheless seems capable of being asserted in a certain sense, Perhaps Socrates and others so understand that Division to have been made by lots, that they do not exclude the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, according to that which is said in Proverbs 16, verse 33: The lots are cast into the lap, but they are disposed of by the Lord. For if those authors mean that the Apostles so committed this distribution of the provinces to lot that it depended on chance, I plainly agree with Baronius. But if Baronius admits no lots whatever, even those directed by the Holy Spirit, I oppose to him St.
Jerome, who indicates that this manner of dividing the provinces had been foretold, in these words on Isaiah, chapter 35: There the harts met one another and beheld their faces; they passed over in number; not one of them perished, nor did one seek another. For the Lord commanded them, and his Spirit gathered them together; and he himself gave them lots, and his hand shall divide them; that they may be fed for ever, and possess it in generation of generations, and rest therein.
[14] according to Jerome, and the election of St. Matthias. The same Jerome, in the third volume of his works edited at Paris in the year 1704, column 279, in his commentary on those words of Isaiah as translated by the Seventy interpreters, thus relates: So allegorically shall we interpret it, that we may teach that the harts, that is the Apostles… met one another in Jerusalem and beheld one another's countenances, and passed over and left it and proceeded to diverse provinces, because the Lord had commanded them: Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and his Spirit gathered them together, and gave them lots, and divided them, so that one went to the Indians, another to the Spains, another to Illyricum, another to Greece, and each rested in the province of his own Gospel and doctrine. Jerome therefore seems to signify that the provinces of the world were distributed among the Apostles by lot. And what, I pray, is there of sacrilege in this matter, since concerning the election of Matthias we read in Acts I: And they appointed two, Joseph, who was called Barsabas, who was surnamed the Just, and Matthias. And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles. Why could not the Division of the Apostles have been made also in this manner? But of these things perhaps more than enough. Now let us undertake the disputation of greater moment concerning the time of the Division.
Annotation* elsewhere resultatio (rebounding).
§ II. In what year the Apostles were divided.
The most eminent parent of the Ecclesiastical Annals, Baronius, sufficiently indicates the difficulty of this question, The difficult epoch of the Apostolic Division, when, about to discuss it at the year of Christ 44, number 13, he thus prefaces: But before we treat of Peter's coming to Rome, we think it worth the while to treat also somewhat more fully and accurately of the departure of the other Apostles into the diverse provinces of the world, and first to inquire with more diligent study in what year especially the same happened. In investigating these things we have undergone very much labor, and expended much time; but whom we might safely follow, whether among the Greek or among the Latin authors, we found no one. Then he sets forth his own opinion on this matter, which we shall afterward examine. This difficulty has hitherto tormented the wits of many, and forced writers to go off into various opinions, of which we shall first here refute the chief ones, and then endeavor to establish our own.
[16] Certain Spaniards hold that the Apostles went into their provinces immediately after the descent of the Holy Spirit, or Pentecost, placed by some a little after Pentecost and among them our Gaspar Sanchez, in the little work which he published concerning the Preaching of St. James in Spain, after his Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, Tract 1, chapter 6, number 4, thus expresses his opinion. Since nothing concerning this Division of the Apostles is certain, I shall say what seems to me nearer to the truth. I think, therefore, that a little after the descent of the Holy Spirit the Apostles departed from Judea, and each went off into his own province. But this opinion, besides that it rests upon certain apocryphal testimonies and weak foundations, seems to me altogether to be abandoned; because Luke, after narrating the martyrdom of St. Stephen, expressly asserts that the Apostles, after the first persecution of the faithful, which was set in motion in the second year from the death of Christ, still remained at Jerusalem, as is clear from these words of Acts 8: And there was made in that day a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all dispersed through the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles.
[17] Add that Peter and John afterward went into Samaria, it is wrongly placed; to confer the Holy Spirit on those who had there been converted and baptized by Philip the deacon, and that thereafter they returned to Jerusalem as to the fixed place of their habitation. That I may clearly demonstrate this, take the sacred text itself from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8. They therefore that were dispersed went about preaching the word of God. Now Philip, going down to the city of Samaria, preached Christ unto them… But when they had believed Philip preaching of the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized, both men and women… Now when the Apostles, who were in Jerusalem, had heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John. Who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit: for he was not as yet come upon any of them, but they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit… And they indeed, having testified and spoken the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem and preached to many countries of the Samaritans. You see here Peter and John sent to the Samaritans by the Apostles who were at Jerusalem, and had there remained after the dispersion of the other disciples. It is truly a wonder that an opinion so hard to reconcile with sacred Scripture is defended by a most learned man, who illustrated the very Acts of the Apostles with Commentaries.
[18] [as also by those who would have it made in the second year after the Ascension of Christ.] To the opinion just refuted come very near those who, induced by the apocryphal authority of Melito of Sardis, place the Division of the Apostles in the second year after the Ascension of Christ. Let us hear what the Venerable Bede judges concerning the testimony which is brought forward under the name of Melito, in his Retractations on Acts 8, Volume 6. If, he says, when the Church was dispersed, the Apostles remained at Jerusalem, as Luke says, it is clear that he wrote a falsehood, who, expounding a book under the person of Melito, Bishop of Asia, concerning the death of the Virgin, says that in the second year after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles were all divided throughout the whole world for preaching, each into his own province. Then at the end he adds: These things I have taken care to mention for this reason, because I have known some to give assent, with incautious rashness, to the aforesaid volume against the authority of the blessed Luke. Although, however, the reasons which he inserts do not sufficiently convince, nevertheless by these words he openly indicates what he thinks of this opinion. Nor is there here need of more, since this opinion is to be refuted from what is to be said. For, to use the words of Baronius in the place cited above, no account at all is in the first place to be taken of that apocryphal writing which is circulated under the name of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, by which it is put forth that in the second year after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles, divided throughout the world, preached the Gospel in foreign provinces: for these things do not need our refutation, since they are clearly refuted by the Acts of the Apostles.
[19] [Others would have the Apostles divided before the third year from the conversion of St. Paul,] A greater foundation has the opinion of those who think that the Division of the Apostles was made before Paul, three years after his conversion, went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter. Whether this Jerusalem journey of Paul be placed after the baptism of Cornelius the centurion, as some contend, or before it, as others hold, matters little to us now: for the intricate epoch of this baptism will contribute little to unraveling the present question. Let it suffice, therefore, that Paul, according to the more common chronology, came to Jerusalem in the fifth year after the death of Christ; which being granted, it is only to be inquired whether before this year the Apostles were divided throughout the world. The authors who judge that the Division of the Apostles occurred before this coming of Paul to the city of Jerusalem allege the Apostle himself writing thus to the Galatians, chapter 1: Then, after three years, I came to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I tarried with him fifteen days; but other of the Apostles I saw none, saving James the brother of the Lord. From these words they conclude that the Apostles had already gone off into the provinces committed to them, that, according to the command of Christ, they might preach the Gospel to all the nations of the world.
[20] Although this argument may seem specious at first sight, whose opinion is refuted, I deny, nevertheless, that from these words of St. Paul it is rightly inferred that the Apostles were then divided throughout the whole world: for it could very easily happen that St. Paul, staying but a short interval of time in the city of Jerusalem, did not see the rest of the Apostles, who perhaps had gone out into the cities or fields of Judea and the neighboring regions to teach the law of Christ, to confirm the faithful, or to exercise other apostolic offices. Thus we saw in Acts 8 that Peter and John had before been sent into Samaria, and, after traversing many regions of the Samaritans in their apostolic course, had again returned to Jerusalem. Thus in the same Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9, we read that Peter, after visiting the churches of various provinces, came to Lydda, whose inhabitants, as also the people of Saron, he converted to the faith, and remained many days at Joppa, before he was summoned by Cornelius the Centurion to Cæsarea. It is not to be doubted that the other Apostles also, according to the exigency of matters, made frequent excursions of this kind, although Luke does not commemorate them one by one, while he is wholly occupied in narrating the labors of Peter, and attributes to him, as to the prince of the Apostles, the chief fruits of the nascent Church. Thus in the description of some victory the fortitude of the commander is especially praised, even though it be certain that the soldiers were not idle or slothful. Wherefore it is no violent interpretation of the sacred text, if we say that the other Apostles were occupied with their ministries in Galilee, the neighboring region, when Paul found only Peter and James at Jerusalem. Certainly the Apostles had not yet departed from Judea, when Peter baptized Cornelius the Centurion (which many think happened after Paul's coming to Jerusalem) and other Gentiles at Cæsarea, as the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 11, testify in these words: And the Apostles and brethren, who were in Judea, heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
[21] Nevertheless the adversaries press on, and prove their inference by the testimony of St. Jerome, and by St. Jerome, the defender of this opinion, who, in his commentary on the aforesaid words of Paul the Apostle, thus notes: But he did not see them (namely the rest of the Apostles) not that he held them in contempt, but because they had been dispersed throughout the whole world to preach the Gospel. I confess that this reason given by Jerome altogether favors their conclusion. But I do not set so much store by the authority of that Doctor in historical matters, that on its account I should abandon many and more ancient writers, who openly deny that the Apostles were dispersed throughout the whole world before the twelfth year from the Ascension of Christ. Their words we shall give, when we lay the foundations of our opinion. Meanwhile hear Chrysostom, who grants a long time to the apostolic preaching in Judea, thus writing in the Paris edition of the year 1588, volume
2, Homily 70 on chapter 22 of Matthew: But after the Cross, he (namely Christ) not only did not forbid, but even commanded them to attest the truth to the Jews: For although he said that all nations were to be taught, yet, about to ascend into heaven, he signified that they must first preach to those… Therefore the Apostles also first preached to the Jews, and for a long space of time, being beaten and scourged, remaining in Judea, and at last driven out by them, they went forth to the Gentiles.
[22] Lest anyone contend that by the three or four years assigned by Jerome to the conversion of the Jews a long time may be understood, St. Chrysostom is opposed. let him again hear Chrysostom, who explains his own mind, and, plainly opposed to Jerome, defers the Division of the Apostles too long. For in the edition cited above, volume 3, Homily 25 on the Acts of the Apostles, he thus speaks: They had heard that Samaria had received the word, and they sent Peter and John. For there was a great crisis, and it was not fitting that the Apostles should be separated thence too soon, lest they should be thought to be fugitives and to have fled their own people. But then they are necessarily separated, when the affairs of the Jews could by no means be attended to, when, the war growing fierce, they were to perish, when the sentence had been pronounced. For as long as Paul had not come to Rome, they were there. You see here the division of the Apostles deferred until Paul came to Rome, which we have said, in the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of SS. Peter and Paul, §2, number 14, happened in the year 56 of the common era. As the adversaries are compelled in this matter to reject the opinion of Chrysostom, so also it will be permitted me here not to admit the reasoning of Jerome.
[23] The chronology of Baronius rests on an erroneous supposition. Baronius, whom many have hitherto followed, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the place cited above, thus openly enough sets forth his judgment in this controversy: That two years before the time defined by Apollonius (that is, in the tenth year from the death of Christ) the Apostles set out into the provinces of the world, appears clearly enough. He had indeed tried first to prove that the Division of the Apostles could not be deferred longer; but to show this he uses various reasons which are adduced, which do not rest on sure chronology, as we shall see, when we dissolve the arguments objected against our opinion by him and others. Moreover, since he rejects Apollonius, venerable for his antiquity, I do not see by what reason or authority he assigns a determined year to this Division. For if, no account being taken of the ancient writers, it be permitted to indulge in conjectures, and to establish as certainly done what could have been done, he could just as well have placed that Division of the Apostles four or three years before the time defined by Apollonius as two. He asserts indeed that from the Acts of the Apostles it is sufficiently plain that it did not occur before this year, to which he affixes the martyrdom of James the Greater; but it must be confessed that so many sharp-sighted interpreters of Scripture, and other men most versed in it, did not see these manifest testimonies of the sacred text. Certainly I could have wished to find them, to impugn the preceding opinion, which very many learned men uphold with St. Jerome.
[24] [Those who defer the Division of the Apostles until the first Council of Jerusalem] They defer the Division of the Apostles too long, who with Chrysostom, cited above, judge that the Apostles were dispersed throughout the world only after the first Council of Jerusalem, which was held in the nineteenth year from the Passion of the Lord. I think this opinion arose from the Acts of the Apostles not rightly enough understood, where in chapter 15 the Apostles are said indefinitely to have been present at this council. But several interpreters of the sacred Letters warn that here are not to be understood all the Apostles, but, as our Cornelius a Lapide writes in his Commentary on this passage, St. Peter, James, and John, as is clear from Galatians 2, 9: For the other Apostles were dispersed throughout the world. For John could easily be summoned from Ephesus, as also Matthias, and any others who dwelt in neighboring places. James was present, since he was bishop of Jerusalem. For the other James, the son of Zebedee, brother of John, had long since been slain. St. Peter, expelled from Rome with the other Jews by Claudius, as is clear from chapter 18, 2, had likewise returned to Jerusalem, as to the mother of the faithful, by the will of God. This council, therefore, consisted of the three chief Apostles.
[25] they are refuted Nor can the defenders of this opinion be supported by the Apostolic Constitutions, falsely published under the name of St. Clement, Roman Pontiff, in which, book 6, chapter 12, it is asserted that all twelve Apostles, already dispersed throughout the world, met at Jerusalem by the prompting of God, and defined the question proposed in this council. But how could James the son of Zebedee, who was one of the twelve Apostles, and whom presently in chapter 14 the pseudo-Clement expressly names, be present at this council, since he had long since been slain by Herod? These books, perhaps corrupted by ancient heretics, have many similar things, on account of which they are commonly reckoned apocryphal by Baronius, Bellarmine, and others. Moreover, this opinion seems to me altogether to be rejected, because St. Mark, who is established to have written his Gospel before the time of this council, openly enough signifies that the Apostles were divided throughout the world before he put an end to his sacred history: For after the command of Christ concerning the announcing of the Gospel throughout the whole world, and after the promise of the miracles to be wrought made to the Apostles, he subjoins these words, chapter 16: But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed. Therefore they had already gone forth into the whole world, and were preaching everywhere, when Mark wrote these things. Now it is time that, after refuting the opinions of others, we should set forth our own.
[26] In the first place it must be known that our chronology proceeds according to the system of the death of Christ under the two Gemini consuls in the twenty-ninth year of the common era, Our opinion rests on the Henschenian chronology as Henschenius, before the first volume of April, proved with solid arguments in his preliminary Diatribe. The same system was followed by Emanuel Schelstrate in his most erudite writings, and confirmed with many proofs, especially in the Antiquity of the Church, volume 1, Dissertation I. And most recently the same opinion concerning the death of Christ under the Gemini was defended by the Reverend Father Honoré de Sainte-Marie in his French Work on the Rules and Use of Criticism, volume 3, Dissertation I. On that occasion Henschenius, in his preliminary Diatribe, Exercise 3 concerning the Division of the Apostles, thus discourses: The Division of the Apostles, moreover, was made in the fortieth year of the common era, when the twelfth year after the Ascension of Christ was then passing, which adds great confirmation to the chronology already established. Then departed St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, to Rome, the chief city of the world, and there established the first chair of the universal Church, in which, by the testimony of all, as will be said below at his eulogy, he sat twenty-five years, that is, until the year 65, in which we demonstrate below that he was crowned with martyrdom. Then also St. James the Apostle, son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist, could have departed into the Spains, as the common tradition of the Spaniards holds, and both he and St. Peter could, on account of occurring causes, about the year 43 have returned to Jerusalem, when Herod Agrippa, that he might afflict some of the Church, killed James the brother of John with the sword. And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he apprehended Peter also, meaning after the Pasch to bring him forth to the people. That this happened in this year 43 we prove below in the eulogy of St. Peter: and since St. James could thus have remained in the Spains until the third year, it comes about that even in this part, which is so difficultly proved by others, we labor not. This opinion of Henschenius concerning the year in which the Apostles were divided I embrace as far more probable, and, lest I seem blindly to swear by the words of the master, I establish the same by ancient testimonies.
[27] Clement of Alexandria, a writer of the second century, in book 6 of the Stromata, in the Greek-Latin edition made in the year 1616 at Leiden, page 450, delivers our opinion in these words: it is established from the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, Therefore Peter says that the Lord said to the Apostles: If anyone, then, of Israel be willing to be led by repentance, and through my name to believe in God, his sins shall be remitted him. After twelve years, go forth into the world, lest anyone say: We have not heard. So, the punctuation being restored to its place, it is to be read, as Schelstrate and others note. I know not why Tillemont cavils about this testimony, in volume 1 of his Ecclesiastical Memoirs, page 649, where he says that in the whole sixth book of the Stromata he did not find it; whereas nevertheless in the three editions, both Greek and Latin, which I have seen, it is obvious. I marvel also that our Cornelius a Lapide, in his Commentaries on chapter 12 of the Acts of the Apostles, asserts that the writings of this Clement, corrupted by heretics, were placed in the Catalogue of apocryphal books by Gelasius; whereas Gelasius reproves only the little works of another Clement of Alexandria; by which expression he seems to distinguish two Clements marked with the same surname. However that be, that the decree of Gelasius is not to be understood of the work which we here cite, is clear from Jerome, who in his letter 83, elsewhere 84, to Magnus, a Roman orator, thus writes: Clement, priest of the Alexandrian church, in my judgment the most learned of all, wrote eight books of the Stromata, and as many of the Hypotyposes; another against the Gentiles; also three volumes of the Pædagogue. What in them is unlearned, nay, what is not from the heart of Philosophy? Similar things concerning his works he has in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 38. Eusebius, in the Valesian edition, book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapters 13 and 14, records many things about his writings. If anyone wishes to read prolix dissertations on that matter, let him consult Nicolas Le Nourry, a Benedictine monk, who in his Apparatus to the Great Library of the ancient Fathers, printed at Paris in the year 1703, examines and illustrates all the works of Clement of Alexandria in an entire book.
[28] and of Apollonius, Another patron of our opinion, inferior to Clement of Alexandria neither in age nor in authority, is Apollonius, an ecclesiastical writer, who, according to the testimony of Eusebius, book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 18, undertaking to refute the heresy of the Cataphrygians, still flourishing in his own age, composed a peculiar volume against them. Henschenius, by a lapse of memory (he followed Schelstrate, volume 1 of the Antiquity of the Church, Dissertation I, chapter 5, article 3, who erred), in the Diatribe already praised, number 19, calls this Apollonius a senator of the city of Rome, whereas he himself, on the 18th of April, at the Acts of St. Apollonius, a Roman senator and martyr, number 8, judges him to be altogether distinct from that Apollonius who wrote against Montanus and the Cataphrygians. Nor was this one, of whom we treat, Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, as my friend Don Juan de Ferreras, royal librarian in the city of Madrid, wrongly thought, in his Latin dissertation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, number 6. Our Apollonius, therefore, who impugned the heresy of the Cataphrygians, in Eusebius as edited by Valesius, book 5, at the end of the same chapter 18, relates these things as from the tradition of the ancients, that the Lord commanded his Apostles not, within twelve years, to depart from Jerusalem. That is, as Henschenius rightly explains, that they should not go beyond Syria and the neighboring regions: for that here the chief city is to be taken for all Palestine and the neighboring regions is clear from the Acts of the Apostles, in which we read that Peter and John were, not long after the martyrdom of St. Stephen, sent into Samaria, and that, when Paul came to Jerusalem after three years, none of the Apostles besides Peter and James was seen in the city of Jerusalem. Wherefore it is not to be doubted, as we said above, that the Apostles for the sake of preaching the Gospel made frequent excursions into the neighboring regions, and at intervals returned to Jerusalem. The sense, therefore, of Apollonius is that Christ commanded the Apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, before twelve years, to be finally dispersed throughout the whole world.
[29] Papebroch indeed, before he admitted the Henschenian system of the death of Christ under the two Gemini, which last, as genuine, Papebroch at length admitted. as he himself confesses in volume 5 of June, on the 29th of the same month, at the Acts of SS. Peter and Paul illustrated by Henschenius, in his Anamnesis, §3, number 20, had among other things thought that the twelve years of Apollonius, during which the Apostles remained at Jerusalem before the Division, or (as Henschenius kindly interprets) in Syria, were not to be much regarded, but rather that two were to be retained, which he alone had written, while others, in transcribing him, had wrongly augmented them to twelve. But the most learned Schelstrate, in the place just cited, deservedly disapproves this conjecture of Papebroch, since all, he says, the manuscript and printed codices agree in the number of XII years, during which, by the command of Christ, the Apostles were to remain in Judea and Syria. Nevertheless Don Juan de Ferreras, in the Dissertation praised above, number 7, alleges for himself this earlier and singular opinion of Papebroch under the general name of the Bollandists. But he ought to have noticed that Papebroch, in the same place, in the following number, embraced the opinion of Henschenius and its consequences, and thus, with his wonted candor, revoked his earlier opinions: Meanwhile I confess that I should not have wavered in the opinion of Henschenius, my Master, if I had then believed that that great obscuration of the sun, noted by Phlegon, could be brought back to the year XXIX. The foundations of our opinion being laid, let us resolve the chief objections that are wont to be brought against it.
[30] Gaspar Sanchez, in his Disputation on the preaching of St. James in Spain, Tract 1, The objections wont to be brought against these testimonies, chapter 6, number 3, endeavors to overthrow both foundations of our opinion by a single conjecture. Certainly, he says, whatever be the case with Clement of Alexandria, it is established that the Itinerary of Peter, composed by a certain Clement, was judged apocryphal by the censure of Gelasius. From which Itinerary that testimony seems to have been taken, which we read in Clement of Alexandria, and from which that tradition seems to have been propagated, which Eusebius above recited from Apollonius. Nearly the same things says Cornelius a Lapide in his Commentaries on chapter 12 of the Acts of the Apostles. But these are as easily denied as asserted. Nay rather, why would Clement of Alexandria not have cited that Itinerary, just as he generally cites other monuments of antiquity, both profane and sacred, nay, even at times certain apocryphal ones? Why would Apollonius have related as from the tradition of the ancients that which he had transcribed from Clement of Alexandria, his contemporary? Besides, it is not probable that the most learned Clement of Alexandria and Apollonius, the hammer of the Cataphrygians, would have used, to uphold the faith, the dreams of raving heretics, if in their own age this Itinerary, corrupted with so many heretical fables, had existed.
[31] Baronius, in the Annals at the year of Christ 44, number 13, thinks that the testimony of Apollonius is to be rejected by him on account of the badly deduced consequences drawn from it. and the arguments of Baronius are answered. For from his (namely Apollonius's) opinion it would have to be said that the Apostles did not go into the provinces before the fourth year of the Emperor Claudius. But by the testimony of all it is held certain and explored that already in the second year of the same Augustus, Peter, prince of the Apostles, came to Rome. Again, the opinion of the same Apollonius seems capable of being refuted by the authority of Mark the Evangelist, who, since it is established that he wrote his Gospel in the following year, as we shall demonstrate below in its place, signifies openly enough that he committed it to writing after the Apostles were divided throughout the world, by those words placed at the end, in which he says: But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed. The chronological error of Baronius being removed, which the learned commonly know, and the death of Christ under the two Gemini being admitted, this twofold Baronian dart does not strike our opinion, as will be clear to one considering it. For we gladly acknowledge that the Gospel of Mark was written after the Division of the Apostles, and we do not deny that Peter came to Rome in the second year of Claudius, as may be seen more fully in the Acts of SS. Peter and Paul on the XXIX day of June. The remaining arguments, which could be objected, are easily dissolved in our system.
§ III. Where the Apostles preached after the Division.
Pseudo-Dexter assigns definite regions to the preaching of the Apostles, Although from the sacred Letters it be certain that the Apostles were sent into the whole world, to preach the Gospel to all nations, and that their sound went out into all the earth; nevertheless it is not altogether established concerning all of them what regions each illumined with the light of the Christian faith, the writers either not expressing it sufficiently or disagreeing among themselves. Since about the individual Apostles it will be treated more laboriously on their feast day, I shall here first only relate in general certain things which some authors have written concerning the preaching of them all; and then I shall inquire whether the Apostles preached in absolutely all the regions of the world. Pseudo-Dexter describes this division and its minutest circumstances (if one please to believe it) thus, in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 34. On the last day of June the holy Apostles of God, some forty-eight days more or less after the coming of the Holy Spirit, meet in the upper room of Sion, which was the house of Mary the mother of John, surnamed Mark, and, a council being held, by divine lot they divide the provinces of the world among themselves for the sake of preaching; and there fell to St. James the son of Zebedee Spain, to John Asia, to Matthew Ethiopia, to Thomas India, to Philip Scythia and Gaul. At which time the canons are issued and the Apostolic Constitutions composed for the economy of the Sacraments and of the whole Church. Bivarius, in the same place, explains this text as sacred through antiquity with a laborious commentary. We set no such store by the trifles of Pseudo-Dexter, refuted already a hundred times, that we should cleave to them. And so let us bring forward other authors.
[33] and in Combefis, Combefis, in volume 2 of the Supplement of the Greek Fathers, column 831, brings forward a Greek-Latin Catalogue of Hippolytus concerning the twelve Apostles, where each of them preached and where he was consummated. That is the Greek-Latin title of the Catalogue. Then follows: I. Peter indeed, when he had preached the Gospel in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Italy, and Asia, afterward is crucified by Nero at Rome with his head turned downward, since he himself had asked so to suffer. II. Andrew, when he had preached to the Scythians and Thracians, was affixed to a cross of the Father in Achaia, upright on an olive tree, and there is buried. III. But John, banished in Asia by the Emperor Domitian to the island of Patmos, where also he wrote his Gospel and saw the Apocalypse, fell asleep under Trajan at Ephesus. When his relics had been sought, they were not found. IV. James his brother, preaching in Judea, is slain with the sword by Herod the Tetrarch, and there is buried. V. Philip, preaching in Phrygia, was crucified at Hierapolis with his head turned downward under the emperor Domitian, and in the same place is buried. VI. Bartholomew, when he had preached to the Indians, and had expounded to them the Gospel written by Matthew, was crucified, he too with his head turned downward, at Albanum, a great city of Armenia.
[34] VII. Matthew, when he had written the Gospel in Hebrew, Hippolytus assigns. published it at Jerusalem; and he fell asleep at Hierea, a city of the Parthians. VIII. Thomas, when he had preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Margians, was pierced through in four parts of his body with a fir lance at Calamina, which is a city of India, and there is buried. IX. James the son of Alphæus, preaching at Jerusalem, is stoned by the Jews and slain, and there is buried near the temple. X. Judas, who is also Lebbæus, when he had preached to the people of Edessa and to all Mesopotamia, died at Berytus, and there is buried. XI. Simon the Cananæan, son of Cleophas, who is also Judas, made bishop of Jerusalem after James the Just, died and is buried in the same place, having lived a hundred and twenty years. XII. Matthias, since he was one of the seventy, is numbered among the twelve Apostles; and when he had preached at Jerusalem, he died and was there buried. XIII. Paul, finally, after a year from the Ascension of Christ, entered upon the apostolate; and beginning from Jerusalem, he came as far as Illyricum and Italy and Spain, preaching the Gospel for thirty-five years: but under Nero, his head being cut off at Rome, he is there buried.
[35] Combefis indeed thinks that the author of this writing, which he endeavors to illustrate with copious notes, Origen in Eusebius, is St. Hippolytus the martyr, who flourished at the beginning of the third century. But to this opinion the more severe critics not undeservedly object, some attributing that little work to a certain Hippolytus of many centuries later, others altogether repudiating it as supposititious. Therefore for this doubtful writer we substitute a certain one, namely Eusebius Pamphili, who, according to the version of Valesius, thus writes concerning the preaching of certain of the Apostles from the testimony of the ancients, in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1. While the affairs of the Jews were in this state, the Apostles and disciples of our Lord and Savior, dispersed throughout the whole world, preached the Gospel. And Thomas indeed, as we have received handed down from our forefathers, obtained Parthia by lot; but Andrew, Scythia. To John fell Asia, who, having tarried a very long time in it, at length ended his days at Ephesus. But Peter is thought to have preached through Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia to the Jews who were in the dispersion; who, coming at last to Rome, was affixed to a cross, with his head let down: for thus he had prayed to be placed on the cross. Of Paul, now, what need is there to speak, who fulfilled the office of the Gospel preaching from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum, and at last at Rome, under Nero, was crowned with martyrdom. These things Origen commemorates in express words in the third volume of his expositions on Genesis.
[36] [although in the place cited this testimony is not found in the very works of Origen,] It is not so clear which is that third volume of Origen which Eusebius here cites: for Grynæus, who edited Origen in the year 1571, after the third Homily on chapter 17 of Genesis, warns the reader by this scholion. Eusebius, in book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1, relates the words of Origen, by which he shows that the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ announced the Gospel of the kingdom in certain parts of the world. But although Eusebius affirms that these are extant in the third volume of the expositions on Genesis, yet, since they make nothing for the illustration of the XVII chapter of Genesis, it seemed good only to admonish the reader, not to stuff those words in: for Origen seems to have made mention of that matter in another work. Perhaps Eusebius found them in the larger Commentaries on Genesis, now lost. However you may judge, so great is the trustworthiness of Eusebius in historical matters, that I do not doubt he read them somewhere in Origen.
[37] Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, on the occasion of those who despised pilgrim and foreign heralds, thus speaks concerning this Division of the Apostles, in oration 25 against the Arians. What? Were not the Apostles pilgrims? Were they not guests of many nations and cities, into which they were divided, that the Gospel might run everywhere?… Hear what Paul says: that we, he says, should go to the Gentiles, but they to the circumcision. Let Judea, to be sure, be Peter's; what has Paul in common with the Gentiles, Luke with Achaia, Andrew with Epirus, John with Ephesus, Thomas with India, Mark with Italy? Wherefore either rebuke them also, or pardon me too. To these ancient testimonies I subjoin words taken from the sermon on the holy twelve Apostles, which is commonly ascribed to Chrysostom, and which our Fronto Ducæus edited among his Works, volume 6, page 320, where the following are read: Peter from here instructs Rome; Paul from there announces the Gospel to the world; Andrew corrects the wise men of Greece; Simon teaches God to the Barbarians. Thomas by baptism whitens the Ethiopians. Judea honors the chair of James. Alexandria on the Nile embraces the throne of Mark. Luke and Matthew write the Gospels. But John, treating of divine mysteries, even after death, as though living, cares for Ephesus. Bartholomew trains the Lycaonians to temperance. Philip by miracles preserves Hierapolis. All everywhere cease not to confer benefits upon all.
[38] Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Among the Latin Fathers, Gregory the Great, in Homily 17 on the Gospels, graphically describing the last judgment, thus in passing makes mention of the same Division: In that so great examination the multitude of all the elect and reprobate shall be led forth, and each one shall be shown what he has wrought. There Peter will appear with Judea converted, which he drew after him; there Paul, leading, so to speak, a converted world; there Andrew, Achaia after him; there John, Asia; Thomas will lead India, converted, into the sight of his judge. * In favor of the Spaniards I here add the testimony which is wont to be cited by various persons under the name of St. Isidore of Seville, from the book On the Life and Death of the Saints of both Testaments, where near the end these things are had: These were the disciples of Christ, preachers of the faith, and teachers of the nations, who, while they all are one, yet each of them received their proper lots in the world for preaching in their own and definite places: for Peter received Rome, Andrew Achaia, James Spain, Thomas India, John Asia, Matthew Macedonia, Philip the Gauls, Bartholomew Lycaonia, Simon Zelotes Egypt, Matthias Judea, Judas the brother of James Mesopotamia, James the brother of the Lord Jerusalem; but to Paul, with the other Apostles, no proper lot is handed down, because he is chosen as master and preacher among all nations. For as to Peter and the rest was given the apostolate of the circumcision, so to Paul that of the uncircumcision among the Gentiles. But whether that book, as it now exists, be the genuine offspring of St. Isidore of Seville and worthy of so great a man, will be discussed more fully on the XXV of July at the Acts of St. James.
[39] If anyone wishes to compare more testimonies concerning the preaching of the Apostles, and others treat of this division of the provinces. let him consult in our Acts volume III of February, where Henschenius, on the XXIV of the same month, in the preliminary Commentary on the Life of St. Matthias, §1, number 2, exhibits an ancient little list on this matter. Francisco Maria Florentinius also prefixed this little list to his Martyrology, page 92, and illustrated it with many exercitations and notes. Finally, to omit others, Emanuel Schelstrate, in volume 2 of the Antiquity of the Church, Dissertation 1, page 72, composed a Catalogue of the Apostolic preaching, and confirms most of the arenas of their labors and combats with the adduced testimonies of ancient writers. But this topography does not seem to be so understood, as if the Apostles could never preach in the province of another, but, as I judge, only signifies that their chief endeavor was to announce the Gospel to the nations committed to their care. And perhaps in this sense the Division of the Apostles can be reconciled with their Acts, which sometimes place different ones in one and the same region; although even this is not much to be cared for, since very many Acts of the Apostles have been supposititious or interpolated, concerning which consult Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 44. Now let us relate a controversy chiefly agitated by more recent writers.
[40] The interpreters of sacred Scripture dispute concerning the interpretation of the command It is uncertain whether any of the Apostles preached the Gospel in America, which Christ thus gave to his Apostles in Mark 16: Going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature. For very many explain this by synecdoche, whereby the chief part is used for the whole. Others, however, understand these words in their proper and strict sense, and would have it that the Gospel was announced to absolutely every nation, which, according to the testimony of Gregory, is designated by the name of every creature. To this latter opinion the Venerable Bede seems to be favorable, who thus interprets the words of Psalm 18, Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world: The sound of the preaching of the Apostles themselves went out from Judea, reaching into all the earth, that is, into all parts of the earth, and even into all the corners of those parts, whose words reached unto all the ends of the world. If you say that the Apostles were not carried over into America, recently discovered, they answer, according to the opinion of certain persons, that this new world was known to the ancients, and is joined to Asia by hidden paths, or at least is distinguished from it by some small strait, as Torniellus endeavors to prove at length in his Annals of the Old Testament at the year of the World 1931, from number 45 to 50. Nay, they suspect that the ministries of angels were not lacking for carrying over the Apostles into that part of the world. Thus we read of Philip the deacon in Acts 8, that he was caught up by the Spirit, that is, according to the interpreters, by an angel of the Lord, into Azotus, to preach the Gospel. But just as I do not deny that the Apostles could have penetrated into this region, so what was really done, I frankly confess I know not: for, according to the testimony of our Nicolás del Techo in the History of Paraguay, book 1, chapter 21, Lipsius, Acosta, Pineda, Solórzano, and others put forth things more curious than certain concerning the ancient affairs of America. This alone is established, that God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, did not deny to these peoples, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, the means by which they might attain eternal salvation, before, in these last times, apostolic men watered that land with their sweat and blood.
[41] and preached the Gospel in the empire of the Chinese, It is uncertain whether the knowledge of evangelical truth reached even to the farthest bounds of the East at that time, and namely whether it was propagated by the Apostles in the most vast empire of the Chinese. Our Trigault, in his work on the Christian Expedition among the Chinese, book I, chapter II, thinks that St. Thomas, the Apostle of India, penetrated even to the Chinese, and delivered to them the doctrine of the Christian faith. To prove this he brings forward words from the Chaldean Breviary of the Malabar church, where on the feast of St. Thomas, in the Lessons of the second Nocturn, among other things it is thus read: Through the Lord Thomas the Chinese and the Ethiopians were converted to the truth… Through the Lord Thomas the kingdom of heaven flew and ascended to the Chinese. Besides, in a certain Antiphon of the same Office these things are had: The Indians, the Chinese, the Persians, and the other islanders, and those in Syria, Armenia, Greece, and Romania, in the commemoration of the Lord Thomas offer adoration to thy holy name. Then he brings forward other testimonies by which he shows that the prelate of Malabar was once called Metropolitan of India and China. Our Kircher, in part 2 of China Illustrated, chapter 2, exhibits the same words, copied from a Chaldean autograph, in Chaldean, together with a Latin interpretation.
[42] as concerning the Chinese Michael Boym shows against Trigault, Father Michael Boym of our Society, a missionary in the kingdom of China, had seen these arguments of Trigault, and nevertheless, in a letter (it exists entire in the cited work of Kircher, part 1, chapter 2) given at Rome in the year 1653, writes that from these and other monuments found after Trigault it cannot yet be concluded with certainty that St. Thomas the Apostle himself sowed the Gospel among the Chinese. He does not deny, however, that the Catholic faith was brought into the Chinese empire many centuries ago: for besides other evident traces of the Gospel once announced there, he asserts that there was found an iron cross of huge weight, on which was inscribed a Chinese era, which falls in the year 239 from the birth of Christ. Then he says that in the year 1625, near the city of Siganfu in the province of Xensi, a marble stone was dug up, on which were engraved the chief mysteries of our religion, and the names of the priests who in the year of Christ 636 renewed the extinguished knowledge of the Christian law among the Chinese. From this notable monument, which Kircher illustrated with a threefold interpretation, Boym infers that St. Thomas more probably did not preach the Gospel to the Chinese, because, the preachers of the faith of Christ of that time among the Chinese being related, he says in the same letter, no mention at all is made of St. Thomas or of another Apostle; which nevertheless much conduced to the intention of those who erected the stone for perpetual memory, to record; namely, that the preachers of the faith preached again that law which St. Thomas or another Apostle had preached among the Chinese. Hence it is evinced that those preachers of Tacyn had no knowledge that St. Thomas or another Apostle had spread the doctrine of Christ among the Chinese, and that it can be made a sign and conjecture that perhaps neither St. Thomas nor another Apostle brought the Gospel to the Chinese, or, to speak most moderately, that nothing about this can be certainly deduced from the traces found.
[43] Finally Boym, in the same place, answers the arguments of Trigault, to whose arguments they answer. and contends that they can only prove that those priests were sent from the church of St. Thomas or of Babylon, which then governed the Malabar church of the Serra of the Christians of St. Thomas (as the Portuguese afterward found), to erect an episcopal see and to bring the faith to the peoples of the Chinese, since this the very ancient Syriac tongue, Estrangelo, which is retained in that church, and had once been in use in Babylon and Syria, probably testifies. Moreover, the prayers composed in praise of St. Thomas can well be understood in this sense, namely, that through the merits of the holy Apostle, and from his church, priests perhaps first of all brought into China the faith which they had received from St. Thomas, and therefore that their conversion ought by right and merit to be attributed to St. Thomas. Wherefore, since no mention of St. Thomas the Apostle is found in the traces of the faith preached hitherto discovered, we cannot affirm with certainty that St. Thomas or another Apostle preached the Gospel to the Chinese. We shall leave this obscure suit undecided, until, by other monuments perhaps hereafter to be dug up, it shall please the supreme Arbiter of all things to settle it.
[44] [The church of Carthage in Africa was more probably not instituted by the Apostles themselves.] The last controversy which we shall here briefly touch is whether the African Church, under the Primate of Carthage, was instituted by the Apostles themselves. Baronius, in the Annals at the year of Christ 44, number 38, affirms it, thinking that this was denied by the Donatists, and that St. Augustine opposed them in the book on the Unity of the Church, chapter 15. Then, besides other testimonies of no authority, he adduces for himself Salvian of Marseilles, book 7, on the Providence of God. But the most learned Schelstrate, in the African Church, Dissertation 1, chapter 2, denies that this question was ever agitated between the Donatists and Augustine, and explains St. Augustine so that he rather seems to assert the contrary. But the words of Salvian, on which Baronius lays his force, he shows are to be understood not of Carthage, but of Rome. Besides, Schelstrate alleges for himself the most ancient Tertullian, an African, who in the book on the Veiling of Virgins distinguishes the churches of Greece, Italy, and other overseas ones, which the Apostles themselves or apostolic men founded, from the African churches, which are those later ones, that is, instituted after the Apostles; which same he indicates not obscurely when, in the book on Prescriptions, chapter 36, he refers African heretics to the Apostolic churches. Run through, he says, the Apostolic churches… Is Achaia near you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have the Philippians, you have the Thessalonians. If you can travel to Asia, you have Ephesus. But if you are close to Italy, you have Rome. Christianus Lupus confirms the same opinion at greater length in his scholia on this passage of Tertullian. Schelstrate at length concludes that those Africans received the Catholic faith in the second century of Christ, immediately after the times of the Apostles, to which opinion, as the more probable, we too subscribe.
Annotation* elsewhere, of his king.