tles in general, and another particularly reports of our apostle. At his first coming to Christ (supposing him still the same with Nathanael) he was conducted by Philip, who told him that now they had found the long-looked for Messiah, so oft foretold by Moses and the prophets, "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph:"* and when he objected, that the Messiah could not be born at Nazareth, Philip bids him come and satisfy himself. At his first approach our Lord entertains him with this honorable character, that he was an Israelite indeed, a man of true simplicity and integrity; as indeed his simplicity particularly appears in this, that when told of Jesus he did not object against the meanness of his original, the low condition of his parents, the narrowness of their fortunes, but only against the place of his birth, which could not be Nazareth; the prophets having peremptorily foretold, that the Messiah should be born at Bethlehem. By this, therefore, he appeared to be a true Israelite; one that "waited for redemption in Israel;" which from the date of the Scripture predictions, he was assured did now draw nigh. Surprised he was at our Lord's salutation, wondering how he should know him so well at first sight, whose face he had never seen before. But he was answered, that he had seen him while he was yet under the fig-tree, before Philip called him. Convinced with this instance of our Lord's divinity, he presently made his confession, that now he was sure that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Son of God, whom he had appointed to be the king and governor of his church. Our Saviour told him, that if upon this inducement he could believe him to be the Messiah, he should have far greater arguments to confirm his faith; yea, that ere long he should behold the heavens opened to receive him, and the angels visibly appearing to wait and attend upon him. 4. Concerning our apostle's travels up and down the world, to propagate the Christian faith, we shall present the reader with a brief account, though we cannot warrant the exact order of them. That he went as far as India is owned by all, which surely is meant of the hither India, or the part of it lying next to Asia. Socrates tells us, it was the India bordering upon Ethiopia, meaning no doubt the Asian Ethiopia; (whereof we shall speak in the life of St Thomas ;) Sophronius calls it the fortunate India; and tells us that here he left behind him St. Matthew's gospel, whereof Eusebius gives a more particular relation: that when Pantænus, a man famous for his skill in philosophy, and especially the institutions of the Stoics, but much more for his hearty affection to Christianity, in a devout and zealous imitation of the apostles, was inflamed with a desire to propagate the Christian religion upon the eastern countries; he came as far as India itself. Here, amongst some that yet retained the knowledge of Christ, he found St. Matthew's gospel written in Hebrew, left here (as the tradition was) by St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, when he preached the gospel to these nations. 5. After his labors in these parts of the world, he returned to the more western and northern parts of Asia. At Hierapolis, in Phrygia, we find him in * John i. 45. company with St. Philip, instructing that place in the principles of Christianity, and convincing them of the folly of their blind idolatries. Here, by the enraged magistrates, he was at the same time with Philip designed for martyrdom: in order whereunto he was fastened upon the cross, with an intent to despatch him; but upon a sudden conviction that the Divine justice would revenge their death, he was taken down again and dismissed. Hence, probably, he went into Lycaonia; the people whereof Chrysostom assures us, he instructed and trained up in the Christian discipline. His last remove was to Albanople, in Armenia the Great, (the same no doubt which Nicephorus calls Urbanople, a city of Cilicia,) a piace miserably overgrown with idolatry; from which, while he sought to reclaim the people, he was, by the governor of the place, commanded to be crucified; which he cheerfully underwent, comforting and confirming the convert Gentiles to the last minute of his life. Some add, that he was crucified with his head downwards; others that he was flayed, and his skin first taken off, which might consist well enough with his crucifixion, excoriation being a punishment in use, not only in Egypt, but amongst the Persians, next neighbors to these Armenians, (as Ammianus Marcellinus assures us; and Plutarch records a particular instance of Mesabates, the Persian eunuch, first flayed alive, and then crucified,) from whom they might easily borrow this piece of barbarous and inhuman cruelty. Respecting the several stages to which his body was removed after his death; first to Daras, a city in the borders of Persia, then to Liparis, one of the Eolian islands; thence to Beneventum, in Italy, and last of all to Rome; they that are fond of those things, and have better leisure, may inquire. Heretics persecuted his memory after his death, no less than heathens did his person while alive, by forging and fathering a fabulous gospel upon his name; which, together with others of like stamp, Gelasius, bishop of Rome, justly branded as apocryphal, altogether unworthy the name and patronage of an apostle. And perhaps of no better authority is the sentence which Dionysius, the pretended Areopagite, rerecords of our apostle, και πολλην Θεολογίαν είναι, και ελαχισην. Και το ευαγγέλιον πλατυ και μεγα. και αύθις auVTETμnpevov, "that theology is both copious, and yet very small; and the gospel diffuse and large, and yet withal concise and short," which he, according to his vein, expounds concerning the boundless benignity, but withal incomprehensibleness of the divine nature, which is Boaxueros apa kat ahoyos, quickly despatched, because ineffable, and is not without the veil discoverable to any, but those that have got above, not only all sense and matter, but of all sense and understanding; that is, to the very height of mystical and unintelligible religion. ST. MATTHEW. ST. MATTHEW, called also Levi, was, though a Roman officer, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, (both his names speaking him purely of Jewish extract and original,) and probably a Galilean, and whom I should have concluded born at or near Caper they rigorously exacted these things of their brethren, and thereby seemed to conspire with the Romans to entail perpetual slavery upon their own nation. For, though Tertullian thought that none but Gentiles were employed in this sordid office, yet the contrary is too evident to need any argument to prove it. naum; but that the Arabic writer of his life tells us, he was born at Nazareth, a city in the tribe of Zebulun, famous for the habitation of Joseph and Mary, but especially for the education and residence of our blessed Saviour: who, though born at Bethlehem, was both conceived and bred up here, where he lived the whole time of his private life, whence he derived the title of Jesus of Naza- 2. By these means publicans became so univerreth. St. Matthew was the son of Alpheus and sally abhorred by the Jewish nation, that it was Mary, sister or kinswoman to the blessed virgin: accounted unlawful to do them any office of comin the same Arabic author his father is called mon kindness and courtesy; nay, they held it no Ducu, and his mother Karutias, both originally sin to cozen and overreach a publican, and that descended of the tribe of Issachar; nothing being with the solemnity of an oath; they might not eat more common among the Jews, than for the same or drink, walk or travel with them; they were person to have several names; these latter proba- looked upon as common thieves and robbers; and bly expressed in Arabic, according to their Jewish money received of them might not be put to the signification. His trade or way of life was that of rest of a man's estate, it being presumed to have a publican, or toll-gatherer, to the Romans; (which been gained by rapine and violence; they were probably had been his father's trade; his name not admitted as persons fit to give testimony and denoting a broker, or money-changer,) an office of evidence in any cause so infamous were they, as bad report among the Jews. Indeed, among the not only to be banished all communion in the matRomans, it was accounted a place of power and ters of divine worship, but to be shunned in all credit, and honorable reputation, not ordinarily affairs of civil society and commerce, as the pests conferred upon any but Roman knights; insomuch, of their country, persons of an infectious converse, that T. Fl. Sabinus, father to the Emperor Ves- of as vile a class as heathens themselves. Hence pasian, was the publican of the Asian provinces, the common proverb among them: "Take not a an office which he discharged so much to the con- wife out of that family wherein there is a publican, tent and satisfaction of the people, that they erect- for they are all publicans;" that is, thieves, robed statues to him with this inscription: KAANE bers, and wicked sinners. To this proverbial TEARNHEANTI, “To him that has well managed usage our Lord alludes, when speaking of a conthe publican-office." These officers being sent tumacious sinner, whom neither private reproofs, into the provinces to gather the tributes, were nor the public censures and admonitions of the wont to employ the natives under them, as per- church can prevail upon: "Let him be unto thee" sons best skilled in the affairs and customs of their (says he) "as an heathen and a publican;"* as own country. Two things especially concurred elsewhere, publicans and sinners are yoked toto render this office odious to the Jews. First, gether, as persons of equal esteem and reputation that the persons that managed it were usually Of this trade and office was our St. Matthew; and covetous and great exactors; for having them- it seems more particularly to have consisted in selves farmed the customs of the Romans, they gathering the customs of commodities that came must gripe and scrape by all methods of extortion, by the sea of Galilee, and the tribute which pasthat they might be able both to pay their rent, and sengers were to pay that went by water; a thing to raise gain and advantage to themselves: which frequently mentioned in the Jewish writings; doubtless Zacchaeus, the chief of these farmers, where we are also told of the ticket, consisting of was sensible of, when, after his conversion, he two greater letters written in paper or some such offered four-fold restitution to any man from whom matter, called the ticket or signature of the publihe had taken any thing by fraud and evil arts.* cans, which the passenger had with him to certify And upon this account they became infamous even them on the other side the water, that he had among the Gentiles themselves, who commonly already paid the toll or custom: upon which acspeak of them as cheats, and thieves, and public count, the Hebrew gospel of St. Matthew, pubrobbers, and worse members of a community, more lished by Munster, renders publican "the Lord of voracious and destructive in a city than wild beasts the passage." For this purpose they kept their in the forest. The other thing that made the office or custom-house by the sea-side, that they Jews so much detest them was, that this tribute might be always near at hand; and here it was was not only a grievance to their purses, but an (as St. Mark intimates) that Matthew had his affront to the liberty and freedom of their nation; toll-booth, where "he sat at the receipt of custom." for they looked upon themselves as a free-born 3. Our Lord having lately cured a famous parapeople, and that they had been immediately invest-lytic, retired out of Capernaum, to walk by the ed in this privilege by God himself, and accord-sea-side, where he taught the people that flockingly beheld this as a daily and standing instance ed after him. Here he espied Matthew, sitting in of their slavery; which of all other things they his custom-office, whom he called to come and folcould least endure, and which therefore betrayed low him: the man was rich, had a wealthy and them into so many unfortunate rebellions against the Romans. Add to this, that these publicans were not only obliged, by the necessity of their trade, to have frequent dealings and converse with the Gentiles, (which the Jews held unlawful and abominable,) but that, being Jews themselves, Luke xix. 8 gainful trade, was a wise and prudent person, (no fools being put into that office,) and understood, no doubt, what it would cost him to comply with this new employment; that he must exchange wealth for poverty, a custom-house for a prison, gainful * Matth. xviii. 17. + Matth. ix. 9; Mark ii. 13, 14; Luke v.27-29. masters for a naked and despised Saviour. But he overlooked all these considerations, left all his interests and relations, to become our Lord's disciple, and to embrace (as Chrysostom observes,) a more spiritual way of commerce and traffic. We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Saviour's person or doctrine, especially living at Capernaum, the place of Christ's usual residence, where his sermons and miracles were so frequent; by which he could not but in some measure be prepared to receive the impressions which our Saviour's call now made upon him. And to show that he was not discontented at his change nor apprehended himself a loser by this bargain, he entertained our Lord and his disciples at a great dinner in his house, whither he invited his friends, especially those of his own profession, piously hoping that they also might be caught by our Saviour's converse and company. The Pharisees, whose eye was constantly evil where another man's was good, and who would either find or make occasions to snarl at him, began to suggest to his disciples, that it was unbecoming so pure and holy a person as their master pretended himself to be, thus familiarly to converse with the worst of men, publicans and sinners, persons infamous to a proverb. But he presently replied to them, that they were the sick that needed the physician, not the sound and healthy; that his company was most suitable where the necessities of souls did most require it; that God himself preferred acts of mercy and charity, especially in re-firmed by long habits and customs. And yet notclaiming sinners, and doing good to souls, infinitely before all ritual observances, and the nice rules of persons conversing with one another; and that the main design of his coming into the world was not to bring the righteous, or those who, like themselves, proudly conceited themselves to be so, and in a vain opinion of their own strictness, loftily scorned all mankind besides; but sinners, modest, humble, self-convinced offenders, to repentance, and to reduce them to a better state and course of life. tuting Plato, one of his followers, bishop of Myr. mena; of Christ's appearing to him in the form of a beautiful youth, and giving him a wand, which on his pitching it into the ground, immediately grew up into a tree; of his strangely converting the prince of that country, of his numerous miracles, peaceable death, and sumptuous funerals, with abundance more of the same stamp and coin, they are justly to be reckoned amongst those fabulous reports that have no pillar or ground either of truth or probability to support them. Most proba. ble it is (what an ancient writer affirms) that he suffered martyrdom at Naddaber, a city of Ethi opia, but by what kind of death is altogether uncertain. Whether this Naddaber be the same with Beschberi, where the Arabic writer of his life affirms him to have suffered martyrdom, let others inquire: he also adds, that he was buried at Arthaganetu Cæsarea, but where that is, is to me unknown. Dorotheus makes him honorably buried at Hierapolis in Parthia, one of the first places to which he preached the gospel. 5. He was a great instance of the power of religion, how much a man may be brought off to a better temper. If we reflect upon his circumstances, while yet a stranger to Christ, we shall find that the world had very great advantages upon him. He was become a master of a plentiful estate, engaged in a rich and a gainful trade, supported by the power and favor of the Romans, prompted by covetous inclinations, and these con withstanding all this, no sooner did Christ call, but without the least scruple or dissatisfaction, he flung up all at once; and not only renounced (as St. Basil observes) his gainful incomes, but ran an immediate hazard of the displeasure of his masters that employed him, for quitting their service, and leaving his accounts entangled and confused behind him. Had our Saviour been a mighty prince, it had been no wonder that he should run over to his service; but when he appeared under all the circumstances of meanness and disgrace, when he 4. After his election to the apostolate, he con- seemed to promise his followers nothing but misery tinued with the rest till our Lord's ascension; and and suffering in this life, and to propound no other then, for the first eight years at least, preached up rewards but the invisible encouragements of ano and down Judæa. After which, being to betakether world; his change in this case was the more himself to the conversion of the Gentile world, he strange and admirable. Indeed so admirable, that was entreated by the convert Jews to commit to Porphyry and Julian (two subtle and acute adverwriting the history of our Saviour's life and actions, saries of the Christian religion) hence took occaand to leave it among them as the standing record sion to charge him either with falsehood or with of what he had preached to them; which he did folly; either that he gave not a true account of the accordingly, and so composed his gospel, whereof thing, or that it was very weakly done of him, so more in due place. Little certainty can be had as hastily to follow any one that called him. But to what travels he underwent for the advancement the holy Jesus was no common person; in all his of the Christian faith, so irrecoverably is truth lost commands there was somewhat more than ordiin a crowd of legendary stories. Ethiopia is ge-nary. Indeed St. Jerome conceives, that besides nerally assigned as the province of his apostolical the divinity that manifested itself in his miracles, ministry. Metaphrastes tells us, that he went first there was a divine brightness, and a kind of ma into Parthia, and having successfully planted Chris-jesty in our Saviour's looks, that at first sight was tianity in those parts, thence travelled into Ethiopia, that is, the Asiatic Æthiopia, lying near to India: where, by preaching and miracles, he mightily triumphed over errors and idolatry, convinced and converted multitudes, ordained spiritual guides and pastors to confirm and build them up, and bring over others to the faith, and then finished his own As for what is related by Nicephorus, of his going into the country of the cannibals, consti course. attractive enough to draw persons after him. However his miraculous powers, that reflected a lustre from every quarter, and the efficacy of his doctrine accompanied with the grace of God, made way for the summons that was sent our apostle, and enabled him to conquer all oppositions that stood in the way to hinder him. 6. His contempt of the world further appeared in his exemplary temperance and abstemiousness 1 from all the delights and pleasures, yea, the ordinary conveniences and accommodations of it; so far from indulging his appetite with nice and delicate curiosities, that he refused to gratify it with lawful and ordinary provisions, eating no flesh; his usual diet being nothing but herbs, roots, seeds, and berries. But what appeared most remarkable in him, and which, though the least virtue in itself, is the greatest in a wise man's esteem and value, was his humility; mean and modest in his own conceit, in honor preferring others before himself. Whereas the other evangelists in describing the apostles by pairs, constantly place him before Thomas, he modestly places him before himself. The rest of the evangelists openly mention the honor of his apostleship, but speak of his former sordid, dishonest, and disgraceful course of life only under the name of Levi, while he himself sets it down, with all its circumstances, under his own proper and common name. Which as at once it commends his own candor and ingenuity, so it administers to us this not unuseful consideration, that the greatest sinners are not excluded the lines of divine grace; nor can any, if penitent, have just reason to despair, when publicans and sinners are taken in. And as St. Matthew himself does freely and impartially record his own vile and dishonorable course of life; so the two other evangelists, though setting down the story, take notice of him only under another name; to teach us to treat a penitent brother with all modesty and tenderness. "If a man repent" (say the Jews) "let no man say to him, Remember thy former works;" which they explain not only concerning Israelites, but even strangers and proselytes. It being against the rules of civility, as well as the laws of religion, when a man hath repented, to upbraid and reproach him with the errors and follies of his past life. 7. The last thing that calls for any remarks in the life of this apostle is his gospel, written at the entreaty of the Jewish converts; and as Epiphanius tells us, at the command of the apostles, while he was yet in Palestine, about eight years after the death of Christ: though Nicephorus will have it to have been written fifteen years after our Lord's ascension; and Irenæus yet much wider, who seems to imply that it was written while Peter and Paul preached at Rome, which was not, according to the common account, till near thirty years after. But most plain it is, that it must be written before the dispersion of the aposles, seeing St. Bartholomew (as we have noted n his life) took it along with him into India, and left it there. He wrote it in Hebrew, as primarily designing it for the use of his countrymen; and strange it is, that any should question its being originally written in that language, when the thing is so universally and uncontrolably asserted by all antiquity, not one that I know of, after the strictest inquiry I could make, dissenting in this matter, and who certainly had far greater opportunities of being satisfied in these things, than we can have at so great a distance. It was no doubt soon after translated into Greek, though by whom St. Jerome professes he could not tell; Theophylact says it was reported to have been done by St. John; but Athanasius more expressly attri butes the translation to St. James the Less. The best is, it matters not much whether it was translated by an apostle or some disciple, so long as the apostles approved the version, and that the church has ever received the Greek copy for authentic, and reposed it in the sacred canon. And therefore, when the late Arian advocate brings in one of his party, challenging the divine authority of this gospel, because but a translation, he might have remembered it is such a translation as has all the advantages of an original; as being translated while the apostles were yet in being to supervise and ratify it, and whose authority has always been held sacred and inviolable by the whole church of God. But the plain truth of the case is, St. Matthew is a back-friend to the antitrinitarian cause, as recording that express command, "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Which words must needs be supposititious, and added by some ignorant hand, for no other reason but because they make against them. Nay, the whole gospel we see must be discarded, rather than stand in the way of a dear and beloved opinion. This 8. After the Greek translation was entertained, the Hebrew copy was chiefly owned and used by the Nazaræi, a middle sect of men between Jews and Christians: with the Christians they believed in Christ, and embraced his religion; with the Jews they adhered to the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law; and hence this gospel came to be styled "the Gospel according to the Hebrews," and "the Gospel of the Nazarenes." By them it was, by degrees, interpolated; several passages of the evangelical history, which they had heard either from the apostles or those who had familiarly conversed with them, being inserted, which the ancient fathers frequently refer to in their writings; as by the Ebionites it was mutilated, and many things cut off, for the same reason for which the followers of Cerinthus, though making use of the greatest part of it, rejected the rest, because it made so much against them. Hebrew copy (though whether exactly the same as it was written by St. Matthew, I will not say) was found, among other books, in the treasury of the Jews at Tiberias, by Joseph a Jew, and after his conversion, a man of great honor and esteem in the time of Constantine: another, St. Jerome assures us, was kept in the library at Cæsarea in his time; and another by the Nazarenes at Boroa, from whom he had the liberty to transcribe it, and which he afterwards translated both into Greek and Latin; with this particular observation, that in quoting the text of the Old Testament, the evangelist immediately follows the Hebrew, without taking notice of the translation of the Septuagint. A copy also of this gospel was, anno 485, dug up and found in the grave of Barnabas in Cyprus, transcribed with his own hand. But these copies are long since perished; and for those that have been since published to the world, both by Tile and Munster, were there no other argument, they too openly betray themselves, by their barbarous and improper style, not to be the genuine issue of that less corrupt and better age. ST. THOMAS. that way which he had prescribed and chalked out before them. 2. Our Lord being dead, it is evident how much Ir was customary with the Jews, when travelling the apostles were distracted between hopes and into foreign countries, or familiarly conversing fears concerning his resurrection, not yet fully sawith the Greeks and Romans, to assume to them-tisfied about it; which engaged him the sooner to selves a Greek or a Latin name, of great affinity, and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own country. Thus our Lord was called Christ, answering to his Hebrew title, Mashiach, or the anointed; Simon, styled Peter, according to that of Cephas, which our Lord put upon him; Tabitha, called Dorcas, both signifying a goat: thus our St. Thomas, according to the Syriac importance of his name, had the title of Didymus, which signifies a twin; Thomas which is called Didymus. Accordingly the Syriac version renders it Thauma, which is called Thama; that is, a twin: the not understanding whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek paraphrast, who makes him avopa diwvuμov, to have had two distinct names, διωνυμος εννεπε Θωμας, it being but the same name expressed in different hasten his appearance, that by the sensible manifestations of himself he might put the case beyond all possibilities of dispute. The very day whereon he arose he came into the house where they were, while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fast shut about them, and gave them sufficient assurance that he was really risen from the dead.* At this meeting St. Thomas was absent, having probably never recovered their company since their last dispersion in the garden, when every one's fears prompted him to consult his own safety. At his return, they told him that their Lord had appeared to them; but he obstinately refused to give credit to what they said, or to believe that it was he, presuming it rather a phantasm or mere apparition, unless he might see the very prints of the nails, and feel the wounds in his hands and sides. A strange piece of infidelity! Was this any more than what Moses and the prophets had long since foretold? Had not our Lord frequently told them in plain terms, that he must rise again the third day? Could he question the possibility of it, who had so often seen him do the greatest miracles? Was it reasonable to reject the testimony of so many eye-witnesses, ten to one against himself, and of whose fidelity he was assured? or could he think that either themselves should be deceived, or that they would jest and trifle with him in so solemn and serious a matter? A stubbornness that might have betrayed him into an eternal infidelity. But our compassionate Saviour would not take the advantage of the man's refractory unbelief, but on that day seven-night came again to them, as they were solemnly met at their devotions, and calling to Thomas, bade him look upon his hands, put his fingers into the prints of the nails, and thrust his hand into the hole of his side, and satisfy his faith by a demonstration from sense. The man was quickly convinced of his error and obstinacy, confessing that he now acknowledged him to be his very Lord and master; a God omnipotent, that was thus able to rescue himself from the powers of death. Our Lord replied no more, than that it was well he believed his own senses, but that it was a more noble and commendable act of faith to acquiesce in a rational evidence, and to entertain the doctrines and relations of the gospel upon such testimonies and assurances of the truth of things, as will satisfy a wise and sober man, though he did not see them with his own eyes. 3. The blessed Jesus being gone to heaven, and having eminently given gifts and miraculous powers to the apostles, St. Thomas moved thereto by some divine intimation, is said to have despatched Thaddeus, one of the seventy disciples to Abgarus, toparch of Edessa, (between whom and our Saviour the letters commonly said to have passed, are still extant in Eusebius,) whom he first cured of an inveterate distemper, and after converted him and his subjects to the faith. The apostolical province assigned to St. Thomas, (as Origen tells • John xx. 19. |