1 ol c'k irtpiTOfxTJs, XI 2, Gal. II 12 : "some of the sect of the Phari- sees that believed," XV 5.
Sec 2. The Coming of Barnabas. 45
WHOLE YEAR THEY MET IN THE ASSEMBLY, AND TAUGHT MUCH PEOPLE ; AND THAT THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED "CHRISTIANS" FIRST IN ANTIOCH.
As in previous cases, an envoy was sent from the Church in Jerusalem to survey this new congregation, and judge of its worthiness ; and Barnabas was selected for the purpose. The same test that had been convincing in the case of Cornelius satisfied Barnabas in Antioch : he saw the grace of God. Then he proceeded to exhort and encourage them, which he was qualified to do because the Divine Spirit was in him. Sparing as Luke is of words, he feels bound to state that Barnabas was qualified by grace for the work (see p. 174). The result of his course of ministration1 was a great increase to the congregation.
Mindful of his former short experience of Saul, Barnabas bethought himself that he was well suited to the peculiar circumstances of the Antiochian congregation : and he accordingly went to Tarsus, and brought Saul back with him to Antioch. This journey must apparently have been made in the early months of a.d. 43 ; and the rest of that year was spent by the two friends in Antioch. The date shows that the early stages of Christian history in Antioch were slow. The congregation must have grown insensibly, and no marked event occurred, until the attention of the Church in Jerusalem was called to its existence. The one important fact about it was that it came into existence in this peculiar way. But with the advent of Barnabas and Saul, its history enters on a new phase. It became the centre of progress and of historical interest in the Church.
It lies in Luke's style to give no reason why Barnabas summoned Saul to Antioch. This historian records the 1 rapt <aX( *, imperfect.
46 The Church in Antioch. Chap. III.
essential facts as they occurred ; but he does not obtrude on the reader his own private conception as to causes or motives. But we cannot doubt that Barnabas, who became Saul's sponsor at Jerusalem (IX 27), and related to the Apostles the circumstances of his conversion, knew that God had already called him " to preach Him among the Gentiles" {Gal. I 16), and recognised that this congrega- tion of the Gentiles was the proper sphere for Saul's work. We find in Barnabas's action the proof of the correctness of Paul's contention in Epist. Gal., that his aim as an Apostle had been directed from the first towards the Gen- tiles ; his sphere was already recognised.
As we shall see later, Paul must have spent nearly eight years at Tarsus. Why are these eight years a blank ? Why were they such a contrast to the crowded hours of the period that was just beginning? On our hypothesis as to the meaning of Luke's silence, we conclude that Paul was still not fully conscious of the full meaning of his mission ; he was still bound in the fetters of Judaic consistency, and acted as if the door of the synagogue was the portal through which the Nations must find their way into the Church. He had not yet learned, or at least he had not yet so fully shaken himself free from the prejudices of education and tradition as to act on the knowledge, that God " had opened a door of faith unto the nations" (XIV 27, p. 85).
A point in Luke's style here deserves note. He has mentioned in IX 30 that Saul was sent away to Tarsus ; and he now takes up the thread from that point, saying that Barnabas went to Tarsus to seek for Saul. He implies that the reader must understand Tarsus to have been Saul's head-quarters during the intervening period. Not merely does XI 25 require one to look back, but also IX 30