Sec. 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor. 59
able magnitude, and involved a good deal of organisation. We may gather from Luke that the two envoys were entrusted with the management ; but the whole details of purchase, transport, and distribution lie outside of his conception and plan. The essential fact for his purpose was that relief was sent by the congregation in Antioch (XI 30), and its distribution personally carried out by Paul and Barnabas in Jerusalem (XII 25) ; and he tells us no more. In his letter Paul says that Titus was a privately selected associate and not an official ; and we may confidently add that he was one of the assistants who were needed to carry out the work described in Acts (see also p. 170).
The only strange fact in reference to Titus, is that he nowhere appears in Acts ; and that is equally hard to explain on every theory. Clearly he played a considerable part in the early history of the Church (as Luke himself did) ; and, on our hypothesis of Luke's historical insight and power of selecting and grouping details, the complete omission of Titus's name must be intentional, just as the silence about Luke is intentional. A suggestion to explain the omission is made on p. 390.
The situation on this visit is strikingly different from that described in Acts XV as existing at the next visit (see Chap. VII). Paul has here private communications with the three leading Apostles in prudent preparation against future diffi- culties. In the later stage, public meetings to hear the recital ot his and Barnabas's experiences among the Gentiles are followed by a formal Council, in which " the leadmg Apostles stand forth as the champions of Gentile liberty ".
We find ourselves obliged to regard this visit as more
60 The Church in Antioch. Chap. III.
important than is generally believed. Canon Farrar, who may be quoted as a clear and sensible exponent of the accepted view, calls it "so purely an episode in the work of St. Paul, that in the Epistle to the Galatians he passes it over without a single allusion ". According to our view, if it had been a mere episode without influence on the development of the Church, Luke would have passed it un mentioned ; but it was a step of great consequence in the development of the Antiochian congregation and of the Church as a whole ; and therefore it required a place in this history.
The wonderful revelation described by Paul himself in his second letter to the Corinthians XII 2-4 took place in the fourteenth year before A.D. 56, when that letter was written ; and therefore probably occurred in 43 or 44. This brings us near the period when Agabus came to Antioch ; but all speculation is barred by the description : he " heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter". Another revelation, however, can with certainty be ascribed to this visit, and, specially, to its concluding days.
4. THE RETURN FROM JERUSALEM TO ANTIOCH. (XXII 17) WHEN I HAD RETURNED TO JERUSALEM, AND WHILE I PRAYED IN THE TEMPLE, I FELL INTO A TRANCE, (l8) AND SAW HIM SAYING UNTO ME, " MAKE HASTE, AND GET THEE QUICKLY OUT OF JERUSALEM; BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT RECEIVE OF THEE TESTIMONY CONCERNING ME". (19) AND I SAID, "LORD, THEY THEMSELVES KNOW THAT I IMPRISONED AND BEAT IN EVERY SYNAGOGUE THEM THAT BE- LIEVED ON THEE : (20) AND WHEN THE BLOOD OF STEPHEN THY WITNESS WAS SHED, I ALSO WAS
Sec 4. The Return from Jerusalem to Antioch. 61
STANDING BY, AND CONSENTING, AND KEEPING THE GARMENTS OF THEM THAT SLEW HIM {and therefore they must see that some great thing has happened to con- vince me)". (21) AND HE SAID UNTO ME, "DEPART: FOR I WILL SEND THEE FORTH FAR HENCE UNTO THE NATIONS ".
Let us clearly conceive the probable situation at that time. In the famine-stricken city it is not to be supposed that Barnabas and Saul confined their relief to professing Christians, and let all who were not Christians starve. Christian feeling, ordinary humanity, and policy (in the last respect Paul was as little likely to err as in the others), alike forbade an absolute distinction. The Antiochian delegates must have had many opportunities of aiding their Jewish brethren, though they addressed their work specially to their Brethren in the Church ; and the result must have been that they occupied a position of peculiar advantage for the time, not merely in the Church (where the respect and honour paid them shines through Gal. II 1-10), but also in the city as a whole. Now it was part of Paul's missionary method not to insist where there was no opening, and not to draw back where the door was open. It might well seem that the remarkable circumstances of his mission to Jerusalem, the revelation by which it was ordered, and the advantage it secured to him in the city, were the opening of a door through which he might power- fully influence his own people. The thought could not fail to occur to Paul ; and the remarkable incident de- scribed in XXII 17-21 shows that it was in his mind.