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THE REV. J. E. H. THOMSON, M.A., D.D., OX 



related even of St. Peter is only what is preparatory to the work 

 of St. Paul. It was needful to describe the founding of the 

 Church and its early organisation, else St. Paul would have had 

 no starting-point. Peter's visit to Joppa, and consequent call to 

 Csesarea and the house of Cornelius, is related at great length, 

 w^ith his defence of his conduct before the Jerusalem Church, all 

 to prepare the way for Paul's mission to the Gentiles. If used 

 as proof, the silence of Acts proves too much, and, therefore, 

 proves nothing. Alexandria was, out of Greece itself, the centre 

 of Hellenism in the Roman World, and out of Palestine, the most 

 influential community of Israelites in the Empire dwelt there. 

 Although there is no word of any Apostle or Evangelist going 

 there, early in the second century. Alexandria is the centre of 

 Greek Christianity. In regard to Pome itself there is no record 

 of the time when, or of the persons by whom the Gospel was 

 brought thither. ^Yhen Paul writes his Epistle to the '* Romans " 

 it is to a community of Christians whom he expects soon to visit 

 that he writes. If Peter did visit Rome, as tradition has it, there 

 is no notice of it in Acts. Even the labours of the Apostle Paul 

 are only partially recorded. It is, therefore, not at all surprising 

 that we have no account of the founding of Churches in Meso- 

 potamia, any more than any account of Paul's journeys between 

 his first and second imprisonment. 



Besides the legends of the Mission of Andrew to Scythia, 

 and of Thomas to India, and more particularly the legend in 

 Isidore that Matthew went and preached to the Parthians, Medes 

 and Persians, which may be shadowy memory of his Gospel being 

 sent there, there is the Mission of Pantasnus to India. Eusebius 

 tells that not only did he find that Bartholomew had preceded 

 him in India, but that there were many evangelists, even then, 

 zealously engaged in preaching the Word. 



Another element has to be considered. The two Empires of 

 Rome and Parthia, even when nominally at peace, were always 

 suspicious of each other, and Parthian subjects were apt, on 

 crossing the border, to be arrested as spies, by over-zealous Roman 

 officials. The Jews appear to have been placed on a special foot- 

 ing. They vrere a nation by themselves, but the Christians were 

 a people not understood by the Roman police. Then there was 

 the serious barrier of language ; Greek was little known east of 

 the Euphrates, and out of Palestine Aramaic w'as little known 

 west of it. 



But there is evidence that the Gospel was not without fruit to 

 the east of the Euphrates. In the last chapter of his first Epistle 

 the Apostle Peter sends greetings to the Churches of Asia Minor 

 from " their co-elect in Babylon." The grammatically possible, 

 but logically hiofhly improbable view, that the suneklel'te in this 

 passage is an individual woman, Peter's wafe in short, may be 



