ἀπόϛολος, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ,
commissioned by him to preach his Gospel, and propagate it to all parts
of the earth. The word originally signifies a person _delegated_ or
_sent_; from ἀποϛέλλω, _mitto_; in which sense it occurs in Herodotus,
and other profane authors. Hence, in the New Testament, the term is
applied to divers sorts of delegates; and to the twelve disciples by way
of eminence. They were limited to the number twelve, in allusion to the
twelve tribes of Israel. See Matt. xix, 28; Luke xxii, 30; Rev. xxi,
12–14; and compare Exod. xxiv, 4; Deut. i, 23; and Josh. iv, 2, 3.
Accordingly care was taken, on the death of Judas, to choose another, to
make up the number, Acts i, 21, 22, 26. Of the first selection and
commission of the twelve Apostles, we have an account, Luke vi, 13, &c;
Matt. x, 1, &c. Having chosen and constituted twelve persons, under the
name of Apostles, our blessed Lord determined that for some time they
should be continually with him, not only to attend upon his public
ministry, but to enjoy the benefit of his private conversation, that he
might furnish them the better for the great work in which they were to
be employed; and that, at length, after suitable preparation, he might,
with greater advantage, send them abroad to preach his Gospel, and thus
make way for his own visits to some more distant parts, where he had not
yet been; and to enable them more effectually to do this, he endowed
them with the power of working miracles, of curing diseases, and casting
out demons. About the commencement of the third year of his ministry,
according to the common account of its duration, he sent them out two by
two, that they might be assistants to each other in their work; and
commanded them to restrict their teaching and services to the people of
Israel, and to avoid going to the Gentiles or to the Samaritans; to
declare the approach of the kingdom of heaven, and the establishment of
the Gospel dispensation; to exercise the miraculous powers with which
they had been endowed gratuitously; and to depend for their subsistence
on the providence of God, and on the donations of those to whom they
ministered. Their names were, Simon Peter; Andrew, his brother; James
the greater, the son of Zebedee; and John his brother, who was the
beloved disciple; Philip of Bethsaida; Bartholomew; Thomas, called
Didymus, as having a twin brother; Matthew or Levi, who had been a
publican; James, the son of Alpheus, called James the less; Lebbeus,
surnamed Thaddeus, and who was also called Judas or Jude, the brother of
James; Simon, the Canaanite, so called, as some have thought, because he
was a native of Cana, or, as Dr. Hammond thinks, from the Hebrew קנא,
signifying the same with Zelotes, or the Zelot, a name given to him on
account of his having before professed a distinguishing zeal for the
law; and Judas Iscariot, or a man of Carioth, Josh. xv, 25, who
afterward betrayed him, and then laid violent hands on himself. Of
these, Simon, Andrew, James the greater, and John, were fishermen;
Matthew, and James the son of Alpheus, were publicans; and the other six
were probably fishermen, though their occupation is not distinctly
specified.
After the resurrection of our Saviour, and not long before his
ascension, the place of Judas the traitor was supplied by Matthias,
supposed by some to have been Nathanael of Galilee, to whom our Lord had
given the distinguishing character of an “Israelite indeed, in whom
there was no guile;” and the twelve Apostles, whose number was now
completed, received a new commission, of a more extensive nature than
the first, to preach the Gospel to all nations, and to be witnesses of
Christ, not only in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria, but unto
the uttermost parts of the earth; and they were qualified for the
execution of their office by a plenteous effusion of miraculous powers
and spiritual gifts, and particularly the gift of tongues. In
consequence of this commission, they preached first to the Jews, then to
the Samaritans, and afterward to the idolatrous Gentiles. Their signal
success at Jerusalem, where they opened their commission, alarmed the
Jewish sanhedrim, before which Peter and John were summoned, and from
which they received a strict charge never more to teach, publicly or
privately, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The noble reply and
subsequent conduct of the Apostles are well known. This court of the
Jews was so awed and incensed, as to plot the death of the twelve
Apostles, as the only effectual measure for preventing the farther
spread of Christianity. Gamaliel interposed, by his prudent and moderate
counsel; and his speech had so good an effect upon the sanhedrim, that,
instead of putting Peter and John to death, they scourged them, renewed
their charge and threats, and then dismissed them. The Apostles,
however, were not discouraged nor restrained; they counted it an honour
to suffer such indignities, in token of their affection to their Master,
and zeal in his cause; and they persisted in preaching daily in the
courts of the temple, and in other places, that Jesus of Nazareth was
the promised and long expected Messiah. Their doctrine spread, and the
number of converts in Jerusalem still increased. During the violent
persecution that raged at Jerusalem, soon after the martyrdom of St.
Stephen, several of the leading men among the Christians were dispersed;
some of them travelled through the regions of Judea and Samaria, and
others to Damascus, Phœnicia, the Island of Cyprus, and various parts
of Syria; but the twelve Apostles remained, with undaunted firmness, at
Jerusalem, avowing their attachment to the persecuted interest of
Christ, and consulting how they might best provide for the emergencies
of the church, in its infant and oppressed state.
When the Apostles, during their abode at Jerusalem, heard that many of
the Samaritans had embraced the Gospel, Peter and John were deputed to
confer upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit; for to the Apostles
belonged the prerogative of conferring upon others spiritual gifts and
miraculous powers. In their return to Jerusalem, from the city of
Samaria, they preached the Gospel in many Samaritan villages. The manner
of its being sent to Ethiopia, by the conversion of the eunuch who was
chief treasurer to Candace, queen of the country, is related in Acts
viii, 26, &c. After the Christian religion had been planted in
Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and sent into Ethiopia, one of the
uttermost parts of the earth, Acts i, 8; and after it had been preached
about eight years to the Jews only, God, in his wise and merciful
providence, disposed things for the preaching of it among the Gentiles.
Cæsarea was the scene in which the Apostle Peter was to open his
commission for this purpose; and Cornelius, one of the devout Gentiles,
and a man distinguished by his piety and charity, was the first
proselyte to Christianity. After Peter had laid the foundation of a
Christian church among the devout Gentiles, others imitated his example,
and a great number of persons of this description embraced the Christian
faith, more especially at Antioch, where the disciples, whom their
enemies had hitherto called Galileans, Nazarenes, and other names of
reproach, and who, among themselves, had been called “disciples,”
“believers,” “the church,” “the saints,” and “brethren,” were
denominated, probably not without a divine direction, Christians.
When Christianity had been preached for about eight years among the Jews
only, and for about three years more among the Jews and devout Gentiles,
the next stage of its progress was to the idolatrous Gentiles, in the
year of Christ 44, and the fourth year of the emperor Claudius. Barnabas
and Saul were selected for this purpose, and constituted in an
extraordinary manner Apostles of the Gentiles, or uncircumcision.
Barnabas was probably an elder of the first rank; he had seen Christ in
the flesh, had been an eye witness of his being alive again after his
crucifixion, and had received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost,
as being one of the hundred and twenty. Saul also, since his conversion
had preached as a superior prophet, about seven years to the Jews only,
and about two years more to the Jews and devout Gentiles. They had both
been born in Gentile countries; and therefore may be supposed to have
had more respect and affection for the Gentiles than most of the Jews,
who were natives of Judea. Saul had been converted, and had hitherto
preached chiefly on Gentile ground; and he had joined with Barnabas in
teaching devout Gentiles for a whole year, at Antioch in Syria; by all
which previous steps they were regularly conducted to the last
gradation, or the conversion of the idolatrous Gentiles. But it was
necessary, in order to the being an Apostle, to have seen our Lord Jesus
Christ alive after his crucifixion, for the Apostles were in a peculiar
manner the witnesses of his resurrection. Some have supposed that Saul
saw the person of Jesus, when he was converted, near the city of
Damascus; but others, who conceive from the history of this event, that
this could not have been the case, as he was instantly struck blind, are
of opinion that the season, when his Apostolic qualification and
commission were completed, was that mentioned by himself, Acts xxii, 17,
when he returned to Jerusalem the second time after his conversion, saw
the Lord Jesus Christ in person, and received the command to go quickly
out of Jerusalem, that he might be sent unto the Gentiles. See also Acts
xxvi, 16–20, where he gives an account of the object of his commission.
He also received a variety of gifts and powers, which, superadded to his
own genius and learning, as well as fortitude and patience, eminently
qualified him for the office of an Apostle, and for that particular
exercise of it which was assigned to him. St. Paul is frequently called
the _Apostle_, by way of eminence; and the _Apostle of the Gentiles_,
because his ministry was chiefly employed for the conversion of the
Gentiles, as that of St. Peter was for Jews, who is therefore styled the
_Apostle of the circumcision_.
The Apostles having continued at Jerusalem twelve years after the
ascension of Christ, as tradition reports, according to his command,
determined to disperse themselves in different parts of the world. But
what were the particular provinces assigned to each, does not certainly
appear from any authentic history. Socrates says, that Thomas took
Parthia for his lot; Matthew, Ethiopia, and Bartholomew, India. Eusebius
gives the following account: “Thomas, as we learn by tradition, had
Parthia for his lot; Andrew, Scythia; John, Asia, who having lived there
a long time, died at Ephesus. Peter, as it seems, preached to the
dispersed Jews in Pontus and Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; at
length, coming to Rome, he was crucified with his head downward, as he
had desired. What need I to speak of St. Paul, who fully preached the
Gospel of Christ, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and at last died a martyr
at Rome, in the time of Nero?” From this passage we may conclude, that
at the beginning of the fourth century, there were not any certain and
well attested accounts of the places out of Judea, in which several of
the Apostles of Christ preached; for if there had, Eusebius must have
been acquainted with them.
The stories that are told concerning their arrival and exploits among
the Gauls, the English, the Spaniards, the Germans, the Americans, the
Chinese, the Indians, and the Russians, are too romantic in their
nature, and of too recent a date, to be received by an impartial
inquirer after truth. These fables were for the most part forged after
the time of Charlemagne, when most of the Christian churches contended
about the antiquity of their origin, with as much vehemence as the
Arcadians, Egyptians, and Greeks disputed formerly about their seniority
and precedence.
It appears, however, that all of the Apostles did not die by martyrdom.
Heraclion, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, reckons among the Apostles who
did not suffer martyrdom, Matthew, Thomas, Philip, and Levi, probably
meaning Lebbeus.
To the Apostles belonged the peculiar and exclusive prerogative of
writing doctrinal and preceptive books of authority in the Christian
church; and it sufficiently appears that no epistles or other doctrinal
writings of any person who was of a rank below that of an Apostle, were
received by Christians as a part of their rule of faith. With respect to
the writings of Mark and Luke, they are reckoned historical, not
doctrinal or dogmatical; and Augustine says, that Mark and Luke wrote at
a time when their writings might be approved not only by the church, but
by Apostles still living.
The appellation of Apostles was also given to the ordinary travelling
ministers of the church. Thus St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans,
xvi, 7, says, “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and fellow
prisoners, who are of note among the Apostles.” In this inferior sense
the appellation is applied, by Clement of Alexandria, to Barnabas; who
was not an Apostle in the highest sense of the word, so as the twelve
and Paul were Apostles. Tertullian calls all the seventy disciples
Apostles; and Clement calls Barnabas Apostolical merely in another
place, and says that he was one of the seventy, and fellow labourer of
Paul. These, says Dr. Lardner, are the highest characters which he
really intends to give to Barnabas, and what he means when he styles him
Apostle; therefore he need not be supposed to ascribe to Barnabas that
large measure of inspiration and high authority, which was peculiar to
the Apostles, strictly and properly so called. In a similar subordinate
form, St. Clement of Rome is called Apostle. Timothy also is called by
Salvian, Apostle, meaning merely Apostolical, or a companion and
disciple of Apostles.
Apostle was likewise a title given to those sent by the churches, to
carry their alms to the poor of other churches. This usage they borrowed
from the synagogues, who called those whom they sent on this message, by
the same name; and the function or office itself ἀποϛολὴ, that is,
_mission_. Thus St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, tells them, that
Epaphroditus, their _Apostle_, had ministered to his wants, chap. ii,
25. It is applied in like manner to those persons who first planted the
Christian faith in any place.
Apostle is also used among the Jews, for a kind of officer anciently
sent into the several parts and provinces in their jurisdiction, by way
of visiter, or commissary; to see that the laws were duly observed, and
to receive the moneys collected for the reparation of the temple, and
the tribute payable to the Romans. These apostles were a degree below
the officers of the synagogues, called _patriarchs_, and received their
commissions from them. Some authors observe, that St. Paul had borne
this office; and that it is this he alludes to in the beginning of the
Epistle to the Galatians: as if he had said, Paul, no longer an apostle
of the synagogue, nor sent by men to maintain the law of Moses, but now
an Apostle and envoy of Jesus Christ, &c. St. Jerom, though he does not
believe that St. Paul had been an apostle of this kind, yet imagines
that he alludes to it in the passage just cited.
commissioned by him to preach his Gospel, and propagate it to all parts
of the earth. The word originally signifies a person _delegated_ or
_sent_; from ἀποϛέλλω, _mitto_; in which sense it occurs in Herodotus,
and other profane authors. Hence, in the New Testament, the term is
applied to divers sorts of delegates; and to the twelve disciples by way
of eminence. They were limited to the number twelve, in allusion to the
twelve tribes of Israel. See Matt. xix, 28; Luke xxii, 30; Rev. xxi,
12–14; and compare Exod. xxiv, 4; Deut. i, 23; and Josh. iv, 2, 3.
Accordingly care was taken, on the death of Judas, to choose another, to
make up the number, Acts i, 21, 22, 26. Of the first selection and
commission of the twelve Apostles, we have an account, Luke vi, 13, &c;
Matt. x, 1, &c. Having chosen and constituted twelve persons, under the
name of Apostles, our blessed Lord determined that for some time they
should be continually with him, not only to attend upon his public
ministry, but to enjoy the benefit of his private conversation, that he
might furnish them the better for the great work in which they were to
be employed; and that, at length, after suitable preparation, he might,
with greater advantage, send them abroad to preach his Gospel, and thus
make way for his own visits to some more distant parts, where he had not
yet been; and to enable them more effectually to do this, he endowed
them with the power of working miracles, of curing diseases, and casting
out demons. About the commencement of the third year of his ministry,
according to the common account of its duration, he sent them out two by
two, that they might be assistants to each other in their work; and
commanded them to restrict their teaching and services to the people of
Israel, and to avoid going to the Gentiles or to the Samaritans; to
declare the approach of the kingdom of heaven, and the establishment of
the Gospel dispensation; to exercise the miraculous powers with which
they had been endowed gratuitously; and to depend for their subsistence
on the providence of God, and on the donations of those to whom they
ministered. Their names were, Simon Peter; Andrew, his brother; James
the greater, the son of Zebedee; and John his brother, who was the
beloved disciple; Philip of Bethsaida; Bartholomew; Thomas, called
Didymus, as having a twin brother; Matthew or Levi, who had been a
publican; James, the son of Alpheus, called James the less; Lebbeus,
surnamed Thaddeus, and who was also called Judas or Jude, the brother of
James; Simon, the Canaanite, so called, as some have thought, because he
was a native of Cana, or, as Dr. Hammond thinks, from the Hebrew קנא,
signifying the same with Zelotes, or the Zelot, a name given to him on
account of his having before professed a distinguishing zeal for the
law; and Judas Iscariot, or a man of Carioth, Josh. xv, 25, who
afterward betrayed him, and then laid violent hands on himself. Of
these, Simon, Andrew, James the greater, and John, were fishermen;
Matthew, and James the son of Alpheus, were publicans; and the other six
were probably fishermen, though their occupation is not distinctly
specified.
After the resurrection of our Saviour, and not long before his
ascension, the place of Judas the traitor was supplied by Matthias,
supposed by some to have been Nathanael of Galilee, to whom our Lord had
given the distinguishing character of an “Israelite indeed, in whom
there was no guile;” and the twelve Apostles, whose number was now
completed, received a new commission, of a more extensive nature than
the first, to preach the Gospel to all nations, and to be witnesses of
Christ, not only in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria, but unto
the uttermost parts of the earth; and they were qualified for the
execution of their office by a plenteous effusion of miraculous powers
and spiritual gifts, and particularly the gift of tongues. In
consequence of this commission, they preached first to the Jews, then to
the Samaritans, and afterward to the idolatrous Gentiles. Their signal
success at Jerusalem, where they opened their commission, alarmed the
Jewish sanhedrim, before which Peter and John were summoned, and from
which they received a strict charge never more to teach, publicly or
privately, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The noble reply and
subsequent conduct of the Apostles are well known. This court of the
Jews was so awed and incensed, as to plot the death of the twelve
Apostles, as the only effectual measure for preventing the farther
spread of Christianity. Gamaliel interposed, by his prudent and moderate
counsel; and his speech had so good an effect upon the sanhedrim, that,
instead of putting Peter and John to death, they scourged them, renewed
their charge and threats, and then dismissed them. The Apostles,
however, were not discouraged nor restrained; they counted it an honour
to suffer such indignities, in token of their affection to their Master,
and zeal in his cause; and they persisted in preaching daily in the
courts of the temple, and in other places, that Jesus of Nazareth was
the promised and long expected Messiah. Their doctrine spread, and the
number of converts in Jerusalem still increased. During the violent
persecution that raged at Jerusalem, soon after the martyrdom of St.
Stephen, several of the leading men among the Christians were dispersed;
some of them travelled through the regions of Judea and Samaria, and
others to Damascus, Phœnicia, the Island of Cyprus, and various parts
of Syria; but the twelve Apostles remained, with undaunted firmness, at
Jerusalem, avowing their attachment to the persecuted interest of
Christ, and consulting how they might best provide for the emergencies
of the church, in its infant and oppressed state.
When the Apostles, during their abode at Jerusalem, heard that many of
the Samaritans had embraced the Gospel, Peter and John were deputed to
confer upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit; for to the Apostles
belonged the prerogative of conferring upon others spiritual gifts and
miraculous powers. In their return to Jerusalem, from the city of
Samaria, they preached the Gospel in many Samaritan villages. The manner
of its being sent to Ethiopia, by the conversion of the eunuch who was
chief treasurer to Candace, queen of the country, is related in Acts
viii, 26, &c. After the Christian religion had been planted in
Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and sent into Ethiopia, one of the
uttermost parts of the earth, Acts i, 8; and after it had been preached
about eight years to the Jews only, God, in his wise and merciful
providence, disposed things for the preaching of it among the Gentiles.
Cæsarea was the scene in which the Apostle Peter was to open his
commission for this purpose; and Cornelius, one of the devout Gentiles,
and a man distinguished by his piety and charity, was the first
proselyte to Christianity. After Peter had laid the foundation of a
Christian church among the devout Gentiles, others imitated his example,
and a great number of persons of this description embraced the Christian
faith, more especially at Antioch, where the disciples, whom their
enemies had hitherto called Galileans, Nazarenes, and other names of
reproach, and who, among themselves, had been called “disciples,”
“believers,” “the church,” “the saints,” and “brethren,” were
denominated, probably not without a divine direction, Christians.
When Christianity had been preached for about eight years among the Jews
only, and for about three years more among the Jews and devout Gentiles,
the next stage of its progress was to the idolatrous Gentiles, in the
year of Christ 44, and the fourth year of the emperor Claudius. Barnabas
and Saul were selected for this purpose, and constituted in an
extraordinary manner Apostles of the Gentiles, or uncircumcision.
Barnabas was probably an elder of the first rank; he had seen Christ in
the flesh, had been an eye witness of his being alive again after his
crucifixion, and had received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost,
as being one of the hundred and twenty. Saul also, since his conversion
had preached as a superior prophet, about seven years to the Jews only,
and about two years more to the Jews and devout Gentiles. They had both
been born in Gentile countries; and therefore may be supposed to have
had more respect and affection for the Gentiles than most of the Jews,
who were natives of Judea. Saul had been converted, and had hitherto
preached chiefly on Gentile ground; and he had joined with Barnabas in
teaching devout Gentiles for a whole year, at Antioch in Syria; by all
which previous steps they were regularly conducted to the last
gradation, or the conversion of the idolatrous Gentiles. But it was
necessary, in order to the being an Apostle, to have seen our Lord Jesus
Christ alive after his crucifixion, for the Apostles were in a peculiar
manner the witnesses of his resurrection. Some have supposed that Saul
saw the person of Jesus, when he was converted, near the city of
Damascus; but others, who conceive from the history of this event, that
this could not have been the case, as he was instantly struck blind, are
of opinion that the season, when his Apostolic qualification and
commission were completed, was that mentioned by himself, Acts xxii, 17,
when he returned to Jerusalem the second time after his conversion, saw
the Lord Jesus Christ in person, and received the command to go quickly
out of Jerusalem, that he might be sent unto the Gentiles. See also Acts
xxvi, 16–20, where he gives an account of the object of his commission.
He also received a variety of gifts and powers, which, superadded to his
own genius and learning, as well as fortitude and patience, eminently
qualified him for the office of an Apostle, and for that particular
exercise of it which was assigned to him. St. Paul is frequently called
the _Apostle_, by way of eminence; and the _Apostle of the Gentiles_,
because his ministry was chiefly employed for the conversion of the
Gentiles, as that of St. Peter was for Jews, who is therefore styled the
_Apostle of the circumcision_.
The Apostles having continued at Jerusalem twelve years after the
ascension of Christ, as tradition reports, according to his command,
determined to disperse themselves in different parts of the world. But
what were the particular provinces assigned to each, does not certainly
appear from any authentic history. Socrates says, that Thomas took
Parthia for his lot; Matthew, Ethiopia, and Bartholomew, India. Eusebius
gives the following account: “Thomas, as we learn by tradition, had
Parthia for his lot; Andrew, Scythia; John, Asia, who having lived there
a long time, died at Ephesus. Peter, as it seems, preached to the
dispersed Jews in Pontus and Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; at
length, coming to Rome, he was crucified with his head downward, as he
had desired. What need I to speak of St. Paul, who fully preached the
Gospel of Christ, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and at last died a martyr
at Rome, in the time of Nero?” From this passage we may conclude, that
at the beginning of the fourth century, there were not any certain and
well attested accounts of the places out of Judea, in which several of
the Apostles of Christ preached; for if there had, Eusebius must have
been acquainted with them.
The stories that are told concerning their arrival and exploits among
the Gauls, the English, the Spaniards, the Germans, the Americans, the
Chinese, the Indians, and the Russians, are too romantic in their
nature, and of too recent a date, to be received by an impartial
inquirer after truth. These fables were for the most part forged after
the time of Charlemagne, when most of the Christian churches contended
about the antiquity of their origin, with as much vehemence as the
Arcadians, Egyptians, and Greeks disputed formerly about their seniority
and precedence.
It appears, however, that all of the Apostles did not die by martyrdom.
Heraclion, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, reckons among the Apostles who
did not suffer martyrdom, Matthew, Thomas, Philip, and Levi, probably
meaning Lebbeus.
To the Apostles belonged the peculiar and exclusive prerogative of
writing doctrinal and preceptive books of authority in the Christian
church; and it sufficiently appears that no epistles or other doctrinal
writings of any person who was of a rank below that of an Apostle, were
received by Christians as a part of their rule of faith. With respect to
the writings of Mark and Luke, they are reckoned historical, not
doctrinal or dogmatical; and Augustine says, that Mark and Luke wrote at
a time when their writings might be approved not only by the church, but
by Apostles still living.
The appellation of Apostles was also given to the ordinary travelling
ministers of the church. Thus St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans,
xvi, 7, says, “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and fellow
prisoners, who are of note among the Apostles.” In this inferior sense
the appellation is applied, by Clement of Alexandria, to Barnabas; who
was not an Apostle in the highest sense of the word, so as the twelve
and Paul were Apostles. Tertullian calls all the seventy disciples
Apostles; and Clement calls Barnabas Apostolical merely in another
place, and says that he was one of the seventy, and fellow labourer of
Paul. These, says Dr. Lardner, are the highest characters which he
really intends to give to Barnabas, and what he means when he styles him
Apostle; therefore he need not be supposed to ascribe to Barnabas that
large measure of inspiration and high authority, which was peculiar to
the Apostles, strictly and properly so called. In a similar subordinate
form, St. Clement of Rome is called Apostle. Timothy also is called by
Salvian, Apostle, meaning merely Apostolical, or a companion and
disciple of Apostles.
Apostle was likewise a title given to those sent by the churches, to
carry their alms to the poor of other churches. This usage they borrowed
from the synagogues, who called those whom they sent on this message, by
the same name; and the function or office itself ἀποϛολὴ, that is,
_mission_. Thus St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, tells them, that
Epaphroditus, their _Apostle_, had ministered to his wants, chap. ii,
25. It is applied in like manner to those persons who first planted the
Christian faith in any place.
Apostle is also used among the Jews, for a kind of officer anciently
sent into the several parts and provinces in their jurisdiction, by way
of visiter, or commissary; to see that the laws were duly observed, and
to receive the moneys collected for the reparation of the temple, and
the tribute payable to the Romans. These apostles were a degree below
the officers of the synagogues, called _patriarchs_, and received their
commissions from them. Some authors observe, that St. Paul had borne
this office; and that it is this he alludes to in the beginning of the
Epistle to the Galatians: as if he had said, Paul, no longer an apostle
of the synagogue, nor sent by men to maintain the law of Moses, but now
an Apostle and envoy of Jesus Christ, &c. St. Jerom, though he does not
believe that St. Paul had been an apostle of this kind, yet imagines
that he alludes to it in the passage just cited.