Apostle

VIEW:26 DATA:01-04-2020
("one sent forth".) The official name of the twelve whom Jesus sent forth to preach, and who also were with Him throughout His earthly ministry. Peter states the qualifications before the election of Judas' successor (Act_1:21), namely, that he should have companied with the followers of Jesus "all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that He was taken up, to be a witness with the others of His resurrection." So the Lord, "Ye are they that have continued with Me in My temptations" (Luk_22:28). The Holy Spirit was specially promised to bring all things to their remembrance whatever Jesus had said, to guide them into all truth, and to enable them to testify of Jesus with power to all lands (Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26-27; Joh_16:13-14). They were some of them fishermen, one a tax collector, and most of them unlearned.
Though called before, they did not permanently follow Him until their call as apostles. All were on a level (Mat_20:20-27; Mar_9:34-36). Yet three stood in especial nearness to Him, Peter, James, and John; they alone witnessed the raising of Jairus' daughter, the transfiguration, and the agony in Gethsemane. An order grounded on moral considerations is traceable in the enumeration of the rest: Judas, the traitor, in all the lists stands last. The disciples surrounded Jesus in wider and still wider expanding circles: nearest Him Peter, James, and. John; then the other nine; then the Seventy; then the disciples in general. But the "mystery" was revealed to all alike (Mat_10:27). Four catalogues are extant: Matthew's (Matthew 10), Mark's (Mar_3:16), Luke's (Luk_6:14) in the Gospel, and Luke's in Act_1:13.
In all four the apostles are grouped in three classes, four in each. Philip heads the second division, i.e. is fifth; James the son of Alpheus heads the third, i.e. is ninth. Andrew follows Peter on the ground of brotherhood in Matthew and Luke; in Mark and Acts James and John, on the ground of greater nearness to Jesus, precede Andrew. In the second division Matthew modestly puts himself after Thomas; Mark and Luke give him his rightful place before Thomas. Thomas, after his doubts were removed (Joh_20:28), having attained distinguished faith, is promoted above Bartholomew (or Nathanael) and Matthew in Acts. In Matt, hew and Mark Thaddaeus (or Lebbaeus) precedes Simon Zelotes (Hebrew "Canaanite," i.e. one of the sect the Zealots). But in Luke and Acts Simon Zelotes precedes Jude (Thaddaeus) the brother of James. John gives no catalogue, but writing later takes it for granted (Rev_21:14; Rev_21:19-20).
In the first division stand Peter and John, New Testament writers, in the second Matthew, in the third James and Jude. The Zealot stood once the last except the traitor, but subsequently became raised; bigotry is not always the best preparation for subsequent high standing in faith. Jesus sent them in pairs: a good plan for securing brotherly sympathy and cooperation. Their early mission in Jesus' lifetime, to preach repentance and perform miracles in Jesus' name, was restricted to Israel, to prepare the way for the subsequent gospel preaching to the Jews first, on and after Pentecost (Act_3:25). They were slow to apprehend the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and His crucifixion and resurrection as the necessary preliminary to it. Even after His resurrection seven of them returned to their fishing; and it was only by Christ's renewed call that they were led' to remain together at Jerusalem, waiting for the promised Comforter (John 21; Act_1:4).
From the day of the Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit they became new men, witnessing with power of the resurrection of Jesus, as Jesus had promised (Luk_24:45; Luk_24:49; Act_1:8; Act_1:22; Act_2:32; Act_3:15; Act_5:32; Act_13:31). The first period of the apostles' working extends down to Act_11:18. Excepting the transition period (Acts 8-10) when, at Stephen's martyrdom, the gospel was extended to Samaria and. to the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip, Jerusalem is its center, and Peter' the prominent figure, who opened the kingdom of heaven (according to Jesus' promise to him, Mat_16:18-19) to the Jews and also to the Gentiles (Acts 2; 10). The second period begins with the extension of the kingdom to idolatrous Gentiles. (Act_11:19-26).
Antioch, in concert with Jerusalem, is now the center, and Paul the prominent figure, in concert with the other apostles. Though the ideal number always remained twelve (Rev_21:14), answering to the twelve tribes of Israel, yet just as there were in fact thirteen tribes when Joseph's two sons were made separate tribal heads, so Paul's calling made thirteen actual apostles. He possessed the two characteristics of an Apostle; he had" seen the Lord," so as to be an eye witness of His resurrection, and he had the power which none but an Apostle had, of conferring spiritual gifts (1Co_9:1-2; 2Co_12:12; Rom_1:11; Rom_15:18-19). This period ends with Act_13:1-5, when Barnabas and Saul were separated by the Holy Spirit unto missionary work. Here the third apostolic period begins, in which the twelve disappear, and Paul alone stands forth, the Apostle of the Gentiles; so that at the close of Acts, which leaves him evangelizing in Rome, the metropolis of the world, churches from Jerusalem unto Illyricum had been founded through him.
"Apostle" is used in a vaguer sense of "messengers of the churches" (2Co_8:23; Php_2:25). But the term belongs in its stricter sense to the twelve alone; they alone were apostles of Christ. Their distinctive note is, they were commissioned immediately by Jesus Himself. They alone were chosen by Christ Himself, independently of the churches. So even Matthias (Act_1:24). So Paul (Gal_1:1-12; Rom_1:1; 1Co_15:9-10). Their exclusive office was to found the Christian church; so their official existence was of Christ, and prior to the churches they collectively and severally founded. They acted with a divine authority to bind and loose things (Mat_18:18), and to remit or retain sins of persons (Joh_20:21-23), which they exercised by the authoritative ministry of the word. Their infallibility, of which their miracles were the credentials, marked them as extraordinary, not permanent, ministers.
Paul requires the Corinthians to acknowledge that the things which he wrote were the Lord's commandments (1Co_14:37). The office was not local; but "the care of all the churches." They were to the whole what particular elders were, to parts of the church (1Pe_5:1; 2Jn_1:1). Apostles therefore could have strictly no successors. John, while superintending the whole, was especially connected with the churches of Asia Minor, Paul with the W., Peter with Babylon. The bishops in that age coexisted with, and did not succeed officially, the apostles. James seems specially to have had a presidency in Jerusalem (Act_15:19; Act_21:18).
Once the Lord Himself is so designated, "the Apostle of our profession" (Heb_3:1); the, Ambassador sent from the Father (Joh_20:21). As Apostle He pleads God's cause with us; as" High Priest," our cause with God. Appropriate in writing to Hebrew, since the Hebrew high priest sent delegates ("apostles") to collect the temple tribute from Jews in foreign countries, just as Christ is the Father's Delegate to claim the Father's due from His subjects in this world far off from Him (Mat_21:37).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.


Apostle. (one sent forth). In the New Testament, originally the official name of those twelve of the disciples whom Jesus chose to send forth first to preach the gospel and to be with him during the course of his ministry on earth. The word also appears to have been used in a non-official sense to designate a much wider circle of Christian messengers and teachers. See 2Co_8:23; Php_2:25. It is only of those who were officially designated apostles that we treat in the article. Their names are given in Mat_10:2-4, and Christ's charge to them in the rest of the chapter.
Their office. — (1) The original qualification of an apostle, as stated by St. Peter on the occasion of electing a successor to the traitor Judas, was that he should have been personally acquainted with the whole ministerial course of our Lord from his baptism by John till the day when he was taken up into heaven.
(2) They were chosen by Christ himself.
(3) They had the power of working miracles.
(4) They were inspired. Joh_16:13.
(5) Their world seems to have been pre-eminently that of founding the churches and upholding them by supernatural power specially bestowed for that purpose.
(6) The office ceased, a matter of course, with its first holders-all continuation of it, from the very condition of its existence (Compare 1Co_9:1), being impossible.
Early history and training. — The apostles were from the lower ranks of life, simple and uneducated; some of them were related to Jesus according to the flesh; some had previously been disciples of John the Baptist. Our Lord chose them early in his public career. They seem to have been all on an equality, both during and after the ministry of Christ on earth.
Early in our Lord's ministry, he sent them out two and two to preach repentance and to perform miracles in his name Matthew 10; Luke 9. They accompanied him in his journey, saw his wonderful works, heard his discourses addressed to the people, and made inquiries of him on religious matters.
They recognized him as the Christ of God, Mat_16:16; Luk_9:20, and described to him supernatural power, Luk_9:54, but in the recognition of the spiritual teaching and mission of Christ, they made very low progress, held back as they were by weakness of apprehension and by national prejudices. Even at the removal of our Lord from the earth, they were yet weak in their knowledge, Luk_24:21; Joh_16:12, though he had for so long been carefully preparing and instructing them.
On the Feast of Pentecost, ten days after our Lord's ascension, the Holy Spirit came down on the assembled church, Acts 2; and from that time the apostles became altogether different men, giving witness with power of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, as he had declared they should. Luk_24:48; Act_1:8; Act_1:22; Act_2:32; Act_3:15; Act_5:32; Act_13:31.
Later labors and history. — First of all the mother-church at Jerusalem grew up under their hands, Acts 3-7, and their superior dignity and power were universally acknowledged by the rulers and the people. Act_5:12. Ff. Their first mission out of Jerusalem was to Samaria Act_8:5-25 where the Lord himself had, during his ministry, sown the seed of the gospel. Here ends the first period of the apostles' agency, during which its centre is Jerusalem and the prominent figure is that of St. Peter.
The centre of the second period of the apostolic agency is Antioch, where a church soon was built up, consisting of Jews and Gentiles; and the central figure of this and of the subsequent period is St. Paul.
The third apostolic period is marked by the almost entire disappearance of the twelve from the sacred narrative and the exclusive agency of St. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles. Of the missionary work of the rest of the twelve we know absolutely nothing from the sacred narrative.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863


αποστολος, 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 αποστελλω, 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 Mat_19:28; Luk_22:30; Rev_21:12-14; and compare Exo_24:4; Deu_1:23; and Jos_4:2-3. Accordingly care was taken, on the death of Judas, to choose another, to make up the number, Act_1:21-22; Act_1:26. Of the first selection and commission of the twelve Apostles, we have an account, Luk_6:13, &c.; Mat_10:1, &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, Jos_15:25, 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 Nathaniel 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, Phoenicia, 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 Act_8:26, &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, Act_1:8; 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. Caesarea 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,
Act_22:17, 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 Act_26:16-20, 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 Rom_16:7, 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 αποστολη, that is, mission. Thus St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, tells them, that Epaphroditus, their Apostle, had ministered to his wants, Php_2:25. 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.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


According to the word’s original meaning, an apostle was a sent one’. Jesus gave the name to his chosen twelve because, after their time of preparation with him, he sent them out in the service of his kingdom (Mar_3:13-15; Luk_6:13). As twelve tribes had formed the basis of the old people of God, so twelve apostles would be the foundation on which God would build his new people, the Christian church (Mat_16:18; Eph_2:20; Rev_21:12; Rev_21:14).
Mission of the twelve
Jesus’ purpose in sending out the twelve was to spread the message of his kingdom throughout Israel (Mat_10:5-7), as preparation for the worldwide mission to follow (Mat_28:19-20). He gave them a share in his messianic powers so that they could demonstrate the triumph of his kingdom through healing the sick and casting out demons (Mat_10:1; Mat_10:8; see KINGDOM OF GOD). They were to move through Palestine as quickly as possible, avoiding anything that would hinder progress or waste time, so that they might complete the first stage of their mission during Jesus’ lifetime (Mat_10:9-14).
The apostles’ early activity proved to them that the special powers Christ had given them worked (Mar_6:13; Mar_6:30). Even after Christ had returned to his Father, they continued to perform miraculous works, because the Spirit of the risen Christ now indwelt them. These miracles were evidence that they were truly Christ’s apostles (Act_3:12; Act_3:16; Act_4:10; Act_5:12; cf. 2Co_12:12).
Part of Jesus’ purpose in choosing the twelve to accompany him in his ministry was that, after his departure, they might be able to preach about him with the first-hand knowledge of eye witnesses (Joh_15:26-27; Act_1:8; Act_5:32; Act_10:39-41; cf. Mar_3:14). Realizing that they had a specific ministry to the people of that generation, the apostles tried to maintain a unit of twelve personal associates of Jesus as the basis of the new community. They insisted, therefore, that the person to replace Judas in the apostolic group be one who, like the other apostles, had been a genuine eye witness of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism to his ascension (Act_1:21-22; cf. Luk_24:46-48).
With the establishment and growth of the church, the apostles had fulfilled part of the mission for which Christ had chosen them. They provided the leadership for the early church in Jerusalem (Act_2:42; Act_4:37; Act_5:1-5; Act_6:1-4), and were general overseers of the expansion of Christianity into the regions throughout Palestine and beyond (Act_8:14-17; Act_10:46-48). Because of these developments, they were no longer constantly in Jerusalem and were no longer moving together as a group. When James was executed, they saw no need to replace him in order to maintain the unit of twelve, for it had now largely fulfilled its purpose (Act_12:2; cf. Mat_28:19; Act_1:8).
Apostles in the church
Initially apostles were concerned with announcing the good news that, through Christ, the new era had arrived (Mat_10:7; Act_2:22-40). They then had the added responsibility of passing on the teachings of Jesus to those who believed (Mat_28:19-20). In this they had particular help and enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, as Christ had promised (Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26; Joh_16:12-15). Teaching therefore became one of the apostles’ main duties in the church (Act_2:42; Act_5:21; Act_5:42; Act_6:4).
As the church grew, other people were acknowledged as having equal authority with the original apostles. They were not part of that unique group of twelve, but they were no less apostles. Among these were Paul, Barnabas, and James the brother of Jesus (Act_14:14; Rom_16:7; 1Co_9:1; 1Co_15:8-11; Gal_1:19). Because people other than the original twelve might now be apostles, warnings were given against false apostles (2Co_11:13; Rev_2:2). Regardless of the assertions people made about themselves, a true apostle could be appointed only by God (Act_1:24; 1Co_1:1; cf. Mar_3:13-14).
Although apostles increased in number beyond the original twelve, their position was still unique in the church. They were people to whom the Holy Spirit had given special gifts that enabled them to preserve, teach and develop the truths of the Christian gospel (1Co_1:1; 1Co_12:28; 1Co_14:37; 2Ti_1:11). People accepted the apostles’ teaching as having the authority of God’s Word (Act_2:42; Gal_1:8; 1Th_2:13; 2Th_2:15; 2Jn_1:10), and added the apostles’ writings to the collection of inspired Scriptures (2Pe_3:15-16; cf. Joh_14:26; Joh_16:13-14; see INSPIRATION).
Authority in teaching was only part of a wider authority that apostles exercised in the early church. Their authority extended over all areas of church life (Act_5:1-11; 2Co_12:12; 2Co_13:1-3; 2Th_3:4; 2Th_3:14; 1Ti_1:20).
Yet on many occasions the apostles refused to use their authority to force Christians to submit to their rulings. They preferred that the Christians make decisions and take action themselves, and in so doing grow in spiritual maturity (Act_11:2-4; Act_15:6; 2Co_1:24; 2Co_4:2; 2Co_4:5; 2Co_10:8; 2Co_13:10; Philem 8-9). By helping such growth, they were again fulfilling their ministry (Eph_4:11-13).
The apostles did not pass their office on to the next generation. They were God’s specific provision to link the ministry of Christ with the birth of the church, and to ensure that the church was built upon the right foundation (Eph_2:20). As the authoritative interpretation of Christ and the gospel became firmly established in written form (2Th_2:15; see GOSPEL; SCRIPTURES), and as the churches became firmly established through their local leaders (Act_13:1-3; Act_14:23; Act_20:28; see ELDER), the necessity for apostles decreased. The apostolic office had served its purpose, and after the first century it died out.
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.


a-pos?'l (ἀπόστολος, [@apóstolos, literally, ?one sent forth,? an envoy, missionary): For the meaning of this name as it meets us in the New Testament, reference is sometimes made to classical and Jewish parallels. In earlier classical Greek there was a distinction between an ággelos or messenger and an apostolos, who was not a mere messenger, but a delegate or representative of the person who sent him. In the later Judaism, again, apostoloi were envoys sent out by the patriarchate in Jerusalem to collect the sacred tribute from the Jews of the Dispersion. It seems unlikely, however, that either of these uses bears upon the Christian origin of a term which, in any case, came to have its own distinctive Christian meaning. To understand the word as we find it in the New Testament it is not necessary to go beyond the New Testament itself. To discover the source of its Christian use it is sufficient to refer to its immediate and natural signification. The term used by Jesus, it must be remembered, would be Aramaic, not Greek, and apostolos would be its literal equivalent.
1. The Twelve
In the New Testament history we first hear of the term as applied by Jesus to the Twelve in connection with that evangelical mission among the villages on which He dispatched them at an early stage of His public ministry (Mat_10:1; Mar_3:14; Mar_6:30; Luk_6:13; Luk_9:1). From a comparison of the Synoptics it would seem that the name as thus used was not a general designation for the Twelve, but had reference only to this particular mission, which was typical and prophetic, however, of the wider mission that was to come (compare Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 23-29). Luke, it is true, uses the word as a title for the Twelve apart from reference to the mission among the villages. But the explanation probably is, as Dr. Hort suggests, that since the Third Gospel and the Book of Acts formed two sections of what was really one work, the author in the Gospel employs the term in that wider sense which it came to have after the Ascension.
When we pass to Acts, ?apostles? has become an ordinary name for the Eleven (Act_1:2, Act_1:26), and after the election of Matthias in place of Judas, for the Twelve (Act_2:37, Act_2:42, Act_2:43, etc.). But even so it does not denote a particular and restricted office, but rather that function of a world-wide missionary service to which the Twelve were especially called. In His last charge, just before He ascended, Jesus had commissioned them to go forth into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mat_28:19, Mat_28:20; Mar_16:15). He had said that they were to be His witnesses not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but in Samaria (contrast Mat_10:5), and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Act_1:8). They were apostles, therefore, qua missionaries - not merely because they were the Twelve, but because they were now sent forth by their Lord on a universal mission for the propagation of the gospel.
2. Paul
The very fact that the name ?apostle? means what it does would point to the impossibility of confining it within the limits of the Twelve. (The ?twelve apostles? of Rev_21:14 is evidently symbolic; compare in Rev_7:3 the restriction of God's sealed servants to the twelve tribes.) Yet there might be a tendency at first to do so, and to restrict it as a badge of honor and privilege peculiar to that inner circle (compare Act_1:25). If any such tendency existed, Paul effectually broke it down by vindicating for himself the right to the name. His claim appears in his assumption of the apostolic title in the opening words of most of his epistles. And when his right to it was challenged, he defended that right with passion, and especially on these grounds: that he had seen Jesus, and so was qualified to bear witness to His resurrection (1Co_9:1; compare Act_22:6); that he had received a call to the work of an apostle (Rom_1:1; 1Co_1:1, etc.; Gal_2:7; compare Act_13:2; Act_22:21); but, above all, that he could point to the signs and seals of his apostleship furnished by his missionary labors and their fruits (1Co_9:2; 2Co_12:12; Gal_2:8). It was by this last ground of appeal that Paul convinced the original apostles of the justice of his claim. He had not been a disciple of Jesus in the days of His flesh; his claim to have seen the risen Lord and from Him to have received a personal commission was not one that could be proved to others; but there could be no possibility of doubt as to the seals of his apostleship. It was abundantly clear that ?he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for (Paul) also unto the Gentiles? (Gal_2:8). And so perceiving the grace that was given unto him, Peter and John, together with James of Jerusalem, recognized Paul as apostle to the Gentiles and gave him the right hand of fellowship (Gal_2:9).
3. The Wider Circle
It is sometimes said by those who recognize that there were other apostles besides the Twelve and Paul that the latter (to whom some, on the ground of 1Co_15:7; Gal_1:19, would add James the Lord's brother) were the apostles par excellence, while the other apostles mentioned in the New Testament were apostles in some inferior sense. It is hardly possible, however, to make out such a distinction on the ground of New Testament usage. There were great differences, no doubt, among the apostles of the primitive church, as there were among the Twelve themselves - differences due to natural talents, to personal acquirements and experience, to spiritual gifts. Paul was greater than Barnabas or Silvanus, just as Peter and John were greater than Thaddaeus or Simon the Cananean. But Thaddaeus and Simon were disciples of Jesus in the very same sense as Peter and John; and the Twelve and Paul were not more truly apostles than others who are mentioned in the New Testament. If apostleship denotes missionary service, and if its reality, as Paul suggests, is to be measured by its seals, it would be difficult to maintain that Matthias was an apostle par excellence, while Barnabas was not. Paul sets Barnabas as an apostle side by side with himself (1Co_9:5 f; Gal_2:9; compare Act_13:2 f; Act_14:4, Act_14:14); he speaks of Andronicus and Junias as ?of note among the apostles? (Rom_16:7); he appears to include Apollos along with himself among the apostles who are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men (1Co_4:6, 1Co_4:9); the natural inference from a comparison of 1Th_1:1 with 1Th_2:6 is that he describes Silvanus and Timothy as ?apostles of Christ?; to the Philippians he mentions Epaphroditus as ?your apostle? (Phi_2:25 the Revised Version, margin), and to the Corinthians commends certain unknown brethren as ?the apostles of the churches? and ?the glory of Christ? (2Co_8:23 the Revised Version, margin). And the very fact that he found it necessary to denounce certain persons as ?false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ? (2Co_11:13) shows that there was no thought in the primitive church of restricting the apostleship to a body of 12 or 13 men. ?Had the number been definitely restricted, the claims of these interlopers would have been self-condemned? (Lightfoot, Galatians, 97).
4. Apostles in Didache
When we come to the Didache, which probably lies beyond the boundary-line of New Testament history, we find the name ?apostles? applied to a whole class of nameless missionaries - men who settled in no church, but moved about from place to place as messengers of the gospel (chapter 11). This makes it difficult to accept the view, urged by Lightfoot (op. cit., 98) and Gwatkin (HDB, I, 126) on the ground Of Luk_24:48; Act_1:8, Act_1:22; 1Co_9:1, that to have seen the Lord was always the primary qualification of an apostle - a view on the strength of which they reject the apostleship of Apollos and Timothy, as being late converts to Christianity who lived far from the scenes of our Lord's ministry. Gwatkin remarks that we have no reason to suppose that this condition was ever waived unless we throw forward the Didache into the 2nd century. But it seems very unlikely that even toward the end of the 1st century there would be a whole class of men, not only still alive, but still braving in the exercise of their missionary functions all the hardships of a wandering and homeless existence (compare Didache 1Co_11:4-6), who were yet able to bear the personal testimony of eye-witnesses to the ministry and resurrection of Jesus. In Luk_24:48 and Act_18:22 it is the chosen company of the Twelve who are in view. In 1Co_9:1 Paul is meeting his Judaizing opponents on their own ground, and answering their insistence upon personal intercourse with Jesus by a claim to have seen the Lord. But apart from these passages there is no evidence that the apostles of the early church were necessarily men who had known Jesus in the flesh or had been witnesses of His resurrection - much less that this was the primary qualification on which their apostleship was made to rest.
5. The Apostleship
We are led then to the conclusion that the true differentia of the New Testament apostleship lay in the missionary calling implied in the name, and that all whose lives were devoted to this vocation, and who could prove by the issues of their labors that God's Spirit was working through them for the conversion of Jew or Gentile , were regarded and described as apostles. The apostolate was not a limited circle of officials holding a well-defined position of authority in the church, but a large class of men who discharged one - and that the highest - of the functions of the prophetic ministry (1Co_12:28; Eph_4:11). It was on the foundation of the apostles and prophets that the Christian church was built, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief corner-stone (Eph_2:20). The distinction between the two classes was that while the prophet was God's spokesman to the believing church (1Co_14:4, 1Co_14:22, 1Co_14:25, 1Co_14:30, 1Co_14:31), the apostle was His envoy to the unbelieving world (Gal_2:7, Gal_2:9).
The call of the apostle to his task might come in a variety of ways. The Twelve were called personally by Jesus to an apostolic task at the commencement of His earthly ministry (Mat_10:1 parallel), and after His resurrection this call was repeated, made permanent, and given a universal scope (Mat_28:19, Mat_28:20; Act_1:8). Matthias was called first by the voice of the general body of the brethren and thereafter by the decision of the lot (Act_1:15, Act_1:23, Act_1:26). Paul's call came to him in a heavenly vision (Act_26:17-19); and though this call was subsequently ratified by the church at Antioch, which sent him forth at the bidding of the Holy Ghost (Act_13:1), he firmly maintained that he was an apostle not from men neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead (Gal_1:1). Barnabas was sent forth (exapostéllō is the verb used) by the church at Jerusalem (Act_11:22) and later, along with Paul, by the church at Antioch (Act_13:1); and soon after this we find the two men described as apostles (Act_14:4). It was the mission on which they were sent that explains the title. And when this particular mission was completed and they returned to Antioch to rehearse before the assembled church ?all things that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles? (Act_14:27), they thereby justified their claim to be the apostles not only of the church, but of the Holy Spirit.
The authority of the apostolate was of a spiritual, ethical and personal kind. It was not official, and in the nature of the case could not be transmitted to others. Paul claimed for himself complete independence of the opinion of the whole body of the earlier apostles (Gal_2:6, Gal_2:11), and in seeking to influence his own converts endeavored by manifestation of the truth to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God (2Co_4:2). There is no sign that the apostles collectively exercised a separate and autocratic authority. When the question of the observance of the Mosaic ritual by Gentile Christians arose at Antioch and was referred to Jerusalem, it was ?the apostles and elders? who met to discuss it (Act_15:2, Act_15:6, Act_15:22), and the letter returned to Antioch was written in the name of ?the apostles and the elders, brethren? (Act_15:23). In founding a church Paul naturally appointed the first local officials (Act_14:23), but he does not seem to have interfered with the ordinary administration of affairs in the churches he had planted. In those cases in which he was appealed to or was compelled by some grave scandal to interpose, he rested an authoritative command on some express word of the Lord (1Co_7:10), and when he had no such word to rest on, was careful to distinguish his own judgment and counsel from a Divine commandment (1Co_12:25, 40). His appeals in the latter case are grounded upon fundamental principles of morality common to heathen and Christian alike (1Co_5:1), or are addressed to the spiritual judgment (1Co_10:15), or are reinforced by the weight of a personal influence gained by unselfish service and by the fact that he was the spiritual father of his converts as having begotten them in Christ Jesus through the gospel (1Co_4:15 f).
It may be added here that the expressly missionary character of the apostleship seems to debar James, the Lord's brother, from any claim to the title. James was a prophet and teacher, but not an apostle. As the head of the church at Jerusalem, he exercised a ministry of a purely local nature. The passages on which it has been sought to establish his right to be included in the apostolate do not furnish any satisfactory evidence. In 1Co_15:7 James is contrasted with ?all the apostles? rather than included in their number (compare 1Co_9:5). And in Gal_1:19 the meaning may quite well be that with the exception of Peter, none of the apostles was seen by Paul in Jerusalem, but only James the Lord's brother (compare the Revised Version, margin).
Literature
Lightfoot, Galatians, 92-101; Hort, Christian Ecclesia, Lect II; Weizs?cker, The Apostolic Age, II, 291-99; Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry, 73-90.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Apostle, a person sent by another; a messenger.
The term is generally employed in the New Testament as the descriptive appellation of a comparatively small class of men, to whom Jesus Christ entrusted the organization of His church and the dissemination of His religion among mankind. At an early period of His ministry 'He ordained twelve' of His disciples 'that they should be with Him.' 'These He named apostles.' Some time afterwards 'He gave to them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of disease;' 'and He sent them to preach the kingdom of God' (Mar_3:14; Mat_10:1-5; Mar_6:7; Luk_6:13; Luk_9:1). To them He gave 'the keys of the kingdom of God,' and constituted them princes over the spiritual Israel, that 'people whom God was to take from among the Gentiles, for His name' (Mat_16:19; Mat_18:18; Mat_19:28; Luk_22:30). Previously to His death He promised to them the Holy Spirit, to fit them to be the founders and governors of the Christian church (Joh_14:16-17; Joh_14:26; Joh_5:26-27; Joh_16:7-15). After His resurrection He solemnly confirmed their call, saying, 'As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you;' and gave them a commission to 'preach the Gospel to every creature' (Joh_20:21-23; Mat_18:18-20). After His ascension He, on the day of Pentecost, communicated to them those supernatural gifts which were necessary to the performance of the high functions He had commissioned them to exercise; and in the exercise of these gifts, they, in the Gospel history and in their epistles, with the Apocalypse, gave a complete view of the will of their Master in reference to that new order of things of which He was the author. They 'had the mind of Christ.' They spoke 'the wisdom of God in a mystery.' That mystery 'God revealed to them by his Spirit,' and they spoke it 'not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.' They were 'ambassadors for Christ,' and besought men, 'in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God.' They authoritatively taught the doctrine and the law of their Lord; they organized churches, and required them to keep the traditions,' i.e. the doctrines and 'ordinances delivered to them' (Acts 2; 1Co_2:16; 1Co_2:7; 1Co_2:10; 1Co_2:13; 2Co_5:20; 1Co_11:2). Of the twelve originally ordained to the apostleship, one, Judas Iscariot, 'fell from it by transgression,' and Matthias, 'who had companied' with the other Apostles 'all the time that the Lord Jesus went out and in among them,' was by lot substituted in his place (Act_1:17-26). Saul of Tarsus, afterwards termed Paul, was also miraculously added to the number of these permanent rulers of the Christian society (Acts 9; Acts 22; Act_26:15-18; 1Ti_1:12; 1Ti_2:7; 2Ti_1:11).
The characteristic features of this highest office in the Christian church have been very accurately delineated by M'Lean, in his Apostolic Commission. 'It was essential to their office?1. That they should have seen the Lord, and been eye and ear witnesses of what they testified to the world (Joh_15:27). This is laid down as an essential requisite in the choice of one to succeed Judas (Act_1:21-22) Paul is no exception here; for, speaking of those who saw Christ after his resurrection, he adds, 'and last of all He was seen of me' (1Co_15:8). And this he elsewhere mentions as one of his apostolic qualifications: 'Am I not an apostle? have not seen the Lord?' (1Co_9:1). So that his 'seeing that Just One and hearing the word of his mouth' was necessary to his being 'a witness of what he thus saw and heard' (Act_22:14-15). 2. They must have been immediately called and chosen to that office by Christ Himself. This was the case with every one of them (Luk_6:13; Gal_1:1), Matthias not excepted; for, as he had been a chosen disciple of Christ before, so the Lord, by determining the lot, declared his choice, and immediately called him to the office of an apostle (Act_1:24-26). 3. Infallible inspiration was also essentially necessary to that office (Joh_16:13; 1Co_2:10; Gal_1:11-12). They had not only to explain the true sense and spirit of the Old Testament (Luk_24:27; Act_26:22-23; Act_28:23), which were hid from the Jewish doctors, but also to give forth the New Testament revelation to the world, which was to be the unalterable standard of faith and practice in all succeeding generations (1Pe_1:25; 1Jn_4:6). 4. Another apostolic qualification was the power of working miracles (Mar_16:20; Act_2:43), such as speaking with divers tongues, curing the lame, healing the sick, raising the dead, discerning of spirits, conferring these gifts upon others, etc. (1Co_12:8-11). These were the credentials of their divine mission (2Co_12:12). Miracles were necessary to confirm their doctrine at its first publication, and to gain credit to it in the world as a revelation from God, and by these 'God bare them witness' (Heb_2:4). 5. To these characteristics may be added the universality of their mission. Their charge was not confined to any particular visible church, like that of ordinary pastors, but, being the oracles of God to men, they had 'the care of all the churches' (2Co_11:28). They had a power to settle their faith and order as a model to future ages, to determine all controversies (Act_16:4), and to exercise the rod of discipline upon all offenders, whether pastors or flock (1Co_5:3-6; 2Co_10:8; 2Co_13:10).
It must be obvious, from this scriptural account of the apostolic office, that the Apostles had, in the strict sense of the term, no successors. Their qualifications were supernatural, and their work, once performed, remains in the infallible record of the New Testament, for the advantage of the Church and the world in all future ages. They are the only authoritative teachers of Christian doctrine and law. All official men in Christian churches can legitimately claim no higher place than expounders of the doctrines and administrators of the laws found in their writings.
The word 'apostle' occurs once in the New Testament (Heb_3:1) as a descriptive designation of Jesus Christ: 'The apostle of our profession,' i.e. the apostle whom we profess or acknowledge. The Jews were in the habit of applying the corresponding Hebrew term to the person who presided over the synagogue, and directed all its officers and affairs. The Church is represented as 'the house or family of God,' over which he had placed, during the Jewish economy, Moses, as the superintendent?over which he has placed, under the Christian economy, Christ Jesus. The import of the term apostle, is?divinely-commissioned superintendent; and of the whole phrase, 'the apostle of our profession,' the divinely-commissioned superintendent, whom we Christians acknowledge, in contradistinction to the divinely-appointed superintendent Moses, whom the Jews acknowledged.
It is scarcely worthwhile to remark that the Creed, commonly called The Apostles', though very ancient, has no claim to the name, except as it contains apostolic doctrine.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.


Apostle
(ἀπόστολος, from ἀποστέλλω, to send forth). In Attic Greek the term is used to denote a fleet or naval armament. It occurs only once in the Sept. (1Ki_14:6), and there, as uniformly in the New Testament, it signifies a person sent by another, a messenger. It has been asserted that the Jews were accustomed to term the collector of the half shekel which every Israelite paid annually to the Temple an apostle; and we have better authority for asserting that they used the word to denote one who carried about encyclical letters from their rulers. OEcumenius states that it is even vet a custom among the Jews to call those who carry about circular letters from their rulers by the name of apostles. To this use of the term Paul has been supposed to refer (Gal_1:1) when he asserts that he was “an apostle, not of men, neither by men” — an apostle not like those known among the Jews by that name, who derived their authority and received their mission from the chief priests or principal men of their nation. The import of the word is strongly brought out in Joh_13:16, where it occurs along with its correlate, “The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he who is sent (ἀπόστολος) greater than he who sent him.”
It is the opinion of Suicer (Thesaurus, art. Α᾿πόστολος) that the appellation “apostle” is in the N.T. employed as a general name for Christian ministers as "sent by God,” in a qualified use of that phrase, to preach the word. The word is indeed used in this loose sense by the fathers. Thus we find Archippus, Philemon, Apphia, the seventy disciples (Luk_10:17), termed apostles; and even Mary Magdalene is said γενέσθαι τοῖς ἀποστόλοις ἀπόστολος, to become an apostle to the apostles. No evidence, however, can be brought forward of the term being thus used in the N.T. Andronicus and Junia (Rom_16:7) are indeed said to be ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, “of note among the apostles;” but these words by no means imply that they were apostles, but only that they were well known and esteemed by the apostles. The συνεργο . . . the fellow- workers of the apostles, are by Chrysostom denominated συναπόστολοι. The argument founded on 1Co_4:9, compared with 1Co_4:6, to prove that Apollos is termed an apostle, cannot bear examination. The only instance in which it seems probable that the word, as expressive of an office in the Christian Church, is applied to an individual whose call to that office is not made the subject of special narration, is to be found in Act_14:4; Act_14:14, where Barnabas, as well as Paul, is termed an apostle. At the same time, it is by no means absolutely certain that the term apostles, or messengers, does not in this place refer rather to the mission of Paul and Barnabas by the prophets and teachers at Antioch, under the impulse of the Holy Ghost (Act_13:1-4), than to that direct call to the Christian apostleship which we know Paul received, and which if Barnabas had received, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that no trace of so important an event should have been found in the sacred history but a passing hint, which admits, to say the least, of being plausibly accounted for in another way. ‘We know that, on the occasion referred to, “the prophets and teachers, when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul, sent them away” (ἀτέλυσαν); so that, in the sense in which we will immediately find the words occurring, they were ἀπόστολοι — prophets and teachers (Vollhagen, De Apost. Ebr. Greifsw. 1704).
In 2Co_8:23, we meet with the phrase ἀπόστολοι ἐκκλησιῶν, rendered in our version “the messengers of the churches.” Who these were, and why they received this name, is obvious from the context. The churches of Macedonia had made a contribution for the relief of the saints of Judaea, and had not merely requested the apostle “to receive the gift, and take on him the fellowship of ministering to the saints,” but at his suggestion had appointed some individuals to accompany him to Jerusalem with their alms. These “apostles or messengers of the churches” were those “who were chosen of the churches to travel with the apostle with this grace [gift], which was administered by him,” to the glory of their common Lord (2Co_8:1-4; 2Co_8:19). With much the same meaning and reference Epaphroditus (Php_2:25) is termed ἀπόστολος — a messenger of the Philippian Church — having been employed by them to carry pecuniary assistance to the apostle (Php_4:14-18).
The word “apostle” occurs once in the New Testament (Heb_3:1) as a descriptive designation of Jesus Christ: ‘“ The apostle of our profession,” i.e. the apostle whom we profess or acknowledge. The Jews were in the habit of applying the term שָׁלַיחִ, from שָׁלִח, to send, to the person who presided over the synagogue, and directed all its officers and affairs. The Church is represented as “the house or family of God,” over which he had placed, during the Jewish economy, Moses as the superintendent-over which he has placed, under the Christian economy, Christ Jesus. The import of the term apostle is divinely commissioned superintendent; and of the whole phrase, "the apostle of our profession," the divinely commissioned superintendent whom WE Christians acknowledge, in contradistinction to the divinely appointed superintendent Moses, whom the Jews acknowledged.
1. The term apostle, however, is generally employed in the New Testament as the descriptive appellation of a comparatively small class of men, to whom Jesus Christ intrusted the organization of his Church and the dissemination of his religion among mankind. At an early period of his ministry “he ordained twelve” of his disciples “that they should be with him.” Their names were:
1. Simon Peter (Cephas, Bar-jona);
2. Andrew;
3. John
4. Philip;
5. James the Elder;
6. Nathanael (Bartholomew);
7. Thomas (Didymus);
8. Matthew (Levi);
9. Simon Zelotes;
10. Jude (Lebbaeus, Judas, Thaddaeus);
11. James the Less;
12. Judas Iscariot.
(For their names according to Mohammedan traditions, see Thilo, Apocr. 1:152.) “These he named apostles.” Some time afterward “he gave to them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of disease;” “and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God” (Mar_3:14; Mat_10:1-5; Mar_6:7; Luk_6:13; Luk_9:1). To them he gave “the keys of the kingdom of God,” and constituted them princes over the spiritual Israel, that “people whom God was to take from among the Gentiles, for his name” (Mat_16:19; Mat_18:18; Mat_19:28; Luk_22:30). Previously to his death he promised to them the Holy Spirit, to fit them to be the founders and governors of the Christian Church (Joh_14:16-17; Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26-27; Joh_16:7-15). After his resurrection he solemnly confirmed their call, saying, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you;” and gave them a commission to “preach the gospel to every creature” (Joh_20:21-23; Mat_18:18-20). After his ascension he, on the day of Pentecost, communicated to them those supernatural gifts which were necessary to the performance of the high functions he had commissioned them to exercise; and in the exercise of these gifts they, in the Gospel history and in their epistles, with the Apocalypse, gave a complete view of the will of their Master in reference to that new order of things of which he was the author. They “had the mind of Christ.” They spoke “the wisdom of God in a mystery.” That mystery “God revealed to them by his Spirit,” and they spoke it, “not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” They were “ambassadors for Christ,” and besought men, “in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God.” They authoritatively taught the doctrine and the law of their Lord; they organized churches, and required them to “keep the traditions,” i.e. the doctrines and ordinances delivered to them” (Acts 2; 1Co_2:16; 1Co_2:7; 1Co_2:10; 1Co_2:13; 2Co_5:20; 1Co_11:2). Of the twelve originally ordained to the apostleship, one, Judas Iscariot, “fell from it by transgression,” and Matthias, “who had companied” with the other apostles “all the time that the Lord Jesus went out and in among them,” was by lot substituted in his place (Act_1:17-26). Saul of. Tarsus, afterward termed Paul, was also miraculously added to the number of these permanent rulers of the Christian society (Acts 9; Act_20:4; Act_26:15-18; 1Ti_1:12; 1Ti_2:7; 2Ti_1:11). SEE DISCIPLES (Twelve).
2. The number twelve was probably fixed upon after the analogy of the twelve tribes of the Israelites (Mat_19:28; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 323; comp. Tertull. c. Marcion. 4:415), and was so exact that the apostles are often termed simply “the Twelve” (Mat_26:14; Mat_26:47; Joh_6:67; Joh_20:24; 1Co_15:5). Their general commission was to preach the gospel. (See generally Cave, Hist. of the Apostles, Lond. 1677; Spanheim, De apostolatu, in his Dissert. hist. quaternio, Lugd. B. 1679; Buddae Eccles. apost. Jen. 1729; Burmann, Exercit. acad. 2, 104 sq.; Hess, Gesch. u. Schrift. d. Apostel, Tir. 1821; Planck, Gesch. des Christenth. Gott. 1818; Wilhelm, Christi Apostel, Heidelb. 1825; Capelli Histor. apost. illustr. Genev. 1634, Salmur. 1683, Frckf. 1691; Von Einem, Historia Christ. et Apostol. Gott. 1758; Rullmann, De Apostolis, Rint. 1789; Stanley, Sermons on the Apostolic Age, Oxf. 1847, 1852; Renan, Les Apotres, Paris, 1866. ) They were uneducated persons (F. Lami, De eruditione apostolorum, Flor. 1738) taken from common life, mostly Galileans (Mat_11:25), and many of them had been disciples of John the Baptist (Joh_1:35 sq.). Some of them appear to have been relatives of Jesus himself. SEE BROTHER. Our Lord chose them early in his public career, though some of them had certainly partly attached themselves to him before; but after their call as apostles they appear to have been continuously with him or in his service. They seem to have been all on an equality, both during and after the ministry of Christ on earth; and the prelatical supremacy of Peter, founded by the Romish Church upon Mat_16:18, is nowhere alluded to in the apostolical period. We find one indeed, Peter, from fervor of personal character, usually prominent among them, and distinguished by having the first place assigned him in founding the Jewish and Gentile churches, SEE PETER; but we never find the slightest trace in Scripture of any superiority or primacy being in consequence accorded to him. We also find that he and two others, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are admitted to the inner privacy of our Lord's acts and sufferings on several occasions (Mar_5:37; Mat_17:1 sq.; Mat_26:37); but this is no proof of superiority in rank or office. Early in our Lord's ministry, he sent them out two and two to preach repentance, and perform miracles in his name (Matthew 10; Luke 9). This their mission was of the nature of a solemn call to the children of Israel, to whom it was confined (Mat_10:5-6).
There is, however, in his charge to the apostles on this occasion not a word of their proclaiming his own mission as the Messiah of the Jewish people; their preaching was at this time strictly of a preparatory kind, resembling that of John the Baptist, the Lord's forerunner. Jesus early informed the apostles respecting the solemn nature, the hardships, and even positive danger of their vocation (Mat_10:17), but he never imparted to them any esoteric instruction, nor even initiated them into any special mysteries; since the whole tendency of his teaching was practical; but they constantly accompanied him in his tours of preaching and to the festivals (being unhindered by their domestic relations, comp. Mat_8:14; 1Co_9:5; see Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 3:30; Schmid, De apostolis uxoratis, Helmst. 1704, Viteb. 1734; comp. Deyling, Observ. 3, 469 sq.; Pfaff, De circumductione soror. mulierum apostolica, Tubing. 1751; Schulthess, Neueste.theol. Nachricht. 1828, 1:130 sq.), beheld his wonderful acts, listened to his discourses addressed to the multitude (Mat_5:1 sq.; Mat_23:1 sq.; Luk_4:13 sq.), or his discussions with learned Jews (Mat_19:13 sq.; Luk_10:25 sq.); occasionally (especially the favorite Peter, John, and James the elder) followed him in private (Mat_17:1 sq.), and conversed freely with him, eliciting information (Mat_15:15 sq.; Mat_18:1 sq.; Luk_8:9 sq.; Luk_12:41; Luk_17:5; Joh_9:2 sq.) on religious subjects, sometimes with respect to the sayings of Jesus, sometimes in general (Mat_13:10 sq.), and were even on one occasion themselves incited to make attempts at the promulgation of the Gospel (Mat_6:7 sq.; Luk_9:6 sq.), and with this view performed cures (Mar_6:13; Luk_9:6), although in this last they were not always successful (Mat_17:16). They had, indeed; already acknowledged him (Mat_16:16; Luk_9:20) as the Messiah (ὁ Ξριστὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ), endowed with miraculous powers (Luk_9:54), yet they were slow in apprehending the spiritual doctrine and aim of their Master, being impeded by their weak perception and their national prepossessions (Mat_15:16; Mat_16:22; Mat_17:20 sq.; Luk_9:54; Joh_16:12), insomuch that they had to ask him concerning the obvious import of the plainest parables (Luk_12:41 sq.), and, indeed, they themselves at times confessed their want of faith (Luk_17:5); nor even at the departure of Jesus from the earth, when for two or three years they had been his constant and intimate companions (Mat_16:21), were they at all mature (Luk_24:21; comp. Joh_16:12) in the knowledge appropriate to their mission (see Vollborth, De discip. Christiper gradus ad dignitatem et potent. Apostolor. evectis, Gott. 1790; Bagge, De sapientia Christi in electione, institutione et missione Apostolor. Jen. 1754; Ziez, Quomodo notio de Messia in animis Apost. sensim sensimque claris orem acceperit lucem, Lubec. 1793; Liebe, in Augustij N. theol. Blatt. II, 1, 42 sq.; Ernesti, De prceclara Chr. in Apost. instituendis sapientia, Gott. 1834; Neander, Leb. Jes. p. 229 sq.; comp. also Mahn, De via qua Apost. Jesu doctrinam divin. melius perspexerint, Gott. 1809).
Even the inauguration with which they were privileged at the last supper with Jesus under so solemn circumstances (Mat_26:26 sq.; Mar_14:22 sq.; Luk_22:17 sq.) neither served to awaken their enthusiasm, nor indeed to preserve them from outright faithlessness at the death of their Master (Mat_16:14 sq.; Luk_24:13 sq., Luk_24:36 sq.; Joh_20:9; Joh_20:25 sq.). One who was but a distant follower of Jesus and a number of females charged themselves with the interment of his body, and it was only his incontestable resurrection that gathered together again his scattered disciples. Yet the most of them returned even after this to their previous occupation (Joh_21:3 sq.), as if in abandonment of him, and it required a fresh command of the Master (Matthew 28:28 sq.) to direct them to their mission, and collect them at Jerusalem (Act_1:4). Here they awaited in: a pious association the advent of the Holy Spirit (Joh_20:22), which Jesus had promised them (Act_1:8) as the Paraclete (Joh_14:26; Joh_16:13); and soon after the ascension of their teacher, on the Pentecost established at the founding of the old dispensation, they felt themselves surprised by an extraordinary phenomenon (see Schulthess, De Charismatib. Spir. Sancti, Leipz. 1818; Schulz, Geistesgaben der ersten Christen, Bresl. 1836; Neander, Planting, 1:11 sq.), resulting in an internal influx of the power of that Spirit (Acts 2); and thereupon they immediately began, as soon as the vacancy occasioned by the defection of Judas Iscariot had been filled by the election of Matthias (Act_1:15 sq.), to publish, as witnesses of the life and resurrection of their Lord, the Gospel in the Holy City with ardor and success (Act_2:41). Their course was henceforth decided, and over much that had hitherto been dark to them now beamed a clear light (Joh_2:22; Joh_12:16; see Henke, in Pott's Sylloge, 1:19 sq.).
3. Under the eyes of the apostles, and not without personal sacrifice on their part, the original Christian membership at Jerusalem erected themselves into a community within the pale of Judaism, although irrespective of its sacred rites, with which, however, they maintained a connection (Acts 3-7), and the apostolical activity soon disseminated the divine word among the Samaritans likewise (Act_8:5; Acts cf., 15), where already Jesus had gained some followers (John 4). In the mother Church at Jerusalem their superior dignity and power were, universally acknowledged by the rulers and the people (Act_5:12 sq.). Even the persecution which arose about Stephen, and put the first check on the spread of the Gospel in Judaea, does not seem to have brought peril to the apostles (Act_8:1). Here ends, properly speaking (or rather, perhaps, with the general visitation hinted at in Act_9:32), the first period of the apostles' agency, during which its center is Jerusalem, and the prominent figure is that of Peter. Agreeably to the promise of our Lord to him (Mat_16:18), which we conceive it impossible to understand otherwise than in a personal sense, he among the twelve foundations (Rev_21:14), was the stone on whom the Church was first built; and it was his privilege first to open the doors of the kingdom of heaven to Jews (Act_2:14; Act_2:42) and to Gentiles (Act_10:11). The next decisive step was taken by Peter, who, not without misgivings and even disapproval on the part of the primitive body of Christians, had published the Gospel on the sea-coast (Acts 10, 11); and this led to the establishment of a second community in the Syrian metropolis Antioch (Act_11:21), which kept up a friendly connection with the Church at Jerusalem (Act_11:22 sq.), and constitutes the center of this second period of the apostolical history.
But all that had hitherto taken place was destined to be cast into the shade by the powerful influence of one individual, a Pharisee, who received the apostolate in a most remarkable manner, namely, Paul. Treated at first with suspicion, he soon acquired influence and consideration in the circle of the apostles by his enthusiasm (Acts 13), but, betaking himself to Antioch, he carried forth thence in every direction the Gospel into distant heathen lands, calling out and employing active associates, and resigning to others (Peter; comp. Gal_2:7) the conversion of the Jews. His labors form the third apostolical period. From this time Paul is the central character of the apostolical history; even Peter gradually disappears, and it is only after Paul had retired from Asia Minor that John appears there, but even then laboring in a quiet manner. Thus a man who had probably not personally, known Christ, who, at least, was not (originally) designated and consecrated by him to the apostleship, yet accomplished more for Christianity than all the directly-appointed apostles, not only in extent, measuring his activity by the geographical region traversed, but also in intensity, since he especially grasped the comprehensive scope of the Christian remedial system, and sought to harmonize the heavenly doctrine with sound learning. It is not a little remarkable that a Pharisee should thus most successfully comprehend the world-wide spirit of Christianity.
4. Authentic history records nothing concerning the apostles beyond what Luke has afforded respecting Peter, John (Act_8:14), and the two James's (Act_12:2; Act_12:17; Act_15:13; Act_21:18). Traditions, derived in part from early times (Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiastes 3, 1), have come down to us concerning nearly all of them (see the Acta Apostolorunm Apocrypha, which have been usually ascribed to one Abdias, in Fabricii Cod. Apocryph. 1, 402 sq.; and Cave's Antiquitates Apostol. ut sup.; also Perionii Vitae Apostolorum, Par. 1551, Fref. 1774; comp. Ludewig, Die Apost. Jes. Quedlinb. 1841; Heringa, De vitis apostolorum, Tielae, 1844), but they must be cautiously resorted to, as they sometimes conflict with one another, and their gradual growth can often be traced. All that can be gathered with certainty respecting the subsequent history of the apostles is that James (q.v.), after the martyrdom of James the greater (Act_12:2), usually remained at Jerusalem as the acknowledged head of the fraternity (comp. Act_12:17) and president of the college of the apostles (Act_15:13; Act_21:18; Gal_2:9); while Peter traveled mostly as missionary among the Jews (“apostle of the Circumcision,” Gal_2:8), and John (all three are named “pillars” of the Christian community, Gal_2:9) eventually strove at Ephesus to extend the kindly practical character of Christianity, which had been endangered by Gnostical tendencies, and to win disciples in this temper. From this period it certainly becomes impossible to determine the sphere of these or the other apostles' activity; but it must ever remain remarkable that precisely touching the evangelical mission of the immediate apostles no more information is extant, and that the memory of the services of most of them survived the very first century only in extremely unreliable stories.
We might he even tempted to consider the choice of Jesus as in a great measure a failure, especially since a Judas was among the select; but we must not forget, in the first place, that it was of great importance for Jesus to form as early as possible a narrow circle of disciples, i.e. at a time when there was small opportunity for selection (Mat_9:37 sq.); in the second place, that, in making the choice, he could only have regard to moral and intellectual constitution, in which respect the apostles chosen probably compared favorably with his other followers; and finally that, even if (as some infer from Joh_2:25) the ultimate results had been clearly foreseen by him, they did not (especially after the new turn given to the Christian enterprise by Paul) strictly depend upon this act of his, since, in fact, the successful issue of the scheme justified his sagacity as to the instrumentalities by which it was on the whole carried forward. Some writers (Neander, Leb. Jes. p. 223 sq.) have made out quite an argument for the selection of the apostles from their various idiosyncracies and marked traits of character (Gregorii Diss. de temperamentis scriptorum N.T. Lips. 1710; comp. Hase, Leb. Jes. p. 112 sq.), and Jesus himself clearly never intended that they should all have an equal career or mission; the founding of the Church in Palestine and its vicinity was their first and chief work, and their services in other countries, however important in themselves, were of secondary interest to this. See generally, respecting single apostles and their activity (especially in the N.T.), Neander's Planting and Training of the Prim. Ch. (Hamb. 3d ed. 1841, Edinb. 1843); D. F. Bacon, Lives of the Apost. (N. Y. 1846).
5. The characteristic features of this highest office in the Christian Church have been very accurately delineated by M'Lean, in his Apostolic Commission. “It was essential to their office —
(1.) That they should have seen the Lord, and been eye and ear witnesses of what they testified to the world (Joh_15:27). This is laid down as an essential requisite in the choice of one to succeed Judas (Act_1:21-22), that he should have been personally acquainted with the whole ministerial course of our Lord, from the baptism of John till the day when He was taken up into heaven. He himself describes them as those that had continued with Him in his temptations. (Luk_22:28). By this close personal intercourse with Him, they were peculiarly fitted to give testimony to the facts of redemption; and we gather, from his own words in Joh_14:28; Joh_15:26-27; Joh_16:13, that an especial bestowal of the Spirit's influence was granted them, by which their memories were quickened, and their power of reproducing that which they had heard from him increased above the ordinary measure of man. Paul is no exception here; for, speaking of those who saw Christ after his resurrection, he adds, ‘and last of all he was seen of me' (1Co_15:8). And this he elsewhere mentions as one of his apostolic qualifications: ‘Am I not an apostle? have I not seen the Lord?' (1Co_9:1). So that his seeing that Just One and hearing the word of his mouth was necessary to his being ‘a witness of what he thus saw and heard' (Act_22:14-15).
(2.) They must have been immediately called and chosen to that office by Christ himself. This was the case with every one of them (Luk_6:13; Gal_1:1), Matthias not excepted; for, as he had been a chosen disciple of Christ before, so the Lord, by determining the lot, declared his choice, and immediately called him to the office of an apostle (Act_1:24-26).
(3.) Infallible inspiration was also essentially necessary to that office (Joh_16:13; 1Co_2:10; Gal_1:11-12). They had not only to explain the true sense and spirit of the Old Testament (Luk_24:27; Act_26:22-23; Act_28:23), which were hid from the Jewish doctors, but also to give forth the New Testament revelation to the world. which was to be the unalterable standard of faith and practice in all succeeding generations (1Pe_1:25; 1Jn_4:6). It was therefore absolutely necessary that they should be secured against all error and mistake by unerring inspiration. Accordingly, Christ bestowed on them the Spirit to
‘teach them all things,' to ‘bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever he had said to them' (Joh_14:26), to ‘guide them into all truth,' and to ‘show them things to come' (Joh_16:13). Their word, therefore, must be received, ‘not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God' (1Th_2:13), and as that whereby we are to distinguish ‘the spirit of truth from the spirit of error” (1Jn_4:6).
(4.) Another qualification was the power of working miracles (Mar_16:20; Act_2:43), such as speaking with divers tongues, curing the lame, etc. (1Co_12:8-11). These were the credentials of their divine mission. ‘Truly,' says Paul, ‘the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds' (2Co_12:12). Miracles were necessary to confirm their doctrine at its first publication, and to gain credit to it in the world as a revelation from God, and by these ‘God bare them witness' (Heb_2:4).
(5.) To these characteristics may be added the universality of their mission. Their charge was not confined to any particular visible church, like that of ordinary pastors, but, being the oracles of God to men, they had ‘the care of all the churches' (2Co_11:28). They had power to settle their faith and order as a model to future ages, to determine all controversies (Act_16:4), and to exercise the rod of discipline upon all offenders, whether pastors or flock (1Co_5:3-6; 2Co_10:8; 2Co_13:10).”
6. It must be obvious, from this scriptural account of the apostolical office, that the apostles had; in the strict sense of the term, no successors. Their qualifications were supernatural, and their work, once performed, remains in the infallible record of the New Testament, for the advantage of the Church and the world in all future ages. They are the only authoritative teachers of Christian doctrine and law. All official men in Christian churches can legitimately claim no higher place than expounders of the doctrines and administrators of the laws found in their writings. Few things have been more injurious to the cause of Christianity than the assumption on the part of ordinary office-bearers in the Church of the peculiar prerogatives of “the holy apostles of our Lord Jesus.” Much that is said of the latter is not at all applicable to the former; and much that admits of being applied can be so, in truth, only in a very secondary and extenuated sense. SEE SUCCESSION.
The apostolical office seems to have been pre-eminently that of founding the churches, and upholding them by supernatural power specially bestowed for that purpose. It ceased, as a matter of course, with its first holders; all continuation of it, from the very conditions of its existence (comp. 1Co_9:1), being impossible. The ἐπίσκοπος or “bishop” of the ancient churches coexisted with, and did not in any sense succeed, the apostles; and when it is claimed for bishops or any church officers that they are their successors, it can be understood only chronologically. and not officially. SEE SUCCESSION.
7. In the early ecclesiastical writers we find the term ὁ ἀπόστολος, “the apostle,” used as the designation of a portion of the canonical books, consisting chiefly of the Pauline Epistles. “The Psalter” and “the Apostle” are often mentioned together. It is also not uncommon with these writers to call Paul “The Apostle,” by way of eminence.
The several apostles are usually represented in mediaeval pictures with special badges or attributes: St. Peter, with the keys; St. Paul, with a sword; St. Andrew, with a cross; St. James the Less, with a fuller's pole; St. John, with a cup and a winged serpent flying out of it; St. Bartholomew, with a knife; St. Philip, with a long staff, whose upper end is formed into a cross; St. Thomas, with a lance; St. Matthew, with a hatchet; St. Matthias, with a battle-axe; St. James the Greater, with a pilgrim's staff and a gourd-bottle; St. Simon, with a saw; and St. Jude, with a club. (See Lardner, Works, 5, 255-6. 361.)
For the history of the individual apostles, see each name (Mant, Biog. of the Apostles, Lond. 1840).
8. Further works on the history of the apostles, besides the patristic ones by Dorotheus of Tyre (tr. in Hanmer's Eusebius, Lond. 1663), Jerome (in append. of his Opera, 2:945), Hippolytus (of doubtful genuineness, given with others in Fabricii Cod. Apocr. N.T. 2, 388, 744, 757; 3, 599), Nicetas (Lat. in Bibl. Max. Patr. 27:384; Gr. and Lat. by Combefis, Auct. Noviss. p. 327), and others (see J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Eccles. append.), are the following: G. Fabricius, Hist. J. C. itemque apostol. etc. (Lips. 1566, 1581, 8vo); Cave, Lives of the Apostles (Lond. 1677, 1678, 1684, 1686, fol., and often since; new ed. by Cary, Oxf. 1840, 8vo; a standard work on the subject, above referred to); Hoffmann, Geschichtskalender d. Apostel (Prem. 1699, 8vo); Grunenberg, De Apostolis (Rost 1704, 1705); Reading, Hist. of our Lord, with Lives of the Apostles (Lond. 1716, 8vo); Anonymous, Hist. of the Apostles in Scripture (Lond. 1725, 8vo); Sandin, Hist. Apostolica (Petav. 1731, 8vo; an attempt to fortify the Acts by external accounts); G. Erasmus, Peregrinationes apostolor. (Regiom. 1702); Tillemont, L'Histoire Ecclesiastique, 1 and 2; Fleetwood, Life of Christ, s. f.; Lardner, Works, 6; Jacobi, Gesch. d. Apostel (Gotha, 1818, 8vo); Rosenmüller, Die Apostel, nach ihrem Leben u. Wirken (Lpz. 1821, 8vo); Wilhelmi, Christi Apostel u. erste Bekenner (Heidelb. 1825, 8vo); Kitto, Daily Bible Illustrations, eve. ser. 4; Greens wood, Lives of the Apostles (3d ed. Bost. 1846, 12mo); also the works enumerated under ACTS (OF THE APOSTLES). Of a more special character are the following among others: Ribov, De apostolatu Judaico, spec. Pauli (Gott. 1745); Heineccius, De habitu et insignib. apostolor. sacerdotalibus (Lips. 1702); Pflicke, De apostolor. et prophetar. in N.T. eminentia et discrimine (Lips. 1785); Rhodomann, De sapientia Chr. in electione apostolor. (Jen. 1752); C. W. F. Walch, De illuminatione apostolor. successiva (Gott. 1758); Michaelis, De aptitudine et sinceritate apostolor. (Hal. 1760); Jesse, Learning and Inspiration of the Apostles (Lond. 1798); Goldhorn, De institutione apostolor. precepta recte agendi a Jesu scepenumero repetenda (Lips. 1817); Tittmann, De discrimine discipline Christi et apostolorum (Lips. 1805); Hergang, De apostolor. sensu psychojogico (Budissae, 1841); Milman, Character and Conduct of the Apostles (Bampton Lect. Oxf. 1827); Whately, Lect. on the character of the Apostles (2d ed. Lond. 1853); Messner, Lehre der Apostel (Lpz. 1856). Monographs on various points relating to the apostolate have also been written in Latin by Moebius (Lips. 1660), Dannhauer (Argent. 1664), Kahler (Rint. 1700), Cyprian (Lips. 1717), Fischer (ib. 1720), Fromm (Ged. 1720), Neubauer (Hal. 1729), Beck (Viteb. 1735), Roser (Argent. 1743), Michaelis (Hal. 1749), Kocher (Jen. 1751), Stosch (Guelf. 1751), Rathlef (Harmon. 1752), C. W. F. Walch (Jen. 1754), J. E. J. Walch (ib. 1753,1755), J. G. Walch (ib. 1774), Pries (Rost. 1757), Schulze (Freft. 1758), Taddel (Rost. 1760), Stemler (Lips. 1767), Crusius (ib. 1769), Widmann (Jen. 1775), Wilcke (ib. 1676), Wichmann (ib. 1779), Schlegel (Lips. 1782), Ran (Erlang. 1788), Miller (Gott. 1789), Pisanski (Regiom. 1790), Heumann (Dissert. 1:120-155), Gude (Nov. misc. Lips. 3, 563 sq.), Christiansen (Traj. 1803), Bohme (Hal. 1826), etc.; in German by Gabler (Theol. Journ. 13:94 sq.), Grulich (Ann. d. Theol.), Ruhmer (in Schuderoff's Jahrb. 3, 3, 257-283),Vogel (Aufsatze, 2:4), and many others, especially in contributions to theological journals. SEE APOSTOLIC AGE.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





Norway

FACEBOOK

Participe de nossa rede facebook.com/osreformadoresdasaude

Novidades, e respostas das perguntas de nossos colaboradores

Comments   2

BUSCADAVERDADE

Visite o nosso canal youtube.com/buscadaverdade e se INSCREVA agora mesmo! Lá temos uma diversidade de temas interessantes sobre: Saúde, Receitas Saudáveis, Benefícios dos Alimentos, Benefícios das Vitaminas e Sais Minerais... Dê uma olhadinha, você vai gostar! E não se esqueça, dê o seu like e se INSCREVA! Clique abaixo e vá direto ao canal!


Saiba Mais

  • Image Nutrição
    Vegetarianismo e a Vitamina B12
  • Image Receita
    Como preparar a Proteína Vegetal Texturizada
  • Image Arqueologia
    Livro de Enoque é um livro profético?
  • Image Profecia
    O que ocorrerá no Armagedom?

Tags