Jesus again.' So we might go on accumulating passages, but these will
suffice.

I need not spend time in elaborating or emphasising the contrast
which the idea of the Apostolic office contained in these simple
words presents to the portentous theories of later times. I need only
remind you that, according to the Gospels, the work of the Apostles
in Christ's lifetime embraced three elements, none of which were
peculiar to them--to be with Christ, to preach, and to work miracles;
that their characteristic work after His Ascension was this of
witness-bearing; that the Church did not owe to them as a body its
extension, nor Christian doctrine its form; that whilst Peter and
James and John appear in the history, and Matthew perhaps wrote a
Gospel, and the other James and Jude are probably the authors of the
brief Epistles which bear their names--the rest of the Twelve never
appear in the subsequent history. The Acts of the Apostles is a
misnomer for Luke's second 'treatise.' It tells the work of Peter
alone among the Twelve. The Hellenists Stephen and Philip, the
Cypriote Barnabas, and the man of Tarsus--greater than them all--
these spread the name of Christ beyond the limits of the Holy City
and the chosen people. The solemn power of 'binding and loosing' was
not a prerogative of the Twelve, for we read that Jesus came where
'the _disciples_ were assembled,' and that 'the _disciples_ were glad
when they saw the Lord'; and 'He breathed on _them_, and said,
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted."'

Where in all this is there a trace of the special Apostolic powers
which have been alleged to be transmitted from them? Nowhere. Who was
it that came and said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord hath sent me that thou