SAINT BARNABAS. [JUNE 11.]

This festival is not of primitive antiquity, being unnoticed in the ancient Lectionaries and Sacramentaries. In the Calendar of the Venerable Bede it is the 10th instead of the 11th of June; and in the Eastern Church the name of St. Barnabas is associated with that of St. Bartholomew, the latter being also commemorated on August 25th. The day was omitted from the English Calendar of 1552, but the Service was retained. In Fothergill's MS. it is stated that the day was not observed because St. Barnabas was not one of the twelve 1.

The name of St. Barnabas derives its chief lustre from his association with St. Paul; yet, independently of this, he was one worthy to be ranked among the saints of the Church as an Evangelist, Apostle, and Martyr.

The Apostle St. Barnabas was born at Cyprus, but was a Jew of the tribe of Levi, and his original name was Joses or Joseph. Some of the Fathers record that he was one of the seventy disciples, and that he was brought up with St. Paul at the feet of Gamaliel. After our Lord's Ascension he received the name of Barnabas, or "Son of Consolation," from the Apostles; and showed his zeal for Christ by selling his property that the Apostles might distribute the proceeds among the poor; an act which possibly originated the name by which he has ever since been known. St. Chrysostom hands down a tradition that he was a man of very amiable disposition but commanding aspect. Having brought St. Paul to the Apostles he was associated with him for about fourteen years, and on several missionary journeys. After their separation nothing further is recorded of St. Barnabas in Holy Scripture; but the traditions of the Church represent that he spent the remainder of his life among his fellow-countrymen at Cyprus, and that he was stoned by the Jews at Salamis under circumstances somewhat similar to those which brought St. Stephen to his death. What was supposed to be the body of St. Barnabas was discovered four centuries after his martyrdom, a Hebrew copy of St. Matthew's Gospel lying next his heart, which was believed to have been

Hence we find Bishop Wren in 1636 giving direction that "ministers forget not to read the collects, epistles, and gospels appointed for the Conversion of St. Paul... and for St. Barnaby's Day." Card. Doc. Ann. ii. 202.

written by himself. An Epistle is extant, bearing the name of St. Barnabas, which is considered by many scholars to be authentic.

The Gospel for the day is evidently selected with reference to the act of St. Barnabas in consoling the poor disciples in their poverty. He acted upon the command of our Lord in the spirit with which the example of the Good Samaritan is commended to us, and showed his love by going and doing likewise.

INTROIT.-Thy friends are exceeding honourable unto me, O God: greatly is their beginning strengthened. Ps. O Lord, Thou hast searched me out and known me: Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising. Glory be.

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST.
[JUNE 24.]

This festival is in the Comes of St. Jerome, as also another commemorating the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, but the date is not indicated in either case. Mabillon says that the festival of this day was in the Carthaginian Calendar before A.D. 484; and it is mentioned [circ. A.D. 400] by Maximus, Bp. of Turin, as also by St. Augustine, in several Homilies. In the Eastern Church it is kept on January 7th, the day after the holy Theophany; and the festival of the Decollation is also fixed, as in the Latin Church and our own, for August 29th. The day on which our principal Festival of St. John the Baptist is kept has been supposed to be connected with his words, "He must increase, but I must decrease;" the days of the Bridegroom are growing longer, but those of the friend of the Bridegroom are beginning to wane. So St. Augustine says [Hom. 287], "John was born to-day, and from to-day the days decrease; Christ was born on the eighth of the kalends of January, and from that day the days increase." But the 24th of June is also the proximate day of the Baptist's birth, since he was six months older than our Lord.

Although the martyrdom of St. John Baptist is one of the four recorded in Holy Scripture (the other three being those of the Holy Innocents, St. Stephen, and St. James), yet the present festival, which commemorates his Nativity, appears to be the more ancient of the two dedicated to his name, and the one more generally observed. So we may judge from the Sermons both of Maximus and St. Augustine, each of whom accounts for the custom of observing the Birth and not the Martyrdom of the

Precursor of our Lord as if no other festival in his honour had yet been established. "The prophets who had gone before were first born, and at a later day prophesied, but St. John Baptist heralded the Incarnation of our Lord when His Virgin Mother came to visit Elizabeth, and both the Precursor and the Holy Child were yet unborn."

The miraculous birth of St. John the Baptist, and all that we know of his subsequent history, is told us in the opening chapters of the four Gospels, in the 11th of St. Matthew, and the 9th of St. Luke. By comparing our Lord's words in Matt. xi. 14, those of the angel in Luke i. 16, 17, of Zacharias in Luke ii. 76, and those of St. John himself in announcing his mission, with preceding prophecies, we see that the prophets had spoken of him more than seven hundred years before he was born, and that the very last words of the Old Testament, written about four hundred years previously, were concerning him. And, comparatively little as is said about St. John in Holy Scripture, what is said shows how important his office was, and illustrates the words of our Lord, that among all previously born of women, none was ever greater than John the Baptist.

He appears to have spent his childhood, at least, with our Blessed Lord and His mother, and it is natural to suppose that his parents lived but a few years after his birth. But when the time for his ministry came, he adopted the ancient prophetic mode of life; such as is indicated in the case of Elijah the Tishbite, who is said [2 Kings i. 8] to have been "an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." As a prophet, and the greatest of all,-the last prophet of the old dispensation, and the first of the new,-he assailed the vices of the generation in which our Lord came, as Elijah himself had assailed those of Ahab and, the Israel of that day; and so doing he brought many to repentance, and initiated a new moral life by that ordinance of Baptism with which the dispensation of Sinai ended, and that of Calvary began. And when by the power of his preaching he had prepared the hearts of the people to receive Christ as a blessing, and not as one "come to smite the earth with a curse" [Mal. iv. 6], the other part of his office was brought into exercise, that of baptizing our Lord, and witnessing to the descent of the Holy Spirit on His human nature.

Powerful as the effect of St. John the Baptist's ministrations evidently was, we have very little information given us about it. He proclaimed the coming of Christ, rebuked all classes of the people for their sins, showed them the way to turn from them, and baptized with a Baptism of water which foreshadowed the Baptism with the Holy Ghost as well as water. All people seem

to have come readily to him, for the "offence of the Cross" had not yet begun, and the prophet who attracted was no “carpenter's son," but "a prophet indeed," the son of a man well known among them, a priest of the regular succession of Aaron, prophesying as Elijah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel, with the outward appearance and habit of a "man sent from God," and telling of that which they longed for, the near approach of their Messinh. This is all we learn of the ministry of the Baptist from Holy Scripture, and tradition has added little or nothing more. His martyrdom appears to have taken place very early in our Lord's ministry, and when St. John himself was only about thirty years of age; and since his work was done, we may see in it the manner in which the course of even the evil of this world is so regulated, that it ministered by a quick death to the rapid removal of a saint from the Church on earth to the Church in Heaven when the time of his reward was come.

INTROIT.-The Lord hath called me by name from the womb of my mother. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand hath He hid me: He hath made me like a polished shaft, and in His quiver hath He concealed me. Ps. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to praise Thy Name, O Thou most highest. Glory be.

SAINT PETER. [JUNE 29.]

This day is one of the oldest of Christian festivals, and one that was from the beginning of its institution celebrated with great solemnity. Ruinart [617] traces it back as far as the third century, and it is probably of even more primitive antiquity. In St. Jerome's Lectionary there are two Gospels and two Epistles, the one pair under the name of St. Peter, the other under that of St. Paul. As there is only one Vigil, and one Octave, which is called the Octave of the Apostles, the day was evidently then dedicated to both Apostles, as it was in the English Church until the Reformation [a "Commemoration" of St. Paul following on the 30th], and as it still is in the Latin and the Eastern Church. It was a very early custom for the Bishops of Rome to celebrate the Holy Communion in both St. Peter's and St. Paul's Churches on this day, a custom which is mentioned [A.D. 348] by Prudentius [Peristephano, carm. xii.],

Transtyberina prins solvit sacra pervigil sacerdos,
Mox huc recurrit, duplicatque vota.

Τ

He also speaks of the whole city frequenting each church, as if the festival was kept very generally and with great solemnity. St. Augustine, St. Leo, and several others of the Fathers have left sermons preached on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul; and no doubt the two, from their relative positions as the chief Apostles of the Jews and the Gentiles, from their joint ministrations at Rome, and from their martyrdom together there on the same day, have always had this day dedicated in their united names. Bishop Cosin restored the title "Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's Day" in his Durham Prayer Book, and added to the Collect, so that it should read ". commandedst him earnestly to feed Thy flock, and madest Thy Apostle St. Paul a choice vessel to bear Thy name before the Gentiles, make, we beseech Thee, all Bishops and all other ministers of Thy Church, diligently to preach Thy holy Word ... ." He also altered the Epistle to 2 Tim. iv. 1-9; but none of these changes were adopted.

....

St. Peter was one of the first-called of our Lord's disciples [John i. 35-42], and as soon as he had come to follow Christ, he was marked out by a new name, that of Cephas, the Syriac equivalent of the one by which he has since been so familiarly known to the Church. Our Lord did nothing without a meaning, and in giving this new name to His disciple, He appears to have prophetically indicated the strong, immoveable faith in Him which that disciple was to exhibit; and the firmness of which is not contradicted even by that temporary want of courage which led him to try and save his life by denial of his Master in the bitter hour of His Passion. Such instances of faith as St. Peter's attempt to walk on the water, and his confession of Christ as the Son of the living God, seem to set him at the head of the Apostles, as one whom no shock could move from his belief in the Lord; and the striking words of our Lord which are recited in the Gospel for this day show that a special revelation had been vouchsafed to the Apostle to give him that knowledge of Christ on which his faith rested. It was, perhaps, because St. Peter's faith was stronger than that of the other Apostles that he had to undergo greater temptation. Satan desired to "sift him as wheat," as he had desired to tempt Job; but one look from Jesus brought him to himself and counteracted the temptation. A similar temptation is said to have assailed him just before his martyrdom, as our Lord's agony was a kind of second temptation. St. Peter too desired that the cup might pass from him, and endeavoured to escape from Rome. But as he was leaving the city he had such a vision of his Master as St. Paul had on his way to Damascus. "Lord, whither goest Thou?" were the

words of the Apostle, and the reply was a question whether that Master must go to Rome and again suffer, since His servants were afraid to die for His sake. As when Jesus had "looked on" the Apostle years before in the hall of Pilate, so now, the trial of faith ended in a victory, and the servant returned to follow the Master by being girded by another than himself, and led whither he would not at the first have gone, to the Cross. At his own request he was crucified with his head downwards to make the death more ignominious and painful; and as being unworthy to suffer the same death as his Lord. This was in the year 63; and while St. Peter was being crucified at the Vatican, St. Paul was being beheaded at Aqua Salvia, three miles from Rome.

Our Lord's remarkable words, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," do not seem to be wholly explained by saying that St. Peter represented all the Apostles, and that these words represented the power given to all. But if they implied any distinction of authority between St. Peter and his brethren, they do not give any foundation whatever to the claims which the Bishops of Rome have made as successors of St. Peter: for (1) there is no evidence that they are in any special sense successors of St. Peter, and (2) if our Lord's words cannot clearly be applied to the other Apostles, much less can they be applied to Bishops of later days who were not Apostles. There is nothing in the Scriptural account of St. Peter's Apostolic work which gives any explanation of the words; nor does the tradition of the Church respecting that work show any thing that at all helps to do so. He presided over the Church at Antioch for some time,—a fact commemorated by the festival of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch,-assisted, as it appears, in evangelizing Chaldæa, and was probably some years at Rome before his death. During these years it seems most likely that he was all the while acting chiefly as the Apostle of the Circumcision, having charge of Jewish Christians: and, while great works were un doubtedly assigned to the other Apostles, there are evident traces of a providential disposition of duties by which Jewish Christianity became the field of St. Peter's labours; Gentile Christianity that of St. Paul's (the successor of St. James); and the general government of the Church, when Jewish and Gentile Christianity were merging into one, the work of St. John, when the others had passed away from their labours.

INTROIT.-Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jews. Ps. And when Peter was come to himself he said. Glory be.

SAINT JAMES THE GREAT. [JULY 25.]

The festival of St. James, the brother of St. John the Divine, is not noticed in the Lectionary of St. Jerome, but has a Collect appointed in St. Gregory's Sacramentary, and is also in the ancient English Calendars of Bede and of King Athelstan's Psalter. In the Eastern Church it is kept on April 30th, but in the Western it has always been observed on July 25th.

St. James being a brother of the beloved disciple, his relationship to our Lord may be seen in the table printed under that Apostle's day [p. 79]. With St. John he received the appellation of Boanerges from our Lord, and has always been surnamed the Great, or the Greater, by the Church: but neither of these designations can be satisfactorily accounted for. Some special position was given to St. James and St. John, as well as to St. Peter, by their Divine Master; and the request of their mother, probably Salome, that they might sit on either hand of our Lord in His Kingdom, was doubtless founded on the choice thus made by Him, coupled with such a strong faith in His Person and Power as was displayed on another occasion, when the sons of Zebedee sought authority from Christ to destroy the Samaritan city that had rejected Him. [Luke ix. 52.] Their Master had told His servants that they should eat and drink at His table in His Kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and since He had given to St. Peter the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the other two favoured Apostles besought that to them might be given the two posts of honour and suffering next to His Person.

St. James was the first of the Apostles who suffered Martyrdom, and the only one whose death is recorded in the New Testament. The fact of his death is told us in the modern English Epistle of the day, but of its circumstances nothing more is known than that he suffered through the hatred of Herod Agrippa. Tradition says that his accuser repented as the Apostle was on his way to the place of execution, and that having received the blessing of the servant of Christ, he professed himself a Christian, and was baptized in the blood of martyrdom at the same time with St. James. The Apostolic mantle of St. James appears to have fallen upon St. Paul, and perhaps we may look upon the latter as fulfilling the expectations which must have been raised by the place which the elder son of Zebedee occupied near the Person of our Lord, and by the title of Boanerges which was given to him.

St. James the Great is the patron saint of Spain, and his remains are supposed to be preserved at Compostella. "St. Iago of Compostella" holds the same relation to the history of that kingdom which St. George does to that of England: and both names have been used as the battle-cry of Christian hosts when they went forth to stem the torrent of that Mahometan and Moorish invasion which once threatened to drive Christianity from its throne in Europe as it has driven it from Asia.

INTROIT.-Thy friends are exceeding honourable unto me, O God: greatly is their beginning strengthened. Ps. O Lord, Thou hast searched me out and known me: Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising. Glory be.

SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. [AUGUST 24.]

There is no festival of St. Bartholomew in the Lectionary of St. Jerome, but it appears in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory. In the Eastern Church this Apostle is commemorated on the same day with St. Barnabas, as St. Simon and St. Jude are connected in the Western Church; but on this day there is also a commemoration of the Translation of St. Bartholomew. There is absolutely nothing but his name recorded of St. Bartholomew in the New Testament (though it has usually been supposed that Nathanael and Bartholomew are two names for the same person); but the Gospel of the day perpetuates an old tradition that St. Bartholomew was of noble birth, and that hence arose the "strife" among the Apostles, "which of them should be accounted the greatest" in their Master's expected kingdom.

The reasons why Nathanael and Bartholomew are supposed to be the same person are as follows. (1) The call of St. Bartholomew is nowhere mentioned, while that of Nathanael appears to be the call of an Apostle. (2) The Evangelists who mention Bartholomew do not name Nathanael, while St. John, who tells us of the latter, does not name Bartholomew. (3) Bar-Tholmai may be only an appellation of Nathanael, as Bar-Jona is of St. Peter, since it signifies the son of Tholmai,' as the latter does 'the son of Jonas,' and as Barnabas means the son of consolation.' But strong as these reasons seem, there is the strong testimony of the Fathers against them. St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nyssen, and St. Gregory the Great, all declare that Nathanael was not one of the twelve: and the