[Index] [Previous] [Next]
2.3.8 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
Primitive Jewish Christianity
The Life of the Primitive Disciples - The Spread of Christianity
The spread of Christianity during these early days that we have been considering must have been very rapid. The interval between Christ’s death and the death of Stephen can hardly have been more than a couple of years [see below: The Work of Paul, The Evangelism of Galatia], and yet the persecution which followed upon the latter event shows that there were already many Christians in Jerusalem.
The statement concerning the number of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts are for the most part very indefinite, but a few specific figures are given. Thus, in Acts 1:15, it is said that there were "about a hundred and twenty" gathered together; and that they did not comprise all the disciples is shown by 1 Cor. 15:6, where Paul says that Jesus appeared to "above five hundred brethren at once."
In Acts 2:41 it is said that about three thousand persons were added to them, and in 4:4, their numbers are reported to have reached five thousand. Though, as a rule, comparatively little reliance can be placed upon such general figures, the contrast between them and the vague statements in other passages seems to indicate that they were taken by Luke from his sources, and that they are not merely the result of his own idealization of the early history. [Though the figures were probably taken from the sources, it is not at all impossible that they are something of an exaggeration, as held by many scholars (cf. Wendt in Meyer’s Commentary, seventh edition, S. 92 sq.). Indeed, though the growth of the church in Jerusalem must have been rapid, there is a difficulty, in the light of the account which we have of their numerous meetings together, in supposing that the number of those who resided in Jerusalem reached into the thousands, at any rate during the earliest day.]
These are the only definite statements upon the subject which we have; and whether the larger number was intended to represent the strength of the Christian brotherhood in the early or in the later part of the period with which we are dealing, we have no means of knowing; for there is for the most part no indication as to the chronological order of the various detached events which Luke records.
In Acts 2:47, it is said that "the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved"; in 5:14, that "believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women"; in 6:1, that the "number of the disciples was multiplying"; and in 9:31, that "the church troughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria was multiplied."
Such general statements of course add little to our knowledge; but though they probably originated with Luke himself, and not with his sources, they are certainly true to the facts; for there can be no doubt that the growth of the little circle of disciples was steady and rapid, until the storm broke which resulted in driving so many of them from the city.
Used by permission of the publisher.
[Index] [Previous] [Next]