[Sidenote: Obstacles to the conversion of the gentiles.]
It was some years before the conversion of Cornelius and his gentile household was followed by any extended proclamation of the good tidings of the Gospel to the heathen world. It was not God's Will that all obstacles should be at once cleared away from the onward path of the Church; and the question of the relation in which the heathen were to stand to the Law of Moses after their conversion to Christianity, presented many difficulties. St. Peter and the other Apostles seem to have waited patiently until God should vouchsafe to show them how these difficulties might best be overcome; and on the Church in the large gentile city of Antioch it first devolved to send forth missionaries to the heathen.
[2] Acts x. 48. It does not seem to have been the usual custom of the Apostles to administer Holy Baptism themselves. See 1 Cor. i. 14-17.
[3] In reference to the martyrdom of St. James, we may remember the prophecy of his Divine Master (St. Matt. xx. 23). "James tasted the _first_ draught of Christ's cup of suffering; and his brother John had the _longest_ draught of it."--Wordsworth on Acts xii. 2.
The Extension of the Church throughout the World
Section 1. _The First Mission to the Gentiles._
[Sidenote: St. Paul and St. Barnabas sent to preach to the heathen.]
It would seem that in the special Eucharistic offerings and Lenten discipline mentioned by St. Luke[1], the Church in Antioch was seeking guidance of her Divine Head as to her duties with respect to the gentile world in the midst of which she was placed; and that the command of the Holy Ghost to consecrate St. Paul and St. Barnabas as Apostles to the heathen was an answer to her cry.
We are not told whose "hands" were "laid" on the two newly-made Apostles in the solemn Consecration Service which followed, but it is likely that St. Peter was at that time at Antioch, and also that the Church in that city was already governed by a Bishop of its own. [Sidenote: They complete the Apostolic number.] It may here be remarked that the number of the Apostles was now completed. Those whom they ordained to be { 31} Bishops or Overseers in the Church of God, as St. Timothy at Ephesus, and St. Titus at Crete, though they received in the "laying on of hands" power to execute such of the highest offices of the Apostolic function as were to be perpetually continued to the Church, yet were not fully Apostles. [Sidenote: Difference between Bishops and Apostles.] They had grace given to them to confirm, to ordain, and to communicate the power of ordaining to others, but they were not endowed with the extraordinary and supernatural gifts bestowed by the Holy Ghost for the Foundation of the Church; nor did they receive the same direct and outward call as was vouchsafed to the Twelve by our Lord Himself, and to St. Paul and St. Barnabas by the special appointment of the Holy Spirit. They were not to _found_ the Church, but to _build up_ on its Apostolic foundations.