"By 'Deo gratias,' as they pass'd, The faithful folk were surest known; That watchword for the daily strife Might well their thoughts and tongues employ, Who made the Church transform their life, And the great Offering crown their joy[31]."
[Sidenote: Continued attendance of the Apostles on the Temple Services.]
We may here remark the many indications which are given us throughout the Book of Acts, that the Apostles, who were themselves Jews, did not, even after the Foundation of the Christian Church, oppose or neglect Jewish ordinances and worship, so long and so far as the union of the two dispensations was practicable. In this they followed the example of their Divine Master, Who, from His Circumcision upwards, paid obedience to that Law which He came to fulfil, and Who was a constant attendant at the services of the Temple and of the Synagogues. There was no violent rending away from the old Faith, until God, in His wisdom and justice, saw fit to ordain the destruction of the guilty city Jerusalem, and the overthrow of the Jewish Temple, and Altar, and Priesthood, none of which had then any further purpose to serve in the Divine plan for the redemption of mankind.
[Sidenote: In the cases of St. Peter and St. John,]
Thus we read of St. Peter and St. John going up to the Temple to worship at the ninth hour of prayer[32], and of their afterwards preaching to the people in that part of the { 16} Temple called Solomon's porch[33], of the daily preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles in the Temple[34], and of their constant resort to the Jewish Synagogues during their stay in such places as possessed them[35]. [Sidenote: and of St. Paul.] Even five and twenty years after the day of Pentecost we find that the very tumult which resulted in St. Paul's apprehension and consequent journey as a prisoner to Rome, was immediately excited by his having "entered into the Temple[36]," in performance of one of the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law.
Section 7. _The First Schism and the Appointment of the Diaconate._
[Sidenote: A. D. 33. The first deadly sin in the Church.]
Great and deadly sin had already made its way into Christ's fold, and been cast out from the midst of it by a fearful judgment. Ananias and Sapphira had "lied unto God," and been struck dead for their impiety; and the "great fear" excited by this first display of the judicial powers of the Church had been followed by another influx of conversions; for "multitudes were added to the Lord[37]." [Sidenote: A.D. 34. The first schism.] And now came the first division in the body, "a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews[38]."