Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/18



certain peculiar relations with other words, while the compound, limited and aided by the preposition, always implies action directed "away from" the agent to a distance, and thus conveys the primary idea of "send," so invariably, that it is used in no passage in which this word will not express its meaning. From this compound verb thus defined, is directly formed the substantive which is the true object and end of this protracted research.

[Greek: Apostolos], (Apostolos) is derived from the preceding verb by changing the penult vowel [Greek: E] into [Greek: O], and displacing the termination of the verb by that of the noun. The change of the penult vowel is described in the grammars as caused by its being derived from the perfect middle, which has this peculiarity in its penult. The noun preserves in all its uses the uniform sense of the verb from which it is derived, and in every instance maintains the primary idea of "a person or thing sent." It was often used adjectively with a termination varying according to the gender of the substantive to which it referred. In this way it seems to have been used by Herodotus, who gives it the termination corresponding to the neuter, when the substantive to which it refers is in that gender. (See Porti Dictionarium Ionicum Græco Latinum.) Herodotus is the earliest author in whom I am able to discover the word, for Homer never uses the word at all, nor does any author, as far as I know, previous to the father of history. Though always preserving the primary idea of the word, he varies its meaning considerably, according as he applies it to a person or a thing. With the neuter termination [Greek: apostolon], (apostolo,) referring to the substantive [Greek: ploion], (ploion,) it means a "vessel sent" from place to place. In Plato, (Epist. 7,) it occurs in this connection with the substantive [Greek: ploion] expressed, which in Herodotus is only implied. For an exposition of this use of the term, see H. Stephens's Thesaurus, (sub voc. [Greek: apostolos].) With the masculine termination, Herodotus, applying it to persons, uses it first in the sense of "messenger," "embassador," or "herald," in Clio, 21, where relating that Halyattes, king of Lydia, sent a herald ([Greek: keryx],) to treat for a truce with the Milesians, he mentions his arrival under this synonymous term. "So the messenger ([Greek: apostolos], apostolos,) came to Miletus." ([Greek: Ho men dê apostolos es tên Milêton ên.]) In Terpsichore, 38, he uses the same term. "Aristagoras the Milesian went to Lacedæmon by ship, as embassador (or delegate) from the assembly of Ionic tyrants," ([Greek: Apostolos egineto].) These two passages are the earliest Greek in which I can find this word, and it is worth noticing here, that the word in the masculine form was distinctly applied to persons, in the sense given as the primary one in the text of this book. But, still maintaining in its uses the general idea of "sent," it was not confined, in the ever-changing usage of the flexible Greeks, to individual persons alone. In reference to its expression of the idea of "distant destination," it was applied by later writers to naval expeditions, and in the speeches of Demosthenes, who frequently uses the word, it is entirely confined to the meaning of a "warlike expedition, fitted out and sent by sea to a distant contest." (References to numerous passages in Demosthenes, where this term is used, may be found in Stephens's Thesaurus, on the word.) From the fleet itself, the term was finally transferred to the naval commander sent out with it, so that in this connection it became equivalent to the modern title of "Admiral."

Besides these political and military uses of the word, it also acquired in the later Greek a technical meaning as a legal term, and in the law-writers of the Byzantine school, it is equivalent to "letters of appeal" from the decision of a lower tribunal to a higher one. But this, as well as the two previous meanings, must be considered as mere technical and temporary usages, while the original sense of "messenger," "herald," "embassador," remained in constant force long after the word had received the peculiar application which is the great object of this long investigation. Yet various as are these meanings, it should be noticed that all those which refer to persons, have this one common idea, that of "one sent to a distance to execute the commands of a higher power." This sense is likewise preserved in that sacred meaning, which the previous inquiry has now somewhat prepared the reader as well as the writer to appreciate in its true force.

The earliest passage in the sacred records of Christianity, in which the word apostle is used, is the second verse of the tenth chapter of Matthew, where the distinct nomination of the twelve chief disciples is first mentioned. They are here called apostles, and as the term is used in connection with their being sent out on their first mission, it seems plain that the application of the name had a direct reference to this primary signification. The word, indeed, which Jesus uses in the sixteenth verse, (when he says 'Behold! I you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,')