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CHRIST'S RESURRECTION, His disciples always realized, was the key point in His claims to divinity, to being an infallible teacher. It was to be the distinguishing mark of the Apostles, the first heralds of Christ's kingdom, that they were witnesses to the reality of His resurrection. This was the qualification required for the successor to the traitor's post: "So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection" (Acts 1:21). Christ's resurrection became the recurring theme of the Apostles' preaching in the face of persecution and death; refusal to change this message made martyrs of them all with the possible exception of John, who tradition relates, died a natural death.

One of their most honest and intelligent opponents acknowledged that the divine sanction of their mission was the basic issue. Gamaliel declared: "If this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them" (Acts 5:38-39). St. Peter, commencing the preaching of the Christian Church at Pentecost, insisted: "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses" (Acts 2:32).

St. Paul began his first mission with this theme: "What God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus" (Acts 13:32). Paul is willing to stake all on this one assertion: "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised . . . But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:14-20).

PETER'S LEADERSHIP

Peter's leadership was all the more evident in the absence of the risen Savior. It is clear that Peter possessed personal qualities of leadership; he was more often than not the first to interrogate Christ; he was a man who thought he knew his own mind, a man with a plan to defend Christ; one who wavered, indeed, under pressure and ridicule, but needed only a glance from the Master to recall him to penitent love. Yet it would be a mistake to attribute Simon Peter's leadership in the primitive Church to his personal qualities alone.

The "Sons of Thunder," James and John bar Zebedee, would never have taken second place to anyone had it not been Christ's will. For one thing, they were naturally too ambitious themselves; their mother had been prompted to ask for them the first places in Christ's kingdom (Matt. 20:20).

Nor were the other disciples of Christ shrinking violets; not even the solemnity of the Last Supper could halt that "dispute . . . among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest" (Luke 22:24). Christ's reply set forth the virtues His deputies were to practice in fulfilling their office: "Let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves" (Luke 22:26).

Simon Peter's human weakness did not cause Christ to revoke His promise of a supreme stewardship: "I will give you the keys . . ." (Matt. 16:19). On the contrary, Christ allowed Peter to atone for his threefold denial by a triple pledge of loving allegiance: "Simon, do you love me?" The Good Shepherd, Who laid down His life for His sheep, entrusted to Simon Peter the care of all His charges: "Feed my lambs; feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17).

Christ's commission and not Peter's natural qualities of leadership gives the basic explanation for Peter's authority in the early Church. For without challenge Peter took the lead in choosing a replacement for the traitor, Judas of Kerioth (Acts 1:15). It was he who preached the first Christian sermon (Acts 2:14-36); he was the first of the disciples to make use of the wonder-working powers promised them by Christ (Mark 16:17; Acts 3:4); Peter was acknowledged spokesman for the group of Christ's disciples before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:5).

Peter ruled the early Christian community at Jerusalem which, for all its glowing and even heroic charity, was very human. From the first, as Christ had predicted, the Church appeared as no predestined elite, as an ecstatic society of spineless individuals who always turned the other cheek. There were the conniving hypocrites, Ananias and Sapphira, who were rebuked by Peter (Acts 5:1-11); there was the murmur of the Greek-speaking Jews of the dispersion for during preceding centuries millions of Jews had settled outside Palestine against the Palestinian Jews that the latter monopolized distribution of the common property.

PETER THE CHIEF AUTHORITY

Peter was clearly the chief authority in setting the missionary policies of the early Church; he was invited to follow up the pioneer preaching of the deacon Philip in Samaria, and to confront Simon's fraudulent imitation (Acts 8:14-25). Miraculous as was the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (Act 9), the latter yet felt it necessary to regularize his vocation by consultation with Peter (Gal. 1:18). Peter made inspection tours of the growing Christian communities (Acts 9:31-33). Though the Apostles hitherto preached only to the Jews, Peter obeyed divine inspiration to admit the Gentile Cornelius into the Church (Acts 10). This "Catholic" policy of Christianity Peter defended against a Judaizing faction among the converts (Acts 11:118; 15:6-12). And Peter's decision on this vital point, namely that "we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus," prevailed in the Christian Council of Jerusalem, for after Peter's decision "all the assembly kept silence" (Acts 15:11-12).

"You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:15). These predictions of Christ ought to be sufficient to counteract a supposition sometimes made that He envisioned a narrow mission or a speedy end of the world.

The spread of Christ's Gospel would not be the work of Christ alone, nor of Peter alone; it would in some measure be the task of all of the true disciples of Christ, at least through good example. But before faith can be lived, it must be learned and taught. It is for this work that the Apostles would serve as a foundation. Peter preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia, as well as exercising his general supervision over the whole Church, first from Jerusalem, then from Antioch, and finally from Rome.

No one who knows the meaning of the word "apostle" will fail on hearing it to think of Paul. For the latter part of the Acts of the Apostles follows him on three missionary journeys from Jerusalem during which, though beginning with the Jews of the dispersion, Paul at length concentrated on the Gentiles. Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy were certainly his mission fields; quite probably he reached Spain as well (Muratorian Canon: Kirch, 159).

But great as were Paul's missionary labors which he enumerated for hesitant converts (2 Cor. 10 & 11) it is through his letters that Paul has survived. The Holy Spirit, promised by Christ to all the Apostles (John 14:26; 16:13), spoke in surpassing measure through Paul.

His letters announce: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 1:1); "Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:1); etc. These letters do not belie their theme, for in almost every verse Paul will make some allusion to Christ. For him, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21).

PAUL'S LEGACY

Fidelity to Christ's teachings became Paul's legacy: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8-9).

Paul instructed his disciple Timothy: "I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us" (2 Tim. 1:12-14).

The Apostles, frequently called the "Twelve" or later the "Eleven," were a group dedicated to announcing this same teaching for the preservation of which Paul was solicitous. For Christ had assured them: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). At first teaching together in Jerusalem, as the first chapters of the Acts related, eventually "the holy apostles and disciples of our Savior were dispersed throughout the world. Parthia according to tradition was allotted to Thomas as his field of labor; Scythia to Andrew; and Asia to John, who after he had lived some time there died at Ephesus" (Eusebius, History, III, 1).

Primitive Christian life was indeed edifying. Originally it was born of the pentecostal preaching of the Apostles who "were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4) . The converts were so numerous that the Church which numbered possibly 120 souls at Christ's ascension was soon counted by thousands (Acts 1:15; 2:41).

This multitude of believers were of one heart and one soul, and not one of them said that anything he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. When the community grew so large that the Apostles could not take care of it adequately, they selected, first the deacons as temporal assistants (Acts 6); and later priests as spiritual aides (Acts 11:30; 15:22). Under the Apostles, these priests were named to rule the outlying churches established by the Apostles (Acts 14:22; 20:17).

This picture of the early Church as one of great fervor and virtue was not without its blemishes, of course. As already noted, the members were human beings, subject to human foibles. Thus, those who today unduly idealize conditions in the First Century Church will do well to read about Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5) and about the Corinthian Christians who were rebuked by St. Paul (1 Cor 1, 3, 5).