“736. THE APOSTLES AND EARLY CHURCH”

The Apostles and Early Church

Volume 8

Preface

The closing volume of the entire series of Daily Bible Illustrations is now presented to the reader.

The views on which the author has proceeded, and the objects at which he has aimed, have been too often stated to need further explanation. As this, however, is the last opportunity that will be afforded to him of alluding to the subject, he may be allowed to say, once for all, that, in the execution of this work, it has been his desire to make the new familiar, and to make the familiar new. This has been pronounced by a great authority Note: Dr. Johnson in Life of Povo. to be a worthy object of human endeavor. How far—how very far—the author has fallen short of his own aims and purposes, none can know so well as himself: how far he has reached towards them, must be judged by a public from which, during a long intercourse, he has experienced too much indulgence to have any wish to appeal from its decisions.

In the present volume the historical intimations contained in the Epistles have been carefully gathered up, and interwoven with the leading matter from the Acts of the Apostles. The conclusions exhibited are founded on a critical reading of the sacred text—the special results of which are, whenever necessary or when peculiarly interesting, explained; but are more frequently embodied in the statement or recital, without remark.

Although the author has exercised an independent judgment upon the matters. that have come before him in the progress of this work, and has perhaps been favored by circumstances with some peculiar advantages for the undertaking now completed, he has felt it due to his readers, to the essential usefulness of the work, and to the demands of the time, to avail himself of every source of information to which he could obtain access. The essentially popular plan of the work has not, however, allowed of minute references to books. Some have been given, when particularly required; but the titles of works thus furnished, bear but an exceedingly small proportion to the number actually consulted. It may suffice to state that (apart from Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles) the works by which he believes himself to have been most materially aided in the present volume, or to which he has had most frequent occasion to refer, are—Coneybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 1853; Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 1850; Benson, History of the First Planting of the Christian Religion, 1750; Cave, Lives of the Apostles; Lorenz, Annales Paullini, 1769; and the Chronological Writings of Pearson, Burton, Gresswell, Moldenhauer, Schott, Wieseler, Anger, and Gumpach; Hemsen, Der Apostel Paulus, seine Leben, Wirken und seine Schriften, 1830; Schrader, Der Apostel Paulus, 1830-34; Hessel, Das Leben des Apostel Paulus, 1837; Scharling, De Paulo Apost. ejusque adversariis Comment., 1836; Biscoe, History of the Acts confirmed; Paley, Horae Paulinae, by T. R; Birks, 1850; Tate, Continuous History of St. Paul; Neander, History of the Planting, etc., of the Christian Church, translated by T. E. Ryland, 1851; James Smith of Jordanhill, Esq.—Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, 1848; Maitland, Church in the Catacombs, 1846.

In conclusion, the author trusts it will not be deemed presumptuous to express the hope—the prayer—that a blessing from above may rest upon even this humble endeavor to promote the knowledge of God’s word; by rendering the apprehensive study of its contents a labor of love to many.

J.K.

London, January, 1854.

Autor: JOHN KITTO