and preaching in various country villages as they passed along.

On the road to Gaza.-Philip, on the other hand, was directed to go to the south of Jerusalem, along the desert road which led to Gaza. "An angel of the Lord," it is said, brought him this command-probably in a vision. So he arose and went, down into the lonely Judæan wilderness. A day or so later the purpose of his mission became apparent.

Down the long road winding southward over the hills came the chariot of some high foreign government official. As it drew near, Philip recognized the traveling retinue of the chief treasurer of Ethiopia, the mountainkingdom of Queen Candace. The treasurer had been at Jerusalem on a pilgrimage to the Temple, and now was returning home. As he sat in his magnificent chariot he was reading from a scroll the book of the prophet Isaiah. When he saw him, the Spirit prompted Philip, “Go and join that company."

So Philip ran up beside the Ethiopian's chariot, and overheard him reading the familiar passages (it was the ancient custom to read aloud). He made bold to address the officer, and said, "Do you really understand what you are reading?" The officer, perhaps reading Greek only (the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint) and unfamiliar with the original-for he was not a Jew but a proselyte-replied, "How can I understand it unless someone interprets it for me?" Seeing that Philip was a Jew, or at least that he spoke as if he understood the book, he invited him to sit beside him and explain it as they went along.

The passage which he had just been reading was the one from the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah describing the great Unknown Sufferer, the Servant of the Lord-a

passage which Jesus had often pondered and which meant much to him.

"He was oppressed,

Yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth;
As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

And as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb,
So he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
And as for his generation, who among them con-
sidered

That he was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people to whom the
stroke was due?"

-Isaiah 53:7-8.

Then the officer asked Philip: "Of whom is this spoken? Of the prophet himself or someone else?" This gave Philip his opportunity, and "beginning from this passage, he preached to him Christ Jesus." For the early Christians understood all Old Testament prophecy as prediction. The prophets had not so much addressed their own times with a message of repentance or consolation as announced beforehand all that the Messiah should do and suffer. It is wonderful, and impresses us still, how closely the picture of the Great Sufferer in Isaiah and the Psalms does resemble our Lord in his passion.

The Ethiopian baptized.-As they went on they came to one of the wadies or seasonal streams in the wilderness, and the officer said, "Here is water; what is to hinder my baptism right here and now?" And so he commanded the chariot to halt, and both of them going down into the water, Philip baptized him in the name of Christ. And so one more messenger was sent forth toward "the uttermost parts of the earth" with the message

of Jesus. We do not know what resulted after his return to Ethiopia, for the story has not come down to us. But we know that before many generations there was a strong church in Ethiopia, with its own liturgy, organization, church buildings, and a translation of the Bible into the Ethiopic language. (This translation is often quoted in seeking to establish the early and most correct form of the New Testament text.)

Then Philip, his mission fulfilled, was led by the Spirit into the region along the Mediterranean coast. He was found at Azotus (the ancient Philistine city of Ashdod); and passing on from there "he preached the gospel to all the cities" of the coastal plain, "till he came to Cæsarea" (Acts 8: 40).

STUDY TOPICS

1. Look up the earlier history of the Samaritans (from the fifth century B. C.), and find out why the Jews had no dealings with them (see Bible dictionary). 2. Look up examples of magical formulas used in ancient times (encyclopedia, or Deissmann's Light From the Ancient East).

3. Turn to a map of Palestine showing the roads (for example, the frontispiece of The Life and Times of Jesus or Crosby's Geography of Bible Lands) and trace the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Where was Ethiopia? Locate Azotus and Cæsarea. Trace Philip's journey from Samaria to Cæsarea.

4. What was the Septuagint? Why was it so named? (See dictionary.) The symbol frequently used in referring to it is "LXX." Why? What was its date?

5. What is a "wady"? A "liturgy"? Look up the word "simony." How does the story told in this chapter explain the original significance of the term?

6. What was the original meaning of Isaiah 53? What meaning did it come to have for the early Christians?

7. Is it possible for people to-day to misunderstand Christianity as Simon the Magician did? How? Does God ever accept money in lieu of repentance and faith and right conduct?

8. Philip must have been a careful Bible student to be

able to explain the passage to the Ethiopian. The church always needs teachers of its faith. Have you ever thought of preparing yourself to become a teacher of the Christian religion?

CHAPTER VIII

PAUL OF TARSUS

At the time Christianity arose there were many more Jews living outside Palestine than in it. These formed what was called the Diaspora ("Dispersion" or "Scattering"), and probably numbered between three and four million souls. They were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, from Parthia and the lower valley of the Tigris in the east to Spain and Gaul in the west, and from the bleak northern shores of the Euxine Sea to the borders of the Sahara in Mauretania, Libya and upper Egypt. But chiefly, since the Jew has always (or at least since early times) been a trader and artisan rather than a farmer, grazer or seaman, they settled in the great cosmopolitan cities. Alexandria had so many Jews in the first century that they occupied, according to Philo Judæus (about 50 A. D.), two whole quarters of the city, and were represented by scattered families in other quarters as well. The wealthy cities of the province of Asia-Miletus, Ephesus, Sardis, Pergamum-all had large Jewish populations; and so had Antioch, Tarsus, and even Rome.

Everywhere the Jews built their synagogues, read their sacred Scriptures (including the Greek translation of the Old Testament), and observed their ancestral customs with as much strictness as was possible outside of the Holy Land. Of course, they had not the sacrificial worship of the Temple, but they made up for this in a way by the collection of a tax of one half-shekel (or didrachma: worth fifty cents) from every Jew over twenty years old, and by occasional pilgrimages to