be at the
same time continuous with the old, new in spiritual power, one in
worship and in work.

To the Jew the word _ecclesia_ as used in the Septuagint suggested the
assembly of the congregation of Israel. To a Greek it suggested the
assembly of freeborn citizens in a city state. Without ceasing to be the
congregation of Jehovah, it would claim for itself all the hopes of an
ideal state over which Greek philosophers had sighed in vain.

Opinions differ upon the question whether the apostles were chosen as
representatives of the _ecclesia_ to be founded (Hort) or as men fitted
to become its duly authorized teachers and leaders from the beginning
(Stone). But as Mr Stone well puts it, "It would not be a necessary
inference [from Dr Hort's opinion] that there ought to be no ministry in
the Christian Church."[4]

At first the church was limited to the Christian believers in the city
of Jerusalem, then by persecution their company was broken up, and,
since those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word, the
conception was enlarged to include all "of the way" (Acts ix. 2) in the
Holy Land. A new epoch began from the return of St Paul and St Barnabas
to Antioch after their first missionary journey, when they called
together the church and narrated their experiences, and told how "God
had opened to the Gentiles the door of faith" (Acts xiv. 27). Hitherto
the term Church had been "ideally conterminous" with the Jewish Church.
Now it was to contain members who had never in any sense belonged to the
Jewish Church. Thus the way was opened for new developments and for
illimitable extension. St Paul, in his address to the elders at Ephesus
(Acts xx. 28), adapted the words of Ps. lxxiv. 2, "Remember thy
congregation, which thou hast purchased of old," claiming for the
Christian _ecclesia_ the title of God's ancient _ecclesia_. But he
never, however fiercely opposed by Judaizers, set a new _ecclesia_ of
Christ in opposition to the old. We wait, however, for the Epistles of
his captivity at Rome to find the full meaning of the idea of the church
dawning upon his imagination. "Here at least, for the first time in the
Acts and Epistles, we have the _ecclesia_ spoken of in the sense of the
one universal _ecclesia_, and it comes more from the theological than
from the historical side; i.e. less from the actual circumstances of the
actual Christian communities than from a development of thoughts
respecting the place and o