By the teaching of the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, we have access ever-more to this sacred knowledge.[197] But only as we are able to bear it will he teach us all things.[198] Not to the wise and prudent of this world, but to babes in Christ.[199]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 178:  “Christian Institutions” P. 208]

[Footnote 179:  Jon 4.2]

[Footnote 180:  Acts 22.16]

[Footnote 181:  Acts 22.12; Acts 21.18, 26]

[Footnote 182:  Acts 1.6]

[Footnote 183:  Acts 15.28, 29; Acts 21.25]

[Footnote 184:  Acts 22.21; Gal. 2.7, 9; Acts 13.47]

[Footnote 185:  1 Cor. 10.25, 29]

[Footnote 186:  Col. 2.16, 18]

[Footnote 187:  1 Cor. 1.17; Rom. 1.16]

[Footnote 188:  Acts 2.38, 41; Acts 4.33, 37; Acts 2.44, 46]

[Footnote 189:  Acts 10.44; Acts 11.15; Acts 10.47]

[Footnote 190:  Acts 10.42, 44; Acts 11.15, 16; Acts 10.47]

[Footnote 191:  Acts 15.28, 29]

[Footnote 192:  Acts 8.27, 39 R.v.]

[Footnote 193:  2 Cor. 3.15]

[Footnote 194:  Exodus 20.18]

[Footnote 195:  Jon. 3.30]

[Footnote 196:  Jon. 16.12]

[Footnote 197:  Jon. 14.23, 26]

[Footnote 198:  Jon. 16.12]

[Footnote 199:  Mat. 11.25]

WATER BAPTISM AFTER THE APOSTLES’ TIME

By collateral evidence we are led to suppose that several of the apostles were martyred under the Roman Emperor, Nero, about A.D. 64.

The Jews rebelled against the Romans, A.D. 66.  At the approach of war, Christians of Jerusalem and Judea removed to Pela, beyond the Jordan.[200] Eusebius says they fled in obedience to a Divine revelation.[201] These were all Jews, and in their new homes were called Nazarenes or Ebonites.[202]

Jerusalem and the temple were utterly destroyed and the Jews massacred by the Romans, A.D. 70.[203]

Dean Stanley says:  “The fall of Jerusalem was the fall of the Jewish world; it was a reason for the close of the apostolic age; a death-blow of the influence of Jewish nationality for a long time to come."[204]

After the destruction of Jewish Jerusalem, Gentile Antioch appears to have become the seat of church authority.

John was probably the only apostle then living and he, it is thought, was in a distant country.

At Antioch and other places Gentile Christians evidently soon gained the ascendency and discouraged, even Jews from circumcision and other offensive Jewish customs, while water baptism and other usages not repulsive to Gentiles were generally continued and in time modified to suit taste and convenience.

The early Christians were not united in making these changes; they caused continued discord and division among them as is manifest throughout the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and Eusebius.