But it was plain that the Church had now, even in the world's
eyes, chipped its Jewish shell. The name 'Christians,' or those of
Christ, while it told that Christ and the confession of Him was felt
even by the heathen to be the sum and centre of this new faith, showed
also that they comprehended now, not all which the Church would be, but
something of this; saw this much, namely, that it was no mere sect and
variety of Judaism, but a Society with a mission and a destiny of its
own. Nor will the thoughtful reader fail to observe that the coming up
of this name is by closest juxtaposition connected in the sacred
narrative, and still more closely in the Greek than in the English,
with the arrival at Antioch, and with the preaching there, of that
Apostle, who was God's appointed instrument for bringing the Church to
a full sense that the message which it had, was not for some men only,
but for all. As so often happens with the rise of new names, the rise
of this one marked a new epoch in the Church's life, and that it was
entering upon a new stage of its development. [Footnote: Renan (_Les
Apotres_ pp. 233-236) has much instruction on this matter. I quote a
few words; though even in them the spirit in which the whole book is
conceived does not fail to make itself felt: L'heure ou une creation
nouvelle recoit son nom est solennelle; car le nom est le signe
definitif de l'existence. C'est par le nom qu'un etre individuel ou
collectif devient lui-meme, et sort d'un autre.
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