Antiquitates Apostolicae (Volume 1); Or, the Lives, Acts, and Martyrdoms of the Holy Apostles of Our Saviour. to Which Are Added, Lives of the Two Eva

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1834. Excerpt: ... the twelve stones which Joshua chose out of Jordan, to lay up within the ark of the testament, respecting the firmness and solidity of the apostles' faith, their being chosen by the true Jesus or Joshua at their baptism in Jordan, and their being admitted into the inner sanctuary of his covenant. By others we are told, that it was shadowed out by the twelve spies taken out of every tribe, and sent to discover the land of promise; or by the twelve gates of the city in Ezekiel's vision; or by the twelve bells appendent to Aaron's garment, ' their sound going out into all the world, and their words unto the ends of the earth.'1 But it were endless, and to very little purpose, to reckon up all the conjectures of this nature, there being scarce any one number of twelve mentioned in the Scripture, which is not by some of the ancients adapted and applied to this of the twelve apostles, wherein an ordinary fancy might easily enough pick out a mystery. That which seems to put in the most rational plea is, that our Lord, being now about to form a new spiritual commonwealth, a kind of mystical Israel, pitched upon this number in conformity either to the twelve patriarchs, as founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, or to the twelve