1817 Oct. 13

Not Paul

Heading for

II History

§. 2 Matthias vice Judas

§ 2. Matthias chosen

§. 2 Choice of Matthias to be an associate of the Apostles

Acts I. 13 to 26

{a witness with us of his resurrection} As to /In regard to/ this transaction no reason presents itself for questioning either the existence of the transaction itself or the correctness of the account here /there/ given of it: in its nature, in all Christian eyes it could not but have been of the most notorious. No length of time was likely to obliterate or in any considerable /very material/ degree obscure or lead astray the recollection of it.

To a first glance, the term witness of his resurrection applied to the function of an associate of the apostles may be liable /apt/ to present the idea of impropriety /inappositeness/: on a closer view it will disappear /vanish/.

A witness is either a percipient witness a reporting witness or both in one: of course no person so fit for a reporting as a percipient witness. Of percipient witnesses to a past transaction the number is not an object of choice, of reporting witnesses, yes: since there is no limit to the encrease[?]. Every person by whom a transaction is spoken of to others who had not before heard of it, is thereby with relation to it in some sort a reporting witness: in this sense even at this time of day a Missionary who preaches the Gospel among the heathen is thereby a witness to it.

In the case /instance/ in question, attached to the function of preaching the Gospel to those without doors appears to have been that of bearing a part with administration managing the concerns political and financial of the spiritual company. According to Luke a ׀ ׀ as above to the ascension of Jesus the eleven apostles were not the only percipient witnesses: two others are spoken of of whom Cleophas by name: of the two persons here in question viz. Joseph Barrabas and Matthias had been /were/ partakers /sharers/ in the same inestimable privilege, they were unquestionably by so much the better qualified for the situation of an associate to the apostles, considered in respect of their function of reporting witnesses of that concluding and crowning portion of the acts and sayings of Jesus.

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