XI. But perhaps some one who is very
circumscribed and carnally minded will say, “But our herald is a
stranger and a foreigner.” What of the Apostles? Were
not they strangers to the many nations and cities among whom they were
divided, that the Gospel might have free course everywhere, that
nothing might miss the illumination of the Threefold Light, or be
unenlightened by the Truth; but that the night of ignorance might be
dissolved for those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death?
You have heard the words of Paul, “that we might go the Gentiles,
and they to the Circumcision.” Galat. ii. 9. Be it
that Judæa is Peter’s home; what has Paul in common with the
Gentiles, Luke with Achaia, Andrew with Epirus, John with Ephesus,
Thomas with India, Marc with Italy, or the rest, not to go into
particulars, with those to whom they went? So that you must
either blame them or excuse me, or else prove that you, the ambassadors
of the true Gospel, are being insulted by trifling. But since I
have argued with you in a petty way about these matters, I will now
proceed to take a larger and more philosophic view of them.