Luke completes his account in the Acts, where he says our Lord "showed Himself alive, after His Passion, to the Apostles whom He had chosen by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God. And eating together with them He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard, saith He, by My mouth. For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. They, therefore, who were come together asked Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? But He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in His own power; but you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." The power thus promised as about to be bestowed in terms so concise and yet so simple, as "the promise of the Father sent down by the Son," "the power from on high," "the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you," is afterwards described in the events which took place on the Day of Pentecost, which therefore supplement or give their full meaning to St. Luke's account of the transmission of spiritual authority. It is a power coming down on the Apostles in a Body direct from Christ—the power, in fact, which makes the Church to be what she is; it is a visible descent of that perpetual presence of the Holy Ghost within her which is her life, by which she is the kingdom of God on earth—a power universal and permanent. It is given to the Apostolic College collectively, and there is no mention here of a special power given to Peter. But St. Luke in his account of the Last Supper introduces in a manner peculiar to himself a special prerogative promised by our Lord to Peter. To gather its whole force, it is necessary carefully to study the context in which it is found.