(References to numerous passages in Demosthenes, where this term is used, may be found in Stephens’s Thesaurus, on the word.) From the fleet itself, the term was finally transferred to the naval commander _sent out_ with it, so that in this connection it became equivalent to the modern title of “Admiral.” Besides these political and military uses of the word, it also acquired in the later Greek a technical meaning as a _legal_ term, and in the law-writers of the Byzantine school, it is equivalent to “_letters of appeal_” from the decision of a lower tribunal to a higher one. But this, as well as the two previous meanings, must be considered as mere technical and temporary usages, while the original sense of “messenger,” “herald,” “embassador,” remained in constant force long after the word had received the peculiar application which is the great object of this long investigation. Yet various as are these meanings, it should be noticed that all those which refer to persons, have this one common idea, that of “one sent to a distance to execute the commands of a higher power.” This sense is likewise preserved in that sacred meaning, which the previous inquiry has now somewhat prepared the reader as well as the writer to appreciate in its true force. The earliest passage in the sacred records of Christianity, in which the word apostle is used, is the second verse of the tenth chapter of Matthew, where the distinct nomination of the twelve chief disciples is first mentioned. They are here called apostles, and as the term is used in connection with their being _sent out_ on their first mission, it seems plain that the application of the name had a direct reference to this primary signification. The word, indeed, which Jesus uses in the sixteenth verse, (when he says ‘Behold! I SEND _you forth_ as sheep in the midst of wolves,’) is αποστελλω, (_apostello_), and when in the fifth verse, Matthew, after enumerating and naming the apostles, says “These twelve Jesus _sent forth_,” the past tense of the same verb is used, (απεστειλεν, _apesteilen_.) Mark also, in his third chapter, relating the appointment and commissioning of the twelve, uses this verb, in verse 14. “And he appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might SEND _them forth_ to preach,” (αποστελλη, _apostellé_.) Luke merely mentions the name apostle, in giving the list of the twelve, in chapter 6, verse 13; and in chapter 9, verse 2, gives the verb in the same way as Matthew. The term certainly is of rare occurrence in all the gospels; those persons who are thus designated being commonly mentioned under the general title of _disciple_ or learner, (μαθητης,) and when it is necessary to separate them from the rest of Christ’s followers, they are designated from their number “the twelve.” John never uses it in this sense, nor does Mark in giving the list, though he does in vi.