Gospel (vii. 6): "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine." It is certain that the Jews were in the habit of speaking of the heathen both as dogs and swine--unclean animals,--and Hilgenfeld,(1) and some other critics, see in this verse a reference to the Gentiles. We do not, however, press this application which is, and may be, disputed, but merely mention it and pass on. There can be no doubt, however, of the exclusive references to the Gentiles in the same sermon, and other passages, where the disciples are enjoined to practise a higher righteousness than the Gentiles. "Do not even the publicans... do not even the Gentiles or sinners the same things."(2) "Take no thought, &c, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek; but seek ye, &c, &c."(3) The contrast is precisely that put with some irony by Paul, making use of the common Jewish expression "sinner" as almost equivalent for "Gentile;"(4) In another place the first Synoptic represents Jesus as teaching his disciples how to deal with a brother who sins against them, and as the final resource, when every effort at reconciliation and justice has failed, he says: "Let him be unto thee as the Gentile [------] and the publican." (Mt. xviii. 17.) He could not express in a stronger way to a Jewish mind the idea of social and religious excommunication. The instructions which Jesus gives in sending out the Twelve, however, express the exclusiveness of the {132} Messianic mission, in the first instance at least, to the Jews, in a very marked manner. Jesus commands his disciples: "Go not into a way of the Gentiles [------] and into a city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is at hand."(1) As if more emphatically to mark the limitation of the mission, the assurance is seriously added: "For verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man come."(2) It will be observed that Jesus here charges the Twelve to go rather "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" in the same words that he employs to the Canaanitish woman to describe the exclusive destination of his own ministry.(3) In coupling the Samaritans with the Gentiles there is merely an expression of the intense antipathy of the Jews against them, as a mixed and, we may say, renegade race, excluded from the Jewish worship although circumcised, intercourse with whom is to this day almost regarded as pollution.(4) The third Gospel, which omits the restrictive instructions of Jesus to the Twelve given by the first Synoptist, introduces another episode of the same description: the appointment and mission of Seventy disciples,(6) to which we must very briefly refer. No mention whatever is made of this incident in the other Gospels, and these disciples are not referred to in any other part of the New Testament.(6) Even Eusebius remarks that no {133}