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Acts 1:8, "and You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

 

 

 

At least five Apostles and disciples ministered in Africa, including St. Mark and St Matthew, According to one ancient tradition, St Matthew was the first evangelizer of Nubia (modern Sudan) and Ethiopia, Egypt was evangelized by St. Mark. Not much is written about St Simon the Zealot in the New Testament. Tradition, however, states that Simon evangelized in Egypt, Africa and Armenia. St James, son of Alphaeus: Some times called St James the Lesser. In some traditions he is also sometimes identified with the James the relative of Jesus. He is only mentioned in the New Testament four times in the list of Apostles. Tradition says that he was crucified in Lower Egypt, where he was evangelizing. Saint Thomas, after the dispersion of the Apostles, went to India, where he labored and died at Meliapour, is a certain fact of history. The Roman Breviary states that he preached in Ethiopia and Abyssinia, as well as in Persia and Media. Surely his was a remarkable history, reserved for the Inhabitants of Christ's glory to see In Its fullness some day.

When we read the Acts of the apostles, It contains properly no account of any of the apostles except Peter and Paul. John is noticed only three times; and all that is recorded of James, the son of Zebedee, is his execution by Herod. Acts was certainly the work of Luke, the "beloved physician" (comp. Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1). The writer first appears in the narrative in 16:11, and then disappears till Paul's return to Philippi two years afterwards, when he and Paul left that place together (20:6), and the two seem henceforth to have been constant companions to the end. The emphasis was on Paul's three missionary journeys and his journey to Rome. He was certainly with Paul at Rome (28; Col. 4:14). Thus he wrote a great portion of that history from personal observation. The time of the writing of this history may be gathered from the fact that the narrative extends down to the close of the second year of Paul's first imprisonment at Rome. It could not therefore have been written earlier than A.D. 61 or 62, nor later than about the end of A.D. 63 There were already churches established in Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan and possibly other African Nations by that time. Churches in the West do not want to accept the fact that there was Christianity in India and Africa, even before there were Christians in Rome!