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He let Himself be baptised but He did not baptise His disciples otherwise than by His personal calling to them to follow Him; Pentecost was their "confirmation." The history of the first Church comprised a time not of some hundred years but of some hundred days. When Andrew and Peter followed Jesus the formation of the Church started.
Nicodemus prevailed upon Pilate to let him have Longinus's lance, and I have seen many things concerning the subsequent history of this lance. Longinus, after his conversion, left the army, and joined the disciples. He and two other soldiers, who were converted at the foot of the cross, were among the first baptised after Pentecost.
And this error was entertained by these inspired apostles after the day of Pentecost; it influenced their teaching; it led them to proclaim a defective gospel. This is not the assertion of a skeptic, it is the clear testimony of the Apostle Paul.
Notice the phrases in Acts used in describing the baptism of the Holy Spirit on that historical Pentecost: "Coming upon you," "pour out," "poured forth," "fallen upon," "fell upon," "poured out," "fell on them," "came upon," all suggesting an act from above. A Four-Sided Truth.
A new creed was also to be drawn up before their meeting and laid before them for acceptance. The 'Dated Creed' was drawn up at Sirmium on Pentecost Eve 359, by a small meeting of Homoean and Semiarian leaders.
'I have somewhat against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Where is that Spirit which was poured out on Pentecost? Where are the cloven tongues of fire, where the flame which Christ died to light up?
It befell at the feast of Easter as it had befallen before, and this time the kings and lords for angry spite would have fallen upon Arthur and slain him, but the archbishop threatened them with the most dreadful ban of Holy Church. They forbore, therefore, and went aside, and declared that it was their will to essay the sword again at the high feast of Pentecost.
A tawdry pageant by a lot of clumsy country bumpkins at Whitsuntide or Pentecost, or a silly school-boy masque at Christmas, with the master scolding like a heathen Turk. It was not fair. And now he'd have to work all May-day. May-day out of all the year!
I have discussed the story of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost in the Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 241 ff., and have added some critical remarks on the various forms of the tradition in the Prolegomena to Acts, i. 322 f.
In the "Pentecost" we have another most masterly bit of perspective and fine spacious effect. At the end of a long room, between two rows of the Apostles, is seated the Virgin. Above is God the Father, attended by two angels, and below, the tongues of flame, the gift of the hovering Dove, have alighted on the heads of all the company.
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