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THE CORONATION 165
156. All the Apostles She loved and served with in
credible affection and reverence, both on account of their
great holiness and on account of their dignity as priests,
as ministers, preachers and founders of the Gospel. Dur
their stay in Jerusalem She attended upon them,
ing all
counseled and directed them in the manner noted above.
With the increase of the Church they were obliged to go
outside of Jerusalem in order to baptize and admit to
the faith many of the inhabitants of the neighboring
places but
; they always returned to the city, because they
had purposely delayed separating from each other, or
leaving Jerusalem, until they
should receive orders to
do so. From the Acts we learn that saint Peter went
to Lydda and Jaffa, where he raised Tabitha from the
dead and performed other miracles,
returning again to
Jerusalem. Although saint Luke relates these excursions
after speaking of the death of saint Stephen (of which
I shall treat in the following chapter), yet during these
events, many were converted throughout Palestine, and
it was necessary, that the Apostles go forth to preach
to them and to confirm them in the faith, always return
ing in order to give an account of their doings to their
heavenly Mistress.
157. During all their journeys and preachings the
common enemy of all sought to hinder the spread
of the
divine Word, or its fruit, by rousing the unbelievers to
many contradictions and altercations with the Apostles
and their listeners or converts; for it seemed to the
infernal dragon more easy to assault them, when he saw
them removed and far from the protection of their Mis
tress. So formidable the great Queen of the angels ap
peared to the hellish hosts, that in spite of the eminent
holiness of the Apostles, Lucifer imagined them disarmed
and at his mercy, easily approachable to his temptations,
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