And he said unto them,
Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Read Chapter 16
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The command to the apostles to be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth was not addressed exclusively to those to whom it was immediately spoken. They alone would not be the only ones who would carry such an enormous task to completion. Similarly he seems to be speaking to the apostles very personally when he says: “Behold I am with you even to the end of the world,” yet who does not know that he made this promise to the universal church which will last from now even to the consummation of the world by successive births and deaths? Letter , To Hesychius
And He said unto them, Go ye into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He said this not on Easter day, when He appeared to the Eleven as they sat at meat, but afterwards, when He showed Himself to them and others on a mountain of Galilee, as it is in S. Matt. xxviii16 , &c. Or it may be that He committed this chief and peculiar office of preaching the Gospel to the Apostles more than once.
Go ye into the whole world, that is to say, not into Juda only, as ye have done hitherto, but up and down in all directions throughout the world. For it does not seem probable that a few Apostles should have traversed and converted the whole world, especially because in America, lately discovered, no traces of the faith of Christ have been found.
Every creature, i.e, to all nations, as it is in Matthew 28:19.
A band of twelve men went forth from Jerusalem, and they were common men, not trained in speaking, but by the power of God they testified to every race of humankind.
Then in this same way the apostles went out to found churches in every city possible. It is from these apostolic churches that all the subsequent churches, one after the other, derived the rule of faith and the seeds of doctrine. Even to today they continue to derive from the apostles that which is necessary in order that they be churches. Indeed, it is for this reason only that they are able to deem themselves as apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. As in science, every genus reverts to its original for its classification, so with the apostolic church. However many or great these churches may be, they comprise but one primitive church, founded by the apostles, from which they all spring. In this way all are primitive. All are apostolic. They all are one, by means of their unbroken unity, peaceful communion, title of descent, and bond of hospitality. These are privileges that no other rule directs than the one tradition of the same mystery.
Again, in the Pslams, David says: "Bring to God, ye countries of the nations"-undoubtedly because "unto every land "the preaching of the apostles had to "go out"
