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PART ONE

THE EARLY CHURCH IN PALESTINE

CHAPTER II

THE DISCIPLES AT JERUSALEM

CHRISTIANITY arose in one of the new eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Since the year 63 B. C., when Pompey entered Jerusalem, the Romans had been gradually taking over the administration of Palestine. Herod the Great (40-4 B. C.) had been a rex socius or "allied king❞—that is, an ally of the Romans. His sons were "tetrarchs," ruling under the supervision of the legate of Syria stationed at Antioch. But when Herod's son Archelaus was deposed in the year 6 A. D., on account of his unfitness for office, the emperor appointed a procurator for Judæa and Samaria; and from that time onward (save for one brief interval) Judæa was a full-fledged province of the Roman Empire, albeit a province of second rank.

It was under one of these Roman procurators, Pontius Pilate, that John the Baptist appeared as the herald of the Messiah, and our Lord himself fulfilled his ministry. It was Pilate who gave permission for Jesus' crucifixion, yielding to the demand of Jesus' enemies and hoping in this way to keep peace at a crucial hour during Passover week in the spring of the year 29 A. D.

EVENTS FOLLOWING THE PASSOVER

Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, as did every faithful Jew unless he lived too far from Palestine. The Master himself had realized, even before he came up from Galilee for the feast, that

this would be his last visit to the Holy City, that persecution, suffering, death awaited him there. But he went, nevertheless, undaunted by the prospect.

And as he had anticipated, so events turned out. He was seized at midnight on the very eve of the Passover, while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. After a hasty and illegal "trial" by his enemies, he was denounced before Pilate as an insurrectionist against the Roman government. After a weak and half-hearted attempt to save him, Pilate yielded to popular clamor -artfully roused outside the prætorium by the priests— and Jesus was led away to be crucified.

The resurrection. Meanwhile, the disciples remained in Jerusalem, hiding, fearful to venture out lest they too should be mobbed by some fanatical crowd of fellow pilgrims now in the city. Only a few faithful women followers of Jesus, and his "acquaintances," looked on from a distance while he was hanging upon the cross (Luke 23:49). As soon as the Sabbath following the Passover had ended, some of the disciples started for their homes, disappointed, disillusioned, compelled to admit that the hope of the kingdom of God and their faith in Jesus' Messiahship had all been a tragic mistake. Others, like the women who went early on Sunday morning (the morning after the Sabbath) to the sepulcher, remained in Jerusalem to do what they could to give Jesus a suitable burial; for on Friday afternoon, as sunset approached (which meant the arrival of the Sabbath), Jesus' body had been very hastily taken down from the cross and temporarily laid, unwrapped and unprepared for burial, in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathæa, a secret disciple. Going early to the tomb, as it began to dawn on the first day of the week, with spices and linen in which to wrap the body, they were

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