ous help sent by the Gentile churches to the
poor brethren.

We may, however, surmise that the breakdown of this communistic
experiment was accompanied by other difficulties in the Church. It
appears that by this time Christianity had attracted the favourable
attention of a number of Jews who belonged at least by origin to the
Diaspora, and this introduced a new element, destined in the end to
become dominant and much more objectionable than the original disciples
to the Jews of Jerusalem. We know from other sources that among the
Hellenistic Jews was a tendency to liberalism, or Hellenism. This
touched the Jews where they were most sensitive, for it affected not
opinion but conduct, and seemed to threaten the destruction of the
Jewish Law. They were apparently willing to tolerate Peter and the
rest, so long as they confined themselves to holding peculiar opinions
about the Messiah, and remained perfectly orthodox in their fulfilment
of all the requirements of the Law. But when the synagogue of the
Nazarenes took to themselves Hellenists the situation became
intolerable: a severe persecution arose, Stephen was killed, and the
rest of the Hellenistic party were driven out of Jerusalem, though the
{47} original disciples remained, for the time at least, in comparative
peace. The Hellenists scattered throughout the Gentile neighbourhood
of Palestine, and their future history will have to be considered later.

The opinion which the disciples held of Jesus now became part of their
preaching in a manner which had not been the case during his lifetime.
To distinguish its nature and development requires a somewhat critical
investigation of the meaning and history of the titles first used in
speaking of Jesus. The chief of these are Messiah, Son of Man, Son of
God, and Servant. That which in the end was the most important of
all--Lord--was probably not used until a little later.

Messiah is really an adjective which, translated literally, means
"anointed," or in Greek _christos_, but whereas to say that a man was
anointed has no more meaning in Greek than it has in English, it had in
Hebrew the clear and universally understood meaning of "consecrated" or
"appointed by God." It was applied in the Old Testament to the
high-priest, and it is habitually used in this sense in the Mishna. It
was also used of Saul, of David, and of some of the other kings, but
always with some defining phrase attached to it, generally speak