his Messiahship which his death had threatened to destroy
permanently. This belief laid upon them the responsibility of bringing
as many of their countrymen as possible to recognize him as Messiah, and
to prepare themselves by repentance and righteousness for the coming
kingdom (cf. Acts ii. 21, 38, iii. 19 sq.). It was with the sense of
this responsibility that they gathered again in Jerusalem, the political
and religious metropolis of Judaism. In Jerusalem the new movement had
its centre, and the church established there is rightly known as the
mother church of Christendom. The life of the early Jewish disciples, so
far as we are able to judge from our meagre sources, was very much the
same as that of their fellows. They continued faithful to the
established synagogue and temple worship (cf. Acts iii. 1), and did not
think of founding a new sect, or of separating from the household of
Israel (cf. Acts x. 14, xv. 5, xxi. 21 sq.). There is no evidence that
their religious or ethical ideals differed in any marked degree from
those of the more serious-minded among their countrymen, for the
emphasis which they laid upon the need of righteousness was not at all
uncommon. In their belief, however, in the Messiahship of Jesus, and
their consequent assurance of the speedy establishment by him of the
Messianic kingdom, they stood alone. The first need of the hour,
therefore, was to show that Jesus was the promised Messiah in spite of
his crucifixion, a need that was met chiefly by testimony to the
resurrection, which became the burden of the message of the early
disciples to their fellow-countrymen (cf. Acts ii. 24 ff., iii. 15 ff.,
v. 31). It was this need which led also to the development of Messianic
prophecy and the ultimate interpretation of the Jewish Bible as a
Christian book (see BIBLE). The second need of the hour was to bring the
nation to repentance and righteousness in order that the kingdom might
come (cf. Acts iii. 19). The specific gospel of Jesus, the gospel of
divine fatherhood and human brotherhood, received no attention in the
earliest days, so far as our sources enable us to judge.

Meanwhile the new movement spread quite naturally beyond the confines of
Palestine and found adherents among the Jews of the dispersion, and at
an early day among the Gentiles as well. Many of the latter had already
come under the influence of Judaism, and were more or less completely in
sympathy with Jewish religious principles.