had readings, preaching, prayers and hymns; its ecclesiastical personality was expres sed solely in verbal terms. Thus, we are told, it attracted a good many people. Many of them must have regarded it as little more than a pious and humble Jewish sect, keen on charity, sharing goods, revering an unjustly treated leader, and with an apocalyptic message. This view was also shared by some in authority. A number of priests became members. So did some of the Pharisees. How did this participation square with the execution of Jesus? That, it was now admitted in some quarters, had been a mistake: just as, later, the execution of James in 62 would be denounced subsequently as a blunder by one man acting ultra vires. Of course, there were Jewish establishment elements that were opposed to the Jesus movement all along, and attacked it whenever opportunity offered, as they attacked other religious ‘troublemakers’. But with the penetration of the Jerusalem circle by priests and scribes, there were always influential people to speak on its behalf when the authorities tried to act. Thus, on at least two occasions, members were hauled before the religious courts but reprieved, or at most escaped with a scourging; they were unruly yet still Jews. But of course this protection and forbearance was bought at a price. It imposed limits both on doctrinal divergence and on missionary activism among the ordinary Jewish people. Thus the whole movement was in danger of being first contained, then reabsorbed. It is at this point that the idea of a gentile mission became crucial. It had always been inherent in Jesus’ work. His chosen district, as well as his native place, had been Galilee, not the obvious Judea: Galilee was only partly Jewish and it was very poor. His mission was to the poor and deprived, without distinction. And universalism was logically implied in his theology. Of course, the road to the Gentiles lay through the dias!,ora. Jesus met many Diaspora Jews when they came on pilgrimage to attend great feasts at which he was active. But there is no evidence of his movement in the Diaspora until after the Pentecostal drive. Then it followed naturally: the Diaspora, among other things, was a proselytizing agency. But the very existence of a gentile mission, run by a movement which was already itself heterodox, and careless of many Jewish regulations, was incompatible with its accommodation with mainstream Judaism. Most Jerusalem Jews of substance disapproved of the gentile mission even when conducted by learned and respectable Pharisees. And, equally, there were Diaspora Jews, especially Pharisees, who disapproved of the whole enterprise, were fiercely conformist and strongly opposed to any bending of the law for the benefit of converts and ‘God fearers'. What they ultimately feared, of course, was the grave risk of Hellenization implicit in any gentile mission, a risk much increased when the mission was carried out by members of an unstable and nonconformist Jewish sect. Indeed, it is impossible completely to separate the cultural and doctrinal points at issue. The teaching of Jesus had a much stronger appeal to Greek speakers than the Judaism of the Diaspora mission. It seems to have attracted converts almost from the start, especially in Antioch. Thus, if one wing of the Jesus movement was being penetrated by Pharisees, another was being penetrated by Greek-speaking Gentiles and Diaspora liberals. There was soon, says Acts, ‘disagreement between those of them who spoke Greek and those who spoke the language of the Jews’. The issue was money: the distribution of charity. Most of it came from the Diaspora and Gentiles and went to the more orthodox Jews of the Jerusalem community. The Greek party set up a committee of seven to look into the matter. One of its members was Stephen; another was Nicolas of Antioch, described as 'a former convert to Judaism’. Almost immediately afterwards, a group of orthodox Pharisees from the Diaspora synagogue in Jerusalem, denounced Stephen to the Sanhedrin, and he was stoned to death. There followed ‘a time of violent persecution for the church in Jerusalem’ which soon spread elsewhere. From the account of Stephen's teaching, it is evident that he and his Greek-speaking party were putting forth a much more radical doctrine as regards the Temple and the law and one much closer to Jesus in his final phase, than the group referred to as ‘the apostles’. Indeed, ‘the apostles' were not persecuted at this stage; they alone were not forced to scatter into the country districts. The object of the persecution was to purge the movement of its radical 18