Chapter II - STEPHEN AND SAUL

Summary

The first serious internal difficulty of the new sect of Judaism arose from its attempt to combine the functions of a religious movement and a social organization. The growth of numbers and the waning of the first flush of enthusiasm were bound to lead inevitably to the development of a more natural and less enthusiastic atmosphere, in which grievances and dissensions could make themselves felt. Naturally the attempt to preserve a complete equality of possessions among all the members multiplied the opportunities for grievances. Moreover the Christian body was not a homogeneous whole. The Hellenist Jews of Jerusalem were marked off from their Hebrew brethren by the fact that they possessed synagogues of their own, in which, as in the synagogues of the Dispersion, worship was conducted in the Greek tongue; many Hellenists spoke no other language. They were thus to a considerable extent cut off from their Hebrew brethren, who naturally tended to look down on those who had been born in strange lands. The Jews of the Dispersion were suspected, not without some justification, of laxity in the observance of the Law; and in any case the mere fact of the Hellenists' return to Palestine was a confession of their inferiority to the native Hebrew. Among them too were proselytes, who were admittedly inferior to the seed of Abraham.

It was therefore easy for the Hellenist Christian to feel himself slighted by his Hebrew brethren, whether a slight were intended or not.