from the Sadducees, that is to say,
from the upper clergy, who crowded the Temple and derived from it
immense profits. We do not find that the Pharisees exhibited toward the
sect the animosity they displayed to Jesus. The new believers were
strict and pious people, somewhat resembling in their manner of life the
Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter manifested against the
Founder arose from the superiority of Jesus--a superiority which he was
at no pains to dissimulate. His delicate railleries, his wit, his charm,
his contempt for hypocrites, had kindled a ferocious hatred. The
apostles, on the contrary, were devoid of wit; they never employed
irony. The Pharisees were at times favorable to them; many Pharisees had
even become Christians. The terrible anathemas of Jesus against
Pharisaism had not yet been written, and the accounts of the words of
the Master were neither general nor uniform. These first Christians
were, besides, people so inoffensive that many persons of the Jewish
aristocracy, who did not exactly form part of the sect, were well
disposed toward them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known
Jesus, remained no doubt with the Church in the bonds of brotherhood.

The most celebrated Jewish doctor of the age, Rabbi Gamaliel the elder,
grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, spoke, it is
said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of permitting gospel preaching. The
author of the Acts credits him with some excellent reasoning, which
ought to be the rule of conduct of governments on all occasions when
they find themselves confronted with novelties of an intellectual or
moral order. "If this work is frivolous," said he, "leave it alone--it
will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of
God? In any case, you will not succeed in stopping it." Gamaliel's words
were hardly listened to. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing
fanaticisms have no chance of succeeding.

A terrible commotion was produced by the deacon Stephen. His preaching
had, as it would appear, great success. Multitudes flocked around him,
and these gatherings resulted in acrimonious quarrels. It was chiefly
Hellenists, or proselytes, _habitues_ of the synagogue, called
_Libertini_, people of Cyrene, of Alexandria, of Cilicia, of Ephesus,
who took an active part in these disputes. Stephen passionately
maintained that Jesus was the Messiah, that the priests had committed a
crime in putting him to de