volume 1, book 1, chapter 2-3, and 1.

"Before Pentecost an assembly of the believers took place, at which the post vacated in the number of the apostles by the suicide of the traitor Judas of Kerioth, was filled up by the election of Matthias by lot. On this occasion the number of the assembled brethren amounted to about 120 men. ... At the feast of Pentecost ... a very considerable accession was made to the formerly moderate band of believers in Jerusalem; ... about 3,000 souls received the word and were joined to the Church by baptism (Acts ii. 41). We must not, however, at once credit the Church in Jerusalem with this increase. For among the listeners to the apostolic discourse there were Israelitish guests and proselytes from near and distant countries (ii. 5, 9-11, 14), whence we may infer that of those newly converted many were not living in Jerusalem itself, but partly in Judæa and Galilee, partly in countries beyond Palestine, who therefore returned home after the feast days were ended. {433} Some of these might, under certain circumstances, form the centre of a small Church in the dispersion, so that gradually Churches may have arisen to which also James may possibly have addressed his Epistle. ... So abundantly did God bless with success the activity of the early apostles though limited to the nation of Israel and the land of Canaan, and their fidelity within a circumscribed sphere. Hence there existed at the end of the period of which we treat numerous Christian Churches in Jerusalem and the whole country of Judæa (comp. Galatians i. 22, etc.: Acts xi. 1), also on the coast (Acts ix. 32-35, etc.) in Samaria and Galilee, and finally in Syria, Phenicia, and Cyprus, (Acts ix. 2, 10, 25, xi. 19), some of which were directly, some indirectly, founded by the Twelve, and were, in any case, governed and guided by them.' In the above named districts outside Palestine, it might not, indeed, have been easy to find a Christian Church consisting exclusively of believing Jews, for as a rule they consisted of believing Jews and individual Gentiles. On the other hand, we shall scarcely be wrong in regarding the Christian Churches within Palestine itself as composed entirely of believing Israelites. But even among these there were many distinctions, e. g., between Palestinians and Hellenists."

_G. V. Lechler, The Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times,