AbstractsHistory

The events of the first Feast of Pentecost after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth have been given a position of prominence in the Acts of the Apostles. This fact is an indication of the high esteem in which those events were held by the author of Acts and by primitive Christianity in general. Pentecost was a decisive day in the life of the movement, and its influence has been continued in the historical Christianity which has followed, The present study was undertaken in an attempt to determine what happened at Pentecost, to discover that in the event which gave it such impoitance in New Testament history, and to ascertain its place in and influence upon the movement which grew out of the life and teachings of Jesus. Existing treatments of this problem have left it unsolved, not because they have given false answers, but because they have failed to discover the whole truth. This inadequacy has been largely due to failure to go behind the external features and the results of Pentecost to the central fact of the experience. Thus the customary answers have proved to be unsatisfactory. The suggestion that Pentecost was "the outpouring of the Spirit" fails to identify, define, or give content to the term "Spirit," thus leaving a certain amount of vagueness about the experience and failing to relate it to the Jesus movement of which it was a recognized part. Similarly, the answer that Pentecost was "the birthday of the Church" fails to settle the problem since it does not recognize the fact that the Church emerged as a result of the experience. It confuses the result with the cause, the resultant establishment of the Church with the event itself. Pentecost was the impetus, the Christian Church was the result. That Church was built, however, not around Pentecost, but around Jesus. The failure to see that it was a Jesus-centered Church and that the Pentecost experience must then have been Jesus-dominated has left this answer incomplete. Almost the same thing may be said about the idea that Pentecost was "the beginning of the Christian Mission." Aside from its over-emphasis upon the external features of Pentecost, in some cases upon the spectacular and miraculous, this answer falls short of the goal in neglecting the fact that the witness which the disciples gave, thus beginning the Christian Mission, was the result of the witness which they had received, namely, that Jesus was present and accessible in spirit. Thus it fails to find the Jesus impetus and content of the Apostolic witnessing and to deduce from them the essential character of Pentecost. Such answers as those which make Pentecost "a Christophany" or "a group mystic experience" are based upon inadequate evidence, besides failing to make the relationship of the event to the Jesus movement clear. C. A. A. Scott has given a more satisfactory answer in his suggestion that Pentecost was "the emergence of the Fellowship." He has missed the point by only a little, for he fails to see that it was a Jesus fellowship and not a Holy Spirit fellowship…