PENTECOST

PENTECOST (i. e. fiftieth), a great feast of the Jews, so called as held on the fiftieth day after the second of the Passover. It is called also the Feast of Harvest, or Weeks of First-Fruits, the Passover feast being connected with the commencement and this with the conclusion of harvest. It is regarded by the Jews as commemorative of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, and will never cease to be associated in the Christian memory with the great awakening from which dates the first birth of the Christian consciousness in the Christian Church, the moment when the disciples of Christ first realised in common that their Master was not dead but alive, and nearer to them than He had been when present in the flesh.