DISCIPLE

in the first sense of the word, means one who learns any thing from another. Hence the followers of any teacher, philosopher, or head of a sect, are usually called his disciples . In the Christian sense of the term, disciples are the followers of Jesus Christ in general; but, in a more restrained sense, it denotes those who were the immediate followers and attendants on his person. The names disciple and apostle are often used synonymously in the gospel history; but sometimes the apostles are distinguished from disciples, as persons selected out of the number of disciples, to be the principal ministers of his religion. Of these there were twelve; whereas those who are simply styled disciples were seventy, or seventy-two, in number. There was not as yet any catalogue of the disciples in Eusebius’s time, i. e. in the fourth century. The Latins kept the festival of the seventy or seventy-two disciples on the 15th of July, and the Greeks on 4th of January.