DURING the seven years following the ascension of the Saviour, the Christian church was entirely Jewish in its membership, and, so far as we can learn, limited to the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding villages. There was at that time no thought of the gospel for the Gentiles, and the conception of the apostles was that the only door into the church lay through the profession of Judaism and the rite of circumcision. Probably the first to attain to wider views of the gospel was Stephen, and the persecution in which he became the first martyr arose from the tendency of his teachings toward extending among the Gentiles the privileges of the new kingdom. This state of affairs was suddenly ended by the death of Stephen, and the scattering of the church at Jerusalem. The more liberally inclined of its members, when driven abroad, were led to preach the gospel, first to Samaritans; then to believers in the Jewish faith who had not yet submitted to circumcision, and hence were called "Proselytes of the Gate"; and at last to the general Gentile world. The period from the death of Stephen, A.D. 37, to the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul, A.D. 45, may, therefore, be regarded as an age of transition from Jewish to Gentile Christianity. This period requires us to notice two provinces, Palestine and Syria. Palestine appears at this time under several forms of government in frequent succession. During the public life of Christ, Judæa and Samaria were under the direct rule of Rome, governed by a procurator, while Galilee and Peræa belonged to Herod Antipas, and the region north and east of the Sea of Galilee, anciently called Bashan, was held by Herod Philip, both of these having the title of _tetrarch_, "ruler of a fourth part." In A.D. 37 Herod Agrippa received Philip's tetrarchy, and in 41 he was made king of all Palestine. ("Herod the king," Acts 12.) In A.D. 44 he died, and his dominions were divided. Judæa, Samaria, Galilee and Peræa again became a procuratorship, under a succession of Roman rulers, until the final destruction of the Jewish state, A.D. 70. The principality of Bashan was given to Herod Agrippa II. in A.D. 53, and held by him until A.D. 70. Syria, the great region north of Palestine, extending from Damascus to Antioch, was, during this time, a province of the Roman empire, governed by a prefect. [Illustration: DAMASCUS.]