The congregation of disciples at Jerusalem and their sympathizers in Palestine were designated as Nazore-ans and Ebionim. It is no great stretch of imagination to presume them to have been an offshoot of the Essenean brotherhood. These were zealous propagandists, and their modes of life and action coincide very closely with those of the early Church. The writers of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles describe the apostles and their converts as living after the manner of an Essenean commune. Jesus “ordained twelve that they should be with him;... and they went into a house,” or became as one family. This was precisely like the Essenes and Therapeutæ. “In the first place,” says Philo, “not one of them has a house of his own which does not belong to all of them.” For besides their living together in large societies, each house is also open to every visiting brother of the order. “Furthermore, all of them have one store of provisions and equal expenses; they have their garments in common, as they do with their provisions. They reside together, eat together, and have everything in common to an extent as it is carried out nowhere else.” Hence we read without surprise that the multitude came about them, so that they could not so much as eat bread. The apostolic congregation is also described as imitating the same form of living: “All that believed were together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all of them as every one had need.... Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto every man as he had need.” For a time the apostles, it is stated, were stewards of the whole body, teaching them and supplying them with food, till finally seven Hellenistic Jews were selected and set apart for that purpose.