Pentecost
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the three great est Jewish festivals. Its Greek name was given because it was held on the 50th day, counting from the second of the Passover (Lev. xxiii: 15, 16), whence it was called in Hebrew the Feast of Weeks (Deut. xvi: 9, 10). It was called also the Feast of Harvest, or Firstfruits of Wheat Harvest (Exod. xxiii: 16; xxxiv: 22). When it came every Jewish male had to present himself before Jehovah (Exod. xxiii: 17; xxxiv: 23). Meat or wave offerings, especially two wave loaves, and sacrifices were presented at the festival (Lev. xxiii: 16, 17, etc.; Num. xxviii: 26-31; Deut. xvi: 9-12). The Holy Spirit descended on the members of the infant Christian Church on the day of Pentecost, imparting the gift of tongues (Act. ii: 1-20). In ancient times the pentecost lasted but a single day, but modern Judaism extends it to two. Also, Whitsuntide, a feast which, reckoned inclusively, is 50 days after Easter. NAZARENE, a religious organization established in the United States in 1908, having as its fundamental tenet the sanctification of those believing by faith, as a work of grace subsequent to and separate from justification. The community was formed by the association of numerous church bodies, having 230 churches and over 11,000 members. Its ministers numbered on its formation nearly 600 and it has since established a theological seminary at Los Angeles, Cal., schools and bible institutes at Pilot Point, Tex., and a college at North Scituate, R. I. In addition there are institutions belonging to the community in other centers, among them the Holiness College at Vilonia, Ark., and the Holiness University at Peniel, Tex. The official organs are the "Nazarene Messenger," the "Holiness Evangel," ," and the "Beulah Christian." Since its formation the number of communicants belonging to it has more than doubled.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The festival itself is much as Collier's described it in 1921: Shavuot is still kept for two days in the Diaspora and one in Israel and in Reform practice, and Whitsun still falls fifty days after Easter, though Britain abolished the movable Whit Monday holiday in the early 1970s in favour of a fixed late-May bank holiday, and Catholic reforms of 1969-70 renamed the following season simply Ordinary Time. What has changed beyond recognition is the word's third sense. The Pentecostal movement that had begun at the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906, and which Collier's does not name at all, now counts hundreds of millions of adherents worldwide and is the fastest-growing branch of Christianity. Tellingly, the body Collier's calls "Nazarene" had just dropped "Pentecostal" from its own title in 1919 to distance itself from speaking in tongues; the Church of the Nazarene has grown from the 11,000 members reported here to well over two million.
Written for this edition, 2026.