one who learns any thing from another; thus, the followers of any teacher, philosopher, &c., are called disciples. In the Christian sense, they were followers of Jesus Christ, in general; but in a more restrained sense, the disciples denote those alone who were the immediate followers and attendants on his person, of which there were 70 or 72. The names disciple and apostle are often synonymously used 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 only 12. The Latins kept the festival of the 70 or 72 disciples on July 15th, and the Greeks on January 4th.