one who learns any thing from another; and hence 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 seventy or seventy-two. The names disciples and apostles are often used synonymously in the gospel history; but sometimes the apostles are distinguished from disciples, or persons selected out of the number of disciples, to be the principal ministers of his religion. Of these last there were only twelve. The Latins kept the festival of the seventy or seventy-two disciples on the 15th July, and the Greeks on the 4th January.