The reciprocal dispositions of the Jewish and of the pagan population appeared at this time to have been very unsatisfactory.[12.40] But circumstances of another kind probably subserved the new ideas. The earthquake, which had done serious damage to the city on 23d March, of the year 37, still occupied their minds. The whole city was talking about an impostor named Debborius, who pretended to prevent the recurrence of such accidents by ridiculous talismans.[12.41] This sufficed to direct preoccupied minds towards supernatural matters. However that may have been, great was the success of the Christian preaching. A young, innovating, and ardent Church, full of the future, because it was composed of the most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit were there poured out, and it was then easy to perceive that this new Church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which traced an irrefragable circle around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem will remain for ever the capital of the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the church of the Gentiles, the primal focus of Christian missions, was, in truth, Antioch. It is there, for the first time, that a Christian church was established, divorced from the bonds of Judaism; it is there that the great propaganda of the Apostolic age was established; it was there that St. Paul assumed a definite character. Antioch marks the second halting-place of the progress of Christianity, and in respect of Christian nobility, neither Rome, nor Alexandria, nor Constantinople can be at all compared with it.