As the civilized world was then under one powerful government, which allowed no political discord within its borders and which granted absolute religious freedom, the Christian missionaries could travel in safety from one province to another and, without fear of molestation, could propagate their doctrines among the people through the media of the Greek and Latin tongues, which were universal throughout the empire. Early Christianity was merely a sect of Judaism, and as the Jews were scattered all through the Roman provinces, every Jewish settlement having its synagogue which the Christian missionaries visited in order to preach their message, "the new religion, which was undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham, and Moses, found a sphere already prepared for itself." The new sect was naturally welcomed by the Roman Jews, as it was a purely national religion, founded upon the teachings of a Jewish peasant for the Jewish people. There is nothing in the gospels which portrays Jesus as anything other than a prophet to his own nation. While his moral doctrines, like all ethical principles, are applicable to all races, he was ignorant of all peoples save his own, and it was to them alone that he preached, proclaiming his messiahship for them only. He was content to remain within the boundaries of his own country and expressed no wish nor desire to visit other lands. Had it remained as Jesus desired, Christianity would never have been separated from Judaism. It was owing to the direct disobedience of Peter and Paul in this particular, that Christianity spread among the gentiles (Acts xiv, 46). In sending forth his apostles to preach his mission, Jesus commanded, "Go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. x, 5-6). When appealed to by the Canaanite woman, he said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. xv, 24). It was to the Jews that he spoke when he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matt. v. 13). "Ye are the light of the world" (Matt. v, 14). It was in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel that he so numbered his apostles (Matt. xix, 28). And it was of his compatriots that he thought when prophesying his resurrection, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come" (Matt. x, 23). There is no thought of a universal mission in all this. His mission and sacrifice were for his own nation, and, as Paul writes to Titus, he "gave himself that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people" (Tit. ii, 14).