It is a much discussed question as to how far Jesus realized the profound gulf between his own religious position and that of his contemporaries. Probably, since tradition meant more to them, they were quicker to see declension from orthodox Judaism than a mind more open and experimental; and when they contrived his death, it was with a clear sense of acting in defence of God's Law and God's Covenant with Israel. From their own point of view they were right, for the triumph of the ideas of Jesus was the abolition of tribal religions and their supersession by a new mind or spirit with nothing local or racial about it. The death of Jesus meant to the little community, which he left behind him, a final cleavage with the system of their fathers, under which they had been born, and with which was associated every religious idea they had known before their great intimacy began. It was a moment of boundless import in the history of mankind. Slowly and reluctantly they moved out into the great unknown,--pilgrim fathers, unconscious of the great issues they carried, but obedient to an impulse, the truth of which history has long since established. Once again it was their opponents who were the quickest to realize what was involved, for affection blinded their own eyes. The career of Paul raised the whole question between Judaism and Christianity. He was the first to speak decisively of going to the Gentiles. The author of the _Acts_ cites precedents for his action; and, as no great movement in man's affairs comes unheralded, it is easy to believe that even before Paul "the word" reached Gentile ears. None the less the leader in the movement was Paul; and whatever we may imagine might have been the history of Christianity without him, it remains that he declared, decisively and for all time, the church's independence of the synagogue. It is {168} not unlikely that, even before his conversion, he had grasped the fact that church and synagogue were not to be reconciled, and that, when "it pleased God to reveal his Son in him," he knew at once that he was in "a new creation" and that he was to be a prophet of a new dispensation. [Sidenote: The Jewish heritage]