This certainty completely transformed the world-outlook of the little circles. “His” teachings, as they had flowed from his mild and noble nature--his inner feeling of the relation between God and man and of the high meaning of the times, and were exhaustively comprised in and defined by the word “love”--fell into the background, and their place was taken by the _teaching of Him_. As the Arisen he became for his disciples a new figure, in and of the Apocalyptic, and (what was more) its most important and final figure. But therewith their image of the future took form as an image of memory. Now, this was something of quite decisive importance, unheard-of in the world of Magian thought--the transference of an actuality, lived and experienced, on to the plane of the high story itself. The Jews (amongst them the young Paul) and the Mandæans (amongst them the disciples of John the Baptist) fought against it with passion and made of Jesus a “False Messiah” such as had been spoken of in the earliest Persian texts.[362] For them “He” was still to come from afar; for the little community “He” had already been--had they not seen him and lived with him? We have to enter into this conception unreservedly if we are to appreciate the enormous superiority it had in those times. Instead of an uncertain glimpse into the distance,[363] a compelling present; instead of fearful waiting for a liberating certainty, instead of a saga, a lived and shared human destiny--truly they were “glad tidings” that were proclaimed.