…when the holy breaths of the Spirit of God (Jesus) were
shedding their sweetness over Palestine and Galilee, over the shores of Jordan
and the regions around Jerusalem, and the wondrous melodies of the Gospel were
sounding in the ears of the spiritually illumined, all the peoples of Asia and
Europe, of Africa and America, of Oceania, which comprises the islands and
archipelagoes of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, were fire-worshipers and
pagans, ignorant of the Divine Voice that spoke out on the Day of the Covenant.
[Qur’án 7:171] Alone the Jews believed in the divinity and oneness of God.
Following the declaration of Jesus, the pure and reviving breath of His mouth
conferred eternal life on the inhabitants of those regions for a period of
three years, and through Divine Revelation the Law of Christ, at that time the
vital remedy for the ailing body of the world, was established. In the days of
Jesus only a few individuals turned their faces toward God; in fact only the
twelve disciples and a few women truly became believers, and one of the
disciples, Judas Iscariot apostatized from his Faith, leaving eleven. After the
ascension of Jesus to the Realm of Glory, these few souls stood up with their
spiritual qualities and with deeds that were pure and holy, and they arose by
the power of God and the life-giving breaths of the Messiah to save all the
peoples of the earth. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, ‘The Secret of Divine Civilization’)
