, and it is he that will abolish it.
The Messiah is come, and it is he that is the Messiah. The Kingdom of
God is about to be revealed, and it is he that will reveal it. He knew
well that he would be the victim of his own audacity, but it was by
cries and the rending of hearts that the kingdom had to be established.

The proposition "Jesus is the Messiah" was followed by the proposition
"Jesus is the Son of David," and, by an entirely spontaneous conspiracy,
fictitious genealogies arose in the imaginations of his partisans, while
he was still alive, to prove his royal descent. We cannot tell whether
he knew anything of these legends. He never designated himself Son of
David. That he ever dreamed of making himself pass for an incarnation of
God is a matter about which no doubt can exist. Such an idea was
entirely foreign to the Jewish mind. He believed himself to be more than
an ordinary man, but separated by an infinite distance from God. He was
the Son of God, but all men are, or may become so in divers degrees.
Jesus apparently remained a stranger to the theological subtleties which
were soon to fill the world with sterile disputations.

_TIME-WORM PROOFS_

Two means of proof--miracles and the accomplishment of prophecies--could
alone establish a supernatural mission in the opinion of the
contemporaries of Jesus. He himself, but more especially his disciples,
employed these two methods of demonstration in perfect good faith. For a
long time Jesus had recognised himself in the sacred oracles of the
prophets. As to miracles, they were considered at this epoch the
indispensable mark of the divine, and the sign of the prophetic
vocation. Jesus, therefore, was compelled either to renounce his mission
or become a thaumaturgist. It must be remembered that not only did he
believe in miracles, but he had not the least idea of an order of nature
under the reign of law. On that point, his knowledge was in no way
superior to that of his contemporaries. Indeed, one of his most
deeply-rooted opinions was that by faith and prayer man had entire power
over nature. Almost all the miracles Jesus believed he performed seem to
have been miracles of healing. The kind of healing which he most often
practised was exorcism, or the expulsion of demons. There can be no
doubt that he had in his lifetime the reputation of possessing the
greatest secrets of the art. There were many lunatics in Judaea
wandering at large, and no doubt Jesus h