mp. Mela, i. 9: Plutarch, _Quaest. symp._,
VIII. i. 3; _De Isid. et Osir._, 43.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. i. 15, 23; Isa. vii. 14, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. ii. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Luke ii. 25, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Thus the legend of the massacre of the Innocents probably
refers to some cruelty exercised by Herod near Bethlehem. Comp. Jos.,
_Ant._, XIV. ix. 4.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. i., ii.; Luke i., ii.; S. Justin, _Dial. cum
Tryph._, 78, 106; _Protoevang. of James_ (Apoca.), 18 and following.]

That Jesus never dreamt of making himself pass for an incarnation of
God, is a matter about which there can be no doubt. Such an idea was
entirely foreign to the Jewish mind; and there is no trace of it in
the synoptical gospels,[1] we only find it indicated in portions of
the Gospel of John, which cannot be accepted as expressing the
thoughts of Jesus. Sometimes Jesus even seems to take precautions to
put down such a doctrine.[2] The accusation that he made himself God,
or the equal of God, is presented, even in the Gospel of John, as a
calumny of the Jews.[3] In this last Gospel he declares himself less
than his Father.[4] Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not
revealed everything to him.[5] He believes himself to be more than an
ordinary man, but separated from God by an infinite distance. He is
Son of God, but all men are, or may become so, in divers degrees.[6]
Every one ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised again
will be sons of God.[7] The divine son-ship was attributed in the Old
Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with
God.[8] The word "son" has the widest meanings in the Semitic
language, and in that of the New Testament.[9] Besides, the idea Jesus
had of man was not that low idea which a cold Deism has introduced. In
his poetic conception of Nature, one breath alone penetrates the
universe; the breath of man is that of God; God dwells in man, and
lives by man, the same as man dwells in God, and lives by God.[10]
The transcendent idealism of Jesus never permitted him to have a very
clear notion of his own personality. He is his Father, his Father is
he. He lives in his disciples; he is everywhere with them;[11] his
disciples are one, as he and his Father are one.[12] The idea to him
is everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is
nothing.

[Footnote 1: Certain passages, such as _Acts_ ii. 22, expressly
exclude this