eir
grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their God,
_who had studiously disguised his celestial character under
the name and person of a mortal_.

"The familiar companions of Jesus of Nazareth conversed with
their friend and countryman, who, in all the actions of
rational and human life, appeared of the same species with
themselves. His progress from infancy to youth and manhood was
marked by a regular increase in stature and wisdom; and after
a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on the
cross."[135:1]

The Jewish Christians then--the congregation of Jerusalem, and their
immediate successors, the Ebionites or Nazarenes--saw in their master
nothing more than _a man_. From this, and the other facts which we have
seen in this chapter, it is evident that the man Jesus of Nazareth was
deified long after his death, just as many other men had been deified
centuries before his time, and even _after_. Until it had been settled
by a council of bishops that Jesus was not only _a God_, but "_God
himself in human form_," who appeared on earth, as did Crishna of old,
to redeem and save mankind, there were many theories concerning his
nature.

Among the early Christians there were a certain class called by the
later Christians _Heretics_. Among these may be mentioned the
"_Carpocratians_," named after one Carpocrates. They maintained that
Jesus was a _mere man_, born of Joseph and Mary, _like other men_, but
that he was good and virtuous. "Some of them have the vanity," says
_Irenaeus_, "to think that they may equal, or in some respects exceed,
Jesus himself."[135:2]

These are called by the general name of _Gnostics, and comprehend almost
all the sects of the first two ages_.[135:3] They said that "all the
ancients, and even the Apostles themselves, received and taught the same
things which they held; and that the truth of the Gospel had been
preserved till the time of _Victor_, the thirteenth Bishop of Rome, but
by his successor, _Zephyrinus_, the truth had been corrupted."[135:4]

Eusebius, speaking of _Artemon_ and his followers, who denied the
divinity of Christ, says:

"They affirm that all our ancestors, yea, and the Apostles
themselves, were of the same opinion, and taught the same with
them, and that this their true doctrine (for so they call it)
was preached and embraced unto the time of Victor, the
thirteenth Bishop of R