Part 23 (1/2)

[Footnote 3: Philo, _De r Abraha_, -- 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, -- 20; _De Soric Noe_, -- 12; _Quis reru, &c]

[Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God; a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and demerits; _Bereshi+th Rabba_, v 6 _c_; Talum of Jonathan, _Gen_, v 24]

[Footnote 5: This theory of the [Greek: Logos] contains no Greek elements The comparisons which have been made between it and the _Honover_ of the Parsees are also without foundation The _Minokhired_ or ”Divine Intelligence,” has el, _Parsi-Grammatik_, pp 161, 162) But the develop the Parsees is n influence The ”Divine Intelligence”

(_Maiyu-Khratu_) appears in the Zend books; but it does not there serve as basis to a theory; it only enters into some invocations The comparisons which have been attempted between the Alexandrian theory of the Word and certain points of Egyptian theologyindicates that, in the centuries which preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaisypt]

[Footnote 6: _Acts_ viii 10]

Jesus appears to have rey, which were soon to fill the world with barren disputes The metaphysical theory of the Word, such as we find it in the writings of his conteums, and even in the book of ”Wisdoeneral in the synoptics, the most authentic interpreters of the words of Jesus The doctrine of the Word, in fact, had nothing in couelist, or his school, who afterward endeavored to prove that Jesus was the Word, and who created, in this sense, quite a new theology, very different frodom of God”[2] The essential character of the Word was that of Creator and of Providence Now, Jesus never pretended to have created the world, nor to govern it His office was to judge it, to renovate it The position of president at the final judgment of humanity was the essential attribute which Jesus attached to himself, and the character which all the first Christians attributed to hiht hand of God, as his Metathronos, his first er[4] The superhue of the world, in the midst of the apostles in the saels who only assist and serve, is the exact representation of that conception of the ”Son of ly indicated in the book of Daniel

[Footnote 1: ix 1, 2, xvi 12 Coeneral ix-xi These prosopopoeia of Wisdom personified are found in much older books Prov viii, ix; Job xxviii; _Rev_ xix 13]

[Footnote 2: John, Gospel, i 1-14; 1 Epistle v 7; moreover, it will be remarked, that, in the Gospel of John, the expression of ”the Word”

does not occur except in the prologue, and that the narrator never puts it into the mouth of Jesus]

[Footnote 3: _Acts_ x 42]

[Footnote 4: Matt xxvi 64; Mark xvi 19; Luke xxii 69; _Acts_ vii

55; Rom viii 34; Ephes i 20; Coloss iii 1; Heb i 3, 13, viii

1, x 12, xii 2; 1 Peter iii 22 See the passages previously cited on the character of the Jewish Metathronos]

At all events, the strictness of a studied theology by no means existed in such a state of society All the ideas we have just stated forical system so little settled, that the Son of God, this species of divine duplicate, is norant of s--he corrects hied--he asks his Father to spare him trials--he is sube the world does not know the day of judgment[3] He takes precautions for his safety[4] Soon after his birth, he is obliged to be concealed to avoid powerful men ish to kill him[5]

In exorcisms, the devil cheats him, and does not come out at the first command[6] In his miracles we are sensible of painful effort--an exhaustion, as if so went out of hier of God, of a man protected and favored by God[8] We ic or sequence The need Jesus had of obtaining credence, and the enthusiasm of his disciples, heaped up contradictory notions To the Messianic believers of the millenarian school, and to the enthusiastic readers of the books of Daniel and of Enoch, he was the Son ofthe ordinary faith, and to the readers of Isaiah and Micah, he was the Son of David--to the disciples he was the Son of God, or si blamed by the disciples, took him for John the Baptist risen from the dead, for Elias, for Jeremiah, conformable to the popular belief that the ancient prophets were about to reappear, in order to prepare the time of the Messiah[9]

[Footnote 1: Matt x 5, compared with xxviii 19]

[Footnote 2: Matt xxvi 39; John xii 27]

[Footnote 3: Mark xiii 32]

[Footnote 4: Matt xii 14-16, xiv 13; Mark iii 6, 7, ix 29, 30; John vii 1, and following]

[Footnote 5: Matt ii 20]

[Footnote 6: Matt xvii 20; Mark ix 25]

[Footnote 7: Luke viii 45, 46; John xi 33, 38]

[Footnote 8: _Acts_ ii 22]

[Footnote 9: Matt xiv 2, xvi 14, xvii 3, and following; Mark vi

14, 15, viii 28; Luke ix 8, and following, 19]