Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/272

 and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord (Jehovah) is righteous to us (Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; cf. xxxiii. 15, 16).” (pp. 47 and 48.)

Not one of these places refers to Jesus Christ. The Psalmist is speaking of himself, and not of Christ. If it were necessary to understand Christ by “I, me,” he would have said so.

“His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,” means, that the goings forth, that is, the origin of each man, are from the beginning of everything. There is nothing in common here with the divinity of Christ. The words of Psalm xlv. refer only to God, and not to Christ. The prophecies of Malachi refer to any prophet. The words of Jeremiah refer to a certain king, and there is not a shadow of a reference to Christ.

Those are all the so-called confirmations of the divinity of Christ from the Old Testament. There follow confirmations from the New Testament. (1) Here is the passage from the conversation with Nicodemus, which is adduced in proof of the divinity of Christ:

“13. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life He that believeth on him, is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God (John iii. 13, 16, 18). Here (a) the Saviour in the first words clearly ascribes to himself omnipresence, a property which does not belong to one of the created beings; (b) then he calls himself the only-begotten Son of God (μονογενής), no doubt in the proper sense, that is, as being born from the essence of God, having a divine essence, for to this Son belongs omnipresence, a divine attribute; (c) finally he bears witness that without faith in him as