Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/278

 How else was he to have called himself, in order to prove to them that he did not consider himself to be God, but a son of God, which he taught all men to be? Here is the whole passage: Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? (Psalm lxxxii. 6). If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him (John x. 31-38).

How could he have said more plainly that he was not God, but that those were in whom was the word of God, and that he called himself, as all other people, a son of God. But the Theology takes this as a proof that Jesus Christ confessed that he was God, equal to God, and proceeds:

“(5) A third, similar, but still more striking case happened before the death of the Saviour. He was brought bound before Pilate to be judged. Here, after listening to many false witnesses against Jesus, the high priest finally rose and solemnly asked him: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God (Matt. xxvi. 63; cf. Mark xiv. 61), and Jesus, without any hesitation replied: I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mark xiv. 62). Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath