Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/279

 spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death (Matt. xxvi. 65, 66). And bringing Jesus before Pilate, the Jews said to him: We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John xix. 7). Thus the Saviour did not hesitate to confirm the truth of his divinity by his own death.” (p. 51.)

Christ is again asked in court, not whether he recognizes himself to be God,—there is not even a question about that,—but whether he is the Son of God, and Christ replies: “I am,” and immediately afterward speaks of the significance of the Son of man, who, according to his expression, “is sitting on the right hand of power, in the clouds.” He is condemned for calling himself “the Son of God,” and from this is deduced the proof that he is God. The Jews are all the time accusing Christ, who is calling all to acknowledge his sonhood of God, and who is blasphemous because he makes himself the equal of God. Christ keeps replying that not he is one-born, near to God, the Son of God, but the Son of man, and he repeats the same in court, and for this he suffers capital punishment. And this is taken as a proof of his acknowledging himself to be God, and, considering the divinity of Christ proved by himself, the Theology sees a further confirmation of it in the fact that Christ ascribes to himself, as the Son of man, the one-born God, the attribute of a divinity. In proof of this are adduced the following verses: And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven (John iii. 13). For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt. xviii. 20). Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even