Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/175

Rh "Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God" (Romans xv., 7). "To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever" (Romans xvi., 27). "That the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom" (Ephesians i., 17).

Thus does the Jew-Christian Saul Paul always express himself, and thus is Jesus himself made to speak in the gospels. "My Father is greater than I" (John xiv., 28); that is to say, God can do what men cannot do. All the Jews said "my father" when they spoke of God.

The Lord's Prayer begins with the words "Our Father." Jesus said: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (Matthew xxiv., 36); and "That is not mine to give, but for whom it is prepared by my Father" (Matthew xx., 23). It is also verv remarkable that when Jesus awaited arrest, and sweated blood and water, he cried out: "Father, remove this cup from me" (Luke xxii., 42). No gospel has put into his mouth the blasphemy that he was God, or consubstantial with God.

You will ask me, Romans, why and how he was made into a God in the course of time? I will ask you in turn why and how Bacchus, Perseus, Hercules, and Romulus were made gods? In their case, moreover, the sacrilege did not go so far as to give them the title of supreme god and creator. This blasphemy was reserved for the Christian outgrowth of the Jewish sect.