ans
existed in such a state of society. All the ideas we have just stated
formed in the mind of the disciples a theological system so little
settled, that the Son of God, this species of divine duplicate, is
made to act purely as man. He is tempted--he is ignorant of many
things--he corrects himself[1]--he is cast down, discouraged--he asks
his Father to spare him trials--he is submissive to God as a son.[2]
He who is to judge 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 who wish 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 something went out of him.[7] All these are simply
the acts of a messenger of God, of a man protected and favored by
God.[8] We must not look here for either logic 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 of man--to the Jews holding the
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 simply the Son.
Others, without being 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.]

An absolute conviction, or rather the enthusiasm, which freed him from
even the possibility of doubt, shrouded all these boldnesses. We
little understand, with our cold and scrupulous natures, how any one
can be so entirely possessed by the idea of which he has made himself
the apostle. To the deeply earnest races of the