we should get in our minds a
background of historic thought, that we may see a little what are the
sources and origins of this Unitarianism, and may understand why it is
that there is a new and modern birth of it in the modern world.

All races start very far away from any Monotheistic or Unitarian
belief. The Hebrews are no exception to that rule. The early part of
the Bible shows very plain traces of the fact that the Jews were
polytheists and nature-worshippers. If I should translate literally the
first verse of the Bible, it would read in this way: In the beginning
the Strong Ones created the heavens and the earth. "The word that we
have translated God is in the plural; and I have already given you its
meaning. This is only a survival, a trace, of that primeval belief
which the Jews shared with all the rest of the world."

From this polytheistic position the people took a step forward to a
state of mind which Professor Max Muller calls henotheism; that is,
they believed in the real existence of many gods, but that they were
under allegiance to only one, their national Deity, and that him only
they must serve.

I suppose this state of thought was maintained throughout the larger
part of the history of the Hebrew nation. You will find traces
constantly, in the early part of the Old Testament, at any rate, of the
belief of the people in the other gods, and their constant tendency to
fall away to the worship of these other gods. But by and by all this
was outgrown, and left behind; and the Hebrew people came to occupy a
position of monotheism, spiritual monotheism, that is, they were
passionate Unitarians, so far as the meaning of that word is concerned.
Though, of course, I would not have you understand that many, perhaps
most, of the principles which are held today under the name of
Unitarian were known to them at that time, or would have been accepted,
had they been known.

In the sense, however, of believing in the oneness of God, they were
Unitarians.

Now, when Christianity comes into the world, what shall we say? It is
the assumption on the part of most of the old- time churches that Jesus
made it perfectly plain to his disciples that he was a divine being,
that he claimed to be one himself, and that the claim was recognized.

So far, however, as any authentic record with which we are familiar
goes, Jesus himself was a Unitarian. All the disciples were Unitarians.
Paul was a Unitarian. The New Testament i