252 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



of human nature are in their eternal compass the 

 same as the spiritual powers of God." His Pharisee 

 contemporaries took in the purport of his position 

 correctly, when they said, " He called himself the 

 Son of God, thereby making himself the equal of 

 God." They were inconceivably shocked by an 

 expression which, to their view of men and of God, 

 was simply blasphemy. 



For, to take the situation in, we must bear in mind 

 that to every older religion, even the most improved 

 and enlightened, such as that of the Jews, the very 

 essence of the Divine lay in an exaltation above all 

 categories in which man could share — lay in its 

 intrinsic and unapproachable Sovereignty. God, in 

 all these religions, is at best conceived as an awful 

 and ineffable Majesty, before whom even angels and 

 archangels may only veil their faces, prostrate them- 

 selves, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy! Lord! God 

 Almighty ! There is none like unto Thee ! " Hov/ 

 much more, then, must men lie prostrate and keep 

 silent before Him ! Even when God was spoken 



Ezekiel : ^^ Son of man (i.e. Man), can these bones live ?" In the 

 Book of Daniel, the king, looking into the " burning fiery furnace," 

 sees besides his three victims z. fourth figure, "like the son of God" i.e. 

 resembling a god. Similarly, Lucifer is called " son of the morning," 

 signifying him as the very kind and type of the light — the morn incar- 

 nate. So also "sons of Belial," for villainous men; "sons of deceit," 

 for false and crafty men ; "sons of thunder," for men of domineering 

 will ; etc., etc. Hut the list might be extended indefinitely. 



