That Jesus never dreamt of making himself pass for an incarnation of God, is a matter about which there can be no doubt.  Such an idea was entirely foreign to the Jewish mind; and there is no trace of it in the synoptical gospels,[1] we only find it indicated in portions of the Gospel of John, which cannot be accepted as expressing the thoughts of Jesus.  Sometimes Jesus even seems to take precautions to put down such a doctrine.[2] The accusation that he made himself God, or the equal of God, is presented, even in the Gospel of John, as a calumny of the Jews.[3] In this last Gospel he declares himself less than his Father.[4] Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not revealed everything to him.[5] He believes himself to be more than an ordinary man, but separated from God by an infinite distance.  He is Son of God, but all men are, or may become so, in divers degrees.[6] Every one ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised again will be sons of God.[7] The divine son-ship was attributed in the Old Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with God.[8] The word “son” has the widest meanings in the Semitic language, and in that of the New Testament.[9] Besides, the idea Jesus had of man was not that low idea which a cold Deism has introduced.  In his poetic conception of Nature, one breath alone penetrates the universe; the breath of man is that of God; God dwells in man, and lives by man, the same as man dwells in God, and lives by God.[10] The transcendent idealism of Jesus never permitted him to have a very clear notion of his own personality.  He is his Father, his Father is he.  He lives in his disciples; he is everywhere with them;[11] his disciples are one, as he and his Father are one.[12] The idea to him is everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is nothing.

[Footnote 1:  Certain passages, such as Acts ii. 22, expressly exclude this idea.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19.]

[Footnote 3:  John v. 18, and following, x. 33, and following.]

[Footnote 4:  John xiv. 28.]

[Footnote 5:  Mark xiii. 35.]

[Footnote 6:  Matt. v. 9, 45; Luke iii. 38, vi. 35, xx. 36; John i. 12, 13, x. 34, 35.  Comp. Acts xvii. 28, 29; Rom. viii. 14, 19, 21, ix. 26; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Gal. iii. 26; and in the Old Testament, Deut. xiv. 1; and especially Wisdom, ii. 13, 18.]

[Footnote 7:  Luke xx. 36.]

[Footnote 8:  Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxviii. 7; Ps. ii. 7, lxxxii. 6; 2 Sam. vii. 14.]

[Footnote 9:  The child of the devil (Matt. xiii. 38; Acts xiii. 10); the children of this world (Mark iii. 17; Luke xvi. 8, xx. 34); the children of light (Luke xvi. 8; John xii. 36); the children of the resurrection (Luke xx. 36); the children of the kingdom (Matt. viii. 12, xiii. 38); the children of the bride-chamber (Matt. ix. 15; Mark ii. 19; Luke v. 34); the children of hell (Matt. xxiii. 15); the children of peace (Luke x. 6), &c.  Let us remember that the Jupiter of paganism is [Greek:  pater andron te theon te].]