corroboration of the answer which was accepted, as we have to remember, by the lowly Jesus with significant solemnity: 'Thou art the Christ,' the Fulfiller of all high and inspired Jewish hope; 'the Son of the Living God[194],' His Son,--as the Son of Man, in whom all that is human reaches fulness; and as the Son of God, who brings down to man what he has been allowed to prove to himself that he cannot discover or create. [150] S. Matt. xiii. 52; v. 17. [151] S. Matt. xxi. 33-38. [152] S. Matt. v. 12; xxiii. 30-37. [153] S. Mark xiv. 49; S. Luke xxii. 37. [154] S. Luke xxiv. 25, 26, 44. [155] Gal. iv. 9. [156] Rom. xvi. 26. So the pages of the early apologists are to our feeling almost cumbered by the profuseness of their appeal to these Scriptures. [157] S. John i. 1, 14, 9, 10. [158] _Ep._ cii. 12. [159] _De Carne Christi_ vi. Eum Christum qui jam tunc et adloqui ... humanum genus ediscebat in carnis habitu: cp. _adv. Prax._ xvi. ediscebat Deus in terris cum hominibus conversari. [160] S. Matt. xi. 4, 5; xii. 39; xvi. 3. [161] Hdt. i. 142. [162] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ cx. init. [163] 1 Cor. i. 21. [164] Wordsworth, _Excursion_ iv. [165] Ἀταραξία (Epicurean): αὐτάρκεια. [166] The words 'era of Christianity' are used intentionally rather than the more precise 'era of Christ,' because anything which (without being influenced unless in the most impalpable way by Christianity) prepared the world through the first and even the second century of the era to receive the Gospel may be fairly included as preparation for the revelation of Christ. [167] Capes, _Age of Antonines_. [168] _Philosophy of the Greeks: Eclectics_, p. 20 (tr. Alleyne). [169] _Gospel of the Resurrection_ (3rd ed.), p. 72. It is interesting to notice that according to so dispassionate an observer as M. Gaston Boissier (_La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins_), who has done so much to trace the better tendencies of the Imperial period, the evidence suggests some such distinction, even as regards some of the main practical results of Christianity. For example, there was a tendency to ameliorate slavery on principles of general humanity, but there was no hint of a possibility of an end to slavery. There were some signs of mutual interest between classes, but no progress towards the effective appearance of a true philanthropy such as the Christian. In such cases, however, the validity of the distinctions must be debatable and fluctuating. It is absolute as regards the Incarnation. [170] Bk. V. c. xi. _The New Monarchy._ [171] Edersheim's _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_: Schürer, _History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_. [172] Schürer, II. ii. 273. [173] Schürer, II. ii. 297. [174] Tac. _Hist._ v. 4. [175] Schürer, II. ii. 308. [176] Acts xvii. 5, xiv. 5, xiii. 50, 44. [177] Acts xiii. 43, &c. [178] Acts xv. 21. [179] Isaiah xxxvi. 18. [180] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1882, p. 231. [181] _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1886.