It is not easy to bridge the centuries and regain the apostles' standpoint, but until it is done the church's message will lack inspiration. The phrase "the historic Christ" is commonly used, as if it covered the whole ground. It is certainly serviceable as a protest against a bare logos theory of the incarnation, but in itself it is not adequate. What requires emphasis is the humanity of the historic Christ. Many Christian teachers purposely withhold this emphasis from fear of playing into the hands of Arians and Nestorians. No doubt if pressed they would give intellectual assent to the dogma of the two natures, but they shrink from following it out to its consequences. There is a widespread feeling that it is irreverent to dwell on the fact that Christ was a real man. A firm grasp of catholic Christology in its entirety is the cure for this squeamishness. To obscure the fact of His Manhood is not the true reply to a denial of His Deity. A true presentation of Christ must give full weight to the facts that He had a human body, human mind, human feelings and human will, that His body was in space normally subject to physical law, that His consciousness and subconsciousness conformed to psychic law. Wherever a denial of these facts is found, there is monophysitism. Wherever they are obscured or neglected, there are monophysite tendencies. INDIFFERENCE TO CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS--A CLASSICAL COMPARISON Failure to appreciate the real humanity of Christ's life results in comparative indifference to the tragedy of His death. Monophysitism in undermining belief in the reality of Christ's manhood is weakening sympathy with His sufferings. Calvary like Bethlehem has lost much of its appeal. A classical comparison will illustrate this fact. Plato's account of Socrates' last hour in the prison and of his drinking the hemlock is, I imagine, to many educated men far more moving than the story of the Passion and Death of Christ. There is a curious similarity in the two tragedies that invites attention and comparison. Both sufferers were heroes and moral reformers, the victims of mistaken zeal on the part of religious authority. Socrates died in a ripe age with his life work accomplished. Jesus was cut off in His prime. Socrates' last hours were tranquil and his passing quick and easy. Jesus after shame and torture died a lingering death. The dysthanasia of Jesus should, one would opine, make a stronger appeal to men's sympathies than does the euthanasia of Socrates. Yet on the whole the reverse is the case. The difference in the respective styles of the two narratives does not give the whole explanation. It is true that the Phaedo is a work of fine art while the gospel story is a plain statement of fact. The reason, however, for the difference in appeal goes deeper than literary style. The reader of the Phaedo puts himself into the place of Socrates and suffers with him. As we read the