The day on which he uttered this saying, he was truly Son of God. He pronounced for the first time the sentence upon which will repose the edifice of eternal religion. He founded the pure worship, of all ages, of all lands, that which all elevated souls will practice until the end of time. Not only was his religion on this day the best religion of humanity, it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants gifted with reason and morality, their religion cannot be different from that which Jesus proclaimed near the well of Jacob. Man has not been able to maintain this position: for the ideal is realized but transitorily. This sentence of Jesus has been a brilliant light amidst gross darkness; it has required eighteen hundred years for the eyes of mankind (what do I say! for an infinitely small portion of mankind) to become accustomed to it. But the light will become the full day, and, after having run through all the cycles of error, mankind will return to this sentence, as the immortal expression of its faith and its hope. CHAPTER XV. COMMENCEMENT OF THE LEGENDS CONCERNING JESUS--HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER. Jesus returned to Galilee, having completely lost his Jewish faith, and filled with revolutionary ardor. His ideas are now expressed with perfect clearness. The innocent aphorisms of the first part of his prophetic career, in part borrowed from the Jewish rabbis anterior to him, and the beautiful moral precepts of his second period, are exchanged for a decided policy. The Law would be abolished; and it was to be abolished by him.[1] The Messiah had come, and he was the Messiah. The kingdom of God was about to be revealed; and it was he who would reveal it. He knew well that he would be the victim of his boldness; but the kingdom of God could not be conquered without violence; it was by crises and commotions that it was to be established.[2] The Son of man would reappear in glory, accompanied by legions of angels, and those who had rejected him would be confounded. [Footnote 1: The hesitancy of the immediate disciples of Jesus, of whom a considerable portion remained attached to Judaism, might cause objections to be raised to this. But the trial of Jesus leaves no room for doubt. We shall see that he was there treated as a "corrupter." The Talmud gives the procedure adopted against him as an example of that which ought to be followed against "corrupters," who seek to overturn the Law of Moses. (Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)] [Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16.] The boldness of such a conception ought not to surprise us. Long before this, Jesus had regarded his relation to God as that of a son to his father. That which in others would be an insupportable pride, ought not in him to be regarded as presumption.