abyss, impossible to most, which the weakness of the human faculties has created between God and man. [Footnote 1: The passages in support of this are too numerous to be referred to here.] [Footnote 2: It is only in the Gospel of John that Jesus uses the expression "Son of God," or "Son," in speaking of himself.] [Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 8; Luke vi. 5.] [Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 27.] [Footnote 5: John v. 22.] [Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 18, 19; Luke xvii. 6.] [Footnote 7: Matt. ix. 8.] [Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 2, and following; Mark ii. 5, and following; Luke v. 20, vii. 47, 48.] [Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 41, 42; xxii. 43, and following; John viii. 52, and following.] We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the doctrine which was afterward to make of him a divine hypostasis,[1] in identifying him with the Word, or "second God,"[2] or eldest Son of God,[3] or _Angel Metathronos_,[4] which Jewish theology created apart from him.[5] A kind of necessity caused this theology, in order to correct the extreme rigor of the old Monotheism, to place near God an assessor, to whom the eternal Father is supposed to delegate the government of the universe. The belief that certain men are incarnations of divine faculties or "powers," was widespread; the Samaritans possessed about the same time a thaumaturgus named Simon, whom they identified with the "great power of God."[6] For nearly two centuries, the speculative minds of Judaism had yielded to the tendency to personify the divine attributes, and certain expressions which were connected with the Divinity. Thus, the "breath of God," which is often referred to in the Old Testament, is considered as a separate being, the "Holy Spirit." In the same manner the "Wisdom of God" and the "Word of God" became distinct personages. This was the germ of the process which has engendered the _Sephiroth_ of the Cabbala, the _AEons_ of Gnosticism, the hypostasis of Christianity, and all that dry mythology, consisting of personified abstractions, to which Monotheism is obliged to resort when it wishes to pluralize the Deity. [Footnote 1: See especially John xiv., and following. But it is doubtful whether we have here the authentic teaching of Jesus.] [Footnote 2: Philo, cited in Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._, vii. 13.] [Footnote 3: Philo, _De migr. Abraham_, Sec. 1; _Quod Deus immut._, Sec. 6; _De confus. ling._, Sec. 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, Sec. 20; _De Somniis_, i. Sec. 37; _De Agric. Noe_, Sec. 12; _Quis rerum divin. haeres_, Sec. 25, and following, 48, and following, &c.] [Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God; a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and demerits; _Bereshith Rabba_, v. 6 _c_; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedr._, 38 _b_; _Chagigah_, 15 _a_; Targum of Jonathan, _Gen._, v. 24.]