Excerpt from A Sketch of the Character of Jesus: A Biblical EssayLong before there existed a catholic, that is, a dominant Church, Christian thinkers separated into two main directions, of which one was, step by step indeed, but always irresistibly, overpowered by the other. The strict J ewish-christian ten deney considered Jesus as simply a man, a highly to be hon oured reformer of Judaism, who had improved and purified the Old Testament law, fulfilled and realised the prophecies. The gentile-christian tendency, on the other hand, beheld in him a person endowed with divine power and dignity, who, until into the fourth century, was mostly held to be sub ordinate to the supreme God and Creator of the world, but in the course of further con¿icts the conviction gained the ascendancy that he was of perfect equal being with the su preme God and Creator, even true and highest God, and that his true humanity was no hindrance to his uniting in himself all the attributes of the true Godhead.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.