# God Manifest/Part 1/Chapter 2 Section 1

CHAPTER II.
GOD MANIFEST IN HIS WORKS: THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
SECTION I.
GOD'S WISDOM SEEN IN MAN'S WISDOM.
By the spiritual universe, we mean all that part of the creation of God, that is above or within matter:—including, consequently, heaven and the whole spiritual world, and also the mind of man; for the mind of man is a spiritual world in miniature, and, if good, is a heaven in miniature. Man, too, especially as to his mind, was made an image and likeness of God; and therefore, in contemplating man and his powers and affections, we may obtain a more distinct idea of the qualities of the Divine Creator, than by the examination of His inferior works. For, while in the latter we can see His image but dimly reflected, as it were, on account of the defects inherent in the material mirror,—in the former, a good and great man, we behold His very likeness, living and moving, though infinitely inferior indeed to the Divine Original. So, moreover, in contemplating, with the eye of reason and of faith, heaven and the spiritual world, we shall behold glories indefinitely transcending those of earth; for heaven is called God's "throne," and the earth His "footstool:"—if the footstool is beautiful, what should be the throne?
First, then, let us contemplate man, God's image. ​And, to effect the purpose we have in view, we must select the best of our species, that have appeared on the stage of the world,—those that have come nearest to the true constitution of a man, nearest to a true image of God. The best, indeed, that history describes, are very defective, and do not by any means show all that man might be and was made to be; for history describes man only in his fallen state. Of what he was, in his original excellence, we have little information, and perhaps, even if portrayed to us, we should now have little conception—so far departed are we, at this day, from the true model of man, the real likeness of God. Nevertheless, looking at men who have actually lived in the world, and whom history describes, and who by their writings or their deeds have left an impression of themselves not to be mistaken,—we shall find enough of goodness, wisdom, and power, to give us some idea of Him who implauted those qualities: in these human works, we shall see strikingly manifested the character of the Great Workman.
It will be necessary, indeed, to select and summon before us several individuals, to serve as examples, respectively, of different excellences, such as are found united only in the Creator Himself: it is seldom that men have been seen endowed in an eminent degree with more than one, or than a few, of those highest gifts. Looking, then, over the records of time, let us call up, as instances of intellectual power—Newton and Shakspeare. In the former, Sir Isaac Newton, we behold a profound and penetrating intellect, ranging one particular field of thought, and foremost in that field. It was not, indeed, the highest class of topics on which ​the human mind can employ itself, but still a lofty and profound one—the laws of material existences. Those laws he investigated with a keen eye, tracing them patiently, sagaciously, and with a tenacious grasp of thought, through their windings and intricacies, and taking a comprehensive view of all their connections and relations; following every principle to the farthest bounds of the present and the real,—and then, when the whole world was mastered, not, like Alexander, staying to weep, but at once launching forth, on the strong wings of his mathematics, into the obscure abyss of the possible, he defined and measured, as it were, with chain and compass the limits of that shadowy realm, stopping only at the infinite.
Now who gave this man his mind? who endowed him with such penetration and grasp of intellect? who furnished him with that eagle eye and wing, thus to soar on high among coursing worlds,—now, calculating the strength of the invisible cord that holds the moon to the earth,—now, weighing the planets and ascertaining their gravity,—and then, again, alighting, as it were, on a comet and accompanying it to the bounds of the universe and back again! Is there not here manifest the presence and power of Him who "measures the waters in the hollow of His Hand, and metes out heaven with a span," who "weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, and taketh up the isles as a very little thing?" "God geometrizes," said Plato. If it be the glory of geometry, that it is able to measure the earth and the various orbs of the creation, and to tell their distances, sizes, and forms, and if, at some new discovery of the beautiful accuracy and mathematical perfectness of proportion which pervades ​the universe, it exclaims "Eureka," "Eureka," "I have found it!"—then, what must be the greatness of the Divine Mathematician who made what it renders a human mathematician illustrious merely to discover? What must be the wisdom and power of the great Architect, who alone and in secret "laid the foundations of the earth," and constructed the universe on those great mathematical principles, which it is man's highest glory merely to perceive and to be able to comprehend?—and who, when He had finished, "waited" as Kepler said, "six thousand years for an observer." Yes, truly, "God geometrizes."
And is not every instance of such great intellect in man, proof of the vastness of the Divine Intellect, from which it was derived? Does not the depth and clearness of the stream prove the purity and richness of the Fountain? And if we think justly, will not the sight of the stream naturally lead our minds to the Source from which it flows? Shall we merely stand upon the bank, and gazing upon the bright waters, exclaim, in the poet's words,
"Flow on, thou shining river,"
and thus glorify the stream as if it were its own author, and not, as it is, a mere efflux from a rich fountain above. Trace the stream of intelligence, as you see it flowing through a Newton's mind, to its Head and Source, and you will find yourself at a vast lake—a sea, ever welling up afresh from infinite depths, and pouring forth on all sides ten thousand times ten thousand streams of intelligence, like Newton's, and less and greater than Newton's,—as many as the rays of light from the sun,—refreshing and illuminating not only the minds of all men in all worlds, but also the ​spirits of "just men made perfect" on high, the angel-minds of all the heavenly host. The mind of Newton is to that vast Mind as a drop to the ocean; as, truly, he himself, in his beautiful yet just modesty, said of himself, "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself with now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all unexplored before me."
Turn we now to contemplate another stream from this great Fountain,—the sparkling of whose waters, the swiftness of its flow, and the grace of its meanderings, with the myriad beautiful objects borne upon its bosom,—will probably interest us yet more than the tranquil depth and clearness of the one that we have just been contemplating, and will afford new evidence of the richness of the Source whence it proceeds. I allude to the mind of Shakspeare. If, in Newton, "God geometrizes,"—in Shakspeare, truly, He poetizes; if the powers seen in the one, prove their Divine Author to be the Great Geometer, those exhibited by the other prove Him the Great Poet: for all abilities and excellences, in whatever men appearing, are—in the beautiful language of Thomson,
—"but the varied God."
With what various and admirable gifts does the mind of Shakspeare seem to have been endowed! First, let us observe his musical ear, his talent for rhythm,— among the lowest, perhaps, of his endowments, but indispensable to a poet. See it gently bending even the English idiom itself to its requirements:—
"But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed."
"Not enriches!" No grammar or rhetoric, but his own genius taught him that fine "variation" in the strain of his English. Look next at the boldness and reach of his fancy, and how pithily it expresses itself inthe aptest and most musical words: as, for instance, inthe sprite's boast that he can
"—Put a girdle ronud about the earth In forty minutes;"
or, in Ariel's song:—
"Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls, that were his eyes; Nothing of him, that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell," &c.
So, the monster Caliban,—what a purely original creation! Yet, even he is obliged to speak poetically, for the author's mind is so full of rich fancies that they will come out: thus, Caliban says:—
"Pray you, tread soft, that the blind mole may not Hear a foot fall."
Note, next, his power of imagination, enabling him to behold a scene, just as it must have been, and also to bring it before the reader. For instance, the picture of Macbeth, coming fresh from the murder of Duncan:—
"Macb. I've done the deed! Didst thou not hear a noise? Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry;— Did not you speak? Macb.When? Lady M.Now! Macb.As I descended?
Lady M. Ay. Macb. Hark!— Who lies i' the second chamber?
Macb. This is a Sony sight [Looking on his hands. There's one did laugh in his deep, and one cried 'murder!' That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them, Bat they did say their prayers, and addressed them Again to sleep. Lady M.There are two lodged together. Macb. One cried, 'God bless us!' and, 'Amen,' the other; As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands, Listening their fear. I could not say, 'Amen' When they did say, 'God bless us.' Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen?' I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen?' Stuck in my throat."
Thas does God raise up great geniuses, and gift them with intuition to see, as by a kind of spirit-presence, the secret thoughts of wicked men, and tell them to the world.
Fancy conceives: imagination sees: reason reflects and philosophizes. Of Shakspeare's reasoning and philosophizing power we have abundant proof in exquisite passages scattered throughout his writings, which in a single verse or sentence contain a whole homily. For instance:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head."
But the drama of Hamlet may be considered almost as a philosophical poem, so pervaded is it throughout with this strain of thought. Its hero philosophizes and moralizes upon every thing, and often indeed loses himself in reflection when he should be busy in action: ​and on this peculiarity of character, in fact, the interest of the story seems in great part to turn—the essence of the tragedy being not so much in the deeds of blood committed, as in the pain and conflicts of mind endured by one, called upon by circumstances to perform a part for which he is not fitted. Hence are excited our feelings of pity and sympathy, an essential element of just interest in the tragic.
In addition to fancy, imagination, philosophy of mind, this great writer had in a high degree warmth and tenderness of feeling, which indeed are as necessary to the poet, as blood is to the body: it is these which turn a chiseled statue into a living man,—intellect, without them, being like the cold marble, beautiful but lifeless. These completed the poet's endowments; with all which combined he has produced works, which, taken together, stand certainly among the first productions of the human mind. And it is on account of this pre-eminence, that we have selected this great writer and dwelt upon his intellectual endowments somewhat in detail, for the purpose of exhibiting a marked specimen of mental power in man.
But let us now consider whence Shakspeare derived those abilities, and from what source that overflowing richness of intellect and feeling was supplied. In the first place, we may ask what is meant by the expression "intellectual endowments." We mean by it nothing more than a certain mental constitution, a peculiar organization or structure of mind, fitting the individual, so constituted, to receive and express certain kinds and degrees of thought and feeling, as they flow in. In considering this point, we must be careful to distinguish faculties from thoughts, as the container from the thing ​contained, or the vessel from that which fills it. An individual, endowed with certain faculties of mind, or, in other words, with a certain mental constitution or organization, has thereby merely the capability of receiving certain kinds and degrees of ideas and sentiments, when they flow in. There is no such thing as endowing an individual with thoughts and feelings, any more than there is a possibility of endowing the earth with heat and light. The earth is merely created, or endowed, with a faculty of receiving heat and light from the sun, as also rains and dews from the heavens, and thereby of producing flowers and fruits. It has no heat and light of its own, but is momentarily dependent for them on the sun above; so that were the sun to cease to shine, the earth would be barren and dead, producing nothing. And this would be the case, though its organization or structure were still unchanged. This shows, that the organization or constitution of the earth is one thing, and that the influx of heat and light, causing it to produce, is quite another thing—and yet that both are necessary to cause any production. For, as the organization alone, without the direct influx of heat and light from the sun, cannot produce anything, so neither can that heat and light produce, except according to the organization and character of the soil on which they fall. Though the sun's heat and light fall upon the rock of Gibraltar or the sands of Arabia for ever, or however intensely, yet they are for ever barren. And so, on the other hand, the richest soil can produce nothing in darkness and cold. Thus, in order to production, it is seen that two distinct things are necessary, first a proper organization, structure, or constitution in the soil and secondly the influence of active ​powers from the sun and heavens operating upon that soil.
Now, just so is it with the soil of the human mind. This is a mental earth, as it were, endowed with a certain constitution or organization, by which it is capable of bringing forth the flowers and fruits of beautiful and useful thoughts,—not, however, without being acted upon by heat and light from the Divine Sun,—God: without this, it is barren and produces nothing, however perfect the organization. This mental heat and light are love and truth; for love is intellectual heat, and truth is intellectual light; and these are ever poured on the mind of man, fresh from their great Fountain, as the natural light and heat flow ceaselessly from the sun to the earth. The earth indeed is never endowed with heat and light, for it cannot be: that is contrary to the nature of those substances: they are not capable of being permanently set or fixed in any object; they must be ever received afresh, or they cease to be. There is no such thing as old light or heat; it is not yesterday's light that we are enjoying to-day; this has come fresh from the sun this morning and this moment. It is just so with the heat and light that vivify the mental soil,—namely, love and truth. These must come each moment afresh from the Spiritual Sun, the "Sun of Righteousness," God, who is Love and Truth Itself,—or the mind of man would be dark and his heart cold, and he would soon cease not only to think, but to live. For, in truth, this also is the source of that vital heat, that animal heat, as it is called, in man, which so wonderfully remains the same in all latitudes and at all seasons, and which can be accounted for on no mere physical principles: it is the effect of ​spiritual warmth from the same Divine Sun, the Lord. Thus, truly and literally, do we "in Him live, move, and have our being."
It is, therefore, an error to call man's soul or mind "a spark of the Divine Fire." This would be to make man Divine; for his soul is a part of himself, and, therefore, if his soul were "a spark of the Divine Fire," a part of himself would be absolutely Divine: and as whatever is Divine is infinite, then his soul or mind would be infinite—which is contrary to the fact. This error arises from not distinguishing between the container and the thing contained, between the recipient and the thing received. As well might it be said that the earth is a part of the sun which warms it, or that the eye is a part of the light which enlightens it, as that the soul is a part of God or a "spark of the Divine Fire." The earth and the eye are mere recipients. So man's soul or mind is a mere recipient, merely a spiritual organization, so constructed as to be capable of receiving and being vivified by the spiritual light and warmth, which are ever flowing into it from the Divine Sun, that is, God. Of ourselves, therefore, we have no light or love, neither thoughts nor feelings,—just as the earth has of itself neither heat nor light, nor, without them, any ability to produce. We must be ceaselessly acted upon by the rays of the "Sun of Righteousness," or our minds can bring forth neither the flowers of poetry nor the fruits of good and useful actions.
These first principles being laid down, let us now make application of them to the writer of whom we have been speaking. We have described the various faculties constituting the mind of Shakspeare,—fancy, ​imagination, and the rest. These faculties taken together constitute his mental organization, which was indeed a vigorous and powerful one, a rich soil. Yet, that soil, however vigorous or rich, could have produced nothing of itself,—any more than the earth could of itself bring forth flowers. There is capacity, and nothing more. It was the action of the Divine Rays upon that mind, which caused it to bring forth poetry—such exquisite poetry. All the sublime and beautiful thoughts which that mind put forth,—all the charming fancies, all the fervent feelings, the glowing images, the graceful expressions, ay, even to the sweet music of the rhythm of his verse—all were but the effect of the action of that spiritual heat and light, that love and truth from the Divine Sun, upon the soil of that rich mind. God first constituted that wondrous organization (Shakspeare did not make himself), and then poured into it continually, and from moment to moment, that vivifying warmth and light, which excited it to action, and which operating on the wealthy soil caused it to put forth in such bountiful profusion.
Is it not so? Let us see: let us follow Shakspeare to his writing-table, and observe him there beginning the composition of his "Hamlet." He sits down, having in his mind only a most general idea of the drama he is about to write: there exists in his thought, as yet, the merest outline of his work. For does any one suppose that Shakspeare had in his mind, at the commencement, all the particulars of that poem? that, all the fine speeches, wise thoughts, beautiful images, which fill that composition, as we now have it, lay all in his mind beforehand complete, and arranged in exact order, waiting only their turns to rise up and come ​forth,—like a procession out of a church? Whoever has such an idea, can have had but little experience in composition. Shakspeare himself has laid down the principle, on which all fine compositions are produced, as well as all great actions done. He says,
"There's a Divinity, which shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we will."
This is equally true in composition as in action: in fact, composition is but one form of action. At the outset, we have our ends "rough-hewn;" we have a general rough idea of what w6 are about to do, a general plan, an outline,—^no more. As we proceed to execute this plan in detail, we find the thoughts coming in, one after another—whence we cannot tell—and oftentimes in a manner and of a character to surprise ourselves; and, not unfrequently, we find ourselves led on in a course that we did not intend, in a strain that we did not at all anticipate, and far better perhaps than we could have anticipated; and pressing on, as the afflatus drives us,—keeping only a general guidance as it were, over our course, as the helmsman seeks to steer his bark dear of rocks and shoals, while the wind and the stream are sweeping him on—we find ourselves at length arrived at a place we had no thought of when we set out; we find our finished work quite of a different character from that which we had proposed; or, if the general plan has been observed (which will indeed be usually the case, if it was first thoroughly considered), yet the shaping of the work, the details, the particular thoughts, images, and expressions, are for the most part new to us—we can hardly tell where they came from—in fact they were given to us as we went on,—furnished by some unseen hand,—inspired by ​some hidden Power. Thus have our "rough-hewnends" been aptly and wonderfully "shapen" by a Power above ourselves; thus have our minds been led on step by step in an unknown path; and, sustained and guided by an invisible Hand, we have been brought happily to our journey's end.
This, we believe, is the history of all compositions—specially of all lofty compositions, and of the high works of genius. And the higher the genius, the more entirely is it subject to this overruling influence: it is this, which constitutes the "inspiration," the Divine afflatus, as it is not improperly termed, of the poet. Take, for example's sake, the particular instance before named: observe Shakspeare engaged in the composition of his "Hamlet." He has written on, through the first scene, to the point where the Ghost of Hamlet's father, having appeared to Horatio and his friend Marcellus, suddenly, at the cock-crowing, glides away, Marcellus in vain seeking to stay it by striking at it with his weapon.
"Marcellus. Tis gone! We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence; For it is, as the air, invulnerable, And our vain blows malicious mockery. Bernardo. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Horatio. And then it started, like a guily thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill sounding throat Awake the god of day; and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation.
Marcellus. It faded, on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charn,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time."
Now, observe how the writer's mind is led on from thought to thought through these noble passages. The fine fancy of the ghost's starting away at the crowing of the oock, leads to the general idea that all spirits, being night-wanderers, are subject to the same law, and fear the approach of day: or perhaps this superstition, heard probably in the writer's childhood, and which had been slumbering in his memory ever since, is thus suddenly waked up and called forth. Then, as he proceeds to express it, another idea presents itself, a classic one, that of the "god of day;" then moving on in his verse, his fancy, ranging the universe, thinks of the sea, (albeit rather a wild and unusual place for ghosts to wander through), then "fire" presents itself as an antithesis to "sea," then "earth" and "air," thus, in one line, compassing the bounds of space—so comprehensive is the writer's mind. But after these earthly fancies are uttered, some good angel suggests a heavenly one, that of Christmas, the birth-day of our Saviour, the "gracious and hallowed time," when "peace on earth" was proclaimed by angel voices to the shepherds watching their flocks by night: the thought, that at the yearly coming of this blest night in the circling course of time, the reign of the Prince of Peace at least temporarily prevails (in spite of men's wickedness), and the Powers of Darkness, whom He conquered, are ​reminded of their subjection, and stir not from their secret haunts. Thus does Divine Providence, even through forms of superstition, insinuate profound and heavenly truths:—thus does He guide a poet's wayward fancies into paths leading to religion and to God.
And, in truth, is it not really guidance? Is it not inspiration and suggestion, rather than self-derivation? Are not these thoughts introduced and presented to the poet's consciousness by a Power distinct from himself? We hear people speak of thoughts "springing up" in the mind. But what, in fact, is meant by that expression? What causes thoughts to spring up? can any one tell? Is the thought an independent living thing, that knows its time, and starts up and presents itself, when it sees its time has come? Even under that supposition, the point is proved, that this springing up of thoughts is independent of the writer's volition—which certainly is the fact, as all authors know. Winged thoughts and fancies, like these, the writer does not marshal and call out from their ranks at his own bidding at all: they come of themselves, or at least without any premeditation or call on the poet's part. But, if ideas are not independent powers and existences, but only messengers, then who sends them? That they are sent, indeed, is certain; for their "springing up" in the mind is only an appearance: the expression means simply that they are suddenly presented to the mind. But how and whence? This question human reason cannot answer: here man's philosophy is at a stand. The only solution of the problem is that which is given by Divine Revelation, namely, that good and true thoughts are presented from above,—evil and false ones from beneath: the one class, messengers from the ​kingdom of light,—the other, from the kingdom of darkness. Man has power either to receive or to reject those messengers, either to entertain or dismiss them, as he will: beyond that, he has no power over them: they are not his subjects, nor do they belong to him. All Shakspeare's high and true and lovely thoughts, then, were God's thoughts, not Shakspeare's;—they were God's messengers, sent to him with words which he was to communicate to the world. And so it is with every man of genius, every man of talent, every man whomsoever, who perceives in his mind true thoughts, and feels in his heart good and pure affections:—these are in fact gifts, momentary gifts, rays of heavenly heat and light flowing into his mind from the Divine Sun, illuminating and warming his mental earth, and causing it to put forth blooming flowers and sweet fruits, for the nourishment and entertainment of his own intellectual life, and for the benefit of his fellowmen and the world.
Thus may be seen the correctness of the expression before used, that as in Newton God "geometrizes," so in Shakspeare He poetizes. The wisdom and intellectual power of both were not theirs, but God's in them; for, to recall the illustration before given,—as all light is the sun's alone, and not one ray belongs to the earth, except as it is momentarily given or lent it by the sun,— so all mental light in man is God's alone, and not one ray is man's, except as the immediate gift of God. For there is a complete analogy between the outer and inner worlds—the world of nature and the world of mind. As God Himself is the Sun of the mental or spiritual universe, including heaven and all spiritual existences, and man's mind which is a part of spiritual ​existence,—so He has, set the natural sun as His representative, as it were, in the material universe; and as the latter is the perpetual source of all light and heat to the natural world, so the former is the source of all light and warmth to the spiritual or mental world. And, in like manner, as without the ceaseless influence of the sun all nature would first languish and then perish, so without the perpetual shining of God into the soul, man, both as to his mental and physical part, would presently droop and die.
In man's wisdom, then, we see the wisdom of God. In contemplating and admiring any wise and great mind, we are to remember that we are but beholding the presence and operation of the All-Wise Mind, which is the Sun of that intellect which we admire. And as, when from the vale below we behold a mountain-top gilded by the rays of the rising sun,—while admiring its beauty, we yet know that it is the orb of day which gives it all that beauty and glory,—so, when we behold a towering intellect, beaming with the light of genius, we should acknowledge the unseen Source whence that illumination comes. Moreover, as the light upon that mountain-top is as nothing, compared to the infinite flood of light in the blazing sun itself, so is the wisdom of the greatest human intellect as nothing, in comparison with that which exists in the Great Fountain, God Himself. For, let us remember, from that Fountain all the great intellects of all ages and countries (and it may be added of all worlds) have had their supply. This "Ancient of Days" has shone from the beginning, and before the beginning, of human existence. It was He that enlightened the intellects of old, whose great works have come down to us. As this same ​sun, wbich now shines on us, once shone on Homer's "morning face,"—ay, and on his gray head, as he doffed his cap to receive the dole of the passing listeners, whose hearts he had fired with the exploits of Achilles, or touched with the tender tale of Hector and Andromache,—so, equally, the same Divine Sun, the same God, who now enlightens our minds, illumined his. Plato, too, and Socrates, drew all their wisdom from the same exhaustless Source. As this natural sun once shone through the groves of the Academy,—so did our God above, the one and only God, pour His own light down among the flowers of Plato's mind, giving to it all its beauty, life, and verdure. And when the wise and good Socrates calmly drank off his hemlock, who was it that sustained his firm hand and still firmer heart in that trying hour, and gave him the wisdom,—as shown in those last affecting conversations with his friends, which his disciple Plato has recorded—to see, to feel, and to bear witness to the certain existence of a recompensing God above, and to the immortality of his own soul, which was then about to pass from earth to meet that God? Who was it that thus sustained and enlightened the philosopher in his last hour? Who but He, that, four hundred years afterwards,—clothed with humanity—Himself stood upon earth, and spoke words of Divine wisdom, and performed deeds of Divine goodness and power, and then at length gave up upon the cross that human life which He had assumed, uttering dying words of forgiveness to His enemies?—"Socrates," said Rousseau, "died like a philosopher: Jesus Christ, like a God."