healing. For the Apostles (الحواريّون) of Christ were in truth at least as high in position and dignity as the prophets and other divinely-commissioned messengers (الرُّسُل) were, as we have shown in the 'Balance ¹ of Truth.' ² Hence they had authority to teach ³ all things that the Lord Jesus had taught them, and this they did through the inspiration (إلهام) of the Holy Spirit. Their writings are contained in the New Testament; and in all of them the doctrine of the Deity of Christ is taught as the very foundation and basis of all else. This we have in some measure seen already. We shall see it still more clearly in the next section.

SECTION II

TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES (الحواريّون)
TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE DEITY
OF THE WORD OF GOD (كلمة الله)

Before we proceed to consider what the Apostles taught upon this subject, it may be well to inquire in what sense the Lord Jesus Christ claimed for Himself the title of Son of God, which the Apostles in consequence gave Him in their

writings. It must be admitted that such a title is capable of being misunderstood by the thoughtless, the ignorant and the prejudiced. This was all the more possible because the heathen in various lands, believing in deities possessed of material bodies and dominated by evil passions, not unfrequently declared that their gods had wives and children. But every man of learning is well aware that the Jews in the time of the Lord Jesus Christ were not polytheists, did not worship idols, and did not believe in a God possessed of a material body. As the first disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ were Jews, obedient to the Law of Moses, and as both they and Christ Himself honoured the Old Testament as the Word of God (كلام اْلله), it is quite impossible for any educated person to suppose for one moment that the Christians of the earliest times entertained, any blasphemous belief, worthy of the heathen with regard to God, or that any unworthy or carnal thought was implied by Christ's own claim to be the Son of God. Christians then and in all ages can join with the Muslims in this sense in saying: 'The ¹ Originator of the heavens and of the earth, how should He have a child (ولد) and He had not a female friend.' Christians have never, therefore, called Christ ولد الله —we take refuge in God from it!—but إبن اْلله, because