74 THE KEY OF MYSTERIES

in His reply accepted Nathanael's homage, and acknowledged the truth of what he had said, by uttering these words: 'Because I said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig tree, believest thou? thou shall see greater things than these.'

St. John tells us that, shortly before Christ's crucifixion, His disciples said unto Him: 'Now 1 know we that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.' This testimony they then bore, because by His words He had answered the questions which were in their hearts, but which their lips had not uttered. Hence they were convinced that He knew what was in their hearts, and this made it clear to them that He had come from God.

St. Peter, one of our Lord Jesus Christ's earliest 2 disciples, bore similar testimony soon after Christ's resurrection, saying to Him: 'Lord, 3 thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.' The Lord Jesus Himself, after His ascension, testified to the truth of this belief by saying:' I 4 am he which searcheth the reins and hearts.'

2. In the second place, the Apostles testify to the fact that the Lord Jesus exercises divine authority. For example, it is well known that the holy angels are subject to God alone: yet St. John says, at the beginning of the Book of Revelation,


1 John xvi. 30. 2 John i. 40-1.
3 John xxi. 17. 4 Rev. ii. 23.
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that Christ, wishing to reveal what was shortly to occur in the history of the Christian Church, 'sent 1 and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.' But this is in exact accord to what Christ Himself said: 'The 2 Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity.'

St. Peter teaches us that the Lord Jesus Christ will judge the world at the last day; for he states that he himself had been commissioned 'to 3 preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he which is ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead.' We have already seen that this is in complete accord with the Lord Jesus Christ's often 4 repeated statement.

St. John bears witness to the fact that Christ Jesus is the creator of all things, for he says in the Gospel: 'All 5 things were made by 6 him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made . . . . He was in the world, and the world was made by him and the world knew him not.'

In many passages the Apostles show that Christ possesses and exercises power on earth and in heaven, over evil spirits as well as over men and angels. Passage after passage in the four Gospels


1 Rev. i. 2. 2 Matt, xiii. 41. 3 Acts x. 42.
4 Matt. xiii. 41; xvi. 27; xxv. 31; John v. 22-3.
5 John i. 3, 10. 6 Better 'through,' δι αυτου.