The attempt to represent the gods in stone, in metal, in wood, or even in rude drawings and paintings, comes after a traditional belief has long held its place in men’s thoughts of their manifestation in some visible and tangible form.
It is not always a human form; it is generally not a human form, except as it is part of the conception: as in the eagle-headed Belus of Babylon, as in the winged bulls, with the head of a man and the feet of a lion, that Layard found in the ruins of Nineveh. These composite images represented ideas of the gods, not facts concerning them. Thus the image found in the ruins of Nineveh represented strength, swiftness, courage, intelligence. But the ideas expressed in these strange and grotesque forms grew out of traditions of divine manifestation, of incarnation.
All the mythologies tell us of incarnations; but the idea of divine incarnation in the story of the evangelists differs, not in some incidents, but in all essentials from all others. One unique fact, as has heretofore, in a different connection, been pointed out, is that Jesus was simply a man who, as to his appearance, had absolutely nothing that was peculiar. Neither stature, beauty, swiftness, nor strength is attributed to Jesus.
We might speak of the limitations that go with other conceptions of gods incarnate. They are specialized by race and localized by country. This thought has been illustrated elsewhere. It may answer now simply to remind you that Vishnu is Hindustanee, Isis and Osiris Egyptian, Odin and Thor Scandinavian. Not one of them has relations to the whole human race. But Jesus, who calls himself “the Son of man,” is of all, and belongs to all.
But the most notable difference to be considered now, that which alone would place Jesus apart from all others, whether men or legendary gods, is in the end he proposed to accomplish. The gods became incarnate and appeared to men, or dwelt among them, to do many and very different things; Jesus to do just one thing, and to do what no other ever proposed to do, or so much as thought of doing. He, “the Son of man,” was of all and for all, and he proposes an end that concerns all. The evil he would remove from all is not a Hebrew trouble; it is in the human race.