Jesus never claims to be divine or equal with God. He repeatedly called himself 'The Son of Man' which statement alone is a denial of divine conception. When a rich man addresses him as "Good Teacher" he replies "why do you call me good, no one is good but God alone." Mark 10:18. Here Jesus is really saying "I am not God." There is no indication that Jesus thought he was equal with God but there is evidence of submission to his God. When John and James asked him if, when he comes into his glory, they may sit one on his right hand and the other on his left, Jesus says, "To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." Mark 10:40. In telling the same story, Matthew adds the words "prepared by my Father."

Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane and prays, "Abba Father all things are possible to you, remove this cup from me; yet not what I will but what you will. .....And again he went away and prayed saying the same words." Mark 14:36-39. Jesus had separated himself from the others. Was that so he could pray quietly? Why else would he have withdrawn from the others? Who then heard what Jesus said to his God? We learn three things from this verse. (1) Jesus believed God could do anything. (2) Jesus really did not want to do whatever he thought was required of him. But he does not tell us what the 'cup' was which he wanted removed. We should not assume to know the answer. Nor can we be absolutely certain these words were not added at a later time. How did Mark know what Jesus said when he wrote the story thirty or more years later? (3) Jesus put aside his desires and submitted to what God wanted- There is no sense of equality with God here, only submission.

It was not until three hundred years after the crucifixion that the church dreamed up the doctrine of the trinity and made it an official tenet of church doctrine. This doctrine was part of the Nicene Creed approved by church leaders in 325 A.D. The writings of Paul had a great influence on that decision. We have seen that Jesus made no claim to be divine. It was after the death of Jesus that his followers conferred the divine status on him. We will talk about this in chapter eleven. Constantine's close relative Julian became emperor in 361 A.D. He reigned supreme for nineteen months until 363 A.D. when unfortunately he was killed in the war with Persia. Julian had been raised as a Christian in the tradition of Constantine the first Christian Roman emperor. Julian forsook his training and embraced Roman paganism. He sets out his reasons in a book "Against the Gahleans". Unfortunately this book was lost. Much of it, however, can be recovered from the fifth century refutation by Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. A naturally gifted writer, Julian presents a strong argument that Christianity was an apostasy from Judaism. He claims that ''Christians had fallen into the error of worshipping a man. None of the Synoptic Gospels had ventured to call Jesus, God. The notion that Jesus was divine was fabricated after his death by his followers. The Jewish god was only a tribal god and should not have been elevated to the one and only true God. Moses made it very plain when he gave their god's promise to the Jews that their god was a tribal god who would favour them over other peoples". See Deut. 7:12-15 or page 95.

Julian asks "Why was it only now (in mid history) after such a long age, that God has remembered to judge the life of men? Did he not care before?" Julian goes on about the creation myths of Genesis and the garden of Eden; he asks, '"What kind of god is it who would create men and women without the knowledge of good and evil?" Julian compares the wrathful and jealous god of the Bible to the Greek myths where the supreme god is never shown as angry or resentful So he returns to paganism as a better philosophy than Christianity. We should consider Julian's arguments. Are they valid? We have to thank "The Christians as the Romans Saw Them" by Robert Wilken for this information.