JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

"What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise Kings? It was
just after that that their kingdom was abolished. . . . But Socrates did not die
altogether; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die
altogether; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die
altogether; he lived on in the teaching which he had given."8
47
It is believed that this letter was written in the second or third century. It is unlikely that
the writer was a Christian since there is no explicit reference to the resurrection. There is
indication, however, that the writer seems to have been influenced by Christians since he makes
the usual Christian claim that it was "the Jews" and not the Romans who were responsible for
the execution of Jesus.
The Roman official Pliny, governor of the province of Bithynia-Pontus in Asia Minor in
A.D. 111-112, in a piece of correspondence with the emperor Trajan relates some information
about the worship and witness of the early church in that region:
". . . before dawn on a set day and singing alternate verses to Christ as to a God."9
Here is a clear piece of evidence that Jesus had early followers and adored and worshiped
Him "as to a God." British scholar Ralph P. Martin, in his book Carmen Christi, develops this
evidence further.10
The fall of Jerusalem in A. D. 70 destroyed most of the Jewish writings that treat this
theme. After that there was a bitter cleavage between the Christian church and the Jewish
synagogue and thus the revived Judaism deliberately kept silent concerning the practices of the
followers of Jesus who were now regarded as "apostates."
Innuendos are occasionally made. An example is the twelfth of the "Eighteen
Benedictions" which is a set of synagogue prayers and petitions:
"To slanderers let there be no hope, and let all workers of wickedness perish in a
moment."11
There is evidence that the word "slanderers," which is a general term for synagogue
opponents, was put in later but that the word "heretic" was used originally. If this is so, this
would in no doubt refer to the Jewish believers of the Messiah. The use of such a prayer would
be an effective means by which the synagogue leaders could detect who in the service was a
believer in the Messiah since such a person would not use the prayer unless they were to call
down condemnation on their own heads.