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CLARK'S

FOREIGN

THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

THIED SERIES.
VOL. XI.

Soma- on tljc -lirrsfon of Christ
DIVISION I. VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
MDCCCLXXVIII. *

HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THE DOCTRINE OF

THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

BY

DR J. A, DORNER,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINOES

DIVISION FIRST,
PIEST FOUR CENTURIES.
VOLUME I.
TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D.,
EDINBURGH,
AND (NOTES)
D. W. SIMON.

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MDCCCLXXVIII.

PREFACE.

The subject to which this work is devoted, is one which has
repeatedly engaged the attention and occupied the pens of
theologians in this country. Besides the palmary work of
Bishop Bull, entitled, " Def ensio Fidei Nicense," published first
in 1680, we have the treatise of Priestley on the " History of
Early Opinions," 4 vols. 8vo, with the controversy between
him and Bishop Horsley;x-the later work of Wilson, entitled,
" An Illustration of the Method of explaining the New Testa
ment by the'Early Opinions of Jews and Christians concerning
Christ," — an admirable work, published first in 1797, and of
which a new edition was issued at Cambridge in 1838 ; and the
still more recent work of Mr Stanley Faber, on " The Aposto-
licity of Trinitarianism," 2 vols., London, 1832. Works such
as these attest the interest which the question of the History of
Opinions concerning the Person of Christ has awakened in this
country. But, though, these works have their merits, and some
of them possess a high and permanent value, they for the most
part labour under two defects: the one is, that, being originally
and primarily polemical, they are all more or less one-sided in
their representations,; and the other is, that they are lacking in
scientific fulness and development. It may be added, that they
are all confined to the Ante-Nicene period, and take no cogniz
ance of the progress of opinion subsequent to the Council of
Nice. 1 Priestley's Letters to the Archdeacon of St Alban's ; Horsley's
Tracts in controversy with Dr Priestley: on the Historical Question oi
the Belief of the First Ages in our Lord's Divinity. 1783-86.

VI PREFACE.
The work of Dr Dorner will be found peculiarly to excel
exactly where these most fail. Purely scientific in its character,
and the result of long and patient study of the original sources,
it supplies a comprehensive, impartial, and exhaustive survey of
the whole subject of which jt treats. The author preserves
throughout the tone of a judge, calmly and perspicuously weigh
ing all the evidence, that can be brought to bear on the case ;
patiently collecting every particle of evidence pertaining to the
subject ; and pronouncing his decision without regard to po
lemical considerations, or the interests of parties.
The form in which this work first appeared, was that of two
essays in the Tubinger Zeitschrift; the former of which appeared
in the fourth number for 1835, the latter in the first for 1836.
In introducing them, with the motto, "Descendit Deus, ut
assurgamus," the author said, " It is gratifying to see how, in
the long conflict between Christianity and Reason, the point, on
the handling of which the decision of the controversy turns, has
become ever more and more distinct to the consciousness. The
energies of all parties engaged in this conflict are gathered ever
more and more around the Person of Christ, as the central-
point at which the matter must be determined. The advantage
of this is obvious, as respects the settlement of this great strife ,
as in other things, so here, with the right statement of the
question the answer is already half found. It is easy also to
see that, in point of fact, all lies in the question, whether such a
Christ as dwells, if not always in the words, yet ever in the
mind, of the Church, — one in whom the perfect personal union
of the divine and human appeared historically, — be necessary
and actual. For, let us suppose that philosophy could incon-
trovertibly establish, and carry to the conviction of all thoughtful
men, that the Person of a Christ in the sense above set forth is
a self-contradiction, and therefore an impossibility; there would
be no longer any conflict between Christian theology and philo
sophy, because with the Person of Christ would be abolished the
Christian theology, as well as the Christian Church, altogether

PREFACE. vn
" And, conversely, were it brought under the recognition of
philosophy, that the idea of an historical as well as an ideal
Christ is necessary, and were a speculative construction of the
Person of Christ once reached, it is clear that philosophy and
theology, essentially and intrinsically reconciled, would thence
forward have a common work, or rather, properly speaking,
would have become one ; and philosophy would consequently
not have relinquished her existence, but confirmed it.
" Hence it is well for both, in the great conflict between the
mighty powers of Christianity and Reason, when the struggle is
ever more and more concentrated on the point where alone all
is ultimately to be won or lost. This is well for Christianity,
not because, driven from so many positions, otherwise esteemed
essential, she as it were has to call forth her very last forces for
the protection of the Person of her Chief against the pressure
of Hjs opponents ; but rather because this Person alone, as the
central-point of the whole, is able to determine the positions
which may and must be maintained, and to oppose all as a com
plete whole to the attacks of opponents, and defend it against
them. Philosophy, however, knows now the point whither her
attacks, in case she must strike, must be directed; or if she
prefer to present herself in peaceable and friendly guise, rather
than in open hostility, — a phsenomenon which we frequently
see in recent times, — it is salutary for her to know from what
position the Christian theology cannot depart, before she extends
the hand to her. Otherwise, it is only an untrue, precipitate
reconciliation that can be effected, which will be soon dissolved
again, and but tends to hinder and defer the true reconciliation.
" But not only has a clear perception been obtained of
the point that must be reached, if the controversy is to be
decided in one or other of the ways indicated ; we even hear
numerous voices which exclaim that the decision is already
obtained, though only from the philosophical side, and from
this in a very disputed way. Some we hear saying, The in
ternal reconciliation, of philosophy and theology is concluded,

VU1 PREFACE.
the Person of Christ speculatively construed ; whilst others prove,
speculatively also, that the judicial process may now terminate,
the impossibility of a Christ who shall be at once historical
and ideal being demonstrated. If we know not, in consequence
of this, whom to believe, the confusion is increased by the voices
meanwhile which fall on us from the side of theology ; which,
delighted that the kingdom of speculation is divided against
itself, not only asserts her right to abide by her own domain
until philosophy shall have healed her own divisions, but also
commands to relinquish >he attempt to understand the Person
of Christ scientifically, as an empty and vain undertaking of the
Reason. To this last view we cannot resign ourselves, unless
we would hold that between Faith and Reason there is a great
gulf fixed, so that they that would pass from this side cannot,
and they that would come thence to us cannot. Whoever
reveres Christianity as accordant with the highest reason, must
also assume a progressive unfolding and strengthening of Reason
through the power of Christianity, and that no term can be
fixed for Reason in this advance. If in Christ be found, as
theology must hold to be the case, the key to the world's history,
and the solution of all enigmas, it is not humility, but a self-
willei inactivity, to refuse to seek how we may ever better and
better apply this key for the resolution of all mysteries.
" To the establishment of our decision concerning the true
state of the matter, the critical treatment of the history of the
development of this dogma will in the most fundamental way
contribute. It will thus be best proved to the one party, that the
question has not been validly settle^ either in the one way or
the other, but that much still remains to be done ; and to the
other party, that much has been already, accomplished, so that
the work cannot be viewed as a hopeless one. This historical
path, also, must be the fittest to prepare for the further de
velopment of this dogma.
" In attempting this path, we pass by the personal ministry
and history of Christ on earth, and address ourselves alone to

PREFACE. IX
the consideration of the mode of construing his Person in itself,
except where this itself demands something further."
In further elucidation of the author's design and method in
this work, the following sentences from the preface to his first
edition may be cited. " I have not, I confess, concerned myself
about an historical objectivity apart from a dogmatical back
ground; nay, I count every history of the development of a
dogma which is without this, as among the impossible things
with which people deceive themselves and others. Whether,
however, it is brought in as a foreign criterion from without,
or springs from, the same spirit which created this great history,
the history itself must show. And in this respect I resign my
work to criticism with an easy mind ; for its ground-idea, that
neither a merely historical nor a merely ideal and metaphysical
significance belongs to Christ, but rather that both are abso
lutely one in His perfect Person, whereby He is the Head, and
humanity is not a mere mass but an organism, — this ground-
idea I have not, thanks be to God, to boast of having discovered ;
though, alas ! there are many ears in which in the present day
it sounds strange; but I have received it through the com
munication of the Church of Christ, true to the word of Scrip
ture, and I give it back again as it has been reproduced and
found in me."
, The appearance of this elaborate and thoughtful. work pro
duced a great impression in Germany. It was felt not only to
furnish a full and final annihilation of the old Socinian preten
sion to trace the root of their system to primitive Christian anti
quity and apostolic teaching, but also to subvert the basis of
that more recent form of antichristianism, which, presuming to
.call itself " the higher construction" of Christianity, renounces
with disdain all attempts to prove itself in harmony with the
teaching of Christ and His Apostles, and remands all that men
have been accustomed to take for history, both as respects the
Founder of Christianity, and as respects the working of His
Apostles and their immediate followers, to the cloudland of myth

X PREFACE.
and fable. The work was thus one eminently " for the times"
in Germany ; and there can be no doubt that results of a most
important kind to the cause of truth have flowed from its ap
pearance. Whether the work will find equal acceptance, in the form of
a translation, in this country, remains to be seen. The author's
style of thought and mode of expression are certainly very dif
ferent from what we are accustomed' to, and it is to be feared
that complaints of obscurity and incomprehensibility will be
uttered against the work. As one of its translators, I dare not
say that the blame of this, so far as the charge may be well
founded, lies with the author ; but I may be permitted to remind
the reader, that the work is written, not for popular use, but for
those who are students and thinkers ; and it may be confidently
expected of such, that they will not allow themselves to be
deterred from reaping the treasures of learning and thought
which this work contains, simply because the author has occa
sionally got a little into the clouds, or his translators, it may be,
have occasionally failed to convey a clear and adequate render
ing of his words.
For my own part, I must frankly confess that I have made
no attempts to turn Dr Doner's somewhat rugged German into
graceful or fluent English. I would not say that it is im
possible to do this ; but I stand in doubt of all such attempts,
and for myself would rather struggle through the difficulties
of a literal version, which preserved not only in substance all
that the author has written, but gives it with the hue and cha
racter of the author's idiosyncrasy upon it, than peruse a trans
lation, the ease and elegance of which constantly would awake
suspicions of liberties having been used with the author, such as
it is not competent for a translator to use. And here I cannot
refrain from introducing some sentences from the pen of Dorner
himself, bearing on the alleged obscurity of German theologians,
and in reply to a wish uttered by the Bishop of Cork, that they
would express themselves so as to be understood by English-

PREFACE. X)
men. " Were we," says he, " to set ourselves up as teachers
of other peoples} it would be reasonable to require of us that we
should make use of the modes of speech of these peoples. But
it is not so. Our theology is primarily German theology, and
we speak in the manner natural to us, that is, in the manner
most suited to the subject as we see it ; and we think it is fitting
that whoever will participate in what we have, should put him
self to some pains to understand us, as we all have to do with
respect to the ancients. If it be that German theology (in
many cases, it may be, misunderstood) is exercising an unde
sirable influence in England, this requirement becomes doubly
pressing even in the interest of England herself. If negative
forces, such as we have long known, and in a measure have over
come, are stirring in England, if they prop themselves especially
on the reputation of German thinkers and critics, it would afford
no remedy were we to propose, through some change in our
method of speech, to spare any the labour of scientifically pene
trating into the depths of the subject. Eacjh. has as much know
ledge as by his own labour he has obtained ; a dead handing over
or importing even of the best, is no better than a sham gift."
He adds, however, that " it is only what courtesy requires, when
men converse with each other, that they do their utmost to be
understood ; at the same time, when one fails to be understood,
the fault is not always with the speaker."1
The justice, on the whole, of these observatiqns all must feel;
at the same time, one cannot help wishing that our Teutonic
brethren would take a little more trouble to make themselves
intelligible than they are apt to do. It is not Englishmen and
Frenchmen alone who find it difficult to understand them :
I have frequently found their own countrymen quite as much at
fault ; and I have sufficient reasons for doubting whether they
always take pains to understand themselves before committing
their thoughts to writing. With regard to this work of Dorner,
I cannot in this respect better express my feeling than by
1 Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie, 1861, p. 404.

Xll PREFACE.
adopting the words of Socrates in reference to a treatise of
Heraclitus : "A fiev cnmjica, yevvaia' otftat Be ical a, fir) a-vvfJKa.
ifKrjv ArfKiov ye nvoi Belrat KoXvfi^r&v.
One difficulty with which the translator of a German theo
logical work has to contend, arises from the use which German
theologians make of philosophical terms. In regard to these,
the German has the advantage of the English, in respect both
of variety and the precision with which terms are fixed to spe
cial meanings. The word " idea," for instance, is loosely used
by us in at least four different applications : as designating, 1.
the perception of an external object by the mind ; 2. the repre
sentation or picture of that object in the fantasy ; 3, the notion
or concept which the mind forms by abstraction ; and, 4. the
intuition of what can neither be perceived nor represented.
Now, for all these mental modes the Germans have distinct
terms, which they generally use with scrupulous precision. I
have done what I could to adhere to this in the translation.
" Vorstellung " I hav^ always rendered by representation ; " be-
griff " (the gripping up of objects), by concept ; " idee," by idea ;
and " bild," by figure or picture. I have also retained the word
" moment," so constantly used by German writers, in the form
of momentum. It is not easy to define the sense in which they
use this word ; but it answers generally to an operative element,
i.e., a constituent which not only is part of a whole, but has an
operative effect in producing that whole. The word in this
sense has dropped out of use with us, but it occurs in our older
writers. I have only to add, that the Notes in the Appendix have,
with the exception of one short one, been translated by Mr
Simon. 1 Diogen. Laert. Bk. ii. ch. 5, § 7.
W. L. A.
Elmburgh.

ANALYSIS.

J'aRS
Preface, . v
INTitODUClION.
1. The fundamental idea of Christianity, that which it gives of the
God-man, can be elucidated neither from Judaism nor from
Heathenism per se, though it be that of which both are
in quest, . . . . . . , . 1
A. Western and Eastern Heathenism; — Hellenism, Parsism,
Buddhism, . . ... 4
B. Hebraism and the later Judaism, . . . .13
a. Maleach Jehovah, Chochma (comp. p. 43,j3ervant of God,
Son of God, etc.), ..... 13
b. The Son of Sirach ; Book of Wisdom, .. . .18
Philo, .  19
Philo's doctrine of God, . . 19
 of the Logos, . . .22
 of the world and man, . . .31
<;. Theologoumena : Adam Kadmon ; Memra ; Shechinah ;
Metatron, ...... 41
2. This fundamental idea is original to Christianity, and essential to
it ; but to develop it, and adequately to set it forth to the
consciousness, is the task assigned to the age that follows, 45
3. Nature and design of a history of dogmas, with especial reference
to our dogma. The testimony of Christ and His Apostles
must necessarily be taken into account, in so far as this
forms the impulse whence the dogmatico-historical process
in the Church proceeded, ..... 47
(Comp. pp. 73-76.)
Higher form of Christological doctrine :
Paul, John, Epistle to the Hebrews, . . . .50
Lower form :
a. The Synoptic Gospels, ... 51
6. James, .... 62
c. Peter ; Jude ; 2d Epistle of Peter, . . . .67
(Note on the concept of Heresy, Appendix, Note U ; comp. Note
TVT.)

X1V ANALYSIS. Page
Coursj of the development of the dogma in the general, iu opposi
tion to Hellenism and Judaism in the primitive Church, . 73
Division into periods of the entire history of the development, . 83

FIRST PERIOD. (TILL A.D. 381.)
PERIOD OF THE SETTLING OF THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE-
PERSON OF CHRIST ON THE DIVINE AND HUMAN SIDES. PRE
SUPPOSED OR IMMEDIATE UNIO PERSONALIS.
FIRST EPOCH.
THE WITNESSING CHURCH. AGE OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, TILL A.D. 150.
Ceapter I. Evidence of the faith of primitive Christianity concern
ing Christ, . . " . . . .92
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THIS EPOCH.
I. The Christian writings of this age according to their Christo-
logieal import.
A. The ideal tendency under the Apostolic Fathers. They pro
pagate the apostolic doctrine of the higher Divine nature
in Christ, and His pre-existence, . . . 96-121
1. Clement of Rome. Romish Church, . . 96
, Appendix. Second Letter of Clement, . . . 101
2. Ignatius. The East ; Antioch, . . . .102
3. Barnabas. Alexandria? ..... 113
4. Polycarp. ' Asia Minor, ..... 116
5. Dionysius of Corinth. Greece ; Publius ; Quadratus ;
Aristides ; Agrippa Castor ; Aristo, . . . 119
B. The realistic (Judseo-Christian) tendency. Setting out from
the manifestation Qijftu, Ao'yof) of the divine (irtejuftci),
to be perfected at the second coming of the historical
Christ, they advance to the position that in Christ the
manifestation became a Person ; then that personal Word
was pre-existent, and also world-creative ; and in fine, that
it was the Wisdom (aotpia. as fafta. or 5s»«/iis), . 121—161
(Comp. Note WW, p. 403.)
a. Christology of the Judseo-Christian tendency.
1. The Shepherd of Hermas, .... 123
Montanism.
2. Papias, ... . . . . .135
3. Hegesippus.
Development of the Logos-doctrine in the Hellenizing
and Judso-Christian tendency, . . , , 137

ANALYSIS. xv
Page
h. The Judseo-Christian tendency in respect of eschatology.
Significance of the eschatology of the ancient Church in
general. Christological movement proceeding thence,
(a.) from the glorified to the pre-existent Christ, (/3)
from the kingly office to the priestly, . 142-150
Chiliasm. i
1. Sibylline Books, . . . . .150
Book of Enoch; The Fourth Book of Esdras, . . 151
, 2. Testament of the XII. Patriarchs, . . . 154
3. Other apocryphal writings, . . . .160
Review, . . . . . 160-161
II. Writings of Non-Christians of this Period, a.d. 266-273, 162-167
Celsus, ....... 162
Lucian ; Arrian ; Pliny; Hadrian, . . . .165
Jewish opponents, ...... 166
III. Worship of the primitive Church in so far as it is sustained
by a Christological idea, .... 167-184
1. The formation of liturgical elements in the usages of the
Church (Lord's Supper ; Baptism ; Rule of Faith ; Doxo-
logies), ....... 167
2. The gradual setting apart of Holy Seasons (Sunday ; Easter ;
Whitsuntide ; Epiphany ; Christmas), . . . 172
3. Beginnings of Christian Art and characteristic usages (Holy
Symbols ; Christian Hymns), . . . .' 179
Chapter II. The Cavils of the heretics of this Period against the
Person of Christ in the general, . . . 184-217
Certain forms of opinion which cannot as yet be called Chris
tian heresies (comp. Appendix, Note U, p. 344). Simoni-
ans ; Ophites ; Elkesaites ; Carpocrates, . . .185
I. Opponents of Christ's deity, .... 188-217
The Ebionites. Rise ; Division.
A. The Nazarenes. Maintenance of the supernatural birth of
Christ without advance to a pre-existent hypostasis of the
Son, . . . . '. . .192
B. Cerinthian Ebionites. Denial of the supernatural birth of
Christ. His baptism viewed as the commencing point of
the higher endowment of Christ, . . . . 194
0. The Gnostic Ebionism of the Pseudo-Clementines. Per
version of the natural and ethical Divine Sonship in favour
of a poor construction of the official Sonship of Christ as
the eternal Prophet of Truth. In Christ a higher power,
2o<p/«. Passing of Ebionism over into Doketism, . . 205
Appendix, Note BBBB, p. 444. The Recognitions of the
Pseudq-Glement. b

xvi ANALYSIS. Pago
Chapter III.
II. Opponents of tht humanity of Christ, . . 218-252
The Doketism c the Gnosis.
A. The Gnosis in the general ; its varied relation to the concept
of God. Division on the ground of this, . . 221-228
1. The Gnostic systems with a physical (ethnico-pantheistic)
concept of God. (a) Of a Dualistio, (b) of a Monistic
kind. In the former, God viewed as a Light-nature ; in
the latter, as Absolute Being (Life, Power, Blessedness or
Beauty) and Knowledge, ..... 224
2. The Gnosis with a negative, ethical, or juridical concept
of God. The Pseudo-Clementines. God = Righteousness
(comp. pp. 204, 224), . . . . .226
3. The Gnosis with a positive ethical concept of God. Mar-
cion. God Love (without Righteousness), . . 227
B. The Gnosis in its relation to Christology, . . 229-252
1. Doketism common to all the Gnostics in respect of the
Person and work of Christ. Its different sources in the
different forms of the Gnosis. Ophites ; Valentinians ;
Pseudo-Clementines ; Marcion, .... 229
2. Its various1 forms.
a. In reference to Christ's higher nature. Valentinus and
his school ; Marcus ; Heracleon ; Pseudo-Clementines ;
Marcion. ...... 230
6. In reference to the relation of the higher nature in Christ
to the human. Basilides ; Ophites ; Valentinians ; Mar
cion (239)'; Apelles (243), . . . .235
Review. — Regression of Doketism into Ebionism by means of
that Gnosticism which did not by Marcion's steps pass
over to the Church's path, . . . .246
Retrospect, ....... 251

SECOND EPOCH. (A.D. 150-325.)
AGE OF THE COMPLETION OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD.
EkkKvcui Bedhoyovaa.
FIRST SECTION.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS AND THE DOUBLED MONARCHIANISM.
Chapter I. Suppression of Ebionism and Doketism by the Church's
completion of the doctrine of the Logos, who truly became
Man(A.D. 150-200).
Character of this age.
1. The Letter to Diognetus unites (as does Justin Martyr) the
Hellenic Reason and the hypostatic, world-creating real-

ANALYSIS. XV11
Page
principle in its view of the Logos. This Logos it calls irais,
and equals Him with God. Distinction in God without sub
ordination of the iraus, but at the same time without ac
commodation to the Divine Unity, . . . 260
2 Justin Martyr, Theophilus, and Tatian approximate in their
thought of the Divine Unity to a certain subordination of
the Logos (irpaTov yh«Yi[ix Kccrpis )• Hesitating to infer a
hypostatic distinction in God Himself, they misplace the
hypostasis of the Logos on the world-side (Ao'yof irpoQo-
pi*6s), whilst they leave His essence (oinrta) to rest eter
nally in God (\6yo; hviiaHeroi). There is thereby threat
ened internally, an identification of the Logos with God as
such, — externally, an identification of the Logos with the
world ; i.e., the possibility of Sabellianism, as of Arianism,
is not yet destroyed, .... 264-282
a. Justin. Doctrine of the Logos. Generation of the Logos
by the will of God. Equality of essence with determinate
subordination of the Logos. Analogy of the hypostatic
in the Logos with a finite person, . 264
Christology, . . . . . .275
6. Theophilus of Antioch.
The Logos, the Divine Intelligence proceeding to the creation
of the world, and hypostatizing itself, . . . 279
c. Tatian. The Logos as the ideal world still in indistinguishable unity
with God's essence, separates itself, and becomes a hypo
stasis in the manifestation of God in the creation, . 280
3. Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus set them
selves against that subordination of the Logos (see No. 2),
and ever more and more throwing aside His identification
with the principle of the world, or the world, carry back
the Logos to the inner essence of God. He is the Reason
of the Father, which is at the same time actual. But
whilst the tendency of Faith to a full equality of essence
of the Logos with the Father is thus satisfied, proportion
ally little is accomplished towards a setting forth, in new
form, of the distinction of the Logos from the Father
through means of the idea of the world asserted by the
earlier writers, the consequence of which is a transient
tendency towards Monarchianism (of the Patripassian
form), ...... 283-326
a. Athenagoras rejects the hypostatizing of the Logos by the
creation, but gains as yet, apart from the world, no defi
nite distinction of the Logos from the Father, . . 283
6. Clement of Alexandria prefers a personal Logos and revealer
of the incomprehensible God. Sabellian threatening of the
distinction of the Logos from the Father. The Logos, as

XV111 ANALYSIS.

Paga

the speaking creative Word, and the supremely manifested
Wisdom and almighty Power of God, retains a relative inde
pendence in relation to the Father in His eternal essence, 285
Survey of the Logos-doctrine thus far, . 289
Christology of Clement of Alexandria, .... 294
c. Irenseus, ....... 303
This writer characterized.
Doctrine of God, . . . . . .304
Doctrine of the Logos, ..... 305
[The Logos the unity of Reason and Word].
The incarnation of the Logos, .... 312
Necessity of this. The mystical element in his Christology, 317
True humanity of Christ, . . . . . . 320
Its difference from ours, . . , ' . . . 322
Mode of the union of God and man, . . . 323
Christ's doctrine of the Holy Ghost and Lord's Supper, 323, 466
Apendix, ...... ,327

INTRODUCTION.

pIE idea of the God-man [of a union of the deity with
man] is not one which belongs only to this or that re
ligion ; rather may the germ of it be found in all, and
that just because they are, and in so far as they are, religious ;
and with this, as may be supposed, each as it reaches maturity,
presents essential differences as to the way in which the unity
of the Divine and the human is aimed at and conceived. It
will ever remain the ideal of human life, that it is God-manlike,
sustained and influenced by Divine power; and, as soon as
thought is directed to this relation, this holy life, \this life blessed
in God, will be conceived no otherwise than as the unity of the
Divine and human life. Not less, conversely, when the subject
is viewed from the side of God, will the ideal of the condescen
sion and manifestation of God be ever placed in this, that God
reveals Himself not merely in signs and natural phenomena;
nor in hallowed Palladia and pledges let fall from heaven ; nor
oven in Nature, which, bhnd and dumb, knows not for herself
Him by whom she is known : but that God knows and repre
sents Himself in the form of a* being who knows Him as he is
known of Him.
This concert of the Divine and the human — of which not
only is religion the vital sphere, but to which also genuine science
and its history not less give testimony — is not to be imputed
to anthropomorphic constraint, of which, as one sometimes hears
said, it is only with difficulty and approximatively that we are
able to rid ourselves ; but its cause is the objective bearing of
the matter itself. Were it not so, it would remain a puzzle how
reason or science in its progress, in place of gradually repu-
VOL. I. A

2 INTRODUCTION.
diating that as profane, ever more and more deeply enters into it.
Whilst in the beginnings of religions, and of thinking, the ade
quate form for a full revelation is not found in the Divine-
human shape, it is, on the contrary, seen as the result and
a'cquist of the whole religio-historical and philosophical process,
that the Divine and the human conspire towards unity. In
point of fact, it came at an early period to this, that the
human was viewed as something not capable of being united
with God ; the latter being regarded as purified from all fini-
tude, as an essence abstract and shut up in itself, to which men
hesitated to ascribe existence, since it was rather the wrepovawv,
not Being in the concrete, but the universal Being, that is equi
valent to the Nothing.. And when, consequently, the only thing
aimed at was to get rid of anthropomorphisms, and not to reach
a living relation between God and man, all was quickly accom
plished that could be attempted. But when the former has come
to be realized, there must always be a passing over to the opposite,
— to a revelation, a living communion between God and man ;
not only because an absolutely hidden God is for man virtually
no God, and such a pretended purification of the concept of
Deity closely approaches to Atheism, but also because the con
cept of Deity cannot otherwise be preserved from self-contra
diction. If God be thought as the pure Absolute, in the sense
that He cannot come into contact with the finite, then is He no
longer the Absolute ; since He can have nothing to do with the
finite, the latter is without Him ; that is, He is no more the
Absolute, if it is not He who reveals Himself in the finite.
Christianity, however, asserts the idea of the God-man in a
manner altogether peculiar. In Jesus of Nazareth, according
to the universal and perpetual belief of the Christian Church,
the unity of the Divine and the human has appeared in a
personal and unique mode. Some decenniums ago, it formed
part of the tactics of the opponents of Christianity to depreciate
the originality and peculiarity of her system by adducing
parallels, especially from earlier times ; and it would seem as if
of late something of the same kind is again to be attempted.1
1 See Gfrorer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, Stuttgart, 1838 1st and 2d
Parts. He observes, ii. 431, " that to every doctrine, almost to every pro
position of the New Testament, a parallel may be adduced from thP TairnnH ¦
the Sohar, the Midrashim," etc. *" me j annua,

INTRODUCTION. 3
So far, indeed, as this is designed to serve as an objection to
Christianity, its time is past, and its force materially reduced,
since men have ceased to treat Christianity onesidedly as doctrine,
rather than as Divine fact ; and, on the other hand, have begun
to find its peculiarity, in a theoretical respect, in this, that in it,
as the organism of the truth, the elements of truth, elsewhere
here and there to be met with in a scattered form or a disfigured
guise, come together in unity, — a unity which, as it personally
appeared in the God-man, so in the course of history ever more
and more rises upon the consciousness of mankind. But only
the more decidedly does the problem present itself, viz., to
determine the relation of the Christian religion to what is
beyond the pale of Christianity, both as respects their unity and
their essential diversity. Under such circumstances, all con
tributions must be welcome which serve to throw light on the
province of religion anterior to Christianity. Whether they are
advanced in a spirit friendly or in a spirit hostile to the Chris
tian theology, is a matter of indifference to it, provided only they
set forth what is true. For the'more thoroughly we understand,
in its entire compass, the religious domain previous to Chris
tianity, so much the more clearly, on the one hand, will the pre
paration for the latter by all religions, and its historical necessity,
be made apparent ; and, on the other, on a retrospective view,
as set over against all phenomena in this department, will that
same newness and originality become apparent, which, looking
forward, a sound historical sense has long ago assigned to it, —
such a sense as takes into view its world-pervading, inexhaustible
force. Nay, we must say, that for proof of the truth of Chris
tianity, and especially of its all-sustaining, fundamental idea,
the absolute man-becoming of God in Christ, the more restricted
position — that which sets out from details,' inspiration, prophecy,
and so forth — may be abandoned only for the sake of recognising
from the more comprehensive position of the entire historical
process of religious belief before Christ, how the whole pre-Chris
tian world aspired after Christianity ; how in this the common
senigma of all pre-Christian religions is solved ; and how in it,
especially in its ground-idea, lies the key by which all these
religions may be better understood than they could understand
themselves. Though speculative divinity may always exempt
itself from the proof of the inner truth of the idea of the God-

4 INTRODUCTION.
manhood, so long as philosophy and history refuse to coalesce; on
its historical side, Christianity will hover in the air so long as
all religions are not recognised in their essential relation to it,
as negative or positive preparations for it.
This is not the place to illustrate this in detail. All that can
be here shown is, that whilst the ground-idea of Christianity
cannot be elucidated either from heathenism or Judaism, in and
by itself, there yet lies in it that which both, from very different
sides, seek and forebode;

To resort to heathenism as the source of the Christian
ground-idea, might be suggested by the consideration, how much
the Jewish national spirit must have recoiled from the idea of
the man-becoming of God, and in fact did recoil; of which
we have evidence in many phenomena of the early Christian
Church, such as the various forms of Ebionism, which were not
so quickly extruded from the Church. Even in the New Testa
ment, the evidences of faith in the Deity of Christ are by no
means proportionally distributed through the different books :
in the Epistles of Peter and James, for instance, and in the first
three Gospels, they are comparatively deficient. It is not till
after the fall of Judaism, and the reception of the heathen
world into the Christian Church, that the Church's conscious
ness of the Deity of Christ becomes free and unrestricted. And
since, moreover, of the Apostles themselves, it was those whose
sphere of action was within the heathen world who set forth
most prominently the Deity of Christ, one might be induced to
ascribe this doctrine to1 a pagan influence. What of truth there
is in this, demands a closer consideration. And, in the outset,
we must distinguish the Oriental f rom the Occidental heathenism.
As representative of the former, we may take the Indian reli
gion ; of the latter, the Hellenic. It is common to both, not
with sufficient precision to distinguish God and the world, and
hence both may be called Nature-religions ; nevertheless, the
point of departure of both is opposite. The East sets out from
the Objective,, the Divine ; the West, from the Finite : but
both seek the same end, the unity of the Divine and the human1.-
Hence, in the former, the doctrine of the frequent incarnations

INTRODUCTION. 5
of God, in which He assumes the most perfect form, the
human,1 for the purpose of teaching men the truth, and recon
ducting them to heaven. In Greece, on the other hand (as also
in the religions of Rome and the North), men become gods ;
they by virtue and valour ascend Olympus. From this side
of Hellenism it is impossible to illustrate the Christian ground-
idea ; for, according to the fundamental Christian notion, which
is not wholly repudiated even where Christ is chiefly thought
of as a man (as in the different forms of Ebionism), God has
descended to earth, and manifested Himself in Christ. In
Hellenism, man celebrates his own apotheosis ; in Christianity,
the condescending grace of God is glorified.
And this belief is so essential to even the first centuries of
Christianity, so assuredly to be referred originally to the very
self -consciousness of Christ, that we must hold it as established.
However much, in other respects, there may seem to lie in
Hellenism, as distinguished from Judaism, what is akin to the
Christian ground-idea, we cannot trace the latter to that side of
Hellenism on which its belief was in a deification of man. For
this representation, which must have come forth as the primary
form of the doctrine of the Deity of Christ, had this sprung out
of Hellenism, is not to be found at all where first the Deity of
Christ was spoken of, and only appears at a later date with Paul
1 As Crishna. [Crishna, i. e. the Black One, appears in the Indian mytho
logy as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, the Crishnavatar, i. e. the descent
into the person of the Black One. He is said in the Bhagavat to have been
the son of Vasudeva and Devagui, sister of King Kamsa. He was the last
of seven brothers, and the only one whom his mother succeeded in saving
from the hatred of her brother. When he grew up, he avenged himself
dhd his parents by the slaughter of Kamsa ; and after many proofs of his
deity, amongst which may be mentioned his destruction of the serpent
Caliga, and many proofs also of the reality and badness of his humanity, he
was put to death by being shot with an arrow on a tree, leaving behind the
prediction, that thirty years after his death the Kali-yuga, the iron age,
would begin. He is represented as a black man, with a figure of the sun
on his breast, the lotos round his neck, and on the soles of his feet and the
palms of his hands a triangle or quinquangle as signum et principium
omnis generationis. In the Amarasinha he is called, He of the Strong Curly
Locks, Husband of Lakshmi, Lotus-eyed, Enemy of the Giant Madhu,
Slayer of King Kamsa, Son of Devagui, Best of Men, Crowned with Flowers.
See Kleuker, Das Brahmanische System, p. 66 ; Creuzer, Symbolik u. Mytho-
logie in Auzsug, p. 204 ; Asiatic Trans! iv. 66. — Tk.]

6 INTRODUCTION.
of Samosata, whose doctrine was so abhorrent from the Chris
tian consbiousness, that, according to the decree of the Council •
of Nice, its adherents were required to be rebaptized. And yet
he had only subordinated the grace of God descending upon
Christ to the Hellenic mode of representation ; he by no means
wholly set it aside.
One might be inclined rather to go back to the theogony of
the Hellenes ; for the Olympians, for instance, though coming
into being in time, are yet not deified on account of their
excellences, but are from the commencement of their existence
divine essences. But even this does not correspond ; for in the
Hellenic theogony a plurality of gods and their finitude were
assumed, whereas the professors of Christianity never allowed
the Deity of Christ to endanger monotheism, and, as is well
known, retained an abhorrence of polytheism, the influence of
which, had the Deity of Christ implied, polytheism, would have
been rather to hinder than to incline them to ascribe that to
Him. Moreover, the concept of a Hellenic god never compre
hended what the Church from the beginning saw in Christ.
For none of these gods passes beyond the national limitation ;
nay, to none of them does Deity, in its true sense, belong;
for over them and behind them stands that remnant of mono
theism — banished into the shadowy background, but not alto
gether extinct — Fate, which threatens even them. This is
the Absolute of heathenism ; but it is shut up in itself, rigid
and unchangeable ; from it no theogony issues, so as that the
gods, transferring to themselves its essence, and thus raising it
to subjectivity, might in a sense present an absolute personality:
rather are the gods not true absolute essences, as indeed their
plurality sufficiently indicates. The Christian Church, on the
contrary, recognises itself as in the God-man, as placed in the
closest union with the absolute God ; and hence for it the God-
man must have, not a national, but a universal significancy.
But the theogony conducts us to the East. Does the Eastern
mode of looking at things supply a connecting point, for the
Christian ground-idea? Without doubt, more than the Hel
lenic. For there we have the incarnation of the second member
of the Trimurti ; Vishnu becomes, among other things, truly
man ; and thus we have the idea of theVJaod-man as a Divine
condescension. We should also, doubtless, greatly err, were we

INTRODUCTION. 7
to deny entirely the diffusion through middle and hither Asia,
and especially in Alexandria, of Indian religious ideas ; it is,
especially, well known how eagerly thousands in the time of
Christ snatched at foreign modes of worship and religious ideas,
and how closely allied to Indian representations is much that is
to be found prevailing at that time, and long after, in those
regions.1 Nevertheless, it is easy to see that it is not by reference to
the Indian religion that the Christian ground-idea is to be
explained. For the incarnation in human form of Vishnu is
no true assumption of humanity, as is sufficiently evinced by
the plurality of the incarnations, in the most diverse forms. The
essential unity of the Divine and the human, which the Church
recognises as for ever complete in Christ, does riot appear in
Crishna ; for Crishna returns to his heaven, and lays aside again
his humanity. His redemption is therefore transient; another
kalpa (world-period) may succeed, during which evil shall be tri
umphant.2 The basis of all this lies in the dualistic view of the
relation of the Divine to the finite. This dualism absconds in
pantheism ; but to the Indians there is an irreconcilable opposi
tion between the finite and the Infinite, and hence it is that the
Divine with them is All, and the world can attain to only a
seeming being. But the idea of the God-man is not thus to be
truly reached. Where these two come together, this is effected
only by an intermixture, a non-discrimination of what should
be discriminated, which must forthwith degenerate into an
annihilation of the one member, — naturally, on Indian ground,
of the finite. This dualism, which lies at the basis, and which
can admit of only a doketic God-manhood, becomes most clearly
apparent in this, that the creation or rise of finitude is also
that of evil ; and also in this, that it is only by the laying aside
of finitude, the annihilation of the individual, that the pure,
perfect spirit is to be reached. When we consider, further, how
superficially sin is here viewed, how entirely the ethical has been
made to vanish together with the physical ; and how the germs,
lying from the beginning in this religion, tend to Buddhaism,
1 We need only here refer to the doqtrine of the Macrocosm and the
Microcosm, and the frequent emanistic theories prevailing in the time of
Christ and afterwards.
2 See Stuhr, Religionsystems des Orients.

8 INTRODUCTION.
where a world-denying pantheism falls over into a nominalism,
which in turn denies the independent existence of God, and
transfers all that is Divine to the wqrld, especially that of Buddha;
we shall find it impossible to discover in the religion of India a
source or a rival in respect of the ground-idea of Christianity.
The Indian religion has a long and rich development, such as
no other heathen religion has. Awakened in the heroic era to
a consciousness of liberty, the Indian mind, that before had
yielded itself up onesidedly to the All-life (Atma), was in
Buddhaism turned round against the Divine, so as to enunciate
its non-existence ; and thus according to the contemplative or
simply practical tendency of the individual, either the subject,
as Buddha, laid hold of deity for himself, or there was a falling
into materialism.1 Thus the Indian religion finished its course ;
it reached to the opposite extreme from which it started, for
there is for it no longer God : He is expelled. But that from
this last form also of the Indian religion the Christian ground-
idea is irreconcilably different, may be seen from this, that the
unity of the Divine and the human, as Christianity acknow
ledges it in Christ, has here no existence. The Buddha aims at
the annihilation of the human, the resolution into the Nothing :
Dualism, which from the beginning coalesces with the Indian
religion, comes on the other side into being just as both the
human and the Divine are annihilated. Of the materialistic
mode of thought, which is closely associated with this, it is
needless to speak; for its relation to the ideal character of
Christianity is antipodal : there, God is suppressed, and the
world in proportion brought into prominence; the far has
become the near ; the kingdom of China is likewise the king
dom of heaven* <
Little, however, as the pre-Christian religions of heathenism
possess the ground-idea of the Christian, that which, neverr
theless, they sought, was none other than that which is the
ground-idea of Christianity. In the East, the mind, setting out
from the simple All-life, sought to arrive at a consciousness of
the personaUty and presentiality of God. But its best efforts
proved fruitless, because of a fundamental dualistic bias. Just
1 Herein lies the cause why, in China, Buddhaism has become almost the
national religion. The modifications it has there received are not opposed
to its essence ; but unfold it only on a new side.

INTRODUCTION. 9
where it comes nearest to the finding of rest in the true idea of
the God-man, in the stages antecedent to Buddhaism, i.e. the
Bhagavad Gitta, it flings itself over impatiently* to the other
extreme ; and in the realm of the immoveable middle, the fiery
ideal spirit, that would be and have spirit alone, arrives at this,
that it becomes only world.
In the West a similar course has been pursued, only that
the development begins from the opposite terminus. Here the
starting-point is not that of patient resignation, but that of the
self-consciousness of the free subjective spirit, which seeks to
bring forth its inner ideal world-form itself, and so to become
worthy of participating in the blessed life of the gods, — the
Apotheosis.* But as this is rather a practical than a religious
course, so the act is rather finite than ideal. The untruth that
lies in it, — the would-be production of the Divine from out of
ourselves, the treating it as something to be brought forth in
and out of ourselves, instead of being, on the contrary, some
thing to be received by us, and which is to be brought forth by
God condescending to us, — displays itself principally in the
tragic fate which befell the whole Occidental world. With the
attainment of its end, the empire of the world, Bome became
deprived of freedom, a slave : with the efflorescence of the
Hellenic genius, in which it attained to full consciousness of
itself, with the possession of science, began also its decay ; and
in place of rejoicing over its spiritual empire and its splendour,
in the clearness of the consciousness, its opulent world dis
appeared from it, — it became poor. Thus the effort of the
West after the union of the Divine and the human degenerated
into its opposite. There remained to it but a deified world ;
and as this could neither be ¦proved true in itself, nor find
acceptance especially with so intellectual a people as the Greeks,
it is not to be wondered at, that this world also sank into nothing
as an object of spiritual apprehension ; and that thus nothing
was left for the Neo-Platonists but the simple Monad, the one
Divine substance, before which everything finite is but pheno
menal. The Hellenic setting out from man and his power ends
where the Oriental began — but there also found its grave. And
* [The bliss of the Oriental heathen is passive absorption into the Deity ;
the bhss of the Occidental was elevation, by an active process of intellectual
and moral culture, to the society o"f the gods. — Tr."1

10 INTRODUCTION.
since its starting-point was where the Oriental ended, the entire
cycle of the heathen world has thus been completed : returning to
its poor unsatisfying beginning, it has pronounced judgment on
itself — and the sentence is one which all history confirms — viz.,
that it has not attained to the true idea of the God-man, though
its entire spiritual history has unmistakeably its meaning in this,
that it seeks the inner and true interpenetration of the Divine and
the human. It could not find this, though it sought it, because
it set to work precipitately ; that is, without allowing to the dis
tinction between the two, in the first place, its due' weight. The
confounding of what should be discriminated, which thence
arose, entailed as its penalty, that both sides of the distinction,
which neither in their difference nor in their unity were under
stood (else had their confusion been impossible), cannot be set
in stern antagonism to each other so as to become mutually
exclusive., And in this respect the history of the pre-Christian
religions affords a very instructive example for any history that
seeks to trace the dogma of the God-man within the Christian
Church ; and suggests how these pre-Christian modes of looking
at things did not immediately vanish with the advent of Chris
tianity, but exercised the most marked influence on the Christian
Church. Thus far the opinion must seem well founded, that the
entire vast region of heathen religion contains nothing that can
impeach the originality of the Christian ground-idea; whilst, on
the other hand, the whole of Heathendom strains after this idea,
without being able, from its stand-point, so much as distantly to
approach the conception of it in its truth. And the blame, high
above all, is due to what has not hitherto been adverted to, viz.,
that heathenism utterly wants a profound moral view of the
world ; a defect which also shows itself in the confounding of
the consciousness of the world and of God ; for thereby also is
the ethical idea physically conceived and bedimmed. Ethics
includes chiefly the rectitude by which man is put in relation, \
not only with his fellows, but primarily with God, and so arrives '
at personality. Thus this idea of rectitude, essential to the
ethical, and ever immanent in it, preserves the distinction between '
God and the world; and without it, love itself would not be love.
An idea, therefore, of the unity of the Divine and the human,
not mediated by the idea of the ethical, can of necessity be only

INTRODUCTION. 11
of a physical kind, and superficial, such as we must pronounce
that to be which among the Hellenes was consummated in the
idea of the beautiful, or of art. We have not there the true
spiritual Infinite presented in a finite form, nor have we even
man conceived as the true living work of art ; and hence this
beautiful Greek world fell to pieces, because it had only the
form of naturality.
Where the moral consciousness is not cultivated, the anti
thesis between man in his naturality and the Divine will be
easily removed, since even involuntarily the form of the latter
will be borrowed from the former. But in such a case the idea
of the unity of the Divine and human is deprived of its high
spiritual significancy. Hence in the whole heathen world the
idea of the God-man has never been even remotely approached
in the sense in which it always lived in the Church's conscious
ness. The only apparent exception to this is furnished by
Parsism, in which the ethical elements approach so nearly to a
free development, that there have not been wanting those who
incline to withdraw it from among heathen religions. But
however noble the position of this among others of the heathen
religions, it has, nevertheless, not risen by any means above that
stand-point of natural religion, through which ethical concep
tions are contaminated. Besting on the fundamental represen
tation of the natural antithesis between light and darkness, it
thereby acquired sufficient elevation to obtain, veiled in this,
the ethical opposition between good and bad. Still, on that very
account did this opposition remain but a veiled one. The
Persian dualism, however (into which the opposition of the two
elements, already lying in the Indian religion, but there appear
ing as a successive one, has become condensed, since here both
elements enter simultaneously, and stand in the rudest tension
over against each other), admits no true unity of the Divine
and human ; as even within the Christian Church itself is
sufficiently proved by Manichseism ever lapsing into Doketism.
And supposing this dualism to be completely overcome in the
Persian religion, there would still, even then, remain another ir
reconcilable antithesis, that, namely, between Zeruane Akerene,*
* ["Zoroaster (Zerdusht), during the reign of Gushtasp (Darius
Hystaspes), assumed, according to the common opinion, the existence of
an infinite original essence (Zeruane- Akerene, the boundless time), from

12 INTRODUCTION.
on the one hand, and Ormuzd and Ahriman, on the other. The
relation of the former to the latter is very obscure ; nevertheless
the idea of the absolute truly Divine, so far as this religion
possesses it, belongs to Zeniane Akerene. As, however, it is
immoveably shut up in itself, the Persian religion cannot possi
bly know a unity between the finite and the truly Divine.1
In the Persian religion we find the knot with which all sys
tems of natural religion are coupled most of all firmly tied ;
for here comes out into clear consciousness that dualism which
unconsciously perverts them all, and historically works from one
extreme to the other. It is assumed as the starting-point, and
aims at an ethical result. But however deep may be the moral
earnestness which lies at the bottom, neither the moral nor the
religious (the latter even less than the former) receives its due ;
not the latter, because from the thoroughly practical character
of this religion it knows nothing of a condescension and com
munication of God, though it commands to produce the divine,
the good. And in this respect the Persian religion, albeit pro
posing to itself a different problem, stands on a parallel footing
with the religions of the West. In estimating, however, its
moral earnestness, we must not overlook the reverse of the
matter — namely, that if evil be treated as a substance, and be
transposed into Nature, the spirit conies off guiltless. Thus
must Parsism, in place of going deeper into itself and introduc
ing a spiritual process, take its direction to what is outward —
must stand spiritually still, and persist in the insoluble enigma
and contradiction which, rather than its confession of faith, it
utters. On both sides, the ethical and the religious, it is the
Hebrew religion which holds that which Parsism seeks or needs.
which eternally proceeded by means of the Word (Honof ar) two principles
of things, Ormuzd and Ahriman. Ormuzd is the purest endless light, the
wisest and most perfect one, the author of all good. To him Ahriman as
the principle of darkness or evil, is opposed, either originally, or through
defection from Ormuzd." — Tennemann Gesch. d. Phil. § 70. See also
Hengstenberg's Christology, vol. iv., p. 320, Eng. Tr. — Tr.]
1 According to Stuhr, the hero Sosiosh belongs to a later period, and
shows traces of the influence of the Hebrew idea of a Messiah. For the
rest, this personage affords a proof of how the Persian religion strives after
the idea of the God-man, without being able, however, to rise above an
Arian mediator between God and man. The reason lies in the deistic con
ception of the Absolute, Zeruane Akerene.

INTRODUCTION. 13
In it is the solution of the enigma, at which Parsism vainly
toils;1 and in so far as that which Hes unconsciously at the
basis of the rest of the religions of Heathendom, namely, the
dualism between the Divine and the finite, is in this brought out
clearly, and is fully recognised, the Hebrew religion contains
the revelation of the mystery that lies as a burden on the whole
world outside the testament.* Not that the Hebrew religion
has not here also its new and deeper enigmas and .mysteries,
but that in it the enigma of heathenism, which lies in this,, that
it ever falls involuntarily into the opposite of that which it
would, or, at any rate, hesitates in its advance, is solved, f It
remains for us to inquire whether the Hebrew religion could
have engendered the idea of the God-man.

B.
The Hebrew religion stands distinguished from all the pre-
Christian religions by this, that it clearly discriminates God and
the world, and so acknowledges alike the personality of God
and man. As the former is exalted high above nature by
His spirituality and Oneness (^P), and man is regarded as
created in the image of God, the distinction is duly maintained ;
so that only an ethical mediation of unity remains to be thought
of here. Of an essential relation of the world, and particularly
of humanity, to God, there is scarcely an intimation; the
Hebrew people were but little addicted to metaphysical in
quiries. Still, that "ethical mediation must not be regarded
under a Pelagian aspect ; for in the mind of the Hebrew people
1 One might so far — though the same thing applies in a sense to all
ethnic rehgions — designate Parsism the Hebrew rehgion barbarized, and
thus many peculiarities in both rehgions would be denoted according to
their significancy. In this case, the attempt — certainly not often made —
to reduce the higher form of rehgion, the Hebrew, to a dependence on the
lower, and to represent it as receiving influences therefrom rather than
the converse, must appear unnatural ; for where in all the world does the
youth learn .more readily from the boy than the reverse ? Hence Stuhr
justly pursues the opposite course.
* [Aussertestamentlichen Welt. — Tr.J
t [To those who are interested in this inquiry, it may be worth while to
recommend the (unhappily unfinished) work of the late Archdeacon Hard-
wicke, " Christ and other Masters/'-^TR.]

14 INTRODUCTION.
it rested on a religious basis, on a Divine condescension ; and
this became always clearer to the people. And as the finger of
God at the first inscribed the law on tables of stone, so the
divinely-inspired prophets anticipated, in the lapse of time, a
period when God would cleanse away the sins of His people
and write His law on their hearts. But at the basis of the
• Christian idea of the God-man there lies a relation of essence,
and not merely a moral or religious one; hence it does not
appear presumptively probable that it is from the spirit of the
Hebrew people that such an idea could be derived. That Jeho
vah, He who is highly exalted above all that is finite— who,
in the sense of forming a conception of Him, cannot be seen,
yea, the very sight of whom would consume — that He should
come down to this world, should put on a finite nature and
become man, is an idea which never could have come into the
Hebrew religion out of itself. On the contrary, we must assume
that, as the boast of the Hebrew religion, in opposition to the
whole heathen world, lay in its upholding the holy personality
of God pure and highly exalted above nature and the whole
world, it could not have held fast this personality if it had main
tained a homoousia, as of man and, God for instance, in any
sense. In order to sustain itself above the nature-religions, it
must, in virtue of its ethical method of dealing with things,
have formed such a metaphysical view of the relation between
God and the world as was far removed from an incarnation of
God, nay, such as removed the Hebrews, and by law precluded
them from such a thought as this, although, as already hinted,
the Hebrew people speculated but little on the relation, of the
Divine essence to the essence of the world in the general. It
cannot be alleged against what is here advancedj that under
the ancient economy Jehovah by no means appears as afar off
from the world and uncommunicative, but rather nigh to the
world, yea, filling it with His omnipresence ; revealing Him
self first to the patriarchs in manifold manner, and especially
afterwards being nigh to His covenant-people as their Lawgiver,
Judge, Avenger ; who inspired their magistrates and prophets,
and by many appearances and signs made Himself known to
them. For all this is quite compatible with what has been said
above ; neither excludes the other. Who can say that all this
even in the most distant "manner approaches the idea of the

INTRODUCTION. 15
incarnation of Jehovah, who is, and who was, and who is to
' come ? It is not to be denied that the Hebrew popular spirit,
especially at a later period, when, less subject to a living reli
gious process, it turned more to investigation, sought to fill up
the gap which existed metaphysically as the reflex of the ethical
view, between God and the world; and here the idea of the
Maleach Jehovah (the mediator between God and the patriarchs,
latterly between God and the theocratic people) furnished a
point of connection. But neither is the mediatorial office con
stantly ascribed to him, for Jehovah in many instances reveals
Himself, without a Maleach, in visions, voices, symbols, etc.;
nor does the Maleach in the Old Testament appear as endowed
- with an abiding personality, on the one hand, distinct from the
choir of created angels, who bear in themselves, but not as he,
njn! D??j and on the other, not continually sinking back into,
and losing itself in, the personality of Jehovah. An hypostasis
so purely parastatic, consequently, does not stretch out much
beyond the personification of what was ever a theocratic work ;
at least it does not serve to 'mediate the relation of the essence of
God and the world. At the utmost, we have in the Psalms
some passages,1 in which not merely a theocratic but a cosmical
significancy is given to the Maleach Jehovah. But there he
appears either only as a personification, and consequently not as
an hypostasis ; or, if the latter, as a creature. Under the former
'aspect, the Maleach Jehovah is set forth in the '"lip?1?, (ro(pla. In
the latter case, he stands among the angels, who certainly in
the lapse of time acquire more and more of significancy; but
still, far from mediating the essence of God and the world, they
rather make it perfectly clear that Jehovah's essence comes not
into contact with the world. And as to these angels is attributed
ever more and more what belongs to God — such as creation,
preservation, and government — and they become His vicegerents
in the world, so there comes to be a gradual f ailing off from the
purer religious consciousness of earlier times towards the wildness
and fantasticality of heathenism, whilst the living God passes into
the background. It is well known into what insipid and wanton
fancies the Jewish traditions before the time of Christ passed
over in this respect — how the waxing angel-lore of these filled
1 Comp. Ps. ciii. 20, cxlviii. 2, xxxiv. 8, xci. 11.

16 INTRODUCTION.
heaven and earth, Paradise and Gehenna, with histories full of
marvel and romance. But to propose to place the Christian
fundamental idea in relation with these traditionary beings is
inadmissible, not only on the ground that they are all creatures,
whilst the Christian Church recognises in Christ always the
truly Divine, but also, still more definitively, on the ground
that this angel-lore, occupying the foreground of the conscious
ness, places and holds the truly Divine in. the background;
hence it first begins to appear in this guise from the time when
God had ceased to speak with- His people, when there is no
longer a living approximation and revelation of the Lord.
As respects the nMn of the Proverbs, the <ro<plaoi the Apo
cryphal books, it has certainly a cosmical significancy. In it Hes
that which came nearer to the Hebrew genius, religion, and ethics,
and became manifest over the relation of the essence of God to
the world. — The Wisdom of Prov. vni. 22 ff. has an inner
relation to the world, to its wise arrangements — i.e., to the form
of the world. Though; accordingly, only teleologically con
ceived, and ever in inner relation reverting to the practical, it
carries nevertheless into the world, under one aspect— that of
form — Divine 'thoughts, and thus establishes an inner relation
between God and the world. Wisdom itself is introduced-
speaking, as a personality distinct from God ; still the passage.
does not clearly lead to a hypostasizing of the Chochma. In
Ecclus. i. 1-10, xxiv. 8-10, Wisd. of Sol. vii. 22 ff., the mere
personification is still clearer. The Son of Sirach conceives
under Wisdom the whole world-plan — the eternal idea of the
world as existing in time and space, and according to its inner
measures:' "He has poured out wisdom upon aU His works,
and on aU flesh, according to His grace ;" i. 9, 10. Here Wis
dom is conceived not simply as form, but also as substance —
as poured forth on all things, a power wisely forming aU ; but
manifestly not as a person. In the twenty-fourth chapter of
the same book, Wisdom identifies herself with God's word,
1 Whilst this angel-lore at a later period assumed a pantheistic garb,
and ascribed the creation of angels, as well as their distinction from God,
to emanation, there nevertheless thus still remained the fundamental repre
sentation, that the true Absolute is known only afar off, and along with
this, a system of subordination ; so that in the doctrine of iEons the Church
never could recognise herself.

INTRODUCTION. 17
says that she broods over the whole earth ; and ascribes to her
self omnipresence in the depth, in the sea, and on the earth. It
thus approximates immediately to the idea of the Logos among
the Alexandrians. The Wisdom of Solomon and the Book of
Ecclesiasticus lead us directly to Philo. In the beautiful seventh
chapter of the latter of these books, for instance, Wisdom
is conceived as the all-operative, and yet as that which is
limited by nothing. Hovering over all, it both physically and
spiritually enters all ; and entering therein, it is yet not bound
thereby. It is called, ver. 27 ff., Sir. xxiv. 14, "abiding,"
that is, eternal, and yet it has relations with time ; growing as
a palm-tree, Sir. xxiv. 18 ; spreading forth its branch like an
oak ; seeking and finding a firm abode in Jacob, Sir. xxiv. 11 ;
for ever and ever communicating itself to holy souls, form
ing prophets and friends of God, and yet not bound to these,
since it pervades all spirits, Wisd. of Sol. vii. 23, 24. It is
viewed as the principle of the many, the diversified, and yet
as one, vers. 22, 27. In the Wisdom of Solomon, however,
Wisdom appears more decidedly than in Ecclesiasticus, not
merely as a formal, but as a real principle, which is doubtless to
¦ be put to the account of a strong Hellenic influence upon that
book. But the more universal the meaning of the aofyia thus
becomes, and the more akin to the Philonian Logos, so much
the more does the possibility vanish of deriving from it the
Christian ground-idea. It is true that by aU this the strongly
determined distinction between God and the world, recognised
by the Hebrew people, was somewhat softened ; but, on the
other hand, the universalism of the Hellenic Logos-doctrine
precludes its furnishing to the Christian ground-idea any anthro
pological and theological basis, inasmuch as the stand-point of
historical revelation, which forms one essential side also of the
Christology of the Church, is forsaken, and is volatilized into
a general inward revelation of God in the spirit ; and under
this aspect nothing but a Hoketic Christology could be formed
on this basis. On the whole, where this generaHty and pure
spirituality in the agency of the Logos is retained, there remains
no longer any reason on the side of men for an incarnation such
as that in Christ. In fine, this conception of the Logos, through
the immediate universality of his operation, as well as through
the constant relapsing of his hypostasis into God, i.e., in mere
VOL. I. B

18 INTRODUCTION
personification, utterly excludes the thought that this entire
Logos, and not merely a part of him, an efflux of his power,
appeared in Christ.. And this is, Christologically considered, the
Ebionitish aspect ; an aspect which does not satisfy the Christian
idea of the God-man, to which this Alexandrian construction of
the doctrine of the Logos must lead.
In the Book of Sirach there is shown a remarkable attempt
to meet this modification of the idea of the universal aocpia, so
uncongenial to theocratic principles and to historical revelation
generally, and to amalgamate it with these interests. Wisdom, ac
cording to Sir. xxiv. 10-16 ff., seeks an abiding, certain place,
Le., a place of perfect revelation, concentratedly : " Amongst
all men, amongst all heathen, she has sought a dwelHng, that
she might find a place. Then the Creator of all things appointed
her a dwelHng in Jacob, and granted her a settled place in
Zion." — But it is only as opposed to the heathen that the repre
sentation of Wisdom as rooted with this honoured people has its
truth ; just as Israel generally is called njfp "nj> in contradistinc
tion from the heathen, without being the servant of God in the
fuU sense. But where in Israel is the proper throne of this
<ro$la, and her full revelation? Ver. 15 points to the temple
(and with this coalesces the later Jewish doctrine of the She-
kinah), vers. 32, 33,* to the Book of the Covenant, the Law,
whence wisdom flows. But were the author to abide by this,
not only would the Messianic idea be lost for him in the delu
sive notion that the temple and the Book of the Covenant are
eternally sufficient, but he must also satisfy himself with a
purely external dwelling of the o-otj>ta in Jacob. But little as
we find in him, or in the Book of Wisdom, as to the aoQla being
placed in conjunction with the idea of the Messiah,1 yet both
know well that the aoQia has her satisfaction neither in the
general rooting in Jacob, nor in that outward dwelling with
him. Hence the Son of Sirach represents her as striving after
an ever-growing extension, vers. 17-22 [13-16]. More he
* [These references are to the' arrangement of verses in Luther's transla
tion. The corresponding verses in the original, which the English Version
follows, are 10, 23, 24.— Tr.]
1 This was not in itself to be expected, since in these ideas there prevails
an antitheocratic, philosophic element ; whereas the idea of the Messiah
grows only within theocratic bounds.

INTRODUCTION. J 9
seeks not ; an extensive growth satisfies him. In like manner,
the author of the Book of Wisdom, who is still less theocratic
in his tone of thought, is even more satisfied with a fierafiaiveiv
of the croifila into the tyv)(a$ ocrias. But in recognising only a
communication to many, they know nothing of a concentration
in one ; they lose also more and more, as they become in a two
fold way superficial, the need of the same. The Palestinians
maintained, indeed, the theocratical stand-point, but the religious
process came to a stagnation ; and in place of an intensive
progress, in place of the Messianic idea becoming ever clearer
and richer, they sought progress in extension, in proselytizing,
and hoped for a political Messiah tp succeed therein, according
to their notion, to the utmost extent.1 The Alexandrians, on
the contrary, as already the Book of Wisdom shows, through
their appreciation of heathen wisdom, and by a process of vola
tilization, lost sight of the need of an historical God-man ; nay,
in the Hellenic mixture they lost even the soHd principles of
their religion, and the firm faith of their fathers. Philo would
thus form an exception ; and he, in the present state of our
inquiry, requires a more penetrating investigation.
The Book of Wisdom shows that Philo was not alone in his
tendency, but that in him we have the blossom of a philosophical
school, growing up on Jewish ground, and without doubt
spreading wider. This makes it all the more worth while to
confer with him a little more closely, since he not only is a con
temporary of Christ, and, whilst Palestine saw the Saviour, is
the most remarkable among the extra-Palestinian Jews; but
also since his system forms at once the directest antithesis to
Christianity, and at the same time shows an apparent concur
rence with it which has deluded many. In him Judaism, tinged
with Hellenism, struggles upwards even to the attempt to realize
by the force of thought what the Messianic idea intends, and
thereby at the same time to supersede the Messiah, and render
Him superfluous. From this process of the ideal interworkmg
of the heathenish and the Jewish, which in him affords a sort
of prelude to what was consummated under Christianityj may
be explained the fact that, during a period of little acuteness in
historical composition, he should be held for a Christian ; as well
1 Mohammedanism is the continuation of this Judaism.

20 INTRODUCTION.
as his own fluctuating between opposite points of view, which
set at defiance all attempts at union.1
The two opposite sides of Philo's system, now approaching
to, now recoiling from each other, cannot be rightly represented
if the attempt be, made, for the sake of vindicating their unity,
to derive the one from the other. In Philo himself there is no
perfect union of these to be found ; the fact historically with
regard to him is, that the old Hebrew concept of God is dissolved
in his mind by means of a pagan view of the world, and thereby
a sort of theogonic process begins to introduce itself to him ;
and the abstractness of his concept of God is, by another ethnical
ingredient, the emanistic, rendered to a certain extent relaxed.*
On the other hand, however, his abstract monotheistic conscious
ness reacts on that objective and eternal definiteness in God, so
that the more concrete form which he would be led to construct
out of his simple absolute essence, is again negatived and set aside.
Philo's monotheism lets slip the highest element in the Hebrew
monotheism, namely, the ethical energy which is expressed in
the righteousness of God and His holiness, ever sure of its end;
from the old Hebrew ethics he fans back into the pagan physics;
so that it is self-evident that he holds, and does not hold, the
distinction between God and the world ; sets forth the theogonic
process as weU as the cosmogonic ; and consequently mars his
concept of God by that of the world, and that of the world again
by his idea of God.
Prejudice in his favour has led many recent students of
Philo to present him prominently as holding that God is in His
pure absoluteness the One and Unchangeable. They further
say that this absolute retraction of God into Himself renders a
mediatory being, the Philonian Logos, necessary; and he is not to
be confounded with God, for then would God again be brought
into contact with the world, but must be regarded as a proper
hypostasis, though of subordinate rank. It is true that the
passages in Philo are numerous that speak of God's subHmity.
That God is, says he,2 we may know from the world; for such a
1 See Appendix, Note A.
* [Fliissig, fluid, liquefied. — Tr.]
2 Philo de Monarch. L. I. § 3-6, Opp. ed. Mangey, T. II. pp. 216-218,
ed. Richter, IV. 289-93 ; de poster. Cain. Mangey I. 258, § 48 in Richter;
de somniis, L. I. 40, Mang. I. 655, Richt. III. 264.

INTRODUCTION. 21
work of art, such a mighty city, is not of itself. But how God
is, we cannot find. We must, indeed, constantly search after
this, for the inquiry is too attractive to be relinquished; but
nothing in the world can teach us how God is. " Show me
Thyself, cried Moses. In. the whole world I find no one who
saith to me what Thou art ; Thou must show Thyself to me. I
beseech Thee, be entreated by Thy humble worshipper, and
bring help, for Thou alone canst. For as the light manifests
itself without aid from another light, so must Thou also show
Thyself." It has been thought, since he sets a high value on the
desire to know God, as noble and divine, he stands in this
respect on the threshold of wisdom, longs after the knowledge
of God through God, through revelation. But how does he
make God answer Moses, the representative with him of God
fearing men, his wise man? "What thou desirest is indeed
praiseworthy ; but thy prayer befits no created being. To Me,
indeed, it were easy to grant it, but not to thee to receive it.
I give to each, deserving grace, what he can bear; but heaven and
earth cannot comprehend Me, how much less a human being f"
And not only is the incomprehensibility of God by men asserted
by him. simply, but also His infinitude is, after the manner of
the apophatic* theology, described so that all and every quality,
such as goodness, loveliness, is denied of Him objectively, and
only the attribute of indeterminateness remains.1
But with equal justice might others say : With Philo, God is
anything but a being shut up in Himself ; very much the con
trary. Over all is He, the beginning and bound of aU. Not
only is it in a sense said of the Logos that he is the creator of
the world, and is poured out upon all, but also of God generally
is it said, He fills aU and penetrates all, and there is nothing
which He hath left empty or destitute of Himself.2 He was
and is the Maker of the universe, the world-Father, who sustains
earth and heaven, water and air, and what therein is, and rules
i * [I suppose the author alludes to what divines are accustomed to call
the via negationis, i.e., our way of apprehending God by what He is not.
The term diroQaTixd; is used by Aristotle, see e. gr. Analyt. Pr. Bk. II. ch.
15 ; but its use in theology is a neologism and an affectation. — Tr.]
1 Appendix, Note B.
2 irai/TX yap iriKKiipax.li) i ©li; xa\ lt£ irdtmai) o~iihi)hv6iv, xal xiviu oiliu,
tilt ipvftov u,T?o7\ihoi7rt» iavjov.

22 INTRODUCTION.
over them.1 Here also comes in his doctrine of the trpovova of
God. Moreover, so far is he from describing the simple, self-
resting being of God as anyhow satisfying His essence, that he
calls Him, as also afterwards the Logos, the place of ideas, the
fulness in Himself and through Himself,2 the, place of the
universe, that is, He who has the universe for His fulness, and
that not viewed in its separateness, as it appears to us, but in
its unity. The world belongs necessarily to God, and thereby
is made sure of eternity and incorruptibility.3 Were it to
perish, God would, from want of occupation and terrible inac
tivity, lead a life not worth Hving. Nay, if it be lawful to say
so, the consequence of perfect soHtude would be ddvaroi for
God. By this also may His freedom in Himself from all need,
of which Philo says so much, be rightly apprehended : it is to
be understood so as that there is, in virtue of His goodness, a
need to Him to leave nothing without participation in the Divine
essence ; and all that Philo repudiates is the affirmation that,
conversely, God partakes from the world, or that this can give
Him anything which He has not in Himself. Pervading all
things, omnipresent, He is not comprehended by the world;
receiving nothing from it, He communicates Himself to all,
without which there would be nothing. So entirely does it live
by participation from Him, that He Himself is its reaHty as
the ideal world, which He, under one aspect of His essence, is.
But He Himself does not participate with it as the sensible
world; untarnished by it, He is in it ; taking nothing from it,
He is the active principle (ppaatr/piov), whilst it, by itself con
sidered, is purely passive and determinate (iradyTucbv, ovaia=
With by far too much confidence has it often been asserted,
that the Logos of Philo is an individual essence, occupying a
middle place between God and the world, a distinct hypostasis
from God. But how could Philo in this case have described, in
numberless places, God as in the manner above indicated coming
into immediate contact with the world, only signalizing the
iradrjTtKov, matter, as something external to Him, receptive from
Him ? Against an individual hypostasis of the Logos he speaks
1 Appendix, Note C. 2 Appendix, Note D.
8 De Mundi incorrupt., Mangey, T. II. 503, 504, 508 ; § 16, 17, 20, .21.
4 Appendix, Note E.

INTRODUCTION. 23
most decidedly when he says: "Nothing Divine communicates
itself by means of separation ; it only extends itself."1 In so
far, then, as the Logos is Divine, it is only the extended, or the
selfTextending God. But the Logos has nothing in himself not
Divine ; matter (pixrla) is not created by the Logos, he only
conforms it to himself like a seal ; and as this is also numberless
times ascribed in the general to God, the Logos can be regarded
in no other light than as God Himself viewed under a definite
aspect. Where does Philo show the least anxiety to reconcile
his doctrine of the Logos with the unity of God ? And yet this
he could hardly have avoided, had he co-ordinated the Logos
with God as a hypostatic essence.2 If, in order to represent
God in the definiteness of His self-extension, of the evepyeia or
the world-idea of the creative thought, he constructs proper
categories and names for Him, he does not omit the necessary
correctives in order to preserve what he considers the right
monarchian view (comp. especially De Leg. AHeg. II. 1, Tom.
I. pp. 66, 67). It is true he not only calls the Logos (De Mundi
Opif.) the world-thinking and world-making power of God,
which was its proper concept, so as thereby to denote that aspect
of God under which He appears as in active relation to the
world, as Bpaarijptov, but he caUs Him Son, First-born of God,
the link between God and the actual world; to which may be
added such appellations as Mediator, High-priest, Advocate,
Surety, Archangel, PiUar, etc.3 But from the use of the term
Son by Philo it will not do to infer a hypostasis, because he
calls the world also a son of God; and by this cannot be
denoted a personality, although the world, this younger son of
God, at least in unity with the Logos, the elder Son, appears as
animated and intelligent. If it be considered also how different
are the meanings which the Logos has with Philo, though it is
not in every case of a different object he speaks, there will
arise fresh and weighty doubts as to the assumption that his
Logos is an individual, a second personaHty distinct from God.
If it be assumed, as it must be, that his 0eto? Xoyo? is always
conceived as one and the same, though under varying relations,
his individual personality must be accordant with all his signifi
cations ; if not so, one would be led to inquire whether the
1 Appendix, Note F. - Appendix, Note G. 3 Appendix, Note H.

24 INTRODUCTION.
expressions referred to, that sound as if personal, are not to be
understood as personifications.
1. The Logos with Philo is, first, a Divine faculty, whether
of thought or creation, or both together.1 No one would wish
to affirm that Philo conceived of God as without wisdom or
might ; and yet this must be done if he placed the faculty of
thought and action in another being than God, in the individual
hypostasis of the Son.
2. But the second leading meaning of the Philonian Logos is
the Activity itself. The Logos is not only thought-power, and
creation-power, but also the thinking-creative.2 But neither thus
does he arrive at an hypostasis distinct from God, but only to a
position fluctuating between self-sustenance and attributiveness,
which accords well with a doctrine of Divine potences. God
saw that there could be no fair image without a fair model ; that
nothing sensible is faultless, unless as it is formed on an arche
type and a conceived idea. Wherefore He created, when He
would form this visible world, first the ideal world, in order to
have an incorporeal, God-like type of this corporeal world, this
later image of the earHer. This supersensible world, consisting
in ideas, may not be allocated to any place. Where it existed,
may be indicated by the analogy of the architect who plans a
city in his mind, and expresses each particular which he formed
in idea on his soul as on wax. This city exists in no place ;
but by means of it he constructs the city from stone, according
to the type. So was it with God when He would construct this
world, this Megalopolis.3 Here it is again clear that to God is
ascribed the conception of the ideal world, the icoa-fio? vorrrbs. —
He then proceeds thus : As the soul of the artist is the place of
this ideal city, so has the world consisting in ideas no other place
than the Divine Logos who formed it. Thus it is evident that
the Logos is the understanding of God, which thinks the world.
Immediately thereupon he says : The world-forming might has
also its source in the truly good. The truly good is with Philo
God. Since, then, he finds in the Logos the toVo? for all
powers, he must by the Logos understand God under a certain
definite relation. The Father and Creator, says Plato, is good ;
and hence He grudges not His very best to matter (oiala).
1 Appendix, Note I. 2 Appendix, Note J.'
* De Opific. Mundi, T. I. 4, § 4.

INTRODUCTION. 25
For it had no good out of. itself, though it may become all.
Without, then, using any other help — and what other was there
for Him to use? — only drawing on His own resources, God
resolved to endow with superabundant grace Nature, which out
of itself could not become a participant of any good.1
3. But as the Logos is, with Philo, the thinking, i.e., the
ideal-world-forming God,2 so is He, thirdly, the thought, or the
thing thought, i.e., the ideal world itself. " If one," says he,
" may speak openly, the ideal world is nothing else than the
Logos of God already conceived in the formation of the world "
'[el Se ti? iOeXtftreie yvpvorepoi? ^prjcraadat, Tot? ovofiacrtv ovSev
av erepov efaroi tov votjtov elvai icocrpov, r) Qeov Xoyov i)Bn
KoapoiroiovvToi]? As the ideal city in the architect is not dis
tinct from his mind, having no objective existence, but being
only a determination of his mind, not more is the ideal world dis
tinct from the Logos ; whilst, again, this is not distinct from
God, but is God, thought as intelligence, or world-forming power.
" It is manifest that the archetypal seal which we call the ideal
world is itself the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the Logos
of God."4 In Him a multiplicity of ideas, the fulness, is not
to be denied ; rather does Philo speak of IBeai, \6yot,, in this
sphere also ; but here these are in their eternal harmony and
connection (in the povaBvicq <f)v<ri<s, I.e. § 9), not in their spatial
and temporal antithesis, as they appear in the sphere of the
sensible world, the icoo-po? alcrdrjTos, at least to the party con
templating.5 4. As respects, fourthly and finally, the actual sensible world,
k6<t(£o<; ala0r)To<s, the Logos is here, certainly, frequently called
the active Divine prinoiple. He arises (owreWet), is begotten
of God, for the end that this world may be (T. I. p. 414). Here
is the point at which alone any special person aHty of the Logos
can be supposed. Nevertheless this, by no means foHo'ws from
the words which denote his proceeding from God, since the same
1 De Opine. Mundi, T. I. 4, § 6.
2 It is true there are passages in Philo where God is represented as the
self -illuminating Ught ; but the meaning there must be, not that He thinks
Himself, but that He reveals Himself according to His existence. Of the
Divine self-consciousness he had no idea ; . for the Divine thought ho had no
other contents than the world ; coinp. II. 216-218, 415.
3 Ib. § 6. It is worthy of note that he does not say xoafto'uro.'oiiira
* Ibid. * Appendix, Note K.

26 INTRODUCTION.
expressions are used of the world, to which no personality is
ascribed. Innumerable times is it called the younger son of
God, so that, if the more obscure is to be explained from the
more clear, the elder Son of God would have as little claim to
personality as the younger makes ; and this the more, that the
one is a world as well as the other, — the latter the actual world,
the former the ideal world. Or must this latter be a person, in
order to attain the end of entering the vXr/ ? If Philo had in
view an actual creative act, which he ascribed to the Logos and
not to God, there might be on this point reference to a Divine
hypostasis ; but the Emanatist doctrine requires nothing of this
for the transition from the ideal world to the visible, but rather
repudiates this.
But, as already observed, the forming of the world is ascribed
also to God Himself. This world, the younger son of God, was
not formed by the agency of the Logos as a representative of
God, but God, " availing Himself of Himself, and of the help
of none other," Himself created the world, in that He' impressed
His conception of the world, as the elder Son of God, as a seal
on matter. Matter is to iraQriTMov, soulless, and not self-moved
(De Opif . p. 2), without order, without attribute, full of hetero
geneity, disharmony, and contradiction. But it may become
anything, being capable of transformation into its opposite best :
order, precision, animation, congeniality, symmetry, coherence,
and harmony (same pi. p. 5). It is moved, informed, besouled
by the Divine intelligence .; and thence comes the most perfect
work, this world, the Megalopolis. Although commonly he
represents matter as', given to the Divine agency,1 not created
thereby, he nevertheless bestows on the world the predicate, of
being created (createdness, de Opif. 2) ; meaning by that, how
ever, only that this infusion of the Logos into the world, or this.
self-extension of God into the tfXr), which takes place for the
latter in order to a communication of Himself to it, has always
its cause in God. The nature of the world (as well on the side :
1 In the fragment preserved by Euseb., Prsep. VII. 21, and contained in
Mangey's Philo, T. II. p. 625, from the treatise vtpl npovoUs, it is said that
God found (loTo/xeWro) adequate material for the formation of the world,
neither more nor less than was required. Comp. de Incorr. Mundi. aavep
ex tow fit) Siito; oiliv yhtreti, oi/V el; to fiq Sa Qitipircu. 'E« tow y&p ovlaftq
Hiiro; u.p.4ix,ou>6i> sari yvAo&ui it

INTRODUCTION. 27
of matter as on that of the Logos) has not come to be in time,
passes not away in it, is incorruptible.1 The world is God's son,
vi6$, eKyovoi, for, in its relation to God, it is nothing else than
the ideal world placed in all its fulness in relation with the v\t),
and appearing in it. The distinctive, discriminative principle, is
not the $\r), it is not by it that unity becomes multeity ; but
the «ocr/i,os vontoH is already in itself a membered, ordered
multeity of ideas, which separation Philo sets forth as the pre
supposition of true harmony.2 And this unity, which at the
same time is Fulness, is viewed in relation to matter, together
with it the world of actuaHty. So Httle does Philo bring it to an
actual separation between God, or even the Logos, and the world.
Of creation there can be no mention ; for the ideal world comes
to be the objective actual world, not by any new determination
in itself, but only by its becoming, in relation to the iikt], what
in itself if is from eternity (de Opif. p. 2) ; there being in this for
the ideal world or the Logos nothing new, but only for the vky.z
Let any one now take what has been said, according to
which the Logos is partly identical with the world, and therefore
not personal, partly identical with God, and only in Him per
sonal — the personaHty, however, not being per se — and apply it
to Philo's monotheism, which so decisively excludes any duality
of Divine persons (e. gr. de Somn. 1.39), nay, denies even creative
power to any but God Himself ; and the hypothesis, that with
him the Logos is an hypostasis, will be utterly destroyed. Even
the later Church doctrine, that the hypostasis of the Son issued
from the inner Divine self^diremption, must be quite foreign to
him, since in his view the inner nature of God is and must be
simple, indivisible. Where God is little known in His free
self-sufficiency, He is as Httle contemplated ethically ; He there
remains, of necessity^ only the substance or the Divine basis of the
world, in which latter alonej therefore, can any distinctions exist.
At the same time} it must be considered how these apparently
personal designations of the Logos are to be taken, and how, in
1 De Incorr. Mundi, p. 496. Comp. the above passages, where «b?«|/«
and ipvifiici are represented as for God equivalent to Savcvro;. See p. 22, 32.
2 Under this aspect the Logos is -rofteii; -ran 'i\u». Quis rer. div. hser.
p. 491. But this is also ascribed to God Himself, p. 491. Comp. de Mundi
Opif. § 6, T. I. p. 5. Oiihe yap «j kojjt^ vaKt; hipop it vrtn % 6 row
ctpxirexTOiio; "hoyuifii;, »j5»j t«j» xlafaryii mJup rji i/onrri xti^iiu liscvoovfiivov.
3 Appendix, Note L.

28 INTRODUCTION.
the general, Philo combines the Divine activity in respect of the
world with the abstract essence of God.
After what has been said, it is not difficult to estimate his
appeUations of the Logos. If the Logos, as the /coo-po? votjto?
in the sense alleged, is the principle of the actual world as one
subject to order, he may also be called the Kegent of the world,
and of the powers therein diffused. Inasmuch as these powers
¦ are called, not in a hypostatic, but evidently in a personified
sense, \6yoi and IBeai, also dyyeXot, he may also, as their unity,
be called ciyyeXo? Trpea-fivraToi;, ap^cvyyeXoi; iroXvmvvpo^.1 In
order to indicate that God has His adequate representation
(el/cav) in the icoo-po? vorjrb^, and that His Divine agency in
relation to the sensible is not of equal date with His agency in
conceiving the ideal world, in which God abides identical with
Himself, at home with Himself ;2 Philo may call the Logos, in
his relation to the world of sense, the Legate or {fora/a^os of. the
cosmical host.3 God is iroiprp k. L, but He has set His first-
begotten Son over the world of His reason ; i.e., the Divine
agency in relation to the world has always, as its last principle,
the source ,in itself, that out of which the aU-ruling and pene
trating world-idea sprang. It is thus that we arrive at an
understanding of the name High-Priest, which is ascribed to
the Logos, or to God as the Logos. The Logos4 stands on the
boundaries (of the actual and the ideal world) ; to him, the
archangel and oldest Logos, hath the Father, the Creator of all,
given the most distinguished gifts, that he, standing on the
boundaries, might keep the created separate from the Creator,
and the evil away from the good. Thus he, the warder of fini
tude, is the limit against pantheism, in so far as by the category
of the Logos it is affirmed that the world never can be God as
He is in Himself ; though by this is not excluded the position,
that it is God viewed in relation to His vitality and agency.
Yet even this Philo will not fully admit, inasmuch as to the
world in its actuaHty matter belongs, which in itself is altogether
ungodly. He thus is saved from pantheism in the last resource,
1 De Confus. Ling. T. I, 426.
2 De Migrat. Abr. T/ I. 437. The Logos— here the ideal world— is
God's house.
* De Agric. T. I. 308, § 12.
4 Quis rer. div. T. I. 501 ff., § 42. See Note H in App.

INTRODUCTION. 29
not by his concept of God, for this is not held ethically, but
" only by his view of matter, or his dualism. • In reference to this,
he calls the world of the Logos also God's garment (de Profug.
§ 20, T. I. p. 562). For this actual world, "the mortal, how
ever, the same Logos is at once intercessor with the Immortal,
and ambassador of the Lord to the subject ;" consequently
mediator under both aspects. And he deHghts in his office.
" I stand," he thus introduces him, " mythologically speaking
(T. I. pp. 501, 502), between the Lord and you ; for I am neither
unbegotten as God is, nor begotten like you, but the middle
between the extremes, a surety to both : — to the Creator, that
He may be sure the entire race shall not be consumed and
perish, choosing disorder in place of order ; — to the creature,
that it may have good hope that the gracious God will never
neglect His own work. For I will be the herald of peace, who
brings to the creation from God, the eternal Guardian of peace,
the message of peace." 1 Similarly elsewhere the High-Priest
is the Divine Logos, blameless-in birth and essence ; his Father
the vovs, his mother the ao^ta, Wisdom. The oldest Logos is
surrounded, by the world as by a garment : by earth and water,
air and fire, and what proceedeth thence. He is, as the reason
of the Existing One (God), the bond which unites all parts as
the members, just as the soul of man the members of his body.
The Logos is called also the High-Priest once, as -the faultless
unity of the world, which he represents as the icoa-pos vonTo<;,
the world-idea ; and in this idea is the individual reconciled and
represented to God. In so far, however, as it is not an inopera
tive idea, but makes the actual world with its plastic matter into
an impression of itself, of the Divine seal, or into the garment
wherein He eternally Hves and moves and represents His ideas,
it is real. And as this Hving, powerful unity, it gives bail at
once to the world for its perfection in God's eyes, and to God
Himself, the Existing One. For it is the world itself in respect
of that which constitutes it a icoo-pos, — not simply ideal, but real.
Nevertheless in this world-idea no reference to history is con
tained. The Logos is not the world-idea to be realized from
the world, the free essence, ethically, from God by revelation in
the course of history ; but this world-idea is immediately actual,
1 De Profug. § 20, T. I. 562. See Appendix, Note M.

30 INTRODUCTION.
i.e., physical. Here comes into view the point at which the
deep antagonism of the system of Philo with the Christian idea
clearly emerges ; for in what has been already advanced, there
is often, at least in expression, a deceptive resemblance to
Christian dogmas. But before we enter on Philo's relation to
the Messianic ideas of his people, we must cast a glance back
on what has just been advanced.
From what has been said, it clearly appears, that not only is
there nothing to necessitate our taking the Philonian Logos
hypostatically, but that all that is customarily advanced as
favouring that, when more narrowly looked at, is against it ; as
also, that such a hypostatic plurality in God would be utterly:
opposed to the modes of thought of one under the influence of
an impulse so strongly pressing from plurality to unity of sub
stance. To this tendency he has sacrificed the deep ethical
distinction which the old Hebraism made between God and the
world, and is saved from sinking into an indiscriminate unifica
tion of God and the world only by the narrow ridge of the vkn.
But it does not certainly follow that the entire Logos-doctrine,
with those depending from it, is so to be sunk in the absolute
ness of the simple Divine essence, as that it should be immedi
ately identical with the Divine essence. The Divine Logos is
as Httle God per se (to "Ov), as he is a hypostasis. But since,
as what goes before shows, the Logos is certainly again to be
ascribed, to God, we are constrained to say that in the Philonian
doctrine of the Logos there is a path opened, though from far,
to the doctrine of a distinction in God Himself. God is dis-
¦ tinguished as respects His self-existence and His vitality. (A
higher category Philo could not reach.) As self -existent, He is
rb "Ov ; as an actual being, He is the Logos. To these two chief
elements there is added a third, inasmuch as He as Logos is, 1.
inseparable, and thus He is at once the world of the Divine
thoughts and. the thinker of them ; and, 2. the revealer of
these in matter, which he makes the medium of actuaHty in the
ideal world.1 We have thus the Divine life contemplated in three
stages, through which it advances or extends? itself (T. I. p. 209) :
" God in Himself, the Ideal world, and the Actual world. But to
distinguish these three remains only an attempt: the distinguished
1 Appendix, Note W.

INTRODUCTION. 31
sink again, when narrowly viewed, back together into them
selves ; thus the actual world, so far as it is to be viewed as a
determination of the Divine life, is not in itself distinct from
the ideal world, but only by means of something outward, its
relation to matter. The ideal world itself, however, — nay, the
Logos in the general, cannot be fixed as an objective distinction
of God from God ; for were the Keason to fall actually only on
the side of the Logos, God would hardly be to be called God ;
or were one to say, The Logos is God as thought, the 0eo? with
the <roj>ia of the thinker, this could not, on the one hand, be
carried through strictly, since the Logos is also called the
thinker of the ideal world ; and, on the other hand, we should
thus have no making of God the object of thought, since what
is thought is rather only the world. In fact, he calls God and
the Logos aUke the place of the universe, which embraces all
and is embraced by nothing, since He is Himself One and All :
he desires that the Spirit might in the height of thought tran
scend the plurality of numbers, the Triad, and even the Duad
neighbour to the Monad, and might ascend to the unmixed, abso
lutely simple and independent Idea (see App. G and K). All
apparent plurality in God's working, whether in reference to
"the ideal or to the actual world, is attributable, therefore, to the
beholder. If he, on the one hand, in order to avoid representing
God as Himself appearing, describes the Old Testament the-
ophanies as irradiations of His powers (e. gr. de Abrah. § 22, T.
H. 17 ; de Nomin. Mut. T. I. 581 ; de Confus. Ling. I. 430,
431, § 33), he yet, on the other, regards these powers as not
separate from God, but each as infinitely in Him (de Monarch.
Lib. I. § 6, T. H. 218). As Moses could not see God, he at
least wished to behold His satellites, the Divine powers, which
in their unity are called the 86%a of God. But God answered
that they also are invisible and ideal, incomprehensible as God
in respect of their essence, but they radiate forth an impression
and image of their evepyeia. For to that which is formless and
without attribute they give form, without in aught altering their
eternal essence. Thifcthe powers come to be placed by the side
of God Himself : " Hope not to comprehend either Me or My
powers as respects essence ; the attainable for thee I give thee
readily and willingly. Therefore I summon thee to the con
templation of the world" (same place, p. 219).

32 INTRODUCTION
The whole world framed by God exhales, morning and even
ing, a thankoffering.1 It is vital and intelligent ; 2 Eeason inborn :
in it is the law, the ordering of the universe. It is the son of
God, itself a deiov, /ieyaXoVoTu? tt/so? aXrjOeiav. It is through
and through one and whole ; its power is invincible, for it
embraces aU in itself ; it cannot be divided into parts, but is
indestructible (comp. de Mundi, T. II. p. 616 ff., § 14 ff.). It
cannot fall into confusion ; nor even so much as increase, and
have various stages and ages ; for then would it at first, like
children, be a child, a~Xoyo$, which is without God. It cannot,
he maintains, be denied without sin that the world is always
perfect, soul and body3 (ayewrjTos ical a<j>0apTo<:, T. n. pp. 496
and 505). He is especially vehement against the doctrine of a
consuming of the world by fire ; indeed, generally, of any
palingenesy of the world ;4 for the world seems to him to be
fair and perfect : he has imbibed HeUenic draughts, and misses
nothing in it. Having sunk back from the ethical to the physical
stand-point, he has no sense, no need of history ; there is, in
truth, for him no discord in. the world, and no proper need for
reconciliation. But as, when he has to speak of God, he lays
hold of only the world as the content of God (in place of
thinking Himself in His absoluteness, his God thinks only the
world) ; so with the same mingling of concepts, when he speaks
of the world, he expresses himself so that he denies it to be
a world properly, and substitutes for it immediately Divine
predicates. In the world man holds the first place ; nevertheless, strictly,
to him this is true only of the primal man, .whom it is impossible
to discriminate from the Logos,5 and who, consequently, can
hardly be reckoned as belonging to the actual world. In the
actual world, however, man, with all his imperfection through
the body, nevertheless represents the world in Httle (T. I. p. 494).
The world is the great man, man is the little world, and combines
in himself corporeaUy the four elements.6 Above all has God
1 Quis Rer. Div. T. I. p. 501, § 41. . #
2 See on what follows, especially the treatises De Opif. Mundi, and De
Incorrupt. Mundi, T. I. 28-34, T. II. 495-507.
3 De Mundi Incorr. T. II. 496, § 9 ff. * lb. p. 505.
8 De Opif. Mundi, pp. 32, 33, § 46, 47.
6 De Opif. Mundi, p. 35, §51.

INTRODUCTION. 33
given to him the lordly reason ; the same that is in God is also
in man. From this, indeed, it follows, that as the content of the
Divine reason is the world, it cannot be held to be otherwise with
that of man. Yet man forms the point of unity in the actual
world; and most of au, such an one as is one in thought and will
with the order and reason immanent in the world, which in the
-human consciousness comes to be the vopos.1 Such is the pious
(T. n. p. 407) and wise. Among nations, the Jewish represents
this blossom of manhood ;2 within Israel itself, this place is due
to the prophets, the interpreters of God (T. II. p. 222, de
Monarch. L. I. § 9), and the wise men, for the wise is of equal
worth with the world (laonpos t&> Kocrpw, T. I. p. 165, de sacrif.
Abel, § 3). This nobility of man is a reconciHation, a ransom
for the world. The Jews particularly, the people loved of God,3
discharge in constant and regular manner the office of priest and
that of prophet (which both stand above that of king, H. 124, de
V"it. Moys. I. § 50) .for the whole world. Hence the high-priest,
when he goes into the Holy Place, bears the symbols of the
, whole world, for he represents the universe before God.4 Other
priests intercede and offer only for friends and citizens ; the high-
- priest of the Jews presents prayer and thanksgiving, not only
for the entire race of men, but also for the elements of nature,
earth, water, air, and fire, inasmuch as he regards the world, as
in truth it is, as his fatherland, in whose stead he is bound by
prayer and entreaty to make reconciliation with the Prince.
This substitution has thus also again a physical character : the
world is reconciled through Israel without knowing it, and with
out personally in itself completing the reconciHation. Not less
is the essential equality of all men yet unknown, hidden by a
hierarchia terrestris, which is a copy of the heavenly ; and this
gradation, again, stands connected with the physical character of
his system. Still more is this apparent, as well as the contra
dictions thence arising, from this, that the high-priest, and by
consequence also the wise man, has not the world-reconciling
1 De Opif. Mundi, p. 34, § 60.
2 T. II. p. 15, de Abrah. § 19. They have assumed the priesthood and
prophethood for all nations.
3 Ib.
4 De Vit. Moys. L. III. § 14, T. II. 155- De Monarch. L. II. § 6, T
I. 227.
VOL. T. C

34 INTRODUCTION.
power in himself. But this same world, which he has to recon
cile before God, is to him again the Son, the perfect Paraclete,
which he himself resembles as the little world, the aid of which
he needs to make his service of God of effect. For therefore
must he bear the symbols of the universe, in order that in its
entireness the individual (and thus the ¦ high-priest as weH)
may compensate for his deficiency, and God through it may see
all to be good.1 He has on his holy garments the emblem of
the universe, that he, by the constant contemplation of it> may
make his own Hfe worthy the nature of the universe, as weU as
that he may in his service have the whole world as his co-wor
shippers.2 Now, had Philo admitted a historical development ,;;
of revelation and of mankind, this might have been taken in the
sense that through the whole the individual would be reconciled;
for to the whole world there belongs the sum i of the future
development, which, had he held the idea of the Messiah, \would
be through him rendered certain. But it is the world as it is
that reconciles man ; which, if man be also included in the
world, means as much as that he needs no reconciliation : he is
by his being at one with God, he is, as he is, good and weU-
pleasing to Him ; or, if he must be reconciled by the objective.
world, then again is the world the higher, and the apparent
nobility of man, his distinction, sinks away ;3 as a difference and
mediation for which, a fictitious ground had been assumed.
It is now scarcely necessary to deduce the consequence, that
Philo did not participate in the warm desires and hopes which
filled the heart of the beHeving Jew.* The idea of the Messiah
has become in him a dead coal : nothing but the phlegma of it
remains with him, the hope of a miraculous restoration of the
scattered Jews from all parts of the earth to Palestine by a
superhuman Divine appearance (Syjn<s), which shall be recog
nisable only by the just;8 and this strangely contrasts with the
1 De Vita Moys. L. III. § 14, T. II. p. 155.
2 De Monarch. L. II. § 6, T. II. p. 227.
3 This hes also in the position : The whole heaven and the world cannot
comprehend God, how much less the (piiri; ctvOpairov ! T. II. de Monarch.
L. I. 218.
4 We may even infer from T. II. p. 656, that these were not otherwise
than displeasing to him.
5 De Execrationibus, § 9, T. II. 433 ff., comp. De Praem. etc. § 16, ¦
T. II. 42,3, de Vita Moysis, I. § 29, T. II. 107.

INTRODUCTION. 35
world-citizenship which he ascribes to his people as a com
mendation, and with his satisfaction with the whole world.
This last remnant of the Messianic idea is with him evidently a
hereditary possession ; as heterogeneous to his, system, as in it
without significancy; but it affords us, in its singularity in
Philo, an intimation of the energy of the Messianic hopes among
even the Alexandrian Jews of his time, for it is to his connec
tion with them that this tribute is due. It remains, however,
to ask, why the Messianic idea, and especially the idea of the
incarnation, to which latter he so often approximates,1 find no
place with him ? The answer is, that a reconciliation appears to
him unnecessary on account of his concept of sin and the Divine
righteousness ; whilst the incarnation would be for him an
absolute impossibiHty.
It is true that he ascribes freedom to men ; but he imme
diately appends to that, that God excepts nothing from His
power ; and with this, viewed from Philo's stand-point, the
former hardly consists. For he takes no cognisance of the
category of holy love. Very instructive, however, is what he
says of the creation of man.2 The higher nature of man, his
rational type, must have been engraven by the Divine Logos,
not by God, who is before the Logos, and better than all
Logical nature.3 Hence God speaks of Himself, in Gen. i. 27,
as of another : " I have made man after the image of God."
But why does God speak of Himself, in the plural (Gen. i. 26,
in. 22, xi. 7), "Let Us make man," etc.? This language
relates to His surrounding Powers, for it did not beseem Him
(as "Ov) to have immediate connection with the world. The
Powers (angels, IBiat) had to form the mortal part of our nature,
1 See, for instance, T. II. p. 462, Quod omnis probus liber, § 16 ; T. I.
pp. 280, 283, Quod Deus sit immut. § 10 ff.
2 The principal passages are, De Confus. Ling. T. I. pp. 430, 431 ; De
Profug. p. 556 ; De Opif. Mundi, pp. 17-19. In all these passages Philo
reiterates the same doctrine. This his constant doctrine, therefore, must
be kept in view in the interpretation of the above-cited fragments (T. IT.
p. 625), in which he may appear to speak otherwise.
' For the extensive infinite, which in truth does not surpass the- phy
sical, he shows here also such reverence, that everything Logical and
Spiritual is represented as inferior, since it is a definite thing in God ; on
the other hand, since it also is a definition of God, it is represented as 0foS,
though huripo; ©sa

36 INTRODUCTION.
imitating the skill of Him who formed the princely part in us.
This princely part the Prince of aU things framed ; the lower
part, lower Powers. But man must be able to choose between
good and bad, whilst other beings either can have no fault
and no virtue, like Nature, or have only virtues, like the stars ;
and thus must God transfer the yevecris icaic&v to other beings,
whilst He retains with Himself the source of good. For the
mixture [of good and bad} is partly in keeping with God, in so
far as the IBea of the better is therein mingled, and partly not
in keeping, on account of the antithesis, since the Father cannot
be the cause of evil to His children. Accordingly, evil has its
origin in the creation in which the more subordinate Powers
participated. Elsewhere he reverts to matter as the source of
evil.1 In this way it is difficult to arrive at any personal blame;
since even Philo speaks of evil as if it did not belong to the
concept of it to be posited of the will of man. But if there be
only such physical evil, there is really no evil. In fact, the
evil would, according to him, be easily retaken. He ascribes to
* each soul immediately the divine power of virtue,2 as he else
where says : " Not to sin at an, belongs to God only, perhaps
also to a divine man." This fluctuating laxity culminates in
the concept of God, in the relation which, according to him,
the Divine rectitude has to goodness. " God is not unmerciful,
but gentle by nature. He who beHeves that, comes easily to
repentance, hoping that God will forgive."3 But since Scrip
ture speaks not of gentleness and goodness only, but also of
righteousness and wrath, he attempts to reconcile them by
comparing the lawgiver to a physician, who in what he says
regulates himself by a regard to his patient, not always strictly
by a regard to what truth would dictate. Hence, to terrify the
fierce, and to benefit thoroughly and universally, the lawgiver ;
must represent God as angry.4 Of the earnest strifes in which the !
noblest of the Old Testament folk engaged, to mediate between '
the holy rectitude and the grace of God, he knows nothing. He
1 -This position was still more fully worked out by the Gnostics.
2 T. II. p. 462, Quod omnis probus liber, § 16 ff.
a T. I. p. 561, De Profugis, § 18 ; De Creatione princip. § 14, T. II.
p. 373 ; De Justitia ; De Execratione, § 8 ff . Sometimes the old Hebraic
feeling of rectitude breaks out, T. II. p. 419, De Praem. etc. § 12.
* Quod Deus sit immutab. T. I. pp. 282, 283.

INTRODUCTION. 37
obHterates that which gives the reHgious process its tension — the
holy righteousness, and treats it as a mere figure of speech ;
whereby the whole becomes relaxed, the hope, nay, the aspira
tion after something better is destroyed, and the ethical con
sciousness eudsemoniacally poisoned. For a Divine goodness
that is not righteous can but sink back into the physical ; and
as its highest end, can have only enjoyment, only wen-being,
even though this weU-being may in its highest degree be the
feast of knowledge.1 This knowledge does not thus find its
highest object the spiritual, the divine, but remains a world-
wisdom, world-consciousness, intuition and knowledge of the
world, as of the hoHest theatre.2 And in this undervaluing of
- the Divine righteousness, Philo is a predecessor of Gnosticism ;
by his doctrine of the Divine goodness, he has an appearance of
something Christian, something surpassing the Old Testament
and the stand-point of' law, but in reaHty he sinks back below
¦ this, and renders the Christian redemption superfluous. In the
places where he speaks of the return of his people, he could not
altogether lay aside the old Hebraic doctrine of the necessity of
a foregoing expiation ; but the Jews, according to him, will be
richly supplied with intercessors before the Father, for3 they
will have three irapaicKr)Toi, rwv KaTaXkay&v : 1. The gentleness
and goodness of God Himself, who ever prefers the remission of
punishment. 2. The holiness of the progenitors of the race ; for
the souls set free from the body, which offer pure and unsullied
service to their Lord, present not ineffectual intercessions for their
sons and descendants ; as a mark of distinction, the hearing of
their prayers is certified to them by the Father. 3. The third
Paraclete is the amendment of those who shall be brought under
the covenant. — We have seen above, that according to him the
world is always reconciled to God, always reconciles itself, since
it always stands before God as blameless unity in the Logos,
which from the beginning is immanent in it. Hence to him any
further progress of revelation must have appeared superfluous,
disturbing to the peace, the unity, and the entireness of the world,
1 De Opif. Mundi, p. 18. Appendix, Note 0.
2 De Opif. Mundi, p 18, and T. II. p. 229, De Monarch. L. I. § 6, where
God says to Moses, " And so I call thee, since thou canst not know Me, to
the contemplation of the world."
"3 De Execrat. § 9, T. II. p. 435.

38 INTRODUCTION.
t
looking at it as he did, not ethically, but HellenicaUy. The
' law which Moses gave is one with the law of the world. The
-world is rational; the law, which is immanent in it, Moses
expressed to the consciousness ; therefore is it eternal and not
far from us.1 It is complete and whole, and leaves nothing to
wish beyond.2
According to his doctrine of the Divine image in man (which
he, indeed, without carrying this through, yet intimates to have
been of a progressive character3), his participation in the Divine
Logos already by nature (see above), one would expect that
Philo would set forth the closest relation between the Divine
and human nature, and that the idea of the incarnation could
not be strange to him. He speaks* of heroes, in whom mortal
and immortal elements were mixed, in whom the mortal was
overruled by the immortal part, and intimates it as possible that
other such may appear. But with all this, the Divine remains
foreign to the human according to its nature. Where the Divine
light shines forth, there the human fades (Quis rer. div. hseres,
§ 53, T. I. p. 511), and where the former sinks, the latter blazes
up. Qepts.yhp ovk ecm Bvryrbv aOavdra a-vvoiicrjaai. Hence
to the idea of Prophecy, ecstasy belongs. The reason of this lies
not so much in this, that Philo distinguishes a hidden God from
the actual ; for he brings in God as saying to Moses,5 " To Me
it would be easy to give what thou askest, but not for thee to
receive." It is rather, on the one hand, in his idea of God
ever falling back to simple physical endlessness, and on the
other, in the vKrj mingled with all mortals, that we are to seek
the reason why " God according to the greatness of His grace
-is not communicable, but is to be received according to the
capacity of the creature. His power is insuperable; all the
powers of God are without limit, endless ; that which has come
into being is too weak to receive His greatness:6 and so God
gave to our nature not all, but only so much as our mortal com
plexion could apprehend." 7 If man would reach a higher being,
he must leave the body. We have seen that he knew to dis-
1 T. I. p. 34. 2 De Justitia, T. II. p. 360. See Appendix, Note P.
3 See e. gr. De Confus, Ling. I. 426.
1 Quod omn. prob. lib. T. II. p. 462, § 14 ; De Migr. Abrah. § 31,
T. I. p. 463.
' De Monarch, p. 216 ff. ' De Opif. § 6. f De Opif. p. 35, § 51.

INTRODUCTION. 39
tinguish God and the world, so that the former is the Agent,
the Unchangeable, — the latter^ the Mutable, the Passive. This
distinction would have seemed to him confounded were God to
become man. For he knew neither to treat suffering as an act,
nor the body as other than limit and bound; whereas Christianity
treats it as not merely the organ of the spirit, but also as a
representation of it, or as the essential momentum of its self-
reaHzation. His Christ, if he needed any, could only be the
Aoyos dtBio<s (comp. the fragment in Eusebius, Prasp. Evang.
vii. 13) ; consequently a Doketic Christ; but never once does he
indicate a longing for a new Theophany. So little, also, has he
of even a metaphysical union of the cosmical opposites, God and
the World, that Man, who at the highest is viewed as the point
of unity in which the extremes meet, inasmuch as the Divine
Logos and the vXrj are united in him, nevertheless under two
aspects does not truly represent this unity. For God remains
foreign to the actual humanity; Philo's concept of God is
widely removed from the acknowledgment of the man-being or
the man-becoming as a determination placed in God Himself ;
whilst man himself remains so foreign to the other extreme, the
vXr], that it is without it he has his true development, as Philo
conceives the original man and the perfected man ; so that both
termini, God and v\tj, lie without man, absolutely limit his free
dom and his knowledge, and an absolute mystery as well as in
superable might of gravity stand over against him. They stand,
however, also unreconciled over against each other; and as
their dualism, mirroring itself in the consciousness of men, mtist
impose the deepest unhofiness, he sets also over against God,
who cannot become perfect Master of matter though He would,
• a dark Fate, robs the concept of God of its monotheistic abso
luteness, and impresses on it one of a pagan character.
Philo, imbued with the HeUenic idea of beauty and wisdom,
knew how to clothe over these contradictions, and to give to the
scientific, ethical, and religious cheerlessness of his position the
colouring of. brightness and beauty. But very far from that
nature-growth of beauty of the Greeks was the artificial har
mony which he composed. This appears to him at the same
time as something higher, namely, that union of the heathen
and the Jewish which as a historical problem was imminent .:
and it must be acknowledged, that in his system the human

40 INTRODUCTION.
• mind has made the attempt to complete the union of the pre-
Christian rehgions. To Christianity, hardly then in its dawn,
he presents himself in this respect as a rival. But bHnding
as is the resemblance^ on a superficial view, of many of his
ideas and modes of expression with Christianity, the principle
of both is fundamentaUy different, and even the seemingly
similar, when taken in its connection with the whole, has a quite
different meaning. With Christianity he would let the world
celebrate an eternal reconciHation through the Logos ; but
what the fact of the Divine condescension was intended for
the first time to estabHsh, and what the ancient saints, in fulfil
ment of their pious longing, were authorized to expect as a
Divine fact, that he imagined as already done, nay, eternaUy
happening, and thus set aside Christianity. So that his system
came, like an apparitional contrast, to the cradle of Chris
tianity ; or appeared like an impalpable dissolving Fata mor
gana on the horizon on which Christianity had to arise.
At the same time, it is not to be denied that this system has
contributed somewhat to Christianity in the course of its deve
lopment ; but this is the service which all opponents of Chris
tianity, even its antipodes, render : merely that he should have
something in accordance with Christianity, was demanded of
him by, his system as historicaUy unfolded, and, still more, that
Christianity should with it. Philo's mind, and without doubt
that of many of his contemporaries, laboured philosophically at
the same problem as that which the person of Christ in fact,
and from Him the Church historicaUy, has solved and is solv
ing. And since also the Christian fact, as it is the historicaUy
reaHzed idea of religion, and seeks to be so recognised, has to
reproduce the ideal according to all its moments the same, the
tendency thereto was the earlier called forth from the circum
stance that Christianity entered a world impregnated with ques
tions and ideas which were allied to it. As thought began to
place the Christian idea in relation with the sphere of reason, it ,
came in most intimate contact with those pre-Christian essays
and ideas, and allowed itself at first, as we shall see, not seldom
to be drawn out of its own proper track; but the Christian
principle, for which these questions were essentiaUy modified by
the entering in of the fact of Christianity, not only again col
lected itself, but had aUowed itself to enter into that alliance

INTRODUCTION. 41
with philosophy in order to take in its own time the reins in its
own hand, and to initiate a new era in philosophy. Of this
influence of the PhUonian collective tendency on the Chris
tian world, the Alexandrian Gnosticism is the most remark
able monument, though by no means the only one, as, for
instance, Justin Martyr and the Alexandrian Church-fathers
show.1 From what has been advanced, it appears that the deriva-
¦ tion of the idea of the incarnation of God from Hebraism or
Judaism* is untenable. It is not from the former ; for it is
utterly foreign to that development of the idea of God which
we find in the Old Testament, that the only God, Jehovah,
should have condescended to the finite so as to become man in
time, to mingle in the commonness of every-day life, and expose
Himself to the vicissitudes of human existence. There may be,
in the judgment of some, more probability of the Christian idea
being connected with Judaism. But the two principal parties
whom we best know, the Alexandrian and the Palestinian
Jews, were demonstrably ignorant of the idea of an incarnation
of God. We must consequently betake ourselves to that varied
mixture of heathen and Jewish modes of religious representa
tion which is to be found in secret doctrines, or in the dim
fancies of smaU individual sects about the time of Christ. But
these contain partially marvellous and fantastic things, such as
the doctrine of the Adam Kadmon, or First Man. The one
side of this mystical doctrine is that according to which is in
tended by him the male-female first being from which, by means
of a separation of the sexes, an emanation begins ; representa
tions which have evidently come over into it from the nature-
religions, and would be abhorrent from the whole character of
Christianity. The other version of this doctrine is, that by the
Adam Kadmon is to be understood a high created being, made
in the image of God, whether we caU it Man or Archangel.
1 See Appendix, Note Q.
* [The German divines distinguish Hebraism from Judaism, applying the
former term to designate the religious system developed in the Old Testa
ment, and the latter to designate the system of traditionary behef which
arose after the closing of the 0. T. canon. The distinction of nomenclature
is founded on a passage in Josephus, Antiq. XI. 5, 7. See De Wette
Lehrbuch der Christ. Dogmatik, vol. I. p. 53, third edit. — Tr.]

42 INTRODUCTION.
This Adam Kadmon passes through a whole series of incorpo
rations : he has appeared as Adam, as Enoch, as Noah, etc. ,
and last of aU he appears in the Messiah. It need hardly be
pointed out that the Cliristian idea of the God-man receives no
illustration from this : in the incarnate Archangel there is no
manifestation of God in manhood ; only an Arian Christ could
be illustrated from this, which is no Christ, since he leaves God
in the background. Nor does the pantheistic Emanationism
improve the matter, it rather makes it worse ; for by the multi
plicity of incarnations, each individual incarnation is degraded.
How much, however, with all these mystics the proper Divine
essence is the far-off, self-enclosed original essence, to which it
is consequently a contradiction to become man, not simply do-
ketically, but in reality, is shown directly by that gradation of
being, or incorporations of the same high Being, which at least,
as apparently mediating between the true Divine essence and
man, are placed between them. A third phase of this doctrine
is, that from the original Being Adam Kadmon sprang as a her
maphrodite, which forthwith spHt into two sexes, the Son and the
Holy Ghost. Against this notion unite the reasons which have
been adduced against the two former, between which it unde
cidedly wavers. But enough of these perplexed and fantastic
ideas. They are instructive to us in so far as they, whether origi
nated in the time of Christ or later, show how the mind ever
felt itself pressed towards the same problem, to see an essential
inner unity estabHshed 'between God and man. But the, un
biassed feeling must judge whether the Christian doctrine of
the God-man stands related to this as its copy, or this is not
¦ rather a paganized caricature of the archetype which appears
historicaUy in Christianity.
Of the Theologoumena of this time, there further come
under this head the Memra (Word=\oyo?) and Shechinah, as
also the Metatron. Of all these, however, it is to be said,
that either they never grew into the assertion of an hypostasis,
but affirmed only the parastatic appearance of God, or the
mere symbol of His presence, and hence the Targums identify,
e. gr., the Memra with Euach ; or, conversely, though they are
made to represent a personality (especially to the Metatron), a
higher heavenly being, he is still a creature, so that the truly
Divine Hes ever beyond it. To the idea of an incarnation of the

INTRODUCTION. 43
properly Divine these Theologoumena never as a whole con
ducted.1 Up to this point we have considered how far the Old
Testament and the Jewish modes of treating the relation of
God to the world, and consequently the path from above to
below, are opposite to the New Testament; It remains to take
the* converse view, the anthropologic, for the purpose of seeing
bow the concept of man conforms to that of the God-man. The
Hebrew popular genius framed for itself in the divinely-inspired
prophets an ideal of man, and sought in this the balance and
reconciliation between God and man. The ideal is the servant
of God, that is, the subject in whjch the Old Testament right
eousness, the Tsedaka, is so represented, that he is the perfect
servant of God, that is, does God's service perfectly, in obedience
and piety. Now, even if we adopt Nitzsch's fine remark, and
say that the Old Testament not only recognises a BovXo?, but
also sees realized a nearer relation to God, e. gr. in Moses, —
who appears hence to be called afterwards Qepanrwv, nay, rises to
the idea of an oltcovopos, who, as a steward over the house of the
Lord, is trusted by Him as a confidential servant, — still there is
a long way from this to the New Testament Son of God. It is
true that this phrase occurs not seldom in the O. T., having re
ference in the theocratic sense to a moral or particular per-
sonaHty ; as e. gr. Jer. xxxi. 20, " Is not Ephraim My dear son,
My beloved child ?" Hosea xi. 1, " When Israel was young,
then I loved him, and oalled him, My son, out of Egypt ;"
comp. Jer. xlix. 15, and so also Ps. n. 7 of our subject. But
the metaphysical, the essential unity of this niiT'-fa with God is
not sufficiently to be proved even from the last passage. On
the other hand, the nirp-iajj is certainly concentrated ever more
and more into a high personality, in which the scattered fea
tures of aU the servants of God in Israel become collected. He
is not merely a moral person, identical with Israel as opposed to
the heathen, or with the prophetic body as opposed to the Spirit-
forsaken Israel, but the servant of God. Still more the three
fold theocratic office, the royal, the priestly, and the prophetic,
never united in any ordinary man, is represented as combined in
David's Son, and herein is completed the image of the Messiah;
1 See Appendix, Note R.

44 INTRODUCTION.
Still, even in this there is no going beyond the theocratic
ideal of the servant of God. It lies, indeed, in the nature of
the case, that the human ideal sometimes in its predicates passes
into a higher sphere. If the inspiration which is ascribed to the
prophets is ascribed to them in the fullest measure, it can no
longer be represented as an operation from without, but passes
into an essential being and dwelHng of God in the prophet ; the
prerogatives of kingly might, conceived in their fulness, pass
over into the Divine predicates of eternal and all-embracing
rule ; and, in fine, the idea of the perfect high-priest leads to a
not merely symbolical, but to a practically powerful and actual
substitution, and this again oversteps the Hmits of man as an
individual related to others simpty as brother.1 — When, in fine,
it is said, Dan. vii. 13, "I saw One like unto a son of man
coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of days ; who
gave Him power, glory, and kingdom," etc., there is undoubtedly
showed in the vision the glorification of the human to the higher
majesty; for had only the form been human, Daniel would
certainly have said "an angel." But not mankind in general,
but only Israel, seems, according to verse 27, to be understood
by the son of man, so that as before with " the servant of God,"
¦ we have here a moral personaHty brought to become an actual
anthropological one.* And so, on the anthropological side also,
we arrive at the result, that from the Old Testament stand-point
it was impossible to announce that a man was God, or God's
son, not simply in a figurative, but in an actual, metaphysical
sense. Now, had there been no passing beyond the Old Testament;]
ideas, the concept of the revelation of God, viewed from above
downwards, would have remained incomplete, the aotpla would j
have found no sure and abiding place ; looked at from below
1 Comp. Is. ix. 6, 7, xlii. 1, liii., with Ps. xlix. 8, 9.
* [This inference by no means follows ; for the fact that the people of
the Messiah are represented as in and through Him sharing in His power
and glory, no more proves that the phrase, " son of man," is a collective
designation of thejn, and not a personal designation of Him, than the same-
fact occurring in the N. T. would prove that the terms apphed to flesignate|
our Lord are not personal but collective. In ver. 27, " the people of the
saints of the Most High" are distinguished from the latter ; and the language
used of them is such as to lead to the impression that this term is employed
to designate the same being who in ver. 14 is called " A son of man." — Tr.I

INTRODUCTION. 45
upwards, the Old Testament ideal itself would not have been
completed. The self-revealing God, or Logos, and the concept
of man, stand so related to each other, that the one reaches its
perfect actuaUty and truth only through the other ; i.e., only as
the condescending grace ' of God is a humanification of the
Logos, is the latter the absolute revealer of God ; and only as
He is a man who is at the same time the Logos, is the entire
idea of manhood reaUzed. In this lies the reason why the entire
Old Testament mode of thought arrives first at its truth in the
idea of the God-man, so that this religion, as well as the pagan,
struggles after this idea. Thus there Hes not less in the above
the proof that this idea came as little within the bounds of
Hebraism and Judaism, as those of heathenism.
And so, in the retrospect of all religious history before
Christ, we find this as a Prseparatio Evangelica in the fuUest
aense, and as serving for a proof that Christianity gives expres
sion to that which aU religions seek, that it embraces within
itself whatever is true in Heathenism and Judaism; but not less
for a proof also that the idea of the God-man, which so
peculiarly characterizes Christianity, has not emerged from
without Christianity, but wholly from within it. To Christianity
this idea is original and essential. The beginning was the fact,
and the fact gave the knowledge.

Whilst, however, aU genuine historical investigation presses
to the result that the Founder of our religion was Himself,
through His own self-consciousness, and the utterance of that
to others, the cause at once of the introduction into the minds
of men of the Christian idea of the God-man and of the attri
bution of that to Him ; it would be rash to conclude, that from
the first it was a constitutive element of the Christian doctrine
expressly and consciously to ascribe to Christ all that without
which the idea of God-manhood, in its truth and in its whole
extent, cannot be thought. Such an opinion would be wholly
at variance with the picture which we must form especially of
the first centuries, when a very respectable party of Christians
did not by any means ascribe to Christ all that is involved
in the concept of perfect Godhead — nay, when the Church
iitself affirmed neither of this, nor of the humanity of Christ,
all that belongs to the concept of each respectively. Such

46 INTRODUCTION.
an opinion would also indicate a want of perception of how it is
• that the mind arrives graduaUy at consciousness in rehgions
things. The Church, indeed, from the first received the Christian
truth in its totality, but not in a fully developed form. Hence she
could not immediately diffuse, in sharp, definite, dialectic shape,
the contents of the faith which she bore, shut up within her, com
plete in aU its parts' ; but she abode by declarations such as the
immediate necessity required, and which were to a certain extent
unsatisfactory to a later age, and in want of completion. She was
not thereby, however, ,deprived of a certain tact which guided
her securely to the detection and excision of what was hostile to
the faith. As in reference to morality the conscience, though
unable in every moment to determine quickly and securely how
the moral problem is to be solved, yet knows by a safe tact to
discriminate what is evil; so there is a faith-conscience; and
this is the less deceptive the more the Church remains in the
concentrated sincerity of her primitive state, and the more
immediately the questions mooted approach the central point of
Christianity. Hence that clearness and firmness which we find
in the Church decisions of the first centuries; hence the spiritual
authority which, after so many centuries, is willingly conceded to
these decisions. In this state of affairs, it need not seem strange
to us that the Church, when called upon by the assertion of
unchristian positions, either to repudiate these, or to assert the
Christian truth in opposition to them, should have had no con
viction that she had in the strict sense aught new to assert; but
rather, that she had to maintain and freely utter that which she
had always borne within her.1 By more recent investigations!
indeed, the progressive working of the Christian mind fron|
element to element has been brought to be recognised, and con
sequently it has been shown how the definite and conscious
adduction of each individual element is certainly new; but, on
the other hand, we should grievously err were we, overlooking
1 When the ancient Church, after the fitting enunciation of' a theological
truth, uttered as it were from her very soul, was found by some of her
teachers, expressed this by saying, This teacher has not said this as its
author, but t»ji/ rns 'ixxMolu,; pwrixviii cpfuniaeei Ktxpoib'totii, the essential
fact was thereby expressed. The Church teachers are not authors of dogmas,
but interpreters, or the mouth of the Church.

INTRODUCTION. 47
that original implantation of the truth in its totality (though
as yet in immediate or relatively unconscious form), to incline to
the opinion, that nevertheless the individual articles of the faith
only graduaUy came into being, and so have only a Church
raHdity. He who would adopt this latter view, and would
thence deduce the accidental character of the particular dogmas,
their purely human origin, or, it may be, their untruthfulness,
would betray an ignorance of the organizing plastic power of a
new principle such as Christianity is, and a deficiency in pro-
founder historical insight, akin to that of those who conversely
believe that Christianity itself is to be conceived through
pre-Christian paraUels.
We shall set forth this more minutely, with direct reference!
to our dogma.
The reason of the general impulse to think the elevation of
Christ in a peculiar way, which is evident enough even in. the
Judseo-Christian tendency, and which cannot rest until it finds
satisfaction in the assertion of a opoovaia of the Son with the
Father, is based in the essence of Christianity itself. The fact
that men strictly trained in Judaism, like Paul, give, in their
writings, to Christ such high Divine predicates, which stand in
direct contradiction with strict Jewish monotheism, remains
inexpHcable, unless we presume a total and overmastering change
of their religious views, by which these were transposed into an
entirely new element of thought and Hfe. There wants not,
indeed, from the beginning^, an objective doctrine on the nature
of Christ. His declarations" concerning Himself would be
transmitted ; for the two statements stand connected, " I believe,
therefore have I spoken," and " Faith itself cometh by preach
ing." But this doctrine came to be truly and spiritually appro
priated first in the following way : — They had experienced
Christianity as a Divine history of their inner being ; beHeving
in Christ they had obtained access to God, in the Son they had
fpund the Father. In this innermost, most certain fact of their
consciousness, there lay for them the impulse and the necessity
to placte the person of Christ, the founder of this their new
life, in the closest, most vital relation to the Father.1 In this
all Christians were at one; but the first preachers of Christianity,
1 See Appendix. Note S.

48 INTRODUCTION.
no less than Christians of the following times, differed from
each other as to the measure of knowledge they possessed of the
relation between God and Christ. Besides the divers measure
of individual impulse and natural incHnation to Christian gnosis,
there must with the Apostles have been an especial effect pro
duced by outward circumstances and relations, through which
the Christian spirit of some would receive a more universal
culture (as with Paul and John), but through which it would
become more difficult for others quickly, and when set loose from
the fetters of traditional modes of thought, to advance in free
Christian knowledge. Hence, as we shall presently see, the
former already unfold more specially the relation of Christ to
God, but the latter not.
The History of Dogmas, as such, has to do, not with the
utterances out of which faith springs, i.e., not with the objective
doctrinal declarations of Christ and His Apostles, but with the
faith that is exhibited to the knowledge of men, or developed into
Church doctrine. It belongs to other departments of inquiry
to set forth the doctrine of Christ concerning Himself, and the
testimony of the Apostles, since the import of the canon cannot
become the first link in the chain of Dogmatic History. History
of Dogmas has to show how the objective testimony concerning
Christ, given for aU times, is, in the entire fulness of all its
elements, more and more disclosed to the consciousness of the
Church in virtue of her work, conducted by the .Holy Ghost.
No generation of the Church, least of all the first, has the entire
riches of the apostoHc preaching vitaUy in it; the word of Christ, J
and His Apostles rather stretches beyond and over each, as the
all-sufficient norm, even to the end of time. But in spite of this
its dogmatic position, the testimony of Christ and the Apostles
finds its place also in the History of Dogmas; it forms the
impulse which must be presupposed in the dogmatico-historicalj
process of the Church. To view it merely as a part of this
process itself, would be to treat it erroneously as respects its
characteristics; but starting from it as the impulse without which
the spiritual movement, which Dogmatic History has to describej
would be incomprehensible, we gain at least this much, that the
sufficient cause of this movement is brought to Hght. For this,3!
however, the highest types of doctrine in the canon are not
required; the lower wiU suffice.

INTRODUCTION 49
When Dogmatic History occupies itself with the Christian
truth, inquiring how it has become a subjective possession in
the Church, and has more and more developed itself under the
guidance and direction of the written accredited testimony of the
Apostles, the differences which appear in the canon on even
Christological points, have, as respects its beginning, but Httle
significancy. For Dogmatic History cannot in that case expect
or show at the beginning, in the coUective conviction of Chris
tians, a mirror of the highest which the canon contains on the
Christology; on the contrary, it is only natural and in full
order that that canonical form of doctrine should soonest find
vogue which approaches nearest to the pre-Christian modes of
thought. Only the specifically Christian element therein must
ever be preserved unadulterated;1 a condition which we must
extend, in part, to everything that is the object of Dogmatic
History. For phenomena in which the specifically Christian
element is no longer retained, or never has existed, no one has
any right to draw into a history of Christian dogmas. Where the
Christian fundamental presumption is wanting, i.e., where there
is not an acknowledgment that in' Christianity something Divine
has become historical, and that something Divine of a decisive
significancy, and furnishing the complement of religion ; then it
is no longer Christianity of which men speak, but something
pre-Christian which has some appearance of Christianity. But
neither a reflection of the whole, nor of some one Christian
element, is a Christian element itself. For one Christian ele
ment is not where the other elements, though it may be in
fettered state, oppressed, nay, menaced by the overweight of the
one, are not to be found. This is the peculiarity of the Chris-
' tian truth, that it either exists whoUy — though, it may be, in a
very incomplete form — or not at all; and this is involved in
the relation of Christian thought to belief, the latter being the
prior, and not^hat which receives its first estabHshment through
thought.2 If now we pass over to the introductory consideration of the
impulse which the concept of a history of dogmas presumes,
there are two things against which we must be on our guard.
First, we must beware of treating it so narrowly as to presup-
1 See Appendix, Note T. 2 See Appendix, Note TJ.
VOL I. »

50 INTRODUCTION.
pose in the appearance of Christ, and the testimony of His
- Apostles concerning it, nothing essentially new. If we do this,
we shall, to speak briefly, deprive Dogmatic History of its proper
and peculiar principle. Secondly, however, we must guard
against setting forth this impulse, as it operated in the Church,
as so dogmatically formed from the beginning, th^t we shall
* accredit the Church with the immediate possession of what was
the collective property of the Apostles. But it is according to
nature that the development within the Church, just that it may
be really its own, that it may proceed systematically and not in
a desultory manner, begins with what is still for the majority
indefinite ; which, as such, is, dogmatically (not practically) con
sidered, at the same time, as yet, the most imperfect form of thp
Christian truth. Hence the right course will be here to consider
somewhat more closely only that form of apostoHc doctrine
which undoubtedly stands nearest to the Christological stand
point of the primitive Church, and represents the sure as well
as sufficient impulse for its dogma-framing activity. We would
not thereby exclude the fact, that at a later period the Paufine
and Johannine form of doctrine obtained a decisive guid
ing and directing influence. But as Paul and John do not
-essentially differ from the others, — rather only as the advanced
development differs from the germ ; so does the synoptic age
of Christology not essentially differ from that later age in
which the influence of Paul and John predominates : the later
- Church did not receive something new as from without,
but only a higher form of the doctrine held by the primitive
Church. Now, within the New Testament canon, which presents to us
( the apostolic form of doctrine, there is no writing to be found
in which the Christian fundamental presupposition — and that in
its double form, the Christological and the anthropological — is
not expressed. For our present object, there are at least three,
principal types of doctrine to be discriminated : 1. That which
¦ approaches nearest to the Old Testament, and to which James,
the Synoptists, Jude, and Peter conform ; 2. the Pauline, which
^ presents what is speciaUy Christian in its distinction from the
O. T., and construes it rather in the anthropological than in
the Christological form ; and, 3. the Johannine, in which the
objective Christological form predominates, and which, conse-

INTRODUCTION. 51
quently, though not destitute of an Old Testament background,
is yet especially adapted to suit the Hellenic mind, and to show to
such, in Christianity, as well the truth contained in the heathen
theory of the world, as its difference therefrom (1 John v. 20,
21). But the two latter may be dismissed here with the single
remark, that there can be no doubt about them ; in the First
Epistle of John, the genuineness of which is unquestioned, not
less than in his Gospel, in the earlier epistles of Paul not less than
in those to the Colossians, the PhiHppians, the Ephesians, and
the Pastoral Epistles, there is ascribed to the Son not merely a
moral but an essential divinity, a not merely economical but an
ontological or metaphysical relation to the Father ; so that He,
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, a Holy Triad, renders the
work completed by this Person the absolute end of the creation
of the world, accomplishes the completion of rehgion through
the reconciHation with God in Christ.1 Not less with Paul and
John is the true manhood of Christ, and its perfect historical
reality, indubitably taught and presupposed.2
1 See from Paul such passages as 2 Cor. v. 17-21 ; Gal. ii. 20 ; Rom.
viii. 11, 31 ff., vi.^1-10 ; 2 Cor. i. 19-21 ; 1 Cor. xvi.' 22 ; Gal iii. 17, 22,
26, 27, iv! 6, 26 ; 2 Cor. v. 1Q, xiii. 1$ ; Col. i. 13-21 and Phil. ^ii. 6-10
comp. 1 Cor, x. 4, 9, xv. 22-28, 45, 47 ; and 1 Tim. iii. 16, which passage,
¦ even with the reading os, asserts the pre-eiistence of Christ according to
His Godhead. Comp. also 1 Tim. i. 15. From John comp. 1 Ep. i. 1-3 ;
Gosp. i. 1-4, 14, 17, 18 ; 1 Ep. iv. 2, 15, ii. 23, v. 5-7, 9, 12, 20 (God in
Christ is the true God), i. 7, ii. 2, iv. 10, iii. 5, 16, 20, 21, comp. Gosp. i.
29, iii. 14-16, xi. 51, 52, x. 15, 17, vi. 51. Christ's eschatological position,
1 Ep. iii. 2, ii. 28 ; Gosp. v. 26-29. His oneness with God not merely in
a moral sense, Gosp. v. 17, xiv. 9, 10, 30, xvii. 5 comp. 1 Ep. ii. 23, 24,
iv. 9, 10, 15, 16. The Divine Triad, e. gr., 1 Ep. iii. 23, 24', ii. 24 comp.
27, iv. 13, 14, v. 10 comp. 6 ; Gosp. xiv. 16, 17 comp. 23, 26, i. 33,'xv. 26,
xvi. 7-9, 13. From the Apocalypse comp. xix. 11-16, v. 6-8, 12, 13, i. 5,
17, 18 comp. 8, iii. 14, 21, .vi. 16, 17, vii. 15-17, xi. 15, 8, xii. il, xiii. 8,
xvii. 14, xix. 7, 8, xx. 6, xxii. 13.
2 John i. 14 comp. xvii. 2, i. 32, 52, ii. 13, iv. 6, v. 27, vi. 27, 53, vii.
39, viii. 16, 28 f., 40, x. 11, 15 comp. xv. 13, x. 33, xi. 15, 35, 38, 41, 50
(comp. ix. 11, 24), xii. 23, 27, 34, xiii. 23, 31, xix. 17, 18, 26, 28, 30, 34,
xx. 11, 17 ; Apoc. xiv. 14, i. 17, 18, xi. 8, i. 5 ; Rom. i. 3, ix. 5, iii. 25,
v. 6-10, vi. 3-10, vii. 4, viii. 2, 3 ; 1 Cor. i. 23, ii. 7, x. 15, 16, xi. 3,
24-27, xv. 3-8 (comp. Acts xxiii. 6, xxii. 8-10, ix. 5, xvii. 31) ; 1 Cor.
xv. 47 ; i liiripo; Mpam; Rom. v. 14, 19 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18 (comp. 1 Cor.
xv. 49), iv. 6, v. 16 ; Gal. ii. 20, iv. 4 ; Eph. i. 20-23, ii. 6, v. 23 ff. ;
Phil, ii 6-10 (comp. Rom. xiv. 9, 11 ; 2 Cor. v. 10) ; Col. i. 13-19, 24,

52 INTRODUCTION.
As respects the rest of the New Testament writers, special
consideration must be given to the Synoptists, as it is well known
that the proclamation of the Gospel commenced not so much with
" doctrine as with history, in which the doctrine was contained.
The history of Christ forms most certainly the common good of
the first Christians ; above all, the fact of His death and of His
resurrection. But with that was conjoined the relation of His
miracles, of His discourses, which even with the Synoptists refer us
to His person as the central ptrint. Among these discourses, those
especiaUy important for our present object are the eschatological.
In the synoptical Gospels Christ has commonly the names
vib<; Qeov and vlbs dvQpamov. Of these the Apostles usually give
Him the former when they would designate Him worthily ; the
latter they do not apply to Him, it is His own self-chosen name.
The title, Son of God, in the Synoptists, does not refer to the
meaning of this phrase in the Old Testament ; He is not merely '
a son of God, as was David, or other kings of Israel, or pious
men of this people, or as the prophets ; He appears, in general,
not as one among many, not as one of the sons of God, but as
The Son, the only, the well-beloved ; and, though they do not
use the expression, " Only-begotten," they have the meaning,
that which ascribes to His Sonship exclusiveness* (comp. Matt.
iii. 17, xvii. 5, xxii. 42-45, xxi. 33 ff. comp. 37 ; Mark xii. 6).
In contrast with Him, the great men and prophets stand as BovXoi
before the v/o? : David's Son is also David's Lord. But there
are principaUy three meanings which the phrase vtd? ©eov has in
these Gospels. The first we may caU the physical (Matt. i. 23 ;
Luke i. 35), because He has this name by. nature,, and on
" account of the mode of His birth. Of John it is said, " He
shaU be fiUed with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb"
(Luke i. 15) ; where the existence of the person of John pre- [
cedes the filling with the Holy Ghost. Of Jesus it is said, j
Because He comes into being through the power of the Holy J
Ghost (Luke i. 35), because He is conceived by the power of
the Holy Ghost (Matt. i. 20), and so is from a Divine essence}!
ii. 9, 14 ; 1 Tim. i. 16, ii. 5, 6, iii. 16 ; 2 Tim. ii. 8 ; Tit. ii. 12-14 ; Heb.
i. 3, ii. 7, 10, 14, 17, 18, iv. 15, v. 1, 2, 7-9, vii. 26-28, ix. 11-16, x. 10,
14, 20, xiv. 20, xii. 2, 24, 25, xiii. 12.
* [Eindgkeit. We want an equivalent for this in English. Might one
form a word, and express it exactly by " soleity " f  Tr.]

INTRODUCTION. 53
He has the name Son of God (Luke i. 35, 32) ; there is in Him
God with us (Matt. i. 33) ; God has in Him redeemed His
people (Luke ii. 11), yea, aU mankind (Luke ii. 14, 31) ; and
v He has become the Sun of mankind, who brings a new morning
(Luke i. 78), inasmuch as in Him God is historically present.
And it is not one of the natures that has this name, but the entire
Person. But what this is by nature and in itself, that must it
become through a truly human development. So far as He veri
fies and morally realizes this His natural Divine Sonship, we have
thereby the concept of the ethical Sonship of God (Luke ii. 52,
49, iv. 3, 9). That He also, in this sense, perfectly represented
the Sonship of God, was, for the time preceding His public
manifestation, attested by the utterance at His baptism (Matt.
iu. 17). But as, without the physical Sonship as a presupposi
tion, the ethical would be impossible, whereby He is the Holy
One of God, the sinless man, come to bring, above all personally
' in Himself, the good, the Divine law, into actual manifestation
(Matt. v. 17)^but even on that account, in a perfectly human
way, in a progressive manifestation, advancing through conflict
(Matt. xix. 16, 17 ; Mark x. 18 ; Luke iv. 13, xiii. 49, 50) ; so,
without both, the physical and the ethical, the third, the official,
would be impossible, which conversely is as naturally and neces
sarily the end of both these, as the ethical is of the physical.
This third meaning of the phrase is indeed that commonly attri
buted to it as a designation of the Messiah by His cotemporaries ;
but this will not justify any in reducing the Christian idea of
the Divine Sonship within the meagre limits of the Jewish ideas
of the Messiah. If we would know what concept the Synoptists
and the first Christian churches had of Christ as God's Son,
we must not ignore the first two meanings ; if we do, we shall
not obtain the historical representation of their idea of Christ
in its totality. It is when we view them together that we first
come to conceive also His work. To those united to Him by
' faith (which He desires to be faith in His Person, Matt. xvi.
16, 17), He can, as He does, assure union with God only if
in Him there is God-with-us.
According to the Synoptists, Jesus boldly announced Him
self as the Son of God where it was necessary (Matt. xxvi. 63,
64, xvi. 16, 17) ; but commonly He did not so designate Him
self ; his favourite appellation of Himself was the Son of Man.

54 INTRODUCTION.
Certain as it is that He would not have so called Himself had
He not known Himself to be true and perfect man,1 it is never
theless not enough to stop at the fact that He did so call Him
self ; we must ask, further, why He called Himself by a name
which in some sense is common to all, and by which on that
very account no one besides has designated himself ? It is usual
to refer to Dan. vii. 13, 14 on this head; but we are not
thereby furnished with what is necessary for the explanation :
at the utmost, this passage shows that Jesus might have used
this expression also, but not why, among the many other names
for the Messiah, He should have chosen just this as the stand
ing one. That explanation wili hit upon what is needful which
avails to show that this designation was, and why it was, at
- once the most natural for His personal self-consciousness, and
for use in respect of His office the most appropriate ; neither
without the other. Not through modesty, which conceals what ¦ ,
is higher lest the charge of self-seeking should be incurred,—
not from Divine love, which treats men as its equal, has this
phrase been constructed or selected ; for a modesty which con
cealed just what is most needful for men would have been
wanting in love, and a favourite expression which should not .
at the same time be the natural efflux of His personal self-con
sciousness would have been wanting in truth. But this desig-, ,
nation must be the product of a self-consciousness for which '
the fact of human sonship, or being the son of man, was not
that which lay nearest to it, a thing of itself, a matter of course; |
but that which was secondary and superinduced. But if the
self-consciousness of Christ were so modified that His being ''
human was presented to Him as something secondary, then the "
primary thing in His consciousness must have been something
else, that which is expressed in John, xvii. 5 ; and the original ;]
wherein His self-consciousness knew itself immediately at home
(comp. Luke ii. 49), must, at least from the time when He
had Himself entire, when His innermost reality came into
being, have been the Divine.* In this respect it deserves
! By this name, which never was lost from the remembrance of the
Church (comp. even Acts vii. 54, Apoc. xiv. 14), Doketism is signalized as ,
contradictory to primitive Christianity.
* [Das Urspriingliche, worin sein Selbstbewusstsein sich unmittelbar ,
heimisch weiss (vgl. Luc. ii. 49), muss, wenigstens von der zeit an, wo er sich

INTRODUCTION. 55
especial notice, that this apparently humblest name first occurs
in the time of His maturest consciousness ; first, therefore, when
His personal self-consciousness has been perfected, and passes
through means of the generic consciousness into the official.
Thus far only one-half of this appeUation, namely, why He
calls Himself a man, is explained. But He caUs Himself The
Man-son, or the Son of man. In point of fact, it is impossible
that one, in whom the Divine was the primitive and constitutive,
should be only one man among others, imperfect or, it may be,
sinful Hke them. But in Him pure humanity must be presented
as it nowhere else is ; and that it may be so, even the irvevpa
ay iov (i.e., the Divine essence)' forms the constitutive for the
formation of His person. Since He caUs Himself not a Man-
son, but the Man-son, also not the son of a man, but the Son of
man, there lies therein of necessity, along with a perfect equa-
Hty with others in what is essential to humanity, at the same
time the intimation that He corresponds more perfectly than the
v others to the concept of man, that He is man of a nobler ex
traction, the pure Son of man.1
Since He thus unites in Himself the Divine and human
Sonship, He has the latter through the former; but so that
first in the latter does the former satisfy its own proper concept.
Or, inasmuch as He is both, God's, Son and Man's Son, is He The
Son simply (Matt. xxiv. 36, xi. 27 ff., xxviii. 20 ; Luke xi. 52 ;
Mark xifi. 32 ; Matt. xxi. 36 ff.), is the Sonship in Him per
fected and brought to light. We may thus understand why He
so often, and in so many especially weighty passages, compre
hensively calls Himself simply the Son, who stands to the
Father in such peculiar relations that He never, as sharing with
His foUowers, calls Him Our Father, but always My Father2
(Matt. xvfii. 10, 19, 35, xx. 23, xxvi. 53, xxv. 34 ; Luke xxiii. 46),
from whom He, as the only and well-beloved Son (Matt. xxi. 37),
received witness in words on the occasion of the Transfiguration,
selbst ganz hat, wo sein Innerstes Wirklichkeit geworden ist, das Gottlicha
gewesen seyn.]
1 A thought which gives the Christian version of the doctrine of the
Adam Kadmon, and is especially unfolded in the Pauline doctrine of the
second Adam, who completes the creation of the first ; 1 Cor. xv. 45-49 ;
Rom. v. 14.
2 The only apparent exception is in the Lord's Prayer ; but tins', more
closely surveyed, proves anew what is above asserted.

56 INTRODUCTION.
and by His resurrection ; but who not less stands among nwn
as the Son of the House, the Freeborn and the Free among the
servants, not that He may enjoy His dignity alone, but that He
may make the servants brethren, to which, apart from Him, they
are only destined without being able to get rid of the schism in
which they are with their destination, — a schism which only He,
through the overmastering power of His boundless love, is able
to heal (Matt. xx. 28, xxvi. 28).
In proceeding to consider briefly some special passages in
which this peculiar position of Christ as the Son of God and the
Son of man is presented by the Synoptists, we shaU not adduce
the whole range of His miracles, since others as weU as He
wrought miracles, and the pecuHarity of His miracles becomes
apparent only in connection with His history in general. We
may also pass by the fact, that, according to the synoptic
account, He transferred His miraculous power to His followers ;
for something analogous to this may be drawn from the history
of Moses and Elijah. But neither Moses, nor Elijah, nor the
Baptist, imparted the forgiveness of sins ; whilst He not only
says that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins,
but makes use of this power, nay, places His miraculous power
in the service of this (ilatt. ix. 2-6 ; Luke v. 20-24), which is
challenged by the Pharisees as a blasphemous pretension ; and
in this they would have been in the right had the Ebionite re
presentation of Christ been the true one, the one answering to
His self-consciousness and self-witness. So also, when He in
stitutes the rite of baptism, not merely in the name of the
Father and the Holy Ghost, but in His own name as weU, He
intrudes in a most unbecoming way into the sphere of the
Divine, if His Person, after the manner of other founders of
religion, is merely accidental or indifferent to the religion, and
not rather that without which there can be no mention what
ever of the idea of the completed religion. But the Synoptists
also adduce the ground on which He places Himself so pecu-
Harly in relation to the Father and the Spirit, and on which He
assigns to His name a religious significancy (Matt. x. 32, 33,
36 f. ; Luke xii. 8, 9 ; Matt, xviii. 19, 20). For " no man
knoweth the Son but the Father, and no man knoweth the
Father but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal it"
(Luke x. 22; Matt. xi. 27). The Son hath the power of

INTRODUCTION. 57
sending the Holy Ghost ; of baptizing not with water, but with
the Holy Ghost and with fire (Acts i. 5, comp. Luke iii.
1 6 ; Matt. in. 11 ; Mark i. 8) ; as He also not merely imparts
the forgiveness of "sins, but is also the Mediator thereof (Matt.
xx. 28, xxvi. 28). As He in the passages cited ascribes to
Himself the peculiarity of knowledge of the Highest, nay, calls
Himself (Luke vii. 35, xi. 49, comp. Matt, xxiii. 34, xi. 19) the
Wisdom (cro<j}La, comp. \070s in John) ; as He ascribes holiness
to Himself, setting Himself above the hoHest thing in Israel
(Matt. xu. 6, comp. iv. 5), and above the greatest men of the
old covenant (Matt. xxi. 33 ff., comp. 37, xii. 41, 42, xi. 11 ;
Luke vii. 28) ; as He, in fine, not only recognises it as His
vocation to fulfil the law, but also has at the close of His earthly
career the consciousness of having fulfilled His vocation : so He
" ascribes to Himself a power which extends infinitely beyond the
measure of the human, and in this respect puts Himself on an
equality with God (Matt. xi. 27 ; Luke x. 22 ; Matt, xxviii.
18) : " All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye
therefore, and bring all nations to be My disciples, and baptize
them for the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost." It is true that, according to the Synoptists, He recog
nises His appearance as a historical fact among others, as a re
velation among others, and places it in close relation to these
(Matt. xi. 11-14, xxi. 25-37, xvii. 11, 12 ; Luke xvi. 16, 29-31 ;
Matt. v. 17 ff., xix. 8) ; but He no less recognises it as perfectly
singular, and of eternally more vaUd significancy; — of such a
kind, indeed, that the continuous development of mankind is not
thereby consummated, but rather for the first time set rightly
in motion ; but this so that He also resumes in Himself what is
yet future. This deserves closer examination. His appearance
is set forth by the Synoptists as all-comprehending in respect
of time and space, and as absolutely decisive within the highest
sphere. This is declared negatively in the strongest manner by
the representation that not individual forms of evil, but the
principle of evil itself, the Prince of this world, comes into
decisive conflict with Him (Matt, iv., xii. 27-29, xiii. 37-39,
parall.) ; whilst Christ recognises it as His vocation to overcome
this principle (Luke x. 18). Obviously here, there lies at the
foundation the conception, that in Christ the universal principle
of good itself has come into a struggle for life or death with the

58 INTRODUCTION.
universal principle of evil, and in dying has conquered. The
same idea, that in Christ the good itself has become personally
present, Hes in the numerous passages which assert that no one
can.be judged before he has entered into that historical relation
with Christ which belongs to the quickening of faith. By the
acceptance or rejection of Christ, viewed as final, is the absolute, \
worth or worthlessness of the man in an absolute manner de
cided upon ; and this is explained only on the assumption, that
in Christ there is accepted or rejected, not one of the manifes
tations of the good, but the good itself. Hence it is said, Matt.
xxiv. 14, that the end (the judgment) shall come when the
Gospel shall have been testified to the entire circle of nations on
the earth (Mark xiii. 10). Hence is it held to be a sin never to
be forgiven, to sin against the Holy Ghost ; i.e., to go on to an
unsusceptibiHty of the operations of the Holy Ghost, without
which no one obtains the bHss-giving faith in Christ (Matt. xvi.
16, 17). — If, for the universal significancy of His appearance, a
particular place was in the first instance to be secured ; if for the
everlasting life on earth a firm historical centre had to be laid,
in order that, spreading out from this on aU sides (Mark xvi. 15),
it might secure universality also outwardly and historically;
yet in His kingdom universality in an inward sense intimately
inhered from the beginning, and is involved in the universal
significancy of Christ as the Son of Man, is also by Him in the
strongest manner affirmed. The field for His sowing is nothing
less than the world ; and the- whole mass is to be leavened
(Matt. xiii. 38, 32, 41; Mark iv. 32; Matt. xxiv. 14,xxviii.
19 ; Mark xi. 17, xvi. 15, 16 ; Matt. xxvi. 13, xxi. 43. viii. 11 ;
Luke xiii. 29). Not less comprehensive, however, is Christ's
recognition, according to the Synoptists, of the significancy of
His Person and His work in relation to time, than in relation to
space or to the nations of mankind. He knows Himself as the
final revelation of God ; a larger, a higher, is not to be expected ;
so that, according to the judgment of the Synoptists, every pre
tended advance beyond Him is really a faUing behind Him.
This is, however, so understood by them, that they impute to
the entire representation of Christ, to which they ascribe this
all-decisive significancy, not only the features of His earthly
appearance, but also the eschatological, in which, for the first
time, their representation of Christ receives its decisive comple-

INTRODUCTION. 59
tion. During His appearance on earth, it was not yet made
manifest what He was to be, nor was it until His ascension to
the Father that the element was suppHed, in which the doctrine
of Christ reaches through Him the power of producing faith
(Acts i. 2-5). This His exaltation (Luke xxiv. 51 ; Acts i.
10) to the right hand of the Father (Acts ii. 33 ; Mark xvi. 19),
is in itself the power of sending the Holy Ghost (Acts i. 5, 8,
n. 33), which, designed for the entire race (Acts ii.), gives to it
the certainty of true redemption, of absolute perfection (Acts
iii. 15, 20-23). Every man who has faith is now a prophet,
and knows with Divine certainty, as weU that in Christianity
the decision has taken place, the rehgion is completed, as also
that the outward appearance of its triumph had commenced,
and that no enemy was a match for it (Acts ii. 17, 21, iii. 21).
As, however, the exalted Christ sends the Spirit, so to Him
belongs in the general the ending of the world. His parousia
will bring the final and also the public judgment. As He is
the absolute Lawgiver, in whom is represented the unveiled and
fulfilled holy and gracious will of God (Matt. v. 17) ; so will
He be also the Judge of the whole world at His second coming,
of which He so often speaks (e. gr. Matt. vii. 2-23 ; Luke xiii.
25 ; Matt. xin. 41, xxiv. 31, x. 32 ; Mark vm. 38 ; Matt. xxv. ;
Luke xvii. 30, xii. 35 etc.), and at which His Person, which may
still be misunderstood (Luke xxii. 68, 69), shall be revealed, so
that no one shall be able to refuse submission. Now, since the
Person of Christ gives to Himself and His work an actuality
of value through His coming the second time to judgment, so
faith in the eschatological discourses of Christ conveys, as no
thing else does, a view of the absoluteness of the Christian reli
gion, whose final momentum is objective actuaUty and supre
macy, the kingdom of glory or power. To this Love, renouncing
self and laying aside immediate power, must be restored if she
is actually the highest and alone truly real, and if to her inner
absoluteness belongs (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, xix. 28, xvi. 27 ; Luke
ix. 26 ; Mark x. 29, 30). As this is foreshadowed in Christ's
Person, in the indissoluble connection of His resurrection and
ascension with His death (Matt. x. 24, 38 ff., xvi. 24 f. ; Luke
xvii. 33), the same course is repeated in His beHeving followers,
in His Church ; and so firm is the tie which binds the vvptylos
(Matt. ix. 15, xxv. 1) to her, that He regards the time of her

60 INTRODUCTION.
servile estate, as well as aU her misfortunes, as His own humilia
tion and shame (Matt. xii. 48, x. 14, 40, 41 ; Mark ix. 37, 41 ;
Matt. xxv. 35 ff., xviii. 5, 20 ; Luke ix. 48), and will, out of the
fulness of His majesty, bring it to an end. Then will He allot
the kingdom to His followers who have beHeved in Him, as the
Father has allotted it to Him (Luke xxu. 28-30)— the kingdom
prepared for them from the beginning of the world (Matt. xxv.
34) ; then wiU He eat the new, the perfect supper with them
(Luke xxu. 16-18 ; Matt. xxvi. 29).
Taking the notices of the Synoptists together, it thus- appears
that for aU eternity, also for the frri almvios in heaven, the
Person of Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, forms
the centre point of the Christian religion, in the trials and in
the triumphs of individuals and of the Church'. He is the
perfect Lawgiver; He not merely reveals, but He realizes as
weU, the holy and just as the gracious will of God ; hence is
He also the Judge of the world. He has and exercises power
over the whole world, even as He does over the spiritual ; He
communicates here the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Ghost,
there eternal felicity; and the summit of the latter is ever formed
by perfect feUowship with His Person. He has left His
followers only in appearance; for wherever two or three are
assembled in His name, there is He in the midst of them ; and
He is with His own always, even to the end of the world (Matt.
xviu. 20, xxviii. 20). To know Christ in this nearness, belongs
consequently, characteristically, to the Christian worship; and
the meal of His institution is appointed as the highest means
for the enjoyment of this nearness for the Church on earth
(Matt. xxvi. 26-28).1
It may be boldly affirmed, that the entire representation of
Christ given by the Synoptists may be placed by the side of the
Johannine as perfectly identical, inasmuch as faith,, moulded by
1 Those who reject the Gospel by John on account of its glorifying of
Christ, can hardly have set themselves in clear relations with the synoptic
Christology ; otherwise must this have either covered that of John, or drawn
more decidedly upon itself that one-sided dissent expressed towards the
latter. This would indeed have been a breach with the united tradition of
primitive Christendom ; but it is on all sides better that this, where it
exists, should come into consciousness, and so to examination, than that it
should abscond through, e. gr., a falsification of the historical relations
of things.

INTRODUCTION. fit
means of the synoptic tradition, must have essentially the same
features in its concept of Christ as the Christ of John has.
The passages in John which speak the most loftily of Christ, are
those to which the Synoptists supply exactly the closest parallels,
whilst some of the strongest traits in the latter find no parallel
in John ; comp. Matt. ix. 2-6 with John v. 14 (viii. 11^, Matt.
xxviu. 18-20 with John Hi. 5. But as these" latter synoptic
traits are assuredly capable of being without difficulty incorpo
rated with John's representation of Christ; so, on the other
hand, may what John, with Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews,
advances that goes beyond the Synoptists — that, namely, which
has relation to the element of Pre-existence — be brought into
relation to them. The Christ of the Synoptists stands already
so high above the Ebionitic Christ ; He is, especially through
His eschatological aspect, so Hnked with the world-idea; that to
the synoptic faith there needs to be added not so much a new
object, as simply a stronger interest of Gnosis ; and so also it is
that this faith can find satisfaction in no narrower utterance
concerning Christ, than in such an one as the dogma of His
Pre-existence wfll enunciate. In point of fact, there are not
wanting in the Synoptists themselves the beginnings of such :
comp. Luke vii. 35, Matt. xi. 19, where Christ calls Himself
The Wisdom, with Prov. viii., Matt. xi. 27; especiaUy, however,
Luke xi. 49 with Matt. xxui. 34, Matt. xni. 17, Luke x. 23, 24,
with John viii. 56 ff.
It is deserving of notice, that, as respects the argumentative
force of what has been said, it is matter of indifference which of
the leading views regarding the origin of the three first Gospels
is most generally embraced. For suppose, e. gr., that they owe
the form of their historical .narrative, whoUy or in part, to oral
tradition — nay, suppose that this has determined also, in part,
even the substance of their contents, they thus remain as the
common possession of the primitive Church, to attest incontest-
ably the character of its belief as neither Doketic nor Ebionitic.
If it be assumed, also, that all later heresies are to be viewed as
results of the Church agitation of the dogma itself, faith in Christ
as the Son of God and of man, in the meaning proved, did not first
arise out of an Ebionitic or Doketic tendency and its prevalence,
but precedes both these, nay, is presupposed by them both; since
they, according to what has been adduced, become Christian here-

62 INTRODUCTION.
sies only through this presupposition. But whether this Church
faith itself, which is presupposed as well in the case of heresies
as in respect of the construction of dogmas by which these were
overcome, has operated much or little on the formation even of
the contents of the Gospel tradition followed by the Synoptists,
this much sober historical inquiry must hold fast, that just the
weightiest and the highest, i.e., what is most characteristically
Christian, cannot have been the product or the projection of this
alleged Church faith; for, in order to be able to produce, it must
first be, and Christian faith itself comes into being through what
is characteristically Christian, and not antecedently to it. A
faith of individual Christians, or of a Christian community, which
is devoid of the Christian element, — a faith which deposits the
Christian element rather than apprehends it, is an inteUectual
nonentity, a monster of perverted thought. "The Church cannot
have contrived the representation of Christ,' because the rise of
the Church was conditioned by the antecedent representation of'
its Lord.1 Thus, exactly that in the Synoptists which is chiefly
new in relation to all pre-Christian ideas (i.e., the highest Christo
logical utterances), is necessarily to be viewed as most surely the
historical, faith-establishing impulse, to be presupposed in' order
to the mere existence of the Church.
We have still James and Peter to consider, who, in a Christo
logical respect, are most allied to the Synoptists. As Luther ,
complained of the Epistle of James, that it was not occupied
with Christ, so in more recent times an incHnation has been
exhibited to regard James, as he appears to us in his Epistle,
as the representative of the faith of the earliest Christians, and
hence it has been deduced that the Ebionitic doctrine was the
primitive. A conclusion in every respect over-precipitate ! For,
first, the design of James is such, that it does not fall to him to ,
set forth in order the faith and its contents, but to maintain the
Trt'cra? rather according to its ethical significancy, and to contend
against all antinomianism. The Trlo-ris he presupposes; he
does not seek to plant it for the first time ; and hence it is in
competent, nay, unjust to him, to treat his Epistle as if he
began with the beginning, and meant to set forth the fundamental
principles of Christianity, which as yet were not in dispute.
1 See Hanne, Der moderne Nihilismus, S. 176.

INTRODUCTION. (!3
But, secondly, it would be still more hazardous from this short
Epistle — which, according to its avowed design, aims to unfold
the ethical and not the dogmatical aspect of Christian truth — to
form an estimate of James universally, of whom we have no right,
since in other respects he is at one with the synoptic tradition, to
assume that in respect to Christological ideas he stands opposed
to it. Thirdly, utterly untrue is the assumption, that James is
to be viewed as the representative of the faith of the earliest
Christianity. Bather is his letter, with its polemic against a
one-sided faith, an evidence that there was another tendency in
the Church, which laid chief stress on faith not in its ethical
"purifying power, but viewed principaUy as an object of know
ledge, ao<f>la; consequently, more in respect of its dogmatic import,
and that in a fruitless way, and which held participation in
Christianity in this sense for justifying. Over against this
theoretical faith1 he places that which is practical. Still more
weighty is what we would adduce fourthly: viz., that it cannot
be denied, that to the individuality of James the ethical was the
most congenial, and hence drew him to give especial effect to
the refutation of this false tendency (for by the ethical, as by
nothing else, is the presence or absence of the Pauline Irian's
tested, to which, also, it is only by the severity of the law and
repentance that one can be led back). But his ethic is the
Christian ethic, and proves itself to be such, not merely through
the apprehension of the law as a complete whole (ii. 10), and
as the perfect law of liberty (i. 25), so recognised because to it
love is the royal principle of what is ethical (n. 5, 8) ; but also
by the founding of this love in faith (ii. 22), of which it is the
most perfect fruit, or in the new birth through God's free grace
1 Which is not that of Paul, but rather the approaching gnosis which
Gnosticism proclaimed (i. 13, 14, 17, iii. 1, 15, 16, iv. 1, 2, 10, i. 9, 10,
v. 19, 20). For already there appears in it a parting asunder of that
immediateness of faith, and an entrance one-sidedly on the tendency to the
contents of the faith as it is for knowledge. Though this tendency names
itself by the faith, riot by the yi/ams, the faith is yet made but a mere
means to thrf eocpiu., and Christianity is viewed rather as illuminating
than as sanctifying. It is true it always regards Christianity as redemp
tion, and for this uses the Pauline expression "iixaiasi;, as well as the
name men; for its theoretical tendency ; but evidently it is no longer the
Pauline nian; and Itxalaai;. We may rather say that in James i. 13-17,
there is a position refuted which reminds of the gnosis in the proper sense.

64 INTRODUCTION.
(i. 17, 18, 21). Not every man, however, is born of God (i. 18);
but Christians are so, in whose souls Christianity, the word of
truth, is implanted (i. 21), and who by this word are transformed,
so that they become the first-born of creatures, the crown of
creation (i. 18). The law also was a word, \oyoy ; but it was
not \oyo<s Te\eto?, not a plastic word, Hke the word of God which
brought forth the world; for it was only imperative, and to the shall
was wanting the be, the wiUing, and as the shaU still remained,
though the will was opposed to it, the wiU was consequently not
free.* The Christian Logos, however, is \oyo? akrjOeuv;, vopo$
riXeio'; tjjs eKevdeplas, i.e., in Christianity is given the Word,
which corresponds to the concept of the word of God ; for the
word of Christianity not only prescribes, it also is powerfully
operative and creative, so that now within the spiritual sphere the
same is effected as the creative word effected in the physical, and
now in the highest sphere it is not merely said, He speaks, He
commands, but also, It is done and stands fast. But in the birth
which is effected by means of the creative word is the creation of
man himself perfected, and the dignity of the First-birth, to which
he was by his creation destined (iii. 9), comes now to be perfectly
realized (i. 9, 18, ii. 1). The Christian principle does not im
prove in this or that particular, it embraces and forms the whole.
man, and perfects him (i. 4, 21), and elevates him to a height at
which all earthly distinctions disappear. The author is there
fore full of the essential equaUty of aU Christians,1 and he in
dignantly casts from him whatever tends to infringe on this ;
in which again we trace the consciousness of the absoluteness
of Christianity, before which all earthly distinctions sink as it
were into nothing. Hence he exhorts the, lowly to a con
sciousness of their highness and absolute dignity, in order that
they may not, through false modesty, faU in with a divisive
inequaHty, which would rob them of their due ; those of high «
estate, on the other hand, to humility (ii. 1-9).
What has been said already shows that James had before
him the Christian presupposition in anthropologic and soterio^j
logic form ; and were there nothing more in his Epistle, there
would be enough here to exempt him from the charge of
* [Dem Sollen fehlte das Seyn, das Wollen, und weil das Sollen doch
blieb, obwohl der Wille ihm entgegen war, so war der Wille nicht fred.]
1 Appendix, Note "V

INTRODUCTION. 65
Ebionitism, especially as he says nothing against the higher
idea of Christ's Person. But there are not wanting in him
strong Christological features. He calls himself (i. 1) Bovkos
Kvpiov 'Irjcrov XpiaTov ; and this, on the supposition that he was
" the Lord's brother," is worthy of double notice. - He calls
Him Kupiot Tjp&v 'Itjctovs Xpio-ro? (ii. 1, v. 7, 8), so that He is
to James Lord and Messiah ; icvpios t»)s 8o£»?? (ii. 1), which in
any case expresses a majesty akin to the Divine, even though
communicated. But a reference to the Xoyo? akr)6eia$ carries
us stiU further. As this word of truth is the Cliristian word,
Christ is, in the view of James, the bearer of this word of truth.
And as this word partly communicates the truth and the wis
dom (i. 25, 18, comp. i. 5, ni. 17), viz., that from above, and so
is a Divine revelation, partly also is operating, powerful, and
creative (i. 18), he thus ascribes it to Christ, the bearer of this
truth, not only that He is a revealer or teacher, but also that
there is in .Him a creative kingly word. The prophetic and
kingly offices furnish the chief features of his representation
of the Messiah ; and these two are weU discriminated by him, for
he recognises a knowledge of Christianity in which the word has
not yet become powerfully operative to liberty (i. 22-24), as
weU as royal functions of Christ, which relate not simply to re
generation through the word of truth (v. 7, 8). How high he
exalts Christ as a teacher, appears from the many passages in
his Epistle which cite Christ's words, chiefly according to
Matthew. These words are principaUy, yet not exclusively, of
an ethical kind. As respects the royal office of Christ, the
acknowledgment of it lies already in the recognition of Him as
XjOtoro? and /cvpio? tj?? So^s. But the royal function of Christ
is expressly presented in the second coming of the Lord to judg
ment (v. 7-9). He is not only the bringer of that law which
is to form the standard of judgment (ii. 12), but He also gives
the final decision. The blessedness of the one party, the con
demnation of, the other, is His deed (v. 8, 9). If Christ, as
Lord of glory, has the full power (comp. also ii. 1, 5) to com
municate the highest boon, blessedness ; if the last decision is
His act ; then it is not to be denied that James also recognises
in Christological form the absoluteness of the Christian religion.
Elsewhere he expresses himself so as to show how near, in his
estimation, Christ is to God. For he caUs both God and
VOL. I. E

66 INTRODUCTION.
Christ, icvpios, and he says (iv. 12), "One is the lawgiver anl
judge, who is able to save and to destroy."* Now, as by law
giver here he evidently intends God, and as he imputes to
Christ full power to judge, power trSxrai ical currdkevai (v. 7-9),
his doctrine concerning the oneness of the lawgiver and the
judge can be reconciled with the doctrine of Christ's eschatolo-
gical position, only on the supposition that in the kingly might
of Christ there is present that of God. AU the more certain is
it, then, that though he says nothing expressly on the subject
in this Epistle, he would have placed regeneration in connection
not merely with Christ's prophetic office, but also with His kingly
office ; consequently, that in the creative power of the word is
to be seen also the act of Christ.
It is true that in James there is no reference to the high-
priestly office of Christ. He mentions the death of Christ, but
only according to its exemplary significance (v. 11). On the
mediation, consequently, of the forgiveness of sins and redemp
tion, which he certainly finds in Christianity, he does not en
large. At the same time, there are indubitably acts which he
(v. 14 ff.) desires in the name of the Lord (especially prayer),
desires in the name of Christ; and in this is involved the
thought, that Christ is our intercessor with the Father, the
Paraclete, through whom our prayers are acceptable unto God,
and are heard by Him. There is thus a recognition of the one
side of Christ's high-priestly office.
Near as James approaches to the Old Testament, wnich he
sees only fulfilled in the New, with the design and inner essence
of which he as a Christian finds himself fully and freely at one,
yet the Christian element which he has, presupposes an immense
revolution in the ordinary consciousness of a Jew. The seek
ing of the Old Testament law is in Christianity, by the word of
truth which proceedeth from Christ, brought to that at which it
aims : all unrest of the Shall is brought to the Be,f aU schism
* [The received text gives only els 'am* o vo/aoShns ; but all the critical
editors, from Griesbach to Tischendorf, give, on the authority of the best
witnesses, ii; lanv o uopoderYi; xal xpniis as the correct reading. — Tr.]
t ["AUe Unruhe des Sollens zum Seyn" is the author's expression.
The meaning I take to be, that what Kant calls the categorical imperative
produces a state of unrest until it eventuates in act; all law disturbs until
it is fulfilled.— Tr.]

INTRODUCTION. 67
to unity (ii. 12, i. 25). What the law could not bring together
is now conjoined ; the Spirit has attained from the external plu-
raHty of laws to inner unity, as weU, with itself (i. 5) as with
God (i. 21, 18). For Christians are partakers of the Holy
Ghost (iv. 5).
If James attaches himself more to the Law, — yet not to the
ceremonial law, but to what is eternally ethical therein, the for
merly mere ideal existence of which now through Christ reaches
actuality in free men, in love, — Peter sees in Christianity, above
all, the f ulfiUing of Old Testament prophecy, as is indicated
both in his discourses in the Acts of the Apostles and in his
Epistles.1 From this stand-point, however, on the other hand, the
ceremonial law also receives its due; for as it is not merely
symbolic, but also typical, it in its way predicts Christ, especially
as respects its centre-point, the sacrificial service. In this re
spect Peter occupies the same ground as the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews.
The discourses of Peter in the Acts, having for their object
the establishment of the faith among unbelievers, all present
the Christology as their centre-point. This, however, as is
natural, is at first so treated that preponderance is given to the
historical, starting-point, and the individual elements of Christ's
history are set forth ; whereas in his Epistles these individual
elements are collected into the unity of one complete represen
tation, and in it pervade the whole. Further, the Christology
of Peter in the Acts is expounded more in the Old Testament
form. To this belongs the appellation, Servant of God, ttcm?
0eot),2 which is taken from the Prophets, and the assertion of
the anointing with the Holy Ghost.3 As respects particulars,
the fortunes of Christ are, according to Peter, predicted by the
Prophets (Acts i. 16, ii. 16, 34, iii. 18, 22-26, x. 34; 1 Pet.
ii. 7, 22-25, i. 10), as well as the outpouring of the Holy Ghost
(Acts ii. 16, 23, 31, i. 16). Christ Himself is anointed with
the Holy Ghost and with power (x. 38); by God is made both
Lord and Christ (ii. 36), as God hath glorified Him (iii. 13),
appointed Him to be Prince and Saviour, the Judge of the
1 See next two notes ; Acts ii. 23-31, 34, 35, 39, iii. 13, 18, 21-25.
iv. 11 ; 1 Peti i. 10-12, 20, ii. 7, 10, 25, i. 19, ii. 24, iii. 20, 21.
2 Acts iii. 14, iv. 27. 3 Acts x. 38, coll. iv. 27.

68 .INTRODUCTION.
living and the dead. Here everything, in accordance with the
historical starting-point, proceeds from the humiliation of Christ:
His exaltation and glorification, in accordance with this, are
represented supremely as the act of God, as a reward for His
sufferings. But the end at which this representation aims from
the first is, that He is the Prince of Life (Acts iii. 15), whom
the bonds of death could not hold ; who has gone up into heaven
(ii. 33, xxiv. 31), and is now Lord of aU (x. 38), as in His name
rests the power of miracles (iii. 6); and His glory shall be shown
by His coming again to judge the world (in. 20, 21, x. 42).
Now the heavens have received Him glorified (in. 13, 21), until
the time of the final completion of all things. From the right
hand of God He commenced the outpouring of the Holy Ghost
on the day of Pentecost, and continues it through holy baptism "
(Acts x. 47, xi. 15, xv. 8-11). But baptism takes place in the
name of Christ, and in no other is there salvation (iv. 12).
Now, since the representation, setting out from the humiHation, '
thus ascends till it reaches Him, the exalted One, who is at the
right hand of God, it must from this be advanced that faith not
merely says, Though or since Christ was humiliated, so is He
also exalted ; but the idea of the glorified Saviour is primarily
the true idea of Him, from which, conversely, the humiliation
of Christ is to be conceived from the first on to its consumma- ,
tion on the cross. From the apprehended idea of the living
and ever-abiding word of God, which was in Christ personally
(lPet. i. 23, 25), and in which idea faith finds first her
resting-place, she looks back and recognises that, in such a being
as Christ, suffering is to be conceived as a free act, and humi
Hation as an operative element of His self -manifestation and of
His work. A step towards this is already made when His
resurrection and exaltation are represented as not simply God's
act towards Him, but as, according to the concept of His Person,
necessary development and self-manifestation (comp. Acts x. 40, *
u. 31, coll. iii. 15 and ii. 24). But this comes out in fuller
clearness in the Epistles. There it is not merely, as in the Acts,
said that Christ's death came to pass by wicked hands through 1
the fore-purposed counsel of God; not merely that the Prophets
who had predicted Him had to be fulfilled; but as this mode of
representation always leaves it still possible to present Christianity|j
onesidedly, as the completed birth of the Old Testament, and to "

INTRODUCTION. 69
place the external historical dependence of the one on the other
too high, by treating Christianity as a mere child of the Old
Testament, there is added to it in the Epistles the complementary,
though apparently contradictory position, that the Old Testa
ment, in its highest functions, is a product of that which is the
principle of Christianity (1 Pet. i. 10, 11). In the Prophets
the mvevpa Xpio-Tov was operative ; it wrought in them its own
preparation, foretelling the grace in Christ, His sufferings, and
the glory that should foUow. Thus is Christianity of old, eter
nally founded in the world-idea of God, which by it is from
eternity determined and overruled. For in Christ are we chosen
from eternity (1-Pet. i. 2); we are eternally contemplated by the
Father as standing in the sanctification of the Spirit; as destined
for obedience and for purifying through the blood of Jesus
Christ (1 Pet. i. 20). With this it is already taught that the
Christian principle, though as such not revealed until the last
times (1 Pet. i. 20), was yet pre-existent and operative from
the beginning, and is thus eternal, not merely in the Divine
predestination, but as really operative (1 Pet. i. 11, eBrpXov to
hi avrois irvevpa, XpurTov). It is true that the doctrine of the
Trinity, which is here glanced at, is not more fully developed by
Peter; "nor is personality ascribed to the pre-existent Christian
principle : but so much the more certainly is it taken along with
the Divine Spirit itself. As respects the historical appearance
of Christ, there is ascribed to Him true manhood, according to
the body (1 Pet. in. 18, iv. 1, i. 24), and to the soul (1 Pet. iii.
19). Thus the Epistle is as far from Doketism as from Ebion-
itism, though it teaches nothing of a duplicity of nature. God
appears in it as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and in
this is involved that the latter is the Son of God (1 Pet. i. 3).1
Christ is the Mediator of our regeneration by God (i. 3), from
incorruptible seed (i. 22). In faith in Christ is acoTvpla, which
is partly future (i. 5, 9), partly already present. Regeneration
takes place from Divine seed, i.e., from God or the Holy Ghost
(comp. i. 12), but by means of the living and abiding word
(i. 23). This Hving word is in this case not the act of preach
ing (i. 25), but that word whose contents are the means of
regeneration by the Spirit. These contents are, indeed, also
1 Though in the first Ep. vio;®tov does not occur, we have it in 2 Pet. i. 17.

70 INTRODUCTION.
doctrine, truth ; but they are eternal truth which has become
historical; i.e., Christ, as reconciler, is the substance of the joyful
message. We have no right, in the place of a person, to put an
abstraction, a neuter — redemption, for instance; but just in
the Person, and nowhere else, have we, according to Peter, the
eternaUy determined, and so eternaUy valid, though historicaUy
accompHshed redemption (1 Pet. i. 19, 20). Thus the word is
described as " Hving and abiding for ever," because Christ forms
its substance, and is properly that which is operative in the
preaching of the word. Nay, it may be asked whether we should
not here abstract entirely from the word as preached, and should
not rather view Christ as summarily designated the Hving and
eternal Word of God. Peter will then have taken the term
" word" as equivalent to revelation of God, since it, as spoken
by God (as in Gen. i.), is determined to be the medium of ~the
new creation.1 In this case Christ is, according to Peter, not
only the bearer and possessor of the word, as were the Prophets,
but in Him is the perfect revelation apparent personally, and
so as that the form (that of man, historical personality) corre
sponds to the substance of this revelation essentially v This leads
to the assertion, that Christ, according to Peter, not only has
God's word, but is God's Word (i. 18-20, ii. 7). As, however,
He acts the part of God's Mediator to us by being a mission of
God to us, — for He is the bringer of the Divine to us (i. 23), —
so, on the other hand, He, as the sinless One, as the spotless and
blameless Lamb, is He who represents us before God ; our sins
are slain from the Divine view in His crucified body (comp.
1 Pet. ii. 24, in. 18, coll. Is. Ini. 5), with the intent and the
result that we through Him (reconciled, presented as holy) may
be brought before God (iii. 18), and having suffered in Him
for our sins, knowing ourselves punished in Him (iv. 1, comp.
Eom. vi. 7), may desist from sin (i. 18, iv. 1). Thus He is
Mediator on both sides; His death, however, forming the central-
point of His mediatorial office, that which is the distinctive
element (1 Pet. Hi. 18, awa% aireOavev). Yet he shows the
death of Christ so closely connected with His resurrection (in.
18-21), that baptism also is first completed by the latter (comp.
i. 3), which, in connection with what we have heard from Peter
1 Appendix, Note W.

INTRODUCTION. 71
of the death of Christ, requires the meaning that he who, beHev-
ing in Christ, has seen himself as punished, also rises again in
Him ; so that Christ shall be viewed as not only substituted for
us in intention and effect, but as living in us. He who has
risen again is the Lord, who hath passed into the heavens to the
right hand of God, and to whom all powers are subject (1 Pet.
in. 22). Therefore He hath the power to convey the blessing
of baptism (1 Pet. ni. 21, comp. i. 22), the Spirit, by which
Christians are born again.
But, in fine, though Peter sees in Christianity the fulfilling
of Old Testament prophecy, yet he represents what we in this
Hfe already receive from Christianity as only the earnest of the
glorious inheritance, only the beginning of the Divine harvest.
To him, therefore, Christianity is still a prophetic religion (the
iirayyeXia and eXwi?) ; but the future is its future, its revelation.
When that which is new comes, Christianity shall not cease, but
shaU become manifest, altogether different from the pre-Christian
prophecy. This self-equality,* as well as the endless fulness
which shaU yet be exhibited, is again linked to the person of
Christ, whose glory in the present is yet concealed, though
already in itself perfect (1 Pet. Hi. 22, i. 4-7). His second
coming, however, wiU remove the contradiction which subsists
between the real idea of Christianity as yet only in Christ (i. 8)
and its fuU reaHzation.
Jude also places Christ along with the Father in the formula
of salutation (ver. 2), and in the doxology (vers. 24, 25): through
Jesus Christ our Lord is God our Saviour, and is glorified ; the
being kept in the true and most holy faith (ver. 20), is a being pre
served in Christ Jesus (vers. 1,3), and in the HolyGhost (ver. 20).
BeHevers are ar/ioi through their -ttuttk; and they are called to
contend (ver. 3) for the faith delivered by the Apostles (ver. 17),
and to keep it in faithful remembrance; that they may not be like
those intruders who, holding themselves for spiritual (ver. 19),
and, proud in their hearts, setting themselves above others, unite
with the Christians outwardly, but only to be spots on their
love-feasts, and to defile these by participating in them*. The
grace of God they turn to lasciviousness, to what is sensual
(vers. 4, 10) ; and therefore shall the righteousness of God turn
* [Sichselbstgleichheit.]

72 INTRODUCTION.
against them. The persons whom Jude opposes are not merely
such as have practically swerved from the right way, they are also '
teachers of error (vers. 15, 8) : they deny our only Prince and
Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 4) ; a sin which is damnable, and from
which there is scarcely deliverance by penitence and return to
Christ (vers. 5, 22, 23). The second coming of the Lord to judg
ment (ver. 14), which to the believer is full of grace, and brings
eternal Hfe (ver. 21), shall be to them for a terror (vers. 13-15).
Similar, though somewhat more formal, are the Christo
logical elements in the Second Epistle of Peter. Here the writer
insists more on the side of knowledge, the gnosis, which, how
ever, is not severed from the practical.1 The Epistle has more
definitely to do with errorists; hence it opposes the false- views
of Christian knowledge (H. 1), which is described as a morning
star that had arisen in their heart, as in a place formerly dark
(2 Pet. i. 19), doubtless with reference to the fact that Christ
is the substance of the eiruyvoiais (2 Pet. i. 2, 3). The Divine
power bestows on us, through the knowledge of Christ, all that
is necessary for life and godliness; gives the most precious '
promises, purifies, and makes to partake of the Divine nature
(2 Pet. i. 4). For to Christ belong pLeya\eioT7]<} (i. 16), B6%a
Kal apert] (i. 3) ; He is the beloved Son of God, in whom He is
weU pleased. He is our crcoTijp (i. 1, 11, Hi. 2), our Lord (i. 2,
8, 11, 16), who hath an everlasting kingdom (i. 11), and for
whose exaltation there needs not cunningly-devised myths, but,
the history of Christ, attested by the Prophets and the aposto-
Hcal tradition, are sufficient (i. 16-18, iii. 2). From this it
comes to pass, that what they receive rjses in their hearts like a
morning star, and thus the history becomes a living knowledge,
governing the life through and through (i. 5-9). The false
prophets whom he assails are described as preachers of liberty
(2 Pet. ii. 19), as Antinomians (aOeapot), who make their appeal
to Paul, but wrest his words: they turn grace into indulgence
in sinful lusts, dread not the judgment and second coming of
Christ, but defile and entangle themselves again with the world,
and Hve and teach as if all were to endure for ever, as it had
been from the beginning of the world (2 Pet. H. 3, iii. 4). The
' Wiyvom;, as in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. As in
the First Epistle, the leading idea is the lAxfc, so in this it is the wWwe
Comp. 2 Pet. i. 2, 3, 5, ii. 20, 21, iii. 18.

INTRODUCTION. 73
tarrying of the Lord is grounded in His long-suffering, which
still seeks that many should be saved* (iii. 9-15) ; but His day
is coming like a thief in the night, to cause the fashion of
this world to pass away, and to form a „new heavens and a
new earth.1

Thus fruitful were the germs which, by the representation of
Himself given by Christ and the testimony of the Apostles, were
planted among men ; and yet there was neither thereby given
nor withheld the framing, of the Christian doctrine into dogmas.
Not the former ; for in the New Testament Christianity does
not appear in exactly constructed dogmas, but in the form of
Christ's witness of Himself by word and deed, and of the faith of
the Apostles testifying concerning Him; with which witness
that of the Holy Ghost is conjoined, to estabUsh faith in those
who have received it through the word, in whom a new Hfe in
union with God arises. But the further work of forming dogmas
in unison with the objective Christianity, is not superfluous or
forbidden. For it is the tendency of the Christianity, which
has through the Holy Ghost become subjective, to penetrate
the whole sphere of the soul ; and the man who should attempt
to except the knowledge department from that, and to abide in
simple immediate beHef, would subject belief itself, which has
already knowledge as an element in it, and thereby consecrates
the knowledge faculty itself, to similar infirmities with those
which we see arise where faith does not pass over into practice,
but seeks to hold this sunk in itself. It is indeed true that the
testimony, though dogmatically indeterminate, can establish the
faith in Christ, as this testimony also endures through all ages ;
but the historical vocation of Christianity wiU not be satisfac
torily fulfilled where men rest contented with being firm in the
faith, with the deHverance of souls from the world, but only
there where Christian knowledge, or science, is also held to be
the work and vocation of the Church along with that. This?
itself springing out of the true Church, works back, enriching
and fructifying, on the Church's testimony ; and in this case is
an absolute good in itself, and has an essential bearing on the
full development of the Divine image in man.
1 Appendix, Note X.

74 INTRODUCTION.
The most immediate problem of Christian Dogmatic His
tory is to contemplate not the Church testimony, but the Church
knowledge in its history. The former, standing nearer to faith
as its immediate source, preserves in all ages more of essential
identity with itself, and is less affected by fluctuations than the
latter. This difference, this relative independence one of the
other, exhibits a higher grade wherever both are rooted in the
Christian faith, and remain conscious of their common relation
ship; but it begins its course in the Church only gradually.
In the first centuries of the Church and of councils, both func- ,
tions are to a great extent unseparated; and hence one can
understand how, since the Church consciousness has been again
more powerfully aroused, many among us desire from the History
of Dogmas, that it should relate to us the development of the
Church's belief, and not of its knowledge ; that it should tell
how the Church belief attested itself in the councils, the great
gathering points of the Church faith-power, and conducted the
further development of the dogma ; that it, in short, should
teach us to conceive historically the formation of the Church
dogma in its present form. But here much confusion prevails.
This view has its full right, as against those who put forth a
claim for the consideration of what lies outside of Christianity,
—namely, the philosophic thinking that was not determined by
Christianity, — in the History of Dogmas ; for at the bottom of.
this confounding of the distinction between the History of
Philosophy and the History of Dogmas, without doubt, lies a
fundamental want of clearness as to the essence of Christianity,
and a flattening of the distinction between' it and what is not
Christian. Nor let it be denied that the problem thus proposed
is worthy of being handled as a separate subject of inquiry ; but
for it there is an acknowledged science, Church Symbolik, which
is sufficient. To seek to drag the History of Dogmas back to
this, arises from a contracted ecclesiastical interest. The Church
needs rather a history of the Christian knowledge of faith, as
assuredly this knowledge itself, and the history of this knowledge
in the Church, is the proper object of a History of Dogmas.
Creed-forming epochs in this history are those in which the
previously more detached attempts after a more definite know
ledge' of what was believed have so prevailed and been iUustrated,
that the doctrine, positively or negatively determined, has ripened

INTRODUCTION. _ . 75
to a dogma, the common-good of the Church. The utterance
or the confession of this attained conviction manifests it as a
united conviction, as a common-good ; and in the act of bringing
this to pass, the advanced knowledge again coalesces with the
Church belief, reverts, as it were, into it, and becomes thence
forward common belief, or belief of the Church, to which now
the further development of the knowledge is joined. The dogma
is not simply identical with the belief, but it is the beHef as at
the same time more fully thought out and more conceptually
apprehended. And for this task there must be a place given in
the Church, just as there is a place for the history of it in Church
science. — In times when creed-making does not prevail (truly not
only in our own days), the essays at faith-knowledge so diverge
from each other, that to many all faith in the possibility of a con
currence of convictions will vanish. But at no time has a problem
been proposed to Christianity which she has not, though amid
the conflict of the sharpest antagonisms, been able to solve.
* And those who know best how to stand and act in our depart
ment hold fast, what all Dogmatic History teaches, that the
most violent antagonisms amid which, often for many centuries,
or for ever, the Church truth seems to be distracted in its pro
gress towards becoming known, always, through a friendly
sustaining hand, are brought to a point where, they rest in a
well-matured common conviction ; whilst only the more igno
rant, those who are less instructed in history or not firm in the
faith, in place of working for a new step in the common consent
of the Church, hold the point of transition for the conclusive
position negative or positive, — the school or the previous step
of faith-knowledge for the spiritual or Christian universe.
Thus to the Christian intellect, after Christianity had been
planted in the heart of mankind, the pure initiatory impulse
eternalized by the writings of the Apostles, and the objective
documentary Christianity made sure to men for remembrance,
there remained to give itself up to the nature of Christianity
and of the founder of the Divine life in man, to understand
more exactly and conceptually what had been diffused by Him
over mankind. It must consequently be admitted, that at first
a Christology in the strict sense was not delivered. It was the
attacks on Christianity that contributed chiefly, iii the first
instance, to consolidate the doctrines, and give them a conceptual

76 INTRODUCTION.
stamp. But the Christian doctrine thus constructed is not,
therefore, a mere human product, not something merely fabri
cated: on the contrary, the knowledge of the Church also
partakes of the Divine Spirit ; and the fact, that the cavHs have
always contributed to the consolidating of the doctrine, is a
proof that, though at first there were wanting exact conceptual
expressions, yet the thing itself is from the beginning present
in another form, in the form of intuition, which is an element
of beHef ; and to this original source science reverts from every
negation of a definite form of doctrine, to receive a new impulse
forward ; as, on the other hand, in every stage where science has
made a positive advance, and brought beHef to its more adequate
expression, this advance is elevated into a pure gain for the
certifying of what faith possesses immediately, and to this is
brought back. ,
If, in fine, we place before us the relations and laws of this
development of the Christian knowledge, it will appear that
since Christianity was set up in the midst of Judaism and Hel
lenism, this could not avoid being affected and defined by the
surrounding world. This has been done both negatively and
positively. In the former case, the chief weight was naturally
laid on what was mostly opposed to the one ' or other of these
two antagonist systems ; in the latter case, what was analogous
was borrowed from both to ^further the apprehension of the
Christian system. For, as we have seen, however Httle the
origin of Christianity is illustrated from either, nevertheless
Christian thought clothes itself necessarily, at first, in previously
found, antique forms, though only tentatively. To Judaism, for
instance, is alHed the idea of the primitive prophet and man in
the Ebionitic tendency; to Hellenism, the doctrine of the Logos,
which, in the second century, is seen to be most powerfully
influenced by Alexandrian philosophy. The onesidedness of
the Jewish element furnished the counterpoise to the Hellenic,
and conversely. As, however, minds were, according to their
training, prepossessed towards- the Jewish or the Hellenic mode
of representing Christ's Person, differences arose by which not
only the riches of Christianity were exhibited, but, in the con
troversy they excited, the Jewish and the HeUenic element
always more intimately interpenetrated each other, influenced
by the Christian principle implanted in both, which proved itself

INTRODUCTION. 77
to be the higher common unity of both by tiiis, that through it,
by constant intercourse, both received completeness from each
other. And this is only the other side of the above ; and it is
to be maintained, both that the being of Christianity is not to
be accounted for from either Hebraism or heathenism, and that,
on the other hand, it alone brings both to their truth. It cannot
be derived from them, because it is a fact antagonist to both
of them ; nor, for the same reason, is it merely a doctrine of
such a kind as that Judaism and HeUenism might, by their
mutual interpenetration, have produced it ; whilst, on the other
hand, it alone presents the true substance of both rehgions in a
higher unity, wrought out in the person of the God-man. The
greatest thing in heathenism is the idea of the very close
proximity and indwelling of the Divine life in free human form;
but the Divine which comes to an indwelHng in man is yet so
predominantly thought as physical, that where only a more
powerful form of life appeared, be it as strength or as beauty
or as mtelHgence, there an apotheosis was the first suggestion
of heathenism. Now, since this does not do justice to the dis
tinction between the Divine and the human, and the Divine
which is displayed in the world is not the truly Divine ; on the
other hand, that Divine Essence, more purely expressive of
absoluteness, which is undoubtedly found in the background of
the heathen reHgious consciousness, that impersonal. existence
which also soars above the gods, is, at the same time, partly of
a predominating physical character, partly cannot come to a
manifestation ; and if it could, it would from the heathen view
arrive first in Christ at personaHty, which it had not before ;
and this would have been theogony through the form of human
life and human act.1 Judaism had for its basis not something
dim and selfless, no blank substance, but a subject, a personality;
and this is conceived above all as just and holy. Through the
ethical idea, however, was justice done to the distinction between
God and the world, especially mankind. This is the great thing
in the Old Testament rehgion. But the monotheism of Judaism
is in itself powerless to reduce the distinction to unity ; to it the
man-becoming of God appears as a blasphemy.
1 We may refer to Gnosticism, which so deeply wounded the Christian
consciousness by presupposing a free personal God to all that comes into
being, to all finitude.

78 INTRODUCTION.
Both the leading forms of pre-Christian religion, though
when viewed from Christianity they represent opposite elements
of the reHgious idea, yet cannot, unless they pass into a higher,
maintain themselves before each other, but at last fall over into
each other in fruitless alternation ; .and the same may be said of
the heresies in which their principles predominate, — a proof that
their mutuaUy exclusive elements yet tend to be united, seek
each other. This tendency produces, according to circumstances,
alluring imitations of that unity of both which is found in
Christianity. This may also be mirrored here and there in the
Church. But, more closely viewed, this unity of the Divine and
human passes in heathenism into duaHsm ; especially in the
department of thought, its unity is resolved into a schism as
soon as that Absolute in the background of heathenism advances,
and, as the physically conceived Infinite Being, excludes from
itself all definiteness, recoils from all finitudej and so leaves the
world absolutely outside of itself, as a phsenomenon. Since
this phsenomenon is nevertheless indispensable to it, because it,
though it is something* positive, can itself be thought as some
thing only in the negation of the finite, this infinite itself is
essentially encumbered with duaHsm. Subjectively expressed, -i
heathen thought ends in a dualism between ideal and empirical .
knowledge. Conversely, Judaism, when it is diverted from
going on to something higher, by which its ethical category may
be estabHshed and secured against falling back, sinks ever again
into bare identity of God and the world, and thereby produces
at the highest the imitations of what is Christian, already men
tioned. This showed itself within the' religious sphere even in
the earHer times of the people, whilst as yet Prophecy, so essential
to this rehgion, had not furnished the complement of that which
the Hebrew intellect, in order to be itself, must have felt to be
yet wanting. In the sphere of thought, however, this shows
itself in the last period of Judaism, especially among the Alex-:
andrian Jews; and not less in the unbeHeving remains of
Judaism in our own day. So long, indeed, as the holiness of
God is only directive and lawgiving, God Himself is thought only
as absolute Moral Law, not as yet as Love. From this there
are only two possible ways of bringing the unrest of the " shall"
to the " be." Either the Law tends forwards to Prophecy, is
an imperative word of God to which entity [das Seyn, the being]

INTRODUCTION. 79
does not faU, but which announces a higher revelation whereby
the idea of hoHriess is powerfully presented, and thus the reve
lation of the Divine holiness is for the first time established in
the world and completed ; or the world as it is, imagined to be
good, the living pulse of historical progress, and the hope of a
better future, is mortified ; whereby, however, the ethical idea
again sinks into the physical, where cessation has its home
despite aU movement of life.1 The wisdom of God, thus deprived
of its most hallowed sphere of manifestation, the history of
mankind, finds responsive utterance to its purport hardly from
anything else than from demiurgic thoughts : with ' hoHness
vanishes also the idea of rectitude; for if the former be degraded,
the latter mjsses the Absolute norm, nay, with the Absolute end
departs also the justification of the proofs of the Divine recti
tude ; and to a concept of God so mutilated, there remains
nothing but a thought and a wflling, which contains not itself
as something spiritual and Divinej but only the world, physical
might and wisdom. In this case, the distinction between God
and the world, which had arisen in the ethical consciousness, is
again lost, and the pagan unity of God and the world as a more
presumptive step onwards is wrung out of the thinking which
doubted of the progress of the world through manifestation.
And even the third attribute, the Divine goodness,2 at this stage
so highly prized, which, as the higher attribute, is fitted to heal
the ethical and religious schism which the Old Testament leaves
unmitigated, is only an apparitional image of Christian love ;
for it does not communicate itself through the Divine rectitude
and holiness, it has not these for its contents and end; and
"hence, instead of fulfilling these, it also receives a physical
purport, and becomes a mjnistress of Eudaimonism. But,
indeed, the thinking which seeks the reconciHation of dualism
in a retrogression to the physical, in place of p'ressing forwards
and upwards, cannot thus succeed in gaining unity. For in
1 This tendency was exhibited practically, as it appears, by the Sadducees,
theoretically by the Alexandrians, especially Philo, who had no greater boast
to make of the law than that it is at one with the creation, and who could
assign no higher ideal to man, the microcosm, than that he was in order
and beauty like the macrocosm, the great creation ; whereby the distinction
between man and nature is characteristically at once given and retracted.
2 ayaSorns with Philo.

80 INTRODUCTION.
the domain of the one is found the exact, and exclusive
opposite of the other ; and not less, as has been- shown in the
case of heathenism, is the physicaUy-conceived Infinite the
exclusive opposite of the finite. It is only in a higher sphere,
in the domain of the Spirit, that the contradiction is solved, —
a contradiction with which the nature-life is by itself encum
bered, and in which a thinking in mere physical categories
flounders, and to which even the law by itself does not rise
superior. This solution is found in Christianity: it is, the truth of
both these religions, since it truly and really presents in the
incarnation of Christ as well the distinction as the. unity of the
Divine and human, as well the concept of God as that of man.
Did heathenism long after the apotheosis of the human nature1?
In Christ this is given ; for here is a Man who is also God. ,
Did genuine Judaism seek the fulfilling of the revelation not
completed by the law? did it strain after the love of God as
the f ulfiUing of the holy law ? In Christ is this given : here is
the innermost revelation of the mystery, the fullest condescen
sion of God; for God has in Christ become Man. Here is
the point at which the bond of unity between God and the
world, on which heathenism loved most to linger, is displayed, '
but in such a manner as that the ethical idea, that of rectitude'^
and hoHness, which forms the chief excellence of the Old
Testament, receives its due ; for that all per se are God's off
spring, of which heathenism made so much, is in Christianity
of so little moment, that it is reckoned among the humble ele
ments, and finds its plape in the first preaching to catechumens
(Acts xvn.) ; for, according to it, this depends on the actuality
of the human ^ersonaHty, on the divinity of actual thinking
and wining ; and this is so little impHed in that per se, that
therein rather lies only the determination to this, the as yet
mere possibility of it, such as consists even with a complete
disfiguring of the Divine image : a determination, consequently,
which in and by itself is so indeterminate, that it may conduc);,,
as well to the judgment as to personal perfection. In Christ,
however, appeared the Man who is not merely essentiaUy
Divine, but whose natural Divine Sonship finds its complement
in an ethical Sonship through the Divinity of His whole human
thinking and acting. He did not appear in order to be the

INTRODUCTION. 81
Son of God, as if this were the ultimate end ; but the ultimate
end was the glorifying of man, and therewith' of God, in Him
and through Him ; and in the very conception of this, ethical
personality is desiderated : with mere essence, or being per se,
it is not satisfied. Hence His thinking and acting, as well
as His suffering, in its ethical completeness, are also for us ;
He is also officially God's Son. On the other hand, His ethical
and official Divine Sonship presupposes also a natural Divine
Sonship in a pecuHar sense ; for it must correspond to its end,
according to which the love of God united to manhood, as well
as manhood united in full love with God, must come to a
manifestation in Christ. As respects ourselves, however, we
know that we are in our own Hfe and being ungodly, whereas
in Christ we come into a state of godliness, or sonship to God ;
and in this relation also Christianity becomes, in its principle,
the solution of Jewish and heathen error : it removes their
contradiction by the realization of the truth to which they tend.
Heathenism desires physical sonship with God, without regard
to ethical ; Judaism desires ethical sonship with God, and over
looks the presupposition without which this never can come to
pass, — the transformation of the spiritual condition through
the "being born of Divine seed." Christianity makes the
believers, both physically and ethically, God's children and
brethren of Christ ; but it desiderates for this, on the one hand,
in opposition to heathenism, an ethical, on the other, in opposi
tion to the legal principle, a reHgious process. In these ethical
reHgious processes, sentence is passed on the fantasy of imme
diate deification and ethical perfection ; and therewith is the
old man judged and dies, and room is made for the new, which,
participant of the Divine nature through grace, and thereby
raised in the Holy Ghost to immediate participation of the
natural Divine Sonship of Christ, advances, like Christ, to ethical
Divine sonship, love to God in Christ; and, in fine, is also,
according to office or caUing, vitally inserted as a member in
that body of which Christ is the eternal Head. This Chris
tianity wills to be and to accomplish. We have also discussed
the essence of the heathen and Jewish error, which is ever
clothing itself in new forms.
From these premises it follows as of course, that not without
strenuous effort, in many cases a continuous series of strifes and
VOL. I. F

82 INTRODUCTION.
victories, could the higher Christian principle, planted in the
midst of the Jewish and heathen world, overcome both com
pletely, i.e., so as that the essence of both should be expelled
from the Christian consciousness. Masses of heathen and
Jewish error such as it encountered were not to be dispersed as
by a magic stroke, but only by hard toil, even although, wherever
Christianity was embraced, these were already in principle
renounced, and deprived of their power of growth the more
that Christianity built itself up on its own field of thought. But
out of aU the conflicts and agitations to which the Christian
truth was exposed through the pressure of non-Christian prin
ciples, — nay, into which it voluntarily threw itself in order to
become to the uttermost the property of mankind, — it ever
emerged, through its inborn conquering might, to advancing
clearness, and ever richer unfolding of its fulness.
Could we succeed in representing the dogma, on the one
hand, in its undisturbed assurance of victory, yielding itself up
to human development, to the process which draws it into
divestments and disfigurements without number ; but not less,
on the other, partly also in its quiet work on the minds of menj'
into which it sinks deeper and deeper, partly when again the
hour is come, in its grand victorious career, when, as if by a
magic stroke, the band falls from the eyes of the Christian com
munity, the clouds flee away, and the clear image of Christ in>i
richer fulness than before stands before their view : then would -j
the historical delineation of this dogma be faithful ; for in that
case the same pulse that beats through its history would be felt \
also in the delineation of that history. Where, on the contrary,
the development of the dogma in the Church does not come to
knowledge and representation, there must be unconsciously a
deficiency of historical fideHty, whether the idea of development
is negatived by a later acquisition being dated back to the early ;
Church, whereby the side of the renunciation of the dogma is }.
misapprehended, which were the Doketism of historical writing,
or by that self-renunciation of the dogma being taken for the
whole, whilst the development of its strength and fulness is
regarded as an idle byework which has come in between ; and
this latter method, which changes the history of the development
into a history of the evacuation of the dogma, would be the
Ebionitic error. The dogma itself has forced its way through

INTRODUCTION. 83
the midst of both ; it is for the historical deUnealion to f oUow
as it best can.1
Accordingly, if we enter closely into the history of our
dogma, it wiU divide itself into three periods.
In the first, which embraces the first four centuries, we
have the beginning of the development in the consciousness of
the belief that, in the Person of Christ, the Divine and the
human are, in the general, conjoined. From this immediate
totality of the Person of Christ, the Church development pro
ceeds to the establishing of the concrete elements which belong
to the concepts of Divine and human. But since now both
sides stand over against each other, no longer merely in the
general, but as concrete quantities, it becomes a possible and
necessary problem to investigate the How of this union. Neces
sary ; because the more justice is done to the recognition of both
sides, the more is that immediate presupposed unity put asunder,
and is to be anew restored to thought. Possible ; because such
an inquiry may be successfully pursued only when, and in so
far as, that which is to be conjoined is thought as actuaUy given
', according to its concrete distinction.
The second period advances to the problem for which the
first has furnished the data, and works on these data. These
are : the elements which belong to the concept of the Divine,
and the elements which belong to the concept of the human,
whose difference is comprised in the duplicity of the Natures.
Setting out from this distinction, it has to investigate the
How of the unity of both in the Person of Christ ; for the
That, or the actual existence of this unity, remains the first
presupposition, always present, as vouched for by faith. So
long, however, as either the concept of the Divine or that of
? the human is so thought as that the one, if it does not exclude,
yet prejudices the other, their union in the Person of Christ
can only imperfectly be understood, — that is, in such a way as
shaU fail to do justice alike to both sides. According as in any
epoch the preponderance falls on the one side, will the other be
necessarily depreciated. Now it is a feature of the dogmatic
thinking of the time before the Reformation, that in it the
Divine element had a onesided preponderance ; and, on the
1 Appendix, Note Y.

84 INTRODUCTION.
contrary, in the century after the Eeformation, anthropology
was elevated to a false preponderance over theology. Thus the
second period falls into two epochs, between which the Refor
mation stands ; and that not merely outwardly, but so as to
denote a real transition-point in the history of the world, inas
much as it, by resuming the truth taught in the old time, opened?
a free course for the right knowledge of the human side. Thus-jj
the time of the Reformation itself shows how a new beginning,!
which unites in itself the essential elements, must rise above the!
onesidedness which characterized the second epoch, and form!
the direct reverse of that of the first. '
The third epoch, in fine, which begins with , the present j
century, has to do with the problem, to cognise the Person of
Christ as the unity of the Divine and the human, in the equipose
and distinction of both sides.

THE FIRST PERIOD,
TILL THE YEAR 380.

the first period, the elements of the Person of Christ
are to be estabUshed ; the faith which accompanies the
theoretic process always presupposes their unity ; this
is for faith immediately certain, though not as yet narrowly
defined, not as yet mediately cognised through the knowledge
of the distinct elements, which in it are combined. Indeed, to
any form of Christology, there must be attached from the
beginning the attempt to bring again into union, somehow, the
elements which have been thus far wrought out ; but it is also
true that every such attempt can have only a passing and mo
mentary significancy, so long as, on either side of the Person
of Christ, perhaps essential elements are left out of account.
Hence it is only in the rational and necessary course of the
matter, that the Church, during the first period, should above
aU have undertaken the problem of shaping forth, element by
element, both sides of the Person of Christ, so as to aUow these
at first to separate from each other as widely as possible, that it
might hand over to the second period — both sides being com
pletely established — the task of closely cognising the mode and
manner in which, in the Person of Christ, these extremes are
brought together.
If, further, we compare the epochs of the first period to
gether, we shall see that the first asserts the real Godhead and
the real manhood of Christ only in the general. As respects

86 THE FIRST PERIOD
the latter, the outermost limit, the true human body'oi Christ -
is most decisively asserted; and, indeed, not only its actual
existence generally, but also its functions and natural affections; J
and along with that, the truth of the principal weighty facts of
the earthly life of Christ — His resurrection, His death, His
growth from chUdhood upwards, even to the most difficult of
all, His real birth by Mary — formed the common conviction of
the Christian world. But still the second element on this side, i
the soul of Christ, remained undeveloped ; and with this there j
was, for a great part of the history of Christ, room left for a
Doketic mode of treating it. This was the case especiaUy with
reference to the sufferings of His soul in the history of His
passion, as weU as His baptism and temptation ; nor could the
post-existence of the manhood of Christ, or its indissoluble union
with the Divine nature, be estabUshed so long as the Church|
had not a secure consciousness of His true human soul ; and
this was the case neither in the first nor in the second epoch.
Likewise, as respects the Divine side, in the first epoch there
was not merely, in opposition to Ebionism, the recognition of the
truly Divine in Christ generally, — not merely the admission of
a momentary or a permanent prophetic endowment with which,;
the Church was furnished ; but the Christian community knew
itself to be eternally reconcUed and united with God in Christy
in whom was manifested the absolute religion which, a parte
post and a parte ante, is the final end of the world. This
consciousness the earliest Christians had at first in an escha-s
tological form, or in the belief in the return to judgment-^
Him who had come, — of which judgment the turning-point is
the position of each individual in relation to Christianity ; and
thereby, in the consciousness of the Primitive Church, the kinglyi
office of Christ was conjoined with the prophetic ; and this could
and must be conceived from the extreme end back to the begin
ning [so as to cover the whole manifestation of Christ], or to
the development of the position, that all must be made by Him
for whom aU has been made. But from these works of judg-|
ment and creation the Church returned to the earthly Hfe of
Christ, and now learned to understand this in a new and higher!
Hght as Divine history. His 'death, the result of love, was
recognised as the radiative central-point of the manifestation
of God in Christ; by this death God reconciles mankind to

TILL THE YEAR 380. 8?
Himself, with a view of bringing the race, at the end of the
days, to that perfection which was the eternal purpose of their
creation. Thus the reaHty of the death of Christ becomes,
through the recognition of His Divine nature, the reality of the
reconcUiation ; and the high-priestly office of Christ, in which
righteousness and love are mediated, and thereby the strenuously
ethical character of Christianity is established, is added to the
other two offices, in which might and wisdom are displayed. But
however certain it is that Christianity must recognise the truly
Divine in Christ, and however much this consciousness is
enriched and confirmed to Him by the elements, already named,
of His entire work ; yet, just because in Christ personal truth
and wisdom, love and might, are recognised, there is only the
more decidedly a pressure towards the yet undetermined ques
tion, how the Divine in Christ stands related to the Divine of
the Father — to the idea of God generally, to which unity is
essential. The significancy of Christianity showed itself grasp
ing even deeper : there was an irresistible pressure towards a
commutation of the pre-Christian, nay, the Old Testament
concept of God. This extreme and boldest task Christianity
undertook, but unwiUingly; for a long time she resorted to
palhatives, the character , of which may be briefly described
thus : There was no disposition to abridge in the least, in the
doctrine of the office and work of Christ, His Deity, because it
was only through this that its adequate expression could be given
to that which the Christian consciousness carried in itself as
divinely assured of; but, on the other hand, in view of the
unity of God, concessions were permitted in regard to this,
which, if they were not forgotten again in effect, could not but
seriously impair it. But in the second epoch, after what has
been noted was won, the Church would be drawn irresistibly to
the conscious, Christian constituting of the concept of God.
Besides the positive impulse which lay in the Christian prin
ciple itself, the Church was constrained to this problem, which
was solved in the second, the Trinitarian epoch, by the great
heresies of the third and fourth centuries, in which these pallia
tives were consequently carried out intb great systems, and
.therewith weakened the nerve of the Christian consciousness.
It is the thoroughgoing Monarchianism, which, in ever clearer
and firmer systems of an antagonist, a deistic or pantheistic

88 THE FIRST PERIOD,
character, following each other stroke upon stroke, opposed
itself with all its force to that concept of God to which the
Church was tending; whilst at the same time it could not but
hasten the birth of that concept in the clear consciousness of
the Church. For this great stride, the work of the second epoch,
— which had for its object to set aside entirely the unity of God
as it had been previously held, and to substitute for that a unity
mediated through diversity, in other words, the Trinity, — the
work of the first epoch had not only given strength, but had
made precise preparation. For one thing, it had established the
base-lines, by help of which Christianity could assume its proper
position with ease, even in the most difficult and recondite of
its elements. Then, in particular, the Christological labours of
the first epoch had secured for the concept of God also the
Christian doctrine of the Divine attributes. The threefold office
of Christ, which had its higher Christian significance only in
virtue of the Divine side of His Person, contains already the
stamina of the concept of God, because the attributes ascribed
to Christ on account of His work, cannot be otherwise than
referred to God. Towards the end of the second century the
first Christian teachers held fast, first, that to God belongs not
merely omnipotence and wisdom, such as He has displayed in
the creation of and the sure completion of the world ; for these •
attributes may in themselves allow of a monistic, heathen con
struction, without departing from the heathen principle, the
physical concept of God, the stand-point of natural religion ;
and on this a Divine history of an ethical or teleological cha
racter, such as Christianity is, would be impossible. They-
held, secondly, that not even rectitude satisfies the concept of
God ; for on that the unbelieving Jewish world could stand, .
which, in accordance with its juridical stand-point, could set God
and the world over against each other, and could arrive at no
other union between the two than that of the relation of the
Lawgiver or Obliger to the obliged ; and, on the other side, the
relation of service and debt to the sentence of the Judge by
whom reward or penalty is apportioned. But in place of this •
deistic stand-point of Judaism, the Church found it needful to
seek room in her concept of God for grace, of which she felt
herself to be the recipient : in place of the mere God-and-the-
world-discriminating rectitude, to permit the uniting love to

TILL THE YEAR 380. 89
enter. But in fine, thirdly, — and this is the weightiest point of
all, — these Church-teachers recognised the fact, that this love is
not to be viewed as exclusive of the physical and juridical ele
ment in the concept of God, but is rightly recognised only
when in it the physical as weU as the juridical concept is pre
served, — is in it, as it were, regenerated ; inasmuch as love
without creative power and wisdom would be either egoistic, or
blind and powerless ; whilst a love without rectitude, or without
the liberty and independence of creation, would of itself neces
sarily relapse into a physical thing, of an emanistic pagan
character, even although under the most plausible show of what
is Christian. They knew that all these elements are rather to
be combined in the Christian concept of God, and are combined
in the doctrine, that one and the same Qoi is the Creator and
Lawgiver, the Redeemer and Perfecter ; not distributing these,
with Gnosticism, among different principles, or denying the one
or the other of them. Now, the more consequent was the deve
lopment of the Monarchian heresies of the third and fourth
centuries, above referred to, which were most obstinately opposed
to the representing of the Divine unity as a trinity, the more
definitely was it made apparent that, in following out their
course, they must, with the denial of the Trinity, strand either
on the pantheistic confounding of God and the world, or on
the purely physical idea of God, or, in fine, on the purely
juridical, i.e., the one which deistically separates God and the
world. Hence it became for the Church manifestly impossible
to abide by one or other of the forms of Monarchianism, the
way to the Trinity being laid down, and the difficult stride from
the pre-Christian to the Christian concept of God already taken.
We shall see what essential fruit in reference to the basis of
the doctrine of the Trinity, i.e., the Christian doctrine of the
Divine attributes, was contributed by the struggles of the
Church with the different forms of the Gnosis.
As respects the Trinitarian epoch itself, it was inaugurated
- by the great heresy of Patripassianism, which gradually evolved
itself into SabelHanism, i.e., by the Hellenizing, ethnic mode of
viewing the love of God in Christ. Leaving out of sight other
elements favourable to it, there comes to be considered especially
the result by which it was arrived at by the Church. After the
latter had already, in the earliest times, obtained from the

90 THE FIRST PERIOD,
primitive eschatology the most definite views of the pre-existent
hypostatic form of the Divine in Christ (in which, however, |
there was inherent in the Divine hypostasis of the Son, viewed
from the terminus of the Person of Christ, the condition of
finite personality, which in this form could not be introduced
into the Godhead itself), the concept of the Divine hypostasis
came to be more and more, since the doctrine of the Logos
became the common property of the Church, stripped of that in
it which was inadequate ; and not less was the subordination- |
theory, which we find stUl dinging even to Justin, for instance,
more and more put away ; and, in fine, His distinctness from %
the world, and therewith that of God, was more and more
brought out, and He was recognised at length, not any longer j
predominantly as the spoken Word of the world, or as the Ideals* 1
world, or as the Divine Idea of the world, but in self-substan
tiality as the One who speaks in relation to the world. His
purport and significancy ceased to be summed up in relation to
the world : He found His meaning in Himself ; for the Beloved, 1
spoken of or witnessed to by the Father, who is Wisdom and
Power, glorifies and loves, according to Irenseus and Clement, „
the Father in turn, who is in Him and He in Him. But if the
distinction between the Logos of God and the world was thus
more sharply defined than by the older apologists, and thereby
a barrier was erected, or an advantage won, against a physical
or Hellenizing representation of the relation between God and
the world, yet was that purchased by a previous enfeebling of 'J
the hypostatic distinction between the Son of God, who as
Logos is simply the Divine reason and power, and the Father, \
to whom both these must be ascribed ; so that, consequently, at
the end of the second century the state of the question in the
Church favoured Monarchianism under the form of Patri- 1
passianism. I
Whilst the Church of the third century, occupied with the
refutation of this heresy, was, by the labours of TertuUian, I
Hippolytus, and Origen, determining more precisely and putting "
together the elements of the hypostasis of the Son, and, in order j
to be secured against • a relapse into the ethnic principle, was
emphasizing the distinction of the Son from the Father, whilst |
their unity was less attended to ; there arrived the favourable
time for the second of the great heresies above named, which, \

TILL THE YEAR 380. 91
deistic in its principle, having begun in weak, already super
seded, Ebionitic forms, now grew to a frightful extent. Allied
with ethnic elements, it set over against the decisive point at
which the Christian dogma of the Trinity should come forth
clear and an object of consciousness, and which aims to be the
higher unity of the Jewish and heathen principles, an imitation
of the Christian truth, a mingling of the Jewish and heathen.
But with the CouncU at Nice, by which the third epoch was
introduced, this heresy received its death-blow ; and therewith
was one of the sides, which in the first epoch had remained in
one leading point undetermined, Christologically established,
viz,, the Homoousia, or hypostatic equality of essence of the Son
and the Father. Great and severe as was the struggle of the
next fifty years, it estabUshed finally, not merely the Church's
acquisition in respect of the Son, but this also led to the doctrine
of the Holy Ghost as weU.
And now, after the second epoch had been occupied almost
exclusively with the higher nature of Christ, and the weighty
utterances of an Irenseus, a Tertullian, and an Origen, which
might have served to the completion of the doctrine of Christ's
perfect manhood, had been laid aside, there arrived for this also
a time in the third epoch. The SabeUian tendency, which had
entered the Church as antagonist to Arianisin, sought a final
tenure, on the ground that it answered in the negative the
hitherto open question of the true human soul of Christ. The
pregnant system of ApoUinaris furnished the Church with the
occasion of entering more fully and exactly into this question ;
and the decision, that Christ could not without a true human
soul be the Saviour, placed the topstone on the doctrine of the
second, the human side of Christ, about the year 380. From
this time forward the Church returned with fuU Christological
forqe, and more definitely, to the task of determining how the
two natures, now posited in their perfection, but also in their
entirely unconfounded separateness, could be combined. And
this forms the object of the Second Period.

92 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
FIRST EPOCH
THE AGE OP THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, TILL A.D. 150.
CHAPTER FIRST.
EVIDENCE OF THE FAITH OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY
IN CHRIST.
There is undeniably a very significant distinction between the
written productions of the Apostolic Age and those of the age
immediately foUowing; and it is hardly possible to represent
the relation of the one to the other more erroneously, than when
the Apostolic Age is called, in a dogmatical respect, a germ and
beginning, whilst the age of the Apostolic Fathers is regarded
as the fruitful unfolding of that germ. It is true that, to a
certain extent, on one side an advance was to be expected in the
later age ; for this is according to the law of history. But if we
try each of these ages by the standard of its Christian know
ledge, we shall find beyond all doubt a serious falling off in the
age following that of the Apostles. What was in the earHer
age the actual spiritual possession of the distinguished men
whom the Lord chose, trained, and equipped, was far from
being all retained by the succeeding age; much less was a
higher stage of Cliristian knowledge attained. Such a retro
gression, following times of unusual spiritual elevation and
expansion, is quite in accordance with the laws of historical
development, as we see in other cases, — in the time of the
Reformation, for instance ; and if at first sight this seems to be
something surprising, it is better to endeavour to conceive it as
a phsenomenon which is altogether in order, than to cover over
the inconvenience which lies therein — arising from the appear
ance of an interruption of the dogmatic progress, on the
assumption of the genuineness of the principal books of the
New Testament — by artificial palliatives, be they exegetical or

THE AGE OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, TILL A.D. 150. 93
be they critical, which, at the best, can minister only a mo
mentary satisfaction.1
The solution is this. The ApostoUc Age is full of primal
fire and spirit ; in it occurs the greatest spiritual revolution
which has ever happened to man ; and it is, besides, an age rich
in ideas, fruitful of classic-Christian works. But as the ideas
which Christianity has implanted in men are of an essentially
practical kind, assure the long-cherished desire of final satisfac
tion, and aim at the renewal and sanctification of life ; so there
f oUowed on that first age, which enjoyed also higher Ulumina-
tion, an age of a predominantly practical tendency, in which the
Christian idea strove above all to operate in the world, in the
depths of men's souls, to remove the contradiction between
its intensive nature and its as yet restricted appearance by
extensive growth of the Church. This age, rejoicing in having
secured reHgious satisfaction, emancipates itself from the stain
of having a sinful community of life with the pre-Christian
forms, and thus assumes something of a world-shunning cha
racter, a trait of practical duaHsm; at the same time that it
burns with zeal to convey to others, as much as possible, the
enjoyment of its own blessings. According to aU the accounts
which delineate to us the Christian community of this age, its
most characteristic mark at first was not the Christian gnosis,
but a holy, divine life, whereby it shone forth as a Hght in the
midst of Judaism and heathenism. At first this was sustained,
negatively, through antagonism with the Koapo*;, positively and
principally, through the same holy common spirit ; but latterly,
as that antagonism was weakened through the pressure of
worldly, schismatic, or heretical elements, and the Church was
1 To these palliatives may be referred Dr Baur's attempt to reduce by
some degrees the dogmatic height of the Apostolic Age ; and when, with
this view, he subjects one of the apostolic chiefs, Paul, to an exegetical
treatment which does not commend itself by its correctness (see Trinitat.,
p. 81 ff.), whilst the Gospel of John is, on account of its doctrine of the
Logos, extruded from the ApostoUc Age by a critical operation. After, by
this most artificial way, a dogmatic poverty has been adjudged to the age of
the Apostles, it is easy to get rid of the distinction between it and the follow
ing age ; and thus room is made for postponing the higher representation
of the Person of Christ, i.e., the rise of Christianity, for a century later.
Whether it is history itself, or the hitherto used method of history, that is
damaged thereby, must be seen from what follows.

94 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
thereby robbed of the clearness of self-consciousness, she betook
herself to protective, sustentative, prefinitive forms, which at
first had in them nothing mechanical or hierarchical, but were
only the pure expression of the organizing instinct which dwelt
in this new historical power, at first so formless, but which
carried in it a principle of overwhelming strength, capable of
restoring to society its youth. It would be a mistake; conse
quently, to construe that relapse as if the growing Christian
community were a do-nothing, spirituaUy purposeless mass, on
no side advancing or operative. Rather does primitive Chris-:
j tianity resemble a young, vigorous, well-directed tree, which,
1 however, is rather occupied in growing than in bringing forth
the fruits of Christian knowledge. There is no lack of paraUel
cases, which prove that in circles where no particular attention
is devoted to the side of Christian knowledge, but which are
practically alive, the Christian ground-ideas may be long pro
pagated incorrupt.1 For such circles may possess the most
Hvely interest for what produces a Christian living faith, and so
may carry with them, if not in a mediated scientific form, yet
in its original guise, that Christian knowledge of divine things/
which is always immanent in faith, and without which, indeedp
faith cannot exist. And though what they thus originally carry
in them they may not make the object of mature reflection, yet
as little can it be said that they propagate Christian truth only
traditionaUy, and without a sph'itual appropriation of it ; but
what they believe, that they testify. In this testifying they
have their free Hfe, their free action, whether it find scope in
hymns and odes, or in forming Christian usages and worship,
or, in general, in life and conduct ; to which thoroughly adjusted
formation, in particulars and on the whole, such an active period
advances all the more energetically and irresistibly, the more
firmly the as yet undisturbed faith is held as a guiding assump
tion.2 There is no poverty, withal, in this age; but, as ever
where activity predominates, a vital fulness and sense of inner
satisfying wealth." What characterizes it, is not dependency
and passivity, but a sense of freedom, which practically operates
in common life no less than in martyrdom. And thus there is
1 Thus the Waldenses in the Middle Ages ; so the Moravian Brethren
and the Herrnhuters.
2 Appendix, Note Z.

THE AGE OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, TILL A.D. 150. 95
no standing still : in the first century after Christ the Christian
principle is seen advancing still, though chiefly on the practical
side ; and it leaves to the foUowing age, as a significant legacy,
as the future development of the dogma's sustaining and leading
power, two principal works of the Church's common spirit, the
forming of an ecclesiastical organism, and the collecting of the
New Testament canon, both of which works stand in the closest
mutual relation.
Further, the retrogression of this age from that of the
Apostles, must not be wholly regarded as worthy of blame.
Rather, when Christianity is one whole, which is either there or
not, it foUows that an age which regresses in respect of dogmatic
culture, nevertheless possesses fuUy in its faith that out of which,
in due time, dogmas may be constructed. If, as is indeed certain,
it be the business of Dogmatic History to consider, not so much
what is faithfuUy handed down, as when there occurs what bears
the trace of a free Christian spirit, — free, yet in unison with
objective Christianity, so that it may reaUy be held as a valid
gain and attainment of the Christian intellect ; nevertheless it is
not to be overlooked, that Justin this practical direction does the
Christian intellect first set itself to work according to its inner
freedom and independence of mere tradition ; there it produces
works which, though, practical, yet presuppose an intellectual
significancy and a definite consciousness, which in its. own time
wiU become clearer and more immediate. And thus, though
this age, dogmaticaUy viewed, presents only the rudest form, yet
there is in it a foundation gained for all dogmatic development,
the actual existence of an independent Christian common faith.
Be its testimony poor, yet it comes out of the Hving fountain of
the heart ; be it only elementary, yet it is the vocation of the
age just to lay foundations, on which the process, advancing from
what is most general — theoretically viewed, most abstract — to
what is more definite, may rest so as to be soHd and continuous ;
and the entire dogmatic structure may yet be really the free work
of the Church, from which the Holy Spirit has never retired.
We shaU view this primitive Church, which may be pre
eminently called the witnessing Church, under the different
aspects which belong to our subject. First, we shall adduce all
the written documents which have been preserved to our time
so far as they are connected with Christology, and thus endea-

96 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
vour to construct for ourselves a complete representation of the
dogmatic stand-point of the existing leaders of the youthful
community. We shaU, after that, consider the features of the
spiritual life which furnish to us keys to the collective Christo
logical faith of the Church of this age.1
We name, first, Clement of Rome. Judging from his First
Epistle to the Corinthians,2 his characteristic is especially a soul
full of harmony and clearness ; and in this respect his epistle
has a close resemblance to that to Diognetus. "Let ns," he
writes, " fasten our regard on the Father and Former of the
Universe, and adhere to His exceUent and surpassing gifts of
peace and benefits. Let us contemplate Him in thought, and
behold with the mental eye His long-suffering [gracious] coun
sel. By His command the heavens moved, and in peace are
they subject to Him; day and night complete their course
ordained by Him, and impede not each other. Sun and moon,
and the choirs of stars, evolve their courses according to His
command, in unison, without error."* This harmony he sets
forth again in detaU (c. 20), specifying how therein goodness
is manifested towards men. In chap. 53 he resumes this
description, and advances to man, thus : " But besides these, He
hath with holy and pure hands formed man, the most excellent,
by dignity of intellect the loftiest of animals, as an impression
of His own image (j(apaKTrjpa Trj<s eiic6vo<; eavTov)\ and
after He had adorned Himself by His works, He rejoiced.
The multitudinous throng of angels stands ready to do His
wiU; and so ought we to be gathered together harmoniously
in one (c. 34), and as with one mouth we ought to cry unto
Him. . . . But in the world of men there is hatred, envy,
pride; it alone does not harmonize in the general chorus of
creation." But through Christianity, harmony has been restored not
only between man and man, but also between man and the rest of
the world ; and Clement could remind the Corinthians how they
1 Baur has, in his work on the Trinity and Incarnation, as good as passed
over this inquiry ; and yet it must be viewed as the decisive basis of all
further investigation.
2 Its authenticity may be regarded, in the present state of the inquiry,
as settled. * [Ep. ad Cor. I. c. 19, 20 — Tr.]

CLEMENT OF ROME. 97
had become, through Christ, called and sanctified " Holy and
honoured, your name is beloved by all men (c. 1). What
stranger but must acknowledge your firm faith, rich in virtues ?
but must admire your Christian piety, full of discretion and
gentleness? but must praise your abundant hospitality, and
joyfuUy celebrate the perfection and stability of your Christian
knowledge ? How you did everything without respect of per
sons, according to God's command; subject to the president,
and showing the presbyters fitting honour ; teaching the young
moderation and uprightness, women to live in all respects in a
blameless, honest, and pure conscience, to love their husbands
according to the order of subjection, and to administer their
household affairs in all good moraHty ! (c. 2.) Ye were all of
an humble spirit, without self -exaltation; preferring to be subject
rather than to rule, to give, than to receive : satisfied with the
viaticum which God gives, and pondering His word, you were
rich in compassion,* and had His sufferings before your eyes.
Thus was a deep and precious peace diffused over all; and along
with that, a boundless desire to do good ; and the fulness of the
Holy Ghost was poured out on all. And, full of holy purpose,
ye stretched out your hands in joyful, trustful confidence to
God Almighty, beseeching Him that He would be gracious, if
ye had involuntarily committed sin. Day and night ye strove
for the united brotherhood, that the whole number of the elect
might be saved. Upright were ye, and without deceit, thinking
no iniquity against each other. AU division and schism was an
abomination to you ; ye mourned over the sins of your neigh
bours, their defects ye looked on as your own ; of no good deed
did ye repent, ever ready for new good works. Thus adorned
by a walk rich in virtues and demanding respect, ye did all
things in the fear of God, and His commands were written on
the table of your hearts."
* [The original is hartpi>uspt.faot sjte toi? ax'hi.yxuoi;, which is rendered in
one Latin version, "dilatati eratis in visceribus," ed. Colomesii, Lond. 1687 ;
and in another, " intime recondita in visceribus servabatis verba ejus," ed,
Dressel, Lips. 1857. Mr Faber translates it thus: "Ye received them
into your very breasts and bowels." (Apostol. of Trinitarianism, I. p. 151.)
The rendering given by Dorner accords with the first of these ; but seems
wholly unauthorized. The verb anpai^oficci, "I embrace, take into my
heart," especially with the addition in o-vXayxtiois, conveys very much such
a meaning as Mr Faber has given. — Tri.]
vol. i. a

98 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Such fruit of a holy, godly life had the Corinthians to thank
Christianity for, before the discords which then reft them had
sprung up. And since they could return to their first honour
able estate in no other way than by a return to that which had
at first produced this change in them, he reproaches them with
that from "which they had partially faUen, for the sake of
humbling them. We thus have an opportunity of learning
clearly from Clement what his -preaching of Christ contained.
It is rather Christ's work, especiaUy His death, than Christ's
Person, of which he treats at length in this epistle./
A glance at the sufferings of Christ consumes pride, teaches :
us humiHty, draws us in the death of repentance (c. 7) under
His gracious yoke (c. 16), and to foUow Him. It is therefore,;-
a principal work of the Christian, and a necessary occupation
for him, to have Christ's death always before his eyes.1 His
opinion is not simply, that Christ has in dying set us an ex
ample of humiHty and patience, and has thereby acquired a
right to be exalted (comp. Phil. n. 6) — though this thought
also is not foreign to him (c. 16) — but the death of Christ is
with him the principle of true operative repentance, i.e., it pro
duces repentance which in faith obtains the remission of sins ;;
for " His blood has been shed for us, for our salvation ; He has; '
according to God's will, given His body for our body, His soul
for our soul." Every interpretation of this passage is forced
which does not recognise in it the idea of substitution, and that
as weU subjective, Christ's substitutionary design, as objective,
the actual fulfilment of that design, and its objective results.^
There is connected therewith the fact, that with Clement, as in
the Ep. to the Hebrews, the name " High-Priest" is frequently
applied to Christ. Comp. chap. 36, 58 (ap%i,epev<i t&v irpoaM
(j>op&v ¦nfi&v, TrpoaTOT'q'}, fior)&6<i). "'M
Now, in this there is a recognition not only of Christ's sin-

1 C. 2. xai to. wa&j^osree ixvtov tjti irpi aQSu'Kpi.aii ipc.au. C. 7. ccTivlniifO*
ii; to uifia. tou %purrov xaX iioftw, u; ion ti/xiov rcji ©iu oupta avrov, o ti ilS
tijii qpiirepxv aarnpia.» ixyptoh nravri rcf xoafia pt.na.voia,; %apiv ivinyxu.
C. 16. o' xvpio; Tiftav 'I. X. ovx yfaOiv h xopnru d'hct^omia; ot/Ss iiiripntyavixu
xtxiirip o"vv£ftiiio;, aKKoi Taxiivo<j)povZii. C. 21. top xvpiov qpiui) ' I. X. ov to
aifitt iirip ifiaii tool)-/i iyrpciirZpi.it/. C. 49. to aifax. avrov ihaxm ii%ip ijpcu»
6 'K.piaro; 6 xvpio; qftZii in 6ih.ipiH.Tl ©toil, xal tij» aapxa. vicip rij; naoxo; qftuv,'*
koX ttiii ¦tyvxflv virip ruv -tyvyfiiv qftwu.

CLEMENT OF ROME. 99
lessness, but also of an entirely peculiar relation to the Father.
For this One is for the salvation of the whole world (c. 7) ; He
is well-pleasing to God in His offering ; it took place according
to God's will, and God has received it (c. 49). But He is not
simply man as we are. He has, it is true, body and soul
(c. 49), which is elsewhere expressed in the one word trap?; ;x
but this is only one side of His being:2 that there belongs to
Him also a higher, is certified in the faith that we are reconcUed
to God in Christ^ As respects this latter side, I would not ad
duce the passage in chap. 2 as a proof that Clement calls Christ
God : " Giving heed to His (God's) words, ye were rich in
compassion, and His sufferings stood before your eyes :" for a
mere carelessness of style may be the cause of his'placing, as in
one series, and as if speaking of one subject, what belongs to
God, and what is peculiar to Christ. Still, such an omission of
the name of Christ in connection with His sufferings becomes
rightly explainable only by the fact, that in his view Christ is
approximated to God, and God's work towards men is the
doing of Christ. This Hes plainly in many passages of the
epistle. Thus, near the beginning, it is said in the salutation,
after the manner of the Apostles, that we are called and sanc
tified by God through Christ; in two passages,3 a doxology
seems to be addressed to Christ, so that He is therein placed on
an equality with the Father ;* at any rate, He is included in
the doxology, and it is even said' (c. 59), " Through whom
(Jesus Christ) be to God glory, honour, might, majesty, and
dominion, for ever and ever." The Apostles have their words
from Christ ; Christ has His from God (c. 42). His words
all are bound to obey. In Him is the complete revelation, the
truth and the gnosis, communicated (c. 35). He is the first-
fruit of those raised from the dead (c. 24), and has a kingdom
(c. 50) in which there shall be no decay or passing away.
Already we have great and wondrous blessings even here
(c. 3,5) : an immortal life in us, righteousness, truth with free
dom, faith with confidence. But what no eye hath seen, no
ear hath heard, is reserved for those who shall reach the land of
' C. 32.
2 Same place : f£ ctirov (rov laxa{S) 6 xvpio; 'lrioov; to xara adpxt---
Comp. Rom. ix. 5, i. 3
3 C. 20 ; 50. 4 Comp. c. 32.

100 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the godly at the time of the revelation of the kingdom of
Christ, because they shaU be perfected in love (c. 50). Until
then, Christ is the High-Priest of our offerings,1 who brings
our thanks and praise, our offerings before God, and not less
conveys the Divine grace to us. For He is our advocate and
helper in our weaknesses.2 " Through Him," exclaims Clementj
" we fix our glance on the height of the heavens ; through Him
we behold His spotless and lofty countenance as in a mirror ;
through Him are the eyes of our heart opened ; through Him
our ignorant and darkened mind effloresces to His marvellous
light ; through Him it is the will of the Lord that we should
taste immortal glory, — Him who, being the radiance of the
Divine glory, is as much exalted above the angels as He hath
obtained a more excellent name than they." 3 In this passage
lies not only the affinity of Christ to God, not merely that He
is the revealer of God, but also the essential equality of His
higher nature with God. From what has been said, light is
cast on the difficult expression in c. 16 : " Christ our Lord, the
sceptre of the majesty of God." In the term o-Krytrrpov, in
deed, one may find the meaning of property, inheritance (as the
Heb. Baa* also means ; see Ps. lxxiv. 2), and thence infer that,
as in c. 29 and c. 30, Israel is called God's inheritance, so it
suits to call the twelve sons of Jacob, who in chap. 31 are
mentioned as BcoBe/cdcricTprTpov, His inheritance, His befitting
KXrjpovopla. But the forced character of this is manifest ; and
in c. 32 the a/crJTrTpa are decidedly the tribes (comp. Test. Patri-
1 C. 36 ; 58. 'rr
2 Same place. This passage assumes Christ's nearness to His people in
all their necessities, and His power to help. Comp. Matt, xviii. 20.
3 C. 36. It is partly from this passage, where Christ is called the dvui-
yaopca. of the Divine majesty, partly on account of the relation of this trea
tise to the Ep. to the Heb. generally, that it is probable that also in the
passage above cited (c. 33), under the expression ilxim ©iov, whose %<tp*x-
riipa man bears, we are to understand the Son. The words, c. 36, " Through '
Him (Christ) we behold His pure and lofty countenance as in a mirror,"
may be referred to God's countenance ; so that here we have only the con
verse of what we have in the second chapter. The passage before us, how
ever, shows why, for Clement's Christian intuition, this transition is so easy :
Christ is for him the mirror and the radiance of the Divine majesty ; in
God's image, i.e., Christ, he sees God's countenance (comp. 2 Cor. iii. 18,
iv. 6). On £T«.vy*<rp.x, wherein effulgence of essence hes, see Bleek on
Heb. i. 3. ^

CLEMENT OF ROME. 101
arch. IV. 24), which in the B<oBeiea<TKr)'KTpa are viewed as
unity. When in this 16th chapter, then, Christ, who accord
ing to the flesh is of them, and thereby honours them (c. 32),
is set over against them as the tncrj-n-Tpov of the Divine majesty,
the better interpretation is that which regards Him as the true
stock, the Son of the Divine majesty simply. Nevertheless this
interpretation is not probable, because the antithesis to the
BmBeKcuTici)TrTpov (c. 31) would have been here (c. 16) more ex
tensively enunciated. The connection of the passage before us
excludes every interpretation which does not find Christ's
supreme power as the leading idea. For Clement is seeking to
exhort them to humUity by the example of Christ, who, though
He might, as the sceptre of the Divine majesty, have come in
splendour and power, yet did not so come, but was humble-
minded. The sceptre is the symbol of government ; in it rests,
and by it is transferred, the royal majesty. In Christ, conse
quently, rests the Divine majesty — that Hes in the word ; He
is the organ and the personal representation of the Divine im
perial majesty. In the words, " though He was able to have
done so" [tcalirep Svvdpbevo<f\, compared with Phil. ii. 6, there
lies an allusion to His pre-existence, [Clement's belief in] which
is evident from another passage,1 where it is expressly said that
in the 0. T. Christ had spoken by the Holy Ghost. There is
thus room for asking whether the passage in c. 27 2 is not also
to be referred to the pre-existent nature of Christ. In the
much-canvassed passage, c. 34 [33], something analogous is
said of the creation of man, if under the image of God, whose
¦ character or impression man bore, Christ in His higher nature
is to be understood.
The Second Epistle shows less peculiarity and another spirit.
Though I do not regard it as genuine, but hold it to be later
than Clement, yet it bears on if a character of high antiquity,
and hence may be here legitimately considered. Its doctrine
concerning Christ is somewhat more developed, as already there
are Christological opponents to be encountered. "My bre-
' C. 22 : Taina ti iraura fit/Saio! ij in Xpmr$ ician;. K«J ya.p avro; S/«
tow iwivpictTo; rov aylov ovtch TrpotrxecheiTcti ripat; : after which, passages are
quoted from the Psalms.
2 'Ei* "Koycp tvi; p&iyct'Aaffvnvi; cavtov ovvtoTVjBaro roi iranrce, xett in "Koya
avnxt xi aire* xeirctarpiipeu. See Appendix, Note AA.

102 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
thren," says the writer (c. 1), " we must think of Jesus Christ as
of God, as of the Judge of the Hving and the dead ; and not
think Httle of our own salvation. For if our thoughts of Him
be low, our expectations also will be Httle. If we esteem Him
Hghtly, and act as we think, we sin, and are unmindful whence
we have been called, and by whom, and to what, and how much
Jesus Christ hath endured on our behalf." Their former
heathen state, is then described ; after which he says : "We had
no hope of salvation but from Him; He caUed us when we
were not, and willed that we should come out of non-being into
being." This is uttered against Judaizing teachers, who would
not acknowledge the newness of Christianity, and the dignity
of the Person of Christ. Hence, also, in chap. 2 he sets
the Church over against the Jewish community, and already
hails her as the more fruitful mother of the two. But the
author also opposes those who deny the resurrection ; and the
representation which the epistle gives of Christ under an escha*-
tological aspect is especially prominent. " He wiU appear as
God." (Comp. c. 1, 12). Also, in order to prove the worth
of man's body, he speaks (c. 9) of the pre-existence of Christ.
" Let none of you say that this flesh comes not into judgment,
nor rises. . . . Christ our Lord, who hath saved us, was at first
spirit (comp. Rom. i. 3 ; 1 Cor. xv. 45-47), and became flesh,
and so caUed us; and so in this flesh we shall receive the
reward.1 According to ancient testimonies, preserved by Eusebius
(Ecc. Hist. IV. 23, III. 16), the epistle which Clement wrote to
the Corinthians was long preserved in Corinth, and pubHcly
read in the Church. At the time it was written there appears to
have been peace and unity in the Church at Rome (comp. also
the salutation in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, where
he caUs this Church well-ordered and xpiaTov6po<;). The East
presents a totaUy different picture. Here the desire ,of know
ledge was from an early period Hvely, as is shown in the
productions as well of the Church as of the heretics ; and here
the heretics brought the doctrines of the Churchmen to a
quicker development. The half -mythic forms of Simon Magus,
Menander, Dositheus, Saturninus, prove, at least, that in the
1 See Appendix. Note BB.

IGNATIUS. 103
Syrian regions there were, at an early period, movements con
nected with Gnosticism : Asia Minor, the earliest seat of the
higher Christian culture (and especially Ephesus, where even
in the first century Cerinthus with his doctrine of the Logos
opposed the Apostle John), was at an early period agitated by
various partially heretical tendencies : Acts viii. 9 ff. 19 ; Col.
ii. 18-23; 1 Tim. i. 4-9, 20; 2 Tim. ii. 17-23, iii. 7-9, 13,
iv. 3 ff. 14; Tit. i. 10-16; 1 John ii. 22 ff., iv. 2, 3; Jude 4,
comp. 1 John iii. 4 ; 2 Pet. ii. ; Ignat. ad Eph. .9, etc. ; as also
the appearance of a Cerdo before Marcion, and, at a later
period, of Montanism, attests. In Syrian Antioch especially,
where Peter and Paul had been, — the town of the heathen
Christians, the antipole of Jerusalem in the Acts of the
Apostles, the seat of an unusually numerous congregation, rich in
men who were well qualified for various offices, the chief staple-
place for missionary activity in the primitive Church, — there
could not fail to be various tendencies at an early period ; and
there was thereby communicated, as well as through means of
the heretics, — who seem especially to have been gathered to
gether in this city, — a much stronger occasion for the more
rapid development of the Church than elsewhere. Here, at the
beginning of the second century, was Ignatius (who, according
to ecclesiastical tradition, died in the year 117), a man of re
markable spirit. In him there appeared in the early Church a
talent for organization ; full of living sympathy with the pre-
sentative element in worship and polity, ardent, eloquent,
inspired with enthusiasm for the idea of his life. Excited in
many ways from without, — tempted, as he himself says (ad
Philad. 7), by errors on the one hand, on the other hand en
riched by the spirit of John, and still more by that of Paul, — he
assumed in respect of doctrine a high, nay, the highest place
among the Apostolic Fathers : but his soul was bent on the
organization of the Church, and to that he devoted all his
strength ; so that with him the practical predominates, — nay, it
is through his practical bent alone1 that he has been conducted
to a higher view of the nature of Christianity. For as, accord
ing to him, participation in the faith of Christ is a participation
in his theanthropic manifestation, so, in turning his mind with
1 See Appendix, Note CO.

104 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
special energy to the idea of the Church, there was presented
to him, as the problem which the community of beHevers had
to work out, How to set forth an image and a continuance of
the Divine-human life of Christ. In the Church, Christ is
brought to be eternally present ; it has the power, above all, of
setting Him forth in worship, life, and poUty, where alone,
pneumatically and corporeally, can appear the unity in which
the pluraHty of the beHevers first realizes its idea.
Thus there are with him two sides, the Divine and the
human, in respect of Christ, and in respect of the Church, His
image, alike important ; so much so, that in his view neither is
anything without the other. As Christ is one with God, so /
must the Church be one with Christ (comp. John xvii.) ; and
He must dwell in it as His temple (ad Ephes. 9, 15). But in
this is implied not only one spirit and mind in undivided hearts,, ,
not only the absence of all schism and aU strife from amongst '
them; but, as in Christ, so in His Church, the evwo-t? must
have a spiritual and a bodily side (ad Magn. 1, 13 ; ad Eph. 2 ;
ad Polyc. 1, 2).
It is only thus that the eva>cn<; of crapl; and irvevpa which
was in Christ, and in which manhood reaches its truth, can be
exhibited ; only thus is Christ in it, the principle of aU unity of
the Divine and human. This unity is realized only in progres- 1
sive presentations or reflections. As Christ according to the
flesh was subjected to the Father, so is the company of the
Apostles and the whole Church subjected to Christ, and to the
Father, and to the Spirit. Christ is, consequently, again the
animating, vivifying principle for the Church as His trap!;.
But in the Church itself, also, again is this relation propagated |
after the original type ; for otherwise there would be a unity
of the members with Christ, but not with each other ; there
would be only a irvevpamcrj evwcns, whereas this should be also
<rapitucr\. Hence there is an office there invested with Divine
authority and power, the office of the bishop, who is the
teacher, liturgist, and leader of the Church, and whose it is
to represent her in her unity in and beyond the worship, to
verify and reaHze her true ideal corporate wiU, as well as her
unity in doctrine.1 To this bishop the Church again stands
1 Appendix, Note DD.

IGNATIUS. 105
related as the human side of Christ does to the Divine ; for he
is the source of action in the Church, and the Church has in
the willing and thinking of the ideal bishop of Ignatius alone
her own innermost sense and volition objectively present, she
recognises herself in him according to her unity and truth.
The bishop, however, on the other hand, is not to be thought of
without his congregation, as Christ is not without the Church
(ad TraU. 11 : " The head cannot be born without the mem
bers, since God wills the unity which He Himself is") ; but
each side desiderates the other, — the congregation is not actually,
but only potentially, a congregation by faith : it becomes actual
first by love through the evata-is ; and this union in love first be
comes firm, orderly, and general by the Church giving itself to
the bishop. On the other hand, the bishop first becomes what he
is when he stands in the midst of the congregation as the animat
ing spirit, as the impersonation of the common will of the united
congregation. With this view, the latter makes him permanently
her bishop, who without her, as she without him, is a latent
power. But the truth of both is the union of both; and where
this is, there is a representation in pattern of the union of the
two natures of Christ, or His relation to the Church in the
whole (ad Trail. 11). In both parties, however, Christ lives ;
and He, or rather the union which He typically exhibits, is
supremely the creative principle, which further and further
propagates this union of what is congenial, and brings it about,
in all relations, that all bear God and Christ, and exhibit a
theanthropic character. Thus a further mirror of this unity
is the relation of the bishop to the presbyters (ad Magnes. 6 :
" They are fitted to him as the strings to a lyre," ad Eph. 4),
and of the latter to the deacons, the relation of marriage (ad
Polyc. 5), of the believers to each other (ad Magn. 13) ; and,
in fine, it is also reflected from Christians in their individual
being (ad Magn. 5), only that the individual being is, according
tc him, in a state of untruthfulness unless it is at the same
time incorporated with the congregation.
Now, since the theanthropic life-unity of Christ thus pro
pagates itself throughout, it follows that Christ is throughout
present, — all Christians are xpiaTotpopoi,, 0eo<f>6poi (ad Eph.
9, 15 ; and Trail. 3) ; and naturally the bishop must be chiefly
so, since he officially represents to each congregation the rela-

106 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
tion of Christ to the Church universal (rvirov ad Magnes. 6)i
And it is characteristic that he postpones to this presence of the
objective Christ in the Episcopate the Gospel itself, i.e., the
Scripture (ad Philad. 8, Smyrn. 5, 7), and the Lord's Supper.
He, indeed, calls the Gospel aapica XpuaTov (ad Philad. 5, comp.
ad Smyrn. 5, 7 : " I flee to the Gospel as to the flesh of Christ,
and to the Apostles as to the presbytery of the Church;" i.e.,
the Apostles, by which he means, as the context shows, the
apostolic writings, are for the Church as a whole what the
presbytery is for each congregation) ; and even so the" Gospel
infers the objective Christ in all times, brings Him nigh to the
Church. Further, he also views Christ as present in the Sup
per (ad Smyrn. 7 : " The heretics abstain from the Eucharist t
and from prayer, because they confess not that the Eucharist is
the flesh of our Saviour ;" he calls it " a medicine of immor
tality, an antidote against death, operating so that we live eter
nally in Jesus Christ," ad Ephes. 20). But, 1. He founds little
on the Scripture; and though a collection of Christian writings
had begun to be made in archives, and many in his time laid
stress thereon (without doubt also with a view of contravening
his episcopal idea), he has yet done nothing for the canon ;
he shows little confidence in the archives ; and though he recog-
nises apostolic writings, he opposes those who betake themselves
to these : " An archive to me is Christ ; my incorrupt Biblio-
theca is Christ's cross, death, and resurrection " (ad Philad. 8).1
This is not to be taken as if he were indifferent to the historical
side of Christ's appearing (<rapt;) ; on the contrary, he lays
great stress on this being kept pure for all times. But the
more the Church becomes a united historical power, so much
the more is there for him in it, in its confirmed organism, an
eternalization of the historical side of the appearance of Christ,
whilst there is room for a falsification of the apostolic testimony
in the Church Bibliotheca. To other forms of this eternafiza-
tion, for instance the eiayyekiov, he allows weight as auxiliary ;
but his ideal, in which all requirements are in his view satisfied,
was ever the Church Unity, represented as also acting by a per-
1 This passage bears the stamp of high antiquity ; it is, however, intel
ligible only in connection with his whole style of thought. On its negativef ;
side it has quite the same tone as the well-known word of another aposto
lical father, Papias.

IGNATIUS. 107
sonaHty fiUed with God. To this he ever reverts also, 2. with
respect to the Lord's Supper. For the many places where he
speaks of it (ad Eph. 5 ; ad TraU. 8 ; ad Rom. 7 ; ad PhUad.
Introduction ; ad Smyrn. 7, 8, where he Hkewise treats of bap
tism) show that the high value he set on it arose from his
regarding it as the means and organ of Christ, whereby He
communicates the spirit of unity to His people, makes His
Divine-human Hfe to be the Hfe of the Church, nay, partly, and
this almost especiaUy, because he regarded the Eucharist as the
most flourishing representation of the unity and love of the
Church, as the altar (Ovo-iaaTijpiov) on which the Church,
acting in the bishop, and represented as Unity, presents the
offering of its praise and thanksgiving, — with Christ, and under
Him enters together into a Divine-human unity ; as one body
with many members by one Spirit.
The same is clear from the free use which Ignatius allows
himself of the words " flesh and blood of Christ," but which
froru his point of view is quite natural. See ad Trail. 8 : Rom.
7 ; Magn. 1 ; Philad. 1, 5 ; Smyrn. 1, 7, comp. 6. The <rao%
of Christ, he says, is Faith, and the alpa is Love ; both in
their unity, Faith and Love, are the AU (ad Eph. 9, 14). Both, '
aap% and alpa, stand inseparably united. Since, looking at the
subject from another point, he conjoins aapl; and irvevpa, one
must presume that between the alpa and irvevpa he found a
close relation. His thought is this : — The flesh (o-apij) of
Christ, i.e., His objective and historical manifestation, corre
sponds to Faith (for it begets this in all the various forms in
which it can be presented), but the blood of Christ answers to
Love. He does not mean by this that the soul or inner being
of Faith is Love, but he rather compares Love with the blood of
Christ because it circulates as the common Hfe's blood in the
veins of the Church. But the expression has, moreover, a defi
nite relation to the death of Christ. It is a favourite thought
of Ignatius, that Christ's death draws us into feUowship with
Him, and likewise is continued in mankind. With him the
death of Christ is the principle of Love in the world, because it
draws all to death, in order that all may rise again as new crea
tures actuated by love. Now, of this Love-principle we become
partakers only by means of the Supper ; there are we drawn
into His dying love ; there His love becomes our love. And

108 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
¦ thus Christ's blood, primarily that shed on the cross, afterwards
no less that which is present in the Supper, is the objective
principle which founds love, as Christ's historical appearance in
the general founds faith. NaturaUy, to him as to Paul, this is
furnished by Christ's death in combination with His resurrec
tion. The love which Christ's death operates, however, is pre
sented by him under two phamomenal forms : on the one hand,
that which tends to unity, and is represented continuously in the
worship as iii the constitution of the Church ; on the other hand,
as the sentiment of substitutionary love which Christ awakens
in His own. In the latter he shows himself thoroughly of the Jo
hannine school (comp. Euseb. H. E. iii. 23 : "I will give account
to Christ for you. I will give my soul for yours," says John to
the fallen youth). Not only was the union of the aap% and
irvevpa, constituting the Person of Christ, typically and as a crea
tive principle of like unity in the world, ectypically represented
in the Church, but also His office, especially His substitutionary
love. The death of Christ on the cross is, indeed, the principel
of this substitution for men ; but there remains for Christians
also a substitution, though only in the sense that in this conti
nuous offering of love for others, the self-offering love of Christ
is continued (ad Eph. 18, 21, 8 ; Smyrn. 10, 13 ; Polyc. 6). He
calls himself foyvicrpa, irepityqpa, avrtyvypv, for the Christians.
What has been said may suffice to indicate the fundamental i
idea of Ignatius. Only from this can we arrive at a just
understanding of what he says concerning the Person of Christ.
For, as we find it, he has constructed his view of the Person of
Christ precisely so as throughout to subject it to the practical
thought, that the idaa of the Church is to carry forward the
Person and work of Christ as His continuous living copy ; and
that in such a way as that He ever abides immanent in it as the
uniting principle of the Divine and the human.
This also is, by consequence, with him, the fundamental con
cept for the Person of Christ ; in Him is the evaa-i? of the crapi;
and irvevpa absolutely complete. " He was conceived by the
Virgin Mary according to the counsel of God, of the seed of
David and of the Holy Ghost" (ad Eph. 18). "In Him is
the eveoa-ii (rapicb<; ical irvevparo? (Magn. 1, 14, 15 ; Eph. 7 ;
Smyrn. 1, 3) ; He is the Lord, who is truly of the lineage- of
Dayid according to the flesh, but the Son of God according to

IGNATIUS. 109
the wUl and power of God ; born reaUy of a virgin ; baptized
by John, that He might fulfil all righteousness ; really crucified
under Pontius PUate in the flesh ; to whose fruits we belong.*
He hath lifted up a standard for all times, by His death and
resurrection, for the unity of the Church (Smyrn. 1). He is
the new leaven (Magn. 10), the new man, the Son of man
and Son of God" (Eph. 20). With this definite distinction of
the aap^ and the irvevpa in Christ, of the human and Divine
sides, he links himself closely to the Apostle Paul (Rom. i. 3, 4,
ix. 5). It is likewise quite Pauline when he describes Christ as
born only in respect of His humanity (comp. also Gal. iv. 4),
whilst His higher nature is called wjos &eov (hence yewr}Tb<;
Kal ar/evvrjTos, Eph. 7). God has manifested Himself in a
human form in Christ (Eph. 19 ; comp. 1 Tim. Hi. 16) ; hence
he Calls Him also ©eos (Eph. 1, 15 ; ev aapicl yevopevo<; ©eos,
ib. vn. 18 ; Rom. init. 3), which can be regarded only as the
more indefinite expression of what vlb<s Qeov is to him. For
he says (Smyrn. 3), Christ is our true, inseparable (Eph. 3 ;
Magn. 15), immortal life (Eph. 7, 19, 20): "Three mysteries
have been prepared in the sUence of God, and remained hidden
to the prince of this world, — the virginity of Mary, the birth
of Christ, and His death. . . . All the bands of the wicked
were dispersed, ignorance was abolished, the old kingdom upset,
when God appeared in human form to bring a new eternal life
to light"1 (Eph. 19). According to his fundamental view,
however, the union of the irvevpa and the &aplj in Christ must
* [" Zu dessen Friichten gehoren wir." The words of Ignatius are,
dtp' ov xapicov yptus, from whose fruit are we; i.e., as Pearson explains it,
from Him crucified, as the fruit of the tree on which He hung, are we,=
we are members of the Crucified. The whole sentence reads thus : " From
which [or whose] fruit are we by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might
rear a standard [a rallying-point, avao-yifton] for ever, by His resurrection,
for His saints and believing ones, whether among the Jews or the Gentiles,
in the one body of His Church." — Tr.]
1 What this passage further says concerning the star of the Magi could
have been so set forth only before the formation of the canon, and after
the more sober representation of Matthew. [The passage is as follows :
" A star shone in the heavens beyond all that were before it, and its light
was unspeakable, and its novelty caused surprise in all who saw it. All
the rest of the stars, along with the sun and moon, became a company
(x°pi;) to the star, but it excelled them all in brightness ; and men were
troubled to account for this novel ph«nomenoi>." — Tr.]

110 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH
be regarded by him as one not to be dissolved through all
eternity, since it must be every moment the living principle of
the unity of God and man in the world. This he expresses
(Magn. 15 ; Smyrn. 3) : " I know and believe Him to be in the
flesh even after His resurrection" (comp. Eph. 11 ; Philad. 9).
Not less, in fine, does he, with Paul, go back to the time before
His earthly appearance. The denial of the one or the other
side of the Divine-human being of Christ, rendered it necessary
to make the one objected to an object of more definite thought
than before; and though Ignatius still abides by generals, and
only expresses in the gross the integrity of the two sides in their ';
difference, — the union of which is also the principle of Chris
tianity, — yet the more precise fixing of both sides has already
constructed a sort of confession of faith for him (Eph. 7, 17 ;
Mag. 9, 11 ; Trail. 9 ; Smyrn. 1). As respects the human side,
lie concerns himself not with the special parts of the human
nature, but with the confutation of the denial of a human life
of Christ at aU, the denial of the leading facts of the history of
Christ, in which His course of life is represented. Already
had opposition directed itself against three essential elements of
His human life, — against the birth of the Son of God by a
woman, against His sufferings, and against His resurrection.
On the affirmation of these three elements as historical faets, J
Ignatius establishes the humanity of Christ, without, however,
attempting to determine what goes to the concept of the truly
human. Of these three, again, it is the two latter on which he
lays the principal stress, as well for the refutation of the heretics
as for the establishment of Christianity (comp. Magnes. 9 ;
TraU. 10; Smyrn. 1, 2, 7), on account of their relation to
Christ's work, and because the immediate Hfe-unity of the ;
Divine and human had not reached its idea until it was tho
roughly perfected by death and the abolition of the same. On
this point it was that his zeal was chiefly excited. Thus he
says (Trail. 9, comp. 10 ff.) : " Stop your ears when any man
says aught against Christ, who was truly born, truly crucified
and dead, truly raised from the dead by the Father. But if
any godless persons, i.e., unbehevers, say that He suffered only
in appearance, they themselves having only an apparent being,'
why am I in bonds ? why do I desire to contend with the wild
beasts ? I should thus die without reason, and lie against the

IGNATIUS 111
Lord. Wherefore shun the wicked parasitic weeds, which
produce deadly fruits. He that eats thereof dies, for they are
not plants which the Father hath planted. Had they been so,
they would have appeared as shoots springing from the cross,
and would have been imperishable." Likewise, Smyrn. 2-7 :
" They who turn the sufferings and resurrection of Christ into
an appearance, are themselves bodiless. Beware of them, as of
beasts in human shape ; only pray for them, that haply they
may repent. Though their conversion is difficult, yet is it
possible, through Christ our true life. If Christ has only
apparently existed, my bonds are in vain. But near the beasts
and in bonds, I am near God." The heretics teach otherwise
than Ignatius and the Smyrnseans know. "They will not be
convinced by Moses, the Prophets, the Gospel itself : but he
who believes not in it, is partaker in the guilt of His death.
They loved the martyrs, but deny that Christ was in the flesh :
he that believes not this, has utterly denied Him, and bears
death in himself." He could mention names, but will not,
until they are converted to the suffering which is our resurrec
tion.* " They are not to be spoken of privately or publicly ;
but regard is to be paid to the 'Prophets, and especially the
Gospel, wherein the suffering is depicted, and according to
which the resurrection of Christ is accomplished." Since he
has confessed that the mystery of Christianity consists not in
that there is a Divine and a human, but solely in the' union of
the two, he is necessarily led to say, that whosoever denies that
Christ came in the flesh, has wholly denied Him, i.e., affirmed
that there is no Christ ; and these heretics are, consequently,
only in appearance Christians, in reality unbelievers. The
same would naturally be the case with those who denied the
Divine side. The only thing that is remarkable here is, that
after the first glance he speaks no more of such ; besides these
Doketse (who probably were also Jews), he directs his strictures
only against the 'IovBaio-pb$ of holding the Sabbath-laws, and
the like. Magnes. 10 : " Not Christianity believes in Judaism,
but Judaism in Christianity. It is inconsistent to call Jesus
the Christ and to Judaize (as if the Messiah had not come)."
. * \Mi%pi; ov pdranoyiaaaiv tl; to wa6o; a iarin qpiun dnduTUai;, " i.e., donee
resipiscant, et Christum reapse mortuum esse et e mortuis resurrfexisse
credant." Dressel. — Tr.]

112 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Rather is Christianity a new leaven : " Put away from you the
bad leaven, which has become old and sour, and be changed
into the new, which is Jesus ' Christ." But the letter to the
Magnesians speaks of some who acknowledged in Christ only
the Teacher. " He is our Teacher," says Ignatius (Magn. 9),
" but He alone is ; and so little is He merely one of the teachers,', i
like Moses and the Prophets, that, on the contrary, He superin-;
tends them as their Teacher. They were His disciples, and
waited on Him in spirit as their Teacher. Therefore did He,
when He came, awaken them from the dead " (Matt, xxvii. 52).
" If we live still according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge '
thereby that we have not yet received grace " (Magn. 8). We
see here, also, how the Christian spirit, by an inner necessity,
tends to fall back upon the pre-existence of Christ. The historical '
dependence of Christianity on Judaism impeaches the indepen-lj
dence and newness of the former. If it be dependent, it has
no peculiar principle. How then can the Church seek to differ
from the Synagogue ? In this way it soon comes to be brought
out that the Christian principle is not posited by Judaism, but
Judaism by that principle which is older than it, which as Divine
truth is eternal. And since the Christian principle is personally;
given in God's Son, who has been already definitely discrimi
nated on the human side, the expression thereof comes to be
this : As there is one God, so also in all revelation there is one
Revealer, His Son, by whom also the Old Testament was
given. " He is the Door to the Father, through which Abraham|§
Isaac, and Jacob, and the Prophets, and the Apostles, and theti
Church enter. This one Revealer, the Son of God, is His
eternal Word, not, as Jewish errors and myths teach, sprung!
from silence.1 Before the Aeons was He with the Father, and
appeared at the end (Philad. 9 ; Magnes. 6). He, timeless,
viewless, is for us visible ; impalpable, impassable, for us suf
fering" (Polyc. 3). Among the New Testament writings, it is
in the Epistle to the Hebrews that we find this way of devef|
loping the pre-existence of the Son of God out of the Christian
faith most clearly maintained. Nevertheless, though Ignatius
speaks of the Logos after the manner of John (John i. 1 ff . ; ¦¦•>
1 John i. 1 ; Apoc. xix. 14) only in two places (Smyrn. Introd. .
1 See Appendix, Note EE.

BARNABAS. 113
and Magnes. 8, comp. Eph.' 15), it cannot be denied that,
besides the decided influence upon him of Paul, there was also
an influence from John affecting him; especiaUy, there are
found in him so many allusions to passages that belong to
Johannine tradition.
How much the mode of thought of Ignatius is spontaneous,
bears out and out a character of originaHty, and announces a
significant transition-point in the primitive Christian Church, —
at the apex of which there is presented in him a peculiarly
gifted and powerful mind, — is apparent, still further, particularly
from his relation to the expectation of the speedy coming of
Christ. By him this is greatly thrown into the background.
The very characteristic reason will be announced afterwards.
The sincerity of his Christian piety, the fervour of his love to
Christ, opened for him also a higher understanding of the
nature of Christianity. " It is pleasant," says he in his letter
to the Romans, " to set to the world in God, that I may
again rise to Him. In the wild beasts I shall find my grave ,
I wUl be an offering of God. Suffer me, hinder not my death;
were I there, I should have light and be a man of God. Suffer
me to imitate the passion of my God. My Love is crucified ;
there is no fire in me desiring earthly fuel: that which lives
and speaks within me says, Home to the Father !" Above all,
it is especially the death of Christ in which his love and con
templation is absorbed. Christ's sacrifice is with him a world-
sacrifice ; on His offering, things in heaven, and on earth, and
under the earth looked (Trail. 9). It is to him the altar where
the flame of love is kindled in mankind. In the innermost
heart of humanity he would have the objective history of Christ
received; as Christ-bearer, humanity ought to copy Him, not
merely in individuals, but in an organic being in which He ever
renders Himself present. v
By Barnabas also are his Christological positions drawn from
Christ's works, among which His death is to him of chief- mo
ment. His line of remark is determined by the antagonism,
not of Doketism, nor of Gnosticism, — to neither of which is
there any allusion in his epistle, — but of Judaism, and that
too in a practical form. By setting, forth the meaning of His
death, he attempts to raise Judaism above itself; and in so
doing, resorts, as does Ignatius, to the assertion of the now
vol. i. n

114 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
revealsd principle, that Christ is the creative principle also of
Judaism, or the assertion of the pre-existence of the Son of.
God. The doctrine of Christ's second advent, however,s4«
much more strongly presented than by Ignatius ; his eschatology
is more complete ; and the significance of the historical appear
ance of Christ is concluded by him to be found, not merely in
reconciliation , by His death, but also in the announcement of
eschatological hopes.1
" It is a sin and accumulation of guilt," says he, " to assert
that the old covenant is binding also on Christians. Christians
should labour to attain deeper knowledge, so as to understand
the difference. Christ has indeed instituted a law ; but it is a
new one, without the yoke of constraint. The tables of Moses
are broken, that the love of Jesus may be sealed in our hearts.2
Sacrifice and circumcision are aboHshed ; their meaning was not
outward: a broken heart is the sacrifice with which God is pleased,
and his is the circumcision of the heart and the ear (c. 4, 9).
The true temple (c. 16, 4) are men in whom God dwells; the
true place of promise is Jesus (c. 6), who is manifested in the
flesh." As, however, he does not deny the Divine origin of
the Old Testament, the question arises, how so much that is
imperfect and transitory , could be ordained by God, This
reconciHation of the Old and New Testaments he holds to be
the special problem of the gnosis. For himself, he takes refuge
in the antedating of the New Testament in the time of the Old,
and in partly regarding the Old Testament saints as already
looking on the Son, and thus, by beHeving anticipation, Hving
under the New Testament, partly by means of aUegorizing inter
pretations, reading the New Testament in the Old, as its deeper
and indeed only meaning.3 Christianity itself, however, he
1 The author abides much more than Ignatius by individual Chris
tianity ; and as the idea of a continuance of the Divine-human life of *
Christ, of which the Church is to be the image, is quite foreign to him, w
he approximates, in the general, rather to the Petrine model of doctrine
than to the Pauline or the Johannine. With thoughts borrowed from
Peter, he opposes Judaism within Christianity.
2 C. 4. The Judaists, consequently, to whom he refers, are deficient in
gnosis ; and the writer exhorts, without indicating any abuse in this direc
tion, not to rest content with ic'um;, "ma find. Ttj; vIotu,; ipcan TihtiM
i%rrri xa,\ Tijn ynuam.
s Comp. c. 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17.

BARNABAS. ] 15
thus describes : " Christ worked that we might obtain another
type — might become in soul as children; He transforms us.
The lastformation, however, must be as the first : a holy temple
for the Lord shall the house of our heart be; though the
dominion over the world, which man has, shall be complete
only in the future (c. 6). How can God dwell in us? By
His word that calls to faith, through His call to promise. He
Himself predicts, He Himself dwells in us, opening the door
of the temple, which we are, i.e., the mouth ; granting us re
pentance, He carries us into the everlasting temple (by which
he understands the inner man, to which also he ascribes self-
legislation and self-counsel, c. 21). This new man the forgive
ness of sins begets (c. 6) ; to which holy baptism brings us
(c. 11). All our salvation we owe to Christ ; He gives eternal
life, through the tree, His cross (c. 11). He has given His
body, that through the forgiveness of sins we might be sancti
fied, i.e., through sprinkling with His blood (c. 5). The Son
of God, the Lord and future Judge of living and dead, could
not suffer except on our account,1 — in order, that is, that His
wounds might procure salvation for us. For our sins, Christ
presented the vessel of the spirit as an offering" (c. 7). He
refers Isa. Ini. to Christ's substitutionary death. As the per
ception of the necessity of a forgiveness of sins conducted him
beyond the mere prophetic office of Christ, and in His high-
priestly office presented to him also a higher representation of
His Person, so, on the other hand, the death of Christ receives
a higher significancy from the dignity of His Person. " The
Son of God," says he, " could not suffer, save on our behalf "
(c. 7). His death has a special value, because He is Lord of
the world, to whom God said, on the day before the comple
tion of the world, Let Us make man. From Him had the
prophets their gifts, and. they prophesied of Him; but it
was not tUl later that He manifested Himself as the Son of
God. AU is in Him, and of Him (c. 12) : He is the Son of
1 The Judaists could not be familiar with the relation of the death of
Christ to the forgiveness of sins; they would regard it as a martyrdom
which He endured through the sin of the Jews. In his opposition to them,
Barnabas dehghts to present this latter aspect of Christ's death, so as to make
it part of His design to complete the sins of the Jews, the murderers of the
prophets, and so to bring the xoian.

116 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
David and the Son of God ; hence also David's Lord, having
all things under His feet. Him, who hath redeemed thee from
death, shalt thou glorify" (c. 19). The incarnation, on the
contrary, is in itself, according to his view, not an element of
independent significance : so far is he from viewing it as the
culminating point of the rhanifestation, that he says, " Had He
not come in the flesh, how could we men, seeing Him, have
remained unscathed? For even the sun, which is one day to
cease to be, and is His work, is such that we cannot look on in
the brightness of its radiance."1 High as is the representation
here given of the majesty of the incarnation of the Son of God,
it is, nevertheless, rather as a veiUng than as a revealing that this
is viewed. And it is in the death of Christ that he sees the
manifestation of Divine love, as in His miracles that of Divine
power ; and finds in His discourses and His resurrection the
announcement, that He shall effect the resurrection, and act the
part of Judge.2,
Among the Apostolic Fathers, Polycarp of Smyrna also
deserves consideration, — the more that, from the high respect in
which he was held in Asia Minor, and from his long and dis
tinguished service, he may be regarded as the representative of
a large circle.3 In the salutation of his epistle he wishes
" mercy and peace from God Almighty, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Saviour" (comp. c. 12). "He is our Saviour; for
we are justified by grace, not by works (c. 1 ; Eph. ii. 8, 9).
He has for our sins submitted even unto death, has become a ser
vant of all (c. 5) ; and by His death for us is our hope, and the
surety of our justification (c. 8, 9). His death begets love to
Him (c. 9, 3), awakens the desire to glorify Him, whilst we
tread in the footsteps of His suffering (c. 8, 9). This honour,,,
from us is due to Him, for God hath also raised Him from- the
dead, given Him glory and a seat at His right hand (c. 1, 2, 12) j,
1 C. 5.
2 To this belongs his view of the great world- Sabbath, and the world-
days or world-ages thereto corresponding (c. 15). And here his opposition
to Judaism comes out in the fact, that it is not the seventh but the eighth
day, consequently the one corresponding to the Christian Sabbath, that he
says will be the beginning of another world ; a world in which there is no
wrong, where all is new, where we, made holy, shall sanctify for the first
time the whole day.
s See Appendix, Note FF.

POLYCARP. 117
to Him all things are subjected in heaven and on earth ; Him
every living thing worships; He is coming as Judge of the
living and the dead (c. 2, 6). The worst sin is unbelief in
Him ; His blood has been shed for the unbelieving ; for those,
to whom the Son of God, Christ Jesus, the eternal High
Priest (c. 12), does not bring the forgiveness of sins, which His
death procured, is His death a source of condemnation. The
incarnation is spoken of by him, after the manner of John, as
e\ew4? tov Kvplov r/p&v (c. 6), ekevais iv crap/cl (c. 7). What
forms unbeHef had assumed within the Church at the date of
this epistle, are shown by the passage (c. 7) : " Withdraw from
those who bear the name of the Lord in hypocrisy, and seduce
vain men. For whosoever confesses not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is an Antichrist , and whosoever acknowledges
not the martyrdom of the cross is of the devil ; and whosoever
accommodates the \6yia tov Kvpiav (here, probably, as with
Papias, the history and sayings of the Lord) to his own lusts,
and says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, is the first
born of Satan."1 "The faith delivered unto us is the mother
of us all ; her eldest daughter is Love, her second, Hope (c. 3).
If we walk according to the Lord's truth, and are well-pleasing
to Him in this world, we shall obtain the world to %ome, as He
hath promised to us to raise us from the dead ; and if we walk
worthy of Him, we shall also reign with Him (c. 5). Ye
believe in Him, though ye see Him not ; and, beHeving, ye
rejoice with the joy unspeakable and full of glory, into which
many long to enter."
It is evident from these quotations how strictly and word
for word applicable to Polycarp, in this epistle, is the testimony
of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. iii. 3 ; Euseb. E. H. iv. 14), that he
" ever taught what he had learned from the Apostles, and .what
the Church still deHvers;" to which also, as Irenaeus, himself
a Minor-Asian, says, all the Churches of Asia and Polycarp's
successors bear witness. He himself was caUed in his lifetime
the Teacher and Father of Asia ; daily were his earnest prayers
1 Irenaeus also, adv. Haer. iii. 3, adduces this concluding phraseology
as what was peculiar to Polycarp ; also, the conclusion of the fragment of
the letter to Florinus shows the same form of thought, which has undeni
ably a Johannine hue. The word piaprvpiov, moreover, so used, is from the
Johannine sphere of speech.

118 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
presented to God for the peace and rest of the churches
throughout the world ; and it would appear that he laboured
also by means of great -journeys, especially to Rome, to promote
the unity and purity of the Christian doctrine.1
' In Asia Minor we find, during the two first thirds of the
second century, the prevalence in general of the liveliest Chris
tian life. This district had been long cultured by two of the
most distinguished of the Apostles, Paul and John ; and both
had left deep traces of their spirit behind them. Christianity |
had here struck its roots most firmly at an early period ; here
we find the first traces of a living endeavour to establish the
Church ; here it can be proved (Euseb. E. H. v. 25) that as
early as the beginning of the second century there were bishops.
Polycrates in Ephesus, who, when he wrote to Victor, had been
sixty-five years a Christian, and who, from among the seven
bishops who were his relations, mentions several whose successor
he was at Ephesus, evidently had no other arrangement than
an episcopal one in his mind ; and he even caUs John a tepeu?
who bore the priestly badge.* Here was the earliest combina
tion of churches, with the earliest synods. Here also, in the
region of dogmatics, was the greatest movement of minds.
Asia Minor is the birth-place both of Marcionitism and Mon-
tanism. Both of these, however, which began to excite
attention about the year 150, were preceded by preparatory
appearances, of which we need mention here only Marcion's ,
teacher, Cerdo, and the prophets and prophetesses who even
before Montanus were known in Asia Minor to Christian anti
quity (Euseb. E. H. iii. 37 ; v. 25). But, still further back,
the letters of Ignatius are a proof that at the earliest period
Hellenism and Judaism were at war here with each other,
within the Church; and already the excommunication of
Cerinthus, and the abhorrence with which the memory of his
Ebionism was held in the Church, must satisfy us that in
Asia Minor Ebionism cannot have been prevalent or domi
nant, not even before Montanism or Marcionitism. On the
other hand, the First Epistle of John, which was known to
both Papias and Polycarp, shows knowledge of Doketse ; but
1 Iren. iii. 3. See Appendix, Note GG.
* ["Os iyeniiy iipiv; to nckrixKon cricpopixu;. On this singular statement,
see the learned note of Le Moyne in his Varia Sacra, vol. II. p. 25.  Tr.]

DIONYSIUS. 119
from such these teachers knew themselves to be essentially
separated. If now we turn to cast a glance on Greece, we not only find
Dionysius in Corinth about the middle of the second century,
whose epistles Eusebius was acquainted with, arid for whose
orthodoxy he vouches, but we know also even more precisely
that he held the epistle of Clement in high esteem, and used it
in his church, — nay, that, according to ancient custom, it was
read there from time to time (Euseb. iv. 23). Eusebius has,
further, preserved to us a trait of him, which is a proof to us
how far he was from Judaistic leanings. Pinytos, bishop in
Cnossos, laid great stress on celibacy; and opinions allied to
Montanism were strongly prevalent there at that time. There
was no intention in this to faU back to what was Jewish : on
the contrary, there was rather a belief that the Church had
lived long' enough on milk (i.e., without a severe asceticism) ;
and that now at length was the time of its maturity, when the
Church must enter on a higher and more perfect career. Now
from this Dionysius kept himself ; as also he did not approve of
extreme severity against those who had fallen (Euseb. iv. 23).
This affords us a glimpse into the spirit of the Christian Church
before the middle of the second century, inasmuch as the
friends of a severe asceticism and a new legalism did not appeal
to Christian antiquity as on their side, but, on the contrary,
felt that they were in opposition to it, and sought to introduce
a new and more" perfect form ; by which, however, they were
so far from wishing to coalesce with Judaism or Ebionitism,
that they failed to perceive how with their high perfection they
had only faUen back to the legal stand-point, the Jewish prin
ciple. We have thus Hstened to an accordant testimony, though
with different measures of knowledge, against righteousness by
works, from the Hps of Clement, Ignatius, Barnabas, and
Polycarp. Take along with this what Dionysius further says of this early
period of the Church, as lying nearest to him. In his letter
to the Athenians, fragments of which have been preserved to us
by Eusebius, he reminds them not only of Dionysius the Areo-
pagite, but also, that after the martyrdom of Publius (whose death
must have happened at the time of that of Ignatius), Quadratus
obtained the bishopric of Athens, arid quickened anew then- faith.

120 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
But Quadratus delivered to Hadrian an apology for the Chris
tians in the year 20 of the second century, which Eusebius had
read, and of which he says, that it affords illustrious proofs
of the genius and apostolic orthodoxy of the man. He was
esteemed in the second century as a man full of the Holy
Ghost.1 In his apology he has referred to the miracles of the
Lord, which he contrasted with the pretended cures of his own
time : " Some," says he, " of those healed by our Saviour
(atoTrip) have survived to our time." At the same time Aristides,
"a faithful man, and zealous for our religion," gave to his
contemporaries a similar apology, which also Eusebius knew.
Both of these were taken by Justin Martyr as his model soon
after (Euseb. E. H. iv. 3). Both are especially worthy of
notice, as they were highly cultivated men. Like Justin, who
came later, Quadratus caUs Christianity a philosophy, and even
as a Christian wears the philosopher's cloak. Thus we have,
at the very time when Gnosticism began to be powerful, a
tendency within the Church itself to combine Christianity with
the Hellenic philosophy, without thereby becoming Gnostic.
It would be interesting to know whether they are 'the first who
combined the Hellenic doctrine of the Logos with Christianity.
But their writings are not extant ; and all that is certain is, that
Justin, in whose apology (about a.d. 139) the Hellenic doctrine
of the Logos plays an important and already familiar part, made
use of both as his models. The way also in which Justin uses
the doctrine of the Logos, shows strikingly that he does not
introduce it as" a novelty, but regards it as something already
naturalized in the Church, as even Zeller (1. c. p. 60 ff.) is
impartial enough fuUy to acknowledge.
There are stUl two men whom we must notice here, Agrippa'
Castor, and Aristo (Aristion, according to Maximus, Comment.
in c. 1 Pseudc-Dionys. Areop. de myst. theol.) of Pella. The
former (Hieronym. de viris illust. 21) was an opponent of
Basilides, and, according to Eusebius (H. E. iv. 7), Hved in
the time of Saturninus in Antioch, and of Basilides in Egypt.
We stUl possess two fragments from him, both directed against
the Gnostics (Eus. iv. 7; Hieron. 1. c). Eusebius ranks him
among the ecclesiastical men who, chiefly on grounds of reason
1 Comp. Eouth, Kelig. Sac: I. 74. See Appendix, Note HH.

AGRIPPA CASTOR AND ARISTO. 121
(Xoyi/coorepov), contended for the apostolic and ecclesiastical
faith, and left to posterity in their writings prophylactic aids
against that heresy. With his work, which could not thus bear
an Ebionitic character, Eusebius was acquainted. Aristo like
wise flourished under Hadrian and his successor ; and of him
Origen (c. Cels. iv. 52), Eusebius (E. H. iv. 6), apd Jerome
(Comm. ad Gal. iii. 13) make mention. His writing, entitled,
" Disputation between Papiscus and Jason," was known to the
phuosopher Celsus ; and Origen testifies of it (1. c.) that it was
ably executed, and that the part of the Jew, who disputes with
the Christian, is weU sustained. He proves particularly the
divinity of Christianity from the Old Testament, and especially
the Deity of the Son ; and though he was a Jewish Christian,1
he not only held the pre-existence of the higher nature of Christ,
but also ascribes, as in the Proverbs, a share in the creation of
the world to this higher nature, which he caUs the Son of God.2
He seems also to have defended the propitiatory death of Christ
against the Jews.3
Aristo conducts naturaHy to the Jewish- Christian tendency,
which, so long as there were no Gentile Christians in Jeru
salem (i.e. till about a.d. 130, Eus. H. E. iv. 5), found in this
city a centre, along with the keeping up of Jewish nationaHsm.
But after the second war of extermination against the Jews,
Jewish nationalism was broken up, and retained no longer any
place within the Christian Church. Even in Jerusalem, after
this begins the series of GentUe bishops. The principle of
Judaism, indeed — its legaHsm, and what arose out of that — was
not thereby annihUated ; but this arose from its being not purely
a Jewish element, but rather a principle of as general a signi
ficancy as paganism, and into which mankind is ever prone to
sink as a religious malady. Hence, even from an early period,
may be seen a legaHstic tendency among Gentile Christians,
especiaUy among the Romans ; which furnishes no proof of the
prevalence of a Judaic Christianity in the Gentile world. At
the same time, it must be admitted, that up to Hadrian's time
the legalistic tendency, wherever it showed itself in Christianity,
had always a certain dependence on the Jewish-Christian com-
1 As appears from his doctrine concerning the seven heavens ; comp.
Maximus 1. c. and Test. Patriarch, iii.
2 Appendix, Note II. 3 Appendix, Note JJ

122 1,-ncST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
munity at Jerusalem. We shall now consider the monuments
which have been handed down to us, either of the Jewish-
Christian tendency itself, or of the tendencies within Gentile
Christianity" which stood principaUy related to it. We may
class these, in the general, under the name of attempts to make
good the unity of the New Testament with the Old. Here we
have to notice the Shepherd of Hermas, Papias, and Hegesippus.
— In passing, we. shall cast a glance on the ancient Christian
eschatology and its course of development, with the relative
apocryphal and other writings, as well as the apocryphal gospels
hereto appertaining. But as it will be seen by this investiga
tion that even within this tendency there was an advance,
which succeeded in clothing all the elements that went to con
stitute the HeUenic-Christian doctrine of the Logos in an Old
Testament form, though in a different order ; so, in fine, the
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs shows us how this tendency
advanced from the royal office of Christ to His priestly, and
thereby began to construe conceptionally the innermost vital
point of Christianity, and to lay a basis for the Deity of Christ
which excluded all danger of a relapse on the part of this ten
dency into what was Judaic and Ebionitic. With this, more
over, was the inner union of the realistic with the more Hellenic
or idealistic tendency, as respects the work no less than the
Person of Christ, completed, as the succeeding flourishing epoch
within the Church shows. The former tendency, issuing from
eschatological considerations, goes back to the beginning ; the
eschatologic Christ is pre-existent, is the Creator- Word, is the
Wisdom. Conversely, the second, the Hellenistic, setting out
from the eternal reason, advances to the Creator- Word, and
combines more and more its ideal principle with the real, and
especiaUy with the history of the Person of Christ. For both
tendencies, however, the union of the ideal and real aspects of
this Person is effected, and the dangers threatening both Doket
ism and Ebionitism overcome, only after the necessary historical
manifestation of the Eternal* in the Person of Christ, and
conversely the eternal significancy of the historical in Christ,
begins to be recognised ; and this is effected by the propitiatory
work of Christ being viewed as the centre-point of His work
* [Das nothwendige Geschichtlichwerden des Ewigen.]

HERMAS. 123
on earth, whilst the opposite views, which rest satisfied with His
kingly and prophetic functions, are excluded.1 We now pass
on to particulars.
If Clement of Rome appears as a disciple of Paul, Ignatius,
with Polycarp and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, as of
the Johannine and Pauline school, and Barnabas as most allied
to that of Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas may be viewed as
approaching nearest to the style of James,2 though belonging
to a later age.3
According to it, Christianity is the true law, but implanted
in the hearts of those who have beHeved (Simil. viii. 1—8). By
means of this law, the Son of God is preached to all the ends
of the earth. To despise Him, to deny the name which is called
upon us, to become an apostate from and a betrayer of the
Church, is deadly sin. By such persons the seal (of baptism)
is dissolved ; they are dead to God, and they never come to
repentance (Sim. viii. 6). Next to them stand those who intro
duce vain doctrines : yet for • such repentance is possible ; but
if they do not repent, they perish. Vides igitur in pcenitentia
peccantium inesse vitam : non agentium vero poenitentiam mor
tem paratam. Now penitence, which he seems to have viewed
in part as a good work (Vis. 2), is viewed by him, on the other
hand, also as a gift of God (Sim. vifi. 6) : it is bestowed on those
whom God foresees to be sincere and of a true heart. Penitence,
however, with him becomes a Christian characteristic through
connection with baptism ; and by a severe penitential discipline,
which gathers around baptism as its centre, and a severe doctrine,
on the other hand, as to the necessity of baptism, he seeks to
unite inseparably the two, baptism and penitence. No penitence,
no righteousness even, that is without baptism, saves from death ;
but if baptism do not constitute a point of conversion for any,
there is no repentance afterwards, and consequently no salvation
(SimU. ix. 13, 15 ; Vis. ii. 2, iii. 7 ; Mand. iv. 3). " The Church
is the Tower, built upon the water (of baptism) ; your life is
1 Appendix, Note KK.
2 Comp. Jas. v. 16 with Vis. ii. 1, iii. 1 ; Jas. v. 1 ff. with Vis. iii. 6,
Simil. i. and ii., ix. 20 ; Jas. iv. 5 with Mand. v. 3 ; Jas. iv. 7 with Mand.
vii. ; Jas. i. 6-8 with Mand. ix. ; Jas. i. 5 with Mand. ii. ; Jas. iv. 12 with
Mand. xii. 6.
3 Appendix, Note LL.

124 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH
saved by water. For it is founded by the word of the almighty
and glorious name ; it is upheld by the invisible power of God "
(Vis. iii. 1 ff.). The Church is imaged by him as an aged
woman (Vis. ii.), because she is the first formed of all, and for
her sake has the world been made. In the Church is the renewal
of the spirit (Vis. iii. 8) by the Holy Ghost, who dweUs in them
that believe (Mand. v. 1, 3 ; Mand. x. 12).
But in what relation does the Church stand to Christ ? By
the glorious name (DS?), whose word formed it, is to be under
stood the Son of God (in Vis. iii. 3 He is called verbum omni-
potentis et honorifici nominis, invisibilis virtus Dei, and is
referred to in connection with baptism), who is consequently so
designated as God in the Revelation. Hermas does not see
(Simil. 9) the Son of God Himself, which is also a proof that
he regarded- Him as a superhuman being ; but He appeared to
him as a spirit in the form of the Church (ix. 1 : Ille enim
spiritus, qui loquutus est tecum in effigie ecclesise F;iius Dei
est). It is only by especial strengthening from abo c that he
is enabled to bear even the intelligence that it is the Son of God
who has appeared to him in this form. This has sometimes
been understood as if Hermas identified the Son with the Holy
Spirit; but he knows also other spirits, nay spiritus sanctos,
besides the Holy Spirit (e. gr. Sim. ix. 13 : hac virgines, inquit,
spiritus sancti sunt. Mand. v. 1). If Hermas, indeed, calls the
higher element in Christ only Holy Spirit, he cannot have seen
in Christ anything beyond humanity filled and perfected by the
Holy Spirit. But it would be more correct to say that the Holy
Spirit is not presented distinctly by him, as the Son- of God is.
The virgins, who clothe those who are to go in through the door
in white raiment, he calls holy spirits (spiritus sanctos), collec
tively spiritus (Sim. ix. 13 ; comp. Vis. iii. 8) ; and, in fact, the
virtues which these virgins represent, are, according to Mand. v. 1,
viewed as effects of the Holy Spirit (comp. Sim. v. 7). But of
these it is also said (Sim. ix. 13) that they are the powers of the
Son of God. " He that bears the name of the Son of God
must bear their names also, for the Son also bears their names."
There is thus the appearance of teaching that the Holy Ghost
is retracted into the Person of Christ, and is not discriminated
from Him ; but there is not the slightest ground for the opinion
(asserted by Baur and others), that by Hermas the Holy Ghost

HERMAS. 125
is set forth in the place of the Son. Rather does the matter
stand thus : The Son of God is, according to Hermas, also a
"spiritus ;" an assertion which has nothing dubious about it, for
John [Jesus] calls God also a spirit, and Paul says, " The Lord
is that Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 17, 18 ; comp. also Rom. i. 4) ; and
yet both distinguish the Son and the Holy Ghost ; and so does
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews distinguish the Holy
Ghost and the irvevpara. The appellation "spirit" is certainly
a very indefinite designation ; but on that very account is it
wrong to identify every spiritus sanctus with the Holy Ghost of
the Trinity, or to believe that the distinction between Son and
Spirit is thereby excluded. Hermas himself does not adhere to
this appellation : in the only instance in which he caUs the Son
a spirit without a figure (Sim. ix. 1 : Ble spiritus, qui tecum
locutus est, Films Dei est), there follows the closer description,
" this Spirit is the Son of God," and Christ's common designa
tion by Hermas is Filius Dei. See this repeatedly in the same
Simil. ix. Hence it remains to ask, 1. In what relation does
the Son, according to Hermas, stand to the Father? Is He
hypostatically distinguished from Him, and that before His in
carnation, or only, according to the Ebionitic view, after that %
And if ,the former, in what relation does He stand to the other
spirits, — above them, or beside them, or under them ? 2. In what
relation does he place the Holy Ghost to the Father and the
Son ? Has he only one Holy Spirit who is identical with the
FiHus, hypostatically distinguished from the Father ; and is,
consequently, the Holy Ghost of the Trinity by him retracted
into the hypostasis of the Son, of whom also it is predicated, that
He is a Spiritus ; or is the Spiritus, termed Sanctus collaterally
with the Spiritus who is FUius Dei, presented as a distinct
hypostasis by Himself ?
As respects the former of these questions, the Son of God
is by Hermas definitely and hypostatically distinguished from
the Father, and there are ascribed to Him the predicates of the
Old Testament Wisdom. By the word of the Son of God has ,
the Church been founded, which is one spirit and one body, and
of one colour (Sim. ix. 13). He has redeemed it by His suffer
ings, and is therefore exalted by God (Sim. v. 6). He is thus,
of course, distinguished from the Father, and that as one who
has suffered and been rewarded ; whereby a patripassian view

126 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
is excluded. But at the same time the Ebionitic distinction of
the Son of God from the Father is not that of Hermas. i This
is most clearly attested by the mention of His sufferings for the
taking away of our sins ; and still further by what Hermas
teaches concerning the pre-existence of the Son of God.- Pre
vious to His incarnation He is represented as distinct from the
Father, and as exalted above the sphere of other beings. The
same who founded the Church, is with the Father the Creator
of the world. It is said of Him (Sim. ix. 12), that He is anti-
quior omni creatura ; in consilio patri suo adfuit ad condendam
creaturam ; 1 4. totus orbis . . . omnis Dei creatura susten-
tatur ab eo. It is, however, worth while to consider more closely
the ninth Similitude, in order to see whether he whom, notwith
standing his singularities, some would make the representative
of the apostolic Fathers, may be adduced as a witness for the
alleged Ebionism of the early Church. In this Hermas sees a
huge white rock rising up out of the middle of an extensive
plain, encompassed by twelve hills: The rock is higher than
these hills, and such that it can bear the whole globe. "It
appeared to me to be ancient, but it had a new door, that seemed
newly cut out, and whence came a lustre brighter than that of
the sun (comp. Barnab. 5) ; and at the door stood the twelve '
virgins " (c. 2). The meaning is this (c. 12) : This rock and
the door is the Son of God. " Wherefore," asks Hermas of his
conductor, "is the rock old, and the door new?" "Because,"
is the reply, "the Son of God is indeed older than any creature,
so that He was in the counsel of His Father at the creation of
the world ; but the door is new because He hath appeared in
the world in the latter days,1 that they who desire salvation may
through Him enter into the kingdom of God." "He that
enters not by the door, i.e. beHeves not on the Son of God who
hath appeared, and is baptized into Him, so that thenceforward*
he bears His name (that is, the nomen honorificum), cannot enter
into the kingdom of God" (same place). "On the rock and
on the door," he continues (c. 14), " the tower (the Church) is
1 1 regard the reading, which has also the authority of MSS., of apparv.it
for apparebit to be the right one, from its connection with what follows.
According to Hermas, there is an entering into the kingdom of God, before
the second advent of Christ, through baptism and conversion ; and it is of
this he is speaking in the context.

HERMAS. 127
built, because the rock and the door is the Son of God, whose
name is great and infinite ; and the whole earth, every creature
of God, especially those who bear His name with all their heart,
are sustained by Him. He consequently is their foundation,
and sustains them willingly."1 That Hermas regarded this pre-
existent Son of God, exalted above all creatures, as distinct from
God, and yet as on an equality with God, is expressly declared
by him thus : "The Lord hath sworn by His Son, him that
denieth the Son and Himself, They also shall deny in the days
to come."2 That Hermas, then, in his doctrine concerning the Son of
God, followed an Ebionitic mode of thinking, is an utterly ground
less hypothesis, at which no one can arrive who does not ignore
the passages adduced.8 However it may be with the doctrine
of the Trinity in Hermas, his Christology recognises in the
Saviour a real hypostasis, distinct from the Father, Divine, which
was present at the creation of the world and took part therein,
whose name is great and infinite, and by whom the world is
sustained. This very Divine nature has appeared in Christ ; He
Himself wUl judge the world.4 From such a union of the pre
existing FUius Dei with the man Jesus, who is also Filius Dei,
because He "plurimum laboravit, plurimumque perpessus est, ut
aboleret delicta eorum " (Sim. v. 6), it cannot be doubted that
Hermas saw in Christ the incarnation of his pre-existent Filius
Dei : the only thing admitting of question is, whether, according
to him, this Divine being, which in himself and in Christ is per
sonal, had only a theophany in Him, i.e. a body without a
human soul (as Baur assumes), or whether the union with Him
was an abiding one. In the former case, Hermas would not (as
Baur thinks) deserve to be reckoned among the Ebionites, but
evidently rather among the Doketse ; for it was not in the Divine
but in the human that there was in this case a shortcoming.
But this is not in itself probable ; for the human part of Christ,
1 Appendix, Note MM.
2 Vis. ii. 2. By this passage they are doubly confuted who find Judaism
in Hermas. If the Lord here swears His highest oath by His Son, then is
His Son also His other self, and hence the term, putting them on an
equahty, " They." In the beginning of this chapter also, compared with
the close, it appears that the Son is called Gloria Dei.
8 Appendix, Note NN. 4 Appendix, Note 00.

128 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
which in tin fifth Similitude is caUed corpus (aapf-l), is in Sim,
ix. 6, 12 designated "Vir."1
But it is more easy to settle the question concerning the
Ebionitism of Hermas, than to determine with security what
answer to give to the second of the above questions, namely,
whether the Holy Ghost is represented by him as definitely and
hypostatically distinct from the Father. On this point it is the
fifth Similitude that comes principally to be considered.
There is so much difficulty about this Similitude, the text of
which is partiaUy corrupt, that all we can say with certainty is,
that as in Similitude ix. the Son of God is distinguished from
God, so in this God and the Holy Ghost are distinctly intro- .<
duced separately ; whilst, on the other hand, the relation of the
Son to the Spirit remains obscure, because the Similitude has to
do, not with the pre-existent Son of God, but with His state of
humiliation, and with the Sonship of Christ only as it was a
reward conferred on the suffering humanity of Christ. If on
this account this Similitude cannot, from its place, give a satis
factory answer to the question how the Holy Ghost is related
to the Son, who " antiquior est omni creatura," or in general to
the Divine nature of Jesus ; so neither has any one the right
to draw conclusions from it against the presence of this Filius
Dei in Christ, and to hold what is said in the passage concern
ing the union of the Holy Ghost with Jesus for the sum of
Hermas's doctrine of the incarnation ; nor can the relation of
the hypostasis of the Son to the Holy Ghost be unfolded with
certainty from the passage. Against the former we have the
decisive fact, that in that case Hermas would contradict himself ;
for in Similitude ninth he would enunciate the Church doctrine
concerning the pre-existent Son of God, and in Similitude fifth
would speak only of an infusion of the Holy Ghost into the
humanity of Christ. It has been proposed to restore the balance
here by supposing that in Similitude fifth the subject of discourse
is an incarnation of the Holy Ghost. But this cannot be main
tained, because it would involve the unsuitable notion that the
Holy Ghost counselled with the Father concerning His body or
human nature, and the reward thereof ; besides, since according
to Hermas the Holy Ghost dwells in aU Christians, it would be

i /i

Appendix, Note PP.

HERMAS. 129
inconceivable how in that case Christ should have obtained the
pre-eminent position elsewhere assigned to Him by this writer.
In fine, it must in this case have been naturally expected that
here or elsewhere Hermas should have said, that by the Divine
which is both the ancient rock and the new door, i.e. the Divine
which became man in Christ, is to be understood, not the Son
of God, but the Holy Ghost.1 On the other hand, the explana
tion, according to which the passage is understood as touching
upon the relation of the incarnate Son of God to the Holy
Ghost, is not without harshness; still, as it alone harmonizes
with Sim. ix., nay, since it alone makes Sim. v. consistent with
itself, we feel constrained to give it the preference. We now
pass on to the Similitude itself.
It must be well considered, before everything, that the proper
object of this Similitude is not Christology ; and hence we are
not to expect to find here the author's doctrine concerning Christ
in a connected and complete form. The proper object is Fasting
(Sim. v. 2) and its true idea ; what is dogmatical, and particu
larly what is Christological, comes into consideration for the
most part only casually, and as something conceived for another
end, and f uUy intelhgible only from it ; consequently, the SimiH-
tude, already complete, can. receive a Christological meaning
only as something supplementary, and by an artificial turn. A
man, so runs the Similitude, entrusted his vineyard to his most
faithful and approved* slave, and promised him freedom if he
would, during his absence, bind the clusters to the stakes. The
faithful slave not only did this, but more besides, and had the
vineyard in the best condition. When the master came, he was
pleased, and called the Son, who was dear to him and his heir,
along with his friends, to consult. He told what the slave had
done, and they rejoiced with him. Then he made known his
purpose : I have, said he, promised freedom to the slave if he
1 In place of this, we find the converse ; for Hermas says expressly, that
what in the Similitude he has called the Son of the- Lord is not the Son of
God, but the Son of God is Christ ; only figuratively, or, in the Similitude,
he calls that the Son of the Lord of the vineyard, which properly is called
the Holy Ghost. Reuter (Repert. R. F. 1845, iii. p. 213) thinks that we '
must admit a contradiction on the part of Hermas. For the rest, he repudi
ates as a prejudice the opinion that Hermas identifies the Son and Holy
Spirit (p. 214).
VOL. I. ]

130 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH
f oUowed my command ; but he has done more, and filled me with
much joy. Therefore will I make him joint-heir with my son.
This pleased the son and the friends. Immediately thereupon
the householder sent from his own table costly viands to the
slave, who took only what was enough for him, and divided the
rest among his fellow-slaves, to the great deHght of the latter,
who wished he might come stiU more into favour with the
master since he acted so towards them. On hearing this, the
householder again summoned his son and friends, and announced
to them what had occurred, which made them still more approve
of his making the slave joint-heir with his son.
The meaning is this : First keep the commands of God;,theit
add thereto some good beyond what God has required : so shalt
thou acquire the greater merit, and be honoured by God. If
thou keep the commandments, art pure in heart and mouth,
and fastest so as to give to the poor, then is thy fasting good,
an offering well-pleasing to God (c. 3).
As a supplement to this interpretation, there is another
which seems to have been a sort of after-thought, arising out
of the remembrance that the self-sacrificing love of Christ
presents the most perfect doctrine respecting the true fast.
According to this, then, the Lord of the vineyard is God ; the
servant is the Son of God, who has done and suffered much to
take away the sins of men, — consequently, Jesus Christ. But if
by the servant in the Similitude we are to understand the Son
of God, who is the son of the householder? This cannot be the
Son of God, Christ ; for the Father takes counsel with him
respecting the servant, i.e. Christ, who, according to other
passages, as according to the interpretation of Sim. v., is the
Son of God in a peculiar sense, on account of the pre-existent
Son of God in Him ; and to make Him in any sense enter into
consultation about Himself would be incongruous. , There
remained, therefore, nothing else than, to assign the remaining
part in the SimiHtude to the Holy Ghost, already known to
every one by the baptismal formula.1 It is certainly unusual
to apply to the Holy Ghost the title of Son; but He is ca

1 Orbem terrarum fundus ille significat qui in SimUitudinem estposiWf
Dominus autem fundi demonstratur is qui creavit cuncta et consummavit^
virtutem illis dedit. Filius autem, Spiritus Sanctus est. Servus vero ills
Filius Dei est. C. 5.

HERMAS. 131
Son of the Father in the Similitude, whflst in the interpretation,
consequently, properly speaking, it is the servant who is the
Son of God.1 And' that even in the Similitude this discourse
contained what was unusual in his time, is acknowledged to
superfluity by Hermas himself, who seeks to guard against
the misunderstanding into which moderns also have fallen.2
"Why," he asks, " is the Son of God in this Similitude put
down in the place of a servant, since He is the Son of God, and
consequently, in the more correct interpretation of the Simili
tude, behoves to be the Son of the Householder, that is, of God ;
whilst in the Similitude the Holy Ghost appears as the Son with
whom the Father takes counsel concerning His proper Son,
Christ?" "He is not placed in the rank of a servant," is the
reply, " but in great power and majesty ; for over those whom
God hath given to His Son hath He placed presidents to protect
them individually," as the servant in the Similitude binds the
clusters to the stakes. " But He Himself hath toiled and suffered
much to take away their sins. — After the taking away of their
sins, He hath showed to them the ways of Hfe, inasmuch as He
gave to them the law which He had received of the Father.
Seest thou,' now, that He is Lord of the people, and hath re
ceived all power from the Father?" (c. 6). So far is Hermas
from Ebionism, so contrary is this to his time, that he rather seeks
in part to retract the representation of the Son as a servant in
the Similitude, and even to represent His earthly work as power
and majesty ; whUst what remains of His humUiation, such as
His sufferings, he treats as the work of His free love, as the
means of the taking away of our sins, and as the point of passage
to a higher perfection. Such' exaltation, indeed, cannot be
conferred on the pre-existent Son of God, in Himself ; but it
may be on humanity forming with Him one life-unity. On
this the conclusion reflects ; and this point gives then occasion a
1 Baur, 1. c. p. 134, interchanges what is similitude and what interpre
tation of the' similitude, when in the place, loosely considered, he finds proof
that Hermas recognises only one Son of God, the Holy Ghost; whereas,
conversely, as in the Similitude the son of the householder and his servant
are distinguished, so in the interpretation are the Holy Spirit and the Son
of God. 2 With which, however, we ought not to have met, after George Bull's
setting forth of the distinction.

132 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
second time to settle the arrears, and thus to show wherein the
connection between the Holy Ghost (caUed in the SimUitude
/.the son of the householder) and the servant who is the Son
of God consists ; a connection which must be presupposed when
the Holy Ghost is brought into council by the Father regarding
the -Son in the form of a servant, nay, when the Holy Ghost
has in the SimUitude the name which, strictly taken, even upon
earth belongs to Christ, unless the latter has, in assuming the
form of a servant, whoUy laid aside His Divine Sonship. We
shaU consider both these points.
The former, the exaltation of Christ, relates, according to '
Hermas, to the body ; for so he designates Christ's humanity:
so that it Cannot be understood of the pre-existent Son of God
in Christ, but only of that part of Him which was capable of
exaltation. Of the body, and of it alone, he says that He stands
to the Holy Ghost in a relation of subordination, and in that of
a servant ; but also, since He always obeyed the Holy Ghost, '•',¦;
used His body righteously and purely, never defiled it, never
was subject to it, that body, though it went forth subject to
weakness and like a servant, was yet, through union with the
Holy Ghost, evinced to be mighty and weU-pleasing to God.
"This powerful course, therefore, pleased God, because He
(Christ) was without spot on the earth, since He possessed in
Himself the.Holy Spirit in counsel."1 "Hence he (the House
holder) summoned the son and the good angels to him, that also
to this body, which has served the Spirit without complaint,
might be given some place of abiding, that he might not seem
to have lost the reward of his servitude."2 The Holy Ghost is
thus summoned by the Father as a witness and judge, along with
Himself, of the holy walk of the body of Jesus ; only to this
does the humiliation relate, and the elevation for reward.— As
1 Placuit igitur Deo hujusmodi potens cursus, quia maculatus non esset
in terra, possidens in se Spiritum Sanctum in consilio. Since the word
used is not maculatum, it cannot be referred to " corpus " in what goes
before ; nor can it to " cursus," since to that the words " possidens," etc.,
would not fit : consequently it must be understood of Christ, in whom the
Holy Ghost is thus a co-counsellor (Sim. v. 6).
2 Ut et huic scilicet corpori, quod servivit Spiritui Sancto sine querela,
locus aliquis consistendi daretur, ne videretur mercedem servitutis suae per-
didisse. This place has a clear reference to that Doketism which separates
the Son of God from the body in death, and so gives up the body itself.

HERMAS. 133
respects the second point, the union between the Holy Ghost
and Christ, it is clear from what goes before that Hermas can
not intend to say, as Baur thinks, that the human body filled
with the Holy Ghost is Christ ; for, as we 'have seen, the Holy
Spirit is by him distinguished from the Son of God, and hence
he must also, as he sees in Christ an appearance of the Son of
God, have left a place for Him also in Christ (Simil. ix. 14 ;
note 4, p. 127). To this also other things point. For in one
place he says that Christ hath possessed the Holy Ghost in
Himself as co-counsellor (Sim. v. 6, possidens in se Spiritum
Sanctum in consilio). "As He was co-counsellor in Christ's
walk, so it is proper that He should be also joint-judge of the
worth of His walk." But still more : " The Holy Ghost stands
also from the beginning in the closest relation to the body (the
humanity) of the Son of God, but not so as that He has appointed
(lthat body. He becomes (it is said) co-counsellor, in the Simili-
¦ tude, concerning Christ's manhood, because he is co-worker of
,,. the same according to its designed propriety for the indwelling
of God." " The revealer of God," who is also called in the Old
Testament sense, as by Justin, airoaToXo?, the Nuncius, i.e. the
Maleach /car i^o^rjv (as in Vis. Hi. 1, the majestic name ; per
haps also in Vis. ii. 1, the gloria Dei), " hears that Holy Spirit
which has been infused first of all into that body in which God
should dwell." x Here the dwelling of God as the end and object
is 'distinguished from that whereby it was prepared: the pre
paration is ascribed to the Holy Ghost ; the indweUing of God
i Nuncius audit ilium Spiritum Sanctum qui infusus est omnium primus
in corpore in quo habitaret Deus (Sim. v. 6). The passage is probably cor
rupt. Baur makes no attempt to explain it. A good sense, however, is
obtained if by nuncius be understood the Filius Dei, as Gieseler also sug
gests. Comp. Sim. ix. 1 ; Mand. v. 2 ; Sim. viii. 3 ; which passages clearly
show how variously Hermas uses the term Nuncius, and what a high sig
nificance it has with him, since in. Sim. ix. 1 it is also used of the Son of
God, who, according to ix. 12, 6, stands in the middle of the six highest
nuncii, excelsus, higher than the tower, the Church itself. Now this Nun
cius x. i. draws the Holy Ghost into counsel and aid in reference to the body
in which God should dwell. The aid which He repeives from the Holy
Ghost is in the preparation of the body of Christ for the indwelling of God,
i.e. of the Son of God. [In Dressel's edition of the Pastor, the correct
reading of the passage above cited is given from the Palatine Codex, thus r
" Spiritui illi sancto qui creatus est omnium purus in corpore, in quo habi
taret, Deus fundavit atque statuit electum corpus quod ei placuit." — Tr.]

134 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
itself must consequently be ascribed to the revealer, or the Son
of God. Rather by far than say that the indwelling God is
here described as the Holy Ghost (in which case the " first of
all " and the " should inhabit " would be meaningless), one might
mark it as a defect here, that a moment seems to be supposed in
which the body of Christ existed, and was consecrated by the
inpouring of the Holy Ghost, while as yet the indwelling of
the Son had not taken place. But this also is relieved in the
principal matter by the connection. The Holy Ghost is poured
in by the revealer ; the latter has, by the inpouring of the
Holy Ghost, Himself made the preparation for His indwelling,
i.e. made the humanity capable of, and strong enough for, His
indwelling (Sim. ix. 1), — consequently, in the operation of the
Holy Ghost, established the first element of His indweUing in
the man, of His incarnation, Himself.1 Similarly, also, else
where (Sim. ix. 13) the Son of God is designated as He who
goeth forth by the power of the Holy Ghost. AU this has been
admirably presented,2 thus : The Holy Ghost is in the SimUitude
the one drawn into counsel with the Householder, because He is,
first, the ground of the possibility of the dwelling of God in
man ; secondly, the norm to which man has to be faithful ; and,
thirdly, the measure of security for the fulfilling of this norm.8
Putting all together, it appears that Hermas represents the
absoluteness of Christianity in the pre-existence and eternal
post-existence of that subject which is the personal bearer of
Christianity, the Son of God ; and treats the connection into
which He entered through the co-working of the Holy Ghost
as an indissoluble one. According to him, He is higher than the
whole Church, higher than the highest angels, and, as He took
part in the creation of the world, so is He the Founder of the
Church ; and this not simply as Lawgiver, but primarily as the
bringer of the remission of sins to those who repent. By His
sufferings He hath taken away sins ; and holy baptism in His
1 This is the meaning of the passage in the larger text, which is probafiy
taken simply from the Greek : Collocavit enim eum (sc. Spiritum Sanctum)
Intellectus in corpore, ut ei videbatur. As the revealer or Son of God is
above (Sim. ix. 12) identified with the. Wisdom of the Proverbs, so is He
here called Intellectus (see Fabric. Cod. Pseudepig. V. T. p. 1154-55).
2 By Wolff in the Zeitschr. fiir Luth. Theol. 1842.
3 See Appendix, Note QQ.

PAPIAS. 135
name assumes the forgiveness of the sins of those who hence
forward walk in the new law which He hath introduced into the
world, and who defile not the Holy Ghost whom Christ sends
(Sim. ix. 13). However little he has sought to reconcile these
Christological positions with the Unity of God, which he so
strongly asserts (Mand. 7), he nevertheless has the former no
less than the latter. Of that which was characteristic of hereti
cal Judaism, namely, the rejection of the ablution of sins by the
sufferings of Christ, and the retention of only His prophetic and
royal office, we find no trace in him, but the very opposite. And
it is only in the roundabout way formerly noticed (Appendix,
Note LL) that he, in the same way as Montanism, falls back
into Judaizing, not in reference to the Person, of Christ, but
rather in the relation of justification to sanctification. Some
thing analogous is found where no imputation of Ebionism can
be made ; as, for instance, in the case of Cyprian, and in the
CathoUc Church. It especiaUy, however, deserves to be noticed,
that from the way in which the supernatural in Christianity is
with him concentrated especially in baptism, the foundation
is laid for giving a magical aspect to this act ; and in this an
entrance was given to a similar treatment of the laying on of
hands in ordination. In the Pseudq-Clementine Homilies both
are still more strongly set forth, as well as the Pelagian element
which always goes by the side of the magical.
The realistic tendency of Hermas is shared, in somewhat
different ways, on the one hand by Papias, and on the other by

Papias, according to Irenaeus, adv. Haer. v. 33, was the
hearer of John and the friend of Polycarp ; but Eusebius
(H. E. iii. 39), who in this case is especially critical, and had
before him five books of Papias (entitled e%riyr)<n,<s \oyia>v
KvpiaK&v), found no hint of intercourse on his part with the
Apostle John: and on this, had it happened, Papias would
certainly not have been silent. Papias, however, collected with
care the information which the disciples of the different Apostles
were able to give him concerning their doctrines ; nay, he even
knew two men who seem to have been disciples of the Lord
Himself. His high antiquity is evident from his relation to the
Christian writings. Besides the first Epistle of John and the
first of Peter, he knew also the Gospel of Mark and a Gospel

136 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
of Matthew (MaT0ah$ ra Xoyta crvveypa-tyaTo,= Discourses and
Histories, for both are included in the similarly entitled work
, of Papias, as appears from Eus. Hi. 39) ; but he looked for more
benefit from the living testimony which still existed than from,
the reading of books. But this oral tradition contained, besides
the fundamental stock of the Gospel-tradition, parables and
teachings of the Lord, and, as it appears, also narratives which; ¦
were not introduced into our Gospels. — It is probable, as
Eusebius also hints, that the Chiliastic positions which Irenaeus
advances at the end of the last book, and which he ascribes to
an ancient presbyter (v. 36), are taken from the work of Papias,
as well as those for which he expressly cites Papias (v. 35).1
For aU these positions Papias himself has referred to presbyters,'!
who were disciples of the Apostles (Eus. iii. 39), especially
Ariston and the Presbyter John, whom probably Irenseus has
confounded with the Apostle John.
First, then, as respects his Christological views : the faith
of Papias can in no case have embraced less than is expressed
in the Gospel by Mark, for this he fully acknowledged (Eus.
iii. 39). The same may be concluded also from the citation by ,
him of passages from the first Epistle of Peter and of John
(ibid).2 In particular, we know that he taught in his books the
death of Christ and the treachery of Judas ;3 that Christ is the
Redeemer, who hath been exalted to heaven.4 He referred the
work of the six days allegorically to Christ and the Church,6
1 Routh also, Reliquiae Sacrse I. 9, 10, is of a similar opinion.
2 The Apocalypse also he held to be Johannine ; comp. the'passages of
Andreas Caesar. Proleg. Comment, in Apocal! in Eouth, Bel. Sac. I. 15 ;
also the Catena in Epp. Cathol. ed. Cramer, Ox. 1840, p. 360, 361, 176.
Nay, he knew also the Gospel of John, according to the fragment of the
Bodleian, Cod. MS. 2397, Qrabe Spicil. II. 30, Routh, Rel. Sac. 1. 16:
Maria Jacobi Minoris mater, uxor Alphei, soror f uit Marise matris domini ;
quam Cleophae Joannes nominat, etc. Comp. John xix. 25. Also the quota
tion of the passage John xiv. 2, in the discourse of the Presbyter in Irenaeus
v. 36, belongs in all probability to the work of Papias.
8 According to ApoUinaris of Laodicea in CEcumenius, Comm. in Acta
c. ii. ; Routh, 1. c. 9.
4 Mnd rqn roj> 'SaTqpo; dncthr^m. — Euseb. iii. 39.
' 6 Anastasis Sin. Contempl. in Hexaem. L. I. in Routh 1. c. 15. This is
to be understood in connection with the fact, that, like Clemens and Pan-
taenus, he took the six days' work as symbolical of the six world-ages (comp.
Ep. of Barnabas), which are to be followed by the Millennium Sabbath.

HEGESIPPUS. 137
and also paradise;1 and says that in heaven, in paradise and
the kingdom of God, Christ will be seen according as those who
thus see Him shall be worthy of it. " This is the appointed
order and division in the triclinium of the guest-chamber
(Matt. xxii. 10) of those who shall be saved, say the presbyters,
the disciples of the Apostles ;2 and through these three stages do
the beHevers advance, — through the Spirit to the Son, through
the Son to the Father, because the Son yields up His work
unto the Father," as also the Apostle says, 1 Cor. xv. 25-28
(Iren. v. 36, 2). We must presently speak continuously of the
Christological significance of the doctrine concerning the Last
Things, as it appeared in the second century. Here we only
remark, that in the eschatology of Papias, Christ is represented
as the King, the Bringer of blessedness, which, on the other
hand, is consummated in Him or His appearance, whence He
is represented as the Highest Good of Christians. The millen
nial reign is. as little with him as with Irenseus the closing scene :
had it been so, it might with justice have been said, that the
highest end was conceived by Papias after a material fashion,
and so, that Christianity was not recognised on the whole in
its ideal import ; but the last end, according to him, is God the
Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost.3
Hegesippus (about 150; see Euseb. ii. 23, iii. 16, 20, 32, iv.
22) takes nearly the same stand-point as Hermas. He deserves
notice more particularly, because with him an edifice of opinion,
to the effect that in the former half of the second century the
Ebionitic view was virtually that of the Church, stands or falls.
Hegesippus, a converted Hebrew, who bestowed particular at
tention on the divisions of the Jewish sects, and saw many
of their errors clothed in the form of Christian heresies, in
his zeal for unity of doctrine (the vyii] icavova tov a-ooTvptov
KvpvypaTOf, Euseb. iii. 32), travelled to most of the bishops to
discover what the faith was, and found in all churches the
same faith as the Law, the Prophets, and the Lord had pro
claimed to him ; and this unity he set over against the heretical
1 See Appendix, Note RR.
2 This reminds of the words of Papias in Euseb. iii. 39: tov; rat
vpio-fivripun dnexpinon "Koyov; , ti" Anlpia; . . an . . . oi tov Kvpiov ptaiwral
hiyovtrw. 3 Appendix, Note SS.

138 FIRST PERIOD. ' FIRST EPOCH.
varieties. The fruit of his studies was his five books called
Hypomnemata, of which valuable fragments have been preserved
by Eusebius. The questions raised thereupon are, first, What,
according to Hegesippus, belongs to the sound canon of salvation-
bringing announcement ? and next, How far is his testimony
regarding the accordance of the churches trustworthy? If we
are in circumstances to show that he was not an Ebionite, his
testimony becomes very weighty, provided he be worthy of credit;
for there is no doubt as to the historical fact of his journeys.
If, however, he was an Ebionite, it remains at least a problem
to show how he could declare what was so untrue. For untrue,
it may be assumed at the outset, his testimony would be, since
it would be in contradiction with himself. For how could he
contrive, for instance, to think as an Ebionite, and yet to treat
the first Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians as Christian
(which he did, according to Euseb. iv. 22, comp. Hi. 16) ? or
how would his position be before Polycarp, Justin Martyr,
Quadratus, Aristides, who are far from leaving the impression
that they were only the representatives of a small party, which
stood opposed to the pretended Ebionitic Church? Or how
shall we account for his position at Rome, and his visit to Ani-
cetus, considering how strongly an anti-Judaizing order of things,
especially in respect of Easter, at that time agitating the Church,
was rooted there, so that out of the Jewish Passover a Christian
festival of Easter on the Sunday had been instituted ?
It must be acknowledged that it may be almost included
among the axioms of recent Church History that Hegesippus
was of Ebionitish views ; and in the opinion of many, he was so
in a Christological respect. The grounds of this are these : —
He represents the piety of James the Just in an Ebionitic
manner (Euseb. ii. 23). But however great might be his
reverence for James, it does not foUow that the piety of the
latter was the exact expression of his own ; for in this case we
should have in the portrait by Hegesippus one which, in its es
sential features, did not rest on genuine ecclesiastical tradition ;
in which case his testimony as to the unity of the Church belief
with his own would have little weight. But further, James the
Just himself must be otherwise judged of. What, in 150 after
the overthrow of Judaism and the dissolution of connection
with Jewish customs, would have an appearance of Ebionism,

HEGESIPPUS. 139
is in the first generation of the Church entirely consistent and
innocent. What though James the Just did not hold the obser
vance of the Jewish law as necessary for salvation (of which
Hegesippus says not a word), and consequently did not impose
on the heathen, whom Hegesippus tells us he converted, the
yoke of this, whilst yet he himself, as a Nazarite, and since the
Jewish people were thereby more accessible to him, did not feel
caUed upon, so long as the temple stood (and he died before its
destruction), openly to break with the law and customs of his
nation ? x The picture which Hegesippus gives us of him is in
perfect accordance with what we gather from the Epistle of
James, and with what is recorded concerning him in the Epistle
to the Galatians and the Acts of the Apostles (see ch. xv.) ; the
one, indeed, completes the other. That he could keep that per
fect law of liberty of which his epistle speaks, who can doubt ?
But more than this : if, according to the history of the Acts,
James regarded the law as not aboHshed for Jewish Christians,
but ascribed to it, if not a dogmatic, at least an historic right,
in accordance with which he exhorted even Paul to present an
offering in the temple, which the latter also did (Acts xxi. 18) ;
the statement of Hegesippus, at least concerning James, is shown
to be credible, and that without its foUowing either that James
was an Ebionite, or that Hegesippus, who treats him with the
utmost reverence, as his wisdom and piety deserved, should be
regarded as intimating that this form of piety was the only right
one, or was that which he himself professed (Eus. ii. 23).2 Or
must he be held to be an Ebionite because he was a Hebrew by
birth ? because he has narrated more of the Church at Jerusalem
than any other? or because he probably used the Hebrew Gos
pel, as did also Ignatius, Papias, and Origen, and which was, to
say the least, closely allied to that of Matthew ? or because he
recorded Jewish traditions of which we know not what they
1 We should rather expect the opposite, if, for instance, we compare the
History of the Reformation. Sulpicius Severus (Bk. ii. 45) informs us
how on the Church at Jerusalem, though acknowledging the Divinity of
Christ, there lay, till the destruction of the city under Hadrian, a certain
pressure, because they could not free themselves from the law ; and how,
on the other hand, the dispersion of the Jews brought deliverance from the
bondage of the law.
2 Appendix Note TT.

140 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
were, or whether he himself believed them or not ? or, in fine,
because he included among heresies (though he wrote no proper
Heresiology) the Jewish sects ? This last he could have for
borne to do, only if by these sects truths which formed tenets of
Christianity were not attacked. It is true that on this ground
he might also have included heathen errors ; but his not having
done so may be accounted for by the consideration, that he was
both better acquainted with, and more deeply interested in, the
Jewish sects. Still more ; he did not speak of them as sects of
Christianity, but, according to Euseb. iv. 22,1 expressly dis
tinguished between the Jewish sects which are against Judah
and Christ, and those which carried false doctrines into the
before unsullied Church.2 We shall now collect the Christo
logical elements out of the few remains that have been preserved
to us ; whereby (according to the witnesses adduced in Appendix)']
Note TT.) we are entitled to ascribe to Hegesippus a higher.;
representation of the Person of Christ than the fragments show
of him. It wiU not be denied that his Christological faith must have
embraced those elements of the idea of Christ which he represents
James the Just as expressing. Now James, according to his ac
count (Eus. ii. 23), was asked by the Jews, tls 17 Ovpa tov 'Itjo-ov
tov uTavp(o6emo<s ; This may mean either, What is- the, key to the
right judgment concerning Jesus ? or Ovpa here may be equi
valent to 1$?^, What is the right appreciation of Him ? or 'Iyaov
may be the genitive of apposition, What is to be understood of
Jesus when He is called the door? The latter interpretations
accord best with the answer ; the third, however, like the first,
is Hnguistically harsh, though Ignatius, PhUad. 9, Hermas,
Simil. 9 (comp. John x. 9), and Routh, 1. c. I. 217 ff. 220,
support it. James answered, " Jesus is the Christ, the aanrip.
He is the Son of Man, and sits in heaven on the right hand of
Supreme Power, and will come again in the clouds of heaven.
When He comes, the judgment will take place ; He will be the
Judge of all." He preached to heathen and Jew, as a true
witness, that Jesus is the Christ. The second advent of Christ
appears to have formed a leading article of the creed of the
Church at Jerusalem, for the Jews were wont to designate the
x Appendix, Note UU. 2 Appendix, Note W.

HEGESIPPUS. 141
becoming a Christian as " a waiting for Jesus Christ." Still it
is not expressly stated what it is through which Christ is the
Saviour. Hegesippus held Him for the Teacher by whom the
Law and Prophets had been fulfilled but not destroyed, comp.
Matt. v. 17 (Euseb. iv. 22) ; also for the King who sits at God's
right hand. But that he also attributed to Him the forgiveness
of sins is probable, from that faith in the Crucified which, ac
cording to him (H. 23), belongs to Christianity, and is an offence
to the Jews. Had he, Hke the Ebionites, regarded Him as a
mere man, he would not have laid any stress on this. But that
h'e did not so regard Him is most evident from his calling (iii.
32) the contemporaries of Christ the yevea toov avTats a/coais tjjs
evOeov 2jocj>la<s eiraicovaai KaTrj^uopevuv. . If Christ is to him
the Wisdom (comp. Matt. xi. 19; Luke xi. 49), and that evdeos,
it is not too much to conclude that Hegesippus viewed the
Person of Christ' in connection with the " Wisdom" of the Pro
verbs, which was with God as His counseUor at the creation of
the world, and that in such a way as to regard the wisdom which
was with God as appearing in the Son of Man, so that the latter
might be called the personal Wisdom, the ao<pia ev0eo<i. This
conclusion, which in the case of a converted Hebrew is in itself
highly probable, is expressly authorized by Eusebius, who (iv.
22) relates how highly Hegesippus esteemed the Proverbs of
Solomon, and how he, " with Irenaeus and the whole choir of
the ancients, called them the iravdpeTov Hocfriav."1
Hegesippus (as weU as, according to his account, the leaders
of the Church at Jerusalem) had not by any means a carnal,
Judaizing concept of the second coming of Christ. His king
dom and parousia were, indeed, looked for as nigh at hand ; and
this brought persecution on the relations of Jesus who were
presidents of the Church in Jerusalem. But when they were
asked before the tribunal concerning Christ, and of His king
dom, of what kind it was, when and where it was to appear,
they repHed that it was not in any respect an earthly kingdom,
but one heavenly and angelic, which was to commence at the
end of the world, when Christ coming in His glory would judge
the Hving and the dead, and assign to each according to his ser
vice ; whereupon Domitian dismissed them with contempt (Eus.
'Appendix, Note WW.

142 FIRST. PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
iii. 20). Notwithstanding, however, this spirituality in his re
presentations of the Messianic kingdom, we are not entitled to
presume that he denied its visibility ; even Paul held this along
with the former.1
Putting all together, we conclude that Hegesippus cannot at
all be reckoned among the more noted and gifted or dogmatically
productive men : his Hebrew origin betrays itself in his speech,
as well as in his prejudice in favour of his people and of the
Christian Church in the midst of them; but as respects his
Christological views, the charge that he was an Ebionite is
utterly unfounded. He has intercourse also with churches of
heathen Christians, nay, is made happy by his reception among
them, and finds himself at one with them in belief. From his
fragments, we are led to concur in the judgment of Eusebius,
that he was a man of the simplest faith, but at the same time a
representative of the sound doctrine of apostolic preaching. The
Son of Man is with him the personal Wisdom who appeared on
earth, and is now exalted to the right hand of God. And now
we are entitled to take what he says of the universal concurrence
of the Church, in which he approvingly sympathised, as a
weighty testimony at least to the fact, that the essentially Chris-
tian,doctrine — that of the true manhood of Christ and His Divine
pre-existent being — was, about the middle of the second century,
the prevalent doctrine in the leading churches ; though it does
not follow from this, that there were none of another way of
thinking. Hegesippus himself knew of heretics ; uniformity in
all points was not yet in the Church : still his testimony is
weighty in favour of the unity of the principal churches in funda
mentals, especially Christology.
What has been said may suffice to subvert the principal sup
ports of the hypothesis of the original Ebionism of the Church,
which have been afresh adduced by some recent writers ; nay,
the very men who are brought forward in support of it we re
cognise as witnesses against Ebionism in Christology. It only
remains that we should considerthe Christian apocryphal writings,
and the eschatological expectations of the ancient Church ; on
which it is the more necessary that a thorough and well-grounded
judgment should be reached, since many mistakes have been
1 Appendix, Note XX.

ESCHATOLOGY. lid
entertained, especiaUy on the latter, from the time of Corrodi,
and since some have adduced these Christological expectations
as a leading argument for the alleged Ebionism of the ancient
Church, whereas, rightly viewed, they form one of the clearest
proofs of the contrary. It may be permitted, for the sake of
connection, to go somewhat beyond the limits of our epoch.
In the outset, it is to be asserted that Christian antiquity,
as a whole, possessed an eschatolqgy, nay, that during the second
half of the first century as well as the second century, especial
care was bestowed on this subject. All were at one, — men of the
Johannine school, as Polycarp and Papias — of the Pauline, as
Ignatius and Clement of Rome — of the Petrine, as Barnabas —
of that of James, as Hermas and Hegesippus,1 — all were at one
as to the fact that a return of Christ was to be expected, when
He should raise the dead and hold the judgment, and when the
Church should be perfected by the separation from it of the
evil. The source of interest in this subject, it may be at the
same time remarked, was not the same in all ; just as we may
observe it down to our own day. And in this respect, it is cha
racteristic that those who were more deeply impressed with the
secular vocation of Christianity, or those who more profoundly
recognised the eternal life appearing in Christianity, were less
interested in the developing of the eschatology. This is apparent
even with John in the Gospel, as compared with the Apocalypse ;
a comparison which also affords a very instructive hint as to the
fact and the reason of the existence in the Church of a pre
dominantly eschatological age, preceding that stand-point of
Christology which the Gospel possesses. It is self-evident that
in the beginning Christianity was, to the majority, rather the
precious pearl which the heart finds, than the leaven which is to
penetrate mankind and revolutionize the world. The first form
of Christian piety must loosen itself from the preceding world
of the spirit which was the product of another principle — must
concentrate itself on itself ;' and the tendency to association and
the formation of relations; towhich Christianity certainly prompts,
must at first be, for the most part, overruled by an aiming at the
separation of Christians from non-Christians, as weU in worship
1 Clemens Roman. 21, 50 ; Barnabas 7, 15, 20 ff. ; Herm. Simil. 8 and
9 ; Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. iii. 20, ii. 23 ; Ignat. ad Ephes. 11 ; Polycarp,
Ep. 5, 6- On Papias, see above.

144 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
as in Christian manners. Over against the huge unchristian
world the young Christianity stood as an almost invisible planet,
and the most unpleasant relations possible subsisted between its
intensive essence and the utterances to which this necessitated;!
arid which it justified, and its extensive value. The few Chris
tians felt themselves to be the soul of the world;1 and yet it
was a soul as it were without a body, or rather, the carnalized
world did not as yet obey the soul. Even the moral law would
be impotent, and not the alone enduring Divine truth, were it
satisfied with perpetually presenting its demand, and at the
same time perpetually remaining unperformed, renouncing
every other reahty except that of requirement. In Hke manner
Christianity could not do otherwise than assert with absolute
certainty its future universal supremacy. To this confidence
there are so many discourses of Christ which give a right;
but besides, every individual who had become a Christian, had
thereby become a partaker of that absolute union of the ideal
with the real which appeared in Christ prototypically. If under
the Old Covenant the prophetic spirit which announced the com
pletion of the kingdom of God was communicated only sporadi
cally, under the New Covenant there was given, with the being
a Christian^ also the absolute certainty of the victory of Christ
over the world, and the prophecy had become a general one.
And thus had the history of Christ come to be viewed as a type
for the history of the Church. Not power first, but endurance
and suffering. Not the 'immediate sovereignty, which as such
would have been carnal and physical ; but first the dying a death
of love, after that the glorification, in order that holy love might
be recognised as that which is higher than immediate power,
and then that from this power might be again born ; so that to
love, the spirit's truth, nothing should be wanting to its being
made to appear as the highest thing in the world, as the inner
most and abiding power of the world, to yield to which brings
eternal felicity, to oppose which, eternal condemnation.
The eschatological expectations undoubtedly contained many
traits from the Old Testament and Judaism. This has been
made to serve as a proof of the Ebionism of the ancient
Church; but in this has been forgotten only the principal
1 Ep. ad Diog. c. 7 ; Justin Mart. Apol. ii. 7.

ESCHATOLOGY. 145
thing, namely, that the pre-Christian age expected the Messiah,
but that the Christian Church in its eschatology hoped for the
return of no other than Him who had already come. The
Christian hope of the Coming One grew entirely out of faith in
Him who had come. It may as weU be said that it was the
Christian principle which by an inner necessity sketched out
for itself an eschatology, that spontaneously concurred in its
essential Hnes with the Messianic representations of the Old
Testament, as it may be asserted that the purer representations
of Messianic eschatology were of necessity transferred to Him
who was recognised and believed in as Saviour of the world.
The absolute reconciliation with God, the completion of Religion,
is made known by Christianity as come in Christ ; and therein
also the completion of the world or the kingdom of God as
certainly to come, through the second coming of Him who
has already come.
But what meaning has this preponderance of eschatological
representation, which is shown as well in Christology, in the im
portance which, at first especiaUy, was attached to the resurrec
tion of the Lord, and His exaltation to royal dignity at the
right hand of the Father, as in what is closely connected with
this, the Hving interests for the final history of the Church,
which is itself again a part of the history of Christ ? What, in
short, is the significancy of this for the development of doc
trine %
We find that in aU scientific systems the popular thinking,
in order to gain a conception of them, asks before aU, not so
much what is the principle or beginning and the processes, as
what is the end, the result. So "it was with the entrance of
Christianity into the world. The disciples always sought most
readily after the end, the result; for it was thereby that
they had the summary of the momenta which were to be dis
tributed before their eyes only in process of time. Eschatology,
consequently, in which the circle of these momenta first becomes
defined as a whole, is that in which the full idea of Christianity
is first presented to the mind ; just as rehgions of a less ethical
character look back to the beginning, to Paradise. Eschatology
may thus be justly called the succulent swelHng germ from
which, as from the whole, from the matured, completed idea of
Christianity, one momentum unfolds itself towards another ; in
VOL. I. K

146 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
which all dogmas are included, yet ever so as there is a regres
sion from the last to the first.1
In eschatology the Christian principle celebrates its absolute
ness, its apotheosis ; for the entire universe is determined by it.
What is not an integral part of the eternal kingdom shaU be
absolutely cast aside at the end of things, as powerless and
worthless. In this there already lies the principle, that in it, or
rather in Christ, who is not now viewed as He that is come, but
rather as He who is to come again, is that which absolutely
confers worth ; for by faith in Hihi who has appeared, is deter
mined blessedness or rejection through Him who is to come
again. Hence it is clear, that wherever this identity of Him
who is to come again, and who as Judge and Perfecter of the
world must be regarded as exercising Divine prerogatives, with
Him who has appeared, is held fast, there Ebionism is impos
sible ; and that this can exist only where this identity is denied
and perfection is expected from another principle, or where the
idea of perfection is stript of its absoluteness and rendered1
inept, in which case Christ is brought into only a loose relation
to it. To the latter Cerinthus must have had a leaning ; to the
former the old Montanism, in so far as it anticipated a new
state of things in the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Where,
on the other hand, neither of these is the case, as with aU
the Fathers hitherto considered by us ; where eschatology is
placed in the closest relation to the Person of Christ ; and where
it is held fast that the perfection which He brings is not of
eudsemonistic, but of absolute worth, and brings the spirit to
its truth ; there Ebionism has become an impossibUity, or at the
utmost can exist only in faint traces. In this case there is
rather, conversely, found in eschatology the complement of
Christology, by means of which that which in Christ's state of
humiHation remairied latent is connected, for the anticipation
of faith, with, that which has been already manifested, so as
to form the entire image of the Person of Christ, with the out-
1 In respect of this, it is noticeable how during the ecclesiastical develop
ment of the first age there was a greater tendency towards what is last,
eschatology ; whilst in the Gnostic development, the tendency was to the
beginning, to cosmogony, nay, to theogony. Both, however, in their progress
must meet and mingle. In this also is mirrored the difference between
the idealistic and the realistic tendency.

ESCHATOLOGY, EBIONISM, DOKETISM. 147
lines of yhich the knowledge of the historical Christ first be
came a reality in the mind.1 Now, as surely as the Church, in
its independent construction of Christianity, had to begin with
the end, and to be assured of that, so surely did this initiatory
preponderance of the eschatological exert a dangerous influence
in a dogmatical respect, which could be avoided only by pro
ceeding vigorously in Christology from the end to the now
newly Ulustrated construction of the intermediate momenta.
The dangers incurred are of an Ebionitic and Doketic kind.
If regard is fastened only on the exalted Lord) the King, the
central point of His earthly life — His propitiatory agency — may
be almost overlooked ; and in this case there remains only the
Teacher, and the returning Lord of glory, who is to rule over all.
Such an Ebionitic, outward, and unethical view of His work may
easily pass over to an Ebionitic view of His Person, for Pelagian-
ism and Ebionism are internally aUied. Still more immediately
is Ebionism brought in when the mind turns to eschatology in
the narrower sense with so unsatisfied a longing, that it feels as
if by the first advent of Christ nothing was done or ameliorated
essentially, but that all depends on His second coming. In this
case Christ becomes merely the prophet of His own future, a work
which another might have discharged, and for which no pecuHar
equipment was necessary ; this, consequently, if it became ne
cessary at all, would be resorted to only afterwards. So was it
with Cerinthus, who maintained that the resurrection of Christ
itself is to be referred to His second coming. Doketism also
may obtain a point of egress from this preponderance of the
eschatological, and may penetrate into the Church even where,
from its reahsm and its eschatology, it might seem closed against
luch Doketism as came from the Gnostic side. For if the idea
of Christ is formed only one-sidedly from an eschatological point
©f view, — if He is regarded only as the exalted Lord, — there is
a danger of His Divinity, which in eschatology comes forth with
pecuHar glory, though in union with humanity, being too ex
clusively regarded in connection with His appearance on earth.
This dissipation of the true humanity of Christ appears especially
in several of the apocryphal writings (see further on) ; but the
tendency to this may be discerned at a very early period. Thus
1 Appendix, Note YY.

148 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Doketism on realistic grounds, and from an undue preponde
rance of eschatological considerations, was introduced in re
ference to the beginning and the earthly life of the God-man.
¦ But the same risk of Doketism arose only in another quarter,
namely, in reference to the end, when the longing after the
return of the Lord led in the manner described to a deprecia
tion of what had been already done, and referred aU to a second
advent of a totally different character. Such a view of Christ
has in itself something of a Doketic character ; but this is greatly
strengthened when over against the world as it is now a dual
istic variance impends, and the entrance of the kingdom of
God and the returning Christ is not conceived as historically
mediated, but as abrupt. The magical entrance of the reign of
God of necessity has a Doketic effect also on the Christology.
This latter form of Doketism is especially instructive, from its
explaining what at first sight is an enigmatical phsenomenon, ,
namely, that the ancient Ebionism is at least partially coupled
with Doketism, and vice versa. For it is evident that this
Doketism of the end has an Ebionitic view of the earthly hfe
of Christ as its presupposition (see above) ; so that the peculiar
drama of the alternation between Ebionism and Doketism may
be exhibited in one and the same mode of thought. Both sides
of the Person of Christ are acknowledged; but in place of
being simultaneously interpenetrative, they are severed, they
are presented one apart from the other ; and as the one side
becomes prominent in consciousness, the other retires into the
background, or is excluded. To this also the ancient Mon
tanism must have come, had it taken a Christological direction
instead of confining itself to the work of Christ. For if it
looked on the historical work of Christ, the result of this could
not satisfy its impatient longing after the other world, its dual
istic view of the world, but must appear poor in comparison
with what was yet to come. If it looked on the new Jerusalem,
the historical being and work of Christ would evanish before
the suddenly-working, the absolutely new-creating power of the
glorified, returning Christ. The old world would be annihUated,
the new would come in its place. This duaHsm is the funda
mental view which is common to both Montanism and Gnos
ticism. In Montanism, however, both sides appear successively :
in Gnosticism the dualism is not of a successive, but of a simul-

ESCHATOLOGY, GNOSTICISM, MONTANISM. 149
taneous kind ; and this is in accordance with the fact, that its
point of issue is rather theory, while that of Montanism is prac
tice. To Gnosticism, the position, that the resurrection has
happened already, is essential ; it has no toleration for an escha
tology. On this the old Montanism concentrated its entire Chris
tianity.1 Hence these two so violently clashed. As, however,
the Christian truth, which was then making way in the Church,
unites the theoretical and the practical, and does not allow the
one to exclude the other, so in eschatology it atoned the contra
diction between Gnosticism and Montanism ; as it did not deny
either the presence of the Eternal in Christ or His impending
return, but assigned their rights to both by removing the dualism
on which both stand, and rendering possible such a historical
mediation as posits both a future end and an already present
power, objectively realized >in Christ, to accomplish that end.
And thus both the Gnostic joy over the already present light of
truth, a joy approaching to haughty triumph, and the longing
after a more perfect state of things, approaching to sadness
and depression, were moraUy united in the joyous activity caUed
forth in the furthering of the design of Christianity to be a
leaven of the world. Hope has assumed an ethical character,
or seeks to reach the perfecting of the world through a love
which ensouls the world ; and the ethical has as its basis the
reconciliation as already accompHshed (not in theory merely,
but for the innermost Hfe), — that is, it has faith for its basis.
Without this advance to the ethical, faith ceases to be faith, and
must pass over either into Gnosticism or Montanism, according
as those in whom it is are of a more theoretical or of a more
practical cast of mind.2
As before the time of Gnosticism and Montanism there were
not wanting men in the Church (see p. 143, note 1) who were
not only free from a fantastic scheme of eschatology, but who
did not exclude either of the two sides, — either the presence of
the Divine in Him who had appeared, or the hope of His return ;
1 The difference and analogy of the two may be thus stated : Both have
to do with an ideal world ; but Gnosticism construes it as the highest truth,
Montanism as the chief good. t
2 Philastrius casts on the old Montanists the taunt of a " vitae tempus
vanum et infructuosum " (Hseres. 21). Similar reproaches are much more
frequently cast on Gnosticism.

150 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
so also, during this time itself, there were those who discriminated
the two sides in order to unite them again in a higher and more
inteUigent manner. It is Irenaeus, however, in whose works
especially this reconciliation is shown, with the advantages
which the Church derived from the preceding conflict.1
It is undeniable that Christianity first sketched out from its
principle its theory of the world in its eschatology ; in this is
the consummatio of the world's history, and consequently this,
as well in respect of its final end and aim as in respect of the
reality of this end, is fixed. In it the anthropological side, the
perfected manhood, is united to the Christology, so as to be
seen by the mind. . Having fixed the definitive aim and secured
its reaUty, all that preceded has unity, connection, regularity;
and on this side it is impossible to mistake the speculative
element of eschatology, though presented in a preponderantly
historical form.2 Passing on from this to cast a glance on the
New Testament Apocrypha, and that as well on the apocalyptic
as on the rest which have been handed down to us, the most
important of the former which come before us are the Sibylline
Books, the Book of Enoch, and the appendix to it, the Testar
ment of the Twelve Patriarchs.
Of the Sibylline Books, it is the fourth and the fifth we
have here especially to consider ; of which the former belongs
to the first century, the latter to the beginning of the second.
The fourth book exhorts men to be baptized, and, raising their
hands into the air, to implore forgiveness. If they do not that,
fire shaU consume the world; whereupon God shall raise the
dead and institute the judgment. The earth shall again cover
the impious ; the pious shall again live on the earth ; God shaU
give them spirit and life ; and they shall all again find them
selves (Oracula Sibyllina cum variorum commentariis, ed. Serv.
Gallseus, Amst. 1689, pp. 530-539) Of more importance
is the fifth book. In the oracle against Memphis (p. 556, v.
60-72) it is said : " Thou hast raged against my God-anointed
children (ira8>a<i Beo^urTovi) ;3 thou shalt weep, and see the
eternal, the immortal God in the clouds.4 A strong king sent
1 Appendix, Note ZZ. 2 Appendix, Note AAA.
3 At p. 641, the pious are called 'ka.og hoTivxrac.
4 That this relates to. Christ (Matt. xxiv. 30) cannot be doubtful ; at the
same time, however, it proves that eschatology is not secured against Doketism

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. 151
forth of God shall sustain aU great kings.1 A world-conflagra
tion, and a battle of the stars with each other, will bring in the
end." Then shall there come (p. 600, v. 257 ff.) again from
the air a distinguished man, who on the fruitful tree stretched
forth His hands, the best of the Hebrews, who once for all estab
Ushed the sun, who spake in pleasing discourse and with holy lips.
" There has come," cries the Sibylle in a passage further on, in
prophetic anticipation, " from the heavenly regions the man who
went home, holding the sceptre in His hand which God hath
delivered unto Him. Gloriously does He build up Jerusalem
and the holy temple ; even unto heaven reacheth His building.'^-
The author of this oracle shows himself to have been a Jewish
Christian;3 but already we find great stress laid by him on
Christ's death, and he does not confine his regards to Him as
risen. The cross is to him the wood that brings much fruit.4
On the other hand, the coming of Christ in the clouds to judg
ment is directly called by him the manifestation of God.
It is almost more difficult to pronounce judgment on the
Book of Enoch. Is it the production of one author or not, of
a Jew or a Christian ? In any case, eschatology so predomi
nates in it, that the Christ of history is forced entirely into the
background; and so that comes to pass here which we have
1 With especial fervour does the oracle speak against Rome and Italy,
because through them many of the saints, the believers, and the true
temple (i.e., the temple of the true God) have fallen. ¦
2 At p. 628, God is called xtiotvi; naiolo ptiyiaTov. For the rest, it is
doubtful whether the temple is thought of as a spiritual one, consisting of
holy men, though this has much in its favour (p. 623 : olxon di\ QaXhovTa,
©lov Typiiuonx naon, i£ ayian yiyctara, xxi aLtpDiTon aid loVres). What
follows, also, seems to me to refer to a temple consisting of the souls and
bodies of men, to a worship without clay or stone or gold, consisting wholly
of the offerings of the God-inspired.
8 As in the description of the holy city and the holy land, which shall
in the time of the Messiah show the heavenly Jerusalem and Canaan (tin-
yini);, p. 602) also in visible reality (ino-apxon, p. 627) ; further, at p. 598,
where the Jews, who enter the Messiah's kingdom, are called a godly
race, holy inhabitants of heaven ; and in fine, pp. 600, 601, where the
Messiah is called " the best of the Hebrews." On the other hand, the
passages above cited forbid our regarding the author as a Jew. See a dis
sertation by Bleek on the Sibylline Oracles in the Theologische Zeitschrift
of Schleiermacher, De Wette, and Liicke, H. ii. p. 188 ff.
4 Appendix, Note BBB.

152 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
above noted, that a one-sided eschatology approximates to Doket
ism. Nevertheless there is much that favours the conclusion,
that it is on the whole a Jewish product, which probably owes
some touches to the hand of a Christian.1 The entire stand- ,,
point of the book is essentially Jewish. Of what is pecuHarly I
Christian — the incarnation of God, the name Jesus, His earthly >
life and death, His resurrection and ascension, the work of re
demption as a whole, Baptism and the Lord's Supper — not a
trace is found, whilst the Sabbath is represented as an eternal
ordinance (c. x. 23). The Messiah, indeed, has a high place:
He is caUed the Elect,2 the Son of Men,3 the Man's Son,4 the
Woman's Son,5 the Son of God;6 His name was called beforn
the sun in the presence of the Lord of spirits;7 He sits next.
to Him on the throne, in the hidden place, from the beginning ,
to the end of days ;8 but He shall be manifest then, when as
Judge He shall utter the decisive word which God approves on
the day of judgment (lx. 10 ff., lxviu. 39), which is the chief
object of the book. Hence the author knows not of any
appearance of the Son of Man besides that to judgment |
(lx. 17). Then shaU the saints dweU with the Son of Man,
and eat, and lie down and rise up with Him, for ever and ever
(c. lxi. 17). There is no doctrine of a Trinity in the book ;9 the
Messiah is not caUed the Word nor the Wisdom.10 And when
1 Appendix, Note CCC.
2 C. lx. 7, 10, 16, lxi. 1, 10, xl. 5, xiv. 3, 4, xlviii. (xlvi.) 2, 4, 1. 3, 5,
li. 5, 10, liv. 5.
3 C. xlvi. 1. 2, lxi. 13, 17, lxii. 15, lxviii. 38, 39, Ixix. 1, etc. Noah
also is called this, lix. 11 ; perhaps also Enoch, lxx. 23.
4 C. lxviii.. 40, 41. Enoch also is thus addressed, c. lxx. 17 : " Thou art
the man's son, born to righteousness."
5 C. lxi. 8-13, especially 9. e C. civ. (cvi.) 2.
7 C. xlviii. 3-5.
8 C. lxi. 10, xlviii. 5 : " The elect and the hidden one was in the pre
sence of the Lord of spirits before the world was, and evermore."
9 See Hoffmann on lx. 13, lxx. 9.
10 Yet He judges the spirits by the word of the name of the Lord
(c. lx. 11), or by the word which is a sword of His mouth (comp. lxi. 4,
lxii. 15). Wisdom, on the other hand, is ascribed to Him as an attribute ;
but He Himself is not called Wisdom. His peculiar characteristic, under
which the book thinks the Messiah, is rather righteousness (ch. xlvi. 2,
xlviii. 16, xlviii. (xlvi.) 3,1. 3) ; and it is almost only for the judgment
that wisdom comes into consideration. The Messiah is not the world-

BOOK OF ENOCH. 153
he caUs Him the Woman's Son, there can be no doubt that the
author, had he been a Christian, would have referred that to
His birth of the Virgin : as used by him, it has its full explana
tion if we either take it as a circumlocution for " man " (as in
Matt. xi. 11 ; Luke vii. 28), or, what is better, regard it as
referring to the seed of the woman in the Protevangelium, and
understand it of the Messiah. His speaking of the Son of Man
as existing with God before the creation of the world, and as
worshipped by aU being, receives an explanation of a striking
kind from Daniel's Son of Man ; from Persian or aUied ideas,
which are elsewhere found in the book ; in. fine, from the place
which the doctrine of angels holds in this book, and other
similar performances. The passage from Daniel (vii. 13, 27),
on which we have already commented (see p. 44), hovers be
fore the author's mind; but the term, Son of Man, is more
definitely appHed to the Messiah by him than in Daniel. He
is, .without doubt (and to this, Persian ideas may have con
tributed), regarded as the Primal Man, who precedes the rest of
creation as its idea. The doctrine of angels, when brought to
such vaHdity and extension as it must have been at the time
of the writing of the Book of Enoch, could not but ally itself,
in the mind of a Jew who adhered to the prophecies of his
people, with the idea of the Messiah ; and this took effect in
the Messiah being conceived of, after the manner of an angel,
as the Primal Man (xlvi. 1). But the Messiah, who exercises
judgment on all evil, and consequently on evU angels, — a subject
on which this book greatly dwells, — must, on the other hand,
be placed above angels. ' Thus His pre-existence was implicitly
asserted. There is no ground for regarding this representation
as a general one in pre-Christian Judaism ; on the contrary, the
dialogue of Justin with the Jew Trypho rather shows (e. gr. c.
48) that the mass of the Jews were expecting a Messiah who
should be simply a man from among men, and who should
receive ,a higher personaHty through the anointing of Elias.
But more than this : even if the representations of the Book of
creating Wisdom of Proverbs, but the world has been created by an oath
(i.e., by God's powerful word, which is not to be identified with the Mes
siah; c. lxviii. 21-29). So little is this oath (i.e., God's word) the Son
of God, that it is rather of the rebellious angels that the discourse is, who
availed themselves of that oath as a powerful form of incantation.

154 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Enoch were general among the Jews, against which is the tes
timony of the Gospels (which represent the opinion of Trypho
as that of the nation, Matt. xxn. 4l ff ., H. 4 ff . ; John vii. 41 ; and
only make a few allusions to any other view, John vii. 27, conf.
Heb. vii. 3), still we should be far from having in them the
Christian idea of the Person of Christ. Especially, we have.
not there the right view of the humanity of Christ : we have
only the eternal, immutable idea of Manhood hypostatized with
out passing into the state of becoming (werden), consequently
no incarnation. This Son of Man of Enoch is only the
abstract, rigid Logos of Philo evolved out of Daniel; and
hence more definitely hypostatized than by Philo, who never
theless calls his Logos the Primal Man. Moreover, this Son of
Man has no true Deity. Eighteousness, not love, is his funda*
mental characteristic ; and as respects his essence, he does not
belong to the inner circle of the Divine, but he stands, if as
first, or, if it be preferred, as king and representative, yet still
only among the cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim, — all angels
of might and majesty, — and praises, in unison with them, the
name of the Lord of spirits to eternity (c. lx. 13, 14). He is
an attendant of the Head of days, the Father of spirits. (e. gr.
c. xlvi. 1).
Whilst, however, we regard this book as wholly a Jewish '
production, and though the Messiah whom it describes, in spite
of analogies to the Christian, is not thought of as having come
in Jesus, or even as promised by Him, still an evidence may be
drawn from it of how the momentum of pre-existence in the
concept of the Messiah is not only not difficult to reach, but in
the universality of its significancy the trait is most readily '
acknowledged, since already implicitly it Hes there. Not less is
the early diffusion and recognition of the writing a proof how
early, in Christianity also, the idea of the pre-existence of Christ
must have found general acceptance.1 This brings us to the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs?
Judah and Levi are appointed protectors of the people till
God come, to dwell in the midst of Israel (Levi 4 ; Judah 23).
With the light of knowledge shall Levi enlighten, and stand as
the sun in Israel (Levi 14), until the Lord bring home all the
1 Appendix, Note DDD. 2 Appendix, Note EEE

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 155
h§athen in the compassion of His Son for ever. Judah, on
the other hand, is entrusted with the sceptre, the rod of
righteousness, which in the day of the Messiah shaU ascend
to judgment and salvation over all Jews and heathens (Judah
24). In the union of both offices consists Israel's salvation
(Dan 5). There shall not be two heads ; for aU that God
has made has but one head, and one head all the members of the
body obey, though they be double (Zeb. 8). The royal, how
ever, is lower than the priestly dignity ; God has subjected the
former to the latter : to the former He has given what is on
earth, to the latter what is in heaven ; and as the heaven is
exalted above the earth, so is the priesthood above the king-
hood (Judah 24). Grievous, however, as the sin is to rise up
against Judah or Levi, and to set up a double kingdom or
priesthood, yet the perfection of both shall be reached only
when the Lord shaU raise up a man who shall be of Levi as
high-priest, and of Judah as king ; a person who combines the
earthly and heavenly, as 0eo? ical av8pmiro<: (Simeon 7). The
author does not mean by this, that the Messiah is in any way
to spring bodily from the two tribes (see rather Judah 23), or
that Mary sprang from the tribe of Levi, as several later here
tical sects averred, especiaUy the Manicheans. But the Messiah
is to be born of a virgin of the tribe of Judah (Joseph 19) ;
who, however, is seen in Joseph's dream in clothing of byssus
(c. 19) ; — a thought which, it may be remarked in passing, is
more fully wrought out in the Protevangelium Jacobi, where
it is stated that Mary descended indeed from the famUy of
David, but was brought up in the temple, and was by her
parents from her youth dedicated to the Lord ; where one may
discern the same effort to unite in the king of Israel also the
glory of the priesthood. From the virgin, who wears a stole of
byssus, Joseph sees proceed a lamb without spot, and at her
right hand was as it were a Hon. All the beasts attack it, and
the lamb vanquishes it: Since, consequently, Mary, though not
by birth, yet by inner and outer consecration, sustains some
thing of the priestly character, it is said, Out of Judah and
Levi shaU be born to you the Lamb of God, with whom the
symbol of the kingdom is most intimately bound up (comp.
Sim. 7 ; Jos. 19 ; Iren. Fragm. ed. Massuet, 345). Other
tokens of the appearance of Christ on earth are given, a3

156 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
foUows : — The salvation of God (o-uTijpiov tov Qeov) wUl arise
on you in Him who is God and man (Sim. 7 ; Dan 5 ; Benj.
9). The Lord, the great God of Israel, appears on earth as a
man, assumes a body (Sim. 6) ; God visits (eiria-KeirreTai) all
peoples through the compassion of His Son (Levi 4) ; dwells
among men amidst Israel (Levi 4, 2 ; Naphth. 8), and eats with
them (Sim. 6 ; Asshur 7). His advent is unspeakable, and He
is as a Prophet in His aspect and habit (Levi 8). God plays
the part of a man (®eo? ek avBpa viroKpivopevo*}, Asshur 7)..
Though His appearance is the visit of the Only-begotten (povo-
yevrjs), yet is He to appear on earth as a man of humUiation
(Benj. 9, 10). But in this humiliation He is nevertheless God
come in the flesh (Benj. 10), on account of whose birth men
and angels, and the whole earth, rejoice.1 He is the Saviour
of the world (Levi 10, 4). His baptism points to His sacrifice.
The heavens are opened above Him,2 and Jacob sees the conse
cration (dyido-pa) come upon Him out of the temple of the
Divine Majesty, with a voice from the Father such as was that
of Abraham to Isaac. Hence it is He who renews the law in
the power of the Highest (Levi 14) ; He is the shoot of the
Most High God, and the spring of life for all flesh (Judah 24).
In Him is the Lord Himself present (Zeb. 8) ; He is God in
the form of man ; the light pf righteousness arises in Him, sal
vation and compassion are under His wings. He must, howevefi'.'i
suffer much through the sins of men, especiaUy the Jews, and be
crucified. He must fight with Beliar; visible and invisible
wars must He carry on (Jos. 19 ; Dan 5 ; Keub. 6). He dies
as the Lamb of God (Benj. 3), or Mediator between, God and
men (Dan 5). He who is without fault is given up for the
transgressors, and the sinless dies for the godless (Beub. 6), that
His blood may estabUsh the covenant, and lay a basis for the
1 The author describes (Levi 19) the star which appeared at Christ's
birth in the same way as Ignatius, Eph. 19. Also there is much resem
blance between these two in the signs which they give of the incarnation
of God, as well as in the doctrine of Christ's death and priestly office.
2 That this passage relates to Christ's baptism (comp. Jud. 24) is unde
niable. Grabe finds something Jewish or Ebionitic in the words pure* Qams
¦jrarptxiis, a; duo ' Afipadpt icarpo; 'laadx. But the meaning is, that the
relation of Christ to the Father is as close as is that of a human son to his
father. There thus hes in the words rather the equahty of Christ with
God the Father.

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 157
salvation of Israel and the heathen, and that Beliar and his
servants may be vanquished (Benj. 3). By the sufferings of
the Highest shall Hades be enriched (Levi 4 ; Benj. 9). The
vail of the temple is rent asunder (Benj. 9 ; Levi 10). A new
priesthood is instituted (Levi 8, 18) ; He Himself is the High-
Priest without succession (Levi 18). And now is He exalted
after having been humiliated (Benj. 9, 10). The Spirit of God
is transferred from the synagogue to the heathen, and is poured
forth, as fire (Benj. 9 ; Jud. 24), by the water and by faith
(Levi 14 ; Assh. 7). There is hope again for Israel only after
the heathen (Benj. 10 ; Jud. 24). But he that believeth not
in God who hath come in the flesh, the Saviour, to him will
Christ be a judge after the resurrection from the dead (Jud.
25 ; Benj. 10). His shaU be an everlasting kingdom (Jos. 19) ;
and men shall, through the Spirit sent forth by Christ, the
spring of Hfe, become truly sons of God (Benj. 9 ; Jud. 24 ;
Levi 18). For under His priestly agency aU sin shaU die, the
pious rest in Him, and He rejoices in His beloved. The
gates of Paradise He opens ; the sword by which Adam is
threatened He sheaths ; and He grants to the holy to eat of
the tree of life (Levi 18).
The author of this book shows, by the way in which he ex
presses himself, that in his view the personal and active in
Christ was God. Though he does not in so many words assert
the pre-existence of the Son, yet this must be regarded as
assumed by him, partly because of his constant reference to the
Book of Enoch, where this is undoubtedly taught, and partly
because of the use of the term povoyevrj<;. But he does not
direct his attention very closely to this more speculative side.
He does not connect Christ either with the " Word" or with
the Wisdom, which, as we have seen, was the case with the
forms of Christianity which were developed in unity with the
Old Testament ; but rather adheres to the anthropological side,
and is marked by this, that he represents to us the advance
within Jewish Christianity from the kingly office of Christ
and the Christian eschatology to the priestly office. It is true,
as we have seen, that those who attached special importance to
the eschatological concept of Christ, did not deny His higher
being and the absolute significancy of His Person. But in the
book now before us, though somewhat Judaistic, there is a ten-

1 58 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
dency which, not satisfied with the royal office of Christ, evolves-
from it, what is nevertheless bound up in it, namely, that not only
the consummation, but above all, and that for the sake of the
consummation, reconcUiation is given in His Person. And this
momentum the author of the Testament has apprehended with
such decisiveness, that in his view the Divinity of Christ appears
to be denied if He is not regarded above all as the Mediator.
The kingdom (power) seems to him to have only an earthly
(physical) significancy : it is the mediatorial office, the high- .
priestly work of Christ alone, that is, in his esteem, heavenly
and divine. And so he advances to show, in the dying Lamb,
in the sufferings of the Highest, above aU, the agency of the '
Divine in this Person. There is thus elicited from the concept
of the perfected Lord of glory, that momentum which gives His
history an essential and eternal significancy. And not only
may the historical Christ thus receive His full rights, but His
Church also, where it is stUl entangled with national Judaism,
may attain to a history of which that undue preponderance? of
eschatology hindered it. The Jews of Palestine did not venture
to break that integument which hindered the free formation of
the Christian principle, and kept it from constructing a world
of its own. The creation of such a world they did not acknow
ledge as their vocation ; but bore the yoke of the law, looking
for the speedy return of the Lord. Those who were enlight-
ened, of whom there were not wanting some (Acts xv.), acknow--
ledged, in that they exempted the heathen from the law, that the
law had now sunk to a subordinate significancy, and that salva
tion did not come through legal righteousness. But since they
dared not altogether break with the law themselves, especially
venerated as it was by their contemporaries, as was the case till
the time of Hadrian, there 'remained nothing for them but to
give up the untying of the knot of the Saviour's speedy return,
and in order to maintain the Christian character, despite out
wardly unaltered customs and modes of Hfe, to wait with stedf ast
gaze for the Lord, who was not to tarry long. But the length of
the tarrying, the influence of intercourse with their people, cus
tom, the power which the outward so easily resumes over the in
ward, nay, the af terworking of inborn Jewish pride, caused others
to think that they would, by means of a strict observance of the
law, attain at least a higher grade of righteousness than the hea-

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 159
then converts to Christianity ; and thus they assigned to the law
again a part in justification, and thereby ascribed to it again
a permanent significancy even within Christianity. By this,
indeed, was loosened the attent longing after the returning
Lord, but this in such a way that they again tended to Judaism,
became more zealous for the law, and depreciated the intrinsic
newness of Christianity. In this state of relapse Paul already
found the Church at Jerusalem on the occasion of his last visit ;
and the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was composed shortly
before the destruction of Jerusalem, is directed to this state of'
things. The Hebrews to whom it is addressed had, in some
cases, deserted the assemblies of the Christians entirely, whUst
in others, though they still professed to be Christians, yet by
holding up what belonged essentiaUy to the ceremonial of
Judaism as of perpetual validity, and thereby depreciating the
propitiatory work of Christ, they found themselves inclined to
undervalue also the newness and greatness of Christianity, and
to think less highly of the Person of Christ. This mongrel
state, which afterwards led to decided heresies, was indeed, for a
season, interrupted ; the leaning, to Judaism became less decided
than before. This we infer, partly from the impression and effect
of the destruction of Jerusalem ; partly from the extrusion of
Jewish-Christian heresies which made their appearance at this
time, which was a time of sifting ; partly, in fine, from what has
been above referred to, the spiritual and revivified eschatological
expectations in the Church at Jerusalem towards the end of the
century. But up to the time of Hadrian, the suppression of
Christian Hberty by the law continued. For the Christians in
Palestine, and especially in Jerusalem, stUl lived in society with
the Jews, and under bishops of the circumcision. And thus
the ever reviving danger of a relapse into Judaism could be
effectually counteracted only by the Jewish ceremonial being set
aside by the priesthood of Christ, and abrogated by the promi
nence given to the propitiatory death of Christ. In this the
Christian principle was reponed ; with the eschatological de
velopment of the royalty of Christ, there came to be assigned
to Christianity as her task, now that the ancient system was
faUen, to construct a new world out of herself. To have con
duced to this result is one of the services of the work we have
been considering, which, in this respect, follows in the train of

160 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the Epistle to the Hebrews.1 The manner, however, in which
it does this, by so decided a repression of the royal office, and
by signalizing the priestly office as the properly divine, could
hardly have found place at a later period ; rather as soon as the
latter was acknowledged in its independence, the royal office,
which had for the moment been put in the background,
would be again developed out of the priestly, and so reinstated
in its rightful place, as we find to be already the case, in the
second half of the second century.2 For the rest, the book
stands not alone in its time ; but in Barnabas and Aristo of
PeUa, whom we have previously considered, we see a sinular
tendency. Other Apocryphal writings, in so far as they may come into
consideration for the period now before us, however much
that is fabulous and however much that is Judaistic they may
contain, equally enunciate the acknowledgment of the truly
divine nature of Christ.3
If at this point we look back on the path we have foUowed,
it will appear that the hypothesis of the Ebionism of the
primitive Church is on all sides untenable. Even the evidence
adduced in support of it, when more closely examined, proves
the opposite. Among those we have considered, there appears
no small diversity, but not one of them is an Ebionite. Viewed
as a whole^ they are rather, so far as respects their rank in a
Christological respect, only a feeble copy of the Apostles, each
1 That form of Jewish Christianity which did not advance to the high-
priestly office of Christ, relapsed ever more and more, in the course of the
second century, into an exclusive regard to His prophetic office, and came
to ascribe to His kingly office httle more than a casual significancy. This
party of Jewish Christians, however, perished after the manner of sects.
2 In this development of the knowledge of Him who had come, there
is a recapitulation in rapid current of the history of the development of
the prophetic Christology of the Old Testament. For this also started with
the kingly state of the Messiah, then advanced, and this was the most
difficult step, to His condition as a servant, and attained in His deepest
humiliation the highest spiritual elevation, the yielding up of Himself in
vicarious love, or His office as a propitiation. But hardly had this been
reached, when in Isaiah we see His power and kingdom born again from his
high-priestly love ; and thus the end returns in higher manner to the
beginning. In Zechariah there is already the presupposition of the lite
authorization of the kinghood and priesthood.
3 Appendix, Note FFF.

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW. 161
of whom numbers among them his representative, who is at the
same time a witness of his influence. Nay, we may say that those
who are most akin to James, have, in a Christological point of view,
something higher than the Epistle of James expressly contains.
However much there was in Judaism that tended to hinder
a free development of Christology, and however much that
tended to further it lay in the pecuHar endowments of Hel
lenism, the Church, in order to attain a higher representa
tion of Christ than the Ebionitic, had not to wait for an
influx of Hellenistic ideas. But, as the New Testament proves
that a form of Christology preceded Ebionism of which the
latter f eU far short, so we have seen that, even independently
of Hellenic philosophy, that very tendency which, in closest
connection with the Old Testament, abode within the Church
up to the year 150, had completed a higher development
along two lines, both of which set out from tile cultivated
eschatology which preponderated in it. The one issued from
the completed eschatological concept of the Person of Christ,
or, by a retrogressive process, from the end to the beginning,
and constrained to the positions that He is to be thought of first
as the Creator- Word, and next as the eternal Wisdom of God.
The other, however, more deeply immersed in the religious
element, unfolded from the royal office of Christ, which is pre
sented to the view completed in eschatology, his propitiatory,
mediatorial office. And as the earthly manifestation of Him
who is the Word and the Wisdom is thereby recognised in its
essential significancy, and consequently is rendered capable of
being estabUshed to consciousness, and as this opinion recoils
from the former path, which was scarcely a match for Doketism,
to history, or the true manhood of Christ ; so, by the course it
pursues-, a deeper basis is found for the divinity of Christ, than
was to be found lying in His kingly office. At the same time, it
must not be conceived that, even where both lines or paths meet,
as was the case with many of the Apostolic Fathers, and where
there was posited by them in a definite manner the absoluteDeity
of Christ, which existed in Him essentially, not simply as power,
it is nevertheless left very indeterminate whether His humanity
was not a mere apparition of God, who was perhaps thought of as
corporeal and patible, and consequently how the Deity of Christ,
the Son of God, was conceived of in relation to the Father.
VOL. I. L

162 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
With this result accords also the testimony of those who
were the opponents of Christianity. However variously they
have misunderstood the nature of Christianity, and hence have
brought the most contradictory accusations against it, yet all
stedfastly concur in what they represent as the faith of the
Christians in respect of the Person of Christ. The opponents
of Christianity in the second century, heathen and Jewish,
attest with one mouth that the Christians reverenced the
crucified Jesus of Nazareth as God. Celsus, who wrote his
\py05 d\t}0rj9 against the Christians soon after the middle of
the second century, lays it down as a well-known fact, that the
Christians held Jesus for God, and the Son of God -,1 and only
seeks to show that He was not what they took Him to be. The
reasons, also, which he adduces in opposition to this, are of
significancy for us. That He was God, and God's Son, cannot,
he says, be proved from the deeds which are recorded of Him (ii.
30). In a case where it would have been of avail, when a sign
was demanded in the temple (i. 67), He performed no miracle;
and when He appeared after His decease, it was not to His judges
and enemies (ii. 63, 67). If He were God's Son, why did He
not avenge His disgrace, at least at the last moment (ii. 35) ?
What rational man would have endured such things if he could
have helped it (ii. 17) 1 God's Son would not have suffered
Himself to be so mishandled. The Christians, indeed, hold
Jesus for God's Son, because they know that the punishment
He endured was for the vanquishing of the father of evn.2
But he makes the Jew, whom he introduces as the bitter foe of
Christianity, speak thus : How shall we hold him for God who
fulfilled nothing that he promised, who hid hims.elf and fled,
who was shamefully bound, and by those whom he caUed dis
ciples betrayed ? God is not subject to flight, nor to be. carried
away in bonds : he who would be credited as the Saviour, as
God's greatest Son and Messenger, must not be forsaken and
delivered up (ii. 9). Why did he not suddenly disappear from
the cross (ii. 68) 1 Celsus, consequently, plainly intends his
Jew to insinuate that Jesus was a mere man (H. 79). The
1 Orig. cont. Cels. i. 26, 28, 41, 66 ; ii. 9, 30, 36, 47, 67 ; iii. 41, 34;
iv. 2 ; vi. 47, 74, 75.
2 The Christians say, itxpiin Ttjn x6T\ctam uvtov virip xaiaipima; tov itarpk
rf; xaxict; ytyonviotn : ii. 47.

CELSUS. 163
reality of His manhood, which was shown in His sufferings and
in the blood, which flowed from His side, and which was not
tyap (ii. 36), nay, which was manifest from the beginning, is
of itself, to Celsus, a proof that he could not be God and God's
Son. Why did His 'parents flee with Him into Egypt? God
is not in danger of death (i. 66). Different as He is from us
in voice, speech, behaviour, stUl He cannot be believed to be
God (vi. 75). A being in mortal body cannot be regarded as
God : the Christians, however^ hold themselves to be religious
in- that they reverence Jesus as God (iii. 41), and shrink not
from doing as the barbarians do — worship the dead (Hi. 34). So
zealous does his Jew become, that he addresses Jesus Himself,
and blames Him for asserting His Godhead and supernatural
.birth (i. 28, 38, 41). Amidst the many fables which Celsus
and his Jew allege,' there is not the sHghtest trace of their re
garding it as a fable that the later Christianity had ascribed to
Jesus the honour of being God and God's Son ; and yet, had
it been possible to assert this, nothing would have been more
fitted to bring a stain on the Christians, by putting them in
antagonism with their own antecedents, nay, with Christ Him
self, and so to demonstrate the arbitrariness and groundlessness
of the Divine honours which they offered to Christ. In place
of this, we find a man who, to conclude from the objections here
coUected from all quarters, possessed intimate acquaintance with
the opponents of Christianity, especially the Jews, and who had
knowledge of many Christians and their books, adducing no
objection more constantly and more directed against the Chris
tians as a body than this, that they regarded Jesus as God and
God's Son. They say sophistieally, exclaims his Jew (ii. 31),
the Son of God is the Logos itself (avToXoyos), and do not set
forth the pure and holy Logos as the Son of God, but as a man
of humble estate who was put to death.1 He is not, indeed,
1 The Jew continues, ifyi i Koyo; hrin vprin vio; tov ©tov, xxi tiptii;
iirxmovpcin. . On this Origen says, that though he had met with many Jews
who were esteemed wise, he had never heard this from one of them. Cel
sus seems here, therefore, to have represented the Jew incorrectly (comp.
Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. 48). Be this as it may, it is the immediate appli
cation of the doctrine of the Lbgos to Jesus which the Jew cannot admit..
The' Christians, however, had, in the middle of the second Century, gene
rally made this application, which again presupposes that the Christians
hitherto had not been of Ebionitic tendencies.

164 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
ignorant that the Christians universaUy regard the death of
Christ as the propitiation for the world ; but as he treats sin in
the general as indifferent, and is surprised that Christianity
seeks not holy men, but sinners, ¦ he attaches naturally little
weight to that (H. 47). Moreover, he knows well (ii. 67) that
the Christians distinguish between a state of exaltation and a
state of humiliation for Christ ; that it is only since His death
that they call Christ @eds in the full sense, regarding Him at
first as so sent into the world that His Deity was hidden. But
the Cross, on which the Christians lay so much stress, is to him
foolishness; standing on the ground of mere natural reHgion, self-
offering love appears to him an exhibition of weakness, a mere
piece of impotency.
Up to this point, Celsus is at one with the Jews ; , but he
breaks off from his allies at a most decisive point. Genuine
Judaism is susceptible of progress, through its ethical charac
ter; and this progress is viewed in the general as effected
through revelation. Heathenism is not secure or master of its
own domain, the stand-point of a nature which remains always
essentially like itself, unless the possibility of a progressive
revelation is excluded. Hence Celsus attempted a decisive
blow, which should overwhelm both Judaism and Christianity —
a blow which should settle the impossibility of any such appear
ance as that of Christ. Neither God, says he, O ye Jews
and Christians, nor God's Son, has come down hither, or can
come (iv. 2). The reason is assigned in ii. 31 : because then
the Logos would be no more the spotless and pure ; there would
be, in a word, the Neoplatonic dualism, according to which the
finite as such is evil and hostile to the spirit. Celsus, indeed,
on the other hand, ascribes to the world what he refuses to man,
which — and here he is inconsistent — is in contradiction to the
above. A man cannot be God's Son ; out the world is God's
son : and, indulging in bold conjecture, he suggests that the
Christians, in calling Jesus Gods Son, have preserved that
from the ancients, who gave this name to the world as a whole
(vi. 47). In this sharp conflict between the old world and
Christianity, it is apparent that even heathenism, though to it
the idea of a sonship of God is more famiHar than to Judaism,
is yet as much offended by the Christian idea as Judaism.
Affinity of nature between man and God is not altogether

LUCIAN, ARRIAN, PLINY, HADRIAN. 165
foreign to it ; but this is conceived of physically, and without
the thoroughgoing ethical distinction. An incarnation and a
manifestation of the divine in the pure spiritual form of self-
renunciation, is altogether as strange to heathenism as to Ju
daism, It deserves especial notice, however, and this is as clear
as possible, that Celsus not only adduces belief in Christ as
God, and as God's Son, as characteristic of Christianity, but
is as good as ignorant of such as thought otherwise of Christ ;
so much must Ebionism have become, even in the middle
of the second century, an almost vanishing, if not lost element,
in the great body of Christianity. His Jew maintains (ii. 1,
3, 4; v. 61) against the .Christians, especially, that they pro
perly depend on the Old Testament, issue from the Law and
the Prophets, which they are bound to hold as divine ; " if any
one has prophesied of Christ as God's Son, then there hath a
prophet gone out from us :" and he blames the Christians, not
for believing in Christ whUst they maintained the binding obli
gation of the Law (i.e., being Ebionites), but for having rejected
the law of their fathers, and of their own arbitrary choice
adopted another name and another mode of life.1
Other opponents of Christianity, such as Lucian, a con
temporary of ' Celsus, and the Stoic Arrian, furnish us with a
picture of the Christians of the second century wholly corre
sponding to that given by Celsus. (See Lucian's Peregrinus,
and Arrian Diatrib. iv. 7 ; Neander, Gesch. der christliche
Kirche, I. i. 268-273, Eng. Trans, vol. i. p. 214-218.)
But we are carried stUl further back, even near to the be
ginning of the second century — that is, close on the limits of
the apostoHc age — by the famous letter of PHny to Trajan
(about a.d. HO).2 It is here testified, that the Christians of
that day were accustqmed on a certain day to assemble before
sunrise, and to utter responsively among themselves a song
of praise to Christ as God.3 The letter also of Hadrian to
Servianus,4 whilst representing the Egyptian polytheism as
1 Appendix, Note GGG.
2 Ep. Plinii, x. 97 ; Olshausen, Histor. Eccles. Veteris Monumenta
Prsecipua, 1820, 1. 23 ff.
3 Affirmabant autem [the Christians brought before him] hanc fuisse
Bummam vel culpae suse vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem
convenire, carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem.
4 Olshausen. 1. c. 27-29.

166 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
meaningless and frivolous, contains evidence, that though the
Christians are monotheists, they yet worship Christ.1 Most em
bittered against the Christians were the Jews,2 Jbut not against
aU of them alike : those who continued to adhere to the Mosaic
institute, and wished to regard themselves as Jews, they suf
fered in their synagogues, because inHKeir case the difference
did not appear so important as what repained in common. The
expectations of a Messiah were among? themselves so variously
formed, that they were not turned into a dogma, but were in a
way left as an open question, a free trheologoumenon. Whilst
many were, on the one hand, endured? in the synagogue who
had quite given up the hope of the Messiah — and many diver
sities in this respect at a later period divided them, — so, on the
other, there was no necessity, from the JeWish point of view, to
eject from the synagogue those who werei wUling to leave aU
else unaltered, and only to stipulate for permission to believe
that Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified, $~as the Messiah.
There would, indeed, have been a weighty points of difference
here, had they viewed the appearance of Jesus as tKe*~aafeent_pf
the new age itself, and thereby have appreciated His historicaF
significancy. But this was not the case : there happened here
what has been already noted, — they laid /stress only on His
second appearance. His first advent thus sank into Httle more
than an announcement of His second; His prophetic office
became that of most importance ; His royal office was the ob
ject of hope, while His priestly office was cast into the shade by
the retaining of the righteousness which is by the law, and to
which saving power was ascribed instead of Christ. Such a
nominal Christianity was the more likely to please the Jews,
from their having at a later period, perhaps in connection with
these Ebionites, adopted a distinction between a Messiah Ben
Joseph and a Messiah Ben David ; and in this case it was of
no moment whether the former, to the idea of whom obscurity
was attached, had appeared historically or not. Even to the
1 Ipse ille patriarcha cum JSgyptum venerit, ab aliis Serapidem adorare
ab aliis cogitur Christum. — Unus illis Deus est, hunc Christiani, hunc
Judsei, hunc omnes venerantur et gentes.
2 It is not without reason that Celsus brings in a Jew as speaking against
the Christians. The same is apparent from Justin's Dialogue with Trypho,/
and from Aristo's work above mentioned ; comp. also Euseb. iv. 15.

JEWISH OPPONENTS. CHRISTIAN RITES. 167
identity of this double Messiah much weight could not be
attached, if the former was only the forerunner and announcer
of His real advent, not the personal appearance by which the
Messianic kingdom was to begin. This much is clear, that
such a Christianity was at war with itself, and was not only not
dangerous to Judaism, but was really little else than a Jewish
sect itself. But the very fact that this was endured in the
synagogue whilst the Christians were persecuted by the Jews
with the bitterest hatred wherever they had the power, — as, e.gr.,
under Bar Cochba, and in many of the Christian persecutions, —
affords the clearest proof, even on the side of Judaism, that Chris
tianity was at no time, as a whole, Ebionitic, but that Judaism
recognised in Christianity a principle antagonist to itself.
In closing this investigation, we may cast a glance on those
tendencies in the Church which sprang from a definite Christo
logical idea. Here three points deserve special attention :
1. The formation of liturgical elements in the Church; 2.
The gradual setting apart of holy times, where the Christian
principle, as opposed to that of Judaism and that of heathenism,
was the directive power ; and 3. The beginnings of Christian
art and characteristic customs.
1. Under the first of these we may begin with the Lord's
Supper and Baptism. That the former has always been ob
served by the Christians, no man doubts; but that in the
earliest age its central-point was the Person of Christ, — that it
was regarded by the heathen as a sort of mystery, and by the
Christians as the sacred mystic meal, by means of which we
come into union with Christ, — appears as weU from the New
Testament itself, as from the writings of Clement of Borne,
Ignatius, and others.1 Now, for the higher view of the Supper,
and stUl more of Baptism, the presupposition of the propitia
tor)' effect of the sufferings and death of Christ is necessary ;
and that this was never wanting in any age of Christianity, nay,
that even the Jewish Christians were ever more and more
definitely forced on this, we have above seen.2 We shall, there
fore, not say too much if we designate the Supper the climax
1 Honing 1. c. Eheinwald, Archseol. § 93, 114. Besides the Ignatian
letters, see Justin Apol. i. 65 ; Dial. c. Tryph. 210 ; Iren. iv. 18.
2 The Ebionites, on the other hand, mutilated also the Supper ; Epiph.
Hser. 1. 16.

168 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
of the ancient Christian worship, in which the congregation cele
brated its reconciliation with God in Christ, the Mediator be
tween God and men ; and find in its uninterrupted celebration
the first proof of the stedfast faith of the Church in the divine
nature of Christ. As the second we may mention Baptism.
Numerous as were the washings which found place both in
Judaism and heathenism, there has always been, so long as the
Church has existed, a Christian Baptism essentially different
from them. First of aU, there was included in this rite, not
merely a baptism for repentance, but also for remission of sins ;
and thus it stood connected with the higher estimate of Christ's
Person, inasmuch as the basis of remission was laid in Christ's
propitiatory work. Secondly, Christian Baptism is, above all,
not mere water-baptism, but in its truth spirit-baptism ; and we
have seen that men of the age now before us, even when in
clined to Jewish modes of thought, ascribed the sending of the
Holy Ghost to Christ alone, and connected the communication
of the Spirit with faith in Christ. Thirdly, and this conducts
us to the liturgical element in the ancient Church, Baptism has
always been administered in the Church in the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, according to Matt, xxviii.
19. How ineradicably this usage was fixed in the Church, ap
pears most clearly from the fact, that even those to whom the
formula was dogmatically unsuitable, the Ebionites for instance,
did not venture to .dispense with it.1
This baptismal formula, which expresses the substance of
the Christian confession according to its concept, must neces
sarily, from its express discrimination and parallelizing of Father,
Son, and Spirit, and on the other hand from the conjunction of
these in the one Baptism which was done in their name, have
given occasion, we may say impulse, to the construction of the
1 In the Ebionitic system (see Horn. Clem. iii. 72 ; ix. 19, 23 ; xi. 25 :
dirohovadfiinoi 'nr\ TJ5 Tpiapcaxxpia ivonopcxaix'), this formula has the ap
pearance of a remnant, which clearly enough shows their later advent, and
that they carried with them as a dead heirloom the poor remains of a
richer ecclesiastical inheritance ; for no one will venture to say that this
formula is the adequate expression and product of the higher-standing,
later Ebionism of the pseudo-Clementines. This formula never could have
been constructed from this tendency : all it could hope for would be, by re
taining this, to pass for Christian ; and in this supposition there is proof of
an opposite common spirit of great power, to which it could not but succumb.

BAPTISMAL FORMULA. APOSTLES' CREED. 169
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In order, however, to see
more definitely how there was secured in the words of the
baptismal confession a higher conception of the Person of
Christ, it must be remembered that the mention of the Son
was the most indispensable among the three, and that a baptism
which was not in the name of Christ was not held to be Christian
Baptism; as also in Acts vfii. 37 a baptism is mentioned in
which the Father and Holy Spirit are not named. Through
the Son alone, as mediating on both sides with the Father and
the Spirit, can a baptism into these be obtained.
Besides the baptismal formula, we find in the New Testa
ment many short compends of the Christian dogma intended
for doctrine : Matt. xxvi. 64 ff. ; Heb. vi. 1, 2 ; Acts xxvi. 22,
H. 33, iii. 20, 21 ; where always an important place is assigned
to the eschatology. Paul dwells especially on Christ's death
and resurrection (1 Cor. xv. -3, 4) ; John, on Jesus as the
Christ, the Only-begotten, come in the flesh (1 John ii. 22,
iv. 2, 9 ; John xvii. 3). Each of the Apostles had something
peculiar, though not exclusive, and these peculiarities have mani
festly been adopted into the Apostles' Creed, which grew out of
the baptismal formula, and these wrought into a combined form ;
so that the old tradition, that each of the Apostles contributed
his share to that symbol, has its truth, though this incorporation
was the gradual work of the Church. We have no need to
revert to heretics in order to explain how the Christians came
to expand the few words of the baptismal formula (which may
have remained unaltered in the baptismal act itself) into the sort
of commentary form, out of which the Creed arose. The im
pulse to add to the baptismal formula a second, developed out
of the former, the subsequent Apostles' Creed, was produced by
the necessity of collecting the elements of apostolic preaching
for the ends of doctrine and confession, and thereby to whet
the consciousness of the faith characteristic of Christians in
such a way as beseemed an entrance into Christianity. Now, as
every self-consciousness has as a momentum for itself the dis
tinction from others, so also the Christian ; and the more deter
minedly that which is foreign to it sought to penetrate it, the
more would a reaction from the innermost Christian conscious
ness in unity with the apostolic doctrine be produced, and so
much the more would those parts of the confession by which

170 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the corruption or renunciation of the points of faith was
guarded against, become a weighty constituent of it. Such a
symbol, which, as the confession-formula and recognition-badge
of the Church itself, became as a rule of faith a bulwark against
and a test of heresy, was by no means formed for the first time in
the Nicean Council ; but had long before had a gradual growth,
as necessity demanded. The Synod against Paul of Samosata
appealed to an ancient symbol (Euseb. E. H. vn. 30). Even
in the second century it was a reproach cast on the Artemon-
ites, that they had violated the rule of the ancient faith (Ib. v.
35). TertuUian and Irenseus frequently, in their controversial
writings or dogmatic investigations, refer to the rule of faith,
which they in a certain way acknowledge as a judge above
them.1 This rule of faith does not correspond word for word
as given by different writers, nor does the same writer always
give it the same form in different places ; the rule of faith of
the Oriental famUy is also more copious than that of the
Occidental, which arose from the greater frequency of occasions
among the former of opposing heresies, and from the early
pecuHar constancy, especially of the Bomish Church (Tertull.
de prsescr. hser. 36), in preserving the same forms. But no
man who reads these rules of faith can deny that their sub
stance is the same throughout, and that of this identity the
doctrine of the true divinity and true humanity of Christ forms
in a special manner an element.2 "And this faith," says
Irenseus (i. 3 ; iii. 4), " the Church preserves, though diffused
1 Iren. adv. Hser. i. 2, 3, 19 ; iii. 4, 20 ; Tertull. Prsescr. adv. Haer. c.
13, comp. 36 ; de velandis Virg. 1, comp. adv. Marcion. i. 21 ; iv. 36 ; Const.
Ap. vii. 41 ; Cypr. Ep. vi. 12 ; Orig. de Princ. Pr. 2 ff., ed. de la Rue, IV.
47 ff. For the rest see Hahn, Bibliothek der Symb. und Glaubensregeln
1842, p. 63, B. 1 ff., and his Zeitschr. 1842 ; Eudelbach, Das Apost.
Symbolum, 1844. The expansion of the baptismal formula into a formula
of confession and the rule of faith cannot be definitely discriminated in
the olden time ; but the former may come in the place of the latter. Later,
the former became the Apostles' Creed ; in place of the latter came the
decrees of Councils. Comp. Ter. de cor. 3 ; de bapt. 6 ; Iren. i. 9, 4 ff., ed.
Massuet. 2 See Bull, Judicium Eccles. Cathol. de necessitate credendiquodDom.,
nost. J. Ch. sit verus Deus, Lond. 1703; c. 4, De Symbol, primsevse Eccl. p.
80 ; c. 5, De Symb. Apost. p. 35 ff ; c. 6, De Symb. vet. OrientaU, p. 47, with
the annotations of Grabe, p. 61 ff. Hahn and Eudelbach 1. c. Bingham,
Orig. Eccl. vol. iv. Bk. x. c. 3, 4.

REGULA FIDEL 171
over the whole world, carefully as dwelling in one house ; she
believes it as with one heart, proclaims it as with one mouth.
Though the languages be different, the tradition is one and the
same. The German Churches do not believe differently, nor
the Iberian, nor the Celtic, nor the Oriental, nor the Egyptian,
nor the Libyan, nor those buUt up in the middle of the world
(the Palestinian). As the Sun, God's work, is one and the
same for the whole world, so does also the preaching of the
truth Uluminate aU places. And even where apostolic writings
have not reached, as among many of the barbarous nations,
there have those who beHeve in Christ salvation written on their
hearts, by the Holy Ghost, without paper and ink, preserv
ing carefuUy the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the
Creator of heaven and earth, through Jesus Christ the Son of
God;" and to this he appends the article of faith concerning
Christ, almost exactly as we have it in the Apostles' Creed. It
is possible that Irenaeus may have described a unity which is
too ideal;. but this at least is certain, that to him, the far-
traveUed and well-read, it was without doubt that the great
mass of Christians of all times unanimously beHeved and con
fessed what was in his esteem the essence of Christianity, the
doctrine of the true divinity and true humanity of Christ.
That, moreover, all the leading parts of the Creed had been
handed down before the time of Irenaeus, is proved, partly by
the Oriental character of his rule of faith, partly by the circum
stance that several clauses of it are inteUigible only as anti
theses to heresies which were in vogue only in the second
century.1 The rule of faith extant at an early period along with the
baptismal formula, and perhaps, in a somewhat altered form,
also suited for the baptismal act (Iren. 1, 9, 4), proves, of
course, that the Christological element in the ancient Church
was essentially the same as in the later Church ; an identity
which is not less demonstrated by the writings of the New
Testament and of the Apostolical Fathers, which at an early
period passed into use both privately and in the public service
1 See Bull and Grabe 1. c. The Christological element of the Apostles'
Creed was the germ round which what was added grew, and is found
already formally, and almost wholly, in Ignatius ad Trail. 9 ; Smyrn. 1 ;
comp. 1 Tim. iii. 16, vi. 13.

172 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
(Justin, Apol. i. 67 ; Euseb. H. E. iii. 16). The same iden
tity of the older and later Church is attested by the old Doxo-
logies to Christ/ which exhibit one type from the beginning,
and that the apostolical, as already lying in the writings of the
New Testament. In these we have just the baptismal formula
and the rule of faith thrown into the form of worship. The
doxologies are thus the answer, the repercussive, reverberative
echo, by which the believing Church utters the revealed word
of the Father, Son, and Spirit as the blessed word of its own
faith.2 And the same thing is to be observed in these doxo
logies as in the baptismal formula, that if any of the three Per
sons is omitted, it is least of all the Son ; a fact which, on
evident grounds, is even more significant in this case than,
in the case of the baptismal formula. In Christ the soul
rests as its highest good and end, not in the Father alone.
(Comp. Ignat. ad Ephes. introd. and c. 21 ; and Magnes. in-
trod. and c. 15 ; and Trail, introd. and c. 13 ; and Bom. c. 9 ;
and Philad. c. 11 ; and Polyc. introd. and c. 8 ; Barnab. 17 ;
Clem. Ep. ad Cor. introd. and c. 59; Polycarp ad Phil.
introd. comp. c. 14.)
2. The setting apart of Holy Seasons, as already in the
second century was the usage, has also a dogmatic, a Christo
logical significancy. In the ordering of festivals among the
Hebrews, the Sabbath, the festival of the creation of the world,
constituted the central-point and the regulative principle. For
the New, the central-pointwas the first dayof the week, the memo
rial of the second creation, the day of the Lord's resurrection.
1 See Socrat. vi. 8 ; Ignat. ad Magn. 7 ; Euseb. v. 28 ; Iren. i. 1.
Bingham, vol. v. 1. 13, c. 5.
2 See Polycarp's prayer, Euseb. iv. 15 ; Ignat. ad Rom. introd. ; and
Philad. introd. ; and Smyrn. introd. ; Clement ad Cor. 1, introd. and
c. 59 ; Justin, Apol. i. 67 ; even Clement. Horn. iii. 72. In relation to the
matter before us, the oldest doxologies may be ranked in two groups, the
one of which contains those which ascribe glory to the Father through
the Son, the other those which ascribe glory to the Father with the Son and
Holy Ghost. But, as already in the New Testament both forms occur with
the same writer, and consequently the former indicates no lower Christo
logy than the latter, but .only glances at Christ's mediatorial office, whilst
the other, adhering more closely to the baptismal formula, rests' more on
the exhibition of His Person,— the same variety in the oldest Churches
is to be looked at in the same way. See Bingham, vol. vi. 1. 14 c. 1 § 8 ¦

HOLY SEASONS. 173
As the early Church, with or instead of the daily assembly,
with, or instead of the Sabbath, observed the Sunday, they
were led to this by a conviction that with Christ's resurrection
a higher world had its beginning, a divine life had arisen for
mankind. Whether, indeed, in the time of the Apostles, con
sequently in the first century, the Sunday was kept as a holy
day, cannot be certainly gathered from Acts xx. 7 ; 1 Cor. xvi.
1, 2 ; Apoc. i. 10. But even if the Sunday were an institution
of the later Church, the proof would be the more striking that
the oldest post-apostolic Church was not Ebionitic. Not only
the contests, however, about the Passover, and the frequent cele
brations of Easter on the Sunday from the year 150, presup
pose a much earlier weekly observance of that day ; but we
have other and express proofs for the keeping of Sunday as
early as the first half of the second century. Barnabas says
(Ep. c. 15), "The Sabbaths that now are, hath God said, are
not pleasing to Me. The beginning of the eighth day I will
make to be a Sabbath, which is the commencement of another
world. Wherefore we keep the eighth day as a day of joy ;
on it Jesus arose from the dead, and, after He had showed Him
self, ascended into heaven."1 Thus consequently, and quite
naturally after the earHer, did that Christological momentum
which, though containing already the dawn "of a new world in
Christ's appearing, nevertheless is mostly incHned to eschato
logy, obtain from the beginning its expression in the order of
Christian worship.
Christ's death and resurrection mutually condition each
other ; there cannot be assigned to the latter a place of such
significancy, as we have seen, without in equal measure also the
recollection of Christ's death being thereby quickened, especially
since Christ's sufferings were regarded by aU, the Ebionites
and several Gnostics excepted, as sufferings for our reconcilia
tion. Now, as we have seen that even where a tendency in
the Church approximating to that of Judaism has dogmati
cally evolved out of the idea of Christ the Lord of glory, the
idea lying therein as in germ of Christ as the Mediator and
Saviour ; so also in public worship, from the celebration of the
resurrection of Christ there was developed the celebration of
His death by fasting and penitence. " If we die with Him, we
x Appendix, Note HHH.

174 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
shall also live with Him." But there are two ways in which
that may be done. It may be done by men setting out from
the idea of the Christian Sunday (on which, as Justin informs
us, the Lord's Supper was already observed, Apol. i. 60), and
making every week a memorial of the Passion Week of Christ
(of which we have already some traces in the Shepherd of
Hermas) ; and hence, when at a later period there was added
to this weekly observance a more solemn annual festival, it was
natural, in order to continue in harmony with the previous
weekly festival,1 and with the day of the week on which — on the
14th of Nisan — Christ's sufferings had happened, to select a
Friday for the special annual festival of Christ's death, and to
make the following Sunday the Feast of Easter. The other
way in which the festival of Christ's death was introduced, was
that every year the exact day of the year on which He died,
the 14th Nisan, was observed, on whatever day of the week it
chanced to fall ; and two days after, the resurrection of Christ
as an annual festival was kept. This Christian festival, conse
quently, synchronized with the Passover, of which, indeed, it
took the name. But though the Jewish custom of eating a
paschal lamb had continued in the Church from the days of the
Apostles downwards, there came to be attached to the Christian
Passover a polemical aspect in relation to that of the Jews, from
the circumstance' that Christ was regarded as the paschallamb,
of which the Jewish Passover was but the type ; that out of the
festival of the temporal deliverance from Egypt was estabUshed
the festival of the spiritual deHverance by the death of Christ.
And this opposition was made still more pointed from the
annual festival of the institution of the Lord's Supper being
very naturally connected with the festival of the death of
Christ.2 At a pretty early period in the second century,3 there was
added to the Feast of Christ's resurrection the Feast of Pente
cost. An inducement to this lay in the Jewish feast which fol
lowed the Passover (Acts xx. 16) ; but there is also to be seen
1 Traces of this are to be found in Hermas, Simil. v. 1, 3 ; Victorinus
Petav. in Routh, Relig. Sac. iii. 237 ; Bingham* 1. xxi. c. 1.
2 Appendix, Note III.
8 Irenseus, in the fragment of his "hoyo; iripl to2 iroiaxu, ed. Mass. p.
342 ; Tertull. de Idolat. 14 ; de Bapt. 19.

SACRED FESTIVALS. 175
here prominent the transforming power of the Christian prin
ciple. A festival of fifty days, as a continuation of Easter, was
dedicated to this feast ; these seven weeks, commencing with
Easter and ending with our Whitsuntide,1 were the festival
week, as it were, of the year. Now, as the resurrection of
Christ was viewed as the beginning and the principle of the
Feast of the Passover, which already lay in the outward arrange
ment, there is indicated, Hi the common conviction and feeling
which led to the adoption of this usage, again that view of
Christ which regards Him as the source whence the Holy Ghost
is poured forth, and every heavenly blessing comes.2
Finally, the rise of the Feast of the Epiphany belongs to
the epoch now before us. It originated in the East. This fes
tival was of various significancy, and in its full import gradually
included the commemoration — 1. of Christ's baptism, or the
manifestation of His Messiahship ; 2. of the manifestation of
His miraculous power at Cana, or also in the feeding of the
multitude of five thousand; 3. of Christ's birth; and 4. of
the advent of the Magi from the East. All these four indicate
weighty momenta for the Person of Christ ; the first and third
are, for the older history of this festival, of especial importance.
On what principle of order the one is joined to the other, it is
not so easy to say ; this much, however, is certain, that the
Church at a later period came to keep a festival of Christ's
birth as a baptism festival.3 And this corresponds to the full
with the dogmatic progress of development which we have
learned to recognise in what we have already considered : first,
the eschatological form of the Christology, or that of the re
sult, then that of the beginning (the pre-existence). From the
stand-point thus attained, they advanced to the historical life of
Christ, and contemplated it. The birth of Christ, however,
could not be first fixed and celebrated from its own momenta ;
but in the foreground there required to be placed Christ's office,
His work of propitiation, or that which He is for us. His work
and office, however, gave the impulse to an ever-progressive
knowledge of his Person ; and just so in the festival it was not
1 The former from the beginning, the latter of a later date. The Feast of
the Ascension is also of later origin.
2 See Neander K. G. i. 1, p. 517 ff., ed. 2 [Eng. Tr. vol. i. 409].
8 Appendix, Note JJJ.

176 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
merely the gift or the work that was celebrated, but in the gift
the Giver, i.e., the Person of the Saviour.
Thus, under a constant impulse from the office of Christ, or
from Christ for us, the festival advanced from the last momenta
of the historical Person of Christ to the first ; and the retro
gressive movement in the history of the festival may be taken
as a true picture of the order in which the dogmatic importance
of the individual momenta of the life of Christ entered into
the consciousness of the Church. The first, as we have seen,
was the resurrection, from which, as a continuation, Pentecost
was developed. The second was Christ's death. In both,
regard was had neither simply to the Person, nor simply to the
oflice ; but the royal and priestly offices of the Messiah were
celebrated, because in Christ they had become historically
realized, and the Person of Christ was celebrated, because in
His sufferings and resurrection it had an official significancy.
The third, by a regress to the momentum from which the
absolute union of this Person and the Messianic office was fuUy
reaHzed in consciousness, was His baptism, i.e., the commence
ment of the official life of Christ. It is possible, also, that the
historical impression of the important moment when Christ
appeared as the Messiah may have conspired to cause this
festival to be observed at an especially early period ; and this is
favoured also by the fact, that among the Jewish Christians,
and the Churches lying nearest to them, it seems to have been
among the earliest. In this beginning there was celebrated by
the Church the unity of the momenta previously celebrated,
and at the same time the introduction to the offices as a whole.
Christ's baptism is His inauguration to His Messianic office by
the Father Himself. He is thenceforward the manifested Son of
God,— no longer merely the King of the new dispensation, but
He who, in the baptismal symbol, is also consecrated to death
and resurrection. But not merely was Christ's inauguration to
His priestly and royal office celebrated in the commemoration
of His baptism ; when with this was combined the commemora
tion of the first miracle at Cana, it was not a celebration of the
miracle as a thing of itself, nor of the power of working miracles
in the general, that was intended thereby, but of this power in
its connection with the Messianic office, of which it was an
Ulustrious revealing manifestation (John ii. 11); so that, In

SACRED FESTIVALS. 177
point of fact, it was a celebration of what we include in the
prophetic office. And thus was the baptismal festival rounded
off: in it the Church viewed the entire fulness of the Mes
sianic office in its unity, as present in its commencing point.
From this, again, it is but a short step to the festival of Christ's
birth, because already in the baptism the various historical and
official momenta are brought together Hi the unity of the
Messiah's Person, in which aU these momenta were prefigured,
and at the same time brought to a simultaneous, self-penetrat
ing present. The Church, which thus observed the baptismal
festival without a birth festival of Christ, did not thereby in
tend, by any means, to date the presence of the Divine in
Christ from His baptism : this would have been contradicted
by the Gospels, which are older than the baptismal festival, and
also by Paul ; indeed, even by the doctrinal type of the Apos
tolical Fathers, as we have found. Bather in the baptismal
festival there was celebrated the commencing point of His Mes
sianic office, and this as a manifestation of His higher person
ality, which had been from the beginning. But to the Doketse,
no less than the Ebionites, the temptation and inducement was
great so to remain by the baptismal festival, as that there should
not be an advance to the festival of the birth, i.e., to make it a fes
tival of the birth of the Messiah, in place of the festival of the
manifestation of the already born and concealed Messiah. We
find, also, that, in fact, they laid the greatest stress on the'baptism
of Christ and the baptismal festival ; they chose to see in the
baptism the absolute beginning of the Messianic personahty of
Jesus. In this they could not be consentaneous with the
Church; and the more a baptismal festival without a birth
festival laid the Church open to Doketism as, well as Ebionism,
and was calculated to obscure its true opinion of the meaning
of the baptism of Christ, so much the more requisite was it that
a regress to the beginning-point of the earthly life of Christ
should be hastened, in conjunction with the suppression of
Doketism and Ebionism. The first trace, however, of a festival
in celebration of the birth of Christ, occurs in the second cen
tury, and in Alexandria ; and that as arising from an impulse
communicated by Doketism towards the setting forth of this
festival as one peculiarly opposed to this heresy. This regress
from the beginning of the Messianic office to the temporal
VOL. I. M

178 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
commencement of the Person itself, was, however, also necessi
tated by the conviction that the union of the divine and human
in Christ would be incomplete, and that His Messianic office, as
appropriate to His Person, would be without basis or ground, if
His Person were, anterior and up to His baptism, hardly dif
ferent from other men, and was then, no one knows why,
chosen and appointed to be the Messiah ; so that already the
incarnation of God is in itself of the highest import for faith. In
a double *way, however, was this regress to the first step of
Christ's life on earth completed. On the one hand, the existing
baptismal festival became also the birth festival;1 and this was
only a more thorough carrying out of the original idea, of this
festival, inasmuch as the Epiphany or appearing of Christ was
intended to be therein celebrated. In the child Christ, it is true,
the Divinity was for the most part concealed ; it was there
in essence, not in actual.manif estation. But on that account was
the visit of the Magi, and their adoration, readily recognised ;
and thus the birth of the child Jesus was celebrated as the ap
pearance of God, as the birth of the Saviour. This was the
course pursued in the Oriental Church. In the Western, where
the order of the annual feasts was more gradually formed, the
baptismal festival was not, at least for a long time, introduced
, at all. As in this part of the Church there was a tendency to
consecrate a festival to the beginning, as formerly to the end,
of the historical life of Christ, Doketism and Ebionism had been
already there and been worsted, and Christological knowledge
had been advanced by the fact, that in it that middle-point, the
baptism of Christ, had been overleaped, and so the regress had
been at once made to the true beginning, the birth of Christ.3
It is possible that in it, as with the Passover festival so also with
this, an arrangement entirely independent of the East may have
developed itself, and local influences and opposition to heathen
festivals may have operated upon it. But as this independence,
in its free, and as respects the time of the festival, diverse re^
_ T Epiph. Hser. li. 16 ; Expos.' Fidei 22 ; comp. Bingh. 1. xx. c. 4, 2.
2 We know that in the time of Chrysostom the 25th of December came
to be regarded as the day of Christ's birth in the East, through the influence
of the West ; but we do not know either how old this Christmas festival
was in the West, nor when the festival of Christ's baptism, which cannot
be shown to have existed there before the time of Jerome, passed over into
it from the East, and how far the observance of it spread.

CHRISTIAN ART. 179
suit, affords an illustrious proof that the Occidental Church
was the seat of an independent development, not of a Jewish
Christian, but of a heathen Christian character ; so is the
essential identity of the result in both great sections of the
Church (i.e., the tendency of their order of festivals to the
same beginning, the birth of Christ) an evident proof that it
is essential to the Christian consciousness, to think the divine
and the human as perfectly united in all the steps and in all
the momenta of the historical life of Christ. Of this Irenaeus,
who was the first to unite the East and the West (see under),
was conscious ; and this he has expressed, anticipating at least
the festival-order of the latter.1
3. In fine, we have to speak of the beginnings of Christian
art and characteristic usages, so far as appertains to our sub
ject. Little as the primitive Church was friendly to art pro
perly so called,2 and little as its holy symbolism can lay claim to
the name of art in the strict sense, there is nevertheless here a
beginning of the same ; and this is for us the more important,
inasmuch as the dogmatic idea is more openly displayed in
the art-symbol than in properly artistic work.
Among these symbols,3 that of the cross may be expected

1 If we survey the course of development of the Christian festival-order,
we shall find the extreme Christian East and the Christian West forming
the opposite poles. In the former, the impulse to an order of festivals goes
forth more from the historical stand-point, the positive or negative is more
closely bound by a regard to Judaism'; in the latter, especially in the
Roman Church, heathen Christianity fashions itself more freely. Between
the two, in Greece, and especially in Asia Minor, both tendencies came into
collision ; here are the earliest deep-going struggles of an ecclesiastical and
dogmatic kind. In these struggles, both tendencies seek and find, under
influences of a Hellenic kind, that equipoise which is exhibited to us in
the Second Epoch, rich and flourishing in great men.
2 That there is nothing unfavourable to the idea of the beautiful itself in
Christianity ; that, on the contrary, it rather provides for it a place in the
higher region of perfection, only that in this secular state, in a world which
deifies the beautiful, there is prescribed for the Christian toil and suffering
— appears plainly from what has been already said about Chihasm ; not less
from the picture which Christianity has always kept before it of the glori
fied Saviour. Here Mttnter is inexact (s. u.), H. ii. 6.
3 See Munter, Sinnbilden und Kunstvorstellungen der Alten Christen,
Heft I. und II., 1825 ; Schbne, Geschichtsforschungen iiber die kirchlichen
Gebr'auche und Einrichtungen der Christen, u. b. w. ; Bingham, 1. c, vol.

180 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
to be the oldest.1 Wherever this occurs in ancient Christianity,
it must be taken as the symbol of salvation through Christ,
through His suffering and death. The idea of the suffering
Saviour, however, Hes outside of Ebionism, as well as of Doke
tism and Gnosticism, and would never have been conceived
by any of these. A favourite emblem of Christ's Church was
a ship sailing hence: the mast which sustains and expands
the saU is the cross ; Christ is the steersman (Munter, 1. c. i:
99). An especial favourite was the figure of the Good Shep
herd and the lamb (same, p. 60 ff. 80 ff.), either represented,
according to John x. 11, as the Shepherd who gives His life for
the sheep, or, according to Luke xv. 4, 5, as the Shepherd who
seeks the lost sheep, and brings it back to the fold with joy.
If the latter symbol, as well as that very old one of the Fisher
(1. c. vm. ix. pp. 48, 52), expresses the idea of salvation more in
the general, the Shepherd who gives His Hfe for the sheep is
identical with the Lamb dying for the sins of the world. This
Lamb alternates with the ram, which appears as a substitution
ary offering in the history of Abraham : frequently the Lamb is
found with the cross. But by the side of the longsuffering love
of God stand power and royalty : He who is figured as a Lamb
is also the Lion out of Judah (Apoc. v. 5).2 In fine, I mention
the Lyre, the emblem of Cliristian hymns. The finest monu
ment on which it appears, a large Christian sarcophagus, assigned
by Munter to the time of the Antonmes (1. c. xx. 84, repre
sented Tab. III. 61), is remarkable not only from the figure of
the Shepherd (Luke xv.), but especiaUy from its representing
the whole of a Christian famUy service of worship in this age.
On the one side are three women standing round a virgin, who
iv. and vi.; Bellermann, Die christhchen Katacomben; [Maitland, Church
in the Catacombs, Lond. 1846.]
1 Munter, 1. c. i. 33, especially pp. 68-79. " The sign of salvation was
supremely hallowed to the primitive Christians. We find it so regarded at
so early a period, that it may be reasonably presumed that it belonged to
the oldest symbols and signs, from the days of the Apostles. The Christians
saw it as a sign marked on all nature.'' Comp. Justin Mart. Apol. i. 72 ,
Tertull. Apol. 16; De Orat. 19; De Cor. Mundi, c. 3; Barn. Ep. 9. Pro
bably there is already in the Apocalypse, xxii. 4, a trace of this symbol
Comp. xvi. 2, xx. 4.
2 This symbol is seldom found among the Christian antiquities (see
Munter, i. 87). Still other symbols of the second century are mentioned
by Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. iii. 11, ed. Potter, p. 289.

CHRISTIAN HYMNS. 181
is playing on the lyre ; on the right are four men, with several
rolls in their hands, from which they seem to be singing. If
Miinter's suggestion be correct, this monument is a proof that
already in the second century there were collections of Chris
tian hymns, which were in use even in domestic Hfe. At any
rate, this is historically certain : the author of the Small Laby
rinth could, towards the close of the second century, appeal,
against the Artemonites, to a number of ancient poems, the
object of which was the praise of Christ (Euseb. E. H. v. 28).
" How many psalms and odes," says he, " are there not, which
have been written by the Christians from the beginning, and
which theologising celebrate Christ as the Logos of God?"1
Already in the New Testament there are not only promptings to
Christian hymns and odes — Eph. v. 19 ; Col. Hi. 16, — but even
traces and beginnings of such ; Eph. v. 14 ; Apoc. xv. 3. (wBrj
apvlov), xix. 1—8, v. 8 (the Hallelujah of the Apocalypse gives
honour to Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega, along with
the Father ; the twenty-four elders, with harps in their hands,
faU down before the Lamb, and sing to Him ; in fine, it is said
in Eph. v. 14, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light") ; and so also the young
teeming Church sends forth its praise and thanks to Christ in
numerous songs. Among the oldest portions of the Sybilline
verses above referred to, are to be found pieces of the nature
of hymns to Christ ; and, what is deserving of especial notice,
there is already in the Christian songs a type very different from
ours, and reminding rather of the Hellenic odes and hymns in
the Mysteries, as also of those of Synesius and of the old
Christian hymn which Clement of Alexandria has preserved'
for us. What abundance of Christian song there was at this
time, earUest and most -refined, as it appears, in the Syrian
Church, especially in Antioch, where Ignatius laboured,2 may,
1 Comp. the Ep. Synod, and Dionys. (Mansi, i. 1098) against Paul of
Samosata, whose assertion, that the hymns to Christ are the work of recent
writers, as it proves itself to be a pretext for the removing the use of these
from the Church, so is it refuted by the passage from Eusebius above
quoted. 2 Ignatius is mentioned by Socrates, E. H. vi. 8, as the inventor of the
antiphonal hymns in the Christian service ; which, however, is destitute of
internal probability. See for the rest Rheinwald, 1. c. p. 264 ; Bingham,
vol. vi. Bk. xiv. c. 1, § 11.

182 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
amongst other evidences, be seen by the fact, that the Gnostics
Valentinus and Bardesanes were hymn-writers. On the other
hand, it may be regarded as characteristic that we hear no
thing of the sort from among the Ebionites. The old Christian
hymnology, according to the traces of it which we possess, had
for its chief object the praise of the Divine Son (Ep. Plin.).
As in the Psalms of the Old Testament we have the most in
structive monuments of ancient Hebrew piety, and thereby
ascertain what passed over from the ancient revelation into joy
and Hfe, what filled the heart and burst forth from it in song,
so may we regard the old Christian hymnology. On this
account the commencement of the oldest Christian hymn which
has come down to us in a complete form may be cited here •}
Bridle of untamed colts,
Wing of unwandering birds,
Never- wavering Rudder of youth,
Shepherd of the royal flock,
Thy blameless
Children gather
Holily to praise,
Sincerely to laud
With consecrated lips. (
Leader of youth, Christ,*
King of saints ;
Of the Highest Father,
All-administering Word ;
Dispenser of wisdom ;
Support of the suffering ;
Lord of immortality ;
Saviour of mortals ; 0 Jesus ! >
Shepherd and Father,
Rudder and Bridle,
Heavenly Pinion
Of the consecrated flock ;
Fisher of men,
Of the heirs of salvation,
Whom Thou from hostile flood,
1 It is preserved by Clement of Alexandria, Psedag. iii. 12, fin., ed.
Potter, 311.
* [In Potter's text this line reads nraiio,v byyropx Xpurron, and ought
therefore to be connected with what goes before, as containing the object of
ainiin and iftniin. I know not on what grounds Dr Dorner has preferred
a different reading. But the rendering he has given, which is that of
Munter, does not adhere to the original in several places.  Te.j

SUMMARY OF RESULT. 183
In sea of evil,
With sweet life,
The pure fishes catchest :
Lead us on, 0 Thou
Shepherd of rational sheep I
Lead us on, 0 Holy One I
Prince of youths undefiled.
We sucklings,
Fostered by soft lips,
From the spiritual breast
Filled with sweet song,*
Sing sincere praise,
Genuine hymns,
To Christ the King :
Sing sincerely
The mighty Son.
0 peaceful choir,
Ye, the Christ-begotten,
Thou holy people,
Praise together the God of peace !
If, along with these witnesses of the inspired feeling, we
take the witnesses of inspired deed and self-offering for the
Christian faith, which are to be found in their purest form
m the first two centuries ; if we consider that martyrdom was
viewed as a higher act of worship,1 a baptism of blood ; that
denial of Christ, and apostasy from Him, was regarded, not as
falsehood and unfaithfulness towards a man, and towards what
was to be held as a sacred remembrance, but as a renunciation
of eternal salvatioii and feUowship with God, — as a death-sin,
from which recovery was hardly possible ; we shall conclude,
taking into account aU that has been adduced, that the Church,
up to the middle of the second century, deserves the title, not
merely of the witnessing Church, but particularly of the Church
witnessing for the true Godhead and the true manhood of Christ.
This is impressed upon us, whether we look at the Church's
writings, or its liturgic elements in public worship, or the prin
ciple of its arrangement of festivals, or the beginnings of
* [Lieblichen Oden erfullt. I suspect a misprint here of oden for
odem. The original is nnivftxTi Tipoaipcp ifiiriK'hdftinoi, filled with a dewy
spirit. — Te.]
1 Comp. Euseb. v. 28 ; Ep. Plin. 97 ; Letters of Ignatius.

184 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Christian art and characteristic usage. Here the Churches of
the East and the West are at one. One faith essentially, even
that which is ours, and was that of the Apostles, is enunciated
by the mutuaUy independent Hfe-systems of the young Church ;
for one soul "besouls it, the. Spirit of Christ. And this free
inner concurrence of the most diverse regions may be con
clusively viewed as the most decisive proof of the unity of the
universal view of faith in Christ, and of the existence of a new
creative principle in the Church, through faith in the Son of
God. The Church of the epoch now before us has not only
received and kept what , she obtained from the Apostles and
their immediate disciples, and what was ever anew given to her
by the reading of the apostolic writings, and especially the
Gospels1 — a practice early introduced, but has put out to usury
the treasure entrusted to her.
1 Justin. Apol. i. 67 ; Bingham, vi. c. S.

OPPONENTS OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 185

CHAPTEE SECOND.
OPPONENTS OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST.
Christianity, having its fundamental doctrine in the perfect
union of the divine and human accompHshed in Christ, came
in consequence of this into antagonism alike with Judaism
and heathenism. The principle of Hebraism abides by the
distinction of these; that of heathenism by their amalgama
tion. Christianity presents the distinction brought to unity, or
a unity of which the distinctions are the presupposition and
abiding elements. Where, therefore, heathenism or Judaism
does not transcend its essence, a Christian heresy is not at all
possible. It is not peculiarly Christian to beHeve that Jesus
was a man, though the true manhood of Christ is an essential
momentum of Christianity, for Jews and Mohammedans also
believe that; nor is it peculiarly Christian to beHeve in a
divine in the general, or indeed in a supreme being distinct
from God as the bv, without an incarnation of this divine, and
that in Christ ; for we find what is akin to this, as we have
seen, beyond the pale of Christianity; and even the name
Christ, which may through the historical influence of Chris
tianity be given to such a higher being, does not in the least
alter the thing itself. Doketism and Ebionism, when both are
consequent, stand thus on the outermost verge, to go beyond
which is to cease to be Christian, especially when there did not,
through a wholesome inconsequence, lie preformed a higher
Christology in a purer construction of the work of Christ.
They are rather phenomena of heathenism or Judaism, rendered
apparent perhaps by Christianity, but not penetrated by its la-
diance ; attempts, perhaps, which both made to transcend them
selves in order to oppose Christianity, but empty and without
result^ if they refract the penetrating beam of Christianity, they
take from it only what they already have or may have, whilst at

186 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the same time they hold that which is common to them with
.Christianity otherwise than it is in Christianity. Hence we
must discriminate such forms as have resting on their core only
the shadows of the pre-Christian world, from such as already,
though in a yet imperfect manner, recognise the union of the
eternal and divine with the historical, the human in Christ.
Where also there is only a holding by that union given in
Christ or His work as by a deUcate thread, there we have not
what is unchristian, though it may be that there we have Chris
tian heresy. Among the forms of the former kind which do not
at all belong to our object, are to be reckoned the doctrines of
the Simonians and the Hke, the Ophites and Elkesaites, which
stand within the sphere of Paganism. To Hebraism run wild,
the nearest resource was a relapse into a pagan form of
duaHsm : it is the ethical principle in union with the Messianic
idea alone which has power to bind this dualism, and to recon
cile the Hebraistic principle with itself in its completion . Several
of those named show their Paganism also by their Polytheism,
and set over against or by the side of the revelation of God
in Jesus of Nazareth, themselves or others as revelations of the
supreme power.1 To this class also belongs Carpocrates.2 Ac
cording to him, Christ was a religious Genius, to whom he
erected a statue along with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle,
and to whom he assigned a place in his Genius worship. Born
of Joseph and Mary, Jesus, according to him, was like all others ;
only he was distinguished by virtue and good conduct. Since,
however, his soul was of unwonted elasticity (evrovoi), it re
membered what it had seen when it circled in the train of the
unknown Father. This same Father had sent powers into
Christ's soul, in order that it might remember what had been
seen, and be strengthened to contemn the world-creating angel
and the law, to pass through aU acts and conditions of men
without being defiled or entangled, through any possible con
tact with this world, and, being delivered, to ascend to the Father
1 Here also might be placed the Phrygian Montanism, were it suffi
ciently attested that Montanus sought to be reverenced along with the
Father and the Son as perfect divine power, as the incarnate Paraclete,
and not simply as the prophetic organ thereof.
2 Iren. i. 24. He lived pretty early in the former half of the second
century. His scholar Marcellina came to Rome in the time of Anicetus.
See Epiph. Hair. 27 ; Euseb. iv. 7.

' OPPONENTS OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 187
above. And in like manner kindred souls with his fly up to
freedom, so soon as they have performed all, and in all proved
their freedom. If later writers cast on him and his school
the reproach of licentiousness, it is to be borne in mind that
they are not supported in this by Irenaeus, the oldest source of
information concerning Carpocrates.1 But the place which he
assigns to Jesus among other human geniuses 2 might lead us
to place him among heathens, as, for instance, Porphyry has
done. The pre-existence which Carpocrates allows to Jesus is
that of Plato's souls ; his higher endowment is resolved into a
merely more vivid recollection of what others, with more of im
perfection and confusion, know from their ante-mundane state.
And this recollection he owes partly to his virtuous soul, the
energy by which he contemns and negatives this world, partly,
but secondarily, to divine powers such as the Father refuses to
none who are virtuous. This tendency were to be designated
Ebionitic (in a dogmatical sense) had it somewhat pantheistically
represented aU men,. and so Christ, as essentially divine in re
spect of their soul ;3 and indeed, as it retains nothing even for
the work of Christ,4 it is Ebionitic in the sense of the negative
limit of what is Christian.8
In like manner, at the outermost point of what is Jewish
and not yet Christian stands the tendency which, on the one
hand, not only commends the observance of the Mosaic law as
allowable, but holds it for necessary and saving ; with this view
continues the observance of circumcision, Sabbaths, new moons,
etc., after the manner of pharisaic Judaism, despises the heathen
Christians who did not concur in this as unclean, and pursues
a Paul, as in life, so after death, with reproaches and excom
munications : on the other hand, though receiving a powerful
impression from Christ's historical appearance, especiaUy His
miracles and moral teaching, and holding Him to be the Mes-
•
1 Appendix, Note KKK.
2 An eclecticism which Hadrian justly censures. Ep. Adriani ad Serv.
3 This Carpocrates. might have affirmed in accordance with his doctrine.
4 Comp. Epiph. Haer. xxvii. 2.
6 Iren. Bk. I. c. xxvi. 2. Hierosolymam adorant quasi Domus sit
Dei.— Justin, Dial. c. Try. ed. Col. p. 266. Peihaps to this also belongs the
second class of the Inroi 'EfSiunaioi of Origen, by whom a natural birth of
Christ was asserted (Xpiaron yiyinytsQxt a; roi; Komoii; dvOpunov;'). Epi-
phanius also knows such, Hter. 30 ; Orig. Horn, xviii. in Jerem. c. 12.

188 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
siah, yet maintains that He was the son of Joseph and Mary ;
denies His supernatural birth and special Divine endowment,
since it regards the birth of the Son of God from a virgin as
heathenish; views his exaltation to Messianic dignity, conse
quently, as a reward for His legal righteousness and holiness ;
and in the general expects and desires in the Messiah, not the
union of the divine and human (which are rather markedly
kept apart), but only the bringer of outward felicity. For this
party the Messianic age has in truth not appeared ; but all is
to be expected only from the eschatology. The appearance of
Jesus descends into an announcement or prophecy of the com
ing Messianic age, and is, in its obscurity and humiliation, not
essentially different from that Theologoumenon, which still
finds place even within Judaism, according to which the Mes
siah may have already appeared somewhere, but as yet only in
obscurity. For, the identity of the Person of the Messiah in
both appearances, which the former hold, is yet only apparently
a prejudice, so long as they know not to gain a. spiritual signi
ficance either for the historical Person or the work of Christ.
Hence they are justly regarded by Origen and others as
scarcely to be numbered among Christians.1 The less that
they were attached to Christ by a spiritual gift, in which they
had the pledge that the consummating Messiah must be; the
same as had already appeared in Jesus — the less they thought
Jesus to be peculiarly endowed, so mueh the more indifferent
did His appearance become, so much the easier also was a
relapse into Judaism, in which also there wanted not a prophecy
of that which is yet to come.
After this glance at the extreme limits, we advance to
Ebionitic heresy. It admits, that in a sense the divine was in
a pecuHar manner united to the human in the Person of Jesus ;
but so as that this divine remains only an accident of the
Person of Jesus. What is accidental here shows itself in
this, that it is either not fixed for itself, or is thought as not
essential to this person, i.e., as not from the beginning and for
ever, or not in a peculiar manner, united to it. Ebionism views
the divine in Christ doketically, as Doketism does the human.
It deserves notice, that this party from the beginning has the
character of a certain ignobility in it. We can neither ascer-
1 Appendix, Note LLL.

EBIONITES. 189
tain in what age it was formed, nor has it an historically signi
ficant personaUty under it, nor, in fine, does any historicaUy
ascertained person stand at its head. It had, indeed, its original
place within Judaism. Whether it be viewed as a relapse or
a remnant, it has been already shown in the first chapter that
it cannot be regarded as Judaic Christianity, but only as a
fraction of this. Bather, from its position, may it be concluded
that it unintentionally and unconsciously might become from
a Christian heresy a Jewish sect, which plainly could not be said
of Judaic Christianity in the general.
If we seek after the traces of this tendency, we shall find
the most ancient in the Epistle to the Hebrews. From that
zeal for the law, with which Paul had to contend, the Judaizing
spirit was led not at first to impeach the Christology, but rather
the Soteriology, or the work of Christ. But the consequence
of the legal stand-point soon showed itself. The party which
the Epistle to the Hebrews has in view must have over-estimated .
the law of the Old Testament regarding holy times, places,
acts, and persons alike, and have been wanting in the Christian
knowledge which knows how to secure to the Old Testament
its abiding significancy, which it has as a Divine institute,
without imperilling the newness and conclusive completeness of
Christianity. They have already by baptism tasted of the gift
of the Holy Ghost ; nor are they yet faUen from Christ, but
are wiUing stiU to hold by His Person. But it could not f aU
that the significancy of that Person should ever be diminished
the less there remained for it to accomplish, i.e., the more the
law was regarded as sufficient and permanent ; and hence the
Epistle shows, that in the law there was not revealed the inner
most being of God (it was given by angels) ; that it was transi
tory, because internaUy unsatisfying, inasmuch as it did not
secure eternal reconciliation, and was therefore permanent only
in respect of its typical character. As a type, it was set aside
by the appearing of Christ, the pre-existent Son of God, who
is higher than angels, the Word of revelation itself, the true
Beconciler, but at the same time the Judge. The author thus
seeks, by vivifying their view of the Son of God, to preserve
them from extremities, — from that entire apostasy from Him to
which they were exposed, if they retained the old world, which
was constructed upon another principle, unaltered, along with

190 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the new principle, which they had not yet renounced, — refused
to this development, thereby assailed, its very existence, and
made it only apparent. How far their view of Christ had been
already lowered by the vitiating influence of the old world theory,
cannot be decisively gathered from the Epistle ; very Hkely it <
was different in this respect with different persons. But it is
certain that a higher view of Christ than that which is suited
to the legal stand-point must have belonged to them at an
earlier period, — nay, that such was still recognised by them, and
afforded to the writer of the Epistle a firm point from which to
operate ; and with this, therefore, he begins. His Christology
might, indeed, be higher than theirs ; still he must have been sure
that he was not saying to them what was whoUy strange and
unknown in what he advanced on this head, as he could remind
them that they had through faith in Christ received the gift
of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted of the powers of the world
to come. We know not, however, of a single name which we
can mention as connected with this tendency, unless Thebuthis,
who belonged certainly to this age,1 is to be reckoned as such.
The destruction of Jerusalem brought, according to Epi
phanius, many Christians from Judea and Jerusalem to the dis
trict of Pella. We find, indeed, soon after this, Jerusalem
again the centre-point of the non-heretical Jewish Christians
(see above, p. 159) ; but from this it cannot be concluded that
the Epistle to the Hebrews, or the destruction of Jerusalem,
had annihilated even for a season the heresy attacked by the
former. But whilst the kernel of the Jewish Christian Church
assembled, after the ancient fashion, in Jerusalem up to the time
of Hadrian, many remained in Pella and the surrounding re
gion, under leaders without name, proclaiming their want of
consequence and coherence by their coalescing with the Essenes,
and even in part, as was especially the case with the Elke-
saites, falling into heathenism. Elsewhere also was Christianity
grafted upon such a Judaism decaying and tinged with heathen
ism; as in Phrygia, Asia Minor (comp. the Epistle to the
Colossians and the Pastoral Epistles), and Alexandria. Out of
this amalgamation arose the families of the gnosticizing Ebion
ism, which Epiphanius especially describes.2 Nevertheless it
1 Euseb. iii. 32 ; iv. 22. Comp. for the rest, Schliemann, p. 459 ff.
2 Epiph. Haer. 30 ; Homil. Clementina.

EBIONITES. 191
must not be assumed that aU who dwelt in the Decapolis were
of this party. As little, conversely, must we conclude that the
society of Jewish Christians who returned to Jerusalem, and
who observed the law, held thoroughly by the apostolic type of
doctrine ; the same danger which the Epistle to the Hebrews
indicates, must have arisen from continued intercourse with the
synagogue. As under Hadrian it was forbidden to the Jews
to enter the sacred city, there must have emerged a crisis ;x and
the question must have come before the Church at Jerusalem,
whether to adhere to the Jews, who must depart, or to the
Christians, who might remain. The answer seems in point of
fact to have been threefold. Some, and these not few, as Sul
picius Severus intimates, renounced the bondage of the law ;
and they had no other resource than to join the society of a
purely heathen Christian character, which soon after was col
lected at JElia Capitolina. Others left Jerusalem ; but as they
did not sever themselves from the synagogue, and did not unite
with heathen Christians, they became withdrawn from the Hfe
of the Church and its motives, and gradually became a sect.
Among these, however, some held f aithfuUy by the supernatural
birth of Christ ; they wished to remain Christians without giv
ing up the hope of seeing their Jewish brethren coUectively
converted to Christianity ;2 whilst others, following out the legal
principle which they firmly held, were thereby drawn into con
cessions to unbelieving Judaism, and to a Jowering of their
position concerning Christ. Of these, the former disappeared
among the heathen Christians ; the latter could not submit to
1 If I do not attach to this catastrophe, which betook the national
Judaism, as much weight in conducing to the rise of Ebionism, as Schlie-
mann does, p. 406 fi., inasmuch as undoubtedly earlier traces of Ebionism
are to be found, on the other hand, I think Neander (K. G. i. 2, 953
[Eng. Tr. vol. ii. 12.]) has under-estimated its significancy.
2 Hieronym. Ep. 112 ad August, c. 13. Quid dicam de Ebionitis qui
Christianos simulant? Usque hodie per totas Orientis synagogas inter
Judaeos hseresis est qui dicitur Mineormn, et a Pharisseis nunc usque dam-
natur, quos vulgo Nazarseos nuncupant, qui credunt in Christum Filium
Dei, natum de virgine Maria et eum'dicunt esse, qui sub Pontio Pilato pas-
sus est et resurrexit, in quern et nos credimus ; sed dum volunt et Judsei
esse et Christiani, nee Judsei sunt nee Christiani. But they deserve not this
harsh sentence ; they sought to be Christians in respect of faith, to be Jews
in respect of nationality. Epiph. Haer. xxix. 7, 9, comp. Iren. i. 26 ; Orig.
c. Cels! v. 61, 65 ; Euseb. iii. 27 ; Pamphil. Apol. i.

192 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the sacrific e which was laid upon them — and which was required,
alone of all nations, of the converted Jews — the sacrifice of na-
tionaHty, and Hved as Nazarenes, called by the Jews Minseans,
at first among the Jews, afterwards also with them -,1 whilst the
last, who might be strengthened from other quarters, though
they did not relapse into Judaism, degenerated in various ways,
— e.gr., they might approximate to the sect above delineated,
which is properly to be called a sect of Judaism,2 or come nearer
to gnostic Judaism.3 These last are the Ebionites, properly so
called.4 We give the precedence to the Nazarenes, who held
by the supernatural birth of Christ, though they would not go
the length of admitting the pre-existing hypostasis of the Son.
The most fully developed form of these, on the other hand, are
the gnosticizing Ebionites ; whUst between these two extremes
of Judaizing Christology there are appearances which we shall
shortly term Cerinthian, because they all concur in dating the
higher nature of Christ from His baptism.

A. The Nazarenes.*
The Nazarenes could not justly be designated heretics, were
it not that to abide by the first elements of doctrinal develop
ment, and to arrest its progress, must unconsciously and invo-
1 Comp. Hieron. de viris illustr. 3.
2 Epiph. Haer. xxix. 7 ; xxx. 1, 2.
3 Comp. Orig. c. Cek. v. 61, 65 ; Euseb. iii. 27 ; Epiph. Haer. 30.
4 The names Ebionite and Nazarene have probably a similar history,
namely, that originally they were nicknames which the Jews gave among
themselves to the Christians, and which afterwards the Jewish Christians
appropriated and kept as what they received from the heathen Christians,
from whom they stood aloof (comp. Neander, K. G. i. 2, 596 ff. 603 [E.
T., vol. ii. p. 13 ff.]). Frequently all are called Ebionites who still
observed the Mosaic law ; but where greater precision is observed the
Nazarenes are distinguished from the Ebionites, because they did not, in
fact, share the Christological heresy of the proper Ebionites. Irenaeus does
not exactly apprehend and discriminate the different kinds of Ebionites ;
but this is done by Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and in part by Epiphanius.
* [Before entering on this part of the book, the reader may with ad
vantage refresh his memory by reading Neander's account of these early
heretical sects, as Dr Dorner presupposes in his readers a somewhat familiar
acquaintance with them. — Tk.]

NAZARENES. 193
luntarUy lead to an alteration of the truths which, if left to then-
natural course, would be the principles of a development,
Continuing till at least the fifth century, they presented to the
Church the picture of the first commencement of Christological
knowledge ; but only as a child that has grown in years with
out growing in size, and from the impeded growth of its limbs
cannot save itself from being crippled. But we must set out
from this, as well because among those named they are the purest
outshoot of the post-apostolic Jewish Christians, as because they
are the stock from which the two forms of proper Ebionism
grew, misled by the attractive power of foreign principles.
The Nazarenes had the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew
tongue, and that complete (ifXiqpeo-TaTov), as Epiphanius and
Irenaeus attest.1 As they consequently did not want the first
two chapters of Matthew, they accepted the supernatural birth
of Christ.2 They thought of Christ as born of the essence of
the Divine SpHit, or as the Son of the fountain of the Holy
Ghost.3 But they did not hold a pre-existing hypostasis of the
Divine in Christ, but only His pre-existence in God generally
and His Spirit (Euseb. iii. 27). We might thus even venture
to ascribe to them a belief in an hypostasis of the Divine in
Christ from His birth or His baptism ; for this could not be
avoided where the nirT1 nn was hypostatically distinguished from
God. Most probably they called God the fountain of the
Holy Ghost (fons omnis Spiritus Sancti) on account of the
baptism, and with reference to Is. xi. 1 ; and in so far as Jesus
knew Himself to be born from this Divine Spirit, He might
figuratively, according to them, caU it His mother. But, as
Neander shows, the strongly poetical passages in which this is
stated cannot be permitted to furnish ground for constructing a
1 Epiph. xxix. 7, 9 ; Iren. i. 26. Appendix, Note MMM.
2 Appendix, Note NNN.
3 Characteristic of the three classes that are to be bespoken is the form
in which each of them represents the baptism of Christ (comp. Schliemann,
p. 508). The Nazarene gospel narrates (Hieron. Com. in Jes. xi. 1) : Factum
est autem cum ascendisset Dominus de aqua descendit/ons omnis Spiritus
Sancti, et requievit super, ilium et dixit illi Fili mi, in omnibus prophetis
exspectabam te, ut venires ut requiesurem in te. Tu es enim requies mea,
tu es Filius meus primogenitus qui regnas in sempiternum. The object
spoken of is not called " Spiritus Sanctus," as according to the interpreta
tion of recent writers one might suppose, but "fons omnis Spiritus Sancti."
VOL. I. N

194 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
dogma of the Nazarenes respecting a special hypostasis and
pre-existence of the Holy Ghost. They thus stand nearer to
the so-called Patripassians of the second and third centuries,
who also dwelt in the same district, than to the ecclesiastical
ddctrine of the Logos and Pneuma. Jerome relates (Comm.
in Hab. iii. 3) of a Nazarene, that he explained the passage
thus : Quod Bethlehem sita sit ad austrum, in qua natus est
Dominus salvator, et ipsum esse, de quo nunc dicatur; Dominus
ab austro veniet, hoc est nascetur in Bethlehem et inde con-
surget. — Et quia ipse qui natus est in Bethlehem legem quon
dam dedit in monte Sinai, ipse est sanctus qui venit de monte
Pharan. — Ipse qui natus est in Bethlehem et qui in Sina, i.e.,
in monte Pharan legem dedit, semper in universis beneficiis
autor est et largitor. From this passage one would certainly
conclude that He who gave the law on Sinai was the same as
He who was born at Bethlehem ; but whilst there is nothing in
the language of the Old or New Testament to support the idea
that the law was given by the Holy Ghost, as little can we say,
with SchHemann, that Christ is, according to this passage,
identified in His pre-existence with the Holy Ghost, but
rather with God Himself (comp. SchHemann, p. 455). In
fact, and this deserves special consideration, they seem also to
have taken no offence at Christ's death on the cross, but rather
to" have attached special importance to it, as also to His resur
rection.1 But certainly their Christology has still something
indefinite and fluctuating in it, and thereby they are distin
guished from the Patripassians. It is certain that with them
Christ stood personally distinct from God. The Divine had
come into Him in an abiding operativeness, had come to an
objective mode of being in Christ ; and the expressions they use
sound strong enough to lead us to think that they regarded the
Divine in Christ as personal, — not, indeed, as a proper power,
but that God Himself, in so far as He is fons omnis Spiritus
Sancti, abides and rests in Him. On the other hand, however,
these strong expressions do not necessarily go beyond the asser
tion of a distinction between the manifested and the concealed
God, which by no means posits a hypostatic distinction in God,
but only involves a leaning to that. Moreover, this entire ele
vation of Christ dates only from His baptism; so that His
1 Appendix, Note 000.

CERINTHIAN EBIONITES. 195
human personality, wonderful indeed, and proceeding from the
Holy Ghost, was already there before it became participant by
baptism of that highest indwelling of God.1

B. Cerinthian Ebionites.
Whflst the Nazarenes placed the physical God-sonship first,
and made the ethical to follow thereupon or therefrom, — which,
we cannot determine with certainty, — and gave to the baptism
of Christ a marked importance in reference to His equipment,
the Cerinthian Ebionites decidedly set the baptism of Christ in
the place of His supernatural birth. They first obtained a suf
ficient motive for giving pre-eminence to the baptism of Christ,
as the Nazarenes also partially did, from their conversely mak
ing the ethical Sonship the cause of the physical, so far as they
held this. According to their view, it was His baptism which
first made Jesus the Messiah, not His birth ; for such a dis
tinction could be conferred only on one who by his righteous
ness and virtue had made himself worthy of it.' The period
before His baptism, and an existence of Jesus before His
exaltation to be God's Son, were consequently necessary, in
order that God might remain just, — that He might not arbi
trarily make a person holy, and then reward him for that which
was not his desert, but the effect of his nature. Thus this class
stood most markedly over against the preceding. They were
constrained, from avowedly ethical, but more strictly from legal
grounds, to utterly deny the supernatural birth of Christ : they
must regard Him as not more perfectly endowed than other
men, in order that He might, in the season of trial before His
baptism, approve Himself by virtue, and then be endowed with
grace, i.e., be rewarded.
In support of this legal motive there came, in close connec
tion with the preceding, to this second stricter Jewish class, a
Judaistic more than an Old Testament concept of God, which
markedly separated God and the world, and to which it seemed
a heathenish fable that the Son of God should be born of a
virgin. The preceding also found, indeed, no distinction in
God, no doctrine of a hypostatic Trinity, but still a living,
1 Appendix, Note PPP.

196 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
self-manifesting God. Here, on the contrary, God was con
ceived only in His infinite supremacy over the world, not in
His condescension ; the religious interest was repressed ; the ab
stractly understood made itself valid ; although still the main
things were not theories or speculations, but what was practical,
i.e., moral or eudsemonistic, had the preference. As through
this the doctrine of the Gospels concerning the original endow
ment of Christ was necessarily denied, so through this also the
kind of higher endowment which they actually allowed to Christ
was determined. Of a personal indwelling of God — from assent
ing to which the Nazarenes were not excluded, nay, to which
there were many features of their system which inclined them —
these could not so much as speak ; and so there remained for
them only to maintain, either the communication of Divine
power, or, what was more consequent on their deistic concept of
God, the union with Jesus of a power not Divine, but created,
and which could thus without difficulty be represented, hypo
statically. -
This class attached itself more to the law, approximated to
pharisaic Judaism, and was hostile to the Apostle Paul. It
clung firmly in the general to the Old Testament, and thereby
was obviously distinguished from the third class, which was
retrogressive to a primitive religion.1
At first their doctrinal system had naturally a very unde
veloped, transient form ; they issued only from a tendency
within Judaic Christianity, which had no existence save where
the law was still held to be binding. Among such, some would
stiU stand aloof from the Christological conclusions, whilst
others would advance to them, but that in a sadly infelicitous
way ; and a while must elapse before they, after giving up the
supernatural birth, could again firmly plant their foot and
settle themselves on a doctrine which secured to them the name
of a Christian, and not merely, like those above excepted, a
Jewish sect.
With this concurs whoUy the account above, taken from
Hegesippus, of the initiatory covert accumulation of the here
tical poison, until under Thebuthis (of whom we know nothing
beyond this) heresy appeared with uncovered front. The end
of the first, or the beginning of the second century, seems to
1 Appendix, Note QQQ,

CERINTHIAN EBIONITES. 197
be the time when this form of Ebionism assumed a more defi
nite shape.1 New strength was conveyed to it by the relations
under Hadrian (see above, p. 190).
a. As the first representative of name of this tendency,
appeared Cerinthus in Asia Minor. He, on account of his
chiliastic views, cannot be reckoned among the Gnostics,
though he, with the entire class to which he belongs, marks a
middle path, which, on the one hand, conducts to gnosticizing
Ebionism, and on the other, to a proper Doketism and Gnos
ticism, with which he had much in common, especially his con
cept of God.
According to Cerinthus, Jesus, the child of Joseph and
Mary, was not at first the Christ. The Father, who, infi
nitely exalted above all world-creating powers and angels, is
by a long series of beings separated from us, ayvoocrTos, was
at first also unknown by Jesus. Nevertheless the latter, by
virtue, wisdom, and righteousness (Iren. i. 26), was so distin
guished from aU other men,2 that the Xpurrb? — whom he con
ceived as akin to the JEons, but exalted above the angels, and
called, according to others, also Aoyos — found Him worthy that
at His baptism He should descend and sink into Him in the
baptismal act, whereby He became the Messiah. After this
Jesus knew the Father, declared Him, the Unknown (Theo-
doret, Haer. Fab. H. 3), and performed miracles. Christ's prin
cipal work, according to Cerinthus, was not that of redemption,
but that of revelation by doctrine. The Christ avoided the
sufferings of Jesus, in which he saw no Messianic act, but
only human sufferings ; to which, consequently, he attached no
value in relation to redemption. With this is connected the
1 Appendix, Note ERR.
2 Comp. Euseb. iii. 28 ; Iren. i. 26 ; Theodoret, Haer. Fab: ii. 3. Ire
naeus says, Non a primo Deo factum esse mundum docuit, sed a virtute
quadam valde separata et distante ab ea principalitate, quae est super uni-
versa, et ignorante eum qui est super omnia Deum. Jesum autem subjecit
non ex virgine natum (impossibile enim hoc ei visum est) ; f uisse autem eum
Joseph et, Marise filium similiter ut reliqui omnes homines (cf. Origen
c. Cels. v. 61), et plus potuisse justitia et prudentia, et sapientia ab homi-
nibus. Et post baptismum descendisse in eum ab ea principalitate quae
est super omnia Christum figura columbae, et tunc annunciasse incoghitum
Patrem et virtutes perfecisse ; in fine autem revolasse iterum Christum
Patrem de Jesu, et Jesum passum esse et resurrexisse, Christum autem
impassibilem perseverasse, existentem spiritalem.

198 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
fact, that he, or at least many of his disciples, taught, that
though Jesus indeed died, Christ did not participate in that ;
and that Jesus has not arisen, nor will he arise, until the ad
vent of the new kingdom (Epiph. Haer. xxviii. 6).1 The work
of Christ is rather, partly to make known the unknown Father,
consequently to fulfil the prophetic office ; partly — and this
seemed to him the principal thing — to introduce the mUlennial
reign, and so to fulfil the kingly office. But of the latter there
came forth hardly a single ray during Christ's first appearing ;
this rather only predicted the true future, and on this side alone
was it prophetic. There may be found, moreover, in the
accounts of the sensuousness of his Chiliasm, something exag
gerated, introduced from foreign interests ; but his representa
tion cannot have been very spiritual, because he viewed only
power and rule as a worthy category of the divine, not love ;
otherwise he would not have thought of Christ as separated
from the sufferings of Jesus.2 Two things, however, are note
worthy of him : first, that in him Gnosticism and Ebionism
manifestly crossed, and were not sundered; second, that Christ,
distinct from Jesus, was viewed by him as a proper pre-existing
hypostasis above the world-creating powers, not merely an im
personal power which descended upon Jesus.3 Though by him
Christ is introduced abruptly, and in a manner absolutely
supernatural,' his fundamental view of Christ's significancy
remains Ebionitic. He did not attain to a personal union of
the divine and human. Bather, with him, these mutually ex
clude each other. If the divine is there, the human is bound,
and, as it were not there, overmastered by an extraneous power ;
1 According to Irenaeus, i. 26, Cerinthus admitted the resurrection of
Jesus. But if he did, it must have remained for him a meaningless fact.
See Neander 1. c, p. 688.
2 Comp. Iren. i. 26 ; Euseb. iii. 26 ; Epiph. Haer. 28 ; Theodoret, Haer.
Fab. 23. Caius and Dionysius maintain this Judaism of him only in respect
of eschatology. 3 From the character of the oldest heresies the hypothesis is proved to
be unhistoric, that the Son of God (called by Cerinthus Christ) was not
regarded as a proper hypostasis before the Montanists. The unity of God
might have been easily held along with that by Cerinthus ; for he could
call in the aid of a Gnostic emanation doctrine. This, however, hke his
irarrip cHynatrro;, who must be essentially one with ovyo), is again a sign
that about, the end of the first century there could not have been wanting
significant beginnings of Gnosticism.

CERINTHIAN EBIONITES. 199
if the human is to perform its ethical functions, the divine must
be excluded. The ethical is ,not conceived as a revelation of
the divine ; and however high it is apparently placed, yet it is
banished to the ante-Messianic region, as it cannot be regarded
as an end to itself, unless it be equally a revelation of the
divine. Hence it becomes, consistently with him, in the last
reference only a mean, as also becomes apparent in his escha
tology. b. The Ebionites, whom Justin Martyr names,1 may well
be joined with Cerinthus ; for they appear also to have been in
Ephesus, though many of them were spread abroad elsewhere,
in the second century. In respect of his mild judgment of
them, it is to be borne in mind, that at that time heretics were
not cast out of the Church, where they did not exclude them
selves ; also, that dogmas had not yet been determined by any
Church decrees, but that the sound faith had first to form itself
from within, and through the labour of individuals to be brought
to the objectivity of Church doctrine, and had for its task to
prove, in free equal fight with opponents, its conquering might.
Now, had the Ebionites of whom Justin speaks been only de-
niers of the supernatural birth of Christ, without offering any
compensation on any other point, they could hardly be caUed
Christians ; and it is inconceivable how Justin could reckon
them among Christians, since they would rather have belonged
to the Jewish sects, which we saw reason above to mark out.
But he could do this with justice if they were wiUing to regard
Christ as nevertheless the true Messiah, made so by a Divine
act. If they made this concession, they must have laid stress on
Christ's baptism, and thus were allied to Cerinthus on the main
point ; and thus might the Christian truth which they already
had, rise superior to what was unchristian in their views, and to
the legal stand-point which, the higher and more divine the
Messianic dignity was held to be, led to the conclusion the more
strongly, that it could not be imparted to Him without respect
to previous worthiness, and consequently could not come to Him
by birth. In accordance with this, Justin also proceeds. He
does not say that it is a matter of indifference whether the super
natural birth and pre-existence of Christ be denied (as this pas
sage has often been understood) ; but, as he has already proved
1 Appendix, Note SSS.

200 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the higher Messianic dignity of Jesus, before which the legal
stand-point must give way (c. 10-17), he sets out from that, and
seeks to show, since this is already established, that the super
natural birth and pre-existence of Christ must be assumed, whilst
he at the same time mentions that there are many who refuse
to go this length. As the reason of this, he adduces their ad
herence to human doctrines. Against these are the Prophets,
and the doctrine of the Lord Himself. It is quite clear from
these passages, that they formed by a great deal the minority.
of the Christians. Justin's Ebionites can have differed, at least
in part, from Cerinthus only in this, that they kept at a greater
(Hstance from Gnostic views, said nothing of a hypostatic Christ
before baptism, but, resting on the passage Is. xi. 1, and on the
narrative of the baptism, they assumed that in the baptism the
seven powers of the Holy, i.e., the Divine Spirit, descended into
Jesus. They were at one with the Jewish canon, Bia, to ivvopuDS ical
Te\e«B<? iro"kiTevea-0ai avTov KaT7)^iS>a0ai, tov eickeyrp/ai eh Xpi-
ctov ; but they also saw fulfilled in Jesus the Jewish expectation,
that the Messiah should be unconscious of Himself, and without
power, until Elias should come and baptize Him.1 We have
also an express witness for this in the history of Christ's bap
tism, as it is set forth in their recension of the Hebrew Gos-
pel.2 His baptismal day is His birth day as Christ (o-^pepov
yeyevvnicd <re) ; then did He, who was before but an ordinary
man, become the Son of God. They concluded that, if His
baptism had thus such significancy for Him, — if before He
could enter as the Messiah He had to be anointed by Elias,
and to be filled with the powers of the Spirit, of which Isaiah
speaks (xi. 1), — then He must have previously wanted these,
and so could neither have pre-existed nor been supernaturally
born. (Comp. Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. c. 49 ff. 87 ; Hieron.
Comm. in Jesai, 112.) The more, however, that they placed
Jesus before His baptism on a perfect level with ordinary
men, the more definitely did the conclusion press itself on them
that Christ must also have had sins to confess to the Baptist.
1 Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. ed. Col. 1686, p. 226 : xxi ovli, say the Jews,
auTo'f ira ixvron iiriaTarai, ovhi i%n ivnaptin Tina ftijcpis an ihOan 'HJ\/«<
xpioy aiirin xxi Qxnepon want Troiqay.
2 Appendix, Note TTT.

CERINTHIAN EBIONITES. 201
Hence Justin Martyr seeks, conversely, to maintain the super
natural birth of Jesus as necessary to His sinlessness (Dial. c.
Tryph. c. 23, p. 241 B.). This conclusion, it would appear, some
amongst them also conceded.1
They had, nevertheless, no interest in ascribing sinfulness
to Christ before His baptism, as a principle, and not simply as
a consequence. Bather were they concerned to maintain the
sinlessness of Him who is the Saviour; only they date this
from His baptism, and hold it to have been produced by this.
But if His moral worthiness becomes complete only with His
baptism, they evidently break off from the principle from which
they set out, namely, that not the special Divine equipment was
the cause of the Divine Sonship, but, conversely, His holiness
and wisdom rendered Him worthy to be exalted to be God's Son.
It is quite manifest at this point, that they could not conse
quently carry out their principle. For, so long as they held
by a sinless Messiah, consequently still kept within Christian
bounds, and had not become a Jewish sect, they must do one of
two things : Either, they must regard this sinlessness wholly as
His own work, and not at the close have recourse again to a
supernatural grace ; in which case Christ has no religious sig
nificancy, and His baptism would sink, contrary to their wishes, ,
to a mere epideictic act promulgatory of His holiness, from which
men would reap small benefit, since they, even according'to these
Ebionites, stand in need of forgiveness of sins ; and moreover
that one, the child of sinners, should himself be sinless, would
be to them an inexplicable riddle : Or, if they regarded His
sinlessness as not wholly His own work, without help from God,
but that its first operative cause was His baptism, they had no
longer any right to offer objections to the doctrine of Christ's
higher qualification from His birth on the ground of God's
righteousness.2 This consideration might of itself have already conducted
back to a supernatural birth of Jesus. To this, however, was
added, that this Ebionism approximated to Gnosticism not by
1 As also the author of the Kiipvypcx Tlirpov and Basilides. Comp. note 2,
p. 194. Whether Cerinthus also, as Schhemann, p. 259, note 21, and before
him Neander, Leben Jesu, p. 76, note 2, ed. 3, suppose, I venture not to
say decidedly, since the vpoxoirii does not lead us to infer sinfulness.
2 Appendix, Note UUU.

202 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
the form which saw in Christ's baptism the equipment with the
powers of the Holy Ghost, but rather by the other which saw in
Him from His baptism a union with a higher Spirit, a Christo-
phany, which is found in Cerinthus as well as in other Ebion
ites (Epiph. Haer. xxx. 3 ; see last note). If nevertheless they
attached to the reconcUiation effected by Christ's death no such
weight as would have led them to say more of His work than
that He was a teacher and example of virtue, which of itself
leads to the Gnostic stand-point, then speedily the abstract in
tellectual stand-point is raised to the theosophic or speculative
desire of knowing. That they connected the forgiveness of
sins with baptism into Christ, could not in that case any longer
ward off the pressure of Gnostic, influences, especially during an
age impregnated with theories about angels and JEons. The
magical character which they ascribed to baptism demanded no
deep religious and ethical process, and was also at peace with
Gnosticism. So also their external and poorly got up eschatology
could not securely set the jejuneness of historical consciousness
over against Gnosticism. Besides, an' earthly-conceived king,
who yet does not reign earthlily, is hardly to be called a king.
Now, this union with Gnosticism, which had been gradually
introduced, is instanced by the precursors of the Pseudo-Clemen
tine system, known to Epiphanius.1 If the birth of the actual
Son of God from a virgin was offensive to Ebionism, to which
it appeared as a heathen myth, the Gnostic turn offered in lieu
of this what seemed more intelligible, in that it maintained that
not God Himself, but only a superior being, had appeared in
Jesus. Thus might Ebionism — at the cost, indeed, of the. truly
divine in Christ, of which the other Ebionitic section itself had
not entirely disowned the impression — resolve to return to a
supernatural origin of Jesus, and to avoid the stumbling-block
of the descent of Jesus from Joseph ; and this the more easily,
that it had been accustomed to regard the humanity of Christ
from His baptism as only a veil, and that by replacing His
higher equipment in the momentum of His origin, they ob
tained deliverance from the contradiction above noted. Whether,'
for the rest, any Ebionite, before the Clementines, had arrived
at the form of the supernatural birth of Christ shared with
Doketism, cannot be made out.
1 Appendix, Note VVT.

THE PSEUDO-CLEMENTINES. 203

C. The Gnostic Ebionism of the Pseudo-Clementines.
With the Pseudo-Clementines we find ourselves at once,
•though through the mediation of the preceding forms of
Ebionism, upon another stand-point. These forms have some
thing unsettled, and transitory, and are seeking for a firm
scheme of doctrine; hence they are destitute of any notable
impulse to production, in general of any significant life-power,
and bear the character of stagnant or dissolving and perishing
forms. Quite otherwise is it with the Clementines, in which
the Judaizing principle, furnished with all the means of culture
which the age suppHed, coUects itself as for the last stroke.
But, indeed, there is indicated along with this a sort of despera
tion. They give up everything, even to the last fortress, in
order to save the Judaizing concept of God as the pretended
pure, monotheistic, primitive religion; they sacrifice even the
best part of the Old Testament, that they may set out from this
against the deity of Christ, with which they see the Church to
be fiUed, but which they regard as the last delusion, more
dangerous than the first, that of heathenism. The Ebionites
already considered, Cerinthus himself not altogether excepted,
retained still a sort of old Hebraism ; and though the transition
of Ebionism to Doketism had already commenced with them,
they were yet far from paganism, they knew and loved the
Old Testament. It is otherwise with the Pseudo-Clementines.
In them the old Hebrew monotheism has already undergone a
pagan decomposition, through dualistic and emanistic ideas.1
They are pervaded by a feeHng hostile to the Old Testament,
especially to its prophetical parts, in which is presented the true,
living monotheism of the Hebrews, by which Dualism and the
category of substantiaHty (to "Ov) are truly overcome.
If we take many passages of the Clementines by themselves,
it may be doubted whether they belong to a Christian, or
not rather to a Jewish sect. For they most zealously protest
against Christianity being something new. He may be blessed
who obeys Moses, though he knows not Jesus ; and he also who
obeys Jesus though he knows not Moses, or does not submit to
1 This Is seen in a still further degree in the Elkesaites: Epiph. Haer
xxx. 17, liii. ; see above. x

204 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
him, provided neither blasphemes Moses or Jesus. Both, how
ever, deserve censure : the true doctrine is, that Moses and
Christ are one and the same (Horn. xvii. 4 ; xviii.. 4, 13, 14).
There were righteous persons before the appearing of Jesus (xi.
25 ff.). The freedom of the will is inviolate (ii. 15 ; x. 4, 5 ;
xi. 8). On the other hand, however, there appears in them
the strongest form of supernaturalism, especially in their doc
trine concerning the Prophets of truth and concerning baptism,
i.e., concerning illumination and the forgiveness of sins. In
order to survey the connection of their system, we set out from
their material and formal principle, for, they carefully set forth
both. The material principle is God's absolute unity. The funda
mental definition of God is, that He is pure being, rest (dvd-
iraveri,<i), and out of Him is only nothing (xvfi. 7, 8). Thus
He, thought as the bv, ovtw; ov, is Himself also the All. This
would involve us fn those dark absolutes to which the concept of
God in perverted Judaism and heathenism gravitated, as to their
common centre. The world, including man, stands over against
this bv as the vacuum which has to be filled by the Being who
is. But, with Philo, they do not abide by this definition of God
as the bv ; the Hebrew concept of God comes to the rescue of
their chief definitions. God is good, and especially righteous.
The goodness is thought as physical, and hence is justly placed
deep under the ethical attribute of righteousness. Since, con
sequently, righteousness is the highest in God, God can reveal
nothing higher of Himself than this; and He also, because
He is righteous, cannot convey this revelation to the earlier
races (xviii. 13 ff.). The great weight, however, which is thus
laid on the (though imperfectly apprehended) ethical, conducts
still further ; it imposes the necessity of thinking God as per
sonal. This is so done as that form (o-^rjpM, pop<f>r]) is ascribed
to Him. He is the original beauty, thought under a human
type. He has members— eyes, ears, etc., — not because He
needs these, for He sees and hears everywhere, but still He has
them ; and we can thereby come to Him, for the formless is
unapproachable. As He has a body, however, — infinitely more
glorious, indeed, thaii the living spirit is in us,— so He has also
a soul ; and this is wisdom in Him, or the Pneuma (xi. 22 ; xvi.
10 ff.). Thus He is not the abstract Simple, but the Living-

THE PSEUDO-CLEMENTINES. 205
there is motion and distinction in Him ; and here appears already
a melting of the rigid monotheism, a leaning to a doctrine of
the Trinity, though it be only an advance of the Monad to the
Duad. This motion, indeed, does not exist, if regard be withdrawn
from the World of revelation ; but God, viewed by Himself, is
eternaUy united with wisdom as His spirit (xvi. 12), and His
body all-outshining. But His revelation is a movement of God
Himself, flowing forth in the double act of expansion and con
traction of Himself, of which the heart of man is the type.1
The Spirit of God (in this place, xvi. 12, caUedthe wisdom), as
He is internally, as the soul of God, eternally united to God, is
externally the self-stretched-out hand which completes revela
tion, forms the world, etc. The world of revelation is conse
quently God unfolding Himself : under this aspect, there is
finitude and time in Him. He does not, however, rise and
set in the world ; but sustains Himself in this self-expansion,
which is also represented as the radiance of a sun abiding in
eternal rest. To each act of self-expansion there is a corre
sponding retraction, the avo-ToXr), whereby God is ever again
the Monad. Of these expansions, the Clementines appear to
establish six ; to which correspond, in time, the six world-epochs,
which in the seventh find their point of rest in God ; in space,
there correspond to these the six directions, right, left, above,
under, before, behind. God, as the eternal rest in history and
the world of space, is the eternal sabbath and the moveless
centre. But though the world and revelation come into
actuality only through the self-unfolding and communication of
His essence, — nay, in a certain sense, the world is a momentum
of the Monad, which only as a duad is the concrete God, — they
nevertheless seek to maintain intact the concept of creation.
God in His inner being remains unchanged, the eternal rest :
He is, as has been said, under this inner aspect, not simply bv
but personal ; and this process of dilatation and contraction re
lates only to His superficies, is His actuality. As respects His
inner essence, He is eternally different from all things that have
1 A beginning for the position of a movement in God, though apart
from revelation, hes in the predicate, hypothetically assumed indeed (and
rejected by the Recognitions), that He is not simply unproduced, but that
He is producing Himself (Horn. xvii. 15, 16).

206 FIRST PERIOD. 11RST EPOCH.
come into being, or exist in space ; that essence can coexist
with no other being, but is exclusively peculiar to Himself — is
thus His mystery.1
In the created world man is the highest ; whose idea in like
manner brings all antitheses of the world to a concrete unity
in itself, as in the highest stage God does all antitheses in
general, of which motion and rest, dilatation and contraction
are the last. In the sphere of the world, however, the fluc
tuating position of the general in relation to the individual is
repeated ; similar to what was found, in the relation of the rest
ing God to His eWao-et?, in which He as much is not as is, and
which hence have as much a mundane independent existence, as
on the other hand they must not have this, the latter, inasmuch
as the world is again conceived as a momentum of the Divine
self-movement. Entirely similar stands in the created world
the idea of man, man simply — called also Adam, and Christ,
and the Son of God — over against the particular individual.2
Wherever the idea of man appears perfectly in an individual,
there is rather only a form of the appearance of Christ, the
created real idea of man ; there the momentum of individuality
and personality becomes popffi, — Christ is lowered to be the
garment of the eternal. On the other hand, freedom is
ascribed to each man, and the choice personally to turn to God
or not. This brings us to the 'formal principle of the Clementines.
Had they confined themselves to viewing the world as a self-
unfolding of God, they could have had nothing to say of a
world and revelation : there would have been nothing but a
Divine Hfe-process ; world and history would have eternally re
trograded into the Divine rest ; all becoming and all motion
would have become a mere appearance in the eternal God Him
self. But as this Divine motion already contemplates the world
as its end, so we have seen also that the Clementines, in fact,
1 Horn. x. 19 : To the Divine nature alone is it suited, and it is impos
sible it should dwell with another, that He alone, as the Creator of all, should
excel all : excel in power, for He creates all ; in greatness, as the infinite in
contrast with the Umited; in appearance, for He is the fairest ; in holiness,
understanding, etc.
2 And that this was the case with Adam, is assumed as certain in .the
Homilies, as he proceeded immediately from the hand of God, not mediately
through a finite agent.

THE PSEUDO-CLEMENTINES. 207
propose to maintain the momentum of the independent exist
ence of the world and of its distinction from God ; and this in
dependent existence culminates in the freedom, or the ethical
destination of men. By the placing of this in men, the posi
tion that God alone is all substance, the Being, and that all out
of Him is the nothing, the void, is not contradicted. For free
dom is itself only the void ; the form or the vessel for the sub
stance which God must give (comp. xvii. 8 with viii. 4 ; ii. 14
ff.). He gives it, on the one hand, by nature, whose unity is
the earth-spirit ; »on the other, by the Prophet of truth, that per
petual created idea of man = Christ.1 The former moves down
towards this world by all sensible phaenomena in which it dwells ;
the latter, on the contrary, solicits man's free will to the choice
of that which is to come. Both must God propound, that man
may choose. Now were freedom nothing but the void, which
may become full or remain empty, all would depend on what
first entered to fill the void. Hence it is said " that the soul of
man is invested with the Divine breath or spirit " (irvor/, irvevpa,
Horn. xvi. 16) ; further, that God first calls men, and produces
the good desire to hear His word. Thus this is not their
"Biov, their meritorious act. Since, however, there is already
something akin to the divine placed in them, and Hving in
them, and likewise, on the other side, there are also earthly de
sires in them, they are beings who have to act under a twofold
tendency, and which side they shall yield to is their own matter.
If they had of themselves willed' to act as reason dictated, there
would have been no need for either Moses or Jesus. But the
race of man is in a state of alienation from God ; the earth has
become like a house fuU of thick smoke, so that we can no
longer see the sun ; and the earth-spirit, in its thousand forms, is
become the only, irresistible power over man, since man can no
longer choose, as now only one object remains for him.2
1 Appendix, Note WWW.
2 By means of the Fall a reversal of principles has come to pass.
Whilst at first,' according to the law of the Syzygies (ii. 37 ; iii. 21, 23, 33),
the first (Adam) was the right (Ssg/oV), the imperfect left (Eve), which
follows upon the perf ect, was the second, now in the world it is the imper
fect that is first, though unconsciously it mediates the perfect (see preced
ing note ; Horn. viii. 10, 11). And this is the Divine side of the matter,
which prepares the way for the opinion, that so the history of the world has

208 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Hence, from time to time Christ appears, the eternal Prophet
of truth in perfect men (Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Moses, Jesus). Particularly, there are seven columns
(before Christ), placed like Hght-towers in the ages, which re
present the presence of truth upon the earth, or restore it when
lost. They have essentially the same always to announce ; yet
it is impossible for this system to escape a certain progress.
Thus, before Moses, God was revealed more as the Good Being,
by Moses as the Just One. Bectitude is the Highest in God, and
hence the revelation in Jesus cannot transcend this. But still
there is an advance onwards, derived from Him. The limits of
particularism are broken through; errors that have crept in,
such as circumcision, sacrifice, and the like, are removed : on the
other hand, the remission of sins, connected intimately with a
definite institute, holy baptism (which here takes the place of
circumcision), is always within reach of the penitent ; and the
conservation of truth on the earth is assured through the con
tinuance of the office of that Prophet of truth. The priest
hood, indeed, is wholly abolished;1 but the Episcopate is the
Divine institution by which, through means of ordination, the
prophetic office is preserved on the earth, until Antichrist come,
when Jesus the true Christ wiU again appear (ii. 17).2
Occasion is thus found for a supernatural revelation, from
the absolute darkness in which the creation of God would other
wise be (H. 6-10). This revelation is partly an inner, partly an
outer one; though the relation of these to each other is not
very clearly set forth. Both are under the direction of the
everlasting Christ. On the side of the inner as weU as the
outer, however, by-paths are refused; neither visions nor the
Holy Scriptures are the proper trustworthy vehicle of revelation.
In both, the evil spirit is operative (ii. 38 ; iii. 8, 46 ff.). On
the other hand, the deductions of reason do not suffice.3 But
been willed by God. (What in God's thoughts or in the world must, as
the highest end, be first, that is actually the second and last.)
1 Horn. iii. 19; xi. 16, 32; iii. 26. The bishop is the visible repre
sentative of Christ (Horn. iii. 66 ff.). He unites with Christ.
2 The Homilies know nothing of a propitiatory oflice of Christ. Christ's
sufferings (xii. 7) are noticed only as a pattern of patience and service for
others. Sins are partly atoned for by suffering (xii. 10) and virtue,
partly forgiven by God without atonement.
3 Horn. xv. 5 : sroATnj tixCpopx pcira^v feoo-ifeix; \6yun xxi run rij; (piAo-

PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE HOMILIES. 209
there needs the Prophet of truth, who, as soon as He has
authenticated His claims, is to be believed in respect of all thing's
remote. To this authentication it belongs, negatively, that He
does not impeach the fundamental truth of the Divine unity and
rectitude ; that He does not deny that the world is God's work
(H. 16 ff.), and consequently that He says nothing against God's
glory (comp. H. 40, 51) : Positively the criterion is, that He' fore
tells what is purely contingent, not by means of natural know
ledge, consequently supernaturally ; and that He states simply
what is full of mystery (Hi. 12, 15). The mysteries, indeed, which
He utters may not contain aught essential to rehgion ;x for the
essential doctrine is that -of the unity and rectitude, etc., of
God. " Faith in God's unity and rectitude," it is said, ix. 20,
" forms a new creature ; and as no man can dp good if he does
not know that God is just (Hi. 31), so the man who is full of
this faith is not in a condition to sin."
This knowledge, however, of the unity and rectitude of
God cannot be revealed for the first time by the Prophet of
truth, since it is rather the criterion by which He Himself is to be
tried ; all that His appearance can do, is to vivify what has been
already deUvered. We are thus referred to the inner revela
tion which is presupposed by the outer. The soul is divine
breath, and invests with immortality, being capable of assum
ing God's image (xvi. 10). Nevertheless, this natural innate
knowledge of God also is brought into relation with the Son,
the ante-mundane Christ. Not that He is to be thought as
the creator of it, for God alone creates (ii. 16, 10, 19); but
He, with ineffable hand, reveals it to the inner sense which
mysteriously Hes in all men's hearts (xviii. 6) ; and thus He
is the principle of the development of the inner sense. In
this way He is in a certain degree the world-spirit, as Nature
has its unity in the world-soul. By means of His pre-exist
ence in hypostatic form, He corresponds in a certain degree to
the idea of the Logos; but only on the ideal side of the
Logos, not on its creative, actual side. He represents, in the
. o-otpix;' 6 yap t% d'h.'/ihia; anolnt-in i-^u ix irpo<pnri'ix;, 6 li Tij? <pA<wo<p/«?
xxXh.ik.ayix; icapiytfitn ix droxxerpcZn loxti iripmrSpn rd; d%ao'ii£,ii;. Comp. ii.
6-10. 1 The new thing which Christ reveals in Jesus is only the glory of the
eternal kingdom (Horn, xviii. 17).
VOL. I. O

210 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
sphere of the formed, God as spirit, the world-soul nature in
God. The Prophet of truth has as His peculiar gift, that He
always knows aU, and can neither fail nor sin. Man could
not see God without being bHnaed, — nay, not even a higher
being, an angel or the Son of God ; but the Son has showed
God, for He Himself has a form which transcends what is
gross and. sensible (acrap/eo? elBea, Horn. xvii. 16). His eye is
infinite, and His spirit eternal (Hi. 12) ; from the Spirit of God
He knoweth all things (Horn. H. 6, 10 ; iH. 11, 12, 17, etc.). He
is called the image of the Eternal King (Horn. iii. 17), and Him
self King (Hi. 19 ; viii. 21, 22). To the Son, who is from the
foundation of the world (air dp^s al&voi), was it alone ap
pointed to reveal to whom He will the Father (Horn. xvHi. 13) ;
in this world He has the kingdom of the law, i.e., He is the
ruler by doctrine as moral lawgiver. Still, high as the Clemen
tines thus place Him, they nevertheless do not identify Him
with a-o(f>£a, but hold Him to belong to the sphere of the created
(xvi. 10 ff. 14-18). As, however, the angels, though acrapKot,,
can yet change themselves into bodies, so the Son also, to whom
alone it is given to look upon the Father undazzled (xvii. 16).
As often as He appears, His appearance as the Prophet of truth
displays God's image for the age in which it happens. Thus
Adam had the pure spirit of the Messiah in him, as he was
born of the pure hand of God ; and so in others has the spirit
of the Messiah exhibited itself historically. It would be im
pious1 to refuse that to the first man, and to attribute it to
another, the product of sinful seed by the coition of the sexes.
It is alone pious, however, to regard the Messiah-spirit not as
associated with every individual of the species, but to vindicate
this as the privilege only of that subject who, standing above
individuals, runs through all time from the beginning of the
world, changing His name with His form, until he fall upon
His own age, and, anointed by God's grace, for His labours' sake
shall find eternal rest. This being is proved worthy already in
Adam to be a lord and ruler of aU things. .
It thus appears that His appearance also in Jesus is only
one among others. The same thing is shown under another v
1 Appendix, Note XXX.

PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE HOMILIES. 211
aspect. As the active and the passive in God are distinct, and
united as masculine and feminine, so does the perfection of the
world consist in its being an image of this unity. Hence the
active principle in the created world (the Son of God) seeks the
passive, the human form, to determine it and fill it ; and the
soul of man correspondingly, as a bride, finds in the Son of God
as it were her bridegroom (Horn. xiii. 16). These together in
their union represent God's image. And this union of the mas
culine and the feminine is represented ethically in the funda
mental virtue <j>t,\av0pmirui. For this is compounded of com
passion, which is passive, and Eros, the giver of the masculine
impulse.1 We should have thus a sort of general incarnation of
the Son of God, not indeed in the immediate natural form, but
where everything is presented under an ethical point of view.
Still there remains hardly any distinction between the Just Men
of the Old Testament, who are so reckoned by the Clementines,
or even beHevers since the appearance of Christ in Jesus, and
Jesus Himself. It is evident that the Son of God is thought
here as the common spirit of the true Church ; and that in con
sequence of His not being discriminated from the Holy Ghost —
of whom also, in the doctrine of the Church, a sort of general
incarnation is predicated — the author has been involved in the
impossibiHty of vindicating for Jesus Christ an exclusive place.
He feels himself, indeed, constrained to view the Son of God
hypostaticaUy ; but Hi order to this, he severs Him from the
divine, so that by becoming united to this AU-Christ, we do not
at all become united to God Himself. The last cause of this
is, that he recognises in God and God's image — the world that
is to become the Church — only a duadic, not a- triadic process.
He knows not, that is, to assign a place to the second, the
mediating momentum, in which, on the one hand, the distinction
of God from the world must culminate (not in sin, but rather
in the highest act of free love) ; and on the other hand, the union
of God with the world and the world with God is in its prin
ciple posited : he hastens to the goal, which, however, from
neglecting to take the way that leads to it, he reaches only
apparently, whilst in truth, and logically, he has not got essen
tially beyond the beginning. He contents himself with an
1 Horn. xii. 6, 7. The tpfoanQpairia is dppinMrfav. Comp. Horn.
xvi. 12

212 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
apparent mediator, a Christ who may as well be called the
Holy Ghost, and yet is not the Holy Ghost of Christianity.1
V As respects the death and resurrection of Christ, the Cle
mentines know not to obtain for them any dogmatical signifir
cancy. Nevertheless, to the manifestation of the Christ in
Jesus there still remains a place all its own. Were this wholly
wanting, these HomUies could not be viewed as a Christian
phaenomenon. Besides what has been said above on Baptism
(viH. 22, 23 ; ix. 19, 20, 23 ; xi. 25 ff.) and on the Episcopate
(Horn. iii. 60-70), there belongs to this head the doubtful pas
sage, which speaks concerning the metamorphoses of the Son of
God, who pervades the duration of the world (iii. 20). For
this manifestation shaU not continue without end, but the
Christ finds His goal and His time from which He has an
abiding repose. The state of rest, however, He finds along with
His last manifestation ; and this last is that in Jesus. Jesus
Christ is King of the pious ; His virtue is rewarded with lord
ship (iii. 19, 20) ; the manhood of Jesus, consequently, must
also endure ; though it is nowhere said that He shall judge the
world. In Jesus, the Son of God is the bringer of the universal
law, which quenches the fire of altars, and brings peace, love, and
remission of sins (iii. 19, 26). He endured temptations to sin
(viH. 21) ; He also spared not His blood (iii. 19) ; as a father He
cared for His children. He was endowed also with a firm, all-
embracing wUl ; and it would be heathenish to say that He, the
Prophet of truth, as He proved Himself to be by His predictions
concerning Jerusalem, possessed the knowledge that was peculiar
to Him at one time, and had it not at another (Hi. 11-1 7).2
The author is weU aware that he has not, in what he has ad
vanced, come up to what was held determined in the Christo
logy then predominant ;3 he feels that he is at variance with
the rest of Christians, and is peevish and vexed on account of
this. Christianity cannot be satisfied with seeing in Christ
only a semi-doketic middle-being ; for, if the mediator is only
a creature, the reconciHation between God and the world remains
only half-accompHshed : it is not a reconciHation which reaches
to the being and to the basis of the human heart and the heart
of God. But to the author of the Clementines it is an offence
1 Appendix, Note YTY. 2 Appendix, Note ZZZ.
¦ Appendix, Note AAAA.

PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE HOMILIES. 213
that deity should be ascribed to Christ. The monarchy of God
is for him the highest ; idolatry is the summit of ungodliness
(Horn. ii. 20, 19 ; iii. 6). It seems to him a small gain that
the world should be converted from polytheism to a belief in
the deity of Christ ; on the contrary, in his view, the last de
ception thus propagated; is worse than the first. Hence he
endeavours to invalidate the grounds on which the Church
rests the deity of Christ, and gives his own explanation of some
of the principal passages on which that is founded. The
utterance, Gen. i. 26, "Let us make man," has reference,
according to him, not to Christ, not even to the Son of God
from the beginning, but to the Spirit of God, or the Wisdom
which created the world. The passage, Matt. xi. 27, "No
man knoweth the Son but the Father, and no man the Father
but the Son, etc.," Peter explains, in opposition to Simon
Magus, who defends the deity of Christ, as meaning that
Christ has brought nothing essentially new, no new idea of
God. Jesus, it is true, says that no man knows the Father
but He ; but this cannot mean that the pious under the Old
Testament did not possess the true idea of God ; on the con
trary, it means that the wicked Hve as if they knew not God, —
the discourse being of practical knowledge ; or, It is the Son of
God from the beginning, the alone appointed revealer, and none
other, through whom all pious men have known and acknow
ledged God; or, in fine, the words, "No man knoweth the
Father but the Son only," mean, No man knows whose son I
am, — they think I am David's; which is also the meaning of
the words, " No man knoweth the Son but the Father." For
the rest, there are endless ways of viewing the passage ; and
so the author lets the matter rest with the conclusion, that
Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc., have known the Father (Horn.
xvii. 4; xviH. 13, 14, 4).
He also, however, brings dogmatical reasons against Christ's
deity. A prophet who seduced to other gods, was, under the
law, to be stoned to death. It was consequently the mark of
a false prophet, that he sought to introduce another than God
into His place. It is true that angels are called gods, but only
abusively. It was an angel who spoke to Moses from the bush,
who wrestled with Jacob, and was born as Immanuel (Horn. xvi.
14). To the Magus Simon the author makes one say, " If

214 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
whosoever speaks against the just and only God is worthy of
death, then was thy teacher deservedly put to death." To
which Peter repHes : " Our Lord neither taught other gods
along with Him who made all things, nor did He announce
Himself as a god; God, however, justly rewarded with bless
edness Him who called Himself Son of God, who made all
things." Simon asks, " Does it not appear to you that He is
God, since He is of God ?" Peter : " How that can be, say
thou ; for we cannot tell it to thee ;' we have not heard it from
Him. It appertains to the Father not to be begotten, to the
Son to be begotten. That which is begotten cannot be com
pared (oi ovyicplveTai) with the unbegotten, or, it may be, the
self-begotten." Simon : " But they nevertheless are at one in
this, that they are begotten, though not in the same way."
Peter : " He who is not in all respects the same with any one,
cannot participate with him in all his appeUations. The One
is self-begotten, or, it may be, unbegotten ; that which is be
gotten cannot be at the same time this, even though he be of
the same nature. Human bodies also have immortal souls
which are invested with God's Spirit, and, proceeding from God,
are of the same nature, but yet are not gods. If, however,
any one will, nevertheless, on this account call them gods,
then must all souls of men, the dead and the living, the born
and those yet to be begotten, be gods. WUt thou, then, from
mere love of opposing me, affirm this, that they also are gods ?
In that case, what great matter is it for Christ to be called God ?
For He has that which all have (c. 16). We call Him God to
whom just that is proper which no other" can have."1 In what,
then, does this consist, according to him ? In purely physical
attributes. God is on all sides without bounds ; hence He is
also called Infinite. Now, since no one but He is boundless, it
is absolutely necessary to call Him Infinite. He who denies
that Hes ; for there cannot be together two infinites in all re
spects, as one would limit the other ; and thus is one the In
comparable. " I seek not," continues Peter, " to denote to
thee the name of God, for it is unspeakable ; but it expresses,
according to convention among men, a fixed concept. If thou
give this name to another, thou wilt readily also ascribe to him
the essential quality belonging to it, without intending to do so.
1 What is peculiar to God is consequently incommunicable.

PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE HOMILIES. 215
The spoken name is also the precursor of what at first was
not wished to be said. In this way the exaggeration is extended
to that which before had remained unsaid, and the honour be
longing to God is transferred to that which was before unknown."
Here we see clearly how this Monarchian accounts for the rise
of the beHef in the deity of Christ. Since he cannot believe
in it, even though the words of Christ Himself lead to it, and
since he has not found, or as yet known, in his reHgious expe
rience, which fluctuates unsteadily between the Magian and the
Pelagian system, the point of rest, the true reconcUiation, in
possession of which a man is constrained to think nothing less
of Christ than that He is Mediator as God-man, he seeks to
trace the origin of the belief in Christ's Godhead to the word
" God," which had been applied to Christ ; which is almost on
a parallel with the wisdom of Anselm's Gaunilo, who seeks to
derive the belief in God from the sound of the word " God."*
And it is quite the same with the instance which is adduced
from God's infinitude against the Godhead of Christ. For
thereby the writer announces that, much as he speaks of recti
tude, the central element in the concept of God lies not in
spiritual, but in physical qualities, in an outward infinitude. It
is worthy, however, of notice also, how he in this way comes
into coUision with himself. For when he, in order to view God
as a person, and perhaps stiU more through the influence of the
physical stand-point with which he is entangled, calls God the
Beautiful, and ascribesJasJEIim form and body, Simon retorts :
" If God has form, then has He a place, and is limited." To
which Peter replies : " God is the Existent One ; His place is the
non-existent. But the non-existent cannot be compared with
the existent ; for space, when it is not filled, is virtually nothing.
Thus the non-existent comes to be space, or a containing thing,
only through the Existent One. Moreover, that which is sur
rounded is often greater than that which surrounds ; e.gr., the
* [Gaunilo was a monk who, in reply to Anselm's Proslogium on the
being of God, wrote a tract under the title " Liber pro insipienti," in allu
sion to Anselm's use of Ps. xiv. 1 in his treatise. In this Gaunilo main
tained, that from the mere fact that a certain fixed concept is attached to
the word " God" in the understanding, it does not follow that God is so
comprehended as to be realized, that is, to be believed in as an actual
existence. In the text, the author seems to me to have fallen into some
inaccuracy as to the position of Gaunilo in this dispute. — Te.]

216 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
sun, which is surrounded by the aether. As it sends forth
beams, so does God also, whose it is to send forth an infinitely
diffused communication." But if, without prejudice to the
Divine personality (ayf\pa, pop^rj Qeov), and the actual exist
ence of the world of space, it must be possible to think God as
infinite and unlimited, since the world is posited as the momen
tum of the Divine Hfe itself, and this as surpassing aU bounds,
and yet ever abiding constant ; this either amounts to nothing,
or this solution of the antinomy in the relations of the definite
and limited to the unHmited must tend to the advantage of
Christology. If God is not actually immediately infinite, but
if this is only a secondary quality in Him mediated by will,
inasmuch as infinite extension is only possible in space, in a
world, and this cannot be given Him, but only can exist
through His will, so that the willing of a world and the wUling
of Himself in it must precede His endless existence in it : if
this be so, one cannot see why there should not be for Christ as
weU as for God, who is conceived as of perfect beauty, an aU-
dominating, all-embracing infinitude, mediated- through the
inner intensive infinitude by an act of will ; i.e., why the author
does not, in place of God endowed with beauty and form, pre
sent the idea of the perfect God-man.
But, indeed, as the principle of finitude, -which in the doc
trine of the Church is represented by the Son, is transferred
to the Father as possessing form and shape, there remains for
the Son no essential, independent position. As, however, this
momentum of finitude is immediate in God as the beautiful,
and is that in G'od by which the mediation of a transit to the
world and the becoming man has been made possible, by which
the fixed concept of the quiescent God has been embodied ;
and though then, by means of the efccrrao-i,<; and o-ucttoX^, the
rigid concept of ' God has been relaxed, yet, as we have seen
above, the Son, who must represent as well as mediate the dis
tinction, is thus shorn of His rights ; and the same is true of the
difference between God and the world in the simply dyadic
process. The longing which conducts the soul to the idea of
an incarnation of God — in which the difference is alike fully
set forth, and the union is in principle begun — is here assuaged
by the assumption that God is possessed of form and beauty in
Himself ; and with this there is left for Christ only a place

PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE HOMILIES. 217
among the created. And yet this Adam-Christ, who is in a
certain measure the truth in all the pious, fluctuates incon
stantly hither and thither between Divine attributes, or the
universal world-spirit, and a created hypostasis of the nature
of an angel. One may state the matter thus : The tendency
which conducts to Sabellianism and that which conducts to
Arianism are as yet confused, muddily mixed together ; just as
in the beginnings of Ebionism, Ebionism and Doketism lay
bound together in the mind of Cerinthus. They begin to sepa
rate in the beginning of the third century, as the Becognitions
of the Pseudo-Clement prove.1 The Ebionitic heresy has in
the Homilies become so far developed, that it sets forth its
reverse side, Doketism, and falls over into this; How loosely
the two sides of Christ's Person were conceived to be united, is
expressed, partly, in the multiplicity of the appearances of
Christ, which of necessity renders the form as compared with
the substance a matter of indifference ; partly in the slight
significancy which the Clementines attach to the human side of
Christ. A similar career we shall see in Doketism, to which
we now proceed ; so that both, in so far as they are Christian
heresies, pass over into each other, and only for a period flow
on side by side as unconscious, doubters of each other, till at
length the necessity will arise to bring out a common principle
of error in both, whose multiform variety and flexibility retains
nevertheless this of uniformity, that it is always serviceable to
the growing development of the Church doctrine.
1 Appendix, Note BBBB.

218 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.

CHAPTEE THIED.

DOKETISM.

Ebionism, which took its stand ¦ on the history of Jesus as a
teacher or prophet, a worker of miracles and a lawgiver, ad
hered as a vis inertia to the dogmatico-historic movement. In
stead of this movement, it sought itself to be immanent as a
momentum — to set itself up as an independent magnitude for
itself — to subject the Christian principle to itself — to hold and
bind it to itself. It met the development in the Church seduc
tively, and received from it, in many points, support ; as in the
at first not yet vanquished disposition to overestimate the escha
tological element, to lay too little weight on the reconciliation in
Christ, as weU as to abide too much merely by the prophetic and
royal offices of Christ, the necessary result of which was a post
poning of the Person of Christ, and of the act of His becoming
man, to His baptism, by which He was inaugurated to these
two offices. Nor was its seductive power broken, until, through
the sound development in the Church, the- possibility of Ebion
ism was excluded in aU points. This development, however,
was not a Httle furthered, both negatively and positively, by
means of the Ebionitic heresy : -negatively, because Ebionism
in its separate pecuHarity stood forth as a clear and significant
warning beacon, teaching what the consequence would be if the
principle of Ebionism was suffered by the Church to remain
not whoUy conquered ; positively, because it represented a per
fectly legitimate element of the Christology, and had a just
ground against the Church so long as she neglected to incor
porate, as an essential element in the Christology, the actual
manifestation of Christ in His humiliation, of which it was
never weary of reminding her, and to bring this into harmony
with His higher nature; i.e., so long as Doketism was still

DOKETISM. 2.19
capable of exerting power. And thus was Ebionism rendered
by the Lord of the Church a blessing to her, so long as in hei
temporal manifestation an Ebionitic or a Doketic tendency re
mained unconquered. In fact, the development in the Church
in the course of the two first centuries was not as yet secured
in itself against Doketic lapses. There needs only to be recaUed
to remembrance here, that the one-sided inchnation to eschato
logy, and to the viewing of Christ as the Lord of glory, already
opened a door to Doketism. On the other hand, the sudden
and convulsive impression which Christianity made by her en
trance on mankind, bursting as she did like an illuminating
and discriminating flash into the ancient night, with the new
heavenly world which she unfolded, with the new concept of
God which she brought, could not but have a similar effect
upon minds recollecting themselves as from a chaotic dream-life,
gathering themselves up above themselves, above the old world
and the new ; so as for a time to induce to a snapping asunder
of all the threads of the historical past, in order the more purely
to construct according to its nature the new supernatural state
of things, so essentially different from the old. In the general,
however, this is the especially grand thing in Christ's appear
ance, that in it the extremest ends and antitheses marvellously
interpenetrate. But to the as yet unexercised Christian think
ing there lay in this a temptation, since it knew not how to har
monize directly the extremes, to abide by that which seemed
best to accord with the newness and greatness of Christianity,
and rather to dispense with the lower, the human side, than to
detract from the higher. It was impossible, certainly, alto
gether to overlook the former ; for in that case the revelation
in Christianity could not have been regarded as a reality, and
such a thoroughgoing Doketism could, as little as the cor
responding Ebionism (see above, p. 199), lay claim to be called
a Christian heresy. But if we take our stand by those Doketae
and Gnostics who did not seek utterly to deprive the Christo
logy of a historical basis, but were wilHng to allow that in
Jesus the eternal idea of the Christ came somehow to reality,
it may be said of them, that a higher strain of Christian con
sciousness was suffered to infuse its influence into this tendency,
however dangerous it was in other respects. And this is shown,
too, not only in its relation to the jejune and frigid Ebionism,

220 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
but also in the hymnology, which appears to have reached a
flourishing condition soonest among them.
The most ancient trace of Doketism is found in the New
Testament.1 But it reached its higher significancy first in the
more fully developed Gnostic systems. This is not the place
.to sketch these in their full extent; nevertheless,, something
by way of introduction must be premised. The common
element in Gnosticism is opposition to the simple empirical
faith, with which the Gnostics reproached the Church gene
rally, as being founded merely on authority, and having for
its contents not the inner truths of Christianity, but merely
its shell ; its aim was positively to apprehend the spiritual con
tents of Christianity in a spiritual manner. In itself, this is
none other than what the Church doctrine aspires to ; but the
spiritual manner with which it has to do is primarily religion
and religious experience, according to which the contents of that
which must be taken up by the spirit are determined. In reli
gion as such the point of issue is not spontaneity, but depend
ence on and receptivity of the reconciling grace ; and it is from
this, but only secondarily, that true spontaneity in knowing and
doing is developed. With the Gnostics, on the contrary, if we
omit Marcion and Apelles, the principal thing is not the re
ligious interest, but that of knowing? which in the sphere of
religion is only one momentum among others. In the region of
reconciliation they tarried only contemplatively ; contemplation
is their dvdirava-i<;. The way to this eternal rest of contemplation
is with them knowledge ; in apprehension and knowledge, how
ever, human spontaneity is already the principal thing. Where
knowledge is constituted the supreme excellence of man, there
results by consequence an intellectual Pelagiani^m, since no
moral and religious regeneration of the man is desired by
knowledge, but this itself is sought as perfection, just as a
1 1 John iv. 2. The heretics referred to here (dmixpio-roi) do not deny
that Christ has come at all, but only that He has come in the flesh. The
other passage, 1 John ii. 22, signalizes those who distinguish Jesus from the
Christ ; which may be either Ebionitic or Doketic, as in Cerinthus both are
found in turn. The heretics also referred to, 061. ii. 8, 17 f., and those of
the Pastoral Epistles, if they followed out their principles in Christology,
were Doketic. That Ignatius and other apostolic Fathers mention this
heresy, has been already noticed.
2 Appendix, Note CCCC.

GNOSTICISM. 221
practical Pelagianism emerges where the dignity and worth of
man are viewed as lying in work and ethical deed.
Viewing Gnosticism as thus a one-sided system, which has
its correlate in the ergismus of Jewish Christianity, we may say
that the simple New Testament Pistis, which combines the prac
tical and the theoretic in a higher unity, is in these two divari
cated very much as individual peculiarities existing previous to
the reception of Christianity determined.1 It would be a mis
take here to seek to arrange according to nations ; in Gnos
ticism, where men born Jews hellenize, etc., we rather see how
the pre-Christian nationalities are reducible to mere types of
certain one-sidednesses of human nature generally.
Gnosticism is one of the notable phenomena of the Christian
Church. In it the interest in Christianity as the truth was
aroused to the greatest extent, and the previously languidly
advancing development of Christian knowledge received an im
pulse which operated through centuries. Looking at the age
now before us, we may say that never had so powerful a desire
for knowledge been sent forth upon Christianized humanity as
there was then. It is true that before Christ a great process of
reHgious phUosophizing had been introduced upon many points,
and in various ways ; and to this, which evidently had a bearing
on the preparation for Christianity, the initiatory Christian
gnosis attached itself.2 But it was. in Christianity that, for the
first time, the decisive ferment was introduced which completed
that decomposing process which was going on confusedly in the
pre-Christian rehgions and religious ideas, and at the same time
also completely effected the separation and clearing off of what
was heterogeneous. It may, indeed, certainly be said, that in
1 It is to be understood that none of these one-sided views is altogether
detached from rehgion itself ; otherwise they could not form the subject
of treatment here. What concerns us here is only the preponderance of
the one over the other. The Gnostics sought a religious knowledge, the
others a religious practice.
2 To the Philonian religious philosophy, after a Hellenistic manner,
there attached themselves especially Valentinus and his school ; to the
Dualistic in Syria and the surrounding country, represented, probably,
already before Christ by an ophitic system (comp. Baur, Die Christhche
Gnosis, p. 194, n. 36), Saturnilos, the Christianizing Ophites, the Se-
cundians, Bardesanes, etc. ; in fine, to a Judaizing theosophy, Cerinthus,
Basilides, the Gnostic Ebionites about Pella and Arabia, and the Pseudo-
Clementine homilies, ''pe note EEEE in Appendix.

222 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
Gnosticism generally the still unsubdued remains of Paganism
and Judaism pressed into Christianity and disfigured it ; and
this is to a certain extent true, as well as the conflict of the Chris
tian principle against this disfigurement. But, on the other
hand, jfche historian must here also recognise the great drama,
that aU that had been strong and great in the faith of those who
lived before Christ pressed on all sides, in the various forms of
Gnosticism, into the sphere of the Christian principle, that, freed
from error, it might through the' Christian principle survive for
ever amid the decay of the ancient world. And from it Chris
tianity itself became a great gainer. Now, for the first time,
could it be proved the absolute religion for all mankind ; for,
by contact with all the principles of pre-Christian religious
power, with which it had to do in the heresies that arose in its
own bosom, and thereby as with itself, or a part of what it pre
sented to the world, it learned for the first time to know itself
in concreto, and proved itself to be the truth of all that was pre-
Christian. Now the Church is constrained to show aU the mo
menta which before were scattered and one-sided, as what she
herself carries in far higher manner in her proper substance.
The whole spiritual world of the pre-Christian period, rich but
confused, drinks and draws into itself the Christian principle
which has been historically displayed ; there begins to be con
structed out of the material of the old its own proper world of
thought ; and though the erection be at first fantastic, though
it ethnicizes after a dualistic or Hellenistic manner, the Chris
tian principle in it always remains true to its vocation, to be the
religion which comprehends and encloses the truth of all that
was pre-Christian in itself. One might even say that the whole
process of religious history before Christ is rapidly recapitulated
in Gnosticism ; turned on all sides, there is in it an utterance
that the Christian principle is conscious of, and it has to show
that there is given in it the all-sided, the entire truth ; that it is
what are justly called religions in their truth. The ethnic de
sire to form gods had been extinguished : it is the .aim of the
Gnostic thinking to preserve these as categories clothed in
symbol, and to construct a sort of Christian Olympus. But as
a consequence of this, it foUows that the Christian principle to
which they were approximated1 overpowers them, or assimilates
itself A work certainly of boundless significancy, ,for the

GNOSTICISM. 2^:3
making of Christianity, hitherto enclosed within narrow Hmits,
actually a world-religion.1
If we regard the Gnostics only as those who completed this
noteworthy fact in the world's history, the spectacle is indeed
unsatisfying, for each of them appears too much in love with
that form of pre-Christian belief which he undertakes to in
corporate with Christianity, or to show to be in it ; and so it
is not the pure Christian principle itself which this work com
pletes, and the advantage of which it promotes. If also there
was with them a bringing of all that was pre-Christian into
connection with what is Christian, if this was already raised
above itself, and if the power of the Judaic and ethnic prin
ciple was already somewhat broken by the beginnings of Chris
tian thinking, — still it was only when the full Christian prin
ciple co-operated in this, that the exclusion of the false and the
reservation of the eternal were completely effected; when it
links itself to the movement of these true momenta by which an
entrance is promoted, and regenerates them out of itself. In
the simple faith, neither Gnostic nor ergistic, but such as is to
be presupposed as the unity of both of these, the purer Christian
principle has always had its representatives, who came forward
at the right time reconcUing and uniting, and who confirmed
and ratified the common faith as well by the conscious master
ing of possibUities which had always been manifest, as by the
conscious adoption and use of, new momenta of what the faith
contains. They did not, however, accomplish this by deter
mining against the gnosis, but by the Church's entering into it ;
without giving up its peculiar religious character, the Church,
after the momentarily distracting and stormy Gnostic period,
entered upon that season of bloom which begins soon after the
middle of the second century.
The tendency to gnosis, accordingly, viewed in the gross,
was not an arbitrary undertaking of reason, but was one which,
led on by the pre-Christian history, was for the first time
• brought into a right track by the Christian principle, and con
ducted to aim at an intelligence above Christianity and the pre-
Christian religions.
1 Comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, i. 131.
" The Gnostics introduced studies, literature, and art into the Christian
Church."

224 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH. •
As the fruit of the common working of Gnosticism and the
Church Fathers, less cannot be signalized than the conscious
gain of the essential momenta of the Christian concept of God.
Every religion is what it is through its concept of God. This
is alike the signature of each. It is not the problem of evil,
nor is it the cosmogony, which, on the whole, is the question
Gnosticism proposes to deal with ; but if we recognise in it an
attempt to reconcile all the principles, all the concepts of God
in the pre-Christian religions, with Christianity, we shall reach
the point from which all the species of Gnosticism diverge, and
may be recognised according to their actual significancy by
considering what is the Christian concept of God, and what
those were that lay beyond Christianity. As respects the latter,
they were, when viewed in a religio-philosophic light, in their
ethnic forms pantheistic, partly dualistic, partly monistic ; which
two are the reverse of each other, like joy and grief.1 In all
forms of both, the physical predominates : the concept of God
remains bound in physical definitions. It is true, that since
HeUenic science penetrated like a corrosive fluid all these reli
gions, the ancient form of the collective nature-reHgions dis
appeared ; the old deities, and polytheism itself, came to be
reduced to the "Ov, the absolute simple substance. But as this
is not the one Hving God of religion, thought cannot rest here,
but turns into the duaHstic or monistic faith of Pantheism, as
before the religious instinct had done the same in order to gain
a concrete concept of God. The intellect before Christianity
was, in all that it laid down positively, thoroughly fettered by
ethnic presumptions.
Now, in the ethnic rehgions and systems of a monistic form,
God is the absolute Being and Life, Power and Beauty, in
some respects also Wisdom. If He is thereby also determined
to be Goodness, still this has not ethical aims, but something
finite for its substance, just as those other attributes are taken
physically. DuaHsm, on the contrary, recognises in the ^vatt
the diversity which Hes hidden in it from the beginning ; and as'
it becomes more clearly apprehended by the mind, it enunciates
this as the antithesis no longer simply of light and darkness, of
friendly and hostUe powers, but of spirit and matter ; and this,
whether in a more rugged form it repudiates all mediation; or
1 Appendix, Note DDDD.

ETHNIC AND JUDAIC GNOSTICISM. 225
slips in something mediate (e. gr. the psychical). Here God is
thought as a spiritual Nature ; spirits are an emanation from
Him ; the world is also, nevertheless, as much a process of the
Divine life and passion as an act of the Divine will. Dualism
cannot be a teleological form of religion, though it is conceived
in the effort towards this, but must always have a character
rather aesthetic and fatalistic than ethical. In fine, the Hebrew
rehgion is teleologic Monotheism. Its pre-eminence does not
lie in its possessing unity in place of duality or plurality. For
Pantheism also, the stand-point of substance has a unity,
though a transient one. But its greatness lies in this, that in
it the duality of the natural and spiritual physis is made to
coalesce in the common dependence from a higher principle,
which marks out for each its proper place, that, namely, of rec
titude, which apportions to each its problem and its lot accord
ing to its worthmess. The idea of rectitude first established
the Monotheism of the patriarchal religion, and it is the
essential substance of the Law.
These three stand-points, which correspond to the three
chief forms of the pre-Christian religions, stand, over against
each other in Gnosticism as religio-philosophic.1 Some sought
to abide by the view of .Christianity which regards it as that by
which the antithesis of spirit and matter was first f uUy brought
to view, and the structure of a pneumatic world out of this
hylic world, elevating itself to heaven, is begun ; whilst the old
world, including even Judaism, was hylic, and belonged to an
evU, dark God. The Valentinian system sought hellenicaUy to
soften the wild, fantastic dualism in its oldest form, the ophitic,
and by the extrusion of the pantheistic side in the dualism to
produce unity. It recognises no absolute principle in matter,
for it teaches its annihilation ; in order to mediate the antitheses,
the physical, according to the Platonic trichotomy, was interpo
lated. The idea of beauty retained its place. But the idea of
rectitude and of ethical love was wholly excluded; for the
object here is to remove the transcendence of God. On the
contrary, the Divine is defined as the All-life in diverse forms
and stages, as the world-forming, governing, and perfecting
power, — above all, as knowledge.2 The most strenuous efforts
1 Appendix, Note EEEE.
2 It is noticeable, that whilst the system distributes everything else to
VOL. I. 3P

226 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
are made to comprehend all being under thought, to represent
it as different phaenomenal stages of the Spirit as the thinker.1
Knowledge itself is the highest form of life ; and Christianity
perfects and deifies Hfe by the absolute knowledge which be
gins with it.
Against both these tendencies, in which we have represented
to us only Paganism under the double aspect of a dualistic and
a monistic Pantheism, the Judaistic form of the gnosis is fully
valid. This brings forward the ethical problem, and holds fast
by rectitude as the highest momentum in the concept of GtoA. >
thus presenting a higher Monotheism than that pantheistic one
is, such as essentially involves the concept of creation. Here
also Christianity must be regarded as that which perfectly
realizes the rectitude of God ; partly, inasmuch as it perfectly,
and without fail, announces to the world the will of God;
partly, inasmuch as this revelation, along with the forgiveness
of sins for those who better themselves, prepares and justifies
the decisive eschatological judgment for the unworthy. So
Cerinthus, and, after him, the Pseudo-Clementine HomUies.2
These three tendencies thus aimed to construe Christianity
as it were by physics, or logic, or ethics, and to represent God
as the pneumatic nature, or thought, or rectitude. Hence it was
proposed to unite what was true in these systems ; for the one
stood in exclusive opposition to the others, and only the first two
could in a certain way be viewed as homogeneous complements
of each other. In these, however, the principle of nature-reli
gion stood in direct opposition to the ethical principle of Ju
daism. Each was valid against the other, and each also had its
weak point; for neither can rectitude be the highest in the
concept of God, nor, on the other hand, can His physical attri-
so many hypostases after a mythological fashion, the full Divine conscious
ness is ascribed only to One, the Only-begotten. He alone forms wholly
the original reason. He is in God Himself the Mediator of the Divine con
sciousness ; and, as the perfect mirror of the Propator, takes without ques
tion the highest place along with Him.
1 Appendix, Note FFFF.
2 Basilides, on the other hand, only partially belongs to this 'class,
through his doctrine of rectitude. His view of the universal Aptxprrfrixon
in men, of the pneumatic ixKoyi, and in general of grace fulfilling right
eousness, would bring him nearer to Christianity, were it not that with him
everything ethical is viewed physically. Comp. Grabe, Spicil. ii. 41.

MONTANISM. MARCION. 227
butes. A rectitude which only claims, but does not effectuate
is impotent : a benevolent power which dispenses its gifts only
arbitrarily, and which, treating sin as only apparent, leaves no
place for rectitude, is unethical. Both sides are unable to in
struct each other, and can only convert to the opposite error ;
for none of them, in so far as they speak of the supreme God,
has in his gnosis the, higher unity of the momenta in their
equal vaUdity, none has the pure Christian concept of God.
Only a bold creation from the fresh source of Christianity itself
could deliver the gnosis from its internal bonds.
Certainly there now appeared, as a rugged ergismus and
antagonist to the proper gnosis, a reaction of the reHgious feel
ing, which was spread widely through many lands, in Mon
tanism ; but though in its earliest, enthusiastic form, in which
it was hostUe to clear knowledge, it was indeed an enemy to
the death to the gnosis (though as onesided as itself), it could
neither give a reason for it, nor by its ecstasy overcome it. In
it there was threatened, in its religious definitiveness, an ergis
mus which erected piety into a good work. No sooner was it
matured, than the religious spirit and force dwelling in it must
needs come forth as productive and conflictive in the ecclesias
tical course.
It is, rather than anything else, a new form of the gnosis
itself, which attacks victoriously both those earlier principal
forms by means of a higher principle. If they had obscured
the Christian principle by recognising in it only the perfection
of the pre-Christian; Marcion brought forward boldly and
enthusiastically his absolute newness [of Christianity]. The
newness consists in this, that therein a new concept of God is
given : God is love. He is not, consequently, ethical goodness,
not a pneumatic nature, not knowledge ; but He is spiritual
love. As against the Judaic principle, he says : God regards
not desert nor service ; but His greatness is His pre-eminent
grace. Others, indeed, before him had viewed what preceded
Christianity in the gross as the time of the dominion of an
antitheistic, or, at least, not truly Divine power ; but yet none
of them had been able, from their stand-point, to do otherwise
tha'n assume the existence of pneumatic natures determined to
gnosis before Christianity; so that Christianity could only
awaken the slumbering germ, already posited, of theste pneu-

228 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH
matic natures, and thereby complete the pre-Christian. It
could create nothing new, nor, consequently, transmute the
old world into a new. And the Judaic principle also,, accord
ing to which the revelation of righteousness must suffice, pre
supposes an incorrupt state of human nature, and thereby
leaves for redemption only a precarious place. Marcion is the
first more clearly to present the antithesis between the old and
new world, as he is so filled with the new, the highest momen
tum in the concept of God, that he first, in the strength of this
new positive element, love,- sees across the cleft which separates
the old from the new.1 To him, heathenism and Judaism are
so different from Christianity, that he believes he can describe
the new thing that has risen upon his view only as a new God,
who, as the alone true, is also the eternal, though not before
revealed.2 He lays no stress on a preparation for Christianity
through the previous circumstances, development, or deed of
mankind ; but the more grace manifests itself without prepara
tion, so much the more pre-eminent is it ; the less it already finds
of what is good and meritorious, so much the more divinely
does love beam forth in it, — that love' which is not ashamed to
communicate itself to the unworthy.
As the pre-Christian religions were thus, in his estimation,
very far below Christianity, so also were the chief classes of the
gnosis, the ethnicizing (in both its principal forms) and the
Judaizing, very far below the Christian gnosis, the knowledge
of the unknown Father as He who hath revealed Himself in
Christ, and His death as the freely forgiving love, and by jus
tification and the remission of sins, as the thoroughly perfecting
love. He will have neither the heathen, unethical concept of
God, as his Doketic principles show, nor again does he recog
nise as in accordance with his view the Jewish God : it is only
the Christian idea of God that he will have, and he beHeves
that this can be preserved in its purity only as all that is pre-
Christian is separated from it.
Though Marcion thus set forth the higher principle which
is competent to the just union of all the momenta in the con
cept of God, stUl the conflict and antagonism within the gnosis
1 Characteristic is the question to the Roman Presbyter : Tell me what
means this — No'man puts new wine into old skins? etc. — Epiph. Haer. xiii. 2.
2 Appendix, Note GGGG.

GNOSTIC CHRISTOLOGY. 229
itself was only thereby rendered the stronger. For he was able
to construe the Christian concept of God only in its antithesis
to the pre-Christian momenta, but not as the unity of these.1
It was only Church Fathers like Irenaeus and Tertullian who,
by recognising as well the historical as the ideal aspect of
Christianity, were able, from the stand-point which a living
faith gave them, to deliver the gnosis from the antitheses in
which it was put under bann, and to collect the different mo
menta of the concept of God, of which its various tendencies
gave a onesided representation ; and this they did, not in the
way of mere summation, but speculatively, since, penetrating
into these antitheses, they demonstrated in the inner unity of
those which seemed especially antagonistic, righteousness and
love.2 By what has been hitherto advanced, the picture of the
Christology within the gnosis is sketched out.
What seems at first to most the common point of resem
blance between the Gnostic forms, is Doketism. But this has
not, as is often supposed, the same basis in all ; on the con
trary, in each tendency its basis is different. Though certainly
in ultimate reference there abides in the Gnostic systems gene
rally a duaHstic fundamental trait, by which something Doketic
is posited for Christology, yet is this dualistic element very dif
ferently construed in the different forms. The oldest ethnicizing
dualism (which subsequently comes to unity hellenicaUy in Valen-
tinus, and was purified christianly by Marcion) views Christ as a
being whose nature is Hght, and who cannot come into positive
intercourse with the darkness, with matter, or then: domain, to
which also carnal humanity belongs, without being defiled.3
The Doketism of the school of Valentinus comes forth in
another fashion. Here the ideal, the light of thought, is the
alone true being ; and hence in reference to all reality of the
actual world there is a certain indifference. This school ap
proximates most to a simply ideal Christ, whUst those just
named sought to express the profoundest impression of the
supernatural character of the appearance of Christ. Never
theless the ideal Christ was so represented by this second class,
that He was historicaUy conceived of. He must have an objec-
1 Appendix, Note HHHH. 2 Appendix, Note IIII.
8 Appendix, Note JJJJ.

230 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
tive historical significance in the process of the world's history,
yet not so as to give Himself up to finitude, and relinquish His
fixed position as opposed to the outward reaHty.
Marcion's Doketism has again another root. For he makes
use of it to make evident the absolute newness of Christianity ;
and hence his prejudice in favour of the suddenness of its ap
pearance. It is only thus that his laying so much stress on the
death of Christ is to be accounted for ; for as, according to him,
all lies in the newness of Christianity, which consists in the
revelation of love, to deny the death of Christ would be to lose
hold of the highest proof of love ; and accordingly he held fast
by the death of Christ, without, however, supposing that with
that the curse of the Almighty was in any way connected.
In fine, the Judaizing form of Gnosticism became Doketic
from this, that, as in general it aims to resolve in its way the
antithesis between freedom and grace, but knows only to place
the human subject over against the divine according to its
juristic principle, or to suffer both to alternate in their value?
so it dealt also with the Person of Christ. Further, it arose
from this also, that, Hi accordance with the same deistic stand
point, it could unite with the man Jesus, not God, but only one
of the higher spirits ; and thus there is given of itself a sup
pression of the true manhood, or a lowering of this to a simple
Doketic form.1
As we have seen from what precedes, in the first place,
what the different Gnostics sought to know as the peculiar
essence of Christianity, and, along with that, what we owe to
Christ (the work of Christ) ; from which it appears that all
except Marcion place this work in his doctrine, whether ethical
or theoretic (cosmogonic and theogonic) ; and as, in,the second
place, we have pointed out Doketism as what is common to aU
the Gnostic systems, and have deduced this from tne principle
of each ; it only remains for us to consider the different forms
of this Doketism.
Here, first, in reference to the higher nature itself, it appears
that they felt bound to call Christ Saviour, and to view Him
hypostatically;2 that all, Marcion alone excepted, refused to
admit that it was the Divine Being who appeared historicaUy,
but held that it was only an Man, Christ. He is an emanation
1 So in the Pseudo-Clementines. 2 Appendix, Note KKKE.

GNOSTIC CHRISTOLOGY. 231
or irpofioXr) of the Highest Being (e.gr. according to BasUides,
Epiph. Haer. xxiv. 1). He is, indeed, a divine being; but that
which is divine «.e. abides by itself, does not come forth; and,
on the other hand, all the pneumatic natures before Christ,
whose existence only Marcion ventured , to deny, are in essence
like Him. Certainly this JEon Christ is so preferred before
aU, that he can give the fuUest announcemeni as weU con
cerning the entire Pleroma as concerning the abysmal Divine
essence itself. This has been worked out beautifully, especially
by the Valentinian school (Iren. i. 2). No sooner (on the fall
of Achamoth) was a link in the chain of the Pleroma broken,
and, for the establishment of what still stood, Christ was brought
forth and the Holy Ghost by the Monogenes (consequently
after the fact which the creation of the world made good), than
the whole Pleroma determined, rejoicing in the unity and har
mony thereby established, to unite whatever each JEon had
that was most beautiful and glorious, and thereby to produce
for the glorifying of the Bythos a perfect beauty, a luminous
star, the common effulgence as it were of the Pleroma. This
was done in Jesus, whom they call also Soter, and Christ, and
Logos, and All, since He is from aU. And in this product of
the common joy and unity the Pleroma shows and establishes
its harmony. Christ is, according to this, the former of Nature ;
but it is Jesus, or the Soter, who brings the pneumatic element
as hidden seed into the world, and, through the historical ap
pearance of Christ, to form, in the perfect knowledge which He
communicates. They endeavour in various ways to set forth the Soter per
fectly •} as, e.gr., when they see in Him a Bvvapts itself, even of
the Sige or the Arrheton, not merely collect the forces of the
Pleroma in Him, as Marcus (Epiph. xxx. 10), or when they
identify Him with the primitive essence, or derive Him from
this (see what is said of a party of the Colorbasians in Epiph.
xxxv. 1, and the Marcosjans, ibid, xxxiv. 8, 10). But, how
ever various their efforts for this end, He always remains, in
their judgment, an JEon who began to be, and is subordinate
to the Supreme Being. And if some of them (as Heracleon,
Epiph. xxxvi. 2, xxxv. 1) call the Supreme Father of the uni-
1 See a multitude of these in Epiphan. Haer. xxxv. 1, xxxiv. 8, 10,
xxiv. 1-3, xxxi. 7.

232 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
verse Himself, the First Principle, no longer Bythos, but pri
mitive man, JAv0pairo<i, and boast of it as a great mystery that
the highest, the all-embracing, and over-all-existing Power, is
called Man ; still there is nothing in this, as we already have
seen in the case of the Clementine Homilies, favourable to the
idea of the incarnation. On the contrary, as seems to have
been exemplified at least with Heracleon (see note KKKK), the
universe being pantheistically conceived as an incoherent mul
teity of which God is the unity, there remains for the Soter
nothing else than to be one of the powers of the primal man.
It deserves also to be mentioned, that the gnosis, in none of its
forms, ascribes world-creative power to the higher principle in
Christ ; but at the utmost, as in the school of Valentinus, only
world-framing power. It is precluded from the former by its
hostile position towards the Hyle. It is instructive to see how
the .gnosis, however high may be the flight it takes, always in
voluntarily sinks back again into what is particularistic : Christ's
significancy is a limited one ; it is valid only for the pneumatic
class which it already is by nature;1 with the hylic the divine
itself can become ready only through annihilation. As, how
ever, the gnosis has thus in it something of the nature of caste
or aristocratic exclusiveness towards the one human class, so, on
the other side, there is a just retribution and consequence, in
that the highest divine in it alone retains something exclusive
towards the pneumatic powers themselves. For, as they do not
view God as love, they have not the God who can surmount
the hyHc, not the supreme God. But their highest God, who
remains to them, has always something physically limited, re
mains always the strange, either exclusive or consuming
Bythos,2 if they do not, as happened to the later Gnostics,
pursue the converse direction, transpose all that is divine into
what is present, and so, with the abrogation of all self-existence
in God, give up the highest good itself, the blessed communion
with God in knowledge and love. It is self-evident that the
Judaizing gnosis can receive no more favourable sentence.
For, with the antagonism between God and the World, which is
posited by the mere principle of rectitude, there is necessarily
1 Comp. e. gr. Heracleon in Grabe 1. c. ii. 237.
2 The reader may remember the Horos and its activity (comp. Baur,
Gnosis, p. 128")

GNOSTIC CHRISTOLOGY. 233
thought a transcendence of God without immanence, and the
innermost essence of God as incommunicable ; so that in Christ
there is not a truly Divine being. — A totally different position was
assumed by Marcion through the Christian idea of love," which
is not to him,, as to the other Gnostics, a simply unmeaning word,
but, inasmuch as the presupposition of his gnosis is a living
Christian consciousness, is the fundamental category of his
concept of God. With him, God as love comes in the place
of the obscure basis, the Bythos, which never comes into mani-
festatibn ; and thus in his view the revelation in Christ is not
the revelation of a subordinate potence or emanation,*but of
the Supreme God Himself. The only contribution which he
casts into the Gnostic treasury is, that he views religion ex
clusively by itself, as severed from nature and the creation, and
thus falls into a religious particularism, as they do into a parti
cularism of gnosis. Thus fimiting the universal significancy of
Christ by a sort of doctrine of predestination, he is able to
think Him not as Creator of the world, but only as Saviour
and Eedeemer. He leaves it in the general doubtful in what
relation the truly Divine, whose innermost essence Christ mani
fests and represents,1 stands to God. That he thought it as a
truly Divine hypostasis in God, is not probable ; least of all could
he represent it as a subordinated JEon. There remains only the
patripassian or Sabellian representation ; but we have no proof
that he followed either. What is most probable is, that he did
not follow out his peculiar principle of love further in this
direction ; and thus, that the first or third view was preferred
by him as possible. His own gnosis lingered, like that of his
favourite Apostle Paul, by preference in the anthropological
region ; in the theological gnosis he remained dependent from
Cerdo (Epiph. Haer. xU. 1, comp. xiii. 1-3).
In what has been said we have gained the premisses for
understanding the relation in which, according to the Gnostics,
the higher in Christ stands to the human. In general, they,
Marcion excepted, regard the humanity of Christ as the organ
for the revelation of the Divine truth : it is the merely momen-
1 Tertullian ad Marc. i. 19 : Deus noster non ab initio — non per condi-
tionem (creation) sed per semetipsum revelatus est in Christo Jesu. In
i. 22, and i. 19, Tertullian calls the Marcionite Christ alterius Dei quam
creatoris circumlator (comp. i. 11, iv. 7).

234 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
tary medium (o^vpa) for the introduction of the eternal truth
into history, which was afterwards, when this end was attained,
allowed to perish; for the Divine which this was the medium for
introducing is neither hylic nor psychical, but rather pneu
matic. Were His real self-representation in concrete human
guise recognised as an essential determination of the Divine,
there would be extended an eternal significancy to the side of
the humanity. The best developed Gnostic systems, however,
secured to the humanity of Christ no other significancy than
that of being a symbolical representation of the eternal truth.1
Only Marcion assigns to the humanity of Christ an essential
place. Nevertheless there is an unmistakeable advance in the
relation of the higher nature to humanity. As that medium of
revelation the man Jesus was viewed by the' older Gnostics,2
whether He was supernaturally conceived or not. They thus
first laid down that Jesus was a mere man (which we have
above designated the Ebionitic element in Doketism) ; but then
they instantly exalt Him above Himself for the time when He
must be nothing but the medium of revelation.3 This necessi
tates the fixing on the baptism of Christ [Jesus?] as the epoch
when the higher Mon Christ came on Him, in order to reduce
Him, for the time during which He must become the revelation
of the truth, into a mere passive selfless organ of His. During
this time the human in Jesus is submitted and restrained ; and
one might view this as a prophetic state of ecstasy, were it not
that it is a permanent state, and the spirit that descended on
Jesus is not a hypostasis, but merely the power or hand of the
Divine Spirit. The _ZEon is personaUy and permanently abiding
in Christ for a long time, and so a significant approximation
to an incarnation is posited. Since, however, this Mem is not
essentially united with the man Jesus, but only reduces him
to a restricted personality, it thus becomes possible for Gnos
ticism to maintain, what is of so much importance to it, the
1 Thus among the Valentinians, since to them the suffering Jesus is a
type of the world-soul, which suffers outside the Pleroma.
2 So the Ophites (if they are to be reckoned here), Basilides, Valentinus,
Cerinthus, as well as Marcus, etc.
3 The latter was held by some Valentinians (Orig. Ep. ad Tit. Opp.
ed. De la Rue, iv. 695, vol. 1) , probably also by Basilides, since he ascribed
a xfixprviTixon to Jesus.

GNOSTICISM AND DOKETISM. 235
excluding from the Pleroma what is concretely human, and
the admitting into it only of what is pneumatic. After the dis
pensation, the time of revelation is passed ; the higher essence
can, without having been defiled by the Hyle, lay aside the
man Jesus, who always remained outside of it, and return to
the Pleroma ; but the man Jesus, who through the Christ was
rendered worthy of such elevation, is fully honoured in that he
enters into the blessedness of heaven, after he has let drop the
hylic. It thus appears that the double personality of Jesus
and of the Christ, which are introduced as alternating, has for
Gnosticism its importance ;> for the Pleroma is thus preserved
pure from the concrete man, yet without its being necessary to
set aside the humanity of Christ as an empty sheU, which
would have been altogether offensive to the Christian con
sciousness. AU these theories, however, are nevertheless Doketic, be
cause, in proportion as they lay stress on the Mon Christ, to
which they assign only an outward and transient union with a
man, they assert only an apparent humanity. The Church
Fathers consequently, who give them the name of Doketse, were
justified in so doing, and placed themselves on their own proper
stand-point.1 But Gnosticism, however unessential and of only transient
significancy the manhood of Christ was held by it to be, had
nevertheless to advance to show that the medium, the man
Jesus, was the fitting or adequate organ for this union of him
with the Mon Christ. Here three paths lay open, and we find
that all were followed. 1. It might be said : The man Jesus
has, by his purity, virtue, wisdom, become pre-eminently capable
of being made this organ, and so it is just he should be so made.
Thus Cerinthus, from the Judaizing point of view ; and this
falls into Ebionism, unless the greater stress be laid on the
supernatural descent of the Divine essence ; and as this does not
appear to have been done by Cerinthus, we have consequently
ranked him among the Ebionites. 2. Conversely it might be
said: That Jesus should become this organ, rests on the free
Divine election ; which is most strongly enounced in this, that
though from his birth not free from the sinful nature common
' Appendix, Note LLLL.

236 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
to men, he was nevertheless for a season1 destined to receive
thus the Christ; and it is this Christ coming upon him, or into
him (at the time of his baptism), who delivered the man Jesus
from sin, perfected him, and so fitted him as a perfected organ
for the purpose of his revelation. So Basilides. 3. Since a high
degree of wisdom and purity presupposes a superior, natural,
God-bestowed endowment, whilst it is not to be fundamen
tally perceived why the higher authorization of the man Jesus
should be given so late, seeing the capacity2 for the perfecting
inworking of the Mon Christ already leads to the presupposi
tion of something congenial to it in him, it was with greater
consequence taught that his birth was supernatural, and that
thereby he was fitted as no other was to be united with the
Soter. So the Ophites and the Valentinians.3 According to
the latter, who alone deserve notice, this Soter of the Pleroma,
to whom the forming of the world gave offence, had prepared
for His perfect appearance among men by this, that a pneu
matic germ from Him (concealed from the principle of the
Psychical, the Demiurgus) had not merely been planted in the
soul of the world, the Chochma, but had from it been com
municated to men also. It might thus seem that redemption
was not needed ; for the Hyle cannot be redeemed, and the
Pneumatic requires not to be redeemed. But, nevertheless, the
Valentinian system seeks to leave open a place for redemption
by representing the Pneumatic as in a germinal state, and so
standing in need of development. — The Soter above described,
the flower of the Pleroma, descended upon Jesus for the first
time at his baptism, in the form of a dove ; but found in him
a point of affinity, in that he was already prepared for the full
1 That is, up to the time of his sufferings, when the Moa left him, not
only according to Basilides, but also according to Cerinthus and the
Valentinians. 2 The lixnxij Itxktri; of the Valentinians, or the pneumatic germ
dwelling from the beginning in human nature. Comp. Grabe 1. c. 102.
3 Comp. Heracleon in Grabe 1. c. p. 99. Salvation comes from the
Jews ; not that Christ was born of the Jews (i.e., of Mary, with a side glance
at the unbelief of the Jewish people), etc. Valentinus himself (Epiph.
Haer. xxxi. 7), Marcus (ib. xxxiv. 10), Saturnilos (ib. xxv. 1), Christ have
come Iv axitpcxri dnSpavov and Ilia piiny. Ta izdmx li in t£ loxiin icinroiii-
xivxt, tovtioti to yiyinvjadxt, to iripntariin, to OTTanic&xi, to irnrovdtfxt.
Comp. Epiph. Haer. xxxvi. 10.

GNOSTICISM AND DOKETISM. 237
reception of the superior nature. But as the condition of the
inferior Jesus is thus determined by the higher, and there is
no more a mere man's becoming kindred and congenial to the
revelation, there is removed what was a disturbing element in
all the Gnostic systems, arising from the hylic element in
Christ's manifestation. The Person of Christ is, indeed, more
fully determined by the superior Christ, the Idea, than in the
earlier forms of Doketism, but only in this way, that the cor
poreal, which in them remained undisposed of, is wholly allowed
to drop, and the inferior Jesus is perfectly endowed so as to
be the bearer of the Christ-spirit. For this end, the inferior
Jesus received from the Soter a pneumatic germ ; nay, this
germ is here already more definitely viewed as a part of the
manifestation of the Soter, by which, as the beginning and
peculiar receptacle [of the higher nature], was announced be
forehand the full advent of the Soter at the baptism. This
germ was deposited in the psychical Messiah by the Achamoth ;
and him the Demiurgus was on his side led to promise and to
form, through the blind impulse which draws the psychical to
the pneumatic. The Demiurgus bestowed on his Messiah the
best he has (not knowing, it is true, to what still higher end his
work must become allied), creating not only a human soul, but
for this soul a psychical body; a special work of art, not
grossly corporeal, and yet such as that it was palpable and
susceptible of suffering. Now, this man, fully adapted to the
economy, with the pneumatic germ, the psyche and soul-body,
undefiled by the Hyle, and yet bearing in it the first fruits of
that which it was to save, passed through Mary as through a
conduit, developed himself without sin, and from the time that
the Soter united Himself to him at the baptism, he revealed
God the unknown to men, and purified and cultivated men by
wholesome doctrine.1 This Christ, they expressly say, is the
Holy Ghost that descended on Jesus, and speaks through him.
By this economy the Soter has abolished death, and made
known the Father.2
1 Comp. on Heracleon, Grabe 1. c. 100 ; on Marcus, Epiph. Haer. xxxiv.
8-10, 19. Another expression for this is the salvation of the Light spark
(axinOqp), Epiph. xxiii. 1.
2 So far do they bring the two — the Christ, whom they also call the
Father of Jesus (Epiph. xxxiv. 10), and the inferior Jesus— together, that

238 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH. *
This marveUous theory, which in the second century, how
ever, was divided by many into various modifications, forms
without doubt a notable advance towards the uniting and
inner coherence of the two sides [of Christ's Person], the higher
and the lower. The latter is no longer now a mere organ in
the general, but a copy of the Christ who is present in his
image as long as the economy lasts ; and hence the acting and
suffering of Jesus are construed as symbols of the higher
world. But never does the man Jesus form a part of the
Christ Himself ; but intrinsically they remain separate ; there
is here a double personahty. And in order to be in some
measure a true image of the incorporeal Christ (Xporos ao-ap-
Koi), everything hylic must be withdrawn from Jesus. One
might, indeed, proceed to ask, since in the last reference it is
only community with the. Soter that is brought into considera
tion, and the latter (or Christ) is not psychical, what becomes of
Jesus, the psychical organ and copy of Christ ? In so far as
he is psychical, he is not a true copy of the Christ ; and how can
he then conduct to Him ? and in so far as he conducts to1 Him,
he must be in essence like Him, must be pneumatic ; and how
then can he remain His organ and copy? Is not the superior
Christ, whose very idea it is to shun and repel the psychical
and hyHc, necessarily only Himself Mediator? Must He not
exclude aU and every organ ; or, if He assumes such, must it not
be without mediatory function, and consequently without signi
ficance, and only as for appearance ? In fact, the Gnostics of
the Valentinian school1 constantly are enforcing (Heracleon,
for instance, frequently) that the Holy Ghost and the power
of the Christ, but nothing external, brings the gnosis (comp.
Grabe I.e. H. 94 ff. 108). The psychical, indeed, serves the be
Hevers ; but these were only psychical. It is not on the works
of Christ, not on His sensible appearance, that men are to be
Heve, but on the Logos (1. c. 110). This same question may be
otherwise put thus : If the organ of the revelation has an essen
tial significancy, wherefore is it, as organ at least, perishable ?2
the latter is called also in himself an image (i£,opt,oiuai; xal ftoptpao-i;) of
the superior Christ, or of the Anthropos, who has to come upon hi™ and
from him (%upun).
1 We have seen the same above in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies,
where we spoke of the &<Ppaaro; yt'ip of their Son.
2 Appendix, Note MMMM.

MARCION. 239
and if it has no essential significancy, to what intent is the
whole artificial Christology; and why go beyond the eternal
Christ without humanity, who, as none other, excluding the hyhc
and psychical, is the truth, and consequently must immediately
reveal Himself pneumatically?1
It may certainly be assumed, that the powerful impression
produced by the appearance of Jesus, — the consciousness that
the higher consciousness, the consciousness of the Christ, and
the absolute truth revealed in Him, had in and through Jesus
come to pass historically, and become the common boon of
mankind, — co-operated materially to produce this contradictory
Christology. It may be further said, that though it did not
concern these Gnostics to view the humanity as an essential
quality of their Christ, or even to unite so much as his activity
essentially to a humanity any way closely bound to him, they
would nevertheless beware of regarding the superior Christ
Himself as simply a projection of their subjective conscious
ness, and thereby as a subjective phantasma; so that with
them Jesus, and the preserver of the Christ in him, had this
significance, that it denoted the objectivity of Christ, and His
real entrance within the domain of history. But the above
question ever returns : for Jesus could accomplish neither of
these, unless he is himself, as he is, an essential, not accidental
momentum of the Christ ; or it is possible to construe such
extreme abnegations of the higher in Christ as birth and
death into an essential manifestation of His love.
From what has been said, it may be easily conjectured how
great was the further advance which, in this respect, was made
by Marcion. He forms in Christology the decisive turning-
point where the gnosis in principle, and within itself, overcame
Doketism, and allied itself with the Church. To his course the
future belongs ; whilst Gnosticism, on the contrary, so long as
it adhered to the ancient path, decayed, and passed over more
and more to what was not Christian, as we have already seen,
since it fell back into Ebionism.
1 This thought is perhaps the cause of the opinion which Tertullian,
De Came Christi, c. 15, opposes, that Christ had a pneumatic body (comp.
Origen, T. iv. 691, ed. De la Rue). Tertullian, it is true,' names Valen-
tinus as the person he has in view ; but he knew to distinguish the psychi
cal and pneumatic body (c. 10, coll. 15) : so that probably scholars of
Valentinus are meant.

240 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
At first, indeed, Marcion marched under the standard of
Doketism. He did not allow that Christ was born of the
Virgin Mary ; for Christianity,- the absolutely new, could in no
wise be interwoven with the laws of the old world, of the Demi
urgus and of matter : that would have been, in his view, a de
pendence upon things whose reign was rather now to end.
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, Christ descended suddenly
from the hitherto unknown Father into the synagogue at
Capernaum, and came forth with the doctrine of the good God.
In Him appeared the Father, who revealed Himself in Him by
Himself, not by mediation of the Virgin, or of a body com
posed of the elements of creation.1 He says nothing more par
ticularly concerning the origin of His body : in his view, how
ever, Christ must have sprung immediately from the supreme
God Himself; and Tertullian's censure, that he taught a phan-
tasma, can refer only to the alleged suddenness of Christ's ap
pearance, and to the fact that, according to Tertullian, what is
not born is only apparently of our species. Irenaeus says, more
discreetly (i. 29), only that, according to Marcion, God has re
vealed Himself in hominis forma. In any case, the body of
Christ, according to Marcion, was so framed that it was adapted
to serve for the manifestation of God, who is present in Him.
The humanity of Christ is, in his view, nothing but an organ, —
not, however, assumed from the world or mankind, but issuing
from God, and that essentially ; for, according to him, there be
longs to the revelation of Love not mere doctrine, of which it
may be thought that its subject-matter comes into consciousness
in an inner manner through the ideal Christ, but work and
suffering. The appearance of Christ among men is itself an
act of love, since in Christ the Divine love wills to. dwell with
men and walk with them. And therewith is the human ap
pearance of Christ already distinguished as the necessary
essential organ of love; and any other organ than humanity
would have been unfit for this. But still more is suffering an
act of love, into which God could not without humanity have
entered : the suffering of Christ, however, and His death — and
therewith His humanity — are with Marcion integral momenta

1 See Note, p. 233. Comp. also Tertull. adv. Marc. iv. 7 ; Epiph.
Haer. xiii. 7.

MARCION. 241
in the idea of Eedemption.1 In general, Marcion holds by the
truth on the whole of the evangelical history of Christ (as given
by Luke), apart from the history of what preceded, and has,
throughout, no interest in seeking to depreciate the perfection
of the humanity of Christ, from the time that He descended, so
long as it does not impeach the newness of Christianity, which
with him is everything. He concedes to the Church that Christ
continued His work even in Hades ; and since he accepted His
actual death in the body, which was capable of suffering (see
preceding note), as well as His resurrection after three days,
and probably also agreed with the Church in holding that dur
ing the death of His body Christ went into hell, it is possible
that he also ascribed to Christ a human soul.
By the principle of love, Marcion obtained once for all a
quite different bond of union between the two sides in Christ.
Nor does this principle remain with him without effect in this
respect. The double Christ whom the others hold is not found ,
with him : he knows nothing of a pure human nature of Jesus
before the descent of Christ on him ; and by this the last
Ebionitic remnant of the other Gnostic forms is removed, and
no overweening importance can any longer be attached to the
baptism of Jesus. By means of love, which with him is the
supremely, most intrinsically divine, God on the one side, and
humanity, so far as it is adapted to receive the divine, on the
other, are united in this person.
Now, on the other hand, it certainly seems as if through the
omission of the inferior Jesus, by means of whom the Doketic
stand-point of the other Gnostics was insufficiently concealed,
this Doketism comes into view much more openly in the case
of Marcion ; so that TertulHan says (de Came Christi, c. 1) :
Marcion, ut carnem Christi negaret, negavit etiam nativitatem,
aut ut nativitatem negaret, negavit et carnem, scilicet ne
invicem sibi testimonium redderent et responderent, nativitas
et caro ; and he thinks that, after the example of others, he
may, in virtue of the Hcentia haeretica, satisfy himself with
the denial of either of the two, either the flesh of Christ or
the birth of Christ. But this Marcion could not do ; on the
contrary, there is shown here, that it is the approaching higher
uniting principle which first sharpens the antitheses, and dis-
1 Appendix, Note NNNN.
VOL. I. ' Q

242 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
misses all merely mediatory and apparent solutions1 before it
can surmount these. Marcion deepened the antithesis in which
Gnosticism wearied itself, the Dualism which it alternately in
sisted upon and concealed, and above which the pre-Christian
stand-point could not, either in Judaism or Heathenism, be
raised ; for he set over against the whole old world that which
is absolutely new, Christianity as the Divine love actually be
come matter of fact. By this there is instituted a much
sharper and more real antithesis than between the highest ex
tremes of the Gnostics, the obscure basis, the Bythos, and its
extreme Matter or chaos. For, in truth, when closely viewed,
these two, the obscure basis and the chaos, coalesce ; the Bythos
is really not the highest, but the lowest, because the merely
physical category of the concept of God. The distinction is
not so much in themselves (the Bythos and unformed Hyle)
as it comes up in the subject [the thinking mind], which un-
weariedly affronts the attempt to determine the Bythos as the
ideal, and yet believes it must relinquish the attempt (on ac
count of its peye0o<i) to reach determinations by which alone the
physical can be transcended. The concrete emanations are in
truth higher categories than itself ; but the subject knows it not,
and chooses it not, and so these are not truly recognised accord
ing to their worth, but are ever threatened again with the physical.
But by the same stroke which in the manner shown deepens
the previous antithesis, is also gained the principle of union,
as weU of the earlier as of the new. For the whole pre-
Christian world of actuaUty and thought is now combined in
one, over against which stands what is new. And only so far
now is a distinction in it acknowledged as it stands diversely
related to the new, that is, either as obstinately opposed to it,
or as receptive of it. But right as is the major premiss here,
nevertheless in the subsumed minor premiss Marcion is gnos-
tically bound ; for, though he views the psychical and no
longer the hyHc as capable of redemption, the overstraining
of his principle of the absolute newness of Christianity must
on this side necessarUy produce and relapse to the earlier, by
which, as even the overstrained, antithesis proves, his principle
was nevertheless negatively bound. But the negative deter
mination by the eariier stage is one thing, the positive is an-
1 Such as are to be found especially in the Valentinian school.

MARCIONITES. 243
other; and since his Divine love is certainly not yet truly
free, since it excludes the hylic from itself, and cannot abso
lutely surmount in conception the antithesis, — hence finds also
this world too low to be framed by the supreme God ; yet
must the limited, the physical, by which the Marcionite concept
of God and Christ is fettered, be regarded not as what was
willed and enunciated by him, but as an after-pain of his age,1
which must pass away of itself, if only that be held firm and
cultivated on which everything for him depends. In fact, this
had been already prepared even in his school, which thereby,
so far as a more healthy impulse to development was in it, fell
in with the Church tendency. So with Apelles (comp. Euseb.
v. 13) ;2 nay, with Marcion himself ; for there is no ground
for doubting TertulHan's statement (De Praescr. 30), that at a
later period he desired reconciliation with the Church; and
when it was proposed to him as a condition that he should bring
back his adherents to the Church, it was only his death which
prevented this being accomplished. Apelles, however,3 who
was less important, did not rise altogether above DuaHsm, which
also clung to Marcion — that is , to say, he did not thoroughly
evolve the Marcionite principle ; but through a mediate appa
rent solution, by an approximation to Valentinianism (TertuU.
De Praescr. 30 ; De Eesurrec. 2), only softened his Dualism. For
if he had followed out the principle of love, he could not have
regarded Christ's body as without birth or sidereal. But his
1 As is already shown by the fact that he viewed the pre-Christian
world as capable of receiving Christ, and consequently recognised in it
something akin to Him ; and also the Demiurgus has not merely an attitude
averted from God, but a certain right remains with rectitude, only it shall
not will for itself to be the highest. Had Marcion reflected on this kmdred
element in the pre-Christian time, which his system presupposes, he would,
with the Church, have referred it to the same source as has appeared in
Christianity, nbt to an evil principle, or to any other good one than Him
who alone is the good and highest God.
2 The above shows why it does not appear to me probable that the later
Marcionites have developed, as true disciples, what was in the esteem of
Marcion the essential. The Marcionites rather appear to have let slip the
positive, what in his view was the highest, the goodness and love of God, and,
on the contrary, to have attached themselves to Dualism, which was the
birthmark of his age, and hence to have allied themselves to Manichaeism.
3 Tertull. De Came Christi, 6-8, and De Praescript. Haer. 30 ; comp.
51 ; Euseb. v. 13 ; Epiph. Haer. 44.

244 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
eclecticism proves (Epiph. Haer. xHv. 2) that he did not feel
himself at ease in Marcion's DuaHsm ; arid his saying to Ehodon
(Euseb. v. 13), " He is blessed who believes on the crucified, if
he be found in good works ; but the obscurest of all is the ques
tion concerning God : the Scripture could give no explanation
here, and he acknowledged that he had no knowledge that there
is a first principle, a God ; but his feeling declared to him there
is," — proves that he viewed faith as the basis of everything
Christian, and even that he held by that momentum through
which Marcion had gained an essential significancy for the
humanity of Christ, viz., His death. He thereby rose far above
a momentary angelic appearance,1 and also, on occasion of the ~
vision of Philumene (TertuU. De Carne Christi, 6), sought to
vindicate for Christ's body a caro solida, not merely, with-
Marcion, a body capable of suffering ; and he is already on the
way to assert that a body was given to Christ from the pre
viously created world? and to ascribe to the Demiurgus, whom
he calls Fire-spirit, only the earthly as his work and kingdom.
According to Apelles, Christ's sidereal body, the substance of
which He brought down with Him from the higher regions to
earth, condensed on it to a caro solida ; and this soHditas ceased
at His ascension ; His body returned to the higher regions of
the same gravity with them. But He had no substance from
the earth, and hence could leave none behind. There is no
ground for the assumption that Apelles denied the continuance
of Christ's humanity after His ascension. He rather made a
1 The passage in Tertullian, De Praes. Haer. 51, is hence evidently unjust,
unless the meaning be that Apelles ascribed to Christ a parastatic body, as
it is presumed angels have when they appear ; comp. Tertull. De Carne
Christi, 6. [The proper reading of this passage is so uncertain that nothing
can be built on it. — Tr.]
2 Tertullian, De Carne Chr. 6 : De sideribus inquiunt et de substantiis
superioris mundi, mutuatus est carnem. The assertion, that it was taught
that this corpus sidereum et aereum was dispersed by Christ on His ascen
sion into its original elements, I do not find authenticated; for such an
assumption there was hardly even a motive in the case of Apelles. For it
was the earthly substance alone that was viewed by him as impure, pecca-
trix, and hence he would not ascribe it to Christ ; and, on the other hand,
Tertullian reasons so against him as that we must assume that he saw in
the siderea substantia nothing unworthy of Christ. Perhaps he is con
founded with the author of the Anabaticon Jesai» (see Appendix, Note
MMMM), who has something hke this.

GNOSTICISM AND EBIONISM. 245
step in advance towards reconciling the new creation with the
old ; he conceded to the highest, the good, God, the creation of
the more perfect part of the world, and sought to give to the
humanity of Christ greater reality, in which he does not stand
alone.1 The Marcionite DuaHsm is thus already on the regress ; and
if it for a moment comes to a stand, and will not advance from
the true death of Christ to a true birth of Christ, or from the
creation of the psychical by the good God to a creation also of
the hylic, this is of no avaU ; for by the recognition of God as
love, the principle is given up in virtue of which alone Dualism
can keep its ground, namely, that the finite as such is ungodly,
and cannot immediately proceed from God. This may be thus
Christologically expressed, and thereby we put together what
has been -already said.
After Doketism, having entered on the course in which it
became intertwined with Ebionism, recognised the baptism of
Christ as historical, and from that, though unsatisfactorily, had
caught back at the birth of Christ, — of which, however, it had
no other conception than that it was a preparation of the man
Jesus for the act of union [with the Christ] at the baptism ;
the decisive turning-point was taken by Marcion', who, especially
by taking into account the propitiatory death of Christ, or the
suffering and propitiating manifestation of Divine love, pre
pared an essential, and no longer a mere symbolical, place for
the humanity of Christ. From this the Christian knowledge,
becoming ever more and more conscious of the almightiness
and world^creating power of love, reasoned back for the first
time with effect ; sought, under the guidance of the concept of
God as almighty love, to think the humanity of Christ ever
more and more as homogeneous with ours ; to bring His deity
forward in ever progressive superiority to the various stages of
worldly existence which must be united with it, until the last
link in the chain, which is to unite earth and heaven, was
reached, and the true birth of Christ, of our substance, from
the womb of Mary was found. It is natural that for this last
concluding point, in which Christ is first fully assigned to our
nature and becomes our brother, flesh of our flesh and bone of
our bone, there should be no particular party to be named ; for
1 Appendix, Note OOOO.

246 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
with this momentum heresy was at an end, and the Church
doctrine begins, to which we have now to pass over.
Before entering on this, however, as a parallel ending of
this with the preceding chapter, I must show, what was above
asserted, that Gnosticism, inasmuch as it would not appro
priate the higher stages which Marcion reached, fell over into
its apparent antithesis, Ebionism.
It has been already intimated that the later Valentinian
school always more and more treated the hypostatic world of
-33ons as symbolical, preferred seeing one and the same power
in different forms of manifestation, and regarded the plurality
of the world as the composed letters of one great word, the
world. It is easy to see how near this approaches to the stand
point of an Ebionitic representation of Christ ; for, consequent
on this, Christ could only be one form of the manifestation of
God among others, without any other peculiar dignity than
that which even Ebionism assigned to Him. The Pseudo-
Clementine Homilies appear (Horn. xvi. 16) to recognise a
simUar view. But the gnosis, unless rendered somewhat sound
by the religious principle (as in the case of Marcion), must sink
below even Ebionism and the limits of what is Christian ; the
more, consequently, its principle of knowing is developed in
its entire strength and one-sidedness. It has been shown above,
that the Valentinian school, in which the principle of absolute
knowledge was most purely held, had no answer to the question,
What is the Christ who is united to Jesus ? since in the ulti
mate reference the idea by itself is everything (the X/diotos
aaap/co<;), and no other reality is acknowledged than what Hes
in the idea as such ; and, consequently, it is not viewed as a
momentum of the idea, that it should be itself determined to
a natural being, to outward actuaUty. We have seen that to
the real-human side of Christ either a necessary place must be
given, or that it cannot remain what the Valentinian school,
influenced by its Christian or Church consciousness, would main
tain it to be. If the former be refused, there remain as fac
tors, having an actual significancy, only the invisible Christ,
who is distinguishable from the Deity only in name, and the
human spirit. According to this stand-point, the gnosis no
more occupies itself with the historical God-man ; but the whole
process, from beginning to end, lies within the subjective

GNOSTICISM AND EBIONISM. 247
spirit. For a season — so long, indeed, as the voice of the Chris
tian and the Church consciousness reverberated — it was held
that the human subject, and the Divine Christ as object, were
to be distinguished as the receiver and the giver of the abso
lute knowledge, so that thus, in the sphere of the inner world,
there should be preserved to Christ His objectivity and power
as Saviour. But the knowing subject, which had by its, own
effort attained to the dignity of absolute knowledge, would
soon fall under the doubt whether the Christ, viewed as objec
tive, was not rather a projection of the subjective consciousness,
which is fully declared by this, that the subject, properly, in
itself is Christ. The true Gnostic must, therefore, transfer all
external reality, even Christ Himself, within the limits of the
Spirit ; must know Christ in Himself, and deny all significancy
of any other objectivity. This comes very near to the finding
of Christ in self, to the knowing of self according to the truth
of the proper " I as Christ," and thereby to allow to Christ no
other significancy than that of " being the truth of the indivi
dual Me.'' It is well known that the Mystics in all ages have
spoken after this fashion ; nay, several such expressions sym-
phonize with the innermost utterance of Christianity itself.
There is here a point where the Hne of demarcation between
what is intimately Christian and the abyss of blasphemy ds fine,
and not recognisable by every one. The same words may,
according as they are understood, belong to the one side or the
other. But the cleft which separates what is blasphemous from
what is Christian is always objectively existing ; and it belongs
to science to determine precisely the line of demarcation, and
to exhibit the former as the deceptive though resembHng cari
cature of the latter.
I shall attempt to make this distinction evident in the case
of the historical figures of the second century.
Valentinians, like Heracleon and Marcus, though with them
- the world was only the dislocated Word, or the " Man" sepa
rated into hiss parts, and God only the unity of the many, yet
held fast God's self -existence : nay, Marcus and others call
Him the "Av0pcoiro<;, and, as we have seen, concede at least
partially, and under the category of power, His union with
Jesus ; but this unity threatens to turn out a merely nominal
one (because it is not reflected on itself) ; and when this takes

248 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
place, the self-existence of God is set aside^ and the Deity is
transferred quite to the side of the world, the subject. We
have then a view which must be designated atheistic, since it
leaves only divine attributes or powers remaining, whilst it
denies the absolute subject of them. This, however, is not a
mere possibiHty ; it is a necessary consequence of the Gnostic
principle, inasmuch as it does not make religion, or knowledge
religiously determined, its abiding .presupposition. For, as
ethical acting, in the strict sense, ceases to be ethical in so far
as it is viewed as something merely established and commanded
by God, and since it belongs rather to the concept of the ethi
cal as distinguished from the religious that it is posited by
men, so it is certain that in the concept of knowing the essen
tial element, that which distinguishes it from all besides, is
nothing else than that it is the thinking activity [denkende
Thatigkeit] of the subjective spirit. It does not, indeed, follow
as excluded by this, that the ethical activity does not presuppose
to itself its relative counterpart, a suitable being which is not
activity, nor posited by the activity of the subject, but a being
which the religious stand-point, without thereby approaching
too near to the ethical, teaches to construe into its foundation
as a being willed and established by God. And similarly know
ing presupposes a being that is not first established by the
thinking activity, — a being, namely, at least of the thinking
subject itself; which again the religious stand-point, without
coming into collision with the knowing, teaches to construe as
a being thought by God, which i§ to be presupposed to the
thinking activity of the subject. But whilst neither of these,
regarded as secondary forms, the ethical and theoretical, in
itself and according to its idea, excludes religion, the latter is
definitively excluded, as soon as the secondary subjective ac
tivity is viewed as first and sole, and it is overlooked that all
subjective activity -presupposes a being not originated by this
activity, consequently one which is for the activity a something
given. Now, so long as these Gnostics, though transferring every
thing within the limits of the subjective spirit, yet held that
within this there was a distinction between what are given to
the subjective spirit, and which consequently it has received,
and between this activity and what are posited by it, so long is

GNOSTIC SECTS. 249
the bond which unites the human consciousness with religion
still retained, and there is stiU left, within the subjective spirit
itself, a place, in virtue of which man can think himself as the
recipient, and God objectively as the Giver or the Disposer.
But where this consciousness becomes extinct, and the concept
named, of knowledge positing itself without being under law,
comes into its place, under the delusion that otherwise know
ledge would not be knowledge, then the decisive step towards
the denial of God is taken, — then is the Divinity wholly usurped
into the individual subject, and, as respects the consciousness of
the subject, robbed of its objectivity, — then, though Christian
like phraseology such as that named be stiU used, this becomes,
as respects its true meaning, the irreligious caricature of the
profoundest Christian ideas, which have for their presupposition
not a demoniac autonomy, but one mediated by Divine grace.
Parties who may have belonged to this are named by Epi
phanius, especially Hser. xxv. xxvi. ; whether it be that they
are not yet or are no longer to be viewed as Christian. Epi
phanius calls them Gnostics in a special sense, and passes
judgment on then* writings. They have (xxvi. 2) a poem
wrhich they call the Gospel of the Fulfilling (evayyektov Te-
Xeidbaem), of the contents of which, however, he only says,
that there is in it 0avdrov /cai irevdew; reXetawrts. Among such
the idea was secretly held, which appeared among others in a
more blameless way, that Eve's fall from God brought the true
gnosis ; and they showed a Gospel of Eve, in which she teaches
in the manner indicated the way to knowledge.1
I stood, they say in it, on a high mountain, where I saw a
high man, and one mutilated. Thereupon I heard, as it were,
a peal of thunder, and a voice which came nearer, and said, " I
am thou, and thou art I ; and where thou art, there am I ; and
in all I am diffused. And if thou wUlest, thou collectest me ;
1 Such views are more harmless, where God, whose law was broken, is
only the Demiurgus; for there disobedience against Him may be viewed as
obedience to the supreme God, as piety, especially by the Duahsts ; so with
the Cainites and others. But Epiphanius ascribes no Demiurgus to those who
held the Gospel of Eve. Compare for what follows, Fabric. Cod. Apocry.
N. T. i. 349 ff. 373 ff. Epiphanius adduces many names of sects which
cohere with Pantheists of this sort, — Nicolaifcans, Borborians, Barbelians,
Coddians, Phibionites or Stratiots, Zacchaeans, etc. Haer. xxvi. 3, comp.
xxv.

250 FIRST PERIOD FIRST EPOCH.
but if thou coUectest me, thou collectest also thyself."1 In
another writing, which they called the Gospel of Philip,2 the
formula is given with which a departing soul may soar irre
sistibly above all powers and intermediate steps. It runs thus :
" I have known myself and collected, myself from all places :
I have not begotten chUdren to the Archon, but rooted up his
roots : I have collected the separated members together, and
know thee who thou art ; for I am from above."3 To this be
longs also the opinion which Tertullian assails, that Christ has
brought to us nothing but the knowledge of Himself. To this
Tertullian replies: "The soul is in danger of losing - salvation
not from its not knowing itself, but from its not knowing Christ,
the Word of God" (De Carne Christi, 12). Thus there were not
wanting those who, even at that time, were indifferent towards
sin and salvation ; and, putting knowledge, the gnosis, in the
place of religion, aimed at removing the objectivity of God and
Christ, so as to absorb, " to collect" all, God and the world, into
the I, — only, indeed, to lead to the evacuation of the I, to the
removal of everything concrete, of all distinction, by which the
tabula rasa of the self-consciousness is • rendered indistinguish
able from the nothing of the Bythos. If God and the self-
consciousness (which condition each other) be degraded to being
in general, they become undoubtedly indistinguishable ; but
also both falsely, that is, only physically, determined.
We leave these parties, which destroy themselves as well
theoretically as practically ; for, Hke Buddhism, they come
with their absolute highest knowledge only to a thinking of the
nothing, which in itself is an abnegation of thinking; or, if
1 Epiphanius (Haer. xxvi. 4) relates of the Stratiots and Gnostics of
Egypt, what proves that they were in part given to a nature-Pantheism,
and called the quickening powers of nature Christ, or the body of Christ,
which they believed was to be given back to the Father of the universe by
offering. Whither the practical effect of such ideas tends, it is easy to
see. Those who believed that they had measured the entire circle of nature-
life, had collected and offered all power, said iya ilf&i 6 Xpiaro;. There is
a whole literature out of this puddle, of which Epiphanius has in part pre
served the titles (xxvi. 8, 12). Recent analogous phenomena warn us against
seeing in such statements mere slanders of the Fathers. Even in the time of
Epiphanius there were adherents of these sects (Haer. xxvi. 14, comp. vi. 17).
2 Epiphan. Haer. xxvi. 13.
3 Allied are the Manichsean Gospels and that of Judas Iscariot. Fabric.
I.e. 352, 353.

SUMMARY 251
they seek a content for thought, they fall always away again
to that which to them is but an appearance, to be immediately
again removed. The only reason for naming them here is,
that they were -consequent formations from that Gnosticism
which went straight to its end, without aUowing itself to be
turned aside in its error, or through the category of love and
of what is ethical, in contradistinction from what is physical, to
be elevated to a higher stage, on which the nature-process, and
the endless play of placing and removing, is exorcised, and the
restless agitation from extreme to extreme is brought into the
course of a regulated progress, which at every stage has something
further to gain, but gives up nothing it has gained, and so has
a being in becoming, and a becoming in being. They are, to
use a figure of Schleiermacher's, buoys, which in themselves
are empty, but on that very account float on the surface, and
are of use to indicate to the mariner where he is not to steer, if
he would not run his vessel on the shallows.1
In conclusion, let us glance back over the path we have
followed. The two Christological fundamental heresies, as we
have seen, through the remnant of truth that was in them,
tended, as if necessitated by their own one-sidedness, in the
course of the first and second Century each to be transposed, in
so far as they were accordant with the Church, into its opposite ;
and, consequently, they must in the end have acknowledged
that they had failed of their own proper aim, and must have
given up, however unwillingly, their own partial view for the
whole truth. But since the aim of the one was changed sur
reptitiously to its opposite, it attained its end on the side where
the other heresy had taken its commencement. The Church
truth, which it now assailed in a new way, could dread no
triumph for it, because the other fundamental heresy had al
ready sought this long before with this its new presupposition,
but had had a similar unexpected course. It is not, however, to
be forgotten that an Ebionism and a Doketism, penetrated by
what was at first its opposite, became a more energetic form of
itself than the older forms of both. When heresies thus have
not themselves or their development in their own power, it is
manifest that the Church truth is the star that, even without
their consent, governs their course, since she, in virtue of the
1 Appendix, NotePPPP.

252 FIRST PERIOD. FIRST EPOCH.
truth still adhering to them, ever draws them from each
aphelion back towards herself, — in paths, it is true, running
opposite to each other, for the two fundamental heresies have
from the beginning an opposite movement, — yet also in ever
diminishing circles. Error is always weaker than truth, because
truth has only one antagonist, error ; but the latter has always
two, namely, besides the truth, itself.
Ebionism put aside entirely the one side of the Person of
Christ, and asserted that the genuine Church truth held only
His humanity; Doketism took the converse of this. The former
presupposes that the humanity of Christ was universally ac
knowledged by Christians ; for otherwise 'Ebionism could not,
by laying stress -on this, have asserted to itself a Christian
character. But Doketism and Gnosticism, on its part, exempli
fies the same thing. It proposes to find the deeper meaning of
Christianity by laying stress on the higher side in Christ;
which presupposes in Gnosticism itself a consciousness that the
Church did not deny this higher side, but only represented it
imperfectly from attaching weight also to His humanity ; for
otherwise Gnosticism could not, by a pretended exaltation of that
side, have retained for itself a Christian character. With these
proofs mutually supplementing each other, they are the last, and,
as opponents, the indubitably credible witnesses for primitive
Christianity, attesting that, in its representation of Christ, the
higher as well as the human side was set forth. They are
further, in the same way, witnesses against each other ; for they
reciprocally accuse of omitting an essential part of Christianity.
In fine, as has been said, each witnesses against itself ; for each
at the end of the Epoch, assumes that very thing of which at the
commencement it had demanded the rejection.
As, however, in the course of heresies it was the Church
truth which, in and over them, was the principle that suffered
them not to rest, but ever drew them again towards the Church,
in which they often as heresies surrendered themselves ; so also,
for the development of the visible Church from an imperfect form
of consciousness to a more perfect one, the heresies were notmerely
serviceable as warning boundary marks, but, still more signifi
cantly, they exerted an influence on the development, by showing
in themselves only an exaggeration of really Christian elements
which had not been duly estimated on the part of the Church.

SECOND EPOCH.
TIME OF THE FORMATION OF THE CHRISTIAN
CONCEPT OF GOD— FROM 150 TO 325.
( ExicXwcria 0eo~\joryov<ja.)

SECTION I.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS AND THE DOUBLE
MONARCHIANISM.

CHAPTEE FIEST.
SUBJUGATION OF EBIONISM AND DOKETISM THROUGH THE
CHURCH'S FORMATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS
WHO BECAME PERFECT MAN.
From the middle of the Second Century to the Third.
The simple faith of the confessing and witnessing Christianity
of primitive times was brought into the severest conflict by the
Gnosis, which widely assumed the upper hand ; and perhaps to
the present day the Church has not been in so difficult a posi
tion as then. It may indeed be suggested, as it is by Schleier-
macher, that, in the general, Gnosticism was an affair of the
school, and not of the congregation. But that from the time
when the heathen world flowed into the Church, and was no
longer simply a characterless soft mass which received its form
from the witnessing Church of the beginning, — that from the
time when the peculiar tendency of the HeUenic world towards
knowledge bestirred itself more freely and more powerfully, —
that just from this time so many of the more educated and
talented should attach themselves to Gnosticism, was evidently
a phenomenon of very grave import. For, under the plausible
appearance of seeking something higher than the simple faith,
Gnosticism, as we have seen (Marcion excepted), regressed to

254 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
pre-Christian positions ; enveloped the historical manifestation
of salvation for the consciousness in a mythic cloud ; and set
aside or maimed it, as much as it could, though without this in
tent. Those whom it seized upon and bewitched, as we have
seen, with a sort of magical power, were just those who, most
highly endowed, were destined to be the leaders of the congre
gation : it was fitted to corrupt, or rather to abolish, the
doctrinal status, i.e., the future of the Christian Church. Had
Gnosticism remained unsubdued, it would have appeared as if
thinking, or science, and Christian faith contradicted each other,
and that the latter could only claim the praise of iUiteracy,
could be only a plebeian faith. Thus there would have been
introduced into Christianity the intolerable distinction of an
esoteric and an exoteric truth, which would be as foreign to it
as Gnosticism itself.
If we compare in the general the literature of the age of the
apostolic Fathers with that of the apostolic age itself, we shaU
find that already the glowing coals are covered with ashes ; so
that, if there is no failure as yet of warmth, there is a failure of
powerful light, a want of the clear lustre of Christian know
ledge. Who, looking on the poor vessel of the simply believing
and witnessing Christianity of this age, could have augured that
it contained such a treasure of wisdom as was developed from
it f It came into the light of day just as the gnosis was aim
ing at the re-introducing of the old darkness under the name
of a new light, the highest consecration of knowledge ;' and the
still burning coals broke out, just when they were to have been
buried, into a widely shining and blazing flame, annihUating
all edifices of composite human wisdom, warming the hearts,
and giving light to the Christian master-builders to whom we
now come. A glorious period, when Christian faith and Chris
tian science flourished, began about the middle of the second
century; and so rich a harvest was reaped, for the latter
especiaUy, that at the end of the century hardly any one could
wish that the Church might have escaped the Gnostic storms.
What was it, however, that calmed these storms within the
Church ? Was it the Episcopate, which, at least by Clement of
Eome and Ignatius, was in various ways and with steady pro
gress constructed, and in which was sought a firm centre for
the unity of the Church, though as yet without a claim to in-

GNOSIS AND THE EPISCOPATE. 255
fallibility, without that sacrament of ordination which establishes
a gulf between the state of the clergy and that of the laity 1
By no means. It is true that there is every reason to assume
that when the two chief heresies broke out, the bond of unity
was drawn tighter by the Episcopate so far as it was developed :
what had previously been of service in securing to Christianity
a firm and definite position over against the synagogue and
heathenism, must also be productive of advantage in sustaining
the Church against the irruption of errors of Jewish and hea
then origin. But this form of Church polity was by no means
a match for spirits of foreign origin : rather, as has been said,
those who sustained this office were threatened with the gnosis
if they were spiritual and living ; where they were not, the
danger was almost still greater. Then a one-sided dependence
on outward means for the preservation of unity slid in ; a be
numbing mechanicalism was the more dangerous the less a rich
development of doctrine had been gained, and the more, con
sequently, the public expression of the religious conscioitsness
was principally directed to what may be called in the widest
sense the liturgical elements of divine service. And the more
the administration and conduct of these Hturgical acts must have
diffused a sort of hallowed lustre over the presiding minister, in
the eyes of those who had been accustomed to the priesthood
which prevaUed all over the ancient world, — so much the more
where a certain delusion unobservedly took hold of both people
and leaders, under which the former forgot their spiritual priest
hood, the latter humiHty and office, — did the minister become
obviously also the reconciHng centre for the clearly awakened
desire for Christian knowledge. The insufficiency of the Epis
copate to cope with heresy appeared however most manifestly in
this, that as, on the one hand, it attacked it rather outwardly by
the exclusion of persons than by the refutation of errors, so, on
the other hand, in opposing them, it enlarged its own power and
dignity in a way which introduced pre-Christian errors and dis
tinctions of another sort into the Church itself.1
Or shall we rather assign to Montanism, the second oppo-
1 About the year 150, the age could no longer think of the Evangelist
John without a ¦xha'ko;, Eus. E. H. v. 24. From Clement and Ignatius to
Irenaeus, the more eminent teachers, by discourse or writing, in the Church
are not bishops, or in general Church officers, but other Christians. In pro-

256 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
nent of the gnosis, the merit of having subdued it ? This is a
form full of vigour, and of widely influential significancy. In
it the original Christian feeling, the Christian people, the demo
cratic basis of the Church, predominated against the gnosis,
and against the hierarchic elements. And with it there came
forth three powers or factors, whom we may distinguish as
Practical men, or Churchmen ; Theoretical men, or men of the
school and science ; and Montanists, to whom pious f eeHng was
everything. These three classes, however, stood so decidedly
apart from each other, that each was by itself against both the
others, and the only point of union almost between any two of
them was found in their eommon opposition to the third. And
among these three, again, Montanism was the shyest and most
self-sufficient. The Church life depended for its health on the union of
these three ; but none of them produced, or could produce this :
this could be effected only by men who had not fallen into
these one-sidednesses, and were of sound Christian piety. The
simple apostolic belief, where it existed, was not inimical to the
Christian knowledge, nor to the formation of the Christian con
gregational life ; it, and it alone — the necessary gifts being pre
supposed — was in circumstances to meddle with, otherwise than
simply to repudiate, the gnosis, and at a later period Montanism,
and thoroughly to vanquish them.
In point of fact, the Church must at this trying period have
had many men rich in faith, and love, and knowledge, who,
penetrating into the gnosis, and being gentle and favourable
towards what was true in Montanism, and along with this
attaching great importance to the unity of the Church, had skill
to reconcile the mutually repelling and conflicting elements, and
to appropriate them to the Church, thereby overcoming contra
diction, and resolving all into a higher spiritual unity. As
belonging to this class, and whose works have been preserved
to us, may be especiaUy named the author of the Letter to Diog
netus, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch,
Irenaeus and TertulHan, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.1
portion as the bishops were practical, their dignity and the reverence showed
to them increased with the many ; but their intellectual eminence sunk at
the same time.
1 Appendix, Note QQQQ.

EFFECT OF THE GNOSIS. 257
We have already seen how the Church development of the
FirstEpochwas principally conducted, in a Christological respect,
in accordance with the Old Testament doctrines of the Word
and Wisdom of God. It is, indeed, not true that the idea of the
Logos was first introduced into the Church about the year 150 :
so far from this, we have found a progressive development of
this idea, growing out of the Word of God, the real principle,
and arriving before 150 at the Wisdom, the ideal principle;
and both referred to Christ, the historical principle, in propor
tion as the conviction grew, that if we are to be reconciled to
God by Him, God Himself must come nigh to us in Him (see
above, p. 134, Appendix, Note QQ). And even the term \6yo<;,
alternating with prjpa, in. the sense of the Word of God who
appeared in Christ, is not strange to this period. How could it
be, since, leaving out of view the Old Testament and the
apocryphal books, in the New Testament, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, the First Epistle of Peter, and the Gospel by John,1
it is used in this sense ? On the other hand, it must be acknow
ledged that before the gnosis the New Testament term Logos
was in part a Httle used treasure, and in part, taken in the sense
of reason, vow, was not in general applied to Christ, who was in
this respect spoken of as the Wisdom •? and as in general this
momentum remained unformed, still less was there any attempt
made by a reversed process to descend from the wisdom (to
which, proceeding from the Word of God, one must ascend),
and to acknowledge in the perfect ideaKty, or the eternal vow,
which is also love, the principle of reality, or the creative
Word. So long as this was not done, knowledge could not be
satisfied ; but so long the Logos was not thought in His abso
lute freedom, but simply in connection with the world, simply
as the world-principle.
At length came the gnosis. How it laboured from "the
ideal world, and particularly from the vow, to conceive the
1 In the word there lies primarily creative might, the coming into exist
ence through an act of will. But intelligence is not thereby excluded ;
rather it is implicitly understood, as at least Heb. iv. 13, and John i. 4, 5, 9,
prove ; though it is still a work, a scientific step forward, to recognise the
momentum of intelligence in its special worth.
2 As even in the New Testament by Paul, 1 Cor. i. 24 ; Col. ii. 3 ; and in
Matt. xiv. 19 ; Luke i. 35, xi. 49.
VOL. I. E

258 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
universe, nay, to find motives fof the appearance of the Logos
in Jesus, we have seen. But as, on account of the Hyle, it
never came from thought, its point of issue, to being, so also it
could not elevate thought to knowing, to discerning. The'
universe always was dissolved for it, in the best cases, into a
passing appearance. Thought, to be wholly itself, concluded
that no objectivity whatever should be suffered to continue ; but
it lost with that its own substance. And where this did not
happen, Gnosticism continued to stand in the ruder forms of
DuaHsm. Marcion's principle might have conducted further ;
but it was not from the gnosis that he had this : the category
of love he derived from the Christian faith.
But what the gnosis could not attain without going back
into the Church, it had still power to excite there. No man
can say anything rational concerning the supreme Divine region,
who has not first recognised the Divine love, where it is to be
recognised, in Christ. And no man recognises it by the simple
process of thinking, but only through the spiritual intuition of
love. But it is not every one of those who have the fundamen
tal knowledge of God in faith and love, who knows also how
to make something of a doctrinal tenet out of that, and to appro
priate the treasure which lies in the principle. Now, the gnosis
rendered to faith the essential service of almost compeUing
it to reflect on itself, to address itself more definitely to know
ledge, so as to discriminate the false from the true. This cannot
issue from the natural intellect bound within the lower sphere,
but only from the Christian spirit that is at home in the highest
sphere, or from reason come to itself as it is in Christianity.
\ In this consciousness went forth the succession of men we
hare named. To them Christianity is the bloom of humanity,
the Ipul in the huge body of the race. To them, who for the
mo# part had gone through the systems of Hellenic philosophy,
Clfristianity is the PhUosophy ««t' e%oyr\v, yea, the Divine
wisdom itself.
Of especial moment, however, for the solution of the diffi
cult problem which then presented itself, was the fact that the
subjective Christian consciousness was now more distinctly
united with the objective representation of Christian truth in
the New Testament, and the latter assumed more and more its
canonical rights. Not only the gnosis, but also the Montanist

ORAL TRADITION. THE CANON. 259
piety, had an anti-historical tendency: philosophy and false
spiritualistic piety appeared to combine to cover and obscure
the historical aspect of Christianity; and the result of this
would have been, that Christianity itself must have sunk into a
sort of ghost flitting over the earth, to a momentary spiritual
convulsive fit falling on mankind. . What came to the rescue
here was oral tradition and the Holy Scriptures of the New
Testament, both closely connected, and mutuaUy supporting
each other. It was only natural that in the age of the apos
tolic Fathers the living testimony of those who had lived with
the Apostles should give to oral tradition a preponderance over
the use of the apostolic writings ; though in this age there were
already commenced collections of the apostolic writings,1 and
the use of them in Divine service.2 But as the men who went
back to the apostoUc age gradually retired from the stage, oral
tradition receded behind the apostolic written word ; this came
to be recognised as the canon ; and to the canon, as far as it was
formed, the first place was assigned ; and, above all, the utmost
efforts were made to contribute by historical testimonies and re
collections, as well as by the internal evidence of their own
behef, to the completion of the work of forming the canon. In
the official system of the Church, oral tradition had found a
firm centre ; and the work of forming the canon, in which after
Irenaeus the leaders of the Church were chiefly engaged, is the
pre-eminent historical act of the clergy of the second century,
and is the most important contribution which even the Episco
pate, watching over the unity of the Church, made to the Chris
tological work of the Church : by this the wild shoots and extra
vagancies which had previously been so common were cut off
right and left, and a firm course of development entered on.
Without any formaUy conclusive decree, the apostolic writings
were treated as canonical, and the greater part of the writ
ings in the canon as we now have it as apostolic. An exege-
tical activity commenced, by means of which great fruit and
1 As is shown by Marcion's canon, the passage of Ignatius Philad. 5,
the numerous citations of the New Testament in the apostohc Fathers, etc.
2 Comp. e. gr. the letter of Dionysius of Corinth, Euseb. iv. 23, Justin
Apol. i. 67. The reading of the New Testament writings, on the other hand,
was already customary with many much earlier, as with Clement of Rome,
Ignatius, Polycarp, etc.

260 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
enrichment came to Christian knowledge and the dogmatic
impulse ; for it was not a slavish traditional relation to Holy
Scripture which prevailed, but the relation of a free love and
recognition, such as had also operated in the forming of the
canon. 'The vitality of the subjective side of Christian faith
at this time, is sufficiently proved by the far-spreading Mon-
tanist excitement, and still more by the men of whom we are
now to speak.
In the Letter to Diognetus there appears no longer a mere
simple faith, but one intimately affected by the gnosis ; and the
marvellous charm of the Letter lies in the exquisite combina
tion of the depth of an inner emotional life with the freshness
of a knowledge which emancipates, which enlarges the circle
of vision and illustrates everything, and which yet withal re
mains unpretentious. Here the proper ecclesiastical position
against Gnosticism is assumed. The world of Christians, the
writer says (ch. 12), is a paradise ; they produce fruitful taees
of all kinds. For in this place are planted the tree of know
ledge and the tree of Ufe. " But the tree of knowledge does
not kiU ; it is sin that kills." WhUst he thus speaks against
an exclusive piety, he no less distinctly speaks against the
gnosis of Gnosticism :x God planted first in Eden the tree of
life, and -by the tree of knowledge indicated the path to the tree
of life. But as the first human beings did not use it in purity,
they were stripped naked through the deception of the ser
pent. For neither is life sure (do-<paXrj<;) without gnosis, nor is
gnosis certain without true life. Wherefore each of the two
trees was planted by the other. The Apostle censures not every
kind of gnosis- (1 Cor. vHi. 1), but he exhibits the power of union
of both, and censures that gnosis which men employ without
allowing themselves to be, conducted from the truth to the Hfe.
Whosoever thinks he can know anything without a true and
life-attested gnosis, errs, and is deceived by the serpent, "because
he loves not the life. He, however, who reverently seeks and
strives after the Hfe, plants with hope. " Let the heart be to
thee gnosis ; but let the true Logos, received into the heart, be
^ *
1 Which was fond of representing the Fall as the cause of knowledge
(see above). 1 1 believe I am not deceiving myself when I see all through
the twelfth chapter the pursuit of a middle path between Gnosticism and
abstract piety.

EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 261
to thee Hfe. Then shall thy food be wholly divine, such as no
serpent touches ; then shall Eve be no longer deceived."
The Hellenic culture of the author is seen most strikingly
in this high estimation of the Christian gnosis. And this is
obvious also in his Christology. It is, indeed, not more fuUy
formed ; but the novel feature in it is, that he, after HeUenic
fashion, construes the divine side of Christ not as Word or
creative Power, which were also Wisdom, but originally as Truth
or Eeason. But just so does the author remove himself widely
from the Gnostic idealism, which, confounding God and the
world, estabHshes neither concept. " No earthly contrivance,
no human mysteries, are given to Christians ; but the Almighty
Himself, the Creator of the universe, the invisible God, hath
planted from heaven in men, and hath estabUshed in their
hearts, the Truth and the Logos, since He sent not, as some
insinuate, a servant, or angel, or prince, but the Artificer and
Creator of the universe Himself, through whom He made' the
heavens and shut up the sea within its bounds, whose secret
laws all the elements obey truly, to whom are subjected and
whom follow the moon and the stars, etc., the heaven and what
is in it, the earth and what is on it, the sea and what is in it,
fire, air, 'the abyss, what is in the height, and What is in the
depth, and what is between. Him hath He sent to them ; but
for what ? to terrify, and appal, and subdue" them by force ? By
no means ; but in friendliness and compassion, as a king sends
his son, himself a king. Him as God (a>? ©ebv) He sent as
to men, to deHver, not to destroy* — as a persuader, not a con-
strainer. For violence dwells not with God" (c. 7).
As the design of the appearance of Christ, he assigns re
velation of God (c. 8, 9). Who knows what God is, unless
God Himself show it ? Heathenism answers with its Hes. No
man hath seen God or known Him ; He Himself must show
Himself. He has, however, showed Himself through faith, to
which alone is it granted to see God. God is a friend to man,
and longsuffering towards him. That has He ever been, is now, :
and ever wUl be, — kind and good, and without wrath, and faith
ful : a great unutterable thought hath He thought, which Ho
* [" Urn zu retten nicht zu rechten." To preserve the paranomasia 1
have substituted "destroy" for " contend with ; " and this also is more
in accordance with the original, a; eu&n iiripiipin.—TR.J

262 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
hath communicated to His Son alone. So long as He kept
it secret, and retained His counsel, He seemed to have no care
for us. But when He uncovered that already prepared from
the beginning, and revealed it to us by His beloved Son, He
sent to us what no one could beforehand have expected. In
the preceding times, men were convicted by their own works of
being unworthy of eternal Hfe, incapable by their own strength
of entering into the kingdom of God. Thus God delayed in
order that we might be made conscious of our own guilt and
impotency. But as that was filled up, and it was rendered
manifest that punishment and death duly awaited us, the one
love (jj,ia dydirrj) continued true. It hated not, it departed not,
it remembered not evil ; but was longsuffering, and bore, nay,
itself took on our sins. It gave His only Son as a ransom for
us ; the holy for the unholy, the sinless for the wicked, the pure
for the vile, the immortal for the mortal. For what else could
cover our sins than the righteousness of Him ? Whereby could
the unholy and ungodly be justified but by the Son of God ?
Oil! sweet substitution! Oh, what an unsearchable device,
what unexpected blessing ! The unrighteousness of the many
to be hid by the righteousness of the Qne ; the righteousness of
the One to justify many sinners ! In Him has God showed to
us a Saviour who is able to save what it was not possible to
save [without Him]. In Him has God first loved us-; how
canst thou sufficiently love Him in return % But if thou lovest
Him, thou wilt be an imitator of His goodness. And marvel
not that a man may be an imitator of God ; he can be so if he
will. For, to rule, to be rich, to tyrannize, is not the true eudce-
mony, nor can any man in such imitate God ; but such lies out
side the Divine glory. He, however, who takes his neighbour's
burden on himself, becomes a god for those for whom he inter
poses, he is God's imitator. — Gifted by nature with'Xoyiov, vow.
we are formed after God's image ; but, after the previous time
had showed to us the impossibility of our reaching Hfe through
our own nature, He sent His only-begotton Son (c. 9, 10), the
Logos, that He might shine upon the world, and, speaking boldly
and clearly (c. 11), might reveal all things, — despised by the
people, preached by the Apostles, believed on by the 'Gentiles.
He, who was from the beginning, is He who appeared anew,
and is born anew continually in the hearts of the believers.

EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS. 263
He, who was for ever, is now reverenced as the Son, by whom
the Church is enriched, and grace displays itself, and increases
in the saints, giving understanding, opening mysteries. Thus is
the Logos established among men, since by Him light and Hfe,
Gnosis and Love, are inseparably joined. What He reveals on
earth is God Himself, the Truth; and this He does not by
word alone, but above all by His death. Thus also there is re
vealed by deed the highest concept of God, the glory of God —
Love. On him who despises this, falls the weight of judgment
at the second Parousia of Christ.
When the author says (c. 8), "No one has seen or known
God ; He has revealed Himself," — it might seem as if he meant
that the Father had Himself appeared ; as also the words (c. 9)
" God has taken our sins on Himself," have a patripassian
sound. And since there is no reference to the Holy Ghost in
the Epistle, but all that happens to any one is ascribed to the
Logos ; since the Logos is represented as He that fills the
Church, adorns with His gifts, arouses to testify, dwells in the
Church as Teacher, and rejoices in it (c. 11, 12) ; it might seem
as if the Logos was, in the view of the author, nothing else than
God Himself viewed as revealed. But he very distinctly dis
tinguishes, even apart from revelation, the Logos from God
absolutely ; and particularly by applying to Him the names,
Son (iraii), Beloved, only-begotten Son (c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).
This was from the beginning, always (air' a/3%»}s del, c. 11) ; and
the mystery of redemption was communicated by God to His
Son from the beginning, when He formed the plan (c. 8). He
knew all with the Son. The author is not satisfied by repre
senting the Son as hypostatically existing at the creation of the
universe ; but, as the actual world was framed by the Son, so,
when the idea of the world was conceived, the Son also was
present.1 These expressions consequently, which have so strong
a patripassian sound, prove that the author saw in Christ true
deity, and are explainable only on this supposition ; but they
do not aim at obliterating the distinction between the Son and
1 Thus is the Gnostic Logos-doctrine refuted. The world is not God's
son, but from the beginning the Son is with the Father. On the other
hand, the Logos is not an idea without a history, but is the idea which,
apart from the universe, subsists in the piiyxteioryi; of God, Love, the prin
ciple of .the Creation and of the Incarnation.

264 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
the Father. How this Christology is to be reconciled with
God's unity, is not said. He does not point at the subordination
of the Son. Moreover, he does not seek to prejudice the
humanity of Christ, as is evident from his doctrine of Christ's
death ; and it is not accidental that he, after the incarnation, is
fond of speaking of the Person of Christ as the Logos or the
Son, by which, as we have seen, he intends the pre-existent
divine nature of Christ. On the other hand, he holds that
Christ is in the midst of us, inasmuch as he sees in the birth of
the new man an analogue, nay, strictly taken, a continuation of
the fact of the Logos assuming humanity in Jesus. It is He
who " was from the beginning, and appeared anew, and always
is born anew in the hearts of the saints."
Much more developed is the Christology, especially the doc
trine of the Logos, of Justin Martyr. Through the latter he
has become of more decisive importance ; for in him, a Sama
ritan by birth, were united the two previous tendencies in the
unfolding of the idea of the Logos, the Old Testament ten
dency proceeding from the Word and ending in the iravdpeTo<i
aocpia (Euseb. iv. 22), and the Hellenic, which sees in the
Logos the Divine Eeason. He is the first of the Christian
teachers with whom intentionally the term Logos has its double
meaning, uniting and reconciHng its two tendencies, of creative
Word and Divine Eeason (Dial, cum Tryph. 61). In this feH-
citous word, no longer existing with ambiguity in the mind of
the Church, is found the key to the union of both tendencies,
which, as above shown, had already mutually formed each
other. Heathen and Jewish Christians were now conjoined by
the confession of the Logos in its double sense ; Ebionism and
Doketism were excluded by the higher truth in which the
Church had her expressed unity. The want of historical and
actual validity for the idea- is removed, by the recognition of
the eternal truth as the Creator-Word that became man. On
the other hand, the idealess character of the history of Christ
in Ebionism is removed, by His being conceived as Fact, yea,
as the appearing of the eternal truth and reason itself. Thus
in fuller stream, and in one bed, thenceforward flowed on the
more richly acknowledged Christian truth.1
Had Justin thought the objective essence of God after the
1 Appendix, Note RRRR.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 265
supersubstantial form of PhUo, his doctrine of the Logos would
have been unintelligible. For if God be the simply distinction-
less, abstract unity, then would such a preponderance be given
to the Divine monarchy, that there would remain for the Logos
only a higher creature nature, or a simply economic signifi
cancy; the Logos must be viewed as necessarily outside the
Divine essence, in the highest sense. But though in Justin's
theology there are assonances to the Alexandrian theology, yet
he asserts not God's objective want of attributes, "but His un-
nameableness, — not God's abstract simpHcity, but His un-
fathomableness and incomprehensibUity by us. It is true that
Justin's concept of God is not adjusted for the purpose of un
folding to us, out of it, the doctrine of the Logos or the Christ
ology ; otherwise he must have receded further from the
Alexandrian. doctrine than he even has done ; but his doctrine
of the Logos, which is wrought out by him not a priori but
from history, from the experienced salvation which is in Christ,
and apostolic tradition, receives from his doctrine of God no
opposition.1 It must not, indeed, be expected in Justin that he
wiU show the necessity of Christianity or of the appearance of
Christ ; the doctrine of the Logos is rather by him set forth in
the manner of a dogma, which he seeks especially to found on
the Old Testament.
The Dialogue with Trypho affirms, that with the Jews the
Christians hold Monotheism inviolate, and are at one with
them in opposing aU Polytheism. But the Person of Christ
necessitates Christians to recognise in Him true deity.- Christ,
the first-born of the creation, has also become the beginning of
another race, regenerated by Him through water and faith,
and through that tree in which rests the mystery of the cross.2
The purpose of His appearance was the transformation and
elevation of the human race.3 He particularly recognises the
marvellous power, penetrating to the soul, of the discourses of
Christ.4 There rested on Him, not a charisma of the Spirit,
but the seven powers in their unity ;5 and if the seed of reason
1 Comp. Semisch 1. c. ii. 247-260. One may even say, from Apol. i.
63, that the inconceivability of God in Himself by men, formed a reason
with Justin for His revelation in Christ.
a C. Try. cap. 138. 8 Apol. i. 23.
* C. Try. 121 ; Apol. i. 10 * C. Try. 87.

266 JIRST PERIOD SECOND EPOCH.
is scattered over all, there res us in Him the All of reason (\oyt-
kov to oXov), not a mere aireppa or pipurjpa, but the Primal
Eeason itself ; and Christianity is to be called divine wisdom,
divine philosophy (Apol. ii. 10, 12). But it is the perfect
wisdom, because it is not a powerless idea, but life-governing
truth; because it .fills with the fire of love, with the blessedness
of reconciliation. Because Christ exhibits power to deify man,
He is God. " As from one father Jacob," says he to the
Jew Trypho (c. 123 ff.) " all are named, so all we are, and are
called, true children, from Him who hath begotten us in the ,
divine nature, — from Christ the God we are worthy to be called
gods.1 The whole race of man Hes, since Adam's fall, under
the curse, and is subject to physical and spiritual death. Hence
Christ must become man. He must unite the essential life
with the mortal, in order to make the latter essentially immortal '
(comp. the Fragments on the Eesurrection). His positions con
cerning the manner in which Christ hath accompHshed what is
ascribed to Him, — viz., by the slaying of the serpent and the
evil powers, in general of death, by cleansing from sin and
renewal of humanity, — are but very vaguely expressed; and he
is fond, however distinctly he deduces these fruits from the
death of Jesus, of referring to the cross as a " mystery," as it
were, in a sacred night in which the new Divine man was born.
He has not taught that He was given as a ransom-price to
Satan ; as, indeed, none of the more eminent Fathers hold this
as expressing the entire significancy of the death of Christ.
It is also true, that what he places in the foreground is not the
Divine righteousness and the concept of guilt and punishment,
but that of evil and of sin, from which Christ delivers us. But
it would be an error to seek to exclude the concept of guilt and
'punishment from him altogether.2 But however vague the
1 Comp. Apol. i. 23. [It is but fair to state, that the above passage is
made up out of two different passages in Justin, of which it may be de
sirable to give a translation here : "As therefore from that one Jacob, who
was also called Israel, your whole race is called Jacob and Israel, so [are]
we from Him who hath begotten us to God from Christ ; we who keep the
commands of Christ are called, and are, the true children of God :" c. 23.
Then having quoted Ps. Ixxxii. 6, and commented on it, he says, " Be the
interpretation of the Psalm what it may, it still remains certain that men
are deemed worthy to become gods :" c. 124. — Te.]
J Appondix, Note SSSS.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 267
whole remains, Justin's central concept is the idea of substitu
tion, which he sets forth in many ways. " God's Son, the
Logos," says he, in the Fragment on the Eesurrection, c. 1,
" came among us, bearing a body, showing Himself and the
Father, giving us in Himself the resurrection of the dead."
In another fragment (from Leontius, see Grabe Spicilegium ii.
172 [Justin Opp., ed. Otto, ii. 251, No. 9]) he says, " Through
disobedience mankind received corruption into their nature
(<pvo-iK&<; elaeBe^aTo <f>0opdv). It thus became necessary that
he who would rescue man should destroy that essential prin
ciple of corruption (<p0opoiroibv ovaiav)." In order to accom
plish this, the essential life must be united with that which was
subject to corruption, in order that that life might cast out the
corruption, and elevate to immortality that which had received
corruption. Hence the Logos must assume flesh. Had He
simply by His death warded off death from us, He would only
have helped us from without. Death would have been pre
vented from reaching his aim, but we should have remained
in corruption ; for we bear the principle of corruption in our
selves. Thus it is only in Christ's essential life, which was
united with the mortal, that a universal principle is given for
the subduing of corruption in the general. In Him is corrup
tion in us also overcome. For this a basis is laid in His incar
nation ; but His death and resurrection, which Justin eagerly
sets forth together, have also this general significancy, that they
are regarded as concerning mankind, not one individual man.
Only thus is it conceivable how he sees in Christ's death the
death of death and of sin, and in .Christ's resurrection the
foundation of universal eternal life, aiid in both together the
dying of an old and the resurrection of a new world, not only
intimated, but accomplished. This is the substitution, — not
a magical one, not one positing passivity, but the true and liv
ing substitution, which is also the principle of the higher life,
planted by it in those men who have, by faith in Christ, their
part in His perfect victory. To this belongs also the passage,
c. Tryph. 116 : " Through the name of Jesus, the High
Priest, all become the true high-priestly race of God — all come
to be as one man, allied to the Creator of the universe ; through
the name of His First-begotten they have put off the unclean
garments, that is, their sins, and are inflamed by the word of

268 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH
vocation." To this also must be referred his caUing, according
to a PauHne figure, aU Christians together one body with many
menfbers; and his representing believers as a synagogue, a
church, a soul, the daughter of God. The one soul in all the
members is the Logos.1
High as in his esteem is the value of Christ's work, as
one truly divine, and hence as witnessing for Christ's true
deity, he is yet far from recognising no truth outside of Chris
tianity. On the contrary, he counts the heathen philosophy, —
that of a Plato, a Socrates, etc., as well as their virtue, — to be
highly prized.2 But he earnestly affirms the position, that in
the Son who was manifested in Jesus is the whole truth, the
whole Logos ; and that ho longer is the mere seed, or the
shadow of it manifested.3 And since in the Son who was
manifested in Jesus there is the whole truth, he justly con
cludes, that where there is truth elsewhere, it must be a mo
mentum or a portion of the Christian truth, placed by the same
Son who revealed Himself in His fulness in Christ. Thus he
was impelled, just by the recognition of a truth even before
Christianity, to a higher concept of Christ — a new phase of
the Church doctrine of the pre-existence of the Son.4 In a
genuinely speculative manner he lays the grounds for this doc
trine deeper, as respects as well the spiritual as the natural
world. The Logos pervades the latter ; nay, it has in itself an
immanent reference to the manifestation of Christ and to His
work.8 As respects the soul, however, it has not merely an
inborn idea of God, but also a natural and essential relation to
the Logos (Apol. ii. 10, 6). Besides the creation of nature and
of men, however, the Logos has manifested Himself also in
history. The Old Testament revelations are revelations of the
Logos. He appears at one time in the form of a man, at
another Hi that of fire, at another in an incorporeal form (Apol.
i. 61, 63; c. Tryph. 61, 62); for the Father in Himself is
above space and time ; He comes not in any definite space ;
1 C. Try. 42, 63 ; Apol. ii. 8.
3 Apol. i. 46. He even calls them Christians.
8 Apol. ii. 8, 10. He does not, however, bring both quite together.
4 Apol. i. 46, ii. 10, 13, Sa* ou» xxpd acxai xa~Ka; tlpruxi, qpiZn rat
XpumanZn iarm, through the power of the Logos axipfixrixoi.
1 Apol. i. 55, 60 ; ii. 10, 13.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 26S
He walks not, and is not surrounded by a place — not even by
the whole world. But the Son, who, so far as He performs the
Father's will, is also called His Angel, is He through whom all
revelations are effected (c. Try. 127, comp. 56 ff.). This
theologoumenpn was especially agreeable to Jews of Alexan-
drinian culture. In order to hold God free from the limits of
finitude, and yet on the other hand to allow to Divine revela
tion its historical validity, many Jews had understood, under
the manifestations of God in the Old Testament, a power of
God, to which they gave different names : Glory (Jekaru, She-
kinah, Boga), when its figure was indefinite ; Man, when the
form of a man was assumed; Angel, when a message was
brought to men ; Word, when it brought a discourse from the
Father. This power they thought as not separate from the
Father, as the beams of light are not separate from the sun ;
when the Father wills, this power is suffered to burst forth
from Him ; and when He wills, He draws it again back. In
this Justin finds several things to blame ; but it serves him as
a point of junction for the higher Christology. This Power,
he says, is Christ ; and the Jews err, in that they think it with
out connection with Him. Further, no angel can have any such
merely parastatic impersonal being as can be resumed into the
indistinguishableness of the Divine nature. Eather must this
Divine Bvvapt,? be more than simply a name. He must be
something per se, existing for Himself in distinction from the
Father ; and since this being, especially in Christ, has to mani
fest not merely Himself, but also the Father (De Eesurrec. 1),
He must also be, what He is called in the Old Testament, where
the names Maleach and Jehovah are used interchangeably of
Him, He must be God. He thus presses on the Jews, from
the Old Testament, the necessity of holding, not abstract simple
Divine essence, but a Monotheism which does not exclude plu
rality of distinctions.1
In the closer examination of the nature of the Logos, he
again attaches himself to the Old Testament,, to the doctrine of
the Wisdom therein contained ; but in such a way, as that what
is there conceived indefinitely, and rather as a personification,
1 This is the meaning of the passage, c. 128, that the Son is dpiDfiij
tnpon ti in relation to the Father, and only this sense corresponds with tha
indefiniteness of the expression.

270 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
or, at the highest, as a distinction of wisdom from God in rela
tion to the world, is now brought to the point of being regarded
as a firm, nay, eternal distinction in the Divine essence itself,
and is assumed even as a point of issue for the Person of the
God-man. In the Dialogue c. Tryph. c. 62, Justin says, " Not to
angels nor to the world did God speak, when He said, Let
Us make man, but to His Son. He, begotten by the Father,
was before all creatures with the Father ; and with Him the
Father converses, as the Word by Solomon declares, that as
principle (dp%rj) before all creatures this birth was begotten
(iyeyevvnTo) which Solomon calls Wisdom" (comp. cj Tryph.
129). " He was (c. Tryph. 105) the only-begotten Son of the
universal Father, in a pecuHar manner as Reason (\0709) and
Power begotten by Him." 1
Thus far has Justin come on his way from the historical
manifestation of Christ. He knows, indeed, that the Logos
is not in title merely, but in essence also, truly God, and has
Divine power and honour. In one remarkable passage he even
labours to construe the Logos absolutely in relation to the
Father, not to the world alone ;2 but he is unable to develop the
thought more clearly. " The Son of God, who alone in the
proper sense is called Son, the Logos, who before all creatures
was both with God and begotten by God, when God in the be
ginning made and ordered all through Him (0 \0709 irpb t&v
troinpATWV koX <rwmv koI yewa>pevo<s otb . . . . Bi ovtov irdvTa
e/cTicre, k.t.X.), has a name." The connection demands decisively
the sense, that the Son had not received His name nor His being
through the world, or on account of the world;, and hence,
stress is laid on His being with the Father before the world,
because, apart from the world, He has His name, Son, on ac
count of His relation to the Father.3 There is certainly some-
1 Other names of the Logos, xpuroToxo; ©iov, irpo iranrun Tan xnapcxran,
dico tow xxrpo; 7rpo/iKrit)in yennyfta, 6 pconoyinti;, or i pcovo; xvpia; \iyopcino;
vio;. Apol. i. 23, 32 ; ii. 6 ; c. Tryph. 138, etc.
2 Apol. ii. 6. The Father, as unbegotten, has no name. For the words,
Creator, Father, Lord, etc., relate rather to His works and deeds than to
Himself. But His Son has a name, The Logos, before all creation, who
alone in a strict sense is called Son, etc.
8 The creation of the world and the begetting of the Logos are by no
means, as Semisch thinks (1. c. ii. 280), to be regarded as simultaneous

JUSTIN MARTYR. 271
thing strange in the addition, " when God through Him made
all." But rather than the whole, context should be disturbed
by this, the conjecture of oti for ore must be accepted ; because
otherwise in the same breath it would oe said, The Logos is
begotten before the world, and with the world, — the latter of
which would be quite foreign to the connection.1 But even
without this conjecture the difficulty may be surmounted, by
supposing that categories which he uses in an analogous case
wavered before the eyes of Justin. In c. Tryph. 128, he so
places the earlier appearances of the Logos in conjunction with
the incarnation, that whilst he calls them appearances Bvvdpei,
the actual incarnation would be the ivepyeia of the earHer
simple potency of the incarnation. When this is applied to the
passage before us, it gives the meaning, that the Logos was with
God before the creation, not simply as an attribute, but Bvvdpei,
as potency; but that He came to ivepyeia when the world was
made.2 In this way, certainly, the being and the work of the
Logos are still obscurely mixed ; there Hes prominently in the
term avveivai the effort to represent Him even above the world
in distinction from the Father; but it would have belonged
to a more fuUy developed concept of the absolute Spirit,
had Justin been able to keep himself from always relapsing
into the poor pre-Christian category, so apt to lead into error
in a trinitarian respect, of the revealed and hidden God,
and therewith to miss the basis which he sought for the
hypostasis of the Son in the eternal Divine essence apart from
the world. Into the momentum of actuality the Logos consequently —
because His content still too predominantly relates to the world*
acts, but, as the connection shows, the opposite. It is also doubtful if
Semisch is right in thinking that the being with God (avnfmxi ra xarpi,
Apol. ii. 6 ; Try. 62) is to be taken as expressing the being of an " attri
bute" in God, whilst the individual, personal existence hes in the yiwx-
odxt. What writer would speak so of an attribute ? Nay, how can the
assertion, that with Justin the Reason is but an attribute, be justified?
1 For the conjecture it might be pleaded, that in many places the be
getting of the Son before the time of the creation of the world is asserted,
whilst nowhere is there a passage that makes these simultaneous.
2 This explanation accords fully with the allied doctrine of Theophilus,
etc., concerning the Logos, xpotpopixo; and hlixhro;.
* " Weil sein Inhalt noch zu vorherrschend sich auf die Welt bezieht."

272 FIRST PERIOD, SECOND EPOCH.
— enters only with the world, or, more exactly, with reference to
the world, whose principle He must be, and which in concept
He consequently precedes,; whilst He, on the other hand, is
actual principle only along with His work, the actual world.
The distinction between the hidden and the revealed God is at
first only Sabellian : Justin does not seek to abide by this ;
there is for him an dpi0pm erepov ti with which he is concerned,
an essential and abiding distinction in God Himself ; and so
he enunciates the Logos as an hypostasis even in the state of
pre-existence (awcov t& IT.). But since he is still fettered by
that insufficient distinction, and is not impelled to a construc
tion of the full concept of God in its independence, the hypo
statizing of the Logos receives in his hands again a hasty refer
ence to revelation or the world ; and thereby his doctrine of
the Logos, through an unsurmounted Sabellian element, re
ceives an Arian aspect. On the other hand, it may be proved
that the just fear of thinking God emanistically in relation
to the Logos, and as passive in the procession of the latter
(consequently the fear of a theopassian tendency), led him even
to Arian expressions. In order that God might not be thought
as suffering, or as susceptible of change, through the doctrine
of the begetting of the Logos, he represents Him as having
proceeded by the will of God} But had this been taken strictly,
as the Arians did, it would have been opposed to the position,
which beyond doubt possessed for Justin himself a much more
primitive significancy, that the Logos is of the essence of God,2
and that He potentially is eternally in God. But it is note
worthy, that we already see here two not yet refuted heresies
indicated from afar. The possibility of both exists ; Justin is
attached to neither of them, for both can, with equal justice and
equal want of it, appeal to him. Against the Arian represen
tation there is this in Justin, besides what has been already
advanced, that he does not at all represent the Son as an object
of the Divine counsel and will, as he does the world — in a word,
he does not place Him on the footing of a creature ; but over
against the word epyaaia (c. Tryph 114) there stands yewrjpa,
which, as its full counterpoise, secures equaHty of essence, and
over against the word yewaa0ai, which has a passive sound,
4 Appendix, Note TTTT.
* C. Tryph. 61 : 6 ©to; ytyiunqxi Ivnetfttv Tina If iavrov "hayixi\t.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 273
there stands the term irpoepxea0ai (c. Tryph. 62, 129). If the
Son proceeds from the Father (which involves His pre-existence,
o-vvrjv tw iraTpi), the Father might appear as passive, since in
the Son divine essence proceeds from God ; and that Justin
held views, according to which this construction might appear
possible, — consequently, did not hold strict Subordinatianism, —
is shown by his resorting, in order to avoid giving the representa
tion of a physical partition of God, to the will and the conscious
ness of God as causes of this procession.1
Justin indicates the relation of the Logos to the Father still
further negatively. " The Divine essence," he says, c. Try. 129,
" is not partitioned by the begetting of the Logos, nor trans
muted into portions." He by this aims at excluding the sepa
ration of the Logos from the Father, and also at indicating the
relation of whole and part as here an inadequate one. He feels
that this is simply a physical category, and that quantitative
definitions are not sufficient to indicate the relation between
Father and the Son. Such are undoubtedly, in his judgment,
inadequate in respect of the Father, because in this case it
would result, either that the entire quantum of the Divine
essence was no longer in the Father, but only in both together ;
or, if the Father remains the whole, that there is no getting at
an hypostasis of the Son, — neither of which he is prepared to
admit ; and hence it foUows, that he must find them also insuf
ficient as respects the Son. For, were the Son a section and part
hypostatically, it would follow that the Father also must be viewed
as a part, though the greater of the two. To this it must be
added, that Justin frequently asserts that the wholeEeason-power
appeared in Christ (Apol. H. 10, Xoyiicbv to oKov) ; and also in
respect of power aU Hmits to the Logos are denied,2 when He
is called, " as respects power (or potential existence, essential
being), the Logos inseparable from the Father." Power rests
in essence, but the essence of the Logos is true deity.3
1 Semisch is not correct when he finds (ii. 88) in Justin the strictest
" subordination of the Son." This is at variance with Semisch's own re
presentation, p. 293 ff.
2 Cohort, ad Gr. : o; tov ©ioi> virapyjun k.oya; dyfitpiaro; Ivnapm, x.t.A.
Hence I cannot assent to the judgment of Semisch, that the Letter to Diog
netus places Christ higher than Justin.
3 The term -avipptx, used of the Son, Apol. i. 32, is allied to yinnnfix, and
belongs to the category of definitions establishing the essential equality.
VOL. I. S

274 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
Further, Justin refuses the figure of the sun and its circle
of rays, not because this figure infers that the sphere of the
Son is greater quantitatively than that of the Father, but be
cause it does not do justice to the Son's personality, seeing the
sun's rays are not of its essence (c. Tryph. 138) ; Philo, at one
with Justin in opposition to the diroTepveo-0ai, preferred a
monad expanding itself into a dyad, and used for that the term
iicTeiveo-0ai. According to him, the Divine monad becomes the
Logos by self -expansion. This view Justin adduces (c. Tryph.
128), but rejects it, because this Divine power (the Logos) is
another (than the Father) not in name merely, but in number
also.1 This is, however, the classic figure of the later Sabel-
lianism (Epiph. Hser. lxii. 1). For this Justin himself presents
another figure, " which had been delivered to him," — the figure
of fire, at which another fire or other fires may be kindled without
its being itself diminished, or the others faUing to be of the
same kind, fire like the first. This figure also, since the kindled
fire may become greater than that from which it was kindled,
shows that he was not concerned about the quantitative great
ness of the Father and the Logos, but that with Justin Subor-
dinatianism adhered only to the manner in which he connects
the begetting of the Son with the design of an actual world, and
deduces it from the Divine wiU.2
Justin is of importance for the further course of the doc
trine of 'the Logos, in that he referred the begetting to the rela
tion of the Logos to the Father. Before we proceed with this,
we must consider how he expresses himself concerning the mani
festation of the Logos in Christ.
. Semisch, however, cannot prove, as he attempts, ii. 291, that the Logos in
relation to the Father is called c^ipp* only as Wisdom in heathenism is, ac
cording to him, a amippcx in relation to the Logos. Still less is there any
proof of a representation of a qualitative partition of God in the passage,
c. Tryph. 61 : " God begot from Himself Ivnapth Tina -hoyix^n :" for, as
Semisch acknowledges on another place, Ivvapus connected with ytyinnvtxe
is not a power, but a hypostatic being. Why, then, might not Justin say,
God begot in the Person of His Son from Himself a rational personahty,
without thinking of a quantitative definition?
1 Comp. Simson, Summa Theolog. Joann. pp. 31, 40.
2 The old assertion, that Justin identifies the Logos and the Holy Ghost,
must be given up, since Semisch's thorough investigation, ii. 303 ff . It is
only in respect of the work of both that the distinction is somewhat un
steady.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 275
He is aware of a Christological view which indeed sees in
Jesus the Christ, but to which He is only man of men, i.e., the
Ebionitic view (c. Tryph. 48). The gentle handling which he
gives to this in opposing it, especially as compared with Gnosti
cism,1 forms,, at first sight, the strongest contrast to the decisive
ness with which he insists on the deity, not of the Logos merely,
but of Jesus also (c. Tryph.. 36). For explanation of this, it
may be remarked, in addition to what has been already advanced
(see p. 198), that in his time Ebionism had lost its contagious
power, and lingered only in fragments (nve<s) ; and besides, the
Ebionites to whom he refers did not renounce what was for him
such a weighty historical basis, the Old Testament, as did the
Gnostics and gnosticizing Ebionites. The Old Testament con
tains in his view the Logos-doctrine, and with that a higher
Christology, so distinctly, that whosoever submits to it is easily
recovered from his error, if he only receives the right explana- ,
tion of the Old Testament. Whilst his Dialogue with Trypho
serves for the most part for a defence of the deity of Christ, he
also opposes Gnosticism as Doketism. Christ has truly become
man, capable of suffering.2 He took flesh and blood (Apol. i.
66), took on Him man, who is made in the image and Hkeness
of God (Cohort, ad Gr. 38). So he calls Him the Logos be
come man (\oyo? dvBpa>0ek, c. Tryph. 102). Jesus Christ, who
before was the Logos, and appeared now in the form of fire,
now incorporeally, has now, according to God's wiU (Apol. i. 23 ;
c. Tryph. 127), become man for the race of man, and hath
taiken on Him to suffer aU (comp. Apol. H. 6, 13; c. Tryph. 100).3
But not only are all the leading facts of Christ's life recog
nised by Justin — His birth, baptism, teaching, death, resurrec-
1 He wrote (Apol. i. 26) against all heresies, according to Cedrenus, dur
ing the reign of Hadrian (Semisch i. 43). This writing was probably
directed against the Gnostics especially. Comp. Apol. i. 56, 58 ; c. Tryph.
35, 80, 82, 98, 103 ; De resurr. 10.
2 C. Tryph. 98 :. uwoliixnvan or; d*.ii6a; yiyoniv anQpa-so; dnrihiivrtxi;
irxtian. C. 103 : " He trembles and is dismayed that we might know that
the Father willed that His Son should in these sufferings be truly among
us, and that we should not say that He who is the Son of God did not ex
perience what came upon Him."
3 Other expressions : aupcxroiroitiaOai, aapxoirouhUxr, pioptpovabat, axpxa
ixim, /popup, etc. The riches of expression for this department of concepts
shows that Christian thought had already long dwelt on it.

276 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
tion, and ascension, — but he enters still more closely into the
subject. Christ is born not as man of men, but without sin (S^a
dpapriai), of the Virgin, from the stock of Abraham (c. Tryph.
23, 54 ; De Eesurrec. 3). The Founder of a new race, Christ
(c. Tryph. 138) must show that the creation of man is possible
without a conception connected with sinful lust ; and that, as
the virgin even conceived by the word of the serpent, and bore
death, so also a virgin may by the word of an angel conceive
joy and faith (c. Tryph. 100 ; De Eesurrec. 3). The word of
the Holy Ghost, who overshadowed the Virgin, Justin under
stands, as before observed, of the Logos (Apol. i. 33). Decid
edly as he refers the incarnation to the wUl of the Father, he
no less regards it as a voluntary act of the Logos. By Himself
has the Logos become patible Hke us (Apol. ii. 10), — nay, the
power of the Logos properly effects that, according, however,
to the will of the Father (Apol. i. 32, 46, 66 ; c. Tryph: 54),1
and without exclusion of the mental and corporeal participation
of Mary. The potency of becoming man, which the Logos
always bore in Himself, and which He manifested when He in
the aforetime appeared in the form of a man, came thus alone
to actuaUty (c. Tryph. 128) ; and this passing into a human
being may figuratively be called a yewn<ri<> of the Logos, just as
the passing of the Logos that rested in God to action in the
creation may be so called, as it is by Clement of Alexandria.
Justin foUows out into detaU the self -emptying of the Logos.
Christ was a child, grew and passed through successive stages
of life as we do, doing full justice to each, ate all kinds of food,
and was capable of suffering (c. Tryph. 88, 98). Nevertheless
He had from birth His own peculiar power ; hence the Magi
might properly worship Him (c. Tryph. 88). And He did not
need baptism in order to receive through it, for the first time,
a communication of Divine power: in the Logos Himself is
the fountain of the Holy Ghost, and the unity of all His powers
named by Isaiah, c. xi. ; but in this man Jesus is the entire
Logos. His baptism took place in order to make Him known
to others ; and the passage in Isaiah, as well as the accounts of
the descent of the Spirit on Him, and which remained with
Him, are to be understood as intimating that in Him the pro
phetic spirit had reached its goal, and the end of prophecy was

1 "Appendix, Note UUUU.

JUSTIN MARTYR. 277
given in Him, who has presented the unity of the powers which
separately rested on the prophets of the ancient dispensation
(c. Tryph. 87). Throughout His life He remained, He was
spotless and sinless, living and dying obedient to the Father
(c. Tryph. 17, 35, 110, 41). After His death, He went into
Hades (c. Tryph. 72, 99). His enemies thought He would remain
in Hades like an ordinary man ; but Christ was not wanting
in the higher knowledge. Christ seems to have entered Hades
because He was man, and must pay to human nature its debt ;
but He did not remain there, because He was the Logos who
had become man. His going to Hades, besides, served to bring
to the pious there the joyful tidings of their salvation (c.
Tryph. 72).1
After His resurrection, which he regarded as the Father's
boon, He lived stUl in the same body among us ; He was glori
fied as He ascended to heaven.2
There is no doubt that Justin regarded Jesus Christ as a
person in whom the Logos and humanity were vitally united.
We have also in the above to observe not an unsound prepon
derance of the Logos, through which the reality of the human
nature would be trenched upon. But it requires a more exact
inquiry, whether Justin recognised also a human soul in Jesus.3
On the negative side of this it has been urged, that whilst
Justin conceives the human nature trichometrically, and ac
cordingly ought to speak of four potences in the God-man, he
in one passage (Apol. ii. 10) names only three, a&pa, A-oyo?,
and ¦yjrvxtf. The soul tyvxfj), according to his trichotomy, is
only the animal principle ; and hence it is inferred that Justin
viewed the Logos as supplying the place of the human soul.
But this proof is by no means conclusive.4 Justin is not so
1 This doctrine is not so new as Semisch's representation (ii. 416) would
make it appear. What is said in the Acts and in the First Epistle of Peter
on this subject, was in the middle of the second century so expanded and
worked up, that already the office of preaching in Hades was ascribed to the
Apostles (Herm. Past. Sim: ix. 16, 17); and even Marcion made the descent
to Hades an important article (Iren. i. 27, ii. 1, 24). See Neander Genet.
Enter., p. 301.
2 Comp. Semisch ii. 415, 412.
s See Semisch ii. 409 ff., who calls Justin a forerunner of Apol-
linaris. * The passage runs thus : " Obviously our matter is superior to allhu-

278 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
decidedly a trichotomist, that he might not also hold the twofold
division, and under tyvxh include both the animal principle of
Hfe and the irvevpa, nay, by.^ru^ might intend the irvevpa.1
It is aUeged, on the other hand, that the expressions o-apico-
iroieuT0ai, etc., as little exclude the human soul as Incarnatioi;
and that Justin, moreover, often uses the phrase, He became £|
man, a human being, whilst, on the contrary, he says of the
earlier theophanies, He appeared as a man. His doctrine con
cerning Christ's descent into Hades also, in which he speaks
of Him as stiU man, and so could not have regarded Him as
simply the Logos, has a bearing on this question. When these
things are duly pondered, there may seem reason for our de
ciding on the opposite side. But these proofs also are wanting
in conclusiveness. For, though the later Church sought to
certify the soul of Christ by the article in the Apostles' Creed
concerning Christ's descent into Hades, there wants proof that
these two questions were viewed together by Justin. And
though the expressions, " He is truly a man," " has become a
man," prove conclusively that He was not doketically affected
(and consequently, if he had detected Doketism in the substi
tuting of the Logos in place of the human soul, would have
rejected it) ; yet it is not certain that he did detect this, espe-
ciaUy as this question did not come into discussion in the
Church for nearly, a century later. We shall consequently
best hit on the truth by deciding, that Justin did not indeed
subject the human soul of Christ to special consideration, but
that he neither taught, nor was incHned to teach, anything
against the truth of Christ's humanity. If in the only passage
which can be adduced bearing on this he intends by ^vyr),
not the human soul, but the animal Hfe-principle, and by \0709,
not the reason, but the Logos, yet that he must have been
familiar with the thought of Christ's being reaUy and in all
respects a man Uke other men, is evident from his assertion,
that what men, apart from Christ, have of reason (i.e., then*
man teaching, lid to "hoyixon to oAoi, Ton (panivrx 8«* iif&x; Xpiaron, yiyo-
ninxi xxi aapcx xxi "hoyon xxi ¦tyvyfln?1 " Body, Logos, soul." It seems in
favour of the retaining of the word Logos in the translation, that other
wise the Logos would not be mentioned at all. But He is indicated in the
words Tioyixon to ohon, and hence "hoyo; may mean Reason here.
1 As even Semisch, ii. 361, feels constrained to admit

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. 279
Pneuma), is to be conceived as a spermatic, indwelling of the
Logos in them ; so that Christ is not placed beyond the sphere
of the rest of mankind, if in Him, in place of the germ and
seed, the whole Logos, \oyiicbv to oXov, dwelt.
Even since His exaltation, Christ remains man ; for as the
Son of man shall He come again to the judgment (c Tryph.
31, 32 ; Apol. i. 52). The operations of the exalted Christ
are frequently called by him the operations of the Logos, like
those before His incarnation. If there may be detected here a
preponderance which the Logos had in his immediate Christian
consciousness over the God-man, there is to be set over against
this, that he very often also calls the pre-Christian Logos Christ,
even Jesus Christ, in which mode of designation he is obviously
determined by his setting out from a historical point of view.1
The most alHed to Justin's doctrine of the Logos is that of
Theophilus of Antioch, and that of Tatian. Theophilus also at
taches himself to the Wisdom of the Old Testament (ad Autol.
L. ii.), and this in such a way, as that he seeks to show that in
Christianity there is nothing new, but that it is as old as the
world. With him, almost every other Christological considera- .¦
tion is absorbed in his interest for the momentum of the pre- (
existence and the doctrine of the Logos ; and in consequence of
this onesidedness again, the Hicarnation is threatened with being
viewed doketically. The creation, as well as the appearances
of the Old Testament, and its inspiration, took place through
the Logos, who was always with God, and is caUed dpxv (H.
10) by John (i. 1), as the principle of all things. His relation
to the Father is this, that the Father cannot appear within, a
- definite space (a^co/MjTOs 6 iraTrjp), whilst the Logos can (ii. 22).
Hence the Logos assumed in the world the part of the Father
and Lord of all (irpoamirov). What, however, Justin had be
fore only hinted at, Theophilus brings definitely forward : The
Logos had a being before He came forth to create ; for He
is the Eeason and the Intelligence of God (Qeov vow ical <ppo-
vt)<ri<;). He rested in God's heart, and was His counseUor
before aught was (ii. 22). As such He is called \0705 ivBid-
tfero? (ii. 10). For the creation of the world, God sent forth
the Logos out of Himself.2 The counsel which comes to God
1 Appendix, Note VTVT.
2 Ad Autol. ii. 10 : 'i%an ovn 0 ®io; rin ixvrov "Koyan inliufaron in roi:

280 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
from the Logos, as yet hid in God, relates solely to the world,
is the world-idea. Hence the Logos has an immanent relation
to the world. But since God wUled to create what He had
determined* (i.e., to realize the thought of the Logos), He be
got tins Logos as manifest (irpo<f>opiicbv), as the First-born of all
creation. But God was not thereby emptied of the Logos (the
Eeason) ; rather did He retain it in Himself, eternally convers
ing with it ; and He begat only as yet the Logos. He means
to say, the Logos remained in God, since He is God's reason ;
only God placed His reason as the real-principle of the world,
placed Him in the momentum of actuality.
Here the knot is tied still more tightly than with Justin.
On the one hand, he appears to lay hold and establish still more
than Justin himself the hypostasis of the Son ; as is evidenced
by his using the term i^epevyeo-0ai in the creation of the world,
and by his calling the Son the Logos hid in God (H. 22). On
the other hand, it is expressly said, The Logos is the Divine
Eeason itself, which also dwells eternally in God; whereby,
indeed, the arianizing appearance of Justin disappears, but in
such a way as that it is no longer seen how the essential, ever
equally abiding quality in the Logos, is distinguished from the
Father. The more, however, this distinction disappears, the
more does that in the Logos Himself alone remain, the more
does all weight faU on the distinction between the hidden and
revealed Eeason ; and in this case, as is self-evident, there ceases
to be any interest in speaking of the begetting of a hypostatic
Son before the creation. Theophilus still speaks of this ; but
though his effort goes further, it obtains, in its connection, no
thing of importance beyond the self-determination of the Divine
Eeason to place itself in the momentum of reality.1
Tatian, the Assyrian TertuUian, says (c. Graec. Orat. 5, ed.
ilioi; axhxyjivoi;, iyinnnidin avron pcird rq; eavrov aotpia; l%,ipiv%,dpt.ino; irpo
Tan b\an.
1 Hence Theophilus does not need a caveat against infringing on
Monotheism, as Justin ; and he cannot say that it" is by the Divine counsel
that the Son came to be. Rather is He eternally as Son in God ; but a
contemplated distinction was abode by.the more readily, that to Theophilus
the impulse was wanting which conducted others from the Christology to
the hypostatizing of the Logos. Semisch is incorrect, and he obliterates the
peculiarity of Theophilus, when Q. c. ii. 282, Note 4) he reckons him among
those who derive the Logos from a free act of will on the part of God.

TATIAN. 281
Maur. p. 247), " God was in the beginning," i.e., stood in the
Bvvapu} of the Logos. The Father of the universe, who Him
self is the essential Being or principle (yirocnao-ii) of the uni
verse, was in a certain sense alone, inasmuch as creation as yet
was not. Since, however, He had all power, and was Him
self the essential Being of the visible and the invisible, He was
[not alone, but there was] with Him the universe, consisting
by the power of reason ; Himself that is, and the Logos who
was in Him (was the All, namely, the ideal).1 But by His
simple (mere) will came forth the Logos ; not, however, pass
ing into the void (like a sound or subjective thought), did the
Logos become the first-born work of the Father. This Logos
is the beginning of the world. He is become (this ?), however,
by impartation, not by excision ; for that which is cut off is
severed from the first, but that which is imparted has only
taken a choice for the dispensation in addition [to an equality of
essence, which continues in Him from the first,] without making
Him defective from whom it was taken.2
Like Justin, Tatian thus seeks to preclude the idea of God's
suffering deprivation through the procession of the Logos from
Him. He maintains that there was no actual severance (diro-
Konrr], ytopLt,ea0a£) through the Logos, but that a communica
tion must be nevertheless assumed within the concept of the
Divine essence. Now, how does Tatian carry out this ? Not
in the Divine essence apart from the olicovopla, the world of
revelation. He knows, indeed, of a Logos before the actual
world ; but in relation to this, he can make no distinction save
that of the Father from His own reason, — a distinction which
speedily comes to nothing ; for reason is in the Father, and He
1 Oomp. Tertull. adv. Prax. 5 : Ante omnia Deus erat solus ipse sibi et
mundus et locus et omnia.
2 Tiyone li xard ftipia/xon ov xxrd duroxoirqn. To yap diroTfcyidin tov
crparov xe^aptarai, to li pcipiaQin oixonopcix; Tjjii aipiam crpoaXxfion, ovx enlix
ron ohn ith-wtrxi mvoinxw, after which follows the figure of one torch
kindled from another. The reference to Justin, c. Tryph. 128, 61, and the
polemic against him, is evident. Justin rejects there the xpoxnlxn and the
partition of the Divine essence; Tatian adopts both. Daniel (Tatianus
der Apol. p. 157 ff.) explains the words, from xard pcipiapcon onwards, dif
ferently from what is given above, thus : "What is torn away is severed
from its first ; what exists by communication has a part in the essence
whence it'is taken."

282 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
is not God without reason. — Further, the distinction between
God and the world is not clearly and thoroughly carried out, but
the world is taken in by him into the inner sphere of the Divine ;
God is with His Logos, the universe, according to His essential
eternal being (virocrTao-i<;). Thus the Logos is irresistibly
brought to have no higher significancy than as the yet qui
escent potency of the world in God ; He is simply the world
according to its truth ; and thus the Christian doctrine does not
transcend that of the HeUenes, whom Tatian so much despises,
with whom also the world is the Son of God. It is true, he
does not bring forward the last conclusion ; but he finds no
distinction of the Logos from the Father apart from the world ;
and since he has already defined Him in the immanent Divine
being only as the ideal world-principle, he can find the non-
severing partition between the Father and Him, which he seeks,
only in that the Divine essence, in so far as it accepts or puts
on the momentum of revelation (oltcovopias a'lpeaiv irpoa-
Xafibv), is distinguished from the Divine essence as self-exist
ing. Here, the distinction in God Himself is stUl less signifi
cant than with Theophilus ; and in place of a distinction be
tween Father and Son, there is pressed in a distinction between
God, who as unrevealed is with His Logos the universe and the
ideal world-principle^ and God, who by His free purpose pre
sents Himself as the actual real-principle — by the simple will of
the Father, and the Logos quiescent in Him, who irpoTrrjBa, not
yevvaTai from the Father. From this essentiaUy Sabellian
manner of expression it cannot be seen whether and why the
Logos must also have a proper hypostasis only for the creation
of the world. He calls Him, indeed, the first-born work of the
Father, which the Logos has become, because He could not
glide into the void without result ; but since in this first-born
it is nevertheless only God Himself who is fixed in the momenta
in which He makes Himself the actual principle of the world,
the personality of the first-born has not even for the creation
a significancy with him. This remains for him only a tradi
tionally accepted representation, which is the less in keeping
with his context, inasmuch as he does not seem to have been
brought to it christologically.1
1 Tatian does not deny the incarnation of God, but here also his expres
sions, corresponding with the above, have almost a patripassian sound. In

ATHENAGORAS. 283
The representation of the hypostatizing of the Logos at
the creation is rejected utterly by the clearer and more cautious
Athenagoras, who, through his purer concept of God, opens
a way to an immanent relation between the Father and Son.
He very distinctly sets forth the proposition : " We call God,
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; at the same time
proclaiming their essence in unity, and a distinction in their
order (c. 10). It is the care and joy of the Christians to
know God, and the Logos who cpmes from Him; to see
what is the unity of the Son in relation to the Father, what the
communion of the Father with the Son, what the Spirit ; what
is the union of all these, and the distinction of the united — the
Spirit, the Son, the Father" (Leg. 12). Further, he fixes the
concept of God, per se, much more purely than Tatian. God
has not created the world from any necessity ; for God is Him
self all to Himself — unchanging light, the perfect world, spirit,
power, reason (Leg. 16). Hence men are not formed for the
sake of one another, not even for the sake of God : neither
are they, however, without an end, for God is wise ; but as an
end to themselves, for the sake of their own proper life, which is
destined for the highest (de Eesurr. 12), — consequently, from
the pure goodness of God. From this advance in the concept
of God it foUows, that Athenagoras does not regard the Logos
as first begotten at the creation of the world. He calls Hirri a
yevvvpa, and that irp&Tov, but not as if He had come into being
(for from the beginning, God, since He is eternal spirit, had
in Himself the Logos as eternaUy rational) -1 but in His going
c. 22 he says, the Holy Ghost is llxxono; tow irtironSoro; ©iov ; and in
c. 35, ov ptapai'nofiin, anlpt; iJO^mni;, ©ion in dnipovov fiopQy yiyoninxi.
For the rest, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost is the central-point of his
system rather than that of Jesus or Christ, neither of which names occurs
in his Apology (Cohort, ad Grsec). Comp. Daniel, p. 214 ff., 211 ff.,
167 ff.
1 Leg. 10. What must the Son (xxi;) be ? He has the significancy
¦srpuTon yinntipca iinxi ra xarpl, ovx. a; ytnopitnon (i% dp%%; ydp 6 ©to;, nov;
x'ilio; &n, ti%in xiiro; in ixvra ron T\6yon, d'ilia; T\oyixo; an), «XA a; . . . .
Ilia xxi inipyux nrpot7-dan. The concluding words signify either, As He is
eternal idea, so must He also be inipyux ; or, He is called yinnviftx icparon,
inasmuch as, though He Himself has not come into being, yet the con
ception of the world idea,- as well as the creation, is represented as a pro
ceeding from God.

284 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
forth to be as idea, so energy, for the chaotic mass. It is
certain that Athenagoras here reduces the begetting of the
Son, at the creation, to a figure accommodated to the con
cept of the creative utterance of the Son ; and equally so is
it, that he, apart also from the creation, places the Son
eternally in God. It may be doubted, however, whether he
calls the Son first in connection with the creation the world-
thinking Eeason, who bears therewith the idea of the world (IBea)
in Himself, as the creative principle of the same (ivepyeia), or
whether he thinks the idea at least of the world as eternally
given in the Logos. The latter is the more probable from
another place : " God's Son, the knowledge of whom the Chris
tians have, is the Logos of the Father in idea and in opera
tion.;" 1 i.e., the Son of God has a double being : He is and
remains Logos even in the actual world which has been made
by Him, but He is also primarily Logos in the ideal world itself,
the ic6<rpo<; TeXeio<;, the sphere of the Divine.2 Since Athena
goras calls the sphere of the Divine, or God Himself, a Koapo<s
Tekeios, there is thereby indicated already a -reference to the
actual world, and consequently, according to him, the idea of
the actual world doubtless as eternal. But it ought not to be
overlooked, that Athenagoras does not call the Logos immanent
in God the idea of the world ; but he distinguishes a proper
and operative Logos-being in the Son. Hence one might
venture to say, that the essence of the proper eternal Logos is
simply to be the idea of the world. Athenagoras will not allow
the being of the Son to be expended merely in relation to the
world; he ascribes to Him a previous relation to the Father.
He does not obtain a distinction between the Logos and tfhe
Father first by means of the actual world, or its idea ; other
wise, it would be inconceivable how he could caU God an all-
sufficiency in Himself, even without the world, since the world
would nevertheless be again drawn immediately into God, if
God is the All-self-sufficient only with the Logos, and if the
Logos is only the idea of the world. This is clear still further
from the words : From Him and through Him (the Logos) is
everything made, since the Father and the Son are one. But
since the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father
1 Leg. 10 : larin 6 vio; tov ©tov "Koyo; tov %xrpo; in ilix xal ivipytia.
2 Comp. Leg. 16.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 285
through the unity and power of the Spirit, so is the Son God's
intelligence, and Logos (reason) of the Father.1
In Athenagoras also we miss the closer application of the
doctrine of the Logos to the Christology. But he has with the
clearest consciousness recognised under what has been cited the
double problem, to assign its due place to the unity and the dis
tinction. This problem Clement of Alexandria further worked
out. Clement- of Alexandria is especially worthy of notice, not
only because his mind was formed by means of Greek and Phi
lonian phUosophy, and he himself stands in closest relation to
Neo-Platonic speculation, but because he as a learner passed
through the different Oriental and Occidental tendencies within
the Church, and aims at a reconciliation of these.2 The old
Ebionitic tendency had already as good as vanished ; he makes
no mention of it. On the other hand, he knows well the Ebi
onism which was formed, after the flourishing period of Gnos
ticism, out of the Gnosticism especially of the Valentinian
school (comp. Excerpta ex scriptis Theodoti Opp. Clem. Alex.
ed. Potter, ii. 966 ff.) ; the emanistic form of Sabellianism
(Strom, vii. %, p. 831) ; the doctrine of the \0709 irpo<j>opucw and
evBid0eTo<} (Strom, v. 1, p. 646), and of the impersonification of
the Logos at the creation (Strom, v. 3, p. 654). He also %hows
himself familiar with the Theologoumena of the Hebrews and
Hebrew Christians, as well as with the writings of the Old and
New Testaments.
The First Cause is the Father, who is not to be denoted by
word or sound, but who is only to be thought, and with silent
reverence to be adored (Strom, vii. 1, p. 829).
But whilst God cannot be known or shown as He is in
Himself (Strom, v. 1, p. 643), it is otherwise with the Son ; whc
is first, indeed, the object of faith, but afterwards also of know
ledge (Strom, v. 1, p. 643 ff., iv. 25). Man has a high nature,
the angels a higher ; but the most perfect, most holy and su-
1 Leg 10. Comp. the passage above adduced from Leg. 12, on what is
the joy of the Christians.
2 Strom i. 1, p. 322 ed. Potter. One of his teachers, for instance, was
from Greece (probably Pantaenus) ; one from Ionia, whom he met in Hellas ;
one from Assyria (Bardesanes or Tatian) ; one from Coelesyria (probably
the same whom he calls a Palestinian, ifyxio; dnixxhn).

286 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH
preme, the most venerable, the most princely, nay, kingly na
ture, is that of the Son, which is in the closest manner united
with the one Supreme Euler (Strom, vii. 2, p. 831). Thus far
the Son is not elevated above the sphere of the creature, and
hence no foundation is laid for a knowledge of God through
the knowledge of Him. But He is visibly exalted into the
sphere of the Divine itself when He is called Wisdom, Know
ledge, and Truth (Strom iv. 25). The Son is the revealed
truth in Person ;2 the Son is Logos of the Father, the unity of
the almighty creative word and reason (Strom, vii. 2, p. 832 ;
Psed. iii. 13, pp. 309, 310). He is supreme and always ; whole
light of the Father, whole intelligence ; never encompassed ;
wholly eye and wholly ear ; all-seeing and all-knowing (Strom.
vii. 2, p. 831).2 Through Him Christianity becomes the Truth,
and communicates knowledge ; nay, is the Wisdom which renders
all phUosophy besides superfluous. The Greek philosophy has
dismembered the truth of the Logos, as the Maenads did Pen-
theus ; Christianity has in the Logos the whole truth.
Thus the position, that God cannot be known in Himself, is
subjected to the limitation, that He cannot be known unless
He reveal Himself. Our Psedagogue, says he (Paid. i. 2, p.
99), is like God His Father. All the powers of the Spirit flow
together united in one, the Son (Strom, iv. 25, p. 632). Whilst
the Father is the First Cause, the Son in the ideal world, the
oldest by His birth, is the timeless and unbegun beginning ; at
the same time, firstling of existence (Strom, vii. 1, p. 829).' He
is the Father's countenance ; in Him the Father has a o-yfipa ,
He is the revealer of the Father's essence.8 The purifying,
gentle, Divine Logos, in truth the most manifest God, the
Fellow of the Lord of all (i%io-a>0eli), has most easily showed
to us God (Coh. 10, p. 85 ff.; StrOm. v. 1, p. 646). Since He
1 Strom, vi. 14, p. 801 : xpoawson rij; liixnvfiinti; d"hri6tia; o vio; rot
©tov. 2 Clement applies to Him the title ©to; innumerable times, a title in
the use of which he is very free. Still, when creatures are called by him
gods, they are so called only because of participation in the Logos. Strom.
vi. 1 ; vii. 11, p. 870 ; Psed. iii. 1, p. 251 ; i. 6, p. 127. He also calls the
Logos God's will, and gives Him the title xanroxparap, Strom, v. 1, p.
646 ; $i?mftx nayxparopixon, Psed. iii. 7.
3 JJpoaaxon rov xarpo; (Psed. i. 7, 132) ; 6 tow xxrpaov prnvvrrt; lliafut-
to; (ibid.). Comp. v. 1, 647. Paed. i. 2, 99, ©to; in axiftxri xaripo;.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 287
is the personal Logos, the truth has in Him become know-
able (Strom, v. 3). " Many," says he (Strom, vi. 8, p. 775),
" teach that there is much that is incomprehensible, of which
even the Gnostic knows nothing except that it cannot be com
prehended. But to the Son there is nothing incomprehensible,
and hence through Him to the Gnostic." For him who thinks
the incomprehensibility of God absolute, even Christ cannot be
a revealer; he stands still in the pre-Christian concept of God, the
"Ov. And he who does not see the perfect image of the Father
in the Son, to whom the Father is not whoUy manifest in the
Son, subordinates the Son to the Father, because in that case
the Son has only partially what the Father has. And because
the Father, as the "Ov, stUl withholds much, which He does not
communicate with the Son, it foUows, that either a further reve
lation is possible, or this residue is simply incapable of being
revealed ; and thus there is probably given in Christianity the
greatest possible, but it is not the absolute Beligion.
It is not to be denied that Clement, as also in part Origen^
is somewhat fettered by this view of God as the"Oi' ; but withal,
he still acknowledges that the Father is wholly in the Son, and
can be known only through Christ.
We find nothing in Clement about the subordination or the
creation of the Son, or about the incompleteness of the Christian
rehgion. The Son is to, him in the Father, the Father in the
Son ; the knowledge of the Father and the Son is to him the
knowledge of the truth through the truth, as the Gnostic rule
requires (Strom, v. 1, p. 643 ff.). We may ask, however,
whether he holds any distinction between the Logos and the
Father. This inquiry fairly arises when we read (Strom, vii.
2, p. 833), that the Logos is an activity, an energy of the Father.
For this may be understood as meaning that He is the Father
in the momentum of revelation ; and with this, all intrinsic
distinction of God from God would be either wholly set aside,
or the distinction between God and the world would be swept
away. It may be added, that Clement platonizing, treats the
Son as IBea t&v IBe&v (Strom, v. 3, p. 654),1 as the everywhere
1 Stromr iv. 25 : The Son is infinite in His powers according to their
idea. He is not, however, immediately or abstractly (drt)cna;) One hke the
One, nor plurality hke parts, dXh1 a; xanrx 'in, initn xal iranra. For He
\s a circle of all powers revolving and combining into one. Hence He is

288 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
diffused truth (Coh. 10, p. 85 f.), as the fountain of Hfe, which
brings peace, covenant, and redemption. At the same time, he
will not think the Father a mere substantial basis, but the vow
belongs also to the Father. What remains to Him for a dis
tinction from the Son ?
No answer to this question, such as shaU fundamentally set
aside SabelHanism, is found in Clement. Still, the instances
named by no means affirm that he sought to place the distinction
between the Father and the Son only on the ground of revela
tion.1 That he rather intends a distinction without at all ap
proaching nearer to SabelHanism, is clear from what follows. In
the above passage, where he calls Him the timeless and unbegun
beginning, he yet definitely distinguishes Him from the Father
(Strom vH. 1, p. 829). Elsewhere (v. 1, p. 643) he says, The
Father is not without the Son ; at the same time that He is the
Father, He is the Father of the Son. The Logos does not come
into being, according to him, at the creation of the world ; He is
not the spoken creative word ; Clement rather sets forth the other
side : He is the speaking creative word ; He is the almighty
Wisdom in God and with God, which, looking on the mysterious
ideas, works, but always has and manifests as immanent in itself
the Father's wUl, goodness, etc. (Strom, v. 1, p. 645 ; vii. 2,
p. 831). The Logos who comes forth is the author of creation
(Strom, v. 3, p. 654). Clement eagerly strives to remove from
the Logos all passivity, change, temporality, and therewith also
subordination ; and hence he appears not to have approved of the
expression, \070s irpofyopiicos. " The Logos of the Father of all
is not that irpoipopiKw, but is God's most manifest Wisdom and
Goodness, and not less the almighty Divine Power" (Strom, v.
called also A and n ; and with Him alone does the end become again the
beginning, and ends again at the former beginning, nowhere entertaining a
break. The Logos is in his view, consequently, the self -encircling all-life ;
and to believe in Him and through Him, is to be monadically, indissolubly
united with Him.
1 The passage where the Son is called an energy of the Father, inter
preted by the connection, must mean that every act of the Son, or the Son
in every act, has a reference to God the Father ; so that the Father is to be
thought as therein acting. Further, the Son is called the everywhere out
poured fountain of hfe (Coh. 10) after His incarnation, where there can be
no doubt that he thinks Him personally. He is called Truth, Idea of Ideas,
etc., by such also as hold firmly His distinction from the Father.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 289
1, p. 646). There lies here a polemic against the opinion, that
He is simply the spoken empty word, and not rather intelligence,
real, creative power. He would, however, have held a subordi
nate position if He had been merely the creative word uttered
by God (irpo^opiKw).
The most convincing evidence, however, of Clement's re
garding the Logos as relatively independent in respect of the
Father, and so of his having sought to distinguish God from
God in the eternal essence of God, may be said to lie in what
foUows. It may be assumed as settled, that Clement thinks Christ
personally through the Logos, not through His humanity. Now
he guards himself against the conclusion, that by means of the
incarnation, or even the creation, any change passed upon the
Logos, such, for instance, as the assuming of personality on the
part of a potency which before was impersonal, would have been.
" The Son of God," says he (Strom, vii. 2, p. 831), " never aban
dons His watch-tower,1 is not divided, not severed, travels not
from place to place, but is ever over all, never included, wholly
intelligence, wholly light of the Father." He would, conse
quently, have ascribed to the Logos on His watch-tower the
same distinction from the Father which he ascribes to the Logos
in Christ. Before we advance to Clement's doctrine concerning the in
carnation, let us look back on the development of the doctrine
of the Logos thus far. We see, towards the end of the second
century, that the biblical tendency in the Church, which set
out from the Creator-Word, and the Hellenic, have become
thoroughly interpenetrated, and that, as a general symbol of the
coaHtion, the word Logos becomes the standing expression to
denote the higher nature manifested in Christ. But the peace
ful bed of the Logos-doctrine, in which the distinct streams in
osculated, became only the point of issue for new problems.
For if the Logos is equally in Himself the unity of Eeason, or
Wisdom, and of the Word, the question arises, how He is to be
thought in relation to the world and to the Father. The Logos
is held to be a Divine nature, and that, distinct as a personal
one, since the impulse proceeding from the appearance of the
personal Christ operates to produce the thought of the Logos
1 So, wholly similar, Theodotus, Excerpta ex Script. Theod. in Clem.
Opp. ii. 966 ff.
VOL. I. T

290 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH. f
as a pre-existent hypostasis. As all the Fathers of the second
century, without exception, derive the essence ef the Logos from
the essence of the Father, and cannot retract from this ultimate
basis of the divine that was in Christ in the Divine essence,
there already appears in the distance the difficult problem, how
the assumption of a second and third Divine essence is to be re
conciled with the unity of God.
This problem was insoluble so long as the personality of the
Son was taken in exactly the same sense as the personality of
Jesus Christ in relation to men. For, were this person, regarded
as simply and immediately % pre-existent, to be transposed into
the Divine essence, there is no escape from polytheism. Eather,
as the Church would not receive the latter, . must the idea of
personality be modified ; the finite exclusive form which it has
in the sphere of men must be removed from the Logos, in order
that the Divine unity might not be destroyed by the Logos. It
is certain also that there was an authorized sensitiveness in re
spect of the unity of the Divine essence, which moved so many
of the Church teachers of the second century to make every
effort to base the essence of the Son in the Divine essence itself,
yet, in respect of the personality of the Logos, which thus far
had been gained by a struggle, and was still too immediately
interwoven with the world, to pause at the threshold of the inner
Divine essence itself; and thus shaU we understand the doctrine,
so strange to us, which belonged to that time — the doctrine of
the entrance of the Son into personality with the procession of
the same to the creating of the world. Prechristian philosophe-
mata concerning creation also may have contributed to this
preliminary notion ; but the strange theory of the conception of
the Son before the creation, and for it, could have established
itself on Christian ground for a length of time only in conse
quence of its seeming to afford some balance between the desire
of the Christians to refer everything to the Christian principle,
nay, to regard all as made thereby, and the maintenance of the
unity of God. The true deity of the Christian principle was
affirmed by the Catholic doctrine, that the Logos is of the
essence of the Father, — consequently, essentiaUy equal to God.
But the distinction of the Logos from the Father was as yet not
referred to the inner essence of God. The concept of God was
not such as yet to endure a distinction of God in Himself from

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 291
Himself, the idea of the free absolute Spirit not yet having been
formed ; and, moreover, the Logos was still too immediately in
volved in the idea of the world, or rather the world itself, and
consequently, His being was still too immediately confused in
thought with His work, or the constitution of the world : He is
less' fixed as the thinking, the speaking, than as the thought,
the spoken creative Word. If the thmking and speaking is
called also the inner Logos, still the distinction of this from the
Father remains a postulate.
This distribution of the momenta of the distinction and the
unity must be transient. This unity is menaced by the idea of
God; this distinction, which is transposed to the side of the world,
by the idea of the world. If God be not distinct from God,
then the distinction of the Son from the Father is not based in
the inner essence of God, but falls, so far as it exists at aU, to
the side of the world. In this case, the Son abides in the mind
as a secondary, fortuitous being, as the world is a contingent
being: so that, if the distinction is not assumed in God,
an Arian method of thinking must be adopted. But against
this protests the Christian consciousness of these men; they
desire coUectively the essential equaUty of the Logos with
the Father; they wUl not think Him as a creature, but
as the Son. They do not deny that the distinction of the Son
from the Father regresses into the Divine essence itself. But
as little dare they, on account of the Divine monarchy, to
accept the challenge which already Hes in the essential equality
of the Son, and to base in the Divine essence the whole essence
of the Son, as well Hi respect of His distinction from the
Father as in respect of His unity with Him. The conse
quence, however, of their having gained, if not the roots of the
distinction, yet the distinction itself, by means of the. creation
of the universe, is, that temporaHty and mutability are imputed
to the Logos, and this forms a contradiction to His essential
equality. But thus there was ascribed to the Logos, as contra
distinguished from the world, an insecure hypostasis ; for, if He
is called its Maker and Lord, He is, on the other hand, equally its
unity--in a sense, itself ; and because God was not yet construed
generally in His self-distinction (whereby alone the Logos would
find a basis), the Logos was too immediately confounded with
the universe, and was still regarded as its nominalistic and

292 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
pantheistic unity ; just as the human consciousness, before it
distinguishes self from self, is stiU less capable of distinguishing
from the world, but remains given over to the consciousness of
the world, its only content. Since, on the other side, the unity
of the Son with the Father is endangered by a form of subordi
nation arising from this view, with which the true divinity and
newness of Christianity could not consist, we are made aware
of a remarkable turn. As Justin, whilst energeticaUy en
deavouring to solve the question, how (the concept of the person
ality of the pre-existent Son in the ordinary way being pre
supposed) the procession of the Logos, the second Divine essence,
from the One, could be thought in compatibflity with His unity,
in his solution too much confounded the generation of the Son,
His hypostatic being, with the world and time ; the Christian
interest pressed on towards a more definite distinction of the
Logos from the world, and this was accomplished by the Logos
being more definitely distinguished from Himself, the world-
creating Logos (irpoijjopiKw) from the Logos per se. Wher
ever this distinction was accompHshed, the main stress must
of necessity come to be ever more and more laid upon the inner
Logos ; for this vouches most for the true deity of the Person of
Christ : He is the Speaking ; the other, the Spoken. Justin's
hint, that God had begotten the Logos out of Himself, was so
pursued by others,- that they even call' Him the Understanding
and Eeason in God. It is easy to see, that though there is here
a determination of the distinction of the Logos from Himself of
great importance, as bearing on the distinction between the Logos
and the world, the second, the distinction of the Logos from the
Father, is not yet given ; rather is there a postponing provision
ally of the hypostasis of the Son, and consequently more justice
done to the unity of the Logos with the Father, than to the dis
tinction between them. But there must be a regression from the
world, nay, from the world-unity, into the inner Divine essence
itself, and the Logos must be placed in this, before the immanent
relation of the Father to the Son can be handled. With this dis
tinction, however, of the Logos from Himself, was made the first
great step towards construing the Son, who had hitherto been re
garded only in His activity, in His work (to wit, the creation
of the world), in His eternal being. The work does not thereby
remain less His work, but now it is assumed as possible that He

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 293
completed His work in comprehending Himself [" Dass er sich
selbst erfassend sein Werk vollziehe"], but did not immediately
pass over into it ; and thus, when this was followed out, as came
to pass, the foundation-stone was laid for the distinction of the
operatio ad extra from the immanent being of the divine per
se, — a distinction of decisive moment to the Christian concept of
God. Not more, certainly, than the foundation-stone. If no ad
vance be made from the immanent being, if this does not extend
to an immanent distinction of the Father from the Son, the self-
distinction of the Logos is still insecure ; if the divine is not dis
tinguished from itself in itself, also apart from the work (Xoyo?
irpotyopiicoi), the Logos has not yet perfectly comprehended
Himself : the world remains the object for Him ; in it alone He
knows Himself ; it is, in His own self -consciousness, the objec
tive momentum, or the objective Son of God. Also, from the
time of their distinguishing the Logos from Himself, the ten
dency of the Church Fathers, above considered, to fix upon the
work was in fact so strong at first, that in respect of His coming
forth to the work, a new determination, a change in His proper
essence, was presumed, and His generation remains as yet bound
up with the work of creation, and is only the other side of this ;
that also the inner Logos, stiU bound through relation to the
world, is filled immediately with the idea of the world. But
they were in earnest to distinguish the Logos from the world,
and the way to this was surely marked out. First, Athenagoras
took the course of denying the change in the being of the Logos,
— consequently, His generation and His becoming a person at the
creation, which he lowered to a figure, — and, on the other hand,
distinctly let the stress fall on the inner Logos. But Clement
of Alexandria consummated this tendency. He lays so much
stress on the inner Logos, that he entirely retracts the irpo<po-
piKw, and exchanges this for the distinction — only indeed laid
down, not yet established — between the Father, who is never
without the Son, but Father only with the Son, and the Son,
who as the timeless, unbegun Logos, never quits His post, though
He creates and sustains aU. Thus, in accordance with the
Christian consciousness, was Subordinatianism set aside. But it
must be confessed, at the same time, a path was opened as well for
SabelHanism as for the Nicene dogma ; for with the regression
into the inner Divine essence, the distinction of the Son from

294 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
the Father remains above all a mere postulate. By giving up
the generation of the Son at the creation, there was also relin
quished the firm position by means of which the Divine hypo
stasis of the God-man might be established, without incurring
the risk of asserting a duality in the Divine essence. It now
remained, either to pass over to SabelHanism, or to establish
the distinction of the Son from the Father in another way.
We shall see how the Sabellian movement, which commenced
powerfully towards the end of the century, and was favoured by
so many circumstances, constrained the Church, as soon as its
consequences began to show themselves, just in order to pre
serve entire the distinction of God from the world, not to rest
content with distinguishing the Logos from the world or from
Himself, but to advance to a distinguishing of God from God,
the Father from the Son.1 By this means was the momentum
of the Son's hypostasis, which, for the sake of preserving the
unity of God, had for a season been thrown into the background,
anew restored to its proper significancy ; and that the more, be
cause by the temporary retraction into the unity with the Father,
the concept of the hypostasis itself was purified. By the immer
sion of the Logos in the inner Divine essence, the inadequate
views of the nature of the Logos — which were also irreconcil
able with the Divine unity, by which He was confounded with
the world, and not sufficiently elevated above the exclusiveness
which is proper to a finite personality — were partially stripped
away ; so that the attempt might be made without severing the
unity of God, to give to the Son, and with Him to the Holy Ghost
also, that place in the Divine essence itself which, had been as
signed to them from the beginning, in the traditional confession
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and accepted without doubt in
the Church, though without being theologically or anthropologi
cally grounded.
We now return to Clement. That, universal significancy
1 With what difficulty the Church made this, how it hesitated to venture
on this bold step, but at the same time how definitely it recognised that
Sabellianism was to be opposed at all risks, is shown, on the one hand, in
Tertullian, who will rather retreat to the abandoned position of the genera
tion of the Son at ;the creation than go over to Sabellianism ; and on the
other hand, in Origen, who will rather, with Tertullian, assume something
of a subordination theory than not distinctly discriminate the Father from
the Son.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 295
of the Logos which Clement has so strongly adduced, makes
according to him, the incarnation of the Logos neither un
necessary nor impossible. He maintains, against the Gnostics,
BasiUdes and Valentinus, that all better knowledge proceeds
from the Logos originally, and that a natural knowledge of
God does not suffice. Though, however, according to Clement,
the Logos has a place in the inner revelation, the Eeason, he
ascribes to Him also capability for an outer, an objective appear
ance. He thus appeared formerly in the Old Testament ; but
because we knew not God, He was sent down in Christ, as our
Teacher and Lord, as the mysterious, holy Eevealer of the great
Providence.1 In Him appeared a sea of blessings ; the Divine
power, shining upon the earth, filled the whole with the seeds of
salvation. Issuing from the Father's wiU swifter than the sun,
He showed to us God most readily (Cohort. 10 ; Strom. 85 ff.).
He became flesh in order to be seen (Strom, v. 3, p. 654) ; to
be God more operative through the mouth of a man (Strom.
vii. 11). Thus He arose as the universal light upon the world,
which is brought nigh to each by the preaching of the Gospel.
First with the revelation of Jesus is decision given from God's
side ; now it for the first time can and must be demanded of each
(Strom, vi. 6, p. 762 ff.). He wills to give us part in the Logos,
that our life shall become a system of logical acts (Pasd. i. 13) ;
even as He appeared to show what it is possible for men to attain,
in obedience to the commandments (vii. 2, p. 833), that we, deified
(Pasd. iii. 1, p. 251 ; Str. iv. 25, p. 635, 642), should come to
undivided unity and gnostic combination. He would transform
us into the beauty of the Logos — our corruption, our mortality
into His immortaHty, and save us soul and body (Strom, ii. 5,
p. 440 ; iii. 17. ; Pasd. iii. 1, p. 251).
The incarnation itself, the object of aU that has been named,
is by no means only the incarnation of a part of the Logos ;2
but the Logos is sent down (Strom, v. 1, p. 647). The entire
unbroken truth has appeared in Jesus, the Logos, who is always
above all, never included, not divided, nor moving from place
to place, but always entire Logos (Strom, i. 13, vii. 2, p. 831).
The Saviour is the revealed mystery (Psed. Hi. 1, p. 251), God
in men, and man in God, and the Mediator who accomplishes
the Father's will. For the Mediator is the Logos, common to
1 Strom, v. 1, p. 647. 2 Appendix, Note WWWW,

296 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH
both : God's Son, on the one side ; on the other, the Saviour of
men ; God's servant, our leader. The flesh is servant ; He re
ceives on Himself, assumes a servant's estate. A closer de
scription of the incarnation occurs Psed. i. 6, p. 123, which,
indeed, is somewhat fanciful. Clement cannot be charged with
Doketism,' if that word be strictly taken. In this passage he
caUs Christ a fruit of the Virgin. Eeferring the passage con
cerning the flesh and blood of Christ, John vi. 53, 54, to the in
carnation, he says : His flesh was prepared by the Holy Ghost.
Under the blood is to be understood the Logos ; for like rich
blood is the Logos formed into His Hfe. But the Lord is the
union of both, Spirit and Logos ; the " meat indeed" is the
whole Lord Jesus, the Logos of God, spirit become flesH
(irvevpa aapKovpevov), consecrated, heavenly flesh. Elsewhere
this mingHng of the Logos and the a-api; is described as the
act also of the Logos, who begets Himself into the flesh in order
to be seen (Strom, v. 3, p. 654 : eireiTa koX eavTov yewa otov 6'
A6yo<s crapi; yevr)Tai "va ko\ 0ea0f}). It must not be concluded
from this, that Clement regards the Logos as having obtained
by the incarnation the personality which others suppose Him to
have acquired at the creation ; for he does not say that the
Logos was begotten at the incarnation, but that He begot Him
self. In this there is implied that He previously existed ; and
since Clement rejects aU change in the Logos, he can intend
by self -begetting nothing else than that He placed Himself in a
man ; and since, according to Clement, the Logos before Christ
was operative in men, whilst nothing is said of a self-begetting
of the Logos in their case, the expression must be understood of
the peculiar indweUing of the Logos, far transcending all
human (f>vai$ (Strom. H. 5, p. 439), which we call the personal.1
That Clement intends to ascribe to Christ a truly human
nature, cannot, it may be supposed, be doubted ; for he calls Him
not merely God in human form (Pasd. i. 2, p. 99), the Logos
bearing a body, the countenance (irpoawirov) of the Father
1 From Strom, v. 14, p. 712, where the entrance of the Logos into the
human nature of Jesus is presented under the figure of sinking into a deep
sleep, as in Gen. ii. 21, there might be inferred the bringing about of the
impersonality of the Logos through the incarnation. But the reference
here is rather to the xinaai;oi the Logos (Strom, iii. 1, p. 251), with which
no change in the Logos is posited by him (Strom, vii. 2, p. 831).

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 297
in the Pentad of the senses (Strom, v. 6, vii. 11 ; Pasd. iii. 1),
but also a man who is God (Pasd. iii. 1, p. 251). But since he
caUs the body a prison of the soul, and brings it into close rela
tion to the ird0n, the inordinate lusts, which with him are the
principle of sin, Clement seems hardly in circumstances to
ascribe a true corporeity to Christ. To the same purport has
been adduced the weU-known passage, Coh. c. 10, p. 86, where
Clement seems to describe the humanity of Christ as only a
mask, His life as man as only an appearance and drama.1 And
with this is to be joined, thirdly, the remarkable assertion, that to
eat and drink was not in such a sense necessary to His body as
that He could not have subsisted even without food (Strom, vi.
9.)2 To think this, appears to him ridiculous : rather was His
body sustained and supported by His holy power ; He ate, con
sequently, not so much for the sake of His body, as that His
followers might not think erroneously of Him, might not ima
gine His manifestation to be a mere Doketic one. — But these
considerations do not prove by any means that Clement held
Doketic views in the proper sense. His doctrine of the body
as a prison, or seat of the desires, relates only to the constitu
tion of our body, not to the concept of body generaUy ; he
rather denies both that the soul is good and the body evil by
nature (Strom, iv. 26, p. 639). The body is different from the
soul, but not opposed to it according to its concept. But this
difference has become in man a conflict between the flesh and
the spirit ; and it was to heal this enmity that Christ appeared
(Strom. Hi. 17, p. 559). " Holy, not unholy, as Valentinus,
Marcion, Cassian insinuate, is the birth of the world and its
being," he says ; " and without the body, Christ could not have
accompHshed the work of redemption" (pp. 558, 559). As to
the correctness of the above explanation of the second passage,
1 'O Aoyo;  tow dnOpaarov xpoaacriion dnxha/ian, xai aapxl
(axpxxl) dnxafKaadpuno; to aarilipion Ipafta ry; dndpavoTrrro; virtxpiniro.
Gieseler, Comm. qua Clem. Alex, et Orig. doctr. de corpore Christi expo-
nitur, Gott. 1847, translates (p. 14), "Hominis personam indutus quam e
carne sibi formavit, hominis partes salubriter egit." But axpxl cannot well
be translated " out of the flesh," but either in carne ludens, or it is better
to read adpxa, carnem instaurans.
2 Comp. Strom, ii. 7, where approvingly, as it appears, he quotes the
words of Valentinus, fotie xal imm ilia;, ovx dvoltlov;rx fipapixrx. ^ So great
was the power of the iyxoaruxm Him Sari xxi ^ (pixpiinxt rqn TpoQtjn in xvrZ,

298 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
there is ground for doubt in the opposition to Doketism thus
alleged (Strom, iii. 17, vi. 9). Also, if the drama in which
Christ played a part is to be taken as having the sense of a mere
epideictic act, or of anything of the nature of deception,- it
would follow that, according to the words, the passage must be
referred to the redemption (o-coTrjpifov Bpapa) as well as to the
humanity, which no one will impute to Clement. But if Clement
describes the humanity of Christ as a garment, a part (Eolle),
in this passage, the context, in which he treats of the hidden
dignity of the God-man, shows that he does not intend to say
that His life, and passion, and acting was not truly human, or
merely scenic : He is rather represented as a warrior and fellow-
combatant with His creature ; and the " drama," or battle-play
in the passage, is a figure in which the tertium comparationis is
not the simulation or appearance, but rather the publicity of a
struggle that is crowned with victory, in which the theatre is
the universe (Coh. 1). Further, in reference to Christ Himself,
the tertium comparationis between Him and an actor on the
stage, is only the contrast between Christ's outer and more
humble appearance and the inner essence of the Logos. To
the latter the passage itself expressly refers.1 That the mean
ing is nothing else than that Christ had His course and conflict
in the world (which was for Him a season of exinanition)
crowned with victory, is plain from the comparison of Strom.
vii. 11, p. 870, where, in praising the true Gnostic as the worthy
image of heavenly strength, he says that he blamelessly plays
through the drama of life which God assigns to him as an
agony.2 It must, however, be conceded that the expressions
which are here used for Christ's humanity resolve it into a mere
dress. But the Church doctrine has always caUed the body of
Christ also an investiture, a clothing ; and this justly, provided
the whole humanity be not thus described, but only that aspect
of it according to which it is the vehicle of the manifestation
* Coh. x. 11, p. 86 f. It is well known that Clement beheved the out
ward appearance of the Lord to be mean and unlovely ; e. gr. Psed. iii. 1 ;
Str. vi. 16, iii. 17.
* ,Afiipi<pa; rolnvn ixoxpinopttno; to Ipafta tow fiiov, onttp &n o ©so1? xyani-
aaaQxi xxpdaxfi. The Gnostic also has a veiled glory, is as it were in exile.
By this he certainly does not mean to ascribe a Doketic humanity to the
Gnostic, and as httle is this intended of Christ in the above passage, wherg
the very same words, Ipdpix vxoxpimaSai xyaniaxafxi, are used.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 299
oi the Logos. But Clement has never spoken of a laying aside
again of the humanity, or viewed it as the momentary investi
ture of the Logos. It does not display a transient Christophany ;
but he knows also an incarnation of the Logos. The body
itself, he says, not the soul alone, is esteemed by the Saviour ;
He has delivered both from the appetites (ird0rj), from passive
existence ; He has removed the opposition that existed between
.the flesh and the spirit, and showed it to be conquerable. Were
the hostility between the two essential, as the Doketas think,
how could He have communicated new strength to the one op
posing member, the flesh, by assuming it and giving it immor
tality ? But since the enmity was there through Adam's fall,
how could the economy of redemption in the Church have
reached its design without the body, had He, the Head of the
Church, passed through life without form and beauty in the
flesh, in order that He might teach us to look away to the
.viewless and bodiless of the Divine cause? (Strom. Hi. 17, p.
559). Christ is thus in his view the representative and the
principle (ice<pa\r)) of the most perfect union of the flesh and
the spirit ; not the destruction of the former, but, on the con
trary, its exaltation in the immortal essence. And with this
also the third point is discharged. Clement does not say that
Christ's body, viewed in itself, was of a different kind from
ours ; if he did, there would certainly lie in the above passage
a denial of the essential likeness of Christ to us. He rather
affirms in several passages that Christ's body in and by itself
was susceptible of suffering, could endure pain, did endure
pain.1 He views Christ's death not as apparitional, but as
real,2 and knows nothing of a withdrawal of the Logos from the
man Jesus before His death : and in like manner, without hesi-
1 Strom, vii. 2, p. 832 ; Pasd. i. 6, p. 123. The Lord hath begotten
the Church ciilini axpxixy, p. 124, virip qpcan i£,i%itn aipta, Psed. ii. 2, p. 177 ;
Strom, i. 8.
2 Coh. 10, p. 84 ; Strom, i. 21, pp. 407, 408, comp. Pasd. i. 6, p. 124.
For the rest, the propitiatory death of Christ falls into the background
with Clement, in accordance with his concept of the Divine righteousness,
which is allied to that of Philo ; comp. Psed. i. 8, p. 138 ff. ; yet he derives
the ti.i paai; from Him (Psed. i. 6, 126). From love to us hath He suffered
(Strom, vi. 8, p. 775). The names Mediator and High Priest he gives to
Him, however, irrespective of His death, \ which in his view acquires a
higher significancy only in the Eucharist.

300 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
tation, avows his faith in the other leading facts of the life of
Jesus. If one might also assume that the preparation of the
body of Jesus by the Holy Ghost had, according to Clement,
endowed Him with peculiar advantages, — among which the
removal of inordinate appetites arising from the body must,
according to Clement, be found,— then was the body of Christ,
according to him, in and by itself a holy body from the begin
ning, even although He had in Himself the irdOrf dBidpkrjTa,.
blameless infirmities ; as Clement says of the Gnostic, that he
can satisfy the natural wants of the bodily life without blame,
nay, must do so (Strom, vi. 9, p. 775). He says, indeed (vi.
9, p. 775, 6 HooTrjp dirat-air\m dira0r)<; %v), the Saviour was
simply without passive emotion (Kivqpa iraBvTiicbv of r)Bovr) or
Xinrrj). 'But it would be rash to seek to refer this wholly to
the body; the dird0eia became part of Christ's humanity only
through its union" with the Logos, which, though the flesh of
Christ is in itself capable of being affected (alo-0r)Trj, epira0r)<;, #
ira07}TiKrj), constantly keeps down all affections. Through the
ethic power of His wiU, consequently (iyKpareia), not through _
the special physical constitution of Christ's body, it comes- to
pass that the whole person may be said to be raised above
affections. Clement thinks that he can assert the absolute free
dom of the Logos in Christ only by withdrawing from Him even
the appearance of passivity. And in this sense he says, "jChrist
ate not because His body required it, for by His divine power
could the Logos have sustained it for Himself ; but He ate in
order that His disciples might not think Him what the Doketse
afterwards thought Him" (Strom, vi. 9). One might even hesi
tate to ascribe this superiority to th|i«ody of Christ : this much
is certain, that Christ's unity of essence with us must not, ac
cording to Clement, be endangered by what is thought of His
body ; rather he is of opinion that the Apostles were herein like
the Lord. For his view, there is not a handling of a constitutive
momentum of human nature — -otherwise he must have taught
differently — but rather of the removal of a want, and in particu
lar, there remains to the body in and by itself the susceptibiUty
of suffering, there remains on earth Us needs ; but by the ethical
will of the Logos is the body also raised above patibility.1
1 Strom, vii. 2, 852 : o; ye xxi rqn axpxx rtjn tpixxdij cpiaii ytnopiinnn
dnxhafiun ti; i%w drixhia; ixxilivain. In Psed. i. 5, p. 112, fty vaiii»

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 301
In Clement, however, we see two lines of positions which
stand directly over against each other, — in the one of which it is
affirmed, that Christ is in His earthly manifestation the counte
nance of the Father, the Logos has assumed flesh in order to
be seen, He is the manifested mystery ; whilst in the other it
is asserted^ that what He was, was not seen by men, who on
account of the weakness of the flesh could not apprehend Him
(Strom, vn. 2, p. 833), — to which also belongs the above cited
figure of a sleep for His jncarnation, and his doctrine of the
external meanness of Christ's form. According to the latter
aspect, He appears to have assumed humanity to conceal His
deity ; according to the former, to reveal it. The solution of
Clement is this : Certainly there existed also objectively in
Christ this strong contrast of two sides. In His self-repre
sentation in discourse, deed, and holy Hfe, there was revealed
the Divine itself ; but on the other side this revelation was ob
scured by His humble appearance. Thus there depends on the
apprehension of Christ the empiric, external, or the higher true.
The contrast in Christ's Person, however, objectively presented,
has, according to Clement, for its design to elevate the sub
jective apprehension, to confound the empirical, and to provoke
to the negation of it (Strom, vi. 15, 17).
But if, according to Clement, Christ had not only a truly
human body, but such an one as presented at once the reality
and perfection of the human body, as these were viewed by
Clement, — the question, on the other hand, concerning the
human soul of Christ, as handled by Clement, occasions some
difficulty. The places where Clement caUs Him a man do
not prove that he distinctly recognised a soul as included
therein, though certainly in this, and in his passages against
Doketism, there is involved that he could not deny to Him
anything that was consciously regarded by him as a constituent
part of human nature (Coh. 10, p. 84; Pasd. iii. 1, p. 251). As
little can the conclusion be deduced from the trichotomy which
he recognises — Strom, iii. 17, p. 559 ; Psed. Hi. 1, p. 250 — that
he must ascribe the voepbv or XoyrjTiKov, the. 0vpiicbv or iiri0v-
is, as Guericke and Gieseler rightly saw, to be referred to Christ's deity,
though the subject is Jesus. He calls Jesus, indeed, also dilion, and the
same want of precision, though in the reverse direction, is exhibited Coh.-
10, p. 81, ¦xiaTivaon . . . . tq vxOonrt ©iq £ann. Similarly Psed. i. p. 124.

302 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
u-nTiicbv, each to Christ in order to have the reality of a human
soul ; for this trichotomy is not constant with him (Strom. iH.
9, p. 540, in. 17, p. 559). It is not fitting to draw conclusions
from his far-fetched doctrine concerning Christ's descent into
Hades, because he admits that it is only Christ's voice or omni
potence, or indeed only an apostle of His, that is to be thought
of as working in Hades (Strom, ii. 9, p. 452, vi. 6, p. 762 ff.).
The passage above cited (p. 296) from Pasd. i. 6, p. 123, is, as
the connection shows, to be taken as too freely rhetorical for
anything to be deduced from it with dogmatic precision ; and it
may be as easily deduced thence, that in Christ the irvevpa has
the place of the animal principle, as that the Logos suppHes
that of the irvevpa. " The Holy Spirit prepared the body of
Jesus, so that it may be named from the Spirit ; and the Lord,
into whose life the Logos was richly poured, may be called a
mixture of Spirit and Logos."' If, however, it be attempted
from this to draw the conclusion, that Clement shows a strong
inclination to view the noblest part of man, and by consequence
of the Gnostic especiaUy, as something Divine, to view the
reason as a partaking of the Logos, nay, as a relative being of
the Logos in man, it wiU not follow, assuming that the Logos
in Christ had taken the place of the soul in man (or trichonie^
tricaUy of the Spirit), that the essential similarity of Christ to
man is superseded ; on the contrary, it is affirmed, and that so
as to represent in the most perfect manner, what belongs in
general to the idea of the human essence, namely, essential union
with the Logos. But as Clement would not on this account deny
to the Gnostic a soul, as Httle would he to Christ. It is true that
the most manifest evidence of the soul as distinguished from the
Logos — namely, the freedom of will which can even turn to what
is evU — finds no place, according to Clement, in Christ, because
the holy power of the Logos rendered sin impossible in Him.
But that Clement should represent Christ as almost inde
pendent of all wants and affections from without, and as par
ticipating in the dird0eia of the Logos, no more necessitates his
denying to Christ a soul than it has necessitated his denying
to Him a body. This is proved by the passage, Psed. i. 2,
p. 99 : " Our Psedagogue is, like God, His Father, whose Son
He is, sinless and blameless, and impassible as respects the soul
(dira0r)<s ttjv ¦^•vy^v); hence we must make our soul Hke Him.

IRENEUS. 303
He indeed is for ever free from human infirmities, and hence He
alone, as sinless, can be Judge ; but we must strive with all oui
powers to sin as little as possible." It is to be considered also,
that Clement indicates as the purpose of the incarnation (Strom.
vii. 2, p. 833), that Christ desired to show how far we might
attain in obedience towards God: He came to heal soul and
body; and since He removes Hi His person the enmity between
flesh and spirit, He is consequently the representative of the
perfect harmony of both. Considered from this general point
of view, it wUl become probable that Clement, as he certainly
viewed the assumption of a human body as necessary for the
salvation of the body (Strom. iH. 17, p. 559), no less certainly de
siderated for the salvation of the soul the presence in Christ's
person of a human soul in its perfection.1
Irenseus, the greatest Church teacher of the generation be-.
fore Clement, is especially worthy of notice, because he com
bines in himself the different tendencies in the Church, and
brings them to a harmonious interpenetration. Well versed in
Gnostic and Church Hterature, fitted by the events of his Hfe
to be a bond of union between Oriental and Occidental Chris
tianity, he had a mild, free, and open feeling for what was
true in aU the often mutually exclusive parties ; and the deeper
he penetrated scientifically and practicaUy into the essence of
Christianity, with so much firmer a hand could he unite what
was cognate and mutuaUy attractive, and eHminate what was
abnormal. No one in the second century represents as he
does the purity and the fulness of the development within the
Church; scarcely any one in the Church of his time is so highly
esteemed as he. He respected the intensity of the subjective
piety of Montanism, but at the same time he desired to have it in
objective Church form ; he attached much value to Church mem
bership, and recognised no unity but one that was organic. To
Gnosticism, as to heresy in general, he opposed biblical and
Church doctrine, but not in such a way as that only a historical
1 'Anxfoia. The soul of man is. in itself vxOnrixli hke the body ; hence
not good by nature, Strom, iv. 26, p. 639 ; but if in Christ it is nothing
slse than the faculty of the hurvan nature to receive the >.oyo; dirxfy;, it
Has, being inseparably joined with this, a more immediate share in the
indfaia than the body.

304 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
and traditional knowledge should be adduced ; what he brings
forward is a practical knowledge that is at one with the inner
Christian consciousness. He does not strive to oppose Gnos
ticism by falling back merely on authority, or on subjective
feeling ; and his entering into the substance of Gnosticism is
rewarded by his being enabled to bring forward a treasure of
Christian knowledge, and to present the most ingenious views
of the connection and organism of Christian doctrine.
Irenasus views justly, as the fundamental error (fons et
radix) of Gnosticism, the doctrine of the Bythos, or the concept
of God which abides by mere quantitative infinitude, by physical
categories. God, it is true, is here the obscure basis, the un
knowable ; but in the esteem of Irenasus, that is so little the in
nermost of God that he objects to the Gnostics, who are always
restlessly steering towards this, that they seek to float into the
infinite above God, but since they lift their thoughts above God,
they find no resting-place for thought ; let them, then, repent
(ii. 4, 44 ; iv. 22, 35, 36). God's quantitative greatness is im
measurable ; but we are referred to His love ; it has been mani
fested, and it is the highest, the innermost in the knowledge of'
God. In the Word we have God (iii. 40 ; iv. 37, 40). The
Son is God's love and power. Whilst then the Gnostics call
the Bythos incognisable, Irenasus says that God is knowable
(ii. 5). Whilst they think the Bythos void per se, he says,
" si vacuum iUum confitebuntur, in maximam incidentes blas-
phemiam denegabunt id quod est spiritale ejus" (ii. 18). Whilst
they, striving to come nearer to the Bythos, and to conceive the
world, must have recourse to a development, a partition of the
Bythos, he says (i. 4) that there is work enough and reward
enough for the gnosis, though the question be not asked,
Whence God ? (ii. 44); i.e., we must not attempt to deduce the
higher categories, through which alone God is to us truly God,
wisdom and love, from the Bythos as the last and highest ; but
must abide by them as the last and highest. There is lacking
to them, otherwise, true absoluteness, and the emanations from
the Bythos are always endangered in their divinity (H. 15).
Bather, says he (ii. 14), must the successive Gnostic JEons be
thought simultaneous in each other as attributes of God, which
are eternally and inseparably combined in the concept of Him
as momenta. Either the Bythos must be acknowledged to be

IREN.EUS. 305
void and lifeless, or all momenta must be transferred to it, and
in this case, becoming and defect must be excluded (ii. 17, 18).
No successive coming into being, consequently, no passion, can
be left in the world of ^Eons ; if this is to be reducible under
the true concept of God, there must be a renunciation of the
idea of JEons condensed, hypostatized, produced out1 of God,
and, instead of this, these must be regarded as belonging to the
Divine essence itself, consequently must be brought down to
momenta in the eternal Divine essence, as Irenasus does when
he calls the Logos multus et dives in Himself (iv. 37), — a con
clusion to which the older gnosis, especially Valentinus himself,
according to Irenasus, showed a strong leaning. From this
there issues at once the opposition to the Gnostic irpo/3o\al, and
to the distinction of the Logos as ivBid0eTos and as irpo<f>opiic6<;.
In God there is no partition, no composition, no passion (ii. 15,
17, 18, 27, 48). The inner Logos is to the Gnostics dvvir6tjTaTo<}
(H. 17, 18), the irpotpopiKw a sounding voice, both of which are
false. Irenasus seeks to know God, as well as the world, as de
finitely distinguished from the Logos, and only on the ground
of distinction does he arrive at unity.
If we consider more closely L:enseus's view of, the Logos,
we shaU see that, according to its concept, it is with him reason
as well as word (ii. 48, and ii. 15, 17, 18) ; and in hisview
neither of these must outweigh the other (comp. Hi. 40, iv.
37). God is wholly reason (totus mens), Logos ; and the Son
is this Logos : vow and \070s are one (ii. 48). The Son is not
a sounding, but a hypostatic word, uttered or spoken by the
Father (prolatus).1 In this the essential deity of the Son Hes
already so strongly enounced, that it is hardly necessary to speak
of it further. He is no creature (Hi. 8) ; and Christ is not to be
caUed God in the sense in which other men are caUed gods.
For, strictly speaking, nothing created is to be called God. But
the Son manifested in Christ is actually God, because God is
only to be known through God (iv. 10, 14), and because He
has power to forgive sins (v. 17). The thought of Athenagoras,
by which God is first recognised in His independence of the
world, Irenasus worka out much more clearly, and in such a- way
as that a higher significancy is thereby assigned to the Son.
" God did not create Adam as having need of men, but that
1 Appendix, Note, XXXX.
VOL. I. v

306 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
there might be one on whom He could accumulate His benefits"
(iv. 28). Consequently it is not because the world belongs
immediately to God's essence that it actually is ; nor is it because
the Son is the /coo-pos iwrros. The hypothesis out of which the
origin of the world is to be conceived is, conversely, the absolute
perfection and independence of God, without which God could
not be pure, unselfish love. Absolute love seeks spontaneously
its proper work ; its essence is to place others as an object for
itself. " The Christian must learn how great God is : Gloria
enim hominis Deus, operationes vero Dei "et omnis sapientias
ejus et virtutis receptaculum homo" (iii. 22). For Himself
(leaving His love out of view) He needed not the creation of
Adam. " For not only before Adamj but before all creation,
the Word glorified His Father, abiding in Him, and the Word
in turn was glorified by the Father, as He Himself says, John
xvii. 5." Thus Irenasus takes his point of issue from the ab
solute concept of God, weU knowing that wherever this is
thought as becoming (werdend), the thought remains object
less, and without a resting place (H. 4, 44).
But if he so definitely discriminates the Logos from the
world,1 what does he teach concerning the relation of the Son- to
the Father ? The Gnostics, he says, as good as affirm on this
point, that the generation of the Logos may be compared to that
of man's word from reason'. Now, every man knows this
mystery, that from thought and , understanding comes word ;
but it is mere arrogance to beHeve that by means of this trivial
truth we can conceive the generation of the Son from God {ii.
18, 48). " They transfer the production of man's spoken word
to the eternal Word of God, and assign to this a beginning of
production and generation like their word. In what, then, is
God's Word — nay, rather God Himself, since He is word —
distinguished from the word of men 1 But in God there is no
thing older or younger ; He has nought foreign in Himself, but
is wholly like Himself, eternaUy one (H. 18). He is simple, in
all parts like Himself — simplex non compositus, similimem-
brius (opbou>pefn)i), et totus ipse sibimet ipsi similis et asqualis"
(ii. 16). He is wholly sense, wholly inteUect, wholly under
standing, whoUy thought, wholly reason, wholly hearing, wholly
eye, wholly light, wholly source of aU good (comp. i. 6, § 1) :
1 Comp. further, ii. 20.

IRENEUS. 307
not Hke the sense of men and the outer light, but in relation to
these things unspeakable in His.greatness (ii. 16). From this it
is clear that no doctrine of the Trinity could be satisfactory to
him in which the so-called Persons divide among themselves the
Divine attributes ; as respects the attributes (virtutes), these are
common to the ever self-resembHng Divine essence. Even of
the Logos it is said, God is whoUy Now and whoUy Logos ; i.e.,
God is ever whole even in the determination of Him as Logos
(ii. 18). Hence it follows certainly, that in his view the Logos
is wholly God, and no subordinate being. It is not, however,
clear what distinction remains for him between Father and Son.
When he has placed the Logos in the eternal Divine sphere, so
as to exclude from Him want, change, passion, he has trium
phantly confuted the Gnostics ; he has showed that if their doc
trine of projections was true, God would be torn asunder by
Himself (ii. 16) ; and should the Gnostics faU back at aU on the
position that the projections have place within the Father Him
self, It may now be asked, what projection can mean ? In this
case the expression would be superfluous ; for if the word means
anything, it means that a revelation of the projected Hes outside
the projecting (ii. 17). But then how does Irenasus escape the
objection, that the same instance may be urged against all
and every distinction of the Son from the Father ? Here we
must take into account that Irenseus, in those principal passages
in which he assumes the Logos whoUy into the Divine essence,
speaks not of the Father, but of God. He does not replace
- the Son simply in the Father, but what he says is this : God is
wholly Logos, God is Himself in the Logos ; not outside Him
self, like the Bythos of the Gnostics, but He is in Himself, gene
rally (and consequently, also, under the three determinations,
Father, Son, Spirit), Eeason and Word. (Comp. also ii. 13,
viH. 28, v. 6 ; and Duncker, Des Heil. , Irenseus Christologie,
p. 36 ff.) Whosoever speaks of the Mens Dei, and ascribes to
it a proper prolation, makes God to be a compound, as if one
thing were God "and another the primal reason (ii. 48). As
soon, then, as it is acknowledged that the distinction between
the Father and the Son cannot be based on a distribution of
attributes or powers, but that all Divine powers must meet in
God, it must, as consequent on this, be admitted, that under
each of the trinitarian determinations God is Eeason, etc.,-—

308 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
that is, it must be said, for instance, that the Father is Logos, in
so far, namely, as under Logos is understood only Eeason or
Creative power. This expression, indeed, he .commonly shuns ;
the word Logos was too definitely stamped and established by
usage as a designation of the Son, for confusion not to result
from its being apphed otherwise. He, however, calls the Father
Eeason, vow, mens ; nay, in one place (ii. 48), he says, God is
wholly Mens and wholly Logos, — what He speaks He thinks, and
what He thinks He speaks. , For his Thought is Word (\070s),
and his Word Thought, and the all-comprehending primal
Eeason is the Father Himself.1 If one, then, is anxious to draw
hasty conclusions, this passage furnishes abundant occasion for
this ; for, taking one's stand on it, nothing is more .certain than
that Irenseus is a Monarchian, and that in a Sabellian form.
But whoever does this will find himself brought into difficulty
by the second part of the same section, in which there is avow
edly presupposed, as has been already shown, that the Son is not
identical with the Father, nor with God as God. The solution
is furnished by what follows. Irenseus sees more distinctly
than all who preceded him, that the customary designation of
the Son by the term Logos has something inadequate in it,
whether there be understood by it reason or creative power 1
for, as reasdn and omnipotence, and, in short, all the Divine
predicates, certainly belong to the Son, it is not in them that
the distinction of the concept of Him from that of the Father
is to be sought. If, then, it were thus possible to call God, or
the Father, Logos, in the sense adduced, it is clear that by
the term Logos would be designated either something different
from what the word immediately expresses, namely, something
distinctive of Him from God as such and the Father, — in which
case it is time to say what this is, — or Sabellianism is the
genuine and true sentiment of the Church.
It is obvious that the Sabellian mode of thought was
chiefly supported by the perception that God is wholly reason,
and also in aU His distinctions like Himself in that which be
longs to the Divine powers and attributes. Nevertheless
Irenseus declares strongly against the Sabellian representation,
1 The passage iv. 37, ed. Gr., p. 333a, Omnia per Verbum ejus discunt,
qui (quia) est unus Deus Pater, is uncertain.

irenjEUS. 309
as also Justin depicts it, that God now rests and is silent, and
anon is active (ii. 47).
Indeed, it cannot be denied that many of his highest utter
ances concerning Christ may be understood in a sort of patri
passian sense ; as when he adopts the saying of a presbyter
earlier than his time : Mensura Patris Filius (iv. 8) ; or, Inter-
pretator Patris Verbum (iv. 27) ; invisibile FiHi Pater, visibile
Patris FUius (iv. 14). For the word mensura recaUs the SabeUian
irepeyparpr) ; and there might be found in this, as in the last
statement, that the Father is the content of the Son, and that
He, as circumscribed, is called " Son." But the meaning must
then be, that the Son is nothing but the visibUity of the Father,
the Son is that manifested which the Father is hidden and in
visible. Now, certainly all the three statements assert that the
Father, who is in Himself infinite, has in the Son entered into a
Hmitation necessary for us, and that the Son comprehended the
Father. But since, even if the Son be a wholly independent
image (selbstandiges EbenbUd), the Father nevertheless is mani
fest in Him, it follows that aU this may be said in a purely
economical sense, and it is to be inquired whether Irenasus re
cognised no other than an economical distinction. He calls
also the Spirit Figuratio Patris (iv. 17), so that in no case
could he regard the Son as only the manifested God. It
would be easiest to make out his antagonism to Sabellianism if
we found any traces of a subordination of the Son. But what
may be adduced as such, namely, that Irenasus does not ascribe
to the Son omniscience (e. gr., ii. 49), proves nothing, since the
passages relate, or may relate, to the Son as incarnate.1 • In the
connection of the system of Irenasus it must be so taken, since
in other places he says expressly that the Logos, the Son and
Creator of the world, knows all things (e. gr., v. 18) ; and, in
general, because, according to the above, it is peculiar to
Irenseus to view God as also wholly in the Logos according to
all His powers. Nevertheless there are found in him elements
enough of an anti-Sabellian mode of thought.2 Above aU,
1 So also expressions such as Fihus administrans Patri, etc. (iv. 14,v17,
pp. 302, 304, v. 26, p. 4416), Fihus manus Patris (v. 1, v. 6), are decidedly '
referable to the economical relation. To him the Word is uncreated, eternal,
without beginning. Comp. Duncker, p. 16 ff.
2 Duncker, in his otherwise admirable work, seems not to be aware that

310 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
.attention must be paid here to the pre-existence which he
ascribes to the Son and views as eternal; and, further, to the
fact that he calls the Son invisibilis in Himself, as he calls the
Father visibilis for our sakes (iH. 18, p. 241, iv. 14, p. 3416).
After he has confuted the Gnostic prolationes, and their ap-
phcation to the Logos, he insists that the Son (so he denomi
nates the Logos when he would designate Him in distinction
from the Father) prolatus est a Patre. Whether this be called
prolation, or begetting, or nuncupatio, or adapertio, and though
no man knows this generatio inerrabiHs, the Father qui generavit,
and the Son qui est natus, know it (H. 48). This generatio
took place not first in time, nor is the Son a creature, or passive
in His prolation, but He is eternally with God (non habet
initium prolationis, ii. 18). Before the world the Father glori
fied the Son, and the Son the Father (iH. 22). "That the
Word (i.e., the Son) was ever with the Father, hath He plen
tifully showed. Yea, before all creation has Wisdom, i.e., the
Spirit, been with Him" (iv. 37, 14). Still this much must be
conceded, that though Irenseus desires definitely to recognise
these distinctions as posited in the inner Divine essence, he yet
does not represent the motive and ground of them as in the
Divine essence itself, nor does he accommodate them to the
unity ; but they are certified to him through the manifestation
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless he holds fast
the unity and simplicity of God thus determined. In these
distinctions God is homogeneous (bpoiopeprji) ; to each belongs
the like content of the Divine predicates ; He is in them One.
Whence it follows that Irenseus, far from all tritheism, must, to
be consequent, reject from his premisses every pluraUty of hypo
stases subordinated to each other, or excluding each other ; and,
on the contrary, must maintain their inter-essence in virtue of
their equal Divine essence. AU that he thus leaves room for is,
that the one Divine essence, even apart from the world, exists
per se in a threefold different form, but in each of these modes
of being the whole content of the Divine predicates is con
tained.1 We now proceed to the Incarnation.
God cannot be known without God (iv. 14). Without life
he first brings Irenseus to a mere economic form of doctrine, i.e., to Sabel
lianism (pp. 40-44), and then afterwards retracts this (pp. 50-57).
1 In iv. 17 it is said, Ministrat Patri ad omnia sua progenies et figuratio

ireNjEus. 311
we cannot live. Essential life comes from participation in God ;
but to have part in God is to know God, and to enjoy His good
ness (iv. 37). The wiU of the Father, however, is to be known
(iv. 14). They who would now see the Hght must be in the
sphere of the light, and those who would see God, must be, in
the sphere of God (ivTw Qeov, p. 332&, iv. 37), enjoying His
clearness. This clearness vivifies them, so that those ^who see
God have Hfe. Wherefore the Unapprehended, the Incompre-
hended, the Unseen, hath made Himself visible, comprehensible,
apprehensible for those that beUeve, in the Incarnation, in order
to make those who apprehend and see Him blessed through
faith. His greatness is unsearchable ; but His goodness also is
not to "be told by which He gives Himself to be seen (iv. 37,
p. 332). No one knows the Father save His Word, and in
turn only the Father knows His Word. The Father, however,
has .^revealed Himself, inasmuch as He has made His Word
visible to all, and in turn the Son opens up the knowledge of
the Father by His revelation. The Lord says not that Father
and Son are simply not cognisable, otherwise His advent would
have been superfluous ; but only that without God, God cannot
be known. But the Father revealed the Son, and in the Son
Himself as the Father ; and the Son revealed, through His re
presentation, as Himself, so also the Father as Him who hath
begotten the Son (iv. 14, pp. 300, 301). Thus, according to
Irenseus, the revelation of the one includes that of the other ;
so that the revelation in Christ is to be viewed as no less the act
of the Father than of the Son.
Already in the creation the Word has revealed the Father
and the Son ; likewise in the Law and in the Prophets the
Word has preached Himself and the Father, and has ever sought
to draw to the belief of these. At length the Word has made
Himself visible and tangible by being born of Mary. For it is
the Son who is the organ of the Father from beginning to end,
and without Him can no man know the Father (iv. 14). From
the beginning the Son is with His work, and reveals to all the
Father, how and where He wills ; and hence there is in all and
through all things the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
and one faith and one salvation (iv. 14, p. 302). Christ me
sua, i.e., Filius et Sp. Sanctus. On the Holy Ghost, see below, and
Duncker 1. c, p. 57 ff.

312 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
diates the whole. economy in relation to mankind, serving the
Father's will (v. 26, p. 4416). These positions he estabUshes
somewhat more closely. It was fit that the Son who is eter
nally with the Father should be the universal organ of reve
lation. He who created the world is the same who hath given
the law. Quomodo finis legis Christus, si non et initium?
(iv. 26). He moreover appeared to the patriarchs and pro
phets; not always in the same form, but in another and an
other, according to time and place (iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 23,
26, 27, 37, 70, iii. 18, v. 18). Cleaving to His work, He is
ever in that which He has made, never retiring from it. But
wherefore did this stated presence with and in His work not
suffice ? wherefore, at least, did not the manifold appearances
before Christ ? On this point he enlarges, especially in opposi
tion to Ebionism (e. gr., iii. 20, 21, 24, 29, iv. 51, 59). Where
he remains by general considerations, he says, We could not
have had part in immortality and incorruptibiHty had we not
been united thereto (adunati). But how could this have been
possible had not immortality and incorruptibility become what
we are, so that the corruptible might be1 swaUowed up by the
incorruptible, and the mortal by the immortal ? This death,
which dwells in the first creation, has for him also an ethical
significancy ; and the Ebionites, denying the higher birth of
Christ, and in Christ of humanity, abide still in the bondage
(i.e., the state of penalty) of the old' Adamitic disobedience ;
they abide still in the first birth, and the curse of death which
rests upon it (iii. 21, p. 249). They receive not the anti
dote to death, and are subject to it. The Word has said, Ye
are sons of the Highest, and gods, but ye shall die like men ;
by this He refers to the thankless, on whose account He became
flesh, who despise the gift of sonship, and rob man of his ex
altation to the Lord. For the Word of God has become man,
and the Son of God the Son of man united with the Word, in
order that we might receive sonship ; and whosoever receives the
Logos becomes a son of God (Ibid.). The Ebionites whom he
assails have, it is true, in their later forms retreated from Moses
and the law back to Adam. Him they exalt above all ; and in
their opinion there is no need of any other, but only of ap
pearances of him from time to time. But, says Irenseus, aU
who descend from Adam are under the curse ; of them none is

IRENEUS. 313
caUed God or Lord (iii. 6, 31). But by accepting Christ we
bear God in us, we reaUy become partakers of the Divine
nature, and sons of the Highest (Hi. 21, iv. 37, 59, 68, v. 8, etc.).1
StUl more definitely does he assign an ethical and religious
significancy to Christ's incarnation, in that he sees in it the
taking away of sin and guUt. The law gives us no kingdom,
shows us not the king in us, but shows the manslayer (1 John
iii.), who hath sin in him, and is amenable to death. He, however,
who shall begin to destroy sin, and to deliver him who is amen
able to death, must himself be what this one was, i.e., man, in
order that sin may be destroyed by man, and man may escape
from death.
" If," he exclaims to the Doketas, " Christ has not become
man, ye remain under the ancient curse and under death. For
we could not attain to the sonship unless the Son had entered
into fellowship with us and become flesh. His humanity is
not an appearance ; and so His works, the slaying of sin and
of death, and the vivifying of men, are reaHties" (iii. 20,
p. 248). This thought, that Christ must become what we are in order
to redeem and perfect us, is pursued by Irenasus in detail. The
Gnostic canon, wv rjpeWe ado^eiv, Ta? dirap%a<; ai>T&v e'Cknfye
(L. i. c. 1, § 11), he fuUy adopts. " Through every stage of
human Hfe Christ had to pass, in order that He might restore
to all communion with God" (iii. 20, p. 248). " He sanctified
each stage of life, for He came to save aU by Himself ; all,
I say, who through Him shall be born again to God, infants
and children, lads, youths, and old men" (ii. 39). To the same
intent is his saying, " Had not our flesh been redeemable, the
Word of God had never become flesh" (v. 14). Every man
has a soul (ii. 62), and this also needs salvation. Christ gave
His flesh for our flesh, His soul for our soul (v. 1, vi. 9). This
thought, that Christ must assume all that belongs to us, and re
present it in Himself, in order to be able to save us, is often
1 Already, before Tertullian, as Duncker has observed, Irenseus taught
that there were three stages in the development of the kingdom of God—
the revelation of the Father from the creation, the advent of Christ, and the
effusion of the Holy Spirit (iv. 38, 1, 3 ; 20, 6 ; v. 18, 2 ; 36, 2, 5 ; Duncker
1. c. p. 71 ff.). The frequent verbal agreement of Tertulhan and Irenseus
renders this the more noticeable.

314 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
expressed by him by the phrase, " recapitulatio plasmatis in
semetipsum." But Irenasus does not limit himself to such general con
siderations ; he goes stiU deeper into the reasons why Christ's
abUity to redeem us depended on His being in aU things like us.
Without His becoming man, without the offering of His body
and His soul, redemption could have been accomplished only by
the arbitrary power of the Divine nature, or by righteousness not
demanding what was due to it according to its idea. But this
demands, 1. That as it was a man who feU, it must alsobea man
who fulfils the law, and conquers sin and the devU ; that the
universal guUt and punishment of humanity should be borne by
itself, and the universal disobedience of the race should be
covered by an obedience from the midst of it, even Christ's
whole obedience (Ib. iii. 18, v. 21, p. 432a). 2. That even this
man should not conquer by way of power, of immediate phy
sical force ; but by the indirect way through self -offering love.
Force (/3ia), Irenasus says, with the author of the Epistle to
Diognetus (c. 7), dwells not with God ; it becomes God to con
quer only by love. This love shows itself in Christ in the bear
ing of the guilt and penalty, and in the fulfilling of the law.
3. The same righteousness requires that men also shall not be
brought to Christ by force ; but that the subjective redemption
of men must take the indirect path (force being renounced) of
rescuing from the kingdom of sin and the devil only those who in
the free exercise of faith allow the spiritual grace, the revelation
of love, to operate upon them. " It was fit that God should
bring to Himself that which properly belongs to Him (man),
not by application of force, but by the spiritual method of per
suasion (secundum suadelam, suadentem et non vim inferentem
decebat Deum accipere quse vellet . : . quse sunt sua, v. 1, l).1
This doctrine is intimately connected with the theology and
the anthropology oi Irenseus. We see how high he places, in op
position to Gnosticism, the spiritual attributes, the Spiritale Dei,
especially His love. Eighteousness only comes with him between
the physical attributes, infinitude, omnipotence, etc., and the
ethical, compassion, love, etc., as occupying the place of warder.
Hence God wUl not and cannot operate on what is spiritual in a
physical way; He must gain men by a representation of what is
1 Appendix, Note YYYY.

IRENEUS. 315
spiritual, by the highest manifestation of His love. But that
this shall be a manifestation by suffering, is required by the same
righteousness as requires that it shall conquer only spiritually,
and shall renounce aU force. For rectitude provides that every
thing shall correspond to its essence and concept, and it de
mands punishment when' the spiritual has become carnal ; fur
ther, if God as love wills that man should stand before Him not
as carnalis, but as spiritualis, it follows that, since sin and guilt
have entered the world, righteousness can be satisfied only by
the revelation of God's love being that of suffering, sin-bearing,
guUt-bearing, and at the same time substitutionary love, and that
in such a way as that the suffering Divine love shall assume all
the sin and guUt of man, shall comprehend in itself and absorb
in its holiness all that retained the first creation, so that all men
and every age of man, provided they have been in feUowship
with this revelation, should stand pure and holy before God and
themselves (Hi. 20). But this brings us to the Anthropology of
Irenasus. According to him, freedom belongs to the concept of
man. God's love, in his view, as it were, woos man, because
it is only as we will it that we can have the gift of fellowship
with God. Hence man cannot be perfect TeXeio? from the
beginning, but only by degrees through training. Insensatum
esset bonum quod esset inexercitatum. We should also set Httle
value on the blessing of fellowship with God were we to obtain
it without freedom ; and with this it is not inconsistent^ that in
order to full choice, man desires knowledge of what is set before
him, but can acquire knowledge of good and evil only by'means
of experience (iv. 72, p. 387 ; 76, pp. 380, 381). Disciplinam
boni quemadmodum habere potuisset, ignorans quod est con-
trarium ? Firmior est enim et indubitata subjacientium appre-
hensio, quam ea, quas est ex suspicione conjectura. Mens per
utrorumque experimentum disciplinam boni accipiens firmior
efficitur.1 God could on His part give us aU as well from the
beginning, but we could not on ours receive it. A physical
good is in his view, consequently, of no or of little worth to men
(comp. iv. 71-74). Such stress does he lay on this freedom of
decision, that he, entirely dissenting from gnosticizing Ebionism,
does not place Adam very high, still less regards his condition
in Paradise as prototypal for us. Adam, indeed, was not made
1 Appendix, Note ZZZZ.

316 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
sinful, but free, and greater than all of us (iv. 59) ; but there
could be no establishment there, Christ could not have been
received from the beginning ; and in this lies the position, that
the perfection of our nature becomes . first possible, through
Christ. He, however, as the second Adam, presupposes a first
creation. On this account the Son is in no wise dependent on
mankind, nor His incarnation on the free act of man (iii. 33),
but man in any case needs the incarnation. Whether man be
viewed dichometrically or trichometrically (comp. ii. 52 and 62
with v. 4, and especially 6), there must ever be reckoned as be
longing to the concept of man the objective Divine irvevpa,
which he must assume (v. 6), with which he must be conjoined,
that he may with this last momentum correspond wholly to his
concept. Antecedent to this, indeed, he is not without reason
or soul, — as man of the first creation he is Bbktikw of God and of
carnalia, i.e., he is free; but he is also not thereby perfect man.
Primum homines, deinde Dei (iv. 75, 76, v. 1) ; the latter, in
that the Divine irvevpa belonging to our nature is freely assumed
by us men, or that we become true men. This participation of
the Spirit (which he also calls commixtio cum Verbo) Adam
could not have had, and so he stands far below Christ, the
second Adam (iv. 59, Hi. 21). On the other hand, mighty as
the Son or Christ is, His appearance as a redeemer and per-
fecter is conditioned by a first creation ; and since it is only by
free apprehension that man can enjoy that which belongs to
his concept, so it is on man's own account alike wise and right
that God should not immediately give him the highest boon,
and that, as respects redemption, a deliverance from guilt and
penalty such as instead of suadela should be filq, — i.e., such as,
being spiritual, should be brought about in a non-spiritual, phy
sical way, — was not possible. Hence it appears the Divine attri
butes and the nature of man alike demand the spiritual process
by which Christ is changed into the likeness of man.
He has thus laid a basis not only for Christ's appearing in
humiliation, but, by means of the idea of the Divine rectitude,
also for His sufferings, namely, the necessity of a penal endur
ance. In conclusion, he gives hints how this may turn out for
our good.
The concept of rectitude, which he was constrained by the
Gnostics, especially Marcion, more closely to perpend, de-

IRENEUS. 317
mands as well punishment for sin as that mankind should stand
before God not in an abnormal state, but according to its
normal development, and through that as well-pleasing to God<
Eighteousness in the work of redemption is by no means with
him only the Divine, orderly method of this work, or its true
historical character (Duncker 1. c. 176 f.). This order may
belong to his idea of righteousness, but its main momentum is
formed by what is above named.1
Humanity is since Adam's sin under the bondage of sin
and death, and cannot of itself come forth to eternal and divine
life. It was also impossible to change the once captivated, or to
suffer the sinner to enjoy salvation (iii. 20, p. 245). Now, that
truth might not fail, the Son appeared. If His coming as
man was needful because only so could we come into fellowship
with the immortal, the Divine one, not less needful was His be
coming incarnate to suffer and die, when sin had to be taken
away. Here also righteousness forbade sin and death to be
immediately annihUated, or the abnormal development to be
viewed immediately as normal. A man had fallen ; a man must
make satisfaction. Thus only through the act of our race could
redemption come to be estabUshed ; forrighteousness must hold
by our race. Now, none of the first birth were competent to
accomplish this act, to complete this undertaking. Neverthe
less He who is competent f aUs within the sphere of our race.
If to the concept of each of us belongs the participation of the
Spirit, there belongs also to humanity, as it is in God's idea, He
in whom the Spirit dwells without measure ; the fons Spiritus
Sancti (comp the 4th fragment, p. 469) is for all of us, inas
much as and because in Him the Son became man. The Son
or Logos is the original type after which and to which man was
at first made. Thus from the beginning there belonged to the
essence of man a participation in Him, so that, so far from the
appearing of the original type among us, His copies, being pro
nounced something contrary to the human nature or the idea
of humanity, the entrance of the original type is rather to be
viewed as bringing with it, for the first time, true and perfect
humanity (iv. 59, v. 16, iii. 21).
Hence he often says that the man bare and apprehended
1 Duncker (comp. p. 252 with 246) handles this concept with too httle
precision and firmness

' 318 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
the Son of God (iH. 18, p. 240; v. 18, 20 comp. v. 8, 2 ; Hi. 21,
iv. 37, 68, 75). It was not a Gnostic labes or ignorantia, nor
angels, that made the world, but God, who, bearingthe world,
so made it that it could bear Him (v. 18), i.e., as that it should
be susceptible from the beginning of an incarnation of God,
since it is by this that the creatiori begun in Adam is for the
first time completed and perfected. Hence he repeats, in view
of the earlier stages of the development of revelation, that the
human nature had by degrees to be accustomed to bear God ;
and also as respects the Word, he treats His earlier revelations
as a becoming of His incarnation, the end which from the be
ginning was to be reached (iv. 13, 14, 15, 17, 26, 27, v. 8, iii.
22, 33, 37). Now, if it belongs to love in general to act for
others, how much more to the Son, who is the revelation of love
(iii. 40, iv. 37) ? He can, however, assume the place of man
over against the law because He Himself is man, yea, huma
nity in its entire intensity (compendium humani generis). He
comprehends humanity in Himself.1 In Him has appeared the
original type with which humanity stands from the beginning
in essential vital connection, from which it sprang (iv. 37,
p. 330), and to have part in which, when it shall have become
real, completes each individual according to his concept (v. 1,
5, 6, 16). According to this, His history is the history of huma
nity in its principle. And high as Irenasus places freedom, he
yet does not forget also the common basis of life. This, indeed,
as physical, has no power over us ; the Son, who is the basis of
our Hfe, cannot save us /Sta ; but when He appears as Dilectio,
and so operates spiritually, He can, without disparagement to
righteousness, without annihilation of freedom, through the
power of love and His relationship to mankind, make their his
tory His own, assume the caro inimica (iv. 14), gather the
eyQpa to Himself (iv. 78), and that in such a way as that this
same Dilectio, His personal righteousness, shall absorb and
abolish the ey0pa, sin and death. Justa caro reconciliavit earn
carnem, quse in peccato* detinebatur ; and that by His assuming
no other caro than ours, the inimica. Thus are we in His
obedience virqKooi (v. 16), inasmuch as we believe, and in be
lieving yield up the isolated personality (freedom of choice),
choosing Him, espousing ourselves to Him.
1 Appendix, Note AAAAA.

IRENEUS. 319
Mankind, in the wide distribution of itself, has taken an
abnormal direction. Hence salvation is, according to Irenasus
a recapitulation of the History of mankind per oppositum. The
abnormal is rectified and secured by means of this, that ad
vancing regressively, per recirculationem (iii. 33), even to the
beginning (recapitulendo longam expositionem generis humani,
iii. 20, p. 245), the same happens in a normal way in Him, and
through Him in whom is the idea of humanity itself. He must
join the end to the beginning, Hi order to unite in Himself all
peoples, tongues, and generations of men (iii. 33). Humanity,
however, is set forth as the normal man through the love of
Christ, which in that ideal regression to the beginning assumes
on itself all the sins, guilt, and punishment of men. This sin
and guilt it bears and expiates, and in this expiation there is ex
hibited the holy humanity, that which suffers or that which
abolishes sin by its whole obedience (iii. 31, 20, iv. 37, v. 1, 16,
4246, Christus earn, quse in ligno facta fuerat, inobedientiam
per earn quse in ligno fuerat, obedientiam sanans).
After His infinite love, says he (L. v. prasf. 3926), hath the
Word of God become what we are, in order that He might
make us what He is. Perfect in all things, as omnipotent
Word and real man He has in a spiritual way (i.e., not /3ta,
but rationabUiter) saved us, having given Himself up as a
ransom for those who are thus bound (v. 1). He has, fuU of
love, poured Himself forth to. gather us into the bosom of the
Father (v. 2, 395). By the Spirit He has brought God to
men, and, on the other hand, has carried man to God by His
incarnation (v. 1, 393). God's glory is the living man (iv. 37,
p. 3336) ; man's Hfe is the vision of God. Now, the Word
bare always in Himself the lineaments, as it were, of all future
things, and of all His revelations (p. 336a), and inclusively
also that economy by means of which men shall come to the
vision of God (332a), i.e., the incarnation, in which Christ re
presented God to men and men to God(3336), espoused the end
to the beginning, man to God (3316). The Invisible became
visible, the Incomprehensible conceivable. He who was incapable
of suffering became liable to suffering, the Word became man
(iii. 18, 2416), uniting aU in Himself and so also men, in ordei
that, as the Word is King in the supercelestial, invisible, and
spiritual sphere, so also He might take to Himself the rule in

32G FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
the visible and corporeal, and, placing Himself as Head of the
Church, might draw all to Himself at the right time.
By the doctrine of the incarnation aU the doctrines of the
heretics are aboHshed. They utter what is foolish who would
make the appearance of Christ merely Doketic ; for then had
He made only a deceptive show, and the truth is not in Him
(iv. 1). Vain also is the declaration that our flesh is not capable
of receiving the immortal (v. 2). If He has not appeared, we
must await the appearance of another ; the old world (v. 14 :
antiqua plasmatio Adas) is rendered abortive, and we are not
saved (v. 1, 394). He was, therefore, what He seemed to be
(v. 1) ; He became what we are (iii. 32, 260a). But as we are
body from the earth, and soul which receives the Holy Ghost
from God, the Word has also become this, presenting His
creature as completed in Himself (in semetipsum recapitulans) ;
and hence He calls Himself Son of man (iH. 32, 260), the
principalis homo (v. 21, p. 432a; Hi. 18, v. 18).
He entered into Mary in order to take for Himself of her
substance : the old mass He must appropriate ; otherwise He
would not be similar to us (iii. 32). From the Hke substance
He has a body as we have ; else is He a stranger to us, and hath
not perfected man in Himself (v. 14, 421a). Had He His flesh
otherwise than from Mary, then is He not flesh. Caro enim
vere primse plasmationis a limo f actas successio. He must be
come that which had fallen; But this has "flesh and blood ; and
consequently so also had Christ.
The soul of Christ was not especially called in question by
the Gnostics. Nevertheless in the above passage (Hi. 32, 260a)
there is ascribed to Christ similarity with us in this respect.
And it will hardly do to regard "^vyr} as denoting the mere
principle of animal life. For when Irenseus says (v. 1), He
gave His aap% for our <rap%, His i^v^ for our i/rin^at, the ^rv^i}
no less than the aap^ oi Christ must be taken in the same sense
as in us. But it is not probable that Irenseus would say that He
had redeemed our animal body, and not rather our soul also ;
and consequently -tyvyr) here must mean soul, for which also
the plural ijrt^at speaks. Nor is this an isolated statement with
Irenseus. He says (v. 14), caro Christi non peccavit, neque
inventus est dolus in anima ejus; in iH. 32, p. 260, he adduces,
in pr>of of Christ's true humanity, the passage, Matt. xxvi. 38,

IRENEUS. 321
"My soul is troubled;" and the passage, "He is not left in
Hades," is also referred to Christ (iH. 12, 225a). The Gnostics
think, he says, v. 31, 450, 451, that as soon as they die they
shall ascend above the heavens to the Demiurg. But the Lord
Himself was three days in Hades, as David had prophesied,
saying, "Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowermost
world." " The Lord remembered His saints who were dead,
and descended to them" (Eph. iv. 9). It deserves special note,
also, that in states which are opposed to the nature of the Logos,
as, e. gi\, the temptation, he regards the Logos as resting in
Christ. For, since he views these states as not merely animal,
but as conscious (iii. 32, 260), there is presupposed for such
momenta as those in which the Logos is in repose, a human
consciousness, a soul. The fundamental thought, which is here
decisive, that Christ in order to redeem us must become what
we are, that the conquest of sin and of death might be the deed
of a man, is most clearly brought out ; and with this it would
be strange if there did not appear in him a progress in this to
something more definite. We have thus in Irenseus the fitting
transition to TertulHan's doctrine, which was still more precisely
formed through the opposition to it of the patripassian views
then coming into vogue. It is undeniable that in this matter
his peculiar anthropology was of service to Irenasus (see above).
A man is one who has a soul in a body, which soul is free
and receptive (Be/CTucr/) of the carnal, the spiritual, the divine.
Through this his free soul man becomes a rational being, even
when through sinking himself in the carnal, he becomes brutish.
To his full concept, however, to his truth, it belongs that his
freedom shall accept the Divine Pneuma. Now, what this
Pneuma is in man, that was the Logos in Christ ; for a rational,
free human soul there is consequently room in Christ along
with the Logos, just as there is in men generally along with
the Pneuma. Hence the significancy which he finds in the
temptation of Christ (v. 21, 22, iii. 21). Whether the origin
of the soul by which man becomes a rational being is regarded
by Irenseus as by traduction or by creation, is, so far as our in
quiry is concerned, of no moment. For the identity of Christ's
humanity with ours remains established in either case.1
1 Hence it is a matter of indifference to us how Irenseus views the ypvxv
in relation to the eupt* or xipcx Xoyixon. The former is with him, besides,
VOL. I. X

322 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
- The more strenuously he labours to show the thorough
identity of the humanity of Christ with ours (iii. 32), so much
the more does he seek to bring out His distinction from us.
" The Ebionites also," says he, v. 1, " talk foolishly, who do
not receive into their soul through faith the union of God and
man, but persist in the old leaven of a birth through which we
are heirs of death. They reject the mingling with heavenly
wine, and wiU to remain only earthly water, not receiving God
to mix with them. They thus adhere to him who has been sub
dued and driven out of Paradise, Adam, not considering that,
as the Divine breath of life conjoined with Adam's frame pre
sented a living rational being (animal rationale), so at the end
the Word of the Father and the Spirit conjoined, with the old
substance of the Adamic frame, produces a living and perfect
man, who apprehends the perfect Father ; so that we, who in
the Hving Adam have aU died, might be aU made aUve in the
spiritual. For never did Adam escape the hands of God [the
Word and the Spirit], to which the Father said, Let us make
man after our image and likeness ! And in the end, not from
the wUl of the flesh, nor from the wiU of man, but according to
the Father's good pleasure, have His hands perfected the Hving
man in order that Adam might become according to God's
image and likeness." And v. 16, p. 424, he says: "It is said,
it is true, in past times, that man is in the image and likeness
of God, but this was not exhibited. For the Word was as yet
invisible, after the image (el/cobv) of which man was made.
Hence he easily lost his resemblance (bpoitopd). But when the
Word of God became flesh, then it certified both (iire/evpaxre).
For, on the one hand, He truly showed the image (the original
type), since He became what his image was ; and, on the other,
established the sinularity, the exact conformity of men, since He
the 'koyixq £iiiij, the principle of the corporeal hfe. Comp. v. 4, 6-9. In
the former edition I brought into question whether the " soul of Christ "
was recognised by Irenseus. Further research, however, and closer con
sideration of the above passages has convinced me that Irenseus distinctly
ascribes a soul to Christ, and this I years ago put,down in the text. Since
then Duncker's work has appeared, and he, p. 206 ff., has, as it seems to
me, made this so evident, that henceforth it can hardly admit of a doubt.
He sets this forth in reply to me, but Irenseus himself had before convinced
me of it. So much the more have I cause to rejoice over the independent
agreement of our results.

IRENEUS. 323
made man like the invisible Father. He made Himself a man,
and men like Himself, that man by his resemblance to the Son
might become precious to the Father."
Christ is thus, according to Irenasus, a being not foreign to
mankind, but rather the representation of perfect' humanity, the
idea on which Adam was at first created, but which was not
wrought out in Adam. As little, however, is He of the Adamic
race. He is truly conceived only as a descent of the Logos,
the primal type, into the world of those formed on His model,
in order to be in the world the real Head and Type (iii. 18, p.
2416). He was born of the Virgin without sin.
But since the Logos is elevated above becoming and suffer
ing, and, on the contrary, the concept of freedom and growth
in man occupies so important a place with Irenasus, there arises
the difficult question :. How does Irenasus view the two as in
connection in the one person of Christ? The medium of union,
according to him, is the Holy Ghost. It is not an adventitious
circumstance that both the Word and the Spirit are viewed by
him as operating in the incarnation ; this is for him altogether
a necessary determination.
The Holy Ghost,1 who, according to Irenasus, inspires (in
different gradations) matter in general, does this especially for
men. Humanity would be like arid, parched land, falhng to
pieces without unity, incapable of producing fruit, were it with
out a moistening dew from heaven to keep together the mass
(Le., without the inner bond). It would be Hke a dry tree, of
which the accuser could only demand the burning. The rain
1 When Baur (Trin. i. 179) finds a subordinational and montanistic doc
trine of the Trinity in the words of the Presbyter in Irenseus, v. 36 : hanc
esse adornationem et dispositionem eorum qui salvantur — et per hujus-
modi gradus proficere,1 et per Spiritum quidem ad fihum, per filium autem
ascendere ad Patrem (he might also have adduced the passage still more
immediately appertaining to Irenseus, iv. 37, p. 3326), — he seems to have
overlooked that the passage speaks of a dispositio eorum qui salvantur, not
divinse naturse. It is not the Divine nature that makes progress (gradus),
but Christians. The same thought occurs iv. 37, and it is indeed clear
that a gradation in revelation belongs to a progress from step to step in
faith ; but this progress does not involve a gradation in the Divine essence
itself, still less the doctrine of an immanent Trinity besides the economic,
as a glance at iv. 37 shows. But how there is here anything of Montanism,
according to which the Paraclete is the last and highest revelation of God,
I cannot see.

324 FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.
from heaven, the living water, the Holy Ghost, makes the dry
tree fruitful, produces the well-watered soil. He, aptans homi-
nem Deo (iii. 19, p. 244a), fits the human nature (o-dpiea) to
receive the Son. And as He has already in the Prophets
accustomed men to the union of God with man, so hath He also
accustomed Himself with Christ to dwell in the race of man.
In the incarnation the Word and the Spirit so co-operated
(v. 1, p. 3946) that the Holy Ghost prepared the hominem spi-
ritalem (iii. 33), the second Adam, in which the Logos found
a man assimilated to Himself (ib.), who was His perfect organ.
This man, normal in every moment, gathered strength and
grew even in respect of the actual participation of the Spirit ;
and the baptism of Christ, which had reference only to His
humanity, is the perfect anointing of Him with the Holy
Ghost (iii. 10, 19). And now He is, even in His humanity, the
fountain of the Holy Ghost for all who believe in Him. Even
before Christ, whatever the Spirit wrought in men was also the
work of the Logos ; and Irenasus seems to view the relation of
the two in general, and also in the incarnation, in such a way
as that he ascribes the Divine, in so far as it has become the
subjective actual Divine life of man, to the Holy Ghost, as the
principle of the p6p<j>wo-(,<;, as lie Himself is called Figuratio
Dei and Sapientia ; whilst to the Logos he ascribes the creative
power itself which brings into being. Thus, in his view, the
agency of the Spirit presupposes the willing and working of the
Son ; and the second Adam, the spiritual Man, is not somehow
perfected by the Holy Ghost, before the Logos enters into Him
as into a place prepared for Him, but they act together, so as
that the formation of a living, nay, spiritual man, is only the
realization of the Son's will in love and power to become in him
a man. This may be also thus expressed : What in a later age
was called communicatio idiomatum, was in the earliest age
ascribed to the co-working of the Holy Ghost with the Son.
So in the Pastor of Hermas and by Clement of Alexandria.
It specially deserves notice that Irenasus seems, by this
agency of the Spirit, in reference to humanity, to gain space for
a relative independence of the humanity of Christ, such as is
demanded by the concept of temptation, suffering, human
growth. Without detriment to the indissoluble unio of the
Logos with man, there is obtained from his positions the possi-

IRENEUS. 325
bility of thinking the incarnation as by the fundamental act
not completed but begun. The idea of incarnation with him is
that Christ is the presentation and reality of the original type,
or the Logos actuaUy in a man ; that the principalis homo, the
second Adam, is nothing but the primitive in the momentum of
actuality. Now, since the primitive type has no becoming
(werden), still less liability to temptation, whilst in his view
the becoming, of Christ is so important, it follows immediately
from his premisses that the incarnation of the primitive type
cannot be thought by him as one finished. In every moment,
indeed, of His earthly Hfe, Christ is the invisible become visible
(iH. 21) ; and, as the Hght of the Father entered into the hu
manity of the Lord, so it comes beaming forth from Him on
us (iv. 37, p. 331a) ; but that the humanity of Christ was from
the first adequate to the Logos, and thereby to its proper idea,
is denied expressly by his laying so much stress on the baptism
and temptation of Christ (see above). If, on the other hand,
there be taken in addition to this, the decision with which he
vindicates the concept of growth and freedom to the race of man,
there is desiderated therewith a relative independence of the
humanity of Christ; and the perfected incarnation, the full
reality of that idea, according to which the man has assimilated
to himself the Word (Verbum homo assimilatus est), comes to
pass only in the exalted state of Christ ; not merely in appear
ance, but objectively. In fact, his doctrine concerning the r)crv-
"XpXpiv of the Logos, e. gr., in the temptation, leads to this. He
represses as yet His activity in its full compass, in order that the
free human development of Christ, His susceptibility of tempta
tion, may find scope; consequently he leaves the humanity during
the earthly life of Christ still in a relative independence ; and
the process of the incarnation is an advancing one, until with
the perfecting of men both factors absolutely coincide. During
the period of the process it is the Pneuma, which unfolds itself
out of the Logos, in measure suited to each stage, in the hu
manity of Christ, forms the humanity and brings it to an actual
existence, and also secures and mediates the union of the hu
manity with the Logos Himself for the time during which the
forrner needs stiU a relative independence in order to have a
true human development. The idea of humanity, however, as
well as that of the incarnation of the Logos, is realized to

326

FIRST PERIOD. SECOND EPOCH.

Irenasus iu Christ's exaltation, although before that, at each
step of the development, Christ was a perfect man, i.e., one who
presented the norm and idea of each age in the life of man.
And He now preserves for ever humanity equalized with the
Logos, but not absorbed thereby; He will return to judgment
as the Son of man; He went to heaven evaapicos, and so will
He again appear (iii. 18, pp. 242-245).1
1 Appendix, Note BBBBB.

APPENDIX.

NOTES.
Note A, page 20.

In what follows, Philo's system will be considered principally
in the Ught of the Messianic idea, — a course, the justice of which.
appears at once, when a correct view is taken of his very variously
estimated doctrine of the Logos. — Compare Dahne's " Ge-
schichtliche Darstellung der judisch-alexandrinischen Befigions-
phUosophie," 1834 (reviewed. by Baur in the " Jahrbiicher fiir
wissenschaftliche Kritik," 1835, November Number, pp. 95 f.) ;
Gfrorer's " Philo und die alexandrinische Theosophie," Stuttg.
1831 ; Grossmann's " Qusestiones Philoneas," Leipzig 1829 ;
L. A. Simson's " Summa Theolog. Joann. Diss." 1839, pp.
28-64 ; GeorgH's Essay, " fiber die neuesten Gegensatze in
Auffassung der alexandrinischen BeHgionsphilosophie, ins beson-
dere des jiidischen Alexandrinismus," in IUgen's " Zeitschrift fiir
historische Theologie," 1839, Parts 3 and 4 ; Dr Ed. v.- Mu-
ralt's " Untersuchungen fiber Philo in Beziehung auf die der
(petersb.) Akademie gehorige Handschrift von 27 Tractaten
desselben, vorgelesen d. 5 Juni 1840;" Semisch's " Justin der
Martyrer," vol. ii. 1842, pp. 267-274; Baur's "Die christliche
Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes," 1841,
vol. i., pp. 59-76; Baur's " Christliche Gnosis," 1835, pp. 42 ff.;
Liicke's " Commentar zum Evangelium Johannis," 3d ed.,
vol. i. 253, 272 ff. (where also the older literature of this sub
ject is given) ; A. Franck's " Die Kabbala, oder die BeHgions
philosophie der Hebraer" (translated from the French by
Ad. Gelinek, Leipzig 1844, specially pp. 215-249) ; Eitter's

328 APPENDIX.
" Geschichte der Philosophie" iv. 418, 446 ff. ; Neander's
" Church History," vol. i. ; not to mention expositions, at second
hand, like that of Strauss in his " Kritik der christlichen Glau-
benslehre" i. 414 f. — The different views taken of Philo's
system appear to be graduaUy converging towards the one,
namely, that it is compounded of heterogeneous elements, and
that it carries out the old distinction between the revealed and
the hidden God, in a peculiar manner : — in the view of Liicke
(page 253), the theologumena of Wisdom and of the Word meet
and unite in the Logos, whom Philo distinguishes from God ;
in the view of others, the Logos of Philo was, in the last in
stance, a purely ideal potence. (G. A. Meier, for example, in
his " Geschichte d. Lehre v. der Trinitat," vol. i., pp. 20 ff.,
maintains that the Logos of Phild is a mere abstraction, the
idea of the world ; he concedes to it merely theoretical signifi
cance.) The controversy relates principally to the following
questions : —
I. Whether the Logos of Philo was a mere personification
or a real hypostasis ? Many of the more recent writers have
decided in favour of the latter alternative: for example, be
sides Grossmann, Dahne, Gfrorer, Eitter, Liicke (page 279),
Semisch (page 274), also some of the older authors, as Keil
and Ballenstedt. Still Liicke has not failed to see that the
counter-arguments advanced by the Beviewer of the works of
Grossmann and Gfrorer in the Leipziger Litteratur-Zeitung
(see No. 126, pp. 1001 f., 1831 ; No. 255, pp. 2029 ff.) have
great weight. Simson, von Muralt, partially also Franck and
others, are opposed to the writers just mentioned. Both Liicke
and Semisch aUow that PhUo is not always self -consistent ; see
the remarks of the latter on the passage cited page 274 : " Philo,
it is true, does not throughout strictly recognise the personality
of the Logos ; sometimes, he apparently reduces it from the rank
of a person to that of a mere attribute," and so forth. — Liicke
brings together as completely as possible the arguments for the
personality of Philo's Logos : — 1. Philo terms the Logos ap%dy-
7e\o?. But he designates him also dp%iepew, irapdicknTO<; ; and
Liicke allows that these words prove as little as o-<f>payk or 6W-
pos. Further, even supposing dp%dyye\o$ should be taken in
the same sense as the Old Testament angels alluded to by Philo,
still these latter are so identified with the IBeai, \6yoi, Bvvdpet<}.

NOTES. 329
that their personality is often questionable. Nay more, as the
Logos, again, is represented as the unity of these Bvvdpei<s or
ayyeXoi, instead of arguing, — because the angels are personal,
therefore the Logos also is personal ; the reverse course of argu
ment might with equal justice be adopted, namely, either the
Logos is personal, and then the angels relatively to Him are not
personal, but the impersonal powers, of which He is the unity;
or the angels are personal, and then the Logos, who is their
unity, is not personal. 2. Philo designates the Logos BevTepw
0eo? (see Euseb. Prasp. Evang. vH. 13). But he immediately
adds, that he merely says that catachrestically ; for &' BevTepos
0eo<? would be, in his view, strictly speaking, a contradictio in
adjecto. The passage unquestionably relates to a less perfect
divine element, which is capable of coming into contact wiih
the world, whereas the highest divine element cannot do so.
But whether this less perfect divine element is personal, or
merely one aspect of God, to which in thought a kind of inde
pendent existence is attributed, — the aspect, namely, of revela
tion which, without being actually personal, may be personified,
— is not thereby decided. For, do not even more modern writers
speak of something in God which is not God, — of God in alte-
reity, and so forth ? 3. The Logos is the image of God ; but
God is personal, therefore also the Logos. But the body of
man also is the reflex of his spirit ; and a mirror reflects back
the form. The Logos is undoubtedly Hving ; but so also are
impersonal forces. Besides, by the same Hne of argument, we
should be fully justified in asserting all nature to be personal,
on the ground that the Logos, whose reflex it is, is personal.
4. To these considerations some add (for example, Semisch)
the argumentation from the idea of the Logos as the being who
mediates between God and the world. Liicke himself, however,
. rightly felt that the idea of mediator (dpyiepew) proves nothing.
Even God Himself, in one aspect of His nature, could effect
the mediation at which Philo aimed. Such a mediation is
not ethical, but simply physical or metaphysical. Baur acknow
ledges the existence of a totally unreconciled contradiction in
Philo's system : in his view, indeed, it contains two systems —
a God who has no power at all to reveal Himself ; and again
a world, which, through the Logos, is a revelation of God (p. 63).
This Logos, Baur concludes to be, on the one hand, hyposta-

330 APPENDIX.
tical ; in that he 'distinguishes between Him and o-o<f>la, repre
senting the latter as an attribute of the Most High God, along
with the two others, subordinated to it, namely, power and good
ness. Out of these three, specially out of wisdom, the Logos
was an hypostatic outflow. The o-oj>ia-'m God holds the same
relation to the Logos, as the \6yo<; ivBid0eTo<; in man to the
\6yo<; irpotpopiKw- But how anything more than the veritable
reality of the Logos can be deduced from this relation — how
His existence as a subject can be deduced therefrom, is not
shown. Nay more, Baur has failed to prove even that a settled
distinction was made between the Logos and o-o<f>£a : in order
to do this, he must point out passages where the latter is repre
sented as speaking, creating ; and the former, as a creature, —
ideas which lay far beyond Philo's horizon. On the other hand,
Baur considers Philo's Logos again to be a completely empty,
formal conception ; he holds Him to be the idea of the world or
the world conceived as an unity, — on which supposition every
thing would assume a nominalistic character (p. 74). In the
judgment of Franck also, the one system of Philo really embraces
two. He, however, postulates, in addition to the Hellenic factor,
a cabbalistic one, derived from Persia : in my view, on the con
trary, all the main peculiarities of Philo's system may be ex
plained by the conflict between the Hellenic Absolute, which
appeared to Philo infinitely exalted and imposing, and the Old
Testament conception of God. Unlike Plotinus, he did not
take his stand firmly and alone on the Absolute, the bv ; but,
however strong a hold that Hellenic idea had on him, the Old
Testament conception of God still retained an influence. His
endeavours to adapt the latter to the former, deemed by him to
be the higher, involved his whole system in a chaotic circling
and vacUlation. He sinks under the undertaking to prove the
religion of the Old Testament to be identical with that of the
Hellenic Absolute, whose glory consists in the fact, that every
thing besides it is a mere shadow of its own glory, which it shuts
up within itself. He thus sacrifices the ethical absoluteness or
exaltedness of God to a physical absoluteness, in the fancy that
he is thereby serving the interests of 0eoirpeireia. But though
he makes this sacrifice, he never arrives at the goal of his wishes,
because the other factor, his empirical starting-point, was reli
gion ; and the justification of his religion as the absolutely true

NOTES. 331
one, ever remained his main object. It is true, he puts a new
construction on it, he universalizes and dissipates it, in order to
honour it ; notwithstanding this, he was unwilling to arrive at
the conclusion, that God alone really exists, or that there is no
thing but the absolute idea and the knowledge of it. On the
contrary, his constant aim was the union of philosophy and reli
gion, understanding by rehgion that of the Old Testament,
rightly understood and viewed in its inmost substance. How
ever different these views may appear, all will without difficulty
allow that the Logos, if actually hypostatized by Philo, must
have been regarded solely as a being standing outside of the
Divine sphere, separated from and subordinated to God. If
Philo had the idea of creation, then, in case he hypostatized the
Logos, he must have held Him to be a creature, as did the
Arians at a later period. He does not, however, represent Him
as a mere creature, but as an emanation ; and thus apparently
approaches nearer to the Christian idea, which found expression
at a subsequent period in the term opoovtria. In reality, how
ever, an emanatistic conception of God stands nearer to heathen
ism than to Christianity ; and in the very nature of the case, an
emanatistic personality is always characterized by a measure of
vagueness and shiftingness. And, inasmuch as a difference is
scarcely discoverable between an emanatistic conception of arche
type, and the revealed, in distinction from the hidden, God, it
matters very Httle whether, with Liicke, we hold the Logos of
PhUo to be hypostatized, that is, after an emanatistic manner.;
or, deny the presence of a Divine hypostasis in Philo's system,
at the same time conceding the distinction between the revealed
and hidden God. The question respecting the personality of
the Logos of Philo is of a much narrower interest than is often
supposed, and may, to a certain extent, be described as a qusestio
vexata ; for it lay entirely beyond his range of vision ; and as
the physical categories to which he confines himself shut out
every conception of personality, it was quite impossible for him
to answer it.
II. The second question is, — Whether Philo's Logos (what
ever may be its relation to hypostasis) can be conceived as truly
Divine ? This question has been partially answered in the course
of the preceding remarks. We have, above all things, to ask,
whether Philo's conception of God Himself is truly Divine, or

332 APPENDIX.
whether it is not rather physical ? If the latter, its incompati
bility with Christianity is manifest at the very outset. In the
sphere which is subject to categories derived from nature, it is
impossible that full justice should be done, either to the dis
tinctions or to the unity (compare, for example, the categories
of ground and existence, thing and its qualities, essence and
phaenomenon, whole and parts, force and expression, substance
and accident, in the second volume of Hegel's "Logik").
Accordingly, if Philo has not the true conception of God, his
Logos must of necessity be destitute of true divinity. But even
the Divine, according to Philo's idea of it, in which all things
are one, cannot really pertain to his Logos. For that which
he esteems the best and inmost part of God is incommunicable ;
or, regarded from another point of view, the Absolute acknow
ledged by Philo, does not admit of distinctions in the inmost
Divine sphere, but merely has a circle of rays, a world of light
round itself, in which it is reflected : that is the Divine in its-
aspect as a revelation, comprehended and summed up in the
Logos. Compare the " De Cherub,." § 28, ed. Eichter ;
Mangey i. 156. Note B, page 21.
Compare "Quod Deus sit immutabilis," § 11, p. 281, Eichter
ii. 77, — T5>v dv0pdnrmv oi pev ^v%^?, oi Be awpaTOS yeyovaai
(pl\oi. Oi pev ovv i|tk^s kralpoi vonTais ical dcrcopaTOi<; <f>vaeaiv
ivopiKeiv Bwdpevoi, ovBepia t&v yeyovoTtov IBea irapafidXkova-i
to ov dXX epfiifidaavTes ai/TO irdcri}<; itoiottjtos — ^- ttjv Kara
to elvai povov fpavTacriav iveBefjavTO, pr) poptydxravTes avTO.
That is blessedness and the acme of joy, to think the -yjriXrjv
avev %apafCTf}po<s Qeov virap%iv. Lovers of the body, on the con
trary, are unable to conceive God's pure simple nature ; they
conceive Him therefore as themselves (" de prasm. et posn." 6,
T. ii. 414, Eichter v. 226). Note C, page 22.
Compare " de Somn." i. 25 (T. i. 644). Jacob saw the
Lord in a dream, the ap^dyyeXo^ virepdvm yap d><? appuvro^
rivwypv, ¦?) cos vei><; icv$eavrfn\v, virokryirTkov u7Taa0ai to *Ov,
eirl tjwpaTwv, iirl ipv^&v, iirl 0peppdTcov, iiri Xoycov, iirl ay-

NOTES 333
ye\tov, iirl 77}?, etc. eV alo-0r)TCKa>v Bvvdpewv, eV aopaTcov </>v-
o-ewv otrairep 0eaTa Kal d0eara. Tbv yap Kotjpov dmavTa i^d^rat
eavTOv Kal dvapTr)aa<: ttjv Tocravrnv r)vio^et (pvaiv.
Note D, page 22.
"De confus. ling." § 27 ; Mangey, T. i. 425. On Genesis
xi. 5, " The Lord descended, to look at the city." It was thus
spoken on account of our dxfjeXeia. 'Tiro Be tov Qeov ireifkr)-
pwTat, Ta iravra, irepie^ovTo^ ov irepie%opevov, & iravraypv Te Kal
oiBapov vvpfiefiriKev elvai povtp. He is nowhere, in so far as
it is impossible for Him to be in any space, who has produced
both space and that which is corporeal : He is everywhere,
oti Ta? Bwdpei? avTov Bid, 7^9 Kal f/cWo?, depos Te Kal oipavov
Teiva<; pepo<i ovBev epnpov diroXekoiire tov Kocrpov, irdvTa Be
crwayar/wv Bid irdvToov dopaToi<; ecr<f>iy£e Beapoii. " De Cherub."
§ 24, Mangey, T. i. 153:— IBiov Qeov to iroieiv b ov 0epi<;
iiruypd>Jrao-0ai yewrjTm (not therefore to the Logos, so far as He
was yewr)Toi) iBiov Be yewryrov to irdcrveiv.
Note E, page 22.
Compare " De Cher." § 24, not. 17 ; but especially the " de
opificio mundi," T. i. 2, § 2. Mower?;? kyva, oti dvar/KaioTaTov
eoTtv iv toZ? ofttri, to pev elvai Bpao-Tr/piov a'lTiov, to Be ira0rjTi-
kov. Kal oti to pev Bpao~Ttfpiov 6 t&v oXcov vow io-Tiv elXiKpt-
vecTTaTO? Kal aKpai<pveo-TaTO<;, KpeiTTmv re r) dpeTr), Kal KpeiTTtov
rj iiriorrfur], Kal KpevrTwv rj avTO to djya0bv, r) avTO to koXov
to Be ira0r)TiKbv, difrv^pv Kal aKivnTov i% eavrov, Kivn0ev Be Kal
o~j(7]paTio-0ev Kal -tyv)(<o0ev iiirb tov vov, pereftdXev eh to TeXeio-
totov epyov, TovSe tov Koo-pav. On the other hand, in the
" de opificio mundi," § 5, he remarks, el ydp Tt? i0eXtjcreie ttjv
abrlav, ^? evexa ToSe to irav iBrjpiovpyeiTO, Biepevvdcr0ai, Boxei
poi prj Biapapreiv tov ctkoitov <j)dpevo<;, oirep Kal to>v ap^aimv
eiire Tt?" dya0bv elvai tov iraTepa Kal iroiryrnv ov yapiv t?)?
dpuTTT]? avTov <pvcreaf<; oi/c i<f>06vrjaev ovala, /W70" e'£ eavTr}<s
ij^ovay Kdkbv, Bwapevn Be yevea0ai irdvra. Matter is diroiof,
d'yfrifxpi in itself ; nay further, curaKTOS, do-vptpwvuv;, etc., peo-Tij,
but susceptible of being animated by a soul and reduced to
harmony. ^

334 APPENDIX.
Note F, page 23.
The soul is an diroo-iraapa t?}s #eta? Kal evBalpovos ^n/jp)? cv
BiaipeTov. TepveTai yap ovBev tov 0eiov /car' dirapTrjcriv, aXXa
pbvov iKTeiverai. Quod deterior potiori insidietur, § 24, T. i.
209. One might now imagine, that PhUo did after aU con
ceive the soul to be personal, although he describes it as a mere
extension of God ; and that the Logos, therefore, was personal.
That would be correct, if Philo had not been necessitated to re
gard the personality of man as a Hmit imposed by the body — a
limit from which the Logos is free. Compare the " De Leg.
AUeg." H. 21, Mangey, T. i. 82 : f) aKpoTopos irerpa ¦n aocpia
tov Qeov icTTiv, rjv aKpav Kal irpa>Tio-TT)v erepev dirb t&v eavTov
Bvvdpewv, etc.; where the word erepev must be explained in
agreement with the above passage.
Note G, page 23.
An attentive reading of "De Somn." L. i. § 37-41, T. i.
655 ff., leads to the conclusion, that in Philo's estimation, the
idea of a> Divine duality or plurality owes its rise to the inferi
ority of the point of view of him who entertains it : it originates
with the <f>avrao-ta, as he elsewhere designates it (" de Abrahi."
§ 24, 25) ; and this holds true, he expressly says, of a Logos
alongside of God. This fyavrao-la, he undoubtedly does not
regard as purely arbitrary, as something merely subjective; for
the one God manifests Himself in different ways, for the benefit
of individuals, in order that at all stages they may be able to
apprehend something of Him. For this reason, this appearance
does not absolutely vanish, even on the highest stage of, con
templation, that is, of true contemplation. But it continues no
longer to be regarded as the highest ; still less does the mind
believe in the existence of two Divine persons : on the contrary,
the Most High God appeared and was, in the form of the Logos,
as the principle properly constitutive of the personality ; the
Logos, therefore, can only be regarded as the personal God, so
long as the Most High God is not known. When once He is
known, the Logos cannot be conceived to be anything more
than the revelation of God, without any independent Divine
hypostasis of His own.

notes. 335
Note H, page 23.
" De Agricult." § 12, Mangey, T. i. 309, 6 irpwToyovo? vtd?;
" de confus. Hng." § 28, 6 irpcoToyovo? X070?; § 14, irpeo-(3vTaTO<s
vio<s ; " de conf . ling." §§ 20, 28, and " quis rerum divin. I133-
res," § 48, eucav; " de. somn." i. 39, T. i. 656, ©ed?; but, in
distinction from 6 0ed?, we can only speak catachrestically
(KaTaxpr)tJTiK6$ = misapplied) of more than one. In the same
sense also is the expression Bevrepos 0eo?, in Eusebius' " Prasp.
Evang." vH. 13, to be taken. He is a mediator, when He is
termed (as in " Quis rerum div. hasr." § 42, T. i. 502) pio-os
t&v aKpoav, duipoTepois opvpevcov, because He is neither ungene-
rated like God, nor generated Hke men. Compare " de somn."
ii. 28, T. i. 683, 684, el to aXr)0e<s ehreiv Bel, pe06pio<; rt? 0eoS
covert? tov pev eXdrrmv, dv0pdnrov Be Kpeirrcav. " Who is He
then, if He is not man 1 God ? That I should not Hke to say,
for Moses received that name when he was designated in Egypt
Pharaoh's god (that is, because it would be ethnic) ; but also not
man. He is the one who touches both extremes, the basis and
the apex " (that is, He is not a particular Divine person, but
God, as the one who diffuses Himself, as the living). He is
termed dp%iepew, ibid. § 27 ; " de profug." § 21. Through
Him God constitutes Himself the means or the mediation of
creation ; He did not need another besides Himself (" de mundi
opif." § 6, T. i. 5) ; — to suppose that a creature can create, would
be a sin ('< de Cherub." T. i. 153, § 24). PhUo does not at all
regard Him as a creature ; but, on the contrary, as the guardian
of the boundary between the creature and the Creator. " Quis
rerum div. hser." § 42. In the same treatise He is also desig
nated i'/eeri!?, irpeo-fievTiis ; as in the " de vita Moysis " in. 14,
T. ii. 155, irapdKXT)TO<s. Like God, He is further termed dpx/iy-
yeXo(}, r/vioyps, r)yepd>v. But also in relation to God the B6%a
(" de somn." i. 40, etc.), crKid of God (" Leg. Alleg." iii. 31,
T. i. 106), o-Kid Qeov 6 X070S avTov eoTiv, 3> Ka0direp opydvtp
irpoo~/ypr)o~dpevo<; eKoapoiroiei, A'vTn Be r\ o~Kia Kai to wcravei airei-
Kovio-pa eTepwv iaTiv dp^ervirov. In His relation to the world,
also, impersonal designations are frequently applied to Him;
besides opyavov, we find also o-fypayk, Beo-pw Koo-pov, vopot, the
arrpXr) on which the All rests, the ro7ro? or the p^TpoiroXn of
the universe, the IBea t&v lBea>v, equivalent to yeviKa>TaT0<; Xoyov

336 , APPENDIX.
in the " de mundi opificio," § 6, T. i. 5 ; " de migrat. Abr."
§ 18, T. i. 452, — eKeivn pev r) o-cppcuyl? IBea i<rriv IBe&v, Ka0' rp 6
0ed? ervirao-e tov Koapov, daoopaTOS Brprov Kal voryrrj.
Note I, page 24.
Philo uses A.070? as identical also with vow, both in man and
in God. So in the " de opificio mundi " (see above), to p'ev
Bpao-Tripiov 6 t&v oXcov vow i&Tiv, etc., where he attributes to the
vow what he elsewhere attributes to the \o7o?. In God Him
self (see the " de migr-Abr." § 1, T. 1, 437), the Logos is desig
nated the house, the dwelling-place, or the hearth (ear-id) oi
the Divine vow ; it denotes, therefore, the fixed ideal centre of
God. The vow consequently signifies the active principle, that
which elsewhere is termed Xoyos. The X070? is the resting-
place of the world, also of the ideal world ; He is its roVo?, or
its possibUity (" de mundi opific." § 5), ovBe 6 e« t&v IBe&v koo--
ao? dXXov av e)(pi toitov, fj tov 0elov Xoyov. All the Bvvdpei?
also dwell in Him; so also the Bvvapis KocrpoirouqTiKr), which
must be the source of the truly good, has its seat (that is, its foun
tain) in Him (ibid.). The X,c»yo?, in this respect, is identical
with the o-ocj>ia.— In the " De Ebriet." § 8, T. i. 361, the eiri-
o-tijp^] pf the Creator is represented as the Mother of created
things, even as God is the Father. > Copulating with it, though
not after the manner of a man, God effected the generation and
birth of the world (eaireipe yeveaiv) ; " receiving into itself the
seed of God, it gave birth to the only, beloved Son of God, this
visible world." " Quod Deus sit immutabihs," § 6, T. i. 277, —
O Be iraTvp Kal Te^viTW Kal iiriTpoiro<s t&v iv ovpavw Te Kal
Koo-pco irpbs dXr}9eiav iaTi (scil. Qebi). The ideal world is the
elder, the visible world is the younger, son of God ; time is the
son of the world, and the grandson of God.
Note J, page 24.
" De vita Moys." L. iii. § 13, T. H. 154 -.—AiirXovv Be to
Xoyeiov ovk diro ckoitov. Aitto<; ydp 6 X070? iv Te t& travTi
Kal iv av0pdyirov <f>vaei. Kara pev to irav o,Te irepl tu>v derm-
paTcov Kal irapaBevypaTiK&v iBe&v, ef &v 6 vorjTw iirdyr\ /cdcrito?,
Kal 6 irepl t&v ,bpaT&v, a Brj piptjpaTa Kal direiKovlcrpaTa t&v
IBe&v ikelvav io-Tiv. In this passage, the Logos is first described
in His relation to the ideal world ; — be it that He is represented

notes. 337
as, as it were, the ideal material of which it was formed, or as
its formative principle. If the former, " de confus. ling."
T. i. 414, may be compared, where we read, — " The eldest Son
imitated the ways of His Father, and, looking upon His arche
typal images, created the forms (oi the actual world) ;" — which
passage proves that the ideal world is in the vow? of the Father,
that the Father is its producer, and that consequently the Logos,
when the same thing is attributed to Him, must be simply and
solely the Fathers vow. In that case, aU that remains for the
elder Son is to be the principle of the visible world. At this
point, for the first time, the question might be asked — Is not the
Son, whom the Father yevvfj, dvaTeXXei for the yeveo-i$ of the
world, an hypostasis ? On the second supposition, namely, that
the Logos denoted the primal formative principle, we must bear
in mind that God also is described as the producer of the ideal
world, and that the Logos, therefore, must be" identical with the
understanding of God, which conceives the idea of the world.
The second portion of the passage really does represent- the
Logos as the actual principle of the real world. But then,
again, Philo quite as frequently considers God alone to be the
Father of the All (see below).
Note K, page 25.
According to the fragment in A. Mai vii. 98 b., he sees
everywhere in the actual world discord and strife. He speaks
differently, it is true, in the work " de incorrupt, mundi," — for
example, T. ii. pp. 495, 496. The only way of explaining the
inconsistency is to distinguish between a lower and a higher
view of the world, — a distinction which is repeatedly hinted at ;
—for example, " de Abrah." § 24, T. ii. pp. 18, 19 ; " de mu-
tand. nomin." § 3, T. i. 581 ; " de prasmiis" ii. 415 ; " quod Deus
sit immutabilis," T. i. 281-283. Compare Note B, page 21.
Note L, page 27.
He speaks, it is true, frequently of the ayaObnp of God,
which takes pity on matter, and is the motive of the creation or
the formation of the world (for example, " de mundi opificio,"
§ 5, T. i. 5) ; but it is inaccurate and premature to identify
this dya0oT7]<: with love. 'Aya0oT>n<; has more the character of
physical goodness. Further, if there had been no vXv (the ex-
VOL. I. y

338 APPENDIX.
istence of which Philo represents as contingent, relatively to,
because independent of, God), there would have been no cause
for compassion. Accordingly, he never advances beyond the
view of the creation of the world as something contingent. He
takes, it is true; a feeble step to a better view — feeble, because
it is not ethical, but rather pagan in character — when he re
marks, that inactivity and soHtude would be as good as death to
God. Note M, page 29.
" De profugis," § 20, T. i. 562. Baur's gradation (1. c.
68 ff.) : — 1. Wisdom (God), with the fundamental forces of
goodness and power; 2. Logos, — in the second stage corre
sponding to o-oipia, — ¦with 0ed? and Kvpi6<s — corresponding to
gopdness and power in the first stage : — I do not find to be
strictly observed by Philo, on the one hand ; and, on the other
hand, it no more proves that he considered the Logos to have a
special personahty, than that a particular thought (X070? irpea-
fimepoi) is something personal relatively to the act of thinking,
or that a word (\c»yo? irpofyopiKoi) is personal relatively to a
thought. That the determinations, power and goodness, along
with wisdom, play a very important part in Philo's system, we
shall see further on ; they are important, however, not merely
relatively to the inner essence of God, — indeed, strictly speaking,
they are not at aU important in that relation, — but he regards
them as potences, BvvdpeK; (T. ii. 261 ; " de sacrificant," § 13 ;
" de profug." § 18 ff., T. i. 560 ff.), having a significance, also,
relatively to the Divine activity. But of that essence of God,
on the one hand, no attribute is predicable ; whilst, on the other
hand, it must be presupposed as the source of all attributes, ¦
though it itself .posits no distinctions within itself.
Note N, page 30.
To this connection belongs the question, whether Philo ap
plies to the Divine Logos itself the distinction between the X070?
iv Bid0eTo$ and the X070? irpocpopiKW. He makes use of the fol
lowing words in the " de vita Moysis," T. ii. L. iii. p. 154 : —
" Two Logoses are to be distinguished, both in relation to the
All, and in relation to man. In relation to the All, namely, we
must distinguish between that Logos which stands related to the

notes. 339
incorporeal, archetypal ideas, of which the ideal world was com
pounded, and that Logos which stands related to visible things,
to the imitations and copies of those ideas. Li man, however
we must distinguish between the Xcfyo? ivBid0eTo<i and the X.070?
irpotfiopiKos:, — discourse which is still immanent (thought), and
uttered discourse." In PhUo's view, undoubtedly, both pairs
must answer to each other ; and he never wearies of carrying
out this relation of resemblance between the Logos and man.
By the X070? ivBid0eTo<: in man, however, he cannot mean rea
son in a state of rest, but reason in its immanent activity — the
world of human thoughts, which "Corresponds to the Koo-po?
votjtw of the Logos. Thus apprehended, the distinction between
the X070? «>S{d06TO9 and the X0709 irpofopiKw, entirely in
PhUo's sense, may unhesitatingly, nay more, must, in any case,
be substantially, transferred to the Divine Logos ; and it is to be
regarded as quite accidental that PhUo did not, Hke some sub
sequent writers, apply the distinction himself. The spirit of the
application he undoubtedly has, in that he teaches that, along
side of God, in Himself, there is the Logos Hi the above-men-
tibned twofold relation. But these two relations of the Logos
are related to each other precisely as the Logos is related to
God as He is in Himself, who is so often termed His Father.
It pertains to the nature of likeness to God, that this relation,
to wit, the self -distinction which is immanent in aU life, should
recur at every fwesh stage. Note O, page 37.
" De opificio mundi," p. 18. EvUs, as the consequence of
sin, he cannot of course deny ; but so far as he refers them to
God, he teaches that their sole end and aim is the benefit of
man (T. i. 306; "de agricult." §9; "de opif. mundi," T. i.
19) ; and he represents the task of repentance to be the remind
ing men of their own avpcpepov. Hence also he defines the
righteousness of God to be the o-aTrjpiov, not of the .Divine law,
of the unconditionally good, but ot man and the world in its
parts (see the fragment, T. H. 664). In accordance with this,
must the KoXacTiKr) Bvvapi? also, which he attributes to the "Ov,
be explained. Of the same character is his physical, and neither
ethical nor religious, demonstration of the providence and care
pf God for us (T. i. ; de " opificio mundi," pp. 41-42) :— That a

340 APPENDIX.
father should care for his child is <f>vo-ea>$ vopois Kal 0eo-pu>i<}
dvar/Kawv. Note P, page 38.
For this reason also, he terms the Scriptures \c170? 0elo$
(" de migr. Abr." § 31, T. i. 463). We ought to be content
with even the &ypa<pa e0r) of his nation, as they are, and to
make no alterations in them. (" De justit." I.e.) We must re
member that these aypa<pa e0t] are the traditions, in particular,
of the Jewish people, in order to estimate how far his feeling for,
and interest in, development and history had died out, in con
sequence of his reduction of Hebrew ethics to Hellenic physics
Note Q, page 41.
In proof that the fundamental philosophic or theosophic idea
of Valentin and Basilides belongs to the same famUy as Philo,
compare the *Ov of Philo with the jSv0o? ; the Gnostic irXtfpapa
with the Koo-po<i vot/tw ; his conversion of the angels into IBeai,
Bvvdpei?, nay, even into categories, with the Gnostic doctrine of
the JEons ; the sympathy of God for the vXr), with the compas
sion of the o-aTTjp for the sufferings of the Achamoth. Add
further to these things, the negative asceticism, and the lauda
tion of knowledge. But special reference should be made to
his doctrine of the creation of man. Here, where he touches
on the point which had so much engaged the attention of the
Gnostics, — the question, namely, of the origin of evil, — his
system shows, of very necessity, a leaning to the answer given by
Gnosticism ; for the fault of imperfection and sin is thrown, in
an emanatistic manner, on lower creative powers, — which powers
are represented by Gnosticism as gathered into a focus in the
Demiurge. The 'difference between the two arises, partly from
the Christian element held by the Gnostics, and partly from
their taking a more Hvely interest in the question of the origin
of evil. That those who succeeded. Philo did not rest contented
with the vacillating personifications of the IBeai contained in
his system, but went on to represent those IBeai as individual
beings, may perhaps have been due to the circumstance that
the historical fact of Christianity compelled them to view the
Xpio-rw, to whom was assigned so distinguished a position
among the IBeai, as an actual personal phsenomenon. But to

Notes. 341
represent the Pleroma as filled with personalities — with the as
it were, condensed potences of Philo — was to posit that mytho
logical process, through the teaching of which Gnostics appear
to stand nearer to heathenism, and to which there are many
analogous elements even in Philo (compare Frank 1. c. pp.
222, 22-7). We find repeated here the very same thing that
must be remarked in the history of religion in general. Apostasy
from a monotheism of a character still thoroughly indefinite to
personal gods, is, on the other hand, to be regarded also as a
step in advance. For the union of substance and subject is the
proper goal of the idea of God. A monotheism of mere sub
stance is no better than a polytheism, in which there is a super
fluity of divine personalities. The Christian conception of God
first presented us with the union of the two momenta. It is
worthy of note, that according to an old report given by Irenseus,
the earHer Gnostics were still more closely aUied to Philo, and
that the disciples of Valentin first taught the concrescence of
the irpofioXds into determinate persons, outside of the Pleroma.
Note E, page 43.
Gfrorer, in the above-mentioned work, notwithstanding all the
pains he has taken, and all the historical license he has permitted
himself, has not prevaUed upon me to alter the proposition with
which I have concluded the above argument. Nor has he been
able to bring to light one passage, in which an incarnation of
the veritably divine was taught prior to the coming of Christ,
even if we should regard his proofs of the age of the religious
ideas of the Jews as more vaHd than the German public holds
them to be. Indeed, in the way of all attempts whatever to
derive the fundamental idea of Christianity from Judaism, the
undeniable fact, that during the first centuries an unbroken
series' of attacks on the deity of Christ proceeded from' Jews
and Judaizing Christians, appears to me to present a very great
difficulty — a difficulty, too, not set aside by Gfrorer. Heathen
Christians, on the contrary, and those who. shared Hellenic
culture, took less offence at the doctrine. The testimony of
Justin Martyr (c. Tryph. c. 48), which Origen, in particular,
confirmed by his approval, may therefore be regarded as in
vincible — the testimony, namely, that the Jews say, — Kal yap
irdvre? rjpeli tov ypiaTov dv0pairov i% dv0pcoirojv irpocrBoK&pev

342 APPENDIX.
yevriaeo-0ai, koi tov 'HXlav 'xplaai avTov eX06vra. Without re-
sorting for help to HeUenic, and in general to heathenish, ele
ments, which had been appropriated by Jewish writers, he
could never hope io discover the idea of an incarnation of
God within the domain of Judaism. But the advantage which
he might gain in this way (an advantage, be it observed, which
he does not altogether despise), is more than counterbalanced,
in that a deadly blow is given to the professed tenacity and
coherence of Jewish tradition, which forms the chief ground
work of his proof of the great age of the religious ideas of the
Jews, by the undeniable — undeniable for any one with a true
feeling for the historical — penetration of foreign elements into
Jewish modes of thought. It is further clear from what has
been advanced, that an appeal to heathenism is by no means
sufficient to overthrow the claim to originality put forth by
Christianity, relatively to the true idea of the God-man. In this
case, as indeed in general, philosophy had neither the ability
nor the duty to anticipate reality, though it is able, and( it is its
duty, to understand the reality when given. The Hellenic re
ligion had not, in its gods, that true divinity which we behold
in Christ ; and, though the phUosophy of heathendom awakened
the consciousness of the Absolute, the incarnation of God ap
peared to it incompatible with that Absolute, even as the fact
appeared incredible to the Jews. The mixture of Hellenic and
Hebraic elements in Alexandrian and Hellenic Judaism, the
influence of which was undoubtedly felt in Palestine also, must,
it is true, have served to help forward the development of
the Old Testament idea of the Chochma, and thus to weaken
the metaphysical antagonism between God and the world ; and
we may be aUowed to assume, that this was one of the things
ordained to prepare the way for the incarnation of God in
Christ. But even on that supposition, Judaism did not advance
beyond the dilemma^ that the revealing principle must either be
conceived to be personal, — and then it is no longer truly divine,
but a creature, as, for example, an archangel, Adam, Messias,
and so forth ; or, if it be held to be truly divine, it is of so uni
versal and indistinct a character, that its incarnation in an in
dividual is inconceivable, and that, so far as it is veritably
divine, it threatens ever to fall back into the avTo0eo<;, who
cannot become incarnate, nay more, who cannot even directly

NOTES. 343
reveal Himself. From all this, Philo constitutes no excep
tion. Note S, page 47.
Baumgarten Crusius's " Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte"
ii. 1030. Two things must be recognised as historical facts : —
firstly, that faith in the deity of Christ owed its origin far less
to existing opinions and testimonies, than to a deep and elevated
feeHng produced by the spectacle of that which Christ had been,
which He had done, and which he was constantly doing in the
Church, and in the souls of His disciples : secondly, that for this
reason, this faith was in no sense dependent on the apotheoses of
heathendom, or indeed, in general, on anything which apper
tained to polytheism. In the note at the same place he remarks,
— " As far as existing opinions were concerned, we must at all
events maintain that there were no Jewish ones, which could have
given rise to, or helped forward, this doctrine." Immediately
thereupon is cited the above-mentioned passage (p. 36) from
Justin Martyr (c. Tryph. c. 48). In accordance therewith, how
ever, and with what was advanced above, we must reduce it to its
limited truth in relation to Christology, when he says (p. 1129),
" Not even Jewish, much less heathenish, usage presented any
difficulty whatever, in the way of representing the Divine and
human as united in one being and Hfe." For, such a divinity,
as satisfied the Christian mind, neither heathenish nor Jewish
modes of thought were able to attribute to a man.
Note T, page 49.
By assigning to that which is canonical, in distinction from
that which forms part of the history of dogmas, the position
above indicated, we secure the advantage, that the historical
development of dogmas starts with that which is most general
and indeterminate, and constantly advances to that which is
more determinate. (The higher forms even of the canonical,
did not rest satisfied with that indeterminateness.) The time
that followed immediately on the Apostles, was far from equalling
that of the Apostles. On the contrary, beginning, with that
which is most indeterminate, that is, dogmatically regarded, at
the lowest stage possible in the domain of Christianity, when
Christian truth had, as it were, abased itself, by going back to

344 APPENDIX.
the form of a germ, that period initiated the entire process of
the thought of the Church in the most thorough manner possible.
'We may learn from this fact, that the Christian principle was
meant to become a natural thing in, not to be substituted in the
place of, the then existing world. The development was not to
take a sudden leap ; Christianity was not to be planted in the
world as a young tree, but as a seed which enclosed- the entire
future within itself. Note U, page 49.
The remark just made seems to me to contain the reply to
the difficult question of the relation between heresy and ortho
doxy ; a question which is of special importance at the present
time, and which the Eeviewer in the " HalHsche Jahrbiicher "
-has made it specially incumbent on me to consider. The said
Eeviewer, to whom I owe many thanks, is quite right in main
taining that most of the so-called heresies ought to be regardeu
as momenta of the dogmatic process of the Church itself. But
their claim to this position rests not on that which is erroneous
in them, even though the error should consist merely in tiie iso
lation of a true element, but solely on the Christian truth embo
died in and asserted by them. To the idea of an heresy, there
fore, is necessary the acknowledgment by it, of the truth of the
fundamental idea of Christianity. For otherwise it falls under
the category of the heathenish or Jewish, on which the light of
Christianity has merely fallen : as such, it is perhaps right that
it should be cursorily mentioned in histories of the Church and
of Christian dogmas; but it can never be termed an .integrant
moment in the work of the formation of Christian dogmas,
.unless we deny that in Christianity there is anything new and
whole, and derive it entirely from that which went before it.
On this supposition, which certainly cannot be that of the
Eeviewer, the idea of heresy would be widened to such an
extent, that everything which belongs at all to the sphere of
religion, whether in Judaism or heathenism, would have to be
treated as a Christian heresy; a view, to which indeed the
historian of heresies, Epiphanius, and others, have approximated
as nearly as possible, but which can scarcely secure the appro
bation of more cultivated and scientific minds. Applying this
to the well-known heretical compass of Schleiermacher, we

notes. 345
shall say, — Strict pantheism and deism (materialism) occupy
too low a stage, to merit the name of heresies : and the appel
lation can only be employed when, alongside of religion in
general, the fundamental presupposition of Christianity is also
recognised. This presupposition may be viewed either objec
tively, that is, ChristologicaUy, or subjectively, that is, anthro
pologically. Each of these two forms contains the other within
itself, in such a manner, that the element which is still lacking
or misunderstood, wUl, with irresistible necessity, be supple
mented from that which is actually recognised ; and if such a
supplementing does not take place, the element once recognised
will perish, in consequence of the reaction of the error with
which it is associated. The result would be, not an heresy, but
a complete lack of the Christian. That which is healthy may
effect the healing of the unhealthy, because that which is
healthy, wherever it exists at all, is the vehicle and bearer of
the virtue of the whole ; but where the healthy is overpowered
by the unhealthy element, Christian truth has either entirely
ceased to exist, or has never attained an actual existence. In
which case it is absurd to speak of heresy. The old Pelagianism
was an heresy, because it preserved the fundamental presupposi
tion of Christianity in its objective, Christological form; the
same is quite as frequently true also of the later Manichasism.
Ebionism also was a heresy, so long as it retained, at all events,
an idea of the work of Christ for, and in humanity, from which
might flow the regeneration of its Christology. In a similar
position, too, wa^ Docetism. But when the recognition of our
deliverance by Christ is absent either from the creed or the
doctrinal system, and, at the same time, the one or the other of
the constitutive momenta of His person, as the Eedeemer, is
entirely denied, there, of a certainty, Christianity no longer
exists. For there, is no third form, under which Christianity
might stiU exist or be preserved ; the history of dogmas, at all
events, knows of no such third form. And were it conceivable
that a man could preserve Christianity in his heart, in the
immediate and primary domain of religion, whilst in the domain
of the understanding he denied the fundamental presupposition.
of Christianity, both in its objective and subjective form, he
would occupy, as to his thought, a position outside of Chris
tianity, and would, therefore, be no subject for the history of

346

APPENDIX.

Christian dogmas, untU, at all events in one aspect, the Hfe of
his heart and the life of" his intellect had been brought into
accord. Until then, however, he could not lay claim even to
the title of heretic. The succeeding discussion will be guided
by these principles. From them the following conclusions may
be drawn. I. There Can be no word of heresy, save where a Christian
element is recognised, to which it forms the antagonism. That
which is, in itself, one and the same error, both within and
without the domain of Christianity, cannot be termed an heresy
unless it has come into more than a merely external contact
with Christianity, until the two have entered into a relation
of reciprocity to each other.
II. All heresies originate in the extra-Christian world;
and even the apparent exaggerations of Christianity are, not
merely in another aspect, but essentially, a lagging behind true
Christianity. For this reason, Christianity cannot have sprung
from heresies and their mutual interpenetration; but Christianity
is the truth whose existence is to be presupposed, and behind
which heresies lag, one in one manner, and another in another
manner; nay more, Christianity is the power which must in
some sense dwell in heresies, with, at aU events, partial inte
grity, in order that they may continue to be properly heresies.
III. This Christian truth may possibly have attained to
clearness in the minds of some of the members of the Churchj
whilst to others it still remains dim : should this be the case,
the latter must be referred tb the former for cure, and from
them must receive what they need, but can give nothing in
return. Of such a nature the great heresies of old were not,
in so far as the Church itself undeniably arrived at a more dis
tinct consciousness of Christian truth through its struggle with
them. These old heresies represented with pecuHar clearness
of consciousness one momentum of Cliristian truth ; but their
tendency was to give this one momentum the importance of the
whole : they were not overcome until the Church itself had
learnt from them the lesson they were meant to teach, till the
element of truth, through which the error allied with it first be
came dangerous, had been incorporated with, or, more correctly
speaking, had been developed out of, the general Christian con
sciousness. For Christian truth is never arrived at by a way of

notes. 347
combination, but solely by the unfolding of the plastic principle
of the germ, in which the whole lies infolded, and which either
actuaUy exists, or does not exist, and cannot be compounded.
With the first-mentioned kind of heretics the healing art of the
Church has to do ; in the second alone does the history of dog
mas take an interest.
Now, as we cannot hesitate to consider heresies, in the sense
just given, to be momenta in the development of the Church's
truth ; nay more, to say that heretics, so far as they actually
recognise the fundamental presupposition of Christianity, not
merely with the intellect, but also with the heart, are not to be
excluded from the Church according to the Protestant idea
thereof, although they are to be deemed sick members ; as,
further, heresies in general cannot be completely and justly esti
mated by the standard of the particular temporary form of the
Church with which they are severally confronted, but can only
be judged by the standard of Christian truth itself, or by the
Church, at a stage when it has set forth, definitely and without
ambiguity, the element of truth which those heresies repre
sented : even so is it inadmissible to imagine the Church ever
to have been constituted solely of opposed heresies, and the truth
which united the extremes nowhere to have had an actual ex
istence on earth, but to have been merely, as it were, the idea
hovering over, and guiding, the process. In the manner of de
terminate knowledge, to which a course of conciliatory thought is
necessary, this truth did not, it is true, exist prior to the work of
the reflective intellect ; but it cannot, therefore, be said to have
been totaUy destitute of reality. Such a view, rigidly carried out
through the entire sphere of Christian history, would lead to an
aimless progressus in infinitum, of which the mere formal move
ment is in itself the end, and would imply that Christian truth
is first generated and posited by the reflective and conciliative
intellect. How was it possible, save abstractly considered, that
Christian truth, in entrusting itself to humanity, should meet
solely with persons who would apprehend it heretically, that is,
who would put one momentum in the place of the whole ; and
that it should secure a higher form of existence, solely through
the medium of an exchange brought about by the conflict Of
twQ extremes'? This, however, is by no means required by the
idea of humanity or of historical development. An historical

348 APPENDIX.
development, on the contrary, will more surely and happily
attain to its goal, and an end will be put to that continual flux
of one heresy into another, which is unavoidable so long as
they are left to themselves, when between the two extremes
there stands a middle power, which, from the very beginning,
in its own manner, aims at the same object as the heresies, and
evinces the tendency — a tendency, undoubtedly, fuUy developed
through the medium of the extremes — to. seek that which shall
furnish a point of union for the two extremes. That such a
middle tendency at all times existed in the Church, may be
historicaUy demonstrated : it is traceable primarily in the sphere
of simple faith, which, though predominantly concerned with
the practical, stands in an inner connection with Christian know
ledge. In these regions, it is as certain that the unadulterated
fundamental presupposition of Christianity, to wit, that in Christ
the Divine and human were united, or that the eternal re
demption had been historically effected, was ^always recognised,
as that there always existed redeemed men and a true Church
of Christ on earth. The very idea of heresy in the aforemen
tioned sense requires that it have errors in doctrine ; as heresy, it
is a disease of Christian knowledge. Diseases of the life of faith,
by themselves, are not heresies ; and it is possible that the life of
faith may be in an, at all events, relatively healthy state, even
whilst the intellect is yielding to heresy, — not, however, for a long
period. This relative independence of the two spheres must not
be denied to faith, whilst at the same time it is allowed to be
pleaded in favour of heresies. But we must confess, what is
also the fact, namely, that the tendency to the development of the
intellectual aspect does not stir with equal force in all believers ;
many, on the contrary, content themselves, without its therefore
being right to designate their faith false, with that elementary
knowledge which is identical with faith itself, and of which here
tics cannot be destitute if they expect to be considered, in the
true sense, members of the Church. The position occupied by
such beHevers relatively to knowledge, may, it' is true, be marked
by imperfection ; nay more, such a relation to knowledge, may
keep their faith in a lower condition, and easily become a disease;
and lastly, it may be possible for such simple believers to fall
into error the moment they follow the example of heretics, and
devote greater attention to the aspect of knowledge : still, theH

notes. 349
fault lies in a direction quite different from that of heretics,
properly so caUed ; and their strength consists in their faithfully
preserving that basis of irio-Ti<s, without which heresy can never
be freed from itself. Whenever heresies have arrived at a
more developed stage, they take up in pairs, as two extremes,
a position of antagonism to that Christian truth which, in its
immediate spiritual reaHty, is the possession of all simple prac
tical beHevers ; and just this simple faith is fitted to ward off
or to lay bare, as decidedly as possible, both those intellectual
errors; even though its first aim, in discharging this office,
should simply be to bring their advocates back to itself. Now
this faith, which is the common starting-point of all Christian
heretics who deserve the name, even when they bear opposite
characters, will rise up and testify against them. But something
more is necessary than the mere negation of the error ; nor will
it be enough merely to repeat the. truth, which had previously
been received as authoritative, but a combination must be
effected, in the form of distinct knowledge, of those momenta
which, in the heresies, had come into antagonism to each other,
and into antagonism to the truth. For this is precisely the sig
nificance of important heresies, that they cannot suffer the faith
to remain indifferent to them ; on the contrary, inasmuch as even
opposed heresies always agree on one point, to wit, in maintaining
that the two momenta of the truth, of which each of the extremes
represents and embodies one, are incompatible with each other,
whereas faith, without ceasing to be the vehicle and bearer of the
truth, cannot concede the alleged incompatibility, faith finds it
self compelled to undertake the reflective conciliation of the
momenta. As the result of such efforts, it not merely secures
itself in the position it held before, but grows in inner determin-
ateness. But whenever faith withdraws from the task thus im
posed upon it, it becomes crippled itself, and its earlier lack of
knowledge degenerates into error and becomes chargeable as
a fault ; for the principle of Christianity never suffers its re
presentatives to stagnate until it has itself undergone a change.
Those portions of the Christian body which fail in the duty re
ferred to, cease, in consequence, to participate in the general
movement of the Church, and are left behind in the form of
sects. Three factors, consequently, and not merely two — that is,
two opposed heresies — take part in the process through which

350 APPENDIX.
the history of dogmas passes. No one of these factors can plead
quite guUtless when heresies arise. Eelatively to its opposite
extreme, each of the respective heresies is completely justifiable :
and even simple faith cannot altogether excuse itself ; for it left
over to heresy a field which it ought to have cultivated, itself.
But quite as clear is it that heresies wUl never convert each
other ; for they can scarcely possess the power to effect a conver
sion to anything besides themselves ; and if it should happen
that one heresy effected a conversion in the domain of the other,
the persons alone would have altered their position, the heresies
would remain. Faith alone possesses the unmutilated power
and virtue of the whole : it is not under the sway of the prin
ciple of isolation and exclusiveness, as are heresies ; in virtue of
the love whose roots it bears within itself, it is, above all, capable
of appreciating even antagonistic elements, of thus confessing
the collective guilt, and also of atoning it and gaining the vic
tory, through fetching up that which had been neglected. Now,
so far as faith is the constitutive element of the Church in the
true sense of the word ; and so far as faith and not heresy effects
the subjugation of error, and leads the dogma to a higher stage
(which would still be the case even if a heretic should attain
deliverance from error through the reaction of the healthy ele
ment in his own system) ; we may say with justice, and in a
thoroughly Protestant spirit, that the representatives of faith,
which is the original and practical element of Christianity, even
though they should be, in the first instance, devoid of science
and dogmatic culture, constitute the Church ; and that the ten
dency embodied in them, always conquering, as it does in the
aforementioned way, and never dying out in any generation, is
the true churchly tendency. Heretics, on the contrary, so far
as they are heretics, and have not preserved the faith, are ex
cluded from the Church, according to its true idea, even though
they should be externally included within it. Heresy, there
fore, is freed from error by means of faith ; and faith is freed
from its lack of conciHative or reflective knowledge through
the soUcitations of heresy. Note V, page 64.
As in other respects, so also in this, James, rightly under
stood, is most decidedly opposed to Catholicism, although it

notes. 351
would fain constitute him its representative. With this his lofty
idea of the dignity and essential equahty of all Christians in
divine freedom, is connected aU that he says against the self
exaltation of individuals, whether on the ground of higher wis
dom, of rank,, or of riches ; and the traces of Ebionitism, which
some profess to find in his estimate of riches and so forth, are
due solely to misunderstanding, and to the practice of drawing
conclusions from isolated passages, without the consideration
of the entire connection. Such a depreciation of wealth as is
contained in James's Epistle, is not the sign of a mind lacking
Christian force and substance ; but, conscious that the treasure
of Christianity is superior to all riches (ii. 5), he cannot but ex
press his displeasure against those who aimed at restoring dis
tinctions which belonged to an ante-Christian period, and which
threaten the royal liberty of aU. — Compare i. 9, ii. 1, 5, 7, 15
ff., iv. 1, 3, v. 1-6, iii. 17, i. 27.
Note W, page 70.
I believe myself under the necessity of deciding in favour
of the latter ; though I by no means intend to attribute to Peter
the doctrine of the Logos as a pre-existent hypostatic being.
My reasons are the following : —
I. But a few verses further on (ii. 4) he designates Christ
Xl0o$ §gw; compare verse 7, and therewith i. 23, A.070? Qeov
%&v Kal peveov.
II. Verse 23 thus becomes at once more pregnant and clearer.
The sense will then be — the prjpa, X070? Qeov, to which such lofty
predicates belong, that is, Christ, is to be understood by the pfjpa
evayyeXio-0ev, or the f ormer is the content which gives the latter
its power and influence. According to the other explanation,
the sense would merely be — the word of God abides eternally :
consequently, also, the joyful message .brought to you ; for it
also is the word of God. (Compare Heb. iv. 12, 13, v. 11.)
HI. The sense thus obtained does not in any way transcend
Peter's point of view. It is, on the contrary, a mere following
out of the Hebrew theologomenon of niiT-O'i: the Logos of
Peter is not that of PhUo or the Hellenists, to wit, reason ; but,
in a genuinely Hebrew spirit, the revelation of God, the power
fully operative word of the Creator : Heb. xi. 3, i. 3. The de
signation itself is partly suggested by Gen. i., and partly by

352 APPENDIX.
the standing title given to the law ; for the name almost
always given to the law was, " Word of God." In this histo
rical connection, nothing was more natural than to designate
Christ also a Word of God ; nay more, as the consummation
of revelation, He was " the Word of God," that is, the perfect
revelation made in an human, personal (%&v), abiding (plvav)
form. According to this designation, it is true, Christ would
be the word spoken, rather than the speaker ; and He is, for the
first time, more distinctly described as the latter in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (i. 4), and in the Gospel of John (i. 18). But
even this latter designation would be nothing more than natural
from the pens of men who had drawn their culture and ideas
from the Old Testament. I cannot forbear here remarking in
general, that far too little effort has been made to follow out the
traces of a gradual formation of the doctrine of the Logos within
the New Testament Canon, although this ought to have been of
the first tasks. Many look upon John's doctrine of the Logos as
something foreign and strange, as a problem which can only be
solved by tracing it to extra-biblical sources, to such as Philo and
so/forth. This procedure is only justifiable on the supposition
that there is no family resemblance whatever between the Logos
and other phsenomena within the Hmits of Christianity. That
such a famUy resemblance exists, I maintain, because I am un
able to discover the HeUenic idea of " reason" even in John's
doctrine of the Logos. From James (i. 18, 21) and the Sy
noptics onwards to Peter ; and further, from Peter to the Epistle
to the Hebrews (iv. 12 ff.), the Apocalypse, and the Gospel of
John, the doctrine of the Logos may be shown to have pursued
a gradual, progressive, and connected course.
Note X, page 73.
The author appears to me to have been a Jewish Christian,
who was acquainted with, and recognised, Paul ; without, how
ever, making Paul's doctrine of faith and works the centre
of his own system. His antagonists were probably Gentile
Christians, a degeneration of the tendency of Paul, and, in
their antinomianism, forerunners of Cerdon and Marcion.
Their affinity with Gnostic elements is particularly evident from
their polemic against eschatological doctrines (c. 3) ; in agree
ment therewith also, are the features of the second chapter.

notes. 353
The views of the author himself were influenced, both nega
tively and positively, by the antagonists with whom he had to
deal. They were influenced negatively, so far as this letter was
the fruit of the reaction of his Christian spirit against the
laxity, which led to the mixing up of the Church with the
world — a laxity which seized hold of the minds of many, as soon
as they found that the realization of then: eschatological expec
tations was postponed. Montanism may perhaps be regarded as a
continuation of this reaction; but, both in an ethical and an escha
tological respect, it exaggerated expectation, until it assumed
an heretical form (compare also 2 Peter i. 19-21). That they
were probably influenced positively, we may judge from the
stress which the writer, in common with his antagonists, lays on
Christian knowledge ; though he differs from them in refusing
to let go his hold on, and even giving great prominence to, his
torical tradition (i. 14-18, H. 21, iii. 2, 15). In fact, he even
goes so far as to distinguish two classes of men, or two stadia in
the history of the same men. The first stadium is the irpoTpe-
yeiv on the irapaBoo-i? of the Apostles. It is the duty of every
man to abide in this stadium until the second stadium shall be
initiated by the aid of Divine Bwapis (i. 19). This is historical
faith. The second stadium is the rise of the morning star in the
heart, the break of the day or of the higher consciousness (i. 19 ;
compare Jude 19). That is the true gnosis (i. 5), the fruit of
faith ; whereas false teachers possess merely a show of wisdom
(ii. 17, 18), and have faUen away from the irapaBoaii of the
Apostles (ii. 21, 22). Finally, as with wisdom, so also is it with
freedom (ii. 19) and with the nobility of human nature. That
of which heretics make a boast, and of which they in reality
possess the contrary (tpfos tov o-kotov;, ii. 17, i. 9, blindness,
shortsightedness, forgetfulness, BovXeia, ii. 19, and degradation
to the level of a spiritless animal nature), is really possessed by
Christians (i. 3-8). In the knowledge of Christ they have
wisdom, all the fulness of spiritual blessings ; nay more, they
are partakers of Divine nature (i. 4). The last point is parti
cularly noteworthy. The author, in teaching such a participa
tion, shows that he has passed beyond the Jewish separation be
tween God and the world ; that a mighty revolution of Jewish
conceptions has been brought about (compare Acts xvii. 28),
by the knowledge that the union of the Divine and human had
VOL. I. z

354 APPENDIX
been actually accomplished in Christ. At the same1 time, when
we take into consideration i. 19, and the slight notice taken of
the doctrine of the atonement of Christ (which occupies so im
portant a place in the First Epistle of Peter), we see dearly
that the writer attached higher importance to the Christ in
us than to the Christ for us. By consequence, he was able
to recognise as a Christian good the element of truth, which
the heretical gnosis, though lacking, at the same time sought
(i.3,4). Note Y, page 83.
At first sight, it might be supposed impossible to discuss
Christology monographically^ and without having previously
given a history of the conceptions entertained of God and man,
to which one could appeal. For the idea of the God-man pre
supposes both a conception of God and a conception of man.
In its beginnings, Christian thought was undoubtedly deter
mined, as to both points, by the representations, handed down
to it ; and for this reason an account has been given of those
representations in the introduction, so far as seemed needful, in
the persons of their chief expounders. But, so far from the
Christian conception of God and Christian anthropology hav
ing been the groundwork of Christology, history shows that
the appearance of Christ, and the gradually increasing deter-
minateness of the view taken of His person, were the most
powerful agent in the transformation of the idea of God and
the idea of man entertained by the ancient world. Moreover,
from the second century onwards, an extensive series of works,
devoted to investigations into the nature of God and man, owed
its existence to Christianity, or, more precisely expressed, to the
interest felt in the doctrine of the Person of Christ. That the
doctrine of the Trinity was indebted for its development to
Christology, is universally acknowledged ; but the same thing is
true also of the Christian doctrine of the Divine attributes (and
of this less notice has been taken). For, that it was necessary
and possible really to regard God as Love, could only be felt by
a faith which had beheld the Father in the Son of His love.
The world prior to Christ had not known God as love, but had
regarded Him either as mere goodness, or as mere justice and
holiness. In this respect also, therefore, the appearance of

notes. 355
Christ came into conflict with the heathenish and Jewish con
ception of God. Christianity tolerated neither the ascription of
an unethical goodness to God (and so far pronounced Judaism
to be in the right), nor of a righteousness and holiness which
are not perfected in love (and herein condemned the ergism
(epyov) and one-sided juridical character of Judaism). To the
conflicts with Gnosticism may so far, therefore, be traced the
genesis of the Christian idea of God, if only at first in its most
general and fundamental characteristic features. Next to Ire
nasus, Tertullian rendered the .most important services relatively
to this matter, by his work against Marcion. Not until good
ness and power on the one hand, and justice and holiness on the
other, had been seen to be combined in love, — in that the convic
tion had been arrived at, that a love which excludes, instead of
being the realization of, holy righteousness in all its strictness
and truth, would cease to be Divine, and that a holiness and
justice which fail to give the Divine love its due cannot subsist,
and must be either indifferent to, or powerless against, evil ; not
until thus, in the idea of love, which is the glorification, at once,
of goodness and power, of hoHness and righteousness, the Chris
tian conception of God had been arrived at, was a starting-point
secured for the development of the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity. The rigidness of the prior conceptions of God was
melted by love ; God was no longer a mere righteous Judge, or
the Exalted One, or the bv : on the other hand, after righte
ousness and hoHness had been recognised as essential to Divine
love, the Church ceased to be exposed to the danger of confound
ing God through His love, after a pantheistic or pagan manner,
with the world. Note Z, page 94
If this be the right view to take of the first Christian period,
it can occasion no surprise to find the lack of dogmatical pro
ductiveness counterbalanced by the greater measure of moral
activity. Amongst the fruits of the moral activity of -the first
Christians, we may count the giving to the Church a constitu
tion and laws. And, although the Catholic idea of the priest
and bishop cannot lay claim to origination in the earliest stadia
of Christianity, it is both involved in the nature of the case
and attested by historical evidence, that the time which inter-

356 ' APPENDIX.
vened prior to the awakenment of interest Hi strictly dogmatical
questions, was mainly taken up with the organization of the
Churches, and the development of the constitution under the
greatest variety of forms. It is an incontestable fact, that
the development of ecclesiastical arrangements was far in ad
vance of the development of dogmas ; that by the former an
earthly seat was, as it were, prepared for the latter. Those
who show the keenest eye fQr everything in which the age of
the Apostolic Fathers fell short of the true Christian idea, ought
also, in order to be consistent, to foUow up as keenly, and as far
as possible, the errors which, clothed in a practical garb, were
introduced into the Church by heathenish and Jewish society
and principles. Instead of that, they are chargeable with tho
rough inconsistency; for, although, they wiUingly allow, that
when the Church condemned heretical elements it was con
demning its own past early condition, they are unwilling to
grant that the same defectiveness (and the charge of heresy
may be reduced to a charge of defectiveness) must necessarily
have manifested itself also in the ethical creations which pecu-
Harly belong to this period. For example, the rise of Episcopal
power and the Episcopal constitution of the Church they assign
to a later age ; and, on this ground, also attribute documents to
a later age, which, if assigned to their proper age, would throw
of themselves a decided light on the history of the Church
and its doctrinal development, and utterly annihilate the entire
hypothesis of an Ebionitic origin of the Church — an hypothesis
really borrowed from the Socinians.
Note AA, page 101.
Ev Xoytp Tr}? peyaXmo-vvT)? avToii crvvecrTijaaTO Ta irdvra,
Kal iv Xoycp BvvaTai avTa KaTaaTpeyfrcu. The addition of the
term peyaXcoavvr], which Clement frequently applies to the
higher nature of Christ, is favourable to the reference of X070?
to the pre-existent essence of Christ. It would then appear as
though the creative Divine Word were personified, exactly after
the manner of, the theologomena of that period. Another and
particularly forcible reason, is the relation of our author to the
Epistles of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, in both of
which the pre-existence of the Son is not only taught, but is
further brought into connection with the creation. Compare,

NOTES. 357
besides the above passages from Paul's Epistles, Hebrews i. 3,
iv. 12, xi. 3. Our author was so intimately acquainted with
the Epistle to the Hebrews, and followed so closely in its foot
steps, that the idea of the pre-existence of the Son cannot pos
sibly have been strange to him (compare also Zeller 1. c. pp.
61 ff.). But he shows himself to be a faithful disciple of Paul,
not merely in his Christological principles, but also specially
in his doctrine of grace (c. 32). He says : It is not wisdom
and insight, it is not piety or the works oif the sanctified heart
which we have done, that justify us ; indeed, we are not at all
justified by ourselves ; but we are called of God's gracious will
in Christ, through faith. Now this same Clement was the re
presentative of the Church in Rome about the year 100 : so much
the more certainly, therefore, must we judge his faith to have
been in agreement with that of the Church in Eome, if he
wrote thus, not as bishop — that is, not officially — but as the one
who had been chosen in confidence to be spokesman.
Note BB, page 102.
Docetical and Ebionitical elements must, therefore, have
already manifested themselves in the Church. Compare
Schneckenburger's "Das EvangeHum der ^Egyptier," 1834.
But when this scholar alleges that a patripassian Unitarianism
is taught in the epistle before us, he must have overlooked the
passage just quoted from c. 9. Baptism is highly lauded, and
connected rather with a stringent doctrine of penitence than
with faith (c. 8). "Beyond the grave there is no more oppor
tunity for repentance ; even as a vessel may be improved so
long as it is in the hand of the potter, but not after it has
once been baked." The present world and the future, these
two al&ve?, are hostile to each other (c. 6, compare Barn. c.
18). All these features are not in the manner of the first
epistle. Where the latter thought occurs, together with the
view of the world, involved therein, some have supposed that
they had scented the traces of Ebionism. The circumstance,
that even this epistle, with its Christology, contains Ebioni
tical elements, ought to have obtained greater attention, and
to have prevented the adoption of an arbitrary definition of
the idea of Ebionism. (Compare Schwegler's "Montanism,"
pp. 112 ff.)' He who holds such lofty Christological views may

358

APPENDIX.

perhaps be called a Jewish Christian; nay more, he may Judaize
in many ways ; but an Ebionite, in the sense Hi which that name
is apphed scientifically, he cannot be called. From c". 8 (Xeyei
xvpio? iv t<3 evayyeXiw), the author would appear to have
already become accustomed to the use of Gospels ; but there
was not yet any canon. The epistle also contains an apocalyptic
passage (c. 11), found in the Gospel of the Egyptians. To
judge from the mode in which Docetism and Ebionism are
handled, and from the other marks taken together, the work
was probably not written later than the first half of the second
century. The first epistle, on the contrary, was probably writ
ten about the middle of the first ninety years after Christ.
Note CC, page 103.
He was well aware of his capabilities, and of the nature of
the task given him to perform: he styles himself av0pairov
irpb? evaaiv KaTvpnapivov (Philad. 8); he is assured that the
impulse he feels to work for the settlement of the organiza
tion of the Church, is an impulse of the Spirit ; and experience
forced irresistibly upon him the conviction, that such efforts
were called for by the circumstances of the time (Philad. 7).
At the time when the epistles were written, the organization of
the Church under bishops, presbyters, and deacons, had not yet,
by any meansj been everywhere carried out, nor the principle
thereof recognised as necessary. Indeed, the aim of the epis
tles was to lay down the idea, and, on the basis thereof, to initiate
a thorough realization of the whole. The highest purpose of the
Episcopate, according to his idea of it (the particular form
assumed by which was entirely the result of the struggle with
Docetism and Judaism), was the realization in the Church of the
divine-human Hfe, whose unity in Christ, and therefore also
in the Church, the just-mentioned heresies threatened to dis
solve. Gnosticism proper is not controverted in these epistles.
On the other hand, as the letters themselves acknowledge, the
way had already been prepared for his idea, — dogmatically,
in particular, by Paul ; historicaUy by the development of the
constitution of the Church down to his time, although it had
undoubtedly taken a different course in different places, and
had not been consciously led by one principle (Polyc. 6 ;
Magnes. 4; Philad. 8).

NOTES. 35S
Note DD, page 104.
He nowhere gives expression to the Levitical idea of priest
hood. The bishop does not offer up Christ in sacrifice ; but is
the mouth and representative of the Church, which presents its
sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God (compare Hofling's
" Die Lehre der apostolischen Vater u. s. w. vom Opfer im
christlichen Cultus," 1841, pp. 32-44). He seldomer speaks
of him as the medium through which we obtain Divine gifts,
although a teacher, in virtue of his office, might without hesita
tion be so characterized. No allusion whatever is made to
ordination, to a Levitical order, in contrast to the laity. On
the contrary, the universal priesthood of Christians continues to
be recognised ; and even of bishops it is said, that they do not
become bishops apart from the people (compare Ep. ad Philad.
10 ; ad Smyrn. 11 f. ; Polyc. 7). He never terms the bishops
iepet? — although he might have employed the word without fear
of objection ; — Christ alone is, in his view, the dp^iepev?. The
point on which he lays chief stress is, that the bishop shall re
present the unity of the Church, acting as teacher and ad
ministrator, and performing the representative (liturgical) acts
of the Cultus. He regards the bishop as the Xevrovpyo? ; above
all (in the states which were still heathenish), as the adminis
trator of Church Eegiment. Now, as Ignatius undoubtedly
did not consider it a matter of choice whether believers should
openly constitute themselves into a church or not, but held that
the setting forth of their unity in a visible form belongs to the
very idea of faith (see below) ; consequently, he whose office it
is to set forth that unity, as the mouthpiece or representative
of the Church, as the leader of individuals in the spirit of the
entire community, cannot be an accidental, dispensable per
son. On the contrary, he held the office of bishop, in con
nection with the presbytery and diaconate, to be necessary,
and of Divine authority. Notwithstanding all this, he has by
no means laid down the Eoman Catholic conception of a bishop ;
for even Protestants acknowledge the Divine institution of the
" ministerium." His fault does not lie in a wish to curtaU the
rights of the community; for he everywhere conceives the
bishop, on the one hand, to be the expression of the inmost and
truest will of the individual ; and the individual, on the other

360 APPENDIX.
hand, to be related to the bishop, not as a bondsman, but as a
freeman, united with him by love and confidence. The mem
bers of the Church, says he, ought to stand related to the bishop
as the God-man was related to the Father ; and to establish
order, is by no means to put restraints on liberty. The weak
ness of his theory, consists in his supposing his ideal of a bishop
to be more nearly realizable than it actually was ; in his esteem
ing the idea of unity, expressed by the office of bishop, to be in
itself so elevating and purifying (Polyc. 1), and in general so
full of blessing and of power, that he forgets the possibility of
bishops being unworthy of their office, and overlooks the new
dangers io which the very unity of the Church would be exposed,
were the great power to be misemployed, which he desired to see
committed to the bishop and the presbytery. Unity is to him
the thing of prime importance : — not merely on account of the
heresies and schisms, which he would fain cut away, but because
he esteems its realization and preservation to be the highest
good, the great end and aim of the Church. On this founda
tion rests, in his view, the Divine right of the Episcopate : and,
although he did not appeal so distinctly as did Clement (1 Cor.
42, 44) to the authority of the Apostles who instituted it, he
must have held it to be quite as certain as the Divine institution
of Christianity itself ; for he did not see any possibility of set
ting forth that unity, wherein consists the truth of the Church,
otherwise than through the medium of the Episcopate, the
presbytery, and the diaconate. Solely as the expression of the
Church's unity, and on no other ground, did Ignatius esteem the
bishop higher than the presbyter. This Church order is the will
of God and Christ (yvojpri, vopo?, Magn. 2, 3) ; in such a sense,
however, that through it the Church fulfils one of the ends of its
existence, — the end, namely, of, manifesting itself as the image of
Christ (Magn. 6). Not to a particular Divine act, by which this
Church order was instituted, does he appeal ; he views it rather
as a Divine necessity involved in the very existence of the
Church ; whereas a falsifier would certainly have felt himself
compelled to refer the institution, at aU events, to the Apostles,
as did the Bomish Church in the Pseudo-Clementines. Com
pare, on the other hand, Philadi. 8. Bishops he regards, after
the manner of Christian monarchs, as bishops by the grace of
God ; nay more, as themselves a grace of God (Magn. 2, Qeov

NOTES 36J
%api?) : we owe them obedience for the sake of God and Christ :
for all authorities can claim obedience by Divine right (Magn.
3) ; but that bishops, in conjunction with the presbyters, are the
rulers of the Church, he considers to be involved in the idea of
the Church (Trail. 3), the realization of which is both a duty
and a Divine right (compare Magnes. 6, 2 ; Eph. 1 ; Smyrn.
8, 9 ; Philad. 4). Ignatius speaks merely of the divinity of
the Episcopate, or, more correctly, of the divinity of Church
authorities, whose necessary apex, in every individual church,
is the bishop : to the mode in which personal fitness for the
office is secured, he makes no allusion whatever ; in no place
does he speak of the communication of grace qualificatory for
office, through the medium of the sacrament of ordination.
From the characteristics thus furnished us, of the stadium at
which the development of the constitution of the Church had
arrived, we should judge this epistle to be of high antiquity. In
the first place, f orexample, such confidence as the author cherishes
in the cohesive energy of the Episcopate, and in its power to en
sure the purity of the Church, is inexplicable, save on the sup
position that he had as good as not found by experience, that
even the bishop and presbytery themselves were not safe from
heresy, and could not preserve the Church from it. The author,
therefore, as he himself confesses, must have lived at a time
when merely sufficient preparations had been made for the
actual realization of his idea of the Episcopate. In the second
place, inasmuch as, although by no means indifferent to the
personal character of bishops (Polyc. 1, 2, 8 ; Magn. 2, 3 ;
Epp. 1), it never seems to occur to him that his unity, " than
which there exists nothing better" (Polyc. 1), might degenerate
into a mere formality, and he suggests no provision either for
securing confidence in the personal worth of the bishops, or for
establishing it dogmatically (as do the Clementine Homilies, and,
with them, the Eomish Church, by the dogma of the communi
cation of the Holy Spirit at ordination), we must judge these
epistles to have originated at a period when such provisions had
not yet been felt to be necessary, — that is, at a period when the
Churches, but particularly their presidents and those who would
next be elected to the office, took care to exact and to furnish
pledges of personal worth (compare Clement, 1 Cor. c. 42, 44) ;
a period, especially, when the pure apostolic tradition (the

362 APPENDIX.
<rdp% Xpicrrov) was represented in such a manner by a consider
able number of disciples of the Apostles, to whom was entrusted
the leading of the Church, that it was possible for the written
tradition to be thrown into the shade — a thing which would have
been impossible at a later time. Ignatius, for example, thus pro
ceeds. In this respect, even Justin Martyr occupies an essen
tially different position (from the year 139 onwards) ; and still
more Irenasus. The latter (although bishops never cease, in his
view, to be also presbyters ; for presbyters they continue to be in
any case, even accordftig to Ignatius, and constitute merely the
summing up of the presbytery, Eph. 4) already, laying stress on
the uninterrupted apostolical succession, and on the pure tradi
tion conveyed through its medium, insists that oral and written
tradition mutually confirm each other, and solely in conjunction
with each other, constitute a certain source of the truth. He
holds much the same relation to the formation of the canon as the
Ignatian Epistles held to the development of the Episcopacy, —
that is, he took part in the matter, just when the preliminary
labours were being brought to a temporary close by the idea
of the canon ; and he endeavours scientifically to demonstrate
both the necessity and the nature of the canon (c. Hasr. 3,
1, 11). Justin Martyr also attaches greater importance than
Ignatius to the apostolic writings. The formation of the
canon was preceded, and, as we learn from veiy clear traces,
was aided, by the organization of the Church, both in its
historical and dogmatical aspect ; for the bishops and presby
ters are to be regarded, in particular, as the vehicles both of
the historical and dogmatical tradition (regula fidei, symbolum
ApostoHcum), on which the matter depended. This organi
zation, at aU events in its bearing on the point which, in
the view of Ignatius, was the flower of the Cultus, and the
highest sign and manifestation of the unity of the Church, — to
wit, the Eucharist, — was universally established in agreement
with the idea of Ignatius at the time of Justin (compare Ign.
ad Smyrn. 8 with Justin Martyr's Apologia 1, 67). .Justin's
idea of the unity of the Church is also similar to that of Ignatius,
although his entire tendency was less practical (compare the Dial.
cum Tryphone 63, 116). Lastly, I cannot but consider Nean
der's remark appropriate, that Montanism is to be regarded,
partly as a reaction against the constitution of the Church of that

NOTES. 363
day, and partly as an element which was, at a subsequent period,
reduced to a fixed form by the Eomish Church. As a principle
of reaction, it bore principally on the idea of the Episcopate,
which, when the office was not held by men. worthy of the dignity
(Ignatius confidently takes for granted, that the office will be
held by those who are fit for it), endangered the independence
of the Church and the Divine right of such as were moved
by the Holy Ghost, who, after all, must be the sole final source
of all ecclesiastical authority and dignity. In this aspect, Mon
tanism was a reaction of the substantial, real principle against
the merely formal unity of the Episcopate, which entrusted
to the unworthy, and those who were destitute of the Spirit,
power over those who were filled by the Spirit. Viewed in
this light, Montanism may be styled a democratic reaction on
the part of the members of the Church, asserting their uni
versal prophetic and priestly rank against the concentration of
ecclesiastical dignities and rights in the Episcopate. From which
it evidently follows, that a considerable time must have inter
vened between the rise of Montanism and the state of things
set forth in the Epistles of Ignatius ; the former being a reac
tion against the very thing which the latter treat as an object to
be realized, and which enkindled the fresh, unquestioning, and
confident enthusiasm of their author. Such enthusiasm is in
telligible and right when a great idea has just been conceived,
and the soul is filled with the conviction that it is destined
shortly to become a living reality. In opposition to Ignatius,
the Eoman Catholic Church justified Montanism in maintain
ing, that not the office of bishop in itself, not the formal unity
which it is able to effect, is enough, but that personal equipment
with the Holy Spirit is necessary to the reality and truth of the
Episcopacy ; but it condemned Montanism for aiming at sub
stituting in the place of the Episcopacy its sporadic prophetic
spirit, — an inspiration, fanaticism, or extasy, which both breaks
the historical link connecting the Chureh with preceding ages,
and carries within itself no pledge of purity. In this respect
it foUowed again the example of Ignatius, modifying his views,
however, by teaching that the Episcopate, as such, is made
partaker of the Holy Ghost by means of the rite of ordination.
An attempt was thus made to meet and do justice to the true
element in Montanism, and, at the same time, to incorporate it

364

APPENDIX.

with the fixed order of the Church. But even so, there is still a
distinction to be noted. Bishops, in the view of Ignatius, are
the representatives, the images of Christ ; the presbytery repre
sents the Apostles. This idea, as Gieseler truly remarks, was
transformed by the Church into the idea that Episcopacy was
the continuation of the apostolic office ; until, finally, Catholi
cism put the Pope in Christ's place — the place assigned by Igna
tius to the body of bishops. The foregoing remarks will be seen,
I trust, to justify the view I have taken, even though I should be
lieve myself compelled, by the consideration last adduced, to date
the Epistles of Ignatius, a full generation prior to Montanism, and
to decide, after the investigations recently instituted by Meier,
Baur, Lange, Eothe, Arndt, Huther (compare " Studien und
Kritiken," 1835, pp. 881 ff. ; 1836, pp. 540 ff.; 1839, pp. 136 ff. ;
also Gieseler's " Church History" i. 142, Observ. 4), in favour
of the genuineness of the shorter edition, and that mainly on
account of the form which Episcopacy still bears in it. The
opposed view, defended by Baur, and the parallel drawn by him
between the romance of the Clementine Homilies and the Igna-
tian Epistles, had a somewhat dazzling effect upon me in the first
instance, but did not stand the test of a more thorough exami
nation. Dusterdieck's supposition, that Lucian, in his Life of
Peregrinus, written about the middle of the second century, had
in his eye Ignatius the Christian hero, as he is set before us in
the epistles, is far more to be commended. The main point in
deciding on the genuineness of the epistles, is the question of
the Episcopate, and that has already been discussed. A further
objection is, that the history which forms the groundwork is
improbable. How weak these reasons are, Huther has ably
shown, in relation to the well calculated procedure adopted by
Trajan (see Illgen's " Zeitschrift fiir hist. Theologie," 1841,
Hefele I.e. pp. xxxix. ff.); compare Gieseler's remarks (" Church
History," 2d ed. vol. i. p. 138) against Baur (" Episkopat."
p. 149). I here add the arguments advanced by Huther. Al
though, in Justin's day, general persecutions of the Christians
were stiU less common than in the time of Ignatius, the former
speaks, as of a thing that was not rare, of Christians enthusias
tically offering themselves for execution (Apol. 2, 12). Why,
then, shall we characterize the yearnings for death, to which
Ignatius gives expression in his Epistles to the Eomans, as im-

NOTES. 365
probable, especially as he did not inform against himself, but
may have owed his imprisonment to the information of false
brethren, or the hostflity of those who were differently minded
from himself 1 (The latter is rendered probable by the passage
from the Epist. ad Polyc. 6, where he designates himself dvri-
¦tyvypv t&v inroTaaaropevav t£> eirio-Koirm, toi? Trpeo-fivrepoi?, toi?
BtaKovoi?, that is, a sacrifice for the idea of his life. Compare,
in addition, the passage concerning IffiXos in Clement, 1 Cor. v.
How, if even in Antioch, and perhaps ere he himself became a
bishop, he had advocated the idea, which he develops in such
an original manner, with all his enthusiasm and ability, and had
endeavoured to reduce it to reality? — if, by the idea of the
obedience due to the Episcopate, he had aimed at subjugating
the heads of the parties, which, according to the Epistle of
dement, at this time existed in Corinth, and which, to judge from
PhUad. 10, Smyrn. 11, compared with ad Eom. 9, Trail. 13, in
Antioch also, would seem to have raised opposition on account of
the bishopric ; and had further, when elected bishop, employed
his episcopal authority against them? If such were the case,
we may easily suppose that informers might represent him as
the cause of the disturbances that arose, that he might thus
become a martyr, and in dying establish more firmly that for
which, living, he had laboured.) Moreover, the defects of
his character — its apparent contradictions, the alternation be
tween a strong feeling of his own dignity and almost insulting
expressions of humility (especially in the Epistle ad Trail.) —are
quite explicable in a man of his fiery temperament, personally
possessed by such an idea. The author himself, too, betrays a
sense of the fact, that an element of impurity had mixed itself
up with his IfiXos (TraU. 4) ; whereas a writer, whose object it
was to recommend Episcopacy through the mouth of the dying
Christian hero, would not have allowed him to hint at anything
of that sort : such expressions, therefore, are a sign of inner,
psychological truth. Further, his deHneation of the heretics
who stood opposed to him, and who negatively aided in the de
termination of his mode of thought, is quite different from what
it would have been had he written only twenty years later (that is,
about 137, instead of about 117), when Gnosticism had gained
its more important representatives. Their influence on himself
would also have been different. Gnosticism proper he never

366 APPENDIX.
seeks to controvert (Hi the longer edition of his Epistles, Gnos
ticism is attacked) ; he does, however, argue against Docetism.
— The passage in Magnes. 8 will be discussed below. Let it
suffice here, in the first instance, to remark, that Baur, in his
criticism of the New Testament, seems to be much more anxious
to remove books from their position in the canon, than to show
afterwards .what position they ought to occupy; otherwise, it
would be incomprehensible how he could pronounce the Ignatian
Epistles to be the product of a later period, amongst other rea
sons, because this passage is dHected against Gnosticism ; when
the Epistles to ithe Philippians and Colossians, even if Paul were
not their author, must have been written, at the latest, about the
time of Ignatius, in order that there might have been interval
long enough to render them suitable, in the eyes of Marcion, for
adoption into his canon — as writings, that is, which were held by
the Church to be Pauline. Lastly, the remarks just made, bear
the following relation to Baur's hypotheses regarding the Pseudo-
Clementine writings. If it be right at all to attribute to these
writings an influence on the peculiar form assumed by the Episco
pate in the Eomish Church (although that form can be sufficiently
explained from the Judaizing principle, and from the national po
litical character of the Eomans ; and, in any case, it is not neces
sary, with Baur, to trace the hierarchical influence exerted by the
Pseudo-Clementine literature in the Eastern Churches, to Eome;
compare Bickell's " Geschichte des Kirchenrechts," 1843, Beil.
iv. pp. 148 ff. Nr. 63 ff.), it can only be on the ground of a point
common to them and the Church, to wit, the very weighty one of
ordination ; that is, on the ground of the very point which, accord-.
ing to the account given above of the stadia in the development
of the Episcopate, was, at aU events in the Church, unquestion
ably a later one. The Clementines, therefore, set up a wider
distinction between the clergy and the laity than did Ignatius :
they "give the bishop, in particular, a far higher position than
did Ignatius, and speak of a superior bishop (as it were Pope),
whereas Ignatius treats all bishops as equal. Ignatius, there
fore, represents, so to speak, the ideal aspect of the idea of the
Episcopate : the other aspect, which unquestionably, at all events
in point of principle, marks a relapse into Judaism, is the
realistic one. In the view of Ignatius, the bishop is the teacher,
especially, however, the liturg and regent of the Church : ac-

NOTES. 367
cording to the Clementine writings, his sole business, it is true
is to distribute doctrine and the forgiveness of sin ; but ordina
tion and the Spirit communicated by that rite, constitute the
Episcopate the continuation of the prophets of truth, apart from
whom it is impossible to attain to blessedness. In reality, there
fore, they constitute the bishop a mediator, a Levitical priest,
whose word binds and looses, and who can either communicate or
withhold the Spirit. The Catholic Church holds neither the Igna-
tian nor the Pseudo-Clementine idea of the Episcopate by itself,
but endeavours, as we have shown, to combine the two. Baur
is right, therefore, when he maintains that the Catholic concep
tion of the Episcopate did not exist at the commencement of the
second century ; and if the Epistles of Ignatius contained such
a conception, their authenticity could not be defended. He is
wrong, however, — and in this respect his combinations do not
stand the test, — when he fails, as do most writers, properly to
distinguish between the Ignatian idea of the Episcopate, and the
idea which subsequently prevailed in the Church. He also fails
to distinguish between the Pseudo-Clementine and the Ignatian
.dea. But for this, he would have seen that the idea entertained
by the CathoHc Church, and to which Montanism had given
rise, had not become what it was all at once, but consisted of
several momenta, and had needed a long course of preparation :
he must also have reckoned the Ignatian idea of the Episcopate
amongst the things which had prepared its way ; and thus the
strongest argument against the genuineness of these epistles
would have been converted into the strongest argument for their
high antiquity, that is, into a strong argument for their genuine^
ness. — Indeed, in general, Baur's efforts to trace the origin of
the Episcopate to Borne, by means of the Clementines, seem to
me so far not to have been successful ; for those writings bear
tin their forehead the sign of the uneasy conscience of an iso
lated, heretical party ; and it is much simpler and easier to say,
with Gieseler ("Church History" i. 140 ff.), that, on the death
of the Apostles and their disciples, the churches having lost their
leaders, and feeling the need of unity, sought for a substitute ;
such a substitute offered itself in the Episcopate, a pattern of
which might be found in the position occupied by James and
his successors in the mother Church of Jerusalem. The ex
ample set in Jerusalem was imitated first by the neighbouring

368 APPENDIX.
churches : in the more distant churches, the chief presbyters,
as presidents, assumed a similar position ; but, as far as any
power of exercising independent authority was concerned, were
little raised above the other presbyters. So Clemen, ad Cor. i.
44; Polyc. ad PhUad. 5, 6. — This was the historically safe
method ; and it is a matter of more surprise that Baur should
have preferred the Clementine hypothesis, as he considers James
in Jerusalem to have been an Ebionite, and as that primitive
Christianity should have been Ebionitical, and that the Episco
pate should have had an Ebionitic origin, would seem to consist
very weU with that circumstance. It is true, the main, nay, in
the last instance, the only, argument against, would then be con
verted into an argument for, the genuineness of the Ignatian
Epistles ; and, even as an hypothesis, the Ebionitic character of
primitive Christianity would no longer be tenable.
With regard to the age of the Pseudo-Clementine writings, -
specially of the HomHies, nothing is herewith decided. Nothing
else preventing, they might be supposed to have contributed their
part towards preparing the way for the realistic aspect of tho
Catholic Episcopacy: they were not, however, so favourably
situated for exerting an influence as the Ignatian Epistles,
which were not only not an heretical production, but were
most intimately connected with John, and especially with Paul
(Ephes., Col., 1 Cor.) ; whilst the former are by no means even
Petrine in character. For they neither merely repeat nor ex
aggerate the distinctive features of Peter's Christianity, but are
Ebionitical, and therefore, after what we have seen above, /
must be, at all events Christologically and soteriologically,
utterly irreconcilable with Peter. The only thing which they
have appropriated from, or in which they may perhaps be said
to have outdone, Peter, is his shortcoming in practice — a short
coming which contravened his own principles. But their
attempt to conceal their dogmatic nakedness by such a theo
retical accordance with Peter, was in vain. These remarks
are, strictly speaking, so self-evident, that there ought to be
no need of making them. But we are threatened at the pre
sent time with such a confusion of ideas, such an arbitrary
commingling of terms like Petrinism, Judaism, Ebionitism,
that it is both necessary and appropriate to raise a protest.
Even the division into genuine and spurious portions, proposed

NOTES. 369
by Neander, solely on account of the Episcopacy, appears to
me completely inadmissible. The epistles are so entirely of
one mould, and, in particular, then: advocacy of an ecclesiastical
organization, as the means of securing ecclesiastical unity, is so
inseparably interwoven with everything else, that I should
prefer concluding the whole to be spurious, to supposing that
essential and important parts are interpolations. Neander's
hatred of the priesthood, especially in its Catholic form, seems
to have affected his judgment of the epistles, and to have pre
judiced him against them. Eeference has already been made
above to the historical objections which he might raise against
them. /
Note EE, page 112.
Magn. 8. oi yap 0eioraToi irpoifyfJTai Kara XpiaTov 'Irjcrovv
ktyjo-av But tovto Kal iBuiy)(0no-av, ipirvebpevoi virb if)? ydpiTo?
avTov, — oti el? Qeo? icrnv o <f>avepd>o-a? iavTov Bid 'Ir]o-ov Xpt-
<ttov tov viov outov, b? ecrTiv ovtov Xayo? dtBio?, ovk dirb cruyrj?
irpoeX0mv, o? KaTa irdvia evrjpeo'Trjcrev tw irepijravTi avTov.
The word Logos can occasion no surprise, especially as, both
here and elsewhere, we can show it to be connected, not with
\o7o? in the sense of vow, but with the expression prjpa Qeov.
For the same term is employed even by John ; and whether
we prefer referring to Apocalypse xix. 14, or to John i. 1, 1
John i. 1 ff., the term dtBio? must substantially be predicated
also of the Johannean Logos. Even Philo designates his Logos
auavio?. Similarly, the presbyters, the disciples of the Apostles,
speak in Irenseus v. 36 (probably according to Papias) of
Christ as the Verbum — a feature which points to the time of
Ignatius. So also, when the Logos is spoken of by Cerinthus,
or, at a somewhat later period, in the Kr)pvypa HeTpov (see
Gieseler i. 153; Schliemann's "Die Clementinen," p. 252); or
when the fifth book of the SibyUines (see below) designates the
Messiah ©ed? dtBio?. This is the only passage of the shorter
edition in which a reference seems to be made to Gnostic ele
ments ; and even in this passage the reference is quite a passing
one. For this reason we may assume that the letters were
written at a time when the chief representatives of Gnosticism
had not yet made their appearance. On the other hand, we
may judge from Philo, and the affinity of the' various branches
VOL. I. 2 A

370 APPENDIX.
of the different members of the Gnostic family with each other
and with him, that, during the first century, there could have
been no lack of elements out of which Gnosticism might gradually
be formed. The pv0evpara, to which aUusion is made even in
canonical writings which existed prior to Ignatius, and of which
Ignatius himself speaks (Magn. 8), prepared the way for Gnos
ticism, in particular, by giving a still more pagan character to
Philo's conception of God. This paganization was effected in
various ways : the angels played a great r61e, and their genealo
gies were probably but a coarser form of the doctrine of the
jEons. Not only, however, was .this akin to the ayyeXoi, the
Xoyoi of PhUo, but the distinction drawn by PhUo between
the "Ov and the A.070?, involved essentially that drawn by the
Gnostics between 0-47^ and the X070?. Given a Logology, and
it was the simplest possible process to develop therefrom the
word auyrj. For, prior to the utterance of the word, there was
silence. The designation cnyr) presupposes the doctrine of the
Logos ; but where the idea of God had been ethnicized, and
no hesitation was felt (as in the case of Philo) in positing a
change in God Himself, — that is, in supposing the Logos to
have sprung forth out of a preceding silence, — there the idea of
o-vyr) is very naturally suggested by that of the Logos. Now, if
it be a fact, that fully developed Gnostic systems existed some
ten or twenty years after a.d. 117, instead of regarding with
suspicion the isolated traces of so important and widespread a
phasnomenon, discoverable at an earUer period, we ought to see
in them forerunners of those systems, historically natural and
to be expected. Accordingly, this passage, so far from warrant
ing conclusions against the genuineness of the epistles, is a
strong testimony in favour of their high antiquity, especially as
the opponents referred to are Judaizers of the oldest Cerinthian
kind. Other writers suppose an interpolation. But there is
nothing to justify this supposition, especially when we compare
the longer edition, which altered the text in agreement with the
dogmatical views of a later period. The original of the other
two passages, translated in the text, from Magn. 6, and Poly. c.
3, runs as follows : — Xpio-Tov, b? irpb auavav irapd iraTpl ?p> Kal
iv TeXei irpdvn; and, rbv_vifep icaipov irpoaBoKa, tov avpovov,
tov dbpaTov tov Bi r)pd? opaTOV, tov a-yfnjXdtfyrjTov, tov dira0fj,
rov Bi r)fid? 7ra0vTOV.

NOTES. 371
Note FF, page 116.
Irenseus adv. hseres. 3, 3, 4; Euseb. H. E. 4, 14; SchHe-
mann's "Die Clementinen." The main source is his Epistle
to the PhiUppians, and then the fragment of the letter from
Irenseus (compare Euseb. 5, 20) to Florinus (compare Iren.
Opp. ed. Grabe, pp. 463, 464). Irenseus was acquainted with
several other letters addressed by Polycarp to neighbouring
churches and to individuals, which have not been preserved;
but, in lib. 3, 3, he gives especial prominence to the Epistle to
the PhiUppians, from which the jfapaKT7)p Tr)? irio-Teeo? avTov
and the true Christian doctrine might be learned. In his
letter to Florinus — a letter which modern criticism would seem
to have almost totally forgotten — Irenasus says, — "I saw thee
in Asia Minor with Polycarp, when thou livedst in splendour
at the Imperial Court, and endeavouredst to gain importance
in the eyes of Polycarp. For, of that whicH then happened I
retain a better remembrance than of that which has recently
taken place ; for that which is learnt in youth grows together
with the soul, and becomes one substance with it." Then, after
detaihng what he remembered of Polycarp — of his walk, of his
appearance, of his manner of life, of his discourses to the people,
of the accounts he gave of his intimate intercourse with John
and others who had seen the Lord, of their discourses, and of
that which he had heard from them regarding the Lord, His
miracles and His teachings, — he adds, that that which Polycarp
had received from those who had themselves seen the Word of
Life, even as he narrated it, was entirely in agreement with
the Scriptures (that is, of the New Testament, which Irenseus,
at all events at a later period, compared therewith). " Such
things I eagerly listened to, even at that time, by the grace of
God which was given to me, and wrote them down for remem
brance, not on paper, but in mine heart; and by God's grace
I read them there ever afresh and unadulterated." That the
Epistle to the PhiUppians referred to by Irenasus is the same
with which Eusebius was acquainted (Church History 4, 14 ;
Sj 36), is scarcely to be questioned; and that the epistle now
extant is the same as that of Eusebius, is evident from the
remark made by Eusebius, — " The Epistle of Polycarp shows an
acquaintance with the First Epistle of Peter." This epistle is, in

372 APPENDIX.
fact, most frequently mentioned ; for example, in c. 1 we find
1 Peter i. 8 ; in c. 2, 1 Peter i. 13, 21, iii. 9 ; in c. 5, 1 Peter
ii. 11 ; in c. 7, 1 Peter iv. 7 ; in c. 8, 1 Peter H. 22, 24; in the
conclusion, which, with the exception of c. 10, exists solely in
an old translation, 1 Peter ii. 12. But it shows also an ac
quaintance with the First Epistle of John, quoting 1 John iv. 3.
The author is, however, specially familiar with the epistles of
the Apostle Paul, and, like Ignatius, makes frequent mention of
him ; he also aUudes to Ignatius himself and his epistles (Eus.
3, 36). The epistle contains congratulations to the Church of
Antioch on account of the actual re-estabfishment of the peace,
wishes for which had been expressed in the Epistles of Ignatius
(Ign. Ep. ad Polyc. 8). Hence Polycarp must have written
his epistle about the time of the death of Ignatius. That the
epistle holds a different relation to the idea of the Episcopate
from that of Ignatius, may be conceded. UnHke Ignatius, it
does not" go on to characterize more definitely the first of the
presbyters, the (without doubt Hf e-long) president, as the one
whose mission it is to represent the unity of the life of the
Church ; but nothing in the epistle justifies the opinion, that it
presupposes different circumstances from those of the Ignatian
Epistles. It is true, no distinction is made in the epistle between
bishop and presbyter ; but such a distinction as the one above
described, which was in agreement with the spirit of the age,
and beyond which Ignatius aimed at advancing, is presupposed.
Polycarp himself is represented as the spokesman, as the first
in Smyrna : he holds intercourse with other churches, he sub
scribes the letter, he speaks in his own name therein — is, in point
of fact, the bishop; whereas the opening words, "Polycarp
and the presbyters with him wish, etc.," would have led us to
expect something different, if the presbyters' around him had
merely held the same rank with himself. He acts rather as
did Paul, for example, in 1 Cor. i. 1 ; Gal. i. 2. Furthermore,
even supposing Polycarp to have been much more strongly in
spired by the idea of the Episcopacy than the simple character
of his piety aUowed, a reason can be assigned why he should
have hesitated to lay stress on it in this epistle. In the Church
at Philippi, circumstances had occurred which the Ignatian
idea of the Episcopate scarcely anticipated, and for which
it was unprepared. According to c. 11, Valens, who, as it

notes. 373
would appear, had occupied a high position in their midst, had
become a scandal in consequence of his improper conduct ; — he
had misused his office in a shameful manner. To have insisted
on the official rights of this president, would, therefore, have
been a very unseasonable thing; and, consequently, Polycarp
contents himself with the general exhortation, — which, though
so general, is somewhat Ignatian in tone, — " Be obedient to the
presbyters and deacons, as to God and Christ" (c. 5). For,
amongst the presbyters he includes also the president, whose
duty it was to act in their name, and whom Ignatius considered
to be the representative of the unity of the Church, not apart
from the presbytery, but as the logical carrying out of that
which appeared to him to be involved in the office of president.
I agree, therefore, with Neander and Gieseler, who see no suf
ficient reason whatever for denying the authorship of Polycarp ;
at the same time, I would remark, that he shows himself, as far
as knowledge is concerned, to have possessed rather a receptive
than a productive nature. He is well acquainted with the
Scriptures of the Old, and with many books of the New Testa
ment, but is, in the main, content with that which is directly
practical. Note GG, page 118.
Irenseus 3, 3. The Epistle of the Church of Smyrna to the
Churches in Pontus (whence Marcion sprung), may perhaps be
taken as an evidence that Polycarp was well known, and had
laboured in that country (compare Euseb. 4, 15). The epistle
contains embellishments ; other parts, however, are simple and
thoroughly credible — specially the words attributed to Poly
carp. So far as these bear upon Christology, they perfectly
agree with the Epistle of Polycarp. His martyrdom he terms
a participation in the cup of Christ; he designates God the
Father of Jesus Christ ; Jesus Christ Himself he styles irai?
Qeov dyairTjTO? Kal evXoyrjTo?, and alcovio? dpxiepew (compare
ad Philipp. 12). Through the Son, honour accrues to the
Father, together with the Son, in the Holy Spirit, to all eter
nity.— If his death took place in the year 167, he must have
lived long after Irenseus, and have died irdvv yrjpaXeo?; and if,
as Irenseus repeatedly alleges, he enjoyed intimate intercourse
with the Apostle John, the words of Eusebius (H. E. 4, 15),

374 appendix.
byBoriKoma Kal e£ err} BovXevco airw, koi ovBev pe riBUrjce, must
be understood of the time during which he was a Cliristian, and
not of his age : — indeed, the words in themselves require to be
taken in this sense. - The reading in Eusebius, which is the
older, does not run byBo^Kovra Kal ef err) eym BovXeitov. More
over, the sense just given is more suitable to the context, which
speaks of the long continuance of the kindness of Christ, than
the mention of his natural age, especially as his age had just been
referred to by the Proconsul, and it was now his duty to reply
.thereto. Polycarp had therefore reached an age not quite so
great as that of Simeon, or of some of the men who were healed
by Christ, and whom Quadratus speaks of as still Hving, Hi his
Apology; but merely, perhaps, the age of Pothinus, Bishop
of Lyons, who is said to have been sent thither by Polycarp.
The conclusion of the Epistle of the Church of "Smyrna, with
its pure views on the subject of martyrdom and the venera
tion due to martyrs, is peculiarly worthy of note : this passage,
Vy itself, is an undoubted indication of high antiquity. Now
,n the same passage we read, — " The Jews carefuUy observed
us when we fetched the remains of Polycarp out of the fire
(they supposed, namely, that the Christians would make it an
object of worship). They knew not that we could neither de
sert Christ, who died for, the salvation of the entire world of
the redeemed, nor worship another. For we worship Christ,
who was the Son of God ; but the martyrs we love and Honour
as disciples and imitators of Christ."
Note HH, page 120.
Compare Bouth's " Eeliquias Sacrse" i. 74. The Martyr-
ology attributed to Bede praises in him a feature of an anti-
Judaistic character: — "Firmavit, ut nulla esca a Christianis
repudiaretur, quse rationalis et humana est." To a similar in
tent speaks the author of the Epistle to Diognetus (c. 4). If
we are careful to note in the latter epistle, that the Jews are
represented as stiU sacrificing and as unswervingly adhering to
the religion of their fathers (c. 3, 4), and that the author styles
himself a disciple of the Apostles, we shaU be inclined to adopt
the supposition of its high antiquity. Beasons might be advanced
in favour of the authorship of Quadratus, who elsewhere also
is caUed a disciple of the Apostles. The philosophic and

NOTES. 375
rhetorical culture evinced in the epistle, its free and universal
point of view (c. 5, 6), and its ethical doctrine, especially of
evBaipovla, quite agree with that which we know of the man
from other sources. Both the tone and the spirit of the letter,
and the entire circle of thought, show that the author was a
man in whom Christianity had been engrafted on a noble philo
sophic culture. If this be true, the Epistle is an early and certain
Ulustration and proof of the fact, that even at the commence
ment of the second century the doctrine of the Logos was pretty
commonly held. And, actually, Justin's doctrine of the Logos,
as expounded in his Apologia (of the year 139), is already more
developed than that of the epistle in question. To assign the
epistle to a still earHer period, with some of the older writers
(for example, Gallandius) and with Mohler, appears to me un
warranted, because prior to Quadratus and Aristides we have
no traces of the union of Christianity with HeUenic (piXocro^ta.
But the question may undoubtedly be asked, — Whether the
work was not written at all events somewhat later than about
a.d. 130 ? In favour of a later date, may be urged, in particu
lar, that the author represents Mary as the second Eve (c. 12),
in the manner constantly adopted by Irenasus ; and his employ
ment of the expression j;vXov far)? Kal yvcoaew?. His concilia
tion of the claims of ^a>rj and of yv&ai? (c. 12), which betrays
a higher, freer point of view, would also suit a later portion of
the second century. Lastly too, the conclusion, in which the
candles for Easter (c. 12) are spoken of, points in the same di
rection. (It is useless, with the " Congregatio St Mauri" (the
Benedictines), to conjecture for mqpol xppol, or, with Sylburg,
Kaipol.) In such a case, the author must have designated him
self a disciple of the Apostles merely in the wider sense (c. 11) ;
and his judgment of Judaism would relate to its principle, which
was not renounced even after the universal exUe, not to the
actual condition of its Cultus. Even the question regarding the
novelty of Christianity, which the author answers so beautifully
in the manner of Paul and John, was constantly brought under
discussion at a much later period. It is true, these arguments
for the later coinposition of the work may aU be set aside by
adopting a particular division of the work. Semisch, Bohl, and
Otto take this course; Hefele also incHnes thereto (see his
"Patres Apostolici," ed. 2, 1842, lxi.). To me, however, the

376 .APPENDIX.
division does not appear to have a sufficient warrant ; on the
contrary, cc. 11, 12, seem to me to exhibit the same compass of
thought and Christian colouring as the rest, and first to bring
the epistle to an appropriate conclusion. The twelfth chapter,
it is true, is addressed to several others besides Diognetus ; but
what was there to hinder the author, who had styled himself a
teacher of the Gentiles (c. 11), from expecting or desiring that
Diognetus would not keep the epistle entirely to himself ? Be
tween his doctrine of yv&m? (c. 12) and that of irurri? (c. 8)
there is no contradiction ; as we shall see, if we only consider
that in c. 12 he expresses his desire for %wr) as well as yv&ci?,
and that by the latter he means not discursive knowledge,
but the knowledge of the b<f>0aXpol icapBia? (tJtco croi KapBia
yv&a-i? : KapBla is the subject of the sentence). I grant that
the arguments just mentioned, which would show ,the epistle to
have been written after 150, are not decisive ; and in favour of
an earlier date, one might further, in particular, urge, — that the
citations from Paul are free in character, after the manner of
Justin ; that the question of gnosis is handled so guilelessly,
and no notice taken of Gnosticism ; and that, further, the author
shows, in his cpnception of God, that he occupied a point of view
from which love appeared as the distinctively Christian charac
teristic of God, in opposition to mere power and justice. At
the time of Irenseus and Tertullian, on the contrary, nay, even
at the time of the eariier opponents of Marcion and others, the
Christian inteUect considered the task devolving upon it to be
the reverse one of asserting for justice also a place alongside of
love, as an attribute of the Most High God, and, so to speak, to
reproduce the former as stored up and included in the latter :
whereas the author of this epistle, like Ignatius, feels blessed
in, and devotes himself almost solely to, the contemplation of
the love of God. Finally, in favour of the earlier date may
especially be .adduced c. 11, — ' Airoo-ToXav yevopevo? pa0rjTr}?
yivopai BiBcurKaXo? e0v&v ; for such a division, at first sight,
reminds one in some measure of the earliest times. But even
at a later time such a division might have been employed with
perfect justice, and its use in the present instance is clearly
traceable to the individuality of the writer. It is undoubtedly
possible that, at a later time also, a peculiarly thoughtful man,
thoroughly and harmoniously cultivated, without taking part in

NOTES. 377
the conflicts of the age, or, at all events, without wishing to in
troduce his heathen disciple to the controversies then raging in
the Christian world, might have written this work. It breathes
an air of eternity ; it is marked by inner harmony and clear
ness : and precisely because it was so direct an expression of the
eternal element in Christianity, does it bear so few traces of
any particular period ; indeed, it might have found a home in
any age of the Church's history. But if the division of the
epistle above referred to be adopted, it must have been written
probably not long after the year 120. Otto's acute and pains
taking investigations have furnished strong reasons for agreeing
with some of the old manuscripts, which attribute the epistle
to Justin Martyr ; for my own part, however, I must confess
that the point of view seems to me higher, and the style nobler,
than that of Justin. But be its age what it may, caution wPuld
suggest the advisabiHty of employing the epistle at a later period,
in connection with a question so important as that of the age
of the Hellenic-Christian doctrine of the Logos. For the various
views on the subject, see Otto in Blgen's " Zeitschrift," 1841,
Heft 2, p. 80; and 1842, Heft 2, p. 54 f . ; further, his "de
Epist. ad Diognetum S. Justini Philos. et Martyris nomen pras
se ferente," Jena 1845. Note n, page 121.
This foUows from Hieron. Quasst. hebr. in Genesin : — Pleri-
que existimant, sicut in altercatione quoque Jasonis et Papisci
scriptum est, — in Hebrseo haberi, — In Filio fecit Deus ccelum
et terrain. (Even as Origen explains the apyfi in John i. 1
and Gen. i. 1, ed. de la Eue H. 52 ; iv. 17 ff., of the Divine
Wisdom.) Compare Eouth I.e. i. 91, 94. Of a doctrine of
the Logos taught by Aristo we know nothing : at the same
time, he belonged to the number of those who, in harmony with
the Old Testament, though without using the title Logos, de
veloped, during the first Half of the second century, momenta of
the doctrine, such as the pre-existence and the world-creating
power of the Son. Compare also Irenasus adv. hser. 2, 3.
Similarly Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 16, p. 815 ed. Potter.— The
account of apologies being presented to the Emperor Hadrian, in
the eighteenth year of his reign, by Apelles and Aristo, contained
in the Chron. Alex. (ed. Eader. 600), is probably based on a

378 APPENDIX.
misunderstaaHng of Eusebius. Fabricius supposes that Arista
of PeUa is the writer referred to.
Note JJ, page 121.
Compare Eouth I.e. i. 94. Theodotion and Aquila trans
lated Deut. xxi. 23 by XoiBopla Qeov; similarly also, the
Ebionites, according to Jerome, rendered it vfipi?. Both trans
lations efface the idea of punishment, of curse. Aristo did not
understand Hebrew. But that he was acquainted with the
Saptuagint, which gives a rendering of Deut. xxi. 23 more
favourable to his purposes (compare Gal. iii. 13), may be judged
from his explanation of Gen. i. 1 : — See the LXX. in loco.
Note KK, page 123.
As Irenasus, in his five books, felt conscious that he was set
ting forth the same Christian doctrine, about the year 180, that
he had heard in his youth, from Polycarp, during the first
twenty years of the first century (Ep. ad Florin. I.e. ; com
pare Flemmer's " de itineribus et rebus gestis Hadriani Imperat.
secundum nummorum et inscriptionum testim." Haun. 1836,
c. 3,' 9), and on which the various churches of the world were
agreed (L. 3, 1-4) ; so also Eusebius, who had before him
many old documents now no longer extant, makes frequent
allusions to the essential agreement in matters of faith between
his own and former times ; and such an agreement could, at
that period, relate to one subject alone, to wit, that of a. Christo
logy (H. E. 4, 5, 7, 14, 23). There exists, however, another
testimony with regard to the faith of the then Christendom,
dating from the time of Aristo, Quadratus, and Aristides, if not
from an earlier period, — the testimony, namely, of that unknown
old man, by whose means Justin Martyr was brought to Chris
tianity (Dial. c. Tryph. 3-7). That what Justin relates of this
old man is true, I regard as fully made out by Semisch (se6 I.e. i.
15 ff.) ; the same writer has also shown that Ephesus was most
probably the scene of the conversation (p. 21). Now, as Justin
presented an apology for the Christians as early as the year 139,
and was still a young man when converted, the conversation
most probably took place during the first twenty years of the
second century, if not earlier. But the old man, who is de
scribed as a iraXaib? irpeo-fivrri? (c. 3), unquestionably produces

notes. 379
the impression not merely of a highly cultivated mind, but also
of a ripened Christian ; so that what he says concerning Christ
must be regarded as the faith of Christians about the end of
the first, or the commencement of the second century. It is true
the old man enters so cordially and sympathetically into the
phUosophical ideas of the young man, and his intention from
the outset was so decided, merely to awaken doubts of his
phUosophemes, and to excite him to make a trial of the " friends
of Christ," that he says very little regarding the substance of
Christian doctrine. What he does say, however, is significant.
At the close of the third, and at the commencement of the
fourth chapter, the old man tries to show that, inasmuch as the
true evBaiuovia consists solely in the knowledge of God, and as
the spirit can know God alone through God, not through itself,
a twofold revelation is necessary. Firstly, an objective revela
tion ; because, as the only way in which we know anything at
all, so also the only way in which we can know God, is by
means of an external appearance — by something which shall
affect the sense of sight or of hearing. Secondly, a subjective
revelation in the Holy Spirit, because the pure alone is sus
ceptible to the Divine. All this is, as it were, a direct outcome ,
of the doctrinal type of John (compare John i. 18 ; 1 John i.
1 ff. ; John v. 37, 38). Both (c. 7, ed. Col. 109), in the con
viction of the old man, are given in Christianity, — that is, in
Christ the Son of God, who was announced by the prophets,
and sent by the Father : and in the Holy Spirit, through whom
God and His Christ vouchsafe knowledge to us, and open the
gates of light to him who prays. FooHsh and unintelHgible do
they seem (that is, Divine things and their revelation in Christ)
to all, whom God and His Christ do not make capable of under
standing them. Compare the close of the Epistola ad Diog-
netum 8, 4. — Who the old man was, cannot be shown. Fabri-
cius suggests Polycarp ; but this is not very probable. He was
evidently a man of large mind and phUosophical culture : but
stiU he seems to have been inferior to the author of the Epistle
to Diognetus, notwithstanding the many resemblances between
the situation of things and their fundamental ideas. The old
man also, as did Justin at a later period, stood in a relation to
prophecy, in which the other cannot be shown to have stood.

380 APPENDIX.
Note LL, page 123.
The following may be adduced as marks indicative of the time
when this work was written : — 1. One repentance (Vis. ii. 2, iii.
7 ; Mand. iv. 3 ; " Posnitentia una est, Pcenitentias justorum
habent fines"). All the weight falls on this one repentance:
over it is appointed an angel, as Prsepositus pcenitentias. Here
upon the question of adultery also is discussed. The idea of
marriage also indicates a later period (Vis. ii. 2 ; Mand. iv. 4).
2. With this is connected, in the second place, what is taught
regarding holy baptism. Even the pious in the nether world,
who stand in no need, of improvement, cannot attain to blessed
ness, until they have received through the Apostles the seal of
baptism (Simil. ix. 16). 3. The highest position is assigned to
martyrdom in Vis. iii. 1. 4. Christian piety has already created
a system of ascetical practices (" stationem habeo," Simil. v. 15).
5. The pastor everywhere raises his voice against the rigid forms
of the Church, which threatened to absorb the religious activity
of the rest of Christians in the functions of the presidents ; — in
one word, he sets his face against, ecclesiastical formaHsm. This
is especially clear from his relation to the presidents of the
Church, and from the view he takes of the tendency to give the
presidents so prominent a position in the cultus and constitu
tion. To the liturgical and episcopal representation of the
Church he opposes the ethical, and objects to a particular prin-
cipatus in the Church (Simil. viii. 8 ; Mand. xii. 2). The false
spirits wish to hold the first cathedra. In Vis. iii. 9 we read, —
" And to you who preside over the Church (that is, to the
bishops, according to Sim. ix. 27), and who love the first seats,
I say, Be not like poison-mixers." — It is true, pillars are set -up
in the vineyard of God, that is, presidents, who bind the people
together (Simil. v. 5) ; and the bishops, whose duty it was to be
a shadow to the people, had assumed, even in his day, the first
places (Simil. ix. 27 ; Vis. iii. 9, 5). Not, however, as bishops
are they incorporated with the ideal Church, which he beholds
in vision (Simil. ix. 27, 15) ; but some of the bishops alone are
the shadowing trees ; even as, on the other hand, such as are
not bishops occupy the same position. But the scornful attack
he makes on the cathedra is worthy of special remark. In the
third Vis. c. 11, we read, — " In the first instance, the Church

• NOTES. 381
appeared to Hermas as an old woman sitting on a cathedra : 
' because your spirit is old and already fading. Like old women,
who cannot renew themselves, and expect nothing but sleep ; so
have you surrendered yourselves to sloth, have not cast your
cares upon the Lord, etc' " But on the cathedra sat the woman,
" quoniam omnis infirmus super cathedram sedet, propter infir-
mitatem suam, ut contmeatur infirmitas ejus." (Compare Mand.
xv. 2.) The cathedra, therefore, is for such as are sleepy ; and
tends to rock persons to sleep. Weakness seeks in it a support ;
but that is unbelief : moreover, what is itself weak cannot
strengthen others. " Spiritus vester antiquior etiam marcidus
est, et non habens vim a vestris infirmitatibus et dubitatione
cordis." In the second Visio (Vis. iii. 12), the woman (the
Church) appears to him with a youthful countenance and joy
ous aspect ; and yet still old as to flesh and hair. The explana
tion thereof is, — " Her spirit is renewed, she has laid aside the
infirmitates, she is rejuvenated by repentance." But she never
attains a firm position, until she repents with all her heart.
Then he beholds her sitting, not on the cathedra, but " super
subsellium sedentem," that is the " fortis positio." He aims,
therefore, at asserting the equality of all ; relatively both to the
rich and to the dignitaries of the Church. Those who fight
about rank and dignities must submit themselves to repentance
(Sim. viH. 7). Such opposition of course presupposes experiences
which were impossible during the age of the Apostolic Fathers :
that which awakened the enthusiasm of Ignatius, — to wit, the
idea of the unity of the Church as an edifice, in which Apostles,
Bishops, Teachers, and Deacons fit into each other like stones
which fit into their proper places (Vis. iii. 5), — is not unknown
to him ; but he complain" that this organization of the constitu
tion threatens, where there is a lack of fit persons, to overthrow
the equality of Christians, and introduces " a false spHit," a
worldly element, into the Church (Mand. xH. 2). But in con
sequence of the predominance of the cathedra, and of aU ac
tivity being concentred in the bishop, the reHgious meetings
have a soporiferous character. Particular light is thrown on
his controversy against the representation of the Church through
the Episcopacy and the Hturgy, by his ideal of the Divine ser
vice of the Church (Mand. xi. 12). " The. main point is
to have the SpHit ; not the false spirit, but the Spirit from

382 APPENDIX
above. The spirit of man is earthly and trifling, speaks much
and yet has no power. The spHit from the earth speaks when
it wills.; but the true Spirit speaks when God wUls, and not when
man wUls. Accordingly, when a man who has the SpHit comes
into the assembly of the righteous, who beHeve in God, and
prayer is offered to God, the holy messenger of the Deity fills
that man with the Holy Spirit, and he speaks Hi the midst of
the multitude as God wUls." The author, therefore, seems to
wish to bring back the free mode of worship which obtained in
Corinth ; he desires no fixed order, neither as affecting speakers
nor the subject of discourse. The sudden operations of the
Spirit, that which is abrupt, alone inspires him with confidence.
Forms that have grown up historically are human, earthly;
God alone ought to speak in the Church. Both in this matter,
in his remarks on repentance adduced above, and in his idea of
the Church (Sim. ix. 18) and of marriage (Mand. iv. 4), but
especiaUy in his notion that all progress Hi knowledge must be
effected by means of visions, in an abrupt Montanistic form,' he
was a forerunner of Montanus. That he represents his instruc
tor as accustomed to appear to him. in the form of a shepherd
(whence the book derives its title), is probably due not to acci
dent, but to the afore-mentioned antagonism to the Episcopate.
Another point of affinity between him and Montanism is, that
the new elements communicated to him in his revelations are
principally of an ethical nature. Even the tendency of Simil.
iv. is ethical, — a point which must not be overlooked in interpret
ing it. In his ethics, it is true, he takes up a predominantly
negative, consequently legal, position relatively to the world.
The Shepherd attaches Httle importance to the reHgious ascetical
practices prescribed by the Church, and so far represents a
freer point of view (Sim. v. 3) ; but to an ethical asceticism
he continues to adhere, and that forms the substance of his
new revelations. — From the features just described, it is evi
dent, on the one hand, that the Shepherd of Hermas must be
dated prior to Montanism, of which, However, it was a f ore-
runner (compare similar features in other writers of this period,
Eiiseb. H. E. iv. 23) ; and, on the other hand, that it must
have been written after the organization of the Church had
acqvured, through the Episcopacy and other institutions, a
more compact form than it possessed at the time of Ignatius.

NOTES. 383
Many things which were still matters pf dispute Hi the days
of Ignatius, and needed some such energetical recommenda
tion as is contained in his epistles, seem to have already be
come actual facts at the time of the Shepherd. Experiences
of the lack of personal worth, and of dangers to the equality
of Christians, to the free movement of the spirit, and to true
and vital piety arising from the Episcopate, with which Igna
tius could surely not have been acquainted, seeing that with
perfect artlessness he takes no notice whatever of them, have
now become frequent. In general, indeed, the unity realized
through the development of ecclesiastical institutions, appeared to
many (for the Shepherd cannot be regarded as an isolated, phseno-
menon) to be of too formal a character, and led them to protest
against it in the name of the spirit of Christianity. Baur has
treated Hermas very imperfectly in his work on the Episco
pate (pp. 75 ff.). Of the above passages concerning the cathedra
and the first seat, he takes no notice ; He advances no further
than the passage from Vis. ii. 4, which he explains to mean
that Clement is placed in the class of the Seniores. This pas
sage, however, forms part of the dress of the epistle, which
required that cHcumstance's should be represented as they had
been some fifty years previously, especiaUy as Clement's name
was intended to secure for the epistle admission into the
Church. Besides, the shepherd himself would fain have seen
the earHer and simpler state of things restored. Further, the
passage does not at aU describe Clement merely as one of the
Seniores. He is specially mentioned along side of the Seniores,
and was, therefore, at the very least, as even Baur must allow,
regarded as primus inter pares. In no passage referring to
the cHcumstances of his own time does Hermas speak of Pres-
byteri or Seniores, as Baur appears to think, but of Episcopi,
Doctores, Ministri. We must, therefore, agree with Bouth
when he asserts (" EeHquise Sacrse" iv.,33), that he sees no
reason for contradicting the canon of Muratori (ib. p. 5), which
testifies, — " Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in
urbe Eoma Henna conscripsit, sedente (in) cathedra urbis
Eomas ecclesias Pio Episcopo fratre ejus" (compare also pseudo-
TertuUian in the Carm. adv. Marc). That a tendency akin
to Montanism made its appearance in Eome at a somewhat
later time, namely, about the third quarter of the second cen-

384 APPENDIX.
tury, is attested in other ways also. A decided reaction against
that tendency did not begin tiU the last quarter of the same
century. This is sadly inconsistent with the Hypothesis, which
I am more and more compeUed to regard as historicaUy un
tenable, that Ebionism predominated in Eome till towards the
middle of the second century ; for about the year 100, Clement,
who was there, was no Ebionite ; and Montanism likewise was
not Ebionitical in the matter of Christblogy, nor is its dis
tinctive character, in general, expressed by the term Ebion
ism. Montanism, on the contrary, maintained that Chris
tianity was a new thing in its every momentum ; and it did
not acquire a legal, that is, in point of principle, a Judaistic
character, until it began to exaggerate and stereotype this par
ticular aspect. Whereas national Judaism, — to wit, the in
sisting on the Mosaic law, on cHcumcision, on the eschatolo
gical hopes of Israel and the Hke, — which, regarded apart from
Christology, constituted Ebionism proper, were never charac
teristics of Montanism as such. Hermas himself, however,
to judge from the manner in which he speaks, was probably
a Jewish Christian. Judaizing elements may also be pointed
out in his work : amongst these may be specially reckoned the
value attached to good works, and, in general, to the law ;
besides such separate matters as, that Michael is the protect
ing angel of the Christians (SHnU. viH. 3) ; the great role played
altogether by the doctrine of angels ; the existence of a par
ticular penitential angel ; the exclusiveness which he enjoins
in relation to the " exterse gentes " (SimU. vni. 9). At the
same time, the Judaizing tendency evinced in the matters above
mentioned, is such as might arise within the Church itself in
any age whatever: in other words, the Judaistic elements in
Hermas are not a proper continuation of the national Judaism
of the Jews. On the contrary, the author intended to raise the
strongest possible opposition thereto : for example, Michael was
the first protecting angel of the Jews ; now he is represented as
the protecting angel of the Christians ; nor is the aim of the
Visions to enforce the laws of the Old Testament, but rather to
oppose to them a Christian legislation. StUl an antagonism of
such a character inevitably becomes partiaUy assimUated and fixed
to that to which it stands opposed ; and however decidedly the
breach may have been between these men and national Judaism,

NOTES. 385
they continued, as to principle, within the same sphere, namely
that of legality which, in the wider sense, may be described as
Judaizing. It would be exceedingly instructive to trace out
the course taken by the Church at this stadium of its oppo
sition to Judaism, playing as it did, against its own wUl, into
the hands of the principle to which it stood Hi antagonism.
It manifested itself, not merely in the ethical sphere, strictly
so termed, but also in the command to fast on the Sabbath,
in the order of festivals appointed for the Church, in the de
velopment of eschatology, and especiaUy of ChUiasm, Hi bap
tism as related to circumcision, and in the holy Eucharist,
which was described as a Christian service of sacrifice, and
as such was contrasted with the ante-Christian service. A
careful investigation of aU the aspects of this stadium, through
which it was historicaUy necessary for the Church to pass,
would serve the cause of science better than the confusion of
distinctions — the classing of Judaistic elements of this nature
under Ebionism — with the design, if possible, of deducing
from, or rather importing into, the history,. the conclusion,
that, during the earHest period of its existence, the Christian
Church was Ebionitical.
Note MM, page 127.
In view of the passages above adduced, it can only excite
astonishment to find Baur denying (see his " Trinitatslehre,"
vol. i. 136, note) that Hermas designates the Divine in Christ
by any other terms than irvevpa and irvevpa ayiov. Not to
the manifested Christ alone does Hermas give the name Son of
God, but he believes^ also Hi a pre-mundane Son of God, hypo-
staticaUy distinguished from the Father. And even supposing
he did designate this pre-mundane Son by the name Holy
Ghost (that he does not do so, is evident from what has been ad
vanced above ; for although he regards the Son also as a spirit,
he never calls the Son by the name Holy Spirit, but His
standing title is Son), the idea of this hypostatical Holy Spirit
would be identical with the Son of God recognised by the
Church. If the Holy Spirit constituted the personal element
in Christ— which Baur does not deny,— then his Christology
canno}; have been Ebionitical : — he cannot have been an Ebionite
of the vulgar sort, nor even of the Clementine order ; for, unlike
TOL. I. 2 B

386 APPENDIX.
the Ebionites, he regarded Christ as more than a mere prophet;
and, unhke the Clementine writings, Hermas represents his
Christ-Spmt as taking part in the creation, and is thus able to
bring Him into close proximity to God.
Note NN, page 127.
For this reason the most judicious inquirers have, with one
accord, pronounced it to be a failure. Compare Gieseler's
" Church History" i. 151, 152. That writer remarks,—" Ten
dencies of the most different nature were allowed to have their
way, so long as they left untouched the Divine and the human
Hi Christ, whose union was the condition of the redemptive and
exemplary character of the life of Jesus. Hence the Shepherd
of Hermas, notwithstanding the peculiarities of his Christology,
gave no offence." SchHemann (I.e. 421-426), who allows that
Hermas has an Ebionitical colouring in the matter of ethics,
pronounces him entirely free from such elements, in relation to
Christology. Meier also is of the same opinion (see his " Die
Lehre von der Trinitat" i. 47-49), though he considers that the
entire work of Hermas stands on the boundary-line separating
Judaism and Christianity. He is of opinion, indeed, that Simil.
5 by itself, if we disregard the circumstance that the Spirit is
termed Son of God merely parabolically, and rather take the
words as used doctrinally, discriminates hypostaticaUy between
God and Spirit, — which would be compatible with an Ebioniti
cal Christology ; for Christ might then be the av0pmiro? ^JriXb?
in whom, as in other men, the Holy Spirit dweUs, and who was
exalted in reward for His virtue. An incarnation would thus
be excluded. Still, this is not necessarily involved in the
hypostatical distinction drawn between God and Spirit, instead
of between Son and Spirit ; — a distinction whose existence
may be called Hi question. For, even if the Holy Spirit stood
in the same relation to the humanity of Christ as to other
men, "He might at the same time have stood in a personal
relation to another hypostasis ; and Hermas undoubtedly hints
at such a relation, as, for example, when he says, ' The Son of
God is older than all other creatures,' etc. Sim. 9, 12, etc."
Page 49, — "He teaches also the existence of a veritable incar
nation, when he says, * The old rock on which the tower of the
Church is built and the new gate— both alike are the Son of

NOTES. 387
God, because He who is older than the world will appear in the
completion of the days.' " A still more decided opinion against
not merely the Ebionism of the author, but also against the
assertion that he identifies the Son and the Holy Spirit, is ex
pressed by L. Wolff : see his " Ueber den Begriff geschichtUcher
Entwickelung des Dogma's, in Eudelbach's und Guericke's
Zeitschrift, 1842, i. pp. 57 ff. ;" compare also Eossel's review of
Baur's " Trinitatslehre," in the " Berliner Jahrbiicher," 1844,
Numbers 41-45, speciaUy pp. 337 ff.
Note 00, page 127.
Sim. 9, 12 : "Nemo intrabit in regnum Dei, nisi qui acceperit
nomen FUii Dei, qui est ei carissimus (who becomes a Christian,
not Christ, through baptism in His name). — Porta Filius Dei
est, qui solus est accessus ad Deum. — Petra et Porta FUius est."
The Eock is old, the Door is new ; for " Filius quidem Dei omni
creatura antiquior est, ita ut in consUio Patri suo adfuerit ad
condendam creaturam, Porta autem propterea nova est, quia in
consummatione, etc. ;" see note on page 127. — Vis. 2, 2 : " Ju-
ravit Dominus per Filium suum : qui denegaverit FiHum et se,
et ipsi denegaturi sunt Ulum in advenientibus diebus." — Sim.
9, 14 : " Nomen FUH Dei magnum et immensum est et totus ab
eo sustentatur orbis. Si ergo, inquam, omnis Dei creatura per
FiHum ejus sustentatur, cur non et eos sustinet, qui Hivitati
sunt ab eo, et nomen ejus ferunt, et in prasceptis ejus ambulant ?
Nonne etiam vides, inquit, quod sustinet eos, qui ex totis pras-
cordiis portant nomen ejus? Ipse igitur fundamentum est
eorum, et Hbenter portat eos, qui non negant nomen ejus, sed
libenter sustinent Ulum." Note PP, page 128.
Moreover, the fifth simiHtude shows how much pains Hermas
took to assign to the humanity of Christ an abiding significance.
How can a "body" be rewarded by being exalted to the rank
of Son of God, and put on a level with the Holy Spirit? One
might with much greater reason say, that Hermas approximates
to the view of the Adoptianists, who held that the humanity of
Christ participated in Sonship, not so much on the ground of
its connection with the Son of God, as because of its own holy
walk.

388

APPENDIX.

Note QQ, page 134.
Baur, Hi his comprehensive work on the History of the Doc
trine of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, treats the age of
the Apostolic Fathers altogether scantily, and dweUs but Httle
longer on Hermas, who, according to his notion, f may be re
garded as the most faithful representative of this Judaizing
tendency (of the entHe period of the ApostoUc Fathers)." In
his review of SchHemann's "Die Clementinen," in ZeUer's
"Jahrbiicher" (1844), however, he has considerably modified,
nay, even partially withdrawn from, this position. Hermas, he
maintains, teaches that the Holy Spirit alone was the higher
element, which constituted Christ the Son of God. For this
reason, he deems himself warranted in drawing the further con
clusion, that " others also, such as Barnabas and Clement, who
attributed, indeed, pre-existence and the creation of the world
to the Son, but without at all hinting at the idea of the Logos,
must be supposed to have shared the same view." Such a method
of proof seems to me to accomplish Httle. To constitute Hermas
the representative of aU the Apostolic Fathers, and to judge
the rest by him, is not an historical mode of procedure, and
distorts the many-featured image of this period. Further, to
maintain that, where the word Logos is absent, there is no longer
any trace of the idea, is to estimate the idea of the Logos rather
by forms of expression, than by substance. But when the Son
of God is identified with the Wisdom of Proverbs (Sim. ix. 12) ;
when, further, He is designated " InteUectus," " Gloria Dei"
(compare Clemens ad Cor. i. 37), "nomen Dei magnificum,
nuncius kot i%oyfp> ;" nay more, when a creative " Verbum" (as
in Heb. i. 3) is attributed to Him (Vis. iH. 1 ff.), — surely we may
affirm the existence of more than mere hints of the idea of the
Logos Hi Hermas. (Compare Note AA.) Indeed, it is alto
gether an abnormity to maintain that the discrimination of the
Holy Spirit, as a pre-existent subject, from God, took place at
an earHer stage than that of the higher nature of Christ. In
fact, the entHe course taken by the development of the doctrine
of the Trinity must be misapprehended, ere we can deny that
it continually derived its impulse from the doctrine of the Son
of God in Christ, until at last' the bpoovcria of the Son having
been estabUshed, that of the Spirit also was decided. The con

notes. 389
fusion produced by the hypothesis of Baur avenges itself also
on his own view ; for he is entirely unable to explain how it
was, that the Holy-SpHit, whose nature 'least urgently called
for hypostatization, was discriminated from God as a distinct
subject, or was even, as he supposes, designated Son of God,
prior to the Son, whose nature most urgently called for hyposta
tization ; and any explanation he attempts, substantiaUy throws
down what he had previously built up. He says, notwithstand
ing, again (pp. 135 ff.), — In order to understand why the Holy
Spirit was conceived to be a pre-existent subject, and Son of
God, we must go back to the human appearance of the Son of
God, from which this name was transferred to the Holy Spirit
(the question was not one of a mere name, but of the deter
mination of the Holy Spirit, as a personality distinct from God).
The Spirit is caUed the Son of God, " because He was from the
very beginning destined to appear as Son of God in a human
body." If this be the case, Hermas must unquestionably teach
that a Divine subject, pre-existent and distinct from God, had
become man, and that, on the ground of the complete correspond
ence which existed between the incarnate form of this Divine
subject and its own essential idea, it bore from the commence
ment the name Son of God: but what becomes then of the
Ebionitic element Hi the conception formed of the matter, with
the proof of the existence of which, Baur's entHe theory of
primitive Christianity stands or falls? The doctrine of the
Trinity must have been affected thereby ; yet even it would not
have been affected, unless the term " Holy Spirit" had denoted
the person taught by the Church, and were not merely the more
indefinite name for the Divine principle Hi general, which was
thus advanced from the category of mere power to that of
personahty. But no one could venture to call the Christology
therein involved, Judaistic or Ebionitical. — Even supposing,
however, there existed a greater or lesser party which first
defined the Holy Spirit to be a pre-existent hypostasis, dis
tinct from the Father (for the pre-existence must be taken into
the bargain), and then went on to distinguish between the
Logos and the Holy SpUit— it would not favour the hypo
thesis of the Church having been originaUy Ebionitical. For
the beHef in an incarnation of the Holy SpHit could no more
be termed Ebionitical, than that in an incarnation of the Logos.

390 APPENDIX.
The danger thus accruing would affect, not the doctrine of the
Divine in Christ, but merely, in the worst case, that of the in
dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church ; inasmuch as the
Holy SpHit would be represented as possessed in His totaHty
by Christ. Nor, indeed, would this be a necessary consequence :
for even the God-man is considered by the Church to stand Hi
a twofold relation to men — an objective relation, in that He is
outside of, and independent of men ; and a subjective relation, in
that He dwells in then- hearts. But however various may have
been the starting-points Hi the development of Christology, there
is no trace whatever of the existence of a party which taught the
doctrine of an hypostatical Holy Spirit, subsequently embodied
in the' creeds of the Church, prior td that of an hypostatical
Son of God, that is, of the Logos. In the apocryphal books
of the old Testament (especiaUy in the works of SHach), Word
and SpHit are still very, imperfectly distinguished ; but in the
irvevua of those books, no one wiU think of finding the " Holy
Spirit" of the baptismal formula. When Matthew and Luke
speak, Hi connection with the incarnation, not of the Logos, but
of the irvevpa dyiov, and derive the divinity of Christ from this
irvevpa alone, irvevpa must unquestionably be taken in the in
definite, comprehensive signification of the modern expression,
"the Divine in Christ:" — no one, therefore, ought to find in
it the Holy Ghost which now forms part of the doctrine of the
Trinity. This mode of speech is exactly paraUel to that of
Paul (Bom.- i. 3, ix. 5) ; and the more indefinite designation
could be, and alway was, employed along with the more defi
nite one ; — it might therefore have been usual, at a time when
the solemn expression Logos, or Son of God, was, the estab
lished designation of the Divine in Christ. Compare above, the
numerous passages from the writings of Ignatius, who held
Christ to be the eveocri? q-apKO? Kal irvevparo?, and along there
with teaches the pre-existence of the Logos. In Hke manner,
Barnabas terms Christ's body o-Kevo? irvevpaTo? (c. 7), notwith
standing his doctrine of the pre-existent Son of God (c. 5,12 ;
compare 1, Peter iH. 18); the Epistle to the Hebrews also
(ix. 14) says of Christ, — o? Bid irvevpaTo? alwviov eavTov
irpoo-qveyKev apapov t& Qew, notwithstanding the logological
opening (c i. 1-3), to which not even the expression ^,070?
to£5 Qeov, which is paraUel to that of the pre-existent vib?, is

notes. 391
stninge (compare c. iv. 12 ff.). Clement. Ep. H. 9, — Xpi-
oto? o Kvpio?, &v pev to irp&Tov irvevpa, iyeveTo adp^. Later
Fathers, also were in the habit of using the word in the same
broad sense ; — for example, TertuUian adv. Marc. Hi. 16, —
" Spiritus Creatoris, qui est Christus ;" Hi. 6 ; adv. Hermog. 18;
Apol. 21 ; de carne Christi 18, — " Sic denique homo cum Deo
dum caro hominis cum spiritu Dei :" further, Cyprian, de idol.
vanit. ed Basil. 1558, p. 122, where the more correct reading is,
" hie Hi Virgine labitur, carne Spiritus sanctus Hiduitur ;" which
the hand of a stranger, whose mind recurred to the Holy Ghost
of the Creeds, when he read the expression, " spiritus sanctus,"
converted into — " hie in Virginem illabitur, carnem Spiritu
sancto cooperante Hiduitur." We must rather take the more in
definite reading ; for in the " adv. Prax." 27 of TertuUian, the
Father also is designated " Spiritus."
It was of course necessary that the more indefinite expres
sion irvevpa, employed1 by Matthew and Luke, should, in the
course of time, be left behind, and a more definite one adopted.
To this the Christian mind was mainly impeUed by its convic
tion, that in Christ the Divine had dwelt hypostaticaUy, abidingly.
The effect thereof was, that instead of employing merely the com
prehensive term " Divine Spirit," which, although it marked the
true divinity of the essence of Christ, did not distinguish the
Son from the Father, who is also irvevpa, the Christian mind
proceeded to characterize and discriminate more carefully the
Divine in Christ from the Divine in the Father. To do so was
the more necessary, as the Divine in Christ, having been once1
recognised as hypostatical, must needs also be decided to have
been pre-existent. Not until the Divine in Christ had been more
carefuUy defined and characterized, could the second work be
undertaken, to wit, the discrimination of the Divine in the
Church, or the Holy Spirit. ,
This discrimination of the irvevpa in Christ from the irvevpa
of the Father (that is, from the Divine in general, not from the
Holy Ghost of the doctrine of the Trinity), which was requHed
also by the baptismal formula, found many points of connection in
such theologumena of the age as the rn|£ or Bb%a, the Shechinah,
the Memra, the doctrine of the Metatron and Adam Kadmon,
of the pr)pa and Xoyo? Qeov with the 2o<pia or Chochmah, on
the one hand ; and, on the other hand, in the HeUenic doctrine

392 APPENDIX
of the vow or Xoyo? (Eeason) : it was plainly initiated also by
apostolic expressions oraUy handed down, and by others con
tained in the canonical writings. For the purpose of distin
guishing more carefuUy the Divine in Christ, which he terms
irvevpa, from the Father, Paul makes use of the expression Son
of God, which he refers not merely f o the God-man, but also to
the Divine nature of the Son by itself (see above, page 73). At
the same time, he also applies to Him some of the above-men
tioned theologumena ; — for example, he calls Him the Second
Adam, the FHst-born of the creation, the eiKtov tov Qeov, the
Power and Wisdom of God (1 Cor. i. 24). As to the latter, he
resembles Luke, who, in the chief passage of his Gospel touch
ing the incarnation (Luke i. 35), speaks not merely of irvevpa
in general, but also of the Bvvapi? vyfrtaTov (on which expression
Acts viii. 10 throws an instructive light); and he represents
Christ also as styling Himself o-otpia (Luke xi. 49). This desig
nation of the pre-existent Divine essence of Christ by the name
" Son of God," may be taken as the typical one of primitive
Christianity ; for we find it also in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(c i.) ; and both the term povoyevrj? employed by John, which at
an early period came into general use (as is clear from Gnostic
writings, and from the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs),
and Paul's irpwTOTOKo?, belong to the same family. Those; on
the contrary, who adhered more positively to the Old Testament,
would more readily go back to the Shechinah, or the njnj "\2^,
for a designation of the higher nature of Christ in its distinction
from the Father. The latter we find in 1 Peter i. 24, compare
ii. 4 (whether we make prjpa or X070? Qeov out of it) ; in Apoc.
xix. 15, compare John i. 1 ff. ; in 1 John i. 1 ff. : — the former
in John i. 14, 0 X.070? — io-Ktqvooa'ev iv r\piv.
The early Church felt also that it was but more carefully
defining the indeterminate, when it understood the words of
Luke or Matthew — " The Holy Ghost will come upon thee ;"
" that which is born of thee, is of the Holy Ghost" — to refer
to a determinate Divine power (Bvvapi? vyjriarov, Luke i. 35) —
to the pre-existent, and from the Father hypostatically distinct,
Son of God, or to the Word — not, however, to the Holy Ghost
of the doctrine of the Trinity. Justin Martyr, in his Apologia
(i. 33), says, — to irvevpa Kal ttjv Bvvapiv ttjv irapd tov Qeov
(Luke i. 35 ; Matt. i. 20) oiBev dXXo vorjaai 0epi?, r) tov X070VJ

notes. 393
o? Kal irpeoTOTOKO? tu 0eo> io-Tiv. In an exactly similar way,
Tertullian (adv. Prax. 26, ed. Semler, 1828, ii. 197 ff.) remarks,
— " The Evangelist does not say, as Praxeas would lead us to
expect, ' Deus superveniet, et Altissimus obumbravit te,' but,
' spiritus Dei, virtus Altissimi.' Portionem totius intelligi voluit,
quse cessura erat in filii nomen." And he concludes, — "hie
spiritus Dei idem erit Sermo. Sic enim, Johanne dicente, —
' Sermo caro f actus est,' spiritum quoque intelligimus in mentione
sermonis ; ita et hie Sermohem quoque agnoscimus in nomine
Spiritus. Nam et spiritus substantia est Sermonis, et sermo
operatio spiritus, et duo unum sunt." That Tertullian did not
hold the " spiritus" whose " operatio" is the " Sermo," to be the
Trinitarian Holy Spirit, is undeniable. We see, accordingly, that
the adopted mode of conciHating the irvevpa dyiov of Matt. i.
20 and Luke i. 35 with the Trinitarian irvevpa dyiov of Matt.
xxviii. 19, was the just one of taking irvevpa dr/iov, in its first
usage, as a more indefinite designation of the Divine nature
of Christ, which continued to be employed even after the
more definite name had been set apart for the purpose : an ex
ample thereof is John iii. 34. In addition to the above examples
of the freer use of irvevpa, we may further adduce Theophilus of
Antioch and Athenagoras, out of the second century ; both of
whom prove that at that time the irvevpa spoken of in connec
tion with the incarnation, was not considered to be identical with
the irvevpa of the doctrine of the Trinity. Theophilus says, —
The Word was the Father's helper at the creation of the world ;
He is the dpyf\, irvevpa Qeov, o-o<pla, Bvvapi? vyjrlo-Tov, and entered
into the prophets (ad Autolyc. L. ii. p. 88, ed. Col. 1686). But
Athenagoras says, — Father and Son interpenetrate each other,
in virtue of the unity and power of their spirit : — by Spirit
must, in this case again, be understood the common Divine
essence. In like manner, Irenseus designates the Divine in
Christ, " spiritum Patris," L. v. 1 — " effundente Spiritum Patris
in adunitionem et -communionem Dei et hominis, ad homines
quidem deponente Deum per Spiritum, ad Deum autem rursus
imponente hominem per suam incarnationeiri." § 2, Christ's ap
pearance was not docetical, el prj &v dv0p<oiro? i<paiveTO av0pa-
iro?, ovre, b r)v iir dXr)0ela?, epeive, irvevpa Qeov, iirel dopanv
to irvevpa, ovre dXrj0eid ti? ?\v iv avT&, ov ydp r)v eKeiva, direp
icpalvero. In § 3 express reference is made to Luke i. 35, and

394 APPENDIX.
the " SpHitus Sanctus" is regarded as the " Virtus Altissimi," the
"Filius Dei," the " Verbum." Athanasius ad Serap. i. 980, c.
Apoll. i. 8 ; Greg. Naz. or. 42, 19. Hilary employs the term
" Spiritus," with special frequency, for " Verbum ;" for which
he assigns the reason (" de Trinit." 8, 25), that aU the three,
both Father and Son also, are spirit. For other passages per
tinent to this matter, see Geo. Bull's "Defensio Fidei Nic" 1,
2, 5, ed. Grabe, p. 19 ; and the introduction to the Opp. Hilarii,
ed. Maur. pp. xviii. ff. § 57 ff.
But even though it should be true that irvevpa, as used in con
nection with the bHth of Christ (Matt. i. 20 ; Luke i. 35), was a
mere predicate of the Logos, it does not therefore follow that early •
traces of the proper Trinitarian use of irvevpia are not also to be
found. Even in the baptismal formula of Matt, xxviii. 19, 20,
the expression irvevpa arfiov is used quite differently, in a specific
and narrower sense ; for it is distinguished from, and co-ordi
nated with, the Father and the Son. Nor has there ever been
a time, when the Church did not feel, both that it was a par
taker of the Divine Spirit, and that the participation of believers
in the Spirit was different from that of Christ. Hence, at an
early period, both in the Canon and in the Church, the Holy
Spirit, in the narrower sense, was regarded as the principle of
the subjective appropriation of Christianity. Now, so soon as
the irvevpa dyiov, in the Trinitarian sense, was somewhat more
clearly defined, it was necessarily conceived to be most intimately
related to Christ, — firstly, in so far as it proceeded from Christ ;
secondly, in so far as it exerted an influence on the Person of
Christ, as upon all human subjects. He it is who sends the
irvevpa, the power from on high (Luke xxiv. 49 ; Acts i. 8 ;
John xiv. xv. xvi.) ; and in this aspect, Christ is the original
seat and source of the irvevpui dyiov, the centre of jinity of the
Seven Spirits, and so forth ; as He is designated, not only by
Hermas, but also by Irenasus (irrjyri tov irvevpaTo?, Iren. Fragm.
p. 346, ed, Massuet.). SimUar terms are made use of by Ter
tullian. This mode of regarding the irvevpui dyiov, which is
based on John iii. 34, vii. 39, xx. 22 — " The Spirit was not yet
given, for -Christ was not yet glorified," — whilst it very clearly
establishes the divinity of the irvevpui which is communicated to
believers, necessarily leaves the question of its hypostasis com
paratively out of sight ; indeed, in general, it touches solely on

notes 395
the ceconomic aspect of the matter. But this view, according
to which ( the irvevpa is simply the power sent by the exalted
Lord, streaming forth from Him, in whom its absolute fulness
had found a centre and resting-place (compare the Gospel of
the Nazarenes), was immediately supplemented by the opposite
view, according to which, this same irvevpa was not merely an
emanation of the Son of God, but was one of the constitutive
principles of His human personality, and. exercised an influence
upon it. Such a supplementing was above all suggested by the
account of the baptism of Jesus, which represents a connection
as established between the irvevpa dyiov and the already existent
personahty of Jesus. John (i. 29 ff.) and the Synoptics agree
entirely on this point. The notion thereof originally entertained,
seems to Have been the following: — Although Christ was the
Son of God by birth out of the holy nature of God Himself, yet,
for His official activity,— that is, for His mission to baptize with
fire and the Spirit, — the union between Himself and that SpHit,
which, at the proper time, He would have to communicate to
believers, was first accomplished when He was Himself bap
tized. A place having thus been left for the Holy Ghost along
side of the indweUing Son of God, nay more, the complete
preparation of the humanity of Christ for its office being attri
buted to Him, the idea that the Holy Spirit took part along
with the pre-existent Son in the work of incarnation could easily
suggest itself; — and this we have found to be certainly the case
with Irenasus and others ; probably also with Hermas, if the
explanation attempted above be correct. Thence arose the temp
tation to refer the word irvevpa used by Matthew and Luke to
this activity of the Trinitarian Holy Spirit, — a temptation to
which later writers .frequently yielded. Against such a refer
ence, however, Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Ter
tullian, justly protested, when the body of Christ was repre
sented as the work of the Holy SpHit or of the Father ; whereas
the Logos must Himself have formed His own body out of
Mary. Compare Augustin. c. Maximin. L. 2, 17. § 2.
The initiatory, indefinite designation of the Divine nature of
the Logos (irvevpui, irvevpui Qeov) having thus been exchanged
for one more definite, the irvevpa of the doctrine of the Trinity
ceased to be applied to the Son. This was, on the whole, the
course taken in the matter by the Church, as we learn from the

396 APPENDIX.
works of the Apostolic Fathers and of the Apologists. Such a
course was natural, and is attested by the passages above ad
duced; whereas, to suppose that the irvevpa dyiov was first
conceived to be pre-existent and hypostatical, and that after
wards followed the discrimination of the Logos, is an incom
prehensible vo-Tepov irpbrepov, utterly unsustained by historical
evidence. We by no means intend to assert, however, that all
actually advanced in the way indicated, from the indeterminate
irvevpa of Matt. i. 20 (compare also Eom. i. 3) to the more de
terminate designation of the Divine in Christ, by means of the
doctrine of the pre-existent Son or Logos. Some, on the con
trary, contented themselves with the more indefinite designation
of the Divine in Christ : — the consequence thereof was, that they
had no place for that idea of the Trinity, the general outHne of
which had been furnished to the Church even by the formula
of baptism, and that a gulf arose between them and the rest of
the Church in the matter of doctrine, Montanists not even ex
cepted. These were the proper Ebionites, of whom the Naza
renes alone seem in part to have arrived at the idea of an
hypostatical existence of the Divine Spirit in Christ (thus tran
scending Ebionism); although, as they did not recognise the
pre-existence of this hyppstasis, it necessarily bore a vague,
indeterminate character. The other Ebionites, on the contrary,
sank gradually beneath the point of view of Matt. i. 20 (compare
Luke i. 35) ; for they came to look upon the higher element in
Christ as a mere divine influence, similar to that which worked
in the prophets, or as a higher created spirit, which either united
itself with Christ at an earlier or a later period, or manifested
itself docetically in Him. On this view, also, it was possible to
say, quite naturally, that a " spiritus sanctus " had appeared in
Christ. The Elkesaites, for example, were able to speak thus ;
at all events there was no great difference of opinion when they
taught the existence of a Bvvapi? KeKpvppevr), 'ps p^J], which ap
peared in Christ. Even Lactantius describes the incarnation
as follows (Instit. iv. 12) : " descendens itaque de coslo sanctus
ille Spiritus, sanctam virginem, cujus utero se insinuaret, elegit."
(For further details, see below.)
This is the proper place to add a word, by way of conclusion,
on the subject of Montanism. In the first place, ?it is necessary
to draw a much more precise distinction between the earUer and

notes. 397
the later form of Montanism than is drawn by Schwegler.
Montanism was preceded by a widely diffused sickly condition :
when it accidentally broke out in Phrygia, it proved, indeed, to
be of an infectious nature, but at the same time assumed many
different forms, as is found to be the case also with physical
diseases. The disease which made its appearance under the
form of Montanism was primarily of a practical kind. ' There
was no desire to make any change in the faith of the Church ;
there was no inclination to speculation (compare Gieseler i.
197); nay more, Montanists were most violent opponents of
Gnosticism, both as a form and as a system of knowledge. Nor
did they evince any disposition to attain to theosophic know
ledge by means of ecstasies. At first they were animated merely
by very intense religious feelings, hostile to the present world
and its arrangements ; and these feelings were heightened by
chUiastic expectations. They felt themselves endowed with
the power to inaugurate a practical reformation, and endea
voured, in the name of God, to reduce their negative ideal of
the world to reaHty. They believed, it is true, that the new
Jerusalem would suddenly descend from heaven, and that it
cannot be buUt up by men ; but at the same time deemed it
necessary that the world should, even now, be judged and
weighed by the irvevpuvriKoi, in accordance with that abrupt
ideal, — that is, that it should be treated negatively. The spark
thus thrown out, falling into the chiliastic expectatibns of the
Church, and the legal spirit now afresh growing up, kindled a
fire which speedUy spread in aU directions. The older Mon
tanists laid theH hands on the dogmas of the Church for the
first time in Asia Minor, when the prophetic utterances of
Montanus began to be grossly overvalued either by himself or by
his companions, — probably, therefore, after they had met with
opposition, especially from the bishops : in the next place, in
Africa, where Tertullian professed to have derived revelations
on dogmatical subjects, specially on the Trinity, from Montan-
istic prophetesses. In the first case, with a view to exalting as
much as possible the new Montanistic period, they represented
it as the inauguration of the masculine age of the Holy Spirit.
Whether it be a mere fiction of theH opponents or not, that the
Montanists denied the presence of the Holy Spirit even in the
Apostles, much more in the world, prior to their time, this much

398 appendix.
is certain, that they considered the Paraclete never to have been
truly revealed prior to Montanus : according to Tertullian, the
Church was not ripe for this revelation till it had entered on its
mascuHne age. If now Montanism implicitly reproached the
Church with hitherto possessing too little of the Holy Ghost, it
is evident that, dogmatically viewed, the charge implies, that
however much the Church might have spoken concerning the
Son, or the Logos, and the Father, the doctrine of the Holy
SpHit had been hitherto kept in the background. In this aspect,
therefore, Montanus is a striking proof of the baselessness of the
theory, that the Church knew of the Holy Spirit alone prior to
Montanus. For then he would not have needed to raise com
plaints, but merely to quicken the desire for the Holy Spirit, in
whom, according to the teaching of the Church, on the supposi
tion that it was Ebionitical, every man may participate, even as
Christ Himself participated. On the contrary, his complaints,
and what he says of the Paraclete, so far as they have a dog
matical bearing, have not their full meaning, except on the sup
position that the Church of his day, although it acknowledged,
indeed, that the Divine was concentrated in Christ as the incar
nate Logos and Son of God, had discriminated more clearly
the Son from the Father, than the Holy Spirit from Father
and Son, and had not fully apprehended the novelty of its
'principle. Montanism thus becomes an indHect witness to the
earlier prevalence of the doctrine of the deity of the Son. As
regards the form assumed by Montanism in Africa, little can
be said for the originality claimed by it in relation to questions
of dogma. It has been already remarked by others (Gieseler's
" Church History " i. 197), that the description of these pro
phetesses presents many points of simUarity with our magnetic
clairvoyantes. , Now, as it is a constant characteristic of these
latter to be, on the one hand, quite destitute of originality in
spiritual and divine things, and yet, on the other hand, to be
most keenly susceptible of the ideas of those with whom they
are en rapport; so, reasoning by analogy, we may conclude
that the utterance of the speculative doctrine of the Trinity by
Tertullian's prophetesses, instead of being a proof of its novelty,
was rather a proof that similar ideas were already floating
in the mind of the Church, on which such phsenomena had
been ingrafted. Be this, however, as it may, it is certain

notes. 399
that TertuUian taught substantially the same doctrine of the
Trinity, in works written prior to his becoming a follower of
Montanus. Nay more, he himself felt conscious thereof, and
therefore treated the Montanist prophecies rather as a con
firmation of the doctrine of the Church (adv. Prax. 2, 8, 13;
de resurr. earn. 63). — The cHcumstance (Epiph. hasr. 49, 1)
that Christ appeared to the prophetess Priscilla or QuintiUa in
the form of a woman, cannot fairly be taken as an evidence
that Christ was conceived as the Euach Jehovah, and that the
doctrine of the Word, or of the Divine Wisdom, was not known.
We might rather suppose, as in the case of the Shepherd of
Hermas, that Christ appeared in the form of the Church, which,
because the Holy Spirit had not yet found its full and proper re
velation, was still conceived to be included in Him. The words
of Epiphanius, however, more readily suggest an entirely differ
ent explanation. Christ appeared to the prophetess as Wisdom
(crofyla, feminine) ; for, to communicate wisdom was the end
and aim of revelation. She says, iv IBea yvvawb? ia^paTia-
(ievo? iv o-ToXfj Xapirpa r)X0e irpo? pe XpiaTo?, Kal iveftaXev iv
ipol ttjv o-o$iav, etc. Nothing, whatever is said, in this connec
tion, Regarding the irvevpa. So that this proof, also, of the pro
fessed Ebionitical character of primitive Christianity becomes a
proof to the contrary. Note EB, page 137.
Inasmuch as he explained Paradise to be the Church, he
must have regarded the Church as the perfection of humanity,
as the realization of its archetype. Still, as in another passage,
probably also belonging to his book (in Irenasus 5, 36), he
gives to the "many mansions of the Father's house" (John
xiv. 2) the meaning, — either into heaven, or into Paradise, or
into the city of God, will every one come, according as he has
borne an hundred-fold, or sixty-fold, or thirty-fold fruit ; and
well will it be to live in Paradise, — he designated by this title,
not the Church of the present, but of the future, or the last
age; intending thus, also, to indicate the original innocence
of humanity (compare the fragment of Papias amongst the
SchoHa of Maximus on Dionysius Areopagita in Eouth I.e. 8),
and especially the re-establishment of concord between it and
nature, now that it has become the Church.

400 appendix.
Note SS, page 137.
Iren. 5, 36, 2. After what has been advanced above, it
would be perfectly unwarrantable to count Papias, in a Christo
logical respect, amongst Ebionites. Whether he was an Ebionite
in the matter of eschatology, shall be discussed further on. For
the present, I must content myself with calling attention to the
fact, that his style is not Judaized, but rather evinces skHl and
culture in the use of Hellenic expressions. His view of the
guilt of the angels on account of the evils of the world, the
government of which was entrusted to them (Eouth I.e. 14,
from Andreas of Cassarea), is shared also by Church Fathers
of a more Hellenizing tendency. That he was acquainted with
the doctrine of the Logos, is certain ; that he had himself appro
priated that doctrine, appears to me probable, because the pas
sage in Irenseus 5, 36, quotes an utterance of Christ, as having
been handed down by the presbyters, the disciples of the
Apostles, who were very likely the presbyters mentioned by
Papias, with the words, " quemadmodum Verbum ejus (sc.Dei)
ait." But, even supposing this passage were not from Papias,
it would be valuable as a testimony on the part of Irenasus,
who undoubtedly derived his information from old sources, that
the disciples of the Apostles had a doctrine of the Logos and of
the Trinity. The presbyters mentioned by Irenasus Ha iv. 8, v.
17 (Edit. Grabe), however, I think, were of a later period, on
the ground of their more developed Christological views. See
below. Note TT, page 139.
This is the passage on which is based the opinion that Hege
sippus was an Ebionite as to his doctrine of the law. No other
is now extant. Eusebius, however, who was acquainted with
his work — it was known even to Stephanus Gobarus — reckons
him amongst the champions of the truth (yireppd^pv? Tr)? dXr)-
6ela?, Euseb. 4, 7; compare 8), amongst the teachers of the
Church (4, 21), along with Dionysius of Corinth, Pinytus,
ApolHnaris, Melito, Irenseus ; and remarks concerning all
these, Hegesippus included, that the 6p0oBo^ia of the apostoUc
Kf)pvypa, and of sound faith (4, 8, 21), had been laid down by
them in writings. To any one who knows how Eusebius speaks

NOTES. 401
of Ebionites, it must after this appear impossible that Hege-
sjppus should have been an Ebionite. Similar evidence might
also be adduced from Jerome.
The entire endeavour to represent the Church, in the earliest
years of its existence, as Ebionitical, is not new, for the Socinians
had already done the same thing; and most of the arguments ad
duced by recent writers are a mere repetition of those employed by
the Socinians. Compare the controversy between Dan. Zwicker
and George Bull, and the latter's " Primitiva et Apostolica Tra-
ditio dogm. de J. Ch. divinitate," Lond. 1705, C. 3, pp. 12-18
Note UU, page 140.
Eus. 4, 22. "Eti Be 6 avrb? (after having spoken of sects
within the Church) Kal Ta? irdXai yeyevvpeva? irapd 'IovSaioi?
aipeaei? icrropei Xeycev fyaav Be yv&pai Bid<popoi iv ttj irepiTopfj
iv viol? Icrpar/X t&v Kara tt)? (fivXrj? 'IovBa Kal tov XpicrTov
aiiTai' 'Eo~craloi, TdXiXaioi, ' HpepofiairTicrTal, Maa{3to0aioi, %a-
aapevrai, XaBBovKaiai, $apicraioi. It has also been regarded as
a sign of his Ebionism, that he does not mention the Ebionites
amongst heretics. That he does not mention Ebion, will not be
made a ground of suspicion against him; but Cerinthus was in Asia
Minor (see Note VV). Karpocrates, however, he has mentioned
(Euseb. 4, 22). Furthermore, if, as Baur and others maintain,
Ebionism was most intimately connected with, and grew out of,
Essasism ; if, further, Hegesippus mentions the Essenes (4, 22)
first of all, in his enumeration of antichristian Jewish sects, and
constantly directs attention to the fact, that the poison of false
doctrine was introduced into the Church from the Jewish sects ;
how is it possible at the same time to assert that he approved of
Ebionism ?
Note W, page 140.'
This is the place to notice what Hegesippus says regarding
the* virginity of the Church. Eusebius mentions it in two pas
sages (Euseb. 4, 22, and 3, 32). " After the death of James
(post Christum 69), Tebuthis, who sprang from Jewish sects,
began secretly, under Simeon, to corrupt the Church, which
had" hitherto been a virgin." In the other passage (3, 32) we
read-—" After the death of the Apostles (that is, about a.d. 100),
the sects, which had heretofore remained secret and in the back-
VOL. 1. 2C

402 APPENDIX.
ground, broke openly out ;" here, also, he says again, that the
Church, up to that time, had been an unspotted virgin. From
which Baur draws the conclusion, that, prior to the end of the
first century, there were no traces of Gnosis ; — in support of his
conclusion, quoting a passage froni Clemens Alexandrinus, who
(with the purpose of showing heretics to be latecomers, Strom.
7) puts them into the time of Hadrian. This latter passage
needs no refutation. It appears to me to be an arbitrary mode
of procedure to appeal, as Baur does, to 3, 32 alone : others also
have condemned it.' Compare Vatke's review of Baur's work,
" Der Ursprung des Episkopates," in the " Jahrbiicher fur wis-
senschaftliche Kritik," 1839, pp. 9 ff. ' But as far as regards
Hegesippus, the two passages referred to contradict each other,
if he represents the Apostles as having died subsequently to
James the Just; and that he does so is undeniable, for he had
just before been speaking of the time of Trajan and the death
of Simeon, and had referred to that time the unmasked and
public appearance of the sects. Now, how could Hegesippus
call the Church an unspotted virgin, in one passage, till about
the year 100, and in the other, merely tUl the year 69 ? Hege
sippus himself furnishes an explanation, and solves the contra
diction. He does not deny in 3, 32 what he had said in 4, 22, —
namely, that a secret corruption of doctrine had begun far ear-
Uer (ap%eTaiTel3ov0i? — viro<f>0eipeiv), — but repeats it much more
strongly in 3, 32. He does, however, change his point of view :
in the one case, looking rather at the inner condition, he terms
the poison of false doctrine, which had already secretly crept in,
a spotting of the virgin Church ; in the other case, looking
rather at the open appearance, he considers the time during
which the sects were stUl forced to remain secret, as a time of
vHginity, in comparison with a later period, dating from the
end of the century j when the unity of the Church was, even
outwardly, endangered. Besides, as Vatke also has justly re
marked (1. c p. 12), it must not be forgotten, that, for the
earlier time, the horizon of Hegesippus was principally bounded
by the Jewish Christians of Palestine ; and that, therefore, we
have no right to deny the existence of false teachers in other
parts of the Church, — for example, in Asia Minor or in the
European Churches, — prior to the year 69. The context indi
cates that the expression, Bid tovto iKaXovv Tr)v eKKXr)o~iav irap-

NOTES. 403
0evov (Euseb. 4, 22), refers to Jerusalem ; and it is only the
other passage, which marks a stadium when heresies, long actu
ally existent, were on the point of becoming schisms, that can
be referred to the Church in general ; for it speaks of the de
parture of the entHe body of the Apostles.
Note WW, page 141.
The book is, it is true, here termed iravdpero? 2o<j>la ; but
simply because it is a revelation, a self-representation of the
Wisdom which pre-existed with God — which same Wisdom then
appeared Hi Christ, as personal wisdom (compare Clem, ad Cor.
i. 57, ell. 36). But very noteworthy is, further, the hint given
by Eusebius in the above-mentioned passage. We find, namely,
that about this time, Christian teachers undoubtedly went back
frequently to " Wisdom " for a designation of the higher element
. in Christ. Compare, for example, the present passage, and,
besides it, Hermas (Simil. 9, 12, compare Prov. vHi. ; and per
haps Simil. 5, 6). So also the Montanists (Epiphan. 49, 1).
By conceiving the Wisdom of the Old Testament, as having
personally appeared in Christ, not only was a bridge secured to
the Hellenic doctrine of the Logos, in which the idea of Eeason
dominates over that of " Word," but essentially the same idea
was arrived at. Indeed, Fathers who held the doctrine of the
Logos put the doctrine of the Divine Wisdom on exactly the same
footing with it; and concerning the milder Ebionites, for example,
who did not deny the birth of Christ from a virgin, through the
Holy Ghost, Eusebius (3, 27) says, that they nevertheless fell
into the godlessness of the strict Ebionites, because they did not
believe in the pre-existence of Christ as ^,070? and o-o(f>ia. Ac
cording to the judgment of Eusebius, therefore, Hegesippus
must be declared not to have belonged even to the milder class
of, Ebionites. He, with Hermas and others who were still
known to Eusebius, is rather a proof that even men whose cul
ture had been mainly of the Old Testament kind, connected the
theologumenon of croipia with the creative Word, prjpa, which
primarily represented the realistic aspect of Bvvapi?. In this
way the essential momenta of the as yet indeterminate expres
sion, Son of God, were so analyzed and evolved, as that faith
recognised again that higher element in Christ which it had
aimed at characterizing by the name. These momenta were

404 APPENDIX.
three ; and an inner necessity governed and ordered the pro
gress from the one to the other. In the first place, under the
influence especially of the eschatological belief, that absolute
ness would pertain to the Son at the end of the days, the Church
went back to the commencement, or the pre-existence ; an un
derstanding of this doctrine of the New Testament was thus
arrived at, and it became the common property of the Church.
In the second place, therewith was dHectly connected the idea
of His participation in the creation of the world, as the " Word
of Power," pfjpa, Xoyo? (compare also Memra ; Clem. Ep. i.
36, 16 ; Barn. v. 12 ; Herm. Sim. ix. 12 ; the presbyters in
Irenasus v. 36). Thus was the principle of the second creation
combined with that of the first (Barnab. 6), for example, by
Clement, Barnabas, and Hermas. Thirdly, and till about the
year 150, was added the ^ Wisdom of God." The momenta of
the idea of the Son of God were now for the first time more
fully unfolded. The starting-point of the Hellenic thinkers was
not Being, the real (the Creative Word), as was that of those
who still kept up theH connection with the Old Testament reve
lation, but Thought, vow evvoia ; and such was at first the signi
ficance of the Hellenic doctrine of the Logos (see below, Gnosis).
But the task of the predominantly Hellenic tendency was to
effect the passage from Thought to Being: this passage Hel
lenic thinkers gradually effected by learning ever more closely to
associate vow and reality, and to identify the Divine Eeason with
the pre-existent creative Word. Thus, that with which the real
istic, Hebrew development started, formed the second stadium
in the Hellenic development : both, however, evolved essentially
the same momenta, and consequently met and united in the
word pfjpa, which is at the same time n>??P> or in Eeason, which
is at the same time Creative Word ; — in other words, they united
in the later doctrine of the Logos, the difference between which
and that of the New Testament, especiaUy of John i. 4, is of
the same nature as the difference between an image arrived at by
reflection on, and the union of, its individual momenta, and that
image which is the source of the impulse, and which, being im
mediate, has the advantage of presenting the intuition of the
totality of its object, in undivided fulness, simplicity, and purity.
Until the individual momenta which were combined in the later
doctrine of the Logos had been arrived at by these two main

NOTES. 405
lines, frequent use might be made, both by heretics and Church
teachers, of such expressions as X070? Qeov ; but the different
parties would employ them in very different senses.
Note XX, page 142.
Herewith is given the right point of view for understanding
the words, handed down to us by Photius after Stephanus Go-
barus (see Phot. Bibl. 232, 13, Eothomagi 1653, p. 894), and
which Baur asserts to have been directed against Paul. " To
say, ' Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, etc., the treasures
laid up in store for the righteous,' is foolish; and those who use
such language He against the Divine Scriptures, and against the
Lord, who says, ' Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your
ears, for they hear, etc' " Stephanus, who had the work of
Hegesippus before him, and quotes a passage from the fifth
book, expresses himself at a loss to explain why he displayed
so much passion (ovk oZS' o,ti Kal ira0d>v — Tavra Xeyei) ; for us,
naturally, quoted as they are abruptly and out of all connection,
they are still more difficult of explanation. Some recent writers
suppose themselves to have the key in the assumption that
Hegesippus was Anti-Pauline, and that he thus gave expression
to his antipathy to Paul's more spiritual tendency. But this
opinion is utterly devoid of support, and an absolutely worthless
combination. We find the words, it is true, in Paul (1 Cor. ii. 9) ;
but, according to the testimony of Origen (horn. ult. in Matt.
xxvH. 9), they were also found in the Apocalyps. EHas (compare
SchHemann, p. 450). The following consideration, however, is
still more important : — the largest and most essential part of the
words are quoted by Paul himself from Isa. lxiv. 3. From this
we may with certainty conclude, that Hegesippus cannot have
meant to describe the words in themselves, as a paTyv elpnpevov,
or as even a lie against the Divine Scriptures ; for they are con
tained both in the Old and New Testaments. He must, there
fore, have had in view a particular application of them. Now
this application cannot Have been that of Paul in his Epistle to
the Corinthians ; for it clashes neither with the words of the
Lord referred to by Hegesippus — being, on the contrary, most
intimately connected therewith — nor with Hegesippus' own doc
trine of the novelty and magnitude of the revelation with which
believers are favoured, and of the spirituality of the kingdom of

406 APPENDIX.
Christ (see above). Consequently Hegesippus, in the passage
under consideration, must be condemning an application of
Paul's words which involved a perversion of the meaning of
Scripture; — an application made either by the Docetists, who
despised the empirical appearance of Christ ; or, if the passage
refers to eschatology (as it probably does, to judge from the
connection in Stephanus Gobarus), by those who either denied
eschatology altogether, or treated it after a Gnostic fashion.
We arrive at a much more definite result by comparing the pas
sage with Irenasus, 5, 36 (at the elose). In the entire context
of the last chapters, Irenseus appeals to Papias, whom he recog
nises to be an apostolic man ; at the close he adduces the very
passage contained in Papias (1 Cor. ii. 9), and teaches, without
doubt in opposition to the same antagonists as those whom
Papias had in view, what is the false, and what is the right, ap
plication of the words. The right application, says he, is that
according to which the entrance of the things which no eye
hath seen will take place after the resurrection of the righteous,
that is, after the so-called thousand years' kingdom : the false
application, therefore, would be that according to which the
earthly kingdom of Christ begins after the resurrection of the
righteous. Such, therefore, was probably the opinion both of
Papias and of Hegesippus. Note YY, page 147.
The possibility, for example, of drawing an image of Christ
like that of John, depended on the attainment of a more deter
minate and settled eschatology, which should admit of Christ's
being conceived in the element of eternity. . We thus see also
afresh, why the next step taken in advance of eschatology
(through the medium of which the mind first became aware
of the absoluteness of the principle embodied in the Person
of Christ) necessarily was the doctrine of the pre-existence
of the said principle. The doctrine of the Pre-existence and
Eschatology are two poles, which mutually require and posit
each other ; and each of which is imperfect without the other.
Not the intermediate steps, which prepared the way for the final
result and consummation, most readUy occurred to the reflecting
mind ; but, to a mind looking at the matter realistically, teleolo-
gically, the absoluteness of the consummation called for a cor

NOTES. 407
respondent absoluteness of the beginning : for, indeed, the abso
luteness of the end is but a momentum of that of the beginning ;
inasmuch as an eschatological absoluteness would be unre-
aHzable, if the principle dominating the beginning (the first
creation) were different from that which is manifested at the
end. We find also, on a comparison of the earlier and later
Epistles of Paul, that his mind followed a similar course. But
if the two termini are embraced by the Christian principle ; or,
if, as the Apocalypse describes it, it is the Alpha and the Omega,
then a broad and sure foundation for its further development is
laid, and the knowledge is substantially attained, that Christi
anity, which brought in an absolute reconciliation, is also the
absolute" religion, the absolute world of the spirit.
Note ZZ, page 150.
Lucke's "Versuch einer vollstandigen Einleitung in die
Offenbarung Johannis" is the best work on the subject of New
Testament Prophecy and Apocalyptics (Apokalyptik), written
in recent times. He distinguishes between the irpo<pnTeta,
which remains strictly within the limits of its fundamental idea,
and diroKaXvyjn?, which goes into concrete details, portrays, cal
culates, symbolizes, and aUegorizes. The latter is related to the
former, as the developed epos is related to epical popular tra
ditions. EquaUy apt is the distinction drawn by him between
Jewish and Christian apocalyptics. It is true, the fundamental
form and main substance are the same in both ; but that which
for Daniel, the representative of Old Testament apocalyptics,
was stiU a dark goal, and existent merely in idea, has become
commencement, starting-point, clear historical fact for John,
the representative of New Testament apocalyptics. The pre
supposition and basis of New Testament apocalyptics is the full
history of the Son of God on earth, — that earth which already
begins to be glorified by the Spirit. " The commencement,
already actually made, is no longer merely pattern, but the thing
itself --the full, real kernel, which includes within itself all the
forces, laws, and arrangements for the future ; so that the ac
complishment of the entHe development is absolutely secured."
Lastly, he distinguishes between apocryphal and canonical
apocalyptics. " Outside of the sphere of the canonical, there
exist productions both of a genuinely Christian, and of a genu-

408

APPENDIX.

inely Jewish character. Apocryphal productions, however,
were mere imitations and unorganic repetitions of canonical pro
ductions. Sound non-canonical productions, on the contrary,
were really the organic continuation and development of canoni
cal productions." Note AAA, page 150.
Liicke aptly remarks, — that ancient Christendom sketched
for itself, in its eschatology, a kind of philosophy of history. In
deed, we may say in general, that prophecy and apocalyptics
introduced among men the idea of universal history. Apoca
lyptics, which Lucke recognises to be a necessary step in advance
of irpo<priTeia — though, because touching the sphere of the arbi
trary and contingent, much more exposed to degeneracy — can
not claim more than two proper representatives among all the
Fathers whose names have been mentioned, to wit, Barnabas
and Papias. And, rightly understood, neither Justin Martyr,
Dial. c. Tryph. c 80 (compare Semisch's " Justin der Martyrer,"
1842, ii. p. 467 ff.), nor Eusebius (in 3, 39) are opposed to this
statement. The latter merely says^ ¦ " most of the teachers of
the Church," not all; and further, " most after Papias" (amongst
whom Eusebius mentions Irenasus), shared his views. Even
Chiliasm must be assigned to the sphere of apocalyptics, not to
that of Christian prophecy. This is not properly the place to
speak of Chiliasm : for it contributed nothing new to Christo
logy, that was not already contributed by Christian eschatology
in general. But as there still exist men who tread in the foot
steps of Corrodi, — whose unpoetical nature, and mental inca
pacity sympathetically to enter into these matters, led him to
prefer calculating how many butts of wine the chiliastic vine
of Papias and Irenasus should produce, — and as, further, since
the time of Corrodi, ChUiasm in particular has been adduced in
proof of the Ebionism of the early Christians , it may be ex
cusable to give the subject a brief consideration.
I. Christian Chiliasm, so far from being derivable from,
may in part be more justly regarded as a polemic against,
Judaism, on the part of Christianity. This is, in particular, its
character, where it has apparently borrowed most features from
Judaism. It is" non- Jewish, so far as it represents the thousand
years' kingdom as brought in by the exalted Jesus of Nazareth,

NOTES. 409
and as including both Jews and Gentiles ; whereas unbelievino
Judaism, in particular, will then undergo judgment. A point un
doubtedly common to Jewish and Christian apocalyptics, is the
period of blessedness on earth : a further point in common is,
the city of God, Jerusalem, which plays a great r&le both with
the Montanists and Irenasus ; and the differences in the duration
of the Messianic kingdom on earth are rather accidental. (The
Sibylline Books have eleven ages of the world; the Book of
Enoch has ten, and so forth. The Jews taught that Messianic
blessedness would last 500 years ; Christians sometimes left it
undecided, as, for example, Irenseus ; at other times they adopted
the Jewish calculation of 500 years, as did the " Evangel. Nico-
demi," c. 19 : most frequently, however, they taught that it
would endure 1000 years. So Papias, the Montanists, Tertullian
and Barnabas also.) But the city of God comes down from
heaven to destroy the fleshly, Jewish Jerusalem, and to take its
place. Israel according to the flesh, — that is, Israel which con
tinues unbeHeving, — gives way to Israel according to the Spirit.
Further, ante-Christian, Jewish apocalyptics invariably teach
that Messiah will found the kingdom of earthly blessedness im
mediately on His first appearance. It makes no reference to a
twofold irapovo-ia : what it appears to know thereof, even sup
posing it to be ante-Christian, is seen, on closer examination, to
be a mere deceptive semblance. For the Messiah who is Hi
secret (Justin. Dial, c Tryph. c 8, 110), in the depths of the
sea, or wherever else He is supposed to tarry, is by no means a
first manifestation, but merely a symbol of His certain and
speedy appearance, originating in impatience. Messiah Ben
Joseph or Ephraim, and Ben David, owed His rise to the desire
to show, that to the Ten Tribes also belonged the honour of
claiming Messiah as theH- Son. As two persons are there re
ferred to, the unity plainly consists solely in the impersonal idea
of the Messiah ; and this presupposes a Christology, to which it
is a matter of indifference how many persons claim to be reaHza-
tions of the idea. Finally, the Messiah out of Ephraim dies, it
is true, in war, and then rises again ; but, in the first place, he
then, notwithstanding, recedes quite to the background behind
the second Messiah ; and through this exchange of persons the
main point is evaded, — to wit, that the exalted one should be
identical with the sufferer : in the second place, the estabHsh-

410 APPENDIX.
ment of the earthly kingdom of blessedness by the second
Messiah follows immediately on the sufferings of the first.
Moreover, with the exception of the Book of Enoch, all attri
bute judgment, not to the Messiah, but to God; and, in the
view of the Jews, the Messianic kingdom of earthly blessedness
was not merely a prelude to heavenly blessedness, but was itself
substantially the goal and final consummation. The dualistic
character of Judaism manifested itself particularly in the notion^
that heaven was too holy and majestical to be a suitable dwell
ing-place for man (Corrodi's " Kritische Geschichte des Chili-
asmus" i. 389 ff.). Paradise and the earth were held to be the
abode of the pious, with which they are eternally content : Jews
were not even able to distinguish between the thousand years'
kingdom, and that renewal of the world which holds good for
all eternity; for both relate, in their view, solely to what is
sensuous, and need nothing more than a perfect earth. Chris
tians, on the contrary, distinguished from the very commence
ment a double irapovcrla of the one Christ ; and, although they
soon took up with the notion of a period intervening between
the first and second presence, — that is, of a Itingdom of Christ
upon earth, — they by no means looked upon this kingdom as final
and abiding; heaven was their eternal goal: — the' kingdom, on
the Contrary, formed part of the course of this world, and con
stituted simply its appropriate termination. For this reason,
Christians represented the judgment as taking place at the end
of the golden period of the earth, and as forming a grand crisis;
whereas Jewish apocalyptical writers could only assign to it an
uncertain, unimportant position, owing to theH idea that the
highest good lay in the realization of earthly blessedness.
Further, Christians invariably maintained it to be essential,
that Messiah should be the Judge. (Compare Corrodi i. 313 ff.
322, 381.) In relation, therefore, to this matter also, Chris
tianity pursued an independent course — & course governed by "
its own essential principles ; though it unquestionably applied to
the purposes of the edifice it was raising, elements derived from
a previous period. It would therefore be a more correct and
profitable procedure, to ascertain the distinctive character of the
principle of Christianity, to which everything else owed its
position and rank, than to resort to Judaism for an explanation ;
especially in face of the fact, that on the very point under con-

NOTES. 411
sideration, Christianity took up a position of antagonism to
Judaism. The same remark holds good, even though we should
allow, as we must, that the form assumed by Christianity in
connection with this matter was partly due to its antagonism to
Judaism. Justin Martyr, Irenseus, and others, — nay more, not
a few down to the most recent times, cherished the hope of a
thousand years' kingdom ; and for this reason alone they cannot
be rightly understood, unless regarded from a point of view
entirely different frQm the Judaizing one. The Ebionitic
Chiliasm, of which Jerome makes ¦ mention in his " Comment.
in Jesaiam," c. 66, 20, did bear a Judaistic character ; but why
Christians also cherished the idea of a thousand years' kingdom ;
and why, instead of assuming that the absolute completion of
the kingdom of God in heaven would be the first result of
Christ's second coming, as we should have expected, they de
layed that perfection, by intercalating a thousand years' king
dom, — this is the question now to be considered.
II. The answer to this question is facilitated by Irenseus,
who gives conscious expression to the motive which operated on-
the Christian mind (5, 31; 2, 35; 1, 2, 36, 1). When the kingdom
of heaven was set into such a glaring contrast to the present
world, that the only possible relation between the two was a
negative one, one of hostility ; and when the coming kingdom
of heaven was represented as being simply substituted for the
existing order of things, the transition was too abrupt, the
first creation was practically excluded and annihilated by the
second. In such a case, the reconciliation of spirit and nature,
which was held to have been absolutely realized in Christ, and
to be principiatly (principiell) continued in believers, would
have taken place, at all events partially, in vain. Otherwise
viewed, the victory gained by Christianity over the world was
incomplete, if it exerted merely an annihUating, and not at
the same time also an ennobling, power on the first nature or
creation. Complete victor it can never be, until nature has
been reduced to the position of a momentum of itself, of
an organ in its service. Now, Chiliasm was the first conces
sion made by the longing for the speedy coming of the Lord,
to the in some respects opposed tendency of Christianity to
become a vital power in the history of the world. It was not
meant that nature should exist in vain. On the contrary, as it

412 APPENDIX.
was first the instrument of sin, and thus faUed to answer its
true idea, so now the time had come when it should fulfil its
destiny, in being a willing instrument of the perfect man, that
is, of the righteous who are raised from the dead. This work
Christ could not leave unperformed : to say that Christ appeared
merely to judge and destroy the world, would have been to
represent Christianity as incapable of converting the antagonism
between nature and spirit into a true harmony. The period of
the so-caUed thousand years' kingdom having been thus secured
for the general history of the world, it became more and more
the custom to take the week of creation in Genesis as the
archetype of the history of the world. The history of the world
is the week of creation, distributed through time : each day of
the world, or each age of the world, comprises a thousand years :
corresponding to the sabbath of creation, which commenced after
man had been formed, there must be a sabbath of the world,
which shall commence as soon as humanity, having been restored
to its original innocence, stands on earth as did Adam in Paradise.
The entHe period from the fall, which robbed us of Paradise, is
thus lowered, as it were, to the rank of an episode; and the further
development of humanity to perfection is connected with that
paradisiacal condition, as though the faU ha.6. never intervened ;
the sole difference being, that now, in consequence of the con
flict with and vanquishment of sin, the holiness is firmly estab
lished. — With this, however, it would seem to be inconsistent
that Chiliasts should universally have laid the greatest stress
on the restoration of the vital powers of nature, on their beauty
and their serviceableness to man, who is the ruler of nature,
and is set to enjoy it in the richest measure. Christianity,
which even in its abasement begins so ideally, here appears to
end eudasmonistically. The spiritual, which was at first recog
nised as the highest good, for the sake of which everything else
was to be sacrificed, appears now- to give way to nature, and
nature, as the final, to be constituted also the highest, end.
But it is false to say that any one of the Church writers con
ceived the thousand years' kingdom to be the last ; on the con
trary, they represent it as a stage of transition to eternal life.
For this reason, also, it is unjustifiable to say that Chiliasm de
grades faith and sanctity in this Hfe to the rank of mere means,
whose end Hes outside of themselves : they continue to be ends in

NOTES. 413
themselves, though, at the same time, regarded as preparing the
way for a new and more perfect stadium. The present world is
a period of suffering, especially for the members of the thousand
years' kingdom. The spirit manifests its greatness, it is true, in
suffering — it displays there the depth of its love ; but still its con
dition is an incongruous one; for, as the truth of the world,
the perfect man ought to rule over, instead of suffering from,
the world. To advance no further than the idea of resigna
tion, of patience, would be merely in appearance a higher view
of Christianity. Hence the early Church, impeUed by a desHe
to reinstate the spirit of man, with its powers regenerated by
love, in its rights, developed the system of Chiliasm. At the
same time, in order to satisfy the peculiar claims both of love and
power, and lest, by the premature promise of power, love, which
can only reveal itself in the act of renouncing power, and by re
nunciation recover power in a higher way, should be poisoned, it
drew a sharp distinction between the two, and assigned the real
ization of the o,ne to one period, of the other to another period.
Chiliasm, therefore, was the form in which Christianity first gave
conscious expression to the conviction of its destiny to rule the
world : Chiliasm was the assertion of the fact that Christianity
is related positively as well as negatively to the world : Chiliasm
declared that, by renouncing, Christianity was called to glorify,
the world. With whatever disfavour the early Christians
looked upon art, Chiliasm is the spot in which the beautiful,
the harmonious in spirit and nature, still find recognition — in
which a poetical, or, if one will, a romantic view of the world,
is tolerated. So certain as that the eye of Chiliasts was not
fixed on something merely spHitual, and that its proper and dis
tinctive aim was the removal of the ban which lay on the life
of nature, and the restoration of nature to its ideal existence ;
even so mistaken is it to subject the imagination, whose office
it is to people this domain, as one in which poetry in its truest
sense is meant to dwell, to the laws of number and geometry. It
is easy enough to find contradictions everywhere ; but the self-
conceited mockery of a Corrodi, with whom one has learned to
treat mildly even the mythology of heathenism, instead of being
a mark of wisdom, is rather ludicrous and foolish. — It was not
necessary to Chiliasm to represent the thousand years' kingdom
as established in an abrupt and absolutely supernatural manner ;

414 APPENDIX.
for Irenseus, on the contrary, attached great importance tc
Chiliasm, precisely because the thousand years' kingdom seemed
to him to constitute a gradual transition between the present
and the higher world : indeed, he expressly treats it as a link of
connection between the present and the future. Only as the
Christian mind is alienated from the present order of things,
and as it groans under the pressure and restrictions of the world,
will it imagine the change to be an abrupt one. The more
the immanent world-transforming power of Christianity is re
strained, the less Christendom is awakened to a consciousness of
the infinite energy of the principle of which it is the vehicle, by
works of far-reaching effect, the more decidedly will it feel dis
posed to defer all to the second coming of Christ, whose pre
sence wUl bring with it the certainty of the full action of Chris
tian influences. Nevertheless, as we have seen, ChiHasm was
also the fruit and sign of the advance of Christendom to the
conviction, that nature is destined by its inmost essence and idea
to stand in a positive relation to spirit. As such, it materially
aided in leading the Christian mind away from abstract and
general notions of the future, to those tasks of the present whose
performance would, in an immanent way, lay the foundations
of the future. In this light, also, Irenasus regarded it. , Ac
cordingly, Chiliasm conceived the Christian portion of the
world's existence to comprise three momenta, represented as
three periods. During the first period, that is, the period until
the thousand years' kingdom, spirit was held to be a sufferer, to
be in a state of humiliation, to be called upon to display patience
and love ; during the second period, it was conceived as ruling.
They failed, however, as yet to combine the two : on the con
trary, the first period is too predominantly one of suffering, of
the vanquishment of the world ; the second period, again, was
one-sidedly held to be one of rule and enjoyment. At the same
time, the two essentially inseparable momenta receive recogni
tion, in that they are represented as following upon, and inwardly
connected with, each other ; and in that the third period, —
namely, eternity, — witnesses their mutual interpenetration, and
their attainment of equilibrium. The ethical element, or the
idea of holiness, which manifested itself in so strong, though in
a negative, form in Montanism, was the chief motive which
impelled the Church to seek and find the union of the connected

NOTES. 415
momenta of renunciation and the glorification of the world, in
that animating Divine love, whose influence alone was capable
of quieting down the ecstasies of Montanism, and diverting its
energies into the channel of calm and orderly Church activity.
The realization of chiUastic expectations was thus gradually
handed over to the Church, as the task to be performed by it in
the history of the world. The truth which it asserted justly
claimed a realization by Christendom, at every stage of its ex
istence, in ever higher forms and increasing measure. Chiliasm,
therefore, had its time ; during its time it represented a noble
and precious principle ; and we may fairly demand for it a juster
treatment in the future. Its main opponent was Gnosticism ;
for Gnosticism threatened the existence of history, threatened
the teleological element, the realization of the ideal, and thus also
Christianity itself. On the other hand, Gnosticism, which, in its
way, clung to the idea of the presence of the highest good even
in this world-— an idea totaUy misunderstood by Montanism — '
was fitted to dHect attention to that element, which must be
presupposed by every truly ethical view of things, in order that,
as happened from the second half of the second century onwards,
Montanism and Gnosticism might alike be transcended.
Note BBB, page 151.
Similar words, written about the same time, may be found
in Irenasus (" ad TraU." xi.), who represents the cross as a fruit-
bearing tree. The predicate dtBio? Qeb? (koI apfipoTO?), which
is given to the Messiah (page 556), also reminds one of the ex
pression Qeov X.070? dtBio?, employed by Ignatius in "Ad
Magn." vm. For evidence that the fifth book, or, at all events,
the passages adduced from it, fall into the time of Hadrian,
and even into the commencement of his reign, see Bleek 1. c
p. 173 ff., and Liicke, who shares the same opinion. — The sixth
book is almost entirely taken up with Christology; but, on ac
count of the fire which is represented as appearing at the bap
tism of Christ, must probably also be referred to the second
century (compare Grabe's " Spicilegium" i. 28, 69). In the
seventh book much is already said respecting the Logos, not of
a strictly Gnostic character, but with a tendency in that direc
tion. This also, as well as Book the Eighth, was probably
written in the second half of the second century. — That the

416 APPENDIX. *
Orphic Sayings are connected with Alexandrian Judaism, is a
recognised fact. The AvBrj, which, according to them, creates
the world, does not really transcend the Alexandrian doctrine
of the Logos, notwithstanding Justin's identification (Cohort.
ad Gr.) of it with his own view of the Logos. — When we com
pare Virgil's fourth Eclogue, and its words regarding the
" virgo," the " nova progenies" from heaven, the " puer" with
whom a golden age begins, in which sin will be destroyed, the
serpent killed, and a son endued with his father's virtues will
rule the " orbis terrarum," with the well-known prophecies in
Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) and Suetonius (Vespas. 4) — passages which
all point to Eastern sources (compare Assyrium amomum, Virg.
Eel. 4, 4), opened up to the Eomans partly by the Jewish
Diaspora, and partly through the restoration of the Sibylline
Books, effected by the collection of thousands of ancient and
recent oracles, undertaken in consonance with a decree of the
Senate, after the destruction of the Capitol by fire under
Sylla (see Suet. Aug. 31 ; Tacit. Annal. 6, 12), — we must
hesitate to place everything of this kind, bearing at the first
glance an astonishing resemblance to Christianity, to the ac
count of Christian interpolation. The portions touched upon
in the text, however, belong, at all events in their existing form,
to the earliest Christian times. The ante-Christian elements
in the Sibylline Books, so far as they have any bearing on
Christianity, were both a positive and negative preparation for
the introduction of Christianity into the heathen world : — nega
tively, in that they undermined the foundations on which the
self-confidence of the ancient world was built. In the days of
its greatest power, Borne was unable to get rid of inner trem
blings at some fate near at hand, threatening ruin. Positively,
in so far as, probably through the influence of Hebrew pro
phecy, the presentiment of a higher, pure, and guiltless exist
ence, dawned on the subjugators of the world.
Note CCC, page 152.
Lawrence, Gfrorer, Gieseler, and with ever increasing de-
cidedness Hoffmann also, unlike Liicke, agree in considering it
to be not a Jewish-Christian work, or a work interpolated by
Christians, but a Jewish work ; whatever difference of opinion
there may be between them as regards the date of its compo-

NOTES. 41 7
sition. The very latest date at which it may be assumed to
have existed in its present form, is the end of the first century ;
partly because it is appealed to by the Epistle of Jude, and
partly because of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
The earliest date we can assume for the composition of the
whole, is that of the prophecies of Daniel ; one section, at all
events, must have been composed after the commencement
of the acquaintance with the Parthians (compare c. 54, 9)
But whether the whole should be referred to the post-Herodian
period, — say, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, — or to the
time of Herod, as Lawrence thinks, or even to an earHer time,
as is Hoffmann's judgment, cannot be determined, partly be
cause there is little reason for supposing it to be the work of
one author, and partly because the chief passage bearing on the
chronology (c. 89), does not clearly say whether the twelve
shepherds are Jewish or not. If they are not Jewish, as
Hoffmann has concluded, very wide room is left for hypotheses.
Furthermore, precisely this section (c 84-89) awakens the
strongest suspicion Hi Hoffmann's mind (see his "Das Buch
Henoch," 2d AbtheUung, ix.), that the speaker here is a dif
ferent person from the speaker in the other parts of the work ;
and accordingly he acknowledges that the foundation for the
critical determination of the date of composition is thus cut
away. The work in its present form would undoubtedly appear
to have been before the author of the Twelve Testaments, in
the second century. But this cHcumstance does not prove that
the book had one author, and is written in one spirit. Still less,
from the fact that the Book of Sohar appears to treat it as a
Hebrew work originating with Enoch ; for the passages made
use of by" the Book of Sohar are not contained in the section
in which the Christological elements are found (c 37-70), but
in c. 16-36. In favour of a plurality of authors, who added or
inserted one piece after the other (compare c. 71, 1 ; 81, 1, 2 ;
91, 1), may be adduced in particular also, the great difference
between the sections c. 16-36 and c. 37-70, c. 64-67, 1 ; if not
the whole of the 105th chapter, yet from ver. 21 onwards ; the
manifold disorder in the book (compare Hoffmann 1. c. i. 5, 6 ;
also c. 53, 54) ; the imitations of the earlier in the later por
tions ; and also the custom, frequent in ancient times, of adding
new portions to an older well-founded edifice (compare the
VOL. I. 2D

418 APPENDIX.
Fourth Book of Esra, the Sibylline Books, the Anabaticon
Jesaias, which is added to the Martyrion, and others). Whilst
maintaining, however, the pluraUty of authors, I do not intend
to assert that all who cooperated could not have been Jews ; I
only cannot venture absolutely to deny that some portions were
written after the Christian era, either by a Hebrew, who,
though somewhat influenced by Christianity, was in essence
thoroughly Jewish, or by an interpolating Christian writer. We
should, indeed, more easily understand how the Church, in its
first stadia, so quickly advanced to the idea of the pre-existence
of Christ, if Jews had already been led on to the same point,
prior to the appearance of Christ, by the Old Testament idea of
the Messiah. It is as clear as day that the way for the New
Testament doctrine of the Logos must have been thus in an im
portant degree prepared, without, as we shall see, its distinctive
character being in the slightest degree impaired. But the very
importance of such a datum, renders double care necessary.
Note DDD, page 154.
The Fourth Book of Esra (Fabr. Cod. Pseudepigr. V. T.
ii. 173-307) contains elements which belong to this connection
(c. 1, 2, 7). The mention of Jesus by the Latin text, in the
latter passage, unmistakeably betrays the hand of a Christian,
especially as it is not found in the Arabic text (7, 28). More
over, the first two chapters, in which (2, 43-47) the Son of God
is depicted as a youth of lofty stature, standing high above all
others on Mount Zion, and distributing crowns to those who
confess Him, or as a shepherd who bestows eternal rest, are not
contained in the Arabic text.- Such a description does not in
itself transcend Hebrew ideas ; for even the Messiah of the Old
Testament is described as a judge and as a Son of God. But
still that Christian elements have been intermixed, is plain from
a comparison of i. 50 with Matt, xxiii. 37 ; of i. 35 with Eom.
x. 20 ; of i. 37 with John xx. 29. But even supposing it to
have been written by a Christian prior to a.d. 150, it contains
elements of a less peculiar character than the passage quoted by
Justin from Esra — tovto to ircurya 6 Sanr]p rjp&v Kal KaTa<j>vyrj
rip&v (in Fabricius 1. c i. 1152). When Justin complains that
the Jews had erased this passage from Esra, on account of the
Christians, we must conclude that it had been interpolated by a

NOTES. 4ly
Christian prior to the time of Justin, and had already found its
way into the manuscripts. From this, however, it foUows again,
that at all events as early as the commencement of the second
century, there were men who, after the manner of Paul (1 Cor.
v. 7), regarded Christ as the true Paschal Lamb, the same thing
which we find also in John xix. 36. The Anabaticon of Isaiah
appears to be of a much later origin, though even it is ante-
Nicene. Its Christology is somewhat Docetical in character.
Note EEE, page 154.
Compare Nitzsch, " de Testament, xii. Patriarch." Wittenb.
1810 ; Liicke 1. c. ; Grabe's " Spicilegium" i. 129-252 ; Fabric.
Cod. Pseudepigr. V. T. i. 496-759. Origen, and probably also
Tertulhan, was acquainted with the work (compare Fabricius
1. c. 499 f.). It must therefore have been written before the end
of the second century. We cannot, with Dodwell, conclude
from the HeUenisms of its style, that it belongs even to the
first century. The Umits of the time within which the work
was composed, may be drawn more closely, than between the
Book of Enoch and the end of the second century ; if we note,
on the one hand, that Jerusalem is spoken of as already de
stroyed (Levi xv. 16) ; that heathens already constitute the
majority in Christendom (for example, Levi viH. ; Benj. ix. 11)
— a representation which suits at aU events the close of the first
century ; that an entHe series of formulas to express the idea of
the incarnation of God, and which the author has at his fingers'
ends, had already been formed — a, circumstance which points to,
at all events, the commencement of the second century ; and, on
the other hand, that the collective tendency of the work is to
teach that the priesthood is higher than royalty, but that both
are by theH- very idea inseparable. Christ, therefore, must not
be conceived merely as a King, but He is also the High Priest.
Eoyalty and high-priesthood must not be separated. Were any
refeience to the constitution of the Church discoverable in the
book, one might easily suppose that its main purpose was either
to estabUsh or overthrow the priesthood in the Church. Such,
however, is not the case : on the contrary, the author is dealing
with Judaism ; and he unweariedly reminds the Jews that the
Messiah is above all to be conceived as a priest, to whom the
old priesthood is called upon to resign its rights. Now, this un-

420 APPENDIX.
doubtedly does not suit the time subsequent to the destruction
of Jerusalem by Hadrian : it would, however, suit the time prior
to that event. For, with the destruction of Jerusalem, all the
unity and infecting power of the Jewish ceremonial system
ceased. Furthermore, down to the time of Hadrian, the Chris
tian Church in Palestine was seriously exposed to the danger
of a relapse into Judaism. For, to use the words of Sulpicius
Severus, " Christum Deum credebant," but " sub legis observa-
tione" (Hist. Sacr. L. ii. 31, ed. Lips. 1709, 245) ; or, more
precisely, Christ was conceived by them predominantly as the
one who is exalted^ and who will come again as King, that is,
their conception of Him was an eschatological one ; but these
Christians at the same time clung to the law, and asserted its
continuous obligatoriness, at all events on Jewish converts.
Now this work attacks the separation of royalty and priesthood,
—attacks, therefore, the opinion of the Jews, that Messiah was
to be expected as a King, and not above all as a Priest. For the
same reason also, it attacks those Christians, who, whilst believing
in Jesus the exalted King, because they do not believe in Jesus
the Priest, regard the ceremonial law as still existing and binding,
and are therefore in danger of believing that what is best has not
yet been brought to light, — consequently, of taking an Ebion
itic view of the work of Christ. With an emphasis reminding
one of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the authors show that Christ's
death put an end to the Old Testament law, and to its central
feature, to wit, the Levitical priesthood (Benj. 9, 11 ; specially
Levi c. 4-8, 10 ; Eeub. 9). The kind of prominence thus given
to' the high-priestly, in comparison with the kingly, office of
Christ (Judah 21, 24), appears to me to suit only the first half
of the second century. At that time it was still possible unhe
sitatingly to say (Levi 18), — Christ wUl continue King and
Priest for ever, and throughout all generations will have no suc
cessor ; for this was not opposed to the idea which Ignatius
wished to see realized : it would, however, have clashed with
the spirit of the second half of the second century, when, in
consequence of the new significance ascribed to ordination, a
new priesthood was practically established. In the days of the
author, the Church had already begun to make a collection of
New Testament writings which were counted sacred (Benj. 11).
The question, whether the author were a Jew or a Christian,

NOTES. . 421
can be most certainly answered, from a consideration of the
fundamental idea of the entHe book. In no one of the Twelve
Testaments is this fundamental idea forgotten. Were this the
work of an interpolator, we should have to assume the original
foundation to have been an Hebraizing moral treatise, for the
composition of which we can discover no sufficient motive.
Besides, the moral discussions themselves are partially enlisted
in the service of this idea (Zab. 8). The fundamental thought
of the entHe Testament of Joseph (xi. ,18, xii. 3) is the follow
ing : Joseph is a type of the suffering Christ ; — apart from
this thought, its entire composition is a mystery. Now the
Testament of Joseph is for the most part the goal of the rest.
The idea seems to have been, so to group the sons of Jacob
around Joseph, that he should be the object of the hatred of
them all Hi theH manifold sins, and yet, whilst apparently
perishing at theH hands, be their deliverer. His history thus
becomes a type of the history of Christ, who suffers in conse
quence of the sins of His people, in order, as the atoning Lamb,
which is at the same time King, to bring spiritual redemption.
The dying Jacob interprets the type, and sets it forth for coming
times, so that no one, when Christ comes, may fail to see in
Him the Eeconciler. But though it is evident that the author
was a Christian, it cannot be denied that the entire style of the
work, its morality, and its doctrine of sin (for example, Zebulon
i. ; Bcuben ii.), bear traces of a Judaizing tendency. Amongst
such traces, we may mention also the sevenheavens (Levi i. ff.),
the 'Eyprjyopoi (Eeub. v.), and so forth. We cannot, however,
with Grabe (compare Fabricius 1. c. 501 ff.), go so far as to
assume a Jew as the original author, and besides him a Christian
interpolator. Such a separation of the Christian element is
impossible, for the fundamental idea and the entire conception
of the work is Christian. More recent writers, specially
Nitzsch and Liicke, are of the same opinion. The author was
a Jewish Christian; — assuming this, the Judaizing elements
are explained. Here also we have another illustration of the
ilntenableness of the opinion, that Jewish Christians as such
were Ebionitical, or, at all events, anti-Pauline. The passage
in Benj. xi. (compare Tertull. c. Marcion. 1 ; Scorpiac adv.
Gnostic. 13) unquestionably refers to Paul. It runs as foUows,
— In the latter days there will spring forth from the seed of

422 APPENDIX.
Benjamin, the beloved of the Lord, who heareth His voice, and
doeth His will, who enlighteneth all the heathen with new
knowledge, and brings up the light of knowledge over Israel,
'and, like a wolf (Gen. xlix. 27), tears it away from Israel that
he may give it to the synagogue of the heathen. It will abide
in the synagogue of the heathen till the end of the world, and
wiU be as a melody on the lips of their princes. And in sacred
hooks will be written his work and his words." The author
has, further, many Johannean features; — for example, "the
Lamb of God" (Test. xi. xii.) ; the slaughter which it under
goes (xi. 19) ; povoyevrj? is used of Christ (Benj. 9). Neander
(" Church History" ii. 602, 609) therefore appears to me to be
wrong, in judging this work to be an offspring of Ebionism.
Note FFF, page 160.
To this connection belongs the "Evangelium Nicodemi."
That the second part is of a far later origin (Cod. Apocr. N. T.
ed. Thilo, P. i. 666 ff.) is certain : on the other hand, with the
first part is connected the "Acta Pilati," with which even
Justin Martyr (Apol. i. 35, 48) was acquainted (compare " Thilo
1. c. cxviii- 796 ff., and his Easter Programme 1837 ; Insunt
Acta SS. App. Petri et Pauli," Partic. i. 26, 27). This work
has, on the whole, the synoptic conception of Christ ; it evinces
also an acquaintance with the miracles narrated in the Gospel
of John ; but it adds many features of a fabulous and incredible
character. Much simpler, on the contrary, is the tone of the
Epistles of Pilate to Claudius and Tiberius (Thilo 1. c. 796-
802). The dvatpopa of Pilate is completely legendary (1. c.
803-813). Other apocryphal writings — such as the " Evange
lium Infantise," "Nati vitas Marias," "Protevangelium Jacobi" —
contain rather a Docetical than an Ebionitical representation of
Christ. The former, for example, represents Christ as saying,
in His cradle, to His mother, " Ego quern peperisti, sum Jesus,
Filius Dei, d X070?, misitque me pater meus ad salutem
mundi" (c. 1). Similarly also the Protevangelium Jacobi,
whose author classes himself amongst the irvevpaTiKol, and
who, although he does not call the true humanity of Christ in
question, is at great pains to show that Mary still continued to
be a virgin, even after giving birth to Jesus, and must there
fore have taken a Docetical view of the bjrth of Christ. The

NOTES. 423
" Acta Pauli et Theslse," in their present form, cannot have
been written before the fifth century. What the older form
was, in which the Acta were known even in the time of Tertul
lian, it is impossible now to ascertain. The work in its present
form is, indeed, gloomily ascetical, especially in relation to mar
riage ; but these ethical errors have not affected its dogmatical,
particularly its Christological, orthodoxy. Not merely was Christ
designated in ancient times, d dyairrjTb? Kal ayio? iral? Qeov,
utd? tov vtyiaTov (c. 8, 10), but He was even worshipped by
Paul : to His sufferings also is attributed the virtue of saving
us from judgment. Accordingly SchHemann (1. c. 431 ff.)
must he allowed to be right, when, in opposition to Schwegler
(I. c 262 ff.), he maintains that here there are no signs of
Ebionism. Note GGG, page 165.
In his reply Origen demonstrated the ignorance of Celsus,
for in the deeper sense Christians do hold the law ; and even
the external law was not at once cast aside by Peter and the
Christians of Jerusalem. Nay more, even still later, there ex
isted those who, like the two kinds of Ebionites, clinging to the
letter, wished both to recognise Jesus as the foretold one, and
also to retain the law of their fathers. But as Origen was not
in the slightest degree aware that these constituted the great
body of Christians, the ignorance of Celsus can only be ex
plained on the supposition that the Ebionitic Christians had
escaped his notice tiirough having become an insignificant sect.
In favour of this view, the passage v. 61 may also be adduced,
even supposing Celsus himself should have referred to the
Ebionites, and not Origen have quoted them as examples.
Note HHH, page 173.
L. c. dpyyv r)pepa? oyBoy? iroirjaeo, o icrnv dXXov Koo-pov
dpyfjv. Aib Kal dyopev ttjv ypepav ttjv byBonv el? ev<f>poo-vvrjv,
iv y Kal 6 'Iyo-ov? dveaTy e'/t veKp&v, etc. Similarly Ignatius
ad Magn. 9, — Christians who live in a new hope, are no longer
o-afi/3aT%ovre?, dXXa Korea KvpiaKrjv &r]v £&vre?, iv y Kal r) fyor)
f)p&v avereiXev oV ovtov. Plin. Ep. L. x. 97, — " Quod essent
soliti stato die ante lucem convenHe." Euseb. 4, 23, 24, 26 ;
Const. Apost. 10, 23, — to o-d$(5aTOV pevroi Kal ttjv KvpiaKrji

424 APPENDIX.
eoprd^ere, oti to pev Bypiovpyia? ianv- viropvypa, y Be dvaaTcw
aem?. 2, 59 ; 5, 20 ; 8, 33. Opposition to Gnosticism appears
to have been the motive for the longer retention of the obser
vation of the Jewish Sabbath along with Sunday. Indeed, at
the outset the observance of both was almost historicaUy un
avoidable. From the time of Tertulhan, the double observance
was due to the return of a legal, if even an anti-Jewish, spirit.
To give up the religious celebration of the festival of creation,
so long as the Creator was conceived by some not to be the
highest God, was almost an inward impossibility. This oppo
sition to Gnosticism, however, might take two forms: either,
both days might continue to be observed as festivals of joy ; or
the festivals of the first and second creation might be celebrated
on one and the same day, to wit, Sunday. The latter course
might easily be taken, inasmuch as the Son of God, who rose
from the dead, was from an early period held to be the Creator of
the world. The latter form was the freer ; it was also inde
pendent of Judaism ; and at the same time almost more strongly
opposed to Gnosticism than the first mentioned. In the
Apologia of Justin Martyr (i. 67), we find a trace of the adop
tion of the latter course by the Oriental Church during tHe first
half of the second century. ' According to the passage referred
to, Sunday is the festival day of Christians ; there is no word
whatever of a Sabbath ; whereas Sunday was also set apart for
the commemoration of the first creation. And we find, in fact,
that the Sabbath was not universally observed in the East ; but,
to judge from Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Barnabas, the " Epistola
ad Diognetum" 4, only where the influence of a Judaizing
Christianity was more strongly felt. In the very district which
deviated least widely from the Jews in the matter of the time of
celebrating the feast of Passover, to wit, in Asia Minor, the
custom of commemorating once a week the resurrection of the
Lord, seems first to have grown spontaneously out of the prin
ciple of Christianity. We find accordingly that the polemic
against the Jewish Sabbath (compare Ep. ad Diognet. 4;
Cone. Laod. can. 29 ; compare Col. ii. 16, Apocal. i. 10) was
quite as vigorous in a great part of the Oriental Churches,
at all events in the second century, as it was in Eome, where an
endeavour was subsequently made, by the appointment of fast
ing on the Sabbath, to change its character, in agreement with

NOTES. 425
the Christian idea. The commemoration of the creation was
naturally, then allowed to fall into the background (compare
also Bingh. L. xx. c. 3, vol. ix. p. 54 ff.). For the prohibition of
fasting on the Sabbath, which has a Judaistic appearance (Can.
Apost. 54), even Bingham assigned a much more probable
reason (L. xx. c. 3, § 5, vol. ix. p. 59 ff.) than the one alleged by
Baur (Episk. p. 135 ff.), — to wit, antagonism to Marcion and
others, who, according to Epiph. Hasr. 42, 3, by way of degrad
ing the Demiurge, ordained a fast on the Sabbath.
Note III, page 174.
That Christ died on a Friday, the Orientals knew well enough
(Justin's Apol. i. 67) ; but they believed themselves to have done
enough for the commemoration of that day by the organization
of the Christian week, by celebrating Sunday as the day of
resurrection, and by adopting the division of the days which
naturally resulted therefrom. On the contrary, in the appoint
ment of yearly festivals (the tendency to which showed itself
altogether at an earlier period in the East than in the West),
they endeavoured, especially in Asia Minor, to fix upon the true
date, the exact day. One motive for this accuracy, was the
desHe to set forth, in opposition to the Jews, the Christian
festival of Passover as the fulfilment of the Jewish festival
(compare John xix. 36 ; Justini Martyris Dial, c Tryph. 40,
11 1 ; Iren. Fragm. ed. Mass. p. 342). On the other hand, the
opponents of this procedure of the Church of Asia Minor, who
formed the decided majority (Euseb. 5, 23, 2), regulated the
yearly festivals in agreement with the weekly ; but their boast
ing of this as a proof of their anti-Judaistic spirit, rested on a
misconception of the custom of the Church in Asia Minor.
Indeed, it is hard to say whether the latter custom was not more
decidedly anti-Judaistic than the so-called Eoman, especially as
the Eomans continued dependent on Jewish calculations. In
reality, however, neither party based its custom on the principle
of cleaving to Judaism. That those of Asia Minor, in particu
lar, did not at all mean to allow the Divine obligatoriness of the
Old Testament law of' Passover, is clear from the friendly
character of the intercourse between Polycarp and Anicetus,
notwithstanding their difference of opinion (Euseb. 5, 24).
Victor's behaviour, on the contrary, is rather to be termed Ju-

42H APPENDIX.
daistic, — not indeed in the historical sense of the word, but in the
dogmatical.— Neander (Church History i. 1, p. 513 ff.) appears
to me to be right in understanding the Epistle of Polycrates
(Euseb. 5, 24) to mean, that the Church of Asia Minor regarded
as the main matter, not the paschal meal, but primarily the
commemoration of the suffering and death of Christ.
Note JJJ, page 175.
It is difficult to understand how there could be any need felt
of a baptismal festival, after it had become customary to com
memorate the birth of Christ. But the custom once introduced
of commemorating His baptism, we can easily understand how
the commemoration of His birth — that is, of the commencement
of the existence of Christ for us, of His official existence — might
for a time be conjoined therewith : — and, indeed, the Church at
a later period spoke of His baptism as a " secunda nativitas."
As early as the first thirty years of the second century, (Clem."
Alex. Strom. 1, 21, ed. Pott. i. 407), the Basilidians celebrated
the festival of the baptism of Christ. With this fact are in
agreement the passages adduced above (p. 247 f.) from the
Sibylline Books, which belong to the time of Hadrian, and in
which the baptism of Christ is in particular a constant theme.
The Ebionites, also, probably observed this festival at an early
period ; for they in general attached the greatest significance
to the rite of baptism. Now it is quite certain that the Church,
which observed this festival at all events at a later period, did
not adopt it from the Basilidians; consequently, concludes
Neander (Church History i. 1, p. 519 ff.), with undoubted
justice, the baptism of Christ was commemorated by the Church
prior to the rise of the Gnostic sects. Possibly, indeed, as
Neander thinks, the passage contains a hint of the commemo
ration by the Church, of the birth of Jesus ; — not, however, as
though it had any intention of thereby pretending to determine
the exact day of the birth of Christ ; for that was held to be a
secondary matter. Clement's meaning would then ,be, — "In
the view of the Basilidians, the day on which the festival of
baptism is observed is of importance ; the Church, on the con
trary, is indifferent about the exact day, even in commemorating
the birth of Christ." The passage would accordingly tend to
show that the birth of Christ was held in greater esteem by the

NOTES. 427
Church than His baptism ; a thing which was not impossible
about the year 200, although the festival of the birth continued
to be incidentally, irregularly observed.
Note KKK, page 187.
That, theoretically, he required men to experience every
thing for themselves, that they might thus become conscious
and certain of their freedom, is, on the contrary, perfectly
attested. It is the principle, which elsewhere also is brought
forward, that nothing must remain unnegatived, if freedom is
to be perfect, and conscious of its perfection. This, however, is
merely the negative aspect of the new Christian principle, with
out the higher fiUing up of the absolute void of formal freedom.
For this reason also, the required negation of everything opposed
to freedom, far from being identical with the denial of self and
the world, demanded by Christianity, is but the caprice of a
subject whose existence is vanity, and the heathenish counter
part of Pharisaism ; for the apparent spirituality of Pharisaism
had also, as its reverse aspect, a finer and more poisonous form
of sensuality.
Note LLL, page 188.
In Matt. T. xi. 12 : oi bXlya Bia<pepovTe? ovt&v (that is,
from the crcopaTiKol? 'IovBaioi?) 'Efiuovaioi. Similarly also
Justin Martyr in the Dial. c. Tryphone 1. c. After saying that,
in his opinion, those also can be saved who, whilst believing in
Christ, continue to observe the law for themselves, provided they
do not insist on the heathen undergoing circumcision, and hold
intercourse with free Gentile Christians. 'Edv Be oi dirb tov
yevov? tov vperepov iriaTeveivXeyovTe? iirl tovtov tov XpiaToy, —
eK iravTO? KaTa tov Bid Mooo-ea? Buvray0evTa vopov avayKatyoai
%rjv tow ef i0v&v irio-Tevovra?, — fj py Koivwvelv avTol? — aip&v-
toi, opouo? Kal tovtov? ovk diroBeyppai. SchHemann (1. c. 553 f .)
justly condemns the translation of the last words—" I do not
agree with these." Evidently there should follow a stronger
judgment on them than on the first-mentioned class. Schlie-
mann proposes to translate — " I will not recognise them, even
as they do not recognise us." But as Kaym fails, we might trans
late — "I cannot treat them after the same manner with those
first, more moderate ones." More moderate than the men who ,

428 APPENDIX.
wished to lay upon the heathen the yoke of the Old Testament,
and esteemed the freer heathen Christians unclean, are those
heathen Christians who allow this burden to be laid on them
selves, but continue to confess the Anointed of God. On the
contrary, Toi»? opoXoyyo-avra? Kal iirtyvovTa?, tovtov elvai tov
XpitTTOv Kal yTivi ovv aWia peraftdvTa? iirl Tyv evvopov iroXi-
Teiav, dpvyaapevov?, oti ovto? iaTiv 6 XpiaTo? Kal irplv TeXevrfj?
fiy perayvovra? ovB' oXeo? o~w0yo-eo-0ai airofpaivopai. How easy
such a relapse was for both parties, is plain from the observa
tions immediately following in the text.
Note MMM, page 193.
What Irenseus says (i. 26) of the Ebionites in this respect,
must refer to the above-mentioned class. The Gospel of the
Hebrews, which many Ebionites possessed, and which Jerome
saw in the fifth century, seems to me to have been based on the
Gospel of Matthew. But as the introduction thereto, preserved
by Epiphanius, appears to intend to represent the Gospel as the
work of the twelve Apostles, and as amongst the extant fragments
of it there are unquestionably portions of Luke's Gospel (for
example, Epiph. Hasr. 30, 22 ; ell. Luke xxH. 15), the most
probable supposition is the following : — The Gospel of Matthew
formed the groundwork, but underwent in process of time many
alterations, partly because it was meant to be the Gospel of the
twelve Apostles, and might therefore adopt portions, according to
pleasure, from other Gospel traditions, and partly from doctrinal
reasons, or from an inclination to certain apocryphal embellish
ments. Thus arose necessarily a variety of recensions, some of
them containing the most arbitrary interpolations. (Compare
Epiph. Hser. 30, 3, 13 ; Grabe, Spicileg. i. 25.) Each of the
three classes above mentioned — the Nazarenes, and the two
kinds of Ebionites — had its own particular recension.
Note NNN, page 193.
The fact that Epiphanius does not accuse them of regarding
Christ as an ordinary man, but acknowledges that he knows
nothing about the matter, is in itself evidence thereof, and cer
tainly a good sign. Irenasus says (i. 26, 2) — "ea autem, quse
sunt erga Dominum, non similiter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates
opinantur." We need neither erase "non," with Cotelerius

, NOTES. 4^9
nor, with Grabe, read " consimiliter" instead of "non similiter "
if we only refer the words to the Nazarenes. — Origen also was
acquainted with them (Orig. c. Celsum 5, 61, 65). 01 BittoI
Efiimvaloi yToi e« irapdevovopoXoyovvre? bpoia? yplv tov 'Iyaovv,
rj ov% ovrw yeyewfjo-0ai. Perhaps also the words of Origen, in
his Comm. in Joh. T. ii. 6 (de la Eue's ed. iv. 64), belong to
this connection : — "Apn eXafie pe y pryryp pov to dyiov irvevfia
iv pia, t&v Tpvv&v pov, Kal diryveyKe pe el? to bpo? to peya Qa-
fiwp. For, though they may have styled the Holy Spirit the pryryp
'Iyo-ov from the day of His birth, they can scarcely have so
termed Him from His baptism. Grabe is of a different opinion
(1. c. 327, 328). Origen's explanation is a marvellous one. The
view above given, I find also held by Neander (2d ed. 1, 2, 605,
606), who makes it probable that the words iv pia t&v Tpiv&v
pu>v are intended to express in a poetical form the fact, that it
was the impulse of the Holy Spirit which animated and led Him
Hi aU things. For the rest, these words, and the passage referred
to in Note 3, page 193, show that at an early period apocryphal
elements had found their way into theH Gospel. That they
taught the birth from the Virgin, is clear from the quotation
from Jerome, given in the note to page 191.
Note OOO, page 194.
Hieron. Comm. in Jesaiam, c. 31, 6, 7 ; SchHemann 1. c. p.
455 f. They neither required heathen Christians to observe
the law, nor regarded such observance as necessary to salvation ;
they trusted in the mercy of God, not in their own power.
FoUowing Jerome, SchHemann (p. 457) gives an affecting
description of their sentiments. Bitterly persecuted by the
Pharisees, and hostile to them as to men whom they deemed
seducers of the people, they mourned deeply over their unbe
lieving brethren, and looked with longing for the time when
theH conversion should be effected. To sadden the spirit of
their brother, they considered to be one of the greatest sins"; and
in their Gospel one might read, — "Nunquam lasti sitis nisi
quum fratrem vestrum videritis in caritate." Optat. Milev. de
Schism. Donat. 4, 5, represents them as saying,— " Patrem pas-
sum esse, non filium."

43C APPENDIX.
Note PPP, page 195.
What they meant by the birth of Christ from the Holy
SpHit, which they undoubtedly believed, is difficult to say.
Most probably it was a mere dead dogma ; otherwise they would
have been led into the development above indicated. But
whilst they stood stUl, Christian heresies grew up, one after the
other, and left the traces of theH existence in the recensions of
their Gospel. Perhaps, therefore, the account given of the bap
tism of Christ by the Nazarenes, was intended as an answer to the
notions embodied in these heresies — an answer serving also the
purpose of defending their own point of view against similar
charges. From the stress which, after theH fashion, it unquestion
ably lays on the baptism of Christ, their version may be regarded
as a kind of concession to the class to which we are just about to
call attention. They were not conscious, however, of putting
the birth of Christ into the background as compared with His
baptism, nor that their teachings respecting the latter did not
altogether accord with the full import of their doctrine of the
birth from the Holy Spirit. At this point, therefore, the heresy
begins. It is more difficult to assign with certainty the probable
motive of the stress laid on baptism in their account of the rite.
According to Theodore*, they honoured Christ as av0pa>irov
BiKaiov (Hasr. Fab. 2, 2). This we must take in the strict sense,
and not as SchHemann, without proof, takes it (pp. 260, 455),
who classes them with other Ebionites, on the plea that they attri
buted to Christ, not absolute sinlessness, but merely a higher
degree of vHtue. For if Jesus, as their Gospel narrates, when
called upon by His mother and brothers to allow Himself to be
baptized by John, answered (Hieronym. c Pelag. 3, 2), — " Quid
peccavi, ut vadam et baptizer ab eo, nisi forte hoc ipsum, quod
dixi, ignorantia est," — the Nazarene Gospel, if these words
actually occurred in it, must have intended to teach that, though
Jesus prior to His baptism was chargeable with ignorance, — that
is, was not fully enlightened by, and endued with, the Holy
Spirit, — He had not the consciousness of sin. I am compelled
therefore to regard this interpolation, even if it really did form
part of their Gospel, as an answer to, or an apologetic declaration
against, those Ebionites, etc., who drew from the baptism of
Christ the conclusion, that He also needed to repent. Their

NOTES. 43I
answer would be — Baptism had a different significance relatively
to Christ : — what significance^ they indicate when they represent
Christ as having an imperfect consciousness, or as being " in
ignorantia," prior to baptism. Perhaps also the circumstance
that, immediately before His baptism, Christ claims to have
kept Himself free from sin, is a hint that, in the opinion of the
Nazarenes, the distinction about to be conferred on Him was a
reward for His vHtue. Or we might also say (especially if
" ignorantia" be taken reflectively, as a want of clear conscious
ness of His moral condition), that the Nazarenes conceived Jesus
to have been, prior to baptism, in a completely unconscious,
chUdUke state ; and that at His baptism He first attained to
the manly form of perfect virtue, that is, attained to a fully
conscious virtue ; whereas His will had been ever equaUy
pure, and, as His birth from the Holy Ghost would lead us to
expect, had never transgressed. In both cases, Christ would
be affirmed to be sinless ; and we should then be obliged to
suppose, what in itself is quite possible, that for His baptism,
on which they laid such great stress, they assigned a motive not
altogether consistent with theH behef in the supernaturalness of
His birth. I think it, however, more than questionable, whether
the passage was contained Hi their Gospel. If, as Credner
thinks, " ignorantia" should be understood to denote " sins of
ignorance" (compare Testam. Patr. vi. 1, ayvoia), we ought not
to seek for this passage in the Nazarene Gospel, but in another
recension of the Gospel of the Hebrews, — that, namely, which
was employed by the Kypvypa Her pov. This latter also, accord
ing to Hieron. de bapt. Hasret., adduces the passage. Now Jerome
characterizes the Kypvypa Herpov as a book " in quo contra
omnas scripturas et de peccato proprio confitentem mvenies
Christum." If this statement be correct (and there is no reason
for doubting its correctness, if the book were written in Alex
andria some time before BasiUdes), the Kypvypa must have re
ferred the passage under notice to the unconscious sinfulness
of Christ prior to baptism ; but to attribute such a supposition
to the Nazarenes, would be thoroughly Hreconcileable with theH
belief in a bHth from the Holy Spirit, or Hi the appearance of
God among men in Christ. Nazarenes who renounced the
tenets which constituted their characteristic difference from the
Ebionites, ought rather to be termed Ebionites. Compare Note

432 APPENDIX.
TTT. The indefinite, amphibolical nature of the Christology of
the Nazarenes, is in agreement with their entire character.
Note QQQ, page 196. ,
As, among other things, follows from the fact, that at a later
period Symmachus, translator of the Old Testament, was a
leader of the second class, which after him were termed Sym-
machians, TheH chief seat was on the east of the Jordan, and
for this reason Clemens Alexandrinus terms them Heparucol.
They were also to be found in Cypria, Asia Minor, and Eome ;
perhaps also in Alexandria. Compare Ep. Barnab. c. 7, 12, 14 ;
Ignat. ad Magn. and ad Philad. ; Epiph. hasr. 30, 18. See
especially the words of the latter respecting the Cerinthians : —
ovtoi dirb Kypiv0ov 'IovBalol nve? t»^ irepiTopyv avypvvrai, tov
Be Kotrpov iir dyyeXmv yeyevfjo-0ai Xeyovre?9 lyaovv Be KaTa irpo-
KOiryv Xpio-Tov KeKXfja0ai. Euseb. H. E. 3, 27 : 'Efiuovaiov?
tovtov? oiKeico? iireepypicrov, irT(ov&? Kai Taireiv&? Ta irepi tov
XpiaTov SoIjd£ovTe?. Aitov pev yap avTov Kal koivov < yyovvro,
KaTa irpoKoiryv y0ov? avTov povov av0pmirov BeBiKauopevov, e£
dvBpo? Te Koivoavta? kclI t»J? Mapia? yeyevypevov. The word
BeBiKauopevov perhaps contains an aUusion to some act, by which
Jesus was proclaimed by God as Christ, on account of His
righteousness. Note BEE, page 197.
Even the Epistle to the Hebrews would lead us to expect
this. Further, not only Hegesippus, but also the Chronic.
Pasch., and other information we have respecting Cerinthus,
point thereto. SchHemann decides for the time of Hadrian, in
stead pf that of Trajan ; but, all things considered, this is at least
thirty years too late : the decision is based on an over-estimate
of the influence of external events, such as the expulsion of the
Jews from the Aelia Capitolina. Even the name HepaTiKol is
probably an indication that,, of the Jewish Christians who con
tinued in the neighbourhood of Pella after the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus, some took an Ebionitic turn ; and there
fore pursued a course similar to that of the fraction which
seceded from the mother Church of Jerusalem under Tebuthis.

notes. 433
Note SSS, page 199.
Dial. c. Tryph. 48, ed. Col. 267 E. Kal ydp eh I nve?,
axfiiXoi, eXeyov, airb tov ypeTepov yivov?, bpoXoyovvre? ambv
Xpio~Tov etvai, av0ptoirov Be e£ dv0pwrrwv airofyaivbpevov ot? ov
avvrWepai, ovo" dv irXelaTOi Tama pun BogdaavTe? eciroiei), eireiBy
ovk av0pa>irivoi? BiBdypacri KeKeXevo-pe0a vir ai/TOv tov Xpio-Tov
irei0eo-0ai, aXXa toi? Bid t&v paKap'uov irpotyryr&v Kypvy0elai
Kal Bi aiiTov BiBav0elo-i. Compare G. BuU, Judicium Ecclesise,
etc., c. 7, p. 69, with the Appendix of Grabe, p. 79 ff. The
proposal of the former, to read vperepov yivov? instead of ype
Tepov yevow, does not accomplish its purpose ; for the word
irXelo-Toi, which occurs afterwards, implies that there were some
who held this view, whom Justin could not avoid reckoning
amongst Christians, even though chargeable with heresy. In
order to ascertain Justin's entire judgment of these Ebionites,
we must take into consideration c. 35, 81, and indeed his entire
Christology. How greatly the Ebionites were in the minority,
' is evident from the circumstance, that although the conversation
had just before related to the legaUty of theH spirit, the Jew
Tryphon (c. 10) attributes to Christians universaUy the charac
teristic of the non-observance of the law. In a very simfiar
manner, Celsus (see Origen. c. Cels. 2, 1) brings the same re
proach against Christians. Note TTT, page 200.
Epiph. hasr. 30, 13: Tov Xaov $airTia0evro? fjkOe koX
'Iycrov?, xal i$iairTio~0y virb tov ^Imdwov. Kal d>? dvfjX0ev airb
tov vBaTO?, yvolyyaav oi ovpavol, Kal elBe to irvevpa tov Qeov to
dyiov iv e'iBei irepurrepd? KaTeX0ovo-y? Kal elo-eX0ovo-y? el? outov.
Kal <pcovy iyeveTO ix tov ovpavov, Xeyovaa' %v pov el o vio? o
dyairyib?, iv vol yvBoKyo-a. Kal irdXiv iyco aypepov yeyewyKa
ere. Kal ei0v? irepieXaptye tov toitov <f>&? peya. *0 IBcov o
'Icadvvy? X^et ovt&- <rv ti? el Kvpie ; Kal irdXiv <p<avy eg ovpa
vov irpb? avTov Ovto? iaTiv 6 vio? pov 6 dyairyTO?, e<j> bv yvSo-
Kyaa. Kal totb b 'ladvvy? irpo<nreo-mv ovtw eXeye- Beopai aov,
Kvpie, o-v pe @dirTio-ov. O Se eKwXvev, avr& Xeywv depe?, oti
oirrw? eo-Ti irpiirov trXyea)0f)vai irdvra. — Tfie passage adduced
from Jerome in Note PPP must also be attributed to these
Ebionites, if, " ignorantia" referred to sins of ignorance. In
vol. i. 2 K

434 APPENDIX.
favour of which, might further be alleged, that the class now
under consideration, which rejected the account of the child
hood of Christ, and began its Gospel with His baptism, may
have represented the mother of Jesus as caUing upon her Son
to allow Himself to be baptized by John, for the purpose of thus
hinting, that she, at all events, knew nothing of His super
natural birth from the Holy Spirit. The words run as follows
(Hier. c Pelag. 3, 2): — "Ecce mater Domini et fratres ejus
dicebant ei : Joannes baptista baptizat in remissionem pecca-
torum, eamus et baptizemur ab eo, etc." It is further deserving
of remark, that the Ebionitical Gospel intentionally transposes
the words of Matthew iii. 14, 15, to after the baptism. Prior
to the baptism, neither John nor any one else, not even Jesus
Himself, is supposed by them to have recognised Him as Christ
Note UUU, page 201.
This consideration is the more important, as they are by no
means sparing of expressions which imply that the Holy Spirit
of God dwelt in Him ; thus giving up the deistic point of view,
from which they had at first regarded the birth of Christ : see
Note TTT. (To irvevpa tov Qeov to dyu>v iv eiSei irepio-Tepa?
vaTeX0ovo-y? Kal elo-eX0ovay? el? avTov.) In itself it is possible
that they held the irvevpui of God — that is, God as He reveals
Himself in the world of spHit — to have been personally present
in Jesus from the day of His baptism, as did the Nazarenes. In
that case, however, they could no longer be charged with deny
ing the deity of Christ, — a charge, notwithstanding, constantly
brought against them. For this reason, I am compelled to agree
with SchHemann (p. 485), who takes irvevpui impersonally, as a
power, — a view which is suggested also by Isa. xi. %, and by
Justin's vpleo-0ai. But unquestionably, if they held that all
the powers of the Holy Spirit entered into Him, in order to
His complete equipment, the Holy Spirit cannot have been any
longer outside of Him, but must have been in Him, and must
therefore proceed alone from Him. And if the entHe Divine
SpHit was in Him, the only difference between this and an in
carnation of the God-Spirit would be, that we must take the
irvevpa, not in the Trinitarian sense, but either patripassianally,
or else as the principle of revelation ; and accordingly, if not in
name, yet in conception, as equivalent to the Logos, with the

notes. 435
single modification, that, prior to the baptism of Christ, it was
not possessed of an hypostatic existence, distinct from that of the
Father. This consideration shows us, indeed, the path by which
it was possible for these Ebionites to have -advanced forward to
the point of view occupied by the Nazarenes ; but we have no
evidence of theH having done so. For in Hasr. 30, 3, Epiphanius
speaks of Ebionites No. 1, not of Ebionites No. 2 (see above).
Concerning one portion of the Ebionites, whom he did not con
sider at one with the third class mentioned above, he remarks,
irdXiv Be, dVe (SovXovrai, Xeyovaiv ovyl, dXXa 'el? avTov fjX0e
to irvevpa, oirep eo-Tlv b XpiaTO?, Kal eveBvaaTO ovtov tov 'Iyaovv
KdXovpevov. The expression, et? avTov ?)X0e to irvevpa, reminds
one of the passage cited from the account of the baptism given
by the Gospel of the Ebionites now under notice. This ivBv-
o-ao~0ai tov ''lyo-ovv, taught by the Ebionites whom Epiphanius
here has in view, certainly took place at the baptism of Jesus
(compare c. 29). If the irvevpui be the irvevpui dyiov, their
meaning must have been, that from the time of His baptism, the
humanity of Christ was no longer the main1 matter ; that, on
the contrary, it was then reduced, as it were, to the rank of a
garment of the indweUing Holy SpHit, — an idea in remarkable
analogy with expressions used by the teachers of the Church.
But the addition, oirep icrTiv b Xpiarb?, hints that it was a per
sonal pre-existent being which descended on Christ : — and this
would suit Cerinthus, and others related to him. We have here,
therefore, a new illustration of the looseness with which the
word irvevpa was used, and how much caution is . requisite to
ascertain in each case its true sense. In the present instance,
it denotes a higher, but still a created spirit. Now, as these
Ebionites held the Old Testament to be a Divine revelation, and
were most closely related to the followers of Cerinthus, they
probably regarded this highest, pre-existent spirit as the prin
ciple of all Old Testament revelations. In this way, without
resorting for help to the theologumenon of the Word and
Wisdom, and independently of the Hellenic idea of the Logos,
they approximated, though employing other expressions, to the
Churth doctrine of the pre-existent Son, whom they designate
Xpia-To?. And, indeed, the : doctrine of the Church itself did
not all at once get rid of the subordination of the pre-existent
hypostasis of the Son. It is, perhaps, further worthy of note,

436 APPENDIX.
that so soon as, with Cerinthus and those last mentioned, the
higher nature which united itself with Christ was conceived to
be hypostatical, the soil of Ebionism (which, starting with the
human personahty of Jesus, represented Him as a mere man,
exalted by virtue and the possession of the powers of the Holy
Ghost) was quitted, and an alliance was effected with Docetism.
Nay more, this higher JEon Christ, who descends into Jesus as
one person descending into another, dominates, so long as the
union lasts. The union, however, could not become a perma
nent one, but continued dissoluble, inasmuch as there was already
a vigorous human personality, which had long enjoyed an in
dependent existence. The other fraction of these Ebionites,
who maintained that Christ was merely endowed with the highest
measure of the powers of the Holy Spirit, might have held the
union with the man Jesus to be a permanent one ; and, indeed,
we have no account to the contrary. But, as Epiphanius (Hser.
30, 14) rightly remarks, the former could only recognise a <rwd-
<f>eia of the XpicrTo? with Jesus — such a o-vvd<f>eia, namely, as
that the personality of the latter was either as it were absorbed,
or made latent, by the XpicrTo?, during the continuance of the
union. In opposition to the incarnation of the Christos, they
quoted the words — " Who are my sisters and brothers?" — that
is, I (the personal centre of the Messiah, whilst discharging His
office of Teacher) know no one amongst you of like. nature with
Myself. (^ApvovvTai elvai ovtov dv0pmirov Bfj0ev airb tov Xoyov,
ov eipyKev 6 ~%a>Typ- ti? pov ecrTi pryryp ;)
Note VW, page 202.
According to Epiphanius (Hasr. 30, 3), some of the Ebi
onites, with the undoubted design of favouring monarchian
ideas, gave the doctrine of the hypostatical being which united
itself with Christ the following development: — "Christ ( =
dywv irvevpa) is from above ; was created before all things as
a spHit ; is above the angels ; is a Lord over all, and the heir
of the world to come. From this higher world He descends,
whenever He wills : thus He came in Adam, and appeared to
the patriarchs, clothed in a body, as in a dress. In the latter
days, however, He appeared in Adam's veritable body, aUowed
Himself to be seen, was crucified, rose from the dead, and
went back whence He came." Others say, — " Adam, the pro-

notes. 437
toplast, into whose nostrils God Himself breathed breath, was
Christ." We shall see immediately that these tendencies,' not
withstanding their apparent differences, prepared the way for
later phasnomena, and were summed up in the system of the
Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, which taught a monarchian Do
cetism up to the level of the Subordinatianism which, at their
time, still partially clung to the doctrine of the Church.
Note WWW, page 207.
The author does not believe in an eternal matter outside of
God, for that would be incompatible with his monotheism ; but
he teaches a irpo^dXXeo-0ai of the four elements out of God, or
through God. From this we may probably conclude, that he
assumed the presence of a nature in God ; and this conclusion
accords with his doctrine of the body or form of God. But the
nature in God is one thing ; that which has proceeded forth
from God, and is endowed with independence, another thing.
The former is most intimately united with the o-otpia or the
irvevpa in God, and is, therefore, merely a constituent element
of the Unity (Monas) itself. Outside of God, however, it has
a predominant tendency to independence, as it were, to gravi-,
tate towards itself : having passed out of that unity in which it
constituted, not an empty susceptibility, but one replete with
the richest treasures, it has now the germ of evil in itself.
That oneness with itself and the irvevpa, which it enjoyed in
God, ceased, and it was discerpted into the four elements out
of which all things arose. These elements are, indeed, gathered
again into a unity, in the spirit of the earth, y Ka0oXov Kal ifrvyf}
yed>By? , but it is a false unity, brought about by the mixture
of the elements, and its name is Satan, who is free (according
to the Clementine idea of freedom), although he was created
evil. That this unity is completely different from the unity
just pointed out in the Monas, is self-evident ; but it is equally
clear that the two are, notwithstanding, connected with each
other. Opposed to this mighty spHit, which holds possession
of the present world, is the Christ-Spirit, created from the be
ginning as the right is created in correlation to the left. Its
claims on the human souls which are related to Him are, it is
true, in the present world, constantly resisted, through the too
great power of the spirit of the earth ; but He is Lord of the

438 APPENDIX
world to come. Thus, out of an original Divine unity, there
arose in the world a glaring duaHsm, which took the further
form of negative asceticism. Nature, which in God is so united
with the irvevpa as to constitute pure susceptibiUty (vXy), —
susceptibility, moreover, which, being a momentum of God, is
good, — becomes, in the world, an independent, and, as it were,
stubborn and seductive material. For this very reason, there
fore, it cannot be represented as absolutely and simply evil ; it
corresponds to something which, in God — in unity with the
irvevpa — is good ; moreover, the aocpia of God is its Creator.
This feature of their doctrine shows itself partly in their
avoidance of extremes, even in asceticism, and partly in the
observation (Horn. 19, conclusion), that nature also loves God,
— that is, in one aspect it is good, and possesses a susceptibility
to God, after whom it yearns. The same may be said concern
ing Satan, who constitutes its unity. The good principle is so
certain of its victory, that the evil principle serves it without
either knowing or wUling to do so ; for, though Satan himself
is not righteous, as God is, his work is righteous. When he
does mischief, he is executing a Divine punishment, which God,
as the Good, cannot Himself directly execute. Accordingly, he
is compelled, without being aware of it, to help on the victory of
the true, righteous God. At this point, the Satan of the Clemen
tines may be said to approximate as nearly as possible to the
Demiurge of the Gnostics. Compare 3, 5 ; 9, 9 ; 11, 10; 7, 3 ;
15, 7 ; 8, 20 ; 19, 6, 12. The Clementine doctrine of Satan
and matter deserves to be compared With that of Bardesanes.
Compare Hahn's "Bardesanes Gnosticus, Syrorum primus
Hymnologus," 1819, p. 58 ff. The commingUng of freedom and
lecessity in the two also presents many points of similarity.
Note XXX, page 210.
'Eav t& virb veip&v Qeov Kvo<popy0evn av0pdyrr(p to dyiov
XpKTTOV py Bm ti? eveiv irvevpui, ir&? eTepcp tivi ix pvaapd?
o-Toyovo? yeyewyphxp BiBov? eyenv, ov Ta peyiaTa daefiel; Ta
Be peyiaTa evo-ej3y, eav erepa fiev py Bcoy eveiv, ixelvov Be pbvov
eveiv Xeyoi, b? air dpvfj? al&vo? apa toI? ovopaai pu>pcpd?
aXXaa-crwv tov al&va Tpevei, pevpi? dVe IBicov ypovwv ' Tvydtv,
Sia tov? KapaTOV? QeoveXeei vpia0el? el? del efet t^v dvdiravaiv
k.t.X. Horn. 3, 20.

notes. 439
Note YYY, page 212.
It is to be highly rated, that the Clementines kid such
great stress on the idea of justice : they raised opposition to the
doctrine of the immediate goodness of God, laid down by those
Gnostics who rejected the justice of God. Not till the righteous
fire of anger has been brought into activity against the desires,
do they recognise the presence of virtue in man (11, 3 ; 3, 31).
In the history of the world, we find first goodness, then justice
(18, 3). Men did not continue in possession of the original,
direct happiness, which was conferred on them; but began
to misuse their gifts, to be unthankful and forgetful of God, —
supposing, because they had not received the good in reward of
their previous righteous exertions, that all must necessarily be
as it was. Then foUowed just punishment ; and henceforth it
was ordained, that men should earn theH blessings by work,
instead of receiving them dHectly. But, although the idea of
righteousness is the dawn of the distinction between spirit and
nature, the dawn of the ethical, the distinction between the two
can only be superficially determined, untU love is recognised
as the positive element, — love, which effectually dethrones, by '
making the sensuous its servant, until the distinction is at one
and the same time intensified to the utmost, and thus reconciled.
Applied to Christology, this signifies, — because Christ was only
— that is, regarded as the Bighteous One, and not also as the
EeconcUer — that is, as mediating love, therefore the conception
of righteousness itself is an imperfect one. A step was taken
towards mediation, and towards conceiving Christ as a mediator ;
but it was a fruitless one. However much the Clementines dis
course of righteousness, when they come to the deciding point —
when they ought to show how Divine justice and Divine grace
are reconciled — they turn round. Instead of a reconciliation,
they teach a remission of justice ; they f aU back again upon the
unethical goodness of God, which, and not the activity of Christ,
they are compelled to regard as the cause of the forgiveness of
sin : whereas they were already half way towards finding for
Ohrist, by means of the idea of the Divine righteousness reveal
ing itself in Him, an essential and independent position as
mediator ; and thus further to substitute a triadic for the diadic
process which they had hitherto taught.

440

APPENDIX

Note ZZZ, page 212
Thus also is excluded the opinion of the Ebionites, that a
time of "ignorantia" preceded the baptism of Christ. The
opinion of Cerinthus, that the human was completely in bondage,
and required therefore to be as it were ravished out of itself into
Christ, must also have worn the appearance of ecstasy to our
author. Inasmuch as the doctrine is laid down, that the Prophet
of truth cannot sin, cannot err, the earlier Ebionitic principle,
that it would have been unrighteous to elect Jesus to the office
of Xpio-TQ?, had He not previously merited it by His virtue, is
plainly given up. The Clementines, therefore, had no longer
any reason for supposing that, prior to being endued with the
necessary powers for His work, Christ lived for a time a merely
human life, such as is led by ordinary men (yfriXo?, Xito?) ; and
in point of fact, they ceased to lay any stress whatever on the
fact of baptism. But we must go still further. A man found
already in existence by the^Christos, and who had been living a
considerable period apart from the Christos, would not at all
fit into the' system. For such a man would, at all events, have
been exposed to vacillations of his free wiU ; whereas the Prophet
of truth must be exalted above such vacillations. Nay more,
according to the general tenor of the system, a man without the
Christos might be partially in the truth, and partially in lies.
Such a condition of vacillation, or even of former sinfulness,
must leave traces of itself even after the human had been united
with the Christ. The human would then no longer answer to
the predicates of the Prophet of truth ; .and only in the way of
ecstasy — that is, by its being suddenly suppressed, and the con
tinuity of its consciousness being broken — could such imper
fection be removed. We see, therefore, that the author of the
Clementines, so far from having any reason for teaching that
the equipment for the office of the Messiah first took place
during the course of a human life (of which opinion no trace
is discoverable in them) ; such a view must, on the contrary,
have occasioned useless and insurmountable difficulties. They
probably, therefore, held the man Jesus to have been united with
the " Son," or Christos, from the first moment of his existence ;
an idea which, of course, presupposes his origin to have been
different from that of other men — to have been supernatural.

notes. 441
This, however, does not imply that he was born of a virgin ;
nor do the Clementines contain any allusion to such a birth!
On the contrary, they appear to deny that Jesus was David's
son. In general, they seem not to have regarded David with
favour ; because he reminded them of the external theocratic
kingdom, which, as a kingdom of this world, the Clementines
assigned to Satan. It is possible, indeed, that, according to the
Clementine theory, Jesus must have participated in the lie and
sin of the " Left," had he been born of Mary. In point of fact,
the Clementines by no means felt the need of the deliverer's
passing through a true human development ; all that they re
quired, was the outward appearance,of a ready-made and fully
endowed prophet of truth, who, if he were in possession of his
knowledge at one time, must also have been in possession of it
at another. But, it may be asked, if they passed by the baptism
of Christ and His birth from the Virgin, what was their positive
view ? Without doubt, that Christ began at some time or other
— they give no precise point — to exist as Jesus, through con
version into a complete man ; but that this conversion affected
merely the form, not the essence of the Christ. To the same con
clusion we are also led by the analogy of the angels, one of whom,
even though the highest, is really and truly the Christos. The
angels have received from God the capability of transforming
themselves into bodies, and of living amongst men, exactly like
men ; and this same capabihty was possessed in stiU higher
measure by the Christos, who indeed was already, in Himself,
the archetypal man. The archetypal man assumed the form of
the individual Jesus, attained in him to an individual appear-
ance, which differed from His previous appearances in that it
was final and sufficient. Now, if the premundane Christos finds
in the form of Jesus that actuality which affords Him rest after
His labours, this appearance of His must surely have been re
garded by the Clementines as the most perfect of all, although
they do very little to show that such was the case. — When Adam
is designated a man Kvo<popy&el? by the hand of God, inasmuch
as this hand cannot have been the left, we might understand the
reference to be to the aocpia, which conferred on Christ that per
fect body, by means of which He first became Adam, and in the
end, Jesus. And this is of importance; for, had the Christos meta
morphosed Himself into a body taken from the nature which is

442 APPENDIX.
independent of God, He must have been stained with sin and
sensuality, as happened to the angels, who took theH bodies from
the elements of this world.— The womb which contained the
Christos, therefore (this will lie in the Kv6tj>opy0el? iv veipl, etc.,
which so often occurs), was not a virgin, not a woman of the
earth, nor the kingdom of nature in general, but the immediate
hand of God. Note AAAA, page 212.
That his system was not that of the Church, nor authoritative
even in a single land, the author knows, weU enough. Hence
the soUcitude expressed in the letter of Peter to Clement, the
pretence of secrecy, and the appeal to secret doctrines. Com
pare 2, 39 ; 16, 21. But the most striking proof of its sectarian
origin is the system itself, the peculiarities of which, — as, for
example, its doctrine of the Adam-Christus, of the SpHit of the
Earth, of the union of the male and female in God and in the
world, — bear in no case the stamp of the Church ; but refer us,
if we allow Epiphanius to speak (and even Baur does that), to
the districts of Syria and Arabia, which, during the first and
even during the second century, swarmed with sects. In those
districts, namely, were conjoined higher, also Hellenic, culture ;
intercourse with the world (compare Ullmann's " Comment, de
Beryll. Bostr.) ; many Hebrew and Jewish Christian elements ;
and finally, such a form of Ethnicism as that of which we find
rich traces in the Clementines. But, however many sectarian
and extravagant elements have found theH way into them, — for
example, in theH: doctrine of the Old Testament, of Satan, and
of matter, — they are notwithstanding in advance of the earUer
Ebionism, in the direction of universaUsm ; and theH author,
partly on account of his rigid monotheism, and partly on account
of his faithful adherence to James the Just, under whom even
Peter appears to be subordinated, must be regarded as a genuine,
though a degenerate and isolated, offspring of the dispersed
Christians of Jerusalem. The occasion of the work' and its
fiction, I consider to have been the efforts made to exalt the
Eomish Episcopacy, during the second half of the second century.
In that Episcopacy, the Christianity of the heathen world had
then already begun to consoUdate itself as in a centre. In support
of the opposition raised to this Episcopate, Peter and Paul,, who

notes. 443
were already regarded as the two distinguished founders of the
Eomish Church, are made the subject of manipulation. With
this design, Clement of Eome, that disciple of Paul whose his
torical significance relatively to Eome was higher than that of
any other, is taken from Paul, and is represented as converted by
Peter. Peter is therefore first constituted the heH of all Paul's
deeds ; but solely in order to the glorification of the cathedra of
James, on whom in the last instance he is dependent. Hence,
finally, Paul, having been robbed of his school and of his deeds,
is pushed aside. An heretical work or tendency Hke this, with
its entHe web of Hes, should scarcely be deemed worthy of the
honour of having its trembHng assertion, that the Church was
originaUy Ebionitical — an assertion plainly advanced with an
evil conscience — believed, whilst the non-heretical witnesses to
the contrary are partially ignored, partially charged with falsifi
cation, and partially set aside, by means of a critical or her-
meneutical procedure, the principal basis of which is the fiction
whose cause it is meant to serve. Taking their stand on these
homilies, so far as it answers theH purpose, the writers referred
to have tried to construct the entHe history of the Christian
Church during the first centuries. We find, however, the law
verified, that myths become history to him who treats history
as a myth. The merits of Dr Baur relatively to the History of
Dogmas, I shall never call in question ; he has the art of making
his combinations and hypotheses not merely plausible, even when
thoroughly untenable, but also suggestive and fruitful. I will
ingly recognise, further, the high degree of acuteness and art
which Dr Baur has displayed, in his endeavours to justify his
view of the Ebionitic character of primitive Christianity ; but
at the same time, I fear that it is not a very favourable omen,
when such an expenditure of effort and such means are requisite
in order to give a cause some appearance of truth. 'PdBiov
t aXy0e? ; error looks forced. It is true, the traditional view
of primitive Christianity needs rectifying in some points ; but, on
the whole, it is the only tenable one. But as Httle as its age can
constitute it true, even so little can the novelty of an hypothesis
be a pledge that it wiU not soon become antiquated. All de
pends therefore on proof. Now, that there is no imagHiable a
priori necessity for supposing Christianity to have first taken its
rise about 150 years after Christ, has been ably shown by

444 APPENDIX.
Dietlein in his " Das Urchristenthum" (Primitive Christianity),
1845 (see the Introduction). And if we look for historical
proof, let us for a moment suppose, in order to comprehend the
position of the question at a glance, that what is really impos
sible is actually the fact, to wit, that the hypothesis of Baur had
been as long and as universally held to be true, as has been the
view of the Church. Imagine, then, documents hitherto over
looked or concealed (as in the case of the Clementine Homilies),
being suddenly brought to light — such documents, I mean, as
the Church writings which we have designated the Witnessing ;
let me ask, would not the system of Baur or of the Socinians
experience a shock of quite a different kind from that which has
been experienced by the Church's view, in consequence of the
very recent discovery (as it were) of the Pseudo-Clementines ?
though, of course, these writings need to have an organic place
assigned to them in the history of the Church. In other words,
were not one standard employed by the hypothesis in question
for the Ebionites, and a different one for the Church, and were
but a portion of the skill, acuteness, and critical acumen brought
to bear on the claims of the Ebionites that have been brought
to bear on the claims of the Church, the Ebionitic myth would
not have been accepted as genuine coin and historical truth, nor
the, as I regard it, hypercritical procedure against the Church,
have ended in an uncritical procedure towards the Ebionites,
Note BBBB, page 217.
Written before Origen's day, and after the Homilies, and
therefore, at the beginning of the third century. In them the
Gnostic and Judaic-monarchian elements above referred to are
separated. The former elements are entirely excluded ; the
possibility of change in God is denied; nay, even the self-
production or aseity of God (avToirdiap, avToyevy?)-^a,n idea
left half developed by the Clementine Homilies — is rejected, in
order that God may be absolutely simple, immoveable, fixed.
No process, such as is involved in H^s being both Father and
Son, not even an eternal one, is admitted. The author re
garded it as absurd ; for he said that it would logically end in ¦
a Trinity. All we can say of God is, that He is absolutely ;
and thus we are landed at the "Ov. The Becognitions draw a
sharp distinction between two things, which the Homilies leave

notes. 445
pretty undistinguished, to wit, between the process in the being
of God, through eKo-Tacri? and avaToXy, and the act of will.
By the will of God alone do they conceive the world and the
Son of God to have been originated ; not by change, conver
sion, self -division ; not by emanation, nor by extension (which
the Homilies leave an open question, notwithstanding the dis
tinctness with which they affirm Christ to have been a creature),
Eecogn. 3, 8. Not something like Himself did God produce
when He began to be active ; for that would have been a
denial of His impassibility, inasmuch as He would have pro
duced an effect in Himself. Then, too, there would be a
danger of involving Him in the distinction of the sexes (1. c. 9).
This view involves an important loss to Christology, on the one
hand, because the truly divine can no longer be said to be in
Christ, but is above Him, and He therefore is not the Mediator :
on the other hand, however, it is a gain. The form of the
Christos, which in the Gnostic or Sabellian system was left
vague and indefinite, now assumes more distinctly the consoli
dated shape of an hypostasis. After saving the monarchy in the
above-mentioned way, the Becognitions no longer shrink from
giving Christ the highest possible predicates. They are under
the influence, not of an Ebionitical fondness for the Old Testa
ment, and of a consequent desire to detract from the merits of
Christianity, but of a just concern to preserve the unity of God.
For this reason they stand considerably nearer to the Church.
The Son, they say, was born Hi an unutterable manner (1, 69).;
He is designated the Only-born, because He derived His sub
stance from the Unborn One ; and Son, because He was born
of the Unbegotten One. The Son, the FHst-born, who created
the world, and is the Father's perfect image, sets forth God's
entire power as a Creator (3, 9 ; 10, 20 ; compare 9, 3 ; 8, 62).
He is unalterable ; and the Holy SpHit was created by Him as
the fullest manifestation of His power (3, 11). He has a kind
of omnipresence, as He pleases (2, 22 ; 8, 62) ; He lives
through aU ages as a true prophet (2, 22), but not in meta
morphoses (3, 11). He Himself is not, indeed, the Unborn
One ; but inasmuch as He is such as He is, and is so great
in divinity, He sets forth the entire power of the Unbegotten
One. Many, therefore, who are destitute of the fear and
knowledge of God regard Him as the Unbegotten One. — We

446 APPENDIX.
see that here Ebionism incUnes' completely towards Arianism.
With this is connected also the circumstance, that the Ee»
cognitions devote little attention to the idea of the incarna
te
tion. This question Arianism willingly passed over in silence :
beyond Docetism it was never able to advance ; for otherwise it
would have had to solve the difficult problem of conceiving two
finite beings in each other. It is remarkable that the Christology
which is set forth by Simon in the Homilies, as a possible one,
and which is attributed to a disciple of Peter (Horn. 18, 5, 6),
is adopted and carried out in the Becognitions (1, 45 ; 2, 42).
As Peter is not represented in the Homilies as absolutely re
jecting it, we may judge that the germs of an ethnicizing
Arianism akeady lay in Ebionism; and a new proof is given us
of the affinity of principle between a Judaism which does not
enter thoroughly into Christianity, and heathenism. A fur
ther and quite as significant a characteristic of this entire ten
dency, which was content with the semblance of the divine in
Jesus, and regarded the Most High God as exalted above "the
Son, is, that it as good as left the idea of the, atonement out
of sight, and never advanced beyond the sphere of law and
justice : indeed the Becognitions treat the appearance of Jesus
merely as that of the true Prophet, who is now our lawgiver,
and will one day be our judge. The rite of baptism, which
is supposed, like that of ordination, to exert a magical in
fluence, not merely takes the place of sacrifices in the. Becogni
tions • but the Divine forgiveness of sin, bestowed in connection
with it, takes the place of the high-priestly office of Christ. It
is further deserving of remark, that whereas the Homilies, m
agreement with the universal Ebionitical type (which, as we
have shown, the Church had already left behind in its doctrine
of the Word of God, and of Wisdom), represent the higher
principle in Jesus as Pneuma, although hypostatically (Filius
Dei Christus); the Becognitions clearly distinguish between
He Holy Spirit and the Son, and forbid designating the Spirit,
Son of God (3, 11). They rather assign Him a position" similar
fo the one He holds in the "Anabaticon Jesaise" (compare
Gieseler's " Anabaticon Jesaise"). In the last heaven, in the
highest sphere, is the " Filius dilectus" with the Father (in the
iEthiopic Becension " Dilectus"). The Holy Spirit is termed
"Angelus Spiriti sancti;" but is not of like nature with the

notes. 447
other angels. The beloved Son, Isaiah sees descending at the
Father's behest through all the seven heavens. In the last
five, in order not to be recognised by the angels (who after the
manner'of the Demiurge know nothing of higher things), con
stantly changes His figure, and assumes that of the angels of
each sphere. Thus Christ assumed humanity also, walked in
the flesh, and was unknown by the devil, whom He came to
conquer. The devil killed Him, not knowing who He was. But
on that account Christ penetrated into the deepest depths of His
kingdom, bursting all bars, and triumphing gloriously over him
Note CCCC, page 220.
This scarcely needs proof. Markos says, — Bedemption con
sists in TeXeia yv&tri?. This is the second birth of the Gnostics
(Epiph. Hser. 34, 19). The highest JEons are almost invariably
such as refer to knowledge ; as, for example, "Evvoia, vow,
dXy0eia, Xoyo?, (ppovyeri?, and the like. The Logos, where
mention of Him occurs, is to be taken not as creative power,
but either as reason or as thought. So BasHides. Ptolemasus
says (Epiph. Hasr. 33, 1), — Thought, reason, is the first in God ;
the will is the second (iiriyivopevov). From thought and will,
vow (monogenes) and dXy0eui are then derived. Quite similar
are the words of Valentinus and others (Epiph. Hasr. 35, 1 ;
31, 2). The world-Creating or world-forming Wisdom receives,
like Avvapi?, when it is mentioned, a much lower place. All
this displays to us the completest antagonism to Hebraism,
which heldj not thought, but the creative Word and the Spirit
of God, to be the fundamental categories, on the basis of which
we must ascend to the ideal categories of thought, reason, etc.
Note DDDD, page 224.
Dualism first broke ground for the distinction between spHit
and nature ; but the freedom which is characteristic of mind
could not be rightly apprehended, until nature was recognised
as that, which is posited by and dependent on mind. On the
contrary, however antagonistic the relation of mind to nature,
mind necessarily continues to be physically determined by na
ture, and not even free from the natural element which pertains
to itself, as long as it is passively related to nature. Accordingly,
the dualistic religions have not yet outgrown either natural re-

448 APPENDIX.
Hgidn (Naturreligion), or Pantheism, for even the evil principle
is represented by them as divine, absolute. On the other hand,
all Pantheism leads to Dualism, and contains the seeds of Dual
ism within itself ; for example, the Indian religion ended in
Parsism. For if the underlying, substantial life alone is divine,
all the concrete Hfe of creation must be undivine, mere appear
ance, which is to he practically annulled by ascetical practices, by
the burning of the world, etc. ; theoretically, by thought. Hence
all Gnostic syste'ms are in one aspect interwoven with Dualism,
however unintentionally; for example, the school of Valentinian.
The Christian idea alone furnishes at once the reconciliation
between God and humanity, and that between spirit and matter.
Note EEEE, page 225.
1. Adherents of the DuaHsm whose character was pre
dominantly physical, were the Ophites, Saturnilus, Secundus,
and subsequently the Manichasans ; 2. of pantheistic Monism,
Valentine and his wide-spread school, especially Heraclion, his
contemporary, — Ptolemseus, Markos ; 3. of the Judaizing
Monism, Cerinthus, so far as he held Gnostic views, and the
Pseudo-Clementine Homines and Becognitions. The connect
ing link between number 2 and 3 is BasiUdes, in whose system
ethnic and Jewish elements hold equal balance. For in many
, respects he resembles Valentine ; and any other Dualism than
that involved in the said resemblance, and in his doctrine of
justice and of the iKXoyy, I am unable to discover in his sys
tem, although several recent writers' attribute to him another.
Bardesanes, on the contrary, appears to have occupied a middle
position between the first and the two others. For his system,
besides comprising Ophitic and Valentinian elements, lays
great stress also on freedom.
Note FFFF, page 226.
If this system, on the one hand, jars with the pure concep
tion of God, in that, through putting the wUl and the ethical
into the background, it is unable to keep cosmogony and theo
gony sufficiently apart, and subjects the divine life, in a mythi
cal manner, to fate, to suffering, and ,to change ; it makes
amends for this, on the other hand, by introducing life and
motion into the conception of God, and thus preparing the way

notes. . 449
for the Trinitarian self-diremption, in opposition both to a rigid
Jewish monotheism, and to the idea of an abstract substance.
Ground was broken for the doctrine of the Trinity as far as
consciousness was concerned, by the distinction drawn, and re
lation estabUshed, between Propator and the vow, or Monogenes.
But whatever advance is made in the knowledge of the Divine
self-consciousness, is an advance also towards a right understand
ing of cosmogony. FHst of all, however, it was necessary that
attention should be dHected to the neglected ethical aspect of
the conception of God ; and this was done even by Gnostics.
Note GGGG, page 228.
It is probable that, at all events through Cerdo, his teacher,
a connection existed between Marcion and those Syrian Dualists
whose system Valentine sought to conciliate, by bringing to light
its pantheistic aspects. Valentine, however, in his system, either
dUuted, or left unheeded, many dualistic elements. Hence
we find existing, alongside of Valentine and his school, a dual
istic system which from the very commencement was hostile to
the Old Testament, and welcomed in Christianity the overthrow
of the God of the Jews. This same Dualism, however, being
but -superficial, that is, having neither an ethical nor a religious
character, is not free from ethnic elements. Now Cerdo, what
ever affinity there may be between him and Saturnilos (compare
Epiph. Hasr. 23, 2, and 41, 1), did, as it would seem, put into
the background the ethnic elements of the earlier Dualism, de
signated the unknown Most High God good, and thus gave
Dualism a more ethical character. Marcion, however, was the
first to define the character of this goodness aslove, and thus to
secure for his gnosis a reHgious point of departure.
Note fiHHH, page 229.
The exclusiveness chargeable on this form of Dualism, not
withstanding its very high, or even Cliristian character, was
a sufficient justification of the existence and opposition of the
two other systems. As opposed to its " diabolization of the
world" (Weltverteufelung), the ethnic system of Valentine was
in the right ; as opposed to its rejection of the just God, the
" Deus sasvus," Judaism and the Judaistic gnosis were in the
right. And, in fact, we find that Ptolemasus, for example, in his
vol. i. 2 F

150

APPENDIX.

Epistle to Flora, and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, both main
tain theH position in opposition even to Marcion. But Marcion
made the deepest impression also on the Church. Even the Cle
mentines were unable quite to withstand the superior force of his
principle ; but the result of theH contact was, after all, merely a
mutual enf eeblement of the ideas of righteousness and love, and
the establishment of a kind of alliance between them, which
naturally left the supremacy still in the hands of righteousness.
Note nil, p'age 229.
Compare Irenasus and Tertullian adv. Marc. The latter
in particular saw clearly that, in cutting away righteousness, the
very groundwork of " love " would be cut away, apart from
which it must necessarily relapse into mere unethical, physical
goodness ; for righteousness alone ensures the negation of the
natural, the spirituality and sanctity of love. In this direction^
Tertullian has given utterance to deep, speculative thoughts.
But he was less happy in his efforts to solve the other aspect
of the problem, that is,. in showing how love is the true realiza
tion of righteousness. We see that, at this point, everything
depended on the atoning work of Christ ; and this Tertullian
felt quite as strongly as Marcion. Marcion desHed no unethi
cal goodness, as is evident not only from the stress he laid on
the atonement of Christ, but also from the preference he gave,
, in general, to Judaism over heathenism. One may say, there
fore, that whereas the Valentinian school retained a merely
physical reflection of the idea of righteousness, in. the Horos,
who guards the distinction between the " finite" and .the " in
finite ;" Dualism, in distinguishing between spHit and matter,
especially where the distinction took an ethical character, endea
voured to assign its just place to " righteousness." SHnUarly,
Marcion also, in his much deeper Dualism, unconsciously tried
to find a place ,for righteousness. For an essential momentum
of righteousness is to uphold distinctions. Marcionitism also con
stantly reappeared in the form of Antinomianism, etc., until
righteousness had been shown to be involved in love itself — until
it had been shown that, in the Divine manifestations of love, right
eousness is not cast aside, without being first perfected and re
alized in and through love : — that is, until righteousness had been
recognised as an essential and permanent momentum of love.

notes. 451
Note JJJJ, page 229.
The Ophites say a good deal, it is true, of the sufferings of
the o-o<j>la in apostasy, and which the JEon Christos was in
tended to obviate ; for which reason it was arranged that the
tyrant Jaldabaoth should cause Jesus to be born of a vHgin, dis
tinguished above aU others for purity, wisdom, righteousness.
On him descended Christos, Hi union with the higher o-otpia,
worked mHacles, and proclaimed the unknown Father, who is
above Jaldabaoth (the Demiurge of the Ophites). For doing
this, Jaldabaoth kiUed him. But these sufferings related solely
to Jesus ; the Christos escaped to heaven. Here, therefore, there
is no atonement; the suffering o~o<p£a must be classed rather
under the category of the suffering gods of heathenism. More
over, the Perfect One is supposed incapable of having anything
to do with suffering ; for the true nature of love was not under
stood. On the other hand, by His flight, the perfect Christos
confessed His weakness. In this case, further, there is no incar
nation ; for Jesus and Christ are two distinct subjects, the for
mer represented Ebionitically, the latter Docetically ; the union
of the two first began with the office they fulfilled, ,and was dis
soluble in ifs nature, having for its sole aim the teaching of doc
trine and the working of mHacles. Eedemption, therefore, is
conceived as instruction, and not as atonement — a view which
is further carried out in the system of Valentine. A hint of the
higher significance of the atoning work of Christ is contained Hi
the notion, that Jaldabaoth having unjustly MUed Jesus, Christ,
as it were by way of punishment, takes His seat at the right
hand of the tyrant, and without his knowledge attracts to Him
self aU the germs of Hght diffused through his kingdom, tiU he
becomes powerless. All this is so completely ethnic, that it is
difficult to say whether the Ophites should be called Christian
heretics or not ; for their mode of expression leaves it doubtful
whether theH sytem was a symboHcal representation of Christian
ideas or not.
Note KKKK, page 230.
This hypostatization may indeed be looked upon as mythical ;
but to suppose that they intentionally clothed their ideas in the
form in which we find them, when they might have adopted

452 APPENDIX.
another strictly logical form, is completely to misapprehend the
nature of Gnosticism. Besides, their terminology relatively to
this question is in reality very constant. The passage from Ter
tullian adv. Valent. 4, had otherwise frequently suggested to
me the idea, that possibly the early gnosis had had more to do
with Divine powers, now incHning towards, and now away from,
hypostatization, as in the system of Philo, and that the giving a
more fixed hypostatis to these Divine powers was an effect of the
doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ; But that there were no
hypostases in the system of Valentine, as Tertullian there affirms,
seems to me very improbable, in face of the fragments of his
works which have been preserved by Clemens Alexand. (see
Grabe 2, 50 ff.). On the contrary, later Gnostics luce Markos
were reproached with denying the Son of God to be an hypo
stasis (Orig. Comm. Joh. T. iv. 22). Herakleon, also, probably
incHned thereto (compare the passages culled from the writings
of Origen in Grabe's Spicilegium 2, 87-89). It was perhaps
also the natural course, that the symbolical garment of the world
of .iEons should gradually fall away, and that what then re
mained to the Valentinian school, with its pantheistic funda
mental views, were the manifold Divine powers, which were
afterwards conceived as the single sounds of the one great Word
of the world (Epiph. Hasr. 34, 8-10; Grabe's Spicileg. 2,*89).
They then arrived again at the ante-Christian idea, that the world,
or man in himself, is the Son of God, — an idea which, 'logically
carried out, left Christ merely an Ebionitic position. What
Ebionites may be regarded as the continuation of this form of
gnosis, will shortly become clear. — The matter took an entirely
different shape with Marcion. He taught that the inmost essence
of God, love, appeared in Christ. In such case, Christ could
no longer be spoken of as an hypostasis subordinate to the Most
High God : those who adopted his view, ought rather to have
advanced onwards to Patripassianism, or even to the doctrine of
the Church ; which, whilst claiming for Christ true divinity,
escapes Patripassianism, by recognising those self-distinctions in
God, the way for which had been prepared by Gnosticism.
Note LLLL, page 235.
Compare respecting Basilides, Epiph. Hser. 24, 3, — elvai
avTov <pyai (pavracriav iv t& <paivea6ai, py elvai Be dv0pmirov,

notes. 453
pyBe a-dpKtX elXytpevai. Baur is, therefore, not quite accurate,
when he says that Basilides ought not to be termed a Docetist
(Gnosis, p. 225). It would be correct, if Basilides had laid
stress on the avTe%ovaiov, that is, on the human aspect: but
such is not the case. On the contrary, as we shaU immediately
see, he stands in direct antagonism to Cerinthus, however he
may at first sight seem to, resemble him. Theodoret (Ep. 145 ;
compare Hahn 1. c 65) says, indeed, Valentine, Basilides, Bar
desanes, and Harmonios accept the birth from the VHgin, but
merely irdpoBov Bi avrfj? mairep Bid amXyvo?.
Note MMMM, page 238.
Several parties assume also a passing away of the body of
Christ, a dissolution of it into its elements. This comes natu
rally to such as do not distinguish a man Jesus from the Christ,
but regard it as the design of His appearance to clothe Him
self with a body, such as shall be suited to our planet, and be
composed of its elements. To render this process of assimila
tion and decomposition of the body easy and natural to the
imagination, they represent Christ as descending through all
the ¦ heavens, and as assuming to Himself from each, as He
passed through it, a bodUy integument from its elements, which,
the farther He descended, became the more gross, until Christ
came down to the most material of all, the earth. In His ascent
to heaven, the elements thus previously assumed, are, according
to His will, graduaUy deposited in their respective spheres
(comp. Anabaticon Jesaise). The Melchisedechians and Theo-
dotians also have something akin to this ; and we must add
ApeUes, if credit is to be given to the passage, De Prasscript.
Hasr. 51.
Note NNNN, page 241.
TertuUian 1. c. 2, 27 ; 3, 21 ; " de carne Christi," c. 5. But
this is especiaUy clear from the long treatise by Epiphanius, on
Marcion's Codex, according to which he did not permit himself
to alter any passage, merely because it aUuded to the death of
Christ and His atoning sufferings ; for example, he, left the
passage, " Christ became a curse for us," standing (Epiph. Hasr.
42, 8), and drew from it the conclusion that we had been the
property of a stranger, because the creatures of the Demiurge,

454 APPENDIX.
and that for this reason alone was it necessary to purchase us
into His life. Epiphanius remarks, — " He says yyopao-e, but
Paul says i^qyopaae : he represents Christ as a curse (as a sub
stitutionary ransom) in connection with this purchase; but
Christ was no curse, He was the aboUtion of the curse." As
though Marcion would have denied the latter, and not rather
have endeavoured to show how the latter was brought about by
the former. Compare further, Epiph. ed. Petav. i. 313, no. 16.
317 ; no. 73, 76. Luke ix. 22, xxiii. 46 ; Eom. v. 6, so far from
appearing objectionable to him, were taken as the basis of ar
guments. Compare in connection herewith, Baur's " Gnosis,"
p. 242, who has employed the view of the system of Marcion
given by the Armenian Esnig in the fifth century (see Neumann
in IUgen's " Zeitschrift fiir historische Theologie"),_for the pur
pose of supplementing Marcion' s doctrine of the atonement ; as
Marcion conceived the Demiurge, through whose heaven Christ
descended, to have been even then powerless against, although
hostile to, Him, as also at His death (compare Neander's Church
History i. 531), which he must have regarded as the result of
the free love of Christ, and not of the preponderance of the
jealous Demiurge. To the death, with which the Demiurge
threatened Him, His love surrendered itself, merely because the
Demiurge had a certain right to the men whom he had created ;
and to whose laws also Marcion concedes a relative truth; For
this reason Christ bought us, the property of a stranger, by His
death. The teachers of the Church, too, like Irenasus, were not
disposed to assert the absolute significance of righteousness in
such a manner as to exclude love. As regards Marcion, how
ever, this is a fresh proof that he aimed at vanquishing justice,
not by the physical category of power, but by the higher one of
love. Compare, for a contrary view of the matter, Niemeyer's
" De Docetis," 1823, p. 44 ff .
Note OOOO, page 245.
TertuU. de Carne Chr. 6. " Quidam discentes Pontici
iUius (pupils of Marcion), supra magistrum sapere compulsi,
concedunt Christo carnis veritatem, sine prsejudicio tamen re-
nuendas nativitatis. Habuerit, inquiunt, carnem dum omnino .
non nativitatem." How easy it was for the Church to combat
heretics, who conceded as much as did Marcion and his school,

NOTES. 455
from their own premises, is shown by the passage from Ter-
tullian's "De Carne Christi" 6. In proof that Christ's body
was sidereal, Apelles had appealed to the appearances of angels.
Tertullian replied, refuting him by his own doctrine, — " It de
pends on the cause of the appearances; the cause, determines
also theH nature. Nullus unquam angelus ideo descendit, ut
crucifigeretur, ut mortem experiretur, ut a morte suscitaretur.
— Non venerant mori, ideo nee nasci. At vero Christus mori
missus, nasci quoque necessario habuit, ut mori posset. Non
enim mori solet, nisi quod nascitur. Mutuum debitum est inter
se nativitati cum mortahtate." He makes the same reply in
another form (Ib. c 8), — " If the earthly substance, as such, be
peccatrix, so also' is thine heavenly substance ; for only if the
world, the finite in general, delictum est, can the earthly sub
stance be termed delictum and unworthy of Christ." Now, in
order that the &Xy also might be subsumed under the spHitual
nature of God, it was necessary, before all things, to abolish the
absolute limit between it and spHit, to regard the hyUc as an
other (for example) restricted stage of the psychical or pneuma-
tical. Efforts were made even by Gnostics to compass this
end. In this connection may be mentioned the remarkable view
spoken of by TertuUian in his " De Carne Christi," c 10 ff.;
which derived the body of Christ, not from sidereal elements
consoUdated in the region of the earth, but from His own soul.
Without doubt this was a view of the later Valentinians.
Christ's soul was conceived by them as a light-substance, which
became opaque and soUd, either in consequence of its mere
passage through the earthly region, or for the sake of its pas
sage through Mary. His body was, therefore, as to its sub
stance, "anima, animalis, tenebras accipiens;" and so we can
say, " His flesh became souHcal, or even the soul became flesh,
body in Christ ; so that we saw it born, we saw it die, and, what
is stUl more, we saw it rise again." Tertullian, indeed, then
remarks, and justly, that such a body is either a mere mask and
untruth,— that the soul had therefore merely put on a surface
foreign to it, that it was not converted into 'body, and that, in
short, there was no actual body at all; or, if this conversion
really did take place, the soul must have ceased to be soul after
the conversion. In the first case, the body of Christ would be
an unreality; in the second case, the work of redemption must

456 APPENDIX
have been imperfect, inasmuch as Christ had no soul. And yet
this view was on the very verge of breaking through the dis
tinction between the psychical and the hylical ; primarily, it is
true, merely as applied to the Person of Christ ; but the Person
of Christ had a more general significance. And some actually
at once raised the objection, that our nature in its truth, is to be
conceived like that of Christ, and that the psychical is the truth
and substance of the body. They had thus arrived at a point of
view directly opposed to that with which gnosis began ; for at
first, though the form of matter was held to be derived from the
divine, the substance was regarded as extra-divine, as an eKTpeopa.
But TertuUian asks, with justice, how the dark body (tenebrse)
can show the Ught-nature as its truth ? which is but another form
of the question asked above, — How can concealment — for they
reaUy do represent the psychical and the psychical adp% as a veil
— be again required by them for the revelation of the pneuma-
tical aspect of Christ's being ? A contradiction which can Only
be removed by regarding the external human appearance of
Christ, notwithstanding that in one respect it was characterized
by transitoriness, and was left behind even by the faith of the
Church, as, in another aspect, — to wit, in the very aspect which
was most essential, — as a necessary and constituent element of
the idea of the Christ : in other words, until it is viewed, not
as a veiling self-emptying, but as an utterance, as a revelation
in the form of act, as love which has become nature. LiteraHstic
extravagances in the estimate formed of the eternal significance
of all the parts of the body of Christ are chargeable also upon
the Church, and might, by another path, have led to Docetism.
Christian literature, even prior to Origen's time, had exhausted
the subject of the bodily life and functions of Christ (Origen.
ad Galat. de la Eue's ed. iv. 690 f.) ; — discussions, the details
of whichj indeed, are of little interest to us, but which show
that that period of the Church's history, on which devolved the
task of settling the question of the true corporeality of Christ,
cannot be reproached with a lack of thoroughness and earnest
ness. Compare the painstaking collection by Niemeyer in his
work, <<DeDocetis," pp. 2-9, 32 ff.; and in reference to the
combating of the Docetists by the ApostoUcal Fathers, especially
Polycarp (Ep. 7), Ignatius (Ep. ad Smyrn. 2 ; ad TraU. 5, 10),
p. 6, in the New Testament writings p., 2 9. What Ignatius

notes. 457
says,—" Those who hold Christ's sufferings for a phantom, are
themselves a phantom,"— are considered by Neander to belong
to the oldest epistle which he counts genuine.
Note PPPP, page 251.
Of all the Gnostics, no one was further removed from the
" above described Pantheism, which leads to Atheism, than
Marcion. No one, less than he, treated Christ as though His
only office were to lead us to Gnostic self-knowledge, or set
forth in Christ that only which our Ego also is, in its essential
nature. On the contrary, Marcion was just the man who
taught that with Christianity an absolutely new thing had been
introduced into the world ; who exaggerated the consciousness of
sin and the reHgious point of view, to such an extent as scarcely
to leave even a susceptibUity for Christ in the ante-Christian
world. It is the more surprising, therefore, that Baur (see his
" Gnosis," p. 292 ff.) should have deemed it right, whether to
his praise or to his blame, to class him amongst those who re
garded Christ as the mere symboUcal expression (reflex) of the
idea of God, arising in the subjective consciousness. He did
undoubtedly maintain that God as love was something new for
the consciousness of man (" agnitione novus," Tertull. adv.
Marc i. 9) ; but cannot the Church also concede that ? Are
we therefore to deny that, according to Marcion, the new know
ledge of the, it is true, eternal God of love, was conferred on
men by the new work of love, in the appearance and atoning
death of Christ ? Nor do I further understand how Baur can
hint (p. 294) that there was so great a difference between
Marcion's view of the significance of the external revelation of
Christ, and that entertained by Praxeas and Noetus.
Note QQQQ, page 256.
Many works written about this time have been lost (Euseb.
H. E. 4, 7) ; even theH very titles are no longer known, although
Eusebius was acquainted with most of them (H. E. 4, 21).
Several authors are described by him as " orthodox men ;" — so,
for example, PhUippus in Gortyna, who wrote against Marcion
(4, 25) ; Dionysius of Corinth, a man of freer tendencies (4, 23) ;
Modestus ; Musanus, the friendly antagonist of the Encratites
(4, 21, 28) : further, Agrippa Castor's 'iKavdrraTO? eXeyvp?

458 APPENDIX.
against BasUides, which Eusebius knew (4, 7), — not to mention
the opponents of the Montanists, Apollonius (5, 18), Cl. Apol-
linaris of HierapoUs, Serapion (5, 16 ; 6, 12). Compare also
Eusebius 5, 23-25. Of the above-mentioned ApoUinaris under
Marcus AureUus, and MeHto in Sardes, his contemporary, fur
ther of the author of the " Little Labyrinth," and the unnamed
presbyters in Irenseus, valuable Christological fragments of the
second century are still extant. Notice is merited by the pas
sage from Eusebius' H. E. 4, 7 : " When the heresies arose,
BasiUdes in particular, and very many churchly men, fought
for the truth, and defended the faith of the Apostles and of the
Church in a more scientific (XoyiKcoTepov) manner : at that time
also some provided for those who should come after, prophy
lactic remedies against these heresies ; among these was Agrippa
Castor." Eusebius has aptly remarked, that shortly after the
rise of gnosis, and at its impulse, the period of the Church's
scientific activity commenced, — a tendency which was not
merely apologetical, which did not merely preserve, as Eusebius
seems to hint, but also developed, the old. In another sense
also, as the heading of the present section shows, his remark was
appropriate, that from this time onwards the combat was con
ducted XoyiKWTepov.
Note EEEE, page 264.
It is true, that even in Philo the Logos has also the significance
of Word, and not merely of Eeason. And so it might appear as
though the Church had now arrived, in the course of its develop
ment, at the very same thing which PhUo had taught a hundred
years before. But PhUo was unable to distinguish between the
world in its unity, the idea of the world and the Son or Logos :
hence, either the Son had no true hypostasis, or the world had
no actual being (see above). On account of his doctrine of the
vXy alone, his highest idea lacked that' creative Word, whose full
energy was developed in the incarnation. The early Church,
however, took a different view of Philo, and imported more
Christian elements into his system than it reaUy contained. We
have shown above that Philo's teachings cannot be regarded as
Christian : it can only be found in him, therefore, because it has
been first brought to him. The entHe development of the
Church prior to Justin can be explained apart from Philo.

notes. 459
Justin may have been acquainted with Philo's system ; but I
quite agree with Semisch (" Justin der Martyrer" 2, 297 ff.),
when he maintains that the real substance of his idea of the
Logos rests on Biblical and Church foundations. The Alexan
drian and the Platonic philosophy may have aided, however, in
moulding the scientific form of the doctrine under considera
tion. That the latter had an influence on Justin in this respect,
is certain. Note SSSS, page 266.
As Semisch does, ii. 423 f . The passages adduced by Semisch,
c Tryph. 90, 93, 95, 96, 111, do not deny that Christ became
a curse for us, — or was not Justin acquainted with the Epistle
to the Galatians ? — they rather assert it ; and all that Justin
refuses to aUow is, that the Jews shall regard the Crucified One
as one cursed of God, that is, as a criminal ; or shall say, that
He was the enemy of God. The appearance he aims to do away
with (BoKovo-a KaTapd) is, that the assumption of the curse, and,
in this sense, the being a curse, was incompatible with the appro
bation of the law, with being pleasing to God. It was the will
of the Father of all, that Christ should assume the universal
curse : hence He cannot be simply and alone described as One
who is cursed of God, for He was also the reverse ; had He not
been the reverse, He could not have abolished the curse. So
also was His assumption of the curse approved, and not con
demned, by the law. " For," says he in c. 96, " that strengthens
the hope we have built on the Crucified One, that the law terms
Him who hangs on the cross, a Curse."
Note TTTT, page 272.
The regular expression is, Bvvdpei Kal '[SovXy. In the latter
word, the idea of counsel, of decree, is predominant ; so that it
impUes will (0eXyo-i?, c Tryph. 61) and consciousness (c. Tryph.
100). " He is begotten by the power and the counsel of the
Father ; not, therefore, as though He had been cut off, or as
though the essence of the Father had been divided ; in which
case, that which had been cut and divided would not be the same
as before," (Ib. 128.) Now this expression, that the genera
tion of the Logos also had been the object of a Divine decree
and purpose, is the strongest subordinatian expression employed ,

460 APPENDIX.
by Justin. For the phrase, irpdrry Bvvapi? perd tov iraTepa
(Apol. i. 32, 12), is not necessarily Arian in cast ; inasmuch as,
at all eventsJogically, the Father does precede the Son, in the
Trinity. Still less should any conclusion be drawn from the
Bevrepa vppa of the Son, alongside of the Tpvry Taiji? of the
Holy Ghost, in itself (Apol. 1, 13); For he is there speaking
of the liturgical succession ; further, too, of Jesus Christ, not
of the Logos : so also, 2, 13. As little objection can be based,
in itself, on the circumstance, that, even in His earlier appear-
" ances, the Son was termed Maleach, Angel, Messenger, or Ser
vant (virypery?, c Tryph. 93, 57) ; and that, in correspondence
thereto, the Father is styled Lord (c Tryph. 127, 129). For
such terms do but give prominence to the fact of His being the
organ of the revelation of the Father. Of this same character
are the words, virb tS> traipl TeTaypkvo? (see c. Tryph. 56 and
126).
Note UUUU, page 276.
Semisch asserts, indeed (1. c. 2, 407), that in the view of
Justin, the Logos created for Himself His own body in the
womb of Mary ; but this idea does not lie in the words, " He
became oV eavrov 6poioira0y?" Much rather might the idea
be deduced from the following words of Clemens Alexandririus,
who in other respects also was not quite free from Docetism :
d Xoyo?.Bypiovpyia? aino? errevra Kal eavTOV yevva, otov 6 Xoyo?
frapg yevyTai, "va Kal 0ea0fj (Strom. 5, 3, 16). But from Ter-
tuUian's (Justin's ?) words, by no means. Nor does the expres
sion pu>p<povo-0ai, to give Himself a form (Apol. 1, 5), prove this.
It is scarcely Hkely that Justin had reflected on the subject.
Indeed, we are led to a contrary conclusion by expressions such
as, " Jesus was the Son of David, because His mother was the
daughter of David" (c Tryph. 43; compare 23, 100) : — spe
cially, however, compare the passage, Apol. 1, 32, where Christ
is designated a blossom of the root of Jesse, immediately after
the blood of the grape, in Gen. xUx., had been referred to the
blood of Christ, on the ground that even as the former is not
made by man, but by God, so the blood of Christ is derived not
from human seed, but from God's power (c. Tryph. 54), that is,
from the Logos (Apol. 1, 32). The latter expression appears at
first sight decidedly favourable to Semisch. But the word alfia

notes. 461
does not imply that the body of Christ was created by the Logos
in Mary, and that she formed merely a point of transition ; it
rather denotes the animal life, which Mary undoubtedly could
not give, even as man cannot create the organic Hfe in the vine.
Hence also the Divine share Hi the incarnation of Christ, and
Mary's, are described by one and the same word (Apol. 1, 32) :
ota irap0evov — Bui Bvvdpem? Qeov aireKvy0y. He was, there
fore, and had, flesh of her flesh. This follows also from Jus
tin's doctrine of the Eucharist.
Note VWV, page 279.
Whether in Apol. 1, 66, he conceives Christ to be present
in the Eucharist, cannot be a matter of doubt. On the other
hand, he makes no aUusion to a conversion of the elements.
But it stUl remains to be asked, whether Justin represents the
Logos alonefc or the Logos in His humanity, as united with the
elements. As an image of the union itself, he employs the
incarnation ; and this might appear favourable to the former
supposition : it would then f oUow, as Semisch supposes (2, 440),
that he held the Eucharist to be a constant renewal of the in
carnation, in the more rigid sense. But this is met at the very
outset by the difficulty, that Justin does not teach that Christ
laid aside His humanity in the state of exaltation, but the con
trary. Besides, the words, "the Tpwpy Tovo-apKoirovq0evTO?,Iydov
in the holy Eucharist, is Kal arapt; Kal alpa" are opposed thereto.
Justin conceives the entire Christ in union with the Eucharist.
This might also have been bis idea in the use of the image of
the incarnation, inasmuch as Christ constitutes the elements the
visible organ of His activity and self -communication, and thus
restores the visibiUty of which men were deprived by His exal
tation. It is not quite correct to identify his doctrine with that
of the Lutheran Church : at the same time, what has been said
is enough to show, that the two approximate most closely to each
other ; Justin's going beyond that of the Lutheran Church, in
that he regards the Eucharist,^ not indeed as a new incarnation,
but at all events as a momentum of the one incarnation.
Note WWWW, page 295.
That in the writings of his which are yet extant there is no
trace of Ebionism, all allow. Photius (Cod. 109, ed. Both.

462 APPENDIX
1653, p. 286) says, indeed, that Hi the Hypotyposes (yrroivirai-
aei?) he maintained, that not the very Logos, but a power and
emanation of the Logos, the fyrrratv Xoyo?, became man. Accord
ing to this, he would teach two Xoyoi, a great and a less one.
Along with this, further, the charge of Docetism relatively to
the o-apKeo0fjvai — which scarcely accords with the former. Pho-
tius himself, however, was not certain whether he ought to
regard the errors blamed in the work before him as those of
Clemens. — With the detailed description given of the so-caUed
viroTvirao-ei? by Photius, would appear to accord completely
the view of the so-called " Excerpta Theod." as a fragment
of the " Hypotyposes." These " Excerpta" are in so far carelessly
thrown together, as one is frequently unable to say what be
longs to Theodotus and what to the writer who made the ex
tracts. Thepdotus held the Ebionitic doctrine of a double Logos
(§ 61) : thus alone can we explain how Photius should have come
to attribute it to Clemens ; he did so, because he considered it
possible that Clemens was the author of the " Excerpta," though
he did not venture confidently to affirm it. — Another charge, —
to wit, that of teaching a merely apparent incarnation of the
Logos, — which Photius brought against the "Hypotyposes,"
clung longer to Clement. Photius, however, did not find any
confirmation of the charge in the works which are still extant.
Note XXXX, page 305.
In favour of the signification " Word," if proof be needed,
may be adduced the contrast instituted between cruyy and Xoyo?
(2, 15) ; further, Hi particular, Irenasus' peculiar collocation of
Son and Spirit. These " Manus Patris " (5, 1, 5, 6) are also
described Hi such a manner, that to-the Son are attributed love
and power (3, 40; 4, 37), — to wit, that creative love which has
no ineed of ought ; and to the Spirit, wisdom, so far as it
informs itself into the world. " Verbum et Sapientia, FUius et
Spiritus," says he repeatedly, have created the world (4, 17, 37;
compare 4, 50). It is scarcely allowable here to suppose that
the translator has rendered Logos incorrectly. Seeing that he
elsewhere views the Logos also as reason, and does not identify
the SpHit and the Logos, this designation of the Spirit must
occasion surprise, unless we remember that the Old Testament
theologumenon of Wisdom, after having aided in the formation

notes. 463
of the doctrine of the Logos, now began to be pressed into the
service of the doctrine of the Holy SpHit, — He being always set
forth as the Principle of Unity (compare ed. Grab. 331, 4, 37)
— as the inward bond of connection between God and the
world. The further course run by this doctrine is sinular to
that run by the doctrine of the Logos. At first it was inter
woven with the conception of the world, and stood especially
for the immanence of God in the world. In this stadium many
things otherwise apportioned to the Logos were apportioned to
the SpHit. But graduaUy, as the idea of the Logos in His
distinction both from the Father and the world acquired a
more determinate and settled form, it became both possible and
necessary to distinguish the principle of unity — which was at
Urst the representative of wise order in the world, and was the
ground of its susceptibiUty to God (5, 2, 3, 6) — more clearly
from the world. Lenseus already dHected attention to this
point Ha 4, 37 ; especiaUy p. 331a.
Note YYYY, page 314.
The passage is misunderstood by Baur, in his "Versohn-
ungslehre" (see page 31). He refers "suadela," "suadentem,"
to the devU : it was weU that the devil should be convinced of
the justice of the method adopted by God. On this is based
the hypothesis, that the antagonist of Gnosticism himself here
reasoned according to Gnostic principles. I should be quite
unable to grant this, even if Baur's translation were correct ;
and it scarcely can be correct. " Suadere, suadeia," signifies
"persuade," not "convince" (" persuadere ") ; and so indeed
Baur himself translates it elsewhere (p. 30). In other places
Irenasus treats men as the object of this "suadere" (see 5, 21,
passim). There must be a resemblance between the way in
which men fell and the way in which they are redeemed. They
f eU, not by compulsion, but by seduction, persuasion, suadendo ;
accordingly, redemption must strike into the same path; although
the adoption of such a cHcuitous route was an advantage to the
devil, in so far as God, by giving up His right to the employ
ment of force against him, His creature (5, 18, 21, 22), made
it possible for man, by virtue of his freedom, to continue in the
power of the devil. We see that, because this cHcuitous path
left stiU a prospect open for the devil, he might be figuratively

464 APPENDIX.
represented as demanding its adoption as a matter of right.
And we actually find later writers putting the thing in this way.
But Irenasus set the devU too far below God to be able to use
such language, even figuratively. The righteousness which
called for the adoption of such an indirect method, Irenasus
attributed, on the contrary, to God : it is, Hi his view, the prin
ciple which guards the distinction between the physical and the
spiritual. If the latter is to retain its dignity and its rights, it
must determine to operate not in a physical manner. To the
devU, in himself, Irenasus concedes no right against God, not even
in the strict sense a right through God, his own damnation ex
cepted. The devU seduced men solely through Ues, consequently
unrighteously (5, 22) ; and he employs force against them as
though they were his property, although he reaUy has no pro
perty in them, and rules them contrary to theH nature (5, 1,
sec. 1). The only thing in his favour, and which might strictly
be termed a right given to him by God over men, was, that
God, as love, desHed free beings, and therefore could not
render a fall physicaUy impossible; and, further, that it was
agreeable to the punitive justice of God, that those who had
voluntarily given themselves into the hands of the devil, and
who refused to lay hold on salvation, should be left in his power,
there to learn his lies and to reap death, instead of the promised
equahty to God. With equal justice, or rather injustice, the
passage, Ep. ad Diogn. 7, from which Irenseus probably bor
rowed the antithesis between {Sia and irei0eiv, might also be
referred to the devil. Note ZZZZ, page 315.
Experience (experiinentum) gives us to know evil in its
consequences; whereas we know prior to aU experience that
something-is good or evil, and can consequently choose between
opposites. When, therefore, Irenasus taught that experience
first brings fixity, security, he had no intention of denying to
man, at the commencement of his development, freedom of
choice. His idea had an eschatological character ; it presented
to his view the triumph of the good. The superiority of the
good is seen in the fact that evil, though freely originated, and
permitted to work, is compelled to serve the good, — that the
passage through evil finally establishes man in good. To the

notes. 465
adoption of this theory he was the more easily led, as he already
(not, as is usually supposed, for the first time Tertulhan) had
taught the existence of an evil inherited from Adam. Eelatively
to the latter point, compare Duncker 1. c 140 ff. Strictly
speaking, Adam's sin alone was completely free ; for, with all
his weakness (resulting from the imperfect state in which
creation stiU remained), he might have obeyed the command.
His not having done so, and the consequent extension of the
power of evU over all men, is an apparent triumph for evil.
Irenseus, however, had an answer thereto, in the above-men
tioned thought, which at the end reveals, on the one hand, the
powerlessness, and, on the other, the serviceableness, of evil.
Note AAAAA, page 318.
The word " recapitulare," so frequently used by Lenseus,
signifies in general, " to return with anything to the beginning;"
that is, — (I.) "to repeat" (for example, 5, 33, p. 455a; 5, 12,
p. 417a; 5, 21, p. 432). From the meaning " to repeat," is
then derived the signification, "to sum up." To sum up,
namely, is a repetition in the form of a collection of the
momenta previously distributed. In this last sense the word is
very often employed by Lenseus. So, for example, 5, 25, p.
437, — the thought, " Antichristus omnem suscipiens diaboH
vHtutem," is soon afterwards expressed in the words, " diaboli-
cam apostasiam in se recapitulans." Similarly also 4395, and
,5, 28. 29; 3, 11, p. 2236, "in bestia veniente recapitulatio
fit universse iniquitatis et omnis doli;" p. 446a, "recapitulans in
se omnem, quse fuit ante diluvium malitiae commixtionem."
Thus also of Christ. He comprised humanity with all its guilt
in Himself (3, 20, p. 245, 2486, 5, 21). But because such a
summing up in one, more fully exhibits a sphere, than would
the exhibition of its scattered momenta, such a collection is
more than a mere repetition, it is also a consummation of all
that had gone before (5, 14, p. 4206, 421a, -5, 21, p. 452a). It
is a return to the idea of the thing ; it is a f uUer, a complete
representation of it. With this is further connected a second
main signification. " Becapitulare " denotes (II.) " to lead back
to the beginning, that is, to the original idea;" that is, (1) "to
complete," "to fulfil," "to bring into accordance with the
VOL. I. 2 G

466 APPENDIX.
idea." So 5, 23^ p. 435, of the fulfilment of a type : 3, 30. 31 ;
1, 2, p. 45. Christ came in order to bring everything to its
source (caput), to its commencement (God), who is also its
goal. (2) Then very derivatively, " recapitulare " denotes, when
after a normal commencement an abnormal state has been in
troduced, " to restore," — that is, not to bring back to the former
condition, but to set aside that which contradicts the idea; —
a work which Christ could not accomplish unless He recapitu
lated humanity in Himself in another sense also. For Irenasus'
course of thought is, that Christ not merely summed up in
Himself the "longa hominum expositio" laden with sin, but
also completed and set forth humanity in its purity. " Omnia
recapitulans (Christus) recapitulatus est;" summing up all
in Himself, Christ is set forth as the summed up unity (com
pare 5, 21 ; init. 5, 28, 4446). (HI.) The passage 1, 2, p. 45,
cU. 3, 18, p. 2416, probably denotes, humanity is brought to
Christ as its xeipaXy ; which, however, is but a more concrete
expression of its idea, and therefore a realization of its ideal
commencement (compare also 5, .20, p. 4316).
Note BBBBB, page 326.
After what Lenseus says regarding the Holy Ghost, it is in
accurate in Semisch (see Hahn's " Theol. Annalen," 1842, pp.
319-345) to maintain, that during the first three centuries the
doctrine of the Holy Ghost was too undeveloped for us to be
able to suppose that Lenseus conceived Him to be the mediating
principle between the outward elements in.. the Lord's Supper,
and Christ. A glance at Clemens Alexandrinus (see above)
shows the incorrectness of this view.
I must especially object to his declaring the second of the
fragments of Pfaff to be spurious, because it contains this doc
trine. 3, 19, p. 244a; 4, 37, 74, prove that Irenasus had this
idea. — Equally deserving of condemnation- is it, when he repre
sents Irenasus as saying that the Logos was in the Eucharist
without His humanity, and that merely the external • elements
became the body and blood of the Lord. Where does Irenasus
say this ? Is it because he speaks of the Logos in the Eucharist,
and does not term Him Christ ? But it needs only a limited
acquaintance with Irenseus to know that when he speaks of the
Logos, he by no means refers merely to the daapKo? Xoyo?, but

notes. 467
often refers to Christ (for example, 3, 21) ; and so, vice versd,
he calls the Logos Jesus (3, 10). In what passage, then, does
Irenseus allude to the Logos without His humanity, after the
ascension, in the place of Jesus, as though He had laid aside
His humanity ? That would contradict his fundamental idea
of the necessity of the inparnation. , And why does Semisch
supply 06oi) to eKKXyaia and not Xpurrov, who crapg iyeven %
If, as he allows, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is
excluded by the words of Irenseus, and no less also the Beformed
doctrine ; it does not therefore follow that they teach the
Lutheran doctrine, although it cannot be denied that the two
»approximate. The mode in which Irenasus estabhshes a con
nection between the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist, side by side
with the Logos, who, though He became, and wUl ever continue,
man, returned to His former invisibiHty, accords completely
with the fundamental type of the incarnation. It is as follows :
— the outward elements, neither converted into, nor merely de
noting, the body and blood of Christ, nor again merely the
vehicle of the incarnate Logos, are rather, through the action
of the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, and of Christ, who assumes
them, on the other hand, raised to the position of momenta of
His humanity. They thus, therefore, in virtue of the sacramental
Unio, form part of the body and blood of Christ, who in them,
or through sacramental union with them, restores again and
again that objective actuaUty, that presence and visibility, which
He had, as it were, laid aside tiU He should come again to judg
ment : — restored, it is true, merely for the eye of faith ; for not
only the word of God, but even Christ Himself, in His external,
historical manifestation, cannot be recognised as that which He
really is, save by faith. Compare the remarks made above on
Ignatius and Justin Martyr.

END OF VOL. I.

MUKKAY A>'1> G1EB, PRINTERS, EDISBUKU11.

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