Note (return) — APPENDIX I.

These outstanding features of the Pauline Christology must have been intelligible to the Greeks, but, whilst embracing these, they put everything else in the system aside. Χριστος 'ο κυριος 'ο σωσας 'ημας, 'ων μεν το πρωτον πνευμα, εγενετο σαρξ και 'ουτως 'ημας εκαλεσεν, says 2 Clem. (9. 5), and that is also the Christology of 1 Clement, Barnabas and many other Greeks. From the sum total of Judæo-Christian speculations they only borrowed, in addition, the one which has been already mentioned: the Messiah as προεγνωσμενος προ καταβολης κοσμου is for that very reason also 'η αρχη της κτισεως του θεου, that is the beginning, purpose and principle of the creation. The Greeks, as the result of their cosmological interest, embraced this thought as a fundamental proposition. The complete Greek Christology then is expressed as follows: Χριστος, 'ο σωσας 'ημας, 'ων μεν το πρωτον πνευμα και πασης κτισεως αρχη, εγενετο σαρξ και 'ουτως 'ημας εκαλεσεν. That is the fundamental theological and philosophical creed on which the whole Trinitarian and Christological speculations of the Church of the succeeding centuries are built, and it is thus the root of the orthodox system of dogmatics; for the notion that Christ was the αρχη πασης κτισεως necessarily led in some measure to the conception of Christ as the Logos. For the Logos had long been regarded by cultured men as the beginning and principle of the creation.452