Note 530 — Chapter V

Footnote 530:

(return)

See Iren., III. 25. 2; Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 23-28: II. 11 sq. Hippolytus briefly defined his doctrine of God in Phil. X. 32. The advance beyond the Apologists' idea of God consists not only in the thorough discussion of God's attributes of goodness and righteousness, but also in the view, which is now much more vigorously worked out, that the Almighty Creator has no other purpose in his world than the salvation of mankind. See the 10th Greek fragment of Irenæus (Harvey, II. p. 480); Tertull., de orat. 4: "Summa est voluntatis dei salus eorum, quos adoptavit"; de paenit. 2: "Bonorum dei unus est titulus, salus hominum"; adv. Marc. II. 27: "Nihil tam dignum deo quam salus hominis." They had here undeniably learned from Marcion; see adv. Marc. I. 17. In the first chapters of the work de orat., however, in which Tertullian expounds the Lord's Prayer, he succeeded in unfolding the meaning of the Gospel in a way such as was never possible for him elsewhere. The like remark may be made of Origen's work de orat., and, in general, in the case of most authors who interpreted the Lord's Prayer in the succeeding period. This prayer kept alive the knowledge of the deepest meaning of the Gospel.