Note 525 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY. (continued 3)

I am indebted for the term theanthropism, as describing the substance of the new dispensation, to an article by Prof. Westcott in the Contemporary Review IV. p. 417 (December, 1867); but it has been used independently, though in very rare instances, by other writers. The value of terms such as I have employed here in fixing ideas is enhanced by their strangeness, and will excuse any appearance of affectation.

In applying the terms theanthropism and soteriology to the New Testament, as distinguished from the Old, it is not meant to suggest that the ideas involved in them were wholly wanting in the Old, but only to indicate that the conceptions, which were inchoate and tentative and subsidiary in the one, attain the most prominent position and are distinctly realised in the other.