magine transient and changeable matter
removed, it is a wonderful complex of spiritual forces; on the other it
presents itself as the finite product of a rational will. Moreover, the
matter which lies at its basis is nothing bad, but an indifferent
substance created by God,[425] though indeed perishable. In its
constitution the world is in every respect a structure worthy of
God.[426] Nevertheless, according to the Apologists, the direct author
of the world was not God, but the personified power of reason which they
perceived in the cosmos and represented as the immediate source of the
universe. The motive for this dogma and the interest in it would be
wrongly determined by alleging that the Apologists purposely introduced
the Logos in order to separate God from matter, because they regarded
this as something bad. This idea of Philo's cannot at least have been
adopted by them as the result of conscious reflection, for it does not
agree with their conception of matter; nor is it compatible with their
idea of God and their belief in Providence, which is everywhere firmly
maintained. Still less indeed can it be shown that they were all
impelled to this dogma from their view of Jesus Christ, since in this
connection, with the exception of Justin and Tertullian, they manifested
no specific interest in the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus. The
adoption of the dogma of the Logos is rather to be explained thus: (1)
The idea of God, derived by abstraction from the cosmos, did indeed,
like that of the idealistic philosophy, involve the element of unity and
spirituality, which implied a sort of personality; but the fulness of
all spiritual forces, the essence of everything imperishable were quite
as essential features of the conception; for in spite of the
transcendence inseparable from the notion of God, this idea was
nevertheless meant to explain the world.[427] Accordingly, they required
a formula capable of expressing the transcendent and unchangeable nature
of God on the one hand, and his fulness of creative and spiritual powers
on the other. But the latter attributes themselves had again to be
comprehended in a unity, because the law of the cosmos bore the
appearance of a harmonious one. From this arose the idea of the Logos,
and indeed the latter was necessarily distinguished from God as a
separate existence, as soon as the realisation of the powers residing in
God was represented as beginning. _The Logos is the hypostasis o