Spirit, just as they not unfrequently define
Christianity as the belief in the true God and in his Son, without
mentioning the Spirit.[429] Further their dependence on the Christian
tradition is shown in the fact that the most of them expressly
designated the Logos as the _Son_ of God.[430]

The Logos doctrine of the Apologists is an essentially unanimous one.
Since God cannot be conceived as without reason, [Greek: alogos], but as
the fulness of all reason,[431] he has always Logos in himself. This
Logos is on the one hand the divine consciousness itself, and on the
other the power (idea and energy) to which the world is due; he is not
separate from God, but is contained in his essence.[432] For the sake of
the creation God produced (sent forth, projected) the Logos from
himself, that is, he engendered[433] him from his essence by a free and
simple act of will ([Greek: Theos ek Theou pephukos ex heautou]. Dial.
61). Then for the first time the Logos became a hypostasis separate from
God, or, in other words, he first came into existence; and, in virtue of
his origin, he possesses the following distinctive features:[434] (1)
The inner essence of the Logos is identical with the essence of God
himself; for it is the product of self-separation in God, willed and
brought about by himself. Further, the Logos is not cut off and
separated from God, nor is he a mere modality in him. He is rather the
independent product of the self-unfolding of God ([Greek: oikonomia]),
which product, though it is the epitome of divine reason, has
nevertheless not stripped the Father of this attribute. The Logos is the
revelation of God, and the visible God. Consequently the Logos is really
God and Lord, i.e., he possesses the divine nature in virtue of his
essence. The Apologists, however, only know of one kind of divine nature
and this is that which belongs to the Logos. (2) From the moment when he
was begotten the Logos is a being distinct from the Father; he is
[Greek: arithmo eteron ti, Theos heteros, Theos deuteros] ("something
different in number, another God, a second God.") But his personality
only dates from that moment. "Fuit tempus, cum patri filius non fuit,"
("there was a time when the Father had no Son," so Tertullian, adv.
Hermog. 3). The [Greek: logos prophorikos] is for the first time a
hypostasis distinct from the Father, the [Greek: logos endiathetos] is
not.[435] (3) The Logos has an origin, the Father has not; hence it
follo