e hitherto unspoken and the spoken word of the Creator
makes Christ appear as the thought of the world within the mind of God,
yet he is also to be something real which only requires to enter into a
new relation to God to become an active force. Then again this Word is
not to be the thought that God thinks, but the thought that thinks in
God. And again it is to be a something, or an Ego, in God's thinking
essence, which enters into reciprocal intercourse with something else in
God; occasionally also the reason of God which is in a state of active
exercise and without which he would not be rational." Considering this
evident uncertainty it appears to me a very dubious proceeding to
differentiate the conceptions of the Logos in Justin, Athenagoras,
Tatian, and Theophilus, as is usually done. If we consider that no
Apologist wrote a special treatise on the Logos, that Tatian (c. 5) is
really the only one from whom we have any precise statements, and that
the elements of the conception are the same in all, it appears
inadvisable to lay so great stress on the difference as Zahn, for
instance, has done in the book already referred to, p. 232 f. Hardly any
real difference can have existed between Justin, Tatian, and Theophilus
in the Logos doctrine proper. On the other hand Athenagoras certainly
seems to have tried to eliminate the appearance of the Logos in time,
and to emphasise the eternal nature of the divine relationships,
without, however, reaching the position which Irenaeus took up here.]

[Footnote 435: This distinction is only found in Theophilus (II. 10);
but the idea exists in Tatian and probably also in Justin, though it is
uncertain whether Justin regarded the Logos as having any sort of being
before the moment of his begetting.]

[Footnote 436: Justin, Apol. II. 6., Dial. 61. The Logos is not produced
out of nothing, like the rest of the creatures. Yet it is evident that
the Apologists did not yet sharply and precisely distinguish between
begetting and creating, as the later theologians did; though some of
them certainly felt the necessity for a distinction.]

[Footnote 437: All the Apologists tacitly assume that the Logos in
virtue of his origin has the capacity of entering the finite. The
distinction which here exists between Father and Son is very pregnantly
expressed by Tertullian (adv. Marc. II. 27): "Igitur quaecumque exigitis
deo digna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido
et, ut