ndependence of the Logos is as yet by no
means so sharply defined as in the case of the later Arians. He is still
the Consciousness of God, the spiritual Activity of God. Hence he is on
the one hand the idea of the world existing in God, and on the other the
product of divine wisdom originating with the will of God. The following
are the most important propositions.[730] The Logos who appeared in
Christ, as is specially shown from Joh. I. 1 and Heb. I. 1, is the
perfect image[731] of God. He is the Wisdom of God, the reflection of
his perfection and glory, the invisible image of God. For that very
reason there is nothing corporeal in him[732] and he is therefore really
God, not [Greek: autotheos], nor [Greek: ho Theos], nor [Greek: anarchos
arche] ("beginningless beginning"), but the second God.[733] But, as
such, immutability is one of his attributes, that is, he can never lose
his divine essence, he can also in this respect neither increase nor
decrease (this immutability, however, is not an independent attribute,
but he is perfect as being an image of the Father's perfection).[734]
Accordingly this deity is not a communicated one in the sense of his
having another independent essence in addition to this divine nature;
but deity rather constitutes his essence: [Greek: ho soter ou kata
metousian, alla kat' ousian esti Theos][735] ("the Saviour is not God by
communication, but in his essence"). From this it follows that he shares
in the essence of God, therefore of the Father, and is accordingly
[Greek: homoousios] ("the same in substance with the Father") or, seeing
that, as Son, he has come forth from the Father, is engendered from the
essence of the Father.[736] But having proceeded, like the will, from
the Spirit, he was always with God; there was not a time when he was
not,[737] nay, even this expression is still too weak. It would be an
unworthy idea to think of God without his wisdom or to assume a
beginning of his begetting. Moreover, this begetting is not an act that
has only once taken place, but a process lasting from all eternity; the
Son is always being begotten of the Father.[738] It is the theology of
Origen which Gregory Thaumaturgus has thus summed up:[739] [Greek: eis
kurios, monos ek monou, theos ek theou, charakter kai eikon tes
theotetos, logos energos, sophia tes ton holon sustaseos periektike kai
dunamis tes holes ktiseos poietike, huios alethinos alethinou patros,
aoratos aoratou kai aphthartos aph