this sense "our God." The
religious assurance that he is this, for we find no wavering on this
point, is the root of the "theologia Christi"; but we must also remember
that the formula "[Greek: theos]" was inserted beside "[Greek: kurios],"
that the "dominus ac deus," was very common at that time,[247] and that
a Saviour [Greek: soter] could only be represented somehow as a Divine
being.[248] Yet Christ never was, as "[Greek: theos]," placed on an
equality with the Father,[249]--monotheism guarded against that. Whether
he was intentionally and deliberately identified with Him the following
paragraph will shew.

4. The common confession did not go beyond the statements that Jesus is
the Lord, the Saviour, the Son of God, that one must think of him as of
God, that dwelling now with God in heaven, he is to be adored as [Greek:
prostates kai boethos tes astheneias], and as [Greek: archiereus ton
prosphoron hemon] [as guardian and helper of the weak and as High Priest
of our oblations], to be feared as the future Judge, to be esteemed most
highly as the bestower of immortality, that he is our hope and our
faith. There are found rather, on the basis of that confession, very
diverse conceptions of the Person, that is, of the nature of Jesus,
beside each other,[250] which collectively exhibit a certain analogy
with the Greek theologies, the naive and the philosophic.[251] There was
as yet no such thing here as ecclesiastical "doctrines" in the strict
sense of the word, but rather conceptions more or less fluid, which were
not seldom fashioned _ad hoc._[252] These may be reduced collectively to
two.[253] Jesus was either regarded as the man whom God hath chosen, in
whom the Deity or the Spirit of God dwelt, and who, after being tested,
was adopted by God and invested with dominion, (Adoptian
Christology);[254] or Jesus was regarded as a heavenly spiritual being
(the highest after God) who took flesh, and again returned to heaven
after the completion of his work on earth (pneumatic Christology).[255]
These two Christologies which are, strictly speaking, mutually
exclusive--the man who has become a God, and the Divine being who has
appeared in human form--yet came very near each other when the Spirit of
God implanted in the man Jesus was conceived as the pre-existent Son of
God,[256] and when, on the other hand, the title, Son of God, for that
pneumatic being, was derived only from the miraculous generation in the
flesh; yet bo