th these seem to have been the rule.[257] Yet, in spite of
all transitional forms, the two Christologies may be clearly
distinguished. Characteristic of the one is the development through
which Jesus is first to become a Godlike Ruler,[258] and connected
therewith, the value put on the miraculous event at the baptism; of the
other, a naive docetism.[259] For no one as yet thought of affirming two
natures in Jesus:[260] the Divine dignity appeared rather, either as a
gift,[261] or the human nature ([Greek: sarx]) as a veil assumed for a
time, or as the metamorphosis of the Spirit.[262] The formula that Jesus
was a mere man ([Greek: psilos anthropos]), was undoubtedly always, and
from the first, regarded as offensive.[263] But the converse formulae,
which identified the person of Jesus in its essence with the Godhead
itself, do not seem to have been rejected with the same decision.[264]
Yet such formulae may have been very rare, and even objects of suspicion,
in the leading ecclesiastical circles, at least until after the middle
of the second century we can point to them only in documents which
hardly found approbation in wide circles. The assumption of the
existence of at least one heavenly and eternal spiritual being beside
God, was plainly demanded by the Old Testament writings, as they were
understood; so that even those whose Christology did not require them to
reflect on that heavenly being were forced to recognise it.[265] The
pneumatic Christology, accordingly, meets us wherever there is an
earnest occupation with the Old Testament, and wherever faith in Christ
as the perfect revealer of God, occupies the foreground, therefore not
in Hermas, but certainly in Barnabas, Clement, etc. The future belonged
to this Christology, because the current exposition of the Old Testament
seemed directly to require it, because it alone permitted the close
connection between creation and redemption, because it furnished the
proof that the world and religion rest upon the same Divine basis,
because it was represented in the most valuable writings of the early
period of Christianity, and finally, because it had room for the
speculations about the Logos. On the other hand, no direct and natural
relation to the world and to universal history could be given to the
Adoptian Christology, which was originally determined eschatologically.
If such a relation, however, were added to it, there resulted formulae
such as that of two Sons of God,