tify in an
unreflective way to the Dominion and Deity of Christ.

5. The ideas of Christ's work which were influential in the
communities--Christ as Teacher: creation of knowledge, setting up of the
new law; Christ as Saviour: creation of life, overcoming of the demons,
forgiveness of sins committed in the time of error,--were by some, in
conformity with Apostolic tradition and following the Pauline Epistles,
positively connected with the death and resurrection of Christ, while
others maintained them without any connection with these events. But one
nowhere finds independent thorough reflections on the connection of
Christ's saving work with the facts proclaimed in the preaching, above
all, with the death on the cross and the resurrection as presented by
Paul. The reason of this undoubtedly is that in the conception of the
work of salvation, the procuring of forgiveness fell into the
background, as this could only be connected by means of the notion of
sacrifice, with a definite act of Jesus, viz., with the surrender of his
life. Consequently, the facts of the destiny of Jesus combined in the
preaching, formed, only for the religious fancy, not for reflection, the
basis of the conception of the work of Christ, and were therefore by
many writers, Hermas, for example, taken no notice of. Yet the idea of
suffering freely accepted, of the cross and of the blood of Christ,
operated in wide circles as a holy mystery, in which the deepest wisdom
and power of the Gospel must somehow lie concealed.[266] The peculiarity
and uniqueness of the work of the historical Christ seemed, however, to
be prejudiced by the assumption that Christ, essentially as the same
person, was already in the Old Testament the Revealer of God. All
emphasis must therefore fall on this--without a technical reflection
which cannot be proved--that the Divine revelation has now, through the
historical Christ, become accessible and intelligible to all, and that
the life which was promised will shortly be made manifest.[267]

As to the facts of the history of Jesus, the real and the supposed, the
circumstance that they formed the ever repeated proclamation about
Christ gave them an extraordinary significance. In addition to the birth
from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, the death, the resurrection, the
exaltation to the right hand of God, and the coming again, there now
appeared more definitely the ascension to heaven, and also, though more
uncertainly, the de