2 Clem. 1. 4, 8. 4, 10. 1, 14. 1, see
the index to Zahn's edition of the Ignatian Epistles, Didache, 1. 5, 9.
2, 3, 10. 2). The latter usage is not very common, it is entirely
wanting for example in the Epistle of Barnabas. Moreover God is also
called [Greek: pater tes aletheias] as the source of all truth (2 Clem.
3. 1, 20. 5 [Greek: theos to aletheias]). The identity of the Almighty
God of creation with the merciful God of redemption is the tacit
presupposition of all declarations about God in the case of both the
cultured and the uncultured. It is also frequently expressed (see above
all the Pastoral Epistles), most frequently by Hermas (Vis. 1. 3. 4) so
far as the declaration about the creation of the world is there united
in the closest way with that about the creation of the Holy Church. As
to the designation of God in the Roman Symbol as the "Father Almighty,"
that threefold exposition just given, may perhaps allow it.]

[Footnote 232: The present dominion of evil demons or of one evil demon,
was just as generally presupposed as man's need of redemption, which was
regarded as a result of that dominion. The conviction that the world's
course (the [Greek: politeia en to kosmo], the Latins afterwards used
the word Saeculum) is determined by the devil, and that the dark one
(Barnabas) has dominion, comes out most prominently where eschatological
hopes obtain expression. But where salvation is thought of as knowledge
and immortality, it is ignorance and frailty from which men are to be
delivered. We may here also assume with certainty that these, in the
last instance, were traced back by the writers to the action of demons.
But it makes a very great difference whether the judgment was ruled by
fancy which saw a real devil everywhere active, or whether, in
consequence of theoretic reflection, it based the impression of
universal ignorance and mortality on the assumption of demons who have
produced them. Here again we must note the two series of ideas which
intertwine and struggle with each other in the creeds of the earliest
period, the traditional religious series resting on a fanciful view of
history--it is essentially identical with the Jewish Apocalyptic, see,
for example Barn 4--and the empiric moralistic, (see 2 Clem. 1. 2-7, as
a specially valuable discussion, or Praed. Petri in Clem, Strom. VI. 5,
39, 40), which abides by the fact that men have fallen into ignorance,
weakness and death (2 Clem. 1. 6 [Greek: ho