(9. 10; 16. 1); he has
given us promises (11. 1, 6. 7.); we expect his kingdom, nay, the day of
his appearing (12. 1 f.; 6. 9; 9. 6; 11. 7; 12. 1). He will judge the
world, etc.; while in 17. 4. we read of the day of Christ's appearing,
of his kingdom and of his function of Judge, etc. Where the preacher
treats of the relation of the community to God, where he describes the
religious situation according to its establishment or its consummation,
where he desires to rule the religious and moral conduct, he introduces,
without any apparent distinction, now God himself, and now Christ. But
this religious view, in which acts of God coincide with acts of Christ,
did not, as will be shewn later on, influence the theological
speculations of the preacher. We have also to observe that the
interchanging of God and Christ is not always an expression of the high
dignity of Christ, but, on the contrary, frequently proves that the
personal significance of Christ is misunderstood, and that he is
regarded only as the dependent revealer of God. All this shews that
there cannot have been many passages in the earliest literature where
Christ was roundly designated [Greek: theos]. It is one thing to speak
of the blood (death, suffering) of God, and to describe the gifts of
salvation brought by Christ as gifts of God, and another thing to set up
the proposition that Christ is a God (or God). When, from the end of the
second century, one began to look about in the earlier writings for
passages [Greek: en hois theologeitai ho christos], because the matter
had become a subject of controversy, one could, besides the Old
Testament, point only to the writings of authors from the time of Justin
(to apologists and controversialists) as well as to Psalms and odes (see
the Anonym. in Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 4-6). In the following passages of
the Ignatian Epistles "[Greek: theos]" appears as a designation of
Christ; he is called [Greek: ho theos haemon] in Ephes. inscript.; Rom.
inscr. bis 3. 2; Polyc. 8. 3; Eph. 1. 1, [Greek: haima theou]; Rom. 6.
3, [Greek: to pathos tou theou mou]; Eph. 7. 2, [Greek: en sarki
genomenos theos], in another reading, [Greek: en anthropo theos], Smyrn.
I. 1, I. Chr. [Greek: ho theos ho outos humas sophisas]. The latter
passage, in which the relative clause must he closely united with
"[Greek: ho theos]", seems to form the transition to the three passages
(Trall. 7. 1; Smyrn. 6. 1; 10. 1), in which Jesus is called [Greek:
the