at the Adoptian Christology must at one time have
been very widespread, that it continued here and there undisturbed up to
the middle of the third century (see the Christology in the Acta
Archelai. 49, 50), and that it continued to exercise great influence
even in the fourth and fifth centuries (see Book II. c. 7). Something
similar is found even in some Gnostics, e.g., Valentinus himself (see
Iren. I. 11. 1: [Greek: kai ton Christon de ouk apo ton en toi pleromati
aionon probeblesthai, alla hupo tes metros, exo de genomenes, kata ten
gnomen ton kreittonon apokekuesthai meta skias tinos. Kai touton men,
hate arrena huparchontaf, apokopsanta huph' heautou ten skian,
anadramein eis to pleroma]. The same in the Exc. ex Theodot Sec.Sec. 22, 23,
32, 33), and the Christology of Basilides presupposes that of the
Adoptians. Here also belongs the conception which traces back the
genealogy of Jesus to Joseph. The way in which Justin (Dialog. 48, 49,
87 ff.) treats the history of the baptism of Jesus, against the
objection of Trypho that a pre-existent Christ would not have needed to
be filled with the Spirit of God, is instructive. It is here evident
that Justin deals with objections which were raised within the
communities themselves to the pre-existence of Christ, on the ground of
the account of the baptism. In point of fact, this account (it had,
according to very old witnesses, see Resch, Agrapha Christi, p. 307,
according to Justin, for example, Dial. 88. 103, the wording: [Greek:
hama toi anabenai auton apo tou potamou tou Iordanou, tes phones autou
lechtheises huios mou ei ss, ego semeron gegenneka se]; see the Cod. D.
of Luke. Clem. Alex, etc.) forms the strongest foundation of the
Adoptian Christology, and hence it is exceedingly interesting to see how
one compounds with it from the second to the fifth century, an
investigation which deserves a special monograph. But, of course, the
edge was taken off the report by the assumption of the miraculous birth
of Jesus from the Holy Spirit, so that the Adoptians in recognising
this, already stood with one foot in the camp of their opponents. It is
now instructive to see here how the history of the baptism, which
originally formed the beginning of the proclamation of Jesus' history,
is suppressed in the earliest formulae, and therefore also in the Romish
Symbol, while the birth from the Holy Spirit is expressly stated. Only
in Ignatius (ad Smyrn. I; cf. ad Eph. 18. 2) is the bapti