ruerit, in Samaria autem quasi pater
descenderit, in reliquis vero gentibus quasi Spiritus Sanctus
adventaverit."]

[Footnote 265: That is a very important fact which clearly follows from
the Shepherd. Even the later school of the Adoptians in Rome, and the
later Adoptians in general, were forced to assume a divine hypostasis
beside the Godhead, which of course sensibly threatened their
Christology. The adherents of the pneumatic Christology partly made a
definite distinction between the pre-existent Christ and the Holy Spirit
(see, e.g., 1 Clem. 22. 1), and partly made use of formulae from which
one could infer an identity of the two. The conceptions about the Holy
Spirit were still quite fluctuating; whether he is a power of God, or
personal, whether he is identical with the pre-existent Christ, or is to
be distinguished from him, whether he is the servant of Christ (Tatian
Orat. 13), whether he is only a gift of God to believers, or the eternal
Son of God, was quite uncertain. Hermas assumed the latter, and even
Origen (de princip. praef. c. 4) acknowledges that it is not yet decided
whether or not the Holy Spirit is likewise to be regarded as God's Son.
The baptismal formula prevented the identification of the Holy Spirit
with the pre-existent Christ, which so readily suggested itself. But so
far as Christ was regarded as a [Greek: pneuma], his further demarcation
from the angel powers was quite uncertain, as the Shepherd of Hermas
proves (though see 1 Clem. 36). For even Justin, in a passage, no doubt,
in which his sole purpose was to shew that the Christians were not
[Greek: atheoi], could venture to thrust in between God, the Son and the
Spirit, the good angels as beings who were worshipped and adored by the
Christians (Apol. 1. 6 [if the text be genuine and not an
interpolation]; see also the Suppl. of Athanagoras). Justin, and
certainly most of those who accepted a pre-existence of Christ,
conceived of it as a real pre-existence. Justin was quite well
acquainted with the controversy about the independent quality of the
power which proceeded from God. To him it is not merely, "Sensus, motus,
affectus dei", but a "personalis substantia" (Dial. 128).]

[Footnote 266: See the remarkable narrative about the cross in the
fragment of the Gospel of Peter, and in Justin, Apol. 1. 55.]

[Footnote 267: We must, above all things, be on our guard here against
attributing dogmas to the churches, that is to say, to the writ