A commentary on the Epistles of St. John - The Preterist Archive

INTRODUCTION. 17
character, and the authenticity of the gospel and
Epistle of St. John. Moreover, the logology of the
second century, is in form and kind quite different
from that of St. John. What in St. John is only
hinted at, appears in the Fathers of the second cen-
tury as fully developed ; with the first, we find that
form of the theologumenon which still is simple,
popular, nay, Hebraizing, and altogether canonical ;
with the latter the developed, complicated and gnosti-
cally erudite form. These logologies, although essen-
tially identical, bear to each other the same relation as
apostolical text and patristic interpretation. St. John
wishesby A070J rS SsS sufficiently to express the divine
essence of Christ, but the patristic logology attempts
more accurately to determine, and to search to the bot-
tom, the relation between the Johanneic logos and the
invisible God, on the one side, and the world on the
other. The logologists among the fathers, moreover,
even the earliest, support their doctrine by an eccle-
siastical tradition (Paradosis), which accordingly must
have had its root in doctrines which were known in
the first century.^'i Nay more, they make use of
St. John's modes of expression. So does Justin, for
example, 2 5 and Tatian still more distinctly. But,
from Theophilus of Antioch downwards, they express-
ly, mentioning their author by name, connect their
elucidations with the canonical foundation in the
Gospel of St. John. 26 In short, without the prece-
^* MUnscher's Dogmengeschichte, (History of Dogmas), Vol.
I. p. 424.
^