coincides with the world-thought, and whose power is identical with that necessary for the world. From the standpoint of humanity this Deity is God himself, i.e., a God whom men can apprehend and who can apprehend them; but from God's standpoint, which speculation can fix but not fathom, this Deity is a subordinate, nay, even a temporary one. Tertullian and Hippolytus know as little of an immanent Trinity as the Apologists; the Trinity only _appears_ such, because the unity of the substance is very vigorously emphasised; but in truth the Trinitarian process as in the case of the Gnostics, is simply the background of the process that produces the history of the world and of salvation. This is first of all shown by the fact that in course of the process of the world and of salvation the Son grows in his sonship, that is, goes through a finite process;[545] and secondly by the fact that the Son himself will one day restore the monarchy to the Father.[546] These words no doubt are again spoken not from the standpoint of man, but from that of God; for so long as history lasts "the Son continues in his form." In its point of departure, its plan, and its details this whole exposition is not distinguished from the teachings of contemporaneous and subsequent Greek philosophers,[547] but merely differs in its aim. In itself absolutely unfitted to preserve the primitive Christian belief in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, its importance consists in its identification of the historical Jesus with this Logos. By its aid Tertullian united the scientific, idealistic cosmology with the utterances of early Christian tradition about Jesus in such a way as to make the two, as it were, appear the totally dissimilar wings of one and the same building,[548] With peculiar versatility he contrived to make himself at home in both wings.