but he never asserted himself to be so.(1) He wholly ignores the doctrine of the Logos, and his speculation is confined to the [------], the Wisdom of Proverbs viii., &c., and is, as we shall see, at the same time a less developed and very different doctrine from that of the fourth Gospel.(2) The idea of a hypostatic Trinity seems to be quite unknown to him, and would have been utterly abhorrent to his mind as sheer Polytheism. On the other hand, the fourth Gospel proclaims the doctrine of a hypostatic Trinity in a more advanced form than any other writing of the New Testament. It is, indeed, the fundamental principle of the work,(3) as the doctrine of the Logos is its most characteristic feature. In the beginning the "Word not only was with God, but "the Word was God" [------].(4) He is the "only begotten God" [------],(5) equivalent to the "Second God" [------] of Philo, and, throughout, his absolutely divine nature is asserted both by the Evangelist, and in express terms in the discourses of Jesus.(6) Nothing could be more opposed to the principles of the Clementines. {349} According to the Homilies, the same Spirit, the [------], appeared in Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally in Jesus, who are the only "true prophets" and are called the seven Pillars [------] of the world.(1) These seven(2) persons, therefore, are identical, the same true Prophet and Spirit" who from the beginning of the world, changing names and forms, passes through Time,"(3) and these men were thus essentially the same as Jesus.(4) As Neander rightly observes, the author of the Homilies "saw in Jesus a new appearance of that Adam whom he had ever venerated as the source of all the true and divine in man."(5) We need not point out how different these views are from the Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel.(6) In other points there is an equally wide gulf between the Clementines and the fourth Gospel. According to the author of the Homilies, the chief dogma of 6 It is very uncertain by what means the author of the Homilies considered this periodical reappearance to be effected, whether by a kind of transmigration or otherwise. Critics consider it very doubtful whether he admitted the supernatural birth of Jesus (though some hold it to be probable), but at any rate he does not explain the matter: Uhlhorn, Die Homilien, p. 209 f.; Neander, K. G., ii. p. 618, anm. 1; Credner thought that he did not admit it, 1. c. p. 253; Schliemann, whilst thinking that he did admit it, considers that in that case he equally attributed a supernatural birth to the other seven prophets: Die Clementinen, p. 207 ff. {350}