The first answers were necessarily tentative. Thinkers of all schools, within the original communities and outside them, introduced conceptions which were afterwards discarded. One group of philosophers, treating the facts of Christianity as symbols, like the tableaux of the mysteries, framed cosmogonies which were symbolical also, and fantastic in proportion as they were symbolical. Another group of philosophers, dealing rather with the ideal than with the actual, framed cosmogonies in which abstract ideas were invested with substance and personality. The philosophers of all schools were met, not only by the common sense of the Christian communities, but also by caricature. Their opponents, after the manner of controversialists, accentuated their weak points, and handed on to later times only those parts of the theories which were most exposed to attack, and which were also least intelligible except in relation to the whole system. But so far as the underlying conceptions can be disentangled from the details, they may be clearly seen to have drifted in the direction of the main drifts of Greek philosophy. 1. There was a large tendency to account for the world by the hypothesis of evolution. In some way it had come forth from God. The belief expressed itself in many forms. It was in all cases syncretist. The same writers frequently made use of different metaphors; but all the metaphors assumed vast grades and distances between God in Himself and the sensible world. One metaphor was that of an outflow, as of a stream from its source.[345] Other metaphors were taken from the phenomena of vegetable growth, the evolution of a plant from a seed, or the putting forth of leaves by a tree.[346] The metaphors of other writers were taken from the phenomena of human generation:[347] they were an elaboration of the conception of God as the Father of the world. They were sometimes pressed: there was not only a Father, but also a Mother of the world, Wisdom or Silence or some other abstraction. In one elaborate system it was held that, though God Himself was unwedded, all the powers that came forth from Him came forth in pairs, and all existing things were the offspring of their union.[348] That which came forth was also conceived in various ways. The common expression in one group of philosophers is _æon_ (αἰών), a term which is of uncertain origin in this application. In other groups of philosophers the expressions are relative to the metaphor of growth and development, and repeat the Stoical term _seed_. In the syncretism of Marcus the several expressions are gathered together, and made more intelligible by the use of the synonym _logoi_;[349] the thoughts of God were conceived as active forces, embodying themselves in material forms. In the conception of one school of thinkers, the invisible forces of the world acted in the same way that the art of a craftsman acts upon his materials.[350] In the conception of another