re than a flame is diminished when it gives birth to a second flame.
Thus generated, like light begotten of light (lumen de lumine), the
Logos creates the world, inspires the ancient prophets with their divine
revelations, and finally reveals himself to mankind in the person of
Christ. Yet Justin sedulously guards himself against ditheism, insisting
frequently and emphatically upon the immeasurable inferiority of the
Logos as compared with the actual God (gr o ontws qeos).

We have here reached very nearly the ultimate phase of New Testament
speculation concerning Jesus. The doctrines enunciated by Justin became
eventually, with slight modification, the official doctrines of the
Church; yet before they could thus be received, some further elaboration
was needed. The pre-existing Logos-Christ of Justin was no longer the
human Messiah of the first and third gospels, born of a woman, inspired
by the divine Pneuma, and tempted by the Devil. There was danger
that Christologic speculation might break quite loose from historic
tradition, and pass into the metaphysical extreme of Docetism. Had
this come to pass, there might perhaps have been a fatal schism in the
Church. Tradition still remained Ebionitish; dogma had become decidedly
Gnostic; how were the two to be moulded into harmony with each other?
Such was the problem which presented itself to the author of the fourth
gospel (A. D. 170-180). As M. Reville observes, "if the doctrine of the
Logos were really to be applied to the person of Jesus, it was necessary
to remodel the evangelical history." Tradition must be moulded so as
to fit the dogma, but the dogma must be restrained by tradition from
running into Docetic extravagance. It must be shown historically how
"the Word became flesh" and dwelt on earth (John i. 14), how the deeds
of Jesus of Nazareth were the deeds of the incarnate Logos, in whom was
exhibited the pleroma or fulness of the divine attributes. The author of
the fourth gospel is, like Justin, a Philonian Gnostic; but he differs
from Justin in his bold and skilful treatment of the traditional
materials supplied by the earlier gospels. The process of development in
the theories and purposes of Jesus, which can be traced throughout the
Messianic descriptions of the first gospel, is entirely obliterated
in the fourth. Here Jesus appears at the outset as the creator of the
world, descended from his glory, but destined soon to be reinstated.
The title "Son of Man