in his spiritual qualities. On the
contrary _Melito_ ascribed to God a corporeal existence of a higher type
(Eusebius mentions a work of this bishop under the title "[Greek: ho
peri ensomatou Theou logos],") and Origen reckoned him among the teachers
who recognised that man had also a likeness to God in form (in body);
see my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1. 2, pp. 243, 248. In the second
century the realistic eschatological ideas no doubt continued to foster
in wide circles the popular idea that God had a form and a kind of
corporeal existence. A middle position between these ideas and that of
Tertullian and the Stoics seems to have been taken up by Lactantius
(_Instit. div._ VII. 9, 21; de ira dei 2. 18.).]

[Footnote 530: See Iren., III. 25. 2; Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 23-28: II.
11 sq. Hippolytus briefly defined his doctrine of God in Phil. X. 32.
The advance beyond the Apologists' idea of God consists not only in the
thorough discussion of God's attributes of goodness and righteousness,
but also in the view, which is now much more vigorously worked out, that
the Almighty Creator has no other purpose in his world than the
salvation of mankind. See the 10th Greek fragment of Irenaeus (Harvey,
II. p. 480); Tertull., de orat. 4: "Summa est voluntatis dei salus
eorum, quos adoptavit"; de paenit. 2: "Bonorum dei unus est titulus,
salus hominum"; adv. Marc. II. 27: "Nihil tam dignum deo quam salus
hominis." They had here undeniably learned from Marcion; see adv. Marc.
I. 17. In the first chapters of the work de orat., however, in which
Tertullian expounds the Lord's Prayer, he succeeded in unfolding the
meaning of the Gospel in a way such as was never possible for him
elsewhere. The like remark may be made of Origen's work de orat., and,
in general, in the case of most authors who interpreted the Lord's
Prayer in the succeeding period. This prayer kept alive the knowledge of
the deepest meaning of the Gospel.]

[Footnote 531: Apol. 21: "Necesse et igitur pauca de Christo ut deo ...
Jam ediximus deum universitatem hanc mundi verbo et ratione et virtute
molitum. Apud vestros quoque sapientes [Greek: Logon], id est sermonem
et rationem, constat artificem videri universitatis." (An appeal to Zeno
and Cleanthes follows). "Et nos autem sermoni atque rationi itemque
virtuti, per quae omnia molitum deum ediximus, propriam substantiam
spiritum inscribimus, cui et sermo insit pronuntianti et ratio adsit
disponenti et virtus praesit p