s anger must be
appeased both by sacrifices and corresponding acts appears in a much
more pronounced form than in Irenaeus. This is explained by their ideas
as practical churchmen and by their actual experiences in communities
that were already of a very secular character. We may, moreover, point
out in a general way that the views of Hippolytus are everywhere more
strictly dependent on Scripture texts than those of Irenaeus. That many
of the latter's speculations are not found in Hippolytus is simply
explained by the fact that they have no clear scriptural basis; see
Overbeck, Quaest, Hippol., Specimen p. 75, note 29. On a superficial
reading Tertullian seems to have a greater variety of points of view
than Irenaeus; he has in truth fewer, he contrived to work the grains of
gold transmitted to him in such a way as to make the form more valuable
than the substance. But one idea of Tertullian, which is not found in
Irenaeus, and which in after times was to attain great importance in the
East (after Origen's day) and in the West (after the time of Ambrosius),
may be further referred to. We mean the notion that Christ is the
bridegroom and the human soul (and also the human body) the bride. This
theologoumenon owes its origin to a combination of two older ones, and
subsequently received its Biblical basis from the Song of Solomon. The
first of these older theologoumena is the Greek philosophical notion
that the divine Spirit is the bridegroom and husband of the human soul.
See the Gnostics (e.g., the sublime description in the Excerpta ex
Theodoto 27); Clem. ep. ad Jacob. 4. 6; as well as Tatian, Orat. 13;
Tertull., de anima 41 fin.: "Sequitur animam nubentem spiritui caro; o
beatum connubium"; and the still earlier Sap. Sal. VIII. 2 sq. An
offensively realistic form of this image is found in Clem. Horn. III.
27: [Greek: numphe gar estin ho pas anthropos, hopotan tou alethous
prophetou leuko logo aletheias speiromenos photizetai ton noun.] The
second is the apostolic notion that the Church is the bride and the body
of Christ. In the 2nd Epistle of Clement the latter theologoumenon is
already applied in a modified form. Here it is said that humanity as the
Church, that is human nature (the flesh), belongs to Christ as his Eve
(c. 14; see also Ignat. ad Polyc. V. 2; Tertull. de monog. II, and my
notes on [Greek: Didache] XI. 11). The conclusion that could be drawn
from this, and that seemed to have a basis in certain utterance