holy Church,
(Hermas) because it is brought together and preserved by the Holy
Spirit. It is the one Church, not because it presents this unity
outwardly, on earth the members of the Church are rather scattered
abroad, but because it will be brought to unity in the kingdom of
Christ, because it is ruled by the same spirit and inwardly united in a
common relation to a common hope and ideal. The Church, considered in
its origin, is the number of those chosen by God,[165] the true
Israel,[166] nay, still more, the final purpose of God, for the world
was created for its sake.[167] There were in connection with these
doctrines in the earliest period, various speculations about the Church:
it is a heavenly AEon, is older than the world, was created by God at the
beginning of things as a companion of the heavenly Christ;[168] its
members form the new nation which is really the oldest nation,[169] it
is the [Greek: laos ho tou agapemenou ho philoumenos kai philon
auton],[170] the people whom God has prepared "in the Beloved,"[171]
etc. The creation of God, the Church, as it is of an antemundane and
heavenly nature, will also attain its true existence only in the AEon of
the future, the AEon of the kingdom of Christ. The idea of a heavenly
origin, and of a heavenly goal of the Church, was therefore an essential
one, various and fluctuating as these speculations were. Accordingly,
the exhortations, so far as they have in view the Church, are always
dominated by the idea of the contrast of the kingdom of Christ with the
kingdom of the world. On the other hand, he who communicated knowledge
for the present time, prescribed rules of life, endeavoured to remove
conflicts, did not appeal to the peculiar character of the Church. The
mere fact, however, that from nearly the beginning of Christendom, there
were reflections and speculations not only about God and Christ, but
also about the Church, teaches us how profoundly the Christian
consciousness was impressed with being a new people, viz., the people of
God.[172] These speculations of the earliest Gentile Christian time
about Christ and the Church, as inseparable correlative ideas, are of
the greatest importance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in
them, but rather have their origin in the Apostolic tradition. But for
that very reason the combination very soon, comparatively speaking,
became obsolete or lost its power to influence. Even the Apologists made
no use of it, thoug