seness of the connection between
the Christological and the cosmic problems. In each of the three cases
we find that a school of philosophy corresponds to the school of
theology, and that the philosopher's dominant idea about the cosmos
decided the theologian's interpretation of Christ.

This connection between philosophy and Christology is of early date.
From the nature of both disciplines it had to be. Even in apostolic
days the meaning of the incarnation was realised. Christ was
apprehended as a being of more than national or terrestrial importance.
The Pauline and Johannine Christologies gave cosmic significance to His
work, and so inevitably to His Person. Theologians made the tremendous
surmise that Jesus of Nazareth was no other than the Logos of the
Neo-Pythagoreans or the Wise One of the Stoics. That is to say, He
stands not only between God and man, but between Creator and creation.
He is the embodiment of the cosmic relation. From early days, then,
philosophy and religion were working at the same problem; their paths
met at the one goal of the Ideal Person who satisfied both head and
heart. The systematic Christology of the fifth century was, therefore,
a completion of the work begun in the first.

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL AND THE COSMIC PROBLEMS

The essence of the Christological problem is the question as to the
union of natures in Christ. Are there two natures divine and human in
Him? Is each distinct from the other and from the person? Is the
distinction conceptual or actual? The incarnation is a union. Is it a
real union? If so, what did it unite? We have seen that such
questions cannot be approached without presuppositions. What these
presuppositions shall be is decided in the sphere of a wider problem.
This wider problem is known as the cosmic problem. The solution given
to it prescribes the presuppositions of any attempt to solve the
specialised problem. We shall proceed to sketch the cosmic problem,
and to indicate the three main types of answers given to it. It will
then be evident that these three answers find their respective
counterparts in the Nestorian, monophysite and the catholic solutions
of the Christological problem.

As man's intellectual powers mature, two supreme generalisations force
themselves on his consciousness. He conceives his experience as a
whole and calls it the world; he conceives the basis of his experience
as a whole and calls it God. To some minds the