the beginning, and signilics fl„. .■ pl.^tmi.ss
effected by the addition? Thus in (In- |i;iss,i'jos in St. Matthew and St. Mark «liirli refer to the
sewing of the new |i:iteli on tl lil •jiirment, it is
not the patch tli.il is tlie 7r\;i,i.,v/a. il is the com- pleteness that rr^-iilts ti-oni tlie p.ileli ; .and, as Lightfoot corrf.lly points oul, the idea meant to be conveyed is ilie paradox that it is this very completeness w 1 1 i e 1 1 n i a k es tl i , • garment incomplete. A false show of wholeness is worse than an open
rent,— an idea entirely in accordance with the method <.f the teaching of Jesus.
The tlieojo-iial meaning of irX^poi/xa in St. John's Gosjiel niusi lie taken in connexion with its use in St. I'auls l'',pistles. Granted the authenticity of the Epistles and the Gospel, St. John must have written more than a quarter of a century later, and must have addressed practically the same circle as that which St. Paul had in view in writing to the Colossians and the Eiihesians. It is clear th.at St. Paul is de.iling « itli the word in a techni- cal .sen.se as a vi ird whieli is familiar to his oppo- nents, but is useil by him in a sense different from theirs ; and St. John's use of the term is exactly similar. The TrX^poi/xa represented a leading thought in the Gno.stic heresy, of which we find the first germs referred to in the vigorous polemic of St. I'aul. Gnosticism was further developed by Cerin- thu.s, a contemporary of St. John, and reached its culmination in the fully elabor.ated system of Valentinus. The problem with -which these Gnostic heresiarchs were continually wrestling w.as one that is as old as human thought how to pass from the infinite to the finite, an<l reconcile .absolute good with the existence of evil. The details of the earlier systems with which the Apostles had to deal are unknown to us, but in the speculations of Valentinus, as preserved in the writings of the early Fathers, especi.-iUy tin' J'/il/ii.^i,/,/„'>i(Mnia of Hippolytus, we have .■I'syslmi in wlii.li philoso- phical concejitions are c lotlieil in I h iental imagery, and an attempt is made to gi\c .a consistent ex- planation of the mysteries of Creation, Sin, and Redemption.
pair, as they receded from the primal fainter traces of the pure Divine sjiirit. personifications of the Divine attributes, and in their totality the realm of pure spirit— the -rx,.p^uci of the Godhead.
world of realitj'. It is the philosopl noumenal and the phenomenal, the rca
and the ohjects of sense iicrccption. mW
the latest of the ^ons, and the furthest removed from the Absolute, had been consumed with a desire to reach upwards to the Primal Glory, and to emulate the Uncreated by giving birth to another ^on. The result was an abortion,— a being spiritual in essence but out of harmony with the «-Avif»;a«,— which was ciist forth from the spiritual realm and found a filace of exile in the xiva/xot. Here Sophia Achamoth imijarted of 1
1 thus introdu
principle
spiritual
which was capable of r"'I"nii>tinTi, ']'■> t\i"
this spiritual cvsru, ,■ i l,i ;-i v... t , . ,. h
buting sometliiii . '
errand. The .1 i ; i i i
through Him cilrn, a li,,. , |,i , u
received quickening through the intusio principle into the mmi^.
What degree of elaboration this fantastic theory h.ail reached in the age of St. Paul, and still later
in tliat of St. .loliii, tlieic is not now material to ileeiile : lull llii'ie are .lisiinet traces of it in the l'',pis|le to I lie ( 'ol,,^-ian^ in the reference to princi- palilies, (loininioiis, and jiowers (Col 1'"): and we iviiow that < 'erinl Inis. ,a conleiii|.orary of SI. ,John,
il I lie use of the term, then, liy the an assertion of the true doctrine a~ against a false doctrine which
H V. In the Logos, who became in-
carnate in Jesus Godhead is conia the .lEons, cre.ati- image of the in
of tlie last of is the of all
030
FULNESS or THE TIME
FULNESS OF THE TLME
created beinj;-s (Col P=). The lonj; chain of medi- atois between God and man is relegated to the realm of myth, and the one Mediator, fiovoyivris, full of grace and truth (Jn 1"), through whom alone God ettects His purposes in Creation and Kedemption, is held up for the adoration of all men. And this fulness of the Divine, which is in Hira through the closeness of His contact with God, is imparted to His .lisciiilcs (Jn l'") and to the Church which is His ]!o^I\ , .ni.t whiih inits ideality is the fulness of Him ^^\u^ lill.th all in all (Eph 1==). The Church is here rt'u.aViiil ,is the complement of Jesus. The Head and the Body make one whole — the jj/ero»ia of the Godhead, the full realization of the Divine purpose which centres in the redemp- tion of man. For through this Church, which on earth possesses the potentiality of the plcroma, by means of its varied ministries, the fulness which is in Christ the Head passes to the individual, whose destiny it is to attain to the perfect man, to the l)ossession, in his degree, of the entire jjleroimi of the Godhead.