Progressive influence of verse from the Stoic poet Aratus3 as a text upon

which to proclaim the fatherhood of God. This Stoic doctrine (like many others to which he refers in his writings) is treated by Paul as embodying an elementary truth, and as a starting-point for fuller knowledge; from any other point of view philosophy is regarded as a snare and an im­ posture4. A generation later we find that the editor of the fourth gospel boldly places the Stoic version of the history of creation in the fore-front of his work5. Later on in the second century we find the doctrines of the double nature of the Christ and of the variety inherent in the Deity becoming incorporated

2 For material of this kind see Winckler’s dissertation just quoted, and Lightfoot’s PhilippianSy pp. 278-290.