corrupted, though from a very early period. He regards the

Stoics as having initiated a philosophical theology, and gives numerous references for the " three theologies " which they distinguished. Philo the Jew is also quoted as using 6to\6yos of poets, of Moses par excellence, and of Greek philosophers. It is possible that the epithet OedMyos for St John may go back as far as Papias. This is the first appearance of the term upon Christian ground. The primitive application of BtoMyot. to the poets and myth-fanciers meets us again in Church writers; but there is also a tendency to use the name for a philosophical theology based on the doctrine of the Logos. In this sense Gregory Nazianzen also receives the title BeoMyos. His irepi Oeo\oyias is a dissertation on the knowledge of God.^[1] Many centuries later Abelard generalized the expression in books which came to bear the titles Theologia Christiana and Introductio ad Theologiam. (Abelard speaks himself of " theologia nostra.")^[2] It is of interest to note that even in these books the Trinity and Christology are the topics of outstanding importance. In the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas the technical sense is fully established. Except in special circumstances which generally explain themselves, e.g. " Homeric Theology " (a book by Nagelsbach), Old Testament Theology, Comparative Theology, Natural Theology, the word in modern languages means the theology of the Christian Church. What follows here will be confined to that subject.

While the word points to God as the special theme of the theologian, other topics inevitably find entrance. Theistic Contents philosophy thinks of God as the absolute being; and th in eVery monotheistic religion insists, not indeed that theology. the knowledge of God includes all knowledge, but that this supremely important knowledge throws fresh light upon everything. So, with an added Christian intensity, St Paul declares: "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ " (2 Cor. v. 17, 18). A minimum division might be threefold — Goltesbegriff, Selbstbeurteilung, Weltanschauung.^[3] But historically it is more important to note that Christian theology has developed as a doctrine concerning Christ: his relation to God, our relation to God in or through him. For Christ is viewed as bringing redemption — a conception of importance in many religions, but in none so important as in Christianity. Indeed, another possibility opens up here. Instead of being mainly a doctrine concerning God, or one concerning Christ, theology may be construed as being mainly the theory of Christian experience. Most schools of theology will concur, however, in giving prominence to a complementary point of view and making their systems a study of Divine revelation. Even if they accept Natural Theology, they generally hold that Christian theology, properly so called, begins at a further point. Those who deny this were formerly called Naturalists, i.e. deniers of supernatural revelation; those who extend the province of reason in theology, and push back the frontier of revelation, are often called Rationalists.^[4] Such being the Theology usual point of view, it is plain that the claim of theology to be a science, or a group of sciences, is science. ma( j e ; in a sense of its own in so far as theology is orderly, coherent, systematic, and seeks to rest upon good grounds of some sort, it may be called a science. But, in so far as it claims to deal with special revelation, it lifts itself out of

the circle of the sciences, and turns away from natural know-