They are both emanations from God. Is there any real distinction between them? A. That is a very good question. The distinction is the following: In the Logos Christology, as it was developed further on, we have the emphasis on the absoluteness of this aeon, which is Christ. Perhaps I can give you a great help for the understanding of the struggle between Arius and Athanasius, to which we come later on. What Arius actually did was to make the Christ, the heavenly Logos, into one of the aeons; while the Church decided that whatever one may think about aeons, or transcendent powers of being, the Logos is above them. .. If we did not have one of the Divine principles in which the innermost heart of God is expressed, then our salvation would not be a complete salvation. But what you said is very well said: these powers of being are like the Logos, hypostasized, hypostasized in the bathos, the abyss, the depth of the Divine Life. There, everything is in and is born out of it. It is the birthplace of all aeons. But now the Church limited the aeons to two: the Logos and the Spirit. And everything else, whether it was called an aeon or not, was not of equal rank. This was the development of the Trinitarian doctrine of God.
Paul Tillich, A History Of Christian Thought – Table of Contents
