via Athanasius, Cyril and the Cappadocians to Damascene and Scholasticism), even if the ultimate objective of those controversies about ideas always remained the concrete person of Christ in his (primary) function as Redeemer and (secondarily) as Revealer. But alongside this conciliar and Scholastic dogmatics it was necessary—if the personal element was to receive its theological primacy—for there always to be a counter-movement, setting out from the implicit theology of the great saints and their