Supernatural Religion, Vol. 2 (of 3) An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation
viii. 3 we have: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh
of sin," &c. [------] It must be borne in mind that the terminology of John i. 14, "and the word became flesh" [------] is different from that of Justin, who uses the word [------]. The sense and language here is, therefore, quite as close as that of the fourth Gospel We have also another parallel in 1 Tim. iii. 16, "Who (God) was manifested in the flesh" [------], cf. 1 Cor. xv. 4, 47.
In like manner we find many similar passages in the Works of Philo. He says in one place that man was not made in the likeness of the most high God the Father of the universe, but in that of the "Second God who is his Word" [------].(1) In another place the Logos is said to be the interpreter of the highest God, and he continues: "that must be God of us imperfect beings" [------].(2)
Elsewhere he says: "But the
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divine Word which is above these (the Winged Cherubim).... but being itself the image of God, at once the most ancient of all conceivable things, and the one placed nearest to the only true and absolute existence without any separation or distance between them ";(1) and a few lines further on he explains the cities of refuge to be: "The Word of the Governor (of all things) and his creative and kingly power, for of these are the heavens and the whole world."(2) "The Logos of God is above all things in the world, and is the most ancient and the most universal of all things which are."(3) The Word is also the "Ambassador sent by the Governor (of the universe) to his subject (man)" [------].(4) Such views of the Logos are everywhere met with in the pages of Philo.
Tischendorf continues: "The Word (Logos) of God is his Son."(5) We have already in the preceding paragraphs abundantly illustrated this sentence, and may proceed to the next: "But since they did not know all things concerning the Logos, which is Christ, they have frequently contradicted each other."(6) These words are
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used with reference to Lawgivers and philosophers. Justin, who frankly admits the delight he took in the writings of Plato(1) and other Greek philosophers, held the view that Socrates and Plato had in an elementary form enunciated the doctrine of the Logos,(2) although he contends that they borrowed it from the writings of Moses, and with a largeness of mind very uncommon in the early Church, and indeed, we might add, in any age, he believed Socrates and such philosophers to have been Christians, even although they had been considered Atheists.(3) As they did not of course know Christ to be the Logos, he makes the assertion just quoted. Now the only point in the passage which requires notice is the identification of the Logos with Jesus, which has already been dealt with, and as this was asserted in the Apocalypse xix. 13, before the fourth Gospel was written, no evidence in its favour is deducible from the statement. We shall have more to say regarding this presently.
Tischendorf continues: "But in what manner through the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour having been made flesh,"(4) &c.
It must be apparent that the doctrine here is not that of the fourth Gospel which makes "the word become flesh" simply, whilst Justin, representing a less advanced form, and more uncertain stage, of its development, draws a distinction between the Logos and Jesus, and describes Jesus Christ as being made flesh by the power
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of the Logos. This is no accidental use of words, for he repeatedly states the same fact, as for instance: "But why through the power of the Word, according to the will of God the Father and Lord of all, he was born a man of a Virgin,"(1) &c.
Tischendorf continues: "To these passages out of the short second Apology we extract from the first (cap. 33).(2) By the Spirit, therefore, and power of God (in reference to Luke i. 35: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee') we have nothing else to understand but the Logos, which is the first-born of God."(3)
Here again we have the same difference from the doctrine of the fourth Gospel which we have just pointed out, which is, however, so completely in agreement with the views of Philo,(4) and characteristic of a less developed form of the idea. We shall further refer to the terminology hereafter, and meantime we proceed to the last illustration given by Tischendorf.
"Out of the Dialogue (c. 105): 'For that he was the only-begotten of the Father of all, in peculiar wise begotten of him as Word and Power [------], and afterwards became man through the Virgin, as we have learnt from the Memoirs, I have already stated.'"(5)
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The allusion here is to the preceding chapters of the Dialogue, wherein, with special reference (c. 100) to the passage which has a parallel in Luke i. 35, quoted by Tischendorf in the preceding illustration, Justin narrates the birth of Jesus.
This reference very appropriately leads us to a more general discussion of the real source of the terminology and Logos doctrine of Justin. We do not propose, in this work, to enter fully into the history of the Logos doctrine, and we must confine ourselves strictly to showing, in the most simple manner possible, that not only is there no evidence whatever that Justin derived his ideas regarding it from the fourth Gospel, but that, on the contrary, his terminology and doctrine may be traced to another source. Now, in the very chapter (100) from which this last illustration is taken, Justin shows clearly whence he derives the expression: "only-begotten."
In chap. 97 he refers to the Ps. xxii. (Sept. xxi.) as a prophecy applying to Jesus, quotes the whole Psalm, and comments upon it in the following chapters; refers to Ps. ii. 7: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," uttered by the voice at the baptism, in ch. 103, in illustration of it; and in ch. 105 he arrives, in his exposition of it, at Verse 20: "Deliver my soul from the sword, and my(1) only-begotten [------] from the hand of the dog." Then follows the passage we are discussing, in which Justin affirms that
1 This should probably be "thy."
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he has proved that he was the only-begotten [------] of the Father, and at the close he again quotes the verse as indicative of his sufferings. The Memoirs are referred to in regard to the fulfilment of this prophecy, and his birth as man through the Virgin. The phrase in Justin is quite different from that in the fourth Gospel, i. 14: "And the Word became flesh [------] and tabernacled among us, find we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father" [------], &c.
In Justin he is "the only-begotten of the Father of all" [------], and he "became man [------] through the Virgin," and Justin never once employs the peculiar terminology of the fourth Gospel, [------], in any part of his writings.
There can be no doubt that, however the Christian doctrine of the Logos may at one period of its development have been influenced by Greek philosophy, it was in its central idea mainly of Jewish origin, and the mere application to an individual of a theory which had long occupied the Hebrew mind. After the original simplicity which represented God as holding personal intercourse with the Patriarchs, and communing face to face with the great leaders of Israel, had been outgrown, an increasing tendency set in to shroud the Divinity in impenetrable mystery, and to regard him as unapproachable and undiscernible by man. This led to the recognition of a Divine representative and substitute of the Highest God and Father, who communicated with his creatures, and through whom alone he revealed himself. A new system of interpretation of the ancient traditions of the nation was rendered necessary, and in the Septuagint translation of the Bible we are fortunately able to trace
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the progress of the theory which culminated in the Christian doctrine of the Logos. Wherever in the sacred records God had been represented as holding intercourse with man, the translators either symbolized the appearance or interposed an angel, who was afterwards understood to be the Divine Word. The first name under which the Divine Mediator was known in the Old Testament was Wisdom [------], although in its Apocrypha the term Logos was not unknown. The personification of the idea was very rapidly effected, and in the Book of Proverbs, as well as in the later Apocrypha based upon it: the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, "Ecclesiasticus:" we find it in ever increasing clearness and concretion. In the School of Alexandria the active Jewish intellect eagerly occupied itself with the speculation, and in the writings of Philo especially we find the doctrine of the Logos--the term which by that time had almost entirely supplanted that of Wisdom--elaborated to almost its final point, and wanting little or nothing but its application in an incarnate form to an individual man to represent the doctrine of the earlier Canonical writings of the New Testament, and notably the Epistle to the Hebrews,--the work of a Christian Philo,(1)--the Pauline Epistles, and lastly the fourth Gospel(2)
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In Proverbs viii. 22 ff., we have a representation of Wisdom corresponding closely with the prelude to the fourth Gospel, and still more so with the doctrine enunciated by Justin: 22. "The Lord created me the Beginning of his ways for his works. 23. Before the ages he established me, in the beginning before he made the earth. 24. And before he made the abysses, before the springs of the waters issued forth. 25. Before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills he begets me. 26. The Lord made the lands, both those which are uninhabited and the inhabited heights of the earth beneath the sky. 27. When he prepared the heavens I was present with him, and when he set his throne upon the winds, 28, and made strong the high clouds, and the deeps under the heaven made secure, 29, and made strong the foundations of the earth, 30, I was with him adjusting, I was that in which he delighted; daily I rejoiced in his presence at all times."(1) In the "Wisdom of Solomon" we find the writer addressing God: ix. 1... "Who madest all things by thy Word" [------]; and further on in the same chapter, v. 9, "And Wisdom was with thee who knoweth thy works, and was present when thou madest the world, and knew what was acceptable
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in thy sight, and right in thy commandments. "(1) In verse 4, the writer prays: "Give me Wisdom that sitteth by thy thrones" [-----].(2) In a similar way the son of Sirach makes Wisdom say (Ecclesiast. xxiv. 9): "He (the Most High) created me from the beginning before the world, and as long as the world I shall not fail."(3) We have already incidentally seen how these thoughts grew into an elaborate doctrine of the Logos in the works of Philo.
Now Justin, whilst he nowhere adopts the terminology of the fourth Gospel, and nowhere refers to its introductory condensed statement of the Logos doctrine, closely follows Philo and, like him, traces it back to the Old Testament in the most direct way, accounting for the interposition of the divine Mediator in precisely the same manner as Philo, and expressing the views which had led the Seventy to modify the statement of the Hebrew original in their Greek translation. He is, in fact, thoroughly acquainted with the history of the Logos doctrine and its earlier enunciation under the symbol of Wisdom, and his knowledge of it is clearly independent of, and antecedent to, the statements of the fourth Gospel.
Referring to various episodes of the Old Testament in which God is represented as appearing to Moses and the Patriarchs, and in which it is said that "God went up from Abraham,"(4) or "The Lord spake to Moses,"(5) or "The Lord came down to behold the town," &c.,(6) or "God
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shut Noah into the ark,"(1) and so on, Justin warns his antagonist that he is not to suppose that "the unbegotten God" [------] did any of these things, for he has neither to come to any place, nor walks, but from his own place, wherever it may be, knows everything although he has neither eyes nor ears. Therefore he. could not talk with anyone, nor be seen by anyone, and none of the Patriarchs saw the Father at all, but they saw "him who was according to his will both his Son (being God) and the Angel, in that he ministered to his purpose, whom also he willed to be born man by the Virgin, who became fire when he spoke with Moses from the bush."(2) He refers throughout his writings to the various appearances of God to the Patriarchs, all of which he ascribes to the pre-existent Jesus, the Word,(3) and in the very next chapter, after alluding to some of these, he says: "he is called Angel because he came to men, since by him the decrees of the Father are announced to men... At other times he is also called Man and human being, because he appears clothed in these forms as the Father wills, and they call him Logos because
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he bears the communications of the Father to mankind."(1)
Justin, moreover, repeatedly refers to the fact that he was called Wisdom by Solomon, and quotes the passage we have indicated in Proverbs. In one place he says, in proof of his assertion that the God who appeared to Moses and the Patriarchs was distinguished from the Father, and was in fact the Word (ch. 66--70): "Another testimony I will give you, my friends, I said, from the Scriptures that God begat before all of the creatures [------] a Beginning [------],(2) a certain rational Power [------] out of himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, then the Son, again Wisdom, again Angel, again God, and again Lord and Logos;" &c., and a little further on: "The Word of Wisdom will testify to me, who is himself this God begotten of the Father of the universe, being Word, and Wisdom, and Power [------], and the Glory of the Begetter," &c.,(3) and he quotes, from the Septuagint version, Proverbs viii. 22--36, part of which we have given above, and indeed, elsewhere (ch. 129), he quotes the passage a second time as evidence, with a similar context. Justin refers to it
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again in the next chapter, and the peculiarity of his terminology in all these passages, so markedly different from, and indeed opposed to, that of the fourth Gospel, will naturally strike the reader: "But this offspring [------] being truly brought forth by the Father was with the Father before all created beings [------], and the Father communes with him, as the Logos declared through Solomon, that this same, who is called Wisdom by Solomon, had been begotten of God before all created beings [------], both Beginning [------] and Offspring [------]," &C.(1) In another place after quoting the words: "No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal him," Justin continues: "Therefore he revealed to us all that we have by his grace understood out of the Scriptures, recognizing him to be indeed the first-begotten [------] of God, and before all creatures [------].... and calling him Son, we have understood that he proceeded from the Father by his power and will before all created beings [------], for in one form or another he is spoken of in the writings of the prophets as Wisdom," &c.;(2) and again, in two other places he refers to the same fact.(3) On further examination, we find on every side still
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stronger confirmation of the conclusion that Justin derived his Logos doctrine from the Old Testament and Philo, together with early New Testament writings. We have quoted several passages in which Justin details the various names of the Logos, and we may add one more. Referring to Ps. lxxii., which the Jews apply to Solomon, but which Justin maintains to be applicable to Christ, he says: "For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Son born [------], &c. &c., as I prove by all of the Scriptures."(1) Now these representations, which are constantly repeated throughout Justin's writings, are quite opposed to the Spirit of the fourth Gospel, but are on the other hand equally common in the works of Philo, and many of them also to be found in the Philonian Epistle to the Hebrews. Taking the chief amongst them we may briefly illustrate them. The Logos as King, Justin avowedly derives from Ps. lxxii., in which he finds that reference is made to the "Everlasting King, that is to say Christ."(2) We find this representation of the Logos throughout the writings of Philo. In one place already briefly referred to,(3) but which we shall now more fully quote, he says: "For God as Shepherd and King governs according to Law and justice like a flock of sheep, the earth, and water, and air, and fire, and all the plants and living things that are in them, whether they be mortal or divine, as well as the course of heaven, and the periods of sun and moon, and the variations and harmonious revolutions of the other stars; having appointed his true Word [------]
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[------] his first-begotten Son [------] to have the care of this sacred flock as the Vicegerent of a great King;"(1) and a little further on, he says: "very reasonably, therefore, he will assume the name of a King, being addressed as a Shepherd."(2) In another place, Philo speaks of the "Logos of the Governor, and his creative and kingly power, for of these is the heaven and the whole world."(3)
Then if we take the second epithet, the Logos as Priest [------], which is quite foreign to the fourth Gospel, we find it repeated by Justin, as for instance: "Christ the eternal Priest" [------],(4) and it is not only a favourite representation of Philo, but is almost the leading idea of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in connection with the episode of Melchisedec, in whom also both Philo,(5) and Justin,(6) recognize the Logos. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, vii. 3, speaking of Melchisedec: "but likened to the Son of God, abideth a Priest for ever:"(7) again in iv. 14: "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son
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of God," &c.;(1) ix. 11: "Christ having appeared a High Priest of the good things to come;"(2) xii. 21: "Thou art a Priest for ever."(3) The passages are indeed far too numerous to quote.(4) They are equally numerous in the writings of Philo. In one place already quoted,(5) he says: "For there are as it seems two temples of God, one of which is this world, in which the High Priest is the divine Word, his first-begotten Son" [------].(6) Elsewhere, speaking of the period for the return of fugitives, the death of the high priest, which taken literally would embarrass him in his allegory, Philo says: "For we maintain the High Priest not to be a man, but the divine Word, who is without participation not only in voluntary but also in involuntary sins;"(7) and he goes on to speak of this priest as "the most sacred Word" [------].(8) Indeed, in many long passages he descants upon the "high priest Word" [------].(9) Proceeding to the next representations of the Logos
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as "God and Lord," we meet with the idea everywhere. In Hebrews i. 8: "But regarding the Son he saith: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" [------], and again in the Epistle to the Philippians, ii. 6, "Who (Jesus Christ) being in the form of God, deemed it not grasping to be equal with God" [------].(1) Philo, in the fragment preserved by Eusebius, to which we have already referred,(2) calls the Logos the "Second God" [------].(3) In another passage he has: "But he calls the most ancient God his present Logos," &c. [------];(4) and a little further on, speaking of the inability of men to look on the Father himself: "thus they regard the image of God, his Angel Word, as himself" [------].(5) Elsewhere discussing the possibility of God's swearing by himself, which he applies to the Logos, he says: "For in regard to us imperfect beings he will be a God, but in regard to wise and perfect beings the first. And yet Moses, in awe of the superiority of the unbegotten [------] God, says: 'And thou shalt swear by his name,' not by himself; for it is sufficient for the creature to receive assurance and testimony by the divine Word."(6)
It must be remarked, however, that both Justin and
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Philo place the Logos in a position more clearly secondary to God the Father, than the prelude to the fourth Gospel i. 1. Both Justin and Philo apply the term [------] to the Logos without the article. Justin distinctly says that Christians worship Jesus Christ as the Son of the true God, holding him in the second place [------],(1) and this secondary position is systematically defined through Justin's writings in a very decided way, as it is in the works of Philo by the contrast of the begotten Logos with the unbegotten God. Justin speaks of the Word as "the first-born of the unbegotten God" [------],(2) and the distinctive appellation of the "unbegotten God" applied to the Father is most common throughout his writings.(3) We may in continuation of this remark point out another phrase of Justin which is continually repeated, but is thoroughly opposed both to the spirit and to the terminology of the fourth Gospel, and which likewise indicates the secondary consideration in which he held the Logos. He calls the Word constantly "the first-born of all created beings" [------] "the first-born of all creation," echoing the expression of Col. i. 15. (The Son) "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation" [------].
This is a totally different view from that of the fourth Gospel, which in so emphatic a manner
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enunciates the doctrine: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," a statement which Justin, with Philo, only makes in a very modified sense.
To return, however, the next representation of the Logos by Justin is as "Angel." This perpetually recurs in his writings.(1) In one place, to which we have already referred, he says: "The Word of God is his Son, as we have already stated, and he is also called Messenger [------] and Apostle, for he brings the message of all we need to know, and is sent an Apostle to declare all the message contains."(2) In the same chapter reference is again made to passages quoted for the sake of proving: "that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Apostle, being aforetime the Word and having appeared now in the form of fire, and now in the likeness of incorporeal beings;"(3) and he gives many illustrations.(4) The passages, however, in which the Logos is called Angel, are too numerous to be more fully dealt with here. It is scarcely necessary to point out that this representation of the Logos as Angel, is not only foreign to, but opposed to the spirit of, the fourth Gospel, although it is thoroughly in harmony with the writings of Philo. Before illustrating this, however, we may incidentally remark that the ascription to the Logos of the name "Apostle" which occurs in the two passages just quoted above, as well as in other parts of the writings of Justin,(5)
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is likewise opposed to the fourth Gospel, although it is found in earlier writings, exhibiting a less developed form of the Logos doctrine; for the Epistle to the Hebrews iii. 1, has: "Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus," &c. [------]. We are, in fact, constantly directed by the remarks of Justin to other sources of the Logos doctrine, and never to the fourth Gospel, with which his tone and terminology do not agree. Everywhere in the writings of Philo we meet with the Logos as Angel. He speaks "of the Angel Word of God" in a sentence already quoted,(1) and elsewhere in a passage, one of many others, upon which the lines of Justin which we are now considering (as well as several similar passages)(2) are in all probability moulded. Philo calls upon men to "strive earnestly to be fashioned according to God's first-begotten Word, the eldest Angel, who is the Archangel bearing many names, for he is called
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the Beginning [------], and Name of God, and Logos, and the Man according to his image, and the Seer of Israel."(1) Elsewhere, in a remarkable passage, he says: "To his Archangel and eldest Word, the Father, who created the universe, gave the supreme gift that having stood on the confine he may separate the creature from the Creator. The same is an intercessor on behalf of the ever wasting mortal to the immortal; he is also the ambassador of the Ruler to his subjects. And he rejoices in the gift, and the majesty of it he describes, saying: 'And I stood in the midst between the Lord and you' (Numbers xvi 48); being neither unbegotten like God, nor begotten like you, but between the two extremes," &c.(2) We have been tempted to give more of this passage than is necessary for our immediate purpose, because it affords the reader another glimpse of Philo's doctrine of the Logos, and generally illustrates its position in connection with the Christian doctrine.
The last of Justin's names which we shall here notice is the Logos as "Man" as well as God. In another place Justin explains that he is sometimes called a Man and human being, because he appears in these forms as the Father wills.(3) But here confining ourselves merely
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to the concrete idea, we find a striking representation of it in 1 Tim.