Part 5

"As both the Clementines and Justin made use of the Gospel according to Hebrews, the most competent critics have, with reason, adopted the conclusion that the passage we are discussing was derived from that Gospel; at any rate it cannot for a moment he maintained as a quotation from our fourth Gospel, and it is of no value as evidence for its existence." ("Supernatural Religion," vol. ii. p. 313.)

We have now tolerably full means of judging what a wonderful Gospel this Gospel to the Hebrews must have been, and what a loss the Church has sustained by its extinction.

Here was a Gospel which contained a harmony of the history, moral teaching, and doctrine of all the four. As we have seen, it contained an account of the miraculous Birth and Infancy, embodying in one narrative the facts contained in the first and third Gospels. It contained a narrative of the events preceding and attending our Lord's Death, far fuller and more complete than that of any single Gospel in the Canon. It contained a record of the teaching of Christ, similar to our present Sermon on the Mount, embodying the teaching scattered up and down in all parts of SS. Matthew and Luke, and in addition to all this it embodied the very peculiar tradition, both in respect of doctrine and of history, of the fourth Gospel.

How could it possibly have happened that a record of the highest value, on account both of its fulness and extreme antiquity, should have perished, and have been superseded by four later and utterly unauthentic productions, one its junior by at least 120 years, and each one of these deriving from it only a part of its teaching; the first three, for no conceivable reason, rejecting all that peculiar doctrine now called Johannean, and the fourth confining itself to reproducing this so-called Johannean element and this alone? It is only necessary to state this to show the utter absurdity of the author's hypothesis.

But the marvel is that a person assuming such airs of penetration and research [63:1] should not have perceived that, if he has proved his point, he has simply strengthened the evidence for the supernatural, for he has proved the existence of a fifth Gospel, far older and fuller than any we now possess, witnessing to the supernatural Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

The author strives to undermine the evidence for the authenticity of our present Gospels for an avowedly dogmatic purpose. He believes in the dogma of the impossibility of the supernatural; he must, for this purpose, discredit the witness of the four, and he would fain do this by conjuring up the ghost of a defunct Gospel, a Gospel which turns out to be far more emphatic in its testimony to the supernatural and the dogmatic than any of the four existing ones, and so the author of this pretentious book seems to have answered himself. His own witnesses prove that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus of Nazareth.

SECTION XI.

THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON OUR LORD'S GODHEAD.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" has directed his attacks more particularly against the authenticity of the Gospel according to St. John. His desire to discredit this Gospel seems at times to arise out of a deep personal dislike to the character of the disciple whom Jesus loved. (Vol. ii. pp. 403-407, 427, 428, &c.)

On the author's principles, it is difficult to understand the reason for such an attack on this particular Gospel. He is not an Arian or Socinian (as the terms are commonly understood), who might desire to disparage the testimony of this Gospel to the Pre-existence and Godhead of our Lord. His attack is on the Supernatural generally, as witnessed to by any one of the four Gospels; and it is allowed on all hands that the three Synoptics were written long before the Johannean; and, besides this, he has proved to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of the Reviewers who so loudly applauded his work, that there existed a Gospel long anterior to the Synoptics, which is more explicit in its declarations of the Supernatural than all of them put together.

However, as he has made a lengthened and vigorous attempt to discredit this Gospel especially, it may be well to show his extraordinary misconceptions respecting the mere contents of the Fourth Gospel, and the opinions of the Fathers (notably Justin Martyr) who seem to quote from it, or to derive their doctrine from it.

The first question--and by far the most important one which we shall have to meet--is this: Is the doctrine respecting the Person of Jesus more fully developed in the pages of Justin Martyr, or in the Fourth Gospel? We mean by the doctrine respecting the Person of Jesus, that He is, with reference to His pre-existent state, the Logos and Only-begotten Son of God; and that, as being such, He is to be worshipped and honoured as Lord and God; and that, in order to be our Mediator, and the Sacrifice for our sin, He took upon Him our nature.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" endeavours to trace the doctrine of the Logos, as contained in Justin, to older sources than our present Fourth Gospel, particularly to Philo and the Gospel according to the Hebrews. The latter is much too impalpable to enable us to verify his statements by it; but we shall have to show his misconceptions respecting the connection of Justin's doctrine with the former. What we have now to consider is the following statement:--

"It is certain, however, that, both Justin and Philo, unlike the prelude to the Fourth Gospel (i. 1), place the Logos in a secondary position to God the Father, another point indicating a less advanced stage of the doctrine."

From this we must, of course, infer that the author of "Supernatural Religion" considers that Justin does not state the essential Godhead of the Second Person as distinctly and categorically as it is stated in the Fourth Gospel. And as it is assumed by Rationalists that there was in the early Church a constantly increasing development of the doctrine of the true Godhead of our Lord, gradually superseding some earlier doctrine of an Arian, or Humanitarian, or Sadducean type; therefore, the more fully developed doctrine of the Godhead of our Lord in any book proves that book to be of later origin than another book in which it is not so fully developed.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" cannot deny that Justin ascribes the names "Lord" and "God" and Pre-existence before all worlds to Jesus as the Logos, but he fastens upon certain statements or inferences respecting the subordination of the Son to the Father, and His acting for His Father, or under Him, in the works of Creation and Redemption, which Justin, as an orthodox believer who would abhor Tritheism, was bound to make, and most ignorantly asserts that such statements are contrary to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel.

I shall now set before the reader the statements of both St. John and Justin respecting the Divine Nature of our Lord, so that he may judge for himself which is the germ and which the development.

The Fourth Gospel once, and once only, sets forth the Godhead and Pre-existence of the Logos, and this is in the exordium or prelude:--

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The Fourth Gospel once, and once only, identifies this Word with the pre-existent nature of Jesus, in the concluding words of the same exordium:--

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we behold His Glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Except in these two places (and, of course, I need not say that they are all-important as containing by implication the whole truth of God respecting Christ), there is no mention whatsoever of the "Word" in this Gospel.

The Fourth Gospel gives to Jesus the name of God only in two places, _i.e._ in the narrative of the second appearance of our Lord to His apostles assembled together after His Resurrection, where Thomas is related to have said to Him the words, "My Lord and my God;" and in the words "The Word was God" taken in connection with "the Word was made flesh." The indirect, but certain, proofs by implication that Jesus fully shared with His Father the Divine Nature are numerous, as, for instance, that He wields all the power of Godhead, in that "whatsoever things [the Father] doeth these doeth the Son likewise"--that He is equal in point of nature with the Father, because God is His own proper Father ([Greek: idios])--that He raises from the dead whom He wills--that He and the Father are One--that when Esaias saw the glory of God in the temple he saw Christ's glory; and, because of all this, He is the object of faith, even of the faith which saves.

But, as my purpose is not to show that either Justin or St. John hold the Godhead of our Lord, but rather to compare the statements of the one with the other; and, inasmuch as to cite the passages in which Justin Martyr assumes that our Blessed Lord possesses all Divine attributes would far exceed the limits which I have proposed to myself, I shall not further cite the passages in St. John, which only _imply_ our Lord's Godhead, but proceed to cite the _direct_ statements of Justin (or rather some of them) on this head.

Whereas, then, St. John categorically asserts the Godhead of our Lord in one, or, at the most, two places, Justin directly asserts it nearly forty times. The following are noticeable:--

"And Trypho said, You endeavour to prove an incredible and well-nigh impossible thing; [namely] that God endured to be born and become man. [69:1] If I undertook, said I, [Justin] to prove this by doctrines or arguments of men, you should not bear with me. But if I quote frequently Scriptures, and so many of them, referring to this point, and ask you to comprehend them, you are hard-hearted in the recognition of the mind and will of God." (Dial. ch. lxviii.)

Again:--

"This very Man Who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God and Man, and as being crucified and as dying." [69:2] (Dial. ch. lxxi.)

Again, Justin accuses the Jews of having mutilated the Prophetical Scriptures, by having cut out of them the following prophecy respecting our Lord's descent into hell:--

"The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own Salvation." (Dial. ch. lxxii.)

Again:--

"For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Son born, and first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory." (Dial. xxxiv.)

Again:--

"Now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God, and Lord of Hosts, and Jacob in parable, by the Holy Spirit." (Dial. ch. xxxvi.)

Again, Justin makes Trypho to say:--

"When you [Justin] say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, then that He submitted to be born, and become man, yet that He is not man of man, this [assertion] appears to me to be not merely paradoxical, but also foolish. And I replied to this, I know that the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of your race, who are ever unwilling to understand or to perform the [requirements] of God." (Dial. ch. xlviii.)

Again, Justin makes Trypho demand:--

"Answer me then, first, how you can show that there is another God besides the Maker of all things; [70:1] and then you will show [further], that He submitted to be born of the Virgin.

"I replied, Give me permission first of all to quote certain passages from the Prophecy of Isaiah which refer to the office of forerunner discharged by John the Baptist." (Dial. I.)

Lastly:--

"Now, assuredly, Trypho, I shall show that, in the vision of Moses, this same One alone, Who is called an Angel, and Who is God, appeared to and communed with Moses.... Even so here, the Scriptures, in announcing that the angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses, and in afterwards declaring Him to be Lord and God, speaks of the same One, Whom it declares by the many testimonies already quoted to be minister to God, Who is above the world, above Whom there is no other." (Dial. ch. lx.)

In order not to weary the reader, I give the remainder in a note. [71:1]

The reader will observe that the assertions of Justin, which I have given, are the strongest that could be made by any one who holds the Godhead of Christ, and yet holds that that Godhead is not an independent Divine Existence, but derived from the Father Who begat Him, and, by begetting, fully communicated to His Son or Offspring His own Godhead.

From these extracts the reader will be able to judge for himself whether the doctrine of St. John is the expansion or development of that of Justin, or the doctrine of Justin the development of that of St. John.

He will also be able to judge of the absurdity of supposing that after the time of Justin the cause of Orthodoxy demanded the forgery of a Gospel, in order to set forth more fully the Divine Glory of the Redeemer.

SECTION XII.

THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS.

We have now to compare Justin's doctrine of the Logos with that of the Fourth Gospel.

The doctrine or dogma of the Logos is declared in the Fourth Gospel in a short paragraph of fourteen verses, a part of which is occupied with the mission of the Baptist.

The doctrine, as I have said before, is rather oracular enunciation than doctrine; _i.e._ it is not doctrine elaborately drawn out and explained and guarded, but simply laid down as by the authority of Almighty God.

It is contained in four or five direct statements:--

"In the beginning was the Logos."

In the beginning--that is, before all created things--when there was no finite existence by which time could be measured; in that fathomless abyss of duration when there was God only:--

"The Logos was with God."

Though numerically distinct from Him, [73:1] He was so "by" or "with" Him as to be His fellow:--

"The Logos was God."

That is, though numerically distinct, He partook of the same Divine Nature:

"All Things were made by Him."

Because, partaking fully of the nature, He partook fully of the power of God, and so of His creating power.

"That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

"The Logos was made flesh."

He was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

The first enunciation, then, of St. John is that--

"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD."

In Justin we read:--

"His Son, Who alone is properly called Son, the Word, Who also was with Him, and was begotten before the works." (Apol. ii. ch. vi.)

Again:--

"When you [Justin] say that this Christ existed as God before the ages." (Dial. ch. xlviii.)

Again:--

"God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [74:1] [who was] a certain rational Power from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos." (Dial. ch. lxi.)

Now it is to be here remarked, that though the Logos is continually declared to be "begotten of," "derived from," "an offspring of" the Father, yet in no case is He declared to be "created" or "made," anticipating the declaration which we confess in our Creed, "The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten."

St. John proceeds:--

"THE WORD WAS WITH GOD."

In Justin we read:--

"This Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with Him." (Dial. ch. lxii.)

Again, a little before, in the same chapter:--

"From which we can indisputably learn that God conversed with some One who was numerically distinct from Himself."

Again:--

"The Word, Who also was with Him." (Apol. ii. ch. vi.)

Again, Trypho says:--

"You maintain Him to be pre-existent God." (Ch. lxxxvii.)

Again:--

"I asserted that this Power was begotten from the Father, by His Power and Will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided; and for the sake of example I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it," &c. (Dial. cxxviii.)

"THE WORD WAS GOD."

Justin writes:--

"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things" (Dial. ch. lxi.) (See previous page.)

Again:--

"They who affirm that the Son is the Father are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the Universe has a Son; Who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God." (Apol. I. ch. lxiii.)

Again:--

"It must be admitted absolutely that some other One is called Lord by the Holy Spirit besides Him Who is considered Maker of all things." (Dial. ch. lvi.)

But it is useless to multiply quotations, seeing that all those in pages 69-71 are the echoes of this declaration of the Fourth Evangelist.

St. John writes:--

"ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM."

And Justin writes:--

"Knowing that God conceived and made the world by the Word." (Apol. I. ch. lxiv.)

Again:--

"When at first He created and arranged all things by Him." (Apol. II. ch. vi.)

Again St. John writes:--

"THAT (_i.e._ THE WORD) WAS THE TRUE LIGHT THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD."

I have given above (p. 51) sufficient illustrations from Justin of this truth. I again draw attention to:--

"He is the Word of Whom every race of men were partakers." (Apol. I. ch. xlvi.)

Again:--

"He was and is the Word Who is in every man." (Apol. II. ch. x.) "For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word. But since they did not know the whole of the Word which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves." [77:1] (Apol. II. ch. x.)

Again:--

"These men who believe in Him, in whom [Greek: en hois] abideth the seed of God, the Word." (Apol. I. ch. xxxii.)

Again:--

"I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic Word." [77:2] (Apol. II. ch. xiii.)

Lastly, St. John writes:--

"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH."

And Justin writes:--

"The Logos Himself, Who took shape and became man and was called Jesus Christ." (Apol. II. ch. v.)

Again:--

"The Word, Who is also the Son; and of Him we will in what follows relate how He took flesh, and became Man." (Apol. II. ch. xxxii.)

"Jesus Christ is the only proper Son Who has been begotten by God, being His Word, and First-begotten, and Power, and becoming man according to His Will He taught us these things," &c. (Apol. I. ch. xxiii.)

Again:--

"In order that you may recognize Him as God coming forth from above, and Man living among men." (Dial. lxiv.)

Again:--

"He was the Only-begotten of the Father of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become Man through the Virgin." (Dial. ch. cv.)

After considering the above extracts, the reader will be able to judge of the truth of some assertions of the author of "Supernatural Religion," as, for instance:--

"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 in no way agree." (Vol. ii. p. 293)

Again:--

"We must see that Justin's terminology, as well as his views of the Word become Man, is thoroughly different from that Gospel." (Vol. ii. p. 296)

Also:--

"It must be apparent to every one who seriously examines the subject, that Justin's terminology is thoroughly different from, and in spirit opposed to, that of the Fourth Gospel, and in fact that the peculiarities of the Gospel are not found in Justin's writings at all." (!!) (P. 297.) [78:1]

On the contrary, we assert that every Divine Truth respecting the Logos, which appears in the germ in St. John, is expanded in Justin. St. John's short and pithy sentences are the text, and Justin's remarks are the exposition of that text, and of nothing less or more.

So far from Justin's doctrine being contrary to the spirit of St. John's, Justin, whilst deviating somewhat from the strict letter, seizes and reproduces the very spirit. I will give in the next section two or three remarkable instances of this; which instances, strange to say, the author of "Supernatural Religion" quotes for the purpose of showing the absolute divergence and opposition between the two writers.

SECTION XIII.

THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON OUR LORD AS KING, PRIEST, AND ANGEL.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" quotes the passage in Dial. xxxiv.:--

"For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Son born," &c.

And he remarks, with what I cannot but characterize as astonishing effrontery, or (to use his own language with respect to Tischendorf) "an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise than an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his readers." (Vol. ii. p. 56.)

"Now these representations, which are constantly repeated throughout Justin's writings, are quite opposed to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel." (Vol. ii. p. 288.)

He first of all takes the title "King," and arbitrarily and unwarrantably restricts Justin's derivation of it to the seventy-second Psalm, apparently being ignorant of the fact that St. John, in his very first chapter, records that Christ was addressed by Nathanael as "King of Israel"--that the Fourth Gospel alone describes how the crowd on His entry into Jerusalem cried, "Osanna, Blessed be the King of Israel, Who cometh in the name of the Lord" (xii. 13)--that this Gospel more fully than any other records how Pilate questioned our Lord respecting His Kingship, and recognized Him as King, "Behold your King;" and that those who mocked our Lord are recorded by St. John to have mocked Him as the "King of Israel."

So that this term King, so far from being contrary to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel, is not even contrary to its letter.

But this, gross though it seems, is to my mind as nothing to two other assertions founded on this passage of Justin:--

"If we take the second epithet, the Logos as Priest, which is quite foreign to the Fourth Gospel, we find it repeated by Justin."

Now, it is quite true that the title "priest" is not given to our Lord in St. John, just as it is not given to Him in any one of the three Synoptics, or indeed in any book of the New Testament, except the Epistle to the Hebrews: yet, notwithstanding this, of all the books of the New Testament, this Gospel is the one which sets forth the reality of Christ's Priesthood. For what is the distinguishing function of the Priesthood? Is it not Mediation and Intercession, and the Fourth Gospel more than all sets forth Christ as Mediator and Intercessor? As Mediator when He says so absolutely: "No man cometh unto the Father but by me;" "As my Father sent me so send I you; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them."