L. C. 12

178 JUSTIN MARTYR.
Justin was a brother of his whom he hoped to bring back to the home of the Father of all. Justin, of course, does not profess to recognise his meaning, but explains in return why it is that he seeks solitude. Then the two begin to discuss some of the higher questions of philosophy—the difference between the knowledge which is given in the ordinary sciences and the knowledge of God; whether it is possible to know God; the true nature of the soul, and its immortality. The stranger then tells Justin that long before the times of those who were reverenced as philosophers there lived certain prophets — men righteous, blessed, and dear to God, who spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Their writings were still in existence, and contained great discoveries concerning the origin and the end of all things, and concerning other matters which ought to be known to the philosopher. Then he went on to speak of Christ, the Son of God. “But,” said the stranger, “these things are not to be seen and understood by all men, but only by those to whom it is given to understand them by God and by His Christ; pray, therefore, that above all things the gates of light may be opened to thee.” When he had said these and many other things, he went away, and Justin never saw him again.
From that time a fire was kindled in Justin’s soul—a fire that was never extinguished. He came to have a great love for the Jewish prophets and for the friends of Christ. He found in them what he
TUSTIN MARTYR. 179
had not found in the writings of the philosophers. He left the school of Plato for the school of Christ.
This is the story which Justin tells of his own con- version in the Dzalogue with Trypho, Elsewhere he says that while he was delighting in the doctrines of Plato the courage with which the Christians met death and all other terrible things convinced him that they could not be guilty of the secret crimes with which they were charged by their enemies.!
It is apparent that to Justin the Christian Gospel was, first of all, a revelation of things invisible and Divine. It was more than this—it brought to a sin-
ful race the assurance of the infinite mercy of God,
and it proclaimed the gift of eternal life ; but it was in his search for wisdom that he found Christ. For him the Gospel was also a philosophy ; it satisfied his unquenchable thirst for the knowledge of God. He remained a philosopher after he became a Christian, and still wore the philosopher’s cloak. It was the business of his life to make known the truth which God had made known to him. If through his fault other men were ignorant of the Christian revela- tion the guilt of the sin from which the knowledge of Christ would have saved them would be his.’ And so he was eager to explain his new Faith to every man, and was ready to discuss it with all sorts of people. There was nothing in him of the savage fierceness with which Tatian assaulted heathenism,
aD
1 Second Apology, cap. 12. 3 First Apology, cap. 3.
180 JUSTIN MARTYR.
but there was a quiet courage which no peril could subdue.
We know little of his life after his conversion, except that it was spent in illustrating and defending the Gospel of Christ. He taught in Rome, and perhaps in Ephesus. The date of his martyrdom is uncertain. It may have been as early as A.D. 148: it may have been as late as A.D. 163.1
Of his works, some of the most important are lost. The most valuable of these is that which he had written Against all the Heresies. He refers to it in his First Apology (cap. 26). Some of the books which have been attributed to him can hardly be his. There remain his First Apology, which was written, as he says, about 150 years after the birth of our Lord, and was addressed to the Emperor Marcus Antoninus ; his Second Apology; and his Dzalogue with Trypho the Jew. That these three were written by Justin is universally acknowledged.
Il.
In his First Apology he describes the weekly assemblies of the Christians :
1 “ After a complete examination of the evidence, Mr. Hort concludes that ‘we may, without fear of considerable error, set down Justin’s /zrst Apology to 145 or better still to 146, and his death to 148. The Second Apology, if really separate from the First, will then fall in 146 or 147, and the Dialogue with Trypho about the same time.’”—WESTCOTT : Canon of New Lestament, p. 99.
I
Pn eee
JUSTIN MARTYR. 181
“On the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the Memoirs of the ‘ Afosties, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the presi- dent verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president, in like manner, offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent, saying, Amen. And there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given ; and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do and willing give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us ; and, in a word, takes care of all who are in need.”?
This was how Christians met for worship in the year A.D. 150 or earlier. There is a beautiful and pathetic simplicity in the picture. They were brothers and sisters in Christ; they sat at His table; they remembered orphans and widows, the sick, the poor, and strangers who were their guests, and relieved them. They were in peril of suffering loss of pro- perty, imprisonment, and death as the penalty of their Christian faith. While they were sitting at the Lord’s Table they were reminded of their peril ; for one of the objects for which their contributions were collected was to give relief to those who were “in bonds” for Christ’s sake.
1 First Apology, cap. 67 (“Ante-Nicene Library” transla- tion).
182 JUSTIN MARTYR.
In several other places in his Fzrst Apology Justin speaks of these Memoirs of the Apostles, which he says were read in the Christian assemblies. He says:
“ The angel of God who was sent to the same virgin at that time brought her good news, saying, ‘ Behold, thou shalt con- ceive of the Holy Ghost, and shalt bear a Son, and He shall be called the Son of the Highest, and thou shalt call His name Tesus ; for He shall save His people from their sins, as ¢hey who have recorded all that concerns our Saviour Jesus Christ have taught.”—First Apology, cap. 33.
“ The apostles in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upor. them—that Jesus took bread, and, when He had given thanks, said, ‘This do ye in remembrance of Me; this is My body’; and that after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, ‘ This is My blood,’ and gave it to them alone.”—Jézd., cap. 66.
In the Dialogue with Trypho there are the follow- ing references to the Memozrs :
“He called one of His disciples—previously known by the name of Simon—Peter ; since he recognised Him to be Christ, the Son of God, by the revelation of the Father ; and since we find it recorded in the Memoirs of the Apostles that He is the Son of God ; and since we call Him the Son, we have under- stood that He proceeded before all creatures from the Father by His power and will, and that He became man by the Virgin.” —Dialogue with Trypho, cap. 100.
“When He came out of the water, the Holy Ghost lighted on Him like a dove [as] the afoséles of this very Christ of ours wrote.” —Ibid., cap. 88.
“They that saw Him crucified . . . spake in mockery the words which are recorded in the Memoirs of His Apostles: ‘He said that He was the Son of God: let Him come down; let God save Him.’ ”—Jézd., cap. 101.
JUSTIN MARTYR. 183
“He kept silence and chose to return no answer to any one in the presence of Pilate, as has been declared in the Memoirs of the Apostles.” —Ibid., cap. 102.
“T have already proved that 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, as we have learned from the Memoizrs.”—Jbid., cap. 105.
“When Christ was giving up the spirit on the cross, He said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” as I learned also from the Memoirs.” —Ibid., cap. 105.
“In the Wemozrs, which I say were drawn up by the aZoséles and Z¢hose who followed them [it is recorded] that His sweat fell down like drops of blood while He was praying, and saying, ‘If it be possible, let this cup pass.’”—/0zd., cap. 103.
“In the Gosfel it is written that He said, ‘All things are delivered unto Me by My Father’; and ‘ No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.’”—Jdzd., cap. 100.
Trypho is represented as saying :
“T am aware that your precepts in the so called Gosfel are so wonderful and so great that I suspect no one can keep them ; for I have carefully ead them.”—J0zd., cap. 10.
I might quote other passages, but these are suff- cient for my purpose.
The “ Memoirs,’ the “ Memoirs of His Aposiies,” the “ Memoirs drawn up by the Apostles and those who followed them,’ the “ Memoirs composed by them [the apostles], which are called Gospels”:—how could Justin have described more accurately the four nar- ratives of our Lord’s life which are contained in the New Testament? Matthew and John were apostles Mark and Luke were followers of the apostles ; and
184 JUSTIN MARTYR.
—_——
it is deserving of notice that in the passage in which Justin describes the Memoirs as having been drawn up, not merely by the apostles, but by their followers, he is about to mention a fact which is recorded only in the Gospel of Luke In the quotations which I have read, you have already recognised passages, or references to passages, with which you are familiar in our Gospels.
III.
The worth of Justin’s testimony is challenged be- cause he does not say explicitly that the Memozrs which were read in the Christian assemblies in his time were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Why did he not give the names of the writers? How’ can we tell that these Memoirs, which Justin says were called Gospels, were the same Gospels that are in our hands to-day ?
The answer to this question may be given in a single sentence. When Christian writers in the second and third centuries were addressing those who were not Christians, they did not appeal by name to the sacred books of the Church, Why should they? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were no authorities to those who had not received the Christian Faith. The practice of Justin was the practice of the other apologists. Tatian, as we have
1 “His sweat fell down like drops [of blood] while He was praying.”—Dzalogue with Trypho, cap. 103. See Luke xxii. 44.
JUSTIN MARTYR. 185
seen, composed a Harmony of the Gospels. In his Address to the Greeks, though there are allusions to passages in the First Gospel and the Fourth, he never names either Matthew or John. Tertullian, when he is writing for Christians, uses the Gospels as freely as they are used by any modern preacher, and names their writers, but in his Apology their names are not once mentioned. But I repeat that our Gospels could not be described more accurately than they are de- scribed by Justin. They are Memoirs, Recollections, not regular and complete biographies ; and they were drawn up by “apostles and those who followed them.”
I have already given a considerable number of passages in which Justin either quotes the Memoirs or refers to the facts which they record. In the three works of Justin, which are universally acknowledged as genuine, Otto of Jena, who has edited Justin’s works, finds more than 200 passages in which there are either quotations from our Gospels or references to them. From these quotations or references every one of our Four Gospels receives support. For example: in the Déalogue with Tryp~ho Justin writes, “Wherefore also our Christ said [when He was] on earth to those who were affirming that Elijah
- must come before Christ: ‘Elijah shall come and
restore all things ; but I say unto you that Elijah has already come, and they knew him not, but have done to him whatsoever they chose.” The quotation so far is almost a verbally exact quotation from Matthew;
186 JUSTIN MARTYR
but the substance of it is found in Luke. But Justin adds, “ And it is written, ‘Then the disciples under- stood that He spake to them about John the Bap- tist.’”1 This is an exact quotation from Matthew, and is found in Matthew only. Again, Justin says that our Lord changed the names of the two sons of Zebedee to Boanerges.?.. This fact is recorded by Mark only. Again, he quotes the words of our Lord on the cross, “ Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”’ These words are found in Luke only. Finally, he quotes our Lord as saying, “ Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”* The quotation is not verbally exact, but it is very difficult, I think, to resist the conviction that Justin had in his mind the two sayings of our Lord recorded by John, and recorded by /okn only: “Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
IV.
This last passage suggests another objection to the argument resting on Justin’s quotations. It is alleged that in a large number of instances the quotations from the Memoirs do not exactly corre- spond to the text of our Four Gospels, and that,
* Dialogue with Trypho, cap. 49. 2 Jbid., cap. 106. 3 [bid., cap. 105. * First Apology, cap. 61.
JUSTIN MARTYR. 189
therefore, it is probable that Justin quoted from Gospels which have now disappeared. It is assumed that our own Gospels, which are attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, preserve a iarge part of the contents of these more ancient narratives ; but that the lost Gospels contained an earlier and therefore more trustworthy account of our Lord’s life and teaching.
The objection is untenable. Justin quotes forty- eight passages from the Pentateuch: eighteen are quoted exactly, nineteen with slight variations, eleven with marked divergence. He quotes twenty- one passages from the Psalms: sixteen exactly, z- cluding nine (or ten) whole Psalms, two with slight variations, three with decided variations. He quotes fifty-three passages from Isaiah: twenty-five exactly, twelve with slight variations, sixteen with decided variations! Are we to conclude that we have a later Pentateuch, a later Psalter, a later Isaiah than Justin had ; that Justin’s Pentateuch, Justin’s Psalter, Jus- tin’s Isaiah have been lost and have left no trace of their existence behind them; and that although our Pentateuch, Psalter, and Isaiah contain a large part of the materials which were found in the more ancient books, the materials have been re-arranged by some later hand, supplemented by later traditions, modified and coloured under the influence of later forms of theological thought? The inference is an obviously
1 SANDAY: Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 111, 112.
x
188 JUSTIN MARTYR.
impossible one. The Jews are the trustworthy custo- dians of their sacred books.
The explanation of the inexactness of a large proportion of Justin’s quotations from the Old Testa- ment is very simple, and does not require any hypothesis of a lost Pentateuch, a lost Psalter, a lost Isaiah. For Justin to have verified all the passages that he quoted would have been a troublesome and tedious business ; and therefore he left many of them unverified.
A modern writer, if he is not quite sure of the passage which he is quoting, can easily turn it up. When he does not remember chapter and verse, his eye can run over page after page without difficulty till he discovers the words which he is hunting for. If after a few minutes’ search he is still at fault, he has his Concordance. Justin had no Concordance, and ~ to find a passage in a clumsy, unhandy, ancient manu- script was a much more laborious matter than to find it in a printed book. And, therefore, he generally trusted his memory, but his memory often failed him. He gave the substance of the text, but missed the exact words; sometimes he ran two sentences into one. The figures which I have given show that this explanation is the true one. Of the sixteen exact quotations from the Psalms, nine (or ten) are whole Psalms ; when he wanted to quote a whole Psalm, he naturally distrusted his memory, and he therefore turned to the Psalter and copied the exact text. For shorter quotations, if he was sure of the substance
JUSTIN MARTYR. — 189
of the text, it was not worth while to take so much trouble.
His quotations from the first three Gospels are, however, much less exact than even his quotations from the Old Testament. Of “direct quotations,” Professor Sanday finds sixty-seven ; ten are substan- tially exact; twenty-five present slight variations ; thirty-two marked variations! There is a simple and natural explanation of this greater inexactness. He knew the Gospels very much better than he knew the Old Testament, and he therefore verified his New Testament quotations less frequently. Verbal accuracy was not essential to his purpose. The books in which the quotations occur are not commentaries: two of them are defences of the Christian faith against heathenism; the third is a controversial discussion with a Jew. If he gave the substance of the passages which he quoted from the Gospels, it was enough.
1 SANDAY: Zhe Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 114-116. The following note deserves to be considered: “ A somewhat similar classification has been made by De Wette, Zzsleztung in das N. T., pp. 104-110, in which, however, the standard seems somewhat lower than that which I have assumed; several variations which I had classed as decided De Wette considers to be only slight. I hope I may consider this a proof that the classification above given has not been influenced by bias.”
190 JUSTIN MARTYR.
V.
The question whether these Memoirs of Church Apostles, these “Gospels” which Justin used, and which in his time were read every Sunday in the Christian assemblies, were the same as our Gospels can be tried in another way. What account did the Memoirs give of our Lord Jesus Christ, His history and His teaching? Listen to the following summary.’
ACCORDING to Justin, the Messiah was born, without sin, of a virgin who was descended from David, Matt. i. a-6. Jesse, Phares; Judah, Jacob, Isaac, Luke iii, 32-34. and Abraham, if not (the reading here is doubtful) from Adam himself. To Mary it was announced by the angel Gabriel that, while yet a Lukei. 26. virgin, the power of God, or of the Lukei, 35, Highest, should overshadow her, and she should conceive and bear a son Lukei. 31. Matt. i. 2x. whose name she should call Jesus, because He should save His people from their sins. Joseph observing that Mary, his Matt. i. 18-25. espoused, was with child, was warned in a dream not to put her away, because that which was in her womb was of the Holy Ghost. Thus the Matt. i. 23. prophecy, Isaiah vii. 14 (“ Behold
? Justin’s references and allusions to our Lord’s history were collected by Credner and Hilgenfeld, and have been thrown by Professor Sanday into what he calls “a sort of running nar- rative.” This narrative I have given in the text. See Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 91-98.
JUSTIN MARTYR. 191
the virgin,” etc.) was fulfilled. The mother of John the Baptist was Lukei. 57. Elizabeth. The birthplace of the Messiah had been indicated by the Matt. ii. 5,6. prophecy of Micah (v. 2, “ Bethle- hem not the least among the princes of Judah”). There He was born, as the Romans might learn from the census taken by Cyrenius, the first Luke ii, x, a procurator of Judea. His life ex- tended from Cyrenius to Pontius Pilate. So, in consequence of this, the first census in Judea, Joseph went up from Nazareth, where he dwelt, to Bethlehem, whence he Luke ii. 4. was, aS a member of the tribe of Judah. The parents of Jesus could find no lodgings in Bethlehem, so it Lukeii 7. came to pass.that He was born zz a cave near the village, and laid in [id amanger. At His birth there came Matt. ii. x. magi from Arabia, who knew by a star that had appeared in the heaven Matt. ii. 2. that a King had been born in Judza. Matt. ii. xr. Having paid Him their homage, and offered gifts of gold, frankincense, Matt. ii. x2, and myrrh, they were warned not Matt. ii. 1-7. to return to Herod, whom they had consulted on the way. He however, not willing that the child should Matt. ii. 16. escape, ordered a massacre of aé/ the children in Bethlehem, fulfilling Matt. ii. 17, 18 the prophecy of Jeremiah xxxi. 15 (“ Rachel weeping for children,” etc.). Matt. ii. 13-15. Joseph and his wife meanwhile, with the Babe, had fled to Egypt ; for the Father resolved that He to whom He had given birth should not die
192 JUSTIN MARTYR.
before He had preached His word as aman. There they stayed until
Matt. ii. se. Archelaus succeeded Herod, and then returned.
By process of nature He grew to the age of thirty years or more, of comely of aspect (as had been pro- Phesied), practising the trade of
Matt vi.3.a carpenter, making ploughs and yokes, emblems of righteousness.
He remained hidden till John, the
herald of His coming, came forward,
Matt. xvii. 12,13. the spirit of Elias being in him; and
Luke iii, 93.
Matt. iii, 2. as he sa¢ by the river Jordan, cried Luke iii. 3.
to men to repent. As he preached Matt. iii 4. in his wild garb, he declared that
he was not the Christ, but that One (Johni. 19 f) Matt. iii. az, x2. stronger than he was coming after Luke iii. 16, x7.
him, whose shoes he was not worthy to bear, etc. The later history of John Justin also mentions, how, Matt. xiv. 3. having been put in prison, at a feast on Herod’s birthday, he was Matt. xiv. 6 ff. beheaded at the instance of his sisters daughter. This John was Matt xvii. 11-23. Elias, who was to come before the Christ. | At the baptism of Jesus @ fire was kindled on the Jordan, and, as He went up out of the water, the Matt. iii, 16. Holy Ghost alighted upon Him, and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, in the words of David, “Thou art My Son; ¢his day have L begotten Thee.” Matt. iv. 1-9. After His baptism He was tempted by the devil, who ended by claiming homage from Him. To this Christ
Luke iii. 20.
Luke iii. 21, #2.
JUSTIN MARTYR.
i93
Matt. iv. 11.
Matt. ix. 29-31, 32, 33, X. 1-8.
Matt. iv. 23. Matt. ix. 18 ff.
Matt. iv. 17.
Matt. v. 20.
Matt. v. 28. Matt. v. 29-32.
Matt.v. 34-37; 39-
Matt. v. 44.
Matt. v. 42. Matt. vi. 19, 20. Matt. vi. 25-27.
Matt. v. 45.
Matt. vi. 21, etc.
Matt. vii. 22, 23.
Matt. viii. rz, 12. Matt. ix. 13.
replied, “Get thee behind Me, Satan,” etc. .So the devil departed from Hira at that time, worsted and convicted.
‘ Justin knew that the words of Jesus were short and concise, not like those of a sophist. That He wrought miracles might be learnt Srom the Acts of Pontius Pitate, fulfilling Isaiah xxxv. 4-6. Those who from: their é4zr¢h were blind, dumb, lame, He healed; indeed, He healed all sickness and disease, and He raised the dead. Zhe Jews ascribed these miracles to magic.
Jesus too (like John, whose misston ceased when He appeared in, public) began His ministry by proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Many precepts of the Sermon on the Mount Justin has preserved,
[as, for example, those referring to] the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the adultery of the heart, the offending eye, divorce, oaths, returning good for evil, loving and praying for enemies, giving to those that need, placing the treasure in heaven, not caring for bodily wants, but copying the mercy and goodness of God, not acting from worldly motives—above all, deeds, not words.
Justin quotes sayings from the narrative of the centurion of Caper- naum and of the feast in the house of Matthew. He has the choosing
Matt. x.1f, of the twelve apostles, with the
Mark iii. 17.