u I IN ffl OWflffS HI m m m m rain II m mm m m § m n ffiffiffi Rfl m • OF PR// Logical se*^ BR 1720 .J8 M37 1921 Martindale, C. C. 1879-1963 St. Justin the Martyr M3& CA T HO LIC THO UGHT 6- THINKERS SERIES Edited by C. C. Martindale, S.J., M.A. St. Justin the Martyr IN THE SAME SERIES Introductory: by C. C. Martindale, S.J., M.A. Erasmus of Rotterdam : by Maurice Wilkinson, Alcuin : by E. M. Wil mot- Buxton NIHIL OBSTAT: F. THOMAS BERGH, O.S.B. IMPRIMATUR: EDM. CAN. SURMONT, VIC. GEN. WESTMONASTERII, DIE 18 AUGUST 1921. DEDICATION RICHARD PHILIP GARROLD S.J., M.A., C.F. The more truly an historian because he understood so much of human nature R.I.P. +> BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE * T will be recalled that the volumes of this series aim at giving no exhaustive or adequate account of their subject. They propose to supply in outline the main thought of a writer on the more important topics with which he dealt. Readers anxious to supplement the following pages are referred to : J. Riviere : St. Justin et les Apologistes du zme siecle (Paris, 1907). L. Pautigny : Justin, Apologies (Paris, 1904). G. Archambault : Justin^ Dialogue avec Tryphon (Paris, 1909). M.J., Lagrange, O.P. : Saint Justin (Paris, 1914). Full of information not found in other works ; a vivid picture of Justin ; a penetrating psychology ; an unusually high and accurate estimate of the value of Justin's work. P. BatirTol : Ancienne litterature chretienne grecque (Paris, 190 1). A. Puech : Apologistes grecques du zme Steele (Paris, 191 2). J. Lebreton : theories du Logos au debut de Vere chretienne (Paris, 1906). 7 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE J. Tixeront ; tr. (Herder) : History of Dogma, vol. i. R. Glover : The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire (Methuen, ed. 8, 1 9 1 9). Is good upon the environment of Justin, but quite unfair to the Saint himself, and inadequate as to Christianity as a whole. For Hermias see Migne, Patrol. Graec, vi. 1169-1180. For Tatian ib. 803-888, and A. Puech : Recherches sur Tatien (Paris, 1903). For Athenagoras ib. ii. 889-1023 ; and Gebhardt and Harnack (Leipzig, 1892); Armitage Robinson (in Texts and Studies, Cambridge, 1 89 1, and Apology (London, 1909) ; and in general Bardenhewer's Patrology (tr. Shahan), 1908 ; and The Catholic Encyclopedia. St. Justin's Works Authentic Apologia I. addressed to Antoninus Pius. Apologia II. addressed to the Roman Senate. Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Spurious Address to the Greeks. Exhortation to the Greeks. On the Monarchy [i.e. on the Unique, Supreme] of God. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Letter to Zena and Serenus. A few others. Lost Treaty on All Heresies : the originals of the Address, Exhortation, and On the Monarchy above mentioned : The Psalmist ; On the Soul. Contents CHAPTER I ST. JUSTIN AND THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE (i) St. Justin's Environment. — The political or social problem (Emperor- worship) j the religious problem, especially in its {a) conserva- tive and official, (b) popular, aspect. Oriental cults and moods ; the philosophical problem ; Stoicism, the Stoic Logos ; Epicureanism : Gnosticism. (ii) Other Apologists. — Justin's conversion, education, career, and martyrdom, pp. 18-35 CHAPTER II ST. JUSTIN'S " PROLEGOMENA " Preparation of mind and will in view of equitable judgment. (i) Tke u CkristianFact." — Christian morality: Christian citizenship. (Note on St. Justin's allusion to Christian worship.) Value of this argument as facilitating an equitable inspection, by the pagans, of the Christian doctrine. Duty of approaching such an inspection in a proper state of mind. 11 CONTENTS (ii) The "Prophetic Fact." — Despite the obscurity of the Hebrew prophecies, rendering this " fact " less immediately challenging than the " Christian Fact," the fulfilment of so many ancient predictions warrants a non- Christian's looking with interest and good-will towards Christianity. Conclusion : Christianity can be, and should be, defended " reasonably," and must be examined " equitably." (Note on a passage from On the Resurrection oj the Dead) ..... pp. 36-58 CHAPTER III THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS (i) God. — The existence and nature of God. He is Absolute, One, Eternal, Infinite, Spiritual, Creator and Providence. The consequent duty of spiritual worship. (ii) The Logos. — (a) The Apologists profess belief in the Trinity, yet speak but little of the Third Person. They concentrate on the Second, because of the Logos doctrines existing in pagan philosophies. The Stoic version of this belief. Logos endiathetos, prophorikos, and spermatikos. (b) Justin's Logos doctrine. His view of the participation by human reason, by the philoso- phers, and by the Jewish nation (particularly 12 CONTENTS the prophets) in the Word who was incarnate in Jesus Christ. Difficulties to which Justin was exposed. Practical importance of the Christian doctrine. (iii) The Work of Jesus Christ.— (a) The creation of the world. Freedom of man's will. Revolt and fall of angels and men. The role of evil spirits ever since ; they generate polytheism, heresies, and persecutions. (Note on the Apologists' view of heresy, and the supernatural unity of the Church.) (b) The preparation for the Advent of Christ. Hebrew prophecy. The " Jewish controversy " : the nature of the Old Law. (c) Jesus Christ, true God, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, dead, and risen. His redemptive work is not merely that of conquering evil spirits and helping man, but the " recapitulation " of humanity into Himself. Hebrew prophecy read in the light of the Incarnation. The relation of Christianity to pagan myth. Permanent importance of this controversy. (iv) Christian Eschatology. — The paramount importance of the work of the Apologists resides in their doctrine of God, of the Logos, and of the " Christocentricity " of history pp. 59-156 13 St. Justin the Martyr Introductory aaU&iattglTH the death of the last Apostle, an era closed for the Christian Church. That era had had its own problems, especially that of the re- lation of Christianity to the Jewish religion. The theory of this was very fully worked out in St. Paul's epistles, and little was left to be added, save by way of illustration. However, the problem continued to exist, and something will be said of it below. Other problems, however, were foreshadowed in the Apos- tolic writings, and in particular that of the relation of Christianity to the State, upon which St. Peter and St. Paul touch more than once, and which bulks large in the Apocalypse. It took, however, a tremen- dous practical importance as time went on, and had a share, as we shall see, in occasion- 15 INTRODUCTORT ing the Apologies or Defences of Christianity of which in this volume we shall be writing. This constituted the Political Problem. The Christians were, moreover, confronted with the various religions of the Empire, in their more respectable and cultured, but especially in their more popular, forms. Heathen religions as such are not to the forefront in the New Testa- ment ; but, in St. Paul's experiences at Athens, we perceive the Apostolic Church addressing itself to what we may here call the Religious Problem. More continu- ously provocative of thought, however, than either of these was the Philosophic Problem. That is, for many centuries pagan thought had striven to give an account of the ultimate principles under- lying the life of the universe and of man in particular ; and very strong systems had been thought out, few of which discarded altogether the ideas and terminology of religion. These problems, singly and to- gether, constituted a grave challenge to the new Faith, and asked that it should give a reasonable account of itself, if it could or would. Jewish antagonism, poli- 16 INTRODUCTORr tical persecution, popular dislike and con- servative religious resentment, and rival philosophies, called into existence the earliest group of Christian Apologists of whom St. Justin was the most noteworthy, or whose works, at any rate, are the most complete and typical. It seems suitable to give, first, in suf- ficient outline, a view of the Roman world from these political, religious, and philo- sophic standpoints ; each will be further made intelligible as we proceed to examine St. Justin's own thought. Chapter I ST. JUSTIN AND THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE §i St. Justin'; his Environment OMAN officials would have said that most, if not all, the earliest " per- secutions " were justified because the Christians were politically danger- ous. It is true that their " offences " were negative, e.g. refusals to worship the Emperor. But such re- fusals seemed to imply an assault upon the whole structure of the Empire and indeed of Society. It was extremely difficult to hold the Empire together ; the army, the " civil service," and commerce con- spired to do this, but all three were permeated with Emperor-worship, and life in any of them was often practically impossible without it. Thus commercial life functioned, to a very great extent, not 18 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE least in Asia Minor, where Christians were so numerous, through guilds, which may roughly be compared to trades unions ; not to belong to one of these meant, practically, boycott. The temptation, then, to belong to a guild was almost overwhelming ; but all these guilds had periodical social and religious gatherings, and successful members of the guilds necessarily played an important part in these. All such gatherings involved the expression of divine homage to the Emperor ; and thus Christians were faced with the dilemma of practical apostasy, or starvation, if they were occupied with trade. The terrible consequences of this problem are very visible in the Apocalypse. In the army, at every turn a soldier found himself obliged to adore the Emperor's name or symbol ; the military oath, the very standards which a soldier followed or passed, seemed to suggest, or in fact exacted, some such homage. In certain groups of Christians, moreover, the whole idea of bloodshedding, and therefore the military career, tended to be felt as wrong. Finally, the immense middle class, which 19 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR had recently formed itself, all the smaller provincial civic offices, and the new ranks created and thrown open to important men in the larger towns, had, for binding force or central social activity, the worship of the Emperor. Even if this worship had been purely conventional and had implied no interior conviction, which was far from being the case, 1 the Christians could not have paid this exterior tribute to paganism. It became practically impos- sible, therefore, for them to share in the life of the overwhelming majority of the Empire's non-slave population ; and while their state of mind appeared to be, accordingly, in direct opposition to the fundamental ideas of contemporary Society, their mere abstention seemed, the moment they became numerous, a grave menace to its very existence. Reprisals were taken, and official " per- secutions " have been catalogued. But, with certain exceptions, it was probably the local and provincial persecutions, 1 Here, and in all this matter of the persecutions, there is a co-efficient of popular psychology, operating almost as far as collective hallucination, on which, however, I do not wish, in this book, to dwell. 20 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE engineered largely by zealous subordi- nates, which tried the Christians worst and on the widest scale ; and almost more harassing than actual attack was the uncertainty in which they were forced to live, and the vagueness of the laws which gave such scope to the activities of indivi- dual governors, and never allowed the Christians to feel secure as to what might happen next. However, all this would scarcely have been possible had not a strong current of popular feeling supported it. This was due to the general state of religion among the masses ; and the governing classes for many reasons had to attend to this. The Roman rule had a strong element of wise toleration in it, and it allowed its subjects to keep to their hereditary cults, provided these did not create organized societies which could turn into instruments of conspiracy against the State ; and provided they were not exclusive, so as to provide occasions of spiritual schism within the Empire : but, more than this, ever since Augustus an attempt had been made to preserve and indeed to revive ancient forms 21 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR of worship in the interests of stability and permanence. 1 Not only, therefore, was there an official pageant-religion in vogue, to which the crowds flocked, but an antiquarian religion of great interest and even charm, which restored to dying rites their immemorial halo. This joined on directly to those conservative layers of the population which, among the hum- bler classes, and in the country especially, clung tenaciously to ancestral customs. But of far deeper psychological importance than this was the invasion of Oriental cults and even moods. These came in not only with the returning legions, but with the millions of slaves which flooded the home provinces and Italy, drawn chiefly from the East. Some of these cults, like that of Isis, became very fashionable ; and every kind of superstition, especially the more sensational and violent, fastened its fangs into the brains of large parts of town-society, which were growing neuras- 1 The best statement of the attitude of a conservative- minded sceptic towards the pragmatic value of the ancient cult, is by Caecilius, in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, c . 200. He also accumulates the popular accusations alluded to below. 22 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE thenic. Moreover, these Eastern cults, with their other-worldly idealisms, their initiations and penances, their tinge of art and ecstasy, their mystic priesthoods and their feminism, affected tempera- ments left untouched by the sober or stately worships suited to Roman feeling, and indeed in some points evoked a spiri- tual response in hearts which had never yet so been challenged. Christianity, alien to all this, seemed, once more, hostile to the whole Roman past, and indifferent to what excited the enthusiasms of the present, and even contemptuous of what, to many, seemed of real spiritual value. From top to bottom, therefore, of the social scale men diagnosed in the Christian an odium humani generis — a hatred for the race at large ; he appeared an " atheist," and, as such, to be regarded with horror ; and again, his secret reunions, his inexplic- able " clannishness," and vague rumours of his midnight " love-feasts/ ' gave rise to the most fantastic suspicions, as of cannibalism, murder and eating of infants, of incest, of worship of an ass's head, and the like, in fevered brains to which mytho- 23 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR logy already supplied sufficient horrors. Hence, those who were supposed to " hate " grew to be violently hated. It is clear that in this official and mechanical worship, and in these effer- vescing cults which, at their most thought- ful, issued only into a sort of pantheism, Christianity could find little enough with which to sympathize, nor even what it could satisfactorily come to grips with. Philosophy, which provided Christianity with by far its most serious, because most intellectually reputable, opponent, by a strange paradox became also that which it could meet and " talk " with most easily. For philosophy and Christianity both professed to have ideas, or doctrines, on the same subjects ; and in much of what philosophy was teaching Chris- tianity could find elements which it might approve. Anyhow, two intelligent men could meet and discuss, where a fanatic, or a rigid official system, offered no ground for an encounter. Of the many philosophical systems which were at this time existing, by far the most important was Stoicism. I give H THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE but the barest indications of its organic and constructive ideas. In two words, the Stoics taught a dynamic monism. That is, the underlying principle of the Universe (which was itself a Process) was one Force. This expressed itself in all existing forms, most perfectly in the mind of man. A " system," or " harmony," or true Cosmos (Universal Order) was in process of formation ; and it was the sole business of everything, but of man especi- ally, to adapt itself to this. For, while the process itself, and its ultimate consum- mation, were inevitable, yet you were capable of resisting it. Detachment, non- resistance, and thereby co-operation in the Whole, were, therefore, the Stoic ideal. You refrained from selfish, de- partmental desires and efforts, and you tried to subordinate yourself to the World- movement. The best metaphor the Stoic struck out for his idea of man was that of a dog tied to a moving cart. It might run with it, or it might struggle. But always it reached the goal whither the Driver drove. And already I have hinted at what gave its strong religious colour to 25 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR Roman Stoicism — its use of divine- human metaphor. The unique immanent Force was called God, and its action was conceived as that of a Father, or Pilot, or Guide, or Friend. Man's attitude towards it was described as filial, and towards his fellow subordinates as frater- nal, and the like. In the works of Seneca, for example, all philosophy is flushed with religion and becomes very human and beautiful. The eternal existence of the soul seems to have become personal ; resistance takes the look of sin ; obedience appears to lead to " salvation. " Moreover, the Force not only in itself, but as expressing itself in limited forms, was called the Logos, and the particular the cnrepjjLaTiKos \dy09, or Generative Logos ; for not only does logos mean the account which may be given of a thing, but that which itself accounts, as vital prin- ciple, for the thing. And so the Seed- Logos does not only mean the scattered, partial manifestation of the universal plan in separated units, but the springing, thrusting activity within each which causes it to develop and grow towards the supreme 26 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE Unification. That, then, which was called " God," was, as " Logos," seen as express- ing itself in limited forms and particularly in man ; and that in two ways. It could be regarded statically as expressed in man ; and, dynamically, as driving man upward, from within, towards a " divine " ex- pansion and perfection. It was inevitable, then, that Christian thinkers, in possession of faith in the Incarnation and in the Holy Spirit, as well as in the Eternal Creator, Providence, and Goal of all that is, should fasten on these elements in Stoicism as material for discussion. Epicureanism (which has come to be popularly mistaken for a cult of pleasure), oddly enough issued into much the same moral mood as Stoicism did. It was interesting to start with, because of its singular anticipations of some fairly modern theories — that is, the atomic com- position of matter, and the conservation of energy, and other subordinate hypo- theses, including evolution. The Epi- cureans believed the world to consist of an infinite number of irreducibly small units, devoid of secondary qualities, save 27 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR shape, moving at a tremendous speed through space, swerving slightly, clashing, cohering, and thus forming all more complex unities. The gods themselves consisted of such atoms, though subtle in the extreme, and were totally aloof from coarse humanity. Such, too, was the soul : at death, it separated into its com- ponent atoms. The after-life, and its terrors, were thus eliminated, and so was religion. But Epicureanism, too, issued into a moral attitude of ataraxia, or imperturbability, towards life, barely dis- tinguishable from the Stoic apathia^ i.e. lack, or rather subordination of emotion, a spiritual " neutrality." This system, however, though superbly hymned by Lucretius, and approved by Horace, never produced during the period we are con- sidering any outstanding figures compar- able to the popular and fluent Seneca, the sublime and lovable, yet radically pessimist slave-philosopher Epictetus, or the melan- choly agnostic Emperor, Marcus Aurelius — for, after all, agnosticism underlay most of the speculative side of all this movement; yet these speculative elements, when 28 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE " theologized, " issued into a pantheistic monism, no doubt, a " World-soul," but meanwhile satisfied the religious sense ; in life, they had a pragmatic value especi- ally suitable to a Roman during those difficult generations. Along with all this was growing up .Gnosticism, which combined philosophy with a very real religion. Underlying it was the belief that Spirit and Matter were opposed, as two principles, good and bad ; so utterly, that God could come into no sort of " contact " with matter, and had to engender a whole series of intermediate beings in order to create the world. One result of this was, that you violently maltreated the body in order to liberate the spirit ; or, again, that you regarded the body as so alien to the spirit that it did not matter how it behaved, and this issued into grave licence. Gnosticism applauded all religions, as symbols, suited to the vulgar, of the one Truth which was at the back of all of them, and which an elite of purer souls " knew," whence their name, Gnostic. But Gnosticism will be more fully dealt with in the volume on St. 29 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR Irenaeus ; its importance in the history of Christianity is very great, and it sur- vives to-day in Theosophy. As an element in Neoplatonism, it shared in the compre- hensive, despairing onslaught of paganism upon the Christian Faith. Against these antagonists, then, Chris- tianity had to defend itself. § ii The Emperor Hadrian sent a rescript to Minucius Fundanus, by which he did not indeed sanction Christianity, but ordered the punishment of those who accused the Christians falsely, and exacted a legal examination before conviction. About the same time a group of Apologies or Defences reveals itself. In a.d. 125 or 1 26 a certain Quadratus sent an appeal to the Emperor, then at Athens. Aristides is said to have given an Apologia to the Emperor at the same time ; but if, as seems likely, it was dedicated to his successor Antoninus Pius, it may be dated as late as 140. It was thought to be lost, 30 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE and its discovery is one of the sensations of modern research. 1 Ariston of Pella wrote a Dispute (between a Christian and a Jew) about 1 3 5, which is lost. Tatian wrote a Treatise addressed to the Greeks, about 170 ; Theophilus of Antioch wrote three books " On the Resurrection " to Autolycus, and is to be put between 169 and 182. The Epistle to Diognetuswas ascribed, mistakenly no doubt, to Justin ; Athenagoras pleaded on behalf of the Christians about 177 ; and a Hermias wrote an Irrisio or " mockery " of heathen philosophy. For the sake of completeness, Rhodon, Melito, Miltiades,and Apollinaris may be mentioned. They wrote before Justin, and survive, if at all, in practically useless fragments. On Tertullian, whose apologetic work belongs to 197, a separate volume will be written, where too Minu- cius Felix will be spoken of. But the apologetic literature can be studied pro- perly only in the works of St. Justin (c. 100-165) although the others will be alluded to below, so as to show the current of thought then circulating among those 1 See H. Lucas, S.J., in The Month, vol. lxii, pp. 509-524. 31 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR Christians who undertook the intellectual defence of their faith. * * * Justin^ son of Priscus, and grandson of Bacchius, 1 was born about ioo at Flavia Neapolis (Sichem, now Nablus) in Samaria, of pagan parents. In search of a philosophy of life, he passed from the Stoics (whom he found, in the last resort, " agnostic " about God), to the Peripa- tetics (whom he considered mercenary) ; thence to the Pythagoreans (who ex- acted a knowledge of astronomy, music, geometry, and other sciences before he could rise to the contemplation of the Good and the Beautiful as such) ; and, finally, to the Platonists, under whom he progressed rapidly in abstract thought, till he fancied himself on the verge of being able to contemplate the Absolute, or God, 11 which is the good of Plato's philosophy." Such, at least, is the series he relates in his Dialogue with Trypho (II. 3-6) — with it has 1 Fr. Lagrange regards these names as making it probable that St. Justin's family was Italian by origin. To this he attributes some of Justin's qualities, e.g. his frank simplicity : he lacks Greek suppleness. Still, he grew up a pagan, not discernibly affected bySamaritan influences {St. Justin, p. 3). 32 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE been compared Miss A. Baker's Modern Pilgrim's Progress ! — and though this account is gently ironical and probably 11 schematized,'' yet he was wide-travelled intellectually, very sympathetic, and loyal to his love for much that he had learnt. At this point he met a mysterious old man, who directed his attention to the Hebrew prophets ; their antiquity, sublimity, and predictions joined with the impression made upon him by the lives, and still more by the deaths, of the Christians, and he embraced their faith probably at Ephesus. He retained, however, his "philosopher's cloak," and moved about discoursing with pagans and Jews, and opened a lay lec- ture-room in Rome. He wrote his two Apologies about 1 50 1 ; and the dialogue with the Jew Trypho about 152 ; during the Jewish war of 132-135 he places its dramatic date. He wrote many other works which are lost ; others, which are referred to him, are spurious. It is 1 There is evidence suggesting that Apology II. was written some time after Apology I., and that in the interval his thought had somewhat developed. Eusebius, in fact, places Ap. I. under Antoninus Pius, Ap. II. under Marcu3 Aurelius. d 33 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR curious to see that Justin's very frank writings appear to have done him no harm. A man was arrested for Christianity either if he were definitely denounced or if a popular outburst demanded it. It is said that a jealous philosopher rival, the Cynic Crescens, at last denounced St. Justin. With certain other Christians, Chariton, Charite, Euelpistos, Hierax, Paeon, and Liberianus, he was led before the prefect Junius Rusticus, a friend of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The prefect treated Justin roughly ; he asked some perfunc- tory questions about Justin's doctrine, and then enquired where the Christians assembled. Justin was evasive : God was everywhere ; everywhere, therefore, the Christians worshipped Him ; no need to meet together. . . . " Where," the pre- fect asked point-blank, " do you assemble your disciples ? " Justin answered at once : near the house of a certain Martin, along- side of the baths of Timotheos. " Are you a Christian ? " " Yes." One after the other the prisoners confessed Christ ; Euelpistos, a slave of Caesar's, crying that from Christ he had received his liberty. 34 THE WORLD FOR WHICH HE WROTE A brief examination followed. Whence did the prisoners come ? Had Justin taught them Christianity ? All save Hierax, who evaded this, had been taught the faith by their parents. Rusticus made one more effort to alarm St. Justin. " If I scourge you, if I behead you, do you really think you will go to heaven ? " II Not only do I think it, but I know it." The prefect bade them all approach and offer the test-sacrifice to the gods. Justin refused in the name of all. Their sentence, were they obstinate, was read out to them. Justin again proclaimed his faith. " Do what you choose quickly," cried the others. " We are Christians ; we do not sacrifice to idols." They were condemned, scourged, and beheaded ; their bodies being taken away secretly by the Faithful " to a suitable place." l 1 The Acts of St. Justin and his companions are recognized as genuine, save perhaps for a few sentences. 3S Chapter II ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" § i The " Christian Fact" LL that Hadrian's re- script did for the Chris- tians was to ensure a method in accusation, and a trial. But to be proved a Christian was to be proved guilty. So Justin begins his Apology with an earnest request that the Christians be not con- demned on account of their name merely, but, if need be, because of their life. Let this be examined, therefore, and let con- demnation attend upon evidence. With confident simplicity, Justin offers the Christian life for inspection. " We, who once took pleasure in debauchery, now embrace chastity alone ; we, who made use even of magic arts, now consecrate ourselves 36 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" to a God who is good and unbegotten. We, who loved beyond all things the increase of wealth and of possession, now put together even what we have and share it with all who are in need. We who hated one another, and murdered one another, we who would not even throw our hearths open to those who differed from us in blood or custom, now, since the manifestation of Christ, live together, pray for our enemies, seek to win over those who unjustly hate us [that they, with us, may receive the same divine rewards] " (i J p. 14). Christ condemned all impurity, even in thought : " And many — men and women — who from childhood have been to school to Christ, have remained to their 60th or 70th year untainted. I can boast that I would show you such in every class of society. And what of the innumerable multitude of those who have left wantonness to learn this doctrine ? . . . [As for gentleness and charity] I could show you many who have lived among you [and how they have followed Christ's commands herein]. They have changed from being violent and tyrannical, quelled by the austerity of their neighbour's life or emulating it, or observing the strange patience of their fellow-wayfarers under injustice, or by experience of their associates " (1 Af. 15, 16). 37 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR " Yes, I myself, when I was a Platonist, hearing the Christians spoken ill of, and seeing them fearless in presence of death and of everything else which is considered terrible, took thought that it was impossible that they should be living in evil and in love with pleasure ! For what man, who loved pleasures, or was wanton, or thought it good to feed on human flesh, could welcome death, and support the deprivation of all that he valued ? " [So I came] to deride the lies and calumnies of popular opinion. I am a Christian ; I own to it ; I make my boast of it ; I struggle might and main to be made known as a Christian ! " (zAp. 12, 13). " Everywhere we try to be the first to pay the tribute and taxes to the authorities you institute. . . . God alone do we adore, but for the rest we gladly obey yourselves, recognizing you as kings and governors of mankind and praying that, together with the supreme power, you may be found reasonable and self-con- trolled " (1 A p. 17). Toleration based on the idea of liberty of conscience as such is invoked rather by Tertullian than by the Greek Apologists. He, too, retorts the lack of loyalty of pagans, always a-dream for some new Caesar. Theophilus (Aut. I. 11) is more explicit than Justin on Caesar-worship : 38 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" " I give special honour to the Emperor, but I do not worship him, but pray for him ! I worship the True and Living God alone, knowing that it is He who created the Emperor. If I am asked, ' Why not worship the Emperor ? ' I answer, ' Because he is not made to be worshipped, but to receive the honours due by law. For he is not God : he is but a man to whom the management is, in a limited way, entrusted by God, not to be worshipped, but to do justice. One may say, in fact, that he is but a functionary of God ; he would never allow his own subordinates to be called Emperors : his is the name Emperor, and no one else may bear it. Similarly, it is God alone whom we may worship." Justin elsewhere says : " We put up with and support all that men and wicked spirits contrive against us, so that even in the midst of unspeakable things, death, tortures, we pray to God to have mercy even upon those who have placed us in that state, without even entertaining the slightest thought of vengeance " (Tr. 18). " We, who were replete with war, murder, and every evil, from all over the earth we each transform our instruments of war, swords into ploughshares, lances into field-tools ; and we cultivate piety, justice, benevolence, faith, 39 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR hope that comes from the Father Himself by means of the Crucified, seated each under his own vine, that is, faithful each to his own one wife. . . . And that there is no one who can reduce us to panic or enslave us — we who all over the earth have believed in Jesus — is manifest. We are beheaded, we are crucified, thrown to wild beasts, enchained, burned, and put to every other kind of torture. Everyone sees it. But, the more all this happens, the more numerous become those who believe through the Name of Jesus . . . [Yes, though] as far as depends on you and all the rest, each Christian is driven not only from his own possessions, but off the very face of the earth ; by you, a Christian is not allowed to be I" (Tr. no, cf. 121). "Who but Christians die for their faith ? " (cf. 93, 96). Not only the Christians are thus, in their private or domestic capacities, so right-living as to oblige a spectator to notice the difference between them and the rest, but they are active in their wider well-doing. Justin claims again and again that they cast out evil spirits. Whatever interpretation a modern materialist or critic might put on this, it is clear that a marked beneficent influence must have radiated from them, else, in an apologetic 40 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" work, which had no value except in so far as it appealed to what its readers would acknowledge, Justin could never have made this claim at all ; it would simply have met with a denial, just as the Christian claim to a special moral standard and level of behaviour, to extraordinarily rapid in- crease, and the like, could not have been so constantly advanced by Apologists as an obvious and challenging fact, if it could simply have been denied. " We [now, through Christ] exorcise all evil demons and spirits and hold them submissive to us " (7V. 76) is an argument he continually adduces. 1 I would add that obsession by evil spirits was increasingly believed in at his period. Magic w r as used not least for their exorcism or invocation, and magic arts were often not only foolish, but obscene and even murderous. Human blood, children's especially, was used. Hence, when pagans levelled accusations, to us fantastic, against the Christians, e.g. 1 Cf. 2 Ap. 6; Tr. 30, 35,85, ill, 121 ; he did so the more willingly as he believed that evil spirits were not yet finally incarcerated in hell (i Ap. 28). Cf. Theoph. Jut. II. 8. 41 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR cannibalism, they said what they knew, after all, went on among themselves. These and similar passages constitute, first, a denial of the popular opinion of Christian immorality or disloyalty which provided persecution with its excuse. But they go further: they state that Christian morality was in itself so high, so outstanding, as to constitute forthwith a positive argument. At least, the Chris- tian folk is something extraordinary and indeed unique. But more than this : Christian behaviour flows, as Justin em- phasizes in i Ap. 15-17, not from a philosophical system created by the Chris- tians themselves, but directly from the authoritative maxims of Christ Himself. In living as they do, they are obeying Him. Transcendent, then, must He be who caused in them such transcendence. In this you find no flavour of arrogance or boasting, but a humble recognition that what they have they owe. To acknow- ledge their possession is to glorify its source. This appeal to the concrete, to an observable behaviour normally higher than the co-naturally possible — in other 4 2 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" words, to start thus by envisaging the Christian Fact, and finding it to be what it is — is a hint which Apologetics have never quite forgotten. 1 * * * Justin's Apology contains some fragments of incomparable liturgical value. Not content with denying the accusations brought against Christians' rites, he indicates in outline what they really are. But this does not enter into his peculiar contribution to Christian thought as such. He twice alludes to Baptism (i A p. 61 ; Tr. 14, cf. 43), and is quite clear about the supernatural rebirth which it imparts. He refers to the invocation of the Trinity, dis- tinguishes it from Jewish ritual ablutions, 1 It would have been difficult for the Christians to prove a negative ; i.e. that they did none of the things popular rumour ascribed to them. Athenagoras, however {Leg. 35), makes a good point. The essence of these hideous assemblies was said to be their secrecy. So not one eye-witness could be adduced. Not even the slaves of the Christians, who could not but have seen what happened, could provide evidence. Athenagoras goes further than Justin in the positive assertion of Christian ethic. Christians will not be present at a man's (unjust) death, and abstain, therefore, from the Circus. Abortion they hold for a crime (ib. 33, 35, 36 ; cf. Theoph. Jut. III. 15). For Justin's retort : "Paganism practises openly what we are accused of doing in secret," cf. infra, p. 126 (cf. Ath. Leg. 32, 34.). Tertullian's rebuttal and retorts will be dealt with in the volume upon his works. It is he and Minucius Felix who allude to the story of ass- worship ; a grafito preserved in Rome possibly pictures it. 43 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR connects it with our Lord's discourse in St. John iii, perceives it prophesied in the Old Testament (cf. Theophil. Aut. II. 16) and gives it its early Christian name, <£amcr/A05, illumination. He is no less clear about the Eucharist. In i Ap. 65 he outlines the primitive Mass ; describes the distribution, by deacons, of the " eucharistized " Bread and Cup of mingled wine and water, and the carrying of these to the absent. No one who does not fully believe, has not been baptized, or is in a state of sin, may receive Communion : " even as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being made flesh by the Word of God, took flesh and blood for our salvation, even so, we have been taught, * eucharistized ' by the formula of prayer which comes from Him, this food, which by way of [or, in view of ?] assimilation, nourishes our flesh and blood, is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus incarnate " (1 Ap. 66). Here (as in Tr. 70; cf. 41 and 1 17) he alludes to the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, and links it clearly to sacrificial types in the Old Testament, and definitely states that Malachi i 10-12 predicts the sacrifices offered by us in all places — that is, the Bread and the Chalice of the Eucharist. In 1 Ap. 29 and elsewhere the Christian law of marriage fidelity, and even the practice of disapproving second marriages, are strongly asserted, and the ideal of consecrated chastity affirmed. (Cf. Athen. 44 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" Leg* 33 : " You will find many among us, both men and women, who grow old unmarried in the hope of closer companionship with God.") Connected with this is the condemnation of abortion, and, we need to point out, of that exposure of unwanted children to death, which we so seldom — accustomed to our own circum- scribed respect for child-life — remember as having been a quite normal pagan practice. Exposed children, the Apologists continually repeat, either die, or grow up to prostitution, to whichever sex they belong. Supernatural religion herein has twice and thrice over rescued human nature. Of interest, too, is the description of the Sunday reunions, and of the social life of the Christians, of which Aristides too (15-17) and the Epistle to Diognetus (5-6) give a vivid picture. It has been pointed out that, supple- menting Justin and the Greek Apologists by Tertullian chiefly, we can see the place held in this primitive Church by the sacrament, too, of penance. But the descriptions of these practices would lie outside the framework of this book. Now the argument supplied by the lives of the Christians had not only a static value, so that to attack them should seem unreasonable, but a dynamic one, in that it prepared the will to think well of them, 45 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR and, if of them, so also of their doctrines. On the right mood, or good will, in an enquirer, Justin is very strong. He had learnt this himself from the mysterious " old man " at Ephesus. " Above all," he had said to Justin, " pray that the gates of light may be opened to thee. For not to all men are these things made visible and intelligible, but only to him to whom God and His Christ grant understanding " (Tr. 7). Thus he devotes the beginning of his Apology to suggesting to his readers that they are " lovers of truth" anxious ', there- fore, to see it and follow it, and will shun prejudice, impulse, and rumours (1 Ap. 2,3, 12). " We have been taught, and we are convinced, and we believe, that God accepts those who imitate His perfections, purity, justice, and kindliness and all that is akin to God, who by no [such] created Names may Himself be named : we must pursue what pleases Him, freely choosing it by means of the reasoning faculty which He Himself has given us ; and we think that no man ought by any means to be shut off from learning about it, but, on the contrary, encouraged to do so " (IV. 10). 46 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" 14 [Our arguments] are able to convey faith together with reason to those who welcome Truth, and are not in love with opinions nor governed by their passions " (i Ap. 53). It is difficult, when one is passionately convinced that this or that is true, to admit the good faith of an opponent who is intelligent. Justin boldly says that Crescens either knows, and will not (through fear, or other passion) admit the truth ; or will not know it nor take means to know it (2 Ap. 3). The Jews, in particular, are wilfully blind. 1 " You are not disposed to understand what I say ; yet I will continue to answer though you are in bad dispositions . . ." (TV. 64). " God knows the mood in which you have set forth your difficulty " (ib. 65). In Tr. 1 20 he makes a strange applica- tion of the simile of " sand " as applied to the Jewish race. He insists that the 1 It has been asked how far the anti-Jew Apologies were really meant for Jews, as the anti-pagan treatises are for real pagans, or whether they chiefly aim at confirming the Christian's faith. 47 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR majority of it is sterile : it laps up " bitter waters/' and produces no fruit, as sand soaks up the sea. And when he asks why this sterility is there, and this blindness on their heart, he answers, because of their cowardice, though, most of all, God's judgement (7V. 9, 38, 120, 140 ; 39, 55). But, as we shall see, he also admits that the prophecies, from which they should have learnt, are obscure. For the present, however, I want to make clear that he declares that the study of Christianity can- not succeed if it be approached in the wrong spirit. " When a man is petrified," asked Epictetus, " how then shall we argue with him ? " {Dial. I. 5) ; and Persius himself could write of a man being " dazed " with vice. But Justin is reasonable. He is, on the whole, negative. You must not, he insists, start with a fixed determination that your opponent's argument shall not prove true. He does not beg the question : when the old man tells him to pray for light, that is because Justin's position already allows him to do so ; when Justin, arguing with the Jews, appeals to this or 48 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" that, which an unbeliever would not admit, it is because the Jews already do, or should, admit it. When, whatever Justin says, Tryphon's Jew companions keep bursting into laughter, Justin sees this as indecent, and arguing an antecedent contempt, as bad, in its way, as the arrests and condemnations made without evidence by pagans, and implying antecedent hatred. Justin does not go so far as Pascal, who said, " Start by l taking holy water ' . . . you will soon believe " ; or as Fr. de Ravignan, who, to French sceptics, would issue orders : " Kneel down, go to confession ; you will find you have the faith " ; for Pascal and the Jesuit both assumed that the self-styled sceptic really believed all the while ; and their method is legitimate in men who can trust their intuitions : but Justin only asked, first, that a disputant should not start by condemning, for no reason, or for insufficiently examined reasons, what the Christians taught ; and even, that he should advance to the discussion with that measure of sympathy and good-will which alone enables one to disengage and assimilate that element of e 49 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR truth which exists in anything that exists at all. 1 In saying this Justin was grasping a principle of permanent importance in all future Christian apologetic, and of para- mount value to himself in a special department of his own. § ii The " Prophetic Fact " No one can fail to notice what an impression was made on Justin by Hebrew 1 Other Apologists demand, if anything, less (Tatian, Or. 35, cf. 30, 32, 423). But Theophilus (Jut. I. 2) exacts, in the searcher after truth, purity, too, of heart as well as good faith in the ordinary affairs of life. " If you say to me : ' Show me your God,' I will answer, ■ Show me your real self and I will show you my God.' That is, show me if the eyes of your soul see, and if the ears of your heart hear. [Bodily eyes distinguish colours, shapes ; the ear, sounds ; if, that is, they be but healthy.] Similarly, God shows Himself to those who have their soul's eyes open. . . . A man must have his soul pure like a well-polished mirror. If there is dust on a mirror it cannot reflect man's face : so too, if there be sin in a man, he cannot contemplate God " (Jut. I. 2). " If you choose, however, you can be healed : give yourself over to your Physician ; He will operate on the eyes of your soul and heart." This self-tradition is the more important because in some matters we must simply accept God's revelation, as the patient trusts to the wisdom and authority of his doctor (ib. 7). 50 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" prophecy. For him, it was not only more ancient than all pagan philosophy and oracles, but far better. " When Plato said, ' The guilt is in the will : God is guiltless,' he borrowed this from Moses : for Moses was earlier, earlier in- deed than any Greek author. And whatever philosophers or poets have said about the immortality of the soul or punishments after death, or the contemplation of heavenly things, or similar doctrines, they derived their principles from the prophets, and this was how they were able to conceive these ideas and to proclaim them" (i Ap. 44). " Plato obtained his doctrine of creation " from our teachers — that is, from the word spoken through the prophets. . . . " Why, even the so-called Erebos of the poets, we know it was spoken of earlier by Moses " (ib. 59). As for Plato's doctrine in the Timaeus, Plato " read " it in Moses, but did not understand it accurately (60 ; cf. Tr. 7). Tatian, indeed, undertakes to prove (Or, 31, 36, 42) that the Old Testament is older than Homer ; Theophilus (Aut. II. 9, III. 20, 24, 30) elaborates this argu- ment, and Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius will allude to it with praise. And indeed, it was a regular part of Jewish 51 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR apologetic, and much used by Philo. 1 Criticism may not admit, to-day, so sweeping an assertion ; but in two ways Justin would, I think, have eluded its attack. He would have appealed to his general theory of knowledge by reason of our participation in the Word or Wisdom of God, scattered and germinative through- out the Universe. But this Word existed far more completely in the prophets, and fully, because personally, in Christ ; there- fore, whoever in his measure spoke truth, did so by participation in that Spirit which spoke pre-eminently in Hebrew prophecy and uniquely in Christ. But of this below. He would, however, have also said that the antiquity of the prophets was but incidental to their office, which was predictive ; and, while most Apologists are fairly vague in their elaboration of this, Justin, who has an extraordinarily minute 1 Cf. J. Martin, Pbilon, 1907, pp. 43-44. Tatian (c. 40), Theophilus (Jut. I. 14) Cohortatio ad Graecos, etc., all dwell on the priority of Moses, from whom philosophy and myth alike "lifted" what they tell. Theophilus, however, adds (II. 38) that the question of date is secondary, since the doctrine taught is the same. Tatian actually seeks to prove at great length the indebtedness of Homer, etc., to Moses (31, 36-42). 52 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" knowledge of the Old Testament, is able to draw from it all but a " life of Christ " in outline. In i Ap. 31, 53, he practically writes out the Creed, and says each article was prophesied. In cc. 32-35, 38, 48-50, 52, he works this out in detail. In the Dialogue with Trypho, since Trypho is a Jew and knows his own literature, Justin can appeal to more than what he can use in discussion with pagans, namely, to inspiration and the symbolic sense. But this brings us back to what we said above — he insists that the prophecies are in them- selves obscure ; and that, though they create " a very powerful and most true demonstration," yet they will never be understood by an ill-prepared intelligence. Christ's death was announced under veils : in fact, it could be understood by no one until He Himself persuaded His apostles that all these things were announced explicitly in the Scriptures (TV. 76). " The prophets, as you acknowledge, wrapt up all they said or did in parables and symbols, so that most of it should not be easily under- stood by all ; they hid the truth that was in 53 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR them so that enquirers might take trouble in their search, and so learn " (Tr. 90). " Do you think we should have been able to perceive all these meanings in the Scriptures if we had not received the grace to understand by the will of Him who willed [that they should be written]?" (Tr. 119). " We have found," Trypho ends by owning, " more [in the Scriptures] than we expected or than it was ever possible to expect " (Tr. 142). " I think he relies so much on prophecies, in part, because they are accessible. Our Lord Himself was not. Else Justin would have appealed more often to the actual per- son of Jesus and His life (but cf. infra, p. 112). He does this in effect when he says that Christians lead the life they do (supra, p. 42) because they are obeying the historical commands of a person — that is, the incomparably perfect Jesus ; and explicitly, when he cries that even were Jesus but a mere mortal " He would, for His wisdom, be w r orthy to be called a Son 1 Lagrange, op. cit., p. 29, says that a Jewish writer, Gold- fahn, has shown that in most cases rabbinic literature confirms the suitability of what Justin puts into the mouth of his Jewish adversaries. Justin's equity and courtesy are the more remarkable as he knows well that the Jews instigated persecution whenever they could (Tr. 16, 17). 54 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" of God " (i Ap. 22); but it is easier for him to appeal to what Christ did than to what He was, namely, His miracles (1 Ap. 48 ; 22, 30, 31, etc.) ; yet even of these, the most accessible was that precisely which the pagans had under their eyes, the progres- sive Conversion of the World — not only a miracle in itself, but a miracle in fulfilment of prophecy (1 Ap. 41, 42 ; Tr. 53). Devils are defeated ; martyrs defeat death. Who died j or Socrates ? Not one (2 Ap. 10). "We joyfully confess Christ, and die for it " (1 Ap. 39). 1 What Justin did, then, was to assert this main principle : Christianity can be defended reasonably : Faith and Reason are not discordant. And, to provide a method : Observe facts, and study them in the right spirit. Both parts of this have been lastingly important. It is untrue 1 The massive value of the Old Testament, as manifestly superior to pagan systems, is best set out by Theophilus, and is used, along with its antiquity, to turn the pagans' eyes in the right direction. But, on the whole, it is used in its prophetic character, as a direct argument for belief, rather than for its moral value, and as calculated to evoke good-will towards further study. The pagans were accustomed to the idea of Oracle, and the argument from prophecy evoked no antecedent repugnance. 55 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR to say, as some have said, that Justin trans- formed Christianity from a sentiment into a philosophy ; but he once and for all made impossible, within the Church, the success of those who shrank from duly applying reason to the mysteries of faith. Other writers might prefer just to prove Chris- tians innocent of crime, and paganism criminal. Justin gave Celsus, the first systematic enemy of the Faith, no excuse for his assertion that it was impossible to argue with the Christians, since — " they merely repeated, * Believe, believe ; thy faith will save thee.' " As for his method, it involved, at first ', no appeal to authority. He pointed to concrete fact, and said, " Look at that ! " And, with sound psychology, he demanded that facts should be looked at in the only mood which gave promise of their being understood. He is not excluding, assuredly, the co-operation of God and His grace ; but he is demanding that element of good-will which is necessary in all who are examining a moral proof — who are not, that is, to meet with evidence that must needs coerce assent, but which, 56 ST. JUSTIN'S "PROLEGOMENA" for due interpretation, demands a due disposition of the student's mood. Although these principles have to be disentangled from Justin's writings, and though some of their applications may not appeal to us in detail, yet they are present, and had never been really laid down, as far as we can see, by anyone before. The relation of Reason to Revelation had never been properly discussed, nor the pro- blem, even, adequately formulated. Justin makes it amply clear that Christianity is not mere rationalism, nor yet is it a sentimental mysticism. We are " taught " — the word keeps recurring throughout his work : Christianity is for him utterly authoritative : there is no question here of individualism, of each man's con- structing his own faith ; or of evolving a religion to suit his level of knowledge or mood : but, we have reason to trust the Teacher. 1 What, then, did his Christianity teach ? 1 The treatise On the Resurrection, though not St. Justin's, as was once supposed, contains this really remarkable line of argument. After declaring, " No department of truth but has been calumniously interfered with : the essence of God, 57 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR the knowledge of God, His energy, and everything which follows from these in logical series. . . . Some totally and once for all," it declares, " deny the existence of truth about these things ; others twist it this way and that to suit their opinions ; others deliberately reduce to uncertainty even the obvious. The True Doctrine is free and independent. It refuses to submit to the limitations of an argument, or to depend for its acceptance on any demonstration. Its intrinsic sublimity and the authority of its source create a duty of belief in its teacher. Now that is God. . . . All •proofs are stronger and more worthy of credence than what is proved. But there is nothing higher than Truth. Truth is God. Therefore you cannot prove divine Truth ; you must believe it. Now God revealed Himself, i.e. Truth, through Jesus Christ, His Word made flesh. Therefore He is alike the reason for believing and the proof of the thing believed. For His disciples, faith in Him takes the place of proofs. But, for the sake of others, we must seek for proofs, though this is in some sense to do a wrong to the Divine Truth " {de Resurr. I. 5). Athenagoras {de Resurr. I. 11) insists that our duty towards truth is double : to state and explain it — and that ought to suffice, and does, for " right " souls ; and to defend it for the sake of those whose souls are too ill-disposed a field to receive the good grain. " He who would teach the truth cannot convince a man merely by exposing it, if any untrue belief be ' at the back of ' his hearer's mind and interfere with what he teaches." These passages are quoted fully in Riviere, op. cit. pp. 154-157, and are admirable for logic and psychology. 58 Chapter III THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS God iUSTIN had, first and foremost, to declare the Christian belief in God. The Christians were called atheists ; the Ro- man Empire had lost ; any clear belief in God ; certain philosophical systems included sound elements to which he could appeal : without a clear notion of what Christians meant by " God," it was idle to discuss further articles of their Creed. For these four reasons he had to allow no misappre- hension of this point. The mass of men who attacked the Christians' " atheism," were, after all, increasingly the victims of polytheism : wherever they went, they learnt about 59 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR new gods ; heroes, too, and daemons ex- acted worship. It was rare that worship was pure ; it was often bloodthirsty and obscene : cult was worse than conscience. Now, although the religious language of the Stoics could be at once sublime and tender, passionate, even, yet homely, this school of thought not only tolerated and in fact encouraged the popular rituals as suited, precisely, to the people, but, in the long run, acknowledged that all it said about " God " or the " gods " was alle- gorical — metaphorical, at any rate, and a condescension to popular ways of talking, and that the Ultimate had nothing in it that could be called personal. A Stoic told Justin that he had no knowledge about God, and that it was unnecessary. The Stoic God, in the world, was no more than a world-force ; and, in the soul, no more than a depart- mental throb, so to say, of the universal pulse. The " gods " of the Stoic were, as even Plutarch saw, gods but of wax and tin, destined to melt in the final conflagra- tion ; and if it was into the Unknown Ulti- mate they melted, that implied that It too 60 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS changed, and thus was not infinite, but perishable. In speaking with the Jews, the Apolo- gists had no need to linger on the true idea to be formed of God. That, except what the Christian revelation added, the Jews possessed, though actually their " philo- sophers M and even rabbis were pushing it back to the Unnameable and ail-too Inaccessible. But, in arguing with the pagans, the Apologists could take two courses : they could prove that the popular idea of the gods was an unworthy one, and this was easy ; everyone would have agreed ; we need not illustrate it — or, they could use philosophical language ; and though, on the whole, they do not labour to prove God's absolute inde- pendence, transcendence, spirituality, and creatorship, they assert them ; and even, Justin will very properly point out that the knowledge we have of Him is true, yet " analogical/' inadequate — that is, by reason of deficiency in the knowing instrument, our mind. " The true . . . immutable eternal God, pro- genitor of all things " (i Af. 13), " the Creator 61 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR and the Father of the Universe, has no names [that is, no human appellation adequately states His essential nature], for He is Un- begotten " (2 Af. 6) ; " these names, Father, God, Creator, Lord, Master are not names but appellations based on His works and beneficence " (ib.). 1 " Yet we believe in a most true God, the Father of Righteousness, Wisdom [that is, the Wisdom which issues into self-control : in practice, Purity] and the other virtues : God unmixed with any evil " (1 Af. 6) ; f< it is He who provides all things. . . . He approves those who imitate His perfections . . . [though] Him no created name can truly name " (1 Ap. 10). Tatian (Or. 4-5), like Justin, puts his doctrine on the whole in the shape of a profession of faith ; but some of the Apologists argue, first, from the works of God, i.e. creation and the order discernible therein, to the existence and spirituality of God (Theoph., Aut. I. 5-6). Athenagoras insists on His trans- cendence : do not worship His world — not the harp is crowned, however beautiful the music drawn from it, but the harpist 1 Theophilus {Aut. I. 3-4) is much fuller, and rises from the " Names " of God to every one of His attributes which in His essence we discern. 62 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS (see Ath., Leg. 15-16). It is he, too, who explicitly proves the Unity of God as against polytheism (ib. 18). For Justin's own age, an important deduction could at once be made from the spirituality of God : namely, the duty of spiritual worship. This was applicable to pagan and Jew alike. Indeed, Justin bears almost too hard upon the Jews. He makes it clear, we saw, that the Christian worship of his day was fully sacramental. This was reasonable since, though God is spirit, man is not wholly so, and not only requires to express himself through matter, but must needs do so ; for, relatively to God, even words, even thoughts, are gross, and in that sense material : " symbols/' though true symbols. Still, in the in- terests of spirituality, he decries all Jewish worship, and quotes Old Testament pas- sages which deprecate ritual regarded as sufficient^ as though they prohibited it. The Trypho is naturally full of this : I will quote one more general passage only : " We adore the Fashioner of the universe, asserting, as we have been taught, that He has no need of blood-offerings, libations, incense ; 63 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR we praise Him with all our might by the word of prayer and thanksgiving over all that we set before ourselves ; we have acknowledged that this alone is an honour worthy of Him, and not the wasting with fire what has been created by Him for our sustenance, but the use of it for ourselves and for the poor ; and the grateful offering to Him of solemn chanted hymns and prayers, for the life that He has given us and for all the means of well-being . . . for the qualities of things and the changes of the seasons ; and the sending up petitions, by reason of our faith in Him, for our resurrection and incorruption " (i Af. 13 ; cf. Ath., Leg. 13). On the whole, then, the Apologists state all the elements of this part of a Natural Theology ; and, since polytheism made no real difficulty for anyone who thought, only two real problems sprang from this, though the earlier Apologists do not work them out. The first is : What, then, is the relation of this God to the finite universe, and, in particular, How did He create it ? and, How did God's providence permit the ruin of the Jews and of Jerusa- lem, or again, persecutions ? (2 Ap. 5). In our own time the latter problem has clothed itself in the question : Why, then, 64 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS has Christianity failed to save our civiliza- tion, which, in repute at least, was built up out of it ? And it has further crystal- lized into : How could God allow the war, or, more generally, allow evil ? The former problem, How can the Immutable and Eternal enter into any " contact " with the limited, transitory, and material has tended to invert itself, and now asks, How can the limited mind have any sort of knowledge of the Infinite ? Justin made it clear that it was the duty of Christian philosophy to confront that sort of prob- lem, and at least he resolutely discards the contemporary false solutions, which led on the whole to Monism, theist or materialist. § ii The Logos w But Christians believed more than a Natural Theology. They had, after all, to preach " Christ, and Him crucified," and they could not but set forth, both to Jew and pagan, what they " thought ,5 of Him, and of His relation to the Eternal F 65 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR and Infinite God. The pressure (both internal and external) which exacted that they should do this was stronger, from their circumstances, than what should lead them to dwell upon the theology of the Holy Spirit. Yet, since by their Faith they were taught the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, they could scarcely but speak of this too, sooner or later, if they spoke at all of God and Christ. That, from the outset of the Christian revelation, the Church had always believed in one only God, is indisputable. Yet that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were alike God, and yet, in some sense, each other than the remaining Two, should be recognized as no less her doctrine historically original and certain. Theophilus (Aut. II. 1 5) is the first to use the word trias^ though his further phrase- ology is not clear 1 : even the material of the future theology is perhaps not complete in him ; but, on the whole, in the Apologists, though their prime preoccupa- 1 The first three days of creation symbolize the Trinity : God, His Word, and His Wisdom (cf. ib. 18). God said, " Let us make . . ." to His Word and His Wisdom. 66 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS tion was not the full statement of even this dogma as such, that material is well pro- vided, though their phraseology is as yet far from adequately formed, and they may state their doctrine in shapes which would ultimately have been disallowed. It will be seen that this is due not only to the lack, so far, of accurate and specially sanctioned formulae, but to a cross-current formed by the existence already of certain Jewish or philosophical terms, of which they either deliberately or instinctively made use. The invocation of the Three Divine Persons is of course in use. The priest praises and blesses the Father of the Universe by the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (i Ap. 65 ; again in 67, cf. 61). " God do we reverence and adore, and the Son who came from beside Him and taught us these things, and the army of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him, 1 and the Spirit of Prophecy (1 Jp. 6). 1 Lest this strange phrase should cause undue surprise, I may say at once that not only the Greek use of the word aA.A.05 (other), was never necessarily " inclusive " — e.g. " Penelope and the other slaves " did not mean that Penelope 67 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR " We adore God, Father of all ; we will show you that we also reasonably honour Him who became for us the Teacher of these things, and who for that was begotten, Jesus Christ . . . whom we learn to be Son of the True [ovtcos : essentially; not just " truthfully- called "] God, and whom we hold in the second place ; and the Prophetic Spirit in the third rank" (ib. 13). After narrating the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, and quoting Luke i. 31-32, with Matthew i. 20-21, he says : " By the Spirit and the Power that is from God, we have no right to understand anything save the Word, who is too the First Begotten of God " (1 Ap. 33). " By the virtue of the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour took flesh " (ib. 66). was a slave ; but " Penelope and the others, the slaves " — but Justin's doctrine of angels (below, p. 90) makes it clear that he never thought the Son, who (he says) is rightly called Angel or Messenger, was of the same nature as the host of created spirits : so too, of course, does his doctrine of the Son Himself. I may add that, though I wish to indicate in this section Justin's doctrine of the Word as eternal and as Second Person of the Holy Trinity, rather than as incarnate, yet, since Justin often or usually mentions the Word when he is speaking of Jesus Christ, that name or phrase, as proper to the Incarnation, will occur naturally in the following quotations. 68 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS Athenagoras, however, is very explicit. " We believe in one only God, unbegotten and eternal and . . . He through His Logos created, endowed, and preserves the Universe. For we acknowledge too the Son of God. . . . As for the Holy Ghost, who energizes in the Prophets, we say that He is an emanation from God, and proceeds from Him and returns to Him like a ray from the sun. [Not atheists, then, are we, for] we assert a God who is Father, a God who is Son, and a Holy Spirit, and we declare their power in Unity and their distinc- tion in rank " (Leg. 10). Indeed, he " theologizes " on this Trinity in the Unity, for — " We seek to know God and His Logos, and enquire what is the union of the Son with the Father, what the communion of the Father with the Son ; what the Spirit is ; what is the bond of union and [yet] the differ- ence between those who are thus united — the Spirit, the Son, and the Father" (ib. 12; in 24 he repeats the metaphor of " emana- tion," as of light ; and cf. 18). On this question of the interrelation of the Three Persons of the Trinity, of which the Apologists say but little explicitly, and even on that of the Nature of the Second and of the Third, Justin in particular takes up an attitude due in part to his personal 69 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR point of view. . It may be said that he is * himself especially interested in the function of the Holy Spirit as prophetic ; and he had been too closely associated with suc- cessive schools of Greek philosophy not to express, instinctively and even by choice, the nature and work of the Second Person in terms of a Logos doctrine. Moreover, the Jews, especially those of Alexandria and no doubt of Asia, had gone very far along that line, and he felt he could usefully address himself to both classes of his disputants in such terms. It seems to me that the attitude of the Apologists herein differs from that of St. John in the prologue to his Gospel. When critics gave up saying that St. John drew his Logos doctrine from Plato, they attempted to fasten it on the Alexandrian Jew, Philo. I believe that this involves, to start with, a wrong view of Philo himself. Philo was not original, nor a true founder of a school. Not from him, as a source, would anyone draw a doctrine. His writings were probably impressive chiefly owing to their bulk, and perhaps survived because he was an otherwise well-known man. He is very 70 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS confused, and his allegorizing of Scrip- ture, which was the only way in which he could discover in it that Greek philosophy which he wanted to accept, and there- fore to prove derived from Jewish sources, is often quite fantastic. Now, not only could a list of points be made in which St. John's doctrine of the Word is at variance with Philo's, but it seems to me clear that he is scarcely thinking of any specific non-Christian doctrine as such at all. He is not deliberately correcting anything. He is stating his own doctrine, with a very minimum of condescension for his readers, inasmuch as he uses a word which is familiar to them. But the Apolo- gists, Justin at any rate, go further than this ; he sees so much good in the general Logos doctrine that he tries to find how far he can use it ; and in fact, in pursuance of the form in which he himself believed it, it was (he considered) necessarily included in the Christian revelation, and was, on pagan lips, an expression, departmental, no doubt, and even distorted, of the Truth. 1 1 Justin's broad-minded and sympathetic attitude towards " philosophy " is not taken by Tatian, who indulges in 7i ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR I will very briefly recall that the pagan doctrine, taken as a whole, declared that the Ultimate expressed itself in the uni- verse ; but since the term Logos, very inadequately translated Word, can mean the " plan " or " idea " of a thing both as held in the mind and as (more or less) expressed in the concrete, the Logos could be viewed as the " thought " in the Ultimate (I avoid the term " God," inas- much as for a true Stoic that was meta- phorical), and was then called immanent (eV&afoTo?), or, as the expression of that " thought," and was called " out- going " (npo^opLKos) ; indeed, to push the metaphor further, the Word could be conceived in the brain, or uttered with the lips : the vision of the artist (in a sense, himself ; anyhow, within himself), or the work of art, " into which," as we say, " he puts himself " : " I put my whole soul into it." But since the universe is multiple, as well as one, the Logos was invective, and a caricature more violent than, say, Lucian's. Athenagoras and the treatise de Monarchia are on the whole with Justin, and, strangely enough, Minucius Felix. Theophilus is severe ; Hermias, derisive. 7* THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS borne forth, not alone wholly in the Whole, but fragmentarily in each subordinate , unit (\6yos cnrepfjiaTLKos) ; yet this Seed- Word would be as truly translated Gene- rative Word ; . Germinative, at any rate : for the whole Stoic system was dynamic ; and the scattered syllables, by reason of that very force which, in them, made them syllables, were growing into the Word, and thus creating it. It is unnecessary to detail those elements which formed a connecting link between pagan philosophies and the late Judaism, especially the Wisdom-doctrine and even a tendency to use the term Word of God in a semi-personifying way ; nor to discuss the special significance in Alexandrian writers of the term Power of God. I will only say that the word First-begotten (St. John uses Only-begotten, but First- begotten is sanctioned by St. Paul and was not discarded by later and orthodox writers), tended to create a certain confusion. For Philo, the world was God's second-be- gotten ; and the Word became a midway notion, neither quite the one nor yet the other. Moreover, there was a tendency 73 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR to speak of the Word as " begotten " when it was, so to say, " pronounced " — that is, at and in the creation of the world. It followed that a way of speaking could be imagined, and in fact existed, and later on issued into definite heresies, which should make the Word subordinate to the Father both in nature and in time. 1 I will next place, one after the other, the main passages in which Justin speaks of the Logos. I know what he says of the Logos and its eternal Life keeps overflowing into what he says of It as made flesh in Jesus Christ ; but I want the balance of atten- tion to be tilted towards its eternal and essential nature rather than towards the Incarnation. W " The first Power, after God, Father and Master of all things, is the Son, the Logos, 1 I may perhaps add that Justin's word Ao'yos is here and there a little ambiguous. It seems to mean both (human) reason and the Log^s at the same time, though -primarily one rather than the other. It could do this because all human reason was a participation in the eternal Logos. And it would, I think, be untrue to Justin's complete thought to suppose that the seed-word ever means purely human reason as such and in isolation : it is always and by nature a form of participation in God's plan. 74 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS become man and made flesh " (i Ap. 32). " [When He was prophetically announced, do not believe that this was said] by the inspired men themselves, but by the divine Logos which stirred them " (1 Ap. 36). " The Christ, we have been taught and have proclaimed, is the first-begotten of God and the Logos, in whom the whole race of men have had part. And those who have lived with the Logos are Christians, even if they were believed to be atheists; for instance, among the Greeks, Socrates and Herakleitos and their like, and, in the barbarians, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and Helias, and many others. . . . So, too, those who have lived without the Logos were Christless [there is here a play on words to which Justin is partial : dxprjo-ros, ' worth- less/ was by now probably beginning to be pronounced dxpicrros, a word formed on the analogy of atheist, and meaning" non-Christian"] and hostile to the Christ, and murderers of the disciples of the Logos. But those who have lived with the Logos are Christians and fearless and serene " (1 Ap. 46). " The Prophetic Spirit declares (by Moses) how and out of what at the beginning God made the world. . . . So Moses has proclaimed that, by the Logos of God, the universe was made out of the elemental matter " (1 Ap. 59). " Not only among the Greeks, by means of Socrates, were these things proved, by the 75 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR Logos ; but among the barbarians too by the self-same Logos having taken [human] form and become a man, called Jesus Christ " (i Af. 5). ". . . What human laws could not do, the Logos, being divine, would have achieved [had not evil spirits prevented it] " (1 Af. 10). " [But to trust to false knowledge] will bring you to ill : the Logos declares it, whom we now know to exist a most royal and righteous Governor after the God who begat Him" (1 Af. 12). " [As for evil spirits, we have renounced their cult] since we have believed on the Logos, and follow the Only Un- begotten God by means of His Son " (1 Af. 14). " When [he argues ad kominem,'] we say that the Logos, the First- begotten of God, was born without human fatherhood, we admit nothing stranger than your myths [of heroes with god and woman for their parents] ; but [he declares, in spite of all " similarities " in these myths] Jesus Christ is alone the peculiarly (tSiws) begotten of God, being from the outset His Word and First-begotten and Power ; and, by His Counsel having become man, He taught us all this unto a change and sublimation of the human race" (1 Af. 21). This looks forward to the phrase " God became man that we might be made gods," used of the effect of supernatural sanctifying grace. 7t THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS " The Son is the Logos of God. He is also / called Angel (Messenger) and Apostle, for He / announces all that must be known, and He is sent to proclaim all that is announced " (i Ap. 63). ' " But [God's] Son, who alone is properly called 1 Son,' the Logos, both existing with Him and begotten before creation, when at the beginning by means of Him God created and ordered all things, is called Christ, on the grounds of His being anointed, and because God ordered all things by means of Him. The name itself, however, has a secret significance, in the same way as the name God is not strictly a name [i.e. does not accurately express the essential nature of God], but is a thought, inborn in the nature of man, of a thing difficult in itself to express. Jesus is a name which means Man and Saviour " (2 Ap. 6). " No wonder if the devils harass those who live not according to a mere fragment of the [scattered] Seed-Logos, but on the basis of the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Logos, which is Christ " (2 Ap. 8). " The Father teaches us by the Logos to imitate Him. The Right [true, genuine] Logos has come forward and shown that not all views and doctrines are right " (2 Ap. 8). " Our doctrine surpasses all human doctrine, because the Christ who appeared for us came into being as the whole Logic [i.e. in Him all things receive their complete and reasonable 77 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR significance and value : therefore in Him nothing was to be lacking ; ' what He did not take up into Himself, He did not redeem,' will later on become a sanctioned formula] body, mind (logos), and soul. For all that philosophers and lawgivers ever uttered or invented that was right was all worked out by them because of their partial discovery and contemplation of the Logos. But since they did not know all that was in the Logos, they often contradicted one another " (2 Af. 9). " ' It is not easy,' said Plato, ' to find the Father and Maker of all, nor, having found Him, is it simple to speak Him forth unto all men.' But that is what our Christ has done by His own power. Nobody believed Socrates enough to die for what he taught. But Christ, who was known in part even by Socrates — for He was the Logos, and He is that which is in all, who predicts the future through the prophets and by means of Himself became a man of like passions with ourselves and taught these things — in Him have not only phil- osophers and cultured folk believed, but also artisans and quite uneducated men, and have despised opinion, fear, and death ; for He is the Power of the Ineffable Father, and not an artificial product [/caTacr/cevry] of the human intellect " (2 Ap. 10). " I boast of my Christianity not because 78 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS Plato's teaching is alien to Christ's, but because it is not in all points similar, as neither is that of the others, Stoics and the rest of the writers. For each of them saw that of the divine Logos which was akin to himself, and truthfully uttered it. But they who in essential points contradicted one another, are revealed as not having had the science which is innate nor an irrefutable Knowledge. All that they taught of right belongs to us Christians ; for, after God, we adore and love the Logos of the Un-begotten and Ineffable God, since for our sakes He became, too, man. . . . For those writers, owing to the seed of the Logos that was inset into them, could all see truths, only dimly. But it is one thing [thus] to be granted a seed and resemblance proportioned to one's faculties, and a very different one [to be given] the thing itself whereof the resemblance and the consorting with It come by grace of Itself" (2 Ap. 13). To Trypho, Justin could speak with even greater ease, since not only was he equipped, in keeping with his character of educated Jew, with Alexandrian lore, but he was at any rate orthodox about the unity and other attributes of God. " Before all creation, God begot as a principle [it seems agreed that apxrjv here is thus to be 79 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR translated, not ' in the beginning '] a mysterious Power from Himself — a Word [SiW/xts rts XoyiKij] which is also called by the Holy Ghost, * the Glory of the Lord ' ; and again, Son ; and again, Wisdom ; and again, His Logos names Itself Chief of (His) Army. . . . For It can be named by all these names, because It serves the Father's will and is begotten by will from the Father " (Tr. 61 ; cf. 34, 88, 103). " Is not this rather what we see happen in ourselves ? When we pronounce a word, we beget a word, yet not by some amputation, as it were, so as to diminish the Word that is in us. And as when we see a fire lit from another fire, that which gave it light is not diminished, but remains the same, while the new fire which is lit from it shows itself no less real, yet did not diminish the fire from which it was lit. 1 For witness I shall have the Logos of Wisdom, which is Itself this God, begotten from the Father of all, Logos, and Wisdom, and Power and Glory of Its Begetter. [He quotes Prov. viii. 21-36.] As for Gen. 1. 26-28, when God says ' Let us make man according to our own image,' we can indisputably see that He is speaking to One who is numerically other [than Himself], and also, of Logos-nature. 1 Tatian (Or. 5), probably dependent there on Justin, is more confused than he. But, to avoid the idea of any division in the Godhead, he describes the going forth of the Logos, by God's will, from His One Self, as a " distribution " or voluntary " dispensation." 80 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS " The Christ is Lord, God, and Son of God by nature. [It was He who appeared in the Old Testament Tkeophanies, or apparitions of God, as in the Burning Bush. This Justin often repeats, in the wake of the Alexandrians.] I know that there are those who say that the Power which came from the side of the Father of the Universe to appear to Moses ... is called * Angel ' in its coming to men, because by it divine things are announced to mortals ; and 1 Glory ' because It sometimes appears in vague [axvpyJTu) : uncircumscribed] image ; that It is called ' man ' because to appear It clothes Itself in such human form as the Father wills ; and they call it Logos, because It conveys the communications of the Father to men. They say that this Power cannot be cut off or separated from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on the ground is not to be [regarded as] cut off nor separated from that of the sun in the sky. When he sets, the light goes away with him. Thus the Father, they say, when He wills, can make Power to project itself from Himself, and, when He wills, reabsorbs it into Himself. It is thus, say they, that He makes the angels, too. But it has been proved that angels exist, are permanent, and are not resolved back into what produced them. And that this Power, which the Prophetic Logos calls also God, and Angel, is not just ' nominally ' distinguishable, G 8l ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR as light from sun, but is actually numerically other. ... I have already said that this Power had been begotten by the Father by His Power and Will, and not by way of amputation, as though the Substance of the Father had been divided or cut, and is no more the same as what it was before the cutting" (Tr. 128). " And this shows that the Father begot this Begotten absolutely before all created things, and that the Begotten is numerically other than what begot it " (Tr. 129). Justin therefore teaches, in this part, that in the One Eternal God there yet are Two, not by division of the substance, so that this may be separated from and set over against that, nor yet, merely, as though the Second were but a mode or aspect of the First. In reality, this in- volves the co-eternity and the co-equality of the Two, though these words were not yet fashioned. Further, Justin affirms that this Second may be rightly named, by us, the Thought or Logos of the First, begotten by Him within Himself, and uttered forth, in varying measures, in the Universe, in minds of men, and fully in Jesus Christ. In whatever proportion, then, a man approach to Jesus Christ, and 82 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS lives according to Him, he has the Word of God within him. Any ambiguity, or elusive phrase that Justin may have used has quite clearly to be put down to the fact that the accurate human terminology in which this mystery was to be expressed was not yet formed, though Justin was himself materially assisting its formation ; and again, because it is extremely hard to make use of an analogous idea, like Word, with- out tending to reflect all that we see in the human analogue into that Divine to which it is analogous. Thus, the use of the supremely sanctioned term, Son, was al- ready giving rise, and later would do so even more inevitably, to logical errors based upon what we know of human sonship ; as, that among men, a son is necessarily younger than his father in time. But nothing of this time-sequence can be conceived in the Eternal. There- fore, to a certain limited extent only can human analogues like Word or Son be used of the Second Person of the Trinity. From the logical development of the in- applicable part of such analogues have sprung heresies. Justin's thought avoids 83 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR them all ; but his readers may be conscious how difficult it was, alike for his imagina- tion and his words, to avoid suggesting error to himself and them. But herein revelation gradually trains the intellect, subordinates the imagination, and creates the terminology. Nor let anyone suppose Justin was exhausting his brain over speculations of no consequence. Upon the answer to the question : " Who is Jesus Christ ? " depends the whole nature of civilization, twice over. Already, if He be but God's guaranteed legate, the entire perspective of life has been shifted, and death is no horizon beyond which we can see nothing. The whole quality of our behaviour, our whole philosophy of individual and State alike, is altered. But if He be true God by nature, different yet again is His work, and different our vocation. Of that, we speak in the next chapter. But if He be not God, nor yet hold that intermediate position which the tortured thought of Alexandria herself, not to dwell on the pagans, invented for the Logos, then He Himself erred in His teaching, and 8 4 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS His Church, whom He told to teach, erred after Him, and erroneous is a civilization built up, as the European has been in the past, upon belief in His Godhead. He was some second Socrates, whom we venerate, but whom we may transcend. But Justin is not bigoted. Indeed, in time it was to be more clearly stated with what kind of difference the Word indwelt a Socrates and Christ. But, none the less, the vision Justin offers us is truthful and superb. St. Paul had said that " all creation groans and travails together to- wards the revelation of the sons of God." God's is the Light which illumines even the " natural " man : Justin, usually so sober, so unimaginative, exclaims that, in so far as those philosophers saw truly, they were Christians even when men called them atheists ; he concentrates rather on that to which, under God's vocation, their minds were straining, than upon that which alone they yet possessed : invent, earn, merit, grasp that super- natural destiny, they could not ; yet to it God was calling, in many ways, the world. Justin, then, looks at history, not scorning 8; ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR it ; but at all times and in all places he saw what made for gratitude, hope, and love. I think we, at any rate, are justified in asserting that what Justin meant to say, is this : All knowledge is participation in Truth. The full Truth is the Logos. Therefore, in Him, human reason, even in so far as it has " natural " knowledge, participates. The pagan philosophy, therefore, participated in the Logos, even though it did not outstrip the limits, precisely, of natural philosophy. That amount of truth it could and did have, is, therefore, a possession of — so to put it — fragments, scattered seeds of a Christ. But in Christ the whole Logos is concen- trated, is exhaustively present ; therefore, he who possesses Christ possesses the whole Logos and in a different way from that in which philosophy possessed even the frag- ments — inklings, we should be more inclined to use for metaphor — of Him. Therefore, Justin does not say that the pagans possessed supernatural revelation, even in a fragmentary way, but a natural, fragmentary knowledge ; while the Chris- tian possesses a total, unique, and super- 86 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS natural revelation which it is his business to appropriate more deeply rather than more widely. If St. Justin errs, it is most certainly not by using Paganism to throw light on, or expand his dogma, to " libe- ralize " the Faith, but, in glad possession of the Faith, possessing the Logos, he may reflect almost too much of its light back upon philosophy ; yet he is right in seeing Nature not shut up within itself but in such approximation to or tendency towards super-nature and revelation as it was capable of. § iii The Work of Christ w To understand properly the work Justin teaches to have been accomplished when the Logos took flesh, we have to go back to the beginning of history. Of the act by which God created the world he says but little. In one place he leaves himself open to the suggestion that 87 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR God " made " the world out of a sub- stratum of primeval chaotic " matter/' which other schools would have said was as eternal as God was (cf. Ath. Leg. 10) ; but Justin leaves no doubt that God is the " Father " of the whole universe ; and had he definitely asked himself the question, or been asked, whether matter was eternal, he would no doubt have answered, No. 1 But the first point of importance is that, in the world, spirits and men were alike created free ; and freedom involves re- sponsibility. This power of choice Adam misused. 2 1 Even Philo was really quite clear about this : de Somn. 577, despite de Vict. Off., 857. Justin says the Leges wa3 begotten before the world was created ; he never hints at a third eternal existence, i.e. matter. 2 In view of their scope, the Apologists could not be expected to write treatises on psychology as such, though Justin composed a work On the Soul, now lost. A word will be said below on his assertion of its immortality. Theophilus and Hermias attack pagan philosophy for not admitting its spirituality ; but the Apologists' main wish was to go straight to its freedom in view of their further doctrine upon 6in. Tatian has an extraordinary system. Man's inferior soul, he suggests, is composite, visible, not immortal, even now not much better than the beasts', except because of the inhabitation in it of God's Spirit, and does in fact dissolve at the body's death until, at the reconstitution of all things, 88 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS 66 Let no one say that events happen according to the inevitable law of fate. We have learnt from the prophets, and announce as true, the doctrine of punishments and penalties and rewards according to the worth of the works of each. Were this not so, and were all to happen according to fate, responsibility would utterly cease to be. If it be fate that settles that A is to be good, B bad ; A ceases to be praiseworthy, and B blameworthy : if man by his free-will has no power of choosing the good and shunning the bad he is guiltless in regard of whatever he does. ... In our eyes, the true - inevitable Destiny ' is, the just reward for those who have done right, and, similarly, the worthy recompense of those who have done wrong. For God has not made man like the other things — trees, animals — unable to do anything by choice. [He then accumulates a number of Old Testament examples showing that God praises and approves, and, therefore, the Spirit reconstitutes men too. It has been suggested (cf. M. Puech : Recherches sur le discours aux Grecs de Tatien, 1903, p. 68) that Tatian was trying to express philosophically the results of the supernatural grace-life in the soul. When Justin seems to lean towards analogous ideas (Tr. 5 , 6 ; cf . Theoph. Aut. II. 18, 19, 24, 27, e.g. "man was made not mortal absolutely, nor immortal wholly, but capable of either mortality or immortality "), he is asking why souls are, as a matter of Christian truth, " immortal " rather than whether they are so by essence. This is particularly clear in Theophilus. See Tatian, Or. 7-1 1, 12, 13, 16, who is, herein, strongly Stoicized. 89 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR that man is free.] " (i Ap. 43 ; cf. 28 ; and Athen. Leg. 10 ; also Justin, 2 Ap. 7.) " God decreed to make angels and men self- governing with regard to right action, with reason to know who made them . . . and with the obligation of being judged by Him if they act contrary to the right Logos. It is we ourselves, angels and men, who through ourselves shall be condemned " (Tr. 141). " God inserts in every race of men what is always and universally right, that is, all righteousness. 1 All races are aware that adultery, fornication, murder, and all the rest are wrong, save such as are swept about by an evil spirit, or, being corrupted by education and bad habits and evil laws, have lost natural notions, or rather, quench them, or have them inhibited " (Tr. 93). " God willed that men and angels should exist with free will and be autonomous, so as to do all that He had given them the power to do " (Tr. 88). This free-will, therefore, Adam mis- used, and with sin, death, pain, and above 1 Cf. 2 Ap. 8 : " The Stoics have composed an orderly ethic ; so too some of the poets here and there, owing to the Seed of the Word innate in all races of men ; hence, we know that they have been hunted and put to death ; Herakleitos, as I said before [1 Ap. 46 ?],and Musonius, in our own times, and others whom we know. It is the devils, as we have indicated, that ever excite this hatred amongst all who in any way try to live according to the Logos, and to shun evil." 90 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS all the power of evil spirits entered the world. 1 Christ, he argues, was under no neces- sity to be born and die, yet did so for the sake of men, who since Adam " had fallen under sin and the error of the Serpent, and [then] by the personal fault of each, committed sin " (2>. 88). He speaks of the " disobedience of man, that is, of Adam and Eve, and the fall of him who is called * Serpent/ who fell by a great fall for having set Eve astray " (7>. 1 24). God shall destroy " the Serpent and the angels and men who have been made like to him " (Tr. 100). In a word : the Hellenizing Christian looked forward rather than back : what we are to be, and in fact are, by Christ's 1 He does not exactly say that the sin of the angels was the tempting of Adam and Eve ; in fact, he clearly enough sees the " serpent " to have been antecedently wicked, else he would not have " tempted " to wrong at all. But he seems to feel that Satan's success over Adam somehow plunged him deeper into hell, though for the time being it liberated his and his angels' evil influence in the world. Tatian says Adam fell by " making a god of him who had rebelled against the law of God," and men followed him. Therefore the Word withdrew Himself, and man became mortal. So too Cohort, ad Graec. 21. Theophilus takes Genesis quite literally (Jut. II. 24). 91 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR aid preoccupied him rather than what, by Adam's fall, we had become. It will be in a more Latinized world that the implications of Original Sin will be fully- worked out and more heavily insisted on. Justin's book is suffused by the doctrine of the supernatural, and in particular by that of grace, rather than explicit about it ; so neither does he here dwell on the natureof Original Sin — that is, the depriva- tion of supernatural sanctifying grace — so much as upon the fact and some of the con- sequences of it. But he is so emphatic upon the active role, ever since, of evil spirits that it is undoubtedly an integral and even dominating part of his thought. 1 " God gave the care of men and of all that is under the heavens to angels, whom He set over them. But the angels, transgressing this order, were degraded \r)TTH] Orjaav] by intercourse with women, and produced offspring, ' demons,' as they are called.' 1 Probably the Apologists, more or less consciously, were resisting both the pagan (cf. Plutarch) and the Gnostic systems of demonology. 2 This is also in Athen., Leg. 23-24; and becomes a popular idea in Christian literature. Tatian's theory of the fall of the angels depends in part on his views on their 92 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS " As time went on they enslaved the rest of the human race, some by means of magic writings, others by the panics and pains they made them suffer, others by teaching them to offer sacrifices and incense and libations to them, of which they had come to feel the need since they became enslaved to passions and lusts. They sowed among men murders, wars, lust, licence, and every evil. Whence poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels, and the demons whom they begat, who worked all this [evil] upon men and women and cities and peoples, attributed it to God and to the sons he begat, and to his so-called brothers and their race similarly, Poseidon and Pluto ; for they addressed each of them by the name which each angel had bestowed upon himself and on his offspring " (2 Af. 5). " In old days evil spirits, appearing in visible form, violated women, corrupted chil- dren, and struck panics into men. Men in their terror, could not appreciate these facts according to reason, but were swept away in their panic, and, not realizing that they were quasi-material nature (Or. 7, 12, etc.). He describes them as having, in their pride, " made an assault " upon God. He seems to argue that they preferred to be, as it were, kings over matter instead of serving the spiritual God. They thereupon lost the sense of order and what spirit really was, and, in a sort of nemesis-infatuation, tried to place themselves at the head of all things. Whence their punishment. 93 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR evil spirits, called them gods, and addressed them by the names which the spirits were severally bestowing on themselves. [Whence the murder of Socrates, who was enlightening men upon this subject.] "(l Ap. 5). In fact, it is they precisely who, arousing evil passions against the wise and just (1 Ap. 10), are the inner cause of perse- cutions. " All that the devils can do is to drive those who do not live by right reason, but according to their passions have turned aside in evil habits, and are slaves to opinion, to hate us and slay us " (1 Af. 57). " Nor is it astonishing that the devils stir up a special hatred against those who are in posses- sion of no mere fragment of the Seed- Word, but of the knowledge and contemplation of the whole, namely, Christ " (2 Ap. 8; cf. 11, 13); u though even Socrates tried to turn out of his polity the evil spirits and those who had done what the poets told, and indeed Homer himself and the other poets too " (2 Ap. 10). To them, too, are due heresies. " [Simon the Samaritan (Simon Magus) was raised up by devils to call himself God, and] nearly all the Samaritans and a few persons in other nations regard him as the First God and worship him. His companion, the ex- 94 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS prostitute Helen, is regarded as his first 1 conception.' [His disciple Menander], with the assistance of demons, utterly deceived many by magic crafts . . . and a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is still teaching to-day, with the help of demons has caused many to blaspheme " (i A-p. 25, 26). " [Therefore], beware lest the devils, whom we take the initiative in denouncing, deceive you and turn you away either altogether from reading us, or from understanding what we say. For they struggle to have you for servants and slaves, and through magic tricks seek to master all who have no care for their salvation " (1 Ap. 14). " [In fact] the only effort and aim of the * demons ' is to lead men away from the God who made them and His First-born, Christ : and those who cannot help themselves up from the earth they have nailed, and still nail, to things of earth made by the hands of men ; and those who strain up to the contemplation of God they stealthily undermine, if they do not maintain a wise mind and a pure life superior to passion ; and they cast them into impiety" (1 Af. 58). 1 On the role of demons in imitating prophecy see p. 149. Justin has some digressions which do not really affect his substantial doctrine of the role of evil spirits, but are speculative. The other Apologists follow the same lines of thought : demons are responsible for idolatry (cf. Athen. Leg. 26 ; Theoph., Jut. I. 10). Tatian deduces the practice of astrology from this (Or. 7-12). 95 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR We may re-emphasize, in connection with Justin's whole doctrine of heresy, his repeated declaration that the Church is a teaching institution, from whose declared doctrine no Christian can separate himself, though, where opinion still is free, he can follow what seems to him the more prob- able view. Theophilus {Aut. II. 33) boldly asserts : " All the rest were wrong : the Christians alone possess truth." Justin will not allow his readers to imagine for a moment that his references to philosophy, not to mention myth, imply that he is commending Christian doctrine because it approximates to what they hold as sound or valuable. " [We do not claim your acceptance of our doctrine] because it is like yours, but because it is true " (1 Ap. 23). "We repudiate," says Tatian {Or. 32) " all that reposes upon human opinions. " Else, he argues, we should in fact be a school of philosophy. But only the rich 96 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS and leisured can cultivate philosophy. With us, all, rich and poor, old women and young children, have full right to all our teaching: there is no divergence of view among us. When we read Justin's condemnation of Marcionites, Gnostics, Docetists (i Ap. 26, 56, 58, etc.), we see quite clearly that he does not regard them as taking a different yet legitimate view of the same thing, but as downright outside the Church, instigated by demons, Antichrists in short. Similarly Theophilus (Aut. II. 14) envisages the Christian Communities as islands with safe harbours for refuge in the midst of the sin-tossed sea of the world. " Doctrines of Error " — that is, heresies — are, on the other hand, rocky and barren islands on to which pirates drive their ships in order to wreck their captive crews. (Yet Theophilus has a beautiful doctrine of mercy : were not the sea continually " refreshed," he argues, by the inflowing streams, it would long ago have been dried up, so salt is it : so through the bitter world have from the outset stolen the waters of the Law and of the Prophets, saving it from utter desiccation.) h 97 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR " There are men who call themselves Chris- tians, and acknowledge Jesus the Crucified as Christ and Lord, but who do not teach the doctrine, but that of spirits of error. . . . We call each sect or opinion by the name of those who began them. One in one way, one in another, they teach blasphemy concerning the Creator of the Universe, and on the Christ whose coming He prophesied. . . . We refuse communion with all of them alike " (Tr. 35). " Many (as Jesus prophesied) have falsified His doctrine, and preached in His name things unclean, blasphemous, and impious ; that which the foul spirit — that is, the devil — put into their minds they both have taught and teach " (Tr. 80). In short, the man who is willing to call the philosophers Christians before Christ, in so far as they taught truth, is clear that denial or distortion of the Taught Traditional Faith is anti-Christianity. 1 Justin does not develop as a dominant motif St. Paul's or St. John's declarations 1 He has an interesting little comment in 1 Jp. 28 : The pagans class heretics with orthodox as " Christians " ; yet heretics, precisely, are those who are not persecuted for their doctrines : the orthodox are. Whether heretics be guilty of the other crimes imputed to Christians, Justin professes himself ignorant. THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS of the supernatural union existing be- tween Christ and His Church ; but the Apologists allude sufficiently to this to make it clear that the source of the unity of doctrine and its truth, no less than of the sanctity, which distinguish the true Church, proceed from that union, and are not the product of the will or intelli- gence, only, of the Faithful, and are not elements which could be lost, as though Christ, unfaithful to His spouse, could withdraw Himself and them. " Jacob," says Justin, " was not suffered to espouse two sisters at the same time." He develops the typical value of Jacob's service first for Lia, then for Rachel. The upshot is, that, as the alliance between God and the Jewish race was unique, so now is that between Christ and His Church, typified by Rachel as the Synagogue was by Lia (TV. 134). And in 7V. 63 he emphatically says that the Church came jorth from the Logos, and is, therefore, called His daughter ; hence the Christians have " one soul, one association, one Church." I repeat, if necessary, that the whole 99 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR structure and scheme of Justin's Chris- tianity is Catholic, throughout ; the indi- vidualist and fideist theories of later ages do not so much as dawn. (b) His faith, and the exigencies of con- troversy, necessitated the turning of Jus- tin's eyes towards the Jews. He would have been right to do so in any case, for the Jewish " fact " or phenomenon is unique in the history of religions. It is so for many reasons, but not least because the Hebrew nation is the only one in which that " upward evolution " towards the ever purer and more spiritual is found, which none the less modern historians have been fond of assuming, as bound to have happened, in all religious history alike. Justin does not, of course, use that argument, but he supplies material which forms the stuff of a very remarkable argu- ment indeed. For, we saw, he displays to us, first, the contemporary Christian fact, the Christian folk, living and above all dying all the world over for their faith — a unique phenomenon. Then he dis- IOO THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS plays, as he sees it, the Jewish fact ; the total result of the Jewish history ; and, while he sees how it looks forward to something verified in the Christian " eco- nomy," yet he sees equally clearly, and clearly shows, how it contained no- thing to cause that Christian economy and fact. Between the two, therefore, some transcendent cause must have sprung into existence, to account for the amazing result. What was it ? When the Chris- tians, with one voice, answered " Christ," it becomes impossible for us to say they were wrong ; and we have forthwith to confess that, whatever more may be learnt and said about Him, a unique and trans- cendent personality has, in good logic, in sheer good scientific history, to be ascribed to Him. On the whole, the Apologists' attitude towards the Jews was antagonistic. Not only was the Jewish attitude to them hostile from the beginning, but the Jews were rooted in it, while, says Justin, " more numerous and truer Christians are they who come from the heathen than those from the Jews and the Samaritans " IOI ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR (i Ap. 53). Not that Christianity offered no problem to the Jews. In fact, it offered a double problem. First, the person of Jesus was so utterly different from what they had expected as a Messiah, even when their ideal had become spiritualized. At least his triumph was to be obvious to the world and to involve that of the chosen race. The Jews not only could say, as through Trypho — " The Scriptures constrain us to expect [a Messiah] great and glorious, who receives the eternal kingdom from the Ancient of Days as Son of Man ; but this man of yours, the so-called Christ — was dishonoured and dis- graced, so much so that he fell under the worst curse that is in God's law — he was crucified " (Tr. 32). but they carried the war into Christian territory, and attacked the historical evi- dence itself for the life of Jesus. But since it is Origen who deals with this sort of argument (much used by Celsus) and Justin does not deal with it directly — though, by offering the events of Our Lord's life as notorious and undisputed by 102 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS his adversaries, he refuted it indirectly — we may leave this till Origen is spoken of. But quite as difficult to a sincere Jew — and Justin, in Trypho, portrays a very honourable, open-minded, and even attractive adversary — was the suggestion that the law, which all alike confessed was imposed by God, need not be observed by Christians. " Cannot/' asked the Jews, at their most tolerant, " cannot a man be- lieve in Christ and keep the law as far as possible ? " (7V. 46, 47). But in their hearts they demanded more, and Trypho explicitly says : " If you will listen to me (for already I reckon you as a friend), first of all be circumcised ... do all that is written in the law ; and then perhaps God will have mercy on you " (TV. 9). For, as for the popular charges against the Christians, " they are incredible. They are too far removed from human nature " (TV. 10). In fact, the Christian ethic is exorbitant ; no one could observe the commands — for he has read them — which Christ laid down. It is a pity, Trypho frankly avers, that Justin had not kept to philosophizing with Plato or one of the 103 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR ancients, if he were merely to fall victim to lies and worthless men. 1 There was one point on which Justin had no need to argue with his adversary, but to affirm his faith — profound as was the mystery which that faith included. This was when Trypho, horror-struck in his monotheism, thought that the Christians were introducing a " second god along- side of the Creator of the Universe " (7>. 50, 54). Justin most solemnly could affirm that there was but One God, and that Him, and Him only, both Jew and 1 On the whole, in the Dialogue, both sides keep their temper admirably. Here and there, Trypho's strong feeling breaks out. " Sir," he cries (c. 38), " it would have been better for us to listen to our authorities. They decided we should have nothing to do with any of you. We had done better not to embark on this conversation. You are simply speaking blasphemies when you say that this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron, and talked with them in the pillar of cloud. . . ." " I sympathize," says Justin, " and I will work away and go on struggling to make you understand our paradoxes. You will have worse paradoxes than these to hear." But the Jews shut themselves up, henceforward, within themselves, and broke up all the roads by which ambassadors might have moved to and fro between Hebrew and Christian camps. Justin was far more tolerant : con- verted Jews, provided they did not seek to force others to follow their example, might, he judged, follow the old ceremonies if they liked and could. 104 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS Christian worshipped (7V. n). Jealous for true monotheism, Trypho bids him beware lest he be misled by the Old Testament references to " other gods" (which, in fact, have led modern critics to call the Jews " Henotheists " — worship- pers of one God to the exclusion of others, whose existence they did not deny). Justin is aware of that pitfall, and insists that the Christians, for all their Logos doctrine, are not ditheists ; the aXXo? Oeos the " second god " is not to alarm Trypho (see Tr. 55). Of his answer to the difficulty about the law, I will say but little. First, because the question was really all but settled before his time, and it cannot be said that herein he added very much to the current of thought, though treatises Against the Jews will continue to be written for a long time, and will include this topic, until they cede to " Apologies " against Mohammedans. But more than this : it may be felt that the Apologists not only declared that all the spiritual value of the old law and Covenant survived in the New, and that this was the true fulfilment of that, but very nearly 105 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR declare that the old law and its ritual were bad in themselves and were entirely- abrogated. 1 Justin is so convinced of the inferiority of the Jewish worship that he describes its materialism as a condescension, on God's part, to the deplorable temperament, or degraded state, of that race. Thus, circumcision was not needed for all, but only for them (7V. 19). " Many have felt such doctrines [as yours] to be unreasonable and unworthy of God, not having received the favour of understanding that your people was in a sick state, in an illness of the soul, and was summoned to conversion and penitence of spirit " (Jr. 30). 1 Justin, Tr. II and 12. The Epistle to Diognetus heaps ridicule on the Jews. They are right to separate from pagans in that they do not worship many gods nor images ; but it is folly, not piety, to offer the same sacrifices as pagans do, to a spiritual God, Master of all things. To distinguish between clean and unclean and the like is positively sinful, or anyhow a childish panic ; circumcision is mere braggadocio ; Judaism is but fuss and silliness (Diog. 3-4). Aristides (Ap. 14), says Jewish worship goes to angels rather than to God. Once in a way, Justin can be very rationalist. In Tr. 20 he says, " because we [now] don't eat certain herbs you say that this exception was imposed long ago by God on Noe." He equivalently calls that story an " aetiological myth." 106 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS Yet, even so, the law led men Christ- wards, but might be abandoned — must, in fact, be abandoned — when He came. 1 Moreover, of Him it was both symbolic and prophetic. Here is where he embarks upon a topic of undying value and interest. Justin could use " prophecy " both in his controversy with pagans and in that with the Jews. With the former he would claim that the Hebrew literature was older than the Greek, and in fact its source : this might have been difficult for his adversary to disprove ; anyhow, Greece was believed to have been long since in close touch with Egypt, if not with Pales- tine, and in or from Egypt her knowledge of Moses could be thought to have begun. Justin would then say, Hebrew prophecy is full of predictions, which were all, exactly, and only, realized in the life of Jesus Christ. This portent, he felt, must needs carry conviction. With a Jew, he could have started from the orthodox belief 1 Justin, however, leaves it an open question, whether an older school of Christians can be allowed to continue observ- ing as much of the law as they could, within Christianity. He does not approve of them, but will not absolutely condemn them. 107 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR that the Old Testament was inspired ; he would also have found a sufficiency of edu- cated Jews who would admit that much in the Old Testament had to be interpreted " symbolically " or allegorically ; and, in the absence of any authority to say how much might be, or in what sense, it re- mained open to individuals to say that almost any of it could be, and to do so in their sense. The whole way of feeling, in Alexandria, about the Old Testament led to a quite fantastic allegorization ; Christians of the Alexandrian school were themselves strongly affected by it ; and, as for Justin, you may say at least that he makes a far more sparing use of the symbolical and allegorizing method than did Jews like Philo. In reading St. Justin we ought, there- fore, to remember that there was not yet a strong and universal tradition as to which passages in the Old Testament referred to the Messiah, directly at any rate, and in what way ; in fact, it has been shown that those about which the Christian Fathers came to display any sort of " consensus " are, if important, very few ; 108 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS moreover, though Justin could distinguish in his own mind between the literal and the symbolical senses of Scripture, he had as yet no principle to help him to decide which sense should in Scripture be dis- cerned, and when. In fact, he tended to act as though the symbolical sense should be discerned whenever possible. And perhaps he did not at all distinguish a third " sense " of Scripture from the other two, namely, the " applied " sense : that in which a Scripture may legitimately be applied to some idea or doctrine which it does not really contain at all. 1 Two tendencies, therefore, not fully examined yet, are visible in St. Justin : to suppose that most, if not all, the Old Testament is in some way prophetic of Christ ; and that all he knew, historically, of Christ was in some way prophesied in the Old Testament. Justin says that, after his conversation with the mysterious old man, his heart burned within him with love for the prophets. 1 Thus much of the Canticle and of the Wisdom literature can be, and is, legitimately applied to Our Lady. 109 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR " There were born certain men among the Jews to be prophets of God, by whom the Prophetic Spirit announced what was to be before it happened " (i Af. 31). " These prophecies occurred ' 5,000, 3,000, 2,000, 1,000 or 800 ' years ago. Sometimes it is God who is represented as speaking directly, sometimes the Messiah, or the prophet in person, or the people who answer " (1 Ap* 36) ; sometimes the tense is future, sometimes past, God foretelling " what is absolutely decreed as to happen, as though it had already happened " (ib. 42). Yet prediction does not imply fatalism (ib. 44, and see supra, p. 89) ; and, besides this, the Prophetic Spirit teaches and interprets. Not all is sheer prediction. 1 And, from the fulfilment already of so much, we may confidently expect further fulfilment in the future (52). I have, therefore, earlier alluded to Justin's use of Hebrew prophecy as, first of all, a portent, worthy of attracting the attention of pagans : here, as part of the world's history, indicating the Christ- ward " economy " of God ; later, it can 1 Theophilus (Aut. II. 34) insists on the moral doctrine of the prophets (cf. Tatian, Or. 12, etc.). no THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS be regarded as interpreted by Christ's life itself, which throws light backward upon what was yet obscure. (<) But the whole of history, and that of the Jews in particular, looks forward to the Coming and the Work of Christ. For the Apologists, history is Christocentric. The government of the world, its " economy " (oiKovonia) is one of Salvation through Christ. The Epistle to Diognetus boldly confronts the problem : Why did Christ come so late in history ? He practically answers, To enable man to take stock of himself, human life and its limitations, and thereby of Jesus Christ Himself, whom in some sort we would not have valued until we had learnt how much we needed Him (8-9). There is herein not only the sub- stance of a whole philosophy of history, but a whole theology of man's greatness of destiny, and natural inadequacy to achieve it ; of God's patience and mercy, and of the instrumentality of Christ in imparting to us supernatural life and grace. Yet a in ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR paradox should here be frankly stated. Leaving the fragmentary Apologies aside, we look in vain in those of Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, and Minucius Felix for the Name of Jesus. Even the r61e of the Logos is, here and there, but indicated. The cause of this, is that the Apologists were definitely not making an exhaustive statement of Christian doctrine, but defending themselves, attacking their enemies, or at most stating as much of Christianity as could be expected to appeal to their hearers, and could be put in lan- guage familiar to them. But we may frankly regret that they did not more boldly trust to the sheer power of Christ and of His Name, and fully declare the Faith which no one doubts was theirs. However, they yielded to the fear lest pagan feet should trample their precious pearl. I will first recall some of Justin's plain statements of Christian doctrine with regard to the Person and work of Christ, and then show how he uses the Old Testa- ment to prove that all this was announced beforehand. 112 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS " We read, announced beforehand in the books of the prophets, that our Jesus Christ must come, born of a virgin, growing up to manhood, healing every sickness and infirmity, raising dead men to life, hated and unknown, crucified, dead, and raised again, and going up into the heavens ; called, and indeed being, ■ Son of God ' ; and that He will send men to every human race to announce these things, and that from the heathen especially men shall believe in Him" (i Ap. 31). " Our Jesus Christ was crucified, died, rose again, and ascended to heaven, where He is reigning " (i Ap. 42). " The Christ was born, a man, of a virgin, and was called Jesus ; He was crucified, died, rose again and ascended into heaven" (1 Ap. 46). " Christians declare their religion to have for origin Jesus the Messiah, and He is the Son of the Most High God. We are told that God came down from heaven, that He took and clothed Himself with flesh in the womb of a Jewish maiden, and that the Son of God dwelt in a daughter of men " {A p. 2). He proceeds to relate the life of Christ and the preaching of the Apostles. Justin adds that He was born " 150 years ago under Cyrenius, and taught what we say He taught under Pontius Pilate " 1 113 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR (i Ap. 23 ; cf. 46, 58, II. 8, 10). The birth at Bethlehem, the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, the Massacre of the Inno- cents, are mentioned by him. Christ grew up into manhood in the ordinary way, He worked miracles and raised the dead (7>. 84; cf. 88). He chose and sent forth Apostles, and three of these He had present with Him in His Agony on the Mount of Olives before He was arrested. The memoirs of the Apostles tell of His sweat like drops of blood. He feared and He suffered truly (7V. 103). Both Herod and Pilate were in league against Him ; incidents of His Passion (the parting of the garments) are related, and much more, which we need not recount in detail. There can be no doubt whatever that Justin maintains the Humanity of Jesus Christ in the full historic and normal sense. In as full a sense he asserts His Divinity. " There are some of our folks who recognize Him for the Christ, yet declare that He is but man born of men. I do not agree with them, and I would not agree — no, not though the majority of Christians, who teach the same doctrine [in other points] as I do, were to say 114 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS the same. For Christ did not tell us to believe in human reasonings, but in the oracles of the Prophets and His own preaching " (*>. 43)- " Our Master, the Son and Angel (Messenger) of God, Father and Lord of the world, Jesus Christ, from whom we have our name of Christians . . . He who was crucified in the days of Tiberius Caesar. We have been taught that He is the Son of the True God, and we rank Him in the second place" (i Ap. 12, 13, 14). " Jesus Christ alone is truly the Son of God, His Logos, His First-born, His Power. . . . He is the Logos in which all men participate" (1 Ap. 23, 46). " The First Power after God, Father and Master of the world, is His Son, the Logos, who was made flesh and became man" (1 Ap. 32). He alludes again and again to the Virgin Birth (especially 1 Ap. 33), not proving the Divinity of Christ thereby, but, if not saying that because He was divine, He had to be virgin-born ; at least suggesting that because God was properly His Father, He had no need of human fatherhood and in fact had none. Moreover, Jesus Christ, true Son of Mary and true Son of God, came into the world for a definite purpose. We have already 115 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR quoted texts illustrating the function of the Logos. To all, He had, as the Seed- Word, given a partial light and teaching : as Jesus Christ, He taught the full doctrine, being Himself the complete Logos, or Wisdom or Truth of God. " He taught us this doctrine in view of the renewal and restoration of the human race " (i Af. 23). We have also quoted enough to show that, in His own Person and in those of His Christians, He destroys the evil spirits and their work and conquers the Serpent, thereby reversing his work of destruction. But this implies not only, so to say, an incidental conquest of evil influences, opening up a free and happy future, but an entirely new, or renewed, " economy " of the world. Somewhere Justin must have used the tremendous phrase, " The only Son of God came to us, recapitulating His creation in Himself," for St. Irenaeus {Adversus Haereses, IV. vi. 2) quotes it unless possibly he is interpreting the thought of Justin when he says (2 Ap. 13) that the Logos became man for us that by 116 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS sharing in our deficiencies He might thereby heal them. Anyhow, when he writes that " the Son of God was made man by means of the Virgin, that the disobedience which comes from the Serpent might be destroyed in the same way that it began " (Tr. ioo) his thought is perfectly clear : Christ knits the human race to Himself as to a new head ; a new organic unity is by Him inaugurated, and we who fell in Adam are by Him put upright again ; original sin is annulled ; immortality is restored. Nor is there any doubt that Justin attaches this redemptive and restorative work of Christ peculiarly to His death upon the Cross. " He chose to be born and to be crucified ... for the human race which, since Adam, had fallen into death and the deception of the Serpent. . . . You shall see, in that self-same place, Jerusalem, Him whom you despised and who offered Himself in sacrifice for all sinners who will repent " (Tr. 40). He uses all his " saving " and ransoming words in connection precisely with the blood of Jesus. The whole chapter liii. of "7 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR Isaias is in his eyes an accurate prophecy of Christ's vicarious oblation ; it is His death-sacrifice which does what that of beasts could never do. The whole race is under a curse — even the Jews, who could not fulfil even that law which placed them so much above the pagans. " Now the Father of all things willed that His Christ, Himself, in view of men of every race, should receive the malediction laid on all, knowing that He would raise Him up after His crucifixion and His death. . . . His Father and Himself determined these sufferings in view of the human race. . . . And let none of you say : ' If the Father willed these sufferings that His wounds should become the healing of the human race, we are guilty of no sin.' If, when you say that, you repent your sins, if you acknowledge Him as Christ and observe His commandments, then, as I have already said, your sins will be forgiven you " (Tr. 94, 95). * 1 Cf. Ep. to Diog. 9 : " God Himself took our sins upon Himself. He of Himself gave His own Son as ransom for us, holy for unholy, innocent for guilty, righteous for unrighteous, incorruptible for corruptible, immortal for mortal. . . . Precious exchange ! . . . that the wickedness of the many should vanish in the righteousness of one, and that the righteousness of one should make righteous the many who have sinned ! " He continues with the true rhetoric of ecstasy. Ii8 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS In the Apology Justin first adduces the prophecy of Gen. xlix. 10, that a King should not be lacking to Judah till the Messiah should come. Rulers succeeded one another ; Jesus Christ was born and died ; Rome destroyed the Jewish polity ; the Jews are ruler-less ; and the prophecy is fulfilled. Isaiah xi. i foretells the Messiah, and vii. 14 His Virgin Birth (" Behold, a Virgin shall conceive/' etc.). Micah v. 2 predicts Bethlehem as His natal town ; Zachariah ix. 9 the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem riding upon an ass. A great variety of texts are adduced as predic- tive of the Passion. He quotes, of course, the famous texts from Ps. xxii. (16-18, "they pierced My hands and My feet, ,> etc., and " they wagged the head . . ."), and from Isaiah (chaps. 1. 6-8, lii., liii., and lxiii. 2), but also the whole of Psalms i. and ii. are quoted as predictive of the coalition of Pilate, Herod, and the Jews against Christ ; Ps. iii. 5, " I laid Me down and slept, and I rose up again, because the Lord had care of Me," prophesies His death and resurrection ; Isa. lxv. 2, " I have stretched out My hands all the day long to a 119 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR rebellious people,' ' foretells the outstretch- ing of His arms upon the Cross ; and Isa. ix. 6, " the government is upon His shoulders," is interpreted of His Cross, in which is His supreme strength. Besides this, prophecies are quoted from the Psalms and elsewhere signifying Christ's resurrec- tion and ascension ; the sending of the Apostles, their world-wide preaching, the conversion of the Gentiles, the Second Com- ing and the Christian eschatology (Ezek. xxxvii. 7-8, Isa. xlv. 23, lxvi. 24, etc.). After the reading the Dialogue with Trypho I imagine most people would find they were left with two main impressions. First, as I said above, that of the amazing detail in which Justin knows the Old Testament ; second, in how far-fetched a way he applies it. He has to be judged by his own prin- ciples, not ours ; and his were identical with those of his adversary. 1 Of these 1 Indeed, he is extraordinarily fair, besides being well informed. Thus, he knows the orthodox post-Christian Jewish way of interpreting Behold the " Virgin " shall con- ceive^ and is aware that Trypho's contemporaries would probably apply Ps. 109 to Hezekiah. He is satisfied that he refutes these interpretations, but he knows them and states them fairly (Tr. 33). 20 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS the first was that the Old Testament was predictive. In a sense, he could maintain that he alone fully knew and could show it was, for he could point to the realization, in Christ, of the predictions. However, he and the Jews were right, amply, in asserting that it claimed so to be. It must be allowed that the Prophets emphatically do not offer their statements as expressions of aspirations, hopes, surmises, or even as spiritual intuitions merely, conditioned by moral convictions such as the necessary triumph of justice in the long run. They assert that this and that will happen^ because of certain promises of God. In this the mass of the Old Testament documents differs altogether from any other known block of national sacred literature. The danger was, to regard as predictive what was not really so. Justin's next principle, I recall, which also would have been that of almost all the Jews who thought and wrote, and was certainly allowed by Trypho, was, that the literal story very often, and probably usually, had a spiritual sense, which was its truest sense, and gave its value to the letter; 121 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR and that it was a student's duty to expect its existence and to try to discover it. Besides these two principles, Justin had the personal conviction that he had been granted a special grace which made him successful in his efforts to interpret Scrip- ture aright* He may have gathered this from the conviction with which his inter- pretations inspired him, or, from that which he saw they produced in others. (TV. 58.) Now, apart from the detailed discussion of certain oracles which have come to be recognized in the Church as predictions of definite events — a discussion which would obviously be out of place in this book — I would say that Justin's influence and work made for good in three definite ways at least. One of these, in its direct incidence, affects a modern theory. That is, that the Gospel " life " of Christ was practi- cally constructed out of prophecies : that because so and so was prophesied of the Messiah, it was assumed that it must have happened in the life of Christ, and was then related of Him. Now, the more far- fetched Justin's application of prophecy 122 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS may seem, and the more fantastic it may appear to us to connect a passage like the cutting of the Stone from the Mountain (Daniel ii. 34) with the cave-birth at Bethlehem, or to regard the bells on the high priest's tunic as typical of the Apostles, the more obviously impossible does it become to say that the prophetic sentences gave birth to the Gospel inci- dents. It is certain that the known exis- tence of these made possible a suitable interpretation or application of those, and not vice versa. Justin says again and again (and the Gospels themselves hint the like) that much of the Old Testament prophecy remained unintelligible until the life and death of Jesus Christ enabled men to diagnose its complete meaning and value. The historicity of the Gospel story emerges all the stronger from a method like Justin's, seeing that it forced towards itself a quantity of literature which, but for it, would have appeared, to one ignorant of the historical Christ, quite disparate. The next point of value is that Justin simply will not allow us (despite his theory 123 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR of the abrogation of the law) to isolate the Christian revelation from the Jewish. Our whole view of what he calls the cosmic " economy/' God's active plan in regard to human history, suffers if we isolate the former. Indescribably enriched is our whole view of God's dealing with man- kind, if we school ourselves to examine it in the world at large, and in the Jewish history in particular. Such has always been the Catholic attitude, and such was the method of the Fathers even when most antagonistic to the Jews as a race apostate from God's guidance. Finally, it is of vast value to accustom ourselves to viewing the world as essen- tially Christocentric. In the past, Christus cogttabatur^ as Tertullian will say. Christ can be regarded as " recapitulating " the race not morally alone, nor mystically, but historically. It has been asked how Justin co-ordinates his doctrine of the Seed-Word with that of the quite special revelation of the Jews, borrowed^ as he will have it, by pagans. His answer always is : there is only one Logos in and for the w r orld ; He was revealed especially in and 124 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS to the Jews, and fully in Christ. The same Logos, acting, germinating seed-wise in the souls of all men created, im- pelled the unprivileged parts of the race to fasten on what the Jewish race proclaimed, precisely in so far as they felt it akin to the spiritual element in them. After that, human weakness or sin, and evil spirits, joined in distorting the good material thus taken over. But it remains that, just as there was one special covenant, so God seriously wills that all men should be saved, and upon all, grace is at work. But all grace is given through Jesus Christ. Therefore, for all alike, He is source of salvation, if but human wills consent to co-operate sufficiently ' with His ever- sufficient initiative. Christocentricity is the pivot of Justin's thought. A necessity forced upon Justin by the conditions of his time was a theory of pagan religious myths. He took up two attitudes towards them. In one, he argued purely ad hominem. He said : You ought not to accuse us of telling incredible stories about Christ, such as His Virgin Birth, because you tell quite as strange things 125 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR about your own heroes and gods ; more- over, said he, you place these miracu- lous episodes in atrocious settings, and, even in the actual episode, immorality of hideous and unnatural sorts is often in- woven (i Ap. 25, 27). Whereas whatso- ever we relate as historical, yet miraculous, in connection with Christ, operates in function, so to say, of a transcendent moral doctrine and life. Even, Justin can retort upon the pagans : " If we did what you say we do, we should boast of it, and recommend our religion to you by it, for we should be imitating your sacrifices and your gods " (2 Ap. 1 2). He points out, too, \\0vjimm0v2\ity Jlows from pagan myth, as well as from pagan practice : prostitu- tion is the invariable result of the ex- position of children, boys and girls alike (1 Ap. 27). Somewhat similar attacks are found in Epistle to Diognetus, Aristides {Ap. 3-14), Tatian {Or. 8-10), and Athenagoras in great detail {Leg. 14-21). 1 1 Another ad hominem is : " You admit the inspired oracles of Dodona and Delphi — ' possessed men ' — necromancy, oneiromancy, etc. You should not, therefore, quarrel with our doctrine of souls and spirits " (2 Ap. 18). " Similarly, you 126 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS " When we say that the Logos — that is, the First-born of God, Jesus Christ, our Master — was engendered without human intercourse, that He was crucified, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven, we admit nothing more strange than the stories you too tell about sons of Zeus. . . . Hermes is his interpreter- Logos and universal teacher ; Asklepios, who also became a physician, after being struck by lightning ; Dionysus having been torn in pieces ; Herakles, after throwing himself into the fire to escape from his labours ; the Dioscuri, sons of Leda, Perseus, son of Danae, and Bellerophon on his horse Pegasus, [all] went up to heaven. . . . What of your Emperors ? Directly they die you claim ever to put them with the immortals, and you produce someone to swear that he has seen the cremated Caesar ascending up to heaven ! And the sort of behaviour that is put down to each of these so-called sons of Zeus, you know it, and I need not tell it ; I will merely say that those stories were written for the corruption and perversion of youth : for everyone thinks it fine to imitate the gods " (i Ap. 21). " If we say that He was born from God, in a special way, contrary to the law of normal birth, and Son and Logos of God, well, this is admit Sibylline books (not to mention the Stoics), which show the world ending in a conflagration. Do not, therefore, flout our eschatology " ( ; b. 22). 127 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR told too by those of you who call Hermes the Logos and Messenger of God. If anyone should object that He was crucified, that too is held in common with the sons, as you call them, of Zeus, whom I enumerated above, and who also suffered. [If you consider the kinds of sufferings each underwent, you will see He was not inferior : if you consider the acts, He was superior.] He was, we say, virgin-born. That is a point in common with your Perseus. [And, with His miracles, compare those of Asklepios] " (i A p. 22). How did such myths, however, arise ? Sometimes, as stated above, by philoso- pliers' misinterpretation of Scripture. " Plato in the Timaeus is applying the principles of natural philosophy to [the idea of] the Son of God, and says : ' He has im- pressed Him X-wise in the universe ' (c^utcro' amov : the symbol is x). He took the idea from Moses and expressed it similarly. For . . . Moses by the inspiration and at the impetus of God took bronze and made a cross and put it up on the holy tent and said to the people, ' If you look upon this symbol and believe, you shall be saved therein.' They did this, and, he writes, the serpents perished and the people, he relates, in this way escaped death. Plato read this, but did not under- THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS stand it accurately, and did not see that this symbol was a cross, but thought it was an x? and he said that the secondary Power, after God, was infused x _w i se m the world. And if he names also the third power, that is because he had read in Moses that the Spirit of God was borne upon the waters " (i Ap. 60). " Kore, daughter of Zeus, is an imitation of this Spirit of God, which is borne upon the waters. And in their malice they similarly said that Athene too was daughter of Zeus, born without sexual intercourse. They knew that God had first conceived the world, and then made it through His Logos, so the original conception they said to be Athene. To us it seems supremely ridiculous to propose the female sex as symbolizing thought " (1 Ap. 64). " I shall now make quite clear that though they heard what the prophets said they did not understand it accurately, but imitated what is told about our Christ in a mistaken way. Well, Moses the prophet, as I said before, was earlier than any other author ; and by means of him . • . the following prophecy was given : * There shall not be lacking a ruler from Judah and a governor from his loins, until [He come]. . . . He shall be the expectation of the Gentiles, tether- ing his colt to the vine, and washing his robe in the blood of the grape' (Gen. xlix. 10-11). The demons, therefore, hearing these prophetic K 129 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR words, said that there was born a Dionysos, son of Zeus, and they handed it down that he was the inventor of the vine ; and they wrote of wine in his mysteries, and taught that he was torn asunder and then went up into heaven. And since the prophecy of Moses did not state explicitly if he who should come were a son of God, nor whether, when riding on the colt, he was to remain on earth or go up to heaven, and since the word ' foal ' could apply equally well to the offspring of an ass as of a mare, the demons could not understand whether he who was prophesied would bring an ass's foal or a mare's as a mark of his manifestation, nor whether he was to be a son of God ; so they recounted that Bellerophon, a man and a son of men, mounted to heaven on the horse Pegasus. They had learnt through another prophet, Isaiah, that He was to be born of a virgin and go up to heaven by His own power, so they produced the story of Perseus. [So those of Herakles and Asklepios]." (ib. 54.) " But in the case of none of these so-called sons of Zeus did they contemplate the Crucifixion. For this never occurred to them, seeing that all that was said about that was, as I have already made plain, symbolically set forth. . . . This, as the Prophet foretold, is the greatest mark of His strength and rule, as is shown by what falls under our very eyes. Reflect on the world and all that is in it ; and see whether 130 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS without this Sign of the Cross the world can be ordered or form a whole. The sea cannot be cleft, if this trophy — this mark — be not standing firm in the ship. The earth cannot be ploughed without it : labourers and working men cannot do their business save by means of tools that have the shape. Man's shape itself differs in nothing from that of the brute beasts, save that he stands upright and can spread his arms out, and in his very face has his nose, through which living creatures breathe, stretched from his forehead down, and displays the self-same sign of the cross. In fact, through the Prophets it was thus ordered : ' The breath of our face is Christ's the Lord ' (Lam. iv. 20). Even your own symbols display the power of this sign, I mean those of your standards and your trophies, which everywhere precede you on the march ; you show forth the signs of your rule and power in these [crosses], even if you do not realize what you are doing. And when your Emperors die you put up their images under this sign, and name them gods in your inscriptions" (1 Af. 55). Athenagoras, too, combats the idea that the Christian doctrine of the Logos Son of God is comparable to the pagan myths. Their gods were no better than men. " The Son of God is God's Logos in thought and energy. For by Him and through Him 131 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR were all things made, Father and Son being One. As the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Son of God is the Intelligence and Logos of the Father. If you pursue your research so far as to ask what the Son is, I answer, in a word, the First-Begotten of the Father. I do not mean the first He made : since the beginning, God, who is the Eternal Intelligence, had in Him the Logos, but He came forth from Him to be the idea and energy of all material elements, which lay like confused matter and formless earth, the denser mingled with the subtler" (Ath. Leg, io). Theophilus (Aut. II. io, 22) is confused owing to his Stoic terminology. " God's word was, from eternity, immanent within Him, and God begat Him together with His Wisdom, when He willed to create man in order to reveal Himself to him. He used this Logos as assistant in His works, and through Him created all things. It was He, the Spirit of God, the Active Principle and the Wisdom and the Power of the Most High, who came down into the Prophets. . . . For there were not yet Prophets when the world was made, but only the immanent Wisdom of God and His holy Logos, who is for ever with Him. . . ." 132 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS But, in particular, he insists that such stories originate in the malice of demons who " imitate " the Biblical prophecies. 1 " People can see how unlike the myth- writers concerning the so-called c Sons of Zeus': we speak : we can also prove what we say. . . . Those who hand down the myths made by poets to children, who learn them by heart, provide no proof of what they say ; but we prove that, with the deceiving and seduction of the human race, those myths are told through the working of evil spirits. . . . Knowing by the Prophets that Christ was to come and that the wicked among men would be punished by fire, they put forward stories of many who were born ' sons of Zeus/ thinking that they would bring it to pass that men would believe the story of Christ to be a fairy tale, like the stories of the poets. These tales were told among the Greeks and among all the heathen, especially where they knew by the prophecies that Christ would be believed in" (Tr. 53, 54). " When those who initiate people into the mysteries of Mithra say he was born of a rock, 1 In Athenagoras (Leg. 26), the demon theory is coupled with the pagans' own Euhemerist theory, i.e. that the gods were really men, glorified by the imagination of succeeding centuries (cf. Theoph. Jut. 10-11, etc.). Tertullian and Minucius Felix, in particular, apply this double method to the history of Rome. 133 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR and call the place where they hand over the initiation to the candidates a ' cave,' I know well that they are imitating therein the saying of Daniel (ii. 45), how a stone was cut without hands out of a great mountain, and even the doctrine of Isaiah, all of whose words, in fact, they have undertaken to imitate " {Tr. 70 ; cf. 1 J p. 66, Tr. 78). Here, again, it may be asked if Justin's controversy has served any permanent result. I . think so. We shall not be inclined to accept his theory of the origin of this pagan practice or that, of this or that myth. But he has put clearly into light the organic nature of narrative and moral character which is discernible in the Christian tradition. Thus, had the Gospel miracles been related of one whose moral character had had nothing remark- able about it, or had they produced immoral consequences, we should at once have suspected them. On the other hand, when we see the spiritual co-efficient in the narrative working in harmony with the incidents, and operating spiritually through them, their credibility is enor- mously enhanced. But further, in view 134 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS of the modern theory that the life of Christ is in some sort of organic connection with pagan myth, and drew its miraculous instances from such a source, we find Justin provides us with at least three considerations which show that to be impossible. The first is, precisely, his consciousness of the far Jewish background ; and of the Palestinian terrain, in which Chris- tianity struck all its roots. I will say merely that the antecedents and structural elements of the Christian story are to be looked for in Judaism, and nowhere else, save in so far as they are original and stand on their own basis. Again, the whole attitude of Justin and his contemporaries makes it clear that so academic a notion as the derivation of Christian history from pagan sources could simply not have occurred to them. The pagan, taking a purely outside view, a static view, of the elements of the Christian narrative, might have done so till he examined its true origin ; and the compiler of study-made theories, again looking at the facts statically and from 135 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR outside, can do the same to-day. But any one who is aware of paganism and Chris- tianity as living forces and organisms, as Justin was, and as we if we choose can be, is aware of the inherent absurdity of any such suggestion. Not only in Justin's time was there nowhere any trace or even relic of consciousness that the two systems and lives had anything in common, but there was so very clear a consciousness that they had not, that the very statement of the possibility astonished and exasperated Christians. For, finally, where the attitude of so broad-minded and sympathetic a man as Justin was one of loathing for and utter alienation from the pagan myth-religion, conscious borrowing was out of the ques- tion, and there was no psychological prerequisite of any kind to have allowed of unconscious borrowing. The Christians were far too self-conscious, and were inevit- ably so, not to be aware of what they were doing ; and all their awareness was anti- pathetic to any such procedure. 136 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS § iv A double interior impetus sent the Christians vigorously towards the thought of Eternity. The pagans made their earthly life so anxious and insecure that they found it the easier task to fix the centre of gravity of existence in the next. But this itself throws a vivid light on their faith, their hope, and their love for Christ. For, had these been lacking, or weak, the Invisible and Eternal would never have outweighed the transitory yet assured satisfactions of the present which they could so easily have obtained. Their love for Jesus swept them so rapidly beyond the practical possibility of denying Him, they were so eager really to be " with the Lord " who had recast their whole existence for them, that they could, as we have heard Justin often saying, withstand all that was most horrible in martyrdom with a courage that drove their persecutors to sheer exasperation. Justin and the Apologists are so preoc- cupied with the overwhelming and eternal fact, the tremendous alternative, that they i37 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR discuss its details but little. At most, here and there, for their readers* sakes, they bring into it some sort of connection with the Stoic doctrine of a final conflagration. " If men show by their works that they are worthy of God's counsel, we have been taught that they shall be judged fit for His society and shall share His kingdom, having become exempt from pain and corruption " (i Ap. 10). " More than anyone else, we are allies of yours and help you towards peace, because of our doctrine. No evil-worker, nor avaricious, or intriguer or honest man can escape the eye of God, but each, according to his works, goes to eternal punishment or salvation" (i A p. 12). " No one would commit sin for a moment if he knew he was on his way to eternal punishment by fire. Nothing can escape the eye of God, neither action nor intention" (1 Ap. 12). " We are convinced that each, according to the worth of his actions, will pay penalty by means of eternal fire, and that we shall have to render account according to the measure of the powers we have received from God " (1 A p. 17)- " If death were the end, it would be a blessing for the wicked ; but, for all who have ever lived, consciousness endures, and eternal punish- ment awaits them" (1 Ap. 17). " [When we are accused of being Christians, 138 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS Justin argues, we could plead " Not guilty," but we do not want to live on the strength of a lie.] We crave for a life eternal and incorruptible, and prefer to live for ever with God the Father and Maker of all things, and we are eager to profess our faith, convincedly believing that they shall obtain that destiny who have proved to God by their works that they have been following Him, and were in love with the life that is with Him, where no evil assails them. . . . Similarly Plato said that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish those who came guilty before them : we say that the self-same thing shall happen, only at the hands of Christ. The wicked shall appear in their self-same bodies, with their souls, and shall be punished, but not for a period of 1,000 years, as Plato said, alone" (i Af. 8). 1 "Lest anyone quote theso-called philosophers, and say that our doctrine is mere romance and a bogey-tale, when we teach that the wicked shall be punished in eternal fire, and that we 1 Justin and others, though not (he affirms) all, say that there will be a 1,000 years' reign of the Saints with Christ at Jerusalem ; but this is an open question, whereas the resurrection of the body is not (Tr. 80-81). In I Ap. 52 Justin affirms the second and glorious advent of Christ, " when He shall also raise up the bodies of all men who have ever existed, and shall clothe those of the just with immortality, while the unjust He shall send into the eternal fire, where they shall consciously exist, eternally, with the evil demons." 139 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR seek to lead men to virtue by fear and not by love of good [I answer briefly, If our doctrine is untrue, either God does not exist, or He ignores the distinction between right and wrong, and human legislation may as well do the same.] " (2 Af. 9). " It is for the sake of the Christian folk that God retards the collapse and dissolution of the universe that shall cause evil angels, demons, and men to exist no more. In the Christians He discerns a cause [for this delay]. Else . . . the fire of the judgment would come down and reduce utterly all that is into fragments. . . . Thus it is that we say the final Conflagration will occur, not, as the Stoics do, on the principle of everything turning into everything else — a miserable theory" (2 Ap. 7). " The demons shall be shut up in the eternal fire and receive their just punishment and vengeance. For the fact that they are already conquered by men through the Name of Jesus Christ teaches us that they and those who serve them shall undergo the punishment of eternal fire" (zAp. 8). " We look forward to the dead who are put into the earth recovering their bodies, for we say that with God no sort of thing is im- possible" (1 Af. 8). " [Even as the body of man grows to per- fection from an origin so utterly dissimilar] in the same way you must argue that the bodies 140 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS of men, dissolved and scattered abroad like seed upon the earth, may well, at the appointed time, by the command of God, arise and clothe themselves in immortality. ,, . . . (i Ap. 19). " Gehenna is the place where sinners shall be punished, and those who did not believe that all that God taught through Christ would happen " (1 Ap. 19). " Both the Sibyl and Hystaspes said that there would be a destruction of corruptible nature by means of fire. The ' Stoic philosophers ' declare that the god himself is to be dissolved into fire l ; . . . but we considered God far different : in certain points, therefore, we agree with, and in others transcend their doctrine. When we say that all things were created and ordered by God, we shall be seen to be declaring Plato's doctrine ; when we affirm the final conflagration, that of the Stoics ; when we say that the souls of the wicked shall be conscious after death and punished, and those of the righteous shall go unpunished and be happy, we shall but be saying what both poets and philosophers have said" (1 Ap. 20). * * * Three points may be singled out in 1 After all, this was not quite fair. The Stoic god was the fire. Epictetus says he does survive. He is not self- consumed. Still, he was impersonal and in the long run material. Plutarch argued like Justin. 141 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR which the work of the Apologists was of tremendous and permanent value. The Christians were called atheists. None the less, it was their Apologists who disentangled the true idea of God from among the confused notions which seethed in contemporary brains. One of the marvels of history seems to be the continuous yet unsuccessful effort of ancient philosophy to get a proper idea of God; both philosophy, and indeed religions, seemed ever on the point of doing so, and ever failed. Thought and feeling alike kept sweeping upwards ; then, the wings drooped ; the goal was not reached ; even such vision as had been won seemed quite beyond the power of men in the mass to appropriate of preserve. Aristotle, with infinite labour, excogitated a Natural Theology so nearly perfect as still to be, in the main, the instrument of Catholic thinkers ; yet one may safely say that it is, precisely, the Church which has rescued, perfected, and used it. Among the Arabs, it was passing into Pantheism ; and in the old world, contemporary with the Apolo- gists, it must have exercised no popular 142 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS influence at all, while among thinkers it had entered indeed into the most different schools, just as Platonism did, but even so seemed to produce nothing definite or agreed upon. If we are to generalize, philosophical religion had bifurcated, and had gone either, with the Stoics, towards making God so immanent in His universe as to lose sight of His transcendence altogether ; or, as in those schools which ended in Gnosticism or Neoplatonism, it made Him so transcendent as to be out of touch with universe and matter in particular ; so that in either case God in no essential way could mean anything intelli- gible to man. Popular religion was not preached, save spasmodically and by eccentrics like the Cynics or like Apol- lonius of Tyana, or Maximus of Tyre, in particular ; and we have the very definite feeling that the glib formulae of such men, though they might include much true philosophy of God, never really gripped the consciousness of the hearers, and perhaps none too often of the preachers. Even Judaism was, one would say, trying to spoil the pure idea of the One "43 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR God which had been its prerogative. Among the philosophizing Jews He was becoming remote, impersonal, less acces- sible than the series of subordinate powers interposed between Him and men ; among the conservative Palestinians He had become (as has been said) little more than some celestial Rabbi, meticulously legal- ist, whose name men feared to mention. Christianity did not begin by philo- sophizing, assuredly, about God ; it preached, however, a God to whom every attribute which reason should recognize as appropriate was felt, massively, to belong : moreover, Our Lord had revealed Him as pre-eminently all that the best ideal of Fatherhood suggests. It kept the notion of God utterly pure, and brought the presence and " character " of God utterly near. His purity thrust Him not aloof ; His nearness did not soil Him. This fundamental revelation was not forgotten by the Apologists, though it was their chosen duty to state in language as clear and accurate as they might what reason declared to be true of Him. Thus throughout the Christian folk, in sharp 144 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS distinction over against the welter of pan- theisms, agnosticisms, polytheistic myths all round it, from simplest to most learned, reigned a pure, vigorous, and fertile idea of God, Absolute, Eternal, Spiritual, Infinite, Unique, which has never been lost by the Catholic Church. It is re- markable that, outside her, this radical belief in God has always, in the long run, suffered, so that nowadays it is not unfair to say that, in our country, God, and the idea of Moral Law flowing directly from Him, speaking in conscience and authori- tatively ordering life, are, if not " un- known " as ever, at least so confused once more and injured as to be all too often useless, and assuredly unused. The second point of permanent im- portancewas, the effort to state the Catholic Faith not only in philosophical terms, as far as it was patient of any such statement, but even, in the terms of a particular contem- porary philosophy ; or, at least, to use (modifying its application) the termino- logy of a group of schools of thought. It is a great exaggeration to say that Justin " Hellenized " the faith which had l 145 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR hitherto been Jewish, or that he turned the Christian religion from, say, a senti- ment into a system. He made it nothing that it was not before. He had been " taught " this and that. The Christian revelation is, for him as for the earliest Christians of all, fully authoritative. But he tries to see whether or no the Catholic dogma can be stated, without injury, in a particular language. It is true that, some fifty years before, St. John's Gospel ' had given him, as it were, the hint of its Prologue. But, as I said above, I do not think St. John was there doing exactly what I think Justin was trying to do. After another thousand years St. Thomas Aquinas would attempt a somewhat similar, or even bolder, experiment ; for Aristotle, whom he determined to " bap- tize/' had come to have a very positively bad name among Aquinas's immediate predecessors, and was known as " the Heretic " par excellence^ and St. Thomas was roundly abused by many of his most distinguished contemporaries. But he succeeded in utilizing Aristotelianism so 1 Allowing it to have been written about a.d. ioo. 146 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS well that his philosophy is still official in the Church. In our own time attempts have been made to construct an " evolutionary " statement of the Faith. These on the whole have failed, partly because of the undecided value of any particular evolutionary hypothesis, partly because of the notion of Evolution itself, far less well worked out and far more ambiguously stated than any substantial element used by Aristotle ; and, probably, because of some radical hostility in the two systems. Somewhat in the same way efforts to restate Catholicism according to the principles, and in the language of Kant, have failed. But the group of Apologists sanctioned, once and for all, the attempt. The Apologists, like ourselves, are quite clear that it belongs to the Christian Authority to decide whether the attempt has proved successful, or how far, or whether thought may legitimately strive to proceed along those particular lines. In the concrete, Justin and his fellows got into genuine difficulties. No wonder. They were seeking an adjustment, and they would naturally run the risk of re- H7 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR modelling one or the other of the two elements in order to effect this. Thus, if the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and His relation to the Father, and His creative r61e, were to be stated in Logos- terminology, there was at once a danger of subordinating the Logos twice over to the Father of all, " God." God's thought seemed all too easily somehow secondary to God Himself. Still more did the utterance of that thought appear to suggest a change in the Logos as It passed from being immanent (eVSiaferos), to ex- pressed (wpocfyopiKos). Its utterance in the universe seemed to warrant that event being described as Its Begetting ; so, almost, did Its utterance in Christ. Words like First-Begotten, especially when the Greek for " first-begotten of creatures " and for " first-begotten, before creatures " could be identical, necessarily gave rise to further ambiguities. I will not deny, too, that the wonderfully fertile, optimistic, and in many ways true doctrine of the Logos Spermatikos could itself give rise to misconceptions alike of the nature of the Logos — for could It be divided ? and 148 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS how ? — and of the character of man's participation in It. Was the Logos in Christ but quantitatively more present than It had been in Socrates ? Last of all, it was plain that the Logos doctrine, as such, exhausted itself (in pagan theology) in the notions of God conceiving and uttering the Word, and in the Word Itself. No real room was left there for any third. The system failed the Apologists when they wanted to speak philosophically of the Holy Ghost. There is no real question of their having confused the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity ; still less, of their ignoring the Third. But, quite apart from the lack of terminology which could have saved them from unfortunate turns of phrase suggesting that the Three held " ranks " one below the other, they were more or less driven to consider the operation of the Holy Ghost primarily in that department which made to their purpose — that is, in prophecy — rather than quite generally, or in Itself. 1 1 This, too, accounts for the real confusion visible where Justin seems to identify the Holy Spirit with the Logos when he is discussing the Virgin Birth. 149 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTYR In spite of all this, I feel we should applaud Justin not only for having em- barked so courageously on so high an enterprise, but for a very real success, and a success excellent in itself, and not alone because it enabled his successors to do their yet more perfect work. I think you feel this if you compare him with a writer like Philostratus, who composed the Life of Apollonius. From a literary point of view, I cannot judge Justin to be any more successful than Philostratus was to be : in fact, to read Justin has continually made me remember that diffuse and disorderly writer. Justin, too, repeats himself, gets entangled in his sentences, embarks upon digressions, mixes the ways in which he is using evidence, and especially in the Trypho puts not much order in his argu- ments. Yet throughout you feel that here is an intelligence — not that by any means of a genius, but that of a man who had been subjected to the most chaotic educa- tion, 1 and had survived it, by sheer force 1 Even at its best, I think that philosophic education in the Roman world must have been fairly chaotic ; and to pass from school to school, as to some extent at least Justin must have done, was not a helpful method. 150 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS of good average sense and character — well, an intelligence most resolutely apply- ing itself to the most terrific of all pro- blems, that is, not only the working out of one system, nor yet of two, but the synthetizing of an existing system with another which had first to be created, and both were very difficult to manage. His tenacity is admirable : he holds tight on to those elements in each about which he is sure ; he means every word he says, and does not, like Philostratus, or like that far more brilliant sceptic Lucian, slip about, without even noticing he is doing so, from one position into its contradictory. Nor yet is he, as they were, fatally familiar with the philosophic jargon, fluently uttering metaphysical catchwords, and prolific of pat formulae. In consequence we develop a very great sense of respect for Justin, and diagnose in him, first and foremost, a motive which is not to be found elsewhere, not even in those best of Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius, who in some ways stand out so much more decoratively than the Palestinian student. The third great topic on which he has 151 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR fixed our eyes is the striving of God's Spirit with man throughout all human history. Not indeed as though there were discer- nible, there, a homogeneous evolution, or any development reducible to a formula or mechanical law ; but a continual, ubiquitous activity of God, different ac- cording as its field was the world at large or the Jewish race, and again, as unique and total in Our Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Word of God, true man, and our Redeemer ; and yet, identical in its source, which was God Himself, and con- spiring to the same end, namely, the " recapitulation " of all things into Christ. This thought is inexhaustible. Obser- vation, speculation, and worship find in it an undying stimulus, and a guide. From end to end reaches the Wisdom of God, and from highest to lowest stretches the span of the Incarnation. We could go so far as to say that we might be wise, nowadays, to go directly counter to the tendency of so many " philosophies of history." They have accepted the evolu- tionary hypothesis — the gradual, unbroken, upward development of the material and 152 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS then the living world, and they have transferred that to history, and they seek to place Christianity somewhere in that inevitable series. The triple utterance of the Logos, in the race at large, in Judaism, and in Christ — triple, yet teleological ; three invasions of the Divine, yet one in aim, looking towards One, formative of One — might far more likely be that of which the appearance of life upon the earth is the image : an influx from God, triply distinct, yet all of it life ; discontinuous in a true sense, yet again aspiring towards full human life, intelligent and free, con- scious of self and God. Even though theology may not be able to dictate con- clusions to the physical sciences, yet it is daily being proved wise even for the " lay " sciences to accept hints as to direction from the traditional creed, and it is in the above direction that a modern Stoic might legitimately develop his Logos-theme. Be all that as it may, the historical fact remains that Justin helped Europe to an understanding of God, of Christ, and of human history ; and without him the great men of ensuing ages would have i53 ST. JUSTIN THE MARTTR found their task a thousand times more hard. We may own to a sense almost of awe, when we watch the laborious pioneer- work of these men in the precarious enter- prise of applying human thought to God. We may imagine that it was with relief, with gratitude that this shouldered duty might at last be laid aside, that Justin heard the call to witness no more to the truth by philosophizing, but by the argument of his blood. For, as we have often said, we love him not least for his admirable singleness of heart and his frankness. Tatian attacks, bitterly, almost less because he is a Christian, than because, an Oriental, he is glad to flay the supercilious Greeks ; Minucius Felix offers honeyed bait to educated pagans, and almost suggests that the cultured will find little to object to in Christianity, if they will only come and hear what he will have to tell them about it — for, in fine, his charming pages tell Caecilius very little that is positive ! And in general the Apologists, as we said, were defending themselves against attacks, or at most 154 THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOLOGISTS emphasizing such parts of their creed as might for some reason or another appeal to the pagan intellect. But Justin, though rebutting attack, though retorting criticism, though undoubtedly " philosophizing " dogma as best he might, yet went nearer than any others, who survive, in trusting to the force of the full Truth fully stated. Where the Faith is definite, he affirms it ; where opinion is free, and his own not shared by all, he acknowledges it ; a transparency, an honourableness, a coura- geous simplicity charm us in this man who thought, spoke and died for his faith, and whose reward has been, that his De- fence, which might seem suited to place and hour merely, has endured in value for so many generations. 155 Index Adam, sin of : 88, 90 Angels, sin of : 91-92. Cf. Demons Apologists : in general, 30-32 ; permanent value of, 141 -155 Aristides : 30 Ariston : 31 Athenagoras : 31 Baptism : 43 Chastity, Christian : 37, 45 Christian Fact, the : its apolo- getic value, 36-44 Christocentricity of history : 123-125 , 151-154 Church, the : 99, and cf. Heresy Conversion of the World, argu- ment based on : 55 Creation : 75, 88 Demons : 41 ; the fall of the Angels, 90-91 ; the demons originate polytheism, 93 ; per- secutions, 94 ; heresies, 96 Dogmatic character of Christian- ity : 57, 96, 146, 147 Emperor-worship : source of persecution, 18-20 ; Christian attitude to, 38, 39 Epicureanism : 27, 28 Epistle to Diognetus : 31 Eucharist, the Holy : 44, 45 Exorcism : 41 Fate : see Free-will Free-will: 88-90 Gnosticism : 29, 30 God: stoic doctrine of, 25, 26, 141 ; Christian doctrine of, 59-62 ; our knowledge of Him is "analogical," 61, 77 ; permanent value of Apolo- gists' exposition of this doc- trine, 142-14S Grace : 76, 92, 11 6-1 17 Heaven: 138-141 Hell: 138-141 Heresy : 97 Holy Spirit, the 67, 68, 149 Immortality: 88 note 2 ; 137- 141 Incarnation, the : 75, 76 ; as criticized by Jews, 104-105. Cf. Logos, Jesus Christ, The Virgin Birth. Jesus Christ : character of, 54 ; life of, 112-114; source of Christian virtue, 42 ; Divinity of, 114-115 ; redemptive work of, 116-118. Cf. Christo- centricity. Jews : the criticism of the Synagogue, 10 1, 106 ; diffi- culties of, 102-104 ; ill-will of, 47-49. Cf. Prophecy. Justin, St. : his life and writings, 32-35 ; his doctrine, passim. Logos: the stoic conception of, 26-27, 72, 73, and often; Philonic conception of, 70, 73 ; Johannine conception of, 70, 71 ; Justin's doctrine of, 74-87 ; in particular, the role of the Logos among pagans, 75, 78, 79, 85-87.. 90, etc. ; in creation, 75 ; its eternal existence, 77 ; its procession from the Father, 80, 81 ; in human reason, 74, 86 ; in Old Testament Theophanies, 81 ; difficulties of this philo- sophic conception, 82-83, 147- 149 ; its utility, 84 Magic : 41 Martyrdom, argument from : 40 Millennium : 139 Miracles : 55 Morality, Christian : 36-43 Myths : 76, 125-134 ; value of Justin's argument, 134-136 Oracle : 55 note, 126 note. Prophecy Original sin : 91 Cf. I56 INDEX Persecutions, causes of : 18-24. Cf. Demons Philosophy in Justin's time : 24-29. Cf. Logos, its role among pagans Prophecy : the fact as a portent, 50-54 ; as source of pagan lore, 51 ; as an element in world-history and leading up to Christ, 107-110; its de- tailed prediction of Christ, 119-120 ; value of this argu- ment, 120-125 Scripture : Justin's use of, 1 07- 1 10 ; and see Prophecy Soul: Tatian's psychology, 88 note 2 ; and cf. Free-will, Im- mortality Stoicism : 24-27 ; the Stoic eschatology, 141. Cf. Logos among pagans Tatian : 31 Theophilus of Antioch : 31 Theosophy : 30 Trinity, the Holy : 66-70 Quadratus : 30 Virgin Birth, the : 76,115 Reason and revelation : 55, 145-149 Religion in Justin's time: 21- 24 Will, preparation of, before argu- ment : 45-50 Worship : Christian, 45 ; spiri- tuality of true worship, 63 Printed in England for the Atnbrosden Press by Haxell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. CATHOLIC THOUGHT AND THINKERS Press Opinions As the industry of Lecky produced a " History of Ration- alism in Europe," a work marred by the author's inadequate acquaintance with the intellectual history of Christianity, so it is now the object of a group of Catholic scholars to write in successive monographs an account of the develop- ment of Catholic thought from the dawn of the Christian era, and this series — called " Catholic Thought and Thinkers" — has been started by Father C. C. Martindale in a volume styled Introductory. In five chapters the author surveys the interplay between orthodoxy and heterodoxy during five distinct periods of Church history — from the beginning to the death of Origen (254), from Origen to the death of Augustine (430), from the Sack of Rome (476) to the decline of the Middle Age (1303), thence to the Revolution (1789), and, finally, in the Modern era. Thus the frame- work is erected in which the various great Catholic thinkers will find their respective places, showing the continuity of Christian tradition and its orderly process of development. But Father Martindale's work is more than a framework : brilliant little pen pictures of the leaders of Christian thought, illuminating apercus of their historical surroundings, apt summaries of the inheritance and legacy of each epoch, make the book exceedingly interesting, and will make, we hope, the public for which the series is designed eager for its speedy and regular appearance. THE MONTH. A series of volumes which ought to prove of great interest to the general educated public. Their aim is to provide a more or less complete account of Catholic thought from the earliest times down to the present day, and thinkers whose orthodoxy is not beyond suspicion will be included in the series. Father Martindale is responsible for the Introductory volume, and his historical survey, as we should expect from him, is able and broad-minded. THE CHURCH TIMES. CATHOLIC THOUGHT AND THINKERS Truly an ambitious scheme ! Yet if we may conjecture from the success of Father Martindale's Introductory, the scheme is likely to be achieved with distinction. To com- press within one hundred and sixty pages an account of Catholic " thought " from the days before the Council of Ephesus to the last Ecumenical Council of the Vatican is in itself something of an intellectual feat. Needless to remark, in so comprehensive a sketch little can be said in particular of the individual " Thinkers." Father Martin- dale has fortunately a very happy manner of saying the little that is just enough to indicate the Catholic Thinker's place in the historical setting. THE CATHOLIC TIMES, Rarely have we read a book with so much pleasure as that which we have received from " Catholic Thought and Thinkers," by C. C. Martindale, S.J. The purpose of the series of which this is the title is to provide us with a con- tinuous feast of Catholic thought, displayed in the makers of thought in each succeeding age. This programme has happily called forth an Introductory volume which provides exactly what was wanted — an explanation of the series and a rapid panoramic view of the procession of thinkers. This by no means easy task has been well performed by Father Martindale ; the present volume, besides being of value to every cultured reader, will prove a most serviceable aid to the student in his theology and especially in the history of philosophy, and readers of the series will do well to keep this Introduction always by them. CATHOLIC BOOK NOTES. It gives a clear view of the development of Catholic thought from Justin Martyr through the Controversies to Aquinas and the Reformation, and then through the great Roman mystics and theologians to the Catholic renaissance, but it links the general development of European morals and philosophy, and shows how Catholic influence reacted on the general tendencies of the Christian era. THE GLASGOW HERALD. PRESS OPINIONS Nothing could be better conceived than the scheme of the series, whether for the scholar, for whom a resume at hand is always useful, or for the student, needing a general introduction, or for the general reader who cannot hope to pursue any first-hand study of more than a few of the classic writers of Catholicism. For all these the series will be a treasure-house of sound knowledge and of good, attractive reading. To this fine scheme Father Martindale's volume makes an admirable introduction, covering Catholic history from the point of view of philosophy and religious thought, much as Dr. Barry's little book on the Papacy covers it for politics — in a highly compressed summary, crammed full of facts, which are yet presented throughout set in a series of deeply- thought, and also thought-provoking, judgments — a piece of work stimulating and energizing in every line. We hope, and we prophesy, for % ' Catholic Thought and Thinkers " a huge success. THE UNIVERSE. BW574 .Z7M38 St. Justin the Martyr. Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00060 6303 DATE DUE ; ||n^ mS „m *^ " ~m«J ML L5 199b ]\ULt AitWt^r "■"-^■sa hbP"^ J\j DEMCO 38-297