its animating soul, or was in mysterious union with a complete man. Here again Justin, though not quite distinct in every particular, largely supplements the deficiencies of the Gospel. Christ, in contradistinction from the philosophers, who had only a portion of the disseminated Logos, was himself the whole Logos :τοῦ παντὸς λόγου, ὅ ἐστι Χριστοῦ. The term Logos does not, however, describe his whole personality. This is completed only by the union of the divine and human natures. Christ is θεὸς καὶ ἄνθρωπος. The former of these terms has been already considered. That the latter implies a real humanity, exposed to the same kind of sufferings as all men have to endure, is unequivocally asserted :-ăvoрwжоs оμoιoпans πᾶσιν, ἀληθῶς γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος ἀντιληπτικὸς παθῶν, ἀληθῶς παθητὸς ἄνθρωπος.5 The two natures were united iuto one person. This is not, indeed, categorically stated by Justin; but it is implied in his whole treatment of the subject, and the following passage, in which the agony in Gethsemane is ascribed to the Son of God, evidently in the highest sense of that term, appears conclusive :-this occurred "that we may know that the Father has wished his own Son to be truly involved even in such sufferings on our account, and that we may not say that he, as being the Son of God, did not feel the things that were done and occurred to him." This sentence, though primarily intended to assert the reality of Christ's human nature in opposition to the Docetæ, would entirely lose its force if Justin could have admitted the supposition that the sufferings of the body were felt only by the man, and did not extend themselves to the incarnate Logos. This complete incorporation of the divine Sonship with suffering humanity is well expressed in Justin's two favourite phrases, avoрwжоs γενόμενος (or variations of these words) and σαρκοποιηθείς. 1 Ap. II. c. 8. 3 Dial. c. 57, quoted by Tryphon from Justin. 5 Dial. c. 99. 7 Ap. I. cc. 5, 23 (twice), 32, 42, 50, 53, 63 (twice); 2 Dial. c. 71. 4 Dial. c. 98. 6 Dial. c. 103. cc. 48, 57, 64, 67, 68 (twice), 76, 85, 100, 101, 125 (twice). Ap. II. c. 13; Dial. 8 Ap. I. cc. 32, 66 (twice); Dial. cc. 45, 84, 87, 100. Compare rou owμaroποιήσασθαι αυτόν, Dial. c. 70. Whether Justin believed that the humanity of Christ included the highest as well as the lowest elements of human nature has been disputed. In one passage he casually describes Christ as consisting of καὶ σῶμα καὶ λόγον καὶ ψυχήν. Accord ing to one interpretation of these words, he here teaches the doctrine which in later times was maintained by Apollinaris, that in the triple division of human nature into σῶμα, ψυχή, and vous or veûμa, the place of the last in Christ was supplied by the Logos. It is possible, however, that Justin uses 4x in a wider sense as comprehending the whole of the vital and mental principle in man, as in speaking of the future life he is content with a reference to owμa and yvxý,2 and as Apollinaris himself allows to the word this larger significance in one of the surviving fragments of his writings. We must not omit to notice that the fourth Gospel, though not in any doctrinal passage, ascribes both veûμa and ʊx to Christ. To this, however, no more dogmatic significance can be attached than to Justin's ascription of spirit [veûua] to him when he says that he gave up the spirit on the cross. On the whole, it appears to me most probable, in the absence of any indubitable statements to the contrary, that Justin quietly assumed the completeness of Christ's humanity, but that he did so without a conscious rejection of the particular form of doctrine which seated the Logos in the place of the human vous. 6 On the question how and when the incarnation took place, the fourth Gospel not only, as I have said, maintains an absolute silence, but allows the objection of the Jews,-" Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?"-to pass without correction; and it gives no answer to their inquiry, "How then does he say, I have come down out of heaven?" If the writer had any answer except that this was a spiritual mystery, credible to those who had tasted the bread of life that came down from heaven, but incomprehensible to others, his silence is most difficult to explain. Justin, however, is not so reticent. The incarnation took place by means of the miraculous conception and the birth from a virgin. He refers to this subject upwards of thirty times; but it will be sufficient for our purpose to notice those passages in which the Logos doctrine and the birth from a virgin are brought into the closest connection. This is done in the very first allusion to the subject:-" When we say that the Logos, which is the first offspring of God, has been begotten without intercourse, namely, Jesus Christ our teacher," &c.1 Again, "The first power after the Father. . . is the Logos; and in what way he being made flesh became man we shall tell in what follows. . . . He was born through a virgin, ... through the power of God."2 ".. a Son to the Father of the universe, who being Logos and first-born of God is also God.... And now in the times of your empire having become man through a virgin according to the counsel of the Father," &c. So in the Dialogue: Through a virgin's womb the first-born of all created things being made flesh became truly a child." "This Son of God and first-born of all creation, born through a virgin, and become man," &c.5 "You say that he pre-existed as God, and that according to the counsel of God having been made flesh he was born as man through the virgin." "He was only-begotten to the Father of the universe, having sprung in a peculiar manner from him as Logos and power, and afterwards having become man through the virgin." In one passage Justin expresses himself differently, and says that Jesus. was born "through the power of the Logos [Sià Svváμews Toû Xóyov],... through a virgin." But this simply implies that the Logos, as the agent through whom the Father carried on his operations, was himself active in the miraculous conception, and is therefore not inconsistent with the other statements. We have thus compared the doctrines of the fourth Gospel and of Justin step by step, and it seems to me that the statement of the latter is, beyond all question, in a more developed form than that of the Gospel. Not only is every point in the Johannine doctrine contained in Justin's, but almost every portion of it is presented with amplifications, its ambiguous statements are resolved into the requisite number of definite propositions, and questions which it suggests, but does not answer, are dogmatically settled. It cannot well be maintained that the Gospel represents in a condensed form the same phase of ecclesiastical thought; for then it would not exhibit the ambiguities or raise the unanswered questions to which I have alluded, or omit altogether the method of the incarnation. In short, while Justin's doctrine may be used as a commentary on the Johannine, the latter cannot be regarded as a summary of the former. Whatever, therefore, may be the date of the Gospel, it represents an earlier stage of ecclesiastical dogma. Most striking is the way in which Justin brings the synoptical tradition of the miraculous birth into connection with the Logos doctrine. Here the phenomena are precisely what we should expect if it was thought necessary to harmonize the fourth Gospel with the Synoptics; and if we arrange the three views, miraculous birth without Logos doctrine, Logos doctrine without miraculous birth, and Logos doctrine along with miraculous birth, and remember that the last is the permanent ecclesiastical dogma, I do not see how it is possible to believe that the middle one, the Johannine, is the latest of the three, or that a Gospel containing it was likely either to be written or to force its way into universal acceptance as an apostolic work at a time when the enduring dogma of the Church had been already formulated. All difficulty vanishes. if we suppose that the beliefs exhibited respectively by the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel existed at first in their detached form, and then, on account of the authority of the. writings in which they appeared, were held to be equally binding on the faith of Christendom, and were harmonized accordingly. So far our examination has not furnished immediate evidence that Justin was acquainted with the fourth Gospel. Its value in this direction has been chiefly negative. It has removed the objection that Justin's doctrine belongs to an earlier period than the Johannine, and shewn that it really represents a later phase of development; and to this extent it favours the hypothesis that the Gospel is the earlier composition. There are, however, certain features in Justin's way of unfolding his subject which afford some positive evidence, -evidence, indeed, of a delicate character, and not placed beyond the reach of doubt, but valuable to the really critical mind, which is content patiently to weigh probabilities, and does not impetuously thrust aside as worthless every argument which falls short of demonstration. To these we must now address ourselves. It seems most probable that some evangelical document esteemed authoritative by Christians contained a doctrine of the Logos which Justin believed to be substantially identical with his own. In the absence of express quotation, and with our author's want of strictness and accuracy in the use of language, there is room for uncertainty; but the following indications point in this direction. Justin apparently assumes throughout that he is defending, not some new opinions of his own, but the faith of the great body of Christian believers. He candidly admits that "some" did not entertain the same opinion as himself in regard to the divine nature of Christ; but this word "some" implies that the majority of Christians were on his side. He adds: "With these I do not agree; nor should I even if most who thought as I do [that is, most Christians] should affirm it [Christ's natural human descent], since we have been ordered by Christ himself not to believe human doctrines, but those which were preached through the blessed prophets and were taught through him." Here again it is clearly implied that Justin, in his own conception, represented the opinion of “most.” Further, it is evident from the last quotation, unless its solemn appeal is quite irrelevant, that he supported his doctrine of the supernatural sonship of Jesus by the authority 1 Dial. c. 48. |