Jesus being the son of Joseph began soon to give way to the authority of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and that it became extinct long before the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ.

V.

Of Justin Martyr's Account of the Knowledge of some Christians of low Rank.

It is likewise said that the testimony of Tertullian is expressly contradicted by Justin Martyr *, who, in giving an account of the circumstances in which the platonic philosophy agreed, as he thought, with the doctrine of Moses, but with respect to which he supposed that Plato had borrowed from Moses, mentions. the following particulars; viz. "the power which was after the first God, or the Logos," assuming the figure of a cross in the universe, borrowed from the fixing up of a serpent (which represented Christ) in the form of a cross in the wilderness; and a third principle, bor. rowed from the spirit which Moses said moved on the face of the water at the creation; and also the notion of some fire or conflagration, borrowed from some figurative expressions in Moses relating to the anger God waxing hot. "These things," he says, "we do not borrow from others, but all others from us. With us you may hear and learn these things from those who do not know the form of the letters, who are rude and barbarous of speech, but wise and understanding in mind; and from some who are even lame and blind; so that you may be convinced that these things are not said by human wisdom, but by the power of God."

Edit. Thirlby, p. 88.

of

But all that we can infer from this passage is, that these common people had learned from Moses that the world was made by the power and wisdom (or the Logos) of God; that the serpent in the wilderness represented Christ; and that there was a spirit of God that moved on the face of the waters; in short, that these plain people had been at the source from which Plato had borrowed his philosophy. It is by no means an explicit declaration that these common people thought that the Logos and the Spirit were persons distinct from God. Justin was not writing with a view to that question, as Tertullian was; but only meant to say how much more knowledge was to be found among the lowest of the christians than among the wisest of the heathen philosophers.

Besides, Justin is here boasting of the knowledge of these lower people, and it favoured his purpose to make it as considerable as he could; whereas Tertullian is complaining of the circumstance which he mentions: so that nothing but the conviction of a disagreeable truth could have extorted it from him. The same was the case with respect to Athanasius.

That the common people in Justin's time should understand his doctrine concerning the personification of the Logos, is in itself highly improbable. That this Logos, which was originally in God the same thing that reason is in man, should at the creation of the world assume a proper personality, and afterwards animate the body of Jesus Christ, either in addition to a human soul, or instead of it, is not only very absurd, but also so very abstruse, that it is in the highest degree improbable, à priori, that the common people should have adopted it. The scriptures, in which they

were chiefly conversant, could never teach them any such thing, and they could not have been capable of entering into the philosophical refinements of Justin on the subject. Whereas, that the common people - should have believed as Tertullian and Athanasius re. present them to have done, viz. that there is but one God; and that Christ was a man, the messenger or prophet of God, and no second God at all, the rival as it were of the first God, is a thing highly credible in itself, and therefore requires less external evidence.

VI.

Of the Passage in Justin Martyr concerning the Unitarians of his Time*.

I think myself possessed of so much evidence in favour of the unitarian doctrine having been maintained in the first ages of christianity, that I have no occasion to be solicitous about trifles with respect to it; and even with regard to the much-contested passage in

* Και γαρ εισι τινες απο του ημετέρου γενους ὁμολογουντες αυτον Χριστον είναι, ανθρωπον δε εξ ανθρωπων γενομενον αποφαινόμενοι· οἷς ου συντιθεμαι, ουδ' αν πλείστοι ταυτα μοι δοξασαντες είποιεν, επειδη ουκ ανθρωπείοις δίδαγμασι κεκελευσμεθα ὑπ' αυτού του Χριστου πείθεσθαι, αλλα τοις δια των μακαριων προφητων κηρυχθείσι, και δι' AUTOU didaxlεici. Edit. Thirlby, p. 234. αυτου διδαχθεισι.

Thus rendered by my opponent the Monthly Reviewer:

"There are some of our profession who acknowledge him to be the Christ, and yet maintain that he was a man born in the natural way; to whom I could not yield my assent, no not even if the majority of christians should think the same; because we are commanded by Christ himself not to rely on human doctrines, but to receive those which were published by the blessed prophets, and which he himself taught us."

By my Vindicator, more literally:

"There are some of our race [viz. Gentiles] who acknowledge him to be the Christ, and yet maintain that he was a man born

Justin Martyr, above referred to, and of which I made some use in my late History, vol. i. p. 17, it is quite sufficient for my purpose that the writer here speaks of unitarians with tenderness, and is far from treating them as heretics; and in this I think every reasonable man, who considers the manner in which this writer speaks of heretics in general, (on which occasion he specifies none but Gnostics,) will agree with me. If any person think otherwise, I have nothing further to say, and our readers must judge between us.

I cannot help thinking, however, with my learned Vindicator, that this passage, more critically examined, furnishes a still stronger evidence in favour of the prevalence of the unitarian doctrine in the time of Justin.

1. Let it be considered that, in this place, as well as in his writings in general, he labours the proof of the pre-existence of Christ, showing that it is consonant to the principles of platonism, and also deducible from the writings of Moses, and other parts of the Jewish scriptures, without referring to any other writer in support of what he advances.

2. He does not use a single acrimonious expression against those who differed from him with respect to it; which is just as any man would do who should write in defence of a novel or not very prevalent opinion, and one of which himself was the principal abettor. He even provides a retreat in case he should not be

in the natural way; to whom I do not assent, though the majo rity may have told me that they had been of the same opinion," &c.

Some conjecture that the original reading was uμETEρOU, instead of nerεpou; and then it should be rendered some of your race, meaning the Jewish christians. But there is no authority for this from any manuscript.

able to prove his point; saying that, though he should fail in this, it would not follow that he was mistaken in the other; for that still Jesus might be the Messiah, (which was evidently a matter of the first consequence with him,) though he should be nothing more than a

man.

3. He talks of not being overborne by the authority of any number of men, even his fellow christians, but would adhere to the words of Christ and the sense of scripture; which is a style almost peculiar to those whose opinions are either quite novel, or at least not very prevalent.

4. The phrase "neither do I "neither do I agree with the majority of christians, who may have objected to my opi nion," which is nearly the most literal rendering of the passage, (though I would not be understood to lay much stress on that circumstance,) will naturally be construed to mean that the majority actually did make the objection, or that Justin suspected they might make it.

When I consider these circumstances, and also how apt all persons are to make their own party more numerous than it really is, I am inclined to think that, even if the passage might bear such a construction as that Justin meant to insinuate that the majority were with him, yet that it would not be the most natural construction, or a sufficient authority to conclude that such was the fact. I therefore think that, upon the whole, the passage has all the appearance of an apology (which is all that I have asserted) for an opinion different from that which in his time was commonly received on the subject.

I am, no doubt, influenced in my construction of