Justin, who is said to have derived his surname from having suffered
martyrdom about a.d. 166-167, is the first of the Fathers who shows any
detailed acquaintance with the statements found in the Gospels. A large
number of spurious works have been attributed to him, but we take as
genuine the Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew. In the first
of these (chap, xlvi.) he indicates that he wrote about 150 years after
the birth of Jesus. He was born at Neapolis in Palestine, being by
descent a Greek, and in the early part of his life a heathen. He tells
us he was converted to Christianity by an old man, whom his biographer,
Father Halloix, thinks may have been an incarnate angel. Tillemont, the
learned Catholic historian, considers this highly probable. Fabricius
thought it was Bishop Polycarp, but Credner considers the narrative
a fiction. It is difficult to believe that his Apologies were ever
presented to the Roman Emperors or that his Dialogue with the Jew
represents an actual controversy with an opponent.
Dr. Jortin speaks of Justin as "of a warm and credulous temper"
("Remarks on Ecclesiastical History," chap, xv., p. 243, vol. i., 1846),
aind Mosheim declares "The learned well know that Justin Martyr is not
to be considered in every respect as an oracle, but that much of what
he relates is wholly undeserving of credit" ("Commentaries," vol i.,
p. 112; 1813). The Rev. John Jones includes him among those who did not
scruple to use forged writings.
In chapters 20 and 44 of his first Apology, for instance, he appeals
to the Sibylline book of prophecies respecting Christ and his kingdom,
which it has been proved to a demonstration by David Blondell and
others, were forged by some early Christians with a view to persuading
the ignorant and unsuspecting heathen that their oracles had
foretold Christ. Celsus, the heathen, detected and pointed out this
falsification.* He quotes spurious productions of Hystaspes, of Orpheus
and Sophocles, in which Christians had foisted their own ideas. For
not content with counterfeiting the writings of celebrities among
themselves, they were equally unscrupulous in regard to the writings of
the Pagans.
* Origen, bk. vii;, 53; p. 475:--The Sibyl was appealed to
by Theophilus and other early Christian apologists. The
author of "Questiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos," a work
falsely ascribed to Justin, says that Clement of Rome, in
his epistle to the Corinthians, appeals to the writings of
the Sibyl. In the present version there is no such allusion.
Justin confidently affirms that Plato and Aristophanes mention the
ancient Sibyl as a prophetess, and he gravely relates concerning her
being the daughter of Berosus, who wrote the Chaldean history.
He says (1st Apol., chap. xxi., p. 25): "And when we say also that the
Word, who is the first birth of God, was produced without sexual union,
and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose
again and ascended into heaven, we propound _nothing different_ from
what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." He
argues (chap, xxiii., p. 27) that devils inspired the heathen poets and
priests to relate beforehand the Christian narratives as having already
happened; and makes out (chap, liv.) that the devils, knowing
the prophetic words of Moses, invented the stories of Bacchus and
Bellorophon; "And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah
that he should be born of a virgin, and by his own means ascend into
heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of." And so with Hercules
and AEculapius. All of which puts us in mind of the learned divine who
argued that God put the fossils into the earth less than 6000 years
ago, in order to deceive the geologists and exhibit the vanity of human
knowledge.
Justin also informs us (Apol., lxvi.) that through the suggestions
of wicked demons, bread and wine were placed before the persons to be
initiated into the mysteries of Mithras in imitation of the Eucharist.
He could believe that Jesus, sitting at a table, actually offered his
own body and blood to eat and drink, but the idea that the Christian
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was copied from the Mysteries never
struck him. Having plenty of devils he put them to a deal of use. He
tells us how they came into existence: "God committed the care of men
and of all things under heaven to angels whom he appointed over them.
But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by
love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons"
(2nd Apol. v., p. 75). These subdued the human race partly by magical
writings and partly by fears and punishments. Not content with inventing
the heathen mythology they raised up the Samaritans, Simon and Menander,
"who did many mighty works by magic." This is what he says the Jews said
of Jesus (Dial, chap. Ixix). Justin twice has the audacity to assert
that the Romans erected a statue to the Samaritan Simon, as a god. He
gives the inscription Simoni Deo Sancto. To Simon the Holy God. This, if
not a fraud, was a very gross error. Apart from the unlikelihood of the
story and its absence of corroboration by any heathen writer, a fragment
has been found with the inscription "Semoni Sanco Deo," being probably
the base of a statue erected to the Sabine Deity, Semo Sancus. He
further charges the Romans with human sacrifices in celebrating the
mysteries of Saturn; a charge absolutely false and unsupported by
any Pagan author, although repeated by the Christian Fathers, Tatian,
Cyprian, Tertullian, Lactantius, Epiphanius, etc. Justin also says the
devils put forward and aided Marcion the follower of Paul, who accused
the other apostles of having perverted the Gospel doctrines. He
frequently alleges that the Christians cast out devils in the name of
Jesus Christ, and that women and men among them possessed prophetic
gifts, but he gives no special instance of any miracle wrought in his
own time. He makes maniacs and demoniacs to be possessed by the spirits
of the dead, and appeals to "necromancy, divination by immaculate
children, dream-senders and assistant spirits" in proof of life after
death (immortality he seems to have considered the gift of God). All the
early Fathers believed in necromancy. Lactantius ("Divine Institutes,"
book iv., chap, xxvii.) calls it the most certain proof of Christianity,
because those who are skilled in calling forth the spirits of the dead
bring Jupiter and other gods from the lower regions, but not Christ, for
he was not more than two days there. Justin says we ought to pray that
the evil angel may not seize our soul when it departs from the body.
He makes the victory over Amalek a type of Christ's victory over demons,
and declares that Isaiah said evil angels inhabit the land of Tanis in
Egypt. He declares of the Jews in the wilderness: "The latchets of your
shoes did not break, and your shoes waxed not old, and your garments
wore not away, but _even those of the children grew along with them_"
("Dialogue with Trypho," 131, p. 266.) This is a very consistent
addition to the fable found in Deut xxix., 5.
He charges (Dial., chap, lxxii.) the Jews with having removed passages
from Ezra and Jeremiah, and in the following chapter with having taken
away the words "from the wood" in the passage from the ninety-sixth
Psalm, "Tell ye among the nations the Lord hath reigned '_from the
wood._''" To which the note appended in the "Ante-Nicene Christian
Library" edition (p. 189) is "These words were not taken away by the
Jews, but added by some Christian."--Otto. Tertullian follows Justin in
regard to this passage.
He complains of their rejecting the Septuagint version, and gravely
tells how Ptolemy, King of Egypt, had seventy different translators shut
up in seventy separate cots or cells for the purpose of translating the
Hebrew Scriptures. After the completion Ptolemy found the seventy men
"had not only given the same meaning but had employed the same words,"
whereupon he believed "the translation had been written by divine
power." Byway of proof that he narrates no fable, he says, "We
ourselves, having been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the little
cots still preserved" ("Address to Greeks" chap. xiii., p. 300). Ptolemy,
however, he makes contemporary with Herod (Apol. xxxi., 33.) Christ,
he says, suffered under Herod the Ascalonite. He calls Moses the first
Prophet, yet declares "He was predicted before he appeared, first, 5000
years before, and again 3000, then 2000, then 1000, and yet again 800;
in the succession of generations, prophets after prophets arose" (1st
Apol., chap, xxxi., p. 38). David, he makes to have lived 1500 B.C.
Speaking of the Polygamy of the patriarchs (Dial., chap, cxxxiv.,
p. 269) he tells us "certain dispensations of weighty mysteries were
accomplished in each act of this sort." "The marriages of Jacob were
types of that which Christ was about to accomplish." The bloodthirsty
General Joshua was a type of Christ, and the sun standing still by his
order shows "how great the power was of the name of Jesus in the Old
Testament" He tells us the two advents were prefigured by the two goats,
and continually finds clear prophecies of Christianity in passages which
have not the remotest allusion to it. To give one instance, he says:
'And that it was foreknown that these infamous things should be uttered
against those who confessed Christ, and that those who slandered
him, and said it was well to preserve the ancient customs, should be
miserable, hear what was briefly said by Isaiah, it is this: 'Woe unto
them that call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.' Such interpretations
are innumerable in Justin.
In his 1st Apology, chap, lv., "On Symbols of the Cross," he says the
seas cannot be sailed without cross-shaped masts, nor the earth tilled
save with cross-shaped instruments. "And the human form differs from
animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands
extended, and having on the face, extending from the forehead, what
is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living
creature, and this shows no other form than that of the cross. And so
it was said by the prophet, 'The breath before our face is the Lord
Christ,' which is a perversion of Lam. iv., 20: 'The breath of our
nostrils, the anointed of the Lord.'"
He put into the mouth of his antagonist Trypho, the following words
which possibly represent the usual position taken up by the Jews: "But
Christ--if he has indeed been born and exists anywhere--is unknown, and
does not even know himself, and has no power until Elias come to anoint
him, and make him manifest to all. And you having accepted a
groundless report, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake are
inconsiderately perishing" (chap, viii., p. 97). In answer to this home
thrust, Justin promises "I shall prove to you as you stand here that we
have not believed empty fables." Justin was acquainted with the works of
Josephus, and if the passage had been then in existence concerning Jesus
being the Christ, who was punished on the Cross, and who appeared again
the third day, the divine prophets having spoken these and many other
wonders about him; here was the opportunity to bring it forward. Instead
of doing so, or stating who testified to the existence of Christ and his
wonderful works, he rambles off to his favorite argument from prophecy
and piles up a heap of interminable nonsense, which if put forward as a
serious defence of Christianity at the present time, would either excite
suspicion of covert infidelity or be greeted with derision.
In his Apology he twice calls in evidence the Acts of Pilate, but as
with the books of the Sibyl, it is again a Christian forgery and not a
heathen document he refers to. This is clear from one of the passages
he refers to being found in the extant Acts of Pilate or Gospel of
Nicodemus. If any official report had been sent by Pilate, it is not
likely to have related the miracles of the person put to death. Nor
is it probable that Justin would have known the contents of such a
document.
Justin, in the beginning of the second half of the second century,
being the very first Father who tells us of Jesus being God, born of the
Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead and rising again and
ascending into heaven (for the spurious epistles attributed to Ignatius
must be dated after Justin's time) it is important to know where he got
his startling information from. He never once mentions Gospels by either
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He refers indeed at least thirteen
times to "Memoirs" or "Memoirs of the Apostles," but without the least
indication of their nature, number or extent. In one place (Dial.,
106) he seems to identify them with the Gospel of Peter, referred to
by Serapion, Tertullian and Origen. Canon Westcott, who argues that it
refers to the Gospel of Mark, commonly placed under the authority of
Peter, thus translates the passage: "The mention of the fact that Christ
changed the name of Peter, one of the Apostles, and that the event has
been written in his (Peter's) Memoirs." The best authorities agree
that upon strictly critical grounds the passage refers to Peter. The
"Ante-Nicene Christian Library" (p. 233) however reads: "And when it is
said that he changed the name of one of the Apostles to Peter; and when
it is written in the memoirs of him that this so happened." Making the
work referred to to be the memoirs of Jesus.
The only direct mention Justin makes of any writer in the New Testament
is the following: "And further, there was a certain man with us, whose
name was John, one of the Apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a
revelation that was made to him that those who believed in our Christ
would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the
general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men
would likewise take place" (Dial., chap, lxxxi., p. 201). The author
of "Supernatural Religion" says: "The manner in which John is here
mentioned after the memoirs had been so constantly referred to, clearly
shows that Justin did not possess any Gospel also attributed to John"
(vol. i., p. 298; 1879).
This conclusion is corroborated by many circumstances also adduced by
Dr. Davidson. For instance, his doctrine of the Logos is different from
that in the Gospel ascribed to John. He does not mention any of
the miracles found in that Gospel, and instead of knowing the long
discourses given therein, declares "Brief and concise utterances fell
from him, for he was no sophist" (Apol. i., chap, xiv., p. 18).
That he does name John, however, as the author of the Apocalypse, and
refers by name to the Old Testament writers no less than 197 times,
while in about as many passages from the "Memoirs" he never identifies
their writer, unless in that concerning Peter, is surely incompatible
with the idea that they were the Canonical Gospels.
The whole question of the identity of these "Memoirs" with our Gospels
is ably and lengthily dealt with in English on the orthodox side, by
Lardner, Bishop Kaye, Professor Norton, and Canons Westcott and Sanday.
These arguments the inquiring reader should compare with those of
Bishop Marsh, Dr. Giles, Dr. Davidson, and the author of "Supernatural
Religion."
It is evident that the account of the sayings and doings of Jesus in the
"Memoirs" are, in the main, very similar to the Synoptics, especially
Matthew, and it is likely they were the principal materials from which
our canon was formed. But it is not certain if Justin had one document,
two, three, four, or a dozen. In his first Apology (chap, lxvi.) there
is certainly found this expression: "For the apostles in the memoirs
composed by them, _which are called Gospels_, have thus delivered
unto us," etc. (p. 69). But Dr. Donaldson says of the words in
italics "Schliermacher, Marsh, and others, regarded these words as an
interpolation, and they certainly look like one" (Critical History of
Christian Literature, vol. ii., p. 329; 1866).
Except in one or two instances, parallels with our Gospels are only made
by patching together passages from different Gospels. By this process
the connexion is broken, while the quotations in Justin have for the
most part a consecutive order, and, as is shown by the context, had such
an order in the "Memoirs" from which they were taken. While quoting
them nearly 200 times he makes hardly a single allusion to those
circumstances of time and place which are found in our Gospels. He also
gives particulars not to be found in the Canonical books. Thus he says
(Dial., chap, lxxviii,) that Jesus was born in a cave, and cites Isaiah
xxxiii., 16, as prophecying this. This contradicts Luke but is found in
the Gospel of James, the Gospel of the Infancy, and the Gospel according
to the Hebrews. Matthew and Luke give discrepant accounts of the
genealogy of Jesus. Justin differs from both. He traces the Davidian
descent of the Christ through Mary, which again agrees with James. He
nine times mentions the Magi coming from Arabia, not from the East. His
quotation of the angel's message to Mary (Apol. i., 33) agrees better
with the Gospel of James than with Luke or Matthew. Speaking of the
journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlelem, Justin says: "On the occasion of
the first census which was taken in Judaea, under Cyrenius, he (Joseph)
went up from Nazareth, where he lived, to Bethlehem, to which he
belonged, to be enrolled." The differences between the account of Justin
and that in Luke are manifest.
He states that Jesus made ploughs and yokes as a carpenter, which is
found in the Gospel of the Infancy. Thrice he speaks of John as "sitting
by Jordan" (Dial. 49, 51, and 88), and he even narrates that when Jesus
stepped into the water a fire was kindled in the Jordan. This also was
from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Epiphanius gives it from a
version found among the Ebionites. It was also mentioned in another
early Christian publication the "Preaching of Paul." Justin has the Holy
Ghost say to Jesus at his baptism: "This is my beloved son; to-day have
I begotten thee." The same form of expression was used in the Gospel of
the Hebrews, and was so quoted by others of the Fathers.
He says (Dial., ciii.) that when the Jews went out to the Mount of
Olives to take Jesus there was not a single man to help him. This is
in contradiction to all our Gospels. He says that when Herod succeeded
Archelaus, Pilate, by way of compliment, sent to him Jesus bound (chap,
ciii). He tells how they sat Jesus on the judgment seat, and said "Judge
us" (Apol., chap, xxxv.) He also relates that Jesus said: "In whatsoever
things I apprehend you, in those also will I judge you." Grotius and
others think this taken from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Upon
two occasions Justin says that the Jews sent persons about the world to
spread calumnies.
So manifestly has Justin gone to other sources than our four Gospels
that Canon Sanday admits: "Either Justin has used a lost gospel or
gospels, besides those that are still extant, or else he has used a
recension of these gospels with some slight changes of language and
some apocryphal additions" ("The Gospels in the Second Century," p. 129;
1876). We conjecture that the "Memoirs" of Justin were the materials
from which our Gospels were compiled, and that they were similar to or
used in conjunction with the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Credner argues that he used the Gospel of Peter. It is noticeable that
the Diatessaron of Justin's pupil, Tatian, was called by Epiphanius the
Gospel according to the Hebrews. Theodoret tells us that the Nazarenes
made use of the Gospel of Peter, and we know by the testimony of the
Fathers generally that the Nazarene Gospel was that commonly called the
Gospel according to the Hebrews. That Justin used this once celebrated
Gospel seems all the more probable since we have the express testimony
of Eusebius ("Ec. History, iv.," 22) that it was used by Hegesipus,
his contemporary and compatriot.