Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/662

 JUSTIN

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JUSTIN

soul (Dial., iii, vi). Nevertheless he still seems influ- enced by it in his conception of the Divine transcen- dency and the interpretation that he gives to the aforesaid theophanies.

Justin and Christian Revelation. — That which Justin despairs of attaining through pliilosophy he is now sure of possessing through Jewish and Christian reve- lation. He admits that the soul can naturally com- prehend that God is, just as it understands that virtue is beautiful (Dial., iv); but he denies that the soul without the assistance of the Holy Ghost can see God or contemplate Him directly through ecstasy, as the Platonic philosophers contended. And yet this knowl- edge of God is necessary for us: "We cannot know God as we know music, arithmetic or astronomy" (iii) ; it is necessary for us to know God not with an abstract knowledge but as we know any person with whom we have relations. The problem which it seems impossible to solve is settled by revelation; God has spoken directly to the Prophets, who in their turn have made Him known to us (viii). It is the first time in Christian theology that we find so concise an explana- tion of the difference which separates Christian revela- tion from human speculation. It does away with the confusion that might arise from the theory, taken from the ' ' Apology ", of the partial Logos and the Logos absolute or entire.

The Bible of Justin. — A. The Old Testament. — For Philo the Bible is very particularly the Pentateuch (Ryle, "Philo and Holy Scripture", XVII, London, 1S95, 1-2S2). In keeping with the difference of his purpose, Justin has other preferences. He quotes the Pentateuch often and liberally, especially Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy; but he quotes still more frequently and at greater length the Psalms and the Books of Prophecy — above all, Isaias. The Books of Wisdom are seldom quoted, the historical books still less. The books that we never find in his works are Judges, Esdras (except in one passage which is attrib- uted to him by mistake — Dial., Ixxii), Tobias, Judith, Esther, Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Abdias, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus. It has been no- ticed, too (St. Jolin Thackeray in " Journ. of Theol. Study", IV, 1903, 26.5, n. 3), that he never cites the last chapters of Jeremias (apropos of the first " Apol- ogy", xlvii. Otto is wrong m his reference to Jer., 1, 3). Of these omissions the most noteworthy is that of Wisdom, precisel}' on account of the similarity of ideas. It is to be noted, moreover, that this book, surely used in the New Testament, cited by St. Clem- ent of Rome (xxvii, 5) and later by St. Irena'us (Eu- seb., Hist, eccl., V, viii, S; V, xxvi), is never met with in the works of the apologists (the reference of Otto to Tatian, vii, is inexact). On the other hand one finds in Justin some apocryphal texts: pseudo-Esdras (Dial., Ixxii), pseudo-,Ieremias (ibid.), Ps. xcvi (xcv), 10 (Dial., Ixxii; I Apol., xli); sometimes also errors in ascribing quotations: Zacharias for Malachias (Dial., xlix), Osee for Zacharias (Dial., xiv). For the Bibli- cal text of Justin, see Swete, "Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek", Cambridge, 1902, 417-24.

B. The New Testament. — The testimony of Justin is here of still greater importance, especially for the Gospels, and has been more often discussed. The historical side of the question is given by W. Bousset, "Die Evangeliencitaten Justins" (Gottingen, 1891), 1-12, and since then, by Baldus, " Das Verhaltniss Jus- tins der Mart, zu unseren synopt. Evangelien " (Miin- ster, 1895); Lippelt, "Qua; fuerint Justinimart. iiroii- vriixoveinaTa quaque ratione cum forma Evangeliorum syro-latina cohjeserint" (Halle, 1901). The books quoted by Justin are called by him " Memoirs of the Apostles". This term, otherwise very rare, appears in Justin quite probably as an analogy with the "Memorabilia" of Xenophon (quoted in "II .\pol.", XI, .3) and from a desire to accommodate his language to the liabit.s of mind of his readers. At any rate it

seems that henceforth the word "gospels" was in cur- rent usage; it is in Justin that we find it for the first time used in the plural, "the Apostles in their me- moirs that are called gospels" (I Apol., Ixvi, 3). These memoirs have authority, not only because they relate the words of Our Lord (as Bousset contends, oji. cit., 16 seq.), but because, even in their narrative parts, they are considered as Scripture (Dial., xlix, citing Matt., xvii, 13). This opinion of Justin is up- held, moreover, by the Church who, in her public ser- vice reads the memoirs of the Apostles as well as the writings of the prophets (I Apol., Ixvii, 3). These memoirs were composed by the Apostles and by those who followed them (Dial., ciii); he refers in all prob- ability to the four Evangelists, i. e. to two Apostles and two disciples of Christ (Stanton, "New Testa- ment Canon" in Hastings, "Dictionary of the Bible", III, 535). The authors, however, are not named: once (Dial., ciii) he mentions the "memoirs of Peter", but the text is very obscure and uncertain (Bousset, op. cit., 18).

All facts of the life of Christ that Justin takes from these memoirs are found indeed in our Gospels (Bal- dus, op. cit., 13 sqq.); he adds to them a few other and less important facts (I Apol., xxxii; xxxv; Dial., XXXV, xlvii, li, Ixxviii, Ixxxviii), but he does not assert that he found them in the memoirs. It is quite prob- able that Justin used a concordance, or harmony, in which were united the three synoptic Gospels (Lip- pelt, op. cit., 14, 94) and it seems that the text of this concordance resembled in more than one point the so- called Western text of the Gospels (cf. ibid., 97). Jus- tin's dependence on St. John is indisputably established by the facts which he takes from him (I Apol.,lxi, 4, 5; Dial., Ixix, Ixxxviii), still more by the very strik- ing similarity in vocabulary and doctrine. It is cer- tain, however, that Justin does not use the fourth Gospel as abundantly as he does the others (Purves, op. cit., 233); this may be owing to the aforesaid con- cordance, or harmonj', of the synoptic Gospels. He seems to use the apocrvphal Gospel of Peter (I Apol., xxxv, 6; cf. Dial., ciii: Revue Biblique, III, 1894, 531 sqq.; Harnack, " Bruchstucke des Evang. des Petrus", Leipzig, 1893, 37). His dependence on the Protevan- gelium of James (Dial., Ixxviii) is doubtful.

Apologctical method. — Justin's attitude towards phi- losophy, described above, reveals at once the ten- dency of his polemics; he never exhibits the indig- nation of a Tatian or even of a Tertullian. To the hideous calumnies spread abroad against the Christians he sometimes answers, as do the other apologists, by taking the offensive and attacking pagan morality (I Apol., xxvii; II, xii, 4, 5), but he dislikes to insist on these calumnies: the interlocutor in the " Dialogue " does not care to believe them, nor does Justin wish to enter into discussion with the " deluded mob " whom he barely mentions (II Apol., iii, 2) ; in the " Dialogue " (ix) he is careful to ignore those who would trouble him with their loud laughter. He has not the elo- quence of Tertullian, and can obtain a hearing only in a small circle of men capable of understanding reason and of being moved by an idea. His chief argument, and one calculated to convert his hearers as it had eon- verted him (II Apol., xii), is the great new fact of Christian morality. He speaks of men and women who have no fear of death (I AjioL, ii, xi, xlv; II, ii; Dial., xxx), who prefer truth to life (I Apol., ii; II, iv) and are yet ready to await the time allotted by God (II,,iv, 1); he makes known their devotion to their children (I, xxvii), their continency (I, xxix), their love of peace (I, xxxix), their charity even to- wards their enemies, and their desire to save them (I Apol.. Ivii; Dial., cxxxiii), their patience and their prayers in persecution (Dial., xviii), their love of man- kind (Dial., xciii, ex). When he contrasts the life that they led in paganism with their Christian life (I Apol., xiv), he expresses the same feeling of deUv-