Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/645

 He loosens the power of the devil (ib. 94, § 322 ); He removes death (ib. 105, § 332); by His blood He purifies those who believe (Apol i. 32, § 74 ): hence, He, as crucified is the Priest, the Eternal High Priest (cf. Dial. 116, 343 ). Man's power to keep blameless, and to drive out devils, follows the economy of His Passion (ib. 31, § 247 ). Hence He is called βοηθός and λυτρωτής (ib. 30, § 247 ), the hope of Christians is hung on the crucifixion of Christ (ib. 96, § 323 ). By His stripes we are healed (ib. 17, § 234 ), 336 ). So He is the Paschal Lamb, Who saves from death by the sprinkling of blood (ib. 111, § 338 ). He saved, by submitting to that which all men deserved for sin, i.e. the curse pronounced on all who kept not the law; therefore He was crucified, because the curse lay on crucifixion; but He was no more under God's curse when He endured our curse than was the brazen serpent, which was ordered by God, though He had condemned all images. God saved of old by an image without violating the Second Commandment; He saves now, by a Crucified, those who are worthy of the curse, without, for that, laying His curse on the Crucified. It is the Jews, and not God, who now fulfil the text by"cursing Him that hung on the tree" (ib. 96, 323). This cross and suffering the Father willed for man's sake, that on His Christ might fall the curse of all men: He willed it, knowing that He would raise Him again from this death, as Christ testified on the cross by His appeal to the Father. This coming of Christ to be despised, to suffer, to die, is justified by many appeals to prophecy, especially to Ps. xxii. (ib. 98, § 325), to Jacob's blessing, Gen. xlix. 8, 12, etc. It is the "hidden power of God which is exhibited in the crucified Christ " (ib. 49, § 269 ). This power (ἰσχὺς τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ σταυροῦ, ib. 91, § 318 ) began to manifest its hidden efficacy from the day of the resurrection; those who have faith in the cross, and exercise penitence, are, through the power of Christ, the great and eternal priest, stripped of the filthy garments of sin, and clothed with new robes, and made priests, through whom everywhere sacrifices are offered (ib. 116, § 344). Christ Himself is raised from the grave, to be led up into heaven, by the Father, there to dwell until He shall strike down all the devils His enemies and the number of the elect righteous shall be fulfilled, when He will be shewn in glory on the throne of His manifested kingdom. Then will be the great judgment of devils and sinners which is delayed solely for the sake of gathering in all who may yet be willing to believe and repent (Apol. i. 45, § 82 ; ii. 7, § 45 ); till it comes, Christ sends down power on His Apostles, by which they, and all who will, consecrate them selves to the one God (ib. i. 50, § 86 ; 49, § 85 ). This present efficacy of Christ is evident in the power of Christians over devils, who are bound and expelled by their adjuration (cf. Dial. 76, § 302 ). This power, offered to all, manifests itself especially among the Gentiles, and is rejected by Jew and Samaritan, as many a prophecy had foretold (ib. 91, § 319 ; cf. 120 § 348, etc. to end of Dial.). It calls men by the road of faith into friendship and blessing, penitence, and compunction, and assures them of a kingdom to come, eternal and incorruptible (cf. ib. 139, § 369 ). All on whom the power of the cross comes are gathered with one mind into one synagogue, one church, a church born of and called by His name, addressed by the Word in Scripture as His daughter, "Hearken, O daughter" (ib. 63, § 287 ). This church is described, with St. Paul, as one body, ἓν καλεῖται καὶ ἔστι σῶμα (ib. 42, § 261 ).

The eternal kingdom comes with Christ's second advent, in glory, as judge. He will judge every man, up to Adam himself (ib. 132, § 362 ); then shall sinners and devils weep, for to them He will allot a place in that eternal fire which will destroy this world; believers He will admit to the kingdom, recalling the dead to life and establishing them in an eternal and indissoluble kingdom, themselves incorruptible, immortal, painless (ib. 117, § 345, ). This is the Melchisedec, King of Salem, eternal Priest of the Most High, Who will remake a new heaven and a new earth, into which holy land His circumcised shall enter (ib.113, § 341 ). This kingdom is generally spoken of as in heaven, as not earthly (cf. Apol. i. 11, § 59, etc.); it is a home with God, for the sake of which Christians easily despise all earthly delights and lusts and the fear of death. In one famous passage in the Dialogue (80, § 306 ; cf. 113, § 341 ) he accepts the Jewish belief of a millennium in a restored and beautified Jerusalem; he claims to have dealt already with this point, though no such explanation is in the Dialogue; many share this belief with him, he says, yet many pious and orthodox Christians reject it; only those who are, according to Justin, ὁρθογνώμονες κατὰ πάντα Χριστιανοί, hold this faith with him, based on Is. lxv. 17 and on the Revelation of "one of themselves, by name John, an apostle of Christ," who speaks of a first resurrection and then a second eternal resurrection and judgment of all men. Evidently there are no words of our Lord's to support this belief; it is a pious opinion, resting on the literal reading of the Apocalypse, held by the most strict believers, but not necessary to a pure and true faith (καθαρὰ καὶ εὐσεβὴς γνώμη). Far different are those who deny the future resurrection of the body altogether and believe in an immediate entrance of the souls of Christians into heaven: "let Trypho beware of deeming such to be Christians at all." The resurrection of the body is a cardinal point of Justin's creed (cf. Apol. i. 18 ff.); essential to the reality of future punishment, and to the fullness of a Christian's security against all loss in death, and justified by an appeal to the wonder of our first creation and to Christ's miracles (Dial. 69, § 296 ).

When this Advent will be, we know not, though it maybe soon. It will be preceded by the appearance of the Man of Iniquity.

On the action of the Third Person, Justin is not so definite; he is continually speaking of Him, but His person and office are not always distinguished with precision from those of the Second Person. He is there, in Justin's creed, a recognized element in it, constantly occurring; but apparently Justin's metaphysic had not yet had time or occasion to dwell on this point with anxiety or exactness. The most