Justin Martyr, Part Two

The concise word uttered by Christ, the word of him who is himself the Word and Power of God, is also the Power of God….

The Way to Nicaea, John Behr

While Justin’s greatest concern in the Dialogue is the relationship between Scripture and the apostolic preaching, he also deals with the proclamation about Christ. As long as one believes the true proclamation about Christ, there is room for variation on certain matters.

For example, one who believes properly about Christ can also believe that fulfilling the Mosaic prescriptions is necessary, as long as he does not insist others do. A varied view on the millennial kingdom does not stand in the way of an otherwise appropriate Christian faith. So, while he believes there is a standard requirement, variations are permitted on certain matters. But he doesn’t articulate the doctrinal positions expressly.

Justin sees Christ as primarily a teacher. While recognizing that the Word became man so that He can conquer death, he does not emphasize this aspect of Christ’s work and purpose. The work of the Word is revelation, seeing in Scripture a carefully planned economy, with a beginning, a purpose, and an end.

In emphasizing the teaching of Christ, Justin points to the necessity to live as Christ taught. Jesus Christ is “our teacher and interpreter of the prophecies which were not understood,” according to Justin. He writes:

“Let those who are not found living as [Christ] taught be understood to be no Christians, even if they profess with their lips the precepts of Christ.”

This teaching of Christ was made known through the apostles, taken to people of all races who have been persuaded by this teaching.

Justin returns to this theme – the relationship between the Word and the word:

…the identity between revealer and revelation, the scriptural Christ and his interpretation of the Scripture, cannot be divorced into separate categories by restricting the designation “Word of God” to either the medium or the message exclusively.

Behr sees this emphasis on the term “Word” by Justin as due to his desire to dialogue with pagan philosophers. This also influenced Justin’s theology: for example, that God is so transcendent that He needs an intermediary, the Word, to act for Him, to mediate between Himself and creation. He offers as an example the theophany found in Exodus 3, with Moses and the burning bush:

“For no-one, who has but the smallest intelligence, will dare to say that the Maker and Father of all things, having left everything beyond the heavens, became visible on a tiny portion of the earth.”

He concludes it was not God Himself who appeared and spoke with man, but the Word of God who did all these things. The one who appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, who is also called God, is distinct from the Maker in all things – but not in will. He is doing only that which the Creator wished:

Justin is clearly trying to find a way to explain how it is that Jesus Christ is God, yet distinct from the God and Creator of all, his Father.

There are, of course, some problems with this. Keep in mind how early this is in the time of trying to sort out just what is was that the apostles witnessed.

Behr offers that Justin’s effort to dialogue with the pagans undermines the very revelation of God in Christ. Is Christ subordinate in some manner – a messenger or agent or some such? An agent cannot claim, as Christ does, the “he who has seen me has seen the Father.” Ireneus would later criticize this explanation, though without naming Justin directly.

For Ireneus, such subordination would destroy the whole economy: if God himself has not become visible in his Son, Jesus Christ, then no real communion between God and man has been established.

The same debate would be played out a couple of centuries later, between the Arians and Athanasius, the idea of a lower divinity and “true God from true God.”

It is interesting to note, at least from my experience: I have heard the point raised that Christians came to believe the idea of the Trinity, that Jesus was also God, due to the influence of pagan philosophy which corrupted a proper understanding of the Son. But, at least in Justin’s case, the truth seems to be the opposite.

Returning to Behr, there seems to be two Justins: the one in dialogue with the pagans slips into this idea of a subordinate Christ, and the one in dialogue with the Jew Trypho, in which Justin emphasizes Scripture. In the dialogue with the pagans he offers that there is a spark of God in every man (whatever things that were rightly said are the property of Christians), and with Trypho he rejects the possibility of any natural kinship between God and man.

He attempts to bridge this divide by suggesting that the pagans read Moses, thus coming to the truths found in their philosophy. Whatever spark of truth humans have is due to this encounter with the words received in Scripture.

One advantage for Christians: the Christ. Christians know the Word in its entirety rather than only partially, as had the philosophers.

Conclusion

Returning to Jesus Christ, the Word of God:

The Word is the ultimate author of that which is written as well as the meaning of that which is written when interpreted correctly.

A deployment of two different meanings for logos. Yet, it seems, this is the case:

This inherence of the divine Word in the words of Scripture and its meaning, is no mere sophistic play upon as accidental ambiguity, but is of the essence of divine revelation, as we have repeatedly seen: the inseparable unity of revealer and revelation.

With this, I conclude this second post on Justin Martyr with the quote that opened the first:

With Justin we are not yet in a position of analyzing the being of Christ; however, by his extended use of the Word-terminology, his reflection on Scripture, and the beginnings of a sense of the history of revelation it contains, we have moved one step further.

Epilogue

As for the Eucharist, per Justin, it is the flesh and blood of Christ:

Christ is made flesh and blood by the Word of God, and by his word we also make the bread and wine into his flesh and blood.