Theological Vieu-s. — Of the more striking pecxdiarities of Justin's theological system, we present the reader a short but faithful summary from the pen of the late professor C. E. Stowe : " There is in every man a germ of the divine reason, a seed of the Logos, whereby
man is related to God, and becomes capable of forming an idea of God. By this sjjark of the divine intelli- gence the better men among the pagan philosojihers were Ulnminatotl ; but more especially, and far beyond these, the prophets and inspired men of the Old Testa- ment. Still this revelation was only fragmentar}- and partial. Only in Christ was the Logos, the divine rea- son, perfectly revealed. The Logos, the Word, is him- self God, yet from God; the Word the First-begotten, the Power, the primitive Revelation of God. He is the only-begotten of God, yet without any dividing or pour- ing forth of the divme substance, but begotten solely by the will of the Father. The Son was with God before the creation; the Word of the Father, and begotten when God by him in the beginnuig created and ordered aU things. As to his personal subsistence, he is distinct from God, but numerically only, not essentially; and subordinate to the Father, but only insomuch as he has his origin and being from the counsel of the paternal will. As he is the fhst revelation of the Father, so he is the medium of all the subsequent revelations of the divine light and Ufe. He is the Creator and Governor of the world, the universal reason. He dwells in every reasonable being, in different measmre, according to the susceptibility of each individual; and he was the leader and bearer of the Old-Testament theocracy. He is the God who appeared to Moses and to the patriarchs. He it is who said, I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ; and he was with such heathen as Socra- tes, though not with those Mho were ungodly. When the fulness of time had come, this Word, through the Virgin, became flesh, accoriUng to the will of the Fa- ther, that he might participate in and bear our infirmi- ties, and take away from us the curse of the law. In. him were united and made objective the human reason and the divine intelligence; he was in the flesh both man and God incarnate, and thus the Saviour of fallen men. This is the true and the only safe and saving- philosophy ; in comparison with this, all other philoso- phy has only a subordmate value ; this alone works sal- vation, and here only can we recognise the divine, and attain to God. He who is filled with the spirit of Christ derives not his knowledge from the eiTuig, and imperfect, and fragmentary reason, but from the fulness and perfection of reason, which is Christ himself" {Bih- liotheca Sacra, 1852, p. 829 sq.). As a whole, the works of Justin MartjT " everywhere attest," says Dr. Schaff (Ch. Hist, ii, 484), '"his honesty and earnestness, his en- thusiastic love for Christianity, and his fearlessness in its defence against all assaults from without and perver- sions from witliin. Justin was a man of verj' extensive reading, enormous memory, inquiring spirit, and many profound ideas, but wanting in critical discernment. His mode of reasoning is often ingenious and convincing, but sometimes loose and rambling, fanciful and puerile. His style is easy and vivacious, but diffuse and careless. He is tlie first of the Church fathers to bring classical scholarship and Platonic philosophy ui contact with the Christian theology. He found ui Platonism many re- sponses to the Gospel, which he attributed in part to the fragmentary, germ-like revelation of the Logos before the incarnation, and in part to an acquamtance with the Mosaic Scriptures. With him Christ was the abso- lute reason, and Christianity the only true philosopb.y. His sources of theological knowledge are partly the liv- ing Church tradition, parity the Holy Scriptures, from which he cites most frequently, and generally from memory, the Old-Testament prophets (in the Sept.), and the ' Memorials of the Ajwstles,' as he calls the canoni- cal gospels. He expressly mentions the revelation of John. But, like the Pastor Hermte, he nowhere notices Paid, though several allusions to passages of his epistles can hardly be mistaken, and Justin's position towards heathenism was anything but the Ebionistic, and was far more akin to that of Paul. Any dogmatical infer- ence from this silence is the less admissible, since in the genuine -wTitings of this father not one of the apostles
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or evanfjelists is expressly named, but reference is al- wavs made directly to Christ. Justin's exegesis of the Old Testament is typological and Messianic throughout, finding references everj^where to Christ."
Sec Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv, 8-13, 16-18; Jerome, De Vir. Illust. c. 23; Phot. Bibl. cod. 48, 125, 232, 234; M(irt)/rium s. Acta Martyrii Justini, apud Acta Sanc- torum. April, vol. ii ; and apud Opera Justini, edit. Maran and Otto; Halloix, Illustrium Eccl. Orient. Scriptorum 1 'ita, sjccl. ii, p. 151 , etc. ; reprinted, with a Comment. Prm- riiis and A'ctce by Papebroche, in the Acta Samtorum, Aiiril. vol. ii ; Grabe, Spicilegium SS. Patrum, ii, 133 ; Baronius, Annales, ad annos 130, 142, 143, 150, 104, KJo; Pagi, Ciitice inBaronium; Cave, History of Lit- eratitre, i. GO, ed. Oxf. 1740-43; the ecclesiastical histo- ries of Tillemont, ii, 344, etc. ; Fleury, i, 413, etc., 476, etc.,- Dupin, Nouvelle Bibliotheque, etc.; Ceillier, Des Aiiteurs Sacres, ii, 1, etc.; LardneT, Credibility, etc.; Otto, De Justini Martyris Scriptis ; Fabricius, Biblioth. Criec. vii, 52, etc. •, Semisch, Justin der Martyrer (Bres- laii, 1840-2; translated by Ryland in the Biblical Cabi- VI I) ; Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Biog. and My- thnhu/y, ii, 682 sq. ; Bp. Kaye, Writings and Opinions of Jiisi'h, Martyr (2d ed., revised, Lond. 1836, 8vo) ; Kitto, Jdi/ni'i/ S<icrrd Lit. V, 253 sq. ; Roberts and Donaldson, . ! tiiiSiane t 'hristian Lib. (Edinb. 1867, T. and T. Clark), vol. ii ; Xeander, Church Histo7-y, i, 661 sq.