The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 24

(6) 'DiBl.,' 66, with eh. viii. 28, 29. (7) • Apo!.,' i. 66: "We were taught that the bread and wine wero the flesh and blood or thnt Jesus who was made flesh." We can scarcely believe that Justin had n0t seen eh. i. B nnd vi. 61-66. (8) • Apol.,' i. 60, n~d 'Dial.,' _91: h?__ refers to the brazen serpent as typical of the Crucifixion-a companson found m eh. m. 14. (9) In tho one pince where he uses tho expression, "the apostles have written," he enys it of Jesus" coming up from the water, and the Holy ~pirit as a dove alighting upon'him" (cf. Matt. iii. 16; eh. i. 32, 33). (10) Ilut the decided proof to most minds of Justin's familiarity with the Fonrth Gospel is that he bas received and expanded the doctrine of the Logos, as found in the prologue of that Gospel. Thus (' Apo!.,' i. 23) he writes," Jesus Christ is in the proper sense the only Son begotten of God, being his Word (!t.o-yos) and firstborn Power." "Ile created and ordained all things through him" (ii. G; cf. i. 63 and ii. 13); also 6 AO)'os is -rivc, ,,-pcnro11 trrzpH:01ro1716,ls 1!116p,,,1ros 'Yt)'o11,11 (i. 5 ; ii. 6). ~ A116p,,,1ros ,.,,,&p..vos- is a phrase descri p- tive of the Ao'Yos in a great val'iety of passages. The use of !t.&-.,os in the same sense as in the prolo!!Ue is not denied by any one. Take 'Dial.,' 105 : "I have previously shown that hew~ the only Son of the Father of all things, his Logos and Power, born of him- self, and afterwards made man (li119p,,,1ros 'Y<IIOJL<vo• llu\ ,,-ij, rrap0evou) of the Virgin, as we have learned from the memoirs." Volkmar has yielded to the evidence derived from this quotation, though Hilgenfe\d thinks that the clause, "as we have learned," refers only to the previous part of the sentence ; and then adopts the speculation that the author of the Fourth Gospel, so immeasurably superior to Justin, had absolutely quoted from him. Surely" the prologue of John is the primordial revelation of the Logos in its imme- diate majesty, the. writings of Justin are the first attempts at a rational analysis of the contents of the revelation." The opponents of the Johannine authorship have tried to account for it by supposing that Justin derived his ideas of the Incarnation and "nrn.n- becoming" of the Logos, who created all things, from other sources. Now, Theophilus, Irenreus, Clemens Alex., and Tertullia.n held the same or similar ideas and commented upon them at length, and made no secret whatever of having urawn their ideas from the Fourth Gospel. Why should not Justin be allowed to have done the same? ·• ¥1 Dial.,' c. 4~, he is enlarging on the pre-existence of Christ as :being God and being born of a virgin, and indicates to Trypho his view on this subject as having been one "taught by himself." It cannot be said that he could have learned this from the synoptists. Whether true or not, it is in the Gospel of John alone that Justin could have found this teaching described as Christ's own. It is true that in the Book of Pro'i'erbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, and in Ecclesiasticus there is a lofty description of Wisdom as the creative energy of God, hardly though approximatively personified, and poetically drawn as an agency or form of Divine energy and counsel; but there is no hint of this Wisdom having become man. She does "sweetly order all things," a.nu is " a.1ra.{J"j11.uJLrz of the everlasting li.ght," but nothing coi..ld be less like the teaching of the Old Testament than that this Wisdom was born of a virgin, and was the Christ of God. 'l'he discussion of the relation of Philo to the author of the Fourth Gospel will be con_sidered in sect. VII. 2. We have here simply to consider the question-Did Justin denve his Logos-doctrine from Philo, with the assistance of the additional idea that Jesus Christ was an incarnation or the Logos, without nuthoritative help from Juhn's Gospel? or did he borrow it and develop it directly from th,i Fourth Gospel? A.lbrechL Thoma(' Die Genesis des Johannes-Evang.,' etc., p. 82-!) has maintained the :first hypo- thesis; though he does not deny that Justin may have seen the Gospel, )le suggests that he treated it with the same indifference that he manifested to Paul's writings. Philo speaks of Ao'Yos as "reason:" "'l'he reason which is diffused amono- all beino-s in common." He treat~ the' A&'Yos as the attribute of the Divine Being. o~ a moda ~f bis activity. Ile calls it 'Apxiiyy,~os, 'APX"P"'',s, Tlos, Ilporr&-.,011os aiiTOii Ao'Yos, ti.e{,,,-•pos Seos. He was eclectic in his 11otion and nomenclature-that which as a Jew he called angels, as a Stoio he called causes, I\S a Platonist ideas, as a popular writer f9r Greeks he called dremons, in one place he called 3.0dvrz-ro, Ao-yo,. Moreover, Philo never ideuti6E<l the ,Myos with the Messianic idea, of which he says very little. The term ft.o-yos in  :nviil INTRODUCTION TO