Chapter LXI--Wisdom is begotten of the Father, as fire from fire.
"I shall give you another testimony, my friends," said I, "from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [2167] [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father's will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; [2168] just as we see [2169] happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [2170] [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following: If I shall declare to you what happens daily, I shall call to mind events from everlasting, and review them. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He had made the earth, and before He had made the deeps, before the springs of the waters had issued forth, before the mountains had been established. Before all the hills He begets me. God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He made ready the heavens, I was along with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds: when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He made the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging. I was that in which He rejoiced; daily and at all times I delighted in His countenance, because He delighted in the finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the man who shall listen to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watching [2171] daily at my doors, observing the posts of my ingoings. For my outgoings are the outgoings of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But they who sin against me, trespass against their own souls; and they who hate me love death.' [2172]
[2167] Or, "in the beginning, before all creatures." [Justin's reference to Josh. i. 13-15 deserves special consideration; for he supposes that the true Joshua (Jesus) was the substance, and the true "captain of salvation," of whom this one was but a shadow (Heb. iv. 8, margin), type, and pledge. See cap. lxii.]
[2168] The act of will or volition is on the part of the Father.
[2169] Or, "Do we not see," etc.
[2170] The word, logos translated "word," means both the thinking power or reason which produces ideas and the expression of these ideas. And Justin passes here from the one meaning to the other. When we utter a thought, the utterance of it does not diminish the power of thought in us, though in one sense the thought has gone away from us.
[2171] The mss. of Justin read "sleeping," but this is regarded as the mistake of some careless transcriber.
[2172] Prov. viii. 21 ff.
Chapter LXII.--The words "Let Us make man" agree with the testimony of Proverbs.
"And the same sentiment was expressed, my friends, by the word of God [written] by Moses, when it indicated to us, with regard to Him whom it has pointed out, [2173] that God speaks in the creation of man with the very same design, in the following words: Let Us make man after our image and likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth. And God created man: after the image of God did He create him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and said, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have power over it.' [2174] And that you may not change the [force of the] words just quoted, and repeat what your teachers assert,--either that God said to Himself, Let Us make,' just as we, when about to do something, oftentimes say to ourselves, Let us make;' or that God spoke to the elements, to wit, the earth and other similar substances of which we believe man was formed, Let Us make,'--I shall quote again the words narrated by Moses himself, from which we can indisputably learn that [God] conversed with some one who was numerically distinct from Himself, and also a rational Being. These are the words: And God said, Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil.' [2175] In saying, therefore, as one of us,' [Moses] has declared that [there is a certain] number of persons associated with one another, and that they are at least two. For I would not say that the dogma of that heresy [2176] which is said to be among you [2177] is true, or that the teachers of it can prove that [God] spoke to angels, or that the human frame was the workmanship of angels. But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with Him; even as the Scripture by Solomon has made clear, that He whom Solomon calls Wisdom, was begotten as a Beginning before all His creatures and as Offspring by God, who has also declared this same thing in the revelation made by Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). Listen, therefore, to the following from the book of Joshua, that what I say may become manifest to you; it is this: And it came to pass, when Joshua was near Jericho, he lifted up his eyes, and sees a man standing over against him. And Joshua approached to Him, and said, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And He said to him, I am Captain of the Lord's host: now have I come. And Joshua fell on his face on the ground, and said to Him, Lord, what commandest Thou Thy servant? And the Lord's Captain says to Joshua, Loose the shoes off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And Jericho was shut up and fortified, and no one went out of it. And the Lord said to Joshua, Behold, I give into thine hand Jericho, and its king, [and] its mighty men.' " [2178]
[2173] Justin, since he is of opinion that the Word is the beginning of the universe, thinks that by these words, "in the beginning," Moses indicated the Word, like many other writers. Hence also he says in Ap. i. 23, that Moses declares the Word "to be begotten first by God." If this explanation does not satisfy, read, "with regard to Him whom I have pointed out" (Maranus).
[2174] Gen. i. 26, 28.
[2175] Gen. iii. 22.
[2176] Heresy or sect.
[2177] Or, "among us." Maranus pronounces against this latter reading for the following reasons: (1.) The Jews had their own heresies which supplied many things to the Christian heresies, especially to Menander and Saturninus. (2.) The sect which Justin here refutes was of opinion that God spoke to angels. But those angels, as Menander and Saturninus invented, "exhorted themselves, saying, Let us make," etc. (3.) The expression didaskaloi suits the rabbins well. So Justin frequently calls them. (4.) Those teachers seem for no other cause to have put the words in the angels' mouths than to eradicate the testimony by which they proved divine persons.
[2178] Josh. v. 13 ad fin., and Josh.vi. 1, 2.