Chapter IV.--The Christians Worship God Alone.
For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some of them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant? [426] Does the sovereign order the payment of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act as a bondsman and to serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man; [427] God alone is to be feared,--He who is not visible to human eyes, nor comes within the compass of human art. Only when I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather die than show myself false and ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time: [428] He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, [429] not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits, [430] and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him we know from His creation, and apprehend His invisible power by His works. [431] I refuse to adore that workmanship which He has made for our sakes. The sun and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own servants? How can I speak of stocks and stones as gods? For the Spirit that pervades matter [432] is inferior to the more divine spirit; and this, even when assimilated to the soul, is not to be honoured equally with the perfect God. Nor even ought the ineffable God to be presented with gifts; for He who is in want of nothing is not to be misrepresented by us as though He were indigent. But I will set forth our views more distinctly.
[426] [Dear Christians of those times; so Justin and all the rest appeal against this odium. Their name an offence, "cast out as evil," but fragrant with unrequited love. Matt. x. 22-39.]
[427] [1 Pet. ii. 17. This claim for man as man is the inspiration of Christianity. Terence breathes it from his wounded soul in slavery; and his immortal line, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto" (Hæuntontimor., act. i. sc. 1, verse 25), looks as if it had been written in the second century of illumination.]
[428] [Kaye's Justin, pp. 56, 158.]
[429] John iv. 24.
[430] [Over again Tatian asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.]
[431] Rom. i. 20.
[432] [Over again Tatian asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.]
Chapter V.--The Doctrine of the Christians as to the Creation of the World.
God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground (hupostasis) of all being, inasmuch as no creature was yet in existence, was alone; but inasmuch as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power (dia logikes dunameos), the Logos Himself also, who was in Him, subsists. [433] And by His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation, [434] not by abscission; for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation, making its choice of function, [435] does not render him deficient from whom it is taken. For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begat Him. I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear; yet, certainly, I who converse do not become destitute of speech (logos) by the transmission of speech, but by the utterance of my voice I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds. And as the Logos, [436] begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being begotten again, [437] and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself. For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.
[433] [See Kaye's Justin Martyr, p. 161, note; and observe his stricture on Bull and Waterland.]
[434] kata merismon. Some translate, "by division," but the above is preferable. The sense, according to Otto, is that the Logos, having received a peculiar nature, shares in the rational power of the Father as a lighted torch partakes of the light of the torch from which it is kindled. Comp. Just. Mar., Dial. c. T., chap. lxi.
[435] oikonomias ten airesin proslabon. The above seems the simplest rendering of this difficult passage, but several others have been proposed. [See [4]note 4, cap. ix., infra, p. 69.]
[436] [Matter not eternal. He seems to have understood Gen. i. 1, of the creation of matter; and verse 2, as beginning the history of our planet and the visible universe.]
[437] [Supposed to be a personal reference to his conversion and baptism. As to "confused matter," it should be kindred matter, and must be set over "kindred spirit." See p. 71, cap. xiii., infra.]