Justin Martyr

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.” - Hebrews 13.7

I have a couple of exams this week on Obstetrics and Gynaecology so I thought I’d start a series of posts on some reading I am doing. Knowing next to nothing about the first centuries of the church, I bought Henry Chadwick’s The Early Church (ISBN 0140231994) on Saturday. I don’t know very much about the author, but from what I’ve read of his book so far, it seems as though he is writing from a position of faith which accepts the New Testament’s record of events and realises that the issues the church faced in its early life are to be understood in light of the doctrine of the New Testament, even if his views on authorship and dating of the New Testament documents are less conservative than we might like. As with Packer’s lectures on the Puritans, I write as much for my own benefit as anything else, but with the hope that an introduction to prominent figures in the early church might be instructive, and might encourage some to look a bit more closely at what they taught, as it has encouraged me to do.

A couple of resources I’ve found useful in helping me to dig deeper:

www.earlychurch.org.uk
www.ccel.org

Justin Martyr (born in the early second century)

Justin studied philosophy, first with a Stoic tutor, then with an Aristotelian and finally with a Platonist. Through a meeting with a man on a seashore when meditating in solitude, he was converted as he refuted Plato’s doctrine of the soul and explained how the Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of Christ. Justin continued his philosophical enquiries, regarding Christianity as the true philosophy. Indeed, while he rejected pagan cults and myths, he embraced classical philosophy. Much of what Plato taught is acceptable to Justin. Plato’s transcendant God is the God of the Bible. Such truth came to the Greek philosophers because they had access to the Jewish scriptures and because of general revelation. Whereas in Romans 1, the general revelation in creation means all are responsible and so without excuse before God, so Justin argued that all have light from the Logos of God who was incarnate in Jesus. Just as the Old Testament found its fulfilment in Christ, so the insights gained by the Greek philosophers found their completion in the gospel.

Justin uses the divine Logos or Reason to explain how the transcendent Father deals with his created world and to justify faith in the revelation made by God through the prophets and in Christ. The divine Logos inspired the prophets and was incarnate in Christ. The Son-Logos is needed to mediate between the Father and the material world. The Logos is ‘other than’ the Father, derived from the Father in a way which takes nothing from the Father.

Justin wrote against the Gnostics. He was convinced of the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in Christ, and so was in opposition to Marcion, who rejected the Old Testament. The Gnostics held that the material world was created by malevolent or incompetent powers subordinate to the good God. Salvation for them was the deliverance deliverance of the divine spark in the elect human soul from its imprisonment in a body so that it could be reunited with its heavenly home. In constrast, Justin stressed that creation is the work of the supreme God acting through the Logos. In the incarnation, the Logos assumed complete manhood (contra the Gnostics, for whom Christ only appeared to be a man) and truly suffered. Human destiny was not the deliverance of the human soul from its physical frame, but resurrection. We would do well to learn from Justin in this. Perhaps this is something of a hobby-horse for me, but we are so often practical Gnostics. In our evangelism we stress the salvation of our eternal souls and neglect the redemption of our bodies which we will experience on resurrection morning. That is when our salvation will be complete and we will go to be with Christ in the New Creation. This is the Christian hope.

Here are some extracts from Justin’s work On the Resurrection.

Justin on the authority of Scripture:

“The word of truth is free, and carries its own authority, disdaining to fall under any skilful argument, or to endure the logical scrutiny of its hearers. But it would be believed for its own nobility, and for the confidence due to Him who sends it. Now the word of truth is sent from God; wherefore the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant. For being sent with authority, it were not fit that it should be required to produce proof of what is said; since neither is there any proof beyond itself, which is God. For every proof is more powerful and trustworthy than that which it proves; since what is disbelieved, until proof is produced, gets credit when such proof is produced, and is recognised as being what it was stated to be. But nothing is either more powerful or more trustworthy than the truth.” (From chapter 1)

He writes against the Gnostics, who “say that there is no resurrection of the flesh” because “it is impossible that what is corrupted and dissolved should be restored to the same as it had been” and “the salvation of the flesh is disadvantageous” because “it only is the cause of our sins, so that if the flesh… rise again, our infirmities also rise with it.” (From chapter 2)

The argument goes that if the body be raised, then everything that has to do with the body will be present too, including sin. Justin argues against this, saying that it does necessarily follow that the body will carry out the functions of which it is capable. He uses the illustration of a woman’s womb. Its function is to become pregnant, but pregnancy isn’t the immediate and necessary consequence of having a womb, as there are those who are barren, and those who abstain from intercourse. (From chapter 3)

The Gnostics argue that if the flesh rises, then it will rise with all the deficiencies and defects with which it fell, and so it is impossible for there to be a complete resurrection of the body. Justin writes in reply that this needn’t be the case and explains why:

“All things which the Saviour did, He did in the first place in order that what was spoken concerning Him in the prophets might be fulfilled, “that the blind should receive sight, and the deaf hear,” and so on; but also to induce the belief that in the resurrection the flesh shall rise entire. For if on earth He healed the sicknesses of the flesh, and made the body whole, much more will He do this in the resurrection, so that the flesh shall rise perfect and entire.” (From chapter 4)

Justin proceeds to argue on the basis of the power of God that resurrection is not impossible. If the pagans attributed to their gods (which are no gods at all) the power to do all things, then surely it is to be believed that the true God is able to raise the body. His power is seen in creation. In chapter 6, Justin shows that the resurrection is not impossible on the basis of philosophical theories of the composition of the universe and how it worked - atoms, the elements of earth, air, fire and water. He justifies the use of what he calls “secular” arguments in chapter 5 “because to God nothing is secular, not even the world itself, for it is His workmanship”, which is a true enough observation, and also “because we are conducting our argument so as to meet unbelievers”, and so it is necessary to use an argument drawn from “physical reasons”, from “the arguments of the world”. This latter is of course the driving force behind modern apologetics, for example, arguments from science for the existence of God. Justin’s example here shows that to do this is to “build with straw” - the elements of earth, air, fire and water have long been left behind and no doubt too the scientific theories upon which we try to base an apologetic for the Christian faith, or at least for the existence of God will one day be overthrown for another. Science advanced by paradigm shifts.

Justin affirms the value of the body in God’s sight and denies that it is unworthy of resurrection and salvation because man made from the dust of the earth is created in the image of God. On account of this fleshly man which is precious because body and soul together it is made in the image of God the whole of the rest of the creation was made, again, affirming the value of the body. (From chapter 7). This means in turn that it would be unfitting for God not to save the body as well as the soul - he would be labouring in vain if that which he created and which was precious in his sight he simply neglect and allow to decay. The Gnostics say that the promise of salvation is not made to the body. Justin denies this, saying that when God promises to save man, he must include the body in the promise because man is not soul alone (the soul is the soul of the man) nor body alone (the body is the body of the man) but to the man belong both body and soul. (From chapter eight)

Justin then argues for the resurrection of the body on the grounds of Jesus’ raising of the dead and of Jesus’ own resurrection:

“If He had no need of the flesh, why did He heal it? And what is most forcible of all, He raised the dead. Why? Was it not to show what the resurrection should be? How then did He raise the dead? Their souls or their bodies? Manifestly both. If the resurrection were only spiritual, it was requisite that He, in raising the dead, should show the body lying apart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself. But now He did not do so, but raised the body, confirming in it the promise of life. Why did He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless to show the resurrection of the flesh? And wishing to confirm this, when His disciples did not know whether to believe He had truly risen in the body, and were looking upon Him and doubting, He said to them, “Ye have not yet faith, see that it is I;” and He let them handle Him, and showed them the prints of the nails in His hands. And when they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it was Himself, and in the body, they asked Him to eat with them, that they might thus still more accurately ascertain that He had in verity risen bodily; and He did eat honey-comb and fish.” (From chapter 9)

Justin concludes by saying that if there is no resurrection, then there would be no reason for not indulging its desires. Indeed, in the Corinthian church there were those who denied the resurrection of the dead and this is the argument that lay behind the immorality of some - we’re only sinning with our bodies, so it doesn’t matter. But, Justin reminds us, Christ doesn’t allow us to indulge our bodies but rather “having rescued us from our desires, regulates our flesh with His own wise and temperate rule” and so it is clear that the body too “possesses a hope of salvation.” (From chapter 10)