Friday, August 25, 2023

Robin M. Jensen on the Relationship between the Father and Son in Justin Martyr's Theology

  

Justin Martyr

 

Justin Martyr not only wrote apologies aimed at defending Christianity (and its sacred texts) to a traditional polytheistic audience, he also engaged in a debate with the Jew, Trypho. In both situations, Justin used Logos theology to explain the appearance of God to certain individuals (for example, Abraham and Moses), but he found it especially useful in proving the superiority of Christianity to Judaism. In his first Apology, for example, Justin asserted that “all the Jews” believe that it was the “nameless God” or “Father of the Universe” who appeared or spoke to the patriarchs or prophets in Holy Scripture. This belief, he claimed, clearly demonstrates that Jews are both ignorant of God as well as the fact that God’s divine Word is also God. Furthermore, Justin continued, it was the Logos who appeared to and spoke with Moses and the others, sometimes as fire, but also sometimes in the guise of an angel or apostle. And when the voice out of the bush said to Moses, “I am who I am—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” it signified that all of these departed patriarchs now belong to Christ (the Word who has come in the present age as a human being). (1 Apol. 63)

 

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin not only asserted but also attempted to prove his point with a close reading of a number of biblical passages, including the appearance of the three persons to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Gen 18). Noting the different places in the Greek text (LXX) that one or another visitor is referred to as “Lord” (kurios), Justin induced Trypho to acknowledge that more than one figure is referred to in this way. In essence, this passage clearly reveals another God or Lord, subject to the Creator but who exists alongside of the Creator and is the one who carries the Creator’s messages to humanity. (Dial. 56) To strengthen his argument, Justin then pointed out various additional places in the Greek text of Genesis where more than one being is called “God” or “Lord.” For example, he cited Psalm 45:6–7 where God appears to be anointed by another God (“your God”) and Psalm 110:1 where the Psalmist writes: “The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’.” (Dial. 56, cont.)

 

Concluding his arguments, Justin contended that all other passages of scripture, in which God is said to act, to move, to speak, or even to be seen, refer to the Word rather than the Unbegotten God. In other words, all scriptural allusions to God as being seen or heard (for example, Moses and the bush or Jacob wrestling with the man at Peniel) are manifestations of God the Son or Logos (Dial. 57-60) This clear distinction between the First and the Second God was absolutely necessary to Justin’s argument, in order to protect the utter transcendence and incomprehensibility of the Supreme God and to assert the mediating presence of the Logos. He summarized:

 

For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in his own place, wherever that is, quick to behold and quick to hear, having neither eyes nor ears, but being of indescribable might . . . Therefore, neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other person, saw the Father and ineffable Lord of all (and also of Christ), but saw him who was according to his will his Son, being God. (Dial. 127 [ANF 1:263])

 

According to Justin, then, as a divine agent of the Unbegotten God, the Word can approach and interact with the material and mortal realm. Such agency protects the transcendence of the Supreme God, while allowing interaction with the creation through God’s Word. After all, while mixing with creation was tough and dirty work, some (divine) one one had to do it. (Robin M. Jensen, “Theophany and the Invisible God in Early Christian Theology and Art,” in God in Early Christian Thought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson, ed. Andrew B. McGowan, Brian E. Daley, and Timothy J. Gaden [Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 94; Leiden: Brill, 2009], 277-78)