Friday, January 5, 2024

Thomas Gaston on Justin Martyr

  

Justin argues that the Son “being the logos and First-begotten, is also God [or, a god].” (First Apology, 69 [63]) Yet one might suspect that analogical sonship does not necessarily entail divinity. The special function of the Logos, inasmuch as he imparts knowledge of God, might be seen as justification for ascribing deity to the Logos. But Justin’s ontology seems to entail that only something that is unchanging is God, (32) and there are reasons for thinking the Son does not qualify, as he is not begotten and Justin ascribes change to the Logos. One could infer from Numenius that to be a god is to be a transcendent mind; this definition would quality the Logos for deity (“one endowed with reason.” (Justin, Dialogue, 95 [62.2] But Justin’s favored description for God—agenneton (unbegotten)—is not, and cannot be, given to the Son. He explicitly rejects the idea that the Logos is “indivisible and inseparable” from the Father, like light from the sun, arguing that the Logos is “distinct in real number,” i.e. numerically distinct (heteros arithmo). (Justin, Dialogue, 194 [128.4]) Both Goodenough and Barnard claim that heteros arithmo means “different in person.” (Goodenough, Theology of Justin, 146; Barnard, Justin, 89) but this phrase will not bear the trinitarian (or binitarian) weight these scholars place upon it. Justin explains that he considers the other god to be unified in will with the maker, in that he has never done anything that the maker did not wish him to do, but is a distinct power (distinct powerful being) (Dialogue, 93, 85 [56.4, 56.11]) It is precisely because of their different natures that the Logos can speak to Moses from the burning bush and God (the Father) cannot. Just in is clear that the Logos is a separate substance from God, and it is in this way that Justin feels he can maintain one (unbegotten) God, even while positing a second (begotten) god. (cf. Numenius, Fragments, 181 [fr. 16]) (Thomas Edmund Gaston, Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology? [2d ed.; Nashville: Theophilus Press, 2023], 20-21)

 

On heteros arithmo:

 

Goodenough seems to miss the point, when he supposes that Justin (like Philo) endorsed the analogy of light from the sun. Goodenough urges the Logos is “no sense independent of the Father”, which seems the opposite of Justin’s explicit statement (Goodenough, Theology of Justin, 148-50). As Minns responds, “when Justin says that the Logos was begotten from the Father by the Father’s power and will, and not by abscission (Dial 128.4), this is to eliminate any suggestion that the divine substance (ousia) is divided or altered; it is not to make a claim of substantial unity of the Logos with God” (Minns, “Justin Martyr,” 264). (Ibid., 21 n. 35)

 

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