In First Apology, 41, Justin Martyr wrote
And again, in another prophecy,
the Spirit of prophecy, through the same David, intimated that Christ, after He
had been crucified, should reign, and spoke as follows: “Sing to the Lord, all
the earth, and day by day declare His salvation. For great is the Lord, and
greatly to be praised, to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the
nations are idols of devils; but God made the heavens. Glory and praise are
before His face, strength and glorying are in the habitation of His holiness.
Give Glory to the Lord, the Father everlasting. Receive grace, and enter His
presence, and worship in His holy courts. Let all the earth fear before His
face; let it be established, and not shaken. Let them rejoice among the nations.
The Lord hath reigned from the tree.”
Elsewhere, in Dialogue with Trypho 73, Justin wrote that
“And from the ninety-fifth
(ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of
David: ‘From the wood.’ For when the passage said, ‘Tell ye among the nations,
the Lord hath reigned from the wood,’ they have left, ‘Tell ye among the
nations, the Lord hath reigned.’ Now no one of your people has ever been said
to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only
who was crucified, of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that
He was raised again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none
like Him among the gods of the nations: for they are idols of demons. But I
shall repeat the whole Psalm to you, that you may perceive what has been said.
It is thus: ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth.
Sing unto the Lord, and bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to
day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all people. For the
Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all the
gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons but the Lord made the heavens.
Confession and beauty are in His presence; holiness and magnificence are in His
sanctuary. Bring to the Lord, O ye countries of the nations, bring to the Lord
glory and honour, bring to the Lord glory in His name. Take sacrifices, and go
into His courts; worship the Lord in His holy temple. Let the whole earth be moved
before Him: tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned. For He hath
established the world, which shall not be moved; He shall judge the nations
with equity. Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad; let the sea and
its fulness shake. Let the fields and all therein be joyful. Let all the trees
of the wood be glad before the Lord: for He comes, for He comes to judge the
earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His
truth.’ ”
Here Trypho remarked, “Whether [or
not] the rulers of the people have erased any portion of the Scriptures, as you
affirm, God knows; but it seems incredible.”
“Assuredly,” said I, “it does seem
incredible. For it is more horrible than the calf which they made, when
satisfied with manna on the earth; or than the sacrifice of children to demons;
or than the slaying of the prophets. But,” said I, “you appear to me not to
have heard the Scriptures which I said they had stolen away. For such as have
been quoted are more than enough to prove the points in dispute, besides those
which are retained by us, and shall yet be brought forward.”
Commenting on Justin’s accusations of textual corruption, Lust
believes Justin based such comments from knowledge of florilegium:
. . . in Justin’s reading of Ps
95(96),10. He accuses the Jews of having scrapped a portion of the text in
order to disguise any allusion to Jesus’ death on the cross. In his Greek text
of the Bible he read: “the Lord reigned from the cross”. He argued, therefore,
that the Jews had dropped the last part of the sentence to be left only with “the
Lord reigns”. As a matter of fact, however, not a single extant Septuagint
manuscript contains the text upon which Justin based his accusation. Was he a
cheat? Probably not. It is more likely that he did not have a complete biblical
text at his disposal, but rather a florilegium that contained a mixture
of various scriptural passages. Such florilegia are familiar to us from
Qumran. (Johan Lust, “A Septuagint Christ Preceding Jesus Christ Messianism in
the Septuagint Exemplified in Isa 7,10-17,” in Messianism and the
Septuagint: Collected Essays by J. Lust, ed. K. Hauspie [Bibliotheca
Ephemeridium Theologicarum Lovaniensium CLXXVIII; Leuven: Leuven University
Press, 2004], 214)
