The following is based on Matthew J. Thomas, “Righteous-ed by Faith: Justification as Factitive in the Pre-Augustinian Tradition”:
Ignatius
of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians
In discussing the priority of Christ over the archives of the Old
Testament, Ignatius writes the following:
But for me the ‘archives’ are
Jesus Christ, the unalterable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection
and the faith that comes through him; by these things I want through your
prayers, to be justified (ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ ὑμῶν δικαιωθῆναι). (IgnPhil 8.2)
In this passage, it is difficult to see how a strictly forensic
sense of acquittal can account for what Ignatius means by ‘justify’, as there
is no easy theological explanation for how the prayers of the Philadelphians would
contribute to Ignatius receiving the forgiveness of sins. Conversely, the
passage is easily intelligible if Ignatius is referring to a process of being
made righteous, one that is rooted in Christ and still contributed to by the
intercession of fellow believers. T.F. Torrance, though he laments what he
believes to be an un-Pauline usage of the verb, comes to a similar conclusion: ‘The
word δικαιουμαι is only twice used in [Ignatius’]
epistles, and in neither case it is used in the Pauline sense … when we enquire
what the positive meaning of justification is, we find it to be that of
becoming just. In other words, justification is a process ….’ (T.F. Torrance, The
doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers [Eugene, 1996 [1948], 67)
Clement
of Alexandria, Stromateis
In the first chapter, Clement discusses the role that Greek
philosophy has providentially played in the court of humanity’s development prior
to Christ, noting the points of analogy it holds with the Hebrew Scriptures.
Clement writes:
For to those who have been
justified by philosophy (υπο φιλοσοφιας δεδικαιωμενοις), the knowledge which leads to
piety is laid up as a help. Accordingly, before the advent of the Lord,
philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteous. … For this was a
schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the law, the Hebrews, to Christ
(cf. Gal. 3.24). (Strom. 1.4-5)
Later on, Clement elaborates on this preparatory role of
philosophy:
… at one time philosophy justified
the Greeks (εδικαιου ποτε), not conducting them to that
entire righteousness to which it is ascertained to cooperate, as the first and
second flight of steps help you in your ascent to the upper room, and the
grammarian helps the philosopher. (Strom. 1.20)
Here as well, a strictly forensic interpretation of ‘justify’ cannot
explain Clement’s intention, as if philosophy served the Greeks’ means of
forgiveness before God. Rather, Clement quite clearly means that Greek
philosophy, however imperfectly, played a role in making the Greeks just. For
Clement, this imperfect amelioration reaches its climax in Christ, similarly to
how the shadows of the Mosaic law find their full reality with Christ’s
incarnation. Here as well, the Greek dikaioō is interpreted as a
factitive process centuries before Augustine.
John
Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans
In his Homilies on Romans from 391 AD, Chrysostom comments
as follows on Romans 3:26 (‘to declare his righteousness at the present time,
so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’):
What is declaring righteousness? Like
the declaring of His riches, not only for Him to be rich Himself, but also to
make others rich, or of life, not only that He is Himself living, but also that
He makes the dead to live; and of His power, not only that He is Himself
powerful, but also that He makes the feeble powerful. So also is the declaring
of His righteousness not only that He is Himself righteous, but that He does
also make them are filled with the putrefying sores of sins suddenly righteous (δικαιους ποιειν). (Hom. Rom. 7.3.26)
In this passage, Chrysostom explicitly identifies justification as
a ‘making righteous’, rather than a simple legal pronouncement. Such a
transformative interpretation of justification is found throughout Chrysostom’s
writings; as Robert Eno comments, Chrysostom ‘has a great deal to say about
justification by faith as opposed to the works of the Law. The “Justice of God”
means a quality of God but also that by which God makes sinners just…’ (Robert B.
Eno, ‘Some Patristic Views on the Relationship of Faith and Works in
Justification’, Recherches Augustiniennes et Patristiques 19 [1984],
3-27, 13)
