The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire

by T. R. Glover

CHAPTER VI

THE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIAN AND JEW

It is a much discussed question as to how far Jesus realized the profound gulf between his own religious position and that of his contemporaries. Probably, since tradition meant more to them, they were quicker to see declension from orthodox Judaism than a mind more open and experimental; and when they contrived his death, it was with a clear sense of acting in defence of God's Law and God's Covenant with Israel. From their own point of view they were right, for the triumph of the ideas of Jesus was the abolition of tribal religions and their supersession by a new mind or spirit with nothing local or racial about it.

The death of Jesus meant to the little community, which he left behind him, a final cleavage with the system of their fathers, under which they had been born, and with which was associated every religious idea they had known before their great intimacy began. It was a moment of boundless import in the history of mankind. Slowly and reluctantly they moved out into the great unknown,—pilgrim fathers, unconscious of the great issues they carried, but obedient to an impulse, the truth of which history has long since established. Once again it was their opponents who were the quickest to realize what was involved, for affection blinded their own eyes.

The career of Paul raised the whole question between Judaism and Christianity. He was the first to speak decisively of going to the Gentiles. The author of the Acts cites precedents for his action; and, as no great movement in man's affairs comes unheralded, it is easy to believe that even before Paul "the word" reached Gentile ears. None the less the leader in the movement was Paul; and whatever we may imagine might have been the history of Christianity without him, it remains that he declared, decisively and for all time, the church's independence of the synagogue. It is not unlikely that, even before his conversion, he had grasped the fact that church and synagogue were not to be reconciled, and that, when "it pleased God to reveal his Son in him," he knew at once that he was in "a new creation" and that he was to be a prophet of a new dispensation.

The Jewish heritage

There is no doubt that the hostile Jews very quickly realised Paul's significance, but the Christians were not so quick. Paul was a newcomer and very much the ablest man among them—they were "not many wise, not many learned," and Paul, though he does not mention it, was both. He was moreover proposing to take them into regions far beyond their range; he had not personally known "the Lord" and they had; and there was no clear word of Jesus on the Gentile question. There was a conference. What took place, Paul tries in the Galatians to tell; but he is far too quick a thinker to be a master of mere narrative; the question of Christian freedom was too hot in his heart to leave him free for reminiscence, and the matter is not very clear. The author of the Acts was not at the council, and, whatever his authorities may have been, there is a constant suggestion in his writing that he has a purpose in view—a purpose of peace between parties. Whether they liked the result or not, the Christian community seem loyally to have submitted themselves to "the Spirit of Jesus." "It seemed good to the holy spirit and to us" tells the story of their deliberations, whether they put the phrase at the top of a resolution or did not. Paul came to the personal followers of Jesus with a new and strange conception of the religion of their Master. They laid it alongside of their memories of their Master, and they heard him say "Go ye into all the world"; and they went.

The natural outcome of this forward step at once became evident. Paul did not go among the Gentiles to "preach circumcision," and there quickly came into being, throughout Asia Minor and in the Balkan provinces, many groups of Christians of a new type—Gentile in mind and tradition, and in Christian life no less Gentile. They remained uncircumcised, they did not observe the Sabbath nor any other distinctive usage of Judaism—they were a new people, a "third race." Their very existence put Judaism on the defensive; for, if their position was justified, it was hard to see what right Judaism had to be. It was not yet quite clear what exactly the new religion was, nor into what it might develope; but if, as the Gentile Christians and their Apostle claimed, they stood in a new relation to God, a higher and a more tender than the greatest and best spirits in Israel had known, and this without the seal of God's covenant with Israel and independently of his law, then it was evident that the unique privileges of Israel were void, and that, as Paul put it, "there is neither Jew nor Greek."

That part of the Jewish race, and it was the larger part, which did not accept the new religion, was in no mind to admit either Paul's premisses or his conclusions. They stood for God's covenant with Israel. Nor did they stand alone, for it took time to convince even Christian Jews that the old dispensation had yielded to a new one, and that the day of Moses was past. To the one class the rise of the Christian community was a menace, to the other a problem. The one left no means untried to check it. By argument, by appeals to the past, by working on his superstitions, they sought to make the Christian convert into a Jew; and, when they failed, they had other methods in reserve. Themselves everywhere despised and hated, as they are still, for their ability and their foreign air, they stirred up their heathen neighbours against the new race. Again and again, in the Acts and in later documents, we read of the Jews being the authors of pagan persecution.[[1]] The "unbelieving Jew" was a spiritual and a social danger to the Christian in every city of the East. The converted Jew was, in his way, almost as great a difficulty within the community.

It is not hard to understand the feeling of the Jews within or without the Church. Other races had their ancient histories, and the Jew had his—a history long and peculiar. From the day of Abraham, the friend of God, the chosen race had been the special care of Jehovah. Jehovah had watched over them; he had saved them from their enemies; he had visited them for their iniquities; he had sent them prophets; he had given them his law. In a long series of beautiful images, which move us yet, Jehovah had spoken, through holy men of old, of his love for Israel. To Israel belonged the oracles of God and his promises. For here again the national consciousness of Israel differed from that of every other race. It was something that in the past God had spoken to no human family except the seed of Abraham; it was more that to them, and to them alone, he had assured the future. Deeply as Israel felt the trials of the present, the Roman would yet follow the Persian and the Greek, and the day of Israel would dawn. The Messiah was to come and restore all things.

"He shall destroy the ungodly nations with the word of his mouth, so that at his rebuke the nations may flee before him, and he shall convict the sinners in the thoughts of their hearts.

"And he shall gather together a holy people whom he shall lead in righteousness; and shall judge the tribes of his people that hath been sanctified by the Lord his God.

"And he shall not suffer iniquity to lodge in their midst, and none that knoweth wickedness shall dwell with them....

"And he shall possess the nations of the heathen to serve him beneath his yoke; and he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of the whole earth;

"And he shall purge Jerusalem and make it holy, even as it was in the days of old.

"So that the nations may come from the ends of the earth to see his glory, bringing as gifts her sons that had fainted,

"And may see the glory of the Lord, wherewith God hath glorified her."

So runs one of the Psalms of Solomon written between 70 and 40 B.C.[[2]] Parallel passages might be multiplied, but one may suffice, written perhaps in the lifetime of Jesus.

"Then thou, O Israel, wilt be happy, and thou wilt mount upon the neck of the eagle, and [the days of thy mourning] will be ended,

"And God will exalt thee, and he will cause thee to approach to the heaven of the stars, and he will establish thy habitation among them,

"And thou wilt look from on high, and wilt see thine enemies in Ge[henna], and thou wilt recognize them and rejoice, and wilt give thanks and confess thy Creator."[[3]]

No people in the Mediterranean world had such a past behind them, and none a future so sure and so glorious before them—none indeed seems to have had any great hope of the future at all; their Golden Ages were all in the past, or far away in mythical islands of the Eastern seas or beyond the Rhine. And if the Christian doctrine was true, that great past was as dead as Babylon, and the Messianic Kingdom was a mockery—Israel was "feeding on the east wind," and the nation was not Jehovah's chosen. At one stroke Israel was abolished, and every national memory and every national instinct, rooted in a past of suffering and revelation, and watered with tears in a present of pain, were to wither like the gardens of Adonis. No man with a human heart but must face the alternative of surrendering national for Christian ideals, or hating and exterminating the enemy of his race.

So much for the nation, and what Christianity meant for it, but much beside was at stake. There was the seal of circumcision, the hereditary token of God's covenant with Abraham, a sacrament passed on from father to son and associated with generations of faith and piety. Week by week the Sabbath came with its transforming memories—the "Princess Sabbath," for Heine was not the first to feel the magic that at sunset on Friday restores the Jew to the "halls of his royal father, the tents of Jacob." Every one of their religious usages spoke irresistibly of childhood. "When your children shall say unto you 'What mean ye by this service,' ye shall say...," so ran the old law, binding every Jew to his father by the dearest and strongest of all bonds. To become a Christian was thus to be alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, to renounce a father's faith and his home. If the pagan had to suffer for his conversion, the Jew's heritage was nobler and holier, and the harder to forego. Even the friendly Jew pleads, "Cannot a man be saved who trusts in Christ and also keeps the law—keeps it so far as he can under the conditions of the dispersion,—the Sabbath, circumcision, the months, and certain washings?"[[4]]

The Jewish attack on Jesus

But this was not all. Israel had stood for monotheism and that not the monotheism of Greek philosophy, a dogma of the schools consistent with the cults of Egypt and Phrygia, with hierodules and a deified Antinous. The whole nation had been consecrated to the worship of One God, a personal God, who had, at least where Israel was concerned, no hint of philosophic Apathy. The Jew was now asked by the Christian to admit a second God—a God beside the Creator (állos theòs parà tòn poiêtèn tôn hólôn[[5]])—and such a God! The Jews knew all about Jesus of Nazareth—it was absurd to try to pass him off even as the Messiah. "Sir," said Trypho, "these scriptures compel us to expect one glorious and great, who receives from 'the Ancient of Days' the 'eternal Kingdom' as 'Son of Man'; but this man of yours—your so-called Christ—was unhonoured and inglorious, so that he actually fell under the extreme curse that is in the law of God; for he was crucified."[[6]] The whole thing was a paradox, incapable of proof.[[7]] "It is an incredible thing, and almost impossible that you are trying to prove—that God endured to be begotten and to become a man."[[8]]

The Jews had a propaganda of their own about Jesus. They sent emissaries from Palestine to supply their countrymen and pagans with the truth.[[9]] Celsus imagines a Jew disputing with a Christian,—a more life-like Jew, according to Harnack, than Christian apologists draw,—and the arguments he uses came from Jewish sources. Jesus was born, they said, in a village, the bastard child of a peasant woman, a poor person who worked with her hands, divorced by her husband (who was a carpenter) for adultery.[[10]] The father was a soldier called Panthera. As to the Christian story, what could have attracted the attention of God to her? Was she pretty? The carpenter at all events hated her and cast her out.[[11]] ("I do not think I need trouble about this argument," is all Origen says.) Who saw the dove, or heard the voice from heaven, at the baptism? Jesus suffered death in Palestine for the guilt he had committed (plemmelésanta). He convinced no one while he lived; even his disciples betrayed him—a thing even brigands would not have done by their chief—so far was he from improving them, and so little ground is there for saying that he foretold to them what he should surfer. He even complained of thirst on the cross. As for the resurrection, that rests on the evidence of a mad woman (pároistros)—or some other such person among the same set of deceivers, dreaming, or deluded, or "wishing to startle the rest with the miracle, and by a lie of that kind to give other impostors a lead." Does the resurrection of Jesus at all differ from those of Pythagoras or Zamolxis or Orpheus or Herakles—"or do you think that the tales of other men both are and seem myths, but that the catastrophe of your play is a well-managed and plausible piece of invention—the cry upon the gibbet, when he died, and the earthquake and the darkness?"[[12]] The Christians systematically edited and altered the Gospels to meet the needs of the moment;[[13]] but Jesus did not fulfil the prophecies of the Messiah—"the prophets say he shall be great, a dynast, lord of all the earth and all its nations and armies."[[14]] There are ten thousand other men to whom the prophecies are more applicable than to Jesus,[[15]] and as many who in frenzy claim to "come from God."[[16]] In short the whole story of the Christians rests on no evidence that will stand investigation.

Even men who would refrain from the hot-tempered method of controversy, which these quotations reflect, might well feel the contrast between the historic Jesus and the expected Messiah—between the proved failure of the cross and the world-empire of a purified and glorious Israel. And when it was suggested further that Jesus was God, an effluence coming from God, as light is lit by light—even if this were true, it would seem that the Jew was asked to give up the worship of the One God, which he had learnt of his fathers, and to turn to a being not unlike the pagan gods around him in every land, who also, their apologists said, came from the Supreme, and were his emanations and ministers and might therefore be worshipped.

Thus everything that was distinctive of their race and their religion—the past of Israel, the Messiah and the glorious future, the beautiful symbols of family religion, and the One God Himself—all was to be surrendered by the man who became a Christian. We realize the extraordinary and compelling force of the new religion, when we remember that, in spite of all to hold them back, there were those who made the surrender and "suffered the loss of all things to win Christ and be found in him." Paul however rested, as he said, on revelation, and ordinary men, who were not conscious of any such distinction, who mistrusted themselves and their emotions, and who rested most naturally upon the cumulative religious experience of their race, might well ask whether after all they were right in breaking with a sacred past—whether, apart from subjective grounds, there were any clear warrant from outside to enable them to go forward. The Jew had of course oracles of God given by inspiration (theópneustos[[17]]), written by "holy men of God, moved by the holy spirit." These were his warrant. Here circumcision, the Sabbath, the Passover, and all his religious life was definitely and minutely prescribed in what was almost, like the original two tables, the autograph of the One God. The law had its own history bound up with that of the race, and the experience and associations of every new generation made it more deeply awful and mysterious. Had the Christian any law? had he any oracles, apart from the unintelligible glossolalies of men possessed (enthousiôntes)? When Justin spoke of the gifts of the Spirit, Trypho interjected, "I should like you to know that you are talking nonsense."[[18]]

The problem

Not unnaturally then did men say to Ignatius (as we have seen), "If I do not find it in the ancient documents, I do not believe it in the gospel." And when Ignatius rejoined, "It is written"; "That is the problem," said they.[[19]] It was their problem, though it was not his. For him Judaism is "a leaven old and sour," and "to use the name of Jesus Christ and yet observe Jewish customs is absurd (átopon)" or really "to confess we have not received grace."[[20]] His documents were Jesus Christ, his cross and death and resurrection, and faith through him.

"That is the problem"—can it be shown from the infallible Hebrew Scriptures that the crucified Jesus is the Messiah of prophecy, that he is a "God beside the Creator," that Sabbath and Circumcision are to be superseded, that Israel's covenant is temporary, and that the larger outlook of the Christian is after all the eternal dispensation of which the Jewish was a copy made for a time? If this could be shown, it might in some measure stop the mouths of hostile Jews, and calm the uneasy consciences of Jews and proselytes who had become Christians. And it might serve another and a distinct purpose. It was one of the difficulties of the Christian that his religion was a new thing in the world. Around him were men who gloried in ancient literatures and historic cults. All the support that men can derive from tradition and authority, or even from the mere fact of having a past behind them, was wanting to the new faith, as its opponents pointed out. If, by establishing his contention against the Jew, the Christian could achieve another end, and could demonstrate to the Greek that he too had a history and a literature, that his religion was no mere accident of a day, but was rooted in the past, that it had been foretold by God himself, and was part of the divine scheme for the destiny of mankind, then, resting on the sure ground of Providence made plain, he could call upon the Greek in his turn to forsake his errors and superstitions for the first of all religions, which should also be the last—the faith of Jesus Christ.

The one method thus served two ends. Justin addressed an Apology to Antoninus Pius, and one-half of his book is occupied with the demonstration that every major characteristic of Christianity had been prophesied and was a fulfilment. The thirty chapters show what weight the sheer miracle of this had with the apologist, though, if the Emperor actually read the Apology, it was probably his first contact with Jewish scripture. Some difference of treatment was necessary, according as the method was directed to Jew or Gentile. For the Jew it was axiomatic that Scripture was the word of God, and, if he did not grant the Christian's postulate of allegory, he was withholding from an opponent what had been allowed to Philo. The Greek would probably allow the allegory, and the first task in his case was to show by chronological reckoning that the greater prophets, and above all Moses, antedated the bloom of Greek literature, and then to draw the inference that it was from Hebrew sources that the best thoughts of Hellas had been derived. Here the notorious interest of early Greek thinkers in Egypt helped to establish the necessary, though rather remote, connexion. When once the priority of the Hebrew prophets had been proved, and, by means of allegory, a coincidence (age by age more striking) had been established between prophecy and event, the demonstration was complete. There could be only one interpretation of such facts.

A number of these refutations of the Jew survive from early times. Justin's Dialogue with Trypho is the most famous, as it deserves to be. It opens in a pleasant Platonic style with a chance meeting one morning in a colonnade at Ephesus.[[21]] Trypho accosts the philosopher Justin—"When I see a man in your garb, I gladly approach him, and that is why I spoke to you, hoping to hear something profitable from you." When Trypho says he is a Jew, Justin asks in what he expects to be more helped by philosophy than by his own prophets and law-giver. Is not all the philosophers' talk about God? Trypho asks. Justin then tells him of his own wanderings in philosophy,—how he went from school to school, and at last was directed by an old man to read the Jewish prophets, and how "a fire was kindled in my soul, and a passion seized me for the prophets and those men who are Christ's friends; and so, discussing their words with myself, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and helpful. And that is how and why I am a philosopher."[[22]] Trypho smiled, but, while approving Justin's ardour in seeking after God, he added that he would have done better to philosophize with Plato or one of the others, practising endurance, continence and temperance, than "to be deceived by lies and to follow men who are worthless." Then the battle begins, and it is waged in a courteous and kindly spirit, as befits philosophers, till after two days they part with prayers and goodwill for each other—Trypho unconvinced. Other writers have less skill, and the features of dialogue are sadly whittled away. Others again abandon all pretence of discussion and frankly group their matter as a scheme of proof-texts. In what follows, Justin shall be our chief authority.

We may start with the first point that Trypho raises. "If you will listen to me (for I count you a friend already), first of all be circumcised, and then keep, in the traditional way, the Sabbath and the feasts and new moons of God, and, in a word, do all that is written in the law, and then perhaps God will have mercy upon you. As for Christ, if indeed he has been born and already exists, he is unknown—nay! he does not even know himself yet, nor has he any power, till Elijah come and anoint him and make him manifest to all men. You people have accepted an empty tale, and are imagining a Christ for yourselves, and for the sake of him you are perishing quite aimlessly."[[23]]

Salvation, according to the Jew, was inconceivable outside the pale of Judaism. "Except ye be circumcised, ye cannot be saved," men had said in Paul's time. Paul's repudiation of this assertion is to be read in his Epistle to the Galatians—in his whole life and mind. But genius such as Paul's was not to be found in the early church, and men looked outside of themselves for arguments to prove what he had seen and known of his own experience and insight.

The letter to Diognetus

Some apologists merely laughed at the Jew. Thus the brilliant and winsome writer known only by his Epistle to Diognetus has a short and ready way of dealing with Jewish usages, which is not conciliatory. "In the next place I think you wish to hear why Christians do not worship in the same way as the Jews. Now the Jews do well in abstaining from the mode of service I have described [paganism], in that they claim to reverence One God of the universe and count Him their master; but, in offering this worship to Him in the same way as those I have mentioned, they go far astray. For the Greeks offer those things to senseless and deaf images and so give an exhibition of folly, while the Jews—considering they are presenting them to God as if He had need of them—ought in all reason to count it foolery and not piety. For He that made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them, and gives freely to every one of us what we need, could not Himself need any of the things which He Himself actually gives to those who imagine they are giving them to Him....

"But again of their nervousness (psophodeés) about meats, and their superstition about the Sabbath, and the quackery (aladoneía) of circumcision, and the pretence (eiróneia) of fasts and new moons—ridiculous and worthless as it all is, I do not suppose you wish me to tell you. For to accept some of the things which God has made for man's need as well created, and to reject others as useless and superfluous, is it not rebellion (athémiston)? To lie against God as if He forbade us to do good on the Sabbath day, is not that impiety? To brag that the mutilation of the flesh is a proof of election—as if God specially loved them for it—ridiculous! And that they should keep a look-out on the stars and the moon and so observe months and days and distinguish the ordinances of God and the changes of the seasons, as their impulses prompt them to make some into feasts and some into times of mourning—who would count this a mark of piety towards God and not much rather of folly?

"That Christians are right to keep aloof from the general silliness and deceit of the Jews, their fussiness and quackery, I think you are well enough instructed. The mystery of their own piety towards God you must not expect to be able to learn from man."[[24]]

This was to deal with the distinctive usages of Judaism on general principles and from a standpoint outside it. It would doubtless be convincing enough to men who did not need to be convinced, but of little weight with those to whom the Scriptures meant everything. Accordingly the Apologists went to the Scriptures and arrayed their evidence with spirit and system.

We may begin, as the writer to Diognetus begins, with sacrifices. Here the Apologists could appeal to the Prophets, who had spoken of sacrifice in no sparing terms. Tertullian's fifth chapter in his book Against the Jews presents the evidence shortly and clearly. I will give the passages cited in a tabular form:—

Malachi 1, 10: I will not receive sacrifice from your hands, since from the rising sun to the setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Almighty, and in every place they offer pure sacrifices to my name.

Psalm 96, 7: Offer to God glory and honour, offer to God the sacrifices of his name; away with victims (tollite) and enter into his court.

Psalm 51, 17: A heart contrite and humbled is a sacrifice for God.

Psalm 50, 14: Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise and render thy vows to the Most High.

Isaiah 1, 11: Wherefore to me the multitude of your sacrifices? .... Whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices and the fat of goats and the blood of bulls I will not ... Who has sought these from your hands?

Justin has other passages as decisive. Does not God say by Amos (5, 21) "I hate, I loathe your feasts, and I will not smell [your offerings] in your assemblies. When ye offer me your whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices, I will not receive them," and so forth, in a long passage quoted at length. And again

Jeremiah 7, 21-22: Gather your flesh and your sacrifices and eat, for neither concerning sacrifices nor drink offerings did I command your fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.[[25]]

Next as to circumcision and the Sabbath. "You need a second circumcision," says Justin, "and yet you glory in the flesh; the new law bids you keep a perpetual Sabbath, while you idle for one day and suppose you are pious in so doing; you do not understand why it was enjoined upon you. And, if you eat unleavened bread, you say you have fulfilled the will of God."[[26]] Even by Moses, who gave the law, God cried "You shall circumcise the hardness of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more";[[27]] and Jeremiah long afterwards said the same more than once.[[28]] On the Sabbath question, Tertullian and the others distinguished two Sabbaths, an eternal and a temporal,[[29]] citing:—

Isaiah 1, 14: My soul hates your sabbaths.

Ezekiel 22, 8: Ye have profaned my sabbath.

The Jew is referred back to the righteous men of early days—Was Adam circumcised, or did he keep the Sabbath? or Abel, or Noah, or Enoch, or Melchizedek? Did Abraham keep the Sabbath, or any of the patriarchs down to Moses?[[30]] "But," rejoins the Jew, "was not Abraham circumcised? Would not the son of Moses have been strangled, had not his mother circumcised him?"[[31]]

Old law or new covenant

To this the Christian had several replies. Circumcision was merely given for a sign, as is shown by the fact that a woman cannot receive it, "for God has made women as well able as men to do what is just and right." There is no righteousness in being of one sex rather than of the other.[[32]] Circumcision then was imposed upon the Jews "to mark you off from the rest of the nations and from us, that you alone might suffer what now you are suffering, and so deservedly suffering—that your lands should be desolate and your cities burnt with fire, that strangers should eat your fruits before your faces, and none of you set his foot in Jerusalem. For in nothing are you known from other men apart from the circumcision of your flesh. None of you, I suppose, will venture to say that God did not foresee what should come to pass. And it is all deserved; for you slew the Righteous one and his prophets before him; and now you reject and dishonour—so far as you can—those who set their hopes on him and on the Almighty God, maker of all things, who sent him; and in your synagogues you curse those who believe on Christ."[[33]] The Sabbath was given to remind the Jews of God; and restrictions were laid on certain foods because of the Jewish proclivity to forsake the knowledge of God.[[34]] In general, all these commands were called for by the sins of Israel,[[35]] they were signs of judgment.

On the other hand the so-called Barnabas maintains that the Jews never had understood their law at all. Fasts, feasts and sacrifices were prescribed, not literally, but in a spiritual sense which the Jews had missed. The taboos on meats were not prohibitions of the flesh of weasels, hares and hyænas and so forth, but were allegoric warnings against fleshly lusts, to which ancient zoologists and modern Arabs have supposed these animals to be prone.[[36]] Circumcision was meant, as the prophets showed, to be that of the heart; evil dæmons had misled the Jews into practising it upon the flesh.[[37]] The whole Jewish dispensation was a riddle, and of no value, unless it is understood as signifying Christianity.

This line of attack was open to the criticism that it robbed the religious history of Israel of all value whatever, and the stronger Apologists do not take it. They will allow the Jews to have been so far right in observing their law, but they insist that it had a higher sense also, which had been overlooked except by the great prophets. The law was a series of types and shadows, precious till the substance came, which the shadows foretold. That they were mere shadows is shown by the fact that Enoch walked with God and Abraham was the friend of God. For this could not have been, if the Jewish contention were true that without Sabbath and circumcision man cannot please God. Otherwise, either the God of Enoch was not the God of Moses—which was absurd; or else God had changed his mind as to right and wrong—which was equally absurd.[[38]] No, the legislation of Moses was for a people and for a time; it was not for mankind and eternity. It was a prophecy of a new legislator, who should repeal the carnal code and enact one that should be spiritual, final and eternal.[[39]] Here, following the writer to the Hebrews, the Apologists quote a great passage of Jeremiah, with the advantage (not always possible) of using it in the true sense in which it was written. "Behold! the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not that which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people."[[40]]

With the law, the privilege of Israel passes away and the day of the Gentiles comes. It was foretold that Israel would not accept Christ—"their ears they have closed";[[41]] "they have not known nor understood";[[42]] "who is blind but my servants?"[[43]] "all these words shall be unto you as words of a book that is sealed."[[44]] "By Isaiah the prophet, God, knowing beforehand what you would do, cursed you thus";[[45]] and Justin cites Isaiah 3, 9-15, and 5, 18-25. Leah is the type of the synagogue and of the Jewish people and Rachel of "our church"; the eyes of Leah were weak, and so are the eyes of your soul—very weak.[[46]] No less was it prophesied that the Gentiles should believe on Christ—"in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blest"; "Behold! I have manifested him as a witness to the nations, a prince and a ruler to the races. Races which knew thee not shall call upon thee and peoples who were ignorant of thee shall take refuge with thee."[[47]]

"By David He said 'A people I knew not has served me, and hearkened to me with the hearing of the ear.' Let us, the Gentiles gathered together, glorify God," says Justin, "because he has visited us ... for he is well pleased with the Gentiles, and receives our sacrifices with more pleasure than yours. What have I to do with circumcision, who have the testimony of God? What need of that baptism to me, baptized with the holy spirit? These things, I think, will persuade even the slow of understanding. For these are not arguments devised by me, nor tricked out by human skill,—nay! this was the theme of David's lyre, this the glad news Isaiah brought, that Zechariah proclaimed and Moses wrote. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They are in your books—no! not yours, but ours—for we believe them—and you, when you read, do not understand the mind that is in them."[[48]] And with that Justin passes on to discuss whether Jesus is the Messiah. Such a passage raises the question as to how far he is reporting an actual conversation. In his 80th chapter he says to Trypho that he will make a book (syntaxis) of their conversation—of the whole of it—to the best of his ability, faithfully recording all that he concedes to Trypho. Probably he takes Plato's liberty to develop what was said—unless indeed the dialogue is from beginning to end merely a literary form imposed upon a thesis. In that case, it must be owned that Justin manages to give a considerable suggestion of life to Trypho's words.

Jesus the Messiah

But, even if the law be temporary, and the Sabbath spiritual, if Israel is to be rejected and the Gentiles chosen, we are still far from being assured on the warrant of the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah, who shall accomplish this great change. Why he rather than any of the "ten thousand others" who might much more plausibly be called the Messiah?[[49]]

To prove the Messiahship of Jesus, a great system of Old Testament citations was developed, the origins of which are lost to us. Paul certainly applied Scripture to Jesus in a free way of his own, though he is not more fanciful in quotation than his contemporaries. But he never sought to base the Christian faith on a scheme of texts. Lactantius, writing about 300 A.D., implies that Jesus is the author of the system. "He abode forty days with them and interpreted the Scriptures, which up to that time had been obscure and involved."[[50]] Something of the kind is suggested by Luke (24, 27). But it is obvious that the whole method is quite alien to the mind and style of Jesus, in spite of quotations in the vein of the apologists which the evangelists here and there have attributed to him.

We may discover two great canons in the operations of the Apologists. In the first place, they seek to show that all things prophesied of the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; and, secondly, that everything which befel Jesus was prophesied of the Messiah. These canons need only to be stated to show the sheer impossibility of the enterprise to anyone who attaches meaning to words. But in the early centuries of our era there was little disposition with Jew or Greek to do this where those books were concerned, whose age and beauty gave them a peculiar hold upon the mind. In each case the preconception had grown up, as about the myths of Isis, for example, that such books were in some way sacred and inspired. The theory gave men an external authority, but it presented some difficulties; for, both in Homer and in Genesis as in the Egyptian myths, there were stories repugnant to every idea of the divine nature which a philosophic mind could entertain. They were explained away by the allegoric method. Plutarch shows how the grossest features of the Isis legend have subtle and spiritual meanings and were never meant to be taken literally—that the myths are logoi in fact; and Philo vindicates the Old Testament in the same way.[[51]] The whole procedure was haphazard and unscientific; it closely resembled the principles used by Artemidorus for the interpretation of dreams—a painful analogy. But, in the absence of any kind of historic sense, it was perhaps the only way in which the continuity of religious thought could then be maintained. It is not surprising in view of the prevalence of allegory that the Christians used it—they could hardly do anything else. Thus with the fatal aid of allegory, the double thesis of the Apologists became easier and easier to maintain.

The most accessible illustration of this line of apology is to be found in the second chapter of Matthew. We may set out in parallel columns the events in the life of Jesus and the prophecies which they fulfil.

(a) The Virgin-Birth. _Isaiah_ 7, 14: Behold a virgin
shall conceive.
(b) Bethlehem. _Micah_ 5,2: And thou, Bethlehem,
etc.
(c) The Flight into Egypt. _Hosea_ 11, 1: Out of Egypt
have I called my son.
(d) The Murder of the children. _Jerem._ 31, 15: Rachel weeping.
(e) Nazareth. _Judges_ 13, 5: A Nazarene.

It is hardly unfair to say that the man who cited these passages in these connexions had no idea whatever of their original meaning, even where he quotes them correctly.

Here is a fuller scheme taken from the Apology which Justin addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. (The numbers on the left refer to the chapter in the first Apology.)

32. Jesus Christ foretold by _Gen._ 49, 10 f: (the blessing
Judah). of Moses.
_Numbers_ 24, 17: There shall
dawn a star, etc.
Jesus Christ foretold by _Isaiah_ 11, i: the rod of Jesse,
Isaiah. etc.
33. Jesus Christ to be born _Is._ 7, 14: (the sign to
of a virgin. Ahaz).
34. Jesus Christ to be born at _Micah_ 5, 2: Thou, Bethlehem,
Bethlehem. etc.
35. The triumphal entry into _Zech._ 9, 9: Thy king cometh
Jerusalem. riding on an ass, etc.
The Crucifixion: the Cross. _Is._ 9,6: The government upon
his shoulders.
_Is._ 65, 2: I have stretched out
my hands, etc.
The Crucifixion: the _Is._ 58, 2: They ask me for
mockery. judgment, etc.
The Crucifixion: the nails _Psalm_ 22, 16, 18: They
and the casting of lots. pierced my feet and my
hands; they cast lots upon
my raiment.
38. The Crucifixion: the _Is._ 50, 6-8: I gave my back
scourging. to the lashes and my cheeks
to blows, etc.
The Crucifixion: the _Ps._ 22, 7: they wagged the
mocking. head, saying, etc.
The Crucifixion: the _Ps._ 3, 5: I slept and slumbered
resurrection. and I rose up (_anéstên_)
because the Lord laid hold of
me.

39. The sending of the twelve _Is._ 2, 3 f.: Out of Sion shall
Apostles. go forth the law.
40. The proclamation of the _Ps._ 19, 2-5: Day unto day,
Gospel. etc.
Christ, Pilate, the Jews _Psalms_ 1 and 2: cited _in
and Herod. extenso_.
41. Christ to reign after the 1 _Chron._ 16, 23, 25-31: (a
Crucifixion. psalm). Cf. _Ps._ 96, i, 2,
4-11, with ending: "The
Lord hath reigned from the
tree."
45. The Ascension. _Ps._ 110, 1-3: Sit thou at my
right hand, etc.
47. The desolation of Jerusalem. _Is._ 64, 10-12: Sion has become
desert, etc.
_Is._ 1, 7, and _Jer._ 50, 3:
Their land is desert.
48. The miracles of Christ. _Is._ 35, 5, 6: The lame shall
leap ... the dead shall rise
and walk, etc.
Christ's death. _Is._ 57, 1 f.: Behold, how the
Just Man has perished, etc.
49. The Gentiles to find Christ _Is._ 65, 1-3: I was visible to
but not the Jews. them that asked not for me
... I spread out my hands
to a disobedient people.
50. Christ's humiliation and _Is._ 53, 12: For that they gave
the glorious second his soul to death ... he
advent. shall be exalted.
_Is._ 52, 13-53, 8: ... he was
wounded, etc.
51. His sufferings, origin, _Is._ 53, 8-12.
reign and ascension.
His second coming. "Jeremiah" = _Daniel_ 7, 13, as
it were a son of man cometh
upon the clouds and his
angels with him.

52. The final resurrection. _Ezek._ 37, 7-8: Bone shall be
joined to bone.
_Is._ 45, 23: Every knee shall
bow to the Lord.
_Is._ 66, 24: The worm shall
not sleep nor the fire be
quenched.
Also a composite quotation
with phrases mingled from
Isaiah and Zechariah,
attributed to the latter.
53. More Gentiles than Jews _Is._ 54, 1: Rejoice, O barren,
will believe. etc.
"Isaiah" = _Jerem._ 9, 26:
Israel uncircumcised in
heart.
60. The Cross foretold in the _Num._ 21, 8: If ye look at this
brazen serpent. type(_typô_) I believe ye shall
be saved in it (_en autô_).
61. Baptism. _Is._ 1, 16: Wash you ... I
will whiten as wool.

The God beside the Creator

What in the Apology is a bare outline, is developed at great length and with amazing ingenuity in the dialogue with Trypho. We may begin with the question of a "God beside the Creator."

When Moses wrote in Genesis (1, 26) "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image after our likeness,'" and again (3, 22) "And the Lord God said, 'Behold the man is become as one of us,'"[[52]] why did he use the plural, unless there is a God beside God? Again, when Sodom is destroyed why does the holy text say "The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha sulphur and fire from the Lord from heaven"?[[53]] And again in the Psalms (110) what is meant by "The Lord said unto my Lord"?[[54]] and by "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ... therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?"[[55]]

The Old Testament abounds in theophanies, which are brought up in turn. Justin cites the three men who appeared to Abraham—"they were angels," says Trypho, and a long argument follows to show from the passage that one of them is not to be explained as an angel,[[56]] nor of course as the Creator of all things. Trypho owns this. Justin pauses at his suggestion to discuss the meal which Abraham had served, but is soon caught up with the words: "Now, come, show us that this God who appeared to Abraham and is the servant of God, the Maker of all, was born of a virgin, and became, as you said, a man of like passions with all men." But Justin has more evidence to unfold before he reaches that stage. Without following the discussion as it sways from point to point, we may take the passage in which he recapitulates this line of argument. "I think I have said enough, so that, when my God says 'God went up from Abraham,' or 'The Lord spoke to Moses,' or 'The Lord descended to see the tower which the sons of men had built,' or 'The Lord shut the ark of Noah from without,' you will not suppose the unbegotten God Himself went down or went up. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes anywhere, nor 'walks' [as in the garden of Eden], nor sleeps, nor rises, but abides in his own region wherever it is, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, but not with eyes or ears, but by power unspeakable; and he surveys all things and knows all things, and none of us escapes his notice; nor does he move, nor can space contain him, no, nor the whole universe, him, who was before the universe was made."[[57]]

The virgin-birth

Who then was it who walked in the garden, who wrestled with Jacob, who appeared in arms to Joshua, who spoke with Moses and with Abraham, who shut Noah into the ark, who was the fourth figure in the fiery furnace? Scripture gives us a key. Can the Jew say, who it is whom Ezekiel calls the "angel of great counsel;" and the "man"; whom Daniel describes "as the Son of man"; whom Isaiah called "child," and David "Christ" and "God adored"; whom Moses called "Joseph" and "Jacob" and "the star"; whom Zechariah called "the daystar"; whom Isaiah again called the "sufferer" (pathêtós), "Jacob" and "Israel"; whom others have named "the Rod," "the Flower," "the Chief Corner-stone" and "the Son of God"?[[58]] The answer is more clearly given by Solomon in the eighth chapter of Proverbs—it is the Divine Wisdom, to whom all these names apply. When it is said "Let us make man," it is to be understood that the Ineffable communicated his design to his Wisdom, his Logos or Son, and the Son made man. The Son rained upon Sodom the fire and brimstone from the Father. It was the Son who appeared to men in all the many passages cited—the Son, Christ the Lord, God and Son of God—inseparable and unseverable from the Father, His Wisdom and His Word and His Might (dynamis).[[59]]

But, while all this might be accepted by a Jew, it still seemed to Trypho that it was "paradoxical, and foolish, too," to say that Christ could be God before all the ages, and then tolerate to be born a man, and yet "not a man of men." The offence of the Cross also remained. The Apologist began by explaining the mysteries of the two comings of Christ, first in humiliation, and afterwards in glory, as Jacob prophesied in his last words.[[60]] For the First Coming Tertullian quotes Isaiah—"he is led as a sheep to the slaughter"; and the Psalms—"made a little lower than the angels," "a worm and not a man"; while the Second Coming is to be read of in Daniel and the forty-fifth Psalm, and in the more awful passage of Zechariah "and then they shall know him whom they pierced."[[61]] The paschal lamb is a type of the First Coming—especially as it was to be roasted whole and trussed like a cross; and the two goats of Leviticus (16) are types of the two Comings.[[62]]

"And now," says Justin, "I took up the argument again to show that he was born of a virgin, and that it had been prophesied by Isaiah that he should be born of a virgin; and I again recited the prophecy itself. This is it: 'And the Lord said moreover unto Ahaz, saying: 'Ask for thyself a sign from the Lord thy God in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask nor tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said: Hear ye then, O house of David! Is it a little thing with you to strive with men? and how will ye strive with the Lord? Therefore shall the Lord himself give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat. Before he shall either have knowledge or choose evil, he shall choose good; because, before the child knows evil or good, he refuses evil to choose good. Because, before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the King of the Assyrians. And the land shall be taken, which thou shalt bear hardly from before the face of two kings. But God will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days which have never come, from the day when Ephraim removed from Judah the King of the Assyrians.' And I added, 'That, in the family of Abraham according to the flesh, none has ever yet been born of a virgin, or spoken of as so born, except our Christ, is manifest to all.'" It may be noted that the passage is not only misquoted, but is a combination of clauses from two distinct chapters.[[63]] The explanation is perhaps that Justin found it so in a manual of proof-texts and did not consult the original. Similar misquotations in other authors have suggested the same explanation.

"Trypho rejoined: 'The scripture has not: Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son; but: Behold the young woman shall conceive and bear a son: and the rest as you said. The whole prophecy was spoken of Hezekiah and was fulfilled of him. In the myths of the Greeks it is said that Perseus was born of Danae, when she was a virgin—after their so-called Zeus had come upon her in the form of gold. You ought to be ashamed to tell the same story as they do. You would do better to say this Jesus was born a man of men, and—if you show from the Scriptures that he is the Christ—say that it was by his lawful and perfect life that he was counted worthy of being chosen as Christ. Don't talk miracles of that kind, or you will be proved to talk folly beyond even that of the Greeks."'[[64]]

Trypho has the Hebrew text behind him, which says nothing about a virgin, though the Septuagint has the word. The sign given to Ahaz has a close parallel in a prophecy of Muhammad. Before he became known, an old man foretold that a great prophet should come, and on being challenged for a sign he pointed to a boy lying in rugs by the camp-fire—"That boy should see the prophet"; and he did. Isaiah's sign is much the same; a young woman shall conceive and have a son, and before that son is two or three years old, Damascus and Syria will fall before the King of Assyria.

But Justin and the Apologists are not to be diverted. As for Danae, the Devil (diábolos) has there anticipated the fulfilment of God's prophecy, as in many other instances, e.g.:—Dionysus rode an ass, he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven; Herakles is a parody of the verse in Psalm xix—the strong man rejoicing to run a race, a Messianic text; Æsculapius raised the dead; and the cave of Mithras is Daniel's "stone cut without hands from the great mountains." "I do not believe your teachers; they will not admit that the seventy elders of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, translated well, but they try to translate for themselves. And I should like you to know that they have cut many passages out of the versions made by Ptolemy's elders which prove expressly that this man, who was crucified, was prophesied of as God and man, crucified and slain. I know that all your race deny this; so, in discussions of this kind I do not quote those passages, but I have recourse to such as come from what you still acknowledge."[[65]] The objection to the rendering "young woman" is that it completely nullifies the sign given to Ahaz, for children are born of young women every day—"what would really be a sign and would give confidence to mankind,—to wit, that the firstborn of all creations should take flesh and really be born a child of a virgin womb—that was what he proclaimed beforehand by the prophetic spirit."[[66]]

The whole story is parable. It would be absurd to suppose that an infant could be a warrior and reduce great states. The spoils are really the gifts of the Magi, as is indicated by passages in Zechariah ("he shall gather all the strength of the peoples round about, gold and silver," 14, 14) and the seventy second Psalm ("Kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts to him; and to him shall be given gold from the East"). Samaria again is a common synonym with the prophets for idolatry. Damascus means the revolt of the Magi from the evil dæmon who misdirected their arts to evil. The King of Assyria stands, says Justin, for King Herod, and so says Tertullian, writing against Marcion, though in the tract Against the Jews (if it is Tertullian's) he says the devil is intended.[[67]] The usual passages from Micah and Jeremiah are cited to add Bethlehem and the Murder of the infants to the prophetic story.

"At this Trypho, with some hint of annoyance, but overawed by the Scriptures, as his face showed, said to me: 'God's words are holy, but your expositions [or translations] are artificial—or blasphemous, I should say.'"[[68]]

To complete the proof, it is shown that the very name of Jesus was foretold. When Moses changed the name of his successor from Auses to Jesus, it was a prophecy, as Scripture shows. "The Lord said unto Moses: Say to this people, Behold I send my angel before thy face that he may guard thee in the way, that he may lead thee into the land that I have prepared for thee. Give heed unto him ... for he will not let thee go, for my name is in him."[[69]] This is confirmed by Zechariah's account of the High Priest Joshua. Furthermore, the chronology of the book of Daniel, when carefully worked out, proves to have contained the prediction of the precise date at which Christ should come, and at that precise date Christ came.

Barnabas discovers another prophecy of Jesus in an unlikely place. "Learn, children of love," he says," that Abraham, who first gave circumcision, looked forward in spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised, for he received dogmata in three letters. For it saith: And Abraham circumcised of his house men 18 and 300. What then was the knowledge given unto him? Mark that it says 18 first, and then after a pause 300. 18 [IH in Greek notation] there thou hast Jesus. And because the cross in T [= 300 in Greek notation] was to have grace, it saith 300 as well. It shows Jesus in the two letters, and in the one the cross."[[70]]

We now reach the prophecies of the cross, and, as the method is plain, a few references may suffice, taken this time from Tertullian (c. 10):—

Genesis 22, 6: Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice of himself.

Genesis 37, 28: Joseph sold by his brethren.

Deuteronomy 33,17: Moses' blessing of Joseph. (The unicorn's horns, with some arrangement, form a cross: cf. Psalm 22).

Exodus 17, 11: Moses with his arms spread wide.

Numbers 21, 9: The brazen serpent.

Psalm 96, 10: The Lord hath reigned from the tree, e ligno (though the Jews have cut out the last words).

Isaiah 9, 6: The government upon his shoulder.

Jeremiah 11, 19: Let us cast wood (lignum) into his bread.

Isaiah 53, 8, 9: For the transgression of my people is he stricken ... and his sepulture is taken from the midst (i.e. the resurrection).

Amos 8, 9: I will cause the sun to go down at noon.

For a long time before Justin was done with his exposition, Trypho was silent—the better part, perhaps, in all controversy. At last, writes Justin, "I finished. Trypho said nothing for a while, and then he said, 'You see, we came to the controversy unprepared. Still, I own, I am greatly pleased to have met you, and I think my friends have the same feeling. For we have found more than we expected,—or anyone could have expected. If we could do it at more length, we might be better profited by looking into the passages themselves. But, since you are on the point of sailing and expect to embark every day now,—be sure you think of us as friends, if you go.'"[[71]] So, with kindly feelings, Trypho went away unconvinced. And there were others, as clear of mind, who were as little convinced,—Marcion, for instance, and Celsus. "The more reasonable among Jews and Christians," says Celsus, "try to allegorize them [the Scriptures], but they are beyond being allegorized and are nothing but sheer mythology of the silliest type. The supposed allegories that have been made are more disgraceful than the myths and more absurd, in their endeavour to string together what never can in any way be harmonized—it is folly positively wonderful for its utter want of perception."[[72]] The modern reader may not be so ready as Origen was to suggest that Celsus probably had Philo in mind.[[73]]

Results

It is clear that, in the endeavour to give Christianity a historical background and a prophetic warrant, the Apologists lost all perspective.[[74]] The compelling personality of Jesus receded behind the vague figure of the Christ of prophecy; and, in their pre-occupation with what they themselves called "types and shadows," men stepped out of the sunlight into the shade and hardly noticed the change. Yet there is still among the best of them the note of love of Jesus—"do not speak evil of the crucified," pleads Justin, "nor mock at his stripes, whereby all may be healed, as we have been healed."[[75]] And after all it was an instinct for the truth and universal significance of Jesus that carried them away. He must be eternal; and they, like the men of their day, thought much of the beginning and the end of creation, and perhaps found it easier than we do,—certainly more natural,—to frame schemes under which the Eternal Mind might manifest itself. Eschatology, purpose, foreknowledge, pervade their religious thought, and they speak with a confidence which the centuries since the Renaissance have made more and more impossible for us, who find it hard enough to be sure of the fact without adventuring ourselves in the possibilities that lie around it. None the less the centre of interest was the same for them as for us—what is the significance of Jesus of Nazareth? For them the facts of his life and of his mind had often less value than the fancy that they fulfilled prophecy; Celsus said outright that the Christians altered them, and there is some evidence that, in the accommodation of prophecy and history, the latter was sometimes over-developed. For us, the danger is the opposite; we risk losing sight of the eternal significance in our need of seeing clearly the historic lineaments.

In the conflict of religions, Christianity had first to face Judaism, and, though the encounter left its record upon the conquering faith, it secured its freedom from the yoke of the past. It gained background and the broadening of the historic imagination. It made the prophets and psalmists of Israel a permanent and integral part of Christian literature—and in all these ways it became more fit to be the faith of mankind, as it deepened its hold upon the universal religious experience. Yet it did so at the cost of a false method which has hampered it for centuries, and of a departure (for too long a time) from the simplicity and candour of the mind of Jesus. In seeking to recover that mind to-day we commit ourselves to the belief that it is sufficient, and that, when we have rid ourselves of all that in the course of ages has obscured the great personality, in proportion as we regain his point of view, we shall find once more (in the words of a far distant age) that his spirit will guide us into all truth.

Chapter VI Footnotes:

[[1]] Justin, Trypho, c. 17; Tert. adv. Jud. 13.

[[2]] Psalm. Solom. xvii, 27-35. Ed. Ryle and James.

[[3]] Assumption of Moses, x, 8-10, tr. R. H. Charles. "Gehenna" is a restoration which seems probable, the Latin in terram representing what was left of the word in Greek. See Dr Charles' note.

[[4]] Justin, Trypho, 46, 47. The question is still asked; I have heard it asked.

[[5]] Justin, Trypho, 50.

[[6]] Justin, Trypho, 32; the quotations are from Daniel.

[[7]] Justin, Trypho, 48.

[[8]] Justin, Trypho, 68.

[[9]] Justin, Trypho, 17, 108.

[[10]] Cf. Tert. de Spect. 30, fabri aut quæstuariæ filius.

[[11]] Origen, c. Cels. i, 28, 32, 39. The beauty of the woman is an element in the stories of Greek demi-gods.

[[12]] c. Cels. ii, 55.

[[13]] ii, 27.

[[14]] ii, 29.

[[15]] ii, 28.

[[16]] i, 50.

[[17]] 2 Tim. 8, 15.

[[18]] Trypho, 39.

[[19]] Ign. Philad. 8, 2.

[[20]] Ign. Magn. 10, 3; 8, 1.

[[21]] So says Eusebius, E.H. iv, 18. Justin does not name the city.

[[22]] Trypho, 8.

[[23]] Justin, Trypho, 8.

[[24]] ad Diogn. 3, 4.

[[25]] Trypho, 22.

[[26]] Ibid. 12.

[[27]] Deut. 10, 16, 17; Trypho, 16.

[[28]] Jerem. 4, 4; 9, 25; Trypho, 28.

[[29]] Tert. adv. Jud. 4.

[[30]] Justin, Trypho, 19; Tert. adv. Jud. 2; Cyprian, Testim. 1, 8. Tertullian had to face a similar criticism of Christian life—was Abraham baptized? de Bapt. 13.

[[31]] Tert. adv. Jud. 3.

[[32]] Trypho, 23; Cyprian, Testim. 1, 8.

[[33]] Trypho, 16 (slightly compressed).

[[34]] Trypho, 19, 20; cf. Tert. adv. Jud.

[[35]] Trypho, 22.

[[36]] Barnabas, 10; cf. Pliny, N.H. 8, 218, on the hare; and Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, 353 F, 363 F, 376 E, 381 A (weasel), for similar zoology and symbolism. Clem. Alex. Str. ii, 67; v, 51; refers to this teaching of Barnabas (cf. ib. ii, 105).

[[37]] Barnabas, 9.

[[38]] Trypho, 23.

[[39]] Ibid. 11.

[[40]] Jerem. 31, 31; Trypho, 11; Tert. adv. Jud. 3.

[[41]] Is. 6, 10; Trypho, 12; Cyprian, Testim. i, 3.

[[42]] Ps. 82, 5; Trypho, 124; Cyprian, Testim. i, 3.

[[43]] Is. 42, 19; Trypho, 123, where the plural is used.

[[44]] Is. 29, 11; Cyprian, Testim. i, 4.

[[45]] Trypho, 133.

[[46]] Trypho, 134.

[[47]] Cyprian, Testim. i, 21; Justin, Trypho, 12; Tert. adv. Marc. iii, 20.

[[48]] Trypho, 29.

[[49]] c. Cels. ii, 28,

[[50]] Lactantius, de mort. persec. 2.

[[51]] Tertullian lays down the canon (adv. Marc. iii, 5) pleraque figurate portenduntur per ænigmata et allegorias et parabolas, aliter intelligenda quam scripta sunt; but (de resurr. carnis, 20) non omnia imagines sed et veritates, nec omnia umbræ sed et corpora, e.g. the Virgin-birth is not foretold in figure.

[[52]] Trypho, 62, 129; Barnabas, 5, 5; Tert. adv. Prax. 12.

[[53]] Trypho, 56.

[[54]] Ibid. 56.

[[55]] Ibid. 56.

[[56]] Trypho, 56, 57.

[[57]] Trypho, 127. Tert. adv. Marc. ii, 27. Quæcunque exigitis deodigna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido et, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo. Quæcunque autem ut indigna reprehenditis, deputabuntur in filio, etc. Cf. on the distinction Tert. adv. Prax. 14 ff. Cf. the language of Celsus on God "descending," see p. 248.

[[58]] Trypho, 126. Other titles are quoted by Justin, Trypho, 61.

[[59]] Trypho, 128. Cf. Tertullian, adv. Marc. ii, 27, Ille est qui descendit, ille qui interrogat, ille qui postulat, ille qui jurat; adv. Prax. 15, Filius itaque est qui....

[[60]] Gen. 49, 8-12; Trypho, 52, 53; Apol. i, 32; Cyprian, Testim. i, 21.

[[61]] Tert. adv. Jud. 14.

[[62]] Trypho, 40; Tert. adv. Jud. 14; Barnabas, 7.

[[63]] Trypho, 66. Isaiah vii and viii.

[[64]] Trypho, 67.

[[65]] Trypho, 71.

[[66]] Trypho, 84. Cf. Tert. adv. Jud. 9 = adv. Marc. iii, 13.

[[67]] Trypho, 77: Tert. adv. Jud. 9 = adv. Marc. iii, 13; both referring to Psalm 71.

[[68]] Trypho, 79.

[[69]] Trypho, 75; Exodus 23, 20.

[[70]] Barnabas, 9, 8 (the subject of 'saith' may in each case be 'he'). Clement of Alexandria cites this and adds a mystic and mathematical account of this suggestive figure 318. Strom. vi. 84.

[[71]] Trypho, 142.

[[72]] Celsus ap. Orig. c. Cels. iv, 50, 51.

[[73]] Especially when he finds Celsus referring to the dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as "more worthy of pity and hatred than of laughter"; c. Cels. iv, 52.

[[74]] Porphyry (cited by Euseb. E.H. vi, 19), says they made riddles of what was perfectly plain in Moses, their expositions would not hang together, and they cheated their own critical faculty, tò kritikòn tês psychês katagoeteúsantes.

[[75]] Trypho, 137.