Footnote 220:[ (return) ]
Barn. 4. 6. f.; 14. 1 f. The author of Præd. Petri must have had a similar view of the matter.
Footnote 221:[ (return) ]
Justin in the Dialogue with Trypho.
Footnote 222:[ (return) ]
Barn. 9 f. It is a thorough misunderstanding of Barnabas' position towards the Old Testament to suppose it possible to pass over his expositions, c. 6-10, as oddities and caprices, and put them aside as indifferent or unmethodical. There is nothing here unmethodical, and therefore nothing arbitrary. Barnabas' strictly spiritual idea of God, and the conviction that all (Jewish) ceremonies are of the devil, compel his explanations. These are so little ingenious conceits to Barnabas that, but for them, he would have been forced to give up the Old Testament altogether. The account, for example, of Abraham having circumcised his slaves would have forced Barnabas to annul the whole authority of the Old Testament if he had not succeeded in giving it a particular interpretation. He does this by combining other passages of Genesis with the narrative, and then finding in it no longer circumcision, but a prediction of the crucified Christ.
Footnote 223:[ (return) ]
Barn. 9. 6: αλλ' ερεις, και μην περιτετμηται 'ο λαος εις σφραγιδα.
Footnote 224:[ (return) ]
See the expositions of Justin in the Dial. (especially, 16, 18, 20, 30, 40-46); Von Engelhardt, "Christenthum Justin's", p. 429, ff. Justin has the three estimates side by side. (1) That the ceremonial law was a pædagogic measure of God with reference to a stiff-necked people, prone to idolatry. (2) That it—like circumcision—was to make the people conspicuous for the execution of judgment, according to the Divine appointment. (3) That in the ceremonial legal worship of the Jews is exhibited the special depravity and wickedness of the nation. But Justin conceived the Decalogue as the natural law of reason, and therefore definitely distinguished it from the ceremonial law.
Footnote 225:[ (return) ]
See Ztschr fur K.G. I., p. 330 f.
Footnote 226:[ (return) ]
This is the unanimous opinion of all writers of the post-Apostolic age. Christians are the true Israel; and therefore all Israel's predicates of honour belong to them. They are the twelve tribes, and therefore Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are the Fathers of the Christians. This idea, about which there was no wavering, cannot everywhere be traced back to the Apostle Paul. The Old Testament men of God were in a certain measure Christians. See Ignat. Magn. 8. 2: 'οι προφηται κατα Χριστον Ιησουν εζησαν.
Footnote 227:[ (return) ]
God was naturally conceived and represented as corporeal by uncultured Christians, though not by these alone, as the later controversies prove (e.g., Orig. contra Melito; see also Tertull. De anima). In the case of the cultured, the idea of a corporeality of God may be traced back to Stoic influences; in the case of the uncultured, popular ideas co-operated with the sayings of the Old Testament literally understood, and the impression of the Apocalyptic images.
Footnote 228:[ (return) ]
See Joh. IV. 22, 'ημεις προσκυνουμεν 'ο οιδαμεν. 1 Clem. 59. 3, 4, Herm. Mand. I., Præd Petri in Clem., Strom. VI. 5. 9 γινωσκετε 'οτι εις θεος εστιν, 'ος αρχην παντων εποιησεν, και τελους εξουσιαν εχων. Aristides Apol. 15 (Syr) "The Christians know and believe in God, the creator of heaven and of earth." Chap. 16 "Christians as men who know God pray to him for things which it becomes him to give and them to receive." Similarly Justin: "From very many old Gentile Christian writings we hear it as a cry of joy 'We know God the Almighty, the night of blindness is past'" (see, e.g., 2 Clem. c. 1). God is δεσποτης, a designation which is very frequently used (it is rare in the New Testament). Still more frequently do we find κυριος. As the Lord and Creator God is also called the Father (of the world) so 1 Clem. 19. 2 'ο πατηρ και κτιστης του συμπαντος κοσμου; 35. 3 δημιουργος και πατηρ των αιωνων. This use of the name Father for the supreme God was as is well known familiar to the Greeks, but the Christians alone were in earnest with the name. The creation out of nothing was made decidedly prominent by Hermas, see Vis. I. 1. 6 and my notes on the passage. In the Christian Apocrypha, in spite of the vividness of the idea of God, the angels play the same rôle as in the Jewish, and as in the current Jewish speculations. According to Hermas, e.g., all God's actions are mediated by special angels, nay the Son of God himself is represented by a special angel, viz. Michael, and works by him. But outside the Apocalypses there seems to have been little interest in the good angels.
Footnote 229:[ (return) ]
See, for example 1 Clem. 20.