7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. Not saved.
8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. Not saved.
Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth of Jesus and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable, God, with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The Holy Spirit is not regarded by Justin as a separate personality, and is often mixed up with the "Logos." The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a believer in the resurrection of the body, as in the speedy Second Coming and establishment of the millennium.
This pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century—a much-travelled native of Samaria—was certainly well acquainted with Rome, probably with Alexandria, and it is likely that he knew
the state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian world as well as any man of his time. If the various categories above enumerated are arranged in a series thus:—
| Justin's Christianity
| |||||||
| Orthodox Judaism | Judæo-Christianity
| Idolothytic Christianity | Paganism | ||||
| I. | II. | III. | IV. | V. | VI. | VII. | VIII. |
it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox Judaism, on the extreme left, to Paganism, whether philosophic or popular, on the extreme right; and it will further be observed that, while Justin's conception of Christianity is very broad, he rigorously excludes two classes of persons who, in his time, called themselves Christians; namely, those who insist on circumcision and other observances of the Law on the part of Gentile converts; that is to say, the strict Judæo-Christians (II.); and, on the other hand, those who assert the lawfulness of eating meat offered to idols—whether they are Gnostic or not (VII.) These last I have called "idolothytic" Christians, because I cannot devise a better name, not because it is strictly defensible etymologically.
At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of his dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. On the other hand, I suppose there is no Protestant sect within the pale of orthodoxy, to say nothing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which would hesitate to declare the practice of circumcision and the
observance of the Jewish Sabbath and dietary rules, shockingly heretical.
Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the right of Justin's position, but it is of much narrower compass.