Whilst apologists assert with some boldness that Justin made use of our Synoptics, they are evidently, and with good reason, less confident in maintaining his acquaintance with the fourth Gospel. Canon Westcott states: "His references to St John are uncertain; but this, as has been already remarked, follows from the character of the fourth Gospel. It was unlikely that he should quote its peculiar teaching in apologetic writings addressed to Jews and heathens; and at the same time he exhibits types of language and doctrine which, if not immediately drawn from St. John, yet mark the presence of his influence and the recognition of his authority."(1) This apology for the neglect of the fourth Gospel
illustrates the obvious scantiness of the evidence furnished by Justin.
Tischendorf, however, with his usual temerity, claims Justin as a powerful witness for the fourth Gospel. He says: "According to our judgment there are convincing grounds of proof for the fact that John also was known and used by Justin, provided that an unprejudiced consideration be not made to give way to the antagonistic predilection against the Johannine Gospel." In order fully and fairly to state the case which he puts forward, we shall quote his own words, but to avoid repetition we shall permit ourselves to interrupt him by remarks and by parallel passages from other writings for comparison with Justin. Tischendorf says: "The representation of the person of Christ altogether peculiar to John as it is given particularly in his Prologue i. 1 (" In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"), and verse 14 ("and the word became flesh"), in the designation of him as Logos, as the Word of God, unmistakably re-echoes in not a few passages in Justin; for instance:(1) 'And Jesus Christ is alone the special Son begotten by God, being his Word and first-begotten and power.'"(2)
With this we may compare another passage of Justin from the second Apology. "But his son, who alone is rightly called Son, the Word before the works of creation,
1 Tischendorf uses great liberty in translating some of
these passages, abbreviating and otherwise altering them as
it suits him. We shall therefore give his German translation
below, and we add the Greek which Tischendorf does not
quote—indeed he does not, in most cases, even state where
the passages are to be found.
who was both with him and begotten when in the beginning he created and ordered all things by him,"(1) &c.
Now the same words and ideas are to be found throughout the Canonical Epistles and other writings, as well as in earlier works. In the Apocalypse,(2) the only book of the New Testament mentioned by Justin, and which is directly ascribed by him to John,(3) the term Logos is applied to Jesus "the Lamb," (xix. 13): "and his name is called the Word of God" [———]. Elsewhere (iii. 14) he is called "the Beginning of the Creation of God" [———]; and again in the same book (i. 5) he is "the first-begotten of the dead" [———]. In Heb. i 6 he is the "first-born" [———], as in Coloss. i. 15 he is "the first-born of every creature" [———]; and in 1 Cor. i. 24 we have: "Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God"[———], and it will be remembered that "Wisdom" was the earlier term which became an alternative with "Word" for the intermediate Being. In Heb. i. 2, God is represented as speaking to us "in the Son.... by whom he also made the worlds" [———]. In 2 Tim. i. 9, he is "before all worlds" [———], cf. Heb. L 10, ii. 10, Kom. xi. 36, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Ephes. iii. 9.
The works of Philo are filled with similar representations of the Logos, but we must restrict ourselves to a very