In Proverbs viii. 22 ff., we have a representation of Wisdom corresponding closely with the prelude to the fourth Gospel, and still more so with the doctrine enunciated by Justin: 22. "The Lord created me the Beginning of his ways for his works. 23. Before the ages he established me, in the beginning before he made the earth. 24. And before he made the abysses, before the springs of the waters issued forth. 25. Before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills he begets me. 26. The Lord made the lands, both those which are uninhabited and the inhabited heights of the earth beneath the sky. 27. When he prepared the heavens I was present with him, and when he set his throne upon the winds, 28, and made strong the high clouds, and the deeps under the heaven made secure, 29, and made strong the foundations of the earth, 30, I was with him adjusting, I was that in which he delighted; daily I rejoiced in his presence at all times."(1) In the "Wisdom of Solomon" we find the writer addressing God: ix. 1... "Who madest all things by thy Word" [———]; and further on in the same chapter, v. 9, "And Wisdom was with thee who knoweth thy works, and was present when thou madest the world, and knew what was acceptable
in thy sight, and right in thy commandments. "(1) In verse 4, the writer prays: "Give me Wisdom that sitteth by thy thrones" [——-].(2) In a similar way the son of Sirach makes Wisdom say (Ecclesiast. xxiv. 9): "He (the Most High) created me from the beginning before the world, and as long as the world I shall not fail."(3) We have already incidentally seen how these thoughts grew into an elaborate doctrine of the Logos in the works of Philo.
Now Justin, whilst he nowhere adopts the terminology of the fourth Gospel, and nowhere refers to its introductory condensed statement of the Logos doctrine, closely follows Philo and, like him, traces it back to the Old Testament in the most direct way, accounting for the interposition of the divine Mediator in precisely the same manner as Philo, and expressing the views which had led the Seventy to modify the statement of the Hebrew original in their Greek translation. He is, in fact, thoroughly acquainted with the history of the Logos doctrine and its earlier enunciation under the symbol of Wisdom, and his knowledge of it is clearly independent of, and antecedent to, the statements of the fourth Gospel.
Referring to various episodes of the Old Testament in which God is represented as appearing to Moses and the Patriarchs, and in which it is said that "God went up from Abraham,"(4) or "The Lord spake to Moses,"(5) or "The Lord came down to behold the town," &c.,(6) or "God
shut Noah into the ark,"(1) and so on, Justin warns his antagonist that he is not to suppose that "the unbegotten God" [———] did any of these things, for he has neither to come to any place, nor walks, but from his own place, wherever it may be, knows everything although he has neither eyes nor ears. Therefore he. could not talk with anyone, nor be seen by anyone, and none of the Patriarchs saw the Father at all, but they saw "him who was according to his will both his Son (being God) and the Angel, in that he ministered to his purpose, whom also he willed to be born man by the Virgin, who became fire when he spoke with Moses from the bush."(2) He refers throughout his writings to the various appearances of God to the Patriarchs, all of which he ascribes to the pre-existent Jesus, the Word,(3) and in the very next chapter, after alluding to some of these, he says: "he is called Angel because he came to men, since by him the decrees of the Father are announced to men... At other times he is also called Man and human being, because he appears clothed in these forms as the Father wills, and they call him Logos because
he bears the communications of the Father to mankind."(1)