But His Son, who alone is called Son in the full sense, the Word who before all created things both was with Him and was generated, when at the beginning He created and ordered ( or adorned) all things through Him, is called on the one hand Christ, in respect of His being anointed and of God's ordering ( or adorning) all things through Him----a name which also in itself contains a signification beyond our knowledge, just as the title God is not a name, but a conception, innate in human nature, of a thing ( or work) too hard to be declared ( πράγματος δυσεξηγήτου ).
Here Justin is explaining that "Christ" is a name indeed, but more than a name. It is a designation derived from a work, just as the designation God is derived from a work (cf. ἔργων above, and πράγματος ). What then is this work? The anointing which made Him the Christ is something which to Justin's mind occurred before His coming as man. He was anointed that through Him God might order (or adorn) the universe. The sense of the words is fairly plain, if it be somewhat surprising.
But the construction of the Greek at the crucial point is at least awkward. The words are: Χριστὸς μὲν κατὰ τὸ κεχρῖσθαι καὶ κοσμῆσαι τὰ πάντα δι̕ αὐτοῦ τὸν θεὸν λέγεται . Long ago Scaliger proposed to read καὶ χρῖσαι , instead of κεχρῖσθαι . This would mean: "in respect of God's both anointing and ordering all things through Him." The emendation found little favour with the editors of Justin, until the discovery of the Demonstration. Now it seems likely to find a wider acceptance in view of these words of Irenaeus: "For He was named Christ because through Him the Father |18 anointed and adorned all things." At any rate it will not be doubted that Irenaeus so understood the passage, whatever he may have actually read in his copy of Justin. I have not myself ventured to correct Justin's text: for it is intelligible as it stands; whereas to say "He was called Christ," not because He was anointed, but "because the Father anointed all things through Him," is not very intelligible, even though Irenaeus has said it. Justin continues:
Jesus, on the other hand, offers both the name of a man and the significance of Saviour. For, as we have already said, He has become man, born in accordance with the counsel of God the Father on behalf of the men that believe on Him and for the overthrow of the demons: and this you can learn at the present time from what takes place under your eyes. For many possessed of demons, in the world generally and in your own city, have been healed and are still being healed by many of our men, the Christians, who exorcise them by the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, though they could not be healed by all the rest of the exorcists.
Jesus is a man's name, familiar enough to Greek readers of the Bible from having been given by Moses to his successor whom we call Joshua. It also has a significance: for it means Saviour.
As Σωτήρ to the Greeks suggested specially the giving of health ( σωτηρία ), Justin finds a connexion between ̕Ιησοῦς and ἴασις , "healing." You can see this to-day, he says: for the Christians who use the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, can heal when no one else can ( μὴ ἰαθέντας ἰάσαντο καὶ ἔτι νῦν ἰῶνται ).
Turning back to the last words of the passage quoted above from Irenaeus, we note that the same interpretation of "Jesus" is in his mind, even |19 if he does not play on the word ἴασις . For σωτηρία itself includes "healing" among its meanings: and Irenaeus refers to our Lord's own acts of healing, though he does not at this point follow Justin in instancing the healing of the possessed by Christians in the name of Jesus.
We have now to consider a passage in which the help to be gained from Justin is not so clear. In c.43 we read: "This Jeremiah the prophet also testified, saying thus: Before the morning-star I begat thee; and before the sun (is) thy name; and that is, before the creation of the world; for together with the world the stars were made."
Here we have a composite quotation, made up from two different Psalms and attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. The words of Ps. cx. 3, which are familiar to us in the form " The dew of thy youth is of the womb of the morning," were understood by the LXX to mean " From the womb before the morning-star I begat thee" ( ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐγέννησά σε ). In our passage the phrase "from the womb" is dropped; and thus the text can be the more easily applied to the pre-existent Son of God. We feel the difficulty of combining the two phrases when we find Tertullian ( Adv. Marcion. V. 9), who applies the passage to our Lord's human birth, constrained to interpret "before the morning-star" as meaning while it was yet dark, and offering various proofs from the Gospels that Christ was born in the night.
The second half of our quotation is a |20 modification of Ps. lxxii. 17: "Before the sun his name remaineth " ( πρὸ τοῦ ἡλίου διαμένει τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ), or "shall remain" ( διαμενεῖ ) .
It is obvious that the two texts have been drawn together by a recollection of the parallel phrases "before the morning-star" and "before the sun." But again, in the neighbourhood of the latter, we find "before the moon," in the difficult verse (Ps. lxxii. 5): καὶ συνπαραμενεῖ τῷ ἡλίῳ, καὶ πρὸ τῆς σελήνης γενεὰς γενεῶν . We shall see that in other writers this phrase also is drawn in.
We may now consider the use made of these texts by Justin Martyr. In his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho (c. 45) he speaks of Christ, as "the Son of God, who was before the morning-star and the moon" and was incarnate and born of the Virgin. This is not exactly a mixed quotation, but we see how readily phrases from the two Psalms are combined. Then in c. 63 he quotes "that which was spoken by David: In the brightness of thy holy ones, from the womb before the morning-star I begat thee: " and he comments thus: "Does this not show you that from of old ( ἄνωθεν ) and through a human womb the God and Father of all was to beget Him? "Here there is no combination of texts: but in c. 76 we have the three texts brought together, though "the morning-star" is not mentioned: "And David proclaimed that before sun (Ps. lxxii. 17) and moon (Ps. lxxii. 5) He should be begotten from the womb (Ps. cx. 3), according to the counsel of the Father."
If, as we may well believe, these passages of Justin were familiar to Irenaeus, it is not difficult |21 to understand that by a trick of memory he should produce the quotation: "Before the morning-star I begat thee and before the sun is thy name." It was a more serious lapse to assign the quotation to Jeremiah.
In a book of Testimonies against the Jews, attributed to Gregory of Nyssa, we have the following quotation which combines all three texts: "From the womb before the morning-star I begat thee: and before the sun is his name, and before the moon." This is not assigned to any particular author; and as we have "his name," not "thy name," it may be intended for two separate quotations. It is possible that by this date the words "and before the moon" had got into some MSS. of the LXX. The Old Latin Psalter has: "Ante solem permanebit nomen ejus in saecula, et ante lunam sedes ejus;" and some cursive MSS. of the LXX have a Greek text which corresponds with this.
Dr Rendel Harris also quotes from the Syriac writer Bar Salibi: "David said: Before the day-star I begat thee. And before the sun is his name, and before the moon." From these and other parallels he concludes that Irenaeus made use of a common body of proof texts contained in a very ancient book of "Testimonies against the Jews." |22 The existence of such a work has been suggested more than once. Dr Rendel Harris has propounded it in a fresh and attractive form in a book entitled "Testimonies," of which as yet only the introductory portion has appeared (Cambridge, 1916). The body of evidence on which it rests is promised us in a second volume; and judgment must necessarily be suspended until this is available. So far as the Demonstration of Irenaeus is concerned, this is the only passage in which there might conceivably be a gain in calling in such a hypothesis. Direct dependence on Justin, on the other hand, can be demonstrated in various portions of our treatise; and this may be the true explanation here.
Irenaeus goes on to attribute to Jeremiah a yet more strange quotation: " Blessed is he who was, before he became man ." The German translations render the last words differently: one of them has: "before the coming into being of man (vor dem Werden des Menschen):" the other has: "before through him man was made (bevor durch ihn der Mensch warde)." We have however an exact parallel to the construction in the Armenian rendering of the words "before he knoweth" in c. 53. The Greek there is πρὶν ἢ γνῶναι αὐτόν (Isa. vii. 15); and we may suppose that here it was πρὶν ἢ γενηθῆναι αὐτὸν ἄνθρωπον .
No such text is to be found in any book now known to us which is attributed to Jeremiah. Dr Rendel Harris has been the first to point to its occurrence in a slightly different form, and again as quoted from Jeremiah, in Lactantius (Divin. Inst. |23 iv. 8). The whole passage must be given: "First of all we affirm that He was twice born, first in spirit, afterwards in flesh. Wherefore in Jeremiah it is thus spoken: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. Also: Blessed is he who was, before he was born: which happened unto none save Christ; who, being from the beginning Son of God, was re-born anew according to the flesh." The Latin, "Beatus qui erat antequam nasceretur," may represent a Greek reading, πρὶν ἢ γεννηθῆναι .
The words which follow in Lactantius: "qui, cum esset a principio filius dei, regeneratus est denuo secundum carnem," appear to be taken from Cyprian's Testimonia (II, 8), where a section is headed: " Quod, cum a principio filius dei fuisset, generari denuo haberet secundum carnem;" but the only O.T. quotation that there follows is Ps. ii. 7 f.
So far, then, we have no clue to the source from which either Irenaeus or Lactantius derived this strange quotation. It is not likely that Lactantius got it, directly at any rate, from the Demonstration of Irenaeus, which does not appear to have had a wide circulation. It is possible that this and certain other passages which are attributed to Jeremiah may be derived from some apocryphal work bearing that prophet's name.
[Note to the online text: pp. 24ff which deal with Justin and Irenaeus on the Holy Spirit have been omitted]
[Footnotes moved to the end and renumbered]
1. The Armenian translation of Bks. IV and V, found in the same MS. with our treatise, is a valuable aid for the criticism of these books.
2. Eccl. Hist., v. 26.
3. See chapters 1 and 99.
4. Published with a translation by the same editors in Texte u. Untersuchungen, xxxv. 2.