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What did the famous Justin Martyr teach about Proverbs 8, and why?
In this episode of the trinities podcast, we learn about who Justin was, his spiritual journey, and what works we still have from his hand.
Along the way, we ask how various readers have taken these two statements by Lady Wisdom:
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work…
…then I was beside him, like a master worker…
In our next episode we’ll hear more about the theology and christology of his famous Dialogue with Trypho.
You can also listen to this episode on stitcher or itunes (please subscribe, rate, and review us in either or both). It is also available on youtube (scroll down – you can subscribe here). If you would like to upload audio feedback for possible inclusion in a future episode of this podcast, put the audio file here.
Links for this episode:
- Justin Martyr @ Early Christian Writings
- includes translations of his undoubted works, and also of some doubtful and probably in authentic works attributed to him
- the best modern English editions of Justin’s
- Librivox recordings
- Audio version of Dialogue with Trypho by the Dead White Guys podcast
- Proverbs 8:22, 8:30
- historian of Judaism Dr. Peter Schäfer
- The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other (kindle)
- Dr. Schäfer’s lecture “Jewish Responses to the Emergence of Christianity” (some content from the above book)
- his review of Daniel Boyarin’s The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ.
- sound effects in this episode:
- ocean wave sounds recorded by Corsica_S
- a child laughing recorded by OBXJohn
- This episode’s thinking music is “Parametaphoriquement” by gmz.
“But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.” (Luke 7:35) Was Jesus using the same figure of speech as Proverbs 8, talking about wisdom as if it was a person? In this case Jesus talks about wisdom as if it was a person with children, implying that both himself and John were children of wisdom despite being rejected by the pharisees. Was this a reference to Proverbs 8?
Rafael,
In the context of Luke 7:35, it would seem that “wisdom is vindicated by all her children” simply refers to the “sinners” (Luke 7:34 39) who knew well enough to put their “faith” in Jesus (Luke 7:50) in contrast to the “Pharisees and lawyers” who “rejected God’s purpose” (Luke 7:30).
There isn’t any direct allusion to, or quotation from, Proverbs 8 and the contexts of Luke 7 and Proverbs 8 are entirely different. Thus, even though “wisdom” is personified in both places, there may not be any intentional reference to Proverbs 8. Wisdom is a common theme in scripture and is mentioned hundreds of times besides these two passages.
Dale,
you say, at some point of your podcast (12′ – 13′) that, while he converted to Christianity, Justin never abandoned his Platonic notion of God as utterly transcendent, unchangeable and even incapable of direct contact with the Created world. I fully agree. So, for Justin (as for the Jew Philo before Justin) the Logos became a necessary “mediator god”, a “second god” (deuteros theos, the expression used by Justin is exactly the same as that used by Philo).
Is it really so difficult for you to recognize precisely in this “Platonism”, in this deviation from the Strict Monotheism of the Scripture, the root (I call it “original sin” of Christianity), to compensate for which the “trinity”, first tentatively subordinationist, then fully egalitarian, became inevitable?
It shouldn’t be so difficult for a pilosopher … 😉
That is a good question. I think that we human beings have a tendency, and I don’t know why, to regard past events as having always been inevitable beforehand. You give a good and popular example – that the late 4th c. Trinity was an inevitable consequence of Justin’s platonically-colored theology. But honestly, I don’t see anything inevitable about it. For one thing, there is no logical connection between his stand-off-ish view of God, and the trinitarianism of, say, Augustine. And I have no idea what it could be about the state of mainstream Christianity in, say, 160, such that it was definitely going to develop trinitarianism in the 4th c. Sorry – I just don’t. I don’t see it in the sociological factors, or in the biblical texts. Another example of this fallacy is thinking that unitarianism leads to something like deism, then agnosticism, then atheism. That happened precisely once, as best I can tell, in the 19th c. I don’t see anything inevitable about it, though. I think we would better spend our time investigating why unitarian Chrisitan groups self-destructed, morphing into non-Christian movements back then. As far as I can tell, it has a lot to do with moralism, political activism, the wronghead idea of “Christian idolatry” (worshiping Jesus), the first real wave of “critical” Bible scholarship, and the junk philosophy that was then coming out of Europe, resulting in Transcendentalism – all of which, for all we know, could have been better countered, so that English and American unitarianism would have survived continuously to this day.
Dale,
Good points.
Dale,
you start by saying, “That is a good question”, but then you try all you can (very poorly …) to try and convince (yourself before) everybody that mine was not such “good question” after all. Unfortunately for you, you shoot yourself in the foot by doing something that a philosopher should never do: declaring that you “honestly … don’t see”, that you “have no idea”, that you “sorry … just don’t [have any idea]”. Sorry, Dale, philosophers simply don’t argue like that: they ask the other party for their argument, then (if they can) criticize it. (If you ask me, I will be happy to tell you …)
P.S. Oh, BTW, as for if the (historical, factual) sequence unitarianism => deism => agnosticism => atheism, I (also) have no rational, necessary explanation. But my two cents is that Unitarianism, inasmuch as it tries to include (viz. reconcile itself with) subordinationism, is NOT Unitarianism proper, and, inasmuch as it tries to reduce Jesus to a mere man, it lacks something fundamental.
I have a question, not completely related to the podcast but somewhat, do you know of any Resource that talks about what part of the NT quotes from the spetuagint, and how much? or about the NT use of the OT, and whether it’s the septuagint and where they use some proto-masoratic Version or any other Version? It would be an interesting Resource to have.
My understanding is that every last NT quote of the OT is from the LXX. I understand that Hebrew was just not much in use then. The Jews went back to that in the middle ages.
Dale Tuggy,
The biblical evidence shows that Jesus (Acts 26:14) and the Jews (John 19:20; Acts 22:2) and Mary (John 20:16) and Paul (Acts 21:40) spoke the native Hebrew language. This is also inferred from the fact that the “gift of languages” was necessary for preaching the gospel to the Jews of the Dispersion who did not understand the Hebrew language (Acts 2:5-11; John 7:35; 1 Corinthians 14:21-22).
I think we get the impression that the LXX was always quoted by the apostolic writers because the manuscript copies of the Gospels and the letters that we have are all written in Greek (except for the Hebrew version of Matthew). Maybe those who prepared or copied the manuscripts were understandably more familiar with the Greek version of the scriptures and used quotations directly from the LXX.
Another consideration is that much of the NT canon is composed of the letters of Paul who was sent to the Jews and Greeks of the Dispersion (Romans 3:19-20), as well as Peter and James who were sending their letters to the Dispersion as well (1 Peter 1:1; James 1:1). Maybe the letters that they sent from Jerusalem were translations. We don’t know for sure.
Hi Roman,
There are several books that you can purchase that deal with the use of the Hebrew scriptures and the LXX by the apostolic writers. You can search “New Testament use of Old Testament” on Amazon and find many of them. 🙂
Eliseo, at this time, teaching was not controlled as tightly as it later was. In this day, a non-bishop like Justin could more or less theorize freely. I would say that he was roughly in the mainstream, loosely defined though it was – at least, that part of the mainstream that was friendly to Hellenistic speculation. In his day, there were people who accepted, and people who rejected logos christology. I would think it was more the educated elite which accepted it.
Do you have any proof, for that assesment? Which early church father preached against the preexistence?
Why would the early church not make Justin a heretic if it was so out of line of the mainstream?Justin Martyr part 1: http://youtu.be/CHK8z2AeD3E
I can’t take time to listen to this, but scanning through, I see you’re spending a lone time on his arguments re: Genesis 18-19. I think those arguments are quite weak, and the Jews actually gave good answers to some of them. Will talk about this in episode 74. I discuss a recent version of the Genesis 19 argument here, starting around 11:30. https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-episode-20-review-of-the-lewis-rogers-debate-part-1/
I think you must Admit the early church Fathers are to be exact Arian, you need to refine the term you give them. All of them understand preexistence of Christ, and all do not preach the trinity… this is the truth, you being a teacher should acknowledge. Since we have a stricter judgment.
Elisio,
What difference does it make what a handful of Church Fathers believed about anything? As Dale noted in a recent podcast, they were generations removed from the apostolic churches and had no contact with those who actually heard what the apostles were teaching. Moreover, we have no way of knowing whether or not these writers actually represented everything that the early Christians believed.
I think you would be better off working on exegesis and defending your position from the biblical text. It seems that you consider the apostolic testimony in scripture to be the final authority, so why not continue to focus on that? Taking a poll as to how many of these Church Fathers may have been “Arians” isn’t going to settle the matter either way.
I agree, but it does make a difference what, at least some early Church fathers thought of the text, (maybe 2nd or 3rd generation), since it could give us a Clue as to how People earlier on might have read the text and how they would have understood it, and maybe what ideas the writers were trying to get across.
Roman,
OK, but the “clues” would still have to be substantiated from exegesis. How else would we know that their views actually were derived from “reading the text”? 🙂
Absolutely, but sometimes a text can be honestly exegeted more than one way, and then we have to take in other considerations.
Roman,
Agreed. But we probably have significantly greater capability for doing sound exegesis than any of the Church Fathers would have known.
For example, even scholars from 30 years ago did not have the capability of searching vocabulary and grammatical forms like we can do with a computer today. This has exposed a lot of fallacious argumentation from even some of the most popular and respected theologians of the past centuries.
The mistranslation of John 8:58 as “before Abraham was born” is a good example of what we discover when we have the capability of doing more accurate research into biblical word usage and grammar.
I don’t know, because The Church Fathers … at least the early ones, had an actual physical and oral Connection With People who came into Christianity early, So for example, Im under 30, but Ive talked to People who were alive in WW2, and they knew People alive in WW1, if I was in a community dedicated to a guy who lived in WW1, there would definately be oral traditions, and concepts that came from that generation, that someone 300 years from now wouldn’t have Access too, especially when within those 300 years Things in my community significantly change. Or even take a book like George Orwells 1984, I’d probably have an easier time understanding it than someone 400 years from now, because I understand the worldview and context and so on better, becuase I’m living in the aftermath of it.
Please were are talking about only the earliest church Fathers, history does not agree with Tuggy. The were not unitarian , in that broad term he uses for them. To be exact they are Arian. And I dont call them scripture, but evidence of what the original faith is. This is in harmony with the bible, the jewish prophecies and Jewish understanding.
Arian IS Unitarian …
If we can be more specific, why would we not be?
Eliseo,
Why would you appeal to the Church Fathers to understand “the original faith” when we have the canonical scriptures that the Church Fathers compiled because they considered them to be the most reliable testimony left from those who actually knew Jesus Christ and his apostles?
I know you have a high view of scripture, so appealing to the Church Fathers for “the original faith” seems inconsistent. Why not appeal to the apostolic testimony first, and then see if the understanding of the Church Fathers falls in line with it? I don’t think it makes your Arian views any more persuasive because you appeal to a handful of Church Fathers (who each happened to have some other weird ideas that you wouldn’t want to consider part of “the original faith”).
I also don’t know why you would appeal to “the Jewish understanding” when all the biblical evidence suggest that most of the Jews were enemies of Jesus and the apostles (especially the Apostle Paul). Moreover, much of the later and modern Jewish doctrine originates from anti-Christian Jewish rabbis. Why would it be reasonable to think that “Jewish understanding” would be any more helpful?
First the Arian Doctrine has no problem in the NT, and Jewish understandings were ignored during the time of Jesus, and Rabbis to this day have done everything they can to hide the truth, that Jesus lines up perfectly with the messiah fortold.
” All of them understand preexistence of Christ” Eliseo, you’re ignorning a main point of podcast 72, which is that some early sources, like the synoptic gospels, don’t mention either pre-ex or Jesus as co-creator. But those are astounding things to claim of a man, and we’d expect them to mention them if they thought those were part of the message. But, they don’t. And it podcast 72 I point out some specific places where we’d expect them to mention those things, but they don’t.
honestly Dale you cannot expect to prove that your belief system existed by showing the lack of other things. The lack of places where you expect certain things to be said does not prove that your understanding existed. What I think you need to find is where it is explicitly denounced, where the early church specifically came against the pre existence of Christ. Because if you cannot prove that the early church had a problem with pre-existing then it shows that your belief system is not one that was held by the early church at all. Meaning that it is heretical, and nonexistent at the foundation of the church establishment
Eliseo,
Why do you think “the early church” should be the final authority on matters of apostolic doctrine? Do you believe that the canonical scriptures contain the inspired word of God?
From my perspective, if you cannot prove that the biblical writers believed in preexistence or incarnation, then it doesn’t matter what the Church Fathers said about it. This is why we discuss those particular texts that are used by some to suggest that those doctrines are biblical.
According to scripture, the “church” was built upon the apostolic testimony about Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18-19) that was confirmed by miraculous signs and wonders (Hebrews 2:3-4).
Who said I cant prove it?
Gen 1:26; Psa 102:25-27; Pro 8:22-36; Joh 1:1-3; 6:62; 8:56-58; 17:5; Rom 11:36; 1Co 8:6; Phi 2:5-7; Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:1,2,8-12; 2:9,14-16;
Do you have even 1 verse condeming the Preexistence of Jesus in the bible? just 1? Nope… Then do you have 1 Early Church Father? 1? Nope What do you have? A myth with no visible verse or Apostle or Early church Father who condemned the thought…. So how could it have been the true doctrine when it is none existent in the bible or the early church? lol thats not good biblical theology…. its heretical…
Eliseo,
None of the passages you quoted make any explicit reference to “preexistence.” Many unitarians have offered plausible interpretations that don’t require preexistence either. Thus, you can’t really claim to have “proven” anything.
As I noted earlier, we don’t need to have a verse that “condemns” preexistence when the concept isn’t even explicitly defined in scripture. Just because somebody claims there are “pink elephants”, the rest of us don’t have to find evidence to “condemn” the idea. We can dismiss the existence of “pink elephants” because there isn’t any substantial evidence that they are real.
No just because you can make an excuse does not mean you have disproven anything… everyone and anyone can come up with the dumbest reasons… but they do not confirm anything… your in denial. These verses can be easily understood in its simplest ways. But all the linguistic gymnastics proves your grasping for straws.
Eliseo,
Have you considered that a defensive Trinitarian would react to your self-proclaimed “Arian” views in the same way that you are hastily dismissing the biblical evidence that unitarians are looking at? They would insist that you are not a Trinitarians because are “in denial” and that you “don’t understand simple verses.” Does this kind of rhetoric make Trinitarianism any more appealing to you?
Likewise, I think you should actually address the exegetical evidence that biblical unitarians have offered from scripture to show that your opinions are not as substantial as you make them out to be. None of us are going to be persuaded by empty rhetoric. We understand that you are passionate about your views. We are too.
It’s ultimately the evidence that matters. That is why I’m just trying to show you from scripture why drawing conclusions about “preexistence” is not necessary. The passages you are citing don’t explicitly define preexistence and thus other interpretations must be considered plausible.
Eliseo,
Let me show you why even a self-proclaimed “Arian” (like yourself) should probably not appeal to John 6:62 as a preexistence text. If you look at the preceding context, Jesus said “My FLESH … this is the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:55-58).
Thus, if you claim that John 6:62 is a proof of preexistence, then you’d also be proving that Jesus Christ was a “man” of “flesh” even before he was conceived (Luke 1:35) or “became flesh” (John 1:14). This is the context in which Jesus made reference to “the son of MAN ascending to where HE was before” (John 6:62).
Otherwise, how do you explain the “my flesh … is the bread from heaven” part of the conversation (John 6:55-58) if you insist that Jesus preexisted before he “became flesh” (John 1:14)?
You’d explain it by saying its a natural way one would say that if one has heavenly origins, I mean there is no reason to think john writing this expected it to be taken so literally that people would gave thought that Jesus was literally a man with flesh prior to his coming into flesh.
This is talking about the manna, The Covenant that is in the Communion show that we are Provided by GOD, with atonement through Yeshua. He is like the Manna from GOD that sustained the Wandering Israelites. Jesus is the real bread of life, and the Communion is the acceptance of the covenant between us and GOD thorugh the mediator Jesus. The Manna was from GOD, And Jesus is from GOD, Like the Passover is a required ceremony and be grateful that GOD used his great power to free the Jews and all jews must Remmember the hand of GOD for us. The Communion is also the same, remmember what Jesus did for you, as often as you Jews remmember the Hand of GOD in Eygpt, We should also remmember Jesus and his mighty deliverance of our souls from hell, unto the real land of milk and honey heaven.
Eliseo,
When Jesus said “MY flesh” numerous times in John 6:51-58 he was certainly not talking about “manna.” Where do you get some of these weird ideas?
Do you really think that Jesus was telling people to believe in “manna” (or eat manna) so that they would have eternal life?
The problem you and every other Unitarian is that you know your can prove the doctrine of the trinity wrong, and thats great, but you get too proud and think you also debunked the preexistence also, which was a foolish assumption. That you can not disprove….
Eliseo,
The word “preexistence” (like Trinity or incarnation) is not a biblical term. It’s only theological jargon that is supposed to represent something that the inspired writers believed. Thus, the concept of preexistence must be substantiated with evidence derived from exegesis of the language that was actually being used by the biblical writers.
When you use such terminology, the burden of proof is on you to substantiate the concept that it represents. It’s not necessary from me to “deny” your theory of preexistence when the passages you use to support the idea can be understood differently (and without the necessity to draw any conclusions about preexistence).
Well …. I don’t know, it’s a difficult hermeneutical question, for example many scriptures CAN be read in a way compatible with trinitarianism, non pre-existent Unitarianism and pre-existent Unitarianism, the question is what fits best with all the evidence, which understandings require more things to be assumed and so on.
I dont need the word preexistence, I hate the trem really. I like better 1 existence and 1 change in form for GODlike to Human.
Eliseo,
I’m glad you don’t like using the term preexistence. Not only is it nonsensical in English, it has no counterpart in the original languages of scripture either. I only use it to accommodate the theological jargon that others use in these discussions.
I’m afraid you don’t understand – and don’t want to understand the argument. It’s of the same form as this: I don’t see an elephant in this room. If there were one here, I would see it. Therefore, there is no elephant here in this room. The argument I’m making, to be sure, is less certain, as it is based on what we don’t find in certain written sources. Again, you’re demand to be shown some early 2nd c. person denouncing belief in Jesus’s pre-existence shows that you don’t understand (1) our serious lack of sources from that period, and (2) the much lower degree of organization in the mainstream Christianity of that period.
and also Matthew does have alude to the Preexistence of Christ…. When it quotes Micah 5:2 The rest of the prophecy is that “his days are of old, even everlasting”
Elisio,
Micah 5:2 cannot be referring to anyone who existed before the time of Mary for the following reasons. Please give these points of evidence some consideration:
1. The writer of the 1st Gospel has the Jews simply applying Micah 5:2 to the birth of the Messiah. There is no indication that they thought it suggested anything about preexistence (Matthew 2:4-6).
2. The writer of the 4th Gospel indicated that the Jews interpreted Micah 5:2 to mean that the Christ would be “of the descendants of David” and “from Bethlehem.” This suggests that they understood the phrase “his goings forth are from long ago” to be referring to his Davidic heritage. Again, there is no indication that they associated it with preexistence.
3. In the text of Micah 5:2, it says that “one WILL go forth TO BE a ruler in Israel.” In the following phrase, when it refers to “HIS goings forth are from long ago”, it is still referring to the same one who had not “gone forth” yet. This is probably why the Jews understood his “goings from are from long ago” as his genealogy (and not preexistence). We also see this in Matthew 1:1 where the “origin” of Jesus Christ extends back even to Abraham (only in a genealogical sense with no implication of preexistence).
4. In Micah 5:2, the reference to “Judah” and “a ruler” probably referred to the Messianic prophecies in Genesis 49:10 and 2 Samuel 7:13-14 which had predicted the genealogical line from which the Christ would “go forth” in the future. So, what Micah reiterated about the coming of the “ruler” had already been described “from long ago” as far as he was concerned. Thus, is “goings forth from long ago” seem to be referring to the fact that his genealogical heritage was established long before he existed.
Thus, “his goings forth are from long ago” could simply be referring to the fact that “the one” (Messiah) who would “go forth” in the future (Matthew 2:6) would be the one who’s coming forth as a ruler of Israel had been described “long ago.” Ultimately, this is consistent with how the people understood the implications of Micah’s prophecy when it was fulfilled (Matthew 2:6; John 7:42).
ill just make this a article
Couldn’t the explination for that simply be they were not dealing with christology? They were simply talking about the historical Jesus and flushing out some theological Points about the Kingdom of God? The Pauline letters come before the gospels, and he seams to think of Christ as a Heavenly being come Down and raised again (plausably). I mean it’s kind of like the argument that Paul didn’t believe in a historical Jesus (the argument made by People who believe in the Christ myth theory) because he doesn’t mention almost anything about the historical Jesus, just because it isn’t talked about doesn’t mean the concept was unknown.
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