II

THE DEBT OF IRENÆUS TO JUSTIN MARTYR

If we are to proceed with safety in forming a judgment as to the relation between Justin and Irenæus in respect of the matter which they have in common, it will be necessary not merely to consider a number of selected parallels, but also to examine the treatment of a particular theme in the two writers. Let us set side by side, for example, c. 32 of Justin’s First Apology with c. 57 of the Demonstration. Justin has been explaining to his Roman readers who the Jewish prophets were, and then giving a list of the chief things which they expressly foretold concerning the coming of Christ. Then he proceeds thus:

The points that strike us at once in this passage are these:

(1) The well-known Blessing of Jacob is cited as the prophecy of Moses, who is called the “first of the prophets.”

(2) The quotation is abbreviated, and Justin comments on it in its abbreviated form.

(3) The statement that Judah was the ancestor of the Jews, and that from him they got their name, is on a par with many such explanations which Justin makes for the sake of his Roman readers.

(4) That the Jews had no prince or king of their own after the time of Christ, and that their land was conquered and ruled by the Romans, was a good point of apologetic and one which his readers would fully appreciate.

(5) We are somewhat surprised that “the expectation of the Gentiles” should be referred to the second coming of Christ.

(6) The statement that the ass’s colt was tied to a vine is not found in our Gospels.

(7) Washing his robe in the blood of the grape easily suggested our Lord’s passion; but that His robe should be those who believe on Him seems to us far-fetched.

(8) Equally far-fetched is the explanation of the blood of the grape as pointing to blood made not by man, but by God.

(9) The combination of Balaam’s prophecy with words of Isaiah, and the attribution of the whole to Isaiah, strikes us as a strange piece of carelessness.

Now let us read c. 57 of the Demonstration. After a few prefatory sentences in which he notes certain points regarding Christ which are the subject of prophecy, Irenæus goes on:

We may now take our nine points one by one:

(1) Here again the Blessing of Jacob is cited as the prophecy of Moses; and a little earlier (§ 43) we find the words: “Moses, who was the first that prophesied.”

(2) The text of the quotation is the same as in Justin: but the words about binding the colt to the vine are omitted, and the remainder of the passage is given without abbreviation, as in the LXX.

(3) That Judah is the ancestor of the Jews, who got their name from him, is found in Irenæus; and the actual words would seem to have been taken over from Justin. The statement is somewhat superfluous in a book written for a fairly well 10instructed Christian, whereas it comes quite naturally in Justin’s Apology. Though several parallels between Justin and Irenæus might be explained by the hypothesis of their both having used a book of “Testimonies against the Jews,” such a solution could hardly be advanced in this case; for the statement in question would not be likely to occur in such a book.

(4) Justin’s words are: μεθ᾽ὃν εὐθὺς δοριάλωτος ὑμῖν ἡ γῆ Ἰουδαίων παρεδόθη. The translation of the first part of the parallel in Irenæus is obscure but it is possible that the phrase “the might of the quiver was captured” is no more than the translator’s attempt to make something of δοριάλωτος. If so, it would appear certain that here also Irenæus was practically writing out a sentence of Justin, only changing ὑμῖν into τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις.

(5) The expectation of the Gentiles is here also explained of the Second Advent; and the word “kingdom” is offered, as in Justin, as the unexpressed subject of ᾦ ἀπόκειται.

(6) The passage about the ass’s colt is omitted both from the quotation and from the interpretation. Irenæus has it in IV, xx. 2, where he quotes, again as from Moses, the whole section (Gen. xlix. 10–12), ending with: lætifici oculi ejus a vino, et candidi dentes ejus quam lac. He then goes on: “Let these persons who are said to investigate all things search out the time at which there failed prince and leader from Judah, and who is the expectation of the Gentiles, and what the vine, and what his colt, and what the robe, and what are eyes and teeth and wine; and search out every point; 11and they shall find that none other is foretold, than our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here again Irenæus is very close to the passage in Justin, so far as the general method of putting the argument goes.

(7) and (8) reappear in Irenæus, and it is most natural to suppose that he took them over from Justin. He has a point of his own when he goes on to add to the interpretation of the blood of the grape the gladness produced by the wine. It seems to be introduced without any obvious reason, until we observe that the words which follow in the passage in Genesis tell of the gladness of the eyes produced by wine (lætifici oculi, etc. quoted above).

(9) In c. 58 Irenæus proceeds at once to the quotation of Balaam’s prophecy, as follows: “And again Moses says: There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a leader shall be raised up out of Israel.” He does not make the combination with Isaiah which we find in Justin; nor does he attribute Balaam’s words to Isaiah. It is however to be noted that in III, ix. 2, where he quotes the passage as here, he does attribute it to Isaiah: “Cujus et stellam Ysaias quidem sic prophetavit: Orietur stella ex Jacob, et surget dux in Israel.” On this coincidence in error Dr Rendel Harris remarks (Testimonies, I. p. ii): “Justin shews us the passage of Isaiah following the one from Numbers, and the error lies in the covering of two passages with a single reference. It is clear, then, that Justin’s mistake was made in a collection of Testimonies from the prophets, and that the same collection, or one that closely agreed with it, was 12in the hands of Irenæus.” In view, however, of the intimate connection which appears to exist between Irenæus and Justin we must not exclude the alternative possibility that the mistake began with Justin, and was at first reproduced by Irenæus, but was afterwards corrected by him in his later work.

Another example of a whole section drawn from Justin Martyr will be found in cc. 44 f. Here it is the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew to which Irenæus is indebted. The whole of these two chapters should be read consecutively: but the chief parts must be given here. Irenæus cites Gen. xviii. 1 ff., to show that it was the Son of God who spake with Abraham. This is Justin’s view also, but the nearest parallels come after the quotation of Gen. xix. 24. At this point Irenæus says:

Justin had said (Dial. 56 ad fin.): “And He is the Lord, who from the Lord who is in heaven, that is, from the Maker of all things, received (power) to bring these things on Sodom and Gomorrah, which the narrative recounts, saying: The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone 13and fire from the Lord out of heaven (καὶ κύριός ἐστι παρὰ κυρίου τοῦ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, τουτέστι τοῦ ποιητοῦ τῶν ὅλων, λαβὼν τὸ ταῦτα ἀπενεγκεῖν Σοδόμοις κ.τ.λ.).” And he then goes on to discuss the question of the eating and drinking with Abraham, but does not treat it as Irenæus does here.

The interpretation of the passage may already have been common Christian apologetic: it is the expression “received power (or authority)” to punish the Sodomites that suggests a direct literary connection; and this expression is found again in Irenæus III, vi. 1, quoted below in the note on this passage.

After this Irenæus goes on at once as follows (Dem. c. 45):

This idea that Jacob’s Ladder was “the tree” (ξύλον), that is to say, the cross, is found in Justin (Dial. 86), among a number of other types equally strange to us: “It says that a ladder was seen by him; and the Scripture has declared that God was supported upon it; and that this was not the Father we have proved from the Scriptures.” Irenæus again expands the comment in his own way, but he recurs to the theme “It was not the Father.”

Now the words “in a very small space” , are clearly reminiscent of Justin. For in Dial. i 27 he says: “Think not that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from anywhere. For the unutterable Father and Lord of all has never come any whither,” etc. “How then should He either speak to any one, or be seen by any, or appear in some very small portion of earth (ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ μέρει γῆς)?” Cf. Dial. 60: ἐν ὀλίγῳ γῆς μορίῳ πεφάνθαι.

These repeated coincidences, in large matters and in small, make us feel that Irenæus was very familiar with Justin’s writings. Everywhere he goes beyond him: but again and again he starts from him.

The advantage to be gained by the recognition of the dependence of Irenæus upon Justin may be illustrated from c. 53 of our Treatise. The Armenian text here presents several difficulties, probably from corrupt transcription. The original cannot have been very easy to understand; but when we read with it c. 6 of Justin’s Second Apology some points at any rate are cleared up. Irenæus has just quoted Isa. vii. 14 ff., following the LXX with slight variations:

We must pause here for a moment to quote some parallel words from Irenæus himself (III, xxv. 2). He has quoted the same Scripture, and in commenting upon it he says: “Et manifestat quoniam homo, in eo quod dicit: Butyrum et mel manducabit; et in eo quod infantem nominat eum; et priusquam cognoscat bonum et malum: hæc enim omnia signa sunt hominis infantis.”

In my translation I have written: “this is the custom also for one that is born.” But the Armenian text has: “this is the error also of one that is born.” I have accepted Mr F. C. Conybeare’s simple and attractive emendation sovoruthiun, “custom,” for moloruthiun, “error.”⁵⁵I had at first thought that a comparison of the passage quoted from III, xxv. 2 pointed to the loss of some words from our text, and that we might emend thus: “[and in that he said: Before he knoweth good or evil;] for this is the uncertainty also of one that is born.” But I doubt whether moloruthiun could be toned down to mean “uncertainty.” Moreover in what follows it is the name on which stress is laid.

We now return to our passage:

The Armenian text reads: “in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Christ, and in the Armenian Jesus Saviour.” I have adopted the emendation proposed by the Armenian scholars who made the first translation into German. No doubt Χριστός Σωτήρ was what Irenæus wrote as the rendering of “Messiah Jesus”: compare Just. M. Ap. I, 33, “Now the name Jesus in the Hebrew speech signifies Saviour in the Greek language.”

Having disposed of these preliminary difficulties, we note some curious matters that remain for consideration. What is the point of saying, “names of works actually wrought”? Is there any parallel to the explanation of “Christ” as “He through whom the Father anointed”? And why does our author lay stress on the cure of the sick as the explanation of the name “Jesus”?

Let us now look at the passage of Justin to which we referred at the outset (Ap. II, 6):

Here we see the force of what Irenæus had said about the naming spoken of by Isaiah, as indicating the manhood of the promised Child of the Virgin. The Unbegotten has no name, in the strict sense there was none before Him to impose a name on Him. The Begotten, when begotten as man, has 17a name, though before that He has what is at once an appellation and a name. Justin goes on:

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 δι᾽ 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 Irenæus: “For He was named Christ because through Him the Father 18anointed and adorned all things.” At any rate it will not be doubted that Irenæus 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 Irenæus has said it.

Justin continues:

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 connection between Ἰησοῦς and ἴασις, “healing.” You can see this today, 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 Irenæus, we note that the same interpretation of “Jesus” is in his mind, even 19if he does not play on the word ἴασις. For σωτηοία itself includes “healing” among its meanings: and Irenæus 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.⁶⁶He does so in the notable passage II, xlix. 3, of which Eusebius has preserved the original Greek.

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 ἑωσφύρου 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 modification 20of 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 neighborhood 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 Irenæus, it is not difficult 21to 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,⁷⁷Printed by Zacagni, Monumenta, p. 292 (Rome, 1698). 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.⁸⁸We have, “thy name” in Clem. Alex. Exc. ex Theodoto 20: Τὸ γὰρ πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐγέννησά σε οὕτως ἐξακούομεν ἐπὶ τοῦ πρωτοκτίστου θεοῦ λόγου, καὶ πρὸ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης καὶ πρὸ πάσης κτίσεως τὸ ὄνομά σου. 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 sæcula, 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:⁹⁹Harris, Testimonies, p. 15. See also on p. 45 a quotation from an anti-Mohammedan tract: “His name endures before the sun and moon throughout all ages.” “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 Irenæus made use of a common body of proof texts contained in a very ancient book of “Testimonies against the Jews.” 22The 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 Irenæus is concerned, this is the only passage in which them 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.

Irenæus 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. 23iv. 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 reborn 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 Irenæus or Lactantius derived this strange quotation. It is not likely that Lactantius got it, directly at any rate, from the Demonstration of Irenæus, 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.