Link to Full Article – Click Here

__________________________________________________________________

Title: The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
Creator(s): Irenaeus, St., Bishop of Lyon
Robinson, Armitage, D.D. (Editor)
Rights: Public Domain
Subjects: Christianity

Early Christian Literature. Fathers of the Church, etc.
__________________________________________________________________

ST IRENUS

THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING

TRANSLATED FROM THE ARMENIAN

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

ARMITAGE ROBINSON, D.D.

DEAN OF WELLS

LONDON:

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

1920

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, UNITED,

BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S. E. 1,

AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
__________________________________________________________________

PREFACE

Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History tells us that in addition to his
great work Against Heresies St Irenus wrote A Discourse in
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. This work was entirely lost
sight of: no one seems ever to have quoted a word of it. But it has
quite recently reappeared in an Armenian manuscript together with Books
IV and V of the greater work. The Armenian translation proves to be a
fairly close rendering of the original Greek.

What Irenus meant by the Apostolic Preaching can be seen from his
larger work. Although the exact expression does not seem to occur
there, we have its equivalent, “the Preaching of the Apostles” (III,
iii. 2), and also the parallel phrases, “the Tradition of the Apostles”
(III, iii. 4) and “the Preaching of the Truth” (I, iii. 1; III, iii.
4). Moreover, in I, i. 20 we read that “he who holds the canon (or
rule) of the truth without deviation, which he received through his
baptism,” will be able to escape all the snares of heresy: and in the
Demonstration (c. 3.) we have closely parallel words which also refer
to the baptismal faith. Although it was not until much later that the
baptismal confession came to be called the Apostles’ Creed, it was
already regarded as a summary of the essential elements of the
Apostolic message. Its form varied in some details in different
Churches, but its structure was everywhere the same, for it had grown
up on the basis of the baptismal formula.

What Irenus undertakes in the present work is to set out the main
points of this Apostolic message, which, as he has explained in his
greater work (III, iii. i ff.), has been handed down in the Church by
the successions of the bishops and is the same in substance in all
parts of the world, and to demonstrate its truth more especially from
the sacred scriptures of the Old Testament. This argument from prophecy
was the earliest form of Christian evidence; and though it does not
appeal to us with equal force to-day, and we find it hard to be patient
with some of the proofs which seemed to be convincing in the earliest
times, we must yet recognize that it was a true instinct which claimed
the Jewish scriptures as the heritage of the Christian Church, and
surmounted by means of allegorical interpretations those serious
difficulties which led many Christians to wish to cast them aside
altogether.

The words of Bishop Westcott in reference to the methods of the
schoolmen of the Middle Ages, are applicable also to these earlier
teachers: “Many of the arguments which they use appear to us frivolous
and pointless. It requires a serious effort to enter into them with a
sympathetic intelligence. But the effort is worth making. Conclusions
which rest upon arbitrary assumptions as to the symmetries of things
witness in an imperfect fashion to a deep sense of a divine order in
creation; and we do injustice to those who draw them if we allow even
the greatest errors of expression and form to blind us to the nobility
of the conception which they embody most inadequately” (Ep. of St John,
“The Gospel of Creation,” pp. 276 f.).

The wonder of Irenus is the largeness of his outlook. No theologian
had arisen since St Paul and St John who had grasped so much of the
purpose of God for His world. “The Making of Man,” to borrow Tennyson’s
great phrase, is his constant theme. Even though he was, forced to be
controversial, he was never merely negative; and the last of his books
Against Heresies ends on the keynote of the whole–that man shall at
length be made “after the image and likeness of God.” This is to him
the meaning of all history; and for that reason the center point of
history is the Incarnation. So Christ came “to link up the end with the
beginning,” or in St Paul’s words, (which Irenus never tires of
repeating,) “to gather up into one all things” in Himself.

I have retained the chapter divisions of the first editors and
translators of the Armenian text. The references to the work Against
Heresies are to Harvey’s edition (Cambridge, 1857). Though I have not
everywhere reproduced the double renderings which are so frequent in
the Armenian, I have made the translation sufficiently literal to serve
the general needs of the patristic student, even at the cost of some
clumsiness of expression. In the Introduction and Notes I have been at
some pains to bring out the indebtedness of Irenus to Justin Martyr;
and in pursuance of the same end I have devoted a section of the
Introduction to the teaching of both these writers in regard to the
Holy Spirit.

J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON.

The Deanery,

Wells, Somerset, Oct. 1879.
__________________________________________________________________

CONTENTS

[1]Preface v
[2]Introduction:
I. [3]THE DOCUMENT AND ITS VALUE 1
II. [4]THE DEBT OF IRENAEUS TO JUSTIN MARTYR 6
III. [5]THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN JUSTIN AND IRENUS 24
[6]The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 69
[7]Index of Scriptural Quotations 152
[8]General Index 154
__________________________________________________________________

ST IRENUS

THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE

APOSTOLIC PREACHING

INTRODUCTION
__________________________________________________________________

I

THE DOCUMENT AND ITS VALUE

IT is a remarkable fact, and much to be regretted, that none of the
works of St Irenus, the greatest theologian of the second century,
have come down to us in the language in which they were written. Of his
chief work, the five books Against Heresies, we have a very early Latin
translation, and a few fragments of the original Greek preserved
through quotation by other writers. [1] The work now before us, The
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, has recently been found in an
Armenian translation, and no portion of it seems to have survived in
any other language.

This new treatise does not come upon us entirely as a surprise; for
Eusebius [2] had mentioned its title, Eis epideixin tou apostolikou
kerugmatos, and had said that it was addressed to “a brother named
Marcianus.” This is all he tells us; but we can now add from the book
itself that it was written after the completion of the greater work,
and therefore somewhere about A.D. 180; and that Marcianus was on
intimate terms with the writer, but absent from him at the time of
writing. [3] The work Against Heresies is, of course, controversial
from first to last: but the present treatise is a sort of Vade mecum
for an intelligent Christian, explaining his faith, placing it in its
historical setting in relation to Judaism, and confirming it by the
citation and exposition of a great number of Old Testament passages. It
is in no sense a manual for catechumens: it is a handbook of Christian
Evidence, though its form is not controversial.

A tract of this kind from the pen of a great teacher in any age must
needs be of interest. How was Christianity presented as a whole to an
educated believer? What were the main points of doctrine and of life on
which stress was laid? What were the grounds of belief. which appeared
to be most convincing then? These are the things which the historian of
religious development wants to know in each of the Christian centuries,
and which he finds it exceptionally difficult to get at. The great
events and the leading personalities have left their mark on the
records of the time: the development of doctrine and the growth of
ecclesiastical institutions can be traced with increasing clearness as
the documents are tested and studied and compared: but the religious
sense of an age, the beliefs which affected life, and the grounds of
those beliefs, the ruling motives of conduct, the things that to the
best minds seemed to matter most–these escape us unless we are
insistent in our search for them; and often, search as we will, we find
little to reward our pains. We have special reason to be grateful for a
plain statement of the Christian religion as it presented itself to a
master mind at the end of the second century. A long and varied
experience had qualified Irenus for such a task. As a boy he had
listened to St Polycarp at Smyrna, and he may have conversed with
others–the Elders, as he calls “Gnosticism,” in all its divergent
forms, with the Christian truth as he had come to conceive it in a long
life of patient study and practical ministry. He had given to the
Church his five books of The Exposure and Overthrow of Knowledge
(Gnosis) falsely so called. When such a man lays controversy aside and
takes up his pen to talk, as he says, to his absent friend, and furnish
him with a summary statement of the Apostolic message and the reasons
for believing it in terms of his own day, he deserves our close
attention. We shall make little of him if we insist on judging him by
modern standards: we shall miss the definiteness of post-Nicene
doctrine; we shall be disappointed at finding nothing about
ecclesiastical organization; we shall be distressed at the quaint
conceits of his exposition of Old Testament prophecies. But if we come
to him fresh from the study of Justin Martyr’s First Apology, written
some thirty-five years before, we shall appreciate the atmosphere in
which he had grown up and shall recognize the advance which he had made
in the thoughtful interpretation of the Faith.

The manuscript which contains our treatise was found in December 1904,
in the Church of the Blessed Virgin at Eriwan in Armenia, by Dr Karapet
Ter-Mekerttshian, one of the most learned of the Armenian clergy. It
was edited by him with a translation into German, in conjunction with
Dr Erwand Ter-Minassiantz, in 1907, in the Texte and Untersuchungen
(xxxi. 1); and Dr Harnack added a brief dissertation and some notes.
Then in 1912 Dr Simon Weber, of the Faculty of Catholic Theology in the
University of Freiburg in Breisgau, being dissatisfied with this
presentation of the work, published a fresh translation with the help
of some Armenian scholars. Neither of these translations satisfies the
needs of English patristic students. The second, though it corrects
some errors of the first, is far less close to the original text. And
both are vitiated by a want of acquaintance with the textual criticism
of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, and also with the larger
work of St Irenus himself. The present translation is an attempt to
remedy these defects, and at the same time to bring the treatise to the
knowledge of those who have hitherto been debarred by linguistic
difficulties from reading it. My own acquaintance with the Armenian
language and literature is so limited that I cannot hope to have
altogether avoided mistakes, and I shall be grateful to those who will
point them out. I owe very much to the first of the translations into
German, and something also to the second: if I am sometimes right where
they were wrong, it is mainly because I have sought to read the text in
the light of what Irenus has said elsewhere.

The same manuscript contains an Armenian version of Books IV and V of
the great work Against Heresies. [4] These come immediately before our
treatise, and are embraced with them under the single title, The
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. We cannot say whether this
error of title goes back beyond the date of the manuscript, which was
probably written between 1270-1289, that is in the time of the learned
Archbishop John, the brother of King Hetum of Cilicia. A note at the
end states that it was written for this archbishop. The Armenian
editors believe that the same translator is responsible for the two
books of the larger work and for our treatise, and that the translation
was made at some date between 650 and 750. The version of Books IV and
V is of high value, as enabling us to check the Latin version, the MSS.
of which differ considerably among themselves. It is useful also as
illustrating the fondness of the Armenian translator for a double
rendering of a single word of the original. When we read the Armenian
and the Latin side by side, we gain the impression that the Greek text
has been very closely followed; and thus we are assured that for our
present treatise also the Armenian version is a faithful representative
of the lost original.
__________________________________________________________________

[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
__________________________________________________________________

II

THE DEBT OF IRENUS TO JUSTIN MARTYR

If we are to proceed with safety in forming a judgment as to the
relation between Justin and Irenus 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:

Moses then, who was the first of the prophets, speaks expressly as
follows: There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a leader from
his loins, until he shall come for whom it is reserved: and he shall be
the expectation of the Gentiles; binding his colt to the vine; washing
his robe in the blood of the grape. It is your part then to make
careful enquiry and to learn up to what point the Jews had a prince and
king of their own. It was up to the appearing of Jesus Christ, our
teacher and the expounder of the prophecies which were not understood,
namely how it was foretold by the divine holy prophetic Spirit through
Moses that there should not fail a prince from the Jews, until he
should come for whom is reserved the kingdom. For Judah is the ancestor
of the Jews, from whom also they obtained that they should be called
Jews. And you, after His appearance took place, both ruled over the
Jews and mastered their land.

Now the words He shall be the expectation of the Gentiles were meant to
indicate that from among all the Gentiles men shall expect Him to come
again–which you yourselves can see with your eyes and believe as a
fact: for men of all races are expecting Him who was crucified in
Judah, immediately after whose time the land of the Jews was conquered
and given over to you.

And the words Binding his colt to the vine and Washing his robe in the
blood of the grape were a sign to show what was to happen to Christ,
and what was to be done by Him. For the colt of an ass was standing at
the entrance to a village, tied to a vine; and this He commanded His
disciples at that time to bring to Him; and when it was brought He
mounted and sat on it, and entered into Jerusalem, where was that very
great temple of the Jews, which afterwards was destroyed by you: And
after these things He was crucified, that the remainder of the prophecy
might be accomplished. For Washing his robe in the blood of the grape
was the announcement beforehand of the passion which He was to suffer,
cleansing by blood those who believe on Him. For what is called by the
divine Spirit through the prophet (His) robe means the men who believe
in Him, those in whom dwells the seed from God, (that is) the Word. And
that which is spoken of as blood of the grape signifies that He who is
to appear has blood indeed, yet not from human seed, but from a divine
power. Now the first power after God, the Father and Lord of all, is
the Son, the Word of whom we shall presently tell after what manner He
was made flesh and became man. For even as the blood of the vine not
man hath made, but God; so also is it signified that this blood shall
not be of human seed, but of the power of God, as we have said before.

Moreover Isaiah, another prophet, prophesying the same things in other
words said thus: There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a flower
shall spring rip from the root of Jesse, and on his arm shall the
Gentiles hope.

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, Irenus goes on:

Moses in Genesis says thus: There shall not fail a Prince from Judah,
nor a leader from his loins, until he shall come for whom it remaineth:
and he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles: washing his robe in
wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape. Now Judah was the
ancestor of the Jews, the son of Jacob; from whom also they obtained
the name. And there failed not a prince among them and a leader, until
the coming of Christ. But from the time of His coming the might of the
quiver was captured, the land of the Jews was given over into
subjection to the Romans, and they had no longer a prince or king of
their own. For He was come, for whom remaineth in heaven the kingdom;
who also washed his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the
grape: His robe as also His garment are those who believe on Him, whom
also He cleansed, redeeming us by His blood. And His blood is said to
be blood of the grape: for even as the blood of the grape no man
maketh, but God produceth, and maketh glad them that drink thereof, so
also His flesh and blood no man wrought, but God made. The Lord Himself
gave the sign of the virgin, even that Emmanuel which was from the
virgin; who also maketh glad them that drink of Him, that is to say,
who receive His Spirit, (even) everlasting gladness. Wherefore also He
is the expectation of the Gentiles, of those who hope in him; for we
expect of Him that He will establish again the kingdom.

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 Irenus; 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 instructed Christian, whereas it comes quite
naturally in Justin’s Apology. Though several parallels between Justin
and Irenus 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: meth’hon euthus dorialotos humin he ge Ioudaion
paredothe. The translation of the first part of the parallel in Irenus
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 dorialotos. If so, it would appear certain that here also
Irenus was practically writing out a sentence of Justin, only changing
humin into tois Rhomaiois.

(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 o apokeitai.

(6) The passage about the ass’s colt is omitted both from the quotation
and from the interpretation. Irenus has it in IV, xx. 2, where he
quotes, again as from Moses, the whole section (Gen. xlix. 10-12),
ending with: ltifici 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; and they shall find that none
other is foretold, than our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here again Irenus is
very close to the passage in Justin, so far as the general method of
putting the argument goes.

(7) and (8) reappear in Irenus, 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 (ltifici
oculi, etc. quoted above).

(9) In c. 58 Irenus 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 in the hands of Irenus.” In view, however, of the
intimate connection which appears to exist between Irenus and Justin
we must not exclude the alternative possibility that the mistake began
with Justin, and was at first reproduced by Irenus, 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
Irenus is indebted. The whole of these two chapters should be read
consecutively: but the chief parts must be given here. Irenus 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 Irenus says:

And then the Scripture says: And the Lord rained upon Sodom and
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven: that is to
say, the Son, who spake with Abraham, being Lord, received power to
punish the men of Sodom from the Lord out of heaven, even from the
Father who rules (or is Lord) over all. So Abraham was a prophet and
saw things to come, which were to take place in human form: even the
Son of God, that He should speak with men and eat with them, and then
should bring in the judgment from the Father, having received from Him
who rules over all the power to punish the men of Sodom.

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 and fire from the Lord out of heaven (kai kurios esti para
kuriou tou en to ourano, toutesti tou poietou ton holon, labon to tauta
apenenkein Sodomois k.t.l.).” And he then goes on to discuss the
question of the eating and drinking with Abraham, but does not treat it
as Irenus 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 Irenus III, vi. 1,
quoted below in the note on this passage.

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

And Jacob, when he went into Mesopotamia, saw Him in a dream, standing
upon the ladder, that is, the tree, which was set up from earth to
heaven; for thereby they that believe on Him go up to the heavens. For
His sufferings are our ascension on high. And all such visions point to
the Son of God, speaking with men and being in their midst. For it was
not the Father of all, etc. (See below.)

This idea that Jacob’s Ladder was “the tree” (xulon), 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.” Irenus again
expands the comment in his own way, but he recurs to the theme “It was
not the Father.”

For it was not the Father of all, who is not seen by the world, the
Maker of all who said: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool:
what house will ye build me, or what is the place of my rest? and who
comprehendeth the earth with his hand, and with his span the heaven–it
was not He that came and stood in a very small space and spake with
Abraham; but the Word of God, etc.

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 (en elachisto merei ges)?” Cf. Dial. 60: en
oligo ges morio pephanthai.

These repeated coincidences, in large matters and in small, make us
feel that Irenus 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
Irenus 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. Irenus has just quoted Isa. vii. 14 ff.,
following the LXX with slight variations:

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, the virgin
shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and ye shall call him
Emmanuel: butter and honey shall he eat; before he knoweth or selecteth
the evil, he chooseth the good; for, before the child knoweth good or
evil, he rejecteth wickedness to choose the good. So he proclaimed His
birth from a virgin; and that He was truly man he declared beforehand
by His eating; and also because he called Him the child: and further by
giving Him a name; for this is the custom also for one that is born.

We must pause here for a moment to quote some parallel words from
Irenus 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: hc 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.”
[5]

We now return to our passage:

And His name is two-fold: in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Jesus, and in
ours Christ Saviour. And the two names are names of works actually
wrought. For He was named Christ, because through Him the Father
anointed and adorned all things; and because on His coming as man He
was anointed with the Spirit of God and His Father. As also by Isaiah
He says of Himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: wherefore he
hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And (He was named)
Saviour for this, that He became the cause of salvation to those who at
that time were delivered by Him from all sicknesses and from death, and
to those who afterwards believed on Him the author of salvation in the
future and for evermore.

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 Christos Soter was what Irenus 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):

Now a name imposed on the Father of all, unbegotten as He is, is an
impossibility. For he to whom a name is applied must have one older
than himself who has imposed on him the name. Father and God and
Creator and Lord and Master are not names: they are appellations
derived from benefits and works (ek ton eupoiion kai ton ergon).

Here we see the force of what Irenus 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 a name, though before that He has what is at once an appellation
and a name. Justin goes on:

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 (pragmatos dusexegetou).

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. ergon above, and
pragmatos). 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: Christos men kata to kechristhai kai kosmesai
ta panta di’ autou ton theon legetai. Long ago Scaliger proposed to
read kai chrisai, instead of kechristhai. 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 Irenus: “For He was named Christ
because through Him the Father anointed and adorned all things.” At any
rate it will not be doubted that Irenus 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 Irenus 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 tune 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 Soter to the
Greeks suggested specially the giving of health (soteria), Justin finds
a connection between Iesous and iasis, “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 (me
iathentas iasanto kai eti nun iontai).

Turning back to the last words of the passage quoted above from
Irenus, we note that the same interpretation of “Jesus” is in his
mind, even if he does not play on the word iasis. For soteoia itself
includes “healing” among its meanings: and Irenus 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. [6]

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” (ek gastros pro heosphurou egennesa se).
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 of Ps. lxxii. 17:
“Before the sun his name remaineth” (pro tou heliou diamenei to onoma
autou), or “shall remain” (diamenei).

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): kai
sunparamenei to helio, kai pro tes selenes geneas geneon. 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 (anothen) 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
Irenus, it is not difficult 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, [7] 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. [8] 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 scula,
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: [9]
“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 Irenus made use of a common body of proof texts
contained in a very ancient book of “Testimonies against the Jews.” 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
Irenus 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.

Irenus 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
prin e gnonai auton (Isa. vii. 15); and we may suppose that here it was
prin e genethenai auton anthropon.

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. 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 reborn anew according to the flesh.”
The Latin, “Beatus qui erat antequam nasceretur,” may represent a Greek
reading, prin e gennethenai.

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 Irenus
or Lactantius derived this strange quotation. It is not likely that
Lactantius got it, directly at any rate, from the Demonstration of
Irenus, 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.
__________________________________________________________________

[5] I 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.

[6] He does so in the notable passage II, xlix. 3, of which Eusebius
has preserved the original Greek.

[7] Printed by Zacagni, Monumenta, p. 292 (Rome, 1698).

[8] We have, “thy name” in Clem. Alex. Exc. ex Theodoto 20: To gar pro
heosphorou egennesa se houtos exakouomen epi tou protoktistou theou
logou, kai pro heliou kai selenes kai pro pases ktiseos to onoma sou.

[9] Harris, 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.”

On this day...

• Leviticus 9 - 2024
• Leviticus 8 - 2024
• The Joy is incomplete without the expression of it - 2010
• Quiet Heroes - 2009
• Isaiah 44:3 - 2009
• The Mystery of the Date of Pentecost - 2009
• Initiative - 2008
• Numbers 14:11 - 2008
• The Habit of Holy Thought - 2008
• LOOK AGAIN AND THINK - 2008