return no answer to any one in the presence of Pilate; as has been declared in the memoirs of His apostles, in order that what is recorded by Isaiah might have efficacious fruit, where it is written, 'The Lord gives me a tongue, that I may know when I ought to speak.'[1] Again, when He said, 'Thou art my God; be not far from me,' He taught that all men ought to hope in God who created all things, and seek salvation and help from Him alone; and not suppose, as the rest of men do, that salvation can be obtained by birth, or wealth, or strength, or wisdom. And such have ever been your practices: at one time you made a calf, and always you have shown yourselves ungrateful, murderers of the righteous, and proud of your descent. For if the Son of God evidently states that He can be saved, [neither][2] because He is a son, nor because He is strong or wise, but that without God He cannot be saved, even though He be sinless, as Isaiah declares in words to the effect that even in regard to His very language He committed no sin (for He committed no iniquity or guile with His mouth), how do you or others who expect to be saved without this hope, suppose that you are not deceiving yourselves?
Chap. ciii.—The Pharisees are the bulls: the roaring lion is Herod or the devil.
"Then what is next said in the Psalm—'For trouble is near, for there is none to help me. Many calves have compassed me; fat bulls have beset me round. They opened their mouth upon me as a ravening and roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and dispersed like water,'—was like wise a prediction of the events which happened to Him. For on that night when some of your nation, who had been sent by the Pharisees, and scribes, and teachers,[3] came upon Him from the Mount[4] of Olives, those whom Scripture called
- ↑ Isa. l. 4.
- ↑ Not found in mss.
- ↑ καὶ τῶν διδασκάλων, adopted instead of κατὰ τὴν διδασκαλίαν, "according to their instructions."
- ↑ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους. Justin seems to have supposed that the Jews came on Christ from some point of the hill while He was in the valley below. Ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄρους and ἐπὶ τὸ ὄρος have been suggested.
