worship in the absolute sense in which a Jew would understand that title and that worship. And here, again, surely it was inevitable that the Christian consciousness should have so stated frankly the subordinate and dependent character of the eternal Sonship, before it appreciated the subtle puzzle that would ensue when logic began its critical work upon the novel and double-sided conception. Subordination of the Son to the Father must represent the immediate, primary, natural, and intelligible method of presenting to the reflecting mind the reconciliation of the duality of Persons with the unity of Will. The very name of Son, or of the Word, implied it. So far, too, the logic inherited from the philosophies would supply the needful formula. It would take time to discover that Christianity held implicitly, in its faith in the entire Divinity of the Son, a position which, if ever it was to be made consistent with the explicit formula of the subordination, must necessitate an entirely new and original logical effort, such as would justify the synthesis already achieved by the Christian's intuitive belief in the absolute Divinity of a dependent and subordinate Son. This new logical effort was made when Athanasius recognized the dilemma into which the old logic of the Schools had thrown the Christian position, and, instead of abandoning either of the alternatives, evolved a higher logic, which could accept both. For it must be remembered, if we are to be impartial to Justin, that the Nicene controversy was not closed by the church throwing over the subordination, while the Arian threw over the entire Divinity of the Son. Nicaea confessed the subordination, and made it theoretically consistent with the absolute Divinity. This being so, the only possible test by which to try Justin (who certainly held both the divinity and the subordination) would be to ask whether, if he had seen the dilemma, he would have held the subordination of the Son to be the primary and imperative truth to the logical needs of which the fulness of the divine Sonship must be thrown over, or whether he would have felt the latter truth to be so intimately essential that a novel logic must be called into existence which should interpret it into accordance with the subordination. It cannot but be felt that Justin's faith is a great deal more pronounced and definite than his Platonic logic; that the one is clear and strong where the other is vague and arbitrary; and, if so, that in a conflict between the two his faith would have remained supreme. Justin's temper of mind is the complete reverse of that of Arius.
On the ministerial activities of the Son for the Father Justin is much more explicit.
The Word has one chief mission from the Father, that of interpreting Him to man; hence He received the name of ἄγγελος (cf. Dial. 56, § 275). He accomplishes this (1) to the Jews by means of the Theophanies and through the lips of the prophets. The Word is the direct inspirer Whose spirit moves the prophets, and Whose words they speak (cf. Apol. i. 36, § 76 D). The whole manifold Scripture, with all its many parts and voices, is, as it were, a great play written by a single author, the Word of God, Who alone speaks through all the characters displayed. Of this Justin gives instances in cc. 37, 38, 39. Again, He is not only the inward force, but the outward object also, to Which all prophecy is directed. The Jewish Scripture has in Him a permanent aim, a fixed canon; it all arranges itself round Him (cf. Apol. i. 31, § 73 A). To foretell Him and His work is the one purpose of prophecy. By it His whole life in its main outlines is described, His advent, His birth from the virgin, His coming to man's estate, His curing of the sick, His raising the dead, His being hated, and unknown, and crucified, His death, resurrection, and ascension, His divine sonship, His mission of the apostles, His success among the Gentiles (ib. i. 31, § 73). (2) Justin attributes a revelation of the Word to the Gentiles, as well as to the Jews; to them He is the ἄγγελος, the interpreter of the Father, not by prophetic anticipations, but by partial manifestation, of Himself. Every man in every race possesses a germ of the Word, by the power of which men knew what truth they did know, and did what good they did do; above all, the philosophers and lawgivers who, in their rational inquiries and speculations, were obeying the measure of the Word within them (κατὰ λόγου μέρος . . . δἰ εὑρέσεως καὶ θεωρίας, ib. ii. 10, § 48 C). It is Justin who promulgates the famous formula: "Οσα παρὰ πᾶσι καλῶς εἴρηται ἡμῶν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἐστι (ib. ii. 13, § 51). "We do not believe less, but more, than Empedocles and Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato," he says: "we approve what they rightly said; but our doctrine is higher than theirs;" and so too with the Stoics, poets, and historians (cf. ib. i. 18, § 65 C; ii. 10, 13). This is the principle the Alexandrians are to develop. These ancient friends of Christ, for their obedience to the Word, were hated as Christians are hated, as impious and curious busy-bodies; chief of them was Socrates, who was martyred for Christ. With him are mentioned Heraclitus, Musonius the Stoic, etc. In the exercising of human reason to search out God such as these obeyed the power of the Word, the Reason of God (λόγῳ πειραθέντες τὰ πράγματα θεωρῆσαι καὶ ἐλέγξαῖ . . . διὰ λόγου ζητήσεως θεοῦ τοῦ ἀγνώστου ἐπίγνωσιν; ib. ii. 10, § 48; cf. i. 5, § 55 E: λόγῳ ἀληθεῖ καὶ ἐξεταστικῶς). This general differs from the Christian revelation in the partial character of the λόγος σπερματικός; each philosopher, etc., saw only a part of the Word. Hence the contradictions of the philosophic system, the inconsistencies of human law; some had one right part, some another. Christians possess the whole Word of God, in the person of Christ Jesus; they, therefore, hold the canon of truth which distinguishes all that was good and true of old, from the false and the confused with which it was mixed (ib. ii. 9, 10, § 47). This distinction is radical; "since the germ and image of something, given to man according to the measure of his capacity, is quite distinct from that very thing itself which permits itself, by its own favour, to be so given and communicated" (ib. ii. 113, § 51 C). This clear distinction exhibits the full reality of the personality attributed by Justin to the Word revealed in Christ; it is personality which distinguishes
