History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

In regard to the controversy with Judaism, we have two principal sources: the Dialogue of Justin

Martyr with the Jew Trypho,

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2 based, it appears, on real interviews of Justin with Trypho; and

Tertullian’s work against the Jews.

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3

 Another work from the first half of the second century by

Aristo of Pella, entitled "A Disputation of Jason and Papiscus concerning Christ," is lost.

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4

 It was

known to Celsus who speaks contemptuously of it on account of its allegorical interpretation. Origen

deems it useful for ordinary readers, though not calculated to make much impression on scholars.

It was intended to show the fulfillment of the old prophecies in Christ, and ends with the conviction

of the Jew Papiscus and his baptism by Jason. The author was a Jewish Christian of Pella, the city

of refuge for the Christians of Jerusalem before the destruction.

I. The defensive apology answered the Jewish objections thus:

(1) Against the charge, that Christianity is an apostasy from the Jewish religion, it was held,

that the Mosaic law, as far as it relates to outward rites and ceremonies was only a temporary

institution for the Jewish nation foreshadowing the substance of Christianity, while its moral precepts

as contained in the Decalogue were kept in their deepest spiritual sense only by Christians; that the

Old Testament itself points to its own dissolution and the establishment of a new covenant;

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5 that

Abraham was justified before he was circumcised, and women, who could not be circumcised,

were yet saved.

(2) Against the assertion, that the servant-form of Jesus of Nazareth, and his death by the

cross, contradicted the Old Testament idea of the Messiah, it was urged, that the appearance of the

Messiah is to be regarded as twofold, first, in the form of a servant, afterwards in glory; and that

the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and the prophecies of David in Psalm 22, of Isaiah 53, and

Zech. 13, themselves point to the sufferings of Christ as his way to glory.

(3) To the objection, that the divinity of Jesus contradicts the unity of God and is blasphemy,

it was replied, that the Christians believe likewise in only one God; that the Old Testament itself

makes a distinction in the divine nature; that the plural expression: "Let us make man,"

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6

 the

appearance of the three men at Mamre

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7

 of whom one was confessedly God,

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8

 yet distinct from

the Creator,

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9 indicate this; and that all theophanies (which in Justin’s view are as many

christophanies), and the Messianic Psalms,

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00

 which ascribe divine dignity to the Messiah, show

the same.

II. The aggressive apology or polemic theology urges as evidence against Judaism:

(1) First and mainly that the prophecies and types of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus

Christ and his church. Justin finds all the outlines of the gospel history predicted in the Old

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Διάλογος πρὸς Τρύφωνα Ἰουδαῖον. .

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Adverus Judaeos. Also Cyprian’s Testimoni adv. Judaeos.

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Ἰάσονος καὶ Παπίσκου ἀντιλογία περὶ Χ ριστοῦ. Comp. the discussion of Harnack, l.c. pp. 115-130. He assigns the book

to a.d. 135 or soon after. It disappeared in the seventh century.

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Is. 51:4 sqq.; 55r> sqq.; Jer. 31:31 sqq.

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Gen. 1:26; Comp. 3:21

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Gen. 18:1 sqq.

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Gen. 21:12.

100

Gen. 19:24.

101

Ps. 110:1 sqq.; 45:7 sqq.; 72:2-19, and others

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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Testament: the Davidic descent of Jesus, for example, in Isa. 11:1; the birth from a virgin in 7:14];

the birth at Bethlehem in Micah 5:1; the flight into Egypt in Hosea 11:1 (rather than Ps. 22:10?);

the appearance of the Baptist in Is. 40:1–17; Mal. 4:5; the heavenly voice at the baptism of Jesus

in Ps. 2:7; the temptation in the wilderness under the type of Jacob’s wrestling in Gen. 32:24 sqq.;

the miracles of our Lord in Is. 35:5; his sufferings and the several circumstances of his crucifixion

in Is. 53 and Ps. 22. In this effort, however, Justin wanders also, according to the taste of his

uncritical age, into arbitrary fancies and allegorical conceits; as when he makes the two goats, of

which one carried away the sins into the wilderness, and the other was sacrificed, types of the first

and second advents of Christ; and sees in the twelve bells on the robe of the high priest a type of

the twelve apostles, whose sound goes forth into all the world.

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01

(2) The destruction of Jerusalem, in which Judaism, according to the express prediction of

Jesus, was condemned by God himself, and Christianity was gloriously vindicated. Here the Jewish

priest and historian Josephus, who wrote from personal observation a graphic description of this

tragedy, had to furnish a powerful historical argument against his own religion and for the truth of

Christianity. Tertullian sums up the prophetic predictions of the calamities which have befallen the

Jews for rejecting Christ, "the sense of the Scriptures harmonizing with the events."

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02

§ 39. The Defense against Heathenism.

I. The various Objections and Accusations of the heathens, which we have collected in §

(1) The attack upon the miraculous in the evangelical history the apologists could meet by

pointing to the similar element in the heathen mythology; of course proposing this merely in the

way of argumentum ad hominem, to deprive the opposition of the right to object. For the credibility

of the miraculous accounts in the Gospels, particularly that of the resurrection of Jesus, Origen

appealed to the integrity and piety of the narrators, to the publicity of the death of Jesus, and to the

effects of that event.

(2) The novelty and late appearance of Christianity were justified by the need of historical

preparation in which the human race should be divinely trained for Christ; but more frequently it

was urged also, that Christianity existed in the counsel of God from eternity, and had its unconscious

votaries, especially among the pious Jews, long before the advent of Christ. By claiming the Mosaic

records, the apologists had greatly the advantage as regards antiquity over any form of paganism,

and could carry their religion, in its preparatory state, even beyond the flood and up to the very

gates of paradise. Justin and Tatian make great account of the fact that Moses is much older than

the Greek philosophers, poets, and legislators. Athenagoras turns the tables, and shows that the

very names of the heathen gods are modern, and their statues creations of yesterday. Clement of

Alexandria calls the Greek philosophers thieves and robbers, because they stole certain portions

of truth from the Hebrew prophets and adulterated them. Tertullian, Minucius Felix and others raise

the same charge of plagiarism.

(3) The doctrine of the resurrection of the body, so peculiarly offensive to the heathen and

Gnostic understanding, was supported, as to its possibility, by reference to the omnipotence of God,

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Ps. 19:4; Comp. Rom. 10:18..

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Adv.Jud. c. 13

71

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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