In my previous post, I offered some comments on a talk given by
Christadelphian apologist Dave Burke on the subject of second century Gentile
Christianity. On the positive side, it is encouraging that Dave implicitly recognizes
the importance of second century Christian writings for correctly understanding
the beliefs and practices of the early church. On the negative side, Dave tends
to view the second century church through Christadelphian lenses which
sometimes clouds his reading of the sources. Justin Martyr’s reference to those
who held a ‘man of men’ Christology is a case in point.
Dave notes
that (wrongly, in his view) Justin himself believed in the pre-existence and
ontological divinity of Christ. He then describes Justin's views on others who
do not share these doctrines with him:
"He
says that he knows other Christians who do not believe that Jesus pre-existed
as a divine being who believed that Jesus was a literal flesh and blood mortal
human being, and that he only became immortal when he was resurrected, and he
acknowledges these other Christians, and he still accepts them as Christians,
and crucially, he admits that theirs is the older belief, which is very
interesting."1
Dave is obviously taking his cues here from Justin’s Dialogue
with Trypho 48.4. However, his description of Justin’s views is unfortunately a
combination of misrepresentation and partial disclosure. Over the next three posts my aim is to provide some commentary that will
hopefully enable the reader to better understand this passage.
The
relevant text reads as follows in the 19th century Roberts-Donaldson
translation:
"Now assuredly, Trypho," I continued," [the
proof] that this man is the Christ of God does not fail, though I be unable to
prove that He existed formerly as Son of the Maker of all things, being God,
and was born a man by the Virgin. 3 But since I have certainly proved that this
man is the Christ of God, whoever He be, even if I do not prove that He
pre-existed, and submitted to be born a man of like passions with us, having a
body, according to the Father's will; in this last matter alone is it just to say
that I have erred, and not to deny that He is the Christ, though it should
appear that He was born man of men, and [nothing more] is proved [than this],
that He has become Christ by election. 4 For there are some, my
friends," I said, "of our2
race, who admit that He is Christ, while holding Him to be man of men; with
whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most of those who have [now] the
same opinions as myself should say so; since we were enjoined by Christ Himself
to put no faith in human doctrines, but in those proclaimed by the blessed
prophets and taught by Himself." (Dialogue
48.2-4)
This text, together with Dave’s
description of it, raises three important questions which I plan to address below
and in two subsequent posts.
1)
What was the ‘man of
men’ Christology Justin referred to in Dialogue
48.4?
2)
Did Justin accept
those who held the ‘man of men’ Christology as Christians?
3) How did Justin view
the age and popularity of the ‘man of men’ Christology relative to his own Christology?
Let us begin with the first question, which is the easiest
to answer. What was the Christology to which Justin referred and with which he
disagreed? Justin says that there were some who admitted that Jesus was the
Christ, while holding him to be a “man of men.” This stands in contrast to
Justin’s own view, that Christ pre-existed and was born a man by the virgin. As
the term ‘man of men’ implies, those who held this view denied the virgin birth, as well as the pre-existence.
Now Dave neglects to mention that ‘man of men’ refers to a man born of human
parentage, i.e. without a virgin birth. Instead, he takes ‘man of men’ to mean
“that Jesus was a literal flesh and blood mortal human being.”
This interpretation cannot be sustained. In the first
place, Justin himself affirmed that Jesus was a literal flesh and blood mortal
human being. This can be seen within the immediate context, in which Justin
refers to Jesus as “a man of like passions with us, having a body.” Trypho too
had just acknowledged that Justin believed that Christ “submitted to be born
and become man, yet that He is not man of man” (Dialogue 48.1). In several other places in the Dialogue Justin
affirms Jesus’ humanity in robust terms (Dialogue
57.3; 67.6; 70.4; 98.1; 99.2; 100.2-3; 103.8; 110.2). In another of his writings, Justin
explicitly repudiates a Docetic view of Christ:
“And
there are some who maintain that even Jesus Himself appeared only as spiritual,
and not in flesh, but presented merely the appearance of flesh: these persons
seek to rob the flesh of the promise.” (On
the Resurrection 2)
Obviously ‘man of men’ cannot refer to a Christology with which Justin himself agrees; thus Dave’s interpretation of this term is clearly
incorrect. In Dialogue 54.2 Justin
makes it clear what he means by the term ‘man of men’: “But this prophecy,
sirs, which I repeated, proves that Christ is not man of men, begotten in the ordinary course of humanity.”
Again, in Dialogue 67.2 and 76.1-2, the
phrase ‘man of men’ is contrasted specifically with the idea of virgin birth or
supernatural origin.
We can thus state conclusively that the doctrine that
Christ was a ‘man of men’ does not refer to his literal, flesh and blood, mortal
humanity (something Justin himself affirmed). Instead, it refers specifically
to the view that Jesus was conceived in the usual way by the sexual union of
two human parents, in contrast to Justin’s belief in the virgin birth. Denial
of Christ’s pre-existence is an obvious corollary, but the immediate sense of
‘man of men’ is a repudiation of the doctrine of the virgin birth.
The way Dave described this text in his talk, the listener gets
the impression that Justin is drawing a contrast between his own Docetic
pre-existence Christology and a Christology which would be acceptable to Christadelphians. In fact, the listener would be mistaken on both
counts. Justin was not a Docetist, and the ‘man of men’ Christology is not
compatible with that of Christadelphians. Article 3 of the Birmingham Amended
Statement of Faith states that Jesus was “begotten of the Virgin Mary by the
Holy Spirit, without the intervention of man”3
while Article 28 of the
Doctrines to be Rejected declares, “We reject the doctrine – that Joseph was
the actual father of Jesus.”4
Hence, Dialogue
48.4 can only be construed as a contrast between two Christologies which are both regarded by Christadelphians
as heretical.
There is no hint anywhere in the Dialogue of a Christology
which (like Christadelphians) affirms the virgin birth but denies the
pre-existence and incarnation. Indeed, throughout the Dialogue, it is virtually assumed that the pre-existence and virgin birth are inextricably
linked. Trypho does not seem to find the virgin birth any easier to accept than
the pre-existence. He regards the virgin birth as a “monstrous phenomenon”
comparable to the foolish talk of the Greeks (Dialogue 67.2).
To summarize, Dave has unfortunately left his audience with an exaggerated sense of the significance of this text for Christadelphian apologetics. Justin’s extant writings do not in fact contain any evidence
that a Christology compatible with that of Christadelphians existed in his day.
In the next post we will look at a trickier question: how Justin viewed those who held the 'man of men' Christology.
1 Burke, D. (Producer). (2014). Servants of the Lord NSW 2014, Session 8 [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.milktomeat.org.↩
2 Or, ‘your race’ (see discussion in following post).↩
3 The Christadelphian Statement of Faith. Retrieved from http://christadelphia.org/basf.htm.↩
4 Doctrines to be Rejected. Retrieved from http://christadelphia.org/reject.htm.↩
