4. Melchizedek, with what follows and precedes. But not
Prophecies of a Priest suit riot Hezekiah or Solomon.
Just, are in error.
The Lord sivare, and will not repent, it is ^^^' said ; and, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of 4.
Melchizedek, with what follows and precedes.
But not even yourselves will venture to deny, that Hezekiah neither was nor is an everlasting priest of Grod
; in fact, the words themselves shew that it was spoken of our Jesus : but your Is. 6, 10. ears are dull, and your hearts are hardened; for by these words. The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek, God declared Him to be a Priest after the order of Melchizedek with an oath, because of your unbelief; that is, as Moses writes, that as Melchizedek was made a priest of the Highest, and was a priest of those who are in un circumcision, and blessed Abraham, who offered him tithes when he was in circumcision p ; so has God declared, that His eternal Priest, Who is also called Lord by the Holy Ghost, should be the Priest of those who are in uncircumcision ; and those of the circumcision who come to Him ; that is, those who believe in Him, and seek to have their blessings from Him,
He will both receive and bless.
Now that He was first to be a man of low estate, and then to be exalted, the conPs. 110, eluding words of the Psalm declare; He shall drink of the brook in the way; and, at the same time. Therefore shall He lift up) His head.
Ps. 71, 34. "And moreover also to prove to you that you do not gjj"°^^jj understand the Scriptures, I will cite yet another Psalm, spoken to David by the Holy Ghost, which you maintain to be spoken of Solomon, who also w^as king over you, although it too was spoken of our Christ.
But you deceive yourselves by equivocal terms.
For when the law of the Lord P8.i9,7.is styled an undejiled law^ you explain it not of that which was to come afterwards, but of the law of Moses, although
God Himself declared that He would make a new law, and a Pp.72, I. new covenant. And where it is said, Give the King Thyjudgment,
God; because Solomon was a king, you say that the Psalm was spoken of him, whereas its words plainly shew P This statement seems a mistake of him. Genesis chap. xiv. xvii.
Thirlby St. Justin, as the Editors have observed ; observes the same in Tertullian against for Abraham was not yet circumcised the Jews. Cap. 3. cont.
Marcion.
I. v. when Melchizedek met and blessed c. 9.
Chrisfs kmgdom heavenly ^ universal, and eternal.
Ill that it was spoken of the eternal King, i. e.
Christ ; for Dial.
Christ is spoken of as a King, and a Priest, and God, and^iiHE:
Lord, and an Angel, and a Man, and Captain of the host, and a Stone, and a Cliild that is born, and first as becoming subject to suffering, then as going up into lieaven, and coming again with glory, and possessing the everlasting kingdom, as I can prove from the whole Scriptures.
To explain my meaning, I will cite the words of the Psalm, which are as follows :
Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy Ps. 72, righteousness unto the king^s son, that he may judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment.
Let the mountains bring forth peace to the people, and the little hills righteousness.
He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall humble the false accuser.
He shall remain with the sun, and before the moon throughout all generations.
He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool, even as the drop that droppeth upon the earth. In His days righteousness shall arise, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away.
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth.
The Ethiopians shall fall dovjn before Him, and His enemies shall lick the dust.
The kings of Tharsis ayid the isles shall bring presents: the kings of the Arabia7is and Saba shall bring gifts.
And all the kings of the earth shall wo7'ship Him, and all the nations shall serve
Him.
For He hath delivered the "poor from the mighty; the needy also who had no helper.
He shall spare the poor and needy, and save the souls of those who are in poverty , He shall deliver their souls from usury and wrong,- and His name shall be precious in their sight.
And He shall live, and unto Him shall be given of the gold of Arabia : prayer also shall be made for Him continually, all the day long shall they praise Him.
And there shall be a support"^ in the earth; it shall be lifted up upon the tops of the mountains, and its fruit above Libanus, and they shall flourish out of the city like grass of the earth.
His name shall be blessed for ever, His name shall endure before the sun.
And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Him.
All the nations shall call Him blessed.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who 1 (TTTjpiyfju. " Fortasseexcidit vox ctItov aut aprou." Conf. Ps. 104. 16. Schleusner.
lis Solomons idolatry shews he icas not intended.
Just, only doelh wondnms things.
And blessed he the name of His ^^^' glory for ever and ever.
And. all the earth shall he filled with His glory.
Amen.
Amen.
At the end of this Psalm are these words, The songs of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.
" Now that Solomon was a king, and a great and illustrious one, is certain, and I know that by him the " temple of Jerusalem," as it is called, was built
; but it is plain that none of the things mentioned in this Psalm were fulfilled in him, for all the kings of the earth never worshipped him, nor did his dominion extend to the ends of the world, nor did his enemies fall down before him and lick the dust but I will venture to repeat what is written of him in the 1 Kings book of Kings, how that to please his wife he committed ^''^' idolatry at Sidon'', which they of the Gentiles who have received, through that Jesus Who was crucified, the knowledge of God, the Maker of the world, endure not to do, but rather undergo every torture and punishment, even to death, than conunit idolatry, or eat of idol sacrificej^."
Here35.
" But," replied Trypho, " I am aware that there are ^^^^r. m.any who affirm themselves to confess Jesus, and who are confirm - ' true becalled Christians, but who eat idol sacrifices, and maintain iifthr that there is no harm in so doing." faith.
To which I answered, "Even from the fact of there being such men who affirm themselves to be Christians, and confess the Jesus, Who was crucified, to be both Lord ajid Christ, yet who teach not His doctrines, but those which proceed from the spirits of falsehood ; we, who are the disciples of the true and pure teaching of Jesus Christ, are made both more rooted in the faith, and more firm in the hope which we have received from Him ; for the events vv^hich He foretold as ahout to come to pass in His name we see to be actually fulfilled.
For He said. Many shall come in My name, having
'Ei'
2t5aij/t eldooXoXdrpei.
It is got interpolated into the text from the no where related of Solomon, that he margin, because Tt-rtullian, in a passage actually committd idolatry at Sidon, closely copied from the above, has [though he ma//. Conf.
I Kings 11, 5.] nothing to correspond to th m :
''Soloand the editors have in consequence nion audeo dicere etiam quam habuit h;td much difficulty with this passage, in Deo gloriam ami.sit, per mulierem in The Benedictine suggests that it should Idololatriarn usque pertractus.''
Page he read, Tots eV 2tScDj/i eiSdoXoLs i\a112, notes 12.
14.
'In Sion' has also Tpfvei.
Otto's suggestion seems more been suggested. piausib'e, that the w^ords eV 2tS«//i have
Blasphemies taught hy Heretics in Christ's Name,
outwardly sheep's clothing, hut within they are ravening Dial.
Tryph. wolves.
And, There shall be divisions and heresies; and, Beware oj false prophets, who shall come to you, outwardly having on sheep's clothing, hut inwardly they are ravening wolves; and, There shall arise many false Christs and false
Apostles, and they shall deceive many of the faithful.
" There both are and have been then, O my friends, many who have come and taught men to speak and act atheistically and blasphemously, in the name of Jesus ; and they are known among us by the name of those from whom the doctrine and opinion of each of them first arose ; for each has his own way of teaching how to blaspheme the Creator of all things, and the Christ Who was foretold by Him as about to come, and the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ^ With none of these do we hold connn union, knowing them to be atheistical, irreverent, unjust, and lawless, who instead of worshipping Jesus, confess Him only in name ; and these call themselves Christians in the ' On these words Bp. Bull says, " It His prophecies with the whole of the Old Testament.
Hence it appears that Christ is not termed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in this passage, as Bull thinks.
The holy Martyr does indeed confer that title on Him at the end of his first Apology and elsewhere, but he here terms Him the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom these heretics denied to be the true God, (namely, the Creator and God of the Jews,) although they acknowledged Christ to be the true God, and maintained that He was far greater than the God of Abraham."
The heretics in question he supposes to be the Gnostics of St. Epiphanius' 26tb heresy, [who were the followers of Nicolas the Deacon, as is supposed; and are thought to be those condemned by St. John, in the second chapter of Revelations.] Pull is apparently mistaken in the grammatical construction of the sentence, which by repetition of the article excludes the identification of Christ with the God of Abraham.
This has, in fact, nothing to do with in ust especially be observed, that Christ, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are said of the same Person, namely, of Hian Who was foretold by the Creator of the Universe, that is, the Son of God.
For, firstly, that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is here plainly distinguished from the Creator of the Universe, that is, from God the Father: secondly, it is most evident that Justin throughout this dialogue teaches, and most vehemently contends, that Christ, or the Son of God, was He Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and Who called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.''
And he proceeds to refer the passage to the Ebionites as to those "who blasphemed Christ, by plainly denying His Godhead, and asserting that before Abraham, nay, even before Mary, He had no existence whatever, but that He was a mere man born of Joseph and Mary."
Judicium, chap.
§. 11.
This the Benedictine endeavours to refute: " It is plain," he says, " that St. Justin speaks of those heretics who confessed Jesus to be Christ and the Lord, but who denied that He was foretold by the Prophets of the Creator and God of the Jews, because they wholly rejected Him and S. Justin's own belief, which is known from other passages.
He speaks of the Names, which they in one way or another blasphemed, severally, not stopping to say whether they really belonged to the same Person or not.
Heresies and persecutions foretold by Our Lord. same manner as that in which the Gentiles inscribe the Just.
Mart. name of God upon their images, and are partakers of unlawful and atheistical rites.
Of these, some are called 'Marcionites, some Valentinians, some Basilidians, and some
Saturnilians ; and others by other names, each getting his name from the leader of his heresy, just as each of those who consider themselves philosophers, as I said at the outset, holds himself to bear the name of that philosophy which he follows, from the father of the school*.
So that §.2. both from these proofs, as I have said, we are convinced that Jesus did foreknow what should happen after Him, as also from many other things which He foretold should take place to those who believe and confess that He is Christ.
Even all the sufferings which we endure whilst destroyed by our own relatives, did He foretell to be about to overtake us, so neither word nor deed of His can be MSS. vary.
It is as follows:
'^ Hence s ^apKiapol.
It has been questioned whether St. Jui^tin here alludes to the also," from Simon Magus and his folfollowers of Mark the Valentinian, who were eommonly termed MapKcoaloi, lowers, "came the Menandrians, the Marcionists, the Carpocratians, the "Valentinians, the Basilidians, and the or to those of Marcion.
It has been urged, in favour of the former, that the term MapKiauol is not competent to express the disciples of Marcion, who would rather be termed Mapic.auiaTai.
But the Benedictine editor thinks that Saturnilians."
History, book iv. chap.
22. Benedictine note, and Otto in loo.
The heretics here named were all offshoots from the parent stem of Simon Magus, the first Gnostic, and many of MapKiauol may be taken to ex|)ress the Marcionites, because St.
Epiphanius uses the terms MapKioov^s and MapKKaviarai of them indistriminately, and sometimes even calls the Valentinians OvaKevTivoi ; and it is obvious that the word MapKwaioi is as violent an elorgation,by which to express the dis-ciples their doctrines bea,r strong marks of their Eastern origin, (Brucker, vol.
2. page 6/5.) the chief of which are as follows.
They taught the intrinsic and incurable evil of matter, as the work not of the supreme God, but of an inferior and evil Creator.
They held a plurality of Gods and of iEons, one of whom they made Christ.
They denied that Jesus was Christ or God, and that He came to save the body.
They affirmed that His Incarnation was only of Mark, as MapKiavoi is a violent abbreviation for those of Marcion.
There are besides tw o reasons against the allusion being to the former.
First, Mark himself lived somewhat too late in appearance, and not in reality. They allowed no resurrection or salvation f'^r to be mentioned by St. Justin; and secondly, his name was at no time so well known as that of Marcion, whose followers had already appeared in all parts; his reputation too, such as he had, was rather that of a magician than of a heresiarch.
Eusebius has preserved a passage of Hegesippus very the body.
They taught metempsychosis, and they rejected the Old Testament as the work of the God of the Jews, whom they considered an inferior and even evil divinity, Vvith other doctrines e(]ually destructive of Christianity.
The chiefs of these sects all closely resembling the above; it may be imitated or copied from it ; which strongly suggests the possibility, that lived in the second century, and taught,
Basilides in Alexandria, Saturninus in Antioch, Valentinus in Alexandria and Rome, and Marcion in the latter St.
Justin originally wrote the word lHapKiwviffTai or MapKiauiarai, for the city.
Christ in Prophecy called, The Lord of Hosts, i
considered as in any way reprehensible.
Hence we pray Dial. for you and for all others who persecute us, that you may "^^--°' repent with us and not blaspheme Him, Who by His own 21. 22.
* works, and by those miracles which are even now performed in His Name, by the words of His doctrine, and by the prophecies which were formerly spoken of Him, is proved to be in every respect without blame or fault, even Jesus
Christ ; but, on the contrary, that you may believe in Him, and may be saved in His second and glorious advent, and not condemned by Him to the fire."
86. " But," said Trypho, ^* granting all this to be as you Christ say, and that Christ was foretold by the Prophets as heing *'^^^^g^^^ to suffer, and was termed a Stone; and after that first Ps.ii8, advent in which He was foretold as about to appear in a^"^' state of suffering. He wa,s to return with glory, and thenceforth to become the Judge of all men, and the Eternal King, and Priest; prove to us, moreover, whether this is He of Whom these things were prophesied."
" I will produce,"
I replied, " the proofs which you request in the proper place; but, for the present, I will first, with your permission, recite those prophecies which prove that Christ is called God, and the Lord of Hosts, and of Jacob in parable, by the Holy Ghost: but your interpreters are, as God proclaims aloud, "foolish," in asserting thatJerem. they were spoken not of Christ but of Solomon, when^'
^' he brought the tabernacle of witness into the temple which he built.
It is this Psalm of David : The earth is the Lord's, P^. 24. and the fulness thereof; the worlds and all that dwell therein* He hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? or who shall stand in His holy place ? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart ; who hath not employed his soul in vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour.
This is the generation of them that seek the Lord, even of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob.
Lift up your gates, ye p>rinces, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory ^ The Lord strong arid mighty in battle.
Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, I 2
Christy and not Solomo7i, the King of Glory.
Just, and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of —.^^iliL* glory ?
The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of glory !
It lias been proved that Solomon was not the Lord of Hosts, but when our Christ rose from the dead and went up into Heaven, the princes whom God placed in the Heavens were commanded to open the gates of Heaven, that He, Who is the King of glory, might enter, and, as is said in another Psalm, when He had ascended, Sit at the right Vs. 110, hand of the Father, until He had made His enemies His footstool; for when those heavenly princes saw that He presented the appearance of being devoid of beauty, and honour, and comeliness, and glory, they, not knowing Him, asked, Who is this King of glory? to which the Holy Ghost
a-rrh auswercd, either in the Person* of the Father or of Himself, Trpoad,j,j^^ j^^^^ of Hosts, He is the King of glory.
But that none of those who stood at the gates of the temple of Jerusalem ventured to say of Solomon, how glorious soever a king he might have been, or of the tabernacle of the testimony, " Who is this King of glory f every one I imagine will admit.
The "ST.
" And in the diapsalm of the forty-sixth Psalm," I otbeV" continued, "it is thus written of Christ; God. is gone up Psalms, with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet : sing "
'' 'praises to God, sing praises ; si?ig praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the King of all the earth, sing ye praises zvilh understanding.
God reignelh over the Gentiles ; God sitteth upon His holy throne.
The princes of the people are gathered together with the God of Abraham, for of God are the mighty ones of the earth; they have been mightily lifted up.
" And in the ninety-eighth Psalm the Holy Ghost upbraids you, and declares Him Whom you will not have as your King, to be the King and Lord of Samuel, Aaron, Moses,
Ps.99,i.and all other men whatever: the words are as follows; The Lord reignelh, let the people be angry : He that sitteth above the Cherubim ; let the earth be moved.
The Lord is great in Sion, and high above all people.
Let them confess Thy great Name, for it is terrible and holy ; and the King's honour loveth judgment.
Thou hast prepared equity; Thou hast executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at His foostool, for He is holy. i