Justin's Teaching on the Logos

The 'Apologies' describes the divine nature of Jesus and the relation of Christianity to other truths.
Logos = the personal reason of God in which all men partake.
There were Christians before Christ who possessed seeds of the logos so arrived at facets of truth.
However, only JC holds the whole Logos.
Logos = the father's intelligence or rational thought.
This definition doesnt' do justive to the fundamental idea of Jesus as a separate being. Therefore Justin argued that the logos is distinct beyond just name, but also numerically distinct. For Justin this meant 'different in person'.
This is the fundamental distinction between his consideration of the logos and that of Philo or the Fourth Gospel.
In conflict with Jewish monotheism?
Danger in implying the idea of the duality in the heart of the Godhead.
But the otherness of the logos is evident by

the divine theophanies recoreded in the Old Testament
The OT passages which represent God as conversing to another who is a rational being like himself (Genesis 1.26)
Wisdom literature texts that imply either a poetic or real personification of wisdom (Proverbs 8.22)

Justin was aware that his biblical proofs for the numerical distinction could easily be turned against him...
so, he emphasises the unity of the father and the logos anterior to the creation.
The logos was begotten by the will and the power of God, as a prepatory stage before creation.
The logos is 'a beginning before all created things' (Dialogue IXiii)

	Created by Flo Taylor about 10 years ago

University Finals Patristics Note on Justin Martyr Notes, created by Flo Taylor on 02/27/2014.

Justin Martyr Notes