Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
JUSTIN MARTYR: Chapter C.—In what sense Christ is...

Chapter C.—In what sense Christ is [called] Jacob, and Israel, and Son of Man.

“Then what follows —‘But Thou, the praise of Israel, inhabitest the holy place’—declared that He is to do something worthy of praise and wonderment, being about to rise again from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion; and this He has obtained from the Father. For I p. 249 have showed already that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have proved that it is not in the blessing of Joseph and Judah alone that what relates to Him was proclaimed mysteriously, but also in the Gospel it is written that He said: ‘All things are delivered unto me by My Father;’ and, ‘No man knoweth the Father but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.’ 2328 Accordingly He revealed to us all that we have perceived by His grace out of the Scriptures, so that we know Him to be the first-begotten of God, and to be before all creatures; likewise to be the Son of the patriarchs, since He assumed flesh by the Virgin of their family, and submitted to become a man without comeliness, dishonoured, and subject to suffering. Hence, also, among His words He said, when He was discoursing about His future sufferings: ‘The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the Pharisees and Scribes, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 2329 He said then that He was the Son of man, either because of His birth by the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the family of David 2330 and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham; or because Adam 2331 was the father both of Himself and of those who have been first enumerated from whom Mary derives her descent. For we know that the fathers of women are the fathers likewise of those children whom their daughters bear. For [Christ] called one of His disciples— previously known by the name of Simon—Peter; since he recognised Him to be Christ the Son of God, by the revelation of His Father: and since we find it recorded in the memoirs of His apostles that He is the Son of God, and since we call Him the Son, we have understood that He proceeded before all creatures from the Father by His power and will (for He is addressed in the writings of the prophets in one way or another as Wisdom, and the Day, 2332 and the East, and a Sword, and a Stone, and a Rod, and Jacob, and Israel); and that He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; 2333 and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’ ” 2334 And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.

Footnotes

Matt. xi. 27.

Matt. xvi. 21.

[Note this testimony to Mary’s descent from David.]

The text is, αὐτὸν τὸν ᾽Αβραὰμ πατέρα. Thirlby proposed αὐτὸν τὸυ ᾽Αδὰμ: Maranus changed this into αὐτοῦ τὸν ᾽Αδὰμ πατέρα.

It is not easy, says Maranus, to say in what Scripture Christ is so called. [Clearly he refers to the Dayspring (St. Luke i. 78) as the LXX. render many texts of the O.T. See Zech. iii. 8.] Perhaps Justin had in his mind the passage, “This the day which the Lord hath made” (Ps. cxviii. 24). Clem. Alex. teaches that Christ is here referred to.

Luke i. 35. See Meyer in loc.

Luke i. 38.