himself is able to give what he has promised--a life after death free
from sufferings and sins, that is the first point. The other thing,
however, which Justin very strongly emphasised is that Jesus is even now
reigning in heaven, and shows his future visible sovereignty of the
world by giving his own people the power to cast out and vanquish the
demons in and by his name. Even at the present time the latter are put
to flight by believers in Christ.[456] So the redemption is no mere
future one; it is even now taking place, and the revelation of the Logos
in Jesus Christ is not merely intended to prove the doctrines of the
rational religion, but denotes a real redemption, that is, a new
beginning, in so far as the power of the demons on earth is overthrown
through Christ and in his strength. Jesus Christ, the teacher of the
whole truth and of a new law, which is the rational, the oldest, and the
divine, the only being who has understood how to call men from all the
different nations and in all stages of culture into a union of holy
life, the inspiring One, for whom his disciples go to death, the mighty
One, through whose name the demons are cast out, the risen One, who will
one day reward and punish as judge, must be identical with the Son of
God, who is the divine reason and the divine power. In this belief which
accompanies the confession of the one God, creator of heaven and earth,
Justin finds the special content of Christianity, which the later
Apologists, with the probable exception of Melito, reproduced in a much
more imperfect and meagre form. One thing, however, Justin in all
probability did not formulate with precision, viz., the proposition that
the special result of salvation, i.e., immortality, was involved in the
incarnation of the Logos, in so far as that act brought about a real
secret transformation of the whole mortal nature of man. With Justin,
indeed, as with the other Apologists, the "salvation" ([Greek: soteria])
consists essentially in the apportioning of eternal life to the world,
which has been created mortal and in consequence of sin has fallen a
prey to the natural destiny of "death;" and Christ is regarded as the
bestower of incorruptibility who thus brings the creation to its goal;
but as a rule Justin does not go beyond this thought. Yet we certainly
find hints pointing to the notion of a physical and magical redemption
accomplished at the moment of the incarnation. See particularly the
fragment in Irenaeus (already quoted on page 220), which may be thus
interpreted, and Apol. I. 66. This conception, in its most complete
shape, would have to be attributed to Justin if the fragment V. (Otto,
Corp. Apol. III. p. 256) were genuine.[457] But the precise form of the
presentation makes this very improbable. The question as to how, i.e.,
in what conceivable way, immortality can be imparted to the mortal
nature as yet received little attention from Justin and the Apologists:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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