Vigils Reading – St Justin Martyr

HE DID IT SOLELY FOR THE SAKE OF MAN

From the Dialogue with Trypho by St Justin Martyr5 ◊◊◊

When I had finished, Trypho said, ‘…Explain to me the following words of Isaias: “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.” Now you have admitted (he said) that these words were spoken of Christ, who, you claim, already existed as God, and, becoming incarnate by the will of God, was born of a virgin. This, then, is my question: How can you prove that Christ already existed, since He is endowed with those gifts of the Holy Spirit which the above-quoted passages of Isaias attribute to Him as though He had lacked them?’

‘You proposed a very sensible and intelligent question,’ I remarked, ‘which appears to raise a real difficulty… The Scriptures state that these gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon Him, not as though He were in need of them, but as though they were about to rest upon Him, that is, to come to an end with Him, so that there would be no more Prophets among your people as of old (as is plainly evident to you, for after Him there has not been a prophet among you)…

The Spirit therefore rested, that is, ceased, when Christ came. For, after man’s redemption was accomplished by Him, these gifts were to cease among you, and, having come to an end in Him, should again be given, as was foretold, by Him, from the grace of His Spirit’s powers, to all His believers according to their merits. I have already affirmed, and I repeat, that it had been predicted that He would do this after His Ascension into Heaven. It was said, therefore: “He ascended on high; He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to the sons of men.” And in another prophecy it is said: “And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and upon My servants, and upon My handmaids, and they shall prophesy.”

…We indeed know that He did not approach the river because He needed either the baptism or the Spirit who came down upon Him in the shape of a dove. So, too, He did not condescend to be born and to be crucified because He was in need of birth or crucifixion; He did it solely for the sake of man, who from the time of Adam had become subject to death and the deceit of the serpent, each man having sinned by his own fault…

For, when John, wearing only a cincture of skins and a cloak of camel’s hair, and eating only locusts and wild honey, sat by the River Jordan and preached the baptism of repentance, men supposed that he was the Christ, but he cried out to his listeners: “I am not the Christ, but the voice of one crying: for there will come He that is stronger than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry.” When Jesus came to the Jordan… the Holy Spirit for the sake of mankind descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and at the same instant a voice out of the heavens spoke the words which had also been uttered by David, when he , in the person of Christ, spoke what was later to be said to Christ by the Father: “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee,” meaning that His birth really began for men when they first realized who He was.