Rev. Dr. Christiaan Kappes

            Questions have come to me about alleged difficulties still left unanswered after my article on St. Justin Martyr proving a difference between “another God” (heteros theos) – meaning a personal difference in the same essence – and “other god” (allos theos) – meaning another essence numerically distinct and separate from God’s.

            Question 1: Isn’t’ Philo, and by extension Justin Martyr, just “Middle Platonists” and therefore what is produced by “God” the Father is somehow inferior to him?

Answer: Yes, If Philo and Justin were relying on merely Middle Platonism (and Stoic) sources, we would need to suspect subordinationism. However, as the specialist Dr. Winston points out:[1]

• The Logos is identified with God’s Word Genesis 1:1-3 (dibbur; p. 16).
• The Word is a personal entity (p. 17)
• The Logos is a principiate from a principle (water from its source)
• Philo considers the Word to be analogous to God’s “son” (p. 20)
• Philo uses also Pythagoras and Stoicism, but with a Jewish twist so that the Word is a “power” of God in a special sense, viz., he is YHWH (Jehovah; pp 18-19).
• The mind (Father) and thinker (logos) are simultaneous (p. 18)

These initial theological principles mean that neither Philo (as a main source for Justin Martyr) nor Justin should be reduced to mere Middle Platonism, but rather their syncretism of Angelomorphic theology in the Old Testament with Pythagorean, Platonist, and Stoic elements must be weighed and evaluated with excruciating detail, particularly given Philo’s commitment to there being strictly one God, as far as his essence and existence are concerned. Thus, for Philo there is “another God” (heteros theos) but not an “other God” (allos theos) as I demonstrate in my article above in the hyperlink. Here, another divine identity (hypostasized wisdom) versus some other essence is a fair way to take the distinction. The conclusion of Dr. Winston is that Philo tries to check Platonist degradation of emanating beings by reliance on Scripture for understanding the identity of God’s word.[2] His success in weaving both together into a Jewish monotheism is limited by a lack of scholarly consensus about his success. Still, for Philo, philosophy is a handmaiden to theology, not vice versa. This provides a safe interpretative key to understand Philo as an intellectual Jew not a Hellenistic intellectual with a merely Jewish educational background.

            Question 2: Can’t we assert that Justin’s use of Philo unimportant and merely incidental and therefore is not a good starting point to understand Justin’s use of “another God”?

Answer: Wrong! the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae or TLG provides scholars with a standard ability to isolate authors and works by a search engine that excludes ancients unaware of technical terminology and includes authors who uniquely use rare or even standard terms. In this case, “another God” (heteros theos) is used in Jewish literature from the 3^rd century BC – 1^st century AD in Greek by LXX Exodus 34:14: “For ye shall not worship another god,[3] for the Lord God, a jealous name, is a jealous God.”[4] It is then used next by Philo of Alexandria. Among Christians writing in Greek it is used afterwards by Justin and Origen and Pseudo-Clement in the midst of their quoting Jewish Scripture. In these Christian cases its use is not tied to LXX Exodus 34:14 but rather to discussions exactly like that of Philo, namely, on God, his word, and the word as the logical power of the Father. In this, even the latest critical edition of Justin agrees by noting that there is connection between Philo’s and Justin’s heteros theos or another God:[5]

Drs. Minns and Parvis support my first article on the following points: “allos theos” is heretical in Philo/Justin but “heteros theos” is not; (2.) The notion of someone divine “under” the vault of heaven accounts for the “hypo/under” that is traditionally read as subordinationist (“subject to”) but not thus in the CUA (below) translation of Trypho in English. (3.) Philo is at the root of this theology.

            What would be new for Drs. Minns and Parvis is my philological work of tracing the usage of allos theos and heteros theos in Jewish and Christian literature. Undoubtedly this finding would require them to consider updating any claims that scholars today make about subordinationism in two ways: (i.) showing that even if subordination can still be argued, then it must newly be argued with different premises since there is a clear distinction between the two; (ii.) They might possibly be more hesitant to carry on the pre-critical or pre-scientific commentary tradition of Justin-interpretation as subordinationist, since the Greek sources for these terms and their meaning (especially Philo) are much better understood today than in the 20^th century (with the exception of its last decade since the publishing of critical editions in Greek).

            Question 3: Don’t Dr. Falls’ and Dr. Winston’s footnotes and the introduction to Justin’s work by Drs Minns and Parvis show that scholars agree that Justin is a subordinationist?

Answer: Quite the opposite, there are statements made by modern scholars showing how confusing Justin is to them. For example, Dr. Walls quoted vociferously by unitarians writes: “St. Justin elsewhere refers to Christ as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, it would seem that in this passage he applies it to God the Father.”[6] So, Jesus is the God of Abraham and so is the Father! In the same translation the translator is confused that Justin “seems” to imply Jesus is an “another angel” (allos angelos),[7] unaware of Angel-Christ theology or angelomorphic themes that can solve this problem.[8] That Christ is an Angel (sent) as others are angels (sent-ones) but that Jesus is Scripturally head of the angelic armies in the Old Testament, as Justin clearly attests, is lost on Dr. Falls. Finally, Dr. Falls says about Justin referring to God the Father who begot Jesus as one whom “We know no ruler more kingly or just than he except God who begot him.” To this the translator writes “This seems to imply the error of subordinationism which teach that the Father is greater than the Son; cf. also ch. 2 Apol. 13; Dial. 56 (Cf. Rauschen […] and Altaner, Patrologia).[9]

            Point #1: Dr. Falls originally translated in 1948 (prior to Danielou’s groundbreaking work on Angelomorphic Christology and cataloguing ancient and recent work on the Angel-Christ). Thus, it’s not surprising that the opinions are dated.

            Point #2: Dr. Falls confusion about the Angel-Christ as a creature and in the same breath his confusion about the God of Abraham as both Christ and God the Father are due to the lack of systematic study available on the Angel-Christ theology at this time (it was known in Scholastic manuals but only treated in passing).

            Point #3: The capital point is that Dr. Falls is wise enough to keep writing: “it seems” that is not “it is the case” or not “clearly Justin believes…” because Dr. Falls is confused. The Patrologia that he cites is from 1956! Danielou’s pioneering work (1952) on the basics of Angel-Christ talk became available in English in 1957. Angelmorphic Christology is now standard scholarship but was only gradually absorbed in other disciplines such that even liberal and agnostic scholars, like Bart Ehrmann, admit in recent publications that his old exegesis was wrong since St. Paul believed in the preexistence of the Angel-Christ.

            Conclusion:  Scholars rightly and wisely tend not to overcommit themselves to positions on topics that are for them unclear and obscure. Dr. Falls is not to be faulted for using “seems” since this allows him to understate his case based upon the state of scholarship in the 1950s and in more recent times. Drs Minns and Parvis admit many controversial and conjectural readings on issues like question of the world being made “by the Logos” or merely instrumental “through” the Logos. Scholars are wisely cautious, unlike debaters and partisans of a viewpoint. My own position is that the lack of an index of subjects like “subordinationism” in the new addition of their Apology in English or even other works shows the gradual lack of interest and evidence to robustly press this topic. The fact is that very detailed work remains to be done on how combining Old Testament oneness of the godhead with Hellenistic philosophy creates new horizons for metaphysics (the study of the status and rank of non-material being in the Logos). One of the horizons is approaching the contribution by Christians of personhood to replace timeless mental-products or forms of the Platonic past. The dignity of persons and hypostatization of Wisdom and of the Spirit naturally lead to different metaphysics than Middle and Neo-Platonism. It is up to the specialists to tease out what this means. My own contribution on Justin Martyr above in the hyperlink (invited to be published by a peer-reviewed journal since my informal publication) importantly notes that one must understand how “another God” and “other god” are used in Justin before one can speculate on his subordinationism. The failure to do so, for example, led to Dr. Falls confusing and almost self-contradictory footnotes, were it not for the salvific use of “seems!”

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[1] David Wintston, Logos Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Hoboken NJ, 1985).

[2] Wintston, Logos,18-25.

[3] Brenton’s LXX seems to have a variant that reads plural “strange gods.” The scientific

[4] J. Wevers (Ed.), Exodus (Göttingen, 1991), 2, Ch. 31, v. 14: “οὐ γὰρ μὴ προσκυνήσητε θεῷ ἑτέρῳ· ὁ γὰρ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ζηλωτὸν ὄνομα, θεὸς ζηλωτής ἐστιν.”

[5]  Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosoperh and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford, 2014), 62.

[6] Thomas Falls (ed.), Saint Justin Martyr…, The Fathers of the Church 6 (Washington DC, 1948, 1965, 1977, 2008 ), 201.

[7] Here, a ready solution might be that “heteros angelos” (another angel) would be an angel of the same set or species, while “allos angelos” (= Christ) refers to something like “allos theos” or another kind of essence different from the one of comparison. So, Christ as “allos angelos” is essentially different from the other ranks of angels.

[8] Thomas Falls (ed.), Saint Justin Martyr…, 39, note 2.

[9] Thomas Falls (ed.), Saint Justin Martyr…, 44, note 3.

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