acher," "new law," "freedom," "repentance," "sinless life,"
"sure hope," "reward," "immortality," the ideas, "forgiveness of sins,"
"redemption," "reconciliation," "new birth," "faith" (in the Pauline
sense) must remain words,[454] or be relegated to the sphere of magic
and mystery.[455] Nevertheless we must not on that account overlook the
intention. Justin tried to see the divine revelation not only in the
sayings of the prophets, but in unique fashion in the person of Christ,
and to conceive Christ not only as the divine teacher, but also as the
"Lord and Redeemer." In two points he actually succeeded in this. By the
resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Justin proved that Christ, the
divine teacher, is also the future judge and bestower of reward. Christ
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 r