t of Christ's life, in all points agreeing with that
which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken indeed, in a great measure,
from those Scriptures, but still proving that this account and no other,
was the account known and extant in that age" ("Evidences," p. 77)--will
be to give the story from Justin, mentioning every notice of Christ in
his works, which gives anything of his supposed life, only omitting
passages relating solely to his teaching, such as those given above. The
large majority of these are taken from the "Dialogue with Trypho," a
wearisome production, in which Justin endeavours to convince a Jew that
Christ is the Messiah, by quotations from the Jewish Scriptures (which,
by the way, include Esdras, thus placing that book on a level with the
other inspired volumes). A noticeable peculiarity of this Dialogue is,
that any alleged incident in Christ's life is taken as true, not because
it is authenticated as historical, but simply because it was prophesied
of; Justin's Christ is, in fact, an ideal, composed out of the
prophecies of the Jews, and fitted on to a Jew named Jesus.

Christ was the offspring truly brought forth from the Father,
before the creation of anything else, the Word begotten of God,
before all his works, and he appeared before his birth,
sometimes as a flame of fire, sometimes as an angel, as at
Sodom, to Moses, to Joshua. He was called by Solomon, Wisdom;
and by the Prophets and by Christians, the King, the Eternal
Priest, God, Lord, Angel, Man, the Flower, the Stone, the
Cornerstone, the Rod, the Day, the East, the Glory, the Rock,
the Sword, Jacob, Israel, the Captain, the Son, the Helper, the
Redeemer. He was born into the World by the over-shadowing of
God the Holy Ghost, who is none other than the Word himself, and
produced without sexual union by a virgin of the seed of Jacob,
Judah, Phares, Jesse, and David, his birth being announced by an
angel, who told the Virgin to call his name Jesus, for he should
save his people from their sins. Joseph, the spouse of Mary,
desired to put her away, but was commanded in a vision not to
put away his wife, the angel telling him that what was in her
womb was of the Holy Ghost. At the first census taken in Judaea,
under Cyrenius, the first Roman Procurator, he left Nazareth
where he lived, and went to Bethlehem, to which he belonged, his
family being of the tribe o