Chapter C.—In what sense Christ is [called] Jacob, and Israel, and Son of Man.
“Then what follows —‘But Thou, the praise of Israel, inhabitest the holy place’—declared
that He is to do something worthy of praise and wonderment, being about to rise again
from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion; and this He has obtained from the
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Father. For I have showed already that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have
proved that it is not in the blessing of Joseph and Judah alone that what relates to Him was
proclaimed mysteriously, but also in the Gospel it is written that He said: ‘All things are
delivered unto me by My Father;’ and, ‘No man knoweth the Father but the Son; nor the
Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.’564 Accordingly He revealed
to us all that we have perceived by His grace out of the Scriptures, so that we know Him to
be the first-begotten of God, and to be before all creatures; likewise to be the Son of the
patriarchs, since He assumed flesh by the Virgin of their family, and submitted to become
a man without comeliness, dishonoured, and subject to suffering. Hence, also, among His
words He said, when He was discoursing about His future sufferings: ‘The Son of man must
suffer many things, and be rejected by the Pharisees and Scribes, and be crucified, and on
the third day rise again.’565 He said then that He was the Son of man, either because of His
birth by the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the family of David,566 and Jacob, and Isaac, and
Abraham; or because Adam567 was the father both of Himself and of those who have been
first enumerated from whom Mary derives her descent. For we know that the fathers of
women are the fathers likewise of those children whom their daughters bear. For [Christ]
called one of His disciples— previously known by the name of Simon—Peter; since he re-
cognised Him to be Christ the Son of God, by the revelation of His Father: and since we
find it recorded in the memoirs of His apostles that He is the Son of God, and since we call
Him the Son, we have understood that He proceeded before all creatures from the Father
by His power and will (for He is addressed in the writings of the prophets in one way or
another as Wisdom, and the Day,568 and the East, and a Sword, and a Stone, and a Rod,
and Jacob, and Israel); and that He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience
which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in
564 Matt. xi. 27.
565 Matt. xvi. 21.
566 [Note this testimony to Mary’s descent from David.]
567 The text is, αὐτὸν τὸν ᾽Αβραὰμ πατέρα. Thirlby proposed αὐτὸν τὸυ ᾽Αδὰμ: Maranus changed this into
αὐτοῦ τὸν ᾽Αδὰμ πατέρα.
568 It is not easy, says Maranus, to say in what Scripture Christ is so called. [Clearly he refers to the Dayspring
(St. Luke i. 78) as the LXX. render many texts of the O.T. See Zech. iii. 8.] Perhaps Justin had in his mind the
passage, “This the day which the Lord hath made” (Ps. cxviii. 24). Clem. Alex. teaches that Christ is here referred
to.
Chapter C.—In what sense Christ is [called] Jacob, and Israel, and Son of Man.
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Chapter C.—In what sense Christ is [called] Jacob, and Israel, and Son of…