_Saved_.
7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. _Not Saved_.
8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. _Not Saved_.
Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth
of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to
be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth
of Jesus and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives
the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable God,
with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The
Holy Spirit is not regarded by Justin as a separate personality, and
is often mixed up with the "Logos." The doctrine of the natural
immortality of the soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a
believer in the resurrection of the body, as in the speedy Second
Coming and the establishment of the millennium.
The pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century--a
much-travelled native of Samaria--was certainly well acquainted with
Rome, probably with Alexandria; and it is likely that he knew the
state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian
world as well as any man of his time. If the various categories above
enumerated are arranged in a series thus:--
_Justin's Christianity_
________/\__________
/ \
_Orthodox_ _Judaeo-Christianity_ _Idolothytic_
_Judaism_ ______/\______ _Christianity_ _Paganism_
/ \
I.
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