philosophers or poets actually having read the Hebrew Scriptures, it was a
point of importance for Justin. It might be described as what we would today
call a‘cultural take-over bid’: it was a battle between Moses and Homer, a
battle of literatures.^26 Justin and others held that Moses was older than all the
philosophers and poets, and so he is in fact the source of whatever the
philosophers or poets might have said that is true. According to Numenius,
as quoted by Clement of Alexandria:‘What is Plato but Moses speaking in
Attic Greek’!^27 Without a doubt, Socrates and Plato, and the philosophers
following them, would not have been convinced by Justin’s attempt to see
them as forebears of Christ. But the point here is a hermeneutic and apologetic
one, not a historical one. The plundering of the Egyptians (in this case the
Greeks) enables, in turn, the recognition of the presence of the Word of God
even to those prior to Christ. This happens in the case of the disciples of Christ
and the Scriptures, for it was only afterwards, once the risen Lord opened the
books, that they realized how they all spoke of him and his Passion. So, as
Origen in the third century put it:‘Since the Saviour has come and has caused
the Gospel to be embodied, he has by the Gospel made all things as Gospel.’^28
We only understand retrospectively. By standing on the truth of the Gospel,
the proclamation of Christ as proclaimed by the apostles according to Scrip-
ture, we are able now to read the Scriptures as an open book, to understand
what was written by the prophets. And then we can look further afield and see
the same light of Christ shining on and through the whole of God’s creation.
And the medium through which this divine light shines is ourselves. We are
called not simply to behold the light, but to become beacons ourselves,
whereby God’s light can shine further afield. Plundering the Egyptians—
honing our intellectual skills—is the indispensable means (along with the
whole formation entailed by a properpaideia) whereby we learn how to
use words, so that we can in fact use words to convey the Word of God. In
this way, we can thereby see God at work in all things, and to take as our own
whatever is good, wherever we mayfind it, following Paul’s words in Phil. 4:
‘Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is
anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’This is the true mark of a
human being for the humanism of the early fathers and thepaideiaby which it
is attained.
(^26) On the‘potential cultural take-over bid’, implied by this claim, see A. J. Droge,Homer or
Moses? Early Christian Interpretation of the History of Culture(Tübingen: Mohr, 1989); Frances
M. Young,Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), esp. 49–75; Rebecca Lyman,‘Hellenism and Heresy’,JECS11/2 (2003),
209 – 22; Behr,Irenaeus,34–44.
(^27) Clement of Alexandria,Strom.1.22.150.4. (^28) Origen,Comm. Jo.1.33.
32 John Behr