It is obvious that if he is quoting St. John the quotation is throughout paraphrastic.  And yet it is equally noticeable that he does not use the exact Johannean phrase, he uses others that are in each case almost precisely equivalent.  He does not say [Greek:  our dunatai idein—­taen basileian ton ouranon], but he says [Greek:  ou mae eiselthaete eis—­taen basileian ton ouranon], the latter pair phrases which the Synoptics have already taught us to regard as convertible.  He does not say [Greek:  mae dunatai eis taen koilian taes maetros autou deuteron eiselthein kai gennaethaenai], but he says [Greek:  adunaton eis tas maetras ton tekouson tous hapax gennomenous embaebai].  And the scale seems decisively turned by the very remarkable combination in Justin and St. John of the saying respecting spiritual regeneration with the same strangely gross physical misconception.  It is all but impossible that two minds without concert or connection should have thought of introducing anything of the kind.  Nicodemus makes an objection, and Justin by repeating the same objection, and in a form that savours so strongly of platitude, has shown, I think we must say, conclusively, that he was aware that the objection had been made.

Such are some of the chief literary coincidences between Justin and the fourth Gospel; but there are others more profound.  Justin undoubtedly has the one cardinal doctrine of the fourth Gospel—­ the doctrine of the Logos.

Thus he writes.  ’Jesus Christ is in the proper sense [Greek:  idios] the only Son begotten of God, being His Word [Greek:  logos] and Firstborn Power’ [Endnote 284:1].  Again, ’But His Son who alone is rightly [Greek:  kurios] called Son, who before all created things was with Him and begotten of Him as His Word, when in the beginning He created and ordered all things through Him,’ &c.  Again, ’Now the next Power to God the Father and Lord of all, and Son [Endnote 284:2], is the Word, of whom we shall relate in what follows how He was made flesh and became Man.’  Again, ‘The Word of God is His Son.’  Again, speaking of the Gentile philosophers and lawgivers, ’Since they did not know all things respecting the Word, who is Christ, they have also frequently contradicted each other.’  These passages are given by Tischendorf, and they might be added to without difficulty; but it is not questioned that the term Logos is found frequently in Justin’s writings, and in the same sense in which it is used in the Prologue of the fourth Gospel of the eternal Son of God, who is at the same time the historical person Jesus Christ.

The natural inference that Justin was acquainted with the fourth Gospel is met by suggesting other sources for the doctrine.  These sources are of two kinds, Jewish or Alexandrine.