St Justin Martyr, Apology to the Good Emperor Antonius Pius

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AMAZON LINKS FOR
CHURCH HISTORIES CONSULTED:
Eusebius, History of the Church,
324 AD+
History of Early Christian
Literature, Edgar Goodspeed
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 1,
introductions and translations,
1870’s +
The Christian Tradition: A History
of the Development of Doctrine,
The Emergence of the Catholic
Tradition (100-600), Vol 1,
Jaroslav Pelikan
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick
The Path of Christianity: The First
Thousand Years, John Anthony
McGuckin
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https://amzn.to/2UB183E https://amzn.to/36W9OUB https://amzn.to/2UHXMeW
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Today we will learn and reflect on the St Justin Martyr’s Apology to the
good Emperor Antonius Pius, and on what we know of the life of St Justin,
and his martyrdom during the reign of the next emperor and Stoic
philosopher, Marcus Aurelius.
What can we learn from this Apology?
St Justin Martyr demonstrates how both the Old Testament and the
Greco-Roman moral philosophers both point to and are fulfilled by the
coming of Christ into the world. St Justin introduced the language and
philosophical approach that formed the basis of later Christian language
and theology.

We always like to quote from the works we are
discussing. At the end of our talk, we will discuss
the sources used for this video, and my blogs that
also cover this topic. Please, we welcome
interesting questions in the comments. Let us learn
and reflect together!

To find the source of any
direct quotes in this blog,
please type in the phrase to
the search box in my blog to
see the referenced footnote.
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The writings of St Justin the Martyr were highly esteemed in the early Church. His
many pages repeat the observations we have heard so many times before, but what
makes them special is often he is one of the first to make these observations.
Justin was born around 114 AD in Samaria to Roman parents. He studied
philosophy but was converted by an old sage who showed him how Christianity was
a fuller revelation of the truth.

Pelikan says it best, “Justin had
been prepared for Christian
revelation by the study of
Stoicism, then of Aristotelianism,
then of Pythagoreanism, and
finally of Platonism. None had
satisfied his search for truth, but
each had led him progressively
closer to those teachers who
were ‘more ancient than all
those who have the reputation of
being philosophers,’ the Old
Testament prophets.”

One comment that puzzled me when I read Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho is how he
says that he found stoicism wanting, which was puzzling because I found that the
writings of the Roman Stoic philosophers are so compatible with Christian teaching,
often enlightening Christian moral teaching. The monastic works of the Eastern
Church Fathers in the Philokalia and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, in particular,
borrow much of their terminology and categories of virtues and vices from the
Stoics.
Perhaps Justin was studying under a Greek stoic, as we discussed in our video on
the founder of Stoic Philosophy, Zeno of Citium. His writings have mostly been lost
to history, preserved in condensed form mostly by the ancient historian Diogenes of
Laertius. He notes that the writings of Zeno and his disciples were considered
libertine and sexually scandalous even by ancient standards, perhaps this is why
Carolingian and medieval copyists decline to copy them.

Henry Chadwick observes that St Justin
employs the Platonic “concept of the
Divine Logos or Reason both to explain
how the transcendent Father of all deals
with the inferior, created order of things,
and to justify his faith in the revelation
made by God through the prophets and in
Christ. The divine Logos inspired the
prophets and was present in Christ. . . It is
implicit in Justin’s thesis that the
distinction between Father and Son
corresponds to the distinction between
God transcendent and God immanent.”
Whenever God speaks in the Old
Testament, St Justin teaches us that it is
the Word of God who speaks, the Divine
Logos, Jesus Christ.

After his conversion Justin still wore the philosopher’s cloak, both in church and in
agora, or town square of Hellenic cities, where he expounded the Good News about
the Way to Life. The stoic and platonic moral philosophers saw philosophy as an
evangelistic enterprise to exhort you to live a moral and godly life, so to the
ancients, Jesus was a philosopher, and to Christians, the fulfillment both of Judaism
and philosophy.
Battling heresy was a project for Justin. During his lifetime in the second century
there were many gnostic Christian sects, including the formidable Marcion who only
accepted an edited Luke and selected Pauline Epistles into his truncated Bible,
totally rejecting the Old Testament. Justin wrote a treatise against Marcion which
has not survived, scholars speculate that Tertullian’s work against the Marcionites
was so authoritative that the other anti-Marcionite works were not copied.

Justin later moved to Ephesus, where he debated the Jew Trypho, and later moved
to Rome where he composed what is thought to be his earliest extant work, his First
Apology addressed to Emperor Pius.
During the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, he debated the cynic philosopher
Crescens, who turned him into the authorities. “Rusticus the prefect said to Justin,
‘Obey the gods at once, and submit to the emperors.’ Justin answered, ‘To obey the
commandments of Jesus Christ is worthy neither of blame nor of condemnation.’ “
St Justin Martyr was beheaded for his beliefs. Many scholars suspect that his
martyrdom account in the Ante-Nicene Fathers quotes from the actual trial
proceedings.

McGuckin writes, “Justin’s intellectual confidence
began a much more open trend among Christian
thinkers to believe they could adopt Jewish
theology and Hellenistic philosophical wisdom in
a judiciously balanced manner to serve as a
vehicle for Christian preaching. The fear of Greek
thought and terminology that the Gnostic
teachers had spread among many in the Church
was allayed by the success of Justin’s work,
conducted in a spirit of faithful and orthodox
confession.
His martyr’s death also sealed his reputation for
future generations.”

Turning to his work, the Apology to the Emperor, addressed to Emperor Antonius,
who adopted the succeeding Emperor, Marcus Aurelius:

Justin opens his apology, “Reason directs those who
are truly pious and philosophical to honor and love
only what is true, declining to follow the opinions of
the ancients if these be worthless,” a surprising
argument, given the weight that the Romans placed
on the ancient traditions. Right belief matters, “the
lover of truth should choose to do and say what is
right, by all means, and if threatened with death,” be
willing to lay down his own life.
Justin quotes Plato, “unless both the rulers and the
ruled philosophize, it is impossible to make states
blessed.” The ancients believed that to pursue
philosophy was to seek to live a godly life. Justin also
echoes Plato when he says, “Rulers should rule in
obedience, not in violence and tyranny, but in piety
and philosophy,” a somewhat ironic wish since under
the rule of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius
he would suffer a martyr’s death. Saint Justin Martyr by Theophanes the Cretan,
painted 1540’s

The Christians were charged with atheism, for in the ancient
world atheists were those who did not believe in Zeus and Hera
and the other gods on Mount Olympus and all around us. Rarely
did the early Church Fathers argue that these gods did not exist,
but rather argued as did St Justin Martyr that these gods were
actually demons who appeared as apparitions of the ancient
gods to defile women and corrupt boys, striking terror in the
hearts of men.
St Justin speculates on why the Athenian jury condemned
Socrates to drink the hemlock drink, causing his death.

Copy after the Painting by Rubens "The Council of Gods“, Renoir, 1861

Copy after the Painting by Rubens "The Council of Gods“, Renoir, 1861
“When Socrates endeavored by true reason . . .
to deliver men from the demons,” then the
demons plotted to bring about his death on the
charge of introducing new divinities.

There was a double standard favoring pagan men in ancient Greece and
Rome, they were not expected to be chaste. This would change with the
early Christians, their major evangelical message was to repent, be baptized,
and sin no longer. Early in the apology Justin quotes Scripture from memory,
“whoever looks upon a woman with lust in his heart has committed adultery
with her in his heart before God.” And “If your right eye offends, cut it out;
for it is better to enter into the kingdom with one eye, than to be cast into
everlasting fire with two eyes.” Christ is sent to save sinners, “Christ calls not
the just nor the chaste to repentance, but the ungodly, the licentious, and
the unjust,” for the heavenly Father desires to forgive those who repent, He
does not seek to punish the guilty.
This sounds weak to those living in a warrior society, “if you love them who
love you, what good is this? Even fornicators do this. But I say unto you,
pray for your enemies, and love them that hate you, and bless them that
spitefully use you.”
St Mary’s Church, Cambridge

The Christian belief in the resurrection of
the dead was a stumbling block for
Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations and
for many Greeks. Justin argues that just
as men can be produced from a small
drop in the womb, so the bodies of men
“after they have been dissolved, and like
seeds planted in the earth, can in God’s
appointed time rise again and put on
incorruptible bodies.” As Christ said,
“what is impossible with men is possible
with God.”
Justin quotes many familiar verses
predicting Christ, such as Isaiah predicting
the virgin birth of Jesus and the
prophecies of the events of the
Crucifixion in Psalm 22. Justin has many
beautiful chapters on Isaiah, we
encourage you to discover them for
yourself.
surrection of the Flesh (c. 1500) by Luca Signorelli –1 Cor 15: "the trumpet shall
und, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

Justin sees in Jacob’s deathbed blessing of his
son Judah a prophecy of the coming of Christ:
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and the obedience of the peoples is his.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
and his robe in the blood of grapes.”
The scepter is the foretold coming of Christ
the lawgiver, who will ride a foal into
Jerusalem before Passover, and “washing His
robe in the blood of the grape predicts the
Passion He would endure, cleaning by His
blood those who believe on Him.”

The early Church Fathers teach that
whenever the Deity speaks in the OId
Testament, that it is Christ, the Logos, the
Word of God who speaks as God. St Justin
teaches us that “Jesus Christ is the Son of
God and His Apostle, being of old the Word,
and appearing sometimes in the form of fire,
and sometimes in the likeness of angels.”
In this icon, the pre-incarnated Christ is one
of the three angels who visit Abraham and
Sarah, to tell Sarah that she will bear a son,
who will be named Isaac.

Likewise, St Justin teaches us that it was Christ
who spoke to the Moses from the burning bush.
Orthodox icons depict the pre-incarnate Christ
with the Virgin Mary as speaking from the
burning bush, this connection is hinted by St
Justin. Like the burning bush, Mary is not
consumed by the divine fire, as she is the
blessed Theotokos, the Mother and Bearer of
God. St Justin says, “Christ appeared in the
likeness of an angel to Moses and the other
prophets,” “having become man from a virgin.”
“Out of the bush He said to Moses, ‘I am that I
am, the God of Abraham,” “and the God of your
fathers.’ This signified that these fathers,
though dead, are yet in existence, and are men
belonging to Christ Himself.”

Justin includes one of the earliest
descriptions of baptism and the
eucharist. When new Christians come
to “believe that what we teach and
say is true, and undertake to live
accordingly, they are instructed to
pray and to entreat God with fasting,
for the remission of their past sins, we
praying and fasting with them” in
preparation for the baptism in the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. The washing away of sins in
baptism is called illumination, because
those who learn the truth “are
illuminated in their understandings.”

Only those who have been baptized
can partake of the Eucharist, “the
flesh and blood of that Jesus who
was made flesh.” After the bread
and wine is distributed a collection is
taken up: “The well-to-do, and
willing, give what each thinks fit; and
what is collected is deposited with
the presiding elder, who takes care of
the orphans and widows and the sick
and needy and imprisoned and
strangers among us.”

The footnotes for the Anti-Nicene Fathers note that the following
excerpt on the Eucharist from St Justin has been interpreted by
Calvinists, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics alike as proving their
doctrine of the Eucharist, so inexact is the language. It is also
another example of how St Justin influenced how Christians
today think about the Christian faith.

St Justin teaches us, “Not as common
bread and common drink do we receive
the Eucharist. As Jesus Christ our Savior,
having been made flesh by the Word of
God, had both flesh and blood for our
salvation, so likewise have we been
taught that the food which is blessed by
the prayer of His word, and from which
our blood and flesh by transmutation are
nourished, is the flesh and blood of that
Jesus who was made flesh.” (LXVI)

Just as St Justin claims that Plato claimed parts of his philosophy
from Moses, so here St Justin accuses the cult of Mithras from
appropriating the form of the Eucharist in their rites. This
criticism also makes the Christian Eucharist sound less suspect to
Roman ears, since the slander from some was that Christians
drink the blood on sacrificed infants during their rituals.

McGuckin has a chapter on “The Church and War,” and
he includes an excerpt from the Apology that rejects the
possibility of a just war. Indeed, Justin’s disciple Tatian
claimed that “all wars were inspired by demons.”
Justin quotes from the prophets that one day “many will
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nation will not raise its sword against
nation, and they will no longer learn the arts of war.”
Justin teaches this prophecy was fulfilled when “twelve
ignorant and unskilled men went out from Jerusalem to
the wide world and with God’s help proclaimed to every
race of people that they had been sent by Christ to
teach God’s Word to all. And we, who formerly killed
one another, now not only refuse to make war on our
enemies, but even go willingly to our deaths, confessing
Christ, so as to avoid even lying to our interrogators or
deceiving them.”

Appended to his First Apology is an Epistle of Marcus Aurelius to the Roman Senate
where the emperor relates a miracle on a campaign where the Roman army found
itself in desperate straits in their campaigns against the German barbarians
threating the borders of the empire. The emperor prayed to the pagan gods for
deliverance, and when he learned that many of his soldiers were Christians he asked
that they pray to their God as well.

This epistle tells us of these
Christians, how they “began
the battle, not by preparing
weapons, nor arms, nor
bugles; for such preparation
is hateful for them, on
account of the God they bear
about in their conscience.”

Even after the emperors became Christian emperors after Constantine, the early
Church always viewed military service as a necessary evil, the early Church always
viewed bloodshed as abhorrent, and required that all soldiers who shed blood in
battle would need to undergo many years of penance before they were allowed to
partake of the Eucharist, a practice that is not followed today, and which enables us
to make sense of this comment in the Epistle.

The Epistle continues, immediately
when the Christians “cast
themselves on the ground to pray
to their God, water poured from
the sky, refreshingly cool water, but
on their enemies fell a fiery
withering hail. And immediately we
recognized the presence of God
following this prayer, a God
unconquerable and indestructible.”

The Protestant scholar compiling this work in the late 1800’s footnotes
this Epistle as “spurious, no doubt, but the literature of the subject is very
rich.” Modern scholars no doubt agree. What this appended Epistle
does tell us is that many early Christians wanted to believe that this
Epistle from Marcus Aurelius was authentic, which is all the more
remarkable since his writings, the Meditations, was largely unknown in
the ancient world. In my blog on Marcus Aurelius we discuss whether he
was an active persecutor of Christians. Perhaps he wasn’t, but the
historical evidence suggests he was.

SOURCES: Although the writings of St Justin Martyr were well known in the ancient
world and prominently mentioned by the ancient church historian Eusebius in the
fourth century, the Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho have survived in two
Greek manuscripts dated 1364 and 1541, the latter being a copy of the former.
They are not totally complete, there is a leaf missing. Goodspeed says that the
second Apology to the Senate is included as an appendix to the Apology to the
Emperor. The majority of scholars believe that the other surviving works attributed
to St Justin are written by authors in later centuries.

When reading the works of St Justin and St Irenaeus, my reaction was that I was
learning nothing new, this was the language that I heard Christians speaking all my
life. Then I realized, they were the writers who originated how we talk about Christ
and the sacraments and how Christians inherit the covenant, they were the origin of
much of later Christian theology. Justin was the first writer to describe the feast of
the Eucharist, and was the first to say that Christian Gentiles are the “new Israel.” St
Justin and St Irenaeus both upheld the canonical status of the Old Testament, and
read the Old Testament in a Christo-centric manner, showing how the Old
Testament points to Christ in every word.

My main source for St Justin Martyr is the Ante-Nicene fathers, Volume 1. Since it
was translated in the late 1800’s, the usage is awkward and sometimes dated, but
even with the passage of time the introductions which includes the history of the
manuscripts are thorough and excellent.
The works of the second-generation Apostolic Fathers have much better translations
available, but when perusing Amazon I did not see any other affordable translations
for St Justin Martyr.
We recommend that you purchase the Christian Book Distributors eBooks on the
Ante-Nicene Fathers, these books are no longer in print and are hard to find, this is
the only eBook that includes both the introductions and footnotes. Although you
will often spend as much purchasing the works of one Church Father as you would
purchasing all three series in the Amazon eBooks, the amount spent is still
affordable and well worth the money.

Eusebius penned an influential church history during the reign of the Christian
Emperor Constantine the Great, he will be the subject of a future blog and video.
Henry Chadwick’s history of the early church is influential, and Pelikan’s five volume
set likewise serves as a handy reference for the development of Christian doctrine.
McGuckin’s history of the first millennium of the church includes chapters on how
the church influenced many aspects of daily life in the ancient world, and reviews
both the history and the literature of the early church.

CHURCH HISTORIES CONSULTED:
Eusebius, History of the Church, 324 AD+
History of Early Christian Literature, Edgar
Goodspeed
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 1, introductions
and translations, 1870’s
The Christian Tradition: A History of the
Development of Doctrine, The
Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-
600), Vol 1, Jaroslav Pelikan
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick
The Path of Christianity: The First
Thousand Years, John Anthony McGuckin

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St Justin Martyr, Apology to the Good Emperor Antonius Pius

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