St Justin Martyr’s Apology to the Senate, Xenophon’s Moralia: Lady Virtue & Lady Vice, Parable of the Ten Virgins

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St Justin Martyr, Apology to the Senate,
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AMAZON LINKS :
Eusebius, History of the Church,
324 AD+
History of Early Christian
Literature, Edgar Goodspeed
Scott Peck, Further Along the
Road Less Traveled
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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Today we will learn and reflect on the St Justin’s Apology to the Senate during the
rein of Emperor 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 also retells an entertaining dialogue from Xenophon between
Hercules, and Lady Virtue and Lady Vice, a favorite topic for both Stoics and
Christian monastics.

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, sometimes
these will generate short videos of their own. 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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St Justin’s Second Apology to the Roman Senate was written to
protest the persecutions against the Christians in response to the
accusations made by the Cynic Philosopher Crescens that the
Christians were atheists impious to the traditional pagan gods,
which would eventually result in Justin’s martyrdom. St Justin
praises the moral philosophy of the stoics, but insists that
Christianity is the true and complete philosophy.

St Justin says this, “I confess that I am proud to be called a
Christian, and with all my strength I strive to be one. Not because
the teachings of Plato are so different from those of Christ, but
rather because they are not in all respects similar. The same is
true with regard to all the others; the Stoics, the poets, and
historians. For each man among them spoke well according to
the degree that each one had a share in the spermatic Logos (of
Christ).
Whatever correct teachings all men have promulgated, these are
the property of us Christians. For next to God, we worship and
love the Logos who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God,
since He also became man for our sakes, so that, becoming a
partaker of our sufferings, Christ might even bring us healing.”
(Quoted by McGuckin) St Mary’s Church, Cambridge

St Justin teaches, “Our doctrines
appear to be greater than all human
teaching, because Christ, who
appeared for our sakes, became the
whole rational being, both body, and
reason, and soul. Whenever lawgivers
and philosophers uttered truth, this
was an elaboration of what they found
in some part of the Word of God. But
since they did not know the whole of
the Word, which is Christ, they often
contradicted themselves.”
Saint Justin Martyr by Theophanes the Cretan,
painted 1540’s

St Justin compares Jesus to Socrates, who was
accused of the same crimes as the Christians,
being accused of atheism and impiety, and of
corrupting the youth. The Greeks accused
Socrates “of introducing new divinities, and did
not consider those to be gods that the state
recognized. In the Republic, Socrates cast out
from the state both Homer and the rest of the
poets, and taught men to reject the wicked
demons and those who did the things which the
poet related. Socrates exhorted them to become
acquainted with the God who was to them
unknown.”
Which is what St Paul likewise said to the
Athenians in the Book of Acts, when he passed
an altar to an “unknown god,” that this was the
God of Israel.

But St Justin shows that Christ is superior to Socrates, “For no one
trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who
was partially known even by Socrates (for Christ was and is the
Word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were
to come to pass . . .), not only philosophers and scholars believed,
but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both
glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable
Father, and not the mere instrument of human reason.”

St Justin shares this thought
with Epictetus, “When we
imitate Jupiter and the other
gods in sodomy and shameless
intercourse with women, might
we not bring as our apology the
writings of Epicurus and the
poets?”
painted 1540’s

The early Church Fathers,
including Justin, did not deny the
existence of the pagan gods,
rather they saw them as demons
active in the world. But Jesus
was mightier than Socrates,
whereas “no one trusted in
Socrates so as to die for his
doctrine,” many willingly believe
and are martyred for their faith
in Jesus Christ.

In the chapter on How Christians View Death, Justin illustrates with a
story related by Socrates in the Moralia of Xenophon. This is such an
interesting story that I will quote both Justin’s retelling and compare it
with the original story in Xenophon.
In Justin’s retelling Socrates tells us of the story of the hero Hercules
meeting the two ladies, Virtue and Vice.

Hercules at the Crossroad, Girolamo di Benvenuto, early 1500's
“Hercules, coming to a place where
three ways meet, found Virtue and
Vice, who appeared to him in the
form of women: Vice, in a luxurious
dress, and with a seductive
expression blooming from her
exquisite dress, her eyes betraying a
quickly melting tenderness, said to
Hercules that if he followed her, she
would always enable him to pass his
life in pleasure and adorned with
the most graceful adornments.”

Hercules, Virtue, and Vice, Annibale Carracci, painted 1596
St Justin’s remembering of
Xenophon continues,
“But Virtue, with a squalid
look and dress, said, ‘if you
obey me, you shall adorn
yourself not with ornament
nor beauty that passes away
and perishes, but with
everlasting and precious
graces.”

In Xenophon’s original version of this story these two women, Virtue and
Vice, seem more like cousins, their appearances are not so different as in
Justin’s remembering.

Hercules at the Crossroad, Sebastiano Ricci, 1710’s
St Justin, in his retelling, says,
“Everyone who flees those
things that seem to be good,
and follows instead those
things that are difficult and
strange to this world, enters
into blessedness. For Vice, by
imitating what is incorruptible
(for what is really incorruptible
she neither has nor can
produce)” she has painted her
own actions as a false image of
Virtue, and she leads astray her
captive earth-bound men,
misrepresenting as virtuous
her own evil deeds.

Hercules at the Crossroad, around 1800’s Xenophon’s Socrates tells us that when Hercules “was
setting out from childhood to manhood, when the
young become independent and choose whether they
will follow the path of goodness or wickedness, he
went to a quiet spot and sat down considering which
way he should take. While he was there, he saw two
women approaching him. Both were tall, but one was
handsome in appearance with a natural air of
distinction, clean-limbed and modest in expression,
and soberly dressed in a white robe, while the other
was well fed to the point of fleshiness and softness,
her make-up resulting in a complexion too red and
white to be real, and with a carriage more upright than
was natural, with a brazen expression, and robed in a
way that revealed as much as possible of her
charms. Lady Vice kept examining herself, and
watching to see if anyone was looking at her, and
glancing at her own shadow.”

The lady Virtue of Xenophon’s Socrates is elegant, with a genuine
noble character, whereas the lady Vice is plump with a pretension
of nobility, who masquerades herself as a cheaper and less
secure virtue. Lady Vice is an Epicurean, she thinks pleasure is the
primary virtue of life.

Xenophon’s Socrates
has the lady Vice eager
to rush ahead of Virtue,
running up to Hercules
saying, “Hercules, I see
that you can’t make up
your mind which way of
life to adapt. If you
take me as your friend,
I will lead you by the
easiest and most
pleasant road; you shall
not miss the taste of
any pleasure, and you
shall live out your life
without any experience
of hardship.”

REPEAT “When Hercules heard this, he asked, ‘What is your name,
Lady?’ She replied, ‘My friends call me Happiness, but people
who don’t like me nickname me Vice.’ “
Lady Vice would have us believe that the good is really bad, and
that the bad is really good, and that which leads to Misery Lady
Vice labels as Happiness.
Xenophon’s Socrates continues the story as Lady Virtue comes
forward to address Hercules. “I know your parents” and have
carefully observed your education, and this leads me to hope
“that you may mature and perform many fine and noble deeds,
and I may win greater honor still, and brighter glory for the
blessings I bestow. I will not delude you with promises of future
pleasure, I shall give you a true account of the facts, exactly as the
gods have ordained them.”

Hercules at the crossroads, 1505

Hercules at the Crossroads by Niccolo Soggi, oil on poplar wood - Bode-Museum
Xenophon’s Socrates continues,
“When Hercules heard this, he
asked, ‘What is your name,
Lady?’ She replied, ‘My friends call
me Happiness, but people who
don’t like me nickname me Vice.’ “
Lady Virtue says, “I know your parents” and have carefully observed
your education, and this leads me to hope “that you may mature
and perform many fine and noble deeds, and I may win greater
honor still, and brighter glory for the blessings I bestow. I will not
delude you with promises of future pleasure, I shall give you a true
account of the facts, exactly as the gods have ordained them.”

Hercules at the Crossroad, Paolo di Matteis, 1712
Xenophon’s Socrates:
Lady Virtue continues, “Nothing that is
really good and admirable is granted by
the gods to men without some effort and
application. If you want the gods to be
gracious to you, you must worship the
gods; if you wish to be loved by your
friends, you must be kind to your friends;”
“if you expect to be admired for your fine
qualities by the whole of Greece, you must
try to benefit Greece; if you want your
land to produce abundant crops, you must
look after your land; if you expect to profit
from the sale of your livestock, you must
take of your animals,” “if you want to be
physically fit, you must train your body to
be subject to your reason, and develop it
with hard work and sweat.”

Hercules at the Crossroad, Flemish, 1700’s
What really makes the original story
better than Justin’s remembering is
how Virtue upbraids Vice:
“Then Lady Vice broke in, ‘Do you
realize, Hercules, what a long and
difficult road to enjoyment this
woman is describing to you? I will
put you on a short and easy road to
happiness.’ “

Hercules at the Crossroad, Flemish, 1700’s Xenophon’s Socrates:
“Lady Virtue responds, ‘Impudent
creature! What good have you to offer, or
what do you know of real pleasure, you
who refuse to do anything with a view to
either? You don’t even wait for the desire
for what is pleasant, you stuff yourself with
everything before you want it, eating
before you are hungry and drinking
before you are thirsty. To make eating
enjoyable you invent refinements of
cuisine, to make drinking enjoyable you
provide yourself with expensive wines.”
“You force the gratification of your sexual
impulses before they ask for it, employing
all kinds of devices and treating men as
women. That is the sort of training that
you give your subjects, exciting their
passions by night, and putting them to
sleep for the best part of the day.’ ”

The Socrates of Xenophon is more stoic, more concerned with
morals than is the Socrates of Plato. The idea that you need to
discipline your body to save your soul is a theme in both
Stoicism and in the monastic writings of the early Church
Fathers.

Andries Cornelis Lens - Hercules Protects Painting from Ignorance and Envy, 1763
Lady Virtue continues upbraiding
her cousin Lady Vice. “Who would
trust your word? Who would assist
you if you needed
someone? What sane person
would join your devotees? When
your followers are young, they are
feeble in body, and when they are
older, they are foolish in
mind. They are maintained in their
youth in effortless comfort, but
pass their old age in laborious
squalor, disgraced by their past
actions and burdened by their
present ones, because in their
youth they have run through all
that was pleasant, and laid up for
their old age what is hard to bear.”

This diatribe reminds me of a commentary by the psychologist
Scott Peck on the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew
25. These ten virgins waited with their lamps for Christ, the
Bridegroom, to appear at the wedding feast. The five wise
virgins brought along an extra supply of oil, while the five foolish
virgins only had the oil in their lamps.

This painting by Hieronymus
Francken the Younger (1616)
gives a moralistic interpretation
of the parable of the Ten Virgins.

“At midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the
bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those
bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The
foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for
our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No!
there will not be enough for you and for us; you had
better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’
And while they went to buy it, the
bridegroom came, and those who
were ready went with him into the
wedding banquet; and the door was
shut. Later the other bridesmaids
came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open
to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell
you, I do not know you.’ “

Scott Peck says that “the parable stuck me as totally
un-Christian. What on earth is Christianity about if
it isn’t about sharing? But I had to give a sermon
on the parable, and that meant I had to think about
it. Sometimes it is quite remarkable what can
happen when we think. I realized that the oil in this
parable was a symbol for preparation, and what
Jesus was saying to us was that we cannot share
our preparation. You cannot do another’s
homework for them. Or if you do their homework,
you cannot earn their degree for them, which is the
symbol of their preparation. The only thing that we
can do, and it is often very difficult, is to try as best
we can to impart to others a motive for them to
prepare themselves. And I know of no way of
doing that than attempting to teach them how
important they are, how beautiful and desirable
they are in the eyes of God.”
The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins
(1822) by William Blake, Tate Gallery.

Scott Peck is obviously sharing the frustrations all parents feel
when they feel their children are going astray, not putting forth
their best efforts at school, caring only for the pleasures of
partying and their friends, blindly ignorant of the misery of the
future when they cannot get a good job because they do not
have a marketable skill or meaningful education, as well as our
own misery when we do not plan for the future and only live for
the weekend and today’s pleasures and partying and drinking
and dancing.

The more spiritual interpretations of the early Church
Fathers of the Parable of the Ten Virgins also illuminate
Socrates’ story about the Ladies Virtue and Vice. Like
Lady Virtue and Lady Vice, the five wise virgins do not
appear to be that different from the five foolish virgins.
St Augustine teaches that the number five refers to the
five senses, and “that whoever abstains from unlawful
seeing, unlawful hearing, unlawful smelling, unlawful
tasting and unlawful touching, by reason of
blamelessness, is here called by the name of virgin.” The
oil represents charity, compassion, and love for God and
love for our neighbor. All ten virgins slept before the
Bridegroom came, so what was different about the five
wise virgins? “No coldness of love crept over them. In
them love did not grow cold. And because their love
glowed even to the end, therefore the gates of the
Bridegroom opened up to them.”
Saint Augustine, painting by Carlo
Cignani, 1628-1719, Warsaw

Lady Vice deceives us into believing we
should not prepare, that we should seek to
benefit from the labor of others. Likewise,
St Augustine teaches that the five foolish
virgins did the same, and when “their
lamps began to fail, they pleaded with the
five wise virgins, ‘Give us of your oil, for
our lamps are going out.” They sought for
what they have been most prone to seek
for, to shine with another’s oil, to walk
after another’s praises.” As Christ exhorts
in Matthew, “he who endures to the end
will be saved.”
William John Wainwright - Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, 1899

Xenophon’s Socrates has Lady Virtue concluding
her address to Hercules describing what is true
and everlasting happiness that we should work
towards, not the transitory happiness of Lady
Vice from drinking and dancing and slothful
habits. “My friends can enjoy food and drink
with pleasure and without effort, because they
abstain until they feel a desire for them. Their
sleep is sweeter than the sleep of the easy-
living,” neither guilt nor regret keeps them
awake at night.
Hercules at the Crossroads, Giovanni Baglione, early 1640’s

Lady Virtue continues, “The young
enjoy the praise of their elders, and
the elderly are happy and
respected by the young. They
recall their past achievements with
pleasure, and rejoice in their
present successes, because
through me, Lady Virtue, they are
dear to the gods, loved by their
friends and honored by their
country.
“There, Hercules,” said Lady Virtue,
child of good parents, if you work
hard in the way I have described,
you can possess the most beatific
and lasting happiness.”

We will close from this quote from St Justin Martyr:

What led Justin to convert to
Christianity? “When I was delighting
in the doctrines of Plato, and heard
the Christians slandered, and saw
them fearless of death, and that they
feared nothing, I perceived it was
impossible that they could be living
in wickedness and pleasure.”
painted 1540’s

SOURCES:
My main source for St Justin Martyr is the Ante-Nicene fathers, Volume 1. Although
the writings of St Justin Martry were well known in the ancient world and
prominently mentioned by the ancient church historian Eusebius in the fourth
century, the Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho have survived in two Greek
manuscripts.
We have a deeper discussion of the manuscript history and the sources in the video
on Justin’s Apology to the Emperor.
I have serious reservations about some of what Scott Peck has written, but we can
learn important life lessons in these two books. He was wanting to expand the
original book, but the publisher said he had just enough material to do another
book, which meant that everyone made more money on the deal.
We recommend that you purchase the Christian Book Distributors eBooks for the
Ante-Nicene Fathers, these books are no longer in print and are hard to find, this is
the only edition that includes both the introductions and footnotes.

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

Hercules at the
Crossroads,
Sebastiano Ricci,
painted 1710's

If you wish to purchase any of these books from Amazon, please use
the links in the description to support our channel, and please also
subscribe to our channel.
The description also links to our blog, and the video script.
And please click on the links for interesting videos on other topics
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