Lecture 7 Material — Persecution in the Second Century (con.) and the Apologists

St. Justin Martyr

Our best guess is that he was born around 114 in Shechem, which cor­re­sponds to Nablus, Pales­tine. His par­ents were pagan Greeks. As he grew up, it was clear that St. Justin loved knowl­edge and con­stantly searched for the truth. This love led him to the var­i­ous schools of Greek phi­los­o­phy, but he con­cluded that none of them revealed the knowl­edge of the true God.

Once, when he was strolling in a soli­tary place beyond the city and pon­der­ing about where to seek the way to the knowl­edge of Truth, he met an old man. In the ensu­ing con­ver­sa­tion he revealed to Justin the essen­tial nature of the Chris­t­ian teach­ing and advised him to seek the answers to all the ques­tions of life in the books of Holy Scrip­ture. “But before any­thing else,” said the holy Elder, “pray dili­gently to God, so that He might open to you the doors of Light. No one is able to com­pre­hend Truth, unless he is granted under­stand­ing from God Him­self, Who reveals it to each one who seeks Him in prayer and in love.” There is some­thing won­der­ful in this dia­logue, because it reminds us that the only way to find the truth is through prayer. In our time, we are sur­rounded by peo­ple who try to find God and the mean­ing of life with their minds and logic only, but this is never enough. The old man reminded St. Justin—and he reminds all of us, as well—that God reveals Him­self only to those who open their hearts and reach out to Him in prayer and love.

When he was 30, St. Justin was bap­tized and began a life of preach­ing the Gospel among the pagan Greeks. He is the one who said, “Whoso­ever is able to pro­claim Truth and does not pro­claim it will be con­demned by God.” He opened  a school of Chris­t­ian phi­los­o­phy and defended the truth of Chris­t­ian teach­ing by debat­ing pagan Greeks. We will speak more about this a lit­tle bit later.

As a result of win­ning his debates, St. Justin’s ene­mies brought accu­sa­tions against him before the impe­r­ial court. He was sub­jected to tor­ture around 165 and mar­tyred by behead­ing for the sake of Christ along with seven other men. Before his mar­tyr­dom, the Roman pre­fect asked St. Justin whether he really thought that, after under­go­ing tor­tures, he would go to heaven and receive a reward from God. St. Justin answered, “Not only do I think this, but I know and am fully assured of it.”

Writ­ings of St. Justin Martyr

• First Apol­ogy
• Sec­ond Apology
• Dia­logue with Trypho the Jew

 

Related Posts:

1. Lec­ture 6 Mate­r­ial — Per­se­cu­tion in the Sec­ond Century