 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Romans, the things which have recently happened in your city, under obitius, and the things which are likewise being everywhere unreasonably done by the governors, have compelled me to frame this composition for your sakes, who are men of like passions, and brethren, though ye know it not, and though ye be unwilling to acknowledge it on account of your glorying in what you esteem dignities. For everywhere, whoever is corrected by father, or neighbor, or child, or friend, or brother, or husband, or wife, for a fault, for being hard to move, for loving pleasure, and being hard to urge to what is right, except those who have been persuaded that the unjust and intemperate shall be punished in eternal fire, but that the virtuous and those who lived like Christ shall dwell with God in a state that is free from suffering, we mean those who have become Christians, and the evil demons who hate us, and who keep such men as these subject to themselves, and serving them in the capacity of judges, incite them as rulers actuated by evil spirits to put us to death, but that the cause of all that has taken place under obitius might become quite plain to you, I will relate what has been done. CHAPTER II. Herbicius condemns the Christians to death. A certain woman lived with an intemperate husband, she herself too, having formerly been intemperate. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ, she became sober-minded, and endeavored to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, citing the teachings of Christ, and assuring him that there shall be punishment in eternal fire inflicted upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason. But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife from him by his actions, for she, considering it wicked to live any longer as a wife with a husband who sought in every way means of indulging in pleasure contrary to the law of nature, and in violation of what is right, wished to be divorced from him. And when she was over persuaded by her friends, who advised her still to continue with him, in the idea that sometime or other her husband might give hope of amendment, she did violence to her own feeling and remained with him. But when her husband had gone into Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself worse than ever before, she, that she might not by continuing in matrimonial connection to him, and by sharing his table in his bed, become a partaker also in his wickedness and impieties, gave him what you call a bill of divorce, and was separated from him. But this noble husband of hers, while he ought to have been rejoicing that those actions which formerly she unhesitatingly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she delighted in drunkenness in every vice, she had now given up, and desired that he too could give up the same, when she had gone from him without his desire, brought an accusation against her, affirming that she was a Christian, and she presented a paper to thee, the Emperor, requesting that first she be permitted to arrange her affairs, and afterwards to make any defense against the accusation, when her affairs were set in order, and this you granted. And her quantum husband, since he was now no longer able to prosecute her, directed his assaults against a man, Petalmeas, whom Ubisius punished, and who had been her teacher in the Christian doctrines, and this he did in the following way. He persuaded a Centurion, who had cast Petalmeas into prison, and who was friendly to himself, to take Petalmeas and interrogate him on his sole point, whether he were a Christian. And Petalmeas, being a lover of truth, and not of a deceitful or false disposition, when he confessed himself to be a Christian, was bound by the Centurion, and for a long time punished in the prison, and at last, when the man came to Ubisius, he was asked this one question only, whether he was a Christian. And again, being conscious of his duty, and the nobility of it, through the teaching of Christ, he confessed his discipleship in the Divine Virtue. For he who denies anything, either denies it because he condemns the thing itself, or he shrinks from confession because he is conscious of his own unworthiness or alienation from it, neither of which cases is that of the true Christian. And when Ubisius ordered him to be led away to punishment, one Lucius, who was also himself a Christian, seeing the unreasonable judgment that had thus been given, said to Ubisius, what is the ground of this judgment? Why have you punished this man, not as an adulterer, nor fornicator, nor murderer, nor thief, nor robber, nor convicted of any crime at all? But who has only confessed that he is called by the name of Christian? This judgment of yours, O Ubisius, does not become the Emperor Pius, nor the philosopher, the son of Caesar, nor the sacred Senate. And he said nothing else and answered to Lucius than this, you also seemed to me to be such a one. And when Lucius answered most certainly I am, he again ordered him also to be led away, and he professed his thanks, knowing that he was delivered from such wicked rulers, and was going to the Father and King of the Heavens, and still a third having come forward was condemned to be punished. Chapter 3 Justin accuses Christians of ignorant prejudice against the Christians. I too therefore expect to be plotted against and fixed to the stake by some of those I have named or perhaps by Christians. That lover of bravado and boasting, for the man is not worthy of the name of philosopher who publicly bears witness against us in matters which he does not understand, saying that the Christians are atheists and empires, and doing so to win favor with the deluded mob and to please them. For if he assails us without having read the teachings of Christ, he is thoroughly depraved and far worse than the illiterate, who often refrain from discussing or bearing false witness about matters they do not understand. Or if he has read them and does not understand the majesty that is in them, or understanding it, acts thus that he may not be suspected of being such a Christian. He is far more base and thoroughly depraved, being conquered by illiberal and unreasonable opinion and fear. For I would have you to know that I proposed to him certain questions on this subject and interrogated him, and found most convincingly that he, in truth, knows nothing, and to prove that I speak the truth, I am ready, if these disputations have not been reported to you, to conduct them again in your presence. And this would be an act worthy of a prince. But if my questions and his answers have been made known to you, you are already aware that he is acquainted with none of our matters. Or if he is acquainted with them, but, through fear of those who might hear him, does not dare to speak out, like Socrates, he proves himself, as I said before, no philosopher, but an opinionated man. At least he does not regard that socratic and most admirable saying, but a man must in no wise be honoured before the truth. But it is impossible for a cynic, who makes indifference his end, to know any good but indifference. Chapter 4 Why the Christians Do Not Kill Themselves But lest some one say to us, Go then, all of you, and kill yourselves, and pass even now to God, and do not trouble us, I will tell you why we do not do so, but why, when examined, we fearlessly confess. We have been taught that God did not make the world aimlessly, but for the sake of the human race. And we have before stated that he takes pleasure in those who imitate his properties, and is displeased with those that embrace what is worthless either in word or deed. If then, we all kill ourselves, we shall become the cause, as far as in us lies, why no one should be born, or instructed in the divine doctrines, or even why the human race should not exist. And we shall, if we so act, be ourselves acting in opposition to the will of God, but when we are examined we make no denial, because we are not conscious of any evil, but counted in pious not to speak the truth in all things, which also we know is pleasing to God, and because we are also now very desirous to deliver you from an unjust prejudice. HOW THE ANGELS TRANSGRESSED But if this idea take possession of someone, that if we acknowledge God is our helper, we should not, as we say, be oppressed and persecuted by the wicked, this too I will solve. God when He had made the whole earth, and subjugated things earthly to man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruit and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this divine law, for these things also He evidently made for man, committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels, whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children, who are those that are called demons. And besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and the punishments they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which things they stood in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions. And among men they sowed murderers, wars, adulteries, intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Wents also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them, that did these things to men and women, and cities and nations, which they related, ascribed them to God Himself, and to those who were accounted to be His very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called His brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the children again of these their offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to Himself and His children, by that name they called them. Chapter 6 Names of God and of Christ, Their Meaning and Power But to the Father of all who is unbegotten there is no name given, for by whatever name He be called, He has as His elder the person who gives Him the name. But these words, Father and God and Creator and Lord and Master, are not names, but appellations derived from His good deeds and functions, and His Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word, who also was with Him and was begotten before the works, when at first He created and arranged all things by Him, is called Christ in reference to His being anointed, and God's ordering all things through Him. This name itself also containing an unknown significance, as also the appellation God is not a name, but an opinion implanted in the nature of man of a thing that can hardly be explained, but Jesus, His name as man and Savior, has also significance, for He was made man also, as we before said, having been conceived according to the will of God the Father, for the sake of believing men, and for the destruction of the demons. And now you can learn this from what is under your own observation, for numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world and in your city, many of our Christian men exercising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the man, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who use incantations and drugs. Chapter 7 The Word Preserved for the Sake of Christians Man's Responsibility Wherefore God delays causing the confusion and destruction of the whole world by which the wicked angels and demons and men shall cease to exist because of the seed of the Christians, who know that they are the cause of preservation in nature, since if it were not so, it would not have been possible for you to do these things, and to be impelled by evil spirits, but the fire of judgment would descend and utterly dissolve all things, even as formerly the flood left no one but him only with his family, who is by us called Noah, and by you Ducalion, from whom again such vast numbers have sprung, some of them evil and others good. For so we say, that there will be the conflagration, but not as the stoics, according to their doctrine of all things being changed into one another, which seems most degrading, but neither do we affirm that it is by fate that men do what they do, or suffer what they suffer, but that each man by free choice acts rightly or sins, and that it is by the influence of the wicked demons that earnest men, such as Socrates and the like, suffer persecution, and are in bauds, while Sarnadopoulos, Epicurus, and the like, seem to be blessed in abundance and glory, the stoics not observing this, maintain that all things take place according to the necessity of fate, but since God in the beginning made the race of angels and men with free will, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the punishment of whatever sins they have committed, and this is the nature of all that is made, to be capable of vice and virtue, for neither would any of them be praiseworthy unless there were power to turn to both virtue and vice, and this also is shown by those men everywhere who have made laws and philosophized according to right reason by their prescribing to do some things and refrain from others. Even the stoic philosophers in their doctrine of morals steadily honor the same things, so that it is evident that they are not very felicitous in what they say about principles and incorporeal things, for if they say that human actions come to pass by fate, they will maintain either that God is nothing else than the things which are ever turning and altering and dissolving into the same things, and will appear to have had a comprehension only of things that are destructible and to have looked on God himself as emerging both in part and in whole in every wickedness, or that neither vice nor virtue is anything, which is contrary to every sound idea, reason, and sense. CHAPTER VIII. All have been hated in whom the word has dwelt, and those of the stoic school, since so far as their moral teaching went, they were admirable, as were also the poets in some particulars, on account of the seed of reason the Lagos implanted in every race of men, where we know hated and put to death. Heraclitus, for instance, and among those of our own time Mussonius and others, for as we intimated the devils have always effected that all those who anyhow live a reasonable and earnest life and shun vice be hated, and it is nothing wonderful if the devils are proved to cause those to be much worse hated, who live not according to a part only of the word diffused among men, but by the knowledge and contemplation of the whole word which is Christ, and they, having been shut up in eternal fire, shall suffer their punishment and penalty, for if they are even now overthrown by men through the name of Jesus Christ, this is an intimation of the punishment in eternal fire which is to be inflicted on themselves and those who serve them, for thus did both all the prophets foretell and our own teacher, Jesus, teach. CHAPTER IX. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT NOT A MEER THREAT. And that no one may say what is said by those who are deemed philosophers, that our assertions, that the wicked are punished in eternal fire are big words and bugbears, and that we wish men to live virtuously through fear, and not because such a life is good and pleasant, I will briefly reply to this, that if this be not so, God does not exist. Or if he exists, he cares not for men, and neither virtue nor vice is anything, and, as we said before, law givers unjustly punish those who transgress good commandments. But since these are not unjust, and their Father teaches them by the word to do the same things as himself, they who agree with them are not unjust. And if one object that the laws of men are diverse, and say that with some one thing is considered good, another evil, while with others what seemed bad to the former is esteemed good, and what seemed good is esteemed bad, let him listen to what we say to this. We know that the wicked angels appointed laws conformable to their own wickedness, in which the men who are like them delight. And the right reason, when he came, proved that not all opinions nor all doctrines are good, but that some are evil, while others are good. Wherefore I will declare the same and similar things to such men as these, and, if need be, they shall be spoken of more at large, but at present I return to the subject. CHAPTER TEN Christ Compared With Socrates Our doctrines then 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. For whatever either law givers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the word. But since they did not know the whole of the word which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as impious persons and busybodies. And Socrates, who was more zealous in this direction than all of them, was accused of the very same crimes as ourselves. For they said that he was introducing new divinities, and had not considered those to be gods whom the state recognized. But he 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 poets related, and he exhorted them to become acquainted with the God who was to them unknown by means of the investigation of reason, saying, That it is neither easy to find the father and maker of all, nor, having found him, is it safe to declare him at all. But these things our Christ did through his own power, for no one trusted in Socrates, so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who is partially known even by Socrates, for he was and is the word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to come to pass through the prophets, and in his own person when he was made of like passions, and taught these things, 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, not the mere instrument of human reason. But neither should we be put to death, nor would wicked men and devils be more powerful than we, were not death a debt due by every man that is born. Wherefore we give thanks when we pay this debt, and we judge it right and opportune to tell here, for the sake of questions and those who rave as he does, what is related by Hercules, says Xenophon, coming to a place where three ways met, found virtue and vice, who appeared to him in the form of women, vice in a luxurious dress, and with a seductive expression rendered blooming by such ornaments, and her eyes of a quickly melting tenderness, said to Hercules that if he would follow her, she would always enable him to pass his life in pleasure, and adorned with the most graceful ornaments, such as were then upon her own person, and virtue, who is of squalid look and dress, said, but if you obey me, you shall adorn yourself not with ornament, nor beauty that passes away and perishes, but with everlasting and precious graces, and we are persuaded that everyone who flees those things that seem to be good, and follow hard after what are reckoned difficult and strange enters into blessedness, for vice, one by imitation of what is incorruptible, for what is really incorruptible she neither has nor can produce, she has thrown around her own actions as a disguise, the properties of virtue, and qualities which are really excellent, leads captive earthly-minded men attaching to virtue her own evil properties, but those who understood the excellences which belong to that which is real, are also uncorrupt in virtue, and this every sensible person ought to think both of Christians and of the athletes, and of those who did what the poets relate of the so-called gods, concluding as much from our contempt of death even when it could be escaped. CHAPTER XII Christians proved innocent by their contempt of death, for I myself too, when I was delighting in the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw them fearless of death, and of all other things which are counted fearful, perceived that it was impossible that they could be living in wickedness and pleasure, for what sensual or intemperate man, or who that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not rather continue always the present life, and attempt to escape the observation of the rulers, and much less would he denounce himself when the consequences would be death. This also the wicked demons have now caused to be done by evil men, for having put some to death on account of the accusations falsely brought against us, they also dragged to the torture our domestics, either children or weak women, and by dreadful torments forced them to admit those fabulous actions which they themselves openly perpetrate, about which we are the less concerned, because none of these actions are really ours, and we have the unbegotten and unaffable God as witness, both of our thoughts and deeds. For why did we not even publicly profess that these were the things which we esteemed good, and prove that these are the divine philosophy, saying that the mysteries of Saturn are performed when we slay a man, and that when we drink our fill of blood, as it is said we do, we are doing what you do before that idol you honor, and on which you sprinkle the blood not only of irrational animals, but also of men, making a libation of the blood of the slain by the hand of the most illustrious and noble man among you, and imitating 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? But because we persuade men to avoid such instruction, and all who practice them and imitate such examples, as now in this discourse we have striven to persuade you, we are assailed in every kind of way. But we are not concerned, since we know that God is a just observer of all, but would that even now someone would mount a lofty rostrum and shout with a loud voice, be ashamed, be ashamed, ye who charge the guiltless with those deeds which yourselves openly could commit, and ascribe things which apply to yourselves and to your gods, to those who have not even the slightest sympathy with them, be ye converted, become wise. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WORLD HAS BEEN IN ALL MAN For I myself, when I discovered the vile wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them, laughed both at those who framed these falsehoods, and at the disguise itself, and at popular opinion, and I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian, not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the others, stoics and poets and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of this chromatic word, seeing what was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians. For next to God we worship and love the Word, who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also he became man for our sakes, that becoming a partaker of our sufferings he might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the sewing of the implanted Word that was in them. For the seed and imitation impacted according to capacity is one thing, and quite another is the thing itself of which there is the participation and imitation according to the grace which is from him. Chapter 14. Justin prays that this appeal be published. And we therefore pray you to publish this little book, appending what you think right, that our opinions may be known to others, and that these persons may have a fair chalice of being freed from erroneous notions and ignorance of good, who by their own fault are become subject to punishment. That so these things may be published to man, because it is in the nature of man to know good and evil, and by their condemning us, whom they do not understand, for actions which they say are wicked, and by delighting in the gods who did such things, and even now require similar actions for men, and by inflicting on us death or bonds, or some other such punishment, as if we were guilty of these things, they condemn themselves, so that there is no need of other judges. Chapter 15. Conclusion. And I despise the wicked and deceitful doctrine of Simon of my own nation, and if you give this little book, your authority, we will expose him before all that if possible they may be converted. For this and alone did we compose this treaties, and our doctrines are not shameful, according to a sober judgment, but are indeed more lofty than all human philosophy, and if not so, they are at least unlike the doctrines of the Sotodists, and Philadians, and dancers, and Epicureans, and such other teachings of the poets, which all are allowed to acquaint themselves with both as acted and as written. And henceforth we shall be silent, having done as much as we could, and having added the prayer that all men everywhere may be counted worthy of the truth, and would that you also, in a manner becoming piety and philosophy, would for your own sakes judge justly. End of section 2, chapters 8 through 15, recording by M. White. The Second Apology by St. Justin Martyr, translated by Alexander Roberts at all.