ST. JUSTIN MARTYR

THE FIRST AND SECOND APOLOGIES

TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

LESLIE WILLIAM BARNARD

PAULIST PRESS

New York/Mahwah, N.J.

COPYRIGHT © 1997

BY

LESLIE WILLIAM BARNARD

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Justin, Martyr, St.

[Apologies. English]

The first and second apologies / St. Justin Martyr: translated and edited by Leslie William Barnard.

p. cm.—(Ancient Christian writers: no. 56)

Includes bibliographical reference and index.

ISBN 0-8091-0472-5 (alk. paper)

1. Apologetics—Early works to 1800. I. Barnard, Leslie W. (Leslie William) II. Title. III. Series.

BR65.J82A7413 1966

239′.1—dc20

96-3012

CIP

Published by Paulist Press

997 Macarthur Boulevard

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Ancient Christian Writers

THE WORKS OF THE FATHERS IN TRANSLATION

edited by

WALTER J. BURGHARDT

JOHN J. DILLON

DENNIS D. McMANUS

No. 56

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Age of the Apologists

The Life of Justin

The Two Apologies

Analysis of the First Apology

Analysis of the Second Apology

The Date of the Apologies

Justin’s Philosophical Background

The Logos

Main Religious Ideas

Church and Sacraments

Justin’s Achievement

TEXT

The First Apology

The Second Apology

EDITIONS

Principal Editions of the Apologies

English Translations

Abbreviations

APPENDIX: JUSTIN MARTYR’S ESCHATOLOGY

1 Apology 28.2, 2 Apology 7.1

The Two Advents

The Delay in the Parousia

The Resurrection and the Millennium

The Judgment and World Conflagration

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEXES

1. Authors

2. General Index

3. Hebrew and Christian Scriptures

ST. JUSTIN MARTYR

THE FIRST AND SECOND APOLOGIES

INTRODUCTION

The Age of the Apologists

Christianity was born within a Jewish cradle and it was natural that the earliest attempts at a theological formulation of its doctrines should have been expressed in Jewish terms. It was not long, however, before the Gospel had spread to the great cities of the Graeco-Roman world where it could not be assumed that converts to the new faith would be acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures or even with the monotheistic worship of Judaism. It is true that numbers of God-fearers, or religious enquirers, had attached themselves to the synagogues and that some of these had become attracted to Christianity through the medium of Hellenistic Judaism.1 Nevertheless, there was the wider pagan world—sometimes indifferent, sometimes avowedly hostile—that misrepresented Christian teaching and spread calumnies against Christians.

Persecution in the early Church was mainly of a sporadic and local nature—certainly no “general” persecutions occurred before the time of Decius and Diocletian. Nevertheless Christians, in some areas, went in fear of their lives with the hated delator or informer never far away.2 A faith that shunned popular vices and amusements provoked a hatred that took the form of blackening the character of Christians. A faith that forbade its followers to sacrifice to the state deities could be held, it was said, only by a community of atheists capable ...