Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/639

 The second Apology, possibly an appendix to the first (Otto, ed. p. lxxxi.; Volkmar, Baur and Zell. Theolog. Jahrb. t. xiv. Tüb. 1855; Keim, Protest. K.-Z. Ber. 1873, n. 28, col. 619), anyhow written at no long interval after the first, begins abruptly with an appeal directly to the Romans, but in reality addressed to the imperial rulers (cf. cc. 3, 14, 15), together with the whole people. These rulers, under whom the affairs which led to the Apology occurred, are, it has been argued, the emperor Pius and the philosopher Marcus Aurelius, and, according to a suggested reading, Lucius Verus son of Caesar. The opening betrays by its suddenness, and emphasizes by dwelling on the speed with which the Apology had been produced, the excitement under which it was composed. "Things had happened within the last two days in Rome," such as the irrational actions of the magistrates, which had driven Justin to write an Apology for his own people, who are, though the Romans know it not and will not have it, their brothers, of like feelings with themselves.

(C. 2.) He relates the case which had so fired him with indignation; it is very typical of what Christians were subject to. The dissolute wife of a dissolute man is converted and is anxious to separate from her husband. He holds out some hopes of amendment, so she forces herself to remain, but he plunges into worse debauchery. She sends a writ of divorce and leaves him. Then this "good and noble husband" bethought himself of accusing her of being a Christian. While her case was pending, a certain Ptolemaus, the wife's master in the faith, whom Urbicus had imprisoned, is challenged with being a Christian. Ptolemaus, brought up before Urbicus, is asked, "Are you a Christian?" and on confessing it is at once condemned to death. Lucius a Christian publicly challenges Urbicus to justify a decision which punished a man simply for the name of Christian. "You, too, are a Christian, I suppose?" is the only answer he gets from Urbicus; and on confessing it he is condemned to death, declaring as he goes that he is glad to be free of rulers so unjust and to depart to the Father and King of Heaven. A third in the same way passes to a like punishment; "And I myself," breaks in Justin, "look for the same fate, for I, too, have enemies who have a grudge against me, and are likely enough to take this way of avenging themselves; Crescens especially, the sham philosopher, whom I have convicted of entire ignorance about the Christianity which he slanders."

(C. 4.) It may be said in scorn, "Be off, then, to your God to Heaven by killing yourselves, and trouble us no longer!" But Christians believe the world to be made by God to fulfil His purpose; they are not at liberty to destroy, as far as in them lies, the human race, for whom the world was created. Nor yet can we deny our faith; for this would be to allow its guilt and to lie, and would leave you in your evil prejudices.

(C. 5.) "Why does God not help His own?" He spares to punish and destroy the evil world, for the sake of this holy seed, the Christians, who are the real reason why God still preserves the order of nature, which the fallen angels have so corrupted.

The effect of these Apologies upon the rulers of Rome is unknown; but Justin's expectation of death was not disappointed, and Marcus Aurelius still mistrusted the motives which made Christians martyrs and saw no reason to stay the outcry of the Roman crowd when it demanded Christian victims. It remained a legal crime to be a Christian. Indeed, according to Roman ideas of government, it could hardly cease to be criminal as long as Christianity continued its private and peculiar organization and found it impossible to conform to the tests of good citizenship, such as the oath to the emperor. The Apologies never hint at concession on such points, but persist that their present position is entirely innocent. Their vigour must have revealed the irreconcilability of Christian life with the mass of pagan custom and temper in which the solidity of Rome had its foundation.

The Dialogue with Trypho follows the first Apology, and probably the second also, between 142 and 148 according to Hort; in 155 (Volkmar); or in 160–164 (Keim). It was written to report to a dear friend, Marcus Pompeius (cf. c. 8, § 225 ; c. 141, § 371 ), a discussion which Justin had held with the Jews during the Bar-Cocheba wars. The discussion represents the Christian polemic against the Jews; but Trypho makes his advance as a philosopher rather than as a Jew, and it is Justin who turns the talk to the Jewish Scriptures by expressing his surprise at a Jew being still engaged in searching for truth in the pagan philosophers when he possessed already in those Scriptures the authorized exponent of revealed wisdom, for the sake of whose secured certainty Justin himself had left all other human systems. Trypho is, indeed, a curious type of Judaism; a light and superficial inquirer in the courts of the schools, surrounded by a band of loud and lively friends, he begins with a reference to a Socratic at Argos, who had taught him to address courteously all who wore the philosopher's cloak, in the hope of finding, through the pleasant interchange of thoughts, something useful to both. He smiles gracefully as he inquires what opinion Justin holds about the gods, and, apparently, justifies his philosophic studies in the face of Scripture, by claiming that the philosophers are equally with Moses searchers after the Being of God. The noisy friends having been avoided by retirement to a quiet seat, Trypho opens the question with the air of a free and tolerant seeker after truth; he has read the Gospel, and found in it a morality too high for real practice, and is ready to acknowledge the piety of the better Christians. What he wonders at is that with so much goodness, they should nevertheless live as Gentiles without keeping the pure laws of God, e.g. the Sabbath and circumcision, by which He separates the holy from sinners; he wonders, too, how those who place their hope in a man can yet hope for a reward from God. He would gladly have all this explained (cf. c. 57, § 280 ; c. 68, § 293 ). Trypho, then, is no fierce Jewish opponent, prepared to attack, but adopts the tone almost of an inquirer. It