Martyr
Martyr Justin
ок. 100 — ок. 165
Martyr Justin the Philosopher — the greatest Christian apologist of the 2nd century, a Platonist philosopher converted to Christ who founded a school of Christian philosophy in Rome; author of the First and Second Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew; beheaded together with six disciples (Chariton, Charito, Euelpistus, Hierax, Paeon, and Liberianus) under the prefect Rusticus c. 165.
Martyr Justin was born c. 100 in Flavia Neapolis (biblical Shechem, modern Nablus) into a family of Hellenized Roman colonists — pagans, not Jews or Samaritans. Seeking truth, he studied successively under a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean, and finally a Platonist, but found no true knowledge of God.
According to tradition, on a seashore he met an unnamed venerable old man who convincingly showed him that knowledge of God comes not through Greek philosophy but through the Old Testament prophets who foretold Christ. Having come to believe, Justin did not abandon the philosopher's cloak but began to preach Christianity as "the only sure and profitable philosophy."
In Rome, during two periods of residence under Emperor Antoninus Pius, he ran a small school of Christian philosophy, teaching those who sought him out above the bathhouse of one Martinus. His pupil was Tatian (later author of the Diatessaron). He publicly refuted the Cynic philosopher Crescens, which, according to Eusebius, contributed to a later denunciation against him.
He wrote the First Apology (addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and the Senate, c. 150-155) — a defense of Christians against charges of atheism and immorality, an exposition of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and the teaching of the "seed of the Word" (the Logos sows grains of truth even among pagan philosophers — Socrates, Heraclitus — before the Incarnation); the Second Apology; and the extensive Dialogue with Trypho the Jew — a two-day debate with a learned Jew over messianic prophecy.
During his second stay in Rome he was arrested together with six disciples and brought to trial before the city prefect Junius Rusticus — a Stoic who had once been a tutor to Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The genuine interrogation record survives (the "Acts of the Martyrdom of Justin the Philosopher"): asked where the Christians assemble, Justin answers that he lives "above the bath of one Martinus" and knows no other meeting place than his own home. Asked directly, "So you are a Christian?" he answers, "Yes, I am a Christian." Each of his companions — Chariton, Charito (a woman), Euelpistus (a slave of Caesar raised by Christian parents in Cappadocia), Hierax (from Iconium), Paeon, and Liberianus — likewise confesses Christ before the court. Rusticus sentences all who refuse to sacrifice to the gods to scourging and beheading. The sentence was carried out c. 165.
His feast is kept on June 1/14.
NOTE: two of the five images originally attached to this stub (a grave and a monastery at Ćelije) turned out to be mixed up with the entry for Venerable Justin (Popović) of Ćelije, whose monastic name was taken in honor of this ancient martyr — they have been moved to the correct entry.