“… the things which have recently happened in your city under Urbicus, and the things which are likewise being everywhere unreasonably done by the governors, have compelled me to frame this composition for your sakes…” (Ch1).
Christians were legally punished not for evil actions but for the name… for being Christians.
Some points of note…
Theme of eternal punishment of fire (from
first apology) is continued throughout… As is the theme of demonic instigation of
evil and deceit.
“… 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.” (Ch1)
The encounter that will lead to Justin’s death is anticipated…
“I too, therefore, expect to be plotted against and fixed to the stake, by some of those I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, 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…” (Ch3)
A hard rule of apologetic discourse is implied… ‘false witness.’
“For if [Crescens] 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.” (Ch3)
The theme of the transgression of the angels
is again picked up…
“But the angels transgressed… and were captivated by love of women, and begot children who are those that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves…” (Ch5)
… and, again, the theme of demonic origins of paganism…
“Whence 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…” (Ch5)
Justin notes and explains why it is that God the Father has no name.
God the Father has appellations but no name… “For by whatever name He be called, He has as His elder the person who gives Him the name” (Ch.6)
St. Justin mentions “numberless demoniacs” having
undergone exorcism “by many Christian men” in the name of Jesus Christ. Apparently,
this was a public fact. (Ch6)
A note on Epicureanism and Stoicism, sects prominent in the text…
What was Epicureanism?
Epicurus entered the scene shortly after Aristotle. He subordinated philosophy to a practical end rather than an elitist end. He spread a secular gospel… “Good News” for anyone who wants to be happy and he offered a clear and easy pathway to "happiness" (not the Aristotelean kind). This pathway was called ‘Tetrapharmacon (four-component drug). If you drink this, the path to happiness is open to you. Just believe and internalize the four principles...
(1) Don’t fear God. (There is no God. Don’t be anxious.)
(2) Don’t fear death. (There’s no judgement or afterlife. Just relax)
(3) What is good is easy to get. (Seek pleasure, avoid pain.)
(4) What is terrible is easy to endure. (I don’t know what this means.)
Epicurus was an empiricist and a physicalist. Perception (observation), he thought, was the guide to truth. Anxiety and unhappiness come from concern regarding what cannot be perceived and, so, what does not exist.
What was Stoicism?
Stoics were likewise physicalists. The universe is governed by God, the Logos, understood as equivalent to order or the laws of nature. All things in the world including ourselves are governed by God and, so, all that occurs is inevitable, fated. Aristotle argued for an immaterial intellect which put us outside the bounds of the material world and its laws. The Stoics didn’t have this option. But they did believe in responsibility. They were compatibilists. The idea was that your actions both come from you and happen to you (This Justin rejects). The source of unhappiness, they thought, is not liking what happens to you. The solution is to start liking it. Tao Te Ching… Bend like a reed in the wind.
I really don’t know much about Cynicism and
won’t claim to. I think of Cynicism as a less sophisticated precursor to Stoicism.
Justin returns to the theme of free will, rejecting the stoic view...
“… 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… 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].” (Ch7)
Again the idea that the Logos has always
been in acting in the world…
"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 Logos] implanted in every race of men...” (Ch8)
And again…
“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 lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word...
"… 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.” (Ch10)
And again…
“... each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic word, seeing what was related to it… Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians… For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted word that was in them…” (Ch13)
Justin argues that hell implies a loving God… a
subtle argument…
“… 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, lawgivers unjustly punish those who transgress good commandments.” (Ch9)
He addresses moral relativism, considers the so-called diversity argument, and suggests that demons are behind the diversity.
“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.” (Ch9)
Lastly, a shoutout…
“And our doctrines are not shameful, according to a sober judgment, but are indeed more lofty than all human philosophy…” (Ch15)
DSMW
