St. Justin the Martyr

• The most important of the apologists of the 2nd century and one of the noblest personalities of early Christian literature.

THE MARTYR b. ca. 100 - d. ca. 165

• He was born in Flavia Neapolis of Syrian Palestine (now Nabblus) of heathen parents.
• St. Justin was a student of philosophy who tried first the

• St. Justin was a prolific writer. He wrote his Apology ca. 155, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his colleagues; and his Dialogue with Trypho, shortly after, which defends Christianity against the attacks of Judaism by means of a discussion between Justin and a Jew named Trypho.
• Eusebius lists eight works of St. Justin: two Apologies, Against the Greeks, the Refutation,On the Sovereignty of God, Psaltes (perhaps a hymnbook), On the Soul, and a Dialogue against the Jews.
• He is the first Christian thinker to seek to reconcile the claims of faith and reason.
• St. Justin is the first Christian author who adds a counterpart to the Pauline parallel, Christ-Adam, by contrasting St. Mary with Eve.
• In a Fragment of Lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection he wrote: If the flesh does not rise again, then why is it guarded and why do we not allow it to indulge its desires? Why don’t we imitate physicians, who, it is said, when they get a patient that is beyond hope and incurable, allow him to indulge his desires? For the physician allows the patient this kind of life because the patient is dying and will shortly become a corpse. But if our physician, God in Christ, having rescued us from our desires, regulates our flesh with His own wise and temperate rule, it is evident that He guards it from sins because it has a hope of salvation, just as physicians, do not allow people whom they hope to save to indulge in whatever pleasures they please.