Justin Martyr · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
And the things that happened yesterday and the day before in your city under Urbicus, Romans, and the things done everywhere alike without reason by the governors, have compelled me — on your behalf, since you are men of like feeling and are our brothers, even though you do not know it and, because of your regard for what are considered honors, do not wish it — to compose this discourse. For everywhere, whoever is being brought to his senses by a
father, neighbor, child, friend, brother, husband, or wife over some shortcoming (setting aside, of course, those convinced that the unjust and unrestrained will suffer punishment in eternal fire, while the virtuous — those who lived as Christ lived — will dwell with God free of passion, meaning those who have become Christians), since such a person resists change, loves pleasure, and moves sluggishly toward what is good, and
the wicked demons, hostile to us and holding such judges as their subjects and worshippers, as though they were possessed rulers, arrange for us to be put to death. But so that the cause of everything that happened under Urbicus may be made plain to you, I will relate what was done. A certain woman was living with a licentious husband, she herself having formerly been licentious as well. But when she came to know the teachings of Christ, she became sensible, and
tried to persuade her husband likewise to be sensible, citing the teachings and declaring the punishment that awaits in eternal fire for those who do not live sensibly and according to right reason. But he, persisting in the same debaucheries, alienated his wife by his conduct. For the woman, considering it impious any longer to lie with a man who, contrary to the law of nature and contrary to
justice, sought by every means to procure himself channels of pleasure, wished to be separated from the marriage. And when she was prevailed upon by her own people, who advised her to remain still, on the ground that her husband might someday come to a hope of change, she forced herself and remained. But when her husband, having gone off to Alexandria, was reported to be behaving still more shamefully, in order that she might not become a partner in his wrongdoings and impieties by remaining in the
marriage, sharing his table and his bed, she handed him what you people call a certificate of divorce and separated from him. But her so-called upstanding husband — who should instead have been glad that the acts she once performed so readily with the servants and hired men, reveling in drunkenness and vice of every kind, she had by now given up, and wanted him to give up those same acts too — when he refused, and she had left him, filed a charge against her,
charging that she was a Christian. And she submitted a petition to you, the emperor, asking first to be permitted to settle her own affairs, and then, after the settling of her affairs, to make her defense against the charge; and you granted this. But her former husband, since he could for the moment no longer speak against her, turned instead against a certain Ptolemy, whom Urbicus had summoned, who had been her teacher in the
teachings of Christianity, and he did so in this manner. He persuaded a centurion, who had thrown Ptolemy into prison and was a friend of his, to lay hold of Ptolemy and question him on this one point alone — whether he was a Christian. And Ptolemy, since his temperament loved truth and held nothing of deceit or falsehood, admitted that he was a Christian; whereupon the centurion had him kept in bonds, and for a long time
he was punished in the prison. At last, when the man was brought before Urbicus, he was likewise examined on this one point alone — whether he was a Christian. And again, conscious in himself of the good things that came to him through the teaching of Christ, he confessed the school of divine virtue. For whoever denies anything either has condemned the matter and so disowns it, or, knowing himself unworthy of it and a stranger to
the matter, avoids confessing it — neither of which has any place in a genuine Christian. When Urbicus then commanded that he be led away to execution, a man named Lucius, himself likewise a Christian, seeing this judgment rendered so unreasonably, said to Urbicus: What is the cause, when this man has been convicted neither of adultery, nor fornication, nor murder, nor theft, nor robbery, nor of committing any wrongdoing whatsoever, but merely of confessing to bearing the
name of the appellation "Christian" — why have you punished this man? This judgment of yours, Urbicus, befits neither a pious emperor, nor a philosopher, the son of Caesar, nor the sacred senate. And Urbicus, answering nothing else, said to Lucius: You too seem to me to be one of these. And when Lucius said, Certainly, he in turn ordered him also led away. And Lucius declared himself grateful, knowing that he was being freed from such wicked masters
and was journeying onward to the Father who reigns as King over the heavens. A third man then stepped forward as well and received an added sentence of punishment. But lest someone say, Then go, all of you, kill yourselves, and pass at once into God's presence, and spare us the trouble, I will explain why we do not act this way, and why, when questioned, we confess without fear. It is our teaching that God did not fashion the
world at random, but on account of the human race; and we have taught that he delights in those who model themselves on his own qualities, while he is displeased with those who cling to what is base, in word or in deed. If, then, we were all to put ourselves to death, we would become, as far as lies with us, responsible for no one being born and instructed in the divine teachings — or even for the human race coming to an end altogether —
and in doing so we would ourselves work against the will of God, should we take such a step. But when questioned we do not deny it, for we are aware of nothing base within ourselves, and we regard withholding the truth on any point as an act of impiety — a truthfulness we know pleases God as well — and also because we are now anxious to free you likewise from an unjust prejudice. But should the thought further occur to someone that, if we
confess God as our helper, we would not, as we say, be overpowered and punished by unjust men — I will resolve this too. God, having made the whole world, and having subjected earthly things to men, and having arranged the heavenly elements for the growth of crops and the changes of the seasons, and having appointed a divine law for these — things which he appears to have made for the sake of men — entrusted the providence over men and over the things under
heaven to angels whom he appointed over these matters. But the angels, transgressing this order, were overcome by desire for women and begot children, who are those called demons. And beyond this they subsequently enslaved the human race to themselves, partly through magical writings, partly through the fears and punishments they inflicted, and partly through teaching them sacrifices, incense-offerings,
and libations, of which they had come to stand in need after being enslaved to the passions of desire; and among humans they scattered murders, wars, adultery, debauchery, and every kind of vice. Hence poets and myth-writers, unaware that it was the angels and the demons born from them who committed these deeds against males and females, cities and nations — the very deeds they wrote about — credited them to the god himself and to those who were
For they named each one according to whatever title every angel had assigned to himself and to his own children. As for the Father of all things, since he is unbegotten, no name has been fixed upon him; for anyone who bears any name whatsoever has, as his elder, the one who bestowed that name.
But "Father," "God," "Creator," "Lord," and "Master" are titles, not proper names — they are designations taken from his benefactions and his works. His Son, the only one truly deserving the title Son, the Word — who coexisted with him and was generated prior to everything made, when at the beginning he fashioned and arranged the universe through him — bears the name "Christ" in reference to his anointing and to
God's having ordered all things through him; and this name too contains a meaning that is unknown, just as the term "God" itself is not a name but a notion, rooted in human nature, concerning a reality difficult to define. But "Jesus" carries both the name and the sense of "man" and "savior." For he indeed became man too, as we said earlier, conceived in accordance with the plan of God and
Father, brought forth for the sake of believing men and unto the ruin of the demons; and even now the evidence before your own eyes can teach you this. For throughout the whole world, and in your own city as well, many people possessed by demons have been healed by many of our own people, the Christians, who cast the demons out by invoking Jesus Christ — the one crucified under Pontius Pilate — persons whom all the other exorcists and
enchanters and drug-sellers failed to heal — and they still heal them now, rendering powerless and driving out the demons that hold men in their grip. This is why God still delays bringing about the confusion and dissolution of the whole world, so that the wicked angels and demons and men may cease to exist, on account of the seed of the Christians, which he knows in nature to be the cause
is. For if this were not so, it would not still be possible for these things to be done and worked in you by the wicked demons; but the fire of judgment, coming down, would have utterly sorted out everything, just as before the flood left no one except the one man, called among us Noah but among you Deucalion, together with his own household, from whom
again so many people have come to be, some of them wicked and some upright. For it is in this way that we say the conflagration will come to pass, but not, as the Stoics say, according to the doctrine of the transformation of all things into one another — a thing which has appeared most shameful; nor again that human beings act or suffer what happens according to fate, but that each does right or sins according to free choice, and
that it is by the working of the wicked demons that the upright — such as Socrates and those like him — are persecuted and put in chains, while Sardanapalus and Epicurus and those like them seem to prosper amid abundance and glory. Not understanding this, the Stoics declared that all things happen by the necessity of fate. But since God made both the race of angels and that of men self-determined from the beginning,
they will justly receive punishment in eternal fire for whatever offenses they commit. For this is the nature of everything that has come into being: to be capable of vice and of virtue; for none of these beings would be praiseworthy if it did not have the power to turn to both. And this is shown also by those everywhere who have legislated and philosophized according to right reason,
through their prescribing that these things be done and those be avoided. And the Stoic philosophers too, in their discourse on ethics, vigorously honor these same things, so that it becomes clear that in their discourse on first principles and incorporeal things they do not fare well. For whether they will say that what happens among men happens according to fate, or that there is no God apart from things that are turned and altered and dissolved into
the same elements forever, they will be shown to have grasped only perishable things, and to make God himself, both through his parts and through the whole, become subject to every vice, or else to hold that there is neither vice nor virtue at all — which is contrary to every sound notion, reason, and mind. And as for those who follow the Stoic teachings, since they have become well-ordered at least in their ethical doctrine, as
also some of the poets have, on account of the seed of the Word implanted in the whole race of men, we know they have been hated and put to death: Heraclitus, as we said before, and Musonius too in our own times, and others as well. For as we have indicated, the demons have always worked to bring hatred upon all who make any effort at all to live according to reason and to flee vice. And it is nothing to wonder at, if
the demons, being refuted, work to bring about even greater hatred against those who attain, not merely a part of the seminal Word, but knowledge and contemplation of the whole Word, who is Christ; and they will receive their due chastisement and punishment, shut up in eternal fire. For if they are already being defeated by human beings who call on the name of Jesus Christ, that very fact teaches what punishment in eternal fire is coming both upon them and upon
those who serve them. For thus all the prophets foretold it would happen, and Jesus our teacher taught it. As for me, then, I anticipate that one of the men I have named will scheme against me and have me nailed to a stake — perhaps even Crescens himself, that lover of commotion and lover of self-display. For the man does not deserve to be called a philosopher, seeing that he publicly bears false witness against us concerning matters he does not understand
— that Christians are godless and impious — doing this to win the favor and pleasure of the deceived multitude. For either he attacks us without having encountered the teachings of Christ, in which case he is thoroughly wicked and far worse than ordinary people, who generally take care not to speak or bear false witness about things they have no knowledge of; or else he has in fact come across those teachings and simply failed to grasp their grandeur, or, having grasped it,
does what he does in order not to be suspected of holding such views — in which case he is far more base and thoroughly wicked, being a slave to popular and irrational opinion and to fear. For I want you to know that I put certain such questions to him and asked him, so as both to learn and to refute him, and that he truly knows nothing. And that I speak the truth, if the exchanges of our arguments have not been reported to you, I am ready
to hold them again in your presence; that too would be a task worthy of an emperor. Yet if you have already been informed of my questions and his replies, it is plain to you that he knows nothing of our doctrines — or if he does know them, then because of his hearers he dares not speak, as I said before, like Socrates, and he shows himself to be not a philosopher but a lover of glory, a man who
does not even honor that Socratic maxim worthy of love: "But surely a man is not to be honored above the truth." It is impossible, though, for a Cynic, who has set indifference as his end, to know the good, except indifference itself. And so, to keep anyone from repeating the claim made by men who pass themselves off as philosophers — that our talk of the wicked being punished in eternal fire is mere noise and scare-mongering — and
that we require men to live virtuously out of fear rather than because it is noble and pleasing to live virtuously, I will answer this briefly: that if this is not so, then either God does not exist, or, if he does exist, he takes no interest in humanity, and virtue and vice are nothing at all, and, just as we noted earlier, lawmakers would be wrong to punish those who break the good statutes they themselves established. But since
those lawgivers are not unjust, nor their father, who teaches them through reason to do the very same thing, neither are those who agree with them unjust. But if someone should bring forward the differing laws of men, saying that among some peoples these things are held to be good and those shameful, while among others what is shameful there is held good, and what is good there is held shameful, let him hear also
what is said concerning this. We know that the wicked angels set in order laws similar to their own wickedness, laws in which men who have become like them delight; and when right reason comes forward it does not show all opinions nor all doctrines to be good, but some base and some good; so that the same things, and things like them, will be said also to such people, and will be said
at greater length, if there is need. But for now I return to the matter at hand. Our teachings appear grander than all human teaching because the whole rational element — body, reason, and soul — that appeared for our sake became Christ. For every fine word ever spoken or discovery ever made by philosophers and lawgivers, they achieved through locating and reflecting on some fragment of the Word.
Because they grasped only a portion of the Word, who is Christ, and never the whole of him, they frequently ended up contradicting one another. And those who lived before Christ, when they attempted, through human reasoning, to contemplate and refute matters, were brought before tribunals as impious and meddling. The one of them all who applied himself to this most vigorously, Socrates, was charged with the very same things as we are;
since the charge was that he brought in strange gods and refused to acknowledge as divine those the city recognized as gods. Yet he drove the corrupt spirits from the state — including those who committed the acts the poets described — and expelled Homer and the other poets with them, teaching people to have nothing to do with such beings, and urged them, through the search of reason, toward the knowledge of the God unknown to them, saying: "The
father and maker of all things is neither easy to find, nor, having found him, safe to declare to all." These things our Christ accomplished through his own power. For no one believed in Socrates enough to die for that teaching, but they did so for Christ, whom Socrates grasped only partially — since he is and always has been the Word present in every person, and the one who spoke in advance through the prophets
the things that were to come, and who himself, becoming like us in suffering, taught these things — not only philosophers and men of letters put their trust, but craftsmen too and utterly unlettered people, despising glory and fear and death; since it is the power of the ineffable Father, and not the instrument of human reason, that is at work. Nor indeed would we be put to death, nor would unjust men and demons be more powerful than we,
if it were not altogether owed by every man who is born that he must also die; whence we give thanks even as we pay this debt. And indeed we think it fitting and timely to speak now, against Crescens and those who rave like him, that saying of Xenophon's. Xenophon said that Heracles, walking along a certain crossroad, found both Virtue and Vice, in the form of women
...appearing in [human] forms. And Vice — with delicate clothing, a face fashioned for love and blooming from such arts, immediately alluring to the eyes — told Heracles that following her would bring him a life of constant pleasure, adorned with the most splendid finery, like the finery that surrounded her. And Virtue, with a squalid face and
attire, said: "But if you obey me, you will adorn yourself not with flowing and perishable ornament and beauty, but with everlasting and beautiful ornaments." And we are persuaded that anyone at all who flees the things that seem beautiful, and pursues instead the things reckoned harsh and unreasonable, will obtain happiness. For Vice, screening her own deeds with the qualities that belong to Virtue and that are truly
beautiful, clothing herself through imitation of things incorruptible (for she has nothing incorruptible, nor is she able to produce it), enslaves those men who grovel on the ground, having wrapped her own base qualities around Virtue. But those who have understood what truly are beautiful qualities are themselves incorruptible in virtue. This one must suppose also concerning Christians, and those who came from the contest, and the men who have done such things as the poets have said
concerning the so-called gods — every sensible person must draw this inference from the very fact that we despise death, a thing all men shun. For indeed I myself, while I rejoiced in the teachings of Plato, when I heard Christians slandered, but saw them fearless in the face of death and of all the other things reckoned fearful, considered it impossible that they should be living in vice and love of pleasure. For what lover of pleasure or self-indulgent man, and
one who counts the eating of human flesh a good thing, could embrace death, whereby he would be deprived of his own goods, rather than trying by every means to go on living this present life forever and to escape the notice of the rulers — let alone announce himself as one to be put to death? Indeed, the wicked demons have already brought it about that this too was done through certain wicked men. For, murdering some persons themselves on a false charge laid against
us, they also dragged to torture household servants of ours, or children, or little women, and by fearful abuses compel them to denounce these fabled things, which they themselves openly do. But since none of this belongs to us, we are not troubled, having as witness of both our thoughts and our deeds God, the unbegotten and ineffable one. For what reason would we not also publicly confess these things as good, and
demonstrate them to be divine philosophy — declaring that we celebrate the mysteries of Cronus by murdering men, and by gorging ourselves on blood, as is said, doing the same things as are done to the idol honored among you, on which not only the blood of irrational animals is sprinkled but also human blood, the pouring out of the blood of the slain being performed by the most eminent and noblest man among you — and that we, becoming imitators of Zeus and the
other gods in going after males and in mingling with women without fear, bring forward as our defense the writings of Epicurus and of the poets? But since we persuade men to flee these teachings, and those who do and imitate them, as we have also just now contended through these very words, we are warred against in various ways. But we are not troubled, since we know God to be the just overseer of all things. Would that even
now someone might mount some lofty platform and cry out in a tragic voice: "Be ashamed, be ashamed, you who openly do these things and impute them to the innocent, wrapping around yourselves and your own gods things that belong to yourselves, of which these have not the slightest share. Change your ways, come to your senses." For I too, once I learned that a wicked garment had been thrown, to turn other men away, by the wicked demons
over the divine teachings of the Christians, and that these things were falsely reported, laughed both at the garment and at the reputation held among the many. I openly admit that I pray and struggle with everything in me to prove myself a Christian — not on the grounds that Plato's teachings stand apart from Christ's, but because they don't match at every point, just as the teachings of the Stoics, the poets, and the prose writers don't match either. For each of them, from
the portion of the seminal divine Word he possessed, seeing what was akin to it, spoke well; but those who contradicted themselves on the more essential matters plainly did not possess unfailing knowledge and irrefutable understanding. Whatever, then, has been well said belongs to us Christians. For it is the Word proceeding from the unbegotten and ineffable God whom we adore and cherish, second only to God himself, since he too was made man for our sake,
so that, becoming also a partaker of our sufferings, he might effect a cure. For all the writers, through the implanted seed of the Word dwelling within them, were able to see the realities only dimly. For it is one thing to have a seed of something and an imitation given according to one's capacity, and another thing to have that very thing itself, of which, by the grace that comes from it, the participation and imitation occur. And so we ask you too
to append your judgment and publish this little book, so that our position may become known to others as well, and that they may be able to be freed from false opinion and ignorance of what is good — those who, through no fault of their own, become liable to punishments [so that these things may become known to men] — because the faculty of discerning good and shameful is present in human nature, and
because they condemn us, whom they do not know to do such shameful things as they allege, and because they delight in gods who have done such things, and even now still demand the same from men — so that, by imposing on us too, as though we did such things, death or bonds or some other such penalty, they condemn themselves, having no need of other judges. [And also that which is in my own
nation — the impious and deceitful teaching of the Simonians — I have despised.] And if you publish this as a decree, we for our part would make it known to all, so that, if they are able, they may change their ways; it is for this reason alone that we have composed these words. Our teachings, judged by any sound standard, are not shameful, but are superior to all human philosophy; but if not, they are at any rate not like the writings of Sotades, and Philaenis, and Archestratus, and
Epicurus, and the other poetic teachings of that kind, which all are permitted to encounter, both when spoken and when written. And we will now stop, having done as much as lay in our power, and having further prayed that all men everywhere may be deemed worthy of the truth. May it be granted, then, that you too, worthily of piety and philosophy, judge what is just concerning yourselves.