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JUSTIN was a native of Flavia Neapolis, a Greek town built on the site of the old Sichem in Samaria. He describes, in one of his dialogues, his studies of various schools of philosophy, and his final adoption of Platonism. An old man, whom he met one day upon the sea-shore, urged him to study the Christian scriptures. The steadfast courage with which the Christians withstood persecution had already predisposed him in their favour. He accepted their doctrine, and devoted the rest of his life to propagating it, first in Egypt and Asia, subsequently in Rome; still retaining the garb of a philosopher, and endeavouring to support the new doctrine on philosophic grounds. His writings, some of which are in the form of Pleas, or Apologies, addressed to the Roman Emperor, are full of references to Plato and his predecessors. He had been strongly attracted, he says, by Plato's conception of incorporeal existences, or Ideas, and by the scheme of mental discipline that would render man capable of apprehending these. In Plato he found, obscurely stated or hinted, not merely the truths as to the creation of the world by God, but also the mysteries of the Cross and of the Trinity; for Plato and his master Socrates had drawn their knowledge of these things from the Mosaic Scriptures. They thus had a share in the Divine Logos, the Word, or Reason, of God. Their teaching was not alien to that of Christ. Justin was commonly called the "Martyr," and the "Philosopher." He is the first of the Apologists whose writings have reached us. He was beheaded in Rome; under what circumstances, and whether in the reign of Antoninus Pius or of Marcus Aurelius, is uncertain.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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