Vigils Reading – St Justin Martyr

ST JUSTIN MARTYR

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints

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Justin was a Greek from Samaria who became Christian about the year

115. He is the first notable Christian philosopher. He was born at Nablus in

Samaria. He was not a Jew, either by birth or by religion. He was a Greek and

was given a classical Greek education. He studied rhetoric, poetry and history,

and then turned to philosophy, searching, as he himself said, for the “vision of

God”. He traveled widely, joining philosophy schools in Ephesus and

Alexandria, and he was attracted to the schools of the Stoics, the Peripatetic’s

and the Pythagoreans. In Platonism, he found some of the answers to the

questions he was asking, and he was trained in dialectic.

One day while walking by the seashore, probably at Ephesus, he met a

respectable old man who told him about the Hebrew prophets and Christianity.

Justin wrote: “My spirit was immediately set on fire, and an affection for the

prophets and for those who are friends of Christ took hold of me. I discovered

that his was the only sure and useful philosophy.”

In Christianity he found the answer to his search. He taught at Ephesus.

He debated publicly with the Jews and the Gnostics and with those who

worshipped the Roman gods. In about the year 150 he went to Rome where he

taught the Christian apologetics, founded a school of philosophy and wrote his

major works. Justin wrote an intellectual defense of Christian beliefs against

outside attacks.

He is said to have lived a very ascetic and austere life. His pleasure was in

public debates. Justin’s fearless defense of Christianity and his thorough

demolition of his opponents must have made him many enemies.15

His martyrdom took place in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and an

authentic record of the proceedings survives. He stated his beliefs, refused to

sacrifice to the Roman gods, and accepted suffering and death as the means to

salvation. He was beheaded with six other Christians about the year 165.