When people ask you: "Who is your father?" or: "Who is your uncle?" you briefly describe what they do in life. You just say: "He's an engineer" or: "He's a doctor", and it doesn't take you too much time to give an answer. Any person can be briefly described so. That's very simple. Thus the Creator so ordered this universe that the deepest truths very often may be found in the simplest things.
Therefore, if you ask about Justin, perhaps you will be asked back: "Do you mean Justin Martyr?" But ask someone in the Orthodox Church about Justin and the reaction will be different. Most likely they will respond: "Let me think... Justin the Philosopher?" and they'll mean the same person.
So who was he? What does Christianity owe him in the first place? To decide what we should think about Justin, we will have to make a wonderful journey through his life. Fortunately, we know quite a lot about it.
Justin was born in Palestine, in a beautiful city called Flavia Neapolis (Greek: "a new city built by Flavius", that is the emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian). It was on the road halfway from Galilee to Jerusalem. Not so long before, Jesus had walked and taught in these places. To be sure, as a boy Justin did not know about that. His parents were wealthy Romans, and most probably they showed little interest towards Christians. They wanted their son to be well educated; he should not have anything in common with those ignorant people.
When the time for serious study came, Justin went to a very good teacher who was a Stoic. Stoicism was a philosophical school favored by Romans. Basically, it required high moral standards and taught how reason can lead us to moral life. It also taught how logic should be applied to what we know about the universe, so that we may have a true understanding of it. Justin avidly learned and did very well in his studies. But something went wrong, because soon he went to another teacher, who was a follower of Aristotle. Perhaps here the young philosopher hoped to find the answers which he had not found in the previous school. But he did not find them. His education was excellent. But it was not enough for him to be just a good pupil and get high marks. His questions were not from the standard textbook. Perhaps it was not always very easy for his teachers to get along with him. This is why he changed his school again and went to a follower of Plato.
It seems Platonism fascinated Justin very much. Later he wrote that then he began "to understand things which are not corporeal", that is he discovered that behind the visible reality there was a wonderful world full of goodness and beauty. Plato taught that knowledge begins with a perception of earthly shapes, but then we should ascend to the higher realm of Ideas, a world beyond that of the senses. He likened humans to somebody sitting in a cave and looking at a wall on which he sees only the shadows of the real things which are behind his back, and he likened the philosopher to somebody who went out of the cave and sees the real world of the Ideas. Justin thought he was about to find the truth. But soon an extraordinary meeting changed all of his life.
Justin used to have walks on the seashore where he could be alone and meditate quietly. There he met an old man with whom he had a lengthy talk. Justin mentioned that he was a philosopher; the old man objected and said he was only a philologist. Of course, they did not speak English, and to be sure it was a play on words. A "philosopher" in Greek means "the one who loves wisdom" and philologist is "the one who loves words". The stranger obviously meant that Justin as a student of philosophy loved only the beautiful words and nice speeches, but not the real wisdom. He said that true philosophers were ancient Prophets, who lived long before the people whom Greeks believed to be "lovers of wisdom'. Those men of God were righteous and spoke by divine Spirit. Their writings reveal everything we have to know about the universe. They did not teach logic; they did not have to look for truth through reason, because it was revealed to them by God. This truth they wrote down for others.
They discussed a lot of things. All the odd questions of Justin which too often had bewildered his Greek teachers proved to be resolvable. After talking for many hours they parted, and Justin never met the old man again. Who was he? Eusebius, a great Christian historian, and Photius, a patriarch of Constantinople, believed he was one of the apostolic fathers. I often wonder whether he was an Angel who came to enlighten Justin's soul. Whoever he might be, this meeting was a great milestone in the Church history: philosophy became Christian.
Justin's conversion took place about the year 130 A.D. After Baptism Justin did not stop wearing his cloak which was very significant. The cloak was a kind of uniform for philosophers, by which they were distinguished from other people.
First in Ephesus and then in Rome Justin establishes his own school. There he teaches how to love God's wisdom through Christ Jesus. But it was not as simple as it sounds to teach this... At this time people believed that Christians were perverts and cannibals. (Imagine you declare to your parents you want to be a cannibal because a tramp on the seashore told that's the best way to come to truth). One could not tell the genuine Church from multiple groups each professing their own faith, very often far removed from things taught by the Lord and the apostles. Heresies seemed to predominate. Perhaps "confusion" was the best word to describe the actual situation.
Then Rome, having conquered many nations by the sword, realized that other nations conquered the eternal city by their religions and cultural influences. The official Roman religion accepts foreign gods into its pantheon. But Christianity was abhorrent for Romans. It didn't fit into the heathen context. The Christian God could not be a part of any pantheon and the persecution of the Christians was savage.
Justin was arrested because he was denounced by a certain Crescens, who also was a teacher of philosophy (perhaps he was devoured by envy, seeing the many students who came to Justin's school). Together with six of his disciples Justin was led to Junius Rusticus, the prefect of Rome. The interrogation was brief. Junius asked:
- What science do you study? - I studied all of them, but finally came to the Christian teaching. - Where do Christians gather? - Wherever it's possible, because God, who is invisible, fills heaven and earth, and receives worship from the faithful everywhere. - If you will be beheaded after flagellation, are you sure you will go to heaven? - Nobody believed Socrates so much as to die for his teaching, but the followers of Christ, who were simple craftsmen, despised fear and embraced death.
Justin and his disciples were martyred. By his very life Justin showed that the true philosophy is not just a love for beautiful words and sentences. He was faithful to truth even unto death. When the sword was raised above his head, he praised the Lord.
Now was Justin a Philosopher or a Martyr? To be sure, both descriptions are correct. He united in his personality not only those two wonderful ministries, but he was also an apologist, that is a defender of Christian faith against the accusations of the heathen state. He addressed two apologies, to Roman emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. They both were credited to be philosophers, so Justin did his best to show that Christianity does not conflict with philosophy.
The highest aspiration of both Christianity and Platonism is an eternal and immutable God. If one states Christian truths in Platonic terms, it may be easily demonstrated that, despite the common charges, the faith of Christians is in harmony with reason. This is because human reason and divine mind (both identified in Greek by the term "Logos") are united in a deep relationship. This is how, says Justin, we can understand the basic things about the world in which we live.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the fullest incarnation of divine Logos. He revealed the entire truth to us. However, ancient Greek philosophers had only fragments of Logos, but they could not come to the fullness of Truth before the Incarnation. In short, the great philosophers of Antiquity, such as Plato, were Christians, though they didn't know it.
As an exegete, or interpreter of the Scripture, Justin took a great step forward. For him the entire Bible speaks about Christ. As the Logos, He existed before His Incarnation and spoke through the Prophets. Justin united both Testaments. Such interpretation is very close to the apostle Paul's thought, and it will be repeated later by Irenaeus and Augustine.
Justin wrote much about the divine plan in history. God knows very well what the history of salvation should look like. He constantly cares about the events in this world; the various epochs are like stages of the single process. Thus, it was not by chance that in Christian faith the Greek philosophy and the Old Testament have met.
Justin gave us the first description of how Christians celebrate the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. He extensively quoted from the first three Gospels, the letters of Paul and 1 Peter. If we compare Justin to these two apostles, we will conclude that he was much closer to Paul than to Peter. Like Paul, he was open to heathen culture, though carefully chose what might be used. He believed that lest Christians would be doomed to isolation and intellectual poverty. Justin was also the first Christian writer who quoted from the Book of Acts.
When Justin brought Christianity into philosophy, he met strong opposition. Perhaps he was opposed even more when he brought philosophy into Christianity. Indeed, why a believer should study Plato who wrote so much? Perhaps modern Christians feel the same way about the fathers: do we really need them? Yes we do; and that's the most important idea of this lesson.
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