From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   June 1st - St. Justin, Philosopher, Apologist, Martyr   
      
   d.  June 1, 167   
      
   Justin was born around 100 (both his birth and death dates are approximate)   
   at   
   Flavia Neapolis (ancient Shechem, modern Nablus) in Samaria (the middle   
   portion   
   of Israel, between Galilee and Judea) of pagan Greek parents. He was brought   
   up   
   with a good education in rhetoric, poetry, and history. He studied various   
   schools of philosophy in Alexandria and Ephesus , joining himself first to   
   Stoicism, then Pythagoreanism, then Platonism, looking for answers to his   
   questions. While at Ephesus, he was impressed by the steadfastness of the   
   Christian martyrs, and by the personality of an aged Christian man whom he   
   met   
   by chance while walking on the seashore. This man spoke to him about Jesus   
   as   
   the fulfillment of the promises made through the Jewish prophets. Justin was   
   overwhelmed. "Straightway a flame was kindled in my soul," he writes, "and a   
   love of the prophets and those who are friends of Christ possessed me."   
   Justin   
   became a Christian, but he continued to wear the cloak that was the   
   characteristic uniform of the professional teacher of philosophy. His   
   position   
   was that pagan philosophy, especially Platonism, is not simply wrong, but is   
   a   
   partial grasp of the truth, and serves as "a schoolmaster to bring us to   
   Christ." He engaged in debates and disputations with non-Christians of all   
   varieties, pagans, Jews, and heretics. He opened a school of Christian   
   philosophy and accepted students, first at Ephesus and then later at Rome.   
   There   
   he engaged the Cynic philosopher Crescens in debate, and soon after was   
   arrested   
   on the charge of practicing an unauthorized religion. (It is suggested that   
   Crescens lost the debate and denounced Justin to the authorities out of   
   spite.)   
   He was tried before the Roman prefect Rusticus, refused to renounce   
   Christianity, and was put to death by beheading along with six of his   
   students,   
   one of them a woman. A record of the trial, probably authentic, is   
   preserved,   
   known as "The Acts of Justin the Martyr".   
      
   Three works of Justin have been preserved.   
      
   "His First Apology" (in the sense of "defense" or "vindication") was   
   addressed   
   (around 155) to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his adopted sons. (It is   
   perhaps   
   worth noting that some of the fiercest persecutors of the Christians were   
   precisely the emperors who had a strong sense of duty, who were fighting to   
   maintain the traditional Roman values, including respect for the gods, which   
   they felt had made Rome great and were her only hope of survival.) He   
   defends   
   Christianity as the only rational creed, and he includes an account of   
   current   
   Christian ceremonies of Baptism and the Eucharist (probably to counteract   
   distorted accounts from anti-Christian sources).   
      
   "The Second Apology" is addressed to the Roman Senate. It is chiefly   
   concerned   
   to rebut specific charges of immorality and the like that had been made   
   against   
   the Christians. He argues that good Christians make good citizens, and that   
   the   
   notion that Christianity undermines the foundations of a good society is   
   based   
   on slander or misunderstanding.   
      
   "The Dialog With Trypho The Jew" is an account of a dialog between Justin   
   and a   
   Jewish rabbi named Trypho(n) (probably a real conversation with a real   
   rabbi,   
   although it may be suspected that Justin in editing it later gave himself a   
   few   
   good lines that he wished he had thought of at the time), whom he met while   
   promenading at Ephesus shortly after the sack of Jerusalem in 135. Trypho   
   had   
   fled from Israel, and the two men talked about the Jewish people and their   
   place   
   in history, and then about Jesus and whether he was the promised Messiah. A   
   principal question is whether the Christian belief in the deity of Christ   
   can be   
   reconciled with the uncompromising monotheism of the Scriptures. The   
   dialogue is   
   a valuable source of information about early Christian thought concerning   
   Judaism and the relation between Israel and the Church as communities having   
   a   
   covenant relation with God. Toward the end of the dialog, Trypho asks,   
   "Suppose   
   that I were to become a Christian. Would I be required to give up keeping   
   kosher   
   and other parts of the Jewish law?" Justin replies: "Christians are not   
   agreed   
   on this. Some would say that you must give them up. Others, such as myself,   
   would say that it would be quite all right for you, as a Jewish convert to   
   Christianity, to keep kosher and otherwise observe the Law of Moses,   
   provided   
   that you did not try to compel other converts to do likewise, and provided   
   that   
   you clearly understand that keeping kosher will not save you. It is only   
   Christ   
   who saves you." They finally part friends, with Trypho saying, "You have   
   given   
   me food for thought. I must consider this further."   
      
   An interesting feature is the dispute about texts. Justin would quote a   
   passage   
   from the Septuagint (LXX), the standard Greek translation of the Jewish   
   Scriptures, and Trypho would reply, "That is not an accurate translation of   
   the   
   Hebrew. You Christians have been tampering with the text!" He never (at   
   least as   
   reportd by Justin) denies that Justin is correctly quoting the Greek   
   manuscripts   
   as they existed at the time, never brings forward an uncorrupted translation   
   that has been preserved by Greek-speaking Jews.   
      
   The subsequent history of this dispute about translations is that the Jews,   
   who   
   had produced the LXX translation between 285 and 132 BC, repudiated it as   
   unreliable and produced several subsequent translations, chiefly that of   
   Aquila   
   (around 140), which were close literal translations of the received Hebrew   
   text - what we may by an anachronism call the Masoretic Text (MT). Many   
   Christians, on the other hand, noted that the LXX is the version usually   
   quoted   
   in the New Testament, even when it differs from the Hebrew. They recalled a   
   Jewish story to the effect that the translation had been produced by 70 (or   
   72)   
   scholars (hence the name), each working separately, and that their results   
   when   
   compared agreed perfectly; and they took this story as an indication that   
   the   
   LXX was an inspired translation, and that when it disagreed with the Hebrew,   
   so   
   much the worse for the Hebrew! The earliest Latin versions of the Bible   
   (known   
   collectively as the Old Latin (OL)) are translated from the LXX. However,   
   when   
   Jerome was called to produce a new version of the Latin Bible, he translated   
   directly from the Hebrew (except for the Psalms, where he produced two   
   versions), and this reduced the prestige of the LXX in the West. For many   
   years   
   scholars, noting the differences between the LXX and the MT, supposed that   
   the   
   LXX was simply a sloppy translation. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls included   
   many   
      
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