Sophia Scriptura

Second Apology

Apologia secunda · Ἀπολογία δευτέρα

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Contents

  1. 1Recent executions under the prefect Urbicus move Justin to write again, since the demons use those rebuked by Christians to have them killed.
  2. 2A Christian wife who divorced her dissolute husband is denounced by him; her teacher Ptolemaeus and two others are executed under Urbicus simply for confessing the name of Christ.
  3. 3Christians do not kill themselves, since that would defy God's purpose for the human race; but when questioned they will not lie.
  4. 4God entrusted the world to angels, some of whom fell by lust for women and fathered the demons, who enslaved mankind and are the gods of the poets.
  5. 5God the Father has no proper name; the Son is called Christ and Jesus, and in his name Christians cast out demons.
  6. 6God delays the final judgment for the sake of the Christians; humans and angels act by free choice, not by fate, as the Stoics wrongly teach.
  7. 7The demons have always stirred up hatred against those who lived by reason, and much more against Christians, who know the whole Word, Christ.
  8. 8Justin expects to be killed, perhaps through the Cynic Crescens, whom he has shown in debate to know nothing of Christian teaching.
  9. 9The threat of eternal punishment is not a scare tactic: without judgment there would be no God who cares, and no virtue or vice.
  10. 10Philosophers knew parts of the truth through the Word; Christ is the whole Word, for whom even the uneducated die, as no one died for Socrates.
  11. 11Death is a debt all must pay; like Heracles choosing Virtue in Xenophon's story, Christians choose the hard road to true happiness.
  12. 12Justin tells how, as a Platonist, the Christians' fearlessness before death convinced him the slanders against them were false.
  13. 13Justin strives to be a Christian; whatever truth any philosopher spoke belongs to Christians, since the philosophers had only seeds of the Word, while Christians have the Word himself.
  14. 14Justin asks the emperors to publish his petition so that others may learn the truth; those who condemn Christians condemn themselves.
  15. 15Justin closes, asking again for publication, and prays that all may come to the truth.

About this work

Author
Justin Martyr
Attribution
authentic · Accepted as Justin's. Whether it is a separate petition or an appendix to the First Apology is debated; Eusebius seems to count it as a second apology. It survives in the same single manuscript (Paris, gr. 450), where it stands before the First Apology.
Date
ca. 150–160 (probable) · Written under Antoninus Pius (d. 161) while Urbicus was prefect of Rome (ca. 146–160), after the First Apology, which it seems to refer to.
Written at
Rome, Italy (probable)
Addressed to
the Romans (the emperor and senate)
Language
Greek
Genre
apology
Reference system
chapter (Rauschen). Older editions and ANF order chapters 3–8 differently: Rauschen 3–7 = ANF 4–8, and Rauschen 8 = ANF 3.
SBL abbreviation
2 Apol.
Clavis
CPG 1074 (unverified)
Text from
Gerhard Rauschen, ed., S. Iustini Apologiae duae, Florilegium Patristicum 2 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1911), 114–136 (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)
Critical editions
Miroslav Marcovich, Iustini Martyris Apologiae pro Christianis, PTS 38 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994); Charles Munier, Justin: Apologie pour les chrétiens, SC 507 (Paris: Cerf, 2006); Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies, OECT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) (cited, not reproduced)
CTS URN
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0645.tlg002