“Christianity was born within a Jewish cradle and it was natural that the earliest attempts at a theological formulation of its doctrines should have been expressed in Jewish terms. It was not long, however, before the Gospel had spread to the great cities of the Graeco-Roman world where it could not be assumed that converts to the new faith would be acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures or even with the monotheistic worship of Judaism. It is true that numbers of God-fearers, or religious enquirers, had attached themselves to the synagogues and that some of these had become attracted to Christianity through the medium of Hellenistic Judaism. Nevertheless, there was the wider pagan world—sometimes indifferent, sometimes avowedly hostile—that misrepresented Christian teaching and spread calumnies against Christians. [...]The appearance of the Christian Apologists is an indication that the Church took these calumnies seriously and had decided to do something about them. Christians had to be vindicated against false accusations; the emperor himself must hear of the cruel wrongs perpetrated in his name. The Christian way of life had to be shown as the highest ideal of ethical conduct the world had yet seen.” —“INTRODUCTION: The Age of the Apologists”
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION The Age of the Apologists The Life of Justin The Two Apologies Analysis of the First Apology Analysis of the Second Apology The Date of the Apologies Justin’s Philosophical Background The Logos Main Religious Ideas Church and Sacraments Justin’s Achievement TEXT The First Apology The Second Apology EDITIONS Principal Editions of the Apologies English Translations Abbreviations NOTES Introduction The First Apology The Second Apology APPENDIX: JUSTIN MARTYR’S ESCHATOLOGY 1 Apology 28.2, 2 Apology 7.1 The Two Advents The Delay in the Parousia The Resurrection and the Millennium The Judgment and World Conflagration Notes to the Appendix SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEXES 1. Authors 2. General Index 3. Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
Item Number: BKPP515C Publication Data: New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997 Format: hardcover Number of Pages: viii + 245 Dimensions (l × w × h): 22.2 cm × 14.6 cm × 2.0 cm ISBN: 0‒8091‒0472‒5
