The Sacred Writings of Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr, Philipp Schaff

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9783849621391
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

"The Sacred Writings Of..." provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea.Justin Martyr was a Christian apologist, born at Flavia Neapolis, about A.D. 100, who converted to Christianity about A.D. 130, taught and defended the Christian religion in Asia Minor and at Rome and he suffered martyrdom about the year 165.This volume contains: The First Apology of JustinThe Second Apology of JustinDialogue of JustinJustin's Hortatory Address to the GreeksJustin on the Sole Government of God.1Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin on the ResurrectionOther Fragments from the Lost Writings of JustinIntroductory Note to the Martyrdom of Justin Martyr.The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs

And in the tenth book he plainly and manifestly wrote what he had learned from the prophets about the judgement, not as if he had learned it from them, but, on account of his fear of the Greeks, as if he had heard it from a man who has been slain in battle-for this story he thought fit to invent-and who, when he was about to be buried on the twelfth day, and was lying on the funeral pile, came to life again, and described the other world. The following are his very words:⁵⁷ "For he said that he was present when one was asked by another person where the great Ardiaeus was. This Ardiaeus had been prince in a certain city of Pamphylia, and had killed his aged father and his elder brother, and done many other unhallowed deeds, as was reported. He said, then that the person who was asked said: He neither comes nor ever will come hither. For we saw, among other terrible sights, this also. When we were close to the mouth [of the pit], and were about to return to the upper air, and had suffered everything else, we suddenly beheld both him and others likewise, most of whom were tyrants. But there were also some private sinners who had committed great crimes. And these, when they thought they were to ascend, the mouth would not permit, but bellowed when any of those who were so incurably wicked attempted to ascend, unless they had paid the full penalty. Then fierce men, fiery to look at, stood close by, and hearing the din,⁵⁸ took some and led them away; but Ardiaeus and the rest, having bound hand and foot, and striking their heads down, and flaying, they dragged to the road outside, tearing them with thorns, and signifying to those who were present the cause of their suffering these things, and that they were leading them away to cast them into Tartarus. Hence, he said, that amidst all their various fears, this one was the greatest, lest the mouth should bellow when they ascended, since if it were silent each one would most gladly ascend; and that the punishments and torments were such as these, and that, on the other hand, the rewards were the reverse of these." Here Plato seems to me to have learnt from the prophets not only the doctrine of the judgment, but also of the resurrection, which the Greeks refuse to believe. For his saying that the soul is judged along with the body, proves nothing more clearly than that he believed the doctrine of the resurrection. Since how could Ardiaeus and the rest have undergone such punishment in Hades, had they left on earth the body, with its head, hands, feet, and skin? For certainly they will never say that the soul has a head and hands, and feet and skin. But Plato, having fallen in with the testimonies of the prophets in Egypt, and having accepted what they teach concerning the resurrection of the body, teaches that the soul is judged in company with the body.

Chapter XXVIII.-Homer's Obligations to the Sacred Writers.

And not only Plato, but Homer also, having received similar enlightenment in Egypt, said that Tityus was in like manner punished. For Ulysses speaks thus to Alcinous when he is recounting his divination by the shades of the dead:⁵⁹ -

"There Tityus, large and long, in fetters bound,

O'erspread nine acres of infernal ground;

Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food,

Scream o'er the fiend, and riot in his blood,

Incessant gore the liver in his breast,

Th' immortal liver grows, and gives th' immortal

feast."

For it is plain that it is not the soul, but the body, which has a liver. And in the same manner he has described both Sisyphus and Tantalus as enduring punishment with the body. And that Homer had been in Egypt, and introduced into his own poem much of what he there learnt, Diodorus, the most esteemed of historians, plainly enough teaches us. For he said that when he was in Egypt he had learnt that Helen, having received from Theon's wife, Polydamna, a drug, "lulling all sorrow and melancholy, and causing forgetfulness of all ills,"⁶⁰ brought it to Sparta. And Homer said that by making use of that drug Helen put an end to the lamentation of Menelaus, caused by the presence of Telemachus. And he also called Venus "golden," from what he had seen in Egypt. For he had seen the temple which in Egypt is called "the temple of golden Venus," and the plain which is named "the plain of golden Venus." And why do I now make mention of this? To show that the poet transferred to his own poem much of what is contained in the divine writings of the prophets. And first he transferred what Moses had related as the beginning of the creation of the world. For Moses wrote thus: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"⁶¹ then the sun, and the moon, and the stars. For having learned this in Egypt, and having been much taken with what Moses had written in the Genesis of the world, he fabled that Vulcan had made in the shield of Achilles a kind of representation of the creation of the world. For he wrote thus:⁶² -

"There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea,

The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb'd;

There also, all the stars which round about,

As with a radiant frontlet, bind the skies."

And he contrived also that the garden of Alcinous should preserve the likeness of Paradise, and through this likeness he represented it as ever-blooming and full of all fruits. For thus he wrote:⁶³ -

"Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;

The reddening apple ripens here to gold.

Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,

With deeper red the full pomegranate glows;

The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,

And verdant olives flourish round the year.

The balmy spirit of the western gale

Eternal breathes on fruits, untaught to fail;

Each dropping pear a following pear...

Table of contents

• Justin Martyr – A Biography
• The Second Apology of Justin
• Dialogue of Justin
• Justin's Hortatory Address to the Greeks
• Justin on the Sole Government of God.1
• Other Fragments from the Lost Writings of Justin
• Footnotes: