Feast day: June 1

St. Justin Martyr

Philosopher & Martyr · c. 100–165

Patron of Philosophers, apologists

A professional philosopher who tested every school of thought, found Christianity to be 'the true philosophy,' and defended it to the emperor until it cost his life.

Justin was born about the year 100 at Flavia Neapolis in Samaria, of pagan Greek parents, and grew up with a restless hunger for truth. He gave himself to philosophy, moving from school to school — the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, and at last the Platonists — searching for the knowledge of God, and for a time believing he had nearly found it among the Platonists.

His conversion came, he tells us, through two encounters. Walking by the sea, he met a mysterious old man who gently showed him the limits of his philosophy and pointed him to the prophets and to Christ; and he was deeply moved, too, by the courage of Christians who went fearlessly to their deaths, reasoning that men who faced torture so calmly could not be the wicked people they were accused of being. He embraced the faith — and saw in it not the abandonment of philosophy but its fulfillment, 'the only sure and worthy philosophy.'

Continuing to wear the cloak of a philosopher, he became the first great Christian apologist, a layman who taught publicly at Rome and wrote to defend the faith before the wider world. His 'Apologies,' addressed boldly to the emperor himself, argued for the truth and innocence of Christianity and contain the earliest detailed description we possess of how the early Christians celebrated baptism and the Eucharist at Sunday worship.

Denounced — by tradition through the jealousy of a rival philosopher he had bested in debate — Justin was arrested with several companions and, refusing to sacrifice to the gods, was scourged and beheaded at Rome about the year 165. The record of his calm answers at his trial survives. He is honored as a Father of the Church and the patron of philosophers.

His writings include the earliest outsider-readable description of the Mass — from around 155 AD, and instantly recognizable today.

“You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.”
— St. Justin Martyr

Image: Theophanes the Cretan (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/08580c.htm