Saint Justin Martyr

The First Apology

2nd c. · Apologetics · English translation, 1890

23,351 words · 2 hr read· Accessible

Source edition: The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Roberts & Donaldson, 1885)

Cover art: Architectural Capriccio with a Preacher in Roman Ruins — Giovanni Paolo Panini (Italian, 1691–1765) (Musée du Louvre (via Wikimedia Commons), Public domain)

About AD 155, the philosopher Justin Martyr petitioned the emperor Antoninus Pius to stop executing Christians for their name alone. His defense argues that the faith is reasonable, that the Hebrew prophets foretold Christ, and that pagans like Socrates who lived "with the Word" already shared in him. Almost in passing, its closing chapters give the earliest detailed description we possess of Christian baptism and of the Sunday Eucharist — the recognisable ancestor of the Divine Liturgy.