I recently re-read the First and Second Apology and Dialogue with Trypho by Justin Martyr (100-165). Here are some excerpts from Justin I found interesting (there are many more, of course). Notice how Justin teaches man has genuine free will to accept or reject the gospel, baptismal regeneration, how good works are meritorious and not merely fruits of "saving faith," etc.
Hence are we called Atheists. And we
confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but
not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and
temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him,
and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host
of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the
prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring
without grudging to every one who wishes to learn as we have been taught.
(First Apology, chapter 6)
And we have been taught that He in the
beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of
unformed matter; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His
design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received—of reigning in company
with Him, being delivered from corruption and suffering. (First Apology,
chapter 10)
. .
. each man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation according to the
value of his actions (κατʼ ἀξίαν τῶν πράξεων πορεύεσθαι). (First Apology,
chapter 12)
He is the Son of the true God Himself, and
holding Him in the second place and the prophetic Spirit in the third . . . (First
Apology, chapter 13)
In the beginning He made the human race
with the power of the thought and of choosing the truth and doing right, so
that all men are without excuse before God . . . (First Apology, chapter 28)
But this we assert is inevitable fate,
that they who choose the good have worthy rewards, and they who choose the
opposite have their merited awards. (First Apology, chapter 43)
So that what we say about future events
being foretold, we do not say it as if they came about by a fatal necessity;
but God foreknowing all that shall be done by all men, and it being His decree
that the future actions of men shall all be recompensed according to their
several value, He fore tells by the Spirit of prophecy that He will bestow meet
rewards according to the merit of the actions done, always urging the human
race to effort and recollection. (First Apology, chapter 44)
He shall raise the bodies of all men who
have lived, and shall clothe those of the worthy with immorality. (First
Apology, chapter 52)
I will also relate the manner in which we
dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made through Christ . . . for the
remissions of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then
they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same
manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the
Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the
Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Except
ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” . . . may
obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is
pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins,
the name of God the Father and the Lord of the universe; he who leads to the
laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no
one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that
there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called
illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their
understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under
Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets
foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed. (First
Apology, chapter 61)
For ourselves and for the baptized [Greek:
“illuminated” φωτισθεντος, from φωτιζω] person, and for all others in every
place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by
our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so
that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. (First Apology, chapter 65)
Who has been washed with the washing (λουτρον) that
is for the remissions of sins, and unto regeneration. (First Apology, chapter
66)
But to the Father of all, who is
unbegotten, there is no name given. For by whatever name He be called, He has
all His elder the person who gives Him the name. But these words, Father, and God,
and Creator, and Lord, and Master, are not names, but appellations derived from
His good deeds and functions. And His son, who alone is properly called Son,
the Word, who also was with Him and was begotten before the works, when at
first He created and arranged all things by Him, is called Christ, in reference
to His being anointed and God’s ordering all things through Him; this name
itself also containing an unknown significance; as also the appellation “God”
is not a name, but an opinion, implanted in the nature of men of a thing that
can hardly be explained. But “Jesus,” His name as man and Saviour, has also significance.
For He was made man also, as we before said, having been conceived according to
the will of God the Father, for the sake of believing men, and for the destruction
of the demons. And now you can learn this from what is under your own
observation. For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your
city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ,
who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering
helpless and driving the possessing devils out of men, though they could not
be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs.
(Second Apology, chapter 6)
But since God in the beginning made the
race of angels and men with free-will, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the
punishment of whatever sins they have committed. (Second Apology, chapter 7)
The souls of the pious remain in a better
place, while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse, waiting for the
time of judgment. (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 5)
By reason, therefore, of this laver of
repentance and knowledge of God (Διὰ τοῦ λουτροῦ οὖν τῆς μετανοίας καὶ τῆς
γνώσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ), which has been ordained on account of the transgression of God’s
people, as Isaiah cries, we have believed, and testify that that very baptism
which he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented (τὸ
βάπτισμα, τὸ μόνον καθαρίσαι τοὺς μετανοήσαντας δυνάμενον); and this is the water
of life. (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 14)
Or why did He not teach those—who are
called righteous and pleasing to Him (δικαίους καὶ εὐαρέστους αὐτῷ), who lived
before Moses and Abraham, who were not circumcised in their foreskin, and
observed no Sabbaths—to keep these institutions? (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter
27)
And God said, Behold, Adam has become as
one of us, to known good and evil. In saying, therefore, as one of us, [Moses]
has declared that [there is a certain] number of persons associated with one
another, and that they are at least two. (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 62)
And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have
cut out of the following: I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter:
they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His
bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall
no more be remembered.’ And since this passage from the sayings of Jeremiah is
still written in some copies [of the Scriptures in the synagogues of the Jews
(for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since from these
words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about Christ Himself, to
crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep
to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and is here represented as a
harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give themselves over
to blasphemy. And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been
cut out: The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the
graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.’ (Dialogue with
Trypho, chapter 72)
And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth)
Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: From the
wood. For then the passage said, Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath
reigned from the wood, they have left, Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath
reigned. Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God
and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only who was crucified,
of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was raised
again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none like Him among
the gods of the nations: for they are idols of demons. (Dialogue with Trypho,
chapter 73)
And David predicted that He would be born
from the womb before sun and moon . . . (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 76 [cf. the
difference between Psa 110:3 in the MT and LXX])
He himself received from the Father the
titles of King, and Christ, and Priest, and Angel, and such like other titles
which He bears or did bear. (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 86)
But that the Gentiles would repent of the
evil in which they led erring lives, which they heard the doctrine preached by
His apostles from Jerusalem, and which they learned through them, suffer me to
show you by quoting a short statement from the prophecy of Micah, one of the
twelve [minor prophets]. This is as follows: And in the last days the mountain
of the Lord shall be manifest, established on the top of the mountains; it
shall be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow unto it. And many
nations shall go, and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and
to the house of the God of Jacob; and they shall enlighten us in His way, and
we shall walk in His paths: for our of Zion shall go forth the law, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many peoples, and
shall rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more. And each man shall sit under his vine
and under his fig tree; and there shall be none to terrify: for the mouth of
the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk in the name of their
gods; but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever. And it shall
come to pass in that day, that I will assemble her that is afflicted, and
gather her that is driven out, and whom I had plagued; and I shall make her
that is afflicted a remnant and her that is oppressed a strong nation. And the
Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, and even for ever. (Dialogue
with Trypho, chapter 109 [cf. The
Book of Mormon's Knowledge of Gentile Inclusion in the New Covenant: Does it
Contradict the Bible? and Knowledge
of the then-future Gentile Inclusion into God's Covenant People in
"Proto-Isaiah"])
God, wishing men and angels to follow His will,
resolve to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they
may know by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing
formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if
they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels,
shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But
if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished,
it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not
because God had created them so. OS that if they repent, all who wish for it
can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed
saying, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin [Ps. 32.2] . . .
We have as proof of this one fall of David, which happened through his
boasting, which was forgiven then when he so mourned and wept, as it is
written. But if even to such a man no remission was granted before repentance,
and only when this great kind, and anointed one, and prophet, mourned and
conducted himself so, how can the impure and utterly abandoned, if they weep
not, and mourn not, and repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will not
impute to them sin? And this one fall of David, in the utter of Uriah’s wife,
proves, sirs, I said, that the patriarchs had many wives, not to commit
fornication, but that a certain dispensation and all mysteries might be
accomplished by them; since, if it were allowable to take any wife, or as many
wives as one chooses, and how he chooses, which the men of your nation do over
all the earth, wherever they sojourn, or wherever they have been sent, taking
women under the name of marriage, much more would David have been permitted to
do this.” (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 141 [on the use of David and Psa 32,
see the discussion of Rom 4:5-8 at Response
to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness])
