First Apology 26:
All
who take their opinions from these people, as we said before, are called
Christians, just as also those philosophers who do not share the same views are
yet all called by one common name of philosophy. And whether they commit the
shameful deeds about which stories are told—the upsetting of the lamp,
promiscuous intercourse, and eating human flesh (ἀνθρωπείων σαρκῶν
βοράς)—we do not know; but we do know that they are neither persecuted nor
put to death by you, at least for their opinions. (St. Justin Martyr: The
First and Second Apologies [trans. Leslie William Barnard; New York:
Paulist Press, 1997], 41)
These were the stock-in-trade of pagan
stories about Christian gatherings (cf. Minuc. Felix Oct. 28; Tert. Apol. 7.1;
Eus. H. E. 5.1.14—the Letter of the Church of Lyons and Vienne).
A story was told of dogs tied to lampstands; crusts of bread were thrown to
them, the lights went out, and dark practices began; Thyestes was tricked by an
enemy Atreus into eating the flesh of his own children and Oedipus was
similarly beguiled into committing incest with his mother Iocasta—OCD 747–48. Pliny Ep. ad Traj. 96.7 seems to know of the charge of cannibalistic
meals. No doubt the secrecy of Christian gatherings, at first a necessity, had
much to do with these accusations. For a good statement see P. Carrington, Christian Apologetics in the Second Century
(London, 1921), 112–13, and J. H. Crehan’s note in ACW 23.126. It is a terrible
fact that the same accusations were later made against the Euchites and other
heretical sects. The story of Saint Hugh of Lincoln shows the same legend
flourishing on Christian soil in England at the expense of the Jews. These
calumnies arise and revive where color is given to gossip by secret meetings of
both sexes. A. S. L. Farquharson, Marcus
Aurelius, His Life and His World (Oxford, 1952), 144–45, thinks that the
language of Christians about unorthodox sects may have been taken up by
malicious or stupid antagonists: “It was their unhappy custom, inherited from
the Hebrew prophets, to use terms of moral reprobation to characterize
intellectual obliquity” (145)
First Apology 33:
It
is wrong, therefore, to understand the Spirit and the power of God as anything
else than the Word, who is also the first-born of God . . . (ANF 1:174)
A difficult passage that implies that, for
Justin, the Spirit and the logos are two names for the same person. Cf. also 1 Apol. 33.9, 36.1, where he speaks of
the logos inspiring the prophets while elsewhere holding that this was the
function of the Spirit. However, the coming down of the logos and entry into
the womb of Mary were central to Justin’s theory of the incarnation and, as the
traditional account spoke of the Spirit and Power, it may be that this provided
the impetus to identify them as regards function. This, however, does not
exclude the belief that the Spirit was distinct from the Father and the Son;
cf. 1 Apol. 60.6–7 where Justin
clearly distinguishes between the logos and the Spirit who, although similar in
nature, are unequal in rank. In strict logic, and with his Middle Platonist
idea of God, there is no place in Justin’s thought for the Person of the Spirit
as the logos carries out His functions. But the fact that he has so much to say
about the Spirit and refers to the traditional formulas shows that he was
strongly influenced by Christian experience and worship as he knew it in the
life of the Church; Barnard, 102–06. The belief that the miraculous conception
was wrought by the divine logos continued to be held in the Church until the mid-fourth
century; Tert. Adv. Prax. 26; Cypr. De Idol. Van.; Hil. Trin. 2.24, 26. (St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second
Apologies [trans. Leslie William Barnard; New York: Paulist Press, 1997], Logos
Edition)
