Friday, March 5, 2021

David E. Nyström on the Extant Manuscript Evidence for Justin Martyr’s The Apology

 

The Apology was written by Justin, probably ca. 155 CE, and it purports to be a petition written to the emperor seeking relief for the persecuted Christian minority. IT survived the Middle Ages, together with the Dialogue, in one single manuscript, the Parisinus graecus 450. The manuscript is dated to 11 September 1364, and on 2 April 1541 a copy was made which still exists under the name Phillippicus 3081. This poor manuscript tradition may seem strange when one reflects upon the strong influence Justin exerted on later Christian tradition, but in fact such cases are more norm than exception for second century Christian texts. The works of many Christian writers from this period, whether mainstream or sectarian, are completely lost to us save for the occasional fragment (Examples of second century authors whose works only survives in fragments are Papias, Marcion and Hegesippus as well as the apologists Quadratus, Apollinaris, and Militiades) found in later Christian writers, and one must assume that there were quite a number of authors whose names or works we know nothing of today at all. Even in the case of the greatest Christian writer of the period, Irenaeus of Lyons, the manuscript tradition is fairly weak and had history taken but a slightly different turn, even his works might have been lost to the modern world (see e.g. Eric Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 1). (David E. Nyström, The Apology of Justin Martyr: Literary Strategies and the Defence of Christianity [Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum neuen testament 462; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018], 11)