J. Martyr’s Corpus

The Works of Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr

Everything of Justin’s that survives: the two apologies he addressed to Rome, and his long debate with a Jewish teacher named Trypho.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 176
Stat total: 344

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina84

Contend98

Defend74

Popularity88

Total344

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Contend 98

The whole Justin — the philosopher who died for the Word he found seeded even in Socrates. The first full-dress case for Christianity as the true philosophy, and it argues like it.

Popularity 88

Justin was famous in his own century and is famous now — quick to the debate floor.

Cited for this book

Justin, philosopher and martyr (c. 100–165), gave the church its first sustained philosophical apologetic. His works survive chiefly through Parisinus graecus 450 (A.D. 1364).

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

First Apology→
Lv 11

First & Second Apology→
Lv 25

J. Martyr’s Corpus

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
25	Diagonalization	Biblical Theology	Argument	85	100%	5
27	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
28	A Sign Not Common to All	Christology	Argument	80	95%	8
34	We Who Hated One Another	Ethics	Argument	82	100%	10
42	A Flame Was Kindled	Rationality	Argument	84	100%	10
50	Speak Greek	History	Status	—	100%	5
56	Published Beforehand	History	Argument	88	100%	10
64	We Would Not Live By Telling A Lie	Christology	Argument	90	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“Many things human beings conceptualize as opposites can be overcome when viewed from a biblical perspective that refuses to accept the (humanly constructed) opposition.”
Forrest, Chatraw & McGrath, The History of Apologetics — a short excerpt from a modern work, cited as such; the category is theirs, not a father’s.

Diagonalization

Biblical TheologyArgument · power 85 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe biblical refusal of false opposites: what the world splits in two, Scripture holds together. A method the great books share.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“For if He to whom Isaiah referred was not to be begotten of a virgin, of whom did the Holy Spirit declare, Behold, the Lord Himself shall give us a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son?' For if He also were to be begotten of sexual intercourse, like all other first-born sons, why did God say that He would give a sign which is not common to all the first-born sons?”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 84 (trans. Roberts & Donaldson, ANF vol. 1, 1885, public domain).public domain

A Sign Not Common to All

ChristologyArgument · power 80 · 95% accurate

In the gameJustin’s answer to Trypho: an ordinary birth needs no sign, and God said he would give one.

Strong against

×2.5Irenaeus Frag.a book · why?

Irenaeus makes this same argument on Isaiah 7:14 in Against Heresies 3.21. Elsewhere he names Justin as a teacher he trusts (4.6.2 and 5.26.2).

×2.5Irenaeus’ Corpusa book · why?

Irenaeus makes this same argument on Isaiah 7:14 in Against Heresies 3.21. Elsewhere he names Justin as a teacher he trusts (4.6.2 and 5.26.2).

×2Almah, Not Virginan argument · why?

Justin asked Trypho why God would call an ordinary birth a sign. Young women have babies every day. God promised something nobody could mistake.

“we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies…”
Justin Martyr, First Apology 14 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

We Who Hated One Another

EthicsArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameJustin does not argue that Christians are nice. He lists what the same people used to do and what they do now, in front of an emperor who could check, and lets the change stand as the evidence. The claim is falsifiable by anyone who knows them.

Strong against

×2.5Known by Its Fruitsan argument · why?

The charge points at the wreckage and does not have to argue. Justin answers in the same currency — not a defence of the record but a list of what the same people stopped doing — handed to an emperor who was free to go and check it.

“But straightway a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, and for this reason, I am a philosopher.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 8 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).public domain

A Flame Was Kindled

RationalityArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameJustin had tried the Stoics, the Aristotelians, the Pythagoreans and the Platonists when an old man by the sea pointed him to the prophets. He did not stop being a philosopher. He said this was where philosophy led.

Strong against

×2.5The Five Common Notionsan argument · why?

Herbert’s five notions are what reason can reach without help, and he thinks religion needs nothing further. Justin had worked through four schools before the prophets, and says the search was not wasted and was not finished either: he calls himself a philosopher in the same breath.

“There were, then, among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that were to come to pass, ere ever they happened.”
Justin Martyr, First Apology 31 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).public domain

Published Beforehand

HistoryArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameJustin’s central evidence, and he presses the part that can be checked: the books were written first, kept by the kings of the Jews, and were in hands that had no reason to help him. A story a community invents afterwards does not leave its predictions in the custody of people who dispute it.

Strong against

×2.5The Life of Jesus Examinedan argument · why?

Strauss has the community writing the story backwards out of its own hopes. Justin points at where the hopes were kept: in books the kings of the Jews preserved, in hands with no reason to help him, written before the events they name.

×2Irenaeus Frag.a book · why?

Irenaeus argues, as Justin did, that the prophets spoke of Christ before he came. He names Justin as a trusted teacher (4.6.2 and 5.26.2).

×2Irenaeus’ Corpusa book · why?

Irenaeus argues, as Justin did, that the prophets spoke of Christ before he came. He names Justin as a trusted teacher (4.6.2 and 5.26.2).

“it is in our power, when we are examined, to deny that we are Christians; but we would not live by telling a lie.”
Justin Martyr, First Apology 8 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

We Would Not Live By Telling A Lie

ChristologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameJustin’s case, and he was later executed for it. Every Christian on trial could go free by saying one word. The puzzle is not that they believed, but that they would not deny it when denying cost nothing.

Strong against

×2.5A Uniform Experience Against Itan argument · why?

Hume weighs testimony and asks which is the greater miracle, that the witness is mistaken or that the thing happened. Justin narrows it: every one of them could have said one word and walked out. What needs explaining is the refusal, not the belief.

×2.5An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandinga book · why?

Read it: Thus I Am a Philosopher

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Koine Greek.

“Being at first desirous of personally conversing with one of these men, I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic; and having spent a considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary), I left him and betook myself to another, who was called a Peripatetic.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 2 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“And this man, after having entertained me for the first few days, requested me to settle the fee, in order that our intercourse might not be unprofitable. Him, too, for this reason I abandoned, believing him to be no philosopher at all.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 2 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“But if it lives, it lives not as being life, but as the partaker of life; but that which partakes of anything, is different from that of which it does partake. Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 6 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“There existed, long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers… They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men… For they did not use demonstration in their treatises, seeing that they were witnesses to the truth above all demonstration, and worthy of belief.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 7 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“But pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and His Christ have imparted wisdom.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 7 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“But straightway a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, and for this reason, I am a philosopher.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 8 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“I shall prove to you as you stand here that we have not believed empty fables, or words without any foundation but words filled with the Spirit of God, and big with power, and flourishing with grace.”
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 9 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

“Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar.”
Justin Martyr, First Apology 13 (trans. Dods & Reith, ANF 1, public domain).

Notes

The Dialogue with Trypho, c. A.D. 155–160, set at Ephesus. Trypho is a Jew who had fled the Bar Kokhba war. It is the first sustained Christian argument that Jesus is the Messiah of the Hebrew Scriptures — and it opens with Justin’s own tour of the philosophical schools.

That tour is funnier than it looks. The Stoic did not know God and thought it did not matter; the Peripatetic wanted his fee; the Pythagorean sent him away to learn geometry first. Only the Platonist satisfied him — "and such was my stupidity, I expected immediately to look upon God."

Then the old man on the shore takes the Platonism apart. The soul does not live BY BEING life; it partakes of life, because God wills it to. A soul that is immortal in itself owes nobody anything. This one is a creature, kept alive moment by moment.

Note where the old man leaves it. He has made the argument, and then he says: pray that the gates of light may be opened to you. The argument was not enough, and he says so before he walks away.

"Thus, and for this reason, I am a philosopher." He never took the cloak off. He was executed at Rome around A.D. 165 still wearing it.

Notice what Justin does in First Apology 13, too. He does not place Christ in a golden age or a sacred nowhere — he names a governor, a province, and an emperor. Dated, public, checkable, which is exactly how he wants it.