J. Martyr’s Corpus
The Works of Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr
The philosopher’s cloak he never took off — now the whole of it.
- Catch rate
- Not found in the wild
- Base research
- 176
- Stat total
- 305
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.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
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.
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.
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 |
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 while 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).
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.