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Justin Martyr
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Introductory Note to the Writings of Justin Martyr
[1818] It is very generally supposed that Justin was mistaken in understanding this to have been a statue erected to Simon Magus. This supposition rests on the fact that in the year 1574, there was dug up in the island of the Tiber a fragment of marble, with the inscription “Semoni Sanco Deo,” etc., being probably the base of a statue erected to the Sabine deity Semo Sancus. This inscription Justin is supposed to have mistaken for the one he gives above. This has always seemed to us very slight evidence on which to reject so precise a statement as Justin here makes; a statement which he would scarcely have hazarded in an apology addressed to Rome, where every person had the means of ascertaining its accuracy. If, as is supposed, he made a mistake, it must have been at once exposed, and other writers would not have so frequently repeated the story as they have done. See Burton’s Bampton Lectures, p. 374. [See Note in Grabe (1. 51), and also mine, at the end.]
[1819] See chap. vii.
[1820] Which were commonly charged against the Christians.
Chapter XXVII.—Guilt of exposing children.
[1821] Thirlby remarks that the serpent was the symbol specially of eternity, of power, and of wisdom, and that there was scarcely any divine attribute to which the heathen did not find some likeness in this animal. See also Hardwick’s Christ and other Masters, vol. ii. 146 (2d ed.).
[1822] [Note how he retaliates upon the calumny (cap. xxvi.) of the “upsetting of the lamp.”]
Chapter XXVIII.—God’s care for men.
[1823] Literally, “For He foreknows some about to be saved by repentance, and some not yet perhaps born.”
[1824] Those things which concern the salvation of man; so Trollope and the other interpreters, except Otto, who reads τούτων masculine, and understands it of the men first spoken of. [See Plato (De Legibus, opp. ix. p. 98, Bipont., 1786), and the valuable edition of Book X. by Professor Tayler Lewis (p. 52. etc.). New York, 1845.]
Chapter XXIX.—Continence of Christians.
[1825] For a sufficient account of the infamous history here alluded to and the extravagant grief of Hadrian, and the servility of the people, see Smith’s Dictionary of Biography: “Antinous.” [Note, “all were prompt, through fear,” etc. Thus we may measure the defiant intrepidity of this stinging sarcasm addressed to the “philosophers,” with whose sounding titles this Apology begins.]
Chapter XXXI.—Of the Hebrew prophets.
[1826] Some attribute this blunder in chronology to Justin, others to his transcribers: it was Eleazar the high priest to whom Ptolemy applied.
Chapter XXXII.—Christ predicted by Moses.
[1828] Grabe would here read, not σπέρμα, but πνεῦμα, the spirit; but the Benedictine, Otto, and Trollope all think that no change should be made.
Chapter XXXIII.—Manner of Christ’s birth predicted.
[1831] Luke i. 32; Matt. i. 21.
[1832] θεοφοροῦνται, lit. are borne by a god—a word used of those who were supposed to be wholly under the influence of a deity.
Chapter XXXIV.—Place of Christ’s birth foretold.
Chapter XXXV.—Other fulfilled prophecies.
[1834] These predictions have so little reference to the point Justin intends to make out, that some editors have supposed that a passage has here been lost. Others think the irrelevancy an insufficient ground for such a supposition. [See below, cap. xl.]
[1836] Isa. lxv. 2, Isa. lviii. 2.
[1838] ἄκτων. These Acts of Pontius Pilate, or regular accounts of his procedure sent by Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius, are supposed to have been destroyed at an early period, possibly in consequence of the unanswerable appeals which the Christians constantly made to them. There exists a forgery in imitation of these Acts. See Trollope.
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