PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Lorraine P.Buck in her article Justin Martyr's Apologies: Their Number, Destination and Form (Journal of Theological Studies, Apr2003, Vol. 54 Issue 1, p45-59) demonstrates that both the First and Second Apologies that we have from Justin are what Eusebius read as the First Apology. The Second Apology that he referred to is lost. At some point The First Apology was split into the two apologies we now have. She bases this purely on Eusebius' descriptions of the First and Second Apologies. The current apologies match what he said were in the First Apology, while neither of them match what he said was in the Second Apology.

Besides, the testimony of Eusebius the form of the two works makes it clear that the current First and Second Apologies are one work. In the current First Apology there is no description of any specific persecution of Christians that would justify his defense of Christians against general charges. In the current Second policy, there is specific reference to a specific case, but no real defense against general charges.

Thus:
First Apology: General legal defense, but no specific case
Second Apology: A specific case, but no general legal defense.

It is only when we put the two together that we get a work that is a complete defense including a specific case and a general legal defense.

What is interesting, is that the specific details of the case are only stated in what is now presently called the Second Apology. In presenting a defense it seems that the specific charges should have been brought up first. If we read the Second Apology as the beginning of the defense and The First Apology as the later part of the defense, the work makes far more sense

In the current Second Apology, Justin accuses a Roman official named Urbicus
of persecuting three Christians: Ptolemaeus, Lucius and an unknown third man simply because they admitted to being Christians. He says the case started when a Roman woman sued for divorce against her husband and he accused her of being a Christian. The woman wrote to the emperor and asked for a delay in the trial, which was granted by the emperor:

It is nice to know that the Emperor could be relied on to meddle in divorce cases. The idea that the Emperor would grant a delay in the trial of a woman for Christianity seems absurd. Especially when we consider that the author is arguing that Christians are persecuted for simply admitting to being Christians.

The husband took out his rage by having his wife's Christian teacher Ptolemaeus arrested. The husband had the teacher arrested by a centurion. The author tells us that it was only afterwards that the man was asked if he was a Christian.

It is clear that Ptolemaeus was in prison before being asked if he was a Christian. Why therefore was he in prison in the first place. It is pretty obvioius that Ptolemaeus would only have been arrested by the Centurion, a friend of the husband, for having committed adultery with the man's wife.

The author in his defense of the case does not deny that the man committed adultery, in fact, he agrees that Christians who commit crimes like adultery should be punished. He is going to argue however, that the man has been sentenced to death simply because he admitted to being a Christian.

This seems plausible. The narrator is defending the man against the charge of being a Christian, but he is also defending the man against the charge that he is an adulterer. That is why he wishes to prove that the Christians are against adultery and against sex in general. This is why the very first quotes from Jesus are about adultery (First Apology, chapter XV):

It makes sense to see this as a real defense involving a real man Ptolamaeus, a Christian teacher charged with adultery, but sentenced to death when it was discovered that he was a Christian. There are three big problems with this.

1. Oh, by the way, The I'm Going To Die Too
The narrator predicts one thing and one thing only in this work. He predicts that a cynic philosopher named Crescens is going to persecute him on the same charges of being a Christian (Second Apology, Chapter III):
We know from other texts that Crescens is accused of persecuting Justin Martyr and causing his death. If this is true then we really have to assume that Justin Martyr knew his future. Thus this work, which appears to be a defense of a Christian teacher named Plotamaeus can also be seen as a defense of Justin Martyr himself. It seems to me clear that this passage at least, was written by someone who knew/heard that Justin had been accused by Crescens the Cynic and wanted to add irony to the work.

2. Christians Are Not Atheists, They Just Hate All The Gods

The defense of Plotamaeus is outrageous to a maximum degree. Imagine Socrates saying at his trial, "You are all idiots, your Gods are all made up and the Gods that I make up are all true. You say I corrupt the morals of the young, I am going to teach them all to lie and cheat and steal and I am going to have sex with every one of them." Such a speech would certainly be outrageous and designed to get Socrates killed. In a similar way, this speech denounces all the gods of Greece and Rome as demons and pronounces the Christian God as the only true God. If anybody wanted to see every Christian tortured and put to death in the Roman empire, this is exactly the kind of "defense" he would give.

Any Roman would have easily forgiven Plotamaeus for having sex with a beautiful wife. The author has already laid the groundwork for such a defense by telling us that the husband had casual sex with slaves and prostitutes. But suddenly, the narrator tells us that Christians believe that all the Roman and Greek gods are evil angels and have had sex with mortal women and thus produced not heroes, but demons. It is the Christians who are saving the Earth from destruction by fire by expelling these evil demons from people and exposing the Gods as inventions of the poets and philosophers. The author, who starts out trying to defend his client ends up getting him convicted on much worse charges, the most horrible charges imaginable.

3. What Kind of Ending is This:
The Apology ends with this strange call to have it published

The identity of the author suddenly changes here. It goes from a lawyer defending a client to an author begging someone to publish his work and promising an even more juicy expose if his client will only publish this one.

Because of these three factors: 1) self prophesy of death, 2) Making Christians look like insane animals much worse than the fantasies of the worse prosecutors of the Christians, and 3) begging for publication of a work with doctrines "more lofty than all human philosophy" I think we have to conclude that these apologies were meant as sophisticated satires making fun of Christians.
The author could not have known that there would be Christians crazy enough to adopt his ideas as "the Truth."

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Perhaps I'm using the word "satire" wrongly.

The author tells us a story of Ptolemaeus, A Christian teacher accused of adultery who is sentenced to death because he admits he is a Christian. He also tells us the story of Lucius (Second Apology Two):
There is also an unknown third man who copies Luicius, "And still a third having come forward, was condemned to be punished."

The author begins by being "The Third Man," an unknown person helping his two condemned friends. He then becomes Lucius, spontaneously defending an unfairly accused man and finally the author ends up being Ptolemaeus, the condemned Christian teacher who is condemned because he confessed (chapter 13). Here is the author's confession, "I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian"

The author is defending himself. We may take it that the author himself is Ptolemaeus, the man accused of adultery with a female student.

Ptolemaeus is trying to defend himself by saying his only crime is having the name of Christian.

The comedy here is that at the same time he is accusing the authorities of persecuting innocent people for the word/name Christian, he admits that evil demons will be sent to hell by the word/name Jesus Christ:
The Second Apology of Justin is a great way of understanding why the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in the predicament it is in today. He refuses to admit that he is being persecuted for adultery and not for being a Christian. His defense is to totally ignore the real issues and put the letter of the law on trial.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

The Christian teacher who confesses in the text is named Ptolemaeus. The author of the Apology turns into the Christian teacher confessing. We have no reason to believe that the original author did not use his real name in introducing his lead character. Thus the text suggests to us that the author's name is Ptolemaeus

It turns out that there was a famous Christian teacher living in Rome about this time who was an author, who was named Ptolemaeus. He was a disciple of the gnostic Valentinus. He wrote "Letter to Flora" which was preserved by Epiphaneus. It has been assumed widely that the Ptolemaeus referred to in the work is the Gnostic Polemaeus. No one, as far as I know, has suggested that Ptolemaeus was the original author of the work/s that we now know as the Apologies of Justin Martyr.


Compare the one known work of Ptolemaeus, Letter to Flora to the Apologies. The style of using just short quotes from Jesus, but no description of the gospel narratives is the same in both works. In fact, we find the same line from Jesus used in both:

Letter to Flora:
First Apology, Chapter 16:
The connection of this quote with the concept of forbidding anger shows the same thought pattern between the authors. While one might argue that it is a popular quote and two different authors might use it, the connection between forbidding of anger and the particular quote is much harder to explain as coincidence.

Notice also parallel descriptions of God in the Letter to Flora and the Apologies:

Letter to Flora
First Apology:


Second Apology:



Also note the rather gnostic idea presented in Chapter 5 of the Second Apology:

Irenaeus attacks this idea of angels ruling over the Earth, which he attributes to the followers of Valentinus, including Ptolemy (Against Heresies, Book 2:6.3:

Based on this, we can put forward this hypothesis.: Ptolemaeus wrote the original work. He based it not on any actual case, but the fear that he would be discovered committing adultery with his married student Flora. he imagines that it would be discovered that he was a Christian and that would damn him right away without a fair trial. The work gives him

The ending indicates that Ptolemaeus sent it to his superior (Valentinus?) to be published. It is doubtful that it was published. Eusebius got hold of the work and changed it into the work we now have, cutting out all the gnostic ideas and replacing them with more orthodox ones. This is why so many arguments that we find in Eusebius' writings are repeated in this work, for example, the importance of prophesy in proving the truth of Christ.

Eusebius also claimed it was written by Justin. By doing this he proved that orthodox Christian practices existed in the mid-Second Century and that more or less orthodox Christians were persecuted to death in Rome by bad emperors.

When read as an anxious work written by the gnostic Ptolemy and edited and interpolated by Eusebius, we see that Orthodox Christianity did not exist in Rome in the mid Second century and that Christians who were persecuted for real sexual activities such as adultery, used the name of Christian to prove their innocence and claim unfair persecution.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Your treatment of this "Apology or Apologies of Justin" looks interesting and may have uncovered novel insights into this domain. What does the recent academic scholarship have to say about sorting out the works of Justin and Pseudo Justin?

Did Orthodox Christianity Begin As a Satire On Christianity?

I can see that you have questioned your original OP above, and retracted the term "satire" as an appropriate term. The cycle of Apologies and Martyrdoms is a rich and fertile literary arena. Who would write such material and for what reason? These are IMO excellent questions to ask.

If I had to suggest and put forward an "Early Christian literary work" which involved "Apologies" and "Martrydoms" and "Persecutions" --- as a literary satire --- I would suggest having a quick look at Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist - John the Theologian.

In this account we find the Jews who are about to be expelled from Rome taking the time and finding the courage to write an entire BOOK to the Emperor Domitian, outlining the terribly depravity of the new and strange nation of Christians. Which you will immediately see is a Eusebian trope.

The emperor Domitian was immediately affected with rage, by the historical truth outlined in the book of the Jews against this new and strange nation, and turned his rage on the new and strange nation.

Here is an extract ....

The text of Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist - John the Theologian may not be classified or categorised into those of "Orthodox Christianity" however it may represent evidence of a satirical author who is writing against this new and strange nation of (orthodox) christians.

In fact, it is likely that this text has formed the basis for the claim that there were persecutions against "Christians" in the rule of Domitian. The text is obviously some form of embellished fiction, which mimics the hypothetical relationship between the nation of the Jews, the nation of the Christians, and the ROman Emperors prior to "Christian Orthodoxy".

It is IMO just another "retrojected" account, and the Eusebian trope suggests that the author had read the 4th century Eusebius.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Mountainman,

I think the Apologies appear to be a satire because they have the most inept lawyer of all time who appears to do everything to get his client convicted instead of being let off. This is, I think, an accidental effect of Ptolemaeus trying to defend himself from adultery charges through a technicality (convicted based on general association of name of Christian with sexual perversion) and Eusebius using the basic text to try to prove the existence of crucifixion-worthy orthodox (Fourth century) Christianity in the Second century.

This "Acts of the Holy Apostle" seems like an unintended poor satire on the gospels with John cast in the role of Jesus. Like Jesus, he gets put on trial through the lies of the Jews, but instead of being crucified, he just gets banished to an island.

I was struck by the openly homosexual nature of this text.

The kiss on the breast can be seen as a satire on John rested on Jesus' breast in the gospels. John is fixated on breasts, usually considered a female sex trait, but it is the breasts of men that are eroticized and kissed here.

The homosexuality is also as expressed in the prayer at the end.:

Poor John was forced to avoid women all his life, not even being allowed to gaze upon a woman, apparently castrasted ("cut out its open actions; who didst afflict and banish him who rebelled in me),

What does he get for it? Nothing - "my soul to have no other possession than Thee alone." It is the end of his life and he possesses nothing.


As in the Apologies, we again have a fantasy interaction with an emperor.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

andrewcriddle

FWIW the idea that the Ptolemaeus whose execution is described in the document known as the 2nd Apology of Justin is the same person as Ptolemaeus the Valentinian has been suggested before by more than one scholar.

The idea that the Ptolemaeus whose execution is described in the 2nd Apology of Justin is the author of the 2nd Apology of Justin is AFAIK original. Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

If we take this hypothesis that Ptolemaeus wrote the original Apologies of Justin and add it to the hypothesis in Eusebius Forged the Vienne/Lyon Martyrs' Letter we see Eusebius' main problem and solution in writing his Church History.

There were no real orthodox Christian writers in Christian history because Orthodoxy meant a version of Christian hstory that was pleasing to the Emperor Constantine. This meant combining a lot of diverse Church doctrines from a multitude of conflicting traditions and ideologies. Eusebius did have a number of works by Gnostic and other heretical Christians who had been attacking each other from about 150 C.E., about 160-170 years. His solution to the problem was to rewrite them, keeping the style and form and attacks against other heretical Christianities, only changing passages which described each writer's own Church practices to make them appear Orthodox or Proto-orthodox. He took off the names of the original writers and gave them the names of rather obscure or perhaps invented figures like Justin Martyr, Polycarp and Irenaeus. In this way, he was able to invent a completely new and Orthodox History of the Church and to cover up the fact that no Churches with Orthodox doctrines existed before his time.

Note: This also explains how Eusebius, before writing his Church history, can write over 30 books (Against Hierocles, Preparatio, Demonstratio), over a thousand pages, and use hundreds of quotes, in defense of Christian doctrines, but not quote a single orthodox Christian writer before himself.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Roger Parvus in A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and other Apellean Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk) (user rparvus on these boards) thinks that the letters of Ignatius were similarly edited by a Catholic editor who overwrite an Apellan writer. But he locates this to an earlier period, when the Apellan faction merged with the proto-orthodox. I don't know how this works into your theory.

mountainman

Eusebius invents both Marcion and the Apellan faction.

Toto

This is where your theory makes no sense, and gets off topic.