The First Apology The Second Apology Dialogue With Trypho Exhortation To The Greeks Discourse To The Greeks The Monarchy Or The Rule Of God Saint Justin Martyr by Saint Justin Martyr 9780813215525, 0813215528 instant download after payment.

St. Justin Martyr is known as the oustanding apologist of the second
century. While the Apostolic Fathers like St. Clement of Rome, St.
Ignatius of Antioch, and St. Polycarp had addressed members within the
Christian fold, St. Justin is considered to be the first prominent
defender of the Christian faith against non-Christians and the enemies
of the Church. The chief sources for the uncertain and meager
chronological data of Justin's life are his own writings, the two
Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho. The circumstances leading up to
his conversion are recorded in the first eight chapters of the Dialogue,
and the events surrounding his death are reported in the Acta SS.
Justini et Sociorum, an authentic source of the latter part of the
second century. Historians place his birth in the beginning of the
second century (ca. 100-110 A.D.) at Flavia Neapolis (today Nablus) in
Samaria. Although St. Epiphanius calls him a Samaritan, and he himself
refers to his people as Samarians, Justin was not Jewish in either race
or religion. His family was rather of pagan and Greco-Roman anscestry.
They had come as colonists to Flavia Neapolis during the reign of Titus
(79-81 A.D.), the son of Flavius Vespasian (69-79), who had built this
city and had granted its inhabitants the privileges of Roman citizens.
Obviously, the parents of Justin had considerable means and could afford
to give their son an excellent education in the pagan culture of the
day. Young Justin had a keen mind, was inquisitive by nature and endowed
with a burning thirst for learning. He tried to broaden his knowledge
further by extensive travels. Driven by an inner urge and a profound
inclination for philosophy, he subsequently frequented the schools of
the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, and the Platonists. He
set out to reach the truth; to gain a perfect knowledge of God was his
greatest and only ambition. Dissatisfied with the Stoics and
Peripatetics, he tells us of finding temporary peace in the philosophy
of the Platonists: 'the perception of incorporeal things quite
overwhelmed me and the Platonic theory of ideas added wings to my mind,
so that in a short time I imagined myself a wise man. So great was my
folly that I fully expected immediately to gaze upon God.'