One day, while Justin was walking by the seashore, meditating on the thought of God, an old man met him and questioned him on the subject of his doubts; and when he had made Justin confess that the philosophers taught nothing certain about God, he told him of the writings of the inspired prophets and of Jesus Christ Whom they announced, and bade him seek light and understanding through prayer. (Lives of Saints, St. Justin)
From this time onward, the conviction that man cannot achieve the knowledge of God without divine revelation formed the foundation of St. Justin's faith. Confirmed by the witness of the Christian martyrs, St. Justin's faith soon led to his conversion which took place no later than the Year 130 (Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Justin, para. 3). He traveled through Greece, Egypt, and Italy preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sometime between the years 138 and 161 of Our Lord, St. Justin settled in Rome and established a school where he began teaching the Faith after the manner of the Greek Philosophers whom he had studied.
After gathering disciples and teaching for some years, St. Justin took up the Cross and sealed his teaching in blood along with a number of his pupils. Brought before the Prefect, St. Justin's final testimony is recorded as follows:
The Prefect Rusticus says: Approach and sacrifice, all of you, to the gods. Justin says: No one in his right mind gives up piety for impiety. The Prefect Rusticus says: If you do not obey, you will be tortured without mercy. Justin replies: That is our desire, to be tortured for Our Lord, Jesus Christ , and so to be saved, for that will give us salvation and firm confidence at the more terrible universal tribunal of Our Lord and Saviour. And all the martyrs said: Do as you wish; for we are Christians, and we do not sacrifice to idols. (St. Justin Martyr, Catholic Encyclopedia, avail. here)
Alban Butler continues the record with these poignant words: "Do you think," the prefect said to Justin, "that by dying you will enter heaven, and be rewarded by God?" "I do not think," was the Saint's answer; "I know." (Lives of Saints, St. Justin) The saint and his followers were then condemned to death and beheaded on April 13th. This was probably in the 165th Year of Our Lord. His feast day was placed on the 14th of April in 1882 by Pope Leo XIII (St. Justin Martyr, Catholic Encyclopedia), but this was later moved to the the 1st of June by the Novus Ordo in 1968. Catholics continue to celebrate St. Justin's feast on the day after his death.
The certitude of St. Justin's confession ("I do not think, I know") is not only remarkable in its own right; it also marks a point of significant change in the way the Faith was to be understood and articulated among Christians of future generations. This is because St. Justin lived at the close of the age of the Apostolic Fathers and is considered the first in the age of the Apologists. The Apostolic Fathers practiced, first and foremost, what is known as "positive" theology; that is, they were concerned solely with repeating that which is found in the deposit of faith. In the case of the Apostolic Fathers, this "deposit of faith" was imparted by the direct, personal testimony of the Apostles themselves.
As a result, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers were typically epistolary and personal in character. Their authority was based on direct knowledge and experience of the Apostles (who had themselves lived with and handled the Incarnate God), and their writings were directed towards individuals and communities with primarily local needs and questions. Such writings were neither systematic nor comprehensive in scope, and their greatest strength lay in the holy urgency and fervor of their authors. This was appropriate for a faith which was still extremely limited in extent and comprised primarily of small, familiar communities whose belief and trust were based on personality rather than philosophy.
As the last of the Apostolic Fathers died, however, so did the last surviving links with the Apostles, but the Church continued to expand rapidly both in numbers as a whole and in pagan converts particularly. The impromptu approach of the Apostolic Fathers was no longer appropriate under these conditions not only because the commanding authority of the wonder-working Apostles was no longer as proximate, but also because the persuasive power of personal contact alone could no longer suffice to establish the Faith among the increasingly numerous (and increasingly well-educated) converts to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church needed a new a generation of leaders: men whose authority did not have to rely exclusively on personal contact with the Apostles and whose persuasive powers reached beyond their own personalities. These new leaders were the "Apologists".
The "Apologists" acquired their title by the practice of "Apologetics" because that is what formed the new principle by which these men were to establish the Faith. While the Apostolic Fathers were in the practice of writing "apologies" to refute error or defend the Truth, these were neither systematic in character nor general in scope. The Apologists, on the other hand, took these individual "apologies" and began using principles of reason and philosophy to forge a dogmatic system suited for a universal audience. This was a momentous step not only because it shifted the focus of teaching from particulars to absolutes, but even more so because it shifted the authority for this teaching from the personal ("I indeed am of Paul; and I am of Apollo; and I am of Cephas; and I of Christ") to the reasonable ("No one in his right mind gives up piety for impiety.").
St. Justin personifies these qualities plainly in both his life and his writing. That philosophy and reason were essential not just to St. Justin's faith but to his very soul cannot be doubted since he relentlessly pursued the Truth by means of these principles from his earliest years. Then, after his conversion, his entire life became consecrated to the principle that the Gospel is reasonable both philosophically and historically. Finally, when considering the testimony of his passion, we perceive this conviction as firm as it had always been (for some 62 years) in the calm certitude with which he rebukes the Roman Prefect as being out of his right mind for sacrificing to idols and rejecting Christ.
To understand the precise nature and significance of St. Justin, we must examine his teaching on the Logos. The Logos was not a new or original idea to the Jews, the Greeks or the Christians. Among the Jews, Philo of Alexandria (and the Jewish scholars of Alexandria generally) had developed this concept extensively. He described the "Logos" as the intermediary, creative power or conception by which God interacts with His creation. Philo perceived the Logos as resolving the infinite difference which separates God from created things (Catholic Encyclopedia, The Logos, The Word in Judaism). Among the Greeks, it was the Stoics who are best known for their development of the Logos since it is not found among the writings of Aristotle or Plato. The Stoics described the Logos as the all-permeating, causative force by which God created all things and which bears all things to their appointed end with irresistible force, a force with which the true Stoic willingly conformed himself.
In the Gospel, the Logos took on a new and shocking aspect: "And the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1). This stunning declaration was totally outside the conceptions both of the Jews and the Greeks. For the Stoics, it was the irresistible law of the universal, and for the Alexandrian Jews it was the divine emanation mediating between the finite and the infinite. To say that this had become a person was roughly equivalent to saying that "goodness" or "truth" was now a person and had a name, place, time and (most scandalous of all) a band of disciples who had been given specific teachings and practices at variance with those of other men. Such a "man" (if he could be so called) would indeed be foolishness to the Greeks and a terrific scandal to the Jews.
Although proclaimed quite boldly at the beginning of St. John's Gospel (in such a way that he clearly expected his Christian audience to be familiar with the "logos"), the Apostolic Fathers did not develop upon or take much notice of this theme. Instead, it was the Apologists who succeeded them, and in particular St. Justin, who became known for the exposition of this new "Logos Theology", as it might be called. St. Justin, of course, had become familiar with the "Logos" during his studies as a Stoic, and he retained this in his writings later as a Christian. Particularly when writing to pagans, he stressed that both the ancient Greek philosophers and the Christians were seeking and teaching the same Logos, but that the Christian doctrine had surpassed the philosophers by proclaiming the penultimate end to their everlasting ruminations: Jesus Christ - the Logos Himself.
In a very real way, St. Justin does for the philosophers of the Greeks what earlier writers (such as St. Paul) did for the Prophets of the Jews: he established that Christ was the predicate, subject and end of all their thought and purpose. As such, Christians are the true philosophers and live the life of purity and virtue which was sought by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and the like. In proof of this, St. Justin returns time and again to the heroic testimony of the Christians and especially the martyrs. Their brotherhood and courage he contrasted with the many puerile sects of the philosophical schools. In particular he called attention to the martyrs who, unlike the follows of Plato and Aristotle, shed their blood for their Master. Thus, Christians died for the Truth which the Greeks merely talked about.
Reflecting upon the life and philosophy of St. Justin, it is remarkable to see the many "apostolic" churches and movements of our time. Such communities boldly proclaim that they are "returning" to the "Apostolic Church" in order to purge away the accretions which have gathered over the centuries. The Protestants and Charismatics certainly claim to be doing this. By "returning" to the Scripture alone they hope to shove St. Justin and all the other theologians of the Church to one side in an audacious bid to become "apostolic" "once again". The Novus Ordo also, in its thirst for "ecumenism" has eagerly divested itself of traditional Apologetics as established by St. Justin in order to "return" to the age of the Apostolic Fathers who were theoretically more tolerant and accepting of unorthodox creeds. Nor are the Eastern Orthodox churches less eager to dispense with philosophy and reason in favor of a less reasonable and more arbitrary interpretation of the Tradition.
None of these churches, however, has preserved the faith which existed in both the Apologists and the Apostolic Fathers. The Protestants, who use the Bible as their sole rule of faith, are not practicing the tradition of the Apostolic Fathers or the Apologists both of whom referred back to the unwritten tradition of the Apostles. The Charismatics, who refer everything back to the "charisma" of the Spirit, have also rejected the dogmatic purity which the Apologists pursued relentlessly. The Novus Ordo, who accept all interpretations of the Gospel as equally valid, are a complete mockery of the steadfast certainty with which St. Justin rebuked the Proconsul before being decapitated for the one true faith. Even the Eastern Orthodox, who reject any philosophical development beyond the Patristic centuries, have failed to preserve the logical certainly with which St. Justin and the Apologists were able to discover the previously hidden truths of the Faith without erring from its original purity.
The Reflection from the Lives of Saints expresses all this well.
Then, as now, there were many religious opinions, but only one certainty — the certainty of the Catholic faith. This certainty should be the measure of our confidence and our zeal... We have received the gift of faith with little labor of our own. Let us learn how to value it from those who reached it after long search, and lived in the misery of a world which did not know God. Let us fear, as St. Justin did, the account we shall have to render for the gift of God."
(June 1, St. Justin Martyr)
No comments:
Post a Comment