dress of a Grecian sage. Eusebius* informs us that he preached Christianity in the philosophers' garb, which consisted of a sort of cloak or mantle of a peculiar form, and usually of a black color; and it was this garb, as we learn from himself, which imposed on Trypho the Jew and led him to address him as a philosopher. Of the date of his conversion nothing can with certainty be affirmed. The year 132 or 133 of the common era, however, is usually assigned, probably with some near approach to truth. After his conversion but few notices of him occur in his own writings, and we gather little, on which we can depend, from other sources. In a treatise, † which bears his name, though its genuineness has been strongly contested, we find incidental mention of him as having been in Campania and Egypt, ‡ and Ephesus is the scene of his celebrated Dialogue with Trypho. It is not improbable, that his zeal for the propagation of Christianity may have led him to visit these and other places. His usual residence, however, as Eusebius informs us, was at Rome. He was certainly much there, and if the piece, called the Acts of his Martyrdom, be entitled to any credit as a historical memoir, he dwelt at a place called Timothy's Baths, on the Viminal Mount, where he conversed freely with all who resorted to him, and by discourse and writings, engaged, as occasion offered, in defence of Christianity, and fearlessly met and repelled the foul charges brought against its professors. He is supposed to have written his first or larger Apology, addressed to the emperor, Antoninus Pius, and his adopted sons, Marcus Antoninus and Lucius, to the Senate, and people of Rome, about the year 140, though some, and among them Tillemont, Grabe, and the editor of the last Paris edition, place the period of its composition as late as 150, and others, as Dodwell, Basnage, Petavius, and Le Clerc, as early as 138 or 139 of the vulgar era. It was occasioned by the suffering of the Christians under a severe persecution, instigated, in this instance, it seems, writings generally, from real life, but worked up his rough materials according to his own fancy and judgment; and, as he was not deficient in a very complacent opinion of his own abilities, his imaginary antagonist is made to treat him with great respect, and yield him advantages in argument, which a real Jew of ordinary shrewdness would not have given. But whether the dialogue be fictitious or not, is of no importance, since in either case we must suppose it to furnish a true record of Justin's opinions. *Hist. Eccles. L. iv. c. 11. t Cohortatio ad Græcos. by the phrensy of the populace, who were accustomed at the public games, and whenever opportunity offered, to clamor for their blood, and urge the civil authorities to put in execution the imperial edicts then existing against them, but which the humanity of the magistrates appears sometimes to have allowed to sleep. This Apology is alluded to in the Dialogue with Trypho, which must, therefore, have been written at a subsequent period; Pearson thinks in the year 146.* The second Apology appears to have been written at a still later period, and not long before his martyrdom. It was addressed, according to Eusebius, † to Marcus Antoninus, the Philosopher, though some modern critics, as Thirlby and Pearson, || have inferred from internal evidence, that this, as well as the former, was offered to Antoninus Pius. Justin was roused to offer this Apology by the sufferings of three persons, who had been recently put to death by Urbicus, Prefect of the city, for no crime, but only for acknowledging themselves the followers of Christ. This act of Urbicus he regarded only as a prelude to still further severities, and with the exalted courage of a martyr, he stepped forward and endeavoured to avert the storm which seemed ready to burst on the heads of his fellow Christians. The consequences of his zeal and activity he seems fully to have anticipated. His ability, the weight of his character, his powerful appeals and remonstrances, and his unsparing censure of the follies of paganism, provoked the hostility of the enemies of the christian name, and they now more than ever panted for the blood of so noble a victim. Near the beginning of his Apology he expressed his belief that the fate of his companions would soon be his own. He had a de termined, and, as the event proved, a powerful adversary in one Crescens, a Cynic philosopher, whom he describes as a person of infamous character, but fond of popularity and willing to resort to any arts, however base, for the purpose of obtaining it. The odium shared by the Christians, already virulent enough, appears to have been rendered still more deadly, by his exertions. He went about to inflame the minds of the people against them, shamelessly reiterating the then stale charge of immorality and Atheism against them, though, as Justin affirms, entirely ignorant of their principles. He appears, however, to have obtained the ear of the emperor; for his machinations succeeded, and Justin was sacrificed. * Just. Ed. Thrlb. p. 439, t L. iv. c. 16. Of his death by martyrdom there is no doubt. The little treatise, already mentioned, called the 'Acts of the Martyrdom of Justin and Others,' would furnish an affecting account of the concluding scene of his life, could its authenticity be ascertained. But this is considered as more than questionable. The piece is one of acknowledged antiquity, but the date of its composition cannot be ascertained, nor have we any means of determining whether the Justin whose sufferings it recounts, is the saint of whom we are speaking, or another individual of the same name. In these Acts he is said to have been beheaded, and we can easily credit them when they assert that he met death with the calmness and fortitude becoming a follower of the crucified Jesus. The precise year of his death is unknown. Fabricius* and Grabe + place it at A. D. 163, or perhaps 165, says the latter; Tillemont‡ at 167 or 168; others at one of the intervening years 165, or 166. There is a tradition in the Greek Church that he died by poison, but this tradition has been considered as entitled to little respect. Some writers of the Romish Communion would persuade us that he was admitted to the order of priest, or bishop in that Church. But in support of this hypothesis, they offer only vague conjectures. The ancients observe the most profound silence on the subject, nor do the Romanists of modern times venture to assign him any particular church or see. The Romish Church observes his festival on the 13th of April, and the Greek, on the first of June. 6 Several of the works of Justin are lost, among which we particularly regret his book Against all Heresies,' mentioned by himself. His first Apology, placed second in all the earlier editions of his works, has reached us nearly, if not quite, entire. The second is somewhat mutilated at the beginning, and in other respects appears imperfect. The genuineness of the Dialogue with Trypho has been questioned by a few, but, we think, for very insufficient reasons. The Hortatory Address to the * Biblioth. Græc. T. V. p. 52. Eccles. Mem. II. p. 145. + Spici. Patr. T. II. pp. 146-7, § Dodwell has expressed an opinion that he was born A. D. 119, and suffered death A. D. 149, at thirty years of age (Dissert. iii. in Irenæum. § 19.) But this opinion is not supported by any good authority. Epiphanius, indeed, says that Justin perished during the reign of Adrian, at thirty years of age. But it is beyond question, as has been generally observed, either that Epiphanius was deceived, or that his text has been corrupted, it being quite certain that Justin survived Adrian, Greeks has been rejected by several modern critics,* and Thirlby has not admitted it into his edition of the works of the Saint. Of the several other treatises formerly published under his name and included in the later editions of his works, with the exception of Thirlby's, none are now considered as entitled to a place among his genuine and acknowledged remains. Most of them are universally rejected as spurious,† and the two or three short fragments, still sometimes referred to as his, are of too doubtful a character to authorise us to cite them as part of his genuine works. ‡ * Its genuineness was attacked by Casimir Oudin, a writer of some little note in his time, and who died at Leyden, in 1717. Dr Kaye, too, the title of whose work stands at the head of the present article, adduces some arguments to show that it was not written by Justin. pp. 5-11. These are the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, the Exposition of the Right Faith, Questions and Responses to the Orthodox, Christian Questions to the Greeks, and Greek Questions to the Christians, and the Confutation of certain Dogmas of Aristotle, all thrown into the appendix in the Paris edition of 1742, as manifestly supposititious. Such are the Oration to the Greeks, supposed by some (See Grabe Spici. Patr. ii. 149.) to be the Elenchus,' mentioned by Eusebius as a work of Justin; the short fragment on the Monarchy of God, and the Epistle to Diognetus, which Lardner, as he tells us, (Works, vol. i. p. 342. Lon. 1815.) could not persuade himself to quote as Justin's,' though we find the Spirit of the Pilgrims,' (Number for August) unblushingly citing it as one of his genuine productions. Tillemont is decidedly of opinion that it is not his, (Eccles. Mem. ii. pp. 57, 286, 384,) and even the 'good' Grabe hesitates to receive it as Justin's (Spici. Patr. ii. 165); as also Du Pin (Nouv. Biblioth. des Aut. Eccles. T. i. p. 58. P. i. 693) and the Editor of the last Paris edition. One ground of doubt is the style, which differs materially from that of the acknowledged works of Justin. Of this fact the short passage given in the Spirit of the Pilgrims' furnishes, we think, an illustration. It is not in the usual manner of Justin. Professor Stuart, whom the Conductors of the Spirit of the Pilgrims,' we suppose, will not allow to be deficient in patristical' lore, says (Letters on the Eternal Generation of the Son of God, p. 23.), that the two Apologies and Dialogue are the only works of Justin, of which the genuineness is in any good degree certain.' 6 The first printed edition of the works of Justin, in Greek, is that of R. Stevens, in 1551. This edition includes nearly the whole of what has been attributed to Justin, Stevens having published the spurious along with the genuine, from a manuscript which belonged to the Royal Library. The second Address to the Greeks or Gentiles, and the Epistle to Diognetus, however, were not embraced in it, but were published by Henry Stevens in 1592, and 1595. The first translation into Latin was that of Joachim Perion, or Perionius, a French Monk of the order of St Benedict, and distinguished, as we are told, among the Theologians of his time. This was published in 1554. Another version was published the following year, 1555, at Bâsle, and again at Paris in 1575, by Sigism. Gelenius, or Ghelenn, of Prague, and finished by another hand, the labors of Gelenius being interrupted by death. A third translation was published at Bâsle in 1565, by John Langus, more properly Langius, a Silesian, who completed his task, as be tells us, before he had seen the two versions just mentioned. Of these versions, that of Langius, faulty as it is, VOL. VII.-N. S. VOL. II. NO. II. 20 Justin has been the subject of much extravagant panegyric. Profound learning, penetration, wit, judgment, and eloquence, almost every quality, which goes to make a great writer, have been ascribed to him by his too partial admirers. Antiquity is loud in his praise. Tatian, his disciple, calls him a 'most wonderful' man; and Methodius, a writer of the third century, tells us that he was 'not far removed from the apostles either in time or virtue.' Photius, too, though he admits that his style wants attractions for the vulgar, extols his solidity of matter, and vast has had the fortune to be preferred to the two preceding, and has been retained in several subsequent editions of Justin's works. Sylburgius adopted it in his edition of this Father, in Greek and Latin, published at Heidelberg in 1593. This edition was reprinted at Paris in 1615, and again in 1636. That bearing the latter date was highly esteemed, and is the edition generally intended, when the reference is made to the Paris edition by several writers during the century subsequent to its publication. G. A. Grabe published an edition of the larger Apology in octavo, at Oxford, in 1700, accompanied with the version of Langius amended, and with notes by various hands. In the same place and form, was issued in 1703, the shorter Apology, with the Oration to the Greeks and the Book on the Monarchy of God, by H. Hutchinson. In 1719, Samuel Jebb published at London, also in octavo, the Dialogue with Trypho, with the translation of Langius revised, and emendations and notes by Stevens, Perionius, and several others. Thirlby's edition of the two Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho, was published in London in 1722. This edition is beautifully printed, and contains some valuable notes, generally brief, and not incumbered with useless learning. On points involving doctrinal controversies, however, Thirlby has studiously avoided entering into any discussion. His edition, if we may credit Mosheim, (Commentaries on the Affairs of Christians before the time of Constantine, ii. 189. Lon. 1813) has never been held in much estimation on the continent. He has retained the Latin version of Langius, in numerous places altered and amended, though not with great diligence. In fact, as he informs us in his preface, he was a capital enemy' to translations. He considered the ridiculous practice, as he terms it, of sending out Greek books accompanied with a Latin translation, as exceedingly injurious to the cause of Greek literature, and was near issuing his Justin without a version. But upon the earnest remonstrance of his publisher, who assured him that a Greek book not accompanied with a Latin Version, in a parallel column, was the most unsaleable of all commodities, and would be only food for worms, he was induced to abandon his design. He therefore availed himself of the labors of Langius, correcting some of his errors, but after all executed the task of revision in a manner slovenly enough. The last Paris edition is that of Prud. Maran, or Maranus, a Benedictine Monk of the Congregation of St Maur. This edition includes all the treatises, as well spurious as genuine, which have been at different times published under the name of Justin. The volume contains likewise the remains of several other Greek writers of the second century, as Tatian, Justin's disciple, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, and Hermias. Maran gave a new Latin version of the two Apologies, and the Dialogue, This, if we mistake not, is the most recent edition, with the exception of one published at Wurtzburg in 1777, by Obethur. The two latter, we believe, are now esteemed the best editions of the works of Justin, |