WHAT IS AN APOLOGY? CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES AND THE SO-CALLED SECOND SOPHISTIC

Laura Salah Nasrallah

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511998119.002

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1 - WHAT IS AN APOLOGY? CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES AND THE SO-CALLED SECOND SOPHISTIC

from PART I - FRAMING THE QUESTION, FRAMING THE WORLD

Laura Salah Nasrallah

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Laura Salah Nasrallah: Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts

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Summary

When i teach about early christianity in the roman empire, I explain to my students that the early Christian apologists are not apologizing. The second-century Christian Justin writes:

To the Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Eusebes [i.e., Pius] Augustus; and to his son Caesar, Verissimus the Philosopher; and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Caesar and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of paideia; and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans, I, Justin, the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, from the city of Flavia Neapolis in Syria Palestine, have made this address and petition on behalf of those of every race who are unjustly hated and abusively threatened, myself being one of them.

Justin's slightly later contemporary Athenagoras pleads: “I need, as I begin to defend our doctrine (ἀναγκαῖον δέ μοι ἀρχομένωι ἀπολογϵῖσθαι ὑπὲρ τοῦ λόγου δεηθῆναι ὑμῶν), to beg [you], greatest emperors, to listen equitably to us, and not to be prejudiced, carried off by the common and irrational rumor – to beg you to turn your love of learning and love of truth toward our speech” (Leg. 2.6). But certainly Justin and Athenagoras are not sorry. They are not backing down or making up. Rather, through their rhetoric they assert a situation in which they defend themselves, their religion, and their communities in the face of the oppressive powers and possible persecution of the Roman Empire.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture
The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire
, pp. 21 - 50

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511998119.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

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