HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS BY SAINT JUSTIN, PHILOSOPHER AND MARTYR.

 Alas, with my own eyes I see a dear man pursued around the wall and my heart grieves for him. And what he says about the other gods conspiring agains

 Artemis the archer, sister of the far-shooter. And against Leto stood the strong, helpful Hermes. These and such things Homer taught you about the god

 ...s of you you say have become of piety, some declaring water to be the beginning of all things, others air, others fire, others some other of the af

 Of all of them who had spoken, Thales, the eldest of them all, says that the principle of existing things is water for he says that all things are fr

 having denied it, later says in his conceptions that it is this very thing. Moreover, having formerly declared that everything that has come into bein

 having established for I do not attempt to prove these things from the divine histories among us alone, which you are not yet willing to believe beca

 to organize affairs in Egypt, but also to establish the warrior class with laws. And fourth, they say that Bocchoris the king became a lawgiver, a wis

 it happened that there were once God-fearing men, as you say the oracle declared: Only the Chaldeans obtained wisdom, and also the Hebrews, purely rev

 of wise men or orators, should one wish to make mention, he will find that they have written their own compositions in the letters of the Greeks. But

 it is fitting that it should appear clearly and manifestly. It is necessary, therefore, for you, O men of Greece, foreseeing the things to come and lo

 And in the Oracles it is thus: I adjure you, Heaven, the wise work of the great God, I adjure you, Voice of the Father, which He first uttered, When H

 the poem to fall from its meter, lest he should seem not to have first mentioned the name of the gods. But a little later he sets forth clearly and pl

 he should cause Meletus to be against himself, accusing him before the Athenians and saying: Plato does wrong and is a busybody, not believing in the

 that only disobedience was cast out, but not knowing that they were also persuaded that non-existent gods existed, they passed on the name of the gods

 light, constructs that which comes to be. But perhaps some, not wishing to abandon the doctrines of polytheism, will say that the demiurge himself sai

 having. For it does not seem to me that what was said by Phoenix was said simply: Not even if the god himself should promise me, scraping off old age,

 wishing to confirm what has been said of participation, Plato has written thus in these very words: God, then, as the old saying has it, holding the b

 having heard from one who had come back to life and was relating the things there, has written thus in his very words: For he said that he was present

 poetry, Diodorus, the most renowned of the historians, sufficiently teaches us. For he said that he, having been in Egypt, had learned that Nepenthes,

 to set up the battle-cry of much-lamented war They were eager to place Ossa upon Olympus, but upon Ossa Pelion with its shaking leaves, that heaven m

 and concerning the heaven that came into being that the created heaven, which he also named the firmament, this is the perceptible one that came into

 proclaimed by the name. For, fearing to call the gift of God Holy Spirit, lest he should seem to be an enemy of the Greeks by following the teaching

 supposed them to have the forms of men, you will find that they learned this also from the divine history. For since the history of Moses says, from t

 to you Socrates, the wisest of the wise, to whom even your oracle, as you yourselves say, testifies, saying: Of all men Socrates is the wisest, confes

 It will be easy for you to learn in part the true worship of God from the ancient Sibyl, who teaches you by oracles from some powerful inspiration, th

 it is clear that he said this about the oracle-givers, looking to the oracles of the Sibyl. For he spoke thus: When they succeed in saying many and gr

 Tatian's Address to the Greeks. Do not be so very hostile towards the barbarians, O men of Greece, nor be envious of their doctrines. For what pursuit

 very savagely, having imprisoned his own friend for not wanting to worship him, carried him around like a bear or a leopard. Indeed, he completely fol

 selecting places for their covetousness *** the prominent. But one ought not flatter the leaders with the prospect of kingship, but to wait until the

 I have chosen to order the unordered matter in you, and just as the Word, having been begotten in the beginning, in turn begot our creation for himsel

 not according to fate, but by the free will of those who choose, he foretold the outcomes of future events and he became a hinderer of wickedness thro

 with baubles of the earth he deceived the motherless and orphaned girl. Poseidon sails, Ares delights in wars, Apollo is a cithara player, Dionysus is

 of a kingdom, *** were turned into constellations by the shaping of letters? And how is Kronos, who was fettered and cast out of his kingdom, appointe

 of faith with glory become but the poor man and the most moderate, desiring the things that are his own, more easily gets by. Why, I ask, according to

 were zealous to be but the Lord of all allowed them to luxuriate until the world, having reached its end, should be dissolved, and the judge should a

 refusing a suffering god, they were shown to be fighters against God rather than God-fearing. You too are such men, O Greeks, talkative in words, but

 of the spirit But when the tabernacle is not of such a kind, man excels the beasts only in articulate speech, but in other respects his way of life i

 causes, when they happen, they ascribe to themselves, attacking whenever weariness overtakes them. But there are times when they themselves by a tempe

 For if it were so, much more would he ward off his own enemy from himself for being able to help others also, he will much more become his own avenge

 you? Therefore if you say that one ought not to fear death, sharing our doctrines, die not because of human vainglory, as Anaxarchus did, but for the

 Unable to explain those things, because of the impossibility of their theory, they have blamed the tides, and of the seas, one being weedy and the oth

 For what sort are your teachings? Who would not mock your public festivals, which, being celebrated under the pretext of wicked demons, turn men to di

 providing it, feeding it with the most ungodly bloodshed. For the robber kills for the sake of taking, but the rich man buys gladiators for the sake o

 dedications, and those who read are as with the jar of the Danaids. Why do you divide time for me, saying that one part of it is past, another present

 the conception which I have concerning all things, this I do not hide. Why do you advise me to deceive the state? Why, while saying to despise death,

 but again it will be dissolved, if we obey the word of God and do not scatter ourselves. For he has gained control of our possessions through a certai

 Archilochus flourished around the twenty-third Olympiad, in the time of Gyges the Lydian, five hundred years after the Trojan War. And concerning the

 the nonsense of affairs for the Greeks. For the pursuits of your customs are rather foolish through great glory and behave disgracefully through the w

 seeing the figures of the strife and of Eteocles, and not having thrown them into a pit with Pythagoras who made them, do you destroy along with them

 For what is difficult about men who have been shown to be ignorant being now refuted by a man of like passions? And what is strange, according to your

 maios. The time from Inachus until the capture of Ilium completes twenty generations and the proof is in this manner. The kings of the Argives were th

 our laws, and what the learned men among the Greeks have said, and how many and who they are who have mentioned them, will be shown in the treatise A

 God and what is the creation according to him, I present myself ready to you for the examination of the doctrines, while my way of life according to G

having established; for I do not attempt to prove these things from the divine histories among us alone, which you are not yet willing to believe because of the ancient error of your ancestors, but from your own histories which differ in no way from our religion, so that you may know that Moses, who was our first teacher of piety, was much older than all those among you, whether wise men or poets or historians or philosophers or lawgivers, as the histories of the Greeks show us. For in the times of Ogygus and Inachus, whom some among you have supposed to have been born from the earth, they mention Moses as a leader and ruler of the race of the Jews. For so both Polemon in the first of the Hellenic Histories mentions, and Apion the son of Poseidonius in his book Against the Jews and in the fourth of his Histories, saying that in the time of Inachus, king of Argos, while Amosis was king of the Egyptians, the Jews revolted, of whom Moses was leader. And Ptolemy of Mendes, in his history of the Egyptians, agrees with all these. And those who wrote the history of the Athenians, Hellanicus and Philochorus who wrote the Atthides, Castor and Thallus and Alexander Polyhistor, and furthermore the most wise Philo and Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jews, mention Moses as a very ancient and old ruler of the Jews. Josephus, at any rate, wishing to signify the ancient and old character of the history also through the title of the books, at the beginning of the history wrote thus: The Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus; calling the ancient character of the history Archaeology. And the most famous of the historians among you, Diodorus, who abridged the Libraries, having in thirty whole years traveled through Asia and Europe, as he himself wrote, for the sake of great accuracy, and having become an eyewitness of most things, wrote forty whole books of his own history; who in the first book, saying that he had learned from the priests in Egypt that Moses was an ancient and first lawgiver, wrote about him thus in these very words: For after the ancient constitution of life in Egypt, which is fabled to have existed in the time of gods and heroes, they say that Moses was the first to persuade the multitudes to use written laws, a man remembered for being great in soul and most capable in life. Then, having proceeded a little, and wishing to mention the ancient lawgivers, he mentions Moses first. For he spoke in these very words thus: Among the Jews, Moses, the one called God, whether because they judged the conception that was destined to benefit the mass of mankind to be admirable and altogether divine, or because they supposed that the crowd, looking to the superiority and power of those said to have found the laws, would be more obedient. And a second lawgiver, they say, was the Egyptian Saouchnis, a man distinguished in intelligence. And a third, they say, was King Sesonchosis, not only the most distinguished warlike deeds accomplished

θέμενος· οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ τῶν θείων καὶ παρ' ἡμῖν ἱστοριῶν μόνον ταῦτα ἀποδεῖξαι πειρῶμαι, αἷς ὑμεῖς οὐδέπω διὰ τὴν πα λαιὰν τῶν προγόνων ὑμῶν πλάνην πιστεύειν βούλεσθε, ἀλλ' ἀπὸ τῶν ὑμετέρων καὶ μηδὲν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ θρησκείᾳ διαφερου σῶν ἱστοριῶν, ἵνα γνῶτε ὅτι πάντων τῶν παρ' ὑμῖν εἴτε σο φῶν εἴτε ποιητῶν εἴτε ἱστοριογράφων ἢ φιλοσόφων ἢ νομο θετῶν πολλῷ πρεσβύτατος γέγονεν ὁ πρῶτος τῆς θεοσεβείας διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν Μωϋσῆς γεγονώς, ὡς δηλοῦσιν ἡμῖν αἱ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἱστορίαι. Ἐν γὰρ τοῖς χρόνοις Ὠγύγου τε καὶ Ἰνά χου, οὓς καὶ γηγενεῖς τινες τῶν παρ' ὑμῖν ὑπειλήφασι γεγενῆ σθαι, Μωϋσέως μέμνηνται ὡς ἡγεμόνος τε καὶ ἄρχοντος τοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων γένους. Oὕτω γὰρ Πολέμων τε ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν ἱστοριῶν μέμνηται καὶ Ἀππίων ὁ Ποσει δωνίου ἐν τῇ κατὰ Ἰουδαίων βίβλῳ καὶ ἐν τῇ τετάρτῃ τῶν ἱστο ριῶν, λέγων κατὰ Ἴναχον Ἄργους βασιλέα Ἀμώσιδος Aἰ γυπτίων βασιλεύοντος ἀποστῆναι Ἰουδαίους, ὧν ἡγεῖσθαι Μωϋσέα. Καὶ Πτολεμαῖος δὲ ὁ Μενδήσιος, τὰ Aἰγυπτίων ἱστορῶν, ἅπασι τούτοις συντρέχει. Καὶ οἱ τὰ Ἀθηναίων δὲ ἱστοροῦντες, Ἑλλάνικός τε καὶ Φιλόχορος ὁ τὰς Ἀτθίδας, Κάστωρ τε καὶ Θαλλὸς καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Πολυΐστωρ, ἔτι δὲ καὶ οἱ σοφώτατοι Φίλων τε καὶ Ἰώσηπος, οἱ τὰ κατὰ Ἰουδαίους ἱστορήσαντες, ὡς σφόδρα ἀρχαίου καὶ παλαιοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἄρχοντος Μωϋσέως μέμνηνται. Ὁ γοῦν Ἰώσηπος, τὸ ἀρχαῖον καὶ τὸ παλαιὸν τῆς ἱστορίας καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς τῶν βιβλίων σημῆναι βουλόμενος, ἀρχόμενος τῆς ἱστορίας οὕτω γέγραφε· Φλαβίου Ἰωσήπου Ἰουδαϊκῆς Ἀρχαιολογίας· τὸ πα λαιὸν τῆς ἱστορίας Ἀρχαιολογίαν ὀνομάζων. Καὶ ὁ ἐνδο ξότατος δὲ παρ' ὑμῖν τῶν ἱστοριογράφων ∆ιόδωρος, ὁ τὰς Βιβλιοθήκας ἐπιτεμών, ἐν τριάκοντα ὅλοις ἔτεσιν Ἀσίαν τε καὶ Eὐρώπην, ὡς αὐτὸς γέγραφε, διὰ πολλὴν ἀκρίβειαν πε ριελθὼν καὶ αὐτόπτης τῶν πλείστων γεγονώς, τεσσαράκοντα ὅλα τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ἱστορίας βιβλία γέγραφεν· ὃς ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ βί βλῳ, φήσας παρὰ τῶν ἐν Aἰγύπτῳ ἱερέων μεμαθηκέναι ὅτι ἀρχαῖος καὶ πρῶτος νομοθέτης Μωϋσῆς γέγονεν, αὐταῖς λέξεσιν οὕτω περὶ αὐτοῦ γέγραφε· Μετὰ γὰρ τὴν παλαιὰν τοῦ κατ' Aἴγυπτον βίου κατάστασιν, τὴν μυθολογουμένην γενέσθαι ἐπὶ θεῶν καὶ ἡρώων, πεῖσαί φασιν ἐγγράφοις νό μοις πρῶτον χρῆσθαι τὰ πλήθη Μωϋσῆν, ἄνδρα καὶ τῇ ψυχῇ μέγαν καὶ τῷ βίῳ ἱκανώτατον μνημονευόμενον. Eἶτα βραχύ τι προελθών, καὶ τῶν παλαιῶν νομοθετῶν μνησθῆναι βουλόμενος, πρώτου Μωϋσέως μέμνηται. Ἔφη γὰρ αὐταῖς λέξεσιν οὕ τως· Παρὰ μὲν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις Μωϋσῆν τὸν καλούμενον θεόν, εἴτε θαυμαστὴν καὶ θείαν ὅλως ἔννοιαν εἶναι κρίναν τας τὴν μέλλουσαν ὠφελήσειν ἀνθρώπων πλῆθος, εἴτε πρὸς τὴν ὑπεροχὴν καὶ δύναμιν τῶν εὑρεῖν λεγομένων τοὺς νόμους ἀποβλέψαντα τὸν ὄχλον μᾶλλον ὑπακούεσθαι διαλαβόντας. ∆εύτερον δὲ νομοθέτην Aἰγύπτιον γεγονέναι φασὶ Σάουχνιν, ἄνδρα συνέσει διαφέροντα. Τρίτον δὲ λέγουσι Σεσόγχωσιν τὸν βασιλέα μὴ μόνον πολεμικὰς πράξεις ἐπιφανεστάτας κατερ