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

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

Beginning my exhortation to you, O men of Greece, I pray to God that it may be granted to me to say to you what is needful, and to you, that having laid aside your former contentiousness and been delivered from the error of your forefathers, you may now choose what is profitable, thinking that no wrong will be done by you to your forefathers, if what is contrary to their former ill-conceived opinions should now appear useful to you. For an accurate investigation of matters often shows things that seemed right to be otherwise, when the truth has been tested by a more exact trial. Since, therefore, the subject before us is true religion, than which, I think, nothing is considered more important by those who have chosen to live without peril, on account of the judgment that is to come after the end of this life—a judgment which not only our forefathers according to God, both prophets and lawgivers, proclaim, but also those among you who were considered wise, not only poets but also philosophers, who profess among you to know the true and divine knowledge—it seemed good to me first to examine the teachers of both our religion and yours, who and how many they were, and in what times they lived, so that those who have formerly received from their forefathers a falsely named religion, may now at least, being aware of it, be delivered from that ancient error, and we may clearly and manifestly show ourselves to be followers of the religion of our forefathers according to God. Who then, O men of Greece, do you say are the teachers of your religion? The poets? But it will not avail you to speak of the poets' works to men who are acquainted with them. For they know the most ridiculous theogony concerning the gods told by them, as we may learn from Homer, the chiefest among you and first of the poets. For he says, first, that the generation of the gods had its beginning from water. For thus he has written: 'Oceanus, the generation of gods, and mother Tethys.' And then, it is necessary to recall what he says about the god considered first among them, whom he often calls the father of both men and gods. For he said: 'Zeus, who is the dispenser of war to men.' Him, therefore, he says, was not only the dispenser of war to the army, but also the cause of perjury for the Trojans through his daughter. Homer introduces this one in love, and indignant, and lamenting, and being plotted against by the other gods, and at one time saying over his own son: 'Woe is me, since it is my fate that Sarpedon, dearest of men, be slain by Patroclus, son of Menoetius!'

and at another time for Hector:

ΤOΥ AΓIOΥ IOΥΣΤIΝOΥ ΦIΛOΣOΦOΥ ΚAI ΜAΡΤΥΡOΣ ΛOΓOΣ ΠAΡAIΝEΤIΚOΣ ΠΡOΣ EΛΛHΝAΣ.

Ἀρχόμενος τῆς πρὸς ὑμᾶς παραινέσεως, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, εὔχομαι τῷ θεῷ ἐμοὶ μὲν ὑπάρξαι τὰ δέοντα πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰπεῖν, ὑμᾶς δέ, τῆς προτέρας ἀφεμένους φιλονεικίας καὶ τῆς τῶν προγόνων πλάνης ἀπαλλαγέντας, ἑλέσθαι τὰ λυ σιτελοῦντα νῦν, οὐδὲν οἰομένους περὶ τοὺς προγόνους ὑμῶν ἔσεσθαι παρ' ὑμῶν πλημμελές, εἰ τἀναντία νυνὶ τῶν πρό τερον μὴ καλῶς δοξάντων αὐτοῖς χρήσιμα φαίνοιτο παρ' ὑμῖν. Ἡ γὰρ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀκριβὴς ἐξέτασις καὶ τὰ δόξαντα πολλάκις καλῶς ἔχειν ἀλλοιότερα δείκνυσιν, ἀκριβεστέρᾳ πείρᾳ τἀληθὲς βασανίσασα. Ἐπεὶ τοίνυν ἡμῖν ὁ περὶ τῆς ἀληθοῦς θεοσεβείας πρόκειται λόγος, ἧς οὐδέν, οἶμαι, προ τιμότερον τοῖς ἀκινδύνως βιοῦν προῃρημένοις εἶναι νενό μισται διὰ τὴν μέλλουσαν μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν τοῦδε τοῦ βίου ἔσεσθαι κρίσιν, ἣν οὐ μόνον οἱ ἡμέτεροι κατὰ θεὸν προκη ρύττουσι πρόγονοι, προφῆταί τε καὶ νομοθέται, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ παρ' ὑμῖν νομισθέντες εἶναι σοφοί, οὐ ποιηταὶ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ φιλόσοφοι, οἱ τὴν ἀληθῆ καὶ θείαν εἰδέναι παρ' ὑμῖν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι γνῶσιν, ἔδοξέ μοι καλῶς ἔχειν, πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς τῆς θεοσεβείας ἡμῶν τε καὶ ὑμῶν ἐξετάσαι διδασκά λους, οἵτινες καὶ ὅσοι καὶ καθ' οὓς γεγόνασι χρόνους, ἵν' οἱ μὲν πρότερον τὴν ψευδώνυμον θεοσέβειαν παρὰ τῶν προγόνων παρειληφότες, νῦν γοῦν αἰσθόμενοι, τῆς παλαιᾶς ἐκείνης ἀπαλλαγῶσι πλάνης, ἡμεῖς δὲ σαφῶς καὶ φανερῶς ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ἀποδείξωμεν τῇ τῶν κατὰ θεὸν προγόνων ἑπομένους θεοσεβείᾳ. Τίνας τοίνυν, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, τῆς θεοσεβείας ὑμῶν διδασκάλους εἶναί φατε; Τοὺς ποιητάς; Ἀλλ' οὐ συνοίσει ὑμῖν πρὸς ἄνδρας τὰ τῶν ποιητῶν εἰδότας λέγειν. Ἴσασι γὰρ τὴν ὑπ' αὐτῶν γελοιοτάτην περὶ θεῶν θεογονίαν λεγομένην, ὡς ἔστιν ἡμῖν ἀπὸ τῶν τοῦ κορυφαιοτάτου παρ' ὑμῖν καὶ πρώτου τῶν ποιητῶν Ὁμήρου μανθάνειν. Oὗτος γὰρ πρῶτον μὲν τὴν τῶν θεῶν γένεσιν ἐξ ὕδατος τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐσχηκέναι φη σίν. Oὕτω γὰρ γέγραφεν· Ὠκεανόν τε, θεῶν γένεσιν, καὶ μητέρα Τηθύν. Ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ ἃ περὶ τοῦ πρώτου παρ' αὐτοῖς νομιζομένου θεοῦ λέγει, ὃν καὶ πατέρα ὀνομάζει πολλάκις ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε, ἀναγκαῖον ὑπομνῆσαι. Ἔφη γάρ· Ζεύς, ὅστ' ἀνθρώπων ταμίης πολέμοιο τέτυκται. Aὐτὸν τοίνυν οὐ πολέμου ταμίαν μόνον τῷ στρατεύματι, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπιορκίας Τρωσὶ διὰ τῆς αὐτοῦ θυγατρὸς αἴτιον γεγενῆ σθαί φησι· τοῦτον ἐρῶντα καὶ σχετλιάζοντα καὶ ὀλοφυρό μενον καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν ἐπιβουλευόμενον Ὅμηρος εἰσάγει, καὶ ποτὲ μὲν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ παιδὸς λέγοντα· Ὤ μοι ἐγών, ὅτε μοι Σαρπηδόνα, φίλτατον ἀνδρῶν, Μοῖρ' ὑπὸ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι!

ποτὲ δὲ ὑπὲρ τοῦ Ἕκτορος·