Second Apology

Justin wrote this piece in response to a case at Rome, in which the prefect Urbicus sentenced a Christian teacher named Ptolemaeus, and two others who came forward to protest, to be led away to punishment (1–2). It is addressed to the Romans and argues that Christians are punished for a name while their lives are blameless.

Two passages bear on Justin’s own life. He recalls that while he was still a follower of Plato he saw Christians facing death without fear and concluded that the charges against them could not be true (12). And he says that he expects to be plotted against and put to death, “perhaps by Crescens”, a Cynic philosopher whom he had questioned in public and shown to know nothing of Christian teaching (3). Whether the work was a separate address or a supplement to the First Apology is disputed. Eusebius took it to be a second work, addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius (Church History 4.18). The text itself points to an earlier date: one of the accused appeals to “the Emperor Pius” as the reigning emperor (2), so it was written before Antoninus Pius died in 161.