1 Earliest Rome

12.7 The Christians
Abandoning rhe holy writings of god, they study geometry, since they come from the
earth, talk of the earth and do not know him who comes from above. 2
Some of them
diligently learn the geometry of Euclid and admire Aristotle and Theophrastus. Similarly
by some Galen is actually revered. 1
1. The writer here refers to two terms which originated in Stoic logic. A hypothetical syllo­
gism is an argument in the form: 'If P, Q; P: so Q' or 'If P, Q; not-Q: so noc-P'. A dis­
junctive syllogism: 'P or Q; not-P: so Q', or T or Q; P: so not-Q'. Normally, however,
'hypothetical' and 'disjunctive' were applied to propositions, not to argument-forms.
2. An allusion to John 3.31.
3. Galen had a considerable reputation not only as a doctor but also as a logician. Followers
of Iheodotus could have attended Galen's lectures in Rome, where he lived from A.D.
169 onwards (he may have died as late as the 21 Os). Galen in his turn knew of Christians
(12.7d(ii)).
12. 7f Persecutio n
Justin, Second Apology!
As the Romans persecuted the Christians, so the Christians developed their
own ideology of martyrdom {martyr in Greek means 'witness'). The account of
the suffering of those tried and condemned by rhe Roman authorities was a
central theme of Christian writing (12.7f(i-ii)); and memorials to martyrs
became a focus of piety (12.7f(iii-iv)).
See further: Vol. 1, 236-44; Lane Fox (1986) 419-92.
12.7f{i) The denunciation of a woman and her Christian teacher
(middle of the second century A.D.)
Justin's Second Apology, addressed to the senate (see 12.7a(i)), begins with the
account of a recent trial in Rome. It illustrates the apparently arbitrary effects
of personal friendship and enmity on the treatment of Christians. A woman,
who had converted to Christianity, had divorced her husband lor his sexual
promiscuity, against the advice of her Christian friends who hoped for
improvement by the husband.
See further: Lampe (1989) 200-3.
The fine husband of hers ought to have been pleased that she had given up the acts of
drunkenness and vice which she used to delight in and commit unhesitatingly with
servants and hirelings, and which she wanted him to give up, but when she separated
from him without his consent, he denounced her as a Christian. She presented a petition
to you, the emperor, requesting that first she be permitted to put her affairs in order and
then make her defence against the accusation; you granted this request. Her former
husband, as he could for the moment no longer prosecute her, turned on one Ptolemaios,
her teacher in Christian doctrine.' He diet this in the following way: he persuaded a
centurion friend of his to imprison Ptolemaios and, when arresting him, to ask just one
question, was he a Christian. When Ptolemaios, a lover of truth and not of a deceitful or
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