literaryhistoryo02crut - Carmel Apologetics

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THE APOLOGISTS.
Whether Justin's appeal ever found its way into the Emperor's
hands we know not. It is hardly likely that a ruler so conscientious
as Antoninus could brush aside as of no account a
statement couched in
language so moderate and dealing so
frankly with the point at issue ;
and yet we cannot tell. There
is deep j^ithos in the concluding words, " If my statement
appears to you reasonable and truthful, have regard to it
if it seems absurd, despise it as an absurdity, but do not
condemn to death as enemies those who are doing no wrong."
If Antoninus read those words, and they made no impression
upon his mind, we may form some estimate of
the weight of
prejudice, accumulated through centuries of national pride and
one-sided discipline, which made even the purest and noblest
of the IJomans inaccessible to the Christian argument
" Xec luagis incepto viiltiuu seriuoiie movetur
Qiuim si dura .silex aut stet Marpesia cautes."
The Second Apolog'y is much shorter than the first, and
less carefully composed. It is rather an occasional pamphlet
drawn forth l.>y a miscarriage of justice than a systematic
treatise. The indignation of Justin was aroused by the con-
(hict of Lollius Urbicus, the distinguished soldier who at this
time ^hcld the prefecture of the city, in the case of some
Christians whom he had caused to be put to
death without
trial. It ap])ears that a lioman lady who was married to a
dis.solute husband, and had herself led a dissolute life, was
converted to Christianity ;
after which, finding her husband's
comhict intolerable to lier, and failing to induce him to
amend it, slie meditated a separation. Her friends persua