Excerpt from The Works: Now Extant of S. Justin the Martyr

The author of these works then lived within the half century following the death of the Apostle S. John. But his means of information reached back into the Apostolic age itself. He was acquainted with Christians of advanced age 'of every race, ' who had been believers from their childhood. He was, moreover, a person of inquisitive temper: and his life was spent in various localities, and in intercourse and discussions with men of all sects and Opinions. He was apparently what we should call an itinerant teacher. He was born in Samaria, but in a Greek-speaking settlement, and of a Gentile family, the habits of the age, and the circumstances of the world, when all the shores of the Mediterranean were under one rule, and practically of one language, led him to travel about from place to place. Before his conversion to Christianity, he had tested the various schools of heathen philosophy. He had witnessed the patient endurance of the persecuted Christians. After his conversion he seems to have considered it his calling, to endeavour to win from their errors 'men of every nation, ' Jews and Gentiles, and those who under the name of Christians taught what was untrue. It was when he was on a voyage that he met with Trypho Eusebius says at Ephesus: he lived some time at Rome, there he published his Apologies at long severed periods, and received the crown of martyrdom. He had, therefore, ample means of knowing what was the faith and practice of Christians throughout the world in his own as well as in earlier times. His honesty, his fairness, his love of truth, and caution not to state any thing of which he was not assured, are manifest throughout his works.

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