Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition
Wayne C. Kannaday
Number of quotes: 9
Book ID: 26 Page: 24
Section: 3A2B
The dearth of sources we encounter on the pagan side is due in part to the vitriolic zeal with which post-Constantinian Christians at the request of their bishops or under orders from the emperor stoked their bonfires with anti-Christian writings.
Quote ID: 485
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 26 Page: 32
Section: 3A2B
Porphyry of Tyre. Widely considered by ancients as well as current scholars one of the most formidable of the pagan critics of Christianity, it is regrettable that the works of Porphyry (c. 232-305) have been for the most part lost. Surviving the first condemnation under Constantine, his works were once more ordered burned by Theodosius and Valentinian in 448 C.E. This systematic torching of his writings directed by emperors and church leaders suggests that something about Porphyry and his prose posed a particularly serious threat to early Christians.
Quote ID: 487
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 26 Page: 35
Section: 4A
The Earliest Christian Apologists: Quadratus and Aristides. Quadratrus, the earliest known of these defenders of the faith, is barely known to us at all.
Quote ID: 488
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 26 Page: 36
Section: 4A
Finally, Quadratus declares that the effect of Jesus’ miracles was an enduring one. According to him, in fact, there were still persons alive when Quadratus penned his defense of the faith who could testify to Jesus having healed them.
Quote ID: 489
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 26 Page: 38
Section: 4A
That Justin after his conversion continued to clothe himself in the pallium, the symbolic cloak of a philosopher, is highly appropriate in view of his apologetic style and strategy. Among Christians, he was the first serious writer to attempt to link the proclaimed elements of the fledging faith with the well-entrenched and highly respected tenets of Greco-Roman philosophy. Indeed, much of what we label Christian apologetic writing was modeled after Socrates’ own defense at his trial, an apologia in which he attempted to demonstrate the rationality of his position. The First Apology employed stylized features from Plato’s works, and Justin’s Second Apology invoked the name of Socrates several times, including a comparison of him with Jesus to the advantage of Christ (Ap. II.10). Justin himself called his work a προσφώνησις, “an address,” a term borrowed from Hellenistic rhetoric and defined by Menander as “a speech of praise to rulers spoken by an individual.”
Quote ID: 492
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 26 Page: 45
Section: 4A
Before proceeding, however, a brief word about his biography is in order. A pupil of Justin, Tatian too was born of pagan parents. He was reared somewhere in Assyria, traveled widely, and received a conventional Hellenistic education steeped in rhetoric and philosophy. In the autobiographical account of his conversion (Or. 29), he indicates that, after experiencing myriad cults and mystery religions and studying the Greek philosophers, he came to believe through his encounter with the sacred scriptures that Christian doctrine was the only true philosophy. Although in this he sounds much like his master, Tatian denounced Greek philosophy in its entirety. Indeed, there is a sense in which Discourse to the Greeks reads, in the words of J. Quasten, “not so much as an apology for Christianity as it is a vehement, immoderate polemic treatise which rejects and belittles the whole culture of the Greeks.
Quote ID: 493
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 26 Page: 59
Section: 4A
Tertullian captured the prevailing sentiments of many in the Greco-Roman world when he wrote, “That which is truer is prior.” Claim to antiquity instantly afforded religious cults and philosophical schools the badge of legitimacy. Conversely, novelty was viewed with suspicion, if not disdain.
Quote ID: 494
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 26 Page: 69
Section: 4A
Where Origen could effectively answer his criticism with factual correction or allegorical exposition, Porphyry anticipated both responses. It was precisely their own data he was using against them, and he refused to accept allegory as an answer. Therefore, where the text was vulnerable to pagan critique so was the faith and so were the faithful. The text, therefore, was a battlefield.
Quote ID: 496
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 26 Page: 199
Section: 4A
In the earliest years of the Christian movement, the Roman attitude toward followers of Jesus appears to have been marked by casual indifference. Most of the residents of the Empire were, in the words of T. D. Barnes, “either unaware of or uninterested in the Christians in their midst.”T.D. Barnes, “Pagan Perceptions of Christianity,” in Ian Hazlett, ed., Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to AD 600 (London: SPCK, 1991), 232. Despite the fact that Christians were present in Rome at least by the time of Claudius, Barnes points out, no clear reference to them can be located in the extant pagan writers of the first century, including Martial, Muvenal, Dio Chrysostom, and Plutarch.
Quote ID: 501
Time Periods: 1
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