Readings

June 1: Justin, Martyr, 167

The Collect of the Day

Justin

O God, who has given your church wisdom and revealed to it deep and secret things: Grant that we, like your servant Justin and in union with his prayers, may find your Word an abiding refuge all the days of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Justin

O God, who hast given thy church wisdom and revealed to it deep and secret things: Grant that we, like thy servant Justin and in union with his prayers, may find thy Word an abiding refuge all the days of our lives; through Jesus Christ of Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

In the middle of the second century, there came into the young Christian community a seeker for the truth, whose wide interests, noble spirit, and able mind greatly enriched it.

Justin was born into a Greek-speaking pagan family about the year 110 in Samaria, near Shechem. He was educated in Greek philosophy. Like Augustine after him, he was left restless by all this knowledge. During a walk along the beach at Ephesus, he began speaking with a stranger, who told him about Christ. “Straightway a flame was kindled in my soul,” he writes, “and a love of the prophets and those who are friends of Christ possessed me.” He became a Christian as a result of this encounter, and thereafter regarded Christianity as the only “safe and profitable philosophy.”

Around 150, Justin moved to Rome. As philosophers did in those days, he started a school—in this case, a school of Christian philosophy— and accepted students. He also wrote. Three of his works survive: a dialogue in Platonic style with a Jew named Trypho, and two apologies in defense of the Christian faith. Justin’s First and Second Apologies defend Christianity against the Greek charge of irrationality and against the Roman charge of disloyalty to the empire. These two works provide us with important insights into the developing theological ideas and liturgical practices of early Christianity.

While teaching in Rome, he engaged in a public debate with a philosopher of the Cynic school named Crescens, accusing him of ignorance and immorality. Angered, Crescens brought legal charges against him. Justin and six of his students were arrested and brought before the prefect Rusticus. As the custom was, Rusticus gave them an opportunity to renounce their faith. All steadfastly refused to do so. Justin and his students were all put to death around the year 167.

Lessons and Psalm

First Lesson

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Psalm

1I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.

2The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me; *I came to grief and sorrow.

3Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: *“O Lord, I pray you, save my life.”

4Gracious is the Lord and righteous; *our God is full of compassion.

5The Lord watches over the innocent; *I was brought very low, and he helped me.

6Turn again to your rest, O my soul. *for the Lord has treated you well.

7For you have rescued my life from death, *my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

8I will walk in the presence of the Lord *in the land of the living.

9I believed, even when I said, “I have been brought very low.” *In my distress I said, “No one can be trusted.”

Gospel

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1 Corinthians 1:18–25

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

John 12:44–50

44 Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. 47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, 49 for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.”