The Trial Before Rusticus

Around the year 165, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Justin was arrested at Rome together with six companions and brought before the urban prefect Quintus Junius Rusticus — a Stoic philosopher who had been one of the emperor’s own teachers. The Acts of Justin preserve the examination: Rusticus pressing the prisoners to obey the gods and the imperial edicts, Justin confessing the Christian teaching and his unshaken hope of heaven, each of the companions in turn declaring himself a Christian, and the prefect, on their refusal to sacrifice, sentencing them to be scourged and beheaded. This file narrates the trial and death as the Acts record them.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

The Arrest and the Prefect

Justin was put to death at Rome during the prefecture of Q. Junius Rusticus, who held the urban prefecture of the city roughly between A.D. 162 and 168; the martyrdom is conventionally dated to about 165 (Barnard, Justin Martyr, pp. 14–15; Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, pp. xvii–xx) [Disputed: the year is not exactly fixed; estimates range from c. 162 to c. 168 within Rusticus’ prefecture, with c. 165 the usual figure; the OCA synaxarion gives 165–166 (Martyr Justin the Philosopher, OCA, June 1)]. There is a sharp historical irony in the judge: Rusticus was a distinguished Stoic philosopher and had been a teacher of Marcus Aurelius himself, who names him with gratitude in the Meditations. The philosopher-apologist who had spent his life arguing that Christianity was the true philosophy was tried and condemned by a philosopher of the schools he had left — the encounter of the two philosophies brought to the tribunal and the block. Justin was arrested with six others: Chariton, a woman named Charito, Euelpistus, Hierax, Paeon, and Liberian (the names vary slightly across the recensions of the Acts) (Acts of Justin; Musurillo, pp. 42–61).

The Examination

The Acts set down the interrogation in the form of the official protocol — question and answer, prefect and prisoners. Rusticus begins by urging Justin to “obey the gods and submit to the emperors,” to which Justin replies that to obey the commandments of Christ is no fault and no shame (Acts of Justin, recension B, 2; Musurillo, p. 49). Asked what doctrines he professes, Justin gives a brief and dignified summary of the Christian faith — the one God, maker of all, and Jesus Christ the Son of God foretold by the prophets, the herald of salvation and teacher of disciples (Acts of Justin B.2; Musurillo, p. 49). Rusticus asks where the Christians assemble, and Justin gives the famous answer about his lodging above the baths of Myrtinus, declaring that he has known no other meeting-place and that he taught the truth there to all who came (Acts of Justin B.3; Musurillo, p. 51; see The School at Rome).

Then comes the heart of the exchange. Rusticus asks Justin whether he supposes that, if he is scourged and beheaded, he will ascend into heaven. Justin answers with the confidence that the prefect could not shake: “I hope that, if I endure these things, I shall have His gifts. For I know that, to all who have thus lived, there abides the divine favour until the completion of the whole world.” Pressed — “Do you suppose, then, that you will ascend into heaven to receive some recompense?” — Justin replies, “I do not suppose it, but I know and am fully persuaded of it” (Acts of Justin B.4–5; Musurillo, pp. 51–53). It is the answer of a man for whom the truth he had argued in the Apologies — the resurrection, the judgment, the reward of the righteous — was not a probability but a certainty, and the chapter on providence and the martyrs is here turned into testimony of blood (see Providence and the Martyrs).

The Confession of the Faith

Justin’s summary of Christian doctrine before the tribunal deserves attention, for it is, in effect, his shortest apology — the Apologies compressed into a few sentences under threat of death. Asked by Rusticus what doctrines he holds, Justin answers that he has tried to learn all doctrines but has attached himself in the end to “the true doctrines of the Christians,” and he states the heart of the faith: that Christians worship “the God of the Christians, whom we reckon to be one from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible,” and the “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had also been preached beforehand by the prophets as about to come to the race of men, the herald of salvation and teacher of good disciples” (Acts of Justin, recension B, 2; Musurillo, p. 49). It is a remarkably complete creed in miniature — the one God as Creator of all, visible and invisible; the Son foretold by the prophets and now come; the work of salvation and teaching — and it shows that the structure of Christian confession was already firm. That Justin gave this confession not in the safety of his school but standing before a magistrate who held his life is what turns it from doctrine into testimony.

The Companions

Rusticus then questions the others in turn, and each confesses. The Acts preserve small, vivid details that ring true: Euelpistus says he too is a Christian, “freed by Christ, and by the grace of Christ I partake of the same hope” though a slave of Caesar; Hierax, asked about his parents, answers that his true parents are Christ and the faith; the others likewise refuse to be shaken (Acts of Justin B.4; Musurillo, pp. 51–53). One of them, asked who taught them, attributes his Christianity not to Justin’s instruction but to the faith he had from his parents — a touching indication that the group around Justin was not simply his pupils but a cross-section of the Roman church (Acts of Justin B.4; Musurillo, p. 53). Throughout, the martyrs are calm, brief, and unyielding; there is no rhetoric, only confession.

The Sentence

Rusticus makes a final demand: “Let us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the gods.” Justin answers for all: “No one who is rightly minded turns from true religion to false.” The prefect threatens torture; Justin replies, “This is our desire, to be tortured for our Lord, Jesus Christ, and so to be saved, for that will give us salvation and firm confidence at the more terrible universal tribunal of our Lord and Saviour” (Acts of Justin B.5; Musurillo, p. 53). The others assent with one voice: “Do as thou wilt; for we are Christians, and do not sacrifice to idols.” Rusticus then pronounces sentence: those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to obey the command of the emperor are to be scourged and led away to be beheaded, according to the laws (Acts of Justin B.5–6; Musurillo, p. 55). The martyrs were taken to the customary place, beheaded, and “perfected their testimony in the confession of the Saviour”; afterward, the Acts note, certain of the faithful secretly took up their bodies and laid them in a fitting place, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ assisting them” (Acts of Justin B.6; Musurillo, p. 55).

The trial illustrates exactly the legal situation against which Justin had spent his life arguing. Rusticus does not allege that the prisoners have committed any crime — no theft, no sedition, no immorality — and he does not need to. The single operative question is whether they will obey the gods and sacrifice; their refusal is itself the offense, and the confession of the name “Christian,” coupled with the refusal to sacrifice, is sufficient ground for the sentence (Acts of Justin, recension B, 5; Musurillo, pp. 53–55). This is precisely the “punishment for the name” that the First Apology had denounced as unjust by Rome’s own standards (see The Defense to Antoninus), and the Acts of Justin show the procedure in operation: the magistrate offers the prisoner the chance to sacrifice and live, the prisoner refuses, and the sentence follows. The opportunity to apostatize by a simple act of pagan worship was always held open — Roman officials generally preferred conformity to execution — which is why the martyr’s death was, in the strict sense, a chosen confession: at any moment a pinch of incense would have ended it. Justin and his companions chose otherwise, and the choice is the substance of their martyrdom.

The Philosopher Who Became a Martyr

Justin’s death is the seal of his life and the vindication of his title. He had been drawn toward the faith, before his conversion, by watching Christians die without fear (Second Apology 12; see The Conversion); he had taught that the constancy of the martyrs was a proof of the truth and that Christians should neither seek death nor deny Christ to escape it (see Providence and the Martyrs); and at the end he did exactly what he had taught, confessing the faith before the philosopher-prefect and accepting the sword. The Church remembers him by the name his death earned: not merely Justin the Philosopher but Justin the Martyr — the man who argued that Christianity was the true philosophy and then died to show that he meant it. The trial before Rusticus, preserved in what appears to be the official record, lets us hear that confession in something very close to his own words (see The Acts and Their Value).

See Also

References

  • The Acts of Justin and his Companions (recension B). In Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, pp. 42–61; an older translation is in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, as “The Martyrdom of Justin.”
  • Justin, Second Apology 12. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1.
  • Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV.16. Trans. NPNF II/1.
  • Barnard, L. W. Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
  • Martyr Justin the Philosopher and those with him at Rome. Orthodox Church in America (oca.org), Lives of the Saints, June 1.