Justin Martyr's
First Apology is an excellent example of the arguments Christian writers used to win over the hearts and minds of the people of the Roman empire. Skim through this work at the link
here. Do you see here anything that seems to you especially likely to win support for Christianity, or at least to convince the philosophically-minded emperor to by sympathetic to Christians?
He said judge them case by case do not just condemn them. At least give them a fair trail they are people too. He said the reasons Christians do the things they do is because they are being watched by God. If they do not follow it is like us disobeying our Gods. Christians believe in all their things because it was in the prophecies. I think overall this would make them at least think twice about the trail and start to get away the weird rumors.
ReplyDeleteOne of the points that me makes that may convince some people to be a little more sympathetic is that the people who are Christians should not be judged as a group but should be investigated as individual people. This also makes the point that these accusations against them should be investigated and not just immediately believed without proof. He makes another point that I think would help near the end of Chapter 4. He points out that not all philosophers have always taught the exact same thing. He says that some even taught atheism but they were not condemned the way that the Christians are for being accused of atheism. This might have been able to help convince some people that they should be more sympathetic to the Christians that are being accused of these things.
ReplyDeleteMallory Schlechter