The Holy Martyr Justin the Philosopher was born around 114 at Sychem, an ancient city of Samaria. Justin’s parents were pagan Greeks. From his childhood the saint displayed intelligence, love for knowledge and a fervent devotion to the knowledge of Truth. When he came of age he studied the various schools of Greek philosophy: the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, the Platonists, and he concluded that none of these pagan teachings revealed the way to knowledge of the true God.
Once, when he was strolling in a solitary place beyond the city and pondering about where to seek the way to the knowledge of Truth, he met an old man. In the ensuing conversation he revealed to Justin the essential nature of the Christian teaching and advised him to seek the answers to all the questions of life in the books of Holy Scripture. “But before anything else,” said the holy Elder, “pray diligently to God, so that He might open to you the doors of Light. No one is able to comprehend Truth, unless he is granted understanding from God Himself, Who reveals it to each one who seeks Him in prayer and in love.”
In his thirtieth year, Justin accepted holy Baptism (between the years 133 and 137). From this time Saint Justin devoted his talents and vast philosophical knowledge to preaching the Gospel among the pagans. He began to journey throughout the Roman Empire, sowing the seeds of faith. “Whosoever is able to proclaim Truth and does not proclaim it will be condemned by God,” he wrote.
Justin opened a school of Christian philosophy. Saint Justin subsequently defended the truth of Christian teaching, persuasively confuting pagan sophistry (in a debate with the Cynic philosopher Crescentius) and heretical distortions of Christianity. He also spoke out against the teachings of the Gnostic Marcian.
In the year 155, when the emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) started a persecution against Christians, Saint Justin personally gave him an Apology in defense of two Christians innocently condemned to execution, Ptolemy and Lucias. The name of the third remains unknown.
In the Apology he demonstrated the falseness of the slander against Christians accused unjustly for merely having the name of Christians. The Apology had such a favorable effect upon the emperor that he ceased the persecution. Saint Justin journeyed, by decision of the emperor, to Asia Minor where they were persecuting Christians with particular severity. He proclaimed the joyous message of the imperial edict throughout the surrounding cities and countryside.
The debate of Saint Justin with the Rabbi Trypho took place at Ephesus. The Orthodox philosopher demonstrated the truth of the Christian teaching of faith on the basis of the Old Testament prophetic writings. Saint Justin gave an account of this debate in his work Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
A second Apology of Saint Justin was addressed to the Roman Senate. It was written in the year 161, soon after Marcus Aurelius (161-180) ascended the throne.
When he returned to Italy, Saint Justin, like the Apostles, preached the Gospel everywhere, converting many to the Christian Faith. When the saint arrived at Rome, the envious Crescentius, whom Justin always defeated in debate, brought many false accusations against him before the Roman court. Saint Justin was put under guard, subjected to torture and suffered martyrdom in 165. The relics of Saint Justin the Philosopher rest in Rome.
Martyr Justin the Philosopher
The Holy Martyr Justin the Philosopher was born around 114 at Sychem, an ancient city of Samaria. Justin’s parents were pagan Greeks. From his childhood the saint displayed intelligence, love for knowledge and a fervent devotion to the knowledge of Truth. When he came of age he studied the various schools of Greek philosophy: the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, the Platonists, and he concluded that none of these pagan teachings revealed the way to knowledge of the true God.
Once, when he was strolling in a solitary place beyond the city and pondering about where to seek the way to the knowledge of Truth, he met an old man. In the ensuing conversation he revealed to Justin the essential nature of the Christian teaching and advised him to seek the answers to all the questions of life in the books of Holy Scripture. “But before anything else,” said the holy Elder, “pray diligently to God, so that He might open to you the doors of Light. No one is able to comprehend Truth, unless he is granted understanding from God Himself, Who reveals it to each one who seeks Him in prayer and in love.”
In his thirtieth year, Justin accepted holy Baptism (between the years 133 and 137). From this time Saint Justin devoted his talents and vast philosophical knowledge to preaching the Gospel among the pagans. He began to journey throughout the Roman Empire, sowing the seeds of faith. “Whosoever is able to proclaim Truth and does not proclaim it will be condemned by God,” he wrote.
Justin opened a school of Christian philosophy. Saint Justin subsequently defended the truth of Christian teaching, persuasively confuting pagan sophistry (in a debate with the Cynic philosopher Crescentius) and heretical distortions of Christianity. He also spoke out against the teachings of the Gnostic Marcian.
In the year 155, when the emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) started a persecution against Christians, Saint Justin personally gave him an Apology in defense of two Christians innocently condemned to execution, Ptolemy and Lucias. The name of the third remains unknown.
In the Apology he demonstrated the falseness of the slander against Christians accused unjustly for merely having the name of Christians. The Apology had such a favorable effect upon the emperor that he ceased the persecution. Saint Justin journeyed, by decision of the emperor, to Asia Minor where they were persecuting Christians with particular severity. He proclaimed the joyous message of the imperial edict throughout the surrounding cities and countryside.
The debate of Saint Justin with the Rabbi Trypho took place at Ephesus. The Orthodox philosopher demonstrated the truth of the Christian teaching of faith on the basis of the Old Testament prophetic writings. Saint Justin gave an account of this debate in his work Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
A second Apology of Saint Justin was addressed to the Roman Senate. It was written in the year 161, soon after Marcus Aurelius (161-180) ascended the throne.
When he returned to Italy, Saint Justin, like the Apostles, preached the Gospel everywhere, converting many to the Christian Faith. When the saint arrived at Rome, the envious Crescentius, whom Justin always defeated in debate, brought many false accusations against him before the Roman court. Saint Justin was put under guard, subjected to torture and suffered martyrdom in 165. The relics of Saint Justin the Philosopher rest in Rome.
In addition to the above-mentioned works, the following are also attributed to the holy martyr Justin the Philosopher:
1) An Address to the Greeks
2) A Hortatory Address to the Greeks
3) On the Sole Government of God
Saint John of Damascus preserved a significant part of Saint Justin’s On the Resurrection, which has not survived. The church historian Eusebius asserts that Saint Justin wrote books entitled
The Singer
Denunciation of all Existing Heresies and
Against Marcian
In the Russian Church the memory of the martyr is particularly glorified in temples of his name. He is invoked by those who seek help in their studies.
The holy martyrs Justin, Chariton, Euelpistus, Hierax, Peonus, Valerian, Justus and the martyr Charito suffered with Saint Justin the Philosopher in the year 166. They were brought to Rome and thrown into prison. The saints bravely confessed their faith in Christ before the court of the prefect Rusticus. Rusticus asked Saint Justin, whether he really thought that after undergoing tortures he would go to heaven and receive a reward from God. Saint Justin answered, “Not only do I think this, but I know and am fully assured of it.”
The prefect proposed to all the Christian prisoners that they offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. When they refused he issued a sentence of death, and the saints were beheaded.
Lean on The Lord
"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken." Psalm 55:22
There are times in our lives when we take our problems to God in prayer, then hear clear direction from Him on which path to take.
There are also those other times when we pray continually but feel like God doesn’t hear us.
We may think He’s letting us figure it out on our own, which is not the case. We must trust in God’s promise that He will never leave us or forsake us.
We know He has a plan for us and is with us as long as we keep Him at the center of our lives. Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s purpose prevails.
When we bring our decisions to Him, God assures us of His steady, guiding hand, and He will help us decide.
Let us take those cares to Him in prayer. We can trust Him with the decision, the direction, and the outcome.
But we have to ask Him humbly, obediently, believing, and waiting with confidence that He will respond in His time.
Talk to Him continuously and wait with obedience and trust to hear His answers.
Sometimes we want Him to answer us with what we have in mind, our plan, not His plan. That is why we feel like he does not answer.
But the Lord answers whom he asks Him, and He will never leave us or forsake us.
We need to clear our minds and be ready and assured to hear His answers and directions in His perfect time and way. Amen
“How many are they that say: How I should have wished to see His fair form, His figure, His clothes, His shoes! Why?
You here see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. And while you are longing to see His clothes, He gives you Himself, not only to look at, but to touch, and to eat and receive Him within you.”
All sins are mortal because all sins separate us from God, the only source of immortality. Sins are all those things that form a barrier between us and our participation in God. So all sins are serious and equal in the eyes of God in that they all separate us from Him. Whether our sins are minor or significant, they all place us apart from God’s grace. We repeatedly read in the Gospel that the Kingdom of God is within us and that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, “know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:15-20). So, when we sin, we choose to build in our hearts the principality of this world rather than the kingdom of God. Saint Paul tells us in Romans, chapter six, "Are ye not aware that to Whom ye yield yourselves to obey as servants, ye are truly His servants Whom ye obey: whether of sin unto death, or of obedience [to God] unto righteousness?" (Romans 6:16).
But when we conquer these principalities and replace them with the indwelling of Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit, we become warriors of God's Kingdom. Let us train ourselves for this spiritual battle, learning how to fight and struggle against the principality of death and sin within ourselves. In this war, which is fought in one's conscience, mind, and soul, we must choose to defeat and conquer one of the enemy's strongholds, sin, and attain our goal. We must choose to have Christ’s dominion over our hearts.
The main characteristic that distinguishes a Christian is his acceptance and receipt of Christ in the Holy Spirit. The irrefutable sign of our acceptance of Christ is the change of our sinful nature and the receipt of the new nature that seeks love and rejects evil and sin. If we believe in Christ’s redemptive death on the cross, we pray, and say that we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior without being changed from the love of sin to the love of God and loving each other as Jesus loved us, ““Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. “(1John 4:7-8); this is the most significant proof that our faith has not yet brought us to the salvation of Christ.
Many need to be aware that the fundamental difference between the law of the Old Testament and Christianity is that the law has set rules for man to obey and do it. Whoever does it is considered righteous, and whoever does not do it is disobedient, sinful, and deserves punishment in this world and the hereafter. As for Christianity, it is not built on do and not to do, but on be or not to be, meaning that the law commanded that you should not steal, commit adultery, or kill, but Christ came to give man the gift and grace of a new life “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) that makes him be able to be faithful and not a thief. In the Holy Spirit, we can have pure and chaste hearts and eyes; in this case, we will not be adulterers. Having the grace of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” ( 1Corinthians 3:16), so we can love our enemies and forgive all who have sinned against us . Our obedience to the commandments and the holy word of God the Father leads us not only to do good and be away from evil but to hate sin, all evil deeds, evil thoughts, and be filled with God’s life, love, holiness, and faithfulness. Unfortunately many Christians still live by the mentality of the Old Testament’s law and have not yet been transformed into the mind of the Gospel, which is receiving the new nature, be changed to be in the image and likeness of Christ, and be in unity with Him, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. “ (2Corinthians5:17).
The gift of Christ to man in the New Testament is the adoption by grace to the Heavenly Father, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:6-7). Not everyone who believes in Christ becomes a child of God, but the sure sign of having the grace of adoption is the receipt of the new life, which is the life of Christ that unites us to Him and changes us to His image, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)
Many have neglected their salvation and seek through religiosity and rituals the peace of heart and tranquility of the soul, but all this is in vain and they did not obtain any. But those who have received Christ in the Holy Spirit have received the gift of adoption, the new nature, and have come to enjoy eternal peace, joy, and love.
We beseech You, our Heavenly Father, to be our helper and protector. Save the afflicted among us; have mercy on the lowly; Raise up the fallen; appear to the needy; heal the ungodly; Restore the wanderers of Your people; Feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners; Raise up the sick; comfort the faint-hearted.
Amen
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.”
WHAT is the WILL OF GOD?
OUR SANCTIFICATION
HOW we be sanctified?
1- That we should abstain from sexual immorality;
2- That each of us should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification
and honor and not in passion of lust
WHY we have to be sanctified?
For God did not call us to uncleanness
BUT IN HOLINESS
Therefore he who rejects this (to be sanctified) does not reject man, BUT GOD,
WHO has also given us His Holy Spirit (to help us to be sanctified).
Concerning BROTHERLY LOVE
We are taught BY GOD to LOVE one another
BUT St. Paul is urging us that we increase more and more
AND ALSO
1- To aspire to lead a quiet life,
2- To mind our own business,
3- To work with our own hands.
WHY we do all of this?
That we may walk properly toward those who are outside
AND
That you may lack nothing.
