Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 43:1 (NA 1992)
Article: Justin Martyr And Religious Exclusivism
Author: Graham A. Keith

---

TynBul 43:1 (1992) p. 57

Justin Martyr And Religious Exclusivism

Graham Keith

The Christian church developed not only from a Jewish background, but in the context of the Graeco–Roman world. This meant that Christians had to forge their identity on two fronts. They were neither Jews nor Hellenes when it came to religion; they would sometimes describe themselves as a sort of third race.1 Whereas the Jews were accepted in the Roman world as a distinct religious group because their beliefs and practices could claim the support of a long tradition, Christians had to attempt a justification of both their novelty and exclusiveness.2

This was no academic exercise simply to convince the learned men of the time to take Christianity seriously. A profession of Christianity might involve dire consequences. From the time of the Emperor Nero Christians could be executed for no greater crime than that of being Christians. And they could remove their offence and punishment by a token act of sacrifice to a pagan god. While contemporary paganism may seem to us a hotchpotch of different cults with little in the way of supporting theology, that does not mean it was uniformly tolerant. All members of the community were expected to honour publicly those gods on whose blessing the community was thought to depend. No dissenters were allowed, as they seemed to censure the rest of the community and to jeopardise its welfare. Had Christians maintained their own religion as a private affair and been prepared to join in the local religious rites, they would have been left untroubled. But their exclusive loyalty to Christ was bound to land them in trouble. At the same time they did not want to

TynBul 43:1 (1992) p. 58

shirk their responsibilities to wider society; they had to provide a rationale for their distinctive religious outlook.3

It was no easy task for Christians to argue that they had a genuine interest in society’s well-being.4 They could be dismissed as malcontents or even perverts since they believed that nothing good could be said about pagan religion. In one writer after another in this early period we find pagan religion abhorred as essentially demonic. Although not all demons were considered bad by pagans, the Christians made of this term something sinister and satanic; and in this, of course, they had good biblical precedent.5 And yet Christians (with a few exceptions) were unwilling to be wholly negative toward that culture in which they had been bro...

visitor : : uid: ()