At the beginning of the 100s, the Church was still just emerging in the Roman world, and Christianity was often the subject of wild rumors in the Roman world: Christians were ritual murderers who consumed the flesh of infants; they were treasonous rebels; they practiced terrible perversions in their closed-door sessions on Sundays. Some of these rumors inflamed magistrates and mobs, with fatal consequences for the Church. From Athens to Rome, the local authorities were hardly inclined to show sympathy or mercy to members of an upstart foreign cult.

In this time of calumny and confusion, a movement of Christian teachers arose to set the record straight. They are known as the “apologists.” Perhaps the greatest of their first generation was St. Justin, who was born about the year 100 and whose memorial the Church marks today.

The apologists set out to give reasoned explanations of Christian doctrines. (An “apology” in this sense is not the admission of a fault, but a speech or writing that defends some idea.) They were not so much preachers as debaters. Amid a hostile and confused culture, they methodically explained and defended all that Christians really believed.

Justin was well prepared for this task. As a young man, a pagan of Samaria, he was an intense seeker looking for wisdom in all the usual places in the ancient world — among the Stoics, Pythagoreans, Peripatetics, and Platonists. He studied philosophy, rhetoric, history, and poetry. And he pushed his inquiries to ultimate questions, to first principles, but no master in any of the philosophy schools was able to satisfy him. (Justin abandoned one philosopher who demanded cash in advance from his disciples, and another who insisted that his students must master music, astronomy, and geometry before approaching divine matters.)

One day Justin was walking along a beach, where he met an old man. Soon the two were deep in a discussion of the ultimate questions. Justin identified himself as a philosopher.

“Does philosophy, then, make happiness?” asked the old man.

“Surely,” said Justin, “and only philosophy.”

“What, then, is philosophy?” the man asked. “And what is happiness?”

“Philosophy,” replied Justin, “is the knowledge of what really exists, and a clear perception of the truth; and happiness is the reward of such knowledge and wisdom.”

“But what do you call God?” said the old man.

From there, the old man led Justin to see that, if he sincerely sought truth and sought the God who really exists, he needed to consult the prophets of ancient Israel. “They alone,” said the mysterious stranger, “both saw and announced the truth…not influenced by a desire for glory, but filled with the Holy Spirit. Their writings still exist, and whoever reads them gains much in his knowledge of…all a philosopher ought to know.”

Justin went off at once to find these books, and on reading he found much more: “Immediately a flame was kindled in my soul; and I was possessed by a love of the prophets, and of those who are friends of Christ … I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.” Tradition says he was baptized in Ephesus.

Studying Christian doctrine, he discovered that much of what he had learned about Christianity from the pagans was utterly false. He was further distressed that these rumor campaigns were leading to the persecution of Christians. So he dedicated himself to the refutation of these errors, explaining and defending his adopted faith before pagans and Jews. Two of his “apologies” are addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate. A third apologetic work — directed toward Jews — he cast in the form of a dialogue with a rabbi named Trypho.

St. Justin still identified himself as a philosopher, and he still wore the traditional philosopher’s cloak. He saw everything that was good and true in pagan philosophy as a glimpse of the truth and goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. “Whatever things were rightly said among all men,” Justin wrote, “are the property of us Christians.”

Eventually St. Justin traveled to Rome, where he established a school of Christian philosophy. A Christian couldn’t make such a public spectacle of himself and get away with it. In about the year 165, he was charged with impiety toward the gods and, with six companions, was scourged and beheaded. Thus he earned the title by which the Church has always known him: St. Justin Martyr.

St. Justin’s First Apology gives us one of the clearest descriptions we have of what the Mass was like in the early and middle 100s, a little more than a century after Christ’s resurrection. As you’ll see, it looks very familiar. Already, the Mass looked very much like the Mass we know today. (In fact, Justin’s description has been incorporated verbatim into the Catechism of the Catholic Church, numbers 1345 and 1355.)

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we said before, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.

Already we can see that Sunday celebrations were very much like our liturgy today. The congregation heard readings from the Gospels and the Prophets, and then there was a sermon. Then they celebrated the Eucharist. There was an offering for the poor. A modern Catholic who suddenly fell back through time to the year 150 or so would know exactly what was going on in church on Sunday.

St. Justin appears as a character in two page-turner novels published in the last five years, Junia and Marcus. Both are by Father Michael Giesler, and both are far more exciting than The Da Vinci Code. At half the price of that monstrosity, you get nail-biting suspense, characters you actually care about, and historical accuracy to boot.

UPDATE: Jeff Ziegler of the Ziegler A List provides these links:
— Justin in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
— Justin’s Apologies.
— Dialogue with Trypho.