Bruderhof wrote:
> We know that the followers of the Stoic school were also hated and
> killed because, at least in their ethical teaching, they showed a love
> of order by virtue of the seed of the Logos implanted in all
> humankind. It is similar with some of the poets. As examples I could
> give Heraclitus (whom I like to mention) and Musonius of our own time
> and others, for the demons, as we already pointed out, were always
> eager to make those hated who in some way tried to live according to
> the Logos and to avoid evil. No wonder then that the demons try to
> make those much more hated who live according to the vision and
> knowledge of the whole Logos, which is the Christ, instead of only a
> little part of the Logos, scattered like a seed among men. It had to
> be like that after the demons had been unmasked by him. And the demons
> will always carry on like this until they are confined to everlasting
> fire and suffer just punishment and torment. Even now they are
> overcome by believers in the name of Jesus Christ.
>
> Justin, Second Apology 8. After A.D. 150.
>
Clearly, our faith is more sublime than any human doctrine, for the very
reason that Christ, who appeared for our sakes, is the whole Logos, the
Body as well as the Word and the Soul...Socrates, the most forceful of
them all, was in his time accused of the same crimes as we are. They
claimed that he introduced new gods and spurned the gods recognized by
the State..."It is not easy to find the father and creator of all things,
and when one has found him, it is indeed not without danger to proclaim
him before all men." Yet our Christ did all this in his own power. No one
believed so much in Socrates that he was willing to die for his
teachings, and yet Socrates knew of Christ to some extent...After all, he
was and is the Logos who dwells in every man, who foretold things to
come, first through the prophets, and then in person when he took on our
human nature and brought us this teaching! But not only philosophers and
scholars believed in Christ; no, it was much more simple laborers and
quite ordinary people who even scorned honor, fear, and death. Thus he is
revealed as the power of the ineffable Father, in complete contrast to
mere instruments of human reason.
Justin, Second Apology 10.
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