Read it in Rome: Miracles, Documents, and an Empire of Knowledge in Justin Martyr’s First Apology

1 A Documentary Russian Doll

Justin’s petitionary styling has been well-discussed. The First Apology opens with an appropriate address, with Justin’s name in the nominative, and the addressed emperor(s) in the dative.^[7] A comparison with Greek petitions to Roman emperors preserved on inscriptions shows that Justin uses a range of accurate technical terms to refer to his own text, such as ἔντευξις, ἀξίωσις, and βιβλίδιον.^[8] The term βιβλίδιον in particular characterises petitions from the Antonine period, demonstrating Justin’s adherence to contemporary practice. He regularly uses the verb ἀξιοῦμεν, “we ask,” to introduce requests in his Apologies, another technical marker from real petitions. Moreover, in his appending of the letter (ἐπιστολή) of Hadrian, and his request that his petition be subscribed (ὑπογράψαντας) and “posted up” (προθεῖναι), he again conforms to contemporary procedure.^[9]

As is frequently asserted, the First Apology is many times longer than any known real petition, and this alone renders it highly unlikely that it was submitted as a petition to the imperial a libellis as is.^[10] Similarly, scholars suggest that the more hostile aspects of Justin’s argument are alien to the petitionary form. However, by utilising the formal aspects of a petition, Justin communicates that he is sited within the normative network of petition-and-response, at once supporting the emperor’s own judicial narrative, but also presenting himself as a respectable Roman subject (or citizen)^[11] who is entitled to an imperial response.

This much is recognised. Comparatively neglected is his citation (and use) of Roman documents within the text of the Apology.^[12] At one point, he refers to Roman provincial census documents written under the governor of Syria, Quirinus. Elsewhere, he twice cites Pontius Pilate’s judicial documentation. Finally, he refers to a petition which a Christian had submitted to the prefect of Egypt.^[13]

After the bombastic opening of Justin’s First Apology, he settles into a lengthy section—maligned by many modern readers,^[14] though vital for ancient Christians—seeking to prove Christ’s messiahship by reference to Hebrew Bible prophecies, and their fulfilment by Jesus.

In Chapter 34, he cites Micah’s prophecy that a ruler will emerge from Bethlehem to shepherd the people (Micah 5:1–2). Justin then explains:

κώμη δέ τίς ἐστιν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ Ἰουδαίων, ἀπέχουσα σταδίους τριάκοντα πέντε Ἱεροσυλύμων, ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ὡς καὶ μαθεῖν δύνασθε ἐκ τῶν ἀπογραφῶν τῶν γενομένων ἐπὶ Κυρηνίου, τοῦ ὑμετέρου ἐν Ἰουδαίᾳ πρώτου γενομένου ἐπιτρόπου.^[15]

This is a village in the territory of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you are able to learn from the census-lists made under Quirinius, your first procurator in Judaea.^[16]

Nowhere does Justin claim to have seen these census-lists themselves, but he rather assumes that the readers—ostensibly, the emperors—will have access to them. Shortly thereafter, Justin cites another Roman document. In the following chapter, he quotes Psalms references to pierced hands and feet (Ps 21[22]:17) and casting lots for clothing (Ps 21[22]:19), and explains that these prophecies were fulfilled by the crucifixion and the Roman soldiers’ division of Jesus’ clothing.^[17] He tells us:

καὶ ταῦτα ὅτι γέγονε δύνασθε μαθεῖν ἐκ τῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου γενομένων ἄκτων.^[18]

And you are able to learn that these things happened from the acta recorded under Pontius Pilate.

Nine chapters on, Justin returns to these acta, this time to authenticate a series of prophecies from Isaiah which foretell a Messiah who will cure stutterers, the blind, lepers, and raise the dead (Isa 26:19; 35:6; 35:5). Justin employs the now-familiar phrase: “You are able to learn that he did these things from the acta recorded under Pontius Pilate” (ὅτι τε ταῦτα ἐποίησεν, ἐκ τῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου γενομένων ἄκτων μαθεῖν δύνασθε).^[19] At three points in the First Apology, then, Justin conjures the idea of Roman documentation to which he himself claims no access, but which he suggests his readers do, and which he posits as evidence for Christ’s Messiahship and divinity.

Justin makes another reference to a Roman document in a different context. In order to disprove the calumny that Christians regarded incestuous sex as an initiation ritual,^[20] he writes that “one of our own recently . . . submitted a petition in Alexandria, to Felix who was then governor, asking him to allow a doctor to remove his testicles.”^[21] Castration was supposedly forbidden without gubernatorial approval.^[22] Unfortunately, Felix was unwilling to “subscribe” (ὑπογράψαι) and thus authorise the petition, and the young man was forced to endure an unaided chastity. As we have seen above, βιβλίδιον is the term which Justin uses to refer to his own text at 2 Apologia 14,1, which, in the edition of Minns and Parvis, is transposed back to 1 Apologia 69,1.^[23] Moreover, the verb Justin used to describe the young Christian’s request to the governor—ἀξιόω—is one which he regularly uses to make requests of his own (ἀξιοῦμεν, “we ask”), in imitation of the formulaic language of petitions. Finally, the act of subscribing the petition—which Felix refuses—is exactly that which Justin requests of the emperor. Within Justin’s documentary-styled apology, then, he embeds a number of references to imagined (or imaginary) Roman documents which he uses to support Christian truth-claims.

2 Stretching Credulity?

As stated, Justin did not have any census data to hand. He is relying entirely upon Luke’s account of the census:

ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ἐξῆλθεν δόγμα παρὰ Καίσαρος Αὐγούστου ἀπογράφεσθαι πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην. αὕτη ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου. καὶ ἐπορεύοντο πάντες ἀπογράφεσθαι, ἕκαστος εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πόλιν.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the entire world was to be registered. This first census occurred while Quirinius was governing Syria. And everyone went to be registered, each to their own city.^[24]

Luke uses the idea of the census as an administrative process to explain why Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem: the census apparently required each to return to their ancestral home. This may be a reflection of the experience of provincial censuses which required tenants to make declarations from their registered domiciles.^[25] Quirinius, as legate of Syria, indeed undertook a provincial census which also included the newly-annexed territory of Judaea.^[26] Luke, like Justin, uses the terminus technicus ἀπογραφή. However, there is no corroborating evidence for a universal census of all Roman subjects under Augustus.^[27]

Justin changes the emphasis. Luke was not interested in the product of the census, but in the process, as an explanation for human movement. Justin, however, asks the reader to consider the documentation this process produced, and to regard this documentation as proof for Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem—thus fulfilling Micah’s prophecy. Oral, barbarian knowledge is thus authenticated with written Roman evidence.^[28] This rests on the idea, not only that census records were produced, but that they are still accessible. He shifts the focus, therefore, from context and chronology to content and accessibility.

It is easy to dismiss Justin’s argument here as specious; modern commentators have generally not been kind to the idea that someone in the mid–2d century could consult census data recorded a century-and-a-half earlier. However, I argue that both in terms of content and accessibility, Justin’s claim would have been convincing—or at least plausible—to a mid-2d century Roman audience. Quirinius’ census of AD 6/7 would have produced documentation enumerating the names, ages, property, registered abode, and distinguishing features of the inhabitants of Bethlehem. Likely this documentation would have been kept—at least—in Antioch, Syria’s capital.^[29] If one takes it as a priori true that Jesus was born in Bethlehem—as Justin does—then it follows that Jesus’ birth, or Mary and Joseph’s presence, would have been recorded.

Justin supposes that these documents could be consulted, in Rome, a century and a half later. This seems more fantastical, but a contemporary audience could have found the idea plausible. Returns of the Roman census—the census which recorded all Roman citizens across the empire—were certainly sent to, and archived in, Rome.^[30] The situation concerning provincial censuses (which recorded the property of all the inhabitants of a province to assess the proper tax demand) is less clear, and there is no solid evidence that systematic centralisation of records occurred. Augustus assumes that local data relating to non-Roman citizens—which he does not possess—is available at Cyrene,^[31] suggesting that provincial census returns were cached locally but not sent to Rome. However, some degree of communication, if only to assess provincial tax liabilities, can be assumed. Moreover, notwithstanding the lack of comprehensive data centralisation, some provincial returns were forwarded to Rome.

Thus Josephus, writing in Rome, inserts population figures for Egypt—likely from the provincial census—into a speech of Agrippa II, embedded amidst an enumeration of Roman forces stationed in the provinces.^[32] Agnès Bérenger hypothesises that this information comes from a document like the Augustan Breviarium totius imperii^[33] which supposedly recorded the military forces, revenues, and population for each province.^[34] The population component of such a document must have been derived from census data. However, this does not prove that complete records were sent to Rome, and the fact that only Egypt is given specific numbers in Agrippa’s speech hints at the spottiness of any centralisation.^[35] Phlegon of Tralles apparently draws on provincial census data in his On Long Lived Persons: this text draws in part on Pliny the Elder’s list of centenarians from the Po Valley recorded in Vespasian’s Roman census;^[36] as we have seen, Roman census data was archived centrally. But Phlegon also lists non-Romans—from Macedonia, Bithynia-Pontus, and Lusitania.^[37] If this information does come from census lists—and Phlegon claims that it does in the opening of his work^[38]—then it is provincial census data upon which he is drawing. Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson suggests Phlegon’s proximity to Hadrian may have granted him access.^[39] Such claims in imperial-era literature appear to assume the acceptability of the idea that census data was (at least sometimes) collected at Rome, and was retrievable. The suggestion, then, that Quirinius’ census could have proven a claim about Jesus’ birth, and be accessible to an emperor in Rome, would not seem ridiculous to a Roman audience.^[40]

What of the acta made under Pontius Pilate, referred to by Justin in Chapters 35 and 48? First, we must establish what these are. I suggest that Justin here means judicial records, as is supposed by Minns and Parvis.^[41] Hill, however, has recently argued that Justin refers to some Christian document—a gospel—written under Pilate, accepted in Jörg Ulrich’s recent commentary.^[42] It is true that ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου can simply mean “in the time of Pilate,” as it may do in Ignatius’ letters, in credal mentions of Pontius Pilate,^[43] and some of Justin’s usages.^[44] However, when used with the name of a ruler in the genitive, ἐπί has not purely a chronographic sense, but also a jurisdictional one.^[45] For example, in Justin’s Second Apology, he writes of things done in the city of Rome ἐπὶ Οὐρβίκου, “under Urbicus.”^[46] This accomplishes a dual purpose of chronology and agency/jurisdiction, since Justin is concerned with trials before Urbicus’ tribunal as urban prefect. The implication of agency is particularly strong in judicial settings, and in the First Apology Justin likewise uses the term ἐπὶ (ἐφ᾽) ὑμῶν to mean “before your tribunal.”^[47] Moreover, as we have already seen, Justin describes Roman census data on Judaea as having been “made under Quirinius” (γενομέναι ἐπὶ Κυρηνίου),^[48] for which he certainly intends to attribute agency. These are the precise words used for the acta of Pilate (ἐκ τῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου γενομένων).^[49] The use of the term acta, also, is a clear sign of Pilate’s involvement. Hill takes the word to mean “deeds” or “things done” under Pilate,^[50] akin to Papias’ description of the Gospel of Mark as “the things said or done (τὰ ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα) by the Lord,”^[51] or Eusebius’ reference to “the acts of Jesus” (αἱ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πράξεις) in connection with the contents of the Gospels.^[52] However, Justin does not choose a natural Greek word for “deeds” or “acts”—such as πράξεις—but a technical Latin word transliterated to Greek, ἄκτα. As a technical term, acta does not have the broad sense of “things done,” but “minutes,” “proceedings,”^[53] and refers to the official documentation produced by Roman magistrates, often specifically judicial records, as this context implies.^[54] The conjunction of a technical term for a Roman document, and the claim that it was made ἐπί a Roman governor is identical to the census data reference. Justin therefore means to refer to Pilate’s judicial records.^[55]

Some have hypothesised that Justin refers to an apocryphal Christian text, presented as a document of Pilate, which he possessed;^[56] however, this is unlikely. Justin refers to these acta in identical terms to his reference to Quirinius’ census data, which he did not have. Secondly, the extant “Pilate apocrypha” which could relate to Justin’s Pilate acta are demonstrably late antique productions,^[57] and most scholars now contend that they were produced in order to fill the void of speculative references by Justin, Tertullian, and Eusebius.^[58] There is no reason to believe that Justin is doing anything other than speculating that such a document must exist, without claiming autopsy.^[59]

As with the census data discussed above, I suggest that Justin’s claim that documents produced by Pontius Pilate could authenticate aspects of Jesus’ life could have been taken seriously by a 2d century Roman audience. Roman trials generated documentation. In the Republican period, magistrates kept journals of their activities, called commentarii, which were worked-up authorised records based on more barebones documents.^[60] Initially, these were not intended for public consumption, and were kept in the magistrate’s private tablinium where they would remain even after the magistrate’s term of office ended.^[61] In the imperial period, record keeping—especially judicial record-keeping—became more systematised. Roman courts, including those of provincial governors, kept detailed records and minutes of trial proceedings (sometimes also called commentarii, at other times acta).^[62] These documents recorded what was said at trial, though they were usually in shorthand before the 3d century.^[63] Our best evidence for this system comes from Egypt: here, magistrates of even relatively lowly office (e. g. nome strategoi) kept detailed records. Copies of trial acta were stored at Alexandria, as well as in the nome where the trial occurred.^[64] These included the minutes of trials held before the equestrian prefect.^[65] They may have been exhibited publicly before being archived. The governor exercised control over this system, displaying an interest in their maintenance and accessibility.^[66] Though the degree of hierarchy and complexity in the Egyptian system may have been exceptional, there is evidence for archives and court documents from other provinces.^[67] Therefore, it would have seemed entirely sensible to a 2d century Roman observer that had Pilate dealt with Jesus in an official capacity, documents recording this would have been produced.

As with the census data, Justin’s reference to the acta presupposes that the documents were accessible, and had been cached in Rome. That the acta were retrievable is amply clear.^[68] Trial records were often submitted as supporting evidence in later lawsuits.^[69] They formed the basis of textual productions like Christian martyr narratives, and the similarly styled Acts of the Alexandrians, which purport to be court documents.^[70] The trial in which Justin himself would later lose his life would come to be publicised in exactly such a way.^[71] Whatever stance one takes on the level of editing (or invention) these productions have undergone, their existence demonstrates a belief in the plausibility of accessing such court documents.^[72] As with census data, evidence is lacking to suggest that provincial court records were routinely centralised in Rome.^[73] But this is beside the point: the idea that governors sent documents to Rome was a common one,^[74] and, if one accepted that records of Jesus’ trial had been made, the idea that copies would have been sent to Rome would have seemed plausible.

That Rome possessed large imperial archives in which historical material could be consulted (at the whim of the emperor) has been a powerful idea in both antiquity and the modern world. Scholars today conversely emphasise the importance of private-collections, non-intuitive ancient motivations for archival practices,^[75] and the balkanisation of official holdings at Rome under the principate.^[76] However, this scattered system was thought capable of preserving and delivering data. Aulus Gellius consulted the praetor’s edict at the bibliotheca Ulpia in Trajan’s forum.^[77] Domitian supposedly read Tiberius’ private documents from his own archives.^[78] Pliny requested Trajan look through his records to see whether there had ever been an imperial decision relating to foundlings in Bithynia.^[79] Finally, in AD 139, Antoninus Pius gave permission to a delegation from Smyrna to copy a constitution of Hadrian which the delegation believed to be in the imperial archives.^[80] The idea that the emperor had access to accumulated imperial knowledge was widespread.^[81]

The age of the documents is no necessary objection either. Had these putative census data and documents of Pilate still existed in Justin’s time, they would have been between 120 and 160 years old. Contemporary Romans believed it possible for manuscripts and records to survive for a couple of centuries.^[82] Legal documentation more than a century old was used as supporting evidence in Roman Egyptian court cases.^[83] Indeed, archaeological evidence supports the idea that documents and manuscripts could survive for a century or two without recopying in antiquity.^[84]

On this basis, I submit that Justin’s claim that the emperor could authenticate aspects of Jesus’ life and death by consulting his own archives—however speculative (even specious) it may seem to modern readers—could well appear credible to a mid–2d century Roman audience (especially if one already accepted truth of the claims concerning Jesus, as Justin did). Justin’s references are therefore meant to be convincing—and not only to non-Christian, “Roman” outsiders, but to Justin’s immediate circle, as well.

3 Identity, Empire, and Epistemology

If it is granted that Justin’s claims would have struck a contemporary audience as plausible, I want to go one step further, and suggest that Justin himself found the idea of Roman documents vouchsafing his claims as convincing. I believe that Christian apologies, though written ostensibly for external Graeco-Romans were in intended for, and consumed by, Christian audiences.^[85] There is no good evidence that Justin’s work was ever read by Roman officials or educated non-Christians.^[86] It cannot have been submitted to the emperor in its current form, and the antagonistic references to aspects of Graeco-Roman culture and history (e. g. the mocking comment on the deification of Antinous) and assumption of Christian knowledge betray that the framing is likely a literary fiction.^[87] Literature in antiquity was overwhelmingly consumed by those in close social proximity to the author, and, as with Jewish apologetic,^[88] all characteristic elements of Christian apology make best sense as seeking to alleviate Christian concerns about their place in the world and relationships to other groups.^[89] Though references to Roman documents may appear a gesture to outsiders, such an understanding presupposes that neither Justin, nor his fellow Christians, considered themselves Romans. I dispute this framing and suggest that Justin’s references to Roman documents are intended as evidence for his sincere assertion that Christianity and Roman-ness were congruent.

Tom Geue has recently argued that Justin’s references to Roman documents are supplements “for the benefit of his poor Roman doc-mongers”—rhetorical overtures to a sceptical Roman reader, subordinate in importance to Judaeo-Christian (and fundamentally oral) religious knowledge.^[90] I hope to have already shown in the previous section that the references are more serious than this assumes. Indeed, I aim to demonstrate Justin’s particular interest in the documentary passages, suggest that these are part of a wider landscape of written evidence in Justin’s work, and finally argue that the motivation behind this is Justin’s position as a Roman subject—the subject of an empire which made powerful claims on the ownership of knowledge—and that this tactic of making empire work for his own idiosyncratic purposes is a sincere one which can be paralleled by other authors of his period. Justin was a Roman doc-monger with the rest of them.

Although modern readers are generally unenthused by the proof from prophecy sections in Justin’s Apology, they were of central importance to him and his project,^[91] so the presence here of his three references to Roman census data and trial documents deserves attention.^[92] In the proof from prophecy sections in both his First Apology and his Dialogue with Trypho, as well as utilising some biblical texts which correspond closely to our LXX manuscripts (but which he labelled corrupt and Jewish),^[93] Justin also made use of Christian compilatory texts (which he thought represented the true LXX readings) that excerpted prophetical statements about the Messiah and described their fulfilment by Christ.^[94] Justin did not compose these collections, making errors of attribution that could not have been made by the original excerptor.^[95] (Later authors—such as Tertullian—apparently had access to some of the same compilations Justin used).^[96] Oskar Skarsaune identified a tripartite structure shared between these proofs, likely hailing from his source material: A) a non-LXX scriptural phrase is quoted (prophecy); B) exegesis of the scriptural phrase (exposition); C) historical narrative fulfilling the prophecy (fulfilment report).^[97] Do the references to census data and judicial acta fit into this pattern, and do they come from Justin’s testimony compilations?

In my view, they do not. Close examination reveals Justin’s hand in their inclusion, strengthening the idea that these references were important to him. The first factor is the position of the documentary references within the structure of the proofs. The two references to Pilate’s acta are similarly structured: a normal prophecy or chain of prophecies are quoted; they are explained; and Justin then describes how Christ fulfils them (in Chapter 35, through being crucified and having lots cast for his clothes, in Chapter 48 through his healing miracles).^[98] Finally, Justin adds the phrase “you may learn from the acta made under Pontius Pilate that these things happened” as an authenticating tag at the end of the account.^[99] The references to Pilate’s acta exist outside this three-part structure, as an additional element. In 1 Apologia 34,^[100] however—the reference to Quirinius’ census data—the documentary notice actually constitutes the fulfilment report. Justin A) quotes Micah; B) explains that Bethlehem is a town in Judaea; and C) states that census records show that Jesus was born here, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

In both cases, I think we can discern Justin’s hand at work. There is reason to believe that the entire passage of Chapter 34 is Justin’s own creation. Skarsaune notes that the Micah quotation in this passage (Micah 5:1–2) is not a deviant LXX reading from one of the testimony sources, but is copied directly from Matt 2:6.^[101] In other words, though it exhibits a similar structure to the other proofs, Justin has composed this himself from his own reading of Matt 2:6—and has chosen to authenticate it with this imaginative reference to Roman census data, which as we have seen, was itself based on Justin’s reading of Luke.^[102]

The proofs in Chapters 35 and 48 (authenticated with Pilate’s acta) seem more likely to come from a compilatory source. 1 Apologia 35 cites Ps 21(22):17 and 19;^[103] these readings are not deviant from the LXX, and in another work Justin accurately cites them as coming from Ps 21 (suggesting that he was at least able to check the provenance himself),^[104] but he elsewhere combines these same passages both in the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho—along with two passages of Isiah (65:2; 50:6–8)—which may indicate dependence on a compilatory source combining passages of Psalms and Isaiah.^[105] Strengthening this supposition is the fact that the same constellation of references appears in the Epistle of Barnabas 5:13–14, suggesting a common source.^[106] Similarly, for the healing prophecies authenticated by Pilate’s acta at 1 Apologia 48,^[107] the material is culled from Isaiah, and the same combination of sources is elsewhere cited by Justin.^[108] It seems to go back to a non-LXX testimony source.^[109] However, as we have seen, in both of these cases, the documentary reference sits outside the normal tripartite structure, as an additional confirmation. Moreover, while the same assemblages of prophecies cited in both passages are used elsewhere by Justin (suggesting repeated use of another source), only in the passages under discussion are the references to Pilate’s acta added. If they were part of the original proof-texts, why were they not utilised in Justin’s other usages of the same source? Finally, Justin introduces, and describes, the acta of Pilate in exactly the same way as he does Quirinius’ census data: they are each introduced with the phrase, that these things happened, “you may learn” (μαθεῖν δύνασθε) from (ἐκ) a document “made under (γενομένων ἐπί)” a governor.^[110] I suggest, then, that each of these documentary authentications were added specifically by Justin—either as part of a proof-text he himself concocted from scratch (census data), or as additional confirmation of a proof-text he already possessed (Pilate’s acta).

A more speculative point about Justin’s documentary engagement may be made here. I said above that Justin believes his testimonia excerpts to be more faithful reproductions of the true biblical readings than the LXX manuscripts produced by Jewish scribes. It is worth considering the materiality of these two types of text. The Jewish manuscripts would have been traditional papyrus scrolls; on the other hand, it is very likely that Justin’s testimonia collection would have been in codex-format, which was being adopted by Christian communities at this time.^[111] Elizabeth Meyer has argued that Christians in the 2d century adopted the codex due to the impression that Roman tabulae guaranteed the authenticity of their contents—a very similar mobilisation of Roman documentary forms to the process described in this article.^[112] So, we have here Justin asserting that his prophetic texts are the most authentic, partly because they are transmitted in a documentary format, and buttressing his interpretation of those prophecies with references to other administrative records.

At this point, it might be objected: if these references were important to Justin, why did he not quote the documents? The answer is simple: he would have done, but he did not have them; because his belief that they did exist was (I argue) legitimate, he was unwilling to invent the text. His claims are not based on autopsy, but rather on his faith in the life and miracles of Jesus, and his understanding of the machinery of the Roman Empire. His insistence that these documents must exist is a logical conclusion from those prepositions. A failure to quote them does not imply that they were unimportant; on the contrary, it underscores his certainty that they would be found, if only the emperors would look.^[113]

There are two related motivations at work here. Firstly, the importance of written evidence in general to Justin, and to the contemporary literary environment. Though early Christian authors—Justin included—have been presented as advancing an oral, barbarian epistemological system in opposition to Greek literary culture,^[114] this oral knowledge was transmitted textually (as is latent in alternative presentations of Christianity as a religion of the book).^[115] Narratives of Jesus’ life are, above all, textual; and this was recognised by early Christian authors. As Jeremy Hudson argues, Justin’s innovation was bringing “prophecy into the sphere of the literary.”^[116]

Justin is intensely interested in books and written evidence, beyond the documentary forms we have explored so far. For example, when introducing the proof from prophecy section in the First Apology, he explains that ancient Jewish prophecies are accessible because the Jewish kings recorded them and preserved them ἐν βίβλοις, “in scrolls.”^[117] This occasions his notice of Ptolemy Philadelphos’ collection and translation of scripture, based on the Letter of Aristeas, finishing with the important point that these βίβλοι remain in Egypt to this day, available to all for perusal.^[118] The implication is clearly that the emperors could read these texts for themselves if they wished—similar to his documentary citations discussed above. When discussing the heresy of Simon Magus, Justin asserts that he was honoured as a god at Rome, and his trump-card is the citation of an honorific inscription which he not only quotes (Σίμωνι Δέῳ Σάγκτῳ), but locates in Rome on the Insula Tiberina.^[119] That he is almost certainly mistaken here does not change that various forms of written evidence were important to his arguments.^[120] As we have seen, in his Dialogue with Trypho, he is repeatedly concerned by the idea that Jewish communities have edited LXX texts to make them less amenable to a Christian interpretation—betraying again a concern for the integrity and proper use of written evidence. He is repulsed, too, by attacks on Christian scriptural integrity closer to home—for example, Marcion’s heretical canon. When, in the Apology, he refers to the gospels, he calls these the “memoirs” (ἀπομνημονεύματα) of the Apostles, trying to imbue these texts with a documentary authenticity.^[121] Finally, he conceives of his own project in terms of providing written evidence for Christianity’s claims: he is writing to educate, that his exposition of Christianity be publicly posted and published,^[122] to “allow everyone an inspection of our life and our teachings” (καὶ βίου καὶ μαθημάτων τὴν ἐπίσκεψιν πᾶσι παρέχειν).^[123] Writing is thus fundamental to Justin, for its ability to authenticate, record, and be consulted. His citation of Roman legal documents fits perfectly into this scheme.

Such an interest in written texts and all their forms—in writing as evidence, in letters, legal documents, inscriptions—and in their accessibility, retrievability, and (in)corruptibility, is a particular feature of literature under the empire.^[124] Paratextual framing devices, like Justin’s Apology-cum-petition, are also notable characteristics of the period. Justin participates in this and makes it work for his Christian claims.

The specific passages we have investigated here correspond to a related phenomenon: the activation of Roman imperial knowledge claims for the purposes of authentication. Justin’s claim that Roman documents could prove Jesus’ Messiahship, his divinity, his miracles, and Christian chastity, depended upon an ideology of imperial knowledge about the world and its inhabitants, which was underpinned by documentary words and figures. This ideology affected those who lived within the Roman Empire, and opened the door for its use and abuse by those same subjects.

Roman imperial ideology stressed constant communication between the periphery and the centre, delivering not just material, but also knowledge—knowledge to be collected, guarded, and utilised by rulers. In his Res gestae exhibited outside his Mausoleum, Augustus not only boasts of his census operations, but constructs a metaphorical map—a catalogue of the places under Roman sway.^[125] Nearby, also part of the Augustan complex on the Campus Martius, was Agrippa’s world-map, exhibited in the Porticus Vipsania—also intimately connected to the documentary record, since the measurements were based on Agrippa’s commentarii.^[126] Whatever the reality, this discourse built up a powerful image in subjects’ minds about Roman control over knowledge. This image, as much as the actual imagines of the emperor around the empire, was vital to the idea of a ruler who was simultaneously in Rome and everywhere else: in a judicial mode, Pliny has Trajan “in the manner of the swiftest star, watching over and listening to all, and from wherever you are invoked, to immediately be there and render aid.”^[127] Similarly, Aelius Aristides says that when Roman administrators have doubt, they immediately write to the emperor to ask what is to be done, and “wait until he signals”; the system of imperial communications and dispatched documents means that “it is very easy for him—while seated—to rule the entire world by letter.”^[128] These ideals of documentary creation, communication, and archiving were interconnected and fundamental to Roman epistemological claims.

Development of documentary and archival practice had its impact on the minds of elites and sub-elites alike.^[129] The cultivation of personal archives in Egypt, for example, becomes more pronounced in the Roman period; meanwhile, scholars have identified heightened impulses of cataloguing and encyclopaedic ordering in imperial literature that correspond to imperial claims of universalising and ordering knowledge from across the oikoumenē.^[130] Roman documents tapped into, and strengthened, these knowledge claims, guaranteeing the veracity of the content within (and Roman authorities were concomitantly affronted by suggestions of tampering).^[131] Justin’s own reference to Roman documents within his work represents an attempt to make this aspect of empire work for the purposes of the group he represented.^[132]

On this note, I want to close this discussion with an example of a near contemporary to Justin adopting a similar rhetorical manoeuvre, tapping into Roman epistemological ideals to convince his readers of a miraculous tale. We have already met Phlegon of Tralles, a freedman of Hadrian who wrote the On Long Lived People.^[133] He also left us another text: On Marvels.^[134] Here he narrates the story of a centaur found in a town called Saune, sited on a high mountain in Arabia.^[135] The captive beast was sent by the local king to the Roman emperor as a gift. While transiting through Alexandria, the centaur died, affected by the climate. The Egyptian prefect had the creature embalmed and sent on to Rome, where it was put on display: a fearsome sight for all who came to see, though smaller than one might expect.

Phlegon cannot claim to have seen this centaur himself.^[136] Perhaps aware that an account of this nature lacking autopsy might stretch credulity, he closes with an authenticating tag:

τὸν δὲ πεμφθέντα εἰς Ῥώμην εἴ τις ἀπιστεῖ, δύναται ἱστορῆσαι· ἀπόκειται γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ὁρ<ρ>ίοις τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος τεταριχευμένος, ὡς προεῖπον.

If anyone does not believe in the centaur which was sent to Rome, it is possible to investigate: for it is laid up in the storehouses of the emperor, embalmed, as I have said.^[137]

This tactic is almost identical to Justin’s “as you may learn” clauses. An unconvinced reader is conjured; the reader is then told that they are able (δύναται) to authenticate the information for themselves, by reference to a physical object that it is assumed must be cached away in imperial archives. In both cases the author does not claim to have seen the item in question. Phlegon’s passage makes no direct use of documents as such. However, the idea of the Roman state as a possessor and guarantor of knowledge—the same system of recording, archiving, and retrieving—is harnessed by both, and made to serve the needs of two very different authors seeking to support their tales of miracles.^[138]

What connects Phlegon and Justin is their imperial context: both provincial Greeks who had spent time in Rome, they were part of an environment in which documentary evidence gained a new status, and in which archival and encyclopaedic ordering of material reached a unique pitch. This was a response to the ways in which the Roman empire worked, and claimed to work. Justin’s comment about census data should not be seen as an insincere concession to unconvinced Roman readers—it was a potentially powerful authentication strategy which resonated with Roman imperial subjects, of which Justin was one.

The afterlife of Justin’s claims suggests their purchase. Likely depending on him, Tertullian cited Quirinius’ census data half a century later in his Against the Jews and Against Marcion.^[139] That Tertullian took Justin’s idea and applied it not to apologetic purposes, but to anti-Jewish and heresiological rhetoric (i. e. texts which were ostensibly directed, not at Roman authorities, but at Christians and other religious minorities), shows that Roman authority was marshalled because it was viewed as convincing by Christians themselves, qua Romans. The same is suggested by the use of Roman documentary forms in martyr texts, and perhaps even by the Christian adoption of the codex.^[140] As for his idea that Pilate’s acta proved Jesus’ miraculous doings, this was also picked up by Tertullian in his own Apology, writing that Pilate actually became a Christian and sent a report on him to Tiberius.^[141] Eusebius elaborated on this account, reporting Tertullian’s statements and seeking to buttress their historical credentials by explaining that such reports from governors to emperors were commonplace so that “nothing having happened might escape his notice” (ὡς ἂν μηδὲν αὐτὸν διαδιδράσκοι τῶν γινομένων).^[142] In Eusebius’ hands, Pilate’s documents now contained proof not only of Jesus’ Messiahship, divinity, and healing miracles, but also his resurrection and paradosis.^[143] It is from this point on that apocryphal Christian productions emerge purporting to be such letters and documents of Pilate. However, the idea of Pilate’s documentation—first encountered in Justin—did not excite only Christians. Eusebius tells of a competing tradition: forged memoirs of Pilate, written and circulated by the persecutor Maximin Daia in order to discredit the claims Christians made of Jesus.^[144] That both Christians and their adversaries were mobilising hypothetical legal documents produced centuries earlier shows the deep penetration of Roman knowledge claims into the minds of subjects and the rhetorical value they provided to those who could marshal them; and the close mirroring of the tactics (as with Phlegon) shows that Christian authors were not doing anything unique, but were simply using the tools of their society—a society in which Rome and its claims were supreme.^[145] Justin and his ilk are perhaps not best described as epistemological supercessionists,^[146] but rather epistemological opportunists.

This helps to demonstrate the enmeshment of early Christian literature in the everyday ideologies and realia of the Roman empire. It is not just that the apologies were written against a Graeco-Roman backdrop, as has become commonplace in scholarship. It is that apology—as we know it, as a Christian genre—could only have emerged in the period it did: a period in which the idea (I leave aside the reality) of persecution threatened the Christian right to exist, forcing believers to navigate the difficult relationship between their religion and their political allegiances; a period in which different ethnic, religious, and philosophical groups competed against each other in an intensely agonistic public environment for followers, legitimacy, and tolerance; and a period in which the empire of Rome spanned the known world, and claimed to know the world better than anyone else. These are the conditions which forged apology—a literature of self-justification, antagonism, and insecurity: a literature of empire.