Today (June 1) the Church celebrates the life and reflects on the death of Justin, a martyr in Rome c.165.

Justin was born at the beginning of the second century in Palestine. 

As a young man he explored many different philosophies before, at the age of thirty, embracing Christianity. He continued to wear the distinctive dress of a professional philosopher, and taught Christianity as a philosophy first at Ephesus, and later at Rome. He became an outstanding apologist for the Christian faith, and is honoured as the first Christian thinker to enter into serious dialogue with the other intellectual disciplines of his day, including Judaism. 

 Justin always sought to reconcile the claims of faith and reason. It was at Rome in about the year 165 that he and some of his disciples were denounced as Christians, and beheaded. The authentic record of their martyrdom based on an official court report has survived. 

 Traditionally, Justin is often surnamed ‘Martyr’ because of his two-fold witness to Christ, through his apologetic writings and his manner of death.