St. Justin Martyr

by Dr. Andrew Seeley, President and Co-Founder of the Boethius Institute

Today Christians celebrate the feast of St. Justin Martyr, who was killed along with 6 of his disciples in Rome in 165 A.D. Justin is a particular patron of the Boethius Institute, for his teaching on Christ as the Logos, and his own personal journey of finding Christ through his humble, authentic pursuit of wisdom, expresses beautifully our understanding and experience of the culmination in Christ of all pursuits of the true, good, and beautiful. 

Compared to the people who came before Christ, all of which had the “seed” of the Logos implanted in them, those Christians who came after Christ have access to all of Christ or the complete Logos. Those who came before saw through a glass darkly, but those who embrace Christ in the Christian era experience the fullness of revelation – faith and philosophy as one via Christ as Logos. (From The Socratic Journey of Faith and Reason – I was going to explain more about St. Justin’s teachings, but discovered that this site has done an excellent job already.)

The journey that led me to this work began on this date 18 years ago. A door was slammed shut on a path I thought was supposed to follow; that it happened on Justin Martyr’s feast was a great comfort to me. A new path opened, which led to the work of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, where Jeff Lehman and I began with others to form the Justin Martyr Fellows. Last year, another path crumbled in front of us, but then the path to the Boethius Institute and its fellowship opened before us. We look to the teachings and examples of Sts. Justin Martyr and Boethius to guide us, and have hope that through their prayers the Logos will bless and make fruitful our efforts.