Note 367 — Chapter IV
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 367:
(return)
Dialogue 8. The dialogue takes up a more positive attitude than the Apology, both as a whole and in detail. If we consider that both works are also meant for Christians, and that, on the other hand, the Dialogue as well as the Apology appeals to the cultured heathen public, we may perhaps assume that the two writings were meant to present a graduated system of Christian instruction. (In one passage the Dialogue expressly refers to the Apology.) From Justin's time onward the apologetic polemic of the early Church appears to have adhered throughout to the same method. This consisted in giving the polemical writings directed against the Greeks the form of an introduction to Christian knowledge, and in continuing this instruction still further in those directed against the Jews.