Justin Martyr
2nd century · AD 165 · Early Fathers (before Nicaea) · 172 passages
A philosopher who became a Christian and defended the faith to emperors and Jewish teachers, reading the Old Testament as pointing to Christ.
In his own words on 2 Peter
- 2 Peter 3:7
Then further concerning Him, that He alone is powerful, both to institute judgment on the deeds performed in life, and on the ignorance of the Deity [displayed by men], I can adduce witnesses from your own ranks; and first Sophocles, who speaks as follows: "That time of times shall come, shall surely come, When from the golden ether down shall fall Fire's teeming treasure, and in burning flames All things of earth and heaven shall be consumed; And then, when all creation is dissolved, The sea's last wave shall die upon the shore, The bald earth stript of trees, the burning air No winged thing upon its breast shall bear. There are two roads to Hades, well we know; By this the righteous, and by that the bad, On to their separate fates shall tend; and He, Who all things had destroyed, shall all things save."...
On the Sovereignty of God, Chapter III
- 2 Peter 3:8
Now we have understood that the expression used among these words, 'According to the days of the tree [of life] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound' obscurely predicts a thousand years. For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, 'The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,' is connected with this subject.
Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LXXXI
Quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations of the fathers — Aquinas's Catena Aurea, the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, and related editions. Each quotation links to its source.