Athenagoras.

        The defense of Christianity against misrepresentation and persecution took a variety of forms; Justin had done it in one way, and Tatian in quite another. The friendly and understanding way that Justin had tried to take was followed even more successfully by Athenagoras of Athens, who is described in the title of his book as a Christian philosopher. Athenagoras holds that Christians should be entitled to the same liberty to practice their faith that is enjoyed by other miscellaneous groups that make up the population of the empire and appeals to the emperor Marcus Aurelius to see that justice is done them.

        Athenagoras repels the stock charges of atheism, cannibalism, and incest that were brought against the Christians; shows that their worship and teaching are more reasonable and moral than those of their accusers; and appeals again and again to Greek philosophers and poets in support of his claims. Indeed, over and over again Athenagoras by his quotations preserves to us a few lines of Greek poetry that have nowhere else survived, thus contributing a whole series of precious items to the Greek anthology. He is better versed in Greek literature and thought than his predecessors in Christian literature. He writes earnestly and competently and in good temper, not as an advocate but as a reasonable man.

        He produced his Apology, or Appeal on Behalf of Christians, perhaps at Alexandria, between A.D. 177 and 180. Both the work and its author went unmentioned for a long time in Christian antiquity; Methodius, early in the fourth century, is the first writer to speak of him, quoting freely a passage from the Apology. Philip of Side (ca. A.D. 430) also mentions him as flourishing in the times of “Hadrian and Antoninus” and addressing to them an apology for the Christians. But the Apology-the Greek manuscripts call it Presbeia, or Embassy-shows by its opening lines that it was addressed to Aurelius and Commodus, as joint emperors, a state of things that existed only in A.D. 177-80.

        In A.D. 914 Arethas, the learned bishop of Caesarea, the reviser of the commentary of Andreas on the Revelation, had a manuscript written which proved of great importance. The scribe was Baanes, but Arethas himself revised and corrected the text, and the book is known as the Arethas Codex. This manuscript, now in Paris,[53] although it contained other items as well, was practically a corpus of early Christian apologies; it contained works of Clement, Justin (as was supposed), Tatian (now lost from it but preserved in the three copies early made from it), Eusebius, Athenagoras (Apology and On Resurrection), and Eusebius again. It seems to have been copied from a seventh-century manuscript and was itself the parent of three copies made from it in the eleventh, twelfth, and fourteenth centuries, portions of the Arethas manuscript having disappeared in the meantime. From each of these, further copies were made in later centuries, the whole relationship constituting one of the clearest manuscript genealogies known. This fact, together with the unique importance of its contents and the scholarly care taken in its preparation, gives the Arethas Codex great significance.

        The treatise On the Resurrection ofthe Dead which accompanies the Apology of Athenagoras in the Arethas manuscript exhibits somewhat the same philosophical attitude that appears in the Apology. Athenagoras presents the reasons for believing in resurrection, basing his argument on general considerations, rather than on the narrative of the gospels about the resurrection of Jesus. Athenagoras argues not only for the possibility and actuality of resurrection but for its necessity.

        Zahn suggested that Athenagoras was the philosopher of that name to whom Boethus of Alexandria dedicated his work on Plato, not long after A.D. 180. Although this is possible, it cannot, of course, be established.