This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. REFUTATION OF CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS. In making these demands upon the government for investigation, justice, fair trial, treatment like that accorded to other classes, and right of organization as a law-tolerated society, it became necessary that the Apologists should refute the charges which were constantly brought against the Christians. One of the charges inseparably connected with the name Christian in the early centuries is that of atheism. 1 ATHEISM Justin Martyr admits the force of this accusation in regard to the gods of the Romans, but not when the deity considered is "the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues who is 2 free from all impurity." He does not fear to portray the folly of the worship of images. Athenagoras devotes himself almost exclusively to proving the falsity of the charges advanced against the Christians. His discussion of 1. Justin Martyr, First Apology, Ch. V. 2. Ibid., Ch. IX: "What infatuation! that dissolute men should be said to fashion and make gods for your worship and that you should appoint such men the guardians of the temples where they are enshrined; not recognizing that it is unlawful even to think or say that men are the guardians of gods." 1 atheism is extended and philosophical. The argument is that those who believe in a God the Creator as distinguished from matter, the created, can not be guilty of atheistic tendencies, and that certain teachings of the philosophers might better be so designated than those of the Christians. He proceeds to draw from the Roman writers testimony as to the unity of God and claims that the Christian beliefs are superior to those of the poets and philosophers because they rest on the authority...