Justin Martyr

100 CE–165 CE · Flavia Neapolis (Nablus)

Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 CE) was born to Greek-speaking pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis in Samaria and identified himself as a Gentile, though he called himself a Samaritan by region. He studied philosophy across the eastern Mediterranean — Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism — before encountering an aged Christian man near the sea and converting to Christianity, most plausibly at Ephesus. He settled in Rome, where he opened a Christian philosophical school and addressed his First Apology to the emperor Antoninus Pius and his Second Apology to the Roman Senate. His Dialogue with Trypho records a debate with a Jewish interlocutor, traditionally set at Ephesus. He was reportedly denounced by the Cynic philosopher Crescens, tried before the urban prefect Junius Rusticus, and beheaded in Rome around 165 CE.

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Stop 1 of 3100–115Born

Flavia Neapolis (Nablus)Palestinian Authority

What they did here

Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis in Samaria (modern Nablus) to pagan Greek-speaking parents of Greek or Roman descent, as he states in his First Apology (1 Apol. 1): 'Justin, the son of Priscus, son of Bacchius, of Flavia Neapolis, in Palestinian Syria.'

About Flavia Neapolis (Nablus)

Flavia Neapolis (modern Nablus, in the West Bank), a Roman city founded near biblical Shechem. It was the birthplace of the apologist Justin Martyr (c. 100).

See other sages who lived in Flavia Neapolis (Nablus)→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Justin Martyr’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

In the same tradition

Polycarp of Smyrna, Marcion of Sinope, Valentinus, Polycrates of Ephesus, Pope St. Anicetus, Pope St. Pius I, Tatian

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Justin Martyr’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.