| Summary: | Justin Martyr is widely recognized as a crucially important figure in the development of the notion of heresy, but the passages in his work referencing heresy and other forms of deviance have received surprisingly limited attention. This study breaks new ground by offering the first comprehensive reading of Justin's heresiology within the context of his two major preserved treatises, the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho. Previous scholarship has routinely regarded the passages on heresy in these two documents as digressions essentially unrelated to the main subject matter. This study argues, to the contrary, that in both cases the heresiological passages are central to Justin's overall rhetorical aims. This integrative reading suggests a different understanding of the rhetorical work that these two important documents are doing and allows us to see how Justin's heresiology is deeply shaped by its literary and argumentative contexts. This improved understanding of the relevant passages in turn allows for a more accurate assessment of the extent to which Justin was, as some scholars have claimed, the "inventor of heresy", and suggests a revision of the relationship between early Christian heresiology and comparable discursive formations in early Jewish texts.
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