It's time for checking the accuracy of another quote that I've seen some people post online in order to hopefully help out anyone who is wondering about whether it is accurate or not. Today this blog's post is checking on this one that is attributed to Justin Martyr:
"The majority of men shall not see God, excepting those who live justly, purified by righteousness and by every other virtue."
The short version: This quote is very close to something Justin wrote... but it came from a statement he made during a conversation when he was a pagan and had not yet become a Christian. It is therefore unclear whether he still held to it after his conversion. Now for the longer version.
This is often posted with no citation at all, as is common with people posting quotes, but a few have cited it to Chapter 21 of The First Apology. The problem is, it's not there at all. Chapter 21 of The First Apology is largely Justin trying to find parallels between the life of Jesus and some pagan figures, with the goal of persuading the Greek/Roman pagans that Christian beliefs aren't all that strange because of some similarities they have to what the Greeks/Roman thought, and so the Romans shouldn't be persecuting Christians. While some have tried to use this part of Justin's work to try to argue that it's evidence the writers of the Bible were taking ideas from paganism--an idea that has a lot of issues with it (see for example here or (touching more directly on Justin's comments) here)--Justin's attempted parallels are rather strained when one looks at them more closely, indicating he was having trouble finding good ones. Chapter 21 of The First Apology does have the somewhat similar statement of "And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire." However, that's still not obviously the quote under examination.
Given that the quote isn't found in Chapter 21 of The First Apology at all, it seems like this makes those who do offer the citation of First Apology look worse than those who cite nothing at all. At least people who quote it without a citation could say they just assumed it was true because they didn't know where to look, but if you cite First Apology, that collapses. It is a fairly easy work to look up online, so it doesn't look good for someone who reproduce the quote without spending the small amount of time required to check the applicable page.
All that said, something very close to the quote does occur in a completely writing of Justin, Dialogue with Trypo. Here is what is said in Dialogue with Trypho, in Chapter 4, in the Ante Nicene Fathers translation (the most popular one right to cite because it is public domain). The context is that Justin is relaying the conversation with a Christian old man that led to Justin's later conversion to Christianity, with Justin speaking in the first person:
"'Then,' says he, 'shall both horses and asses see, or have they seen at some time or other, God?'
"'No,' I said; 'for the majority of men will not, saving such as shall live justly, purified by righteousness, and by every other virtue.'
The quote that is spread around edits this a bit. The "will not, saving such as shall" is replaced with "shall not see God, excepting those who". Other than that, it is the same.
The insertion of "see God" is presumably there to try to convey the larger meaning of his statement given, though it is still not found there in Justin's remark, but is inferred by the preceding statement. It would have been more accurate to put "see God" in brackets to show that. The other adjustments do not make there be any real change in meaning, though the changes are still a bit odd. This is because the beginning and ending line up too exactly for it to be a completely separate translation, so it is presumably using the Ante Nicene Fathers translation as the base... but if that is the case, why make changes like replacing "saving" with "excepting"?
Regardless, we now have the source. But there is a major problem with offering this as what Justin thought at the time he wrote it. This is because, as noted, the context of this is that Justin, prior to his conversion to Christianity, has a conversation with an unnamed old man who was a Christian. All statements that Justin gives here are his prior beliefs. For example, soon after the above portion, we see:
"'What, then, is the advantage to those who have seen [God]? or what has he who has seen more than he who has not seen, unless he remember this fact, that he has seen?'
"'I cannot tell,' I answered.
"'And what do those suffer who are judged to be unworthy of this spectacle?' said he.
"'They are imprisoned in the bodies of certain wild beasts, and this is their punishment.'
Is anyone going to try to argue that this was what Justin thought as a Christian, that the evil are punished by being put into the bodies of wild beasts? No, this is him expressing his beliefs prior to his conversion to Christianity. Therefore, anything Justin says in this section of the work should not be held up as his beliefs as a Christian, as they were from prior. Those who do so have clearly not checked the context. And those who cite it to Chapter 21 of the First Apology are worse, because they did not even bother to check to see if their citation was correct.
So, in summary, while the originally quoted text is close to what Justin said, this did not come from any portion of Justin's writing where he expressed his opinions as a Christian, and it is therefore very unclear as to whether he held to the quoted statement after his conversion.