Justin Martyr, Second Apology 2

A woman once lived with a licentious husband, and she herself had formerly been licentious as well. When she learned the teachings of Christ, she became self-controlled and tried to persuade her husband to practice the same self-control, citing those teachings and warning him of the eternal fire awaiting those who live without self-control and right reason. He, however, persisted in the same licentiousness and, through his actions, made his wife a stranger to him. Since she considered it impious to continue sharing a bed with a husband who, contrary to the law of nature and what is right, sought to make pleasure from every possible source, she wanted to separate from the marriage. When her own people urged her to wait longer, advising that her husband might yet change, she forced herself to endure. But when it was reported that her husband, after going to Alexandria, was committing even worse acts, she gave him the divorce paper — what you call a *repudium* — and separated, so that she would not become a partner in his injustices and impieties by remaining in the marriage and sharing bed and board.

Her excellent husband — who should have been glad that she had stopped the deeds she once easily committed with servants and hired workers, indulging in drunkenness and every evil, and that she wanted him to stop doing the same — brought a charge against her, saying she was a Christian. She presented a petition to you, Emperor, asking first to be allowed to manage her own affairs and then to make her defense concerning the charge after that management was complete; you granted this request. Her husband, no longer able to confront her directly, turned to a certain Ptolemy, whom Urbicus had summoned, and who had become her teacher in the Christian doctrines. He had a centurion throw Ptolemy, his own friend, into prison, then persuaded the centurion to take Ptolemy and ask him only this: whether he was a Christian. Ptolemy, a lover of truth but neither deceitful nor a liar, confessed that he was a Christian; the centurion put him in chains and punished him for a long time in prison. Finally, when Ptolemy was brought before Urbicus, he was examined on that one point alone: whether he was a Christian. Again, knowing the good things in himself through the teaching from Christ, he confessed the teaching of divine virtue. For anyone who denies or condemns anything becomes a renouncer, or considers himself unworthy and alien to the matter and flees from the confession — neither of which belongs to the true Christian.

When Urbicus ordered him to be led away, a certain Lucius, also a Christian, seeing the unreasonable judgment, said to Urbicus: "What is the reason that this man, who has been convicted of neither adultery nor prostitution nor murder nor theft nor robbery nor any injustice, but has only confessed to the name of Christian, has been punished? You are not judging, Urbicus, in a manner fitting for a pious emperor, or a philosophical son of Caesar, or a sacred council." Urbicus answered nothing else but said to Lucius: "You seem to me to be the same kind." Lucius replied: "Certainly." And again Urbicus ordered him to be led away. Lucius confessed with gratitude, knowing that he had escaped evil masters of that sort and was going to the Father and King of the heavens. And another, a third, came forward and was deemed worthy of punishment.