As Christianity spread throughout the ancient world, thereby garnering increasing attention, scrutiny, and political, philosophical, and religious opposition, it became necessary for Christians to undertake two important tasks: first, answering social, religious, and philosophical objections to Christianity, and second, appealing to governmental authorities to cease their baseless attacks on the Church. The works of these defenders of the Christian Faith - the Apologists, as they are known - therefore represent the first Christian writings addressed to those outside the Church, and evidence their authors' sincere, fearless, and uncompromising love for God and His Church, deep familiarity with and experience of the life of prayer and the Church's liturgical experience, and superb intellectual and philosophical capabilities. Indeed, in the representative selection of the writings of the Apologists provided in this book, the reader will encounter an inspiring group of pious Christian believers who, despite holding no known formal rank in the Church, utilized their God-given talents, the education and training they had undergone, and their own resources to defend the Faith of Christ and the legal rights of the Christians, actively and thoroughly refute the belief systems of, and anti-Christian allegations and rumors asserted by, the opponents of the Church, and, in so doing, exert every effort to evangelize their readers to the end of leading them to recognize the superiority and incomparable truth and beauty of the Christian life for the sake of their salvation.