This doctoral dissertation from the University of Chicago analyzes the use of rhetorical strategies and devices by second-century Christian author Justin in his Apologies. The fundamental genre of this work, according to Cline, was the petition, a form that was widely employed to appeal to authority for the rectification of injustices. Justin's work is far longer than a standard petition would be, and it bears the characteristics of many other literary forms as well, as he chooses to use them. Cline holds “that at a particular moment in the history of Roman administrative practice Justin boldly reshaped the petition genre, activating its potential for redress while transforming it as part of a uniquely self-stylized, monumental, and hybridizing performance” (244–245).

There are four chapters, an appendix on the debated question of whether Justin wrote one or more Apologies, an extended bibliography, and a brief index. The first chapter discusses the nature and use of the petition process in the Roman empire. Cline explains the process of petition, consideration, official response, and public promulgation, and he provides numerous examples. In the second chapter, Cline shows in detail how Justin in the Apologies employs the form of the petition and its characteristic verbal markers in ways that demonstrate that he is deliberately placing his work in that formal context. Chapter 3 shows how Justin stretches the petition form far beyond the conventions of its actual use in Roman administration, while continuing to use rhetorical strategies that can often be paralleled in ancient petitions. Chapter 4 lays out the complexity of Justin's authorship in the Apologies. His use of explicit apologetic and protreptic styles and of the kind of frank speech that suggested open honesty and truth-telling helps to make the Apologies an ambitious literary achievement.

The appendix (227–245) deals with the question of whether the direct and indirect manuscript tradition presents us with one apology or two, or even allows the idea that there may have been a third (a suggestion by Bernard Pouderon with which Cline is sympathetic). For practical purposes, Cline studies the Apologies as a unit; the issue does not greatly affect the method nor the accuracy and usefulness of his study, but in a doctoral dissertation it could not be avoided.

What impresses the reader about this dissertation is the very extensive investigation of examples, parallels, and contrasts from Greek and Roman authors, as well as from documents, such as papyri, of unknown authorship. Cline's diligence in searching the sources is remarkable, and, so far as I could see, he applies that material in a sound fashion. An index of the sources he cites would have made this volume quite a bit larger; as it is, one must follow Cline every step of the way in order to see where he has been. In the end, one acquires a sense of how Justin constructed this work, regardless of whether he was working from a number of recipes or simply following his instincts. As for the content of the Apologies and its intended audience, apart from what is suggested by its form, those topics are outside the scope of this work.