St. Quadratus of Athens

St. Quadratus of Athens was a Christian writer of the early second century, honored as among the very first of the Christian apologists, those who wrote in defense of the faith against its pagan critics. According to the early historian Eusebius, he addressed a written defense, or Apology, of Christianity to the Roman emperor Hadrian, most likely about the year 124 or 125, when the emperor visited Greece.

Only a single fragment of his work survives, quoted by Eusebius, in which Quadratus argues for the reality of Christ's miracles by observing that those whom Jesus had healed and raised from the dead were not fleeting apparitions but lived on for many years, some even into the writer's own time, so that their testimony could still be verified. This precious scrap makes him one of the earliest witnesses outside the New Testament to the enduring memory of the Lord's works. Little else is known of his life, though later tradition made him a bishop; he is venerated as a saint and celebrated on 26 May.