An early charge against the Christians was that they were superstitious, and in the minds of the Romans the opposite of superstition was “piety.” Justin Martyr, a second-century apologist (one who wrote in defense of Christianity), addressed a treatise to the emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138–161) in which he argues that Christians, like the Romans, are pious and virtuous. The adoption of the orant may have carried a similar message, this time in a work of art rather than in words.
