First Apology 23 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Rauschen, 48

Ἵνα δὲ ἤδη καὶ τοῦτο φανερὸν ὑμῖν γένηται, ὅτι, ὁπόσα λέγομεν μαθόντες παρὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῶν προελθόντων αὐτοῦ προφητῶν μόνα ἀληθῆ ἐστι καὶ πρεσβύτερα πάντων τῶν γεγενημένων συγγραφέων, καὶ οὐχὶ διὰ τὸ ταὐτὰ λέγειν αὐτοῖς παραδεχθῆναι ἀξιοῦμεν, ἀλλʼ ὅτι τὸ ἀληθὲς λέγομεν· καὶ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς μόνος ἰδίως υἱὸς τῷ θεῷ γεγέννηται, λόγος αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχων καὶ πρωτότοκος καὶ δύναμις, καὶ τῇ βουλῇ αὐτοῦ γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος ταῦτα ἡμᾶς ἐδίδαξεν ἐπʼ ἀλλαγῇ καὶ ἐπαναγωγῇ τοῦ ἀνθρωπείου γένους· καὶ πρὶν ἢ ἐν ἀνθρώποις αὐτὸν γενέσθαι ἄνθρωπον φθάσαντές τινες, λέγω δὲ τοὺς προειρημένους κακοὺς δαίμονας, διὰ τῶν ποιητῶν ὡς γενόμενα εἶπον ἃ μυθοποιήσαντες ἔφησαν, ὃν τρόπον καὶ τὰ καθʼ ἡμῶν λεγόμενα δύσφημα καὶ ἀσεβῆ ἔργα ἐνήργησαν, ὧν οὐδεὶς μάρτυς οὐδὲ ἀπόδειξίς ἐστι, — τοῦτον ἔλεγχον ποιησόμεθα.

English · Claude translation

And so that this may now also become clear to you: that whatever we say, having learned it from Christ and from the prophets who came before him, alone is true, and is older than all the writers who have lived; and that we ask to be accepted, not because we say the same things as they, but because we speak the truth; and that Jesus Christ alone has been born in a special sense Son of God, being his Word and first-born and power, and, having become man by his will, taught us these things for the change and restoration of the human race; and that before he became man among men, some, I mean the evil demons already mentioned, anticipating it, told through the poets as having happened what they had made up as myths, in the same way that they have also brought about the slanderous and impious deeds said against us, of which there is no witness or proof: of this we will now give proof.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 48 · Gerhard Rauschen, ed., S. Iustini Apologiae duae, Florilegium Patristicum 2 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1911), 8–114 · Greek text: G. Rauschen, S. Iustini Apologiae duae (Florilegium Patristicum 2, 1911), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Rauschen, FlorPatr 2. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Rauschen (Florilegium Patristicum 2, 1911); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Scripture

Col 1:15 · echo, medium confidence
1 Cor 1:24 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Christology

Notes

Translation notes

“First-born and power”: compare Col 1:15 and 1 Cor 1:24.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (damaged spot in the digital text (a letter lost at the start); restored from the sense; digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (wrong accent); digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (wrong breathing and accent); stray symbol at the end of the section in the digital text): (??)να δὲ → Ἵνα δὲ; ἐν ἄνθρωποις → ἐν ἀνθρώποις; ὤν οὐδεὶς → ὧν οὐδεὶς; ποιησόμεθα.¦ → ποιησόμεθα..

Cite this passage

Justin, 1 Apol. 23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/23/).

Plain text

Justin, 1 Apol. 23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/23/).