First Apology 29 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Rauschen, 56–58

Καὶ πάλιν, μὴ τῶν ἐκτεθέντων τις μὴ ἀναληφθεὶς θανατωθῇ καὶ ὧμεν ἀνδροφόνοι· ἀλλʼ ἢ τὴν ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἐγαμοῦμεν εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ παίδων ἀνατροφῇ, ἢ παραιτούμενοι τὸ γήμασθαι τέλεον ἐνεγκρατευόμεθα. Καὶ ἤδη τις τῶν ἡμετέρων, ὑπὲρ τοῦ πεῖσαι ὑμᾶς ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμῖν μυστήριον ἡ ἀνέδην μίξις, βιβλίδιον ἀνέδωκεν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ Φήλικι ἡγεμονεύοντι ἀξιῶν ἐπιτρέψαι ἰατρῷ τοὺς διδύμους αὐτοῦ ἀφελεῖν· ἄνευ γὰρ τῆς τοῦ ἡγεμόνος ἐπιτροπῆς τοῦτο πράττειν ἀπειρῆσθαι οἱ ἐκεῖ ἰατροὶ ἔλεγον. Καὶ μηδόλως βουληθέντος Φήλικος ὑπογράψαι, ἐφʼ ἑαυτοῦ μείνας ὁ νεανίσκος ἠρκέσθη τῇ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τῶν ὁμογνωμόνων συνειδήσει. Οὐκ ἄτοπον δὲ ἐπιμνησθῆναι ἐν τούτοις ἡγησάμεθα καὶ Ἀντινόου τοῦ νῦν γεγενημένου, ὃν καὶ πάντες ὡς θεὸν διὰ φόβον σέβειν ὥρμηντο, ἐπιστάμενοι τίς τε ἦν καὶ πόθεν ὑπῆρχεν.

English · Claude translation

And again, lest one of those exposed, not being taken up, should die, and we be murderers. But either we marry in the first place only for the raising of children, or, declining marriage, we live in complete self-control. And already one of ours, to persuade you that promiscuous intercourse is not one of our mysteries, presented a petition in Alexandria to Felix, the governor, asking that a physician be permitted to castrate him; for the physicians there said that they were forbidden to do this without the governor's permission. And when Felix would by no means sign it, the young man remained single and was content with his own conscience and that of those who shared his views. And we have thought it not out of place to mention here also Antinous, who lived recently, whom all were eager to worship as a god through fear, knowing who he was and where he came from.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 56–58 · 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)

Topics

Marriage, Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

Justin mentions the young man's request without approving self-castration; the church later forbade it (Council of Nicaea, canon 1).
Antinous: the favorite of the emperor Hadrian, deified after his death in 130.

Cite this passage

Justin, 1 Apol. 29 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/29/).

Plain text

Justin, 1 Apol. 29 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/29/).