First Apology 30 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Rauschen, 58

Ὅπως δὲ μή τις εἴπῃ ἀντιτιθεὶς ἡμῖν, τί κωλύει καὶ τὸν παρʼ ἡμῖν λεγόμενον Χριστόν, ἄνθρωπον ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ὄντα, μαγικῇ τέχνῃ ἃς λέγομεν δυνάμεις πεποιηκέναι καὶ δόξαι διὰ τοῦτο υἱὸν θεοῦ εἶναι, τὴν ἀπόδειξιν ἤδη ποιησόμεθα, οὐ τοῖς λέγουσι πιστεύοντες, ἀλλὰ τοῖς προφητεύουσι πρὶν ἢ γενέσθαι κατʼ ἀνάγκην πειθόμενοι, διὰ τὸ καὶ ὄψει ὡς προεφητεύθη ὁρᾶν γενόμενα καὶ γινόμενα, ἥπερ μεγίστη καὶ ἀληθεστάτη ἀπόδειξις καὶ ὑμῖν, ὡς νομίζομεν, φανήσεται.

English · Claude translation

But so that no one may object to us, “What prevents the one you call Christ, being a man born of men, from having done the mighty works we speak of by magical art, and so seeming to be the Son of God?” we will now give the proof, not trusting those who say so, but being necessarily persuaded by those who prophesied before it happened, because we see with our eyes things happening and having happened as they were prophesied; which will appear to you too, as we think, the greatest and truest proof.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 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

Christology

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (wrong accent); digitization slip: garbled word): τί κωλί ει → τί κωλύει; τήν ἀπόδειξιν → τὴν ἀπόδειξιν.

Cite this passage

Justin, 1 Apol. 30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/30/).

Plain text

Justin, 1 Apol. 30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/30/).