First Apology 34 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Rauschen, 66–68

Ὅπου δὲ καὶ τῆς γῆς γεννᾶσθαι ἔμελλεν, ὡς προεῖπεν ἕτερος προφήτης ὁ Μιχαίας, ἀκούσατε. Ἔφη δὲ οὕτως· „Καὶ σὺ Βηθλεέμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου“. Κώμη δέ τίς ἐστιν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ Ἰουδαίων, ἀπέχουσα σταδίους τριάκοντα πέντε Ἱεροσολύμων, ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ὡς καὶ μαθεῖν δύνασθε ἐκ τῶν ἀπογραφῶν τῶν γενομένων ἐπὶ Κυρηνίου, τοῦ ὑμετέρου ἐν Ἰουδαίᾳ πρώτου γενομένου ἐπιτρόπου.

English · Claude translation

And hear where on earth he was to be born, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He said thus: “And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come forth a leader, who will shepherd my people.” Now this is a village in the country of the Jews, thirty-five stades from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can also learn from the registers made under Quirinius, your first procurator in Judea.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 66–68 · 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

Mic 5:2 (5:1 LXX) · quotation, high confidence
Matt 2:6 · quotation, high confidence
Luke 2:2 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Christology

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation follows Matt 2:6 more than Mic 5:2 (5:1 in the Hebrew and LXX).
“Your first procurator”: Quirinius was in fact governor of Syria (Luke 2:2).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (wrong letter; punctuation)): Ἰουδαίων. ὀπέχουσα → Ἰουδαίων, ἀπέχουσα.

Cite this passage

Justin, 1 Apol. 34 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/34/).

Plain text

Justin, 1 Apol. 34 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/34/).