Second Apology 14 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Rauschen, 132–134

Καὶ ὑμᾶς οὖν ἀξιοῦμεν ὑπογράψαντας τὸ ὑμῖν δοκοῦν προθεῖναι τουτὶ τὸ βιβλίδιον, ὅπως καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις τὰ ἡμέτερα γνωσθῇ καὶ δύνωνται τῆς ψευδοδοξίας καὶ ἀγνοίας τῶν καλῶν ἀπαλλαγῆναι, οἳ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν αἰτίαν ὑπεύθυνοι ταῖς τιμωρίαις γίνονται [εἰς τὸ γνωσθῆναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ταῦτα], διὰ τὸ ἐν τῇ φύσει τῇ τῶν ἀνθρώπων εἶναι τὸ γνωριστικὸν καλοῦ καὶ αἰσχροῦ, καὶ διὰ τὸ ἡμῶν, οὓς οὐκ ἐπίστανται τοιαῦτα ὁποῖα λέγουσιν αἰσχρὰ πράττειν, καταψηφίζεσθαι, καὶ διὰ τὸ χαίρειν τοιαῦτα πράξασι θεοῖς καὶ ἔτι νῦν ἀπαιτοῦσι παρὰ ἀνθρώπων τὰ ὅμοια, ὡς ἐκ τοῦ καὶ ἡμῖν, ὡς τοιαῦτα πράττουσι, θάνατον ἢ δεσμὰ ἢ ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον προστιμᾶν ἑαυτοὺς κατακρίνειν, ὡς μὴ δέεσθαι ἄλλων δικαστῶν.

English · Claude translation

We ask you, then, to add whatever you think fit and publish this little book, so that our views may be known to others too, and that they may be freed from false opinion and ignorance of what is good. They become liable to punishment by their own fault, because the power to recognize good and shameful is in human nature; and because they condemn us, whom they do not know to do such shameful things as they say; and because they delight in gods who did such things and even now demand the like from men; so that by inflicting death or chains or some other such thing on us, as though we did such things, they condemn themselves, so that there is no need of other judges.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 132–134 · Gerhard Rauschen, ed., S. Iustini Apologiae duae, Florilegium Patristicum 2 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1911), 114–136 · 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) · Its chapter order differs: our 3–7 are its 4–8, our 8 is its 3.

Topics

Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

“To add whatever you think fit”: literally “to subscribe what seems good to you,” the emperor's formal written reply to a petition.
The words in square brackets in the Greek, “that these things may be known to men,” are marked by the editor as probably not original; they are left untranslated.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (missing accent); digitization slip against Rauschen's printed text (wrong vowel)): Καὶ ὑμῦς οὖν → Καὶ ὑμᾶς οὖν; της ψευδοδοξίας → τῆς ψευδοδοξίας.

Cite this passage

Justin, 2 Apol. 14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-2-apology/14/).

Plain text

Justin, 2 Apol. 14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-2-apology/14/).