Sophia Scriptura

Dialogue with Trypho 2.1

Justin Martyr · Dialogue with Trypho · ca. 155–160 · Rome · Read in context

Summary: Justin begins: philosophy is one and leads to God, yet it has split into many schools.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Archambault 1:8

Ἐγώ σοι, ἔφην, ἐρῶ ὅ γέ μοι καταφαίνεται. Ἔστι γὰρ τῷ ὄντι φιλοσοφία μέγιστον κτῆμα καὶ τιμιώτατον θεῷ, ᾧ τε προσάγει καὶ συνίστησιν ἡμᾶς μόνη, καὶ ὅσιοι ὡς ἀληθῶς οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ τὸν νοῦν προσεσχηκότες. Τί ποτε δέ ἐστι φιλοσοφία καὶ οὗ χάριν κατεπέμφθη εἰς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς πολλοὺς λέληθεν; οὐ γὰρ ἂν Πλατωνικοὶ ἦσαν οὐδὲ Στωϊκοὶ οὐδὲ Περιπατητικοὶ οὐδὲ Θεωρητικοὶ οὐδὲ Πυθαγορικοί, μιᾶς οὔσης ταύτης ἐπιστήμης.

English · Claude translation

“I will tell you,” I said, “what seems clear to me. Philosophy is in fact the greatest possession and most precious to God, to whom it alone leads us and commends us; and those who have given their minds to philosophy are truly holy. But what philosophy is, and why it was sent down to men, has escaped most people; for otherwise there would not be Platonists, or Stoics, or Peripatetics, or Theoretics, or Pythagoreans, since this knowledge is one.

About this passage

Source
Archambault 1:8 · Georges Archambault, ed., Justin: Dialogue avec Tryphon, 2 vols., Textes et documents pour l'étude historique du christianisme 8, 11 (Paris: Picard, 1909) · Greek text: G. Archambault, Justin: Dialogue avec Tryphon (Paris, 1909), 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 Archambault. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Archambault (1909); 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)

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Theoretics”: perhaps the Skeptics, or a scribal error; the name is otherwise unknown as a school.

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 2.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/2/1/).

Plain text
Justin, Dial. 2.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/2/1/).

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