Dialogue with Trypho 20.3 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Christians avoid some foods for practical reasons, not because they are unclean.

Greek text · Archambault 1:92

Οὐκ ὡς ἐξηγεῖσθε πιστευτέον. Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ ὅτι πᾶν λάχανον χόρτου ἔστι καὶ βιβρώσκεσθαι δυνάμενος λέγειν καὶ κρατύνειν, οὐκ ἐν τούτῳ ἀσχοληθήσομαι. Ἀλλὰ εἰ καὶ τὰ λάχανα τοῦ χόρτου διακρίνομεν, μὴ πάντα ἐσθίοντες, οὐ διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὰ κοινὰ ἢ ἀκάθαρτα οὐκ ἐσθίομεν, ἀλλʼ ἢ διὰ τὸ πικρὰ ἢ θανάσιμα ἢ ἀκανθώδη· τῶν δὲ γλυκέων πάντων καὶ τροφιμωτάτων καὶ καλλίστων, θαλασσίων τε καὶ χερσαίων, ἐφιέμεθα καὶ μετέχομεν.

English · Claude translation

“It must not be believed as you explain it. First, I will not spend time on this, though I could say and prove that every green herb is fit to be eaten. But even if we distinguish among the green herbs and do not eat them all, we do not refrain from eating them because they are common or unclean, but because they are bitter or deadly or thorny; and we seek and partake of all those that are sweet and most nourishing and finest, both of the sea and of the land.

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:92 · 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; 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 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)

Scripture

Acts 10:14 · echo, medium confidence

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 20.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/20/3/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 20.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/20/3/).