Dialogue with Trypho 5.3 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Archambault 1:30

Ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ ἀποθνήσκειν φημὶ πάσας τὰς ψυχὰς ἐγώ· ἕρμαιον γὰρ ἦν ὡς ἀληθῶς τοῖς κακοῖς. Ἀλλὰ τί; Τὰς μὲν τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐν κρείττονί ποι χώρῳ μένειν, τὰς δὲ ἀδίκους καὶ πονηρὰς ἐν χείρονι, τὸν τῆς κρίσεως ἐκδεχομένας χρόνον τότε. Οὕτως αἱ μέν, ἄξιαι τοῦ θεοῦ φανεῖσαι, οὐκ ἀποθνήσκουσιν ἔτι· αἱ δὲ κολάζονται, ἔστʼ ἂν αὐτὰς καὶ εἶναι καὶ κολάζεσθαι ὁ θεὸς θέλῃ.

English · Claude translation

“But I do not say that all souls die; for that would truly be a godsend to the wicked. What then? The souls of the godly remain in a better place, and those of the unjust and wicked in a worse, awaiting the time of judgment then. Thus some, having appeared worthy of God, die no more; and others are punished, as long as God wills them both to exist and to be punished.”

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:30 · 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)

Topics

Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

The old man's view, that souls live on only by God's will, was held by several early Christian writers; Justin does not clearly teach the later annihilation of the wicked, and the phrase “as long as God wills” is debated.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip (word split)): κολά ζονται → κολάζονται.

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 5.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/5/3/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 5.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/5/3/).