Dialogue with Trypho 56.5 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Trypho holds that God appeared first, and the three men were angels.

Greek text · Archambault 1:248–250

Καὶ εἷς, ἔφην, ἐκείνων ἦν τῶν τριῶν, οὓς ἄνδρας ἑωρᾶσθαι τῷ Ἀβραὰμ τὸ ἅγιον προφητικὸν πνεῦμα λέγει; Κἀκεῖνος· Οὔ· ἀλλὰ ὦπτο μὲν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς πρὸ τῆς τῶν τριῶν ὀπτασίας· εἶτα οἱ τρεῖς ἐκεῖνοι, οὓς ἄνδρας ὁ λόγος ὀνομάζει, ἄγγελοι ἦσαν, δύο μὲν αὐτῶν πεμφθέντες ἐπὶ τὴν Σοδόμων ἀπώλειαν, εἷς δὲ εὐαγγελιζόμενος τῇ Σάρρᾳ ὅτι τέκνον ἔξει, ἐφʼ ᾧ ἐπέπεμπτο, καὶ ἀπαρτίσας ἀπήλλακτο.

English · Claude translation

“And was he one of those three,” I said, “whom the holy prophetic Spirit says Abraham saw as men?” And he said, “No; but God had appeared to him before the vision of the three; then those three, whom the word calls men, were angels, two of them sent to destroy Sodom, and one to bring the good news to Sarah that she would have a child; and when he had accomplished that for which he had been sent, he departed.”

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:248–250 · 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)

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 56.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/56/5/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 56.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/56/5/).