First Apology 25 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Christians have abandoned the immoral gods of myth for the impassible God.

Greek text · Rauschen, 50

Δεύτερον δʼ ὅτι ἐκ παντὸς γένους ἀνθρώπων οἱ πάλαι σεβόμενοι Διόνυσον τὸν Σεμέλης καὶ Ἀπόλλωνα τὸν Λητοΐδην, οἳ διʼ ἔρωτας ἀρσένων ὅσα ἔπραξαν αἶσχος καὶ λέγειν, καὶ οἱ Περσεφόνην καὶ Ἀφροδίτην, τὰς διὰ τὸν Ἄδωνιν οἰστρηθείσας, ὧν καὶ τὰ μυστήρια ἄγετε, ἢ Ἀσκληπιὸν ἤ τινα τῶν ἄλλων ὀνομαζομένων θεῶν, καίπερ θανάτου ἀπειλουμένου διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τούτων μὲν κατεφρονήσαμεν, θεῷ δὲ τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ καὶ ἀπαθεῖ ἑαυτοὺς ἀνεθήκαμεν, ὃν οὔτε ἐπʼ Ἀντιόπην καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ὁμοίως οὐδὲ ἐπὶ Γανυμήδην διʼ οἶστρον ἐληλυθέναι πειθόμεθα, οὐδὲ λυθῆναι βοηθείας τυχόντα διὰ Θέτιδος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἑκατοντάχειρος ἐκείνου, οὐδὲ μεριμνῶντα διὰ τοῦτο τὸν τῆς Θέτιδος Ἀχιλλέα διὰ τὴν παλλακίδα Βρισηΐδα ὀλέσαι πολλοὺς τῶν Ἑλλήνων. Καὶ τοὺς πειθομένους ἐλεοῦμεν· τοὺς δὲ τούτων αἰτίους δαίμονας γνωρίζομεν.

English · Claude translation

Second, that people of every race who formerly worshiped Dionysus the son of Semele and Apollo the son of Leto, who did things out of love for males that are shameful even to speak of, and those who worshiped Persephone and Aphrodite, who were driven mad by love of Adonis, whose mysteries you celebrate, or Asclepius or any other of the so-called gods, have despised these through Jesus Christ, though death is threatened, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impassible God. We do not believe that he went after Antiope and the others in lust, nor after Ganymede, nor that he was freed with the help of Thetis by that hundred-handed giant, nor that, anxious because of this, he caused Achilles the son of Thetis to destroy many of the Greeks because of his concubine Briseis. And we pity those who believe these things; and we know that the demons are the cause of them.

About this passage

Source

Rauschen, 50 · Gerhard Rauschen, ed., S. Iustini Apologiae duae, Florilegium Patristicum 2 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1911), 8–114 · 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

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.

Cite this passage

Justin, 1 Apol. 25 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/25/).

Plain text

Justin, 1 Apol. 25 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-1-apology/25/).