Dialogue with Trypho 4.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Justin, as a Platonist, holds that the soul is divine and that all animals have the same kind of soul.

Greek text · Archambault 1:20–22

Τίς οὖν ἡμῖν, ἔλεγε, συγγένεια πρὸς τὸν θεόν ἐστιν; Ἢ καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ θεία καὶ ἀθάνατός ἐστι καὶ αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ βασιλικοῦ νοῦ μέρος; Ὡς δὲ ἐκεῖνος ὁρᾷ τὸν θεόν, οὕτως καὶ ἡμῖν ἐφικτὸν τῷ ἡμετέρῳ νῷ συλλαβεῖν τὸ θεῖον καὶ τοὐντεῦθεν ἤδη εὐδαιμονεῖν; Πάνυ μὲν οὖν, ἔφην. Πᾶσαι δʼ αὐτὸ διὰ πάντων αἱ ψυχαὶ χωροῦσι τῶν ζώων, ἠρώτα, ἢ ἄλλη μὲν ἀνθρώπου, ἄλλη δὲ ἵππου καὶ ὄνου; Οὔκ, ἀλλʼ αἱ αὐταὶ ἐν πᾶσίν εἰσιν, ἀπεκρινάμην.

English · Claude translation

“What kinship, then,” he said, “do we have with God? Is the soul too divine and immortal and a part of that royal mind? And as that mind sees God, so is it possible for us too to grasp the divine with our mind and thereby to be happy?” “Certainly,” I said. “And do all the souls of all living things take it in,” he asked, “or is the soul of a man one thing and that of a horse or an ass another?” “No,” I answered, “they are the same in all.”

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:20–22 · 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

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.

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 4.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/4/2/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 4.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/4/2/).