Dialogue with Trypho 6.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: The soul is not life itself but receives life from God.

Greek text · Archambault 1:32–34

Οὐδὲν ἐμοί, ἔφη, μέλει Πλάτωνος οὐδὲ Πυθαγόρου οὐδὲ ἁπλῶς οὐδενὸς ὅλως τοιαῦτα δοξάζοντος. Τὸ γὰρ ἀληθὲς οὕτως ἔχει· μάθοις δʼ ἂν ἐντεῦθεν. Ἡ ψυχὴ ἤτοι ζωή ἐστιν ἢ ζωὴν ἔχει. Εἰ μὲν οὖν ζωή ἐστιν, ἄλλο τι ἆν ποιήσειε ζῆν, οὐχ ἑαυτήν, ὡς καὶ κίνησις ἄλλο τι κινήσειε μᾶλλον ἢ ἑαυτήν. Ὃτι δὲ ζῇ ψυχή, οὐδεὶς ἀντείποι. Εἰ δὲ ζῇ, οὐ ζωὴ οὖσα ζῇ, ἀλλὰ μεταλαμβάνουσα τῆς ζωῆς· ἕτερον δέ τι τὸ μετέχον τινὸς ἐκείνου οὗ μετέχει. Ζωῆς δὲ ψυχὴ μετέχει, ἐπεὶ ζῆν αὐτὴν ὁ θεὸς βούλεται.

English · Claude translation

“I do not care,” he said, “about Plato or Pythagoras, or in a word about anyone at all who holds such opinions. For the truth is this, and you may learn it from here. The soul either is life or has life. If it is life, it would make something else live, not itself, just as motion would move something else rather than itself. But no one would deny that the soul lives. And if it lives, it lives not as being life, but as partaking of life; and what partakes of something is different from that of which it partakes. And the soul partakes of life because God wills it to live.

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:32–34 · 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. 6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/6/1/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/6/1/).