Primary source · Koine Greek
The Dialogue with Trypho
Justin Martyr · c. AD 155–160
What this text is
The longest surviving second-century work: two days' debate with a learned Jew at Ephesus — the prophets, the Logos, the virgin birth, Israel and the church — opened by Justin's own conversion story.
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Chapter 8 — the fire in the soul
ἜστιIsγὰρforτῷinὄντιrealityφιλοσοφίαphilosophyμέγιστονgreatestκτῆμαpossession
Public-domain translations
George Reith (ANF, 1885)
Straightway a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me… I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.
Manuscript witnesses
Codex Parisinus gr. 450
AD 1364The Dialogue with Trypho shares the single-manuscript fate of the Apologies, with a lacuna in ch. 74.
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 6 (Migne)
1857Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.
Provenance
Rome (setting: Ephesus), c. AD 160
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Justin Martyr: Dialogue avec TryphonPhilippe Bobichon, 2003The critical edition with French translation and full apparatus.
- Dialogue with Trypho (Selections FOC 3 / full trans.)Thomas B. Falls, rev. T. P. Halton, 2003The standard faithful English.