Oration to the Greeks 40 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Otto 6:152–154

Οὐκοῦν πέφηνε Μωυσῆς ἀπό γε τῶν προειρημένων πρεσβύτερος ἡρώων παλαιῶν, πολέμων, δαιμόνων. Καὶ χρὴ τῷ πρεσβεύοντι κατὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν πιστεύειν, ἤπερ τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς πηγῆς ἀρυσαμένοις Ἕλλησιν οὐ κατʼ ἐπίγνωσιν τὰ ἐκείνου δόγματα· πολλοὶ γὰρ οἱ κατʼ αὐτοὺς σοφισταί, κεχρημένοι περιεργίᾳ, τὰ ὅσα παρὰ τῶν κατὰ Μωυσέα καὶ τῶν ὁμοίως αὐτῷ φιλοσοφούντων ἔγνωσαν καὶ παραχαράττειν ἐπειράθησαν, πρῶτον μὲν ἵνα τι λέγειν ἴδιον νομισθῶσι, δεύτερον δὲ ὅπως, τὰ ὅσα μὴ συνίεσαν διά τινος ἐπιπλάστου ῥητολογίας παρακαλύπτοντες, ὡς μυθολογίαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν παραπρεσβεύωσι. Περὶ μὲν οὖν τῆς καθʼ ἡμᾶς πολιτείας, ἱστορίας τε τῆς κατὰ τοὺς ἡμετέρους νόμους, ὅσα τε εἰρήκασιν οἱ παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν λόγιοι καὶ πόσοι καὶ τίνες εἰσὶ μνημονεύσαντες, ἐν τῷ πρὸς τοὺς ἀποφηναμένους τὰ περὶ θεοῦ δειχθήσεται.

English · Claude translation

So Moses has been shown, from what has been said, to be older than the ancient heroes, wars, and demons. And we ought to believe the one who has the precedence in age, rather than the Greeks, who drew his teachings from the source without understanding them. For many of their sophists, in their meddling curiosity, tried to counterfeit whatever they learned from Moses and from those who philosophized as he did: first, so that they might be thought to be saying something original; second, so that by veiling what they did not understand with a fabricated rhetoric they might pass off the truth as mythology. Concerning our way of life, the history according to our laws, what the learned among the Greeks have said about it, and how many and who they are that have mentioned it, will be shown in my work Against Those Who Have Discoursed on Divine Things.

About this passage

Source

Otto 6:152–154 · Johann Carl Theodor Otto, ed., Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos, Corpus apologetarum Christianorum saeculi secundi 6 (Jena: Mauke, 1851) · Greek text: J. C. T. Otto, Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (Corpus apologetarum Christianorum saeculi secundi 6, 1851), 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 Otto, CorpApol 6. 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 Otto (1851); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

The charge that Greek philosophers borrowed from Moses is common in the apologists (e.g. Justin, 1 Apol. 44, 59).
The work Against Those Who Have Discoursed on Divine Things (πρὸς τοὺς ἀποφηναμένους τὰ περὶ θεοῦ) is lost, or was never written.

Cite this passage

Tatian, Or. Graec. 40 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tatian-oration/40/).

Plain text

Tatian, Or. Graec. 40 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tatian-oration/40/).