99. When I recited this I went on, "I will demonstrate
disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who went in a way which was not right', And Isaiah himself said that he was going to rise again, His grave was taken away from the midst?, and I will give the rich in exchange for his death3.
And in other passages David spoke in an allegorical figure of his suffering and his cross, in those texts from the twenty-first (twentysecond) psalm: They pierced my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones, they observed me and looked on me.
They parted my garments among them and on my raiment they cast lots¢.
When they crucified him in the process of fixing in the nails they pierced his hands and his feet, and those who crucified him divided his garments among them, casting lots, each dividing what he wanted to choose according to the fall of the die. And yet you allege that this psalm was not spoken with reference to Christ because you are altogether purblind and do not understand that nobody who was called an anointed king in your race ever was pierced in his hands and feet while still alive and died by this mysterious sign, that is, by crucifixion, except this Jesus alone.
98.
I would like to recite the whole psalm to you, so that you may learn of his piety towards the Father, and how he referred everything to him, and how he even asked to be saved from this death by him; I will also show in this psalm what sort of people were those who attacked him and demonstrate that he really did become a man capable of human sufferings."
[There follows a quotation of Ps. 21(22) :2-24.] 99.
When I recited this I went on, "I will demonstrate to you by this argument that the whole Psalm is to be referred to Christ, and by going through it again.
The very lsa. 65:2.
*Jsa. 57:2 (LXX).
§JTsa, 53:9 (LXX).
4Ps, 21(22) :2-5,
first words are, My God, my God, hearken to me, why hast thou deserted me?!
This foretold of old what was destined to be said in the time of Christ.
For when he was crucified he said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me:22
The next words are The words of my offences are far from my salvation; my God, I will cry to thee by day and thou shalt not hearken, and by night and not for lack of my understanding3, so that what he was later to do was foretold.
On the day on which he was going to be crucified he took three of his disciples to the hill which is called the hill of Olives, situated near to the Temple in Jerusalem, and he began to pray, saying,
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
And next he prayed and said, Not as I will, but as thou willest*, showing by these words that he really had become a man capable of suffering.
And to prevent anybody saying 'So he did not know that he was destined to suffer!', he immediately adds in the psalm, and not for lack of my understanding, just as it was not a sign of lack of understanding in God that he asked the question, Adam, where art thouz, nor questioned Cain,
Where is Abel25, but to prove what sort of a man each was, and so that the information should reach us by being written down.
Similarly he gave this indication not for lack of his own understanding, but of the understanding of those who thought that he was not Christ but imagined that they could kill him and that he would remain in Hades like an ordinary man.
100.
The text that follows, And thou dwellest in the holy place, O thou worship of Israel® indicated that he was going to do something worthy of praise and astonishment; he was
1Ps, 21(22):2.
2Matt. 27:46; Mk. 15:34.
8Ps_ 21(22):2,3 (LXX).
4Matt. 26:39; Mk. 14:36.
5Gen. 3:9; 4:9.
*Ps, 21(22) :4.
going to rise from the dead the third day after being crucified, a gift which he had received from his Father.
I have shown that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel.
And I have shown that mysterious predictions were made about him not only in the Blessing of Joseph and of Judah, but also it is written in the gospel, where he says, All things have been delivered to me by the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, nor the Son except the Father and those to whomsoever the Son reveals him!.
He has therefore revealed to us whatever we understand from the Scriptures also through his grace, recognizing him as the first-born of God and before all created things, and also the descendant of the patriarchs, since he became incarnate through a Virgin of their race and submitted to become a man, unlovely, dishonoured2, and subject to suffering.
This is why among his utterances he said, when he was discoursing about his being destined to suffer, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the Pharisees and scribes, and must be crucified and on the third day rise again3. He called himself Son of Man either because of his birth through the Virgin, who was, as I have said, of the race of David and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham, or because Abraham4 himself was the father of those who have been mentioned, from whom Mary traced her descent, for we know that those who beget females are reckoned as the fathers of the children whom their daughters produce.
Further, when one of his disciples, formerly called Simon, recognized him as Son of God, Christ, according to the revelation of his Father, he renamed him
Peter.
We find him described as Son of God in the memoirs of his apostles and we call him Son and perceive also that he
1Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22.
Isa. 53:2,3.
3Matt. 16:21; Mk. 8:31; Luke 9:22.
Possibly a mistake for Adam.
existed before all created things and came forth from the Father by his power and wisdom.
He also receives the title of Wisdom and Day and Dayspring and Sword and Stone and Rod! and Jacob and Israel in one way or another among the prophetic utterances, and he has become man through the Virgin, so that by the very channel whereby disobedience from the serpent took its starting-point, by this same channel it should receive its destruction.
For Eve was a virgin and pure, but she conceived the word from the serpent and brought forth disobedience and death.
But Mary the Virgin, receiving faith, and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good news that the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon her and the power of the Most High shall overshadow her, therefore that which is born of her is holy, the Son of God, answered: Let it be unto me according to thy word?2.
Through her was born this man through whom God is destroying the serpent and the angels and men who resemble him, and is operating release from death for those who repent of their evil acts and believe in him.
101.
The next verses of the psalm are these where it is said: Our fathers hoped in thee.
They hoped and thou didst deliver them.
They cried unto thee, and they were not ashamed.
But I am a worm and no man, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people3.
They indicate that he recognizes as fathers those people who put their hope in God and were saved by him, who were the ancestors of the Virgin through whom he was born when he became man, and he mentions that he himself will be saved by the same God, but he does not profess to do anything by his own wisdom or might.
He made the same admission during his life on earth.
When someone 1Proy.8:12 (Wisdom); Ps. 117(118) :24 (Day); Zech. 6:12 (Dayspring) ;
Isa. 27:1 (Sword); Dan. 2:34 (Stone); Isa. 11:1 (Rod).
2Luke 1:26,35.
3Ps, 21(22) :5-7.
said to him, Good Lord, he answered, Why do you call me goodz There is One good, my Father who is in heaven!.
The words I am a worm and no man, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people indicated what is evident and took place and happened to him.
For we, the people who believe in him, are everywhere treated with scorn; the outcast of the people means that he was despised and dishonoured by your people and endured the sufferings which you inflicted on him.
The words that follow next are, All those who looked at me mocked me, and spoke with their lips and wagged their heads.
He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him, because he desires him2.
They predicted likewise that experiences like these would befall him.
Those who saw him crucified each wagged his head and twisted their lips and curled their nostrils to each other and said sarcastically the same words which are written in the memoirs of the apostles: He called himself the Son of God; let him come down and walk; let
God save him3.
103.
[Next he quotes Ps. 21(22): 11-15.] This was likewise a prediction of what happened to him.
For on that night when some of your people despatched by the Pharisees and scribes and conditioned by their teaching encountered him from the Mount of Olives they surrounded him and it is they whom the Word called calves, armed with horns and bent on destruction...
The text there is none to help* is indicative also of what happened.
Nobody, not a single one, appeared as an ally to aid him, guiltless though he was.
And the text They opened their mouth against me as a roaring lion® indicates the man who was then the King of the Jews, who was also called Herod,
"Matt. 19:16 sq.; Mk. 10:17; Luke 18:18 sq.
®Ps, 21(22): 8,9.
®Matt. 27:40,42; Mk. 15:30-32; Lk. 23:35,37. Cap. 102 is omitted.
4D. 21(22):11.
®Ps. 21(22) :13.
the successor of Herod who, when he was born, murdered all the children born in Bethlehem, at that time.
He conjectured that somewhere among them there was the child about whom the wise men from Arabia told him when they arrived.
But he did not know of the counsel of him who is stronger than anybody, that Joseph and Mary had been told to depart to Egypt, taking the child, and to remain there until it should be revealed to them again that they should return back to their own country.
They departed and were there until the Herod who had killed the children in Bethlehem died and Archelaus succeeded him.
And Archelaus died before Christ reached the point of fulfilling the divine policy which took place in his crucifixion according to the Father's will.
Herod succeeded Archelaus and received the authority which was allotted to him!.
It was to him that Pilate sent Jesus bound, anxious to do him a favour.
God even foresaw that this would take place and spoke thus: And they bore him off to the land of Assyria as a gift to the King2.
Alternatively he meant the devil by the roaring lion.
Moses calls the devil a serpent, and in Job and Zechariah he is called devil, and is named Satanas by Jesus, indicating that he has gained a composite name from the practices which he follows.
For satan in the language of the Jews and Syrians} means apostate, and the nas is a word for which the interpretation 'serpent'
Yustin is in error here.
Herod Antipas did not succeed Archelaus; and Archelaus did not abandon his kingdom by death.
Herod Antipas received one-third of the kingdom of his father Herod the Great, comprising Galilee and Peraea, and Archelaus received another third, comprising Judaea, and a third son of Herod the Great the remaining third.
In 6 A.p., after the Jews had sent a deputation to the Roman senate complaining of Archelaus' misgovernment, the Romans deposed him.
But Herod Antipas continued to govern his share of Herod the Great's original Kingdom, and it was of course from his territory that Jesus came.
%Hosea 10:6 (LXX).
Perhaps we should read here, They bound him and carried him off.
3j,e, Aramaic.
is named.
From both these words comes the single name Satanas.
As soon as he had come up from the river Jordan, when the sentence was uttered, Thou art my son, this day have
I begotten thee, it is recorded in the memoirs of the apostles that this devil encountered him and tempted him until the devil said Worship me, and Christ answered him, Get thee behind me, Satan; thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou servel.
As he had led Adam astray, he imagined that he would be able to make some effect upon this man.
Again, the text, As water was poured out all my bones also were scattered, my heart became like melting wax in the middle of my belly2 was a prediction of what happened to him on that night when they went out against him at the Mount of Olives to arrest him.
In the memoirs, which, I may say, were compiled by the apostles and those who were their immediate followers, it is written that sweat like drops of blood flowed down as he was praying and saying, Let this cup, if it be possible, pass from me.
It is clear that his heart was trembling and so were his bones, and his heart was like wax melting into his belly, so that we should know that the Father willed that his own Son should for our sake really pass through these sufferings, and we should not say that because he was the Son of God he had no real share in what took place and what happened to him.
The text My strength is dried up as a potsherd and my tongue cleaves to my throat3, as I said, is a prediction of his silence; he made no reply on any point though he used to refute as unlearned all the teachers amongst yout. .
105.
[Next he quotes Ps. 21(22):20-22.] This too is instruction and prediction about his circumstances and what was to happen to him.
I have already 1Matt. 4:10 and 16:23.
2Ps, 21(22) :15.
8Ps, 21(22):15.
4Cap. 104 is omitted.
shown that this man was the only-begotten of the Father of the universe, begotten into individual existence from him as Word and Power!, and later becoming man through the Virgin, as we have learnt from the memoirs.
He similarly foretold that he was to die by crucifixion.
The text, Save my soul from the sword and my only-begotten from the paw of the dog; save me from the mouth of the lion and my weakness from the horns of the unicorns? indicates likewise the sort of suffering by which he was to die, that is by crucifixion.
Ihave already explained to you that the shape of horns of the unicorns is the shape of the cross only.
His prayer that his soul should be saved from the sword and the lion's mouth and the dog's paw was a request that nobody should control his soul, so that when we come to depart this life we may make the same request to God who is able to turn aside every shameless and wicked angel to prevent him seizing our soul.
I have shown you that our souls survive from the incident of Samuel's soul being summoned up by the ventriloquist woman at Saul's demand3.
It appears that all the souls of those who were good men like Samuel and of the prophets had fallen under the authority of powers like those, as is indeed apparent from the facts themselves in the case of the ventriloquist.
Consequently God teaches us through his Son to strive by all means to be good and at our departure to ask that our souls should not fall under a power of that character.
Further when he gave up his spirit on the cross he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, as I have learnt from the memoirs.
Again, he firmly directed his disciples towards their behaviour surpassing that of the Pharisees, and if not 1Or, with another reading, "having become a separate being", and this is perhaps preferable.
2Ps, 21(22) :21,22 (LXX).
31 Sam. 28:7,11,14.
4Luke 23:46.
they had to realize that they would not be saved; he is recorded in the memoirs as saying this: Unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven!.
106.
He trusted that his Father would supply him with everything that he wanted and would raise him from the dead.
He urged all those who fear God to praise God for his having shown mercy to every race of men who are believers even by means of the mystery of this crucified man.
He stood in the midst of his brethren, the apostles.
After he had risen from the dead he convinced them that before his suffering he had told them that he must suffer these experiences and that they were predicted by the prophets.
They were sorry for having deserted him when he was crucified, and accompanying them he sang praise to God, as is recorded as taking place in the memoirs of the apostles.
All this the remainder of the psalm made clear.
It runs thus: I will declare thy name among my brethren, in the midst of the church will I praise thee.
You who fear the Lord, praise him, glorify him, all you seed of Jacob; let all the seed of Israel fear him2.
The statement that he gave a new name, Peter, to one of the apostles, and it being recorded in his memoirs that this incident took place, along with his having called two other brothers, the sons of Zebedee, by the name of Boanerges (which means 'sons of thunder'), was all an indication that he was the same being through whom the name Jacob was given to him who was called Israel3 and the name Joshua (Jesus) was given to Oshea; it was by the man of this name that the people who remained from those who had left Egypt was led into the land promised to the patriarchs.
1Matt. 5:20.
2Ps_ 21 (22) :23,24.
3Justin has clearly made a slip here, as these two names should be transposed.
Moses revealed that the same man would rise as a star by means of the race of Abraham when he said A star shall rise out of Jacob and a ruler out of Israel.
And another text says Behold a man, his name is Dayspring2.
So a star rose in heaven when he was born, as is written in the memoirs of the apostles.
The wise men from Arabia, recognizing him from this sign, arrived and worshipped him.
107.
Now, to prove that on the third day after he was crucified he was destined to rise from the dead: it is written in the memoirs of the apostles that the people of your race during an argument with him said 'Show us a sign.' He answered them, A wicked and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, and no sign shall be given to them except the sign of Jonah3.
These words which he spoke were a secret intimation to be understood by those who heard him that after his crucifixion he would rise again on the third day.
He was indicating that your generation was wickeder and more adulterous than the city of the Ninevites.
When, after being vomited up on the third day from the belly of the great fish, Jonah announced to them that after three+ days they would be destroyed all together, they declared a fast of every single living being, men and irrational beasts; they put on sackcloth, they lamented continually, they truly repented from their hearts and turned their backs on wickedness, they believed that God was compassionate and loving towards everybody who turned away from evil, so that even the king of that city and the nobles put on sackcloth with the rest and continued assiduously in fasting and supplication, and they obtained as a result the sparing of the city. Now when Jonah was grieved that the city was not destroyed on 1Num. 24:17.
2Zech. 6:12 (LXX).
3Matt. 16:4.
4Another mistake of Justin's; the number should be forty, but he is misled by his passion for spurious coincidence.
the third day, as he had announced, by divine agency a gourd sprang up for him, and he sat under it and received shade from the heat (this gourd was a miraculously fastgrowing colocynth; Jonah had neither planted nor watered it but it spontaneously sprang up to provide shade for him); on the next day it was withered, and Jonah was annoyed at this, and God rebuked him for his unjustified annoyance at Nineveh's not being destroyed.
[There follows a quotation of Jonah 4:10,11.] 108.
The men of your race all knew what had happened in Jonah's time.
Christ had cried aloud amongst you that he would give you the sign of Jonah urging you even after his resurrection from the dead to repent for the evil deeds which you had done and to weep to God like the men of Nineveh so that your race and your city should not be overthrown and taken, as it was overthrown.
Not only have you not repented when you heard that he had risen from the dead, but, as I have already said, you have appointed commissioners and sent them through the whole world to declare that "An atheistic and lawless sect has been started by somebody called Jesus of Galilee, a fraud whom we crucified; but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb where he had been placed after the nails had been taken out and he had been removed from the cross, and they are deceiving people, alleging that he is risen from the dead and has ascended into heaven.'
These commissioners assert against him that he taught the sort of practices of which you now accuse those who confess Christ as teacher and Son of God, practices which are atheistic and licentious and horrible in the eyes of the whole human race.
In addition to this, though your city has been captured and your land laid waste you are not repenting, but you dare to curse him and all who believe in him.
But we do not hate you and the people who are making insinuations of this sort against us
as a result of your propaganda; instead we pray that even now you may change your minds and receive mercy from God the Father of the universe who is full of compassion and overflowing with mercy."
VI.
The Calling of the Gentiles: the Church.
(Justin is speaking) 117.
"From of old God has been witnessing that all these sacrifices are pleasing to him which are offered through that name which Jesus Christ instituted, that is at the thanksgiving for the bread and the cup, which are celebrated by the Christians in every part of the earth.
But he refuses the sacrifices which were celebrated by you and by those who were your priests, when he says: I will not receive your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified (he says), among the Gentiles, but you profane itl, And even today you dispute the meaning of the passage and say that God did not receive the sacrifices of those who were then inhabiting Jerusalem and were called Israelites, but that he says that he was pleased by the prayers made by those men of that race who were then in the so-called
Dispersion, and that he calls their prayers sacrifices.
I agree indeed that prayers and thanksgivings offered by people who are worthy are the only sacrifices which are perfect and wellpleasing to God.
These are the only sacrifices which Christians have been taught to make, and at the memorial of the solid and liquid food in which they recall the suffering which the Son of God suffered for their sakes.
The chief priests and teachers of your race have caused his name to be profaned throughout the whole earth and to be blasphemed.
These 1Malachi 1:10-12.
very accusations are the filthy garments! in which all those who from the name of Jesus have become Christians are clothed by you, but God will spectacularly remove them from us at the general resurrection, and one group he will place in his everlasting and indissoluble kingdom, incorruptible and immortal and untouched by grief; but the other group he will send away to the punishment of everlasting fire.
But you and your teachers are deceiving yourselves when you imagine that the Word was speaking about those members of your race who were in the Dispersion, because he meant their prayers by pure and pleasing sacrifices made in every place?.
You should realize that you are propagating falsehood and are attempting to deceive yourselves wholly, because in the first place not even today does your race exist from the rising of the sun to its setting, but there are nations among whom nobody of your race has ever lived.
But there is no single race of men whatever, neither uncivilized nor civilized, nor called by any name of any sort, gypsies nor people called nomads}, nor cattle-drovers who live in tents4, in which prayers and thanksgivings are not addressed to the Father and Creator of the universe through the name of this crucified Jesus.
Secondly, at the time when the prophet Malachi made this utterance your Dispersion was not yet throughout all the earth, as far as it now extends, as is clear from the Script-
ULE§..042.2
118.
This is the chosen priest and everlasting king, the Christ, as Son of God.
Do not imagine that Isaiah or the other prophets declared that at his Second Coming sacrifices of blood or of libations will be offered on an altar, but true and spiritual praises and thanksgivings. We have not 1Zech. 3:3.
2Mal. 1:11.
SLiterally 'cart-dwellers nor people called homeless', 4Gen. 4:20.
Cap. 118:1-2a is omitted.
believed in him in vain, nor have we been deceived by those who taught us to do this, but this has happened by a wonderful providence of God so that we should turn out to be wiser and more pious than you who are religious and wise in imagination but not in fact, through the new calling and the eternal covenant, that is Christ's.
It was in amazement at this that Isaiah said And kings shall shut their mouth; because they to whom no announcement has been made shall see, and people who have not heard!.
Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"2
When I said this I added, ""Trypho, I am trying, as far as possible, to state the same arguments over again, for the sake of those who arrived with you today, but briefly and concisely."
In reply he said, "You are doing well, and even if you repeat the same arguments at length, you can be sure that I and my companions will be glad."
119. I said, continuing, "My friends, do you imagine that we could have perceived these truths in the Scriptures if we had not received grace to perceive them by the will of him who willed them?
[There follows a quotation of Deut. 32:16-23.1
After that Righteous One had been murdered we grew up as another race and we shot forth like new and flourishing ears of corn, as the prophets said, And many nations shall take refuge with the Lord in that day, and they shall make their dwelling in the midst of the earth3, But we are not only a people but a holy people, as I have shown already, And they shall call it a holy people, ransomed by the Lord*.
Therefore we are no contemptible assembly, not an uncivilized mob nor like the 1We should probably add after this clause, with the Septuagint "shall understand".
2JTsa, 52:15-53:1.
$Zech. 2:11(15).
'Isa, 62:12.
nations of the Carians or Phrygians, but God chose us and became manifest to those who had not sought him, and he said
Behold I am God! to a nation which had not called upon my name}.
This is that nation which God of old promised to Abraham, and he promised to make him a father of many nations?, not meaning nations of Arabians or Egyptians or Idumaeans; indeed Ishmael became father of a great nation (in this sense) and so did Esau, and there is now a great number of Ammonites.
Noah was father of Abraham himself and in fact of the whole human race, and others have been ancestors of other races.
What greater gift then does Christ graciously give to Abraham:
This, that he called him by the voice of the same calling, saying Go out of the land in which you are dwelling.
And he calls us all by this same voice, and we have gone out now from the way of life in which we were living according to the custom of the rest of the inhabitants of the earth, an evil way of life. And we shall inherit the holy land with Abraham, when we receive the inheritance destined for the everlasting age, being children of Abraham through the same faith.
Just as he believed the voice of God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness+, in the same way we also have believed until we die the voice of God which was spoken again through the apostles of Christ and had been declared through the prophets, and we have turned our back on the things of the world. To Abraham then was promised a race which should have the same faith, pious and righteous, but not you, in whom there is no faiths..."
1216.
As they kept silence, I went on: "The Word speaking through David about this Christ did not say that Ysa. 65:1.
2Gen. 17:5.
8Gen. 12:1.
4Gen. 15:6.
5Deut. 32:20.
*Cap. 120 is omitted.
the nations would be blessed in his seed, but in him.
The text runs thus: His name is for everlasting; he shall rise higher than the sun and in him shall all the nations be blessed1.
If all nations are blessed in Christ and we who are men of all nations believe in him, then he is the Christ, and we are the people blessed through him.
God originally gave the sun? to be worshipped, as it is written, and it is impossible ever to. see anybody enduring as far as death for his faith in the sun.
But people of every race of men can be seen both having endured in the past and now enduring through the name of Jesus so as to suffer any ill-treatment rather than deny him.
For the Word of truth and wisdom is more fiery and more resplendent than the powers of the sun, and it enters into the depths of the heart and the mind.
This is why the Word said His name shall rise above the sun.
And again Zechariah says His name is Dawn3.
And he speaks about him when he says, Tribe by tribe they shall mourn4.
But if he was so resplendent and powerful at his First Coming in humbleness and unloveliness and contempt so that he fails to receive recognition among no race and from everybody induces repentance from the former evil way of life of each race, so that demons are subject to his name and all the powers and principalities fear the name of this man more than any in the past, will he not at his glorious Second
Coming wholly destroy all who hate him and those who have wrongfully deserted him, but will give rest to his own and give to them all the things they have been longing for?
To us therefore it has been given to hearken and to understand and to be saved through this Christ and to know all the counsel of the Father.
This is why the Father said to 1Ps, 71(72): 17.
2Deut. 4:19.
3Zech. 6:12.
4Zech. 12:12.
him, It is a great thing for thee to be called my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and to gather the Dispersion of Israel.
I have made thee a light of the Gentiles, so that thou shouldest be for their salvation to the end of the earth}.
122.
You think that this verse refers to the Strangers and Proselytes?, but it is in fact spoken to us who have been enlightened through Jesus.
For surely Christ could have borne witness to them, but as it is you are, as he said, twice as much sons of hell3.
Neither are the utterances made through the prophets addressed to those classes of people, but to us; and the Word says about us, I will lead the blind by a way which they have not known, they shall tread paths with which they are not acquainted.
And I am a witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen4.
To whom does Christ bear witness?
Clearly, to those who have believed in him.
But the proselytes not only do not believe, but they blaspheme against his name twice as much as you do, and they are anxious to murder and maltreat us who believe in him; they are eager to be like you in everything.
Again elsewhere he cries aloud: I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and I will hold thy hand and will strengthen thee, and I will make thee a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to deliver the fettered from their chainsS.
These things, my friends, were addressed to Christ and were about the Gentiles being enlightened.
Or do you still insist upon saying that they were addressed to the law and the proselytes?" sa. 49:6.
*j.e. Those Gentiles who had attached themselves to synagogues and read the Old Testament (literally ""God-fearers"), and those who had been Gentiles but who had received circumcision and full initiation as proselytes.
*Perhaps Matt. 23:15.
4Isa. 42:16; 43:10.
5Isa. 42:6,7.
And some of those who had arrived on the second day shouted as if they were in a theatre, "Why not?
Is he not speaking to the law and to those who were enlightened by it?
These are the proselytes."
"No," I said, looking at Trypho.
"For if the law had the power of enlightening the Gentiles and those who observed it, what was the need of a new covenant?
But since God announced beforehand that he was going to institute a new covenant and an everlasting law! and ordinance, we shall not interpret it as the old law and its proselytes but as Christ and his proselytes, we Gentiles whom he enlightened, just as he says: Thus says the Lord: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I succoured thee, and I have made thee a covenant of the Gentiles to establish the earth and to inherit the deserts as an inheritance?.
What is Christ's inheritance?
Is it not the Gentiles?
What is the covenant of God:
Is it not Christ?
Similarly he says elsewhere, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance, and the limits of the earth as thy possession'.
VII.
Conclusion: Summary; Some Objections Met; the Dialogue Ends.
(Justin is speaking) 127.
"And other statements like these appear in the Lawgiver and in the prophets.
I think I have said enough.
Surely, when my God says God went up from Abraham, or The Lord spoke to Moses, or The Lord went down to see the tower which the sons of men had built, or God shut Noah into Yer. 38(31) :31,33.
Isa. 49:8.
SPs. 2:7,8.
the ark', you did not think that the unoriginated God himself came down or went up anywhere?
The ineffable Father and Lord of all does not come anywhere nor walk nor sleep nor rise up, but in his own place, wherever it is, he remains, seeing piercingly and hearing piercingly, without eyes and without ears but with inexpressible power.
He surveys everything and knows everything, and not one of us escapes his notice.
He is not moved, but he is incomprehensible by space and by the whole world, indeed he existed even before the world did. How could a being like this speak to anyone or become visible to anyone or appear on the smallest part of the earth:
Why, the people on Sinai could not endure to look at the glory of him who was sent from him, nor could
Moses endure to go into the tent which he had made, if it was filled by the glory from God, nor could the priest endure to stand before the temple when Solomon brought the ark into the house in Jerusalem which Solomon himself had built!
Neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob nor any other human being saw the Father and ineffable Lord of every single thing, and of Christ himself; but they saw him who was
God according to the will of the Father, his Son, and his Angel (because he served his purpose).
He determined that he should become man through the Virgin; he also on one occasion became fire at that conversation with Moses from the bush.
Unless we interpret the Scriptures in this way, it will follow that the Father and Lord of the universe ceased to be in the heavens on the occasion when it was recorded through Moses: And the Lord rained fire and brimstone out of heaven from the Lord on Sodom, and again when through David this statement is made: Lift up your gates, ye rulers, and be elevated, ye everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall go in, and again when he says, The Lord said unto my Lord,
1Gen. 17:22; Exod. 6:29; Gen. 11:5; Gen. 7:6.
Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet!.
(Justin is speaking) 138.
""You know, my friends, then," I said, "that it is said in Isaiah by God to Jerusalem, I saved thee at Noah's flood, What God means by this is that the mystery of men being saved occurred at the Flood.
Righteous Noah with the other people at the Flood, that is his wife and his three sons and his sons' wives, eight persons in number, were a sign of the number of the eighth day, on which Christ appeared after rising from the dead, a day which is however always first in power.
For Christ, the first-born of all creation, also became the beginning of a new race, a race regenerated by him through water and faith and wood which includes the mystery of the cross, just as Noah was saved on a piece of wood as he rode on the waves with his family. When therefore the prophet said, In the time of Noah I saved you, he was equally addressing the people who were faithful to God and had these symbols.
Further, Moses led your people through the sea holding a (wooden) rod in his hand.
You think that God spoke only to your nation, or to the earth.
Yet because, as the Scripture says, the whole earth was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits? above the mountains, God apparently did not speak to the earth but to the people obedient to him, for whom he had prepared a rest in Jerusalem through all the symbols associated with the Flood. I have said that those who had already been prepared through water and faith and wood and who repented for what they had sinfully done will escape the judgment of God which is destined to come'...
1Gen. 19:24; Ps. 23(24):7; Ps. 109(110):1.
2Tsa. 54:8,9.
3Gen. 7:19,20.
"Caps. 139 and 140 are omitted.
141.
I want to prevent you arguing that Christ was destined to be crucified, or that among your race there were destined to be some evildoers, and it could not have been otherwise.
So I forestalled you and said briefly that God wanted angels and men to follow his purpose and decided to create them with freewill to do what is right, endowed with reason so that they could understand by whom they were given existence and through whose agency they came into being out of nothingness, and placed under a law so that they were to be judged by him if they behaved in a way contrary to right principle.
We, men and angels, will be condemned if we do wrong for our own behaviour, unless we first alter our conduct.
But if the Word of God records beforehand that some angels and men will certainly be punished, because he foresaw that they would be unalterably wicked, he predicted these events, but not because God caused them to be wicked.
So, if they repent, everyone who wishes to gain mercy from God is able to do so and the Word pronounces them blessed, saying Blessed is the man, unto whom the Lord imputeth no sin!, This means, he who repents for his sins and receives forgiveness of sins from God, but not, as you and some others who resemble you in this say, deceiving yourselves, that even if people are sinners, but know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them.
As proof of this we have the first sin of David which took place because of his boasting; it was forgiven when he had lamented and mourned as deeply as is recorded.
If forgiveness was not given to a man of this sort before repentance, but this great king and anointed one and prophet wept and acted so drastically, how can those who are unclean and utterly desperate entertain hope that the Lord will not impute sin to them—unless they mourn and lament and repent?
And, 1Ps, 31(32):2.
dy my friends", I said, "this single act of sin by David with Uriah's wife shows that when the patriarchs had several wives they did not do so as committing fornication but all their conduct was enacted as a piece of divine policy and as a series of mysteries.
If it were to be acceptable that one should take whatever wives one liked, in whatever way, and to whatever number, one liked (which is the practice of the men of your nation in every country; both where they live and where they have emigrated they take women under the name of marriage), it would be much more acceptable that David should do this."
So when I had said this, my dearest friend Marcus Pompeius, I finished.
142.
Trypho remained silent for some time, and then said: "You perceive that it was not deliberately that we met together in this discussion.
I confess that I enjoyed the encounter greatly, and I know that my companions feel as I do. We found more than we expected or than we once thought it possible to expect. We would gain even more advantage if it was possible for us to do this more often, and examine the same arguments.
But (said he) since you are about to make a journey by sea and are expecting daily to sail, do not hesitate if you go away to think of us as your friends."
"If I were to stay here," I said, "I would for my own sake like the discussion to take place every day. But I am even now expecting to sail, as God permits me and assists me, so I urge you to undertake this great struggle for your own salvation and be eager to choose the Christ of the almighty
God rather than your own teachers."
After that we parted. They wished me for the future a safe journey and preservation from all evil. When I gave them my good wishes, I said, "I cannot pray any better prayer for you, my friends, than that you may recognize that every
; 7 man is granted the we of happiness through this religion, and that you may resolutely become what we are, recognizing that Jesus is the. Christ of God.'"!
'This translation follows an emendation of the text which is otherwise difficult to make any sense of.
! i !
t About this book. 4.
} One hundred years after the time-vt Jesus Christ a Christan and a had a discussion. They were arguing the question whether the Chri: faith is true or not. Justin, the Christian, afterwards wrote an accoun the argument which has come down to us today. It gives a fascinating pic! of people and ideas that we should not otherwise have known. Justin hin had tried to find the truth through various philosophies before finally coming a Christian. In this Dialogue he is concerned to show that God, formerly gave the Law to the Jews through Moses, has now spoken to n= kind in Jesus Christ. While Justin is obviously sincere, eager and fearless, he still sympathize with those who hold different opinions from his oTrypho, the Jew, is a tolerant and open-minded man, but he does not ea give up his point of view.
Dr. R. P. C. Hanson is Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Universit» Durham and has made many contributions to the study of Christian doctr
He has here selected the most important parts of Justin's Dialogue and trz lated them afresh from the original Greek. In his Introduction he point where some of Justin's ideas have not stood the test of time. This is to k
Christians today to benefit from his mistakes as well as from his insights.
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