2. I immediately replied, "My friends, if I had not explained

The Messiah: already here or still to come?

and great Messiah who, as the Son of Man, receives the everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of days.2 But, the one whom you call Christ was without glory and honor3 to such an extent that he incurred the last curse of God's law,4 namely, he was cruciﬁed."

2. I immediately replied, "My friends, if I had not explained from the above-quoted Scriptural passages that the appearance of Christ should be without glory and his generation beyond description, that for his death the rich should incur death, that through his suffering we should be healed, that he should be led as a sheep to the slaughter,5 and if I had not made clear that there should be two comings of Christ (the ﬁrst in which he was pierced by you, the second in which you shall look up and recognize him as the one whom you pierced, and then your tribes shall mourn tribe by tribe, the women apart and the men apart),6 then my words must have been ambiguous and obscure. Now, I shall derive all my proofs from all the words I adduce from your sacred and prophetic Scriptures, in the hope that someone may be found among you to be of that seed which, by the grace of the Lord of Sabaoth, is reserved for everlasting salvation.

3. "To clarify this matter further for you, I shall cite other passages from the blessed David, from which you can see that Christ is also called Lord by the Holy prophetic Spirit,7 and that God, the Father of all, raised him up from the earth, and placed him at his right hand, until he makes his enemies his footstool; which, indeed, actually happened when our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, after his resurrection from the dead.

"Thus were the times being fulﬁlled, and he whom Daniel 2. See Dn 7.13–14, 27.

3. See Is 53.2–3.

4. See Gal 3.13; Dt 21.23.

5. See Is 53.2, 8, 9, 5, 7.

6. Zec 12.12–13 See Skarsaune, 76–78; also 439: "his paraphrase seems to depend on the kai'ge version which Justin read in his Dodekapropheton MS."

See Dominique Barthélemy, Les Davanciers d'Aquila. Prèmier publication intégrale du texte des fragments du Dodekapropheton, Vetus Testamentum Supplementum 10

(Leiden: Brill, 1963), 211.

7. See D. Vigne, "<Pneuma prophetikon>: Justin et le prophétisme," in Anthropos Laïkos: mélanges Alexandre Faivre à l'occasion de ses 30 ans d'enseignement, ed. Marie-Anne Vannier, et al (Fribourg, Suisse: Editions universitaires, 2000),

335–47.

Justin, Martyr, Saint. Dialogue with Trypho (Selections from the Fathers of the Church, Volume 3), edited by Michael Slusser, Catholic University of America Press, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/de

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st. justin martyr foretold would reign for a time, times, and a half, 8 is now at the doors, ready to utter bold and blasphemous words against the Most High.

4. "In ignorance of how long he will reign, you hold a different opinion, based on your misinterpretation of the word

'time' as meaning one hundred years. If this is so, the man of sin must reign at least three hundred ﬁfty years, computing the holy Daniel's expression of 'times' to mean two times only.

5. "I have digressed at length for the sole purpose of convincing you of the truth of what God said against you, namely, that you are foolish children, 9 and, Therefore, behold, I will proceed to take away this people, and I will remove them, and I will take away the wisdom of their wise men, and I will hide the understanding of their prudent men.10 Knowing this, why don't you stop deceiving yourselves and those around you? Why don't you learn from us who have been taught wisdom by the grace of Christ?

6. "Now here are the words of David: The Lord said to my Lord:

Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord will send forth the scepter of your power out of Zion: and rule you, in the midst of your enemies. Yours is the principality in the day of your strength, in the splendors of your saints, from the womb before the day star I begot you. The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek. The Lord at your right hand has crushed kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among nations. He shall ﬁll ruins.11 He shall drink from the torrent by the wayside; therefore, shall he lift up his head." 12

Copyright © 2003. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. c h a p t e r 33 "Now I know," I continued, "that you dare to refer the words of the above-quoted psalm to king Hezekiah,13 but I am going to show you from the very words of the psalm that you are

8. Dn 7.25. See Skarsaune, 204, 402 n 67, quoting A. H. Goldfahn, "Justin Martyr und die Agada," Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 22 (1873): 58–59.

9. Jer 4.22.

10. Is 29.14. See Skarsaune, 57.

11. Ps 109 (110).6b is omitted here, by either Justin or a copyist.

12. Ps 109 (110).1–7. See Daniélou, 257–58; Skarsaune, 86–88.

13. King of Judah (727–698 B.C.E.); see 2 Kgs 18–20.

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The Messiah: already here or still to come?

wrong. Among the words of the psalm are the following two statements: The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent, and You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek.14 Now, you must admit that Hezekiah neither was nor is a priest forever of God.

If your ears were not so dull, or your hearts so hardened, you would see that the words refer to our Jesus.

2. "For, by the words, The Lord has sworn and he will not repent; you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek, God, because of your lack of faith, swore that Jesus is the High Priest according to the order of Melchisedek. For, as Melchisedek was the priest of the Most High (as Moses tells us),15 and as he was the priest of the uncircumcised, and blessed the circumcised

Abraham who offered him tithes, so has God announced that his eternal priest, called Lord by the Holy Spirit, should be the priest of the uncircumcised.

"Those circumcised persons who approach him with faith in their hearts and a prayer on their lips for his blessings will be welcomed and blessed by him. The concluding words of the psalm, He shall drink of the torrent by the wayside, and, Therefore, shall he lift up the head,16 prove that Christ was to be ﬁrst humble man, and later he was to be exalted. c h a p t e r 34 "As a further proof of your ignorance of the Scriptures, I am going to quote another psalm, dictated to David by the Holy

Spirit, which you erroneously think refers to your king Solomon, but which in reality refers to our Christ. One cause of your error is that you are misled by the false interpretation of equivocal terms. For, when the law of God is called a blameless law,17

Copyright © 2003. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. you do not understand it as applying to the law that was to come after Moses, but to the Mosaic Law itself, even though God himself had promised to establish a new law and a new testament.18

2. "And when the psalm says, Give to the king your judgment, O 14. See J. L. Marshall, "Some Observations on Justin Martyr's Use of Testimonies," SP 16.2 (= TU 129; 1985), 197–200 and his article cited above, Dial.

19.4 n 3.

15. See Gn 14.18.

16. Ps 109 (110).7.

17. Ps 18 (19).8a.

18. See Jer 38 (31).31.

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st. justin martyr God, 19 you claim that the words were spoken of Solomon because he was a king, whereas the words clearly proclaim that they were spoken of the eternal king, that is, Christ. I prove from all the Scriptures that Christ is spoken of as a King, and a Priest, and God, 20 and Lord, and an Angel, and a Man, and a Leader, and a Stone, and a Begotten Son, and as one who at ﬁrst endured suffering, then ascended into heaven, and as returning to earth with glory and having the eternal kingdom.

3. "To help you understand what I have said, I cite the following words of the psalm: Give to the king your judgment, O God, and to the king's son your justice, to judge your people with justice, and your poor with judgment. Let the mountains receive peace for the people, and the hills justice. He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the poor, and shall humble the slanderer. And he shall continue with the sun, and before the moon throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the ﬂeece, and as showers falling gently upon the earth.

4. "In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away. And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the ground. The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall offer presents; the kings of Arabia and of Saba shall bring gifts. And all kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him. For he shall rescue the poor from the mighty, and the needy who has no helper.

5. "He shall spare the poor and needy, and he shall save the souls of the poor. He shall redeem their souls from usury and iniquity, and his name shall be honorable in their sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray continually for him, and they shall bless him the entire day. And there shall be a ﬁrmament on the earth on the mountain tops; his fruit shall be on Libanus, and they of the city shall ﬂourish like the grass of the earth.

6. "His name shall be blessed for evermore, his name continued before the sun. And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all

19. Ps 71 (72).1.

20. On qeo;" jIsrahvl see Daniélou, 132–34; Joseph Barbel, Christos Angelos: die Anschauung von Christus als Bote und Engel in der gelehrten und volkstümlichen

Literatur des christlichen Altertums, Theophaneia 3 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1941).

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