5. The words of the prophecy are: "And the Lord spoke to Ahaz,
st. justin martyr 4. "Furthermore, the same prophetic Spirit, through the same Isaiah, informed the faithful how Christ was to be born and how he was to come into this world.
5. The words of the prophecy are: "And the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying: Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God, be it deep, or lofty. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord.
"And Isaiah said: Listen, therefore, house of David; Is it a small thing for you to contend with men, must you also contend with God?
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel.
6. "He shall eat butter and honey by the time he knows to reject the evil, and to choose the good. For before the child shall know good or evil, he refuses evil to choose the good. For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria. And the land shall be forsaken, which you shall hardly endure on account of the presence of the two kings. But God shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days that have not yet come upon you, since the day that he took away Ephraim from Judah—the king of the Assyrians." 4
7. "Now, it is clear to all that no one of the race of Abraham was ever born, or even said to be born, of a virgin except our
Christ.
8. "But, since you and your teachers venture to assert that the real words of Isaiah are not Behold, a virgin shall conceive, but Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bear a son; and since you refer this prophecy to your king Hezekiah, I will attempt to answer you and show that this prophecy applies to him whom we profess as our Christ.
Copyright © 2003. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. c h a p t e r 44 "So, I will be absolutely without blame in my obligations to you, if I endeavor to convince you with every possible proof.
But, if you persist in your hardness of heart and feebleness of mind, or if you refuse to agree to the truth through fear of the 4. Is 7.10–17; 8.4. The Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom, Israel, is described in 2 Kgs 15.29; 17.3–6, 21–24.
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
Created from nottingham on 2021-08-20 07:56:45.