16. But thus far, nothing has been said about the circumcision of JesusCatholic

The virginal birth

ceive and bear a son, and so forth, as you quoted it. Furthermore, the prophecy as a whole refers to Hezekiah, and it can be shown that the events described in the prophecy were fulﬁlled in him.

2. "Besides, in the so-called Greek myths there is a story of how Perseus was born of Danaë, while she was a virgin, when the one whom they call Zeus descended upon her in the form of a golden shower.15 You Christians should be ashamed of yourselves, therefore, to repeat the same kind of stories as these men, and you should, on the contrary, acknowledge this Jesus to be a man of mere human origin. If you can prove from the Scriptures that he is the Christ, confess that he was considered worthy to be chosen as such because of his perfect observance of the Law, but do not dare to speak of miracles, lest you be accused of talking nonsense, like the Greeks."

3. "Trypho," I replied, "I want you and everyone else to be certain of this, that even if you resort to worse taunts in your ridicule and mockery of me, you will not be able to turn me from my set purpose, for I shall continue to employ those very words and examples (which you produced to confuse me), together with the Scriptures, to show the truth of my assertions.

4. "But you are neither fair nor truthful when you endeavor to eliminate those points on which we have mutually agreed, for example, that some precepts of the Law were instituted by Moses because of your people's hardness of heart. For you stated that if Jesus can indeed be proved to be Christ, it is so only because of his strict adherence to the Mosaic Law."

5. "Yet you admitted," rejoined Trypho, "that he was circumcised and observed the other precepts of the Mosaic Law."

6. "Yes I did,"16 I replied, "and I still do, but I do not admit that he submitted to this, as though justiﬁcation could be acquired by it, but simply to complete the plan of our redemption in accordance with the will of his Father, Lord and God and 15. In 1 Apol. 19–22, Justin gives many parallels between pagan and Christian motifs, including this one. He ascribes the pagan ones to demons; see Dial.

69.1–3; 70.1, 5. After their deaths Perseus and Danaë were set among the stars.

16. But thus far, nothing has been said about the circumcision of Jesus and of his observance of the Law. For the many gaps in the manuscript of the Dialogue, see Marcovich, 4–6.

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 Creator of all things. I also admit that he condescended to become man, that he was cruciﬁed and died after enduring all the suffering inﬂicted upon him by your own people.

7. "Now, Trypho, since you deny the points which you had admitted previously, tell me if those just men and patriarchs who lived before Moses, and therefore did not observe those precepts which Scripture shows were ﬁrst commanded by Moses, have attained salvation in the inheritance of the blessed?"

8. "The Scriptures," said Trypho, "force me to admit that they have."

"Answer this question, too," I persisted. "Did God order your ancestors to offer up oblations and sacriﬁces because he needed them, or because of their hardness of heart and tendency to idolatry?"

"The Scriptures," he answered, "compel me to admit the second reason also."

9. "And have those same Scriptures also predicted that God would establish a new covenant, other than that which he made at Mount Horeb?"

"They have," he admitted.

"And was not that old covenant," I continued, "delivered to your ancestors amid such fear and trembling that they could not listen to God?"

"That also is true," he conceded.

10. "Then why, do you argue?" I proceeded to ask. "God promised another covenant, different from the old one, which would be delivered to them without fear and trembling and ﬂashes of lightning, and which would indicate what precepts and actions God knows to be eternal and ﬁt for every nationality, and what precepts he issued as suited only to the hardness of your people's hearts (as he proclaimed by his prophets)."

11. "They who love the truth and not strife," replied Trypho, "must agree with you completely."

"I don't know," I said, "how you can accuse others of admiring strife, when you yourself so often seem to do just that, for you frequently contradict what you had previously conceded."

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The virginal birth

c h a p t e r 68 "Because," replied Trypho, "you are attempting to prove what is incredible and practically impossible, namely, that God deigned to be born and to become man."

"If I had tried to prove this only by the teachings and arguments of men," 17 I said in reply, "you should not listen to me.

But if I constantly appeal to various passages of Scripture to prove my point and beg you to understand them, then it is only your obstinacy that prevents you from knowing the mind and will of God. If you refuse to change, I surely will suffer no harm, but, holding fast to my former convictions, I will go my way."

2. "My friend," protested Trypho, "remember that it was given to you to master these truths after much trouble and toil, and it is only that, before we can assent to what the Scriptures indicate, we also must ﬁrst examine closely all that meets us."

"I do not ask you," I answered, "to abstain from scrutinizing carefully every point of our discussion, but, please, when you are at a loss what to say, do not deny what you have already admitted."

3. "We will try to do as you wish," said Trypho.

"Now," said I, "in order to bring this debate to a speedy conclusion, I would like to ask a few more questions."

"Go ahead and ask them," granted Trypho.

"Is it your opinion that there is any other to be worshipped and called Lord and God in the Scriptures, except the Creator of the world and the Christ, who has been proved to you by so many Scriptural passages to have become man?"

4. "How could we admit such a statement," asked Trypho, "when in our lengthy discussion it has not been determined whether there is any God other than the Father?"

"I must ask this question," I responded, "in order to know whether you hold a different opinion from that which you already admitted."

"Sir, I do not," he said.

"Since you admit these things in truth," I went on, "and since 17. See 1 Cor 2.13.

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st. justin martyr Scripture states, Who shall declare his generation,18 should you not also immediately agree that he is not of human generation?"

5. "How, then," asked Trypho, "does the Word say to David that of his loins God would take to himself a Son, would establish his kingdom, and would install him upon the throne of his glory?"19

6. "Trypho," I replied, "if this prophecy of Isaiah, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, did not refer to the house of David, but to some other house of the twelve tribes, then the problem would, perhaps, be difﬁcult; but, since the prophecy itself refers to the house of David, Isaiah explained exactly how that which was spoken in mystery to David by God would happen.

"Perhaps, my friends, you do not realize that many of the sayings which were expressed mysteriously in metaphorical or obscure language or were hinted at by symbolic actions were later expounded by the prophets who lived after those who had uttered or done them."

7. "Undoubtedly," agreed Trypho.

"If, then," I continued, "I establish the fact that this prophecy of Isaiah speaks of this Christ of ours and not of Hezekiah, as you claim, will you not be obliged to doubt your teachers who dare to assert that the translation made by your seventy elders at the court of the Egyptian king Ptolemy is inaccurate in some places?20

8. "For, whenever there arises in the Scriptures an evident contradiction of their silly and conceited doctrine, your teachers boldly afﬁrm that it was not so written in the original text. And they conspire to distort other statements, harmonizing them with human actions and claiming that they have been spoken not of this our Jesus Christ, but of him of whom they attempt to interpret them. For instance, they taught you that the quotation under discussion is to be interpreted as referring to Hezekiah, a statement which, as I promised, I will prove to be a lie.

18. Is 53.8. See Skarsaune, 199–201; Dial. 43.3.

19. See Ps 131 (132).11; 2 Sm 7.12–16; Acts 2.30.

20. Justin frequently refers to the Ps.-Aristeas legend about LXX origins. See 1 Apol. 31; Dial. 71, 84, 120, 124, 131, 137; Skarsaune, 45–46 and n 62; "Septuagint (LXX)," EECh, s.v. On alleged Jewish removal of Scriptural texts see M.

De Jonge, "The Pre-Mosaic Servants of God in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in the Writings of Justin and Irenaeus," VigChr (1985): 157–70, esp. 161–66.

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