3. When they remained silent, I went on, "My friends, I will

A F I N A L A P P E A L

c h a p t e r 137 "My brothers, do not speak anything evil against the cruciﬁed one, nor scoff at his wounds, by which every one may be healed, as we have been healed.1 For it would be wonderful if you in obedience to the Scriptures would be circumcised from the hardness of your heart,2 not with the circumcision which you have according to your deep-rooted idea, for the Scriptures convince us that such a circumcision was given as a sign and not as a work of righteousness.3

2. "Act in accord with us, therefore, and do not insult the Son of God; ignore your Pharisaic teachers and do not scorn the king of Israel (as the chiefs of your synagogues instruct you to do after prayers). For, if he who touches those who are not pleasing to God is as he who touches the apple of God's eye,4 how much more so is he who touches his Beloved. And it has been proved sufﬁciently that this is he."

3. When they remained silent, I went on, "My friends, I will now quote Scripture according to the Septuagint version. For, when I cited those passages as you read them, I was trying to ascertain your frame of mind. In quoting the passage, Woe to them, because they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, 5 I added the words of the Septuagint, Let us take away the Just One, for he is distasteful to us. Yet, at the beginning of our discussion I cited it according to your version: Let us bind the Just One, for he is distasteful to us.6

4. "At the time you seemed to have been preoccupied, and 1. See Is 53.5.

2. See Dt 10.16.

3. See Dial. 16.2.

4. See Zec 2.8 (12).

5. Is 3.9. See Skarsaune, 30–32, 114.

6. Justin is wrong about the LXX reading; the LXX has "let us bind." "Let us take away" may represent a text inﬂuenced by Prv 1.12b.

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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A ﬁnal appeal

to have heard my words without due attention. But, since the day is now almost at an end—for the sun is about to set—I will add one more observation and then conclude. Although I have already mentioned this point before, I think it ought to be explained once more. c h a p t e r 138 "You are aware then, gentlemen," I said, "that in Isaiah God has said to Jerusalem, In the deluge of Noah I saved you.7 By this,

God meant that the mystery of redeemed humanity was implicit in the deluge. At the time of the ﬂood, Noah the just with other people, that is, his wife and three sons and their wives, making eight persons in all, were a ﬁgure of that eighth day (which is, however, potentially the ﬁrst day) on which our Lord appeared, risen from the dead.

2. "Now, Christ, the ﬁrst-born of every creature, founded a new race which is regenerated by him through water and faith and wood, which held the mystery of the cross (just as the wood saved Noah and his family, when it held them safely on the waters). Therefore, when the prophet declares, In the deluge of Noah I saved you, as I said before, he addresses those people who were likewise faithful to God, and possess the same signs. Moses led your people safely through the sea when he held the staff in his hand.

3. "But you are mistaken when you think that he spoke these words to your people only or to your land. Yet, when the Scripture states that the entire earth was inundated, as the water reached a height of ﬁfteen feet above the highest mountains,8 it is evident that God did not address your land, but the people who are faithful to him, for whom he has prearranged a restful haven in Jerusalem, as all the signs that accompanied the ﬂood prove. For, as I said, by water and faith and wood,9 they who Copyright © 2003. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

7. Isaiah does not say this, but it may be a reconstruction of Is 54.8–9. On typology of Noah's ark see Daniélou, 277.

8. See Gn 7.19–20; Smit Sibinga, 102–3.

9. I.e., through baptism and the cross; Marcovich cites J. P. Lewis, A study of the interpretation of Noah and the ﬂood in Jewish and Christian Literature, (Leiden:

Brill, 1968), 110–13.

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st. justin martyr prepare themselves and repent of their sins shall escape the future judgment of God.10 c h a p t e r 139 "You are unaware of yet another mystery which was foretold by the things accomplished in the days of Noah. It is this. In the blessings with which Noah blesses his two sons, he also curses his son's son.11 For the prophetic Spirit would not curse that son, since he had already been blessed by God, together with the other sons of Noah. But, since the punishment of the sin was to be transmitted down to all the posterity of the son who laughed at his father's nudity, he made the curse begin with the son's son.

2. "Now, by Noah's words it was foretold that the descendants of Shem would possess the possessions and dwellings of Canaan, and that these possessions in turn would pass from the descendants of Shem to the descendants of Japheth, who would rob the descendants of Shem, just as they had robbed the descendants of Canaan.

3. "Listen, while I explain how this prophecy has been fulﬁlled. You indeed who are descendants of Shem entered the land of the son of Canaan, in accordance with God's will, and held it in possession. It is also clear that the descendants of Japheth12 have in turn, by God's judgment, taken your land away from you and now possess it. This is how it was foretold in Scripture: And when Noah woke up from his wine, and learned what his younger son had done to him, he said: Cursed be Canaan the servant; a servant shall he be unto his brothers. And he said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his slave. May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the houses of Shem, and let

Canaan be his servant.13

4. "Thus, as two peoples were blessed, namely, the descendants of Shem and of Japheth, and it was declared that the de10. See Wis 10.4.

11. See Gn 9.25–27; Skarsaune, 341–44, crediting Justin with being the ﬁrst Christian writer to comment on the curse.

12. I.e., the Romans.

13. Gn 9.24–27. See Smit Sibinga, 103–4; Skarsaune, 341–44.

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A ﬁnal appeal

scendants of Shem would ﬁrst possess the houses of Canaan, which would later be seized by the descendants of Japheth, and as the one people (the Canaanites) was forced into the servitude of the other two, so Christ has come in his power from the almighty Father and, calling all men to friendship, to benediction, repentance, and community life, which should take place in the same land of all the saints, of which he has pledged that there shall be an allotted portion for all the faithful, as has been shown before.

5. "Therefore, men from every land, whether slaves or free men, who believe in Christ and recognize the truths of his words and those of the prophets, fully realize that they will one day be united with him in that land, to inherit imperishable blessings for all eternity!14 c h a p t e r 140 "Wherefore also Jacob, as I said before,15 being also a type of Christ also had married the two slave girls of his two free wives and had sons by them, to indicate in advance that Christ would welcome into his company as children and co-heirs, together with the free sons, even the Canaanites who are among the race of Japheth. Now, we are the children and co-heirs of Christ, though you cannot understand it, because you are unable to drink from the living fountain of God, but only from the broken cisterns that can hold no water, as the Scripture says.16

2. "They really are broken cisterns that hold no water which your teachers have dug for you, as the Scriptures express it, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men.17 Besides this, those teachers deceive both themselves and you when they suppose that those who are descendants of Abraham according to the ﬂesh will most certainly share in the eternal kingdom, even though they be faithless sinners and disobedient to God, suppositions which the Scriptures show have no foundation in fact.

3. "Otherwise, Isaiah would not have said, And unless the Lord 14. See 1 Pt 1.4.

15. Dial. 134.3.

16. See Jer 2.13; Daniélou, 132.

17. Is 29.13.

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st. justin martyr of Hosts had left us seed, we would have become as Sodom and Gomorrah.18 And Ezekiel, And even if Noah and Jacob and Daniel should pray for sons or daughters, their request shall not be granted. But neither shall the father perish for the son, nor the son for the father; but every one shall perish for his own sin, and every one shall be saved by his own good acts.19 And, again, Isaiah, They shall look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me. Their worm shall not cease, and their ﬁre shall not be quenched; and they shall be a loathsome sight to all ﬂesh.20

4. "And our Lord would not have afﬁrmed, in conformity with the will of the Father and Lord of the universe, who sent him, They will come from the east and from the west, and will feast with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom will be put into the darkness outside.21

"Besides, I have already shown that they who were foreknown as future sinners, whether men or angels, do become so, not through God's fault, but each through his own fault. c h a p t e r 141 "Now, to forestall any pretext you may offer by saying it was necessary for Christ to be cruciﬁed, and that it was necessary that the transgressors belong to your race, and that it could not have been otherwise, I wish to observe that, although God wanted men and angels to follow his will, he nevertheless was pleased to create them with free will to practice virtue, with the faculty of reasoning in order to know him who created them

(that is, through whom they passed from the state of non-existence to that of existence), and with a law that they should be judged by him, if they do anything contrary to sound reason.

Thus, unless we quickly repent, we, both men and angels, shall be found guilty of our sins.

2. "But if the Word of God predicts that some creatures, men and angels, will assuredly be punished, it is because God foreknew that they would be incorrigibly sinful, not, however, because God created them so. Therefore, everyone who re18. Is 1.9.

19. Ezek 14.14, 18, 20; Dt 24.16.

20. Is 66.24.

21. Mt 8.11–12.

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