Dialogue with Trypho

Justin Meets Trypho

1 While I was walking one morning in the walkways of the Xystus, a man with others in his company met me and said, “Greetings, philosopher!” As soon as he had said this, he turned and walked along with me, and his friends followed him too. And I greeted him in turn and said, “What is it?” 2 And he replied, “I was taught,” he said, “by Corinthus the Socratic in Argos, that I should not look down on or ignore those who dress like this, but should show them every kindness and spend time with them, since some benefit might come from the company, either to such a man or to me. And it is good for both of us if either one benefits. So whenever I see anyone dressed like this, I am glad to approach him, and for the same reason I was glad to speak to you now; and these men are with me because they hope to hear something useful from you themselves.” 3 “And who are you, my good man?” I replied, teasing him. Then he frankly told me both his name and his descent. “My name is Trypho,” he said, “and I am a Hebrew of the circumcision. I escaped from the war that was recently fought there, and I am spending my days in Greece, mostly at Corinth.” “And how,” I said, “would philosophy benefit you as much as your own lawgiver and the prophets?” “Why not?” he replied. “Do the philosophers not make every discussion about God? Do questions about His unity and providence not keep arising for them? Is this not truly the task of philosophy, to inquire into the Deity?” 4 “Certainly,” I said, “we believe that too. But most people have given no thought to whether there is one god or more, or whether they care for each one of us or not, as if this knowledge contributed nothing to our happiness; in fact, they even try to persuade us that God takes care of the universe with its genera and species, but not of you and me, each of us individually, since otherwise we would surely not need to pray to Him night and day. 5 But it is not difficult to see where this leads: those who hold these opinions gain fearlessness and license in what they say, and they do and say whatever they choose, neither dreading punishment nor hoping for any benefit from God. For how could they? They claim that the same things will always happen, and also that you and I will live again in the same way, having become neither better nor worse. And there are others who assume the soul is immortal and immaterial, and believe that even if they have done evil they will not be punished (since what is immaterial cannot feel), and that the soul, because it is immortal, needs nothing from God.” 6 And he smiled gently and said, “Tell us your opinion of these matters, what you think about God, and what your philosophy is.”

Justin's Search Through the Schools of Philosophy

1 “I will tell you,” I said, “what I think; for philosophy is, in fact, the greatest possession and the most honorable before God, to whom it alone leads us and commends us; and those who have devoted their minds to philosophy are truly holy. But what philosophy is, and why it was sent down to human beings, has escaped the notice of most people; for there would be neither Platonists, nor Stoics, nor Peripatetics, nor Theoretics, nor Pythagoreans, since this knowledge is one. 2 I wish to tell you why it has become many-headed. Those who first took it up [i.e., philosophy], and who became famous for that reason, were followed by people who did not investigate the truth at all, but only admired the endurance and self-discipline of the first, as well as the novelty of their teachings; and each thought true whatever he learned from his teacher. Then these in turn handed such things down to their successors, along with others like them; and the system was named after the man who was called the father of the doctrine. 3 At first, wanting to study with one of these men myself, I put myself in the hands of a Stoic; and after I had spent a good deal of time with him without learning anything more about God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary), I left him and went to another, who was called a Peripatetic and who thought himself shrewd. This man put up with me for the first few days and then asked me to settle his fee, so that our time together would not be unprofitable. I left him too for this reason, believing he was no philosopher at all. 4 But my soul was still eager to hear the distinctive and choice part of philosophy, so I went to a very celebrated Pythagorean, a man who thought highly of his own wisdom. When I met with him, wanting to become his student and disciple, he said, ‘Well? Are you familiar with music, astronomy, and geometry? Do you expect to perceive any of the things that lead to a happy life, if you have not first been taught the subjects that wean the soul from the objects of the senses and make it fit for the objects of the mind, so that it can contemplate what is honorable in its essence and what is good in its essence?’ 5 He praised these subjects at length and told me they were necessary, and when I admitted that I did not know them, he sent me away. So I took it rather badly, as was to be expected when my hope was disappointed, all the more because I thought the man knew something; but when I considered how long I would have to spend on those subjects, I could not bear to put it off any longer. 6 At a loss, I decided to try the Platonists, for their reputation was great. So I spent as much time as I could with one who had recently settled in our city, a wise man who held a high position among the Platonists, and I made progress and improved greatly every day. The perception of immaterial things completely captivated me, and the contemplation of ideas gave my mind wings, so that before long I thought I had become wise; and in my stupidity I expected to see God at once, for this is the goal of Plato’s philosophy.

The Old Man by the Sea

1 “While I was in this state of mind, and wanted at one point to be filled with great quiet and to avoid the paths of men, I used to go to a field not far from the sea. One day, when I was near the spot where I intended to be by myself, an old man, far from unimpressive in appearance, with a gentle and venerable manner, followed me at a short distance. I stopped and turned around to him, and looked at him rather sharply. 2 “And he said, ‘Do you know me?’ “I said that I did not. “ ‘Why, then,’ said he to me, ‘are you looking at me like this?’ “ ‘I am surprised,’ I said, ‘that you happen to be in the same place as me; for I did not expect to see anyone here.’ “And he said to me, ‘I am worried about some members of my household. They have gone away from me, so I have come to look for them myself, in case they turn up somewhere. But why are you here?’ he asked me. “ ‘I enjoy walks like this,’ I said, ‘where my attention is not distracted, for my conversation with myself goes uninterrupted; and places like this are the best suited for the love of discourse.’ 3 “ ‘So you are a lover of discourse,’ he said, ‘but no lover of deeds or of truth? And you do not try to be a practical man so much as a sophist?’ “ ‘What greater work,’ I said, ‘could anyone accomplish than this: to show the reason that governs all things, and, having grasped it and being carried by it, to look down on the errors of others and their pursuits? But without philosophy and right reason, no one would possess prudence. So every man must practice philosophy and regard it as the greatest and most honorable work, and other things as only of second- or third-rate importance. If they depend on philosophy, they have moderate value and are worth accepting; but without it, and not accompanied by it, they are vulgar and coarse to those who pursue them.’ 4 “ ‘Does philosophy, then, produce happiness?’ he broke in. “ ‘Certainly,’ I said, ‘and it alone.’ “ ‘What, then, is philosophy?’ he said, ‘and what is happiness? Please tell me, unless something prevents you.’ “ ‘Philosophy,’ I said, ‘is the knowledge of what really exists and a clear perception of the truth; and happiness is the reward of such knowledge and wisdom.’ 5 “ ‘And what do you call God?’ he asked. “ ‘What always keeps the same nature, in the same way, and is the cause of all other things: that is God.’ That was my answer; and he enjoyed listening to me, and questioned me again as follows: “ ‘Is knowledge not a term common to different subjects? In every kind of art, whoever knows one of them is called skilled, whether in generalship, in government, or in medicine. But in divine and human matters it is not so. Is there a knowledge that gives understanding of human and divine things, and then full knowledge of their divinity and righteousness?’ “ ‘Certainly,’ I replied. 6 “ ‘Well then, do we know man and God in the same way as we know music, arithmetic, astronomy, or any similar subject?’ “ ‘Not at all,’ I replied. “ ‘You have not answered me correctly, then,’ he said; ‘for some [branches of knowledge] come to us by learning or by some kind of practice, while others we know by sight. If someone were to tell you that in India there is an animal with a nature unlike all others, of such and such a kind, many-formed and varied, you would not know it until you saw it; and you would not be able to give any account of it either, unless you heard from someone who had seen it.’ 7 “ ‘Certainly not,’ I said. “ ‘How then,’ he said, ‘could the philosophers judge correctly about God, or speak any truth, when they have no knowledge of Him, since they have never seen Him or heard Him?’ “ ‘But, father,’ I said, ‘the Deity cannot be seen by the eyes alone, as other living beings can, but is discernible to the mind alone, as Plato says; and I believe him.’

1 “ ‘Does our mind, then,’ he said, ‘have such great power? Or does a man not perceive sooner through the senses? Will the human mind ever see God if it is not instructed by the Holy Spirit?’ “ ‘Plato does say,’ I replied, ‘that the mind’s eye is of such a nature, and has been given to us for this purpose, that we may see that very Being when the mind itself is pure, who is the cause of everything the mind perceives, having no color, no form, no size, nothing at all that the bodily eye looks on; but It is something of this sort, he goes on to say: beyond all essence, unutterable and inexplicable, but alone honorable and good, coming suddenly into well-disposed souls because of their affinity to Him and their desire to see Him.’ 2 “ ‘What affinity, then,’ he replied, ‘is there between us and God? Is the soul also divine and immortal, and a part of that royal mind itself? And just as that mind sees God, can we also grasp the Deity with our mind, and so become happy?’ “ ‘Certainly,’ I said. “ ‘And do all the souls of all living beings comprehend Him?’ he asked; ‘or is the soul of a man one kind and that of a horse or a donkey another?’ “ ‘No, the souls in all of them are alike,’ I answered. 3 “ ‘Then,’ he said, ‘will horses and donkeys see God, or have they ever seen Him?’ “ ‘No,’ I said; ‘not even most men will, except those who live justly, purified by righteousness and every other virtue.’ “ ‘So it is not because of his affinity,’ he said, ‘that a man sees God, nor because he has a mind, but because he is self-controlled and righteous?’ “ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and because he has the faculty by which he perceives God.’ “ ‘Well then, do goats or sheep wrong anyone?’ “ ‘No one, in any way,’ I said. 4 “ ‘Then by your account these animals will see [God],’ he said. “ ‘No, for their body, being what it is, is an obstacle to them.’ “He replied, ‘If these animals could speak, you can be sure they would have far better reason to ridicule our body; but let us leave this subject for now and grant you the point as you put it. Tell me this, though: Does the soul see [God] while it is in the body, or after it has left it?’ 5 “ ‘While it is in human form,’ I went on, ‘it can attain this by means of the mind; but above all, once it has been set free from the body and exists by itself, it gains what it used to love constantly and completely.’ “ ‘Then does it remember this [the sight of God] when it is in a human being again?’ “ ‘I do not think so,’ I said. “ ‘Then what is the advantage to those who have seen [God]? Or what does the one who has seen have more than the one who has not, if he does not even remember the fact that he has seen?’ 6 “ ‘I cannot say,’ I answered. “ ‘And what happens to those who are judged unworthy of this sight?’ he asked. “ ‘They are imprisoned in the bodies of certain wild beasts, and this is their punishment.’ “ ‘Then do they know that this is why they are in such forms, and that they have committed some sin?’ “ ‘I do not think so.’ 7 “ ‘Then it seems they gain nothing from their punishment; in fact, I would say they are not punished at all unless they are aware of the punishment.’ “ ‘No indeed.’ “ ‘Therefore souls neither see God nor transmigrate into other bodies; for they would know that they are being punished in this way, and they would be afraid to commit even the slightest sin afterward. But that they can perceive that God exists, and that righteousness and piety are honorable, I fully agree with you,’ he said. “ ‘You are right,’ I replied.

1 “ ‘Then these philosophers know nothing about these things, for they cannot say what a soul is.’ “ ‘It seems not.’ “ ‘Nor should it be called immortal; for if it is immortal, it is plainly unbegotten.’ “ ‘It is both unbegotten and immortal, according to some who are called Platonists.’ “ ‘Do you say that the world is also unbegotten?’ “ ‘Some say so. I do not agree with them, though.’ 2 “ ‘You are right; for what reason does anyone have to suppose that a body so solid, resistant, composite, changeable, decaying, and renewed every day, did not arise from some cause? But if the world is begotten, souls must also be begotten; and perhaps at one time they did not exist, for they were made for the sake of men and other living creatures, if you say that they were begotten entirely separately and not together with their own bodies.’ “ ‘This seems to be correct.’ “ ‘They are not, then, immortal?’ “ ‘No, since we have seen that the world is begotten.’ 3 “ ‘But I do not say that all souls die; that would truly be a stroke of good luck for the wicked. What then? The souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the unjust and wicked remain in a worse one, waiting for the time of judgment. Thus some which have appeared worthy of God never die; but others are punished so long as God wills them to exist and to be punished.’ 4 “ ‘Is what you say, then, similar to what Plato hints about the world in the Timaeus, when he says that it is subject to decay, since it was created, but that it will neither be dissolved nor meet the fate of death, because of the will of God? Do you think the very same can be said of the soul, and of all things in general? For whatever exists after God, or will ever exist, has a nature subject to decay, and can be blotted out and cease to exist; for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God, but all other things after Him are created and corruptible. 5 For this reason souls both die and are punished: since, if they were unbegotten, they would neither sin, nor be filled with folly, nor be cowardly and then ferocious; nor would they willingly pass into swine, serpents, and dogs; and it would not be just to compel them, if they were unbegotten. For that which is unbegotten is similar to, equal to, and the same as what is unbegotten; and neither in power nor in honor should one be preferred to the other. 6 Hence there are not many unbegotten things; for if there were some difference between them, you would not find the cause of the difference, however you searched for it; but after letting your mind wander endlessly to infinity, you would at last, worn out, come to rest on one Unbegotten, and say that this is the Cause of all. Did this escape the notice of Plato and Pythagoras, those wise men,’ I said, ‘who have been like a wall and fortress of philosophy for us?’

1 “ ‘It makes no difference to me,’ he said, ‘whether Plato or Pythagoras, or anyone else at all, held such opinions. For the truth is this, and you can see it from the following. The soul either is life or has life. If, then, it is life, it would cause something else to live, not itself, just as motion would move something other than itself. Now, that the soul lives, no one would deny. But if it lives, it lives not because it is life but because it partakes of life; and what partakes of something is different from what it partakes of. Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live. 2 So it will no longer partake [of life] when God does not will it to live. For life is not its own property, as it is God’s; but just as a man does not live forever, and the soul is not always joined to the body, since whenever this harmony must be broken up, the soul leaves the body and the man exists no longer, so too, whenever the soul must cease to exist, the spirit of life leaves it, and the soul is no more, but it goes back to the place it was taken from.’

1 “ ‘Then whom should anyone take as a teacher,’ I said, ‘or where could anyone find help, if there is no truth even in them?’ “ ‘Long ago there lived certain men, older than all those who are regarded as philosophers, both righteous and loved by God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit and foretold events that would happen and are now happening. They are called prophets. They alone both saw the truth and proclaimed it to people, neither deferring to nor fearing anyone, not swayed by a desire for glory, but speaking only what they saw and heard, filled with the Holy Spirit. 2 Their writings still survive, and anyone who reads them gains a great deal in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things, and of the matters a philosopher ought to know, if he believes them. For they did not use proofs in their writings, since they were witnesses to the truth beyond all proof, and worthy of belief; and the events that have happened and are happening compel you to agree with what they said. 3 They also deserved to be believed because of the miracles they performed, since they glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ [sent] by Him. The false prophets, who are filled with the lying, unclean spirit, have never done this and do not do it now; instead they dare to work certain wonders to astonish people, and they glorify the spirits and demons of error. But pray above all that the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be seen or understood by everyone, but only by the one to whom God and His Christ have given wisdom.’

1 “When he had spoken these and many other things, which there is no time to mention now, he went away, telling me to pursue them; and I have not seen him since. But at once a fire was kindled in my soul, and a love of the prophets and of those men who are friends of Christ took hold of me; and as I turned his words over in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. 2 This is how, and why, I am a philosopher. And I would wish that everyone would make the same resolution as I did and not keep away from the words of the Savior. For they have an awesome power in themselves and are enough to fill with awe those who turn aside from the right path, while those who practice them diligently find the sweetest rest. If, then, you have any concern for yourself, and if you are eagerly looking for salvation, and if you believe in God, you may, since you are not indifferent to the matter, come to know the Christ of God and, once initiated, live a happy life.” 3 When I had said this, my dear friend, those who were with Trypho laughed; but he smiled and said, “I approve of your other remarks, and admire the eagerness with which you study divine things; but it would be better for you to stay with the philosophy of Plato or of someone else, cultivating endurance, self-control, and moderation, than to be deceived by false words and follow the opinions of men of no account. For if you had remained in that kind of philosophy and lived blamelessly, you would still have had hope of a better destiny; but now that you have forsaken God and put your trust in a man, what salvation is left for you? 4 If, then, you are willing to listen to me (for I already consider you a friend), first be circumcised, then keep the ordinances concerning the Sabbath, the feasts, and the new moons of God; in short, do everything written in the law, and then perhaps you will obtain mercy from God. But the Christ, if He has indeed been born and exists anywhere, is unknown; He does not even know Himself and has no power until Elias comes to anoint Him and make Him known to all. And you, having accepted a groundless rumor, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake you are now thoughtlessly perishing.”

1 “I excuse and forgive you, my friend,” I said. “For you do not know what you are saying, but have been persuaded by teachers who do not understand the Scriptures; and like a soothsayer you say whatever comes into your head. But if you are willing to hear an account of Him, of how we have not been deceived and will not stop confessing Him, even if people heap reproaches on us, even if the most terrible tyrant forces us to deny Him, I will prove to you right here that we have not believed empty fables, or words without any foundation, but words filled with the Spirit of God, bursting with power and flourishing with grace.” 2 Then again those who were in his company laughed, and shouted rudely. Then I got up and was about to leave; but he took hold of my cloak and said I would not do that until I had done what I promised. “Then do not let your companions be so rowdy or behave so disgracefully,” I said. “But if they wish, let them listen in silence; or, if some more important business keeps them, let them go; and we can withdraw to some spot, rest there, and finish the discussion.” 3 Trypho agreed that we should do so, and so we went off to the middle area of the Xystus. Two of his friends mocked and made fun of our zeal and left. When we reached the place where there are stone seats on both sides, those with Trypho sat down on one side and talked among themselves, after one of them brought up the war in Judaea.

Christians and the Commandments of the Torah

1 When they had finished, I spoke to them again as follows: “Is there anything else, my friends, that you blame us for besides this: that we do not live according to the law, are not circumcised in the flesh as your ancestors were, and do not keep sabbaths as you do? Are our lives and customs also slandered among you? What I mean is this: have you also believed the stories about us, that we eat people, and that after the feast we put out the lamps and engage in promiscuous intercourse? Or do you condemn us only for this, that we hold to such teachings and believe an opinion that is untrue, as you think?” 2 “This is what we are amazed at,” said Trypho, “but the things the crowd talks about are not worth believing, for they are utterly contrary to human nature. Besides, I know that your commands in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great that I suspect no one can keep them, for I have made a point of reading them. 3 But what puzzles us most is this: you claim to be pious and think yourselves better than others, yet you are not separate from them in any way and do not make your way of life different from the nations, since you keep no festivals or sabbaths and do not practice circumcision; and further, though you rest your hopes on a man who was crucified, you still expect to receive some good thing from God, while you do not obey His commandments. Have you not read that the soul that is not circumcised on the eighth day shall be cut off from his people? And this was ordained for foreigners and slaves alike. 4 But you have rashly despised this covenant and neglect the duties that follow from it, and you try to persuade yourselves that you know God, though you do none of the things that those who fear God do. So if you can defend yourself on these points, and show how you hope for anything at all even though you do not keep the law, we would be very glad to hear it from you, and we will examine the other questions in the same way.”

1 “There will never be any other God, Trypho, nor has there been any other from eternity,” I said to him, “but He who made and ordered this whole universe. We do not think that there is one God for us and another for you, but that He alone is God who led your fathers out of Egypt with a strong hand and a high arm. Nor have we trusted in any other (for there is no other), but in Him in whom you also have trusted, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. But we do not trust through Moses or through the law, for then we would do the same as you. 2 But now I have read that there would be a final law, and a covenant greater than all others, which all who seek the inheritance of God must now keep. For the law given at Horeb is now old and belongs to you alone, but this one is for everyone without exception. A law set against a law has canceled the one before it, and a covenant that comes later has likewise ended the previous one; and an eternal and final law, namely Christ, has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there will be no law, no commandment, no ordinance. 3 Have you not read what Isaiah says: ‘Listen to Me, listen to Me, my people; and you kings, give ear to Me: for a law shall go forth from Me, and My judgment shall be for a light to the nations. My righteousness approaches swiftly, and My salvation shall go forth, and nations shall trust in My arm.’ And through Jeremiah He speaks this way about this same new covenant: ‘Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.’ 4 So if God proclaimed a new covenant that was to be established, and this as a light for the nations, we see and are persuaded that men approach God, leaving their idols and other unrighteousness, through the name of Him who was crucified, Jesus Christ, and hold to their confession and their piety even to death. And from the works and the miracles that accompany them, everyone can understand that He is the new law, and the new covenant, and the expectation of those who out of every people wait for the good things of God. 5 For the true spiritual Israel, and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham (who while uncircumcised was approved and blessed by God because of his faith, and called the father of many nations), are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ, as will be shown as we go on.

1 I also cited another passage in which Isaiah cries out: “ ‘Hear My words, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Look, I have given Him as a witness to the peoples: nations that do not know You shall call on You; peoples who do not know You shall flee to You, because of Your God, the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified You.’ 2 You have dishonored this very law and scorned His new, holy covenant; and even now you neither accept it nor repent of your evil deeds. ‘For your ears are closed, your eyes are blinded, and the heart is hardened,’ Jeremiah has cried; yet even so you do not listen. The Lawgiver is present, yet you do not see Him; to the poor the Gospel is preached, the blind see, yet you do not understand. 3 Now you need a second circumcision, though you pride yourselves greatly on the flesh. The new law requires you to keep a perpetual sabbath, and you think you are pious because you are idle for one day, without understanding why this was commanded of you; and if you eat unleavened bread, you say the will of God has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances: if there is a perjurer or a thief among you, let him stop; if there is an adulterer, let him repent; then he has kept the sweet and true sabbaths of God. If anyone has impure hands, let him wash and be pure.

1 “For Isaiah did not send you to a bathhouse to wash away murder and other sins there, which not even all the water of the sea would be enough to cleanse; but, as might have been expected, this was that saving bath of long ago which followed those who repented, and who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of a heifer, or by offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ, and through the death of Him who died for this very reason, as Isaiah himself said when he spoke as follows: 2 ‘The Lord shall make bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the nations and the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God. Depart, depart, depart, go out from there, and touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her, be clean, you who carry the vessels of the Lord, for you do not go in haste. For the Lord shall go before you; and the Lord, the God of Israel, shall gather you together. Look, my servant shall act wisely; and He shall be exalted, and be greatly glorified. 3 Just as many were astonished at You, so Your form and Your glory shall be marred more than those of men. So shall many nations be astonished at Him, and the kings shall shut their mouths; for they shall see what had not been told them about Him, and they shall understand what they had not heard. Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have announced Him as a child before Him, as a root in a dry ground. 4 He has no form or splendor, and when we saw Him He had no form or beauty; but His form is without honor, and falls short of that of the sons of men. He is a man in affliction, who knows how to bear sickness, because His face has been turned away; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. He bears our sins, and is distressed for us; and we esteemed Him to be in toil and in affliction, and in evil treatment. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. By His wounds we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each one has turned to his own way; and the Lord laid on Him our iniquities, and because of His oppression He does not open His mouth. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so He does not open His mouth. 6 In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. And who shall tell of His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. Because of the transgressions of my people He came to death. And I will give the wicked for His grave, and the rich for His death, because He committed no iniquity, and deceit was not found in His mouth. And the Lord wills to purify Him from affliction. If he has been given for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed. 7 And the Lord wills to take His soul away from trouble, to show Him light, and to form Him in understanding, to justify the righteous One who serves many well. And He shall bear our sins; therefore He shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoil of the strong, because His soul was delivered to death; and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sins of many, and was delivered for their transgression. 8 Sing, barren one, who does not give birth; break out and cry aloud, you who are not in labor: for the children of the desolate woman are more than the children of the married wife. For the Lord said, Enlarge the place of your tent and of your curtains; fix them firmly, do not hold back, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes; spread out to your right and your left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and you shall cause the desolate cities to be inherited. 9 Do not fear because you have been put to shame, and do not be dismayed because you have been reproached; for you shall forget everlasting shame and shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood, because the Lord has made a name for Himself, and He who has redeemed you shall be called the God of Israel through the whole earth. The Lord has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, as a woman hated from her youth.’

1 “So it is through this washing of repentance and knowledge of God, which was ordained because of the transgression of God’s people, as Isaiah cries, that we have believed; and we testify that the very baptism he announced is the only one that can purify those who have repented; and this is the water of life. But the cisterns you have dug for yourselves are broken and useless to you. For what use is that baptism which cleanses only the flesh and the body? 2 Baptize the soul from anger and from greed, from envy and from hatred; and look, the body is pure. For this is what unleavened bread symbolizes: that you do not do the old deeds of the wicked leaven. But you have understood everything in a fleshly sense, and you think it is piety to do such things while your souls are filled with deceit and, in short, with every kind of wickedness. 3 That is also why, after the seven days of eating unleavened bread, God commanded them to mix in new leaven, that is, the performance of other works, and not the imitation of the old and evil works. And to show that this is what the new Lawgiver demands of you, I will go back over the words I quoted earlier, along with others that were left out. Isaiah speaks them as follows: 4 ‘Listen to me, and your soul shall live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, even the sure mercies of David. Look, I have given Him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the nations. Nations that do not know You shall call on You; and peoples who do not know You shall flee to You, because of Your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified You. 5 Seek God, and when you find Him, call on Him, while He is near you. Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and he will obtain mercy, because He will abundantly pardon your sins. For my thoughts are not like your thoughts, nor are my ways like your ways; but as far removed as the heavens are from the earth, so far is my way removed from your way, and your thoughts from my thoughts. 6 For as the snow or the rain descends from heaven, and does not return until it waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread for food, so shall My word be that goes out of My mouth: it shall not return until it has accomplished all that I desired, and I will make My commandments prosper. 7 For you shall go out with joy, and be taught with gladness. For the mountains and the hills shall leap as they await you, and all the trees of the fields shall applaud with their branches: and instead of the thorn the cypress shall come up, and instead of the brier the myrtle shall come up. And the Lord shall be for a name, and for an everlasting sign, and He shall not fail!’ 8 Of these words and others like them written by the prophets, Trypho,” I said, “some refer to the first coming of Christ, in which He is proclaimed as without glory, obscure, and mortal in appearance; but others refer to His second coming, when He will appear in glory above the clouds; and your nation shall see and know Him whom they have pierced, as Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, and Daniel, foretold.

1 “So learn to keep the true fast of God, as Isaiah says, so that you may please God. 2 Isaiah has cried out like this: ‘Shout with all your strength, and do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek Me from day to day, and desire to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the judgment of God. 3 They ask of Me now righteous judgment, and desire to draw near to God, saying, Why have we fasted, and You do not see? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You have not known? Because in the days of your fasting you find your own pleasure, and oppress all those who are subject to you. Look, you fast for quarrels and fights, and strike the lowly with your fists. Why do you fast for Me as you do today, so that your voice is heard shouting? 4 This is not the fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul. And not even if you bend your neck like a ring, or clothe yourself in sackcloth and ashes, shall you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord. This is not the fast that I have chosen, says the Lord; but loose every unrighteous bond, untie the knots of forced agreements, let the oppressed go free, and tear up every unjust contract. 5 Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see someone naked, clothe him; and do not hide yourself from your own flesh. Then your light shall break out like the morning, and your garments shall spring up quickly; and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall surround you. Then you shall cry out, and the Lord shall hear you; while you are still speaking, He will say, Here I am. 6 And if you remove the yoke from among you, and the stretching out of the hand, and the word of grumbling, and give your bread to the hungry from the heart, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be like noonday; and your God shall be with you always, and you shall be satisfied as your soul desires, and your bones shall be made fat, and shall be as a watered garden, and as a fountain of water, or as a land where water fails not.’ 7 ‘So circumcise the foreskin of your heart,’ as the words of God in all these passages demand.”

1 “And God himself proclaimed through Moses, saying: ‘And circumcise the hardness of your hearts, and no longer stiffen the neck. For the Lord your God is both Lord of lords, and a great, mighty, and terrible God, who does not show partiality and does not accept gifts.’ And in Leviticus: ‘Because they have transgressed against Me, and despised Me, and because they have walked contrary to Me, I also walked contrary to them, and I will cut them off in the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart shall be turned.’ 2 For the circumcision of the flesh, which comes from Abraham, was given as a sign, so that you would be set apart from the other nations and from us; and so that you alone would suffer what you now justly suffer; and that your land would be desolate and your cities burned with fire; and that foreigners would eat your fruit in front of you, and not one of you would go up to Jerusalem. 3 For you are distinguished from the rest of humanity by no other mark than your circumcision in the flesh. For none of you, I suppose, will dare to say that God did not and does not foresee future events, or that He did not prepare in advance what each one deserves. So these things have happened to you fairly and justly. 4 For you killed the Just One, and His prophets before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him and in the One who sent Him, God the Almighty and Maker of all things, cursing in your synagogues those who believe in Christ. For you do not have the power to lay hands on us yourselves, because of those who are now in control. But as often as you could, you did so. 5 That is why God calls out to you through Isaiah, saying, ‘See how the righteous man perished, and no one takes it to heart. For the righteous man is taken away from before iniquity. His grave shall be in peace, he is taken away from the midst. Come here, you lawless children, offspring of adulterers and children of a prostitute. At whom have you made sport, and against whom have you opened the mouth, and against whom have you loosened the tongue?’

1 “For the other nations have not wronged us and Christ as much as you have, who are in fact the authors of the wicked prejudice against the Just One and against us who hold to Him. For after you had crucified Him, the only blameless and righteous Man, through whose wounds those who approach the Father by Him are healed, when you knew that He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the prophets foretold He would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness you had committed, but you then selected chosen men and sent them out from Jerusalem through all the land to report that a godless heresy, the Christians, had sprung up, and to spread the things that all those who do not know us say against us. So you are the cause not only of your own unrighteousness but of that of all other people as well. 2 And Isaiah rightly cries: ‘Because of you, My name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.’ And: ‘Woe to their soul! For they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous, for he is distasteful to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! Evil shall be repaid to him according to the works of his hands.’ And again, in other words: ‘Woe to those who drag their iniquity along as with a long cord, and their transgressions as with the strap of a heifer’s yoke, who say, Let his speed come near; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put light for darkness and darkness for light, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’ 3 So you were eager to spread through all the land bitter and dark and unjust things against the only blameless and righteous Light sent by God. For He seemed distasteful to you when He cried out among you, ‘It is written, My house is the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!’ He also overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple. 4 And He exclaimed, ‘Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithes of mint and rue, but do not observe the love of God and justice. You whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones!’ And to the Scribes, ‘Woe to you, Scribes! For you have the keys, and you do not go in yourselves, and you hinder those who are going in; you blind guides!’

1 “For since you have read, Trypho, as you yourself admitted, the teachings of our Savior, I do not think I have done anything foolish in adding a few short sayings of His to the words of the prophets. 2 So wash and be clean now, and put away wickedness from your souls, as God tells you to be washed in this washing, and be circumcised with the true circumcision. For we too would keep the circumcision of the flesh, the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know why they were imposed on you: namely, because of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts. 3 For if we patiently endure everything that wicked men and demons devise against us, so that even amid unspeakable cruelties, death and torture, we pray for mercy for those who do such things to us, and do not want to repay anyone even in the slightest, just as the new Lawgiver commanded us, how could it be, Trypho, that we would not keep the rites that do us no harm, I mean circumcision of the flesh, Sabbaths, and feasts?

1 “This is what puzzles us, and rightly so: that while you endure such things, you do not keep all the other customs we are now discussing.” 2 “But this circumcision is not necessary for everyone, only for you, so that, as I said before, you may suffer the things you now justly suffer. Nor do we accept that useless baptism of cisterns, for it has nothing to do with this baptism of life. That is why God has declared that you have forsaken Him, the living fountain, and dug for yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. 3 You who are circumcised in the flesh need our circumcision; but we, having the latter, do not need the former. For if it were necessary, as you suppose, God would not have made Adam uncircumcised; would not have looked with favor on the gifts of Abel when he offered sacrifice uncircumcised, and would not have been pleased with the uncircumcised Enoch, who was not found, because God had taken him away. 4 Lot was saved from Sodom while uncircumcised, with the angels themselves and the Lord sending him out. Noah was the beginning of our race; yet he went into the ark uncircumcised, along with his children. Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High, was uncircumcised; and Abraham, the first to receive circumcision in the flesh, gave him tithes, and he blessed him; and God declared through the mouth of David that He would establish the everlasting priest according to his order. 5 So this circumcision was necessary for you alone, so that the people might be no people and the nation no nation, as also Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, declares. Moreover, all the righteous men already mentioned pleased God even though they kept no Sabbaths; and so did Abraham after them, and all his descendants until Moses, under whom your nation showed itself unrighteous and ungrateful to God by making a calf in the wilderness. 6 For this reason God, adapting Himself to that people, also commanded them to offer sacrifices, as if to His name, so that you would not serve idols. Yet you did not keep even this command; you even sacrificed your children to demons. And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths so that you would remember God. For His word declares this, saying, ‘So that you may know that I am the God who redeemed you.’

1 “Moreover, you were commanded to abstain from certain kinds of food, so that you would keep God before your eyes even while you ate and drank, since you were prone and very quick to turn away from knowing Him, as Moses also says: ‘The people ate and drank, and rose up to play.’ And again: ‘Jacob ate and was satisfied and grew fat; and the beloved one kicked: he grew fat, he grew thick, he grew broad, and he forsook the God who had made him.’ For Moses told you in the book of Genesis that God allowed Noah, since he was a just man, to eat every living creature, but not flesh with the blood, which is dead.” 2 And when he was about to say, “as the green herbs,” I got in ahead of him: “Why do you not take this statement, ‘as the green herbs,’ in the sense in which God gave it, namely, that just as God made the herbs as food for human beings, so too He has given the animals as meat to eat? But because we do not eat certain herbs, you say that a distinction was laid down for Noah from then on. 3 The way you interpret it is not credible. First of all, I will not spend time on this point, though I could say and maintain that every plant is food and fit to be eaten. But although we distinguish between green herbs and do not eat them all, we avoid some not because they are common or unclean, but because they are bitter, poisonous, or thorny. But we reach for and eat all the plants that are sweet, very nourishing, and good, whether they grow in the sea or on land. 4 In the same way God, through Moses, commanded you to abstain from unclean, improper, and violent animals, because even while you were eating manna in the desert and seeing all the wonders God did for you, you made and worshiped the golden calf. So he rightly cries out again and again, ‘They are foolish children, in whom is no faith.’

1 “Moreover, that God commanded you to keep the Sabbath and imposed other precepts on you as a sign, as I have already said, because of your unrighteousness and that of your fathers, and that He declares He let some of you remain alive for the sake of the nations, so that His name would not be profaned among them, His own words can prove to you. 2 They are recorded by Ezekiel as follows: ‘I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and take no part in the customs of Egypt; and hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God. Yet you rebelled against Me, and your children did not walk in My statutes or keep My judgments to do them, which if a man does, he shall live by them. But they polluted My Sabbaths. 3 And I said that I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness, to carry out My anger against them; yet I did not do it, so that My name would not be utterly profaned in the sight of the nations. I led them out before their eyes, and I raised My hand against them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries; because they had not carried out My judgments, but had despised My statutes, and polluted My Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the devices of their fathers. 4 So I also gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they shall not live. And I will defile them in their own gifts, so that I may destroy all that opens the womb when I pass through them.’

1 “And so that you may learn that it was because of the sins of your own nation and its idolatries, and not because there was any need for such sacrifices, that these too were commanded, listen to how He speaks of them through Amos, one of the twelve, saying: 2 ‘Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! What will this day of the Lord be for you? It is darkness and not light, as when a man flees from the face of a lion, and a bear meets him; and he goes into his house, and leans his hands against the wall, and the serpent bites him. Will the day of the Lord not be darkness and not light, very dark, with no brightness in it? 3 I have hated, I have despised your feast-days, and I will not smell the scent of your solemn assemblies; so even if you offer Me your burnt offerings and sacrifices, I will not accept them, nor will I look at the peace offerings you bring. Take away from Me the multitude of your songs and psalms; I will not listen to your instruments. But let judgment be rolled down as water, and righteousness as an impassable torrent. Did you offer Me victims and sacrifices in the wilderness, house of Israel? says the Lord. And did you take up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Raphan, the images you made for yourselves? 4 And I will carry you away beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the Almighty God. Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria; those who are named among the chiefs have plucked away the first-fruits of the nations: the house of Israel has entered for themselves. Cross over, all of you, to Calneh and see; and from there go to Hamath the great, and go down from there to Gath of the foreigners, the noblest of all these kingdoms, if their boundaries are greater than your boundaries. 5 You who are coming to the evil day, who draw near and cling to false Sabbaths; who lie on beds of ivory, and are at ease upon their couches; who eat the lambs out of the flock, and the suckling calves from the middle of the herd; who applaud at the sound of the musical instruments; they count them as lasting and not as fleeting, who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest ointments, but they do not grieve over the affliction of Joseph. So now they shall go into captivity, among the first of the nobles carried away; and the house of evil-doers shall be removed, and the neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim.’ 6 And again through Jeremiah: ‘Gather your meat and your sacrifices and eat, for I did not command your fathers about either sacrifices or libations on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.’ 7 And again through David, in the forty-ninth Psalm, He said this: ‘The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion is the perfection of His beauty. God, even our God, shall come openly, and shall not keep silence. Fire shall burn before Him, and a great storm shall rage around Him. He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Assemble to Him His saints; those who have made a covenant with Him by sacrifices. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God is judge. 8 Hear, My people, and I will speak to you; Israel, and I will testify to you: I am God, your God. I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are always before me. I will take no bulls from your house, nor male goats from your folds; for all the beasts of the field are Mine, the herds and the oxen on the mountains. I know all the birds of the sky, and the beauty of the field is Mine. 9 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine and all that fills it. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High, and call on Me in the day of trouble, and I will rescue you, and you shall glorify Me. But to the wicked God says, What right have you to recite My statutes and take My covenant in your mouth? For you have hated instruction and thrown My words behind you. 10 When you saw a thief, you went along with him, and you have had a share with the adulterer. Your mouth has framed evil, and your tongue has woven deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought that I would be like you in wickedness. I will rebuke you and set your sins in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, or He will tear you to pieces, and there will be no one to rescue you. The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me; and there is the way by which I will show him My salvation.’ 11 So He does not accept sacrifices from you, nor did He command them to be offered in the first place, because He needs them, but because of your sins. Indeed, He acknowledged the temple, the one called the temple in Jerusalem, as His house or court, not because He needed it, but so that you, by devoting yourselves to Him in this way too, would not worship idols. And that this is so, Isaiah says: ‘What house have you built for Me? says the Lord. Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool.’

1 “But if we do not admit this, we will fall into absurd ideas: as if it were not the same God in the time of Enoch and all the others, who were not circumcised in the flesh and kept neither Sabbaths nor any other rites, since it was Moses who commanded such observances; or as if God has not always wanted every race of humankind to do the same righteous acts. To admit that seems ridiculous and absurd. 2 So we must confess that He, who is always the same, commanded these and similar institutions because of sinful people, and we must declare Him to be benevolent, foreknowing, needing nothing, righteous and good. But if this is not so, tell me, sirs, what you think about these matters we are examining.” 3 And when no one answered: “So, Trypho, I will proclaim to you, and to those who wish to become proselytes, the divine message which I heard from that man. Do you see that the elements are never idle and keep no Sabbaths? Stay as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of keeping Sabbaths, feasts, and sacrifices before Moses, there is no more need of them now, after Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, by the will of God, of a virgin descended from Abraham. 4 For Abraham himself, while still uncircumcised, was justified and blessed because of the faith he placed in God, as the Scripture says. And the Scriptures and the facts themselves compel us to admit that he received circumcision as a sign and not for righteousness. So it was rightly recorded about that people that the soul that is not circumcised on the eighth day shall be cut off from his family. 5 Furthermore, the fact that women cannot receive circumcision of the flesh shows that this circumcision has been given for a sign, and not for a work of righteousness. For God has made women equally able to observe everything that is righteous and virtuous; but we see that the bodily form of the male has been made different from the bodily form of the female; yet we know that neither of them is righteous or unrighteous for that reason, but [is considered righteous] because of piety and righteousness.

1 “Now, sirs,” I said, “we could show how the eighth day held a certain mystery, proclaimed by God through these rites, which the seventh day did not. But so that I do not seem to wander off into other subjects now, understand what I am saying: the blood of that circumcision is obsolete, and we trust in the blood of salvation; there is now another covenant, and another law has gone forth from Zion. 2 Jesus Christ circumcises all who are willing, as was proclaimed of old, with knives of stone, so that they may be a righteous nation, a people keeping faith, holding to the truth, and maintaining peace. 3 So come with me, all who fear God, who wish to see the good of Jerusalem. Come, let us go to the light of the Lord; for He has set His people free, the house of Jacob. Come, all nations; let us gather ourselves together at Jerusalem, no longer plagued by war for the sins of her people. ‘For I became visible to those who did not seek Me; I was found by those who did not ask for Me,’ He cries through Isaiah. 4 ‘I said, Here I am, to nations that were not called by My name. I have spread out My hands all day long to a disobedient and contrary people, who walked in a way that was not good, but followed their own sins. It is a people that provokes Me to My face.’

1 “Those who justify themselves, and say they are sons of Abraham, will want to receive even a small share of the inheritance along with you, as the Holy Spirit cries through the mouth of Isaiah, speaking as if in their person: 2 ‘Turn back from heaven, and look down from the dwelling of Your holiness and glory. Where are Your zeal and strength? Where is the abundance of Your mercy? For You have borne with us, Lord. For You are our Father, because Abraham does not know us, and Israel has not recognized us. But You, Lord, our Father, rescue us; from the beginning Your name has been upon us. Lord, why have You made us stray from Your way, and hardened our hearts so that we do not fear You? 3 Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your inheritance, so that we may inherit Your holy mountain for a little while. We have become as we were at the beginning, when You did not rule over us and Your name was not called upon us. If You open the heavens, trembling shall seize the mountains before You, and they shall melt as wax melts before the fire; and fire shall consume the adversaries, and Your name shall be made known among the adversaries; the nations shall be thrown into confusion before Your face. 4 When You do glorious things, trembling shall seize the mountains before You. From the beginning we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen, a God besides You, and Your works, the mercy You will show to those who repent. He shall meet those who do righteousness, and they shall remember Your ways. Look, You were angry, and we were sinning. That is why we have gone astray and all become unclean, and all our righteousness is like the rags of a woman set apart; and we have withered like leaves because of our iniquities; thus the wind will take us away. 5 And there is no one who calls on Your name, or remembers to take hold of You; for You have turned Your face away from us and handed us over because of our sins. And now return, Lord, for we are all Your people. The city of Your holiness has become desolate. Zion has become as a wilderness, Jerusalem a curse; the house, our holiness, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire; and all the glorious nations have fallen along with it. And in addition to these [misfortunes], Lord, You have held Yourself back, and You are silent, and You have humbled us greatly.’ ” 6 And Trypho said, “What are you saying, then? That none of us will inherit anything on the holy mountain of God?”

1 And I replied, “That is not what I am saying. But those who have persecuted Christ and still persecute Him, if they do not repent, will not inherit anything on the holy mountain. But the Gentiles who have believed in Him and repented of the sins they committed will receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs, the prophets, and the righteous descendants of Jacob, even though they do not keep the Sabbath, are not circumcised, and do not observe the feasts. They will certainly receive the holy inheritance of God. 2 For God speaks through Isaiah this way: ‘I, the Lord God, have called You in righteousness, and I will hold Your hand and strengthen You; and I have given You as a covenant for the people, as a light for the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring those who are bound out of their chains, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house.’ 3 And again: ‘Raise a banner for the peoples; for look, the Lord has made it heard to the end of the earth. Say to the daughters of Zion, Look, your Savior has come, having His reward, and His work before His face: and He shall call it a holy nation, redeemed by the Lord. And you shall be called a city sought out, and not forsaken. Who is this who comes from Edom, in red garments from Bosor? This one who is splendid in his clothing, going up with great strength? I speak righteousness, and the judgment of salvation. 4 Why are Your garments red, and Your clothing like that of one who has trodden the winepress? You are full of trodden grapes. I have trodden the winepress all alone, and of the people there is no one with Me; and I have trampled them in fury, and crushed them to the ground, and spilled their blood on the earth. For the day of retribution has come upon them, and the year of redemption is present. And I looked, and there was no one to help; and I watched, and no one came to support Me; and My arm delivered; and My fury came on them, and I trampled them in My fury, and spilled their blood on the earth.’ ”

1 And Trypho said, “Why do you select and quote whatever you wish from the prophetic writings, but do not refer to those which expressly command the Sabbath to be observed? For Isaiah says this: ‘If you turn your foot away from the Sabbaths, so as not to do your own pleasure on the holy day, and call the Sabbaths the holy delights of your God; if you do not lift your foot to work, and do not speak a word from your own mouth; then you shall trust in the Lord, and He shall bring you up to the good things of the land, and He shall feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.’ ” 2 And I replied, “I passed them over, my friend, not because such prophecies were against me, but because you have understood, and still understand, that although God commands you through all the prophets to do the same things He also commanded through Moses, it is because of the hardness of your hearts and your ingratitude toward Him that He keeps proclaiming them, so that even in this way you might repent and please Him, and not sacrifice your children to demons, or be partners with thieves, or love bribes, or chase after revenge, or fail to judge for orphans, or ignore the justice due to the widow, or have your hands full of blood. 3 ‘For the daughters of Zion have walked with their necks held high, flirting with winks of their eyes and sweeping their dresses along. For they have all turned aside,’ He cries, ‘they have all become useless. There is no one who understands, not even one. With their tongues they have practiced deceit, their throat is an open grave, the poison of asps is under their lips, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.’ 4 So just as these things were commanded you in the beginning because of your wickedness, in the same way, because of your persistence in it, or rather your growing tendency toward it, He calls you through the same precepts to remember and know Him. But you are a hard-hearted people without understanding, blind and lame, children in whom there is no faith, as He Himself says, honoring Him only with your lips while your hearts are far from Him, teaching doctrines that are your own and not His. 5 For tell me, did God want the priests to sin when they offer the sacrifices on the Sabbaths? Or did He want those to sin who are circumcised and who circumcise on the Sabbaths, since He commands that those who are born must always be circumcised on the eighth day, even if it happens to be a Sabbath? Or could the infants not have been circumcised one day before or one day after the Sabbath, if He knew that it is sinful on the Sabbaths? Or why did He not teach those who lived before Moses and Abraham, who are called righteous and pleasing to Him, who were not circumcised in their foreskin and kept no Sabbaths, to keep these institutions?”

1 And Trypho replied, “We heard you raise this point a little earlier, and we paid attention to it, for, to tell the truth, it deserves attention; and the answer that satisfies most people, namely, that it simply seemed good to Him, does not satisfy me. For that is always the excuse people fall back on when they cannot answer the question.” 2 Then I said, “Since I draw both my proofs and my teaching from the Scriptures and the facts themselves, do not delay or hesitate to believe me, even though I am uncircumcised; so little time is left for you to become proselytes. If Christ comes before you do, you will repent in vain and weep in vain, for He will not listen to you. ‘Break up your fallow ground,’ Jeremiah has cried to the people, ‘and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart.’ 3 So do not sow among thorns and in unplowed ground, from which you can get no fruit. Know Christ, and look, there is fallow ground in your hearts, good, good and rich. ‘For look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised in their foreskins: Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Moab. For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in their hearts.’ 4 Do you see that God does not mean this circumcision that was given as a sign? For it is of no use to the Egyptians, or the sons of Moab, or the sons of Edom. But even if a man is a Scythian or a Persian, if he has the knowledge of God and of His Christ, and keeps the everlasting righteous decrees, he is circumcised with the good and useful circumcision, and is a friend of God, and God rejoices in his gifts and offerings. 5 But I will set before you, my friends, the very words of God, when He spoke to the people through Malachi, one of the twelve prophets, ‘I take no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting My name shall be glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place a sacrifice is offered to My name, a pure sacrifice; for My name is honored among the Gentiles, says the Lord, but you profane it.’ 6 And through David He said, ‘A people I had not known served Me; as soon as they heard Me, they obeyed Me.’

1 “Let us glorify God, all nations gathered together; for He has also visited us. Let us glorify Him through the King of glory, through the Lord of hosts. For He has been gracious toward the Gentiles too, and He finds our sacrifices more pleasing than yours. What need, then, do I have of circumcision, when God has borne witness to me? What need do I have of that other baptism, when I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit? 2 I think that in saying this I would persuade even those with very little intelligence. For these words have neither been prepared by me, nor embellished by the art of man; but David sang them, Isaiah preached them, Zechariah proclaimed them, and Moses wrote them. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They are contained in your Scriptures, or rather not yours, but ours. For we believe them; but you, though you read them, do not grasp the sense that is in them. 3 So do not be offended, or reproach us for the bodily uncircumcision with which God Himself created us; and do not think it shocking that we drink hot water on the Sabbaths, since God directs the government of the universe on this day just as on all the others; and the priests were ordered to offer sacrifices on this day just as on the other days; and there are so many righteous men who performed none of these legal ceremonies and yet have God’s own witness.

1 “But blame your own wickedness for the fact that God can even be accused, by those who have no understanding, of not always teaching everyone the same righteous statutes. For such institutions have seemed unreasonable and unworthy of God to many people, who had not received the grace to know that your nation, while it was in a sinful condition and suffering from a sickness of the soul, was called to conversion and repentance of spirit; and that the prophecy announced after the death of Moses is everlasting. 2 And this is mentioned in the Psalm, my friends. And that we, who have been made wise by them, confess that the statutes of the Lord are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb is clear from the fact that, even under threat of death, we do not deny His name. It is also clear to everyone that we who believe in Him pray to be kept by Him from strange spirits, that is, from wicked and deceitful ones, as the word of prophecy declares figuratively, speaking in the person of one of those who believe in Him. 3 For we constantly beg God through Jesus Christ to protect us from the demons who are hostile to the worship of God and whom we once served, so that, after turning to God through Him, we may be blameless. For we call Him Helper and Redeemer, and even the demons fear the power of His name; and to this day, when they are exorcised in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea, they are overcome. And so it is clear to everyone that His Father has given Him such great power that the demons are subject to His name and to the dispensation of His suffering.

1 “But if such great power is shown to have accompanied, and still to accompany, the dispensation of His suffering, how great will be the power that accompanies His glorious coming! For He will come on the clouds as the Son of man, as Daniel foretold, and His angels will come with Him. 2 These are the words: ‘I watched until thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of days sat down; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was like a fiery flame, His wheels as burning fire. A stream of fire flowed out from before Him. A thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The books were opened, and the judgment was set. 3 Then I watched, at the sound of the great words that the horn speaks; and the beast was struck down, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame. And the rest of the beasts were taken away from their dominion, and a period of life was given to the beasts until a season and time. I saw in the vision of the night, and look, one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven; and He came to the Ancient of days, and stood before Him. And those who stood by brought Him near. 4 And He was given power and royal honor, and all the nations of the earth by their families, and all glory, serve Him. And His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not be taken away; and His kingdom shall not be destroyed. And my spirit shuddered within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near to one of those who stood by and asked him the exact meaning of all these things. In answer he spoke to me and made known to me the interpretation of the matters: These great beasts are four kingdoms, which shall perish from the earth, and shall not receive dominion forever, even forever and ever. 5 Then I wished to know exactly about the fourth beast, which destroyed all [the others] and was very terrible, with its teeth of iron and its claws of bronze, which devoured, crushed, and trampled what was left with its feet; and also about the ten horns on its head, and the one that came up, because of which three of the earlier ones fell. And that horn had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things; and its appearance surpassed the others. And I watched that horn waging war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of days came; and He gave judgment for the saints of the Most High. And the time came, and the saints of the Most High possessed the kingdom. 6 And I was told about the fourth beast: There shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall prevail over all these kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall destroy it and lay it utterly waste. And the ten horns are ten kings that shall arise; and one shall arise after them; and he shall surpass the first in evil deeds, and he shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall overthrow the rest of the saints of the Most High, and shall try to change the seasons and the times. And it shall be delivered into his hands for a time, and times, and half a time. 7 And the judgment sat, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it to the end. And the kingdom, and the power, and the great places of the kingdoms under the heavens, were given to the holy people of the Most High, to reign in an everlasting kingdom: and all powers shall be subject to Him, and shall obey Him. Here is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was overcome with very great amazement, and my speech changed within me; yet I kept the matter in my heart.’ ”

1 When I had finished, Trypho said, “These and similar Scriptures, sir, compel us to wait for Him who, as Son of man, receives the everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of days. But this so-called Christ of yours was without honor or glory, so much so that the last curse contained in the law of God fell on him, for he was crucified.” 2 Then I replied to him, “Sirs, if the Scriptures I have already quoted did not say that His form would be without glory and His generation beyond telling, and that for His death the rich would be put to death, and by His wounds we would be healed, and that He would be led away like a sheep; and if I had not explained that He would have two comings, one in which He was pierced by you, and a second when you will recognize Him whom you pierced, and your tribes will mourn, tribe by tribe, the women by themselves and the men by themselves, then I would seem to be saying obscure and puzzling things. But as it is, I try to prove everything [I have put forward] from the Scriptures you regard as holy and prophetic, in the hope that one of you may be found among the remnant left by the grace of the Lord of Sabaoth for eternal salvation. 3 So, to make the question we are examining clearer to you, I will tell you other words spoken by the blessed David, from which you will perceive that the Lord is called the Christ by the Holy Spirit of prophecy; and that the Lord, the Father of all, has brought Him again from the earth, setting Him at His own right hand, until He makes His enemies His footstool; which has been happening ever since our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven after He rose from the dead, as the times now run on to their completion; and the one who Daniel foretells would rule for a time, and times, and half a time is already at the door, about to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High. 4 But you, not knowing how long he will rule, hold a different opinion. For you interpret the ‘time’ as being a hundred years. But if this is so, the man of sin must reign at least three hundred and fifty years, if we count what the holy Daniel says, ‘and times,’ as only two times. 5 I have said all this to you by way of digression, so that you may at last be persuaded of what God has declared against you, that you are foolish children, and of this: ‘Therefore look, I will proceed to remove this people, and I will remove them; and I will strip the wise of their wisdom, and will hide the understanding of their prudent men;’ and so that you may stop deceiving yourselves and those who listen to you, and learn from us, who have been taught wisdom by the grace of Christ. 6 The words, then, which were spoken by David, are these: ‘The Lord said to My Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Sion; rule in the midst of Your enemies. With You shall be dominion in the day of Your power, amid the splendor of Your saints. From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten You. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at Your right hand; He has crushed kings in the day of His wrath; He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill [with] the dead bodies. He shall drink from the brook by the way; therefore He shall lift up His head.’

1 “And,” I continued, “I am well aware that you dare to interpret this psalm as if it referred to King Hezekiah; but I will prove to you at once from these very words that you are mistaken. ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,’ it says; and, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,’ with what follows and what comes before. Not even you will dare to claim that Hezekiah was a priest, or is the everlasting priest of God; but these very expressions show that this is said of our Jesus. But your ears are shut up, and your hearts are made dull. 2 For by this statement, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,’ God has shown with an oath (because of your unbelief) that He is the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek; that is, just as Melchizedek was described by Moses as the priest of the Most High, and he was a priest of those who were in uncircumcision, and blessed the circumcised Abraham who brought him tithes, so God has shown that His everlasting Priest, called also by the Holy Spirit Lord, would be Priest of those in uncircumcision. And those in circumcision who come to Him, that is, who believe Him and seek blessings from Him, He will also receive and bless. And that He would first be humble as a man and then be exalted, these words at the end of the Psalm show: ‘He shall drink from the brook by the way,’ and then, ‘Therefore He shall lift up His head.’

1 “Further, to convince you that you have understood nothing of the Scriptures, I will remind you of another psalm, dictated to David by the Holy Spirit, which you say refers to Solomon, who was also your king. But it too refers to our Christ. You deceive yourselves with words that can mean more than one thing. For where it is said, ‘The law of the Lord is perfect,’ you do not take it to mean the law that was to come after Moses, but the law that was given through Moses, although God declared that He would establish a new law and a new covenant. 2 And where it says, ‘God, give Your judgment to the king,’ since Solomon was king, you say that the Psalm refers to him, although the words of the Psalm explicitly proclaim that it refers to the everlasting King, that is, to Christ. For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and commander, and stone, and a Child born, first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and coming again with glory, and He is proclaimed as having the everlasting kingdom, as I prove from all the Scriptures. 3 But so that you may understand what I have said, I quote the words of the Psalm; they are these: ‘God, give Your judgment to the king, and Your righteousness to the king’s son, to judge Your people with righteousness and Your poor with justice. Let the mountains take up peace for the people, and the hills righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the needy, and shall humble the slanderer. He shall endure as long as the sun, and before the moon, to all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the fleece, as drops falling on the earth. 4 In His days righteousness shall flourish, and abundance of peace until the moon is no more. And He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Ethiopians shall fall down before Him, and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall offer gifts; the kings of Arabia and Seba shall offer gifts; and all the kings of the earth shall worship Him, and all the nations shall serve Him: for He has rescued the poor from the powerful, and the needy who had no helper. 5 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy: He shall redeem their souls from interest and injustice, and His name shall be honored before them. And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray for Him continually; they shall bless Him all day long. And there shall be a foundation on the earth, it shall be exalted on the tops of the mountains: His fruit shall be on Lebanon, and those of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth. 6 His name shall be blessed forever. His name shall endure before the sun; and all tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Him, all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name forever, and forever and ever; and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. Amen, amen.’ And at the close of this Psalm which I have quoted, it is written, ‘The hymns of David the son of Jesse are ended.’ 7 I know that Solomon was a famous and great king, under whom the temple called the temple at Jerusalem was built; but it is evident that none of the things mentioned in the Psalm happened to him. For neither did all kings worship him; nor did he reign to the ends of the earth; nor did his enemies, falling before him, lick the dust. 8 In fact, I dare to repeat what is written in the book of Kings about what he did, how through a woman’s influence he worshiped the idols of Sidon, something those of the Gentiles who know God, the Maker of all things, through Jesus the crucified do not dare to do; instead they endure every torture and punishment, even to the point of death, rather than worship idols or eat meat offered to idols.”

1 And Trypho said, “But I hear that many of those who say they confess Jesus and are called Christians eat meat offered to idols, and claim that they are not harmed at all by it.” 2 And I replied, “The very fact that there are such men, who profess to be Christians and confess the crucified Jesus as both Lord and Christ, yet teach not His doctrines but those of the spirits of error, makes us who are disciples of the true and pure teaching of Jesus Christ more faithful and steadfast in the hope He proclaimed. For the things He foretold would happen in His name we see actually being fulfilled before our eyes. 3 For He said, ‘Many will come in My name, outwardly dressed in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.’ And, ‘There shall be schisms and heresies.’ And, ‘Beware of false prophets, who will come to you outwardly dressed in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.’ And, ‘Many false Christs and false apostles will arise and will deceive many of the faithful.’ 4 So there are, and there have been, many, my friends, who came forward in the name of Jesus and taught people to say and do godless and blasphemous things; and we call them by the names of the men from whom each doctrine and opinion originated. 5 For some in one way and others in another teach people to blaspheme the Maker of all things, and Christ, who was foretold by Him as coming, and the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, and we have nothing in common with any of them, since we know them to be atheists, impious, unrighteous, and sinful, confessing Jesus in name only instead of worshiping Him. 6 Yet they call themselves Christians, just as certain people among the Gentiles inscribe the name of God on the works of their own hands and take part in wicked and impious rites. Some are called Marcians, and some Valentinians, and some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and others by other names; each named after the founder of his particular opinion, just as each of those who think of themselves as philosophers, as I said before, thinks he must bear the name of the philosophy he follows, taken from the name of the father of that doctrine. 7 So from these events we know that Jesus foreknew what would happen after Him, and also from many other things He foretold would happen to those who believe in Him and confess Him as the Christ. For everything we suffer, even being killed by our own relatives, He foretold to us, so that it is clear no word or act of His can be faulted. 8 That is why we pray for you and for all others who hate us, so that you may repent along with us and not blaspheme Him who, by His works, by the mighty deeds still being done through His name, by the words He taught, by the prophecies announced concerning Him, is the blameless, and in all things irreproachable, Christ Jesus; but may believe in Him and be saved at His second, glorious coming, and not be condemned by Him to the fire.”

1 Then he replied, “Suppose these things are as you say: that it was foretold that Christ would suffer and be called a stone, and that after His first appearance, in which it had been announced He would suffer, He would come in glory and finally be Judge of all, and eternal King and Priest. Now show whether this man is the one about whom these prophecies were made.” 2 And I said, “As you wish, Trypho, I will come to the proofs you are asking for in the proper place; but for now allow me first to go through the prophecies I want to cite, to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts, and Jacob, in parable by the Holy Spirit; and that your interpreters, as God says, are foolish, since they say it refers not to Christ but to Solomon, when he brought the ark of testimony into the temple he built. 3 The Psalm of David is this: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and all that fills it; the world, and all who live in it. He has founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers. Who shall go up to the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not taken up his soul in vain and has not sworn deceitfully to his neighbor. 4 That one shall receive blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Savior. This is the generation of those who seek the Lord, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Lift up your gates, you rulers; and be lifted up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty in battle. Lift up your gates, you rulers; and be lifted up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.’ 5 So it has been shown that Solomon is not the Lord of hosts; but when our Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, the rulers appointed by God in the heavens are commanded to open the gates of heaven, so that He who is the King of glory may enter and, having ascended, may sit at the right hand of the Father until He makes His enemies His footstool, as another Psalm has made clear. 6 For when the rulers in heaven saw Him with an unsightly, dishonored, and inglorious appearance, they did not recognize Him and asked, ‘Who is this King of glory?’ And the Holy Spirit, speaking either in the person of His Father or in His own, answers them, ‘The Lord of hosts, He is this King of glory.’ For everyone will admit that none of those in charge of the gates of the temple at Jerusalem would have dared to say about Solomon, glorious king though he was, or about the ark of testimony, ‘Who is this King of glory?’

1 “Moreover, in the diapsalm of the forty-sixth Psalm, this is said about Christ: ‘God went up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing to our God, sing; sing to our King, sing; for God is King of all the earth: sing with understanding. God has ruled over the nations. God sits on His holy throne. The rulers of the nations were assembled along with the God of Abraham, for the strong ones of God are greatly exalted on the earth.’ 2 And in the ninety-eighth Psalm, the Holy Spirit reproaches you, and declares that the One you do not want as king is King and Lord of Samuel, of Aaron, of Moses, and in short of all the others. 3 And the words of the Psalm are these: ‘The Lord has reigned, let the nations be angry: [it is] He who sits on the cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high above all the nations. Let them praise Your great name, for it is awesome and holy, and the honor of the King loves justice. You have established fairness; You have done justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship the footstool of His feet; for He is holy. 4 Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among those who call upon His name. They called (says the Scripture) on the Lord, and He heard them. In the pillar of cloud He spoke to them; for they kept His testimonies and the commandment He gave them. Lord our God, You heard them; God, You were gracious to them, and [yet] took vengeance on all their deeds. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.’ ”

1 And Trypho said, “Sir, it would have been good for us to obey our teachers, who made a rule that we should have no dealings with any of you, and should not even talk with you about these questions. For you say many blasphemous things in trying to persuade us that this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron, and spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud; then that he became man, was crucified, and ascended to heaven, and will come again to earth, and ought to be worshiped.” 2 Then I answered, “I know that, as the word of God says, this great wisdom of God, the Maker of all things, and the Almighty, is hidden from you. That is why, out of sympathy for you, I am striving with all my strength so that you may understand these things that seem paradoxical to you, or, if not, so that I myself may be innocent on the day of judgment. For you will hear other words that seem even more paradoxical; but do not be dismayed; rather, become even more eager listeners and inquirers, despising the tradition of your teachers, since the Holy Spirit convicts them of being unable to understand the truths taught by God, and of preferring to teach their own doctrines. 3 So in the forty-fourth [forty-fifth] Psalm, these words likewise refer to Christ: ‘My heart has brought forth a good matter; I tell my works to the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Fairer in beauty than the sons of men: grace is poured out on Your lips; therefore God has blessed You forever. Strap Your sword on Your thigh, mighty One. In Your splendor and Your beauty, press on, prosper, and reign, for the sake of truth, meekness, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall guide You wonderfully. Your arrows are sharp, mighty One; peoples shall fall beneath You; in the heart of the enemies of the King [the arrows are fixed]. 4 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore Your God has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions. [He has anointed You] with myrrh, oil, and cassia, from Your garments; from the ivory palaces, by which they made You glad. Kings’ daughters are in Your honor. The queen stood at Your right hand, dressed in garments embroidered with gold. Listen, daughter, and look, and turn your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house; and the King shall desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, they shall worship Him too. 5 And the daughter of Tyre [shall be there] with gifts. The rich among the people shall seek Your favor. All the glory of the King’s daughter [is] within, clad in embroidered garments of needlework. The virgins who follow her shall be brought to the King; her companions shall be brought to You; they shall be brought with joy and gladness: they shall be led into the King’s shrine. In place of your fathers, your sons have been born; You shall make them rulers over all the earth. I will remember Your name in every generation; therefore the peoples shall praise You forever, and forever and ever.’

1 “Now it is not surprising,” I continued, “that you hate us who hold these opinions, and expose your persistent hardness of heart. For Elijah, pleading with God about you, says this: ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life.’ And He answers him: ‘I have still seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 2 So just as God did not bring down His anger then because of those seven thousand men, in the same way He has not yet brought judgment, and does not bring it now, knowing that every day some [of you] are becoming disciples in the name of Christ and leaving the path of error; and they are also receiving gifts, each as he is worthy, enlightened through the name of this Christ. For one receives the spirit of understanding, another of counsel, another of strength, another of healing, another of foreknowledge, another of teaching, and another of the fear of God.” 3 At this Trypho said to me, “I want you to know that you are out of your mind to say these things.” 4 And I said to him, “Listen, my friend: I am not mad or out of my mind; but it was prophesied that after Christ ascended to heaven He would deliver us from error and give us gifts. The words are these: ‘He ascended on high; He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men.’ 5 So we who have received gifts from Christ, who has ascended on high, prove from the words of prophecy that you, ‘the wise in yourselves, and the men of understanding in your own eyes,’ are foolish, and honor God and His Christ with your lips only. But we, who have been taught the whole truth, honor Them in deeds, in knowledge, and in heart, even to death. 6 But you hesitate to confess that He is Christ, as the Scriptures and the events witnessed and done in His name prove, perhaps for this reason: so that you will not be persecuted by the rulers, who, under the influence of the wicked and deceitful spirit, the serpent, will not stop killing and persecuting those who confess the name of Christ until He comes again, destroys them all, and gives each what he deserves.” 7 And Trypho replied, “Now then, give us the proof that this man who you say was crucified and ascended into heaven is the Christ of God. For you have sufficiently proved from the Scriptures you quoted earlier that it is declared in the Scriptures that Christ must suffer, and come again with glory, and receive the eternal kingdom over all the nations, with every kingdom made subject to Him; now show us that this man is the one.” 8 And I replied, “It has already been proved, sirs, to those who have ears, even from the facts you have conceded; but so that you do not think I am at a loss and unable to prove what you ask, I will do so, as I promised, in the proper place. For now I return to the subject I was discussing.

1 “The mystery of the lamb that God commanded to be sacrificed as the Passover, then, was a type of Christ; and those who believe in Him anoint their houses, that is, themselves, with His blood in proportion to their faith in Him. For you can all understand that the creature God formed, namely Adam, was a house for the breath that came from God. And I prove that this command was temporary as follows. 2 God does not allow the Passover lamb to be sacrificed anywhere except the place where His name has been named, since He knew that days would come, after the suffering of Christ, when even the place in Jerusalem would be handed over to your enemies, and all offerings, in short, would cease. 3 And that lamb, which was commanded to be roasted whole, was a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ would undergo. For the lamb, when it is roasted, is arranged in the shape of a cross as it roasts. One spit is driven straight through from the lower parts up to the head, and another across the back, to which the legs of the lamb are fastened. 4 And the two goats that were ordered to be offered during the fast, of which one was sent away as the scape [goat] and the other sacrificed, likewise announced the two comings of Christ: the first, in which the elders of your people and the priests laid hands on Him, put Him to death, and sent Him away as the scape [goat]; and the second, because in the same place in Jerusalem you will recognize Him whom you dishonored, who was an offering for all sinners who are willing to repent and to keep the fast Isaiah speaks of, untying the knots of forced contracts and keeping the other precepts he likewise lists, which I have quoted and which those who believe in Jesus do.⁠a 5 And further, you know that the offering of the two goats commanded for the fast was not permitted anywhere else either, but only in Jerusalem.

1 “And the offering of fine flour, sirs,” I said, “which was prescribed to be offered for those cleansed from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, which our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to celebrate in remembrance of the suffering He endured for those who are cleansed in soul from all wickedness, so that we may at the same time thank God for creating the world and everything in it for the sake of humanity, for freeing us from the evil we were in, and for completely overthrowing the principalities and powers through Him who suffered according to His will. 2 That is why God speaks through Malachi, one of the twelve [prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices you were offering at that time: ‘I take no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting My name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering; for My name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord, but you profane it.’ 3 [So] He was then speaking of us Gentiles, who offer sacrifices to Him in every place, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist, declaring both that we glorify His name and that you profane [it]. 4 Again, the command of circumcision, ordering [them] always to circumcise children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, while it is the first of all the days, is also called the eighth, counting all the days of the cycle, and [yet] it remains the first.

1 “Moreover, the instruction that twelve bells be attached to the high priest’s [robe], which hung down to the feet, was a symbol of the twelve apostles, who hang from the power of Christ, the eternal Priest; and it is through their voice that the whole earth has been filled with the glory and grace of God and of His Christ.⁠a That is why David also says: ‘Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’ 2 And Isaiah speaks as if in the person of the apostles, when they say to Christ that it is not their own report that people believe, but the power of Him who sent them. So he says: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We have preached before Him as if [He were] a child, as if a root in a dry ground.’ (And the rest of the prophecy already quoted, in order.) 3 And when the passage speaks as if from the lips of many, ‘We have preached before Him,’ and adds, ‘as if a child,’ it means that the wicked would become subject to Him and obey His command, and that all would become like one child. You can see the same thing in the body: although its members are counted as many, together they are called one, and they are one body. For a people and a church, though made up of many individuals, are in fact one thing, called and addressed by one name. 4 And in short, sirs,” I said, “by going through all the other ordinances of Moses I can show that they were types, symbols, and announcements of the things that would happen to Christ, of those who were foreknown to believe in Him, and of the things Christ Himself would also do. But since what I have now listed seems to me sufficient, I return to the order of the discussion.

1 “As, then, circumcision began with Abraham, and the Sabbath and sacrifices and offerings and feasts with Moses, and it has been proved that they were commanded because of the hardness of your people’s hearts, so it was necessary, according to the Father’s will, that they come to an end in Him who was born of a virgin of the family of Abraham, the tribe of Judah, and David; that is, in Christ the Son of God, who was proclaimed as coming to the whole world to be the everlasting law and the everlasting covenant, as the prophecies already quoted show. 2 And we, who have approached God through Him, have received not a fleshly but a spiritual circumcision, which Enoch and those like him observed. And since we were sinners, we have received it through baptism, by God’s mercy; and everyone may receive it in the same way. 3 But since the mystery of His birth now demands our attention, I will speak of it. Isaiah declared about the generation of Christ that no human being could describe it, in words already quoted: ‘Who shall tell of His generation? For His life is taken from the earth; because of the transgressions of my people He was led to death.’ In this way the Spirit of prophecy declared that the generation of the One who was to die, so that we sinners might be healed by His wounds, was beyond telling. 4 Furthermore, so that those who believe in Him may know how He came to be born into the world, the Spirit of prophecy foretold through the same Isaiah how it would happen, as follows: 5 ‘And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depths or in the heights. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord. And Isaiah said, Hear then, house of David: Is it a small thing for you to contend with men, and how do you contend with the Lord? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey. 6 Before he knows or prefers evil, he will choose the good; for before the child knows good or evil, he rejects evil by choosing the good. For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria. And the land you can hardly bear because of its two kings shall be abandoned. But God shall bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days that have not yet come on you since the day Ephraim took the king of Assyria away from Judah.’ 7 Now it is evident to everyone that in the race of Abraham according to the flesh no one has ever been born of a virgin, or is said to have been born [of a virgin], except this Christ of ours. 8 But since you and your teachers dare to claim that the prophecy of Isaiah does not say, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive,’ but, ‘Look, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son,’ and [since] you explain the prophecy as if [it referred] to Hezekiah, who was your king, I will try to discuss this point briefly against you and to show that it refers to the One we acknowledge as Christ.

1 “For in this way, as far as you are concerned, I will be found innocent in every respect, if I work hard to persuade you by presenting proofs. But if you remain hard-hearted, or weak in [making] a decision because of the death that is appointed for Christians, and are unwilling to agree with the truth, you will be seen as the authors of your own [evils]. And you deceive yourselves when you imagine that because you are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, you will certainly inherit the good things God has promised to give through Christ. 2 For no one can receive any of these things from anywhere, except those who in mind have become like Abraham in faith and who have recognized all the mysteries. What I mean is that some commands were given for the worship of God and the practice of righteousness, while other commands and acts were likewise given either with reference to the mystery of Christ or because of the hardness of your people’s hearts. And God makes known that this is so in Ezekiel, [when] He said about it: ‘Even if Noah and Jacob and Daniel were to ask for sons or daughters, it would not be granted them.’ 3 And in Isaiah He spoke about the very same matter as follows: ‘The Lord God said, They shall go out and look at the limbs [of the bodies] of the men who have transgressed. For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.’ 4 So you should cut this hope out of your souls and hurry to learn the way by which you can obtain forgiveness of sins and a hope of inheriting the promised good things. And there is no other [way] than this: to come to know this Christ, to be washed in the bath Isaiah spoke of for the forgiveness of sins, and from then on to live without sin.”

1 And Trypho said, “Even if I seem to be interrupting these matters, which you say need to be examined, the question I want to ask is urgent. Bear with me first.” And I replied, “Ask whatever you like, as it occurs to you; and after the questions and answers I will try to pick up the discussion again and finish it.” 2 Then he said, “Tell me, then: will those who lived according to the law given by Moses live in the same way as Jacob, Enoch, and Noah in the resurrection of the dead, or not?” 3 I replied to him, “When I quoted, sir, the words spoken by Ezekiel, that ‘even if Noah and Daniel and Jacob were to ask for sons and daughters, it would not be granted them,’ but that each one, clearly, will be saved by his own righteousness, I also said that those who ordered their lives by the law of Moses would be saved in the same way. For in the law of Moses, what is naturally good, pious, and righteous has been prescribed for those who obey it; and what was ordained because of the hardness of the people’s hearts was likewise recorded, and was also done by those who were under the law. 4 Since those who did what is universally, naturally, and eternally good are pleasing to God, they will be saved through this Christ in the resurrection just like the righteous men who came before them, Noah, Enoch, Jacob, and any others there have been, along with those who have known this Christ, Son of God, who was before the morning star and the moon, and who consented to become flesh and be born of this virgin of the family of David, so that by this dispensation the serpent that did evil from the beginning, and the angels who became like him, may be destroyed, and death may be despised, and at the second coming of Christ Himself may leave those who believe in Him and live acceptably forever, and be no more, when some are sent into judgment and the condemnation of fire to be punished without end, while others will live together free from suffering, corruption, and grief, and in immortality.”

1 “But if some people even now want to live keeping the institutions given by Moses, and yet believe in this Jesus who was crucified, recognizing that He is the Christ of God, that it is given to Him to be the Judge of all without exception, and that the everlasting kingdom is His, can they also be saved?” he asked me. 2 And I replied, “Let us also consider together whether it is possible to keep all the institutions of Moses now.” And he answered, “No. For we know that, as you said, it is not possible to sacrifice the Passover lamb anywhere else, or to offer the goats ordered for the fast, or, in short, [to present] any of the other offerings.” And I said, “Then tell [me] yourself, please, what things can be kept; for you will be persuaded that, even if a man does not keep or has not performed the eternal decrees, he can certainly be saved.” Then he replied, “To keep the Sabbath, to be circumcised, to observe the months, and to wash after touching anything Moses prohibited, or after sexual intercourse.” 3 And I said, “Do you think that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, and Job, and all the others before or after them who were equally righteous, also Sarah the wife of Abraham, Rebekah the wife of Isaac, Rachel the wife of Jacob, and Leah, and all the other women like them, down to the mother of Moses the faithful servant, who kept none of these [statutes], will be saved?” And Trypho answered, “Were Abraham and his descendants not circumcised?” 4 And I said, “I know that Abraham and his descendants were circumcised. I explained at length earlier why circumcision was given to them; and if what has been said does not convince you, let us examine the matter again. But you know that up to Moses no righteous person kept any of these rites we are talking about, or received a single commandment to keep, except circumcision, which began with Abraham.” And he replied, “We know it, and we admit that they are saved.” 5 Then I answered, “You understand that God laid all such ordinances on you through Moses because of the hardness of your people’s hearts, so that through their great number you would keep God always before your eyes in every action and never begin to act unjustly or impiously. For He commanded you to wear [a fringe] of scarlet dye, so that you would not forget God; and He ordered you to wear a phylactery with certain characters written on very thin parchment, which we certainly consider holy; and by these means He pressed you to keep God constantly in mind, and at the same time reproved you in your hearts. 6 Yet you do not have even a faint memory of the worship of God, and not even so were you persuaded to give up idolatry; for in the times of Elijah, when [God] gave the number of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal, He said the number was seven thousand; and in Isaiah He rebukes you for having sacrificed your children to idols. 7 But we, because we refuse to sacrifice to those we used to sacrifice to, endure the most extreme penalties and rejoice in death, believing that God will raise us up through His Christ and make us incorruptible, free from suffering, and immortal; and we know that the ordinances imposed because of the hardness of your people’s hearts contribute nothing to righteousness and piety.”

1 And Trypho asked again, “But if someone who knows that this is so, and who recognizes that this man is the Christ and has believed in Him and obeys Him, still wants to keep these [institutions], will he be saved?” I said, “In my opinion, Trypho, such a person will be saved, as long as he does not try in every way to persuade other people, I mean the Gentiles who have been circumcised from error by Christ, to keep the same things he does, telling them that they will not be saved unless they do. You did this yourself at the start of our discussion, when you declared that I would not be saved unless I kept these institutions.” 2 Then he replied, “Why, then, did you say, ‘In my opinion, such a person will be saved,’ unless there are some who claim that such people will not be saved?” “There are such people, Trypho,” I answered; “and they do not dare to have any dealings with such people or to offer them hospitality; but I do not agree with them. But if some, out of weakness of mind, want to keep the institutions given by Moses, from which they expect some virtue but which we believe were appointed because of the hardness of the people’s hearts, along with their hope in this Christ, and [want to perform] the eternal and natural acts of righteousness and piety, yet choose to live with the Christians and the faithful, as I said before, without urging them to be circumcised like themselves, or to keep the Sabbath, or to observe any other such ceremonies, then I hold that we ought to welcome such people and share everything with them as kinsmen and brothers. 3 But if, Trypho,” I continued, “some of your race, who say they believe in this Christ, compel those Gentiles who believe in this Christ to live in all respects according to the law given by Moses, or refuse to share such close fellowship with them, I likewise do not approve of them. 4 But I believe that those who have been persuaded by them to follow the way of life under the law, while keeping their confession of God in Christ, will probably be saved. And I hold, further, that those who have confessed and recognized this man to be the Christ, yet for some reason have gone back to the way of life under the law, denied that this man is the Christ, and not repented before death, will not be saved at all. I likewise hold that those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the law and do not believe in this Christ before death will not be saved, and especially those who have cursed and still curse this very Christ in the synagogues, and everything by which they might obtain salvation and escape the punishment of fire. 5 For the goodness and the loving-kindness of God, and His boundless riches, hold righteous and sinless the man who, as Ezekiel tells, repents of sins; and count as sinful, unrighteous, and impious the man who falls away from piety and righteousness into unrighteousness and ungodliness. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ also said, ‘In whatever I find you, in that I will judge you.’ ”

Jesus as Messiah and as God

1 And Trypho said, “We have heard what you think of these matters. Pick up the discussion where you left off and finish it. For some of it seems to me paradoxical and completely impossible to prove. For when you say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, then that He submitted to be born and become man, yet that He is not man of man, this [claim] seems to me not only paradoxical but foolish.” 2 And I replied to this, “I know that the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of your race, who have never been willing to understand or do the [requirements] of God, but [ready to perform] those of your teachers, as God Himself declares. Yet, Trypho,” I continued, “[the proof] that this man is the Christ of God does not fail even if I cannot prove that He existed beforehand as Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and was born a man of the Virgin. 3 But since it has been fully proved that this man is the Christ of God, whoever He may be, even if I do not prove that He pre-existed and consented to be born a man with the same passions as ours, having a body, by the Father’s will, it would be fair to say only that I am mistaken on this last point, and not to deny that He is the Christ, even if it should appear that He was born a man of men and [nothing more] is proved [than this]: that He became Christ by election. 4 For there are some, my friends,” I said, “of our race, who admit that He is the Christ while holding that He was a man of men. I do not agree with them, nor would I even if most of those who share my opinions said so, since we have been commanded by Christ Himself to put our faith not in human doctrines but in those proclaimed by the blessed prophets and taught by Him.”

Elijah and the Coming of the Messiah

1 And Trypho said, “Those who claim that he was a man, anointed by election, and so became Christ, seem to me to speak more plausibly than you who hold the opinions you have expressed. For we all expect that Christ will be a man [born] of men, and that Elijah when he comes will anoint him. But if this man appears to be the Christ, he must certainly be recognized as a man [born] of men; but since Elijah has not yet come, I conclude that this man is not He [the Christ].” 2 Then I inquired of him, “Does Scripture not say, in the book of Zechariah, that Elijah will come before the great and terrible day of the Lord?” And he answered, “Certainly.” “So if Scripture compels you to admit that two comings of Christ were foretold, one in which He would appear suffering, dishonored, and without beauty, and the other in which He would come in glory as Judge of all, as has been shown in many of the passages already quoted, shall we not understand that the word of God has proclaimed that Elijah will be the forerunner of the great and terrible day, that is, of His second coming?” “Certainly,” he answered. 3 “And so our Lord in His teaching,” I continued, “proclaimed that this very thing would happen, saying that Elijah would also come. And we know that this will happen when our Lord Jesus Christ comes in glory from heaven; and the Spirit of God who was in Elijah went before His first appearance as herald in [the person of] John, a prophet among your nation, after whom no other prophet has appeared among you. He cried out as he sat by the river Jordan: ‘I baptize you with water for repentance; but One who is stronger than I will come, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor and gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.’ 4 Your king Herod had shut this very prophet up in prison; and when his birthday was being celebrated and Herod’s niece pleased him with her dancing, he told her to ask for whatever she wanted. Then the girl’s mother prompted her to ask for the head of John, who was in prison; and when she asked for it, [Herod] sent and ordered John’s head to be brought in on a platter. 5 That is why our Christ, [when He was] on earth, said to those who were claiming that Elijah must come before the Christ: ‘Elijah will come and restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted.’ And it is written, ‘Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist.’ ” 6 And Trypho said, “This statement also seems paradoxical to me: that the prophetic Spirit of God who was in Elijah was also in John.” To this I replied, “Do you not think the same thing happened with Joshua the son of Nave (Nun), who took over command of the people after Moses, when Moses was commanded to lay his hands on Joshua and God said to him, ‘I will take some of the spirit that is in you and put it on him’?” 7 And he said, “Certainly.” “So just as,” I said, “while Moses was still among men, God took some of the spirit that was in Moses and put it on Joshua, in the same way God was able to make [the spirit] of Elijah come on John; so that, just as Christ appeared without glory at His first coming, the first coming of the spirit, which always remained pure in Elijah, like that of Christ, would also be seen to be without glory. 8 For it is said that the Lord would wage war against Amalek with a hidden hand, and you will not deny that Amalek fell. But if it is said that war will be waged against Amalek only at the glorious coming of Christ, what fulfillment will there be of the Scripture that says, ‘God wages war against Amalek with a hidden hand’? You can see that the hidden power of God was in Christ the crucified, before whom demons, and all the principalities and powers of the earth, tremble.”

1 And Trypho said, “You seem to me to have had a great deal of practice arguing with many people about all the points we have been examining, and so you are quite ready with answers to any question put to you. So answer me first: how can you show that there is another God besides the Maker of all things? And then you will show, [further], that He consented to be born of the Virgin.” 2 I replied, “Allow me first to quote certain passages from the prophecy of Isaiah that refer to the role of forerunner that John, the Baptist and prophet, carried out before our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Go ahead,” he said. 3 Then I said, “Isaiah foretold John’s coming before Christ in this way: ‘And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, The word of the Lord that He has spoken is good: Let there be peace and righteousness in my days.’ And, ‘Comfort the people; you priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem and comfort her, because her humiliation is complete. Her sin is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord’s hand double for her sins. A voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the ways of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way shall become smooth roads; and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken. 4 A voice of one saying, Cry out; and I said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and its flower has fallen; but the word of the Lord endures forever. You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain; you who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Here is your God! Look, the Lord comes with strength, and [His] arm comes with authority. Look, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. As a shepherd He will tend His flock, and will gather the lambs with [His] arm, and comfort the mother with young. 5 Who has measured the water with [his] hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with [his] fist? Who has weighed the mountains, and [put] the valleys into a balance? Who has known the mind of the Lord? And who has been His counselor, to advise Him? Or with whom did He consult, so that he instructed Him? Or who showed Him justice? Or who taught Him the way of understanding? All the nations are counted as a drop from a bucket, as the tipping of a scale, and shall be counted as spit. Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering; and all the nations are counted as nothing, and as nothing at all.’ ”

1 When I had finished, Trypho said, “All the words of the prophecy you are quoting, sir, are ambiguous and have no force to prove what you want to prove.” Then I answered, “If the prophets had not ceased, Trypho, and there had still been prophets in your nation after this John, then perhaps what I say about Jesus Christ might be regarded as ambiguous. 2 But if John came first, calling people to repent, and Christ came while [John] was still sitting by the river Jordan, put an end to his prophesying and baptizing, and preached Himself as well, saying that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and that He must suffer many things from the Scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again, and that He would appear again in Jerusalem and once more eat and drink with His disciples; and if He foretold that in the time between His [first and second] coming, as I said before, priests and false prophets would arise in His name, which is clearly happening, then how can these things be ambiguous, when the facts themselves can persuade you? 3 He also spoke about the fact that there would be no more prophets in your nation, and about recognizing that the new covenant God had long ago announced [His intention of] establishing was then present, that is, Christ Himself, in these words: ‘The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist; from then on the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who was to come. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.’

1 “And it was prophesied through Jacob the patriarch that there would be two comings of Christ, and that in the first He would suffer, and that after He came there would be neither prophet nor king in your nation (I proceeded), and that the nations who believed in the suffering Christ would look for Him to come again. And for this reason the Holy Spirit had spoken these things in a parable and obscurely. 2 For,” I added, “it says this: ‘Judah, your brothers have praised you; your hands [shall be] on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s cub; from the shoot, my son, you have sprung up. Crouching, he lay down like a lion, and like [a lion’s] cub; who shall rouse him? A ruler shall not depart from Judah, or a leader from his thighs, until what is laid up for him comes; and he shall be the expectation of nations, binding his foal to the vine, and the foal of his donkey to the tendril of the vine. He shall wash his garments in wine, and his robe in the blood of the grape. His eyes shall be bright with wine, and his teeth white as milk.’ 3 Now, you will not shamelessly dare to deny, nor can you disprove, that in your nation there was never a lack of either prophet or ruler, from the time they began until this Jesus Christ appeared and suffered. For although you say that Herod, after whose [reign] He suffered, was from Ashkelon, you still admit that there was a high priest in your nation, so that you then had someone who presented offerings according to the law of Moses and kept the other legal ceremonies; and [you had] prophets in succession until John. Even when your people were carried captive to Babylon, when your land was ravaged by war and the sacred vessels were taken away, there was never a lack of a prophet among you, who was lord, leader, and ruler of your nation. For the Spirit that was in the prophets anointed your kings and established them. 4 But since the appearance and death of our Jesus Christ in your nation, there has been no prophet anywhere, nor is there now; in fact, you have stopped living under your own king, and your land has been laid waste and left like a hut in a vineyard; and when Scripture says through Jacob, ‘And He shall be the expectation of nations,’ it pointed symbolically to His two comings and to the nations believing in Him, which you can now at last see. For we from all the nations who have become pious and righteous through faith in Christ are waiting for Him to come again.

1 “And the phrase ‘binding his foal to the vine, and the donkey’s foal to the tendril of the vine’ announced in advance both the works He would do at His first coming and the faith the nations would place in Him. For they were like an unharnessed foal with no yoke on its neck, until this Christ came and sent His disciples to teach them; and they took up the yoke of His word and bent their necks to endure all [hardships] for the sake of the good things He promised and they awaited. 2 And in fact, when our Lord Jesus Christ was about to go into Jerusalem, He told His disciples to bring Him a donkey, along with its foal, that was tied at the entrance of a village called Bethphage; and sitting on it, He entered Jerusalem. And since He did this exactly as it had been explicitly prophesied that the Christ would do it, and the fulfillment was recognized, it made it clear that He was the Christ. And though all this happened and is proved from Scripture, you are still hard-hearted. 3 And it was prophesied through Zechariah, one of the twelve [prophets], that this would happen, in these words: ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout, and declare, daughter of Jerusalem; look, your King shall come to you, righteous, bringing salvation, meek and lowly, riding on a donkey and the foal of a donkey.’ 4 Now, that the Spirit of prophecy, like the patriarch Jacob, mentioned both a donkey and its foal that He would use, and further that He, as I said before, told His disciples to bring both animals: [this fact] was a prediction that those of you from the synagogue, along with the Gentiles, would believe in Him. For just as the unharnessed colt was a symbol of the Gentiles, so the harnessed donkey was a symbol of your nation, for you have the law that was laid [on you] through the prophets. 5 Moreover, it was foretold through the prophet Zechariah that this same Christ would be struck and His disciples scattered, and that is what happened. For after His crucifixion, the disciples who were with Him scattered, until He rose from the dead and convinced them that it had been prophesied about Him that He would suffer this way; and once convinced, they went out into the whole world and taught these things. 6 That is why we too are firm in His faith and teaching, since we have [this] conviction both from the prophets and from those throughout the world who are seen to worship God in the name of that crucified One. This is what Zechariah said: ‘Sword, rise up against My Shepherd and against the man of My people, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and His flock shall be scattered.’

1 “And the phrase recorded by Moses and prophesied by the patriarch Jacob, ‘He shall wash His garments in wine, and His robe in the blood of the grape,’⁠a signified that He would wash those that believe in Him with His own blood. For the Holy Spirit called those who receive forgiveness of sins through Him His garments; He is always present among them in power, and will be visibly present at His second coming. 2 When Scripture speaks of the blood of the grape, it skillfully shows that Christ has blood, but not from human seed; it comes from the power of God. For just as God, not man, produced the blood of the vine, so [Scripture] foretold that the blood of Christ would come not from human descent but from the power of God. And this prophecy I quoted, sirs, proves that Christ is not a man of men, born in the ordinary human way.”

1 And Trypho answered, “We will remember this interpretation of yours too, if you strengthen [your solution of] this difficulty with other arguments; but now pick up the discussion again and show us that the Spirit of prophecy acknowledges another God besides the Maker of all things, taking care not to talk about the sun and moon, which, it is written, God has allowed the nations to worship as gods; and the prophets often use this way of speaking and say, ‘Your God is God of gods and Lord of lords,’ often adding, ‘the great and mighty and awesome [God].’ 2 For these things are said not as though they really were gods, but because Scripture is teaching us that the true God, who made all things, is the only Lord over those who are regarded as gods and lords. And so that the Holy Spirit might convince [us] of this, He said through the holy David, ‘The gods of the nations, regarded as gods, are idols of demons, and not gods’; and He pronounces a curse on those who worship them.” 3 And I replied, “I was not going to bring forward those proofs, Trypho, by which I know those who worship these [idols] and the like are condemned, but [proofs] that no one could object to. They will seem strange to you, even though you read them every day, so that even from this we understand that because of your wickedness God has hidden from you the ability to grasp the wisdom of His Scriptures; yet [there are] some exceptions, for whom, by the grace of His great compassion, as Isaiah said, He has left a seed of salvation, so that your race would not be utterly destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. So pay attention to what I am going to recall from the holy Scriptures, which do not need to be explained, only heard.

Another God and Lord in Genesis

1 “Moses, then, the blessed and faithful servant of God, declares that He who appeared to Abraham under the oak in Mamre is God, sent with the two angels who were with Him to judge Sodom by Another who always remains in the places above the heavens, invisible to all, never speaking with anyone directly, whom we believe to be the Maker and Father of all things. 2 For he says this: ‘God appeared to him by the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at noon. And he looked up and saw, and there were three men standing before him; and when he saw them, he ran from the door of his tent to meet them, and he bowed down to the ground and said,’ ” and so on; “ ‘Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the surrounding country, and saw, and look, a flame was rising from the earth like the smoke of a furnace.’ ” When I had finished quoting these words, I asked them whether they had understood them. 3 They said they had understood them, but that the passages cited offered no proof that there is any other God or Lord besides the Maker of all things, or that the Holy Spirit says so. 4 Then I replied, “Since you have understood the Scriptures, I will try to persuade you [of the truth] of what I am saying: that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things; who is also called an Angel, because He announces to people whatever the Maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wants to announce to them.” And quoting the earlier passage again, I asked Trypho, “Do you think that God appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as the Scripture says?” He said, “Certainly.” 5 “Was He one of those three,” I said, “whom Abraham saw, and whom the Holy Spirit of prophecy describes as men?” He said, “No; God appeared to him before the vision of the three. Then those three whom the Scripture calls men were angels: two of them were sent to destroy Sodom, and one to announce the good news to Sarah that she would have a son; that was why he was sent, and when he had done his errand, he went away.” 6 “How then,” I said, “does the one of the three who was in the tent, and who said, ‘I will return to you at this season, and Sarah shall have a son,’ appear to have returned when Sarah had borne a son, and is there declared by the prophetic word to be God? But so that what I am saying may be clear to you, listen to the words Moses used explicitly. 7 They are these: ‘And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian slave woman, whom she bore to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac, and said to Abraham, Drive out this slave woman and her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not share the inheritance with my son Isaac. And the matter seemed very hard to Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, Do not let it seem hard to you because of the boy and because of the slave woman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for through Isaac your seed shall be named.’ 8 Have you understood, then, that He who said by the oak that He would return, since He knew it would be necessary to advise Abraham to do what Sarah wanted, came back as it is written, and is God, as the words declare when they say: ‘God said to Abraham, Do not let it seem hard to you because of the boy and because of the slave woman’?” I asked. 9 And Trypho said, “Certainly; but you have not proved from this that there is another God besides Him who appeared to Abraham, and who also appeared to the other patriarchs and prophets. What you have proved is that we were wrong to believe that the three who were in the tent with Abraham were all angels.” 10 I replied again, “If I had not been able to prove to you from the Scriptures that one of those three is God and is called Angel because, as I already said, He brings messages to those God the Maker of all things wants [messages brought to], then it would be reasonable for you to think about Him, who appeared to Abraham on earth in human form like the two angels who came with Him, and who was God even before the world was made, what your whole nation thinks.” “Certainly,” he said, “for until now that has been our belief.” 11 Then I replied, “Going back to the Scriptures, I will try to persuade you that He who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and who is called God, is distinct from Him who made all things, distinct in number, I mean, not in will. For I say that He has never done anything except what He who made the world, above whom there is no other God, has wanted Him to do and to be involved in.” 12 And Trypho said, “Now prove that this is so, so that we may agree with you too. For we do not understand you to affirm that He has done or said anything contrary to the will of the Maker of all things.” Then I said, “The Scripture I just quoted will make this clear to you. It says: ‘The sun had risen over the earth, and Lot entered Segor (Zoar); and the Lord rained sulfur and fire on Sodom from the Lord out of heaven, and overthrew these cities and all the surrounding region.’ ” 13 Then the fourth of those who had stayed with Trypho said, “So it must be said that one of the two angels who went down to Sodom, whom Moses in the Scripture calls Lord, is different from the One who is also God and appeared to Abraham.” 14 “It is not only on this ground,” I said, “that we must admit without question that someone else besides the One regarded as Maker of all things is called Lord by the Holy Spirit; not only [because of what is said] through Moses, but also [because of what is said] through David. For he wrote: ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool,’ as I have already quoted. And again, in other words: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom; You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.’ 15 If, therefore, you assert that the Holy Spirit calls some other one God and Lord, besides the Father of all things and His Christ, answer me; for I promise to prove to you from the Scriptures themselves that the One the Scripture calls Lord is not one of the two angels who went to Sodom, but the One who was with them, who is called God and appeared to Abraham.” 16 And Trypho said, “Prove it; for, as you see, the day is getting on, and we are not prepared for such dangerous answers, since we have never heard anyone investigate, examine, or prove these matters; nor would we have put up with your talk if you had not referred everything to the Scriptures. For you are very eager to draw your proofs from them, and you hold that there is no God above the Maker of all things.” 17 Then I replied, “You know, then, that the Scripture says, ‘And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I really bear a child? For I am old. Is anything impossible for God? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And a little later: ‘And the men got up from there and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah; and Abraham went with them to see them on their way. And the Lord said, I will not hide from Abraham, my servant, what I am doing.’ 18 And again a little later it says this: ‘The Lord said, The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sins are very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have done everything according to the outcry that has come to Me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned away from there and went to Sodom. But Abraham was standing before the Lord; and Abraham came near and said, Will You destroy the righteous with the wicked?’ ” and so on. For I do not think it right to write out the same words again, since I have written them all before; but I must give those by which I established the proof to Trypho and his companions. 19 Then I went on to what follows, in which these words are recorded: “ ‘And the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and [Abraham] went back to his place. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening. And Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom,’ and what follows, up to, ‘But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door of the house,’ and what follows, up to, ‘And the angels took hold of his hand, and his wife’s hand, and the hands of his daughters, because the Lord was merciful to him. 20 And when they had brought them outside, they said, Save, save your life. Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the surrounding region; escape to the mountain, or you will be swept away along with [them]. And Lot said to them, I beg [You], Lord, since Your servant has found grace in Your sight, and You have shown great righteousness toward me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountain, or disaster will overtake me and I will die. 21 Look, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small; I will be safe there, since it is small, and my life will be spared. And He said to him, Look, I have granted your request in this matter too, and will not destroy the city you have spoken about. Hurry and escape there, for I cannot do anything until you get there. Therefore he called the name of the city Segor (Zoar). The sun had risen over the earth, and Lot entered Segor (Zoar). And the Lord rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven, and He overthrew these cities and all the surrounding region.’ ” 22 And after another pause I added: “Now, my friends, have you not understood that one of the three, who is both God and Lord and serves Him who is in the heavens, is Lord of the two angels? For when [the angels] went on to Sodom, He stayed behind and spoke with Abraham in the words Moses recorded; and when He left after the conversation, Abraham went back to his place. 23 And when He came [to Sodom], it was no longer the two angels who spoke with Lot but He Himself, as the Scripture makes clear; and He is the Lord who received a commission from the Lord who [remains] in the heavens, that is, the Maker of all things, to bring on Sodom and Gomorrah the [judgments] that the Scripture describes in these words: ‘The Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven.’ ”

1 When I fell silent, Trypho said, “It is clear that Scripture compels us to admit this; but there is something we are rightly puzzled about, namely, the statement that [the Lord] ate what Abraham prepared and set before him; and you would admit as much yourself.” 2 I answered, “It is written that they ate; and if we take it to say that the three ate, and not only the two, who really were angels and are clearly nourished in the heavens, even though not with food like what we mortals use (for about the manna that fed your fathers in the desert, Scripture says that they ate angels’ food), [if we take it that three ate,] then I would say that the Scripture saying they ate means the same as when we say of fire that it has devoured everything; it is certainly not to be understood that they ate by chewing with teeth and jaws. So even here we would not be at a loss about anything, if we have even a slight acquaintance with figurative ways of speaking and can see past them.” 3 And Trypho said, “The [question] about the manner of eating could be explained this way: [the manner, that is,] in which it is written that they took and ate what Abraham had prepared. So now go on to explain to us how this God who appeared to Abraham, and who serves God the Maker of all things, was born of the Virgin and became man, with the same passions as everyone, as you said before.” 4 Then I replied, “Allow me first, Trypho, to gather some other proofs on this point, so that the large number of them may persuade you [of the truth] of it, and after that I will explain what you are asking.” And he said, “Do as you think best, for I will be very pleased.”

1 Then I continued, “I intend to quote Scriptures to you, not because I am eager to make a merely skillful display of words, for I have no such ability; only the grace of God has been given to me to understand His Scriptures, and I urge everyone to share freely and generously in that grace, so that I myself may not be condemned on this account in the judgment that God the Maker of all things will hold through my Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 And Trypho said, “What you are doing is worthy of piety; but you seem to me to be pretending ignorance when you say you have no skill with words.” I replied again, “So be it, since you think so; but I am convinced that I am telling the truth. Now pay attention, so that I may get on with the remaining proofs.” “Go on,” he said. 3 And I continued: “Moses also writes, my brothers, that He who is called God and appeared to the patriarchs is called both Angel and Lord, so that from this too you may recognize Him as serving the Father of all things, as you have already admitted, and may stand firm, persuaded by further arguments. 4 So the word of God [recorded] through Moses, speaking of Jacob the grandson of Abraham, says this: ‘And when the sheep were conceiving, I saw them with my eyes in the dream: and look, the male goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the female goats were streaked with white, speckled, and spotted with gray. And the Angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, Jacob. 5 And I said, What is it, Lord? And He said, Look up and see that the male goats and rams mounting the sheep and female goats are streaked with white, speckled, and spotted with gray. For I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to Me. Now get up, leave this land, and go to the land of your birth, and I will be with you.’ 6 And again, in other words, speaking of the same Jacob, it says this: ‘And he got up that night and took the two wives, the two maidservants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok; and he took them and crossed the stream, and sent over everything he had. But Jacob was left behind alone, and an Angel wrestled with him until morning. And He saw that He was not prevailing against him, and He touched the broad part of his thigh; and the broad part of Jacob’s thigh went numb as he wrestled with Him. And He said, Let Me go, for the day is breaking. 7 But he said, I will not let You go unless You bless me. And He said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel shall be your name; for you have prevailed with God, and with men you shall be powerful. And Jacob asked Him, Tell me Your name. But He said, Why do you ask My name? And He blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Peniel, for I saw God face to face, and my soul rejoiced.’ 8 And again, in other words, speaking of the same Jacob, it says this: ‘And Jacob came to Luz, in the land of Canaan, which is Bethel, he and all the people who were with him. And there he built an altar, and called the name of that place Bethel; for there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother Esau. And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried below Bethel under an oak, and Jacob named it The Oak of Mourning. And God appeared again to Jacob in Luz, when he came out from Mesopotamia in Syria, and He blessed him. And God said to him, Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.’ 9 He is called God, and He is and shall be God.” 10 And when they all nodded in agreement, I went on: “I also think it necessary to repeat to you the words that tell how He who is Angel and God and Lord, who appeared as a man to Abraham and wrestled in human form with Jacob, was seen by Jacob when he fled from his brother Esau. 11 They are as follows: ‘And Jacob left the well of the oath and went toward Charran. And he came to a certain place and slept there, for the sun had set; and he took some of the stones of the place and put them under his head. And he slept in that place, and he dreamed, and look, a ladder was set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were going up and down on it. And the Lord stood above it. 12 And He said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and of Isaac; do not be afraid. The land you are lying on I will give to you and to your seed; and your seed shall be like the dust of the earth, and shall spread out to the west, the south, the north, and the east; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And look, I am with you, keeping you on every road you travel, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done everything I have told you. 13 And Jacob woke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome this place is! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob got up in the morning and took the stone he had put under his head, and set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it; and Jacob called the name of the place The House of God, and the name of the city formerly was Ulammaus.’ ”

1 When I had spoken these words, I continued: “Bear with me further as I show you from the book of Exodus how this same One, who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and man, and who appeared in human form to Abraham and Isaac, appeared in a flame of fire from the bush and spoke with Moses.” And when they said they would listen gladly, tirelessly, and eagerly, I went on: 2 “These words are in the book titled Exodus: ‘And after many days the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned because of their labors,’ and so on, up to, ‘Go and gather the elders of Israel, and you shall say to them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, I have surely watched over you and seen what has happened to you in Egypt.’ ” 3 After these words I added: “Have you understood, sirs, that this very God whom Moses describes as an Angel speaking to him in the flame of fire declares to Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?”

1 Then Trypho said, “That is not what we understand from the passage you quoted, but [only this]: that it was an angel who appeared in the flame of fire, but God who spoke with Moses, so that there were really two persons together in that vision, an angel and God.” 2 I again replied, “Even if it were so, my friends, that an angel and God were together in the vision Moses saw, still, as the passages already quoted have proved to you, the God who told Moses that He was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob will not be the Creator of all things, but the One who has been proved to you to have appeared to Abraham, serving the will of the Maker of all things, and likewise carrying out His counsel in the judgment of Sodom; so that even if it is as you say, that there were two, an angel and God, no one with even the smallest intelligence will dare to claim that the Maker and Father of all things left everything above the heavens and appeared on a little patch of the earth.” 3 And Trypho said, “Since it has already been proved that He who is called God and Lord and appeared to Abraham received from the Lord who is in the heavens what He brought on the land of Sodom, then even if an angel accompanied the God who appeared to Moses, we will understand that the God who spoke with Moses from the bush was not the Maker of all things, but He who has been shown to have manifested Himself to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob; who is also called, and is understood to be, the Angel of God the Maker of all things, because He makes known to people the commands of the Father and Maker of all things.” 4 And I replied, “Now, Trypho, I will show that in the vision of Moses this same One alone, who is called an Angel and who is God, appeared to Moses and spoke with him. For the Scripture says this: ‘The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the bush; and he saw that the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will go over and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned up. And when the Lord saw that he was going over to look, the Lord called to him out of the bush.’ 5 So in the same way that the Scripture calls Him who appeared to Jacob in the dream an Angel, and then [says] that the same Angel who appeared in the dream spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau,’ and [again] says that in the judgment that came on Sodom in the days of Abraham the Lord carried out the punishment from the Lord who [dwells] in the heavens, so here too the Scripture, in announcing that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses and then declaring Him to be Lord and God, speaks of the same One whom, by the many testimonies already quoted, it declares to serve God, who is above the world, above whom there is no other [God].

A Power Begotten Before Creation

1 “I will give you another testimony from the Scriptures, my friends,” I said, “that before all creatures God begot a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, whom the Holy Spirit calls sometimes the Glory of the Lord, sometimes the Son, sometimes Wisdom, sometimes an Angel, sometimes God, and sometimes Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Commander, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all these names, since He serves the Father’s will and was begotten of the Father by an act of will. 2 We see something like this happen among ourselves: when we speak a word, we beget the word, yet not by cutting it off, so as to lessen the word [that remains] in us when we speak it. And we see the same thing happen with fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another] but remains the same; and the fire kindled from it also clearly exists in its own right, without diminishing the one from which it was kindled. 3 The Word of Wisdom will testify for me, being Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, who is Word, Wisdom, Power, and the Glory of the One who begot Him, when He says through Solomon: ‘If I declare to you what happens day by day, I will remember to recount the things from eternity. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. Before the ages He established me in the beginning, before He made the earth and before He made the depths, before the springs of water came out, before the mountains were set in place. Before all the hills He begets me. 4 God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He prepared the heavens, I was there with Him, and when He set His throne on the winds; when He made the clouds above strong and the springs of the deep secure, when He made the foundations of the earth strong, I was with Him, setting things in order. I was the one He delighted in; every day and at all times I rejoiced in His presence, because He rejoiced in completing the inhabited world and delighted in the sons of men. 5 So now, my son, listen to me. Blessed is the man who listens to me, and the mortal who keeps my ways, watching daily at my doors, keeping guard at the posts of my entrances. For my ways out are the ways out of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But those who sin against me wrong their own souls, and those who hate me love death.’

1 “And the word of God [written] through Moses said the very same thing, my friends, when it showed us, about the One it pointed to, that God speaks in the creation of man with this same meaning, in these words: ‘Let Us make man in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, all the earth, and all the creeping things that creep on the earth. And God created man; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them and said, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it.’ 2 And so that you will not twist the [force of the] words just quoted and repeat what your teachers claim, either that God said to Himself, ‘Let Us make,’ just as we often say to ourselves, ‘Let us make,’ when we are about to do something, or that God said ‘Let Us make’ to the elements, that is, to the earth and the other similar substances from which we believe man was formed, I will quote again the words recorded by Moses himself, from which we can learn beyond dispute that [God] spoke with someone who was numerically distinct from Himself, and also a rational Being. 3 These are the words: ‘And God said, Look, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’ So in saying ‘like one of us,’ [Moses] has declared that [there is a certain] number of persons together with one another, and that there are at least two. For I would not say that the teaching of the heresy said to be among you is true, or that its teachers can prove that [God] was speaking to angels, or that the human body was the work of angels. 4 But this Offspring, who was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all creatures, and the Father spoke with Him, as the Scripture through Solomon has made clear: that He whom Solomon calls Wisdom was begotten by God as a Beginning before all His creatures and as Offspring; and the same thing was declared in the revelation made to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). So that what I say may become clear to you from these passages too, listen to the following from the book of Joshua. 5 It is this: ‘And when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing facing him. And Joshua went up to Him and said, Are You on our side, or on the side of our enemies? And He said to him, I am the Commander of the Lord’s army; I have come now. And Joshua fell on his face to the ground and said to Him, Master, what do You command Your servant? And the Lord’s Commander said to Joshua, Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. And Jericho was shut up and fortified, and no one went out of it. And the Lord said to Joshua, Look, I am handing Jericho over to you, with its king [and] its mighty men.’ ”

1 And Trypho said, “You have proved this point forcefully and with many arguments, my friend. What remains, then, is to prove that He consented to be born a man of the Virgin according to the will of His Father, and to be crucified and to die. Prove clearly too that after this He rose again and ascended to heaven.” 2 I answered, “I have already proved this too, my friends, in the words of the prophecies quoted earlier; by recalling and explaining them for your sake, I will try to bring you to agree with me on this matter as well. Take the passage Isaiah records, ‘Who shall tell of His generation? For His life is taken away from the earth.’ Does it not seem to you to refer to One who did not have His descent from men, and who was said to be handed over to death by God for the transgressions of the people? About His blood Moses, as I mentioned before, speaking in a parable, said that He would wash His garments in the blood of the grape, since His blood did not come from human seed but from the will of God. 3 And then what David says, ‘In the splendors of Your holiness I have begotten You from the womb, before the morning star. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’: does this not show you that [He was] from of old, and that the God and Father of all things intended Him to be born from a human womb? 4 And speaking in other words, which also have been already quoted, [he says]: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions. [He has anointed You] with myrrh, oil, and cassia from Your garments, from the ivory palaces, by which they made You glad. Kings’ daughters are in Your honor. The queen stood at Your right hand, dressed in garments embroidered with gold. Listen, daughter, and look, and turn your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house; and the King shall desire your beauty, because He is your Lord, and you shall worship Him.’ 5 So these words state explicitly that He is attested by the One who established these things as worthy of worship, as God and as Christ. Moreover, the following words likewise proclaim clearly that the word of God speaks to those who believe in Him as one soul, one synagogue, and one church, as to a daughter, and so addresses the church that has arisen from His name and shares His name (for we are all called Christians); and they teach us also to forget [our] old ancestral customs, when they say: ‘Listen, daughter, and look, and turn your ear; forget your people and your father’s house, and the King shall desire your beauty, because He is your Lord, and you shall worship Him.’ ”

1 Here Trypho said, “Let Him be recognized as Lord and Christ and God, as the Scriptures declare, by you Gentiles, who have all come to be called Christians from His name; but we who serve the God who made this same [Christ] have no need to confess or worship Him.” 2 To this I replied, “If I were as quarrelsome and frivolous as you, Trypho, I would not keep talking with you, since you are set not on understanding what has been said, but only on coming up with some quibbling answer; but as it is, since I fear the judgment of God, I do not hastily pronounce on anyone of your nation, as to whether he may be among those who can be saved by the grace of the Lord of Sabaoth. So even though you act wrongly, I will keep answering whatever you put forward and whatever objection you make; and in fact I do the same with everyone of every nation who wants to examine this subject with me or ask me about it. 3 If you had paid attention to the Scriptures I quoted earlier, you would already have understood that those of your own nation who are saved are saved through this [man] and share His lot, and you would certainly not have asked me about this. I will repeat again the words of David I quoted before, and I ask you to understand them, not to act wrongly and stir each other up merely to contradict. 4 The words which David speaks, then, are these: ‘The Lord has reigned; let the nations be angry: [it is] He who sits on the cherubim; let the earth be shaken. The Lord is great in Zion; and He is high above all the nations. Let them praise Your great name, for it is awesome and holy; and the honor of the king loves justice. You have established fairness; You have done justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship the footstool of His feet; for He is holy. Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among those who call on His name; they called on the Lord, and He heard them. In the pillar of cloud He spoke to them, for they kept His testimonies and the commandments He gave them.’ 5 And from the other words of David, also quoted before, which you foolishly claim refer to Solomon [because] they are titled for Solomon, it can be proved that they do not refer to Solomon, that this [Christ] existed before the sun, and that those of your nation who are saved will be saved through Him. 6 [The words] are these: ‘God, give Your judgment to the king, and Your righteousness to the king’s son. He shall judge Your people with righteousness and Your poor with justice. Let the mountains take up peace for the people, and the hills righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the needy, and shall humble the slanderer; and He shall endure as long as the sun, and before the moon, to all generations,’ and so on, up to, ‘His name endures before the sun, and all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Him. All nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name forever and ever; and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. Amen, Amen.’ 7 And remember from other words also spoken by David, which I mentioned before, how it was declared that He would come out from the highest heavens and return again to the same places, so that you may recognize Him as God coming forth from above and as man living among men; and [how it was declared] that He will appear again, and those who pierced Him will see Him and mourn for Him. 8 [The words] are these: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. Day pours out speech to day, and night declares knowledge to night. There is no speech or language whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the sun he has set his dwelling, and he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, will rejoice like a giant to run his course; his going out is from the highest heaven, and his circuit returns to the highest heaven, and there is no one who shall be hidden from his heat.’ ”

1 And Trypho said, “Unsettled by so many Scriptures, I do not know what to say about the Scripture Isaiah writes, in which God says that He does not give His glory to another, saying this: ‘I am the Lord God; this is my name; my glory I will not give to another, nor my praises.’ ” 2 And I answered, “If you quoted these words, Trypho, and then fell silent simply and with no ill intent, neither giving what comes before them nor adding what comes after, you are to be forgiven; but if [you did so] because you thought you could cast doubt on the passage, so that I would say the Scriptures contradict each other, you are mistaken. For I will never dare to think or say such a thing; and if a Scripture that seems to be of that kind is brought forward, and there is some pretext [for saying] that it is contrary [to another], I am completely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another, so I will rather admit that I do not understand what is written, and will try to persuade those who imagine the Scriptures are contradictory to share my view instead. 3 With what intent you have raised the difficulty, God knows. But I will remind you of what the passage says, so that you may recognize even from this very [place] that God gives glory to His Christ alone. And I will take up a few short passages, sirs, the ones connected with what Trypho quoted and the ones that follow on from them in order. For I will not quote them from another section, but just as they are joined together in one. Now give me your attention. 4 [The words] are these: ‘This is what the Lord says, the God who created the heavens and made them firm, who established the earth and what is in it, and gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord God, have called You in righteousness, and I will hold Your hand and strengthen You; and I have given You as a covenant for the people, as a light for the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring those who are bound out of their chains, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house. 5 I am the Lord God; this is my name: my glory I will not give to another, nor my praises to carved idols. Look, the former things have come to pass; new things I announce, and before they are announced they are made known to you. Sing to the Lord a new song; His sovereignty [is] from the end of the earth. [Sing], you who go down to the sea and sail [on it] continually, you islands and those who live on them. 6 Rejoice, wilderness, with your villages and your houses; and those who live in Cedar shall rejoice, and those who live on the rock shall shout from the tops of the mountains; they shall give glory to God; they shall proclaim His praises among the islands. The Lord God of hosts shall go forth, He shall destroy war utterly, He shall stir up zeal, and He shall cry aloud to the enemies with strength.’ ” 7 And when I had recited this, I said to them, “Have you understood, my friends, that God says He will give glory to the One He has established as a light for the Gentiles, and to no one else, and not, as Trypho said, that God was keeping the glory for Himself?” Then Trypho answered, “We have understood this too; so go on to the rest of the discussion.”

Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus

1 Then I picked up the discussion again from the point where I had left off earlier, proving that He was born of a virgin and that His birth from a virgin had been foretold through Isaiah, and quoted the same prophecy again. 2 It is as follows: ‘And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depths or in the heights. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord. And Isaiah said, Hear then, house of David: Is it a small thing for you to contend with men? And how do you contend with the Lord? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey. 3 Before he knows or prefers evil, he will choose the good. For before the child knows evil or good, he rejects evil by choosing the good. For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria. And the land you can hardly bear because of its two kings shall be abandoned. But God shall bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days that have not yet come on you since the day Ephraim took the king of Assyria away from Judah.’ ” 4 And I went on: “Now it is evident to everyone that in the race of Abraham according to the flesh no one has ever been born of a virgin, or is said to have been born [of a virgin], except this Christ of ours.”

1 And Trypho answered, “The Scripture does not say, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ but, ‘Look, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son,’ and so on, as you quoted. And the whole prophecy refers to Hezekiah, and it can be shown that it was fulfilled in him, just as this prophecy says. 2 Moreover, in the myths of those called Greeks it is said that Perseus was born of Danae, who was a virgin, after the one they call Zeus came down on her in the form of a shower of gold. And you ought to be ashamed to say the same things they do, and [should] rather say that this Jesus was born a man of men. And if you prove from the Scriptures that He is the Christ, and that because He lived a perfect life in keeping with the law He was found worthy to be chosen as Christ, [well and good]; but do not dare to tell tales of marvels, or you will be shown to be talking nonsense like the Greeks.” 3 Then I said to this, “Trypho, I want to convince you, and in short everyone, of this: even if you say worse things in mockery and jest, you will not move me from my purpose; but from the very words you think can be put forward [by you] as proof [of your own views], I will always draw the demonstration of what I have said, along with the testimony of the Scriptures. 4 But you are not acting fairly or honestly in trying to undo what we have always agreed on, namely, that certain commands were instituted through Moses because of the hardness of your people’s hearts. For you said that He was chosen and became Christ because He lived in keeping with the law, if indeed He were proved to be the Christ.” 5 And Trypho said, “You admitted to us that He was circumcised and kept the other legal ceremonies ordained through Moses.” 6 And I replied, “I admitted it and I still admit it; but I admitted that He underwent all these things not as though He were justified by them, but to complete the dispensation that His Father, the Maker of all things, Lord and God, wanted Him [to complete]. For I admit that He endured crucifixion and death, and becoming man, and suffering all the afflictions your nation inflicted on Him. 7 But since, Trypho, you are again disagreeing with what you agreed to just a little while ago, answer me: are the righteous patriarchs who lived before Moses, who kept none of the [ordinances] that, as Scripture shows, began to be instituted through Moses, saved, [and have they reached] the inheritance of the blessed, or not?” 8 And Trypho said, “The Scriptures compel me to admit it.” “Likewise I ask you again,” I said, “did God command your fathers to present the offerings and sacrifices because He needed them, or because of the hardness of their hearts and their tendency to idolatry?” “The Scriptures likewise compel us to admit the latter,” he said. 9 “Likewise,” I said, “did the Scriptures not foretell that God promised to make a new covenant besides the one [made] on Mount Horeb?” He replied that this too had been foretold. Then I said again, “Was the old covenant not laid on your fathers with fear and trembling, so that they could not bear to listen to God?” He admitted it. 10 “What then?” I said. “God promised that there would be another covenant, not like that old one, and said it would be laid on them without fear and trembling and lightning, and that it would show which commands and deeds God knows to be eternal and suited to every nation, and which commandments He gave suited to the hardness of your people’s hearts, as He also cries out through the prophets.” 11 “Those who love truth and not quarreling must certainly agree to this too,” he said. Then I replied, “I do not know how you can talk about people who love quarreling, [since] you yourself have often clearly been doing exactly that, frequently contradicting what you had agreed to.”

1 And Trypho said, “You are trying to prove something unbelievable and nearly impossible: [namely], that God consented to be born and become man.” “If I set out to prove this by human teachings or arguments,” I said, “you should not put up with me. But if I quote Scriptures, so many of them and so often, that speak to this point, and ask you to understand them, then you are hard-hearted when it comes to recognizing the mind and will of God. But if you want to stay that way forever, I would not be harmed at all; I will keep the same [convictions] I had before I met you and leave you.” 2 And Trypho said, “Consider, my friend, that you gained mastery of these [truths] with much labor and toil. So we too must examine carefully everything we come across before we agree to what the Scriptures compel us [to believe].” To this I said, “I am not asking you not to work hard in every way as you examine the questions before us; but [I ask you], when you have nothing to say, not to contradict again what you said you had agreed to.” 3 And Trypho said, “We will try to do so.” I went on: “Besides the questions I have just asked you, I want to ask some more, for by means of these questions I will try to bring the discussion to a quick conclusion.” And Trypho said, “Ask them.” Then I said, “Do you think that anyone else is said in the Scriptures to be worthy of worship and is called Lord and God, except the Maker of all and Christ, who was proved to you by so many Scriptures to have become man?” 4 And Trypho replied, “How can we admit that, when we have carried out such a long inquiry into whether there is anyone besides the Father alone?” Then I said again, “I must ask you this too, so that I may know whether you now hold any opinion different from what you admitted earlier.” He replied, “No, sir.” Then I said again, “Since you truly admit these things, and since Scripture says, ‘Who shall tell of His generation?’ ought you not now to conclude that He is not the seed of a human race?” 5 And Trypho said, “Then how does the Word say to David that God will take a Son for Himself from his loins, and will establish His kingdom, and will set Him on the throne of His glory?” 6 And I said, “Trypho, if the prophecy Isaiah spoke, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive,’ were addressed not to the house of David but to some other house of the twelve tribes, perhaps the matter would present some difficulty; but since this very prophecy is addressed to the house of David, Isaiah has explained how what God spoke to David in a mystery would come about. Unless perhaps you are not aware, my friends, that there were many sayings spoken in veiled form, in parables or mysteries, or in symbolic actions, which the prophets who came after those who said or did them explained.” 7 “Certainly,” said Trypho. “So if I show that this prophecy of Isaiah refers to our Christ and not to Hezekiah, as you say, will I not in this matter too persuade you not to trust your teachers, who dare to claim that the translation your seventy elders made at the court of Ptolemy, king of the Egyptians, is untrue in certain respects? 8 For whatever statements in the Scriptures clearly expose their foolish and self-serving opinion, they dare to claim were not written that way. But other statements, which they think they can twist and fit to human events, they say refer not to this Jesus Christ of ours but to whomever they choose to explain them by. For example, they have taught you that this Scripture we are now discussing refers to Hezekiah, and, as I promised, I will show that they are wrong. 9 And when we cite to them Scriptures that explicitly prove the Christ was to suffer, to be worshiped, and [to be called] God, which I have already recited to you, they are forced to agree that these do refer to the Christ, but they dare to claim that this man is not the Christ. They admit that He will come, suffer, reign, be worshiped, and be God, and I will likewise show this opinion to be ridiculous and foolish. But since I am pressed to answer first what you said in jest, I will reply to that, and afterward give my answers on the rest.

1 “You can be sure, then, Trypho,” I continued, “that my knowledge of the Scriptures and my faith in them have been made firm by the counterfeits that the one called the devil caused to be told among the Greeks, just as he worked some through the magicians in Egypt and others through the false prophets in Elijah’s day. 2 For when they say that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was born from [Jupiter’s] union with Semele, and that he discovered the vine; and when they relate that he was torn to pieces, died, rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they bring wine into his mysteries, do I not see that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob and recorded by Moses? 3 And when they say that Hercules was strong and traveled over the whole world, that he was born to Jove by Alcmene, and that he ascended to heaven when he died, do I not see that the Scripture speaking of Christ, ‘strong as a giant to run his course,’ has likewise been imitated? And when he [the devil] presents Aesculapius as raising the dead and healing all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? 4 But since I have not quoted to you any Scripture that shows Christ would do these things, I must remind you of one, from which you can understand how, to those who had no knowledge of God, I mean the Gentiles, who ‘had eyes but did not see, and had a heart but did not understand,’ and who worshiped images made of wood, [even to them] Scripture foretold that they would renounce these [vanities] and hope in this Christ. 5 It is written this way: ‘Rejoice, thirsty wilderness; let the wilderness be glad and blossom like the lily; the deserts of the Jordan shall blossom and be glad; and the glory of Lebanon was given to it, and the honor of Carmel. And my people shall see the exaltation of the Lord, and the glory of God. Be strong, you slack hands and weakened knees. Take courage, you who are faint of heart; be strong, do not be afraid. Look, our God repays and will repay with judgment. He shall come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of those who stammer shall speak clearly; for water has broken forth in the wilderness, and a valley in the thirsty land; and the parched ground shall become pools, and a spring of water shall [rise up] in the thirsty land.’ 6 The spring of living water that gushed out from God in the land lacking the knowledge of God, that is, the land of the Gentiles, was this Christ, who also appeared in your nation and healed those who had been maimed, deaf, and lame in body from birth, making one leap, another hear, and another see by His word. And by raising the dead and making them live, He pressed the people of that time through His deeds to recognize Him. 7 But even when they saw these things happen, they claimed it was a magical illusion; for they dared to call Him a magician and a deceiver of the people. Yet He did these works also to persuade those who were [going to] believe in Him that even if someone suffers from some bodily defect, but keeps the teachings He handed down, He will raise him up whole at His second coming, after making him immortal, incorruptible, and free from grief.

1 “And when those who hand down the mysteries of Mithras say that he was born from a rock, and call the place where they initiate his followers a cave, do I not see here that they have imitated Daniel’s saying that a stone was cut out of a great mountain without hands, and that they have likewise tried to imitate all of Isaiah’s words? For they contrived to have words about righteousness spoken among them too. 2 But I must repeat to you the words of Isaiah I mentioned, so that you may see from them that this is so. They are these: ‘Hear, you who are far away, what I have done; those who are near shall know My strength. The sinners in Zion are removed; trembling shall seize the impious. Who shall announce to you the everlasting place? The one who walks in righteousness, speaks what is right, hates sin and unrighteousness, keeps his hands clean of bribes, stops his ears from hearing the unjust sentence of blood, and shuts his eyes from seeing unrighteousness; he shall dwell in the lofty cave of the strong rock. 3 Bread shall be given to him, and his water [shall be] sure. You shall see the King in glory, and your eyes shall look far away. Your soul shall give careful thought to the fear of the Lord. Where is the scribe? Where are the counselors? Where is the one who counts those being raised, the small and great people? They did not take counsel, nor did they know the depth of the voices, so as not to hear. The people have become despised, and there is no understanding in the one who hears.’ 4 Now it is evident that in this prophecy [reference is made] to the bread our Christ gave us to eat in remembrance of His becoming flesh for the sake of those who believe in Him, for whom He also suffered, and to the cup He gave us to drink, with thanksgiving, in remembrance of His blood. And this prophecy shows that we will see this very King in glory. 5 And the very words of the prophecy proclaim loudly that the people foreknown to believe in Him were foreknown to give careful thought to the fear of the Lord. These Scriptures likewise cry out that those who are thought to know the writings of the Scriptures, and who hear the prophecies, have no understanding. And when I hear, Trypho,” I said, “that Perseus was born of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited this too.

Justin's Charge That Passages Were Removed

1 “But I do not trust your teachers at all, who refuse to admit that the translation made by the seventy elders at the court of Ptolemy, [king] of the Egyptians, is correct, and try to produce one of their own. 2 And I want you to know that they have removed entirely many Scriptures from the translations made by the seventy elders at Ptolemy’s court, Scriptures that show plainly that this very man who was crucified was proclaimed as God and man, as being crucified, and as dying; but since I know that all of your nation deny this, I do not take up these points, but go on to conduct my arguments from the passages you still accept. 3 For you accept the ones I have brought to your attention, except that you dispute the words ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive,’ and say it should read, ‘Look, the young woman shall conceive.’ And I promised to prove that the prophecy referred not to Hezekiah, as you were taught, but to this Christ of mine; and now I will give the proof.” 4 Here Trypho said, “First we ask you to tell us some of the Scriptures you claim have been completely removed.”

1 And I said, “I will do as you wish. From the explanations Esdras gave about the law of the Passover, they have removed the following: ‘And Esdras said to the people, This Passover is our Savior and our refuge. And if you have understood, and it has entered your heart, that we are going to humble Him on a sign, and afterward hope in Him, then this place will never be laid waste, says the God of hosts. But if you do not believe Him or listen to His proclamation, you will be a laughingstock to the nations.’ 2 And from the words of Jeremiah they have cut out the following: ‘I [was] like a lamb being led to the slaughter; they devised a plot against me, saying, Come, let us put wood into His bread, and let us wipe Him out from the land of the living, and His name shall be remembered no more.’ 3 And since this passage from the words of Jeremiah is still written in some copies [of the Scriptures] in the synagogues of the Jews (for they cut it out only a short time ago), and since these words show that the Jews plotted against the Christ Himself to crucify Him and put Him to death, and He Himself is declared to be led like a sheep to the slaughter, as Isaiah foretold, and is here pictured as an innocent lamb, they are at a loss over these words and resort to blasphemy. 4 And again, from the words of the same Jeremiah they have cut out these: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead of Israel who lay in the graves, and He went down to them to proclaim to them His salvation.’

1 “And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have removed this short phrase from the words of David: ‘from the wood.’ For where the passage said, ‘Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned from the wood,’ they have left, ‘Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned.’ 2 Now no one from your people has ever been said to have reigned among the nations as God and Lord, except this One alone who was crucified, about whom the Holy Spirit also says in the same Psalm that He was raised again and freed from [the grave], declaring that He is not like the gods of the nations, for they are idols of demons. 3 But I will recite the whole Psalm to you, so that you may understand what is being said. It goes like this: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless His name; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens. Praise and beauty are before Him; holiness and majesty are in His sanctuary. Bring to the Lord, you families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor, bring to the Lord the glory of His name. 4 Take up sacrifices and come into His courts; worship the Lord in His holy temple. Let the whole earth tremble before Him; say among the nations, The Lord has reigned. For He has established the world, which shall not be shaken; He shall judge the peoples with fairness. Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and all that fills it. Let the fields and everything in them be joyful. Let all the trees of the wood be glad before the Lord: for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth.’ ” 5 Here Trypho said, “Whether [or not] the rulers of the people have erased any part of the Scriptures, as you claim, God knows; but it seems unbelievable.” 6 “Yes,” I said, “it does seem unbelievable. For it is more horrible than the calf they made when they were filled with manna on earth, or than sacrificing children to demons, or than killing the prophets themselves. But,” I said, “you seem to me not even to have heard the Scriptures I said they had removed. For the ones already quoted are more than enough to prove the points in dispute, along with those still kept among you that are yet to be brought forward.”

1 Then Trypho said, “We know that you quoted these because we asked you. But this Psalm you quoted last, from the words of David, does not seem to me to refer to anyone but the Father, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. Yet you claimed it referred to the one who suffered, whom you are also eager to prove is the Christ.” 2 And I answered, “Please pay attention while I speak about the words the Holy Spirit spoke in this Psalm, and you will know that I am not speaking wrongly, and that we are not really bewitched; for in this way you will be able on your own to understand many other things the Holy Spirit has said. ‘Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth; sing to the Lord and bless His name; proclaim His salvation day after day, His wonderful works among all peoples.’ 3 He tells the inhabitants of all the earth who have come to know the mystery of this salvation, that is, the suffering of Christ by which He saved them, to sing and give praise to God the Father of all things, and to recognize that He is to be praised and feared, and that He is the Maker of heaven and earth, who brought about this salvation for the human race, and that the One who was crucified and died was counted worthy by Him (God) to reign over all the earth.

The Second Day

4 As [is clearly seen] also from the land into which [He said] He would bring [your fathers]; [for He speaks this way]: ‘This people [shall prostitute themselves after other gods] and shall forsake Me, and shall break My covenant that I made with them in that day; and I will forsake them, and will turn away My face from them; and they shall be devoured, and many evils and afflictions shall come upon them; and they shall say in that day, It is because the Lord my God is not among us that these troubles have come upon us. And I will surely turn My face away from them in that day, because of all the evils they have done in turning to other gods.’

1 “Moreover, in the book of Exodus we have also come to understand that the name of God Himself, which He says was not revealed to Abraham or to Jacob, was also Jesus, and was declared in a mystery through Moses. It is written this way: ‘And the Lord said to Moses, Say to this people: Look, I am sending My angel ahead of you to guard you on the way, to bring you into the land I have prepared for you. Pay attention to Him and obey Him; do not disobey Him. For He will not shrink back from you, for My name is in Him.’ 2 Understand now that the one who led your fathers into the land was called by this name, Jesus, having first been called Auses (Oshea). For if you understand this, you will also recognize that the name of the One who said to Moses, ‘for My name is in Him,’ was Jesus. For He was also called Israel, and He likewise gave this name to Jacob. 3 Isaiah also shows that the prophets sent to announce God’s messages are called His angels and apostles. For Isaiah says in one place, ‘Send me.’ And it is clear to everyone that the prophet who was given the name Jesus [Joshua] was strong and great. 4 So if we know that this God revealed Himself in so many forms to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, how can we be at a loss and refuse to believe that, by the will of the Father of all things, He was also able to be born a man of the Virgin, especially when we have such Scriptures, from which it can be clearly seen that this too happened according to the Father’s will?

1 “For when Daniel speaks of ‘one like the Son of man’ who received the everlasting kingdom, is he not hinting at this very thing? For in saying ‘like the Son of man,’ he shows that He appeared and became man, but not from human seed. And he proclaimed the same thing in a mystery when he speaks of this stone cut out without hands. For the phrase ‘it was cut out without hands’ signified that it is not a human work, but [a work] of the will of the Father and God of all things, who brought Him forth. 2 And when Isaiah says, ‘Who shall tell of His generation?’ he meant that His descent could not be told. Now no one who is a man of men has a descent that cannot be told. And when Moses says that He will wash His garments in the blood of the grape, does this not signify what I have often told you was a veiled prediction, namely, that He would have blood, but not from men, just as it is not man but God who has produced the blood of the vine? 3 And when Isaiah calls Him the Angel of great counsel, did he not foretell that He would be the Teacher of the truths He taught when He came [to earth]? For He alone taught openly the great counsels the Father had planned both for all those who have been and will be pleasing to Him, and for those who have rebelled against His will, whether men or angels, when He said: 4 ‘They will come from the east [and from the west], and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness.’ 5 And, ‘Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not eat and drink and prophesy and cast out demons in Your name? And I will say to them, Depart from Me.’ Again, in other words by which He will condemn those unworthy of salvation, He said He would say, ‘Go into the outer darkness, which the Father has prepared for Satan and his angels.’ 6 And again, in other words, He said, ‘I give you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and centipedes, and over all the power of the enemy.’ And now we who believe in our Lord Jesus, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have all demons and evil spirits subject to us when we exorcise them. For if the prophets proclaimed in veiled terms that the Christ would suffer and afterward be Lord of all, still no one could understand that [declaration] until He Himself convinced the apostles that these things were plainly proclaimed in the Scriptures. 7 For He cried out before His crucifixion: ‘The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the Scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ And David proclaimed that He would be born from the womb before the sun and moon, according to the Father’s will, and made Him known, being Christ, as mighty God and worthy of worship.”

1 Then Trypho said, “I grant that arguments of this kind and this many are enough to persuade someone; but I want you to know that I am still asking for the proof you have often offered to give. So go on and make this clear to us, so that we may see how you prove that that [passage] refers to this Christ of yours. For we say that the prophecy is about Hezekiah.” 2 And I replied, “I will do as you wish. But first show me yourselves how it is said of Hezekiah that before he knew how to call father or mother he took the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria. For it will not be granted to you, as you want to explain it, that Hezekiah made war on the people of Damascus or Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria. ‘For before the child knows how to call father or mother,’ the prophetic word said, ‘He shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria in the presence of the king of Assyria.’ 3 For if the prophetic Spirit had not said this with the addition, ‘Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria,’ but had only said, ‘And shall bear a son, and he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,’ then you could say that God foretold he would take these things because He foreknew it. But as it is, the prophecy has stated it with this addition: ‘Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria.’ And you cannot prove that such a thing ever happened to anyone among the Jews; but we can prove that it happened in the case of our Christ. 4 For as soon as He was born, Magi who came from Arabia worshiped Him, having first come to Herod, who was then king in your land, and whom the Scripture calls king of Assyria because of his godless and lawless character. For you know,” I continued, “that the Holy Spirit often announces such things in parables and comparisons, as He did with all the people in Jerusalem, often saying to them, ‘Your father is an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.’

1 “Now this King Herod, when the Magi from Arabia came to him and said they had learned from a star that appeared in the sky that a King had been born in your country, and that they had come to worship Him, learned from the elders of your people that this was written about Bethlehem in the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come the leader who will shepherd my people.’ 2 So the Magi from Arabia came to Bethlehem and worshiped the Child and presented Him with gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh; but after worshiping the Child in Bethlehem they were warned in a revelation not to go back to Herod. 3 And Joseph, who was engaged to Mary, at first wanted to send away his fiancée Mary, thinking she was pregnant by a man, that is, through fornication; but he was commanded in a vision not to send away his wife, and the angel who appeared to him told him that what was in her womb was from the Holy Spirit. 4 So he was afraid and did not send her away; and at the time of the first census taken in Judaea, under Cyrenius, he went up from Nazareth, where he lived, to Bethlehem, where he was from, to be registered; for his family was of the tribe of Judah, which then lived in that region. Then he was ordered to go to Egypt with Mary and stay there with the Child until another revelation told them to return to Judaea. 5 But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a place to stay in that village, he took shelter in a cave near the village; and while they were there Mary gave birth to the Christ and laid Him in a manger, and there the Magi who came from Arabia found Him. 6 I have repeated to you,” I continued, “what Isaiah foretold about the symbol of the cave; but for the sake of those who have joined us today, I will remind you of the passage again.” Then I recited the passage from Isaiah that I have already written down, adding that it was because of those words that the devil prompted those who hand down the mysteries of Mithras to say that their followers are initiated by him in a place they call a cave. 7 “So Herod, when the Magi from Arabia did not return to him as he had asked them to, but went back to their own country by another road as they had been commanded, and when Joseph with Mary and the Child had already gone into Egypt, as it had been revealed to them, since he did not know which child the Magi had come to worship, ordered all the children in Bethlehem without exception to be killed. 8 And it had been prophesied through Jeremiah that this would happen, the Holy Spirit speaking through him this way: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are no more.’ So, because of the voice that would be heard from Ramah, that is, from Arabia (for there is still a place in Arabia called Rama), weeping would come on the place where Rachel, the wife of Jacob, called Israel, the holy patriarch, is buried, that is, on Bethlehem, as the women weep for their own murdered children and have no comfort for what has happened to them. 9 For Isaiah’s phrase, ‘He shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,’ foretold that the power of the evil demon who lived in Damascus would be overcome by Christ as soon as He was born, and this is shown to have happened. For the Magi, who had been taken as spoil for every kind of evil deed worked by that demon, by coming to worship Christ show that they have broken away from the power that held them captive; and the Scripture has shown us in a mystery that this [power] lived in Damascus.⁠a 10 And in a parable it rightly calls that sinful and unjust power Samaria. And none of you can deny that Damascus was and is part of Arabia, even though it now belongs to what is called Syrophoenicia. So it would be good for you, sirs, to learn what you have not understood from those who have received grace from God, that is, from us Christians, and not to struggle in every way to uphold your own teachings while dishonoring God’s. 11 That is why this grace has also been transferred to us, as Isaiah says in these words: ‘This people draws near to Me; they honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain they worship Me, teaching human commands and doctrines. Therefore look, I will proceed to remove this people, and I will remove them; and I will take away the wisdom of their wise, and set aside the understanding of their clever ones.’ ”

1 At this Trypho, who was somewhat angry but respected the Scriptures, as was clear from his face, said to me, “The words of God are holy, but your interpretations are mere contrivances, as is plain from what you have explained; in fact they are even blasphemous, for you claim that angels sinned and rebelled against God.” 2 And I, wanting to get him to listen to me, answered in a gentler voice: “I admire this piety of yours, sir, and I pray that you may have the same attitude toward Him whom the angels are recorded to serve, as Daniel says; for [one] like the Son of man is brought to the Ancient of days, and every kingdom is given to Him forever and ever. But so that you may know, sir,” I continued, “that it was not our own audacity that led us to make this interpretation you criticize, I will give you evidence from Isaiah himself; for he says that evil angels have lived and still live in Tanis, in Egypt. 3 These are [his] words: ‘Woe to the rebellious children! This is what the Lord says: You have made plans, but not through Me, and [made] agreements, but not through My Spirit, to add sins to sins; you who have done wrong in going down to Egypt (but they did not ask Me), to be helped by Pharaoh and to be covered by the shadow of the Egyptians. For the shadow of Pharaoh shall be a disgrace to you, and a reproach to those who trust in the Egyptians; for the princes in Tanis are evil angels. In vain will they toil for a people that will not help them or be of use, but [will be] a disgrace and a reproach [to them].’ 4 And further, Zechariah says, as you yourself mentioned, that the devil stood at the right hand of Joshua the priest to oppose him, and [the Lord] said, ‘May the Lord, who has taken Jerusalem, rebuke you.’ And again, it is written in Job, as you said yourself, that the angels came to stand before the Lord, and the devil came with them. And we have it recorded by Moses at the beginning of Genesis that the serpent deceived Eve and was cursed. And we know that in Egypt there were magicians who rivaled the mighty power God displayed through His faithful servant Moses. And you know that David said, ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ ”

1 And Trypho to this replied, “I told you, sir, that you are very eager to be safe in every respect, since you hold fast to the Scriptures. But tell me, do you really admit that this place, Jerusalem, will be rebuilt? And do you expect your people to be gathered together and to rejoice with Christ, along with the patriarchs, the prophets, the men of our nation, and the proselytes who joined them before your Christ came? Or did you give way and admit this just to seem to get the better of us in these debates?” 2 Then I answered, “I am not such a wretch, Trypho, as to say one thing and think another. I admitted to you before that I and many others hold this opinion and [believe] that this will happen, as you well know; but I also told you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise. 3 I also pointed out to you that some who are called Christians, but are godless, impious heretics, teach doctrines that are in every way blasphemous, godless, and foolish. And so that you may know I do not say this only in front of you, I will write up, as well as I can, an account of all the arguments that have passed between us, in which I will record myself as admitting the very same things I admit to you. For I choose to follow not men or men’s doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him. 4 For if you have met some who are called Christians but who do not admit this [truth], and who dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, who say there is no resurrection of the dead and that their souls are taken up to heaven the moment they die, do not think they are Christians, just as anyone who considered it properly would not admit that the Sadducees, or the similar sects of the Genistae, Meristae, Galilaeans, Hellenists, Pharisees, and Baptists, are Jews (do not be annoyed with me for telling you everything I think); they are [only] called Jews and children of Abraham, confessing God with their lips, as God Himself cried out, while their heart is far from Him. 5 But I and any others who are right-minded Christians on every point are certain that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be rebuilt, adorned, and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the others declare.

1 “For Isaiah spoke this way about this period of a thousand years: ‘For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, in the things I create. For look, I am making Jerusalem a rejoicing and My people a joy; and I will rejoice over Jerusalem and be glad over My people. And the sound of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, or the sound of crying. And there shall no longer be anyone there who dies young, or an old man who does not live out his days.⁠a For the young man shall be a hundred years old; but the sinner who dies at a hundred years old shall be accursed. 2 And they shall build houses and live in them themselves; and they shall plant vineyards and eat their produce themselves, and drink the wine. They shall not build for others to live in; they shall not plant for others to eat. For according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound. My chosen ones shall not toil in vain or bear children to be cursed; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring with them. And before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will say, What is it? Then the wolves and the lambs shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent [shall eat] earth as bread. They shall not hurt or harm each other on the holy mountain, says the Lord.’ 3 Now we have understood that the phrase among these words, ‘According to the days of the tree [of life] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound,’ points in a hidden way to a thousand years. For as Adam was told that on the day he ate from the tree he would die, we know that he did not live a full thousand years. We have also understood that the saying, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ bears on this.⁠b 4 And further, there was a man among us named John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied in a revelation given to him that those who believed in our Christ would spend a thousand years in Jerusalem, and that after that the general, and in short the eternal, resurrection and judgment of all people together would take place. As our Lord also said, ‘They will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be equal to the angels, being children of the God of the resurrection.’

1 “For prophetic gifts remain among us even to the present day, and from this you ought to understand that [the gifts] once found in your nation have been transferred to us. And just as there were false prophets in the time of your holy prophets, so now there are many false teachers among us, whom our Lord warned us in advance to beware of, so that we are lacking in nothing, since we know that He foreknew everything that would happen to us after His resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven. 2 For He said that we would be put to death and hated for His name’s sake, and that many false prophets and false Christs would come in His name and deceive many; and that is just what has happened. 3 For many have taught godless, blasphemous, and unholy doctrines, counterfeiting them in His name, and have taught and still teach the things put into their minds by the unclean spirit of the devil. So we are very eager to persuade you not to be misled by such people, since we know that everyone who can speak the truth and does not will be judged by God, as God testified through Ezekiel when He said, ‘I have made you a watchman for the house of Judah. If the sinner sins and you do not warn him, he himself shall die in his sin, but I will require his blood from your hand. But if you warn him, you shall be innocent.’ 4 That is why, out of fear, we are eager to speak [with people] according to the Scriptures, and not out of love of money, glory, or pleasure. For no one can convict us of any of these [vices]. Nor do we want to live like the rulers of your people, whom God rebukes when He says, ‘Your rulers are partners of thieves, lovers of bribes, chasers after rewards.’ Now, even if you know some among us to be like this, do not blaspheme the Scriptures and Christ because of them, and do not work so hard to give false interpretations.

1 “For your teachers have dared to interpret the passage ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool’ as referring to Hezekiah, as if he were told to sit at the right side of the temple when the king of Assyria sent him threats, and he was told through Isaiah not to be afraid of him. Now we know and admit that what Isaiah said happened: the king of Assyria gave up making war on Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s days, and the angel of the Lord killed about 185,000 of the Assyrian army. 2 But it is clear that the Psalm does not refer to him. For it reads this way: ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool. He shall send out a rod of power over Jerusalem, and it shall rule in the midst of Your enemies. In the splendor of the saints, before the morning star, I have begotten You. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ 3 Who does not admit, then, that Hezekiah is not a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek? And who does not know that he is not the redeemer of Jerusalem? And who does not know that he neither sent a rod of power into Jerusalem nor ruled in the midst of his enemies, but that it was God who turned the enemies away from him after he wept and lamented? 4 But our Jesus, who has not yet come in glory, has sent into Jerusalem a rod of power, that is, the word of calling and repentance [meant] for all the nations over which demons held sway, as David says, ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ And His mighty word has persuaded many to abandon the demons they used to serve and through it to believe in the Almighty God, because the gods of the nations are demons. And we mentioned earlier that the statement ‘In the splendor of the saints, from the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten You’ is addressed to Christ.

1 “Moreover, the prophecy ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son’ was spoken about Him. For if the one Isaiah referred to was not going to be born of a virgin, about whom did the Holy Spirit declare, ‘Look, the Lord Himself shall give us a sign: look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son’? For if He too was going to be born of sexual intercourse, like all other firstborn sons, why did God say He would give a sign that is not common to all firstborn sons? 2 But what is truly a sign, and was to become trustworthy to the human race, namely, that the firstborn of all creation would become flesh through the Virgin’s womb and truly become a child, He announced ahead of time through the Spirit of prophecy and foretold in various ways, as I have recounted to you, so that when it happened it would be recognized as the work of the power and will of the Maker of all things, just as Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs, and as all living beings were created in the beginning by the word of God. 3 But in these matters too you dare to alter the translation your elders made at the court of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, claiming that the Scripture does not read as they translated it, but says, ‘Look, the young woman shall conceive,’ as if something great were signified by a woman giving birth from sexual intercourse, which all young women do except the barren; and even these God can make [bear children] if He wills. 4 For Samuel’s mother, who was barren, gave birth by the will of God, and so did the wife of the holy patriarch Abraham, and Elisabeth, who bore John the Baptist, and others like them. So you must not think it impossible for God to do anything He wills. And especially since it was foretold that this would happen, do not dare to alter or misinterpret the prophecies, for you will only wrong yourselves and will not harm God.

1 “Moreover, some of you dare to interpret the prophecy that says, ‘Lift up your gates, you rulers; and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, so that the King of glory may come in,’ as referring likewise to Hezekiah, and others of you [interpret it] as referring to Solomon; but it cannot be proved to refer to either of them, or in short to any of your kings, but only to this Christ of ours, who appeared without beauty or glory, as Isaiah and David and all the Scriptures said; who is the Lord of hosts by the will of the Father who gave Him [this rank]; who also rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the Psalm and the other Scriptures showed when they proclaimed Him Lord of hosts; and if you are willing, you can easily be persuaded of this by what happens before your eyes. 2 For every demon, when exorcised in the name of this very Son of God, who is the Firstborn of all creation, who became man through the Virgin, who suffered and was crucified under Pontius Pilate by your nation, who died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, is defeated and brought under control. 3 But if you exorcise a demon in the name of any of those who have lived among you, whether kings, righteous men, prophets, or patriarchs, it will not submit to you. But if one of you exorcises it in [the name of] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, it may perhaps submit to you. Yet your exorcists, as I have said, use technique when they exorcise, just as the Gentiles do, and employ incense and incantations. 4 But that it is angels and powers whom the word of prophecy through David [commands] to lift up the gates, so that the One who rose from the dead, Jesus Christ, the Lord of hosts by the will of the Father, might enter, the word of David has likewise shown; and I will call it to your attention again for the sake of those who were not with us yesterday, for whom I am also summarizing many of the things I said yesterday. 5 And now, if I say this to you even though I have repeated it many times, I know it is not out of place to do so. For it would be ridiculous, when we see the sun, the moon, and the other stars always keeping the same course and bringing round the changing seasons, and when an accountant asked how much two times two is does not stop saying it is four just because he has often said so before, and when other things firmly agreed on are always stated and agreed on in the same way, that someone who bases his discussion on the prophetic Scriptures should leave them and stop constantly citing the same Scriptures, as if he thought he could produce something better than Scripture. 6 The passage, then, by which I showed that God reveals there are both angels and hosts in heaven is this: ‘Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights. Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts.’ ” Then one of those who had come with them on the second day, named Mnaseas, said, “We are very glad that you are willing to repeat the same things for our sake.” 7 And I said, “Listen, my friends, to the Scripture that leads me to do this. Jesus commanded [us] to love even [our] enemies, as Isaiah foretold in many passages, which also contain the mystery of our own rebirth, and indeed the rebirth of all who expect Christ to appear in Jerusalem and work hard through their deeds to please Him. 8 These are the words spoken by Isaiah: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word. Say, our brothers, to those who hate you and detest you, that the name of the Lord has been glorified. He has appeared to your joy, and they shall be put to shame. A voice of uproar from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord repaying the proud. Before she was in labor she gave birth, and before the pains of labor came she delivered a male child. 9 Who has heard of such a thing? And who has seen such a thing? Has the earth been in labor for one day, or has a nation been born all at once? For Zion has been in labor and borne her children. But I have given this hope even to her who does not give birth, said the Lord. Look, I have made both her who bears and her who is barren, says the Lord. Rejoice, Jerusalem, and celebrate, all you who love her. Be glad, all you who mourn over her, so that you may nurse and be satisfied at the breast of her comfort, so that after nursing you may delight in the coming of His glory.’ ”

1 When I had quoted this, I added, “Hear, then, how this Man, whom the Scriptures declare will come again in glory after His crucifixion, was symbolized both by the tree of life, which was said to have been planted in paradise, and by the things that would happen to all the righteous. Moses was sent with a rod to bring about the redemption of the people; and holding it in his hands at the head of the people, he divided the sea. Through it he saw water gushing out of the rock; and when he threw a piece of wood into the waters of Marah, which were bitter, he made them sweet. 2 Jacob, by putting rods into the watering troughs, succeeded in making his uncle’s sheep conceive, so that he would gain their young. The same Jacob boasts that he crossed the river with his rod. He said he had seen a ladder, and the Scripture has declared that God stood above it; and we have proved from the Scriptures that this was not the Father. And when Jacob poured oil on a stone in the same place, the very God who appeared to him testified that he had anointed a pillar to the God who appeared to him. 3 We have also proved from many Scriptures that the stone symbolically proclaimed Christ; and we have likewise proved that every anointing, whether of oil, or of myrrh, or of any of the other ointments compounded into perfume, referred to Him, since the word says, ‘Therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.’ For indeed all kings and anointed ones received from Him their share in being called kings and anointed, just as He Himself received from the Father the titles of King, Christ, Priest, and Angel, and all the other such titles that He bears or has borne. 4 Aaron’s rod, which blossomed, showed him to be the high priest. Isaiah prophesied that a rod would come out of the root of Jesse, [and this was] Christ. And David says that the righteous man is ‘like the tree planted by the streams of water, which will yield its fruit in its season, and whose leaf will not wither.’ Again, the righteous is said to flourish like the palm tree. 5 God appeared to Abraham from a tree, as it is written, by the oak of Mamre. The people found seventy willows and twelve springs after crossing the Jordan. David says that God comforted him with a rod and staff. 6 Elisha, by throwing a stick into the river Jordan, brought up the iron head of the axe with which the sons of the prophets had gone to cut wood to build the house in which they wanted to read and study the law and commandments of God; just as our Christ, by being crucified on the tree and by purifying [us] with water, has redeemed us, though we were sunk in the gravest sins we had committed, and has made [us] a house of prayer and worship.⁠a Moreover, it was a rod that, by a great mystery, revealed Judah to be the father of Tamar’s sons.”

The Spirit at the Baptism of Jesus

1 When I had said these things, Trypho said, “Do not think from now on that I am trying to overturn what you have said by asking the questions I ask; I want to learn about the very points I am asking about. 2 Tell me, then: the Scripture says through Isaiah, ‘A rod shall come out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall grow up from the root of Jesse; and the Spirit of God shall rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill Him.’ Now you admitted to me,” he went on, “that this was said of Christ, and you say He is God existing beforehand, and that, having become flesh by the will of God, He was born a man through the Virgin. How, then, can He be shown to have existed beforehand, when He is filled with the powers of the Holy Spirit that the Scripture lists through Isaiah, as if He lacked them?” 3 Then I replied, “You have asked a very thoughtful and very shrewd question, for there truly does seem to be a difficulty; but listen to what I say, so that you may see the explanation of this as well. The Scripture says that these listed powers of the Spirit came on Him, not because He needed them, but because they were going to rest on Him, that is, come to an end in Him, so that there would no longer be prophets in your nation as in the old days; and this you can see for yourselves. For after Him no prophet at all has arisen among you. 4 Now, [to see] that your prophets, each receiving one or two powers from God, did and said the things we have learned from the Scriptures, consider what I am about to say. Solomon possessed the spirit of wisdom, Daniel that of understanding and counsel, Moses that of might and piety, Elijah that of fear, and Isaiah that of knowledge; and so with the others: each possessed one power, or one power in turn joined with another, as did Jeremiah, the twelve [prophets], David, and in short all the other prophets who have lived among you. 5 So the Spirit rested, that is, ceased, when He came. After Him, in the time of this plan of salvation carried out by Him among people, these gifts had to cease from you; and having come to rest in Him, they were to become again, as had been foretold, gifts that He gives, from the grace of His Spirit’s power, to those who believe in Him, as He knows each one to be worthy. 6 I have said already, and I say again, that it had been prophesied that He would do this after His ascension to heaven. So it is said, ‘He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to the sons of men.’ And again, in another prophecy it is said: ‘And after this, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and on My male servants and My female servants, and they shall prophesy.’

1 “And among us you can see both women and men who have gifts from the Spirit of God. So it was prophesied that the powers listed by Isaiah would come on Him, not because He lacked power, but because they would not continue after Him. And let this also be a proof to you: what I told you was done by the Magi from Arabia, who came and worshiped Him as soon as the Child was born. 2 For even at His birth He possessed His power; and as He grew up in the common way of all other people, using what was fitting, He gave each stage of growth its due and was nourished by every kind of food, and He waited thirty years, more or less, until John appeared before Him as the herald of His coming and went ahead of Him on the way of baptism, as I have already shown. 3 And then, when Jesus had come to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and had gone down into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan; and when He came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit landed on Him like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote. 4 Now, we know that He did not go to the river because He needed baptism or the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove, just as He did not submit to being born and crucified because He needed these things, but for the sake of the human race, which since Adam had fallen under death and the deception of the serpent, each person having done evil through their own fault. 5 For God, wanting both angels and humans, who were made with free will and in charge of themselves, to do whatever He had empowered each to do, made them so that if they chose what pleases Him, He would keep them free from death and from punishment, but if they did evil, He would punish each as He sees fit. 6 For it was not His entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, which we have shown was prophesied, that gave Him the power to be Christ; it gave people a sign that He is the Christ, just as in the time of John people needed a sign so that they might recognize who the Christ is. 7 For when John stayed by the Jordan and preached the baptism of repentance, wearing only a leather belt and a garment of camel’s hair and eating nothing but locusts and wild honey, people supposed him to be the Christ; but he cried out to them, ‘I am not the Christ, but the voice of one crying out; for One stronger than I will come, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.’ 8 And when Jesus came to the Jordan, He was thought to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, and He appeared without beauty, as the Scriptures proclaimed, and was considered a carpenter (for while He was among people He did carpenter’s work, making plows and yokes, by which He also taught the symbols of righteousness and an active life); then the Holy Spirit, for the sake of humanity, as I said before, landed on Him in the form of a dove, and at the same moment a voice came from the heavens, the one also spoken through David when he said, in the person of Christ, what the Father would say to Him: ‘You are My Son; today I have begotten You.’ [The Father was] saying that His birth would take place for people at the time when they would come to know Him: ‘You are My Son; today I have begotten You.’ ”

A Crucified Messiah

1 Then Trypho said, “Be assured that our whole nation waits for the Christ, and we admit that all the Scriptures you have quoted refer to Him. I will also admit this: the name Jesus, which the son of Nave (Nun) was called, has strongly inclined me toward this view as well. 2 But whether the Christ was to be crucified so shamefully, about this we are in doubt. For the law says that whoever is crucified is accursed, so that on this point I am still very hard to persuade. It is clear that the Scriptures proclaim that the Christ was to suffer; but we want to learn whether you can also prove that it was to be by the suffering cursed in the law.” 3 I replied to him, “If the Christ was not going to suffer, and the prophets had not foretold that He would be led to death because of the sins of the people, and be dishonored and whipped, and counted among the lawless, and be led like a sheep to the slaughter, whose generation, the prophet says, no one can tell, then you would have good reason to be surprised. But if these things are what characterize Him and point Him out to everyone, how could we do anything but believe in Him with full confidence? And will not all who have understood the writings of the prophets say that this is He and no other, as soon as they hear only that He was crucified?”

1 “Lead us on, then,” said [Trypho], “from the Scriptures, so that we too may be persuaded by you; for we know that He was to suffer and be led like a sheep. But prove to us whether He was also to be crucified and die so disgracefully and so dishonorably by the death cursed in the law. For we cannot even bring ourselves to think of this.” 2 “You know,” I said, “that whatever the prophets said and did they veiled in parables and types, as you have admitted to us, so that most of it could not easily be understood by everyone, since they concealed the truth in them, so that those eager to find and learn it would have to work hard.” They answered, “We admitted this.” 3 “Listen, then,” I say, “to what follows; for Moses was the first to display this apparent curse of Christ through the signs he made.” “What [signs] do you mean?” he said. 4 “When the people,” I replied, “were at war with Amalek, and the son of Nave (Nun), named Jesus (Joshua), was leading the fight, Moses himself prayed to God with both hands stretched out, and Hur and Aaron held them up all day long, so that they would not drop when he grew tired. For if he relaxed this posture that imitated the cross at all, the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but as long as he held this position, Amalek was defeated to that extent, and the one who prevailed prevailed through the cross. 5 For it was not because Moses prayed in this way that the people grew stronger, but because, while the one who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was at the front of the battle, Moses himself was making the sign of the cross. For which of you does not know that the prayer that most of all wins God’s favor is the one offered with lament and tears, with the body lying face down or on bended knees? But neither he nor anyone after him ever prayed this way while sitting on a stone. And the stone, too, is a symbol of Christ, as I have shown.

1 “And God shows the power of the mystery of the cross in another way through Moses, when He said in the blessing with which Joseph was blessed, ‘His land is from the blessing of the Lord: from the seasons of heaven and the dews, and from the deep springs below, and from the seasonal fruits of the sun, and from the coming together of the months, and from the heights of the everlasting mountains, and from the heights of the hills, and from the ever-flowing rivers, and from the fruits of the richness of the earth; and let the things acceptable to Him who appeared in the bush come on the head and crown of Joseph. Let him be glorified among his brothers; his beauty is [like] that of a firstborn bull; his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them he shall gore the nations together, from one end of the earth to the other.’ 2 Now, no one could say or prove that the horns of a unicorn represent any other thing or shape than the type that portrays the cross. For one beam stands upright, and its topmost part rises up into a horn when the other beam is fitted onto it, and the ends appear on both sides like horns joined to the one horn. And the part fixed in the middle, on which those who are crucified are held up, also sticks out like a horn, and it too looks like a horn shaped and fixed together with the other horns.⁠a 3 And the phrase ‘With them he shall gore the nations together, from one end of the earth to the other’ points to what has now come about among all the nations. For people from all the nations, having been gored in this way through this mystery, that is, pierced to the heart, have turned from worthless idols and demons to the worship of God. But to unbelievers the same shape is shown for their destruction and condemnation, just as among the people who came out of Egypt Amalek was defeated and Israel was victorious through the type of Moses’ outstretched hands and the name Jesus (Joshua), which the son of Nave (Nun) was given. 4 And the type and sign set up against the serpents that bit Israel appears to have been raised for the salvation of those who believe that, through the One who was to be crucified, death was proclaimed from then on for the serpent, but salvation for those bitten by it who take refuge in the One who sent His crucified Son into the world. For the Spirit of prophecy did not teach us through Moses to believe in the serpent, since it shows that the serpent was cursed by God from the beginning, and in Isaiah it indicates that it will be killed as an enemy by the great sword, which is Christ.

1 “So unless someone, by God’s great grace, receives the ability to understand what the prophets said and did, it will do him no good to seem able to repeat their words or deeds if he cannot give an account of them. And will they not surely seem contemptible to many when they are told by people who do not understand them? 2 For if someone wanted to ask you why, since Enoch, Noah with his sons, and any others like them pleased God without being circumcised or keeping the Sabbath, God required, through other leaders and the giving of the law after so many generations had passed, that those who lived from Abraham to Moses be justified by circumcision, and that those who lived after Moses be justified by circumcision and the other commandments, namely the Sabbath, sacrifices, libations, and offerings, [God will be slandered] unless you show, as I have already said, that God, who knows beforehand, knew that your nation would deserve to be expelled from Jerusalem and that no one would be allowed to enter it. 3 For there is nothing else that marks you out, as I said before, except circumcision in the flesh. Abraham was not declared righteous by God because of circumcision, but because of faith. For before he was circumcised, this was said of him: ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ 4 So we too, believing God through Christ while uncircumcised in our flesh, and having the circumcision that benefits those of us who have received it, that is, the circumcision of the heart, hope to be found righteous and pleasing to God, since we have already received His testimony through the words of the prophets. [And further, God will be slandered unless you show] that you were commanded to keep the Sabbath and bring offerings, and that the Lord allowed a place to be called by the name of God, so that, as has been said, you might not become irreverent and godless by worshiping idols and forgetting God, as indeed you have always shown yourselves to be. 5 Now, I have already proved in what I said earlier that God gave the commandments about Sabbaths and offerings for these reasons; but for the sake of those who came today I want to go over nearly all of it again. For if this is not so, God will be slandered as having no foreknowledge and as not teaching all people to know and do the same righteous things (for many generations of people evidently lived before Moses); and the Scripture that says, ‘God is true and righteous, and all His ways are judgments, and there is no unrighteousness in Him,’ is not true. 6 But since the Scripture is true, God always wants even people like you not to be foolish or selfish, so that you may be saved with Christ, who pleased God and received His testimony, as I have already said, offering proof from the holy words of prophecy.

1 “For [God] sets before every race of humanity what is always and everywhere just, and all righteousness; and every race knows that adultery, sexual immorality, murder, and the like are wrong. And though they all do such things, they still cannot escape knowing that they are doing wrong when they do them, except those who are filled with an unclean spirit and have been corrupted by upbringing, bad customs, and wicked laws, and have lost, or rather extinguished and suppressed, their natural sense of right. 2 For we can see that such people are unwilling to suffer the same things they inflict on others, and with hostile consciences they reproach one another for the things they do. That is why I think our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke well when He said that all righteousness and piety are fulfilled in two commandments. They are these: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.’ For the one who loves God with all the heart and with all the strength, being filled with a God-fearing mind, will honor no other god; and he would honor that angel, since God wills it, who is loved by the same Lord and God. And the one who loves his neighbor as himself will want for him the same good things he wants for himself, and no one wants bad things for himself. 3 So the one who loves his neighbor would pray and work for his neighbor to have the same good things as himself. And a human being’s neighbor is nothing other than the being who has the same feelings and the same reason: another human being. So, since all righteousness is divided into two parts, toward God and toward people, whoever, the Scripture says, loves the Lord God with all the heart and all the strength, and his neighbor as himself, would truly be a righteous person. 4 But you have never been shown to have friendship or love toward God, or toward the prophets, or toward yourselves; on the contrary, as is evident, you are always found to be idolaters and murderers of the righteous, so much so that you even laid hands on Christ Himself, and to this very day you persist in your wickedness, cursing those who prove that this man you crucified is the Christ. And beyond this, you claim to prove that He was crucified as an enemy of God and accursed, which is the work of your utterly irrational way of thinking. 5 For though the signs given through Moses give you the means to understand that this man is the Christ, you refuse; and on top of that, imagining that we have no answers, you raise whatever question comes into your heads, while you yourselves run out of arguments whenever you meet a Christian who stands firm.

1 “For tell me, was it not God who commanded through Moses that no image or likeness of anything in heaven above or on the earth should be made at all, and who nevertheless had Moses make the bronze serpent in the wilderness and set it up as a sign by which those bitten by serpents were saved? And yet He is free from wrongdoing. 2 For by this, as I said before, He proclaimed a mystery, by which He declared that He would break the power of the serpent that brought about Adam’s transgression, and [would bring] salvation from the serpent’s bites, which are wicked deeds, idolatries, and other wrongs, to those who believe in Him [who was foreshadowed] by this sign, that is, the One who was to be put to death on the cross. 3 If it is not understood this way, give me a reason why Moses set up the bronze serpent as a sign and told those who were bitten to look at it, and those who were bitten were healed, and this when he himself had commanded that no likeness of anything at all should be made.” 4 At this, another of those who had come on the second day said, “You are right; we cannot give a reason. I have often asked the teachers about this, and none of them gave me a reason. So go on with what you are saying, for we are listening while you uncover the mystery, the reason the teachings of the prophets are falsely slandered.” 5 Then I replied, “Just as God commanded the sign to be made through the bronze serpent and yet is blameless, so too, though the law lays a curse on people who are crucified, no curse lies on the Christ of God, through whom He saves all who have done things deserving a curse.

1 “For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things written in the book of the law, to do them.’ And no one has done all of them exactly, nor will you dare to deny this; but some have kept the commandments more and some less than others. But if those who are under this law are shown to be under a curse for not keeping all of it, how much more will all the nations be shown to be under a curse, since they practice idolatry, abuse children, and do other evil things? 2 If, then, the Father of all willed that His own Christ take on Himself the curses of all, for people of every race, knowing that He would raise Him up after He had been crucified and had died, why do you speak of Him who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will as if He were accursed, instead of lamenting for yourselves? For even though His Father caused Him to suffer these things for the sake of the human race, you did not do it in obedience to the will of God; nor were you practicing piety when you killed the prophets. 3 And let none of you say, ‘If His Father wanted Him to suffer this, so that by His wounds the human race might be healed, we have done nothing wrong.’ If you repent of your sins, recognize Him to be the Christ, and keep His commandments, then you may say this; for, as I said before, you will have forgiveness of sins. 4 But if you curse Him and those who believe in Him, and put them to death whenever you have the power, how can you not be held to account for laying your hands on Him, as unrighteous and sinful people, utterly hard-hearted and without understanding?

1 “For the statement in the law, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,’ strengthens our hope, which hangs on the crucified Christ, not because God curses the One who was crucified, but because God foretold what would be done by all of you and by those like you, who do not know that this is the One who existed before all things, who was to be the eternal Priest of God, and King, and Christ. 2 And you can see with your own eyes that this has come about. For in your synagogues you curse all those who have become Christians through Him, and the other nations put the curse into effect, killing those who simply confess that they are Christians. To all of them we say, ‘You are our brothers; recognize the truth of God instead.’ And when neither they nor you are persuaded by us, but strive hard to make us deny the name of Christ, we choose death instead and endure it, fully convinced that God will repay us with all the good things He has promised through Christ. 3 And on top of all this we pray for you, that you may receive mercy from Christ. For He taught us to pray even for our enemies, saying, ‘Love your enemies; be kind and merciful, as your heavenly Father is.’ For we see that the Almighty God is kind and merciful, making His sun rise on the ungrateful and on the righteous, and sending rain on the holy and on the wicked, all of whom, He has taught us, He will judge.

1 “For it was not without purpose that the prophet Moses stayed in this position until evening while Hur and Aaron held up his hands. For the Lord too remained on the tree almost until evening, and they buried Him toward evening; then on the third day He rose again. This was proclaimed through David as follows: ‘I cried to the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke up, for the Lord sustained me.’ 2 And through Isaiah, likewise, the manner in which He would die was spoken of in this way: ‘I have spread out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people, who walk in a way that is not good.’ And that He would rise again, Isaiah himself said: ‘His burial has been taken away from the midst, and I will give the rich for His death.’ 3 And again, in other words, David in the twenty-first Psalm speaks of the suffering and of the cross in a mysterious parable: ‘They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones. They looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots for my clothing.’ For when they crucified Him, they pierced His hands and feet by driving in the nails; and those who crucified Him divided His garments among themselves, each casting lots for what he wanted to have and taking it as the lot fell. 4 And you say that this very Psalm does not refer to Christ, for you are blind in every respect and do not understand that no one in your nation who has ever been called King or Christ had his hands and feet pierced while alive, or died by this mystery, that is, by being crucified, except this Jesus alone.

1 “I will recite the whole Psalm, so that you may hear His reverence toward the Father, and how He refers everything to Him and asks to be saved by Him from this death, while at the same time showing in the Psalm what sort of people rose up against Him, and proving that He truly became a man capable of suffering. 2 It goes like this: ‘God, my God, pay attention to me; why have You forsaken me? The words of my transgressions are far from my salvation. My God, I will cry to You by day, and You will not hear; and by night, and it is not for lack of understanding on my part. But You, the Praise of Israel, dwell in the holy place. Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them. They cried to You and were saved; they trusted in You and were not put to shame. 3 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by people and despised by the nation. All who see me have sneered at me; they spoke with their lips, they shook their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let Him rescue him, let Him save him, since He delights in him. For You are the One who drew me out of the womb, my hope from my mother’s breasts; I was cast on You from the womb; from my mother’s belly You are my God. Do not stand far from me, for trouble is near, for there is no one to help. 4 Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have closed in on me. They opened their mouths against me like a ravening and roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and scattered like water. My heart has become like wax melting in the middle of my belly. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my throat; and You have brought me down into the dust of death. For many dogs have surrounded me; an assembly of evildoers has closed in on me. They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones. They looked and stared at me; 5 they divided my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing. But You, Lord, do not keep Your help far from me; give heed to help me. Rescue my soul from the sword, and my only-begotten from the hand of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare Your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will praise You. You who fear the Lord, praise Him; all you seed of Jacob, glorify Him. Let all the seed of Israel fear Him.’ ”

1 When I had said this, I went on: “Now I will show you that the whole Psalm was spoken in this way about Christ, by explaining it again. What it says first, ‘God, my God, pay attention to me; why have You forsaken me?’, foretold from long before what was going to be said in the time of Christ. For when He was crucified, He said, ‘God, God, why have You forsaken me?’ 2 And what follows, ‘The words of my transgressions are far from my salvation. My God, I will cry to You by day, and You will not hear; and by night, and it is not for lack of understanding on my part,’ was spoken just like the things He was going to do. For on the day He was to be crucified, He took three of His disciples to the hill called the Mount of Olives, right across from the temple in Jerusalem, and prayed in these words: ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’ And after this He prayed, ‘Not as I will, but as You will,’ showing by this that He had truly become a man capable of suffering. 3 But so that no one would say, ‘Then He did not know that He was going to suffer,’ He immediately adds in the Psalm, ‘And it is not for lack of understanding on my part.’ Just as it was not out of ignorance that God asked Adam where he was, or asked Cain where Abel was, but [it was done] to expose what kind of person each one was, and so that knowledge of all these things might come down to us through their being written down, so too Christ indicated that the ignorance was not His but theirs, who thought that He was not the Christ and imagined they would put Him to death and that He would stay in Hades like an ordinary man.

1 “Then what follows, ‘But You, the Praise of Israel, dwell in the holy place,’ indicated that He was going to do something worthy of praise and wonder, since He was going to rise from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion; and this He has received from the Father. For I have already shown that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have proved that what concerns Him was proclaimed in a mystery not only in the blessing of Joseph and Judah; it is also written in the Gospel that He said, ‘All things have been handed over to me by My Father,’ and, ‘No one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father and those to whom the Son reveals Him.’ 2 So He has revealed to us everything we have understood from the Scriptures by His grace, so that we know Him to be the firstborn of God and before all creatures, and also the Son of the patriarchs, since He took flesh through the Virgin of their family and submitted to becoming a man without beauty, dishonored, and capable of suffering. 3 That is why, in His sayings, when He was speaking about the suffering to come, He said, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the Pharisees and scribes, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ So He called Himself the Son of Man, either because of His birth through the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the family of David, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, or because Abraham was the father both of Him and of those just listed, from whom Mary traces her descent. For we know that the fathers of women are also the fathers of the children their daughters bear. 4 For [Christ] gave one of His disciples, who was previously called Simon, the name Peter, since by the revelation of His Father he recognized Him to be Christ, the Son of God. And since we find it written in the memoirs of His apostles that He is the Son of God, and since we call Him the Son, we have understood that He came forth from the Father before all creatures by His power and will (for in the writings of the prophets He is called in one way or another Wisdom, the Day, the East, a Sword, a Stone, a Rod, Jacob, and Israel), and that He became man through the Virgin, so that the disobedience that began with the serpent might be undone by the same path by which it began. 5 For Eve, a virgin and uncorrupted, conceived the word of the serpent and gave birth to disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel brought her the good news that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her is the Son of God; and she answered, ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ 6 And through her He was born, the One to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, through whom God destroys the serpent and the angels and people who have become like it, but brings release from death to those who repent of their wicked deeds and believe in Him.

1 “Then the next part of the Psalm, where He says, ‘Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them. They cried to You and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by people and despised by the nation,’ shows that He acknowledges as His fathers those who trusted in God and were saved by Him, who were also the fathers of the Virgin, through whom He was born and became man; and He indicates that He Himself will be saved by the same God, and does not boast of doing anything by His own will or strength. 2 For on earth He did the very same thing: when someone said to Him, ‘Good Teacher,’ He answered, ‘Why do you call me good? One is good, my Father who is in heaven.’ And when He says, ‘I am a worm and not a man, scorned by people and despised by the nation,’ He foretold what plainly is the case and what happens to Him. For we who believe in Him are scorned everywhere; and ‘despised by the nation,’ because, rejected and dishonored by your nation, He suffered the things you plotted against Him. 3 And what follows, ‘All who see me have sneered at me; they spoke with their lips, they shook their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let Him rescue him, since He delights in him,’ He likewise foretold would happen to Him. For those who saw Him crucified each shook their heads and curled their lips, and, wrinkling their noses at one another, they said mockingly the words that are recorded in the memoirs of His apostles: ‘He said he was the Son of God; let him come down and walk about; let God save him.’

1 “And what follows, ‘My hope from my mother’s breasts; I was cast on You from the womb; from my mother’s belly You are my God, for there is no one to help. Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have closed in on me. They opened their mouths against me like a ravening and roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and scattered like water. My heart has become like wax melting in the middle of my belly. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my throat,’ foretold what would happen. 2 For the words ‘My hope from my mother’s breasts’ [are explained this way]: as soon as He was born in Bethlehem, as I said before, King Herod, having learned about Him from the Magi from Arabia, plotted to kill Him, and at God’s command Joseph took Him with Mary and went away into Egypt. For the Father had decided that the One He had begotten would be put to death only after He had grown to manhood and proclaimed the word that came from Him. 3 But if any of you says to us, ‘Could God not have killed Herod instead?’, I answer in advance: Could God not have removed the serpent from existence at the beginning, instead of saying, ‘And I will put enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and her seed’? Could He not have created a multitude of people all at once? 4 But since He knew that it was good, He created both angels and humans free to do what is right, and He set periods of time during which He knew it was good for them to have free will; and because He likewise knew it was good, He made both general and particular judgments, while each one’s free will was still preserved. That is why Scripture says the following at the overthrow of the tower and the confusion and changing of languages: ‘And the Lord said, Look, they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they have begun to do; and now nothing they set out to do will fail them.’ 5 And the statement, ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my throat,’ was also a prophecy of what He would do according to the Father’s will. For the power of His mighty word, with which He always refuted the Pharisees and scribes, and in short all the teachers of your nation who argued with Him, came to a stop, like an abundant and powerful spring whose water has been cut off, when He fell silent and chose to give no answer to anyone before Pilate, as is shown in the memoirs of His apostles, so that what was spoken through Isaiah might also bear effective fruit, where it says, ‘The Lord gives me a tongue, to know when I ought to speak a word.’ 6 Again, when He said, ‘You are my God; do not stand far from me,’ He taught that everyone ought to hope in God, who made all things, and seek salvation and help from Him alone, and not think, as other people do, that they can be saved by birth, wealth, strength, or wisdom. And this is what you have always done: at one time you made a calf, and you have always shown yourselves ungrateful, murderers of the righteous, and puffed up because of your descent. 7 For if the Son of God plainly says that He cannot be saved because He is a son, or because He is strong or wise, but that without God He cannot be saved, even though He is sinless, as Isaiah says, declaring that He did not sin even in speech (for He did no wrong, nor was there deceit in His mouth), how can you, or others who expect to be saved without this hope, think that you are not deceiving yourselves?

1 “Then what is said next in the Psalm, ‘For trouble is near, for there is no one to help me. Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have closed in on me. They opened their mouths against me like a ravening and roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and scattered like water,’ was likewise a prediction of what happened to Him. For on that night when some of your people, sent by the Pharisees, scribes, and teachers, came upon Him at the Mount of Olives, those whom Scripture called butting calves doomed to an early death surrounded Him. 2 And with the words ‘Fat bulls have closed in on me’ He spoke beforehand of those who acted like the calves when He was brought before your teachers. Scripture called them bulls because we know that bulls are the cause of calves’ existence. So just as the bulls are the fathers of the calves, your teachers were the reason their children went out to the Mount of Olives to seize Him and bring Him to them. And the words ‘For there is no one to help’ also point to what happened. For there was not a single person to help Him as an innocent man. 3 And the words ‘They opened their mouths against me like a roaring lion’ refer to the one who was then king of the Jews, who was also called Herod, the successor of the Herod who, when Christ was born, killed all the children born in Bethlehem at that time, because he supposed that the One the Magi from Arabia had told him about would surely be among them; for he did not know the will of the One stronger than all, how He had commanded Joseph and Mary to take the Child and go away into Egypt, and to stay there until it was revealed to them again that they should return to their own country. And there they stayed until Herod, who killed the children in Bethlehem, died and Archelaus succeeded him. And Archelaus died before Christ came to the plan carried out by Him according to His Father’s will, His crucifixion. 4 And when Herod succeeded Archelaus and received the authority assigned to him, Pilate sent Jesus to him bound, as a favor; and God, knowing beforehand that this would happen, had said, ‘And they carried Him to the Assyrian as a gift for the king.’ 5 Or by the lion roaring against Him He meant the devil, whom Moses calls the serpent, who is called the devil in Job and Zechariah, and whom Jesus addressed as Satan, showing that he had acquired a compound name from what he did. For ‘Sata’ in the language of the Jews and Syrians means apostate, and ‘nas’ is the word from which, in translation, he is called the serpent, that is, by the translation of the Hebrew term; and from both of these together comes the single word Satanas. 6 For it is written in the memoirs of the apostles that this devil, as soon as [Jesus] came up from the river Jordan, when the voice said to Him, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten You,’ came to Him and tempted Him, even going so far as to say to Him, ‘Worship me’; and Christ answered him, ‘Get behind me, Satan; you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ For since he had deceived Adam, he thought he could accomplish something against Him too. 7 Moreover, the statement ‘All my bones are poured out and scattered like water; my heart has become like wax melting in the middle of my belly’ was a prediction of what happened to Him that night when people came out against Him to the Mount of Olives to seize Him. 8 For in the memoirs that I say were composed by His apostles and those who followed them, [it is written] that His sweat poured down like drops of blood while He prayed and said, ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass’; His heart was clearly trembling, and His bones likewise, and His heart was like wax melting in His belly, so that we may know that the Father wanted His Son truly to undergo such sufferings for our sake, and so that we may not say that He, being the Son of God, did not feel what was happening and being done to Him. 9 Further, the words ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my throat’ were a prediction, as I said before, of that silence, when He who proved all your teachers foolish gave no answer at all.

1 “And the statement, ‘You have brought me down into the dust of death, for many dogs have surrounded me; an assembly of evildoers has closed in on me. They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones. They looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing,’ was a prediction, as I said before, of the kind of death to which the assembly of evildoers would condemn Him. He calls them both dogs and hunters, indicating that those who hunted Him gathered together and worked hard to have Him condemned. And the memoirs of His apostles record that this happened. 2 And I have shown that after His crucifixion those who crucified Him divided His garments among themselves.

1 “And what follows in the Psalm, ‘But You, Lord, do not keep Your help far from me; give heed to help me. Rescue my soul from the sword, and my only-begotten from the hand of the dog; save me from the lion’s mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns,’ was likewise teaching and prediction about what was true of Him and what was going to happen to Him. For I have already shown that He was the only-begotten of the Father of all things, begotten from Him in a unique way as Word and Power, and that He later became man through the Virgin, as we have learned from the memoirs. 2 And it was likewise foretold that He would die by crucifixion. For the passage ‘Rescue my soul from the sword, and my only-begotten from the hand of the dog; save me from the lion’s mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns’ also points to the suffering by which He was going to die, that is, crucifixion. For I have already explained to you that the ‘horns of the unicorns’ are the shape of the cross alone. 3 And His asking that His soul be saved from the sword, the lion’s mouth, and the hand of the dog was a prayer that no one should take possession of His soul, so that when we come to the end of life we may ask the same thing of God, who is able to turn away every shameless evil angel from seizing our souls. 4 And I have shown you that souls survive from the fact that the soul of Samuel was called up by the witch, as Saul demanded. And it also appears that all the souls of righteous people and prophets like him fell under the power of such forces, as is in fact admitted from what happened in the case of that witch. 5 That is why God also teaches us through His Son to strive in every way to become righteous, and at our departure to pray that our souls may not fall into the hands of any such power. For when He was giving up His spirit on the cross, He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit,’ as I have also learned from the memoirs. 6 For when He urged His disciples to surpass the way of life of the Pharisees, warning them that if they did not, they could be sure they would not be saved, it is recorded in the memoirs that He said, ‘Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’

1 “The rest of the Psalm shows that He knew His Father would grant Him everything He asked and would raise Him from the dead; that He urged all who fear God to praise God because, through the mystery of the One who was crucified, He had mercy on every race of believing people; and that He stood in the midst of His brothers the apostles, who repented of having deserted Him when He was crucified, after He rose from the dead and convinced them that even before His suffering He had told them He must suffer these things, and that these things had been proclaimed beforehand by the prophets; and that while He was with them He sang praises to God, as the memoirs of the apostles also show happened. 2 The words are these: ‘I will declare Your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will praise You. You who fear the Lord, praise Him; all you seed of Jacob, glorify Him. Let all the seed of Israel fear Him.’ 3 And the statement that He renamed one of the apostles Peter, which is also written in His memoirs as having happened, along with His giving two other brothers, the sons of Zebedee, the name Boanerges, which means sons of thunder, was a sign that He was the One through whom Jacob was given the name Israel and Oshea was named Jesus (Joshua), the name under which the people who survived of those who came out of Egypt were brought into the land promised to the patriarchs.⁠a 4 And Moses showed beforehand that He would rise like a star from the race of Abraham when he said, ‘A star shall rise from Jacob, and a leader from Israel’; and another Scripture says, ‘Look, a man; the East is His name.’ So when a star rose in the sky at the time of His birth, as is recorded in the memoirs of His apostles, the Magi from Arabia recognized Him by it, and came and worshiped Him.

1 “And as for His rising again on the third day after the crucifixion, it is written in the memoirs that some of your nation, arguing with Him, said, ‘Show us a sign’; and He answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to them except the sign of Jonah.’ And since He said this in veiled terms, His hearers were to understand that after His crucifixion He would rise again on the third day. 2 And He showed that your generation was more wicked and more adulterous than the city of Nineveh. For when Jonah, after being thrown up on the third day from the belly of the great fish, preached to them that after three (other copies read forty) days they would all perish, they proclaimed a fast for all living things, people and animals alike, with sackcloth and earnest wailing, with true repentance from the heart and a turning away from wrongdoing, believing that God is merciful and kind to all who turn from wickedness; so that the king of that city himself, and his nobles too, put on sackcloth and kept on fasting and praying, and they obtained what they asked, that their city would not be overthrown. 3 But when Jonah was grieved that the city was not overthrown on the third (or fortieth) day, as he had proclaimed, [God], by arranging for a gourd to spring up out of the earth for him, under which he sat and was shaded from the heat (the gourd had sprung up suddenly, though Jonah had neither planted nor watered it, appearing all at once to give him shade), and by the further arrangement of its withering away, which grieved Jonah, showed him that he was wrong to be upset that the city of Nineveh had not been overthrown, and said, 4 ‘You have had pity on the gourd, which you did not labor over or make grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which live more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many animals as well?’

1 “And though all the people of your nation knew what happened to Jonah, and though Christ cried out among you that He would give you the sign of Jonah, urging you to repent of your wicked deeds at least after He rose from the dead, and to weep before God as the Ninevites did, so that your nation and city might not be taken and destroyed, as they have been destroyed, 2 you not only did not repent after you learned that He had risen from the dead, but, as I said before, you appointed chosen men and sent them throughout the whole world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had arisen from a certain Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but whose disciples stole him by night from the tomb where he had been laid after being taken down from the cross, and now deceive people by claiming that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. And you accuse Him of having taught the godless, lawless, and unholy things that you say, before every race of people, against those who confess Him to be Christ, Teacher, and Son of God. 3 Besides this, even though your city has been captured and your land laid waste, you do not repent, but dare to curse Him and all who believe in Him. Yet we do not hate you, or those who because of you have come to think such things about us; instead we pray that even now all of you may repent and find mercy from God, the compassionate and merciful Father of all.

The Nations as the True Israel

1 “But bear with me while I show you, by quoting a few words from the prophecy of Micah, one of the twelve [Minor Prophets], that the Gentiles would repent of the wickedness in which they lived astray once they heard the word preached by His apostles from Jerusalem and learned it through them. 2 The words are these: ‘And in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be visible, established on the top of the mountains; it shall be raised above the hills, and peoples shall stream to it. And many nations shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and they will enlighten us in His way, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between many peoples and rebuke strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and they shall not learn war anymore. 3 And each one shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there shall be no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples will walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever. And in that day I will assemble her who is afflicted, and gather her who is driven out and whom I had harmed; and I will make her who is afflicted a remnant, and her who is oppressed a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them on Mount Zion from now on and forever.’ ”

1 When I had finished these words, I went on: “Now I am aware, sirs, that your teachers admit that all the words of this passage refer to Christ; and I also know that they say He has not yet come, or, if they say He has come, that it is not known who He is, but that when He becomes visible and glorious, then it will be known who He is. 2 And then, they say, the things mentioned in this passage will happen, as if the words of the prophecy had not yet borne any fruit at all. Thoughtless people! They do not understand what has been proved by all these passages: that two comings of Christ have been announced, one in which He is proclaimed as suffering, without glory, dishonored, and crucified, and the second in which He will come from heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy, who speaks outrageous things against the Most High, will dare to do lawless deeds on the earth against us Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the law and from the word that went out from Jerusalem through the apostles of Jesus, have taken refuge in the God of Jacob and God of Israel. 3 And we who were filled with war, killing one another, and every kind of wickedness have, all over the earth, each turned our weapons of war into farm tools, our swords into plowshares and our spears into tools for tilling the soil, and we cultivate piety, righteousness, love of humanity, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through the One who was crucified; and each of us sits under his own vine, that is, each man has his own wedded wife alone. For you know that the prophetic word says, ‘And his wife shall be like a fruitful vine.’ 4 Now it is evident that there is no one who can frighten or enslave us who have believed in Jesus all over the earth. For it is plain that, though we are beheaded, crucified, thrown to wild beasts, and subjected to chains, fire, and every other kind of torture, we do not abandon our confession; but the more such things happen, the more others, in greater numbers, become believers and worshipers of God through the name of Jesus. For just as when someone cuts away the fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it sprouts again and puts out other branches, healthy and fruitful, so the same thing happens with us. For the vine planted by God and Christ the Savior is His people. 5 But the rest of the prophecy will be fulfilled at His second coming. For the words ‘her who is afflicted [and driven out],’ that is, from the world, [mean] that, as far as it lies in the power of you and all other people, every Christian has been driven out not only from his own property but from the whole world, since you allow no Christian to live. 6 But you say that this has happened to your own nation. Now, if you have been driven out after being defeated in war, you have suffered this justly, as all the Scriptures testify; but we, though we have done nothing of the kind since we came to know the truth of God, are declared by God to be taken away from the earth together with Christ, the most righteous and the only spotless and sinless One. For Isaiah cries out, ‘Look how the righteous one perishes, and no one takes it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers it.’

1 “And I have already said that even through Moses it was foretold in a symbol that this Christ would have two comings, by the symbol of the goats offered during the fast. And again, the same thing was announced and told beforehand in symbol by what Moses and Joshua did. For one of them stayed on the hill until evening with his hands stretched out and held up, which shows a type of nothing other than the cross; and the other, whose name was changed to Jesus (Joshua), led the battle, and Israel won. 2 And this too can be seen to have happened with both of those holy men and prophets of God: one of them alone could not carry both mysteries, I mean the type of the cross and the type of the name. For this strength is, was, and will be His alone, whose name every power dreads, in anguish because they are going to be destroyed by Him. So our suffering and crucified Christ was not cursed by the law, but showed that He alone would save those who do not abandon His faith. 3 And the blood of the Passover, smeared on both doorposts and the lintel, rescued those who were saved in Egypt when the firstborn of the Egyptians were destroyed. For the Passover was Christ, who was later sacrificed, as Isaiah also said, ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.’ And it is written that you seized Him on the day of the Passover and crucified Him likewise during the Passover. And as the blood of the Passover saved those who were in Egypt, so the blood of Christ will rescue from death those who have believed. 4 Would God, then, have been mistaken if this sign had not been on the doors? I do not say so; I say that He was announcing beforehand the salvation that would come to the human race through the blood of Christ. For the sign of the scarlet thread, which the spies sent to Jericho by Joshua son of Nave (Nun) gave to Rahab the prostitute, telling her to tie it to the window through which she let them down to escape their enemies, likewise showed the symbol of the blood of Christ, through which those from all nations who were once sexually immoral and unrighteous are saved, receiving forgiveness of sins and no longer sinning.

1 “But by interpreting these things in a low [and earthly] way, you accuse God of great weakness, if you hear them so superficially and do not examine the force of what is said. For on that reading even Moses would be judged a lawbreaker: he commanded that no likeness of anything in heaven, on earth, or in the sea be made, and then he himself made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and told those who were bitten to look at it; and they were saved when they looked at it. 2 Are we to understand, then, that the serpent saved the people at that time, the serpent that, as I said before, God cursed at the beginning and will destroy with the great sword, as Isaiah says? And are we to take such things in the foolish sense your teachers give them, and not as symbols? Shall we not rather refer the sign to the image of the crucified Jesus, since Moses too, by his outstretched hands, together with the one named Jesus (Joshua), won victory for your people? 3 For in this way we will stop being puzzled about what the lawgiver did. He did not abandon God and persuade the people to put their hope in the creature through which transgression and disobedience began. This was done and said by the blessed prophet with great understanding and mystery, and there is nothing said or done by any of the prophets without exception that anyone can rightly find fault with, if you have the knowledge that is in them. 4 But if your teachers explain to you only why female camels are not mentioned in this passage, or what the so-called female camels are, or why there are so many measures of fine flour and so many measures of oil in the offerings, and do even this in a low and groveling way, while they never dare to speak about or explain the great things that are worth investigating, or even order you not to listen at all when we explain them and not to enter into conversation with us, do they not deserve to hear what our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: ‘Whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful outside and inside are full of dead men’s bones; you pay tithes of mint and swallow the camel, you blind guides!’? 5 So unless you despise the teachings of those who exalt themselves and want to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, and come to the words of prophecy with such determination and understanding that you suffer from your own people the same things the prophets themselves suffered, you cannot gain any benefit at all from the prophetic writings.

1 “What I mean is this. Jesus (Joshua), as I have often said, who was called Oshea, the one sent with Caleb to spy out the land of Canaan, was named Jesus (Joshua) by Moses. You do not ask why he did this; you are not puzzled by it and are not curious to find out. That is why Christ has escaped your notice, and though you read, you do not understand; and even now, when you hear that Jesus is our Christ, you do not stop to think that the name was not given to that man idly or by chance. 2 But you theorize about why one ‘α’ was added to Abraham’s original name, and you hold forth just as grandly about why one ‘ρ’ was added to Sarah’s name. Why, then, do you not likewise investigate why the name his father gave Oshea the son of Nave (Nun) was changed completely to Jesus (Joshua)? 3 But since not only was his name changed, but he also became Moses’ successor, and he alone of those of his age who came out of Egypt led the surviving people into the Holy Land; and as he, not Moses, led the people into the Holy Land, and as he distributed it by lot to those who entered with him, so Jesus the Christ will gather back the scattered people and distribute the good land to each one,⁠a though not in the same way. 4 For the one gave them a temporary inheritance, since he was neither Christ who is God nor the Son of God; but the other, after the resurrection of the saints, will give us the eternal possession. The first, after he had been renamed Jesus (Joshua) and had received strength from His Spirit, made the sun stand still. For I have proved that it was Jesus who appeared to and spoke with Moses, Abraham, and all the other patriarchs without exception, serving the will of the Father; and He, I say, also came to be born a man through the Virgin Mary, and He lives forever. 5 For He is the One after whom and through whom the Father will renew both the heaven and the earth; He is the One who will shine as an eternal light in Jerusalem; He is the king of Salem according to the order of Melchizedek, and the eternal Priest of the Most High. 6 The first is said to have circumcised the people a second time with knives of stone, which was a proclamation of this circumcision with which Jesus Christ Himself has circumcised us from stone idols and idols of other materials; and to have gathered into heaps those who were circumcised from the uncircumcision, that is, from the error of the world, everywhere by knives of stone, namely the words of our Lord Jesus.⁠b For I have shown that Christ was proclaimed by the prophets in parables as a Stone and a Rock. 7 So we will take the knives of stone to mean His words, by which so many who were astray have been circumcised from uncircumcision with the circumcision of the heart. With this circumcision God, through Jesus (Joshua), urged even those who had the circumcision that began with Abraham to be circumcised from that time on, when He said that Jesus (Joshua) circumcised a second time with knives of stone those who entered that holy land.

1 “For sometimes the Holy Spirit caused something to be done openly that was a type of what was to come; and sometimes He spoke words about what was going to happen as if it were happening then or had already happened. And unless readers recognize this technique, they will not be able to follow the words of the prophets as they should. As examples, I will quote some prophetic passages, so that you may follow what I am saying. 2 When He says through Isaiah, ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer,’ He speaks as if the suffering had already happened. And when He says again, ‘I have spread out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people,’ and when He says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’, the words are spoken as if announcing things that had already happened. For I have shown that Christ is often called a Stone in parable, and Jacob and Israel in figurative speech. 3 And again, when He says, ‘I will look at the heavens, the works of Your fingers,’ unless I understand how He uses words, I will not understand it intelligently, but just as your teachers think, imagining that the Father of all, the unbegotten God, has hands and feet and fingers and a soul, like a composite creature; and for this reason they teach that it was the Father Himself who appeared to Abraham and to Jacob. 4 Blessed, then, are we who have been circumcised the second time with knives of stone. For your first circumcision was and is done with iron, since you remain hard-hearted; but our circumcision, which is second in number, having appeared after yours, circumcises us from idolatry and from absolutely every kind of wickedness by sharp stones, that is, by the words [preached] by the apostles of the cornerstone cut out without hands. And our hearts are so circumcised from evil that we even rejoice to die for the name of the good Rock, which makes living water gush out for the hearts of those who through Him have loved the Father of all, and gives the water of life to drink to those who are willing. 5 But you do not understand me when I say these things; for you have not understood what it was prophesied that Christ would do, and you do not believe us when we direct you to what has been written. For Jeremiah cries out this way: ‘Woe to you, because you have forsaken the living fountain and dug for yourselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Shall there be a desert where Mount Zion is, because I gave Jerusalem a certificate of divorce in your sight?’

1 “But you ought to believe Zechariah when he shows the mystery of Christ in a parable and proclaims it in a hidden way. His words are these: ‘Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion, for look, I am coming, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst, and they shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 2 And the Lord shall take possession of Judah as His portion in the holy land, and He shall choose Jerusalem again. Let all flesh be reverent before the Lord, for He has risen up from His holy clouds. And He showed me Jesus (Joshua) the high priest standing before the angel [of the Lord], and the devil stood at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to the devil, May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Look, is this not a burning stick snatched from the fire?’ ” 3 As Trypho was about to answer and contradict me, I said, “First wait and hear what I say, for I am not going to give the explanation you expect, as if there had been no priest named Joshua (Jesus) in the land of Babylon, where your nation was held captive. And even if I did, I have shown that, while there was a priest named Joshua (Jesus) in your nation, the prophet did not see that man himself in his revelation, just as he did not see the devil or the angel of the Lord with his own eyes while in his normal state, but in a trance, when the revelation was given to him. 4 But now I say that, just as [Scripture] said that the son of Nave (Nun), through the name Jesus (Joshua), performed mighty works and deeds that proclaimed beforehand what our Lord would do, so I now go on to show that the revelation given among your people in Babylon in the days of Jesus (Joshua) the priest was an announcement of what would be done by our Priest, who is God, and Christ, the Son of God the Father of all. 5 “In fact, I was wondering,” I went on, “why you kept quiet a little while ago when I was speaking, and why you did not pick me up when I said that the son of Nave (Nun) was the only one of his age among those who came out of Egypt who entered the Holy Land, along with those described as younger than that generation. For you rush to sores and swarm on them like flies. 6 For even if someone says ten thousand things well, if there happens to be one small word that displeases you, or that you do not understand, or that is not quite precise, you pay no attention to the many good things, but seize on the little word and work hard to make it out to be something impious and criminal, so that, when you are judged by God with that very same judgment, you will have a much heavier account to give for your great acts of audacity, whether evil deeds or bad interpretations that you produce by distorting the truth. For it is just that you be judged with the judgment with which you judge.

1 “But to give you the explanation of the revelation of the holy Jesus Christ, I take up my argument again and say that this revelation too was made about us who believe in Christ the High Priest, this crucified One. Though we lived in sexual immorality and every kind of filthy conduct, by the grace of our Jesus, according to His Father’s will, we have stripped off all the filthy wickedness we were clothed in. And though the devil always stands by to oppose us, wanting to draw everyone to himself, the Angel of God, that is, the Power of God sent to us through Jesus Christ, rebukes him, and he leaves us. 2 And we are like something snatched from the fire, purified from our former sins and [rescued] from the affliction and the fiery trial with which the devil and all his helpers test us. From these Jesus the Son of God snatches us once again; He has promised to clothe us in the garments prepared for us if we do His commandments, and He has pledged to provide an eternal kingdom [for us]. 3 For just as that Jesus (Joshua), whom the prophet calls a priest, was seen wearing filthy garments because he is said to have taken a prostitute as his wife, and was called a burning stick snatched from the fire because he had received forgiveness of sins when the devil who opposed him was rebuked, so we, who through the name of Jesus have believed as one man in God the Maker of all, have been stripped of our filthy garments, that is, our sins, through the name of His firstborn Son; and refined by fire through the word of His calling, we are the true high-priestly race of God, as God Himself testifies when He says that in every place among the Gentiles people offer Him sacrifices that are pleasing and pure. And God accepts sacrifices from no one except through His priests.

1 “So God testifies in advance that He is pleased with all the sacrifices offered through this name, which Jesus the Christ handed down to be offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which Christians offer in every place throughout the world. But He rejects those offered by you and by those priests of yours, saying, ‘And I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, He says, but you profane it.’ 2 Yet even now, in your love of argument, you say that God does not accept the sacrifices of those called Israelites who lived in Jerusalem at that time, but that He said He accepts the prayers of the people of that nation who were then in the dispersion, and that He calls their prayers sacrifices. Now, I too say that prayers and thanksgivings offered by worthy people are the only perfect sacrifices pleasing to God. 3 For these alone are what Christians have been taught to offer, even in the remembrance made by their food, both solid and liquid, in which they also remember the suffering the Son of God endured for them, whose name the high priests and teachers of your nation have caused to be profaned and blasphemed throughout the whole earth. But these filthy garments, which you have put on all who have become Christians through the name of Jesus, God will show to be taken away from us when He raises everyone from the dead and establishes some, incorruptible, immortal, and free from sorrow, in the everlasting and indestructible kingdom, but sends others away to the everlasting punishment of fire. 4 But as for you and your teachers deceiving yourselves when you interpret the passage as speaking of those of your nation who were in the dispersion, and claim that it calls their prayers and sacrifices offered in every place pure and pleasing, recognize that you are lying and trying in every way to fool yourselves. For, first of all, not even now does your nation extend from the rising of the sun to its setting; there are nations among which none of your race has ever lived. 5 For there is not a single race of people, whether barbarians or Greeks or called by any other name at all, whether they live in wagons, or have no homes, or live in tents tending herds, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Maker of all through the name of the crucified Jesus. And then, as the Scriptures also show, at the time when the prophet Malachi said this, your dispersion over all the earth, as it exists now, had not yet happened.

1 “So you should rather stop loving quarrels and repent before the great day of judgment comes, when all those of your tribes who pierced this Christ will mourn, as I have shown the Scripture foretold. And I have explained that the Lord swore ‘according to the order of Melchizedek,’ and what this prediction means; and I have already said that the prophecy of Isaiah which says, ‘His burial has been taken away from the midst,’ referred to Christ’s coming burial and resurrection; and I have often said that this very Christ is the Judge of all the living and the dead. 2 And Nathan likewise, speaking to David about Him, went on: ‘I will be His Father, and He shall be my Son; and I will not take my mercy away from Him, as I did from those before Him; and I will establish Him in my house and in His kingdom forever.’ And Ezekiel speaks of no other prince in the house but Him. For He is the chosen Priest and eternal King, the Christ, since He is the Son of God; and do not think that Isaiah or the other prophets speak of sacrifices of blood or libations being brought to the altar at His second coming, but of true and spiritual praises and thanksgivings. 3 And we have not believed in Him in vain, and we have not been led astray by those who taught us this; it came about through the wonderful providence of God, so that we, through the calling of the new and eternal covenant, that is, of Christ, might be found more understanding and more God-fearing than you, who are thought to be lovers of God and people of understanding, but are not. 4 Isaiah, amazed at this, said, ‘And kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom nothing was announced about Him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ “And in saying these things again, Trypho,” I went on, “I am trying, as far as possible, to repeat the same points for the sake of those who came with you today, but briefly and concisely.” 5 Then he replied, “You are doing well; and even if you repeat the same things at greater length, rest assured that my companions and I are glad to listen.”

1 Then I said again, “Do you think, sirs, that we could ever have understood these things in the Scriptures if we had not received the grace to understand them by the will of the One who willed it? This happened so that what was said through Moses might come to pass: 2 ‘They provoked me with foreign [gods]; they angered me with their abominations. They sacrificed to demons they did not know, new gods recently arrived, whom their fathers did not know. You have forsaken the God who fathered you, and forgotten the God who nourished you. And the Lord saw and was jealous, and was provoked to anger by the fury of His sons and daughters; and He said, I will turn My face away from them, and I will show what will happen to them at the end; for it is a perverse generation, children who have no faith. They made Me jealous with what is not God; they angered Me with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is not a nation; I will anger them with a foolish nation. For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it shall burn down to Hades. It shall devour the earth and its produce and set fire to the foundations of the mountains; I will heap evils on them.’ 3 And after that Righteous One was put to death, we flourished as another people and sprang up like new and thriving ears of grain, as the prophets said: ‘And many nations shall flee to the Lord in that day as a people, and they shall dwell in the midst of all the earth.’ But we are not only a people, but also a holy people, as we have shown already. ‘And they shall call them a holy people, redeemed by the Lord.’ 4 So we are not a contemptible people, nor a barbarian tribe, nor like the Carian or Phrygian nations; God has chosen us too, and He became visible to those who did not ask for Him. ‘Look, I am God,’ He says, ‘to the nation that did not call on My name.’ For this is the nation God promised long ago to Abraham, when He announced that He would make him the father of many nations, not meaning the Arabians, Egyptians, or Idumaeans; for Ishmael became the father of a great nation, and so did Esau, and there is now a great multitude of Ammonites. And Noah was the father of Abraham himself, and in fact of the whole human race, and others were the ancestors of others. 5 What more, then, does Christ grant to Abraham here? This: that He called him with His voice by a similar calling, telling him to leave the land where he lived. And He has called all of us by that voice, and we have already left the way of life in which we used to live, living wickedly like the rest of the earth’s inhabitants; and along with Abraham we will inherit the holy land, receiving the inheritance for endless eternity, since we are children of Abraham through a similar faith. 6 For as he believed the voice of God and it was counted to him as righteousness, in the same way we, having believed God’s voice spoken again through the apostles of Christ and proclaimed to us through the prophets, have renounced everything in the world, even to the point of death. So He promises him a nation of similar faith, God-fearing, righteous, and delighting the Father; but it is not you, ‘who have no faith.’

1 “Notice, too, how the same promises are made to Isaac and to Jacob. For He says this to Isaac: ‘And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.’ And to Jacob: ‘And in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ He no longer says this to Esau, or to Reuben, or to anyone else, but only to those from whom the Christ was to come, according to the plan of salvation, through the Virgin Mary. 2 And if you examine the blessing of Judah, you will see what I mean. For the seed divides after Jacob and comes down through Judah, Phares, Jesse, and David. And this was a symbol that some of your nation would be found to be children of Abraham and also found in the portion of Christ, but that others, though children of Abraham, would be like the sand on the seashore, barren and fruitless, abundant and indeed countless, but bearing no fruit at all and only drinking the water of the sea. And a vast multitude in your nation is shown to be like this, drinking in teachings of bitterness and godlessness and spitting out the word of God. 3 So He says in the passage about Judah, ‘A ruler shall not depart from Judah, or a leader from his thighs, until He comes for whom it is laid up; and He shall be the expectation of nations.’ And it is plain that this was said not of Judah but of Christ. For all of us from all the nations are waiting not for Judah but for Jesus, who also led your fathers out of Egypt. For the prophecy foretold up to the coming of Christ: ‘Until He comes for whom it is laid up; and He shall be the expectation of nations.’ 4 So Jesus has come, as we have shown in many ways, and He is expected to appear again above the clouds, the Jesus whose name you profane and work hard to have profaned throughout the whole earth. I could argue with you, sirs,” I went on, “about the wording, which you read as ‘until the things laid up for him come,’ since the Seventy did not translate it that way, but ‘until He comes for whom it is laid up.’ 5 But since what follows shows that it was said of Christ (for it reads, ‘and He shall be the expectation of nations’), I am not going to quibble with you over a single word, just as I have not tried to build my proof about Christ on the passages of Scripture you do not accept, which I quoted from the words of Jeremiah the prophet, Esdras, and David, but on those you accept even now. If your teachers had understood these, you can be sure they would have made them disappear, as they did the passages about the death of Isaiah, whom you sawed in two with a wooden saw. This too was a mystery of Christ, who is going to cut your nation in two and make those who are worthy fit for the everlasting kingdom along with the holy patriarchs and prophets, while He has said that He will send the others to the condemnation of the unquenchable fire along with the likewise disobedient and unrepentant from all the nations. 6 ‘For they shall come,’ He said, ‘from the west and from the east, and shall recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be thrown out into the outer darkness.’ And I have said these things caring about nothing except speaking the truth, and I will not be intimidated by anyone, even if I should be torn to pieces by you on the spot. For I gave no thought to any of my own people, I mean the Samaritans, when I addressed Caesar in writing, but said that they were wrong to trust the magician Simon from their own nation, whom they call God above all rule, authority, and power.”

1 And as they kept silent, I went on: “[The Scripture], speaking through David about this Christ, my friends, no longer said that the nations would be blessed ‘in His seed,’ but ‘in Him.’ This is how it reads there: ‘His name shall rise up above the sun forever; and in Him all the nations shall be blessed.’ But if all the nations are blessed in Christ, and we from all the nations believe in Him, then He is indeed the Christ, and we are the ones blessed through Him. 2 God once gave the sun to be worshiped, as it is written, but no one has ever been seen to endure death for their faith in the sun; yet for the name of Jesus you can see people of every nation who have endured and still endure every kind of suffering rather than deny Him. For the word of His truth and wisdom is more fiery and more light-giving than the powers of the sun, and it sinks into the depths of the heart and mind. That is why the Scripture said, ‘His name shall rise up above the sun.’ And again Zechariah says, ‘The East is His name’; and speaking of the same One, he says, ‘They shall mourn tribe by tribe.’ 3 But if in His first coming, which was without honor or beauty and was despised, He shone so brightly and was so mighty that He is unknown in no nation, and people everywhere have repented of the old wicked way of life of each nation, so that even the demons submit to His name, and all powers and kingdoms fear His name more than that of anyone who has died, will He not at His glorious coming utterly destroy all who hated Him and wrongfully turned away from Him, and give rest to His own, repaying them with everything they have hoped for? 4 So it has been granted to us to hear, to understand, to be saved through this Christ, and to recognize all the things of the Father. That is why He said to Him, ‘It is a great thing for You to be called my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and bring back the scattered of Israel. I have made You a light to the Gentiles, so that You may be their salvation to the end of the earth.’

1 “You think that these words refer to the resident foreigner and the proselytes, but in fact they refer to us who have been enlightened by Jesus. Otherwise Christ would have testified to them too; but as it is, they become twice as much children of hell as you, as He Himself said. So what was said through the prophets was not said of them, but of us, about whom the Scripture says, ‘I will lead the blind by a way they did not know, and they shall walk in paths they had not known. And I am a witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen.’ 2 To whom, then, does Christ testify? Clearly to those who have believed. But the proselytes not only do not believe, they blaspheme His name twice as much as you do, and want to torture and kill us who believe in Him; for they are eager to be like you in every way. 3 And again in other words He cries out, ‘I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and I will hold Your hand and strengthen You, and I will give You as a covenant for the people, a light to the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind and bring the prisoners out of their chains.’ These words too, sirs, were spoken to Christ and about the enlightened nations. Or will you say again that He is speaking about the law and the proselytes?” 4 Then some of those who had come on the second day shouted as if they were in a theater, “What, then? Is He not speaking about the law and those enlightened by it? And these are the proselytes.” 5 “No,” I said, looking at Trypho, “for if the law could enlighten the nations and those who have it, what need would there be of a new covenant? But since God announced beforehand that He would send a new covenant and an everlasting law and commandment, we will not take this to mean the old law and its proselytes, but Christ and His proselytes, namely us Gentiles, whom He has enlightened, as He says somewhere, ‘This is what the Lord says: At an acceptable time I heard You, and on a day of salvation I helped You, and I have given You as a covenant of the nations, to establish the earth and to inherit the deserted places.’ 6 What, then, is Christ’s inheritance? Is it not the nations? What is the covenant of God? Is it not Christ? As He says in another place: ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession.’

1 “So, as all these prophecies were spoken to Christ and about the nations, you should believe that the earlier ones were spoken in the same way. For the proselytes have no need of a covenant, since one and the same law is laid on all who are circumcised, and the Scripture speaks of them this way: ‘And the resident foreigner shall also be joined to them, and shall be joined to the house of Jacob.’ And the proselyte, who is circumcised in order to join the people, becomes like a native, while we, who have been counted worthy to be called a people, are still Gentiles because we are uncircumcised. 2 Besides, it is ridiculous for you to think that the eyes of the proselytes have been opened but yours have not, and that you are the ones called blind and deaf while they are enlightened. And it will be even more ridiculous for you if you say that the law was given to the nations, but you have not known that law. 3 For then you would have feared God’s anger and would not be lawless, wandering sons, ashamed as you would be to hear Him say again and again, ‘Children who have no faith,’ and, ‘Who is blind but my servants, and deaf but those who rule over them? And the servants of God have been made blind. You have often seen, but have not kept watch; your ears are open, and you have not heard.’ 4 Is God’s praise of you honorable, and is this testimony from God fitting for His servants? You are not ashamed to hear these words over and over, and you do not tremble at God’s threats, but you are a foolish and hard-hearted people. ‘Therefore, look, I will proceed to remove this people,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will remove them, and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and hide the understanding of the prudent.’ And rightly so, for you are neither wise nor prudent, but sharp and unscrupulous: wise only at doing evil, but incapable of knowing the hidden plan of God, or the faithful covenant of the Lord, or of finding the everlasting paths. 5 ‘Therefore,’ He says, ‘I will raise up for Israel and for Judah the seed of people and the seed of animals.’ And through Isaiah He speaks this way about another Israel: ‘In that day there shall be a third Israel among the Assyrians and the Egyptians, blessed in the land that the Lord of Sabaoth has blessed, saying, Blessed shall be my people in Egypt and in Assyria, and Israel my inheritance.’ 6 Since, then, God blesses this people, calls them Israel, and proclaims them to be His inheritance, why do you not repent of deceiving yourselves, as if you alone were Israel, and of cursing the people God has blessed? For when He was speaking to Jerusalem and the region around it, He went on to say, ‘And I will bring forth people upon you, my people Israel, and they shall inherit you, and you shall be their possession, and you shall no longer be bereaved of them.’ ” 7 “What, then?” says Trypho. “Are you Israel? And does He say these things about you?” “If we had not already had a long discussion on these subjects,” I replied, “I might have wondered whether you were asking this out of ignorance; but since we have settled this question with proof and with your agreement, I do not believe you are ignorant of what I have just said, or that you want to start arguing again, but that you are inviting me to give the same proof to these men.” 8 And when he nodded his agreement with his eyes, I continued: “Again in Isaiah, if you have ears to hear, God, speaking of Christ in a parable, calls Him Jacob and Israel. He says this: ‘Jacob is my servant; I will uphold Him. Israel is my chosen one; I will put my Spirit on Him, and He shall bring justice to the Gentiles. He shall not quarrel or cry out, nor shall anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He shall not break, and a smoldering wick He shall not quench, but He shall bring forth justice to truth. He shall shine and shall not be broken until He has established justice on the earth. And in His name the Gentiles shall hope.’ 9 So, just as your whole nation has been called Jacob and Israel after that one man Jacob, who was also named Israel, so we, after Christ, who has begotten us to God, are called, like Jacob, Israel, Judah, Joseph, and David, the true children of God, and so we are, we who keep the commandments of Christ.”

1 And when I saw that they were disturbed because I had said that we are children of God, I headed off their questions and said, “Listen, sirs, to how the Holy Spirit speaks about this people, saying that they are all sons of the Most High, and that this very Christ will be present in their assembly, passing judgment on every race of people. 2 The words were spoken through David, and in your translation they read this way: ‘God stands in the assembly of gods; He judges among the gods. How long will you judge unjustly and show favor to the wicked? Judge for the orphan and the poor, and do justice to the lowly and needy. Rescue the needy, and save the poor from the hand of the wicked. They do not know, nor have they understood; they walk on in darkness; all the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. I said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.⁠a But you die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, God, judge the earth, for You shall inherit all the nations.’ 3 But in the translation of the Seventy it says, ‘Look, you die like men, and fall like one of the princes,’ to show the disobedience of human beings, I mean Adam and Eve, and the fall of one of the princes, that is, the one called the serpent, who fell with a great fall because he led Eve astray. 4 But since my argument is not aimed at this point now, but at proving to you that the Holy Spirit rebukes human beings, who were made like God, free from suffering and death if they kept His commandments, and were counted worthy by Him to be called His sons, and yet, becoming like Adam and Eve, bring about death for themselves, let the interpretation of the Psalm be as you wish; even so it is proved that all people have been counted worthy of becoming ‘gods,’ and of having the power to become sons of the Most High, and that each will be judged and condemned on his own account, like Adam and Eve. And I have proved at length that Christ is called God.

1 “I would like, sirs,” I said, “to learn from you what the meaning of the name Israel is.” And as they were silent, I went on: “I will tell you what I know. For I do not think it right to know something and not say it, or, suspecting that you know it but deceive yourselves out of envy or willful ignorance, to keep worrying about it; I say everything simply and without guile, as my Lord said: ‘A sower went out to sow the seed; and some fell on the road, some among thorns, some on rocky ground, and some on good ground.’ 2 So I must speak in the hope that there is good ground somewhere, since that Lord of mine, being strong and mighty, will come and demand back His own from everyone, and will not condemn His steward if He finds that he, knowing that his Lord is mighty and will come and demand His own, gave it out to every bank and did not bury it for any reason whatever. 3 Now the name Israel means this: a man who overcomes power. For Isra is ‘a man overcoming,’ and El is ‘power.’ And that Christ would do this when He became man was foretold by the mystery of the wrestling match Jacob had with the One who appeared to him, who appeared because He served the will of the Father, yet is God because He is the firstborn of all creatures.⁠a 4 For when He became man, as I said before, the devil came to Him, that is, the power that is called the serpent and Satan, tempting Him and striving to bring Him down by asking Him to worship him. But He destroyed and overthrew him, exposing him as wicked for asking to be worshiped as God contrary to the Scripture, since he had become an apostate from the will of God. For He answers him, ‘It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ And defeated and exposed, the devil withdrew for the time. 5 But since our Christ was going to be numbed, that is, in pain and the experience of suffering, when He was to be crucified, He announced this beforehand too by touching Jacob’s thigh and making it go numb. And Israel was His name from the beginning, the name He gave the blessed Jacob when He blessed him with His own name, proclaiming by this too that all who through Him take refuge in the Father are the blessed Israel. But you, having understood none of this and not preparing yourselves to understand it, expect to be saved no matter what, because you are children of Jacob by physical descent. But I have proved at length that in this too you deceive yourselves.

1 “But if you knew, Trypho,” I went on, “who He is who is called at one time the Angel of great counsel, a Man by Ezekiel, one like the Son of Man by Daniel, a Child by Isaiah, Christ and God to be worshiped by David, Christ and a Stone by many, Wisdom by Solomon, Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, the East by Zechariah, the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, a Flower, a Cornerstone, and the Son of God, you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, been born, suffered, and ascended to heaven, who will also come again, and then your twelve tribes will mourn. 2 For if you had understood what was written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He is God, the Son of the only, unbegotten, ineffable God. For somewhere in Exodus it is said through Moses: ‘The Lord spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their God, and I did not reveal my name to them, and I established my covenant with them.’ 3 And again he says, ‘A man wrestled with Jacob,’ and declares that it was God, reporting that Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life has been spared.’ And he recorded that Jacob called the place where He wrestled with him, appeared to him, and blessed him the Face of God (Peniel). 4 And Moses says that God likewise appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, while he was sitting at the door of his tent at noon. Then, after saying this, he goes on: ‘And he looked up and saw, and look, three men were standing in front of him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them.’ A little later one of them promises Abraham a son: ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I really bear a child, when I am old? Is anything impossible with God? At the appointed time I will return, at this season, and Sarah shall have a son. And they went away from Abraham.’ 5 Again he speaks of them this way: ‘And the men got up from there and looked toward Sodom.’ Then He who was and is speaks to Abraham again: ‘I will not hide from Abraham my servant what I am about to do.’ ” And I repeated what follows in the writings of Moses, as I had explained it before; “from which it has been proved,” I said, “that this One who appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other patriarchs, and is recorded as God, is placed under the Father and Lord and serves His will.” 6 Then I went on to say something I had not said before: “So too, when the people wanted to eat meat, and Moses did not believe the One who is also called the Angel there, who promised that God would give them all they could eat, He who is both God and the Angel sent by the Father is shown saying and doing these things. For the Scripture goes on to say, ‘And the Lord said to Moses, Will the Lord’s hand not be enough? Now you will know whether my word will overtake you or not.’ And again, in other words, it says, ‘But the Lord said to me, You shall not cross this Jordan; the Lord your God, who goes before you, He will destroy the nations.’

1 “These and other such sayings are recorded by the lawgiver and the prophets; and I think I have said enough to show that whenever my God says, ‘God went up from Abraham,’ or, ‘The Lord spoke to Moses,’ and, ‘The Lord came down to see the tower that the sons of men had built,’ or when ‘God shut Noah into the ark from outside,’ you must not think that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from anywhere. 2 For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes anywhere, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor rises, but remains in His own place, wherever that may be, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, not with eyes or ears but with indescribable power; He oversees all things and knows all things, and none of us escapes His notice. He does not move, and no place, not even the whole world, can contain Him, for He existed even before the world came to be. 3 How, then, could He speak with anyone, or be seen by anyone, or appear in the tiniest part of the earth, when the people at Sinai could not look even at the glory of the One sent from Him, and Moses himself could not enter the tabernacle he had made when it was filled with the glory of God, and the priest could not bear to stand before the temple when Solomon brought the ark into the house in Jerusalem that he had built? 4 So neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other human being saw the Father and ineffable Lord of absolutely all things, and of Christ Himself, but [saw] the One who, by His will, is His Son and God, and the Angel because He serves His purpose; whom He also willed to be born a man through the Virgin; who once became fire when He spoke with Moses from the bush. 5 For unless we understand the Scriptures this way, it will follow that the Father and Lord of all was not in heaven when it was said through Moses, ‘And the Lord rained fire and sulfur on Sodom from the Lord out of heaven’; and again, when it was said through David, ‘Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in’; and again, when He says, ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’

1 “And that Christ, being Lord, and God the Son of God, and having appeared in power in earlier times as a Man and an Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, also appeared at the judgment carried out on Sodom, has been proved at length by what has been said.” Then I recounted again everything I had quoted earlier from Exodus about the vision at the bush and the naming of Joshua (Jesus), and went on: 2 “And do not think, sirs, that I am being long-winded in saying these things repeatedly. It is because I know that some want to get ahead of these remarks and say that the power from the Father of all that appeared to Moses, Abraham, or Jacob is called an Angel when it goes out to people, because through it the Father’s messages are announced to people; that it is called Glory because it sometimes appears in a vision too great to contain; that it is sometimes called a Man and a human being because it appears clothed in whatever forms the Father wishes; and that they call it the Word because it carries the Father’s words to people. 3 But they claim that this power is undivided and inseparable from the Father, just as they say the light of the sun on earth is undivided and inseparable from the sun in the sky, and when the sun sets, the light goes with it; so the Father, they say, makes His power leap forth when He wishes, and when He wishes, draws it back into Himself. In this way, they teach, He also makes the angels. 4 But it has been proved that there are angels, and that they remain forever and are not dissolved back into what they came from. And that this power, which the prophetic word calls God, as has likewise been amply proved, and Angel, is not distinct in name only, like the light of the sun, but is also something numerically distinct, I have briefly discussed in what came before, when I said that this power was begotten from the Father by His power and will, but not by cutting off, as if the Father’s being were divided, the way all other things that are split and cut are not the same as they were before they were cut. And as an example I took fires kindled from a fire, which we see are distinct from it, while the fire from which many can be lit is not diminished at all but stays the same.

1 “And now I will repeat the words I quoted to prove this point. When it says, ‘The Lord rained fire from the Lord out of heaven,’ the prophetic word shows that there are two in number: one on earth, who, it says, came down to see the outcry of Sodom; and another in heaven, who is also Lord of the Lord on earth, as Father and God, the cause of His existence and of His being mighty, Lord, and God. 2 And again, when the Scripture records that God said in the beginning, ‘Look, Adam has become like one of Us,’ the phrase ‘like one of Us’ also indicates number; and the words do not allow a figurative meaning, as the sophists try to make out, who can neither tell nor understand the truth. 3 And it is said in Wisdom: ‘If I declare to you what happens day by day, I will remember to recount the things from eternity. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. Before the ages He established me in the beginning, before He made the earth and before He made the depths, before the springs of water came out, before the mountains were set in place. Before all the hills He begets me.’ ” 4 When I had said this, I added: “You understand, my listeners, if you are paying attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before absolutely all created things; and anyone at all will admit that what is begotten is numerically distinct from the one who begets.”

1 And when everyone agreed, I said: “Now I would like to quote some passages I had not mentioned before. They were spoken in a veiled way by Moses, the faithful servant, and read as follows: ‘Rejoice, you heavens, with Him, and let all the angels of God worship Him’ ”; and I added what follows in the passage: “ ‘Rejoice, you nations, with His people, and let all the angels of God be strong in Him; for He avenges the blood of His sons, and will avenge it, and will repay His enemies with justice, and will repay those who hate Him; and the Lord will cleanse the land of His people.’ 2 And by these words He says that we, the nations, rejoice with His people, I mean Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, and in short all of that people who are pleasing to God, as we have already agreed. But we will not take it to mean all of your nation, since we know from Isaiah too that the limbs of those who have transgressed will be devoured by the worm and unquenchable fire, while remaining immortal, so that they become a spectacle to all flesh. 3 But besides these, sirs,” I said, “I want to add some other passages from the very words of Moses, from which you can understand that long ago God scattered all people by their races and languages, and out of all the races took your race for Himself, a useless, disobedient, and faithless race; and showed that those chosen from every race obey His will through Christ, whom He also calls Jacob and names Israel; and so these, as I have said at length before, must be Jacob and Israel. 4 For when He says, ‘Rejoice, you nations, with His people,’ He assigns them the same inheritance and gives them the same name; but when He calls them nations who rejoice with His people, He says ‘nations’ to reproach you. For just as you provoked Him to anger by your idolatry, so He has counted those who were idolaters worthy of knowing His will and of inheriting the inheritance that is with Him.

1 “But I will quote the passage that shows that God divided all the nations. It reads: ‘Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will tell you; when the Most High divided the nations, as He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel; and the Lord’s portion became His people Jacob, and Israel the allotment of His inheritance.’ ” And having said this, I added, “The Seventy translated it, ‘He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.’ But since my argument is not weakened at all by this either, I have given your translation. 2 And you yourselves, if you are willing to admit the truth, must acknowledge that we are more faithful to God, we who have been called by God through the despised and shameful mystery of the cross (for confessing it, obeying it, and for our piety, punishments even to the point of death have been inflicted on us by the demons and the army of the devil, through the help you have given them), and who endure every torment rather than deny Christ even in a word, through whom we have been called to the salvation prepared beforehand by the Father, more faithful 3 than you, who were redeemed from Egypt with a raised arm and a visitation of great glory, when the sea was split for you and became a dry road, on which [God] killed those who pursued you with a very great force and splendid chariots, bringing back over them the sea that had been made a road for your sake; for whom also a pillar of light shone, so that you, more than any other people in the world, might have a light of your own, never failing and never setting; for whom He rained manna as food, the very food of the heavenly angels, so that you would not even need to bake bread; and for whom the water at Marah was made sweet; 4 and a sign of the One who was to be crucified was given, both with the serpents that bit you, as I said before (God giving you the grace of these mysteries ahead of their proper times, though you are shown to have always been ungrateful to Him), and in the type of Moses’ outstretched hands and of the one named Jesus (Joshua), when you fought against Amalek. About this God said that the event should be written down and the name of Jesus laid up in your ears, saying that this is the one who would blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. 5 Now it is clear that the memory of Amalek remained even after the son of Nave (Nun); but He makes it plain that through Jesus, who was crucified, of whom those symbols were also announcements of everything concerning Him, the demons would be destroyed and would dread His name, all rulers and kingdoms would likewise fear Him, and those from every race of people who believe in Him would be shown to be God-fearing and peaceful; and the facts I have already recounted, Trypho, point to this. 6 Again, when you craved meat, you were given so many quails that they could not be counted; for you water gushed from the rock, and a cloud followed you as shade from the heat and protection from the cold, showing the pattern and announcement of another, new heaven; the straps of your sandals did not break, your sandals did not wear out, and your clothes did not wear thin, but even the children’s clothes grew along with them.

1 “Yet after this you made a calf, and were eager to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of foreigners and to worship idols. And again afterward, when the land was handed over to you with such great power that you saw the sun stand still in the sky at the command of that man named Jesus (Joshua) and not set for thirty-six hours, along with all the other miracles done for you in their time, it seems good to me now to recount one more of these, for it helps you to recognize Jesus through it too, whom we also have recognized as Christ the Son of God, who was crucified, rose again, ascended to heaven, and will come again as Judge of absolutely all people, back to Adam himself. 2 You know, then,” I went on, “that when the ark of the testimony was seized by the enemies around Ashdod, and a terrible and incurable plague had struck them, they decided to put it on a cart to which they yoked cows that had just calved, as a test to learn whether they had been struck by the power of God because of the ark, and whether God wanted it taken back to the place it had been carried off from. 3 And when they did this, the cows, led by no one, did not go to the place the ark had been taken from, but to the field of a man named Oshea, who had the same name as the one renamed Jesus (Joshua), as was said before, who also led the people into the land and divided it among them by lot. And when the cows came into this field they stayed there, showing you by this too that they were guided by the name of power, just as earlier the people who survived of those who came out of Egypt were guided into the land by the one who had received the name Jesus (Joshua), who was previously called Oshea.

1 “Now, although these and all such unexpected and wonderful things were done for you and seen by you at various times, the prophets also show that you went so far as to sacrifice your own children to demons, and on top of all this dared to do such things against Christ, and still dare to; for all of which may it be granted to you to receive mercy from God and His Christ and be saved. 2 For God, knowing beforehand that you would do these things, cursed you this way through the prophet Isaiah: ‘Woe to their soul! They have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the lawless one! Evil shall happen to him according to the works of his hands. My people, your taskmasters strip you bare, and those who exact payment shall rule over you. 3 My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray and confuse the path of your ways. But now the Lord shall bring His people to judgment, and He Himself will enter into judgment with the elders of the people and its rulers. But why have you burned my vineyard, and why is the plunder of the poor in your houses? Why do you wrong my people and shame the face of the lowly?’ 4 Again, in other words, the same prophet said much the same: ‘Woe to those who drag their sins along as with a long rope, and their lawless deeds as with a heifer’s yoke strap, who say, Let His speed come near, and let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who make light darkness and darkness light, who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight! 5 Woe to the mighty among you who drink wine, and the powerful who mix strong drink, who acquit the wicked for bribes and take away the right of the righteous! Therefore, as stubble will be burned by a coal of fire and consumed by a blazing flame, their root shall be like fluff, and their flower shall go up like dust; for they did not want the law of the Lord of Sabaoth, but provoked the word of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. And the Lord of Sabaoth was furious with anger, and laid His hands on them and struck them, and was provoked against the mountains, and their corpses lay in the middle like dung on the road. And in all this they did not turn back, but their hand is still raised high.’ 6 For truly your hand is still raised high to do evil, because even after killing the Christ you do not repent; instead you hate and kill us, who through Him have believed in God the Father of all, whenever you have the power, and you curse Him and those who belong to Him without ceasing, while all of us pray for you and for all people, as we were taught to do by our Christ and Lord, who commanded us to pray even for our enemies, to love those who hate us, and to bless those who curse us.

1 “So if the teaching of the prophets and of Him Himself moves you, it is better for you to follow God than your foolish and blind teachers, who even now allow each of you to have four or five wives; and if someone sees a beautiful woman and desires her, they cite the deeds of Jacob [called] Israel and of the other patriarchs, and say that those who do the same do no wrong. In this too they are wretched and foolish. 2 For, as I said before, certain plans of great mysteries were carried out in each act of this kind. I will tell you what plan and prophecy were carried out in the marriages of Jacob, so that from these too you may see that your teachers have never looked at the more divine purpose for which each act was done, but only at base and corrupting passions. So pay attention to what I say. 3 The marriages of Jacob were types of the work Christ was going to accomplish. For it was not lawful for Jacob to marry two sisters at once. And he serves Laban for [one of] the daughters, and, deceived about the younger, he served another seven years. Now Leah is your people and synagogue, and Rachel is our Church. And for these, and for the servants in both, Christ still serves even now.⁠a 4 For while Noah gave the seed of the third son to the other two as servants, now in turn Christ has come to restore both the free sons and the servants among them, counting all who keep His commandments worthy of the same honor, just as the sons born to Jacob from the free women and from the slave women were all sons and equal in honor. And what each would be, according to rank and foreknowledge, was foretold. 5 Jacob served Laban for speckled and many-spotted sheep; and Christ served, even to the slavery of the cross, for people of every race, varied and of many kinds, acquiring them by the blood and mystery of the cross. Leah’s eyes were weak, and so are the eyes of your souls, very weak. Rachel stole Laban’s gods and has hidden them to this day; and our ancestral, material gods are lost to us. 6 Jacob was hated by his brother all his life; and now we, and our Lord Himself, are hated by you and by all other people, though all are brothers by nature. Jacob was named Israel; and it has been shown that Israel is also the Christ, who is and is called Jesus.

1 “And when Scripture says, ‘I am the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who have made known Israel as your King,’ will you not understand that this truly means Christ, the everlasting King? For you know that Jacob the son of Isaac never became a king. And so Scripture, explaining to us again which king it means by Jacob and Israel, says this: 2 ‘Jacob is my Servant; I will uphold Him. And Israel is my Chosen One; my soul shall accept Him. I have put my Spirit on Him, and He shall bring justice to the Gentiles. He shall not cry out, nor shall His voice be heard outside. A bruised reed He shall not break, and a smoldering wick He shall not quench, until He brings forth justice to victory. He shall shine and shall not be broken until He has established justice on the earth. And in His name the Gentiles shall hope.’ 3 Is it, then, in Jacob the patriarch that the Gentiles, and you yourselves, will hope, and not in Christ? So, as He calls Christ Israel and Jacob, we who have been quarried out of the womb of Christ are the true race of Israel. But let us pay closer attention to the passage itself. 4 ‘And I will bring forth,’ He says, ‘the seed out of Jacob and out of Judah, and it shall inherit My holy mountain; and My chosen ones and My servants shall inherit it and live there; and there shall be folds for flocks in the thicket, and the valley of Achor shall be a resting place for herds, for the people who have sought Me. But as for you, who forsake Me and forget My holy mountain and set a table for demons and fill a cup for the demon, I will hand you over to the sword; you shall all fall in slaughter, for I called you and you did not listen, and you did evil in My sight and chose what I did not want.’ 5 Such are the words of Scripture. You can see for yourselves that the seed of Jacob spoken of here is something else, and not, as one might think, spoken of your people. For it makes no sense for those born of Jacob to leave a way in for those descended from Jacob, or for [God], after reproaching the people as unworthy of the inheritance, to promise it again to the same people as if He had taken them back. 6 But just as the prophet says there, ‘And now, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord; for He has sent away His people, the house of Jacob, because their land was filled, as in the beginning, with soothsaying and divination,’ so here too we must understand that there are two seeds of Judah and two races, as there are two houses of Jacob: one born of blood and flesh, the other of faith and the Spirit.

1 “For you see how He is now speaking to the people, having said a little earlier, ‘As a grape will be found in the cluster, and they will say, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it, so I will do for the sake of the One who serves Me; for His sake I will not destroy them all.’ And after this He adds, ‘And I will bring forth the seed out of Jacob and out of Judah.’ It is plain, then, that if He is so angry with them and threatens to leave very few of them, He is promising to bring forth certain others, who will live on His mountain. 2 And these are the ones He said He would sow and beget. For you neither bear with Him when He calls nor listen when He speaks, but you have done evil in the sight of the Lord. And the height of your wickedness is that you hate the Righteous One whom you killed, and those who have received from Him what they are: pious, righteous, and kind to others. Therefore ‘Woe to their soul,’ says the Lord, ‘for they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying, Let us take away the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.’ 3 For you are not, like your fathers, sacrificing to Baal, or making cakes for the host of heaven in shady groves or on high places; [your guilt is] that you have not accepted His Christ. For whoever does not know Him does not know the will of God either; and whoever insults and hates Him clearly hates and insults the One who sent Him too. And whoever does not believe in Him does not believe the proclamations of the prophets, who announced the good news of Him and proclaimed Him to all.

1 “Do not say anything evil, my brothers, against the One who was crucified, and do not mock the wounds by which all can be healed, as we have been healed. For it would be good if, persuaded by the Scriptures, you were circumcised from your hardness of heart, not with the circumcision you have from the notion instilled in you; for that was given as a sign and not as a work of righteousness, as the Scriptures compel you [to admit]. 2 So agree with us, and do not insult the Son of God; do not listen to your Pharisee teachers, and never mock the King of Israel, as the rulers of your synagogues teach you to do after your prayers. For if whoever touches those who are not pleasing to God is like one who touches the apple of God’s eye, how much more the one who lays hands on the Beloved! And it has been sufficiently proved that He is this One.” 3 And as they kept silent, I went on: “My friends, I am now also quoting the Scriptures as the Seventy translated them; for when I quoted them earlier as you have them, I was testing [to see] how you were disposed. For when I quoted the Scripture that says, ‘Woe to them, for they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying,’ I added, as the Seventy translated it, ‘Let us take away the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us,’ whereas at the beginning of the discussion I had said it the way you want it to read: ‘Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.’ 4 But you were busy with something else, and you do not seem to me to have listened attentively to the words. But now, since the day is coming to an end, for the sun is already setting, I will add one thing to what I have said and then stop. I have already said this too, but I think it would be right to go over it again.

1 “You know, then, sirs,” I said, “that in Isaiah God said to Jerusalem, ‘I saved you in the flood of Noah.’ What God meant by this is that the mystery of saved humanity took place in the flood. For righteous Noah, along with the others at the flood, that is, his wife, his three sons, and his sons’ wives, eight in number, were a symbol of the day that is eighth in number, on which our Christ appeared when He rose from the dead, though in power it is always the first.⁠a 2 For Christ, being the firstborn of all creation, also became the beginning of another race, the one reborn through Him by water, faith, and wood, which holds the mystery of the cross, just as Noah was saved by wood, riding on the waters with his household. So when the prophet says, ‘I saved you in the time of Noah,’ as I said before, he is speaking to the people who are likewise faithful to God and have these symbols. For Moses too led your people through the sea with a rod in his hand. 3 But you think He was speaking to your nation alone, or to the land. Yet since the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits above all the mountains, it is evident that God was not speaking to the land but to the people who obey Him, for whom He also prepared a place of rest in Jerusalem beforehand, as was shown earlier through all the symbols of the flood. I mean that by water, faith, and wood, those who prepare themselves beforehand and repent of the sins they have committed will escape the judgment of God that is coming.

1 “For another mystery was foretold and carried out in the time of Noah, which you do not know. It is this: in the blessings with which Noah blessed his two sons, he curses his son’s son. For the Spirit of prophecy was not going to curse the son who had been blessed by God along with [his brothers]. But since the penalty for the sin would fall on the whole line of the son who laughed at his father’s nakedness, he made the curse begin with his son. 2 And in what he said, he foretold that the descendants of Shem would take possession of the property and dwellings of Canaan, and that the descendants of Japheth would in turn take over the property that Shem’s descendants had taken from Canaan’s descendants, seizing it from the descendants of Shem just as they had seized it from the sons of Canaan. 3 And listen to how this has come about. For you, who trace your descent from Shem, invaded the land of the sons of Canaan by the will of God and took possession of it. And it is evident that the sons of Japheth, invading you in turn by the judgment of God, have taken your land from you and possess it. This is how it was said: ‘And Noah woke from the wine and knew what his younger son had done to him, and he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant; he shall be a servant to his brothers. And he said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and let him live in the houses of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.’ 4 So, since two peoples were blessed, those from Shem and those from Japheth, and the descendants of Shem were decreed to take possession of the dwellings of Canaan first, and the descendants of Japheth were foretold to take over the same possessions from them in turn, and the one people from Canaan was handed over to the two peoples as servants, Christ has come according to the power given Him by the Almighty Father, calling people to friendship, blessing, repentance, and living together, and He has promised, as has already been proved, the possession that all the saints are to have in this same land. 5 That is why people everywhere, whether slave or free, who believe in Christ and have come to know the truth in His words and those of His prophets, know that they will be with Him in that land and will inherit everlasting and incorruptible good things.

1 “That is also why Jacob, as I said before, being himself a type of Christ, married the two slave women of his two free wives and had sons by them, to show beforehand that Christ would receive even all the descendants of Canaan who are among Japheth’s race, equally with the free, and would have them as children and fellow heirs. And that is what we are; but you cannot understand this, because you cannot drink from the living fountain of God, but only from broken cisterns that cannot hold water, as the Scripture says. 2 And the broken cisterns that hold no water are the ones your own teachers have dug for you, as the Scripture also says plainly, ‘teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ And besides, they deceive themselves and you, supposing that the everlasting kingdom will certainly be given to those who are of Abraham’s seed according to the flesh, even if they are sinners, faithless, and disobedient toward God, which the Scriptures have shown is not so. 3 For if it were, Isaiah would never have said, ‘And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah’; nor Ezekiel, ‘Even if Noah and Jacob and Daniel ask for sons or daughters, it shall not be granted them,’ and, ‘Neither shall the father perish for the son, nor the son for the father, but each shall perish for his own sin, and each shall be saved by his own righteousness.’ And again Isaiah: ‘They shall look at the corpses of those who have transgressed; their worm shall not stop, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.’ 4 And our Lord, according to the will of the One who sent Him, the Father and Lord of all, would not have said, ‘They shall come from the west and from the east, and shall recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be thrown out into the outer darkness.’ Furthermore, I have shown in what came before that those foreknown to be unrighteous, whether humans or angels, do not become wicked through any fault of God, but each is what he will be shown to be through his own fault.

1 “But so that you do not have an excuse for saying that Christ had to be crucified, and that the transgressors had to be among your nation, and that it could not have happened any other way, I said briefly in advance that God, wanting angels and humans to follow His will, chose to make them free to do what is right, with reason, so that they might know by whom they were made and through whom they exist, having not existed before, and with a law that they would be judged by Him if they acted against right reason; and by our own doing we, humans and angels alike, will be convicted of having done evil, unless we repent beforehand. 2 But if the word of God foretells that some angels and humans will certainly be punished, it foretold this because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably wicked, not because God made them that way. So if they repent, all who want to can receive mercy from God, and the Scripture declares them blessed beforehand, saying, ‘Blessed is the one to whom the Lord does not count sin,’ that is, the one who, having repented of his sins, receives forgiveness of them from God, and not as you deceive yourselves, along with some others who are like you in this, who say that even if they are sinners, as long as they know God, the Lord will not count sin against them. 3 We have as proof of this the one fall of David, which happened through his pride and was forgiven only when he mourned and wept as it is written. But if even such a man was granted no forgiveness before he repented, but only when this great king, anointed one, and prophet wept and acted in this way, how can the impure and utterly reckless hope that the Lord will not count sin against them, if they do not weep, mourn, and repent? 4 And this one fall of David, in the matter of Uriah’s wife, shows, sirs,” I said, “that the patriarchs had many wives not as acts of sexual immorality, but so that a certain plan and all the mysteries might be carried out through them; for if it were allowed to take whatever wife one wants, however one wants, and as many as one wants, as the men of your nation do throughout the whole earth wherever they stay or are sent, taking women under the name of marriage, David would have been all the more permitted to do it.” 5 When I had said this, my dear Marcus Pompeius, I stopped.

Justin and Trypho Part Ways

1 Then Trypho, after a short pause, said, “You see that it was not by design that we came to discuss these matters. And I confess that I have been especially pleased with our conversation, and I think these others feel just as I do. For we have found more than we expected, and more than anyone could ever have expected. If we could do this more often, we would benefit more from examining the words themselves. But since,” he said, “you are about to leave and expect to set sail any day, do not hesitate to remember us as friends when you have gone.” 2 “For my part,” I replied, “if I were staying, I would want to do the same thing every day. But since I now expect to set sail, with God’s permission and help, I urge you to take up this greatest of contests for your own salvation, and to be eager to value the Christ of the Almighty God above your teachers.” 3 After this they left, wishing me a safe voyage and protection from every misfortune. And I, praying for them, said, “I can wish nothing greater for you, sirs, than this: that, recognizing that by this way happiness is given to every person, you may come to think entirely as we do and believe that Jesus is the Christ of God.”