Dialogue with Trypho

As I was walking one morning in the walks of the colonnade, someone met me with some others and said, “Greetings, philosopher!” And as he said this he turned and walked along with me, and his friends turned with him. And I in turn greeted him and said, “What is it?”

And he said, “I was taught at Argos by Corinthus the Socratic that one should not despise or neglect those who wear this dress, but should show them every kindness and converse with them, in case some benefit might come from the conversation, either to him or to me. And it is good for both, even if only one of them is benefited. For this reason, whenever I see anyone in such a dress, I gladly approach him; and so I have now gladly addressed you, and these men follow me, expecting themselves to hear something useful from you.”

“And who are you, best of mortals?” I said, jesting with him. And he told me his name and his race simply. “I am called Trypho,” he said, “and I am a Hebrew of the circumcision, who fled the war that has lately taken place, and spend most of my time in Greece and in Corinth.” “And how,” I said, “could you gain as much from philosophy as from your own lawgiver and the prophets?” “Why not?” he said. “Do not the philosophers make their whole discourse about God, and are not their inquiries always about his sole rule and providence? Or is not this the work of philosophy, to inquire about the divine?”

“Yes,” I said, “so we too have thought. But most of them have not even cared about this, whether there is one God or several, and whether they take thought for each of us or not, as though this knowledge contributed nothing to happiness. Indeed, they try to persuade us that God cares for the universe and for the kinds and species themselves, but no longer for me and you and for each individual; since otherwise we would not pray to him night and day.

And it is not hard to see where this ends for them: those who hold these views have license and freedom to say and do whatever they wish, neither fearing punishment nor hoping for any good from God. How could they? They say that the same things will always be, and that I and you will live again in the same way, having become neither better nor worse. And others, supposing the soul immortal and incorporeal, think that they will neither pay any penalty if they do wrong (for what is incorporeal cannot suffer), nor, since it is immortal, do they need anything from God any longer.”

And he smiled politely and said, “But what do you think about these things, and what opinion do you hold about God, and what is your philosophy? Tell us.”

“I will tell you,” I said, “what seems clear to me. Philosophy is in fact the greatest possession and most precious to God, to whom it alone leads us and commends us; and those who have given their minds to philosophy are truly holy. But what philosophy is, and why it was sent down to men, has escaped most people; for otherwise there would not be Platonists, or Stoics, or Peripatetics, or Theoretics, or Pythagoreans, since this knowledge is one.

I want to say why it became many-headed. It happened that those who first took hold of it, and became famous for that reason, were followed by those after them, who examined nothing about the truth, but, merely amazed at their endurance and self-control and the strangeness of their words, thought true what each had learned from his teacher; and then they too, handing on such things and others like them to those who came after, were called by the name borne by the father of the teaching.

At first, wishing myself too to meet one of these, I gave myself to a certain Stoic; and after spending a good deal of time with him, when I gained nothing more about God (for he did not know himself, and said this knowledge was not necessary), I left him and went to another, called a Peripatetic, shrewd, as he thought. And this man, after putting up with me for the first few days, asked me to set a fee, so that our association might not be unprofitable to us. And I left him too for this reason, thinking him no philosopher at all.

But since my soul was still eager to hear what is proper and excellent in philosophy, I went to a very famous Pythagorean, a man who thought much of his wisdom. And when I spoke to him, wishing to become his hearer and disciple, he said, “Well then, have you studied music and astronomy and geometry? Or do you think you will see any of the things that lead to happiness unless you are first taught these, which will draw the soul away from the things of sense and make it fit for the things of the mind, so that it may see the beautiful itself and what the good itself is?”

And after praising these studies at length and calling them necessary, he sent me away, since I admitted to him that I did not know them. So I was vexed, naturally, at failing in my hope, and all the more because I thought he knew something; and again, considering the time I would have to spend on those studies, I could not bear to put it off so long.

While I was at a loss, I decided to try the Platonists too; for their fame was great. And indeed I spent as much time as I could with an intelligent man, who had lately come to our city and was preeminent among the Platonists, and I made progress and advanced more every day. The contemplation of incorporeal things greatly captivated me, and the vision of the Forms gave wings to my mind; and in a short time I thought I had become wise, and in my folly I hoped at once to see God; for this is the goal of Plato's philosophy.

And while I was in this state, since I once wished to be filled with great quiet and to avoid the paths of men, I went to a certain place not far from the sea. And when I was near that spot, where I meant to be alone with myself on arriving, an old man, not contemptible in appearance, showing a gentle and dignified character, followed me at a little distance. And when I turned toward him, I stopped and looked at him keenly.

And he said, “Do you know me?” I said no. “Why then,” he said to me, “do you look at me so?” “I am surprised,” I said, “that you happened to be in the same place as I; for I did not expect to see anyone here.” And he said to me, “I am concerned about some of my household. They are away from home; so I have come myself to look out for them, in case they appear from somewhere. But what are you doing here?” “I enjoy such walks,” I said, “for here my conversation with myself is unhindered, and such places are most suitable for the love of discussion.”

“You are a lover of words, then,” he said, “but not at all a lover of deeds or of truth, and you do not try to be practical rather than a sophist?” “And what greater work could anyone do,” I said, “than to show that reason rules all things, and, having grasped it and riding upon it, to look down on the errors of others and their pursuits, how they do nothing sound or pleasing to God? Without philosophy and right reason no one could have understanding. That is why every man should practice philosophy and consider it the greatest and most honorable work, and everything else second and third; things that depend on philosophy are of moderate worth and acceptable, but, deprived of it and not accompanied by it in those who handle them, they are vulgar and base.”

“Does philosophy, then, produce happiness?” he answered. “Certainly,” I said, “and it alone.” “What is philosophy,” he said, “and what is the happiness it gives? Tell me, if nothing prevents you.” “Philosophy,” I said, “is knowledge of what is and understanding of the truth, and happiness is the reward of this knowledge and wisdom.”

“And what do you call God?” he said. “That which is always the same and in the same way, and is the cause of existence to all other things: that is God.” So I answered him; and he was pleased to hear me, and asked me again: “Is not ‘knowledge’ a common name for different things? For in all the arts the one who knows any of them is called skilled, and likewise in generalship and navigation and medicine. But it is not so in divine and human things. Is there a knowledge that gives understanding of human and divine things themselves, and then of their divinity and justice?” “Certainly,” I said.

“What then? Is it the same to know man and God as to know music and arithmetic and astronomy or something of that kind?” “Not at all,” I said. “Then you did not answer me correctly,” he said; “for some kinds of knowledge come to us from learning or some practice, but others give knowledge by seeing. If someone told you that in India there is an animal unlike all others in nature, but of such and such a kind, many-formed and varied, you would not know it before you saw it, nor could you give any account of it unless you heard from someone who had seen it.”

“No,” I said. “How then,” he said, “could the philosophers think correctly about God or say anything true, when they have no knowledge of him, having never seen or heard him?” “But the divine, father,” I said, “is not visible to the eyes as other living things are, but can be grasped by the mind alone, as Plato says; and I believe him.”

“Is there then,” he said, “such and so great a power in our mind? Or does it grasp being otherwise than through sense perception? Will the mind of man ever see God unless it is adorned with the Holy Spirit?” “Plato says,” I said, “that the eye of the mind is of such a kind, and was given us for this purpose, that we might be able to see with it, pure itself, that very Being which is the cause of all things known to the mind, which has no color, no shape, no size, nor anything that the eye sees; but is something, he says, that is beyond all essence, neither speakable nor expressible, but alone beautiful and good, coming suddenly into souls that are well endowed, because of their kinship with it and their longing to see it.”

“What kinship, then,” he said, “do we have with God? Is the soul too divine and immortal and a part of that royal mind? And as that mind sees God, so is it possible for us too to grasp the divine with our mind and thereby to be happy?” “Certainly,” I said. “And do all the souls of all living things take it in,” he asked, “or is the soul of a man one thing and that of a horse or an ass another?” “No,” I answered, “they are the same in all.”

“Then horses and asses too,” he said, “will see, or have seen, God?” “No,” I said, “nor do most men, unless someone lives justly, purified by righteousness and every other virtue.” “Then he does not see God because of his kinship,” he said, “nor because he is a mind, but because he is self-controlled and just?” “Yes,” I said, “and because he has that by which he perceives God.” “What then? Do goats or sheep wrong anyone?” “No one in any way,” I said.

“Then by your reasoning,” he said, “these animals too will see?” “No; for their body, being what it is, is a hindrance to them.” “If these animals could speak,” he replied, “be sure that they would with much better reason abuse our body. But let us leave it so for now, and let it be granted to you as you say. But tell me this: does the soul see while it is in the body, or when it has been set free from it?”

“While it is in the form of a man,” I said, “it can attain it through the mind; but above all when it is freed from the body and comes to be by itself, it obtains what it longed for all the time.” “And does it remember this again when it comes into a man?” “I do not think so,” I said. “What profit, then, have those that saw, or what more has the one who saw than the one who did not, if he does not even remember that he saw?”

“I cannot say,” I said. “And what happens to those judged unworthy of this sight?” he said. “They are imprisoned in the bodies of certain wild beasts, and this is their punishment.” “Do they know, then, that it is for this reason that they are in such bodies, and that they have sinned?” “I do not think so.”

“Then there is no profit to them from their punishment, it seems; indeed I would not say that they are punished at all, if they are not aware of the punishment.” “No indeed.” “So the souls neither see God, nor pass into other bodies; for they would know that they are punished in this way, and would be afraid to commit even a chance sin afterwards. But I too agree,” he said, “that they can perceive that God exists, and that righteousness and piety are good.” “You are right,” I said.

“Those philosophers, then, know nothing about these things; for they cannot even say what the soul is.” “It seems not.” “Nor indeed should one call it immortal; for if it is immortal, it is clearly also unbegotten.” “But it is unbegotten and immortal according to some who are called Platonists.” “Do you also say that the world is unbegotten?” “There are some who say so; but I do not agree with them.”

“You are right. For what reason is there to think that a body so solid, which offers resistance, and is composite and changing and perishing and coming into being every day, did not come into being from some beginning? And if the world is begotten, the souls too must have come into being, and perhaps not exist somewhere; for they came into being for the sake of men and the other living things, if you say at all that they came into being separately and not with their own bodies.” “That seems right.” “Then they are not immortal.” “No, since the world too has appeared to us to be begotten.”

“But I do not say that all souls die; for that would truly be a godsend to the wicked. What then? The souls of the godly remain in a better place, and those of the unjust and wicked in a worse, awaiting the time of judgment then. Thus some, having appeared worthy of God, die no more; and others are punished, as long as God wills them both to exist and to be punished.”

“Is what you say something like what Plato hints in the Timaeus about the world, saying that it is indeed perishable insofar as it came into being, but that it will not be dissolved or meet the lot of death because of the will of God? Does the same seem to you to be said about the soul, and in a word about all things? For whatever exists after God, or will ever exist, has a perishable nature, and can be blotted out and exist no more; for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and for this reason he is God, while all other things after him are begotten and perishable.”

“For this reason souls both die and are punished; since if they were unbegotten, they would neither sin nor be full of folly, nor be cowardly and then again rash; nor would they ever willingly go into swine and serpents and dogs; nor indeed would it be right for them to be compelled, if they are unbegotten. For the unbegotten is like the unbegotten and equal and the same, and neither could be preferred to the other in power or in honor.”

“Hence there are not many unbegotten things either; for if there were some difference among them, you would not find the cause of the difference by searching, but, sending your thought on and on to infinity, you would at last grow weary and stop at one unbegotten being, and say that this is the cause of all.” “Did these things escape Plato and Pythagoras,” I said, “wise men, who have become for us like a wall and a buttress of philosophy?”

“I do not care,” he said, “about Plato or Pythagoras, or in a word about anyone at all who holds such opinions. For the truth is this, and you may learn it from here. The soul either is life or has life. If it is life, it would make something else live, not itself, just as motion would move something else rather than itself. But no one would deny that the soul lives. And if it lives, it lives not as being life, but as partaking of life; and what partakes of something is different from that of which it partakes. And the soul partakes of life because God wills it to live.

“So it will also no longer partake, whenever he does not will it to live. For life is not its own as it is God's; but just as a man does not exist forever, nor is the body always with the soul, but when this harmony must be dissolved, the soul leaves the body and the man no longer exists, so also, when the soul must no longer exist, the life-giving spirit departs from it, and the soul no longer exists, but itself goes back again to the place from which it was taken.”

“What teacher, then,” I said, “could one still use, or from where could one gain any benefit, if the truth is not even in these?” “There were, long before all these reputed philosophers, certain men more ancient, blessed and righteous and loved by God, who spoke by the divine Spirit and foretold what was to come, which is now taking place; they are called prophets. These alone both saw the truth and declared it to men, neither fearing nor standing in awe of anyone, not overcome by desire for glory, but speaking only what they heard and saw, filled with the Holy Spirit.

“Their writings still remain even now, and whoever reads them, believing them, can gain very much both about first principles and about the end, and about the things a philosopher ought to know. For they did not then make their discourses with demonstration, since they were witnesses to the truth worthy of belief above all demonstration; but the things that have happened and are happening compel one to agree with what was spoken through them.

“And indeed they deserved to be believed also because of the mighty works they performed, since they both glorified God, the Maker of all things and Father, and proclaimed Christ his Son, who is from him; which the false prophets, filled with the deceitful and unclean spirit, neither did nor do, but they dare to work certain wonders to astonish men, and glorify the spirits of error and demons. But pray above all that the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be seen or understood by all, unless God and his Christ grant someone to understand.”

When he had said these and many other things, which there is no time to tell now, he went away, bidding me pursue them; and I saw him no more. But immediately a fire was kindled in my soul, and a love of the prophets and of those men who are friends of Christ possessed me; and turning his words over in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.

“Thus, and for these reasons, I am a philosopher. And I would wish that all, having the same spirit as I, would not stand aloof from the words of the Savior; for they have a certain awe in them, and are able to shame those who turn aside from the right way, and the sweetest rest comes to those who practice them. If, then, you have any care for yourself and seek salvation and trust in God, as one not a stranger to the matter, you may know the Christ of God, and, becoming perfect, be happy.”

When I, my friend, had said this, those with Trypho laughed, but he smiled and said, “I accept the rest of what you say, and I admire your zeal for the divine; but it would have been better for you to go on practicing the philosophy of Plato or of someone else, cultivating endurance and self-control and moderation, than to be deceived by false words and follow men of no account. For while you remained in that way of philosophy and lived blamelessly, a hope of a better lot remained; but when you have forsaken God and put your hope in a man, what salvation is still left for you?

“If, then, you are willing to listen to me too (for I already consider you a friend), first be circumcised, then keep, as is the custom, the Sabbath and the feasts and God's new moons, and in short do everything written in the law, and then perhaps you will find mercy from God. But the Christ, if he has indeed been born and exists somewhere, is unknown, and does not even know himself yet, nor has he any power, until Elijah comes and anoints him and makes him manifest to all; but you have received an empty report and invented a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake you are now perishing aimlessly.”

“May you be pardoned and forgiven, sir,” I said; “for you do not know what you are saying, but, trusting teachers who do not understand the Scriptures, you speak by guesswork whatever comes into your head. But if you would receive an account of this, that we have not been deceived and will not cease confessing him, even if reproaches from men are brought against us, even if the most terrible tyrant forces us to deny him, I will show you, if you stay, that we have not believed empty myths or unproven words, but words full of the divine Spirit, and teeming with power, and flourishing with grace.”

Then those with him laughed again and shouted rudely. And I rose and was about to leave; but he took hold of my cloak and said he would not let me go until I had done what I promised. “Then,” I said, “let your companions not make a disturbance or behave so shamefully; but if they wish, let them listen quietly, and if some more pressing business stands in their way, let them go; and let us go aside somewhere and rest, and finish the discussion.”

Trypho too agreed that we should do this, and we turned aside and went into the middle of the colonnade's open space; and two of those with him, mocking and jeering at our earnestness, went away. And when we came to that place, where there are stone seats on both sides, those with Trypho sat down on one side, and when one of them brought up the war that had taken place in Judea, they talked about it.

When they had finished, I began again thus: “Is there anything else, friends, for which you blame us than this, that we do not live according to the law, nor are circumcised in the flesh like your forefathers, nor keep the Sabbath as you do? Or are our life and character also slandered among you? I mean this: have you too believed about us that we eat men, and that after the feast we put out the lamps and roll about in lawless unions? Or do you condemn us only for this, that we hold to such teachings and believe an opinion that is not, as you think, true?”

“This is what we wonder at,” said Trypho; “but what most people say is not worth believing, for it is far removed from human nature. And I know that your precepts in what is called the Gospel are so wonderful and great that I suspect no one can keep them; for I took the trouble to read them.

“But this is what we are most at a loss about: that you, who say you are pious and think yourselves superior to others, are in no way separated from them, and do not make your life different from the Gentiles, in that you keep neither the feasts nor the Sabbaths nor have circumcision; and further, though you set your hopes on a crucified man, you nevertheless hope to obtain some good from God, without keeping his commandments. Or have you not read that ‘that soul shall be cut off from its people which shall not be circumcised on the eighth day’? And the same is laid down about strangers and about slaves bought with money.

“You, then, despising this covenant outright, neglect also what follows, and try to persuade us that you know God, though you do none of the things done by those who fear God. If, then, you can defend yourself on these points, and show in what way you hope for anything even though you do not keep the law, we would gladly hear this from you above all, and let us examine the other matters in the same way.”

“There will never be another God, Trypho, nor has there been from eternity,” I said to him, “except the one who made and ordered this universe. Nor do we think that our God is one and yours another, but that he is the very one who brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; nor have we hoped in any other (for there is none), but in the same one in whom you too hope, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. But we have not hoped through Moses or through the law; for then we would be doing the same as you.

“But now (for I have read, Trypho) there was to be a final law and a covenant more binding than all, which all men must now keep, as many as lay claim to the inheritance of God. For the law given at Horeb is now old, and belongs to you alone, but this one to all without exception. And a law set against a law has abolished the one before it, and a covenant made afterward has likewise set aside the former one. And an eternal and final law, Christ, has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there is no law, no ordinance, no commandment.

“Or have you not read what Isaiah says? ‘Hear me, hear me, my people, and you kings, give ear to me; for a law will go out from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near quickly, and my salvation will go out, and the nations will hope in my arm.’ And through Jeremiah he says thus about this same new covenant: ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not like the one I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.’

“If, then, God proclaimed a new covenant that was to be established, and this for a light to the nations, and we see and are persuaded that through the name of this crucified Jesus Christ people come to God from idols and other wickedness, and hold fast their confession and piety even to death, then all can understand, both from the deeds and from the power that goes with them, that he is the new law and the new covenant and the expectation of those from all the nations who wait for the good things from God.

“For the true, spiritual Israelite race, and the race of Judah and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham (who was attested by God for his faith while uncircumcised, and blessed, and called the father of many nations), are we, who have been brought to God through this crucified Christ, as will be shown as our discussion goes on.”

And I went on to add that in other words too Isaiah cries: “‘Hear my words, and your soul shall live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sure holy things of David. Behold, I have given him as a witness to the nations. 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.’

“This very law you have dishonored, and his new holy covenant you have despised, and even now you do not accept it or repent of your evil deeds. For your ears are still stopped, your eyes are blinded, and your heart is made fat. Jeremiah has cried out, and even so you do not hear; the lawgiver is present, and you do not see; the poor have the gospel preached to them, the blind see, and you do not understand.

“There is now need of a second circumcision, and you pride yourselves on the flesh. The new law wants you to keep Sabbath continually, and you think you are pious when you are idle for one day, not understanding why it was commanded you; and if you eat unleavened bread, you say you have fulfilled the will of God. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in these things. If anyone among you is a perjurer or a thief, let him stop; if anyone is an adulterer, let him repent; and he has kept the delightful and true Sabbaths of God. If anyone does not have clean hands, let him wash, and he is clean.

“For Isaiah did not send you to a bath-house to wash away there murder and your other sins, which not even all the water of the sea could cleanse; but, as is reasonable, this was of old that saving washing which he spoke of, for those who repent and are cleansed no longer by the blood of goats and sheep, or the ashes of a heifer, or offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ and his death, who died for this reason, as Isaiah himself said, speaking thus:

“‘The Lord will reveal his holy arm before all the nations, and all the nations and the ends of the earth will see the salvation that is from God. Depart, depart, depart, go out from there, and touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; be separate, you who carry the vessels of the Lord, for you do not go in haste; for the Lord will go before your face, and the one who gathers you is the Lord, the God of Israel. Behold, my servant will understand, and will be exalted and greatly glorified.

“‘As many will be astonished at you, so will your form be without glory from men, and your glory; so will many nations marvel at him, and kings will shut their mouths; for those to whom it was not announced about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land.

“‘He has no form nor glory; and we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was without honor, failing beyond the sons of men. A man in affliction, and knowing how to bear sickness, because his face was turned away, he was dishonored and not esteemed. He bears our sins and suffers pain for us, and we reckoned him to be in toil and in affliction and in mistreatment.

“‘But he was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our transgressions; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his stripes we were healed. All we like sheep went astray; each man went astray in his own way. And the Lord handed him over for our sins; and he, because he was afflicted, does not open his mouth. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.

“‘In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. And who will tell his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth; because of the lawless deeds of my people he came to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death; for he did no lawlessness, nor was deceit found in his mouth. And the Lord wills to cleanse him from his wound. If you give an offering for sin, your soul will see a long-lived seed.

“‘And the Lord wills to take away his soul from toil, to show him light and to form him with understanding, to justify the righteous one who serves many well. And he himself will bear our sins. Therefore he will inherit many and divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was handed over to death, and he was counted among the lawless; and he bore the sins of many, and was handed over for their lawless deeds.

“‘Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry, you who are not in labor; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has the husband. For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your curtains; fix them, do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes; spread out to the right and to the left; and your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall inhabit desolate cities.

“‘Do not fear because you have been put to shame, nor be confounded because you have been reproached; for you will forget your everlasting shame, and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood; for the Lord has made a name for himself, and he who delivered you, the God of Israel himself, shall be called so in all the earth. As a woman forsaken and faint-hearted the Lord has called you, as a woman hated from her youth.’”

“Through the washing of repentance and of the knowledge of God, then, which was made for the transgression of God's peoples, as Isaiah cries, we have believed, and we make known that this very baptism which he foretold, which alone can cleanse those who have repented, is the water of life; but the cisterns which you have dug for yourselves are broken and of no use to you. For what is the use of that baptism which makes bright the flesh and the body only?

“Be baptized in the soul from anger and from greed, from envy, from hatred; and behold, the body is clean. For this is the meaning of the unleavened bread: that you should not do the old works of the bad leaven. But you have understood everything in a fleshly way, and you think it piety if, while doing such things, your souls are full of deceit and in short of every vice.

“That is why God commanded that after the seven days of eating unleavened bread you should knead new leaven for yourselves, that is, the practice of other works and not the imitation of the old and evil ones. And to show that this is what this new lawgiver asks of you, I will recount again the words I quoted before, together with others that were omitted. They were spoken by Isaiah thus:

“‘Listen to me, and your soul shall live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sure holy things of David. Behold, I have given him as a testimony to the nations, a ruler 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.

“‘Seek God, and when you find him, call on him, whenever he draws near to you. Let the ungodly forsake his ways and the lawless man his counsels, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will find mercy, for he will abundantly forgive your sins. For my counsels are not like your counsels, nor my ways like your ways; but as far as the heaven is from the earth, so far is my way from your way and your thoughts from my mind.

“‘For as snow or rain comes down from heaven and does not return until it has watered the earth and made it bring forth and sprout and give seed to the sower and bread for food, so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth; it shall not return until all that I willed has been accomplished, and I will prosper my commandments.

“‘For you shall go out in gladness and be taught in joy; for the mountains and the hills shall leap as they wait for you, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their branches; and instead of the brushwood the cypress shall come up, and instead of the fleabane the myrtle shall come up; and the Lord shall be for a name and for an everlasting sign, and shall not fail.’

“Of these and similar words spoken by the prophets, Trypho,” I said, “some were spoken of the first coming of Christ, in which he was proclaimed to appear without honor and without form and mortal; and others of his second coming, when he will appear in glory and above the clouds, and your people will see and recognize him whom they pierced, as Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, and Daniel foretold.”

“Learn, then, to keep the true fast of God, as Isaiah says, that you may please God.

“For Isaiah has cried thus: ‘Cry aloud with strength and do not spare; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their sins, and to the house of Jacob their transgressions. They seek me day by day and desire to know my ways, like a people that has done righteousness and not forsaken the judgment of God.

“‘They ask me now for a just judgment and desire to draw near to God, saying: Why have we fasted and you did not see, humbled our souls and you did not know? For in the days of your fasts you find your own wills, and you goad all who are under you; behold, you fast for lawsuits and quarrels, and strike the lowly with your fists. Why do you fast to me as you do today, so that your voice is heard in an outcry?

“‘This is not the fast I have chosen, a day for a man to humble his soul; not even if you bow your neck like a ring and spread sackcloth and ashes under you, not even so shall you call it a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord. Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord; but loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of forced contracts, set free the broken, and tear up every unjust bond.

“‘Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see someone naked, clothe him, and do not overlook those of your own family. Then your light shall break forth early, and your garments shall quickly spring up, and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall surround you. Then you shall cry, and God shall hear you; while you are still speaking he will say, Here I am.

“‘And if you take away from yourself the bond, and the pointing of the finger, and the word of murmuring, and give your bread to the hungry from your 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 continually, and you shall be filled as your soul desires, and your bones shall be made fat, and they shall be like a watered garden and a spring of water, or a land where water has not failed.’

“Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, as the words of God require through all these words.”

“And God himself cried out through Moses, saying thus: ‘And you shall circumcise your hardness of heart, and you shall no longer stiffen your neck; for the Lord your God, and Lord of lords, is a great and mighty and terrible God, who does not regard persons nor take a bribe.’ And in Leviticus: ‘Because they transgressed and despised me, and because they walked contrary to me, I also walked contrary to them, and I will destroy them in the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart shall be ashamed.’

“For the circumcision according to the flesh, from Abraham, was given for a sign, that you might be separated from the other nations and from us, and that you alone might suffer what you now justly suffer, and that your lands might become desolate and your cities burned with fire, and strangers might eat your fruits before your eyes, and none of you might go up to Jerusalem.

“For you are known among other men by nothing else than by your circumcision in the flesh. For none of you, I think, will dare to say that God was not and is not one who knows beforehand what will happen, and prepares what each deserves. And so these things have happened to you well and justly.

“For you killed the Righteous One, and before him his prophets; and now you reject those who hope in him and in the one who sent him, God Almighty and Maker of all things, and, as far as you can, dishonor them, cursing in your synagogues those who believe in Christ. For you do not have authority to lay hands on us yourselves, because of those who now rule; but whenever you could, you did this too.

“Therefore God cries to you through Isaiah, saying: ‘See how the righteous one has perished, and no one considers it. For the righteous one has been taken away from the presence of injustice. He shall be in peace; his burial has been taken away from the midst. Come here, you lawless sons, seed of adulterers and children of a harlot. In whom have you delighted, and against whom have you opened your mouth, and against whom have you loosed your tongue?’”

“For the other nations are not so guilty of this injustice toward us and toward Christ as you are, who are the cause of their evil prejudice against the Righteous One and against us who are from him. For after you had crucified that only blameless and righteous man, through whose stripes healing comes to those who approach the Father through him, when you knew that he had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, as the prophecies foretold would happen, not only did you not repent of the evil you had done, but you then chose picked men from Jerusalem and sent them out into all the land, saying that a godless sect of Christians had appeared, and reciting the things that all who do not know us say against us; so that you are the cause of injustice not only to yourselves, but to all other men without exception.

“And rightly does Isaiah cry: ‘Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations.’ And: ‘Woe to their soul, for they have planned an evil plan against themselves, saying: Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their works. Woe to the lawless one; evil shall befall him according to the works of his hands.’ And again in other words: ‘Woe to those who draw their sins as with a long rope, 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.’

“Against the only blameless and righteous light, sent to men from God, you have been eager to have bitter and dark and unjust things spoken in all the earth. For he seemed troublesome to you when he cried among you: ‘It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.’ And he overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple.

“And he cried: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and rue, but do not consider the love of God and judgment. Whitewashed tombs, outwardly appearing beautiful, but inside 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; blind guides.’

“For since you have read, Trypho, as you yourself admitted, the things taught by that Savior of ours, I do not think I have done anything out of place in mentioning a few of his sayings as well as the prophetic ones.

“Wash, then, and be clean now, and put away the wickedness from your souls, as God bids you wash with this washing and be circumcised with the true circumcision. For we too would keep this circumcision according to the flesh, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined on you, namely because of your transgressions and hardness of heart.

“For if we endure bearing all that is done against us by men and evil demons, even to the unspeakable, death and torments, praying for mercy even on those who inflict such things on us, and wishing to repay no one even a little, as the new lawgiver commanded us, how would we not keep those things which do us no harm, I mean fleshly circumcision and Sabbaths and feasts?”

And Trypho said, “This is what deserves perplexity: that you endure such things, and yet do not keep all the other things about which we are now inquiring.”

“For this circumcision is not necessary for all men, but for you alone, so that, as I said before, you might suffer what you now justly suffer. Nor do we receive that useless baptism of cisterns; for it is nothing compared with this baptism of life. That is why God cried out: ‘You have forsaken him, the living spring, and dug for yourselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water.’

“And you, who are circumcised in the flesh, need our circumcision; but we, having this one, have no need of that. For if it were necessary, as you think, God would not have made Adam uncircumcised, nor would he have looked on the gifts of Abel, who offered sacrifices while uncircumcised in the flesh, nor would Enoch have pleased him in uncircumcision, and was not found, because God translated him.

“Lot, uncircumcised, was saved out of Sodom, the angels themselves and the Lord escorting him. Noah, the beginning of another race, entered the ark uncircumcised with his children. Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High, was uncircumcised, to whom Abraham, the first to receive circumcision in the flesh, gave tithe-offerings, and he blessed him; after whose order God declared through David that he would appoint the eternal priest.

“For you alone, then, this circumcision was necessary, so that the people might be no people and the nation no nation, as Hosea, one of the twelve prophets, says. For all the righteous men named before pleased God without keeping the Sabbath, and after them Abraham and all his sons until Moses, under whom your people showed itself unjust and ungrateful toward God, making a calf in the wilderness.

“Hence God, accommodating himself to that people, commanded them also to offer sacrifices as to his name, so that you might not worship idols; which you did not keep either, but even sacrificed your children to demons. And he commanded you to keep the Sabbath, that you might keep God in remembrance; for his word signifies this, saying: ‘That you may know that I am the God who redeemed you.’

“For he also commanded you to abstain from certain foods, so that even in eating and drinking you might have God before your eyes, since you were prone and quick to depart from the knowledge of him, as Moses also says: ‘The people ate and drank and rose up to play.’ And again: ‘Jacob ate and was filled, and grew fat, and the beloved kicked; he grew fat, grew thick, grew broad, and forsook God who made him.’ For it has been recounted to you by Moses in the book of Genesis that God allowed Noah, a righteous man, to eat every living creature, except flesh with its blood, that is, what has died of itself.

And when he was about to say, “As the green herbs,” I said first: “Why do you not understand ‘as the green herbs’ as spoken by God, meaning that as God had made the herbs for man's food, so he had given the animals for eating meat? But since we do not eat some herbs, you say that a distinction was also made for Noah from that time.

“It must not be believed as you explain it. First, I will not spend time on this, though I could say and prove that every green herb is fit to be eaten. But even if we distinguish among the green herbs and do not eat them all, we do not refrain from eating them because they are common or unclean, but because they are bitter or deadly or thorny; and we seek and partake of all those that are sweet and most nourishing and finest, both of the sea and of the land.

“So too God commanded you through Moses to abstain from unclean and unjust and lawless things, because even while you were eating the manna in the wilderness and seeing all the wonders done for you by God, you made the golden calf and worshiped it. So that he rightly cries always: ‘Senseless sons, there is no faith in them.’”

“And that God commanded you to keep the Sabbath, and imposed the other precepts, as a sign, as I said before, because of your unrighteousness and that of your fathers; and that he indicates that it was for the sake of the nations, so that his name might not be profaned among them, that he let some of you remain alive at all: his own words can prove this to you.

“They were spoken through Ezekiel thus: ‘I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do not mingle with the practices of Egypt; and hallow my Sabbaths, and it shall be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. And you provoked me, and your children did not walk in my statutes, and did not keep my ordinances to do them, which if a man does he shall live by them; but they profaned my Sabbaths.

“‘And I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to accomplish my anger on them; and I did not do it, so that my name might not be utterly profaned before the nations, and I brought them out before their eyes. And I lifted up my hand against them in the wilderness, to scatter them among the nations and disperse them in the countries, because they did not do my ordinances, and rejected my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the desires of their fathers.

“‘And I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they shall not live; and I will defile them in their gifts, when I pass through every one that opens the womb, that I may destroy them.’

“And that he likewise commanded these things to be done because of the sins of your people and because of their idolatries, and not because he needed such offerings, hear how he speaks about them through Amos, one of the twelve, crying:

“‘Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why is this day of the Lord 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 leaps into his house and leans his hands against the wall, and a serpent bites him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I have hated, I have rejected your feasts, and I will not smell the savor of your solemn assemblies.

“‘Therefore if you bring me your whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices, I will not accept them, and I will not look upon your peace offerings. Take away from me the multitude of your songs and psalms; I will not hear your instruments. And judgment shall roll down like water, and righteousness like an impassable torrent. Did you offer me slain beasts and sacrifices in the wilderness, O house of Israel? says the Lord. And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images which you made for yourselves.

“‘And I will remove you beyond Damascus, says the Lord; the Lord Almighty is his name. Woe to those who live wantonly in Zion, and to those who trust in the mountain of Samaria. Those named among the chiefs have gathered the first-fruits of the nations; they have gone in for themselves, the house of Israel. Pass over, all of you, to Calneh and see, and go from there to Hamath the great, and go down from there to Gath of the Philistines, the strongest of all these kingdoms, and see if their borders are greater than your borders.

“‘You who come to an evil day, who draw near and touch false Sabbaths, who lie on beds of ivory and live wantonly on your couches, who eat lambs out of the flocks and sucking calves from the midst of the herds, who clap to the sound of the instruments, who reckoned them as lasting and not as fleeting, who drink wine in bowls and anoint yourselves with the finest ointments, and suffered nothing at the ruin of Joseph. Therefore they shall now go into captivity at the head of the princes who are carried away, and the house of evildoers shall be overturned, and the neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim.’

“And again through Jeremiah: ‘Gather your meats and your sacrifices and eat; for I gave your fathers no commandment about sacrifices or drink offerings in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.’

“And again through David, in the forty-ninth psalm, he spoke thus: ‘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 beauty of his loveliness. God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silence; fire shall burn before him, and around him a mighty tempest. He will call the heaven above and the earth, to judge his people. Gather to him his holy ones, who make his covenant with sacrifices. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge.

“‘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 whole burnt offerings are before me continually. I will not take calves from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks; for all the beasts of the field are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen; I know all the birds of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me.

“‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine and all that fills it. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. But to the sinner God said: Why do you recite my ordinances, and take my covenant in your mouth? You have hated instruction and cast my words behind you.

“‘If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you cast your lot with an adulterer. Your mouth multiplied evil, and your tongue wove deceit. You sat and spoke against your brother, and put a stumbling block before your mother's son. These things you did, and I kept silence; you thought, in your lawlessness, that I would be like you. I will rebuke you and set your sins before your face. Understand this, you who forget God, lest he seize you and there be none to deliver. A sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and there is the way by which I will show him my salvation.’

“So he neither accepts sacrifices from you, nor did he command them in the beginning as though he needed them, but because of your sins. For he did not acknowledge the temple in Jerusalem, which was called his house or court, as though he needed it, but so that, attending to him in this way too, you might not worship idols. And that this is so, Isaiah says: ‘What house have you built me? says the Lord. Heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet.’”

“But if we do not acknowledge these things so, we shall fall into absurd thoughts: as though it were not the same God who was in the time of Enoch and all the others, who neither had circumcision according to the flesh, nor kept Sabbaths or the other things, since Moses commanded them to be done; or as though he did not always will the whole race of men to do the same righteous things; which it seems ridiculous and foolish to admit.

“But it is possible to acknowledge that the one who is always the same commanded these and such things for the sake of sinful men, and to declare him loving to mankind, foreknowing, without need, just, and good. For if this is not so, answer me, sirs, what you think about the matters under inquiry.”

And when no one answered: “For these reasons, Trypho, I will proclaim to you and to those who wish to become proselytes the divine word which I heard from that man. You see that the elements are not idle and keep no Sabbath. Remain as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, nor of the Sabbath and feasts and offerings before Moses, neither is there need of them now, after the Son of God, Jesus Christ, has been born according to the will of God through Mary, a virgin of the race of Abraham.

“For Abraham himself, while uncircumcised, was justified and blessed because of the faith with which he believed God, as the Scripture indicates; and he received circumcision as a sign, not for righteousness, as both the Scriptures and the facts compel us to admit. So it was rightly said of that people that ‘that soul shall be cut off from its people which shall not be circumcised on the eighth day.’

“And the fact that the female sex cannot receive fleshly circumcision shows that this circumcision was given as a sign, and not as a work of righteousness; for God made women equally able to observe all that is righteous and virtuous. We see that the bodily form of male and female was made different; but we know that neither of them is righteous or unrighteous for this reason, but because of piety and righteousness.

“And indeed we could show, sirs,” I said, “that the eighth day had some mystery, proclaimed by God through these things, more than the seventh. But so that I may not now seem to turn aside to other subjects, understand, I cry, that the blood of that circumcision has been abolished, and we have believed in the saving blood; there is now another covenant, and another law has gone out from Zion.

“Jesus Christ circumcises all who wish, as was proclaimed of old, with knives of stone, that there may be a righteous nation, a people keeping faith, holding to truth and keeping peace.

“Come with me, all who fear God, who wish to see the good things of Jerusalem. ‘Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord; for he has set free his people, the house of Jacob.’ Come, all nations, let us be gathered to Jerusalem, which is no longer warred against because of the transgressions of the peoples. ‘For I was made manifest to those who did not seek me, I was found by those who did not ask for me,’ he cries through Isaiah.

“‘I said, Here I am, to nations who did not call on my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a disobedient and contradicting people, to those who walk in a way that is not good, but after their sins. A people that provokes me before my face.’

“These men who justify themselves and say they are children of Abraham will wish to inherit with us even a little place, as the Holy Spirit cries through Isaiah, saying as from their person:

“‘Turn from heaven, and look from your holy and glorious house. Where is your zeal and your strength? Where is the abundance of your mercy, that you have borne with us, Lord? For you are our Father, for Abraham did not know us, and Israel did not acknowledge us. But you, Lord our Father, deliver us; from the beginning your name has been upon us. Why have you made us stray, Lord, from your way, and hardened our heart so that we do not fear you?

“‘Return for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes of your inheritance, that we may inherit a little of your holy mountain. We have become as at the beginning, when you did not rule over us, nor was your name called upon us. If you open the heaven, trembling from you will seize the mountains, and they will melt as wax melts before fire; and fire will burn up your adversaries, and your name will be manifest among your adversaries; the nations will be troubled at your presence.

“‘When you do glorious things, trembling from you will seize the mountains. From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides you, and your works. He will show mercy to those who repent. He will meet those who do what is right, and they will remember your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned. Therefore we went astray, and we all became unclean, and all our righteousness is like a filthy rag, and we fell away like leaves because of our transgressions; so the wind will carry us away.

“‘And there is none who calls on your name, or who 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 holy one has become a desert; Zion has become as a desert, Jerusalem a curse; the house, our sanctuary, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire, and all the glorious nations have fallen together. And at these things you have held back, Lord, and been silent, and humbled us greatly.’”

And Trypho said, “What then do you mean? That none of us will inherit anything on the holy mountain of God?”

And I said, “I do not say this; but those who persecuted and persecute Christ and do not repent will inherit nothing on the holy mountain; while the nations who have believed in him and repented of their sins will inherit with the patriarchs and the prophets and all the righteous descended from Jacob; and even if they do not keep the Sabbath nor are circumcised nor keep the feasts, they will certainly inherit the holy inheritance of God.

“For God says through Isaiah thus: ‘I the Lord God have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you, and I have given you for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out those bound from their bonds, and those who sit in darkness from the prison house.’

“And again: ‘Lift up a signal to the nations. For behold, the Lord has made it heard to the end of the earth; say to the daughters of Zion: Behold, your Savior has come, having his reward, and his work before his face. And he will call them a holy people, redeemed by the Lord; and you shall be called a city sought out and not forsaken. Who is this who comes from Edom, with red garments from Bozrah, this one beautiful in his robe, coming up in might with strength? I speak righteousness and judgment of salvation.

“‘Why are your garments red, and your clothing as from a trodden winepress? I have trodden the winepress full of trodden grapes alone, and of the nations there is no man with me; and I trod them down in my wrath, and crushed them like earth, and brought down their blood to the earth. For the day of recompense has come upon them, and the year of redemption is here. And I looked, and there was no helper; and I observed, and no one supported; and my arm delivered, and my wrath came upon them; and I trod them down in my anger, and brought down their blood to the earth.’”

And Trypho said, “Why do you choose from the prophetic words whatever you wish, but do not mention those that expressly command us to keep the Sabbath? For through Isaiah it is said thus: ‘If you turn your foot away from the Sabbaths, so as not to do your own will on the holy day, and call the Sabbaths delightful, holy to your God, if you do not lift your foot to work nor speak a word from your mouth, then you shall trust in the Lord, and he will make you ride on the good things of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.’”

And I said, “I did not pass over such prophecies, friends, as though they were against me, but because you have understood and do understand that, even if he commands you through all the prophets to do the same things he commanded through Moses, he is always crying the same things because of your hardness of heart and ingratitude toward him, so that even so you may some day repent and please him, and neither sacrifice your children to demons, nor be companions of thieves, loving gifts and pursuing rewards, not judging for the orphan nor attending to the cause of the widow, nor having your hands full of blood.

“For the daughters of Zion have walked with lofty necks, playing with winks of the eyes and trailing their tunics. And ‘all have turned aside,’ he cries, ‘they have all together become useless; there is none who understands, there is not even one. With their tongues they have practiced deceit; their throat is an open grave; the poison of asps is under their lips; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.’

“So just as these things were commanded in the beginning because of your wickedness, likewise, because of your persistence in it, or rather your increase in it, he calls you by the same means to remembrance and knowledge of him. But you are a hard-hearted and senseless people, blind and lame, and sons in whom there is no faith, as he himself says, honoring him with your lips only, but far from him in your heart, teaching your own doctrines and not his.

“For, tell me, did God want the high priests to sin by offering the offerings on the Sabbaths? Or those who are circumcised and who circumcise on the Sabbath day, when he commands that those born be circumcised on the eighth day in every case, even if it is a Sabbath day? Or could he not have had those born circumcised one day before or one day after the Sabbath, if he knew it was wrong on the Sabbath? Or why did he not teach those named before Moses and Abraham as righteous and pleasing to him, who were neither circumcised nor kept Sabbaths, to do these things?”

And Trypho said, “We have heard you put this forward before, and we paid attention; for to tell the truth it deserves attention. And I do not think, as most do, that the answer is to say that it pleased him; for that is always the excuse of those who cannot answer the question.”

And I said, “Since I make my proofs and discussions from the Scriptures and the facts, do not delay or hesitate to believe me, though I am uncircumcised. This short time is left you for becoming proselytes; if Christ comes first, you will repent in vain, you will weep in vain; for he will not hear 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.’

“Do not, then, sow among thorns and in unplowed ground, from which you have no fruit. Know Christ, and behold, there is fine fallow ground, fine and rich, in your hearts. ‘For behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will visit all 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.’

“You see that God does not want this circumcision given as a sign; for it is of no use to the Egyptians, nor to the sons of Moab, nor to the sons of Edom. But even if someone is a Scythian or a Persian, but has the knowledge of God and of his Christ and keeps the eternal righteous precepts, he has been circumcised with the good and profitable circumcision, and is a friend of God, and God rejoices in his gifts and offerings.

“And I will give you, friends, the words of God himself, when he spoke to the people through Malachi, one of the twelve prophets. They are these: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I do not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place sacrifice is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for my name is honored among the nations, says the Lord, but you profane it.’

“And he said through David: ‘A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.’

“Let us glorify God, the nations gathered together, because he has visited us too; let us glorify him through the King of glory, through the Lord of hosts. For he has been well pleased with the nations also, and receives sacrifices more gladly from us than from you. What need have I any longer of circumcision, who have been attested by God? What need of that baptism, who have been baptized with the Holy Spirit?

“In saying this I think I shall persuade even those who have little understanding. For these words have not been composed by me nor adorned by human art, but David sang them, Isaiah proclaimed them as good news, Zechariah preached them, and Moses wrote them down. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They are laid up in your writings, or rather not yours, but ours; for we obey them, but you read them and do not understand their meaning.

“Do not, then, be vexed, nor reproach us with the uncircumcision of the body, which God himself formed; nor think it terrible that we drink hot water on the Sabbaths; since God too carries on the same government of the world on this day as on all the others, and the high priests were commanded to make the offerings on this day as on the other days, and so many righteous men who did none of these legal observances have been attested by God himself.

“But blame your own wickedness, because God can be slandered by those who have no understanding, as though he had not always taught all the same righteous things. For to many men such teachings have seemed unreasonable and unworthy of God, since they have not received the grace to know that he called your people, when it was acting wickedly and was sick in soul, to conversion and repentance of spirit, and that the prophecy that came after the death of Moses is eternal.

“And this was said through the psalm, sirs. And that we, who have been made wise by them, confess them to be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, is clear from the fact that we do not deny his name even to death. And it is clear to all that we who believe in him ask him to keep us from strangers, that is, from wicked and deceitful spirits, as the word of prophecy says, speaking in the person of one of those who believe in him.

“For we always ask God, through Jesus Christ, to be kept from the demons, which are strangers to the worship of God, whom we once worshiped, so that after turning to God through him we may be blameless. For we call him Helper and Redeemer, the power of whose name even the demons fear; and today, when they are exorcised in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea, they are subdued; so that from this too it is plain to all that his Father has given him so great power that even the demons are subject to his name and to the dispensation of the passion that he underwent.”

“But if so great a power is shown to have accompanied and still to accompany the dispensation of his passion, how great will be the power at his glorious coming? For he will come on the clouds as the Son of Man, as Daniel indicated, with angels coming with him.

“These are the words: ‘I beheld until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat, having a garment white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne like a flame of fire, its wheels burning fire. A river of fire flowed out, going forth from before his face; a thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. Books were opened, and the court sat.

“‘I beheld then the voice of the great words which the horn spoke, and the beast was beaten to death, and its body perished and was given to be burned with fire; and the other beasts were removed from their dominion, and a time of life was given to the beasts until a season and a time. I beheld in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one coming like a son of man; and he came to the Ancient of Days and was present before him, and those who stood by brought him near.

“‘And to him was given authority and royal honor, and all the nations of the earth by their races, and all glory, serving him; and his authority is an everlasting authority, which shall not be taken away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed. And my spirit shuddered within me, and the visions of my head troubled me. And I came near to one of those who stood by, and sought from him the exact meaning of all these things. And he answered and told me, and made known to me the interpretation of the words: These great beasts are four kingdoms, which shall perish from the earth; and they shall not receive the kingdom forever, and to the age of ages.

“‘Then I wished to learn exactly about the fourth beast, which destroyed all things and was exceedingly terrible, whose teeth were of iron and whose claws of bronze, devouring and crushing, and trampling what was left with its feet; and about its ten horns on its head, and the one that grew up, and three of the former fell before it; and that horn had eyes and a mouth speaking great things, and its appearance surpassed the others. And I watched that horn making war against the saints and routing them, until the Ancient of Days came and gave judgment to the saints of the Most High, and the time came, and the saints of the Most High possessed the kingdom.

“‘And it was said to me about the fourth beast: A fourth kingdom shall be on the earth, which shall surpass all these kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth and overthrow it and crush it. And the ten horns: ten kings shall arise, and another after them, and he shall surpass the first in evils, and shall humble three kings, and shall speak words against the Most High, and shall overthrow other saints of the Most High, and shall think to change times and seasons; and it shall be given into his hands until a time and times and half a time.

“‘And the court sat, and they shall remove his dominion, to destroy and to abolish it to the end. And the kingdom and the authority and the greatness of the places of the kingdoms under heaven were given to the holy people of the Most High, to reign with an everlasting kingdom; and all authorities shall be subject to him and obey him. Here is the end of the word. I, Daniel, was greatly seized with amazement, and my appearance was changed, and I kept the matter in my heart.’”

And when I had stopped, Trypho said, “Sir, these and such Scriptures compel us to expect one glorious and great, who receives the everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days as the Son of Man; but this one whom you call Christ was without honor and glory, so that he even fell under the last curse in the law of God; for he was crucified.”

And I said to him, “If, sirs, I had not explained from the Scriptures I recounted before that his form was without glory and his generation not to be told, and that in return for his death the rich would be put to death, and by his stripes we were healed, and that he was said to be led like a sheep; and that there would be two comings of his, 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 apart and the men apart, I would seem to be saying obscure and puzzling things. But now I make all my proofs from all the words of the holy and prophetic Scriptures among you, hoping that some of you may be found among those left over by the grace that is from the Lord of hosts for everlasting salvation.

“So that what is now being inquired into may become clearer to you, I will tell you other words spoken through the blessed David, from which you will understand that Christ is called Lord by the holy prophetic Spirit, and that the Lord, the Father of all, brought him up from the earth and set him at his right hand, until he makes his enemies the footstool of his feet; which has been happening since our Lord Jesus Christ was taken up into heaven after rising from the dead, as the times are being fulfilled, and he who is to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High is already at the doors, whom Daniel indicates will hold sway for a time and times and half a time.

“And you, not knowing how long he will hold sway, think otherwise; for you explain the ‘time’ as meaning a hundred years. If this is so, the man of lawlessness must reign at least three hundred and fifty years, if we count what the holy Daniel said, ‘and times,’ as meaning only two times.

“And all these things I say to you by way of digression, so that, persuaded at last by what God has said against you, that ‘you are senseless sons,’ and, ‘Therefore, behold, I will proceed to remove this people, and I will remove them, and I will take away the wisdom of the wise, and hide the understanding of their prudent ones,’ you may stop deceiving yourselves and those who hear you, and learn from us, who have been made wise by the grace of Christ.

“These, then, are the words spoken through David: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. The Lord will send out for you a rod of power from Zion; and rule in the midst of your enemies. With you is the rule in the day of your power, in the splendors of your saints; from the womb before the morning star I begot you. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at your right hand has crushed kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations, he will fill up the corpses. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.’”

“And I know that you dare to explain this psalm as spoken of King Hezekiah,” I added; “but that you are mistaken I will show you at once from the words themselves. ‘The Lord has sworn and will not repent,’ it says, and, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,’ with what follows and what precedes. That Hezekiah neither was a priest nor is an eternal priest of God, not even you will dare to deny; and that it is spoken of our Jesus, the words themselves indicate. But your ears are stopped and your hearts hardened.

“For by ‘The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,’ God declared with an oath, because of your unbelief, that he is high priest after the order of Melchizedek; that is, just as Melchizedek is recorded by Moses to have been a priest of the Most High, and he was priest of those in uncircumcision, and blessed Abraham, who was in circumcision and brought him tithes, so God showed that his eternal priest, who is also called Lord by the Holy Spirit, would be the priest of those in uncircumcision; and those in circumcision who approach him, that is, believe in him and seek blessings from him, he too will receive and bless. And that he will first be a humble man, and then be exalted, the end of the psalm shows: ‘He will drink from the brook by the way,’ and with it, ‘Therefore he will lift up his head.’

“And further, to persuade you that you have understood nothing of the Scriptures, I will recall another psalm spoken to David by the Holy Spirit, which you say was spoken of Solomon, who was also your king; but it too was spoken of our Christ. But you deceive yourselves by words of the same sound. For where it is said, ‘The law of the Lord is blameless,’ you explain it not of the law that was to come after that one, but of the one given through Moses, though God cries that he will make a new law and a new covenant.

“And where it is said, ‘O God, give your judgment to the king,’ since Solomon became king, you say the psalm was spoken of him, though the words of the psalm plainly proclaim that it was spoken of the eternal King, that is, of Christ. For Christ is proclaimed as King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Child born, and first made subject to suffering, then going up into heaven and coming again with glory and having the eternal kingdom, as I prove from all the Scriptures.

“And so that you may understand what I have said, I give the words of the psalm. They are these: ‘O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son, to judge your people in righteousness and your poor in judgment. Let the mountains bring peace to the people, and the hills righteousness. He will judge the poor of the people, and save the sons of the needy, and humble the slanderer; and he will endure with the sun and before the moon to generations of generations. He will come down like rain on a fleece, and like drops that drip upon the earth.

“‘In his days righteousness shall spring up, and abundance of peace, until the moon is taken away. And he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the world. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall bring gifts; the kings of the Arabians and Seba shall bring gifts, and all the kings of the earth shall worship him, and all the nations shall serve him; for he has delivered the poor from the mighty, and the needy who had no helper.

“‘He shall spare the poor and needy, and save the souls of the needy; from usury and injustice he shall redeem their souls, and his name shall be honorable before them. And he shall live, and there shall be given to him of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray for him continually; all the day they shall bless him. And there shall be a support on the earth; on the tops of the mountains it shall be lifted up; its fruit shall be above Lebanon, and they shall blossom out of the city like the grass of the earth.

“‘His name shall be blessed forever; his name endures before the sun. And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him; all the nations shall call him blessed. Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wonderful things, and blessed is the name of his glory forever and to the age of ages; and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it.’ And at the end of this psalm which I have quoted it is written: ‘The hymns of David, son of Jesse, are ended.’

“And I know that Solomon was a famous and great king, under whom the house in Jerusalem called by God's name was built; but it is plain that none of the things said in the psalm happened to him. For neither did all the kings worship him, nor did he reign to the ends of the world, nor did his enemies fall before him and lick the dust.

“Indeed, I venture to mention what is written in the Books of Kings as done by him: that because of a woman he worshiped idols in Sidon; which those from the nations who have come to know God, the Maker of all, through Jesus who was crucified, will not endure to do, but they endure every outrage and punishment to the point of death rather than worship idols or eat food sacrificed to idols.

And Trypho said, “And yet I learn that many of those who say they confess Jesus and are called Christians eat food sacrificed to idols and say that they are not harmed by it.”

And I answered, “From the fact that there are such men, who confess themselves to be Christians and confess the crucified Jesus as both Lord and Christ, but teach not his teachings but those of the spirits of error, we who are disciples of the true and pure teaching of Jesus Christ become more faithful and more firm in the hope he proclaimed. For what he said beforehand would happen in his name, these things we see fulfilled before our eyes and in fact.

“For he said, ‘Many will come in my name, clothed outwardly in sheep's skins, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’ And, ‘There will be schisms and heresies.’ And, ‘Beware of false prophets, who will come to you clothed outwardly in sheep's skins, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’ And, ‘Many false Christs and false apostles will arise, and will lead astray many of the faithful.’

“There are, then, and have been, friends, many who have taught men to say and do godless and blasphemous things, coming in the name of Jesus; and they are called by us after the name of the men from whom each teaching and opinion began.

“For some in one way and others in another teach men to blaspheme the Maker of all things, and the Christ foretold by him as coming, and the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; with none of whom do we have fellowship, knowing that they are godless and ungodly and unrighteous and lawless, and that instead of worshiping Jesus they confess him in name only.

“And they call themselves Christians, in the same way as those among the nations inscribe the name of God on things made by hands, and take part in lawless and godless rites. And some of them are called Marcianites, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, others Saturnilians, and others by other names, each named after the originator of the opinion, just as each of those who think they practice philosophy, as I said at the beginning, thinks he bears the name of the philosophy he practices from the father of the teaching.

“So from these things too, as I said, we know that Jesus foreknew what would happen after him, and from many other things that he foretold would happen to those who believe in him and confess him as Christ. For all that we suffer, being put to death by our own kinsmen, he foretold would happen to us, so that in no way does any word or deed of his appear open to blame.

“Therefore we pray for you and for all other men who are hostile to us, that you may repent with us and not blaspheme Christ Jesus, who is blameless and irreproachable in all things, as shown by his works and the mighty works done even now by his name, and by the words of his teaching, and by the prophecies spoken about him; but that, believing in him, you may be saved at his glorious coming, which will take place again, and not be condemned by him to the fire.”

And he answered, “Let these things be as you say: that the Christ was foretold as one who would suffer, and has been called a Stone, and that after his first coming, in which it was proclaimed he would appear subject to suffering, he will come in glory and be judge of all, and eternal King and Priest. But prove that this man is the one of whom these things were prophesied.”

And I said, “As you wish, Trypho, I will come to these proofs you ask for in the proper place; but now you will allow me first to recall the prophecies I wish, to show that Christ is called by the Holy Spirit both God and Lord of hosts and Jacob in a parable; and that your interpreters, as God cries, are foolish, saying that these were spoken not of Christ but of Solomon, when he brought the tabernacle of witness into the temple he had built.

“This is the psalm of David: ‘The earth is the Lord's and its fullness, the world and all who dwell in it. He founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers. Who shall go up to the mountain of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He who is innocent in hands and pure in heart, who has not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbor.

“‘He 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 gates, 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 gates, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.’

“It has been shown, then, that Solomon is not the Lord of hosts; but when our Christ rose from the dead and was going up into heaven, the rulers appointed by God in the heavens are commanded to open the gates of the heavens, so that he who is King of glory may enter, and, having gone up, sit at the right hand of the Father until he makes his enemies the footstool of his feet, as has been shown through the other psalm.

“For when the rulers in heaven saw him with no beauty or honor in his form and without glory, not recognizing him, they asked, ‘Who is this King of glory?’ And the Holy Spirit answers them, either in the person of the Father or in his own: ‘The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.’ For everyone will admit that no one would have dared to say of Solomon, glorious king as he was, or of the tabernacle of witness, among those standing at the gates of the temple in Jerusalem, ‘Who is this King of glory?’

“And in the diapsalm of the forty-sixth psalm,” I said, “it is said of Christ thus: ‘God has gone 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 reigned over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The rulers of the peoples have gathered with the God of Abraham, for the mighty ones of the earth belong to God; they were greatly exalted.’

“And in the ninety-eighth psalm the Holy Spirit reproaches you, and declares that this one, whom you do not want to be king, is King and Lord both of Samuel and of Aaron and of Moses and, in short, of all the others.

“These are the words of the psalm: ‘The Lord has reigned; let the peoples be angry. He who sits upon the cherubim; let the earth be shaken. The Lord is great in Zion, and high above all the peoples. Let them confess your great name, for it is terrible and holy; and the honor of the king loves judgment. You have prepared uprightness; judgment and righteousness in Jacob you have done. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at 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,’ says the Scripture, ‘on the Lord, and he heard them. In a pillar of cloud he spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the ordinance he gave them. O Lord our God, you heard them; O God, you were gracious to them, and took vengeance on all their deeds. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.’”

And Trypho said, “Sir, it would have been good for us to obey our teachers, who laid down a law that we should converse with none of you, and not to have taken part in these discussions with you. For you say many blasphemous things, thinking to persuade us that this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron and spoke to them in the pillar of cloud, then became man and was crucified, and went up into heaven, and comes again upon the earth, and is to be worshiped.”

And I answered, “I know that, as the word of God said, this great wisdom of God, the Maker of all things and Almighty, is hidden from you. Therefore, out of sympathy for you, I strive to labor, so that you may understand these paradoxes of ours; or if not, so that I at least may be innocent on the day of judgment. For you will hear other words that seem still more paradoxical; but do not be troubled; rather, becoming more eager, remain as listeners and examiners, despising the tradition of your teachers, since they are shown to be unable to understand what was spoken from God by the prophetic Spirit, and prefer to teach their own things.

“In the forty-fourth psalm, then, these things are likewise said of Christ: ‘My heart has poured forth a good word; I speak my works to the king. My tongue is the pen of a swift scribe. You are beautiful above the sons of men; grace has been poured on your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one; in your comeliness and your beauty, bend your bow and prosper and reign, for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness; and your right hand shall guide you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharp, O mighty one; peoples shall fall under you, in the heart of the king's enemies.

“‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. Myrrh and stacte and cassia are from your garments, from ivory palaces, from which they have made you glad. Kings' daughters are in your honor; the queen stood at your right hand, clothed in garments of gold, in many colors. Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; and the king shall desire your beauty, for he is your lord, and they shall worship him.

“‘And the daughter of Tyre with gifts; the rich of the people shall entreat your face. All the glory of the king's daughter is within, clothed in golden fringes, in many colors. Virgins shall be brought to the king after her; her companions shall be brought to you. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing; they shall be led into the king's temple. Instead of your fathers sons are born to you; you shall make them rulers over all the earth. I will remember your name in every generation; therefore peoples shall praise you forever and to the age of ages.’”

“And it is no wonder,” I added, “if you hate us too, who understand these things and expose your always hard-hearted mind. For Elijah too, pleading with God about you, says thus: ‘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 still have seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’

“Just as God did not then bring his wrath because of those seven thousand, so now too he has not yet brought or is bringing judgment, knowing that every day some are becoming disciples in the name of his Christ and leaving the way of error; who also receive gifts, each as they are worthy, being illuminated 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, another of the fear of God.”

And Trypho said to me in reply, “I want you to know that you are out of your mind in saying these things.”

And I said to him, “Listen, my friend, I am not mad or out of my mind; but it was prophesied that after Christ's ascension into heaven he would take us captive from error and give us gifts. These are the words: ‘He went up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men.’

“We, then, who have received gifts from Christ who went up on high, prove from the prophetic words that you, who are wise in yourselves and learned in your own sight, are foolish and honor God and his Christ with your lips only; but we, who have been taught the whole truth, honor him in works and knowledge and heart, even to death.

“But perhaps you hesitate to confess that this is the Christ, as the Scriptures prove and the things that appear and are done in his name, for this reason too: that you may not be persecuted by the rulers, who, by the working of the wicked and deceitful spirit, the serpent, will not cease putting to death and persecuting those who confess the name of Christ, until he comes again and destroys them all and gives to each what he deserves.”

And Trypho said, “Now then give us the account that this man, whom you say was crucified and has gone up into heaven, is the Christ of God. For it has been sufficiently proved by the Scriptures you have recounted that the Christ is proclaimed in the Scriptures as one who would suffer, and come again with glory, and receive the eternal kingdom over all the nations, every kingdom being subjected to him; but prove to us that this is he.”

And I said, “It has already been proved, sirs, to those who have ears, even from what you have admitted; but so that you may not think I am at a loss and unable to make proofs of what you ask, I will do so, as I promised, in the proper place; but now I run back to the connection of the words I was speaking.

“The mystery of the lamb, then, which God commanded to be sacrificed as the Passover, was a type of Christ, with whose blood those who believe in him anoint their houses, that is, themselves, according to their faith in him. For you all can understand that the formation which God formed, Adam, became the house of the breath that came from God. And I prove thus that this commandment too was temporary.

“God does not allow the Passover lamb to be sacrificed anywhere except in the place where his name is called on, knowing that days would come, after Christ's suffering, when the place of Jerusalem would be handed over to your enemies, and all offerings whatever would cease.

“And that lamb which was commanded to be roasted whole was a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ was to undergo. For the lamb, when it is roasted, is shaped like the figure of the cross; for one spit is thrust straight through from the lower parts up to the head, and one again across the back, to which the forelegs of the lamb are fastened.

“And the two like goats commanded at the fast, of which one was the scapegoat and the other for an offering, were an announcement of the two comings of Christ: of the first, in which the elders of your people and the priests sent him away like the scapegoat, laying hands on him and putting him to death; and of his second coming, because in the same place of Jerusalem you will recognize him whom you dishonored; and he was an offering for all sinners willing to repent and to keep the fast which Isaiah describes, loosing the knots of forced contracts, and keeping likewise the other things listed by him, which I too have recounted, and which those who believe in Jesus do.

“And you know that the offering of the two goats commanded to be offered at the fast was likewise not permitted to take place anywhere except in Jerusalem.

“And the offering of fine flour, sirs,” I said, “which was handed down to be offered for those cleansed from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, which Jesus Christ our Lord handed down to be done in remembrance of the suffering he suffered for those who are cleansed in their souls from all wickedness of men, so that we may at the same time give thanks to God both for having created the world with all that is in it for man's sake, and for having set us free from the evil in which we were, and for having utterly overthrown the principalities and powers through him who became subject to suffering according to his will.

“Hence, concerning the sacrifices offered by you at that time, God says, as I said before, through Malachi, one of the twelve: ‘I have 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 nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord, but you profane it.’

“And concerning the sacrifices offered to him in every place by us of the nations, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and likewise the cup of the Eucharist, he foretells then, saying also that we glorify his name, but you profane it.

“And the commandment of circumcision, requiring those born to be circumcised on the eighth day without fail, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we were circumcised from error and wickedness through him who rose from the dead on the first day of the week, Jesus Christ our Lord. For the first day of the week, though it is the first of all the days, is called the eighth according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and yet remains the first.

“And the handing down that twelve bells were attached to the robe of the high priest was a symbol of the twelve apostles who were attached to the power of Christ, the eternal priest, by whose voice all the earth was filled with the glory and grace of God and of his Christ. That is why David too says: ‘Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’

“And Isaiah, speaking as in the person of the apostles, who say to Christ that people believe not their report but the power of him who sent them, therefore says thus: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land,’ and the rest of the prophecy quoted before.

“And the word speaking as in the person of many, ‘We announced before him,’ and adding, ‘like a child,’ shows that the wicked, having become obedient to him, served his command and all became like one child. The same can be seen in the body: though the members are numbered as many, all together are called one, and are one body; and indeed a people and an assembly, though they are many men in number, are called and addressed by one name as being one thing.

“And, in a word, sirs,” I said, “I could enumerate all the other things ordained by Moses and prove them to be types and symbols and announcements of what was to happen to Christ, and of those foreknown as going to believe in him, and of what was likewise to be done by Christ himself. But since what I have now enumerated seems to me sufficient, I pass on and come to the argument in order.

“As, then, circumcision began with Abraham, and the Sabbath and sacrifices and offerings and feasts with Moses, and it has been proved that these things were ordained because of the hardness of heart of your people, so they had to cease, according to the will of the Father, with Christ the Son of God, born of a virgin of the race of Abraham and of the tribe of Judah and of David; who was proclaimed as coming to be an eternal law and a new covenant for the whole world, as the prophecies quoted before indicate.

“And we, who have come to God through him, have received not this circumcision according to the flesh, but the spiritual one, which Enoch and those like him kept; and we received it through baptism, since we had become sinners, by the mercy that is from God; and it is open to all alike to receive it.

“And now, since it is pressing to speak of the mystery of his birth, I speak of it. Isaiah, then, spoke thus about the descent of Christ himself, that it cannot be told by men, as has been written before: ‘Who shall tell his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth; because of the lawless deeds of my people he was led to death.’ The prophetic Spirit said these things, then, since his descent could not be told, and he was to die, so that we sinful men might be healed by his stripes.

“Further, so that men who believe in him might be able to know in what way he came to be born into the world, the prophetic Spirit through the same Isaiah prophesied how it would happen, thus:

“‘And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said: Hear now, house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men? And how do you weary the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat.

“‘Before he knows or chooses evil, he shall choose the good; for before the child knows good or evil, he refuses evil, to choose the good. For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria. And the land shall be seized, which you will bear with difficulty because of the two kings. But God will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days that have not yet come upon you, from the day when Ephraim took away the king of the Assyrians from Judah.’

“Now it is plain to all that in the fleshly race of Abraham no one has ever been born of a virgin, or said to have been born, except this our Christ.

“But since you and your teachers dare to say that the prophecy of Isaiah does not even say, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son,’ and explain the prophecy as referring to Hezekiah, who became your king, I will try in this too to give a brief explanation against you and to prove that it was spoken of this one whom we confess as Christ.

“For in this way I shall be found guiltless in every respect toward you, if I strive by making proofs to persuade you; but if you, remaining hard of heart or weak in resolve because of the death decreed for Christians, will not assent to the truth, you will appear to be the cause of your own ruin. And you deceive yourselves, supposing that, because you are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, you will certainly inherit the good things announced by God as to be given through Christ.

“For no one can obtain anything of those things from anywhere, except those who have become like Abraham's faith in mind, and have recognized all the mysteries, I mean that one commandment was ordained for piety and righteous conduct, while another commandment and practice was spoken either as a mystery of Christ or because of the hardness of heart of your people. And that this is so, God declared in Ezekiel concerning it: ‘If Noah and Jacob and Daniel ask for sons or daughters, it shall not be given them.’

“And in Isaiah he spoke to the same effect thus: ‘The Lord God said: And they shall go out and see the limbs of the men who transgressed; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.’

“So you must cut off this hope from your souls and hasten to learn by what way forgiveness of sins will come to you and hope of inheriting the good things announced; and there is no other than this: that, having come to know this Christ and having been washed with the washing proclaimed by Isaiah for the forgiveness of sins, you should live sinlessly from now on.”

And Trypho said, “Even if I seem to be interrupting these words of yours, which need to be examined, still, since the question I wish to examine is pressing, bear with me first.” And I said, “Examine whatever you wish, as it occurs to you; for after the questions and answers I will try to take up the argument again and complete it.”

And he said, “Tell me then: will those who lived according to the law ordained through Moses live like Jacob and Enoch and Noah in the resurrection of the dead, or not?”

And I said to him, “When I quoted, sir, what was said by Ezekiel, that ‘Even if Noah and Daniel and Jacob ask for sons and daughters, it shall not be given them,’ but each will clearly be saved by his own righteousness, I said that those who lived according to the law of Moses would likewise be saved. For in the law of Moses those who obey it are commanded to do what is naturally good and pious and righteous; and there are also written things ordained to be done because of the hardness of heart of the people, which those under the law also did.

“For those who did what is universally, naturally, and eternally good are pleasing to God, and will be saved through this Christ in the resurrection, like the righteous who were before them, Noah and Enoch and Jacob and any others there were, together with those who have recognized this Christ as the Son of God, who was before the morning star and the moon, and endured to be made flesh and born through this virgin of the race of David, so that by this dispensation the serpent that did evil from the beginning, and the angels made like him, might be destroyed, and death be despised, and at the second coming of Christ himself cease altogether from those who believe in him and live pleasingly, and afterwards be no more, when some are sent to judgment and condemnation of fire to be punished unceasingly, and others live together in freedom from suffering and corruption and grief and in immortality.

“But if some even now wish to live keeping what was ordained through Moses, and believe in this Jesus who was crucified, recognizing that he is the Christ of God, and that to him it has been given to judge all without exception, and that his is the eternal kingdom, can they too be saved?” he asked me.

And I in turn said, “Let us consider this too, whether it is now possible to keep all that was ordained through Moses.” And he answered, “No; for we know that, as you said, it is not possible to sacrifice the Passover lamb elsewhere, nor the goats commanded to be offered at the fast, nor, in short, all the other offerings.” And I said, “Tell me yourself, please, what things can be kept; for you will be persuaded that one who does not keep or do the eternal ordinances cannot be saved at all.” And he said, “Keeping the Sabbath, I mean, and being circumcised, and keeping the months, and being washed when one has touched something forbidden by Moses, or after intercourse.”

And I said, “Do you think that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Noah and Job, and any others who were likewise righteous before or after them, and I mean also Sarah the wife of Abraham, and Rebecca the wife of Isaac, and Rachel the wife of Jacob, and Leah, and all the other such women until the mother of Moses, the faithful servant, who kept none of these things, will be saved?” And Trypho answered, “Were not Abraham and those after him circumcised?”

And I said, “I know that Abraham and those after him were circumcised; and why circumcision was given them I have said in much that went before; and if what has been said does not shame you, let us examine the argument again. But you know that until Moses no righteous man at all kept any of these things we were inquiring about, nor received a command to keep them, except circumcision, which began with Abraham.” And he said, “We know, and we admit that they are saved.”

And I again said, “Understand that it was because of the hardness of heart of your people that God commanded all such commandments to you through Moses, so that through these many things you might always have God before your eyes in every action, and not begin to act unjustly or ungodly. For he commanded you to put the scarlet thread about you, so that through it forgetfulness of God might not take hold of you; and he ordered you to wear a phylactery of certain letters written on very thin membranes, which we understand to be altogether holy, and by these things to shame you into always keeping God in memory, and at the same time a reproof in your hearts.

“And you have not a little memory of piety, and not even so were you persuaded not to worship idols; but in the days of Elijah, naming the number of those who had not bowed the knee to Baal, he said they were seven thousand; and in Isaiah he reproves you for having sacrificed even your children to idols.

“But we, rather than sacrifice to those to whom we once sacrificed, endure the utmost punishments, and rejoice when we are put to death, believing that God will raise us up through his Christ and make us incorruptible and free from suffering and immortal; and we know that the things ordained because of the hardness of heart of your people contribute nothing to righteous conduct and piety.”

And Trypho again asked, “But if someone, knowing that these things are so, and clearly knowing too that this is the Christ, and having believed and obeying him, wishes to keep these things as well, will he be saved?” And I said, “In my opinion, Trypho, I say that such a man will be saved, if he does not strive in every way to persuade other men, I mean those from the nations who have been circumcised from error through Christ, to keep the same things as he, saying that they will not be saved unless they keep them; as you too did at the beginning of our discussion, declaring that I would not be saved unless I kept these things.”

And he said, “Why then did you say, ‘In my opinion such a man will be saved,’ unless there are some who say that such men will not be saved?” “There are, Trypho,” I answered, “who do not even dare to share conversation or a hearth with such men; with whom I do not agree. But if these men, because of weakness of mind, wish to keep as much as they now can of the ordinances of Moses, which we understand were ordained because of the hardness of heart of the people, while hoping in this Christ and keeping the eternal and natural acts of righteousness and piety, and choose to live with the Christians and the faithful, as I said before, not persuading them either to be circumcised like themselves, or to keep the Sabbath, or to observe other such things, then I declare that we ought to receive them and share all things with them, as kinsmen and brothers.

“But if those of your race who say they believe in this Christ, Trypho,” I said, “compel in every way those of the nations who believe in this Christ to live according to the law ordained through Moses, or choose not to share such a common life with them, I likewise do not accept these.

“But those who are persuaded by them to the life under the law, while keeping their confession of the Christ of God, I suppose will perhaps be saved. But those who have confessed and recognized that this is the Christ, and for whatever reason have passed over to the life under the law, denying that this is the Christ, and do not repent before death, I declare will not be saved at all. And likewise I declare that those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the law and do not believe in this Christ before the end of life will not be saved, and especially those who in the synagogues have anathematized and anathematize those who believe in this very Christ, that they may obtain salvation and be delivered from the punishment in the fire.

“For the goodness and kindness of God and the immeasurable riches of his grace regard the one who repents of his sins, as he indicates through Ezekiel, as righteous and sinless; and the one who turns from piety or righteous conduct to unrighteousness and godlessness he knows as a sinner and unrighteous and ungodly. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘In whatever I find you, in that I will also judge you.’

And Trypho said, “We have heard what you think about these things too. Take up the argument, then, where you left off, and finish it; for it seems to me paradoxical and impossible to prove at all. For your saying that this Christ pre-existed as God before the ages, and then that he consented to be born and become man, and that he is not man of men, seems to me not only paradoxical but foolish.”

And I said to this, “I know that the word seems paradoxical, and especially to those of your race, who have never wished either to understand or to do the things of God, but the things of your teachers, as God himself cries. Yet, Trypho,” I said, “that this is the Christ of God is not lost, even if I cannot prove that he also pre-existed as the Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and was born a man through the Virgin.

“But since it is proved in every way that this is the Christ of God, whoever he may be, if I do not prove that he pre-existed and consented to be born a man of like passions with us, having flesh, according to the will of the Father, it would be right to say only that I have erred in this, but not to deny that he is the Christ, even if he appears as a man born of men, and is shown to have become Christ by election.

“For there are some, friends,” I said, “of your race, who confess that he is the Christ, but declare that he was a man born of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would most who hold the same opinions as I say so; since we have been commanded by Christ himself to obey not human teachings, but those proclaimed through the blessed prophets and taught by him.”

And Trypho said, “Those who say he was a man, and was anointed by election and became Christ, seem to me to speak more plausibly than you who say what you say; for all of us expect that the Christ will be a man of men, and that Elijah will come and anoint him. But if this man appears to be the Christ, one must certainly know that he was a man born of men. But since Elijah has not come, I declare that he is not the Christ either.”

And I asked him again, “Does not the word say through Zechariah that Elijah will come before the great and terrible day of the Lord?” And he answered, “Certainly.” “If, then, the word compels us to admit that two comings of Christ were prophesied, one in which he would appear subject to suffering and without honor and form, and the other in which he will come both glorious and judge of all, as has been proved in many of the things said before, shall we not understand that the word of God proclaimed that Elijah would be the forerunner of the great and terrible day, that is, of his second coming?” “Certainly,” he answered.

“Our Lord too, then,” I said, “handed down in his teachings that this very thing would happen, saying that Elijah also would come; and we know that this will happen when our Lord Jesus Christ is about to come from heaven in glory; of whose first manifestation the Spirit of God that was in Elijah went before as herald, in John, who was a prophet among your race, after whom no other prophet has appeared among you; who, sitting by the river Jordan, cried: ‘I baptize you with water for repentance; but one stronger than I will come, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor and gather the wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

“And this very prophet your king Herod had shut up in prison; and when his birthday was being celebrated, and his niece danced to please him, he told her to ask whatever she wished. And the girl's mother prompted her to ask for the head of John who was in prison; and when she asked, he sent and ordered the head of John to be brought on a platter.

“That is why our Christ said then on earth to those who were saying that Elijah must come before the Christ: ‘Elijah will indeed 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 wished.’ And it is written: ‘Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them about John the Baptist.’

And Trypho said, “This too you seem to me to say paradoxically: that the prophetic Spirit of God that was in Elijah was also in John.” And I said to this, “Do you not think that the same thing happened with Joshua the son of Nun, who succeeded Moses in leading the people, when Moses was told to lay his hands on Joshua, God himself saying, ‘And I will take of the spirit that is in you and put it upon him’?”

And he said, “Certainly.” “As, then,” I said, “while Moses was still among men, God transferred to Joshua some of the spirit that was in Moses, so God could also cause it to come from Elijah upon John; so that, as Christ appeared without glory at his first coming, so the first coming of the Spirit that was in Elijah, which remains always pure, like Christ's, might be understood as without glory.

“For it is said that the Lord makes war on Amalek with a hidden hand; and you will not deny that Amalek fell. But if it is said that Amalek will be warred against only at the glorious coming of Christ, what will be the fruit of the word that says, ‘With a hidden hand God makes war on Amalek’? You can understand that a hidden power of God was in the crucified Christ, whom the demons tremble at, and in short all the principalities and powers of the earth.

And Trypho said, “You seem to me to have come from much practice with many people about all the matters in question, and therefore to be ready to answer anything you are asked. Answer me, then, first, how you can prove that there is another God besides the Maker of all things; and then you will prove that he also consented to be born through the Virgin.”

And I said, “First allow me to speak some words from the prophecy of Isaiah, spoken about the coming beforehand of John the Baptist, who was also a prophet, who went before this our Lord Jesus Christ.” And he said, “I allow it.”

And I said, “Isaiah foretold the coming beforehand of John thus: ‘And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which he spoke: Let there be peace and righteousness in my days.’ And: ‘Comfort the people; priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem and comfort her, for her humiliation is fulfilled; her sin is loosed, for she has received from the hand of the Lord double for her sins. The 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, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and all the crooked shall become straight, and the rough into smooth ways; and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken.

“‘A voice of one saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and its flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem. Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah: Behold your God. Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with dominion. Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. Like a shepherd he will tend his flock, and gather the lambs with his arm, and comfort her who is with child.

“‘Who has measured the water with his hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with his fist? Who has set the mountains in a scale and the valleys in a balance? Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counselor, to instruct him? Or with whom did he take counsel, and he instructed him? Or who showed him judgment? Or who made known to him the way of understanding? All the nations are counted as a drop from a bucket, and as the turn of a scale, and they shall be counted as spittle. And Lebanon is not enough for burning, and the four-footed beasts are not enough for a whole burnt offering; and all the nations are nothing, and are counted as nothing.’”

When I had stopped, Trypho said, “All the words of the prophecy you cite, sir, are ambiguous, and have nothing decisive to prove what you wish to prove.” And I answered, “If the prophets had not ceased, Trypho, but had still arisen in your race after this John, you might perhaps think what is said ambiguous.

“But if John came first, crying to men to repent, and Christ, while John was still sitting by the river Jordan, came and put an end to his prophesying and baptizing, and preached the gospel, himself 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 rise on the third day, and come again in Jerusalem, and then drink and eat again with his disciples; and foretold that in the time between his comings, as I said before, heresies and false prophets would arise in his name, and these things are plainly so: how can you still doubt, when you can be persuaded by the facts?

“And he had spoken about there being no more prophets in your race, and about recognizing that the new covenant long proclaimed by God to be established was then already present, that is, that he himself was the Christ, thus: ‘The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist; from that time the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’

“And through Jacob the patriarch too it was prophesied 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 race,” I added, “and that the nations, believing in the suffering Christ, would expect him to come again. The Holy Spirit had spoken these things in a parable and in a veiled way for this reason,” I said.

“I added that he had spoken thus: ‘Judah, your brothers have praised you; your hands are on the back of your enemies; the sons of your father shall worship you. A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, you have come up. He lay down and slept like a lion and like a lion's whelp; who shall rouse him? A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until the things laid up for him come; and he shall be the expectation of the nations, binding his foal to the vine and the foal of his ass to the tendril of the vine. He shall wash his robe in wine and his garment in the blood of the grape. His eyes are bright with wine, and his teeth white as milk.’

“That, then, neither prophet nor ruler ever ceased in your race from the time it began until this Jesus Christ was born and suffered, you will not shamelessly dare to deny, nor can you prove otherwise. For even Herod, under whom he suffered, though you say he was an Ascalonite, you nevertheless say had a high priest in your race; so that even then you had one who offered offerings according to the law of Moses and kept the other observances, and prophets in succession until John; as even when your people were carried off to Babylon, when the land was warred against and the holy vessels taken away, a prophet did not cease from among you, who was lord and leader and ruler of your people. For the Spirit in the prophets both anointed and appointed your kings.

“But after the appearance and death of Jesus our Christ in your race, no prophet has arisen anywhere, nor does one exist; and moreover your being under your own king has ceased, and further your land has been laid waste and left like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. And the word through Jacob, ‘And he shall be the expectation of the nations,’ symbolically signified his two comings, and that the nations would believe in him; which you can see at last. For we from all the nations, who have become pious and righteous through faith in Christ, expect him to come again.

“And the words, ‘binding his foal to the vine and the foal of the ass to the tendril,’ were a foretelling both of the works done by him at his first coming, and likewise of the nations who would believe in him. For they were like an unsaddled foal, with no yoke on its neck, until this Christ came and, sending through his disciples, made them disciples; and bearing the yoke of his word, they put their backs to enduring all things for the sake of the good things expected and announced by him.

“And indeed, when our Lord Jesus Christ was about to enter Jerusalem, he ordered his disciples to bring him an ass that was actually tied with its foal at an entrance to a village called Bethphage; and he sat on it and entered Jerusalem. And this, which had been expressly prophesied to be done by the Christ, when it was done by him and known, made it plain that he was the Christ. And though all these things have happened and are proved from the Scriptures, you are still hard of heart.

“It was prophesied by Zechariah, one of the twelve, that this would happen, thus: ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout, proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your king comes to you, righteous and saving, meek and poor, mounted on a beast of burden and the foal of an ass.’

“And the prophetic Spirit's naming, together with the patriarch Jacob, the ass as a beast of burden already, with its foal, and his having it in his possession, and moreover his ordering his disciples, as I said before, to bring both animals, was a foretelling that those of your synagogue together with those of the nations would believe in him. For as the unsaddled foal was a symbol of those from the nations, so the saddled ass was of those from your people; for you have the law laid on you through the prophets.

“And through the prophet Zechariah it was also prophesied that this very Christ would be struck and his disciples scattered; which also happened. For after he was crucified, his disciples who were with him were dispersed, until he rose from the dead and persuaded them that it had been prophesied of him that he would suffer so; and being so persuaded, they went out into all the world and taught these things.

“Hence we too are firm in the faith and discipleship of him, since we have our persuasion both from the prophets and from those who are seen throughout the world, and who have become pious in the name of that crucified one. And the words spoken by Zechariah are these: ‘Sword, awake against my shepherd and against the man of my people, says the Lord of hosts; strike the shepherd, and his sheep shall be scattered.’

“And what was recorded by Moses and prophesied by the patriarch Jacob, ‘He shall wash his robe in wine and his garment in the blood of the grape,’ signified that he would wash in his blood those who believe in him. For the Holy Spirit called his robe those who have received forgiveness of sins through him, in whom he is always present in power, and will be manifestly present at his second coming.

“And the word's saying ‘the blood of the grape’ has skillfully shown that Christ has blood, but not from the seed of man, but from the power of God. For as it is not man but God who has begotten the blood of the vine, so it foretold that the blood of Christ would be not from human race but from the power of God. And this prophecy which I have quoted, sirs, proves that Christ is not man of men, born in the common way of men.”

And Trypho answered, “We will remember this interpretation of yours too, if you confirm this difficulty by other passages as well. But now take up the argument and prove to us that another God besides the Maker of all things is acknowledged by the prophetic Spirit, taking care not to speak of the sun and the moon, which it is written God allowed the nations to worship as gods; and the prophets often misuse this expression, saying, ‘Your God is God of gods and Lord of lords,’ often adding ‘the great and mighty and terrible.’

“For these things are not said as though they were gods, but because the word teaches us that the true God, who made all things, is alone Lord over those who are thought to be gods and lords. For so that the Holy Spirit might also refute this, it said through holy David: ‘The gods of the nations, thought to be gods, are idols of demons, and not gods.’ And it brings a curse on those who make them and worship them.”

And I said, “I was not going to bring these proofs, Trypho, by which I know that those who worship these and such things are condemned, but such as no one will be able to contradict. They will seem strange to you, though they are read by you every day; so that from this too you may understand that because of your wickedness God has hidden from you the ability to understand the wisdom in his words, except for some, for whom, by the grace of his great compassion, as Isaiah said, he left a seed for salvation, so that your race too might not perish utterly like the Sodomites and Gomorrahites. Attend, then, to what I am about to recall from the holy Scriptures, which need no explanation but only to be heard.

“Moses, then, the blessed and faithful servant of God, indicates that the God who appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, together with the two angels sent with him for the judgment of Sodom, was sent by another, who always remains above the heavens and has never been seen by anyone or conversed with anyone himself, whom we understand to be the Maker of all things and Father.

“For he says thus: ‘And God appeared to him at the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at noon. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, three men stood over against him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and bowed down to the ground, and said’; and the rest, until: ‘And Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward the land of the region, and saw, and behold, a flame went up from the earth like the smoke of a furnace.’” And when I had stopped speaking, I asked them whether they had understood what was said.

And they said they had understood, but that the words quoted had nothing to prove that there is, or is said by the Holy Spirit to be, another God or Lord besides the Maker of all things.

And I said again, “I will try to persuade you, when you have understood the Scriptures, of what I say: that there is, and is said to be, another God and Lord under the Maker of all things, who is also called Angel, because he announces to men whatever the Maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wishes to announce to them.” And recalling again what had been said before, I asked Trypho, “Do you think that God appeared to Abraham under the oak of Mamre, as the word says?” And he said, “Certainly.”

“And was he one of those three,” I said, “whom the holy prophetic Spirit says Abraham saw as men?” And he said, “No; but God had appeared to him before the vision of the three; then those three, whom the word calls men, were angels, two of them sent to destroy Sodom, and one to bring the good news to Sarah that she would have a child; and when he had accomplished that for which he had been sent, he departed.”

“How then,” I said, “does the one of the three who was in the tent, who also said, ‘At this season I will return to you, and Sarah shall have a son,’ appear to have returned when a son had been born to Sarah, and there too the prophetic word indicates that he is God? And so that what I say may become plain to you, hear what was expressly said by Moses.

“It is this: ‘And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian maidservant, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with Isaac her son, and she said to Abraham: Cast out this maidservant and her son; for the son of this maidservant shall not inherit with my son Isaac. And the word seemed very hard in the eyes of Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham: Let it not be hard in your eyes because of the child and the maidservant; in all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, for in Isaac shall your seed be called.’

“Have you understood, then, that he who said then under the oak that he would return, since he foreknew that it would be necessary to counsel Abraham to do what Sarah wished him, did return, as it is written, and is God, as the words indicate, spoken thus: ‘And God said to Abraham: Let it not be hard in your eyes because of the child and the maidservant’?” I asked.

And Trypho said, “Certainly; but you have not proved from this that there is another God besides this one who appeared to Abraham, who also appeared to the other patriarchs and prophets; but you have proved that we did not understand rightly in thinking that the three who were in the tent with Abraham were all angels.”

And I again said, “If, then, I could not prove to you from the Scriptures that one of those three is both God and is called Angel, because, as I said before, he announces the things from God, the Maker of all, to whomever God wishes, it would be reasonable for you to understand that the one who appeared on earth in the form of a man to Abraham, together with the two angels who came with him, is the one who was God even before the making of the world, as your whole nation understands.” “Certainly,” he said; “for so we have held until now.”

And I said again, “Going back to the Scriptures, I will try to persuade you that this one who is said and written to have appeared to Abraham and to Jacob and to Moses, and is called God, is other than the God who made all things, other, I mean, in number, but not in will. For I say that he has never done or spoken anything except what the one who made the world, above whom there is no other God, has willed him both to do and to speak.”

And Trypho said, “Prove now that he exists, so that we may agree to this too; for we do not suppose that you say he said or did anything contrary to the will of the Maker of all.” And I said, “The Scripture already quoted by me will make this plain to you. It is this: ‘The sun rose over the earth, and Lot entered Zoar. And the Lord rained on Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and overthrew these cities and all the region around.’”

And the fourth of those who had stayed with Trypho said, “It is necessary, then, to say that besides the one of the two angels who went down to Sodom whom the word through Moses named Lord, there is also God himself, who appeared to Abraham.”

“Not only for this reason,” I said, “which was so, must one admit in every way that besides the one understood as the Maker of all things, another is called Lord by the Holy Spirit; and not only through Moses, but also through David. For through him too it was said: ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet,’ as I said before. And again in other words: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.’

“If, then, you say that the Holy Spirit calls some other God and Lord besides the Father of all and his Christ, answer me; for I promise to prove to you from the Scriptures themselves that the one whom the Scripture called Lord is not one of the two angels who went down to Sodom, but the one who was with them and is called God, who appeared to Abraham.”

And Trypho said, “Prove it; for, as you see, the day is advancing, and we are not ready for such dangerous answers, since we have never heard anyone searching into or inquiring about or proving these things. Nor would we have borne with you speaking, if you did not refer everything to the Scriptures; for you are eager to make your proofs from them, and you declare that there is no God above the Maker of all things.”

And I said, “You know, then, that the Scripture says: ‘And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I truly bear a child? But I am old. Is anything impossible with God? At this season I will return to you, at this time, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And a little after: ‘And the men rose up from there and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah; and Abraham went with them, escorting them. And the Lord said: I will not hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing.’

“And a little later it says again thus: ‘The Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sins are very grave. I will go down, then, and see whether they are doing altogether according to the cry that comes to me; and if not, that I may know. And the men turned from there and came to Sodom. But Abraham was standing before the Lord; and Abraham drew near and said: Will you destroy the righteous with the ungodly?’ and so on; for it does not seem right to me to write the same things again, since they have all been written before, but it is necessary to state those by which I made the proof to Trypho and those with him.

“Then I came to what follows, in which this is said: ‘And the Lord went away when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and he went to his place. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening; and Lot was sitting by the gate of Sodom,’ and what follows likewise, until: ‘And the men put out their hands and drew Lot into the house to them, and shut the door of the house,’ and what follows, until: ‘And the angels took hold of his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his daughters, the Lord being merciful to him.

“‘And it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that they said: Save, save your life. Do not look behind you, nor stay anywhere in the surrounding region; flee to the mountain, lest you be taken along with them. And Lot said to them: I pray, Lord, since your servant has found mercy before you, and you have magnified your righteousness, which you show me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest the evils overtake me and I die.

“‘Behold, this city is near to flee to, and it is small; there I shall be saved, since it is small, and my soul shall live. And he said to him: Behold, I have regarded your face in this matter too, not to overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hasten to escape there; for I cannot do anything until you come there. Therefore he called the name of the city Zoar. The sun rose over the earth, and Lot entered Zoar. And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and overthrew these cities and all the region around.’”

And stopping again, I added: “And do you not understand now, friends, that the one of the three who is both God and Lord, serving the one in the heavens, is Lord of the two angels? For when they went on to Sodom, he remained behind and conversed with Abraham in the words recorded by Moses; and when he too went away after the conversation, Abraham returned to his place.

“And when he came, it is no longer the two angels who speak with Lot, but he himself, as the word shows; and he is Lord, having received from the Lord who is in heaven, that is, the Maker of all things, the charge to bring upon Sodom and Gomorrah the things the word recounts, speaking thus: ‘The Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.’”

And when I was silent, Trypho said, “It is plain that the Scripture compels us to admit this; but you too would admit that there is reason for perplexity about what is said, that he ate the things prepared and set before him by Abraham.”

And I answered, “It is written that they ate; but if we understand it to be said that the three ate, and not only the two who were really angels, and who in the heavens, as is plain to us, are nourished, even if not with food like that which we men use (for concerning the food of manna on which your fathers were fed in the wilderness, the Scripture speaks thus, that they ate the bread of angels), I would say that the word that says they ate would speak as we too might say of fire that it devoured everything, and not by all means understand that they ate chewing with teeth and jaws. So that here too we would be at a loss about nothing, if we were even a little experienced in figurative speech.”

And Trypho said, “It is possible for this too to be explained in this way, about the manner of eating, by which it is written that they ate, consuming what was prepared by Abraham. So come now and give us the account of how this God who appeared to Abraham, and is the servant of God the Maker of all, having been born through the Virgin, became a man of like passions with all, as you said before.”

And I said, “Allow me first, Trypho, to gather some other proofs on this main point from many passages, so that you too may be persuaded about it; and after that I will give the account you ask for.” And he said, “Do as you think best; for you will be doing something I very much desire.”

And I said, “I am about to recount Scriptures to you; I am not eager to display constructions of words by mere art; for I have no such power, but grace alone has been given me from God to understand his Scriptures, of which grace I urge all to become partakers freely and ungrudgingly, so that I may not on this account incur condemnation in the judgment which God, the Maker of all things, is to hold through my Lord Jesus Christ.

And Trypho said, “In this too you act worthily of piety; but you seem to me to be speaking ironically when you say you do not possess the power of skillful speech.” And I answered again, “Since you think it is so, let it be; but I am persuaded that it is truly so. But so that I may rather make the remaining proofs now, pay attention.” And he said, “Speak.”

And I said, “It is written again by Moses, brothers, that this one who appeared to the patriarchs, called God, is also called Angel and Lord, so that from these things too you may recognize him as serving the Father of all, as you have already agreed, and, persuaded by more passages, may remain firm.

“The word of God, then, relating through Moses the things about Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, speaks thus: ‘And it came to pass, when the flocks conceived and were with young, that I saw them with my eyes in a dream; and behold, the he-goats and the rams leaping on the sheep and the goats were white-streaked and speckled and spotted with gray. And the angel of God said to me in a dream: Jacob, Jacob.

“‘And I said: What is it, Lord? And he said: Lift up your eyes and see the he-goats and the rams leaping on the sheep and the goats, white-streaked and speckled and spotted with gray; for I have seen all that Laban does to you. I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a pillar for me and vowed a vow to me there. Now therefore arise and go out from this land and go to the land of your birth, and I will be with you.’

“And again in other words, speaking about the same Jacob, it says thus: ‘And he rose that night and took his two wives and his two maidservants and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok; and he took them and crossed the brook, and brought over all that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until morning. And he saw that he could not prevail against him, and he touched the broad part of his thigh, and the broad part of Jacob's thigh grew numb as he wrestled with him. And he said to him: Let me go, for the dawn has come up.

“‘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 to him: Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name; for you have prevailed with God, and with men you shall be mighty. And Jacob asked and said: Tell me your name. And he said: Why do you ask my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Form of God; for I have seen God face to face, and my soul rejoiced.’

“And again in other passages, relating things about the same Jacob, it says this: ‘And Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, which is Bethel, he and all the people that were with him. And he built an altar there, 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, Rebecca's nurse, died, and was buried below Bethel under the oak; and Jacob called its name Oak of Mourning. And God appeared to Jacob again in Luz, when he came from Mesopotamia of Syria, and blessed him. And God said to him: Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.’

He is called God, and he is God, and will be.

And when they all nodded their heads, I said: “And considering it necessary, I tell you also the words that relate how this one, who is Angel and God and Lord, and who appeared to Abraham in the form of a man and wrestled with Jacob himself in the form of a man, appeared to him when he was fleeing from his brother Esau.

“They are these: ‘And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and went toward Haran. And he came to a place and slept there, for the sun had set. And he took of the stones of the place and put them under his head, and slept in that place, and dreamed; and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it; and the Lord stood firmly upon it.

“‘And he said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and of Isaac. Do not fear. The land on which you are sleeping I will give to you and to your seed; and your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and shall spread abroad to the sea and the south and the north and the east; and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way you go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken to you.

“‘And Jacob awoke from his sleep and said: The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said: How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose in the morning and took the stone he had put there under his head, and set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it. And Jacob called the name of the place House of God; and Ulammaus was the name of the city before.’”

And having said this, I went on: “Bear with me while I also prove to you from the book of Exodus how this same one, who is Angel and God and Lord and Man and a human being, and who appeared to Abraham and Jacob, appeared in a flame of fire from the bush and spoke with Moses.” And when they said they would listen gladly and untiringly and eagerly, I added:

“These things are in the book entitled Exodus: ‘And after those many days the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel groaned because of their works,’ and the rest, until: ‘Go and gather the elders of Israel, and you shall say to them: The Lord, the God of your fathers, has appeared to me, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, saying: I have surely visited you and what has happened to you in Egypt.’”

And after this I added: “Sirs, have you understood that the one whom Moses says was an angel who spoke to him in a flame of fire, this same one, being God, indicates to Moses that he is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob?”

And Trypho said, “This is not what we understand from the words quoted, but that it was an angel who appeared in the flame of fire, but God who spoke with Moses; so that both an angel and God, two together, were in that vision.”

And I answered again, “Even if it happened then, friends, that both an angel and God were together in the vision given to Moses, as has also been proved to you by the words quoted before, the one who told Moses that he was the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob will not be God the Maker of all, but the one who has been proved to you to have appeared to Abraham and to Jacob, serving the will of the Maker of all, and likewise serving 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 at all with even a little sense will dare to say that the Maker and Father of all left everything above heaven and appeared in a little corner of the earth.”

And Trypho said, “Since it has already been proved that the one who appeared to Abraham and is named God and Lord received from the Lord in heaven what was brought on the land of Sodom and brought it, now too, even if an angel was with the God who appeared to Moses, we shall understand that the God who spoke with Moses from the bush was not God the Maker of all, but the one who was shown to have appeared to Abraham and to Jacob, who is also called and understood to be the Angel of God the Maker of all, because he announces to men the things from the Father and Maker of all.”

And I again said, “Now, Trypho, I will prove that in the vision of Moses this same one alone, who is called Angel and is God, appeared and spoke to Moses. For the word says thus: ‘And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the bush; and he sees that the bush is 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 coming near to see, the Lord called him from the bush.’

“As, then, the word calls the one who appeared to Jacob in his sleep an angel, and then says that the same angel who appeared in his sleep said to him, ‘I am the God who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother’; and in the case of Abraham, in the judgment of Sodom, it said that the Lord brought the judgment from the Lord who is in the heavens; so here too the word, saying that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses, and afterward indicating that he is Lord and God, speaks of the same one whom it indicates through many of the passages quoted as serving the God above the world, above whom there is no other.

“I will give you another testimony from the Scriptures, friends,” I said, “that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, a certain rational Power from himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit now the Glory of the Lord, now Son, now Wisdom, now Angel, now God, now Lord and Word; and he calls himself Captain when he appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nun. For he can be called by all these names from his serving the Father's will and from his having been begotten of the Father by his will.

“But do we not see something like this happening among ourselves too? For when we put forth a word, we beget a word, not by cutting off, so that the word in us is lessened by putting it forth. And as we see in the case of fire another fire coming into being, the one from which it was kindled not being lessened, but remaining the same; and what is kindled from it is seen to exist itself, not lessening that from which it was kindled.

“And the Word of Wisdom will testify for me, he himself being this God begotten from the Father of all, and being Word and Wisdom and Power and Glory of the one who begot him, and speaking through Solomon thus: ‘If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to recount the things from eternity. The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works. Before the age he founded me, in the beginning, before he made the earth and before he made the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; and before all the hills he begets me.

“‘God made the land both uninhabited and the inhabited heights under heaven. When he prepared the heaven, I was with him; and when he set apart his throne upon the winds, when he made the clouds above strong, and when he made the springs of the deep secure, when he made the foundations of the earth strong, I was beside him, setting things in order. I was the one in whom he rejoiced; and daily I was glad in his presence at all times, because he rejoiced when he had completed the world, and rejoiced in the sons of men.

“‘Now therefore, son, listen to me. Blessed is the man who will listen to me, and the person who will keep my ways, watching daily at my doors, keeping the posts of my entrances; for my ways out are ways out of life, and favor is prepared from the Lord. But those who sin against me act impiously against their own souls, and those who hate me love death.’

“And the Word of God said this very thing through Moses too, friends, indicating to us that God spoke in this same sense to the one he pointed to, at the making of man, saying this: ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the cattle and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep on the earth. And God made man; after the image of God he made him; male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.’

“And so that you may not change the words just quoted and say what your teachers say, either that God said ‘Let us make’ to himself, as we too often say ‘Let us make’ to ourselves when we are about to make something, or that God said ‘Let us make’ to the elements, that is, the earth and the others likewise, of which we understand man to have been made, I will recount again the words spoken by Moses himself, from which we can know beyond dispute that he conversed with someone who was numerically distinct and rational.

“These are the words: ‘And God said: Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil.’ By saying ‘as one of us,’ then, he has indicated a number of those who are together with one another, and at least two. For I would not say that what the heresy among you teaches is true, nor can its teachers prove that he spoke to angels, or that the human body was the work of angels.

“But this Offspring, truly put forth from the Father before all things made, was with the Father, and with him the Father converses, as the word through Solomon showed, that this very one was both the Beginning before all things made and was begotten as Offspring by God, who is called Wisdom through Solomon; and through the revelation made to Joshua the son of Nun, he said the same thing. And so that what I say may become plain to you from these too, hear also the words from the book of Joshua.

“They are these: ‘And it came to pass, when Joshua was at Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and saw a man standing before him. And Joshua went to him and said: Are you ours or of our adversaries? And he said to him: I am the captain of the host of the Lord; I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face on the ground and said to him: Master, what do you command your servant? And the captain of the Lord says to Joshua: Loose the sandals from your feet; for the place on which you stand is holy ground. And Jericho was shut up and fortified, and no one went out of it. And the Lord said to Joshua: Behold, I give into your hand Jericho and its king who is in it, mighty men of valor.’”

And Trypho said, “This has been proved by you strongly and from many passages, friend. It remains, then, for you to prove that he consented to be born a man through the Virgin according to the will of his Father, and to be crucified and die; and show too that after this he rose and went up into heaven.”

And I answered, “This too has already been proved by me, sirs, in the words of the prophecies recounted before, which I will try to recall and explain again for your sake, to bring you to agreement about this. The word, then, which Isaiah spoke: ‘Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth,’ does it not seem to you to be said as of one whose descent is not from men, who is said by God to be handed over to death because of the transgressions of the people? Of whose blood Moses too, as I said before, speaking in a parable, said that he would wash his robe in the blood of the grape, as though his blood were not begotten of human seed but of the will of God.

“And the words spoken by David: ‘In the splendors of your saints, from the womb before the morning star I begot you. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,’ do they not indicate to you that from of old and through a human womb the God and Father of all was to beget him?

“And speaking in other words, which were also quoted before: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. Myrrh and stacte and cassia from your garments, from ivory palaces, from which they have made you glad. Kings' daughters are in your honor; the queen stood at your right hand, clothed in garments of gold, in many colors. Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; and the king shall desire your beauty, for he is your lord, and you shall worship him.’

“That he is to be worshiped, and is God and Christ, attested by the one who made these things, these words too plainly indicate. And that the word of God speaks to those who believe in him, as being one soul and one synagogue and one church, as to a daughter, to the church which came into being from his name and shares in his name (for we are all called Christians), the words likewise plainly proclaim, teaching us also to forget our old ancestral customs, speaking thus: ‘Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; and the king shall desire your beauty, for he is your lord, and you shall worship him.’

And Trypho said, “Let him be recognized as Lord and Christ and God by you of the nations, as the Scriptures indicate, who have all come to be called Christians from his name; but we, being worshipers of God who made him too, have no need to confess him or worship him.”

And I said to this, “Trypho, if I were contentious and empty like you, I would no longer remain sharing the discussion with you, since you are prepared not to understand what is said, but only sharpen yourselves to say something. But now, since I fear the judgment of God, I do not hasten to declare about any of your race that he is not one of those who can be saved by the grace of the Lord of hosts. Therefore, even if you act wickedly, I will remain to answer whatever you put forward or object; and I do the same with all men of every race who wish to discuss or inquire of me about these things.

“That those of your race who are saved are saved through him and are in his portion, you would already have understood if you had paid attention to what I quoted before from the Scriptures, and clearly you would not have asked me about it. But I will repeat what I quoted before from David, and I ask you to prepare yourselves to understand, not only to act wickedly and contradict.

“These, then, are the words David speaks: ‘The Lord has reigned; let the peoples be angry. He who sits upon the cherubim; let the earth be shaken. The Lord is great in Zion, and high above all the peoples. Let them confess your great name, for it is terrible and holy; and the honor of the king loves judgment. You have prepared uprightness; judgment and righteousness in Jacob you have done. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at 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 a pillar of cloud he spoke to them, because they kept his testimonies and the ordinances he gave them.’

“And in other words spoken through David, also recounted before, which you foolishly say were spoken of Solomon, because they are entitled ‘for Solomon,’ from which it is proved both that they were not spoken of Solomon, and that this one existed even before the sun, and that those of your people who are saved will be saved through him.

“They are these: ‘O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son; he shall judge your people in righteousness and your poor in judgment. Let the mountains bring peace to the people, and the hills righteousness. He will judge the poor of the people, and save the sons of the needy, and humble the slanderer; and he will endure with the sun and before the moon to generations of generations’; and the rest, until: ‘His name endures before the sun. And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him; all the nations shall call him blessed. Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wonderful things, and blessed is the name of his glory to the age of ages; and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it.’

“And from the other words which I said before were likewise spoken through David, remember that it was indicated that he would come forth from the heights of the heavens and go up again to the same places, so that you may recognize him as God coming forth from above and becoming man among men, and as the one who will come again, whom those who pierced him will see and mourn.

“They are these: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night proclaims knowledge. There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the sun he has set his tabernacle; and he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, will rejoice as a giant to run his course. From the height of heaven is his going forth, and his circuit to the height of heaven, and there is none who shall be hidden from his heat.’”

And Trypho said, “Shamed by so many Scriptures, I do not know what to say about the Scripture which Isaiah spoke, in which God says he gives his glory to no other, speaking thus: ‘I am the Lord God; this is my name; my glory I will not give to another, nor my virtues.’”

And I said, “If you spoke these words simply and not with malice, Trypho, and then fell silent, neither citing the words before them nor joining those that follow, you are to be forgiven; but if you did it because you think you can throw the argument into perplexity, so that I might say that the Scriptures contradict one another, you are mistaken. For I will never dare either to think or to say this; but if a Scripture that seems to be such is put forward, and gives an appearance of being contrary, being wholly persuaded that no Scripture is contrary to another, I will rather confess that I do not understand what is said, and will strive to persuade those who suppose the Scriptures are contrary to think as I do.

“With what intention you have put forward the problem God knows. But I will remind you how the word was spoken, so that from this very passage you may recognize that God gives the glory to his Christ alone. I will take up a few words, sirs, those connected with the words quoted by Trypho and those likewise joined to them in sequence; for I will not quote them from another section, but as they are joined together; and you, lend me your attention.

“They are these: ‘Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven and fixed it, 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 for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out those bound from their bonds and those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

“‘I am the Lord God; this is my name; my glory I will not give to another, nor my virtues to graven images. Behold, the things from the beginning have come, new things which I declare, and before I declared them they were shown to you. Sing to God a new hymn; his rule is from the end of the earth; you who go down to the sea and sail on it, the islands and those who dwell in them.

“‘Rejoice, wilderness, and its villages and hamlets, and those who dwell in Kedar shall rejoice, and those who dwell in the rock shall cry out from the tops of the mountains; they shall give glory to God, they shall proclaim his virtues in the islands. The Lord God of hosts shall go out, he shall crush war, he shall stir up zeal and shall shout against his enemies with strength.’”

And having said this I said to them, “Have you understood, friends, that God says he will give glory to this one whom he has appointed for a light of the nations, and to no other; and not, as Trypho said, that God keeps the glory for himself?” And Trypho answered, “We have understood this too; so finish the rest of the argument.”

And I took up the argument again from where I had left off, proving that he was born of a virgin, and that it had been prophesied through Isaiah that he would be born through a virgin, and I recited the prophecy itself again.

“It is this: ‘And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said: Hear now, house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men? And how do you weary the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat.

“‘Before he knows or chooses evil, he shall choose the good; for before the child knows evil or good, he refuses evil, to choose the good. For before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria. And the land shall be seized, which you will bear with difficulty because of the two kings. But God will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days that have not yet come, from the day when Ephraim took away the king of Assyria from Judah.’”

And I added: “Now it is plain to all that in the race of Abraham according to the flesh no one has ever been born of a virgin, or said to have been born, except this our Christ.”

And Trypho answered, “The Scripture does not have, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son,’ and the rest as you said. And the whole prophecy was spoken of Hezekiah, in whom it is shown to have been fulfilled according to this prophecy.

“And in the myths of those called Greeks it is said that Perseus was born of Danaë, who was a virgin, when the one they call Zeus flowed upon her in the form of gold; and you, saying the same things as they, ought to be ashamed, and rather say that this Jesus was born a man of men; and, if you prove from the Scriptures that he is the Christ, that he was counted worthy to be chosen as Christ because he lived according to the law and perfectly; but do not dare to tell marvels, so that you may not be convicted of folly like the Greeks.”

And I said to this, “Trypho, I want you and all men to be persuaded of this, that even if you mock or jeer and say worse things, you will not move me from my purpose; but from the very words or facts you think to put forward in refutation, I will always make the proofs of what I say, with the testimony of the Scriptures.

“But you do not act rightly or lovingly toward the truth in trying to undo the points on which we have always agreed, that some of the commandments were laid down through Moses because of the hardness of heart of your people. For you said that he was chosen and became Christ because he lived according to the law, if indeed he is proved to be he.

And Trypho said, “For you admitted to us that he was circumcised and kept the other legal observances ordained through Moses.”

And I answered, “I admitted it and admit it; but I did not admit that he endured all these things as being justified by them, but as fulfilling the dispensation which his Father, the Maker and Lord and God of all, willed. For I admit also that he endured to die crucified, and to become man, and to suffer all that those of your race inflicted on him.

“But since, Trypho, you again do not agree to what you had already agreed, answer me: are the righteous men and patriarchs who were before Moses, who kept none of the things which the word shows began to be ordained through Moses, saved in the inheritance of the blessed, or not?”

And Trypho said, “The Scriptures compel me to admit it.” “Likewise I ask you again,” I said, “did God command your fathers to make the offerings and sacrifices because he needed them, or because of their hardness of heart and proneness to idolatry?” “The Scriptures likewise compel us to admit this too,” he said.

“And that God promised to make a new covenant besides the one at Mount Horeb, did the Scriptures likewise foretell?” I said. And he answered that this too had been foretold. And I said again, “Was not the old covenant laid down for your fathers with fear and trembling, so that they could not even listen to God?” And he agreed.

“What then?” I said. “God promised that there would be another covenant, not as that one was laid down, and said that it would be laid down for them without fear and trembling and lightnings, and showing what God knows to be eternal and fitting for every race, both commandment and work, and what he had commanded accommodating himself to the hardness of heart of your people, as he also cries through the prophets.”

“Those who love the truth and not strife,” he said, “must certainly agree to this too.” And I said, “I do not know how, calling some people contentious, you yourself have often shown yourself to be engaged in that very thing, often contradicting what you had agreed to.”

And Trypho said, “For you are attempting to prove something incredible and almost impossible: that God endured to be born and to become man.” “If I undertook to prove this,” I said, “by human teachings or arguments, you should not bear with me; but if, quoting so many Scriptures spoken to this effect, and repeating them very often, I ask you to recognize them, you are becoming hard of heart toward knowing the mind and will of God. But if you wish always to remain so, I would suffer no harm; I will leave you, having always the same things as I had before I met you.”

And Trypho said, “See, friend, that you acquired these things with much labor and toil; and so we too must first test everything that comes up, and then agree to what the Scriptures compel us.” And I said to this, “I do not ask you not to make your examination of the questions by striving in every way, but not again to contradict, having nothing to say, the things you said you agreed to.”

And Trypho said, “We will try to do this.” I said again, “Besides the questions already asked, I want to ask you again now; for by these questions I will strive to bring the argument quickly to an end.” And Trypho said, “Ask.” And I said, “Do you think that anyone else is called in the Scriptures worthy of worship and Lord and God except the one who made this universe, and Christ, who has been proved to you by so many Scriptures to have become man?”

And Trypho said, “How can we admit this, when we have made such a long inquiry into whether there is anyone else besides the Father alone?” And I said again, “I must ask you this too, so that I may know whether you think otherwise than you have so far admitted.” And he said, “No, sir.” And I again said, “Since you truly agree to these things, and the word says, ‘Who shall declare his generation?’, ought you not now to understand that he is not the seed of a human race?”

And Trypho said, “How then does the word say to David that God will take for himself a son from his loins, and will establish his kingdom, and will set him on the throne of his glory?”

And I said, “Trypho, if the prophecy which Isaiah spoke, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ were not spoken to the house of David, but to another house of the twelve tribes, the matter would perhaps be perplexing; but since this very prophecy was spoken to the house of David, what was spoken to David by God in a mystery was explained through Isaiah as it was to come about; unless you do not know this, friends,” I said, “that many words spoken in a veiled way and in parables or mysteries or in symbolic actions were explained by the prophets who came after those who said or did them.”

“Certainly,” said Trypho. “If, then, I prove that this prophecy of Isaiah was spoken of this our Christ, and not of Hezekiah, as you say, shall I not in this too shame you out of obeying your teachers, who dare to say that the translation made by your seventy elders who were with Ptolemy the king of the Egyptians is in some points not true?

“For whatever in the Scriptures plainly refutes their senseless and selfish opinion, these they dare to say was not so written; and whatever they think they can draw and fit to human actions, these they say were spoken not of this our Jesus Christ, but of whomever they undertake to explain. As they taught you to say about this Scripture, which is the subject of our present discussion, that it was spoken of Hezekiah; which, as I promised, I will prove to be false.

“And the Scriptures we quote to them, which plainly prove that the Christ is both to suffer and to be worshiped and is God, which I have also recounted to you, these they are compelled to agree were spoken of Christ, but they dare to say that this man is not the Christ, while admitting that he will come and suffer and reign and become God worthy of worship; which I will likewise prove to be ridiculous and foolish. But since I am pressed first to answer what you said in a mocking manner, I will make my answers to that, and give the proofs of the rest later.”

“Know well, then, Trypho,” I went on, “that the things which the so-called devil made to be said among the Greeks by counterfeiting, as he also worked through the magicians in Egypt and the false prophets in the time of Elijah, have made my knowledge of the Scriptures and my faith firm.

“For when they say that Dionysus was born the son of Zeus by his union with Semele, and relate that he was the discoverer of the vine, and that he was torn in pieces and died and rose again and went up into heaven, and bring an ass into his mysteries, do I not understand that he imitated the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob recorded by Moses, which was quoted before?

“And when they say that Heracles was strong and traveled over the whole earth, and was born to Zeus of Alcmene, and died and went up into heaven, do I not understand that the Scripture spoken of Christ, ‘Strong as a giant to run his course,’ was likewise imitated? And when he brings forward Asclepius as raising the dead and healing other diseases, do I not say that he likewise imitated the prophecies about Christ in this too?

“But since I have not recounted to you such a Scripture, which indicates that Christ would do these things, I will necessarily mention one, from which you can also understand how the word foretold that those who were destitute of the knowledge of God, I mean the nations, who having eyes did not see and having a heart did not understand, worshiping the things made of matter, would renounce them and hope in this Christ.

“It was spoken thus: ‘Rejoice, thirsty wilderness; let the wilderness be glad and blossom like the lily. And the deserts of the Jordan shall blossom and rejoice, and the glory of Lebanon was given to it, and the honor of Carmel. And my people shall see the height of the Lord and the glory of God. Be strong, you weak hands and feeble knees. Be comforted, you faint of heart; be strong, do not fear. Behold, our God renders judgment and will render it; he will 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 the stammerers shall be clear; for water has broken out in the wilderness, and a valley in a thirsty land, and the waterless ground shall become marshes, and in the thirsty land there shall be a spring of water.’

“This Christ, a spring of living water from God, gushed forth in the wilderness of the knowledge of God, the land of the nations; he also appeared in your race and healed those who from birth and in the flesh were blind and deaf and lame, making one leap, another hear, and another see by his word; and raising the dead and making them live, he also by his works shamed the men of that time into recognizing him.

“But they, even seeing these things done, said it was a magical appearance; for they even dared to call him a magician and a deceiver of the people. But he did these things also to persuade those who were to believe in him, that even if anyone has some bodily defect, if he is a keeper of the teachings handed down by him, he will raise him up whole at his second coming, and make him also immortal and incorruptible and free from grief.

“And when those who hand down the mysteries of Mithras say that he was born of a rock, and call the place where they initiate those who believe in him a cave, do I not know that here they imitated what was said by Daniel, that ‘a stone was cut out without hands from a great mountain,’ and likewise the words of Isaiah, all of whose words they tried to imitate? For they contrived that words of righteousness should be spoken among them too.

“I must recount to you the words spoken by Isaiah, so that from them you may know that these things are so. They are these: ‘Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; those who are near shall know my strength. The lawless in Zion have departed; trembling shall seize the ungodly. Who shall tell you of the everlasting place? He who walks in righteousness, speaks the right way, hates lawlessness and injustice, and keeps his hands pure from bribes, stops his ears so as not to hear an unjust judgment of blood, shuts his eyes so as not to see injustice: he shall dwell in a high cave of a strong rock.

“‘Bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure. You shall see the King with glory, and your eyes shall look from afar. Your soul shall meditate on the fear of the Lord. Where is the scribe? Where are the counselors? Where is he who counts those who are nourished, the small and great people? With whom they did not take counsel, nor did they know the depths of voices, so as not to hear; a despised people, and the one who hears has no understanding.’

“Now it is plain that in this prophecy he speaks of the bread which our Christ handed down to us to do in remembrance of his having been made flesh for the sake of those who believe in him, for whom he also became subject to suffering; and of the cup, which he handed down to be done, giving thanks, in remembrance of his blood. And this prophecy shows that we shall see this same one as King with glory.

“And that the people foreknown as going to believe in him were foreknown to meditate on the fear of the Lord, these very words of the prophecy cry out. And that those who reckon that they know the letters of the Scriptures, and hear the prophecies, have no understanding, these Scriptures likewise cry aloud. And when I hear, Trypho,” I said, “that Perseus was born of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent imitated this too.”

“But I do not trust your teachers, who do not agree that the translation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, king of the Egyptians, is well made, but attempt to translate for themselves.

“And I want you to know that they have entirely removed many Scriptures from the translations made by the elders who were with Ptolemy, from which it is plainly shown that this very man who was crucified was proclaimed as God and man and as being crucified and dying; which, since I know that all those of your race deny them, I do not bring into such inquiries, but come to make my inquiries from those still acknowledged among you.

“For you acknowledge all those I have brought before you, except that about the passage, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ you objected, saying it reads, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive.’ And I promised to prove that the prophecy was spoken not of Hezekiah, as you were taught, but of this my Christ; and now I will make the proof.”

And Trypho said, “We first ask you to tell us some of the Scriptures which you say have been entirely falsified.”

And I said, “I will do as you wish. From the explanations which Ezra gave of the law concerning the Passover, they have removed this explanation: ‘And Ezra said to the people: This Passover is our Savior and our refuge. And if you have understood, and it has entered into your heart, that we are to humble him on a sign, and afterward hope in him, this place will not be laid waste for all time, says the God of hosts; but if you do not believe him nor listen to his proclamation, you shall be a laughingstock to the nations.’

“And from the words spoken through Jeremiah they cut out these: ‘I was like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed. They devised a device 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 no longer be remembered.’

“And since this passage from the words of Jeremiah is still written in some copies of those in the synagogues of the Jews (for they cut these words out only a short time ago), since it is proved from these words too that the Jews took counsel about the Christ himself, deciding to kill him by crucifying him, and he himself is shown, as was prophesied through Isaiah, as a sheep led to the slaughter, and here as an innocent lamb, being at a loss they turn to blasphemy.

“And from the words of the same Jeremiah they likewise cut out these: ‘The Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead who slept in the land of the tomb, and went down to them to preach to them the good news of his salvation.’

“And from the ninety-fifth psalm, of the words spoken through David, they removed these short words: ‘from the tree.’ For when the word says, ‘Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned from the tree,’ they left, ‘Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned.’

“But among the nations it was never said by those of your race of anyone as God and Lord that he reigned, except of this one alone who was crucified, of whom the Holy Spirit in the same psalm says that he was saved by rising again, indicating that he is not like the gods of the nations; for they are idols of demons.

“But so that you may understand what is said, I will recite the whole psalm to you. It is this: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all the peoples; for the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, he is to be feared above all 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 in his sanctuary. Bring to the Lord, you families of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honor; bring to the Lord glory in his name.

“‘Take up sacrifices and enter his courts; worship the Lord in his holy court. Let all the earth be shaken before him. Say among the nations, The Lord has reigned from the tree. For he has established the world, which shall not be shaken; he will judge the peoples in uprightness. Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad; let the sea and its fullness be shaken. The plains and all that is in them shall rejoice; all the trees of the forest shall rejoice before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.’”

And Trypho said, “Whether, as you say, the rulers of the people have erased anything from the Scriptures, God may know; but such a thing seems incredible.”

“Yes,” I said, “it seems incredible; for it is more terrible than the making of the calf, which they made when filled with manna on the earth, and than sacrificing their children to demons, or than killing the prophets themselves. But indeed,” I said, “you seem to me not even to have heard the Scriptures which I said they cut out. For so many have been recounted before, more than enough to prove what was asked, together with those still to be quoted which have been preserved among you.”

And Trypho said, “We know that you recounted them because we asked. But concerning this psalm, which you quoted last from the words of David, it does not seem to me to be spoken of anyone else but the Father, who made the heavens and the earth; but you say it was spoken of this man who suffered, whom you are eager to prove to be the Christ.”

And I answered, “Understand, please, as I speak, from the wording which the Holy Spirit uttered in this psalm, and you will know that I do not speak wrongly and that you are not truly bewitched; for in this way you will be able, when you are by yourselves, to understand many other things spoken by the Holy Spirit. ‘Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day, his wonders among all the peoples.’

“He bids those from all the earth who have come to know this saving mystery, that is, the passion of Christ, by which he saved them, to sing and to make music to God the Father of all, recognizing that he who wrought this salvation for the human race is to be praised and feared and is the Maker of heaven and earth, he who has counted worthy the one who died after being crucified to reign over all the earth, as also through …

“… of the land, into which this people is going; and they will forsake me and break my covenant which I made with them in that day. And I will forsake them and turn my face away from them; and they shall be devoured, and many evils and afflictions shall find them. And they shall say in that day: Because the Lord my God is not among us, these evils have found me. But I will surely turn my face away from them in that day because of all the evils they have done, because they turned to other gods.”

“And in the book of Exodus we have also understood that the name of God himself, which he says was not revealed to Abraham or to Jacob, was also Jesus, as was likewise declared in a mystery through Moses. It was spoken thus: ‘And the Lord said to Moses: Say to this people, Behold, I send my angel before your face, to guard you on the way, to bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Attend to him and obey him; do not disobey him; for he will not shrink from you; for my name is upon him.’

“Who, then, brought your fathers into the land? Understand at last that it was he who was given this name Jesus, having formerly been called Hoshea. For if you understand this, you will also recognize that the name of the one who said to Moses, ‘for my name is upon him,’ was Jesus. For he was also called Israel, and he likewise renamed Jacob with this name.

“And that the prophets who are sent to announce the things from God are called angels and apostles of God is shown in Isaiah. For there Isaiah says, ‘Send me.’ And that he who was given the name of Jesus became a mighty and great prophet is plain to all.

“If, then, we know that that God appeared in so many forms to Abraham and to Jacob and to Moses, why do we doubt and disbelieve that, according to the will of the Father of all, he could also be born a man through a virgin, especially when we have so many Scriptures from which it can be plainly understood that this too came about according to the will of the Father?

“For when Daniel speaks of the one who receives the eternal kingdom as ‘like a son of man,’ does he not hint at this very thing? For to say ‘like a son of man’ indicates that he appeared and became a man, but shows that he is not of human seed. And to call him a stone cut out without hands cries out the same thing in a mystery; for to say that he was cut out without hands shows that he is not a human work, but of the will of God, the Father of all, who put him forth.

“And Isaiah's saying, ‘Who shall declare his generation?’ showed that his descent could not be told; for no one who is a man of men has a descent that cannot be told. And Moses' saying that he would wash his robe in the blood of the grape, is it not what I have already told you many times he prophesied in a veiled way, that he foretold he would have blood, but not from men, just as it is not man but God who has begotten the blood of the vine?

“And Isaiah, calling him the Angel of great counsel, did he not proclaim beforehand that he would be the teacher of the things which he taught when he came? For the great things the Father had planned for all men who have been and will be pleasing to him, and likewise for those, men or angels, who departed from his counsel, he alone taught without veil, saying:

“‘They will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness.’

“And: ‘Many will say to me in 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.’ And in other words, by which he will condemn the unworthy who are not to be saved, he said he would say: ‘Go into the outer darkness, which the Father has prepared for Satan and his angels.’

“And again in other words he said: ‘I give you authority to tread on serpents 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, exorcise all demons and evil spirits and have them subject to us. For if Christ was proclaimed in a veiled way through the prophets as one who would suffer and afterward rule over all, still he could be understood by no one until he himself persuaded the apostles that these things had been expressly proclaimed in the Scriptures.

“For before he was crucified he cried: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and rise on the third day.’ And David proclaimed that he would be born from the womb before the sun and moon according to the will of the Father, and showed that, being Christ, he is God mighty and to be worshiped.

And Trypho said, “I agree with you that such and so many things are enough to shame us; but I want you to know that I ask you to prove the passage which you have often put forward. Complete that for us too, so that we may see how you prove that it was spoken of this Christ of yours; for we say it was prophesied of Hezekiah.”

And I said, “As you wish, I will do this too; but first prove to me that it was spoken of Hezekiah, that before he knew how to call father or mother he took the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria. For you will not be allowed to explain it as you wish, that Hezekiah made war against those in Damascus or in Samaria before 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 before the king of Assyria.’

“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 the spoils of Samaria,’ but had said only, ‘And she shall bear a son, and he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,’ you could say: Since God foreknew that he would take these things, he foretold it. But now the prophecy has spoken with this addition: ‘Before the child knows how to call father or mother he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria.’ And you cannot prove that this ever happened to anyone among the Jews; but we can prove that it happened in our Christ.

“For as soon as he was born, Magi came from Arabia and worshiped him, having first come to Herod, who was then king in your land, whom the word calls king of Assyria because of his godless and lawless mind. For you know, I said, that the Holy Spirit often speaks such things in parables and similitudes; as it did also to the whole people in Jerusalem, often saying to them: ‘Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.’

“For this King Herod learned from the elders of your people, when the Magi from Arabia came to him and said that they knew from a star that appeared in the heaven that a king had been born in your country, and ‘we have come to worship him,’ and when the elders said it was in Bethlehem, because it is written in the prophet thus: ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a leader who shall shepherd my people.’

“When, then, the Magi from Arabia had come to Bethlehem and worshiped the child and brought him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh, they were then commanded by revelation, after worshiping the child in Bethlehem, not to return to Herod.

“And Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary, at first wished to put away his betrothed Mary, thinking that she was with child by intercourse with a man, that is, by fornication; but he was commanded in a vision not to put away his wife, the angel who appeared telling him that what she had in her womb was of the Holy Spirit.

“Being afraid, then, he did not put her away; but when the first census was taking place in Judea under Quirinius, he went up from Nazareth, where he lived, to Bethlehem, where he was from, to be enrolled; for his race was of the tribe of Judah, which inhabited that land. And he was commanded to go into Egypt with Mary and to stay there with the child, until it should be revealed to them again to return to Judea.

“And when the child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph had no place to lodge in that village, he lodged in a certain cave near the village; and then, while they were there, Mary bore the Christ and laid him in a manger, and there the Magi from Arabia came and found him.

“And I have recounted to you,” I said, “that Isaiah also proclaimed beforehand the symbol of the cave; and for the sake of those who have come with you today, I will recall the passage again.” And I recounted the passage from Isaiah which I have written above, saying that because of those words those who hand down the mysteries of Mithras were moved by the devil to say that they are initiated by them in a place called among them a cave.

“And Herod, when the Magi from Arabia did not return to him as he had asked them to do, but went away to their own country by another road according to what they had been commanded, and when Joseph with Mary and the child had already gone into Egypt, as had been revealed to them, not knowing the child whom the Magi had come to worship, ordered all the children in Bethlehem without exception to be killed.

“And this had been prophesied to happen through Jeremiah, the Holy Spirit speaking through him thus: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and much lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.’ Because of the voice, then, that was to be heard from Ramah, that is, from Arabia (for there is still to this day a place called Ramah in Arabia), weeping was to seize the place where Rachel, the wife of Jacob, called Israel, the holy patriarch, is buried, that is, Bethlehem, as the women wept for their own children who had been killed and had no comfort for what had befallen them.

“For Isaiah's saying, ‘He shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,’ signified that the power of the evil demon that dwelt in Damascus would be overcome by Christ as soon as he was born; which is shown to have happened. For the Magi, who had been despoiled for every evil deed worked by that demon, came and worshiped Christ, and are seen to have departed from that power which had despoiled them, which the word indicated to us in a mystery as dwelling in Damascus.

“And it rightly calls that power, being sinful and unjust, Samaria in a parable. And that Damascus was and is of the Arabian land, even if it has now been assigned to what is called Syrophoenicia, not even any of you can deny. So it would be good for you, sirs, to learn what you have not understood from us Christians, who have received grace from God, and not to strive in every way to strengthen your own teachings, dishonoring those of God.

“That is why this grace has been transferred to us, as Isaiah says, speaking thus: ‘This people draws near to me; with their lips they honor me, but their heart is far from me; and in vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and teachings of men. Therefore, behold, 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 prudent ones.’”

And Trypho, somewhat annoyed but respecting the Scriptures, as was plain from his face, said to me, “The things of God are holy, but your interpretations are contrived, as is plain from those you have given, or rather blasphemous; for you say that angels acted wickedly and revolted from God.”

And I answered in a milder voice, wishing to prepare him to listen to me: “I admire this reverence of yours, sir, and I pray that you may have the same disposition toward him whom the angels are written to serve, as Daniel says, that one like a son of man is brought to the Ancient of Days, and all the kingdom is given to him forever and ever. And so that you may know, sir,” I said, “that we have not made this interpretation which you blame by using our own daring, I will give you testimony from Isaiah himself, that he says that evil angels have dwelt and dwell in Tanis, in the land of Egypt.

“These are the words: ‘Woe, rebellious children, thus says the Lord: You have taken counsel, but not through me, and made covenants, but not through my Spirit, to add sins to sins; who go down to Egypt, and have not asked me, to be helped by Pharaoh and sheltered in the shelter of the Egyptians. For the shelter of Pharaoh shall be to you a shame, and to those who trust in the Egyptians a reproach; for there are in Tanis princes, evil angels. In vain shall they labor for a people who will not profit them for help, but for shame and reproach.’

“And Zechariah too says, as you yourself mentioned, that the devil stood at the right hand of Joshua the priest to oppose him, and the Lord said, ‘The Lord rebuke you, he who has chosen Jerusalem.’ And again it is written in Job, as you yourself said, that the angels came to stand before the Lord, and the devil came with them. And we have it written by Moses at the beginning of Genesis that the serpent deceived Eve and was cursed. And we know that in Egypt magicians tried to equal the power worked by God through his faithful servant Moses. And you know that David said, ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’”

And Trypho said to this, “I told you, sir, that you are eager to be secure in everything by clinging to the Scriptures. But tell me, do you really confess that this place of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and do you expect that your people will be gathered together and rejoice with Christ, together with the patriarchs and the prophets and the saints of our race, or of those who became proselytes before your Christ came? Or did you come to confess this so as to seem to get the better of us in the argument?”

And I said, “I am not so wretched, Trypho, as to say other things than I think. I confessed to you before that I and many others think these things, so that we know for certain that this will come about; but I also indicated to you that many, even of those who are of the pure and pious opinion of Christians, do not acknowledge this.

“For I showed you that those who are called Christians, but are godless and impious heretics, teach things that are in every way blasphemous and godless and foolish. And so that you may know that I do not say this before you alone, I will make, as far as I can, a written account of all the discussions we have had, in which I will record myself confessing this, which I also confess to you. For I choose to follow not men or human teachings, but God and the teachings from him.

“For if you have met some who are called Christians, and do not confess this, but even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, who also say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but that as soon as they die their souls are taken up into heaven, do not suppose that they are Christians; just as no one, if he examines rightly, would admit that the Sadducees, or the similar sects of the Genistae and Meristae and Galileans and Hellenians and Pharisees and Baptists, are Jews (and do not be displeased at hearing me say all that I think), but they are called Jews and children of Abraham, and confess God with their lips, as God himself has cried, but have their heart far from him.

“But I, and any other Christians who are right-minded in all things, know that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, rebuilt and adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the others acknowledge.

“For Isaiah spoke thus about this period of a thousand years: ‘For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and they shall not remember the former things, nor shall they come into their heart; but they shall find in her gladness and exultation, the things which I create; for behold, I make Jerusalem an exultation and my people a gladness; and I will exult over Jerusalem and be glad over my people. And the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying; and there shall no longer be there one untimely in days, or an old man who does not fill up his time; for the young man shall be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies shall be a hundred years old and accursed.

“‘And they shall build houses and dwell in them themselves, and plant vineyards and eat their fruits themselves. They shall not build and others dwell in them, nor plant and others eat; for according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; they shall enjoy long the works of their labors. My elect shall not labor in vain, nor bear children for a curse; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall be that before they cry I will hear them; while they are still speaking I will say, What is it? Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the serpent earth as bread. They shall not hurt or destroy on the holy mountain, says the Lord.’

“Now what is said in these words,” I said, “‘For according to the days of the tree shall be the days of my people; they shall enjoy long the works of their labors,’ we have understood to indicate a thousand years in a mystery. For as it was said to Adam that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have understood also that the saying, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ bears on this.

“And further, among us too a man named John, one of the apostles of Christ, in a revelation that came to him, prophesied that those who have believed in our Christ will spend a thousand years in Jerusalem, and that after that the general, and in a word eternal, resurrection of all together and judgment will take place. Which our Lord also said: ‘They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, being children of the God of the resurrection.’

“For among us even until now there are prophetic gifts, from which you yourselves ought to understand that the gifts formerly in your race have been transferred to us. And just as there were false prophets in the time of the holy prophets among you, so among us too there are now many false teachers, of whom our Lord warned us beforehand to beware, so that we are in no respect lacking, knowing that he foreknew what would happen to us after his resurrection from the dead and his ascent into heaven.

“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 appear in his name and would lead many astray; which is so.

“For many, counterfeiting in his name, have taught godless and blasphemous and unjust things, and have taught and still teach what the unclean spirit, the devil, casts into their minds; whom we strive to persuade, as we do you, not to be led astray, knowing that everyone who can speak the truth and does not will be judged by God, as God testified through Ezekiel, saying: ‘I have made you a watchman for the house of Judah. If the sinner sins and you do not warn him, he shall perish in his sin, but I will require his blood from you; but if you warn him, you shall be innocent.’

“It is through fear, then, that we too are eager to converse according to the Scriptures, and not through love of money or of glory or of pleasure; for no one can convict us of any of these. For we do not wish to live like the rulers of your people, whom God reproaches, saying: ‘Your rulers are companions of thieves, loving gifts, pursuing rewards.’ But if you know some among us too who are such, do not for their sake blaspheme the Scriptures and Christ, and strive to twist them.

“For your teachers dared to explain that ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet,’ was spoken of Hezekiah, as though he had been ordered to sit at the right side of the temple when the king of Assyria sent to him with threats, and it was indicated to him through Isaiah not to fear him. And that the things spoken by Isaiah happened so, and that the king of Assyria was turned back from making war on Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, and that an angel of the Lord slew out of the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand, we both know and admit.

“But it is plain that the psalm was not spoken of him. For it runs thus: ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. 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 begot you. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’

“Who does not admit, then, that Hezekiah is not a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek? And who does not know that he is not the redeemer of Jerusalem? And who does not know that he himself did not send a rod of power into Jerusalem and rule in the midst of his enemies, but that it was God who turned the enemies away from him as he wept and lamented?

“But our Jesus, not yet having come in glory, has sent into Jerusalem a rod of power, the word of calling and of repentance to all the nations, where the demons ruled over them, as David says: ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ And his mighty word has persuaded many to forsake the demons they served and to believe through him in God Almighty, because the gods of the nations are demons. And the words, ‘In the splendor of the saints, from the womb before the morning star I begot you,’ were spoken to Christ, as we said before.

“And ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son’ was foretold of him. For if he of whom Isaiah spoke was not to be born of a virgin, of whom did the Holy Spirit cry, ‘Behold, the Lord himself will give us a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son’? For if he too was to be born of intercourse like all other firstborn, why did God say he would give a sign which is not common to all the firstborn?

“But what is truly a sign, and was to be trustworthy to the human race, namely that through a virgin womb the firstborn of all creation should be made flesh and truly become a child, this he took up beforehand and proclaimed through the prophetic Spirit in one way and another, as I have recounted to you, so that when it came about it might be recognized as having come about by the power and will of the Maker of all things; just as Eve was made from one of Adam's ribs, and as all other living things were begotten in the beginning by the word of God.

“But in this too you dare to alter the translations which your elders made at the court of Ptolemy, king of the Egyptians, saying that the Scripture does not read as they translated, but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive,’ as though great things were signified if a woman were to bear from intercourse, which all young women do except the barren; and even these God can make bear if he wishes.

“For the mother of Samuel, who was not bearing, bore by the will of God, and so did the wife of the holy patriarch Abraham, and Elizabeth who bore John the Baptist, and some others likewise. So you must not suppose it impossible for God to do whatever he wills. And especially, since it had been prophesied that it would happen, do not dare to alter or misinterpret the prophecies, since you will wrong only yourselves and will not harm God.

“For some of you dare to explain that the prophecy which says, ‘Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates, that the King of glory may enter,’ was likewise spoken of Hezekiah, and others of Solomon. But it cannot be shown to have been spoken of the one or the other, or of any other of your so-called kings, but only of this our Christ, who appeared without form and honor, as Isaiah and David and all the Scriptures said; who is Lord of hosts by the will of the Father who gave it to him; who also rose from the dead and went up into heaven, as the psalm and the other Scriptures showed, and proclaimed him Lord of hosts; as you can now more easily be persuaded from what happens before your eyes, if you will.

“For by the name of this very Son of God and firstborn of all creation, who was born through a virgin and became a man subject to suffering, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate by your people and died, and rose from the dead and went up into heaven, every demon when exorcised is conquered and subdued.

“But if you exorcise by any name of those who have been among you, kings or righteous men or prophets or patriarchs, not one of the demons will be subject to you; but perhaps, if one of you exorcised by the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, it would be subject. But I have already said that your exorcists use their art like the nations, and employ fumigations and binding spells.”

“And that there are angels and powers, whom the word of the prophecy through David commands to lift up the gates, so that this Lord of hosts, Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead, may enter according to the will of the Father, the word of David has likewise shown; which I will recall again for the sake of these who were not with us yesterday, for whose sake I also summarize many of the things said yesterday.

“And now, if I say this to you, even if I have repeated myself often, I know it is not out of place. For it would be ridiculous to see the sun and the moon and the other stars always taking the same course and making the turns of the seasons, and to see that a man who counts, if asked how much two times two is, will not stop saying again that it is four because he has often said it, and that other things that are firmly agreed are always said and agreed in the same way; but that one who makes discourses from the prophetic Scriptures should leave them and not always cite the same Scriptures, but think that he can produce something better than the Scripture.

“The word, then, by which I indicated that God shows that there are angels and powers in heaven, is this: ‘Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the highest; praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his powers.’” And one of those who had joined them on the second day, named Mnaseas, said, “We too are glad that you take pains to say the same things again for our sake.”

And I said, “Hear, friends, what Scripture persuades me to do these things. Jesus commanded us to love even our enemies, which was also proclaimed through Isaiah in many words, in which there is also the mystery of our new birth, and in a word of all who expect Christ to appear in Jerusalem and strive to please him by their works.

“These are the words through Isaiah: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word. Say, Our brothers, to those who hate you and abhor the name of the Lord, that it may be glorified. He appeared in their gladness, and they shall be ashamed. A voice of crying from the city, a voice of the people, a voice of the Lord rendering recompense to the proud. Before she who travails gave birth, and before the pain of travail came, she brought forth a male.

“‘Who has heard such a thing, and who has seen it so, whether the earth travailed in one day, or whether a nation was born at once, that Zion travailed and bore her children? But I have given this expectation also to her who does not bear, said the Lord; behold, I have made her who bears and the barren, says the Lord. Rejoice, Jerusalem, and keep festival, all who love her; rejoice, all you who mourn over her, that you may suck and be filled from the breast of her consolation, that having sucked you may delight in the entrance of his glory.’”

And having said this I added: “And hear how, after he was crucified, this one, who the Scriptures prove will come again in glory, had as his symbol the tree of life, which was said to have been planted in paradise, and of what would happen to all the righteous. Moses was sent with a rod for the redemption of the people, and holding it in his hands at the head of the people he divided the sea; by it he saw water gush out from the rock; and casting a tree into the water at Marah, which was bitter, he made it sweet.

“Jacob, by putting rods into the watering troughs, succeeded in making the sheep of his mother's brother conceive, so that he might gain their offspring. With his rod the same Jacob boasts that he crossed the river. He said a ladder was seen by him, and the Scripture has shown that God stood firmly on it; and we have proved from the Scriptures that it was not the Father. And Jacob, pouring oil on a stone in the same place, is testified by the very God who appeared to him to have anointed a pillar to the God who appeared to him.

“And we have likewise proved that Christ was proclaimed symbolically as a stone by many Scriptures; and we have likewise proved that every anointing, whether of oil or stacte or the other ointments compounded of perfume, belonged to him, since the word says: ‘Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.’ For all the kings and the anointed ones got from him their share in being called kings and anointed; just as he himself received from the Father the titles of King and Christ and Priest and Angel, and such other titles as he has or had.

“The rod of Aaron, bearing a bud, showed him to be high priest. Isaiah prophesied that Christ would come as a rod from the root of Jesse. And David says that the righteous one is like the tree planted by the streams of water, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not fall. And it is said that the righteous one shall flourish like a palm tree.

“God appeared to Abraham from a tree, as it is written, at the oak of Mamre. The people found seventy willows and twelve springs when they had crossed the Jordan. David says he was comforted by God with a rod and a staff.

“Elisha, casting a piece of wood 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 wished to recite and study the law and the commandments of God; as our Christ, by being crucified on the tree and by purifying us through water, has redeemed us, who had been sunk in the heaviest sins which we committed, and has made us a house of prayer and worship. And it was a rod that showed Judah to be the father of those born from Tamar through a great mystery.

And when I had said this, Trypho said, “Do not suppose from now on that I am trying to overthrow what you say when I ask whatever I ask, but that I wish to learn about the very things I ask.

“Tell me, then: when the word says through Isaiah, ‘A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall grow up from the root of Jesse; and the Spirit of God shall rest upon 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 God shall fill him,’ you admitted to me,” he said, “that this was spoken of Christ; and you say that he pre-existed as God, and that according to the will of God he was made flesh and born a man through the Virgin; how can he be shown to have pre-existed, who is filled with the powers of the Holy Spirit which the word lists through Isaiah, as though he lacked them?”

And I answered, “You have asked most sensibly and intelligently; for it does truly seem to be a difficulty; but so that you may see the account of these things too, listen to what I say. The word says that these powers of the Spirit that have been listed came upon him, not as though he lacked them, but as about to rest upon him, that is, to come to an end in him, so that there would no longer be prophets in your race according to the ancient custom; which you can see with your own eyes; for after him no prophet at all has arisen among you.

“And observe what I say, that your prophets, each receiving some one or two powers from God, did and said the things which we too have learned from the Scriptures. For Solomon had the spirit of wisdom, Daniel of understanding and counsel, Moses of might and piety, Elijah of fear, and Isaiah of knowledge; and the others likewise had either one each, or one in turn with another, as Jeremiah and the twelve and David and in a word all the others who were prophets among you.

“They rested, then, that is, they ceased, when he came, after whom, since this dispensation of his took place in the times when he was among men, they had to cease from you; and resting in him, they were again, as had been prophesied, to become gifts, which from the grace of the power of that Spirit he gives to those who believe in him, as he knows each to be worthy.

“And that it had been prophesied that this would be done by him after his ascension into heaven, I have already said and say again. It said, then: ‘He went up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to the sons of men.’ And again in another prophecy it is said: ‘And it shall come to pass after these things, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and on my servants and on my handmaids, and they shall prophesy.’

“And among us one can see both women and men who have gifts from the Spirit of God. So it was not because he lacked power that it was prophesied that the powers listed by Isaiah would come upon him, but because they would not continue beyond him. And let this too be a testimony to you, which I told you was done by the Magi from Arabia, who came and worshiped the child as soon as he was born.

“For even at his birth he had his power; and growing up in the common way of all other men, using what was fitting, he assigned to each stage of growth what belonged to it, being nourished by all kinds of food, and he remained thirty years, more or less, until John appeared as the herald of his coming and went before him on the way of baptism, as I showed before.

“And then, when Jesus came to the river Jordan where John was baptizing, when Jesus went down into the water, a fire was also kindled in the Jordan; and when he came up from the water, the apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote that the Holy Spirit lighted on him like a dove.

“And we know that he did not come to the river as though he needed to be baptized or needed the Spirit that came upon him in the form of a dove; just as he did not endure to be born and crucified as though he needed these things, but for the sake of the human race, which from Adam had fallen under death and the deceit of the serpent, each of them having done evil by his own fault.

“For God, wishing both angels and men, who were made with free choice and self-determination, to do whatever he had enabled each to be able to do, made them so, that if they chose what is pleasing to him, he would keep them incorruptible and unpunished, but if they did evil, he would punish each as he sees fit.

“For neither did his entering Jerusalem seated on an ass, which we proved had been prophesied, give him power to be the Christ, but it brought to men a sign that he is the Christ; just as in the time of John there had to be a sign for men, so that they might recognize who the Christ is.

“For when John sat by the Jordan and preached a baptism of repentance, wearing only a leather belt and a garment of camel's hair, and eating nothing but locusts and wild honey, men supposed him to be the Christ; to whom he himself cried: ‘I am not the Christ, but the voice of one crying; for one stronger than I will come, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.’

“And when Jesus came to the Jordan, and was thought to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, and appeared without form, as the Scriptures proclaimed, and was thought to be a carpenter (for he made these carpenter's works when he was among men, plows and yokes, by these teaching also the symbols of righteousness and an active life), the Holy Spirit, then, for the sake of men, as I said before, lighted on him in the form of a dove, and at the same time a voice came from the heavens, which was also spoken through David, as from his person, saying what was to be said to him by the Father: ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’; saying that his birth then took place for men, from the time when the knowledge of him was to come about.

And Trypho said, “Know well that our whole race awaits the Christ, and we admit that all the Scriptures you have quoted were spoken of him; and I also say that the name Jesus, given to the son of Nun, has shamed me into yielding on this point too.

“But whether the Christ was to be so shamefully crucified, we are at a loss; for the one who is crucified is said in the law to be accursed; so that on this point I am still hard to persuade. It is plain that the Scriptures proclaim that the Christ is to suffer; but whether it was by the suffering cursed in the law, we wish to learn, if you can prove this too.”

“If the Christ were not to suffer,” I said to him, “and the prophets had not foretold that he would be led to death because of the transgressions of the people, and be dishonored and scourged and counted among the lawless and led as a sheep to the slaughter, whose descent the prophet says no one can declare, it would be right to wonder. But if this is what marks him out and indicates him to all, how can we too not have believed in him with confidence? And all who have understood the writings of the prophets will say it is he and no other, if only they hear that he was crucified.”

“Lead us on, then, from the Scriptures,” he said, “so that we too may be persuaded by you. For we know that he was to suffer and be led as a sheep; but prove to us that he was also to be crucified and die so shamefully and dishonorably by the death cursed in the law; for we cannot even conceive of this.”

“You know,” I said, “that whatever the prophets said and did, as has also been agreed by you, they revealed in parables and types, so that most things might not easily be understood by everyone, hiding the truth in them, so that those who seek to find and learn must labor.” And they said, “It has been agreed by us.”

“Hear, then,” I said, “what follows. For Moses was the first to make known this apparent curse of his, by the signs which he did.” “Which do you mean?” he said.

“When the people,” I said, “were fighting against Amalek, and the son of Nun, named with the name of Jesus, led the battle, Moses himself prayed to God stretching out his hands on either side, and Hur and Aaron held them up all day, so that they might not drop when he was tired. For if he gave up any of this posture, which imitated the cross, the people were beaten, as is written in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this position, Amalek was defeated so much, and he who prevailed prevailed through the cross.

“For it was not because Moses prayed so that the people became stronger, but because, while the name of Jesus was at the front of the battle, he himself made the sign of the cross. For who of you does not know that the prayer that most appeases God is that made with lamentation and tears, and with the body prostrate or kneeling? But in this way, sitting on a stone, neither he nor anyone else afterward prayed. And the stone too has a symbolic meaning pointing to Christ, as I have shown.

“For God, indicating by another figure the strength of the mystery of the cross, said through Moses in the blessing with which he blessed Joseph: ‘From the blessing of the Lord is his land, from the seasons of heaven and the dews, and from the springs of the deep below, and from the fruits of the sun's turnings in their season, and from the conjunctions of the months, and from the tops of the ancient mountains, and from the tops of the hills, and from ever-flowing rivers, and from the fruits of the fullness of the earth. And let the things pleasing to him who appeared in the bush come upon the head of Joseph and upon his crown. Glorified among his brothers, the firstborn, his beauty is that of a bull; his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them he shall push the nations together, even from the end of the earth.’

“For no one could say or prove that the horns of a unicorn are like any other thing or figure except the type which shows the cross. For the one beam stands upright, and its highest part rises into a horn, when the other beam is fitted to it, and the ends on either side appear as horns joined to the one horn; and the part fixed in the middle, on which those who are crucified are supported, also projects like a horn, and it too looks like a horn shaped and fixed together with the other horns.

“And the words, ‘With them he shall push the nations together, even from the end of the earth,’ indicate what has now come about among all the nations. For those from all the nations, pushed, that is, pierced to the heart, by this mystery, have turned to the worship of God from vain idols and demons; while to unbelievers the same figure is shown for destruction and condemnation; as with the people who came out of Egypt, by the type of the stretching out of Moses' hands and by the naming of the son of Nun with the name Jesus, Amalek was defeated and Israel conquered.

“And by the type and sign set up against the serpents that bit Israel, the setting up is seen to have been for the salvation of those who believe, since it was proclaimed from then on that death would come upon the serpent through him who was to be crucified, but salvation to those who are bitten by it and flee for refuge to him who sent his crucified Son into the world. For the prophetic Spirit did not teach us through Moses to believe in a serpent, since it shows that the serpent was cursed by God in the beginning, and in Isaiah it indicates that it will be slain as an enemy by the great sword, which is Christ.

“If, then, one does not receive with great grace from God to understand what was said and done by the prophets, it will profit him nothing to seem to repeat the words or the events, if he cannot also give an account of them. And will they not seem contemptible to most people, when spoken by those who do not understand them?

“For if someone should wish to ask you why, since Enoch and Noah with his children, and any others like them, pleased God without being circumcised or keeping the Sabbath, God after so many generations required others to be justified through other leaders and legislation, those from Abraham to Moses by circumcision, and those from Moses by circumcision and the other commandments, that is, Sabbath and sacrifices and ashes and offerings, unless you show, as I said before, that it was because God, being foreknowing, knew that your people would deserve to be expelled from Jerusalem and that no one would be allowed to enter it?

“For you are recognizable from nowhere else, as I said before, except from circumcision in the flesh. For Abraham was not attested by God as righteous because of circumcision, but because of faith; for before he was circumcised it is said of him thus: ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.’

“And we, then, believing God through Christ in the uncircumcision of our flesh, and having the circumcision that profits us who have it, that is, of the heart, hope to appear righteous and pleasing to God, since we have already been attested by him through the prophetic words. But 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, was so that, as has been said, you might not become ungodly and atheists by worshiping idols and forgetting God, as you always appear to have become.

“And that God commanded the commandments about Sabbaths and offerings for these reasons has been proved by me already in what was said before; but for the sake of those who came today I wish to take up almost all the same points again. Since, if this is not so, God will be slandered, as having no foreknowledge, and as not teaching all men to know and to do the same righteous things (for many generations of men are seen to have existed before Moses), and the word will not be true which says that God is true and righteous and all his ways are judgments, and there is no injustice in him.

“But since the word is true, God wills that you should not always be so senseless and self-loving, so that you may be saved with Christ, who is pleasing to God and attested by him, as I said, having labored to give the proof from the holy prophetic words.

“For he sets forth what is always and universally just, and all righteousness, in every race of men; and every race knows that adultery and fornication and murder and all such things are evil. And even if all do them, still they are not free from knowing that they do wrong when they do them, except those who, filled with an unclean spirit and corrupted by upbringing and evil customs and wicked laws, have lost their natural notions, or rather have quenched them or keep them suppressed.

“For one can see that even such people do not wish to suffer the things they inflict on others, and reproach one another with hostile consciences for the very things they do. Hence it seems to me that it was well said by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 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 he who loves God with all his heart and with all his strength, being full of a God-fearing mind, will honor no other god; and he would honor that angel, if God willed it, who is loved by the same Lord and God. And he who loves his neighbor as himself will wish for him the same good things that he wishes for himself; and no one will wish evil for himself.

“So the one who loves his neighbor would pray and work for the same things to come to his neighbor as to himself; and a man's neighbor is nothing other than the living being of like passions and rational, man. Since, then, all righteousness is divided in two, toward God and toward men, whoever, the word says, loves the Lord God with all his heart and with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself, would be truly righteous.

“But you have never been shown to have friendship or love toward God or toward the prophets or toward yourselves, but, as is shown, you are found always both idolaters and murderers of the righteous, so that you laid your hands even on Christ himself, and to this day you persist in your wickedness, cursing even those who prove that this man crucified by you is the Christ; and besides, you think to prove that he was crucified as an enemy of God and accursed, which is the work of your irrational mind.

“For though you have starting points from the signs done by Moses to understand that this is he, you are not willing; and moreover, supposing that we can be put at a loss for reasons, you raise questions, which happens to you yourselves, and you are at a loss for words whenever you meet a vigorous Christian.

“For tell me, was it not God who commanded through Moses that no image or likeness at all be made of the things in heaven above or on earth, and yet he himself in the wilderness caused the bronze serpent to be made through Moses, and set it up as a sign, by which sign those bitten by serpents were saved; and he is not guilty of wrongdoing?

“For by this, as I said before, he proclaimed a mystery, by which he proclaimed that he would destroy the power of the serpent, which also brought about the transgression done by Adam, and salvation to those who believe in him who was to be put to death by this sign, that is, the cross, from the bites of the serpent, which are evil deeds, idolatries and other injustices.

“For if this is not understood, give me a reason why Moses set up the bronze serpent as a sign and ordered those who were bitten to look at it, and those bitten were healed, and this when he himself had commanded that no likeness of anything at all be made.”

And the other of those who had come on the second day said, “You have spoken truly; we have no reason to give. For I too have often asked our teachers about this, and no one gave me a reason. So say what you have to say; for we are attending to you as you reveal a mystery, through which even the teachings of the prophets are open to slander.”

And I said, “Just as God commanded the sign to be made through the bronze serpent and is guiltless, so too a curse lies in the law against men who are crucified; but no longer does a curse lie against the Christ of God, through whom he saves all who have done things worthy of a curse.

“For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse according to the law of Moses. For it is said, ‘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 things exactly, not even you will dare to deny; but some have kept the commandments more and some less than others. But if those under this law are seen to be under a curse because they have not kept all things, will not all the nations much more be seen to be under a curse, worshiping idols and corrupting boys and doing the other evils?

“If, then, the Father of all willed that his own Christ should take upon himself the curses of all on behalf of men of every race, knowing that he would raise him up after he was crucified and died, why do you speak of him who endured to suffer these things according to the Father's will as though he were accursed, and do not rather lament yourselves? For even if his Father caused him to suffer these things for the human race, you did not do it as serving the will of God; for neither did you practice piety when you killed the prophets.

“And let none of you say: If the Father willed him to suffer these things, so that by his stripes healing might come to the human race, we have done no wrong. If, then, you say this repenting of your sins and recognizing that this is the Christ and keeping his commandments, I have said that you will have forgiveness of sins.

“But if you curse both him and those who believe in him, and kill them whenever you have the power, how will it not be required of you that you laid your hands on him, as of unjust and sinful men, and utterly hard of heart and senseless?

“For what is said in the law, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,’ strengthens our hope, which hangs on the crucified Christ, not as though God cursed this crucified one, but as God foretelling what would be done by all of you and those like you, who do not know that this is he who existed before all things and was to become God's eternal Priest and King and Christ.

“Which you can see happening with your own eyes; for in your synagogues you curse all those who have become Christians through him, and the other nations, who put the curse into effect, killing those who merely confess that they are Christians; to all of whom we say, ‘You are our brothers; rather recognize the truth of God.’ And when neither they nor you are persuaded by us, but strive to make us deny the name of Christ, we choose rather to be put to death, and endure it, persuaded that God will give us all the good things he has promised through Christ.

“And besides all this we pray for you, that you may find mercy from Christ. For he taught us to pray even for our enemies, saying: ‘Be kind and merciful, as your heavenly Father is.’ For we see that God Almighty is kind and merciful, making his sun rise on the ungrateful and the righteous, and sending rain on the holy and the wicked, all of whom he has taught that he will also judge.

“For neither was it by chance that the prophet Moses remained in this posture until evening, when Hur and Aaron held up his hands. For the Lord too remained on the tree almost until evening, and toward evening they buried him; then he rose on the third day. This had been proclaimed through David thus: ‘With my voice I cried to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain. I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.’

“And through Isaiah likewise it had been said about the manner in which he would die, thus: ‘I have spread out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people, to those who walk in a way that is not good.’ And that he would rise, Isaiah himself said: ‘His burial has been taken away from the midst,’ and, ‘I will give the rich for his death.’

“And in other words again David spoke of the passion and the cross in a mysterious parable thus, in the twenty-first psalm: ‘They dug my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones; and they looked and stared at me. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ For when they crucified him, driving the nails, they dug his hands and his feet, and those who crucified him divided his garments among them, each casting lots for what he wished to choose, according to the fall of the lot.

“And you say that this very psalm was not spoken of Christ, being blind in every respect, and not understanding that no one in your race who was ever called king had his hands and feet dug while living and died by this mystery, that is, by being crucified, except this Jesus alone.

“And I will recite the whole psalm, so that you may hear his reverence toward the Father, and how he refers all things to him, as asking to be saved by him from this death, and at the same time showing in the psalm who they were that rose up against him, and proving that he truly became a man capable of suffering.

“It is this: ‘O God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions. My God, I will cry to you by day, and you will not hear, and by night, and it is not for want of understanding in me. But you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel. In you our fathers hoped; they hoped, and you delivered them; to you they cried and were saved; in you they hoped and were not put to shame.

“‘But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who saw me sneered at me; they spoke with their lips, they shook their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let him deliver him, let him save him, since he delights in him. For you are he who drew me out of the womb, my hope from my mother's breasts; I was cast upon you from the womb; from my mother's womb you are my God. Do not depart from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help me.

“‘Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have encircled me; they opened their mouth against me like a lion ravening and roaring. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered. My heart has become like wax melting in the midst of my belly; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my throat, and you have brought me down into the dust of death. For many dogs have surrounded me; a gathering of evildoers has encircled me. They dug my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones; and they looked and stared at me.

“‘They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, Lord, do not keep your help far from me; attend to my support. Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one 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 assembly I will sing your praise. You who fear the Lord, praise him; all the seed of Jacob, glorify him; let all the seed of Israel fear him.’”

And having said this I added: “I will now show you that the whole psalm was spoken of Christ, by explaining it again. What he says at once, ‘O God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me?’, foretold from of old what was to be said by Christ. For when he was crucified he said, ‘O God, O God, why have you forsaken me?’

“And what follows, ‘Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions; my God, I will cry to you by day, and you will not hear, and by night, and it is not for want of understanding in me,’ was said as though of the very things he was to do. For on the day on which he was to be crucified, he took three of his disciples to the mountain called Olivet, which lies right by the temple in Jerusalem, and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.’ And after this, praying, he says, ‘Not as I will, but as you will’; showing by these things that he had truly become a man capable of suffering.

“But lest anyone say, ‘Then he did not know that he was to suffer,’ it adds at once in the psalm, ‘And it is not for want of understanding in me.’ Just as it was not for want of understanding in God to ask Adam where he was, or Cain where Abel was, but to convict each of what he was, and that the knowledge of all things might come to us by being written down; so this too indicated not his own want of understanding, but that of those who thought he was not the Christ, but supposed that they would put him to death and that he would remain in Hades like a common man.

“And what follows, ‘But you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel,’ indicated that he would do what is worthy of praise and wonder, being about to rise from the dead on the third day after being crucified, which he has received from his Father. For I have proved that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I proved that the things about him were proclaimed in a mystery not only in the blessing of Joseph and Judah, but it is also written in the Gospel that he said: ‘All things have been delivered to me by the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father and those to whom the Son reveals him.’

“He has revealed to us, then, all that we have understood from the Scriptures too by his grace, knowing him to be the firstborn of God and before all creatures, and the son of the patriarchs, since, having been made flesh through the virgin of their race, he endured to become a man without form and honor and subject to suffering.

“Hence also in his own words, when he was speaking about his coming suffering, he said: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the Pharisees and scribes, and be crucified, and rise on the third day.’ He called himself Son of Man, then, either from his birth through the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the race of David and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham, or because Adam was father both of himself and of those listed before, from whom Mary traces her descent; for we know that the fathers of women are the fathers of the children born to their daughters.

“For when one of his disciples, formerly called Simon, recognized him as the Son of God, Christ, by the revelation of his Father, he named him Peter. And since we find him written as Son of God in the memoirs of his apostles, and call him Son, we have understood that he is, and that he came forth from the Father before all things made, by his power and will; who is also called in the words of the prophets, in one way and another, Wisdom and Day and East and Sword and Stone and Rod and Jacob and Israel; and that he became man through the Virgin, so that the disobedience that began from the serpent might also be destroyed by the same way by which it began.

“For Eve, being a virgin and uncorrupted, conceived the word from the serpent and brought forth disobedience and death; but Mary the virgin received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good news that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, and therefore the holy one born of her is the Son of God; and she answered, ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’

“And through her was born this one, of whom we have shown that so many Scriptures were spoken, through whom God destroys the serpent and the angels and men who have become like it, and works deliverance from death for those who repent of their evil deeds and believe in him.

“And what follows in the psalm, where it says, ‘In you our fathers hoped; they hoped, and you delivered them; to you they cried and were saved; in you they hoped and were not put to shame; but I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people,’ shows that he acknowledges as his fathers those who hoped in God and were saved by him, who were also fathers of the Virgin, through whom he was born and became man; and indicates that he himself would be saved by the same God, not boasting that he does anything by his own will or strength.

“For on earth he did the same; 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 his saying, ‘I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people,’ foretold what is seen both to be and to happen to him. For we who believe in him are a reproach everywhere; and ‘despised by the people,’ because, despised and dishonored by your people, he suffered what you inflicted on him.

“And what follows, ‘All who saw me sneered at me, and spoke with their lips, and shook their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let him deliver him, let him save 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 turning up their noses at one another said mockingly the things which are also written in the memoirs of his apostles: ‘He said he was the Son of God; let him come down and walk; let God save him.’

“And the following words, ‘My hope from my mother's breasts; I was cast upon you from the womb; from my mother's womb you are my God, for there is none to help me. Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have encircled me; they opened their mouth against me like a lion ravening and roaring. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered. My heart has become like wax melting in the midst of my belly; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my throat,’ made a foretelling of what happened.

“For ‘My hope from my mother's breasts’: for as soon as he was born in Bethlehem, as I said before, King Herod, learning about him from the Magi from Arabia, plotted to kill him, and by God's command Joseph took him with Mary and went away into Egypt; for the Father had decided that the one he had begotten should be put to death after he had grown to manhood and proclaimed the word from him.

“And if anyone says to us, ‘Could not God rather have killed Herod?’, I answer beforehand: Could not God in the beginning have removed the serpent from existence, and not have said, ‘And I will put enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and her seed’? Could he not at once have made a multitude of men?

“But, as he knew it was good to happen, he made both angels and men free to do righteousness, and set times for as long as he knew it was good for them to have free will; and because he likewise knew it was good, he made general and particular judgments, while preserving free will. Hence the word says this, at the overthrow of the tower and the confusion and change of languages: ‘And the Lord said: Behold, they are one race and all have one language, and this they have begun to do; and now nothing will fail them of all that they undertake to do.’

“And the words, ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my throat,’ were likewise a foretelling of what he was to do according to the Father's will. For the power of his mighty word, by which he always refuted the Pharisees and scribes who disputed with him, and in a word the teachers of your race, was stopped like a spring abundant and strong whose water is turned away, when he was silent and would no longer answer anything to anyone before Pilate, as is shown in the memoirs of his apostles; so that what was said through Isaiah might also bear effective fruit, where it is said: ‘The Lord gives me a tongue to know when I should speak a word.’

“And his saying, ‘You are my God; do not depart from me,’ teaches at the same time that all must hope in God who made all things, and seek salvation and help from him alone, and not, like the rest of men, think that they can be saved by race or wealth or strength or wisdom; as you have always done, at one time making the calf, and always appearing ungrateful and murderers of the righteous and puffed up because of your race.

“For if the Son of God is seen to say that he cannot be saved either by being Son, or by being strong, or by being wise, but that, though he was sinless, as Isaiah says, and did not sin even in word (for he did no lawlessness, nor deceit with his mouth), he cannot be saved without God, how do you, or the others who expect to be saved without this hope, not reckon that you are deceiving yourselves?

“And what is said next in the psalm, ‘For trouble is near, for there is none to help me. Many calves have surrounded me; fat bulls have encircled me; they opened their mouth against me like a lion ravening and roaring; I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered,’ was likewise a foretelling of what happened to him. For on that night, when those of your people who had been sent by the Pharisees and scribes and teachers came upon him at the Mount of Olives, those whom the word called butting and destructive calves surrounded him.

“And ‘Fat bulls have encircled me’ foretold those who did the same as the calves when he was led to your teachers; whom the word called bulls because we know that bulls are the cause of there being calves. As, then, bulls are the fathers of the calves, so your teachers were the cause for their children of going out to the Mount of Olives to seize him and bring him to them. And ‘For there is none to help’ also shows what happened. For not even one man was found to help him as a sinless man.

“And ‘They opened their mouth against me like a roaring lion’ indicates the one who was then king of the Jews, also called Herod, who succeeded the Herod who, when he was born, killed all the children born in Bethlehem at that time, because he suspected that among them was certainly the one of whom the Magi who came from Arabia had spoken to him; not knowing the counsel of the one stronger than all, who had commanded Joseph and Mary to take the child and depart to Egypt, and to be there until it should be revealed to them again to return to their own country; and there they remained until Herod who had killed the children in Bethlehem died and Archelaus succeeded him; and he died before Christ came to the dispensation of being crucified which had been ordained by the Father's will.

“And when Herod, who succeeded Archelaus, had received the authority assigned to him, to whom Pilate also, as a favor, sent Jesus bound, God, foreseeing that this too would happen, had said thus: ‘And they bound him and carried him to the Assyrian as a present for the king.’

“Or he called the devil the lion roaring against him, whom Moses calls the serpent, and who is called the devil in Job and Zechariah, and is addressed by Jesus as Satan, indicating that he acquired a compound name from the deed he did; for ‘sata’ in the language of the Jews and Syrians means an apostate, and ‘nas’ is the word from which serpent is translated; and from both of these one name is formed, Satanas.

“For this devil, as soon as he came up from the river Jordan, when the voice had said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you,’ is written in the memoirs of the apostles to have come to him and tempted him, even to saying to him, ‘Worship me’; and Christ answered him, ‘Get behind me, Satan; you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ For as he had deceived Adam, he said he could do something against him too.

“And ‘I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered; my heart has become like wax melting in the midst of my belly,’ was a foretelling of what happened to him on that night when they came out against him to the Mount of Olives to seize him.

“For in the memoirs which I say were composed by his apostles and those who followed them, it is written that sweat poured down like drops of blood while he prayed and said, ‘Let this cup pass, if it is possible’; his heart and likewise his bones clearly trembling, and his heart being like wax melting into his belly; so that we may know that the Father willed his own Son to be truly in such sufferings for our sake, and may not say that he, being the Son of God, did not feel what happened and befell him.

“And ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my throat’ was, as I said before, a foretelling of the silence of him who convicted all your teachers of being unwise, when he answered nothing at all.

“And ‘You have brought me down into the dust of death, for many dogs have surrounded me; a gathering of evildoers has encircled me; they dug my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones; and they looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots,’ was, as I said before, a foretelling of the death to which the synagogue of evildoers would condemn him, whom he also calls dogs, indicating also that they were hunters, because those who hunted him also gathered, striving to condemn him; which is also written in the memoirs of his apostles as having happened.

“And that after he was crucified those who crucified him divided his garments among them, I have shown.

“And what follows in the psalm, ‘But you, Lord, do not keep your help far from me; attend to my support; deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the hand of the dog; save me from the lion's mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns,’ is likewise again a teaching and foretelling of the things that were his and were to happen to him. For I have shown before that he was the Only-begotten of the Father of all, begotten from him in a unique way as Word and Power, and later became man through the Virgin, as we have learned from the memoirs.

“And he likewise foretold that he would die by crucifixion. For ‘Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the hand of the dog; save me from the lion's mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns,’ likewise indicates by what suffering he was to die, that is, by being crucified; for I have explained to you before that ‘the horns of the unicorns’ is the figure of the cross alone.

“And his asking that his soul be saved from the sword and the lion's mouth and the hand of the dog was a request that no one should take possession of his soul; so that, when we come to the departure from life, we may ask the same of God, who can turn away every shameless evil angel from seizing our soul.

“And that souls survive I have shown you from the fact that the soul of Samuel was called up by the medium, as Saul asked. And it appears too that all the souls of such righteous men and prophets fell under the power of such powers, as is admitted from the facts themselves in the case of that medium.

“Hence God also teaches us through his Son to strive by all means to become righteous, and at our departure to pray that our souls may not fall under any such power. For when he gave up his spirit on the cross he said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,’ as I have also learned from the memoirs.

“For urging his disciples to surpass the conduct of the Pharisees, or else to know that they would not be saved, he is written in the memoirs to have said this: ‘Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’

“And the rest of the psalm showed that he knew that his Father would grant him all things as he asked, and would raise him from the dead; and that he urged all who fear God to praise God because he had mercy through the mystery of this crucified one on every race of believing men; and that he stood in the midst of his brothers, the apostles, who repented of having forsaken him when he was crucified, after he rose from the dead and persuaded them that even before he suffered he had told them that he must suffer these things, and that these things had been proclaimed by the prophets; and that, living with them, he sang praise to God, as is shown in the memoirs of the apostles to have happened.

“These are the words: ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will sing your praise. You who fear the Lord, praise him; all the seed of Jacob, glorify him; let all the seed of Israel fear him.’

“And the statement that he changed the name of one of the apostles to Peter, and that this is written in his memoirs as having happened, together with his changing the names of two other brothers, the sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder, was a sign that he was the same one through whom the surname Israel was given to Jacob, and the name Jesus was given to Hoshea, by whose name the people who survived of those who came out of Egypt were brought into the land promised to the patriarchs.

“And that he was to rise like a star through the race of Abraham, Moses indicated, saying thus: ‘A star shall rise from Jacob, and a leader from Israel.’ And another Scripture says: ‘Behold a man; the East is his name.’ When, then, a star rose in heaven too as soon as he was born, as is written in the memoirs of his apostles, the Magi from Arabia, recognizing it from this, came and worshiped him.

“And that he would rise on the third day after being crucified, it is written in the memoirs that those of your race who disputed with him said, ‘Show us a sign.’ And he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given them except the sign of Jonah.’ And when he said this, it was veiled so as to be understood by his hearers that after he was crucified he would rise on the third day.

“And he showed that your generation was more wicked and adulterous than the city of the Ninevites, who, when Jonah preached to them, after he had been cast up on the third day from the belly of the great fish, that in three days they would all perish, proclaimed a fast of all living things without exception, both men and beasts, with sackcloth and earnest lamentation and true repentance from their hearts and renunciation of injustice, believing that God is merciful and kind to all who turn from wickedness; so that the king of that city himself and the nobles likewise put on sackcloth and persevered in fasting and supplication, and obtained that their city was not overthrown.

“But when Jonah was grieved that on the third day, as he had proclaimed, the city was not overthrown, by the dispensation of causing a gourd to spring up for him out of the earth, under which he sat and was shaded from the heat (and the gourd was sudden, Jonah neither having planted nor watered it, but it sprang up suddenly to give him shade), and the next day causing it to wither, at which Jonah was grieved, he convicted him of being wrongly despondent because the city of the Ninevites had not been overthrown, saying:

“‘You had pity on the gourd, for which you did not labor, nor did you raise it, which came up in a night and perished in a night; and shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which dwell more than a hundred and twenty thousand men who do not know their right hand from their left, and many cattle?’

“And though all those of your race knew that these things had been done by Jonah, and though Christ cried among you that he would give you the sign of Jonah, urging you at least after he had risen from the dead to repent of the evil you had done and to weep before God like the Ninevites, so that your nation and your city might not be taken and overthrown, as it has been overthrown,

“you not only did not repent when you learned that he had risen from the dead, but, as I said before, you chose and appointed picked men and sent them into the whole world, proclaiming that a godless and lawless sect had been raised up by a certain Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by saying that he has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven; and accusing him of having taught those godless and lawless and unholy things which you say to every race of men against those who confess him as Christ and Teacher and Son of God.

“Besides this, even when your city has been taken and your land laid waste, you do not repent, but dare to curse him and all who believe in him. And we do not hate you or those who because of you have conceived such opinions against us, but we pray that even now all of you may repent and obtain mercy from God, the compassionate and very merciful Father of all.

“But that the nations would repent of the wickedness in which they lived astray, when they heard the word preached by his apostles from Jerusalem and learned through them, bear with me while I say a few words from the prophecy of Micah, one of the twelve.

“They are these: ‘And in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, established on the top of the mountains, lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it like a river, 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 shall enlighten us in his way, and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, 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, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more.

“‘And each man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken; for all peoples shall walk in the name of their gods, but we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever. And it shall be in that day, I will gather her that was afflicted, and assemble her that was driven out, and her whom I afflicted, and I will make her that was afflicted a remnant, and her that was oppressed a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them on Mount Zion from now and forever.’

And when I had finished this I added: “And I know, sirs, that your teachers admit that all the words of this passage were spoken of the Christ; and I know too that they say he has not yet come; or if they say he has come, they say it is not known who he is, but when he becomes manifest and glorious, then it will be known who he is.

“And then, they say, the things spoken in this passage will come to pass, as though no fruit had yet come from the words of the prophecy; senseless, not understanding what has been proved by all the passages, that two comings of his have been announced: one in which he was proclaimed as suffering and without glory and honor and crucified, and the second, in which he will come from heaven with glory, when also the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, will dare lawless deeds on earth against us Christians, who, having learned the worship of God from the law and the word that went forth from Jerusalem through the apostles of Jesus, have fled for refuge to the God of Jacob and the God of Israel;

“and we, who were filled with war and mutual slaughter and every wickedness, have each from all the earth changed our weapons of war, our swords into plowshares and our spears into farming tools, and we cultivate piety, righteousness, love of mankind, faith, hope that comes from the Father himself through the crucified one, each sitting under his own vine, that is, each having only his own wedded wife; for you know that the prophetic word says, ‘And his wife as a fruitful vine.’

“And it is plain that there is no one who terrifies and enslaves us who have believed in Jesus throughout the whole earth. For it is clear that, though we are beheaded and crucified and thrown to wild beasts and chains and fire and all other tortures, we do not fall away from our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others in greater numbers become faithful and pious through the name of Jesus. Just as when one cuts away the parts of a vine that have borne fruit, it grows up to put forth other branches, flourishing and fruitful, the same thing happens with us; for the vine planted by God and by Christ the Savior is his people.

“And the rest of the prophecy will be fulfilled at his second coming. For ‘her that was afflicted and driven out,’ that is, from the world: as far as depends on you and all other men, each Christian has been driven out not only from his own possessions but from the whole world, since you allow no Christian to live.

“But you say that this has happened to your people. If you were driven out after being warred against, you have suffered these things justly, as all the Scriptures testify; but we, who have done no such thing since we came to know the truth of God, are testified by God to be taken from the earth together with the most righteous and only spotless and sinless Christ. For Isaiah cries: ‘Behold how the righteous one has perished, and no one lays it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers.’

“And I said before that the two comings of this Christ were foretold symbolically by Moses too, through the symbol of the goats offered at the fast. And again the same thing was proclaimed and spoken symbolically in what Moses and Joshua did. For one of them, stretching out his hands, remained on the hill until evening, his hands being held up, which shows the type of nothing other than the cross; and the other, renamed with the name of Jesus, led the battle, and Israel conquered.

“And it was also to be understood in the case of both those holy men and prophets of God that neither of them could bear both mysteries, I mean the type of the cross and the type of the calling of the name; for this power belongs to one alone, and was, and will be, whose name every principality fears, being in anguish because they are to be destroyed through him. Our suffering and crucified Christ, then, was not cursed by the law, but showed that he alone would save those who do not depart from his faith.

“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 perished. 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 on the day of the Passover you seized him, and likewise at the Passover you crucified him. And as the blood of the Passover saved those in Egypt, so the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed.

“Would God, then, have been deceived if this sign had not been on the doors? I do not say so, but that it proclaimed beforehand the salvation that would come to the human race through the blood of Christ. For the symbol of the scarlet cord, which the spies sent by Joshua the son of Nun gave at Jericho to Rahab the harlot, telling her to tie it to the window through which she let them down so that they might escape the enemy, likewise showed the symbol of the blood of Christ, by which those who were formerly fornicators and unjust from all the nations are saved, having received forgiveness of sins and sinning no more.

“But you, explaining these things in a low way, charge God with great weakness, if you hear them so barely and do not examine the force of what is said. For then Moses too would be judged a transgressor; for he commanded that no likeness of anything be made, of the things in heaven or on earth or in the sea, and then he himself made a bronze serpent, and setting it on a pole he ordered those who had been bitten to look at it; and they were saved by looking at it.

“Shall the serpent, then, be understood to have saved the people at that time, which, as I said before, God cursed in the beginning, and will slay with the great sword, as Isaiah cries? And shall we so foolishly accept such things, as your teachers say, and not as symbols? Shall we not rather refer the sign to the image of the crucified Jesus, since Moses too, by the stretching out of his hands together with the one named Jesus, brought about the victory of your people?

“For in this way we shall also stop being at a loss about what the lawgiver did. For he did not forsake God and persuade the people to hope in a beast through which transgression and disobedience began. And these things were done and spoken with great understanding and mystery by the blessed prophet; and there is nothing that anyone can justly blame in what was said or done by all the prophets without exception, if you have the knowledge that is in them.

“But if your teachers explain to you only why female camels are not mentioned in this place, or what the so-called female camels are, or why so many measures of fine flour and so many measures of oil are in the offerings, and these things in a low and groveling way, while they never dare to speak of or explain the great things worth inquiring into, or even, when we explain them, command you not to listen at all nor to enter into discussion, will they not justly hear what our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: ‘Whitewashed tombs, outwardly appearing beautiful and inside full of dead men's bones; tithing mint, but swallowing the camel; blind guides’?

“If, then, you do not despise the teachings of those who exalt themselves and wish to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, and come to the prophetic words with such earnestness and understanding as to suffer from your own people the same things the prophets themselves suffered, you cannot gain anything at all profitable from the prophetic writings.

“What I mean is this. Jesus, as I have often said, who was called Hoshea, the one sent as a spy into the land of Canaan with Caleb, Moses called Jesus. You do not ask why he did this, you are not puzzled, nor are you curious; therefore Christ has escaped you, and reading you do not understand; nor even now, hearing that Jesus is our Christ, do you reckon that the name was not given to him idly or by chance.

“But you speculate theologically about why one alpha was added to the first name of Abraham, and likewise you talk boastfully about why one rho was added to the name of Sarah; but you do not likewise ask why the name given by his father to Hoshea the son of Nun was wholly changed to Jesus.

“But since not only was his name changed, but also, having become Moses' successor, he alone of those of that age who came out of Egypt brought the surviving people into the holy land; and as he, not Moses, brought the people into the holy land, and as he distributed it by lot to those who entered with him, so also Jesus the Christ will turn back the dispersion of the people, and will distribute the good land to each, though no longer in the same way.

“For the one gave them a temporary inheritance, since he was not Christ who is God, nor the Son of God; but the other will give us the eternal possession after the holy resurrection. That one, having first been renamed with the name of Jesus and having received strength from his Spirit, made the sun stand still. For I have proved that it was Jesus who appeared and spoke to Moses and Abraham and in a word the other patriarchs, serving the Father's will; who also came to be born a man through the Virgin Mary, and exists forever.

“For he is the one from whom and through whom the Father will renew the heaven and the earth; he is the one who is to shine as an eternal light in Jerusalem; he is the king of Salem after the order of Melchizedek and the eternal priest of the Most High.

“That one 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 circumcised us from stones and other idols, and made heaps of those from the foreskin, that is, from the error of the world, circumcised everywhere with knives of stone, the words of our Lord Jesus. For I have proved that Christ was proclaimed in parables through the prophets as a stone and a rock.

“And so we shall understand the knives of stone to be his words, through which so many who were straying have been circumcised from the foreskin with the circumcision of the heart; which God from that time urged through Jesus even those who had the circumcision that began with Abraham to receive, saying that Jesus circumcised a second time with knives of stone those who entered that holy land.

“For sometimes the Holy Spirit caused something to be done openly which was a type of what was to happen, and sometimes it uttered words about what was to come to pass, speaking them as though they were then happening or had happened; and unless those who read know this art, they will not be able to follow the words of the prophets as they should. And for the sake of example I will cite some prophetic words, so that you may follow what I say.

“When he says through Isaiah, ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer,’ he speaks as though the suffering had already happened. And again when he says, ‘I have spread out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people,’ and when he says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’, the words are spoken as announcing things that had already happened. For I have shown that he often calls Christ a stone in a parable, and figuratively Jacob and Israel.

“And again when he says, ‘I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers,’ unless I hear it as the working of his Word, I shall not hear it with understanding, as your teachers think, who suppose that the Father of all, the unbegotten God, has hands and feet and fingers and a soul like a composite living being; who for this reason also teach that the Father himself appeared to Abraham and to Jacob.

“Blessed, then, are we who have been circumcised with knives of stone with the second circumcision. For yours, the first, was done and is done with iron; for you remain hard of heart; but our circumcision, which is second in number, having appeared after yours, circumcises us by sharp stones, that is, by the words spoken through the apostles of the cornerstone, cut without hands, from idolatry and in a word all wickedness; whose hearts are so circumcised from evil that they rejoice to die for the name of the good Rock, which pours forth living water into the hearts of those who through him have loved the Father of all, and gives the water of life to drink to those who wish.

“But you do not understand these things when I say them; for you have not understood what it was prophesied that Christ would do, nor do you believe us when we lead you to what is written. For Jeremiah cries thus: ‘Woe to you, for you have forsaken the living spring and dug for yourselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water. Shall there be a desert where Mount Zion is? For I have given Jerusalem a bill of divorce before you.’

“But you ought to believe Zechariah, who shows the mystery of Christ in a parable and proclaims it in a hidden way. These are the words: ‘Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, says the Lord. And many nations shall be added 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.

“‘And the Lord shall inherit Judah and his portion in the holy land, and shall again choose Jerusalem. Let all flesh fear before the Lord, for he has risen up out of his holy clouds. And he showed me 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: The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’

And when 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 suppose, as though there had not been a priest named Joshua in the land of Babylon, where your people were captive. Even if I did, I have shown that there was a priest Joshua in your race; but the prophet did not see him in his revelation, just as he did not see the devil and the angel of the Lord with his own eyes, in a normal state, but in ecstasy, when a revelation was given him.

“But now I say that, just as he said that through the name of Jesus the son of Nun did mighty works and deeds foretelling what was to be done by our Lord, so I now come to show that the revelation concerning Joshua the priest who was among your people in Babylon was a foretelling of what was to be done by our Priest and God and Christ, the Son of the Father of all.

“I was indeed wondering,” I said, “why a little while ago you kept silent while I was speaking, or how you did not take hold of my saying that the son of Nun alone of those of his age who came out of Egypt entered the holy land, together with those of that generation who are recorded as younger. For you run to sores like flies and settle on them.

“For even if someone says ten thousand things well, but one small thing is not pleasing to you or not understood or not exact, you pay no attention to the many good things, but take hold of the little word and are eager to make it out to be an impiety and a crime; so that, judged by God with the same judgment, you will render account much more for your great daring, whether of evil deeds or of the bad interpretations which you give by falsifying. For with the judgment you judge, it is just that you be judged.

“But to give you the account of the revelation of the holy Jesus Christ, I take up the argument and say that that revelation too was made for us who believe in this crucified high priest, Christ; who, though we were living in fornication and in a word every filthy deed, have by the grace of our Jesus, according to the will of his Father, stripped off all the filthy evils with which we were clothed; against whom the devil always stands opposing and wishing to draw all to himself; and the angel of God, that is, the power of God sent to us through Jesus Christ, rebukes him, and he departs from us.

“And we are like brands plucked from the fire, cleansed from our former sins, and plucked from the affliction and burning with which the devil and all his servants burn us, from which Jesus the Son of God again plucks us; he has promised to clothe us with the garments prepared for us if we do his commandments, and has promised to provide an eternal kingdom.

“For just as that Joshua, called a priest by the prophet, appeared wearing filthy garments because he was said to have taken a harlot as wife, and was called a brand plucked from the fire because he had received forgiveness of sins, the devil who opposed him being also rebuked; so we, who through the name of Jesus have believed as one man in God the Maker of all, having stripped off through the name of his firstborn Son the filthy garments, that is, our sins, and being set on fire by the word of his calling, are the true high-priestly race of God, as God himself also testifies, saying that in every place among the nations they offer him sacrifices pleasing and pure. And God does not receive sacrifices from anyone except through his priests.

“God, then, testifies beforehand that all the sacrifices offered through this name, which Jesus the Christ handed down to be done, that is, in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, which are made in every place of the earth by the Christians, are pleasing to him; but he rejects those made by you and through 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 has been glorified,’ he says, ‘among the nations, but you profane it.’

“And even now, being contentious, you say that God does not accept the sacrifices in Jerusalem of those who then lived there and were called Israelites, but that he said he accepts the prayers of the men of that race who were then in the dispersion, and calls their prayers sacrifices. Now that prayers and thanksgivings, when made by those who are worthy, are the only perfect and pleasing sacrifices to God, I too say.

“For these alone Christians too have received to make, even in the remembrance made by their food, both dry and liquid, in which the suffering which the Son of God suffered for them is also remembered; whose name the high priests of your people and your teachers have caused to be profaned and blasphemed throughout the whole earth; and these filthy garments too, put by you on all who have become Christians from the name of Jesus, God will show to be taken away from us, when he raises all, and makes some incorruptible and immortal and free from sorrow in an eternal and indissoluble kingdom, and sends others to the eternal punishment of fire.

“But that you and your teachers deceive yourselves when you explain that the word spoke of those of your race in the dispersion, saying that their prayers and sacrifices were pure and pleasing in every place, recognize that you speak falsely and try to deceive yourselves in every way; because, first, not even now is your race spread from the rising of the sun to its setting, but there are nations among whom none of your race has ever lived.

“For there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians or Greeks or called by any name at all, whether wagon-dwellers or those called houseless or those who live in tents raising cattle, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Maker of all through the name of the crucified Jesus. And further, at the time when the prophet Malachi said this, your dispersion over the whole earth, as far as you are now spread, had not yet taken place, as is also shown from the Scriptures.

“So rather stop being contentious and repent before the great day of judgment comes, in which all those of your tribes who pierced this Christ will mourn, as I have shown to be foretold from Scripture. And I have explained that the Lord swore ‘after the order of Melchizedek,’ and what was foretold. And I have said before that the prophecy of Isaiah, which said, ‘His burial has been taken away from the midst,’ was about the Christ who was to be buried and rise again. And I have said in many places that this Christ is himself the judge of all the living and the dead.

“And Nathan likewise, speaking to David about him, added thus: ‘I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a 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 ruler in the house than him. For he is the chosen priest and eternal king, the Christ, as Son of God; at whose second coming do not think that Isaiah or the other prophets say that sacrifices of blood or libations will be brought to the altar, but true and spiritual praises and thanksgivings.

“And we have not believed in him in vain, nor were we led astray by those who taught us so; but this came about by the wonderful providence of God, so that we, through the calling of the new and eternal covenant, that is, Christ, might be found more understanding and more God-fearing than you, who are thought to be, but are not, lovers of God and understanding.

“Marveling at this, Isaiah said: ‘And kings shall shut their mouths; for those to whom it was not announced about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ And in saying these things, Trypho,” I said, “I try, as far as possible, to say the same things for the sake of those who have come with you today, but briefly and concisely.”

And he said, “You do well; and even if you say the same things again at greater length, know that I and those with me rejoice to hear them.”

And I said again, “Do you think, sirs, that we could ever have understood these things in the Scriptures, if we had not received grace to understand them by the will of him who willed them? So that what was said by Moses might also come to pass:

“‘They provoked me with strange gods, with their abominations they embittered me; they sacrificed to demons whom they did not know; new and recent ones came, whom their fathers did not know. You forsook God who begot you, and forgot God who nourishes you. And the Lord saw, and was jealous, and was provoked to anger because of his sons and daughters, and said: I will turn my face away from them, and I will show what will be to them in the last days; for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faith. They made me jealous with what is not God; they provoked me to anger with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is not a nation; with a foolish nation I will provoke them to anger. For a fire has been kindled from my wrath, and shall burn to Hades; it shall devour the earth and its fruits; it shall burn the foundations of the mountains. I will heap evils upon them.’

“And after that Righteous One was put to death, we sprang up as another people, and shot up as new and flourishing ears of grain, as the prophets said: ‘And many nations shall flee to the Lord in that day for a people, and they shall dwell in the midst of all the earth.’ And we are not only a people but a holy people, as we have already shown: ‘And they shall call it a holy people, redeemed by the Lord.’

“We are, then, not a contemptible people, nor a barbarous tribe, nor such as the nations of the Carians or Phrygians; but God has chosen us too, and has been made manifest to those who did not ask for him. ‘Behold, I am God,’ he says, ‘to the nation that did not call on my name.’ For this is that nation which God promised long ago to Abraham, and declared he would make him the father of many nations; not speaking of Arabs or Egyptians or Idumeans; since Ishmael too became the father of a great nation, and Esau, and there is now a great multitude of Ammonites. And Noah was the father of Abraham himself and in a word of the whole race of men, and others are the ancestors of others.

“What more, then, does Christ grant to Abraham here? That he called him with a like calling by his voice, telling him to go out from the land in which he lived. And he has called all of us by that voice, and we have already gone out from the way of life in which we lived wickedly according to the common ways of the other inhabitants of the earth; and with Abraham we shall inherit the holy land, receiving the inheritance for endless ages, being children of Abraham because of our like faith.

“For as he believed the voice of God and it was counted to him for righteousness, in the same way we too, having believed the voice of God, spoken again through the apostles of Christ and proclaimed to us through the prophets, have renounced even to death all things in the world. He promises him, then, a nation of like faith, God-fearing and righteous, delighting the Father; but not you, in whom there is no faith.

“See, however, that he promises the same things to Isaac and to Jacob. For he says thus 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 tribes of the earth shall be blessed.’ He no longer says this to Esau or to Reuben or to any other, but to those from whom the Christ was to come according to the dispensation through the Virgin Mary.

“And if you examine the blessing of Judah, you would see what I mean. For the seed is divided from Jacob, and comes down through Judah and Perez and Jesse and David. And these were symbols that some of your race will be found children of Abraham, being found also in the portion of Christ, while others are children of Abraham, but like the sand on the seashore, which is barren and fruitless, being much and countless, but bearing no fruit at all, but only drinking the water of the sea; which the great multitude in your race is also convicted of being, drinking in teachings of bitterness and godlessness, but spitting out the word of God.

“He says, then, in the case of Judah too: ‘A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is laid up; and he shall be the expectation of the nations.’ And it is plain that this was not spoken of Judah but of Christ; for all of us from all the nations do not expect Judah, but Jesus, who also brought your fathers out of Egypt. For the prophecy proclaimed until the coming of Christ: ‘Until he comes for whom it is laid up; and he shall be the expectation of the nations.’

“He has come, then, as we have shown in many places, and Jesus is expected to come again upon the clouds, whose name you profane and cause to be profaned in all the earth. And I could have contended with you, sirs,” I said, “about the reading which you explain as saying, ‘Until the things laid up for him come’; since the Seventy did not translate so, but, ‘Until he comes for whom it is laid up.’

“But since what follows shows that it was spoken of Christ, for it runs thus, ‘And he shall be the expectation of the nations,’ I do not come to dispute with you about the little word, just as I did not try to make the proof about Christ from the Scriptures not acknowledged by you, which I quoted from the words of Jeremiah the prophet and Ezra and David, but from those acknowledged by you until now; which, if your teachers had understood them, know well that they would have made them disappear, as they did the account of the death of Isaiah, whom you sawed in two with a wooden saw, which was itself a mystery of Christ, who is about to cut your race in two, and to count the worthy worthy of the eternal kingdom with the holy patriarchs and prophets, and has said he will send the others to the condemnation of unquenchable fire with the like disobedient and unrepentant from all the nations.

“‘For they shall come,’ he said, ‘from the west and the east, and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness.’ And I say these things,” I said, “because I care for nothing but to speak the truth, and I will stand in awe of no one, even if I must be torn limb from limb by you at once. For neither did I have any regard for any of my own race, I mean the Samaritans, when I addressed Caesar in writing, but said that they were deceived in trusting the magician Simon of their race, whom they say is God above every principality and authority and power.”

And as they kept silence I went on: “Speaking through David about this Christ, friends, he no longer said that the nations would be blessed in his seed, but in him. It runs thus there: ‘His name is forever; it shall rise above the sun; and all the nations shall be blessed in him.’ But if all the nations are blessed in Christ, and we from all the nations believe in him, then he is the Christ, and we are those blessed through him.

“God had formerly given the sun to be worshiped, as it is written, and no one can ever be seen to have endured to die for faith in the sun; but one can see men of every race who have endured and endure to suffer anything rather than deny Jesus because of his name. For the word of his truth and wisdom is more fiery and more luminous than the powers of the sun, and penetrates to the depths of the heart and the mind. Hence the word said: ‘His name shall rise above the sun.’ And again Zechariah says: ‘The East is his name.’ And speaking of the same one, he said: ‘They shall mourn tribe by tribe.’

“But if in his first coming, without honor and form and despised, he shone and prevailed so much that he is unknown in no race, and repentance from the old evil way of life of every race has been made by all, so that even the demons are subject to his name, and all principalities and kingdoms fear his name more than all the dead, will he not in every way at his glorious coming destroy all who have hated him and unjustly departed from him, and give rest to his own, rendering to them all they expect?

“To us, then, it has been given to hear and to understand and to be saved through this Christ, and to know 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 to turn back the dispersion of Israel. I have set you for a light of the nations, that you may be for their salvation to the end of the earth.’

“You think that these words were spoken of the sojourner and the proselytes, but in fact they were spoken of us who have been illuminated through Jesus. For otherwise Christ would have borne witness to them too; but now you become twice as much sons of Gehenna, as he himself said. It was not to them, then, that the words of the prophets were spoken, but to us, of whom the word says: ‘I will lead the blind in a way they did not know, and they shall tread paths they did not know. And I am witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen.’

“To whom, then, does Christ bear witness? Clearly to those who have believed. But the proselytes not only do not believe, but blaspheme his name twice as much as you, and wish to kill and torture us who believe in him; for they hasten to become like you in everything.

“And again he cries in other words: ‘I the Lord have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand and strengthen you, and I will set you for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out those who are bound from their bonds.’ For these words too, sirs, were spoken to Christ and about the nations who have been illuminated. Or will you say again, ‘He is speaking to the law and to the proselytes’?”

And some of those who had come on the second day cried out as in a theater: “But what? Is he not speaking to the law and to those illuminated by it? And these are the proselytes.”

“No,” I said, looking at Trypho. “For if the law were able to illuminate the nations and those who have it, what need would there be of a new covenant? But since God proclaimed beforehand that he would send a new covenant and an eternal law and ordinance, we shall not understand the old law and its proselytes, but Christ and his proselytes, us the nations, whom he has illuminated; as he says somewhere: ‘Thus says the Lord: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you, and I have given you for a covenant of the nations, to establish the earth and to inherit desolate inheritances.’

“What, then, is the inheritance of Christ? Is it not the nations? What is the covenant of God? Is it not Christ? As he says elsewhere: ‘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.’

“As, then, all these things were spoken to Christ and the nations, so you are to think those words were spoken too. For the proselytes have no need of a covenant, if, one and the same law being laid down for all who are circumcised, the Scripture speaks of them thus: ‘And the sojourner shall be added to them, and shall be added to the house of Jacob.’ And the proselyte who is circumcised, to join the people, is like a native; but we, who have been counted worthy to be called a people, are likewise a nation because we are uncircumcised.

“Besides, it is ridiculous for you to think that the eyes of your proselytes have been opened, but not yours, and that you are addressed as blind and deaf, but they as illuminated. And the matter will turn out still more ridiculous for you, if you say that the law has been given to the nations, but you have not known that law.

“For you would have feared the wrath of God, and would not be lawless and wandering sons, being shamed at hearing him say each time: ‘Sons in whom there is no faith’; and, ‘Who is blind but my servants, and deaf but those who rule over them? And the servants of God have become blind. You have seen often, and have not kept watch; your ears are open, and you have not heard.’

“Is God's praise of you a fine one, and God's testimony fitting for servants? You are not ashamed at hearing the same things often, nor do you shudder at God's threats, but you are a foolish and hard-hearted people. ‘Therefore, behold, 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.’ With reason. For you are not wise nor understanding, but shrewd and crafty; wise only to do evil, but unable to know the hidden counsel of God, or the faithful covenant of the Lord, or to find the eternal paths.

“Therefore he says: ‘I will raise up for Israel and for Judah a seed of men and a seed of beasts.’ And through Isaiah he speaks thus about another Israel: ‘In that day there shall be a third Israel among the Assyrians and the Egyptians, blessed in the land which the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed shall be my people in Egypt and among the Assyrians, and Israel my inheritance.’

“Since, then, God blesses this people and calls it Israel and cries that it is his inheritance, how do you not repent of deceiving yourselves as though you alone were Israel, and of cursing the people blessed by God? For when he spoke to Jerusalem and the lands around it, he said thus again: ‘And I will beget men upon you, my people Israel, and they shall inherit you, and you shall be their possession, and you shall no longer be bereaved of children by them.’

“What then?” says Trypho. “Are you Israel, and does he say these things about you?” “If,” I said to him, “we had not already discussed this at length, I would have doubted whether you ask this without understanding; but since we have brought this question to a conclusion with proof and agreement, I do not think you are ignorant of what was said before, nor again contentious, but that you challenge me to make the same proof in these words too.”

And when he agreed with a nod of the eyes, I went on: “Again in Isaiah, if only you would hear with your ears, God, speaking of Christ in a parable, calls him Jacob and Israel. He says thus: ‘Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not strive nor cry out, nor shall anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment to truth; he shall take up judgment and shall not be crushed, until he sets judgment on the earth; and in his name shall the nations hope.’

“As, then, from that one Jacob, who was also called Israel, your whole race was named Jacob and Israel, so we too, from Christ who begot us to God, like Jacob and Israel and Judah and Joseph and David, are called and are true children of God, we who keep the commandments of Christ.

And when I saw them troubled because I said that we are children of God, I anticipated their question and said: “Hear, sirs, how the Holy Spirit says of this people that they are all sons of the Most High, and that this very Christ will be present in their assembly, making judgment on every race of men.

“The words were spoken through David, as you explain them, thus: ‘God stood in the assembly of gods; in the midst he judges gods. How long will you judge injustice and accept the persons of sinners? Judge for the orphan and the poor, and do justice to the lowly and the needy. Rescue the needy, and deliver the poor from the hand of the sinner. They have not known nor understood; they walk in darkness; all the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. I said: You are gods, and all sons of the Most High; but you die like a man, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit among all the nations.’

“But in the translation of the Seventy it is said: ‘Behold, you die like men, and fall like one of the princes’; to show both the disobedience of men, I mean of Adam and Eve, and the fall of one of the princes, that is, of the one called the serpent, who fell with a great fall because he led Eve astray.

“But since my argument is not now directed to this, but to prove to you that the Holy Spirit reproaches men, who were made like God, free from suffering and death, if they kept his commands, and were counted worthy by him to be called his sons, and who, becoming like Adam and Eve, work death for themselves, let the interpretation of the psalm be as you wish; even so it has been proved that they were counted worthy to become gods, and to be able to become all sons of the Most High, and that they will be judged and condemned by their own fault, like Adam and Eve. And that he calls Christ God has been proved in many places.

“I would like to learn from you, sirs,” I said, “what is the meaning of the name Israel.” And as they were silent, I went on: “I will say what I know; for I do not think it right to know and not speak, nor, suspecting that you know, to be always concerned about your deceiving yourselves through envy or inexperience, but to say everything simply and without guile, as my Lord said: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and some fell on the road, some among the thorns, some on the rocky ground, and some on the good ground.’

“One must speak, then, in the hope that there is good ground somewhere; since that Lord of mine, being strong and mighty, will come and demand his own from all, and will not condemn his steward if he recognizes that he, knowing that his Lord is mighty and will come and demand his own, gave to every bank, and did not for any reason whatever bury it.

“The name Israel, then, means this: a man who conquers power; for ‘Isra’ is a man conquering, and ‘El’ is power. This had been prophesied also through the mystery of the wrestling which Jacob wrestled with him who appeared, in that he served the Father's will, and was God in that he is the firstborn child of all created things, that Christ too, when he became man, would so struggle.

“For when he became man, as I said before, the devil came to him, that is, that power which is also called serpent and Satan, tempting him and striving to overthrow him by asking him to worship him. But he destroyed and overthrew him, proving that he was wicked, asking contrary to the Scripture to be worshiped as God, having become an apostate from God's will. For he answers him: ‘It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ And then the devil, defeated and refuted, went away.

“But since Christ our Lord was also to grow numb, that is, to be in pain and feel the suffering, when he was to be crucified, he also made a proclamation of this by touching Jacob's thigh and making it numb. And Israel was his name from above, which he gave to the blessed Jacob, blessing him with his own name, proclaiming also by this that all who flee to the Father through him are blessed Israel. But you, understanding none of these things nor preparing to understand, expect by all means to be saved because you are children of Jacob according to the fleshly seed. But that in this too you deceive yourselves, has been proved by me in many places.

“But who this is, who is called now the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like a Son of Man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshiped by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Sufferer and Jacob and Israel again by Isaiah, and a Rod and Flower and Cornerstone and Son of God, if you had known, Trypho,” I said, “you would not blaspheme him who has now come and been born and suffered and gone up into heaven; who will also come again, and then your twelve tribes will mourn.

“For if you had understood what was said by the prophets, you would not deny that he is God, Son of the only, unbegotten, and ineffable God. For it is said somewhere through Moses in Exodus thus: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses and said to him: I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and I did not make known my name to them, and I established my covenant with them.’

“And thus again he says: ‘A man wrestled with Jacob’; and he says he is God. For he says that Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my soul was saved.’ And he recorded that he called the place where he wrestled with him and appeared and blessed him, the Form of God.

“And likewise to Abraham, as Moses says, God appeared at the oak of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent at noon. Then having said this he adds: ‘And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, three men stood over against 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 then bear a child? But I am old. Is anything impossible with God? At this season I will return at this time, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And they depart from Abraham.

“And thus he says of them again: ‘And the men rose up from there and looked toward Sodom.’ Then again he who was and is speaks thus to Abraham: ‘I will not hide from my servant Abraham what I am about to do’; and I recounted again what follows, as quoted from the writings of Moses and explained by me, by which it has been proved,” I said, “that this one who appeared to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the other patriarchs, and is written of as God, is subject to the Father and Lord and serves his will.

And I added what I had not said before: “So too, when the people desired to eat meat and Moses disbelieved the one there too called an angel, who promised that God would give them their fill, he, being both God and an angel sent from the Father, is shown to have said and done these things. For the Scripture continues thus: ‘And the Lord said to Moses: Is the hand of the Lord not sufficient? Now you shall know whether my word shall come upon you or not.’ And again in other words it says thus: ‘The Lord said to me: You shall not cross this Jordan. The Lord your God, who goes before your face, he will destroy the nations.’

“And other such things have been said by the lawgiver and the prophets. And I think I have said enough to show that when my God says, ‘God went up from Abraham,’ or, ‘The Lord spoke to Moses,’ and, ‘The Lord came down to see the tower which the sons of men had built,’ or when ‘God shut Noah's ark from outside,’ you should not think that the unbegotten God himself came down or went up from anywhere.

“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 is, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, not with eyes or ears but with indescribable power; and he oversees all things and knows all things, and none of us escapes his notice; nor is he moved, he who cannot be contained by a place or by the whole world, since he was even before the world came to be.

“How, then, could he speak to anyone, or be seen by anyone, or appear in the smallest part of the earth, when the people could not even look at the glory of the one sent from him at Sinai, nor could Moses himself enter the tent he had made, when it was filled with the glory from God, nor could the priest endure to stand before the temple when Solomon brought the ark into the house in Jerusalem which Solomon himself had built?

“Neither Abraham, then, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other man saw the Father and ineffable Lord of all without exception, and of Christ himself, but that one who according to his will is both God, his Son, and Angel because he serves his purpose; whom he also willed to be born a man through the Virgin; who also once became fire in the conversation with Moses from the bush.

“For if we do not understand the Scriptures so, it will follow that the Father and Lord of all was not in the heavens when it was said through Moses, ‘And the Lord rained on Sodom fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven’; and again when it was said thus 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 the footstool of your feet.’

“And that Christ, being Lord and God, the Son of God, and appearing formerly by his power as a man and an angel, and in the glory of fire, as in the bush, appeared also at the judgment on Sodom, has been proved by much that has been said.” And I recounted again all that I have written above from Exodus, about the vision at the bush and the naming with the name of Jesus, and added:

“And do not think, my friends, that I say these things often from superfluous talk; but because I know that some wish to anticipate these things and say that the power which appeared from the Father of all to Moses or to Abraham or to Jacob is called an angel in its coming forth to men, since through it the things from the Father are announced to men; and glory, since it sometimes appears in an uncontainable vision; and sometimes a man and a human being, since it appears shaped in such forms as the Father wishes; and they call it Word, since it also brings to men the discourses from the Father.

“But they say that this power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable, while the sun is in heaven; and when it sets, the light is carried away with it; so the Father, they say, when he wishes, makes his power spring forth, and when he wishes, draws it back into himself. In this way they teach that he also makes the angels.

“But it has been proved that there are angels, who always remain and are not resolved into that from which they came into being; and that this power, which the prophetic word calls God, as has likewise been proved at length, and Angel, is not numbered in name only like the light of the sun, but is also something distinct in number; and I examined the matter briefly in what I said before, saying that this power was begotten from the Father, by his power and will, but not by cutting off, as though the Father's substance were divided, as all other things when divided and cut are not the same as before they were cut; and I took as an example the fires we see kindled from a fire, the one from which many can be kindled being in no way lessened, but remaining the same.

“And now I will also cite the words I mentioned to prove this. When it says, ‘The Lord rained fire from the Lord out of heaven,’ the prophetic word indicates two in number, one on earth, who, it says, came down to see the cry of Sodom, and the other in the heavens, who is also Lord of the Lord on earth, as Father and God, and the cause of his existence and of his being mighty and Lord and God.

“And again, when the word says that God said in the beginning, ‘Behold, Adam has become as one of us,’ this ‘as one of us’ is also indicative of number, and the words do not admit a figurative meaning, as the sophists try to explain, who can neither speak the truth nor understand it.

“And in Wisdom it is said: ‘If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, I will remember to recount the things from eternity. The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works. Before the age he founded me, in the beginning, before he made the earth and before he made the depths and before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; and before all the hills he begets me.’”

And having said this I added: “You understand, hearers, if indeed you pay attention; the word showed that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all created things without exception; and anyone at all would admit that what is begotten is distinct in number from the one who begets.”

And when all agreed I said: “And I would now cite some words which I did not recall before; they were spoken by the faithful servant Moses in a veiled way. They were spoken thus: ‘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 the blood of his sons is avenged, and he will avenge it, and will render judgment to his enemies, and will repay those who hate him, and the Lord will cleanse the land of his people.’

“And having said this, he says that we the nations rejoice with his people, I mean Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets and in a word all from that people who are pleasing to God, according to what we have already agreed; but we shall not understand it of all of your race, since we have learned also through Isaiah that the limbs of the transgressors are to be consumed by the worm and the unceasing fire, remaining immortal, so as to be a spectacle to all flesh.

“And besides this, sirs,” I said, “I want to cite to you other words from the words of Moses himself, from which you can understand that from the beginning God scattered all men, both their races and languages; and taking for himself from all the races your race, a useless and disobedient and faithless race, he showed that those from every race who choose to obey his will through Christ, whom he also calls Jacob and names Israel, must be Jacob and Israel, as I said at length before.

“For in saying, ‘Rejoice, you nations, with his people,’ he assigns to them the same inheritance and gives them the same name; but in calling them nations and rejoicing with his people, he speaks of your nation to its reproach. For just as you provoked him by worshiping idols, so he has counted them too, who were idolaters, worthy to know his will and to inherit the inheritance that is with him.

“And I will cite the words by which it is shown that God divided all the nations. They are these: ‘Ask your father, and he will declare to 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 numbers of the sons of Israel; and his people Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the lot of his inheritance.’ And having said this I added that the Seventy translated, ‘He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.’ But since my argument is in no way weakened by this either, I have cited your version.

“And you, if you are willing to confess the truth, must admit that we are more faithful to God, who were called by God through the despised and reproachful mystery of the cross, and on whose confession and obedience and piety punishments even to death have been imposed by the demons and the army of the devil, through the help given them by you, and we endure all things rather than deny Christ even in word, through whom we were called to the salvation prepared by the Father,

“than you, who were redeemed from Egypt with a high arm and a visitation of great glory, when the sea was divided for you and became a dry road, in which he killed those who pursued you with a very great force and glorious chariots, bringing back upon them the sea that had been made a road for your sake; for whom also a pillar of light shone, so that you might have a light of your own, unfailing and never setting, beyond every other people in the world; on whom he rained bread for food from the angels of heaven, the manna, so that you might not even need to prepare grain; and the water at Marah was made sweet;

“and a sign of the one who was to be crucified was made also in the case of the serpents that bit you, as I said before (God taking beforehand every occasion to grant you the mysteries before their proper times, toward whom you are always shown to have been ungrateful), and through the type of the stretching out of Moses' hands and of him who was named Jesus, when they fought against Amalek, concerning which God commanded that what happened be recorded, saying that the name of Jesus should also be committed to your ears, saying that this is he who will blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

“And it is plain that the memory of Amalek remains even after the son of Nun; but through Jesus who was crucified, of whom those symbols were forecasts of all that concerns him, he makes it plain that the demons are to be destroyed and to fear his name, and that all principalities and kingdoms likewise dread him, and that those who believe in him from every race of men are shown to be God-fearing and peaceable; and the things I recounted before, Trypho, indicate this.

“And to you, when you desired to eat meat, so many quails were given that they could not be counted; for you water gushed from the rock, and a cloud followed you for shade from the heat and for protection from the cold, announcing the manner and the forecast of another, new heaven; the thongs of your sandals did not break, nor did the sandals themselves grow old, nor were your clothes worn out, but even the clothes of the young grew with them.

“And besides these things you made the calf and were eager to commit fornication with the daughters of foreigners and to worship idols; and afterward again, when the land had been handed over to you with such power that you saw the sun, at the command of that man named with the name of Jesus, standing still in heaven and not setting for thirty-six hours, and all the other mighty works done for you in their time; of which it seems to me right to recount one more now; for it contributes to your understanding from it too that Jesus, whom we too have recognized as Christ the Son of God, crucified and risen and gone up into the heavens and coming again as judge of all men without exception back to Adam himself.

“You know, then,” I said, “that when the ark of the covenant had been seized by the enemy around Azotus, and a terrible and incurable plague had befallen them, they decided to put it on a wagon to which they yoked calving heifers, to test whether they had been struck by the power of God because of the ark, and whether God wished it to be carried back to the place from which it was taken.

“And when they did this, the heifers, guided by no man, did not go to the place from which the ark had been taken, but to the field of a certain man called Hoshea, the namesake of the one renamed with the name of Jesus, as was said before, who also brought the people into the land and distributed it to them by lot; and when they came to that field they stopped; showing you by this too that they were guided by the name of power, just as formerly the people who survived of those who came out of Egypt were guided into the land by the one who received the name Jesus, formerly called Hoshea.

“And though all these and similar marvelous and wonderful things were done and seen by you in their times, you are convicted by the prophets of having even sacrificed your own children to demons, and besides all this of having dared and still daring such things against Christ; for all of which may you obtain mercy from God and his Christ and be saved.

“For God, foreknowing through the prophet Isaiah that you would do these things, cursed you thus: ‘Woe to their soul; they have planned an evil plan against themselves, saying: Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their works. Woe to the lawless one; evil shall befall him according to the works of his hands. My people, your exactors strip you, and those who demand rule over you.

“‘My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray and confuse the path of your ways. But now he will set his people in judgment, and the Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and its rulers: But why have you burned my vineyard, and the plunder of the poor is in your houses? Why do you wrong my people and shame the face of the lowly?’

“And in other words again the same prophet said to the same effect: ‘Woe to those who draw their sins as with a long rope, 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. Woe to those who are wise in themselves and learned in their own sight.

“‘Woe to your mighty ones who drink wine, and the powerful, and those who mix strong drink, who justify the ungodly for bribes, and take away the right of the righteous. Therefore, as stubble shall be burned by a coal of fire and consumed by a burning flame, their root shall be like chaff and their flower shall go up like dust; for they did not want the law of the Lord of hosts, but provoked the word of the Holy One of Israel. And the Lord of hosts was angry with wrath, and laid his hands on them and struck them, and was provoked against the mountains, and their carcasses became like dung in the midst of the road; and in all this they did not turn back, but their hand is still raised.’

“For truly your hand is still raised to do evil; for even after killing Christ you do not repent, but you hate and murder us too, who through him have believed in God the Father of all, whenever you get the power, and you unceasingly curse both him and those who are his; while all of us pray for you and for all men without exception, as we were taught to do by our Christ and Lord, who commanded us to pray even for our enemies, and to love those who hate us, and to bless those who curse us.

“If, then, the teachings of the prophets and of him himself move you, it is better for you to follow God than your senseless and blind teachers, who even to this day allow each of you to have four and five wives, and if anyone sees a beautiful woman and desires her, they recount the deeds of Jacob, called Israel, and of the other patriarchs, and say that those who do the same do no wrong; being wretched and senseless in this too.

“For, as I said before, certain dispensations of great mysteries were accomplished in each such deed. For I will tell what dispensation and foretelling was accomplished in the marriages of Jacob, so that in these too you may recognize that your teachers never looked to the more divine purpose for which each deed was done, but to groveling and corrupting passions. Attend, then, to what I say.

“The marriages of Jacob were types of what Christ was to accomplish. For it was not lawful for Jacob to marry two sisters at the same time; and he serves Laban for his daughters, and being deceived about the younger, he served again seven years. Leah is your people and the synagogue, and Rachel our church. And for these Christ serves even now, and for the servants in both.

“For since Noah gave the seed of the third son into servitude to the two sons, now again Christ has come for the restoration of both the free children and the servants among them, counting worthy of the same things all who keep his commandments; just as all the sons born to Jacob from the free women and from the servants became sons of equal honor; but it has been foretold according to their order and according to the foreknowledge of what each would be.

“Jacob served Laban for the speckled and many-formed flocks; and Christ served even to the servitude of the cross for men 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 indeed are the eyes of your souls. Rachel stole Laban's gods and hid them until this day; and for us too the ancestral and material gods have perished.

“Jacob was hated all the time by his brother; and we now, and our Lord himself, are hated by you and by all other men, who are all brothers by nature. Jacob was called Israel; and Christ too has been shown to be Israel, he who is and is called Jesus.

“And when the Scripture says, ‘I am the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who have shown Israel to be your king,’ will you not understand truly Christ, the eternal King? For you know that Jacob, the son of Isaac, never became a king; and therefore the Scripture, explaining to us again whom it calls King Jacob and Israel, said thus:

“‘Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; and Israel my chosen, my soul will receive him. I have given my Spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out, nor shall his voice be heard outside; a bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, until he brings forth victory; he shall take up judgment and shall not be crushed, until he sets judgment on the earth; and in his name shall the nations hope.’

“Do those from the nations, then, hope in Jacob the patriarch, and not in Christ, and you yourselves too? As, then, he calls Christ Israel and Jacob, so we, hewn out of the belly of Christ, are the true Israelite race. But let us attend rather to the text itself.

“‘And I will bring forth,’ he says, ‘the seed from Jacob and from Judah; and it shall inherit my holy mountain, and my chosen and my servants shall inherit it and dwell there; and there shall be folds of flocks in the thicket, and the valley of Achor for a resting place of herds, for the people who have sought me. But you who forsake me and forget my holy mountain, and prepare a table for demons and fill a mixed cup for the demon, I will give you over to the sword; you shall all fall by slaughter; for I called you and you did not obey, I spoke and you did not listen, and you did evil before me, and chose what I did not wish.’

“Such are the words of the Scripture; and you yourselves understand that the seed from Jacob now spoken of is something else, and not, as one might think, spoken of the people. For it is not possible for those born of Jacob to leave an introduction to those sown from Jacob, nor for him, reproaching the people as unworthy of the inheritance, to promise it again to the same ones as though accepting them.

“But just as the prophet says there, ‘And now, house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord; for he has let go his people, the house of Jacob, because their land was filled, as at the beginning, with divinations and omens’; so here too we must understand two seeds of Judah and two races, like two houses of Jacob, the one born of blood and flesh, the other of faith and the Spirit.

“For you see how he now speaks to the people, having said above: ‘As a grape will be found in a cluster, and they will say, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it, so will I do for the sake of him who serves me; for his sake I will not destroy them all’; and after this he adds: ‘And I will bring forth the seed from Jacob and from Judah.’ It is clear, then, that if he is so angry with those and threatens to leave very few, he promises to bring forth certain others who will dwell on his mountain.

“And these are those whom 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 before 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 to be what they are, pious and righteous and loving to mankind. Therefore the Lord says, ‘Woe to their soul, for they have planned an evil plan against themselves, saying: Let us take away the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.’

“For you are not sacrificing to Baal, like your fathers, nor making cakes in shady or high places for the host of heaven; but you have not received his Christ. For whoever does not know him does not know the counsel of God either, and whoever insults and hates him clearly also hates and insults the one who sent him; and if anyone does not believe in him, he does not believe the proclamations of the prophets, who preached the gospel of him and proclaimed him to all.

“Do not, brothers, say anything evil against that crucified one, nor mock his stripes, by which all can be healed, as we too have been healed. For it would be good if, persuaded by these words, you were circumcised from your hardness of heart, which you have, not as a disposition arising through yourselves, since circumcision was given as a sign, and not as a work of righteousness, as the words compel us to admit.

“Agree with us, then, and do not revile the Son of God, nor, obeying Pharisaic teachers, ever scoff at the King of Israel, as the rulers of your synagogues teach you to do after the prayer. For if one who touches those who are not pleasing to God is like one who touches the apple of God's eye, much more is one who lays hands on the beloved. And that he is this very one has been sufficiently proved.

And as they were silent I said: “Friends, I now cite the Scriptures as the Seventy translated them; for when I cited them before as you have them, I was making a test of how you are disposed in mind. For in citing the Scripture which says, ‘Woe to them, for they have planned an evil plan against themselves, saying,’ I added as the Seventy translated, ‘Let us take away the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us’; whereas at the beginning of the discussion I cited what you wish it to say: ‘Let us bind the righteous one, for he is troublesome to us.’

“But you were doing other things, and you do not seem to me to have listened attentively to the words. But since the day is now about to end, for the sun is already setting, I will add one thing to what has been said and stop; and this very thing has also been said by me before, but it seems right to me to work it out again.

“You know, then, sirs,” I said, “that it is said by God in Isaiah to Jerusalem: ‘In the flood of Noah I saved you.’ And what God said is this, that the mystery of saved men was enacted in the flood. For righteous Noah, with the other people at the flood, that is, his own wife and his three sons and his sons' wives, being eight in number, were a symbol of the eighth day in number, on which our Christ appeared risen from the dead, which is always first in power.

“For Christ, being the firstborn of all creation, has also become the beginning again of another race, which has been regenerated by him through water and faith and wood, which contains the mystery of the cross; just as Noah too was saved in wood, borne upon the waters with his family. When, then, the prophet says, ‘In Noah I saved you,’ as I said before, he speaks to the people likewise faithful to God and having these symbols. For Moses too, having a rod in his hand, led your people through the sea.

“But you suppose that he was speaking only to your race or to the land. For since the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits above all the mountains, God evidently spoke not to the land but to the people who obey him, for whom he has also prepared a rest in Jerusalem, as has been proved before by all the symbols of the flood; I mean that those who prepare themselves and repent of their sins will escape through water and faith and wood the judgment of God that is to come.

“For another mystery too was prophesied as fulfilled in the time of Noah, which you do not know. It is this. In the blessings with which Noah blessed his two sons, he also curses his son's son; for the prophetic Spirit was not going to curse the son, who had been blessed by God together with the others; but since the penalty of the sin was to fall on the whole race of the one who mocked his father's nakedness, he made the curse begin from the son.

“And in what he said he foretold that those descended from Shem would take possession of the property and dwellings of Canaan, and again that those from Japheth would take possession of the same things, which those from Shem had received from those of Canaan, taking them away from those descended from Shem, just as they themselves had taken possession when the sons of Canaan were deprived of them.

“And hear that it came about so. For you, who trace your race from Shem, came upon the land of the sons of Canaan according to the will of God and took possession of it. And it is plain that the sons of Japheth, coming upon you in their turn according to the judgment of God, have taken your land from you and possess it. And these things were spoken thus: ‘And Noah awoke 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 slave to his brothers. And he said: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the houses of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.’

“Two peoples, then, having been blessed, those from Shem and from Japheth, and those from Shem being known to be the first to possess the houses of Canaan, and those from Japheth having been foretold to succeed to the same possessions from them, and the one people from Canaan having been given into servitude to the two peoples, Christ came according to the power given him by the almighty Father, calling to friendship and blessing and repentance and fellowship, which is to be in the same land of all the saints, whose possession, as has been proved before, he has promised.

“Hence men from everywhere, whether slaves or free, who believe in Christ and have recognized the truth in his words and those of his prophets, know that they will be with him in that land and will inherit eternal and incorruptible things.

“Hence Jacob too, as I said before, being himself a type of Christ, married the two servants of his two free wives, and begot sons from them, to show beforehand that Christ would receive all those of the race of Japheth who come from Canaan equally with the free, and would have children who are fellow heirs; which we are, and you cannot understand, because you cannot drink from the living spring of God, but from broken cisterns that cannot hold water, as the Scripture says.

“And the broken cisterns that hold no water are those which your own teachers have dug for you, as the Scripture expressly says, teaching teachings, commandments of men. And besides they deceive themselves and you, supposing that the eternal kingdom will certainly be given to those who are of the fleshly seed of Abraham, even if they are sinners and faithless and disobedient toward God; which the Scriptures have shown not to be so.

“For otherwise Isaiah would not have said this: ‘And unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah’; and Ezekiel: ‘Even if Noah and Jacob and Daniel ask for sons or daughters, it shall not be given them’; but neither the father for the son nor the son for the father, but each shall perish in his own sin and each shall be saved by his own righteousness; and again Isaiah: ‘They shall see the limbs of the transgressors; their worm shall not cease, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.’

“And would our Lord, according to the will of the Father and Master of all who sent him, have said: ‘They shall come from the west and the east, and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness’? But I have also shown earlier that those who are foreknown and will be unjust, whether angels or men, do not become evil by the fault of God, but each is such as each will appear by his own fault.

“But so that you may have no excuse to say that Christ had to be crucified, or that there had to be transgressors in your race, and it could not have happened otherwise, I said briefly before that God, wishing angels and men to follow his will, willed to make them free to do righteousness, with reason, so that they might know by whom they were made, and through whom they exist who before did not exist, and with a law, that they should be judged by him if they act contrary to right reason; and we, men and angels, shall be convicted by ourselves of having done evil, unless we repent in time.

“And if the word of God foretells that certain angels and men will certainly be punished, it foretold this because it foreknew that they would become unchangeably wicked, but not because God made them such. So that, if they repent, all who wish can obtain mercy from God, and the word foretells that they are blessed, saying: ‘Blessed is he to whom the Lord will not reckon sin’; that is, he who, having repented of his sins, receives forgiveness of sins from God; and not, as you deceive yourselves, and some others like you in this, who say that, even if they are sinners, provided they know God, the Lord will not reckon sin to them.

“And we have as a testimony of this the one fall of David, which came about through his boasting, which was forgiven only when he wept and lamented as it is written. But if forgiveness was not given to such a man before he repented, but only when this great king and anointed one and prophet wept and acted so, how can the unclean and utterly desperate have hope that the Lord will not reckon sin to them, unless they lament and mourn and repent?

“And this one deed of David's fall, with the wife of Uriah, shows, sirs,” I said, “that the patriarchs did not have many wives as fornicators, but a certain dispensation and all mysteries were accomplished through them; since if it were allowed to take whatever wife one wishes, and as one wishes, and as many as one wishes, as the men of your race do throughout the whole earth, wherever they settle or are sent, taking wives in the name of marriage, much more would this have been allowed to David.

Having said this, my dearest Marcus Pompeius, I stopped.

After a while Trypho said, “You see that it was not by design that we met to discuss these things. And I confess that I was particularly delighted with the conversation, and I think these men are of the same mind as I; for we have found more than we expected, or than it was ever possible to expect. If we could do this more often, we would be more helped by examining the words themselves; but since,” he said, “you are about to set sail, and expect to depart any day, do not hesitate to remember us as friends when you have gone.”

“For my part,” I said, “if I were staying, I would wish the same to take place every day; but since I expect to set sail now, God permitting and helping, I urge you, entering on this greatest contest for your own salvation, to be eager to prefer the Christ of God Almighty to your teachers.”

After this they went away, praying for my safety both on the voyage and from every evil; and I, praying for them, said: “I can pray nothing greater for you, sirs, than that, recognizing that by this way happiness is given to every man, you too may in every way come to think as we do, that Jesus is the Christ of God.”