" If, indeed," I replied to him, " we had not entered into a lengthy ^ discussion on these top- ics, I might have doubted whether you ask this question in ignorance; but since we have brought the matter to a conclusion by demonstration and with your assent, I do not believe that you are ignorant of what I have just said, or desire again mere contention, but that you are urging me to exhibit the same proof to these men." And in compliance with the assent expressed in his eyes, I continued: " Again in Isaiah, if you have ears to hear it, God, speaking of Christ in parable, calls Him Jacob and Israel. He speaks thus: ' Jacob is my servant, I will uphold Him; Israel is mine elect, I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gen- tiles. He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall any one hear His voice in the street: a bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench; but He shall bring forth judg- ment to truth: He shall shine, '° and shall not be broken till He have set judgment on the earth. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust.' " As therefore from the one man Jacob, who was sur- named Israel, all your nation has been called Jacob and Israel; so we from Christ, who begat us unto God, like Jacob, and Israel, and Judah, and Joseph, and David, are called and are the true sons of God, and keep the commandments of Christ."
CHAP. CXXIV. — CHRISTIANS ARE THE SONS OF GOD.
And when I saw that they were perturbed because I said that we are the sons of God, I anticipated their questioning, and said, " Listen, sirs, how the Holy Ghost speaks of this people, saying that they are all sons of the Highest; and how this very Christ will be present in their as- sembly, rendering judgment to all men. The 7 Isa. xix. 24 f.
' Ezek. xxxvi. 12.
9 [I cannot forbear to note this " Americanism " in the text.] '° LXX. ofoAafn^ei, as above. The reading of the text is at-oAiiiteu " Isa. xlii. 1-4.
262 DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO.
words are spoken by David, and are, according to your version of them, thus: ' God standeth in the congregation of gods; He judgeth among the gods. How long do ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Judge for the orphan and the poor, and do justice to the humble and needy. Deliver the needy, and save the poor out of tiie hand of the wicked. They know not, neither have they understood; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth shall be shaken. I said. Ye are gods, and are all children of the Most High. But ye die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God! judge the earth, for Thou shalt inherit all nations.' ' But in the version of the Seventy it is written, ' Behold, ye die like men, and fall like one of the princes,'^ in order to manifest the disobedience of men, — I mean of Adam and Eve, — and the fall of one of the princes, i.e., of him who was called the serpent, who fell with a great overthrow, because he de- ceived Eve. But as my discourse is not intended to touch on this point, but to prove to you that the Holy Ghost reproaches men because they were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming "gods," and of having power to become sons of the Highest; and shall be each by himself judged and con- demned like Adam and Eve. Now I have proved at length that Christ is called God.
CHAP. CXXV. HE EXPLAINS WHAT FORCE THE WORD ISRAEL HAS, AND HOW IT SUITS CHRIST.
" I wish, sirs," I said, " to learn from you what is the force of the name Israel." And as they were silent, I continued: " I shall tell you what I know: for I do not think it right, when I know, not to speak; or, suspecting that you do know, and yet from envy or from voluntary ignorance deceive yourselves,^ to be continually solicitous; but I speak all things simply and candidly, as my Lord said: ' A sower went forth to sow the seed; and some fell by the wayside, and some among thorns, and some on stony ground, and some on good ground.' < I must speak, then, in the hope of finding good ground somewhere; since that Lord of mine, as One strong and powerful, comes to demand back His own from all, and will not > Ps. Ixxxii.
* In the text there is certainly no distinction given. But if we read <i? ay6piono<; (W\ii2\," as a man," in the first quotation we shall be able to follow Justin's argument.
3 Tht reading here is iniaTaaai avToi, which is generally aban- doned for anaTOLV cavTOuv* * Matt. xiii. 3.
condemn His steward if He recognises that he, by the knowledge that the Lord is powerful and has come to demand His own, has given it to every bank, and has not digged for any cause whatsoever. Accordingly the name Israel signi- fies this, A man who overcomes power; for /sra is a man overcoming, and £/ is power.s And that Christ would act so when He became man was foretold by the mystery of Jacob's wrestling with Him who appeared to him, in that He min- istered to the will of the Father, yet nevertheless is God, in that He is the first-begotten of all creatures. For when He became man, as I pre- viously remarked, the devil came to Him — i.e., that power which is called the serpent and Sa- tan — tempting Him, and striving to effect His downfall by asking Him to worship him. But He destroyed and overthrew the devil, having proved him to be wicked, in that he asked to be worshipped as God, contrary to the Scripture; who is an apostate from the will of God. For He answers him, ' It is written, Thou shalt wor- ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' ^ Then, overcome and convicted, the devil departed at that time. But since our Christ was to be numbed, i.e., by pain and ex- perience of suffering. He made a previous intimation of this by touching Jacob's thigh, and causing it to shrink. But Israel was His name from the beginning, to which He altered the name of the blessed Jacob when He blessed him with His own name, proclaiming thereby that all who through Him have fled for refuge to the Father, constitute the blessed Israel. But you, having understood none of this, and not being prepared to understand, since you are the chil- dren of Jacob after the fleshly seed, expect that you shall be assuredly saved. But that you de- ceive yourselves in such matters, I have proved by many words.
CHAP. CXXVI. — THE VARIOUS NAMES OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO BOTH NATURES. IT IS SHOWN THAT HE IS GOD, AND APPEARED TO THE P.i^- TRIARCHS.
" But if you knew, Tr}'pho," continued I, " who He is that is called at one time the Angel of great counsel,^ and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped 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 Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Cor- ner-Stone, and Son of God, you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, and been S [On Justin's Hebrew, see Kaye, p. 19.]
'' Matt. iv. 10.
7 [By Isaiah. "Counsellor" in English version.]
DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO.
263 born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your twelve tribes shall mourn. For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God. For Moses cays somewhere in Exodus the following: * The Lord spake to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I re- vealed not to them, and I established my cove- nant with them.' ' And thus again he says, ' A man wrestled with Jacob,' ^ and asserts it was God; narrating that Jacob said, * I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.' And it is recorded that he called the place where He wrestled with him, appeared to and blessed him, the Face of God (Peniel). And Moses says that God appeared also to Abraham near the oak in Mamre, when he was sitting at the door of his tent at mid-day. Then he goes on to say: * And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, be- hold, three men stood before him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them.' ^ After a little, one of them promises a son to Abraham: 'Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, and I am old? Is any- thing impossible with God? At the time ap- pointed I will return, according to the time of li%, and Sarah shall have a son. And they went away from Abraham.' ■♦ Again he speaks of them thus: * And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom.' 5 Then to Abraham He who was and is again speaks: ' I will not hide from Abraham, my servant, what I intend to do.' " ^ And what follows in the writings of Moses I quoted and explained; " from which I have demonstrated," I said, " that He who is described as God appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and the other patriarchs, was appointed under the authority of the Father and Lord, and ministers to His will." Then I went on to say what I had not said before: "And so, when the people desired to eat flesh, and Moses had lost faith in Him, who also there is called the Angel, and who promised that God would give them to satiety. He who is both God and the Angel, sent by the Father, is described as saying and doing these things. For thus the Scripture says: ' And the Lord said to Moses, Will the Lord's hand not be sufficient? thou shalt know now whether my word shall conceal thee or not.' ^ And again, in other words, it thus says: ' But the Lord spake unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan: the Lord thy God, ' Ex. vi. 2 AT.
3 Gen. xviii. 2.
* Gen. xviii. 17. 7 Num. xi. 23.
who goeth before thy face, He shall cut off the nations.' ** CHAP. CXXVII. THESE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE DO NOT APPLY TO THE FATHER, BUT TO THE WORD.
" These and other such sayings are recorded by the lawgiver and by the prophets; and I sup- pose that I have stated sufficiently, that wher- ever 9 God says, ' God went up from Abraham,' '^ or, 'The Lord spake to Moses,' " and ' The Lord came down to behold the tower which the sons of men had built,' '^ or when ' God shut Noah into the ark,' '3 you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in His own place, wherever that is, quick to behold and quick to hear, having neither eyes nor ears, but being of indescribable might; and He sees all things, and knows all things, and none of us escapes His observation; and He is not moved or confined to a spot in the whole world, for He existed before the world was made. How, then, could He talk with any one, or be seen by any one, or appear on the smallest portion of the earth, when the people at Sinai were not able to look even on the glory of Him who was sent from Him; and Moses himself could not enter into the tabernacle which he had erected, when it was filled with the glory of God; and the priest could not endure to stand before the tem- ple when Solomon conveyed the ark into the house in Jerusalem which he had built for it? Therefore neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other man, saw the Father and ineffable Lord of all, and also of Christ, but [saw] Him who was according to His will His Son, being God, and the Angel because He ministered to His will; whom also it pleased Him to be born man by the Virgin; who also was fire when He conversed with Moses from the bush. Since, unless we thus comprehend the Scriptures, it must follow that the Father and Lord of all had not been in heaven when what Moses wrote took place: ' And the Lord rained upon Sodom fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven; ' ''• and again, when it is thus said by David: ' Lift up your gates, ye rulers; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting gates; and the King of glory shall enter; ' 's and again, when He says: ' The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.' '^ ^ Deut. xxxi. 2 f.
9 oTau TToi' instead of orai' y.o\i. '° Gen. xviii. 22. " Ex. vi. 29. '- Gen. xi. 5. '3 Gen. vii. 16. '* Gen. xix. 24.
264 DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO.
CHAP. CXXVIII. THE WORD IS SENT NOT AS AN INANIMATE POWER, BUT AS A PERSON BEGOTTEN OF THE father's SUBSTANCE.
" And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully i)y what has been said." Then I repeated once more all that I had previously quoted from Exo- dus, about the vision in the bush, and the nam- ing of Joshua (Jesus), and continued: "And do not suppose, sirs, that I am speaking superflu- ously when I repeat these words frequently: but it is because I know that some wish to antici- ])ate these remarks, and to say that the power sent from the Father of all which appeared to Moses, or to Abraham, or to Jacob, is called an Angel because He came to men (for by Him the commands of the Father have been pro- claimed to men); is called Glory, because He appears in a vision sometimes that cannot be borne; is called a Man, and a human being, because He appears arrayed in such forms as the Father pleases; and they call Him the Word, because He carries tidings from the Father to men: but maintain that this power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable from the sun in the heavens; as when it sinks, the light sinks along with it; so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes His power to spring forth, and when He chooses. He makes it return to Himself. In this way, they teach, He made the angels. But it is proved that there are angels who always exist, and are never reduced to that form out of which they sprang. And that this power which the prophetic word calls God, as has been also amply demonstrated, and Angel, is not numbered [as different] in name only like the light of the sun, but is indeed something numerically distinct, I have discussed briefly in what has gone before; when I asserted that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for the sake of example, I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from which many can be kindled is by no means made less, but remains the same.
CHAP. CXXIX. THAT IS CONFIRMED FROM OTHER PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.
" And now I shall again recite the words which I have spoken in proof of this point. When Scripture says, * The Lord rained fire from the Lord out of heaven,' the prophetic word indi- cates that there were two in number: One upon the earth, who, it says, descended to behold the cry of Sodom; Another in heaven, who also is Lord of the Lord on earth, as He is Father and God; the cause of His power and of His being Lord and God. Again, when the Scripture records that God said in the beginning, ' Behold, Adam has become like one of Us,' ' this phrase, ' like one of Us,' is also indicative of number; and the words do not admit of a figurative meaning, as the sophists endeavour to aflfix on them, who are able neither to tell nor to under- stand the truth. And it is written in the book of Wisdom: ' If I should tell you daily events, I would be mindful to enumerate them from the beginning. The Lord created me the be- ginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He formed the earth, and before He made the depths, and before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; He begets me before all the hills.' " ^ When I repeated these words, I added: " You perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Off- spring was begotten by the Father before all things created; and that that which is begotten is numerically distinct from that which begets, any one will admit."
CHAP. CXXX. HE RETURNS TO THE CONVERSION OF THE GENTILES, AND SHOWS THAT IT WAS FORETOLD.
And when all had given assent, I said: " I would now adduce some passages which I had not recounted before. They are recorded by the faithful servant Moses in parable, and are as follows: ' Rejoice, O ye heavens, with Him, and let all the angels of God worship Him;' " ^ and I added what follows of the passage: " ' Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people, and let all the angels of God be strengthened in Him: for the blood of His sons He avenges, and will avenge, and will recompense His enemies with vengeance, and will recompense those that hate Him; and the Lord will purify the land of His people.' And by these words He declares that we, the nations, rejoice with His people, — to wit, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, and, in short, all of that people who are well-pleasing to God, according to what has been already agreed on between us. But we will not receive it of all your nation; since we know from Isaiah ■• that the members of those who have transgressed shall be consumed * Gen. iii. 22.
^ Prov. viii. 22 ff. 5 Deut. xxxii. 43.
* Isa. Ixvi. 24.
DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO.
265 by the worm and unquenchable fire, remaining immortal; so that they become a spectacle to all flesh. But in addition to these, I wish, sirs," said I, "to add some other passages from the very words of Moses, from which you may understand that God has from of old dispersed all men according to their kindreds and tongues; and out of all kindreds has taken to Himself your kindred, a useless, disobedient, and faith- less generation; and has shown that those who were selected out of every nation have obeyed His will through Christ, — whom He calls also Jacob, and names Israel, — and these, then, as I mentioned fully previously, must be Jacob and Israel. For when He says, ' Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people,' He allots the same inheritance to them, and does not call them by the same name; ' but when He says that they as Gentiles rejoice with His people, He calls them Gentiles to reproach you. For even as you provoked Him to anger by your idolatry, so also He has deemed those who were idolaters worthy of knowing His will, and of inheriting His inheritance.
CHAP. CXXXI. — HOW MUCH MORE FAITHFUL TO GOD THE GENTILES ARE WHO ARE CONVERTED TO CHRIST THAN THE JEWS.
" But I shall quote the passage by which it is made known that God divided all the nations. It is as follows: ' Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thine elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided the nations, as He dispersed the sons of Adam. He set the bounds of the nations according to the numbers of the children of Israel; and the Lord's portion be- came His people Jacob, and Israel was the lot of His inheritance.' " ^ And having said this, I added: " The Seventy have translated it, ' He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.' But because my argument is again in nowise weakened by this, I have adopted your exposition. And you yourselves, if you will confess the truth, must acknowledge that we, who have been called by God through the despised and shameful mystery of the cross (for the confession of which, and obedience to which, and for our piety, punish- ments even to death have been inflicted on us by demons, and by the host of the devil, through the aid ministered to them by you), and endure all torments rather than deny Christ even by word, through whom we are called to the salva- tion prepared beforehand by the Father, are more faithful to God than you, who were redeemed from Egypt with a high hand and a visi- I The reading is, " and calls them by the same name." But the whole argument shows that the Jews and Gentiles are distinguished by name. [But that Gentiles are also called (Israel) by the same name is the point here.]
^ Deut. xxxii. 7 ff.
tation of great glory, when the sea was parted for you, and a passage left dry, in which [God] slew those who pursued you with a very great equipment, and splendid chariots, bringing back upon them the sea which had been made a way for your sakes; on whom also a pillar of light shone, in order that you, more than any other nation in the world, might possess a peculiar light, never-failing and never-setting; for whom He rained manna as nourishment, fit for the heavenly angels, in order that you might have no need to prepare your food; and the water at Marah was made sweet; and a sign of Him that was to be crucified was made, both in the matter of the serpents which bit you, as I already men- tioned (God anticipating before the proper times these mysteries, in order to confer grace upon you, to whom you are always convicted of being thankless), as well as in the type of the extend- ing of the hands of Moses, and of Oshea being named Jesus (Joshua); when you fought against Amalek: concerning which God enjoined that the incident be recorded, and the name of Jesus laid up in your understandings; saying that this is He who would blot out the memorial of Ama- lek from under heaven. Now it is clear that the