Dialogue with Trypho (chapters 132–142)
Dialogue with Trypho
continued
Chapter 132
How Great the Power Was of the Name of Jesus in the Old Testament.
1 And besides this, you made a calf. You were eager to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of foreigners and to worship idols. Then later the land was handed over to you with such great power that you saw the sun stand still in the sky at the command of that man who was given the name Jesus, and not set for thirty-six hours. You also saw all the other mighty acts done for you from time to time. I think it good to recount one more of these now, because it helps you understand from it Jesus, whom we too have recognized as Christ, the Son of God. He was crucified, rose again, went up into the heavens, and will come again as judge of all people without exception, right back to Adam himself.[517] [Exodus 32:4; Numbers 25:1-2; Joshua 10:12-13] 2 “You know, then,” I said, “that the tent of testimony was seized by the enemies around Ashdod, and a terrible, incurable plague struck them. They decided to put it on a cart, harnessing to it cows that had just calved. They wanted to test whether they had been struck by God’s power because of the tent, and whether God wanted it taken back to the place it had been seized from.”[518]
3 When they had done this, the cows, with no one leading them, did not go back to the place the tent had been taken from. Instead they went to the field of a man called Ause. He had the same name as the man whose name was changed to Jesus, as I said earlier, the man who brought the people into the land and gave it to them as an inheritance. The cows came to that field and stayed there. This also showed you that they were guided by the name of power, just as, earlier, the people who survived from those who came out of Egypt had been led into the land by the man who took the name Jesus and was first called Ause.[519] [Numbers 13:16]
Chapter 133
The Hard-Heartedness of the Jews, for Whom the Christians Pray.
1 These and all such strange and wonderful things were done among you and seen by you from time to time. Yet the prophets convict you of going so far as to sacrifice your own children to demons. On top of all this, you have dared to do such things against the Christ, and you still dare to do them. Even so, after all this, may you receive mercy from God and his Christ and be saved. 2 For God knew beforehand that you would do these things, and through the prophet Isaiah he pronounced this curse: “Woe to their soul! They have planned an evil plan against themselves, saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous man, because he is troublesome to us.’ So they will eat the fruit of their own deeds. Woe to the lawless man! Evil will come on him according to the works of his hands. My people, your tax collectors strip you bare like gleaners, and those who demand payment will rule over you.[520] [Isaiah 3:9-12]
3 “My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray and confuse the path of your ways. But now he will bring his people to judgment, and the Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and their rulers. But you, why have you set my vineyard on fire, and why is the plunder of the poor in your houses? Why do you wrong my people and put the face of the lowly to shame?”[521] [Isaiah 3:12-15] 4 In another passage the same prophet again spoke to the same effect: “Woe to those who drag their sins along as with a long rope, and their lawless acts as with the strap of a heifer’s yoke. They say, ‘Let his speed draw near, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, so that we may know it.’ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who make light darkness and darkness light, who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter. Woe to those who are wise in themselves and clever in their own sight.”[522] [Isaiah 5:18-21]
5 “Woe to the strong among you, who drink wine, and to the powerful, who mix strong drink. They declare the wicked righteous for the sake of gifts, and take away the right of the righteous. Therefore, as stubble will be burned by a coal of fire and consumed by a blazing flame, so their root will be like chaff and their blossom will rise up like dust. For they did not want the law of the Lord of Hosts, but provoked the word of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. The Lord of Hosts burned with anger. He laid his hands on them and struck them, and he was provoked against the mountains. Their corpses lay in their midst like dung on the road. And in all this they did not turn back, but their hand is still raised high.”[523] [Isaiah 5:22-25] 6 For truly your hand is still raised high to do evil. You killed the Christ, and even so you do not repent. Instead, whenever you get the power, you hate and murder us, who through him have believed in God, the Father of all. You also curse him without ceasing, and those who belong to him. Yet all of us pray for you and for all people without exception. This is what our Christ and Lord taught us to do, when he commanded us to pray even for our enemies, to love those who hate us, and to bless those who curse us.[524] [Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27-28]
Chapter 134
The Marriages of Jacob are a Figure of the Church.
1 If, then, the teachings of the prophets and of Christ himself put you to shame, it is better for you to follow God than your senseless and blind teachers. Even to this day they allow each of you to have four or five wives. And if a man sees a beautiful woman and desires her, they recount the deeds of Jacob, who was called Israel, and of the other patriarchs, and say that those who do the same things do no wrong. In this too they are wretched and foolish.[525] 2 As I said before, in each such action some planned purpose involving great mysteries was being carried out. I will tell you what plan was being carried out, and what was being foretold, in the marriages of Jacob. Then you will see that in this matter too your teachers never looked to the more divine purpose for which each action took place. Instead they looked only to low, earthly things and to corrupting passions. So pay attention to what I say.[526]
3 The marriages of Jacob were types of the work that Christ was going to complete. For it was not permitted for Jacob to marry two sisters at the same time. He served Laban for the daughters, and when he was deceived over the younger one, he served again for seven years. Now Leah is your people and the synagogue, and Rachel is our church. For these, and for the servants in both, Christ serves even to this day.[527] [Genesis 29:30] 4 Noah gave the offspring of his third son to the other two sons as slaves. Now, on the other hand, Christ has come to restore both the free children and the slaves among them. He counts worthy of the same honor all who keep his commandments. In the same way, all who were born to Jacob, whether from the free wives or from the servant wives, became his sons and were equal in honor. But what each one would be, according to rank and according to foreknowledge, was declared beforehand.[528] [Genesis 9:25-27]
5 Jacob served Laban for the speckled and many-colored flocks. Christ also served, even to the slavery of the cross, for people of every race, varied and of many kinds. He won them by the blood and the mystery of the cross. Leah’s eyes were weak, and the eyes of your souls are very weak indeed. Rachel stole Laban’s gods and hid them, and they are hidden to this very day. For us too, our ancestral and material gods have been lost.[529] [Genesis 30:32; Genesis 29:17; Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:34] 6 Jacob was hated by his brother the whole time. In the same way we now, and our Lord himself, are hated by you and by other people generally, though all are brothers by nature. Jacob was given the further name Israel. And it has been shown that the Christ, who is and is called Jesus, is also Israel. [Genesis 27:41; Genesis 32:28]
Chapter 135
Christ is King of Israel, and Christians are the Israelitic Race.
1 And when the Scripture says, “I am the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who revealed Israel as your king,” will you not hear this as truly spoken of the Christ, the eternal King? For you know that Jacob, the son of Isaac, never became a king. For this reason the Scripture explains to us again whom it means by the king called Jacob and Israel, and speaks as follows:[530] [Isaiah 43:15] 2 “Jacob is my servant; I will take hold of him. Israel is my chosen one; my soul will welcome him. I have put my Spirit on him, and he will bring out justice for the nations. He will not cry out, and his voice will not be heard outside. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not put out, until he brings out victory and takes up judgment. He will not be broken until he sets justice on the earth. And in his name the nations will hope.”[531] [Isaiah 42:1-4]
3 Do the Gentiles, then, and you yourselves as well, put their hope in Jacob the patriarch and not in Christ? So just as the text calls Christ both Israel and Jacob, we too, who were cut out of the womb of Christ, are the true Israelite race. But let us pay closer attention to the text itself.[532] 4 “And I will bring out,” he says, “the seed from Jacob and from Judah. It will inherit my holy mountain. My chosen ones and my servants will inherit it and live there. In the woodland there will be folds for flocks, and the valley of Achor will be a resting place for herds, for the people who sought me. But you who abandon me and forget my holy mountain, who set a table for the demons and fill a cup of mixed wine for the demon, I will hand you over to the sword. All of you will fall in slaughter, because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen. You did evil before me and chose what I did not want.”[533] [Isaiah 65:9-12]
5 That is what the Scripture says. Now think it through for yourselves: the “seed from Jacob” mentioned here is something different, and it is not spoken of the people, as someone might suppose. For it makes no sense that those born of Jacob should leave room for a further bringing-in of those sown from Jacob. Nor can it be that God reproaches the people as unworthy of the inheritance and then promises it again to the same people, as though he had taken them back.[534] 6 Rather, just as the prophet says in that other place, “And now, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. For he has let go of his people, the house of Jacob, because their land was filled, as from the beginning, with divinations and omens.” In the same way we must understand here that there are two seeds of Judah and two races, just as there are two houses of Jacob. One is born of blood and flesh, the other of faith and the Spirit.[535] [Isaiah 2:5-6]
Chapter 136
The Jews, in Rejecting Christ, Rejected God Who Sent Him.
1 Look at how he is speaking to the people now. A little earlier he said: “As a grape will be found in the cluster, and they will say, ‘Do not spoil it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for the sake of my servant. For his sake I will not destroy them all.” After this he adds: “And I will bring out what is from Jacob and from Judah.” It is clear, then, that if he is this angry with those people and threatens to leave very few of them, he is promising to bring out certain others, who will live on his mountain.[536] [Isaiah 65:8-9] 2 These are the ones he said he would sow and beget. For you will not put up with him when he calls, and you do not listen when he speaks. Instead you have done evil before the Lord. The height of your wickedness is this: you hate the Righteous One whom you murdered, and you also hate those who have received from him what they now are, people who are godly, righteous and kind to others. So the Lord says, “Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil plan against themselves. They said, ‘Let us take away the righteous one, because he is troublesome to us.’”[537] [Isaiah 65:12; Isaiah 3:9-10]
3 For it is not that you, like your fathers, sacrificed to Baal, or made cakes in shady places or on high places for the host of heaven. It is that you did not receive his Christ. Whoever does not know him does not know God’s purpose. 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 message of the prophets, who preached the good news of him and proclaimed him to all.[538] [Jeremiah 7:18]
Chapter 137
He Exhorts the Jews to Be Converted.
1 So, my brothers, do not say anything evil against that crucified man, and do not mock his wounds, by which everyone can be healed, as we were healed. It would be good if, persuaded by these words, you would be circumcised from your hardness of heart. I do not mean the circumcision you hold to by a notion that has grown up among you. That was given as a sign, not as a work of righteous living, as these words force us to admit.[539] [Isaiah 53:5] 2 So agree with me, and do not revile the Son of God. Do not let Pharisee teachers persuade you ever to mock the King of Israel, as the heads of your synagogues teach you to do after your prayers. For if the one who touches those who are not pleasing to God is like one who touches the apple of God’s eye, how much more is the one who attacks the Beloved! That this is he has already been sufficiently demonstrated.[540] [Zechariah 2:8]
3 While they kept silent, I said: “My friends, I am now quoting the Scriptures as the Seventy interpreted them. When I quoted them earlier as you have them, I was testing how you were already disposed in mind. I cited the Scripture that says, ‘Woe to them, for they have devised an evil plan against themselves, saying,’ and then I went on, as the Seventy translated it, ‘Let us take away the righteous one, because he is troublesome to us.’ But at the start of our discussion I had quoted the wording you prefer, ‘Let us bind the righteous one, because he is troublesome to us.’[541] [Isaiah 3:9-10] 4 You were busy with other things, and you do not seem to me to have listened attentively to my words. But now the day is about to end, for the sun is already setting. I will add one thing to what I have said and then stop. I did say this very thing already, but it seems right to me to work it out again.
Chapter 138
Noah is a Figure of Christ, Who Has Regenerated Us by Water, and Faith, and Wood: [I.e., The Cross.]
1 “You know, then, gentlemen,” I said, “that in Isaiah God said to Jerusalem, ‘In the flood of Noah I saved you.’ What God meant is that the mystery of saved humanity took place in the flood. For the righteous Noah, together with the other people at the flood, that is, his wife, his three sons and his sons’ wives, were eight in number. They bore a symbol of the eighth day, on which our Christ appeared after rising from the dead. By its number it is the eighth day, but in power it is always the first.[542] [Isaiah 54:9] 2 For Christ, who is the firstborn of all creation, also became the beginning of another race, the one reborn by him through water, faith and wood, which holds the mystery of the cross. In the same way Noah was saved on wood, carried over the waters with his own family. So when the prophet says, ‘In the time of Noah I saved you,’ as I said before, he is speaking to the people who are likewise faithful to God and who have these symbols. For Moses, too, with a rod in his hand, led your people through the sea.[543] [Colossians 1:15; Isaiah 54:9; Exodus 14:16]
3 But you suppose that he was speaking only to your race, or to the land. Yet the whole earth, as the Scripture says, was flooded, and the water rose fifteen cubits above all the mountains. So God clearly was not speaking to the land but to the people who obeyed him, for whom he had also prepared a rest in Jerusalem. I have already shown this from all the symbols of the flood. For I said that those who are prepared beforehand through water, faith and wood, and who repent of the sins they have committed, will escape the judgment of God that is going to come.[544] [Genesis 7:19-20]
Chapter 139
The Blessings, and Also the Curse, Pronounced by Noah Were Prophecies of the Future.
1 Another mystery was also prophesied in the time of Noah and has been fulfilled, and you do not know it. It is this. In the blessings with which Noah blessed his two sons, he also curses the son of his son. The Spirit of prophecy was not going to curse the son, since God had blessed him along with the others. But the penalty for the sin was going to fall on the whole line of the son who laughed at his father’s nakedness, so the curse was made to begin from that son’s son.[545] 2 In what he said, Noah also foretold that Shem’s descendants would take possession of the lands and dwellings of Canaan. Again, he foretold that Japheth’s descendants would take possession of those same lands, which Shem’s descendants had received from the sons of Canaan and held. They would take them from Shem’s descendants, just as Shem’s descendants had held them after taking them from the sons of Canaan.
3 Listen to how this has come true. You, who trace your descent from Shem, came against the land of the sons of Canaan by God’s purpose and took possession of it. And it is plain that the sons of Japheth, who in turn came against you by God’s judgment, have taken your land from you and possess it. It was said like this: “Noah woke from the wine and learned what his younger son had done to him. And he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan, a servant; he shall be a household 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.’”[546] [Genesis 9:24-27] 4 So two peoples were blessed, those from Shem and those from Japheth. The descendants of Shem were known to be the first to take the houses of Canaan. The descendants of Japheth were foretold to take over those same possessions from them in turn. And the one people, that of Canaan, was handed over into slavery to the two peoples. Then Christ came, by the power given to him by the almighty Father. He called people to friendship, blessing, repentance and living together, the life together of all the saints that is to take place in that same land. As has already been shown, possession of it has been promised.
5 So people from every quarter, whether slave or free, who believe in Christ and recognize the truth in his words and in those of his prophets, know that they will be with him in that land and will inherit what is eternal and incorruptible.
Chapter 140
In Christ All are Free. The Jews Hope for Salvation in Vain Because They are Sons of Abraham.
1 This is also why Jacob, as I said before, who was himself a type of Christ, married the two slave women of his two free wives and had sons by them. It was to show in advance that Christ would take to himself all those from Canaan who belong to the race of Japheth, just like the free, and would have them as children and fellow heirs. We are those people. But you cannot understand this, because you cannot drink from the living spring of God. You drink instead from broken cisterns that cannot hold water, as the Scripture says.[547] [Jeremiah 2:13] 2 The broken cisterns that cannot hold water are the ones your own teachers have dug for you, as the Scripture says plainly: they are “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” On top of this, they deceive themselves and you. They suppose that the eternal kingdom will certainly be given to those who are of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, even if they are sinners, unbelieving and disobedient toward God. The Scriptures have shown that this is not so.[548] [Jeremiah 2:13; Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:7]
3 If it were so, would Isaiah have said this: “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 will not be given to them. Neither father for son nor son for father; but each will perish by his own sin, and each will be saved by his own righteous conduct.” And again Isaiah: “They will see the corpses of those who have transgressed. Their worm will not cease, and their fire will not be quenched, and they will be a sight for all flesh.”[549] [Isaiah 1:9; Ezekiel 14:20; Ezekiel 18:20; Isaiah 66:24] 4 And our Lord, according to the will of the Father who sent him, the Master of all, would not have said: “They will come from west and east and will recline at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness.” I have also shown earlier that those who are foreknown as going to be unrighteous, whether angels or men, do not become wicked through any fault of God. It is by his own fault that each one is what he will be shown to be.[550] [Matthew 8:11-12]
Chapter 141
Free-Will in Men and Angels.
1 I do not want you to have an excuse for saying that Christ had to be crucified, or that there had to be transgressors in your nation, and that it could not have been otherwise. So I said briefly beforehand that God wanted angels and men to follow his will. He therefore chose to make them free to act righteously. He gave them reason, so that they might know who made them and to whom they owe their existence, when before they did not exist. And he gave them a law, by which they will be judged by him if they act against right reason. And so by our own fault, we men and angels will be convicted of wickedness, unless we repent beforehand. 2 But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men will certainly be punished, it foretold this because it foreknew that they would become wicked beyond any change. It did not say it because God made them such. So if they repent, all who wish to can obtain mercy from God. The word pronounces them blessed in advance, saying, “Blessed is he to whom the Lord will not count sin.” That means the man who has repented of his sins and received forgiveness of them from God. It does not mean what you, and some others like you in this, deceive yourselves into believing. They say that even if they are sinners, so long as they know God, the Lord will not count sin against them.[551]
3 We have a proof of this in the one fall of David, which came about through his boasting. It was forgiven when he wept and mourned, as it is written. But if no forgiveness was given even to such a man before he repented, but only when this great king, anointed one and prophet had wept and acted as he did, how can the unclean and the utterly reckless have any hope that the Lord will not count sin against them, unless they mourn and beat their breasts and repent?[552] 4 “And this one act, David’s fall with the wife of Uriah, sirs,” I said, “shows that the patriarchs did not have many wives in order to commit fornication. Rather, a certain plan of God and all the mysteries were being fulfilled through them. Suppose it had been permitted to take whatever wife one wants, in whatever way and as many as one wants. That is what the men of your nation do in every land where they live or are sent, taking wives under the name of marriage. In that case David would much more have been permitted to do this.”[553]
5 When I had said this, my dear Marcus Pompeius, I stopped.[554]
Chapter 142
The Jews Return Thanks, and Leave Justin.
1 Trypho waited a little while and then said, “You see that we did not come to discuss these matters by design. I admit that I was especially pleased with the conversation, and I think these men feel the same as I do. For we found more than we expected, more than we could ever have hoped for. If we could do this more often, we would be helped more by examining these very words. But since you are about to leave and expect to sail any day now, do not hesitate to remember us as friends when you have gone.”[555] 2 “For my part,” I said, “if I were staying, I would want the same thing to happen every day. But I expect to set sail soon, if God permits and helps. So I urge you to take up this very great contest for your own salvation, and to be eager to value the Christ of the almighty God above your teachers.”
3 After this they left, wishing me safety on the voyage and safety from every evil. And I prayed for them and said, “I cannot pray for anything greater for you, sirs, than this: that you may recognize that it is by this way that happiness is given to every person, and that you will in every respect do as we do, and acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ of God.”[556]
Notes
[517] The calf is in Exodus 32, and the daughters of foreigners in Numbers 25:1–3. “Jesus” here is Joshua son of Nun. Joshua 10:13 says the sun did not hurry to set “for about a whole day.” The figure of thirty-six hours is not in the Joshua account, and it is unclear where Justin got it.
[518] Justin writes “tent of testimony,” but the story is the capture of the ark of the covenant by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4–6). The older translation renders it “ark.”
[519] The Greek here says “the tent” (skēnē), where the older translation says “the ark.” I have kept “tent.”
[520] Isaiah 3:9–12, quoted from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint). The Hebrew of Isaiah 3:10 reads differently: “Tell the righteous that it will be well with them.”
[521] Isaiah 3:12–15, from the Greek Old Testament.
[522] Isaiah 5:18–21.
[523] The Greek word chnous can mean fine dust, chaff, or down. “Provoked” translates paroxynan, meaning they angered God by rejecting his word.
[524] Compare Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27–28.
[525] “Christ himself” translates a Greek phrase meaning “that one himself.” Where the older translation says the teaching “moves” you, the Greek verb (dysōpei) usually means to put to shame. It can also mean to move someone through a sense of shame.
[526] “Planned purpose” and “plan” translate oikonomia, God’s ordering of events. The older translation renders it “dispensation.”
[527] The story is in Genesis 29:15–30. The Law of Moses, given long after Jacob’s time, forbids marrying a woman’s sister while the wife is still alive (Leviticus 18:18).
[528] See Genesis 9:25–27. There Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, and makes him a servant to Ham’s brothers Shem and Japheth. Justin’s phrase “the offspring of the third” refers to Canaan as Ham’s son. Justin discusses this passage more fully in chapter 139.
[529] The Greek text printed here begins with a word meaning “advised” or “planned” (ebouleusen). This is almost certainly a slip for the very similar “served” (edouleusen), which the context requires and the older translation follows. See Genesis 30:31–43 (the flocks), 29:17 (Leah’s eyes), and 31:19, 34–35 (the stolen gods).
[530] The quotation is Isaiah 43:15 in the Greek version (the Septuagint).
[531] The older translation reads “He shall shine.” The Greek printed here has “he will take up judgment” (analēpsei), which may be a copying error for the Septuagint’s “he will shine forth” (analampsei). The words “until he brings out victory” are closer to Matthew 12:20 than to the Septuagint of Isaiah.
[532] The Greek word translated “cut out” is used of stone cut from a quarry. It may echo Isaiah 51:1, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn.” The older translation says “quarried out from the bowels of Christ.”
[533] The quotation is Isaiah 65:9–12 in the Greek Septuagint.
[534] The Greek of the second sentence is difficult; the sense seems to be that the promised “seed from Jacob” must be a different group from the natural descendants rebuked in the same passage.
[535] The quotation is Isaiah 2:5–6 in the Greek Septuagint.
[536] Justin’s Greek here has only “what is from Jacob and from Judah,” though Isaiah 65:9 itself says “seed from Jacob.”
[537] “You will not put up with him when he calls… you have done evil” echoes Isaiah 65:12. The “woe” is quoted from Isaiah 3:9–10.
[538] The cakes for “the host of heaven” recall Jeremiah 7:18 and 19:13. On hating the one who sent him, compare Luke 10:16 and John 15:23.
[539] “His wounds, by which… we were healed” echoes Isaiah 53:5 (compare 1 Peter 2:24).
[540] “Apple of God’s eye” renders Greek “pupil (literally ‘girl’) of God” and echoes Zechariah 2:8. “Not pleasing to God” sits oddly with the argument, and the text may be faulty here.
[541] Most surviving manuscripts of the Septuagint (the Greek translation by “the Seventy”) actually read “bind” at Isaiah 3:10, so it is unclear exactly which texts Justin is contrasting here.
[542] In the Greek, “always the first in power” is feminine and describes the eighth day, not Christ.
[543] “Firstborn of all creation” is from Colossians 1:15. Moses’ rod at the sea is from Exodus 14:16.
[544] “Fifteen cubits above all the mountains” comes from Genesis 7:20. The words Justin is explaining here come from Isaiah 54:9, where God compares his promise to his oath in Noah’s day.
[545] The son who was blessed by God along with his brothers is Ham (Genesis 9:1). Noah’s curse falls instead on Ham’s son Canaan (Genesis 9:25). The Greek says only that the curse was made “from the son,” and it is not fully clear which son is meant. The older translation’s “originate with his son” keeps that ambiguity. Since the curse falls on Canaan, “that son’s son” seems to be the sense.
[546] The quotation is Genesis 9:24–27 in the Greek Old Testament. The Greek word pais, used of Canaan, can mean “child” or “servant”; here it means servant.
[547] The Greek phrase about Japheth and Canaan is awkward, and its exact meaning is uncertain. The rendering here follows the wording as it stands.
[548] The older translation has “those of the dispersion,” which is not in the Greek. The Greek says “those who are of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh.”
[549] Modern editors print the lines about father and son as part of the Ezekiel quotation, and they do echo Ezekiel 18:20. In the older translation they read like Justin’s own comment.
[550] The quotation is Matthew 8:11–12 (compare Luke 13:28–29). Justin’s wording has “west and east” where Matthew has “east and west.”
[551] The quotation is Psalm 32:2 (Greek Psalm 31:2), which Paul also quotes in Romans 4:8.
[552] As the next section shows, the “one fall” Justin means is David’s sin with Uriah’s wife. Scripture does not describe that sin as “boasting.” “As it is written” probably points to 2 Samuel 12 and Psalm 51.
[553] Justin’s charge is polemical. Polygamy was still allowed under Jewish law in his time, but it seems to have been fairly uncommon.
[554] Justin addresses his written account to this Marcus Pompeius, who is otherwise unknown.
[555] “These very words” could mean the arguments themselves or the Scriptures discussed. The older translation takes it as “the Scriptures,” but the Greek does not say so.
[556] These are the last words of the Dialogue. The Greek of the final sentence is awkward and may be damaged. It speaks of happiness or well-being (eudaimonein) being given to everyone through this way, not “intelligence” as the older translation has it.