A Brief Summary of Dialogue With Trypho | Church Fathers

The philosopher and Christian apologist known as Justin Martyr lived in the early second century AD. After he became a Christian, he traveled around in a philosopher’s robe and taught and sometimes debated people about God and Christianity. In about AD 135, he was walking on a road he referred to as the Xystus (ZI-stuss) in Ephesus. It was here that he met a man named Trypho, who identified himself as a “Hebrew . . . having escaped from the war,” referring to the Bar Kokhba Rebellion. Justin and Trypho agreed that the pursuit of God is a philosopher’s highest calling and spent two days discussing Jewish and Christian ideas of God and the life of His people. The written form of their Dialogue was published twenty or twenty-five years after it happened, sometime after Justin wrote his First and Second Apologies but before he was martyred in AD 165.

Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho consists of four sections. The first section, which comprises chapters 2-8, is an introduction in which Justin gives a detailed narrative of his own intellectual development and conversion to Christianity. Justin told Trypho that Justin unsuccessfully tried to learn about God from a Stoic teacher, a Peripatetic teacher, a Pythagorean teacher, and a Platonist teacher before Justin had a life-changing conversation with a wise old Christian man in a field near the seashore. Justin claimed that God used that conversation to spark Justin’s interest in divine matters as related by the prophets of the Old Testament. Trypho’s friends, who were listening nearby just laughed at Justin. Trypho was more respectful, but told Justin that if he wanted to learn about God, he needed to be circumcised, observe Sabbath and New Moon ordinances, and follow all of the Law of Moses.

The second section of the Dialogue with Trypho explains the Christian perspective on the Old Testament. Trypho wanted to know why Christians do not follow theJewish laws of circumcision, fasts, feasts, clothing, and so on. Justin replied that those laws were given to ancient Israel as a temporary punishment for their sinfulness and stubbornness. God instructed a circumcision of the flesh to punish the wicked people of Israel, but what God intended all along was that the people circumcise their hearts in a spiritual way and follow God in love. Many people before Abraham and many more after him will be in Heaven despite not having been circumcised in the flesh. The dietary laws were enacted in response to the Golden Calf incident and are not to be applied to all people who trust in God. God was not pleased with Israel’s fasting when their hearts were not set in the right direction. 

Trypho also asked why Christians would highly esteem a man who was crucified, because such a death is a sign of failure. Justin responded that Jesus came the first time as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, which necessitated His death in the place of humans, which animal sacrifices could not accomplish. Although Justin’s explanation of how Jesus could be God and man simultaneously without conflict or creating a second deity lacked the theological precision of later councils and theologians, he did reference Psalm 110:1 as proof that the Christ is God. That verse reads, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’” While the Jews did well to recognize that there is only one God, they failed to recognize Jesus the Christ as the recipient of God’s words in this verse. Jesus, the Son of God, was equally divine with God the Father, yet they were one in being. Likewise, Isaiah 53 portrayed the Christ as a suffering servant, so Trypho’s question about Christ’s success was answered by Isaiah 53. Justin also pointed out a handful of “types” or “symbols” of Christ found in Old Testament prophecies. The second coming will be about the Father’s putting all Christ’s enemies under His feet, like a footstool, as a sign of the Christ’s victory over all.

The third section of the Dialogue with Trypho justifies the adoration of Jesus as God. Justin begins by explaining that John the Baptist was the new Elijah who proclaimed the first coming of Christ. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a young donkey the week before His crucifixion fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah. Throughout this section, Trypho insists that Justin is referring to two different gods, but Justin gives examples in the Old Testament of Jesus’ existence before He was conceived of a virgin. Examples include the mysterious Angel of the Lord in Abraham’s visitor in Genesis 18, Jacob’s wrestling opponent in Genesis 31, and the burning bush with Moses in Exodus 3. The Son was also being referred to in Genesis 1 when the Father said, “let Us make a person in Our image.” Justin explained that the Son is begotten from the Father as a fire is begotten from another fire with the same substance and properties, but now in two distinct forms. Justin accused Jewish scribes and rabbis of misinterpreting or removing important passages of  Scripture, which is the same thing the devil himself does. Justin claimed that the gifts of handling the Scriptures properly were passed on from the prophets in the Old Testament to the Christians of their own era. Though death on a cross is repugnant to Trypho, Justin listed various types of crosses that were found in the Old Testament, which pointed to the kind of death that Christ would endure. Justin further explained that any curse Christ experienced was on our behalf because we, as sinners, deserve a curse. To verify that Jesus is the Christ, God raised Jesus from the dead after three days in a similar manner to Jonah’s being in the stomach of a large fish for three days.

In the fourth section of the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin teaches that people from every nation who believe in the Christ and follow His teaching represent the New Israel. The prophecy in Micah 4 and Zechariah 2-3 predicts how Gentiles will flow into Jerusalem in the end times, where Christ will be reigning as king, and they will be blessed by Him there. The Jewish rabbis did not rightly divide the advents of Christ into one in the first century and another in the end times. The Jewish rabbis also ignored the significance of Joshua’s name being the Hebrew form of the Greek name Jesus and the things Joshua did as a prototype of Jesus. Christians, who see the predictions of Christ in the Old Testament, do so only with the gracious help of the Holy Spirit. Christians have become the true Israel and the sons of God, the heirs of the promises God made to Abraham through the descendants of Jacob. The Israelites were the sons of Jacob by the flesh, but the Christians were the sons of Jacob by faith and the Spirit

Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew demonstrates a biblical and philosophical approach to the relationship between Jewish adherence to the Mosaic law and Christian faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. 

  1.  Justin only refers to it as the Xystus (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 1), but Eusebius identifies this as a place in Ephesus (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4:18).
  2.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 1.
  3.  Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Volume Two—Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100-325 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910), 715.
  4.  Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Volume 1—The Beginning of Patristic Literature from the Apostles Creed to Irenaeus (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1990), 203.
  5.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 2-4.
  6.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 5-8.
  7.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 8.
  8.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 10, 27.
  9.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 16, 19, 23, 28.
  10.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 23.
  11.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 20.
  12.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 15, 21.
  13.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 10, 32.
  14.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 13.
  15.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 40-43, 86.
  16.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 32.
  17.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 49-52.
  18.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 53.
  19.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 56-59.
  20.  Genesis 1:26, 28.
  21.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 61.
  22.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 69, 71-74. Justin also grouped fallen angels in with the devil in chapter 79.
  23.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 82.
  24.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 86, 90-97, 104-105.
  25.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 106-108.
  26.  Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Volume 1—The Beginning of Patristic Literature from the Apostles Creed to Irenaeus (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1990), 203.
  27.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 109, 115.
  28.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 112.
  29.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 112-113.
  30.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 119.
  31.  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 123-135.