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Dialogue with Trypho / Chapter 57

Dialogue with Trypho 57

2 verses • Goodspeed Greek (Die ältesten Apologeten, 1914)

Translator's Introduction

What This Chapter Is About

Trypho's objection and Justin's reply. Trypho concedes Justin's reading of Genesis 18 — that one of the three figures at Mamre is called both God and Lord — but raises the natural problem: if one of those figures is God, why did he eat the food Abraham prepared? God does not eat. Justin's reply: the eating language is figurative. Scripture regularly uses physical-consumption verbs (fire 'devouring,' the earth 'opening its mouth') without literal force; the angelic eating is the same figure. Trypho accepts the figurative reading and presses Justin to continue with the proof that this 'other God' became the Christ born of a virgin.

What Makes This Chapter Remarkable

The chapter is an apparent digression but actually marks the shift from defending the Logos-doctrine in principle (Dial. 56) to defending it against specific Jewish counterarguments. Trypho's objection is the move that turns the Dialogue from polemic into actual dialogue. Justin's figurative-language defense — that scriptural physical predicates of God should not be read literally — is the same hermeneutical principle Philo deploys throughout his corpus, especially in De confusione linguarum where the Genesis 11 narrative is read allegorically rather than chronologically.

Translation Friction

Justin's reply is brisk and Trypho accepts it without further pushback. Modern readers may find the resolution too easy: if God can be 'said to have eaten' figuratively, how do we distinguish figurative from literal predicates of the divine? Justin does not develop this hermeneutic systematically; his goal is to clear the objection and return to the substantive Logos argument that Dial. 58-62 will press.

Connections

Genesis 18:6-8 (Abraham serves the three visitors veal, bread, milk — the eating Trypho objects to); Isaiah 1:20 ('the mouth of the LORD has spoken' — a figurative-language parallel); Numbers 16:32 (the earth opened its mouth — figurative consumption); Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues §134-136 (Philo's parallel use of figurative-language hermeneutics for divine activity); Origen, On First Principles IV.2-3 (extended treatment of figurative scriptural language).

Dialogue with Trypho 57:1

καὶ ὁ Τρύφων ἔφη· Πῶς οὖν ὁ θεὸς λέγεται φαγεῖν παρὰ τῷ Ἀβραάμ;

Trypho asked: 'How, then, is God said to have eaten with Abraham?'

REF And Trypho said: How then is God said to have eaten with Abraham? (Schaff, ANF I, p. 224)

Notes & Key Terms 1 term

Key Terms

φαγεῖν phagein
"to eat" — the aorist infinitive of ἐσθίω ('to eat'); used in Septuagintal accounts of divine-human shared meals

The verb at issue. Trypho is asking Justin to account for the simple aorist φαγεῖν at Genesis 18:8 LXX, where the text says the three visitors 'ate' (ἔφαγον). Justin's reply will not deny the verb's appearance; he will recharacterize what kind of language the verb represents.

Translator Notes

  1. Goodspeed, p. 158 (Dial. 57.1); Schaff, ANF I, p. 224. Trypho's question is the substantive Jewish objection to Justin's claim in §56 that one of the three Mamre figures is 'God and Lord.' If that figure is God, then God ate — and God does not eat. The objection is grammatically clean and theologically serious.
  2. Cross-reference: Genesis 18:6-8 LXX, where Abraham prepares calf, bread, and curds, and the three visitors eat (ἔφαγον). The eating is unambiguous in the surface narrative; Justin's figurative-language defense in v3-4 below has to do real exegetical work.
  3. The brevity of Trypho's question is rhetorically precise. He is not arguing at length; he is registering the objection in its simplest form and waiting for Justin's reply. Justin Martyr scholarship (Barnard 1967, Bobichon 2003) treats Dial. 57 as the moment the Dialogue stops being a one-way exposition and becomes genuine dialectical exchange.
Dialogue with Trypho 57:3

ἀπεκρινάμην· τὸ γεγραμμένον ὅτι ἔφαγον, ἢ τροφικῶς ἢ ἀναλωτικῶς νοῆσαι δυνατόν. εἰ μὲν τροφικῶς, οὐκ ἐσθίει ὁ θεός· εἰ δὲ ἀναλωτικῶς, λεκτέον ὅτι 'πῦρ κατέφαγεν αὐτά,' ἢ ὡς γῆ τὰ μετὰ τῶν περὶ Δαθὰν καὶ Ἀβιρὼν 'κατέπιεν.'

I replied: 'The verse that says they ate can be read in two ways — as taking nourishment, or as consuming. If the meaning is nourishment, God does not eat. But if the meaning is consumption, then it is the same kind of expression as when scripture says fire devoured the offerings, or the earth swallowed up those who were with Dathan and Abiram.'

REF I answered: That which is written, that 'they ate,' can be understood either as taking nourishment or as consuming. If as nourishment, then God does not eat; but if as consumption, then it must be said that 'fire devoured them,' or that the earth 'swallowed up' those who were with Dathan and Abiram. (Schaff, ANF I, pp. 224-225, paraphrased)

Notes & Key Terms 3 terms

Key Terms

τροφικῶς trophikōs
"nourishment-fashion" — in the manner of taking food for bodily sustenance

Justin's coined adverbial — eating in the sense of sustaining a body. God does not eat τροφικῶς because God has no body to sustain. The technical distinction allows Justin to grant the verb 'eat' without conceding bodily appetite.

ἀναλωτικῶς analōtikōs
"consumption-fashion" — in the manner of using up, destroying, making to disappear

Justin's contrasting adverbial — eating in the figurative sense of consuming. Fire 'eats' the sacrifice in this sense; the earth 'eats' Dathan and Abiram. The Mamre figures' eating, if taken seriously of the divine figure, must be this sense and not τροφικῶς.

καταφαγεῖν kataphagein
"to devour, consume" — intensive of φαγεῖν; the prefix κατά adds totality of consumption

The compound is Septuagintal vocabulary for divine fire consuming offerings (Lev 9:24, 10:2) and for the earth consuming the rebellious (Num 16:32). Justin's prooftext: scripture itself authorizes the figurative use of eating-verbs for non-literal consumption.

Translator Notes

  1. Goodspeed, p. 159 (Dial. 57.2-3); Schaff, ANF I, pp. 224-225. Justin's reply rests on a distinction between τροφικῶς ('nourishment-fashion' — eating to sustain a body) and ἀναλωτικῶς ('consumption-fashion' — making things disappear). God in the Mamre theophany did not need nourishment; if 'they ate' applies to a divine figure, it is the second sense, the same idiom by which scripture says 'fire devoured' or 'the earth swallowed up.'
  2. The two prooftexts Justin cites are Leviticus 9:24 LXX (πῦρ κατέφαγεν αὐτά — 'fire devoured them,' said of the burnt offering at the consecration of Aaron's priesthood) and Numbers 16:32-33 LXX (where the earth opens and 'swallows up' Korah, Dathan, and Abiram). Both passages use eating-verbs (καταφαγεῖν, καταπίνειν) for non-literal consumption.
  3. The figurative-language hermeneutic Justin deploys here is the same one Philo uses throughout his corpus — see especially Conf. §134-136, where Philo argues that 'the LORD came down to see the city' (Gen 11:5) cannot be read as God's literal physical descent because God is everywhere. The substantive theological move (rejection of crude anthropomorphism in scriptural reading) is shared across Hellenistic Jewish and Christian interpretation. Origen will systematize the move at On First Principles IV.2-3.
  4. Trypho's acceptance of this answer (v4-5 below) is consequential for the rest of the dialogue: it concedes the validity of figurative-language readings of divine predicates, which Justin will lean on heavily in Dial. 58-62 when arguing that 'sleep,' 'descending,' 'wrestling,' and other physical verbs predicated of the divine figure in Genesis-Exodus theophanies all refer to the activity of the pre-existent Logos rather than to God-the-Maker.
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