Dialogue with Trypho 65

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Goodspeed, p. 167 (Dial. 65.2); Schaff, ANF I, p. 231. Trypho cites Isaiah 42:8 LXX — ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεός, τοῦτό μου ἐστι τὸ ὄνομα· τὴν δόξαν μου ἑτέρῳ οὐ δώσω. The objection is structurally clean: scripture explicitly says God will not give his glory to another. Justin's entire Logos-doctrine assigns divine glory to a figure 'other than' the Maker. Trypho is calling the contradiction.
2. The objection forces Justin's most explicit articulation of the scripture-self-coherence principle in v3 below. Trypho's challenge is, from the Jewish-monotheist standpoint, the strongest possible single objection — and the way Justin handles it sets the pattern for all subsequent Christian engagement with Isaiah 40-48 monotheistic-declarations passages.
3. Note Justin's framing of the objection. Rather than weaken Trypho's position rhetorically, Justin's text gives it in its strongest form. This is consistent with Justin's general dialectical method (and with TCR's bias-policy from the strategic roadmap §12 — every position presented in its strongest form). The conceptual cost of Justin's apologetic project: he must engage the objection at full strength.
4. Cross-reference Philo, On Dreams §230 (TCR /philo-somn/1/230): Philo's articular-vs-anarthrous θεός distinction at Gen 31:13 is a partial parallel to what Justin faces here. Philo could distinguish the supreme God from a 'second god' by grammatical-article distinction; Justin must distinguish two divine subjects who both 'have glory' from one another. The challenge is harder, and Justin's answer (intra-scriptural harmonization rather than grammatical distinction) is its own innovation.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Goodspeed, p. 167 (Dial. 65.3); Schaff, ANF I, pp. 231-232. Justin's reply is structured around the hermeneutical principle of intra-scriptural context: Isaiah 42:8 ('I will not give my glory to another') cannot be read in isolation from Isaiah 42:1 ('Israel is my chosen, my soul has accepted him') and Isaiah 42:6 ('I will give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles'). The full chapter shows God doing exactly what Trypho says he will not do — assigning glory to a specific Servant figure.
2. The Septuagintal text of Isaiah 42:1 — Ἰακὼβ ὁ παῖς μου, ἀντιλήψομαι αὐτοῦ· Ἰσραὴλ ὁ ἐκλεκτός μου, προσεδέξατο αὐτὸν ἡ ψυχή μου — differs from the Hebrew (which reads 'Behold my servant whom I uphold' without the explicit 'Jacob' and 'Israel'). The LXX clarifications make the Servant identification more explicit, and the gospel writers' citations of Isaiah 42:1-4 (Matthew 12:18-21) use the LXX rendering.
3. Justin's accusation that Trypho's group 'concealed' the surrounding context (ἀπεκρύψασθε — 'you concealed/hid') is rhetorically pointed. Justin is not literally accusing Trypho of textual suppression but of selective citation — the same charge ancient interpreters frequently leveled across the Christian-Jewish dialectic. Compare Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem for the same accusation deployed against a Christian opponent (Marcion's anti-Septuagintal scripture-editing).
4. On the scripture-self-coherence principle Justin asserts here: the same hermeneutical commitment runs through Origen's On First Principles IV.2.9 ('no scripture is contrary to another') and Augustine's Christian Doctrine III. Both passages cite Justin's pattern explicitly or implicitly. The principle is foundational for patristic exegesis and remains a Reformation hermeneutical commitment (Westminster Confession I.9 — 'the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself').