Dialogue with Trypho 49.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Trypho expects a merely human Messiah anointed by Elijah, who has not yet come.

Greek text · Archambault 1:216–218

Καὶ ὁ Τρύφων· Ἐμοὶ μὲν δοκοῦσιν, εἶπεν, οἱ λέγοντες ἄνθρωπον γεγονέναι αὐτὸν καὶ κατʼ ἐκλογὴν κεχρῖσθαι καὶ Χριστὸν γεγονέναι πιθανώτερον ὑμῶν λέγειν, τῶν ταῦτα ἅπερ φῂς λεγόντων· καὶ γὰρ πάντες ἡμεῖς τὸν Χριστὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐξ ἀνθρώπων προσδοκῶμεν γενήσεσθαι, καὶ τὸν Ἡλίαν χρῖσαι αὐτὸν ἐλθόντα. Ἐὰν δὲ οὗτος φαίνηται ὢν ὁ Χριστός, ἄνθρωπον μὲν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενόμενον ἐκ παντὸς ἐπίστασθαι δεῖ. Ἐκ δὲ τοῦ μηδὲ Ἡλίαν ἐληλυθέναι οὐδὲ τοῦτον ἀποφαίνομαι εἶναι.

English · Claude translation

And Trypho said, “Those who say he was a man, and was anointed by election and became Christ, seem to me to speak more plausibly than you who say what you say; for all of us expect that the Christ will be a man of men, and that Elijah will come and anoint him. But if this man appears to be the Christ, one must certainly know that he was a man born of men. But since Elijah has not come, I declare that he is not the Christ either.”

About this passage

Source

Archambault 1:216–218 · Georges Archambault, ed., Justin: Dialogue avec Tryphon, 2 vols., Textes et documents pour l'étude historique du christianisme 8, 11 (Paris: Picard, 1909) · Greek text: G. Archambault, Justin: Dialogue avec Tryphon (Paris, 1909), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Archambault. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Archambault (1909); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Scripture

Mal 4:5 (3:22 LXX) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Christology

Cite this passage

Justin, Dial. 49.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/49/1/).

Plain text

Justin, Dial. 49.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/justin-dialogue/49/1/).