"Selections from the Fathers of the Church, Volume 3 : Dialogue with Trypho"

Outside the New Testament, our earliest complete witness to Christian apologetic against the Jews remains the ""Dialogue with Trypho"", written by Justin Martyr (circa 165), a convert to Christianity from traditional Greek religion. The ""Dialogue"" purports to be a two-day dialogue that took place in Asia Minor between Justin and Trypho, a Hellenized Jew. Justin argues extensively on the basis of lengthy Old Testament quotations that Christ is the Messiah and God incarnate, and that the Christian community is the new Israel. In the beginning of the work Justin recounts how he converted to Christianity. The ""Dialogue"" remains of great, and varying, interest. It has important information on the development of Jewish-Christian relations, on the development of the text of the New Testament, and on the existence and character of the early Jewish Christian community. Justin's story of how he became a Christian is one of our early conversion accounts. The ""Dialogue"" is a useful textbook for classes investigating the development of religion in Late Antiquity since it touches on many aspects of religion in the Roman Empire. This edition of the ""Dialogue with Trypho"" is a revision of Thomas B. Fall's translation, which appeared in ""Fathers of the Church"", volume 6. Thomas P. Halton has amended the translation in light of the 1997 critical edition by Miroslav Marcovich, and has provided extensive annotation to recent scholarship on the ""Dialogue"". Michael Slusser has edited the volume to bring it into conformity with the new selection from the ""Fathers of the Church"" series.