Circumcision and the Coming King

Trypho answered: “We heard you raise this point earlier as well, and we gave it our attention; it really is worth attention. And the answer most people give — that this is simply how it seemed good to him — does not satisfy me. That is always the excuse of men who cannot answer the question put to them.” [a]

Then I said:

Since I draw both my proofs and the whole discussion from the Scriptures and from the facts themselves, do not put it off and do not hesitate to trust me, uncircumcised though I am. Only a short time is left you for coming over. If Christ gets there ahead of you, you will repent for nothing and weep for nothing, because he will not listen to you. “Break up fallow ground for yourselves,” Jeremiah has cried out to the people, “and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart.”

So do not sow among thorns, or on unplowed ground, where no crop can come to you. Know Christ — and look: there is good fallow ground in your hearts, good and rich. “For look, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will visit everyone circumcised in his foreskin — Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Moab; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in their hearts.”

You see, then, that this is not the circumcision God wants, the one given as a sign. It is no use to the Egyptians, or to the sons of Moab, or to the sons of Edom. But a man may be a Scythian or a Persian: if he has the knowledge of God and of his Christ and keeps the everlasting righteous decrees, he has been circumcised with the good and useful circumcision, he is a friend of God, and God is glad of his gifts and offerings.

My friends, I will set before you the very words of God, spoken to the people through Malachi, one of the twelve prophets. They are these: “I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; because from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place a sacrifice is offered to my name — a pure sacrifice; because my name is honored among the nations, says the Lord, but you profane it.” And through David he said: “A people I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.”

Let us glorify God, all you nations gathered together, for he has visited us too. Let us glorify him through the King of glory, through the Lord of hosts. For he has shown favor to the nations as well, and he receives sacrifices from us more gladly than from you. What further use is circumcision to me, when God himself has borne witness to me? What need have I of that other baptism, when I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit? [g]

I think that in saying this I would persuade even men of small understanding. For these words were not put together by me, and not dressed up with human art: David sang them, Isaiah announced them as good news, Zechariah proclaimed them, Moses wrote them down. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They lie stored in your writings — or rather, not yours but ours; for we trust them, and you read them without grasping the mind that is in them.

So do not be annoyed, and do not reproach us for the foreskin of the body, which God himself formed. And do not think it a dreadful thing that we drink hot water on the sabbaths. God carries on the same government of the world on that day just as on all the rest; the chief priests were ordered to bring the offerings on that day as on the others; and there are all those righteous men who did none of these legal observances and who have God’s own testimony to them.

Blame it on your own wickedness that God can be slandered at all by men with no understanding, as though he had not always taught the same righteous things to everyone. Teachings like these seemed unreasonable to many people, and unworthy of God — men who never received the grace of knowing that God called your nation, while it was behaving wickedly and lying under a sickness of the soul, to turn back and to repent in spirit; and that the prophecy which came out after the death of Moses is everlasting. [k]

This is what is said in the psalm, my friends. And that we, who have been made wise by these words, confess that they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, is clear from this: that even in the face of death we refuse to deny his name. And it is plain to everyone that we who believe in him ask him to keep us from the strangers — that is, from the wicked and deceiving spirits; the word of prophecy says so, shaping its speech in the person of one of those who believe in him.

For we keep begging God, through Jesus Christ, to be kept from the demons — who are strangers to the worship of God, and whom we ourselves once bowed down to — so that after we have turned to God through him we may be without blame. We call him Helper and Redeemer, and even the demons tremble at the strength of his name. To this day, when they are exorcised in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea, they submit. And so it is plain to everyone that his Father gave him such great power that even the demons submit to his name and to the plan carried out in his suffering.

But if such great power is shown to have followed, and to be following still, the plan carried out in his suffering, how great will the power be at his coming in glory? For he will come as a son of man on the clouds, as Daniel disclosed, with angels arriving alongside him. These are the words: [p]

“I kept watching until thrones were set in place and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like clean wool; his throne was like a flame of fire, its wheels burning fire. A river of fire was drawn out, flowing from before him. A thousand thousands were serving him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood beside him. Books were opened, and the court sat.

I was watching then the sound of the great words the horn was speaking; and the beast was struck down, and its body perished and was handed over to the burning of fire. The rest of the beasts were removed from their rule, and a span of life was given to the beasts until a season and a time. I was watching in the vision of the night, and there — with the clouds of heaven — one like a son of man was coming. He came to the Ancient of Days and stood before him, and those standing by brought him near.

And there was given to him authority and kingly honor; and all the nations of the earth by their families, and all glory, serve him. His authority is an everlasting authority that will never be taken away, and his kingdom will never be destroyed. And my spirit shuddered inside my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I went up to one of those standing there and asked him for the exact meaning of it all. He answered me and made plain to me the judgment of these words: These great beasts are four kingdoms that will perish from the earth; they will not receive the kingdom forever, or to the age of ages.

Then I wanted to know exactly about the fourth beast, which was destroying everything and was terrifying: its teeth iron and its claws bronze, eating and grinding, and trampling the leftovers with its feet. And about the ten horns on its head, and about the one that grew up among them, through which three of the earlier ones fell away; that horn had eyes and a mouth speaking great things, and its look outdid the others. And I watched that horn making war on the holy ones and routing them, until the Ancient of Days came and gave the judgment to the holy ones of the Most High; and the time arrived, and the holy ones of the Most High took hold of the kingdom.

And I was told about the fourth beast: There will be a fourth kingdom on the earth which will surpass all these kingdoms; it will devour the whole earth and overturn it and grind it flat. And the ten horns: ten kings will arise, and another after them; and he will surpass the first ones in evil, and he will bring three kings low, and he will speak words against the Most High, and he will overthrow other holy ones of the Most High, and he will expect to alter seasons and times. And it will be handed over into his hands for a time, and times, and half a time.

And the court sat, and they will take his rule away, to blot it out and destroy it to the end. And the kingdom and the authority and the greatness of the realms of the kingdoms under heaven were given to the holy people of the Most High, to reign in an everlasting kingdom; and all authorities will submit to him and obey him. Here the account ends. I, Daniel, was held in the grip of a very great astonishment, and my whole bodily state was altered; and I kept the matter in my heart.”

When I had finished, Trypho said: “Sir, these Scriptures and others like them force us to wait for someone glorious and great, who receives the everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days as a son of man. But this so-called Christ of yours turned out to be without honor and without glory — so much so that he fell under the last curse in the law of God, for he was crucified.” [t]

And I answered him:

Sirs, suppose the Scriptures I have already gone through had not said that his appearance would be without glory, that his descent would be beyond telling, that in exchange for his death the rich would be put to death, that by his bruise we were healed, and that he would be led away like a sheep. And suppose I had not explained that there would be two comings of his: one in which he was pierced by you, and a second when you will recognize the one you pierced, and your tribes will beat their breasts, tribe by tribe, the women by themselves and the men by themselves. Then I would seem to be saying obscure and baffling things. But as it is, I make all my proofs, through all these words, out of the Scriptures that are held holy and prophetic among you, hoping that one of you may be found to belong to the remnant left over — left by the grace that comes from the Lord of hosts — for everlasting salvation.

So, to make the question before us clearer to you, I will give you other words as well, spoken through the blessed David. From them you will understand that the Christ is called Lord by the holy prophetic Spirit; and that the Lord, the Father of all, brings him up from the earth and seats him at his own right hand, until he makes his enemies a footstool for his feet. That has been going on ever since our Lord Jesus Christ was taken up into heaven after he rose from the dead — the times now filling up, and the man who is going to speak blasphemous and reckless words against the Most High already at the door, the man Daniel tells us will hold power for a time, and times, and half a time.

You do not know how long he is going to hold it, so you think something else: you explain “a time” to mean a hundred years. But if that is right, then the man of lawlessness has to reign three hundred and fifty years at the very least, for us to count Daniel’s “and times” as meaning only two times.

All this I have been saying to you as a digression, so that you may at last be persuaded of what God has said against you — that you are sons without understanding — and of this: “So look, I will go on to remove this people; I will remove them, and I will take away the wisdom of their wise men and hide the understanding of their prudent men.” Then you may stop misleading yourselves and those who listen to you, and may learn instead from us, who have been made wise by the grace of Christ. These, then, are the words spoken through David:

And I went on: I am well aware that you dare to explain this psalm as spoken about King Hezekiah. But I will show you at once, out of the words themselves, that you are mistaken. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,” it says, and, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek,” along with what follows and what comes before. Not even you will dare to argue that Hezekiah was ever a priest, or that he is God’s everlasting priest; and the words themselves show that this was said about our Jesus. But your ears are blocked and your hearts have been hardened. [ac]

For by this statement — “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” — God showed with an oath, on account of your unbelief, that he is high priest after the order of Melchizedek. That is to say: Moses records that Melchizedek was priest of the Most High, and he was a priest of men in uncircumcision, and he blessed the circumcised Abraham, who brought him tithes. In the same way God was showing that his own everlasting priest — the one the Holy Spirit also calls Lord — would be priest of men in uncircumcision. And those in circumcision who come to him, that is, who trust him and look to him for blessings, he will receive and bless as well.

And that he would first be a lowly man, and afterward be raised high, the end of the psalm shows: “He will drink from the stream by the road,” and along with it, “and so he will lift up his head.”

And to persuade you further that you have understood nothing of the Scriptures, I will bring up another psalm as well, spoken to David by the Holy Spirit, which you say was spoken about Solomon, who was also one of your kings. It was spoken about our Christ too. You deceive yourselves by words that carry two meanings. Where it says “the law of the Lord is without blemish,” you take it not of the law that was to come after that one but of the law given through Moses — and God is crying out all the while that he will establish a new law and a new covenant. [ae]

And where it says, “God, give your judgment to the king,” you say the psalm is about Solomon, because Solomon was a king — though the words of the psalm proclaim in so many words that it is spoken about the everlasting king, that is, about the Christ. For the Christ has been proclaimed as king, and priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and commander of the army, and stone, and a child being born; as one who was first made subject to suffering, then went up into heaven, and comes again with glory, and holds the kingdom forever — as I prove from all the Scriptures. But so that you may take in what I have said, I will give you the words of the psalm. They are these:

And at the close of this psalm I have quoted, it is written: “The hymns of David, son of Jesse, have come to an end.”

I know that Solomon was a distinguished and great king, and that the house in Jerusalem, the one that goes by that name, was built in his day. But it is plain that none of the things said in the psalm happened to him. All the kings did not bow down to him. He did not reign to the ends of the inhabited world. His enemies did not fall in front of him and lick the dust.

I will even go so far as to say what is written in Kings about what he did: that because of a woman he worshiped idols in Sidon. Those from the nations who have come to know God, the Maker of all things, through Jesus the crucified cannot bring themselves to do that. They hold out instead under every kind of abuse and punishment, all the way to death itself, rather than worship idols or eat what has been sacrificed to idols.