The Ancient Witnesses

Chapter 4: The Unfolding of Time, Part 1 • 125

he would make him a father of many nations. 11 Christians are no tribe of barbarians but a holy people, for how else could we understand the Scriptures and discern God’s plan? 12 You, Trypho, call yourself a son of Abraham, and rightly so. Yet, what is Abraham but a son of Noah—and we are all sons of Noah! Other nations have their ancestors, too, and there have been many great nations—Arabians, Egyptians, Idumeans 13 —but which is the nation God promised to Abraham? And what grace did Christ bestow on Abraham, setting him apart from Noah? Justin Martyr, I observed, interpreted events from the lives of Noah and Abraham in the light of the larger Story of God, as Mentor had modeled for us. Moreover, his question to Trypho— what grace did Christ bestow on Abraham? —testified to the presence of the Second Person of the Trinity throughout holy history. Justin Martyr answered his own question as follows. It was Christ who called Abraham and commanded him to leave the land wherein he dwelt. And with that same voice he has also called all of us, and we have abandoned our former way of life in which we used to practice evils common to all the other inhabitants of the world. And we shall inherit the Holy Land together with Abraham, receiving our inheritance for all eternity, because by our similar faith we have become children of Abraham. For just as Abraham believed the voice of God, and was thereby 11 Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, A Jew , chapter 119, based on the translation of Thomas B. Falls, in St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho . Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. (ANF 1, 258-259).

12 By “the Scriptures” Justin Martyr refers, of course, to the Old Testament or Hebrew/Jewish Scriptures.

13 Esau’s descendants, Gen. 36:9.