The high priest and Trypho: a comparison

[Giuseppe]

This your interpretation doesn't fit with the words of Trypho about the sufferings of the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures:

Dialogue With Trypho 90.1

for we know that He should suffer and be led as a sheep

The only way that prophecy could be realized for Trypho is on a Christ still unknown and invisible, therefore on a Christ put in the past.

[Ben C. Smith]

This your interpretation doesn't fit with the words of Trypho about the sufferings of the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures:

Dialogue With Trypho 90.1

for we know that He should suffer and be led as a sheep

The only way that prophecy could be realized for Trypho is on a Christ still unknown and invisible, therefore on a Christ put in the past.

No, it is a (possible) Christ who has not yet suffered. If he exists, then he has been born, but does not even know he is the Christ, has not yet been anointed, and therefore has not yet performed any of his messianic work, including his predicted suffering.

[Giuseppe]

You are right about it.

It seems to be also here a conflict between the expiatory sacrifice meant by Trypho and the crucifixion of the Christian messiah. Why for Trypho was the crucifixion so embarrassing even if he assumed a future possible suffering Christ?

Maybe because the crucifixion idea assumes that the killer was not God (a la Abraham with his son Isaac) but the Romans or demons?

[Ben C. Smith]

You are right about it.

I admire this intellectual honesty.

It seems to be also here a conflict between the expiatory sacrifice meant by Trypho and the crucifixion of the Christian messiah. Why for Trypho was the crucifixion so embarrassing even if he assumed a future possible suffering Christ?

Because crucifixion was the supplicium servile, the slave's punishment, by design the most humiliating mode of execution possible, completely unworthy of free men, patricians, or (especially) figures of even higher rank, such as divinities or messiahs.

[Ben C. Smith]

I recommend reading Crucifixion in the Ancient World, by Martin Hengel. He is an historicist, so I doubt you and he will get along like comrades from a past life or anything, but he collects much valuable information on how the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews viewed crucifixion.

[MrMacSon]

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It seems to be also here a conflict between the expiatory sacrifice meant by Trypho and the crucifixion of the Christian messiah. Why for Trypho was the crucifixion so embarrassing even if he assumed a future possible suffering Christ?

Maybe because the Jesus [the Christ, of Nazareth] story had not be finalized, yet. Maybe it hadn't even been written?

eta: as you said in your OP -

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Curiously, Trypho doesn't condemn in toto the Christ of the Christians. He may concede his existence, but only insofar his invisible state is honestly recognized by the Christians of the his time (Justin in primis). In other terms, only from a Mythicist point of view: considering Christ as a invisible archangel not still revealed on the earth.

[Ben C. Smith]

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It seems to be also here a conflict between the expiatory sacrifice meant by Trypho and the crucifixion of the Christian messiah. Why for Trypho was the crucifixion so embarrassing even if he assumed a future possible suffering Christ?

Maybe because the Jesus [the Christ, of Nazareth] story had not be finalized, yet. Maybe it hadn't even been written?

How can the story not have been written yet when Justin refers to it repeatedly (birth, baptism, temptation, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection) and references documents ("memoirs") which contained it? (Not finalized, sure: the argument can be made. But not even written? How?)

[MrMacSon]

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How can the story not have been written yet when Justin refers to it repeatedly (birth, baptism, temptation, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection) and references documents ("memoirs") which contained it? (Not finalized, sure: the argument can be made. But not even written? How?)

I get the impression most if not all of the works or views attributed to Justin Martyr are philosophical ones about celestial theological concepts rather than being derived from the synoptic gospels or being derived from narratives about a known or previously historical human-Jesus: -

• "But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore." (First Apology, ch 6)
  
  "But if you knew, Trypho," continued I, "who He is that is called at one time the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Corner Stone, and Son of God, you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, and been born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your twelve tribes shall mourn. For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God. For Moses says somewhere in Exodus the following: `The Lord spake to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I revealed not to them, and I established my covenant with them.' And thus again he says, `A man wrestled with Jacob,' and asserts it was God; narrating that Jacob said, `I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'" (Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, A Jew, Chap. CXXVI [See also The First Apology of Justin, Chap. XIII; XXII; LXIII; Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, A Jew, Chap. XXXVI; XLVIII; LVI; LIX; LXI; C; CV; CXXV; CXXVIII)
  
  [Trypho to Justin] "...you say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, and that He submitted to be born and become man" - Dialogue with Trypho, ch.48

Justin uses passages and pericopes also found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in the composition of the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho, and quotes OT texts attributed to Matthew, but is there any indication he really quotes from them?

.

[Ben C. Smith]

Justin uses passages and pericopes also found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in the composition of the First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho, and quotes OT texts attributed to Matthew, but is there any indication he really quotes from them?

He paraphrases them more often than he quotes them. More importantly, he makes clear that the memoirs which he paraphrases contains the story:

When a star therefore arose even in heaven together with his birth, as is written in the memoirs of his apostles, the magi from Arabia, recognizing him by this, arrived and worshiped him.

For it is written in the memoirs of the apostles that this devil also, together at his going up away from the river Jordan, when the voice had said to him: You are my son. Today I have begotten you, came to him and tested him until he said to him: Worship me, and Christ answered him: Get behind me, Satan. You will worship the Lord your God, and him only will you serve.

And when it says that he changed the name of one of the apostles to Peter, and it is written in his memoirs that this also happened, with the nicknaming of others as well, two brothers, who were the sons of Zebedee, with the name of Boanerges, that is sons of thunder, this was a sign....

For he also exhorted his disciples to surpass the Pharisaic policy, with the warning that, if not, they might be sure they could not be saved, and these words are recorded in the memoirs: Unless your justice fully exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not go into the kingdom of the heavens.

And that on the third day after being crucified he was going to rise again it is written in the memoirs that some from your race, seeking after him, said: Show us a sign; and he answered them: An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given to them except the sign of Jonah. And, since he said this in a hidden manner, it was to be understood by those listening that after he was crucified he would resurrect on the third day.

For the apostles in the memoirs made by them, which are called gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was commanded them, that Jesus took bread and after giving thanks said: Do this in my memory; this is my body. And the cup likewise, having taken it and given thanks, he said: This is my blood. And he gave it to them alone.

For in the memoirs which I say were ordered together by his apostles and those who followed them it is written that his sweat fell down like drops of blood while he was praying and saying: If it is possible, let this cup pass.

For the power of his strong word, through which he always confuted the Pharisees and scribes, and simply the teachers among your race that sought after him, had a right stop like a plentiful and strong spring whose water has been turned off, when before Pilate he kept silence and willed himself to answer nothing to anyone, as has been made clear in the memoirs of his apostles.

For those who saw him crucified both moved their heads, each of them, and turned over their lips, and twisting their noses to each other said these things which are written in the memoirs of his apostles, mocking him: He said that he was the son of God; let him descend and walk around. Let God save him.

For when he also was delivering up his spirit upon the cross he said: Father, into your hands I place my spirit, as I learned even this also from the memoirs.

The memoirs are obviously at least something like our gospels.

[MrMacSon]

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He paraphrases them more often than he quotes them. More importantly, he makes clear that the memoirs which he paraphrases contains the story:

The memoirs are obviously at least something like our gospels.

Sure. I just wonder if he is a pre-orthodox or pre-Catholic philosopher (perhaps a less-gnostic-than-others one), rather than a post-Catholic or post-orthodox one.