I see that "Trypho" (Dialogue 8) is reporting an accusation about a chronological sequence in the process of acceptance of the historicist belief:
But the Christ, if he has indeed been born, and exists anywhere, is unknown, and doesn't even yet know himself, and has no power until Elijah comes to anoint him, and make him appear to all. But you, on the basis of groundless hearsay, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake you are now irresponsibly doomed.
The chronological sequence is the following:
- before the Christians receive a 'groundless hearsay'
- and only after they start the "invention of a Christ for themselves".
What was that "hearsay" of which the Christians were the unaware victims, before that they became the conscious and deliberate inventors of holy fables?
The best answer: the hearsay about a Jesus being lived on the earth in the recent past, i.e. the hearsay about Jesus ben Sapphat.