Dialogue with Trypho

What follows—"But You, the praise of Israel, inhabit the holy place"—indicates that He is to do something praiseworthy and astonishing, as He is going to rise from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion; and this He has received from the Father. I have already shown that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have proven that it is not only in the blessings of Joseph and Judah that things related to Him were announced mysteriously, but also in the Gospel, it is written that He said: "All things are delivered to me by My Father;" and, "No one knows the Father but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." He has revealed to us everything we have understood by His grace from the Scriptures, so that we know Him to be the first-begotten of God, existing before all creation; also to be the Son of the patriarchs, since He took on flesh through the Virgin from their lineage and accepted becoming a man, lacking in appearance, dishonored, and subject to suffering.

Accordingly, He said, when talking about His future sufferings: "The Son of man must suffer many things, be rejected by the Pharisees and Scribes, be crucified, and rise again on the third day." He referred to Himself as the Son of man, either because of His birth by the Virgin, who was, as I mentioned, from the family of David, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham; or because Adam was the father of both Himself and those earlier figures from whom Mary is descended.

We know that the fathers of women are also the fathers of the children their daughters bear. Christ called one of His disciples—previously named Simon—Peter, since he recognized Him to be Christ, the Son of God, by revelation from His Father: and since in the records of His apostles, it is stated that He is the Son of God, and because we call Him the Son, we understand that He originated before all creation from the Father by His power and will (since the prophets' writings refer to Him in various ways as Wisdom, the Day, the East, a Sword, a Stone, a Rod, Jacob, and Israel); and that He became man through the Virgin, so that the disobedience that began with the serpent might be undone in the same way it started.

Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having received the serpent's word, brought forth disobedience and death.

But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good news that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her, and therefore the Holy One born of her is the Son of God; and she replied, "Let it be to me according to your word." By her, He has been born, to whom we have demonstrated so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and humans like him; yet grants deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe in Him.