Dialogue with Trypho

The next part of the Psalm is this, where He states: ‘Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, and not a man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.’ This shows that He acknowledges them as His fathers, who trusted in God and were saved by Him, and who were also the ancestors of the Virgin, by whom He was born and became man.

He predicts that He will be saved by the same God, but does not boast of accomplishing anything through His own will or power. For when on earth, He acted in the same way and replied to one who addressed Him as ‘Good Master:’ ‘Why do you call me good? One is good, my Father who is in heaven.’ But when He says, ‘I am a worm, and not a man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people,’ He prophesied the things that truly exist and happen to Him.

For we who believe in Him are everywhere a reproach, ‘despised by the people;’ for, rejected and dishonored by your nation, He suffered the indignities you planned against Him. And the following: ‘All those who see me laugh me to scorn; they speak with the lips, they shake the head: He trusted in the Lord; let Him deliver him, since he desires Him;’ this too He foretold would happen to Him. For those who saw Him crucified shook their heads, each one of them, and distorted their lips, and twisting their noses to one another, they mocked Him with the words recorded in the memoirs of His apostles: ‘He said he was the Son of God; let him come down; let God save him.’