Dialogue with Trypho

And when Scripture says, ‘I am the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who has made known Israel as your King,’ will you not understand that truly Christ is the everlasting King? For you know that Jacob, the son of Isaac, was never a king.

Therefore, Scripture again explains to us which king is meant by Jacob and Israel: ‘Jacob is my Servant, I will uphold Him; and Israel is my Elect, my soul shall receive Him. I have given Him my Spirit; and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

He shall not cry, and His voice shall not be heard outside. The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoldering wick He shall not quench, until He brings forth judgment to victory. He shall shine, and shall not be broken, until He sets judgment on the earth. And in His name, the Gentiles shall trust.’ So, is it Jacob the patriarch in whom the Gentiles and you shall trust? Or is it not Christ? Therefore, just as Christ is the Israel and the Jacob, so we, who have been brought out from the body of Christ, are the true Israelite race.

But let us pay attention to the exact words: ‘And I will bring forth,’ He says, ‘the seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah: and it shall inherit My holy mountain; and My Elect and My servants shall possess the inheritance and shall dwell there; and there shall be folds of flocks in the thicket, and the valley of Achor shall be a resting place for cattle for the people who have sought Me.

But as for you, who forsake Me, and forget My holy mountain, and prepare a table for demons, and fill out drink for the demon, I shall give you to the sword.

You shall all fall in a slaughter; for I called you, and you did not listen, and did evil before me, and chose that in which I did not delight.’ Such are the words of Scripture; understand, therefore, that the seed of Jacob now referred to is something else, and is not, as may be supposed, spoken of your people. For it is not possible for the seed of Jacob to leave an entrance for the descendants of Jacob, or for God to have accepted the very same people He had reproached with unfitness for the inheritance and promise it to them again; but as the prophet says, ‘And now, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord; for He has sent away His people, the house of Jacob, because their land was full, as at the first, of soothsayers and divinations;’ even so, it is necessary for us here to observe that there are two seeds of Judah, and two races, just as there are two houses of Jacob: one begotten by blood and flesh, the other by faith and the Spirit.