Benjamin White: “Playing a Jewish Game” or Crossing the “Borderline”? A Re-reading of Justin’s Judaizing Gentile Christians in Dialogue 47

This short communication offers a re-reading of Chapter 47 of Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho.  In particular, it addresses the proper understanding of a particular group of Judaizing Gentile Christians mentioned by Justin, whom he says will “equally be saved.”  Normally understood as analogous to Luke’s Godfearers or Ignatius’ “Judaizers” (Mag. 10.3), I argue here that Justin’s language about this group of Judaizers suggests something else.  They are not just nibbling around the edges of the Jewish Law, and thus easily able to be pulled back by a superior apologetic.  Rather, they are Judaizing in the greatest possible way: conversion to Judaism.  They are not merely “playing a Jewish game,” to use Michelle Murray’s language, but crossing a “borderline,” to use the language of Daniel Boyarin.  I argue that adult, male circumcision is envisioned here by Justin and that the language he chooses to describe their “transfer over to the way of life characterized by law” most closely matches the language used by the author of 2 Maccabees to describe Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ program of complete and total conversion of Jerusalem to a Greek politeuma.  If my reading can be sustained, Justin, in noting that such formerly Gentile (but now Jewish) Christians will “equally be saved,” seems quite remarkable and his shocking soteriological generosity must be explained within a larger text that tries to erect firm boundaries between Christians and Jews.  I attempt to do this at the end of the short communication.