When they had rested, I once more began with them in this way: "Is there anything else, my friends, for which you reproach us, other than this—that we do not live according to the Law, nor circumcise our flesh as your forefathers did, nor keep the Sabbath as you do? Or are our life and conduct also slandered among you? This is what I mean: do you too believe these things about us—that we eat human beings, and that after the feast we put out the lamps and roll about in unlawful unions? Or is this the only thing you condemn in us, that we hold to such teachings and put our faith in an opinion which, as you suppose, is not true?"
"This is what we wonder at," said Trypho; "but as for the things the common crowd say, they are not worth believing, for they are far removed from human nature. The precepts in what is called your Gospel, however, I know to be so wonderful and so great that I suppose no one is able to keep them; for I took the trouble to read them."
"But this is what perplexes us most: that you, who claim to be pious and suppose yourselves to differ from others, fall short of them in nothing, and do not distinguish your manner of life from that of the Gentiles—in that you keep neither the feasts nor the Sabbaths, nor have circumcision; and furthermore, setting your hopes upon a man who was crucified, you nevertheless hope to obtain some good from God, though you do not do his commandments. Have you not read that 'that soul shall be cut off from its people which is not circumcised on the eighth day'? And in like manner it is laid down concerning the foreign-born and concerning those bought with money."
"Having thus straightway despised this covenant, you neglect the things that follow as well, and yet you try to persuade us that you know God, while doing none of the things that those who fear God do. If, then, you have anything to say in defence against these charges, and can show in what way you hope for anything at all, even though you do not keep the Law, this above all we would gladly hear from you; and let us examine the other points together likewise."