And Trypho said: "It seems to me that those who say that He came to be a man and was anointed by election and became Christ speak more plausibly than you who say the things you say. For we all expect that the Christ will be a man born of men, and that Elijah, when he comes, will anoint Him. But if this man should appear to be the Christ, He must by all means be understood to be a man born of men; yet from the fact that Elijah has not even come, I declare that this man is not the Christ either."
And I again asked him: "Does not the word declare, through Zechariah, that Elijah shall come before that great and fearful day of the Lord?" And he answered: "Certainly." "If, then, the word compels us to confess that two comings of Christ were prophesied as about to take place—one in which He shall appear as suffering and without honor and without form, and the other in which He shall come both glorious and as judge of all, as has also been shown in many of the passages quoted above—shall we not understand that the word of God has proclaimed that Elijah shall be the forerunner of the fearful and great day, that is, of His second coming?" "Certainly," he answered.
"Our Lord, then," I said, "delivered this very thing in His teachings as about to take place, saying that Elijah also shall come; and we know that this shall take place when our Lord Jesus Christ is about to come in glory from the heavens, of whose first manifestation the Spirit of God that was in Elijah went forth as herald, in John, who became a prophet among your race, after whom no other prophet appeared any more among you. He, sitting by the river Jordan, cried out: 'I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but there shall come One mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He shall thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor and gather the wheat into the barn, but the chaff He shall burn with unquenchable fire.'"
"And this very prophet your king Herod shut up in prison; and when a birthday feast was being celebrated, and his niece danced in a way that pleased him, he told her to ask whatever she wished. And the mother of the girl prompted her to ask for the head of John who was in the prison; and when she had asked, he sent and ordered the head of John to be brought on a platter."
"Wherefore also our Christ, while on earth, said to those who were saying that Elijah must come before the Christ: 'Elijah indeed shall come and shall restore all things; but I say to you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished.' And it is written that 'Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them concerning John the Baptist.'"
And Trypho said: "This too seems to me a paradoxical thing to say—that the prophetic Spirit of God which was in Elijah came also to be in John." And to this I said: "Does it not seem to you that the same thing took place in the case of Joshua the son of Nun, who succeeded to the leadership of the people after Moses, when it was said to Moses to lay his hands upon Joshua, God Himself saying: 'And I will take of the Spirit that is in you and put it upon him'?"
And he said: "Certainly." "As, then," I said, "while Moses was still among men at that time, God transferred to Joshua some of the Spirit that was in Moses, so also God was able to bring it from Elijah to John, in order that, just as the Christ at His first coming appeared without glory, so also—the Spirit that was in Elijah being always pure, like the Christ's—the first coming might be understood to be without glory."
"For the Lord is said to war against Amalek with a hidden hand, and that Amalek fell you will not deny. But if it is said that Amalek shall be warred against only at the glorious coming of Christ, what fruit will there be of the word which says, 'With a hidden hand God wars against Amalek'? You can understand that the hidden power of God came to be in the crucified Christ, before whom even the demons tremble, and, in a word, all the principalities and powers of the earth."