Two Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho

D E D I C A T I O.

...the agriculture of the ancients, and the culinary arts, and toreutiken art of embossing metal, and torneutiken art of turning on a lathe, quite beautifully. And if anything regarding the art of weaving or shoemaking has escaped him, or if he does not know the ancient clothing of all nations better than the current clothing of his own, he prays that you do not believe it happened by his own fault—he who has sought nothing more laboriously in his life—but by the injury of time, which has buried in oblivion the most noble part of these disciplines, as with all other good things. Let him take this as a response for the present, and let him hereafter be quiet and cease to bite at my studies in secret, and, having been warned, let him beware of evil.

I have many other things, which shall be pardoned for now:
Which will be brought forth later, if he persists in causing harm.

Meanwhile, let him congratulate himself that he happened to meet me while I was with you; otherwise, he would pay a penalty more worthy of his words and deeds, which the reverence for your presence now prevents me from exacting.

There is, however, another type of person who, although I am neither accustomed to debating with the unlearned nor do I believe it to be the act of a wise man, must nevertheless be refuted in a few words, since I fear how they might bear being neglected. If these men do not know theology, they know nothing, and they seem to apply themselves diligently to that study; yet, whether out of arrogance or because they truly believe what they say, they consider the ancient fathers unworthy of their reading. Doubtless, these "good theologians" contend that one must rely on scripture alone: that it contains whatever is in our interest to know, and whatever is necessary for the understanding of itself. They claim that those who feel otherwise offer horrible abuse to its author, God; and therefore, that no use can be made of the fathers, nor should any authority of antiquity, nor the most ancient interpreters of scripture, be preferred to the most recent.