This essay seeks to rethink the inscription of difference in early Christianity by
focusing on the role of the circumcision of Jesus—a paradigmatically Jewish
mark on the Christian savior’s body—in early Christian “dialogue”-texts
(both external dialogues, such as Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, as well as
erotapokriseis-texts, here framed as internal dialogues). When we examine
how difference is both inscribed and deferred in these texts, as it is on Christ’s
body, we can realize how difference is never really “other” but always
retained within the chorus of Christian cultural identity, a productive heteroglossia
that recalls the dominant strategies of Roman imperial power.