Tfhio - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

APOLOGETICVS 20, 21 67
both by prodigies and by portents, (all) are written (down) with
foresight. While we experience them, they are being read;
while we examine them, they are being proved true. The truth
of prophecy is, I think, a rehable evidence of divinity. Therefore
it is thus that amongst us the behef also in future events
is safe, being already of course proved true, because they were
prophesied along with those things that are daily verified; the
same words soimd, the same letters mark them, the same spirit
impels them, time is an unity to prophecy when foretelhng the
future. Among men perhaps it is marked off into periods,
while it is being completed, while the present is calculated from
the future, then the past from the present. What is our sin,
I pray you, in behe-ving the future also, as we have already
learned through two stages te beheve it ?
CHAP. XXI. But since we have stated that this sect is
supported by most ancient Jewish documents, though very
many know on our own declaration also that it is comparatively
new, belonging as it does to the time of Tiberius, perchance
on this ground a further inquiry may be made into its nature,
-viz. that it conceals some of its own arrogance under the shadow
of a most famous rehgion, or one that is at any rate permitted
by law, or because in addition to the question of its age we have
no relation with the Jews either -with regard to distinctions of
meats, or the sanctity of special days or the distinctive bodily
mark itself or the sharing of the name with them, which would
of course be our duty if we were the property of the same god.
Even the common people now know Christ as a human being,
such as the Jews judged him (to be), so that it is easier for any
one to beheve that we are worshippers of a man. But we are
neither ashamed of Christ, seeing that we rejoice te be reckoned
as his servants and condemned with him, nor is our idea of God
different from that of the Jews. We must therefore say something
about Christ as God. The Jews had long enjoyed favour
with God, for among them the justice and loyalty of their
ancestors at the beginning were remarkable; whence the
greatness of their race and the glory of their kingdom flourished
and so great happiness, that from the words of God, by which
they were taught, they were warned beforehand as te the
gaining of his favour and the avoidance of his displeasure.
But how greatly they transgressed, being puffed up by confidence
in their fathers te leave the true path, and profanely
turning aside from their training! Even if they themselves did
not admit the fact, their ruinous situation to-day would prove
it. Scattered in all directions, straggling, exiles from their own
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