bodily in him._[358]

Is this philosophy or is it myth? The greatest paradox the Apologist has
to assert is connected by him with the most impressive remembrance
possessed by his readers as philosophers. In the same sentence where he
represents Christ as the Socrates of the barbarians,[359] and
consequently makes Christianity out to be a Socratic doctrine, he
propounds the unheard of theory _that the teacher Christ is the
incarnate reason of God_.

Justin nowhere tried to soften the effect of this conviction or explain
it in a way adapted to his readers. Nor did he conceal from them that
his assertion admits of no speculative demonstration. That philosophy
can only deal with things which ever are, because they ever were, since
this world began, is a fact about which he himself is perfectly clear.
No Stoic could have felt more strongly than Justin how paradoxical is
the assertion that a thing is of value which has happened only once.
Certain as he is that the "reasonable" emperors will regard it as a
rational assumption that "Reason" is the Son of God,[360] he knows
equally well that no philosophy will bear him out in that other
assertion, and that such a statement is seemingly akin to the
contemptible myths of the evil demons.

But there is certainly a proof which, if not speculative, is
nevertheless sure. The same ancient documents, which contain the
Socratic and super-Socratic wisdom of the Christians, bear witness
through prophecies, which, just because they are predictions, admit of
no doubt, that the teacher Christ is the incarnate reason; for history
confirms the word of prophecy even in the minutest details. Moreover, in
so far as these writings are in the lawful possession of the Christians,
and announced at the very beginning of things that this community would
appear on the earth, they testify that the Christians may in a certain
fashion date themselves back to the beginning of the world, because
their doctrine is as old as the earth itself (this thought is still
wanting in Aristides).

The new Socrates who appeared among the barbarians is therefore quite
different from the Socrates of the Greeks, and for that reason also his
followers are not to be compared with the disciples of the
philosophers.[361] From the very beginning of things a world-historical
dispensation of God announced this reasonable doctrine through prophets,
and prepared the visible appearance of reason itself. The same reason
which cre