; they are accounted
the authors of the fables about the gods; the shameful actions of the
latter are partly the deeds of demons and partly lies.]

[Footnote 447: The Old Testament therefore is not primarily viewed as
the book of prophecy or of preparation for Christ, but as the book of
the full revelation which cannot be surpassed. In point of content the
teaching of the prophets and of Christ is completely identical. The
prophetical details in the Old Testament serve only to attest the _one_
truth. The Apologists confess that they were converted to Christianity
by reading the Old Testament. Cf. Justin's and Tatian's confessions.
Perhaps Commodian (Instruct. I. 1) is also be understood thus.]

[Footnote 448: The _Oratio_ of Tatian is very instructive in this
respect. In this book he has nowhere spoken _ex professo_ of the
incarnation of the Logos in Christ; but in c. 13 fin. he calls the Holy
Spirit "the servant of God who has suffered," and in c. 21 init. he
says: "we are not fools and do not adduce anything stupid, when we
proclaim that God has appeared in human form." Similar expressions are
found in Minucius Felix. In no part of Aristides' Apology is there any
mention of the pre-Christian appearance of the Logos. The writer merely
speaks of the revelation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ.]

[Footnote 449: We seldom receive an answer to the question as to why
this or that particular occurrence should have been prophesied.
According to the ideas of the Apologists, however, we have hardly a
right to put that question; for, since the value of the historical
consists in its having been predicted, its content is of no importance.
The fact that Jesus finds the she-ass bound to a vine (Justin, Apol. I.
32) is virtually quite as important as his being born of a virgin. Both
occurrences attest the prophetic teachings of God, freedom, etc.]

[Footnote 450: In Justin's polemical works this must have appeared in a
still more striking way. Thus we find in a fragment of the treatise
[Greek: pros Markiona], quoted by Irenaeus (IV. 6. 2), the sentence
"unigenitus filius venit ad nos, suum plasma in semetipsum
recapitulans." So the theologoumenon of the _recapitulatio per Christum_
already appeared in Justin. (Vide also Dial. c. Tryph. 100.) If we
compare Tertullian's _Apologeticum_ with his Antignostic writings we
easily see how impossible it is to determine from that work the extent
of his Christian faith and knowledge. The sa