For a long time before Justin was done with his exposition, Trypho was silent--the better part, perhaps, in all controversy. At last, writes Justin, "I finished. Trypho said nothing for a while, and then he said, 'You see, we came to the controversy unprepared. Still, I own, I am greatly pleased to have met you, and I think my friends have the same feeling. For we have found more than we expected,--or anyone could have expected. If we could do it at more length, we might be better profited by looking into the passages themselves. But, since you are on the point of sailing and expect to embark every day now,--be sure you think of us as friends, if you go.'"[71] So, with kindly feelings, Trypho went away unconvinced. And there were others, as clear of mind, who were as little convinced,--Marcion, for instance, and Celsus. "The more reasonable among Jews and Christians," says Celsus, "try to allegorize them [the Scriptures], but they are beyond being {194} allegorized and are nothing but sheer mythology of the silliest type. The supposed allegories that have been made are more disgraceful than the myths and more absurd, in their endeavour to string together what never can in any way be harmonized--it is folly positively wonderful for its utter want of perception."[72] The modern reader may not be so ready as Origen was to suggest that Celsus probably had Philo in mind.[73] [Sidenote: Results] It is clear that, in the endeavour to give Christianity a historical background and a prophetic warrant, the Apologists lost all perspective.[74] The compelling personality of Jesus receded behind the vague figure of the Christ of prophecy; and, in their pre-occupation with what they themselves called "types and shadows," men stepped out of the sunlight into the shade and hardly noticed the change. Yet there is still among the best of them the note of love of Jesus--"do not speak evil of the crucified," pleads Justin, "nor mock at his stripes, whereby all may be healed, as _we_ have been healed."[75] And after all it was an instinct for the truth and universal significance of Jesus that carried them away. He must be eternal; and they, like the men of their day, thought much of the beginning and the end of creation, and perhaps found it easier than we do,--certainly more natural,--to frame schemes under which the Eternal Mind might manifest itself. Eschatology, purpose, foreknowledge, pervade their religious thought, and they speak with a confidence which the centuries since the Renaissance have made more and more impossible for us, who find it hard enough to be sure of the fact without adventuring ourselves in the possibilities that lie around it. None the less the centre of interest was the same for them as for us--what _is_ the significance of Jesus of Nazareth? For them the facts of his life and of his mind had often less value than the fancy that they fulfilled prophecy; Celsus said outright that the Christians altered