The fact that this was an accepted method of interpretation enabled the Apologists to use it with great effect. It became one of the chief evidences of Christianity. Explanations of the meaning of historical events and poetical figures which sound strange or impossible to modern ears, so far from sounding strange or impossible in the second century, carried conviction with them. When it was said, “The government shall be upon his shoulder,” it was meant that Christ should be extended on the cross;[121] when it was said, “He shall dip his garment in the blood of the grape,” it was meant that his blood should be, not of human origin, but, like the red juice of the grape, from God;[122] when it was said that “He shall receive the power of Damascus,” it was meant that the power of the evil demon who dwelt at Damascus should be overcome, and the prophecy was fulfilled when the Magi came to worship Christ.[123] The convergence of a large number of such interpretations upon the Gospel history was a powerful argument against both Jews and Greeks. I need not enlarge upon them. They have formed part of the general stock of Christian teaching ever since. But I will draw your attention to the fact that the basis of this use of the Old Testament was not so much the idea of prediction as the prevalent practice of treating ancient literature as symbolical or allegorical. * * * * * The method came to be applied to the books which were being formed into a new volume of sacred writings, side by side with the old. It was so applied, in the first instance, not by the Apologists, but by the Gnostics. It was detached from the idea of prediction. It was linked with the idea of knowledge as a secret. This extension of the method was inevitable. The earthly life of Christ presented as many difficulties to the first Christian philosophers as the Old Testament had done. The conception of Christ as the Wisdom and the Power of God seemed inconsistent with the meanness of a common human life; and that life resolved itself into a series of symbolic representations of superhuman movements, and the record of it was written in hieroglyphs. When Symeon took the young child in his arms and said the _Nunc dimittis_, he was a picture of the Demiurge who had learned his own change of place on the coming of the Saviour, and who gave thanks to the Infinite Depth.[124] The raising of Jairus’ daughter was a type of Achamoth, the Eternal Wisdom, the mother of the Demiurge, whom the Saviour led anew to the perception of the light which had forsaken her. Even the passion on the Cross was a setting forth of the anguish and fear and perplexity of the Eternal Wisdom.[125]