2. And if we observe how powerful the word has become in a very few years, notwithstanding that against those who acknowledged Christianity conspiracies were formed, and some of them on its account put to death, and others of them lost their property, and that, notwithstanding the small number of its teachers,[779] it was preached everywhere throughout the world, so that Greeks and Barbarians, wise and foolish, gave themselves up to the worship that is through Jesus,[780] we have no difficulty in saying that the result is beyond any human power,[781] Jesus having taught with all authority and persuasiveness that His word should not be overcome; so that we may rightly regard as oracular responses[782] those utterances of His, such as, “Ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles;”[783] and, “Many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten in Thy name, and drunk in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out devils? And I shall say unto them, Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you.”[784] Now it was perhaps [once] probable that, in uttering these words, He spoke them in vain, so that they were not true; but when that which was delivered with so much authority _has_ come to pass, it shows that God, having really become man, delivered to men the doctrines of salvation.[785] FROM THE LATIN. 3. What, then, are we to say of this, which the prophets had beforehand foretold of Him, that princes would not cease from Judah, nor leaders from between his thighs, until He should come for whom it has been reserved (viz. the kingdom), and until the expectation of the Gentiles should come? For it is most distinctly evident from the history itself, from what is clearly seen at the present day, that from the times of Christ onwards there were no kings amongst the Jews. Nay, even all those objects of Jewish pride,[786] of which they vaunted so much, and in which they exulted, whether regarding the beauty of the temple or the ornaments of the altar, and all those sacerdotal fillets and robes of the high priests, were all destroyed together. For the prophecy was fulfilled which had declared, “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king and prince: there shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood, nor answers.”[787] These testimonies, accordingly, we employ against those who seem to assert that what is spoken in Genesis by Jacob refers to Judah; and who say that there still remains a prince of the race of Judah—he, viz., who is the prince of their nation, whom they style Patriarch[788]—and that there cannot fail [a ruler] of his seed, who will remain until the advent of that Christ whom they picture to themselves. But if the prophet’s words be true, when he says, “The children of Israel shall abide many days without king, without prince; and there shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood;”[789] and if,