Two Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho

DEDICATION.

wisdom of the human race, and—what is neither useless nor unpleasant to know—its folly, and the various births and deaths of philosophy and the sciences, and barbarism and humanity, cleverness and stupidity, religion and superstition, which, in alternating turns like light and darkness, occupy the globe of the earth, to bring these before our eyes and set them under one view. I suppose you are waiting to see where these long-repeated principles are aiming. Indeed,

original: "Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore," — "While we are carried about, captivated by the love of individual things,"

and while one trifle leads to another, as often happens, we have wandered more freely, yet not so much that we have completely lost sight of our purpose. For if these things are so, as they certainly are; if history is, for all, to everyone—doctrine for the learned, religion for the pious—the most pleasant and useful of all things; can it be possible that it does not seem worth the effort for a learned Christian man to read the writings of the first Christians, to learn their deeds, fortunes, customs, dogmas, sacred things, and rites, to know the origins and growth of his own religion, and to enjoy the conversation, habits, warnings, and examples of the holiest and bravest men, confessors, martyrs, and apostles? Does the Christian religion seem such a light and futile thing, or is its progress and propagation so common and similar to everyday affairs, that any man (I do not say a Christian now, but even one alienated from all religion, or most alienated from this one) should be ashamed to inquire what kind of men they were, with what doctrine, with what talent, with what