Eusebius pursues much the same line of argument in his Dem. Evang., Prœm. Bk. VIII.; and compare also Gregory of Nyssa’s Third Oration on the birth of the Lord (at the beginning). The objection which Eusebius undertakes to answer here was an old one, and had been considered by Justin Martyr, by Origen in his work against Celsus, and by others (see Tzschirner’s Geschichte der Apologetik, p. 25 ff.).