Justin then goes on to argue that because Christianity is the oldest, rather than the latest, religion, ancient and venerated philosophers stole their best ideas from it. In particular, he argues, Plato plagiarized Moses in composing his philosophy. Moses, for instance, had created the tabernacle according to the heavenly pattern shown him on Mount Sinai; Plato had adapted this idea to suggest that all earthly things are copies of an ideal reality:
