In the recent critical edition of Eusebius' Prœparatio Evangelica lines 180–186 of Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exagōgē, as Eusebius (Pr. Ev. IX 20, 13 [443d] Mras I, 53325–5346) quotes them from Alexander Polyhistor, run;

The understanding of Mic.7 was helped considerably in the year 1924, when Hermann Gunkel published a study of 7:7–20. In opposition to the predominant “literary critical” method of separating Biblical material into different sources, Gunkel wanted to use this passage to demonstrate the “literary historical” approach which he wished to carry through in the sphere of Old Testament research. His purpose was not to distinguish between primary written sources of a Biblical book, but to observe the representative forms (Gattungen) which occur in the text, to determine the practical basis for the origin of the textual elements and the milieu in which they were transmitted (the Sitz im Leben), and to deal with the text as a whole organically and not mechanically. His approach was in fact what has later come to be known as “form criticism.” Gunkel brilliantly demonstrated that the whole passage, Mic.7:7–20, can be understood as a homogeneous composition. He thought of a poem in four parts which had been artistically composed and constructed like a liturgy to be used at one of Jerusalem's mourning festivals.

It is some years since Professor R. M. Grant published in this review an article on the above topic [46(1953), 99ff.]. In it he advanced an attractively neat and confident case for solving the long-debated question of the dating of Tatian's Oration. It was written, he concludes, “after the year 176, perhaps in 177 or 178,” and this conclusion he draws from straightforward internal evidence: Or. 23.2 alludes to events of 172/3, 19.1 to those of 176, and 6.2 probably to those of 177. The purpose of this note is plainly negative; it is merely to introduce a note of hesitant scepticism into Professor Grant's confident claim.