much as the experiences of childhood, keeping pace with the growth of the soul, become incorporated with it); so that I can even describe the place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse—his going out, too, and his coming in—his general mode of life and personal appearance, together with the discourses which he delivered to the people; also how he would speak of his familiar intercourse with John, and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord; and how he would call their words to remembrance. Whatsoever things he had heard from them respecting the Lord, both with regard to His miracles and His teaching, Polycarp having thus received [information] from the eye-witnesses of the Word of life, would recount them all in harmony with the Scriptures. These things, through God's mercy which was upon me, I then listened to attentively, and treasured them up not on paper, but in my heart; and I am continually, by God's grace, revolving these things accurately in my mind. And I can bear witness before God, that if that blessed and apostolical presbyter had heard any such thing, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, exclaiming as he was wont to do: "O good God, for what times hast Thou reserved me, that I should endure these things?" And he would have fled from the very spot where, sitting or standing, he had heard such words. This fact, too, can be made clear, from his epistles which he despatched, whether to the neighbouring churches to confirm them, or to certain of the brethren, admonishing and exhorting them.
III.
For[1] the controversy is not merely as regards the day, but
- ↑ See preface to vol. i. p. xviii. We are indebted again to Eusebius for this valuable fragment from the Epistle of Irenæus to Victor Bishop of Rome (Hist. Eccl. v. 24; copied also by Nicephorus, iv. 39). It appears to have been a synodical epistle to the head of the Roman church, the historian saying that it was written by Ireuasus, "in the name of (ἐκ προσώπου) those brethren over whom he ruled throughout Gaul." Neither are these expressions to be limited to the church at Lyons, for the same authority records (v. 23) that it was the testimony "of the dioceses throughout Gaul, which Irenæus superintended" (Harvey).
