and
successors of Irenaeus it was legible enough. 'Who does not know,'
exclaims his own pupil Hippolytus, 'the books of Irenaeus and Melito and
the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man?' [102:1]

This mission of peace to Rome must have been one of the latest acts of
the old man's life. The accession of Anicetus to the see of Rome is
variously dated; but the earliest year is about A.D. 150, and an eminent
recent critic, who has paid special attention to the subject, places it
between A.D. 154 and A.D. 156 [103:1]. In the year 155, or 156 at the
latest, Polycarp fell a martyr.

The details of his martyrdom are recorded in a contemporary document,
which takes the form of a letter from the Church of Smyrna, addressed
more immediately to the Church of Philomelium but challenging at the
same time a wider circulation [103:2]. The simplicity with which the
narrators record omens and occurrences easily explicable in themselves,
but invested by their surcharged feelings with a miraculous character,
is highly natural. The whole narrative is eminently touching and
instructive; but the details have little or no bearing on my immediate
purpose. It is sufficient to say that Polycarp had retired into the
country to escape persecution; that the populace, not satisfied with the
victims already sacrificed to their fury, demanded the life of Polycarp,
as the 'father of the Christians;' that his hiding-place was betrayed by
a boy in his service, under the influence of torture; that the
magistrates urged him to save his life by submitting to the usual tests,
by pronouncing the formula, 'Caesar is Lord,' or offering sacrifice, or
swearing by the fortune of the Emperor, or reviling Christ; that he
declared himself unable to blaspheme a Master whom he had served for
eighty-six years, and from whom he had received no wrong; and that
consequently he was burnt at the stake, Jews and Heathens vying with
each other in feeding the flames. The games were already past; otherwise
he would have been condemned to the wild beasts--the usual punishment
for such contumacy.

Polycarp was martyred during the proconsulship of Statius Quadratus. The
commonly received date of his death is A.D. 166 or 167, as given in the
Chronicon of Eusebius. Quite recently however, M. Waddington has
subjected the proconsular _fasti_ of Asia Minor to a fresh and rigorous
scrutiny [103:3]. This Statius Quadratus is mentioned by the orator
Aristides; and by an investig