l the writers of his school who have been discussed in
the preceding papers--Polycarp, Papias, Melito, Apollinaris, Polycrates.
Of the references to the Canonical Scriptures in this letter I shall
speak presently. For the moment it is sufficient to say that the very
fact of their addressing the communication to these distant Churches
shows the closeness of the ties which connected the Christians in Gaul
with their Asiatic brethren. Moreover, in the body of the letter it is
incidentally stated of two of the sufferers, that they came from Asia
Minor--Attalus a Pergamene by birth, and Alexander a physician from
Phrygia who 'had lived many years in the provinces of Gaul;' while
nearly all of them bear Greek names. Among these martyrs the most
conspicuous was Pothinus, the aged bishop of Lyons, who was more than
ninety years old when he suffered. A later tradition makes him a native
of Asia Minor [253:1]; and this would be a highly probable supposition,
even if unsupported by any sort of evidence. Indeed it is far from
unlikely that the fact was stated in the letter itself, for Eusebius has
not preserved the whole of it. But whether an Asiatic Greek or not, he
must have been a growing boy when St John died; and through him the
Churches of Southern Gaul, when they first appear in the full light of
history, are linked directly with the Apostolic age.

Immediately after this persecution the intimate alliance between these
distant parts of Christendom was manifested in another way. The
Montanist controversy was raging in the Church of Phrygia, and the
brethren of Gaul communicated to them their views on the controverted
points [253:2]. To this communication they appended various letters of
the martyrs, 'which they penned, while yet in bonds, to the brethren in
Asia and Phrygia.' About the same time the martyrs sent Irenaeus, then a
presbyter, as their delegate with letters of recommendation to
Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, for the sake of conferring with him on this
same subject [253:3].

Some twenty years later, as the century was drawing to a close, another
controversy broke out, relating to the observance of Easter, in which
again the Asiatic Churches were mainly concerned; and here too we find
the Christians of Gaul interposing with their counsels. When Victor of
Rome issued his edict of excommunication against the Churches of Asia
Minor, Irenaeus wrote to remonstrate. The letter sent on this occasion
however did not merely r