Dodwell(6), indeed, has endeavoured to arrive at greater accuracy, and thinks that, by another casual expression of Irenæus, in his _letter to Florinus_, he is enabled to fix the date absolutely. Irenæus remarks that he had seen Florinus, when himself still a lad, in the company of Polycarp, in Lower Asia; when at the same time Florinus was _getting on very prosperously at the court of the emperor_: λαμπρῶς πράττοντα ἐν τῇ βασιλικῇ αὐλῇ. Taking it for granted that Irenæus intends to say that he was an actual witness of the prosperity of his friend, and consequently that the imperial court must have been at that very time sojourning in Lower Asia, and having ascertained that Adrian is the only emperor who appears to have remained any time there, he fixes upon the year 122 as the probable year in which Adrian might have been there, and thus imagines that he has established at least one date with certainty. Now the stress of the observation of Irenæus does not lie upon the success of Florinus at court, but upon his having associated with Polycarp, and having endeavoured to gain his good opinion; that, so far as appears, is the only thing which Irenæus _witnessed_. The imperial court may therefore have been at some other place, and Florinus may have been only on a visit at Smyrna, at the time when Irenæus saw him there. There is another objection to this hypothesis of Dodwell, and that is, that it is inconsistent with the date of the martyrdom of Polycarp, which took place A.D. 166‐7. We have seen above that Irenæus could not have known him for many years before his death, whereas Dodwell’s notion would require him to have been acquainted with him forty years before, when it is impossible Polycarp could have been _very old_, to say nothing of Irenæus’ implication as to its having been towards the close of his life. If we suppose, then, that he was acquainted with him for six or eight years, and that he was about eighteen at the time of his martyrdom, it will make the birth of Irenæus to have taken place about the year 150. This, at all events, is the latest date we can assign to it. Dupin(7) and Massuet(8) place it A.D. 140; Tillemont(9) twenty years earlier; and Dodwell is desirous of carrying it up ten or twenty years earlier still. Perhaps Massuet’s date may be nearest the truth. But exactness in these particulars is of the less moment, as we have, established by his own mouth, the main circumstance on account of which it is of importance to ascertain it: for the chief, if not the only, reason for desiring to fix the date of his birth is, that we may judge what kind of witness he is likely to have been of apostolical tradition. Now we have seen him expressly affirming that he had heard Polycarp recount the narratives and doctrines of St. John and other contemporaries of Christ; and he likewise informs us he paid diligent attention to him, and that he remembered him so minutely that he could(10) point out the place where he sat, and trace