THE NARRATIVE OF THE MARTYRS OF VIENNE AND LYONS.――Lardner, ii. 160‒165. In the reign of Marcus Antoninus, Christians suffered much from persecution. This persecution was particularly violent at Lyons, and the country round about. The churches of Lyons and Vienne sent an account of their sufferings, in an epistle, to the churches of Asia and Phrygia. This, according to Lardner, was about A.D. 177. The epistle has been preserved by Eusebius. In this epistle, among other undoubted allusions to the New Testament, the following occurs. Speaking of Vettius Epigathus, they say――“For he was indeed a genuine disciple of Christ, _following the Lamb whithersoever he goes_.” Comp. Rev. xiv. 2: “These are they which _follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth_.” There can be no doubt that this passage in Revelation was referred to; and it proves that the book was then known, and that the writers were accustomed to regard it as on a level with the other sacred writings. IRENÆUS.――The testimony of this father has already been referred to when speaking of Polycarp. He was bishop of Lyons, in Gaul. His country is not certainly known, but Lardner supposes that he was a Greek, and, from his early acquaintance with Polycarp, that he was from Asia. When a youth, he was a hearer of Polycarp, and also a disciple of Papias. He was born about the beginning of the second century, and it is commonly supposed that he suffered martyrdom in extreme old age. He became bishop of Lyons after {xxxiii} he was seventy years of age, and wrote his principal work, _Contra Hæreses_, after this. His testimony is particularly valuable, as he was in early life acquainted with Polycarp, who was a contemporary and friend of the apostle John (Lardner, ii. 165‒192). Of his reference to the book of Revelation, Lardner says: “The Apocalypse, or Revelation, is often quoted by him as the Revelation of John, the disciple of the Lord.” In one place he says: “It was seen no long time ago, but almost in our age, at the end of the reign of Domitian.” And again, he spoke of the exact and ancient copies of the book, as if it was important to ascertain the true reading, and as if it were then possible to do this. Thus Eusebius (Lardner, ii. 167) says of him: “In his fifth book he thus discourses of the Revelation of John, and the computation of the name of Antichrist: ‘These things being thus, _and this number being in all the exact and ancient copies, and they who saw John attesting to the same things_, and reason teaching us that the number of the name of the beast, according to the acceptation of the Greeks, is expressed by the letters contained in it.’” Here is an undoubted reference to Revelation xiii. 18. This evidence is clear and positive. Its value consists in these things: (a) That he was familiar with one who was the friend of John; (b) that he must have known his views on the subject; (c) that he must have been intimately acquainted with the common opinion on the subject of the