Melito of Sardis is not appealed to by any writer in connection with our work, nor can Claudius Apollinaris be pressed into this service. Athenagoras is supposed by some to refer to the very same passage in Acts xvii. 24, 25, which we have discussed when dealing with the work of Tatian. Athenagoras says: "The Creator and Father of the universe is not in need of blood, nor of the steam of burnt sacrifices, nor of the fragrance of flowers and of incense, he himself being the perfect fragrance, inwardly and outwardly without need."(3) And further on: "And you kings indeed build palaces for yourselves; but the world is not made as being needed by God."(4) These passages occur in the course of a defence of Christians for not offering sacrifices, and both in language and context they are quite independent of the Acts of the Apostles. In the Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, giving an account of the persecution against them, it is said that the victims were praying for those from whom they suffered cruelties: "like Stephen the perfect martyr: {25} 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' But if he was supplicating for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren?"(l) The prayer here quoted agrees with that ascribed to Stephen in Acts vii. 60. There is no mention of the Acts of the Apostles in the Epistle, and the source from which the writers obtained their information about Stephen is of course not stated. If there really was a martyr of the name of Stephen, and if these words were actually spoken by him, the tradition of the fact, and the memory of his noble saying, may well have remained in the Church, or have been recorded in writings then current, from one of which, indeed, eminent critics conjecture that the author of Acts derived his materials,2 and in this case the passage obviously does not prove the use of the Acts. If, on the other hand, there never was such a martyr by whom these words were spoken, and the whole story must be considered an original invention by the author of Acts, then, in that case, and in that case only, the passage does show the use of the Acts.(3) Supposing that the use of Acts be held to be thus indicated, what does this prove? Merely that the Acts of the Apostles were in existence in the year 177-178, when the Epistle of {26} Vienne and Lyons was written. No light whatever would thus be thrown upon the question of its authorship; and neither its credibility nor its sufficiency to prove the reality of a cycle of miracles would be in the slightest degree established. Ptolemaeus and Heracleon ueed not detain us, as it is not alleged that they show acquaintance with the Acts, nor is Celsus claimed as testimony for the book.