I shall adduce passages from their writings, with their respective countries and dates; and the dates shall extend from their births or conversions to their deaths, since what they propound is at once the doctrine which they had received from the generation before them, and the doctrine which was accepted and recognized as true by the generation to whom they transmitted it. First, then, St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165), St. Irenaeus (120-200), and Tertullian (160-240). Of these Tertullian represents Africa and Rome, St. Justin represents Palestine, and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and Gaul--or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the martyr St. Polycarp, who was the intimate associate, as of St. John, 60 of the other apostles. 1. St. Justin: [Footnote 12] [Footnote 12: I have attempted to translate literally without caring to write English. ] "We know that he, before all creatures proceeded from the Father by his power and will, . . . and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the highest overshadow her, and therefore the holy one that was born of her was Son of God, answered. Be it to me according to thy word."--_Tryph_. 100. 2. Tertullian: "God recovered his image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life; that, what by that sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel; the fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing has blotted out."--_De Carn. Christ_, 17. 3. St Irenaeus: