The evidence of Irenæus is still more conclusive. He was born in Syria about A.D. 120, and he was therefore twenty years old when Justin wrote. His teacher was Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and his immediate predecessor at Lyons was Pothinus. Polycarp, at his martyrdom, was asked to save his life by denying Christ. “No,” he said, “eighty and six years have I served him and he never did me any injury; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” _Pothinus_, at _his_ martyrdom, _cir._ 177, was more than ninety years old. The lives of these two men reached far back into the first century. They were at, or past, middle life when Justin wrote, and presbyters of important churches; and it is utterly incredible that they should not have known what “Memoirs” were read in their churches in Justin’s time. And it is _equally incredible_ that Irenæus, the disciple of the one and the immediate successor in office of the other, and _himself_ _twenty years old_ when Justin wrote, should not have been as well informed upon this subject. Yet Irenæus quotes[3] from our Gospels and Acts, as Scripture, ascribes their authorship to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and says that such was the accepted tradition in all the churches. After referring to the others, he says of the Fourth Gospel: “Afterwards John, the disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also published the Gospel while he was yet at Ephesus, in Asia” (Eu. v. 8). And again[4]: “All the Elders testify, who were conversant with John, the disciple of our Lord, in Asia, that he delivered these things.” About A.D. 180, in a treatise against heretics, he appeals to the canonical Gospels with as much confidence that they are all well known and accepted by Christians, as any would do at the present day. Tischendorf[5] says the number of passages where Irenæus has recourse to the Gospels is about four hundred, and about eighty of these in John. Sanday[5] estimates the quotations from John in this treatise at seventy-three. But Clement, and Origen, and Pantænus, and Polycarp, and Pothinus, and Tertullian, were not better informed upon this subject than Serapion, who so promptly suppressed the heretical Gospel of Peter, or than Theophilus, his immediate successor, who was the first after Papias (other than the author of the Muratorian Fragment) to mention any of the four Gospels by name, or than the author of this Fragment, or than many intelligent officers and members of the numerous churches from the Euphrates to the Seine.