ever day of the week it
fell; whereas Rome, Egypt, and all the West, observed it on the Sunday
following. It was agreed that both might follow their custom without
breaking the bands of charity. St. Anicetus, to testify his respect,
yielded to him the honor of celebrating the Eucharist in his own
church.[6] We find no further particulars concerning our saint recorded
before the acts of his martyrdom.

In the sixth year of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Statius Quadrates
being proconsul of Asia, a violent persecution broke out in that
country, in which the faithful gave heroic proofs of their courage and
love of God, to the astonishment of the infidels. When they were torn to
pieces with scourges till their very bowels were laid bare, amidst the
moans and tears of the spectators, who were moved with pity at the sight
of their torments, not one of them gave so much as a single groan: so
little regard had they for their own flesh in the cause of God. No kinds
of torture, no inventions of cruelty were forborne to force them to a
conformity to the pagan worship of the times. Germanicus, who had been
brought to Smyrna with eleven or twelve other Christians, signalized
himself above the rest, and animated the most timorous to suffer. The
proconsul in the amphitheatre called upon him with tenderness,
entreating him to have some regard for his youth, and to value at least
his life: but he, with a holy impatience, provoked the beasts to devour
him, to leave this wicked world. One Quintus, a Phrygian, who had
presented himself to the judge, yielded at the sight of the beast let
out upon him, and sacrificed. The authors of these acts justly condemn
the presumption of those who offered themselves to suffer,[7] and says
that the martyrdom of St. Polycarp was conformable to the gospel,
because he exposed not himself to the temptation, but waited till the
persecutors laid hands on him, as Christ our Lord taught us by his own
example. The same venerable authors observe, that the martyrs by their
patience and constancy demonstrated to all men, that, while their bodies
were tormented, they were in spirit estranged from the flesh, and
already in heaven; or rather that our Lord was present with them and
assisted them; for the fire of the barbarous executioners seemed as if
it had been a cooling refreshment to them.[8] The spectators, seeing the
courage of Germanicus and his companions, and being fond of their
impious bloody diversions, c