nly add one more ancient authority, in confirmation of the view
here taken of Justin's words. The passage is from Athenagoras[41] and
seems to be the exact counterpart of Justin's paragraph.

[Footnote 41: Athenagoras presented his defence, in which these
words occur, to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and his son
Commodus, in the year 177.]

"Who would not wonder on hearing us called Atheists? we who call the
Father God, and the Son God, and the Holy Ghost, showing both their
power in the unity, and their distinction in order. Nor does our
theology rest here; but we say, moreover, that there is a multitude of
angels and ministers whom God, the Maker and Creator of the world, BY
THE WORD PROCEEDING FROM HIM, distributed and appointed, both about the
elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the things therein, and
the good order thereof." [Sect. 10. p. 287. edit. Just. Mart.]

I have already stated my inability to discover a single word in Justin
Martyr which could be brought to sanction the invocation of saints; but
his testimony is far from being merely negative. He admonishes us
strongly against our looking to any other being for help or assistance,
than to God only. Even when speaking of those who confide in their own
strength, and fortune, and other sources of good, he says, in perfect
unison with the pervading principles and associations of his whole mind,
as far as we can read them in his works, without any modification or any
exception in favour of saint or angel: "In that Christ {115} said, 'Thou
art my God, go not far from me,' He at the same time taught, that all
persons ought to hope in God, who made all things, and seek for safety
and health from Him alone" [Trypho, Sec. 102, p. 197.]

* * * * *

SECTION II.--IRENAEUS.

Justin sealed his faith by his blood about the year 165; and next to
him, in the noble army of martyrs, we must examine the evidence of
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons. Of this writer's works a very small proportion
survives in the original Greek; but that little is such as might well
make every scholar and divine lament the calamity which theology and
literature have sustained by the loss of the author's own language. It
is not perhaps beyond the range of hope that future researches may yet
recover at least some part of the treasure. Meanwhile we must avail
ourselves with thankfulness of the nervous though inelegant copy of that
original, wh