Now in the times spoken of, while Anicetus was leading the church of the Romans, Irenaeus relates that Polycarp, who was still living, came to Rome and held conference with Anicetus concerning a certain question about the day of the Passover.
And the same writer hands down another account concerning Polycarp, which it is necessary to append to what has been set forth about him; it runs thus: [From the third book of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies.]
「And Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen the Christ, but was also appointed by apostles for Asia as bishop in the church at Smyrna; whom we too saw in our early youth.」
「For he continued a long while, and, departing this life in extreme old age, gloriously and most illustriously by martyrdom, he ever taught these things which he had also learned from the apostles, which also the Church hands down, and which alone are true.」
「To these things all the churches throughout Asia bear witness, as do those who down to the present have succeeded Polycarp, a man far more trustworthy and steadfast a witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of evil mind. He also, having sojourned at Rome in the time of Anicetus, turned back many from the aforesaid heretics to the church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles this one and only truth, the very truth handed down by the Church.」
「And there are those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, having gone to bathe at Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus within, sprang out of the bath-house without bathing, but exclaiming, ‘Let us flee, lest the bath-house too fall in, since Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is inside.’」
「And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him face to face and said, ‘Do you recognize us?’ answered, ‘I do recognize you—the firstborn of Satan.’」 So great was the caution which the apostles and their disciples exercised, that they would not so much as hold converse with any of those who falsified the truth; as Paul also said, 「A heretical man, after a first and second admonition, reject, knowing that such a one is perverted and sins, being self-condemned.」
There is also a letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, written most ably, from which those who wish, and who care for their own salvation, can learn both the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth.
Thus far Irenaeus. As for Polycarp, in the aforesaid letter of his to the Philippians, which is in circulation to this day, he has made use of certain testimonies from the former epistle of Peter.
Now Antoninus called Pius, having completed the twenty-second year of his rule, was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius Verus, who is also called Antoninus, his son, together with Lucius his brother.