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, which the Latin translation affords; imperfect and corrupt in
many parts, as that copy evidently is.
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