This history introduces us to theChurch in her Western outposts. We reach the banks of the Rhone, where for nearly a century Christian missions have flourished. Between Marseilles and Smyrna there seems to have been a brisk trade, and Polycarp had sent Pothinus into Celtic Gaul at an early date as its evangelist.He had fixed his see at Lyons, when IrenƦus joined him as a presbyter, having been his fellow-pupil under Polycarp. There, under the āgood Aurelius,ā as he is miscalled (a.d.177), arose the terrible persecution which made āthe martyrs of Lyons and Vienneā so memorable.It was during this persecution that IrenƦus was sent toRome with letters of remonstrance against the rising pestilence of heresy; and he was probably the author ofthe account of the sufferings of the martyrs which is appended to their testimony. But he had the mortification of finding the Montanist heresy patronized by Eleutherusthe Bishop of Rome; and there he met an old friend fromthe school of Polycarp, who had embraced the Valentinian heresy. We cannot doubt that to this visit we owe the lifelong struggle of IrenƦus against the heresies that now came in, like locusts, to devour the harvests of the Gospel.