Section 168
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 137 nal, let them pursue this course only, but not by mere petitions, and mere outcries against the Christians. For it is far more pro per, if any one would bring an accusation, that you should exa mine it. If any one, therefore, brings an accusation, and can show that they have done any thing contrary to the laws, deter mine it thus according to the heinousness of the crime. So that indeed, if any one should purpose this with a view to slander, in vestigate it according to its criminality, and see to it that you inflict the punishment" Such, then, is the copy of Adrian's letter. CHAPTER X. The bishops of Rome and Alexandria, in the reign of Antonine. BUT this emperor (Adrian,) having finished his mortal career, after the twenty-first year of his reign, is succeeded by Antonine, called the Pious, in the government of the Romans. In the first year of this reign, and in the eleventh year of his episcopate, Telesphorus departed this life, and was succeeded in the charge of the Roman church by Hyginus. Irenaeus, indeed, relates that Telesphorus was rendered illustrious by martyrdom ; showing, at the same time, that under the abovementioned Roman bishop Hyginus, Valentinus the founder of a peculiar heresy, and Cerdon the leader in the errors propagated by Marcion, were both notorious at Rome. His statement is as follows. CHAPTER XL The heresiarchs of these times. " VALENTINE came to Rome under Hyginus, was in his prime under Pius, and lived until the time of Anicetus. But Cerdon, who preceded Marcion, and flourished under the episcopate of Hy ginus the ninth in succession, coming to the church, and acS