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Such were the words of Athenagoras. One of the generals now stood up and stopped any other speakers coming forward, adding these words of his own with reference to the matter in hand: "It is not well for speakers to utter calumnies against one another, or for their hearers to entertain them; we ought rather to look to the intelligence that we have received, and see how each man by himself and the city as a whole may best prepare to repel the invaders.
Subsequently, as the messengers still continued to urge him, and the covering of clouds was now removed from the tops of the mountains, and the Macedonian party was in view, having been driven up to the highest summit, and trusting for safety rather to the nature of the ground than to their arms, he thought it necessary, at all events, to hazard the whole, in order to prevent the loss of a part, for want of support; and, accordingly, he sent up Athenagoras, general of the mercenary soldiers, with all the auxiliaries, except the Thracians, joined by the Macedonian and Thessalian cavalry.
Athenagoras and Tatian are only known through Apologies written for the Heathen, the last of all Christian books in which to look for definite references to canonical writings. The Epistle to Diognetus is a small tract of uncertain date and authorship. The Clementine Homilies is an apocryphal work of very little value in the present discussion.
Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a guide to morals.
He exercised both the Macedonian and mercenary troops in arms, and in the beginning of spring sent Athenagoras, with all the foreign auxiliaries and what light-armed troops there were, through Epirus into Chaonia, to seize the pass at Antigonia, which the Greeks called Stena.
The Apology, which may be dated about 177 A.D., contains a few references to our Lord's discourses, but not such as can have any great weight as evidence. Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ. 33. Mark x. 6 All that can be said is that the thought here appears to have been suggested by the Gospel and that not quite immediately.
This church was full, every one knew, of demons, who were certainly none other than the gods of the heathen, as Tertullian, Lactantius, Athenagoras, Justin Martyr, and all those other holy doctors had written. It was deserted, its keys in the hands of Cardinal Capranica's confidential architect and decorator; and there were masses being said every holiday to scare the evil spirits.
Now we find that Irenaeus had written his great work, "Against Heresies," before this date. Surely, then, the notion of the writer of "Supernatural Religion," that we are to suppose that this was taken from some lost Apocryphal Gospel when Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, had actually used a written Gospel which contains it, refutes itself. We turn to Athenagoras.
That persecutions took place in his reign is an undeniable fact, and is sufficiently evidenced by the Apologies of Justin Martyr, of Melito Bishop of Sardis, of Athenagoras, and of Apollinarius, as well as by the Letter of the Church of Smyrna describing the martyrdom of Polycarp, and that of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne to their brethren in Asia Minor.
Among the rest whose countries I do not know, are Andiotion, Aeschrion, Aristomenes, Athenagoras, Crates, Dadis, Dionysius, Euphiton, Euphorion, Eubulus, Lysimachus, Mnaseas, Menestratus, Plentiphanes, Persis, and Theophilus. All those whom I have named wrote in prose, but there are those also who have written in verse, as Hesiod of Ascra and Menecrates of Ephesus.
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