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It is reported that Marcus Aurelius Caesar, brother of Antoninus,
being about to engage in battle with the Germans and Sarmatians, was
in great trouble on account of his army suffering from thirst. But the
soldiers of the so-called Melitene legion, through the faith which
has given strength from that time to the present, when they were drawn
up before the enemy, kneeled on the ground, as is our custom in
prayer, and engaged in supplications to God. This was indeed a
strange sight to the enemy, but it is reported that a stranger thing
immediately followed. The lightning drove the enemy to flight and
destruction, but a shower refreshed the army of those who had called on
God, all of whom had been on the point of perishing with thirst.
This story is related by non-Christian writers who have been pleased
to treat the times referred to, and it has also been recorded by our
own people. By those historians who were strangers to the faith, the
marvel is mentioned, but it is not acknowledged as an answer to our
prayers. But by our own people, as friends of the truth, the
occurrence is related in a simple and artless manner.
Among these is Apolinarius, who says that from that time the legion
through whose prayers the wonder took place received from the emperor a
title appropriate to the event, being called in the language of the
Romans the Thundering Legion. Tertullian is a trustworthy witness
of these things. In the Apology for the Faith, which he addressed
to the Roman Senate, and which work we have already mentioned, he
confirms the history with greater and stronger proofs. He writes that
there are still extant letters of the most intelligent Emperor Marcus
in which he testifies that his army, being on the point of perishing
with thirst in Germany, was saved by the prayers of the Christians.
And he says also that this emperor threatened death to those who
brought accusation against us.
He adds further:
"What kind of laws are those which impious, unjust, and cruel
persons use against us alone ? which Vespasian, though he had
conquered the Jews, did not regard; which Trajan partially
annulled, forbidding Christians to be sought after; which neither
Adrian, though inquisitive in all matters, nor he who was called
Plus sanctioned." But let any one treat these things as he chooses;
we must pass on to what followed. Pothinus having died with the other
martyrs in Gaul at ninety years of age, Irenaeus succeeded him in the
episcopate of the church at Lyons. We have learned that, in his
youth, he was a hearer of Polycarp. In the third book of his work
Against Heresies he has inserted a list of the bishops of Rome,
bringing it down as far as Eleutherus , under whom he composed his
work. He writes as follows:
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