M. Aurelius, _i.e._ A.D. 167." [34:2] Dr. Lightfoot then proceeds
to observe that "this inference is unwarrantable," inasmuch as
"the notice is not placed opposite to, but _after this year_."
He adds that it "is associated with the persecutions in Vienne and
Lyons, which we know to have happened A.D. 177." [34:3] So far the
statement of the bishop is unobjectionable, and, according to his
own showing, we might conclude that Polycarp suffered some time
after the seventh year of M. Aurelius. But this plain logical
deduction would be totally ruinous to the system of chronology
which he advocates; and he is obliged to resort to a most
outlandish assumption that he may get over the difficulty. He
contends that Eusebius did not know at what precise period these
martyrdoms occurred. "We can," says the bishop, "only infer with
safety that Eusebius _supposed_ Polycarp's martyrdom to have
happened _during the reign_ of M. Aurelius." "As a matter of fact,
the Gallican persecutions took place some ten years later [than
A.D. 167], and therefore, so far as this notice goes, the
martyrdom of Polycarp might have taken place _as many years
earlier_." [35:1]

These extracts may give the reader some idea of the manner in
which Dr. Lightfoot proceeds to build up his chronological
edifice. Eusebius places the martyrdom of Polycarp and the
martyrdoms of Vienne and Lyons after the seventh year of
M. Aurelius; and therefore, argues Dr. Lightfoot, he did not know
when they occurred! Because the martyrdoms of Vienne and Lyons
took place ten years after A.D. 167, therefore the martyrdom at
Smyrna may, for anything that the father of ecclesiastical history
could tell, have been consummated in A.D. 157! Dr. Lightfoot
himself supplies proof that such an inference is inadmissible; for