merely as regards the setting forth of the truth but
also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the
aged also and becoming an example to them likewise.
Then, at last, he came on to death itself. . . . From
the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline
towards old age, which our Lord possessed while he still
fulfilled the office of a Teacher; even as the Gospel
and all the elders testify, those who were conversant in
Asia with John the disciple of the Lord affirming that
John conveyed to them that information. And he remained
among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them
moreover saw not only John but the other apostles also,
and heard the very same account from them, and bear
testimony as to the statement. Whom, then, should we
rather believe? Whether such men as these, or
Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles and who never
even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an
apostle?"[32]

The reader must decide for himself or herself whether Irenaeus believed
that Jesus was never executed; or that he was executed but survived; or
that he was born when we suppose, but executed thirty years or so later
than we suppose; or that, though executed when we suppose, he was then
an old man, and was born, not at the commencement or middle or end of
the year A.C. 1, or B.C. 4, or whenever the orthodox date is, but
thirty years or more before what we call our era began. Anyhow he
mentions neither cross nor execution, and here seems to assume that
Jesus died a natural death. And in any case the fact remains that,
however mistaken he may have been, Irenaeus stated that Jesus lived to
be an old man; and stated so emphatically.