{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/201/2010119.htm","path":"chr/ecf/201/2010119.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/201/2010119.htm","text":"Chapter X.\u2014The Bishops of Rome and of Alexandria during the Reign of Antoninus.\nAdrian having died after a reign of twenty-one years, 1059 was succeeded in the government of the Romans by Antoninus, called the Pious. In the first year of his reign Telesphorus 1060 died in the eleventh year of his episcopate, and Hyginus became bishop of Rome. 1061 Iren\u00e6us records that Telesphorus\u2019 death was made glorious by martyrdom, 1062 and in the same connection he states that in the time of the above-mentioned Roman bishop Hyginus, Valentinus, the founder of a sect of his own, and Cerdon, the author of Marcion\u2019s error, were both well known at Rome. 1063 He writes as follows: 1064\nHadrian reigned from Aug. 8, 117, to July 10, 138 a.d.\n182:1060\nOn Telesphorus, see above, chap. 5, note 13. The date given here by Eusebius (138\u2013139 a.d.) is probably (as remarked there) at least a year too late.\n182:1061\nWe know very little about Hyginus. His dates can be fixed with tolerable certainty as 137\u2013141, the duration of his episcopate being four years, as Eusebius states in the next chapter. See Lipsius\u2019 Chron. d. r\u00f6m. Bisch\u00f6fe, p. 169 and 263. The Roman martyrologies make him a martyr, but this means nothing, as the early bishops of Rome almost without exception are called martyrs by these documents. The forged decretals ascribe to him the introduction of a number of ecclesiastical rites.\n182:1062\nIn his Adv. H\u00e6r. III. 3. 3. The testimony of Iren\u00e6us rests upon Roman tradition at this point, and is undoubtedly reliable. Telesphorus is the first Roman bishop whom we know to have suffered martyrdom, although the Roman Catholic Church celebrates as martyrs all the so-called popes down to the fourth century.\n182:1063\nOn Valentinus, Cerdon, and Marcion, see the next chapter.\n182:1064","title":"Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I: The Churc...","type":"page"}