The prisoners' messenger comes home and is made bishop

LYONS, Gaul, 177 AD — In 177 AD, Christians were in prison for their faith at Lyons, a city in Gaul. They wrote a letter to Pope St. Eleutherus. They chose one of the city’s priests, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, to carry it to Rome.

They were in prison because the people of Lyons who were not Christians had turned on them. At first, Christians were turned away from other people’s houses, the public baths and the markets. Then they were arrested, questioned in front of a crowd and locked up until the governor reached the city.

The prisoners had also written letters about a quarrel in Asia Minor. A man there and two women with him said that God had taken them over. They spoke as if God were the one talking. Many people believed the man. But other Christians there looked closely at what the three were saying and condemned it.

The prisoners wanted the quarrel to end. They also wanted the Pope to know what the Christians of Gaul thought of the man’s words. The Christians of Gaul had written down what they had decided. The prisoners asked St. Irenaeus to carry that to the Pope along with their letters.

Many of the Christians of Lyons had come from Asia Minor. St. Irenaeus was one of them. As a boy in Smyrna, he had heard the city’s bishop, St. Polycarp, preach.

A priest who travelled to another church carried a letter. It said that he lived a good life and that what he taught was right. The prisoners put their good word for St. Irenaeus into their letter to the Pope. “We have requested our brother and comrade Irenæus to carry this letter to you, and we ask you to hold him in esteem, as zealous for the covenant of Christ,” the prisoners wrote.

St. Irenaeus left for Rome.

The bishop was more than ninety

At Lyons, the bishop, St. Pothinus, was more than ninety years old. He was so weak he could hardly breathe when soldiers brought him in front of the governor. The governor asked him who the God of the Christians was. “If you are worthy, you shall know,” St. Pothinus said. He was dragged away, and the crowd hit him, kicked him and threw whatever they could pick up. He was thrown into the prison and died two days later.

The governor wrote to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius about his prisoners. The emperor answered that they were to be put to death. Anyone who denied Christ was to be set free. When a public festival opened at Lyons, the governor had the prisoners killed.

At least forty-eight Christians were killed at Lyons, St. Pothinus among them.

Pope Benedict XVI, teaching about St. Irenaeus in 2007 AD, said: “His mission to Rome saved Irenaeus from the persecution of Marcus Aurelius”.

St. Irenaeus came back from Rome and was made Bishop of Lyons in St. Pothinus’s place.