129).
Considering the date at which he wrote I have little doubt that Athenagoras is actually quoting from the Synoptics, but he cannot, on the whole, be regarded as a very powerful witness for them.
4.
After the cruel persecution from which the Churches of Vienne and Lyons had suffered in the year 177 A.D., a letter was written in their name, containing an account of what had happened, which Lardner describes as 'the finest thing of the kind in all antiquity' [Endnote 251:1].

This letter, which was addressed to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, contained several quotations from the New Testament, and among them one that is evidently from St.Luke's Gospel.
It is said of one of the martyrs, Vettius Epagathus, that his manner of life was so strict that, young as he was, he could claim a share in the testimony borne to the more aged Zacharias.

Indeed he had _walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless_, and in the service of his neighbour untiring, &c.

[Endnote 252:1] The italicised words are a verbatim reproduction of Luke i.

6.
There is an ambiguity in the words [Greek: sunexisousthai tae tou presbuterou Zachariou marturia].