He is usually supposed to have been born about the year 140 A.D.
[Endnote 326:1], and the way in which he describes his relations to Polycarp will not admit of a date many years later.

But his strong sense of the continuity of Church doctrine and the exceptional veneration that he accords to the Gospels seem alone to exclude the supposition that any of them should have been composed in his own lifetime.

He is fond of quoting the 'Presbyters,' who connected his own age with that, if not of the Apostles, yet of Apostolic men.

Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, whom he succeeded, was more than ninety years old at the time of his martyrdom in the persecution of A.D.177 [Endnote 326:2], and would thus in his boyhood be contemporary with the closing years of the last Evangelist.

Irenaeus also had before him a number of writings--some, e.g.the works of the Marcosians, in addition to those that have been discussed in the course of this work--in which our Gospels are largely quoted, and which, to say the least, were earlier than his own time of writing.
Clement of Alexandria began to flourish, ([Greek: egnorizeto]) [Endnote 327:1], in the reign of Commodus (180-190 A.D.), and had obtained a still wider celebrity as head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria in the time of Severus [Endnote 327:2] (193- 211).