Hill—The Man Who Needed No Introduction 103In any case, the short answer, I think, to the question of why Irenaeus did not name
the presbyter’s name is that he didn’t have to. I will add that, in my opinion, he also
gives the impression that he thought it might transgress his notion of modesty to do
so.^34 His readers knew very well what apostolic presbyter Irenaeus had known. If I am
right that the Letter to Florinus had been sent to Rome (not only to Florinus, but cer-
tainly to others as well, at least the Roman church) before Book IV was finished, then
many of Irenaeus’s readers would have been quite familiar with Irenaeus’s connection
with the apostolic presbyter Polycarp from the words of that letter.
But we do not need to rely upon the readers’ acquaintance with that letter, however
probable it might be. Readers of Against Heresies itself would have known of this con-
nection because they would have read about it in Book III. And if they had for some
reason forgotten about it, Irenaeus gently but definitely reminds them. It is important
to observe (something I failed to observe in Lost Teaching) that the excerpts from the
presbyter in Hae r. IV.27.1—32.1 occur in a larger framework of 26.2—32.1. And at
both the beginning and at the end of this framework, Irenaeus refers the reader back
to Book III, to the very place where he had mentioned his own acquaintance with a
particular presbyter who had learned from apostles.
In IV.26.2, Irenaeus charges, “it is incumbent to obey the presbyters of the church—
those who, as I have shown [sicut ostendimus], possess the succession from the apos-
tles.” Who were those presbyters who possessed the succession from the apostles, and
where had Irenaeus shown that they possessed it? “As I have shown” is a reference
back to the “succession lists” in III.2–4, Irenaeus’s classic treatment of, and also his last
mention of, the succession of the presbyters. There he had “shown” that the “tradition
that originates from the apostles” is “preserved by the succession of presbyters in the
churches” (III.2.2). There he delivered the presbyteral succession of only two churches,
the church in Rome and the church in Smyrna (Ephesus receives a brief reference as
well). And, of course, it is there where he introduced Polycarp, who “was not only
instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also,
by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I saw in the
prime of my life.... [Polycarp] having always taught the things he had learned from
the apostles, which the church has handed down” (III.3.4). In other words, in IV.26.2,
as he prepares for an extended section in which he will expound the teaching he per-
sonally received from an apostolic presbyter, Irenaeus refers his readers back to the
very section in Book III where he had mentioned his personal connection to Polycarp,
an apostolic presbyter. When he then begins IV.27.1 with the words “as I heard from
a certain presbyter, who heard it from the apostles whom he had seen,” it is hard to
imagine that Irenaeus did not fully expect his readers to catch his unpretentious but
fairly obvious reference to Polycarp.
Finally, after recounting all his tradition from the presbyter in the section IV.27.1—
32.1, he concludes IV.32.1 with one more reminder of the importance of reading “the
scriptures in company with those who are presbyters in the Church, among whom is
the apostolic doctrine, as I have pointed out [quemadmodum demonstravimus].” Here
then is another reference back to his discussion in the opening chapters of Book III
where he had mentioned his acquaintance with Polycarp.^35 For the attentive reader,