The life of St Pothinos of Lyons
He served his flock into extreme old age, past ninety years, when a fierce persecution broke out against the Christians of Lyons and the neighboring city of Vienne in the year 177, under the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Too frail and old to walk, Pothinus was carried before the Roman magistrate for trial along with many of his people. Asked who the Christian God was, he gave a quiet, unyielding answer, refusing either to deny his faith or to explain it to those seeking grounds for his condemnation. The mob set upon him with clubs and stones, beating him without mercy, and he was thrown into prison still bleeding from his wounds. Within days he died there of what had been done to him. Irenaeus, his disciple and fellow student of Polycarp, took up the bishopric of Lyons after him. Pothinus is remembered among the first martyrs of Gaul, an old shepherd who did not spare himself for his flock.
