St. Irenaeus and the people who knew Jesus

My friend at http://www.crossed-the-tiber.blogspot.com/ has a nice post regarding St. Irenaeus on his feast day today. He's one of the first apologists of the faith born in 130 AD and martyred in 202 AD.

Reading tiber's post you are reminded that many thousands of people saw Jesus in person, heard him preach, and knew his Apostles. Just because the Gospels have only a few people mentioned by name, there are frequent entries in the Gospels of the multitude of people who interacted with Jesus. I try to be patient with people who wonder if Jesus "really existed" and if he really "was the Messiah" and if he really "performed miracles." Tiber explains using Irenaeus' own words how he learned from St. Polycarp, who "All through his life, he told a friend, he could recall every detail of Polycarp's appearance, his voice, and the very words he used when telling what he had heard from John the Evangelist and others who had seen Jesus."

Tiber also quotes St Irenaeus how "Polycarp also 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 also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man..."

Those of you who have been reading my Qur'an posts can now understand how there was a larger body of people than modern people realize, traveling in the Middle East and into Asia, people who personally witnessed Jesus and his Apostles in their times and carried this first hand information throughout the lands. Some of this information is preserved in the Qur'an, who accurately transmits what their ancestors saw and knew about Jesus. The real existence of Jesus as Messiah is not as "murky" and lost in the past as many would have you believe.