Essays on "Supernatural Religion"

by J. B. Lightfoot

IV. POLYCARP OF SMYRNA.

[MAY, 1875.]

Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, is the most important person in the history of the Christian Church during the ages immediately succeeding the Apostles. In the eyes of his own and the next generations, Clement of Rome appears to have held a more prominent position, if we may judge from the legendary stories which have gathered about his name; but for ourselves the interest which attaches to Polycarp is far greater. This importance he owes to his peculiar position, rather than to any marked greatness or originality of character. Two long lives--those of St John and of Polycarp--span the period which elapsed between the personal ministry of our Lord and the great Christian teachers living at the close of the second century. Polycarp was the disciple of St John, and Irenæus was the disciple of Polycarp. We know enough of St John's teaching, if the books ascribed to him in our Canon are accepted as genuine. We are fully acquainted with the tenets of Irenæus, and of these we may say generally that on all the most important points they conform to the theological standard which has satisfied the Christian Church ever since. But of the intermediate period between the close of the first century and the close of the second, the notices are sparse, the literature is scanty and fragmentary. Hence modern criticism has busied itself with hypothetical reconstructions of Christian history during this interval. It has been maintained that the greater part of the writings of our Canon were unknown and unwritten at the beginning of this period. It has been supposed that there was a complete discontinuity in the career of the Christian Church throughout the world. The person of Polycarp is a standing protest against any such surmises. Unless Irenæus was entirely mistaken as to the teaching of his master, unless the extant Epistle ascribed to Polycarp is altogether spurious, these views must fall to the ground. It is indispensable for the advocates of the Tübingen theory respecting the origin of the Christian Church and the Scriptural Canon to make good both these positions alike. Otherwise it can have no standing ground. My object in the following investigations is to show that neither position is tenable.

Polycarp was born more than thirty years before the close of the first century, and he survived to the latter half of the second. The date of his birth may be fixed with some degree of certainty as A.D. 69 or 70. At all events it cannot have been later than this. At the time of his martyrdom, which is now ascertained to have taken place A.D. 155 or 156 [90:1], he declared that he had served Christ eighty-six years [90:2]; and, if this expression be explained as referring to the whole period of his life (which is the more probable supposition), we are carried back to the date which I have just given.

Thus Polycarp was born on the eve of a great crisis, which was fraught with momentous consequences to the Church at large, and which more especially made itself felt in the Christian congregations of his own country, proconsular Asia. The fall of Jerusalem occurred in the autumn of the year 70. But at the final assault the Christians were no longer among the besieged. The impending war had been taken as the signal for their departure from the doomed city. The greater number had retired beyond the Jordan, and founded Christian colonies in Pella and the neighbourhood. But the natural leaders of the Church--the surviving Apostles and personal disciples of Christ--had sought a home elsewhere. From this time forward it is neither to Jerusalem nor to Pella, but to proconsular Asia, and more especially to Ephesus as its metropolis, that we must look for the continuance of the original type of Apostolic doctrine and practice. At the epoch of the catastrophe we find the Apostle John for a short time living in exile--whether voluntary or constrained, it is unnecessary to inquire--in the island of Patmos. Soon after this he takes up his abode at Ephesus, which seems to have been his head-quarters during the remainder of his long life [91:1]. And John was not alone in choosing Asia Minor as his new home. More especially the companions of his early youth seem to have been attracted to this neighbourhood. Of two brother Apostles and fellow-countrymen of Bethsaida this is distinctly recorded. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, appears in company with John in these later years, according to an account which seems at least so far trustworthy [91:2]. The presence of Philip, the special friend of Andrew [91:3], in these parts is recorded on still better authority [91:4]. Philip himself died at Hierapolis in Phrygia; but one of his three daughters was buried at Ephesus, where perhaps he had resided at an earlier date. Among other personal disciples of Christ, not otherwise known to us, who dwelt in these districts of Asia Minor, Aristion and a second John are mentioned, with whom Papias, the friend of Polycarp, had conversed [91:5].

Among these influences Polycarp was brought up. His own words, to which I have already alluded, seem to show that he was born of Christian parentage. At all events he must have been a believer from early childhood. If his parents were Christians, they probably received their first lessons in the Gospel from the teachers of an earlier date--from St Paul who had planted the Churches of Asia Minor, or from St Peter who appears to have watered them, [92:1] or from the immediate disciples of one or other of these two Apostles. But during the childhood and youth of Polycarp himself the influence of St John was paramount. Irenæus reports (and there is no reason for questioning the truth of his statement) that St John survived to the reign of Trajan [92:2], who ascended the imperial throne A.D. 98. Thus Polycarp would be about thirty years old at the time of St John's death. When therefore Irenæus relates that he was appointed bishop in Smyrna 'by Apostles,' [92:3] the statement involves no chronological difficulty, even though we interpret the term 'bishop' in its more restricted sense, and not as a synonyme for presbyter, according to its earlier meaning. Later writers say distinctly that he was appointed to the episcopal office by St John [92:4].

At all events, he appears as Bishop of Smyrna in the early years of the second century. When Ignatius passes through Asia Minor on his way to martyrdom, he halts at Smyrna, where he is received by Polycarp. At a later stage in his journey he writes to his friend. The tone of his letter is altogether such as might be expected from an old man writing to a younger, who nevertheless held a position of great responsibility, and had shown himself worthy of the trust. After expressing his thankfulness for their meeting, and commending his friend's steadfast faith, which was 'founded as on an immovable rock,' he proceeds:--

Vindicate thine office in all diligence, whether in things carnal or in things spiritual. Have a care for unity, than which nothing is better. Sustain all men, even as the Lord sustaineth thee. Suffer all men in love, as also thou doest. Give thyself to unceasing prayer. Ask for more wisdom than thou hast. Keep watch, and preserve a wakeful spirit.... Be thou wise as the serpent in all things, and harmless always as the dove.... The time requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, so that it may find God.... Be sober, as God's athlete.... Stand firm as an anvil under the stroke of the hammer. It becomes a great athlete to endure blows and to conquer.... Show thyself more zealous than thou art.... Let nothing be done without thy consent, neither do thou anything without God's consent, as indeed thou doest not [93:1].

The close of the letter is addressed mainly to the Smyrnæans, enforcing their reciprocal obligations towards their bishop.

This letter, if the additional matter in the Vossian Epistles may be trusted, was written from Troas, when the martyr was on the point of embarking for Neapolis [93:2]. The next stage of his journey would bring him to Philippi, where he halted. Thence he proceeded by the great Egnatian road across the continent to the Hadriatic, on his way to Rome.

Shortly after this, Polycarp himself addresses a letter to the Philippians. He had been especially invited by his correspondents to write to them, but he had also a reason of his own for doing so. During this season of the year, when winter had closed the high seas for navigation, all news from Rome must travel through Macedonia to Asia Minor. At Smyrna they had not yet received tidings of the fate of Ignatius; and he hoped to get early information from his correspondents, who were some stages nearer to Rome where, as Polycarp assumed, his friend had already suffered martyrdom [93:3].

This was the occasion of the letter, which for various reasons possesses the highest interest as a document of early Christian literature, though far from remarkable in itself.

Its most important feature is the profuseness of quotation from the Apostolic writings. Of a Canon of the New Testament, strictly so called, it is not probable that Polycarp knew anything [93:4]. This idea was necessarily, as Dr Westcott has shown, the growth of time. But of the writings which are included in our Canon he shows a wide knowledge and an ample appreciation. In this respect he may not unprofitably be compared with Clement of Rome. Clement of Rome, there is good reason to believe, was a Hellenist Jew [94:1]; he must have been brought up in a familiar acquaintance with the Old Testament Scriptures. On the other hand Polycarp, as we have already seen, was probably the son of Christian parents; at all events he was educated from his earliest childhood in the knowledge of the Gospel; he had grown up in the society of Apostles and Apostolic men. This contrast of education makes itself apparent in the writings of the two Fathers. Though there are clear indications in Clement that he was acquainted with many of the Apostolic Epistles, yet his quotations are chiefly taken from the Old Testament. Again and again he cites continuous passages, and argues from them at length. But with Polycarp the case is different. The New Testament has exchanged places with the Old, at least so far as practical use is concerned. Notwithstanding its brevity, Polycarp's Epistle contains decisive coincidences with or references to between thirty and forty passages in the New Testament [94:2]. On the other hand, with the single exception of four words from the apocryphal book of Tobit [94:3], there is no quotation taken immediately from the Old Testament. Elsewhere indeed he cites the words of Ps. iv. 4, but these are evidently quoted from St Paul, and not directly from the Psalmist, as his context shows [95:1].

Not less remarkable than the number of his quotations from the New Testament is their wide range. Of the Evangelical references I shall have occasion to speak in a subsequent article. Besides these there is a strong coincidence with the Acts which can hardly be accidental [95:2]; and there are passages or expressions taken from most of the Apostolic Epistles. Among the latter the most decisive examples frequently refer to those very Epistles which modern criticism has striven to discredit. It cannot reasonably be questioned for instance, that Polycarp was acquainted with the Epistle to the Ephesians and with the two Epistles to Timothy. Of the indisputable references to the First Epistle of St Peter I have already spoken in a former paper [95:3].

But the most important fact, in its bearing on recent controversy, is the relation of the writer to St Paul. According to the hypothesis of the Tübingen school, there was a personal antagonism between St Paul and St John, and an irreconcilable feud between their respective schools. It is therefore with special interest that we look to see what the most eminent scholar of the beloved disciple says about the Apostle of the Gentiles. Now St Paul occupies quite the most prominent place in Polycarp's Epistle. This prominence is partly explained by the fact that he is writing to a Church of St Paul's founding, but this explanation does not detract from its value. St Paul is the only Apostle who is mentioned by name; his writings are the only Apostolic writings which are referred to by name; of his thirteen Epistles, there are probable references to as many as eleven [95:4]; there are direct appeals to his example and his teaching alike: there is even an apology on the writer's part for the presumption of seeming to set himself up as a rival to the Apostle by writing to a Church to whom he had addressed an Epistle [96:1]. Altogether the testimony to the respect in which St Paul is held by the writer is as complete as language can make it. If therefore the Epistle be accepted as genuine, the position of the Tübingen school must be abandoned.

From considering the phenomena of the extant Epistle, we pass by a natural transition to the second point which I proposed to investigate, the traditions of the author's teaching.

Polycarp was no longer a young man, when his Epistle was written. But he lived on to see a new generation grow up from infancy to mature age afterwards; and as the companion of Apostles and the depositary of the Apostolic tradition, his influence increased with his increasing years. Before he died, even unbelievers had come to regard him as the 'Father of the Christians.'

Of his later years a glimpse is afforded to us in the record of an eye-witness. Among the disciples of his old age were two youths, companions for the time, but destined to stand far apart in after life--

'Like cliffs that had been rent asunder;'

the elder, Florinus, who became famous afterwards as a heretical leader; the younger, Irenæus, who stood forward as the great champion of orthodoxy. The following is the remonstrance addressed by Irenæus to his former associate after his defection:--

These opinions, Florinus, that I may speak without harshness, are not of sound judgment; these opinions are not in harmony with the Church, but involve those adopting them in the greatest impiety; these opinions even the heretics outside the pale of the Church have never ventured to broach; these opinions the elders before us, who also were disciples of the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For I saw thee, when I was still a boy ([Greek: pais ôn eti]), in Lower Asia in company with Polycarp, while thou wast faring prosperously in the royal court, and endeavouring to stand well with him. For I distinctly remember ([Greek: diamnêmoneuô]) the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood ([Greek: ek paidôn]), growing with the growth of the soul, become identified with it; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word [97:1], would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures. To these (discourses) I used to listen at the time with attention by God's mercy which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of God, I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully ([Greek: gnêsiôs]). And I can testify in the sight of God, that if the blessed and Apostolic elder had heard anything of this kind, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and said after his wont, 'O good God, for what times hast Thou kept me, that I should endure such things?' and would even have fled from the place where he was sitting or standing when he heard such words. And indeed, this can be shown from his letters which he wrote either to the neighbouring Churches for their confirmation, or to certain of the brethren for their warning and exhortation [97:2].

Unfortunately the chronological notices are not sufficiently precise to enable us to fix the date either of this intercourse with Polycarp, or of the letter to Florinus in which Irenæus records it. In the year 155 or 156 Polycarp died; in the year 177 Irenæus became Bishop of Lyons. Putting these two facts together, we may perhaps assume that Irenæus must have been a pupil of Polycarp somewhere between A.D. 135-150. The mention of the 'royal court' seems at first sight to suggest the hope of a more precise solution; but even if this notice be taken to imply the presence of the Emperor for the time being in Asia Minor, our information respecting the movements of Hadrian and his successors is too scanty to afford ground for any safe inference [98:1].

Of the later career of Florinus, we are informed that he was at one time a presbyter of the Roman Church; that he afterwards fell away, and taught his heresy in the metropolis; that in consequence Irenæus addressed to him this letter from which I have given the extract, and which was also entitled 'On Monarchy' or 'Showing that God is no--the author of evil' ([Greek: poiêtên kakôn])--this being the special heresy of Florinus; and that afterwards, apparently by a rebound, he lapsed into Valentinianism, on which occasion Irenæus wrote his treatise on the Ogdoad [98:2]. As the treatise of Irenæus on the Ogdoad can hardly have been written later than his extant work on Heresies, in which Valentinianism is so fully discussed as to render any such partial treatment superfluous, and which dates from the episcopate of Eleutherius (A.D. 177-190), we are led to the conclusion that the letter to Florinus was one of the earliest writings of this Father.

Thus we are left without any means of ascertaining the exact age of Irenæus when he sat at the feet of Polycarp. But beyond this uncertainty his testimony is as explicit as could well be desired. All experience, if I mistake not, bears out his statement respecting the vividness of the memory during this period of life. In a recent trial, the most fatal blot in the evidence was the inability of a pretender to give any information respecting the games and studies, the companions, the familiar haunts, of the school and college days of the person with whom he identified himself. It is the penalty which mature age pays for clearer ideas and higher powers of generalisation, that the recollection of facts becomes comparatively blurred. Very often an old man will relate with perfect distinctness the incidents of his youth and early manhood, while a haze will rest over much of the intervening period. Those who have listened to a Sedgwick after a lapse of sixty or seventy years repeating anecdotes of the 'statesmen' in his native dale, or describing the circumstances under which he first heard the news of the battle of Trafalgar, will be able to realize the vividness of the stories which the aged Polycarp would tell to his youthful pupil of his intercourse with the last surviving Apostle--the memory of the narrator being quickened and the interest of the hearer intensified, in this case, by the conviction that they were brought face to face with facts such as the world had never seen before.

One incident more is recorded of this veteran preacher of the Gospel. In the closing years of his life he undertook a journey to Rome, where he conferred with the bishop, Anicetus. The main subject of this conference was the time of celebrating the Passion. Polycarp pleaded the practice of St John and the other Apostles with whom he had conversed, for observing the actual day of the Jewish Passover, without respect to the day of the week. On the other hand, Anicetus could point to the fact that his predecessors, at least as far back as Xystus, who succeeded to the see soon after the beginning of the century, had always kept the anniversary of the Passion on a Friday and that of the Resurrection on a Sunday, thus making the day of the month give place to the day of the week. Neither convinced the other, but they parted good friends. This difference of usage did not interfere with the most perfect cordiality; and, as a sign of this, Anicetus allowed Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his stead [100:1]. About forty years later, when the Paschal controversy was revived, and Victor, a successor of Anicetus, excommunicated the Asiatic Churches, Irenæus, though himself an observer of the Western usage, wrote to remonstrate with Victor on this harsh and tyrannical measure. An extract from his letter is preserved by Eusebius, in which these incidents respecting his old master are recorded [100:2]. Irenæus insists strongly on the fact that "the harmony of the faith" has never been disturbed hitherto by any such diversities of usage.

To this visit to Rome Irenæus makes another reference in his extant work against Heresies. The perfect confidence with which he appeals to the continuity of the Apostolic tradition, and to the testimony of Polycarp as the principal link in the chain, gives a peculiar significance to this passage, and no apology is needed for quoting it at length. After speaking of the succession of the Roman bishops, through whom the true doctrine has been handed down to his own generation without interruption, he adds--

And (so it was with) Polycarp also, who not only was taught by Apostles, and lived in familiar intercourse ([Greek: sunanastrapheis]) with many that had seen Christ, but also received his appointment in Asia from Apostles, as Bishop in the Church of Smyrna, whom we too have seen in our youth ([Greek: en tê prôtê hêmôn hêlikia]) for he survived long, and departed this life at a very great age, by a glorious and most notable martyrdom, having ever taught these very things, which he had learnt from the Apostles, which the Church hands down, and which alone are true. To these testimony is borne by all the Churches in Asia, and by the successors of Polycarp up to the present time, who was a much more trustworthy and safer witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion, and all such wrong-minded men. He also, when on a visit to Rome in the days of Anicetus, converted many to the Church of God from following the aforenamed heretics, by preaching that he had received from the Apostles this doctrine, and this only, which was handed down by the Church, as the truth. And there are those who have heard him tell how John, the disciple of the Lord, when he went to take a bath in Ephesus, and saw Cerinthus within, rushed away from the room without bathing, with the words, 'Let us flee, lest the room should indeed fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.' Yea, and Polycarp himself also on one occasion, when Marcion confronted him and said, 'Dost thou recognize me?' answered, 'I recognize the firstborn of Satan.' Such care did the Apostles and their disciples take not to hold any communication, even by word, with any of those who falsify the truth, as Paul also said, 'A man that is a heretic after a first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that such an one is perverted and sinneth, being self-condemned.' Moreover, there is an Epistle of Polycarp addressed to the Philippians, which is most adequate ([Greek: hikanôtatê]), and from which both his manner of life and his preaching of the truth may be learnt by those who desire to learn and are anxious for their own salvation. And again, the Church in Ephesus, which was founded by Paul, and where John survived till the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the Apostles [101:1].

I have given these important extracts at length because they speak for themselves. If I mistake not, they will be more convincing than many arguments. It is impossible to doubt the sincerity of Irenæus, when he thus explicitly and repeatedly maintains that the doctrines which he holds and teaches are the same which Polycarp had held and taught before him. On the other hand, a school of critics which has arisen in the present generation maintains that Irenæus was mistaken from beginning to end; that, instead of this continuity in the teaching and history of the Church, there had been a violent dislocation; that St John, as an Apostle of the Circumcision, must have had a deep-rooted aversion to the doctrine and work of St Paul; and that Polycarp, as a disciple of St John, must have shared that aversion, and cannot therefore have recognized the authority of the Apostle of the Gentiles.

It is difficult to believe that those who hold this theory have seriously faced the historical difficulties which it involves, or have attempted to realize any combination of circumstances by which this revolution could have been brought about in such a manner as to escape the notice of the next succeeding generations. I shall probably have occasion hereafter to speak of the solidarity of the Church at this epoch. At present it is sufficient to say that the direct personal testimony of Irenæus respecting Polycarp is by no means the only, or even the greatest, impediment to this theory. He constantly appeals to the Asiatic elders, the disciples and followers of the Apostles, in confirmation of his statement. Among the Christian teachers of proconsular Asia who immediately succeeded Polycarp, are two famous names, Melito of Sardis and Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis. They must already have reached middle life before Polycarp's martyrdom. They were not merely practical workers, but voluminous writers also. The lists of their works handed down to us comprise the widest range of topics; they handle questions of Christian ethics, of Scriptural interpretation, of controversial divinity, of ecclesiastical order, of theological metaphysics. Was there then any possibility of a mistake here? To us the history of the Church during the second century is obscure, because all this voluminous literature, except a few meagre fragments, has been blotted out. But to the contemporaries and successors of Irenæus it was legible enough. 'Who does not know,' exclaims his own pupil Hippolytus, 'the books of Irenæus and Melito and the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man?' [102:1]

This mission of peace to Rome must have been one of the latest acts of the old man's life. The accession of Anicetus to the see of Rome is variously dated; but the earliest year is about A.D. 150, and an eminent recent critic, who has paid special attention to the subject, places it between A.D. 154 and A.D. 156 [103:1]. In the year 155, or 156 at the latest, Polycarp fell a martyr.

The details of his martyrdom are recorded in a contemporary document, which takes the form of a letter from the Church of Smyrna, addressed more immediately to the Church of Philomelium but challenging at the same time a wider circulation [103:2]. The simplicity with which the narrators record omens and occurrences easily explicable in themselves, but invested by their surcharged feelings with a miraculous character, is highly natural. The whole narrative is eminently touching and instructive; but the details have little or no bearing on my immediate purpose. It is sufficient to say that Polycarp had retired into the country to escape persecution; that the populace, not satisfied with the victims already sacrificed to their fury, demanded the life of Polycarp, as the 'father of the Christians;' that his hiding-place was betrayed by a boy in his service, under the influence of torture; that the magistrates urged him to save his life by submitting to the usual tests, by pronouncing the formula, 'Cæsar is Lord,' or offering sacrifice, or swearing by the fortune of the Emperor, or reviling Christ; that he declared himself unable to blaspheme a Master whom he had served for eighty-six years, and from whom he had received no wrong; and that consequently he was burnt at the stake, Jews and Heathens vying with each other in feeding the flames. The games were already past; otherwise he would have been condemned to the wild beasts--the usual punishment for such contumacy.

Polycarp was martyred during the proconsulship of Statius Quadratus. The commonly received date of his death is A.D. 166 or 167, as given in the Chronicon of Eusebius. Quite recently however, M. Waddington has subjected the proconsular _fasti_ of Asia Minor to a fresh and rigorous scrutiny [103:3]. This Statius Quadratus is mentioned by the orator Aristides; and by an investigation of the chronology of Aristides' life, with the aid of newly-discovered inscriptions, M. Waddington arrives at the result that Quadratus was proconsul in 154, 155; and, as Polycarp was martyred in the early months of the year, his martyrdom must be dated A.D. 155. This result is accepted by M. Renan [104:1], and substantially also by Hilgenfeld and Lipsius [104:2], who however (for reasons into which it is unnecessary to enter here) postpones the martyrdom to the following year, A.D. 156. M. Waddington's arguments seem conclusive, and this rectification of date removes some stumbling-blocks. The relations between St John and Polycarp for instance, as reported by Irenæus and others, no longer present any difficulty, when the period during which the lives of the two overlap each other is thus extended. The author of _Supernatural Religion_ very excusably adopts the received date of Polycarp's martyrdom, being unaware, as it would seem, of these recent investigations.

In this account of Polycarp, I have assumed the genuineness of the Epistle ascribed to him; but the author of _Supernatural Religion_ has taken his side with those writers who condemn it as spurious, and I am therefore obliged to give reasons for this confidence.

So far as regards external testimony, it must be confessed that the Epistle of Polycarp presents itself with credentials of exceptional value. The instances are very rare indeed where a work of antiquity can claim the direct testimony of a pupil of the writer to whom it is ascribed. The statement of Irenæus respecting the authorship of this Epistle is explicit; and indeed, as the reference is not denied either by the author of _Supernatural Religion_ or by other critics, like Lipsius and Hilgenfeld, who nevertheless condemn the Epistle as spurious, I am saved all trouble in establishing its adequacy. Our author indeed is content to set it aside, because 'the testimony of Irenæus is not ... entitled to much weight, inasmuch as his intercourse with Polycarp was evidently confined to a short period of his extreme youth, and we have no reason to suppose that he had any subsequent communication with him.' [105:1] I do not see how the notice of Irenæus justifies the statement that the period was short; but the passage has been given above, and the reader may judge for himself. Nor does it seem probable, considering that the communications between Asia Minor and southern Gaul were close and frequent, that the pupil should altogether have lost sight of the master whom he revered, when he migrated to his new and distant home in the west. But, even though all this be granted, the fact still remains, that the testimony is exceptionally good and would in ordinary cases be regarded as quite decisive. I do not say that it is impossible Irenæus could have been mistaken; there is always risk of error in human testimony; but I maintain that, unless we are required to apply a wholly different standard of evidence here from that which is held satisfactory in other cases, we approach this Epistle with a very strong guarantee of its authenticity, which can only be invalidated by solid and convincing proofs, and against which hypothetical combinations and ingenious surmises are powerless [105:2]. Whether the objections adduced by the impugners of this Epistle are of this character, the reader will see presently.

From the external we turn to the internal evidence. We are asked to believe that this letter was forged on the confines of the age of Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria. But can anything be more unlike the ecclesiastical literature of this later generation, whether we regard the use of the New Testament, or the notices of ecclesiastical order, or the statements of theological doctrine? The Evangelical quotations are still given (as in Clement of Rome) with the formula, 'The Lord said;' the passages from the Apostolic Epistles are still, for the most part, indirect and anonymous. Though two or three chapters are devoted to injunctions respecting the ministry of the Church, there is not an allusion to episcopacy from beginning to end. Though the writer's ideas of the Person of Christ practically leave nothing to be desired, yet these ideas are still held in solution, and have not yet crystallized into the dogmatic forms which characterize the later generation. And from first to last this Epistle is silent upon those questions which interested the Church in the second half of the second century. Of Montanism, of the Paschal controversy, of the developed Gnostic heresies of this period, it says nothing. A supposed reference to Marcion I shall have to discuss presently. For the moment it is sufficient to say that an allusion so vague and pointless as this would be must certainly have missed its aim.

But this argument from internal evidence gains strength when considered from another point of view. The only intelligible theory--indeed, so far as I remember, the only attempt at a theory--offered to account for this Epistle by those who deny its genuineness or its integrity, connects it closely with the Ignatian letters. If forged, it was forged by the same hand which wrote the seven Vossian Epistles; if interpolated, it was interpolated by the person who expanded the three genuine Epistles into the seven. According to either hypothesis, the object was to recommend the Ignatian forgery on the authority of a great Dame; the motive betrays itself in the thirteenth chapter, where Polycarp is represented as sending several of the Ignatian Epistles to the Philippians along with his own letter. This theory is at all events intelligible; and, so far as I can see, it is the only rational theory of which the case admits.

Let us ask then, whether there is any improbability in the circumstances, as here represented. Ignatius had stayed at Philippi on his way to martyrdom; the Philippians had been deeply impressed by their intercourse with him; writing to Polycarp afterwards, they had requested him to send them a copy of the martyr's letter or letters to him; he complies with the request, and appends also copies of other letters written by Ignatius, which he happened to have in his possession. Is this at all unnatural? Suppose on the other hand, that the letter of Polycarp had contained no such reference to Ignatius and his Epistles, would it not have been regarded as a highly suspicious circumstance, that, writing to the Philippians so soon after Ignatius had visited both Churches, Polycarp should have said nothing about so remarkable a man? When I see how this argument from silence is worked in other cases, I cannot doubt that it would have been plied here as a formidable objection either to the truth of the Ignatian story, or to the genuineness of Polycarp's Epistle, or to both. My conclusion is that this notice proves nothing either way, when it stands alone. If the other contents of the Polycarpian Epistle are questionable, then it enforces our misgivings. If not, then this use of the notice is only another illustration of the over-suspicious temperament of modern criticism, which, as I ventured to suggest in an earlier paper, must be as fatal to calm and reasonable judgment in matters of early Christian history, as it is manifestly in matters of common life. The question therefore is narrowed to this issue, whether the Epistle of Polycarp bears evidence in its style and diction or in its modes of thought or in any other way, that it was written by the same hand which penned the Ignatian letters.

And here I venture to say that, however we test these documents, the contrast is very striking; more striking in fact than we should have expected to find between two Christian writers who wrote about the same time and were personally acquainted with each other. I will apply some of these tests.

1. The stress which Ignatius lays on episcopacy as the keystone of ecclesiastical order and the guarantee of theological orthodoxy, is well known. Indeed it is often supposed that the Ignatian Letters were written for this express purpose. In Polycarp's Epistle on the other hand, as I have already said, there is no mention of episcopacy. He speaks at length about the duties of the presbyters, of the deacons, of the widows, and others, but the bishop is entirely ignored. More especially he directs the younger men to be obedient to 'the presbyters and deacons, as to God and Christ,' but nothing is said about obedience to the bishop [108:1]. At a later point he has occasion to speak of an offence committed by one Valens, a presbyter, but here again there is the same silence. All this is quite intelligible, if the letter is genuine, on the supposition either that there was a vacancy in the Philippian bishopric at this time, or, as seems more probable, that the ecclesiastical organization there was not yet fully developed; but it is, so far as I can see, quite inconceivable that a forger whose object was to recommend episcopacy should have pictured a state of things so damaging to his main purpose. The supposed forger indeed shows himself throughout quite indifferent on this subject. There is every reason for believing that Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna at this time; yet in the heading of the letter he does not assert his title, but writes merely, 'Polycarp and the presbyters with him.'

2. If we turn from ecclesiastical organization to doctrinal statement, the contrast still remains. We meet with no such strong expressions as are found in the Ignatian letters; Polycarp, never speaks of 'the blood of God,' 'the passion of my God,' 'Jesus Christ our God,' and the like. Even in the commoner modes of designating our Lord, a difference is perceptible. Thus the favourite mode of expression with Ignatius is 'Jesus Christ' simply, which occurs nearly a hundred times; whereas in Polycarp it is only found twice (one passage being a quotation). On the other hand, the usual expression in Polycarp is 'Our Lord Jesus Christ,' which apparently occurs only twice in the Ignatian Epistles, and in both instances with various readings. Again the combination 'God and Christ,' occurring three times in Polycarp, does not appear once in the Ignatian letters [108:2].

3. The divergence of the two writers as regards Scriptural quotations is still more remarkable. Though the seven Ignatian letters are together at least five times as long as the Epistle of Polycarp, the quotations from the Apostolic Epistles in the latter are many times more numerous, as well as more precise, than in the former. Whole passages in Polycarp are made up of such quotations strung together, while in Ignatius they are very rare, being for the most part epigrammatic adaptations and isolated coincidences of language or thought. Nor indeed is their range coextensive. Thus the Epistle of Polycarp, as I pointed out in a former article [109:1], is pervaded with the language of St Peter's First Epistle, but in the Ignatian letters there is no trace of its use [109:2].

4. But this divergence only forms part of a still broader and more decisive contrast. The profuseness of quotation in Polycarp's Epistle arises from a want of originality. The writer reproduces the thoughts and words of others, because his mind is essentially receptive and not creative. He is altogether wanting in independence of thought. On the other hand, the Ignatian letters are remarkable for their individuality. Of all early Christian writings they are pre-eminent in this respect. They are full of idiomatic expressions, quaint images, unexpected turns of thought and language. They exhibit their characteristic ideas, which obviously have a high value for the writer, for he recurs to them again and again, but which the reader often finds it extremely difficult to grasp, owing to their singularity. I venture to think that any one who will carefully consider these contrasts--more especially the last, as extending over the whole field--must be struck with the impossibility of the theory which makes this letter part of the assumed Ignatian forgeries. This hypothesis requires us to believe that a very uncritical age produced a literary fiction, which, for subtlety and naturalness of execution, leaves the most skilful forgeries of the nineteenth century far behind.

And the hypothesis of interpolation is encumbered with difficulties of the same kind, and hardly less considerable. This hypothesis was shaped and developed by Ritschl [110:1], whose theory has been accepted by some later writers. He supposes that the greater part of the Epistle is the genuine production of the person whose name it bears, written however, not immediately after the death of Ignatius, but in the later years of Polycarp's long life. The three passages which relate to Ignatius, together with other parts which he defines, he supposes to have been interpolated by the same forger who amplified the three genuine letters of the martyr of Antioch into the seven of the Vossian collection. But if any one will take the passages which Ritschl has struck out as interpolated, he will find that the general style is the same; that individual expressions, more especially theological expressions, are the same; that the quotations are from the same range of books, as in the other parts, extending even to coincidences of expression with the Epistle of Clement of Rome; and that altogether there is nothing to separate one part from another, except the _a priori_ assumption that the references to Ignatius must be unhistorical. I do not know whether these facts have been pointed out before, and I cannot do more here than hint at lines of investigation which any one may follow up for himself. But when the phenomena are fully recognized, I venture to think that the difficulties in Ritschl's theory will be felt to be many times greater than those which it is framed to remove.

Of the general character of the Epistle, as affecting the question of its genuineness, the author of _Supernatural Religion_ has said nothing. But he has reproduced special objections which have been urged by previous writers; and to these I wish to call attention, because they are very good, and not unfavourable, illustrations of the style of criticism which is in vogue with the negative school.

1. Our author writes in the first place:--

We have just seen that the martyr-journey of Ignatius to Rome is, for cogent reasons, declared to be wholly fabulous, and the epistles purporting to be written during that journey must be held to be spurious. The Epistle of Polycarp, however, not only refers to the martyr-journey (c. ix), but to the Ignatian Epistles which are inauthentic (c. xiii), and the manifest inference is that it also is spurious.

Of the fabulous character of the martyr-journey I have already disposed in my previous article on the Ignatian letters [111:1]. For the present I reserve what I have to say concerning the assumed reference to the 'inauthentic' Epistles, as this objection will reappear again.

2. Our author on a later page urges that--

In the Epistle itself, there are many anachronisms. In ch. ix the 'blessed Ignatius' is referred to as already a considerable time dead, and he is held up with Zosimus and Rufus, and also with Paul and the rest of the Apostles, as examples of patience: men who have not run in vain, but are with the Lord; but in ch. xiii he is spoken of as living, and information is requested regarding him, 'and those who are with him.'

To this objection I had already supplied the answer [111:2] which has been given many times before, and which, as it seemed to me, the author ought in fairness to have noticed. I had pointed out that we have only the Latin version here, and that the present tense is obviously due to the translator. The original would naturally be [Greek: tôn sun autô], which the translator, being obliged to supply a substantive verb, has carelessly rendered 'his qui cum eo _sunt_.' If any one will consider what has been just said about the general character of the Epistle, he will see that this is the only reasonable explanation of the fact, whether we regard the work as genuine or not. If it is not genuine, the forger has executed his task with consummate skill and appreciation; and yet here he is charged with a piece of bungling which a schoolboy would have avoided. It is not merely an anachronism, but a self-contradiction of the most patent kind. The writer, on this hypothesis, has not made up his mind whether Ignatius is or is not supposed to be dead at the time, and he represents the fact differently in two different parts [112:1].

But our author apparently is quite unaware that [Greek: hoi sun autô] might mean equally well, 'those who _were_ with him,' and those who _are_ with him.' At least I cannot attach any other meaning to his reply, in which he retorts upon me my own words used elsewhere, and speaks of my argument as being wrecked upon this rock of grammar.' [112:2] If so, I can only refer him to Thucydides or any Greek historian, where he will find scores of similar instances. I need hardly say that the expression itself is quite neutral as regards time, meaning nothing more than 'his companions,' and that the tense must be supplied according to the context or the known circumstances of the case. But I am not sorry that our author has fallen into this error, for it has led me to investigate the usage of Polycarp and his translator, and has thus elicited the following facts:--(1) Unless he departed from his ordinary usage, Polycarp would have employed the short expression [Greek: hoi sun autô] or [Greek: hoi met' autou] in such a case. Thus he has [Greek: ou sun autô] in the opening paragraph, and [Greek: tois ex humôn] in c. 9, with other similar distances. (2) The translator, if he had the words [Greek: tois sun autô] before him, would almost certainly supply the substantive verb, as he has done in the opening, 'qui cum eo _sunt_ presbyteri;' in c. 3, 'illis qui tunc _erant_ hominibus,' and 'quae _est_ in Deo;' in c. 9, 'qui ex vobis _sunt_;' and probably also in c. 12, 'qui _sunt_ sub coelo' (the Greek is wanting in this last passage). (3) The translator, in supplying the verb, was as likely as not to give the wrong tense. In fact, in the only other passage in the Epistle where it was possible to make a mistake, he has gone wrong on this very point; he has translated [Greek: hên kai eidete ... en allois tois ex humôn] mechanically by a present tense, 'quam et vidistis ... in aliis qui ex vobis _sunt_,' though the persons are mentioned in connection with St Ignatius and St Paul, and though it is distinctly stated immediately afterwards that they _all_ were dead, having, as we may infer from the context, ended their life by martyrdom. In fact, he has made the very same blunder which I ascribe to him here.

This objection therefore may be set aside for ever. But the notices which I have been considering suggest another reflection. Is the historical position which the writer of this letter takes up at all like the invention of a forger? Would he have thought of placing himself at the moment of time when Ignatius is supposed to have been martyred, but when the report of the circumstances had not yet reached Smyrna? If he had chosen this moment, would he not have made it clear, instead of leaving his readers to infer it by piecing together notices which are scattered through the Epistle--notices moreover, which, though entirely consistent with each other, are so far from obvious that his translator has been led astray by them, and that modern critics have woven out of them these entanglements which it has taken me so much time to unravel?

3. But our author proceeds:--

Moreover, although thus spoken of as alive, the writer already knows of his Epistles, and refers, in the plural, to those written by him 'to us, and all the rest which we have by us.' The reference here, it will be observed, is not only to the Epistles to the Smyrnæans and to Polycarp himself, but to other spurious epistles which are not included in the Syriac version.

I have already shown that Ignatius is not spoken of as alive; but, if he had been alive, I do not see why Polycarp should not have known of his Epistles, seeing that of the seven Vossian letters four claim to have been written from Smyrna, when the saint was in some sense Polycarp's guest, and two to have been written to Smyrna. Therefore of the seven Epistles, supposing them to be genuine, Polycarp would almost necessarily have been acquainted with six.

By the 'other spurious Epistles,' which the Epistle of Polycarp is supposed to recognize, I presume that our author means the four of the Vossian collection, which have no place in the Syriac. If so, I would reply that, supposing the three Syriac Epistles to represent the only genuine letters _extant_, these Epistles themselves bear testimony to the fact that Ignatius wrote several others besides; for in one passage in these Syriac Epistles (_Rom._ 4) the martyr says, 'I write to _all the Churches_ and charge _all men_.' And again, when Polycarp writes, [Greek: tas epistolas Ignatious tas pemphtheisas hêmin hup' autou] it is sufficient to advert to the fact that, like the Latin _epistolæ_, the plural [Greek: epistolai] is frequently used convertibly with the singular [Greek: epistolê] for a single letter [114:1], and indeed appears to be so used in an earlier passage by Polycarp himself of St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians [114:2]; so that the notice is satisfied by the single Epistle to Polycarp which is included in the Syriac letters, and does not necessarily imply also the Epistle to the Smyrnæans which has no place there. But of this passage generally I would say, that though it may be a question whether the language does not favour the genuineness of the Vossian letters, as against the Curetonian, it cannot be taken to impugn the genuineness of the Epistle of Polycarp itself, authenticated, as this Epistle is, by Irenæus, and exhibiting, as we have seen, every mark of genuineness in itself.

4. Our author then continues:--

Dallæus pointed out long ago, that ch. xiii abruptly interrupts the conclusion of the Epistle.

In what sense this chapter can be said to interrupt the conclusion it is difficult to say. It occupies exactly the place which would naturally be assigned to such personal matters; for it follows upon the main purport of the letter, while it immediately precedes the recommendation of the bearer and the final salutation. On the same showing the conclusion of the greater number of St Paul's Epistles is 'abruptly interrupted.'

5. The next argument is of another kind:--

The writer vehemently denounces, as already widely spread, the Gnostic heresy and other forms of false doctrine which did not exist until the time of Marcion, to whom and to whose followers he refers in unmistakable terms. An expression is used in ch. vii in speaking of these heretics, which Polycarp is reported by Irenæus to have actually applied to Marcion in person, during his stay in Rome about A.D. 160. He is said to have called Marcion 'the first-born of Satan,' ([Greek: prôtotokos tou Satana]), and the same term is employed in this Epistle with regard to every one who holds such false doctrines. The development of these heresies, therefore, implies a date for the composition of the Epistle, at earliest, after the middle of the second century, a date which is further confirmed by other circumstances.

I will take the latter part of this statement first, correcting however one or two errors of detail. M. Waddington's investigations, to which I have already alluded [115:1], oblige us to place Polycarp's visit to Rome some few years before 160, since his death is fixed at A.D. 155 or 156. Again, Irenæus does not state that the interview between Polycarp and Marcion took place at Rome. It may have taken place there, but it may have occurred at an earlier date in Asia Minor, of which region Marcion was a native [115:2]. These however are not very important matters. The point of the indictment lies in the fact that about A.D. 140, earlier or later, Polycarp is reported to have applied the expression 'first-born of Satan' to Marcion, while in the Epistle, purporting to have been written many years before, he appears as using this same expression of other Gnostic teachers. This argument is a good illustration of the reasons which satisfy even men like Lipsius and Hilgenfeld. To any ordinary judicial mind, I imagine, this coincidence, so far as it goes, would appear to point to Polycarp as the author of the Epistle; for the two facts come to us on independent authority--the one from oral tradition through Irenæus, the other in a written document older than Irenæus. Or, if the one statement arose out of the other, the converse relation of that which this hypothesis assumes is much more probable. Irenæus, as he tells us in the context, was acquainted with the Epistle, and it is quite possible that in repeating the story of Polycarp's interview with Marcion he inadvertently imported into it the expression which he had read in the Epistle. But the independence of the two is far more probable. As a fact, men do repeat the same expressions again and again, and this throughout long periods of their lives. Such forms of speech arise out of their idiosyncrasies, and so become part of them. This is a matter of common experience, and in the case of Polycarp we happen to be informed incidentally that he had a habit of repeating favourite expressions. Irenæus, in a passage already quoted, mentions his exclamation, 'O good God,' as one of these [116:1].

Our author however declares that the passage in the Epistle which contains this expression is directly aimed at Marcion and his followers; and, inasmuch as Marcion can hardly have promulgated his heresy before A.D. 130-140 at the earliest, this fact, if it be a fact, condemns as spurious a work which professes to have been written some years before. But is there anything really characteristic of Marcion in the description? Our author does not explain himself, nor can I find anything which really justifies the statement in the writers to whom I am referred in his footnote. I turn therefore to the words themselves--

For every one who doth not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; and whosoever doth not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverteth the oracles of the Lord to (serve) his own lusts, and saith that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, this man is a first-born of Satan [116:2].

To illustrate the relation of these denunciations to Marcionite doctrine, I will suppose a parallel. I take up a book written by a Nonconformist, and I find in it an attack (I am not concerned with the truth or falsehood of the opinions attacked) on the doctrines of episcopal succession, of sacramental grace, of baptismal regeneration, and the like. It is wholly silent about claims to Papal domination, about infallibility, about purgatory and indulgences, about the worship of the Virgin or of the Saints. Am I justified in concluding that the writer is 'referring in unmistakable terms' to the Church of Rome, because the Church of Rome, in common with the majority of Churches, holds the doctrines attacked? Would not any reasonable man draw the very opposite inference, and conclude that the writer cannot mean the Church of Rome, because there is absolute silence about the distinctive tenets of that Church?

So it is here. Marcion, in common with almost all Gnostic sects, held some views which are here attacked. But Marcion had also doctrines of his own, sharp, trenchant, and startling. Marcion taught that the God of the New Testament was a distinct being from the God of the Old, whom he identified with the God of Nature; that these two Gods were not only distinct but antagonistic; that there was an irreconcilable, internecine feud between them; and that Jesus Christ came from the good God to rescue men from the God of Nature and of the Jews. This was the head and front of his offending; and consequently a common charge against him with orthodox writers is that he 'blasphemes God.' [117:1] Of this there is not a hint in Polycarp's denunciation. Again, Marcion rejected the authority of the Twelve, denouncing them as false Apostles, and he confined his Canon to St Paul's Epistles and to a Pauline Gospel. Again, Marcion prohibited marriage, and even refused to baptize married persons. On these points also Polycarp is silent.

But indeed the case against this hypothesis is much stronger than would appear from the illustration which I have used. Not only is there nothing specially characteristic of Marcion in the heresy or heresies denounced by Polycarp, not only were the doctrines condemned held by divers other teachers besides, but some of the charges are quite inapplicable to him. The passage in question denounces three forms of heretical teaching, which may or may not have been combined in one sect. Of these the first, 'Whosoever doth not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,' is capable of many interpretations. It way refer, for instance, to the separationism of Cerinthus, who maintained that the spiritual Being Christ descended on the man Jesus after the baptism, and left Him before the crucifixion, so that, while Jesus suffered, Christ remained impassible [118:1]; or it may describe the pure docetism, which maintained that our Lord's body was a mere phantom body, so that His birth and life and death alike were only apparent, and not real [118:2]; or it may have some reference different from either. I cannot myself doubt that the expression is borrowed from the First Epistle of St John, and there it seems to refer to Cerinthus, the contemporary of the Apostle [118:3]; but Polycarp may have used it with a much wider reference. Under any circumstances, though it would no doubt apply to Marcion, who held strong docetic views, it would apply to almost every sect of Gnostics besides. The same may be said of the second position attacked, 'Whosoever doth not confess the testimony of the cross,' which might include not only divers Gnostic sects, but many others as well. But the case is wholly different with the third, 'Whosoever perverteth the oracles of the Lord to (serve) his own lusts, and saith that there is neither resurrection nor judgment.' To this type of error, and this only, the description 'first-born of Satan' is applied in the text, and of this I venture to say that it is altogether inapplicable to Marcion. No doubt Marcion, like every other heretical teacher of the second century, or indeed of any century, did 'pervert the oracles of the Lord' by his tortuous interpretations; but he did not pervert them 'to his own lusts.' The high moral character of Marcion was unimpeachable, and is recognized by the orthodox writers of the second century; the worst charge which they bring against him is disappointed ambition. He was an ascetic of the most uncompromising and rigorous type. I cannot but regard it as a significant fact that when Scholten wishes to fasten this denunciation on Marcion, he stops short at 'pervert the oracles of the Lord,' and takes no account of the concluding words 'to his own lusts,' though these contain the very sting of the accusation [119:1]. Obviously the allusion here is to that antinomian license which many early Gnostic teachers managed to extract from the spiritual teaching of the Gospel. We find germs of this immoral doctrine a full half century before the professed date of Polycarp's Epistle, in the incipient Gnosticism which St Paul rebukes at Corinth [119:2]. We have still clearer indications of it in the Pastoral Epistles; and when we reach the epoch of the Apocalypse, which our author himself places somewhere in the year 68 or 69, the evil is almost full blown [119:3]. This interpretation becomes more evident when we consider the expression in the light of the accompanying clause, where the same persons are described as saying that there was 'no resurrection nor judgment.' This can hardly mean anything else than that they denied the doctrine of a future retribution, and so broke loose from the moral restraints imposed by fear of consequences. Here again, they had their forerunners in those licentious speculators belonging to the Christian community at Corinth who maintained that 'there is no resurrection of the dead,' [120:1] and whose Epicurean lives were a logical consequence of their Epicurean doctrine. And here, too, the Pastoral Epistles supply a pertinent illustration. If we are at a loss to conceive how they could have extracted such a doctrine out of 'the oracles of the Lord,' the difficulty is explained by the parallel case of Hymenæus and Philetus, who taught that 'the resurrection had already taken place,' [120:2] or in other words, that all such terms must be understood in a metaphorical sense as applying to the spiritual change, the new birth or resuscitation of the believer in the present world'. Thus everything hangs together. But such teaching is altogether foreign to Marcion. He did indeed deny the resurrection of the flesh, and the future body of the redeemed [120:4]. This was a necessary tenet of all Gnostics, who held the inherent malignity of matter. In this sense only he denied a resurrection; and he did not deny a judgment at all. Holding, like the Catholic Christian, that men would be rewarded or punished hereafter according to their deeds in this life, he was obliged to recognize a judgment in some form or other. His Supreme God indeed, whom he represented as pure beneficence, could not be a judge or an avenger, but he got over the difficulty by assigning the work of judging and punishing to the Demiurge [120:5]. To revert to my illustration, this is as though our Nonconformist writer threw out a charge of Erastianism against the anonymous body of Christians whom he was attacking, and whom nevertheless it was sought to identify with the Church of Rome.

6. The next argument is of a wholly different kind:--

The writer evidently assumes a position in the Church to which Polycarp could only have attained in the latter part of his life, and of which we first have evidence about A.D. 160, when he was deputed to Rome for the Paschal discussion.

This argument will not appeal to Englishmen with any power, when they remember that the ablest and most powerful Prime Minister whom constitutional England has seen assumed the reins of government at the early age of twenty-four. But Polycarp was not a young man at this time. M. Waddington's investigations here again stand us in good stead. If we take the earlier date of the martyrdom of Ignatius, Polycarp was now in his fortieth year at least; if the later date, he was close upon fifty. He had been a disciple, apparently a favourite disciple, of the aged Apostle St John. He was specially commended by Ignatius, who doubtless had spoken of him to the Philippians. History does not point to any person after the death of Ignatius whose reputation stood nearly so high among his contemporaries. So far as any inference can be drawn from silence, he was now the one prominent man in the Church. What wonder then that the Philippians should have asked him to write to them? To this request, I suppose, our author refers when he speaks of the writer 'assuming a position in the Church;' for there is nothing else to justify it. On his own part Polycarp writes with singular modesty. He associates his presbyters with himself in the opening address; he says that he should not have ventured to write as he does, if he had not received a request from the Philippians; he even deprecates any assumption of superiority [121:1].

7. But our author continues:--

And throughout, the Epistle depicts the developed organization of that period.

This argument must, I think, strike any one who has read the Epistle as surprising. There is, as I have said already, no reference to episcopacy from beginning to end [122:1]; and in this respect it presents the strongest contrast to writings of the age of Irenæus, to which it is here supposed to belong. Irenæus and his contemporaries are so familiar with episcopacy as a traditional institution, that they are not aware of any period when it was not universal; and more especially when they are dealing with heretics, they appeal to the episcopate as the depositary of the orthodox and Apostolic tradition in matters of doctrine and practice. The absence of all such language in Polycarp's Epistle is a strong testimony to its early date.

8. Lastly, another argument is alleged:--

Hilgenfeld has pointed out another indication of the same date, in the injunction 'Pray for the kings' (Orate pro regibus), which, in 1 Peter ii. 17, is 'Honour the king' ([Greek: ton basilea timate]), which accords with the period after Antoninus Pius had elevated Marcus Aurelius to joint sovereignty (A.D. 147), or better still, with that in which Marcus Aurelius appointed Lucius Verus his colleague, A.D. 161.

Here we have only to ask why _Orate pro regibus_ should be translated 'Pray for _the_ kings,' rather than 'Pray for kings,' and the ghost of a divided sovereignty vanishes before the spell. There is no reason whatever for supposing that the expression has anything more than a general reference. Even if the words had stood in the original [Greek: huper tôn basileôn] and not [Greek: huper basileôn], the presence of the article would not, according to ordinary Greek usage, necessarily limit the reference to any particular sovereigns. But there is very good reason for believing that the definite article had no place in the original. The writer of this Epistle elsewhere shows acquaintance with the First Epistle to Timothy. Thus in one place (§ 4), he combines two passages which occur in close proximity in that Epistle; 'The love of money is the source of all troubles (1 Tim. vi. 10): knowing therefore that we brought nothing into the world, neither are we able to carry anything out (1 Tim. vi. 7), let us arm ourselves' etc. Hence it becomes highly probable that he has derived this injunction also from the same Epistle; 'I exhort first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority' (ii. 2) [123:1], where it is [Greek: huper basileôn]. After his manner, Polycarp combines this with other expressions that he finds in the Evangelical and Apostolical writings (Ephes. vi. 18, Matt. v. 44, Phil. iii. 18), and gives the widest possible range to his injunction; 'Pray for all the saints; pray also for kings and potentates and princes, and for them that persecute and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross, etc.' We may therefore bid farewell to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Our author at the outset speaks of 'some critics who affirm the authenticity of the Epistle attributed to him [Polycarp], but who certainly do not justify their conclusion by any arguments nor attempt to refute adverse reasons.' He himself passes over in silence all answers which have been given to the objections alleged by him. Doubtless he considered them unworthy of notice. I have endeavoured to supply this lacuna in his work; and the reader will judge for himself on which side the weight of argument lies.

The author of _Supernatural Religion_ in his Reply, which appeared in the January number of the _Fortnightly Review_, pointed out two inaccuracies in my first article. In adverting to his silence respecting the occurrence of the Logos in the Apocalypse [123:2], I ought to have confined my remark to the portion of his work in which he is contrasting the doctrinal teaching of this book with that of the Apocalypse, where especially some mention of it was to be expected. He has elsewhere alluded, as his references show, to the occurrence of the term in the Apocalypse. The other point relates to the passage in which he charges Dr Westcott with insinuating in an underhand way what he knew not to be true respecting Basilides. While commenting on his omission of Dr Westcott's inverted commas in the extract which I gave [124:1], I overlooked the fact that he had just before quoted Dr Westcott's text correctly, as it stands in Dr Westcott's book. Though I find it still more difficult to understand how he could have brought this most unwarrantable charge when the fact of Dr Westcott's inverted commas was distinctly before him, I am not the less bound to plead guilty of an oversight, which I think I can explain to myself but which I shall not attempt to excuse, and to accept the retort of looseness, which he throws back upon me.

For the rest, I could not desire a more complete vindication of my criticisms than that which is furnished by the author's reply.

I cannot, for instance, take any blame to myself for not foreseeing the misprints which our author pleads, because they must have baffled far higher powers of divination than mine. Thus I found [124:2] the author stating that the fourth Evangelist 'only once distinguishes John the Baptist by the appellation [Greek: ho baptistês],' [124:3] whereas, as a matter of fact, he never does so; and comparing the whole sentence with a passage in Credner [124:4], to which the author refers in his footnote, I found that it presented a close parallel, as the reader will see:--

Während der Verfasser die           | He [the author] _only once_
beiden Apostel gleiches Namens,     | distinguishes John the Baptist
Judas, sorgfältig unterscheidet     | by the appellation [Greek: ho
(vergl. 14, 22), den Ap. Thomas     | baptistês], whilst he carefully
näher bezeichnet (11, 16; 20, 24;   | distinguishes the two disciples
21, 2) und den Apostel Petrus,      | of the name of Judas, and always
nur Simon Petrus, oder Petrus,      | speaks of the Apostle Peter as
nie Simon allein nennt (s. § 96,    | 'Simon Peter,' or 'Peter,' but
Nr. 3.), hat er es nicht für nöthig | rarely as 'Simon' only.
gefunden, den Täufer Johannes       |
von dem gleichnamigen Apostel       |
Johannes _auch nur ein einziges     |
Mal_ durch den Zusatz [Greek: ho    |
baptistês] zu unterscheiden         |
(1, 6. 15. 19. 26, etc.).           |

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