Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion" Part 6

Of the character of these Epistles, it must suffice here to say that the writer at all events was thoroughly acquainted with the manner and teaching of St Ignatius. As regards the substance, they contain many extravagances of sentiment and teaching, more especially relating to the episcopal office, from which the Curetonian letters are free and which one would not willingly believe written by the saint himself. But it remains a question, whether such considerations ought to outweigh the arguments on the other side. At all events it cannot be shown that they exhibit any different type of doctrine, though the mode of representation may seem exaggerated. As regards style, the Curetonian letters are more rugged and forcible than the Vossian; but as selected excerpts, they might perhaps be expected to exhibit these features prominently.

For the reasons given I shall, unless I am shown to be wrong, treat the Curetonian letters as the work of the genuine Ignatius, while the Vossian letters will be accepted as valid testimony at all events for the middle of the second century. The question of the genuineness of the latter will be waived. I fear that my indecision on this point will contrast disadvantageously with the certainty which is expressed by the author of _Supernatural Religion_. If so, I am sorry, but I cannot help it.

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 Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus, 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 spa.r.s.e, 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 Irenaeus 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 Tubingen 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 a.s.sault 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. Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus 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 pa.s.ses 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 G.o.d.... Be sober, as G.o.d'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 G.o.d's consent, as indeed thou doest not [93:1].

The close of the letter is addressed mainly to the Smyrnaeans, 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 a.s.sumed, 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 doc.u.ment 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 h.e.l.lenist 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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sages 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 Tubingen 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 Tubingen school must be abandoned.

From considering the phenomena of the extant Epistle, we pa.s.s 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, Irenaeus, who stood forward as the great champion of orthodoxy. The following is the remonstrance addressed by Irenaeus to his former a.s.sociate 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 on 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: diamnemoneuo]) the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood ([Greek: ek paidon]), 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 G.o.d's mercy which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of G.o.d, I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully ([Greek: gnesios]). And I can testify in the sight of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 Irenaeus records it. In the year 155 or 156 Polycarp died; in the year 177 Irenaeus became Bishop of Lyons.

Putting these two facts together, we may perhaps a.s.sume that Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus addressed to him this letter from which I have given the extract, and which was also ent.i.tled 'On Monarchy' or 'Showing that G.o.d is no--the author of evil' ([Greek: poieten kakon])--this being the special heresy of Florinus; and that afterwards, apparently by a rebound, he lapsed into Valentinianism, on which occasion Irenaeus wrote his treatise on the Ogdoad [98:2]. As the treatise of Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Pa.s.sion. Polycarp pleaded the practice of St John and the other Apostles with whom he had conversed, for observing the actual day of the Jewish Pa.s.sover, 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 Pa.s.sion 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, Irenaeus, 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]. Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus 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 princ.i.p.al link in the chain, gives a peculiar significance to this pa.s.sage, 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 te prote hemon helikia]) 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 G.o.d 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: hikanotate]), 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 Irenaeus, 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 Irenaeus 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 Circ.u.mcision, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus it was legible enough. 'Who does not know,'

exclaims his own pupil Hippolytus, 'the books of Irenaeus and Melito and the rest, which declare Christ to be G.o.d 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 doc.u.ment, 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 p.r.o.nouncing the formula, 'Caesar 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 proconsuls.h.i.+p 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 Irenaeus 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 a.s.sumed 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 Irenaeus respecting the authors.h.i.+p 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 establis.h.i.+ng its adequacy. Our author indeed is content to set it aside, because 'the testimony of Irenaeus is not ... ent.i.tled 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 Irenaeus justifies the statement that the period was short; but the pa.s.sage 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 Irenaeus 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 Irenaeus 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 pa.s.sages 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 doc.u.ments, 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sert his t.i.tle, 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 G.o.d,' 'the pa.s.sion of my G.o.d,' 'Jesus Christ our G.o.d,' and the like.