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 POLONUS

219

POLYCARP

vols, fol., Venice, 1559). Chief editions. — There are more than fifty-six of these in various languages. French text, ed. Pauthier (Paris, 1865); Italian ver- sion, ed. Baldelli (Florence, 1827); English tr. with commentary by Sir Henry Yule, revised by Henri Cordier (London, 1903).

C.iHUN, Introd. a Vhistoire de VAsie (Paris, 1896); Curtin, The Mongols CBoston, 190S).

Louis Be^hier.

Polonus, Martinus. See Martin of Troppau.

Polyandry. See Marriage, History of.

PolybotUS, titular see in Phrygia Salutaris, suffra- gan of Synnada. This town is mentioned only in the sixth century by Hierocles, "Synecdemus", 677, 10. It is now Boulvadin, capital of the caza of the vilayet of Brousse, with 8000 inhabitants, all Mussulmans; there are some ruins of no interest. Le Quien (Oriens chris- tianus, I, 841) mentions two bishops: Strategius, pres- ent at the Council of Chalcedon (451); St. John, whose feast is celebrated 5 Dec. and who lived under Leo the Isaurian; at the Council of Nice (787), the see was represented by the priest Gregory. The earliest Greek "Notitia Episcopatuum" of the seventh cen- tury places the see among the suffragans of Synnada, and it is still attached to this metropolis as a titular see by the Curia Romana. But from the ninth cen- tury until its disappearance as a residential see, it was a suffragan of Amorium. See the " Basilii Notitia" in Gelzer, "Georgii Cvprii descriptio orbis romani " (Leipzig, 1890), 26. "

Leake, Asia Minor, 53; Ramsay, .4.5ia Minor, 232.

S. P6thidI;s.

Polycarp, Saint, martyr (a. d. 69-155). — Our chief sources of information concerning St. Polycarp are: (1) the Epistles of St. Ignatius; (2) St. Polycarp's own Epistle to the Philippians; (.3) sundry passages in St. IreniBUs; (4) the Letter of the Smyrna;ans recount- ing the martyrdom of St. Polycarp.

(1) Four out of the seven genuine epistles of St. Ignatius were written from Smyrna. In two of these — Magnesians and Ephesians — he speaks of Polycarp. The seventh Epistle was addressed to Polycarp. It contains little or nothing of historical interest in connexion with St. Polycarp. In the opening words St. Ignatius gives glory to God "that it hath been vouchsafed to me to see thy face". It seems hardly safe to infer, with Pearson and Lightfoot, from these words that the two had never met before.

(2) The Epistle of St. Polycarp was a reply to one from the Philippians, in which they had asked St. Polycarp to address them some words of exhortation; to forward by his own messenger a letter addressed by them to the Church of Antioch; and to send them any epistles of St. Ignatius which he might have. The sec- ond request should be noted. St. Ignatius had asked the Churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia to send a messenger to congratulate the Church of Antioch on the restoration of peace; presumably, therefore, when at Philippi, he gave similar instructions to the Philip- pians. This is one of the many respects in which there is such complete harmony between the situations re- vealed in the EpLstles of St. Ignatius and the Epistle of St. Polycarp, that it is hardly possible to impugn the genuineness of the former without in some way trying to destroy the credit of the latter, which hap- pens to be one of the best attested documents of an- tiquity. In consequence some extremists, anti-epis- copalians in the seventeenth century, and members of the Tubingen School in the nineteenth, boldly rejected the Epistle of Polycarp. Others tried to make out that the passages which told most in favour of the Ignatian epistles were interpolations.

These theories possess no interest now that the genuineness of the Ignatian epistles has practically ceased to be questioned. The only point raised which

had any show of plausibility (it was sometimes used against the genuineness, and sometimes against the early date of St. Polycarp's Epistle) was based on a passage in which it might at first sight seem that Marcion was denounced: "For every one who doth not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist; and whosoever does not confess the testi- mony of the cross, is a devil, and whosoever pervert- eth the oracles of the Lord (to serve) his own lusts, and saith there is neither resurrection nor judgment, this man is a first-born of Satan." St. Polycarp wrote his epistle before he had heard of St. Ignatius's martyr- dom. Now, supposing the passage just quoted to have been aimed at Marcion (whom, on one occasion, as we shall presently see, St. Polycarp called to his face "the first born of Satan"), the choice lies between rejecting the epistle as spurious on account of the anachronism, or bringing down its date, and the date of St. Ignatius's martyrdom to A. D. 130-140 when Marcion became prominent. Harnack seems at one time to have adopted the latter alternative; but he now admits that there need be no reference to Marcion at all in the passage in question (Chronologic, I, 387- 8). Lightfoot thought a negative could be proved. Marcion, according to him, cannot be referred to be- cause nothing is said about his characteristic errors, e. g., the distinction between the God of the Old and the God of the New Testament; and because the an- tinomianism ascribed to "the first-born of Satan" is inapplicable to the austere Marcion (Lightfoot, St. Ig- natius and St. Polycarp, I, 585; all references to Light- foot (L), unless otherwise stated, will be to this work).

When Lightfoot wrote it was necessary to vindicate the authenticity of the Ignatian epistles and that of St. Polycarp. If the former were forgeries, the latter, which supports — it might almost be said presupposes — them, must be a forgery from the same hand. But a comparison between Ignatius and Polycarp shows that this is an impossible hypothesis. The former lays every stress upon episcopacy, the latter does not even mention it. The former is full of emphatic declara- tions of the doctrine of the Incarnation, the two natures in Christ, etc. In the latter these matters are hardly touched upon. "The divergence between the two writers as regards Scriptural quotations is equally remarkable. Though the seven Ignatian letters are many times longer than Polycarp's Epistle, the quota- tions in the latter are incomparably more numerous, as well as more precise, than in the former. The obli- gations to the New Testament are wholly different in character in the two cases. The Ignatian letters do, indeed, show a considerable knowledge of the writings included in our Canon of the New Testament ; but this knowledge betrays itself in casual words and phrases, stray metaphors, epigrammatic adaptations, and iso- lated coincidences of thought. . . . On the other hand in Polycarp's Ejjistle sentence after sentence is frequently made up of passages from the Evangeli- cal and Apostolic writings. . . . But this divergence forms only part of a broader and still more decisive contrast, affecting the whole style and character of the two writings. The profuseness of quotations in Poly- carp's Epistle arises from a want of originality. . . . On the other hand the letters of Ignatius have a marked individuality. Of all early Christian writings they are pre-eminent in this respect " (op. cit., 595-97).

(3) In St. Irenieus, Polycarp comes before us pre- eminently as a link with the past. Irena>us mentions him four times: (a) in connection with Papias; (b) in his letter to Florinus; (c) in his letter to Pope Victor; (d) at the end of the celebrated appeal to the potior principalilas of the Roman Church.

(a) From "Adv. Haer. ", V, xxxiii, we learn that Papias was "a hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp".

(b) Florinus was a Roman presbyter who lapsed into heresy. St. Irenaeus wrote him a letter of re-