Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/866

 attempt to supersede Christ's gospel by fictions of their own devising. Irenaeus tells how, when he heard their impiety, he would stop his ears and cry out, "O good God! for what times hast Thou kept me that I should endure such things!" and would even flee from the place where he was sitting or standing when he heard such words. In so behaving he claimed to act in the spirit of his master John, concerning whom he told that once when he went to take a bath in Ephesus and saw Cerinthus within, he rushed away without bathing, crying out, "Let us flee, lest the bath should fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within"; and when Marcion meeting Polycarp asked him, "Do you recognize us?" he answered, "I recognize thee as the firstborn of Satan." This last phrase is found in the extant letter. He says, "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 his own lusts and saith that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, this man is a first-born of Satan." This coincidence has, not very reasonably, been taken as a note of spuriousness of the letter; the idea being that a writer under the name of Polycarp who employs a phrase traditionally known as Polycarp's betrays himself as a forger striving to gain acceptance for his production. It might rather have been supposed that a coincidence between two independent accounts of Polycarp's mode of speaking of heretics ought to increase the credibility of both. Irenaeus, who reports the anecdote, was acquainted with the letter, and, if we cannot accept both, it is more conceivable that his recollection may have coloured his version of the anecdote.

One of the latest incidents in Polycarp's active life was a journey which, near the close of his episcopate, he made to Rome, where Anicetus was then bishop. We are not told whether the cause of the journey was to settle points of difference between Roman and Asiatic practice; those existed, but did not interrupt their mutual accord. In particular Asiatic Quartodecimanism was at variance with Roman usage. We cannot say with certainty what kind of Easter observance was used at Rome in the time of Anicetus, for the language of Irenaeus implies that it was not then what it afterwards became; but the Asiatic observance of the 14th day was unknown in Rome, although Polycarp averred the practice of his church to have had the sanction of John and other apostles, and therefore to be what he could by no means consent to change. Anicetus was equally determined not to introduce into his church an innovation on the practice of his predecessors; but yet shewed his reverence for his aged visitor by "yielding to him the Eucharist in his church." This phrase seems capable of no other interpretation than that generally given to it, viz. that Anicetus permitted Polycarp to celebrate in his presence.

The story of the martyrdom of Polycarp is told in a letter still extant, purporting to be addressed by the church of Smyrna to the church sojourning (παροικούση) in Philomelium (a town of Phrygia) and to all the παροικίαι of the holy Catholic Church in every place. This document was known to Eusebius, who transcribed the greater part in his ''Eccl. Hist.'' (iv. 15). A trans. of this and of Polycarp's Ep. appears in the vol. of ''Apost. Fathers inAnte-Nicene Lib.'' (T. &amp; T. Clark). The occurrence of the phrase "Catholic Church" just quoted has been urged as a note of spuriousness; but not very reasonably, in the absence of evidence to make it even probable that the introduction of this phrase was later than the death of Polycarp. We know for certain that the phrase is very early. It is used in the Ignatian letters (Smyrn. 8), by Clem. Alex. (Strom. vii. 17), in the Muratorian Fragment, by Hippolytus (Ref. ix. 12) and Tertullian. Remembering the warfare waged by Polycarp against heresy, it is highly probable that in his lifetime the need had arisen for a name to distinguish the main Christian body from the various separatists. The whole narrative of the martyrdom bears so plainly the mark of an eye-witness, that to imagine, as Lipsius and Keim have done, some one capable of inventing it a century after the death of Polycarp, seems to require great critical credulity. With our acceptance of the martyrdom as authentic Hilgenfeld (Zeitschrift, 1874, p. 334) and Renan (Eglise chrét. 462) coincide. We see no good reason to doubt that the narrative was written, as it professes to be, within a year of the martyrdom, by members of the church where it occurred and who had actually witnessed it; and we believe it to have been written specially to invite members of other churches to attend the commemoration on the anniversary of the martyrdom. It is deeply tinged by a belief in the supernatural, but it is uncritical to cast doubts on the genuineness of a document on the assumption that Christians of the 2nd cent., under the strain of a great persecution, held the views of their 19th-cent. critics as to the possibility of receiving supernatural aid or consolation.

The story relates that Polycarp's martyrdom was the last act of a great persecution and took place on the occasion of games held at Smyrna, eleven others having suffered before him. These games were probably held in connection with the meeting of the Asiatic diet (τὸ κοινὸν τῆς Ἀσίας), which met in rotation in the principal cities of the province. If more information were available as to this rotation and as to the seasons when these meetings were held, we should probably be able to fix the date of Polycarp's martyrdom with more certainty. The proconsul came from Ephesus, the ordinary seat of government, to preside. It may have been to provide the necessary victims for the wild beast shows that the Christians were sought for (some were brought from Philadelphia) and required to swear by the fortune of the emperor and offer sacrifice. The proconsul appears to have discharged his unpleasant duty with the humanity ordinary among Roman magistrates, doing his best to persuade the accused to save themselves by compliance, and no doubt employing the tortures, of which the narrative gives a terrible account, as a merciful cruelty which might save him from