Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/430

Rh 414 P L P O L sate for these defects. It is, indeed, often impressive from the evident earnestness and sincerity of the writer, and from his sense of the gravity of his subject, arid is unspoilt by rhetoric or conceit. It has about it the ring of reality ; the language is sometimes pithy and vigorous ; and now and then ve meet with apt metaphors, such as those borrowed from boxing (i. 57), from cock-fighting (i. 58), from draughts (i. 84). But, in spite of these redeeming features, the prevailing baldness of Polybius s style excludes him from the first rank among classical writers ; and it is impossible to quarrel with the verdict pronounced by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who places him among those authors of later times who neglected the graces of style, and who paid for their neglect by leaving behind them works &quot;which no one was patient enough to read through to the end&quot; (irfpl ffvvQfS. OvofJ.a.TWl, 4). It is to the value and variety of his matter, to his critical insight, breadth of view, and wide research, and not least to the surpassing importance and interest of the period with which he deals, that Polybius owes his place among the writers of history. What is knoVn as to the fortunes of his histories, and the reputation they enjoyed, fully bears out this conclusion. The silence respecting him&quot; maintained by Quintilian and by Lucian may reasonably be taken to imply their agreement with Dionysius as to his merits as a master of style. On the other hand, Cicero (De Off., iii. 32) describes him as &quot;bonus auctor in primis&quot;; in the DC Ecpublica (ii. 14) he praises highly his accuracy in matters of chronology, &quot;nemo in exquirendis temporibus diligentior &quot; ; and Cicero s younger contemporary, Marcus Brutus, was a devoted student of Polybius, and was engaged on the eve of the battle of Pharsalia in compiling an epitome of his histories (Suidas, s.v. ; Plutarch, Brut., 4). Livy, however, notwithstanding the extent to which he used his writings (see LIVY), speaks of him in such qualified terms as to suggest the idea that his strong artistic sensibilities had been wounded by Polybius s literary defects. He has nothing better to say of him than that he is &quot;by no means contemptible &quot; (xxx. 45), and &quot;not an untrustworthy author &quot; (xxxiii. 10). Posidonius and Strabo, both of them Stoics like Polybius himself, are said to have written continuations of his history (Suidas, s.v.; Strabo, p. 515). Arrian in the early part of the 2d and ^Elian in the 3d century both speak of him with respect, though with reference mainly to his excellence as an authority on the art of war. In addition to his Histories Polybius was the author of the following smaller works: a life of Philopcemen (Polyb., x. 24), a history of the Xumantine War (Cic., Ad Fatn., v. 12), a treatise on tactics (Polyb., ix. 20; Arrian, Tactica; yElian, Tact., i. ). The geographical treatise, referred to by Geminus, is possibly identical with the thirty-fourth book of the Histories (Schweigh., Preef., p. 184. The complete books (i.-v.) of the Histories were first printed in a Latin transla tion by Nicholas Perotti in 1473. The date of the first Greek edition, that by Obsopseus, is 1530. For a full account of these and of later editions, as well as of the extant MSS., see Schwcigliauser s Preface to his edition of Polybius. Our knowledge of the contents of the fragmentary books is derived partly from quotations in ancient writers, but mainly from two collections of excerpts; one, probably the work of a late Uyzantine compiler, was first printed at Basel in 1543 and contains extracts from books vi.-xviii. (n-epi Trpea-^eicoi/, Trepi aperrjs xa c Koxi as); the other consists of two fragments from the &quot;select passages&quot; from Greek historians compiled by the directions of Constantino Porphyvogenitus in the 10th century. To these must be added the Vatican excerpts edited by Cardinal Mai in the present century. The following are the more important modern editions of Polybius : Ernesti (3 vols., 17&amp;lt;;3-64); Schweighauser (8 vols., 1793, and Oxford, 1823); Uekker (2 vols., 1*44); L.Dindorf (4 vols., 18i;6-f&amp;gt;8, 2d ed.,Teubner, 1882); Hultsch (4 vols., 1867- 71). For the literature of the subject, see Engelmann, Diblioth. Script. Class.: Script. Grxei (pp. 646-650, 8th ed., Leipsic, 1880). (H. F. P.) POLYCARP. The importance of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, for the earliest period of church history arises from his historical position. He was on the one hand a disciple of John and other apostles and disciples of Jesus ; on the other hand he was the teacher of Irenseus, the first of the catholic fathers. 1 In his letter to Florinus, Irenseus (ap. Euseb., ff.K, v. 20) says : I saw you when I was yet, as a boy, in Lower Asia with Polycarp. . . I could even now point out the place where the blessed Poly carp sat and spoke, and describe his going out and coming in, his manner of life, his personal appearance, the addresses he delivered to the multitude, how he spoke of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, and how lie recalled their words. And everything that he had heard from them about the Lord, about His miracles and His teaching, Polycarp told us, as one who had re ceived it from those who had seen the Word of Life with their own eyes, and all this in complete harmony with the Scriptures. To this I then listened, through the mercy of God vouchsafed to me, ith all eagerness, and wrote it not on paper but in my heart, and still by the grace of God I ever bring it into fresh remembrance.&quot; These are priceless words, for they establish a chain of tradition (Jesus, John, Polycarp, Irenseus) which is without a parallel in history. It is all the more to be regretted that 1 Iren., iii. 3, 4. Irenreus in his great work 2 has said so little of Polycarp, and that neither Poly crates of Ephesus 3 nor Tertullian 4 mentions anything of importance. The sources for the life and activity of Polycarp are as follows : (1) a few notices of Irem^us ; (2) the epistle of Polycarp to the church at Philippi ; (3) the epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp ; (4) the epistle of the church at Smyrna to the church at Philomelium, giving an account of the martyrdom of Polycarp. Since these authorities have all been called in question, and some of them entirely rejected, by recent criticism, it is necessary to say a few words about each of them. 1. Of the statements of Irenreus, those contained in the letter to Victor and in the large work have passed unchallenged. The letter to Florinus, however, which places Polycarp in unequivocal connexion with the apostle John, has been discredited, because, it is alleged, John never was in Asia Minor. But this denial of John s residence in Asia Minor is itself a piece of critical arbi trariness, and to assert that the epistle to Florinus is spurious is a desperate resource. The only argument which can be adduced against it with any sort of plausibility is the fact that in his great work Irenaeqs does not satisfy the expectations which the letter to Florinus is apt to raise in a modern reader. It is certainly the case that he tells us very little about Polycarp and still less about John. But statements from the mouth of Polycarp of the very kind which the letter to Florinus would lead us to expect are not altogether wanting in the great work of Irenreus (see iii. 3, 4 ; ii. 22, 5 ; v. 30, I) 5 ; and that they are so few is accounted for by the plan and object of the treatise. The facts mentioned by Iivnams, therefore, cannot be set aside, although the assertion that Polycarp was appointed bishop of the church at Smyrna by the apostles (iii. 3, 4) is probably a deduction from the Catholic theory of the origin of the episcopate. If it was once understood that Polycarp had seen apostles, the necessary inference for the time of Irena?us was that he had received his office from the hands of the apostles. 2. Under the name of Polycarp we possess, in a Latin transla tion, a complete letter to the church at Philippi, which was first published by Faber Stapulensis in 1498. Of the Greek original, which was first edited by Halloix in 1633, unfortunately only three- fourths has been preserved. 6 Since Irenrcus (iii. 3, 4) expressly mentions and commends a letter of Polycarp to the church of Philippi, since Eusebius (H. E., iii. 36) was acquainted with the epistle as we have it and makes extracts from it, and since Jerome (De Vir. III., xvii.) testifies that in his time it was publicly read in the Asiatic churches, the external evidence in its favour is as strong as could be desired. But the internal evidence is also very strong. The occasion of the letter was a case of embezzlement, the guilty individual being a presbyter at Philippi. It shows a fine combination of mildness with severity ; the language is simple but powerful ; and, while there is undoubtedly a lack of original ideas, the author shows remarkable skill in weaving together pregnant sentences and impressive warnings selected from the apostolic epistles and the first epistle of Clement. There is no trace of any tendency beyond the immediate purpose of maintain ing the true Christian life in the church, and warning it against covetousness and against an nnbrotherly spirit. In these circum stances it would certainly never have occurred to any one to doubt the genuineness of the epistle, or to suppose that it had been inter polated, but for the fact that in several passages reference is made to Ignatius and his epistles. In point of fact the historical situation which is presupposed by the epistle is this, that Ignatius, on his last journey to Rome, has just passed through Philippi, and that his letters are circulating in the churches. Hence all those scholars who hold the seven Ignatian epistles to be spurious are compelled to regard the epistle of Polycarp as also a forgery, 7 or at least as having been largely interpolated. 8 The interpolation hypothesis, however, breaks down in view of the fact that the first epistle of Clement is quoted even in those passages which are alleged to be interpolated ; and besides it is inconsistent with the very obvious arrangement and unity of the composition. On the other hand the 2 The lost writings of Irenanis may have contained fuller informa tion ; see the close of the Martyrium Polycarpi in the Cod. Mosq., and the letter of Irensus to Victor iii Eusebius (//. E., v. 24). 3 Euseb., //. E., v. 24, 4. * De Priescr. Hzcr., 32. 5 Cf. &quot; Presbyterorum reliquiae ab Irenceo servatre,&quot; in the Pair. App. Opp., ed. Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, vol. i. 2, p. 105 sq. 6 All the Greek MSS. are derived from a single archetype, in which the epistle of Barnabas followed that of Polycarp, but a sheet of four leaves had been torn out, so that the end of Polycarp s epistle and the beginning of that of Barnabas are missing. 7 So, for example, Lipsius, Hilgenfeld, and others. 8 So Dallseus, first of all, tlieu Bunseu and Ritschl (Entstchung der aUkathoL Kirche, 2d ed., p. 584 sq.).