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].