apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 343
tian Epistles on the part of the author or authors of this letter of the
Smyrnaeans \
The Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons records the
martyrdoms in those cities under M. Aurelius and was written about a.d.
177. It represents the voice of the daughter Church in Gaul, as the
other represented the voice of the mother Church in Asia Minor. The
parallels with the Ignatian Epistles here are slighter than in the Letter
of the Smyrnaeans, as perhaps we might have expected but
; they are
noticeable. One or two of these are given above p. 141. Other coincidences
are the metaphor of Spoa-L^eaBat 'to be sprinkled with dew,
refreshed' (§ 6, comp. Magn. 14), of the 'birth-pangs' of martyrdom (§13
(uo-Trep wSiVcor, comp. Roni. 6 o T6Ki.T6/s, comp. Pom. 4 fxaOrjTrjs dXrjOrj Tov XpiaTov), and in both the prayers
of those addressed are asked that the petitioners may be crowned with
martyrdom (§ 17, Trail. 12, Rotn. 4), In like manner there is a striking
resemblance of diction, though the subject is somewhat different,
between § 6 dviDpOwOr] to cr[jidTtov...Kai TTjv tSeav diriXa/Se rrjv Trporipav,
and Smyrn.
1 1 aTriXafSov to i'Stov fiey^Oos koL amKaTttTTdOrj avrols to
»'
Ihiov awp-aTiov [crwjaaTetov].
The testimony of the documents hitherto considered is especially
valuable as coming from those churches which were likely to be well
informed. If the Ignatian Epistles were mostly written, as they purport
to have been written, to or from Smyrna,
if the first collection of these
epistles was made, as it professes to have been made, by an early
bishop of Smyrna, then the voice of the Smyrnasan Church and of
her Gallican dependencies is of supreme importance in deciding the
question of their genuineness.
^
I have to thank a correspondent for ment, which I should otherwise have
calling my attention to some of these coin- overlooked,
cidences in this and the following docu-