apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 367
Herodes is the magistrate who condemns Polycarp to death ; Nicetes
takes part in his apprehension (§ 8) and interposes,
as related in this
very passage where his sister's name is mentioned (§ 17), to prevent his
body being given up to the Christians. Yet Alee herself must have
been a Christian and well known as such. Otherwise she would not
have been mentioned thus incidentally in a letter addressed to the
somewhat distant Church of the Philomelians. We have therefore
in this Smyrnsean family a household divided against itself, in accordance
with the evangelic prediction (Matt. x. 21, 35, Luke xxi.
But what forger would have invented such a position or having
invented it, would have left his readers to infer it from a vague and
casual notice like this Even Pearson, trusting his memory, can say
carelessly of Nicetes that, as — Alce's brother, he ' intercesserat pro
Polycarpo' (see 11. p. 325) this being the obvious attitude of a
brother of Alee towards the martyr, prior to any evidence. The notice
therefore has the highest value as a testimony to the authenticity of
the account of Polycarp's martyrdom. But my object here is simply
to call attention to the fact, as showing that there was an Alee well
known as a Christian in Smyrna in the sub-apostolic ages. Moreover
the dates altogether agree. The Alee mentioned in the account of
Polycarp's martyrdom (a.d. 155 or 156), if still living, was probably
then in advanced age ;
for her brother Nicetes had a son influential
enough to be the chief magistrate of Smyrna and therefore probably in
middle life at this time. Such a person might well have been known
to Ignatius forty or fifty years before as a zealous Christian.
Among others whom Ignatius salutes at Smyrna is the wife, or
more probably the widow, ' of Epitropus with her whole household and
those of her children' {Polyc. 8 tt/v tou 'ETrtrpoTroi; avv oAw tw oikw av-njis
Koi Tcov reKvuiv). As I have pointed out in the note on the passage (11.
p. 359), we should not improbably treat rov iiriTpoTrov as the name of an
office ; and, if so, we have here again a coincidence, for the inscriptions
more than once speak of such a ' steward ' (eTrcVpoTros) in connexion
with Smyrna. Moreover the expression itself suggests relations which
a forger was not likely to invent. Salutations are sent not only to her
own household but to those of her children also. The whole sentence
points to some widow, who had children married and with families of
their own. The person so designated here is not improbably the same
who is mentioned in the companion Epistle to the Smyrnseans, where
Ignatius salutes 'the household of Gavia' {Smyrn. 13).
A third Smyrnsean to whom a salutation is sent {Polyc. 8), Attalus,
bears a name common in Smyrncean inscriptions (see 11. p. 359). Of
16).