apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

POLYCARP THE ELDER. 435
he seemed to be double his proper stature and to have a scarlet cloke on
his right shoulder, while a seal was on his neck which glistened like
snow. The eyes of all were fastened upon him, and when the passages
from Paul's Epistles to Timothy and Titus, describing what is required
in a bishop, were read, they said one to another that he was lacking in
none of these things. So then after the lessons were read and due
exhortation was made, when the deacons were sent to ask the laity
whom they would have, they cried out with one voice, 'Let Polycarp be
our shepherd and teacher'.
Of his doings as a bishop many miracles are recorded. On one
occasion when he was at Teos, the bishop Daphnus complained of
the scarcity. But Polycarp invoked the name of Jesus Christ over the
empty barrels and immediately they were filled, so that there was grain
enough, not only for seed and for the supply of the house, but also to
give to others. On a later day he was in this same place ;
a small cask
of wine was miraculously replenished again and again through his intercession;
a maid-servant lightly laughed at this inexhaustible supply from
one little vessel; immediately the wine disappeared from it, and Polycarp
rebuked her for her levity. Another day he and his deacon Camerius
were lodging in a certain house on one of his pastoral rounds. An angel
appeared at dead of night once and again, warning them to leave the
place. Camerius, heavy with sleep, refused to obey. The angelic warning
was repeated a third time— now not in vain. They rose from their beds
and left the house. They had not gone far, when the house fell to the
ground, and all the inmates were buried in the ruins. At another time a
fire burst out at night in Smyrna, spreading from a baker's shop. The
wonted means failed to quench the flames. Then the mayor, instructed
in a dream, sent for Polycarp. Polycarp looked up to heaven and
prayed, and the flames were extinguished in a moment. After this again
there was a terrible drought and famine in the city. It was only natural
that the mayor and the citizens, remembering what he had done for
them formerly, should again appeal to him for aid. Polycarp answered
their appeal. He gathered the clergy and laity together to the house
of God. There they all, led by the bishop, prayed earnestly to the
God who opened the heavens at the prayer of Elijah, when they had
been shut three years and six months.
the rain came.
The petition was answered, and
So ran the story of Polycarp, current at the close of the fourth
century, as it was told in the saint's life which professes to have been
written by Pionius. Unhappily it has no points of contact with authentic
tradition. If it contains any grains of truth, we have no means of
28—2