apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

POLYCARP THE ELDER. 44 1
Long years afterwards it was his delight in old age
younger friends what he had heard from eye-witnesses
to relate to his
of the Lord's
earthly life, and more especially to dwell on his intercourse with the
Apostle S. John. His own disciple Irenreus speaks of his master as
having 'not only been taught by Apostles and lived in familiar intercourse
with many that had seen Christ, but also' as having 'received
his appointment in Asia from Apostles as bishop
in the Church of
Smyrna' (iii. 3. 4). We need not press the plural. TertuUian {cie
Fraescr. 32) definitely names S. John as having appointed him to
this office ; and, though the co-operation of other Apostles cannot be
pronounced impossible on chronological grounds,
it is at all events
not likely. On the other hand in S. John's case there is no improbability.
Polycarp was thirty years old, or possibly more, before the
death of this last surviving Apostle. The examples of Timothy at
Ephesus in a previous generation, and of Damas in Magnesia (Ign.
Magn. 3) among his own contemporaries, or of Athanasius at a still
later epoch, bear testimony to the practice of placing young men in the
highest offices of the Church in the earliest centuries. When Ignatius
writes to Polycarp — presumably some ten years later — he can still
address him in language which is most appropriate on the lips of an
old man speaking to one who is
many years his junior. On the other
hand, the Pionian story is
wholly irreconcilable with the statement of
Irengeus, and indeed condemns itself. It speaks of his 'hoary head',
the 'forerunner of old age', when he is admitted to the priesthood;
young man, as riva. tCjv ov fxaKpav jroXeuiv, age. But Polycarp can have been little
175 /cat Tov;'o/j.a X^yovatv iviou In the more than thirty, when S. John died. If
Cliron. Pasch. p. 470 (ed. Bonn.) under therefore this person is rightly entitled
A.D. loi, after referring to the passage bishop of Smyrna, he must have been a
of Clement just quoted as an authority predecessor of Polycarp — Bucolus for infer
S. John's activity in organizing the stance, if Bucolus is a historical person,
churches in Asia, the writer continues iv Antiochus Horn. 122 (p. 1813, ed.
^ Xpo'cy KoX 6 veaviaKos ov irapedero 6 Migne) tells this story of S. John and the
dTTocrroXoy 'Iwdpvijs ry eTrtcr/coTry ^fjL^pvrjs young robber, giving his authority, tolov-
K.T.X. Whether this chronicler gave the tov ti evpia-KOf^ev irapa ri^ Eipi^valuiname
Smyrna on the authority of one of (pyjal yap wepl tov deo\6yov 'ludvvov k.t.X.
those earlier narrators whom Clement It is not probable that Antiochus could
mentions, or whether it was a conjecture have got the story from Irenseus; and we
ofhis own, we cannot say. Halloix accepts must therefore suppose with Halloix that
his statement (p. 569) and identifies the he obtained it from Eusebius {//. E. iii.
bishop with Polycarp. Clement however 23) and that he is guilty of a confusion,
calls him not only 6 irpeapi/repo, which as Ireneeus is
quoted by Eusebius in the
might be a designation of office, but also same context in which he gives this story
6 7rpe(r/3i;T79,
which must designate old from Clement of Alexandria.