apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

444 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
gratulates the Philippians on their attention to Ignatius and others on
their way to martyrdom (§ i),
and urges them to imitate the faithfulness
and courage of the martyrs (§ 9).
At the same time he sends
them, appended to his own epistle, copies of all the letters of Ignatius
which he had in his hands, including those addressed to himself and
his Church ;
and he asks them in turn to communicate to him any later
news which they may have respecting the
martyr and his companions
(§ 13).
He grants their request as to the despatch of their letter to
the Antiochene Church ;
and he intimates that he himself may perhaps
go to Antioch with it in person'. Whether this project was ever carried
out or not, we have no means of ascertaining. The visits of Mehto,
Abercius, and Pionius to the East^ show how readily Christian teachers
of proconsular Asia undertook these long journeys. These relations
with Ignatius were comprised within a few weeks in the late summer of
a single year, not long before or not long after a.d. iio, and therefore
somewhere about the middle point of his long life.
(3)
From his intercourse with his contemporaries we pass on to
his relations with a younger generation. During the remainder of the
century Asia Minor was the focus of activity in the Christian Church.
The famous writers of this period, Melito and Claudius ApoUinaris
and Polycrates, would all
probably have come under his personal
influence for ; they lived at no great distance from Smyrna and must
have grown into full manhood, or even attained middle age, before he
died. Nor would his influence be confined to the fathers of Asia
Minor. Some years before his death Justin Martyr came to proconsular
Asia. The scene of his Dialogue with Trypho is fixed at Ephesus and
;
a visit to this renowned disciple of the Apostles residing in a neighbouring
city would naturally form part of his programme. Clement of
Alexandria again mentions among his many teachers one who lived in
these parts of Asia Minor*. It is not likely indeed that he can have
been personally acquainted with Polycarp, for his date is somewhat too
late ;
but he must have visited these regions while Polycarp's influence
was still
fresh, and the instructor whom he thus mentions anonymously
would probably have been directly influenced by this Apostolic father.
But of two notable men more especially we have direct information, as
students together under Polycarp, though their after-lives were parted
wide as the poles asunder— Irenseus who stands out as the great
^
For more respecting this epistle see 169; for Pionius, Acta Pionii 4 in Rui-
II. p. 313 sq. nart Act. Mart. Sine. p. 190.
'
For Melito see Euseb. H. E. iv. 26 ; ^ Clem. Alex. Strom, i. i
for Abercius, Anal. Sacr. Solesin. ill. p. eVi r^s EXXctSos 'Iuvikos.
(p. 322) 6 jxlv