apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

446 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
This vivid picture from an eye-witness enables us to realize the
aged Polycarp surrounded by his youthful disciples. The place, says a
modern writer, was '
without doubt one of the terraces on the slope of
Mount Pagus, whence we descry the sparkling bay and its beautiful
girdle of mountains An echo of Galilee thus made itself heard, at a
distance of a hundred and twenty years, on the shores of another sea'.'
The subsequent
life of the narrator bears testimony to the wide
influence of Polycarp. The South of Gaul had been colonized originally
from the Eastern shores of the ^gaean. Its Christianity came from
the same regions as its colonization. The Church of Gaul was the
spiritual daughter of the Church of proconsular Asia. Irengeus — the
first systematic champion of Catholic orthodoxy,
as based on the
apostolic tradition and distinguished from the unbridled speculations
of the sects— the most competent of the fathers of the second century
—
received his early education in Asia Minor, partly under the direct
influence of Polycarp. He became bishop of Lyons in a. d. 177, but
had already resided there some years. The see had been vacated on
this occasion by the death of the aged Pothinus, who fell in the persecution
which raged in the Churches of Vienne and Lyons under
M. Aurelius. Pothinus is stated in the contemporary account of his
martyrdom to have been over ninety years of age". If this be true (and
at most the exaggeration can only be slight),
he was a young boy when
the Apostle John died, and junior to Polycarp by some twenty years at
the outside. It is frequently stated that he too had migrated from
Asia Minor, into Gaul ;
and though the statement is based on a misinterpretation
of a late authority^, the circumstance is highly probable
in itself Of those whose names are given as sufferers in this persecution,
two at least, Attalus of Pergamus and Alexander the physician
from Phrygia, were themselves natives of this part of Asia Minor, while
several others bear Greek names. The circular letter, giving an account
of these martyrdoms, was addressed ' to the brethren in Phrygia and
Asia' (Euseb. H. E. v. i); and individual martyrs and confessors in
^
Renan V&glisc Chretiemjc pp. 438,
439-
Letter of the Gallieaij Churches § 24
o 5^ fiaKapios HoOeivos 6 ttjv diaKovlav ttjs
iiTLcrKOTrTJs ev Aovyoovvui jrfTnarevfj.ei'Oi
iiirkp TO, €vev7]i;ovTa ^ttj ttjs yjXiKias yeyovihs
K.T.X.
^ This statement is made by Routh,
following previous writers, J^e/. Sacr. i.
p. 328 ;
see also the Bollandist Act.
Sanct. Jan. 26 (11. p. 694). The authority
quoted is Gregoiy of Tours Hist.
Franc, i.
24 'Beatissimus vero Irenaeus
hujus successor martyris [Pothini], qui a
beato Polycarpo ad banc urbem directus
est etc. ' ;
but the whole complexion of
the passage shows that the antecedent to
'qui' is not 'martyris' but 'Irenaeus'.
The statement is founded on Euseb. H.E.
V. 5-