apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

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448 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
i-7^
Of the exact date when Irenseus
and Florinus were fellow-pupils of
Polycarp we cannot speak with confidence but it was
; probably during
the later years of the old man's life. So far as our knowledge of the
chronology of Irenseus goes, it might be anywhere between about
A.D. 135 and A.D. 150'.
The mention of the 'royal court' {iv Trj
fiaa-iXLKrj avXfj) should lead to some more definite conclusion^; but we
^
Irenffius in his Letter to Florinus
speaks of himself as 1:01% 'hi Civ at this
time. Elsewhere [ffaer. iii. 3. 4) he describes
this intercourse with Polycarp as
taking place eV ttJ irpioTr] ijfiwv rjXLKia.
Renan [VAglise Chretienne p. 439)
designates
him at this time 'un jeune Grec
d'une quinzaine d'annees'. Not very
differently R. A. Lipsius (I.e. p. 254),
arguing from the language of IrenKUS
elsewhere {Haer. ii. 22. 4, ii. 24. 4) respecting
the successive stages of human
life, argues that ' the age of the Trats will
commence... say about the iSth year',
and this age he considers to accord well
with the other expression Trpwrrj r;\txia.
But the expression is consistent with a
maturer age than this. In
the Epistle of
the Gallican Churches (Eus. H. E. v. i)
Ponticus (§ 53) is called iratddpi-ov
dis irev-
T6KaiSeKa hihv ;
and Constantine (Eus.
V. C. ii. 51) styles himself Kofxidij Tra
when he observed the embitterment in
Diocletian towards the Christians, though
he must have been 30 years old or more
when the persecution
broke out, and did
not go to reside at court till he was at
least 16. Polybius (xvii. 12. 5) speaks of
Flamininus as v^os KOfxidrj 'very young',
because, as he explains, 'he was not
more than thirty years old'; and he uses
this same expression
of Hiero (i. 8. 3)
who seems to have been then close upon
thirty-five, and of Philopoemen (ii. 67. 5)
who was then over thirty. Philopoemen
was called fieipaKiov by his contemporaries
at this same time ;
Plutarch Pit. Philop.
6. So likewise Galen in one passage
(0/. XIII. p. 599)
describes himself as
vios rrjv rfXiKiav, when he was entering
upon his 29th year, and in another (Op.
XIX. p. 15) as veos c3i/ hi, though he was
in his 34th year at the time.
But, even if this point were established
satisfactorily, we should still be at fault,
since the date of Irenseus' birth is not determinable
except within somewhat wide
limits. The subject has been discussed
with great care by R. A. Lipsius (I.e.
p. 253 sq), who places it about a.d. 130.
It can hardly be placed later, if the story
in the Appendix to the Letter of the
Smyrnffans in the Moscow MS (see III. p.
402) be true, that Ireneus was teaching
in Rome at the time of Polycarp's martyrdom
(a.d. 155); and there is no valid
reason against dating
it some ten years
earlier, as I have done in the Co7itemporary
Reviezv, August 1876, p. 415. On
the whole we are obliged to confess that
with the evidence before us only the very
roughest approximation to a date is possible.
2
Dodwell and Grabe explain the reference
by a visit of Hadrian to Asia, which
the former places A.D. 122 and the latter
A.D. 127 or A.D. 129 (Grabe Prolcg. Sect,
i, Iren. Op. 11. p. 32 sq, ed. Stieren).
Recently discovered inscriptions show
beyond question that Hadrian was in
these parts (at Ephesus and at Laodicea) ^
in A.D. 129 {Bulletin de Correspondance
liellenique 1883, p. 407). But even this
last date seems too early. On the other
handthe visits of L.Vems (a.d. 162 and in
subsequent years) are too late, as Polycarp's
death must now be placed about A.D.155.
Between Hadrian and L. Verus it has been
generally supposed that no emperor visited
the East. Reasons however will be
given in a subsequent chapter (on the
Date of the Martyrdom) for believing
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