apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

POLYCARP THE ELDER. 45 1
avoid ; knowing that such a one is perverted and sinneth, being selfcondemned'
(Tit. iii. lo, ii).'
At this epoch Rome was the general meeting point of Christendom.
Hither flocked Christian teachers, orthodox and heretical, from all parts
of the world. Here Polycarp might have fallen in with Eleutherus, at
this time or soon —
after acting as deacon under the bishop Anicetus
the earliest recorded instance of an archdeacon— but destined himself
to ascend the papal throne the next but one in succession Here '.
maystill
have survived the author of the earliest Christian allegory, Hermas,
himself a slave by birth but brother to the immediate predecessor of
Anicetus in the Roman episcopate ^ About this same time also—
within a few years earlier or later— among the foreigners resident in
Rome were Hegesippus, the earliest historian of Christianity, a native
of Palestine and a Hebrew by birth, who interested himself in the
succession of the Roman see, intent, like Iren^eus in the next generation,
on showing the permanence of the orthodox tradition through the
continuity of the Roman episcopate^; and Justin Martyr, a Samaritan
by race, the typical apologist of the Church, the champion of the Gospel
against Jew and Gentile alike ^ Here also he would find his own earlier
pupil Irenaeus, the greatest Christian writer of his age, destined hereafter
to be the father of the Gallican Churches, but now apparently and
for some time afterwards residing in Rome^, where (though probably
several years later) he appears to have given lectures on his favourite
subject heresiology, and to have numbered among his hearers Hippolytus
the future bishop of Portus ^
Heretical teachers likewise gathered in great force in the metropolis
of the world. Here taught, or had taught, Cerdon the forerunner of
the dualism of Marcion^
Here was established the renowned heresi-
^
Hegesippus
in Euseb. H.E. iv. it. residence in Rome,
^ew/iei/os 5^ eV'PwjuTj StaSoXT)" ewotrjadixriv
^
At all events the supplement to the
fiixpi-^' ^"iK-qrov, ov dLaLKOvos TJv'EXevdtpos. Mart. Polyc. 22 in the Moscow MS repre-
Cation Mitratorianiis p. 58 sq (ed. sents him as being in Rome at the time of
-
Tregelles). The servile origin of the Polycarp'sdeath(seeili.p.400sq). Renan
author of the Shepherd appears from the {VEglise Chretienne pp. 447, 451) sugwork
itself, Hermas Vis. i. i, unless in-
that Irenaeus and Florinus accom-
gests
deed he is
assuming a fictitious character. panied Polycarp to Rome, and remained
*
Hegesippus in Euseb. H.E. iv. 22. there when he left.
* Justin Apol.
ii. 3, Tatian Orat. 19,
® Photius ^zW. 121.
Euseb. ^.£'. iv. II. \{\h&ActaJustini
'
Iren. Haer. i. 27. i, iii. 4. 3, both
I sq (Just. Mart. Op. il. p. 266 sq, ed. which passages are quoted by Eusebius
Otto) relate to Justin the apologist, they H. E. iv. 11. Irenaus assigns
his arrival
furnish precise evidence (§ 3) as to his in Rome to the episcopate of Hyginus.
29—2