apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

462 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
Trapdra^Lv)
in their heroism when face to face with death'. It
therefore that Christianity could not hope for immunity
was plain
from this
emperor, notwithstanding his naturally humane and gentle spirit.
Despite the disposition of Christian writers to represent his dealings in
the most favourable light
— a disposition of which I have already explained
the causes^— it is a plain fact that Christian blood flowed more
freely under M. Aurelius, than it had flowed any time previously
during the half century which had intervened since the Bithynian
martyrdoms under Trajan, or was hereafter to flow any time during the
decades which would elapse before the outbreak of the Severian persecution
at the commencement of the next century. In fact the wound
was never staunched during his reign ^ The evidence indeed is only
fragmentary but the verdict
;
can hardly be doubtful. The fate of
Justin and his companions at Rome, the martyrdoms of Thraseas of
Eumenia and of Sagaris of Laodicea, perhaps also of Papirius of
Smyrna and of Melito of Sardis, in Asia Minor, and the wholesale
slaughters in the amphitheatres of Vienne and Lyons, extend over nearly
the whole of this reign and speak from divers parts of the empire.
The execution of the African martyrs belongs to the earliest months
of the succeeding reign ;
but it must be traced to the policy which
prevailed under M. Aurelius.
Smyrna had not been among the earliest of the Apostolic Churches.
Polycarp himself refers to the fact that the Philippians had been converted
to Christ before the Church over which he himself presided
(§ 11). Yet, when the Apocalypse was written, the Smyrneean Church
had already had a history. If therefore we assume the early date of the
Apocalypse, it must have been founded some years before a.d. 70. This
being so, the obvious supposition is that Smyrna was evangelized during
S. Paul's three years" residence at Ephesus (a.d. 54— 57), when we read
that 'all those who dwelt in Asia heard the word of God ' (Acts xix. 10,
comp. ver. 26). We may therefore assign to it a similar origin to that
which hypothetically we have assigned to the Churches of Magnesia
(11. p. 102) and of Tralles (11. p. 147). If not from the Apostle himself,
A/afrus 3
'
Audivit...praecipue Junium tulavit': M. Anton, i. 7, 17, iii. 5,Themist.
Rusticum, queni et reveritus est et secta- OraL xiii.
p. 173, xvii. p. 215, Digest.
tus, qui domi militiaeque pollebat, Stoicae xlix. i. i.
'
disciplinae peritissimum cum quo omnia M. Antonin. xi. 3 see ; ; below, p. 533.
-
communicavit publicaprivataque consilia; See above, pp. 1, 8; below, p. 527.
cui etiam ante ^ praefectos praetorio semper For the authorities relating to the
osculum dedit; quern et consulem iterum martyrdoms which are mentioned in the
designavit ;
cui post obitum statuas pes- succeeding sentences see below, p. 509 sq.