apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

468 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
their city'. Their gratitude showed itself in the fulsomeness of their
language. He was not only their 'god Hadrian'; but he was 'Hadrian
the Olympian their ' saviour and founder' I Hence the games established
',
in his honour— the sacred festival which has been already mentioned—
were called the 'Olympian' Hadrianea^ Nor was it only in the direction
of this political Roman cult, that the activity of paganism manifested
itself in Smyrna.
Not to mention the commoner forms of Egyptian* and
Oriental worship, the rites of Mithras appear in this city as early as
A. D. 80 \ Doubtless they shared the impulse which was given to them
elsewhere in the age of the Antonines. Meanwhile religions of strictly
local origin were not neglected. Thus we find an inscription in honour
of the river-god Meles, who is hailed as ' saviour ', having by
his interposition
rescued his worshipper from plague and pestilence^
This inscription
is not dated ;
but we may with fair probability assign
it to the
epoch of the great pestilence which ravaged Asia Minor during the joint
reign of M. Aurelius and L. Verus.
But besides this revival of paganism, the progress of the Church was
threatened from another side also. The Jews had always been a strong
body in Smyrna. Smyrna, as an ancient city and a convenient seaport,
would certainly have received its proper share of those two thousand
Jewish families which Antiochus the Great transported from Babylonia
and Mesopotamia to these parts of Asia Minor'. In the first
century of the
Christian era Philo speaks of their ' abounding (Tra/xTrAij^et) in every city
of Asia'", doubtless meaning thereby the proconsular province, of which
Ephesus and Smyrna were the two eyes. The Christians in
Smyrna
suffered again and again from the hostility of the Jews. The Apocalypse
was written, if we adopt the earlier date, at the time when the Jewish war
was at its height under Vespasian and Titus, and when the destruction of
the Holy City was imminent.
Doubtless the troubles in Palestine had
brought fresh Jewish immigrants to Smyrna, where a powerful colony of
their countrymen was already established.
It was a crisis when the sepa-
1
C.I.G. 3148; comp. Philostr. Vit. context. Serapis elscM'here is closely
Soph. i. 25 ;
see Diirr Rciscn des Katsas connected with his ailment [Op. i.p. 470),
Hadrian p. 51. where also the locality is
Smyrna. He
-
C. 7.6^. 3174; comp. ib. 3170, 3187. has moreover an oration expressly devoted
See also above, p. 460. to the praises of this deity ; Oraf. 8 Ec's
* Philostr. Vit. Soph. i. 25, C. I. G. tov 'Zdpairi.v {Op. I. p. 81 sq).
3148, 3174, 5913.
5 C.I. G. 3173.
•*
"
Aristides says of himself, 07at. 25 C.I. G. 3165.
[Op. I. p. 501) ireOijKeLv ttj "Icrtot Kai ti^
SapuTTiSt €!> ry TTjs "Icn5os iepy, X^7w
TovTO ev HfjivpvT] yevo/xevov
: see also the
^ Joseph. Ani. xiii. 3. 4.
® Leg. ad Gaium 33, 0/>.
I.
p. 582 M.