apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

unable to say.
POLYCARP THE ELDER. 47 1
Nearly a century later we have a notice of its observance.
Pionius, with his sister Sabina and the youth Asclepiades, were celebrating
in Smyrna the 'true birth-day of the — martyr Polycarp,' when they
were apprehended and dragged to prison themselves to suffer martyrdom
a few days later'. There are some grounds for supposing that this
celebration by Pionius and his companions was a revival of the festival,
which meanwhile had fallen into disuse. This year (a.d. 250)
it
happened
to fall on
a Saturday — the same day of the week on which the
martyrdom itself had occurred (a. d. 155). Then, as now, it was a high
Sabbath; then, as now, the Jews were keeping holiday and busied themselves
actively in the persecution, their fanatical zeal (we may suppose)
being fanned by the associations of their own religious festival. The
day of Polycarp's martyrdom is given in the contemporary Acts, as the
2nd of Xanthicus, corresponding to the 23rd of February in the Julian
Calendar". A theory has been recently started that the 2nd of Xanthicus
was originally intended according to the old lunar reckoning, which had
not yet been abandoned at Smyrna, thus corresponding not to February
23, but to March 23; that this latter therefore was the true day of the
martyrdom; that the substitution of February 23 was coincident with
the revival of the festival under Pionius in the middle of the third
century ;
and that the clause in the chronological postscript which gives
was then inserted from
the corresponding Roman date as February 23
an erroneous assumption, the old lunar computation having meanwhile
been displaced by the Julian Calendar and passed out of memory.
This attractive theory will receive due consideration hereafter. But
At all
however this may be, from the age of Pionius onward Polycarp's 'birthday'
seems to have remained unchanged in the Eastern Church.
events it
appears as February 23 in the Syriac Calendar dating from the
middle or latter half of the fourth century; and it remains still the
same in the present use of the Greek Church. In the Latin Calendar the
day is January 26^, but even here a trace of the older tradition survives in
the fact that February 23 is assigned to another Polycarp, a Roman presbyter
and confessor*. Among the Western Churches the Christians
of Gaul are especially conspicuous in their commemoration of him
whom they justly regarded as their spiritual father. Gregory of Tours,
1
Ada Pionii 2, 3, 23, pp. 18S, 198 Martyrdom.
(Ruinart).
3 -pj^g explanation of this transference
will be given in the chapter - Afafi. Polyc. 1 'Eo.vQikov 8ev- on The
'
Tepq. icrTdjUffoi', Trpo eTrro, Ka\avd(2u Map- Date of the Martyrdom.'
TLuv. The whole subject is discussed in
* See the passages from Latin Martyrthe
later chapter on the Date of the ologies in Quotations and References.