apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

POLYCARP THE ELDER. 473
The only extant writing bearing the name of Polycarp, which has
any reasonable claims to be held genuine, is the Epistle to the
Philippians, written probably more than forty years before his death.
Of this I have spoken already (p. 443). There are however extant
certain comments on passages in the Gospels, ascribed to this apostolic
father on the authority of Victor of Capua; but parts of these are manifestly
spurious and the remainder are discredited by this base companionship.
These fragments are printed in my second volume, where
also they are discussed ^ Moreover we read of a Didascalia bearing
the name of Polycarp", where the ascription was doubtless a pseudonym,
the document being similar in character to writings bearing the same
title and ascribed to Clement, to Ignatius, and to other primitive fathers.
Irenaeus indeed tells us that Polycarp
wrote several letters both to
individuals and to churches, warning them against errors and setting
forth the true doctrine ^ It could hardly have been otherwise. He
does not however directly assert that he himself had any acquaintance
with these other writings of his master, but confines his
personal testimony to the one extant epistle. But Polycarp's spurious
biographer doubtless seeing these references in Irenaeus, and himself
knowing only the Epistle to the PhiHppians, feels constrained to account
for the loss of these other writings; and he therefore hazards the fiction
that they were destroyed by the
ensued on the martyrdom of their author ^
The veneration of the Christians for Polycarp
heathen during the persecution which
was unbounded. His
apostolic training, his venerable age, his long hours spent in prayer*, his
personal hohness, all combined to secure him this reverence. His friends
and disciples vied with each other in their eagerness to loose his sandals
or to show him any
little attention which brought them near to him"'.
By the heathen he was regarded as ' the father of the Christians'. They
singled him out, as the one man who had dethroned their gods and
robbed them of the sacrifices and the adoration of their worshippers".
been extirpated by war, plague, fire, and
^
See in. p. 417 sq.
earthquakes, and Smyrna has been desti- -See above, p. 351 sq (comp. p.
tute of Greeks. Even now, under a more 262).
settled government, the same family sel- ^ £pist. ad Florin. {'E\xs,Qh.II.E. v. -20);
dom subsists there more than three gene- see above, p. 445.
rations'. See also the note of Slaars on
*
Vit. Polyc. 12 ; see the note there.
C. Iconomos £,tude sur Smyrtie p. 48 sq.
^
Mart. Polyc. 5, 7, 14.
It wU be remembered that an earthquake
®
Mart. Polyc. 13.
desolated Smyrna about a quarter of a ''
Mart. Polyc. 12 6 ttJs 'Acrtas