apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

5o8 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
There is one other important witness whose evidence deserves to be weighed.
The Shepherd of Hermas is full of references to persecutions. A living writer has
described this book as 'issuing from a bath of blood' (Renan VEglise Chretienne
P- 303)' It is indeed haunted in large parts by this ghastly spectre of persecution Vis.
(
i. 4, ii. 2, 3, iii. i, i, 5, 6, Alami. viii. 10, Sim. viii. 3, 6, 8, 10, ix. ai, 26, 28). Much
stress is laid by Doulcet (p. 92 sq) on the testimony of this book, which he places
about A.D. 136. Its date however is very uncertain. If the statement of the author
of the Muratorian Canon be rigorously interpreted 1, it was written during the Roman
episcopate of Pius, i.e. A.D. 139 at the earliest, and therefore after Hadrian's death, if
Lipsius' chronology of the Roman bishops be correct (p. 263). Moreover when we
scan its evidence more closely, we do not find that persecution was actually raging
at the time, but only that it had raged in the past, and that it was then again
imminent in the expectations of the writer. 'Persecution cometh' (dXixj/Ls ^pxerai)
is the prophetic warning which he utters {Vis. ii. 3; comp. Vis. iv. i rrjs d\l\p€us
Tjjs iirepxofihrjs). Whether his prophecy came true or not, we have no means of
saying. It might have been suggested by some occurrence soon after the accession of
Antoninus, or by the death of Telesphorus at the close of Hadrian's reign, if not by
some earlier event.
The mention of Telesphorus suggests the most probable account of the persecution
under Hadrian, if any such persecution there was. The disordered intellect and
morbid fears of the emperor at the close of his reign were fatal to some of his most
trusted and intimate friends, and this temper might well have broken out in a petulant
attack on the Christians. This hypothesis however does not satisfy the statement of
Jerome, to whom we have traced the tradition. This father evidently conceives it to
have raged in the earlier years of Hadrian, and to have ceased in consequence of the
Apologies presented to the emperor on the occasion of his visit to Athens (A.D. 125).
Moreover he distinctly exculpates the emperor himself.
(ii)
Antoninus Pius [a.d. 138
— 161].
(a) Publiiis Bishop of Athens.
Euseb. H. E. iv. 23 eX^7Xf' \joi)%
^
A6r}va'i.ovi\ dcrav lUKpov
Beiv airodTavTas rod
\6yov, e^ owe/3 tov Trpoecrrwra avrOiv IloinrXiov /xapTVprjaai Kara tovs Tore crvvi^i]
dLioyiJiOvs' Kodparov 5e yuerd tov fxaprvprjcravTa IIoiiTrXtoc KaTaardvTos avTuiv eiTLCTKoirov
/xiiJ.vT}Tai. Eusebius is here speaking of a letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the
Athenians. The mistake of Jerome in placing these incidents under Hadrian is
corrected below, p. 540 sq, where also reasons are given for assigning them to the
reign of his successor. ()8) Ptolemaus, Lticiiis, and another.
The account of these martyrdoms is given by Justin Apol. ii. 2, and runs as
follows ;
A certain woman, converted to Christianity, refused to gratify her husband in his
foul desires. Being unable to deter him, she obtained a divorce. In revenge he
^ 'Pastorem... Hermas conscripsit, se- Pio episcopo fratre ejus'; see Phiiippians
dente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae p. 169.