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528 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
3. HEATHEN WRITERS.
The following passages, so far as I know, contain all the notices of
the Christians in heathen writers during the three reigns.
Arrian, Diss. iv. 7. 6.
(i)
Epictetus [c.
a.d. 120].
Etra VTTo fxavta^ [Jikv
Swarai tis outw SLareOrjvai irpos Tavra, koL vtto
idov ot FaXiXatot.
Epictetus is here discussing the attitude of fearlessness before a tyrant's menaces.
As he still survived under Hadrian, with whom he was on intimate terms (Spartian.
Hadr. 16), his knowledge of the Christians was probably drawn from the persecution
under Trajan. It is worthy of notice that Junius Rusticus, the honoured friend and
teacher of M. Aurelius and the persecutor of the Christians (see above, pp. 461, 510),
who was himself an accomplished Stoic (Dion Cass. Ixxi. 35, Capitol. Marc. 3,
Orelli Inscr. 1190), was the first to place 'the memoirs of Epictetus' (rd 'ETriKxr^Tera
inrofivri/jiaTa, i.e. the work of Arrian which we possess and which contains this notice
of the Christians) in the hands of his imperial pupil (M. Antonin. Med. i.
7). Doubtless
however it is a mistake of Themistius {Orat. 5, p. 63 D; comp. Suidas s. v.
'ETT^KXTyros) to represent Epictetus as still surviving and being promoted by 'the two
Antonines'; see on this point Gataker on M. Anton. Med. viii. 31,
(ii)
Phlegon [a.d. 137].
(a) Chrofiica xiii. (Orig. c. Cels. ii. 14).
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