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apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

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HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS. 541<br />

identifies Quadratus the Apologist with Quadratus the Bishop, and thus he assigns to<br />

the reign of Hadrian the persecution which was fatal to Publius.<br />

In this identification<br />

he is most probably wrong. At least Eusebius seems to have no suspicion of it, and<br />

Jerome's information is derived wholly from Eusebius. But Harnack (<br />

Texte u. Untersuchtmgen<br />

i. p. 102) goes too far when he says that Dionysius of Corinth represents<br />

Quadratus as bishop of Athens in the time of M. Aurelius. Dionysius himself wrote<br />

during this reign, but his language does not imply that Quadratus was still living.<br />

Indeed the opposite might be inferred with some probability from the fact that he<br />

represents the Athenian Church as having fallen away from the faith since Quadratus<br />

gathered the Church together after the martyrdom of Publius. We may conjecture<br />

that the persecution, in which Publius suifered, fell in the reign of Antoninus Pius,<br />

and that it<br />

gave occasion to the letter of this emperor to the Athenians which is mentioned<br />

by Melito (Eus. H. E. iv. 26; see above, pp. 507, 508).<br />

Jerome's authority reigned supreme in the Western Church; and doubtless from<br />

these passages the idea of a persecution under Hadrian spread among Latin writers.<br />

Eusebius knows nothing of any such persecution ;<br />

and later Greek writers are for the<br />

most part equally ignorant of it. The legends of martyrdom under this emperor are<br />

confined almost entirely to Italy and the West (see above, p. 502 sq).<br />

(b) Epist. 70 ((9/. I. p. 428).<br />

Quadratus apostolorum discipulus et Atheniensis pontifex ecclesiae<br />

nonne Adriano principi, Eleusinae sacra invisenti, librum pro nostra<br />

religione tradidit<br />

Et tantae admirationi omnibus fuit, ut persecutionem<br />

gravissimam illius excellens sedaret ingenium.<br />

This epistle belongs to the year 397.<br />

(x) SuLPicius Severus [a.d. 403].<br />

Chron. ii.<br />

31, 32.<br />

Quarta sub Adriano persecutio numeratur, quam tamen postea<br />

exerceri prohibuit, injustum esse pronuntians ut quisquam sine crimine<br />

reus constitueretur. Post Adrianum Antonino Pio imperante pax<br />

ecclesiis fuit. Sub Aurelio deinde, Antonini filio, persecutio quinta<br />

agitata.<br />

See above, p. 507.<br />

(xi)<br />

Orosius [a.d. 417, 418].<br />

Adv. Paganos vii. 13, 14, 15.<br />

13 Hie [Hadrianus] per Quadratum discipulum apostolorum et Aristidem<br />

Atheniensem, virum fide sapientiaque plenum, et per Serenum<br />

Granium legatum libris de Christiana religione compositis instructus<br />

atque eruditus, praecepit per epistulam ad Minucium proconsulem<br />

Asiae datam, ut nemini liceret Christianos sine objectu criminis aut<br />

probatione damnare.

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