apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE. 581
Polycarp (see i. p. 473, in. p. 419). But at all events the second
passage is quite explicit as regards the authorship of the epistle. As
Irengeus had been at one time a pupil of Polycarp, and as the communication
between Gaul and Asia Minor was close, such testimony
would in other cases be regarded as decisive. Unless therefore early
Christian writings are to be subjected to standards of criticism which
would not be applied to other provinces of literature, we have here
evidence so strong, that it can only be set aside by the clear and indisputable
tokens of a later date in the document itself, such as proved
anachronisms and the like.
After this very early testimony, later references cease to have any
importance, except as assisting to identify the document mentioned by
Irenteus. This is the case with Eusebius (see above, p. 148), whose
quotations are especially valuable, inasmuch as he cites the very passage
(§ 13) relating to the Ignatian Epistles, which is the great stumblingblock
with modern critics and which all theories of interpolation alike
have cast out from the text.
Soon after the age of Eusebius, this epistle
was incorporated
in the
spurious Life of Polycarp (§ 12), bearing the name of Pionius. Again
a little later, but a few years before the close of the fourth century,
Jerome tells us (see above, p. 560) that it was read ' even to his own
day ' (usque hodie) ' in conventu Asiae ',
whatever may be the exact
meaning of this phrase. This public reading was no new thing, as
appears from Jerome's language. When it commenced, we cannot say;
but the conjecture may be hazarded that its inauguration was connected
with the interest taken in the commemoration of Polycarp by
Pionius, a martyr in the Decian persecution a.d. 250 (see above,
p. 556). At all events the public reading of the epistle, as well as its
incorporation in the Life, would tend to insure the preservation of the
document in its integrity.
At a later date it is
only necessary to advert to the Syriac fragments
(p. 563 sq).
These however do not imply the existence of a
Syriac translation. — The fathers there quoted, Timotheus (a.d. 457) and
Severus (a.d. 513 518), wrote in Greek; and the individual passages
which they cited would be translated into Syriac with their works (see
above, pp. 176, 188, etc.).
The same explanation also should probably
be given of the extract in the anonymous Syriac writer (p. 565), which
would be derived ultimately from some Greek father. These quota-
445) that the Letter to Floiinus was writ- lustration of the fallacy of the argument
ten at a later date than the passage in the from silence.
Treatise on Heresies. This is a good il-