apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE. 585
and the interview to which Irenteus alludes took place during the
visit of Polycarp to Rome, during the pontificate of Anicetus, who
succeeded in a. d. 154. Evidently the forger
of the letter borrows his
language from the story of Iren^eus, not remembering that Irenaeus refers
to an event which occurred some forty years or more later.
This objection involves two considerations ; (i)
The character of the
heresy attacked; (ii)
The recurrence of the same phrase after a long
interval.
(i)
On the first
point it is sufficient to reply that there is nothing
specially Marcionite in the doctrines attacked. Marcion indeed was a
Docetic and, as such, denied 'that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh'.
But so was Simon Magus, so was Saturninus, so were many other
heretical teachers before and after Marcion (see above, p. 378 sq). Of
the distinctive doctrines of Marcion there is not a word here, as there
was not a word in the Ignatian Epistles, where Hkewise Docetic opinions
are attacked (see p. 383). If Marcion was the object of attack, why
is his dualism spared The antagonisms of Marcion's creed were far
greater scandals to the orthodox Christian than even his Docetism. Yet
what hint is there here that the heretic in question postulated two Gods,
the one just, the other good; that he maintained a direct opposition
between the Old Testament and the New ;
that he assumed an internecine
feud between the Apostles of the Circumcision and the Apostle of
the Gentiles, whereas the writer of this letter himself quotes 8. Peter
and S. Paul with equal deference and equal frequency
But we may go further than this. Not
only is there nothing specially
characteristic of Marcion in the heresy or heresies denounced by
Polycarp, but some of the charges are quite inapplicable to him. The
passage in question denounces three heads of heretical doctrine, which
may or may not have been combined in the same teacher or sect. Of
these the first, 'Whosoever confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh', is
capable of several applications. It
may refer, for instance,
to the separationism of Cerinthus, who maintained that the spiritual
being Christ descended on the man Jesus after the baptism and left him
before the crucifixion, so that, while Jesus suffered, Christ remained
impassible or it
; may describe the pure Docetism which maintained that
our Lord's body was a mere phantom body, so that His birth and life
and death alike were only apparent, not real ;
or it
may have some
reference different from either. The various forms of Docetism have
been fully discussed at an earlier stage (p. 377 sq), and I need not
revert to them again. Whether the epistle be genuine or not, the connexion
with the Ignatian letters is obvious ;
and the type of Docetism