apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

594 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
by the same hand which wrote the seven Vossian Epistles ;
if interpolated,
it was interpolated by the same person who expanded
the three
Curetonian Epistles into the seven Vossian. In any case the object
was to recommend the Ignatian forgery by the authority of a great
name. This theory is at all events intelligible; and, so far as I can see,
it is the only rational theory which the case admits.
I have already considered the passages, in which reference is made
to Ignatius and his letters, and on which therefore this theory is based,
and the result of the investigation was highly unfavourable to any
such hypothesis. But the main question
still remains to be answered ;
Does the Epistle of Polycarp bear evidence in its style and diction, or
in its modes of thought, or in any other way, that it was written by the
same hand which penned the Ignatian letters
And here we may say boldly that, in whatever way we test the two
documents, the contrast is
very striking— more striking indeed than we
should have expected to find between two Christian writers who hved at
the same time and were personally acquainted with each other.
apply some of the tests.
Let us
I. The stress which Ignatius lays on episcopacy as the keystone of
ecclesiastical order and the guarantee of theological orthodoxy
is well
known (see above, p. 389 sq).
Indeed it is often asserted that the
Ignatian letters were written for this express purpose. In Polycarp's
Epistle on the other hand there is from first to last no mention of the
episcopate There is every reason for believing that Polycarp was
bishop of Smyrna at this time ; yet in the heading of the letter, which
would be the great opportunity for a forger, he does not assert his title
'
but contents himself with writing, Polycarp and the presbyters with
him'. Again, in the body of the letter he speaks at length
about the
duties of the presbyters, of the deacons, of the widows, and others
(§§ 4—6) but the bishop is entirely ignored.
More especially he directs
;
the younger men to be obedient to 'the presbyters and deacons, as to
God and Christ' (§ 5); but nothing
is said about obedience to the
bishop. At a later point he has occasion to speak of an offence committed
by one Valens a presbyter (§§ 11, 12); but here again there is
the same silence. All this is quite intelligible, if the letter is genuine,
on the supposition either that there was a vacancy in the Philippian
bishopric at this time or, as seems more probable, that the ecclesiastical
organization there was not yet fully developed; but it is, so far as I
can see, altogether inconceivable that a forger whose object
it was to
recommend episcopacy
should have pictured a state of things so
damaging to his main purpose.