apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

LETTER OF THE SMYRN^ANS. 607
Peregrinus" self-immolation a vulture rose from the flames and flew up
to heaven.
This last point in the parallelism is the most striking. Yet it must
probably be abandoned. There is very good reason for believing that
the dove is a later interpolation in the Smyrntean Letter, as I shall
endeavour to show presently. The possibility however still remains
that the story may have appeared at least in germ in the decade or more
which elapsed between the Smyrntean Letter and Lucian's narrative,
and that it
may have reached this satirist's ears. But on the whole it
seems more probable that in this particular Lucian aims his shaft elsewhere.
The practice of letting an eagle fly
from the funeral pyres of
the Roman emperors (see
iii. p. 391) might have furnished him with his
motive here. But, if this point be abandoned, the other resemblances
are not so strong as to produce conviction, though they may suggest a
presumption. Where two men— both religious leaders— are burnt alive
on funeral pyres, the incidents must be the same to some extent, and
the language describing those incidents will be similar. In the case
before us the very strong probability that Lucian was acquainted with
the career of Ignatius is (so far as it goes) a reason for supposing that
he may not have been ignorant of the fate of Polycarp.
Our next witness is somewhat later. In the Ads of FiofWis, who
suff"ered likewise at Smyrna nearly a century after Polycarp in the
Decian persecution (a.d. 250), we are told that Pionius 'on the eve of
the birth-day of the martyr Polycarp ' had a dream that he and his
companions would be apprehended the next day. Accordingly the
subsequent narrative states that while they were 'celebrating the
genuine birth-day of the '
martyr Polycarp ',
the second day of the
sixth month', which is further described as 'a great sabbath '
(die sabbati
majore), the persecution overtook them. The day of the month will be
considered hereafter. It is sufficient to observe now, that the notice so
far agrees with the postscript to the Smyrnaean Letter, as to place the
martyrdom on the 2nd of Xanthicus (§ 21). The Acts of Pionius
therefore bear testimony to the celebration of the day of Polycarp's
martyrdom according to the intentions declared in the Smyrn:san
Letter (§ 18).
Thus we have evidence that the circumstances of Polycarp's
death were a matter of interest to his fellow-citizens within two
or three generations after its occurrence.
But this early testimony
reference to the document, as a document,
is all indirect and inferential. The first
is in Eusebius. In his
Chronicon after the 7th year of M. Aurelius he mentions the martyrdom
of Polycarp and adds that it 'is recorded in writing', 'martyrium scriptis