apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

LETTER OF THE SMYRN^:ANS. 609
being blurred and worn by time. We cannot indeed regard this genealogy
of the Mss as authentic history; but we may infer that the fiction
was not altogether baseless, and that the document which he thus incorporated
in his biography was no recent work.
When we turn from the
external to the internal evidence, the question
which we have first to ask and to answer is ;
What does this
document profess to be
By what persons
and under what circumstances
does it
purport to have been written
Now it
plainly and unmistakeably claims to have been written by
eyewitnesses to the events. Not only do the writers profess to be contemporaries
of Polycarp {§ 16); but they themselves or at least some —
of them-— saw the martyr in the midst of the flames (§ 15), endeavoured
to recover the body (§ 17), and carried away and buried the calcined
bones (§ 18).
But when we proceed to enquire
further how soon after the event
the letter was written, we are treading on less firm ground. Tt was sent
in consequence of a request from the Philomelians that the Smyrngeans
would give them a full account of the martyrdoms (§ 20). Such a
request would more naturally come close upon the occurrences than
after the lapse of a long interval. Yet circumstances might have
occurred to prompt the desire on the part of the Philomelians even at
some distance of time. Again the manner in which the writers declare
their intention of observing the anniversary of the martyrdom suggests
that no such celebration had yet taken place when they wrote (§ 18),
and that therefore the letter was written within a year of the martyrdom.
But this inference again
is far from certain. Moreover, the manner
in which the writers, as represented in the common text (§ 13), speak
of the honour paid to Polycarp ' even before his martyrdom ' (kuI -n-po
Trj