apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

6 14 .
EPISTLE
OF S. POLYCARP.
Smyrngean captain of police, who takes Polycarp into custody, and
the GaUlean king, whose part in the passion was confined to insolent
mockery and who pronounced Jesus innocent of the charges brought
against him (Luke xxiii. 15). Here again a fabricator would have
secured a better parallel. We may say generally that the violence of the
parallelism is a guarafitee of the accuracy of the facts.
2. The miraculous element has also been urged in some quarters
as an objection to the genuineness of the document. Yet, considering
all the circumstances of the case, we have more occasion to be surprised
at the comparative absence than at the special prominence of the
supernatural in the narrative. Compared
with records of early Christian
martyrs or with biographies of medieval saints or with notices of religious
heroes at any great crisis, even in the more recent history of the
Church, as for instance the rise of Jesuitism or of Wesleyanism ',
this document contains nothing which ought to excite a suspicion of its
authenticity.
The one miraculous incident, which creates a real diificulty, is the
dove issuing from the wounded side of the martyr. Yet even this might
be accounted for by an illusion, and under any circumstances it would
be quite inadequate to condemn the document as a forgery. But it
will be shown hereafter (p. 643) that there are excellent reasons for
regarding the incident as a later interpolation, which had no place in
the original document. Beyond
this we have the voice from heaven
calling to Polycarp in the stadium to play the man (§ 9). But the very
simplicity of the narrative here disarms criticism. The brethren present
heard the voice, but no one saw the speaker. This was the sole ground
for the belief that it was not a human utterance. Again there is the
arching of the fire round the martyr like a sail swelled by the wind (§ 15).
But this may be explained as a strictly natural occurrence, and similar
phenomena have been witnessed more than once on like occasions".
1 See for instance Southey's Life of pyram lumen circumquaque refulgens, ita
Wesley p. 277 sq, II. pp. 153, 199. ut nemo eorum qui ignem succensuri
These are miracles attested by Wesley erant accedere auderet ;
atque ita sacrum
himself.
corpus intra pyram illaesum mansit';
-
See for instance Acta Tlieodoti comp. ib. 34 (p. 385) ' pyra incensa,
32 (Ruinart Act. Sine. Mart. p. 384) circum ignem
facta sunt miracula nullis
'
Tum vero, pyra ingenti constructa, ca- verbis explicanda, vidimusque lumen in
daver sancti martyris in ipsam conjecere ciicuitu magnum, neque flamma Theodolectores,
multam materiam circumpo- tum attigit.' This is
apparently
nentes]; sed quadam Dei hominibus con- account of an eyewitness,
sulentis providentia subito apparuit supra
the