apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

640 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
occasion one says in derision :
'
See the little fellow is
going
to offer
sacrifice ' ('
Ecce ad sacrificandum homunculus pergit '). This, we
are told, was said of Asclepiades, who was with Pionius (§ 10).
But
why it was said of him we are not told. Was he a mere lad, or was he
short of stature Nothing
is related of the ultimate fate of either
Sabina or Asclepiades, though from something which is said (§ 18) we
infer of the latter that he was likely to be reserved for the gladiatorial
combats in the arena.
Moreover there is an entire absence of the miraculous or preternatural
in any form. The only approach to this throughout
the narrative
is the premonitory dream which foretold their coming
fate. But
what more natural than this When persecution was raging around,
when they had been celebrating the eve of a famous martyrdom with
prayer and fasting, when probably Pionius himself was conscious of
having committed overt acts which would attract the vengeance of the
persecutor, what else could form the subject of his dreams but their own
impending martyrdom
Internal evidence therefore points decidedly to its genuineness.
We may suspect indeed that the narrator has expanded the harangues
which are placed in the mouth of Pionius but this does not affect its
;
veracity as a narrative of incidents. Did not Thucydides furnish his
heroes likewise with even more elaborate speeches
And external evidence confirms the result suggested by an examination
of its contents. The document is
only known to us in Latin ;
but
there can be little doubt that it is substantially the same which was
known to Eusebius in the original Greek. After giving an account of
the Smyrnsean Letter on the death of Polycarp, he adds {H. E. iv. 15)
that accounts of other martyrdoms were — likewise attached in the same
volume (ev T^ a.vj% TTcpi avTov ypacjifj) martyrdoms which ' occurred in
the same Smyrna about the same period of time with Polycarp's
martyrdom ' (vird ti}v avryv irepioSov tov ;(povov 7175 tov IloXvKapTrov
fjiapTvpia'i). Among these he names Metrodorus 'of the Marcionite
heresy' and especially Pionius, to whose doings he devotes several
lines. The description of these doings corresponds with the account
in this document. He mentions his several confessions (ras Kara
jLtepos o/xoXoytas), his ' boldness of speech his ' defences of the faith before
the people and the rulers', his 'didactic harangues', his 'kindUness
',
(Sefiwo-eis) towards those who had succumbed to the temptation in the
persecution',
his 'exhortations which he made to the brethren who came
to see him in prison the tortures which were inflicted
', upon him and
'his sufferings consequent thereupon (§§ 15, 20) and his nailings ' (§ 21),