apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

LETTER OF THE SMYRNyEANS. 643
main incidents. It has been shown elsewhere (iii. p. 423 sq) that, so far
as we are able to test this it, biography is a pure fabrication. Wherever
it crosses the path of authentic history, its falsity is betrayed. Elsewhere
the author is free to exercise his invention without fear of detection,
and he indulges this license freely. He may possibly have had a
very slender thread of tradition on which he has strung his stories ;
but
even this is questionable.
It has been shown likewise (see above, pp. 608, 638) that the
Letter of the Smyrnaeans was incorporated in this life ; that, when the
Pionius of this postscript speaks of ' '
the sequel in which he purposes
to relate how he discovered the manuscript of the Letter, he refers to a
subsequent portion of the Life no longer extant; that in this way he
declares himself to be the author of this ;
biography and that thus his
true character is revealed. He is a spurious Pionius, who wrote in
the latter part of the fourth century. The name is a pseudonyme used
by the Avriter to cover his pious fraud. The real Pionius had shown a
reverent devotion to the memory of Polycarp. What more suitable
personage
then could be found than this revered
father the spurious biography of Polycarp
martyr,
on whom to
These inferences have been drawn from the general relations between
the Life of Polycarp and this Letter of the Smyrnceans with its postscript
(hi. p. 423 sq). But we may here notice especially two
characteristic features in the spurious Life, which reappear in this postscript,
and thus point to an identity of authorship. First; The writer
avails himself largely of the supernatural.
Inspired visions and miraculous
occurrences form a very considerable part of his narrative. It is
especially
here that he gives the rein to his inventive faculty. Secondly ; He
does not scruple to appeal to documents, where these documents have
no existence. Thus at the outset (§1) he relates how he 'found in
ancient
copies
'
(evpov eV ap^atots avnypa^ois)
an account of S. Paul's
visit to Smyrna, and accordingly he represents the Apostle as saying
things which he never said and never could have said (§ 2). Again
(§ 12) he speaks of the Epistle to the Philippians as one among many
other writings of Polycarp with which he was acquainted {Ik rdv icf>evpto-Ko/AeVwv),
though it is morally certain that in his age no other work
by
this father was extant.
Now these two features are reproduced in the writer of this postscript.
He has a supernatural revelation which discovers the lost
manuscript of the Martyrdom,
Too much stress however must not be
laid on this ;
for the true Pionius also has a dream, though of a wholly
different kind and easily explicable from natural causes. Indeed the
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