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mentioned
DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 65 1
chronological blunder. Perhaps he confused the bishop of Smyrna
with some other martyr bearing the same name. It has been already
noticed that the early Syriac Martyrology mentions at least three
the name of
others (p. 437). Perhaps he was misled by finding
Gordian as a persecuting emperor in his copy of the Acts of Pionius
which were attached to Polycarp's Martyrdom (see below, p. 714). I
may observe also that the name of Gordian was M. Antonius Gordianus,
and this may possibly have assisted the confusion.
The Men^a are even wider of the mark than Socrates, for they
place Polycarp's martyrdom under Decius, a.d. 249 — 251 (see above,
p. 577). This is an almost incredible blunder in a book possessing a
sort of Church authority ;
but it is
capable of explanation. The compilers
learnt directly or indirectly from Eusebius, that he made it
synchronous with the martyrdom of Pionius (see p. 641). Being however
more familiar with the Acts of Pionius than with the circumstances
of Polycarp's death, and knowing that Pionius suffered under Decius,
they post-dated it accordingly. This is the converse to the error of
Eusebius him.self, who ante-dated the martyrdom of Pionius and placed
both under M. Aurelius.
The earlier modern critics for the most part followed the authority
of Eusebius, as they supposed, and placed the martyrdom in the 7th
year of M. Aurelius, a.d. 167. To this general view however there
were a few exceptions, ^gid. Bucherius {Tract, de Pasch. Cycl. Jud.
8) adopted a.d. 169, supposing that the ,
Quadratus in
the Acts of Polycarp was the colleague of L. Verus in the consulship
(a.d. 167), and that he would therefore naturally be proconsul in
the spring of the next year but one. The consul of a.d. 167 however
was not Statius Quadratus, but M. Ummidius Quadratus'.
Nevertheless
Ussher adopted
this same date with this same identification
of the proconsul. But he considered that he had found a striking
confirmation of it in other quarters. He believed himself to have
shown that the Smyrnsean month Xanthicus commenced on March 25,
so that the 2nd Xanthicus would be March 26; he accordingly adopted
the Roman date for the martyrdom as given in the Chronicon Paschale,
vii Kal. Apr. and he found that in a.d. j 169 March 26 would be the
Saturday preceding the Paschal festival, and therefore it would be
properly called the 'great sabbath', as the day of the martyrdom is
^
It should be observed that, when sion between Titus and Tatius or Statius
these earlier critics wrote, the name of the seemed not altogether impossible. For
consul of A.D. 167 was supposed to be his correct name see the references in
Titus Numidius Quadratus; and a confu- Klein Fast. Cons. p. 77.