apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 705
donian names of the months. Hitherto the months in every case had
commenced a few days before the Roman. From this time forward
they corresponded exactly with the Roman. Thus Hyperberetseus is
October, Dius is November, Xanthicus is April, and so forth. This
calendar we find in Eusebius^ Epiphanius, and others. Thus Eusebius
{Mart. Palacst. praef ) speaks of Hav^tKos /ut^V, os Xeyoir' av 'Att/diAXios
K-ara 'Ptu/xaious ;
and he more than once (§§ 4, 7) mentions martyrdoms
as happening on the 2nd of Xanthicus, but in this region and at this
epoch it is not, as in Polycarp's age and country, February 23, but
April 2 (tt^o Tetro-apojv Nwi'vwv A-n-piXXaov).
Of more recent critics Hilgenfeld alone, so far as I have observed,
adopts the day given by the Paschal Chronicle^ vii Kal. April. It is
part of his Quartodeciman theory, which assumes that the Quartodecimans
regarded the 15 th Nisan as the day of the Crucifixion, thus
confirming the account (as he holds) of the Synoptic Gospels against
the Fourth Evangelist. To this I
theory have had occasion to allude
already (pp. 625, 671). Regarding the Letter of the Smyrnaeans as a
Quartodeciman document, he supposes that the idea of conformity
to the Lord's Passion, which certainly appears elsewhere in this letter
on the 15th Nisan, i.e. on the First Day
he sees a direct reference to this assumed coincidence in the
(see above, p. 610 sq), is especially enforced in the coincidence of the
time of the martyrdom, so that Polycarp likewise must have suffered
of Unleavened Bread'. Accordingly
words of Polycarp's prayer (§ 14) evXoyw o-e on KaT7]^L0)aas fxe 7-175 T/jiiepa9
KOL wpa Tttv-n/s {Paschastreit p. 246, Zeitschr. f.
Wiss. Thcol. xxii.
p. 157). For this reason he considers 'the great sabbath' to have
no reference to the day of the week but to designate the 15th Nisan,
as a great festival of the Jews, and therefore of the Quartodecimans.
This explanation of the term, it will be remembered, was first
suggested
by Bucher (see p. 702). Hilgenfeld himself, though his opinion respecting
the year of the martyrdom has undergone a change, has clung
^
The coincidence of the day, on Hilgenfeld's
showing, is not confined to the
Jewish lunar calendar, but extends likewise
to the Roman solar calendar. The
Crucifixion was believed to have taken
place (Tertull. adv. Jud. 8) ' consulibus
Rubellio Gemino et Fufio Gemino, mense
Martio, temporibus Paschae, die viii Calendarum
Aprilium, die prima azymorum,
quo agnum occiderunt ad vesperam '
(see
IGN. I.
also below. III. p. 429).
If, argues Hilgenfeld,
the Antiquartodecimans, who placed
the Crucifixion on Nisan 14, dated it
viii
Kal. April., the Quartodecimans, in whose
reckoning it fell on Nisan 15, made it
coincide with vii Kal. April., or March
26, the very day of Polycarp's martyrdom;
see Zeitschr. f. JFi'ss. Theol. IV.
p. 307, XVII. p. 330.
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