apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

7o6 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
persistently throughout to March 26, as the day on which Polycarp
suffered.
(i) In his Paschastreit p. 234 sq (i860), and in the Zeitschr. f.
Wiss. Theol. iv. pp. 288 sq, 331 (1861), he expounds his earher view.
Here he adopts a.d. 166 with Masson and CHnton, as the date of the
martyrdom. For the selection of this particular year there is no
adequate ground, as I have already explained (p. 646). But having
adopted it, he calculated that the 15th Nisan might
fall as early as
March 27 in this year, and as the Jews outside Palestine (owing to the
uncertainty of the calendar) were directed to keep the first and the
last days of the Passover festival twice, he thus arrived at March 26
{Paschastreit p. 243, Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol. iv. pp. 303, 331). There
can be little doubt however, that he was several days out in his computation,
if at least we reckon by the full moons, and that Nisan 15
must be placed in April in this year. See the calculations of Kunze in
Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol. iv. pp. 303, 330; of Gensler ib. vii. p. 62 sq ;
and of Minnigerode in Wieseler Christenverfolg. p. 75 (see above, p.
690); and comp. Lipsius in Zeitschr. f. Wiss, Theol. xvii. p. 204 sq.
It is
unnecessary however to pursue this question further, as Hilgenfeld
himself has since changed his mind respecting the year.
(2) At a later date Hilgenfeld adopted Waddington's chronology
as against Masson's, but with the modification advocated by Lipsius
(see above, p. 670), so that he now places the martyrdom a.d. 156.
His exposition of this later view will be found in Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol.
XVII. p. 324 sq, 1874 (comp. xx. p. 143 sq, 1877; xxii. p. 153 sq, 1879).
In this year 156 he again finds that the 15th Nisan fell on vii Kal.
April., being a Thursday. Here he seems to be less wide of the mark
than in the former case. According to the calculations of Lipsius
{Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol. xvii. p. 204), if we take the ecHpse of the moon
on May 6, a.d. 133, as our starting point, we arrive at March 23 for the
full moon of Nisan in the year a.d. 156; while, if we calculate by
Largeteau's tables, we obtain as the result the evening of March 24.
This agrees roughly with Salmon's calculation (p. 691) which makes
Nisan i coincide with March 10, so that Nisan 14 would be March 23.
This would give March 24 or 25 for Nisan 15; and since the Jews
reckoned commonly, not by the astronomical new moon, but by the first
visible appearance, it might very well, he thinks, have coincided with
March 26 {Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol. xvii. p.
330 sq).
Hilgenfeld's theory, besides its inherent difficulties, is built upon a
mistaken interpretation of the words ttj^. rjixipa'i koI wpas ruwr^s in § 14
as its foundation. If tliey liad referred, as he supjjoses, to the coinci-