apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

hauriam. Cupio scilicet ut ventura sae- 45—2
DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM.
'JO']
dence of the day and hour with the time of the Crucifixion, we might
confidently have expected that a fact so remarkable would have been
emphasized in the course of the narrative'. But, though
attention is
called to other parallels with the Gospel narrative of the Passion,
nothing is said of this. The true and obvious explanation will be found
in the notes on the passage (iii. p. 387). 'This hour', 'that hour', are
expressions in which the narrators delight ;
and there is no more ground
for seeing a reference to the Crucifixion here than in § 2 ckciVt; t^ wpa,
where other martyrs are mentioned, and where any such reference is
impossible. These expressions are not indicative of time at all.
The objections then to March 26, as the day of the martyrdom,
may be summarized as follows.
(i) It involves the adoption of a calendar which is somewhat uncertain
in itself, and of which there is no evidence whatever that it existed
at this time and in this locality; (2) It rejects not only the evidence of
all the authorities in the postscript of the Smyrnjean Letter itself, which,
even when corrupt, point to February 23, but the unanimous usage
of the Eastern Church from the earliest times. (3)
It necessitates the
adoption of a year (whether 169 or 166 or 156 or 147) to which there
are various objections on one ground or another. (4) It depends (at
least in the case of Bucher and Hilgenfeld) on an interpretation of the
'
great sabbath '
which is
unsupported by evidence or analogy, and
which seems improbable in itself To counterbalance all these serious
objections it offers only the testimony of a single document of late
date and (for this purpose) of very inferior authority.
But what account are we to give of the TrpwTov i(/evSo