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DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 719
distinct dates ; (a) The day of the apprehension, and (ft)
The day of the
martyrdom.
(a) As regards the day of the apprehension, C affords no aid. But
comparing A and B together, we can be at no loss as to the original.
It stood fjirjvo
e/cTOV ^evripa Ivio-Tafxivov aaf^f^drov /xcyaXov, tv rrj yeved-
Xt'cD rjixipa tou fiaKapcov fxapTvpos Ilo\vKa.pTrov k.t.X.; or perhaps we should
read BevTepa lo-ra/Ac'vou, crajSjSdTui [xeydXio k.t.A., which may be compared
with the date given in the account of Polycarp's martyrdom "BavOiKov
ScuTepo. LCTTapLivov. . .o-a/3/3aTw /xeyaXw.
The explanatory Roman date found
only in the Latin of A, 'qui dies est quarto Idus Martias ' [March 12],
is
obviously an interpolation from the end of the Acts where it gives
the day of the martyrdom. The day of the apprehension then was
Febr. 23. The getminum ftatale of the Latin is
probably a translation
of the simple yeve'^Xtos ijfxepa of the Greek. The Roman
emperors had two birthdays, the ' imperii natalis '
and the ' lucis
natalis,' the day of their accession and the day of their natural birth,
the latter being called also ' genuinus ' or ' genethliacus ' (see Gothofred
Cod. Theod. i.
p. 143, 11. p. 156). As applied to a martyr, his 'genuinus
natalis ' is the day of his martyrdom, which was his birth into the
heavenly light. The word therefore does not contain any suggestion of
a previous error in the time of keeping Polycarp's festival, as we might
suppose at first sight.
In the year a.d. 250 the second of the sixth month (Xanthicus),
February 23, was a Saturday, as it was in a.d. 155, the year of Polycarp's
martyrdom. In A the expression o-d/S/SaTov p.iya is correctly translated
sabbatum majus not ' magnum as I have ', ', already pointed out. The
'
translator did not confuse it with '//^^ great sabbath' of later Christian
nomenclature. Probably, as on the actual day of Polycarp's martyrdom,
so also on this commemoration the Feast of Purim fell on this
day, and hence the name. Reasons have been given above (p. 712 sq)
for the surmise that a nineteen years' cycle prevailed in Asia Minor
at this time ;
so that the Jewish festivals would recur on exactly the
same days of the year in a.d. 250 as in a.d. 155. This, so far as
it
goes, is a confirmation not only of the veracity of the accounts both
of Polycarp and of Pionius, but also of the particular years which we
have assigned on other grounds to the two martyrdoms'.
Following his theoiy (see above, p. and on this day therefore he places the
^
703) that Polycarp's day was a moveable apprehension of Pionius. But to do this
feast, and adopting the year 251, Ussher he is obliged to reject both the Asiatic
(P- 37'^) finds that tlie Saturday before and the Roman dating and retains only
the Passover in this year was March -22, the aa (3(30.7
op /u^ya.