apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

720 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARP.
{(i)
The day of the martyrdom is given
in all our authorities as
iv Id. Mart. (i.e.
March 12). Moreover, as we have already seen, this
date has from this passage crept into the opening of the narrative likewise.
The evidence therefore in its favour is very considerable. This
point then we must regard as settled. A period of seventeen days
would thus have elapsed between the capture and the martyrdom. This
is an interval long enough, and not too long, for the incidents as given
in the Acts. In the corresponding ' Asiatic ' date there are great discrepancies.
In the Greek of B it is
given as IvveaKaL^eKarrj, the 19th.
A glance at the calendar given above (p. 680) will show that this is
correct; for iv Id. Mart, there corresponds to Xanthicus 19. Moreover
the date in the corresponding Latin of B, 'undecimo,' is explicable.
Some letters have dropped out either in the Greek (ei'[vea/cai]8€KaT27,
and so hSeKaTT]) or in the Latin ('unde[vi]c[es]imo,' and so 'undecimo').
In A the number of the day is altogether omitted, probably because
the translator or the scribe could not reconcile it with any calendar
with which he was acquainted. In C we have the substitution i/3'.
This
may be an error of transcription ;
but I am disposed to think that it
is a dehberate substitution in accordance with the Syromacedonian
calendar of the fourth and later centuries (see above, p. 704), where the
Syromacedonian months xduXi pari passu with the Julian. In the Menaea
the day of Pionius is March 11. This may be an accidental displacement
of one day (which
is not unfrequent), or it
may have arisen out of
the false reading ei'SeKuTj/ already mentioned. As regards the number
of the month, A and C agree with the Greek of B in Iktm, as indeed the
corresponding Latin date requires. The Latin of B alone reads the
7th, 'septimo.' I
suppose that this is an error of some Latin scribe,
vii for vi. Noris {^De Ann. Maced. p. 31) says 'Unius literae variatione,
eTTTw for Iktw^ mensis sextiis in j^//OT/^w...mutatus
fuit.' It is
barely possible perhaps that the Latin translator might have supposed
that cTTTos was a good Greek word (for €/38ojU,os),
but he has done
nothing to deserve this imputation of ignorance. Another possible
explanation would be that Xanthicus was the 7th month in the
calendar (see above, p. 704) of some Greek scribe, who altered it accordingly.
But what are we to say of aa/S/^dro) March 12 was not a Saturday
either in a.d. 250 or in a.d. 251. The Saturdays in a.d. 250
were Feb. 23 (vii Kal. Mart.), March 2 (vi
Non. Mart), March 9 (vii Id,
Mart.), March 16 (xvii Kal. Apr.). No explanation therefore is possible,
based on an erroneous transcription of the Roman date. It remains
that crayS/SaTU) must be an interpolation here. This is also Noris's view