Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

The Bishop of Durham supports the language of Irenaeus by the testimony of Polycrates, of Ephesus, his contemporary, if junior; but without dwelling upon that and other passages of more general reference, we can come nearer to the time of Ignatius by reference to his contemporary, Polycarp. We assume, with Bishop Lightfoot, that the testimony of Irenaeus to Polycarp is of the highest value; but that assumption is no rash one. Every one can verify the value of the testimony by perusing the Bishop's interesting pages on the subject. The relation of Polycarp to the Apostles has been given above. It is to his language about episcopacy that we wish to refer. In Polycarp's letter to the Philippians, the Bishop of Smyrna speaks at length about the duties of presbyters, deacons, widows, &c., but he makes no mention either of the bishop, or--in other parts where it might have been expected--of obedience due to him. This is naturally explained on the supposition that the see was then vacant, or that ecclesiastical organization was not fully developed at Philippi. How rash, however, it would be to affirm the non-existence of episcopacy, or to raise objections to it such as would render incredible the statements of Ignatius, may be inferred from the 'Letter of the Smyrnaeans,' which, speaking of 'the glorious martyr Polycarp, who was found an Apostolic and prophetic teacher in our own time, a bishop of the Holy Church which is in Smyrna,' attests at once the respect paid to the office by the writer of the Letter and to the title by which Polycarp himself was usually called.

Other contemporaries of Polycarp's were Clement of Rome and Papias. Do they give no testimony to the development of monarchical episcopacy in the later years of the Apostolic Age? Polycarp, if not acquainted with Clement personally, was yet intimately acquainted with his genuine letter, the first Epistle to the Corinthians. In this letter there is no mention of episcopacy properly so-called. With St. Clement, as in the New Testament, bishop and presbyter are convertible terms. He even drops all mention of his own name though bishop of the Church in Rome. There is not even the 'I' of Polycarp, but a 'we,' which defines that the letter is written in the name of the Church and speaks with the authority of the Church. The name and personality of the individual are absorbed in the Church of which he is the spokesman.[83] The same phenomena are observed in the letter written by Ignatius to the very Church--Rome--in which alone they are noticed as occurring. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans--save for the mention of his own rank--contains no indication of the existence of the episcopal office, inculcates no obedience to bishops, and says not a word about a bishop of Rome. A like phenomenon is to be noticed in the next (chronologically speaking) document, emanating from the Church of Rome--viz. the Shepherd of Hermas. What does this contrast throughout mean, but that where--as in Asia Minor--false doctrine and schismatical teachers prevailed, there episcopacy was a safeguard; where these were absent--as in Rome--there the episcopate had not yet assumed the same sharp and well-defined monarchical character as in the Eastern churches: and what does this contrast tend to disprove but the opinion of Dr. Harnack?--'Apart from the Epistles of Ignatius we do not possess a single witness to the existence of the monarchical episcopate in the churches of Asia Minor so early as the times of Trajan or Hadrian' (_i. e._ A. D. 98-138).

Turning to the other point--the Theological Polemics--disputed by Harnack, Bishop Lightfoot has dealt with the subject on its positive and negative sides respectively. The positive side yields results of real importance in attestation of the date of the letters. The heresy combated by Ignatius is a type of Gnostic Judaism, the Gnostic element manifesting itself in a sharp form of Docetism. This marked type of Docetism, far from being a difficulty, is an indication of early date, since the tendency of Docetism was to mitigation, as time went on. The negative side is educed by cross-questioning the writer's silence. There were certain controversies which rent the Church in the middle and latter half of the second century. These were such as, first, the Paschal controversy (the proper day and mode of celebrating the Paschal festival); secondly, the controversy about Montanism, the theatre of which was the very region with which these Epistles are concerned. Yet, not a word, not a hint is there, that the writer felt any interest in, or was disturbed by, anxieties about either. A similar silence points to the same conclusion, when we consider the absence of allusion to the three great heresiarchs, Basilides, Marcion, and Valentinus. Give to the first a period of notoriety conterminous with the reign of Hadrian (A. D. 117-38), yet there is not the slightest allusion in Ignatius to the tenets of the leader or his followers. Place Marcion some years before the middle of the second century. Remember that he was a native of Asia Minor and taught at Rome that there he was denounced by Polycarp as the 'first born of Satan;'[84] and that he enjoyed a world-wide reputation for evil (according to some), for good (according to others). Yet in the Ignatian letters there is not the faintest aquaintance with the man or his teaching. Valentinus also taught at Rome (c. A. D. 140-60), and his strange theories about _AEons_ and Ogdoads, about spiritual, psychical, and material men, or any other fantasy of his speculative mythology, were not thought beneath the criticism of an Irenaeus, a Clement of Alexandria and a Tertullian. Yet no hint is there in the Seven Epistles that these thoughts were familiar to the writer. At one time an exultant Daille found in his reading of 'Magn.' 8 an attack on Valentinianism, and consequently a welcome anachronism which proved the writer of the letters a forger. The discovery of the true reading has been followed not only by the collapse of the objection, but also by the adhesion to the belief, that the writer's use of certain expressions is a testimony to his existence in a pre-Valentinian epoch, when language had not been abused to heretical ends.

Dr. Harnack has little to say against the Bishop of Durham's conclusions from the negative side of the investigation of these theological polemics; but he has much to say against the Bishop's deductions from the positive aspect of them. Though, says Bishop Lightfoot,

'in the Trallian and Smyrnaean letters the writer deals
chiefly with Docetism, while in the Magnesian and
Philadelphian letters he seems to be attacking Judaism, yet
a nearer examination shows the two to be so closely
interwoven that they can only be regarded as different sides
of one and the same heresy.'

Not so Dr. Harnack. To him

'the identification of the Judaists and Gnostics in the
Ingnatian Epistles is quite inadmissible. Ignatius combats
the Doketists in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the
Trallians, and the Smyrnaeans, while in the Epistles to the
Magnesians and Philadelphians he warns against the
Ebionistic danger. In the last-named Epistle he warns
against other tendencies which threatened the unity of the
Church.'

In fact, it is this Epistle to the Philadelphians which, in his opinion, has led scholars astray. No one he thinks would have misunderstood 'the fact--that the Judaists in the Epistle to the Magnesians were certainly not Doketists, and the Doketists described in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Trallians, and Smyrnaeans were not Judaists--had the Epistles of Ignatius come to us without the Epistle to the Philadelphians.' It would be beyond the province of this Review to enter into an examination of the arguments adduced on each side; it would also be an injustice to the disputants to infer that each selects or presses what tells most of his view, but certainly a calm and dispassionate inspection of these arguments will lead most men to think Uhlhorn, Lipsius, and Lightfoot more correct in their unanimous verdict, that but one heresy is attacked in the Ignatian letters, than Hilgenfeld and Harnack in their preference of two distinct heresies--Ebionism and Docetism. This latter conclusion can only be reached by treating the Letters of Ignatius as Hilgenfeld has treated St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians; the former is attained by critical methods defining the Judaism and Gnosticism observable to be but web and woof of one and the same fabric.

The very early date, and the consequent genuineness of these Epistles are thus the legitimate conclusion from the study of the internal as well as external evidences. That date is placed by the Bishop of Durham between A. D. 100-118 in the time of Trajan. Wieseler had placed the date of the martyrdom (upon which depends the date of the letters) as early as A. D. 107, Harnack as late as A. D. 138; and the latter still prefers to place them and the Epistle of Polycarp after the year A. D. 130. The earlier date reached by the Bishop of Durham is to him 'a mere possibility which is highly improbable, because it is not supported by any word in the Epistle, and because it rests only upon a late and very problematic witness (Eusebius).' Dr. Harnack's present view is, in all essentials, the same as that which he previously held. He has had the advantage--which he courteously acknowledges--of examining Bishop Lightfoot's 'painstaking consideration' of his views held in 1878; but nevertheless he considers that the Bishop's method of considering the whole question is 'not the proper' one--that his 'admittedly profound learning has contributed little or nothing to the main question,' and that 'he has not rightly comprehended the problem.'[85] Yet the ordinary reader, who examines Dr. Harnack's re-statement of some of his views, will feel that to ask the Bishop of Durham to re-examine them will be but to ask him to slay afresh the slain. Dr. Harnack still clings, for example, to his view, that Polycarp is attacking the Docetism of Marcion; a view which, if sound, would convince the writer of an anachronism; because in pretending to write between A. D. 100 and 118 he has introduced a heresiarch not then notorious. But his view has been shown by Bishop Lightfoot to be fallacious; and all that Dr. Harnack can now answer is to repeat his preference for his own interpretation of two passages adduced in the argument.

From the amenities of this battlefield of friendly criticism we turn for a few concluding remarks to the second and shorter life--that of Polycarp--which these monumental volumes discuss.

In point of method and treatment, the consideration of the history and writings of this saint of the early Church follows the same lines, as those followed in the case of St. Ignatius. First, the biography proper. Next, one of those collections of passages and documents which render these volumes so remarkable. In seventy pages the student will find a _corpus_ of original extracts embellished with notes explanatory and critical--Such as Imperial acts and ordinances relating to or affecting Christianity; Acts and notices of martyrdoms. Passages from heathen writers, containing notices of the Christians; Passages from Christian writers illustrating the points at issue--most helpful to him in apprehending not only the history of the persecutions, but also the relations between the Church and the Empire, in the reigns of Hadrian (A. D. 117-38), Antoninus Pius (A. D. 138-61), and Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 161-80). Then come in successive order the examination of the MSS and Versions, a collection of quotations and references, the consideration of the genuineness of the 'Epistle of Polycarp' and of the 'Letter to the Smyrnaeans,' closed by a discussion upon the date of the Martyrdom.

The Church of Christ owes a great debt to Polycarp:--

'In him one single link connected the earthly life of Christ
with the close of the second century, though five or six
generations had intervened. St. John, Polycarp,
Irenaeus--this was the succession which guaranteed the
continuity of the evangelical record and of the Apostolic
teaching. The long life of St. John, followed by the long
life of Polycarp, had secured this result. What the Church
towards the close of the second century was--how full was
its teaching--how complete its canon--how adequate its
organization--how wise its extension--we know well enough
from Irenaeus' extant work. But the intervening period had
been disturbed by feverish speculation and grave anxieties
on all sides. Polycarp saw teacher after teacher spring up,
each introducing some fresh system, and each professing to
teach the true Gospel. Menander, Cerinthus, Carpocrates,
Saturninus, Basilides, Cerdon, Valentinus, Marcion--all
these flourished during his lifetime, and all taught after
he had grown up to manhood. Against all such innovations of
doctrine and practice there lay the appeal to Polycarp's
personal knowledge. With what feelings he regarded such
teachers we may learn not only from his own epistle (Sec. 7),
but from the sayings recorded by Irenaeus, "O good God, for
what times hast Thou kept me, I recognize the firstborn of
Satan." He was eminently fitted, too, by his personal
qualities to fulfil this function as a depositary of
tradition.... Polycarp's mind was essentially unoriginative.
It had no creative power. His Epistle is largely made up of
quotations from the Evangelical and Apostolic writings, from
Clement of Rome, from the Epistles of Ignatius.... A
stedfast, stubborn adherence to the lessons of his youth and
early manhood, an unrelaxing, unwavering hold of "the word
that was delivered to him from the beginning"--this, so far
as we can read the man from his own utterances or from the
notices of others, was the characteristic of Polycarp. His
religious convictions were seen to be "founded," as Ignatius
had said long before (Polyc. 1) "on an immovable rock." He
was not dismayed by the plausibilities of false teachers,
but "stood firm as an anvil under the hammer's stroke."
(_ib._ 3).'

The Church has ever claimed for her Saint not so much the reverence paid to the martyr, or the deference due to the ruler, or the teachableness powerful in the writer, as the attention obligatory to an 'elder.' Why? We may give the reason in the Bishop's words:

'While the oral tradition of the Lord's life and of the
Apostolic teaching was still fresh, the believers of
succeeding generations not unnaturally appealed to it for
confirmation against the many counterfeits of the Gospel
which offered themselves for acceptance. The authorities for
this tradition were "the Elders." To the testimony of these
Elders appeal was made by Papias in the first, and by
Irenaeus in the second generation after the Apostles. With
Papias the Elders were those who themselves had seen the
Lord, or had been eye-witnesses of the Apostolic history:
with Irenaeus the term included likewise persons who, like
Papias himself, had been acquainted with these
eye-witnesses. And among these Polycarp held the foremost
place.'

The existing letter to the Philippians is now recognized as a genuine work of the Saint; and this on the testimony of internal evidence, quite as much as on the direct testimony of Irenaeus, his own disciple. The arbitrary method of a Daille, the interpolation-theory of Ritschl, and the wholesale rejection of the Epistle by Schwegler, Zeller, and Hilgenfeld, have ceased to command attention or demand refutation. The Epistle is too closely confined to the letters and martyrdom of Ignatius to warrant our looking for much refutation in it of existing error; but the spirit and counsel of the 'elder' is truly there warning against false and hypocritical brethren, and impelling his readers to turn unto the word delivered unto them from the beginning.

Never was Christian counsel and sturdy faith more needed than in the period covered by the lifetime of Polycarp. The Bishop of Durham describes it as 'the most tumultuous period in the religious history of the world'; and in connection with the Bishop of Smyrna he notes that 'a chief arena of the struggle between creeds and cults was Asia Minor.' If in the earlier part of the second century (A. D. 112) Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan,[86] deplored what Polycarp may have witnessed--on the one hand, heathen temples deserted and heathen sacrifices starved as to their victims; on the other, young and old, man and woman, patrician and peasant, bond and free, attracted to and mastered by a 'superstition' which affected alike the city and the village, the nobleman's mansion and the herdsman's hut, yet the splendid successes of Christianity did not blind either saint or philosopher. 'A veritable Pagan propaganda,' as Renan calls it, also set in in the second century; and when Polycarp died, it was at its height. Everywhere was it supported by the reigning emperors. 'The political and truly Roman instincts of Trajan were not more friendly to it than the archaeological tastes, the cosmopolitan interests, and the theological levity of Hadrian. From their immediate successors, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, it received even more solid and efficient support.'

Smyrna, the see of Bishop Polycarp, was fully exposed to the influences of this reviving Paganism. The rhetorician, Aristides--true type of the Pagan charlatan who summoned to his aid in subjugating a superstitious people the mysterious and occult powers with which astrology and dreams, auguries and witchcrafts, invested their possessors--was himself a frequent dweller in Smyrna. Often must he have heard of and despised the man branded by the titles, 'the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the puller-down of our gods, who teacheth numbers not to sacrifice nor worship'[87] which--like the inscription over his crucified Lord--did unconsciously proclaim the very and only truth. Twice did the city of Smyrna, during Polycarp's prime, receive fresh honours and privileges for her devotion to the worship of Imperial deities. The religious guild of the temples of the Augusti celebrated here their festivals with exceptional splendour; the 'theologians' and 'choristers,' who owed their existence and affluence to the magnificence of a Hadrian, not only saluted him as their 'god,' their 'saviour and founder,' but by senatorial decree established games--the Olympia Hadrianea--grotesquely pompous in titular magnificence. Naturally this affected the well-being of the infant Church of Christ in Smyrna; but that Church was assailed from another quarter, and by the sharpened weapons, not of a scornful superiority, but of fanatical hatred. The Jews were both numerous and powerful in Smyrna, and two cruel episodes in their late national history accentuated their fury against the Christians wherever they met with them. The first was the destruction of Jerusalem (A. D. 70). The fugitives from Palestine, who found refuge in Smyrna with their fellow-countrymen already settled there, found sympathy also--save from one class, the Christians. Compassion these last could feel for men whose best blood had welled over the courts of the Temple, whose dearest and nearest had perhaps perished in Jerusalem, that 'cage of furious madmen, a city of howling wild beasts and of cannibals--a hell' (Renan); but they knew to be true what a Titus had acknowledged, that 'the hand of God' was in the victory of Rome. They saw in the downfall of the Holy City the retribution of the Heavenly Father for the crucifixion of the Messiah; and sorrow with the sorrow of the weeping patriots of Israel they could not and would not. Their refusal was the signal for a determination to seize every opportunity of revenge; and the second episode, to which we have alluded, is connected with a specially furious outburst of maddened passion against Christians on the part of the Jews. Hadrian, fifty years after the fall of Jerusalem, had resolved upon rearing on its ruins the city of AElia Capitolina. Then flashed forth the rebellion of the Jew Bar-cochba (A. D. 132-4). The 'Son of the Star,' supported by his standard-bearer, Akiba, the greatest of the Rabbins, measured his strength with Rome. With mouth breathing forth flames,[88] he inspired his partisans with confidence, and his enemies with terror. Flung back, disappointed, and slain at Bither, the 'Son of a Lie,' as his disappointed countrymen had found him to their cost and re-named him, had yet found opportunities of inflicting terrible tortures and agonizing deaths upon those Christians in Palestine, who had dared to reject his Messianic claims, and refused to blaspheme Christ. And the spirit of vengeance spread from the Holy Land to the provinces. Twenty years after the death of the rebel leader, the Jews of Smyrna--probably to Polycarp 'a synagogue of Satan,' as in earlier times St. John his master had described

them (Rev. ii. 9)--found their opportunity. Their vengeance then was only slaked by the blood of the Christian Bishop.

The Saint's martyrdom was the crowning consummation of the Saint's life. With the Bishop of Durham's help we can now collect all that we shall probably ever know of both; and to this we turn in conclusion.[89]

The date of his martyrdom may be accepted as about 155 A. D.[90] If Polycarp was then 86 years of age, his birth may be placed in A. D. 60 or 70, at a time nearly coincident with the date of the destruction of Jerusalem. That event was the cause which drove St. John to fix his abode ultimately at Ephesus, the traditional home of St. Andrew, and near to the Phrygian Hierapolis, where St. Philip the Apostle died and was buried. The proximity of Smyrna to Ephesus, and the reputation accorded to both in the flattering designation of 'the two eyes' of proconsular Asia, would make intercourse between the cities familiar and frequent. In the Christian advantages consequent upon such intercourse Polycarp had his full share, if it be impossible to assert positively that he was a Smyrnaean by birth, and of Christian parentage. But the legends at the close of the fourth century, as embodied in the story of Pionius, sought and found for his origin a more romantic, if sad, beginning. One night, God's Angel appeared to a widow of Smyrna named Callisto, rich in worldly wealth, but still more rich in good work. 'Go,' he bade her, 'to the Ephesian gate. There you will find two men. They have with them a young lad for sale. Give them their price, and take and keep the child. He is by birth an Eastern.' The child was Polycarp. She did as she was bid. She bought and reared him, and eventually left to him all her substance. The fact implied in the last words, that Polycarp was a comparatively well-to-do man, is the one fact out of the above story supported by more authentic documents. Perhaps also the picture of the man, so pleasing and natural, drawn by Pionius, may present traits faithful to the original:--

'The love of knowledge and the fondness of the Scriptures,
which distinguishes the people of the East, bore rich fruit
in him. He offered himself a whole offering to God, by
prayer and study of the Scriptures, by spareness of diet and
simplicity of clothing, by liberal almsgiving. He was
bashful and retiring, shunning the busy throngs of men, and
consorting only with those who needed his assistance. When
he met an aged wood-carrier outside the walls, he would
purchase his burden, would carry it himself to the city, and
would give it to the widows living near the gate. The
Bishop Bucolus cherished him as a son, and he in turn
requited his love with filial care and devotion.'

But we may catch from real and genuine sources three glimpses of the man: in youth as the disciple of St. John, in middle age as the champion of Ignatius, in closing life as the teacher of Irenaeus. Of the circle of disciples who gathered round St. John, Polycarp is indubitably the most famous. He delighted, in his declining years, to tell his younger friends what he had himself heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's life on earth; and he would dwell especially on his intercourse with the Apostle of Love. There is nothing improbable in the belief, that he was ordained to the episcopate by the venerable Apostle. Among his contemporaries were Clement, Papias, and Ignatius. Polycarp knew, as has been stated, the letter of the great Bishop of Rome, and Papias--his 'companion,' as Irenaeus[91] calls him--became his neighbour at Hierapolis. But it is with Ignatius that the younger man is inseparably linked. They met, probably for the first (and only) time, at Smyrna when the great Bishop of Antioch was on his way to martyrdom at Rome. Touching in their affectionateness are the remarks which each passes upon each. Polycarp inspires Ignatius with 'love.' The younger man is to the older 'most blessed,' 'clothed with grace,' marked by 'fervid sincerity,' a man 'whose godly mind is grounded on an immovable rock' (Letter to Polycarp). To Polycarp, Ignatius 'the blessed' is the pattern of men, 'obedient unto the word of righteousness and practising all endurance,' 'encircled in saintly bonds which are the diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and our Lord.' The two men parted, never again to meet on earth, yet to be linked together by 'martyrdom comformable to the Gospel' But ere that 'birthday' arrived, Polycarp had to live for nearly half a century; and potent was his influence upon the men of a younger generation. Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and Polycrates, famous among the Fathers of Asia, must have known him well; Justin Martyr visited him from Ephesus; but mightiest and dearest of all was his pupil Irenaeus, the champion of orthodoxy against Gnosticism.

'When I was still a boy,' wrote Irenaeus, '(I was) in company
with Polycarp in Asia Minor.... I can tell the very place in
which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed,
his goings out and comings in, his manner of life and his
personal appearance, his discourses which he gave to the
people, and his description of his intercourse with John,
and the rest of those who had seen the Lord.'[92]

Those were reminiscences and lessons never forgotten by the future Bishop of Lyons. To him, as to 'all the churches of Asia and to the successors of Polycarp' himself, the pupil of St. John was 'a much more trustworthy and safe witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion, and all such wrong-minded men.'[93]

The end came at last. A persecution was raging; how or why we know not. All that can be known is told in the 'Letter of the Smyrnaeans.'[94] The simplicity and pathos of the story, as told by this ancient document, so moved the great Scaliger, that he felt hardly master of himself. We cannot tell the tale of triumph in better words than in those of that exquisite piece of ecclesiastical antiquity. The great annual festival was being held at Smyrna, presided over by the Asiarch and 'high priest'[95] Philip, a wealthy citizen of the wealthy Tralles, and graced by the presence of the Proconsul Statius Quadratus. The persecutor had asked for blood, and blood had been granted him. Already several victims, Philadelphians, 'so torn by lashes that the mechanism of their flesh was visible even as far as the inward veins and arteries,' had 'endured patiently;' showing to the weeping bystanders such bravery that the explanation became current--'(these) martyrs of Christ being tortured, were absent from the flesh, or rather the Lord was standing by and conversing with them.' Others 'condemned to the wild beasts, endured fearful punishments, being made to lie on sharp shells and buffeted with other forms of manifold tortures, that the devil might, if possible, by the persistence of the punishment bring them to a denial; for he tried many wiles against them.' Men remembered afterwards how 'the right noble Germanicus,' scorning the pity the Proconsul would have extended to his youth, 'used violence, and dragged the wild beast towards him.' Such bravery, 'the bravery of the God-fearing and God-beloved people of the Christians,' only whetted the pagan thirst for blood. There rang out the shout, 'Away with the atheists![96] Let search be made for Polycarp!' He had gone against his will into the country, probably to one of his own farms; and he was found without much difficulty. He placed before his captors food and drink, and asked but a single boon of them--'one hour that he might pray unmolested.' Those mounted soldiers, 'wondering why there should be such eagerness for the apprehension of an old man like him,' gave their consent. 'He stood up and prayed; and being full of the grace of God, for two hours he could not hold his peace, so that they who heard him were amazed, and many repented that they had come against such a venerable old man.' They brought him to the city, seated on an ass. Steadily did he refuse the real and sincere endeavours of compassionate heathen to 'save himself.' 'What harm,' they asked, 'is there in saying, Caesar is Lord, and offering incense?' He would only answer, 'I am not going to do what you counsel me.' As he entered the stadium, the human roar, fiercer and more cruel than that of wild beasts, rose above every other sound. Polycarp did not heed it; a voice came to him from heaven, 'Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man;' and, nerved by what other Christians had also heard, he stood at last before Statius. Words, at first pitiful, greeted him: 'Have respect to thine age!--Swear by the genius of Caesar! Say, "Away with the atheists."' The Saint caught up the last word. He 'looked with solemn countenance upon that vast multitude of lawless heathen; and groaning and looking up to heaven, he said, 'Away with the atheists.' Was he then yielding? The Proconsul had misunderstood him, but he pressed him hard and said 'Swear the oath, and I will release thee. Revile the Christ!' Polycarp looked him in the face, and gave him the answer which can never die. 'Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King Who saved me?' The words of pity changed into threats. 'I have wild beasts here,' said Statius, 'and I will throw thee to them except thou change thy mind.' 'Call them,' was the unflinching answer. 'If thou despisest the wild beasts, I will cause thee to be consumed by fire.' Polycarp remembered a dream of three days before in which he had seen his pillow burning with fire, and which he had interpreted to those with him as signifying that he would be burnt alive. He answered now, 'Thou threatenest that fire which burneth for a season and after a little while is quenched. For thou art ignorant of the fire of the future judgment and eternal punishment, which is reserved for the ungodly:' and then he added--in his impatience to be 'made a partaker with Christ'--'But why delayest thou? Come, do what thou wilt.' Saying this, 'he was inspired with courage and joy, and his countenance was filled with grace.'

The herald's proclamation was soon heard announcing three times, 'Polycarp hath confessed himself to be a Christian;' and again the human yell broke forth from Gentile and Jew, this time fashioning itself into distinct speech: 'This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the puller down of our gods, who teacheth numbers not to sacrifice nor worship.... Let the lion loose upon him!' 'That is impossible' was the answer of the Asiarch, 'for the sports have closed.' They shouted out 'with one accord, "Burn him alive!" Quicker than words could tell, the crowds collected timber and faggots from workshops and baths, and the Jews especially assisted in this with zeal, as was their wont.' They placed around him the 'instruments prepared for the pile,' and were going to nail him to the stake. He interposed with his last request of men, 'Leave me as I am. He that hath granted me to endure the fire, will grant me also to remain at the pile unmoved, without the security you seek from nails.' They 'tied him to the stake.' He stood up 'like a noble ram out of a great flock for an offering, a burnt-sacrifice made ready and acceptable to God;' and looking up to heaven, made his last request of God in one of the noblest prayers preserved in ancient or modern literature. His Amen said, 'the firemen lighted the fire. The mighty flame flashed forth,' and men saw then, what in later days they saw repeated at the martyrdom of a Savonarola and of a Hooper,[97] the fire, 'like the sail of a vessel filled with wind, surrounding as with a wall the body of the martyr. It was there in the midst, not like flesh burning, but like gold and silver refined in a furnace.' Could he not die?

'Lawless men, seeing that his body could not be consumed by
the fire, ordered an executioner to go up to him and stab
him with a dagger. And when he had done this, there came
forth a quantity of blood,[98] so that it extinguished the
fire; and all the multitude marvelled that there should be
so great a difference between the unbelievers and the
elect.'

The Christians hoped to have taken away the 'poor body,' but 'the jealous and envious Evil One, the adversary of the family of the righteous,' instigated the Jews to urge upon the magistrate not to give up his body, lest they (the Christians) should abandon the crucified One and begin to worship this man,... 'not knowing' (add the narrators) 'how impossible it would be for them to forsake at any time the Christ Who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those who are saved--suffered, though sinless, for sinners--not to worship any other.' The body was placed again on the pile and consumed. Then 'the bones, more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold,' were taken up and laid in a suitable place.

So died a Polycarp as had died an Ignatius, both martyred, and both memorable for 'nobleness, patient endurance, and loyalty to their Master.' The motto of their deaths was the motto of their lives, condensed into the saying of the martyr of Antioch to the martyr of Smyrna:--

'[Greek: hopou pleion kopos, poly kerdos.]

'The greater the pain, the greater the gain.'

We know nothing certain of the tombs which tradition or affection have pointed out as the last resting-place of the calcined remains of either Saint, but we need no longer such perishable monuments. The English-speaking and English-reading race have in the volumes of the Bishop of Durham a fitting shrine for those literary remains which survive destruction. Scholarship and piety, study and prayer, have here combined to shed light upon the writings, and to raise a monument to the lives, of those champions of early Christianity, who in their day wrought a good work, and still speak, though dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] Bishop Lightfoot's 'Ignatius and Polycarp,' by Prof. A. Harnack, Ph.D, in 'Expositor' for December, 1885, p. 401.

[65] 'The Apostolic Fathers,' p. 116. By Canon Scott Holland.

[66] [Greek: hechtroma], 'Ep. to the Romans,' 9, with Bp. Lightfoot's note. Compare 1 Corinth. xv. 8.

[67] Herod, vii. 31, 187.

[68] 'Ep. to the Rom.' 5, 'to the Ephes.' II, with note

[69] See the useful Table in i. 222, and the excursus on 'Spurious and Interpolated Epistles' in i. 223-266. Cf. also the 'Appendix Ignatiana,' ii. 587, &c.

[70] Such as Eusebius and Theodoret. Cf. i., pp. 137-40, 161-4. The catena of quotations and references from the second to the ninth century, given in i. 127-221 (cf. the hint on p. 220) is most important for the construction of the text, and as a preliminary to the determination of the priority and authenticity of the Epistles. Harnack's objections to the quotation from Lucian (i. 129) are not shared by Baur or Renan, and are indirectly met by Bishop Lightfoot, i. 331-5.

[71] Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, William Spurstow.

[72] i, 79 For example, as regards the order of the words in the Greek text this latin translation may be treated as an authority. The Greek is rigidly followed without any regard for Latin usage. So also Greek articles are scrupulously reproduced, in violation of Latin idiom. New or unusual Latin words are introduced to correspond as exactly as possible to the original; _e.g._ ingloriatio = [Greek: akanchesia]; multibona ordinatio = [Greek: to polyeutaktan], &c.

[73] See i. 72. For the text edited by Dr. W. Wright, see ii. 657., &c.; and for a translation, ii. 670, &c.

[74] 'De scriptis quae sub Dionysii Areopagitae et Ignati Antiocheni nominibus circumferuntur,' &c. (1666). The Bishop of Durham characterizes Daille's treatment of the Ignatian writings as marked 'by deliberate confusion.' He knows the facts, but makes the Vossian letters bear all the odium attached to the 'long' recension. Pearson's work, 'Vindiciae Epistolarum S. Ignatii,' appeared six years later in 1672. This reply as compared with the attack was 'as light to darkness.' In England it closed the controversy.

[75] Trall. 5.

[76] See, for example, Rom. 4, 9: Trall. 3, 13; Ephes. 1, 3, 21.

[77] Rom. 5.

[78] Smyrn. 8.

[79] See i. 400, 405.

[80] Consult Bishop Lightfoot's Essay on this subject in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (p. 181, &c.). The 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' published in 1884, is rightly referred to now by the Bishop of Durham as confirming his positions.

[81] Comp. Irenaeus, 'Haer.' iii. 3, Sec. Sec. 3,4; iii. 14, Sec. 2.

[82] Essay in 'Philippians,' p. 218.

[83] Cf. Bishop Lightfoot's edition of 'St. Clement of Rome,' App. p. 252, &c.

[84] Iren. 'Haer.' iii. 3, 4.

[85] Cf. i. 568, &c.

[86] See i. 50, &c.; ii. 532. The Bishop of Durham's collection of facts and references dealing with this subject is an admirable specimen--everywhere repeated--of the exhaustive treatment he applies to single points.

[87] Letter of the Smyrnaeans, Sec. 12.

[88] He had learnt the trick of keeping lighted tow or straw in his mouth. See other instances in Milman's 'History of the Jeos,' ii. 429, n. _x_.

[89] Cf. Justin Martyr in Eusebius, 'Hist.' iv, 8.

[90] i. 422, 629, &c. Mr. Rendell, in the 'Studia Biblica' (oxf. 1885), has come to the same conclusion by an independent treatment.

[91] Haer. v. 33, 34.

[92] Euseb. 'Hist. Eccl.' v. 20

[93] Iren. 'Haer.' iii. 3.

[94] The genuineness of the main document (at least) is unaffected by recent attacks. The impugning process of Schuerer, Lipsius, and Kelm has been successfully resisted by Renan, Hilgenfeld (in part), and the Bishop of Durham (i 588, &c.).

[95] The subjects of the Asiarchate, of the identity of Asiarch and high-priest, have suggested to the Bishop of Durham another of those exhaustive discussions which will win for him the gratitude of the students (see ii. 987, &c.)

[96] The name given by the heathen to the Christians, whom they counted godless because they had neither image nor visible representation of the Deity. See ii. 160, note to line 1.

[97] See i. 599 nn. 1, 6.

[98] On the celebrated reading, 'there came forth a dove and a quantity of blood, see ii. 974, note to i. 3. It is to be explained by the belief, that the soul departed from the body at death in the form of a bird; the dove most readily suggesting itself as the emblem of a Christian soul.

Art. VIII.--1. _An Address delivered to the Students of Edinburgh University on Nov. 3, 1885._ By the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh.

2. _Hearing, Reading and Thinking: an address to the Students attending the Lectures of the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching._ By the Rt. Hon. G.J. Goschen, M.P.

3. _The Choice of Books and other Literary Pieces._ By Frederic Harrison. London, 1886.

The subject of Books and Reading is _in the air_ at the present time; Lord Iddlesleigh raised the question last November, by his admirable discourse on Desultory Reading, delivered at Edinburgh. Sir John Lubbock was not slow to follow the lead, in his lecture at the Working Men's College; and lastly, we have Mr. Goschen's more abstract and despondent remarks on Hearing, Reading, and Thinking. The discussion has been carried forward from Newspaper to Journal, and from Journal to Magazine, and has attracted representatives of the most heterogeneous elements into the ever widening circle. Sir John Lubbock wound up by enumerating a _hundred_ of the books--

'most frequently mentioned with approval by those who have
referred directly or indirectly to the pleasure of reading,
and I have ventured to include some, which though less
frequently mentioned, are especial favourites of my own. I
have abstained for obvious reasons from mentioning works by
living authors.' ('Self Help,' however, is admitted into Sir
John's revised list), 'though from many of them, Tennyson,
Ruskin, and others, I have myself derived the keenest
enjoyment; and have omitted works of Science, with one or
two exceptions, because the subject is so progressive. I
feel that the attempt is over bold, and must beg for
indulgence; but indeed one object I have had in view is to
stimulate others, more competent far than I am, to give us
the advantage of their opinions. If we had such lists drawn
up by a few good guides, they would be most useful.'

The challenge thus thrown down was quickly taken up by the Editor of the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' who forthwith sent out a Circular to certain eminent men of the day, inviting them 'to jot down such a list--not necessarily containing a hundred volumes--as would help the present generation to choose their reading more wisely.' Whether the majority of the 'guides' thus appealed to have responded to the call, we are not informed; the replies of several have been published; and our thanks are due to those who have been instrumental in opening up a discussion of great variety and universal interest; though we must confess to some regret that the initiative was not given in a different form. Why the number should be fixed at one hundred; why works of Science should be excluded; why Biography and Travels should enjoy so meagre a representation on Sir John Lubbock's list, are questions to which no satisfactory answer has been given.

Who is it, we would ask in the first place, for whom this list is primarily intended? Not the man whose love of books is firmly established, for he will have chosen for himself his own walk among the innumerable highways and byepaths of literature; nor he whose tastes are just forming, for the field is too wide, and he would hardly prefer the Analects of Confucius, the Shahnameh, and the Sheking, to 'Marco's Polo's Travels,' Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' and 'AEsop's Fables.' No list, however, that could be drawn up would escape criticism, and our desire is not so much to suggest in what manner the present list might be amended, as to indicate how, in our opinion, it might have been made to serve some practical purpose.

'Books have brought some men to knowledge and some to madness. As fulness sometimes hurteth the stomach more than hunger, so fareth it with arts; and as of meats, so likewise of books, the use ought to be limited according to the quality of him that useth them.' Thus wrote Petrarch, and the comparison between the bodily and mental digestion, if trite, is very far from being a mere superficial analogy.

Those who are blessed with a judicial friend, quite competent to make a diagnosis of their literary capacity and prescribe a diet, are indeed fortunate--'sua si bona norint.' Such prescriptions have been long since made, and handed down to us. That written out by Doctor Johnson, for his friend the Rev. Mr. Astle of Ashbourne, is brief enough, and savours of the drastic remedies fashionable in the last century.[99] If on glancing over the Doctor's list our readers are inclined to assume that the Rev. Mr. Astle was possessed of a very healthy digestion, we would remind them that solid joints and heavy folios were more in vogue at that time than in these days of French cookery and periodical literature.

In later times Comte also, among others, has furnished a catalogue, or syllabus of books for general reading; but even his faithful follower Mr. Harrison admits, half apologetically, that it 'has no special relation to current views of education, to English literature, much less to the literature of the day. It was drawn up thirty years ago by a French philosopher, who passed his life in Paris, and who had read no new book for twenty years.'

'What shall I read?' There are few questions more frequently asked than this; few, perhaps, to which a thoughtless answer is more frequently given. Coming from one of that large class to which Lord Iddesleigh has given the name of 'indolent readers,' it might be assumed to be lightly asked, and might be as lightly answered by the recommendation of some three-volume novel, or the more fashionable shilling's-worth of gruesome mystery; but if the enquirer be a young book-lover, a worthy answer is far to seek. The diagnosis and opinion of the physician do not present greater difficulties, and in many cases are not attended by more momentous results. To turn a juvenile adrift in Sir John Lubbock's list would be to prescribe an exclusive diet of richly seasoned dishes and rare wines to a convalescent patient--to feed him on strong meats, on cavaire and truffles, and to omit the simple, wholesome, homely fare on which, in his condition, health and efficient progress must in the main depend.

How often has the young enquirer been imbued with a distaste for solid literature by being compelled to read 'masterpieces' long before he was able to appreciate their value, or even to comprehend their history! The system at many of our schools is much to blame in this respect. There are, we believe, comparatively few boys who acquire, until they seek it for themselves, even the roughest general outline of the world's history, to which their various episodic studies may be applied, so that each may fall into its proper place and order. 'Periods' and 'Epochs' are studied minutely and painfully, without any knowledge of the grand structure of which they form but a single fragment; and history is too often divorced from geography. A schoolboy is set to work on a play of Aristophanes before he has made acquaintance with the social and political movements of which Pericles and Cleon were the representatives. He reads his Bible and his Homer, his Virgil and Horace, his Caesar and Livy, but probably with the vaguest ideas of their relations to one another, or their respective positions in the world's chronology. Or it may be that the whole of one term is devoted to one or two books of 'the Iliad' and 'the Odyssey,' 'the AEneid' or the 'Odes,' which are ground out line by line and word by word, all the interest and flavour of the complete work being inevitably and hopelessly dissipated in the process. Even 'the college prizeman, and the college tutor cannot read a chorus in the Trilogy but what his mind instinctively wanders on optatives, choriambi, and that happy conjecture of Smelfungus in the antistrophe.'[100] But certain books having to be got up for an examination by the cramming process, the receptacle for all this erudition only looks forward to the time when he may throw his Classics behind the fire for ever. No book with the least pretention to permanent value can be read purely by and for itself; inevitably it must draw on the reader--if he be in any sense worthy of the name--from point to point beyond its own immediate sphere, until he finds his interest expanding and his tastes forming under a natural and rapid process of evolution. Can any intelligent person read his Homer or his 'AEneid,' his Boswell, his 'Old Mortality,' or 'The Voyage of the Beagle' without asking himself who are these strange characters, and where are these strange lands that seem so familiar to us?

He who stands on a hill and surveys a wide landscape, easily recognizes the leading features of the country--the river and the homestead, the church and the corn-field--they need no guide, they tell their own tale. In like manner the great landmarks of the literature of the past are well defined and unmistakable to him who has eyes to see and a mind to comprehend. The traveller may choose his line, and as he goes his way he will not fail to find guides who will give him the directions which passing doubts and difficulties may render necessary. The world's great books stand out as the old stone walls of some great feudal fortress--prominent and indestructible. Their original uses have been superseded by the world's advance; but time and change add greatly to their interest. He, however, who finds himself entangled in the dense jungle of books that are not 'masterpieces,' and are so plentiful in modern literature, is in a sorry plight; his way lies through this jungle, be it long or short, and he cannot escape it altogether. He has heard of the quiet groves of the Academy, and of the heights of Parnassus, but he is rarely able to catch a glimpse of them. He is whirled along and loses his foothold in the eddying torrent of periodical literature; or he is entangled in the briars of controversy, and, torn and vexed, is apt to lose his way. Here then it is that he particularly needs a guide, and here it is that Sir John Lubbock bids good-bye to him, and leaves him to his own resources.

The student, thus perplexed, may be surprised to learn from Mr. Ruskin that 'any bank clerk could write a history as good as Grote's,' and that Gibbon only chronicled 'putrescence and corruption; 'he may be deeply interested in the information that Professor Bryce prefers Pindar to Hesiod, that the Lord Chief Justice knows nothing of Chinese or Sanskrit, and that Miss Braddon has spent 'great part of a busy life reading the "Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews."' But all this does not help him in his bewildering journey among the 10,000 books which are annually flooding the world of English speaking readers--a mass of which we fear that the quality advances in inverse ratio to the quantity.

Sir John Lubbock's list, as it stands, suggests a gathering of illustrious Generals and officers, without any men. They are very distinguished and admirable in appearance and qualifications, but would be doubly so if seen at the head of the army which they lead and represent. Had Sir John commenced by marshalling his hundred books in groups, either of subjects to be studied or of readers to be provided for, and then called upon the 'guides' to fill up the gaps, and supply the rank and file of his army, he would have earned the thanks of all book-lovers.

In the selection of books two considerations must alternately be paramount. One of these would have reference to the subjects to be studied, the other would have reference to the readers to be provided for. We are aware of the long controversies and technical difficulties involved in this question of Classification, which has stirred the hearts of Librarians from time immemorial, but for our present purpose the elaboration of an exhaustive scientific system is unnecessary; a statement of the rough headings and divisions, under which the books for general readers should be grouped, presents no insurmountable obstacles. Various minor considerations may subsequently assert themselves; as, for example, whether the books are required with the ultimate object of the formation of a library, and 'the cultivation of literature is an object which cannot be accomplished without the acquisition of a library of a greater or less extent,' or for the mere purpose of amusement. To draw up such a catalogue as we propose would exceed the capacity of any single individual; each section should be the work of one or more persons specially versed in the subject.

We are, of course, dealing rather with those who are aspiring to be book lovers than with those who, having already attained to that distinction, can trust to the guidance of their own inclinations. These aspirants must seek first an able and judicious guide for each department of study. One guide may be fully competent to make a list of works in history or biography, but may lack experience in philosophy or in art; while, on the other hand, the regimen prescribed for the country curate would hardly be appropriate for the mechanic or the soldier.

But, first, we must endeavour to define, by a rough process of elimination, the book lover, whether mature or in embryo. He is not the mere 'glutton of the lending library,' who bolts the contents of the monthly box without discrimination and without reflection, his main object being to while away an idle day or to gain a superficial reputation at the next dinner party at which he may be present; nor is he the collector of gaudy bindings; nor one who has never possessed nor desired to possess a library of his own, who has never read a book more than once, and has never committed to memory a single passage. He is not the man, in short, who fails to realize that 'the utility of reading depends not on the swallow but on the digestion.'