time might have suffered, yet he had not received any certain account of it, but was still to learn the manner and circumstances of his passion. 5. Now this will lead us to a yet more exact conjecture of the time of St. Polycarp's writing the following Epistle, viz. that it must have been just about the time of St. Ignatius's death, it being no way probable that had Ignatius been any long time dead, so great a Bishop, and so dear a friend of his as St. Polycarp was, should have been still to learn the certainty of it. 6. And this may serve, by the way, not only to fix the time when this Epistle was written, namely, at the end of the year of our Lord 116, or in the beginning of 117; but also to shew how groundless the exception of those men(h) is against the authority of it, who pretend to find out a contradiction between the two passages I have now mentioned: and would from thence infer either the utter falseness of this whole Epistle; or at least conclude that this latter part of it is none of Polycarp's, but added by some latter hand to give the greater credit to the Epistles of St. Ignatius, which they are resolved by all means to reject as none of his. For indeed, were not men willing to be contentious, where is the contradiction they so much boasted of between the two places I have before alluded? Is it that in the former of them he sets before them the sufferings of St. Ignatius, and exhorts them to follow the example of his patience? But it is evident the sufferings he there speaks of were those which the Philippians had seen in him : the weight of his chains the hardships of his journey, the rudeness of the soldiers that guarded him, and of which the blessed martyr himself complains in one of his Epistles ;) and to add no more, the expectation of that cruel death he was suddenly to undergo. (h) Daillanus in Pseudepigr. cap. xxxii. pa. 428. Larroque Observat. in Pearson, p. 69. (1) Ignat. Epist. to the Romans, cap. v. 7. But I suppose the contradiction lies in what follows: that in one place(k) he speaks of him as if he had already suffered, and yet in the other desires the Philippians to send him word what they had heard of it. Now what is there in all this that does not very well agree together? St. Polycarp, either by the computation of the arrival of Ignatius at Rome, or by the consideration of the solemn festival that was wont at that time to be held there, and at which it was usual to exhibit such kind of spectacles to the people; or it may be, lastly, from the accounts which he had receiv ed of this holy martyr from some of those that were with him; did suppose, nay, if you will, did not doubt but that Ignatius was dead when he wrote his Epistle to the Philippians. Yet having not hitherto received any certain account of it, and being not absolutely sure, whether he had suffered or no, or if he had, how he had been treated by his enemies, and how he had behaved himself in his last encounter with the beasts; desires the Philippians, who were much nearer to Rome than he was, and might therefore very proba bly have heard much later from thence than he had done, to send him a certain account of what they knew as to this matter. What is there in all this, I do not say that looks like a contradiction, but that is not very natural; and particularly most becoming the love and friendship of the blessed Polycarp towards him concerning whom he so diligently inquired? I am sure Photius,() who had not only read this Epistle, but transcribed this last passage out of it; though a severe critic as any that have ever perused it since, saw no contradiction in it to any thing that went before; for if he had, he was not of a humour to have let it pass, without making some reflection or other upon it. 8. Let me add yet more, that neither could those see the contradiction here pretended, who in our pre (k) Vid. Daillæum and Larroque loc. cit. (1) Photius Bibl. Tmem cxxvi. pag. 305. 1 sent times would have been as forward as any to have made use of it to the disadvantage of this Epistle, had they had but the least grounds so to do. I shall instance only in two: the first, the late learned divine of Leyden, Monsieur le Moyne :(m) who though he judged the passage relating to St. Ignatius's Epistles, which was wanting in his manuscript, to be abrupt, and would from thence argue against the authority of it; yet has he made no reflection on the words. immediately following, in which those others will have the contradiction to lie. 9. The other that I shall mention in opposition to this pretence, is a yet later writer, Ernestus Tentzelius;(n) who though no great friend to this Epistle, which he supposes to have been corrupted, no less than those of Ignatius were in the antient editions of them; yet. utterly refuses to comply with this objection, as not apprehending that there was the least ground for it. 10. But to return from this digression, in answer to the exception of two of the most learned adversaries of this Epistle, against the credit of it: though, as I have now shewn, St. Polycarp, wrote not to the Philippians till after the death of St. Ignatius, and consequently this Epistle in order of time ought to have been placed after those which the other wrote immediately before it; yet was it fit to give this the precedency in the following collection, both as containing a most proper introduction to the Epistles of Ignatius, and as having in all probability been first sent in the same order by St. Polycarp to the Philippians. 11. For thus we find that holy man speaking to them in the close of his letter (0) the Epistles of Ignatius which he wrote unto us, together with what others of his have come to our hands, we have sent unto you according to your order; which are subjoined to this Epistle. So both Eusebius(p) transcrib (m) Proleg. ad Var, Saor. in Polycarp. (n) Exercit. Select. Exerc iv. Num. 42. pag. 157. (0) Polycarp. Epist. Num. xi, (P) Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 36. ed it out of the original Greek; and so we find it ́in our antient Latin Version, (g) which is all that remains of that part of this Epistle; from whence our learned Archbishop Usher(r) with great reason concludes, that St. Polycarp caused the copies of St. Ignatius's Epistles to be immediately added at the end of his own, and sent them to the Philippians together with it. 12. And this perhaps may have been one great means of preserving this Epistle of St. Polycarp, from the fate that has attended all the rest of his writings. For being wont to be transcribed together with those of Ignatius, and commonly placed at the front of them, they mutually helped to secure one another : whilst the rest of his writings, for want of being thus collected together, have for a long time been so utterly lost to the world, that neither Photius,(s) nor St. Hierome,(t) nor Eusebius, (u) seem to have had any particular catalogue of them; nor hath Irenæus, the Disciple of St. Polycarp, given us such a one. 13. Indeed for what concerns the last of these, I mean Irenæus ;(w) he tells us that this great man did write several Epistles, not only to the neighbouring churches, to confirm them in the faith, but even to particular persons, for their instruction and admonition. But what they were, or to whom they were sent, neither does he say, nor does Eusebius, where he speaks of the writings of St. Polycarp, mention any more than that Epistle to the Philippians, of which we are now discoursing. And though a few later authors(x) pretend to give us the very titles of some other of his works; yet have we reason to doubt from this silence of those who lived the nearest to his time, (q) Apud. Usser. p. 24. (r) Dissert. de Ignat. Epist. cap. ii (w) Iren. Epist. ad Florin. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 20. (x) S. Maximus Prolog. in Dionys. Areop. Suidas in Polycarp. &c. Vid. Usserii Dissert. de Script. Iguat. p. 4, 5. Tentzel. Exerc. Select. de Polycarp. num. xxxvi, xxxvii. that their authority is but small; nor can we say that even the pieces which they name, are any where to be found at this day. 14. Nor shall I except here those fragments lately published by Fevardentius(y) out of Victor Capuanus, and reprinted by Bishop Usher(z) in his appendix to Ignatius; in which as there are some things which neither Father Halloix,(a) nor our learned Usher(a) could approve of, as written by St. Polycarp, so the distance of him(b) who was the first collector of them from the time of that blessed martyr, and the manifest proofs he has on other occasions given of his little care and judgment in distinguishing the works of the antient Fathers who lived any long time before him; not to say any thing of the passages themselves ascribed to St. Polycarp,(c) but little agreeable to the Apostolical age: all these considerations have justly restrained learned men from giving any great credit to those fragments, or from receiving them as belonging in any wise to so antient an author. 15. But whatever becomes of these fragments, certain it is that the Epistle which I have here subjoined is the genuine work of this holy man, and worthy of that great character which antiquity has given of it. Even Monsieur Daille(d) himself confesses, that excepting only the close of it, against which it was necessary for him to declare himself, there is nothing in it that either ought to offend any, or that may be thought unworthy of Polycarp. But Le Moyne(e) goes yet farther; he tells us that he does not see how any one can entertain the least suspicion against it; that there is not perhaps any work extant that has more (y) Ad lib. iii. c. 3. Irenæi. (z) Lond. 1647. p. 31. (a) Usserius Annot. loc. cit. p. 72, 73. (b) Victor Capuanus he lived anno 545. (c) Cave Hist. liter. in Polyc. p. 28. le Moyne Prol. ad Var. Sacr. Tentzel. Exercit. Select. iv. de Polyc. n. xlix. Du Pin. Bibl. Eccl. in Polycarp, &c. (d) De Scriptis Ignatian. cap. xxxii. (e) Prol. ad Var. Sacr. tom. 1. in Polycarp. |