encouragement from Hadrian would have brought on a bloody persecution. Quadratus and Aristides
addressed their pleas for their fellow-Christians to him, we do not know with what effect.
Later tradition assigns to his reign the martyrdom of St. Eustachius, St. Symphorosa and
her seven sons, of the Roman bishops Alexander and Telesphorus, and others whose names are
scarcely known, and whose chronology is more than doubtful.
§ 19 Antoninus Pius. a.d. 137–161. The Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Comte de Champagny (R.C.):
Les Antonins
. (a.d. 69–180), Paris, 1863; 3d ed. 1874. 3 vols., 8 vo.
Merivale’s History.
Martyrium Polycarp (the oldest, simplest, and least objectionable of the martyr-acts), in a letter of
the church of Smyrna to the Christians in Pontus or Phrygia, preserved by Eusebius, H. Eccl.
IV. 15, and separately edited from various MSS. by Ussher (1647) and in nearly all the editions
of the Apostolic Fathers, especially by O. v. Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn, II. 132–168, and
Prolog. L-LVI. The recension of the text is by Zahn, and departs from the text of the Bollandists
in 98 places. Best edition by Lightfoot, S. Ign. and S. Polycarp, I. 417 sqq., and II. 1005–1047.
Comp. the Greek Vita Polycarpi, in Funk, II. 315 sqq.
Ignatius: Ad. Polycarpum. Best ed., by Lightfoot, l.c.
Irenaeus: Adv. Haer. III. 3. 4. His letter to Florinus in Euseb. v. 20.
Polycrates of Ephesus (c. 190), in Euseb. v. 24.
On the date of Polycarp’s death:
Waddington:
Mémoire sur la chronologie de la vie du rhéteur Aelius Aristide
(in "
Mém. de l’ Acad: des inscript. et belles letters
,"
Tom. XXVI. Part II. 1867, pp. 232 sqq.), and in
Fastes des provinces Asiatiques
, 1872, 219 sqq.
Wieseler:
Das Martyrium Polykarp’s und dessen Chronologie
, in his
Christenverfolgungen
, etc. (1878), 3 87.
Keim:
Die Zwölf Märtyrer von Smyrna und der Tod des Bishops Polykarp,
in his
Aus dem Urchristenthum
(1878), 92–133.
E. Egli:
Das Martyrium des Polyk
., in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." for 1882, pp. 227
sqq.
Antoninus Pius protected the Christians from the tumultuous violence which broke out against
them on account of the frequent public calamities. But the edict ascribed to him, addressed to the
deputies of the Asiatic cities, testifying to the innocence of the Christians, and holding them up to
the heathen as models of fidelity and zeal in the worship of God, could hardly have come from an
emperor, who bore the honorable title of Pius for his conscientious adherence to the religion of his
fathers;
33
2
and in any case he could not have controlled the conduct of the provincial governors
and the fury of the people against an illegal religion.
The persecution of the church at Smyrna and the martyrdom of its venerable bishop, which
was formerly assigned to the year 167, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, took place, according
to more recent research, under Antoninus in 155, when Statius Quadratus was proconsul in Asia
Minor.
34
3
Polycarp was a personal friend and pupil of the Apostle John, and chief presbyter of the
33
He always offered sacrifice himself as high-priest. Friedländer III. 492.
34
So Waddington, who has made it almost certain that Quadratus was Roman consul a.d. 142, and proconsul in Asia from
154 to 155, and that Polycarp died Feb. 23, 155. He is followed by Renan (1873), Ewald (1873), Aubé (1875), Hilgenfeld (1874),
Lightfoot (1875), Lipsius (1874), 0. v. Gebhardt (1875), Zahn, Harnack (1876), Egli (1882), and again by Lightfoot (1885, l.c.
36
Philip Schaff
History
of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.
church at Smyrna, where a plain stone monument still marks his grave. He was the teacher of
Irenaeus of Lyons, and thus the connecting link between the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. As
he died 155 at an age of eighty-six years or more, he must have been born a.d. 69, a year before
the destruction of Jerusalem, and may have enjoyed the friendship of St. John for twenty years or
more. This gives additional weight to his testimony concerning apostolic traditions and writings.
We have from him a beautiful epistle which echoes the apostolic teaching, and will be noticed in
another chapter.
Polycarp steadfastly refused before the proconsul to deny his King and Saviour, whom he
had served six and eighty years, and from whom he had experienced nothing but love and mercy.
He joyfully went up to the stake, and amidst the flames praised God for having deemed him worthy
"to be numbered among his martyrs, to drink the cup of Christ’s sufferings, unto the eternal
resurrection of the soul and the body in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit." The slightly legendary
account in the letter of the church of Smyrna states, that the flames avoided the body of the saint,
leaving it unharmed, like gold tried in the fire; also the Christian bystanders insisted, that they
perceived a sweet odor, as of incense. Then the executioner thrust his sword into the body, and the
stream of blood at once extinguished the flame. The corpse was burned after the Roman custom,
but the bones were preserved by the church, and held more precious than gold and diamonds. The
death of this last witness of the apostolic age checked the fury of the populace, and the proconsul
suspended the persecution.
§ 20. Persecutions under Marcus Aurelius. a.d. 161–180.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: (b. 121, d. 180):
’, or Meditations. It is a sort of diary or
common place book, in which the emperor wrote down, towards the close of his life, partly
amid the turmoil of war "in the land of the Quadi" (on the Danube in Hungary), for his
self-improvement, his own moral reflections) together with striking maxims of wise and virtuous
men. Ed. princeps by Xylander Zurich 1558, and Basle 1568; best ed with a new Latin trans.
and very full notes by Gataker, Lond. 1643, Cambr. 1652, and with additional notes from the
French by Dacier, Lond. 1697 and 1704. New ed. of the Greek text by J. M. Schultz, 1802 (and
1821); another by
Adamantius Coraïs
, Par. 1816. English translation by George Long, Lond. 1863,
republ. Boston, revised edition, London, 1880. There are translations into most European
languages, one in Italian by the Cardinal Francis Barberini (nephew of Pope Urban VIII), who
dedicated his translation to his own soul, "to make it redder than his purple at the sight of the
virtues of this Gentile." Comp. also the letters of the famous rhetorician M. Corn. Fronto, the
teacher of M. Aurelius, discovered and published by Angelo Mai, Milan 1815 and Rome 1823
(Epistolarum ad Marcum Caesarem Lib. V., etc.) They are, however, very unimportant, except
so far as they show the life-long congenial friendship between the amiable teacher and his
imperial pupil.
Arnold Bodek: Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus als Freund und Zeitgenosse les Rabbi Jehuda ha-Nasi
. Leipz. 1868. (Traces
the connection of this emperor with the Jewish monotheism and ethics.)
I. 647 sqq). Wieseler and Keim learnedly defend the old date (166-167), which rests on the authority of Eusebius and Jerome,
and was held by Masson and Clinton. But Lightfoot refutes their objections (I. 647, sqq.), and sustains Waddington.
37
Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.