to receive his counsels and bestow attentions on him. From the city where he next halted he wrote separate letters to the church of Smyrna and to Polycarp its bishop. A later stage was Philippi, and to the church there Polycarp wrote afterwards a letter still extant, sending them copies of the letters of Ignatius and inquiring for information about Ignatius, the detailed story of whose martyrdom appears not yet to have reached Smyrna.
The question as to the genuineness of the extant Ep. of Polycarp is very much mixed up with that of the genuineness of the Ignatian letters. The course of modern investigation has been decidedly favourable to the genuineness of the Ignatian letters [IGNATIUS], and the Ep. of Polycarp is guaranteed by external testimony of exceptional goodness. It is mentioned by Polycarp's disciple Irenaeus (III. iii. 4), and an important passage is quoted by Eusebius. Further, as Lightfoot has conclusively shown (Contemp. Rev. May 1875, p. 840), it is impossible that Polycarp's letter and those of Ignatius could have had any common authorship. Some of the topics on which the Ignatian letters lay most stress are absent from that of Polycarp; in particular, Polycarp's letter is silent about episcopacy, of which the Ignatian letters speak so much, and it has consequently been thought probable either that episcopacy had not yet been organized at Philippi, or that the office was then vacant. The forms of expression in the two letters are different; N.T. quotations, profuse in Polycarp's letter, are comparatively scanty in the Ignatian ones; and, most decisive of all, the Ignatian letters are characterized by great originality of thought and expression, while Polycarp's is but a commonplace echo of the apostolic epistles. When we compare Polycarp's letter with the extant remains of the age of Irenaeus, the superior antiquity of the former is evident, whether we attend to their use of N.T., their notices of ecclesiastical organization, their statements of theological doctrine, or observe the silence in Polycarp's letter on the questions which most interested the church towards the close of the 2nd cent. The question has been raised whether, admitting the genuineness of Polycarp's epistle as a whole, we may not reject as an interpolation c. xiii., which speaks of Ignatius. The extant MSS. of Polycarp's letter are derived from one in which the leaves containing the end of Polycarp's letter and the beginning of that of Barnabas were wanting, so that the end of Barnabas seemed the continuation of Polycarp's epistle. The concluding chapters of Polycarp are only known to us by a Latin translation. The hiatus, however, in the Greek text begins not at c. xiii. but at c. x.; and the part which speaks about Ignatius is exactly that for which we have the Greek text assured to us by the quotation of Eusebius. There is therefore absolutely no reason for rejecting c. xiii. unless on the supposition that the forgery of the Ignatian letters has been demonstrated.
Though Polycarp's epistle is remarkable for its copious use of N.T. language, there are no formal quotations, but it is mentioned that St. Paul had written to the church of Philippi, to which Polycarp's epistle is addressed. The language in which St. Paul's letters are spoken of, both here and in the epistles of Ignatius, decisively refutes the theory that there was opposition between the schools of John and Paul. It illustrates the small solicitude of Eusebius to produce testimony to the use of N.T. books undisputed in his time, that though he notices (iv. 14) Polycarp's use of I. Peter, he is silent as to this express mention of St. Paul's letters. Polycarp's Pauline quotations include distinct recognition of Eph. and I. and II. Tim., and other passages clearly shew a use of Rom., I. Cor, Gal., Phil., II. Thess. The employment of I. Peter is especially frequent. There is one unmistakable coincidence with Acts. The use of I. and II. John is probable. The report of our Lord's sayings agrees in substance with our Gospels, but may or may not have been directly taken from them. The coincidences with Clement's epistle are beyond what can fairly be considered accidental, and probably the celebrity gained by Clement's epistle set the example to bishops elsewhere of writing to foreign churches. Polycarp states, however, that his own letter had been invited by the church of Philippi. Some church use of Polycarp's epistle seems to have continued in Asia until Jerome's time; if we can lay stress on his rather obscure expression (Catal.) "epistolam quae usque hodie in conventu Asiae legitur." The chief difference between Clement's and Polycarp's letters is in the use of the O.T., which is perpetual in the former, very rare in the latter. There is coincidence with one passage in Tobit, two in Ps., and one in Is.; and certainly in one of the last 3 cases, possibly in all three, the adopted words are not taken directly from the O.T., but from N.T. This difference, however, is explained when we bear in mind that Clement had probably been brought up in Judaism, while Polycarp was born of Christian parents and familiar with the apostolic writings from his youth.
Our knowledge of Polycarp's life between the date of his letter and his martyrdom comes almost entirely from 3 notices by IRENAEUS. The first is in his letter to FLORINUS; the second in the treatise on Heresies (III. iii. 4); the third in the letter of Irenaeus to Victor, of which part is preserved by Eusebius (v. 24). Irenaeus, writing in advanced life, tells how vivid his recollections still were of having been a hearer of Polycarp, then an old man; how well he remembered where the aged bishop used to sit, his personal appearance, his ways of going out and coming in, and how frequently he used to relate his intercourse with John and others who had seen our Lord, and to repeat stories of our Lord's miracles and teaching, all in complete accord with the written record. The reminiscences of Irenaeus are in striking agreement with Polycarp's extant letter in their picture of his attitude towards heresy. He seems not to have had the qualifications for successfully conducting a controversial discussion with erroneous teachers, nor perhaps the capacity for feeling the difficulties which prompted their speculations; but he could hot help strongly feeling how unlike these speculations were to the doctrines he had learned from apostles and their immediate disciples, and so met with indignant reprobation their
