ersecutions, 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