rds time, meaning
nothing more than 'his companions,' and that the tense must be supplied
according to the context or the known circumstances of the case. But I
am not sorry that our author has fallen into this error, for it has led
me to investigate the usage of Polycarp and his translator, and has thus
elicited the following facts:--(1) Unless he departed from his ordinary
usage, Polycarp would have employed the short expression [Greek: hoi sun
auto] or [Greek: hoi met' autou] in such a case. Thus he has [Greek: ou
sun auto] in the opening paragraph, and [Greek: tois ex humon] in c. 9,
with other similar distances. (2) The translator, if he had the words
[Greek: tois sun auto] before him, would almost certainly supply the
substantive verb, as he has done in the opening, 'qui cum eo _sunt_
presbyteri;' in c. 3, 'illis qui tunc _erant_ hominibus,' and 'quae
_est_ in Deo;' in c. 9, 'qui ex vobis _sunt_;' and probably also in c.
12, 'qui _sunt_ sub coelo' (the Greek is wanting in this last passage).
(3) The translator, in supplying the verb, was as likely as not to give
the wrong tense. In fact, in the only other passage in the Epistle where
it was possible to make a mistake, he has gone wrong on this very point;
he has translated [Greek: hen kai eidete ... en allois tois ex humon]
mechanically by a present tense, 'quam et vidistis ... in aliis qui ex
vobis _sunt_,' though the persons are mentioned in connection with St
Ignatius and St Paul, and though it is distinctly stated immediately
afterwards that they _all_ were dead, having, as we may infer from the
context, ended their life by martyrdom. In fact, he has made the very
same blunder which I ascribe to him here.

This objection therefore may be set aside for ever. But the notices
which I have been considering suggest another reflection. Is the
historical position which the writer of this letter takes up at all like
the invention of a forger? Would he have thought of placing himself at
the moment of time when Ignatius is supposed to have been martyred, but
when the report of the circumstances had not yet reached Smyrna? If he
had chosen this moment, would he not have made it clear, instead of
leaving his readers to infer it by piecing together notices which are
scattered through the Epistle--notices moreover, which, though entirely
consistent with each other, are so far from obvious that his translator
has been led astray by them, and that modern critics have woven out