Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion"

by J. B. Lightfoot

Not less remarkable than the number of his quotations from the New Testament is their wide range. Of the Evangelical references I shall have occasion to speak in a subsequent article. Besides these there is a strong coincidence with the Acts which can hardly be accidental [95:2]; and there are passages or expressions taken from most of the Apostolic Epistles. Among the latter the most decisive examples frequently refer to those very Epistles which modern criticism has striven to discredit. It cannot reasonably be questioned for instance, that Polycarp was acquainted with the Epistle to the Ephesians and with the two Epistles to Timothy. Of the indisputable references to the First Epistle of St Peter I have already spoken in a former paper [95:3].

But the most important fact, in its bearing on recent controversy, is the relation of the writer to St Paul. According to the hypothesis of the Tübingen school, there was a personal antagonism between St Paul and St John, and an irreconcilable feud between their respective schools. It is therefore with special interest that we look to see what the most eminent scholar of the beloved disciple says about the Apostle of the Gentiles. Now St Paul occupies quite the most prominent place in Polycarp's Epistle. This prominence is partly explained by the fact that he is writing to a Church of St Paul's founding, but this explanation does not detract from its value. St Paul is the only Apostle who is mentioned by name; his writings are the only Apostolic writings which are referred to by name; of his thirteen Epistles, there are probable references to as many as eleven [95:4]; there are direct appeals to his example and his teaching alike: there is even an apology on the writer's part for the presumption of seeming to set himself up as a rival to the Apostle by writing to a Church to whom he had addressed an Epistle [96:1]. Altogether the testimony to the respect in which St Paul is held by the writer is as complete as language can make it. If therefore the Epistle be accepted as genuine, the position of the Tübingen school must be abandoned.

From considering the phenomena of the extant Epistle, we pass by a natural transition to the second point which I proposed to investigate, the traditions of the author's teaching.

Polycarp was no longer a young man, when his Epistle was written. But he lived on to see a new generation grow up from infancy to mature age afterwards; and as the companion of Apostles and the depositary of the Apostolic tradition, his influence increased with his increasing years. Before he died, even unbelievers had come to regard him as the 'Father of the Christians.'

Of his later years a glimpse is afforded to us in the record of an eye-witness. Among the disciples of his old age were two youths, companions for the time, but destined to stand far apart in after life—

'Like cliffs that had been rent asunder;'

the elder, Florinus, who became famous afterwards as a heretical leader; the younger, Irenæus, who stood forward as the great champion of orthodoxy. The following is the remonstrance addressed by Irenæus to his former associate after his defection:—

These opinions, Florinus, that I may speak without harshness, are not of sound judgment; these opinions are not in harmony with the Church, but involve those adopting them in the greatest impiety; these opinions even the heretics outside the pale of the Church have never ventured to broach; these opinions the elders before us, who also were disciples of the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For I saw thee, when I was still a boy ([Greek: pais ôn eti]), in Lower Asia in company with Polycarp, while thou wast faring prosperously in the royal court, and endeavouring to stand well with him. For I distinctly remember ([Greek: diamnêmoneuô]) the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood ([Greek: ek paidôn]), growing with the growth of the soul, become identified with it; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word [97:1], would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures. To these (discourses) I used to listen at the time with attention by God's mercy which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of God, I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully ([Greek: gnêsiôs]). And I can testify in the sight of God, that if the blessed and Apostolic elder had heard anything of this kind, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and said after his wont, 'O good God, for what times hast Thou kept me, that I should endure such things?' and would even have fled from the place where he was sitting or standing when he heard such words. And indeed, this can be shown from his letters which he wrote either to the neighbouring Churches for their confirmation, or to certain of the brethren for their warning and exhortation [97:2].

Unfortunately the chronological notices are not sufficiently precise to enable us to fix the date either of this intercourse with Polycarp, or of the letter to Florinus in which Irenæus records it. In the year 155 or 156 Polycarp died; in the year 177 Irenæus became Bishop of Lyons. Putting these two facts together, we may perhaps assume that Irenæus must have been a pupil of Polycarp somewhere between A.D. 135-150. The mention of the 'royal court' seems at first sight to suggest the hope of a more precise solution; but even if this notice be taken to imply the presence of the Emperor for the time being in Asia Minor, our information respecting the movements of Hadrian and his successors is too scanty to afford ground for any safe inference [98:1].

Of the later career of Florinus, we are informed that he was at one time a presbyter of the Roman Church; that he afterwards fell away, and taught his heresy in the metropolis; that in consequence Irenæus addressed to him this letter from which I have given the extract, and which was also entitled 'On Monarchy' or 'Showing that God is no—the author of evil' ([Greek: poiêtên kakôn])—this being the special heresy of Florinus; and that afterwards, apparently by a rebound, he lapsed into Valentinianism, on which occasion Irenæus wrote his treatise on the Ogdoad [98:2]. As the treatise of Irenæus on the Ogdoad can hardly have been written later than his extant work on Heresies, in which Valentinianism is so fully discussed as to render any such partial treatment superfluous, and which dates from the episcopate of Eleutherius (A.D. 177-190), we are led to the conclusion that the letter to Florinus was one of the earliest writings of this Father.