3. Of Saint Polycarp.
Eusebius relates that St. Polycarp, being informed in a dream that he should be burned in three days, made it known to his friends. The legend-maker adds that the lieutenant of police at Smyrna, whose name was Herodius, had him seized by his archers; that he was abandoned to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre; that the sky opened, and a heavenly voice cried to him: "Be of good courage, Polycarp"; that the hour of letting loose the lions in the amphitheatre having passed, the people went about collecting wood from all the houses to burn him with; that the saint addressed himself to the God of the "archangels"—although the word archangel was not then known—that the flames formed themselves round him into a triumphal arch without touching him; that his body had the smell of baked bread; but that, having resisted the fire, he could not preserve himself against a sabre-cut; that his blood put out the burning pile, and that there sprung from it a dove which flew straight to heaven. To which planet is not precisely known.
4. Of Saint Ptolomais.
We follow the order of Don Ruinart; but we have no wish to call in question the martyrdom of St. Ptolomais, which is extracted from "St. Justin's Apology."
We could make some difficulties with regard to the woman who was accused by her husband of being a Christian, and who baffled him by giving him a bill of divorce. We might ask why, in this history, there is no further mention of this woman? We might make it manifest that in the time of Marcus Aurelius, women were not permitted to demand divorces of their husbands; that this permission was only granted them under the emperor Julian; and that this so much repeated story of the Christian woman who repudiated her husband—while no pagan would have dared to imagine such a thing—cannot well be other than a fable. But we do not desire to raise unpleasant disputes. As for the little probability there is in the compilation of Don Ruinart, we have too much respect for the subject he treats of to start objections.
We have not made any to the "Letter of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons," because there is still a great deal of obscurity connected with it; but we shall be pardoned for defending the memory of the great Marcus Aurelius, thus outraged in the life of "St. Symphorian of Autun," who was probably a relation of St. Symphorosia.
5. Of St. Symphorian Of Autun.
This legend, the author of which is unknown, begins thus: "The emperor Marcus Aurelius had just raised a frightful tempest against the Church, and his fulminating edicts assailed on all sides the religion of Jesus Christ, at the time when St. Symphorian lived at Autun in all the splendor that high birth and uncommon virtue can confer. He was of a Christian family, one of the most considerable of the city," etc.
Marcus Aurelius issued no sanguinary edicts against the Christians. It is a very criminal calumny. Tillemont himself admits that "he was the best prince the Romans ever had; that his reign was a golden age; and that he verified what he often quoted from Plato, that nations would only be happy when kings were philosophers."
Of all the emperors, this was the one who promulgated the best laws; he protected the wise, but persecuted no Christians, of whom he had a great many in his service.