not aware that Peter had been in the west. Whether Spain is meant, is an insoluble question; but as Paul expresses a determination to visit Spain, we should regard it as probable from this expression that he did visit Spain. Some have brought together a number of passages in which Rome is called the west, and have hence wished us to believe that Rome was here mentioned. But the quotations are from Greek writers, to whom Rome certainly was the west; and even Clemens himself, in Rome, might call it the west. But would he call it the limit of the west? Or has any other writer so named it? Does Clemens then represent Paul as being martyred in Spain? He does not in fact say where he was martyred, and it is questionable whether he asserts that Peter and Paul were martyred at all. It cannot be proved that μaprvpéw, 'to bear witness,' had acquired this meaning yet; and one can scarcely help applying μapruρnoas ènì tôv hyovpévwv (bearing witness before the rulers) to the various occasions on which Paul spoke before princes-some of which are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and others of which must have taken place subsequently to any events recorded there'.

Interpretation of Scripture.-Clemens regarded Christ as the centre of the Old Testament. This is manifest in the application of innumerable passages to Christ, such as the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Elijah and Elisha and Ezekiel are especially mentioned as proclaiming the coming of Christm. In fact he expressly states that Christ speaks through the Holy Spirit when he quotes the words of Psalm xxxiv. 11-18.

We find also in Clemens, as we have already seen, some instances of gnostic interpretation. In the fortieth chapter we have distinct enunciation of his belief that he was penetrating into the depths of divine knowledge. There is no hint however that the peculiar faculty required for this

1 On the quotations from the Old and New Testament, see especially Hilgenfeld, Ap. V.; and Ekker, ch. iii.

purpose was a yrous or spiritual development; nor does he regard his interpretation as anything so singular as to require a full exhibition of it. He supposes his readers penetrating along with him into the depths of divine knowledge. We should be entirely wrong then if we were to maintain that Clemens had before his eyes a distinct theory of interpretation, but at the same time there are signs that the necessity of a pervasively Christian interpretation of the Old Testament was unconsciously forcing him to look for some mysterious intimations of Christian doctrine. The only conclusive instance of this however is where he discovers in the scarlet thread of Rahab a prophetic intimation of the deliverance of men through the blood of Christ P. But there are several other passages which probably must be so understood. Thus he speaks of Noah proclaiming a new birth to the world by his service, &c. He interprets Psalm iii. 5, and Job xix. 25, 26, of the resurrection. Colomesius says he is the first to do so.

Morality.-Nothing need be said of the morality of this epistle. On the whole it bears testimony to a pure and noble code of morals-higher far than anything that can be found in heathenism. The most noticeable point in it is the attention the writer and the church pay to the conduct of women and young men, and to the Christian education of children. Perhaps in the case of women Clemens goes too far in self-denying injunctions, but we leave the reader to judge. He tells the women that they were to bestow their love (àyámn), not according to partiality (TроσKλloeis), but they were to bestow it equally on all who feared God holily. The ayánη of course is that brotherly love which prevailed between members of Christ.

There is nothing like a system of morals. And accordingly those who have attempted to draw a system out of it have started from different points. Heyns looks on "love

• See Lips. p. 52.

P C. 12.

a c. 9.

T c. 21. See on this subject and that of martyrdom, Van Gilse, Comment.

P 40.

to God and to men" as the great principle of Clemens ; Jani van Gilse regards "union with God and Christ" as the main moral doctrine of the work; while Junius wisely lays down faith, hope, and love, as his three principles, stating at the same time that Clemens nowhere calls them. principles ".

Comment. p. 12.

Ibid. p. 34.

u Ibid. p. 11.

CHAPTER III.

POLYCARP.

Life.

THE knowledge which we have of Polycarp rests on two authorities-the writings of Irenæus, and a letter sent by the church in Smyrna to a neighbouring church. Various other notices occur in other writers, but all of these which have any foundation are founded on the statements of Irenæus. We shall therefore examine these first.

From a letter which Irenæus sent to Florinus on doctrinal points, and which Eusebius has preserved, we learn that he had access to the best sources of information with regard to Polycarp. "While I was yet a boy," he says, "I saw you in Lower Asia with Polycarp, pursuing a brilliant career in the royal court, and trying to be well pleasing to him. For I remember the occurrences of those days better than the more recent (for instructions which we receive in childhood grow up with our soul and become one with it); so that I can tell even the spot in which the blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and his outgoings and incomings, and the character of his life, and the form of his body, and the conversations which he held with the multitude; and how he related his familiar intercourse with John and the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he rehearsed their sayings, and what things they were which he had heard from them with regard to the Lord and his miracles and teaching. All these things Polycarp related in harmony with the writings, as having received them from the eyewitnesses of the Word of life. These things then I was in the habit of

eagerly hearing through the mercy given me by God, storing them up, not on paper but in my heart; and always I ruminate over them faithfully through the grace of God. And I can bear witness before God, that if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thinga, he would have cried out and stopped his ears, and according to his custom said, 'O good God, for what times hast thou preserved me that I should endure these things!' and he would have fled the place in which sitting or standing he had heard such sayingsb."

The second extract gives us more particular information with regard to Polycarp: "And Polycarp, who was not only instructed by apostles, and had intercourse with many who had seen Christ, but was also appointed for Asia by apostles, in the church that is in Smyrna, an overseer, whom also we have seen in the beginning of our life, for he remained a long time, and at an exceeding old age, having borne his testimony gloriously and most notably, departed this life, always taught these things, which also he learned from the apostles, which also he gave to the Church, and which alone are true. To these doctrines testimony is also borne by all the churches throughout Asia, and by those who have been up till this time the successors of Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and secure witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest who held wicked opinions. He (Polycarp) also sojourning at Rome in the time of Anicetus, converted many from the previously mentioned heretics to the Church of God, having proclaimed that he had received from the apostles this as the one and only truth which he had delivered to the Church. And there are those who heard him say that John the disciple of the Lord having gone to bathe in Ephesus, on seeing Cerinthus inside, leaped from the bathing establishment without bathing, and exclaimed, Let us flee, lest the baths

a He refers to the heresies against which he is writing.

b Euseb. v. 20; Iren. Stier. p. 822.

Different reading in Eusebius: "which the Church hands down."