the "Acts of the Martyrdom of Ignatius," he and Polycarp are
represented as "fellow-scholars" of the Apostle John, [417:1] and the
pastor of Smyrna is supposed to be, in point of age, at least as
venerable a personage as the pastor of Antioch. The letter to Polycarp
is evidently written under the same impression. Ignatius there says to
him--"I praise God that I have been deemed _worthy of thy countenance_,
which in God I long after." When these words are supposed to have been
penned, Polycarp was only about six and twenty years of age; [417:2] and
the Church of Smyrna, with which he was connected, did not occupy a very
prominent place in the Christian commonwealth. Is it probable that a man
of the mature faith and large experience of Ignatius would have thus
addressed so youthful a minister? It also seems passing strange that the
aged martyr should commit all the widows of the community to his special
guardianship, and should think it necessary to add--"It is becoming to
men and women who marry, that they marry _by the counsel of the
bishop_." Was an individual, who was himself not much advanced beyond
boyhood, the most fitting person to give advice as to these matrimonial
engagements? A similar mistake as to age is made in the case of
Onesimus, who is supposed to be bishop of Ephesus. This minister, who is
understood to be mentioned in the New Testament. [417:3] is said at an
early date to have been pastor of the Church of the metropolis of the
Proconsular Asia; and the Ignatian forger obviously imagined that he was
still alive when his hero passed through Smyrna on his way to the
Western capital. But Onesimus perished in the Domitian persecution,
[418:1] so that Ignatius is made to write to a Christian brother who had
been long in his grave. [418:2] The fabricator proceeds more cautiously
in his letter to the Romans. How marvellous that this old gentleman, who
is willing to pledge his soul for every one who would submit to the
bishop, does not find it convenient to _name_ the bishop of Rome! The
experiment might have been somewhat hazardous. The early history of the
Roman Church was better known than that of any other in the world, and,
had he here made a mistake, the whole cheat might have been at once
detected. Though his erudition was so great that he could tell "the
places of angels," [418:3] he evidently did not dare to commit himself
by giving us a piece of earthly information, and by telling us who was
at the he