the very same instance, in proof of the same point; as the learned Junius(q) has particularly shewn in his notes upon this passage; and the authority of whose works no one yet ever called in question upon that account; I would only ask, thirdly, what if St. Clement really believed the truth of what he here wrote concerning this matter? that there was such a bird; and that he did revive out of the cinders of the body before burnt? where was the great harm either in giving credit to such a wonder: or believing it, to make such a use as he here does of it?

24. The truth is, whosoever shall consider both the general credit which this story had in those days; and the particular accident which fell out, not long before the time that this Epistle was written to confirm the belief of it, (of which one of the most judicious of all the Roman historians(r) has left us a large account ;) I mean of the Phoenix that was said to have come into Egypt a little after the death of Christ, and to have given occasion of much discourse to the most learned men both of the Greeks and Romans, concerning the very miracle of which St. Clement here speaks; will find it to have been no such strange thing in this holy man to have suffered himself to be led away with the common opinion; and to have believed what so many learned men did, among the Jews(s) and Gentiles,(t) no less than among the Christians, viz. that God was pleased to give the world this great earnest and type of a future resurrection; and to silence thereby the cavils of such as should pretend, (what we know the generality of the wise men of the world did) that it was impossible for God to effect such a restitution.

(9) Tertullian. Origin. Cyril. Hierosolym. Euseb. Greg. Naz. Epiphanus, Synesius, Hieronym. Lactantius, &c. Jun. Nota in Clem. pag. 34.

(r) Tacitus Annal. libr. vi. num. 28.

(s) Vid. Annot. Edit. Oxon. in loc. Bochartus Hierozoic, in Phonice, &c. apud Tentzel. pag. 18, 19.

(t) Vid. Ed. Oxo. loc. cit. Adde. Annot. Schotti. in Photium, Tmem. cxxvi. pag. 305.

25. But I insist too long on so trifling an objection however magnified by some men: and may, I think, from what I have said conclude, that if this be indeed, as they(u) confess it is, the greatest ground they have to call in question the credit of this Epistle, there is then nothing that ought to move any considering man to entertain the least doubt or scruple concerning it.

26. There are indeed two other exceptions which Photius(a) has made against St. Clement upon the account of the Epistle before us, which yet he looked upon as unquestionably his: the one for that he speaks in it of the worlds beyond the ocean; the other, in that he seems not to have written so honourably as was fitting, of the divinity of our blessed Saviour. But as the latter of these is but a mere cavil against this holy man, who not only in his other Epistle expressly asserts the divine nature of Christ, but even in this speaks in such a manner of him, as shews him to be much more than a mere creature ;(y) so in the former he said nothing but what was agreeable both to the notions and language of the times in which he lived; when it was common to call the British Isles another world, or as St. Clement here styles them, the worlds beyond the ocean.

27. And these I think are the chief exceptions that have been raised against the following Epistle; and which however insisted upon in these latter times, yet did not hinder the first and best ages of the church, when men were less curious, but much more pious than they now are, from putting a very great value upon it. Nor will they I suppose have any more weight with any serious and ingenuous person at this day: or hinder him from esteeming it a very great blessing to our present times, that a work so highly esteemed among

(u) Aliis argumentis, tum HOC IMPERIMIS. Tentzel. Dissert. cit. pag. 33.

(x) Photii Bibl. Cod. cxxvi.

(y) Indeed to be God. See Bishop Bull, def. fid. Nic. Sect. ii. cap. 3. and Dr. Grabe's learned Annot. on that Chapter.

the antient Fathers, but so long, and as it was justly feared, irrecoverably lost to these latter ages, was at last so happily found out, for the increase and confirmation both of our faith and charity.

28. Now the manner of its discovery and publication was this. It hapenned about the beginning of the last age, that Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria being removed from thence to Constantinople, brought along with him a great treasure of books to that place. Among the rest he had a very antient manuscript copy both of the Septuagint old, and of the new Greek Testament, written about four hundred years after Christ.(z) This he sent, as the most valuable present that he was master of, to our late royal sovereign king Charles the first, by Sir Thomas Roe, his majesty's ambassador at that time at the Port. Being thus brought into England, and placed in the royal library at St. James's Mr. Patrick Young, the learned keeper of the king's library at that time, discovered this Epistle, with part of another, at the end of the New Testament; and was thereupon commanded by his majesty to publish it for the benefit of the world. This he accordingly did, with a Latin translation, and notes at Oxford, Anno 1633. It was not long(a) after that a very learned man, and a great master of the Greek tongue, Mr. William Burton, translated it into English; and published it very accurately, and with new annotations of his own upon it. This I had not seen till the first sheets of the present edition were sent to the press; nor had I any other knowledge either of that, or of the author, than what I found in the accounts given by our late Reverend Dr. Cave, (b) and Monsieur Colomesius(b) of the one, and by our laborious antiquary Mr. A. Wood(c) of the other; in his useful collection of the lives and writings

(z) Vid. Præfat. Jun. in Edit.

(a) Anno 1647. Lond. 4to

(b) Edit. Colomesii, Lectori. Cave. Hist. Literar. in Clem. (c) Athena Oxon. 2. part. p. 137, 138.

of our modern authors. And though I believe whosoever shall take the pains to compare the two trans lations together, will find them generally agreeing as to the sense; yet there will otherwise appear such manifest differences between them, as may abundantly satisfy any impartial person, that I have truly translated it from the original Greek, and not revised only Mr. Burton's edition of it.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS.

Of the time when St. Polycarp wrote this Epistle. The reason of its being placed before the Epistles of Ignatius. That St. Polycarp wrote several other pieces; yet nothing of his now remaining but only this Epistle. Whether this Epistle has been interpolated, as those of Ignatius were? the latter part of it vindicated against the exceptions of Monsieur Daille, and some others. Of the translation of it into our own language by Dr. Cave; and of the present edition of it.

1. THE next piece that follows in the present collection, is the Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Phillippians. In placing of which I have followed the example, not so much of our most reverend Archbishop Usher, (d) as of St. Polycarp himself; though in the order of time the Epistles of Ignatius ought to have had the precedence; St. Polycarp not writing this letter to the Pillipians till about, or a little after, the time that that glorious martyr suffered for the faith of Christ; as from several passages in the Epistle itself may plainly be made appear.

2. For first, having in his ninth chapter exhorted the Philippians to obey the word of righteousness, and to exercise all patience after the examples of those holy men whom they had seen among them; he par

(d) Edit. Polycarp. & Ignat. Oxon. Annot. 1644.

ticularly instancès in Ignatius(e) as one of them. Now the acts(ƒ) of the martyrdom of that holy Bishop tell us, that the time when they beheld his patience set forth before their eyes was, when he passed by them in chains to Rome, in order to his being cast to the wild beasts according to the sentence pronounced upon him by the Emperor Trajan; by consequence that this Epistle must have been written some time after his condemnation.

3. But St. Polycarp goes yet farther; and in the next words supposes, that Ignatius might have been dead at the time he wrote to them for enforcing his exhortation to them to follow the examples of Ignatius, and the rest of those excellent men whom he there names he subjoins; being confident of this, that that all these have not run in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and are gone to the place that was due to them from the Lord, with whom also they suf fered. For they loved not this present world, but him who died, and was raised again by God for us. In which words he evidently implies that Ignatius too, as well as the rest of those whom he there mentions, was by this time gone to the place that was due to him from the Lord, upon the account of his sufferings; and by consequence had finished his martyrdom:

4. It was then about the time of Ignatius's death that St. Polycarp wrote this Epistle to the Philippians. And yet that if this holy man had suffered, it was but a very little time that he had done so, is clear from another passage of the same Epistle ;(g) where he desires the Philippians to send him word what they had heard with any certainty concerning Ignatius, and those that went to Rome with him. From whence it appears, that though he supposed that Ignatius by that

(e) Epist. of Polycarp, Numb. ix.

Mart. of Ignat. Numb. x. (g) Epist. of Polycarp, Numb. xiv.