POLYCARP 



POLYGAMY 



297 



ever things he had heard from them (John and 

 others) about the Lord . . . Polycarp, as having 

 received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the 

 Word, would relate altogether in accordance with 

 the Scriptures.' These valuable reminiscences re- 

 late to a period somewhere between 135 and 150 

 A.D. 



At the very close of his life Polycarp visited 

 Rome, where he conferred with the bishop Anicetus, 

 chiefly on the vexed question of the time for com- 

 memorating the Passion. On this point neither 

 yielded to the other, yet their relations remained 

 so cordial that Anicetus allowed Polycarp to take 

 his place in celebrating the eucliarist (see Iremtus 

 quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 24). After turn- 

 ing many Valentinians and Marcionites from their 

 heresies by his preaching, the aged bishop returned 

 to Smyrna, only to win the martyr's crown in a 

 persecution which broke out during a great festival. 

 Unsatiated with meaner victims, the mob called 

 for Polvcarp, ' the father of the Christians. ' With 

 truest dignity and modesty does Polycarp play the 

 man. Betrayed by his servant-boy, but offered his 

 life by the proconsul if he will revile Christ, he 

 answers : ' Fourscore and six years have I been 

 His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How 

 then can I blaspheme my King, who hath saved 

 me ? ' As the games were over, death by fire was 

 sulmtituted for death by wild beasts, and Jews 

 vied with heathens in providing fuel. But the 

 fire arched itself about tne martyr, and he had to 

 be despatched with a dagger. The graphic Letter 

 of the Smyrnteans tells the story of the martyrdom 

 to the Pnilomelian church. A chronological ap- 

 pi-ndix to this letter has been elucidated by Wau- 

 dington'g skilful dating of the 'proconsul,' and his 

 conclusions have l>een confirmed by the discovery 

 of inscriptions relating to the ' high-priest,' also 

 mentioned therein, HO that the martyrdom may, 

 with strong probability, be dated 23d February 

 155 A.D. 



The only writing of Polycarp extant is the 

 Epistle to the Philippine, incomplete in the 

 original Greek, but complete in a Latin transla- 

 tion. Its genuineness* has been assailed, but un- 

 successfully. Somewhat commonplace in itself, it 

 is of great value for questions of the canon, the 

 origin of the church, and the Ignatian Epistles. 

 More New Testament phrases are here inwoven 

 than are found in any other work of the time. 

 Their wider range, and especially the prominence 

 given to Paul and his epistles by this disciple of 

 John, tell heavily against Tubingen theories of the 

 origin of the church and the canon. The letter 

 bears so closely on the Ignatian Epistles that, 

 while apart from it the external evidence for their 

 genuineness is weak, with it that evidence is very 

 strong. The grounds, however, for assigning the 

 epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp to the reign of 

 Trajan are not beyond question, while among other 

 things a certain reference to heresy in Polycarp's 

 epistle would tetter accord with a time about 130 

 A.D., or even later. 



For one of the best editions of the EpMle (first edited 

 by Halloix in 1633 and frequently since), see Patrum 

 Apotlnl. Opera (ed. Gebhardt, &o., vol. it 1876); for 

 the date of the martyrdom, Waddington's Fattet de 

 Promnctt Atiatii/uet (Paris, 1872), and the Oxford 

 Studia Bibtica ( 1885 and 1890). But the best and most 

 exhaustive work on all the parts of the subject is Light- 

 foot's Apottotic Fathen, part ii. (2d eii. 1889). An 

 ingenious, scholarly, and able attempt is made by the 

 Ker. J. M. Cotterill in the Cambridge Journal of 

 Philology (1891) to attribute the extant epistle to 

 Antiochiis, a monk of st Saba, who flourished under 

 Heradins. and from whose pen is still extant, 'if,' in 

 Gibbon's phrase, 'what no one reads may be said to 

 be extant,' a dull and feeble work entitled IlarMcnp 

 iii iylcn ypai<t>t,i, divided into 130 homilies. 



Polycotyle'doilOUS Plants are those whose 

 embryos have more than two seed-leaves (cotyle- 

 dons). Examples are found occasionally, or as 

 monstrosities, among Dicotyledons. In the Pine 

 (Pinus) group of the Coniferse (q.v.), however, the 

 polycotyledonous condition is the normal one, and 

 the cotyledons occur in whorls of from three to ten. 

 Multiplication of cotyledons occurs in a few other 

 groups of the Coniferae. Sometimes the numerous 

 cotyfedons unite in pairs, and this leads to the 

 suggestion that they originally sprang from two ; 

 but many botanists believe that the cotyledons 

 arise as separate leaves. 



Polycrates, 'tyrant' of Samos from about 

 536 B.C. to 522. He conquered several islands of 

 the Archipelago, and even some towns on the 

 Asiatic mainland, waged war successfully against 

 the inhabitants of Miletus, and defeated their 

 allies, the Lesbians, in a great sea-fight. His 

 intimate alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, 

 proves the importance in which this daring island- 

 prince was held even by great monarchs. Accord- 

 ing to Herodotus, Amasis dreaded the misfortunes 

 that the envious gods must be preparing for so 

 lucky a mortal, and wrote a letter to Polycrates, 

 earnestly advising him to throw away the possession 

 that he deemed most valuable, and thereby avert 

 the stroke of the spleenful gods. Polycrates, in 

 compliance with this friendly advice, cast a signet- 

 ring of marvellously beautiful workmanship into 

 the sea, but next day a fisherman presented the 

 tyrant with an unusually big (ish that he had 

 caught, and in its belly was found the identical 

 ring. It was quite clear to Amasis now that 

 Polycrates was a doomed man, and he immediately 

 broke off the alliance. When Cambyses invaded 

 Egypt (525) Polycrates sent him a contingent of 

 forty ships, in which he placed all the Samians 

 disaffected towards his tyranny, hoping they 

 might never come back ; but mutinying they 

 returned to Samos, and made war against the 

 tyrant, but without success. Hereupon they went 

 to Sparta, and succeeded in securing the help of 

 both Spartans and Corinthians. A triple force of 

 Samians, Spartans, and Corinthians embarked for 

 Samos, and besieged Samos in vain, and Polycrates 

 became more powerful than ever ; but Nemesis 

 overtook her victim after all. Oroetes, the Persian 

 satrap of Sardis, had conceived a deadly hatred 

 against Polycrates, and, having enticed tne latter 

 to visit him at Magnesia by appealing to his 

 cupidity, he seized and crucified him. 



Polydipsia. See DIABETES. 



Polygalacese. See MILKWORTS. 



Polygamous, a term applied to plants which 

 bear both unisexual and hermaphrodite flowers, 

 either on the same or on different individual plants. 

 For example, the maple produces male, female, and 

 hermaphrodite flowers on the same tree ; while 

 some ash-trees sometimes bear male only, others 

 female, and others hermaphrodite flowers. 



Polygamy (Gr. polys, 'many,' gamein, 'to 

 marry ') includes etymologically the social arrange- 

 ment by which one wife has many husbands, now 

 usually termed Polyandry (q.v.), as well as that in 

 which a man has or may have several or many 

 wives. To the latter the term polygamy is, how- 

 ever, practically restricted. Formerly polygamy 

 was thought to be probably the original type of 

 the development which has culminated in the 

 marriage relations of civilised peoples ; that this 

 is not so is shown somewhat fully in the articles 

 FAMILY and MARRIAGE. 



Polygamy certainly obtained at one time over a 

 very large area of the world's surface ; in general it 

 may be said still to be the rule not merely amongst 

 most African races, but amongst the peoples, botli 



