Geetarmoore

This has been cited to me as an 'early' evidence for early transmission of NT texts, and Gospels.

Focusing primarily on 2:3;

but remembering the words which the Lord spake, as He taught; Judge not that ye be not judged. (Matt 7:1) Forgive, and it shall be forgiven to you. (Luke 6:37) Have mercy that ye may receive mercy. (Matt 5:7) With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again; (matt7:2) and again Blessed are the poor and they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. (Matt 5:3, Luke 6:20)

And 12:13

Pray for all the saints. Pray also for kings and powers and princes and for them that persecute and hate you (Matt 5:44) and for the enemies of the cross, (phi 3:18) that your fruit may be manifest among all men, that ye may be perfect in Him.

I've also found someone online lobbying for this parallel in 5:2;

In like manner deacons should be blameless in the presence of His righteousness, as deacons of God and Christ and not of men; not calumniators, not double-tongued, not lovers of money, temperate in all things, compassionate, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord who became a minister (deacon) of all. (Mark 9:35) For if we be well pleasing unto Him in this present world, we shall receive the future world also, according as He promised us to raise us from the dead, and that if we conduct ourselves worthily of Him we shall also reign with Him, if indeed we have faith.

My question;
Aren't all of these phrases that are pulled out to support Polycarps 'quotation' of the gospels (with the exception of the extremely stretched Mark reference) theorized to be in the Q sayings document - thought to be earlier than any written Gospel? Wouldn't one assume that Mark would be equally represented or quoted in a writing this 'late' (assuming the 60-70 date for GMark)

Is this letter one of the evidences cited for the validity of Q?

My one confusion is the possible mention of Acts in 1:2

and that the steadfast root of your faith which was famed from primitive times abideth until now and beareth fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who endured to face even death for our sins, whom God raised, having loosed the pangs of Hades (Acts 2:24) on whom,

Where might this have come from, if it didn't come from Acts?

DCHindley

There are actuaslly quite a lot of quotes from the NT in Polycarp's epistle:

In the letter of Polycarp, there are 37 "quotations" (or near quotations).

Quotations from Four-Gospel Book:
MATT 05:03,10
MATT 06:12,14
MATT 06:13
MATT 07:01
MATT 07:02
MATT 26:41
MARK 14:38
LUKE 06:20
LUKE 06:37
LUKE 06:38

Quotations from Pauline corpus:
ROM 12:17
ROM 14:10-12
COR 1 06:02
COR 1 06:09-10
COR 2 05:10
COR 2 08:21
GAL 01:01
GAL 04:26
GAL 06:07
EPH 02:08-09
EPH 04:26
EPH 06:14
THE 1 05:22
THE 2 03:15
TIM 1 06:07
TIM 1 06:10
TIM 2 02:12

Quotations from Praxapostolos (Acts-general epistles):
ACTS 02:24
JOH 1 04:03
PET 1 01:08
PET 1 01:21
PET 1 02:11
PET 1 02:12
PET 1 02:22
PET 1 02:24
PET 1 03:09
PET 1 04:07

DCH

Malachi151

As usual, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That Mark was not significantly quoted from does not mean that Mark didn't exist at this time.

Toto

What's up with this sudden fascination with Polycarp?

There is more information in David Hindley's post here.

Paul Tobin on Polycarp

Polycarp on earlychristianwritings

I don't see how Polycarp is evidence of an especially early transmission of the gospels if he wrote in 120-140.

Geetarmoore

Do you think that Luke and Matthew are 'significantly' quoted from in this work?


Absence of evidence where you'd expect there to be ready evidence can actually be evidence, IMO.

Geetarmoore

Yes, I understand that, and pinpointed several of them already. I was just concentrating on the Gospels, as that's where my current interest lies. It for sure suggests that many of the epistles were being thought of and used as scripture at the time - which I think is as odd as anything, personally.

I might expect the words of Jesus himself to outnumber that of Paul or other epistle writers, honestly.....

Geetarmoore

I actually started looking into it more based on my '1 c. gospel dating' thread. I was amazed to see the other Polycarp threads here as soon as I hit the 'reply' button....


I see how it's damning evidence, personally. If he wrote around ~130, and doesn't quote Mark in a substantial way (I'll say at all) and his Luke/Matthew quotations are rare and potentially from 'Q', it points to a potential quite late dating of a gospel tradition, especially in the hands of the people who would seem to have the most need and use for it....

My amateur opinion only, which is open to modification by the more learned....

DCHindley

Geetar,

Sorry, I wasn't sure exactly what you were asking. Your first post was seemingly asking about 2 or 3 different things, and the post below yet another.

I'm also not sure where you are getting your citations from. If you are selectively taking them from a larger pool, your analysis will reflect only your sample, and not the document itself.

I didn't get too far before realizing that some of the quote citations in ANF and LCL (see below) were from Q and some were not. There were also one or two listed for Mark, which of course is generally not considered Q (although some reconstructions assume Mark preserves a bit of it).

The list I provided was culled from the index of the Ante Nicene Fathers (ANF) volume 1. However, that thing is dated to something like the mid 1800's and even then did not represent the sharpist scholarship out there.

Now the Loeb Classical Library (LCL) has a 2 volume edition of the Apostolic Fathers (Polycarp is in vol 1). In the margin of the Greek text (which you don't have to read, as an English translation is on the opposite page) are the NT & OT citations that they enclosed in quotations in the translation. My edition was first published 1912, but they may have come out with an updated version recently. The notation is European style (Eph. 2,5.8.9 where Americans would usually use Eph 2:5,8,9) and sometimes the citations are hard to interpret or relate back to the ET.

I noticed that the LCL citations didn't always agree with the ANF index so I checked further and think you'd be better off using the book The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk) edited by J. B. Lightfoot and J R Harmer (2nd edition, 1992). It has more detail (for example, the quote from Acts 3:24 in 1.2 comes from the "western text" of Acts as oppsoed to the standard text) and makes greater effort to distinguish quotes from allusions than the LCL edition seemed to. This, I think, is your best bet for a serious look and is less than $30, or may be available at a good public library.

Q is essentially the "double tradition" (text in both Matt & Luke that is not in Mark) and is usually cited by the Lukan verse number. Even if you have a synopsis table (Matt, Mark & Luke arranged in parallel columns where the text closely matches), it is still a pain to determine whether a citation in Matt or Mark is in Q.

If you are brave, John Kloppenborg Verbin (usually known without the Verbin name, which is his wife's family name - he was being egalitarian at the time and followed an old Dutch tradition) has published an extensive popular level book called Excavating Q (or via: amazon.co.uk) (2000) that includes tables that make the task of determining whether this or that passage in Matt or Mark is part of his reconstruction of Q much easier. The one I consulted was on pages 68-71.

You would do good to check the other comments by Toto, myself and others in the related Polycarp threads. My point there was that the letter of Polycarp quotes far more NT passages than Ignatius ever did, and referred to a recent proposal that the NT was first published as we know it by Polycarp around 150-156 CE. If that were the case, then the large number of NT quotes in his letter is similar to that found in his pupil Irenaeus' works.

Polycarp may have also published an edition of Ignatius' letters (known as the "short recension") where his letter to the Philippians serves as a cover letter. However, I am not convinced that even the short rescension of Ignatius is free of alterations, possibly by Polycarp, based on thematic grounds. It contains sudden digressions and odd comments that redirect the subjects under discussion in a manner similar to what we find in the Pauline epistles.

DCH