suspected as no part of the original document. Dr. Lightfoot
himself tells us, that it is "_generally_ treated as a later
addition to the letter, and as coming from a different hand;" [42:1]
and, whilst disposed to uphold its claims as of high authority,
he admits that, when tested as to "external evidence," the
supplementary paragraphs, of which this is one, "do not stand
on the same ground" [42:2] as the rest of the Epistle. And yet his
whole chronology rests on the supposition that the name of the
proconsul is correctly given in this probably apocryphal addition
to the Smyrnaean letter. Were we even to grant that this
postscript belonged originally to the document, it would supply
no conclusive evidence that Polycarp was martyred in A.D. 155.
It is far more probable that the writer has been slightly inaccurate
as to the exact designation of the proconsul of Asia about the time
of the martyrdom. [43:1] He was called Quadratus--not perhaps
_Statius_, but possibly _Ummidius Quadratus_. [43:2] There is
nothing more common among ourselves than to make such a mistake as
to a name. How often may we find John put for James, or Robert for
Andrew? Quadratus was a patrician name, well known all over the
empire; and if Statius Quadratus had, not long before, been
proconsul of Asia, it is quite possible that the writer of this
postscript may have taken it for granted that the proconsul about
the time of Polycarp's death was the same individual. The author,
whoever he may have been, was probably not very well acquainted
with these Roman dignitaries, and may thus have readily fallen
into the error. Dr. Lightfoot has himself recorded a case in which
a similar mistake has been made--not in an ordinary communication
such its this, but in an Imperial ordinance. In a Rescript of the
Emperor Hadrian, _Licinius_ Granianus, the proconsul, is styled
_Serenus_ Granianus. [43:3] If such a blunder could be perpetrated