Against external evidence such as this the objections that are brought are really of very slight weight.  That which is reproduced in ‘Supernatural Religion’ from an apparent contradiction between c. ix and c. xiii, is dismissed even by writers such as Ritschl who believe that one or both chapters are interpolated.  In c. ix the martyrdom of Ignatius is upheld as an example, in c. xiii Polycarp asks for information about Ignatius ’et de his qui cum eo sunt,’ apparently as if he were still living.  But, apart from the easy and obvious solution which is accepted by Ritschl, following Hefele and others, [Endnote 83:1] that the sentence is extant only in the Latin translation and that the phrase ‘qui cum eo sunt’ is merely a paraphrase for [Greek:  ton met’ autou]; apart from this, even supposing the objection were valid, it would prove nothing against the genuineness of the Epistle.  It might be taken to prove that the second passage is an interpolation; but a contradiction between two passages in the same writing in no way tends to show that that writing is not by its ostensible author.  But surely either interpolator or forger must have had more sense than to place two such gross and absurd contradictions within about sixty lines of each other.

An argument brought by Dr. Hilgenfeld against the date dissolves away entirely on examination.  He thinks that the exhortation Orate pro regibus (et potestatibus et principibus) in c. xii must needs refer to the double rule of Antoninus Pius (147 A.D.) or Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161 A.D.).  But the writer of the Epistle is only reproducing the words of St. Paul in 1 Tim. ii. 2 ([Greek:  parakalo ... poieisthai deaeseis ... hyper basileon kai panton ton en hyperochae onton]).  The passage is wrongly referred in ‘Supernatural Religion’ to 1 Pet. ii. 17 [Endnote 84:1].  It is very clear that the language of Polycarp, like that of St. Paul, is quite general.  In order to limit it to the two Caesars we should have had to read [Greek:  hyper ton basileon].

The allusions which Schwegler finds to the Gnostic heresies are explained when that critic at the end of his argument objects to the Epistle that it makes use of a number of writings ’the origin of which must be placed in the second century, such as the Acts, 1 Peter, the Epistles to the Philippians and to the Ephesians, and 1 Timothy.’  The objection belongs to the gigantic confusion of fact and hypothesis which makes up the so-called Tuebingen theory, and falls to the ground with it.

It should be noticed that those who regard the Epistle as interpolated yet maintain the genuineness of those portions which are thought to contain allusions to the Gospels.  Ritschl states this [Endnote 84:2]; Dr. Donaldson confines the interpolation to c. xiii [Endnote 84:3]; and Volkmar not only affirms with his usual energy the genuineness of these portions of the Epistle, but he also asserts that the allusions are really to our Gospels [Endnote 84:4].