Quadra'tus
*Kodra/tos, (Euseb.
H. E., Syncellus, and the Greek
Menaea ; or
Κουαδρᾶτος, Euseb.
Chron. p. 211, ed. Scaliger, 1658), one of the Apostolic Fathers and an early apologist for the Christian religion.
The name of Quadratus occurs repeatedly in Eusebius (
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 3.37,
4.3,
23,
5.17,
Chron. lib. ii.), but it is questioned whether that father speaks of one person or of two. Valesius, and others (including Tillemont) after him, contend for the existence of two Quadrati, one the disciple of the Apostles and the Apologist, the other, bishop of Athens and contemporary with Dionysius of Corinth [DIONYSIUS, literary, No. 22], who was of somewhat later date than the Apologist. But Jerome, among the ancients, and Cave, Grabe, Le Clerc, and Fabricius, among the moderns, refer the different notices, and we think correctly, to one person.
Quadratus is said by Eusebius (
Chron. l.c.), Jerome (
De Viris Illustr. c. 19, and
Ad Magnum, 100.4,
Epistol. 84. edit. vet., 83, ed. Benedictin., 70, ed. Vallars.), and Orosius (
Hist. 7.13). to have been a hearer or disciple "of the Apostles," an expression which Cave would limit by referring the term "Apostles" to the Apostle John alone, or by understanding it of men of the apostolic age, who had been familiar with the Apostles.
But we see no reason for so limiting or explaining the term. Quadratus himself, in his Apology (apud
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 4.3), speaks of those who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus Christ, as having lived to his own days (
εἰς τοὺς ήμετέρους χρόνους, "ad tempora nostra"), thus carrying back his own recollections to the apostolic age. And as Eusebius. in a passage in which he ascribes to him the gift of prophecy, seems to connect him with the daughters of the Apostle Philip, we may rather suppose him to have been a disciple of that Apostle than of John. Cave conjectures that he was an Athenian by birth; but the manner in which an anonymous writer cited by Eusebius (
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 5.17) mentions him, in connection with Ammias of Philadelphia and with the daughters of Philip, would lead us to place him in early life in the central districts of Asia Minor.
He afterwards (assuming that Eusebius speaks of one Quadratus, not two) became bishop of the Church at Athens, but at what time we have no means of ascertaining. We learn that he succeeded the martyr Publius; but, as the time of Publius' martyrdom is unknown, that circumstance throws no light on the chronology of his life. Quadratus presented his Apology to Hadrian, in the tenth year of his reign (A. D. 126), according to the
Chronicon of Eusebius, but we know not whether he had yet attained the episcopate. As Eusebius does not give him in this place the title of bishop, the probable inference is that he had not; but, as the passage seems to intimate that he and the Athenian Aristeides presented their respective Apologies simultaneously, it is likely that Quadratus was already connected with the Athenian Church. The
Menseec of the Greeks (a. d. Sept. 21) commemorate the martyrdom under the emperor Hadrian of the "ancient and learned" Quadratus, who had preached the gospel at Magnesia and Athens, and being driven away from his flock at Athens, obtained at length the martyr's crown; and the
Menologium of the emperor Basil commemorates (a. d. 21 Sept.) the martyrdom of a Quadratus, bishop of Magnesia, in the persecution under Decius.
That our Quadratus was a martyr is, we think, from the silence of Eusebius and Jerome to such a circumstance, very questionable; and that he was martyred under Hadrian, is inconsistent with the statement of those writers (Euseb.
Chron. ; Hieronym.
Ad Magnum 100.4), that the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristeides led that emperor to put a stop to the persecution. We think it not an improbable conjecture that Publius fell a victim during the brief persecution thus stopped, and that Quadratus having been appointed to succeed him, made those exertions which Dionysius of Corinth, in his letter to the Athenians (apud Euseb. 4.23), commemorates, to rally the dispersed members of the Church, and to revive their faith. Many of the Athenians, however, had apostatized; and the Church continued in a feeble state till the time when Dionysius wrote. Nothing further is known of Quadratus: the few and doubtful particulars recorded of him have, however, been expanded by Halloix (
Illustr. Eccles. Oriental. Sariptor. Vitae) into a biography of seven chapters. (Comp.
Acta Sanctorum, Maii, a.d. xxvi. vol. vi. p. 357.)
The Apology of Quadratus is described by Eusebius as generally read in his time, and as affording clear evidence of the soundness of the writer's judgment and the orthodoxy of his belief It has been long lost, with the exception of a brief fragment preserved by Eusebius (
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 4.3), and given by Grabe, in his
Spicilegium SS. Patrum, Saec. ii. p. 125; by Galland, in the first volume of his
Bibliotheca Patrum ; and by Routh, in his
Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. i. p. 73. (Cave,
Hist. Litt. ad ann. 108, vol. i. p. 5; Tillemont,
Mémoires, vol. ii. pp. 232, &c., 588, &c.; Grabe, .
l.c. ; Galland,
Bibl. Patrim, vol . i . rolg. c 13; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 154; Lardner,
Credib. part ii. book 1.28.1.)
[
J.C.M]
