Nielsen’s Nook

Translation

1 And he said many other things also, was being filled up [a] with courage and joy, even his face was filled full of graciousness. For this reason, not only did he not collapse from being terrified [b] by the things said to him; but on the contrary, [c] the proconsul was astounded out of his mind [d] and sent his own herald into the midst of the stadium to proclaim three times, “Polycarp confessed himself to be a Christian!”

[a] ἐνεπίμπλατο (ἐμπί(μ)πλημι) Where the proconsul has threatened St. Polycarp with consumption by fleeting fire (§11.2), St. Polycarp is antithetically filled up with courage and joy. Ezekiel 35:8 LXX reads καὶ ἐμπλήσω τῶν τραυματιῶν σου τοὺς βουνοὺς καὶ τὰς φάραγγάς σου… And your wounded will cover your hills and ravines… (author’s translation). The picture here is that everywhere one would look in the land one would see wounded people covering the land. Luke 1:53 employs the derivative aorist ἐνέπλησεν in the Magnificat: πεινῶντας ἐνέπλησεν ἀγαθῶν / καὶ πλουτοῦντας ἐξαπέστειλεν κενούς (NA27). The hungry are filled up with good things / and the rich have been sent away empty (author’s translation).

[b] ταραχθέντα see note on §5.1.

[c] τοὐναντίον is apparently a conflation of the definite article τό and the word ἐναντίον (see BAGD, 262) and is used to show a logically alternate thought (e.g., on the other hand, on the contrary).

[d] ἐκστῆναι today we might say colloquially that the proconsul “lost it,” referring to a loss of emotional control.