POLYCARP, Saint. — Disciple of the Apostle St. John (Eusebius, Hist. ecc., V, 20, 5 ff.) and ordained by him as bishop of Smyrna (Tertullian, De praescr., 32, 2), he came around 155 to Rome to discuss with Pope Anicetus the question of the Quartodecimans, without however reaching an agreement. During his stay in Rome he converted adherents of the sects of Marcion and Valentinus. It is not known whether his encounter with Marcion, whom he called the “firstborn of Satan” (Irenaeus, Haer., 3, 3, 4), took place in Rome or in Ephesus. He died a martyr the following year (156).
According to Irenaeus (in Eusebius, op. cit., V, 20, 8) he wrote several letters to individual communities and persons. The Churches that received letters were located near Smyrna. P. enjoyed great authority there (the Martyrdom of P. [16, 2] calls him: “an apostolic and prophetic man”), which explains such activity in Asia Minor. Yet it is surprising in this regard that the only surviving letter is addressed to a Church outside Asia and that this epistle has been poorly preserved, since in the Greek text of this Letter to the Philippians only part survives in the Greek manuscripts (chs. 1–9, 2), while the Latin translation preserves it in full (v. ALBANI. Siegmund, Die Überlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche, Munich 1909, p. 130). The authenticity of this letter cannot be doubted, since it was already mentioned by Irenaeus, Haer., 30, 3, 4, and Eusebius, op. cit., III, 36, 14–16, quotes from II. If, however, Jerome, De vir. illustr., 17, says that the Letter to the Philippians was read “usque hodie in conventu Asiae,” his statement is surprising, because one would rather expect that in an Asian setting the public reading would be of letters addressed to Churches in Asia Minor. It seems that the Letter to the Philippians formed part of a collection of Ignatian epistles, and such a connection is also suggested by the fact that the Letter to the Philippians presents itself in ch. 13 as a covering letter for the sending of a collection of St. Ignatius’s letters to the Philippians. But whereas in ch. 13, 2 Ignatius is still alive, in ch. 9, 1 his death is presupposed. This contradiction has led Harrison to hypothesize that the present letter is a fusion of two distinct letters of P. The fusion must, however, be ancient, since Eusebius knows both ch. 9 and ch. 13. It is often said that in P.’s letter there is evidence of knowledge of 1 Clement, but this claim is uncertain, since the agreement between P. and 1 Clem. could also be explained by the hypothesis that both writers drew on earlier common traditions, especially in the moral section. Such a hypothesis would also make comprehensible P.’s use of Jewish phrases (firstborn of Satan: 7, 1; debtor of sin: 6, 1; cf. Enoch 6, 3). It may be unjust to compare the style and content of P. with Ignatius to the latter’s disadvantage (e.g., ed. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, II, Leipzig 1898, p. 512), since—inasmuch as Ignatius’s greater originality ceases—the literary style is also conditioned by the different literary genre.
THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP. — One of the most famous and ancient of the Passions of the Martyrs. Written in the form of a Catholic (encyclical) letter of the Church of Smyrna, shortly after P.’s death (date uncertain, ca. 156; 177 according to H. Grégoire–D. Orgels, La véritable date du martyre de Polycarpe (23 février 177) et le «corpus Polycarpianum», in Anal. Boll., 69 [1951], pp. 1–38). Characteristic of the Martyrdom of P. is the attempt to emphasize the resemblance of P.’s passion to that of Jesus. Striking are the many stylistic coincidences with 4 Maccabees. Important is P.’s prayer, with its liturgical allusions.
Several recensions of the text must be supposed. A certain Pionius (not the martyr of the same name) inserted the Martyrdom into a Corpus Polycarpianum, to which was added a Life of P., the latter without historical value. Moreover, Pionius may have published a new recension of the Martyrdom. Eusebius included the Martyrdom of P. in his collection of the earliest martyrs. In his Hist. ecc., IV, 15 he gives an excerpt from the Martyrdom of P. that reveals a recension different from the manuscript text.