Immediately after the death of John, at the close of the first century, we gather some weighty materials for the history of the Church in the writings, undoubtedly authentic, which we possess of two eminent Christian teachers, both younger contemporaries of the Apostle.
The elder of these, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, we leave for the moment, since his famous letters are well nigh all that we possess of his history. The other, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and disciple of John, occupies in the annals of early Christianity a peculiar and commanding position. This he owes partly to his long and distinguished career, partly to the "Memories" preserved to us by his great disciple Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul and by others; partly, of course, also, to his own interesting Epistle to the Philippians, and to the letter written after his death by his Smyrnaean flock to the Church of Philomelium, containing details of his martyrdom; both of which "pieces" are considered by all serious critics as undoubtedly genuine.
Polycarp was born about the year 69-70. He evidently belonged to a Christian family, and was brought up in that district of Asia Minor where the influence of John was paramount, but where other eminent Christian leaders, besides John, were residing—men who had personally known the Lord. When John died, Polycarp was only about thirty years old. Irenaeus tells us he received his appointment as Bishop of the important congregation of Smyrna from Apostles; and other writers, e.g. Tertullian, not much later than Irenaeus, say distinctly that he was appointed to his responsible office by John himself.
At an early period of his public career (circa A. D. 107-9), Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, on his journey to his Roman martyrdom, writes to Polycarp, already Bishop of Smyrna. The spirit of this letter—one of the now generally acknowledged genuine Ignatian epistles—is what we should expect from an old man writing to a younger one who was holding a position of great responsibility, and had proved himself, in spite of his comparative youth, to be worthy of his high and dangerous post, but who yet evidently, in the eyes of the martyr, had faults which he might correct.
He charges his younger friend in the following language: "Vindicate thine office in all diligence, whether in things carnal or in things spiritual. Have a care for unity, than which nothing is better. Sustain all men, even as the Lord sustaineth thee. Suffer all men in love, as also thou dost . . . Ask for more wisdom than thou hast . . . The time requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, so that it may find God ... Be sober as God's athlete . . . stand firm as an anvil under the stroke of a hammer. It becomes a great athlete to endure blows and to conquer."
Of the circle of disciples and pupils whom John during his long residence at Ephesus gathered round him, Polycarp was the most illustrious. Indeed, after the passing away of the loved Apostle, at an advanced age, he was perhaps one of the most important persons in the Church.
Long years afterwards it was the delight of the Bishop of Smyrna to relate to his disciples and hearers what he had heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's earthly life; and especially he seems to have loved to dwell on his friendship and intercourse with John the beloved. Before Polycarp died even unbelievers had come to look upon the venerable Bishop of Smyrna as the Father of Christians.
Irenaeus, one of the ablest of the Christian writers of the second century, who became Bishop of Lyons in A. D. 177 received his early instruction at the hands of Polycarp, and in a passage in one of his writings of singular interest, gives us a picture of his great master. It occurs in a letter to an old comrade and fellow pupil, one Florinus, who in later life had become unhappily famous as a heretical leader. Irenaeus is remonstrating with his old friend after his falling away in the following terms: "These opinions, Florinus, that I may speak without harshness, are not of sound judgment; these opinions are not in harmony with the Church, but involve those adopting them in the greatest impiety . . . these opinions the elders before us, who were also disciples of the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For I saw thee, when I was still a youth in Lower Asia, in company with Polycarp, while thou wast faring prosperously in the royal court, and endeavoring to stand well with him (Polycarp). For I distinctly remember the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood, growing with the growth of the soul, became identified with it; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words, And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about His miracles and about His teaching, Polycarp, as having received these from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scripture. To these (discourses) I could listen at the time with attention, by God's mercy which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of God, I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully. And I can testify in the sight of God, that if the blessed and Apostolic elder had heard anything of this kind (alluding here to the heresy of Florinus he was writing about) he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and said after his wont, ' 0 good God, for what times hast Thou kept me, that I should endure such things?' and would even have fled from the place where he was sitting or standing, when he heard such words. And indeed this can be shown from his letters which he wrote to the neighboring Churches for their confirmation, or to certain of the brethren for their warning and exhortation."
Far and wide extended the work of this great early teacher of Christianity. The flourishing and powerful Church of Gaul, which we shall have to speak of later as one of the most sorely tried by persecution, was the daughter of the Asian Church where Polycarp for so many years exercised so predominant an influence. Irenaeus, whom we have just quoted, became Bishop of the important Galilean see of Lyons in A. D. 177, in succession to the aged Pothinus, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution which raged in the Churches of Lyons and Vienne when Marcus Antoninus was Emperor. The circular letter from Gaul giving the graphic account of the martyrdom of the saints of Lyons and Vienne, so well known to students of early Christian literature, was addressed to the brethren in Phrygia and "Asia," and shows how close was the link which bound the two distant countries together. Christian Gaul, when it sent the pathetic recital of the sufferings of its martyrs in the arena, was assured, it writes, of the deep sympathy of the older Christian communities.
"The veneration of Christians for Polycarp was unbounded. His Apostolic training, his venerable age, his long hours spent in prayer, his personal holiness, all combined to secure him this reverence. By the heathen, as we have noticed, he was regarded as the 'Father of the Christians.' They singled him out as the one man who had dethroned their gods, and robbed them of the sacrifices and the adoration of their worshippers. More especially did he seem gifted with a singular prescience. It was even believed that nothing which he foretold ever failed of accomplishment; but far more important to the Church than his predictions of the future were his memories of the past. In him one single link connected the earthly life of Christ with the close of the second century, though five or six generations had intervened. John, Polycarp, Irenaeus—this was the succession which guaranteed the continuity of the Evangelical record and of the Apostolic teaching. The long life of John, followed by the long life of Polycarp, had secured this result."
Far on in his busy, beautiful life, Polycarp, then acknowledged, as Irenaeus tells us, as the most venerable personage in Christendom, paid a visit to Rome. There were many subjects of information on which it was desirable that one who had been a pupil of John should confer with Anicetus, the honored chief of the great community of Christians resident in the metropolis of the Empire.
One of these subjects especially exercised the minds of believers. Christians were curiously divided on the question as to the correct time when the Easter festival should be celebrated. Two opinions were held; the one, for which Polycarp pleaded the practice of John and of other Apostles with whom, in his early days, he had been associated, maintained that the Paschal Supper the evening before the Passion of the Lord, should be celebrated after the Jewish custom on the fourteenth day of the first (Jewish) month (Nisan); and three days later, without regard to the day of the week, the feast of the Resurrection was kept. Rome and other Western Churches, however, held it unlawful to interrupt the fast of the Holy Week, or to celebrate the Resurrection on any other day than the first day of the week. Their Easter consequently was always on a Sunday. The Asiatic or Quartodeciman practice, as it was termed, was advocated by Polycarp on the authority of John and of the Apostles, who in their later lives had lived in Asia Minor. That of Rome was advocated by Anicetus (Bishop of Rome) on the authority of Peter and Paul, who had lived and taught long in the great metropolis. Again and again this curious divergence of opinion on the question as to the day on which the great Church festival should be kept, cropped up and divided the Church.
The Quartodeciman, or Jewish practice maintained by Polycarp and other distinguished Christian leaders, notably by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, in his controversy with Victor, Bishop of Rome (circa A. D. 197), was finally given up by a decision of the Council of Nicea A. D. 325, which ruled that Easter should be kept on one and the same day throughout the Christian world, viz. on the Sunday, the first day of the week. But the cycle by which the Easter festival was to be calculated was not agreed upon; hence the discrepancy in the date of the Easter festival, which was one of the points disputed between the Church of Rome and the ancient British Church.
Polycarp, however, without yielding the point, did not allow the difference in ritualistic usage for an instant to interfere with his cordial relations with Anicetus and the Roman Church. And Anicetus followed his conciliatory example and allowed Polycarp, in token of an unbroken friendship, to celebrate the Eucharist in his place.
Very different, however, was the procedure of the great Asian Bishop, the pupil of John, during his Roman visit, when graver questions respecting fundamental doctrine were brought before him. He could, and did, place on one side as comparatively unimportant, divergence in ritual and in mere observances—for which divergence, be it noted, evidence on both sides was alleged. These things, thought the aged disciple of the Apostles, should never be allowed to interfere with the loving inter-communion of the Christian Brotherhood. But when heresy which affected the Person and Work of the Lord was in question. Polycarp could, and did, show himself the stern, uncompromising teacher of the truth. Let us listen again to Irenaeus account of Polycarp here, in his own vivid and soul-inspiring language: "And so it was with Polycarp also, who was not only taught by Apostles and lived in familiar intercourse with many that had seen Christ, but also received his appointment in Asia from Apostles, as Bishop of the Church of Smyrna; whom we too have seen in our early years; for he survived long, and departed this life at a very great age by a glorious and most notable martyrdom; having ever taught those very things which he had learnt from the Apostles, which the Church hands down, and which alone are true. To this, testimony is borne by all the Churches in Asia, and by the successors up to the present time,(circa A. D. 170-80) of Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and safe witness of the truth than Valentinus or Marcion (famous Gnostic teachers) and all such wrong-minded men. He also (Polycarp) when on a visit to Rome in the days of Anicetus, converted many to the Church of God from following the aforementioned heretics, by preaching that which he had received from the Apostles, that doctrine and that only which was handed down by the Church as the truth. (Here Irenaeus tells the story of the horror of John when he met at the bath at Ephesus the Gnostic Cerinthus.) 'Yea, and Polycarp himself, also, when Marcion on one occasion confronted him and said: Do you recognize me?' Polycarp replied, 'Yes, yes; I recognize the first-born of Satan.' So great care did the Apostles and their disciples take not to hold any communication even by word with any of those who falsify the truth. As Paul also said, 'A man that is a heretic, after a first and second admonition, avoid, knowing that such an one is perverted and sinneth, being self-condemned."
Rome, in the middle of the second century, was the common rendezvous of Christian teachers, orthodox and heretical, from all countries; and Irenaeus here tells us how Polycarp, in the course of his memorable Roman visit, met with the eminent leaders of the widespread Gnostic heresy, and what he thought of them.
As a writer this great early Christian leader was in no way remarkable. Polycarp was clearly inferior here to Clement of Rome or to Ignatius. We possess of his writings but one epistle of undoubted authenticity, addressed by him to the Philippian Church. The scanty relics of our early Christian literature include no theological treatise by him. He was rather a man of action than of contemplation; a great organizer; a devoted pastor; an unwearied shepherd of an ever-growing and often sorely harassed flock. These were Polycarp's titles to honor. The one solitary epistle of his which has come down to us possesses the highest value as an undoubted document of very early Christian literature, but as a literary production it does not rank high. It is remarkable from the number of its quotations from Apostles' writings. Short as it is, it contains striking coincidences with, or plain references to, as many as some twenty or more passages from the writings of Paul and Peter and other documents now included in our New Testament Canon. Paul especially is quoted and referred to. Polycarp mentions him by name, placing himself on a much lower level than the revered Apostle of the Gentiles. His words here are specially interesting as an indication of the exalted estimate formed, by the responsible Christian chiefs of the second generation, of the original band of Apostles, among whom Paul is reckoned. Polycarp is apologizing for writing an official letter at all to the Philippian Church; he only ventured to do it, he says, on their "special invitation." "For neither am I," he goes on to say, "nor is any other like me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul who, when he came among you" (the Philippians) "taught face to face with the men of that day, the word which concerneth truth, carefully and surely; who also, when he was absent, wrote a letter to you, into which if you look diligently, ye shall be able to be builded up unto the faith given to you, which is the mother of us all."
Very emphatically and simply does Polycarp in this little letter affirm the great Evangelical truth of the work of Jesus Christ. "Let us," he says, "hold fast by our hope . . . which is Jesus Christ, Who took up our sins in His own body on the tree."
With great force he expresses his views of the God-head of the Lord Jesus. Twice near the close of the letter he speaks of Jesus as God. The second reference is a striking one. "May He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you . . . who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ, and on His Father that raised Him from the dead."
This eminent Christian teacher of the Church of the early and middle years of the second century, in some of the concluding words of his epistle, shows us, like Clement, who wrote from Rome some twelve or fourteen years before, how an unswerving loyalty to the Roman Government was enjoined upon Christian congregations; although part of the same letter treated of victims of the Imperial policy, of the martyred Paul and Ignatius, and other less known sufferers; while in the end the writer of the loyal words himself joined the same noble army. "Pray," wrote Polycarp, "for kings, and powers, and princes, and for them that persecute you and hate you."
This sole surviving letter of Polycarp to the Philippian Church must have been written as early as A. D. 108-10.
The end of that earnest, useful life, so long protracted, came at last, very soon after Polycarp returned from Rome, circa A. D. 157. One of those many persecutions, some of them general, some of them confined to certain localities, which harassed Christians more or less all through the first and second centuries, was raging in the populous district of Asia Minor of which Sm3n:na was a principal center. The Christians of Proconsular Asia had markedly increased in number by the middle of the second century. In that Province, owing no doubt to the influence of the school of John, of which, as we have seen, Polycarp was the most distinguished representative, some writers even consider that by the middle of the second century well nigh half the population t was Christian. Fierce and uncontrollable jealousy of the Christians was, however, now and again excited among the Pagan inhabitants, among the many especially who lived by the worship at the heathen shrines—priests, tradesmen, craftsmen, and others connected with the widespread network, partly political, partly religious, of the ancient idolatrous cult. Such interested persons, probably very numerous, easily fomented a popular disturbance, and forced the Roman magistrates, often against their will, to take action against the obnoxious Christians; to set in force the State edicts which treated the members of the Christian community as enemies of the State, and as liable to the severest punishment. Such a state of things prevailed at Smyrna circa A. D. 157, when the inhabitants of Asia Minor were celebrating the great anniversary festival in that city. A vigorous persecution of the Christians began. Eleven of the more prominent were condemned to the wild beasts, and suffered in the public arena. The passions of the easily excited populace were stirred up by the bloody sight, and the cry arose, "Death to the Atheists. Let search be made for Polycarp their chief."
The story of the events which followed is told in simple pathetic language in a letter written immediately after the tragedy by the Church of Smyrna to the Church of Philomelium, a small town with an earnest and devoted congregation of believers, situated some two hundred miles or more to the east of Smyrna on the borders of the Province of Proconsular Asia, not far from Pisidian Antioch.
The letter of the Church of Smyrna to the Christians of Philomelium is of undoubted authenticity. What has been well termed "the feverish and restless criticism" of late days has failed to shake the general confidence of scholars in its genuineness. One of the leading critics of a school bitterly hostile to Christianity does not hesitate to accept it, and describes it in characteristic language: "This beautiful piece constitutes the most ancient example known of all the 'Acts of Martyrdom.' It was the model which was imitated, and which furnished the procedure and the essential parts of this species of composition."
Polycarp—we follow the recital in the letter to the Philomelians—when these bloody games were being played in the Smyrna arena, had retired into the country at some distance from the city. His whereabouts was disclosed to the Imperial police, who proceeded to arrest the aged Bishop. The old man might even then have escaped, but he disdained to fly, saying simply, "God's will be done." His guards evidently sympathized with him. He had long been a well known and venerated personage in Smyrna. They did not hurry him, but granted his request to be allowed to pray before accompanying them. For two hours, so says the recital in the letter, he talked with God, remembering in that solemn moment all who had ever come in his way, small and great, high and low. The officials, after he had finished his long prayer, seated the old man on an ass, and so brought him to the city. There the captain of the police and his father met him, and taking Polycarp into their carriage, tried to prevail upon him to acknowledge Caesar as "Lord," and to offer incense at his shrine, but he refused.
They conducted him into the theatre where the games were being held, but the combats with wild beasts were over. A great uproar arose as the old man was led in.
A voice, which some thought came from above, cried out, "Polycarp, be strong and play the man." But he needed no such reminder. Death had no terrors for the aged Christian "athlete." The solemn moment to him was an intense joy and delight. Very urgently the proconsul, who was evidently loth to proceed to extreme measures in the case of one so loved and venerated, urged him to avail himself of the easy method of deliverance provided by the Roman Government; all he had to do, said the magistrate, was to say, "Away with the Atheists," and to swear by the "Genius of Caesar."
Polycarp, looking up, away from the shrieking multitude and the ensigns of Imperial Rome, solemnly replied, "Yes, away with Atheists." Then the proconsul thought he had yielded. "Swear, as I have told you, Polycarp, by the genius of the Emperor, and revile Christ, and I will at once set you free." "Revile Christ?" replied the brave old Bishop. "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He hath done me no wrong. How can I say evil things of my King who saved me?"
Then the proconsul, perhaps reluctantly, announced that Polycarp had confessed himself a Christian. The concourse present shouted, "To the horns with him." The president of the games, the Asiarch Philip, said that would be impossible, for the "wild beasts" part of the great show was over. The crowd cried, "Then burn him."
With cruel rapidity the enemies of the Christians collected the materials for the fire; quickly the death-pyre was heaped up, and Polycarp, throwing aside his cloak and girdle, allowed himself to be bound to the stake. Then the old man prayed, and his words were words of praise and thanksgiving, and the wood was lighted and presently blazed up.
There is little if anything of the marvelous and supernatural in the touching, simple story. Some have thought a Divine interposition was visible in the action of the high wind, which wafted the flames aside, leaving the martyr in the midst, while the fire, like the bellying sail of a ship, arched itself around him. But such a phenomenon involves no miracle; the like has been seen in other scenes of burning. The voice bidding Polycarp "be strong and play the man" when he appeared before the assembly of the people in the stadium, no doubt proceeded from one of the bystanders. The dove which apparently issued from the wounded side of the martyr can also be explained. A bird hastily flying across in the immediate neighborhood of the sufferer, in the heated imagination of the bystanders could easily be construed as a miraculous sign. The sweet scent, as of incense, which was said to have issued from the burning pyre, was probably the perfume of some of the wood which was piled up round the stake; especially as we read how the hostile Jews and other enemies of the Christian hastily gathered together timber and wood from different workshops and baths in the city.
Indeed, the comparative absence of the supernatural in the narrative, very different from many other records of the death of early Christian martyrs, or even of the passions of more recent sufferers for religion, is in itself a strong argument for the genuineness of the document.
The sufferings of the noble victim were not protracted; when the officials saw that the fire, from one cause or other, failed to do its work, the officer of the arena, whose special duty it was to despatch wounded and dying beasts, was summoned to complete the work; he pierced the old man with a dagger in a mortal place, and death speedily followed.
The Christians, the story goes on to say, were anxious to secure the hallowed remains of their sainted Bishop, but the Jews prevented them; and the centurion in command, to prevent a tumult, allowed the body to be consumed in the tardy flames of the pyre. The bones, however, were afterwards carefully collected, and reverently interred by the brethren.
Something of a similar kind is related to have taken place at the burning of Savonarola at Florence and of Bishop Hooper at Gloucester, when the wind for a short space of time blew aside the flames from the victim.
The letter which contained this simple, true account was written to the Philomelians, who had asked for the details of the death of the great Christian teacher whom they loved. They were directed to circulate it among other and more distant congregations.
This martyrdom of Polycarp and of the other Christians at the games of Smyrna must be dated circa A. D. 157—when the Emperor Antoninus Pius was reigning; and is a good instance of the deadly perils to which the worshippers of Jesus were constantly exposed, even under the rule of the wisest and most beneficent of Roman Emperors, during the first three centuries of their existence as a religious sect.