POLYCARP OF SMYRNA, A DISCIPLE OF APOSTLE JOHN

By Akin Ojumu

A significant number of Christians, especially the folks of the Pentecostal/Charismatic/New Apostolic Reformation movements, assume that Christianity somehow went into a cocoon of spiritual hibernation between the time the last of Christ’s Apostles died and the ascendancy of Emperor Constantine or between the conversion of Constantine to Christianity and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century. The general belief in these movements is that the move of God ceased and that Christianity became dormant after the Book of Revelations.

If you subscribe to that notion, this YouTube video is a must watch. It is a historical account of Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna. To many of you reading this, I’m sure the name Polycarp probably doesn’t ring a bell. 

Born between c. 69 AD and c. 70 AD, Polycarp, whose name in Greek means “Much Fruit” or “Many Fruit,” was instructed in the teachings of Christ by the Apostles. He was a direct disciple of Apostle John. Irenaeus, who was his pupil and later became the Bishop of Lyon, and the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, write of him thus: 

“Polycarp was not only educated by the Apostles and lived with many of those who had seen the Lord, but it was the Apostles who sent him to Asia as Bishop of the Church of Smyrna.” 

During his tenure as the Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp stood out for his zeal in faithfully preserving the doctrine of the Apostles, for spreading the Gospel among the pagans, and for combating heresies. He was a patient and lovable preacher who cared deeply about the widows and slaves.

One of the causes to which Polycarp committed himself was to fight against the rise of Gnosticism and to refute the two leading Gnostic proponents at the time, i.e., Valentinus and Marcion.

Valentinus (c. 100–160 AD) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian and philosopher of the 2nd century. He founded a school of thought in Rome which argued that salvation came through gnosis (esoteric knowledge) rather than just faith.

According to Valentinus, there were three kinds of people, namely, the spiritual, psychical, and material. Only those of a spiritual nature received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine pleroma i.e. possessing the fullness or totality of divine powers. On the other hand, those of a psychic nature (i.e., ordinary Christians), however, would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation. While those of a material nature were doomed to perish.

Branded a heretic by the Church, the complex theology developed and spread by Valentinus forced the early Church to formalize its own doctrines and canon.

A contemporary of Valentinus and fellow Gnostic teacher at the time was Marcion of Sinope (c. 85–160 AD). He was a 2nd-century Christian theologian and influential teacher who was declared an arch-heretic by the early church for teaching that the vengeful God of the Old Testament (the Demiurge) was distinct from the loving Father of Jesus Christ.

Sometime between c. 135 AD and c. 140 AD, Marcion traveled to Rome, joined the Roman church, and made a large donation of 200,000 sesterces to the congregation there. Conflicts with the church of Rome arose and he was eventually excommunicated in c. 144 AD, his donation being returned to him (Source: Wikipedia).

Unable to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament, Marcion completely rejected the Old Testament as inspired Scripture. In an attempt to purge the God of the Old Testament from the Scriptures, Marcion made up his own authoritative list of inspired Scriptures. He got rid of the Old Testament in its entirety. The only part of the New Testament that he kept was a heavily redacted version of Luke and ten of Paul’s Epistles. Anything that sounded too Jewish, spoke of the God of the Old Testament as the true God, or suggested Jesus was a real human being, he took out.

It was against this Marcion and his heretical teachings that Polycarp reserved the fiercest and fieriest of his ire. As history has it, during one his visits to Rome, Polycarp and Marcion crossed paths. I loved the way the Religious Historian describes this chance encounter in their YouTube video.

The scene is brief, almost nothing. Some street in the city of Rome, perhaps near the district of Trastevere where the Christian community was most concentrated. Perhaps near the river port where merchants from the east unloaded their goods. Perhaps at the door of one of the house Churches where the faithful met in secret, two men cross paths. One is still relatively young in his 50s. Well-dressed, fine wool tunic, sleeves with scarlet trim, neat hair, trimmed beard. He is Marcion. The other is an old man of 85. Undyed wool tunic. sandals worn from the journey, a dark cloak over the left shoulder, pale eyes fixed. He is Polycarp. Marcion recognizes him, approaches, smiles, and asks with the confidence of one who expects reverence:

“Do you know me?”

Polycarp’s reply is one of the most famous in early Christian literature, recorded by Irenaeus in his book, Against Heresies, and memorized by generations of Christians. 

“I know you, the firstborn of Satan.” 

What this sentence contains is staggering. It is not a personal insult. It is not uncontrolled rage. It is a precise theological formula. “Firstborn of Satan” in Greek is “Prototokos to Satana.” It is the exact inversion of the title “Firstborn of God” applied to Christ in the Pauline letters. 

Marcion claims to be the authentic interpreter of Paul. Polycarp, in a single sentence, declares him antichrist. And Marcion, in the face of this answer, has no rhetoric to respond with. There is no debate, no explanation. There is only the old man who knew John saying what John had taught him that these teachers did not come from the same spirit. And Polycarp walks on.

Beyond his fight against heretics, Polycarp is also known for the circumstances surrounding his martyrdom under the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. Below is an easy-to-read version of the account courtesy of The Blue-Collar Bible Scholar.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

At some point in AD 155, shortly after Polycarp must have returned from Rome, a persecution broke out in the area of Smyrna, during some sort of “Asia Games” that were taking place. Initially, a Christian named Germanicus was thrown to the wild beasts and killed. Another man named Quintus, who had basically “talked tough” and volunteered to be arrested, upon seeing the wild beasts (and what had happened to Germanicus) caved – he swore an oath to Caesar to spare his life.

At that point, the authorities sent the police to arrest Polycarp (who was, by this time, 86 years old). Initially, he left the city to stay at a place in the country, but soon had to be moved to another farmhouse when the police got close to the first house in the country. It was at that second farmhouse where Polycarp had a vision of his pillow in flames – he told those with him about it and said he believed he was going to be burned alive.

As it turned out, a house servant at the first house told the authorities where Polycarp was staying. When the police arrived at the house, though, they were shocked when Polycarp came down, let them in and invited them to dinner. He then asked them to give him an hour to pray before they took him back to Smyrna. The next day, he was brought back to Smyrna. This is where the drama really starts.

First, before he was taken into the arena, the captain of the guards tried to convince Polycarp that if he just swore an oath to Caesar, they’d release him. Polycarp refused and was immediately taken into the arena, where the crowds were screaming for his death. Upon his entering the arena, a voice was heard over the crowds, saying, “Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man!” No one knew who said it, but the Christians who heard it were convinced it came from heaven.

Polycarp was taken up to the Governor, who told him to swear by the fortune of Caesar and to say, “Down with the atheists!” (At that time, Christians were called “atheists” because they didn’t worship the Roman idols). Polycarp, in response, did something quite cheeky! He motioned to the screaming crowd of heathens and said, “Okay, down with the atheists!” 

The governor then told him to revile Christ. At that point, Polycarp famously said, “I’ve served Him for 86 years, and He has never done me wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” The governor then basically said, “Okay, then just swear by the fortune of Caesar, and we’ll call it even!” To which Polycarp said, “If you think for one second that I am going to swear by the fortune of Caesar, then you really don’t know me at all. Let me be as clear as I can be. I am a Christian. If you want to learn more about Christianity, just name the date and I’ll teach you all about it.”

Clearly offended, the Governor asked Polycarp to try and teach the crowd, to which Polycarp replied and basically said, “No, that would be a waste of time” The Governor threatened to throw him to the wild beasts, and Polycarp basically said, “Bring it on!” Then another threatened to burn Polycarp alive, to which Polycarp said, “That’s fine. The fire you threaten me with can’t burn for too long. It will soon go out. But what you don’t realize is that the flames of the future judgment and everlasting torment are waiting for the ungodly. Stop wasting my time and just bring out whatever you have in mind to do.”

And so, they burned him alive. At first though, the flames didn’t burn him, but instead swirled around him. Instead of burning, Polycarp was essentially getting a tan – he was like a loaf of bread in an oven. At that point, the Governor ordered that Polycarp be stabbed through the flames. When he was, his soul departed (the image is that of a dove flew up to heaven) and his blood put out the fire. Once he was dead, the authorities burned up his body, leaving only the bones. After that, the Christians collected his bones and buried them in a secret location, where they would regularly gather to commemorate Polycarp’s death – what they called the “birthday” of his martyrdom.

Tradition has it that Polycarp was already the Bishop of the Church in Smyrna when Apostle John wrote the letters to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor in the Book of Revelation. 

Revelations 2:8-11

“And to the angel of the Church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life. “‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’”

As the “angel of the Church of Smyrna,” i.e., the Elder or Pastor or Bishop of the Church, Polycarp must have been the person who received and read Apostle John’s letter to the congregation. That makes him one of the very first people in history to read the Book of Revelation.

The Church in Smyrna, along with the Church in Philadelphia, were the only two Churches that received commendation and no condemnation from the Lord Jesus in the Letters to the Churches. As the leader of the congregation, Polycarp suffered everything that was prophesied in the Revelations 2:8-11. But the man endured to the end, and he was faithful unto death.

Considering the vital role Polycarp played in connecting modern-day Christianity to its roots in Christ, the unfamiliarity of contemporary Christians with Polycarp is a miscarriage of historical theological justice and an insult to our Christian heritage. Every Christian who is serious about understanding the advancement of Christianity through the centuries and who wants to know the historical traditional biblical Christian doctrine as taught by the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, must read the history of the early Church and the writings of the Church fathers, i.e., the Apostolic Fathers.

The Apostolic Fathers is a name used for those figures who come directly after the apostolic age. In many ways, these are people who either knew the original Twelve Apostles or who, through some degree of separation, were directly linked to them. These men represent the bridge that connects the Lord Jesus and the original Twelve Apostles to the modern-day Church.

Another reason why it is important to be familiar with the history of the Apostolic Fathers is that it provides the context of the earliest vocabularies of worship, Church life, discipline, Church structures and all these very critical questions that we want to know about what the earliest worship was like in the early Church.

Apostolic Fathers, such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas, Barnabas, Papias, and the anonymous authors of the Didachē (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), are not known for performing great miracles, signs, and wonders. What distinguished these men was their single-minded devotion to God and their unflinching commitment to stay faithful to the traditional Christian doctrine handed over to them by the original Twelve Apostles under whom they learned. 

Unlike the modern-day self-appointed apostles who see themselves as big men of God, live extravagant lifestyles, and lord it over their followers as though they themselves are gods, the Apostolic Fathers lived simple and humble lives in the face of fierce opposition and excruciating persecutions.