The Martyrdom of Polycarp

The account of Polycarp’s death is a letter from the church of Smyrna to the church of Philomelium and to “all the congregations of the Holy and Catholic Church in every place”, taken down by one Evarestus (Martyrdom of Polycarp greeting; 20). Its writers say that they saw what they describe (Martyrdom of Polycarp 13–16).

Polycarp was a link to the first generation. Irenaeus, who had seen him as a boy, says that he was taught by apostles and appointed bishop of Smyrna by them, and that he was “a very old man” when he died (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4). Irenaeus also tells, in a letter that Eusebius quotes, that Polycarp visited Rome in the time of bishop Anicetus, where the two failed to agree on the keeping of Easter and parted in peace (Eusebius, Church History 5.24.16–17).

A persecution had broken out at Smyrna, and the crowd in the stadium, after watching a Christian named Germanicus die, shouted for Polycarp. The letter contrasts him with Quintus, who came forward of his own accord and then gave way: “we do not commend those who give themselves up” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 3–4). Polycarp withdrew to a farm, was betrayed by a servant under torture, had food set before the men sent to arrest him and prayed for two hours before going with them (Martyrdom of Polycarp 5–8).

In the stadium the proconsul urged him to swear by the fortune of Caesar and to curse Christ. He answered: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 9) He declared himself a Christian and was threatened with the beasts and with fire; the crowd then demanded that he be burned alive (Martyrdom of Polycarp 10–12). The letter says that the flames arched around him without consuming him, that an executioner then stabbed him, and that his blood put out the fire (Martyrdom of Polycarp 13–16).

The body was burned so that the Christians should not, as their opponents put it, leave the Crucified and “begin to worship this one”. The writers answer that they adore Christ as the Son of God and love the martyrs as his disciples and followers (Martyrdom of Polycarp 17–18). They gathered the bones, “more precious than the most exquisite jewels”, laid them in a fitting place, and intended to meet there each year on the anniversary of his death (Martyrdom of Polycarp 18). He was, the letter says, the twelfth to be martyred at Smyrna, counting those from Philadelphia (Martyrdom of Polycarp 19).

The letter presents itself as the work of eyewitnesses writing within a year of the death. It shows a church recording a martyr’s death for other churches, keeping his remains and marking the anniversary.