The Martyrdom of Polycarp
A letter from the church of Smyrna to the church of Philomelium describing the arrest and death of its bishop Polycarp. It presents itself as written by eyewitnesses within a year of his death.
Read the text at newadvent.org ↗Translation by J. B. Lightfoot, from a different Greek text (CCEL) ↗The long extract in Eusebius, Church History 4.15 (New Advent) ↗
The letter is addressed by “the Church of God which sojourns at Smyrna” to the church at Philomelium and to all churches. It says that it was written in answer to a request for a full account, that one Evarestus took it down and that a brother named Marcus carried it (20). The writers speak as eyewitnesses of the burning (15) and look forward to keeping the anniversary of the death (18), which implies that less than a year had passed.
It is a narrative written to edify. It draws repeated parallels between Polycarp’s last days and the passion of Jesus, and it reports wonders: a voice from heaven, flames that arch around the martyr without burning him, a sweet smell, and a dove that flies out when he is stabbed. Eusebius copied most of the letter into his Church History (4.15) early in the fourth century. His text does not have the dove, and it is an independent check on the manuscripts of the letter.
Chapter 21, which gives the day and names the proconsul Statius Quadratus, and the notes that follow on the copying of the text by Gaius, Socrates and Pionius, stand after the letter’s own farewell and are widely regarded as later additions. How much of the body of the letter has been reworked is debated. See the Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Cited in
- c. AD 155–156, estimated date