Saint Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr

Polycarp was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian say that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, one of Jesus's disciples. In On Illustrious Men, Jerome similarly writes that Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle, who had ordained him as a bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp is regarded as one of three chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. The sole surviving work attributed to him is the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, a mosaic of references to the Septuagint, which, along with an account of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, forms part of the collection of writings called Apostolic Fathers. After the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the death of Stephen, the Martyrdom is considered one of the earliest genuine accounts of a Christian martyrdom. Charles E. Hill argues extensively that the teachings Irenaeus ascribes to a certain apostolic presbyter throughout his writings represent lost teachings of Polycarp, his teacher. Within the lost epistle of Irenaeus to Florinus as cited by Eusebius within his Ecclesiastical History book 5.20. we observe Irenaeus make mention of multiple epistles authored by him to the neighbouring churches and to certain individuals. Some scholars (e.g., Hans von Campenhausen) attribute the pastoral epistles—the biblical books 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus—to Polycarp. Since the text of those books includes attribution to Paul, this theory regarding Polycarp's authorship places the books in the category of pseudepigrapha.