WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Cloud of Witnesses - Ep. 4: St. Polycarp of Smyrna

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Join Dominic and Marc as they examine the life and teaching of St. Polycarp of Smyrna.

Welcome back to Cloud of Witnesses, where we share the stories of the saints who helped shape the church. I'm Dominic Toronto. And I'm Mark Ayers. And today we are going to be talking about St. Polycarp of Smyrna. He is one of the earliest recorded extra sort of biblical characters that we have in church history. One of the earliest writers from whom we have some of his remaining works, almost universally beloved in his own time. It's going to be a fun episode.

We're excited to dive in. All right. So Mark, I'm just going to give a little bit of introduction, and then I'll kick it over to you for his history. So his feast day in the West is generally February 23rd, used to be January 21st. And the Coptic church, it's the 8th of March. He celebrated probably basically everyone who celebrates saints,

you know Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Coptics, all the other Eastern churches. I thought this is funny when I was doing research. He is the patron saint of those who suffer with earaches. Really? Yes. That's pretty niche. So, yeah, if you believe in the whole saintly intercession thing and you are suffering

with an earache, then give old St. Polycarp a shout and, you know, ask God for a favor for you. Huh. I'll leave that in mind. Yeah. All right. What do you have for us this week, Mark? Well, St. Polycarp was born in AD 69 and died either in AD 155 or in AD 166.

So a little bit on the different dating of his death. Eusebius dates it to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, which would be in between 166 and 167. However, a post-Uceby, in addition to the martyrdom of Polycarp, dates his death to Saturday, the 23rd of February, during the pro-concentral. ship of Lucius Staceous Quadratus, either in 155 or 156. Okay. Most sources tend to agree with the earlier dating, so that's the one we're going to use, which would put him at 86 years old when he died. Part of the reason that the earlier dates fit better is because many early sources,

including Ironaeus, Tertullian, and Jerome, all recount as fact, that St. Polycarp was a personal disciple of John the Apostle. Yeah. Alongside Ignatius of Antiocham. We don't know much about his very early life, but we do know that at some point he converted to Christianity. Ironaeus reports that he was converted by apostles themselves. Okay.

Who then consecrated him as a presbyter and began his ministry. Okay, yeah. He only wrote one work in his own life, his letter to the Philippians, which I believe you're going to talk about a little bit later. Yeah, yeah. Or I should say, sorry, we have one surviving work of his. He may well have written more. We have one surviving work that we know of, the letter to the Philippians. We do know a couple things about his time as a bishop, though. So according to Ironaeus,

who is our main source for much of Polycarp's life, Polycarp took a visit to Rome, actually. Oh, really? Okay. He did to visit the Bishop of Rome at the time, Anacetus. Okay. There was a minor dispute going on at the time between the churches of Anatolia and of Rome on a couple different things, one of which included the dating of Easter, which in the ancient world, I mean, really up until maybe the Middle Ages was a constant form of dispute. I mean, even in the 600s, we have B'd talking about the Irish complaining about the dating of Easter. Yeah, you have Celtic Christianity just had their own. Like they were also different from the Eastern. Like there are three different ways to date Easter.

It was really weird. at least. So to resolve this issue, along with a couple other minor things, Polycarp visits Rome at the time. He meets with, at the time, Pope Anacetus, and Irania states they speedily came to an understanding and agreed to observe Easter in each of their own respective traditions without breaking off full communion from one another.

The visit seems to have gone quite smoothly, which is interesting at the time, because disputes like this could be a great cause for, you know, real friction between different churches. But they seem to have resolved it pretty quickly. Yeah. Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, which of course is a city on the, on the western coast of what is today Turkey. He followed the Eastern practice of celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nissan, the day of the Jewish Passover,

regardless of the day of the week on which it fell. And Acidas, the Pope, followed the Western practice of celebrating the feast on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, which became pretty standard in the West. They agreed that they would, you know, to each their own in terms of that custom. And in fact, the visit seems to have gone so well that Anacetis allowed Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his own church. Yeah, that's a big deal, isn't it? That was a big honor by the Romans at the time to allow somebody else to celebrate the Eucharist in one of their churches.

So Polycarp is a martyr. He's one of the earliest martyrs. And it's recorded that he was burned at the stake for refusing to burn incense to the Roman emperor. Okay. On the day of his death, he's reported to have said, 80 and six years I have served him and he has done me no wrong.

Which is another one of those ambiguous things about the day of his death. Yeah. Because is that saying that he was 86 years old? that saying that he had converted 86 years ago, it's a little ambiguous. Yeah, yeah. Polycarp responding to the Roman emperor says,

How then can I blaspheme my king and savior? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a season and after a little while is quenched. But you are ignorant of the fire of the everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked. Wow, that's a pretty strong words for the emperor right there. Oh, yeah. The emperor was not happy, as you can imagine.

So Polycarp was burned at the stake, but according to the legend he did not burn and he was immune from the flames yeah so they had to kill him with a spear right that's right they pierced him with a sphere while he was still on the stake his last words were I bless you father for judging me worthy of the sour so that in the company of the martyrs I may share the cup of Christ

baller that's that's pretty bro just absolutely frame-mocked all the Romans St. Polycarp's writings are some of the earliest Christian writings that have survived to us to this day, excluding, of course, maybe the Bible. He's considered by almost every single Christian denomination to be Orthodox and to be a true Christian bishop. He's accepted by the Catholics, as well as the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, also widely by almost every mainstream Protestant group, the Church of God groups, and even sabbatarians.

Interesting, yeah, okay. According to Eusebius, Polycarp was cited in defensive local practices during the Quarto Decimant controversy. Yeah. Which is that same dating of Easter problem we talked about earlier. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about that when I get to my section. Perfect. Yeah.

That's great. And Ironaus describes his preaching, Polycarp's preaching, as having a much greater weight and more steadfast witness of truth than Valentine's and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. Not our St. Valentine's, of course. This is a different but he was as a direct link to the apostles. He was a mainstay for the tradition that they had passed on to him and was widely respected and remains widely respected among. almost every Christian group to this day. Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty, yeah, he's getting burned and then not burning and then getting, that's an intense way to go out. Oh, yes. Yeah, so I'm just going to give a little bit of background before I jump into his letter to the Philippians. You know, as Mark mentioned, he's one of the earliest, is not the earliest, you know, extra biblical Christian writer that we have with surviving works. Maybe St. Clement and his letter to the Corinthians earlier, but this is, this is

pretty dang early. Universally believed and said to have been an apostle of St. John, ordained a presbyter by him at Smyrna. Yeah, so the Cordodessman controversy, really important there. He's cited by the Cordodicemen's as an authority that supports them dating Easter on the 14th of Nissan, regardless of the day of the week and not, you know, putting it three days after Passover. He claimed that he learned this tradition from St. John himself.

Interesting. So, you know, as an apostle of St. John is saying, hey, like, this is, this is what my teacher told me. So, like, you know, imagine one of your, your profs that you're tight with. You go on, you know, a few decades later. You've talked about this, this, you know, specific topic. This is, like, sort of central to a lot of your relationship with them. And this is sort of something that you're claiming they said, practice, something like that. So, like, this is a pretty.

direct line of some Christian tradition of dating Easter. Sure. He also, it was living in an age, like the generation after the apostles sort of started dying off, which meant that with that came a bunch of individuals who tried to sort of twist the words of scripture, twist the words of Christ and the apostles into meaning things that they obviously didn't mean. So he cited as, you know, this big figure against the Marcionites and the Valentinian Gnostics. and he was sort of this bulwark there in favor of Orthodox Christianity,

you know, making sure that these heresies that were popping up, you know, were tamped down. He converted a ton of Marcionites and Valentinians. He was a very effective preacher. This seems to be where sort of most of his work was done. Again, didn't write a whole lot. The only surviving work we have from him is his letter to the Philippians. I don't know if he wrote anymore and we just don't have it

or if this is the only thing that we know that he wrote. Sure. I mean, we've lost so many scripts from that time. I mean, what is it? Augustine is constantly, like he's our source for

ancient writings, right? Because all of the originals are just gone. Yeah. So like a lot of our, so there's this atheist, quote, author named Kelsis. And the only way that we know that his work survives is from origin

who wrote a work against Kelsis. And so if it weren't for origin riding against Kelsus, then we wouldn't know that this guy even existed. So like that's a pretty common problem. Yeah, that's a very common sort of historiographical problem, especially with ancient history. He's also interestingly enough, this is the earliest example that we have of sort of extra biblical relic veneration. So if you take everything, you know, if you exclude scripture, You know, you have like St. Peter's handkerchief, which is like, you know, sort of relic-e-ish, I guess. But this is like, you know, this is from the moderndom of St. Polycarp.

They say, and so we afterwards took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together as we are able and gladness and joy, and to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom for the commemoration of those. that have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those that shall do so hereafter. So it's not like a super clear, like this is the way that they did sort of relic veneration, but like they took his bones, they brought it to a place, they went and they celebrated his feast day every year at the place where his bones are.

Like that's pretty early evidence, and, you know, there doesn't seem to be any problem with that that other Christians at the time and in the area had. So I'm going to jump right into his letter to the Philippians. This is, if you read it, this reads very much like one of like St. Paul's pastoral epistles. It starts off with, you know, the greeting goes into, you know, a series of certain exhortations. Then he talks about the duties of deacons, which again is just taken, you know, almost directly from First Timothy and St. Paul's sort of admonition for deacons. And then something interesting, he talks about, he writes to young men and young women, sort of advising them on how they should live their life.

And that's what he says to young men. He says, in like manner, let the young men also be blameless in all things, being especially careful to preserve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit, and neither fornicators nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind

shall inherit the kingdom of God, nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming, wherefore it is needful to abstain from all these things being subject to the presbyters and deacons as unto God and Christ. This is a kind of admonition, like, hey, sort of like, be careful out there. Like, especially it seems contextually in regards

to like sort of sexual sin. Yeah. Like this is something that, you know, in the ancient world, Christianity was kind of like the first big bastion against just sort of like this sort of sexual lasciviousness that was just so, so prominent in the culture of the day. Saint Polycarp's like, hey, especially young men, but he sort of tells us to the young women to be blameless sort of tell the same sort of admonition, but like, hey, you guys need to be careful because this stuff is all, you know, tools of the devil, tools of the flesh that sort of fight

against the spirit. He then goes on, talk about the duties of the presbyters. Again, very similar to what St. Paul says. He really emphasizes sort of the caring and tender and sort of like shepherdly aspects of the way the priests should act, like taking care, talking a lot about taking care of the poor, the sick, the widows, refraining from being covetous.

This will come in, especially covetousness, will come into play later in the epistle where he talks a little bit about a, a fallen presbyter named Valens. But yeah, so covetousness. And, you know, again, things that this sort of St. Paul talks about, very, very similar to sort of his abominations from the deacons. This kind of like Christianly, as we would associate like humble, meek,

and just acting, you know, purely out of love for those whom you are sort of presiding over. The next chapter, chapter seven, he talks about. about the Dossitist, which was a sort of Gnostic, anti-physicalist group of, you know, quote-unquote Christians. And he advocated for persevering and fasting and in prayer. He says, Wherefore forsake the vanity of many and their false doctrines, i.e. the Dossitists, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning,

watching unto prayer and persevering and fasting, beseeching in our, supplications the all-seeing God not to lead us into temptation as the Lord has said the spirit truly is willing but the flesh is weak so again like this is a lot of times when certain groups who are against fasting in Christian practice like this is this is something that has been from the beginning like fasting and it's also something that I think is a lot of times sort of overlooked in sort of the fasting aspect you know we're in the season of lent So it's particularly apt. As fasting is always tied with praying.

You don't just not eat to not eat. Right. There's a reason why you're not eating. It's for a purpose. It's for a purpose. That's to curb passions. And you're supposed to pair fasting with praying. So those two combined are really what builds up the body.

The next couple of chapters are really short. He just talks about perseverance in certain virtues. Like, hey, be virtuous, be, you know, act worthily. the gift that you have from Christ and the Holy Ghost. And then we get to this chapter, which is a little bit interesting. He is sort of expressing grief over a presbyter who has sort of fallen into some sort of sin. It's unclear exactly what sort of the, you know, what exactly happened. But he says, guard yourselves from covetousness and idolatry.

And then he also mentions his presbyter. His name is Valens, his wife. So it seems contextually that made. it was some sort of like adultery that he was in or they were in again not exactly clear but sort of this contention for within the presbyterate you know proper acting there's a certain again because of the station and ministry that these individuals have they have a certain obligation that you know all Christians you know should do in practice but them especially because they're put in charge over others.

They have a specific obligation to act out the Christian life in a unique way. He also mentions in this letter how, like St. Paul, he calls him Blessed Paul, ministered to them in Philippi. And this is just, I think this is cool, just a cool little historical bit. This would be like me writing to a church talking about the pastor that they had 30, 40 years ago. It's like, hey, your pastor was pretty cool. He's a pretty cool guy. And this is, you know, not only a pretty cool guy,

but like the greatest evangelist and, you know, greatest of the saints, St. Paul, who was at Philippi, you know, amongst them. And he's St. Paul Gartez, he was in the midst of them. He sort of acknowledges that while he is writing the letter of the Philippians, you know, one before, one before him has come, sort of set the groundwork for what St. Polycar is able to do. He's sort of able to write this letter, this pastoral letter,

on the assumption that the work that St. Paul did is still there, still operative. The ground is sort of prepared for what St. Polycarp has to say to all those at Philippi. Well, so that is St. Polycarp. Mark, is there anything you want to say before we sign off for this week? well dumb polycar once said that i have served christ 86 years ended no way has he dealt unjustly with me and you know what that's a pretty great thing to be able to say at the end of your life yeah especially while you're in the middle of getting burned and stabbed oh yes so yeah that's right what a great example what a great guy um and no i don't really have anything more to add

all right well thank you all for being here and you'll see you next See home.