The Burning of Polycarp

The church of God that lives as a stranger in Smyrna, to the church of God that lives as a stranger in Philomelium, and to all the sojourning communities of the holy and universal church in every place: may mercy, peace, and love from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied to you.

We have written to you, brothers, about those who bore witness by their deaths, and above all about the blessed Polycarp, who put a stop to the persecution — set a seal on it, you might say — by his own martyrdom. For nearly everything that happened before it happened so that the Lord might show us from above a martyrdom that matches the good news. He waited to be handed over, just as the Lord did, so that we too might become imitators of him, not looking only at what concerns ourselves but also at what concerns our neighbors. For it belongs to real and settled love to want not only to be saved yourself but all the brothers as well. [c]

So then, every martyrdom that took place according to the will of God was blessed and noble. For since we hold God in greater reverence than others do, we must credit him with authority over everything. [d]

And who could fail to admire their nobility, their endurance, their love for their Master? They were torn with whips until the inner workings of the flesh, down to the veins and arteries, could be seen, and they held out, while the bystanders wept and pitied them. Others reached such courage that not one of them made a sound or a groan, showing all of us that at the very hour they were being tortured, Christ’s noblest martyrs were away from the flesh — or rather, that the Lord was standing beside them and talking with them.

They kept their attention on the grace of Christ and thought nothing of the tortures of this world, buying eternal life at the cost of a single hour. The fire of their brutal torturers felt cold to them, because they had before their eyes the escape from that other fire, the eternal one that is never put out; and with the eyes of the heart they looked up at the good things kept for those who endure, which no ear has heard and no eye has seen and which have never entered a human heart — but which the Lord showed them, since they were no longer men but already angels.

In the same way, those condemned to the wild animals endured terrible punishments. They were laid out on sharp shells and worked over with other kinds of torture as well, so that the tyrant might, if he could, wear them down with drawn-out pain and turn them to denial. For the devil devised many things against them.

But thanks be to God: he did not prevail over all of them. The most noble Germanicus steadied the others in their fear by his own endurance, and fought the animals with distinction. When the proconsul wanted to talk him out of it and told him to take pity on his youth, he pulled the animal onto himself and forced it on, wanting to be free all the sooner of their unjust and lawless life. At this the whole crowd, astonished at the nobility of the God-loving and God-fearing race of the Christians, shouted out, “Away with the atheists! Find Polycarp!” [h]

But one man named Quintus, a Phrygian who had recently come from Phrygia, lost his nerve when he saw the animals. He was the one who had pushed himself and some others into coming forward of their own accord. The proconsul worked on him with a great deal of pleading and persuaded him to swear the oath and offer the sacrifice. That is why, brothers, we do not praise those who hand themselves in: this is not what the good news teaches. [j]

But the most admirable Polycarp, when he first heard of it, was not shaken. He wanted to stay in the city; most of the others urged him to slip away. So he withdrew to a small farm not far outside the city and stayed there with a few companions, doing nothing night or day except praying for everyone and for the churches throughout the world, which was his usual habit.

And while he was praying he fell into a trance, three days before he was arrested, and saw his pillow burning with fire. He turned to those who were with him and said, “I must be burned alive.”

When the men looking for him kept at it, he moved on to another farm, and his pursuers turned up there at once. When they did not find him, they seized two young slaves, and one of them confessed under torture. It was in fact impossible for him to stay hidden, since the ones who betrayed him were members of his own household. [k]

And the irenarch — who had been allotted the very same name, and was called Herod — was in a hurry to bring him into the stadium, so that Polycarp might complete the lot that was his own, becoming a partner with Christ, while the men who betrayed him would pay the same penalty as Judas.

So, with the boy in hand, on Friday about suppertime the police and the horsemen went out with their usual weapons, running as if against a bandit. Late in the day they closed in and found him lying down in an upstairs room. He could have gone on from there to another place, but he refused, saying, “God’s will be done.” [l]

So when he heard that they had arrived, he came down and talked with them. Those who were there were amazed at his great age and his steadiness, and that so much trouble had been taken to arrest an old man like this. He gave orders at once that a table be set for them, food and drink, as much as they wanted, at that very hour, and he asked them to give him an hour to pray undisturbed.

They allowed it, and he stood and prayed, so full of the grace of God that for two hours he could not be silent. Those who listened were astonished, and many were sorry that they had come out against such a godly old man.

When at last he stopped praying — having remembered everyone who had ever crossed his path, small and great, known and unknown, and the whole universal church throughout the world — the hour came for him to go. They sat him on a donkey and led him into the city. It was a great sabbath. [n]

The irenarch Herod and his father Nicetes met him, moved him over into their carriage, sat down beside him and worked on him, saying, “What harm is there in saying ‘Caesar is Lord,’ and offering the sacrifice, and everything that goes with it, and saving your life?” At first he gave them no answer; but when they kept at it he said, “I am not going to do what you advise.” Having failed to persuade him, they began saying terrible things to him and pulled him down out of the carriage in such a hurry that he scraped his shin as he came down. He did not so much as turn around. He went on eagerly and quickly, as though nothing had happened to him, and was led to the stadium, where the uproar was so great that no one could be heard.

As Polycarp was going into the stadium, a voice came from heaven: “Be strong, Polycarp, and be a man.” No one saw who was speaking, but those of our people who were there heard the voice. Then he was brought forward, and there was a great uproar when they heard that Polycarp had been arrested. [p]

When he was brought up, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. He admitted that he was, and the proconsul began trying to get him to deny it: “Have some respect for your years,” and the rest of what they usually say: “Swear by the fortune of Caesar. Think better of it. Say, ‘Away with the atheists.’” But Polycarp looked out with a hard face at the whole crowd of lawless Gentiles in the stadium, waved his hand at them, groaned, looked up to heaven and said, “Away with the atheists.”

The proconsul pressed him: “Swear, and I will let you go. Curse Christ.” Polycarp said, “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he has never done me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?”

When the proconsul kept it up and said, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar,” he answered, “If you flatter yourself that I will swear by Caesar’s fortune, as you put it, and pretend not to know who I am, then hear me say it plainly: I am a Christian. And if you want to learn what Christianity teaches, give me a day and listen.” [r]

The proconsul said, “Persuade the people.” But Polycarp said, “You I would have thought worth talking to, since we have been taught to give rulers and authorities appointed by God the honor that is due them, so long as it does us no harm. But those people I do not consider worth making a defense to.”

The proconsul said to him, “I have wild animals. I will throw you to them, unless you change your mind.” He answered, “Call them. For us there is no changing our minds from the better to the worse; but it is a good thing to change from what is cruel to what is right.” [s]

Again the proconsul said to him, “If you think nothing of the animals, I will have you burned up — unless you change your mind.” But Polycarp said, “You threaten me with a fire that burns for an hour and goes out a little later. You know nothing of the fire of the judgment to come and of the eternal punishment kept for the ungodly. But why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you like.”

While he was saying these things and much more, he was filled with courage and joy, and his face was full of grace, so that not only did he not collapse in dismay at what was said to him — on the contrary, it was the proconsul who was beside himself. He sent his herald to announce three times in the middle of the stadium: “Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian.” [t]

When the herald had said this, the whole crowd of Gentiles and Jews living in Smyrna shouted out with uncontrollable anger, at the top of their voices, “This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods — the man who teaches crowds of people not to sacrifice and not to worship!” Shouting this, they asked Philip the Asiarch to let a lion loose on Polycarp. He said he was not allowed to, since the beast hunts were already finished. Then they decided to shout with one voice that Polycarp should be burned alive. The vision he had been shown about his pillow had to be fulfilled: when he saw it burning while he was praying, he had turned to the believers with him and said, as a prophet, “I must be burned alive.”

All this happened faster than it takes to tell. The crowds immediately gathered logs and brushwood from the workshops and the baths, the Jews helping with it especially eagerly, as is their habit. [u]

When the pyre was ready, he took off all his outer clothes, loosened his belt, and tried to take off his own shoes as well — something he had not done before, because the believers were always competing over which of them would be first to touch his skin. Even before his martyrdom he had been decorated with every good thing, on account of the goodness of his way of life.

So they put around him at once the equipment made ready for the pyre. When they were about to nail him down as well, he said, “Leave me as I am. The one who gives me strength to endure the fire will also give me strength to stay at the pyre without moving, without the security of your nails.”

So they did not nail him; they tied him. He put his hands behind him and was tied like a choice ram out of a great flock, an offering, a whole burnt offering made ready and acceptable to God. He looked up to heaven and said: [v]

“Lord God Almighty, Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of you — God of angels and powers and of all creation, and of the whole race of the righteous who live in your presence — I bless you, because you have counted me worthy of this day and this hour, to take a share among the number of the martyrs, in the cup of your Christ, for the resurrection to eternal life of soul and body in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. May I be received among them in your presence today, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, just as you prepared it beforehand and revealed it beforehand and have now brought it about — you, the God who does not lie, the true God.”

“For this, and for everything, I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you, through the eternal and heavenly high priest Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through him be glory to you, together with him and the Holy Spirit, both now and for the ages to come. Amen.”

When he had sent up the Amen and finished his prayer, the men in charge of the fire lit it. A great flame blazed out, and we saw a wonder — we to whom it was given to see it, and who were kept alive to report to the rest what happened.

The fire took the shape of a vault, like a ship’s sail filled with wind, and walled the martyr’s body in on every side. And he was there in the middle of it, not like flesh burning, but like bread baking, or like gold and silver being fired in a furnace. In fact we caught the scent of such a sweet smell, as of frankincense breathing out, or some other costly spice.

At last, when the lawless men saw that his body could not be consumed by the fire, they ordered the confector to go up to him and drive in a dagger. When he did it, a dove came out, and a great quantity of blood, so that the fire was put out and the whole crowd was amazed that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the chosen. [y]

One of the chosen was this most admirable martyr Polycarp, who in our own times was an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and overseer of the universal church in Smyrna. For every word that went out of his mouth either has been fulfilled or will be.

But the rival, the envious, wicked one, the enemy of the race of the righteous, saw the greatness of his martyrdom and the blameless life he had led from the beginning, saw him crowned with the crown of incorruption and carrying off a prize no one could dispute — and he took pains that we should not get even his poor body, though many wanted to do that and to have a share in his holy flesh. [ab]

So he put it into the head of Nicetes, Herod’s father and Alce’s brother, to petition the governor not to hand over his body. “Otherwise they will leave the crucified one and start worshiping this man,” he said. They said this because the Jews put them up to it and kept pressing them, and had been watching us when we were about to take him out of the fire. They did not know that we can never abandon Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those being saved — the blameless one for sinners — and that we can never worship anyone else.

Him we worship, because he is the Son of God; the martyrs we love as they deserve, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, for the devotion they showed their own King and teacher, which nothing can surpass. May we too become their partners and fellow disciples!

So the centurion, seeing the quarrel the Jews had stirred up, set the body out in the middle and burned it, as is their custom. [ae]

That is how we were able afterward to take up his bones — more valuable than costly stones, and finer than gold — and lay them where it was fitting. There the Lord will let us gather, as far as we are able, in gladness and joy, to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already fought their contest and for the training and readiness of those who come after.

So this is the account of the blessed Polycarp. He was the twelfth to be martyred in Smyrna, counting those from Philadelphia, and yet he alone is especially remembered by everyone, so that even the Gentiles talk about him everywhere. He was not only a distinguished teacher but an outstanding martyr, and everyone wants to imitate his martyrdom, since it went the way the good news of Christ goes. [ag]

By his endurance he defeated the unjust governor, and so received the crown of incorruption; and now, rejoicing with the apostles and all the righteous, he glorifies God the Father Almighty and blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls, the pilot of our bodies, and the shepherd of the universal church throughout the world.

You asked us to tell you at greater length what happened. For now we have sent you a summary, through our brother Marcion. When you have learned all this, send the letter on to the brothers further away, so that they too may glorify the Lord, who makes his choices from among his own servants. [ah]

To him who is able to bring all of us by his grace and gift into his heavenly kingdom, through his only Son Jesus Christ, be glory, honor, power, and greatness forever. Greet all the holy ones. Those who are with us greet you, and so does Evarestus, who wrote this out, with his whole household.

The blessed Polycarp bore his witness on the second day of the month Xanthicus, just begun — the seventh day before the first of March — on a great sabbath, at about two in the afternoon. He was arrested by Herod, when Philip of Tralles was high priest and Statius Quadratus was proconsul, but when Jesus Christ was king forever. To him be glory, honor, greatness, and an eternal throne, from generation to generation. Amen. [aj]

We pray that you may keep well, brothers, walking in line with the word of Jesus Christ that is according to the good news. With him be glory to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit, for the salvation of the holy chosen ones — the salvation for which the blessed Polycarp bore his witness. May we be found following in his footsteps in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. [al]

Gaius copied these things out from the papers of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp; Gaius had also lived as a fellow citizen with Irenaeus. And I, Socrates, wrote them out at Corinth from the copies of Gaius. Grace be with you all.

And I, Pionius, wrote them out again from the copy above, after searching them out, since the blessed Polycarp made them known to me in a revelation, as I will explain in what follows. I gathered them together when they had nearly worn away with time, so that the Lord Jesus Christ may gather me too, along with his chosen ones, into his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.