Polycarp of Smyrna

Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna, in what is now western Turkey. He had known the apostle John. He had conversed with John’s disciples. He was, by the time of his death, the last living link to the apostolic age.

He was executed in 155 or 166 AD, at the age of eighty-six. The account of his martyrdom is the earliest reliable martyrdom narrative after the apostolic age, and it is preserved in a letter from the church of Smyrna to the church of Philomelium.

The Arrest

Polycarp was arrested during a wave of persecution in Asia Minor. He was betrayed by a servant under torture, and the police came for him at a country house outside the city. He could have fled. He had been urged to do so. Instead he said, “The will of God be done,” and waited.

He was brought before the proconsul in the stadium at Smyrna. The proconsul urged him to sacrifice to Caesar and save his life. Polycarp refused.

The Death

When the proconsul saw that Polycarp would not be moved, he announced to the crowd that Polycarp was a Christian. The crowd, made up largely of Jews and pagans who had gathered for a festival, cried out for him to be burned alive.

They gathered wood and built a pyre. Polycarp did not resist. He asked to be left untied, saying that the one who had given him strength to endure the fire would also give him strength to remain in the flame without being moved. They bound him anyway, and lit the fire.

The author of the martyrdom records that the fire did not consume him quickly, but formed a wall around him, and that the smell was not of burning flesh but of bread baking or of gold being refined in a furnace.

When the soldiers saw that the fire was not doing its work, one of them ran a sword through him, and the blood that came out extinguished the flames. The centurion then ordered the body to be burned completely, and the Christians of Smyrna collected the bones and buried them.

The Historical Question

The Martyrdom of Polycarp is the earliest Christian martyrdom narrative outside the New Testament that survives intact. It is preserved in multiple manuscripts and is cited by Eusebius and Irenaeus. The date is debated between 155 and 166 AD, but the core narrative is accepted by historians as authentic.

The personal link to John the apostle is confirmed by Irenaeus, who wrote around 180 AD that he had heard Polycarp speak of his conversations with John. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, and his testimony is early enough to be reliable.

The Chain

Polycarp is the last link in the chain. He was taught by John. He taught Irenaeus. He lived into the second century and died for the same claim the apostles had died for, in a public arena, before a Roman proconsul, at the age of eighty-six.

The chain that began in the upper room ended at a stake in Smyrna. The same confidence that filled the eleven when they first saw the risen Christ filled an old man as he died. And the men who saw him die wrote down what they saw, so that the next generation could know.