What is Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians?

Polycarp. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp. He says that "Polycarp was instructed by the apostles, and was brought into contact with many who had seen Christ." He is called the bishop of Smyrna. We have already given an account of his martyrdom. He wrote an Epistle to the Philippians, which is mostly exhortations, and abounds with quotations from the Apostolic Epistles; but in one place he quotes the Apocrypha: "When you can do good, defer it not, because 'alms deliver from death.'" (Tobit.) This stamps it at once as uninspired: alms do not deliver from death.

POLYCARP, Bishop of Smyrna. He wrote an epistle to the Philippians about A.D. 125, Irenaeus says Polycarp was "instructed by the apostles, and was brought into contact with many who had seen Christ." He died a martyr's death. An ancient letter gives a particular account of his martyrdom.

In Polycarp we have one of the best of these epistles, and he quotes Paul to the Ephesians: "Knowing that by grace ye are saved, not by works, but by the faith of God, through Jesus Christ," again making it vague. We have no recognition of the Holy Ghost: I do not mean that he denies it. It is forgotten; but the clergy (though he has not a notion of episcopacy in an individual, nor writes as such, but the contrary) are fully recognized, "being subject to the priests and deacons as unto God and Christ." In fine, there is no harm in the epistle, not a trace of the gospel, save the quotation of Paul, Christ's death being used as an example, no recognition of the Holy Ghost, or any gift of the Spirit, but a full recognition of the clergy.

But another and more serious remark is needed. Much is said of the Apostolic and early Fathers, especially by those who are not very familiar with their remains. Now I do not envy those who despise such men as Athanasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Hilary, Augustine and Jerome, nor even Origen and Tertullian, spite of many wild views. Had the best of these followed close after the Apostles, the difference of inspired and non-inspired would have been obvious to a spiritual man. But in the providence of God no writer followed for a century, save of the feeblest calibre — none but men singularly deficient in power of the Spirit and intelligence in Scripture, or even in commanding human qualities, if we except Clement of Rome. To whom are we to turn from the Word of God for light and guidance? Is it to the Pseudo-Barnabas with his cabalistic trifles? Is it to the Shepherd of Hermas, with his worse than puerile visions? Clement adheres most to Scripture, and speaks of bishops and deacons, his sobriety contrasting favourably with the incessant exaltation of the three orders, particularly his own, in the letters of Ignatius. I do not wonder that some attribute Episcopacy, as distinct from the elders, to the president of Antioch: for his zeal in putting forward that new thing would be not unnatural in its inventor. What would be thought of an Archbishop or a Pope who urged the faithful to regard the Bishop in the place of God, the Presbyters as the Apostles, and the Deacons as the command of God? What, if he gave such a voucher as this, "the Spirit declared to me these words, Do ye nothing without the Bishop?" His piety might be incontestible, his subsequent martyrdom always claiming our respect; but a new revelation from the Spirit in support of a dogma about the bishop, unheard of in Scripture and incompatible with teaching really inspired, can only have been at best a delusion, naturally in keeping with his one idea. Polycarp's letter to the Philippians is Christian in its tone, but it contains no decisive evidence on the point.

43 In the epistle of Smyrna, on the martyrdom of Polycarp, the holy catholic (universal) Church in every place is spoken of the particular Church is spoken of as paroikia paroikoises, sojourning. The catholic Church which is in Smyrna (sec. 16). Christ is shepherd of the catholic (universal) Church in the whole world. Except the fact that the whole existing Church in the world is one universal one, there is little doctrinal to assist us in this epistle. It is received as genuine; how far it is to be considered free from interpolation must rest upon the general confidence which one has in these remains of antiquity, where the system of pious frauds and fabricated gospels and writings was so abundantly at work. I know of no suspicion cast upon it.

44 This is all the testimony of the apostolic fathers on the point. Polycarp to the Philippians affords no additional light. He was a connecting link in point of time between those who succeeded the apostle and the third generation of Christian writers.

310 Polycarp affords us the same testimony; he writes to the Philippians, desires them to be subject to the presbyters, but wholly ignores any so-called bishop, and speaks of the elders that were with him. Ignatius addresses him as bishop; and there is no doubt that Ignatius recognized the office. He does not in writing to the Romans or Ephesians in the Syriac; but the bishop is mentioned apart from elders, and no doubt there were such - not diocesan, which were very much later - in local churches. Ignatius uses them only to urge a spirit of subjection and so of unity. If the Greek epistles are nearly of this date, as some allege, it would be a proof that it was a new thing which, from the coming in of disorder and heresies, led the forger of them, finding that Ignatius had once so spoken in his letter to the Ephesians, to urge submission to the bishops and elders with a gross and offensive elaborateness of repetition, using Ignatius' name to give it currency. At all events we have no trace of a bishop till near the end of the first quarter of the second century, all previous testimony positively contradicting the existence of such.

In the Fathers we get to a date yet earlier than any version. We reach up to some who are believed to have been instructed by the apostles personally, and who came into contact with many who had seen our Lord. The few who are accredited to have lived in the time of the apostles, called Apostolic Fathers, and who are referred, to as quoting scripture, are, 1, Clement, supposed to be the one named in Philippians 4:3 (now called Clement of Rome, to distinguish him from Clement of Alexandria). 2, Polycarp, martyred A.D. 169. 3, Barnabas, first or second century. 4, Ignatius, martyred A.D. 107.

270 But we have enough to shew that, immediately after the apostles (beginning with Clement, Paul's companion, whose epistles no one questions, Barnabas, of the same date, whoever wrote it, soon after 70; Ignatius, some say 106, others 116; Polycarp at the same date; Hermas some 50 years later) we have a collection of writings which express the then current thoughts and views, and which were more or less publicly read. Now in these writings we do not find a trace of the gospel, and redemption, and salvation, and blessings, which are found in Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, John, or even Peter, who does not go so far as Paul and John; nor do we find the practical recognition of the Holy Ghost. I speak of their teachings. Polycarp and Ignatius were, no doubt, saints; Barnabas and Clement, it may be too, though in the last less appears; yet I would not call it in question. On the other hand the clergy and sacraments, particularly baptism (Paul was not sent to baptize), are the constituent elements of the church they are conversant with. They own Christ's death of course, but its effect or application, and the Christian's place, as Paul and other apostles put it, are nowhere found.

The first obvious testimony to the first epistle is found with Polycarp of Smyrna (around 70 to 155 AC) in his letter to the Philippians. Irenaeus (around 140 to 202 AC), Clemens of Alexandria (around 150 to 215 AC), Tertullian (around 160 to 220 AC) and Origines (around 185 to 254 AC) all testify that Peter is the author of this epistle.

Ignatius. There are, bearing his name, Epistles — 1, to the Ephesians; 2, to the Magnesians; 3, to the Trallians; 4, to the Romans; 5, to the Philadelphians; 6, to the Smyrnaeans; and 7, an Epistle to Polycarp. Of all these there are longer and shorter copies; and of those to the Ephesians, to the Romans, and to Polycarp, Syriac copies have been discovered, differing from both the long and the short. The whole shews how shamefully the writings have been tampered with, so that no one knows really what Ignatius wrote. Some consider the short epistles in the Syriac copies as most likely to be genuine. We have elsewhere quoted these Epistles on the subject of the place and power to be given to the bishop. Besides the above, there are several others (one to the Virgin Mary) undoubtedly spurious.