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| S. Polycarpus, engraving by Michael Burghers, c. 1685. |
Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp are regarded as three chief Apostolic Leaders. He was a disciple of the Apostle John. He was the Bishop of Smyrna and was martyred in 155 A.D., allegedly, by stabbing and then being burned.
The sole surviving work attributed to Polycarp is a "Letter to the Philippians;" it is first recorded by Irenaeus of Lyons.
Polycarp's letter to the Philippians has 60 NT quotes, 34 of which are from St. Paul. Unlike Ignatius, polity is not underscored. There are many references, direct and indirect, to the OT. Like Clement of Rome, the "canon" ruled.
A few helpful quotes from the Britannica.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/468353/Saint-Polycarp
Polycarp and Heresy/Gnosticism:
"More important, however, is the way in which Polycarp referred to the apostle Paul in The Letter to the Philippians. Not only does he repeatedly quote from Paul’s writings but he also stresses the personal importance of Paul as a primary authority of the Christian church. It must be remembered that at that time Paul had been adopted as a primary authority by the Gnostic heretics. Polycarp, in response, reclaimed Paul as a treasured figure of the orthodox church. It is apparently thus partly due to Polycarp that Paul, the disputed apostle, became a theologically respectable part of the Christian church’s tradition. Furthermore, Polycarp’s orthodox use of the Pauline texts marked a crucial advance in the Christian theology of biblical interpretation. According to certain scholars, Polycarp may even have composed or directly influenced some of the letters traditionally ascribed to St. Paul, the so-called Pastoral Letters (I and II Timothy, Titus). These letters possess a 2nd-century vocabulary and style that are characteristic of Polycarp."
"Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians is doubly important for its early testimony to the existence of various other New Testament texts. It probably is the first to quote passages from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and the first letters of St. Peter and St. John. Other immediate postapostolic writers employed a more oral tradition."
"By his major writing, The Letter to the Philippians, and by his widespread moral authority, Polycarp combated various heretical sects, including certain Gnostic groups that claimed religious salvation exclusively through their arcane spiritual knowledge. Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians contains a classic formulation in which he refutes the Gnostics’ argument that God’s incarnation in, and the death and Resurrection of, Christ were all imaginary phenomena of purely moral or mythological significance."
Polycarp and Paul, Matthew, Luke, Acts, Peter, John:
"More important, however, is the way in which Polycarp referred to the apostle Paul in The Letter to the Philippians. Not only does he repeatedly quote from Paul’s writings but he also stresses the personal importance of Paul as a primary authority of the Christian church. It must be remembered that at that time Paul had been adopted as a primary authority by the Gnostic heretics. Polycarp, in response, reclaimed Paul as a treasured figure of the orthodox church. It is apparently thus partly due to Polycarp that Paul, the disputed apostle, became a theologically respectable part of the Christian church’s tradition. Furthermore, Polycarp’s orthodox use of the Pauline texts marked a crucial advance in the Christian theology of biblical interpretation. According to certain scholars, Polycarp may even have composed or directly influenced some of the letters traditionally ascribed to St. Paul, the so-called Pastoral Letters (I and II Timothy, Titus). These letters possess a 2nd-century vocabulary and style that are characteristic of Polycarp."
"Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians is doubly important for its early testimony to the existence of various other New Testament texts. It probably is the first to quote passages from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and the first letters of St. Peter and St. John. Other immediate postapostolic writers employed a more oral tradition."
A few more good quotes from ccel.org are cited below. This is a good source. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/
Dates:
“Born some 30 years before the end of the 1st cent., and raised to the episcopate apparently in early manhood, he held his office to the age of 86 or more. He claimed to have known at least one apostle and must in early life have met many who could tell things they had heard from actual disciples of our Lord.”
John and other eyewitnesses to Christ's life-->Polycarp-->Irenaeus-->E
“Our knowledge of Polycarp's life between the date of his letter and his martyrdom comes almost entirely from 3 notices by IRENAEUS. The first is in his letter to FLORINUS; the second in the treatise on Heresies (III. iii. 4); the third in the letter of Irenaeus to Victor, of which part is preserved by Eusebius (v. 24). Irenaeus, writing in advanced life, tells how vivid his recollections still were of having been a hearer of Polycarp, then an old man; how well he remembered where the aged bishop used to sit, his personal appearance, his ways of going out and coming in, and how frequently he used to relate his intercourse with John and others who had seen our Lord, and to repeat stories of our Lord's miracles and teaching, all in complete accord with the written record.”
Quartodecimian Controversy:
“One of the latest incidents in Polycarp's active life was a journey which, near the close of his episcopate, he made to Rome, where Anicetus was then bishop. We are not told whether the cause of the journey was to settle points of difference between Roman and Asiatic practice; those existed, but did not interrupt their mutual accord. In particular Asiatic Quartodecimanism was at variance with Roman usage.”
παροικίαι of the holy Catholic Church, e.g. surrounding churches
“The story of the martyrdom of Polycarp is told in a letter still extant, purporting to be addressed by the church of Smyrna to the church sojourning (παροικούση) in Philomelium (a town of Phrygia) and to all the παροικίαι of the holy Catholic Church in every place. This document was known to Eusebius, who transcribed the greater part in his Eccl. Hist. (iv. 15). A trans. of this and of Polycarp's Ep. appears in the vol. of Apostolic Fathers in Ante-Nicene Lib. (T. & T. Clark). The occurrence of the phrase "Catholic Church" just quoted has been urged as a note of spuriousness; but not very reasonably, in the absence of evidence to make it even probable that the introduction of this phrase was later than the death of Polycarp. We know for certain that the phrase is very early. It is used in the Ignatian letters (Smyrn. 8), by Clem. Alex. (Strom. vii. 17), in the Muratorian Fragment, by Hippolytus (Ref. ix. 12) and Tertullian. Remembering the warfare waged by Polycarp against heresy, it is highly probable that in his lifetime the need had arisen for a name to distinguish the main Christian body from the various separatists.”
Occasion of death:
“The story relates that Polycarp's martyrdom was the last act of a great persecution and took place on the occasion of games held at Smyrna, eleven others having suffered before him. These games were probably held in connection with the meeting of the Asiatic diet (τὸ κοινὸν τῆς Ἀσίας), which met in rotation in the principal cities of the province.”
More details concerning his martyrdom, explicit ones, are found at CCEL.
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