Catholic Church. Nor is it permitted without the bishop either to
baptize or to celebrate the agape...” (Ibid. 8, 1).
Due to St. Ignatius’ direct association with the Apostles themselves his
writings are an invaluable testimony to the faith and practice of the
Apostolic and immediate post-Apostolic Church. Up until the fifteenth
century, fifteen epistles were attributed to St. Ignatius including ones
addressed to the Virgin Mary and St. John. However, later, eight of these
were recognized as spurious. The authenticity of the remaining seven
Ignatian epistles was also long challenged by Protestants due to their clear
presentation of an hierarchical and monarchical Church. Three versions of
these seven epistles circulated, known respectively as the long, short and
mixed recensions. The authenticity of the mixed recension has now been
acknowledged by both Catholic and Protestant scholars including
Lightfoot, Harnack, Zahn and Funk.
There exists no reliable eyewitness account of the actual death of St.
Ignatius in Rome. Undoubtedly, he lived up to his words in his epistle to
the Romans. One tradition states that the final scene took place on
December 19th in the Flavian Ampitheatre, that the death was probably the
work of one moment, and afterwards his bones were collected by his
friends and returned to Antioch.
Like St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp of Smyrna was also a disciple of
St. John the Apostle and was conversant with many who had beheld Christ:
“He was instructed by Apostles, and had had familiar intercourse with
many who had seen Christ.”³ At eighty-five years of age he could still
vividly remember St. John’s personal accounts of Christ’s miracles and
teaching and relate them on to his own disciples. This is the same Polycarp
to whom St. Ignatius addressed one of his epistles. St. Polycarp’s long life
links the teachers and theologians of the mid-second century to the
Apostolic founders of the Church.
We know some details of the life of St. Polycarp through his pupil St.
Irenaeus of Lyons. St. Polycarp was born of Christian parents and hence
was a believer in Christ from his childhood: “Eighty-six years I have served
him, and He has never done me wrong” (The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp 9,
3). He was considered a father figure in the Church of Asia Minor by
Christians and pagans alike. Tertullian states that it was St. John who
3
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3, 3, 4, (180 AD).
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