them (Rev. ii. 9)—found their opportunity. Their vengeance then was only slaked by the blood of the Christian Bishop.
The Saint's martyrdom was the crowning consummation of the Saint's life. With the Bishop of Durham's help we can now collect all that we shall probably ever know of both; and to this we turn in conclusion.[89]
The date of his martyrdom may be accepted as about 155 a. d.[90] If Polycarp was then 86 years of age, his birth may be placed in a. d. 60 or 70, at a time nearly coincident with the date of the destruction of Jerusalem. That event was the cause which drove St. John to fix his abode ultimately at Ephesus, the traditional home of St. Andrew, and near to the Phrygian Hierapolis, where St. Philip the Apostle died and was buried. The proximity of Smyrna to Ephesus, and the reputation accorded to both in the flattering designation of 'the two eyes' of proconsular Asia, would make intercourse between the cities familiar and frequent. In the Christian advantages consequent upon such intercourse Polycarp had his full share, if it be impossible to assert positively that he was a Smyrnæan by birth, and of Christian parentage. But the legends at the close of the fourth century, as embodied in the story of Pionius, sought and found for his origin a more romantic, if sad, beginning. One night, God's Angel appeared to a widow of Smyrna named Callisto, rich in worldly wealth, but still more rich in good work. 'Go,' he bade her, 'to the Ephesian gate. There you will find two men. They have with them a young lad for sale. Give them their price, and take and keep the child. He is by birth an Eastern.' The child was Polycarp. She did as she was bid. She bought and reared him, and eventually left to him all her substance. The fact implied in the last words, that Polycarp was a comparatively well-to-do man, is the one fact out of the above story supported by more authentic documents. Perhaps also the picture of the man, so pleasing and natural, drawn by Pionius, may present traits faithful to the original:—
'The love of knowledge and the fondness of the Scriptures, which distinguishes the people of the East, bore rich fruit in him. He offered himself a whole offering to God, by prayer and study of the Scriptures, by spareness of diet and simplicity of clothing, by liberal almsgiving. He was bashful and retiring, shunning the busy throngs of men, and consorting only with those who needed his assistance. When he met an aged wood-carrier outside the walls, he would purchase his burden, would carry it himself to the city, and would give it to the widows living near the gate. The Bishop Bucolus cherished him as a son, and he in turn requited his love with filial care and devotion.'
But we may catch from real and genuine sources three glimpses of the man: in youth as the disciple of St. John, in middle age as the champion of Ignatius, in closing life as the teacher of Irenæus. Of the circle of disciples who gathered round St. John, Polycarp is indubitably the most famous. He delighted, in his declining years, to tell his younger friends what he had himself heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's life on earth; and he would dwell especially on his intercourse with the Apostle of Love. There is nothing improbable in the belief, that he was ordained to the episcopate by the venerable Apostle. Among his contemporaries were Clement, Papias, and Ignatius. Polycarp knew, as has been stated, the letter of the great Bishop of Rome, and Papias—his 'companion,' as Irenæus[91] calls him—became his neighbour at Hierapolis. But it is with Ignatius that the younger man is inseparably linked. They met, probably for the first (and only) time, at Smyrna when the great Bishop of Antioch was on his way to martyrdom at Rome. Touching in their affectionateness are the remarks which each passes upon each. Polycarp inspires Ignatius with 'love.' The younger man is to the older 'most blessed,' 'clothed with grace,' marked by 'fervid sincerity,' a man 'whose godly mind is grounded on an immovable rock' (Letter to Polycarp). To Polycarp, Ignatius 'the blessed' is the pattern of men, 'obedient unto the word of righteousness and practising all endurance,' 'encircled in saintly bonds which are the diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and our Lord.' The two men parted, never again to meet on earth, yet to be linked together by 'martyrdom comformable to the Gospel' But ere that 'birthday' arrived, Polycarp had to live for nearly half a century; and potent was his influence upon the men of a younger generation. Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and Polycrates, famous among the Fathers of Asia, must have known him well; Justin Martyr visited him from Ephesus; but mightiest and dearest of all was his pupil Irenæus, the champion of orthodoxy against Gnosticism.
'When I was still a boy,' wrote Irenæus, '(I was) in company with Polycarp in Asia Minor.... I can tell the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, his goings out and comings in, his manner of life and his personal appearance, his discourses which he gave to the people, and his description of his intercourse with John, and the rest of those who had seen the Lord.'[92]
Those were reminiscences and lessons never forgotten by the future Bishop of Lyons. To him, as to 'all the churches of Asia and to the successors of Polycarp' himself, the pupil of St. John was 'a much more trustworthy and safe witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion, and all such wrong-minded men.'[93]
The end came at last. A persecution was raging; how or why we know not. All that can be known is told in the 'Letter of the Smyrnæans.'[94] The simplicity and pathos of the story, as told by this ancient document, so moved the great Scaliger, that he felt hardly master of himself. We cannot tell the tale of triumph in better words than in those of that exquisite piece of ecclesiastical antiquity. The great annual festival was being held at Smyrna, presided over by the Asiarch and 'high priest'[95] Philip, a wealthy citizen of the wealthy Tralles, and graced by the presence of the Proconsul Statius Quadratus. The persecutor had asked for blood, and blood had been granted him. Already several victims, Philadelphians, 'so torn by lashes that the mechanism of their flesh was visible even as far as the inward veins and arteries,' had 'endured patiently;' showing to the weeping bystanders such bravery that the explanation became current—'(these) martyrs of Christ being tortured, were absent from the flesh, or rather the Lord was standing by and conversing with them.' Others 'condemned to the wild beasts, endured fearful punishments, being made to lie on sharp shells and buffeted with other forms of manifold tortures, that the devil might, if possible, by the persistence of the punishment bring them to a denial; for he tried many wiles against them.' Men remembered afterwards how 'the right noble Germanicus,' scorning the pity the Proconsul would have extended to his youth, 'used violence, and dragged the wild beast towards him.' Such bravery, 'the bravery of the God-fearing and God-beloved people of the Christians,' only whetted the pagan thirst for blood. There rang out the shout, 'Away with the atheists![96] Let search be made for Polycarp!' He had gone against his will into the country, probably to one of his own farms; and he was found without much difficulty. He placed before his captors food and drink, and asked but a single boon of them—'one hour that he might pray unmolested.' Those mounted soldiers, 'wondering why there should be such eagerness for the apprehension of an old man like him,' gave their consent. 'He stood up and prayed; and being full of the grace of God, for two hours he could not hold his peace, so that they who heard him were amazed, and many repented that they had come against such a venerable old man.' They brought him to the city, seated on an ass. Steadily did he refuse the real and sincere endeavours of compassionate heathen to 'save himself.' 'What harm,' they asked, 'is there in saying, Cæsar is Lord, and offering incense?' He would only answer, 'I am not going to do what you counsel me.' As he entered the stadium, the human roar, fiercer and more cruel than that of wild beasts, rose above every other sound. Polycarp did not heed it; a voice came to him from heaven, 'Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man;' and, nerved by what other Christians had also heard, he stood at last before Statius. Words, at first pitiful, greeted him: 'Have respect to thine age!—Swear by the genius of Cæsar! Say, "Away with the atheists."' The Saint caught up the last word. He 'looked with solemn countenance upon that vast multitude of lawless heathen; and groaning and looking up to heaven, he said, 'Away with the atheists.' Was he then yielding? The Proconsul had misunderstood him, but he pressed him hard and said 'Swear the oath, and I will release thee. Revile the Christ!' Polycarp looked him in the face, and gave him the answer which can never die. 'Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King Who saved me?' The words of pity changed into threats. 'I have wild beasts here,' said Statius, 'and I will throw thee to them except thou change thy mind.' 'Call them,' was the unflinching answer. 'If thou despisest the wild beasts, I will cause thee to be consumed by fire.' Polycarp remembered a dream of three days before in which he had seen his pillow burning with fire, and which he had interpreted to those with him as signifying that he would be burnt alive. He answered now, 'Thou threatenest that fire which burneth for a season and after a little while is quenched. For thou art ignorant of the fire of the future judgment and eternal punishment, which is reserved for the ungodly:' and then he added—in his impatience to be 'made a partaker with Christ'—'But why delayest thou? Come, do what thou wilt.' Saying this, 'he was inspired with courage and joy, and his countenance was filled with grace.'
The herald's proclamation was soon heard announcing three times, 'Polycarp hath confessed himself to be a Christian;' and again the human yell broke forth from Gentile and Jew, this time fashioning itself into distinct speech: 'This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the puller down of our gods, who teacheth numbers not to sacrifice nor worship.... Let the lion loose upon him!' 'That is impossible' was the answer of the Asiarch, 'for the sports have closed.' They shouted out 'with one accord, "Burn him alive!" Quicker than words could tell, the crowds collected timber and faggots from workshops and baths, and the Jews especially assisted in this with zeal, as was their wont.' They placed around him the 'instruments prepared for the pile,' and were going to nail him to the stake. He interposed with his last request of men, 'Leave me as I am. He that hath granted me to endure the fire, will grant me also to remain at the pile unmoved, without the security you seek from nails.' They 'tied him to the stake.' He stood up 'like a noble ram out of a great flock for an offering, a burnt-sacrifice made ready and acceptable to God;' and looking up to heaven, made his last request of God in one of the noblest prayers preserved in ancient or modern literature. His Amen said, 'the firemen lighted the fire. The mighty flame flashed forth,' and men saw then, what in later days they saw repeated at the martyrdom of a Savonarola and of a Hooper,[97] the fire, 'like the sail of a vessel filled with wind, surrounding as with a wall the body of the martyr. It was there in the midst, not like flesh burning, but like gold and silver refined in a furnace.' Could he not die?
'Lawless men, seeing that his body could not be consumed by the fire, ordered an executioner to go up to him and stab him with a dagger. And when he had done this, there came forth a quantity of blood,[98] so that it extinguished the fire; and all the multitude marvelled that there should be so great a difference between the unbelievers and the elect.'