Martyrs and Relics: Martyrdom of Polycarp
The circular letter known as the "Martyrdom of Polycarp" is one of the most remarkable documents that has survived from the early Church. The letter, which is sent from the Church in Smyrna to the Church in Philomelium (a church in Phrygia/Pisidia put under the authority of Antioch), is the earliest authentic, eye-witness, and detailed account of a Christian martyrdom. In addition to Mss containing the letter, much of it is also preserved in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius dates the event to the late 160's, but better evidence puts it in 155, perhaps during the Jewish feast of Purim. The persecution in Smyrna would, then, have taken place under that most benign of emperors, Antonius Pius, who, it is said (by Melito quoted by Eusebius), had forbidden popular attacks on Christians
I am not going to go through the letter, passage by passage but will limit my own discussion to a few important points. Participants may, however, take up any part that interests them.
The first subject I want to address is the character of Polycarp and his view of martyrdom. Both the letter he received from Ignatius and his own Epistle to the Philippians evince a high regard for martyrs, particularly those who had been killed in Rome. We are not, then, surprised that this very old man (at least 85), when he hears of the persecution, is content to stay in Smyrna and face death. However, his flock persuades him to leave town. His calm acquiescence is impressive. He does not seek martyrdom nor does he fly from it. His whereabouts, however, are betrayed by a young slave under torture. In hiding, Polycarp had a vision and when he came out of the trance, he said, "I must be burned alive." Placed under arrest, he said only, "The will of God be done." He asked only permission to pray, which he did, aloud, for two hours.
Taken into Smyrna, Polycarp is asked by the "director of public safety" and his father, to save himself by offering a sacrifice and referring to Caesar as "lord," and when he refused, they threatened him. The Proconsul is more polite to the old man and begs him to utter a few formulaic phrases. Polycarp is adamant: "For 86 years I have been His servant, and He has done my no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King/Emperor who saved me? Threatened with beasts, he replies: "Do what you will."
It must have been a remarkable performance--though that is exactly the wrong word for his natural and unaffected courage. But it only enrages the enemies of the Cross. The Jews in particular are ferocious in demanding his death. When the proconsul, after hearing the shouts, asks Polycarp once more to recant, he tells him, if he wants to persist, to persuade the mob of his. Polycarp has no desire to stir the crowd with passionate oratory and tells the Roman governor, "You I would consider worthy to hold a discussion with, since we are taught to pay respect to and do our duty by the princes and authorities established by God, but as for them, I do not consider them worthy people to whom I should address my apologia." We could not ask for a clearer example, either of Christian patience or of Christian respect for lawful authority, even as it is persecuting us to death. Polycarp also distinguishes, I think, between the calm official who is capable of listening to a reasoned discourse and an angry mob whose passions are unconstrained.
If we were to take Polycarp as a model, then, we should neither seek martyrdom nor flee in fear, but neither should we boast of our sufferings or our courage. Indeed, the letter condemns one young man who boasted of his courage and volunteered for martyrdom only to recant when faced with the terrors. Here we have no hysterics, no refusal to eat, no defiance of authority.
Polycarp proved hard to kill, and when burning failed, his executioners used a knife. Egged on by Jews in the crowd, the authorities then burn the corpse to prevent veneration. Nonetheless, "we afterwards took up his bones which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place; where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom for the commemoration of those that have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those that shall do so hereafter."
The letter does not seem to regard the veneration of these relics as a novel event, suggesting that some time before 155 it had become the practice to pay respect to the bones or possessions of saints and martyrs. Roughly 90 years earlier, Peter had been martyred at Rome in a race course across the Tiber. According to tradition, a shrine was built at the site of his burial, and this was transformed into the Basilica of St. Peter's built by Constantine. Modern archaeological research, done mostly by non-Catholics, has established that the site right under the main altar has been a place of worship since early Christian times. Indeed, the cemetery-church is a well-known phenomenon.
That a place or piece of bone or scrap of clothing should possess some special power seems, to many Christians today, merely superstitious, but not to our Lord, who felt some power or virtue go out of him when the woman touched his garment.
There is no confusion between the worship of God and the respect paid to a martyr's relics. In 17.3, the letter declares "For Him, being the Son of God, we adore, but the martyrs as disciples and imitators of the Lord we cherish as they deserve for their matchless affection towards their own King and Teacher. May it be our lot also to be found partakers and fellow-disciples with them."
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Just an aside: I remember being in several college religion classes which would purposely emphasize the Roman hand in Jesus' crucifixion and deemphasize the Jewish role. The purpose was apparently to exonerate the Jews who were demanding His death and therefore counter antisemitism. When reading Polycarp, though, it is easy to see that many of the Jews during this time were at the forefront vociferously demanding the death of Christians.
"We could not ask for a clearer example, either of Christian patience or of Christian respect for lawful authority, even as it is persecuting us to death." God grant that this be engraved on my heart.
@1 Edward.
So what else is new? As I followed the "pedophile priest" scandal, I could not help noticing that none of the reporters assigned to cover the stroy (at least in the Washington Post/New York Times) had names such as O'Hara, Ruzansky, or even Gonzalez. More common were Goldbergs, Rosenbaums, etc. ad nauseam. The attack against God's new chosen people continues unabated. If you don't believe me, then ask an Arab Christian from Ramallah why life in Israel's socialist paradise has become intolerable.
I don't accept the premise that it is biblical to be respectful of lawful authority if that authority is satanic, barbaric or clearly, not of God. If the lawful authority ordered a man of God to slit the throat of his children, is it "christian patience" to submit to this lawful authority?
Is it christian patience to permit "lawful authority" to confiscate your children?
I would argue that it is my duty to Christ that I submit myself to lawful authority that is in submission to Godly commandments, and to defend and resist all authority that is not itself in submission to God's law and God's order for society. I have no duty or obligation to tyrants, miscreants, political scum that does not have as their authority a Biblical basis in law and fact.
Our founding fathers rejected "ungodly" authority named King George the inbred. The crowned clown of England was the "head of the church". Thank God we replaced the crown of a clown with a Constitution that has our "creator's" authority as supreme law, even if this is not recognized by law professors and Supreme Court justices.
Polycarp faced two groups in apposition to him. The Roman civil authorities and the religious zealots. He represented himself, and didn't hire a member of the ABA to represent himself. A modern ABA member would proclaim Polycarp had a fool for a client. The ABA member is a fool, and Polycarp was simply doing what God required him to do; represent himself. Polycarp knew that his only logical appeal was to an authority that had an allegience to a dictator named Caesar, and Caesar alone. Roman civil law was a safe bet. The zealots had no authority, save their interpretation of law of their own making. Neither authority, Caesar or the religious zealots represented Godly authority.
Because Caesar was "god" in his own mind, the result was as expected. The zealots, the more dangerous, created a god of their own making. They have an emotional zeal rooted in their idol, self. Anyone who challenges their "idol" will be met with fierce apposition. Polycarp took his chances with Rome. Jesus told us to avoid these situations, if at all possible.
I admire Polycarps stand to snub the zealots. Jesus didn't respond to the zealot's obsurd accusations, Polycarp must have heard about the trial in Jerusalem, and chose the path Jesus took.
No believer in Christ has an obligaton or duty to respect tyranny in any form. In fact, it is his duty to kill it. King David, a warrior killer extraordinaire had the proper attitude. Slaughter them. God thought much of David, who he stated was a man after his own heart. Imagine a man who slaughtered thousands, and God thought the man's heart was in the right place. Where are these men after God's heart today? They are watching the Playboy Channel, CBS news and reading the New York Times.
Christians submit to ungodly authority, and believers in Christ do not. It would have been in Polycarp's best interest to have fled ungodly authority, and returned to slaughter them on another day.
Read Romans Chapter 13, with the small detail about what is lawful authority of civil government, and what is not lawful authority, and you'll grasp how dangerous the modern christian view of law can be. Paul did not teach believers to submit to ungodly authority.
I contend that false teaching of Romans 13 and false claims to submit to ungodly authority is rooted in their submission to government by "incorporation". The modern American church who have registered or incorporated themselves as "non-profits" have submitted to the State. The State is their master and authority, and not God as commanded of God. For some odd reason (legal advice), they thought it necessary to place on their boards the State Attorney General who can demand financial records at anytime to operate their business/ church enterprise. Churches did not need to register as non-profits in order to refrain from paying "taxes". The State will be soon demanding that sodomites be hired by non-profit churches, because it is the lawful authority they must submit to when they agreed to go into business with the State. The minister may have a problem in avoiding personal tax on his "income", but for that he should have consulted with a tax expert, or like his flock, pay his "public tythes". I submit that the reason they accepted poor legal advice to incorporate or form a "non-profit" enterprise was to lure the minister into a scheme to save his retirement and wealth, at the expense of religious freedom. Polycarp would have not asked his flock to do what he wasn't willing to do on his own. He stood up to "authority", gave them the "finger" and died. They don't make leaders like they used to, do they? There are no martyrs wearing "collars" in America. You'll have to go to China, Africa and muslim tyranny to find them. Those men are not looking for tax benefits, they are being jailed and slaughtered for proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Had I consulted Polycarp, I would have told him to depart Rome asap, but it would not have made a very good story about martyrs. Martyrs die and the flock is left unattended.
@#4
"I don’t accept the premise that it is biblical to be respectful of lawful authority if that authority is satanic, barbaric or clearly, not of God."
Straight from the mouth of Christ in Scripture.....you cant get any clearer than this on authority being from above. Also note that the Romans certainly were not "of God"...they were pagans who in many cases engaged in some barbaric if not satanic practices.
John 19: 8-11
"When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. 9 And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Pilate therefore saith to him: Speakest thou not to me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee?
11 Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Therefore, he that hath delivered me to thee, hath the greater sin. "
To #4, I ask you with all charity and respect to stick to the point and write more concise responses. And, I would add, it does not matter at all what premises Jim or Joe accepts and I would remind us that we are engaged in a study of the early Church, to try to find out the practices and assumptions that informed the Church in the early years following the Apostles. To Justitia, yes, of course you are right, and we can cite the Apostles to the same effect. On the evils of the Romans, you are also right, but I do think we should be careful about categorizing entire nations and peoples and empires on the basis of their worst behavior. Roman pagans under the Empire behaved a good deal better in many respects than many self-declared Christians throughout history. Naturally, we can always say that a Christian who cheats on his wife or murders his brother is not a true Christian, but what is to prevent us from applying that same role to pagans who failed to live up to the precepts of Socrates and Aristotle and Cicero? If I did not wish to avoid distractions, I would be more specific on this point.
To TJF
My apologies, it was not my intention to generalize the ancient pagans as a whole but only some parts of their practices and people.
While the ancient pagans made use of their natural reason and virtue as did Aristotle, Socrates, and Cicero, I meant that they weren't "of God" in the sense that they did not have Divine revelation as members of the true religion be it Judaism or later on Christianity.
Again my apologies for the misunderstanding.
With all due respect to TJF, I will be more to the point. You are correct, and I was off point.
As with respect to sin, there is the sin by individuals, and a sin by community or political leadership represented by the "state". They are, I think, different, and God treats them differently.
When political leadership is corrupted, their corruption rots the whole. It is a curse upon a nation that permits and condones political leadership, in church government or in civil government, to become corrupt. I would say throughout history, when church government and civil government corrupt in parallel, calamity falls onto it's people with a vengeance. Polycarp's story is as old as mankind, and it as true for his day as it is today.
It is not an act of betrayal to be tortured and "turned" against a friend or a master. Betrayel speaks to personal gain, filthy lucre, or pieces of silver. Jesus was betrayed. Polycarp was not betrayed by his slave. Could he have played a role in his own death to become a martyr? The Bible teaches to be wise as a serpent when picking your fights, and Polycarp was not, in my opinion. I'll honor the man nonetheless.
No need for apologies at all. Justitia in fact was making a good point, to which I only wished to add a cautionary note. In general, let us remember Cato the Elder's first rule of oratory: rem tene!
Tomorrow, let us take up the matter of Polycarp's relics, which became an object of reverence.
Polycarp proved hard to kill, and when burning failed, his executioners used a knife. Egged on by Jews in the crowd, the authorities then burn the corpse to prevent veneration. Nonetheless, "we afterwards took up his bones which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place; where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom for the commemoration of those that have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those that shall do so hereafter."
The letter does not seem to regard the veneration of these relics as a novel event, suggesting that some time before 155 it had become the practice to pay respect to the bones or possessions of saints and martyrs. Roughly 90 years earlier, Peter had been martyred at Rome in a race course across the Tiber. According to tradition, a shrine was built at the site of his burial, and this was transformed into the Basilica of St. Peter's built by Constantine. Modern archaeological research, done mostly by non-Catholics, has established that the site right under the main altar has been a place of worship since early Christian times. Indeed, the cemetery-church is a well-known phenomenon.
That a place or piece of bone or scrap of clothing should possess some special power seems, to many Christians today, merely superstitious, but not to our Lord, who felt some power or virtue go out of him when the woman touched his garment.
There is no confusion between the worship of God and the respect paid to a martyr's relics. In 17.3, the letter declares "For Him, being the Son of God, we adore, but the martyrs as disciples and imitators of the Lord we cherish as they deserve for their matchless affection towards their own King and Teacher. May it be our lot also to be found partakers and fellow-disciples with them."
So we are all agreed? Veneration of martyrs and relics is part of the early Church and should be encouraged? I'm delighted this has caused so little controversy.
I think we Protestants are too often tempted to throw out the baby with the post-Trent bath water when it comes to relics. Many of us who feel revulsion at the sight of bones in cases in Roman altars cherish the relics of our own dear departed relatives. How much the more should we cherish the relics of those who walked in holiness during their earthly sojourns, setting an example for us of an enduring faith?
That said, "veneration of martyrs and relics" has (to Protestant minds, anyway) evolved over the centuries. Thus, while we can and should admit that Rome draws a dogmatic line between worship and veneration, we cannot participate in an activity that is conditioned by a Tridentine soteriology.
I share some of the Protestant unease with excessive attention paid to relics, but, as AW tells us, we should distinguish babies from bath water. The Smyrnaean Christians very clearly distinguished veneration from worship, as all serious Catholics have done ever since. I am, however, a simple man, and phrases like "Tridentine Soteriology" strike me as coded language belonging more to the realm of demonology than to theology. I have no particular sentiments, one way or the other, about what was accomplished at Trent, other than to lament the fact that some precision had become necessary. But, since we are at this point a long way from both the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic counter-revolution, it hardly makes a difference to our discussion. I should add that Protestants have their own set of martyrs, like the Oxford Martyrs, though I am not inclined to give equal respect to martyrs to a particular church (including Thomas More) or sect as opposed to martyrs for Christ. One of the Fathers, I forget who, one made the claim--a wise one, I believe--that a heretic who is persecuted to death for his belief in Christ, dies a martyr.
But, since we are at this point a long way from both the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic counter-revolution, it hardly makes a difference to our discussion.
If I or any other Protestant is to answer the question posed ("So we are all agreed? Veneration of martyrs and relics is part of the early Church and should be encouraged?"), then it makes every difference. What does a Roman Catholic mean when he refers to the "veneration of martyrs and relics"? The Council of Trent is a natural place to turn, since it "precisely" marks the cleavage between Catholic and Protestant dogma (not to mention the fact that it bears a certain weight of authority for Roman Catholics). The 25th Session of said council refers to the veneration of martyrs and relics as an activity whose end is (at least in part) "to obtain favors from God." This is based on the claim that this very teaching has been "received from the primitive times of the Christian religion."
We cannot use theological terms such as "veneration" without reference to their current usage. Otherwise, in a hasty attempt to formulate agreement, we run the risk of following in the footsteps of the recent Catholic-Protestant "dialogues" on justification. As in We all believe in justification [veneration]—we just define the term differently.
[P]hrases like “Tridentine Soteriology” strike me as coded language belonging more to the realm of demonology than to theology.
For Christians, demonology is a subset of theology. (So is soteriology.)
Ihe Council of Trent is a natural place to turn, since it “precisely” marks the cleavage between Catholic and Protestant dogma
Mr. Wolf, what is "Protestant Dogma" and who has authority to define it?
To my friend and colleague Aaron Wolf, I would reiterate my all too frequently stated purpose of this discussion, which is to find common ground in the early Church and not to anticipate the polemics of the 16th and 17th centuries. Let me also clarify exactly what I meant by my reference to demonology. References to "Tridentine Theology" are a shorthand way of referring to the perversity and errors of the Scarlet Woman, much as the term Reformation is misused to impose the interpretation that Protestants could reform the Church they abandoned. Parallels include "The Civil War," "Desegregation," and "nation liberation." A term like soteriology--invented, apparently, only in 1864--is one of those technical terms that confuses the argument by introducing an anachronistic facon de parler. Like most modern (post 1500) theology, it adds nothing to our understanding but serves only to persuade normal people that theology is not for them.
Trent is neither the beginning nor the end of the Church, but an attempt to redefine terms and reform practices in the face of division and dissolution. It is entirely irrelevant to the discussion here, which I am deliberately not front-loading with later controversies.
I used to see something bizarre or grotesque in the display of bones and skulls in European churches, but one must wonder how much of such a reaction is the product of watching modern horror films when young. Despite this, there did seem to be something holy to the display and to the act of veneration itself.
When one gets enough experience from looking at pictures Egyptian mummies to see family resemblances between members of the same dynasty, so that one may recognise a member of the 18th dynasty without being told, then one loses the gut reaction to bones and skulls in churches.
Final analysis: throw Lenin into a garbage dump somewhere and let the strays have him like old Dandolo. Keeping the corpse of a murderer on display is truly grotesque, especially when he is now nothing but a tourist attraction and cash cow. Keep the old relics in the Churches, as they do perform a worthy function by pointing us toward the divine, and there is no reason to be critical of the practice. Besides, it's wonderful to have such relics of the early fathers around. Now, if we could just find the true cross.........