Chronologically, Ignatius was born earlier than Polycarp, but I have chosen to begin with Polycarp (he was a contemporary of Ignatius) as there is only one letter of his to discuss and more of those belonging to Ignatius.
The following facts are known about Polycarp:
- Born 60 A.D., died 155 A.D.;
- Became a bishop of Smyrna sometime in the second century, remaining in that position until the time of his death;
- Said to have heard the disciple John’s teachings, or in others words been a “student” of John (John died somewhere in his 90’s in the year 100 A.D.) which the 2nd century church (and beyond) used to link Polycarp (and others) to the “apostleship” given to the disciples by Jesus, thereby claiming God-given authority through the dogma of “apostolic succession” (to be discussed further here);
- Polycarp was a contemporary of and conversant with Ignatius, another Bishop and Early Church Father;
- Polycarp believed that the Sabbath should be observed, while Ignatius “argued in favor of” observing the Lord’s Day (Sunday) rather than continue to observe a Jewish tradition of keeping the Sabbath, yet they did not let this divide them (see Acts 20:7 and Romans 14:5-6);
- Polycarp was martyred at the age of 86 because he refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor at the time, for which he was himself to be burned at the stake; however, as the flames did him no harm, he had to be stabbed to death. The Smyrnaans (of whom he was their only bishop) testified that the following occurred just before Polycarp’s death: “And when the proconsul pressed him, and said, Swear, and I will release thee, revile Christ; Polycarp said, Eighty and six years have I served him, and in nothing hath he wronged me; and how, then, can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?” The persecution suffered by the church at Smyrna is well-known (and prophesied) from the Book of Revelation (2:8-11).
There is only one writing of Polycarp’s that remains to us today. It is Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians and you can read the same English translation of it that I did (it’s rather short actually) by going to:
http://www.supakoo.com/rick/PolycarpToPhilippians-2010-01-05.pdf
In this letter, you will find that Polycarp mentions the apostle Paul and also uses actual quotes from several books or “letters” of the New Testament (notice the footnotes which compare well to my KJV). Overall it is a very good letter. One thing of note is his discussion of homosexuality, reminding us that homosexuality is not a new thing pertaining only to modern generations, it was a very real problem at the time of Polycarp as well, even Paul had to set the record straight on that one (see paragraph 5 of Polycarp’s letter regarding passive and dominant homosexual partners).
In this English translation of the letter, the title on the page that contains Polycarp’s opening greeting is not originally written by Polycarp (obviously, as in the title Polycarp is noted as being a Saint, Bishop and Holy Martyr – the latter not having happened yet). It is obvious that this heading was given to Polycarp’s letter by Irenaeus, who was known as a “student” or follower of Polycarp’s teachings, by whom the letter written by Polycarp was preserved.
In Polycarp’s greeting, he establishes that he is sending this letter and that with him (either in the sense of the “sending” of the letter or as “being” with him in the church there at Smyrna) are “the presbyters” (remember that word means “elders”). At first glance you might identify this as typical biblical church structure: Polycarp being one of the plurality of elders at the church in Smyrna. But the title given to him by Irenaeus, along with the letters written to both Polycarp and several churches by Ignatius, lead us to understand more clearly that this was not typical and biblical church structure after all. Polycarp is known as “THE BISHOP” (singular) of the church at Smyrna by his contemporaries and by his followers. So, we have already, in the first half of the second century, a distortion of the biblical church structure model.
No mention is made of Polycarp, or any of the Early Church Fathers, being married. I take this to mean that they all took Paul’s words and example to heart and found that it was easier to serve God when one's attentions are not drawn away by the needs of a wife. I hope that they did this voluntarily, rather than at the insistence of the church, as I don’t believe it was a dogmatic “commandment” of the church yet.
We see from this letter that the presbyters were married, since Valens (who had recently left his position as presbyter or elder of the church at Philippi) had a wife. And we see that there are both elders and deacons still in the Christian church at this time.
In this letter, Polycarp mentions “the blessed Ignatius”. He does not refer to Ignatius as bishop, and since I have not been able to determine the date of this letter I do not know whether he calls Ignatius blessed because he died a martyrs death (Ignatius died approx. 40-50 years before Polycarp was martyred) or whether that was a term used towards fellow “bishops” (for Ignatius also called Polycarp “blessed”).
Further to the problem of Polycarp (or Ignatius for that matter) being called THE Bishop of Smyrna, is the line in paragraph 5 of Polycarp’s letter, that I quote here: “Therefore it is necessary to refrain from all these things [sexual immorality], being subject to the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ.”
Here Polycarp carries on the tradition that has begun with Ignatius, the man who is “the bishop to Antioch” at the same time as Polycarp is “the bishop to Smyrna;” that tradition being the dogmatic one that establishes presbyters (elders, including the chief presbyter called “the bishop”) and deacons (servants) as being separate from and higher than (in authority) the believers in the local churches. According to Polycarp (and Ignatius even more so as we will see) the elders and deacons were to be submitted to as equally as believers would submit to God and Christ. The problem is that I don't see in the bible where deacons are to be submitted to, only the elders, as it is only the elders who are to oversee the local church. And even in that I don't see the kind of rebuke coming forth towards one who does not submit to the elders, as I see coming from Ignatius later on, setting the stage for the "lording over" of the clergy towards the laity. The elders and deacons (who became three separate and distinct entities of bishop, presbyters, and deacons, in the teachings of Ignatius) were taught by Paul to be raised up out of the local church family into the ministry of each, but not to be higher than or “lording it over” the believers. In stark contrast, we will see in the letters that Ignatius wrote (which follows) that he, in fact, established just the opposite.
Rather than get into the works of Ignatius today, we will discuss him and several quotes from his letters (all of which is quite lengthy) tomorrow. But we do want to look at the dogmatic belief of “apostolic succession” today.
“Apostolic succession” (which we have touched on a time or two in this study) came about because there were so many different heresies going on all around the Christian churches in the first few centuries. Folks were claiming “inspiration from the Spirit of God” for these heresies. In other words, "God told me so." How exactly do you dispute that when you don't even have the full Word of God to test it against? The Early Church Fathers needed something more substantial than just being “inspired by God” themselves, in order to claim for themselves full authority given by God. For this purpose, they latched onto the theoretical claim that the church leaders who followed after Peter and Paul and John and James, etc., were deemed to have equal authority with those former apostles, authority not by virtue of the Word of God (not compiled yet), but by virtue of a dogmatic “assumption” of divine authority that tied them together to the former apostles. This was their only hope in keeping heresies from prevailing over the still quite young Christian church.
Their motives might have been good, but their methods led to further error down the line; error that is seen creeping in already with Polycarp and Ignatius, by changing the structure of the church from a non-hierarchical family of believers having equality with one another, to a definitely hierarchical clergy and laity divided institution….as we will see in the next posting on Ignatius.
But let me remind you of this: some error does not mean ALL is in error, there is so much that was excellent in the church at the time of Ignatius and Polycarp, especially the willingness of believers to be obedient to God even unto death! The intent here is not to judge, as though we ourselves have it all together, for we do not! The intent is to see where the changes began and how they evolved into the very practices that we see in place today in our modern day churches, whether Catholic or Protestant. The intent is to help us learn to easily identify and then separate the dogmatic ideas of man from the absolute truth of the bible, so that when we are asked to die for our faith, we know exactly what it is we are dying for. As the early church fathers did so well, in spite of some errors in church structure.
No comments:
Post a Comment