Greeting and Encouragement to Polycarp
1 Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, bishop of the church of the Smyrnaeans, or rather, who has God the Father and Jesus Christ as his bishop: abundant greetings. I welcome your godly mind, which is grounded as if on an immovable rock, and I give great glory to God that I have been allowed to see your blameless face; may I have joy in it in God. 2 I urge you, by the grace with which you are clothed, to press on in your course and to urge everyone to be saved. Do justice to your office with all diligence of flesh and spirit. Care for unity, for nothing is better. Bear with everyone, as the Lord also bears with you. Put up with everyone in love, as you already do. 3 Devote yourself to constant prayer. Ask for more wisdom than you have. Stay alert, and do not let your spirit fall asleep. Speak to each person individually, as God does. Bear the illnesses of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is more toil, there is great gain.
Gentleness with Difficult Members
1 If you love good students, that earns you no credit. Instead, bring the more troublesome ones to submission by gentleness. Not every wound is healed by the same ointment. Relieve sharp pains with warm compresses. 2 Be wise as the serpent in all things and innocent as the dove always. You are made of flesh and spirit for this reason, so that you may deal gently with the things that appear before your eyes; and as for the unseen things, pray that they may be revealed to you, so that you may lack nothing and may abound in every spiritual gift. 3 The times need you, as pilots need winds or a storm-tossed sailor needs a harbor, for reaching God. Stay sober, as God's athlete. The prize is immortality and eternal life, as you also are convinced. In every way I give myself for you, I and my chains, which you loved.
Standing Firm Like an Anvil
1 Do not let those who seem trustworthy but teach strange doctrines unsettle you. Stand firm, like an anvil being struck. A great athlete takes blows and still wins. Above all, we must endure everything for God's sake, so that He also may endure us. 2 Be more diligent than you are. Understand the times. Look for the One who is above all time, the Eternal, the Invisible, who became visible for our sake; the Untouchable, the One beyond suffering, who suffered for our sake and endured in every way for our sake.
Widows, Meetings, and Slaves
1 Do not let widows be neglected. After the Lord, you are their protector. Let nothing be done without your approval, and do nothing without God's approval, as indeed you do not. Stand firm. 2 Hold meetings more often. Seek out everyone by name. 3 Do not look down on slaves, whether men or women. But do not let them become arrogant either; let them serve all the more faithfully for the glory of God, so that they may receive a better freedom from God. Let them not long to be set free at the community's expense, so that they are not found to be slaves of desire.
Instructions on Marriage and Chastity
1 Avoid evil practices; better still, preach about them. Tell my sisters to love the Lord and to be content with their husbands in flesh and in spirit. In the same way, urge my brothers in the name of Jesus Christ to love their wives, as the Lord loved the Church. 2 If anyone is able to remain chaste in honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him do so without boasting. If he boasts, he is lost; and if it becomes known beyond the bishop, he is ruined. It is right for men and women who marry to be united with the bishop's approval, so that the marriage may be according to the Lord and not according to lust. Let everything be done for the honor of God.
Advice to the Smyrnaeans as God's Soldiers
1 Pay attention to the bishop, so that God may pay attention to you. I give my life for those who submit to the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons; may I have my share with them in God. Work hard together, struggle together, run together, suffer together, rest together, rise together, as God's stewards, advisers, and servants. 2 Please the commander you serve under, from whom you will also receive your pay. Let none of you be found a deserter. Let your baptism be your shield, your faith your helmet, your love your spear, your patience your armor. Let your works be your savings, so that you may receive the wages due to you. So be patient with one another in gentleness, as God is with you. May I always have reason to rejoice over you.
Sending a Messenger to Antioch
1 Since the church in Antioch in Syria is at peace, as I have been told, through your prayers, I too have been more encouraged, now that God has removed my worry, if indeed I may attain to God through suffering, so that I may be found a disciple through your prayers. 2 It is right, most blessed Polycarp, for you to call a godly council and to choose someone who is very dear to you and also eager, who will be fit to be called God's courier, and to appoint him to go to Syria and glorify your eager love for the glory of God. 3 A Christian has no authority over himself, but gives his time to God. This is God's work, and yours too, when you complete it; for I trust in God's grace that you are ready to do a good deed that is fitting for God. Knowing how sincere and eager you are, I have urged you in a short letter.
Letters to Communities Farther On and Final Greetings
1 Since I have not been able to write to all the churches, because I am sailing suddenly from Troas to Neapolis, as God's will commands, you must write to the churches farther along the way, as one who has the mind of God, so that they too may do the same: let those who are able send messengers, and the others send letters with the people you send, so that you may be honored for a deed that will always be remembered, as you deserve. 2 I greet everyone by name, and especially the wife of Epitropus with her whole household and her children's households. I greet Attalus, my beloved. I greet the one who will be appointed to go to Syria. Grace will be with him always, and with Polycarp who sends him. 3 I wish you well always in our God Jesus Christ; remain in Him in the unity and oversight of God. I greet Alce, a name very dear to me. Farewell in the Lord.
An Introduction to Ignatius' Epistle to Polycarp
4 min read
Ignatius, the leader of the Christian community in Antioch in Syria, wrote this Greek letter in the first part of the second century CE, while ten Roman soldiers were taking him to Rome to be killed by wild beasts.1 He wrote it from Troas to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, whom he had met on his way. He seems to have been pressed for time, which may explain why the letter is shorter and more abrupt than his others.2 In Epistle to Polycarp 1:2–5:2, Ignatius advises Polycarp on his duties as a bishop. In Epistle to Polycarp 6:1, he suddenly addresses all the Christians of Smyrna in the plural, a shift with no known parallel in ancient letters.3 He very likely wrote to them a second time, through their bishop, to keep their support for his requests that they send a messenger to Antioch and write to other communities.4
Ignatius' advice echoes several earlier texts, and in Epistle to Polycarp 1:1, he praises Polycarp's mind as grounded on an immovable rock, an image close to the house built on rock in Matthew 7:24–26 and to Sirach 22:17, where a heart is established on understanding.5 His call in Epistle to Polycarp 1:3 to bear the illnesses of all uses Isaiah 53:4 in the form found in Matthew 8:17.6 In Epistle to Polycarp 2:1, the saying that loving good students earns no credit is similar to Luke 6:32, and in Epistle to Polycarp 2:2, the advice to be wise as the serpent and innocent as the dove is close to Matthew 10:16.7 In Epistle to Polycarp 5:1, Ignatius tells husbands to love their wives as Jesus loved the community of believers, as in Ephesians 5:25. Where Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 7:39 that Christians marry within the faith, Ignatius asks couples to marry with the bishop's approval.8 The armor of Epistle to Polycarp 6:2 recalls Ephesians 6:11–17, although Ignatius uses different language for each piece.9
Ignatius also uses the language of Greek medicine, athletics, and politics, and of the Roman army. His advice in Epistle to Polycarp 2:1 that not every wound is healed by the same ointment is similar to the medical writer Galen's rule that one drug does not suit all bodies.10 In Epistle to Polycarp 2:3, Ignatius compares Polycarp to a ship's pilot facing winds and storms. The image is similar to Plutarch's statesman, who both heals the diseases of a city and steers it through storms.11 In Epistle to Polycarp 3:1, Ignatius tells Polycarp to stand firm like an anvil when it is struck, an image Greek writers used for fighters who bear blows without tiring. In 4 Maccabees 6:10, a martyr who is struck endures the blows as a noble athlete.12 In Epistle to Polycarp 6:2, Ignatius uses three Latin army expressions, desertor (deserter), deposita (deposits), and accepta (savings). They come from Roman army pay, in which half of a soldier's bonus was held for him until his honorable discharge.13 In Epistle to Polycarp 4:3, Ignatius tells slaves not to seek their freedom at the community's expense, although some Greek clubs of the period lent their members money for that purpose.14
In his own Epistle to the Philippians 13:1, Polycarp says that the Christians of Philippi asked him to send their letter on to Syria. This suggests that Ignatius had also asked the Christians of Philippi to send letters to Antioch.15 Later in the second century, the satirist Lucian describes the philosopher Peregrinus appointing companions to carry his letters to famous cities. Lucian calls them messengers of the dead and couriers of the shades, which is very likely a parody of Ignatius' couriers of God in Epistle to Polycarp 7:2.1617 The paired descriptions of Jesus in Epistle to Polycarp 3:2 as invisible yet visible and beyond suffering yet suffering were also used by Irenaeus and Melito of Sardis.18
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