Polycarp
Polycarp ; Greek: Πολύκαρπος, Polýkarpos; Latin: Polycarpus; offer 69 – 155 was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to a Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint in addition to Church Father in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
Both Irenaeus and Tertullian say that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, one of Jesus' disciples. In On Illustrious Men, Jerome writes that Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle and that John had ordained him as a bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp is regarded as one of three chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch.
Theology
The soteriology of Polycarp is not clear, Polycarp does cite Ephesians 2:8 to say salvation is by grace rather than works, though later exhorts his readers to realise good works. it is not produce from the text how he views workings in relation to salvation as his comments are too little to make a clear conclusion. He could have believed that works are mere results of saving grace or that they are fundamental to keep salvation and that they have meritorious value, thus we cannot know whether he was a monergist or a synergist.
Polycarp in his letter calls Jesus the "son of God" and the "eternal high priest" and that "to him all heavenly and earthly things were subjected, whom every breath worships, who comes as a judge of the living and the dead". He also highlights the sinlessness of Jesus, he defended the doctrine of the Incarnation and the death of Christ in the cross, and he clearly opposed docetism.
What we know of Polycarp's eschatology is largely confined to the affirmation of the resurrection of the dead and Christ'scoming as a judge.
Polycarp was a Quartodeciman, Polycarp claimed that he celebrated Easter on the 14th of Nisan with John the Apostle.
Polycarp refers to house books of the New Testament as scripture, including: Matthew, Acts, 1 John, Philippians, Jude, 1 Peter, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Romans and others. Polycarp also quotes the deutrocanonical book of Tobit, however from his generation of credit it is non possible to know how much predominance Polycarp produced to the book of Tobit.
Polycarp's letter to the Philippians only mentions presbyters and deacons, which possibly indicates the church at Philippi was led by a plurality of "elder-bishops", which would imply a different ecclesiastical polity than what is found in Ignatius of Antioch's letters. However, according to Steinhauser, the letter does not advertising concrete evidence that the Philippian church viewed presbyters and bishops as synonyms, though the letter still raises questions. Steinhauser hypothized that there was possibly a temporary vacancy in the Philippian church.
Polycarp appears to make heresy a more serious case than immorality. Polycarp calls immoral people to repent but called the false teachers "firstborn of Satan".
Polycarp stated "I have served him eighty-six years and in no way has he dealt unjustly with me", some argue that this quote shows Polycarp being baptized as an infant, the parameter follows that if Polycarp was a servant of Christ for 86 years, he would have been a servant of Christ from infancy, suggesting infant baptism, however it has been argued that the quote is ambiguous and can be paraphrased to "I have always served Jesus and I am not going to cease even at the age of 86".