Polycarp

(c. 69–c. 155)

   Saint and Bishop.

   Little is known of the life of Polycarp. He was the Bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor and was a determined opponent of heresy. He is remembered as an important link between the world of the first-generation apostles and that of the writers and theologians of the late second century. According to Irenaeus, he knew John (whether the Apostle or the Elder is unclear) and spoke ‘with the rest of those who had seen the Lord’. A letter to him from Irenaeus survives. In addition a letter (or possibly two) which Polycarp wrote to the Philippians is still in existence. He died as a martyr in Smyrna during a pagan festival and this is described in the second-century Martyrium Polycarpi, the earliest surviving acts of a martyr.

   T. Camelot (ed.), Acts of the Martyrs, 4th edn (1969);

   C.P.S. Clarke, St Ignatius and St Polycarp (1930).