178 - Polycarp: Model for Seminarians

Polycarp: Model for Seminarians
By Charles M. Nielsen

Aside from the fact that Polycarp is, as a former student once pointed out, the only Church Father whose name spelled backwards is Pracylop, what is significant about him? He was not only unoriginal, he seemed content and determined to be so. For instance, most of his letter is made up of quotations from Christian writings. His own style is therefore hardly very exciting, especially when compared with that of his friend Ignatius of Antioch, who seemed to understand Polycarp only too well. That is why he could say that Polycarp's godly mind was fixed as if on an immovable rock. Moreover, Polycarp's lack of originality became painfully clear in Ignatius' rather pointed comment that not all wounds are healed by the same plaster. However Polycarp reacted to this advice, it is obvious that during his grand martyrdom he bad no trouble in fulfilling Ignatius' command to stand firm like an anvil under the hammer.

Polycarp would not tolerate any deviation from the traditions of Christianity as he understood them, and he seemed forever asking his readers to turn back to the faith delivered to us from the beginning. In terms of such a point of view, one can well imagine Polycarp's attitude toward heretics and pagans, even if such an attitude is surprising and uncongenial to many modern Protestants.

For instance, Polycarp did not embrace heretics in the following or in any other manner: "Wow, Marcion, you have really got some beautiful insights for us to share. Man, you are truly relevant to our second-century situation with its metaphysical opposition of spirit and matter. In fact, as far as I can see, your docetic Christology is the only one compatible with our prevailing contemporary thought-forms. If Christianity is going to survive, it's just got to relate in a positive way to the best thinking in the culture. So it's really neat that you deny Christ a human body. Now he can speak to our modern world with contemporary effectiveness and not insult the intelligence of Christianity's cultured despisers. So many educated people find the idea of the resurrection of the flesh so crude and repulsive that your swell description of flesh as dung forces them to accept the faith on a higher and more sophisticated level. We understand perfectly why you throw up at even the thought of sex. And as for you Valentinians, let me express my gratitude for

Charles M. Nielsen is Professor of Historical Theology at the Rochester Center for Theological Studies, consisting of Colgate Rochester, Bexley Hall, and Crozer seminaries. A graduate of Reed College and Union Theological Seminary (New York), he has contributed to several journals in both a serious and satirical vein.

179 - Polycarp: Model for Seminarians

your terrific creativity in always making up new myths. This is really exciting and necessary because in order to survive we must be constantly open to constant change. I am really thrilled at what Irenaeus is almost ready to say about you: '. . . those of them who are recognized as being most modem make it their effort daily to invent some new opinion, and to bring out what no one ever before thought of. . . .'¹ How happy we will all be together sharing our partial insights in the great, new, open, and issue-oriented second century ecumenical seminary I am about to found in my diocese in Smyrna."

Instead of all this, Polycarp, said to Marcion: "I know you, the first-born of Satan." And instead of joining with the Valentinians in their psychologically profound mythmaking, we have it on the authority of Irenaeus that Polycarp not only tried to convert many of them, he actually succeeded. Moreover, at his martyrdom he blew a great opportunity to engage the heathen in open-air dialogue in a vast encounter group. He motioned to them, groaned, looked up to heaven and said, "Away with the atheists!"

The question of course is: Why should anyone want to emulate Polycarp? Surprisingly enough there are several possible answers. When a person is really not a great genius, it is often a relief when he refrains from doing his own personal, private, creative, and original thing. Originality and creativity are interesting and worthwhile in an Augustine, Aquinas, or Luther but can be disastrous and/or pitiable when attempted by a Polycarp. Unfortunately our own era is full of destructive and pathetic examples, but Polycarp was bright enough to know that he was not good enough to try. Surely the church is better served by a Polycarp than by a deluded and aggressively expressive self-proclaimed creative genius.

Moreover, there are periods of history when there is more need for a preserver than for a wrecker. Others have argued, and I heartily concur, that Polycarp (in common with ourselves?) lived in such a time. ² At any rate all Christian ages must be grateful to Polycarp, and his kind for not only handing down but also for his "unswerving loyalty to the great memories and traditions committed to his trust."³ Where would we be if no one had bothered!

¹ Against Heresies, I, 21 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885), Vol. 1, p. 347.
² Note, for instance, J. B. Lightfoot's rather well-known paraphrase of Ignatius' Letter to Polycarp, 2, 3 in The Apostolic Fathers, II, 2 (London: Macmillan and Co., 1885), pp. 339-40: "The ship of the church is tossed to and fro on the ocean of the world. It is a critical moment, a tempestuous season. You must be both its helmsman and its haven; must guide its course and afford it a shelter. So will it arrive at God, its destined goal." Also note the comments by Robert M. Grant, "Polycarp, of Smyrna," Anglican Theological Review, Vol. 28 (1946), pp. 147-8.
³ P. N. Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Philippians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), p. 6.

180 - Polycarp: Model for Seminarians

It is worthy of note that Polycarp's attempt to submerge his own originality under the traditions he had inherited indicates a significant point of contact (among many) with those "Strong groups" which Dean Kelley discusses in his important new book, Why Conservative Churches [even wrong-headed ones] Are Growing.4 Polycarp's splendid martyrdom shows that he was also willing to sacrifice everything for his growing cause because be thought be had the truth. As E. R. Dodds once put it in an attempt to explain the success of an intolerant Christianity in the ancient world (and in ours?), "Pagan critics might mock at Christian intolerance, but in an age of anxiety any 'totalist' creed exerts a powerful attraction." ⁵

Polycarps of any era can be helpful in keeping the church from losing its balance and selling out too easily to fleeting and often absurd contemporary thought-forms. We shouldn't fall for everything and anything just because they are new. There are valid reasons why H. Richard Niebuhr was able to praise even the Christ-against-culture types (in spite of the inadequacy of their position). ⁶ At least these people knew that Christianity was valuable in and for itself and was not merely a helpful tool in supporting an astonishing number of other causes, including many that are alien and even hostile to any Christian style of life.

Finally, since worthwhile creativity never occurs in a vacuum or outside a tradition, Polycarps can provide the rare theological genius with some of the basic materials for his work. The genius will be grateful, as in the case of the impressive Irenaeus, who admired Polyearp so much for teaching what be bad learned from the apostles.

⁴ Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches are Growing (New York: Harper & Row 1972) Chap. VI.
⁵ E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 133-4.
⁶ H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 68.