Lesser Known Fathers IX: St. Polycarp and the Philippians

Given the "proof text" approach of many Catholic apologists today, using the writings of the Apostolic and Church Fathers against protestants, only certain Fathers are read. St. Justin the Martyr is useful in "proving" the Eucharist. St. Ignatius of Antioch is useful in "proving" the idea of the Catholic Church. St. Cyprian is useful in "proving" the papacy. Yet what of great Fathers who are not so easily weaponized? Today they are forgotten by those who call nineteen century old writers to arms against Legion and his megachurches, but they are not forgotten by all. Some of us still find edification in the pastoral writings of the Fathers, as much so as in the doctrinal writings of other Fathers. One such Father who I find fascinating is St. Polycarp of Smyrna.

According to tradition Polycarp was taught by "St. John," who ordained him a bishop of the city of Smyrna. I put John in quotations because a few dispute whether his teacher was John the Apostle—writer of the Johannine Gospel, the first epistle of John, and the Apocalypse—or whether it was John the Presbyter—likely writer of the second and third epistles of John. Polycarp, who lived until the mid-second century, is remembered in his surviving letter to the Church at Philippi, where St. Paul "accurately and steadfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of whose who were then alive" (Ch. 3). The epistle is an exhortation to the laity and clergy to ignore the worldly temptations which have seduced some of the church and to return to the faith given to them by Paul and Ignatius. At some point Polycarp visited St. Anicetus, a fellow Syrian and at the time Pope of Rome. He fell asleep in the Lord in 155.

The epistle begins with a veritable Pauline greeting: "Polycarp, and the presbyters with him, to the Church of God sojourning at Philippi: Mercy to you, and peace from God Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, be multiplied." The tone establishes that this missive has a personal connotation and not a formal one. He is acquainted with these believers and greets them in the spirit rather than in social respect.

The saint initiates the body of his letter with a reminder of that church's sufferings, "diadems of the true elect of God and our Lord." Mere works do not save, but faith. How is suffering not a "work?" Are the Christians of today to read Polycarp and surrender to the modern dichotomy between "faith" and "works?" This is not what the saint means: "[know] that by grace you are saved, not of work, but by the will of God" (Ch. 1) and "But He who raised [Jesus] up from the dead will raise up us also, if we do his will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved" (Ch. 2). One is saved by the will of God, not personal merit. Yet if one loves God one is united to the will of God and does what He wishes out of love for God—what we now call Sanctification or Theosis. This holiness in which one unites to the will of God is found in suffering, for Christ "suffered for own sins unto death" (Ch. 1) that "we might live in Him" (Ch. 8, 1 John 4:9). One does not suffer alone for Christ. The Christian suffers with Him as did the Apostles, who are "in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered" (Ch. 9).

This same call to virtue displays ante-Nicene Trinitarianism. St. Polycarp establishes order and communion between "God" and the Son "Jesus Christ." The separation of the two persons of the Trinity as "God" and "Jesus" should not trouble us, as this terminology survives in the traditional Roman and the Byzantine liturgies, wherein God the Father is sparingly called "Father" directly, indeed perhaps only in the Our Father. "God" raised Jesus, glorified Him, sat Christ at His right hand, and gave Him the power of judgment; all these things are proper to the Godhead. Polycarp is using the ante-Nicene vocabulary for talking about the Divine inherited from the Jews which survives in the Church's liturgical life.

Chapter four opens with a famous aphorism, "But the love of money is the root of all evils." From here Polycarp gently indicts the priests, deacons, and laity of the church for losing their focus and then tries to re-direct this wayward church. What utility, the saint questions, is to be found in alternatives to virtue or the presentation of false virtue? God "clearly perceives all things, and that nothing is hid from Him, neither reasonings, nor reflections, nor any one of the secret things of the heart" (Ch. 4). God is not mocked, even in private. The saint gives a general warning against various kinds of that most powerful kinds of private sin, the sexual:

"For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit; and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind [doesn't sound terribly fond of gay marriage] shall inherit the kingdom of God, nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyter and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience." (Ch. 5)

Sexuality is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed it is quite good. The chastity outlined negatively above is one found in behaving according to one's place in life.

Perhaps priests would do well to read this letter particularly the sixth chapter, which outlines the saint's expectations of the presbyters and other clergy of the Church:

"Let the presbyters be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and man.... If then we entreat the Lord to forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive; for we are before the eyes of our Lord and God, and we must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ, and must every one give an account of himself. Let us then serve Him in fear, and with all reverence, even as He Himself has commanded us, and as did the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Lord."

In short, the priest is the fearful instrument of Christ God's mercy. The end.

Polycarp places the greatest emphasis of faith on the Resurrection and Last Judgement. Here is the strongest insight yet into how the early Church believed. Christ was the first fruit of His own work, a work from which we shall in time benefit or suffer from abusing. Reality in changed by this one event, the rising of a man—Who is God—from the dead. We are partakers in that Resurrection and will be held to account for it. Those who deny this are the "first born of Satan" (Ch. 7). Oh how does this concept of death survive for us today in the Requiem Mass of All Souls' Day! In the epistle of that Mass St. Paul warns the Corinthians that those who lived in Christ will come to the "resurrection of life," but that those who did evil will awake in the "resurrection of judgment." Death and judgment. Could any two topics be less popular? In my own family mention of either is tantamount to scandal.

After another exhortation to virtue St. Polycarp writes harsh words that should carry weight with every Catholic who sins in public, who dissents from the Church in public, and who does not practice virtue: "Be all of you subject one to another having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles, that you may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed! Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct" (Ch. 10). 

The author winds down his letter in lamentation, regretting the loss of the priest Valens and his wife to bad faith. Evidently they fell in matters of "covetousness." Polycarp finds the loss of the two particularly painful given St. Paul's praise for the church of Philippi. He begs the Philippians not to be too harsh on Valens and his wife: "And be then moderate in regard to this matter, and do not count such as enemies, but call them back as suffering and straying members, that you may save your whole body. For by so acting you shall edify yourselves" (Ch. 11).

The saint concludes in telling the Philippians that he is sending copies of St. Ignatius of Antioch's epistles with the messenger and even divulges the name of the scribe who wrote the letter, a man named Crescens, who will pay the Philippian Christians a visit with his sister! Personally I find the human elements of these letters calming, as I do in the Pauline epistles. Modern readers can read these ancient texts and think them remote, saccharine, or even impossible. These letters were written by and for people who, like we today, must run our course in the faith and do so with the same union to the will of God and the same humility to which Polycarp exhorted the church of Philippi.

Interesting Historical Notes

• Although a disciple of St. John, he rarely quotes John in this letter. The few times he does refer to John, such as in Chapter 8, are in reference to union with God—Theosis—indicating that this is a trait of the Johannine tradition. Also, in light of this, I would side with those who say Polycarp's John was the Evangelist and not the Presbyter.
• He is very familiar with most all of the Pauline letters and quotes them more than any other text considered Scripture. He especially favors Philippians, Galatians, Timothy, and Ephesians. This indicates that Paul's letters, which most now agree were written in the 50s, had been in wide circulation beyond the local churches for quite some time.
• Again, despite being from the Johannine tradition, Polycarp refers exclusively—at least in this sole surviving letter—to the Gospel according to St. Matthew and occasionally to St. Luke's account. These references are most often made to the Sermon on the Mount. The implications of this should be problematic to 20th century Biblical scholars who seek to drive a wedge between the Johannine tradition and the Synoptic texts. Evidently the bishop of Smyrna, a follower of John, saw no conflict or incongruity between the Synoptic narrative and the one he received. This could be explained by a theory that the account in St. John's Gospel draws to attention not a different Christ or different tradition, but different events and teachings not mentioned in the Synoptics. There is one Gospel and four accounts of it.

From this I think we must conclude that the New Testament texts were more broadly circulated and more widely accepted than we often realize.

Happy feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross!

Great and Holy Thursday: Usque ad Mortem Obediens Factum

Usque ad mortem obediens factum—"obedient unto death," words constantly repeated in the Divine Office today and tomorrow.

There are two ideas that catch our attention today: (1) a sadness over the impending loss of a loved one, the One and (2) the choice of accepting what Christ offers us.

First, the sense of loss is one made in the Roman rite through subtlety, something not well known in the Eastern rites, where dramatic and symbolic gestures dominate the liturgy. At Tenebrae, Mattins and Lauds sung in a progressively darker setting the night before the particular day, we sang the ferial psalms with three sets of lessons. The first set of lessons, taken from the Lamentation of the Prophet Jeremias, begins with the words Quomodo sedet sola civitas, "How sits the lonely city." The Lamentation is full of morose imagery: widows, weeping, tears, gates broken, and "remembering the days of her affliction" (lesson 2). The Prophet is staring at the great city of Jerusalem, where God's chosen people lived, in utter desolation some time after being sacked in the sixth century before Christ, a tragedy which saw the Temple of Solomon destroyed.

At the time of the Last Supper the Crucifixion had not yet taken taken place, but two millennia later It has, and we can look back to it it with the same same fascinated macabre through which Jeremias looked at the "lonely city." More importantly, Jerusalem was not a city with a temple. It was a temple with a city attached to it. Everything about Jerusalem revolved around the temple and the promises God made to the Jews through it. Similarly, Christ likens Himself to a temple, which he challenges the Jewish priests to destroy and which He will rebuild within three days (John ch. 2).

At Mass the finest vestments are worn and the altar is prepared as it would be for the greatest of feasts. The Gloria is sung de tempore for the first time since in two months, with organ and bells blaring. It is  a time for celebration and for joy. Yet, the organ stops and is not heard again. The word "alleluia" is still absent and the Gloria Patri.... ("Glory be to the Father....") prayer is missing from the Mass. What a quiet contrast. If I may be crude, I think of the initial joy followed by liturgical starkness as representative a great party for a friend who you love, but may never see again. You want to sing, dance, eat, and cry with this person, yet your heart and mind still cannot be satisfied because you know your friend will be gone in a few hours and you have no control over his fate. That friend is our Lord today.

The second theme of the day is accepting what Christ gave us. Many in our Roman tradition emphasize the ordination of the Apostles, though the "form" throws the Thomists a real curve, or the institution of the Eucharist. Yet, reading St. John's Gospel from chapter 12 until the Passion begins, one cannot help but notice everything is one continuous discourse. After washing the feet of the Apostles Christ tells them that His commission and His commandment for them is love of one another. He continues to clarify that He is of His Father, and that only through Him and His love will anyone see His Father. The Apostles are humanly confused at the moment, but our Lord promises them the "Paraclete," the Comforter, who will illuminate them and preserve them in Truth at the appropriate time. Yet by the time Jesus says these things Judas has gone, being told "What you must do, do quickly." The Apostles cannot fully understand what is transpiring before them. My own poorly-formed opinion is that their sins and lack of grace impedes them from seeing Christ as He truly is. Yet, Jesus allows them to hear His entire message that night and prays to His Father in heaven for unity among them.

Judas does not hear the message. Is he included in our Lord's prayer? It is unclear.

Caravaggio's Betrayal of Christ

Judas is a case study is turning away from God and losing one's soul to the abyss. We find intimations in the Gospel that Judas had an eye for money, accosting the sinful woman for pouring valuable perfume on Christ's feet (John ch. 12). Perhaps he thought he could start a revolution. Perhaps he was disappointed in the sort of Messiah Jesus was. Perhaps he was simply greedy. Either way, Judas did not lose his soul in any one instant. It was a gradual decay of his faith in Christ. Yet our Lord allows this betrayer to eat at His table and partake in Holy Communion. How welcome are we to approach then! How kind God is! Yet, we must be careful with this kindness and approach it worthily, as Judas also illustrates the compounding effect of sin wrought by an unworthy communion.

For his sins, although He knew Christ in a more human way than anyone who has lived since 33 AD, Judas was excluded from Christ's discourse on union with His Father, on love, and on the comfort God grants. Judas removed himself from all these things.

We cannot gerrymander with God. We must accept what Christ offers us, everything, even if His message, His commands, His actions, and His precepts for living discomfort us, as they should. Judas tried to pick and chose what of Christ he wanted, mainly a miracle-worker who would eventuate some desired effect. But this is wrong, both for Judas and for us.

Christ's love is so complete and so perfect that we lose our souls by not embracing it when it is offered to us. Take it, all of it. Much like the Eucharist....