Dec. 17, 1833.]
RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.
No. XII.
THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.
The Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Disciple of St. John, and Bishop of Smyrna.
Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and Martyr, was a disciple of St. John; he was placed over the Church at Smyrna by the Apostle, and presided in it at least seventy years. Some persons have supposed that he was the "Angel," or Bishop, of Smyrna mentioned in Rev. ii. 8–11. Shortly after St. John's death, he was visited by Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who had as well as himself attended the teaching of St. John, and was then on his way to martyrdom at Rome. It was from Smyrna that Ignatius wrote several of his Epistles, especially that to the Romans; and, when he had left the place, and got as far as Troas, he wrote his Epistles to Polycarp and the Church at Smyrna. We owe it to Polycarp that these important Epistles were preserved to after-ages.
Among the disciples of Polycarp was Irenæus, who was Bishop of Lyons in France, after Pothinus, his predecessor, had been martyred in the great persecution there[1]. He gives the following account of his Master in one of his works. "I remember," he says, "what happened when I was a boy, more vividly than what takes place now; for what we learn in our youth grows up with us, and at last becomes part of our mind itself. Thus I can describe even the place, where the sainted Polycarp used to sit and discourse, and his goings forth, and comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and his discourses to the people; and his account of what passed between him and St. John,
- ↑ Vid. Records, No. vi.
