A Hearer of the Apostles
Polycarp led the church at Smyrna, a wealthy port on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, for perhaps half a century. Nothing certain is known of his birth or family. If his famous answer at his trial, that he had served Christ eighty-six years, counts his whole life, he was born around 69 and grew up among believers. It may instead count the years since his conversion; either reading fits the evidence.
His great importance lies in the people he knew. Irenaeus, who heard him as a boy, wrote that Polycarp had been taught by apostles, had talked with many who had seen the Lord, and had been appointed bishop at Smyrna by apostles. In a letter to a friend who had drifted into error, Irenaeus recalled where Polycarp used to sit and teach, and how he repeated what John and others who had seen the Lord had told him, all in harmony with the Scriptures. Tertullian adds that the church at Smyrna recorded that John had placed Polycarp there.
Irenaeus understood Polycarp's teacher to be John the apostle. Some historians suspect a confusion with another John, an elder of Asia mentioned by Papias. Irenaeus heard Polycarp himself, and many scholars see no good reason to doubt him, but the question remains open.
Smyrna was one of the seven churches of Revelation, and the Lord had no rebuke for it, only a warning of suffering to come and a promise to the faithful (Revelation 2:8–11). Polycarp's life would become that church's answer.
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