Did Polycarp Meet John the Apostle?

The claim comes up a lot that Polycarp met John—the original Apostle, Disciple of Jesus, Brother to James, the “Pillar” of Galatians 2, He of The Twelve. Enough to warrant a response you can bookmark. The short answer to the question, “Did he?” is no. It’s not likely at any rate. Later legends claimed this. But so far as we can tell, Polycarp himself conspicuously never did.

The Claim

Polycarp was a Christian Bishop in what is now Turkey during the mid-2nd century—born around 69 and died around 155 A.D. We have one letter and some quotations from him in other authors, and a ridiculous hagiography. Legend was he studied under John the Disciple and met others who had “seen Jesus.” But there’s no evidence that’s true; and it’s highly unlikely.

We have no text from Polycarp himself making this claim. Nor do any of the letters we have addressed to Polycarp mention it. There’s also no evidence any Apostle was actually alive when Polycarp was even a schoolboy—which would have been the late 70s A.D. at the earliest, when the Apostles would have been in their late 60s or even 80s, if any were even alive at all, and we have no evidence any were. Average lifespan for an adult at that time was 48 (On the Historicity of Jesus, Element 22, Ch. 4). Not even the Martyrdom of Polycarp, which is basically a fawning eulogy of him, makes any mention of his ever knowing any Apostles or tutoring under John.

But the appeal of the legend that Polycarp had met John and other Apostles is that since Polycarp was reputed to be a hard-core historicist pushing the narrative that Jesus really visited earth and the Disciples really sat at his feet, one might try to argue this supports the historicity of Jesus. That’s not so strong an argument as imagined, as either the Apostles or Polycarp may have been party to the transition in dogma from a revelatory to an earthly Christ figure. But still. It’s worth looking into.

The Sources

Our sources for these claims are not renowned for their reliability, but are all infamous apologists and polemicists mainstream scholars tend not to trust as authorities: Irenaeus, writing in the 180s A.D.; Tertullian, writing in the early 200s A.D., and Eusebius, writing in the early 300s A.D. It’s sometimes claimed these guys said Polycarp himself had said he had met actual Disciples of Jesus. Yes, that’s multiple layers of hearsay; but it’s also not even true.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus wrote two passages about Polycarp. The first comes in the context of Irenaeus attempting to claim there’s been an uninterrupted succession of bishops at Rome from the first Apostles to his own day, specifically to combat the contrary claims of heretics. But scholars know such succession lists, which only come late and are never sourced, are precisely the kind of thing propagandists invented for this very purpose. No one really trusts them anymore. Though it’s worth noting that Irenaeus admits “the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to the ‘perfected’ apart and privily from the rest” of Christians and so we can be sure “they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves” (Against Heresies 3.3.1). And of these bishops Irenaeus boasts the most about Clement, the author of 1 Clement that conspicuously shows no knowledge of an earthly Jesus or any Gospel narrative at all (On the Historicity of Jesus, Ch. 8.5).

Irenaeus then inexplicably diverges to discuss Polycarp for no clear reason, other than that he just happened to be another bishop, somewhere else, whom Irenaeus was keen to justify as having similar claims to pedigree:

Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.

To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time—a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles—that, namely, which is handed down by the Church.

There are also those who heard from him that John, the Disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, ‘Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.’

…

There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth.

IRENAEUS, AGAINST HERESIES 3.3.4

Note what Irenaeus cagily doesn’t actually say here: he never says Polycarp said he got any of this from any actual Disciple. Irenaeus just “declares” that Polycarp was “instructed by apostles” and “conversed with many who had seen Christ.” But when Irenaeus gets to mentioning having met Polycarp himself and heard him preach, neither claim is there attributed to him. Irenaeus thus never actually says Polycarp said he was “instructed by apostles” and “conversed with many who had seen Christ.” Irenaeus just believes that he did, because it is what “the Asiatic Churches” say about Polycarp, “as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp.” In other words, Irenaeus never heard Polycarp say any of this. Later men, after Polycarp was dead, started saying it. Exactly how legends are made.

Thus when Irenaeus does discuss what he heard Polycarp taught, Irenaeus himself describes it as what Polycarp “had learned from the apostles and which the Church has handed down,” which doesn’t mean Polycarp said he actually spoke to any apostle, only that he taught what he received from the apostles via “what the Church has handed down.” In other words, a supposed apostolic tradition. Not actual conversations with apostles. Everything else Irenaeus says, he says he got not from Polycarp, but others making claims about Polycarp afterward—conveniently unnamed others. The infamous “they” are the ones who said it. (As the totally actually historical Optronix once said, “They say a lot, don’t ‘they’?”)

Irenaeus then says “there are also those who heard from” Polycarp a possibly apocryphal story about John the Disciple. Notably, Irenaeus did not evidently hear any such story from Polycarp himself, despite having attended his lectures and sermons. No, Irenaeus only heard of this from, you know, someone. “Those who heard.” Whoever that is. I’m sure they’re totes reliable. But even as skeptical as we must be of his source, even this unnamed, unvetted source did not say Polycarp learned this story about John from John. They just said Polycarp told that story.

You can see the telephone game already operating here: Polycarp relayed what he claimed to be an apostolic tradition handed down of old, which becomes “Polycarp related what he received from the apostles,” which becomes “Polycarp met the apostles.” Likewise, “Polycarp told stories about John the Disciple” becomes “Polycarp knew John the Disciple,” which becomes “Polycarp was hanging out with John the Disciple once and totes saw him pwn Cerinthus at the baths!”

In the end, the one place we should actually hear any of this, the very letter written by Polycarp that Irenaeus so forcefully recommends, never once relates any of these facts. Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians does not mention having ever met John the Disciple or any Apostles or having received anything directly from any of them. In fact, it pretty much reveals he can’t have; but does reveal how legends he did might have arisen, through a “creative reading” of what he did say.

For Polycarp mentions the apostles only twice in his letter, later as historical examples of sufferers-for-Christ (but no mention of Polycarp himself ever having seen them suffer; a strange opportunity missed in his letter if he had), and before that when he admonishes fellow Christians to continue enduring “as the Lord Himself has commanded us, and as the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand,” clearly meaning traditions handed down. But one could easily telephone-game this from “preached unto us” to “preached unto me” and thence to “preached unto me directly.” Though that would be no more true of what Polycarp meant than that Polycarp meant he met the prophets of old or Jesus himself. But again, that’s how legends are created. Similarly, Polycarp never mentions knowing John in this letter, but does quote the Epistle 1 John, twice, without attribution—thus easily inspiring the legend that maybe Polycarp was quoting John personally, and not just some revered letters attributed to said John. Again, how legends are made.

We start to see how this legend was growing in Irenaeus’s own hands when elsewhere Irenaeus describes Papias as “the hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp” (in Against Heresies 5.33.4). Not Polycarp was the hearer of John. Moreover, we know from Eusebius (History of the Church 3.39) that the “John” Papias meant was not John the Apostle, but a much later John, John the Elder (Ibid. 4-6). Papias was older than Polycarp. Yet Papias himself never says he met any Apostles—John or otherwise—but only rummaged the earth for rumors others were telling about what the apostles of old had said. As with Polycarp, the notion that Papias met any apostles was a later legend claimed by others, but clearly contradicted in quotations of Papias himself. And if Papias was an older companion of Polycarp, and Papias never met any Apostles, it’s fair to say Polycarp didn’t either. To the contrary, by confusing which John Papias claimed to have tutored under, the legend grew that Papias had studied under John the Disciple, and as Papias was a companion of Polycarp, this became “Polycarp studied under John the Disciple.” Just another telephone game.

Of course one could also note that all this being the case, it’s now unclear what was meant by “those who had seen Jesus.” As that could merely be a reference to those who received revelations of the Christ. We therefore cannot extract any means of verifying the historicity of Jesus here, even if we could trust anything after these several, often anonymous layers of hearsay. This is the nature of the Christian legend. And the incompetence and gullibility of its promulgators.

Tertullian

We then see the legend grow under Tertullian, writing in the early 200s A.D. When likewise trying to defend his sect’s apostolic succession lists invented to combat heresy, he insists the church of Smyrna was claiming in his own day “that Polycarp was placed therein by John,” by analogy to “the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter,” thus implying the John ordaining Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna was John the Disciple (Prescription against Heretics 32.2). But that’s fairly impossible. Indeed, the Clement ordination Tertullian claims analogous would have to have happened a hundred years earlier, as Clement was reporting from his position at Rome that Peter had died before the late 60s A.D., before Polycarp was even born (see OHJ, Ch. 8.5).

Which is why this Polycarp legend, like most Christian legends, is wildly implausible. Polycarp was bishop in Smyrna in the mid-2nd century. John the Apostle would have to be over 100 years old to have installed him. Not likely. But more importantly, as we just saw, decades earlier, Irenaeus, who actually met Polycarp, says he was only appointed bishop there by unnamed “apostles in Asia,” thus not yet having heard the tall tale that it was John in particular. To the contrary, Irenaeus merely thought Polycarp once met John. And as we saw, even that was all decades-later, second-hand, anonymous hearsay, and most definitely wasn’t even true, as even Polycarp’s elder companion had never met John—or any Apostle. It’s possible someone named John ordained Polycarp bishop at Smyrna. But it certainly can’t have been the Disciple.

Thus, by the time this legend percolates all of the way to Jerome in the late 4th century, the legend has become full-on, “Polycarp, disciple of the Apostle John and by him ordained bishop of Smyrna, was chief of all Asia, where he saw and had as teachers some of the Apostles and of those who had seen the Lord.” But when we look earlier in the chain of custody we find none of this is true; though we can see how the telephone game got there.

Eusebius

On the road to that full blown legend is Eusebius, writing half way in between Tertullian and Jerome, and almost a century and a half after Irenaeus. Eusebius quotes a letter that he claims to be by Irenaeus against the heretic Florinus, in which Irenaeus is made to say:

I remember the events of that time more clearly than those of recent years. For what boys learn, growing with their mind, becomes joined with it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and the manner of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the people, and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having received them from eyewitnesses of the ‘Word of life,’ Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scriptures.

EUSEBIUS, HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 5.20.6

You can see that this letter contradicts what we know Irenaeus himself said, yet clearly builds on what he said, exaggerating and embellishing it into a full-blown legend that Irenaeus himself actually heard Polycarp say all these things as a boy, the very thing Irenaeus conspicuously did not say in his own actual writings—as we just saw. What Irenaeus only heard as misinterpreted rumors decades after Polycarp died has now become “Irenaeus the direct eyewitness” to Polycarp himself saying them! Such is how legends grow.

It’s all the more telling that though we have extensive anti-heretical writings from Irenaeus, nowhere in them is any mention of a Florinus. Tertullian likewise had no knowledge of such a letter either when he wrote against Florinus decades after the time of Irenaeus. Eusebius similarly cites another dubious letter attributed to Irenaeus against a certain Victor saying much the same thing—mentioning Polycarp having “always observed” Christian rites “with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated” (History of the Church, 5.24.16). There is no Victor in the actual anti-heretical writings of Irenaeus either.

Conclusion

Of course many people, perhaps even Polycarp, could have lied about having been tutored by the original Apostles simply to establish their authority. Or met them once decades ago and simply altered what they really taught. But even when Irenaeus says Polycarp taught creeds from and legends about the Apostle John, he does not say Polycarp received those creeds or stories from John. And when we look at Polycarp’s own writings and those of his elder friend Papias, it becomes fairly certain he did not. Instead, we get a telephone game that only becomes a later legend that Polycarp met “John and the Apostle” and “those who saw Jesus.”

BY RICHARD CARRIER