End of the Chronicle
Three Christianities
The Bar Kochba Revolt brought an end to the apostolic community of Jewish believers in Jerusalem. Under the bishops James the brother of the Master, Simeon son of Clopas, and Judas called Justus, the Jerusalem community of believers stood in direct continuity with the original community of disciples. They inherited the legacy and identity of the original assembly of Messiah that formed on the day of Pentecost at the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2. After the Bar Kochba Revolt, the community no longer had access to Jerusalem, and they faded from the pages of history.
Nevertheless, the apostolic legacy lived on. It lived on among scattered communities of Jewish believers in the land of Israel and abroad who continued to walk in the ways of the Master, living according to the Torah and the testimony of Yeshua. The apostolic legacy lived on among the Gentile Christians who continued to flourish in all places, proclaiming the gospel and spreading faith in the God of Israel.
In the two decades following the Bar Kochba Revolt, three major personalities came to represent three different types of second-century Christianity. A philosopher named Justin Martyr championed the dominant, orthodox Christianity that would soon become the normative expression of Christian faith. A bishop named Marcion of Sinope brought anti-Jewish, Gnostic Christianity from obscurity to the mainstream, where it became a serious threat to true faith. The bishop Polycarp of Smyrna continued to defend and represent the old-fashioned, Jewish, apostolic Christianity he had inherited from the disciple John. As a short epilogue to our studies, The Sent Ones concludes with a brief look at each.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Justin the Martyr
Justin was one of our distinguished writers who lived not long after the time of the apostles... This same Justin argued most successfully against the Greeks, and addressed discourses containing an apology for our faith to the Emperor Antoninus, called Pius, and to the Roman senate. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.13.2; 4.II.II)
Justin Martyr was born around the turn of the century, about the time that John the son of Zebedee died. Justin was a Gentile from Flavia Neapolis (Nablus) in Samaria, the site of biblical Shechem. As a young man, Justin investigated various schools of philosophy, but none of them satisfied his quest for truth. At the age of thirty, just before the Bar Kochba war commenced, Justin encountered an old man by the seashore. The man explained Christianity to Justin.
Although Justin was neither Jewish nor Samaritan, he knew about Judaism and the Jewish people's messianic hope. The claims of Christianity convinced Justin, and he became a devout Christian.
During the tumultuous Bar Kochba Revolt or shortly thereafter, Justin relocated to Ephesus, where he began developing a philosophical apology for Christianity that blended Platonic ideas with Christian teaching. He wrote important, apologetic works that attempted to defend Christians from Roman persecutors. (A work of "apology" is not a contrite confession and admission of error but a strong defense and refutation of accusations.) He addressed his First Apology directly to Hadrian's successor, Antonius Pius, and his Second Apology to the Roman people in general. In these works, he took a strong stand against idolatry, attempted to defend Christianity as a legitimate religion rooted in antiquity, and did his best to ward off the vicious lies circulating about Christians (and Jews).
Justin's writings demonstrate a serious commitment to the faith and an unshakable devotion to the Master. He had a competent command of Scripture and apostolic texts. His writings contain many interpretations and ideas that he must have acquired from Christians in Asia Minor and Rome. Some of those ideas and teachings may have originally been apostolic in origin.
Justin traveled to Rome around 150 CE and began to teach a school of disciples. He publicly debated opponents of the faith and developed a reputation as a champion for Christianity.
Around 165 CE, he defeated a Cynic philosopher named Crescens in a series of public disputations about Christianity. Crescens was a poor loser. Justin suspected that Crescens would stir up some trouble for him. He wrote, "I expect to be plotted against and put in the stocks by some one of those whom I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that unphilosophical and conceited man. The man is not worthy to be called a philosopher. He publicly testifies against people he knows nothing about, declaring, for the sake of captivating and pleasing the multitude, that the Christians are atheistic and wicked" (First Apology 2:8).
Crescens denounced Justin to the authorities and pointed out that being a Christian was still illegal and punishable by death. The Roman authorities conceded to Crescens and arrested Justin and several of his students. The judge stood Justin and his disciples before a tribunal and ordered them to sacrifice to the gods of Rome. Justin and his disciples bravely refused to comply. The judge commanded them to renounce Christianity and denounce the name of Christ. They refused. The authorities scourged them and beheaded them. Hence the name: Justin Martyr.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Going to Church in the Second Century
Justin Martyr's writings offer us invaluable information about Christian beliefs and practices in the middle of the second century. His description of Christian sacraments and a worship service provides something like a snapshot of Gentile Christianity in his day.
For example, he describes the baptism ritual. In the second century, a new Christian seeking to receive baptism needed to undertake a preparatory season of prayer, repentance, and fasting. A day or so prior to the immersion, the bishop and other members of the congregation joined the candidate in fasting. On the day of the immersion, the leadership and designated witnesses brought the candidate to a place where there was water, apparently an outdoor location. The candidate immersed to receive the washing in water "in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the holy Spirit." The immersion represented a spiritual rebirth by which the new Christian received forgiveness of sins, spiritual cleansing, the Holy Spirit, and divine illumination. The new initiate then made a confession assenting to the teachings of Christianity before the witnesses.
The witnesses returned the new initiate to the assembly of the brethren. The bishop led the assembly in a series of prayers on behalf of the new Christian, and he exhorted the new disciple in the ways of Christian living. At the conclusion of the prayers, the members of the assembly greeted one another with a holy kiss. Then the bishop took wine and bread and gave thanks and praise "to the Father….. through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" and offered long prayers of thanksgiving for the Eucharist. At the end of the prayers, everyone said, "Amen." The bishop distributed the bread and wine to everyone present. The deacons brought portions of the bread and wine to members of the assembly not in attendance.
Justin also describes the typical, second-century Sunday church service in terms general enough to describe most church services today: a reading from the Scriptures, a teaching, a time of prayer, participation in the Eucharist, and a collection:
On the day called "Sunday," all those who live in the city or in the country gather together at one place and the memoirs of the apostles [i.e., the Gospels] or the writings of the prophets [i.e., the Septuagint] are read, as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president [i.e., the bishop] orally instructs the assembly and exhorts them to imitate these good things [i.e., gives a sermon]. Then we all rise together and pray together ... When our prayer is finished, bread and wine and water are brought. The president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people agree, saying, "Amen." Some is given to each person ... The deacons bring a portion to those who are absent. Those who are wealthy and willing to contribute- each according to what he deems appropriate. The money collected is deposited with the president who takes care of the orphans and widows and those who are in want because of sickness or any other cause-those who are in prison or who are strangers sojourning among us-to put it simply, he takes care of all who are in need. Sunday is the day we hold our common assembly because it is the first day on which God, having transformed darkness and matter, created the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead on that same day. (Justin Martyr, First Apology 67)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Trypho and Rabbi Tafron
Not long after the Bar Kochba Revolt had run its course, while Justin still lived in Ephesus, he encountered a Jewish man named Trypho (Tryphon). Trypho and his companions had recently come to Asia Minor as part of a wave of refugees escaping from war-torn Judea. Trypho agreed to engage with Justin in a public debate about Christ and Christianity. The two-day exchange amounts to the first recorded "interfaith dialogue" between Judaism and Christianity. Some twenty years later, Justin wrote out the debate in a book he titled Dialogue with Trypho.
The name Trypho appears to be an equivalent of the Jewish name Tarfon. Some scholars speculate that Trypho might be the same as the famous Rabbi Tarfon, one of the sages from Yavneh. Rabbi Tarfon staunchly opposed the believers. He advocated burning scrolls written by Jewish believers, even if they contained the sacred name of God. Rabbi Tarfon declared that he would sooner enter a pagan temple than a synagogue of Jewish believers. Rabbi Tarfon's resolute disdain for believers makes it unlikely that Justin's Trypho can be identified with Rabbi Tarfon. According to Justin, the man he met was fairly open-minded and willing to discuss Christianity with him. Rabbi Tarfon would not have given Justin the time of day. Moreover, Rabbi Tarfon was a young boy at the time of the destruction of the Temple, eighty years earlier. Unless Trypho was in his nineties at the time of his conversation with Justin Martyr, he could not have been the famous Rabbi Tarfon.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Dialogue with Trypho
The first several chapters of Dialogue with Trypho revolve around the question of why Christians do not keep the Torah. Trypho the Jew asked Justin why Christians do not keep the Sabbath, circumcision, holy days, and so forth. Justin's reply demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of Paul, similar to that of Ignatius of Antioch.
Justin could have replied, "As Gentiles, we are exempt from those statutes of the Law which are unique to you Jews, as your own teachers have ruled. We keep the commandments that apply to us." Like other early Christians, however, Justin failed to comprehend the apostolic differentiation between Jewish and Gentile believers. He misinterpreted Pauline statements about the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers to indicate a complete homogenization of identity. According to Justin's interpretation of Paul's writings, Christians do not keep the Law because the new covenant cancels the Torah:
For the Law that came from Mount Horeb is now old, and it belongs to yourselves alone, but [the Law of the New Covenant] is for everyone. Law against law has abrogated the one that came before it, and a covenant which comes later cancels the previous one. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho I1)
Compare that statement with Paul's own words where he says that a latter covenant "does not invalidate [an earlier] covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise" (Galatians 3:17).
Justin Martyr explained to Trypho that Christ is the new Law and new covenant: "After Him there shall be no Law, no commandment, no ordinance." He dismissed Jewish observances such as keeping the Sabbath or Passover as irrelevant: "Because you are lazy for one day, you think you are righteous. You do not understand what God has commanded. You think that if you eat unleavened bread, you have fulfilled God's will. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances."
Justin explained to Trypho that God gave those commandments of the Torah to the Jewish people to punish them. He explained that He gave them the commandment of circumcision so that other nations would be able to easily identify Jewish men for purposes of persecution. At that time, Hadrian's edict against the practice of Judaism was still in force. Justin said, "Circumcision ... was given for a sign so that you can be separated from other nations, and from us [Christians], so that you alone may suffer all that you are now justly suffering: the desolation of your homeland, your cities burned with fire, strangers eating your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem."
Justin differentiated between Christian baptism and the Jewish immersion ritual. He proudly proclaimed that Christians do not "receive that useless immersion in cisterns, for it has nothing to do with this immersion of life." He explained that God required the Jews to keep the Sabbath and prohibited certain meats only because, in their exceptional wickedness, they needed the extra spiritual disciplines. According to Justin, if God really meant for men to be circumcised, they would have been born circumcised. If circumcision had any spiritual value, women would have the opportunity to keep the observance, too. If God meant for men to take a Sabbath, the physical elements of creation would also rest on the Sabbath.
Justin explained to Trypho that Gentile Christians are the new Israel — the spiritual Israel. He remarked that Jews had no certain hope for salvation, "but the Gentiles, who have believed on Him, and have repented of the sins which they have committed ... will definitely receive the holy inheritance of God even though they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the festivals."
In the course of the dialogue, Justin declared that the Scriptures no longer belonged to the Jews but rather to the Christians because Christians believe them, whereas Jews take them literally without understanding their spiritual meaning. Finally, Justin stated that all ritual and ceremonial observances came to an end with Christ:
We have proven that the circumcision that started with Abraham, and the Sabbath and the sacrifices and offerings and feasts that started with Moses, were commanded to you because of the hardness of your people's heart... that is why they have an end in Him who was born of a virgin, born of the family of Abraham and tribe of Judah ... to be the everlasting Law and the everlasting covenant. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 43)
Trypho found Justin's arguments about the Torah and Judaism self-contradictory and circular. He raised a question about Jewish believers. He asked, "But suppose that someone recognizes this man to be the Christ and believes in Him and obeys Him, but he wishes, nonetheless, to observe the commandments. Will he be saved?"
Justin conceded that, in his opinion, such a Jew could be saved so long as he did not strive to persuade Gentile Christians to take on those same observances.
Trypho pressed the question further. He asked, "Are there some Christians who believe that Jewish believers will not be saved if they keep the Torah?"
Justin replied, "There are such people, Trypho. And these [Christians] refuse to have any dialogue with or to extend any hospitality to such persons, but I do not agree with them." In other words, Justin Martyr admitted that his own opinion on the question of whether or not a Torah-observant Jewish believer could be saved represented the more liberal, broad-minded view. Other Christians in his day refused to have any interaction whatsoever with Jewish believers who still observed the Torah. Justin's final statement on Jewish believers who still observed the Torah refers to them as "weak-minded" but probably not damned, so long as they lived and worshiped peaceably with Gentile Christians and did not induce them to undertake the same observances:
Some [Jewish believers] through weak-mindedness, wish to observe Mosaic institutions expecting to obtain some benefit... in addition to their hope in this Christ... yet choose to live with the Christians and the faithful. As I said before, so long as they are not inducing [other Christians] either to be circumcised like themselves or to keep the Sabbath or to observe any other such ceremonies, then I hold that we ought to join ourselves to such, and associate with them in all things as kinsmen and brethren. But if ... [Jews] say they believe in this Christ but compel those Gentiles who believe in this Christ to live in all respects according to the Law given by Moses, or they choose not to associate closely with the Gentiles, then I strongly disapprove of them. But I believe that even those who have been persuaded by them to observe the legal, ceremonial institutions in addition to their confession of God in Christ, will probably be saved. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 47)
This important passage indicates that the Gentile Christian church in Palestine and Asia Minor still had some contact with Torah-keeping Jewish believers and Gentiles even after the Bar Kochba Revolt. Gentile Christian opinion on how to relate to the Jewish believers divided into two camps. One camp anathematized the Torah-keeping Jews, the other begrudgingly admitted them into fellowship so long as they could keep their Jewish ways quarantined. Justin's statement even admits that he knew of Gentile believers who had been persuaded by Jewish believers to keep some of the observances of the Torah.
Trypho occasionally tried to correct Justin's skewed understanding of messiahship in Judaism. He suggested that perhaps Yeshua had obtained His messianic status by His righteous observance of the Torah. Justin rejected that idea as absurd.
Justin's arguments for Christianity failed to convert Trypho. After two days of argumentation, the Jew and the Christian parted from one another in peace.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Marcion the Heretic
The assemblies throughout the world shone like the brightest of stars. Faith in our Savior and Master Jesus Christ flourished among the whole human race. But the demon —the hater of all that is good, who always opposes the truth and the salvation of human beings, turned all his arts against the Assembly. At first, he fought against it by means of persecutions from the outside. But now ... he devised all sorts of schemes and began to use other strategies in his war with the Assembly. He used low and deceitful men as weapons and as agents of destruction to ruin souls. He instigated impostors and deceivers who, assuming the name of our religion, brought as many believers as they could sway to the depth of ruin. At the same time, because of their behavior, they turned others away from the path which leads to the word of salvation. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.7.1-2)
While Justin was still in the city of Ephesus arguing with Trypho about the Torah and Christianity's relationship to Judaism, Marcion of Pontus was sorting through similar questions beside the Black Sea. Marcion was born into both money and Christianity. His father owned cargo ships that operated out of the Black Sea port city of Sinope, where he also occupied the bishopric over the local assembly. The Apostles Simon Peter and Andrew introduced the gospel message to Sinope a century earlier. According to legend, the wealthy bishop expelled his son Marcion from the church as punishment for seducing a virgin girl. Scholars express some skepticism about whether or not the story of Marcion's excommunication is true.
In any case, Marcion did have some struggles with his father's version of Christianity.
Marcion found that Christian theology presented baffling and irreconcilable contradictions. On the one hand, it relied on the Jewish Scriptures and all the foundations of Judaism. On the other hand, it supplanted and discredited the Jewish Scriptures, the Jewish people, and Judaism. Marcion could not see how the legalistic, mean-spirited, punishing God of the Jews that he read about in the Old Testament could possibly be the same loving, forgiving God and Father of Jesus Christ.
Marcion turned to the Gnostics for help. The Gnostic Christians taught him their theology of the Demiurge —namely that the God of the Jews was not the most-high God. The Gnostics believed that the God of the Jews was a malevolent, finite, and ignorant lower deity attempting to conceal evidence of higher gods above Him. Marcion took these Gnostic ideas and adapted them to create his own heretical system of Christianity:
A certain Cerdon, who had learned his [theological] system from the followers of Simon [Magus] and had come to Rome under Hyginus (the ninth in the succession of bishops at Rome from the apostles), taught that the God proclaimed by the Law and Prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former God was known, but the latter God unknown; and the former was strictly a judge, but the latter was good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.I1.2)
Marcion taught a radical dichotomy between the Jewish Scriptures and the Gospels. Like other Gnostics, he believed that the Old Testament God of the Jews was a corrupt and inferior being who had marred His creation with His own imperfections. The physical matter, which He created, possessed intrinsically evil qualities. Marcion taught that the Jewish God's own Scriptures revealed His complete ignorance and incompetence. As the creator of Adam, He brought evil into the world. Marcion believed that the Jewish God revealed His vengeful, spite-filled nature with laws such as "eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth." Marcion taught that the true and unrevealed most-high God sent Christ into the world to appear in the guise of a human being. Jesus Christ did not have a real physical (human) body because all physical matter is corrupt. Marcion believed that the divine Christ opposed Judaism and taught against the Torah and the God of the Jews. Christ came to reveal the way to the true God.
Christians like Justin Martyr believed that Christ had canceled the Torah, but they still used the Jewish Scriptures of the "Old Testament," primarily for prophetic proof texts about Christ. In contrast to Christianity, Marcion taught that Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. He pointed out that the Jewish Messiah spoken of in the Bible was supposed to redeem and return the Jewish people to the physical land of Israel. The prophecies of the Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would teach obedience to the Law, but Jesus Christ came to annul the Law of the Jews. Therefore, Marcion rejected all the Jewish Scriptures as the lies and deceits manufactured by the Jewish God.
According to Marcion, all the apostles failed to understand the true teaching of Jesus except for the Apostle Paul. Marcion rejected the twelve disciples and other apostles as Judaizers. He claimed that, because of their thick-headedness, they taught a modified form of Judaism, which was still repugnant to the true God. Only Paul had truly apprehended the meaning of the gospel.
To support his views, Marcion had to create his own version of the apostolic texts. Marcion compiled the first official collection of Apostolic Scriptures into a new Bible-the first New Testament. Marcion's New Testament canon consisted of one gospel and ten of Paul's epistles. He edited down the epistles by removing all quotations from the Old Testament and stripping out all the passages that he considered to be Jewish interpolations. He claimed that anything in Paul's writings that sounded Jewish must have been inserted by Jews and could not have been written by Paul. Marcion also rejected all the Gospels except for a heavily edited version of the Gospel of Luke.
He stripped out the Master's genealogy, birth narrative, and all Jewish-sounding teachings. He even published a book called Antithesis, which explained how his New Testament collection supplants the Jewish Scriptures.
Marcion forged this new form of Christianity during the turbulent Bar Kochba years and the ensuing Hadrianic persecutions, during which the Roman Empire treated Judaism as an illegal religion. During those years, anti-Jewish sentiment ran at its height among pagans and Christians both. At the end of this process, Marcion accomplished what other Christian theologians had been unable to accomplish: a complete and total separation from Judaism. Marcion's Christianity did not grow out of Judaism or the Old Testament; it completely opposed both.
Marcion's New Testament collection spread quickly, and Marcionite churches began to flourish. Marcion's form of Christianity was easier to understand and naturally appealed to people. It removed the inherent contradictions between Christian theology and Judaism that conventional Christians like Ignatius and Justin Martyr attempted to retain and gloss over. It seemed more logical. Marcionite Christianity assessed Judaism as the religion of legalism, laws, and concerns with the corrupt world of physical matter. According to Marcion, Judaism stood in antithesis to Christianity's teachings about grace, love for one's neighbor, and spiritual salvation. Marcionite Christianity instantly appealed to Gentile Christians who felt uncomfortable with their relationship to Judaism and the hated Jews who had persecuted Christ and the early Christians.
In 140 CE, Marcion took his new, Gnostic-flavored Christianity to Rome.
He purchased a place of leadership in the Roman assembly with a large donation of 200,000 sesterces. Then he began to expound his views.
When the Christian leadership in Rome heard what Marcion had to say about the Old Testament and the incorporeal nature of Jesus Christ, they realized that they had welcomed a Gnostic into their midst. They refunded his money and excommunicated him. Marcion did not leave Rome. He continued to disseminate his ideas and establish new churches in competition with the existing assemblies. The Marcionite churches were identical to conventional Christian assemblies except for their aberrant beliefs. All the rituals and ceremonies were identical. People new to Christianity had trouble distinguishing the difference. Within ten years, Marcionite Christianity spread throughout the whole Roman Empire.
For the remainder of the century and well into the next century, Marcion's popular, Gnostic form of Christianity posed a serious threat to the true faith. Gnosticism no longer lurked around the fringes of Christianity; it now contended for dominance. Over the next century, Marcionite Christianity morphed into one Gnostic expression after another. Almost every patristic writer felt compelled to denounce Marcion. Justin Martyr, for example, wrote a whole book against Marcion's ideas. The book is no longer extant, but Eusebius quotes from it:
Justin wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that Marcion was still alive at the time he wrote. Justin writes as follows: "And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the Creator. By the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the Father of Christ, and to confess that some other, greater than He, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosophers, although they may have no doctrines in common." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.I1.8-9)
Irenaeus of Lyons dedicated most of his colossal, five-volume Against Heresies to refuting Marcion and the Gnostics. Other early church writers followed with similar efforts. Despite all the energy directed against it, Marcionite Christianity took deep root in Christian consciousness. Even when the Gnostic theology could be corrected, the deeper, anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Torah assumptions could not. In the end, Marcionite Christianity failed to survive, but the ideas that Marcion propagated -particularly his emphasis on contrast between Old Testament and New Testament and Judaism and Christianity-have been woven into the warp and woof of Christian teaching. By publishing and circulating his New Testament, Marcion successfully planted the idea of antithesis between the Jewish Scriptures and the Apostolic Writings, which is still with us today. Marcion's corrupted version of Paul's epistles and the Gospel of Luke forced Christian leaders to compile a competing collection of Apostolic Writings, a process that eventually resulted in the formation of our New Testament canon.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Polycarp in Rome
At this time, while Anicetus was at the head of the church of Rome, Irenaeus relates that Polycarp, who was still alive, was at Rome, and that he had a meeting with Anicetus concerning the question of the day for the Paschal feast. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.14.1)
All this while, Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna and the last living disciple of the last living disciple of the Master, continued steadfastly in the ways of the apostles. Like his teacher, John, Polycarp lived to an advanced age. The Christians in Smyrna considered him to be a prophet. They said, "For every word that went out of his mouth either has been or shall yet be accomplished" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 16:2).
In 154 CE, the new bishop of Rome, a man named Anicetus, attempted to force the Christians of Asia Minor to abandon their observance of Passover. Roman Christians commemorated the Master's death by fasting from the Friday that falls during the seven days of Passover until midnight on the subsequent Saturday. They broke their fast by taking the Eucharist together in celebration of the Master's resurrection.
Anicetus tried to force Christians everywhere to adopt the Roman custom. The Christians who refused to adopt the Roman custom were called "Fourteeners" (Quartodecimans) because they insisted on keeping Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan. They kept the Passover "on the fourteenth day of the month at evening" (Exodus 12:18), more precisely speaking, at the beginning of the fifteenth day.
Polycarp traveled to Rome and explained to Anicetus that the Christians of Smyrna and Asia Minor could not adopt the new custom of fasting on Passover and celebrating only the first day of the week because they followed the tradition that they had received directly from John and the apostles:
Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp to set aside what he had always observed with John, the disciple of our Master, and the other apostles with whom he had associated. Neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe Passover, as he said he ought, according to the customs of the elders that had preceded him. (Irenaeus, Letter to Victor in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.24.16)
While in Rome to challenge Anicetus, Polycarp had the ill fortune of crossing paths with Marcion the heretic. Marcion asked the venerable and famous bishop, "Do you know who I am?"
Polycarp replied, "I do know you. You are the first-born of Satan" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 16:2).
Polycarp challenged the followers of Marcion and testified about the truth as he had received it from John and the other apostles. He convinced many to turn away from Gnosticism.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Martyrdom of Polycarp
At this time, when great persecutions were disturbing Asia Minor, Polycarp died by martyrdom. I consider it most important that his death, a written account of which still exists, should be recorded in this history. There is a letter, written in the name of the assembly over which he himself presided, to the assemblies in Pontus, which relates the events that befell him, in the following words. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.15.1-2)
When the Emperor Hadrian died in 138 CE, his successor repealed the anti-Jewish legislation. The great persecution came to an end for the Jewish world. For Christianity, the persecutions continued unabated into the reigns of the subsequent emperors. Roman authorities used torture to try to force Christians to renounce their Christ: "They endured dreadful tortures, being stretched out upon beds full of spikes and subjected to various kinds of torment so that, if at all possible, the tyrant might force them to deny Christ by means of prolonged torment" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:4).
In the year 155 CE, the Roman authorities in Smyrna put to death twelve Christians in the city of Smyrna. Polycarp, the last living disciple of the last living disciple, was the twelfth. The believers in Smyrna composed a letter to the assembly of believers in Philomelium (modern Aksehir, Turkey) narrating the story of the bishop's arrest, trial, and execution. The letter still exists under the title Martyrdom of Polycarp.
An interesting scribal note at the end of the letter indicates the history of the transmission of the document. A Christian from Smyrna named Evarestus wrote the original epistle on behalf of the Smyrnaens. He wrote it in the year of the events he describes. A few decades later, Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, produced a copy of it. His friend Gaius copied his version. Later, a Christian named Socrates transcribed the version created by Gaius. Many years later, a Christian named Pionius came across Gaius' version. The ink had faded from the passage of the years. Pionius created a fresh copy, which was apparently the source of the version that Eusebius had:
Those that are with us greet you, and Evarestus, who wrote this letter, and all his household. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 20:2)
These things Gaius transcribed from the copy of Irenaeus (who was a disciple of Polycarp), having himself been intimate with Irenaeus. And I Socrates transcribed them at Corinth from the copy of Gaius. Grace be with you all. And I again, Pionius, wrote them from the previously written copy, having carefully searched into them, and the blessed Polycarp having manifested them to me through a revelation, even as I shall show in what follows. I have collected these things, when they had almost faded away through the lapse of time, that the Lord Jesus Christ may also gather me along with His elect into His heavenly kingdom, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 22:2-3)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Persecution in Smryna
The Assembly of God which sojourns at Smyrna, to the Assembly of God sojourning in Philomelium, and to all the assemblies of the holy and Universal Assembly in every place. May grace, peace, and love from God the Father and from our Master Jesus Christ be multiplied to you. We have written to you, brethren, regarding the martyrs, and especially the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the recent persecution, having, as it were, set a seal upon it with his own martyrdom. (Martyrdom of Polycarp I:1)
It happened that the new proconsul, Statius Quadratus, came to Smyrna and arrested several men suspected of practicing Christianity. Quadratus served his consular term in 155-156 CE. He condemned the Christians to die by wild beasts in the arena, but before releasing the beasts, he gave the Christians one last chance to recant. On one occasion, an elderly Christian named Germanicus stood in the arena while the wild beasts snarled at him from behind their restraints. The proconsul urged Germanicus to have pity on his own years and renounce Christ. Germanicus defied the proconsul by taunting the wild beasts and urging them on to make the kill. They released the beasts, and they pounced on the old man and mauled him.
The spectators began to chant, "Away with the atheists!" They demanded the arrest of Polycarp, the known leader of the atheists.
Next in line behind Germanicus, awaiting his own turn in the arena, stood a Phrygian Christian named Quintus. He had recently come to Smyrna and, when the persecution began, he had defiantly surrendered himself to the authorities and admitted to being a Christian. Perhaps he had been inspired by stories of Ignatius. When Quintus saw the wild beasts mauling Germanicus, his proud faith melted away in fear. He reluctantly agreed to renounce Christ. He made a public sacrifice to the gods to prove his sincerity, then he betrayed Polycarp and told the proconsul where the bishop was hiding.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Arrest of Polycarp
Three days before his arrest, while he was praying, he saw in a vision at night the pillow under his head suddenly burst into flame. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I.I5.I0)
Polycarp's disciples had hidden their bishop away in a country villa not far from Smyrna. Polycarp and his companions passed the days in devout prayer on behalf of the Christians in Smyrna and the assemblies of Messiah throughout the world. About a week before Passover, Polycarp had a dream. He seemed to see the pillow on which he rested burst into flames. He woke from the dream with a start, turned to those who had been praying with him earlier, and prophesied to them, "1 am to be burned alive!"
Three days later, the authorities arrived at the villa. While they searched the apartments, Polycarp escaped by a back way and fled to the home of one of his relatives. The old bishop did not share Ignatius' zeal for martyrdom. The Martyrdom of Polycarp seems to consciously correct the Ignatian glorification of martyrdom at several points.
The authorities suspected that he might have fled to the villa of his kinsmen, so they arrested two of the young men from that family and subjected them to torture until one of the youths admitted that Polycarp was hiding in the household. The authorities went out heavily armed as if going out against a dangerous robber. They brought the young man with them to direct them to the bishop's hiding place. They happened to arrive on Friday evening, the eve of the Great Sabbath (Shabbat HaGadol), the Sabbath before Passover.
Polycarp and a few of his disciples looked down from an upper room of the house as the horsemen arrived. His disciples urged him to flee and escape to another place, but the old man felt too weary to continue the flight. He said, "Let the will of God be done." He went down and surrendered himself. The heavily armed officers laughed in dismay when they saw the frail, elderly man that they had been pursuing: "Did we make so much effort to catch such an old man as this?"
Polycarp ordered the household servants to give the officers a place at the table with food and drink set before them. He told them, "Give them as much as they like to eat and drink." He himself begged one hour to pray undisturbed before they took him away. The officers granted him permission. He stood and prayed for two hours, making mention in his prayers of every person he knew, both the small and the great, as well as the whole assembly of Messiah across the world.
The officers loaded the old bishop onto a donkey and led him to Smyrna.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Chariot of Hordos
He was met by Herod, the captain of police, and by his father Nicetes (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.15.15)
A Jew named Herod served as chief of police (irenarch) over Smyrna. Perhaps he was a descendant of the Herodian dynasty. When Herod learned that his men had made the arrest, he and his father Nicetes went out to take Polycarp directly into their custody. Perhaps they wanted to rescue Polycarp, or perhaps they simply wanted to embarrass the Christian community by persuading the bishop to renounce his allegiance to the Master.
They took a chariot out to meet the bishop. They took him up into the chariot with them and gave him a ride to the stadium. On the way, they tried to persuade him to save his life. They said, "What harm is there in saying, Lord Caesar? What harm in offering a sacrifice and observing a few ceremonies to ensure your safety?" At first, Polycarp would not reply to them at all, but when they continued to urge him, he said, "I will not take your advice." When he said this, they reproached him and cast him out of the chariot and onto the street. The force of the fall dislocated his hip.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Stadium in Smyrna
There was such a tumult in the stadium that not many heard a voice from heaven, which came to Polycarp as he was entering the place:
"Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man." And no one saw the speaker, but many of our people heard the voice. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.15.17)
The authorities conducted him into the stadium where such a large, cheering crowd of spectators had gathered that there was no possibility of being heard. Nevertheless, the believers who had pressed in among the spectators claimed that they heard a voice from heaven encouraging Polycarp to stand firm.
The officers stood Polycarp before the tribunal of the proconsul.
Quadratus asked him, "Are you Polycarp?" He admitted that he was.
Quadratus tried to persuade him to deny his faith publicly. He said, "Consider your advanced age," and other similar things. He urged him, "All you need to do is swear by the fortune of Caesar, repent of Christianity, and say, 'Away with the atheists!"
Polycarp stared at the great multitude of idolaters who filled the stadium, and waving his hand toward them, he said, "Away with these atheists!"
The proconsul urged him again, saying, "Swear! Reproach Christ and I will set you free."
Polycarp replied, "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?" The proconsul continued to press him and threaten him with wild beasts and other torments, but Polycarp remained resolute. He declared, "I am a Christian," and he offered to give the proconsul his testimony of faith.
The proconsul saw that he could not convince the man to repent. He sent a herald around the stadium, declaring three times to the crowd, "Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian." The whole multitude erupted into shouting and cheering. They shouted, "This is the teacher of Asia Minor, the father of the Christians, the over-thrower of our gods who teaches the multitudes not to sacrifice or worship the gods!" They began to cry out, "Burn him alive!" A Roman centurion gathered a pile of wood and bound Polycarp to a stake. Polycarp looked up to heaven and prayed:
Oh LORD, God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of You, God of angels, of all powers, of every creature, and of the whole race of the righteous who live before you, to you l give thanks because you have counted me worthy of this day and this hour, that I might have a portion with your witnesses in the cup of your Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and body, through the incorruptible gift of the Holy Spirit. May I be acceptable before you today as a choice sacrifice, just as you, the ever true God, have ordained and have revealed to me beforehand. Therefore also I praise you for all things. I bless you; I glorify you, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. To Him and to You and to the Holy Spirit, let there be glory both now and in all coming ages. Amen. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 14)
As he spoke his final amen, those appointed for the task ignited the kindling. A flame blazed forth. The Christians who saw it claimed that the fire seemed to shape itself into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship filled with wind, encompassing Polycarp's body but not burning him directly. They said, "He appeared within the fire not like flesh which is burnt, but as bread that is baked, or as gold and silver glowing in a furnace. Moreover, we perceived a sweet odor coming from the pile, as if frankincense or some such precious spices had been smoking there."
The executioners grew impatient with the process, or perhaps in an act of mercy for the elderly man, one of them plunged a blade into his heart. The believers claimed that they saw a dove spring forth from his body.
Nicetes, the father of Herod, warned the proconsul not to surrender Polycarp's remains for burial, "Lest forsaking the Crucified One, they begin to worship this one!" The centurion charged with the execution placed the body in the midst of the hottest part of the fire and tended it until he had reduced Polycarp's remains to ashes.
Later, the believers of Smyrna gathered the remains of the charred bones and deposited them in a tomb. Each year, on the anniversary of his martyrdom, they gave thanks to God for the memory of Polycarp:
Now, the blessed Polycarp suffered martyrdom on the second day of the month Xanthicus just begun, the seventh day before the Kalends of May, on the Great Sabbath, at the eighth hour. He was taken by Herod, Philip the Trallian being high priest, Statius Quadratus being proconsul, but Jesus Christ being King forever, to whom be glory, honor, majesty, and an everlasting throne, from generation to generation. Amen. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 21:1)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.