Re: Need help finding a list of early Smyrna Bishops
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:13 am
My own feelings about Polycarp, having spent some time thinking about matters from a crazy perspective.
I think it is highly unlikely that Polycarp was ever a 'bishop.' I think this is where the clash between Irenaeus's worldview and that of the historical Polycarp is most evident. I think Irenaeus likely forged or altered a number of documents from the early Church. The Ignatian correspondences is the obvious set and the overlap with the Peregrinus narrative of Lucian of Samosata is the clincher. One some level Lucian witnessed Polycarp and called him 'Peregrinus.' His obsession with being burned alive as a martyr fueled the creation of a separate figure named Ignatius (quite literally the 'fiery one'). If Lucian of Samosata takes the snap shot just as Irenaeus is getting to work falsifying original material associated with the man whom we call 'Polycarp' to conform to two distinct individuals now - 'Ignatius' who lived before Polycarp and 'Polycarp' who was associated with Ignatius.
The overarching concern of the Ignatian correspondences (and we will have to note Trobisch's and others observation that the 'letters' really form a set and were intended (and were composed as forgeries) to be read one after the other as the appear in the canon) is the status of the bishop - and specifically with the 'bishopric' of Antioch. This was not in the original material which I believe is more faithfully preserved in the shorter Syriac but was added in the long (i.e. as distinguished from the 'longer' or 'longest' recension which was the subject of much dispute between Catholics and Protestants). Whoever lengthened the material from the short Syriac to the long Greek did so for the sake of the bishopric. Ignatius becomes a spokesman for the importance of bishops and obedience to the bishopric.
The interesting thing is that the methodology of the forgery or lengthening of the short letters was to have Ignatius claim (openly) that he is sending the letters by someone (usually Polycarp) and that Polycarp himself in his letter to the Philippians 'confirms' that he is actively sending the Ignatian canon to churches. Of course as Koester notes the letter to the Philippians is really two letters - or as I would have it, was reworked a second time.
I think Lucian's attestation of 'letters being sent from the underworld' associated with Polycarp/Peregrinus explains the entire process. Irenaeus is at Rome while Polycarp was martyred and takes an active role (according to the martyrdom of Polycarp) in the editing of his martyrdom. But clearly part of this process of 'editing' was to take the short letters originally written by Polycarp 'the fiery one' and distributed in conjunction with his famous visit to Rome (where later Irenaeus dismisses any talk of division and says that he and Anicetus 'agreed to disagree') and turn that into a controversy which had nothing to do with Polycarp but rather his predecessor Ignatius. In other words, Irenaeus 'wrote in' the obsession with the bishopric and specifically the bishopric of Antioch.
There are two lengths of the Greek letters of Ignatius. The first length (long) are now understood to be 'the true letters' (with the short Syriac 'subtracting' and the longer Greek 'adding' to that original length). I chose to see it as a successive lengthening in light of Irenaeus's expanding influence. The matter seems very similar to the Acts of Paul. The Acts of Paul are really an extension of the Acts of the Apostles where the specific character of Paul is given greater focus and attention. In these letters the original appeal of the 'long' letters that every church should have and obey 'a bishop' may well have led to the establishment of bishops in every see. Mission accomplished. Then in due course when Irenaeus realized that having all these bishops established in major sees wasn't enough he added to the letters with another running subtext - viz. Ignatius knows he's going to die and he wants all the bishops (who had formerly been just a pipe dream) to know gather together as a synod and vote for his successor, who turns out to be Hero of Antioch.
Why did Irenaeus add the subplot about Hero? I think the nascent idea of a proto-papacy is already at work here (which is why the Protestants opposed the longer version of the Ignatian letters). Hero is going to sit as the bishop of the bishops (I forget what the terminology was in the Ignatian letters but was very similar to the idea in the Greek orthodox church where all bishops are equal but nevertheless the bishop of Constantinople was the head bishop).
The point of course without getting too deeply into my understanding of the relationship between all the layers of evidence is that the situation perfectly exemplifies my resistance of mythicism with respect to Jesus. There was a historical Polycarp. He might not (and probably was not) actually called Polycarp. But we can flesh out that his visit to Rome was historical and the basis to Ignatian business about being 'thrown to the lions' which then becomes the (very strange) death of the 'fiery one' by means other than fire. Polycarp was likely just using the Tacitus story about Nero throwing Christians to the beasts to illustrate his own fate as he went to Rome.
The point of course is that we also learn a lot about Irenaeus. I think that somehow beneath all the mechanisations in the Ignatian canon the end game changed. The fact that Rome was not the center of the Christian world but hostile to it likely means that Irenaeus forged even the last state of the Ignatian epistles while he was still an outsider in Rome and Florinus an insider. So it is that he builds up a church at Antioch and he does it not merely through the subplot in the expansion of the Greek layers but also by means of Acts which is clearly part of the effort. Acts is itself a rewrite of Paul's statement that he opposed Peter at Antioch now as the starting point to an ecumenical union of the Church. Of course this is bullshit. You can't get from what is written in Galatians to Acts by honesty.
But the last clue here is Theophilus. I like many others think that the text was sent to Theophilus of Antioch along with Luke as part of an effort set up Theophilus as a counter balance against the influence of other Christian centers (Rome, Alexandria). The long subplot in the longer Greek Ignatian text with Ignatian organizing the rise of his successor Hero was all a subterfuge to get Theophilus established as Hero's replacement and the head of all the churches at Antioch. But the point is that the real Polycarp was never a bishop. He only became one as part of an evil plan on the part of Irenaeus to take over the Christian religion and reshape its destiny.
I think it is highly unlikely that Polycarp was ever a 'bishop.' I think this is where the clash between Irenaeus's worldview and that of the historical Polycarp is most evident. I think Irenaeus likely forged or altered a number of documents from the early Church. The Ignatian correspondences is the obvious set and the overlap with the Peregrinus narrative of Lucian of Samosata is the clincher. One some level Lucian witnessed Polycarp and called him 'Peregrinus.' His obsession with being burned alive as a martyr fueled the creation of a separate figure named Ignatius (quite literally the 'fiery one'). If Lucian of Samosata takes the snap shot just as Irenaeus is getting to work falsifying original material associated with the man whom we call 'Polycarp' to conform to two distinct individuals now - 'Ignatius' who lived before Polycarp and 'Polycarp' who was associated with Ignatius.
The overarching concern of the Ignatian correspondences (and we will have to note Trobisch's and others observation that the 'letters' really form a set and were intended (and were composed as forgeries) to be read one after the other as the appear in the canon) is the status of the bishop - and specifically with the 'bishopric' of Antioch. This was not in the original material which I believe is more faithfully preserved in the shorter Syriac but was added in the long (i.e. as distinguished from the 'longer' or 'longest' recension which was the subject of much dispute between Catholics and Protestants). Whoever lengthened the material from the short Syriac to the long Greek did so for the sake of the bishopric. Ignatius becomes a spokesman for the importance of bishops and obedience to the bishopric.
The interesting thing is that the methodology of the forgery or lengthening of the short letters was to have Ignatius claim (openly) that he is sending the letters by someone (usually Polycarp) and that Polycarp himself in his letter to the Philippians 'confirms' that he is actively sending the Ignatian canon to churches. Of course as Koester notes the letter to the Philippians is really two letters - or as I would have it, was reworked a second time.
I think Lucian's attestation of 'letters being sent from the underworld' associated with Polycarp/Peregrinus explains the entire process. Irenaeus is at Rome while Polycarp was martyred and takes an active role (according to the martyrdom of Polycarp) in the editing of his martyrdom. But clearly part of this process of 'editing' was to take the short letters originally written by Polycarp 'the fiery one' and distributed in conjunction with his famous visit to Rome (where later Irenaeus dismisses any talk of division and says that he and Anicetus 'agreed to disagree') and turn that into a controversy which had nothing to do with Polycarp but rather his predecessor Ignatius. In other words, Irenaeus 'wrote in' the obsession with the bishopric and specifically the bishopric of Antioch.
There are two lengths of the Greek letters of Ignatius. The first length (long) are now understood to be 'the true letters' (with the short Syriac 'subtracting' and the longer Greek 'adding' to that original length). I chose to see it as a successive lengthening in light of Irenaeus's expanding influence. The matter seems very similar to the Acts of Paul. The Acts of Paul are really an extension of the Acts of the Apostles where the specific character of Paul is given greater focus and attention. In these letters the original appeal of the 'long' letters that every church should have and obey 'a bishop' may well have led to the establishment of bishops in every see. Mission accomplished. Then in due course when Irenaeus realized that having all these bishops established in major sees wasn't enough he added to the letters with another running subtext - viz. Ignatius knows he's going to die and he wants all the bishops (who had formerly been just a pipe dream) to know gather together as a synod and vote for his successor, who turns out to be Hero of Antioch.
Why did Irenaeus add the subplot about Hero? I think the nascent idea of a proto-papacy is already at work here (which is why the Protestants opposed the longer version of the Ignatian letters). Hero is going to sit as the bishop of the bishops (I forget what the terminology was in the Ignatian letters but was very similar to the idea in the Greek orthodox church where all bishops are equal but nevertheless the bishop of Constantinople was the head bishop).
The point of course without getting too deeply into my understanding of the relationship between all the layers of evidence is that the situation perfectly exemplifies my resistance of mythicism with respect to Jesus. There was a historical Polycarp. He might not (and probably was not) actually called Polycarp. But we can flesh out that his visit to Rome was historical and the basis to Ignatian business about being 'thrown to the lions' which then becomes the (very strange) death of the 'fiery one' by means other than fire. Polycarp was likely just using the Tacitus story about Nero throwing Christians to the beasts to illustrate his own fate as he went to Rome.
The point of course is that we also learn a lot about Irenaeus. I think that somehow beneath all the mechanisations in the Ignatian canon the end game changed. The fact that Rome was not the center of the Christian world but hostile to it likely means that Irenaeus forged even the last state of the Ignatian epistles while he was still an outsider in Rome and Florinus an insider. So it is that he builds up a church at Antioch and he does it not merely through the subplot in the expansion of the Greek layers but also by means of Acts which is clearly part of the effort. Acts is itself a rewrite of Paul's statement that he opposed Peter at Antioch now as the starting point to an ecumenical union of the Church. Of course this is bullshit. You can't get from what is written in Galatians to Acts by honesty.
But the last clue here is Theophilus. I like many others think that the text was sent to Theophilus of Antioch along with Luke as part of an effort set up Theophilus as a counter balance against the influence of other Christian centers (Rome, Alexandria). The long subplot in the longer Greek Ignatian text with Ignatian organizing the rise of his successor Hero was all a subterfuge to get Theophilus established as Hero's replacement and the head of all the churches at Antioch. But the point is that the real Polycarp was never a bishop. He only became one as part of an evil plan on the part of Irenaeus to take over the Christian religion and reshape its destiny.