So, please tell me if you know, Thing, what did Polycarp (the disciple of John the apostle) have to say about the authority of the Roman Catholic Church?
What did he have to say about the authority of the Roman Catholic Church or what he had to say to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church?;
While Anicetus was Pope, St. Polycarp, then in extreme old age, came to confer with him (160-162) about the Paschal controversy; Polycarp and others in the East celebrating the feast on the fourteenth of the month of Nisan, no matter on what day of the week it fell; whereas in Rome it was always observed on Sunday, and the day of the Lord’s death on Friday. The matter was discussed but nothing was decided. According to Eusebius: “Polycarp could not persuade the Pope, nor the Pope, Polycarp. The controversy was not ended but the bonds of charity were not broken”; the Pope permitting the aged saint to celebrate on the day he had been accustomed to in the Church of Smyrna.
Hegesippus, the first Christian historian whose writings are of great value, because he lived so near the time of the Apostles, also came to Rome at this time. His visit is recorded by most ecclesiastical authors as noteworthy, inasmuch as it calls attention to the fact that many illustrious men repaired to Rome at that period, thus emphasizing very early the supreme dignity and authority of the Roman Pontiffs. Marcion, Marcellinus, Valentine, and Cordo were also at Rome, disturbing the Church by their Manichæism. Anicetus suffered martyrdom in 161, but the dates vary between 16, 17, and 20 April.
“Against Heresies”, St. Irenæus makes his celebrated appeal to the “successions” of the bishops in all the Churches. He is arguing against heretics who professed to have a kind of esoteric tradition derived from the Apostles. To whom, demands St. Irenæus, would the Apostles be more likely to commit hidden mysteries than to the bishops to whom they entrusted their churches? In order then to know what the Apostles taught, we must have recourse to the “successions” of bishops throughout the world. But as time and space would fail if we tried to enumerate them all one by one, let the Roman Church speak for the rest. Their agreement with her is a manifest fact by reason of the position which she holds among them (“for with this Church on account of its potior principalitas the whole Church, that is, the faithful from every quarter, must needs agree”, etc.).
From Iraneaus;
. . And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp … nor Polycarp Anicetus . . . But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the Eucharist in the Church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace", etc.
Then follows the list of the Roman bishops down to Eleutherius, the twelfth from the Apostles, the ninth from Clement, “who had both seen and conversed with the blessed Apostles”. From the Roman Church, representing all the churches, the writer then passes on to two Churches, that of Smyrna, in which, in the person of Polycarp, the sub-Apostolic Age had been carried down to a time still within living memory, and the Church of Ephesus, where, in the person of St. John, the Apostolic Age had been prolonged till “the time of Trajan”. Of Polycarp he says, “he was not only taught by the Apostles, and lived in familiar intercourse with many that had seen Christ, but also received his appointment in Asia from the Apostles as Bishop in the Church of Smyrna”. He then goes on to speak of his own personal acquaintance with Polycarp, his martyrdom, and his visit to Rome, where he converted many heretics. He then continues, "there are those who heard him tell how John, the disciple of the Lord, when he went to take a bath in Ephesus, and saw Cerinthus within, rushed away from the room without bathing, with the words ‘Let us flee lest the room should fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within’. Yea, and Polycarp himself, also, when on one occasion Marcion confronted him and said ‘Recognise us’, replied, ‘Ay, ay, I recognise the first-born of Satan’ ".
The Smyrnaean letter describing St. Polycarp’s martyrdom
Polycarp’s martyrdom is described in a letter from the Church of Smyrna, to the Church of Philomelium “and to all the brotherhoods of the holy and universal Church”, etc. The letter begins with an account of the persecution and the heroism of the martyrs. Conspicuous among them was one Germanicus, who encouraged the rest, and when exposed to the wild beasts, incited them to slay him. His death stirred the fury of the multitude, and the cry was raised “Away with the atheists; let search be made for Polycarp”. But there was one Quintus, who of his own accord had given himself up to the persecutors. When he saw the wild beasts he lost heart and apostatized. “Wherefore”, comment the writers of the epistle, “we praise not those who deliver themselves up, since the Gospel does not so teach us”. Polycarp was persuaded by his friends to leave the city and conceal himself in a farm-house. Here he spent his time in prayer, “and while praying he falleth into a trance three days before his apprehension; and he saw his pillow burning with fire. And he turned and said unto those that were with him, ‘it must needs be that I shall be burned alive’”. When his pursuers were on his track he went to another farm-house. Finding him gone they put two slave boys to the torture, and one of them betrayed his place of concealment. Herod, head of the police, sent a body of men to arrest him on Friday evening. Escape was still possible, but the old man refused to flee, saying, “the will of God be done”. He came down to meet his pursuers, conversed affably with them, and ordered food to be set before them. While they were eating he prayed, “remembering all, high and low, who at any time had come in his way, and the Catholic Church throughout the world”. Then he was led away.
So St. Polycarp was a Bishop of the Catholic Church, the Church of St John the Aopstle and of St. Paul, and he recognised and met and conversed with the Pope Anicetus, Bishop of Rome.
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