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The Life of Polycarp’s Death

The Life of Polycarp’s Death

Monday, May 24, 2021
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Presenter: Dr. Hal Taussig

Perhaps the most evocative, and garbled martyr stories of early Christ people and/or early Christians are the ones about Polycarp.  We threw ourselves into the several available versions of the “Martyrdom of Polycarp” to see how the stories elaborate themselves and their meanings of ‘his’ ‘martyrdom.’  Most stories of Polycarp have him being killed by Roman rulers in his old age, after having been a successful leader of a Christ group of the second century in Smyrna. Although much of the literature has anchored his actual life as well as an alleged orthodoxy in the second century, many scholars now place the earliest stories about him no earlier than the third century.