Polycarp, indeed1, having been instructed by the apostles and having associated familiarly with many who had seen the Lord, writes in that epistle from which, as Irenaeus2 says, all who take care for their salvation will be able, if they will, to know both the form of his faith and the preaching of the truth, concerning Christ the Lord3, that he is he ὃς ὑπέμεινεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἕως θανάτου καταντῆσαι, ὃν ἤγειρεν ὁ Θεός, λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ ᾅδου, “who endured to come even unto death for our sins, whom4 God raised up, having loosed the pains of hell.”
But lest these things should seem to anyone narrower and circumscribed to the faithful alone, Polycarp adds5 concerning the same Christ that he is ὃς ἔρχεται κριτὴς ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν· οὗ τὸ αἷμα ἐκζητήσει ὁ Θεὸς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀπειθούντων αὐτῷ, “he who comes as judge of the living and the dead, whose blood God will require from those who do not believe in him.” But God would not require, nor indeed could he require, the blood of Christ from unbelievers unless it had also been poured forth for them and, by their hardened will, unbelievers deprived it of its fruit. Therefore there is no one who is foreign to the benefit of the divine blood poured forth; and consequently no one who is not signified when Christ is said to have come even unto death for our sins.
With the same amplitude of signification these things also6 must be received:
Ἀδιαλείπτως οὖν προσκαρτερῶμεν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἡμῶν καὶ τῷ ἀῤῥαβῶνι τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἡμῶν, ὅς ἐστι Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, ὃς ἀνήνεγκεν ἡμῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ἰδίῳ σώματι ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον, ὃς ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν, οὐδὲ εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ· ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἡμᾶς, ἵνα ζήσωμεν ἐν αὐτῷ, πάντα ὑπέμεινε. Therefore let us persevere unceasingly in our hope and in the pledge of our justice, which is Christ Jesus, who7 bore our sins in his body upon the tree, who8 committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, but for our sake, that9 we might live in him, endured all things10.
But if Christ is our hope11, if he is the pledge of our justice, if he underwent our sins in his body, if for our sake and for our eternal life he endured all things, what at last shall we judge to follow? Namely: a) that we pertain to a state which is a state of hope; consequently b) to a state in which there is no necessity of perishing, and in which c) there is present the faculty of obtaining life; finally d) to the state of a nature which, through the intervention of a just redemption, was recalled from the fall and destruction.
Footnotes
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Thus Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book III, chap. III, and Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book IV, chap. XIV, testify concerning him. ↩
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In Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book IV, chap. XIV. ↩
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Epistle to the Philippians, § I, p. 193, Tübingen edition, 1842. ↩
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Acts II.24. In all the Greek manuscripts there is constantly found ὁ Θεὸς ἀνέστησε; nor does the Vulgate read otherwise, which therefore renders it, God raised up. We therefore conjecture that Polycarp substituted ἤγειρεν, an equivalent, for the verb ἀνέστησε. Moreover, the clause λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ ᾅδου is reported by the Greek-Latin codices, Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, and the Syriac and Vulgate versions, the latter of which renders it, having loosed the pains of hell. Therefore we seem to see no reason that persuaded Scholz to prefer λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτου to so solemn a reading. ↩
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Ibid., § II, p. 193. ↩
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Ibid., § VIII, p. 199. ↩
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I Pet. II.24. ↩
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I Pet. II.22. ↩
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I John IV.9. ↩
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Polycarp seems in these words to have imitated those which Ignatius wrote to him, § III: τὸν κατὰ πάντα τρόπον δι᾽ ἡμᾶς ὑπομείναντα. ↩
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Compare the things we reported above from Ignatius. ↩