(Updated July 16, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Polycarp.
Next to each quote are the Topic Quote Archives in which they are included.
This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.
Letters
St. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians (c. 135)
- The Canon of Scripture | §10
- The Sacrament of Holy Orders, and the Authority of the Priesthood | Intro, §§5–6, 11
(Intro, §§5-6, 10-11)
(Intro) Polycarp, and the presbyters with him, to the Church of God sojourning at Philippi: Mercy to you, and peace from God Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, be multiplied…
(§5) …Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience.
(§6) And let the presbyters be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always “providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and man” (Rom. 12:17)…
(§10) Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood (1 Pet. 2:17), and being attached to one another, joined together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness of the Lord in your intercourse with one another, and despising no one. When you can do good, defer it not, because “alms delivers from death” (Tob. 4:10, 12:9). Be all of you subject one to another [1 Pet. 5:5] “having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles” (1 Pet. 2:12), that you may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed (Isa. 52:5)! Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct.
(§11) I am greatly grieved for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you, because he so little understands the place that was given him [in the Church]…
The Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 155)
At length, when those wicked men perceived that his body could not be consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to go near and pierce him through with a dagger. And on his doing this, there came forth a dove, and a great quantity of blood, so that the fire was extinguished; and all the people wondered that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this most admirable Polycarp was one, having in our own times been an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the Catholic Church which is in Smyrna. For every word that went out of his mouth either has been or shall yet be accomplished.
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