by
Damien F. Mackey
“Thus we might ask whom Polycarp is
imitating, Jesus or Socrates?
Or both?”
L. Stephanie Cobb
This was unexpected.
An article providing striking similarities between Polycarp and Socrates,
L. Stephanie Cobb’s
Polycarp’s
Cup: Imitatio in the Martyrdom
of Polycarp (2014):
Not so unexpected is that the pagan Socrates, an
un-historical figure according to my revision, could be considered in this
article to have been the prototype.
The author, Cobb, firstly compares, and contrasts, the
martyrdom of Polycarp with the death of Jesus Christ (p. 226):
While
the Gospels are the most obvious texts on which this author [Michael W. Holmes]
draws, they may not be the only texts
this author used to illuminate Polycarp’s character. It is striking—and, given
the tendency toward imitatio Christi in this text, perhaps troubling — that Polycarp stands by his
own power as he is burned to death. Those in charge of the execution bound him
to the pyre and then sought to nail him — surely bringing Jesus’ crucifixion to
the audience’s minds — but Polycarp stopped them: “Leave me thus; for the one
who allows me to endure the fire will allow me — without the security of your
nails — to remain in the pyre unmoved” (13.3).5 This is an extraordinary
statement. Throughout his narrative, the author has shown how Polycarp’s
actions imitated Jesus’, but here, at the death scene, we see not pious
imitation but, perhaps, one-upmanship: Polycarp does not need to be nailed the
way Jesus was.6
This
is not the only place a negative comparison could be drawn between Polycarp’s
and Jesus’ actions. After Polycarp is placed on the pyre, he offers a prayer to
God, in which he thanks God for granting him “a share, among the number of
martyrs, in the cup [poterioi] of
your Christ” (14.2). There are at least two possible referents for Polycarp’s cup.
On the one hand, in John 18:11, Jesus asks, “Am I not to drink the cup [poterion] that has been given to me by
the Father?” If Polycarp’s cup is an allusion to John 18, then we have here one
more positive example of imitatio
Christi. But the parallels to Jesus’ life in this
text are not drawn exclusively from John, so we cannot assume the author — much
less the audience — has this passage in mind. According to the Synoptic
Gospels, Jesus begs God to remove the cup [poterion]
… from him.7 The author’s use of the identical term in Polycarp’s prayer, [poterion] … could imply a negative
contrast: Polycarp, unlike the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, was willing to
drink from the cup given by God.8 Since Polycarp’s cup comes immediately after
the emphatic statement that he does not need to be nailed, this may be another
instance of the author distancing Polycarp from a problematic Jesus tradition.
….
and
she then (pp. 227-228) proceeds to draw some strong comparisons between
Polycarp and Socrates:
On
the other hand, an ancient audience might recall another death scene in which a
cup figures prominently: Socrates took the cup [kylix] … “without dread, without changing colour, or his
countenance” (Phaed. 117B). The different Greek term notwithstanding, Polycarp’s
desire for the metaphorical cup of martyrdom is much more like Socrates’ act
than that of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.9 Thus we might ask whom Polycarp is
imitating, Jesus or Socrates? Or both? A close reading of the Martyrdom of Polycarp reveals that allusions to the death of Socrates may play a
role in the theological and social meaning of this text.10 Thus the reader who
is not bound by the Christian canon may find in the Martyrdom of Polycarp not only imitatio
Christi but also imitatio Socratis.
Many
comparisons may be drawn between Socrates and Polycarp.11 Both men, for
instance, were described as “noble” (Phaed.
58D; Mart.
Pol. 2.1), and they were both charged with
atheism (Euth. 3B; Mart. Pol. 3.2; 12.2). Socrates refused to flee Athens in order to save
his life (Phaed. 98E–99A).
Similarly,
after receiving the vision that he must die, Polycarp refused to flee (Mart. Pol.
7.1).
Neither man was willing to use persuasion to save his life (Apol. 35D; Mart. Pol. 10.2).
Socrates took control of his death by requesting the hemlock rather than
waiting for it to be administered to him (Phaed.
116D); Polycarp took control of his death
by removing his own clothes and standing on the pyre without being nailed (Mart. Pol.
13.2–3). Both Socrates and Polycarp prayed before dying (Phaed. 117C;
Mart. Pol. 14.1–3), and the accounts of both of their deaths refer to
sacrifices (Phaed. 118A; Mart.
Pol. 14.1). Both men are explicitly said to
have been old (Apol. 17D, Crito 52E; Mart. Pol. 9.3), and their deaths were models for others (Phaed. 115C;
Mart. Pol. 1.2; 19.1).
The
three elements Holmes identifies as central to a martyrdom “according to the
Gospel” in the Martyrdom of Polycarp — divine call, concern for others, and endurance — are also
central to the noble death tradition, known through the ancient genre exitus illustrium virorum, which was based on the death of Socrates.12 If Holmes is
correct that the Martyrdom of Polycarp is concerned with demonstrating “a particular approach to”
death, then the text fits perfectly into this tradition.
In
what follows, I will explore Holmes’s three components of a “martyrdom according
to the Gospel” — endurance, concern for others, and divine call — preceded by a
discussion of another commonly identified aspect of the noble death tradition —
sacrificial metaphors — to demonstrate how an ancient audience could have
interpreted Polycarp’s death through the lens of traditions relating noble
deaths. Then I will suggest one way these literary allusions may function
apologetically.13 Ultimately, I am interested in the literary product that emerges
when we read the Martyrdom of Polycarp with an eye to widely circulating elements of noble deaths.
Thus, by identifying various literary allusions in the Martyrdom of Polycarp,
I hope to explore — to borrow Ellen Finkelpearl’s phrase — “meanings available
in the source text beyond the obvious” —
that is, imitatio Socratis not merely imitatio
Christi, though these function reciprocally
rather than competitively or in isolation.14
Even
more directly, the author will name the next section (pp. 229 f.):
The Death of Polycarp as Imitatio
Socratis.
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