Indeed we began to piece together a scenario where the final editor was developing an old collection of letters (and even writing some new ones) in order to advance a particular individual onto a newly established ‘Episcopal throne’ at Antioch. Of course the story acknowledges that ‘fiery one’ was one of the first to sit in the Antiochene throne but was forcibly removed by Roman soldiers and left with a dying wish that Polycarp find someone to replace him. Nevertheless I think that we can now see through these contrivances no less than his ultimate motivation – viz. to establish a rival See to that of St. Mark’s at Alexandria.
This ‘certain someone’ would be offered a position which represented nothing less than being the ‘Father’ of all Christianity. It was a replication of the ‘Pope’ figure who had sat on the throne of St. Mark since the apostolic period. The only difference of course was that this figure would be an heir to St. John, the apostle whom both Ignatius and Polycarp claim to have been disciples from the earliest days of the Church.
If we want to uncover the identity of this ‘certain someone’ we need only look to those same Ignatian epistles to uncover his name. The so-called epistle to the Smyrnaean church will help reiterate all that we have developed so far where has ‘Ignatius’ announce to the community at Smyrna again that:
Your prayer has reached to the Church which is at Antioch in Syria … [I pray] that your work may be complete … [for] it is fitting that … your Church should elect some worthy delegate; so that he, journeying into Syria, may congratulate them that they are [now] at peace, and are restored to their proper greatness, and that their proper constitution has been re-established among them. It seems then to me a becoming thing, that you should send some one of your number with an epistle, so that, in company with them, he may rejoice over the tranquility which, according to the will of God, they have obtained, and because that, through your prayers, they have now reached the harbour.
In other words, we see once again see the same scenario. ‘Ignatius’ the successful martyr taps Polycarp as the point man to establish a chosen individual to take over his Antiochene seat. This wasn’t just a positon which had authority over the city of Antioch or the province of Syria (which included Judea) but clearly the Church as a whole. Indeed Antioch was to be the ‘new Alexandria’ of the Christian tradition as the newly developed ‘pseudo-history’ of the Acts of the Apostles already intimates.
If scholars had taken careful note of the Syriac Orthodox tradition they would have realized that Antioch never stopped being seen as the real center of the Christian world. Throughout the ages and to this very day the Syrian Church has used Acts and the letters of Ignatius to prove their claims.
Yet let’s get back to the issue at hand and identify who Polycarp’s choice was to succeed Ignatius at the new Papacy. The letters of Ignatius refer to this individual time and time again as ‘Heros.’ Not surprisingly the Chronicle of Eusebius confirms that in the tenth year of Trajan (107 CE) “Ignatius was succeeded by Heros at the episcopate of the church of Antioch.” This date will be quite important later in the chapter so the reader is advised to make a mental note of it.
It might be easy to mistake ‘Heros’ as being a mere ‘deacon’ from some references in the Ignatian material. Yet this represents an entirely superficial analysis of the material; a careful reading will reveal something else. Heros is clearly understood to be the very Pope of the Church, Christ-like in his devotion to the other bishops. As such he is meekly presented as the “servant” or diakonos of the Church as a whole. The term is used elsewhere in papal literature in this manner. We see that Ignatius tells Heros in this epistle that all “the bishops, Onesimus, Bitus, Damas, Polybius, and all they of Philippi (whence also I have written to thee), salute thee [i.e. Heros] in Christ.”
When we look to the contents of the Ignatian epistle to Heros we get a clear sense of Ignatius preparing Heros for his role as the head of the Catholic Church. Heros is identified by Ignatius as “the deacon of Christ, and the servant of God, a man honoured by God, and most dearly loved as well as esteemed, who carries Christ and the Spirit within him, and who is my own son in faith and love.” This is near messianic praise being heaped on the supposed new Pope. The title of ‘servant’ of God for instance belongs to ‘Moses.’ The epistle represents nothing short of a ‘job training manual’ for how a Pope is expected to shepherd the Church.
'Ignatius' develops a checklist of things Heros should promote in the Christian community including ‘bearing the weak,’ upholding orthodoxy and the like. Ignatius concludes by declaring that he has faith “that God will show me, Heros, upon my throne. Add speed, therefore, to your course [Heros]. I charge you … tokeep in safety that deposit which I and Christ have committed to you, and do not judge yourself unworthy of those things which have been shown by God [to me] concerning you. I hand over to you the Church of Antioch. I have commended you to Polycarp in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Of course my readership are likely shaking their heads in disagreement with my claims that Polycarp made up the whole Ignatian canon to establish this ‘Heros’ guy on the throne. Yet they must still be asking themselves ‘who is Heros and how does any of this help explain Polycarp’s plan to develop the Catholic Church?’ The truth is when I wrote my first draft of this book at twenty three years of age I only got this far. I ended up scratching my head and wondered what was so important about this ‘Heros’ figure and when I couldn’t come to a satisfactory answer, I ended up giving up on publishing the work. I hadn’t it seems fully ‘cracked the nut’ that was Polycarp.
It was after a great deal of additional research which appears in the next section of this work did all the pieces come together. Indeed one line in the Epistle to Heros stood out for me. Polycarp has Ignatius declare to his successor:
Be strong, therefore, O Heros, heroic [Gk. Heron heroikos] and manly. For from henceforth you shall lead [Deuteronomy 31:7, 23] in and out the people of the Lord that are in Antioch, and so the congregation of the Lord shall not be as sheep which have no shepherd. [Numbers 27:17]
Now I am quite aware that most scholars have never noticed the parallels between the accounts of Polycarp and Lucian's satire of Peregrinus. Nevertheless, it follows from BOTH Irenaeus' witness and Lucian of Samosata that the common historical figure to both traditions was an elusive figure. No one seems to have known his real name.
As I have noted many times 'Polycarp' is undoubtedly developed as a back formation from the name of the 'Maphrian' (Ephrem = Gk. polycarpou) Church of Antioch which he founded. The Syrian Orthdoox Church of Antioch still retains this name. Polycarp is to Maphrian what 'Marcion' is to the Aramaic Marqiyone i.e. 'those of Mark.'
In any event, it is stunning to see how many times Peregrinus (i.e. 'the Stranger') is identified as 'hero' in Lucian's account. At the beginning of the narrative we see the comparison that when Empedocles:
threw himself into the crater of Aetna, [he] would be seen by nobody : whereas this doughty hero chose the most frequented of all national assemblies of Greece.
And again a little later Lucian says that while talking to a Christian:
I listened again to the astonishing hyperbole in praise of [this man], poured forth by the former in a torrent of words. To compare him to [Diogenes] of Sinope and his master Anisthenes, he said would be doing them too much honor. Even Socrates would not be good enough for that: to make short of it, he at length charged Jupiter himself to view with his hero.
And again we are told a little later by Lucian:
Indeed, people came even from the cities in Asia, sent by the Christians at their common expense, to succour and defend and encourage the hero. They show incredible speed whenever any such public action is taken; for in no time they lavish their all. So it was then in the case of Peregrinus; much money came to him from them by reason of his imprisonment, and he procured not a little revenue from it.
And once more Polycarp/Peregrinus is identified as the 'hero' of the Sybill
But when the time shall come that Proteus, noblest of Cynics,
Kindleth fire in the precinct of Zeus, our Lord of the Thunder,
Leapeth into the flame, and cometh to lofty Olympus,
Then do I bid all alike who eat the fruit of the ploughland
Honour to pay unto him that walketh abroad in the night-time,
Greatest hero, thronéd with Heracles and Hephaestus.
Now I haven't found a copy of the original Greek text of Lucian of Samosata's Peregrinus to check how many of these references go back to an original 'heros' in Greek. Nevertheless I think it is highly possible to begin to see that the anonymous Christian preacher called 'Pergerinus' or Polycarp was identified as 'heros' by his followers.
The idea that Irenaeus developed a scenario where 'Ignatius' lived generations before Polycarp's ultimate martyrdom and was succeeded by 'Hero' (and where in turn 'Hero' was the bishop of Antioch throughout the whole period Polycarp was active) undoubtedly represents a way of obscuring the historical fact that Polycarp was the actual head of the Maphrian Church in the period.
It is interesting to note that the literature is filled with the idea of Hero being chosen to fill the role of bishop of Antioch. We have almost NO INFORMATION about him actually filling the role. It is also interesting to note that the information is so bad that we actually have two bishops with the same name in the period - i.e. 'Hero' and 'Eros.'
