The Shepherd's Commission and the Martyrdom of Polycarp

Having been received from the truly blessed one, he is called the rock of faith and the foundation and the substructure of the church according to Christ. He receives the keys through the promise of the kingdom and becomes lord of those gates, so as to open them to whomever he wishes and to close them to whomever is just, but certainly to the unfaithful and the impious who deny that same confession which he was appointed to stand as an exact guardian of the entrances of the kingdom, as a faithful one of the good things.

Oh, the darkness and the cloudiness which has poured out much before the eyes of men, through which the heretics do not see the traces of the fathers, nor are they able even to walk in them, which the feet of the apostles have worn down. For behold, Peter, the genuine disciple of Christ by election, having received everywhere the first vote and the honors and the achievements, that great one who was all, whose fame filled the whole inhabited world, having been commanded to speak so as to glorify our God and Savior, did not begin a wandering from some distance away, nor, surrounding himself with a circle of syllogisms and matters, he answered toward the question as if now the terrible sophists and technicians of faith are accustomed to do, but in simplicity of heart he set forth the truth briefly, not sending the unbegotten to the begotten, nor having reasoned excessively about the similar and the dissimilar, nor having busied himself with differences concerning all substance, nor having measured the immeasurable divinity with syllogisms, like the plays of Arius and the maneuvers of Eunomius.

Let us therefore, O Christians, zealously imitate the knowledge of the fisherman, the unsearching one, the elder from Bethsaida, the first catch of Christ, whose knowledge is not much talk. Let us meditate on saying: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt 16:16), and to leave the more complex things to the word-fighters, whose strife is their work and whose end is destruction. Does the apostle's miracles stand until what has been said? Or do we think that quite the opposite would not even come to pass, if someone were to deviate from the things spoken, remaining beside them? But I, leaving the many things to your own knowledge, for you know Peter and his deeds, even if no one should precede me in praising the man, I wish to speak small things concerning his rest and how...

He escaped from the earth to heaven, so that there he might cease to say 'wherever that life is'.

Our Savior, as He was about to approach the arbitrary death, like an exceptional deposit, entrusts the general and ecumenical church to this man, asking him for the third time, 'Do you love me?' (John 21:15). Since he eagerly set forth the confessions in equal number to the questions, he took the world into his care as one shepherd, having heard, 'Feed my lambs' (John 21:15); and almost instead of himself, the Lord gave to the converts a father, a shepherd, and a teacher.

Having heard this voice, therefore, he did not live his life in idleness, nor did he love the life of danger outside, but he was encircling the whole inhabited world, revealing Christ to those becoming blind, guiding those wandering, strengthening those having tasted salvation, fighting against enemies, exhorting those at home, enduring persecutions, bearing the burden of prisons, and risking the gospel in many ways.

As time passed, having seized the ruling city of men, he ascended from there to the kingdom. For Nero, being thrown into anger, surpassed all other modes of torture, just as once in Palestine when Herod was king and the Magi were announcing Christ, exceeding the others in his ways of punishment, it was decreed that the thrice-blessed one should be crucified on the wood of a cross, so that Peter the Lord's disciple might not only imitate him in walking the sea (Matt 14:29), but also in hanging upon the wood.

However, as a pious and wise man, even knowing the time of struggle, he asked of the enemies just one difference: that they might not bring him in a similar form to the wood, but rather having crucified the head to the lower part of the cross. For it is not worthy, even in equal suffering, for the slave to encounter the same as the Master. He said, and it happened as he willed, and through the cross he departed to the one crucified and risen, himself having put on the crown of martyrdom, leaving to us the causes of these feasts.

These things we also, in our power, O beloved and holy head, have given to you as thanksgivings for many who have been perfected; but now, the word turns toward another combatant, the...