I've spent a great deal of time digging into what polycarp on infant baptism can inform us about how exactly the particular earliest Christians in fact lived out their particular faith. If you've ever sat through a heated debate about whether babies should be baptized or when it's strictly for all adults who've made a conscious "decision, " you know just how quickly things may get intense. Individuals start throwing Ancient greek language verbs and Latin phrases around, and before you understand it, many people are frustrated. But when we all look at the particular historical record—specifically at guys like Polycarp—the conversation gets a lot more grounded and, honestly, the lot more interesting.
Polycarp is really a massive figure within church history due to the fact he's a "bridge" character. He wasn't just some arbitrary guy with the beard; he was a disciple from the Apostle John. That's a big deal. If anyone understood what the Apostles actually intended regarding the church in order to do, it was Polycarp. He lived from roughly 69 AD to 155 AD, which puts him right within the middle associated with that transition period in which the church was moving from the era of the Apostles into the period of the Early Church Fathers.
The Famous "86 Years" Quote
The most common piece of evidence people stage to when referring to Polycarp and infant baptism comes through the account of his death, titled The particular Martyrdom of Polycarp . It's the pretty heavy read, but the climactic moment happens whenever the Roman proconsul attempts to get Polycarp to curse Christ in order to save his very own life.
Polycarp's response is legendary. He says, "Eighty and six many years have I served Him, and He never did me personally any injury: exactly how then can We blaspheme my Ruler and Savior? "
Right now, why does this matter for the baptism debate? Let's do the math. In the event that Polycarp was 86 years old at the particular time of his death (some historians think he might have been even a bit older, but 86 is the particular number he provides for his "service"), and says he's been serving Christ for all 86 of those years, that implies he was a Christian through the very start. Within the context of the early church, you weren't considered a "servant" or a member of the community in a vacuum—you were brought within through baptism.
If he had already been converted later on, state at age twenty or 30, he or she would have stated, "I've served Him for fifty many years. " But he claims 86 years. For many students, this is a "smoking gun" for infant baptism. This suggests that Polycarp was baptized being an infant or a very young child around 69 ADVERTISEMENT, right as the Apostles were still active.
Why the particular "Service" Argument Holds Weight
A few people argue that will "serving" doesn't necessarily mean he was baptized as being a baby. They suggest this individual might have just been raised in a Christian home and only got baptized later whenever he was aged enough to "choose. " But honestly, that doesn't actually fit the method people talked back then.
In the 2nd century, being the "servant of Christ" was more often than not tied to your initiation into the chapel. You were "claimed" simply by Christ through the water. If Polycarp viewed his entire life as a span of service to Christ, it's as they didn't keep in mind a moment when he or she wasn't part of the agreement community.
Think about this this way: when Polycarp was the disciple of David, and John noticed him being baptized as an infant, it means the practice wasn't some strange corruption that sneaked in centuries later on. It was area of the original "package" from the Christian faith. This really challenges the idea that infant baptism was obviously a later invention from the Roman Catholic Chapel or a politics move by Constantine.
The particular Irenaeus Connection
To find the full image of polycarp on infant baptism , you have to look at his most popular student: Irenaeus. Irenaeus was the Bishop associated with Lyons and the total powerhouse associated with early Christian theology. He was addicted with keeping the "Apostolic tradition" real, and he regularly cited Polycarp because his primary source of truth.
Irenaeus wrote something very specific that will echoes what Polycarp likely taught your pet. In his work Against Heresies , this individual mentions that Jesus came to conserve all people through Himself—"all, I say, who else through Him are born again unto God: infants, and children, and males, and youths, and older guys. "
In the language from the early church, being "born again unto God" was a regular way of mentioning to baptism. In case Irenaeus, who was trained by Polycarp, believed that infants had been being "born again" through this technique, it's a very short leap to deduce that Polycarp taught him exactly that. It's like a game of telephone, but with those who were willing to expire for the accuracy from the message. If the student will be practicing and protecting infant baptism since an Apostolic tradition, the teacher almost certainly passed it straight down.
A Organic Development from Judaism
It furthermore helps to remember that these guys didn't exist in a vacuum. Polycarp plus the other earlier Christians were mostly coming out of a Jewish worldview. In Judaism, a person didn't wait till a child was 18 to decide when they wanted in order to be part associated with the covenant. You circumcised them on the eighth day.
When the early church started taking a look at baptism as the "new circumcision" (something John talks about in the New Testament), it was just natural for all of them to include their children. They didn't see baptism being a "me and my personal feelings" event, yet as a "me and my home being brought directly into God's family" occasion. When we look from the evidence with regard to Polycarp, we're seeing that transition in current.
Addressing the particular Skeptics
Of course, not everyone will abide by this interpretation. If you're from a new tradition that practices believer's baptism, you might find these arguments a little bit thin. A common counter-argument is that "86 years of service" could just become a flowery way of saying "I've been an Orlando a long period, " or maybe he lived to be hundred and was converted at 14.
While that's possible, it's not really the most most likely scenario when a person consider the surrounding historical context. By the time we get to the early 200s AD—just a few decades after Polycarp—we have writers such as Origen and Tertullian talking about infant baptism as a standard, widespread practice. Tertullian actually complained about this (he believed people should wait until they had been older so that they wouldn't "waste" their baptism on childhood sins), but the proven fact that he was stressing shows that this was already the particular norm.
If it has been the norm by 200 AD, it had to begin somewhere. It didn't just appear away from thin air. Polycarp's life and their "86 years" quotation provide the almost all logical link to the first hundred years.
Why Does This Matter Today?
You might be thinking why we're stressing over what a good old man in Smyrna said while he was becoming tied to a risk within the second century. It matters due to the fact it changes how we view the "original" church.
If polycarp on infant baptism shows us that the practice was there from the beginning, it reframes the whole conversation. It moves baptism far from being a "merit badge" for having enough faith and turns it into a gift from God that your smallest, most helpless member of a family can receive.
For many people, discovering Polycarp's tale is a "lightbulb" moment. It's not about winning a spat; it's about feeling connected to a huge, ancient loved ones that has already been bringing their children to the water for two thousand years.
Final Thoughts
In the end associated with the day, Polycarp's testimony is regarding loyalty. Whether you're convinced by the particular "86 years" mathematics or not, their life shows the continuity of belief that is quite rare. He didn't see his Christianity as something he put on plus became popular; it had been his entire identity from his first days until his final breath.
If he had been baptized like an infant, it means he or she spent 86 many years living out a promise that their parents and the particular church made intended for him before he could even talk. That's an effective thought. It suggests that God's sophistication was chasing your pet down long before he had the language to ask for it. So, while the historians can keep debating the times and the Ancient greek, the legacy of Polycarp remains the pretty compelling situation for the lengthy, deep history associated with infant baptism in the Christian tradition.
It's a reminder that will we aren't the very first ones to attempt and figure this particular stuff out. We're just the latest ones joining a conversation that began in places like Smyrna and Philippi a long, very long time ago. And when Polycarp was okay from it, maybe we should be as well.