The Gospel Doth Not So Teach
The Teaching
But one man, Quintus by name, a Phrygian newly arrived from Phrygia, when he saw the wild beasts, turned coward. He it was who had forced himself and some others to come forward of their own free will. This man the proconsul by much entreaty persuaded to swear the oath and to offer incense. For this cause therefore, brethren, we praise not those who deliver themselves up, since the Gospel doth not so teach us.
— The Martyrdom of Polycarp 4
… though he might have departed thence to another place, he would not, saying, The will of God be done.
— The Martyrdom of Polycarp 7
Commentary
This is the oldest account of a Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament, and in its fourth chapter it stops to warn against volunteers. Quintus pushed himself and others forward to be martyred. When he saw the beasts, he broke and burned the incense. The letter’s verdict is short: we don’t praise those who hand themselves over.
Set against him is the bishop the letter is about. When the persecution came, Polycarp didn’t go looking for it. Urged by his people, he withdrew to a farm outside the city, and then to another. And when they found him, he didn’t run. He neither sought the cross nor fled it. The letter calls his death “conformable to the Gospel,” and the contrast with Quintus is its whole point.
Martyrs don’t try to be martyrs. A community that had every reason to honour anyone willing to die for it wrote that down within a generation of the events. And the cautionary volunteer in the story is one of their own. The letter exempts nobody.
Themes
Connections 6
Travelled
The song borrows the Christian image of the cross.
Travelled
Greek thought reached Christianity by 50 CE. The New Testament is written in Greek. John’s Logos is a Greek idea, and the Church Fathers read Plato.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Unsure
No documented reading of Christianity by Terence McKenna.