assistance. When
he met an aged wood-carrier outside the walls, he would
purchase his burden, would carry it himself to the city, and
would give it to the widows living near the gate. The
Bishop Bucolus cherished him as a son, and he in turn
requited his love with filial care and devotion.'

But we may catch from real and genuine sources three glimpses of the
man: in youth as the disciple of St. John, in middle age as the champion
of Ignatius, in closing life as the teacher of Irenaeus. Of the circle of
disciples who gathered round St. John, Polycarp is indubitably the most
famous. He delighted, in his declining years, to tell his younger
friends what he had himself heard from eye-witnesses of the Lord's life
on earth; and he would dwell especially on his intercourse with the
Apostle of Love. There is nothing improbable in the belief, that he was
ordained to the episcopate by the venerable Apostle. Among his
contemporaries were Clement, Papias, and Ignatius. Polycarp knew, as has
been stated, the letter of the great Bishop of Rome, and Papias--his
'companion,' as Irenaeus[91] calls him--became his neighbour at
Hierapolis. But it is with Ignatius that the younger man is inseparably
linked. They met, probably for the first (and only) time, at Smyrna when
the great Bishop of Antioch was on his way to martyrdom at Rome.
Touching in their affectionateness are the remarks which each passes
upon each. Polycarp inspires Ignatius with 'love.' The younger man is to
the older 'most blessed,' 'clothed with grace,' marked by 'fervid
sincerity,' a man 'whose godly mind is grounded on an immovable rock'
(Letter to Polycarp). To Polycarp, Ignatius 'the blessed' is the pattern
of men, 'obedient unto the word of righteousness and practising all
endurance,' 'encircled in saintly bonds which are the diadems of them
that be truly chosen of God and our Lord.' The two men parted, never
again to meet on earth, yet to be linked together by 'martyrdom
comformable to the Gospel' But ere that 'birthday' arrived, Polycarp had
to live for nearly half a century; and potent was his influence upon the
men of a younger generation. Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and
Polycrates, famous among the Fathers of Asia, must have known him well;
Justin Martyr visited him from Ephesus; but mightiest and dearest of all
was his pupil Irenaeus, the champion of orthodoxy against Gnosticism.

'When I was still a boy,' wrote Irenaeus, '(I w