Polycarp could only have attained in the latter part of his life,
and of which we first have evidence about A.D. 160, when he was
deputed to Rome for the Paschal discussion.

This argument will not appeal to Englishmen with any power, when they
remember that the ablest and most powerful Prime Minister whom
constitutional England has seen assumed the reins of government at the
early age of twenty-four. But Polycarp was not a young man at this time.
M. Waddington's investigations here again stand us in good stead. If we
take the earlier date of the martyrdom of Ignatius, Polycarp was now in
his fortieth year at least; if the later date, he was close upon fifty.
He had been a disciple, apparently a favourite disciple, of the aged
Apostle St John. He was specially commended by Ignatius, who doubtless
had spoken of him to the Philippians. History does not point to any
person after the death of Ignatius whose reputation stood nearly so high
among his contemporaries. So far as any inference can be drawn from
silence, he was now the one prominent man in the Church. What wonder
then that the Philippians should have asked him to write to them? To
this request, I suppose, our author refers when he speaks of the writer
'assuming a position in the Church;' for there is nothing else to
justify it. On his own part Polycarp writes with singular modesty. He
associates his presbyters with himself in the opening address; he says
that he should not have ventured to write as he does, if he had not
received a request from the Philippians; he even deprecates any
assumption of superiority [121:1].

7. But our author continues:--

And throughout, the Epistle depicts the developed organization of
that period.

This argument must, I think, strike any one who has read the Epistle as
surprising. There is, as I have said already, no reference to episcopacy
from beginning to end [122:1]; and in this respect it presents the
strongest contrast to writings of the age of Irenaeus, to which it is
here supposed to belong. Irenaeus and his contemporaries are so familiar
with episcopacy as a traditional institution, that they are not aware of
any period when it was not universal; and more especially when they are
dealing with heretics, they appeal to the episcopate as the depositary
of the orthodox and Apostolic tradition in matters of doctrine and
practice. The absence of all such language in Polycarp's Epistle is a
strong testimony