Sophia Scriptura

Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.4

Anonymous · Martyrdom of Polycarp · ca. 156–160 · Smyrna · Read in context

Summary: Those sentenced to the beasts were tortured further to make them deny the faith, for the devil was at work against them.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:316

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ οἱ εἰς τὰ θηρία κατακριθέντες ὑπέμειναν δεινὰς κολάσεις, κήρυκας ὑποστρωννύμενοι καὶ ἄλλαις ποικίλων βασάνων ἰδέαις κολαζόμενοι, ἵνα, εἰ δυνηθείη, ὁ τύραννος διὰ τῆς ἐπιμόνου κολάσεως εἰς ἄρνησιν αὐτοὺς τρέψῃ. πολλὰ γὰρ ἐμηχανᾶτο κατʼ αὐτῶν ὁ διάβολος.

English · Claude translation

Likewise those condemned to the wild beasts endured terrible punishments: they were stretched out on sharp shells and tormented with various other kinds of torture, so that, if he could, the tyrant might turn them to denial through the unrelenting punishment. For the devil devised many things against them.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 25:316 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 312–345 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.
Topics
Martyrdom, Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Sharp shells” (κήρυκας): trumpet shells (whelks), whose points made them an instrument of torture.
  • “The tyrant” is probably the devil, named in the next sentence, though the Roman governor may also be in view.
  • Older translations (e.g. the Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1885) have “beds full of spikes,” following a different reading.

Cite this passage

Mart. Pol. 2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/mart-pol/2/4/).

Plain text
Mart. Pol. 2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/mart-pol/2/4/).

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