Martyrdom of Polycarp 8.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:322

καὶ ὑπήντα αὐτῷ ὁ εἰρήναρχος Ἡρώδης καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ Νικήτης, οἳ καὶ μεταθέντες αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὴν καροῦχαν ἔπειθον παρακαθεζόμενοι καὶ λέγοντες· Τί γὰρ κακόν ἐστιν εἰπεῖν· Κύριος Καῖσαρ, καὶ ἐπιθῦσαι καὶ τὰ τούτοις ἀκόλουθα καὶ διασώζεσθαι; ὁ δὲ τὰ μὲν πρῶτα οὐκ ἀπεκρίνατο αὐτοῖς, ἐπιμενόντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἔφη· Οὐ μέλλω ποιεῖν, ὃ συμβουλεύετέ μοι.

English · Claude translation

And the police captain Herod and his father Nicetes met him, moved him into their carriage, and sitting beside him tried to persuade him, saying, “What harm is there in saying ‘Lord Caesar,’ and offering sacrifice, and doing the other things that go with it, and so saving yourself?” At first he did not answer them, but when they kept on, he said, “I am not going to do what you advise me.”

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 25:322 · 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

Also in

PG 5:1036a (found by text match)

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

Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

“Lord Caesar” (Κύριος Καῖσαρ) can also be read as a statement, “Caesar is Lord.” Either way, Christians reserved the title “Lord” for Christ.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (digitization slip against Lake's printed text (capital lost)): Κύριος καῖσαρ → Κύριος Καῖσαρ.

Cite this passage

Mart. Pol. 8.2 (PG 5:1036a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/mart-pol/8/2/).

Plain text

Mart. Pol. 8.2 (PG 5:1036a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/mart-pol/8/2/).