Corpus Polycarpianum.

Búsqueda de una colección literaria perdida (s. II-IV)

Abstract

This article seeks to identify the most significant textual evidences in order to analyse the attempt of one or more members of the Church of Smyrna to compile a series of writings around Polycarp, its bishop and martyr. The Church of Smyrna carried out a similar work with the letters of Ignatius, in a short time copying and organising them and sending them to the Church of Philippi. Besides, we see clearly already from the composition of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the veneration in which the community held its bishop. This same veneration appears strengthened over time, one hundred years after the facts of the martyrdom. Accordingly, both the textual evidence, such as the history of the scriptorium of Smyrna and the devotion for Polycarp, make feasible an editorial undertaking on the writings around the figure of the bishop and martyr already in the second century.