other · 107 · Antioch
He was condemned in Syria and sent overland under guard of ten soldiers, whom he described to the Romans as ten leopards who grew worse when treated well. The road ran through Philadelphia, then to Smyrna, where Polycarp received him and delegations came from Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles; there he wrote to those three churches and, ahead of himself, to Rome, begging them not to intervene. From Troas he wrote three more, to Philadelphia, to Smyrna and to Polycarp himself, before the ship left. Then Neapolis, Philippi — where the church escorted him onward and afterwards asked Polycarp for copies of his letters — and the sea. Everything anyone knows about him is on this road: the word catholic used of the church for the first time, a bishop with presbyters and deacons around him in every city, and a man arguing his way toward the beasts.
To carry a condemned bishop from Antioch to the beasts at Rome, and — as it turned out — to let him write to the churches on the way.
Seven letters, and the earliest picture anyone has of what a second-century church looked like from inside it.