Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood, and being attached to one another, joined together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness of the Lord in your intercourse with one another, and despising no one. When you can do good, defer it not, because "alms delivers from death." Be all of you subject one to another having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles," that ye may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed! Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct.
Polycarp was an early convert who had heard the preaching of John and other apostles; he taught Irenaeus, who is one of our most important sources about his life. According to Irenaeus, Polycarp was directly appointed to be bishop of Smyrna by the apostles themselves. He was martyred in the middle of the second century, thus bringing to an end the age of the apostolic fathers who had personally known the apostles.
