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Polycarp of Smyrna on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 125 AD (Epistle to the Philippians, c. 110–140; Polycarp lived c. 69–155, martyred at Smyrna) · Wikipedia
Summary: In his Epistle to the Philippians — a disciple of the apostle John writing a generation after Clement — Polycarp urges his readers to almsgiving with a maxim drawn straight from the deuterocanonical Tobit ("alms delivers from death"), braided into a chain of phrases from 1 Peter and Isaiah with no mark of distinction. He renders no canon-list and uses no "it is written" formula, so he is a witness not to a verdict but to the early practical use of a disputed book as authoritative, quotable counsel — a second datapoint, beside Clement, before the first Christian Old-Testament list.

Claims & evidence

He cites Tobit's "alms delivers from death" as an authoritative maxim, woven with 1 Peter and Isaiah

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.

— Epistle to the Philippians, ch. 10, source (Roberts–Donaldson translation; also at the Ante-Nicene Fathers). The framed sentence — "alms delivers from death" — is the maxim of the deuterocanonical Tobit, fusing Tobit 4:10 ("for alms doth deliver from death") and 12:9 ("alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin").¹ Polycarp sets it in an unbroken chain of apostolic and prophetic phrases — "loving the brotherhood" (1 Peter 2:17), "be all of you subject one to another" (1 Peter 5:5), "having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles" (1 Peter 2:12), and the warning that "the Lord may not be blasphemed" (Isaiah 52:5) — with nothing to mark the Tobit material off as lesser than the canonical text around it.² The force is real but should not be overstated: he introduces the maxim with no citation formula such as "it is written" — the authority is carried by the seamless weaving into apostolic counsel, not by an explicit appeal to Scripture.

Notes

• Witness, not verdict. The Epistle to the Philippians contains no enumeration of the Old Testament books, so Polycarp renders no "Yes" or "No" on a canon-list. What he supplies is evidence of use: a deuterocanonical maxim functioning as authoritative moral counsel in the church of the early second century, braided indistinguishably with 1 Peter and Isaiah — the datapoint that bears on the argument "Did the early church reject the deuterocanon…?" (assessed contested), since he predates every formal list and stands on the "using" side of the divide.
• Don't overclaim. The citation carries no "it is written" formula; it is a proverbial maxim woven into exhortation, not a proof-text adduced to settle a doctrine. The honest reading is the modest one: early practical use, not a canon decision. (A further caution on the textual side: chapters 10–14 of the letter survive only in a later Latin version, the Greek being lost — though the Latin "quia eleemosyna de morte liberat" is a close, undisputed rendering of Tobit's saying.)
• Place on the timeline. At c. 125 AD Polycarp stands a generation after Clement of Rome (c. 96) and well before Melito of Sardis (c. 170), whose list is the first to count the books and the first to leave the deuterocanon out. Clement and Polycarp together are the earliest Christian witnesses to the disputed books in practical use, before any Christian thought to draw up an Old-Testament catalogue.

Sources