all 1 comments

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I very much doubt that Polycarp knew John, if John even existed as a literal person. It's far more likely that he's the founder of the Catholic church who forged documents such as the pastoral epistles. The reason I say this is because he's the only early Christian to know of the pastoral epistles, they fit his agenda, and several stylistic similarities have been observed. He also would've written Luke and Acts. Luke is a major revision and expansion of an earlier generic gospel called simply the Evangelion. This one continued to be used by Marcionites and other heretics for a few more centuries, along with an older revision of Paul's letters. Polycarp's student Irenaeus is thought to have been involved in similar scandals.