Nielsen’s Nook

Translation

2 And of the elect this man had become one, [1] the admirable Polycarp, [2] a teacher, apostle and prophet according to our own time, bishop of the Holy Church in Smyrna. For every word, which was dispatched from his mouth, was purposed and will be fulfilled. [3]

[1] γεγόνει is a pluperfect, hence “had become.”

[2] μάρτυς Πολύκαρπος while clarifying and accurate, is left out of Lightfoot’s text; consequently, it is omitted here. However, for readability “Polycarp” has been added in italics because whether or not the Greek words are there St. Polycarp is assumed.

[3] ἐτελειώθη καὶ τελειωθήσεται this phrase consists of an aorist and a future passive indicative form of τελειόω. Hebrews 5:9 (NA27) uses this aorist passive (albeit participial) form in describing the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus: καὶ τελειωθεὶς ἐγένετο πᾶσιν τοῖς ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου. And being fulfilled/perfected [i.e., in his suffering/passion, c.f., 5:8] he became the source of eternal salvation for all who follow him (author’s translation). The idea is not simply that pain made Jesus better such that he was made really really holy and we now call him perfected. Rather, it is that God came to earth in the Person of the Incarnate Son for the explicit purpose of suffering in our place for our sins. This being fulfilled or completed, Jesus became the source of our eternal salvation. This same purposeful completion idea is what is entailed here in §16.2. St. Polycarp had spoken with purpose, with a view as a Bishop of where the Church was going in spite of all the persecution. The writer of this account of St. Polycarp’s martyrdom reassures the reader that those (divine) purposes of which St. Polycarp had spoken will be fulfilled because they transcend the Bishop himself.