Nielsen’s Nook

Translation

1 Accordingly, you [a] requested that the things that happened be clarified for you more fully. [b] However, we have presently [c] reported through our brother Marcion,[d] as it were, with summary headings. [e] Therefore, after you have appropriated [f] these things, send the letter on to brothers beyond you so that they also might glorify the Lord, who makes chosen instruments [g] from among his own servants.

[a] ὑμει̂ς is a second person plural, i.e., the church of Philomelium. See §Preface.

[b] διὰ πλειόνων is a comparative phrase in which τὸ may have elided or been omitted. 2 Maccabees 12:24 (LXX Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft) reads, … διὰ τὸ πλειόνων μὲν γονεῖς …. because he held the parents of most of them (NRSV).

[c] κατὰ τὸ παρὸν lit. according to the present.

[d] Lake notes, “Not of course to be identified with the famous heretic. If Marcianus be the right text, it is noteworthy that Irenaeus sent his treatise on the ‘The Apostolic Preaching’ to a certain Marcianus. But this was probably forty years later than Polycarp’s death.” (Apostolic Fathers, vol 2, p 339).

[e] ὡς ἐν κεφαλαίῳ lit. as in brief, in summary. The root κεφαλή (head) has metaphorical uses in the Greek speaking world similar to our own, such that “summary headings” seems, in our estimation, to better connect the translation at this point to the original in both word and concept.

[f] μαθόντες (μανθάνω) to learn (BAGD, 490).

[g] ἐκλογὰς appears to emphasize the outcome of what the Lord makes (i.e., things chosen), rather than describe adverbially what he makes (i.e., that he chooses). Conceptually, the Lord has made St. Polycarp a chosen instrument; hence, the word is supplied in italics. Acts 9:15 (NA27) reads, εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος· πορεύου, ὅτι σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς ἐστίν μοι … But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is my chosen instrument…” (author’s translation).