Polycarp and Eternal Torment

Chris Date has a video arguing for the idea that Polycarp of Smyrna held to conditional immortality (link to video).

CD's arguments hang on several points:

1) Ignatius writes to Polycarp that Polycarp views immortality and eternal life as being the prize set before him (Ignatius' Epistle to Polycarp, Chapter 2).  However, this would only be relevant to CD's contentions if eternal torment is rightly said to be immortality and eternal life.  CD tends to argue that eternal torment is (or at least would be if it happened) immortality and eternal life.

As a minor aside of interest probably only to me, I point out that the Epistle to Polycarp exists in a long recension and a short recension.  The wording that CD relies on includes a variant.  I don't think the variant directly or meaningfully affects his argument.  One recension describes immortality and eternal life as a prize and the other describes it as the will of God. 

2) The Martyrdom of Polycarp reports Polycarp as having said that resurrection, incorruption, and immortality will be his reward (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 14, 17, and 19)

While this is the case, the author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp argues that the martyrs did not flinch before the torments they were faced with, because they were set in contrast to eternal torments.  CD tries to argue that duration was not the contrast that the author of MoP had in mind, but the contrast between "eternal" and "single hour" is fairly straightforward.  Moreover, the contrast is between two different torments.  See Martyrdom of Polycarp, 2.

Moreover, CD's own position has to affirm that the damned are resurrected and that Polycarp believes that they will be.  After all Polycarp avers that Christ will come to judge not just the living but the dead:

Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 2, (translation in Schaff) "He comes as the Judge of the living and the dead. [Acts 17:31] His blood will God require of those who do not believe in Him."

Lightfoot translation (link to translation): "who cometh as judge of quick and dead; whose blood God will require of them that are disobedient unto Him."

Now, "his blood God will require" seems to be a usage of the Hebraism originating at least as early as Genesis 9:5 (see also, Genesis 42:22, 2 Samuel 4:11, Ezekiel 3:17, 18, and 20, 33:6&8, Luke 11:50-51).  Contrary to CD's gloss, to "require his blood" does not necessarily mean to die a violent, bloody death.  It means to be held accountable for the blood that was shed.  It is interesting that Polycarp's letter uses this wording, as it relates to the doctrine of the atonement, but that's not a subject for this particular post.

I would echo CD's comments about the potential unreliability of the work, the Martyrdom of Polycarp.  Candida Moss's "The Myth of Persecution," mentions some of the issues associated with the work. 

3) Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philippians implies that only the righteous will be raised and live:

Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 2, (translation in Schaff) "But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we do His will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved," 

Lightfoot translation (link to translation): "Now He that raised Him from the dead will raise us also; if we do His will and walk in His commandments and love the things which He loved," 

Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 8, (translation in Schaff) "Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, [1 Peter 2:24] who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, [1 Peter 2:22] but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him."

Lightfoot translation (link to translation): "Let us therefore without ceasing hold fast by our hope and by the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who took up our sins in His own body upon the tree, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but for our sakes He endured all things, that we might live in Him."

Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 1, (translation in Schaff) "our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins suffered even unto death, [but] whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave."

Lightfoot translation (link to translation): "our Lord Jesus Christ, who endured to face even death for our sins, whom God raised, having loosed the pangs of Hades;"

While this is certainly the case, the solution is not to insist that Polycarp means "it will be as if they hadn't been resurrected," but instead that Polycarp considers eternal punishment to be something other than the promised eternal life.

Just as Polycarp doesn't count the resurrection of damnation as the resurrection, so also Polycarp doesn't count eternal punishment as eternal life. The only people who seem to count it that way are opponents of eternal conscious torment.