Ignatius to Polycarp

Written around AD 107-110 by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, while he was being taken under guard to Rome to be killed. He wrote seven letters on that journey; this one, addressed to Polycarp of Smyrna, is the most personal. The Greek original survives, and the authenticity of the seven is accepted by most scholars — rare in this literature.

It is not apocryphal in the sense of disputed: it is patristic literature. It was never proposed for the canon because Ignatius was not an apostle, and he says so himself — the letter is a pastor's testimony, not a claim to Scripture.

• It is practical instruction in leadership: how to handle difficult people, how not to be unsettled by those who sound convincing, how to care for widows.
• It gives the most direct early Christian counsel on marriage and on slaves, written before any formal doctrine on either existed.
• Ignatius asks that no one try to save him from death — he wants to be "God's wheat", ground by the teeth of the beasts.
• Polycarp, the recipient, is said to have been a disciple of the apostle John. The letter is one of the links between the apostolic generation and the next.

Is Ignatius's letter to Polycarp authentic?

Yes, in the short recension. The seven letters exist in three versions — short, middle and long; the middle recension is accepted as genuine, and the later expansions are recognised as the work of another hand.

Why is this letter not in the New Testament?

Because it was written after the apostolic age by someone who was not an apostle. Ignatius writes as one bishop to another and never claims the authority of Scripture.