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Was Polycarp a student of John, son of Zebedee?
There was a tendency among the different sects to claim apostolic succession. Ehrman states:
“Irenaeus… claimed that Papias was a companion of the disciple of Jesus, John the Son of Zebedee. But Eusebius, who actually read Papias’s book, claims that this is incorrect. Based on what Papias himself said, Eusebius points out that Papias was not a follower of any of the apostles. He got his information from others. In other words, Irenaeus was trying to make Papias out to be more of an authority than he was. That is very much the tendency in the early Christian tradition (and among conservative Christian scholars today), to claim direct connections with eyewitnesses where there weren’t any. Eusebius himself is skeptical of much of what Papias says: he speaks of the “bizarre parables” that he claims Jesus spoke and of the “legendary accounts” found in his writings. So not even Eusebius thought that Papias could be trusted to convey the truth about Jesus’ life and teachings, despite Papias’s claim to have connections with eyewitnesses.”
Polycarp himself, in his alleged letter to the Philippians, fails to mention meeting John Zebedee. Since the Polycarp letter goes to some length to establish his authority, failing to mention his audience with a real apostle is inexplicable.
Various scholars have cast doubt on this claim, which originated in the fourth century, with Eusebius. Rex Wyler says, in The Jesus Sayings:
The lone witness for the claim that Polycarp knew John Zebedee is our familiar fourth-century imperial historian Eusebius, quoting an alleged lost letter from Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon. Eusebius records that Irenaeus met Polycarp as “a boy” and was “able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat. . . and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and with others who had seen the Lord” …

Finally, Polycarp himself, in his alleged letter to the Philippians, fails to mention meeting John Zebedee. Since the Polycarp letter goes to some length to establish his authority, failing to mention his audience with a real apostle is inexplicable.
We do have reference to both Polycarp and John in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, Book V , so this would have been the ideal place for Irenaeus to mention that Polycarp was a student of the Apostle John, but he does not:
And these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books compiled (συντεταγμένα) by him.
There were tons of legends on John anyways, like he survived boiling in oil.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15999
Richard Carrier concludes that he could’ve lied about having been tutored by the original Apostles simply to establish their authority. Or met them once decades ago and simply altered what they really taught. But even when Irenaeus says Polycarp taught creeds from and legends about the Apostle John, he does not say Polycarp received those creeds or stories from John. And when we look at Polycarp’s own writings and those of his elder friend Papias, it becomes fairly certain he did not. Instead, we get a telephone game that only becomes a later legend that Polycarp met “John and the Apostle” and “those who saw Jesus.”
Ignatius doesn’t mention Polycarp knowing John and Polycarp doesn’t seem to know John’s gospel or gJohn.
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Dating of Polycarp’s epistle to the Philippians 📜
The date of Polycarp’s epistle depends on the question of its unity and the dating of the Ignatian corpus. P. N. Harrison influentially argued that the epistle is a composite of two letters, a cover letter of the Ignatian letters (ch. 13-14) written c. 115 CE and a later work from c. 135 CE that made up the main body of the epistle (ch. 1-12). Scholars have been divided on whether to accept this partition or not. Kenneth Berding (Polycarp and Paul; Brill, 2002) accepts Harrison’s arguments in the main but moves the date of ch. 1-12 down to c. 120 CE. One relevant question is whether “firstborn of Satan” in 7:1 is a reference to Marcion, as the phrase was used in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and in Irenaeus’ mention of Polycarp’s encounter with Marcion (Adversus Haereses 3.3.4). Charles Nielson added to Harrison’s arguments by claiming that the themes prominent in the letter to the Philippians make sense in light of Marcionism. Berding rejected Nielson’s arguments and instead claimed that 7:1 was inconsistent with Marcion’s theology (as Marcion allegedly did not deny judgment). Paul Hartog in Polycarp and the New Testament (Mohr Siebeck, 2002) instead rejected Harrison’s partition of the epistle in a lengthy analysis. One issue is that ch. 13 is preserved only in Latin and it seemed to imply that Ignatius was still alive (which conflicts sharply with the reference to Ignatius in 9:1 in which he is seemingly dead). Considering a likely retroversion of the text into Greek, Hartog argued that Ignatius was neither necessarily alive in ch. 13 (with the Latin present tense sunt likely corresponding to a verbless predicate in the Greek), nor is he necessarily dead in ch. 9 (saying that Ignatius was “blessed” is not enough to presume he had already been martyred).
He argued for the unity of the letter and that it dates to the same time as the Ignatian corpus, i.e. c. 115 CE. I personally find compelling the suggestion that the historical setting of Ignatius’ execution was the Kitos war during which Trajan and Hadrian were in Antioch, with the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 115/6 CE contributing to rising tensions between the local population and the emperor. See Marco Rizzi’s article “Jews and Christians under Trajan and the Date of Ignatius’ Martyrdom” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE (Brill, 2017). As for Polycarp, I’m still open to a date in the 120s and 130s for the main body of the epistle to the Philippians. Such a date in any case would be a critical datum for the reception of various books in the NT and the formation of the NT as a whole. As Berding shows, Polycarp regarded the Pastorals as equally Pauline as the authentic epistles. So either the letters were accepted in Asia Minor prior to the composition of the epistle to the Philippians, or Polycarp himself was responsible for the Pastoral epistles (as argued by Hans von Campenhausen but rejected by both Hartog and Berding). The other important thing is that Polycarp is equally indebted to the Johannine epistles (particuarly 1 John) and 1 Peter. This is a broad reception of NT writings absent in the earlier works (e.g. the Johannine epistles show no influence from Paul while Polycarp integrates ideas and expressions borrowed from both Paul and the catholic epistles). Hartog also observes that Polycarp shows limited use of the OT in contrast to NT documents which themselves frequently allude to the OT, while also seemingly citing Ephesians as scripture in ch. 12.
It is worth noting here that Hartog points to similar literary dependence on 1 Clement in Polycarp’s epistle. “Polycarp’s use of 1 Clement has been well-established. Grant comments that he ‘knew it practically by heart’. Streeter notes that Polycarp’s is ‘more influenced by the language of Clement than by any book of the New Testament, except perhaps 1 Peter’. For example, one could compare Phil. 9.2 with 1 Clement 5.4 (and 5.6-7), Phil. 5.2 with 1 Clement 21.1, Phil. 5.2 with 1 Clement 1.3, and Phil. 11.4 with 1 Clement 37.5, as well as unusual words such as ἁγιοπρεπέσιν (cf. Phil. 1.1 with 1 Clement 13.3), εγκύπτητε (cf. Phil. 3.2 with 1 Clement 45.2), and παντεπόπτην (Phil. 7.2 with 1 Clement 55.6; 64.1). The recurrence of similarities is ‘beyond what can fairly be set down as accidental’. Berding finds an additional cluster of 1 Clement allusions in Phil. 4.2-3” (p. 176).
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Polycarp said that 1 John was written by ‘John’ 📜
It was Irenaeus who claimed that Polycarp knew the apostle John, equating him with the beloved disciple of the gospel of John. This claim however is questionable and may have been motivated by Irenaeus’ own desire to give himself apostolic credentials in his arguments against those he regarded as heretics. There is no clear evidence connecting the apostle John (who was associated with Peter in Galatians 2:9 and in Acts 3-8) with the John of Ephesus in the early second century CE. Mark 10:38-39 implies that John and his brother would be martyred (cf. Acts 12:2) and Mark was written sometime near 70 CE, so this raises doubt of an identity with John of Ephesus. Papias writing in the early second century CE distinguished the apostle John from someone called John the elder, and the tenses used in his writing (aorist είπεν vs. present λέγουσιν) suggest that the apostle John was dead and John the elder was still living. Since Papias lived in Asia Minor near Smyrna and Ephesus, his testimony supports the suspicion that John the elder was the same person as John of Ephesus. Another related question is what relationship John the elder had with the corpus of Johannine texts in the NT. 2-3 John are signed “the elder”, so they might be connected with this person. 1 John lacks such an ascription and the gospel of John itself is anonymous (though at least in its current form is connected to the shadowy figure of the “beloved disciple”). There is also John of Patmos who authored Revelation and addressed letters to the churches of Smyrna and Ephesus. It is generally concluded that the gospel of John and Revelation were written by different people on account of the very different style of Greek used therein.
From the text of Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians, he shows himself to have overwhelmingly been influenced by the apostle Paul. He knew many of Paul’s letters by heart and freely wove Pauline turns of phrase throughout his epistle. According to Paul Hartog in Polycarp and the New Testament (Mohr Siebeck, 2002), Polycarp shows no clear evidence of knowing the gospel of John, though he was on the side of the Quartodeciman controversy informed by the Johannine dating of the last supper. But he does show clear evidence of knowing 1 John in Philippians 7:1-2:
Polycarp, Philippians 7:1-2: “For everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come ίn the flesh is antichrist (πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἂν μὴ ὁμολογῇ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθέναι, ἀντιχριστός ἐστιν); and whoever does not acknowledge the testimony οf the cross is οf the devil (ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν); and whoever twists the sayings οf the Lord to suit his own sinful desires and claims that there is neither resurrection nor judgment — well, that person is the firstborn of Satan. Therefore let us leave behind the worthless speculation οf the crowd and their false teachings and let us return to the word delivered to us from the beginning (ἐπὶ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἡμῖν παραδοθέντα λόγον ἐπιστρέψωμεν); let us be self-controlled with respect to prayer and persevere ίn fasting, earnestly asking the all-seeing God to lead us not into temptation, because, as the Lord said, ‘the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak’ “.
1 John 1:1: “That which was from the beginning which he have heard (ὅ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν), which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the word (τοῦ λόγου) of life”.
1 John 3:8: “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil (ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν), because the devil has been sinning from the beginning”.
1 John 4:2-3, 2 John 7: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν), but every spirit that does not confess (πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ) Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist (ἀντιχρίστου)….I say this because many deceivers, who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (οἱ μὴ ὁμολογοῦντες Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί), have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist (ἐστιν ὁ πλάνος καὶ ὁ ἀντίχριστος).
Also nowhere in Polycarp’s epistle does he claim to be a student of John the apostle. The earliest source for that argument comes from Irenaeus, who may have written up to 100 years after Polycarp wrote. I think it’s more likely that 1 or more of the Johannine epistles were written by John the Elder, who was implied by Papias to be a different John from John the apostle, and that THAT John was the John that Polycarp was familiar with. Since two of Irenaeus’ three pillars of orthodoxy had to do with apostolic traditions and succession, it would make sense that he would conflate John the Elder with John the apostle to give himself that kind of authority, since he claims to have derived his authority from Polycarp, thus providing a persuasive case of his authority over his (heretical) opponents.
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Many scholars, however, hold that Irenaeus was confused or had motives for attaching Polycarp to John. (Helmut Koester, “Ephesos in Early Christian Literature,” in Ephesos Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture, ed. Helmut Koester (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 138; Paul Hartog, Polycarp and the New Testament: The Occasion, Rhetoric, Theme, and Unity of the Epistle to the Philippians and its Allusions to New Testament Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 38-41; R. Alan Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 123-128.

Polycarp was prone to being accused of Marcionism because of his heavy citation of Paul, and John was prone to being accused of Gnosticism. The article suggests that Irenaeus nullifies these accusations by linking the two figures together.

There are also major problems for assuming that Polycarp personally knew John the son of Zebedee. There is a body of ancient evidence suggesting the John died alongside his brother James in 44 CE. Polycarp likewise did not write anything that we can date with certainty prior to c. 110-140 CE. This creates a rather problematic chronology, if the traditions implying an early death of the disciple John are accurate. But it should likewise be noted that, even if John had not been martyred with James, it is still doubtful that he lived and traveled long enough to know Polycarp, who was active in Asia Minor around the mid-2nd century. The sources claiming that John the son of Zebedee traveled to Ephesus (e.g., the Acts of John), and lived to a very old age, are primarily based on later traditions intended to grant special importance and authority to the church at Ephesus. Our sources for what happened to any of the apostles, after the Book of Acts, are highly problematic, and full of legendary (and often contradictory) information. This situation likewise applies to John the son of Zebedee. Polycarp also does not state in his own writing that he knew or traveled with John or any of the apostles. Irenaeus mentions this detail, but it is likely to aggrandize Polycarp.
Why then was Polycarp associated with John? A far more likely explanation is that he actually knew John the Presbyter. As discussed by New Testament scholar James McGrath in “Which John? The Elder, the Seer, and the Apostle,” there were several figures named “John” in the early church, whose identities became conflated in the 2nd century and onward, including during the time of Irenaeus. What is very likely the case, therefore, is that Polycarp knew a leading authority named “John,” who was later conflated with the disciple John the son of Zebedee. This conflation likewise happened with Papias, as Michael Kok discusses under the “External Evidence” section above. Since Papias only knew John the Presbyter, or “elder John,” it is likewise probable that Polycarp only knew this figure, as well. And, if that’s the case, it would also explain where Polycarp got the names “Matthew” and “Mark” for the first and second gospels, since these authorial traditions, as Kok explains, derive from John the Presbyter (who likewise, at least in the case of Mark, appears to have derived the name from internal references within other books of the New Testament). In such a case, Polycarp would have only repeated the dubious Papian tradition for the authorship of Matthew and Mark, discussed above, when he assembled the New Testament canon.

As noted, Trobisch’s argument that Polycarp assembled the canon is purely probabilistic. It should also be noted that Polycarp does not refer to the Gospels by their traditional names in his own writing (see here), which is part of the evidence (in addition to other anonymous quotations among the early church fathers) that the Gospels had not yet been given their traditional titles by the mid-second century CE (discussed further in endnote 20 above). Even if Polycarp was responsible for adding the titles after this date, therefore, he still provides evidence that the titular affixation did not take place until the late-2nd century.

(1) Irenaeus mentions Polycarp “was instructed by the apostles and was brought into contact with many who had seen Christ” (Adv. Haer. 3.3.4) but there are no references explicitly linking him to John. Rather it is Papias, friend of Polycarp, who is the “hearer of John” (Adv. Haer. 5.33.4). Ignatius, who corresponds with Polycarp, never mentions Polycarp being a disciple of John. In his Loeb introduction, Ehrman notes that there are actual questions about whether Polycarp was actually a disciple of John (pg. 12). In other words, if we are relying on Irenaeus, it could easily mean that he is connecting a succession of John to Papias to Polycarp rather than John to Polycarp.

(2) Another issue is even whether the Beloved Disciple, who is often the implied author of John, is John, someone else (e.g., Thomas Didymus as Charlesworth argues), or a literary fiction altogether (so argues Litwa and Mendez). In other words, even if Polycarp is connected to John, that doesn’t mean John composed the Gospel since like all of the Gospels, its author is anonymous.
(3) Given Polycarp’s use of scripture in his Epistle to the Philippians, he alludes to 1 and 3 John but does not allude to the Gospel of John at all. Berding in fact notes this: “Moreover, there are unmistakable literary connections to 1 John in Polycarp’s own letter (Pol. Phil. 7:1). This small paragraph notably contains a compressed citation of 1 John 4:2-3, a probable allusion to 1 John 3:8 and possible reminiscences of 1 John 5:6-9 and 1 John 3:12.18 These alone, though, are inadequate to categorise Polycarp as primarily in a Johannine stream or even to substantiate a personal relationship between Polycarp and John the Apostle. Furthermore, the lack of any clear connections to the Gospel of John in a letter packed full of allusions to other Christian literature is noteworthy” (pp. 139-140). So there isn’t direct evidence that Polycarp even knew the Gospel attributed to John. This may not call into question Polycarp’s relationship with John so much as it calls into question John as author of the Gospel.