When it is said
It is not a set prayer of any Orthodox service or prayer book. The Orthodox honour Polycarp on 23 February as a hieromartyr, a martyr who was also a bishop or priest. The Orthodox Church in America calls the letter that holds this prayer “one of the most ancient memorials of Christian literature”.
Roman Catholics read it on his feast day, 23 February, in the Office of Readings, part of their daily prayer.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
Written down by his church
The prayer comes from the letter Polycarp’s church at Smyrna sent out after his death. That letter is the oldest account of a Christian martyr’s death we have outside the New Testament. It says he prayed it bound to the stake, looking up to heaven, and that the fire was lit when he said the Amen.
Martyrdom of Polycarp, chapter 14 (Ante-Nicene Fathers); Lake, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2 (1913)
His words, or his church’s?
In 1899 the scholar J. Armitage Robinson heard in its “I praise You, I bless You, I glorify You” an echo of the hymn “Glory to God in the highest”. He left open whether these are Polycarp’s words or the writer’s. By 1920 such echoes had shaken his trust in the whole letter.
J. Armitage Robinson, The Expositor (1899); J. Armitage Robinson, Journal of Theological Studies (1920)
When was it written?
The letter says it was written by people who saw him die. Kirsopp Lake, who edited it in 1913, called it genuine and written at the time. In 2010 the scholar Candida Moss argued that the letter as we now have it was written long after, perhaps in the middle of the 200s. St Polycarp’s page gives both sides.
Lake, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2 (1913); Candida Moss, Early Christianity (2010)
The Scripture in it
“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus replied. “Can you drink the cup I will drink, or be baptized with the baptism I will undergo?” “We can,” the brothers answered. “You will drink the cup that I drink,” Jesus said, “and you will be baptized with the baptism that I undergo.”
Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς ὁ Παντοκράτωρ, ὁ τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ καὶ εὐλογητοῦ Παιδός Σου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ Πατήρ, δι’ Οὗ τὴν περὶ Σοῦ ἐπίγνωσιν εἰλήφαμεν, ὁ Θεὸς ἀγγέλων καὶ δυνάμεων καὶ πάσης τῆς κτίσεως παντός τε τοῦ γένους τῶν δικαίων, οἳ ζῶσιν ἐνώπιόν Σου·
εὐλογῶ Σε, ὅτι ἠξίωσάς με τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ ὥρας ταύτης, τοῦ λαβεῖν με μέρος ἐν ἀριθμῷ τῶν μαρτύρων ἐν τῷ ποτηρίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Σου εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς αἰωνίου ψυχῆς τε καὶ σώματος ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου· ἐν οἷς προσδεχθείην ἐνώπιόν Σου σήμερον ἐν θυσίᾳ πίονι καὶ προσδεκτῇ, καθὼς προητοίμασας καὶ προεφανέρωσας καὶ ἐπλήρωσας, ὁ ἀψευδὴς καὶ ἀληθινὸς Θεός.
διὰ τοῦτο καὶ περὶ πάντων Σὲ αἰνῶ, Σὲ εὐλογῶ, Σὲ δοξάζω διὰ τοῦ αἰωνίου καὶ ἐπουρανίου Ἀρχιερέως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἀγαπητοῦ Σου Παιδός, δι’ Οὗ Σοὶ σὺν Αὐτῷ καὶ Πνεύματι Ἁγίῳ δόξα καὶ νῦν καὶ εἰς τοὺς μέλλοντας αἰῶνας. ἀμήν.
From Martyrdom of Polycarp, chapter 14, in Kirsopp Lake’s Greek text (Loeb, 1913), with capitals for God.