In a prior
post, Polycarp vs. Sola Fide, I provided excerpts from Polycarp's Epistle to the
Philippians refuting Sola Fide. Another text from this short epistle that
refutes Sola Fide is chapter 10, "Exhortation to the practice of
virtue":
Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and
follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith,
loving the brotherhood, and being attached to one another, joined together in
the truth, exhibiting the meekness of the Lord in your intercourse with one
another, and despising no one. When you can do good, defer it not, because
"alms delivers from death."
Be all of you subject one to another "having your conduct blameless among
the Gentiles," that ye may both receive praise for your good works, and
the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of
the Lord is blasphemed! Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also
in your own conduct. (ANF 1:35)
The note
following the quotation in bold reads “Tobit iv. 10, Tobit xii. 9.” Let us
quote from these texts from the book of Tobit:
For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps
you from going into the Darkness. (Tobit 4:10 NRSV)
For almsgiving saves from death and purges
away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life. (Tobit 12:9)
There is a
variation in the Greek of Tobit 12:9. The NETS (S) renders the verse as:
For almsgiving delivers from death, and it
will purge away every sin. Those who practice almsgiving and righteousness will
have fullness of life.
It is clear that Polycarp is teaching that almsgiving is an instrumental
means of God purging away our sins, all the more strengthened by the use of
Tobit which explicitly teaches this. This flies in the face of various formulations
of Sola Fide!
