Martyrdom of Polycarp 3:1-2

Germanicus
3 1 Ἀλλὰ χάρις τῷ θεῷ· κατὰ πάντων γὰρ οὐκ ἴσχυσεν. ὁ γὰρ γενναιότατος Γερμανικὸς ἐερρώννυεν αὐτῶν τὴ δειλίαν διὰ τῆς ἐν αὐτῷ ὑπομονῇς· ὃς καὶ ἐπισήμως ἐθηριομάχησεν. βουλομένου γὰρ τοῦ ἀνθυπάτου πείθειν αὐτὸν καὶ λέγοντος, τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ κατοικτεῖραι, ἑαυτῷ ἐπεσπάσατο τὸ θηρίον προσβιασάμενος, τάχιoν τoῦ ἀδίκoυ καὶ ἀνόμoυ βίoυ αὐτῶν ἀπαλλαγῆναι βουλόμενος. 2 ἐκ τούτου οὖν πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος, θαυμάσαν τὴν γενναιότητα τοῦ θεοφιλοῦς καὶ θεοσεβοῦς γένους τῶν Χριστιανῶν, ἐπεβόησεν· Αἶρε τοὺς ἀθέους· ζητείσθω Πολύκαρπος.
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3:2 This verse division does not occur in every edition of the text.

Germanicus
3 1 But thanks be to God, for he did not prevail against any of them. For the most noble Germanicus encouraged their timidity through the endurance he showed. He fought valiantly against the wild beasts. When the proconsul tried to persuade him to take pity on his youth, he willingly and forcibly pulled the wild creature toward himself, wanting to be rid of their unjust and lawless way of life as quickly as possible. 2 After this the whole crowd, amazed at the bravery of this pious and beloved Christian race, began shouting “Away with the atheists! Let a search be made for Polycarp!”

3:1 "he did not prevail," that is, the devil (cf. 2:4). The Latin omits the negative (as does Lightfoot in his Greek text, making οὐκ into oὖν), in which case the sense would be that “he (God) indeed prevailed against them all,” but the negative appears to fit the context better since the antecedent of “them” should be the subject of the previous clause, those “condemned to wild beasts,” not the wild beasts themselves.

3:1 ἐπισήμως “valiantly” adverb. The adjectival form occurs in Matthew 27:16; Romans 16:7; Genesis 30:42; Esther 5:4; and in the apocrypha (1 Macc 11:37; 14:48; 2 Macc 15:36; 3 Macc 6:1).

3:1 τοῦ ἀνθυπάτου "the proconsul." A proconsul was a Roman official with authority over a province. Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7) and Gallio (Acts 18:12) were such officials.

3:1 τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ κατοικτεῖραι, "pity on his youth," evidently thinking it was a shame for a young man to throw away his life in such a way. κατοικτείρω, "have mercy or compassion on," is a Septuagint word not found in the New Testament. 4 Macc. 8:20; 12:2.

3:2 τοὺς ἀθέους "the atheists." The charge of atheism was constantly brought against Christians during the persecutions because they refused to pay homage to Caesar as a god. The term atheist here means anyone who did not believe that Caesar was a god. Today the term is employed specifically to someone who imagines that there is no god at all, and more generally as a synonym for agnostic, someone who doubts there is a god or believes that the existence of God cannot be proved.