steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics". Polycarp lived in an age after the deaths of the apostles, when a variety of interpretations of the sayings of Jesus were being preached. His role was to authenticate orthodox teachings through his connection with the apostle John: "a high value was attached to the witness Polycarp could give as to the genuine tradition of old apostolic doctrine" "his testimony condemning as offensive novelties the figments of the heretical teachers". Irenaeus states (iii. 3) that on Polycarp's visit to Rome, his testimony converted many disciples of Marcion and Valentinus. Polycarp is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 23 February. In the church Sant' Ambrogio della Massima in Rome, Italy, there are guarded relics of Polycarp. Theology Polycarp's soteriology is not clear; he does cite Ephesians 2:8 to say salvation is by grace rather than works, though later exhorts his readers to do good works. It is not clear from the text how he views works in relation to salvation as his comments are too little to make a clear conclusion. He could have believed that works are mere results of saving grace or that they are necessary to keep salvation and that they have meritorious value, thus we cannot know if he was a monergist or a synergist. Polycarp in his letter calls Jesus the "son of God" and the "eternal high priest" and that "to him all heavenly and earthly things were subjected, whom every breath worships, who comes as a judge of the living and the dead". He also highlights the sinlessness of Jesus, he defended the doctrine of the Incarnation and the death of Christ in the cross, and he clearly opposed docetism. Polycarp outright denied the teachings of Marcion, claiming he was the firstborn of Satan. Polycarp's statements in the Martyrdom of Polycarp also appear to have trinitarian theology. What we know of Polycarp's eschatology is largely confined to the affirmation of the resurrection of the dead and Christ's second coming as a judge. Polycarp was perhaps a premillenialist; Polycarp’s student Irenaeus was a premillenialist along with Papias who was his associate, which suggests that Polycarp also held similar views. Polycarp refers to multiple books of the New Testament as scripture, including: Matthew, Acts, 1 John, Philippians, Jude, 1 Peter, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Romans and others.