This volume is a collection of the author's previously published works spanning the thirty years since the production of his doctoral thesis and commemorating his award of the status of Special Emeritus in the University of Louvain (2007). He begins with his updated edition of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, a valuable addition to that of Bihlmeyer (1924), for which he is to be particularly commended in view of his rediscovery of the lost Codex Kosinitza (K) as an important addition to the list of menologies that provide an alternative branch in the textual transmission to that of Eusebius. Thus he establishes a firm textual basis for the subject that his republished papers illuminate.

Dehandschutter defends the integrity of the textual tradition of the Martyrdom against the view that Eusebius' shorter version can be regarded to some degree as the archetype, the embellishments of which are minor in comparison with the transmitted text witnessed by the menologies. Von Campenhausen, amongst others, proposed to determine the nature of such embellishments with reference to such features as parallels with the passion narrative, antimontanist additions, miracles etc. The problem here is that such criteria do not establish the purity of Eusebius' text, which included the miracles (other than the dove: Martyrdom 5.2; 9.1; 15.2), and the alleged antimontanist additions (Martyrdom 4=Eusebius, HE v.15.7–8). These have then to be excluded on the grounds that they are pre-Eusebian. At this point Eusebius' text establishes nothing with respect to authenticity and simply takes its place alongside the menologies: additions and original features are simply distinguished on grounds of the plausibility of their emanation from the second-century historical period in which Polycarp lived rather than from later times.

Dehandschutter therefore argues plausibly for the dating of the origins of Montanism before the 170s (p. 121ff.) and around the preferred date for Polycarp's death (ad 155–6 or 156–7 rather than 177: see pp. 56–60). But his defence of the basic authenticity of some form of our present text rests principally upon his ability to address the concept of martyrdom as it appears in the text with Polycarp's historical period, and so a considerable number of these republished works deal with the issue of martyrdom in the New Testament and in the second century (section iv). It is here that his discussion enters the debate about Polycarp's Philippians and the authenticity of the Ignatian Middle Recension (p. 145ff.). Joly had claimed that the author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp was the forger of the Middle Recension and therefore also of the alleged interpolations in Polycarp's Philippians on the grounds of his introduction of Polycarp's designation as ἐπισκοπος (pp. 147–8) as well as introducing the new concept of the martyr's mimesis of Christ (pp. 150–1). Dehandschutter interprets the Martyrdom and other martyrologies of the second century such as that of Lyon and Vienne in which martyrdom is presented as following Christ as a disciple and imitating his sacrificial love. Ignatius represents a quite different view of mimesis in which the martyr shares in Christ's sufferings so as to be a living refutation of Docetism (pp. 99–101).

Dehandschutter could at this point nevertheless have followed Joly in claiming that, with a new (and arguably late) view of martyrdom, the Middle Recension post-dates both Polycarp and the Martyrdom. He desists from following such a route and leaves the question of authenticity open. It will surprise no one that I would consider unquestionable his assertion that ‘les arguments traditionnels en faveur de la authenticité … ne sont pas toujours satifaisants’. But it is quite incorrect to suggest that ‘il est aussi difficile de trouver l'argument decisive contre l'authenticité’ (p. 150). While it is true that Polycarp is unable to follow an Ignatian theology grounded in a background in Hellenistic mystery religions, nevertheless he warmed to Ignatius' antidocetic message. Indeed, Dehandschutter shows how it is Polycarp himself and no forger that has adopted Ignatius language but amended it when he simply regards the figure that passes through in chains as amongst the martyrs (Phillipians ix.1: ‘Ignatius, Zosimus and Rufus … Paul himself and the other apostles’) who are those referred to as τα μιμηματς τἠδ ἀληθους ἀγαπη (Philippians i.1). Polycarp cannot fully accept Ignatius' claim to be a μιμητη τους παθοὐς τους θεους μου (Romans vi.3). In this regard Polycarp witnesses to the authenticity of the Middle Recension by being seen to restrain Ignatius' Hellenistic excess. A satisfactory defence of that authenticity was to await the location of Ignatius' theological schema in the epigraphy and literature of the movement that is the Second Sophistic.