This talk introduces the GenAut project recently launched at the ETF and then discusses in some detail one early Christian individual in it, Polycarp of Smyrna. Apart from the epistle to the Philippians attributed to him, this literary dossier includes the Martyrdom of Polycarp, a Life of Polycarp, another martyrdom narrative found only in Coptic, and a Byzantine panegyric of Polycarp, each with a peculiar transmission in the various contexts of the late antique and medieval Mediterranean. The talk will trace the development of the literary career of Polycarp and its lateral connections to other similar early Christian literary figures like Ignatius of Antioch and Dionysius the Areopagite.