From Syria all the way to Rome I am fighting with wild beasts, on land and sea, by night and day, chained amidst ten leopards (that is, a company of soldiers) who only get worse when they are well treated. Yet because of their mistreatment I am becoming more of a disciple; nevertheless “I am not thereby justified.” May I have the pleasure of the wild beasts that have been prepared for me; and I pray that they prove to be prompt with me. I will even coax them to devour me promptly, not as they have done with some, whom they were too timid to touch. And if when I am willing and ready they are not, I will force them. (3) Bear with me—I know what is best for me. Now at last I am beginning to be a disciple. May nothing visible or invisible envy me, so that I may reach Jesus Christ. Fire and cross and battles with wild beasts, mutilation, mangling, wrenching of bones, the hacking of limbs, the crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil—let these come upon me, only let me reach Jesus Christ! (Rom. 5.1-3).
Ignatius was a bishop in Antioch, in Syria, in the first quarter of the second century.
At some point, probably between AD 107 and 117, Ignatius was arrested by a man named Palma, the governor of Syria, who offered the aging bishop to emperor Trajan as a gift. Our sources conflict as to whether Ignatius was tried before Trajan in Antioch or in Rome, but either way, Ignatius was tried and condemned by the emperor and sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts in the Colosseum.
Ignatius was sent to Rome from Antioch with a detachment of soldiers whom he called “leopards.” He most probably traveled through Asia Minor via the coastal road, was then taken across the Aegean, where Ignatius and his guards journed along the Via Egnatia across Macedonia, the Balkans, and then into northern Italy before arriving in the eternal city to suffer his martyrdom.
During his three to four-month journey, Ignatius wrote several letters that we have today. While passing through the Asian cites of Smyrna and Troas, he wrote seven letters: five to nearby churches in western Asia (Ephesians; Magnesians; Trallians; Philadelphians; Smyrnaeans), one to the church in Rome (Romans), and another to a fellow bishop named Polycarp (Polycarp).
According to Eusebius of Caesarea:
The story goes that he [Ignatius] was sent from Syria to Rome to be eaten by beats in testimony to Christ. He was taken through Asia under most careful guard, and strengthened by his speech and exhortation the diocese of each city in which he stayed. He particularly warned them to be on their guard against the heresies which then for the first time were beginning to obtain, and exhorted them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles, to which he thought necessary, for safety’s sake, to give the form of written testimony (Hist. Eccl. 3.36).
Critical Issues About His Letters
There are a lot of disputes and debates about Ignatius’ letters. For a start, as I said above, there is the problem of precisely when Ignatius was martyred. Also, some scholars think that the Ignatian letters were composed as forgeries in the late second century. There are even different recensions of the letters in long, short, and middle forms. The majority of scholars regard the middle recension as the original form of the Ignatian letters.
Main Themes (or Interesting Facts)
There are several themes, theological distinctives, or interesting facts about Ignatius and his letters that we should note. I have eight to share with you.
Witness to the New Testament
Ignatius of Antioch is one of the earliest witnesses to the reception and veneration of books that would later become part of the New Testament.
Ignatius appears to allude to the Gospel of Matthew, possibly the Gospel of Luke, perhaps some vague echoes of John’s Gospel. Ignatius certainly draws on 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and likely also 1-2 Timothy.
Concern for the Church of Antioch
One striking thing about Ignatius’ letters is his constant concern for the church of Antioch. This is a church obviously facing persecution, they are without their bishop, so leaderless, experiencing trauma, perhaps even racked with religious controversy with different versions of Christianity in the city competing for people’s allegiance
Authority of the Bishop & Unity of the Church
Ignatius evidences the establishment of a threefold church order comprising of bishop, presbyters, and deacons. Ignatius particularly extols the office of bishop in every letter except Romans, and he repeats (almost ad nauseum) the necessity of obeying the bishop.
He says that “we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself” (Eph. 6.1) and he tells a church to imagine “the bishop presiding in the place of God” (Magn. 6.1). In addition, just as the Lord Jesus did did nothing without the Father, so too, “you must not do anything without the bishop and the presbyters” (Magn. 7.1).
For people who are suspicious of hierarchy, who prefer an egalitarian model of leadership, or who even accent the priesthood of all believers rather than a bishop with God-like authority, this can sound very affronting.
Such emphasis on episcopal authority was unique to Ignatius, not all of early Christianity was changing “obey the bishop, obey the bishop.” His emphasis on following and obeying the bishop was made because he believed that a time of crisis with external persecution and internal division, meant that a strong leader was needed in the churches to guide, sustain, and lead the churches.
Witness to a Two-Natures Christology
Orthodox Christology maintains that Jesus is truly divine and truly human. While such a formula represents the conclusion to three centuries of debates over the nature of Jesus, it has umbilical connections to the New Testament and the apostolic fathers. One of the most profound statements of early Christology can be found in Ignatius’ letter to the Ephesians where he states:
There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord (Eph. 7.2).
It is an amazing set of contrasts of Jesus’s divine and human natures. The begetting language is particularly important, because it means that Jesus is unbegotten in his divinity (that is, a true God) and begotten in his humanity (that is, a true human being). He is also impassible as God and passible as a human being. Ignatius writes how Jesus is “the Unsuffering [one], who for our sake suffered, who for our sake endured in every way” (Pol. 3.2).
In a similar summary, Ignatius explicitly calls Jesus “our God”:
For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan, both from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit. He was born and was baptized in order that by his suffering he might cleanse the water (Eph. 18.2).
Again, you see a very balanced comparison of Jesus’s divine and human qualities set in the context of God’s plan for salvation.
You could argue that Ignatius is even proto-Trinitarian, also in the letter to the Ephesians, he writes:
For [you are] the building of God the Father, hoisted up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit (Eph. 9.1).
Ignatius might not have a fully-worked out Trinitarian theology, but he is riffing off the New Testament in a way that anticipates and prepares for the Trinitarian discourse of later centuries.
