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 beasts 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.
Danger of False Teachers
Ignatius makes repeated warnings about the dangers of false or deviant teachings. Sometimes his description of false teaching is vague and perhaps rhetorical, but other times he has in mind a specific docetic heresy. Docetism is the view that Jesus did not have a real physical body, whether in his earthly life or after his resurrection. Ignatius emphasizes then the physicality of Jesus’s birth. Life, death, and resurrection (Trall. 9.1-2; Smyrn. 2.1-3.3). The same docetic heresy is denounced in the Johannine epistles (1 Jn 4:2; 2 Jn 7). Ignatius warns against those who deny the reality of Jesus’s flesh and body, in his life, his resurrection, and even in the Eucharist.
The Definition of Christianity in Contrast to Judaism
Ignatius posits an abrupt rupture between Christianity and Judaism. Indeed, Ignatius is the first person we know of to regard Christianity and Judaism as two different “religions,” which are mutually exclusive or irreconcilable rivals.
He says things like:
“If we continue to live in accordance with Judaism, we admit that we have not received grace” (Magn. 8.1) and “Therefore, having become his disciples, let us learn to live in accordance with Christianity. … Throw out, therefore, the bad leaven, which has become stale and sour, and reach for the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ. Be salted with him, so that none of you become rotten, for by your odor you will be examined. It is utterly absurd to profess Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism. For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, in which ‘every tongue’ believed and ‘was brought together’ to God” (Magn. 10.1-3).
So you can see a big contrast of Judaism vs. Christianity.
Elsewhere Ignatius warns about listening to God-fearers.
But if anyone expounds Judaism to you, do not listen to him. For it is better to hear about Christianity from a man who is circumcised than about Judaism from one who is not. But if either of them fail to speak about Jesus Christ, I look on them as tombstones and graves of the dead, upon which only the names of men are inscribed (Phild. 6.1).
Now there are huge debates about the “parting of the ways,” how Judaism and Christianity both developed in the second century and became separate “religions.” There is also the fact that the socio-religious environment in Syrian Antioch was complex as there were different Christian groups and various levels of interaction taking place between Jews and Christians. Here Ignatius, a bit like John Chrysostom some four centuries later, is concerned about Christians fraternizing too closely with Jews precisely because they were fraternizing and often on friendly terms. Ignatius’ argument and rhetoric here is very supersessionist (out with the old and in with the new) and sectarian (keep away from Jews and adherents to Jewish customs and rituals).
A Realist Understanding of Jesus’s Presence in the Eucharist
For Ignatius, the Eucharist (or Lord’s Supper) with the breaking of the “one bread” is “the medicine of immortality” (Eph. 20.2). He says in prayerful earnestness, “I want the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ” … and “for drink I want his blood, which is incorruptible love” (Rom. 7.3). Ignatius also condemns those who not deny the reality of Jesus’ flesh and who also “refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up” (Smyrn. 6.2).
Ignatius does not have a mechanism or metaphor to explain how Jesus’s flesh is there in the Eucharist. He emphasizes realism not memorialism and to deny Jesus’ physical presence in the bread and wine is just as heretical as saying Jesus only appeared to be human during his incarnation or during his resurrection.
The Meaning of his Martyrdom
Ignatius sees his life as an offering and a ransom. He uses the word “ransom” often. He believes that he is being poured out as an offering to God, he is like wheat that is going to be crushed by the teeth of wild beasts, his death will consecrate him to God, then he “will truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 4.2). And Ignatius hopes his death will also encourage the churches.
Ignatius sees himself as walking along the highway of those being killed for God’s sake and following in the footsteps of Paul who was blessed in his death (Eph. 12.2).
You could argue Ignatius kind of anticipates the culture of victim-worship or victim Olympics. I don’t want to get into debates about Christianity, wokeness, and victim mentality, but Ignatius does say that the greater you are mistreated the great your status is within the church. He worships the crucified Lord Jesus who was a victim of Roman imperial violence. Ignatius himself is destined for martyrdom. So he tells the Ephesians:
Let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, to see who can be the more wronged, who the more cheated, who the more rejected (Eph. 10.3).
If the cross is the central symbol of your religion, then you are always going to praise those who suffer unjustly, whether harassed, persecuted, or martyred.
Conclusion
Ignatius’s letters are worth reading today, not as a relic of the past, nor merely as a martyr to be venerated, but as a person who calls believers to an authentic devotion to God and Jesus. For Ignatius, it is not enough “just to be called Christians, but that we actually be Christians” (Magn. 4.1). He claims that “Christianity is greatest when it is hated by the world” (Rom. 3.3) and “It is better to die for Jesus than to rule over the ends of earth” (Rom. 6.1).
Ignatius is an example of pastoral care, theological rigor, a passion for the gospel, love for God, a commitment to Jesus as Savior, anxiety about the health and unity of the churches, and courage in the face of death. Ignatius called himself theophorous which means “God-bearer,” one who is inhabited by God and carries forward his name. Ignatius is the bishop, martyr, and teacher who reminds us that “faith is the beginning, and love is the end, and the two, when they exist in unity, are [of] God” (Eph. 14.1).
Bibliography
All translations are from Holmes, Michael W. The Apostolic Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992.
Further Reading
Foster, P. “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch.” Pages 81-107. In The Apostolic Fathers. Edited by P. Foster. London: T&T Clark, 2007.
Foster, P. “The Text of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers.” Pages 282–301 in The Early Text of the New Testament. Edited by Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Löhr, H. “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch.” Pages 91–115 in The Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction. Edited by W. Pratscher. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010.
Lookadoo, Jonathon. “The Letters of Ignatius.” Pages 208-25. In The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers. Edited by Michael F. Bird and Scott D. Harrower. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Lookadoo, Jonathon. The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch. Studies in Early Christology; Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2023.
Schoedel, W.R. Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985.
Stewart, A. Ignatius of Antioch: The Letters, Popular Patristics Series 49. Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013.
Wilson, J. C. “Ignatius of Antioch.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by D. N. Freedman, A. C. Myers, and A. B. Beck. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
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