Church in eastern Mediterranean; Church in North Africa
Ignatius of Antioch (/ɪɡˈneɪʃəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιοχείας, romanized: Ignátios Antiokheías; died c. 108/140 ),[2][3][7][8][9] also known as Ignatius Theophorus (Ἰγνάτιος ὁ Θεοφόρος, Ignátios ho Theophóros, 'the God-bearing'), was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence forms a central part of a later collection of works by the Apostolic Fathers. He is considered one of the three most important of these, together with Clement of Rome and Polycarp. His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology, and address important topics including ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
Nothing is known of Ignatius' life apart from the words of his letters and later traditions. It is said Ignatius converted to Christianity[10] at a young age. Tradition identifies him and his friend Polycarp as disciples of John the Apostle.[11] Later, Ignatius was chosen to serve as Bishop of Antioch; the fourth-century Church historian Eusebius writes that Ignatius succeeded Evodius.[12]Theodoret of Cyrrhus claimed that St. Peter himself left directions that Ignatius be appointed to this episcopal see.[13] Ignatius was called Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition exists that he was one of the children whom Jesus Christ took in his arms and blessed.[14]
Veneration
Ignatius' feast day was kept in his own Antioch on 17 October, the day on which he is now celebrated in the Catholic Church and generally in western Christianity, although from the 12th century until 1969 it was put at 1 February in the General Roman Calendar.[15][16]
Ignatius was condemned to death for his faith, but instead of being executed in his home town of Antioch, the bishop was taken to Rome by a company of ten soldiers:
From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers...
Scholars consider Ignatius' transport to Rome unusual, since those persecuted as Christians would be expected to be punished locally. Stevan Davies has pointed out that "no other examples exist from the Flavian age of any prisoners except citizens or prisoners of war being brought to Rome for execution."[21]
If Ignatius had been a Roman citizen, he could have appealed to the emperor, with the common result of execution by beheading rather than torture.[22] However, Ignatius's letters state that he was put in chains during the journey, but it was against Roman law for a citizen to be put in bonds during an appeal to the emperor.[21]: 175–176
Allen Brent argues that Ignatius was transferred to Rome for the emperor to provide a spectacle as a victim in the Colosseum. Brent insists, contrary to some, that "it was normal practice to transport condemned criminals from the provinces in order to offer spectator sport in the Colosseum at Rome."[23]: 15
Stevan Davies rejects this idea, reasoning that: "if Ignatius was in some way a donation by the Imperial Governor of Syria to the games at Rome, a single prisoner seems a rather miserly gift."[21]: 176 Instead, Davies proposes that Ignatius may have been indicted by a legate, or representative, of the governor of Syria while the governor was away temporarily, and sent to Rome for trial and execution. Under Roman law, only the governor of a province or the emperor himself could impose capital punishment, so the legate would have faced the choice of imprisoning Ignatius in Antioch or sending him to Rome. Transporting the bishop might have avoided further agitation by the Antiochene Christians.[21]: 177–178
Christine Trevett calls Davies' suggestion "entirely hypothetical" and concludes that no fully satisfactory solution to the problem can be found: "I tend to take the bishop at his word when he says he is a condemned man. But the question remains, why is he going to Rome? The truth is that we do not know."[24]
Route of travel to Rome
During the journey to Rome, Ignatius and his entourage of soldiers made a number of lengthy stops in Asia Minor, deviating from the most direct land route from Antioch to Rome.[21]: 176 Scholars generally agree on the following reconstruction of Ignatius' route of travel:
Ignatius first traveled from Antioch, in the province of Syria, to Asia Minor. It is uncertain whether he traveled by sea or by land.
After this, he took some land or sea route to Rome.[25]
During the journey, the soldiers seem to have allowed the chained Ignatius to meet with entire congregations of Christians, at least at Philadelphia (cf. Ign. Phil. 7), and numerous Christian visitors and messengers were allowed to meet with him individually. These messengers allowed Ignatius to send six letters to nearby churches, and one to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna.[21]: 176
These aspects of Ignatius' martyrdom are also unusual, in that a prisoner would normally be transported on the most direct route to his destination. Travel by land in the Roman Empire was far more expensive than by sea,[26] especially since Antioch was a major sea port. Davies argues that Ignatius' circuitous route can only be explained by positing that he was not the main purpose of the soldiers' trip, and that the various stops in Asia Minor were for other state business. He suggests that such a scenario would also explain the relative freedom that Ignatius was given to meet with other Christians during the journey.[21]: 177
Date of martyrdom
Tradition places Ignatius's martyrdom in the reign of Trajan (c. 98-117). The earliest source for this is the 4th century church historian Eusebius of Caesarea. Richard Pervo argues that Eusebius may have had an ideological interest in dating church leaders as early as possible, and asserting a continuous succession between the original apostles of Jesus and the leaders of the church in his day.[2] However, Jonathon Lookadoo argues that John Malalas and the Acts of Martyrdom's accounts of Ignatius are independent from Eusebius and they still place his death under Trajan.[27]: 6
While many scholars accept this traditional dating, others have argued for a somewhat later date. Richard Pervo dated Ignatius' death to 135–140 .[2] British classicistTimothy Barnes has argued for a date in the 140s, on the grounds that Ignatius seems to have quoted a work of the GnosticPtolemy, who became active only in the 130s.[3] Étienne Decrept has argued from the testimony of John Malalas and the Acts of Drosis that Ignatius was martyred under the reign of Trajan during Apollo's festival in July 116, and in response to the earthquake at Antioch in late 115.[28]
Death and aftermath
Ignatius wrote that he would be thrown to the beasts; in the fourth century Eusebius reports a tradition that this did happen,[29] while Jerome is the first to explicitly mention lions.[22]John Chrysostom is the first to place of Ignatius' martyrdom at the Colosseum.[30] Modern scholars are uncertain whether any of these authors had sources other than Ignatius' own writings.[22][29]
According to a medieval Christian text titled Martyrium Ignatii, Ignatius' remains were carried back to Antioch by his companions after his martyrdom.[31] The sixth-century writings of Evagrius Scholasticus state that the reputed remains of Ignatius were moved by the Emperor Theodosius II to the Tychaeum, or Temple of Tyche, and converted it into a church dedicated to Ignatius.[32] In 637, when Antioch was captured by the Rashidun Caliphate, the relics were transferred to the Basilica di San Clemente in Rome.[33]
The Martyrium Ignatii is an account of the saint's martyrdom.[31] It is presented as an eye-witness account for the church of Antioch, attributed to Ignatius' companions, Philō of Cilicia, deacon at Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian.[25]
Its most reliable manuscript is the 10th-century collection Codex Colbertinus (Paris), in which it is the final item. The Martyrium presents the confrontation of Bishop Ignatius with Emperor Trajan at Antioch, a familiar trope of Acta of the martyrs, and many details of the long journey to Rome. The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria says that he was thrown to the wild beasts that devoured him.[34]
The following seven epistles preserved under the name of Ignatius are generally considered authentic, since they were mentioned by the historian Eusebius in the first half of the fourth century.
For some time, it was believed that the Long Recension was the only extant version of the Ignatian epistles, but around 1628 a Latin translation of the Middle Recension was discovered by ArchbishopJames Ussher, who published it in 1646. For around a quarter of a century after this, it was debated which recension represented the original text of the epistles. But ever since John Pearson's strong defense of the authenticity of the Middle Recension in the late 17th century, there has been a scholarly consensus that the Middle Recension is the original version of the text.[3]: 121 The Long Recension is the product of a fourth-century Arian Christian, who interpolated the Middle Recension epistles in order posthumously to enlist Ignatius as an unwitting witness in theological disputes of that age. This individual also forged the six spurious epistles attributed to Ignatius (see § Pseudo-Ignatius below).[39]
Manuscripts representing the Short Recension of the Ignatian epistles were discovered and published by William Cureton in the mid-19th century. For a brief period, there was a scholarly debate on the question of whether the Short Recension was earlier and more original than the Middle Recension. But by the end of the 19th century, Theodor Zahn and J. B. Lightfoot had established a scholarly consensus that the Short Recension is merely a summary of the text of the Middle Recension, and was therefore composed later.[3]: 121
Authenticity
Though the Catholic Church has always supported the authenticity of the letters,[11] some Protestants have tended to deny the authenticity of all the epistles because they seem to attest to a monarchical episcopate in the second century. John Calvin called the epistles "rubbish published under Ignatius' name."[3]: 119
In 1886, Presbyterian minister and church historian William Dool Killen published a long essay attacking the authenticity of the epistles attributed to Ignatius. He argued that Callixtus, bishop of Rome, forged the letters around AD 220 to garner support for a monarchical episcopate, modeling the renowned Saint Ignatius after his own life to give precedent for his own authority.[40]: 137 Killen contrasted this episcopal polity with the presbyterian polity in the writings of Polycarp.[40]: 127
Some doubts about the letters' authenticity continued into the 20th century. In the 1970s and 1980s, the scholars Robert Joly,[41] Reinhard Hübner,[42]Markus Vinzent,[43] and Thomas Lechner[44] argued forcefully that the epistles of the Middle Recension were forgeries from the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180). Joseph Ruis-Camps published a study arguing that the Middle Recension letters were pseudepigraphically composed based on an original, smaller, authentic corpus of four letters (Romans, Magnesians, Trallians, and Ephesians). In 2009, Otto Zwierlein support the thesis of a forgery written around 170 AD.[45]
These publications stirred up heated scholarly controversy,[3]: 122 but by 2017, most patristic scholars accepted the authenticity of the seven original epistles.[3]: 121ff [46][47][48]
The original texts of six of the seven original letters are found in the Codex Mediceo Laurentianus, written in Greek in the 11th century (which also contains the pseudepigraphical letters of the Long Recension, except that to the Philippians),[49] while the letter to the Romans is found in the Codex Colbertinus.[11]
Style and structure
Ignatius's letters bear signs of being written in great haste, such as run-on sentences and an unsystematic succession of thought. Ignatius modelled them after the biblical epistles of Paul, Peter, and John, quoting or paraphrasing these apostles' works freely. For example, in his letter to the Ephesians he quoted 1 Corinthians 1:18:
Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to us salvation and life eternal.
— Letter to the Ephesians 18, Roberts and Donaldson translation[50]
Theology
Christology
Ignatius is known to have taught the deity of Christ:
There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible, even Jesus Christ our Lord.
— Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 7, shorter version, Roberts-Donaldson translation
The same section in text of the Long Recension says the following:
But our Physician is the Only true God, the unbegotten and unapproachable, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the only-begotten Son. We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For "the Word was made flesh." Being incorporeal, He was in the body, being impassible, He was in a passible body, being immortal, He was in a mortal body, being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.
— Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 7, longer version
He stressed the value of the Eucharist, calling it a "medicine of immortality" (Ignatius to the Ephesians 20:2). He regarded persecution and suffering as conferring grace, and earnestly longed for his own martyrdom.[51]
Ignatius is claimed to be the first known Christian writer to argue in favor of Christianity's replacement of the Sabbath with the Lord's Day:
Be not seduced by strange doctrines nor by antiquated fables, which are profitless. For if even unto this day we live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not received grace. ...If then those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day, on which our life also arose through Him ... how shall we be able to live apart from Him?
— Ignatius to the Magnesians 8:1, 9:1–2, Lightfoot translation.
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master—how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.
This passage has provoked textual debate since the only Greek manuscript extant read Κατα κυριακήν ζωήν ζωντες which could be translated "living according to the Lord's life." Most scholars, however, have followed the Latin text (secundum dominicam) omitting ζωήν and translating "living according to Lord's Day".[52]
Ecclesiology
Ignatius is the earliest known Christian writer to emphasize loyalty to a single bishop in each city (or diocese) who is assisted by both presbyters (elders)[53][54][note 1] and deacons. Earlier writings only mention either bishops or presbyters.
For instance, his writings on bishops, presbyters and deacons:
Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest.
— Letter to the Magnesians 2, 6:1
He is also responsible for the first known use of the Greek word katholikos (καθολικός), or catholic, meaning "universal", "complete", "general", and/or "whole" to describe the Church, writing:
Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. Thus, whatever is done will be safe and valid.
— Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8, J.R. Willis translation.
Anglican bishop and theologian Joseph Lightfoot states the word "catholic (καθόλου)" meant "universal" to Ignatius, as that term was commonly used at the time by classical and ecclesiastical writers. Later usages of “Catholic Church” denote a particular church with orthodox beliefs and apostolic succession, as opposed to heretical or schismatic church bodies.[55] Ignatius of Antioch is also attributed one of the earliest uses of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) c. 100 AD.[56]
Both Ignatius and Peregrinus show a morbid eagerness to die.
Both are, or have been, Christians.
Both are imprisoned by Roman authorities.
Upon the arrest of both prisoners, Christians from all over Asia Minor come to visit them and bring them gifts (cf. Peregr. 12–13).
Both prisoners send letters to several Greek cities shortly before their deaths as "testaments, counsels, and laws", appointing "couriers" and "ambassadors" for the purpose.[57]
It is generally believed that these parallels are the result of Lucian intentionally copying traits from Ignatius and applying them to his satire of Peregrinus.[23]: 73 If the dependence of Lucian on the Ignatian epistles is accepted, then this places an upper limit on the date of the epistles during the 160s AD, just before The Passing of Peregrinus was written.
In 1892, Daniel Völter sought to explain the parallels by proposing that the Ignatian epistles were in fact written by Peregrinus, and later attributed to the saint, but this speculative theory has failed to make a significant impact on the academic community.[58]
Pseudo-Ignatius
Epistles attributed to Saint Ignatius, but of spurious origin (their author is often called Pseudo-Ignatius in English) include:[59]
^Although the English word "priest" is derived from "πρεσβύτερος presbyteros" (literally meaning "old man" or "elder"), there is no clear evidence that this Greek word's original, intended usage among Biblical and early Patristic writers was of a sacramental priesthood, or even as being synonymous with the position of "pastor," as it has been used in Catholicism. Hence the comparatively very different usage of the term by, for example, the Christian denomination of Presbyterianism (which defines a presbyter as one of several senior leading members of a local church body).
^Cioffi, Robert L. (2016-03-07). "Travel in the Roman World". Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935390.013.110. ISBN978-0-19-993539-0. Archived from the original on 2019-07-03. Retrieved 2019-07-03. Roads were by far the costliest means of transporting goods and traveling; according to calculations made by applying the ORBIS model to data from Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 CE, transportation by wagon cost between five and fifty-two times more than travel by boat for equivalent distances...
^ ab Eusebius (1890) [313]. Roberts, Alexander; Donaldson, James; Coxe, Arthur Cleveland; Schaff, Philip; Wace, Henry (eds.). Church History of Eusebius. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Vol. Series 2, Vol. I. Translated by McGiffert, Arthur Cushman..
^Quasten, Johannes (1980) [1950]. Patrologia: fino al Concilio di Nicea (in Italian). Vol. 1. Translated by Beghin, Nello. Turin: Marietti. pp. 72–73. ISBN9788821167027. OCLC886651889.
^Kessel, Grigory (2023). "A Catacomb of Syriac Texts: Codex Arabicus (Sin. ar. 514) Revisited". In Rapp, Claudia; Rossetto, Giulia; Grusková, Jana; Kessel, Grigory (eds.). New Light on Old Manuscripts: The Sinai Palimpsests and Other Advances in Palimpsest Studies. Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. p. 106. doi:10.1553/978oeaw91575s101. ISBN978-3-7001-9159-9.
^Robert Joly, Le dossier d'Ignace d'Antioche, Éditions de l'université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, 1979.
^Reinhard M. Hübner, « Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien », Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, vol. 1, n° 1 (1997), p. 44-72.
^Markus Vinzent, "Ich bin kein körperloses Geistwesen", in Reinhard M. Hübner and Markus Vinzent, Der Paradox Eine: Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, Vigilae Christianae Supplements, 50, Leiden:Brill, 1999, p. 241-256.
^Thomas Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, vol. 47 of the Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Brill, 1999. Presentation onlineArchived 2023-10-02 at the Wayback Machine.
^Otto Zwierlein, Petrus in Rom, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, vol. 96, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2009 (2 éd. 2010), p. 183-237.
^Cobb, L. Stephanie. Dying To Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts, p. 3 (Columbia University Press, 2008); ISBN978-0-231-14498-8
^J.B Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 2nd ed, vol 2, part 2, pag 129.
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Ignatius of Antioch (1946). The Epistles of St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch. James E. Kleist, trans. Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop.
Löhr, Hermut (2010). "The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch". The Apostolic Fathers. An Introduction. Wilhelm Pratscher, ed. Waco (TX): Baylor University Press. pp. 91–115. ISBN978-1-60258-308-5.
Thurston, Herbert; Attwater, Donald, eds. (1956). Butler's Lives of the Saints. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics.
Vall, Gregory (2013). Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. ISBN978-0-8132-2158-8.
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