* The translations of the text of Ignatius are taken froni Lightfoot.
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
595
tinwm. belongs to the 5th or, at the earliest, the end of the 4th century. For its chronology it de- pends on Eusebius' Chronicle, and even it gives no guarantee of absolute exactitude. All one can say is that Eusebius placed the martyrdom of Ignatius in the time of Trajan. Nothing more definite is given.
No historical value can be attached to the rest of the Martyrium Colbertinum, or to the Mar- tyrium Vaticanum (which is independent of the foregoing and perhaps dates from the 5th cent.), or to the Latin, Armenian, or Greek texts where the two Martyria are combined (on this worthless hagiographic literature see Bardenhewer, Gesch. der altkirchl. Litt. i. pp. 143-145).
Apart from these documents, we have no infor- mation as to the circumstances in which the bishop of Antioch was imprisoned and then sent to Rome. But, if the martyrdom took place A.D. 110-117 we liave the evidence of Trajan for this period, in his letter to Fliny (Pliny, Ep. xcviii.) defining the legal ])osition of Christianity : Christianity is a religio illicita, but public action can be taken against Christians only by means of tiie delatio ; ' Puniendi sunt, si deferantur et arguantur.' It may be sup- posed, then, that Ignatius was delatus to the Roman magistrates of Antioch.
In Eph. xxi. 2, he writes : ' Pray for the church which is in Syria, whence I am led a prisoner to Rome — I who am the very last of the faithful there ' ; in Rom. ix. 1 : * Remember in your prayers tlie church which is in Syria, which hath God for its shepherd in my stead. Jesus Christ alone shall be its bishop — He and your love.' Some time after — i.e. on his arrival in Troas — Ignatius seems to liave given up all anxiety about the Church of Antioch : ' Seeing that in answer to your prayer and to the tender sympathy which ye have in Christ Jesus, it hath been reported to me that the church which is in Antioch of Syria hath peace, it is becoming for you as a church of God, to appoint a deacon to go thither as God's ambassador, that he may congratulate them when they are assembled together, and may glorify tlie Name' (Philad. x. 1). He writes to Polycarp : ' Seeing that the church which is in Antioch of Syria hath peace, as it hath been reported to me, through your prayers, I my- self also have been the more comforted since God hath banished my care ' ( vii. 1 ). To the Smyrna;ans he is even more explicit: 'It is meet that your church should appoint, for the honour of God, an ambassador of God that he may go as far as Syria and congratulate them because they are at peace, and have recovered their proper stature, and their proper bulk hath been restored to them ' [rb 'idtov (TuixaTelov • xi. 2) ; and he adds : ' It seemed to me a fitting thing that ye should send one of your own people with a letter, that he might join with them in giving glory for the calm which by God's will had overtaken them, and because they were already reaching a haven through your prayers' (xi. 3). If it Avere a question of a persecution limited to Antioch, it would not be very clear how peace could have restored its stature to the Church of Antioch, i.e. its spiritual stature, in the sense of Eph. inscr. : evXayrj/Mevr) eu /Meyedei. We are, then, led to suppose that it is not peace after persecu- tion but peace after discord that is meant. With Ignatius gone, the Church of Antioch was left without a pastor, and the community {ffw/jLareiov) had become disunited and was in a state of schism. The insistence with which Ignatius speaks of the return of the repentant rel)els to union with God and comnninion with the l^ishop (Philad. iii. 2, viii. 1, Smyrn. ix. 1) is perhaps the consequence of the painful experience he has just passed through in Antioch.
Ignatius, though arrested and condemned in
Antioch, is sent to Rome. He knows that he is condemned to be thrown to the beasts [Bom. v. 1-2). In Rom. iv. 1, he begs the Christians of Rome not to intervene to rob him of the martyrdom he awaits, and it is thus obvious that he must have been tried and found guilty in Antioch. The fact of his being condemned in Antioch and yet under- going his sentence in Rome is not unique. Rome gathered victims from all the ends of the earth to take part in the cruel games of her amphi- theatre.
In Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, we find that Ignatius, on his arrival in Plulippi in Mace- donia, was no longer alone but in the same convoy as other Christians in chains (Phil. i. 1, ix. 1, xiii. 2). The journey from Antioch to Rome was made partly by land and partly by sea (Rom. V. 1) ; Ignatius was in chains, and a squad of ten soldiers guarded him night and day and spared him no ill-treatment (Rom. v. 1 ; cf. Passio Sanctce PerpetucB, iii. 6: '. . . concussurse mili- tuni ').