From Neapolis Ignatius is taken to Philippi. A few details of this journey may be gleaned from Polj'carp's Epistle to the Philippians, written in reply to a letter sent from the Philippians to Poly- carp (iii. 1) : 'Ye wrote to me, both ye yourselves and Ignatius, asking that if any one should go to Syria he might carry thither the letters from you. And this I will do, if I get a fit opportunity, either I myself, or he whom I shall send to be ambassador on your behalf also' (xiii. 1). From this passage we may infer that Ignatius wrote to Polycarp during his stay in Philippi ; and that the Philip- pians wrote to the Church of Antiocli at the same time as to Polycarp. The Philippians had given Ignatius a hearty welcome, and Polycarp com- mends them for having ' received the followers of the true Love and escorted them on their way . . . those men encircled in saintly bonds which are the diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and our Lord ' (i. 1),
By the time Polycarp wrote this letter, Ignatius had left Philippi and was en route for Rome : ' Moreover, concerning Ignatius liimself and those that were with him, if ye have any sure tidings, certify us ' (xiii. 2). It would be difficult to believe that this request for news of Ignatius could by any possibility be later than the receipt of the tidings of his death. It is true that in anotlier passage Polycarp commends the patience of ' the blessed Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus,' and compares it
with that of St. Paul and the other apostles, add- ing : ' all these ran not in vain . . . tliey are in their due place in the presence of the Lord^ with whom also they sufi'ered ' (ix. 1, 2); but it is not unlikely that the last phrase refers only to St. Paul and the other apostles. On this hypothesis, then, Polycarp would not know the fate of Ignatius, Zosimus, and Rufus till after the dispatch of his letter to the Philippians.
From the time he left Philippi we know nothing further of Ignatius. Origen says that he fought against the beasts in Rome during the persecution. Eusebius (HE III. xxxvi. 3) repeats this statement, and adds that in Rome Ignatius became ' food for the beasts.' In this he was certainly influenced by Ignatius' letter to the Romans (' I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts,' iv. 1). This Epistle is the sole extant reference to the martyrdom of Ignatius. Even in Rome itself there seems to have been no note made of the incident.
From Jerome we learn that Ignatius was buried in Antioch : ' Reliquire corporis eius in Antiochia iacent extra portam Daphniticam in ccemeterio' (de Vir. illustr. 16). Tliis was written in A.D. 392, and, as far as we know, Jerome did not take his information from any written source, but pro- bably speaks de visu.
'In his panegyric on Ignatius pronounced in Antioch (386-97), St. John Chrysostom cele- brates the triumphal return of the martyr to his episcopal city, and the honours that were paid him by the cities on the route [Pair. Graeca, 1. 594]. The orator no doubt takes his clue from spectacles of the same nature seen for some years previously in different centres of the Eastern Empire. It is quite evident that the remains of the holy martyr could not have been brought back in this way in the very thick of the persecution ' (H. Delehaye, Les Origines du culte des martyrs, Brussels, 1912, p. 69 ; so also Lightfoot, p. 431 f. ).
In the time of Theodosius II. (408-450), Ignatius' remains (or bones believed to be his) were trans- ferred from the cemetery extra muros to the ancient Temple of Fortune, now turned into a basilica (EuagTius, HE i. 16 [ed. Bidez-Parmentier, London, 1899, p. 25 f.]).
The whole question of the transference of Ignatius' bones from Rome to Antioch is a difficult one. Delehaye writes : ' It is difficult to come to any finding on the question of the reality of the transference of St. Ignatius' remains from Rome and of the period when this took place' [loc. cit.). If St. Ignatius suffered martyrdom in Rome, and if, as Euagrius says, * he met his death in the amphitheatre of Rome, finding his tomb in the bellies of the wild beasts in fulfilment of his own wish,' one may suppose that nothing remained of his body. In Bom. iv. 2 he wrote : ' Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my sepulchre and may leave no part of my body be- hind.' Of course one may always agi'ee with Euagrius that at least Ignatius' 'tougher bones' were saved.
As to the time of the transference, if it did take place, we are equally at sea. By the end of tlie 4th cent., as we have seen above, public opinion Avas quite decided that Ignatins' remains were in ccemeterio in Antioch. But the transference of the remains in the 2nd or 3rd cent, would be an ana- chronism, and in tlie 4th cent, some note would undoubtedly have been taken of the fact. We must conclude, then, that, if the remains of Ignatius preserved in Antioch are authentic, it is quite possible that Ignatius did not suiler martyrdom in Rome at all, hut returned to Antioch and died there. The existence of his tomb in Antioch is more probable on this supposition than on the