persons saying. If I find it not in the charters {dpxeia), I believe it not in the Gospel. And when I said to them, It is written {yiypa-n-Tai), they answered me. That is the question {Trpdfceirai) ' (no doubt a reference to the Docetists). The gospel is a written document about which there is much controversy. Further on Ignatius describes the contents of the gospel, i.e. the Incarnation or ■Kapovfflav ToD aurripos, the Passion and the Resur- rection (ix. 2). The gospel is a fulfilment of OT prophecy {ib.). The Lord and the apostles are nearly always mentioned together : ' Do your dili- gence therefore that ye be confirmed in the ordi- nances {56yfj.aTa) of the Lord and of the Apostles' {Magn. xiii. 1), and Jiilicher was right in saying that the words of Serapion (bishop of Antioch, c. A.D. 200), ' We receive Peter and all the other apostles as Christ' (Euseb. HE VI. xii. 3), might have been pronounced a century earlier {Einleitung in das NT^- \ Tiibingen, 1906, p. 430). Yet in the time of Ignatius the canon of the NT was not ' a purely ideal canon,' as Jiilicher thinks, and when Ignatius speaks of yeypa-n-TaL and dpxe^o- he is think- ing of authentic documents, which have been accepted by the Church. There is no doubt, how- ever, that Ignatius accepts elements foreign to our ecclesiastical canon, as e.g. the words of the Risen Christ : ' I am not a demon without body ' {dai/xdviov dcr6p.a.Tov, Smyrn. iii. 2), which may have origin- ated in the Kvpvy)j.a Uirpoo, in the Gospel of the Hebrews, or in a gloss on Lk 24^. Another foreign element is the description of the wonderful Nativity star {Eph. xix. 2), which is probably a gloss on Mt 2- and an echo of Nu 24".
5. Ignatius' theology, christology, and pneu- matology. — The doctrine of Ignatius as s1io^\ti in his vocabulary and ideas gives no hint of Hellenic culture. God is One ; but the philosophic implica- tions of this statement are not to be sought for. God manifested Himself through Jesus Christ His Son and Word {eh Oeds ianv, 6 cpavepdocras eavrbv 5ia 'Irjaou X.picrTod Tov viov avTOu, 6's ecrriv avroO Xdyos UTrd criyrjs irpoeXOdiv, 5s Kara, Travra evripiaTTjaev ri^ ireiJApavTL avrbv, Magn. viii. 2). Jesus Christ pre-existed in God ; He was with the Father before the worlds and appeared at the end of time ( . . . 'lri<Tov XpicrToO, ds TTpb aldivuv, irapd irarpl rjv Kal iv riXet i<pdvr], vi. 1), ChristisOne : ' He came forth from One Father and is with One and departed unto One ' {^va'lTjaovv Xpi^rbv TOV d<f> ivos iraTpbs irpoeXdovTo. Kal els iva ovra Kal XwpVaira, vii. 2 [the last phrase is an allusion to the Ascension]). Christ was in God before time, invisible, impalpable, impassible, and it was for us He became visible and passible {Polyc. iii. 2). Christ is the Word coming forth from the silence of God, i.e. He is revealed to the world by the Incarnation (there is no reference to the part the Word had in the Creation) ; He comes forth from the Father to reveal Himself (no reference to the eternal generation of the Word — in fact, Christ is in God dyivvrp-os as He is d-n-adris, Eph. vii. 2). See J. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes, i. [Paris, 1905], p. 136.
Ignatius' christology is presented as a refutation of Docetism, which regards Christ as a pneumatic being, and special stress is therefore laid on the real humanity and the bodily and passible being of Christ. Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary {iKvocpoprjdr] xiirb Mapias), He is of the seed of David and of the Holy Ghost {iK (nrepixaro^ /ikv Aavld, irveu/jLaros Si dyiov) ; He was born and was baptized {Eph. xviii. 2). He was really born of a virgin {yeyevv7}iiivov dXrjdCis iK irapdivov, Smyrn. i, 1). 'He was the son of Mary, who was truly bom and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died . . . ; who more- over was truly raised from the dead' {Trail, ix. 1, 2) ; ' truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under
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Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch ' (Smyr^i. i. 2) ; ' He was in the flesh even after the resurrection ; and w'lien he came to Peter and his company (toi>s irepl U^Tpov) . . . they touched him, and tliey be- lieved ' (iii. 2).
Ignatius teaches the corporeity of Christ with such insistence because Christ is by nature irvedfia (Harnack, Dogmengeschichte*, Tiibingen, 1905, i. 213 ; W. Sanday, Christologies Ancient and Modern, Oxford, 1910, p. 10). Christ is ' of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true Life(/.e. God) in death (in a mortal body), son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible ' (crap- KiKbs Kal TTuev/iaTiKds, yevvrirbs koI a.yivvi)TOi, iv avOpdnn^ Ofos, iv davdrci) fwr; aXrjdivy, Kal iK Mapi'as Kal iK deov, TTpCiTov iradTjTos Kal t6t€ atrad-qs, Eph. vii. 2 ; cf. Polyc. iii. 2). Ignatius thus posits in Christ the dualism of crap^ and iruedfj.a : through the (rdpl Christ is generate, born of Mary, passible and mortal ; through the irvevfjLa He is ingenerate (i.e. without beginning). He is life, He is impassible, He is God ; in a word, Christ is God come in the flesh (iv crap/ct yevdfievos deds).