As he appears personally in his epistles, his most beautiful and venerable trait is his glowing love for Christ as God incarnate, and his enthusiasm for martyrdom. If great patriots thought it sweet to die for their country, he thought it sweeter and more honorable to die for Christ, and by his blood to fertilize the soil for the growth of His Church. "I would rather die for Christ," says he, "than rule the whole earth." "It is glorious to go down in the world, in order to go up into God." He beseeches the Romans: "Leave me to the beasts, that I may by them be made partaker of God. I am a grain of the wheat of God, and I would be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread of God. Rather fawn upon the beasts, that they may be to me a grave, and leave nothing of my body, that, when I sleep, I may not be burdensome to any one. Then will I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world can no longer even see my body. Pray the Lord for me, that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God." [1235] 235 And further on: "Fire, and cross, and exposure to beasts, scattering of the bones, hewing of the limbs, crushing of the whole body, wicked torments of the devil, may come upon me, if they only make me partaker of Jesus Christ.... My love is crucified, and there is no fire in me, which loves earthly stuff.... I rejoice not in the food of perishableness, nor in the pleasures of this life. The bread of God would I have, which is the flesh of Christ; and for drink I wish his blood, which is imperishable love." [1236] 236
From these and similar passages, however, we perceive also that his martyr-spirit exceeds the limits of the genuine apostolic soberness and resignation, which is equally willing to depart or to remain according to the Lord's good pleasure. [1237] 237 It degenerates into boisterous impatience and morbid fanaticism. It resembles the lurid torch rather than the clear calm light. There mingles also in all his extravagant professions of humility and entire unworthiness a refined spiritual pride and self-commendation. And, finally, there is something offensive in the tone of his epistle to Polycarp, in which he addresses that venerable bishop and apostolic disciple, who at that time must have already entered upon the years of ripe manhood, not as a colleague and brother, but rather as a pupil, with exhortations and warnings, such as: "Strive after more knowledge than thou hast." "Be wise as the serpents." "Be more zealous than thou art." "Flee the arts of the devil." [1238] 238 This last injunction goes even beyond that of Paul to Timothy: "Flee youthful lusts," [1239] 239 and can hardly be justified by it. Thus, not only in force and depth of teaching, but also in life and suffering, there is a significant difference between an apostolic and a post-apostolic martyr.
The doctrinal and churchly views of the Ignatian epistles are framed on a peculiar combination and somewhat materialistic apprehension of John's doctrine of the incarnation, and Paul's idea of the church as the body of Jesus Christ. In the "catholic church"--an expression introduced by him--that is, the episcopal orthodox organization of his day, the author sees, as it were, the continuation of the mystery of the incarnation, on the reality of which he laid great emphasis against the Docetists; and in every bishop, a visible representative of Christ, and a personal centre of ecclesiastical unity, which he presses home upon his readers with the greatest solicitude and almost passionate zeal. He thus applies those ideas of the apostles directly to the outward organization, and makes them subservient to the principle and institution of the growing hierarchy. Here lies the chief importance of these epistles; and the cause of their high repute with catholics and prelatists, [1240] 240 and their unpopularity with anti-episcopalians, and modern critics of the more radical school. [1241] 241
It is remarkable that the idea of the episcopal hierarchy which we have developed in another chapter, should be first clearly and boldly brought out, not by the contemporary Roman bishop Clement, [1242] 242 but by a bishop of the Eastern church; though it was transplanted by him to the soil of Rome, and there sealed with his martyr blood. Equally noticeable is the circumstance, that these oldest documents of the hierarchy soon became so interpolated, curtailed, and mutilated by pious fraud, that it is today almost impossible to discover with certainty the genuine Ignatius of history under the hyper- and pseudo-Ignatius of tradition.
[1226] theophoros-i,-i" bearer of God."The titles of the Epistles call him Ignatios ho kai theophoros, adding simply the Greek to the Latin name. The Martyrium Ignatii, c. 2, makes him explain the term, in answer to a question of Trajan, as meaning " one who has Christ in his breast."The still later legend (in Symeon Metaphrastes and the Menaea Graeca), by changing the accent. (theophoros, Theophorus), gives the name the passive meaning, "one carried by God," because Ignatius was the child whom Christ took up in his arms and set before his disciples as a pattern of humility (Matt. 18:2). So the Acta Sanctorum, 1 Febr. I. 28. The Syrians called him Nurono, the Fiery, in allusion to his Latin name from Ignis.
[1227] Ap. Const. VI I. 46: Antiocheias Euodios men hup' emou Petrou, Hignatios de hupo Paulou kecheirotonetai. According to Eusebius (Chron., ed. Schoene II., p. 158) and Jerome, Ignatius was " Antiochiae secundus episcopus."Comp. Zahn, Ign v. A., p. 56 sqq., and Harnack, Die Zeit des Ign., p. 11 sq.
[1228] Comp. Zahn, p. 402, who rejects this tradition as altogether groundless: Es fehlt bei Ignatiusauch jede leiseste Spur davon, dass er noch aus apostolischem Mund die Predigt gehört habe."He calls himself five times the least among the Antiochian Christians, and not worthy to be one of their number. From this, Zahn infers that he was converted late in life from determined hostility to enthusiastic devotion, like Paul (Comp. 1 Cor. 15:8-10).
[1229] Ho esti stratioton tagma is added here for explanation by the two Greek versions, and by Eusebius also, H. E. III. 36.
[1230] thesauros atimos Mart. c. 6.
[1231] Lucian, in his satire on the Death of Peregrinus, represents this Cynic philosopher as a hypocritical bishop and confessor, who while in prison received and sent message, and was the centre of attention and correspondence among the credulous and good-natured Christians in Syria and Asia Minor. The coincidence is so striking that Zahn and Renan agree in the inference that Lucian knew the story of Ignatius, and intended to mimic him in the person of Peregrinus Proteus, as he mimicked the martyrdom of Polycarp. See Renan, Les évangiles, p. 430 sq.
[1232] Grabe proposes to read, in the Martyr. c, 2, dekato ennato hetei, for ennato which would give the year 116. Tillemont and others escape the difficulty by suppossing, without good reason, a double Parthian expedition of Trajan, one in 107 and another in 115 or 116. Comp. Francke: Zur Geschichte Trajan's. 1837, p. 253 sqq., and Büdinger, Untersuchungen zur röm. Kaisergesch. I. 153 sqq. Nirschl assumes even three oriental expeditions of TraJan. Wieseley and Frank defend the traditional date (107); Harnack puts the martyrdom down to the reIgn of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius, but without solid reasons Zahn (p. 58) leaves it indefinite between 107 and 116, Lightf. between 110 and 118,
[1233] So Uhlhorn, Zahn (248 sq.), Funk (XLVII.). Comp. Lightfoot (II. 390).
[1234] Polycarp writes to the Philippians (ch. 13), that he had sent them the Epistles of Ignatius (tas epistolas Ignatiou, tas pemphtheisas hemin hup' autou kai allas... epempsamen humin). Zahn and Funk maintain that this sylloge Polycarpiana consisted of six epistles, and excluded that to the Romans. (Ussher excluded the Ep. to Polycarp). Irenaeus quotes a passage from the Epistle to the Romans, Adv. Haer. V. 28, § 4. Origen speaks of several letters of Ignatius, and quotes a passage from Romans and another from Ephesians, Prol. in Cant. Cantic. and Hom. VI. in Luc. (III. 30 and 938, Delarue). Zahn (p. 513) finds also traces of Ignatius in Clement of Alexandria and Lucian's book De Morte Peregrini, which was written soon after the martyrdom of Polycarp.
[1235] Ad Rom. c. 2, according to the Syriac text; c. 4, in the Greek.
[1236] Ch. 4 (Syr.), or 5-7 (Gr.).
[1237] Comp. Phil. 1:23, 24, and Matt. 26:39.
[1238] Tas kakotechnias pheuge, according to all the MSS., even the Syriac. Bunsen proposes to read kakotechnous, in the sense of seductive women, coquettes, instead of kakotechnias . But this, besides being a mere conjecture, would not materially soften the warning.
[1239] 2 Tim. ii. 22.
[1240] Such Roman Catholic writers as Nirschl and Sprinzl find the whole theology and church polity of Rome in Ignatius. Episcopalians admire him for his advocacy of episcopacy; but he proves too little and too much for them; too little because Ignatius knows nothing of a diocesan, but only of a congregational episcopacy; too much because he requires absolute obedience to the bishop as the representative of Christ himself, while the Presbyters represent the apostles. Moreover the Ignatian episcopacy is free from the sacerdotal idea which came in later with Cyprian, but is intimated in Clement of Rome.
[1241] Calvin, who, however, knew only the spurious and worthless longer recension, calls the Ignatian Epistles abominable trash (Inst. I. 1, c. 13, § 29); Dr. W. D. Killen, who ought to know better, from strong anti-prelatic feeling, speaks of Ignatius, even according to the shorter Syriac recension, as an "anti-evangelical formalist, a puerile boaster, a mystic dreamer and crazy fanatic." (Ancient Church, 1859, p. 414). Neander is far more moderate, yet cannot conceive that a martyr so near the apostolic age should have nothing more important to say than "such things about obedience to the bishops ") Ch. H. I.192, note, Bost, ed.). Baur and the Tübingen critics reject the entire Ignatian literature as a forgery. Rothe on the other hand is favorably impressed with the martyr-enthusiasm of the Epistles, and Zahn (an orthodox Lutheran) thinks the Ignatian epistles in the shorter (Greek recension worthy of a comparison with the epistles of St. Paul (p. 400).
[1242] Still less by the apostle Peter, the alleged first Pope of Rome; on the contrary, he enters a solemn protest against hierarchical tendencies for all time to come, 1 Pet. 5:14.