Ignatius of Antioch Writes on the Road to Martyrdom

Ignatius of Antioch calls himself “the bishop of Syria” (Ignatius, To the Romans 2). His letters do not say who arrested him or on what charge. They show him as a condemned man on the road from Antioch in Syria to Rome, chained to a squad of ten soldiers whom he calls “ten leopards”, and expecting to be thrown to wild beasts when he arrives (Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 11) (Ignatius, To the Romans 5) (Ignatius, To the Ephesians 1).

The road led through Asia Minor. At Smyrna, where Polycarp was bishop, he wrote to the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles, whose delegates had come to meet him, and to the church of Rome (Ignatius, To the Ephesians 21) (Ignatius, To the Magnesians 2; 15) (Ignatius, To the Trallians 1; 12) (Ignatius, To the Romans 10). From Troas he wrote to Philadelphia, to Smyrna and to Polycarp, and says that he must sail at once for Neapolis (Ignatius, To the Philadelphians 11) (Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 12) (Ignatius, To Polycarp 8).

The letters press two points. The first is unity around the bishop. The bishop presides “in the place of God”, the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and the deacons are entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ (Ignatius, To the Magnesians 6). Nothing that concerns the church is to be done without the bishop; that is to be counted “a proper Eucharist” which is held by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it; and where the bishop appears, there the people are to be, “even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 8). The second is that Christ was truly born, truly crucified and truly raised, against those who said he only seemed to suffer (Ignatius, To the Trallians 9–10). Such people, Ignatius says, stay away from the Eucharist because they do not confess it to be the flesh of Jesus Christ (Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 7).

To Rome he writes differently. He greets a church that “presides in the place of the region of the Romans” and “presides over love” (Ignatius, To the Romans, greeting), and begs it not to intervene for him: “I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.” He does not give them orders, he adds, as Peter and Paul did (Ignatius, To the Romans 4).

The letters stop before he reaches Rome. Polycarp, writing to Philippi, counts Ignatius among those who are now with the Lord, sends copies of his letters and asks for any further news (Polycarp, To the Philippians 9; 13). Irenaeus, about 180, quotes the sentence about the wheat as the words of a man condemned to the beasts (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.28.4). Eusebius, two centuries after the event, gives the death in Rome as what “report says” (Eusebius, Church History 3.36).

The churches do not read these letters alike, and only one reading is documented here. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes the letter to Smyrna for the bishop’s office and the greeting to Rome, “which presides in charity”, for the communion of the other churches with the church of Rome (Catechism of the Catholic Church 896) (Catechism of the Catholic Church 834). No Orthodox or Protestant document that discusses these passages was found for this entry, so those readings are not represented.