Martyrdom as union with Christ

Concern for the doctrine that Christ is man as well as God is the main reason that Ignatius insisted so emphatically on “siding with the bishop.” On this earth the bishop represents to his church the true bishop, Christ. Union with the bishop in belief and worship means union with Christ. Those who in a spirit of pride break away from the bishop destroy that union. The unity of the church with its monarchical structure is for Ignatius a concrete realization already on earth of the future life in Christ; authority within the church has not yet become for him a principle of institutional discipline. Ignatius used, for the first time in Christian literature, the expression “catholic church,” meaning the whole church that is one and the same wherever there is a Christian congregation.

Ignatius’s letter to the church of Rome is by far the longest and the richest in laudatory epithets. Throughout his letter he speaks of the Roman Christians in terms of special distinction. But even when he states that their church holds the first place in the whole Christian “community of love [agapē],” he acknowledges a position of preeminence rather than of jurisdiction.

Ignatius’s desire to become a martyr is also linked with his understanding of union with Christ. To be a perfect disciple of Christ means to imitate Christ in his Passion, to share in it, to be united with Christ in suffering. Many times in his letters Ignatius accuses himself of being imperfect because he has not yet been put to this test. Now, on his journey to Rome, he at last “begins to be a disciple,” and his great fear is that his friends in Rome might obtain for him a pardon and so deprive him of his way to perfection. This longing for martyrdom has sometimes been interpreted as a neurotic obsession. Although the language used by Ignatius in voicing this desire does often sound exaggerated, his attitude was shared by many Christians of his time. For Ignatius, love of martyrdom ultimately springs from a deep conviction that only by union with Christ’s Passion will he participate in Christ’s glory. Even this belief does not free him from the fear that he might recoil in the face of death, and he asks the churches to pray for his strength and constancy.

Ignatius’s personal relationships

Only rare glimpses of Ignatius’s personal relations are possible from the letters. His greetings, in the manner of St. Paul, to individuals at the end of his letters seldom have a personal ring. In his letter to the church of Smyrna he singles out Tavia for special mention, but his reason seems to be pastoral. Another woman of that town, Alke, is remembered twice as “a name dear to me,” and a certain Attalus as “my beloved.” Among the clergy Ignatius finds words of special warmth for the deacons. They are “most dear” to him, and he likes to speak of them as his “fellow-slaves.” By his time deacons apparently were no longer mere dispensers of the church’s charities, as they are depicted in the Acts of the Apostles. If the bishop represents Christ as shepherd, the deacons are images of Christ as “the servant of all.” In emphasizing his fellowship with them, Ignatius insists on the common bond among all Christians in the service of God.

Among all the persons known from Ignatius’s correspondence, St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, stands out as his personal friend. Ignatius made the acquaintance of his younger colleague during his stay at Smyrna. He addresses him and generally speaks of him with an affection that is absent in his praise of other bishops. Polycarp received the only personal letter from Ignatius; it is a letter of advice from an experienced older man to a younger one who, for all the promise he shows for the future, still has to find his way. Polycarp, in turn, when writing to the Philippians, praises Ignatius as an example of patience and of willingness to suffer for Christ. Some 40 years later (perhaps in 155) Polycarp himself was to follow in his friend’s footsteps to a martyr’s death. See Martyrdom of Polycarp.

Preservation of the letters

Polycarp made a collection of Ignatius’s letters and sent them to the church of Philippi, as he had been requested by the Philippians. The collection apparently contained some, if not all, of the seven letters that were known to Eusebius and are now commonly held to be genuine. The letter to the Romans was quoted as early as the 2nd century by St. Irenaeus, then bishop of Lugdunum (modern Lyon). In the 4th century these letters were corrupted by the heavy insertions of an interpolator, and the collection was augmented by six letters forged under Ignatius’s name. This enlarged collection was commonly known in the Middle Ages.

A single Latin version based on the original text of the seven genuine letters was, however, made in England in the 13th century, perhaps by the great scholar and translator Robert Grosseteste. The genuine collection, freed from interpolations and forgeries, was restored by 17th-century scholarship. In the period after the Protestant Reformation, Ignatius’s notion of the church, as found in the enlarged collection, was greatly emphasized by Roman Catholics and harshly criticized by Protestants; the rediscovery of the letters in their original form, however, has led to a just and objective assessment of his personality and his views against their historical background.