Ignatius the Bishop

Ignatius, the third bishop of the church of Antioch after Peter the apostle, was condemned to the wild beasts during the persecution under Trajan and was sent to Rome in chains. When his voyage had brought him as far as Smyrna, where Polycarp, the pupil of John, was bishop, he wrote one letter to the Ephesians, another to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians and a fourth to the Romans. Going on from there, he wrote to the Philadelphians and to the Smyrnaeans, and in particular to Polycarp, commending to him the church at Antioch. In this last he bore witness to the gospel which I have recently translated, concerning the person of Christ, saying, “I indeed saw him in the flesh after the resurrection, and I believe that he is.” And when he came to Peter and those who were with Peter, he said to them, “Look, touch me and see that I am not a spirit without a body.” And at once they touched him and believed. [a]

Moreover, since we have mentioned such a man, and the letter which he wrote to the Romans, it seems worthwhile to give a few quotations from it: “From Syria all the way to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and by sea, by night and by day, bound among ten leopards, that is, the soldiers who guard me, who only grow worse when they are treated well. Their wrongdoing, however, is my teacher, but that does not make me righteous. May I have joy of the beasts that are prepared for me, and I pray that I may find them ready. I will even coax them to devour me quickly, so that they do not treat me as they have treated some, whom they refused to touch out of fear. And if they are unwilling, I will force them to devour me. “Forgive me, my children; I know what is good for me. Now I am beginning to be a disciple, and I desire none of the things that are seen, so that I may attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and cross and attacks of wild beasts, the wrenching of bones, the cutting apart of limbs, the crushing of the whole body, the tortures of the devil, let all these come upon me, if only I may attain to the joy which is in Christ.”

When he had been condemned to the wild beasts and, in his zeal for martyrdom, heard the lions roaring, he said, “I am the grain of Christ. I am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts so that I may be found the bread of the world.” He was put to death in the eleventh year of Trajan, and the remains of his body lie at Antioch, in the cemetery outside the Daphne gate. [d]