Brent, Allen.-Ignatius of Antioch - A Martyr Bishop and The Origin of Episcopacy-Bloomsbury Academic (2009) PDF

Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch
A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy
Allen Brent
continuum
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Copyright Allen Brent, 2007
Allen Brent has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be
identified as the Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset by Fakenham Photosetting Limited, Fakenham, Norfolk
EISBN 9780567032003
Caroline Penrose Bammel, FBA

Inpiam memoriam
Contents
Preface
ix
Abbreviations
xi
1 The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters
2 Ignatius' Personal History and the Church at Antioch
14
3 The Choreography of the Martyr Procession
44
4 Martyr Procession and Eucharist: The Christian Mysteries
71
5 Recent Attacks on the Authenticity of the Ignatian Letters
95
6 Ignatius and Polycarp
144
7 In Conclusion
159
Select Bibliography and Further Reading
163
Index
169
vu
Preface
Since the immediate aftermath to the Reformation in the West, the

letters of Ignatius of Antioch have proven a subject for continuing
controversy. Eusebius claimed that Ignatius had been, with Polycarp,
a companion of the apostles, and that his putative date made his
writing immediately consequent to the believed dates of the New
Testament documents. Ignatius thus became a crown witness for
the historic demand that churches should be ruled by bishops who
are the successors both to the apostles and to the ministry entrusted
to them.
But clearly the letters had experienced a long and complex
reception history even before the Reformation which adds to their
mystery. Such was the perceived importance of these documents
that what appears to have been their original edition was considerably expanded, and its Christology significantly modified, in the
course of the fourth and fifth centuries. Furthermore, new letters
forged in Ignatius' name were added to bring the original seven up
to a total of 13. Neither the original edition, nor its expansion, nor
its forged additions were to lack patristic citations as the centuries
rolled on.
But what of the original edition that we know today as the
'middle recension' because of a short, abbreviated Syriac version
discovered in the nineteenth century? Since the time of Archbishop
James Ussher and Nicolaus Vedelius in the seventeenth century, and
their arguments with Presbyterian and Puritan divines such as John
Milton, controversy has raged over the authenticity of the middle
recension. Was Eusebius wrong to date the correspondence so early,
and was not Ignatius a fictional character created in order to give
substance to a later church order that had nothing to do with the age
IX
Ignatius ofAntioch
of the New Testament and its allegedly pristine purity? At one point,
before the 1980s, it had seemed that the 300-year-old controversy had
been laid to rest in the work of two outstanding, nineteenth-century
scholars, Bishop Joseph Iightfoot from England and Theodore
Zahn from Germany. The scholarly consensus concurred with their
defence of the authenticity of Ignatius5 letters, and their solution to
the problems that these had raised.
But in the course of the final quarter of the twentieth century, a
number of scholars whose work I will discuss were to revive once
again the arguments against the authenticity of Ignatius' letters and
of their Eusebian date.
In my defence of the Iightfoot-Zahn consensus, I have not
sought to present yet another vindication that revives old arguments
in favour of that consensus in reply to old arguments to the
contrary that have arisen from their graves at the hands of modern
scholars. Rather, I have sought to use primary evidence for Ignatius'
background mainly brought to light in the course of the twentieth
century, and therefore not available to Iightfoot and his predecessors. The discovery and classification of epigraphic material has
led to the creation of a new, non-literary corpus of evidence that is
now larger than our surviving classical literary sources.
In my recent book Ignatius ofAntioch and the Second Sophistic (STAC
36; Mohr Siebeck, 2006), and in previously published articles, I have

sought to use extensive epigraphic remains in order to establish the
background to Ignatius in the life and culture of the Hellenistic citystates of Asia Minor, and to argue that Ignatius' understanding of
church order is to be understood in light of that life and culture. In
such a context we can, I believe, satisfactorily resolve long-standing
problems about the Ignatian correspondence that have mistakenly
led some scholars into forgery hypotheses of various kinds.
This present volume offers my argument to a more general
audience not necessarily involved in the minutiae of patristic scholarship but interested in the wider historical and theological context
in which the letters of Ignatius are still relevant. I hope that my
treatment will help to explain the details of the various puzzling
aspects of Ignatius, and my own solution to them, to general
historians and students of theology, including undergraduates and
first-year higher-degree students studying early Christian life and
thought.
Abbreviations
Early Christian and Jewish Writers
Adv. Haer. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses
Antiqu.
Josephus, Antiquitates
CA
Constitutiones Apostolicae
Cor.
Clement of Rome, Corinthians
Did.
Didache
Didasc.
Didascalia Apostolorum
Eph.
Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians
HE
Eusebius, Historia Eccksiastica
Horn, in Luc. Origen, Homilia in Lucam
Magn.
Ignatius, Letter to the Magnesians
Man.
Hermas, Mandate
Mart. Pol. Martyrdom ofPolycarp
Phil.
Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians
Phld.
Ignatius, Letter to the Philadelphians
Pol.
Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp
Prol. Cant. Origen, Prologus Canticorum
Ref.
Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium
Rom.
Ignatius, Letter to the Romans
Sim.
Hermas, Similitude
Smyrn.
Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans
Trail.
Ignatius, Letter to the Trallians
Vir. III.
Jerome, De Viris Illustribus
Vis.
Hermas, Vision
Classical Works and Epigraphy
Coron.
Dig,
Dom.
Eratos.
Fam.
Demosthenes, De Corona
Justinian, Di esta
Suetonius, Domitian
Lysias, Contra Eratosthenem
Cicero, Ad Familiares
XI
Ignatius ofAntioch
xii
IGRR
Met.
Or.
Peregr.
Pis.
SEG
VA
Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertiner

Ovid, Metamorphoses
Oratio
Lucian of Samosata, De Morte Peregrinni
Cicero, Oratio in Pisonem
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii
Other Abbreviations
ANRW
Aug
HThR
JECS
JEH
JRH
JSNT
JThS
RivAC
SecCent
STAC
VCh
VChSup
WUNT
ZAC
Aufstieg und
Niedergang der romischen Welt
Augustinianum
Harvard Theological Review
Journal ofEarly Christian Studies
Journal ofEcclesiastical History
Journal ofReligious History
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Journal of Theological Studies
Rivista archeologica Christiana
Second Century
Studien und Texte ûAntike und Christentum
Vigiliae Christianae
Vigiliae Christianae, Supplement Series
Wissenschaftliche
Untersuchungen %um
Neuen Testament
Zeitschriftfur Antikes Christentum
The Recovery of Ignatius'

Genuine Letters
On 30 January 1649 the young John Locke, the future political

philosopher, gathered together with his fellow-pupils at Westminster
School at their headmaster's bidding to attend public prayers for the
king.1 Two hours later he heard the shocking announcement about
what had occurred in nearby Whitehall on a scaffold erected in
front of the Banqueting House. Parliament, in a civil war with its
monarch, had just executed King Charles I. Four years previously,
on 10 January 1645, Archbishop Laud, primate of the Church of
England by law established, had been executed on Tower Hill by the
same parliament. The civil law was being challenged by a parliament,
which, like Locke in the future, believed that political authority was
a question of a social contract and not divine right. Church law
similarly was not merely being challenged but revoked. Bishops
did not rule over the Church by divine right as successors of the
apostles: presbyters as a collective body were to replace them in a
Presbyterian form of church government.
The political dispute was therefore also a theological dispute:
whether to be a true Church you needed a hierarchical structure of
two archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, descended from the
ancient and allegedly 'undivided' church before the Reformation.
And the crown witness in such a debate, appealed to by monarchists and defenders of the established church against a Puritan and
1
M. Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (New York: Arno Press, 1979), p. 20.
1
Ignatius ofAntioch
Presbyterian parliament, was the corpus of letters of Ignatius of

Antioch.
Ignatius, as we are informed by Eusebius, whose church history is
the earliest to have survived as a whole, wrote his letters in the reign
of Trajan (AD 108-17):
After Nerva had reigned for a little more than a year, he was succeeded
by Trajan ... Moreover at the time mentioned, Ignatius was famous as
the second bishop of Antioch after St Peter ... At this time flourished in
Asia Polycarp, companion of the aposdes, who had been appointed to the
bishopric of the church in Smyrna by the eyewitnesses and ministers of
the Lord. Distinguished men at the same time were Papias ... and Ignatius
... The story goes that he was sent from Syria to Rome to be eaten by
wild beasts in testimony to Christ He was taken through Asia under most
careful guard, and strengthened by his speech and exhortation the diocese
of each city in which he stayed.
Eusebius then mentions specifically seven letters of Ignatius written
to Ephesus mentioning Bishop Onesimus, to Magnesia and Bishop

Damas, to Tralles and Bishop Polybius, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to
Smyrna, and to Polycarp its bishop.2
Ignatius claims that for a church to deserve the name or to be
correctly summoned together, it needs one bishop served by a
council of priests (or presbyters), and attended by a number of
deacons:
So then let everyone respect the deacons as they would Jesus Christ, and also
the bishop who is to create an image of the Father; and let them respect the
presbyters as the council of God and as the band of the aposdes. Without
these orders, a church is not called together.3
The parliamentary Puritans of the seventeenth century might object
that though the term bishop' was used in the New Testament, it was
simply a generic term for a number of church elders (or 'presbyters')
who together as a council of equals allegedly ruled an originally
'presbyterian' church. Thus there was no 'divine right' of bishops
any more than a 'divine right' of kings apart from a social contract
freely entered into with conditions protecting the subject's rights.
2
3
Eusebius, HE 111.21-22 and 26.

Ignatius, Trail. 3.1.
The Recovery of Ignatius* Genuine Letters

But here the defenders of episcopal church government could
appeal to Ignatius, whose works, though not in the New Testament,
were nevertheless close to the apostolic age. Eusebius, as we saw,
numbered Ignatius and Polycarp as immediate associates of the
apostles. Indeed Peter himself, Eusebius claimed, had consecrated
Ignatius' immediate predecessor, Hero, as bishop of Antioch.
Such men had championed orthodoxy against heresy. Therefore it
seemed right to claim Ignatius as the defender of the episcopal form
of the government of the Church of England. In the light of such
a witness, the preamble of its reformed prayer book seemed fully
justified in asserting that:
It is euident unto all men, diligently readinge holye Scripture and auncient
aucthours, that from the Apostles tyme there hathe bene these orders of
Ministers in Christ's Church: Bishoppes, Priestes, and Deacons[.]
The prayer book continued that what followed was to be done 'to
the entent that these orders shoulde bee continued, and reuerentlye
used, and esteemed, in this Church of England'.4

It is at this point in our story that we meet with Archbishop
James Ussher, who began the modern study of Ignatius in England.
Ussher was devoted to the royalist cause and was to serve as the
chaplain of Charles I for his last days on earth in his imprisonment
by parliament on the Isle of Wight. In seeking to defend intellectually the claims of episcopacy founded on the Ignatian writings, he
was faced with a very great problem. There existed from the Middle
Ages a corpus of 13 letters, which I set out as follows:
1. Ephesians
2. Romans
3. Trallians
4. Magnesians
5. Philadelphia
6. Smyrnaeans
7. Polycarp
8. Tarsians
4
The First and Second Prayer Books ofKing Edward the Sixth (London: Everyman and New
York: Dent, 1938), pp. 292,438.
Ignatius ofAntioch
9. Philippians
10. Antiochenes
11. Hero
12. Mary to Ignatius
13. Ignatius to Mary
So to Ussher's contemporaries there were available six letters in
addition to those listed in Eusebius, printed here in boldface.
Furthermore, in manuscripts containing all or some of these
additional letters, there are expanded versions of those that do
appear in Eusebius. Which particular list are we to accept, the seven
of Eusebius or the late medieval 13? In what form are we to accept
the former, the longer or the shorter form? Ussher was basing his
defence of the Anglican hierarchy on the antiquity of these letters.
Yet how could one be certain in view of these facts that they had
not been changed and distorted over the course of time so that
their originals were irrecoverable? John Milton, in his tract attacking
episcopacy directed particularly at Ussher, had sneered:
To what end then should they cite him [Ignatius] as authentic for episcopacy
when they cannot know what is authentic of him? ... Had God ever
intended that we should have sought any part of useful instruction from
Ignatius, doubtless he would not so ill provided for our knowledge as to
send him to our hands in this broken and disjointed plight?5
Both Ussher and Milton were living at a time when the impact of
the Renaissance was being felt, and techniques of literary criticism
were being developed in historical research. Previously quotations
were taken from all 13 letters, such as St Bernard of Clairvaux's
references to Mary.6 But following the Reformation, an intellectual
scepticism about the authenticity of the corpus of early literature in
general, as it had come down to us, had set in.
It is hard to underestimate the significance for the recovery of
early Christian history made by the impact of such literary criticism,
5
John Milton, OfPrelatical Episcopacy, quoted in J. B. Iightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers:

A Revised Text with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. Parti: St. Clement
ofRome. Part II: St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, 2nd edn (London: MacMfflan, 1890), I, p.
231.
5
Iightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, I I I , pp. 224-25.
The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters

comparing work with work, and version with version, in order
to establish the original version and to chart its alterations over
the centuries. If you look today at that great nineteenth-century
Catholic work Migne's Patrologia^ you will find the original chronological arrangement of all the works attributed to all the Church
Fathers, even though the author has indicated the spurious character
of some of them. Thus along with the entire corpus of Ignatian
letters we find also printed the forged letters attributed to early
second-century popes such as Evaristus, Alexander and Sixtus.
These so-called 'papal decretals' were ninth-century forgeries
whose first quotations date from AD 853. The othewise unknown
Isidorus Mercator claims to be the scribe who collected them
together for publication. Such forgeries reflect church order and
authority as it existed then, rather than at the time of their
putatively second-century authors. But imagine now the effect of
the production of such a forged literature on the late medieval
historical consciousness.
Since there was no established historical and literary-critical
methodology for analysing the differences between the hand of
the forger and that of the original author, the impression given was
that the past had always been like the present with very little change.
Eusebius, indeed, had long contributed to the development of a
view of the past and present fused into a timeless, ongoing present.
For Eusebius, in writing the first church history as early as AD 318,
had simply assumed that the church of the first century had been
organized precisely like the church of his own time. Thus if bishops
ruled the Church in the fourth century, convened ecclesiastical
councils to put down heresy, deferred to the bishop of Rome as the
central see of the empire, etc., their predecessors had acted in the
same way with the same powers.
There was no historical development of such ecclesiastical institutions to be traced by the critical study of historical sources that
as yet did not exist. It was only when critical literary and historical
methodologies came to be generally used by historians that the
medieval consciousness of a timeless historical present could give
way to a consciousness of historical development. The medieval
historical consciousness was then specifically witnessed in the
reflections of Ussher's predecessors on Ignatius, who quote from
13 letters composed and embellished over a thousand years, and
Ignatius ofAntioch
regard him with Eusebius as a companion of the apostles who could

thus bear sure witness to their support for medieval episcopacy and
orthodoxy. For them past and present are fused together into one
timeless present moment and Ignatius can appear to speak with a
voice that is unconditioned by his real place in past history.
It is not without significance that such a medieval consciousness
has been reborn in our time in the writings of post-modernists who
deny the possibility of any historical objectivity. Thus we are invited
just to respond to the page as we read it and generate what meanings
they suggest to us unfettered by the restrictions of a critical history.
People who boast of teaching texts and not periods of history suffer
from the illusion of having advanced to some new position, but are
fated simply to lapse into the pre-historical consciousness witnessed
in the late Middle Ages. Such is our fate once we abandon any form
of a historico-critical methodology.
Ussher's work on Ignatius belongs to the Renaissance, which
began the development of such a critical methodology, and the
liberation of late medieval consciousness from its ahistorical dream
world. Only by distinguishing the genuine corpus of letters of
Ignatius from added forgeries, and then the genuine letters from
textual additions and alterations by later scribes, could the real,
historical Ignatius emerge and his original ideas be studied in their
true historical context freed from later distortions. Ussher has had
a very bad press because of his claim, based upon analysis of the
chronology of the patriarchs in the book of Genesis, that the world
was created in 4004 BC. Indeed, in the light of this he cannot be
regarded as having any general concept of development. But in
respect to Ignatius, he was to assist in such a project because of his
skill at textual criticism, which places his work in that respect on a
footing more contemporary with ourselves.
Ussher was to use the tool of textual criticism to establish the
authenticity of one version of the received corpus of the letters
of Ignatius in his argument with Milton and other puritans. Ussher
noted that three medieval English writers quoted a version of
Ignatius quite different from that of their contemporaries: Robert
Grosseteste (1250), John Tyssington (1381), and William Wodeford
(1396). They used only the seven letters known to Eusebius, and
their quotations from those letters were more abbreviated than
those appearing in later church fathers and in medieval and post-

Reformation writers. Many of their quotations, however, correspond
to those of Eusebius and the early father Theodoret, who used him
extensively. The quotes were in Latin and not Greek.
Ussher therefore came to the conclusion that there must be
a Greek manuscript of Ignatius' letters somewhere in England,
from which Grosseteste had made his Latin translation. Ussher
succeeded in finding the Latin translation, though not the Greek,
in two manuscripts, one in the library of Caius College, Cambridge
(Caiensis 395) given to them in 1444, and another in the library
of the bishop of Norwich (Montacutianus), now lost. Without a
Greek original, Ussher now resorted to correcting the expanded
Greek texts of available manuscripts of what we now know as the
'long recension' by means of these Latin manuscripts: what was
omitted in the Latin he omitted in the Greek, and otherwise textually
amended individual Greek words in the light of the Latin.
Although more text-critical than literary-critical in its approach,
Ussher's accomplishment was a literary critic's dream. Vedelius, his
contemporary, had brought out an edition (in 1623) of what we now
know as the middle recension based upon early patristic citations
and Eusebius' list. He claimed the seven genuine letters had been
corrupted, pointing to the influence of the third-century Apostolic
Constitutions upon texts that had obviously been expanded. But
Ussher had found a manuscript containing six and only six, in the
non-expanded form of the middle recension. The problem with a
purely hypothetical reconstruction of a lost document is that, in the
absence of the empirical corroboration provided by the discovery
of the actual text, the hypothetical document is always open to
challenge from other literary critics proposing quite different reconstructions, often on equally plausible grounds.
Consider as an example source-critical approaches to the Synoptic
Gospels and attempts to solve the 'Synoptic problem'. Matthew and
Luke are compared with Mark and found to contain most of Mark.
The conclusion is that they used (some edition of) Mark. Then they
appear to have material in common that is not found in Mark. So
this is attributed to a hypothetical document called 'Q'. Further
hypothetical documents (M and L) are then claimed to account for
the sources for their individual material.
But there are minor agreements between Matthew and Luke
against Mark. So matters can be seen quite differently: Mark
Ignatius ofAntioch
abbreviated Matthew and Luke, Luke used and revised Matthew,

etc. We have never found Q in a documentary form close to the
document that is hypothesized. But in the case of the literary
hypothesis regarding the original number and form of the letters of
Ignatius, Ussher produced the trump card: he found a manuscript
with six of the seven letters in the form that he and Vedelius had
hypothesized.
Ussher's work appeared in 1644. Two years later, Isaac Voss
published a Greek version of six letters of Ignatius, excluding
his letter to the Romans, which has had an alternative manuscript
tradition. It was based upon a manuscript in the Medicean Library at
Florence. Thus the corpus of seven letters of Ignatius in the form
that Eusebius and his contemporaries and predecessors had known
them had been recovered. Later, further manuscripts - Greek, Latin,
Syriac, and Coptic, amongst others - were to be added to the list.7
Indeed, in 1845 Cureton published an edition of the corpus of
Ignatius' letters that admitted only three genuine ones, Ephesians,
Romans, and Polycarp, in a highly abbreviated form. Cureton's views
met almost universal rejection. However, his edition is known as the
'short recension'. In order to distinguish Ussher's corpus of seven
letters from Cureton's 'short recension' we now call the former the
'middle recension'. We retain the contrasting title long recension' for
the expanded corpus of 13.
Ussher never conclusively refuted attacks upon the authenticity
of the Ignatian corpus of letters, which have continued down to
our own time, as we shall see in Chapter 5. But what he achieved
along with Vedelius was to establish that at most the seven letters
of the middle recension were the original letters: all future attacks
on the authenticity of the letters were to be directed against that
recension. Future critics of authenticity would no longer be able
to appeal to explicit references in the Ignatian corpus to Ebion,
Basilides and Theodotus, the last of whom in particular only flourished some fifty years after Eusebius' Trajanic dating of the Ignatian
correspondence. Such references were only found in the expansions
and alterations of the long recension, which had been shown to be
For a foil list, see B. D. Ehrman (ed), The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols, Loeb Classical
library 24 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), I, pp. 213-15.
The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters
the work of later editorial interpolation.8 In future, critics, in order

to establish their case, would have to find in the now-established
middle recension anachronisms, implausible historical claims, and
hiatuses and inconsistencies suggestive of fissures in the text that
would thereby indicate more than one author. In Chapter 5 we shall
examine the various attacks of this kind on the middle recension in
the course of the twentieth century.
The letters of the middle recension are the only serious contenders
to be reliable documentary evidence for Ignatius' history. His
putative Acts of Martyrdom must be dated far too late to be reliable,
and seem to be, like the Panegyric of St John Chrysostom^ based upon
fanciful allusions to the letters themselves.
Let us now summarize what can be known of the history of
Ignatius of Antioch from his letters themselves, and from Polycarp's
Philippians.
Despite Eusebius' claim that Ignatius was one of the men who,
along with Polycarp, had known the apostles, in the letters of
the middle recension he makes no claim to have met them. Peter
and Paul appear as martyred figures from the past, and Ignatius
makes no mention of anyone named Hero as his immediate
episcopal predecessor at Antioch after St Peter, let alone address
a letter to him as did a later forger in his name. It was no doubt
Ignatius' association with Polycarp, recorded in the latter's letter
to the Philippians, that led Irenaeus, and thus Eusebius, to claim
an association with Papias and therefore an apostolic connection.
Polycarp, according to Irenaeus, on grounds that are questionable,
knew Papias, who was both his friend and a liearer' of the apostle
John.9 But although such information requires us to believe that
the apostle John lived in Asia Minor and at Ephesus 'until the
times of Trajan',10 Ignatius makes no reference to John residing
at Ephesus in his letter to the Ephesians: rather, for him their
founding apostle was Paul:
8
9
Ignatius (long recension), Trail. 11 (Basilides and Theodotus) and Phld. 6 (for Ebion),
the latter probably not a historical character.
Eusebius, HE HL.39.2; IV.14.3-S, quoting Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IL22.5; ffl.3.4; cf. C.
K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes
10
on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 1970), pp. 83-97.

Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IH.1.1; cf. Eusebius, HEIH.233.
10
Ignatius ofAntioch
You are on the highway for those slain for God; you are fellow initiates
with Paul who has been sanctified ... may I be found in his footsteps who
mentions you in every epistle in Jesus Christ11
Ignatius informs us that he has been condemned to death in Antioch

in Syria, of which church he claims to be the bishop. His sentence
was to be exposed to the wild beasts in the arena at Rome. He gives
us no direct information regarding the grounds for his condemnation: was there a persecution organized by the pagan authorities,
or was the prosecution against him of a more private nature?
After his trial and condemnation, Ignatius was taken under
armed escort across Asia Minor and Greece and then to Rome. He
complains about the squadron of 'ten leopards' who mistreated
him.12 They reached Laodicaea on the Lycus in Asia Minor. Here
the road diverged and went two different ways to Smyrna so that
the soldiers had a choice of roads. They selected the northern
road, so those free persons who had been allowed to accompany
him from Antioch sent messengers to the three churches on the
southern route, in response to whom those churches sent clerical
representatives. Thus he met Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus, along
with the deacon, Burrhus, and also Crocus, Euplus, and Fronto, all
of whom brought him material support ('refreshment') along with
the greetings of their community.13
From Magnesia came the youthful bishop Damas, with two
presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius.14 Polybius, bishop of Tralles,
was to come also whilst Ignatius was progressing along the northern
route.15 But the names are not limited to the churches for whom
we have surviving letters. Philo, a deacon, came from Cilicia,
presumably duly sent by the church in that area.16 Rheus Agathus,
who is given the title 'an elect man' in one letter, and then 'deacon'
in another, followed Ignatius from his home church of Antioch in
Syria and continues as part of his entourage.17
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Ignatius, Eph. 12.1-2.

Ignatius, Rom. 5.1.
Ignatius, Eph. 2.1; see also Phld. 11.2.
Ignatius, Magi. 2.
Ignatius, Trail 1.1.
Ignatius, Phld. 11.2; Smyrn. 13.1.
Ignatius, Phld. 11.2; Smyrn. 10.1.

Ignatius then reached Smyrna, where he met also Bishop
Polycarp.18 It was at this point that he wrote his three letters to
Ephesus, Tralles, and Magnesia, which he had not visited but whose
representatives had visited him en route. It was from there that
he also wrote his letter to Rome. His guards then led him on to
Alexandria Troas, from where he wrote to the churches that he had
visited, Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Bishop Polycarp. In these
letters he is anxious that they respond to the news from Antioch
in Syria that the church is now at peace, though the nature of the
crisis that disturbed them is still not spelled out: external persecution or internal discord? It is at this point that he begins to call
for 'divine ambassadors' to be elected, or for 'divine speed-runners'
to be appointed, modelling their functions on those of the pagan,
Hellenistic city-states of Asia Minor, as we shall see in greater detail
in the next chapter.19
What had been achieved at Antioch, however, was nevertheless
the object of his martyr procession, as he makes clear in every
surviving letter. He is a man 'setting out for unity'.20 Teace' is the
absence of Var',21 and its state is one of 'concord' that is 'unity'.22
'Unity' also leads to 'incorruption', for reasons that have their home
in Hellenistic philosophy: for Plato matter is unstable and likely to
break up into the division that is its corruption, but the spiritual
forms or essences of things are one and indivisible and thus stable
or eternal.23 Thus if the believer is to achieve incorruption and
therefore immortality, it must be through union with an ecclesial
order that possesses unity that is without faction.24 Such an ecclesial
order is one that has a single bishop, a collection of presbyters in a
presbyteral college or presbytery, and a number of deacons acting
in concord.25 That is his picture now of the 'church of Antioch at
peace' that 'divine ambassadors' and 'speed-runners' are to celebrate.
That is the picture to which all true churches should now conform.
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Ignatius, Pol. praef.

Ignatius, Phld. 10.1; Smyrn. 11.2; Pol. 7.1-2.
Ignatius, Phld. 8.1.
Ignatius, /&. 13.2.
Ignatius, Eph. 4.1-2; 13.1.
Ignatius, Rom. 12.
Ignatius, Eph. 4.2.
Ignatius, Magn. 6.2.
11
12
Ignatius ofAntioch
Apparently he intended to write to more churches than he did, and

so we have lost the names of those who also joined his entourage
from those churches (other than Philo and Rheus Agathous). But he
was prevented from doing so by his sudden removal by a ship sailing
from Troas to Neapolis. He requests Polycarp to send letters to
these churches instead, expecting letters from them and messengers
too. And then Ignatius fades from the scene as his letters come to
an end: the Acts of his martyrdom are late and unreliable. All that
we have in addition, if, as I believe, it is genuine, is the passage
with which Polycarp will commence his one surviving letter to the
Philippians, in which he describes the arrival at Philippi and their
sending on from there of Ignatius' entourage, as well as the steps he
takes to collect together the corpus of his letters.26
Thus in outline is the account of Ignatius as he himself gives it,
with Polycarp's help. But there are many features that perplex the
scholar as much as the casual reader. Why was Ignatius condemned
at Antioch and what was the state and organization of the church
over which he claims to be the 'bishop'? Was it internal factionalism
within that church that brought him to the attention of the civil
power rather than an external persecution?
When Ignatius continually proclaims, in transit and under guard,
the Church's unity on the basis of a hierarchy at whose apex is a
single bishop, how recent was that church order and did Ignatius in
fact design it himself? In other words, is he describing a social organization that actually exists or one that he believes ought to exist, and
so constructing social reality by claiming that it does exist?
Ignatius addressed Onesimus of Ephesus as 'bishop' in front of
Deacon Burrhus, Damas as 'bishop' in front of two presbyters from
Magnesia, and Polybius from Tralles as 'bishop' by himself. There
is no one named as 'bishop' for Deacon Philo from Cilicia, nor
anyone so named at Philadelphia that Ignatius visited nor at Rome.
We may ask to what extent die title of a single bishop was already
well known and used, or to what extent these individuals named as
bishop blinked and wondered what it really meant to be called this
as their exclusive title.
We have one example in Polycarp, whom Ignatius will insist on
calling bishop, but who, when he writes to the Philippians, does so
26
Polycatp, Phil. 1.1; 9.1; 13.

as 'Polycarp and the presbyters who are with him',27 without using
the title 'bishop' of himself. Polycarp's turn of phrase here is highly
reminiscent of 'Peter' in the pseudonymous work 1 Peter: The
presbyters who are among you I exhort as your fellow presbyter
(sunpresbuterosf (5.1). The presbyter who writes in the name of the
apostle Peter in this letter reflects a church order in which presbyters
preside as a collective group, with one perhaps pre-eminent in
prestige but not by virtue of a distinct rank or order. Did Polycarp
as well as Polybius, Damas, and Onesimus blink when Ignatius
called them 'bishop' as a distinct order, with perhaps the response:
'I am usually called a presbyter though the others do tend to defer to
me ... I suppose, if you put it like that, I am the bishop'?
If Ignatius is creating social reality and not simply reflecting it,
what intellectual and rhetorical resources and skills is he drawing
upon in his pagan Hellenistic and Christian background in order
to 'spin' the activities of his entourage as those of 'divine ambassadors' and 'divine speed-runners' on a mission to produce unity?
And what relationship does this background have to a pagan
political movement and its political theology known as the Second
Sophistic?
In that movement, the Greek city-states of Asia Minor were
asserting their unity in common culture and civilization as their
identity over against the Roman imperial power, and yet expressing
their freely established 'concord' within it. There was much intellectual and affective energy to be tapped in that movement and,
as we shall see, Ignatius, as a man bent upon 'Christian' unity, was
going to tap it for his own cause.
These are the perplexities raised by Ignatius, which we now seek
to unravel and to resolve.
27
Polycarp, Phil, praef.
13
Ignatius' Personal History

and the Church at Antioch
Ignatius tells us nothing of his birth or life prior to his departure

from Antioch in Syria in chains. He complains of the ill-treatment
of the 'squadron of soldiers' that guard him. Such ill-treatment, he
claims, is preparing him for the ordeal of being thrown to the wild
beasts in the arena that awaits him in Rome:
From Syria all the way to Rome I amfightingwith wild beasts, on land and
sea, by night and day, chained to ten leopards, a squadron of soldiers (stratiotikon tagma), who become worse even though given some benefaction.1
But on what grounds was Ignatius condemned, having attracted the

attention and then the hostility of the civil power? He gives us no
direct answer to this question, and to find some sort of answer to it
we must look for hints from our reconstruction of his background
from fragmentary remains in earlier Christian literature.
1. Sentence at Antioch: Roman Law and Christian
Intervention at Rome
Ignatius makes it clear that the reason for his departure from Antioch
is that he has been condemned as a criminal. Associating himself with
the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul, upon whose witness the Roman
1
Ignatius, Rom. 5.1.

14
Ignatius* Personal History and the Church atAntioch
15
community is founded, he addresses the Romans thus: 1 do not give

you orders like Peter and Paul: they were apostles, I am a condemned
criminal. They were free but I am even now a slave.'2 But Ignatius gives us
neither details of his trial nor the name of the magistrate before whom
he appeared, nor precisely what the charges against him had been.
Why, furthermore, did Ignatius, condemned at Antioch in Syria, have
to be transported to Rome? St Paul and St Peter, as he points out, went to
their martyrdoms in Rome as free travellers. In Paul's case, he was taken
in chains and under escort, but without being condemned by the governor's court in Jerusalem, because as a Roman citizen he had appealed
to Caesar. But Ignatius, in looking forward to an execution by being
exposed to the wild beasts in the arena rather than by beheading, reveals
that he was not a Roman citizen. So, as a non-citizen and a provincial,
why was he not simply executed in Antioch?
The answer would appear to be that it was normal practice to
transport condemned criminals from the provinces in order to offer
spectator sport in the Colosseum at Rome. Joly rejects this explanation, claiming that gladiators were not replaced on any occasions
with condemned criminals before the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD
161-80).3 Thus he can claim that the alleged 'facts' of Ignatius'
history are rather fictions.
But we have evidence for this practice as early as 57 BC. Cicero had
taunted Piso, disgraced proconsul of Macedonia, with dispatching
unjustly to his crony, Clodius, 'any number of our independent allies
and persons liable to tribute destined for the wild beasts'.4 Ignatius
of Antioch was not an independent ally (amicus), but he was a
citizen of a city paying tribute (stipendarius). It is therefore plausible
that Ignatius, as a convicted criminal, should be sent to Rome for
execution by this means.
Ignatius pleads with the Roman community not to use their
influence to deprive him of martyrdom:
I fear your charitable love lest it should harm me. For it is easier for you to
fulfil this wish of yours. But it will be a source of difficulty for attaining to
God if you insist on sparing me. 5
2
3
4
5
Ignatius, Rom. 4.3.

& Joly, Le dossier d'Ignace d!Antioche^ Universite Iibre de Bruxelles: Faculte de
Philosophic et Lettres, 69 (Brussels: Editions de lTJniversite, 1979), pp. 50-51.
Cicero, In Pis. 36(89).
Ignatius, Rom. 1.2.
16
Ignatius of Antioch
As we shall see later, Ignatius regards his martyrdom as the road to

his 'attaining to God'. Furthermore, in his preface to his letter to
Rome, he describes the Roman church as 'pre-eminent in charitable
love (agape)\ along with the many other epithets of honour that he
gives them. The Roman community was famous in the early centuries
for the material support that it gave other churches. Ignatius clearly
did not wish them to use that wealth in order to bribe magistrates to
allow him to escape martyrdom: 1 do not wish you to please people
but to please God.'6
At first sight Ignatius' account may arouse suspicion in virtue of
the fact that a condemned criminal, coming from a court in Antioch
where sentence has already been passed, could hardly hope for
the Roman community to be so influential as to get the sentence
overthrown. Yet the emperor Justinian, in his later summary of
past jurists on legal decisions in Roman law (the Digest), shows
that it was possible to change the outcome in the case of someone
condemned to exposure to the wild beasts in the arena. He quotes
from Modestinus, a jurist from the reign of Alexander Severus (AD
222-35):
The governor ought not, as a favour to the people, to release persons
condemned to wild-beasts; but if they are of such strength and skill that
they would make a worthy spectacle for the Roman people, he ought to
consult the emperor. Howbeit it is made unlawful by a rescript of the deified
Severus and of Antoninus for condemned criminals to be transferred from
one province to another without the permission of the emperor.7
No jurist pronounces an 'ought not' against something that has

never happened.
Thus popular demand might secure the release of a condemned
criminal. Modestinus believes that this practice is illegal. Clearly
a governor in a weak position might be cowed by the threat of
disorder into making such a concession, yet Modestinus implies that
the better and indeed legal course would be to remove the criminal
from the scene in the local arena, with its potential for uproar, to the
6
7
Ignatius, Rom. 2.1.

Justinian, Dig. XLVIII.19.31, quoted in Iigfitfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1.2, p. 342, and W
R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters ofIgnatius of Antioch, ed. H.
Koester, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 169 n. 5.
Ignatius' Personal History and the Church atAntioch

arena in Rome instead. Yet the governor could not do this without
the emperor's consent, as a rescript of around AD 230 has made
plain. We glimpse here the process by which Ignatius was brought
to Rome, particularly if, as we shall consider in a moment, Ignatius
was condemned but removed from the scene because he had been
the centre of civil disturbance within the city of Antioch itself.
Ignatius could well have been acquainted with such a practice of a
popular petition securing the release under threat of civil disturbance
of someone condemned to being thrown to wild beasts. Without a
grasp of the nuances of actual legal practice at Rome, or indeed of
Modestinus' later objections, he might well have thought that what
the people had not secured at Antioch, the Church at Rome, with its
greater influence, could secure. Thus Ignatius' fear that the Roman
community, possessing a community of some wealth and influence,
might well find some grounds for securing his release, even though
a condemned criminal, had some basis, if only in a rather imprecise
grasp of the actual legal position.
Indeed, Ignatius reacts to his future martyrdom as a visionary
rather than as a calculator of fine legal options. Some 15 or so years
before his traditional date, the author of the Apocalypse of John
in the New Testament records his vision of the heavenly Church,
where around the throne of 'God and of the Lamb' sit four-andtwenty elders robed in white and singing their hymns of praise in
unison. Ignatius, writing to several of the churches to which John
the Seer also addresses letters, describes to them the highly idealized
picture of how he sees them gathered for the Eucharist with lyres
singing likewise in harmony. Typically, he says to the Ephesians,
In consequence it is fitting for you to run together in harmony with your
bishop's resolution, even as you so do. For your council of elders, fully
deserving of that name and worthy of God, is so attuned to the bishop as
cords to a lyre. For this reason in your concord and harmonious love Jesus
Christ is sung. Each and every one of you, therefore, join the chorus to the
end that, being in symphonic harmony and taking your pitch from God's
unity, you may hymn with one voice the Father through Jesus Christ8
Ignatius clearly is not addressing the actual situations of the churches
- tensions created by personality clashes between individuals,
8
17
18
Ignatius ofAntioch
practices that could be improved, etc. as they live their ordinary

lives. His is an idealized vision of how they ought to behave,
which has convinced him that it is how they actually are. Indeed,
for reasons we shall see, Ignatius was writing for the most part to
churches that he had never visited in the flesh.
If that was the case with churches in Asia Minor, it was even more
so with the church of Rome. Here he will mention no one by name,
as he has been able to do in five other letters. In Philadelphians too
he mentions no one's name, even though he is sure that there is a
bishop with a presbyteral council and a group of deacons.9 But he
mentions neither names nor nameless members of a hierarchy in
Romans.
Ignatius' vision of the Roman community, however, is not at the

Eucharist but in the arena: 'By praying to God I have succeeded in
seeing your godly faces so that I have received more than I can ask,
for as a prisoner I hope to greet you.'10 Thus he sees them in a vision
produced by prayer anticipating his greeting of them as a prisoner.
But as a prisoner he can only greet them in the arena, not at their
Eucharist. Thus the vision of the Roman community gathering
at his sacrifice in the arena replaces the vision of the Ephesian
church gathering in concord and harmonious chorus at the Sunday
Eucharist:
Grant me nothing more than to be poured out as a drink offering to God
while an altar is made ready so that you may form a choir and sing to the
Father in Jesus Christ... Let me be food for the wild beasts through whom
it is within my power to attain to God. I am God's wheat and I am being
ground through the teeth of wild beasts in order that I may be found as
pure bread.11
Ignatius now addresses the Roman community as if they were to be
amongst the onlookers in the arena. He wishes them 'to coax the
wild beasts' so that they become his tomb. He will even coax the
wild beasts himself to devour him promptly.12 Finally he beseeches
them to express their wish to the emperor in his box declaring
9
10
11
12
Ignatius, PM/. Praef. and 1.1.

Ignatius, Rom. 1.1.
Ignatius, Rom. 2.2 and 4.1.
Ignatius, Rom. 4.2 and 5.2.
Ignatius* Personal History and the Church atAntioch

whether those fighting in the arena are to live or die, spurred on by
the shouts of those in the arena: 'If I suffer you will have shown you
willed it; if I am rejected you will have expressed your hatred.'13
Ignatius' concern that the Roman community might intervene
to prevent his martyrdom was not confined to or even principally focused upon concerns about their ability to bribe or to
apply other forms of political pressure, such as is implied by the
law against pardoning those condemned to the arena if enjoying
popular support, etc. His highly strung and, one might even say,
disturbed temperament flits from actual to imagined reality, so that
he actually imagines them amongst pagans in the arena as a Christian
congregation itself urging favours for a gladiator who enjoys their
popularity.
The later rule regarding martyrdom, expressed by Clement of
Alexandria and Cyprian, was that one should not actively seek
martyrdom, but rather, if challenged, to submit to it rather than
commit the sacrilege of sacrificing to the pagan divinities of the
Roman state. The disturbed Ignatius, who is so eager for martyrdom
that he is prepared himself to encourage the wild beasts to devour
him and to exhort others to do the same, would hardly have satisfied
such later conditions for a proper attitude towards martyrdom.
Ignatius began his journey to Rome under the escort of his 'ten
leopards' from Antioch in Syria. He gives us no details of his trial or
the precise offence for which he was convicted. Was his conviction
the result of external persecution by the Roman state against
Christianity, or was the cause more sinister and to be found in the
internal politics of the Christian community at Antioch?
2. Ignatius' Trial: External Persecution or Internal
Politics?
Neither Irenaeus nor Origen, nor Eusebius nor any other early
writer, gives us any indication of the reasons for Ignatius' trial
nor the charges against him. It is only around AD 400 that Jerome
informs us that
Ignatius, as third bishop of the church at Antioch after Peter the apostle,
13
Ignatius, Rom. 8.3.
19
20
Ignatius ofAntioch
was condemned to the wild beasts and sent in chains to Rome in the course
of a persecution instigated by Trajan.
Jerome will then add that lie suffered in Trajan's eleventh year.
The remains of his body lie outside the gate of Daphne in the
cemetery.'14
According to the chronography of John Malalas (AD 750), at
that time Trajan was based in the East fighting the war against the
Persians. Initially, when in Antioch, he had instructed the slaughter
of Christians to cease. However, when an earthquake occurred,
he condemned Ignatius, who had personally insulted him, and ten
others before his tribunal to be sent to Rome and exposed to the
wild beasts. Malalas' date for Ignatius' trial would therefore be after
13 December AD 115, his date for the earthquake. These accounts,
along with five Acts of his martyrdom that survive in several
manuscripts and versions in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and
Coptic, are generally regarded as spurious, providing little more
information about Ignatius than that which can be inferred from his
seven letters.15
According then to the development of material that is certainly
legendary, Ignatius' martyrdom in the reign of Trajan has been
transformed into a trial before Trajan himself that may have been in
response to an earthquake as a sign of divine anger, if not Ignatius'
actual abuse of the emperor whilst the latter was at Antioch. Early
Christians were certainly persecuted before Trajan's time, not for
the 'name' of Christian but because they were believed to possess
destructive, occult power exercised through sinister magical rites
in which they ate babies and committed incest. They disturbed
the peace of the gods in society as well as in nature: a physical
earthquake would quite naturally accompany such an anti-social
'earthquake'.
Was Ignatius the casualty of a persecution brought against the
church in Antioch by the civil power? Or could that persecution
have had other origins? Harrison in particular, followed by others,
claimed that there was no such persecution. Rather, Ignatius was
14
15
Jerome, Vtr. III. 16.

For a full account of manuscripts and versions of these, see J. B. Iightfoot, The
Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmiflan, 1890), EL2.1, pp. 363-67. For a discussion of
the reliability of Malalas, see ibid. pp. 43550.
Ignatius' Rrsonal History and the Church atAntioch
21
responsible for fomenting strife within the church at Antioch over

his desire for his hierarchy of bishop, presbyters, and deacons. Such
was the disorder that arose within the Christian community, and
spilled over into external, pagan society, that the civil power had to
intervene to restore public order.16
Ignatius' letters do give us some clues as to what the true situation
was. At one point Ignatius informs the Philadelphians, as he does
Polycarp, that he has received the news that 'the church of Antioch
in Syria has found peace'.17 In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, he adds
that the Antiochene Christians 'have regained their own greatness
and have had their corporate status restored to them'.18 Does the
word 'peace' here mean peace from external persecution so that their
legal 'corporate status' can be restored to them by a government that
has now ceased persecuting?
The answer must be decidedly negative. We have come to regard the
reign of Constantine, the first Christian emperor after the persecution of
Diocletian, as 'the peace of the Church'. But in the early fathers 'peace'
is always used of the cessation of strife within the Christian community,
not as cessation of a war with those who are without19 Hegesippus,
for example, a mid-second-century writer whose lost work survives
only in fragments that Eusebius quotes, records that before the reign
of Domitian and the rise of various heresies, the Church was at peace
because it had none of those heresies.20 Later in the second century,
before Victor the Roman bishop tried to excommunicate them, communities of Christians from Asia Minor in Rome lived at peace with the
Roman community even though they, as Quartodecimans, observed a
different day for the Easter Vigil.21
Furthermore, 'corporate status' {somateion) involved legal title to
hold property in common as a community. Christianity only became
16
17
18
19
20
21
P. N. Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Phitippians (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1936), pp. 85-88.

Ignatius, PbUL 10.1 and Pol. 7.1.
Ignatius, Smyrn. 11.2. See Schoedel, Igiatius, pp. 250-51.
Harrison, Poljcarp's Two Epistles, p. 84 n. 1, quotes Mark 9.50; Rom. 12.18; 2 Cor.
13.11; 1 Thess. 5.13. In n. 3 he quotes Clement, Cor. 15.1; 44.2; 63.4; Hermas, Man.
27(II).3; Vis. 14(m.6).3; 17(ffl.9).2; 20(ffl.l2).3; Sim. 73(Vni.7).2; Barnabas, Ep.
19.12; Did. 4.3.
Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles\ p . 82 n. 1, quotes Eusebius (Hegesippus), H.E.
HI.20.6.
Eusebius, H.E. V.24.14,16.
22
Ignatius ofAntioch
a legal religion from Maxentius' Edict of Toleration in AD 313, when

'the Christians may exist again and build the houses in which they
used to assemble'.22 It can be doubted if the Church had previously
any right to hold property legally. Thus the issue at Antioch could
not have been the Church winning back the right to own property
as a corporation {somateioti) after an external persecution: that would
imply that at that time it had become a legal religion.
If then the reason for the civil action against Ignatius had had
anything to do with the authorities recognizing that he headed an
illegal organization, there is no way that such an illegal cult would
have been allowed the restoration of its common property when it
suited those authorities to end the persecution: such property would
have remained confiscated. Rather the situation was one in which
the Roman authorities had taken no cognizance of the legal status
of the group that it was addressing. Legal status was not its concern
in the action that it took and was instead overlooked. It was the
community that Ignatius claimed to lead, at war internally, that had
caused instability within Antioch. It was for this reason alone that
the Roman authorities had taken possession of buildings where they
met, and offered them no legal protection, until the source of the
problem had been removed. And that source had been the bishop
of Antioch himself, who can mention no other person who has
been put on trial and condemned other than he himself.23
St Matthew's Gospel was in all probability the Gospel of the
church of Antioch in Syria where earlier in the first century the
disciples 'were first called Christians'.24 Raymond Brown and JohnPaul Meier believed that redaction criticism of Matthew's Gospel
would indicate the condition of the community that transmitted that
Gospel just prior to Ignatius. Let us now consider reflections on the
kind of community that existed in Antioch just prior to Ignatius that
have left their impress on the narrative of St Matthew's Gospel. It
was in the context of such a community thus reflected that Ignatius
made his claims that were considered, on his own admission, outrageous by some in his own community.
22
23
24
Eusebius, H.E. VIII.17.9.

There is an apparent problem with my interpretation in that one manuscript (g) reads
'poor, sick body' {somation) for 'corporate body' (somateion). But this is improbable;
see Schoedel, Ignatius, p. 250 o n Smym. 11.2.
Acts 11.26.
23
3. Community Conflict Reflected in the Matthaean

Tradition
'Redaction criticism' should be distinguished from 'source criticism',
upon which it is nevertheless dependent.
The 'source critic' analyses the Gospel texts in order to discover
the source documents from which they have been compiled, and also
looks for more original textual versions if these exist. In the case of
the Gospels, as we have already mentioned, only one source text for
Matthew is recoverable in its approximately original, independent
form, namely Mark. Matthew's other written sources, Q and M,
remain hypothetical though highly probable literary constructs.
The 'redaction critic' takes such source texts and then asks the
further question as to what kind of community initially treasured
and used such a text and at what historical stage in such a community's development it did so. Since there is an oral period between
what the Gospels record and when they are written down, clearly
the background of a particular community must also shape the oral
tradition that it is handing on and writing down. The study of the
process of such community 'editing' or 'redaction' we call 'redaction
criticism'.
Even in an academia that is heir to the European Enlightenment,
and to a critical, historical methodology, we need to accept that
the process of recording history is inevitably selective. We saw this
earlier in connection with the selection of the Ignatian letters by
Ussher in the seventeenth century as an object of study. However
admirable and 'objective' Ussher might appear as a textual and
literary critic, the letters were also on his contemporary agenda
because archbishops were being sent to the scaffold at the hands
of a Puritan parliament Even more so, therefore, were these
letters on the agenda in the pre-critical environment of the early
Christian communities (and groups within them) that transmitted
our Gospels with no concept of our modern, critical historiography:
the material about the sayings and acts of Jesus was recorded and
shaped in accordance with the immediate contemporary concerns
of the communities (or groups within them) that recorded them.
Thus Matthew's church, the church of Antioch in Syria from
which Ignatius was taken in chains to Rome in consequence of its
internal strife, had produced a Gospel that reflected various groups,
24
Ignatius ofAntioch
selectively remembering acts and sayings of Jesus, and shaping and

reshaping them in accordance with their immediate and variant
concerns within the community. We have an 'exclusivist' group,
believing that Christ had 'come only to the Lost Sheep of the house
of Israel'. This group treasured and adapted to their concerns the
event where Jesus sent out the twelve apostles and assured them that
they would 'not have completed the cities of Israel until the Son of
Man shall come'.25
Against such an 'exclusivist' Jewish group we have a Hellenistic
one that advocates the Gentile mission, and whose remembered but
no doubt reshaped words of Jesus fit their 'inclusivist' aim. Their
'remembered' sayings of Jesus included Christ's injunction after his
resurrection to 'Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them'.26
They have also handed down to the author of Matthew's Gospel
the birth story of the Magi who visit the Christ child from the East,
and whose gifts represent the offering of the Gentiles to a Messiah
whom Herod, the Jewish king, wished to destroy.27
From a redaction-critical perspective, injunctions against groups
do not survive out of purely historical interest: they are in the text
because of their contemporary relevance against present groups
whom their preservers wish to censure. Thus we have denunciations
of scribes, Pharisees and elders far more extreme than those of
other Gospels.28 One particular criticism, not exclusive to Matthew
but also found in other Gospels, is that the scribes 'love ... the chief
seats in the synagogues'.29
But we should note that such 'chief seats' (protokathedriai) were
not confined to Jewish synagogues but also found in Christian
churches (ekklesiai) and Matthew alone of the Gospel writers uses
the word 'church' (ekkksid) on the lips of Jesus for the community
of his disciples.30 This is certainly an anachronism reflecting the
writer's own time. In the middle of the second century, in a work
coming from Rome, we have Hermas issuing a rebuke to 'those who
25
26
27
28
29
30
Matt. 15.24; 1 0 . 5 - 6 , cf. R. E . B r o w n and J.-P. Meier, Antioch and Rome: New Testament
Cradles of Catholic Christianity ( N e w York: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 5 3 - 5 4 .
Matt. 28.16-20.
Matthew 2.
Matthew 23.
Matt. 23.6; cf. Mark 12.39 and Luke 11.43 and 20.46.
Matt. 16.18; 18.17.
25
lead the Church and occupy its chief seats (pwtokathedritat)\31 In

Ignatius' church of Antioch there were also such persons as these,
whom the remembered words of Jesus could be thought also to
address, and could be reshaped by their critics so as specifically to
address.
Matthew's Gospel goes on to develop the criticism of the other
Synoptic Gospels in greater detail. Those who love the chief seats'
are in process of developing for themselves a hierarchy. They are
those who like to be given titles of distinction such as 'Rabbi'
or Teacher' or 'Father'. But against such an elitist group using
such titles of pre-eminence an egalitarian group within Matthew's
community will cite the 'remembered' words of Jesus that appear to
prohibit such titles: 'one is your father and he is in heaven' and 'one
is your teacher, Christ'.32 A member of the hierarchical group might
however insist that, though some abused their position, there were
nevertheless Christian scribes who deserved their rank of honour
as teachers: there could be someone who was 'a scribe who had
become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven'.33
There was also a charismatic group who may have been identical
with, or sympathetic to, the egalitarian group, but who claimed
the authority of the Spirit. These appear to be hovering in the
background of the community both of Matthew and therefore
also of Ignatius. The Sermon on the Mount advises the community
against 'false prophets' who have the 'clothing of sheep' but are
'on the inside ravenous wolves'. They will be known by their fruits.
These are prophets claiming miraculous powers as well as ecstatic
utterance but in the last day Christ will deny that they spoke in
his name.34 'Lawlessness' is what they produce. And lawless' was
indeed the characteristic of a community in crisis that the Roman
authorities saw at Antioch when they condemned to the wild beasts
Ignatius, claiming the title of bishop, whom they regarded as the
instigator of the breakdown of internal peace.
Certainly a document emanating around this time from Syria
will give us a similar perspective on the problems for church
31
32
33
34
Hernias, Vis. 18(IIL10).7.

Matt 23.7-10.
Matt 13.52.
Matt 7.15-16, 21-23.
26
Ignatius ofAntioch
order arising from the activity of wandering and resident prophets

claiming authority. The Didache (or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)
reveals a situation in Syria prior to Ignatius in which there is a church

order based apparently upon prophets who speak under the inspiration of the Spirit, and 'apostles' who are wandering missionaries,
rather like the Matthaean Twelve 'who will not have completed the
cities of Israel until the Son of Man shall come'.35 But these apostles
are not the twelve, but are unspecified in number. Acts itself, in the
New Testament, mentions such a ministry of prophets and teachers
at Antioch as existing earlier in the first century, with Paul and
Barnabas, though not members of the Twelve, called 'apostle' when
they are sent forth by the Church as missionaries.36
Let us see, therefore, what situation in the churches in Syria is
reflected in the Didache.
4. The Didache: Prophetic Ministry in Crisis
The Didache, as we have seen, is an enduring witness to the
ministry of prophets, apostles (wandering missionaries) and teachers
witnessed at an earlier period at Antioch in the book of Acts. But
these 'apostles' or 'wandering missionaries' have raised a problem.
Instead of continuing a wandering ministry, some have tried to come
permanently to rest and to be fed and supported by the Christian
community. Such arrangements are clearly being abused and there
are impostors around.
So the community is to apply a test: if the apostle tries to stay
more than three days and to claim upkeep, he is to be declared a false
apostle.37 Likewise in the case of prophets. Some are genuine and
must be allowed to 'speak in the Spirit'. Some of these at least, like
the apostles with whom they may or may not be identical, appear
to be itinerant.38 These are to be supported materially. But there
are also false prophets and it is not clear how these are to be distinguished from true ones. One indication of an impostor is that they
35
36
37
38
Matt 10.23.
Acts 13.1; cf. Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, pp. 35-36.
Did. 12.
Itinerancy is implied in Did. 13.1: 'Every true prophet who wants to settle down with
you deserves his food/
Ignatius* Rrsonal History and the Church atAntioch

pretend to be inspired by the Spirit when asking for money.39 We are
seeing here tensions between different ministerial authorities in the
Syrian Christian community that were to surface in an acute form in
the events that led to Ignatius' condemnation at Antioch.
Undoubtedly the prophet in the Didache^ whether associated
closely or not with an apostle, is the normal minister of the
Eucharist. But true prophets are difficult to identify, and there
appears to have been a distinct lack of them, in contrast with the
false. It is for this reason that the Didache gives a prayer to be said at
the Eucharist (which may have simply been an agape meal) if there is
no prophet present. If there is, they will simply pray, and in whatever
way they wish, the Eucharistic or thanksgiving prayer in their own
words.40
The Didache reveals a church in considerable disorder, with a
charismatic ministry in which the charismatic flame appears either
to be dying or to be ignored due to uncertainty and confusion about
who is truly exercising it. What is the solution for a community so
disorientated and disorganized? Fear is moreover expressed that 'it is
the end time', when 'the world-deceiver will be manifest as a son of
God and will perform signs and wonders ... He will perform lawless
deeds.'41 Matthew seems to reflect such fears in its warnings against
charismatic false prophets, where clearly things have moved on from
mere perplexity about how to distinguish the true from the false. But
how was the situation to be remedied?
The Didachist, faced with a situation where the prophetic flame
was dying and where one could not be certain who was or who
was not a true prophet, was to produce the following despairing
solution. In the face of the serious crisis in ministerial authority he
exhorts:
Elect [or ordain] for yourselves therefore bishops and deacons worthy of
the Lord, gentle men and not fond of money who are true and approved;
for these are those who are performing the liturgy of the prophets and
teachers. And so do not disregard them; for these are those who have
claimed your honour along with the prophets and teachers.42
39
40
41
42
Did. 13.
Did. 10.7,9-10.
Did. 16.4.
Did. 15.1.
27
28
Ignatius ofAntioch
But this solution clearly had problems of its own. Though the
bishops and deacons were clearly vetted in some way by the
community and were not simply to be accepted because they
behaved charismatically, nevertheless they, like the prophets before
them, were plural in number. When they disagreed, how was the
issue to be settled? Furthermore, they were clearly regarded as a
poor substitute and afforded so little respect that the Didachist has
to justify their position in relation to the prophets and teachers and
to demand that they be given more respect. While their church had
been a small number who regarded themselves as the elect awaiting
the second coming of Christ, the charismatic ministry had not
been a problem: everyone knew who their ministers were and their
personal qualities, and agreement among the ministers themselves
was possible as they were a sufficiently small group.
But with an urban church like Antioch with growing numbers,
groups who called themselves Christian would no longer necessarily know personally every minister in authority nor indeed every
individual member. The self-authenticating or Spirit-authenticating
charismatic ministry was open to the kind of charlatans that the
Didache describes. But a large congregation (or congregations) with
a growing number of bishops and deacons might also be difficult
to hold together, particularly if, without the prophetic charismatic
flame, they could command little authority. There was need for
a single authority figure, for a bishop rather than a collection of
bishops who might also be called 'presbyters'. But that figure needed
also to appear with a charisma of his own.
Certainly a plurality of bishops were also called 'presbyters' in
the letter of Clement to the Corinthians written shortly before
Ignatius' traditional date {c. AD 95) by a figure who appears later
on the succession lists as either the first or third bishop of Rome
after St Peter.43 Here, significantly for Ignatius' time and that of
the community of Matthew, Clement was endeavouring to restore
order at Corinth, where the community had deposed a group of
presbyter-bishops who had not been able to maintain order. So
much for governance by a group of equal presbyter-bishops.
The author of Matthew's proposed solution is imagined in
the idealized description that he gives of Peter. To the common
43
Clement, Cor. 44.1, 5.

Synoptic tradition of Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Matthew adds the
famous words:
Blessed are you, Simon son of John, because flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I say to you, you are
Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not
prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and
whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose
will be loosed in heaven.44
'Binding' and loosing' do not refer, as they were later to be interpreted, as the power of absolution or of excommunication. Rather,
they are rabbinic expressions for adjudicating between correct and
incorrect interpretations of Scripture.
Thus the hoped-for solution to the crisis in authority in the
church of Antioch in Syria is a single figure, who will be able to
determine the correct interpretation of Scripture as it relates to
the governance of Christ's flock that is now, by Matthew's time,
called a 'church' or, in Greek, an (ekkksia). This word describes the
constitutionally governed community of a Greek city-state such as
the cities of Asia Minor, some of whom were the addressees of
Ignatius' letters. The charismatics performing signs and wonders in
Christ's name may protest that the rule of a single figure would be
contrary to the leading of the Spirit, and would amount simply to
the author's rabbinic model of 'a scribe who had become a disciple
in the kingdom of heaven'.45 Such a figure would have appeared to
them as devoid of any charismatic warmth.
In reply, the author of Matthew asserts his Petrine model. Peter
was the scribe who could discern the correct interpretation of
Scripture and so declare that Jesus was the Christ of prophecy.
But, like the charismatics, he had also experienced a supernatural
revelation that 'flesh and blood' of themselves could not have
afforded him. Ignatius himself lived in the generation immediately
after that of the eighties of the first century in which the author
of Matthew had first expressed his idealized portrait of Peter as
the kind of church leader that would produce order out of the
44
45
Matt 16.17-19.
Matt 13.52.
29
30
Ignatius ofAntioch
charismatic chaos at Antioch. In response both to this author and

to the Didachist, Ignatius was to demand, not a plurality of bishops,
but a single bishop who would fulfil the role of the person whom
Matthew had sought.
5. Ignatius' Solution to the Impasse of Matthew and the
Didache
In his letter to the Trallians Ignatius will declare of Polybius, whom
he describes as their bishop,
When you are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ you appear to me
to live not in any human way but according to Jesus Christ ... you must
not engage in any activity apart from the bishop, but be subject also to the
presbytery as to the apostles of Jesus Christ... I am convinced that you
agree about this. For I have received the example of your love and have it
with me in your bishop whose very demeanour is a great lesson and whose
meekness is his power.46
Polybius, Ignatius will claim, has the 'demeanour' or 'bearing' of

a bishop, who therefore could not be despised in the way that the
Didachist's plurality of bishops had been despised by contrast with
the charismatic prophets. His 'meekness' is a contrast to the manic
ravings of those whom Matthew had already identified as 'false
prophets' and was for Ignatius the remedy to the factionalism that
they were causing.47
The charismatics would no doubt respond with contempt for
such afigure,who was, they felt, no substitute for prophets speaking
loudly with tongues (g/osso/a/ia). Ignatius in reply says of Onesimus,
whom he describes as bishop of Ephesus, that 'the more one
notices that the bishop is silent, the more he should stand in awe of
him'.48 Of the unnamed bishop of Philadelphia, Ignatius will say:
'I have been amazed by the gentleness of him who, by being silent,
can achieve more than those who speak empty babblings.'49 Indeed
he will argue that the bishop reflects in his silence the mysterious
46
47
48
49
Ignatius, Troll 2.1-2; 3.2.

C. Trevett, Trophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity: A Third Error Combated by
Ignatius?',^//34 (1983), pp. 165-71.
Ignatius, Epb. 6.1.
Ignatius* Rrsonal History and the Church atAntioch
31
silence of God, and of Christ as the Word who proceeds from

silence'.50 The history of George Fox and the Quakers is a more
recent example of how a charismatic movement expressing ecstasy
and uttering glossolalia is replaced by a community that emphasizes
silence as the supreme experience of communion with God.
Ignatius, then, claims that the one bishop, as representing the
Fatherhood of God from whose silence Christ proceeds, can alone
provide unity to a Church splitting itself into factions as its unity
breaks down. But his proposal was a radical one, and not without
opposition. In two farther early writings we may see examples
of reactions to such a radical suggestion, whether in Antioch or
elsewhere and for similar reasons. In 3 John we have a presbyter
writing about one Diotrephes, 'who desires to be pre-eminent' and
who is excluding people from the Church and not receiving those
whom the presbyter has sent.51
Von Campenhausen sought to identify Diotrephes with Ignatius
of Antioch and his advocacy of a single bishop.52 But even if
the evidence is not sufficiently conclusive to take us that far, the
unnamed presbyter does exemplify the resistance when collegiate
and presbyteral forms of church government are taken over by a
single authority figure: the figure is accused of being motivated by
personal ambition and by pride.
Ignatius' reply to such a charge reflects his background in the
city-states of Asia Minor and indeed Hellenistic Antioch in Syria,
of which we shall have more to say in subsequent chapters. Suffice
it for now to say that his Hellenistic cultural background was
engaged in its own movement at this time known as the 'Second
Sophistic'. Orators such as Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides
were employing a discourse of autonomy, which proclaimed that
human beings could not be naturally and happily governed by naked
force. Government within cities, if natural and proper, would be like
a musical chorus that everyone joined willingly and contributed to
the whole because they naturally desired to produce harmony.
The leading political concept was homonoia or 'concord'. A city
50

3 John 9-10.
52
H. von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the
First Three Centuries, trans. J. A . Baker (London: A d a m and Charles Black, 1969),
pp. 121-23.
51
32
Ignatius ofAntioch
was properly governed when each part of the constitution worked

together in concord like organs of a body or strings of a properly
tuned lyre. When autonomous city-states had quarrels with one
another, one state could not rightly subdue the other to its will.
Between states also, just as within different organs of the state internally, the proper relationship was homonoia. Thus between Greek
city-states homonoia treaties were celebrated following a conflict
resolved not by force but by rational good will concluded willingly
between equals.
If Ignatius is charged with seeking to force through a radical
change in the structure of ecclesial authority, in his defence he
will deny that he is behaving like Diotrephes in 'desiring to be
pre-eminent'. He is often still accused of producing a monarchical
system of authority in which the bishop exercises the supreme
power of a political monarch. But his proposal is far more subtle
than that. He does claim that the bishop is to be 'pre-eminent'
iprokathemenoi) using a different word for 'pre-eminence' than 3
John. But the presbyterate, as a group that in the liturgy will sit
in a horseshoe around the enthroned bishop, are also to be 'preeminent' (prokathemenos), and he appears to include the deacons too.
Furthermore, he never instructs the presbyters, or the deacons, to
be subject to the bishop: he assumes a mutual co-operation between
them that is homonoia or concord and as such rules out any notion
of force. When he demands submission from the laity, it is seldom
to the bishop alone. In considering such passages we need to read
on to find that the presbyterate are included as the threefold order
to whom lay submission is required, as well as respect for the
deacons:
Flee divisions as the beginnings of evils. You must follow the bishop as
Jesus Christ followed the Father, and follow the presbytery as you would the
apostles, respect the deacons as the commandment of God.53
At one point he does require obedience of the deacons to the

bishop, but not to the bishop alone. Of the deacon Zotion he says:
'May I enjoy his company, because he is subject to the bishop as
Ignatius, Smyrn. 8.1.
33
to the grace of God and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus

Christ'54
But the presbytery are never instructed to submit to the bishop
but are included together with the bishop as the object of the
submission of the laity: Therefore as the Lord did nothing without
the Father, either by himself or through the apostles ... so you must
do nothing without the bishop and presbyters.'55 Not only must they
'do nothing without' them but they need to be positively subject to
both:
For when you are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, it is evident to me
that you are living not in accordance with human standards ... it is essential
therefore that you continue in your current practice and do nothing
without the bishop but be subject to the presbytery as to the apostles of
Jesus Christf.]56
The bishop does not effect the unity of the church alone, nor does
he celebrate the Eucharist alone:
Take care therefore to participate in one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of
our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup which leads to unity in his blood; there
is one altar, just as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and
the deacons, my fellow-servants, in order that whatever you do you do in
accordance with God.57
The presbyter-bishops had been elected as a group to provide

order in place of a charismatic ministry that had produced chaos in
Antioch in Syria, as we saw from the Didachist. They may protest
that their collegia! authority is being suppressed by an Ignatius determined to focus the hierarchy on a single bishop, that he is seeking
to create an episcopal monarchy. But Ignatius will now reply that
his view of ecclesial order still preserves their role as council of the
apostles, no less, together with the bishop.
They are part of an ecclesial constitution in which different
organs co-operate freely to provide unity. The principle of unity is
not the monarchical power of the one bishop to subdue presbyters
54
55
56
57
Ignatius, Magnesians. 2; cf. also Trail 13.2.

Ignatius, Trail. 2.1, 2.
Ignatius, Phld. 4.
34
Ignatius ofAntioch
but rather the presbyterate and the deacons, as different organs

of the constitution of the Christian ekkJesia, co-operate with one
another in accordance with the principle of homonoia:
Thus it is proper for you to run together at the resolution of your bishop
even as you do. For your presbytery, worthy of its name and worthy of
God, is so joined to the bishop as cords to a lyre. Therefore in your concord
{homonoid) and in the symphony of your love Jesus Christ is sung. You must
join this chorus, every one of you, so that being harmonious in concord
{homonoid) and taking your note from God you may sing in unity with one
voice through Jesus Christ to the Father [.]58
Ignatius is thus appealing to pagan, secular political concepts in his

attempt to persuade his fellow-Christians to follow where the author
of Matthew had pointed in his ideal portrait of Peter as the ultimate
ecclesial authority. How he warms to the Magnesian presbyterate,
who have 'rendered due respect' to Damas their youthful bishop,
and who 'despite his seemingly youthful appearance, have made way
for him as one who is wise in God'.59
Thus Ignatius might rest his case. It was a case that reflected
the Hellenistic as well as the Judaic culture of Antioch in Syria: it
appealed to Jewish Christian groups in terms of the Petrine, Pauline
and Johannine currents running through the Christian communities.
But his appeal was also to a Christianity formed in the broader,
Hellenistic culture of Asia Minor, and expressed in the pagan,
political rhetoric of hotnonoia. But what was die case against him?
6. The Case of Ignatius' Opponents

But at this point, even if some were convinced by Ignatius' skilful
rhetorical deployment of the homonoia discourse of the Second
Sophistic, other groups within Matthew's community would have
rejected such language derived from the political discourse of
secular paganism. One group were the charismatics, whose attempts
to set up an egalitarian, purely charismatic authority had received
considerable qualification at the hands of the author of the Didache,
whose remedy had been the appointment of a multiple body
58
59

Ignatius* PersonalHistory and the Church atAntioch

of bishops and deacons. But that multiple body, even though
ordained or appointed, would no doubt have also claimed charismatic authority, for which their ordination was an addition and not
simply a replacement.
We have in the New Testament a letter reputedly by Paul to
Timothy but reflecting a situation and period of time in the
immediate aftermath of Paul's death. 'Paul' writes to 'Timothy'
what is therefore a pseudonymous letter (one written under a
false name) in which he says: 'Do not neglect the charism that
is within you which was granted you through prophecy with the
imposition of hands of the presbytery.'60 Thus the body with
charismatic gifts is here an ordained 'presbyterate' and called by
that name through which the Spirit is channelled. The Spirit no
longer simply falls upon the prophets so that their ministry is
self-authenticating.
Many of these presbyters therefore had no doubt themselves
claimed charismatic gifts, even though their right to hold office was
now election or even 'ordination' by a presbyterate of 'elders' or
'presbyters'. Their objection may well have been that Ignatius' new,
single bishop, even with the necessary restraint of a presbyterate
and diaconate as separate parts of an ecclesial constitution bound
together on the principle of homonoia, involved the 'quenching of
the Spirit'. Unfortunately, by insisting themselves on 'election' or
'ordination' in addition to their charismatic gifts, they had already
sold the pass. Such is characteristically the feature of any human
situation in which one or more competing systems of authority have
collapsed, and another is struggling to replace them, with scenes of
conflict between them.
But the pseudonymous writer to Pauline communities in the
Asia Minor of the Ignatian correspondence has to concede, like the
author of the Syrian Matthew, that, in the ideal unity of the apostolic
age, the Spirit was given by an apostle like Paul alone and by his own
authority. His 'Paul' will say to his Timothy' on another occasion:
'I charge you to enflame the charism of God that is within you
through the imposition of my hands.*1 The writer can therefore see
that a single bishop with a monopoly on the power of ordination
60
61
1 Tim. 4.14.
2 Tim. 1.6.
35
36
Ignatius of Antioch
may represent the Spirit of the age of the apostles where, as his
contemporary Luke will say in Acts:
They were continuing eagerly in the apostles' teaching and in fellowship,
the breaking of bread, and prayers ... Daily they continued eagerly of one
accord in the temple, breaking bread at home, and receiving its nourishment
with rejoicing and simplicity of heart62
This writer also is at home in Asia Minor, and pines for the age of
the apostles in which there were no divisions as in his contemporary
church but all was 'of one accord'.
The presbyterate, who, Ignatius will concede, represents the council
of the aposdes, might well respond that there is no ecclesial precedent
for a single bishop any more than there was a single apostle, despite the
author of Matthew's claim for an idealized Peter. Furthermore, they
might continue, the Spirit is given to the whole community, even though
some of them might insist that it is given through them by virtue of
their ordination 'through prophecy and the imposition of the hands of
the presbyterate'. But the Spirit is not involved in the position of a single
bishop at the apex of a hierarchy, even as a figure inspiring concord
rather than imposing his power upon them.
How is Ignatius to reply in his defence? At the level of practical
arrangements, he could point to the potential instability of presbyteral government. Perhaps the presbyteral college, like the prophets
in the Didachey could concelebrate together: 'let the prophets hold
the eucharist in whatever way they wish.563 But if so, what was the
guarantee that, inspired by the Spirit, they would use the same words?
In theory they should, but in practice those that claim inspiration by
the same Holy Spirit are known historically to exhibit differences in
both belief and practice that usually lead to each claiming that the
other prophesies falsely, with subsequent divisions. We have seen
indeed that, according to Brown and Meier's redaction criticism,
the community of Matthew's Gospel contained some members at
Antioch in Syria denying that others were, despite appearances, true
prophets performing charismatic miracles.
However, even if we accept the stipulation of the Didachist and
add an act of ordination by which the prophets are to become a
62
63
Acts 2.42, 46.

Did. 10.7.
37
charismatic presbyterate, there still remains potential for disunity.

Even if the presbyter decides on the words of a liturgical text, there
is still the possibility of one group wanting different words from
another. Moreover, if only one of them celebrates the Eucharist
(and not several in concelebration), who is to decide who is the
celebrant, or even who is to draw up a rota in a given order? In a
church already divided and factionalized, a great deal of self-restraint
and forbearance is required in order to make an informal system of
deference and noblesse oblige function in a harmonious way.
Once such a system of informal forbearance in which all
presbyters would take their turn, deferring one to another as equals,
had begun to break down, how could the vacuum be filled? We do
not know precisely how this was done in Ignatius' situation, given
our lack of factual information. But Hermas, reflecting the Roman
community, as I have said, in the mid-second century, affords us an
example in his situation that may parallel a similar occurrence in that
of Ignatius' in Syria a generation earlier.
Hermas describes the way in which someone is to be examined
when he enters a gathering and appears inspired by the Spirit
and speaks to the congregation. If the person is an impostor and
controlled by an 'earthly spirit that is empty and powerless and also
foolish', then, apart from requiring payment, he 'exalts himself and
wishes to be given the first seat (protokathedria)'.64 We have already
seen how Hermas issued a rebuke to 'those who lead the church
and occupy its chief seats (protokathedritai)\65 and how Jesus' words
criticizing the Jewish 'scribes and elders (presbyters)' have been
reshaped with reference to those Christian elders (presbyters) who
desired the 'chief seats' (prvtokathedriai), not in the Jewish synagogue
but in Matthew's own church. In Ignatius' Antioch in Syria one can
well see, therefore, how he could generate a similar response to
Hermas' inflated charismatic prophet claiming pre-eminence alone.
But how does Ignatius reply?
64
65
Hennas, Man 43(30)11-12.

Hermas, Vis. 18(m.lO).7.
38
Ignatius ofAntioch
7. Ignatius' Defence in Reply to his Opponents

Ignatius will, in his defence, deny that he is claiming the charisma
alone, and that he is 'quenching the Spirit'. Firstly, with an allusion
to the Johannine Pentecost, he will insist that the presbyters have
a secure place in his episcopal church in concord with his single
bishop and are 'spirit-filled' and occupy the place of the apostles:
Be anxious therefore to be confirmed in the teachings of the Lord and of
the apostles in order that in everything that you do you may prosper, in
flesh and spirit, in faith and in love, in the Son and in the Father and in the
Spirit, in the beginning and end, along with your most awesome bishop and
yourrichlywoven spiritual garland of your presbyterate, and your deacons
by God's appointment66
The apostles' teaching' that Luke assured his community in Asia

Minor to have been there at the beginning in that distant, golden age
of the Church's unity could be there with them in the late first century.
Ignatius here assures the church of Magnesia shortly thereafter that
the same teaching, unspecified, can be with them 'in the end' as it was
'in the beginning'. He had also been able to give the same assurance
to the church of Antioch in Syria before his removal.
Ignatius here refers to the Nvreath' or 'garland' woven from myrtle
leaves and gilded and placed on the head of the victorious athlete
or musician in their respective contests. The presbyterate sits in
horseshoe formation around the seated bishop, but they are a spiritfilled 'circle' or 'garland'. They represent, moreover, the apostles in
the Upper Room where, according to John, the risen Christ came on
the evening of the resurrection:
Jesus therefore said again to them: peace be with you. Even as the Father
has sent me, so send I you. And saying this, he breathed into them and said
to them: receive the Holy Spirit If you forgive the sins of any persons, they
shall be forgiven. If you retain them, they will be retained [.]67
Ignatius will interpret the significance of Jesus' anointing by an

unknown woman shortly before his death68 in the light of Christ's
66

John 20.21-22.
68
Matt 26.7; Mark 14.3.
67
39
breathing into the apostles in this passage: Tor this reason the Lord
received perfumed ointment on his head in order that he might
breathe incorruption into the Church.'69 Ignatius may well reply
to his critics at Antioch that he has preserved the authority of the
spirit-filled apostolic council of the presbyterate in his new ecclesial
constitution. The charismatic apostles of the Didache are incorporated into his new concordic whole {homonoia).
But was not a single bishop, whose virtue was his silence and not
his charismatic performance, but a pale shadow of true spiritual
authority, and was not a single bishop in any case itself a denial of
a spiritual ministry? Should not bishops or a single bishop, despised
by those whom the Didachist had addressed, achieve 'concord'
{homonoia) with (if one prefers this to 'submit to") a charismatic
ministry, even if that ministry is presbyterally ordered rather than
exercised in a purely spontaneous form. These are questions that
Ignatius needed to answer if he was assailed by the kind of accusations voiced by 3 John or Hermas against such a figure.
Ignatius' answer is that he, though claiming to be a single bishop,
is a charismatic too, and has revealed his ecclesial constitution to
settle the strife and factionalism of the church of Antioch in Syria
under inspiration of the prophetic Spirit. He might well have said at
Antioch what he says to the Philadelphians:
For even if some people have wanted to led me into error according to the
flesh, the Spirit, because it is from God, is not led into error. For it knows
whence it comes and whither it goes, and exposes hidden things [John 3.8
and 1 Cor. 2.10]. I cried out while among you, speaking in a deep voice,
the voice of God: Tay attention to the bishop and the presbytery and the
deacons.' But some were suspicious that I said these things because I knew
in advance that there was a division among you. But the one in whom I am
a prisoner is my witness that my knowledge was not from a human source;
but the Spirit was preaching, saying: T)o nothing apart from the bishop;
keep your flesh as the temple of God; love unity; flee divisions; be imitators
of Jesus Christ as he is of the Father.'70
Ignatius, appearing now in chains at Philadelphia, was clearly in no

position to appear arrogant and boastful in making his claim for
a hierarchy with a single bishop at its apex. In Antioch, no doubt,
69
70
Ignatius, EphAlA.
Ignatius, Philadelphia 7.
40
Ignatius ofAntioch
before the intervention of the civil power, Ignatius had appeared

more boastful, if indeed not 'too clever by half, in claiming charismatic inspiration for a single bishop who would finally make an end
to an autonomous and self-authenticating charismatic ministry.
The church of Philadelphia was divided, as the church of
Antioch in Syria had been, so divided in fact that Ignatius could
not name the bishop, presbyters and deacons in this church as
he could in the other churches to whom he wrote. So understanding of their situation was he that he was accused by one
faction of having been advised by the opposing faction of what
precisely to say. But he needed no such information: he had
seen it all before in Antioch before his trial and condemnation.
And as would have been the case there, so here his appearance
mysteriously changes, as does his voice, as he 'cried out ...
speaking in a deep voice, the voice of God' his solution to
such divisions in terms of a hierarchy with a single bishop at
its apex. He will claim that such a hierarchy is not the product
of his own, carnal devising, 'not from a human source'. At
iVntioch too his opponents would have accused him of a
carnal power-play against a spiritual ministry but in view of
his speaking in the Spirit, it was they who were quenching the
voice of the Spirit and leading him 'into error according to the
flesh'.
Ignatius cut a strange figure in the eyes of the Antiochene
community, and we must sympathi2e with them. He was not the
sort of bishop with whom people would be comfortable at a
Buckingham Palace garden party. Apt in the course of a heated
exchange to change his appearance and with it his voice, he begins
speaking 'in the Spirit'. He claims hidden revelations in support
of a controversial policy that he demands the Church accept. As
he says to the Trallians, assuming a stance of humility against
accusations of a self-assertive pride in urging the case for a single
bishop,
I am pondering many thoughts in God, but I impose limits on myself so
that I will not be destroyed by my boasting. For now I must fear all the
more and pay no attention to those who are trying to make me to inflate
with pride. For those who speak to me now arefloggingme. The majority
act with a concealed envy, and envy escalates their war against me. And so I
41
need humility, by which the ruler of this age is destroyed. Am I not able to
write to you about heavenly things?... I am able to understand the heavenly
realms and the angelic regions and hierarchies, both visible and invisible.71
It is the majority at Antioch too, he could claim, that had attacked
him and exposed him to prosecution by the civil power. Those who
had 'escalated their war' against him were in effect themselves doing
the Roman magistrate's 'flogging' for him.
At Antioch there were those who, though a minority, had
supported him, and there, whilst free and respected, he had been
in danger of being inflated with pride: he had sought to 'impose
limits' on such adulation. The majority in attacking him were really
motivated by envy, as they were now at Tralles. But here he was
addressing them by letter in chains and now he is surrounded, not
by admirers, but by the squadron of soldiers, the 'ten leopards' who
are his guards and who speak to him with abuse and flog him. How
could they accuse him of flaunting himself boastfully now? Yet still
he behaves strangely as one possessed by the Spirit and apt to burst
forth with new revelations.
Thus we have a picture of how Ignatius would have appeared
to his contemporaries in the church of Antioch in Syria. He was,
as he says immediately following his Spirit-inspired outburst at
Philadelphia, deeply committed to achieving unity in a divided
community: 'I was acting on my own accord as a man equipped for
unity. But where there is division and anger, God does not dwell.'72
But his Antiochene contemporaries wanted nothing of a single
bishop around whom such a unity might be achieved. They were
not convinced by the image of a single bishop as Onesimus, bishop
of Ephesus, would later prove to be, who by his silence would
inspire awe and order the glossolalia of a chaotic, charismatic ministry
far more effectively that a Spirit-filled collectivity of elders called
a presbyterate.73 The bishop of Philadelphia too, so difficult for
Ignatius to recognize by name in their chaotic division, would not be
for the Antiochenes a convincing silent substitute for those charismatic ministers who, they believed, did not utter 'empty babblings'
71
72
73
Ignatius, Trail. 4.
Ignatius, Epb. 6.1.
42
Ignatius ofAntioch
but the true voice of the Spirit given collectively and not to one
individual.74
The majority was not impressed with Ignatius' claim to be a single
bishop on the basis of charismatic outpourings of the Spirit that die
ministers of one large group of them could well match, and another,
with a Spirit-filled presbyterate, was trying to control. They saw a
prideful contender with his own adulatory group of supporters,
whilst he in turn denounced them for harbouring envy against him.
They were even more unimpressed by his attempt to soften his
proposals by appealing to secular, pagan political discourse, with its
'spin' in terms of homonoia. They accused him, as he did them, of
'escalating the war' between them over his proposals, and so strife
increased within the large and growing Christian community. The
sound of argument, if not of more violent expressions of community
outrage, spilled over into pagan, civil society. The Roman magistrate
intervened and, following a trial, Ignatius was quickly dispatched as
a prisoner under armed escort to Rome to be thrown to the wild
beasts in the arena. Ignatius had lost... or had he?
We shall see in our next chapter that the collective mood of
the Christian community seems, from hints Ignatius gives, to have
experienced change. They had wanted an end to the intensifying of
the conflict between different groups caused by Ignatius' claim to
be a single bishop who, in concord {homonoia) with the presbytery
and deacons, could alone end the factionalism. But they had wished
him simply to stand down from his claim, not to be arrested and
condemned to exposure to the wild beasts. Furthermore, despite
his removal, the old problems of internal crisis about the nature
of church order between charismatics and elected bishops (as a
plurality) or presbyters had not been removed.
Whether, therefore, it was because collective guilt had set in about
Ignatius' arrest and fate, or whether from weariness with internal
strife, the mood of the church at Antioch underwent a process of
rapid change. It would seem that Ignatius' 'no-alternative' argument
regarding the need for a single, Tetrine' bishop had finally prevailed.
Ignatius, as we shall see, was kept informed of the developing
situation by exchanges of letters and other contacts allowed, apparently conventionally, to condemned criminals in transit. In those
74

letters we shall observe, in our next chapter, how Ignatius was to
continue to influence the situation at Antioch and in the churches of
Asia Minor who had contacted him by sending visitors and material
support. Those letters bear witness to a developing theology both
of church order and of martyrdom, expressed both in writing and
reflection, and in the choreographed form of a martyr procession.
That theology, we shall argue, was nourished in the soil of the
pagan political theology of the Greek city-states of Asia Minor,
which at this time were also engaged in the process of defining
themselves and the unity of their culture against the Roman
imperial power. As noted earlier, the movement is known as the
Second Sophistic, and Ignatian Christianity, in its quest for a general
theological concept of Christian unity, was to feed on the force of
the persuasive logic and general aspirations of that movement.
43
The Choreography of the

Martyr Procession
In his letters written to five churches in Asia Minor, a sixth to

Polycarp, whom Ignatius calls 'bishop' of Smyrna, and a seventh
to Rome we can continue to trace as it were the outlines in the
sand of what then took place. Though the majority of Antiochene
Christians, or at least significantly large conflicting groups amongst
them, had rejected Ignatius' solution to their divisions, they had no
positive solution of their own: inspiration by the same Spirit (or by
evil spirits that some had confused with the Holy Spirit) continued
to produce divergent beliefs and practices. No one had the authority
to determine who was and who was not the genuine bearer of the
Holy Spirit.
The crisis, moreover, had now claimed a high-profile victim,
Ignatius, who as the one bishop of one community had claimed
pre-eminence as an image of God the Father over the presbyterate
and diaconate of them all. The hardliners might have stuck to their
original hostility (or jealousy) and felt that they were best rid of the
arrogant single bishop. But the soft centre were highly disturbed
about the outcome of Ignatius' trial, and considerably sobered by
the prospect of his bearing of the Christian name as a martyr to
Rome.
Ignatius will now insist that, as his sufferings are inflicted by the
pagan civil power, he is not suffering as the leader of one faction,
like that of a 'Diotrephes claiming the pre-eminence'. Rather, he
44
The Choreography of the Martyr Procession

is suffering for the common Christian name that all the warring
factions claim. When the Ephesian representatives come to meet
him, he claims that it was because they recognized that he was not
a renegade leader of a spurious faction but 'one who is a prisoner
from Syria on account of the shared name and hope'.1 He has been
'deemed worthy of the divinely awe-inspiring name in the bonds
that he parades'.2 Ignatius thus was constantly reminding his hearers
that he was suffering for the common Christian name and that the
bearing of that name transcends all previous strife regarding his
claim to be the one bishop of Antioch.
Thus his condemnation by the civil power had transformed him
from a faction leader to a martyr bearing the baptismal name of the
whole community. Many of his Christian enemies could now no
longer hate him. The resultant general feeling of guilt now produced
a remarkable shift of consciousness, in consequence of which the
church of Antioch was to enjoy the peace that Ignatius had sought
for it eventually under a single bishop.
Ignatius, under guard and en route to Rome, was to play the
martyr card to a T, and with considerable eloquence. Moreover,
he was able to choreograph his journey to Rome as a spectacular
procession. He reminds the Ephesians who come out to meet him
that they had come because they had heard that he liad come from
Syria in bonds for the name shared' by all Christians.3 But he will
claim that the death to which he is going is a sacrifice to God on
their behalf in which they have made him a scapegoat.
1. The Social Psychology of Ignatius as Scapegoat

It sometimes happens that a disaster afflicting one member of a
divided community becomes a kind of social-psychological remedy
for the alienation and divisions of the rest. As a kind of socialpsychological therapy, the majority will project its demonizing
stereotype upon an individual or group of individuals whose removal
relieves the group of its tensions. Having treated the scapegoat in
1
2
3
Ignatius, Eph. 1.2.

Ignatius, Magn. 1.2. See further the emphasis on the 'shared' or 'common' in Eph 21.2;
Phld. 5.2; 11.2;,%. 12.2.
Ignatius, Eph. 1.2; see also 3.1.
45
46
Ignatius ofAntioch
this way, the scapegoaters experience feelings of guilt that lead to an

ambiguity of feeling about the person scapegoated.4
But sometimes the creation of an individual as a scapegoat can
be therapeutic for that community's general tensions as a minority
group experiencing alienation from wider society. An injustice
inflicted by the general community towards one member of a
subgroup experiencing internal tension can make that member a
scapegoat who heals that tension. One famous example of this is
undoubtedly the events surrounding the arrest in Australia of Iindy
Chamberlain and her initial conviction and later her pardon. Her
story was dramatized in the famous Meryl Streep movie Cry in the
Dark, Iindy Chamberlain was at that time the wife of a Seventh-day
Adventist pastor when, she claimed, during an overnight stay at an
isolated beauty spot, Ayers Rock, her child, Azariah, was eaten by
wild Australian dogs (dingoes). But initially she was not believed
and was imprisoned for murder, with her husband convicted also
as an accomplice. In response to what was ultimately declared a
miscarriage of justice, the Seventh-day Adventist community gave
unanimous support for their pastor's wife and family and asserted
her innocence, believing that their whole community was the real
target of this attack.
It was observed at that time that the Adventist community itself
had been torn by various internal frictions and divisions. One of
those divisions was between 'fundamentalist' and 'liberal' elements.
The latter ('predictably', New Testament scholars might say) had
been developing a more allegorical, spiritually realized version of
Adventist eschatology: Christ's coming on the seventh day was
to be understood as an event of mystery rather than one that
could, as it were, be caught on camera. Such divisions within the
Adventist community were now dissolved in the united response
to the injustice done by the civil power to their pastor and his wife.
The Chamberlains as victims had become the scapegoats by whose
sacrifice a divided community was made whole.
Ignatius can be seen in the context of contemporary socialpsychological studies and theories of scapegoating. The wider
community, as represented by the provincial governor, has stere4
For a social-psychological discussion of this phenomenon, see T. Douglas, Scapegoats:

Transferring Blame (London: Routledge, 1995).
47
otyped him as a troublemaker and has demonized him as one

whose actions have affected the 'peace of the gods' in nature and
in society.5 His own, Christian subgroup, torn by internal strife, at
first actually wish, some more clearly and less ambiguously than
others, that someone would make away with him as the source of all
their troubles. But when the pagan authorities actually remove him
and condemn him to the wild beasts, a change comes about in the
divided subgroup, who had originally seen him as the source of their
tension. The majority had not wished things 'to go that far'. And so,
paradoxically, he becomes their scapegoat: his removal and condemnation becomes a sacrifice that relieves their internal tensions.
Thus as Ignatius departed in chains, the mood within his factionalized Christian community at Antioch changed. Ignatius caught
that change of mood, as the hostility of his fellow-Christians
towards him gave way to more ambiguous feelings that he could
now endeavour to shape with the assistance of those who were
to visit him on behalf of the churches of Asia Minor to whom he
wrote. Ignatius of course was not aware of work in contemporary
social-psychological theory and the effects of scapegoating on
groups, which we have only just begun to study scientifically. But at
an intuitive level he was aware of a mysterious change that he was to
foster and facilitate both in spoken and written rhetoric, and in his
dramatic representation of his choreographed procession.
The Ephesians' clerical representative came to meet him and
looked with concern at him in chains at the centre of his procession
that some were to join and accompany him on his way. We do not
know if they were predisposed to see matters in this way, but if they
were not, Ignatius now seeks to shape their reactions, with the aura
of the martyr surrounding him. In joining and helping to form his
procession, he can say of them that 'As imitators of God, having been
enflamed by the blood of God, you have brought to completion the
task that we share as kinsmen.' What was this 'task'? Clearly, it was
his creation and choreographing of a martyr procession:
For you hastened to come and see me when you heard that I, bound from
Syria for the name that we share and its hope, and that my hope was to
5
A. Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order, VChrSup 45 (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1999), pp. 110-12.
48
Ignatius ofAntioch
succeed in fighting the wild beasts in the area with the accompaniment of
your prayer [.]6
They pray as members of the procession that he is clearly choreographing as a sacrifice, not that it should not take place but that it
should: they are participators in some sense in that sacrifice; they are
'enflamed by the blood of God'.
What is the character of that sacrifice for Ignatius? Ignatius
will call his sacrifice a 'scapegoat sacrifice'. As he explains to the
Ephesians gathering around him for the procession to the altar of
sacrifice at Rome:
I am your scapegoat sacrifice (peripsemd) and I consecrate myself as such
for the church of you the Ephesians, a church renowned throughout the
ages ... my spirit is a scapegoat sacrifice bound to the cross [.]
Ignatius emphasizes to the churches he addresses the sacrificial
character of his martyr procession.
Ignatius uses, in addition to the word for scapegoat sacrifice
(peripsema), the general word for expiation in Hellenistic Jewish
literature, namely antipsuchon^ which means literally something or
someone given in place of the soul or life of another.8 He uses this
word again specifically of those who join the sacrificial procession:
'I am your expiatory sacrifice and of those whom you sent for God's
honour to Smyrna.'9
'Expiation', then, was particularly appropriate for those who were
in the actual procession to the altar of sacrifice. He uses this word
several other times in writing to Smyrna, and to Polycarp, where he
confines his expiation to those who submit to the threefold order of
bishop, presbyters and deacons.10 Finally, Ignatius does not shrink
from using a characteristically pagan word for sacrifice, thusia, which
refers quite literally to a slain animal. At the end of the sacrificial
procession there is 'an altar being prepared' in the arena at Rome.11
With regard to the teeth of the wild beasts in the arena crunching
6
7
8
9
10
11
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 1.1-2.
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 8.1.
See 4 Mace. 6.9,17.
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 21.1.
Ignatius, Pol. 6.1; c Pol 2.3 and Smyrn. 10.2.
Ignatius, Rom. 2.2.
49
his flesh, Ignatius instructs the Roman Christians: Intercede with

Christ on my behalf that through these instruments I might be
found a sacrifice (thusia) to God.'12
Ignatius provides us with an example of the scapegoat (peripsemd)
reducing tension and division within the community that has
scapegoated him. At an intuitive level, he was himself conscious
of the effect that his condemnation was having on his community
at Antioch. And he would no doubt have reminded them of this
in his communications with them, now lost, as he reminded those
particular churches of Asia Minor in his surviving letters. Indeed,
'remind' is a quite inadequate expression for the way in which,
in word and in act, he proceeded to orchestrate his procession,
imposing his own particular interpretation of its meaning and
significance.
2. Ignatius' Rhetorical Construction of his Martyr
procession
As he was taken away under armed guard it may be asked how he
came by that knowledge and how he was able to orchestrate his
martyr procession in this way. He was clearly allowed visitors to join
him and accompany him: they provided him after all with resources
for his journey, 'refreshing' him. They thus alleviated the subsistence
allowance that the guards would otherwise have had to pay out of
their own resources, and in any case they were customarily given
gratuities by visitors. As a result of some visitors coming and going,
though some stayed, Ignatius was able to send and receive letters
via couriers.
We have seen how, when Ignatius' guards took the northern route
across Asia Minor to Smyrna and Bishop Polycarp, the three churches
that Ignatius thereby failed to visit responded to his messengers by
sending Bishops Onesimus (Ephesus), Damas (Magnesia), and
Polybius (Tralles) along with some presbyters and deacons and
the material support ('refreshment') that they brought. But their
clerical representatives were not the only members that joined his
entourage. He was clearly in contact with the church at Antioch, and
a deacon, Rheus Agathous, was a member of his party from there,
12
Ignatius, Rom. 4.2.
50
Ignatius ofAntioch
as well as Philo from Cilicia. The fact that letters to Ephesus, Tralles
and Magnesia have survived in Polycarp's collection of the corpus
does not mean that these were the only letters that Ignatius wrote to
churches whilst in transit and under guard, nor were they the only
churches to send representatives to the martyr in chains.
When Ignatius asks for the election of a deacon as ambassador
to congratulate the church of Antioch on its 'peace', he points out
that they will not be doing this alone: 'It is not impossible for you to
do this for the name of God; even as the churches nearest have sent
bishops, and others presbyters and deacons.'13 Ignatius' message,
spoken, written and enacted, is being spread over a large area.
Before leaving Troas by ship for Neopolis he says to Polycarp:
Since I have not been able to write to all the churches by reason of my
sudden sailing ... you shall write to the churches in front of us, as one
possessing the mind of God, to the intent that they should do this same
thing - let those who are able send messengers, and the rest letters by the
hand of those sent by you[.]14
But how did this activity of letters conveyed to and fro by messengers
making proclamations appear to those who saw it with eyes other
than those of Ignatius?
Lucian of Samosata, a pagan satirist of many characters and their
antics in the Asia Minor of this time, wrote a sketch shortly after
AD 165 about a character called Peregrinus who, chameleon-like,
changed his opinions but who for a while was a Christian leader.
Lucian, as he describes Peregrinus, endows him with many of the
characteristics of Ignatius as typical of an imprisoned Christian
martyr.
Here we should mention how he describes the devotion of prison
visitors, and testifies to their free access to prisoners, once palms had
been greased by bribes, and to their unstinting support for them:
Well, when he was imprisoned, the Christians, regarding the incident as a
calamity, left nothing undone in their effort to rescue him. Then, as this was
impossible, every other form of divine service was paid to him, not haphazardly but with earnestness; and from daybreak aged widows and orphaned
children could be seen waiting near the prison whilst their officials even
13
14

Ignatius, Pol. 8.1.
51
slept inside with him once they had corrupted the guards with bribes. Then
various kinds of meals were brought in and their sacred liturgies were
spoken... Indeed people came from the cities in Asia sent by the Christians
at their common expense with the purposes of aiding and expressing
their joint support and soothing the fellow. They show incredible speed
whenever such public action is taken; for in no time they lavish their all.15
For Lucian, therefore, those who gathered with the condemned
prisoner were a modey crew of widows and orphans, with some

'officials' of the community in very close attendance, offering bribes
and gifts and holding the prisoner in awe. Ignatius was to put a quite
different 'spin' on the procession that accompanied him.
Ignatius, as we have seen, characterized his martyr procession
as a sacrificial procession in which he was the scapegoat victim on
his way to sacrifice on a pagan altar at Rome: that was his role in
the procession. But how did he understand the roles of those who
joined the procession from various churches, carrying his letters and
return messages from them?
As a condemned prisoner, he was being conveyed along the
official imperial highway reserved for military and other public
officials on imperial business, but in this case, he was a prisoner
under escort. The highway was called the cursus publicus (in Greek,
dromos demosios). Along it travelled a number of ancillary officials
such as the couriers of official letters, either from the emperor or
from the self-governing local city-states of Asia Minor, who would
need to communicate their decrees to the imperial authorities.
Couriers of such correspondence were called 'speed-runners' or
'runners within a day' (hemerodromoi)}6
Also along the cursus publicus came ambassadors from the various
city-states of Asia Minor. Those ambassadors might sometimes go
to Rome to seek the honour for their city of founding a temple
to the imperial cult, in which dead and deified past emperors and
their families were worshipped. They would carry copies of the
decree of the citizen body, the ekklesia, petitioning for the emperor's
approval to found such a cult. And along the same cursus publicus
they would return, and a further decree would be passed expressing
15
16
Lucian, Peregr. 12-13.

See Pausanius VI.16.5; Iivy 31.24.
52
Ignatius ofAntioch
their 'rejoicing together' at the emperor's decision if favourable.17

Ambassadors too would negotiate treaties between two city-states,
such as the famous homonoia treaties.
Some twenty years after the traditional date of Ignatius' martyrdom,
we have a series of coins, with some associated documentation,
commemorating a treaty ending a dispute between rival cities which
could have been over disputed territory, or indeed over the city's
precise official status in the order of precedence or esteem. An
example of the latter was the dispute between Ephesus, Smyrna
and Pergamon in the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61). Their
dispute was over which of them was allowed to use the title 'First
and twice neokoros of Asia' and thus over who could claim to have
been first allowed to be Neokoros (temple keeper) of the imperial
cult.18
Homonoia, as we have already seen, was a watchword for Ignatius
too, and referred to a concord freely arrived at, unrestrained by
force and between equal, autonomous persons or cities.19 Such
disputes were resolved through ambassadors, who would finally
bear the jointly minted coins showing the tutelary deities of both
cities celebrating peace or homonoia between the two cities. The
treaty would be sealed by a sunthusia or 'joint sacrifice'. Ignatius'
martyr procession joined by ecclesial ambassadors with its scapegoat
sacrifice has thus become a sunthusia or joint sacrifice creating
homonoia between divided Christian communities.20
Ignatius will use the notion of official courier or 'speed-runner'
to characterize those who come from and go back to the churches
with letters and other communication. He will also regard them as
ambassadors.
We have no letter written by Ignatius to his church of Antioch
in Syria but he informs us that he has had communication from
them through the Christian counterpart to both 'speed-runner' and
'ambassador'. They have brought the official communication, the
resolution passed by the church of Antioch, an ekkksia ('church5)
17
18
19
20
Brent, The Imperial Cult, pp. 246-48.

Brent, The Imperial Cult, pp. 246-47, 257-58.
See above, Chap. 2, sect 5.
For a fuller account, supported by the relevant epigraphical evidence, see A. Brent,
Ignatius ofAntioch and the Second Sophistic, STAC 36 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006),
pp. 230-40.
53
like that which would be passed by its namesake, the citizen body
or ekklesia of a city-state, who would elect an ambassador to
proclaim their homonoia (concord) resolution to another city. To the
Smyrnaeans he says:
it is befitting, in order to honour God, that your church elect a divine
ambassador (theopresbeutes), in order that, travelling as far as Syria, he will
express your common rejoicing with them that they have found peace.21
Similarly, and at the same time, he writes to the Philadelphians:
since ... it has been proclaimed to me that the church in Antioch in Syria
is at peace, it is fitting for you, as a church {ekklesia) of God, to elect a
deacon to conduct God's embassy there in order to rejoice with them when
assembled, and to glorify the name. Blessed is he in Christ Jesus, who shall
be deemed worthy of such a ministry; and you shall be glorified. But if you
wish it, it is not impossible in God's name, even as the nearest churches sent
bishops, and the others presbyters and deacons.22
In his letter to Polycarp, Ignatius introduces the image of 'speedrunner' with the title 'speed-runner of G o d ' {theodromos). As he
says:
It is befitting, Polycarp, most blessed of God, to convene a council
provoking awe at its divinity, and to elect someone whom you (all) consider
beloved and resolute, who will be able to be named 'God's speed-runner'
(fheodromos). Commission him that he should go to Syria, and glorify your
unshaken love.23
Thus Ignatius has been successful in achieving, as a scapegoat
sacrifice, the peace at Antioch that he had failed to achieve whilst
still free. His claim for a single bishop at the apex of a hierarchy had
been the reason for the inner conflict in that church that had led to
his removal for execution at Rome at the mouths of the wild beasts
in the arena.
Since they had opposed the ecclesial order that he had advocated
and had been the cause of his troubles, they had now to accept the
collective guilt for making him a scapegoat Thus Ignatius by his
21
22
23

Ignatius, PMd. 10.1-2.
Ignatius, Pol. 7.2.
54
Ignatius ofAntioch
martyrdom had sapped their will to continue in a state of faction.

And they were being joined through the effects of that scapegoat
sacrifice by the divided churches of Asia Minor that were joining his
procession and accepting his church constitution. Ignatius is assimilating his concept of a 'scapegoat sacrifice' (peripsemd) drawn from
Old Testament typology to the pagan and Hellenistic concept of a
joint sacrifice or sunthusia. His martyr procession, in sending forth
and receiving ecclesial ambassadors, is like a procession that culminates in a sunthusia that concludes a homonoia treaty between rival
city-states. Churches like Smyrna now had a bishop in Polycarp who,
to Ignatius, was more than a presbyter with fellow-presbyters. And
Ignatius could hold up such unshaken unity (or 'unshaken love9) to
reassure any at Antioch who doubted that they had acted rightly in
conforming to his new order.
Ignatius, the letter-writer to many more churches than those
to whom the letters survive, as well as Ignatius the martyr-bishop
proclaiming his martyr sacrifice in a way that to some might seem
morbid, is again reflected in Lucian's satire of Peregrinus Proteus.
Peregrinus commits suicide by throwing himself on his own funeral
pyre at the Olympic Games at Athens, albeit as a cynic philosopher
and no longer as a Christian leader. As a prelude, however, to such
self-martyrdom,
he dispatched letters to all the glorious cities that were Last Wills and
Testaments in their exhortations and the laws they gave - he appointed
a number of ambassadors for this purpose from his companions, giving
them names of 'messengers of his death' (nekmngeloi) and 'speed-runners
to the underworld' (nerterodromoi).2A
Lucian has heard of Ignatius' choreographing of his martyr

procession, and his use of the specially invented term theodromos
instead of simply the usual hemerodromos. Lucian replaces this with
his own invented word: they were not 'God's speed-runners',
whatever that might mean, but rather, in view of his obsession with
choreographing his own death, nerterodromoi or 'speed-runners to the
underworld'. Likewise his specially invented theopresbeutai or 'divine
ambassadors' (instead of simply the normal presbeutai) is replaced
by a term of Lucian's own satirical making. Ignatius' oddly worded
24
Lucian, Peregr. 41.
55
theopresbeutai are not 'ambassadors' (presbeutai) in any sense but only

messengers nekrangeloi or 'messengers of death'.
Ignatius imagined his letter-writing with official couriers to be
a process creating a church unity quite similar to that of creating
imperial unity in which, in concord or homonoia^ those same pagan
city-states were sharing. The officials of an Ignatian {ekklesid) thus
cannot fail to have their imperial counterparts in 'ambassadors'
and 'speed-runners' moving on official business along the imperial
highway, the cursuspublicus, reserved, as noted earlier, for the use of
the army and public officials generally. Ignatius' companions were
allowed to use the cursuspublicus in his case as they were accompanying an official party with a prisoner in chains. They were a ragbag
of widows, orphans and odd community leaders loaded with bribes.
But Ignatius' 'spin' treats his party as a glorious imperial procession
whereby the bishop from the East confronts the empire in the West
on his way to his sacrifice in the arena in Rome:
Grant me nothing more than to be poured out as a drink offering to God,
while the altar is prepared, so that in love, constituting a choir, you may
sing to the Father in Jesus Christ that God has deemed the bishop of Syria
worthy to be found at the setting of the sun, having dispatched him from
the sun's rising.25
Hence the sacrificial procession accompanying the scapegoat sacrifice

that achieves homonoia has become not simply the instrument of
peace at Antioch and concord with a number of Christian communities in Asia Minor it has been transformed into an image of
Christian unity with which to confront the imperial power and to
reverse pagan Roman political values:
The furthest ends of the world profit me nothing nor do the kingdoms of
this age: it is better for me to die for Jesus Christ's sake than to reign over
earth's furthest ends.26
Thus he calls on the churches of Asia Minor with whom he has
been in contact to join his entourage.
25
Ignatius, Rom. 2.2. See also A. Brent, Ignatius o f Antioch and the Imperial Cult',
VChr 49 (1998), pp. 111-38, and Brent, The Imperial Cult, chap. 6, for fuller
discussion.
26
Ignatius, Rom. 6.1.
56
Ignatius ofAntioch
Ignatius is calling on Christian groups that may well have reflected

the disunity at Antioch within their individual churches to unite
together in a common endeavour against an external foe. The
creation of such a common enemy is of course a normal strategy
of leaders wishing to unite disunited and factionalized communities. In 1095 Pope Urban II, with a Western Europe divided over
the powers of Church and state over the appointment of bishops
and clergy, proclaimed the First Crusade to support persecuted
Christians in the Holy Land. A common enemy had been found,
the Moslem infidel, a crusade against which was to unite a divided
Europe around papal authority.
Ignatius was adopting a similar strategy, but the form his strategy
took was the image of the scapegoat martyr that would unite the
divided community in collective guilt for what had transpired, and
make them accept his particular definition of ecclesial unity. The
image confronting the imperial power as an image of unity must
remain the image of a scapegoat sacrifice that was effecting that
unity at Antioch and in the subsequent procession to Rome. But it
was a sacrifice that also had its counterpart in the political rhetoric
of Asia Minor and the Greek East in the Second Sophistic: his
procession was like a pagan sunthusia or joint sacrifice celebrating the
end of rivalry in a homonoia treaty. But in his, Christian, case the fine
print of the treaty was the acceptance of his hierarchy focused on a
single bishop at its apex.
The function of the ecclesial ambassadors, elected for the purpose
of proclaiming that the church of Antioch had found its peace in
the threefold order, was also to prepare the way for his sacrificial
procession to Rome, to which they contributed in other, material
ways:
Concerning those who went before me from Syria to Rome to the glory of
God, I believe that you have information, with whom you should communicate that I am near, for they all are worthy of God and of you, whom it
is fitting for you to relieve in every way.27
They were 'going before' as ambassadors, as we now see, of a

procession on a highway to victorious martyrdom in the arena.
Ignatius, Rom. 10.2.
57
We saw that one function of ambassadors in making peace or

in securing a homonoia treaty was both to proclaim the peace and to
celebrate a joint sacrifice (sunthusia) between the two or more cities
whose rivalry was now at an end. The martyr procession of the
scapegoat had begun as the means to securing peace in the church
of Antioch. But in so far as other churches were now joining it,
they were likewise participating, through their clerical ambassadors
or speed-runners, in that sacrifice and joining the unity that it was
securing. Because those who came were to be viewed as ambassadors, they came not as individuals but as representatives of their
communities that were joining in their action to secure unity. In their
clerical representative, the 'churches, though not physically on the
way'28 in front of him, nevertheless could still be said to accompany
him in their representatives that 'went before me' and, in effect, 'led
me on the way from city to city'. As ambassadors, they proclaimed
to the churches in the cities ahead the merits and significance of the
scapegoat sacrifice in whose procession they were now advancing.
Divisions did not exist in the church of Antioch alone but were
replicated, perhaps to a lesser extent, from Syria throughout Asia
Minor. When Ignatius assumes the possession of a fully developed
threefold hierarchy he is engaging in the kind of political rhetoric
which claims that what is believed should be is what in fact is.
Division and heresy now become one in Ignatius' mind:
Make use only of Christian food; keep away from any strange plant that is
heresy. These are those who also mingle Jesus Christ with themselves in a
show of integrity, like people giving a deadly drug mixed with honeyed wine
which the unsuspecting gladly take with evil pleasure and therewith death.
Be on your guard against such people. You will be able to do this if you are
not puffed up and if you are not separated from Jesus Christ and from the
bishop and the ordinances of the apostles. He who is within the altar is pure
- that is, the person who does anything apart from the bishop, presbytery
and deacons is not pure in conscience.29
Ignatius can thus regard lieresy' as a threat to the unity thus being
achieved, but 'unity' was now being seen solely in terms of a

threefold order with a single bishop at its apex. Of the Ephesian
28
29
Ignatius, Rom. 9.3.

Ignatius, Trail. 6.1-7.2.
58
Ignatius ofAntioch
bishop he says: 'Onesimus himself praises highly your godly orderliness that you live according to the truth and that no heresy dwells
amongst you.'30 Thus good order is now equivalent to Ignatius'
order centred on a single bishop, like Onesimus, and the presence
of heresy is equivalent to the absence of that order.
Thus Ignatius, possessed charismatically by the Spirit that is
advocating a new church order of bishop, presbyters, and deacons, is
constructing social reality rather than reflecting it. He is surrounded
by the aura of martyrdom, and in receipt of the mass response of
guilt on the part of those whose resistance to him had led to his
imprisonment and condemnation by the pagan, Roman power.
As is common in social groups who have produced scapegoats,
the expenditure of guilt and regret has led to a reduction of social
tension and to social peace.
The vehicle for his reconstruction of social reality is firstly the
rhetoric of the Spirit-filled martyr, communicated in his letters by
means of messengers between the churches, including the church
of Antioch, with access to him on the official imperial highway, the
cursus publicus. But secondly he is using theatre to try to persuade
others of his way of viewing his situation the theatre of a
procession of sacrifice in which churches are to be joined together
in unity and concord by their participating representatives. Thus in
his creative imagination creative though perhaps highly disturbed
- he sees in the work of the heretics a threat to his procession and
its choreography as an effective icon of unity.
Those who deliver his letters and bring back news along the cursus
publicus were, as we have seen, Christian officers who were counterparts to imperial ambassadors and speed-runners. But their heretical
opponents were like criminals and pirates setting ambushes along
the imperial highway they were like 'wolves':
For many plausible wolves are taking God's speed-runners captive through
evil pleasures, but they will have no place in your unity ... For all who are
of God and Jesus Christ, these are with the bishop; and all who repent and
come to the unity of the church, these too will be of God ... if anyone
follows a schismatic, he does not inherit the kingdom of God[.]31
30
31
Ignatius, Eph. 6.2.

Ignatius, Phld. 2.2-3.3.

Thus the unity of nascent episcopal order is reinforced by the
procession of the martyr-bishop of Antioch that effects peace
in his home church. Indeed, those who deny that order are like
highwaymen attacking the bishop whose legitimacy is vindicated in
his scapegoat sacrifice.
Ignatius was thus a strange and enigmatic figure, spurned initially
but then accepted in his absence with regret and remorse. He
claimed personal, charismatic gifts, which would make a pagan like
Lucian respond with sceptical derision but amongst believers was
capable of eliciting awe quite apart from the guilt with which such
awe was interlaced in his special case. Moreover the playing and
choreographing of the scapegoat-victim aspect of his martyrdom
for all it was worth seems to us bizarre. Such behaviour, we might
think, could make little further headway with his project beyond
what we might call today 'a few headlines' about a highly idiosyncratic individual.
In order to commend his views in a form they found convincing, he
needed to relate his proposals to his contemporaries within a contemporary pagan discourse that they found persuasive. And in this respect
Ignatius proved a master of missionary persuasion in his contemporary
pagan environment Such, after all, is the general method of spin-doctors
in creating any movement for political change.
Let us consider a modern example from our twenty-first-century
political discourse. The rhetorical arguments for social change
proceed on the basis of concepts of equality and fairness that
would in the main reject the denigration, at least wholesale, of
the unemployed and those receiving welfare benefits and their
humiliation. Thus if one is to reduce or reallocate welfare benefits
it cannot be done on such denigratory grounds if such a proposal is
to win general political acceptance. Rather, it must be spun in terms
of fairness to the individual who is unemployed or to the welfare
beneficiaries themselves. Thus, in the contemporary discourse of
fairness and equality, benefits are cut off in order to help the
individual *break out of the culture of dependency'.
Counselling is to be provided into programmes of re-education
^helping' the individual to develop their talents in socially useful ways
that are also to their benefit. Nor indeed is it possible to speak of 'all
spin' as opposed to 'no substance' in such an argument, unless one
believes that all moral arguments or all statements about the world
59
60
Ignatius ofAntioch
are completely socially relative. I can be right though my lightness

goes unacknowledged by the majority, I am sure. But my point is
that if I am to be acknowledged to be right by my contemporaries,
it is because I share persuasive patterns of arguments and moral and
social categories with the majority in terms of which I can secure
acceptance of particular changes I am advocating.
Ignatius therefore needed to do what I shall argue that in fact
he did regarding his martyr procession as a visually choreographed
argument for unity and episcopal church government. He needed
to cast his entourage and the church order it represented in terms
of contemporary political categories, themes, and arguments from
the wider Hellenistic pagan culture of urban Syria and Asia Minor
which forms the historical backcloth to the Ignatian events.
We shall now see how Ignatius engaged with contemporary pagan
culture in a reconstruction of ecclesial order that represented a
process of radical secularization.
3. Ignatius and the Rhetoric of the Second Sophistic
The fourth and fifth centuries before Christ witnessed at Athens a
famous experiment in social organization and government whose
name, 'democracy', we have inherited, however different modern
democracies may be to the Athenian model. As a basic though
surely inadequate description, the Athenian political philosophy was
that mankind is a naturally social animal, and therefore to be truly
free one needed to participate in a society that was natural. Such a
society, like a natural organism, would be one in which the various
parts and organs worked together in a harmony beneficial to the
whole, and in which one organ was sovereign because it produced
the harmony beneficial to the whole.
Every person who was truly free would participate in the citizen
body, the ekklesia or 'assembly' that had a legislative function. There
were no representatives such as MPs to pass laws on behalf of
the citizen body: every free citizen was to participate directly in
the democracy. Furthermore, the ekklesia would appoint military
commanders, elect ambassadors, and ratify treaties. There were
other organs of the government in addition to the ekklesia. There
was a deliberative body or council (boule) elected or appointed by
various means depending on the particular city. There were also
61
panels of judges for judicial proceedings also appointed by a variety

of means depending upon the particular city.
Essentially, therefore, the city-state had to be small, with a limited
population, in order to make its version of direct and participatory
democracy work. Every free (male) person had to be able to participate
in legislation, and to be able to travel to and gather together in the market
place {agora) in the city centre for the ideal to function. Furthermore,
the city was to be an educative community, since the free citizen would
need to learn the art of speaking in order to persuade other, equally
free citizens of a proposed law: one group in a 'democracy* could not
impose its will upon another by force, otherwise it would cease to be
a 'democracy* and become an 'oligarch/ or the rule of the few. But
not only the art of argument and of persuasion, but other skills and
talents were to develop as the result of such freedom. Such talents were
celebrated and enjoyed at literary and dramatic festivals, musical contests
and athletic games. Mankind, who was naturally social, should also be
naturally free both to legislate and to flourish physically and artistically,
and in philosophical discussion.
For the requirement of natural freedom for a person who was
naturally social the city-state constituted as an ekklesia had to be
autonomous: such natural freedom would be destroyed if the social
organization in which it sought expression was under external
coercion from a foreign or alien power. This ideal, however, was
to be shattered in the course of historical events. An alliance of
autonomous city-states, freely entered into, was initially successful
against the Persians in 493 and 481 BC. But final success eluded it
when Athens with her allied city-states were defeated by Sparta and
her allies (404 BC) in a war that ended the possibility of those states
together resisting imperial powers. Later the Macedonian empire of
Alexander the Great engulfed the city-states, and thus the ideal was
lost Finally, the Hellenistic kingdoms that were heirs to Alexander's
empire fell to Rome.
At the close of the first century and the beginning of the second,
the ideal of the city-state underwent a revival in the Hellenistic citystates of Asia Minor. At first sight this revival may seem curious in
view of the fact that the institutions of the city-states had powers
that were little more than those of 'town councils' under the Roman
Empire, and thus were hardly the autonomous legislative bodies
conducted by free human beings, as the Athenian ideal had originally
62
Ignatius ofAntioch
envisaged them. How could the ideal in its original form become a
reality as opposed to no more than a passing dream?
The ideal was to survive in a different form and with a different
function. It could no longer be a proposal for a different kind of
social and political organization that would be an alternative to
living within a large, imperial structure. But it could now function
as a means of preserving at a social-psychological level a feeling
of cultural identity against the imperial power, an inner, psychological space as it were within which cultural identity, autonomy and
freedom could be experienced. 'Big Brother', so to speak, could not
finally dominate totally the mind and the will by a psychological
conversion experience that changed all hostility to his domination
into a final joyful consent, as ultimately happened to Winston Smith
and Julia in Orwell's novel 1984.
Simon Price has traced the outline of such a social-psychological process specifically in terms of the imperial cult.32 It is
a mistake to think that the demand for emperor worship was a
one-sided instrument developed by the Roman imperial power to
keep a society in subjection: it was not like Orwell's totalitarian
state, in which outward conformity was not enough and the dictatorship needed also to dominate totally the mind of the subject.
The demand for emperor worship came initially from the Eastern
city-states themselves in both Asia Minor and the Mediterranean,
where Hellenistic rulers had also been worshipped. The request for
worship to be rendered to Augustus was initially heard with considerable reluctance and only gradually took hold on the Principate
from Augustus' time to that of Domitian.
Price's thesis is that the imperial cult, paradoxically, had the effect
of protecting and insulating Hellenistic cultural identity from the
effects of imperial domination: it preserved the citizens' view of
the institutions of their city-states as autonomous. By divinizing
the imperial power as an external force, it placed it in a different
transcendental and ontological category from that of 'normal'
political institutions. Thus the institution of the cult of emperor
worship performed an important socio-political function: it enabled
32
S. R. Price, Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984); cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp.
259-63.
63
an external power that was inconsistent with a free constitution

to remain unintegrated with that constitution. Thus the internal
institutions of the city-state, founded on the assumption that they
were free and autonomous, could continue to be considered as such
notwithstanding the incursion of an external, imperial force upon
them. Imperial laws could be obeyed and received within a constitutional structure that could not thereby be changed by them: they
were divine, so the constitutional structure remained human.
Thus 'alienation' or the psycho-sociological experience of group
powerlessness and antagonism to a dominant power could be
overcome through a psycho-sociological process of this kind. The
Second Sophistic, in reviving the ideal of the city-state in Athens at
its prime, was engaged in a similar exercise. Sophists were engaged
in travelling from city to city, often as ambassadors, exhorting
citizens to unite together in a common, Hellenic unity expounding
the Hellenic ideal, and pro-actively to promote their common civilization, which was quite distinct from that of Rome.
Ambassadors were elected to emphasize that message, such as
Scopelian of Klazomenae (AD 80-115), high priest of the imperial
cult of Asia, and ambassador to Rome in Domitian's time. He also
acted as ambassador for Smyrna to the emperor Trajan around the
traditional date of Ignatius' death (AD 115). As we have seen, ambassadors were elected in order to conclude homonoia treaties between
cities that had been rivals and whose rivalry had disturbed the
perceived Hellenic order. An orator like Dio Chrysostom (AD 40120) delivered his discourse on concord to the city of Borysthenes
(AD 95), in which he compared the natural homonoia of a city to the
divine cosmos: the object of social life was 'to fit together the human
and the divine'.33 As an example of homonoia^ Dio cites the cosmic
concord of the constellations of stars and planets. Gods do not
dominate and control one another by force and power. Rather their
orderliness is a rational order, freely entered into, of the 'chorus' or
'choir'.34
Thus Ignatius in his writing activity and in his designation
of members that have joined his procession as 'divine ambassadors' and 'speed-runners' proclaiming a message of 'peace' and
33
34
EHo C h r y s o s t o m , Or. 36.31; cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 2 4 9 - 5 2 .
Dio Chrysostom, Or. 36.22.
64
Ignatius ofAntioch
'homonoid within and between church ekklesiai is very much paralleling contemporary pagan political structures and enterprise in the
Hellenistic Asia Minor of the Second Sophistic. He has adapted this
pagan political project to his Christian ends. His ekklesiay like Dio's,
is to gather in homonoia like a choros or 'choir'. To the Ephesians, as
we have seen, he had spoken of 'running in concord {homonoidf
with their bishop: 'Each of you join the chorus in order that, with
voices in concord {homonoia) ... you might sing with one voice.'35 To
the Romans also he says, as they approach his martyr sacrifice in the
arena, that they are 'becoming a chorus in love, you may sing to the
Father in Jesus Christ'.36
Furthermore, regarding Dio's claim that a city whose citizen
assembly (ekklesia) is in concord unites the human and the divine,
we note that Ignatius claims of the Christian ekklesia, when duly
constituted in concord with a bishop, realizes a union of the human
and the divine:
Be subject to the bishop and to each other, as Jesus Christ to the Father and
the apostles to Christ and to the Father, in order that there might be a unity
in bothfleshand Spirit37
This idea of a developing unity of Hellenistic culture to be fostered
in this way proved to be a dynamic one as the second century
proceeded towards the third. Dio and Skopelian were to be followed
by Aelius Aristides (AD 117-87) and these in turn were followed
in the course of the third century by biographers of philosophers
and sophists such as Philostratus (c. AD 170-213) and Diogenes
Laertius (early third century). These writers were to claim that the
Greek city-states of Asia Minor formed a common Hellenic culture,
characterized by its contemporary mystery religions, its common
history, and its autonomous political institutions which constituted
the city-state. That culture was a pure, uncontaminated Greek
culture, as Diogenes Laertius claimed in his Lives [or Successions] of
35
36
37
Ignatius, Epb. 4.2; 19.2.

Ignatius, Rom. 2.2, cf. n. 25 above and related text
65
the Philosophers, which excluded Lucretius and Seneca because they

wrote in Latin.38
It is important to stress that the character of this historical process
was not one of asserting Hellenic political independence in a revolutionary way. Rather it was the development of a separate cultural
identity to which Rome as the imperial power was not adverse; it
remained part of the imperial structure without feeling alienated
from it. In this respect, the function of the movement known as the
Second Sophistic was not unlike the function of the imperial cult in
enabling Greek city-states to incorporate subjection to empire into
its system by divinizing and making transcendent external power so
as to preserve their internal constitutional structures.
If the Second Sophistic had been a movement of political
resistance, it could not have contained within itself the paradox
of a homonoia treaty between Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamon
attempting to settle a dispute over which one of them had greatest
pre-eminence in their possession of a temple of the imperial cult.
Clearly their assertion that as free cities they were not coerced or
constrained by force was not belied for them by emperor worship
as an expression of imperial domination. Furthermore, Domitian
and Hadrian were both to enter into the discourse of homonoia and
autonomy rather than domination and pax. From Domitian's reign
we have series of coins with homonoia inscriptions, suggesting that
homonoia could be part of and not opposed to the imperial ideal. And
Hadrian too, as well as his successors including Marcus Aurelius, was
to enter political dialogue with Hellenism using such a discourse.
The rhetoric of the Second Sophistic did not exist purely in the
written and spoken words of its orators, but found embodiment in
institutions both political and religious that further reinforced and
reflected its ideal of cultural unity. The mystery cults themselves, so
prominent in the life of the cities as Aelius Aristides shows, were to
play their role in cementing unity between the city-states.39
Autonomous and independent individual city-states could be united
into a federation called a koinon. The Greek word koinos means literally
lield in common' or 'shared' and thus koinon meant a common council
38
39
A. Brent, 'Diogenes Laertius and the Apostolic Succession', JEH 44 (1993), pp.
367-89.
Aelius Aristides, Or. 22.8-10; cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 2 3 1 - 3 3 .
66
Ignatius ofAntioch
in which all had an equal share of power in fulfilment of the ideal of

homonoia. The koinon of Asia was centred on Ephesus, where there was a
temple of the imperial cult It was in the council chamber of the koinon
that Aristides was to deliver his speech 'On Homonoia', on 3 January AD
167. Ignatius too finds such a principle of political unity of relevance to
his quest to produce a common Christian identity.
Ignatius frequently uses the adjective koinos in order to express the
unity that he claims to exist but that in reality he is trying to create
between Christian groups within Asia Minor. In seeking to constitute
such groups as Christian ekklesiai, he appeals to pagan concepts of
community when he uses this adjective. He refers frequently to
the 'common' or 'shared name' or 'shared hope', particularly in
connection with his martyr-sacrifice, with which he thus unites
them.40 But more significantly for the political context of this term,
he speaks of the bishop, following a preface in which homonoia
figures, as 'having acquired his ministry as a ministry connected with
our Common Association' (koinon).41 It is important for individual
Christian communities, once duly constituted as ekk/esiai, to have the
ministry of the bishop if they are to become part of a wider unity.
A koinon of a collection of Greek city-states cannot be understood in post-Enlightenment terms, as a secular institution. The
koinon of Ephesus was a religious institution as well as an organ
promoting Hellenic unity: political unity therefore had an inseparably religious base. That base was in the mystery religions, whose
processions formed a considerable part of the festal life of those
cities, and which were becoming associated, as we shall observe in
the next chapter, with the imperial cult: there were also specifically
imperial mysteries.42 Such cults, moreover, were themselves forming
associations that were international. When Hadrian was initiated
into the Dionysiac cult, a 'synod' or 'cult' association in Ancyra in
Asia Minor issued the following decree:
Decree of the sacred athletic cult association (sunodos) of Hadrian,fromthose
40
41
42
Ignatius, Eph. 1.2; 21.2; Phld. 5.2; 11.2.

T h e main inscription is found in IGRR IV.353; for commentaries o n this see H . W.
Pleket, 'An Aspect o f the Imperial Cult: Imperial Mysteries', HThR 58 (1965), pp.
331-47, Brent, 'Ignatius o f Antioch and the Imperial Cult* and Ignatius and the Second
Sophistic, pp. 15657.
67
whofromthe whole world (pikoumene) are in Dionysus' company and that of

the emperor, Trajan, Hadrian, Caesar, Augustus, the new Dionysus [.]43
Clearly the cult of Dionysus was making a claim that it was international that it extended throughout 'the whole world' {pikoumeni).
Furthermore, Hadrian was to create a Panhellenic Council for
all Greeks. We have an important witness to this event in a decree
sent from Thyateira to Athens (after AD 132) thanking Hadrian for
obtaining the consent of the Senate to found this Council as one of
the
(13) benefactions ... from the greatest emperor because privately and
publicly he has been the benefactor of the whole of Greece (14) the king
who was the assembler from amongst the Greeks of that council [the
Panhellenion] to fulfil an ambition shared by all (15) to honour the most
resplendent city of the Athenians, that is, the Benefactoress (16) who gives
the fruit of the mysteries to all equallyf.]44
Here we see gathered, by the authority of the emperor Hadrian, and

with the consent of the Senate, the Panhellenion or council, drawn
from representatives of the Greek city-states centred on the worship
of Zeus Panhellenios, at the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens.
In completing this task at Athens, Hadrian assumed the office of
the eponymous archon of the Olympic games themselves, in which
capacity, with sacerdotal functions, he celebrated the Dionysiac
rites in connection with the founding of the Panhellenic Council
for which a temple was built. The basis of Hellenic unity was a
metaphysical one: the unity was unity in celebrating Athens, 'who
gives the fruit of the mysteries to all equally'.45 Thus the aims of
Hellenic unity on the basis of a common, Hellenic identity was to be
achieved through a common cult in which common mysteries were
celebrated. Cults 'from the whole world' would become a 'common
association'.
43
44
45
SEG VI.58.1-6; VI.59.1-5; see also Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 1 4 1 42.
SEGXINT1.163.1$-17. See also C P.Jones, A Decree of Thyatira in Lydia', Chiron
29 (1999), pp. 1-21, with which cf. A. J. S. Spawforth, The Panhellenion Again',
Chiron 29 (1999), pp. 339-52.
Cassius D i o (Xiphilinus) L X B L 1 6 . 1 - 2 . See also Pausanias 1.18.9: 'Hadrian erected
for the Athenians, in addition to other buildings, a temple of Hera and of Zeus
Panhellenios.'
68
Ignatius ofAntioch
Ignatius, as we have argued, is, through the project of his

martyr procession, seeking to associate the process of a developing
Hellenic unity and identity with Christian unity and identity. His
'divine ambassadors' and 'divine speed-runners' are promoting
Christian unity by promoting a common, Christian cult clearly structured in terms of his hierarchy with a single bishop at its apex. Thus
he is constructing his model of ecclesial unity from that used by his
pagan contemporaries of the ideal of Hellenic unity in the Second
Sophistic.
The 'cult association' or sunodos of Dionysus, from which the word
for a meeting of an ecclesiastical council, namely 'synod', was to be
derived, was from 'the whole world or oikoumene\ The Panhellenion,
celebrated with rites in honour of Zeus, had the emperor Hadrian as
its convener, as 'the one who convenes' {ho sunagon). This term was
in fact a technical term used originally of archons at Athens who had
the right to summon the citizen body (ekk/esia),46 but extended to
apply to the person who had the right to summon a cult-association
sunodosf1 Ignatius does not use this particular term for the bishop,
but he will insist that he, in the Christian ekk/esia, is the person
who, in conjunction with the presbyters and deacons, summons the
church together. Having described the threefold order of bishop,
presbyters and deacons he claims: Without these a church (ekk/esid)
is not summoned.'48
As Ignatius says to the Smyrnaeans:
All of your should follow Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ follows the Father;
and follow the presbytery as you would the apostles. Respect the deacons as
the commandment of Jesus Christ. Let no one do any of those things that
are connected with the ekk/esia apart from the bishop. Let that eucharist
be considered valid that occurs under the bishop or die one to whom he
entrusts it... It is not permitted to baptize or to hold a love feast without
the bishop. Whatever he approves is acceptable to God so that everything
should be secure and valid.49
46
47
48
49
Lysias, Eratos. 124.43.

See Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 1 9 1 - 9 3 for other examples and further
justification o f this claim.
Ignatius, Magi. 10.3, where I translate ekkksia ouk kakitai as 'an ekk/esia is not
summoned' in place of the usual, rather clumsy 'a church is not named as such'. Such
a translation reads too much English idiomatic sense into the Greek.
Ignatius, Smyrn. 8.1-2.
69
But this applies to each individual church or ekklesia: as yet there

is no koinon composed of churches throughout 'the whole world'
(oikoumene).
Yet as we have seen, in parallel with his dynamically developing,

secular, pagan political context, he himself is developing the ideal:
the churches that he addresses share a common {koinos) name and if
they have an episcopally centred ministry, then they have a 'ministry
connection to our common association (koinori)\ even though such
a Christian koinon did not yet exist in concrete form.
Ignatius nevertheless envisages his individual churches united in a
'common name' and also a 'common ministry', with both homonoia
uniting them internally and also externally between churches who share
that name and ministry as 'extending throughout the world'. This English
phrase is expressed by one word in Greek, katho/ikos, from which our
word 'catholic' is derived. As he also said to the Smyrnaeans:
Wherever the bishop may appear, there let the congregation be, even
as wherever Jesus Christ may be there is the Catholic Church {katholike
ekklesia).50
As we shall see later, if the letters of the middle recension are
genuine, Ignatius is using here for the first time the expression
'catholic church'. Our argument has been that this expression has
been developed by an Ignatius who breathes the air of the pagan
political culture of his own time, which has an impetus to create
a collective and international identity for Hellenistic city-states
endevouring to define their cultural ideal over against the imperial
power. Ignatius' imperative for Christian unity mirrors the political
imperatives of his pagan contemporaries.
We have already mentioned more than once the role of pagan
religion in asserting and celebrating the universal definition of
Hellenic identity. The Panhellenion involved a temple to Zeus
Panhellenios and the celebration of rites in his honour, over which
the emperor Hadrian presided. But we have also noted Hadrian's
similar association with mystery cults such as those of Dionysus,
and of an international association of participants in those rites.
These too expressed the life of the city-state, since their magnificent
processions would be witnessed as a great cultural event by all
50
Ignatius, Smyrn. 8.1-2.
70
Ignatius ofAntioch
citizens immediately prior to their entrance into the shrine where the
secret rites of the initiation were performed.
Ignatius travelled in chains to Rome across Asia Minor proclaiming
his solution to the factional conflict at Antioch. Those factions, as
his letter to the Philadelphians has shown us, had their counterparts
in the cities to whom he addressed his letters. Unity required a
common cult that was international, that was 'catholic' that was
spread 'throughout the whole {katholikosf world. But how specifically could his Christian cult, organized on the model of those
mystery cults that contributed to a common, Hellenistic cultural
identity, now be understood and interpreted in a way that made it
too a means of celebrating and reinforcing Christian unity?
It is to that question that we now turn.
Martyr Procession and

Eucharist: The Christian
Mysteries
Ignatius describes the deacons as 'deacons of the mysteries of Jesus

Christ'. Furthermore, he speaks of the Christian Eucharist as a
'mystery rite' contrasting it with the rites of 'those who celebrate
the Sabbath' - as necessarily taking place on Sunday, 'the Lord's day'.
Thus he says to the Magnesians:
If those who conduct their affairs concerned with old practices come to a
new hope, no longer Sabbatizing but living according to the Lord's day in
which our life rose through him and through his death, which some deny,
then it is through a mystery rite we came to believef.]1
It was through a mystery rite necessarily on a Sunday, when the

day can act as one of the props of the mystery play - in which the
believer dies and rises in mystical identification with the dying and
rising Lord. Sunday is an allegory of the resurrection of the Lord,
who rises as the sun, and so that day gives expression to the mystery
that transforms the believer. Furthermore, parts of the Christian
mysteries not disclosed to the outsider are recounted thus:
1
Ignatius, Magn. 9.1. For those who 'sabbatize' as followers of a Jewish mystery rite in
which the Sabbath is allegorized as a divine being, see A. Brent, Ignatius ofAntioch and
the Second Sophistic, STAC 36 (Tubingen: Mohf Siebeck, 2006), pp. 202-06.
71
72
Ignatius ofAntioch
The virginity of Mary and her giving birth escaped the notice of the ruler
of this age; so did the death of the Lord - three mysteries of crying which
were accomplished in the silence of God.2
Ignatius, moreover, considers those who join his procession from
Ephesus as 'initiates' in a mystery cult: *You are on the passing of
the ways for those slaughtered to attain God, fellow-initiates with
Paul who has been sanctified, who has been martyred/3 As in a
mystery cult, by imitating in the drama the actions of the god or
goddess, one experiences union with him or her. Ignatius believes
that his martyr procession also has the character of a mystery play
in which he is re-enacting Christ's suffering and thereby achieving
union with God. As he says to the Romans:
That is the one I seek who died on our behalf; that is the one I desire who
rose again for us. But pains of birth have come upon me. Grant this to me,
brothers: hinder me not from coming to life, do not wish that I die; do not
allow me to die, do not grant me as a favour to the world when I wish to
be of God, nor deceive me with matter. Permit me to grasp the pure light;
when I arrive there I will be truly human. Allow me to be an imitator of
the suffering of my God.4
Here we have all the ingredients of one involved in a drama of

a mystery cult, where by imitating Christ's suffering he becomes
absorbed into the divine nature through death and resurrection,
which is rebirth. Ecstasy is also involved in the process, the grasping
of the 'pure light'.
But we should note that Ignatius believes that an ekklesia is
already a mystery cult with a mystery drama, as in the case of the
Ephesians just mentioned. The Ephesians, when they come to his
procession, are already 'imitators of God',5 as are the Trallians
and Philadelphians.6 Individual churches are already mystery cults
themselves, and he uses the word sunodoi of them, which, as we
have already seen, has such a meaning: 'You are all cult associa-
2
3
4
5
6
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 19.1.
Ignatius, Eph. 12.2.
Ignatius, Rom. 6.3.
Ignatius, Eph. 1.1 and 10.3.
Ignatius, Troll. 1.2 and Phld. 6.3.
Martyr Procession and Eucharist: The Christian Mysteries
73
tions (sunodoi)\ he says to those who join his entourage.7 Individual

ekklesiai are sunodoi as they join his entourage which expresses their
coming together in an international association spread through the
whole world as the 'catholic church'.
Since, then, Ignatius' language in choreographing his martyr
procession is clearly in the context of the mystery cults, let us now
explore in greater detail some examples of those cults and their
ceremonial in order to compare these with Ignatius' concept of the
threefold order. We need to keep in view the role that the structure
of those cults plays in both pagan and Christian concepts of social
and political unity as well as of personal immortality.
1. Pagan Cult Leaders and Cult Ceremonial
Lucian, as we have said, wrote the story of Peregrinus Proteus as
a satire of a charlatan. Peregrinus died as a cynic philosopher by
throwing himself on his own funeral pyre at Athens at the Olympic
games in AD 165 but was for a time a Christian leader, who was
imprisoned. As I have mentioned already, Lucian appears to bestow
distinct Ignatian features on this figure, and therefore appears to
have had some experience of the activity of Ignatius to which his
letters bear witness.8
Thus it is relevant to our theme to record how Lucian regarded
the position and character of Ignatius of Antioch. Peregrinus,
having been described as associating with 'priests and scribes' of
the Christians in Palestine and learning their wisdom, then became
a Christian leader. He was 'Prophet, thiasarches (cult leader), and
synagogeus (summoner of their assembly) all at the same time'.9
Lucian is not using sunagogeus in connection with a Jewish
synagogue but rather with the official of both ekklesia and cult that
8
9
Ignatius, Eph. 9.2. For reasons why the normal translation of sunodoi as 'travelling
companions' or 'fellow-pilgrims' is unsatisfactory, see Brent, Ignatius and the Second
Sophistic, pp. 140-41. See also above, Chap. 3 n. 47 and related text
See above, Chap. 3 n. 24 and related text
Lucian, Peregr., 11. Synagogeus \s often mistranslated as leader of their synagogue' but
there is no indication that Lucian knows of such an institution regarding Peregrinus
and the Christians. Their original leaders in Palestine were for him 'priests and
scribes'.
74
Ignatius ofAntioch
we have already come across, namely, the figure who, like Ignatius'
bishop, has the authority to summon the citizen or cult assembly.
In using the tide thiasarches or cult leader Lucian is undoubtedly
employing a pagan word used also in connection with the Dionysiac
mysteries. It consists of two words that have been combined, namely
thiasosy which is the word for those assembled as a mystery cult for
a mystery procession, and arches, which simply means 'the one who
leads'. Thus Peregrinus as a Christian leader is described, not as
a bishop, but as one who leads a cultic procession, selecting the
actors for its mystery play and physically 'standing out' at the head
of their procession. He is very much like the figure of Aeschines,
as Demosthenes, the classical Greek orator, had portrayed and
satirized his rival at Athens in the fourth century BC:
during the day, leading your fine cult processions {thiasoi) through the
streets, garlanded with fennel and white poplar, and squeezing forth fatcheeked snakes, and waving them above your head, and shouting and
dancing the Hyes Attes! Attes Hyesl, addressed by old women as procession
leader (exarchos) and guide, ivy-bearer and fan-bearer and the like[.]10
Aeschines is described by technical terms such as exarchos or

procession leader and a bearer of sacred objects.
Another Demosthenes, whom we learn about from an inscription
and not a literary text, has left us with a further example of what
Lucian meant by describing Ignatius as a procession leader or
thiasarches. On 5 July AD 125 the city council of Oinoanda in Lycia
recorded in a decree the benefaction of C. Iulius Demosthenes, who
had founded a music festival and competition associated with the
imperial cult. The inscription with the decree also records the letter
of approval by the emperor Hadrian.11
Demosthenes, in providing for a procession, was to provide first
a golden crown or garland wreath embossed with small images
that were portraits of the dead and deified emperor Trajan, and
of Apollo, the ancestral god and Prokathegetes or leader' of the
city. The crown was to be worn by the agonothete, another name
for the procession leader. Apollo, the ancestral leader of the city,
10
11
Demosthenes, Or. 18, Cor. 313 (260).

i'6'XXXVIII.1462. For the full text and discussion, see Brent, Ignatius and the Second
Sophistic, pp. 157-59,230-31.
75
is also leader of the cult in which he is worshipped, but the god

cannot literally lead his city or procession by his physical presence.
However, the image of the god in the crown can, as it were, make
the god sacramentally present in the priest who wears it, leading the
procession on the god's behalf.12
The agonothete at the beginning of the year was to make a ceremonial
entrance, and was to perform pious rituals for the emperor and for
the gods of the city-state on the emperor's birthday. The other
magistrates were to join him in the procession. He was to take the
front seat at the meetings of the council and the assembly (e/kkfesia),
physically pre-eminent in his headdress and purple robes. In the
procession, portable images of the dead and deified imperial family
are carried by appointed persons called sebastophoroi or 'bearers of
images of the August?. The sebastophoroi 2&so carry images of Apollo
and of a silver altar. In other inscriptions we meet the special and
technical term for those who bear an image of a god, theophoros, as
opposed to sebastophoros here. Ignatius calls himself Theophoros' at
the beginning of all of his letters, the significance of which we shall
consider in more detail later.
We note that this procession willed to his city by Demosthenes
is in no sense a private benefaction enjoyed by a group of private
persons. His musical contest involves a religious procession with
acts of religious ceremony and worship that involve the total social
and political life of the community: the magistrates join with the
agonothete, who sits pre-eminently in their circle. Furthermore, we
note how imperial images are being associated with those of the
traditional deities that represent the life of their city: as we have
said already, the Second Sophistic was engaged in accepting imperial
power as transcendental and divine so as to preserve its distinct
cultural identity. The emperor's divinity was associated with those
of the traditional gods but did not replace them nor obscure their
role.
Furthermore, other villages forming a confederation with the citystate would be included in the festival, in that they would contribute
to it so that they became sunthutai or 'joint sacrificers' in a rite that
became a sunthusia or 'joint sacrifice'. The procession therefore
affirmed the unity of the villages in a confederation centred on the
12
Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic^ chap. 3, sect A.
76
Ignatius ofAntioch
city-state (Oinoanda), as it affirmed through the introduction of the

imperial images the unity of the city-state within the imperial whole,
both in miniature on the golden crown of the agonothete and in the
portable images of the image-bearers {sebastophorot) of the Augusti.
We find mention of priests who are bearers of portable images
of gods and of sacred objects in Apuleius' description of the
procession celebrating the Isis mysteries:
The foremost high priests of the cult... carried before them the distinctive
attributes of the most powerful gods. The first held out a brightly shining
lamp ... the second ... carried with both hands an altar ... the third holding
aloft a palm branch made of fine gold leaves and a wand like Mercury's. The
fourth showed a symbol of justice [.]13
Here we find in the Isis mysteries high priests bearing an altar as well
as other holy objects associated with the gods, who were thus the
counterpart of the sebastophorot in Demosthenes' procession, who
bore a portable silver altar in addition to those of the gods of the
city and of the imperial cult. They were 'bearers of holy things'.
Demosthenes' procession leader {agonothete) also bore or wore
in his garland-crown 'embossed faces' (prosopa ektupd), which were
divine images of Apollo and of Trajan. Sometimes such images are
called tupoi We have another reference to crowns or garland wreaths
with tupoi insetted and worn by the leader of a procession, this time
in a Latin literary document rather than a Greek epigraph.
Suetonius records for us the celebration of the Capitoline games
over which Domitian presided (AD 82) and who was therefore its
procession leader. This celebration informs us of important features
of the imperial cult through its iconography: it was here, Suetonius
maintains, that Domitian was hailed by the crowd as lord and god
{dominus et deus)\ He then describes the crowns worn by the college
of priests, the Flaviales, and their headgear, as well as that of
Domitian as agonothete:
Domitian ... presided at the contest in half-boots clothed in a Grecian
toga of purple, sporting on his head a golden crown with an image of
Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, assisted by a priest of Jupiter and the college
13
Apuleius, if*/. 11.10.
11
of the Flaviales similarly dressed, except that his image was also on their
crowns.14
Domitian wore a crown like those of the other priests, with 'an
image {tuposf of the three divinities of the Capitoline triad, Jupiter,
Juno, and Minerva.
Thus those divinities could be said to be present in the procession,
represented by the priests who bore their images and who therefore
made those divinities to be present. But they also wore the image
of Domitian, whose divinity too they represented. Accordingly
Domitian himself had no image of himself in his crown: he needed
none to make himself present. And this is no isolated feature of the
imperial ceremonial: in the case of Demetrius' too images of deified
emperors were subdy introduced and integrated with the cult of
traditional deities, producing a political theology of imperial unity.
Thus we see how images or tupoi can be either carried or worn
as an icon of divinity being made present in the office of a pagan
priest in a procession. We find tupos also being used in Josephus
when he describes the Old Testament scene where Rachel conceals
the teraphim or "images {tupoi)9 of the gods she had brought with
her when she left her father to marry Jacob.15 Pagan writers too
call portable images tupoi when they are used for such individual
purposes as founding a cult or as a charm to ward off evil spirits.16
Finally we should mention the way in which divine images that
are called tupoi appear on coins and may be particularly related to the
office of ambassador where a treaty between two cities is concluded
with a sunthusia or "joint sacrifice'. Caracalla's letter to Ephesus (AD
200-05) states to that city that 'your ancestral goddess Artemis
heads your embassy'. What he meant by those words clearly was that
the image of Artemis, goddess of Ephesus, headed her embassy
because the ambassadors leading her procession bore her image.
At Alexandria also, the pagans, in the course of a dispute with
their Jewish neighbours, carried the bust of Serapis into the tribunal
when their case was heard before Trajan. The Acts of the pagan
martyrs describes such ambassadors as follows: 'each were carrying
in the procession their own gods'. It is a problem to know what
14
15
16
Suetonius, Dom. 4.4.

Gen. 31.19; c Josephus, Antiquit 1.310-11 (19.8) and 322 (19.10).
Philostratus, VA V.20; cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 207-08.
78
Ignatius ofAntioch
exactly the Jews for their part were carrying in parallel to the pagan
image of Serapis.
Ambassadors would clearly also have been active in the negotiations for treaties such as a homonoia treaty endingrivalrybetween two
or three city-states. It has been suggested that the form in which the
gods of the city were carried in such a procession would have been as
images or tupoi on coins borne in procession. We have a whole series
of such coins from various city-states from the first to the fourth
century celebrating a homonoia treaty between city-states in which the
tutelary deity of each of the cities personifies the city itself as they
are shown greeting one another in a gesture of reconciliation. For
example, we have coins bearing the names of Side and Alexandria
in which Athena, goddess of Side, is represented offering her right
hand to Isis of Alexandria over a small round altar with a flame.17
The altar arguably represents the joint sacrifice or sunthusia. The coin
is inscribed with the word Homonoia. The goddesses in question are
clearly corporate representations of the cities themselves, whose
'whole multitude', as it were, in the persons of their divinities, are
being collectively reconciled.
To use later Christian terminology, there is a kind of sacramental
character to the use and manipulation of divine images both in the
coinage and in the functions of the processional garland-crowns. A
sacrament is a symbol that 'symbolizes what it effects, and effects
what it symbolizes'. The bearing of coins with the respective deities
of the two cities by ambassadors over an altar celebrating their
sunthusia represents symbolically, on the one hand, the homonoia treaty
reconciling the two cities. But in their joining in the procession, and
experiencing and responding to its divine imagery, they are in fact
further uniting together in mind and heart. The same can be said
when the bearers of divine images, the sebastophoroi and the theophoroi,
carry images of the ancestral gods and of the deified imperial family
in whose combination the unity of the 'autonomous' city-states
within the imperial whole is both being symbolized, but is also being
further cemented and effected.
Let us now see where this section has taken us. We began with our
claim that Ignatius was, on his own admission, a man obsessed with
his quest for church unity. His experience in his factionalized native
17
Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 257-58.
79
Antioch had convinced him of his mission to introduce a church

order founded upon a single bishop as the source of unity or concord
{homonoid) between other authoritative bodies within the developing
ecclesial constitution, namely the presbyterate and diaconate and
also the laity of the community itself, which constituted with these
the Christian ekklesia. Such divisions would have their counterparts
too, but perhaps not the same ferocity, in the Christian communities
of Asia Minor. His procession was intended on the basis of appeal
to his scapegoat-sacrifice to achieve similar concord {homonoid) both
within and between the Christian communities that he either visited
or who visited him as a prisoner in transit. His construction of his
martyr procession and the rhetoric with which he proclaimed it,
his demand for clerical ambassadors to spread his construction of
their social reality along the imperial highway, derived its force from
parallels with the contemporary movement for pagan, Hellenic
unity, the Second Sophistic.
But we have seen that the quest for pagan, Hellenic unity did
not simply employ the devices of ambassadors elected to negotiate
homonoia treaties, and to exhort those whom they addressed to strive
for an internal unity within their city based upon the metaphysic
of cosmic order alone. Cults such as those of Demosthenes used
processions and imagery in order to express and realize further in
the collective life of those cities a consciousness of Hellenic unity.
Those pieces of ceremonial instruments such as portable images
of deities or of their holy attributes, homonoia coins inscribed with
divine images and borne in procession, garland-crowns inscribed or
interleaved with tupoi or representations of ancestral and imperial
gods, all expressed the negotiation between the autonomous citystate of the Hellenic ideal and the demands of the imperial whole.
We shall now see how Ignatius parallels these specific features of
the pagan Hellenistic cults in his view of the liturgical expression
of order in and between communities, and of the Eucharist as it is
celebrated in each Christian community and the martyr procession
that, in their clerical representatives, they join.
2. Ignatius' Clergy as Typoi in the Christian Mystery-cult
We have seen that Lucian and his contemporaries, whose direct
personal experiences gave his satire its point, regarded Ignatius'
80
Ignatius ofAntioch
entourage as a cult procession. It had nerterodromoi or 'speed-runners

to the underworld', paralleling Ignatius' theodromoi or 'divine speedrunners'. It also had nekrangeloi or 'messengers of death', a satire
of Ignatius' theopresbeutai or 'divine ambassadors'. But Lucian also
regarded Ignatius, like Peregrinus Proteus, as 'procession leader
{thiasarchesf or 'cult leader', who as sunagogeus had the authority to
gather together the sunodos or assembly of the cult.
That Ignatius himself would accept, with certain qualifications,
such a comparison with pagan cults he could not have made clearer.
Ignatius begins every one of the seven letters with his name, and
then adds 'who is also the Theophoros'. This title has been consistently interpreted as a proper name, perhaps adopted by Ignatius at
his Christian baptism, though unique to him as 'it is not otherwise
attested as a proper name'.18
But as I have already mentioned, theophoros is not a proper name.
It is a technical term for someone with a sacerdotal role in a pagan
procession: such a person bears a portable image or wears one in his
garland crown as agonothete or thiasarches. Such a role might be assumed
in an existing cult with an existing liturgy or mystery play with roles
to be performed. It might, however, be assumed, as we have seen, by
someone who wished to create a new cult, since for this reason too
people acquired portable images or tupoi. We saw that Philostratus
makes mention of such a practice, and Lucian affords an example in
his satire of another charlatan, Alexander, who introduced into Asia
Minor the cult of the serpent Glykon for which he fashioned such an
image. Is not Ignatius reconstituting Christian community by analogy
with such a pagan cult in order to establish their unity?
Ignatius bears or wears in his flesh and in procession the image
of his suffering Father-god. As such, like the ambassadors or priests
who carried or wore divine images at the head of their processions,
the suffering God himself can be said to head the procession in the
bishop, who is an image or tupos of the Father, as we shall shortly
see. As he says to the Ephesians:
being imitators of God, having been inflamed by the blood of God,
you completed the task that was natural to you and brought it to perfect
18
W. R. SchoedeL, Ignatius ofAntioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius ofAntioch,
ed. H. Koester, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 35-37.
81
completion. For having heard that I was being brought in chains from Syria
on behalf of our common name and hope, you hastened to see me because
by your prayer I had hoped to achieve through your prayer thefightwith
beasts at Rome: the object, the achievement of my goal of becoming a
disciple.19
In this passage, we are reminded of an epigraph in which, in
Hadrian's time and in connection with his worldwide Dionysiac
cult association, one Aelius Pompeianus is commended because:
'he summoned the players already on their journey with anxious
speed, and he provided for every part of the mystery play'.20 Union
with the divine was by joining in the mystery drama and imitating
the story of the god. So too the Ephesians were 'imitators of God',
hastening to join Ignatius and to form his procession like Aelius'
actors who were to perform the Dionysiac drama. Hadrian's sunodos
was worldwide, as we saw, and Ignatius here will point out the
significance of his cultic procession as concerned with the 'common
name and hope'.
We saw too that the theophoros could bear an image of the attributes
of a god as well as an image of the god himself. In the cult of Ma
Bellone at Rome, as in the cult of Attis, the priest carried a basket
or cistus containing the mutilated genital organs of Attis and is
described as a cistophoros. The priest is named, with his title immediately following, like theophoros for Ignatius, as 'L. Lartius Anthus
Cistophoros'. Members of the Attis cult in procession were famous
for their wild, orgiastic dances, and for self-mutilation in imitation of
Attis. Lartius is depicted on the relief with a laurel crown decorated
with three medallions, with images or tupoi of divinities. In his left
hand are two double axes, and in his right a laurel twig with which
to sprinkle the blood produced by self-mutilation with the axes. He
wears a crown, possibly originally golden, of laurel leaf design.
Such is the bloody spectacle of a high priest leading the Attis
cult and imitating the sufferings of his god in self-mutilation.21 In
parallel, Ignatius claims that the Ephesians, hastening to join the
procession of his cult, are similarly stirred to ecstasy by what they
19
20
21
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 1.1-2.
SBC VI.59.&-28 ( = IGRR III.209); cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp.
142-43.
Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, p . 161 and PI. 15.
82
Ignatius ofAntioch
see: they are 'inflamed by the blood of God' of the bishop on the
way to martyrdom in the arena and projecting a tupos or image of the
suffering God whom he is imitating and calling on them to imitate.
That they should imitate an image that itself reflects or imitates a
divine image should not strike us as strange. We saw the logic of
this in the way that the images in the crowns of the Flaviales were
manipulated in the rite at Domitian's presidency of the Capitoline
games: they wore Domitian's image as well as those of the Capitoline
triad, whilst he wore their images by themselves. The Flaviales were
imitating the divine emperor, just as the emperor, as agonothete, was
imitating the Capitoline triad, in the images that both wore.
Later in his letter to Ephesus, Ignatius continues his modelling of
his procession on pagan cults and those who bear images in them.
We have already noted that sunodos describes a cult association, like
the worldwide cult association of followers of Dionysus in honour
of Hadrian:
You are all, therefore, also fellow cult members (sunodoi), God-bearers
{theophoroi), and temple-bearers (naopboroi), Christ-bearers (christophorot),
bearers of holy things (bagiopboroi), in everyway adorned with the commandments of Jesus Christ22
Thus we find that Ignatius regards each local congregation as a sunodos

or cult association in its own right, joined with others throughout
the world as 'the catholic church' because of its possession of a
common ritual and ecclesial order. Not only are they theophoroi like
Ignatius but also naopboroi or 'temple-bearers' like the theophoroiwho
bore the portable silver temple in Demosthenes' inscription. We
may cite, in addition, the priest of Cybele from Lanuvium in the
mid-second century AD, who wore around his neck a necklace with
a naiskos or small temple inscribed upon it with images or tupoi like
the round medallions of Zeus and Attis worn on his crown.23 Once
again we have a naophoros who also bears or wears divine images in
his crown and is therefore also a theophoros.
We shall see later that Ignatius views churches joining his
procession in virtue of their clerical representatives who accompany
him on his way. However, it is significant here that Ignatius does
22
23
Ignatius, Eph. 9.2.

Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 160-61 and Pis 13-14.
83
not simply see them becoming cult associations when they join his
company: he speaks as if each individual church is already such an
association.
We may therefore ask how the liturgy in each church, as well as in
Ignatius' martyr procession, is also described in a way that parallels
a mystery association. Ignatius sees his martyr procession as an
extension of the liturgy. His martyrdom he sees in terms of his
union with the suffering God by the spectacle of whose blood the
Ephesians had been 'inflamed'. He asks the Romans to allow him
'to be an imitator of the suffering of my God'.24 But if the martyr
procession is the path by which he 'attains' to God, the Eucharist
is the means by which the believer finds unity with the suffering
God:
Be anxious to celebrate therefore one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of
our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup for being united with his blood, one
altar as one bishop in conjunction with the presbyterate and deacons, my
fellow-servants. This is with the goal that whatever you do you may do
according to God.25
Once again Ignatius is trading on his Hellenistic background in

his quest for ecclesial unity. Whatever is one and united, according
to Plato and his followers, is more real than what is divisible
and numerically plural. God is ultimately real and, because he is,
therefore, he must be one and cannot be broken into parts: he must
be indissoluble and therefore eternal. For us to be eternal we must
therefore achieve union with him. If he is a suffering God, then
we must achieve union with his sufferings. Union with him takes
place by imitation, in which we mystically are absorbed by what we
imitate. Ignatius' experience of the Christian mystery play at the
Eucharist is ultimately reflected in the mystery play that is his martyr
procession. As he says of his martyrdom:
I do not take pleasure in nourishment that brings corruption nor in the
pleasures of this life. I wish for the bread of God, which is the flesh
of Jesus Christ of the seed of David, and I wish for drink that is his
24
25
Ignatius, Rom. 6.3.

Ignatius, Phld. 4.
84
Ignatius ofAntioch
blood, which is love that perishes not... pray for me that I may attain to
God[.]26
At his martyrdom they are to gather, not for their normal Eucharist,
but to his martyr-sacrifice in the arena, described in terms of a pagan
festival with a procession like that of Demosthenes at Oinoanda:
Grant me nothing more than to be poured out as a drink-offering to God
while the altar is prepared, so that in love, constituting a choir, you may
sing to the Father in Jesus Christ that God has deemed the bishop of Syria
worthy to be found at the setting of the sun, having dispatched him from
the sun's rising.27
likewise the Eucharist is described like a pagan festival in which

the procession gathers around it thiasarcbes, a gathering that Ignatius
characteristically describes as "running together'28 when summoned
by a 'resolution' of the ekklesia:
It is fitting for you to run together in response to the resolution of your
bishop, just as you so do. For your presbytery, definitely named as such and
worthy of God, is so attuned to the bishop as chords to a lyre. Therefore
in your concord (homonoid) and in the symphony of your love Jesus Christ
is sung. And so each of you form together a chorus. In consequence, in a
harmony of concord (homonoid), taking up God's note, you may sing in one
voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, in order that he may both hear
from you and know your favourable condition, being members of his Son.
So being in blameless unity is to your benefit; it fulfils your object of ever
participating in God.
Here we have many of the ingredients of a mystery procession
running together to enact a mystery play. The cult association or
thiasos thus gathers because of a 'resolution' duly issued by the

magistrate, who as sunagoges summons the cult together, as Lucian
described Peregrinus. The chorus sings in concord or homonoia as
an expression of acting out in unity the drama in which, through
imitation, they achieve participation in God. It is here that they fulfil
the Pauline vision of becoming 'one body with many members'
26
27
28
Ignatius, Rom. 7.3.

Ignatius, Rom. 2.2.
As, eg., in Diodorus Siculus XVI.92.5, where the procession deifying Philip amongst
the twelve gods is described as 'running together'.
85
through their united performance in the choral drama. Ignatius will

write to the Ephesians a second letter if they have so arranged their
cult of the Christian eucharistic mystery:
I will especially do so if the Lord should reveal to me that you all as one
person have come together collectively but with individual names, in one
faith and in Jesus Christ, of the race of David according to the flesh, Son
of Man and Son of God. You will then be giving obedience to the bishop
and the presbytery undistracted in mind, breaking one bread which is the
medicine of immortality, an antidote for not dying but living for ever in
Jesus Christ29
As actors in the drama that is the Christian mystery, bishop,

presbyters and deacons, who are 'deacons of the mysteries of Jesus
Christ',30 have the important role:
And so, just as the Lord did nothing apart from the Father - being united to
him - neither on his own nor through the apostles, so too you do nothing
without the bishop and the presbyters. Do not try anything appearing
reasonable to you in private, but as a gathered church with one prayer, one
supplication, one mind, one hope in love, in blameless joy that is Jesus
Christ, whom nothing surpasses. All run together, as to one temple-shrine
of God, as to one altar to one Jesus Christ, who processed from the one
Father, and who was with the one and returned back to him.31
These words are clearly to be understood in a liturgical context: they

are concerned with what is done in the context of 'one prayer, one
supplication'. What is 'reasonable to you in private' is not to be done
in public in the course of the Eucharist: the prophets no longer
have the liturgical status that we saw they possessed in the Didache.
But we begin to see from this passage that there is a mystery drama
represented in the liturgy: about representing the procession of
Jesus Christ from the Father and his return in the context of what
we have seen to be Ignatius' image of a processional choros.
The bishop sits here at the centre of a horseshoe formation with
the presbyters sitting on each side of him, just as would continue
to be the case in the coming early centuries. Thus the bishop represents, in the drama, the Father God and the presbyters represent the
29
30
31

Ignatius, Troll. 2.3.
Ignatius, Magnes. 1.
86
Ignatius ofAntioch
apostles. Ignatius will refer to their seated, broken circle around the
bishop as 'Spirit-filled':
Be eager to be confirmed in the teachings of the Lord and of the apostles
that you may prosper in whatever you do in flesh and in spirit, in the
beginning and in the end ... together with your worthily esteemed bishop,
and the worthily woven, spiritually garlanded presbyterate and of the
deacons according to God. Be subject to the bishop and to each other as
Jesus Christ was to the Father and the apostles were to Christ and to the
Father in order that your union may be both fleshly and spiritual.32
What does the horseshoe formation or 'worthily woven spiritually

garlanded presbyterate' represent in Ignatius' Christian mystery
drama? It represents the apostles and Jesus Christ in the scene in the
Upper Room on the day of the resurrection according to St John.
We find a shadow of that scene in Ignatius' statement that Tor
this cause the Lord received anointing on his head that he might
breathe incorruption upon the Church.'33 We have here references
to two scenes in two Gospels, Matthew and John. In the former, an
unnamed woman anoints Jesus on the head (it is on the feet in the
other Gospels), and Jesus proclaims to his disciples that it is for his
burial.34 But Ignatius interprets this passage in the light of John's
post-resurrection narrative where, at the Johannine Pentecost on
the evening of the resurrection, Jesus comes and ^breathes into' the
disciples and says 'Receive the Holy Spirit', entrusting them with
the power to forgive sins and thus making the Church the extension
of the Incarnation.35 Thus in Ignatius' words, the Lord 'breathe[s]
incorruption upon the Church'.
It is here, then, that we find the origins of the symbolism of the
'worthily woven, spiritually garlanded presbyterate' in their seated
horseshoe around the bishop: they re-enact the scene in the Upper
Room at the Johannine Pentecost It is they who are the representatives of the apostles, because they are the image of the apostolic
band who received the inbreathing. Bishops are not as yet, as in
Ignatius' successors Hegesippus and Irenaeus, the successors of the
apostles through a chain of succession running through history. The
32
Ignatius, Magn. 13.1-2.

34
Matt 26.6-13.
35
John 20.22-23.
33
Martyr Procession and Eucharist. The Christian Mysteries
87
bishop, rather, is the image mainly of the Father, though sometimes

Ignatius thinks of the bishop as the suffering God and therefore the
image of the Son - Ignatius is not always consistent in his imagery
nor does he make the clear distinctions of later Trinitarianism
between the divine persons. The bishop and the presbyters seem
to parallel Christ and the apostles in the passage we quoted from
Ephesians. Thus by their unity with bishop and presbyters they are
united with Christ and the apostles, and also with the inbreathing
of incorruption upon the Church so that their 'union may be both
fleshly and spiritual'.
We may see Ignatius alluding to a further scene from the Gospels,
amongst which we must include the apocryphal Gospel ofPeter. As we
argued, following Brown and Meier, the figure of Peter was significant for Ignatius' (and Matthew's) divided Antiochene community.
We noted the figure of Peter as the bridge-builder, whose authority
to 'bind and loose' contained the hope of a single authority figure
to bring an end to the internal strife of that divided community.
Ignatius will refer to this same figure, citing a non-canonical Gospel,
as the key to the mystical unity of the Church and the beginnings of
the Christian mystery cult that ends divisions and achieves mystical
and cultic unity of its common, corporate life through union with
God. Ignatius claims of the risen Christ:
For I know and believe that he existed in the flesh even after the resurrection. And when he came to those around Peter he said to them: 'Take
and handle me and see that I am no bodiless daemon.' And immediately
as they touched him and believed, they became intermixed with his flesh
and spirit ... after the resurrection he ate together with them and drank
together as a being with fleshly existence even though spiritually united
with the Father.36
It is important to grasp here that Ignatius is not appealing to a link

with the apostles enduring through a historical sequence in time
with bishops as successors to the apostles in historical sequence.
Rather, in order to achieve union with God we must gather where
flesh and spirit still intermingle, where the Spirit-filled council of the
apostles still gathers around a Peter existing concretely in the flesh
in an ongoing mystery drama in which we can participate and in so
36
Ignatius, Smyrnaens 3.
88
Ignatius ofAntioch
doing achieve the commingling of our flesh in a union with what is

spiritual.
This union, begun in the upper room with the inbreathing and
continuing with the appearance to Peter, continues also at the
Eucharist, as we have seen, where they receive the "medicine of
immortality, an antidote for not dying' that requires the threefold
order present for its validity. We now see the reason why. We need
the continuing presence of the apostles who are inbreathed with the
Spirit, and these are made present by the presbyterate as icons. We
need the bishop as Peter, around whom the apostles gathered. We
need the Father-bishop, for as Christ said according to St John, 'it
is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven to eat', and the
Father must be imaged in the role of the seated bishop who consecrates the bread and the wine. But we also need icons of the ministry
of the 'one Jesus Christ, who processed from the one Father, and
who was with the one and returned back to him'. These icons we
have in the deacons, who in the liturgy take the bread and wine from
the people and bring them to the bishop to consecrate them, thereby
issuing the Father-bishop's instruction. Thus they are those who
'processed from the one Father-'bishop 'and who was with the one
and returned back to him'.37 Thus they are 'deacons of the mysteries
of Jesus Christ'.
I have used the term 'icon', which is not used by Ignatius. But we shall
now see that he does use another word with the same sense, namely tupos.
As we have said, it is a word that has its historical and cultural location in
the pagan mystery cults and in the actors who bear images, as theaphoroi
(Ignatius' term). A tupos, as we saw, referred to a portable image. Ignatius
now makes it clear that the actions of the three orders are like those of
the bearers of images in mystery cults:
Likewise let all revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they do the bishop
who is there to create an image {tupos) of the Father and the presbyters as
God's council and as a band of apostles: without these a church cannot be
summoned.38
We have also seen a paradox in the pagan use of images borne in
procession. The agonothete who led the procession, by bearing the
37
38
Ignatius, Magi. 7.2.

Ignatius, Trail 3.1.
89
god, enabled the god to be quite physically present at the head of

his procession. Here we see that, by enacting the roles of Father,
Son and Spirit-jfiUed apostolic council and thus creating spiritual
images of them, bishop, deacons, and presbyters are making them
present in the mystery. But the ambassadors who led the procession
to Hadrian from Alexandria, or who bore images of deities in the
form of homonoia coins, were also representing their communities
in that the gods and goddesses were mystical representatives of the
corporate personality of the members of the city itself.
Ignatius expresses this paradox too in his description of the three
orders, particularly the bishop. Having in the previous quotation
indicated to the Trallians the three images borne by the three orders,
Ignatius continues:
Concerning these persons I am convinced that this is so. For I received a
model (exemplariori) of your love and still have it with me in your bishop,
whose very demeanour is a great lesson and whose gentleness is his power;
I think that even the godless respect him.39
Thus having identified the bishop as bearer of the image of their

Father-God in the chorus for which he has summoned them, he
now claims that he has seen a model of their corporate life in
Polybius their bishop. Similarly, to the Magnesians he says:
Since therefore in the aforementioned faces I have by faith seen your whole
community and I loved them, I exhort you, be eager to do all things in
God's concord {homonoia) with the bishop presiding as an image of God
and the presbyters as an image of the council of the apostles and of the
deacons most sweet to me entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ...
Let there be nothing amongst you that can divide you, but be in union with
the bishop and with those who are pre-eminent with him in forming an
image (tupos) of incorruption and its teaching.40
We are reminded here of the agonothete of Demosthenes' procession, and

the 'embossed faces' (prosopa ektupa) that he bore or wore in his garlandcrown. Here too we found the plural Greek word prosopa used of divine
images of Apollo and of Trajan, who were divine representatives of the
corporate life of the city and its unity within the imperial whole. The
39
40

90
Ignatius ofAntioch
word can also mean 'person' and indeed was destined to become the
term used of the 'three persons', not in one goddess headdress as in the
case of the Capitoline triad, but of the godhead of the Christian Trinity.
The word, however, can also be used of actors' masks, such as those of
Pompeianus' Dionysiac mystery play.
In this scene from Magnesium, Ignatius clearly has in mind such a
background.DamasofMagnesiaandhisprebjrtersBassusandApollonius,
accompanied by the deacon Zotion, arrive like the Alexandrian ambassadors, bearing images of divine beings who represent the corporate life
of their communities. They bear them, not in the form of images of
wood, stone or metal, but spiritually in their flesh as they perform, like
actors wearing masks, the eucharistic drama that expresses die corporate
life of their Christian communities in process of redemption. In the
Eucharist, they are achieving union with God because only where there
is a bishop with presbyters and deacons playing those roles can the
redemptive play take place. They are 'pre-eminent' as they stand out in
their roles, as an 'image' (tupos) of incorruptibility, whilst teaching what
those who join with them in the drama are becoming. It is here they relive
again the Father-bishop sending the diaconal son who returns from the
people to the Father-bishop again, with the Spirit-filled council of the
apostles guaranteeing the timeless continuation of resurrection morning
and the Upper Room, and its inbreathing and commingling of flesh and
Spirit
In consequence of their bearing, as ambassadors, the images
of Father, Son, and Spirit, not in the Eucharist but in Ignatius'
procession, they can now be corporate images of their community.
Thus Ignatius will say to the Trallians: 'I greet you from Smyrna,
along with the churches of God who are present with me and have
refreshed me in every way, in flesh and in spirit.'41 We note that it
is 'churches' in the plural and not simply the church of Smyrna
that is 'present with me'. Those churches are not present with him
because their members in total are physically present, as they are at
Smyrna. Ignatius clearly means that they are mystically present in
their clerical representatives who have joined his procession.
We find Ignatius claiming to see the corporate personality of the
whole gathered Church in the bishop, who visits him again in the
person of Polybius of Tralles:
41
91
I recognize the blameless intention and one that in its tolerance respects
no particular person that you have, not because you have learned it by
habit, but because it is yours by nature. This was what Polybius your bishop
revealed to me when he arrived in Smyrna at God's behest and that of Jesus
Christ Thus, so was our experience of joy together with me in my chains in
Christ Jesus that I saw your entire gathered congregation in him. Receiving
in welcome your kindness through him I expressed praise because I found
you, as I recognized, imitators of God.42
Note that this is not simply what he saw in an act of kindness.
Ignatius claims to have been overwhelmed by joy that he shared with
Polybius and, thus overwhelmed, he had a vision in which he saw
their 'whole gathered Church' mystically in him.
In the gathered Church he can see him because thus gathered it
is conducting, the mystery play that produces union with the divine,
the divine life of Father and Son in union together. As he says
regarding Polybius, bishop of Ephesus:
For if in so short a time I enjoyed such an intimacy (sunetheia) with your
bishop not that it was human intimacy but spiritual by how much
more do I g^ve you my blessing that you are so mingled together even as
the Church is to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is to the Father to the end
that all things may be symphonic in their unity ... For if the prayer of one
or two has such strength, how much more that of the bishop and of the
whole church? He who therefore does not gather as a church is already too
proud and condemns himself. For it is written: 'God opposes the proud'.
Let us be eager therefore not to oppose the bishop in order that we may
be subject to God.43
The Greek word for 'intimacy' in this quotation (sunetheia) also
means 'sexual intercourse', which presumably is why Ignatius is
at pains to emphasize its spiritual nature: 'not that it was human
intimacy but spiritual'. Thus can there only in a spiritual sense be a
'mingling together', just as the Church is to Jesus Christ and Jesus
Christ is to the Father.
The pseudonymous writer of the N e w Testament letter to the
Ephesians that bears Paul's name probably wrote as a member of
the Ephesian church. H e speaks of the relation between Christ and
the Church as a 'great mystery', and also uses the analogy of sexual
42
43
Ignatius, Trail. 1.
Ignatius, Ephesians 5.
92
Ignatius ofAntioch
union to explain the joining of Christ to the Church. He cites the

book of Genesis, where it says: Tor this reason a man shall forsake
father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall
become one flesh'.44 The Ignatian experience is a similar experience
in which, through the threefold order, mystical union takes place
comparable to the joining of man and woman. It is however in
the bishop's person that the corporate personality of the whole
community in union with him can be seen by Ignatius.
So it is that Ignatius can claim that their churches were mystically present in the clerical visitors. To the Romans he reflects from
Smyrna on his martyr procession so far and says:
My spirit greets you, as does the love of the churches that welcomed me
in the name of Jesus Christ, and not just as one passing through. For also
those who did not lie on my actual route led the way before me city by
city.45
Thus the clerical ambassadors have become the churches that they
represent through the images that they bear, just as ambassadors
bearing images and leading the procession were considered the
divine leaders themselves because they held or wore those images.
We have seen, therefore, that for Ignatius the drama of the
Eucharist was not so much to convince outsiders in some evangelistic way with its enacted story of redemption, nor to teach believers,
so much as to transform them as participants in that drama. But we
have also seen that the bearing of portable images, according to
Philostratus, was not simply to enable a wandering prophet such as
Lucian's Alexander to found a cult, or indeed, like Ignatius, to reconstitute an existing one with a new order and self-understanding: tupoi
were also carried or worn with an apotropaeic function, that is, to
ward off evil spirits.46 Ignatius is also aware of this function. If he is
asked why one should more frequently gather together as an ekkksia,
having achieved union with the divine, he will reply that it is because
by so doing the clerical tupoi or icons, performing their assigned
roles in the mystery drama, will shake the cosmic powers. As he says
to the Ephesians:
44
45
46
Eph. 5.30-32; cf. Gen. 2.24 and Ignatius, Pol. 5.1.
Ignatius, Rom. 10.2.

See above, n. 16 and associated t e x t
93
You are fellow-initiates of Paul, who was sanctified ... Be anxious therefore
to assemble frequently for the Eucharist of God and his glory, for when
you more frequently meet as a church the powers of Satan are destroyed
and his destruction is dissolved in the concord {homonoid) of your faith.
Nothing is better than peace, by which all war between earthly and heavenly
beings is abolished.47
T h u s the mystery drama that is the Eucharist is conducted with
the bishop as agonothete wearing the divine image and accompanied

by presbyters and deacons. These ministers are also compared to
bearers of processional images and objects, who perform an apotropaeic function: the clergy, wearing them spiritually in their flesh, or
representing them in their liturgical acts, wave the tupoi as it were
in the face of the cosmic powers in order to overthrow them: 'the
powers of Satan are destroyed and his destruction is dissolved in the
concord {homonoid) of your faith".
Hence the eucharistic drama, in accomplishing union with the
divine, performs the apotropaeic function of banishing death and
decay It is here that we reach the heart of the Christian mysteries
according to Ignatius of Antioch. He declares those mysteries to the
Ephesians in the following words:
The virginity of Mary and her giving birth escaped the notice of the
ruler of this age; so did the death of the Lord - three mysteries of crying
that were accomplished in the silence of God. How, therefore, were they
revealed to the ages? A star shone in heaven above all the stars, and its
light was indescribable and its newness created a strange feeling, and the
rest of the stars together with sun and moon formed a chorus around the
star and its light excelled above all things. And there was disquiet as to
the source of this newness so unlike them. In consequence, all magic was
dissolved, and every bond of wickedness was wiped away, ignorance was
removed and the old kingdom destroyed, with God appearing humanly
for the renewal of eternal life. And that which had been prepared by God
received its beginning. From that time on all things were disturbed because
the destruction of death had been planned.48
The clerical icons, wearing in their flesh the tupoi of Father, Son
and Spirit as bishop, deacons, and presbyters, and performing
the mystery drama that is the Christian Eucharist, perform an
47
48
Ignatius, ^.12.2,13.
94
Ignatius ofAntioch
apotropaeic act: they realize the eschatological hope through their

apotropaeic imaging of divine beings who destroy 'the old kingdom'
and dissolve 'all magic' in 'renewal of eternal life'.49
Thus Ignatius had the vision of an ekklesia reconstituted as a
mystery cult that achieved both union with the divine and concord or
homonoia between different congregations and within congregations
bearing the common, Christian name. In this way the Eucharist as a
mystery play would overcome the divisions of the church at Antioch
in Syria, and wherever such divisions were reflected in church life
elsewhere in Asia Minor. Furthermore, the theatre of the martyr
procession had its own persuasive eloquence in achieving the realization of Ignatius' vision in the life and thought of the churches of
Asia Minor to whom he addressed in his letters.
But how did they respond initially to his radical secularization
of church order in terms of the pagan societies of his Hellenistic
contemporaries? How and why did they come to terms with
Ignatius' radical proposal?
Polycarp will be the key figure in our answer to this question, both
in what we shall read in his letter to the Philippians, and in Ignatius'
letter to him personally. But before we develop our answer, we must
first deal with recent attacks that have been made upon the authenticity of the middle recension, and of Polycarp's role in the original
collecting of Ignatius' literary corpus. As we shall see, Polycarp's
Philippians and its integrity is central to the discussion regarding the
authenticity of the middle recension.
49
See A. Brent, Ignatius and Polycarp: The Transformation of New Testament

Traditions in the Context of Mystery Cults', in A. F. Gregory and C. M. Tuckett
(eds), Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), pp. 325-49.
Recent Attacks on the

Authenticity of the Ignatian
Letters
Iightfoot and Zahn, who worked independently of each other,

produced a consensus on the Ignatian letters at the end of the
nineteenth century that was to endure until the second half of
the twentieth century. Both these writers agreed more or less on
common grounds that there were seven genuine letters of Ignatius
the martyr bishop, who had lived and died in the reign of Trajan, as
Eusebius had testified. It was generally believed that their solution to
the Ignatian problem had successfully ended the continuing controversy over the authenticity of the middle recension whose text
Ussher and Vossius had succeeded in restoring. In this chapter we
must examine some more recent attacks on the authenticity of the
middle recension that have attempted to undo the IightfootZahn
consensus.
Let us look at five of these attacks from the last twenty years or
so. In brief, these writers are as follows:
1. Reinoud Weijenborg (1969) argues that the middle recension is
in fact a shortened form of the long recension. Since the long
recension mentions the date of Christmas, it must be dated after
the Chronographer of AD 354, otherwise known as the Iiberian
list. Thus both the longer recension and the middle recension
95
96
2.
3.
4.
5.
1
Ignatius ofAntioch
from which it is derived must be forgeries attributed to Ignatius

as a martyr of Trajan's time.1
Joseph Rius-Camps (1977) accepts, against Weijenborg, the
position of the overwhelming majority since Ussher and Vossius
that the middle recension preceded the long recension, with the
latter presupposing the former, which it altered and to which it
made additions. But six of the letters of the middle recension
(excluding Romans), along with Polycarp's Philippians, were
produced by a later forger from four original letters of a martyr
named Ignatius. The forger's purpose is seen in his additions of
all of the passages advocating the threefold hierarchy of bishop,
presbyters and deacons.2
Robert Joly (1979) rejects Rius-Camps' theory that the seven letters
contain a genuine core. He argues that all seven are forgeries, but that
the forger interpolated passages regarding Ignatius' letters and visit
into Polycarp's Philippians. This is also Rius-Camps' position regarding
the forgery made from the original four, which had contained no
reference to Polycarp, who had never met Ignatius. The forger's
purpose was nevertheless to justify a hierarchy centred on the bishop
that only emerged late in the second century.3
Thomas Lechner (1999) follows the general approach of Hiibner
and Vinzent (see next paragraph), but focuses specifically on
Ignatian theology as a response to late Valentinianism and
aeon speculation. Since late Valentinianism develops after the
martyrdom of Polycarp (AD 155), and since Ignatius' views on
bishops presuppose the succession lists of Hegesippus and
Irenaeus formulated after AD 165, the letters, purporting to come
from an earlier martyr, are forgeries. Once again, Polycarp's
Philippianshas been interpolated by the forger in order to provide
a fictitious corroboration of his deceit 4
Reinhard Hiibner and Markus Vinzent (1999), following Joly,
argue that the letters are forgeries and that the forger has inter-
R. Weijenborg, Les lettres d'Ignace dAntioche: Etude de critique litteraire et de theologie

(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969).
2
J. Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius the Martyr, Orientalia Christiana
Analecta 213 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1980).
3
R. Joly, Le dossier d'Ignace dAntioche, University Libre de Bruxelles, Faculte de
Philosophic et Lettres 69 (Brussels: Editions de PUniversite, 1979).
4
T. Lechner, Ignatius adversus Vdkntinianos? Chronologische und theologjegeschichtliche Studien
%u den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, VChSup 47 (Leiden, 1999).
Recent Attacks on the Authenticity of the Ignatian Letters
97
polated Polycarp's Philippians. In addition to the claimed lateness

of the development of an episcopal hierarchy, they lay stress on
Ignatius' theology in opposition to late second-century heresies.
Ignatius reflects the theology of Melito of Sardis and of Noetus
of Smyrna in rejecting distinct persons in the Godhead against
Valentinus' followers, who argued that there were 33 persons,
whom they called 'aeons' or 'emanations'. Vinzent further argues
that Ignatius' description of Christ's resurrection is directed
against a particular late form of Marcion's heresy which held that
the body of Christ after the resurrection merely appeared as a
disembodied spirit and was not really a body of flesh and blood
(docetism), even though it had been so before.5
Criticism of each of these views has been extensive in the literature
and I cannot deal with each point exhaustively here.6 I will simply
give some more detail and some fairly basic critical commentary.
1. Weijenborg and the Priority of the Long Recension
If the long recension (of which the middle recension is claimed to
be an abbreviation) is dated after AD 360, as Weijenborg believes,
how are we to explain earlier citations in Irenaeus, Origen, and
Eusebius?
Eusebius, whose citations he claims in certain instances resemble a
primitive form of the long recension, presents him with the greatest
difficulty. He does not ask whether those instances could be from an
earlier version of the middle recension that later experienced scribal
corruption not shared by manuscripts of the long recension. In that
case, the author of the long recension would simply have incorporated, and the manuscript tradition preserved, a better version of
5
R. Hiibner, Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius
von Antiochien', ZAC 1 (1997), pp. 42-70, and Der Paradox Eine: Antignostischer
Monarchiansimus im vpeiten Jahrhundert. Mit einem Beitrag von Markus Vincent, VChSup
50 (Leiden: 1999).
G P. Hammond Bammel, Ignatian Problems', JTbS 33 (1982), pp. 62-97; M. J.
Edwards, "Ignatius and the Second Century: An Answer to R. Hiibner', ZAC 2
(1998), pp. 21426; E. Ferguson, review of Lechner, Church History Ignatius adversus
Valendiniauos? 71 (2002), pp. 169-70; A. Iindemann, 'Antwort auf die "Thesen zur
Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien"', ZAC 1
(1997), pp. 185-94.
98
Ignatius ofAntioch
what was originally in the middle recension. But his argument can
only be supported by claiming that Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History is
a forgery produced after AD 360. Eusebius, after all, quotes all of
Ignatius, Romans 5 from the middle recension.7
There are many allusions to Ignatius' works in second-century
writers such as Melito of Sardis (AD 160), Theophilus of Antioch
(AD 180), Clement of Alexandria (AD 190) and others.8 But a
determined critic can always dismiss these as coincidental, as
Weijenborg does, or indeed as the building-blocks of the later
literary forgery. Irenaeus (AD 17590), though not mentioning
Ignatius by name, refers to 'one of our martyrs' and quotes, 1 am
Christ's wheat and I strive through the teeth of the wild beasts
to be found pure bread'.9 It would appear somewhat fanciful to
suggest that Irenaeus did not have the name of Ignatius in mind
or a text of his letter to the Romans, and that the forger simply
incorporated the sole quotation from an unknown martyr into his
fourth-century forgery.
But Ignatius' actual name is given in Origen (AD 253) in connection
with quotes both from Romans and from Ephesians. In his Homily on
the Song ofSongs Origen says:
Finally I mention that one of the saints, Ignatius by name, has said concerning
Christ, *My love has been crucified', and I do not judge that it would be
fitting to blame him for this.10
Furthermore, in his Homily on Luke, Origen claims:

I have found it written beautifully in one of the letters of a certain martyr
I am referring to Ignatius, second bishop ofA.ntioch after St Peter, who in a perse-
cution fought at Rome with wild beasts: 'the virginity of Mary escaped
notice of the ruler of this age' - escaped notice on account of Joseph,
escaped notice due to their marriage because she was thought to have a
husband.11
7
8
9
10
11
Eusebius, HE IIL36.7-9; cf. Weijenborg, Lettres d'Ignace, pp. 395-96.

For a full list and texts, see J. B. Iightfbot, The Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmillan,
1890), I I I , pp. 141-45.
Ignatius, Rom. 4.5.
Origen, Pro/. Cant. 2.36, quoting Ignatius, Rom. 7.2.
Origen, Horn, in Luc. 6.4, quoting Ignatius, Eph. 19.1.
99
Weijenborg admits the existence of a primitive version of

Ignatius' sayings, but claims that such a version is neither the long
recension nor its alleged abbreviation as the middle recension.
It is interesting that he does not appeal to the notion that references to Ignatius' name and other details that I have put in
italics in these quotes are later additions under the influence of
(Pseudo-)Eusebius in the Latin translations of Origen in which
these works alone survive apart from equally post-Eusebian
Greek fragments. We shall deal with this point more fully when
we consider the view of Lechner, which is supported by such an
argument (sect. 5 below).
For the moment I would make one last point. We have
argued that Lucian of Samosata is a witness to Ignatius in his
description of Peregrinus Proteus. Weijenborg's thesis requires
this relationship to be turned around: the fourth-century forger
has used Peregrinus in order to construct his fictitious work of
a martyr from the past. Indeed, Weijenborg proposes Evagrius
of Antioch or his circle of friends as responsible for the original
forgery.12 It was from Lucian's description of Peregrinus that the
idea of a corpus of letters written by a martyr named Ignatius
originally came: hitherto his name was apparently simply
associated with a number of sayings such as those few to which
Origen bears witness.
However firmly other critics might be in their belief that the
Ignatian letters are forgeries, they were not to follow Weijenborg
down this route either generally or in connection with Lucian: all
were convinced that Lucian had derived his account from reading
the letters and that Lucian's date was therefore a clear indicator
of the latest date for their composition or the terminus ante quern. I
believe that this literary dependence, inspired originally by Iightfoot,
has led critics along a false trail. Lucian's satire is hardly based upon
figures in literature, but upon actual charlatans of flesh and blood
and the actual experience of him and his readers of meeting such
figures. Even his sarcastic descriptions of divine figures from Greek
tragedies do not seem to follow closely any literary text of those
dramas but are based upon remembered words of the actors in
12
Weijenborg, Lettres d'Ignace, pp. 39&-401.
100
Ignatius ofAntioch
their specific performances.13 Lucian was not addressing a circle of

readers discussing literature with books in their hands.
Thus when Lucian describes PeregrinusIgnatius as a procession
leader (thiasarches), who is the offical who gathers together the
sunodos of the cult (sunagoges), he is describing not Ignatius' letters
directly, but the visible results of those letters. Lucian understands
in Ignatian terms the reaction of Christian communities to those
letters that had so transformed their common life. He saw the
divine ambassadors and speed-runners bearing Ignatius' letters,
which were framing the new fundamental laws of association in
those communities. In his satire, hearing the message from the
divine ambassadors of Ignatius as theophoros of the spiritual image
of his suffering god, Lucian parodied them as speed-runners to the
underworld (nerterodromoi) and messengers of death {nekrangeki).
These comments do not follow the text closely enough to count as
good evidence that Lucian actually read Ignatius' letters; rather, they
are a reaction to the situation that those texts produced. They are
an appropriate interpretation of how the events produced by those
letters seemed to cynical onlookers rather than simply readers of
their text.
Lucian cannot therefore, as Weijenborg thinks, have been the
inspiration to Evagrius, nor his circle to a fourth-century forgery of
the middle recension: the relation between Ignatius and Lucian is
not at all a literary one.
But let us pursue, for a moment, the further arguments for the
Ignatian letters as forgeries.
2. Rius-Camps: The Middle Recension as Forged
Hierarchical Expansion
For Rius-Camps the one genuine letter of Ignatius the martyr that
comes down to us substantially from his pen is Romans. Since Romans
has a separate tradition in the surviving manuscripts from the other
six letters, he assumes that Romans escaped the forger's work because
it was probably not available in the original collection at Smyrna.
Shortly after the death of Polycarp, the forger took the three
13
A. Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic^ STAC 36 (Tubingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2006), pp. 183-207.
101
genuine letters of Ignatius the martyr available to him, Ephesians,

Magnesians, and Trallians. From the first two he drew material with
which, along with suitable additions of his own, he constructed
the wholly forged letters to Philadelphia, Smyrna, and Polycarp. He
then placed his interpolations in the original versions of Ephesians
and Magnesians, as well as in Trallians, whose original material he did
not otherwise use.
The passages that are the work of the forger are those that
advocate a church order centred on a single bishop, with a presbyteral council and deacons. He is therefore responsible for imposing
a hierarchical structure upon an originally more egalitarian church
order. Polycarp never met Ignatius and all references to him doing
so in the former's letter to the Philippians are the work of the forger.
The one genuine reference to Ignatius is that of a martyr from the
past:
I beseech, therefore, all of you to be obedient to the word of righteousness
and to endure with all endurance, which you also have seen before your
eyes not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but also in
the remainder of those of your company and in Paul and the remaining
apostles. Be persuaded that all these did not run in vain, but in faith and in
righteousness, and that they are in the place that they deserve with the Lord
with whom they suffered.14
But this quotation can only with difficulty be so interpreted. RiusCamps insists that 'which you have also seen before your eyes'
does not bear the obvious sense that they had witnessed Ignatius'
'endurance'. He insists that
The [first] sentence ... distinguishes three classes of witnesses: (a) Ignatius,
Zosimus, and Rufus; (b) martyrs of their own, Philippian community; (c)
Paul and the other Apostles. Not an ocular vision (the third group excludes
it), but a few examples well known to all.
Thus he can conclude that (a) 'are considered outstanding martyrs of

other communities ofsub-apostolic times\15
But this conclusion does not follow. The words can equally be
read in the sense that they see now what their predecessors saw
14
15
Polycarp, Phil. 9.1-2; cf. Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters, pp. 87-88.
Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters^ p. 88 (emphasis in original).
102
Ignatius ofAntioch
in the past. Furthermore, Rius-Camps is anxious to claim that this

passage shows Ignatius as already martyred so that he can claim
that this passage is at variance with a statement occurring later
in Polycarp's letter implying that Ignatius was still alive, in which
Polycarp claims that Ignatius had written a letter conjointly with
the Philippians, referred to in the present tense, and was therefore
still alive.16 Rius-Camps also resurrects the ancient claim that the
surviving Latin version has accurately translated a Greek phrase
that is tenseless as 'Ignatius and those who are with him' rather than
simply Ignatius and his companions', thus making no claim about
whether they are alive or dead.
Polycarp is in fact ambiguous in both passages about whether
Ignatius has been martyred. He speaks not of Ignatius' confession
and 'martyrdom' but of his 'endurance', which can be applied to him
whether alive or dead. It is important, moreover, to grasp the effect
created by Ignatius' choreographed procession where, as we have
seen, as a 'bearer of a sacred object' (hagiophoros) in the Christian
mystery procession, he rattles his chains and claims that he wears
already in his flesh the image or tupos of the suffering Father God by
whose blood the Ephesians had been 'inflamed'.17 He is 'bound with
bonds befitting divinity'.18 Ignatius considers that, in his struggle
with his guards, whom he compares with 'ten leopards', he has
already begun his battle with wild beasts in the arena: 'I am fighting
with wild beasts all the way from Syria to Rome by land and by sea,
being bound to ten leopards, that is to say a detachment of soldiers.'19
Already therefore he is expressing his future martyrdom as in the
process of realization. Certainly Polycarp, somewhat diffidently, as
I shall later argue, in a passage that Rius-Camps would attribute to
the interpolator, catches the mood of Ignatius' procession coming
through Smyrna when he hails his entourage as 'imitations of true
love'. The mimesis of the Christian mystery projects the image of the
suffering God realized in one who is already seen as a martyr.
Thus we see that there is no real inconsistency, against the Hellenistic
background that we have drawn, between these passages such as an
16
17
18
19
Polycarp, Phld. 13.1.

Ignatius, Eph. 1.1; 9.2; see above, Chap. 4 n. 22 and associated text
Ignatius, Smyrn. 11.1; see also Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 137-39,
180-83.
Ignatius, Rom. 5.1.
103
interpolationist theory demands. But even if my resolution of the alleged

discrepancy between various parts of Polycarp is PhUippians (suggesting a
living and a past Ignatius) were not thought satisfactory, this would
not necessarily license an interpolation thesis. P. N. Harrison famously
sought to establish that the present work represents two originally
genuine letters of Polycarp, one written earlier when he was alive, and
one after the consummation of his martyrdom.20
Thus Rius-Camps' picture of Ignatius as a martyr of the subapostolic age whom Polycarp had never met in person appears highly
questionable. He needs to be able to locate Ignatius as writing his four,
genuine letters between AD 80 and 100. He proceeds to do so on the
questionable grounds that Irenaeus had handed on a true tradition that
die Ephesian church had been founded by Paul but that the apostle John
stayed in Ephesus up until the time of Trajan.21 On the assumption that
the apostle John only came to Ephesus late in life, Rius-Camps then
insists that Ignatius the martyr wrote his four letters before whenever
that might have been, since Ignatius only mentions Paul and not John
in Bphesians. But this is highly questionable, particularly in the light of
serious doubt regarding Irenaeus' statements on the apostle John and his
relations with Polycarp.22
Rius-Camps believes that the four genuine letters of Ignatius
he has thus reconstructed reveal the ecclesiastical organization in
the sub-apostolic age. Here there was no hierarchy of a single local
bishop with presbyters and deacons fully controlling local congregations. Rather the apostles and their associates such as Ignatius,
initially, and later Polycarp, were bishops with the role of broad
superintendence of numbers of congregations scattered widely
throughout large provinces. According to Irenaeus, using RiusCamps' own translation:
Polycarp ... was established by some of the apostles as supervisor [or
bishop] for (the province of Asia) from the community in Smyrna and
whom we saw in our early youth.23
20
P. N . Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles to the PhUippians (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1936).
21
Irenaeus, Adv.Haer. I H . 3 - 4 ; Eusebius, HEVL1.2?).
22
Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters, pp. 14445.
23
Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. HI.3.4 ( = Eusebius, H.E. IV.14.3-4); cf. Rius-Camps, The Four
Authentic Letters, pp. 82-83.
104
Ignatius ofAntioch
Rius-Camps can thus compare Polycarp as superintendent of Asia,

based as a presbyter in Smyrna, with Ignatius' daim in Romans - the
only letter he will allow to be uncontaminated by a forger's expansions
to be the superintendent or bishop of the province of Syria though
based in Antioch.24 The congregations of those wide-ranging provinces
possessed their own spiritual gifts, which they exercised within that
general superintendence, unrestricted by local hierarchy. But can we
seriously believe that at the end of thefirstcentury, there were populous
Christian communities organized on such a wide scale? Did it not make
sense to call the bishops of Smyrna and Antioch also bishops of the
provinces of Asia and of Syria because there were few Christian congregations other than these, and even fewer who would accept any form of
episcopal government?
Clearly, however, the fundamental basis of Rius-Camps' argument
here rests on Irenaeus' account of Polycarp and the apostle John,
which is highly questionable, and, once questioned, challenges the
entire foundation of an early ecclesial order of episcopal superintendence before the establishment of hierarchy. I must say that it
would seem to me that his conclusion reflects far more the ecclesial
concerns following the Second Vatican Council on the apostolate of
the laity and such matters, rather than a convincing reconstruction
of late first-century history.
Rius-Camps' efforts to locate the authorship of the seven letters
as expanded forgeries in the third century of the original four are
even more problematic. On what I believe to be the questionable
basis of the residency of the apostle John in Ephesus, which is one
of the main supports of his construction of a primitive, non-clerical
form of episcopacy, he can now argue that Irenaeus too shared
that concept of the bishop's office. Thus the writing of the forged
expansions and additions that created seven letters from the original
four must have taken place after Irenaeus.
Rius-Camps now focuses his attention on the arguably Syrian
Didascalia Apostolorum^ datable around AD 250, as providing the
historical backcloth to the forgery of the seven letters of the middle
recension. His argument is that the forger of the middle recension
was dependent upon this document, whose imagery he adopted. Let
us see, therefore, what precisely that imagery was.
24
Ignatius, Rom. 2.2; cf. Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters, p. 84.
105
We have seen how Ignatius refers to the three orders of bishop,

presbyters and deacons as presiding to create images or tupoL One
of these key passages, namely Magn. 6.1, according to one set of
manuscripts, reads 'pre-eminent or presiding in the place of'.25 It
should however be emphasized that the expression 'as an image o f
or 'in order to create an image o f is secure in other passages.26
Rius-Camps claims, in the light of such a reading, that the
Didascalia is referring to the place where the bishop sits in church
as well as where he projects the imagery of God the Father. The
typology is well formed and general, and has been broken up and
used in a fragmented form by the alleged forger of the middle
recension. In the light of my earlier chapters, however, nothing
could be further from the truth.
When the Didascalia uses the term tupos it is meant in the sense
of an Old Testament type whose fulfilment, as antitype, is to be
found in the New Testament and in the life of the Church of the
New Covenant: 'You bishops are therefore today to your people
priests, and Levites who minister in the Holy Tent, which is the holy
Catholic Church.'27 Clearly the author of the Didascalia in the third
century requires us to read the Old Testament passages that deal
with the Tabernacle or Tent in the wilderness that was the portable
shrine carried around before Solomon's Temple. The Old Testament
deals in great detail with this Tent and with how the cult should
be conducted within in it by high priest, priests, and Levites as its
authorized ministers.28 As with the epistle to the Hebrews in the
New Testament, the writer of the Didascalia invites us to interpret
what we read about the Tent of Witness and its cult as a mystical
foreshadowing of the events of the New Covenant that were yet to
come.
Thus he will claim that the Tent of Witness is 'a general type of
the Church' when he says that the deacons are to eat at the Church's
expense: 'as did the Levites who ministered in the Tent of Witness
that is a general type of the church'.
25
26
27
28
Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters, pp. 2 2 5 - 2 6 ; see also Brent, Ignatius and
the Second Sophistic, p p . 2 5 - 2 7 , p . 3 8 , for a discussion a n d identification o f t h e
manuscripts.
Ignatius, Trail. 3.1; Magn. 6.2.
C.A. II.25.7 (39-41) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 80.19-21.
As recorded in Exodus 19, Exodus 25-40, and Numbers 18.
106
Ignatius ofAntioch
If the Levites and their ministry are the type of the future deacons
of the New Covenant, then the high priest is a type of the bishop:
Tor these are your high-priests, the presbyters are the priests, and the
deacons, widows and orphans of the present are the Levites of old.'29
The basic understanding of tupos in the Didascalia is therefore as an
Old Testament type: the high priest described in connection with
the Tent of Witness has its antitype in the bishop, the presbyters are
antitypes of the priests, and the deacons antitypes of the Levites.
Indeed, it is his familiarity with this sense of 'type' as part of a
kind of allegorical method of exegesis that enables the author of
the Didascalia to give scriptural justification to a further order of
ministers, namely the deaconesses: 'Let the deaconess be honoured
by you as a type of the Holy Spirit.'30 The Old Testament speaks of
the 'cloud' in which God leads the Israelites particularly in relation
to the Tent of Meeting, since when the cloud stops, the Tent is to
be set up, and when the cloud moves on, the Tent is taken up and
the Israelites follow. The cloud by day becomes fire by night.31 When
the Tent was first set up with its contents and cultus established,
The Cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle.'32 The cloud is identified generally with the
Holy Spirit in application of New Testament exegesis of the Old
Testament, but here the cloud as the Spirit has its antitype in the
structure of the Church's ministry: the cloud or Spirit has become
specifically the type of the deaconess. Thus the deaconess too is
justified as an antitype of an Old Testament type.
The same exegesis of type/antitype in application to the Tent
of Witness will also yield a justification and explanation for the
order of widows and indeed of orphans in the Church: 'And let the
widows and orphans be reckoned by you as a type of the altar of
incense.'33 Thus in the Tent of Witness, a 'type of the Church in
every detail', the altar of incense becomes a mystical foreshadowing
of the widows and orphans for whose maintenance there is to be a
sacrificial giving that is equivalent to the incense offering of the Old
Covenant.
29
30
31
32
33
CA H.26.3 (20-21) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 87.14.

CA H.26.4.6 (40-41) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 89.2-3.
Exod. 40.34-38; Num. 9.1S-17.
Exod 40.34.
CA E.26.8 (53-54) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 89.4-5.
107
But the author of the Didascalia also introduces an Ignatian

typology into this pattern of typological exegesis with which he is
otherwise happy (as is also the Apostolic Constitutions, which incorporates his work). Despite Rius-Camps' attempt to make these
consistent, I remain unconvinced that the Ignatian typology is introduced with any understanding of its original force, with the authors
both of the Didascalia and Apostolic Constitutions remaining happy
with it only if it can be understood in the context of an exegesis of
type and antitype.
The bishop suddenly ceases to be an antitype of the high priest
as its original type but becomes, as in Ignatius, someone who is an
image of the Father God: 'He, acquiring God's place, let him be
honoured by you since as bishop he presides over you as a type of
God.'34
Here clearly the author is wrestling with Ignatius' quite alien
concept, which he is taking over but does not know how to interpret
with confidence. The bishop is to be paid ('honoured'), like the
other clergy and widows and orphans, but why? Because he is a high
priest, but also because he has acquired 'God's place'. In this sense
he can 'preside over you as a tupos of God'. Bishops are addressed
thus: 'You then are to your people priests and prophets, and
princes and leaders and kings, and mediators between God and his
faithful.'35 Thus bishops in God's place become 'princes and leaders
and kings'.
But we have seen how inadequate an understanding this reveals
of the Ignatian iconography, with which the author of the Didascalia
clearly does not know how to deal. He does not understand Ignatius'
background in the mystery cults of the Asia Minor of the early
second century, nor the sense in which tupos9 as we have seen,
referred to a divine image carried in procession by a cult leader
who sat or stood out pre-eminently as he or she led the procession.
Ignatius moreover did not have a view of bishops as kings or
monarchs, as reflected in the Didascalia here. The Church was not
constituted by the creation of a single monarchical bishop. Rather it
was constituted by the three orders in concert, who by their acts and
words created images of divine persons in the eucharistic drama of
34
35
Didasc. (Connolly), p. 87.19-89.1.

C^4. H.25.7 (44) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 80.22-23.
108
Ignatius ofAntioch
re-enactment displaying the Father-bishop, deacon-Son, and Spiritfilled apostolic council that was the presbyterate.
Similarly too the author of the Didascalia will treat the Ignatian
iconography of the presbyters as the apostolic council. As such he
follows once again the Didascaliast: 'Let the presbyters as a tupos
of the apostles be the object of your hope.'36 We find also the
presbyters described as the 'crown of the Church', which reminds
us of Ignatius' 'spiritually woven crown of your presbyterate':37
For the presbyters ... let a double portion be allotted to them for the favour
of the apostles of Christ, whose place they guard as fellow-counsellors of
the bishop, and the crown of the Church.38
The 'crown' may refer to the circle of seats for the presbyters set
around the bishop's throne, but clearly here there is no reference to
the images of divine beings projecting from the garland-crown of a
pagan priest leading a mystery cult, as in Ignatius. The presbyters are
not called here an image or tupos of the council of the apostles that
evokes the apostles, spirit-filled at the inbreathing of the Johannine
Pentecost: the Didascalia has no conception of Ignatius' original
meaning. The significance of the circle, like a crown for this writer,
is that the presbyters form a ring or phalanx around the bishop, who
sits in Christ's place, just as the apostles guarded Christ in a circle
around him.
Thus Rius-Camps requires that the alleged interpolator who
produced the forged seven letters out of the genuine four had a
consistently worked out typology of the Church that he derived
from the Didascalia. It is that description of church order in terms
of the threefold hierarchy that the interpolator requires in order
to convert the four genuine letters into the forged seven with their
hierarchical additions and claims. But we have seen that there is no
consistently worked out model in the Didascalia upon which the
forger of the seven letters could draw. There are two conflicting
typologies in the Didascalia^ one of which the author understands,
as does his successor, who in turn incorporated that third-century
work into the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions. The typology
36
37
38
Didasc. (Connolly), p. 89.3-4.

C.A. H.28.4 (10-13) = Didasc. (Connolly), p. 91.3-9.
109
that he understood was an exegetical method of deducing antitype

from Old Testament type.
But the Ignatian typology of church order that he took over he
found almost unintelligible. That typology, as we have shown, was
derived from the world of the pagan mystery religions, with its
bearing of images in procession in which the priest who led the
procession became a proxy for the god. The creation of divine
images in a Christian sense was lost on both the author of the
Didascalia and the author of the Apostolic Constitutions. Both show an
almost ongoing programme of finding circumlocutions for Ignatius'
tupos wherever it cannot be identified in the context of an exegetical
type/antitype.39
Thus Rius-Camps' hypothesis that the middle recension of seven
letters was created out of the four genuine ones under the influence
of the Didascalia fails.
Robert Joly, whilst believing the middle recension to be a forgery,
nevertheless rejected Rius-Camps' argument as to why this should
be so.40 To his work we now turn.
3. Robert Joly: The Entire Middle Recension as a
Pseudepigraphic Forgery
Joly argues that we cannot view the seven letters as anything other
than a complete literary forgery based upon an invented story of
Ignatius' journey as a martyr to Rome. Joly must of course believe
that the forger of the middle recension has doctored Polycarp's
letter to the Philippians with the addition of references to Ignatius
as his contemporary letter-writer, on grounds that we have already
rejected in the case of Rius-Camps, who argues similarly.41
Joly begins by attempting to show that the journey to
martyrdom is a scene of creative fiction.42 He accepts that the
39
For a m o r e detailed discussion, see A. Brent, T h e Relations between Ignatius o f

Antioch and the Didascalia Apostolorum\ SecCent 8 (1991), pp. 129-56, as well as
40
Joly, Le dossier, pp. 121-27 c o m m e n t s o n Rius-Camps' b o o k in its original, Spanish
version (1977). I have used the later English translation (1980).
41
Joly, Le dossier, pp. 1 8 - 3 3 ; cf. s e c t 2 above. See also H a m m o n d Bammel, Tgnatian
Problems', pp. 69-71.
42
Joly, Le dossier, pp. 39-40.
110
Ignatius ofAntioch
journey via the northern route through Philadelphia would have

been normal, but rejects this as evidence for authenticity: the
forger would have described in fiction what would have been
normal had it been fact. Furthermore, Joly hesitates to claim
that the description of Ignatius' freedom in transit is a strong
argument against authenticity: Paul, equally under arrest, was
able to write letters and have visitors. Joly will, however, suggest
some doubts in the case of a prisoner already condemned to the
wild beasts, who, given that method of execution, was clearly not
a Roman citizen, for whom beheading would be the prescribed
form of capital punishment. I have already shown the reasons
why a prisoner, whether Ignatius or Lucian's Peregrinus Proteus,
would have been allowed the kind of freedom that is described:
bribery for allowing visitors to come and go, and provision of
food, allowing more resources for the guards' personal use, were
regular features of imprisonment in antiquity.43
A further point in Joly's case is his assertion that condemned
prisoners were not substituted for gladiators in the arena before
the time of Marcus Aurelius.44 This is most certainly false, since
Cicero in the first century BC mentions the sending of prisoners to
Rome for the games.45 Joly might well reply that, even so, Ignatius
is only a single prisoner, and not a group of prisoners destined to
fill up the shortage of trained gladiators. Thus we are invited to
believe that the governor of Syria sent to Rome a single prisoner
whose punishment was to be thrown to the wild beasts. Ignatius
was clearly not a Roman citizen like Paul. If he had been, Ignatius
would not have been sent already condemned but put on trial and
then beheaded if found guilty.
The problem here is that though Ignatius, in his choreography
of the martyr procession, focuses upon himself as the only person
in whom his readers should be interested, it does not follow that he
was the sole person under escort. If he were, there is the opinion of
Davies that carries some conviction, namely that if the governor of
Syria had been absent, then his legate would not have been able to
43

Joly, Le dossier, p p . 5 0 - 5 1 .
45
Cicero, Pis. 36.89, cf. Fam. VIII.4.5; cf. Hammond Bammel, Tgnatian Problems',
pp. 7&-79; Schoedel, Ignatius, p. 169.
44
111
condemn Ignatius to death.46 If Ignatius' departure from Antioch

took place in the circumstances I have described,47 then indeed the
authorities would have needed to act quickly to get the prisoner away
from Antioch as soon as possible if they could not immediately
execute him. I would go further. Even if the governor had been
present and conducted the trial, in the factional strife within the
church of Antioch that had spilled over into the wider community,
it may not have been politic to execute Ignatius at Antioch with wild
scenes of civil commotion surrounding the act. Better he be sent to
Rome to die in the arena there.
Indeed, Ignatius' claims in Romans fit well with legislation on the
exposure of condemned criminals to the wild beasts in the arena. In
the Code of Justinian we read:
The governor ought not as a favour to the people to release persons
condemned to the wild beasts; but if they are of such strength and skill
that they would make a worthy spectacle to the Roman people, he ought to
consult the emperor^]48
This provision reflects Ignatius' position regarding the Roman

church. Ignatius {contra Davies, who thought the governor might
be present) is condemned to be executed at Antioch. The governor
is under pressure from one disaffected and potentially violent
party to release him and the situation becomes dangerous. Thus
the governor sends Ignatius to Rome instead, having 'consulted
the emperor' on the matter of Ignatius' fitness for exposure in
the arena to do battle with the wild beasts. But still the informal
petitioning continues at Rome amongst the condemned prisoner's
confraternity there.
But Ignatius now pleads that they stop, that they do not use their
influence in order to get him released. As he says in his letter:
as a prisoner in Jesus Christ I hope to greet you, if indeed it be the will
of the one who made me worthy to achieve this end. For the beginning
is auspicious if I can obtain the grace for grasping my destiny without
obstacles.
46
S. L. Davies, T h e Predicament o f Ignatius o f Antioch', VCh 30 (1976), pp. 175

80.
47
See above, Chap. 2.
48
Justinian, Dig. XLYIH.19.31.
112
Ignatius ofAntioch
As he continues, he makes it clear that it is a misguided love on their

part to secure his release, which may deprive him of martyrdom:
For I am afraid of your love that it may do me harm. For it is easy for you
to do what you want, but it is difficult for me to attain to God unless you
spare me.49
In the light of Justinian's Code, it is clear that it would have been

'easy' for them to secure his release under a customary procedure of
petitioning for the release of someone in this category. Clearly it was
a practice so usual that it needed such a prohibition.
Therefore, contrary to Joly's contention, the general features of
the Ignatian events are quite consistent with what we either know
or can infer to be the case with condemned criminals from the first
century BC onwards. Thus for his main case Joly must rely upon
other features of the story presented to us in the letters.
Joly first focuses on Ignatius' claim to be bishop of Antioch.
Ignatius never writes a letter to that church in the way that he has
written to six others. Furthermore, he names no individuals of his
home church as he does of others, which surely he would have done
if this account were genuine. He uses the name of Antioch only
three times: his preferred name is Syria, used some 14 times. Indeed,
he orders messengers to be sent to Antioch but sends no letter. Joly
finds all this suspicious.50
Joly believes that the forger worked sometime in the years
immediately before AD 170, when Lucian wrote Peregrinus Proteus,
which, according to his account, reflects the forgers' letters. Thus the
reason that the forger does not produce a letter to the Antiochenes
is that he knows he would be immediately unmasked: the church of
Antioch would be well aware that they had never received any such
letter from him. Such a concern equally applies to his selection of
places to which to send forged letters. The genuine Ignatius would
not have neglected to write to Tarsus and other major cities. Such
of course is an argument from silence: Ignatius may have written to
other cities and he claims that it was his intention to do so. As he says
to the Romans: 1 am writing to all the churches and I am instructing
49
50
Ignatius, Rom. 1.1.

Joly, Le dossier, pp.
113
them all that I am willingly dying for God unless you hinder me'51
- a general letter-writing activity to which Lucian of Samosata also
bore witness, as we have seen, when he said Tie dispatched letters to
all the glorious cities that were his Last Will and Testament'.52
Our collection of letters, confined to a narrow area of western
Asia Minor, may be the result of the particular cirmcumstances
of their collection: the last chance to gather some of the letters
together before his final departure from Troas to Rome as a last
expression of what he had taught. As Caroline Hammond Bammel
wrote:
Ignatius himself ... conceived the idea of using his stay in Smyrna for
the composition of a kind of last testament for the Western Asia Minor
communities, bringing to bear the authority given him by his forthcoming
martyrdom in order to boost the parties friendly to himself in those
churches and to supply their bishops with ammunition in their attempts to
maintain unity. Such a theory would explain also why the first four letters,
written from Smyrna, make a morefinishedand formal impression than the
more personal letters from Troas, the last of which (that to Polycarp) may
also have been completed in some haste. It is not necessary to assume that,
because no other letters survive, Ignatius wrote no other letters, but it may
be that these were informal notes intended to be supplemented verbally by
their carriers, or that they were not intended for this particular collection,
or that they revealed distressing details about the divisions at Antioch which
made them unsuitable for preservation.53
Joly, however, persists in asserting that the forger is a Smyrnaean

who selects those localities unlikely to have the means to check for
themselves what has happened. At Smyrna there are records of
an Onesimus at Ephesus along with Burrhus and others named, a
Damasus at Magnesia with Bassus and others, a Polybius at Tralles,
and of course Polycarp, a presbyter at Smyrna who wrote the epistle
to the Philippians that the forger could interpolate with Ignatian'
passages. The forger now used these very names in order to give
verisimilitude to his forgery in churches that remembered persons in
the past that bore them. They did not of course possess the orders
of bishop, presbyters and deacons that he attributes to them. He
51
52
53
Ignatius, Rom. 4.1.

Lucian, Peregr.; see above, ch. 3, s e c t 2.
Hammond Bammel, Tgnatian Problems', pp. 77-78.
114
Ignatius ofAntioch
names office-holders neither in Romans nor in Philadelphians. This is

presumably because he knew of no past names in those churches,
and to mention any that none of his contemporaries there would
recognize would lead again to his unmasking.
But this is not the only explanation of the absence of letters
that we should otherwise expect or of named officials where it
seems that we need them. I believe a far better explanation follows
from my account of the Ignatian events. Ignatius was proposing a
reconceptualization of church order in the light of the imagery and
drama of the mystery cults, as I have shown.54 His entourage and
its choreography was part of a programme of persuasion that did
not so much reflect existing ecclesial structure and organization but
stated what it ought to be and needed to be if there was to be peace
and concord (homonoid). We may well wonder whether the Ephesians
saw their joy with which they greeted Ignatius the martyr precisely
in terms of a mystery cult imitating the suffering God by means of
(spiritual) images worn in the flesh of divine persons and events.
No doubt it gave them food for thought to ask whether that joyful
enthusiasm was like followers of Attis 'being inflamed by the blood
of God'.
The suggestion of who was the bishop may similarly have been
that of Ignatius rather than that of Onesimus, Polybius or Polycarp
announcing positively on their arrival at his procession: 1 am the
bishop of Ephesus, Trailes or Smyrna.' Deacons such as Burrhus
and Zotion, or presbyters such as Bassus and Apollonius, would
no doubt have introduced themselves with these precise titles: they
existed previously in Asia Minor, as we have seen from the evidence
of the Pastoral Epistles. But there was no one presbyter-bishop
amongst them with a liturgical function quite distinct from the
others. It was for Ignatius to create that distinction by suggesting
that they were the image-bearers of these different offices in the
Christian mystery drama.
Thus when Ignatius writes Romans, he has no representatives to
whom he can suggest that they are or should be bearers of these
offices with their image-bearing functions. In the case of Philadelphians
of course matters were quite different: Ignatius had actually visited
that city and had contact with its Christian community as a prisoner
54
Above, Chap. 4.
115
under escort. He did not suggest the names of the three ecclesial
offices to any representative because, as he made clear, the church
of Philadelphia was a church at odds with itself internally: it had
divisions of which he was accused of having prior knowledge of
and a prior agenda for.55 In such a divided situation, he had no
suggestions to make: the person able to perform the function of the
bishop, and those able to act like presbyters and deacons, were yet to
emerge.
If such was the case in Philadelphia, how much more so with the
church of Antioch. In claiming the title of bishop he was claiming
a title acknowledged only by one section of the community, and
one that initially had been too weak to prevent his arrest by the
civil power following internal strife over Ignatius' position amongst
them. The consequences of writing with a claim to be a single
bishop were horrendous, not least by threatening to aggravate the
internal situation but also to upset the civil power that had removed
him as the source of such aggravation.
Furthermore, Ignatius' title as the (single) bishop was still controversial, even as the tide of opinion changed in his favour as his
choreographed martyr procession moved ever onwards to Rome
with divine ambassadors and speed-runners announcing in glorious
technicolour its progress backwards and forwards along his route.
Far better therefore not to be too specific about the title and those
over whom it was claimed. Groups of supporters may have existed
more widely in Syria than in Antioch itself, or the dissenting group
in Antioch may have been able to bear with greater equanimity and
for the sake of peace the decision about who held office, when that
decision was for them an internal one and not dictated from outside.
It is not without significance in this context that Ignatius is not so
indelicate as to mention precisely the reason that 'the church of
Antioch in Syria is at peace', namely the acceptance of his model
of church order securing concord on the basis of the model of the
processional drama of a pagan mystery cult. Thus the features of
the scene set by the letters for Ignatius' journey and martyrdom that
excite Joly's suspicion regarding their genuineness can be fully and
satisfactorily explained in terms of the account I have given in the
preceding chapters.
55
Ignatius, Philadelphia 7; cf. above, Chap. 2, n. 69 and associated text
116
Ignatius ofAntioch
Joly's argument therefore has to rest upon internal features of

the letters themselves and our supposed inability to date them at
the Eusebian date in the reign of Trajan. We shall shortly discuss
that dating in the light of Lechner's argument for authenticity, so
we may leave aside that particular subject now, along with the claim
that Ignatius' episcopacy is monarchical and that die monarchical
episcopate did not exist before well into the second half of the
second century. In our previous discussion we have already shown
that episcopacy for Ignatius is not monarchical, and that he does not
reflect the later view of Irenaeus and Hegesippus that bishops are
successors of the apostles.56 So we may conclude with Joly's original
contribution in terms of the parallels between Ignatius' letters and 4
Maccabees.
On lexical grounds originally exposed by Perler, Joly argues that
the Ignatian letters are dependent upon 4 Maccabees, and reflect
the theology of martyrdom found there.37 Perler dated 4 Maccabees
before AD 70, and therefore had no difficulty with the traditional,
Trajanic date for Ignatius' letters. Joly would prefer the dating given
by Dupont-Sommer, who wishes to date 4 Maccabees as late as the
end of the reign of Trajan and the beginning of that of Hadrian,
and therefore around AD 117-18.58 Joly believes that such a date
would strengthen his thesis that the Ignatian letters are forgeries, yet
there is nothing in those letters themselves that indicate a Trajanic
date: a genuine Ignatius could have been martyred in Hadrian's
reign, around AD 138, since Polycarp's martyrdom took place
arguably later, in AD 163.59 However, Joly believes that, whether later
or earlier, he can now play a trump card.
Joly claims that the parallels are so close that either Ignatius must
have known 4 Maccabees practically by heart or that he was carrying
a copy with him.' He continues:
56
Brent, Ignatius ofAntiocb and the Second Sophistic, pp. 2 3 - 3 0 .

Joly, Le dossier, chap. 7; cf. O. Perler, T>as vierte Makkabaeerbuch: Ignatius von
Antiochien und die altesten Martyrerberichte', RivACIS (1949), pp. 47-72.
58
A. Dupont-Sommer, Le quatrieme iivre des Macchabbees, Bibliotheque de FEcole des
Hautes Etudes 274 (Paris: H. Champion, 1939), p. 67; Joly, Le dossier, p. 97.
59
This is Joly's date, but for a discussion of the traditional date, AD 155, see W.
Schoedel, Tolycarp's Witness to Ignatius of Antioch', VCh 41 (1987), pp. 1-10; W.
Schoedel, Tolycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch', ANRWU21.1 (1992), pp.
279-83; Iightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, H.I, pp. 562-63, 572-73.
57
117
All this, one certainly feels, is too grotesque. One has overall the very strong
impression that the letters themselves resist the script which they want to
make us believe in... the reader must no longer doubt: the letters consist of
literary compositions in every accepted sense of the term, it is a literature
of the chamber.60
Such an activity is more suited to

a Smyrnaean author who composed at his leisure and dispassionately these
words of a fiery imagination than by a prisoner from Antioch for whom
his 'leopards' had allowed a stopover at Smyrna on the road to martyrdom
and who would have forcibly had to dictate those letters to his brethren at
chance opportunities when allowed.61
But we may ask how close the parallels alleged by Joly really were.
Though we have not space to go into them all, certainly Perler
himself was not convinced that they were so close as to be explicable only by a forger working in a library.
Let us take one such example. In Romans Ignatius continues his
reflections on his forthcoming martyrdom that he has asked the
Roman Christians to do nothing to impede. Thus he cries:
May nothing visible or invisible show any envy toward me that I may attain
to Jesus Christ Letfire62and cross and packs of wild beasts, cuttings and
being torn apart, mangling of limbs,53 the grinding of the whole body, the
evil torments of the devil come upon me, only that I may attain to Jesus
Christ64
Each of the terms that I have footnoted occurs also in 4 Maccabees,
as I indicate, and is part of its discourse of martyrdom. But why
should a passage composed from such terms be considered a forger's
construction composed at his leisure in a Smyrnaean library?
If Perler's earlier date for 4 Maccabees is accepted, then it is clear
how it was part of the warp and woof of Ignatius' reflections on his
martyrdom. The cult of the martyrs was established at Antioch at
60
Joly, Le dossier^ p p . 9 4 - 9 5 (my translation).

Joly, Le dossier^ p. 96 (my translation).
62
4 Mace. 9.17.
63
4 Mace. 9.17;10.S-7.
64
Ignatius, Rom. 5.3.
61
118
Ignatius ofAntioch
an early date.65 Even if we accept Dupont-Sommer's Trajanic date,

this would not rule out Ignatius' familiarity with such Maccabaean
concepts of martyrdom already in the tradition that the author of 4
Maccabees used. The genuine Ignatius could in fact have imbibed the
text as part of his spiritual formation if he were martyred around AD
138, some ten years later.
As well as being an academic I am an Anglican priest and a good
parallel example of what I mean may be found in what could be
inferred of my possible usage of the Anglican prayer book if I
were in an Ignatian situation. Take, for example, the collect for
purity in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, generally used by
Anglicans, whether in its sixteenth- and seventeenth-century form
or in modern liturgies into which it has developed.66 Since Anglicans
regularly participate in such a liturgy, were I in a desperate Ignatian
situation, I might find myself exhorting my companions:
We are in a hopeless situation. Yet we approach what is to come with hearts
cleansed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit God is with us despite our fears,
since to him all hearts are open, all desires known, and from him no secrets are hid.
It would be quite false to conclude that, because these italicized
phrases follow Cranmer's text so closely, I must therefore have had
to hand a copy of the Book of Common Prayer and been in a study
rather than held captive in a ship or wherever.
It is also worth noting that the collect for purity was originally
composed in the ninth century, probably by Alcuin of York,
Charlemagne's court chaplain. Should the text that I have composed
have been found instead in a historical document that we wished to
date, it would be equally wrong to conclude that the text must be
dated after Cranmer and the Edwardian Book of Common Prayer
(1549). The same is true with Ignatius' allusions that are in no sense
direct extensive quotations: they may have come out of the common
quarry from which both Ignatius and 4 Maccabees mined the material
out of which they constructed their respective works.
Joly has therefore failed to construct a historical context later in
65
66
See Hamond Bammel, 'Ignatian Problems', p. 72 and references in her n. 1.

'Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no
secrets are hid: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy
Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy glorious name.'
119
the second century within which the forger's work would have been
executed and his intentions in so doing be made clear. Let us now
see whether Lechner and Hxibner have fared better.
4. Thomas Lechner: Ignatian Pseudepigrapha against Later
Valentinianism
Lechner begins by attacking the reliability of Eusebius' dating
of Ignatius in the time of Trajan along the lines that Joly had
pursued. He can then claim that the letters of the middle recension
are without a clear historical location. If so, he is entitled to seek
one on the only grounds he believes to be left. He claims, like his
predecessors, that Polycarp's Philippians has been interpolated by
the forger for reasons we have already partly given, but which we
will discuss in full in Chapter 6. Thus Lechner locates the composition of the forged middle recension at a time subsequent to the
production of the episcopal succession lists by Hegesippus and
Irenaeus, namely around AD 16575, after the death of Polycarp
and before Lucian's production of Peregrinus Proteus, which Lechner
accordingly wishes to date controversially after AD 180.67 Thus he is
in a position to claim that Ignatius' letters are a reply to Valentinus
and his followers at a late stage of the Valentinian heresy that he
identifies as the western school.68
Let us then look in detail at all three of these points, namely that:
(1) the Eusebian chronology is unreliable, (2) the middle recension
postdates the production of a succession list by Hegesippus, and (3)
the letters reflect a late form of Valentinianism.
4.1. Eusebius' chronography and the traditional dating
At first sight Lechner would appear to be open to challenge from
the evidence of Origen cited earlier in this chapter. Although
Irenaeus quoted Ignatius anonymously as 'one of our martyrs',
Origen (AD 185253) refers to 'Ignatius, second bishop of Antioch
67
68
Lechnef, Igiatius adversus Va/entinianos, pp. 6 6 - 6 7 and n. 8.

Lechnef, Ignatius adversus Va/entinianos, pp. 21316; cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second
Sophistic, pp. 104ff.
120
Ignatius ofAntioch
after St Peter'.69 In the late second century it was believed (on good
grounds) that Peter died in the persecution of Nero in AD 65, and,
if this is the case, then we can allow a lengthy episcopal reign for his
successor, Evodius, of some thirty years to bring him to the time of
Trajan. Thus Origen can be enlisted in support of the Trajanic date.
How then can Lechner claim that Ignatius' Trajanic date rests solely
upon Eusebius and his alleged mistake?
It will be clear that I do not believe that Origen's reference, if it is
indeed his, is very accurate. From what we know and are able to infer
from the circumstances of Ignatius' departure from Antioch, as we
have clearly seen, it is very difficult to believe the later account of
an orderly succession of bishops at Antioch from St Peter. But this
will still leave open the issue of whether Ignatius' departure from
Antioch for Rome was real or fictitious, despite what later may have
been assumed about the undisputed character of the office that he
held at that time.
The problem with Origen's commentary on Luke, in which this
reference occurs, is that it is the Latin text of Rufinus' translation.
The reference to Ignatius by name as bishop of Antioch has
therefore been argued to have been added by his translator a century
later using information found in Eusebius' Chronicon or chronicle of
world history. However, a fragment of Origen's lost Greek text has
come to light which also refers to Ignatius' succession as the bishop
but one after St Peter.70 Origen seems therefore to have possessed
chronological information in the early third century whose likely
source is the lost Chronicon of Julius Africanus. In fact this was one
line of argument that convinced the great German patristic scholar,
Adolph von Harnack, to abandon his earlier scepticism and believe
that the middle recension was genuine and of a Trajanic date.71
But whether the source of the date of Ignatius' martyr journey
to Rome was in the early third century or Eusebius in the middle of
the fourth, there remains a problem with such chronologies. The
method of constructing such chronologies would hardly inspire
the confidence of a modern historian. The procedure of Origen's
69
70
71
See above, nn. 1 0 and 11 and associated t e x t

T h e Greek fragment is codex m o n . g r a e c 208, the implications o f w h i c h cause s o m e
embarrassment t o Lechner - Ignatius adversus Valentinianos, pp. 7 1 - 7 3 ; cf. H a m m o n d
Bammel, Ignatian Problems', pp. 6 5 - 6 6 .
See Lechner, Ignatius adversus VaJentinianosy p. 78 and n. 14.
121
friend, Julius Africanus {c. AD 240), would have been like that of
Eusebius later, whom he inspired. First of all you obtain lists of the
years of the reigns of Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Lydian
kings, Roman consuls, and then dates of Olympiads, etc., to which
you add lists of Jewish kings. Next you produce succession lists of
bishops of Rome and of the other major sees.
You then place the originally separated lists in columns side by
side and endeavour to establish some kind of chronological equivalence between them and their different systems of dating. Having
done this, you are able to fill in the space that you left between the
columns to locate a brief mention of a critical historical event, or
the names of other famous persons. This space is known technically as the spatium historicum. Thus you conclude that you have dated
those events and persons.
However defective this methodology, we know that one such
production occurred before Eusebius and around AD 217, when an
anonymous writer in Greek composed a chronography that was to
experience the editorial and correcting hand of his successor, whose
name we know as Hippolytus of Rome.72 We have a chronological
table for calculating the date of Easter on the left-hand side of the
so-called statue of Hippolytus at Rome, which begins with the first
year of Alexander Severus (AD 222). On the right-hand side we find
a list of the dates of festivals of the Passover back to the day on
which the world was created. Other brief notes of historical events
are added against dates, along with corrections 'according to DanieF
in which a second hand gives an alternative chronology. There is
a list of works engraved on the statue that represents part of the
library of the Hippolytan school.
We have a surviving Chronicon of this time attributed to Hippolytus
that arguably included a succession list of bishops along with regnal
years of Jewish kings, Roman consuls, and Persian kings. Thus
in virtue of the parallels drawn between bishops of the past and
Roman consuls an originally undated Roman succession list has
been given dates. But the dates cannot be very accurate. Something
of this list appears to have survived in the later chronographer of
72
For a discussion of this hornets' nest of problems, see A. Brent, Hippolytus and
the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension before the Emergence of a
Monarch-Bishop, VCh Sup 31 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), pp. 270-99.
122
Ignatius ofAntioch
the year AD 354, where miraculously, before Pontian (d. 235) every
bishop manages to die when a consul goes out of office and their
successor consecrated when a new consulship begins! Clearly parallel
lists have been associated with each other and artificial equivalences
established.
Thus we can envisage a similar process with Antioch: its original
chronological lists were worked over by earlier chronographers
(such as Julius Africanus) and then incorporated into Eusebius'
Chronicon. A list of bishops is constructed out of records of remembered figures of the past and juxtaposed with lists of emperors and
their consular years. Thus Ignatius, who claims the title of bishop
in his letters, is placed in the line that suggests the reign of Trajan,
and it is this reign that comes to be regarded as the one in which the
martyrdom promised by the letters of Ignatius took place.
Thus we may distrust the Trajanic date given by Origen and
subsequently Eusebius for Ignatius' martyrdom. But just because
the date is unreliable, it does not necessarily follow that the letters
which look forward to that martyrdom are fictions. For the forgery
hypothesis to work, we must show that the letters were subsequent
to the martyrdom of Polycarp, whether in AD 155 or in 163, and
thus that all mention of those letters in Polycarp's Philippians must
be interpolations. Eusebius, therefore, is free to be out by some 40
years and still record a genuine Ignatius in the first edition of his list
in the spatium historicum and later the episcopal list for Antioch.
Let us now examine Lechner's case for a date subsequent to
Hegesippus' (and Irenaeus*) articulation of a theory of bishops as
successors to the apostles.
4.2. Ignatius has no doctrine of bishops as successors to the
apostles
According to the classical theory of church order, a bishop's authority
was dependent upon being able to show that he held the most recent
place in a succession list in which his predecessors went back one
by one to the first bishop who was appointed by an apostle. This
theory seems to have first seen the light of day in the second half of
the second century. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul, in his work
Against All Heresies, claimed that Gnostic heretics such as Marcion,
Valentinus, and Basilides were not authoritative Christian teachers
123
because their claims were recent and they had no line of descent
back to the apostles. The notion of 'succession' is expressed by the
Greek word diadoche, whose home is in the language of the schools
of Greek philosophy. The chief philosopher who had presided over
the school of Aristotle or Plato or the Stoics and their followers was
succeeded after his death by a man who inherited the schoolroom
and its material accompaniments such as books or statues (herms) of
the founding philosopher. As head of the school, he was recogni2ed
as the official exponent of the school's teaching.73
Irenaeus was to claim that the bishops who had succeeded to the
headship of the various churches were the true descendants of the
apostles, but the heretics went back in their diadoche to Simon Magus
and his heirs, the opponents of the original apostles. Simon Magus
had tried to 'buy the Holy Spirit with money' when he sought to
acquire by bribery the power that the apostles had to heal.74 The
anonymous writer in the Hippolytan school, Pseudo-Hippolytus,
was to draw the parallel with diadoche or succession in a pagan philosophical school even more tightly: each heretic was a successor of
one of the philosophical schools, all of which went back ultimately
to the worship of the Serpent.75
Thus Irenaeus, writing around AD 175, will say:
The teaching of the apostles handed down is present to be viewed in every
church by all who wish to see what is true; and we are able to enumerate the
bishops who were instituted by the apostles and their successors up until
our own time. These have neither taught nor recognized any such teaching
as is raved about by those heretics ... But since it would be tedious in such
a book as this to enumerate the successions possessed by all the churches,
we will confound them all by pointing to the greatest and most ancient
church and known to all, founded at Rome and constituted as a church by
the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul. That church holds to the
teaching handed down by the apostles and the faith proclaimed by them, a
faith that reaches down to us through the successions of their bishops ...
Having laid the foundations of that church and built it, the blessed apostles
placed the ministry of the bishop's office in the hands of Linus ... and
Anacletus succeeded him and after the latter, Clement, in third place from
the apostles, found that the bishop's office fell to him, who also had seen
73
74
75
A. Brent, 'Diogenes Laertius and the Apostolic Succession', JEH 44 (1993), pp.
367-89.
Acts 8.18-20.
Pseudo Hippolytus, Ref. V.6.3.
124
Ignatius ofAntioch
the blessed apostles and had consorted with them, and the proclamation of
the apostles was still ringing in his ears and the teaching they handed down
before his eyes[.]76
Irenaeus thus continues the list down with Evaristus, Alexander,
Sixtus, Telesephorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, Soter, and finally his
contemporary Eleutherus, and then concludes: There has come
down to us the tradition from the apostles and the truth of their
preaching in this same order and in this same teaching.'
The apostolic succession was not Irenaeus' original idea but its
origin was contemporary with him. It was in Eleutherus' time that
the true originator of the episcopal succession lists arrived in Rome,
namely Hegesippus. Eusebius records further of Hegesippus that
Hegesippus has left us with a complete record of his own opinion in
five treatises that have come down to us. In them he explains how when
travelling as far as Rome he associated with many bishops and that he had
received from them all the same doctrine.
Eusebius now records Hegesippus' actual words:
On my arrival in Rome, I composed a succession list {diadoche) until the time
of Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. In each succession (diadoche)
and in each city it is a case of what the law and the prophets and the Lord
proclaim.77
It is clear that neither Irenaeus nor Hegesippus were disinterested
historians simply seeking to reconstruct the genealogy of church
order and ministry from antiquarian curiosity. They were seeking
to construct a case against what they regarded as deviant forms
of Christianity. In order to make that case they were adopting a
narrative of authority based upon the authority structure of pagan
philosophical schools.
There is therefore no guarantee of historical reliability for the
account of the origins of church order that thus emerges, in which
Christ ordains the apostles, and they and they only can ordain single
bishops as their successors, and for which a named succession list
can be constructed. The names on Irenaeus' undated succession list
76
77
Irenaeus, ^<&. Haer. IIL3.1-2.

Eusebius, H.E. IV.22.1-3.
125
for Rome have for the most part no further biographical details:
they remain just names. Furthermore, we cannot be certain of the
precise nature of the office held by the person named as 'bishop'
in accordance with the succession doctrine initiated by Hegesippus
and Irenaeus. Where we do have concrete information, as in the case
of Clement in the third place after St Peter according to Irenaeus,
the notion of the office of a single bishop in succession to a predecessor seems lacking.
In his genuine letter to the Corinthians (c. AD 95), Clement does
not write in his own name but in the name of 'the church of God
whose pilgrim residence is at Rome to the church of God residing
similarly at Corinth'. There is no 'Clement bishop, servant of the
servants of God' claiming apostolic authority for his office as
successor to St Peter. He is writing, as has been pointed out, not
as a single monarch-bishop but as the secretary of the Roman
presbyterate.78 His letter is anonymous and we only learn of the
connection of his name with this letter from Irenaeus, who adds the
information when his name comes up on the succession list:
In the time of this Clement, when no small rebellion had broken out
amongst the brotherhood at Corinth, the church at Rome sent a writing
of greatest significance to the Corinthians, bringing them to a state of
peacef.f9
In another document, from Rome around AD 150, we find a quite

different description of his role. In Hermas or The Shepherd, the
visionary is instructed by the elderly lady to write his vision down.
He is instructed thus:
You will write two small books and you will send one to Clement and one to
Grapte. Clement therefore will send his to the cities outside, for that is his
commission. But Grapte will admonish the widows and orphans. And you
will read yours in this city in the company of the presbyters who preside
over the church.80
Here, then, in the Rome of the mid-second century we have not a
78
79
80
P. Lampe, From Paul to Valentinur. Christians in Rome for the First Two Centuries
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), and Brent, Hippotytus, pp. 409-412, 430-32.
Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. IH.3.3.
Hernias, Vis. 8(IL4).3.
126
Ignatius ofAntioch
monarch-bishop but 'the presbyters who preside over the church',

though individually each may have presided over a single housechurch in a fractionalized Roman community.
But in addition we have the figure of Clement, who has an
entrusted ministry or 'commission' to write to external churches.
This seems clearly to describe the Clement of Corinthians, who
wrote anonymously in the name of the church of Rome: he is a
kind of 'foreign secretary' to the Roman community. His letter to
the Corinthians in fact supports the presbyteral model of church
government at Rome, even though he is sometimes credited with
affirming the doctrine of episcopal succession in an Irenaean and
Hegesippan sense. A group of presbyters, whom he sometimes
calls 'bishops', have been deposed at Corinth and Clement's letter
opposes the right of the laity to depose them if they have exercised
their office blamelessly. His grounds are:
Christ came from God and the apostles from Christ. Both things happened
therefore in a way well ordered according to God ... And as they preached
in country and in city, they appointed their firstfruits, having examined
them by the Spirit, bishops and deacons of those who were to become
future believers ... So too our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ
that there would be strife over the name of the bishop's ministry. For this
reason, having received perfect foreknowledge, they placed in office the
aforesaid people and afterwards added a codicil that, if they should fall
asleep, other tried and tested men should be the successors to their ministry.
We consider therefore that those then placed in office by those apostles or
afterwards by other, reputable men with the consent of the whole church
and who have exercised their ministry blamelessly over the flock of Christ
... have not been expelled from their ministry jusdy.81
Here Clement clearly believes that there is a succession from

the apostles. But that succession is not one single individual as a
monarch-bishop following the other in a chain, but a group of
presbyters (which he also calls 'bishops'): he does not refer to any
particular one of them. Indeed, Ignatius in his letter to the Romans
which for Rius-Camps, as we saw, was the one uninterpolated,
genuine letter does not name a single bishop in Rome, which
would be strange if he were writing after Hegesippus and the
production of the succession lists.
81
Clement, Cor. 42.1-4 and 44.1-3.
127
Hegesippus and Irenaeus, in setting up their 'school' model of

episcopal succession, single out Ignatius as the third bishop after St
Peter. And so did whoever constructed the Antiochene succession
list that made Ignatius episcopal successor but one to Peter: he was
not a monarchical bishop. Nevertheless he could still have existed
and written the letters ... or could he?
Lechner simply assumes that because the Ignatius of the letters
advocates the threefold order of bishop, priests, and deacons, those
letters are therefore creations from the period of the succession
lists and reflect Irenaeus and Hegesippus' view of diadoche. But in
the light of my earlier discussion, we can now ask whether this
assumption stands up to critical scrutiny.82
Ignatius does not consider the bishop to be the successor of the
apostles. As we have seen, the bishop's function is to preside at the
Eucharist as an image or icon (tupos) of God the Father, who in the
ambiguity of Trinitarian persons is the suffering God. We are never
told how the bishop is appointed. Indeed, if the alleged pseudonymous writer had before him a Hegesippan or Irenaean succession
list as his model, we should have expected him to have made far more
of this. Pseudo-Ignatius would have surely mentioned his consecration by Evodius, consecrated in turn by St Peter at Antioch.
It would seem that anyritualof appointment or chain of succession
is a matter of indifference to the author of the middle recension. All
that concerns him is that the person who is seated prominently at
the celebration of the Eucharist and who creates an image in words
or acts of the words and acts of God that carries conviction in the
community of faith is ipsofacto the bishop.83 His office is like a role in
a pagan mystery drama in which the leading or presiding priest, the
kathegemon, is an image-bearer and otherwise a dramatis persona in the
redemptive drama that is re-enacted: according to both Ignatius and
the relevant pagan epigraphy he is a theophorvs.84
As we have also seen, Ignatius is concerned with how the
apostles are represented but it is the presbyters, not the bishop, who
represent the apostles. If Pseudo-Ignatius had been writing under the
82
83
84
See above, Chap. 4, and Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, pp. 2123.
Ignatius, Magn. 6.1, 2; Trail. 3.1; cf. above, Chap. 1 n. 3, and Chap. 4 nn. 37 and 38
and associated t e x t
128
Ignatius ofAntioch
influence of the later concept of diadoche^ he would not, I think, have

attributed the succession to the presbyterate in place of the bishop
as the final authority on the teaching of their ecclesial equivalent of
a Hellenistic philosophical school. But even if he had by some quirk
associated the presbyters with the apostolic succession in that sense,
he would have spoken directly of their teaching function. As we
have seen, however, the presbyters are not the representatives of the
apostles in that sense. They are the 'council of the apostles' because
they form an image, in the liturgy of their circle seated around the
bishop, of the spirit-filled apostles of the Upper Room that was
the scene of the Johannine Pentecost.85 According to a much later
tradition that developed out of the succession model of Irenaeus
and Hegesippus, the presbyter, in addition to the bishop, was at
the Eucharist, "in the person of Christ {in persona Christi)\ But for
Ignatius it was the deacons who in their role in the eucharistic drama
created an image of Christ, coming forth from the Father-bishop
to the people with the consecrated bread and wine and returning to
him when their work of serving the congregation was at an end.86
Furthermore, Ignatius' view of church order cannot be found
to have developed later in anything like the form in which we find
it in the middle recension. Anonymous references to Ignatius in
Irenaeus and perhaps in Origen have been seen by Joly as well as by
Lechner to be due to circumspection born of the embarrassment
of knowing that they were references to a recent forgery.87 But
that circumspection need have nothing to do with forgery; it can
be explained by the fact that Irenaeus found incomprehensible the
writer's view of the threefold order in the radically secularized (and
to him pagan) form in which he found it. Certainly, as we have seen,
the authors of both the Didascalia and the Apostolic Constitutions
found the Ignatian typology of order incomprehensible: both failed

to understand tupos in any other sense than a category of biblical
exegesis, so that the Church's ministry must be an antitype of Old
Testament types in an exegetical sense.
Thus Lechner's quest for a convincing later historical context in
which to fit his account of the forgery of the middle recension falls
85
See above, Chap. 2, footnotes 61 and 62.

Ignatius, Magn. 7.2, and above, Chap. 4 n. 37 and associated text
87
Joly, Le dossier, p. 109; Lechner, Ignatius contra Vdlentinianos, pp. 6 8 - 6 9 .
86
129
at the starting gate. Nevertheless, he has an additional thesis, and

although that thesis can hardly succeed in the light of this initial
failure, it will perhaps be relevant nevertheless to consider it.
Lechner's subsidiary thesis is that his Pseudo-Ignatius has
fashioned his theology in his letters as a specific response to
Valentinianism, even late Valentinianism.88 We now examine this
final point.
4.3. Pre-Valentinian aeon theory cannot befound in Ignatius
According to Irenaeus, Valentinians believed in a divine world of
aeons or 'emanations' that they called the pleroma or 'fullness'. The
interrelations of these aeons formed part of a cosmic myth of the
Fall and subsequent redemption. However, although Valentinus
came to Rome in the late 130s, fragments of what he in fact taught
rather than what Irenaeus said he taught give us no examples of
aeon speculation as part of a myth of the fall of an aeon named
Sophia, who was cast out of the pleroma, and the subsequent
creation of the world by a lesser deity. Since the discovery of the
Nag Hammadi Library (in 1945), mostly written in Coptic, we have
some of the original Gnostic texts, which are in many respects
strikingly different from Irenaeus' account. For example, the Gospel
of Truth is a Valentinian document and held by some to be the work
of Valentinus himself, whose previously lost work had borne that
name.89
The conclusion has been too readily drawn (and Lechner draws
it) that because Irenaeus knows of a Valentinianism with an aeon
theory and Valentinus' fragments and other Valentinian works lack
such a theory, therefore Irenaeus' description is both exaggerated
and relates to Valentinians that were his contemporaries around
AD 180. The key text here is the work known as the Apocryphon of
fohn, which contains a fully blown aeon account and is attributed
to the Sethian school of Gnostics.90 If in the course of time
88
89
Lechner, Ignatius contra Valentinianos, C h a p . 7.

I. Dunderberg, The School of Valentinus', in A. Marjanen and P. Luomanen (eds),
A Companion to Second Century Christian 'Heretics', VChSup 76 (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
90
2005), pp. 64-99.

M. A . Williams, T h e Sethians', in Marjanen and Luomanen (eds), Companion^ pp.
32-63.
130
Ignatius ofAntioch
Valentinians incorporated such a Sethian account, then the Sethian

Apocryphon is clearly also late. If therefore Ignatius mentions aeons
in a Valentinian or Sethian sense (or both), then he is clearly a
Pseudo-Ignatius writing after the death of not only Trajan but also
of Polycarp (AD 155 or 168). In that case the references to aeons and
other features of a Valentinian system would have implications both
for the authenticity of the middle recension and for the integrity of
Polycarp's Philippians.
But it is by no means certain that the Sethian tradition to which

the Apocryphon bears witness is in fact later than Valentinus. Alastair
Logan, in an influential study, has endeavoured to show that the
core of the myth in the Apocryphon goes back to a group originally
called the 'Gnostics' which he dates to the 120s.91 If we dated
Ignatius' martyrdom in the reign of Hadrian in AD 138 rather than
Trajan, making some adjustment to the hit-and-miss equivalences
of the columns of the chronographers, Ignatius could well have
commented on an embryonic form of Logan's Gnostic cosmology.
Other scholars have argued that the core of the Sethian myth existed
in some form as early as the first century.92 If it existed at that time,
the genuine Ignatius could have referred to that myth even if the
Trajan date is the correct one. Ignatius does not mention Valentinus
and Valentinians by name and it is simply Lechner's inference that
they must be intended.
But I am not convinced that Ignatius uses the Greek word aion,
which can also mean an 'age' of time, in any technical sense found
in a well-developed Gnostic system. The majority of instances are
found in the expression 'ruler of this aion9. Clearly we have here
a reference to Satan, with the 'ruler of this age' referring to the
present time rather than the age of God that is to come. Typically
Ignatius says: 'Flee the evil designs and snares of the ruler of this
age (aion)993 Similarly Ignatius refers to the Idngdoms of this age
(awn)9, where presumably the reference cannot be to kingdoms
91
92
93
A. H. B. Logan, Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: A Study in the History of Gnosticism
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), Chap. 2; cf. Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic,
pp. 96120. See also A. H. B. Logan, The Gnostics: Identifying an Early Christian Cult
(London and N e w York: T & T Clark, 2006).

Williams, The Sethians', pp. 51-52 and n. 34.
Ignatius, Phld. 6.2; cf. also Eph. 17.1; 19.1; Magi. 1.2; Trail 1.2; Rom. 7.1.
131
possessed by one of the personal emanations from the Invisible

Spirit or Monad represented in the Apocryphon of John.
There are only two possible exceptions, both in Ephesians, and it
is these that Lechner attempts to exploit94 In one of these passages
Ignatius says: 'I am your scapegoat sacrifice (peripsemd) and I sanctify
myself for you, church of the Ephesians, renowned throughout the
ages (aiones)?95 Lechner wishes to interpret this as the Ephesians
being renowned in the presence of the emanations or aeons of an
allegedly late Valentinian myth. Similarly in the passage regarding the
disclosure of the 'three mysteries', Ignatius claims:
The virginity of Mary and her procreation eluded the ruler of this age
(aion), likewise the death of the Lord - three mysteries of crying which
were done in the stillness of God. How then was he revealed to the aiones
(or: ages)?96
Schoedel is prepared to translate aeons here as emanations and not as
ages of time, as an early and embryonic form of Gnosticism.97 But at
first sight this appears a strange and forced reading. If 'ruler of this
age' translates aion in the sense of 'present age' then the expression
aiones which follows surely is better translated 'future ages'.
It is true that Ignatius refers to malign heavenly powers of which
he claims esoteric knowledge. Not the single ruler of the present
age but rather a number of heavenly powers were the wondering
spectators of the sufferings of Christ on the cross:
Be deaf therefore when someone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ,
who was from the progeny of David and from Mary, who was truly born,
both ate and drank, was truly tracked down in the time of Pontius Pilate,
was truly crucified and died, whilst those in heaven and on earth and in the
underworld looked on, who was also truly raised from the dead[.]98
And in the so-called 'star hymn' in Ephesians, Ignatius describes

the heavenly powers as being shaken and disturbed when the star
94
95
96
97
98
Schoedel, Ignatius, p. 63 n. 2.
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 8.1.
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 19.1-2.
Schoedel, Ignatius, p. 87.
Ignatius, Trail. 9.1-2.
132
Ignatius ofAntioch
shines, which superficially may seem like a Gnostic myth in which,

as Irenaeus describes, the aeons are disturbed:
How then was he manifested to the ages (or: aeons)? A star shone in heaven
above all the other stars ... From then all magic and every spell for evil was
wiped away; ignorance was destroyed ... In consequence all things were put
in commotion because the dissolution of death was being taken care of."
But even if this were the case, as I have said, this need not reflect a
time after AD 165 since according to Logan the core of the Sethian
myth involving aeon speculation went back at least to the 120s.
Granted, Ignatius writes to the Ephesians, which was a Christian
community that at this time possessed the pseudonymous letter of
Paul to the Ephesians found in the New Testament amongst Paul's
genuine letters. Granted, Schoedel lists in his index no less than
19 references or allusions to Pseudo-Paul's Ephesians.100 Granted,
he argues that Ignatius' preface to his letter is modelled on that
of 'Paul'.101 And in Pseudo-Paul's letter too we find references to
aeons that could only be translated perversely as 'emanations of the
cosmic powers' rather than 'ages of time'. But just as in Ignatius, as
we have seen, the term does refer to aeons unambiguously in the
temporal sense of the term.
Pseudo-Paul refers to 'this present age (awn)9 in contrast with 'the
age (aion) that is to come'.102 like Ignatius, who speaks of the archon
or 'ruler of this age', he also refers to the Ephesians as walking in
past time 'according to the aion of this world, according to the ruler
(archon) of the authority of the air'.103 Here aeon appears to be the
name of a malignant heavenly person, like archon, which is characteristically used in the literature of this period as a cosmic ruler.
Christ has delivered the believer from the present age or indeed aeon
or cosmic ruler, just as in Ignatius the star's shining shakes the old
order into obsolescence. The church in Pseudo-Paul is the
agenda (oikonomid) of the mystery (musterion)y hidden from the aeons in
God, who created all things in order that it might be made known now to
99
100
101
102
103
Ignatius, Eph. 19.2-3. See also above, Chap. 4, n. 48 and associated text.
Schoedel, Ignatius, p. 2 9 1 .
Schoedel, Ignatius, pp. 3 7 - 3 9 .
Eph. 1.21.
Eph. 2.2.
133
the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the Church the
richly patterned wisdom of God according to the design of the aeons that
he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord[.]104
In this work of the eighties or nineties AD, it would be perfectly
possible to read aion or aiones as referring to cosmic beings, in the
same way in which Lechner proposes to read this term in Ignatius,
with the result that such a use of the term does not imply a mid- to
late second-century date.
But in Pseudo-Paul, as in Ignatius, it must be acknowledged that
the term is quite fluid and elastic. This fluidity is a consequence of
aeon referring both to an age in time and also to the personal spirit
who rules this age. Certainly Pseudo-Paul believes that the 'plan,
pattern, or agenda {pikonomidf is revealed 'for the arranging (or
management) of the fulfilment of the past times (aiones)\ where
clearly the reference is not to personal cosmic rulers.105 The Church
is a mystery not previously revealed and that comes between Christ's
first and second coming. And this is also Ignatius' sense, though
developed in accordance with his concept of church order.
The overthrow of the cosmic ruler of this age is proclaimed
in Ignatius' 'star hymn'.106 The three 'mysteries to be cried aloud'
after the age-old silence of God was already anticipated in the New
Testament Ephesians. Pseudo-Paul had spoken of 'the wisdom
of God made known now to the principalities and powers in the
heavenly places through the Church'.
However, the church order of Pseudo-Paul's Ephesians appears
to resemble that of the Didache before Ignatius, with its 'apostles,
prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers' and no presiding
bishop, presbyters or deacons such as Ignatius will propose.107
Through the Church' therefore meant to Pseudo-Paul 'through a
collective charismatic ministry'. But for Ignatius it is the Church
constituted as a threefold order that confronts and overthrows the
cosmic powers:
104
105
106
107
Eph. 3.9-11.
Eph. 1.10.
See also above, Chap. 4 nn. 48 and 49, and this chapter, nn. 95 and 96 and associated
text
See above, Chap. 2, sect. 4.
134
Ignatius ofAntioch
Be eager therefore to assemble morefrequentlyto celebrate God's Eucharist

and glory. For when you frequently gather as the Church, the powers of
Satan are destroyed and his destructive force is dissolved in the concord
(homonoid) of your faith.108
As we have seen, bishop, presbyters, and deacons were for Ignatius,

by analogy with their pagan counterparts in mystery cults, bearers
in their flesh of images of the Father God, the spirit-filled apostolic
council, and the servant Son.109 When the community gathers 'as the
Church' for the Eucharist, those who perform the roles of divine
representatives in the saving drama thus wave their spiritual images
(or tupoi) at the cosmic powers that they thereby overthrow. As such
the images that they wear or bear spiritually in their flesh have an
apotropaeic function: they have the power to ward off demonic
powers.110 Thus Ignatius is grafting a pagan view of the apotropaeic
functions of tupoi on to traditional Christian eschatological expectation about the final end. Ignatius can therefore claim that his new
church order fulfils the programme of Pseudo-Paul in the final two
decades of the first century in a way that is unconnected with later
Valentinianism. At this earlier date the divine plan was a previously
hidden mystery now revealed 'through the Church'.
We thus see that Lechner's case is unsustainable.
Let us now lookfinallyat Hubner and Vinzent's attack on authenticity and what they may be able to add to Lechner's case, which they
otherwise support.
5. Hubner and Vinzent: Ignatius' Monarchianism and
Marcion's Docetism
Hubner believes that the middle recension must be redated to the
late second century because its theology reflects a monarchianism
derived from Noetus of Smyrna in opposition to the Valentinians.
Monarchianism was the view that there are no distinctions of
persons to be made within the Trinity; monarchians accused their
opponents, who believed in such distinctions, of being 'ditheists' or
108
109
110
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 13.1.
See above, Chap. 4, passim.
F o r further examples see Philostratus, VA V.20 a n d Brent, Ignatius and the Second
Sophistic^ pp. 2 0 7 - 2 4 .
135
believers in two gods.111 Their embryonically Trinitarian opponents

accused them in turn of believing that the Father suffered on
Calvary, though Noetus (AD 165) affirmed rather that the Father
suffered on Calvary in the Son rather than as the Son.
Superficially, Ignatius could be read as supporting such a view
when he speaks of the Ephesians being 'inflamed by the blood
of God' or entreats the Romans to 'Allow me to be an imitator
of the sufferings of my God'.112 These were undoubtedly seen as
monarchian by the author of the long recension, who duly altered
them and gave them a properly Trinitarian form. But, I have argued,
their original context was never monarchian. The bishop who wears
the image (tupos) of the Father wears also the image of the suffering
God when he himself imitates Christ's suffering. Furthermore, the
picture of the Ephesians thus inflamed was derived from pagan
mystery cults such as Attis and the self-mutilation of their priests
rather than from any inner church dispute regarding the nature of
the Trinity
Much rests for Hiibner on the use of paradox by monarchians in
response to Valentinianism. Key texts in this respect are several of
Ignatius' statements, which are set out in modern editions as though
they were creedal formulas:
There is one Physician,
Both of the flesh and of the Spirit,
Begotten (gennetos) and unbegotten (agennetos),
Becoming flesh as God,

In death true life,
Both of Mary and of God,
First capable of suffering ipathetos) then incapable of suffering (apathes),
Jesus Christ our Lord.113
Hiibner will now seek to show that such paradoxes were characteristic
of a monarchianism that began with Noetus of Smyrna, who influenced
Melito of Sardis in the mid-second century, but of which Pseudo-
111
See Ps.-Hippolytus, Ref. DC12.16-19 and Brent, Htppolytus, pp. 210-11.

I g n a t i u s , ^ . 1.1 and Rom. 6.3.
113 Ignatius, Eph. 7.2.
112
136
Ignatius ofAntioch
Ignatius' statements are developments.114 His method consists entirely

of literary analysis, by means of which he claims to show which text
was prior and which posterior. As Melito of Sardis's text is a meditation
rather than a creed, Hiibner looks to Noetus of Smyrna as the originator
of paradoxical epithets to describe the mystery of the one God in two
modes. Melito and Noetus speak of God as Father and Son as a paradox
in such terms as invisible and visible, incomprehensible and comprehensible, impassible (not able to suffer) and passible (able to suffer).115
The paradoxical antitheses were used to deny the Gnostic claim that
there was an earthly Jesus and a heavenly and spiritual redeemer, both of
whom were separate from the one Father: the redeemer was a unity.116
Hubner's student Lechner, whose attack on the authenticity of the
Ignatian correspondence I dealt with in the previous section, drew on
and developed Hubner's work.
I do not find Hubner's version any more convincing than his
pupil's.117 Lechner, as we saw, rested his questionable case on
being able to locate the Ignatian letters in the later context of an
advanced Valentinianism. Hubner's addition to that case, as we have
presented it, is to locate the paradoxical creedal statements of the
middle recension in a late monarchianism that objected to a plurality
of divine persons and argued against that plurality by means of a
defence resting upon paradox. But such was not the only available
historical context for those statements. The pagan rhetoric of the
Second Sophistic also engaged in antithetical argument.118 Arguably,
therefore, Melito of Sardis produced his Christological concepts
from a general exegetical method of contrasting antitype with
Old Testament type, which is plausible to regard as indicative of a
general, Asian theological culture rather than a specific dependence
on Noetus.
Furthermore, in the Pseudo-Pauline, Pastoral Epistles in the New
Testament we find similar creedal antitheses, such as:
114
115
116
117
118
For the Creeds of Noetus, see Ps.-Hippolytus, Ref. BL10.10-12 and X.27.2, and
Hiibner, Der Paradox Eine, pp. 48ff. For the comparison with Melito of Sardis, see
Hiibner, Paradox Eine, pp. 16ff., 20f
Hiibner, Der Paradox Eine, pp. 78-87, where he also cites Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.
H I ! 6.6.
Hiibner, Der Paradox Eine, pp. 124-25.
For further details see my review of Hiibner, Der Paradox Eine, inJEH 5 (2002),
pp. 114-17.
See Schoedel, Ignatius, pp. 8-9, 39, 61.
137
Great is the mystery of godly worship:

He who was manifested in flesh,
Was justified in spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the pagans,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory,119
or:
Faithful is the saying:
For if we suffer with him.
We shall also ]ive with him,
If we endure patiently with him,
Then we shall also reign with him,
If we deny him,
He will deny us.120
We cannot - in view of the extensive use of the Pastoral Epistles
in parts of Polycarp's Philippians whose authenticity has not been

challenged - possibly date these letters after Polycarp's martyrdom
(AD 156).121
Hiibner also claims that the specific terms of the Ignatian
antitheses, reflecting a negative theology that claims the unknown
God can only be apprehended through negative concepts (the via
negativd)^ also indicates the lateness of the middle recension. As
Ignatius writes to Polycarp:
Observe the times,
Look for him who is above time,
The timeless one (achronos),
unseen (aoratos),
who for our sake was seen {oratos),

the intangible (apselaphetos),
the one who could not suffer (apathes),

who for our sake was made capable of suffering (pathetos)[]122
119
120
121
122
1 Tim. .3.16.
2 Tim. 2.11-12.
Polycarp, Phil. 4.1 (1 Tim. 6.7,10); 5.2 (1 Tim. 3.8-13); 5.2 (2 Tim. 2.12); 9.2 (2 Tim.
4.10); 11.2 (1 Tim. 3.5).
Ignatius, Pol. 3.2.
138
Ignatius ofAntioch
But such terms as achronos^ aoratos^ apselaphetos, and apathes, like Ignatius'
previous use of agennetos (unbegotten) in contrast to gennetos (begotten),

can be found, to a large extent, in earlier literature. We have for example
Philo, a Jewish writer who explains Jewish thought in the Old Testament
in terms of Greek philosophy, and who lived at the beginning of the first
century after Christ, with whom he was almost contemporary. Philo uses
such negative terms, derived from pagan philosophy, to describe God's
being.123 And I have argued in my previous chapters that Ignatius should
be read against popular pagan religious culture.
Here once again we find the use of such negative terms in
attempting to come to terms with the mystery of God in the Pastoral
Epistles (though admittedly not to Ignatius' precise extent) some
twenty to thirty years (AD 80-90) before his traditional, Trajanic date.
Pseudo-Paul here speaks of 'the incorruptible (aphthartos), unseen
(aoratos), only God'.124 We also read of: 'the Lord of Lords who
alone has deathlessness (athanasia), dwelling in light unapproachable
(aprositos), whom no human being sees or can see',125 which reveals
a familiarity with the thought-forms of a negative theology.
Markus Vinzent has made one final addition to Hiibner's argument, in
an additional chapter to the latter's book.126 One strand in his argument
is that Ignatius is dependent on the Preaching of Peter, which in turn is
dependentonLuke's Gospel, specifically regardinghis attack on docetism.
Docetism is an early heresy which asserted that Christ only suffered in
appearance, and is attackedfrequentlyin the middle recension:
But if as some who are atheists - that is unbelievers - say that he suffered
in appearance only, whereas it is they who are mere appearance, why am I in
bonds? Why do I pray even tofightwith wild beasts? I die then in vain.127
His point is that his claim to be an image or tupos of the suffering
God would be a lie. He would be representing physical sufferings
that could never have taken place in reality but only in appearance.
123
124
125
126
127
See P. Borgen, K. Fulgseth and R. Skarsten, The Philo Index (Leiden, Boston and
Cologne: E. J. Brill and W B. Eerdmans, 2000), p. 37: aoratos; p. 38: apathes; p. 62:
achronos. Though Philo does not use agennetos as 'unbegotten' he will use the nearly
identical form agenetos, meaning 'uncreated': see p. 3.
1 T i m . 1.17; for aphthartos cf. also Philo Index, p. 60.
1 Tim. 6.16.
Hiibner, Der Paradox Eine, pp. 241-86.
139
Vinzent takes his stand on the following passage from Smyrnaeans:

I know and believe that even after his resurrection he existed inflesh.And when
he came to those around Peter, he said to them: Take me and feel me and see that
I am not a bodiless spirit (daimonion asomaton). And immediately they touched
him and they believed, commingling with hisfleshand spirit128
But the problem with Vinzent's thesis is that docetism is the oldest
Christian heresy and that it is not possible to distinguish early and
later forms of it in the way that his argument requires.
In the scene in Mark's Gospel where Jesus walks upon the
water, we find features capable of a docetic interpretation. Jesus
walks upon the water and this suggests that he is a phantom being
(phantasmd)) and not a being of flesh and blood. Jesus has to assure
diem that it is he.129 Given that the words of Jesus in the Gospels
are selected and shaped for a contemporary purpose at the time of
writing within first-century Christian communities, it is proper to
infer that docetic claims were being made in those communities:
the words and acts of Jesus are remembered, selected and shaped
according to such anti-docetic concerns.
According to Matthew, the Gospel of Ignatius' own church,
Antioch in Syria, an important addition must be made. The act of
walking on the water must be shown to be possible for any human
being of flesh and blood so long as they have faith. Peter initially
steps from the boat and walks with Jesus on the water but his faith
fails and he begins to sink.130 Thus any evidential use of the event to
show that Christ's body was of an ethereal, heavenly substance fails.
The Epistles of St John, emanating from Asia Minor in
the late first century, show a flourishing docetism, with their
repeated condemnation of anyone who 'denies that Christ has
come in the flesh'.131 Polycarp, in passages where there is no
question of interpolation, quotes such texts against the docetists
of his time.132 The risen Christ, according to Luke, eats in the
128
129
130
131
132

Mark 6.48-51.
Matt 14.28-33.
1 John 2.22; 4.2-3; 2 John 7.
Polycarp, Phil. 7.1.
140
Ignatius ofAntioch
presence of the disciples in a scene that appears to be framed

as an anti-docetic polemic:
While they were speaking, Jesus himself stood in their midst and said to
them: Teace be with you/ And hearts aflutter and becoming frightened,
they thought that they had seen a spirit And he said to them: Why are you
so distressed and why have perplexities risen in your hearts? See my hands
and my feet that I am myself. Feel me and see that a spirit does not have
flesh and bones even as you see that I have.'133
Clearly here also the purpose of the selection of this narrative by a
Gospel writer is to refute a very clear claim.
Docetism was a heresy that flourished before the traditional date
of the middle recension. Vinzent must therefore show that Ignatius
is using the Preaching ofPeter, which in turn has used this text of Luke,
and that the dating of the former means that the existence of the
middle recension before the death of Polycarp cannot be maintained.
This, in itself, can be questioned, though I have not space to do this
here. It is quite feasible that an Ignatius at the traditional date could
be quoting a free-standing tradition later incorporated into either the
Preaching of Peter or the Gospel ofPeter,
Suffice it to say that Vinzent's thesis rests upon an additional claim,

namely that Ignatius' quotation of these words specifically reflect a
special kind of Docetism, namely the claim that Christ possessed a
phantom body only after the resurrection. Moreover, he must show
that this specific form of docetism did not exist before or even at
the same time as the traditional date for the middle recension. Thus,
according to Vinzent, such a post-resurrection docetism was characteristic of Marcion's teaching, and so the middle recension must be
a post-Marcionite forgery.134 When Ignatius records the risen Jesus
saying, not simply Luke's 'a spirit does not have flesh and bones
even as you see that I have', but 'I am not a bodiless spirit {daimonion
asomatori)\ he is rejecting the Marcionite view that the risen body of
Jesus was incorporeal as distinct from his earthly body before the
crucifixion.
But the desire to refute such a post-resurrection docetism can
equally be found in certain passages in St John's Gospel. It is
133
134
Lk. 24.36-39.
See Hubner, Der Paradox Eine, pp. 260-70.
141
furthermore quite impossible to date this Gospel to the middle or

late second century. Certainly some have seen docetic elements in
the Fourth Gospel despite its insistence that 'the Word (Logos) was
made flesh'.135 On a docetic view, Jesus' weeping at the grave of
Lazarus could not be because he was of human flesh and blood:
there could be no tears from a phantom being with no participation
in a truly human existence. Rather, his tears are those of the distress
of a divine being coming into close proximity with evil or imperfect
matter. Jesus therefore wept at the grave of Lazarus not because he
loved him, a misunderstanding born of human incomprehension,
but because the Logos in flesh wept for human misunderstanding
of his true nature and origin.136
It is in the Fourth Gospel that the walking on the water, so
susceptible to docetic misinterpretation and needing to be corrected
by the other Gospels, appears at its most docetic:
Having rowed therefore about twenty-five or thirty stadia they saw Jesus
walking on the lake and coming near the ship and they were filled with fear.
But he said them, 'It is I pit. I am], do not fear.' They wanted therefore to
take him into the ship and immediately the ship was at the land to which
they were going.13'
Note here that the figure walking on the water offers no evidence
that he is a man of flesh and blood. He even fails to get into the boat
because suddenly they are at their landing place.
Does this testify to an earlier, docetic stratum of the text of the
Fourth Gospel, worked over by the author so as to remove some of
its force? Was fear specifically of something that could be described
as a phantom (phantasmd) originally present in his text? Furthermore,
according to the Fourth Gospel the risen Jesus appears to Thomas
in the following scene:
And he [Thomas] said to them: TJnless I see in his hands the impress of
the nails and I force my ringers into the place of the nails and I force my
hand into his side, I will not believe/ And after eight days ... Jesus came
135
136
137
See U. Schnelle, Antidocetic Ghristology and the Gospel of John: An Investigation ofthe Place
ofthe Fourth Gospel in thejohannine School, trans. L. M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1992).
John 11.
John 6.19-21.
142
Ignatius ofAntioch
through closed doors and stood in the midst and said: Teace be with you/
Then he said to Thomas: 'Bring your finger here and look at my hands and
bring your hand and force it into my side and do not become an unbeliever
but a believer.'138
Remember our principle of redaction criticism: that a text is to be

explained against the background of the original community by
whom it is recorded and the significance of the text in the light of
problems within that community that explain its selection. The very
physical description of Christ's risen body is clearly directed against a
view that the resurrection body was an appearance otphantasma that
lacked flesh and blood. Schnelle has studied this docetic background
to the Fourth Gospel generally and says of this passage:
In the Thomas pericope, John the evangelist combines two current
theological problems of his community: while fending off a docetic denial
of the identity of the crucified Jesus with the risen Christ, he must also
answer questions about the resurrection faith of those who were forced to
rely on the testimony of eyewitnesses. An antidocetic tendency is expressed
in Thomas' desire to touch Jesus' wounds in order to confirm the bodiliness
of the Risen One and his identity with the earthly Jesus.139
Thus we can find in the Fourth Gospel a response to a specifically

post-resurrection docetism. It is therefore not the case that the issue
of Jesus' post-resurrection body only arises in the second half of
the second century: the Fourth Gospel cannot be that late in view
of its earlier citations.140
Hiibner's thesis can only succeed if we can date the Pastorals after AD
160, let alone the Acts, with which they share a similar milieu, and the
Johannine writings also. The presence of a post-resurrection docetism is
rooted in the Johannine tradition, as we have seen. It is therefore false to
assume that there could be no embryonic Marcionism or Valentinianism,
prior to Marcion and Valentinus, for an early second-century Ignatius to
attack Furthermore, both Philo and the Pastorals attest to the use of
negative terms to express divine attributes.
138
John 20.25-27.
Schnelle, Antidocetic Christo/ogy, p . 143.
140
See C E. Hill, Ignatius, "the Gospel" and the Gospels', in A. F. Gregory and C. M.
139
Tuckett (eds), Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 267-86.
143
I have frequently pointed out that Ignatius does not have a

concept of monarchical episcopacy, nor did later writers understand
his theology of church order. Priests and deacons are not ordered to
obey their bishop, but it is the threefold order, like the later Trinity,
who mutually regard and co-operate with one another in a Godlike
harmony, and to which the laity are to submit. Unlike the view of
Irenaeus or even of Clement of Rome, a bishop is not a successor
of the apostles, but a tupos of God the Father, as is the deacon of
Jesus Christ and the presbyteral circle at the Eucharist of the Spiritfilled apostle. These concepts are related to those in inscriptions
of pagan religious terms, some of them specifically to the imperial
cult.
Had the Ignatian letters emanated from the last quarter of the
second century, they would have looked far more like the longer
recension minus, admittedly, the Trinitarian emendations. We
should also have expected quotations, like those of Justin Martyr,
from the canonical Gospels, the Epistles, and the Old Testament.
For these and many other reasons we have argued that recent
attacks on the authenticity of the middle recension fail.
But as we have frequently indicated, there remains a fundamental
problem regarding Ignatius and the church order witnessed by
Polycarp's Phi/ippians, and to this problem we now finally turn.
Ignatius and Polycarp
Both Lightfoot and Zahn rested their defence of the authenticity

of the middle recension on features of the text of Polycarp's
Philippians that they believed to be free of interpolations. Each of
the writers whom we saw in the previous chapter raising objections
to the authenticity of the middle recension base their case on their
rejection of the witness of Polycarp's Philippians in its present form
to the collection of the Ignatian corpus. Each believe that passages
which testify to the martyr procession coming through Philippi, and
instructions to collect the letters of Ignatius the martyr-bishop who
led that procession, are forged additions. Let us now examine the
credibility of Polycarp's present text as witness to the process by
which the letters of the middle recension were gathered together
into Ignatius' corpus.
1. Polycarp's Collection of the Corpus of Ignatius' Letters
Why did Ignatius write only to five churches in Asia Minor, and to
Rome as the sixth? As the forger who added to the long recension
such pseudonymous works as the letters to the Christians of Tarsus,
Philippi, and Antioch knew well, there were significant Christian
centres to which Ignatius did not write. Surely if the letters were
genuine, so critics before Lightfoot had stated, we should have far
more than the mere six, as well as others to bishops other than
Polycarp.
The answer to this reasonable question is found in Polycarp's
letter to the Philippians. Ignatius does mention other letters that he
144
145
plans to write. He has in mind a second one to the Ephesians, as he

writes to them in his first:
If Jesus Christ counts me worth through your prayer and it may be his will,
I will inform you in the second small volume that I have started writing
about the divine plan for the new man Jesus Christ, in his faithfulness and
love, in his suffering and resurrection.1
His condition for so doing is that God will assure him in a vision that
'you are gathering severally but in common in grace from the name ...
in order for you to give obedience to the bishop and presbyterate'.2 The
divine plan of which he will speak is related to the Christian mysteries
that he has begun to expound to them, particularly the 'three mysteries
of crying'.3 He thus needs them to assemble as a mystery cult with
their three orders bearing spiritually in their flesh the divine tupoi for his
further exposition to have point He needs God so to reveal it because he
writes on the point of departure from Smyrna to Troas and then on to
Rome, with the result that merely human contact with him as a prisoner
in chains will from now on become increasingly difficult.
Such letter-writing as publicizing the theatre of his martyrdom was
essential to Ignatius' purpose as a man 'set on unity'.4 His purpose
required as many such letters as possible, but clearly his room for
manoeuvre was severely limited. Thus he writes to Polycarp from
Troas:
Because I have found it impossible to write to all the churches on account of my
sudden departure by shipfromTroas to Neapolis, as God's will has so ordered,
you write to the churches that lie before me, as you are in possession of God's
mind, so that they themselves can do the same thing. Those that can should send
messengers on foot, but others, letters by the hands of those sent by you, to the
end that all of you can win renown for an eternal deed.5
Ignatius is looking back towards Antioch in Syria, to which diaconal

ambassadors have been sent, as we have seen.6 He wants Polycarp to
address letters to other churches nearer to Antioch than Philadelphia,
1
2
3
4
5
6

Ignatius, Eph. 19.1; see also above, Chap. 5, nn. 96 and 99 and associated text
Ignatius, Pol. 8.1.
146
Ignatius ofAntioch
to which alone he has managed to write. The letters that Polycarp

sent in response to this instruction have not survived, with the
exception of Philippians, which, as we shall see, may indicate their
general tone. But Polycarp, if his one surviving letter is uninterpolated, was clearly intent on making sure that he had copies of those
letters that Ignatius had written:
Both you and Ignatius wrote to me that if anyone departs for Syria, he
should carry with him your letter. This I will do if I get an opportune
moment either I or an ambassador that I am going to send on your behalf
as well. We will send you, in accordance with your request, Ignatius' letters
that he sent to us and the other letters that we have left with us. These are
attached to this letter ... And inform us of what you have learned more
definitely about Ignatius and about his travelling companions.
Thus the collection of Ignatius' letters that have survived was due
to the action that Polycarp claims he took here.
Polycarp claimed to have in his possession Smyrnaeans and his

own personal letter written to him from Troas. Since Philadelphia
was also written from Troas and would have been carried by the
messenger who delivered the first two letters through Smyrna, it is
clearly explicable how a copy of this letter also came into Polycarp's
possession. Ephesians, Trallians, and Magnesians were written from
Smyrna, so that it is also clear how Polycarp would have been in

possession of these letters, either because he requested copies from
Ignatius or because the prospective martyr-bishop left his papers
with him, whom he regarded as his episcopal colleague.
Ignatius wrote Romans from Smyrna too, so that Ignatius may
have given Polycarp a copy of this letter as well to include in the
corpus. However, he may not have done so: the textual transmission
of Romans is distinct from the other six letters. Ignatius may have
thought that his words to the Romans were not relevant to the
situation in Asia Minor, and the doctrinal errors that he mentions
and contests there, so that he did not choose to give Polycarp a
copy.
Thus there emerges a plausible picture of the collection of the
six letters of Ignatius as well as Romans^ the seventh. Its plausibility
is enhanced by the observations that it is an account whose recon7
Polycarp, PM. 13.1-2.
147
struction has involved a good deal of detective work in which,

although there are many loose ends, a pattern nevertheless emerges
that illuminates the situation. A forger of the original letters, like the
later forger of the long recension, would have produced an actual
letter to the Antiochenes that corresponded to the one that Polycarp
mentions but is now lost. He would also have provided us with the
second letter to the Ephesians which Ignatius intended to write but,
if he did in fact write it, is now lost. As Iightfoot said:
The personal'relations also in these epistles yield results not less striking than
the geographical notices. It is very rarely that a forger in these ancient times
has undertaken a fiction of such magnitude and variety without falling into
the most violent of anachronisms and contradictions. Not only is there
nothing of this kind in our Ignatian letters, but all the incidental and allusive
notices agree in a striking way; and, so far as we are able to apply this test
to them, they are in entire harmony with the external conditions of time
and place.8
Regarding also Ignatius' knowledge of the situation as it existed in

Antioch in Syria, critics of authenticity have focused too exclusively
on Ignatius' claim to know ecclesiastical situations from mystical
visions. As we have shown, such mystical visions tend to be focused
upon an idealized picture of the community gathered for the
Eucharist and not on any empirical facts about those communities'
everyday life. The apparent exception would be Ignatius' knowledge
of the divisions at Philadelphia, though this knowledge could well
have been based on an inference from the divisions at Antioch
having been repeated in other churches.
Thus Ignatius' visionary claims cannot be read as a literary device
to make plausible what would seem so obviously incongruous
with his situation under the restrictions of armed escort, namely
knowledge of churches which his imprisonment prevented him
from contacting. We have seen furthermore that the source of such
knowledge, though not made immediately clear by Ignatius, can be
inferred from references that he makes to the role of the deacon
Philo from Cilicia and Rheius Agathopus from Syria. If this were
a literary forgery requiring the invention of such figures so as to
3
J. B. Iightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmillan, 1890), I I I , p. 351 (emphasis

in original).
148
Ignatius of Antioch
make plausible a fictitious scenario, then their role would need to

have been made absolutely explicit and not hidden in the text and
requiring such inference. As lightfoot says, criticizing the suggestion
of a 'miraculous revelation' to explain Ignatius' knowledge of those
church situations:
The true explanation is found in the letters themselves. From these we learn
that two deacons ... had followed in his wake. They evidently took the same
route as him... Thus we find that they were entertained first at Philadelphia
(Philad. 11) and then at Smyrna (Smyrn, 10,13). As he had already left Smyrna
when they arrived there, they followed him to Troas, where they caught him
up. But the inference is built on scattered notices pieced together. The facts
relating to their journey are gathered from different epistles; and they are
not placed in any connection with the tidings respecting the restoration of
peace at Antioch.9
Yet if Philo and Rheius Agathopus were fictional figures introduced

into a literary forgery in order to create a plausible backcloth for the
work, then such a direct connection between them as informants
and the news in question would have been essential.
If a forger, in other words, had been at work in the production
of the middle recension, then what he has produced would have
been done with the ingenuity of a Conan Doyle specializing in false
leads and loose ends in his weaving of the narrative of his detective
stories. Given that the challenge to the integrity of Polycarp's letter
on the basis that one part of the text treats him as a dead and past
martyr, but another as still living, can be satisfactorily dealt with, our
account so far may be found plausible. And either those passages
do not give the precise temporal indication that the critics claim it
does, or indeed, with Harrison we might conclude that there are two
letters of Polycarp joined into one.10
But there remains one significant problem with Polycarp's work,
which inspired the forgery thesis for the middle recension as well as
leading to the search for the interpolator's seams in Philippians itself:
the church order to which Polycarp witnesses is not that of the
middle recension. It is to this problem that we now turn.
9
10
liîtfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, pp. 354-55.

Poiycarp, Phil. 9.1 and 13.1; see also above, Chap. 5, nn. 14 and 16 and related text
149
2. The Church Order of Polycarp's Philippians and the

Middle Recension
Polycarp does not write as a bishop, like Ignatius, with his own
exclusive authority, but as 'Polycarp and his fellow presbyters'.11
He never uses the word 'bishop' {episcopos) of himself or of anyone
else, including Ignatius. Polycarp does use the word 'subjection'
as Ignatius does of the laity 'subject' to bishop, presbyters, and
deacons, but only in his case of 'being subject to the presbyters and
deacons'.12 In other respects we appear to be living in the world of
the Pastoral Epistles (which he quotes), where there are bishops but
not single bishops, as we saw was the case with Clement of Rome:
in the Pastorals we are given a list of qualifications for 'a bishop'
but meaning generically 'anyone who is a bishop' rather than 'the
sole bishop'.13 In Paul's letter to the Philippians there appears also
a plurality of 'bishops and deacons' and not simply one alone, just
as in Clement of Rome, as we have seen, 'bishop' is used interchangeably with 'presbyter' and refers to a plurality of ministers.
There also appears an order of widows, as in the Pastorals.14
In view of Polycarp's 'presbyters and deacons' to whom submission
is required, we should note that in the Pastorals, though presbuteros
(like its female equivalentpresbutera) is often used simply to describe
an older man (or woman), we do meet with presbyters or older men
who preside:
Let those presbyters who preside (proestotes) well be counted worthy of a
double honour, chiefly those who toil in word and in teaching.15
Those elders or presbyters, moreover, were to be ordained to their
teaching office by the imposition of hands: Titus' is instructed
by 'Paul' to 'ordain elders (presbyters) in every city'.16 It should,
however, be noted that 'preside' (proestotes) is used in the sense of
a teacher presiding over a philosophical school (proestos) and not
in Ignatius' sense, using a different word, of 'sitting forward
11
12
13
14
15
16
Polycarp, Phil, praef.

Polycarp, Phil. 5.3.
1 Tim. 3.2; Tit 1.2. For Clement, see above, Chap. 5, n. 81 and related text
Polycarp, PbiL 4.3; cf. 1 Tim. 5.3-16.
1 Tim. 5.17.
Tit 1.5.
150
Ignatius ofAntioch
prominently' (prokathemenos) or 'being pre-eminent as' a tupos or

image of a divine person or event. It is clear that for the Pastorals
the leaders are leaders because they teach the true doctrines of the
faith, whereas in Ignatius they are pre-eminent as icons of persons
and events in the liturgical drama of the Christian mysteries.
If Polycarp's Philippians reflects the world of the Pastorals and
knows nothing of Ignatius' typology of church order, does it not
therefore probably follow that he knew nothing of Ignatian letters
containing that typology of church order? Those letters are therefore
later, and all references to them and their collection in Polycarp's
letter are interpolations of the forger of the middle recension.
Undoubtedly Polycarp and Ignatius represent the meeting of two
quite different earlier Christian worlds.
But such a conclusion would only follow if the letters of the
middle recension presupposed an established church order into
which all around him would already have fitted. Thus Ignatius (or
the pseudonymous writer using his name) would have been familiar
with a world of the single bishop with a plurality of presbyters
and deacons, and those whom he addressed through his forged,
epistolary medium would have known of such offices. Since this is
the world of Irenaeus in the final quarter of the second century and
not Polycarp and the Pastorals and the end of the first, the martyr
of Trajan's time becomes a figure of historical fiction.
Traditionally, as we saw in our first chapter, this is the way in which
the debate has gone. For the supporters of episcopally governed
churches such as Ussher in the seventeenth century, the genuineness
of the middle recension was vital to show that the threefold order
of bishops, priests, and deacons existed early in church history, and
indeed went back to Jesus himself, who appointed the apostles who
appointed bishops with the specific ministry of ordaining presbyters
and deacons as well as their own successors. Ignatius was placed
in the 'apostolic age' where Eusebius had placed him, and simply
assumed to be one of the companions of the apostles.
My defence of the integrity of the middle recension nevertheless
rejects any such reading of the historical background. The letters
of Ignatius of Antioch cannot be placed in the second half of the
second century precisely because, if they were, their view of the
legitimacy of single bishops would depend on a doctrine of the
apostolic succession that they simply do not have. Later use of the
151
middle recension, such as in the DidascaliaApostolorum, was to distort

its view on the threefold order by imposing upon it the later, successionist view. Polycarp's presbyters and deacons, like Paul's 'bishops
and deacons' in his New Testament Philippians, had been one of
the models of church order in Ignatius' church in Antioch, along
with more charismatic groups which were the cause of division
and strife in the community that Ignatius had tried to unite with a
radical proposal of a single bishop as the focus of a ministry with
presbyters and deacons.1
I argued that Ignatius' model of church order was based upon the
pagan mysteries of the Greek city-states of Asia Minor during the
Second Sophistic. Here the leader of the mystery procession and
foremost actor in the mystery play was a cult leader or procession
leader who bore the image (tupos) of the gods of the mystery in his
garland-crown, or as medallions on his chest or as portable images in
his hands. Thus the priest became the god whose image he bore and
it was the god who was leading the procession.18 Other priests of
various ranks also bore similarly images of other gods. As a result,
the unity of the city-state was symbolized in what was done, and
the unity or concord (homonoid) thus symbolized was effected. The
citizens 'joined the chorus or choir' singing in harmony, even though
only some of them were finally initiated into the full mysteries: thus
the rites of an elite came to involve a whole community and express
the unity of their common life.
Polycarp may preface his letter 'Polycarp with his fellow-presbyters'
rather than calling himself 'bishop', but in none of the prefaces to
Ignatius' seven letters does he lay claim to the title of 'bishop' either.
As we have seen, the title to which he lays claim is theophoros and not
episkopos, so that he uses the title of a god-bearer or one who carries
or wears images in the procession that he leads. In so doing he is
not describing an established church order in an existing historical
situation. He is not describing an existing social reality, but in the
rhetoric of the martyr procession, in word and in act, he is creating
a new social reality.
The existing social reality of the churches to whom Ignatius
wrote was, I would conjecture, very similar to the one that we have
17
18
See above, Chap. 2, sects 3-4.

152
Ignatius ofAntioch
exposed in Polycarp's Philippians: it was the world of the Pastoral

Epistles. Polycarp clearly understood his office, like the 'Peter' of
the pseudonymous New Testament epistle, as one in which he could
say: 'I exhort the presbyters as one who is your fellow-presbyter
(sunpresbuteros)?19 He may be de facto leader 'in word and in teaching'
but he wears no image that distinguishes him from his fellowpresbyters. Ignatius, in his letter to Polycarp, begins:
Ignatius, who is also a tbeophoros, to Polycarp bishop of the church of the
Smyrnaeans, but that rather is overseen by God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ...
Polycarp's reaction, on my view, would have been:
He calls me "bishop', and I suppose I am because presbyters are also
bishops, though I am not the only bishop ... or am I? Other presbyters
defer to me generally although there is nothing that I do that they cannot
... Perhaps then I am, as Ignatius says, the bishop.
The other churches to whom Ignatius wrote probably had a church
order similar to that of Polycarp, and sent to Ignatius' entourage
people whom they called 'presbyters' and 'deacons'. But Ignatius'
rhetoric, on their arrival, was to recast for them the way in which
they viewed themselves.
A possible modern parallel, I feel, would not be amiss here. The
church of the twenty-first century is divided on a number of issues
of moral discipline and order, associated to a great extent with the
ordination of women and the issue of gay rights. In order to settle
for some the conflicts in all their confusions, not unlike the situation
in Antioch in Syria in Ignatius' time, some parishes have sought
alternative bishops who have attempted to extend their jurisdiction,
and even form breakaway churches. Thus there is a great lack of
clarity about who the 'true' bishop might be in any given situation.
In the middle of all this I sometimes have a dream. Supposing a
bishop of a breakaway church also achieved a reputation for academic
brilliance combined with a record of being persecuted in the church
from which he broke away. The dean of a Cambridge college invites
him to preach at evensong, as someone with something to say on a
19
1 Pet 5.1.
153
particular subject, even though all other claims to sacred office are
considered somewhat tenuous. He is welcomed by a group of dons
at the station; he is conveyed by car to the college chapel. He eats
at High Table and engages in the usual earnest conversation afterwards. The long-suffering dean finally gets him to bed and puts him
on his train the next day, thinking, as the train leaves, something like
'interesting but controversial and not really us\
A letter then arrives not addressing the dean directly, but the
Fellowship of the college. It begins:
My dearest Master and Fellows, I rejoice at the quality of your faith in
welcoming me, how you acknowledged my authority as your true bishop, as
you received my words which you made part of your common life ...
The Master and Fellows, and particularly the dean, quickly reassure
one another that they were doing nothing of the kind: the old chap
was merely an interesting preacher for evensong, likely to have
drawn in the undergraduates through the sheer notoriety of what
he stood for, etc.
I believe that, in this example, we see the real situation that
Ignatius describes or rather reconstructs in a way that makes his
case. Having described them as 'inflamed in the blood of God',
he says to the Ephesians that they 'hastened to see' him who was
to 'fight with the wild beasts at Rome'.20 Initially they are startled
by the comparison of Ignatius' martyr procession, which they are
hastening to join, with an Attis rite, where in the mutilation of
the priest and in the vires of Attis that he bears they can see the
'blood of God'. A martyr on his way to Rome they understand,
but not a martyr-sacrifice bearing such a comparison with an Attis
rite. They soon learn more of the nature of the martyr and his
company when in joining them they become themselves bearers of
portable images, 'Christ-bearers', 'temple-bearers', 'God-bearers',
*bearers of holy things' as sunadoi or 'cult associations'.21 But as
matters progress and Ignatius continues his rhetoric, his recasting
of church order in terms of the pagan mysteries seeps gradually
into the minds of his hearers.
20
21
Ignatius, Epb. 1.1-2; see also above, Chap. 4 n. 19 and associated text
154
Ignatius ofAntioch
As in Polycarp's case, the church at Ephesus sends presbyters and

deacons. But the martyr-bishop as theophoros, bearing in his flesh the
image of his suffering Father God, looks towards one particular
presbyter to whom the others defer de facto. Ignatius espies one
presbyter and says:
Onesimus abides in a love that cannot be related and is your bishop in the
flesh, and I pray by Jesus Christ that you love him ... For blessed is he who
has granted him to you who are worthy to obtain such a bishop [J22
Onesimus, like Polycarp, would no doubt be somewhat startled but

concede, as might his companion presbyters, his de facto leadership,
reflecting perhaps that presbyters were sometimes also called
bishops (episkopoi), as they were in Clement of Rome and, also there
as counterpart to the deacons, in the DidacheP Ignatius will also lay
claim to the experience of a mystical interchange between himself
and the bishop and his presbyters. As a result of that interchange,
he sees their whole gathered church in their clerical representatives,
as we described earlier.24 Thus he will claim that Onesimus is not
one who is above or beyond the community, but who wears their
corporate image. As he further says: T. received your whole gathered
community in Onesimus, in a fellowship of love beyond description,
and in your bishop in the flesh.'25
Likewise too Polybius of Tralles is not an example to his community
but a mystical representative of'his community:
I have become aware of your blameless and unqualified purpose that you
have in endurance not by education but by nature, even as your bishop
Polybius revealed to me who arrived in Smyrna by the will of God and Jesus
Christ, and so shared with me in rejoicing in my chains in Christ Jesus that
I saw your whole multitude in him in faith and love.26
As we saw, their pagan culture well understood how image-bearers
of the gods made them visually present in their priests, but also
expressed the corporate personality of the community: on the
22
23
24
25
26
Ignatius, Eph. 2.3.

See above, Chap. 4 n. 17 and associated text
I g n a t i u s , ^ . 1.3.
155
coinage, Athena is Side and Isis is Alexandria.27 All of these aspects

of the situation in which Ignatius makes his claim account for the
success of his rhetoric in forming minds to accept the principle of
the single bishop as the effective sign of unity.
Such rhetorical claims may engage affectively the communities and
their leaderships to whom they are addressed. Thus the assent given
to such claims is expressed in a somewhat bewildered acceptance,
encouraged by what they are moved to feel by the cultural imagery
that is invoked. Nevertheless, as yet representatives of those communities may only partly possess the ability to spell out specifically in
words the substance of those claims and to make them part of the
logic of the discourse of justification of their social arrangements.
And this is precisely what we meet with in Polycarp's Philippians.
Polycarp may find novel Ignatius' title for him as 'the bishop', and
may be able to repeat little of the rhetoric of his being 'pre-eminent
in forming an image (tupos) of the Father', let alone his fellowpresbyters imaging the apostolic council filled with the Spirit at the
Johannine Pentecost or the deacons imaging Christ as servant. But
he did grasp that the laity were to be 'subject to the presbyters and
deacons', not because they were obeying, as in the Pastorals, those
who were 'presiding in word and in teaching', but because they
were those who were 'as God and as Christ'.28 No one of whom I
am aware has as yet suggested that this passage was inserted by an
alleged forger of the middle recension!
In the light too of an Ignatian rhetoric whose implications were
still in process of being realized we can understand the following
statement:
I shared with you in great rejoicing in our Lord Jesus Christ, when you
welcomed those who were imitations of true love and you forwarded them
on in thek procession, as was your concern. They were held fast by the
chains that befitted their holiness chains that are the crowns of those
truly chosen by God.
These words do not reflect accurately the concepts of the author
of the middle recension, Ignatius of Antioch bishop and martyr,
whether under Trajan or under Hadrian. They represent the response
27
28
See above, Chap. 4 n. 17 and related text

Cf. 1 Tim. 5.17 and Polycarp, Phil. 5.3.
156
Ignatius ofAntioch
of another writer, who sought to understand Ignatius' novel view of

church order within bounds that he just about found acceptable.
His words describe Ignatius' martyr procession witnessed by the
Philippians, a church for which we have no surviving letter from
Ignatius. The Greek word used for 'forwarded them' (propempein)
is used specifically in the context of pagan processions.29 Ignatius,
as we have seen, called the Ephesians who joined his procession as
representatives of their entire community image-bearers of various
kinds, of God (theophoroi), of Christ (Christophoroi), of portable
shrines {naophorot)^ and of sacred objects {hagiophoroi). They were
'adorned' like those wearing vestments in a mystery procession with
the spiritual adornment of the 'commandments of Christ'.30 They
are 'fellow-initiates of the blessed Paul' in the mystery - whether
of the Eucharist or of martyrdom in the Roman arena - of the
sufferings of Christ. They are 'imitators of God, being inflamed by
the blood of God' as they spiritually bear their divine images.31 Their
procession is a kind of mystery play in which the leading actor is to
find union with God by imitating his death and suffering: Ignatius is
thus to become 'an imitator of the sufferings of my God'.32
In Ignatius' meeting with Polycarp we are experiencing the
meeting of two different worlds in early Christianity. Polycarp
cannot follow him in equating the martyr procession with a pagan
mystery drama, with specified individuals bearing specific images
of divine persons or things. He will not use the technical term
of a person imitating a divine being and achieving union by such
imitation (mustes^ summustes). Ignatius' martyr procession simply has
'imitations of true love' in which divinity is depersonalized and what
is imitated becomes an abstraction.
Ignatius describes himself as 'bound in bonds that evoke
tremendous awe for the divine {theoprepestatot)\33 As such, he was
like a hagiophoros in a pagan procession, a bearer of a divine object
invoking awe for the divine. Polycarp does not like this association.
29
30
31
32
33
See also A. Brent, Ignatius ofAntioch and the Second Sophistic, STAC 36 (Tubingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2006), pp. 180-83.
Ignatius, Eph. 9.2; cf. above, Chap. 4 n. 7 and associated t e x t
Ignatius, Eph. 1.1, see also 10.3; Trail. 1.2; Phld. 7.2. See also above, n. 20.
Ignatius, Rom. 6.3; see also above, Chap. 4 n. 8 and associated text
Ignatius, Srnyrn. 11.9; Magn. 1.2. For the use o f theoprepes in this precise sense, see
157
The chains of those in Ignatius' martyr procession "befit the sanctity'

(hagioprepes) of those who wear them and act as their crowns, but
they are not part of any discourse of meaning that presupposes an
iconography assisting imitation of and assimilation with a divine
person or thing.
Polycarp therefore found Ignatius' rhetoric strange, and what he
did understand of it he needed to recast into a form that he found
more palatable and less pagan. But we must ask why he accepted it
at all.
Polycarp was wrestling with the same heresy as is represented by
the letters of the middle recension, namely docetism, or the view, as
we have seen, that Christ had no real body of flesh and blood and
thus could only suffer in appearance. As he says:
For anyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,
he is an antichrist; and whoever does not confess the witness of the cross
is of the devil.34
The iconography of Ignatius' martyr procession was an impressive,

enacted refutation of docetism. Ignatius proclaims of Christ that:
he was truly from the family of David according to the flesh, Son of God
according to the will and power of God, being truly born of a virgin ...
truly being nailed in the flesh for us at the time of Pontius Pilate and the
tetrarch Herod. From the fruit of that most divinely blessed Passion, his
intention is to raise up a standard to the ages (atones) through his resurrection for his holy and faithful ones[.]35
Accordingly, as a ^bearer of holy objects' (hagiophoros) he waves his
chains as his martyr procession proceeds and cries:
Be deaf therefore whenever someone speaks apart from Jesus Christ of
the race of David, he who was from Mary, who was truly born, and ate and
drank, truly he suffered persecution at the time of Pontius Pilate, was truly
crucified and died, whilst the heavenly and earthly and chthonian beings
looked on. He was truly raised from the dead by his Father who raised him
... But if as certain say who are atheists, that is to say unbelievers, that he
has suffered only in appearance, they themselves being the appearance, why
34
35
Polycarp, PM. 7.1.

158
Ignatius ofAntioch
am I in bonds, why do I pray tofightagainst wild beasts: I am dying for

nothing. I am therefore lying against the Lord.36
Clearly and visibly, in the enacted choreography of the martyr
procession, Ignatius had linked Christ's sufferings with his own
martyr sufferings, and claimed that the latter would be a lie if the
former were in appearance only. It was a dazzling piece of enacted
rhetoric that refuted docetism. For such a gift against his opponents,
Polycarp was prepared to surrender all misgivings and to accept the
strange character that had landed under military escort at Smyrna
and send him on his way. Beginning to get 'on message' with
Ignatius, he interprets in Ignatian processional terms, with reservations, what the Philippians had done.
Our account of Ignatius has been against the background of the
pagan religious life of the city-states of Asia Minor with their sacred
processions. It is here that we have located the cultural backcloth of
the Christian communities to whom he wrote his letters, and how
he refashioned that backcloth in order to create a model of church
unity. It is an account that, I believe, has resolved the Ignatian
problem more satisfactorily than renewed attempts to revive defunct
forgery hypotheses.
36
Ignatius, Tralliaus 9-10.
In Conclusion
We began in our first chapter with the rise of critical Ignatian

studies in the context of seventeenth-century England, and Ussher's
disputes with the Puritans. The very real issue at stake was what
form of government a church should have in order to be truly the
Church. It was an issue too of the political constitution in societies
that, at least before Locke, had no notion of the separation of
Church and state, and no account of legitimate government that
could be separated from religious claims, even if those claims
were understood in utilitarian terms regarding the civil peace, as in
Marsilius of Padua. The divine right of kings went hand in hand
with the divine right of bishops to rule the Church.
In such a context the authenticity of the middle recension,
written by Ignatius at the end of the apostolic age, was an issue
about the authenticity of church government by bishops, and also
the authenticity of the civil government that they consecrated.
Thus continental Protestants and English Puritans, in attacking
the authenticity of the Ignatian letters, were also defending the
Presbyterian order of their churches, and the civil government that
they equally claimed as 'true' churches to authenticate.
It will be clear that my argument for the authenticity of the
middle recension makes no contribution to either side of that
historic debate.
The picture of Ignatius that my account has drawn is of someone
comparable to a missionary bishop entering into the thought-life of
a culture so as to transform it radically, much to the perplexity of
traditional adherents to the faith from which he is coming. Ignatius
159
160
Ignatius ofAntioch
was prepared to reconceptualize church order in terms of pagan

religious cults with their image-bearers and in terms of their leading
priests, who image the deity and in some sense become the deity in
the religious drama that is performed. Ambassadors between cities
during die Second Sophistic, in the revival of the ideals of the fourthcentury BC city-state, negotiated homonoia treaties that acknowledge
the unity of autonomous cities within a Hellenic ideal. Ignatius was
someone who assimilated the functions of those ambassadors with
clerical representatives, who as divine ambassadors and divine 'speedrunners' urged unity by the acceptance of hierarchy focused around
a single bishop on a group of churches in Asia Minor.1
Those ambassadors were well assisted in their task by the martyrbishop who choreographed his procession to martyrdom around a
scapegoat image. Thus those churches were united in homonoia, both
externally between themselves and internally amongst divergent
groups within the community. Thus Ignatius' reconceptualizing
of ecclesial order by a process of radical secularization did not
simply commend Christianity to a pagan audience but refashioned the internal structures of those early Christian communities
themselves.
The present writer is an Anglican priest, and therefore part of the
historic order of Christendom whose later development, in Irenaeus
and the Didascalia, represents the Ignatian project in a highly
distorted form.2 My exposure of the pagan roots of the Ignatian
project would hardly commend itself to everyone as any kind of
defence of the validity of episcopal order. No doubt the Puritans
might have rejoiced at such an account as the exposure of the pagan
roots of the historic order of Christendom that they opposed, and
therefore its final refutation.
But Clement of Alexandria and Origen have taught us that Greek
philosophy was the schoolmaster that brought the Greeks to Christ,
and subsequently Middle and Neo-Platonism was to inform the
development of historic Christian theology. So too image-bearing
in pagan mysteries and the celebration of homonoia have left their
marks on the shape of historic church order and ritual. Theology
and ecclesial order do not negate the philosophy and order of the
1
2

See above, Chap. 5, sect 2 and nn. 28-39.
In conclusion
161
society in which they arise and by which they are socially and historically conditioned. Rather, they engage with contemporary society,
not to be changed by it but to transform it. In this Ignatius must be
credited with some success.
Government by a group of presbyters or charismatic prophets
had failed to produce the only kind of unity or concord known both
to the ancient and medieval worlds prior to the rise of industrial
societies. That unity was based upon a fairly monolithic conformity
to fundamental values spelled out in specific detail and adopted by
a community within a given, geographically defined area. In brief,
there was no concept in the ancient world of the modern notion
of a pluralistic society in which different groups can nevertheless
achieve a minimal consensus sufficient for unity within a common
identity.
But in Ignatius we can glimpse another model of episcopal
government that is not wedded to a defined geographical domain.
Furthermore, it is certainly not dependent on the establishment of
a historical chain of apostolic succession in terms of who is entitled
to occupy such a domain that, as we have seen, was a feature added
to the model by Irenaeus and Cyprian. We have seen that the bishop
with the presbyters and deacons are for Ignatius the collective icon
of a redeemed community: they represented in the liturgical drama
the events of salvation at work in the community; they are icons
of a community in process of redemption. Ignatius saw in mystical
vision the 'whole community, in faith and love', in the clerical representatives of those churches who sent their divine ambassadors to
his martyr procession.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries we have created under
the missionary imperative new, cultural forms of episcopacy not
tied to territories. We have cultural bishops for indigenous peoples
in North America, in the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander
communities of Australia, and in New Zealand. Here the bishop,
with presbyters and deacons, wear the images of their cultures in
process of redemption and over whom they preside as guarantors
of their distinctive liturgies and forms of spirituality.
Such a new form of culturally based ministry is furthermore
struggling to be born in the present crisis in the Anglican
Communion over issues of sexuality. In this crisis, a territorially
based episcopate is failing to secure the unity of the church
162
Ignatius ofAntioch
that it is the purpose of episcopal consecration and collegiality

to obtain. There are emerging on the same territory different
forms of Anglicanism and the claim of a bishop to the oversight
of every person within a geographical boundary is increasingly
met with opposition that is breaking the communion apart.
Any constructive way out of this dilemma will be in terms of
recognizing the bishop of a group with a theologically distinct
culture as having the right to superintend the expression of the
faith of that culture. Pluralism in society will be mirrored by
pluralism in the Church in terms of which a minimum unity
of purpose and common values will need to be painstakingly
worked out.3 Bishops will be defined in terms of the corporate
personality of their culturally defined communities and not
from a geographical area over which they claim jurisdiction.
Ignatius may still have some insights that lead us painfully towards
such a goal.
For a comprehensive argument for this case, see A. Brent, Cultural Episcopacy and
Ecumenism: Representative Ministry in Church History from the Age of Ignatius ofAntioch
to the Reformation, with Special Reference to Contemporary Ecumenism^ Studies in Christian
Mission 6 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992).
Select Bibliography and

Further Reading
Barnard, L. W, The Background to Ignatius of Antioch', VCb 17

(1963), pp. 193-206.
Barrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with
Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 1970).
Borgen, P., Fulgseth, K., and Skarsten, R., The Philo Index (Leiden,
Boston and Cologne: E. J. Brill and W B. Eerdmans, 2000).
Brent, A., Cultural Episcopacy and Ecumenism: Representative Ministry in
Church Historyfrom the Age ofIgnatius ofAntioch to the Reformation,
with Special Reference to Contemporary Ecumenism, Studies in
Christian Mission 6 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992).

'Diogenes Laertius and the Apostolic Succession', JEH 44
(1993), pp. 367-89.
'Ecumenical Relations and Cultural Episcopates', Anglican
Theological Review 72 (1990), pp. 255-79.
Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities
in Tension before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop, VChSup 31

'History and Eschatological Mysticism in Ignatius of Antioch',
Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 65 (1989), pp. 309-29.
The Ignatian Epistles and the Threefold Ecclesiastical Order',

JRHY1 (1992), pp. 18-32.
Ignatius and Polycarp: The Transformation of New Testament
Traditions in the Context of Mystery Cults', in Gregory and
Tuckett (eds), Trajectories, pp. 325-49.
'Ignatius of Antioch and the Imperial Cult', VCh 49 (1998),
pp. 111-38.
163
164
Ignatius ofAntioch and the Second Sophistic, STAC 36 (Tubingen:

MohrSiebeck,2006).
The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order, VchSup 45
Tseudonymity and Charisma in the Ministry of the Early
Church', Aug 27 (1987), pp. 347-76.
The Relations between Ignatius of Antioch and the Didascalia
Apostolorum\ SecCent8 (1991), pp. 129-56.
Brown, R. E., and Meier, ].-V., Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles
of Catholic Christianity (New York: Paulist Press, 1982).
Corwin, V, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1960).
Cranston, M., John Locke: A Biography (New York: Arno Press,
1979).
Davies, S. L., The Predicament of Ignatius of Antioch', VCh 30
(1976), pp. 175-80.
Douglas, T, Scapegoats: Transferring Blame (London: Routledge,
1995).
I. Dunderberg, The School of Valentinus', in A. Marjanen and
P. Luomenen (eds), A Companion to Second Century Christian
'Heretics', VChSup 76 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005), pp. 64-99.
Dupont-Sommer, A., he quatrieme livre des Macchabbees, Bibliotheque
de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes 274 (Paris: H. Champion, 1939).
Edwards, M. J., Ignatius and the Second Century: An Answer to R.
Hubner', ZAC2 (1998), pp. 214-26.
Ehrman, B. D. (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols, Loeb Classical
Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
Ferguson, E., review of Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, in
Church History 71 (2002), pp. 169-70.
Frend, W C. H., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1965).
Gregory, A. E, and Tuckett, C. M. (eds), Trajectories through the New
Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005).
Hammond Bammel, C. P. Ignatian Problems', JThS 33 (1982), pp.
62-97.
Harland, P., 'Christ-Bearers and Fellow-Initiates: Local Cultural life
and Christian Identity in Ignatius' Letters',/ZJCy 11 (2003), pp.
481-99.
165
Harrison, P. N., Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Philippians (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1936).
Hill, C. E., 'Ignatus, "the Gospel" and the Gospels', in Gregory and
Tuckett (eds), Trajectories, pp. 26786.
Holmes, M. H. (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Books, 1st edn 1992, 2nd edn 1999).
Hiibner, R., Der Paradox Eine: Antignostischer Monarchiansimus im
%weitenjahrhundert. Mit einern Beitrag von Markus Vincent, VchSup
50 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999).
Joly, R., Le dossier dTgnace dAntioche, Universite Iibre de Bruxelles.
Faculte de Philosophie et Lettres 69 (Brussels: Editions de
l'Universite, 1979).
Jones, C. P., A Decree of Thyatira in Lydia', Chiron 29 (1999), pp.
1-21.
Koester, H., 'History and Cult in the Gospel of John and in Ignatius
of Antioch', Journal of Theology and the Church 1 (1965), pp.
111-23.
Introduction to the New Testament: History and Literature of Early
Christianity (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000).
Lampe, P., Die stadtromischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten,
WUNT 2. 18 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989).
From Paul to Valentinus: Christians in Rome for the First Two
Centuries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).
Lechner, T., Ignatius adversus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien %u den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien,
VChSup 47 (Leiden: E. H. Brill, 1999).
lightfoot, J. B., The Apostolic Fathers: A Revised Text with Introductions,
Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. Part I: St. Clement of Rome.
Part II: St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan,
1890).
lindemann, A., Antwort aus die "Thesen zur Echtheit und
Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien"',
ZAC\ (1997), pp. 185-94.
Logan, A. H. B., The Gnostics: Identifying an Early Christian Cult
(London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006).
Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: A Study in the History of
Gnosticism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996).
Maier, H. Q , T h e Charismatic Authority of Ignatius of Antioch: A
Sociological Analysis', Theology Digest 21 (1990), pp. 235-40.
166
The Politics of Discord and Concord in Paul and Ignatius

of Antioch', in Gregory and Tuckett (eds), Trajectories, pp.
307-24.
Munier, C, 'Ou en est la question d'Ignace d'Antioche? Bilan d'un
siecle de recherches 1870-1988', \nANRWU21A
(1992), pp.
359_484.
Norris, F. W., Ignatius, Polycarp and 1 Clement: Walter Bauer
Reconsidered', VCh 30 (1976), pp. 23-44.
Perler, O., 'Das vierte Makkabaerbuch, Ignatius von Antiochien
und die altesten Martyrerberichte', RivAC 25 (1949),
pp. 47__72.
Pleket, H. W., An Aspect of the Imperial Cult: Imperial Mysteries',
HThR 58 (1965), pp. 331-47.
Price, S. R., Rituals and Tower. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Reis, D. M., 'Following in Paul's Footsteps: Mimesis and Power in
Ignatius of Antioch', in Gregory and Tuckett (eds), Trajectories,
pp. 287-306.
Rius-Camps, J., The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius the Martyr,
Orientalia Christiana Analecta 213 (Rome: Pontificium

Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1980).
Schnelle, XJ.,Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John: An Investigation
of the Fourth Gospel in the Johannine School, trans. L. M. Maloney
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).

Schoedel, W R., Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of
Ignatius of Antioch, ed. H. Koester, Hermeneia (Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1985).
'Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch', in ANRW
1121A (1992), pp. 272-358.
Tolycarp's Witness to Ignatius of Antioch', VCh 41 (1987),
pp. 1-10.
Spawforth, J. S., The Panhellion Again', Chiron 29 (1999), pp.
339-52.
Swartley, W M., The Imitatio Christi in the Ignatian Letters', VCh
27 (1973), pp. 81-103.
Trevett, C, 'Anomaly and Consistency: Joseph Rius-Camps on
Ignatius and Mathew', VCh 38 (1984), pp. 165-71.
'Apocalypse, Ignatius, Montanism: Seeking the Seeds', VCh 43
(1989), pp. 313-38.
167
- "The Other Letters to the Churches of Asia: Apocalypse and

Ignatius of Antioch',/W737 (1989), pp. 117-35.
- 'Prophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity: A Third Error
Combated by Ignatius?', JEH 34 (1983), pp. 165-71.
-A Study of Ignatius ofAntioch in Syria and Asia, Studies in the Bible
and Early Christianity 2 (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 1992).
von, Campenhausen, H., Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in
the Church of the First Three Centuries, trans. J. A. Baker (London:
Adam and Charles Black, 1969).
Weijenborg, R., Les letters d'Ignace dAntioche: Etude de critique litteraire et
de theologie (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969).
Williams, M. A., The Sethians', in A. Marjanen and P. Luomenen
(eds), Companion, pp. 3263.
Zahn, T., Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha: Perthes, 1873).
Index
Biblical Citations
Genesis
24.24
31.19
92
77
Exodus
19
25-40
40.34
40.34-38
105
105
106
106
Numbers
9.15-17
18
106
105
4 Maccabees
6.9
6.17
9.17
10.5-7
Matthew
2
7.15-16
7.21-23
10.5-6
10.23
13.52
15.24
16.17-19
18.17
16.18
23
23.6
23.7-10
26.6-13
26.7
28.16-20
24
24
24
25
86
38
24
Mark
6.48-51
9.50
12.39
14.3
14.28-33
139
21
24
38
139
Luke
11.43
20.46
24.36-39
24
24
140
48
48
117
117 John
3.8
6.19-21
11
24
20.21-22
25
25 20.22-23
24 20.25-27
26
25,29
24
29
24
Acts
2.42
2.46
8.18-20
169
39
141
141
38
86
142
36
36
123
170
Ignatius ofAntioch
11.26
13.1
22
26
Titus
1.2
Romans
12.18
21
1 Peter
5.1
1 Corinthians
2.10
39
ljohn
2.22
4.2-3
2 Corinthians
13.11
21
2 John
7
1 Thessalonians
5.13
21
Ephesians
1.10
3.9-11
5.30-32
133
133
92
1 Timothy
1.17
3.2
3.5
3.8-13
3.16
4.14
5.3-16
5.17
6.7
6.10
6.17
138
149
137
137
137
35
149
149,155
137
137
138
149
13,152
139
139
139
3 John
9-10
31
Early Christian and Jewish

Writers
Barnabas
Epistula
12.12
Clement of Rome
Corinthians
15.1
42.1-4
44.1 and 5
44.1-3
44.2
63.4
21
21
126
28
126
21
21
Consitutiones Apostolicae
2 Timothy
1.6
2.11-12
2.12
4.10
35
137
137
137
II.25.7 (39-41)
II.25.7 (44)
II.26.3 (20-21)
II.26.4.6 (40-41)
II.26.8 (53-54)
105
107
106
106
106
Index
Didache
4.3
10.7
10.9-10
12
13
13.1
15.1
16.4
21
27,36
27
26
27
26
27
27
Eusebius
Historia Ecclesiastica
III.20.6
111.21-22
111.23
111.26
III.23.3
III.36.7-9
III.39.2
IV.14.3-4
IV.14.3-8
IV.22.1-3
V.24.14
V.24.16
VIII.17.9
Hermas
Mandate
27(II).3
37
Similitude
73(VIII.7).2
Vision
8(11.4).3
14(111.6).3
17(111.9).2
18(III.10).7
20(111.12)3
21
125
21
21
25,37
21
Ignatius
105 Letter to the Ephesians
107 1.1
72,102,135,156
106 1.1-2
48, 81,153
107 1.2
45,66
106 1.3
154
108 2.1
10
106 2.2
132
108 2.3
154
45
3.1
4.1-2
11,17, 34
4.2
11,64
21 5
91
2 6.1
30,41
103 6.2
58
2 7.2
135
9 8.1
48,131
98 9.2
73, 82,102,156
9 10.1-3
93
103 10.3
72,156
9 12.1-2
10
124 12.2
72,93
21 13
93
21 13.1
11,134
22 13.2
11
17.1
39, 86,130
72,98,130,145
19.1
19.1-2
131
21 19.2
64
Didascalia Apostolorum (Connolly)
p. 80.19-21
p. 80.22-23
p. 87.14
p. 87.19-89.1
p. 89.2-3
p. 89.3-4
p. 89.4-5
p. 91.3-9
43(XI).11-12
171
172
Ignatius o/Antioch
132 Letter to Polycarp

11
145 Praef.
48
85,145 2.3
137
48 3.2
92
45,66 5.1
48
6.1
21
7.1
Letter to the Magnesians
11
45,130,156 7.1-2
1.2
2
53
10,33 7.2
50,145
34 8.1
3.1
89,105
6.1
127 Letter to the Romans
6.1-2
18,112
11,105 1.1
6.2
85 1.2
15
32 2.2
18,48, 64, 84,104
7.1
18,113
88,128 4.1
7.2
8.2
31 4.2
18,49
71 4.3
15
9.1
68 4.5
98
10.3
38,108 5
98
13.1
10, 14,102
13.1-2
86 5.1
64 5.2
13.2
18
117
5.3
6.1
Letter to the Philadelphians
55
72, 83,135,156
Praef.
18 6.3
130
1.1
18, 30, 41, 66 7.1
58 7.2
2.2-3.3
11,98
84
4
33,83 7.3
5.2
45,66 8.3
19
6.2
57
130 9.3
72 10.2
56,92
6.3
7
39,115
7.1
157 Letter to the Smyrnaeans
157
7.2
156 1.1-2
11,41,145 3
87
8.1
11, 21 3.2
10.1
139
10.1-2
32
53 8.1
10.2
50 8.1-2
68,69
10, 45, 66 10.1
11.2
10
19.2-3
20.1
20.2
21.1
21.2
Index
10.2
11.1
11.2
11.9
12.2
13.1
173
48 Josephus
102 Antiquitates
11, 21, 22, 53 1.310-11 (19.8)

156
45
10
77
77
1.322 (19.10)
Origen
Homilia in Lucam
6.4
Letter to the Trallians
1
1.1
1.2
2.1-2
2.3
3.1
3.2
4
6.1-7.2
9.1-2
9-10
10.1
12.1
91
10,154 2.36
72,130, 156
30,33 Polycarp
85
40
57
131
158
138
90
Irenaeus
Jerome
4.1
4.3
5.2
5.3
7.1
9.1
9.1-2
9.2
11.2
9
9
124
125
103
98
Philippians
2, 88,105 Praef.
30,89 1.1
Adversus Haereses
II.22.5
III.1.1
HI.3.1-2
III.3.3
III.3-4
III.3.4
III.16.6
III.23.3
98
Prologus Canticorum
13
13.1
13.1-2
13, 149
12
137
149
137
149, 155
139
12, 148
101
137
137
12
102, 148
146
Pseudo Hippolytus
9,103 Refutatio Omnium Haeresium

136 V.6.3
9 IX.10.10-12
IX.12.16-19
X.27.2
De Viris Illustribus
16
20
Pseudo Ignatius (Long

Recension)
Letter to the Philadelphians
6,9
123
136
134
136
174
IgnatiusofAntioch
Livy
31.24
Letter to the Trallians

11,9
51
Lucian
Classical Works and

Epigraphy
Aelius Aristides
De Morte Peregrinni
11
12-13
Orationes
41
10.10-10
65
Lysias
Contra Eratosthenem
Apuleius
Metamorphoses
10.10
Cassius Dio
LXIX.16.1-2
124.43
68
Pausanius
1.18.9
VI.16.5
67
51
76
67
Cicero
Philostratus
Vita Apollonii
Ad Familiares
VIII.4.5
73
51
54
110
V.20
77,134
Oratio in Pisonem
36(89)
15,110
Suetonius
Domitian
4.4
Demosthenes
77
De Corona
313(260)
74
Dio Chrysostom
III.209
IV.353
Orationes
36.22
36.31
Diodorus Siculus
XVI.92.5
63
63
84
Justinian
Digesta
XLVIII.19.31
IGRR Inscriptiones Graecae ad

res romanas pertinentes
16. Ill
81
66
SEG Supplementum
Epigraphicum Graecum
VI.58.1-6
VI.59.1-5
VI.59.8-28
XXXVIII.1462
XLVII.163.13-17
67
67
81
74
67
175
Index
Greek Words
exarchos (tfyxpypS)
74
achronos (axpovos) 137,138

,
, . _op ^n
agenetos (ayevvTiTOS)
138 g^netos (yewnxos) 135,138
agennetos (cc'yewTiTOs)
135, . . ,
. ~~ hagiophofos
10
82 102
agonothetes (dycovo08Tns)
> > 156
u C?* ****)
ha
re es
74,75,76,80,82,88,
f t P P
(ayioirpeims)
157
93
aion(a.'cov)
130-133 h e e r o d f m s
antipsuchon (a"vT.^ X ov) 48 u (fW^povos)
51,54
aoratos (ddpaxos)
137,138 h o T ^ ^ o )
32
apaês
135,137,
H^^^^g
8 4 89
aphthartos f(o" âpros)

aprositos (dlTpoatTOs)
, ,
apselaphetos
psaphetos
138
138 , .
katheeemon
,, \\
Y8
archon (Jpxcov),
athanasia ( a ' S a v a a f a )
6 7 katholxkos (Ka9oX, K os)

138 t , 1M t 1 1 .
(d^Xd^TOS)
137,138 , f ^
boule (PouAri)
vr
60
lJ
/w
^ \
choros (Xopos)
christophoros
(XptOTO^pos)
^K
Y - K *j
, .
.
daimonion asomaton
, , oc
64,85
82,156
>
A Iy
^
J
dromos demosios
rfl\
1ol1O/)
123,124,
'
's
,J
69,
katnolike ekklesia
(xaBoXiKn'8KKAno.a)
69
Koinon (Koivov)
66,69
koinos (KOIVOS)
v
69
. , /
x
t m e s i s (M.MT1O.S]
mustenon (MUOTTlpiov)
mustes (Ml/aTTis)
v
(Soupoviov aacoMaxov) 139
J- j u /x,,vX^\
diadoche (OiaooYTl)
' >
.t
, /
naiskos (vaiOKOs)
v
,
v/
f
.._
02
132
156
82
' naophoros (vacxj)opos)

82,
156
5,
W X O , 54,55,80,
ekklesia (eKKAnoia) 29,34,51,

/ .
^?
52,53,60,61,64,66 68 75 neokoros (VSCOKopos)
52
79 82 84 94 n e r t e f o d r o i n o s ,
episkopos ( e m W i ) M9, Jsi,
(^P^P^MOS)
54,100
oikonomia (oiKOVO(Jia)
132
176
Ignatius ofAntioch
oikoumene (oiKou|jevTi) 67, 68

panhellenios
(TTCCveAAr|Vios)
pathetos (TraBTiTds)
67
135,137,
138
perispsema (irepi'vpTma) 48, 49,
54,131
phantasma (c|>avTaa|ja)
139,
141,142
presbuteros
(TTpea(3uTepos)
149
presbeutes
(0eoTTpea(3euTTis)
54,55
proestos (iTpoeaTCOs)
149
prokathegetes
(TTpOKa0Tiyr|TTls)
74
prokathemenos
32,150
(TTpOKa0TiMevos>)
propempein
(TTpoTTSMTreiv)
156
prosopa ektupa
(TTpcxjcoTra e KxuiTa) 76,89
prosopon (TTpoacoTTov)
89
protokathedria
(TrpcoTOKCX0e5pia)
37
protokathredrites ^
(TTpcoTOKa0e5pmr|s)
37
,
,
sebastophoros
(auvaycoysus)
73, 80, 84,

100
sunetheia (auvr[0eia)
91
sunodos (auvoSos) 66, 68, 72,
80, 82,100,153
sunthusia (OuV0uai'a) 52, 54, 56,
57, 75, 77, 78
75
sunthutes (OUVSUTTJS)
theodromos (0eo5pd|jos)
53,
80
theophoros (0eo<j>opos)
75,
78, 82, 88,100,127,151,152,
154,156
theoprepestatos
(0eoTrpeTreaT(XTOs)
156
theopresbeutes
(0eoTTpea(3euxr|s) 53, 54, 55,
80
thiasarches (0iaoapxr|s) 73, 74,
80,84,100
thiasos (QicxGOS)
74,82
thusia (0uaia)
48,49
tupos (TUTTOS)
76,77,
79, 82, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93,102,
105,106,107,108,109,127,
134,142,145,150,151,155
Subjects
75, 76, 78 Alcuin of York

118
somation (OCO|jaTlOV)
22 Alexander St, (pope)
5,124
somateion (oeoMaxefov)
21, Ambassadors
11, 53, 54, 55,
22
56, 63, 78, 79, 80,100,145,
summustes (p\)\A\A\)GTT)s) 156
see also divine: ambassadors:
sunagon (OUVaycov)
68
speed runners and theodromos
sunagogeus
and theopresbeutes
177
Index
ambassadors
Apocalypse
17
Antoninus Pius, emperor
52
Apollonius, Magnesian
presbyter
10, 114
11, 13, 54, 55,

100,160
11,13, 51,
speed runners
54, 55, 57,100,160
Docetism
138-42
Domitian, emperor 21, 62, 63,
65, 76, 77, 82
Basilides
8, 9,122
Bassus, Magnesian presbyter 10,
114 Ebion
8
Bernard of Clairvaux, St
4 Eucharist 18, 37, 71, 79, 83, 85,
Burrhus, Ephesian deacon 10,
88, 90, 93,127,134
12,113,114 Euplus
10
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea,
Carcalla, emperor
77
2,3,5,69,
Chamberlain, Lindy
46
97,98,150
Charles I (king)
1,3 Evaristsus, St (pope)
5,124
Clement of Rome (bishop) 125,
126,143,149,154 Fox, G.
31
Clement of Alexandria 19,98, Fronto
10
160
Clodius
15 Gospel of Peter
87
Concord
13,31,32, 115, Grosseteste, R.
6
see also homonoia and homonoia
Constantine
21 Hadrian, emperor
65,66,
Cranmer
118
69, 74, 89,116,130
Crocus
10 Hegesippus
21,86,96, 119,
Cureton
7,8
122,124,125,126,127
Cursuspublicus
51,55,58 Heresy
57
Cyprian, St (bishop of
Hero, bishop of Antioch
2
Carthage)
19,161 Hippolytus of Rome
121
Homonoia
31, 32, 34,
Damas, bishop of Magnesia 2,
35, 39, 42, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57,
10,12,13, 49, 90
63, 64, 65, 78, 79, 84, 89, 93,
Demosthenes
74, 75, 82,
94, 151,160, see also concord
84, 89
and homonoia
Diotrephes
31,44
Diocletian (emperor)
21 Immortality
11,73
Diogenes Laertius
64
see also athanasia
Divine
Incorruption
11,39,86,89,
178
Ignatius of Antioch
90,138 see also Johannine

Pentecost and aphthartos
Initiation 72,79,82,83,88,93,
151
Isidorus Mercator
5
Jerome
Johannine Pentecost
Julius Africanus
20
38, 86,
128,143
120,121,122
Laud, W. (archbishop)
Locke, J.
1
1,159
MalalasJ.
20
Marcion
97,122,138
Marcus Aurelius (emperor) 15,
65
Martyrdom
19
Mary, St
4
Melito of Sardis (bishop)
98,
135,136
Migne,J.-P.
5
Milton, J.
4,6
Neokoros
52
Noetus of Smyrna 134,135,136
Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus
2,10,12,13, 30,49, 58,
113,154
Peter, St 2 , 3 , 9,13,15,29,120,
125
Philo (deacon)
10,12,148
Plato
11,83,123
Polybius (bishop of Tralles) 2,
10,12,13, 30,49, 90,
91,113,114,154
Polycarp, St (bishop of Smyrna),
2, 3, 8, 9,10,13,49,
53, 94,96,100,101,
102,103,113,
114,116,130,
143, and Chapter 6 passim
Pontian, bishop of Rome
122
Procession
43,45,47,
48, 51, 52, 55-7,60, 63,
66, 68, 70, 72, 74-86, 89, 93,
100,102,107,109,110,114,
115,144,151,153,156-8
Quakers
Quartodecimans
31
21
Redaction criticism
23,24,
36
Reformation,
1,7,162
Rheus Agathus, deacon of
Antioch
10, 49,148
Rufus
101
Second Sophistic 13,31,34,43,

56,60,62,63,65,75, 79,
Papias
2, 9
136,151,160
Paul, St
9,15, 34, 35, 91,103, Scapegoat 45,47,48,49, 51, 54,
110,132,133,138
57,131
Peace
21,50,115 Simon Magus
123
Peregrinus Proteus 50, 73, 74, Skopelian of Klazomenae
63
84,99,110,112,113 Sixtus I, St (pope)
5
Index
179
Theodoret
8
Theodotus
8
Theophilus of Antioch (bishop)
98
Trajan 2, 20, 63, 89, 95, 96,103,
116,118,120,122,130
Tyssington,J.
6
119,121,123,125,127,134,
135,156,162,163,164
Brown, R.E. and Meier, J.-P.
22, 24, 25, 36,164
Unity
11,13,17,31,33,35,
38, 39,41, 43,
55, 56, 57, 83, 91, 92, 93,113,
136,145,151,155,158
Urban II (pope)
56
UssherJ.
3-8,23,95,96,
150,159
Davies, S.L.
110,111,164
Douglas, T.
46,164
Dunderberg, I.
129,164
Dupont-Sommer, A. 116,164
Edwards, M.J.
Ehrman, B.D.
164
8,164
Valentinus 96, 97, 122,129,130,

132,134,135
Vedelius, N.
7, 8
Victor, St (pope)
21
Voss, I.
8,95, 96
Ferguson, E.
Frend, W.C.H.
97,164
164
Wodeford, W.
Zeus Panhellenios
67,68,69
Zosimus
101
Zotion, Magnesian deacon 32,
114
J
^
Modern Authors
Barnard, L.W.
163
Barrett, C.K.
9,163
Borgen, P., Fulgseth, K., and
Skarsten,R.
138,163
Brent, A.
47,
52, 55, 62, 63, 65-68, 71, 73,
74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82, 94,
100,102,105,109,116,118,
Corwin, V.
Cranston, M.
Gregory, A.
164
1,164
164
Hammond Bammel, C.P.

97,
109,110,113,118,120,164
Harland, P.
164
Harrison, N.P.
20,21,103,
164
Hill, C.E.
142,164
Holmes, MJ.
165
Hubner, R. 96,97,134-8,140,
142,165
Joly, R. 15,96,109-19,128,165
Jones, C.P.
67,165
Koester, H.
80,165
Lampe, P.
125,165
Lechner, T. 96,119,120,122,
127-31,133,134,165
180
Ignatius ofAntioch
Lightfoot,J.B.
4,16,20,95,
98,116,144,147,148,165
Lindemann, A.
97,165
Logan, A.H.B.
130,132,165
Maier, H.O.
Munier, C.
165
165,166
Norris, F.W.
166
Perler,O.
Pleket,H.W.
Price, S.R.
116,117,166
66,166
62
Reis, D.M.
Rius-Camps,J.
166
96,100-109,
126,166
Schnelle,U.
141,142,166
Schoedel, W.R. 16,20,22, 80,
110,116,131,132,136,166
SpawforthJ.S.
67,166
Swartley,W.M.
166
Trevett, C.
30,166
von Campenhausen, H. 31,166,

167
Vinzent,M.
96,134,138
Weijenborg, R.
95,96,97,
98,99,100,167
Williams, M.A.
129,130,167
Zahn,Th.
95,144,167

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Ignatius of Antioch

A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy

Published by T8T Clark International

Caroline Penrose Bammel, FBA

1 The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters

2 Ignatius' Personal History and the Church at Antioch

3 The Choreography of the Martyr Procession

4 Martyr Procession and Eucharist: The Christian Mysteries

5 Recent Attacks on the Authenticity of the Ignatian Letters

6 Ignatius and Polycarp

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

Since the immediate aftermath to the Reformation in the West, the

36; Mohr Siebeck, 2006), and in previously published articles, I have

Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertiner

The Recovery of Ignatius'

On 30 January 1649 the young John Locke, the future political

Presbyterian parliament, was the corpus of letters of Ignatius of

to Ephesus mentioning Bishop Onesimus, to Magnesia and Bishop

Eusebius, HE 111.21-22 and 26.

The Recovery of Ignatius* Genuine Letters

used, and esteemed, in this Church of England'.4

York: Dent, 1938), pp. 292,438.

John Milton, OfPrelatical Episcopacy, quoted in J. B. Iightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers:

The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters

regard him with Eusebius as a companion of the apostles who could

The Recovery of Ignatius* Genuine Letters

abbreviated Matthew and Luke, Luke used and revised Matthew,

The Recovery of Ignatius' Genuine Letters

the work of later editorial interpolation.8 In future, critics, in order

on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 1970), pp. 83-97.

Ignatius informs us that he has been condemned to death in Antioch

Ignatius, Eph. 12.1-2.

The Recovery of Ignatius* Genuine Letters

Ignatius, Pol. praef.

Apparently he intended to write to more churches than he did, and

Polycatp, Phil. 1.1; 9.1; 13.

The Recovery of Ignatius* Genuine Letters

Polycarp, Phil, praef.

Ignatius' Personal History

Ignatius tells us nothing of his birth or life prior to his departure

But on what grounds was Ignatius condemned, having attracted the

Ignatius, Rom. 5.1.

Ignatius* Personal History and the Church atAntioch

community is founded, he addresses the Romans thus: 1 do not give

Ignatius, Rom. 4.3.

As we shall see later, Ignatius regards his martyrdom as the road to

No jurist pronounces an 'ought not' against something that has

Ignatius, Rom. 2.1.

Koester, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 169 n. 5.

Ignatius' Personal History and the Church atAntioch

Ignatius, Eph. 4.1-2.

practices that could be improved, etc. as they live their ordinary

Ignatius' vision of the Roman community, however, is not at the

Ignatius, PM/. Praef. and 1.1.

Ignatius* Personal History and the Church atAntioch

Ignatius, Rom. 8.3.

Jerome, Vtr. III. 16.

Ignatius' Rrsonal History and the Church atAntioch

responsible for fomenting strife within the church at Antioch over

P. N. Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Phitippians (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1936), pp. 85-88.

a legal religion from Maxentius' Edict of Toleration in AD 313, when