Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch (Ancient Greek: Ἰγνάτιος Ἀντιο-
χείας, Ignátios Antiokheías; AD c. 35 or 50 – 98 to
117[1] ), also known as Ignatius Theophorus (Ιγνάτιος
ὁ Θεοφόρος, Ignátios ho Theophóros, lit. “the God-
bearing”), was a student of John the Apostle, and was the
third bishop of Antioch.[2][3] En route to Rome, where
according to Christian tradition he met his martyrdom
by being fed to wild beasts, he wrote a series of letters
which have been preserved as an example of very early
Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these
letters include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role
of bishops.
1 Life
Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age.[4] Later
in his life he was chosen to serve as a Bishop of Antioch,
succeeding Saint Peter and St. Evodius (who died around
AD 67). The 4th-century Church historian Eusebius
records that Ignatius succeeded Evodius.[5] Making his
apostolic succession even more immediate, Theodoret of
Cyrrhus reported that St. Peter himself appointed Ig-
natius to the episcopal see of Antioch.[6] Ignatius called
himself Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that
he was one of the children whom Jesus took in his arms
and blessed.[2]
Painting of Ignatius of Antioch from the Menologion of Basil II
(c. 1000 AD)
Ignatius is one of the five Apostolic Fathers (the earliest The following seven letters preserved under the name of
authoritative group of the Church Fathers). He based his Ignatius:
authority on being a bishop of the Church, living his life
in the imitation of Christ. It is believed that St. Ignatius, • The Letter to the Ephesians,
along with his friend Polycarp, with great probability were
disciples of the Apostle St. John.[7]
Epistles attributed to Ignatius report his arrest by the au-
thorities and travel to Rome:
From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild
beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, be-
ing bound amidst ten leopards, even a company
of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are
kindly treated. — Ignatius to the Romans, 5.
Along the route he wrote six letters to the churches in the
region and one to a fellow bishop. He was sentenced to
die at the Colosseum.[8] In his Chronicle, Eusebius gives
the date of Ignatius’s death as AA 2124 (2124 years after
Adam), which would amount to the 11th year of Trajan’s
reign; i.e., AD 108.[9]
After Ignatius’ martyrdom in the Colosseum his remains
were carried back to Antioch by his companions and were
interred outside the city gates. The reputed remains of Ig-
natius were moved by the Emperor Theodosius II to the
Tychaeum, or Temple of Tyche, which had been con-
verted into a church dedicated to Ignatius. In 637 the
relics were transferred to the Basilica di San Clemente in
Rome.
2 Veneration
Ignatius’ feast day was kept in his own Antioch on 17
October, the day on which he is now celebrated in the
Catholic Church and generally in western Christianity, al-
though from the 12th century until 1969 it was put at 1
February in the General Roman Calendar.[10][11]
In the Eastern Orthodox Church it is observed on 20
December.[12] The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox
Church of Alexandria places it on the 24th of the Cop-
tic Month of Koiak, corresponding in three years out of
every four to 20 December in the Julian Calendar, which
currently falls on 2 January of the Gregorian Calendar.
3 Letters
• The Letter to the Magnesians,
1
2 3 LETTERS
• The Letter to the Trallians,
• The Letter to the Romans,
• The Letter to the Philadelphians,
• The Letter to the Smyrnaeans,
• The Letter to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna.
By the 5th century, this collection had been enlarged
by spurious letters, and some of the original letters
were, at one point, believed to had been changed with
interpolations,[13] created to posthumously enlist Ignatius
as an unwitting witness in theological disputes of that age,
but that position «was vigorously combated by several
British and German critics, including the Catholics Den-
zinger and Hefele, who defended the genuineness of the
entire seven epistles».[14] At the same time, the purported
eye-witness account of his martyrdom is also thought to
be a forgery from around the same time. A detailed but
spurious account of Ignatius’ arrest and his travails and
martyrdom is the material of the Martyrium Ignatii which
is presented as being an eyewitness account for the church
of Antioch, and attributed to Ignatius’ companions, Philo
of Cilicia, deacon at Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syr-
ian.
Although James Ussher regarded it as genuine, if there
is any genuine nucleus of the Martyrium, it has been
so greatly expanded with interpolations that no part of
it is without questions. Its most reliable manuscript
is the 10th-century Codex Colbertinus (Paris), in which
the Martyrium closes the collection. The Martyrium
presents the confrontation of the bishop Ignatius with
Trajan at Antioch, a familiar trope of Acta of the mar-
tyrs, and many details of the long, partly overland voy-
age to Rome. The Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox
Church of Alexandria says that he was thrown to the wild
beasts that devoured him and rent him to pieces.[3]
Ignatius’s letters proved to be important testimony to the
development of Christian theology, since the number of
extant writings from this period of Church history is very
small. They bear signs of being written in great haste and
without a proper plan, such as run-on sentences and an
unsystematic succession of thought. Ignatius is the earli-
est known Christian writer to emphasize loyalty to a sin-
gle bishop in each city (or diocese) who is assisted by both
presbyters (possibly elders) and deacons. Earlier writings
only mention either bishops or presbyters, and give the
impression that there was usually more than one bishop
per congregation. Philippians 1:1
For instance, his writings on bishops, presbyters and dea-
cons:
Take care to do all things in harmony with
God, with the bishop presiding in the place of
God, and with the presbyters in the place of
the council of the apostles, and with the dea-
cons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with
the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the
Father from the beginning and is at last made
manifest — Letter to the Magnesians 2, 6:1
Ignatius is known to have taught the deity of Christ:
There is one Physician who is possessed
both of flesh and spirit; both made and not
made; God existing in flesh; true life in death;
both of Mary and of God; first passible and
then impassible, even Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 7, shorter ver-
sion, Roberts-Donaldson translation
He stressed the value of the Eucharist, calling it a
“medicine of immortality” (Ignatius to the Ephesians
20:2). The very strong desire for bloody martyrdom in
the arena, which Ignatius expresses rather graphically in
places, may seem quite odd to the modern reader. An
examination of his theology of soteriology shows that he
regarded salvation as one being free from the powerful
fear of death and thus to bravely face martyrdom.[15]
Ignatius is claimed to be the first known Christian writer
to argue in favor of Christianity’s replacement of the
Sabbath with the Lord’s Day:
Be not seduced by strange doctrines nor by
antiquated fables, which are profitless. For if
even unto this day we live after the manner of
Judaism, we avow that we have not received
grace ... If then those who had walked in an-
cient practices attained unto newness of hope,
no longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning
their lives after the Lord’s day, on which our
life also arose through Him and through His
death which some men deny ... how shall we be
able to live apart from Him? ... It is monstrous
to talk of Jesus Christ and to practise Judaism.
For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but
Judaism in Christianity — Ignatius to the Mag-
nesians 8:1, 9:1-2, 10:3, Lightfoot translation.
He is also responsible for the first known use of the
Greek word katholikos (καθολικός), meaning “univer-
sal”, “complete” and “whole” to describe the church, writ-
ing:
Wherever the bishop appears, there let the
people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is
the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptize
or give communion without the consent of the
bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his
approval is pleasing to God. Thus, whatever
is done will be safe and valid. — Letter to the
Smyrnaeans 8, J.R. Willis translation.
It is from the word katholikos (“according to the whole”)
that the word catholic comes. When Ignatius wrote the

Letter to the Smyrnaeans in about the year 107 and used
the word catholic, he used it as if it were a word already
in use to describe the Church. This has led many scholars
to conclude that the appellation Catholic Church with its
ecclesial connotation may have been in use as early as the
last quarter of the 1st century. On the Eucharist, he wrote
in his letter to the Smyrnaeans:
Take note of those who hold heterodox
opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has
come to us, and see how contrary their opinions
are to the mind of God ... They abstain from
the Eucharist and from prayer because they do
not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of
our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered
for our sins and which that Father, in his good-
ness, raised up again. They who deny the gift
of God are perishing in their disputes. — Let-
ter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1
Ignatius modeled his writings after Paul, Peter, and John,
and even quoted or paraphrased their own works freely,
such as when he quoted 1 Cor 1:18, in his letter to the
Ephesians:[16]
Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the
sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block
to those that do not believe, but to us salvation
and life eternal. - Letter to the Ephesians 18,
Roberts and Donaldson translation
Saint Ignatius’s most famous quotation, however, comes
from his letter to the Romans: [10] David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford
I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin
all, that I am dying willingly for God’s sake,
if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do
not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to
be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of
reaching to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am to
be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I
may become the pure bread of Christ. — Letter
to the Romans
4 Letters of Pseudo-Ignatius
Epistles attributed to Saint Ignatius but of spurious origin
include[17]
• Epistle to the Tarsians;
• Epistle to the Antiochians;
• Epistle to Hero, a Deacon of Antioch;
• Epistle to the Philippians;
3
• The Epistle of Maria the Proselyte to Ignatius;
• Epistle to Mary at Neapolis, Zarbus;
• First Epistle to St. John;
• Second Epistle to St. John;
• The Epistle of Ignatius to the Virgin Mary.
5 References
[1] See “Ignatius” in The Westminster Dictionary of Church
History, ed. Jerald Brauer (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1971) and also David Hugh Farmer, “Ignatius of Anti-
och” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Saints (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
[2] The Martyrdom of Ignatius
[3] Synaxarium: The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius, Patriarch of
Antioch
[4] “St. Ignatius of Antioch
[5] Historia Ecclesiastica, II.iii.22.
[6] Dial. Immutab., I, iv, 33a.
[7] St. Ignatius in Antioch profile at NewAdvent.org
[8] Though see the comments of Timothy B. Sailors, “Bryn
Mawr Classical Review: Review of The Apostolic Fathers:
Greek Texts and English Translations". Retrieved 2013-
01-08.
[9] Chronicle, from the Latin translation of Jerome, p. 276.
University Press 2011 ISBN 978-0-19959660-7), p. 220
[11] Calendarium Romanum (Vatican City, 1969), p. 106
[12] Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North
America, Synaxarion, December
[13] “Catholic Encyclopedia”. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
[14] “Catholic Encyclopedia”. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
[15] L. Stephanie Cobb, Dying To Be Men: Gender and Lan-
guage in Early Christian Martyr Texts, page 3 (Columbia
University Press, 2008); ISBN 978-0-231-14498-8
[16] Byfield, Ted, ed. A Pinch on Incense, pg 50
[17] “Spurious Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch” at NewAd-
vent.org
6 Sources
• Holy Letters and Syllables, the function and charac-
ter of Scripture Authority in the writings of St Ig-
natius (Contains biography of Ignatius as well. Doc-
toral thesis University of the Orange Free State 1997,
Dutch, pdf)
4 8 EXTERNAL LINKS

7 Further reading • 2012 Translation & Audio Version (Authentic Seven

Letters and Martyrdom of Ignatius)
• Brent, Allen (2006). Ignatius of Antioch and the Sec-
• Saint Ignatius of Antioch at the Christian Iconogra-
ond Sophistic: a study of an early Christian transfor-
phy web site
mation of Pagan culture. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
ISBN 3-16-148794-X. • Here Followeth the Life of St. Ignatius, Bishop from
Caxton’s translation of the Golden Legend
• De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. (November 1963). “Why
Were the Early Christians Persecuted?". Past and
Present 26.

• Ignatius of Antioch (2003). “The Letters of Ig-

natius”. The Apostolic Fathers. Bart D. Ehrman,
trans. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

• Frend, W.H. (1965). Martyrdom and Persecution

in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the
Maccabees to Donatus. Oxford: Blackwell.

• Ignatius of Antioch (1912–1913). “The Epistles of

St. Ignatius”. The Apostolic Fathers. Kirsopp Lake,
trans. London: Heinemann.

• Ignatius of Antioch (1946). The Epistles of St.

Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch. James
E. Kleist, trans. Westminster, MD: Newman Book-
shop.

• Lane Fox, Robin (2006). Pagans and Christians.

London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-102295-7.

• Löhr, Hermut (2010). “The Epistles of Ignatius of

Antioch”. The Apostolic Fathers. An Introduction.
Wilhelm Pratscher, ed. Waco (TX): Baylor Univer-
sity Press. pp. 91–115. ISBN 978-1-60258-308-5.

• Thurston, Herbert; Attwater, Donald, eds. (1956).

Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Westminster, MD:
Christian Classics.

8 External links
• Early Christian writings: On-line texts of St. Ignatius’
letters (archived) (non-archived link)

• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Ignatius of Antioch

• The Ecclesiology of St. Ignatius of Antioch by Fr.

John S. Romanides

• Saint Ignatius

• Opera Omnia by J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca

with analytical indexes

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Spurious Epistles of St. Ig-

natius of Antioch

• Ignatius writings in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

• Greek text of Ignatius writings

 5

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