Colosseum, Ancient Rome

Ignatius of Antioch (c.30- c.107/113 AD) was a 1st century Christian writer who was martyred in the Roman Colosseum for refusing to worship the gods of the Roman Empire. He was one of the first Early Church Fathers, collaborator of the apostle Paul (c.5-c. 64/65 AD) and bishop of Antioch in Syria. Probably also a disciple of the apostles Peter (late 1st century BC – c. 64 or 67 AD) and John, the beloved disciple (c. 6-c. 100 AD). In fact, Theodoret of Cyrus (c.393-c.458/466) claimed that Peter himself left instructions for Ignatius to lead the church in Antioch.

After appearing before the authorities in the time of Emperor Trajan (53-117 AD) around the year 110 AD and declaring his fidelity to Jesus Christ, he was condemned to die by wild beasts in Rome. Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 70-155), Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-c. 202 AD), and Origen of Alexandria (c.184-c.253) all refer to him or his epistles in their writings, confirming what we know of his life.

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fulness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of God the Father, and of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour: Abundant happiness through Jesus Christ, and his undefiled joy.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Churches of Ephesus around the year 110 AD when he was heading to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

A Martyr in the Colosseum

The return of the Roman Emperor Trajan (53-117 AD) to Rome, after the definitive Conquest of Dacia between 101 and 106 AD, was celebrated with one hundred and twenty-three days of spectacles. Ten thousand gladiators perished in the games and many of the condemned were also devoured by wild beasts, for the sole reason of being Christians.

Among the prisoners was Ignatius of Antioch (c.30- c.107/113 AD), who after being arrested and tried, left the great metropolis of Syria for Rome, loaded with chains and well escorted by a platoon of ten soldiers from the Lepidian cohort, called leopards.

Not much is known about him but what we know is based mainly on his own writings where you can see a brave man in love with Jesus Christ and a true shepherd of souls, concerned only with guarding the flock that had been entrusted to him. His best portrait is offered to us by himself in the famous seven letters that he wrote to various Christian communities while he was on his way to Rome to be martyred.

I know both who I am, and to whom I write. I am a condemned man, ye have been the objects of mercy; I am subject to danger, ye are established in safety. Ye are the persons through whom those pass that are cut off for the sake of God. Ye are initiated into the mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred, the deservedly most happy, at whose feet may I be found, when I shall attain to God; who in all his Epistles makes mention of you in Christ Jesus.
Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Churches of Ephesus around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Four were written from Smyrna to the Churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles and Rome; in them he thanks them for their displays of affection towards him, warns them against heresies and encourages them to unite with their bishops; in the letter addressed to the Romans he begs them to do nothing to avoid his martyrdom, which is his greatest aspiration.

The other three letters were written from Troas: to the Church of Smyrna and to his friend Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 70-155), whom he thanks for his attention, and to the Church of Philadelphia; are similar to the other four, adding the joyful news that the persecution in Antioch has ended and, in the one addressed to Polycarp, giving some advice on how to discharge his duties as bishop.

These letters are a splendid source for knowledge of the inner life of the early Church, with its climate of mutual concern and affection; they also show us the feeling of Ignatius, full of love for Christ.

I know that ye possess an unblameable and sincere mind in patience, and that not only in present practice, but according to inherent nature, as Polybius your bishop has shown me, who has come to Smyrna by the will of God and Jesus Christ, and so sympathized in the joy which I, who am bound in Christ Jesus, possess, that I beheld your whole multitude in him. Having therefore received through him the testimony of your good-will, according to God, I gloried to find you, as I knew you were, the followers of God.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Church of Tralles in Asia around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Little is known about his arrest, who accused him, or his trial. The information that has survived to this day is what he gives us in his letters.

Apparently at that time there were various factions in the church of Antioch and some had gone to such extremes in their doctrines that Ignatius had opposed them with great passion. His accusation before the authorities could have resulted from these controversies, although another possibility is that some pagan, given the admiration that Ignatius received, decided to take him to court. In any case, for one reason or another he was arrested, tried and convicted in Rome.

His arrest encouraged the fantasy of the manuscript's author, Martyrius Colbertinus, who devised a fictional dialogue between Ignatius of Antioch (c.30- c.107/113 AD) and the Roman emperor Trajan (53-117 AD). In that dialogue, staged in Antioch itself, Trajan arrogantly asks: 'Who are you, miserable demon, that you disobey my orders?' While Ignacio's response is what one would expect from him: "No one calls the God-bearer, the Theophorus, miserable." After this, Trajan, disgusted, condemns him to death.

In his letters, he himself repeatedly mentioned that he bore the nickname "God Bearer", which is an indication of the respect he enjoyed in the Christian community. In fact, there is a tradition that Ignatius of Antioch was the child that Jesus took and placed among those around him in the biblical passage of Matthew 18:2-4: He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

But beyond this, what we do know with certainty is that at the beginning of the second century Ignatius enjoyed great authority in the Christian church, since he was the second bishop of one of the oldest and most influential Christian communities, the church of Antioch, the same church from where the apostle Paul (c.5-c. 64/65 AD) and Barnabas undertook their missionary journeys.

Upon being transferred to Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and the soldiers who guarded him had to pass through Asia Minor and on the way many Christians from the region approached, who were received with joy by him.

I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep in death, I may be no trouble to any one.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Romans around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

One of the most revealing letters is the one he wrote from Smyrna to the Romans. Somehow, he had received news that Christians in Rome were working on efforts to save him from death. But Ignatius did not welcome such a project because he was already willing to give his life for Jesus Christ, and any action that his Roman brothers could carry out would be an obstacle for him.

That is why he writes to the Romans: 'For I am afraid of your love, lest it should do me an injury. For it is easy for you to accomplish what you please; but it is difficult for me to attain to God, if ye spare me.'

Ignatius' purpose was, as he himself says, to be an imitator of Jesus Christ and to please God. 'For it is not my desire to act towards you as a man-pleaser, but as pleasing God, even as also ye please Him. For neither shall I ever have such another opportunity of attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honour of a better work. For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God's; but if you show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favour upon me than that I be sacrificed to God while the altar is still prepared; that, being gathered together in love, ye may sing praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent for from the east unto the west. It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise again to Him.'

In this way the bishop of Antioch marched joyfully towards the jaws of the lions in the games that would be held in the Roman Coliseum.

From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers, who, even when they receive benefits, show themselves all the worse. But I am the more instructed by their injuries to act as a disciple of Christ; "yet am I not thereby justified." May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so. Pardon me in this: I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Romans around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

If the expression "...by land and sea..." is interpreted literally, it can be concluded that indeed the group escorting Ignatius of Antioch embarked in Seleucia and made part of the trip by sea. For some reason, they landed at Attila and crossed the mountains to the enclave of Laodicea and from there they could have descended the valley of the Meander River to the coastal city of Ephesus. However, they continued towards Hierapolis, to change valleys and reach Smyrna, a city located somewhat further north and, therefore, closer to Troad, the gateway to Europe.

A late account of his martyrdom in the manuscript Martyrius Colbertinus composed in the 4th-5th centuries, reconstructs with certain doses of imagination the journey from Syria to Rome and indicates December 20 as the date of martyrdom. According to this document, Ignatius of Antioch had been a disciple or listener of the apostle John, a possibility also considered by Jerome of Strydon (347-420).

Their custody during the transfer was entrusted, as he himself says, to a platoon of soldiers from the Lepidian cohort, called leopards, who "even when they receive benefits, show themselves all the worse". They must not have treated him with much respect judging by this other comment: "...but I am the more instructed by their injuries to act as a disciple of Christ."

The Greek expression leopardis (leopards) used to describe them may refer to the rough and wild character of their guards, but it is also speculated that it was the name of some Roman regiment or an allusion to those animal skins with which some soldiers covered their heads.

All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth. "For what shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?'' Him I seek, who died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Romans around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Now that he is ready to die, all he wants is for his Roman brothers to ask for him, not freedom, but strength to face the test. The reason Ignatius of Antioch was willing to accept his death was that through it he would become a living testimony of Jesus Christ.

Ignatius shows himself to be a man with a big heart and is moved to appreciate the kindness of the Christians, who as soon as they find out about his captivity, they lavish themselves with him, provide him with what he needs for the trip and offer to accompany him to share his destiny. At this point there are many who run to console him from different regions, but they are the ones who return moved and infected with the love of God.

For, on hearing that I came bound from Syria for the common name and hope, trusting through your prayers to be permitted to fight with beasts at Rome, that so by martyrdom I may indeed become the disciple of Him "who gave Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God," ye hastened to see me.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Smyrna to the Churches of Ephesus around the year 110 AD when he was heading to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Thanks to his intense interior life, Ignatius tries to do the greatest possible good in the regions where he passes, opening to others the treasure of gifts that the Holy Spirit has granted him.

With great humility he states: 'I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person. For though I am bound for the name of Christ, I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow- disciples with me. For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering,' but he knows how to use an energetic tone when necessary: ​​he does not avoid correcting even if it hurts, nor denouncing heresy or disciplinary deviation.

Along his path, he observes and listens to what happens: he quickly discerns the old errors combated by the Apostles of Jesus Christ, addressing mainly Gnosticism and Docetism.

The foundation of these heresies was the pagan belief in dualism: the spirit is good, the flesh is evil. They recognized an eternal conflict between good and evil, mind and matter, idea and object. According to the Gnostics, Satan is the eternal opposite of the good God and with this view of the spiritual world, people could say that God has limited power and perhaps knowledge and is doing the best he can with a sinful world.

This heresy separated the divine Christ from the human Jesus and taught that the divine Christ came upon the human Jesus at His baptism and departed just before His death. According to Docetism, since God is spirit and the spirit is good, but the flesh is evil, then if Jesus is God, he could not have assumed sinful flesh. The Jesus who lived among men and died on the cross was simply a ghost with the appearance of a body.

The elder Ignatius of Antioch claims that if Jesus had not truly taken on a human body and died as a man, then he could not have made atonement for our sins. His letters emphasized the importance of communion as a means of emphasizing the reality of Jesus' humanity. He believed that if Jesus did not truly shed his blood, his martyrdom would be meaningless.

I glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such wisdom. For I have observed that ye are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded with respect to our Lord, that He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and power of God; that He was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed to the cross for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard s for all ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful followers, whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His Church.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Troas in Asia to the Church of Smyrna around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Finally, one of the seven letters written by Ignatius of Antioch is to his friend Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 70-155) and is the only one of the writings that is addressed to a person and not to a community. Impressed by the young man, Ignatius wrote him a letter of exhortation from Troas and it is a letter that a person on the road to death addresses to another who has a life ahead of him, a task to fulfill at the head of his Church. This is a list of very varied advice designed to prepare Policarpo for his ministerial work.

Some time later, Polycarp wrote to the Philippians asking for news about what had happened to Ignatius. However, we do not know with certainty what his brothers in Philippi responded to him, although everything seems to indicate that by then he had already died as expected, after his arrival in Rome.

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnæans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: wishes abundance of happiness.
Having obtained good proof that thy mind is fixed in God as upon an immoveable rock, I loudly glorify His name that I have been thought worthy to behold thy blameless face, which may I ever enjoy in God! I entreat thee, by the grace with which thou art clothed, to press forward in thy course, and to exhort all that they may be saved. Maintain thy position with all care, both in the flesh and spirit. Have a regard to preserve unity, than which nothing is better. Bear with all, even as the Lord does with thee. Support all in love, as also thou doest. Give thyself to prayer without ceasing. Implore additional understanding to what thou already hast. Be watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit. Speak to every man separately, as God enables thee. Bear the infirmities of all, as being a perfect athlete in the Christian life: where the labour is great, the gain is all the more.

Letter from Ignatius of Antioch written from Troas in Asia to Polycarp of Smyrna around the year 110 AD when he was on his way to Rome, where he was taken to suffer martyrdom.

Without a doubt, men as brave and full of faith as Ignatius of Antioch (c.30- c.107/113 AD) inspire us to live more passionate lives for Jesus Christ. Although Ignatius's writings come closer in time to the writing of the Gospels and offer valuable clues about the situation of Christian communities at the end of the first and beginning of the second century, the heresies and problems he addressed remain relevant today and we can learn a lot from his writings.

We must not allow the fear of God to be lost due to the fear of man and in difficult times and persecution, it is important to ask God for the filling of his Holy Spirit and the revelation of his Word so that at the moment He tells us, we can open our mouths and speak the truth with authority.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

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