By Leon Bent –
St. Ignatius of Antioch, also called Ignatius Theophoros (Greek: “God Bearer”); he was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist. St. Ignatius was known mainly from seven highly regarded letters that he wrote during a trip to Rome, as a prisoner condemned to be executed for his beliefs. He was apparently eager to counteract the teachings of two groups—the Judaizers, who did not accept the authority of the New Testament, and the docetists, who held that Christ’s sufferings and death were apparent but not real.
Born in Syria, Ignatius converted to Christianity and eventually became bishop of Antioch. In the year 107, Emperor Trajan visited Antioch and forced the Christians there, to choose between death and apostasy. Ignatius would not deny Christ and thus was condemned to be put to death in Rome.
Ignatius bravely met the lions in the Circus Maximus. He did not draw attention to his own suffering, but to the love of God which strengthened him. He knew the price of commitment and would not deny Christ, even to save his own life.
Ignatius is well known for the seven letters he wrote on the long journey from Antioch to Rome. Five of these letters are to churches in Asia Minor; they urge the Christians there to remain faithful to God and to obey their superiors. He warns them against heretical doctrines, providing them with the solid truths of the Christian faith. The letters have often been cited as a source of knowledge of the Christian Church at the beginning of the 2nd century.
The sixth letter was to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was later martyred for the faith. The final letter begs the Christians in Rome not to try to stop his martyrdom. “The only thing I ask of you is to allow me to offer the libation of my blood to God. I am the wheat of the Lord; “may I be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become the immaculate bread of Christ.”
Ignatius’ letters passionately stressed the importance of Church unity, the dangers of heresy, and the surpassing importance of the Eucharist as the “medicine of immortality.” These writings contain the first surviving written description of the Church as “Catholic,” from the Greek word indicating both universality and fullness.
One of the most striking features of Ignatius’ Letters is his enthusiastic embrace of martyrdom as a means to union with God and eternal life. “All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing,” he wrote to the Church of Rome. “It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth.”
“Now I begin to be a disciple,” the Bishop declared. “Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let lacerations, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of my limbs, let crushing of my body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain Jesus Christ.”
The year of St. Ignatius’ death is unknown; perhaps, it occurred during the victory festivities in which the Emperor Trajan sacrificed the lives of 10,000 gladiators and 11,000 wild beasts, for the amusement of the bloodthirsty populace. The scene of his glorious triumph and martyrdom was most likely the Colosseum; that mammoth structure, glittering with gold and marble, had been just completed.
The Bishop and martyr Ignatius occupies a foremost place among the heroes of Christian antiquity. His final journey from Antioch to Rome was like a nuptial procession and a Way of the Cross. For the letters he wrote along the way, resemble Seven Stations of the Cross; they may also be called seven nuptial hymns overflowing with the saint’s intense love for Christ Jesus and his longing to be united with Him. These letters are seven most precious jewels, in the heirloom bequeathed to us, by the Church of sub-apostolic times.
Here comes a Challenge! Meditate on the words of St. Ignatius in the Communion Antiphon. Are we able to accept martyrdom, either bodily death, or “white martyrdom“? Jesus Himself was the Grain of wheat who had to die to bear fruit. The fruit produced is the Mystical Body, the Church.
Now, this gold nugget! In a 2007 general audience on St. Ignatius of Antioch, Pope Benedict XVI observed that “no Church Father has expressed the longing for union with Christ and for life in him with the intensity of Ignatius.” In his letters, the Pope said, “one feels the freshness of the faith of the generation which had still known the Apostles. In these letters, the ardent love of a saint can also be felt.”
And this final flourish! Antioch, in present-day Turkey, was where the followers of Jesus, were first called “Christians” during Ignatius’ time!