A story of passion for Christ.

Passion: The story of Ignatius.

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius was a bishop of Antioch in Syria, the city where the disciples were first called Christians. He died around AD 107–117. We know very little about his early life. According to tradition, he was a convert who was taught by the Apostle John alongside Polycarp. Eusebius says Peter and Paul arranged for Ignatius to follow Evodius as bishop, and that he served for about forty years.

He called himself “Theophorus,” meaning “God-bearer.” A later legend said he was the child Jesus placed among the disciples in Matthew 18, and that story grew out of this name.

Arrest and sentence

Under Emperor Trajan, Ignatius refused to worship the Roman gods. According to the account of his martyrdom, Trajan ordered that he be “bound by soldiers, and carried to the great [city] Rome, there to be devoured by the beasts, for the gratification of the people”. When he heard the sentence, he reportedly thanked God for being chained “after the example of your holy apostle, Paul”.

The journey and seven letters

Ten soldiers took him overland across Asia Minor. He called them “leopards”. Christians came out to meet him along the way, and he wrote letters back to their churches:

  • From Smyrna, where Polycarp was bishop, he wrote to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians and Romans.
  • From Troas he wrote to the Philadelphians, the Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp himself.

The letters cover a few main themes:

  • Church order: -They give the earliest clear evidence of a single bishop leading each city church, with elders and deacons under him.
  • The Incarnation: He defends the real, physical flesh of Christ against the Docetists, who taught that Jesus only seemed to be human.
  • The Eucharist: He calls it the “medicine of immortality”.
  • The word “Catholic”: His letters are the earliest surviving writing to call the Church “Catholic”.

His letter to the Romans is the most moving. He begs them not to try to save him: “I am God’s wheat, ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread”. He saw martyrdom as sharing in Christ’s Passion, and through that, in Christ’s glory.

His death

Tradition says he reached Rome on December 20, the last day of the games that had lasted 123 days. He was taken straight to the Flavian Amphitheater, where two lions were released and killed him at once. Some accounts say only a few of his larger bones were left, and Christians gathered them up.

History versus legend

Scholars separate the parts we can trust from the later additions. The seven letters are widely accepted as genuine. The details of his trial before Trajan and of his death are considered more legendary.