Ignatius of Antioch: The Seven Letters

The seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch are among the earliest Christian writings to survive outside the New Testament. Their author, Ignatius — who calls himself *Theophorus*, "God-bearer" — was bishop of Antioch in Syria in the first decades of the second century. Arrested and condemned during a persecution, he was taken under military guard across Asia Minor toward Rome, where he expected to be thrown to the beasts in the arena. On that final journey he wrote seven letters that are read to this day. They matter for the study of Paul less for any biography they contain — they contain almost none — than for what they reveal about how Paul was remembered, read, and revered within roughly a generation of his death, and because their author held the very see, Antioch, that had been the operational base of Paul's own mission.

What the letters are

While in transit Ignatius wrote to six churches — the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, and Smyrnaeans — and one letter to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. (Tradition) Six were composed as he passed through Smyrna and Troas, addressed to communities that had sent delegations to greet him along the road. Their recurring themes are the unity of each church around its bishop, warnings against teachings he regarded as false, and — most personally — his own longing for martyrdom, which he begs the Roman Christians not to prevent. In the *Letter to the Romans* he writes, in the public-domain Roberts-Donaldson translation, "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." (Tradition)

Authorship, dating, and the three recensions

Ignatius's letters are usually dated to the reign of the emperor Trajan, c. AD 107-117, on the traditional understanding that he was martyred at Rome in that period. (Scholarship) The dating is approximate: the ancient sources for Ignatius's own life are later and partly legendary, so the range should be read as a scholarly estimate rather than a fixed year.

A reader should also know that the letters survive in three different forms, called recensions: a short recension (three letters, preserved in Syriac), a middle recension (the seven letters at their commonly cited length), and a long recension (the seven expanded, with six further spurious letters attached). (Scholarship) The mainstream scholarly consensus, settled in the nineteenth century, is that the middle recension of the seven letters is authentic, while the long recension is a later expansion and the extra letters are forgeries. A minority of scholars has from time to time questioned whether even the middle recension is genuine, or has argued for a somewhat later date; the majority position remains that the seven middle-recension letters are the real work of Ignatius. A careful citation therefore always quotes the middle recension and says which recension it is using.

Why Antioch matters for Paul

Ignatius's importance for a Pauline reference begins with his city. Antioch on the Orontes was the great Roman-Syrian metropolis from which Paul's gentile mission was launched. It was there that Barnabas brought Saul from Tarsus (Acts 11:25-26); there that, in the words of the Douay-Rheims, "the disciples were first named Christians" (Acts 11:26); and from there that Paul and Barnabas were set apart and "sent by the Holy Ghost" on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-3). (Scripture) Antioch was also the setting of Paul's public confrontation with Peter over table fellowship with gentiles (Galatians 2:11-14). (Scripture) Ignatius held the bishopric of that same church perhaps only two generations later. He nowhere claims to have known Paul, and he narrates nothing of Paul's life; but his letters are a window onto the Antiochene Christianity that Paul had helped to shape. For the wider story of that city, see our reference on Antioch.

What the letters tell us about Paul

Ignatius offers no new facts about Paul's biography. What he offers is early evidence for Paul's standing and authority. Two passages are cited most often.

In the *Letter to the Ephesians* 12, Ignatius reminds the Ephesian church of its bond with the Apostle: they are, in the Roberts-Donaldson rendering, "fellow-initiates with Paul... who in every letter makes mention of you in Christ Jesus." (Tradition) The remark shows two things at once — that Paul's letters were already known and circulating as a recognised body of writing early in the second century, and that the tradition linking Paul with Ephesus (Acts 19; and the letter addressed to the Ephesians) was firmly established.

In the *Letter to the Romans* 4, Ignatius sets his own lowliness against the stature of the apostles: "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles..." (Tradition) This is early testimony to the joint Peter-and-Paul tradition at Rome — the paired memory of the two apostles in the capital — which later writers such as Clement of Rome and Eusebius of Caesarea would develop, and which underlies the tradition of Paul's Roman martyrdom set out in our reference on the Apostle Paul.

Beyond these two passages, Ignatius's letters illustrate the developing theology of martyrdom and the emerging order of bishop, presbyters, and deacons — the framework within which the second-century church would read Paul's own letters. Used carefully, and always distinguished from first-century evidence, Ignatius is a valuable witness to Paul's early reception rather than to the facts of his life. He belongs, with 1 Clement, among the earliest external voices that carry Paul's memory forward from the age of the Acts of the Apostles into the wider Church.

Key passages for Paul

*Ephesians* 12 (the Ephesians as "fellow-initiates with Paul"; Paul "in every letter"); *Romans* 4 (Peter and Paul as "the apostles" associated with Rome); and, for the context of Ignatius's own condemnation, *Romans* 4-6 (his plea to be allowed to die a martyr).