This fervid, passionate—if somewhat exaggerated—picture of martyrdom would convey little meaning to the Roman congregations had not such scenes as that depicted by Ignatius been of common occurrence in Rome. Its reception, however, shows how well it was understood by those to whom the burning words of the martyr-bishop were addressed. His letters were most highly prized in very early days, but this special Epistle to the Roman Church from the beginning enjoyed a wider popularity than the others. Its details and teaching were absolutely unique. It appears to have been circulated apart from the other six, sometimes alone, sometimes attached to the story of the martyrdom for which Ignatius so longed.
Two or three references in this letter deserve to be noted as bearing especially on the question of the sleepless nature of the persecution endured by the sect.
Epistle to Romans, 3. Bishop Lightfoot well paraphrases this passage, thus:
“Do not,” writes Ignatius, urging the Roman Church not to take any step which might hinder his anticipated death in the arena, “depart from your true character; you have hitherto sped the martyrs forward to victory; do not now interpose and rob me of my crown.” Rome had hitherto been the chief arena of martyrdom; the Roman brethren had cheered on many a dying Christian hero in his glorious contest.
In the Epistle to Romans, 5, we come upon the following curious statement concerning the arena wild beasts to which he was condemned: “May I have joy of the beasts that have been prepared for me; and I pray that I may find them ready, nay, I will entice them that they may devour me quickly, not as they have done to some, refusing to touch them through fear; yea, though of themselves they should not be willing while I am ready, I myself will force them to it.”
This refusal of the wild beasts to touch their intended victims is by no means an uncommon incident in early martyrology. The capricious conduct of beasts suddenly released from confinement and darkness, and brought into the bright light of the amphitheatre, with the dense crowds of spectators all around shouting applause or execration, is quite natural. It is by no means necessary to impart the miraculous into all these stories, many of them absolutely authentic. Still that the Most High did at times close the mouths of the “wild” is quite credible. The strange, mysterious power often exercised by saintly men and women over furred and feathered untamed creatures is a well-known fact, and has been more than once the subject of discussion.[99] Such an allusion, however, to the occasional conduct of the wild creatures in the arena occurring in the midst of the writer’s arguments, plainly shows that the spectacle of terrible massacres of Christian folk in the arena, where they were exposed to wild beasts, was no uncommon feature in Roman life.
The grim catalogue of tortures which the heroic martyr enumerates in the same chapter of the Roman Epistle, completed the awful picture of the sufferings of brave Christian confessors, sufferings which the Roman citizens had no doubt for many past years often gazed at.