'His,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'was one of those "broken" natures out of which God's heroes are made. If not a persecutor of Christ, if not a foe to Christ, as seems probable, he had at least been for a considerable portion of his life an alien from Christ. Like St. Paul, like Augustine, like Francis Xavier, like Luther, like John Bunyan, he could not forget that his had been a dislocated life; and the memory of the catastrophe, which had shattered his former self, filled him with awe and thanksgiving, and fanned the fervour of his devotion to a white heat.
There is no chronological inconsistency in supposing that Ignatius was a disciple of some Apostle, if nothing can be affirmed as to the date of his accession to the ministry or episcopate. On the supposition that he was martyred, as an old man, about a. d. 110, his birth may be placed about a. d. 40. When 25 years of age, or in a. d. 65, companionship would still have been opened to him with St. Peter and St. Paul; or, if his teacher were St. John, his conversion may be brought to a. d. 90, when he would be about 50 years of age. Confessedly all this is conjectural or traditional, as are also any details of episcopal administration.' A 'pitchy darkness' envelopes the life and work of Ignatius, till it is 'at length illumined by a vivid but transient flash of light.' The story of Ignatius begins and ends with the story of his death. 'If his martyrdom had not rescued him from obscurity, he would have remained like his predecessor Euodius, a mere name.' His martyrdom has made him a distinct and living personality, a true father of the Church, a teacher and example to all time.'
Thrilling though the narrative of this martyrdom must ever be, the barest outline only can be given here. The Martyrologies, if they are to be set aside as not containing authentic history, will fascinate afresh the student who turns to them to find in the notes and discussions light cast upon many a critical and ecclesiastical problem. The genuine Epistles have furnished the Bishop with the materials of a sketch of terror which every one will read with the deepest interest.
For some unknown reason the Church of Antioch was by God's will deprived of its venerable head; and with other 'convicts,' collected from the provinces to be
'Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.'
Ignatius was led Romeward. His journey lay along a route which in part had been traversed by Xerxes. The procession of the Persian, foremost among his myriads of men for beauty and stature, halting near Sardis to decorate a beautiful plane-tree with golden ornaments, and commit it to the custody of an 'immortal'[67] is in vivid contrast to the procession of 'criminals,' the Christian leader 'bound amidst ten leopards (or soldiers) who wax worse when kindly treated,' halting also at Sardis, his own decoration the 'bonds' which are to him 'spiritual pearls,' and at Smyrna, writing letters which shall make him immortal.[68] At Troas, like another St. Paul, he looked upon the shores of the Europe which was in later ages to rise up and call them blessed; and from thence he wrote how prepared, how eager he was to meet the 'fire, the sword, the wild beasts,' how to be 'near to the sword was to be near to God; to be encircled by wild beasts was to be encircled by God.' And then Rome at last!—among those who thirsted for his blood, among those whose very love he dreaded lest it should do him the injury of keeping him from martyrdom. Touching is the appeal he had sent before him to the Church 'filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear from every foreign stain':—
'Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ. Entice the wild beasts that they may become my sepulchre and may leave no part of my body behind, so that I may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to any one.'
Into the colossal pile, erected for the display of the bloodiest of inhuman crimes, he was led; and his own impassioned appeal was answered:
'Come fire and cross, and grapplings with wild beasts! Come cuttings and manglings, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, crushings of my whole body! Come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me! Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ!'