"7. The prince of this world would fain seize me, and corrupt my disposition towards God. Let not any of you, therefore, that are near abet him. Rather be ye on my side, that is, on God's side. Do not speak of Jesus Christ and set your desires on the world. Let not envy dwell among you. Even though I myself, when I am with you, should beseech you, obey me not, but rather give credit to those things which I now write. My earthly passion has been crucified, and there is no fire of material longing in me; but there is within me a water that lives and speaks, saying to me inwardly, 'Come to the Father.' I have no delight in the food of corruption, or in the delights of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for a draught I desire His blood, which is love incorruptible.
"8. I desire no longer to live after the manner of men; and this shall be, if ye desire it. Be ye willing, then, that ye also may be desired. In a brief letter I beseech you, do ye give credit to me. Jesus Christ will reveal these things to you, so that ye shall know that I speak the truth—Jesus Christ the unerring mouth by which the Father has spoken truly. Pray for me that I may attain the object of my desire. I write not unto you after the flesh, but after the mind of God. If I shall suffer, it was your desire; but if I am rejected, ye have hated me.
"9. Remember in your prayers the Church which is in Syria, which has God for its shepherd in my stead. Jesus Christ alone shall be its bishop, He and your love; but for myself, I am ashamed to be called one of them; for neither am I worthy, being the very last of them and an untimely birth; but I have found mercy that I should be some one, if so I shall attain unto God. My spirit salutes you, and the love of the Churches which received me in the name of Jesus Christ, not as a mere wayfarer; for even those Churches which did not lie on my route after the flesh, went before me from city to city.
"10. Now I write these things to you from Smyrna, by the hand of the Ephesians, who are worthy of all felicitation. And Crocus also, a name very dear to me, is with me, with many others besides.
"11. As touching those who went before me from Syria to Rome, to the glory of God, I believe that ye have received instructions; whom also apprize that I am near, for they all are worthy of God and of you, and it becomes you to refresh them in all things. These things I write to you on the 9th before the Kalends of September. Fare-ye-well unto the end in the patient waiting for Jesus Christ."
This letter is a strange mixture of silly babblement, mysticism, and fanaticism; but throughout it wants the true ring of an honest correspondence. Why does the writer describe himself as the Bishop of Syria, and why does he never once mention Antioch from beginning to end? When an apostle was imprisoned, his brethren prayed for his release (Acts xii. 5); but this Ignatius forbade the Christians at Rome to make any attempt to save him from martyrdom. Paul taught that he might give his body to be burned, and yet after all be a reprobate (1 Cor. xiii. 3); but this Ignatius indicates that all would be well with him, if he had the good fortune to be eaten by the lions. His letter is pervaded, not by the enlightened and cheerful piety of the New Testament, but by the gloomy and repulsive spirit of Montanism. Bishop Lightfoot tells us that it had "a wider popularity than the other letters of Ignatius" (vol. ii, § i. p. 186). It was accommodated to the taste of an age of deteriorated Christianity. Polycarp would have sternly condemned its extravagance. But, in the early part of the third century, the tone of public sentiment in the Christian Church was greatly changed, and the writings of Tertullian contributed much to give encouragement to such productions as the Ignatian Epistles. Tertullian, however, in his numerous writings, never once names Ignatius. It would appear that he had never heard of these letters.
[ENDNOTES]
[2:1] Carwithen, Hist. Ch. of England, i. 554, 2nd ed.