Ignatius of Antioch

Apostolic Father · Bishop of Antioch · d. c. 107–117

Ignatius became pastor of the church at Antioch, where Barnabas and Paul had labored, sometime in the late first century. Tradition holds that he, like Polycarp, was a disciple of the apostle John. Arrested and taken under guard to Rome to die in the arena, he wrote seven letters to the churches along the way.1

Now I begin to be a disciple.… Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment … come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ.2 Ignatius of AntiochTo the Romans

His letters fought Docetism, the teaching that Christ only seemed to be human, and so they press both the deity of Christ and the reality of his flesh: “For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan.” He also taught that Christians gather on the Lord’s Day, “no longer observing the Sabbath.” He was martyred at Rome, by tradition thrown to wild beasts, sometime between about 107 and 117.3

His Legacy

Ignatius gave the church several of the terms and structures Rome would build on. He was the first to call the Lord’s Supper the “Eucharist” and to use the phrase “catholic church,” and he called the Supper “the medicine of immortality.”4 He urged a single bishop over each church:

Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church.5 Ignatius of AntiochTo the Smyrnaeans 8

“Catholic” here means universal, not Roman. But Busenitz observes that in the New Testament “bishop” and “elder” are synonymous, and that starting with Ignatius the two roles became distinct, with the bishop raised above the elders. That distinction became the seed of the later hierarchy that the Reformers judged by Scripture.6

Church Fathers

Notes

  1. Nathan Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide: 13 Lessons to Understand and Appreciate the Basics of Church History (Chicago: Moody, 2020), 38–39. Summarized. ↩
  2. Mark Galli and Ted Olsen, eds., 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), “Ignatius of Antioch.” ↩
  3. Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide, 39, 57, quoting Ignatius, To the Ephesians 18.2, and To the Magnesians. Summarized. ↩
  4. Michael J. Vlach, “Historical Theology I: A.D. 100–1600” (course notes, TH 507, The Master’s Seminary, Fall 2007), “Ignatius.” ↩
  5. Galli and Olsen, 131 Christians, “Ignatius of Antioch.” Galli notes that this is the first recorded use of the phrase. ↩
  6. Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide, 39. Summarized. ↩