13.1 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi. 13.2 My name is continually . . . nations Isa. 52:5. • Woe . . . blasphemed Source unknown. 13.4 Cf. Luke 6:32, 35. 14.1 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi. • My house . . . den Jer. 7:11; cf. Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46. 14.2 God created . . . female Cf. Gen. 1:27. • declare This word has been supplied, the text being corrupt at this point. • but was . . . she Or but he was . . . he; but the translation given is grammatically more probable. 14.3 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi. 14.5 what things . . . prepared Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9.
Christ and the Spiritual Church
14 So then, brothers and sisters, if we do the will of God our Father we will belong to the first church, the spiritual one, which was created before the sun and moon. But if we do not do the will of the Lord, we will belong to those of whom the scripture says, “My house has become a robbers’ den.” So let us choose, therefore, to belong to the church of life, in order that we may be saved. 2 Now I do not suppose that you are ignorant of the fact that the living church is the body of Christ, for the scripture says, “God created humankind male and female.”The male is Christ; the female is the church. Moreover, the books and the apostles declare that the church not only exists now but has been in existence from the beginning. For she was spiritual, as was also our Jesus, but was revealed in the last days in order that she might save us. 3 Now the church, being spiritual, was revealed in the flesh of Christ, thereby showing us that any of us who guard her in the flesh and do not corrupt her will receive her back again in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is a copy of the Spirit. No one, therefore, who corrupts the copy will share in the original. This, therefore, is what he means, brothers and sisters: guard the flesh, in order that you may receive the Spirit. 4 Now if we say that the flesh is the church and the Spirit is Christ, then the one who abuses the flesh abuses the church. Consequently such a person will not receive the Spirit, which is Christ. 5 So great is the life and immortality that this flesh is able to receive, if the Holy Spirit is closely joined with it, so that no one is able to proclaim or to tell what things the Lord has prepared for his chosen ones.
Importance of the Speaker’s Admonitions
15 Now I do not think that the advice I have given about self-control is unimportant; in fact, those who follow this advice will not regret it, but will save both themselves and me as their adviser. For it is no small reward to redirect an errant and perishing soul, so that it may be saved. 2 For this is the return that we are able to repay to God who created us: if the one who speaks and hears both speaks and hears with faith and love. 3 Let us, therefore, in righteousness and holiness remain true to the things we have believed, in order that we may boldly ask of God, who says, “While you are still speaking, I will say, ‘Behold, I am here.’” 4 For this word is the sign of a great promise, for the Lord says that he is more ready to give than the one asking is to ask. 5 So then, since we share in such great kindness, let us not begrudge each other the gaining of such great blessings. For these words bring as much pleasure to those who do them as they bring condemnation to those who disobey.
15.1 those who follow . . . themselves . . . their Gk is singular. 15.3 Isa. 58:9.
A Third Call to Repent
16 Therefore, brothers and sisters, inasmuch as we have received no small opportunity to repent, let us, while we still have time, turn again to God who has called us, while we still have one who accepts us. 2 For if we renounce these pleasures and conquer our soul by refusing to fulfill its evil desires, we will share in Jesus’ mercy. 3 But you know that the day of judgment is already coming as a blazing furnace, and some of the heavens will dissolve, and the whole earth will be like lead melting in a fire, and then everyone’s works, the secret and the public, will be revealed. 4 Charitable giving, therefore, is good, as is repentance from sin. Fasting is better than prayer, while charitable giving is better than both, and love covers a multitude of sins, while prayer arising from a good conscience delivers one from death. Blessed is everyone who is found full of these, for charitable giving relieves the burden of sin.
16.1 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi. 16.3 the day . . . furnace Cf. Mal. 4:1; 1 Pet. 3:7, 10. • some Some editors emend to the powers, as in Isa. 34:4, to which the writer is probably alluding. • everyone’s works . . . revealed Cf. 1 Cor. 3:13. 16.4 love covers . . . sins 1 Pet. 4:8; cf. Prov. 10:12.
17 Let us repent, therefore, with our whole heart, lest any of us should perish needlessly. For if we have orders that we should make it our business to tear men away from idols and to instruct them, how much more wrong is it that a soul that already knows God should perish? 2 Therefore let us help one another to restore those who are weak with respect to goodness, so that we may all be saved, and let us admonish and turn back one another. 3 And let us think about paying attention and believing not only now, while we are being admonished by the elders; but let us also remember the Lord’s commands when we have returned home and not allow ourselves to be dragged off the other way by worldly desires. Let us come here more frequently and strive to advance in the commandments of the Lord, in order that all of us, being of one mind, may be gathered together into life. 4 For the Lord said, “I am coming to gather together all the nations, tribes, and languages.” Now by this he means the day of his appearing, when he will come and redeem each of us according to our deeds. 5 And the unbelievers will see his glory and might, and they will be astonished when they see that the kingdom of the world belongs to Jesus, saying, “Woe to us, because it was you, and we did not realize it, nor did we believe; and we did not obey the elders when they spoke to us about our salvation.” And their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched, and they will be a spectacle for all flesh. 6 He refers to that day of judgment, when people will see those among us who have lived ungodly lives and perverted the commandments of Jesus Christ. 7 But the righteous, having done well and endured torments and hated the pleasures of the soul, when they see how those who have gone astray and denied Jesus by their words or by their actions are being punished with dreadful torments in unquenchable fire, will give glory to their God as they say, “There will be hope for the one who has served God fully from the heart.”
17.2 restore . . . weak Cf. Gal. 6:1. 17.3 elders Or presbyters. 17.4 Cf. Isa. 66:18. 17.5 will see his glory Cf. Isa. 66:18. • it was you Or you really existed; but cf. John 8:24, 28; 13:19. • elders Or presbyters. • their worm . . . flesh Isa. 66:24; cf. Mark 9:48.
18 Therefore let us too be among those who give thanks, that is, those who have served God, and not among the ungodly who are judged. 2 For I myself am utterly sinful and have not yet escaped from temptation; but even though I am surrounded by the tools of the devil, I make every effort to pursue righteousness, so that I may succeed in at least getting close to it, because I fear the coming judgment.
General Exhortations
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, following the God of truth I am reading you an exhortation to pay attention to what is written, in order that you may save both yourselves and your reader. As compensation I ask that you repent with your whole heart, thereby giving salvation and life to yourselves. For by doing this we will set a goal for all the young people who desire to devote themselves to piety and the goodness of God. 2 Moreover, let us not be displeased or indignant, unwise as we are, when someone admonishes us and tries to turn us away from unrighteousness to righteousness. For there are times when we do evil things without realizing it because of the double-mindedness and faithlessness that exist within us, and our understanding is darkened by empty desires. 3 Let us, therefore, practice righteousness, so that we may be saved in the end. Blessed are those who obey these injunctions; though they may endure affliction for a little while in the world, they will gather the immortal fruit of the resurrection. 4 So, then, godly persons should not be grieved if they are miserable at the present time; a time of blessedness awaits them. They will live again with the fathers above and will rejoice in an eternity untouched by sorrow.
19.1 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi kai adelphai. • following . . . truth I.e., the scripture lesson or reading. 19.2 understanding is darkened Cf. Eph. 4:18. 19.3 the world One ancient authority reads this world. 19.4 godly persons . . . they are . . . them. They Gk singulars.
Be Faithful and Patient
20 But do not let it trouble your mind that we see the unrighteous possessing wealth while the servants of God experience hardships. 2 Let us have faith, brothers and sisters! We are competing in the contest of a living God, and are being trained by the present life in order that we may be crowned in the life to come. 3 None of the righteous ever received his reward quickly, but waits for it. 4 For if God paid the wages of the righteous immediately, we would soon be engaged in business, not godliness; though we would appear to be righteous, we would in fact be pursuing not piety but profit. And this is why the divine judgment punishes a spirit that is not righteous, and loads it with chains.
The Doxology
5 To the only God, invisible, the Father of truth, who sent to us the Savior and Founder of immortality, through whom he also revealed to us the truth and the heavenly life, to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
20.2 brothers and sisters Gk adelphoi kai adelphai. 20.5 To the only God, invisible Cf. 1 Tim. 1:17.
The Letters of Ignatius
Introduction
Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. We meet him for the first and only time for just a few weeks not long before his death as a martyr in Rome early in the second century. But during those few weeks he wrote, virtually as his “last will and testament,” seven letters of extraordinary interest because of the unparalleled light they shed on the history of the church at that time, and because of what they reveal about the remarkable personality of the author. Because of the early date of these writings and the distinctiveness of some of his ideas, particularly with regard to the nature and structure of the church, Ignatius’s letters have influenced later theological reflection and continue to be a focus in scholarly discussion of Christian origins.
Setting and Occasion
Ignatius’s letters were written under extraordinarily stressful and difficult circumstances. After his arrest (it is not known why and under what circumstances he was arrested) in Syria, which left the church in Antioch leaderless and vulnerable, Ignatius was sent to Rome in the custody of a detachment of ten soldiers (the “leopards” of Rom. 5.1) to be executed. At a fork in the road somewhere in Asia Minor, probably Laodicea, the decision was made to take the northern route through Philadelphia to Smyrna, thus bypassing the churches that lay along the southern route (Tralles, Magnesia, and Ephesus). It is probable that when the northern road was chosen, messengers were sent to these churches informing them of Ignatius’s itinerary, and they evidently dispatched delegations to meet him in Smyrna. Ignatius responded to this (perhaps orchestrated) show of support by sending a letter to each of the three churches, and he also sent one ahead to the church in Rome, alerting the believers there to his impending arrival. The guards and their prisoners next stopped at Troas, where Ignatius received the news that “peace” had been restored to the church at Antioch (Phld. 10.1; Smyrn. 11.2; Pol. 7.1), about which he apparently had been quite worried, and sent letters back to the two churches he had visited, Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to his friend Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. But before he could write any more letters the group hurried on to Neapolis and then to Philippi, where he was warmly received by the church (Pol. Phil. 1.1; 9.1). There he disappears from view. Presumably he was taken on to Rome and thrown to the lions in the Coliseum. While it is not certain that he died a martyr’s death (later legendary accounts of his death being historically worthless), there is no reason to think otherwise.
It appears that three concerns were uppermost in Ignatius’s mind at this time: (1) the struggle against false teachers within the church; (2) the unity and structure of the churches; and (3) his own impending death. To Ignatius, the false teachers within posed a greater threat than the pagan society without. “Heresy” (Eph. 6.2; Trall. 6.1), whether that of the “Judaizers,” whose teaching tended to diminish the importance and centrality of Christ, or that of the docetists, who under the influence of the common view that matter was evil tended to deny the reality of Jesus’ humanity, threatened to split the church and thereby destroy the God-given unity that for Ignatius was one of the distinguishing marks of the true faith. In opposing the false teachers, Ignatius affirms both the divinity of Jesus and the reality of his incarnation, suffering, and resurrection; indeed, he grounds the meaning and reality of his own circumstances on the reality of what Jesus himself experienced (Trall. 10; Smyrn. 4.2).
He also stresses the importance of the bishop in preserving the unity of the church. He does this on two levels. First, while Ignatius’s ideal church may have a threefold ministry that includes deacons and presbyters, it is the bishop who is constitutive of the church: where he is, the church is. Any activity or service that takes place without either his presence or his permission has no validity (Smyrn. 8.1–2; Magn. 7; Trall. 3.1). Thus schismatics, who gather separately, cut themselves off from the true church (Eph. 5.3; Smyrn. 6.2). Second, the central role of the bishop organizationally has a theological rationale: the bishop is nothing less than God’s representative to the congregation. Just as Christians are united with God spiritually in heaven, so it is their duty to be in communion or harmony with their bishop on earth (Eph. 6.1; Magn. 3; Trall. 2.2; 3.1; Phld. 2.1; Smyrn. 8.1). Conversely, one’s attitude toward the bishop reflects one’s attitude toward God, and thus one’s behavior relative to the bishop becomes critically important. It is interesting that Ignatius provides a theological rationale for the authority and place of the bishop and does not base it, as does his near contemporary Clement of Rome, upon the concept of apostolic succession.
In addition to the theological significance and consequences of these first two concerns, the sociological implications (namely, community protection through definition of belief and legitimation of authority) should also be noted.[1]
Ignatius’s Attitude toward Martyrdom
Ignatius’s third concern was his impending death, which he anticipates with a vivid, almost macabre eagerness (Rom. 4.2, 5.3, 7.2). His complex attitude toward martyrdom and the zeal with which he pursued it were shaped by at least three factors. One is his sincere desire to imitate the suffering of Jesus and thereby become a true disciple; indeed, he goes so far as to claim that only since his arrest is he “beginning” to be a disciple (Rom. 6.3; 5.3). However off-putting his idea may be to some, it must be given due weight as a way of understanding persecution that finds parallels in both Paul and Matthew. Some of his language, particularly in his letter to the Romans, may reflect an understandable fear of failure (Rom. 7.2), and hence an effort to fortify himself and hold to the course to which he has publicly committed himself. In addition, generally the only basis for releasing a Christian condemned to death was apostasy; even if the Roman church had won his release for good reasons (something he feared they might attempt to do [Rom. 1.1–2.1, 4.1]), rumors that he had apostatized likely would have arisen, and he no doubt wished to avoid such speculation.
Then there is the situation in Antioch, about which Ignatius is evidently quite worried. Schoedel notes Ignatius’s marked tendency toward self-effacement, and that oddly enough he relates to the churches to which he writes not on the basis of his status as bishop, but as a captive about to be martyred. Schoedel then persuasively suggests that the Antiochene church was on the verge of splitting.[2] If such a split were to occur, it would mean that Ignatius was a failure as a bishop because he would not have maintained the godly character of the congregation that had been entrusted to him. He may, therefore, have seen in his imminent martyrdom a means by which to reclaim the deteriorating situation in Antioch
or to redeem his reputation as a bishop and a Christian.
Viewed in light of these factors, Ignatius’s attitude toward his death is understandable and quite in line with those who died for their faith before (cf., e.g., 4 Maccabees) and after him (e.g., Polycarp).
Date
Ever since Lightfoot’s magisterial discussion of the matter, there has been a near-unanimous consensus that Ignatius was martyred during the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117).[3] The primary basis for this view is the tradition reported by Eusebius[4] that Ignatius was executed sometime near the midpoint of Trajan’s reign, coupled with the apparent absence in the letters themselves (assuming, for the moment, their authenticity)[5] of any indications to the contrary. In view of this slender evidentiary basis, it is no surprise that attempts to fix the date more precisely have not been persuasive; if anything, the tendency is to enlarge the possible time frame in the direction of Hadrian’s reign (117–138).[6]
Authenticity
Everything said about Ignatius thus far rests upon the conclusion that the seven letters of the so-called middle recension are authentic. This conclusion is widely held today, but such was not always the case.
The letters exist in three basic forms. The long recension is an expanded version of the original letters created in the fourth century through the addition of six spurious letters; some of these came to be associated with the middle recension as well. The short recension is a Syriac abridgment of the letters to the Ephesians, the Romans, and Polycarp. The middle recension, which was known to Eusebius, preserves the original form of the letters.
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