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 On his way to Rome, he wrote several important letters that survive to this day.
In his letter to the Romans, he said concerning his impending martyrdom, “I am the wheat of God and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.”
Ignatius’s letters give us rare insight into the mind of a martyr. He wanted to die, and he considered his death an imitation of the passion of Christ. His letters contain warnings against heresy, detailed summaries of doctrine, and information concerning the organization of the early church.
Ignatius is the first author to present the bishop as distinct from and superior to the elders. In his letter to the church at Smyrna he said, “The people should unconditionally obey the bishop and do nothing without his will. Blessed are they who are one with the bishop, as the church is with Christ, and Christ with the Father, so that all harmonizes in unity. Apostasy from the bishop is apostasy from Christ, who acts in and through the bishops as his organs. He that honors the bishop shall be honored by God; he that does anything without the knowledge of the bishop serves the devil.”
It is unknown exactly why Ignatius was arrested, but we do know that Trajan was the first emperor to pronounce Christianity a restricted religion. He decreed that officials should not seek out Christians, but if reported and convicted, they were to be punished – unless they repented and worshipped the gods.
We know very little about the life of Ignatius, but we do know that he was a disciple of the Apostle John and the bishop of the church in Antioch. Some of his last words were:
“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.”
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