1
This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond.
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies dont know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
Emily Dickinson
"COME TO THE FATHER":
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH &
HIS CALLING TO BE A MARTYR
Michael A G Haykin
In the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch we possess one
of the richest resources for the understanding of
Christianity in the era immediately following that of the
Apostles.
1
Though somewhat staccato in style and filled
with rhetorical embellishments, they manifest, in the
words of biblical scholar Bruce Metzger, "such strong
faith and overwhelming love of Christ as to make them
one of the finest literary expressions of Christianity
during the second century."
2
Accepting what is called the
middle recension of these seven letters as genuine,
3
it is
1
Rowan Williams, Christian Spirituality (Atlanta: John Knox
Press, 1980), 14. For two exhaustive overview of studies on
Ignatius, see William R. Schoedel, "Polycarp of Smyrna and
Ignatius of Antioch" in Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard, eds.,
Temporini Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt
(Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), II/27.1:273-249 and
Charles Munier, "Où en est la question dIgnace dAntioche? Bilan
dun siècle de recherches 1870-1988" in Haase and Temporini eds.,
Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II/27.1:358-484.
2
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and
Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 44.
3
On their authenticity, see Christine Trevett, A Study of Ignatius
of Antioch in Syria and Asia (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1992), 9-15; Schoedel, "Polycarp of Smyrna and
Ignatius of Antioch" in Haase and Temporini eds., Aufstieg und
Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II/27.1:286-292. It was the Irish
Calvinistic Archbishop, James Ussher (1581-1656), who pioneered
the way to the modern perspective on what constitute the authentic
letters of Ignatius. See his Polycarpi et Ignatii epistolae (Oxford,
1644). On the transmission of the text of these letters, see also the
brief summary by Andrew Louth, "Ignatius of Antioch" in Maxwell
Staniforth, trans., Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
(1968 ed.; repr. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1987),
55-56.