6
to give the church at Rome some idea as to when to expect him.
27
Not long after writing
this letter to the Roman Church the Antiochene bishop left Smyrna for Troas. This stage
in Ignatius journey is not clear. The soldiers took him either to Troas by road or by a
vessel that would have sailed within sight of the shore. Nor do we know how long they
stopped at Troas.
28
But Ignatius was able to write three more letters from there: letters to
the churches at Philadelphia, Smyrna, and finally one to the man who befriended in
Smyrna, Polycarp.
29
The Roman soldiers and their Christian prisoner seem to have left Troas in something of
a hurry and made their way to Neapolis in Macedonia.
30
From there they would have
passed through Philippi to Dyrrachium, on what is now the Adriatic coast.
31
From
Dyrrachium they probably would have taken another ship for Brundisium in Italy and
then by land made their way to Rome. At this point a curtain is drawn across the
historical events and nothing more of Ignatius earthly career is known, except the report
by Polycarp to the church at Philippi that he was martyred, presumably at Rome.
32
The spiritual journey
As Ignatius remarks about martyrdom in his letters are read, one fact above all must be
kept in mind. As William C. Weinrich has put it: "Ignatius [here] reflects upon his own
coming martyrdom."
33
This explains the passionate nature of some of his statements. It
also means that we should not take these letters to be a systematic theology on
martyrdom.
34
Ignatius speaks for himself and about himself. Again, Weinrich comments:
27
Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960),
14-17.
28
Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch, 17.
29
Philadelphians 11.2; Smyrnaeans 12.1; Polycarp 8.1.
30
Polycarp 8.1.
31
For the mention of Ignatius passing through Philippi, see Polycarp, Philippians 1.1.
32
Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch, 18. See Polycarp, Philippians 9.1 for the report of
Ignatius death.
33
Spirit and Martyrdom. A Study of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Contexts of Persecution and
Martyrdom in the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Washington, D.C.: University Press of
America, 1981), 115. This is an excellent study of early Christian thinking about the pneumatology of
martyrdom and I am deeply indebted to a number of Weinrichs insights.
34
Pace Williams, Christian Spirituality, 14.