8
It is the hope of this worlds prince to get hold of me and undermine my resolve,
set as it is upon God. Pray let none of you lend him any assistance, but take my
part instead, for it is the part of God. Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips, and
the world in your heart; do not cherish thoughts of grudging me my fate. Even if I
were to come and implore you in person, do not yield to my pleading; keep your
compliance for this written entreaty instead.
40
For the Roman believers to enable Ignatius to attain to his calling of martyrdom is, in a
very real sense, to share in that suffering with him.
41
But there is another request here. Ignatius knows that he is no superman. He is a man
with a vivid imagination who can well envision the sort of death that awaits him at Rome.
As he says earlier in the letter:
Leave me to be a meal for the beasts, for it is they who can provide my way to
God. I am His wheat, ground fine by the lions teeth to be made purest bread.
...Fire, cross, beast-fighting, hacking and quartering, splintering of bone and
mangling of limb, even the pulverizing of my entire body--let every horrid and
diabolical torment come upon me, provided only that I can win my way to Jesus
Christ!
42
And so Ignatius is afraid that at the last his courage may fail and that he will ask the
Roman believers to get him freed. Thus, he tells them, do not listen to me if that happens:
"Even if I were to come and implore you in person, do not yield to my pleading; keep
your compliance for this written entreaty instead."
43
Given his fears, it is quite
understandable that he asks the Romans to pray for him. "The only petition I would have
you put forward on my behalf," he asks them, "is that I may be given sufficient inward
and outward strength to be as resolute in will as in words." And again, near the end of the
letter he pleads with them, "Intercede for me that I may have my wish."
44
Ignatius
request for prayer for perseverance bespeaks the realization that true faith is found to be
genuine only in the place of endurance.
45
40
Romans 7.1-2 (trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 87).
41
Romans 6; Weinrich, Spirit and Martyrdom, 135-136.
42
Romans 4.1; 5.3 (trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 86, 87).
43
Romans 7.2 (trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 87).
44
Romans 3.2; 8.3 (trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 86, 88).
45
See Vanhoozer, First Theology, 368.