• ‘Bishop’ of Syria/Antioch – writing to various churches on way to martyrdom in Rome
• Lightfoot-Zahn middle rescension (recently argued by A. Brent)
• Cause of arrest
o External persecution?
o Harrison: internal strife flowing from attempt to impose 3-fold order
▪ Peace = unity restored under orthodox bishop
o Eager for martyrdom – only way out would be apostasy
• Heretics
o Proto-Gnostic influences
o Molland: docetists claiming OT support (hence Judaisers)
o Marshall: soft Judaising to avoid persecution
• Source of Episcopal office
o Brent: secular political background to ‘concord’ (homonoia)
o Bauer: desperate struggle against heterodox majority -> authoritarian bishop
o Clement of Rome: John from Patmos, organising churches, setting up bishops
o So Ignatius seeks to normalise + maximise bishop’s role beyond NT
• Qualifications compared to later developments
o Ministry still collegial
o No use of apostolic succession (unlike Clement of Rome)
o No comparison with OT priesthood
o Bishop’s authenticity: chosen by God (not laying on of hands)
o Not primacy of Rome
▪ ‘Presiding over love’ – flatters them to stop them preventing his martyrdom
o Minister of word and sacraments, and pastor of local congregation
▪ Polycarp: exhortation to salvation, constant prayer, firm against error, preaching on pertinent moral issues
o Authority resides in gospel (even more than OT Scriptures) and God
• Typology
o Respect bishop – God the Father; deacons – Jesus; presbyters – council of God, band of apostles (preaching office)
o Obedience: laity to bishop and presbyters; never tells presbyters to obey bishop
• Church unity: submission to bishop (& presbyters)
o Flows from obedience to God = submission to bishop in everything
o Participation in unity is prerequisite for salvation
o Repentance – coming under rule of bishop
o Meeting frequently (powers of Satan broken)
o Jesus is model of unity: he did nothing without the Father
o Bishop’s role almost mediatorial – danger of OT priesthood
o Represents congregation to others
o Bishop has fundamental role in defining church: unity, extent and character
• Catholic church (first use of this term)
o Wherever Jesus is
o Focus on local congregations linked not by structures but by bonds of friendship
• Christology
o Knows Matt, 1 Cor and perhaps Eph, John, as well as Gospel of Peter (non-canonical)
o Pre-existence
▪ He is God and Lord (Smyr 1), but perhaps adopted?
▪ ‘by’ (para) the Father before the ages Magn 6 cf Prov 8:30
▪ Distinguished from Spirit (Magn 13), but inseparable (Magn 15)
▪ Does not cite OT theophanies as proof of Christ’s pre-incarnate ministry
• Therefore pre-dates Marcion
▪ ‘Archives’ of Christ’s teaching are accounts of his life (little use of OT)
o “Son of man and Son of God” (Eph 20:2)
▪ Truly born of a virgin as a man (Smyr 1 cf Matthew), contra Docetists
▪ Therefore had suffered in the flesh – example for martyrdom
▪ Also truly resurrected (Smyr 2), not in appearance only
o Eph 7 ‘creed’: one-ness/unity of Christ
▪ Both flesh and spirit
▪ Born and unborn
▪ “God in man” (Greek text, Holmes)
• Can be read as adoptionist in the Latin: “in flesh having come to be god”
• Perhaps Jesus and Logos only fully united on/after the cross
▪ True life in death
▪ From Mary and from God
▪ First subject to suffering, then beyond it (first passible, then impassible)
• Smyr 1 – son of God by will (John 1:13 sons by the will of God)
▪ Jesus Christ our Lord
o Soteriology
▪ Died so we might be saved (Smyr 2)
▪ Fulfilled all