Church History – bekahcubed

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Ignatius was an early church father who was bishop of Antioch of Syria. We know of him from a collection of letters he wrote to various churches (and to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna) while enroute to Rome, where he expected to be martyred as a witness to Christ.

Ignatius’s letters follow a relatively predictable arc: Ignatius greets the church and writes them some encouragement before settling upon his primary message: the church must be unified in order that she can combat heresy.

For Ignatius, unity means complete submission to the bishop. Ignatius is a strong proponent of the monoepiscopacy, that is, of a single strong bishop as leader of the church in a specific area. Ignatius regards the bishop as analogous to Christ, the presbyters (also called elders) as analogous to the apostles, and the deacons as analogous to angels and the servants of the presbyters. Given this understanding of church governance, Ignatius’ insistence on unity with the bishop makes sense (even if it does grate on these Protestant ears!) However, it is important to note that Ignatius does not urge unity and submission to the bishop for its own sake. Ignatius’ primary goal is that the church remain free from apostasy and heresy – and he sees unity under a selected bishop as a way of attaining that. In his letter to the Ephesian church, Ignatius writes that the one who separates himself from “the bishop and the whole church” is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing, while he presents a mild outward appearance.”

Regarding the relationship of the church to the bishop, Ignatius writes:

“For your justly-renowned presbytery (church), being worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Thus, being joined together in concord and harmonious love, of which Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian, do ye, man by man, become but one choir; so that, agreeing together in concord, and obtaining a perfect unity with God, ye may indeed be one in harmonious feeling with God the Father, and His beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

~Ignatius to the Ephesians

Ignatius was particularly concerned with two dueling heresies: the heresy of the Judaizers and the heresy of the Gnostics. The Judaizers insisted that Christian believers follow the Old Testament laws and become Jews in order to have salvation in Christ. The Gnostics argued that Jesus did not truly come in the flesh but only in the appearance of the flesh (called “docetism”).

Most of Ignatius’ arguments against docetism are propositional: “Now He suffered all these things for us; and He suffered them really, and not in appearance only…” (Ignatius to the Smyrnians) But some of Ignatius’ writings sing with praise for the salvation Jesus wrought through His humanity:

“Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.”

~Ignatius to the Ephesians

(I had to look up “impassible” – and discovered that it means incapable of suffering pain. While Ignatius does not make this clear, it seems theologically correct that Jesus was physically impassible prior to his incarnation – but he was not incapable of suffering anguish in an emotional or “soulish” sense.)

In another letter, Ignatius speaks of the heretics thus:

“For they speak of Christ, not that they may preach Christ, but that they may reject Christ; and they speak of the law, not that they may establish the law, but that they may proclaim things contrary to it.”

~Ignatius to the Trallians

At other times, Ignatius channels the apostle Paul, proclaiming that if Christ only suffered in appearance, then Ignatius’ sufferings, imprisonment, and impending martyrdom are worthless (see 2 Corinthians 15).

In his letter to the Ephesians, Ignatius gave a test by which to distinguish false teachers. False teachers, Ignatius says, speak of their own accord and for their own glory, while God speaks as the Trinity (the Son does not speak of his own accord but what he hears from the Father, etc.) and for the glory of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, etc.)

While most of Ignatius’ letters to the churches focus on combating heresy and encouraging unity under the bishop, his letter to the Romans sharply departs from the norm. The letter to the Roman’s is almost entirely focused on one goal and one goal alone: the Roman church is not to seek to prevent Ignatius’ impending martyrdom, either through prayer or through legal means. Ignatius desires to be martyred as a testimony and wishes no one to stand in his way.

Another departure is Ignatius’ letter to a fellow bishop, Polycarp. This letter consists primarily of instructions to Polycarp and to Polycarp’s flock, with little to no discussion of pure doctrine. The letter to Polycarp is about orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy.

I’ve enjoyed reading Ignatius’ letters as part of my study of church history. As I alluded to above, I do not find myself in agreement with Polycarp’s monoepiscopacy – I believe the Scriptural pattern describes a plurality of elders who share responsibility for the body and to whom the pastor is accountable, rather than a single leader who bears responsibility and to whom the elders are accountable. On the other hand, reading Ignatius’ defenses of Christ’s humanity (in particular) has encouraged me to reflect upon the Incarnation and to better worship the Incarnate God.

Ignatius at a Glance
Date: ~35-108
Location: Antioch
Key theological points:

Arguments against Judaizers
Arguments against docetism
Defense of the monoepiscopacy

Key writings: Letters to a number of churches and to Polycarp

Resources:

Litfin, Bryan. Getting to Know the Church Fathers. Chapter 1: Ignatius of Antioch
Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 1 (available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

This year’s main spiritual goal is to “grow theologically through a study of church history”. To that end, I’m using Bruce L. Shelley’s Church History in Plain Language as a spine and reading original sources and biographies to supplement my study. This month’s section was “The Age of Jesus and the Apostles, 6 BC – AD 70.” In other words, the New Testament Age. Because I am already relatively familiar with this stage of church history, this was an easy month. I read Matthew, Acts, and Ephesians as my original sources and selected two books on Paul from my local library (only one of which I finished, as seen below.) I also found one of Shelley’s recommended readings at my library and read that.

Core Reading: Church History in Plain Language
The two chapters on “The Age of Jesus and the Apostles” are easy reading. They summarize the narrative portions of the New Testament, giving some historical details drawn heavily from the below-mentioned Great People of the Bible and How They Lived.

Supplemental Reading:

Great People of the Bible and How They Lived by Reader’s Digest
Bruce included this work in his recommended readings for this section – and I’m glad he did. I’ve only read the New Testament section (so far), but I’ve found this to be a highly readable retelling of the narrative of the New Testament with appropriate historical details added in text and with photographs and illustrations. Given that this is a secular work, I would have expected significant skepticism about the words and works of Christ, as well as how the apostles interpreted said words and works – but this is not a skeptical work. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I especially enjoyed the discussion of temple politics and the divisions between the Pharisees and Sadducees and the discussion of the divisions between the Jerusalem Jews and the Hellenists. Another thing I’d never thought of was how the locus of ministry in the New Testament shifts from Galilee (during Jesus’ early ministry) to Jerusalem (during Jesus’ late ministry and the apostles’ early ministry) to Antioch (from which Paul and Barnabas’s missionary journeys were launched.)

Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N.T. Wright

This is a small but dense work edited from some lectures Wright gave at Cambridge University. I found it difficult to find time to read it because it required my full attention (something in short supply!) to get Wright’s points. Nevertheless, I am glad I read this. Some points I found useful:

Wright points out Paul’s consistent use of the word “Christ”, which we tend to think of as little more than Jesus’ surname, but which conveyed quite a bit more in Paul’s Jewish context. Specifically, Paul was consistently pointing to Jesus’ messianic role – what Wright calls an “apocalyptic” context. Wright discusses some of the expectations the Jews of Paul’s time would have had surrounding the term “Christ” and what that would have meant to them. To remind myself of this context, I’ve been mentally substituting “The Promised Messiah and Savior” whenever I read “Christ” in the New Testament.
Occasionally, I hear the cross in the Roman world compared to an electric chair – “You’d never hang an electric chair around your neck.” But Wright points out that the cross was not simply a means by which Rome carried out executions. It was a symbol of Rome’s might, particularly its power over conquered peoples. The cross represented the power of Rome to kill those who oppose. Yet the subversive nature of the gospel stated that the cross represents the power, not of Rome but of God, not to kill but to save.

Paul: The Mind of the Apostle by A.N. Wilson

I gave this book up after 50 pages, having grown tired of passages like this:

“If readers of the New Testament choose to believe that Paul never set eyes on Jesus and that he had no psychological interest or compulsion to inspire him throughout the thirty years in which he preached Jesus Christ Crucified other than the testimony of the friends of Jesus, whom he had barely met, then that reader is entitled to his or her point of view.”

I understand that not all biographers of Biblical persons consider the Bible to be the authoritative word of God – but I’d prefer not to represented by a straw man. Only a reader of the New Testament who is determined to disbelieve it will assume Paul’s reason for believing was “the testimony of the friends of Jesus whom he had barely met.” Scripture plainly states in Acts 9 and 22 that Paul’s reason for his “obsession” with Jesus was a personal encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Call the Damascus road experience a hallucination if you like, but don’t pretend that the Bible gives no explanation for Paul’s zeal.

Getting to Know Ignatius

Church History: The Age of Jesus and the Apostles