Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius was bishop of Antioch in Syria, the city where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). He is also called Theophoros, “God-bearer.” Early writers, among them Origen and Eusebius, remember him as bishop of Antioch in the line of Peter.

Later writers place his arrest under the emperor Trajan, about AD 110. The exact year is uncertain. His own letters show him a prisoner bound for Rome under a guard of soldiers, and churches of Asia Minor sent delegations to meet him on the road. He wrote seven letters: to the churches in Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.

Later centuries produced expanded versions and additional letters attributed to him. The seven letters preserved in their shorter, middle recension are generally accepted as authentic. They are among the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament.

Ignatius insists that Jesus Christ was truly born, truly suffered and truly rose, against teachers who said He only seemed to have a body. He calls believers to unity around their bishop, with the presbyters and deacons. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans (8.2) he writes that wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church. It is the earliest surviving use of the phrase, and “catholic” here means universal: the whole church, not a later denomination. In his letter to the Romans he begs them not to save him from martyrdom. He is remembered as having suffered martyrdom in Rome.