piety but gain. For this reason divine judgment punishes1 a spirit which is not righteous and loads it with chains.

5. To the only invisible God, the father of truth, Doxology who sent forth to us the Saviour and prince of immortality, through whom he also made manifest to to us truth and the life of heaven, to him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.

1 This translation takes the aorist as gnomic, and regards "spirit" as meaning a human spirit. But Harnack prefers to take the aorist as historical and refers the passage to the fall of Satan.

163

THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS

THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS

THE epistles or letters of Ignatius are among the most famous documents of early Christianity, and have a curiously complicated literary history. Eusebius in Historia Ecclesiastica iii. 36 tells the story of Ignatius. He was the third bishop1 of Antioch in Syria, and was condemned to be sent to Rome to be killed by the beasts in the amphitheatre. His journey took him through various churches in Asia Minor and while he was in Smyrna he wrote letters to Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, and Rome, and later on, when he reached Troas he wrote to the Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp the bishop of Smyrna. In his chronicon Eusebius fixes the date of his martyrdom in Rome in the tenth year of Trajan, i.e. 108 A.D.

Modern critics are by no means unanimous as to the correctness of this date, but, though each has his own special preferences, there is a general tendency to think that Ignatius was really a martyr in Rome in the time of Trajan (98-117 A.D.)

The immediate purpose of each of the letters, except that to the Romans, is to thank the recipients for the kindness which they had shown to Ignatius. The Romans" has the object of preventing the

1 According to tradition Peter was the first and Euodius the second (Eus. Hist. Eccl. iii. 22).

Christians at Rome from making any efforts to save Ignatius from the beasts in the arena, and so robbing him of the crown of martyrdom. But besides this immediate purpose the writer is influenced by three other motives, all or some of which can be traced in each letter.

(1) Ignatius is exceedingly anxious in each community to strengthen respect for the bishop and presbyters. He ascribes the fullest kind of divine authority to their organisation, and recognises as valid no church, institution, or worship without their sanction.

(2) He protests against the form of heresy called docetism (Soke), which regarded the sufferings, and in some cases the life, of Jesus as merely an appearance. He also protests against any tendency to Judaistic practices, but it is disputed whether he means that this was an evil found in docetic circles, or that it was a danger threatening the church from other directions.

(3) He is also anxious to secure the future of his own church in Antioch by persuading other communities to send helpers.

Of the letters of Ignatius there are extant three recensions.

1. The long recension.-The most widely found contains not only the seven letters of which Eusebius speaks, but also six others. In this collection the chronological scheme (not however followed in the MSS.) is :

(1) From Antioch. A letter from a certain Mary of Cassobola (a neighbouring town) to Ignatius, and a letter from him in reply.