The Autobiography of St. Ignatius

About this book

This account of the life of St. Ignatius, dictated by himself, is considered by the Bollandists the most valuable record of the great Founder of the Society of Jesus. The editors of the Stimmen Aus Maria Laach, the German review, as well as those of the English magazine, The Month, tell us that it, more than any other work, gives an insight into the spiritual life of St. Ignatius. Few works in ascetical literature, except the writings of St. Teresa and St. Augustine, impart such a knowledge of the soul. Ignatius of Antioch was an early Christian writer and bishop of Antioch. En route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence now forms a central part of the later collection known as the Apostolic Fathers. His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology. Important topics they address include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops. In speaking of the authority of the church, he was the first to use the phrase "catholic church" in writing, which is still in use to this day. Nothing is known of Ignatius' life apart from what may be inferred internally from his letters, except from late spurious traditions. It is said Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age. Tradition identifies Ignatius, along with his friend Polycarp, as disciples of John the Apostle. Later in his life, Ignatius was chosen to serve as Bishop of Antioch; the fourth-century Church historian Eusebius writes that Ignatius succeeded Evodius. In an attempt to make his apostolic succession even more immediate, Theodoret of Cyrrhus claimed that St. Peter himself left directions that Ignatius be appointed to the episcopal see of Antioch. Ignatius called himself Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that he was one of the children whom Jesus took in his arms and blessed. Ignatius' own writings mention his arrest by the authorities and travel to Rome to face trial: "From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated." During the journey to Rome, Ignatius and his entourage of soldiers made a number of stops in Asia Minor. Along the route Ignatius wrote six letters to the churches in the region and one to a fellow bishop, Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. In his Chronicle, Eusebius gives the date of Ignatius's death as AA 2124 (2124 years after Abraham), i.e. the 11th year of Trajan's reign, AD 108. Although Ignatius himself wrote that he would be thrown to the beasts, "lions" are explicitly mentioned first in the fourth century by Jerome, and John Chrysostom is the first to allude to the Colosseum as the place of Ignatius' martyrdom. According to scholastic inference, after Ignatius' martyrdom in the Circus Maximus his remains were carried back to Antioch by his companions and were interred outside the city gates. The reputed remains of Ignatius were moved by the Emperor Theodosius II to the Tychaeum, or Temple of Tyche, which had been converted into a church dedicated to Ignatius. In 637 the relics were transferred to the Basilica di San Clemente in Rome.