apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 357
Nor indeed, provided that they were absolutely
certain of his safe
keeping, would his attachment to a soldier by a chain be rigorously
enforced. The 'day and night' must be interpreted, as it would be
interpreted in any other case, with a reasonable regard to the probabilities
of the case.
But his guards are represented as allowing his Christian friends free
access to him, and permitting him to write letters to distant churches,
thus giving him opportunities of disseminating the very doctrines for
which he had been condemned.
Why should they not To us, who are wise after the event,
Ignatius is a highly important personage, a saint and martyr and doctor
of the Church ;
but to his heathen contemporaries he was a mere provincial
without rank or position, a religious fanatic, whose delusion
would soon be scattered to the winds like its thousand and one predecessors.
The last idea which would have occurred to any
of his
guards would be that the sect of the Nazarenes could ever set its foot
on the neck of imperial Rome. He had been condemned probably to
gratify some popular caprice. His sole value in their eyes was as
a victim for the wild beasts in the Flavian Amphitheatre. Provided
that he did not escape, their end was attained. And meanwhile why
should they not make a little
money out of the folly of these Christians
What harm in accepting a douceur to admit his friends and to allow
him writing materials Their superiors would connive at it.
Nay, it
could hardly be called ' conniving ',
when it was the recognized practice
of themselves and their comrades.
But he himself complains of their hardness. He says that the more
benefits ' they received, the worse they became. Of course they were
*
hard. They had him in their grip. They had taken the measure of
these silly Christians. They had only to ask their own terms; and
these terms would be complied with, so long as there was any money
left. So every fresh concession to their demands produced a fresh
exaction. This, and not more than this, is meant by the expression
m Rom. 5
oV ko.i evepyerovixevoi ^eipovs ytvovrai (see II. p. 2I3)\ A
prisoner smarting under his grievances naturally dwells on the dark side
of the picture. It does not occur to him to reflect what interpretation
will be put upon his impulsive utterances by critics in their study some
centuries afterwards.
^
Perkin Warbeck in captivity writes gardes me soient plus amiables en leur
'
thus to his mother ;
Ma mere, je vous donnant quelque chose ' (Gairdner's Lz/e
prie, que me voelliez envoier un petit de and Reign of Richard the Third p. 385).
argent pour moi aidier, afin que mes