apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

374 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
Philad. inscr., 5, Snyrn. i).
Even impalpable, spiritual beings, like
the angels, cannot be saved unless they
believe in Christ's blood
{Sniyrn. 6). If Christ is mere semblance (to hoKCiv), then everything is
semblance ;
the martyr's own sufferings are semblance ; they themselves,
the heretics, are semblance {Trail. 10, Smyrfi. 2, 4). Whosoever denies
Christ's flesh, denies Him altogether. Such persons are corpse-bearers.
Having no belief in the passion, they have no part in the resurrection
{Smym. 5).
Hence the stress laid elsewhere on Christ's humanity, even
when there seems to be no obvious reason for such stress (see the notes
on Ephes. 18, 20, Rom. 7, Smym. 4),
(/)
On the other hand he denounces in hardly less severe language
yif^rt/s/;^ tendencies in the false teachers. He bids his readers put away
the old and sour leaven. He declares that it is inconsistent {aroivov) to
profess Jesus Christ and to live as Jews {Magn. 10).
He warns them
(herein treading in the footsteps of S. Paul) that if they so live they
He points out that even men who
forfeit all claims to grace {Magn. 8).
were brought up in Judaism (meaning doubtless the Apostles and early
disciples) had discarded the Jewish sabbath and adopted in its stead
the freedom, the spirituality, the hopes and associations, of the Lord's
day. Nay, the very prophets themselves looked forward to Christ; and
so, when He came, He raised them from Hades.
It would therefore be
a retrogression and a reversal of the true order, if they who had not
been so brought up were to submit to the slavery of the law {Magn. 9).
Elsewhere again, he forbids his readers to listen to those who 'propound
Judaism'. It is better, he adds, to Hsten to Christianity from one
circumcised than to Judaism from one uncircumcised {Philad. 6). He
describes his conflict with those who refused to accept in the Gospel
anything which they did not find in the ancient Scriptures. He declares
the superiority of the High-priest of the New Covenant over the priests
of the Old. He asserts that Jesus Christ is the door of the Father,
through whom patriarchs and prophets, not less than apostles, enter in.
The Gospel, he concludes, is the completion of immortality {Philad.
8,9).
Is our author then denouncing two distinct heresies, a Judaic or
Ebionite, and a Gnostic or Docetic, in these *
respective passages Or
is he concerned only with a single though complex form of false doctrine
A careful examination of the main passages will enable us to
answer this question decisively. Though in the Trallian and Smyrnaean
letters he deals chiefly with Docetism, while in the Magnesian and
Philadelphian letters he seems to be attacking Judaism (see 11. p. 1 73),
yet a nearer examination shows the two to be so closely interwoven