apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

4o8 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
Vienne and Lyons again (Euseb. H. E. v. i, §§ 9, 49) shows the temper
in which the Christians faced death in the age of the Antonines. In
the later persecutions, those of Decius and Diocletian for instance, it
was very common for zealous enthusiasts thus to challenge martyrdom',
and the sober sense of the Church was again and again needed to
rebuke and discourage this spirit, which tended to degenerate into a
fanaticism of self-immolation.
But as regards Ignatius, one point deserves special attention. As
the objection
is often stated, we might suppose that this inordinate
thirst for martyrdom appeared throughout
all the seven letters. As a
matter of fact, the charge is founded on the Epistle to the Romans
alone. Of the six remaining epistles two say not a word about martyrdom,
though in one of these he speaks of his chains {Magn. i), while
in the other he alludes to his approaching death indirectly {Philad. 5)
in language which we should be at a loss to interpret if we had no other
sources of information. The other four do indeed mention martyrdom
{Ephes. I, 3, Smyrn. 4, 10, 11, Polyc. 7, Trail. 3, 4, 10, 12) incidentally
as the desired consummation of his life ;
but in one only out of the
four— the Trallian Epistle
— is it referred to with anything like emphasis.
But for the exceptional treatment in the letter to the Romans there was
an exceptional reason. His fear lest the intervention of influential
Romans should procure a reversal or mitigation of the sentence
obliged him to dwell on the subject and betrayed him into a very
natural exaggeration of language. Here again we are constrained to
ask what forger, bent on enforcing his own view of martyrdom, would
have observed these proportions, thus gagging himself during the
greater part of his work.
The Ignatian letters
do indeed present a picture of an unusual personality.
But it is a picture much more explicable as the autotype of
a real person than as the invention of a forger.
(vi) Style and Character of
the Letters.
The attacks on the style and character of the letters need not detain
us very long. Such arguments can at best be reckoned as makeweights,
and have not an appreciable value in themselves. The attack
was led by Blondel (p. 40 sq) and followed up by Daille (pp. 377 sq,
405 sq), whose arguments have been repeated by later writers. The
images, it is argued, are forced and unnatural, the language
is con-
^
P'or more on this subject see Pearson Vind. Jgn. p. 477 sq.