apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

48 EPISTLES OE S. IGNATIUS.
great pomp through the city by the emperor's order, and there deposited.
From that time forward the Temple of Eortune was known
as the ' Church of Ignatius.' The martyred bishop thus took the place
of the tutelary genius in whom the past glories and the future hopes
of Antioch centred. What became of the famous statue of Eutychides
— whether it had already disappeared or was now removed elsewhere—
we are not informed. But assuredly the same building could not hold
the pagan image and the Christian reliques. From that day forward,
we are told, the anniversary was kept as a public festival with great
rejoicing. This anniversary was in all probability the 20th of December,
which in the later Greek Calendar is
assigned to S. Ignatius, and
displacing the original 17th of October, came to be regarded as the
anniversary of the martyrdom, though in fact the anniversary of the
translation — to the Tychsum'. The time— the crowning day of the
Sigillaria may have been chosen designedly by the emperor, because
he desired to invest with a Christian character this highly popular
heathen festival^
It was in this ancient Temple of Fortune, thus transformed into
a Christian Church, that on the first of January, the day
of S.
Basil and S. Gregory, Severus, the great Monophysite Bishop
of Antioch, styled pa7- excelkfice
'
the patriarch,' year after year
during his episcopate used to deliver his homilies on the two saints,
taking occasion from time to time to turn aside from his main text
and commemorate, as a man of like spirit, the apostolic martyr whose
reliques reposed in the building^ It was here too that towards the
close of the sixth century the Antiochene patriarch Gregory added
fresh dignity and magnificence to the rites, already splendid, which
graced the anniversary festival of Ignatius himself^
From the close of the fourth century the glory of Ignatius suffered
no echpse in the East. His reputation was sustained in other ways
than by popular festivals. The epistles forged or interpolated in his
name are a speaking testimony to the weight of his authority on theological
questions. The legendary Acts of Martyrdom, professing to
give an account of his last journey and conflict, evince the interest
which was excited in his fate in the popular mind. The translation
of his letters into Syriac, Armenian, and Coptic, rendered them accessible
to all the principal nations of Eastern Christendom.
Monophysites more especially he was held in high
With the
honour. His theo-
^
See below, 11. p. 434.
^
See below, 11. p. 420 sq.
-
See Mart. Ign. Ant. 6, with the * Evagr. H. E. i. 16, quoted below,
note. II. p. 387, note.