Who’s your daddy? St. Ignatius of Antioch

This is the first entry in what I hope to be a regular series of posts about the Early Church Fathers.

It is a good thing to study the Early Fathers because by reading their writings we can get a better picture of what the Church looked like during those early centuries, both during the years of persecution and the years of peace.

The Church Fathers speak to us of the Faith they learned from the Apostles and from their immediate successors.  If we would sit and listen, their words can still instruct and inspire us today, just as they did for Christians under their care in their own time.

I would like to begin this series of entries with my favourite Early Church Father, the inspirational martyr and gifted writer, St. Ignatius of Antioch.

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

– James 1:12

My posts on the Fathers will not normally be this long, but reading St. Ignatius for the first time had some a profound effect on me I want to try and do him justice.  Read to the end, it’ll be worth it, I promise.

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Who’s your daddy? St. Polycarp

Today is the feast day of St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. Contrary to the insistence of some of my friends, “Polycarp” does not mean “much fish” 😉 Rather, his name means “much fruit”, an appropriate appellation for a man whose life was full of the fruit of one whose life was devoted to Jesus Christ:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”

– John 15:5

Polycarp, perhaps more so than any other Apostolic Father, provides us with a bridge between the Apostles and the Early Church. When Polycarp was young he sat at the feet of St. John and when Polycarp was old, another young man, St. Irenaeus sat at his feet and would later become one of the great defenders of the faith against the Gnostics.

Polycarp has a link to another Early Church Father. In fact, I have mentioned St. Polycarp on this blog before, when I wrote about the letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans and his letter to the bishop of that city, Polycarp. In his letter, Ignatius exhorts Polycarp:

“The times call for you, as pilots do for the winds, and as one tossed with tempest seeks for the haven, so that both you and those under your care may attain to God. Be sober as God’s athlete: the prize set before you is immortality and eternal life”

– Ignatius to Polycarp

The turbulent times did indeed call for a great bishop and they did indeed find one in Polycarp…
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Who’s your daddy? St. Justin Martyr

Justin MartyrIn the JP2 Group we’re doing a mini-series on Christian worship in the Early Church. It is for this reason that I recently posted several blog entries about St. Justin Martyr, an Early Church Father and one of the first great Christian apologists.

However, I realized as I was finishing up yesterday’s post that I haven’t actually written an introductory post about this great man. I had done this previously when we were studying St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. So today I’m going to remedy this, providing a little bit of information about St. Justin’s life.

Who was this man whose writings we’ve been studying?

Searching For Truth

What we know about St. Justin mainly comes from his own writings. He was born in about AD 103 to Pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis, modern day Nablus on the West Bank. He had a great love of philosophy and studied various philosophical systems:

“…I surrendered myself to a Stoic Philosopher…but when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary)…I left him…

A Peripatetic Philosopher… asked me for money. For this reason I left him, believing him to be no philosopher at all….

I came to a Pythagorean Philosopher, very celebrated – a man who thought much of his own wisdom… He said, ‘What then? Are you acquainted with music, astronomy, and geometry?’ Having commended many of these branches of learning, and telling me that they were necessary, he dismissed me.

In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city…and I progressed, and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy.
– Dialogue With Trypho, Chapter 2

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