Tag: Ignatius Of Antioch

Patristic Poems

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Well, this is rather lovely! Today I came across a website by Billy Kangas which includes poems by Deacon Nate Harburg concerning the Early Church Fathers.  Each father gets a separate poem. For example, this is the one he wrote for St. Ignatius of Antioch:

Brought to Rome’s arena, he was all bound up in fetters,
On the way he zealously preached Christ in seven letters,
Known for calling Euch’rist medicine for immortality,
He became “pure bread of Christ” for lions, his fatality!

If you’d like to read the rest, please just click on the image below:

Poems

Ignatius of Antioch and Friends

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Today is the Feast Day of probably my favourite Early Church Father, St. Ignatius of Antioch:

Office Of Readings

Today in the Office of Readings we read a section of one of the letters he wrote on his way to martyrdom sometime around AD 107:

“I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God.

“No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on.”

– Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans

Early Church Relationships

Here is a diagram showing the relationships between Jesus, His Apostles, Ignatius of Antioch and some of the other Early Church Fathers:

Want to know more?

If you would like to read more of St. Ignatius’ writings, or listen to them free on MP3, be sure to check out the Church History section of this blog.

Invented at Nicaea?

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A friend of mine recently told me about a conversation she had with her friend who considered himself a follower of Jesus, but who also held to the popular Dan Brown myth that one also often hears from Jehovah Witnesses and Muslims, that the divinity of Christ was something invented by the Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea.

albino monk

Don’t trust murdering albino monks when it comes to theology…

I promised my friend that I would put together a post to demonstrate the Divinity of Christ from both Sacred Scripture and Early Church history, so here it is…

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Who’s your daddy? St. Polycarp

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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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Beginning Ignatius’ letter to Polycarp

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Well, we’re finally here!  The last letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch!  I’m posting this a bit earlier than usual because the next couple of weeks are going to be rather busy.

Each of the Ignatius’ letters are special for different reasons, but his letter to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, holds a special place in my heart.

In some ways it reminds me of the book of Proverbs, since Ignatius often offers Polycarp advice in the form of short exhortations.

This is the only personal letter Ignatius wrote to a fellow bishop and should, in my not so humble opinion, be required reading for all pastors and all those who minister in the Church.

When I have friends who enter the seminary, they usually receive a card from me with a quotation which comes from somewhere in this letter.  Whenever I become discouraged in the ministries in which I serve, this is the document I usually dig out.

“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to Polycarp” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Polycarp” Audio

I said this was Ignatius’ last letter, but that is not strictly true, for there was one final letter he wrote, to both his “God Jesus Christ” and to the “Catholic Church”. However, this was a letter of a different kind…  Rather than being written in private, this letter was written in an amphitheatre before thousands of jeering Romans.  Rather than using parchment, he used his own flesh and, in place of ink, his own blood.

St. Ignatius, pray for us.

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