The bishop walks into the arena
Ignatius of Antioch arrested
Ignatius has been bishop of Antioch for decades. Antioch is the church where believers were first called Christians — the third most important city in the empire, the base from which Paul launched every missionary journey. Ignatius has shepherded this community through the aftermath of the Neronian and Domitianic persecutions, through the theological disputes of the late first century, through the death of every apostle he knew.
Now the emperor Trajan has decided he must die in Rome.
The reasons are not entirely clear. Trajan was not, by Roman standards, a vicious persecutor. But he held a consistent policy: Christians who refused to renounce their faith were to be executed. Ignatius, as the most prominent Christian leader in the eastern empire, apparently came to his attention.
What happens next is one of the strangest journeys in early church history.
Ignatius is handed over to ten Roman soldiers — he calls them ten leopards, and says they get worse the kinder you are to them — and they begin the long march to Rome. But they take the slow route, through the cities of Asia Minor, and at every stop the local Christian communities come out to see him.
Ignatius writes. He writes constantly — to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, the Philadelphians, the Smyrnaeans. He writes to Polycarp, the young bishop of Smyrna who will one day face his own fire.
And in every letter, the same urgent request: do not try to save me.
“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 the way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness.”
— Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, c. 107 AD
“according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death.”
Ignatius was afraid of one thing on that long road to Rome — not the lions, but the people who loved him enough to try to stop what was coming.
He had decided, somewhere along the way, that his death was not a tragedy to be prevented but a gift to be given. And the hardest part of giving it was the people who wanted to take it back.
There is something here about the difference between love that holds on and love that releases. The communities along the road loved Ignatius. He knew it. He received their care gratefully. But the deepest love he could offer them was to show them what it looked like to want nothing more than Christ.
What do you love enough to release?