"A detailed comparison is made in the Letter to the Magnesians, viii. 9, between the prophets and the Christians of the age. The prophets were persecuted, and the Christians endure persecution patiently in order to become true disciples. . . . Such is the principle of the Christian life; that suffering is the best training. . . . The impression which had been produced by persecution on the feelings of the Christians towards the Empire is very strongly marked in the Letters of Ignatius. Outside of the Apocalypse, the irreconcilable opposition between the State and Christianity is nowhere more strongly expressed than in them, and there runs throughout both groups of writings the same identification of the State with the world. The same magnificent audacity towards the State, the same refusal to accept what seemed to men to be the plain facts of the situation, the same perfect assurance of victory, characterize both."[1]
With the exception, however, of passages in the Epistle to the Romans, Ignatius' letters contain no direct reference to persecution; they are exclusively devoted to the affairs and prospects of the Churches to which he was writing, but the whole spirit of the little collection indicates that persecution and suffering were the common lot of the Christian sect in the days of the Flavian Emperors and their immediate successors.
The letter to the Roman Church is, however, quite different in its contents from the other six. It is entirely taken up with one single topic—the coming martyrdom of the writer. For the Christian, indeed, in earnest, "martyrdom is the new birth, the true life, the pure light, the complete discipleship; the martyr's crown is better than all the kingdoms of the earth; only then, when the martyr sets to the world, will he rise to God. Crowned by martyrdom, his life becomes an utterance of God."
This fervid, passionate—if somewhat exaggerated—picture of martyrdom would convey little meaning to the Roman congregations had not such scenes as that depicted by Ignatius been of common occurrence in Rome. Its reception, however, shows how well it was understood by those to whom the burning words of the martyr-bishop were addressed. His
- ↑ Prof. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, chap. xiii.
