Sexagesima 2010

St. Ignatius of Antioch was born in Syria roughly around 50 A.D. and was martyred at Rome around the year 117. He was called also Theophorous or “God-bearer”, because he carried the news of the Incarnate One, the God/Man, to the Gentile nations. Ignatius was the best known of the second generation Bishops or Apostles in the early Church. Along with his dear friend St. Polycarp, he was a disciple and student of the Apostle, St. John, and both of them are said to have passed on to us St. John’s teaching and experience of Jesus Christ.

Ignatius is fascinating to historians and theologians alike. For historians, he provides content for one of the earliest examples of Christian defiance to the Roman Empire. The Emperor Trajan, elated from his recent victory over the foreign and barbarian lands of Scythia and Dacia (lands extending from contemporary Iraq to India from west to east, and as far north as Ukraine), was returning to Rome and was feeling “anointed,” that is to say, he was feeling that his successes and achievements must be a sign of the gods’ good will and approval. And so he commanded that pagans and Christians alike should sacrifice to his gods in thanksgiving and praise. Ignatius would have none of it, and thus began his journey towards martyrdom. He was summoned to appear before the Emperor and, needless to say, his intelligence and brilliance were lost on the old warrior. Ignatius was put in chains and hauled off to Rome where he became lunch for the lions.

While on trial in Rome and prior to his being served up, Ignatius wrote an Epistle to the Romans in which he describes the nature of true faith. In one famous passage he asks his reading audience to pray for his true and ongoing conversion to Christ’s healing power. He writes, “Only request in my behalf both inward and outward strength, that I may not only speak, but [truly] will; and that I may not merely be called a Christian, but really be found to be one. For if I be truly found [a Christian], I may also be called one, and be then deemed faithful, when I shall no longer appear to the world. Nothing visible is eternal. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For our God, Jesus Christ, now that He is with the Father, is all the more revealed [in His glory]. Christianity is not a thing of silence only, but also of [manifest] greatness.”

Ignatius teaches us that it is only when Christ Jesus disappears from the world and returns to the Father that he is truly present. What he means is that true life is eternal, and so not what is immediately present to earthly eyes and human experience. True life is eternal and thus invisible to the earthly eye, but present to the heart and the soul.

Ignatius is about to be killed because of his faith in Jesus Christ. He prays that soon he will enter the realm of the Real and the True. He prays for the Grace to draw his true identity from the eternal and invisible source of true life, beginning even now. He hopes that even while being fed to lions and enduring unimaginable pain, he will be one with the eternal and invisible love of Jesus Christ, who also while dying, was living in God.

© W.J. Martin†