Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 107)
Bp. of Antioch, martyred in Rome. His Letters ( CPG 1025), written in Greek, survive in Syriac in three forms: 1. a short recension, consisting of ‘Letters to the Ephesians, the Romans, and Polycarp bishop of Smyrna’. This is known only in Syriac translation (ed. W. Cureton 1845, 1859; and W. Wright in J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2.3 [1889], 75–92); the Letter to the Romans was already quoted by Yoḥannan Iḥidaya (ed. Rignell, Briefe [1941], 90). The Syriac was later translated into Armenian and Arabic; 2. the middle recension, consisting of four further Letters (to the Christians of Magnesia, Tralles, Philadelphia, and Smyrna); all seven are generally thought to be genuine; and 3. a long recension with some further letters, as well as interpolations in the seven genuine ones.
The account of Ignatius’s martyrdom ( CPG 1036) was also translated into Syriac (ed. Wright, in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2.3, 103–24; and ed. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. 3, 199–214).
His commemoration is on 17 Oct.
Sources
- CPG 1025–1036.
- A. Brent, Ignatius of Antioch (2007). (for the wider background)
- F. von Lilienfeld, ‘Zur syrischen Kurzrezension der Ignatianen’, Studia Patristica 7 (= TU 92; 1966), 233–47. (repr. in her Spiritualität... [1983], 30–47)
- J. Obeid, ‘Ignace d’Antioche: Lettre aux Romains, versions syriaque et arabe’, ParOr 21 (1996), 65–109.