Ignatius of Antioch
author: Sebastian P. Brock
source date: 2011
edition published: 2016-09-22-16:00
availability: Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Ignatius of Antioch

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Ignatius-of-Antioch http://syriaca.org/bibl/277 268 http://syriaca.org/person/544 [person] [Bp. of Antioch, martyred in Rome.]

(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.

Sebastian P. Brock