Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia

This study examines the letters of this bishop-martyr as products of both Antiochene and Roman Asian influences. After an overview of scholarship on Ignatius, there is an examination of the Christian situations in Antioch and Asia. The writer concludes that relations were troubled between Ignatius and other Christians in Antioch and that the circumstances of his martyrdom included Ignatius having given himself up to the authorities. The emerging `catholic' tradition, which Ignatius represented, was among a variety of Christianities, whose identities are considered in chapter five. The Ignatian letters preserve interesting parallels with Matthean, Johannine and Pauline thought, as well as with the language and ideas of IV Maccabees and of later Gnosticism. Attention is also given to the possible influence on Ignatius and his opponents of the Didathe, the letter of Clement to the Corinthians and of the Apocalypse.