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The Heretics Combatted by Ignatius of Antioch1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Einar Molland
Einar Molland
Affiliation:
Professor of Church History, University of Oslo, Norway
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Extract

In all the Ignatian epistles, except the Epistle to the Romans, we find polemical remarks and warnings against heretical tendencies which threatened the churches of Asia Minor.

It is not quite easy to obtain a clear picture of the heretics combatted by Ignatius. One point only is evident: their docetism. They considered Christ's life on earth, his birth, his human body, his death and resurrection as mere appearance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 1954 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1954

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References

page 2 note 1 Bartsch, op. cit., 34 ff. Bauer, W. (Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), 92)Google Scholar solves the difficulty by saying: ‘Ich möchte also das Nebeneinander von Gnosis und Judenchristentum im Bilde der von Ignatius in jenen beiden Städten (i.e. Magnesia and Philadelphia) bekämpften Ketzer weniger auf die Kompliziertheit der Irrlehre zurückführen, als aus der zusammengesetzten Persönlichkeit des Ignatius erklären, der als Kirchenmann die Gnosis zurückweist und als syrischer Heidenchrist jüdischer Verfalschung des Evangeliums, wo immer er sie anzutreffen meint, entgegentritt.’

page 2 note 1 Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, vol. ii (2nd ed. 1889), 264; Bauer, W., in Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Ergänzungsband: die Apostolischen Väter (1923), 240Google Scholar; Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (1873), 368 f., thinks it is legitimate only to conclude from Ad Philad. vi. 1 that the heretical teachers did not require that their adherents should be circumcised.

page 2 note 3 The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, vol. i (2nd ed. 1889), 374.

page 2 note 4 W. Bauer, in Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Ergänzungsband, 261.

page 3 note 1 Geschichteder Alten Kirche, i (1932), 263.

page 3 note 2 Hilgenfeld is, according to Bauer ad Magn. ix. 1, the last interpreter who has identified οἱ ν παλαιοῖς πργμασιν ναστρφντες with the prophets.

page 4 note 1 The symbolical character of the expressions in ix. i is rightly underlined by Cotton, P., From Sabbath to Sunday (1933), 83Google Scholar.

page 4 note 2 Lietzmann (Geschichte der Alten Kirche, i. 263) is inclined to think that the heretics did not call themselves Christians, referring to Ad Magn. x. 1. But this text can hardly allow his conclusion. ὃς γρ ἄλλῳ νματι καλεῖται πλον τοτου, οὐκ ἔστιν το θεο may perhaps mean ‘quiconque, à son titre de chrétien, en ajoute un autre, est étranger à Dieu’ (Lelong's translation); in this case, the heretics must have called themselves ‘spiritual Christians’ or ‘enlightened Christians’ or something like that. If the words mean ‘Everyone who is called with another name than “Christian”,’ we cannot conclude that they themselves repudiated the designation ‘Christians’. Unless they claimed to be Christians, the whole controversy loses its sense.

page 4 note 3 Zahn (Ignatius von Antiochien, 374 ff., 433 f.; Kanongeschichte, ii. 945 ff.) and Lelong (ad loc.) consider ν τ εὐαγγελῳ as in apposition to ν τοῖς ρχεοις, and accordingly identify the ‘records’ with the Gospel, i.e. the written Gospel. This would be an anachronism in the time of Ignatius; moreover, their interpretation of the sentence is rather artificial. Reinach, S. (Cultes, mythes et religions, iv (1912), 202 ff.Google Scholar, and ‘Ignatius, Bishop Antioch, and the ρχεῖα’ in Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1923), 339 f.) identifies the ‘archives’ with ‘les archives de Césarée’ and thinks the antagonists of Ignatius had searched in vain for authentic documents concerning the birth and death of Jesus in the official archives of Gæsarea. In these heretics Reinach discovers ‘une école critique qui demandait des documents sur la vie terrestre de Jésus’.

page 5 note 1 Kirsopp Lake prefers to give an ambiguous translation: ‘If I find it not in the charters in the Gospel I do not believe,’ and thinks the words may be understood in two ways: ‘If I find it not in the charters,—in the Gospel I do not believe,’ or ‘If I find it not in the charters, in the Gospel, I do not believe’. He prefers the first alternative on the ground that ‘the charters’ probably means the Old Testament. J. A. Kleist translates ‘Unless I find it in the official records—in the Gospel I do not believe’, and keeps to Lightfoot's and Bauer's interpretation, with some modification: ‘If I do not find (this or that) in the Old Testament, I do not believe it at all; for I do not believe in the Gospel.’

page 5 note 2 Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur, II: Die Chronologie, i. 393, and Marcion: das Evangelium vom Fremden Gott (2nd ed. 1924), 9.