The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Summary

The Epistle to the Romans was written c. 107–110 AD by St. Ignatius from Smyrna, addressed to the church in the imperial capital he was approaching in chains. It is unlike all his other letters: rather than teaching or correcting, he begs the Roman Christians not to intervene to save him, longing to complete his witness in the arena as an offering to God.

Historical Context

Escorted by ten soldiers—“leopards,” he calls them—Ignatius knew that influential believers in Rome might use their standing to have his sentence commuted. Fearing their love more than the beasts, he wrote ahead to plead that they let him die, and to ask their prayers only that he be granted the strength to endure. The letter is the classic text of early Christian martyrdom as the imitation of Christ.

Theological Significance

  • “God’s Wheat”: In its most famous image Ignatius writes, “I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.” Orthodox theology reads martyrdom as a Eucharistic self-offering: the martyr is conformed to the crucified Lord and shares in His Paschal sacrifice.

  • To Attain to God: He repeatedly frames his death as a “birth” and an arrival—“then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world shall not see so much as my body.” Death is not defeat but the threshold of union with God, the fulfilment of the whole ascetic and martyric path toward theosis.

  • The Reality of the Passion: His yearning to suffer is rooted in the real suffering of Christ: he desires “the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ … and His blood.” The martyr can offer himself only because Christ first truly offered Himself in the flesh.

  • The Roman Church “Presiding in Love”: The greeting honours the Roman church as one which “presides in love” (prokathēmenē tēs agapēs), an early and much-discussed witness to the standing of the church at Rome within the communion of churches.

  1. 0. Greeting
  2. 1. As a prisoner, I hope to see you
  3. 2. Do not save me from martyrdom
  4. 3. Pray rather that I may attain to martyrdom
  5. 4. Allow me to fall a prey to the wild beasts
  6. 5. I desire to die
  7. 6. By death I shall attain true life
  8. 7. Reason of desiring to die
  9. 8. Be favourable to me
  10. 9. Pray for the church in Syria
  11. 10. Conclusion

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of Him that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, which I also salute in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father: to those who are united, both according to the flesh and spirit, to every one of His commandments; who are filled inseparably with the grace of God, and are purified from every strange taint, (I wish) abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God.