An Approach to Ignatius

Abstract

Recent studies of Ignatius the bishop of Antioch have been fresh and varied, upon the whole. Some of his theological ideas have been reconsidered, as for example his conceptions of the Trinity by Jules Lebreton (Recherches de Science Religieuse, 1925, 97 f., 393 f.) and Loofs (Theophilus von Antiochien adversus Marcionem, 1930, 194 f.). His relation to the gnostic movement occupies H. Schlier's Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen (1929), and emerges in Lietzmann's Geschichte der Alten Kirche, I (1932, 251 f.) and Walter Bauer's Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christenthum (1934, 65 f.). The psychological interest crops up in Dr. Streeter's ingenious account of his attitude towards church-orders (The Primitive Church, 1929), while wider surveys are furnished by Dr. F. A. Schilling (Mysticism of Ignatius of Antioch, 1932) and Dr. Cyril Richardson (The Christianity of Ignatius of Antioch, 1935). These monographs represent an advance upon the old-fashioned practice of grouping Ignatius among the so-called ‘apostolic fathers,’ or of estimating him in the wake of a ‘mystical succession’ headed by the apostles Paul and John.