We looked at an excerpt from a somewhat suspect document -- the Martyrium of Ignatius. In what purports to be an transcript of Ignatius' interview with the Emperor Trajan in Antioch, Ignatius offends Trajan by referring to his gods as "demons" is condemned to death, and sent off to face the lions in the Coliseum in Rome. At least one commentator assumes that Ignatius made most of the journey by sea, and this might explain why time was found on the journey for his many meetings with church officials, in spite of the unfriendly nature of his guards. However, the existence of the imperial edict would be difficult to contravene, even when news arrived from Antioch that persecution had ceased. The only place where effective action could be taken on Ignatius' behalf would be in Rome itself, and it appears from his letter that this is exactly what happened, as his friends rallied to his defence. Ignatius, however, is determined on a course of martyrdom, and begs his friends not to defend him.

Catholics quote Ignatius' Letter to Rome as the earliest document from a non-Roman claiming overall authority for the Roman church; however we found it difficult to draw this from the text, either from the Greek, or from a Catholic-approved translation.

Tralles is a small town on the highway into Ephesus. Confusingly, it has had several names -- in Roman times it was renamed Caesarea, and under Turkish government became Aydin, which is its current name.

It is not clear that Ignatius actually visited the church of Tralles, but he did meet their Bishop, Polybius, in Smyrna. Polybius seems to have told him about unorthodox ideas that were current in Tralles.

The first is mentioned in Chapter 5, and seems to imply some kind of Gnosticism, including esoteric information about angels and heavenly principalities. Ignatius rather charmingly says that he is too young in the faith to have any knowledge of such ideas, but counsels against pursuing them.

He is more forceful in countering a form of Docetism, which believed that Jesus was pure spirit, and any observation of his body, and particularly of his suffering and death, was illusory. Ignatius drily observes that if Jesus only "seemed to exist" then perhaps the Docetists only "seemed to exist" and perhaps he and his suffering were only illusions.........

As an aside, why was Ignatius still travelling to Rome for execution, when persecution in Syria appeared to have ceased? However, those in the group with first-hand experience of the ways of bureaucracies had little difficulty with the thought that once the mechanism of sending him to Rome was under way, it would be difficult -- and perhaps nobody's responsibility -- to reverse.

We started 2010 well back on our schedule. We had not completed the quiz on December 13, the December 20 class was canceled by snow, and Dec 27 had never been scheduled.

A review of the final quiz on Clement's letter to Corinth reminded us of Clement's emphasis on obedience in the early church. Clement's letter (though the second, possibly forged, letter) has always been popular with the church, and is contained in many collections of early writings, though not in the definitive Canon of the New Testament prepared by the Council of Carthage in 397. We noted Clement, like Paul, described secular powers as having derivbed from God; we wondered whether someone writing after the state-run persecutions would write this way, and discussed whether this implied that the letter is earlier than usually accepted, or whether the persecutions had less impact than we assume. Clement's reference to his messengers having grown old in the faith may possibly suggest a later date.

We opened the series of Ignatius' letters with his letter to Ephesus. His letters appear to have been written during his journey from Antioch to Rome, under armed guard, to face execution in the Colesseum. It is striking in these letters how much he seems to be looking forward to his execution and to gaining the status of martyr.

Ignatius' imagery is often unexpected; in this letter he compares the Holy Spirit to a rope, and the Eucharist as medicine -- not current images. He compares the ideal state of the church to that of a choir.

The letter to Ephesus contains the evocative account of the nativity in Chapter 51. We reviewed the accounts of the nativity in Matthew and Luke, and discussed their differences, together with the non-evangelical view that Matthew was inventing, or at least selecting, stories to fit existing prophecies -- the ex eventu approach. With its emphasis on the cosmological significance of the incarnation, this ection is also reminiscent of the kenotic passage in Philippians 2.