A Martyr's Cry

Today I was deeply moved by reading this extract from Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Romans, written on his way to Rome to be executed in the amphitheater.

I pray that the events in that arena, and the unseen forces of wickedness behind them, will not conspire against me out of envy and prevent me from reaching Jesus Christ.  Bring on the fire, bring on the cross, bring on the hordes of wild animals!  Let them wrench my bones out of socket and mangle my limbs and grind up my whole body!  Bring on all the hideous tortures from the Devil!  Just let me get to Jesus Christ.  Nothing on this wide earth matters to me anymore.  The kingdoms of this world are entirely meaningless.  I am at the point where I would rather die for Jesus Christ than rule over the whole earth.  He alone is the one I seek - the one who died for us!  It is Jesus that I long for - the one who for our sake rose again from the dead!*

I found this in Getting to Know the Church Fathers by Bryan Litfin.  Each chapter contains a brief biography and a sample of writing from a great figure in the early Church.  The first chapter is about Ignatius, and if it is to be an indicator of the quality of the book, I am going to enjoy this book very much.

Litfin cites a description of Ignatius (about whom little is known) as "a shooting star streaking suddenly across the sky, only to disappear in a blaze of glory" (p.32).  He is known, says Litfin, mainly for the seven letters he wrote during his transportation to Rome by a group of soldiers whom he describes as "ten leopards" (p.51).  The Letter to the Romans includes a plea to the Roman church not to make any attempt to rescue him, because he realized the necessity of his death as a witness to the true Gospel.  It seems he intended to prove the power of the Gospel by dying for it as notably as possible, a point of view I found it difficult to grasp until I read the above excerpt.

God sends his servants on strange missions; Ignatius's was into the amphitheater.





* Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction by Bryan M. Litfin.  Brazos Press, 2007.