History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

This rescript might give occasion, according to the sentiment of governors, for extreme

severity towards Christianity as a secret union and a religio illicita. Even the humane Pliny tells us

that he applied the rack to tender women. Syria and Palestine suffered heavy persecutions in this

reign.

Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem, and, like his predecessor James, a kinsman of Jesus, was

accused by fanatical Jews, and crucified a.d. 107, at the age of a hundred and twenty years.

In the same year (or probably between 110 and 116) the distinguished bishop Ignatius of

Antioch was condemned to death, transported to Rome, and thrown before wild beasts in the

Colosseum. The story of his martyrdom has no doubt been much embellished, but it must have

some foundation in fact, and is characteristic of the legendary martyrology of the ancient church.

Our knowledge of Ignatius is derived from his disputed epistles,

31

0

 and a few short notices

by Irenaeus and Origen. While his existence, his position in the early Church, and his martyrdom

are admitted, everything else about him is called in question. How many epistles he wrote, and

when he wrote them, how much truth there is in the account of his martyrdom, and when it took

place, when it was written up, and by whom—all are undecided, and the subject of protracted

controversy. He was, according to tradition, a pupil of the Apostle John, and by his piety so

commended himself to the Christians in Antioch that he was chosen bishop, the second after Peter,

Euodius being, the first. But although he was a man of apostolic character and governed the church

with great care, he was personally not satisfied, until he should be counted worthy of sealing his

testimony with his blood, and thereby attaining to the highest seat of honor. The coveted crown

came to him at last and his eager and morbid desire for martyrdom was gratified. The emperor

Trajan, in 107, came to Antioch, and there threatened with persecution all who refused to sacrifice

to the gods. Ignatius was tried for this offence, and proudly confessed himself a "Theophorus"

("bearer of God") because, as he said, he had Christ within his breast. Trajan condemned him to

be thrown to the lions at Rome. The sentence was executed with all haste. Ignatius was immediately

bound in chains, and taken over land and sea, accompanied by ten soldiers, whom he denominated

his "leopards," from Antioch to Seleucia, to Smyrna, where he met Polycarp, and whence be wrote

to the churches, particularly to that in Rome; to Troas, to Neapolis, through Macedonia to Epirus,

and so over the Adriatic to Rome. He was received by the Christians there with every manifestation

of respect, but would not allow them to avert or even to delay his martyrdom. It was on the 20th

day of December, 107, that he was thrown into the amphitheater: immediately the wild beasts fell

upon him, and soon naught remained of his body but a few bones, which were carefully conveyed

to Antioch as an inestimable treasure. The faithful friends who had accompanied him from home

dreamed that night that they saw him; some that he was standing by Christ, dropping with sweat

as if he had just come from his great labor. Comforted by these dreams they returned with the relics

to Antioch.

Note on the Date of the Martyrdom of Ignatius.

The date a.d.107 has in its favor the common reading of the best of the martyrologies of

Ignatius (Colbertium)

           

, in the ninth year, i.e. from Trajan’s accession, a.d. 98. From this there

is no good reason to depart in favor of another reading 

             

, the nineteenth year, i.e. a.d. 116.

Jerome makes the date a.d. 109. The fact that the names of the Roman consuls are correctly given

31

In three recensions, two in Greek, and one in Syriac. The seven shorter Greek Ep. are genuine. See below § 165.

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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in the Martyrium Colbertinum, is proof of the correctness of the date, which is accepted by such

critics as Ussher, Tillemont, Möhler, Hefele, and Wieseler. The latter, in his work 

Die Christenverfolgungen

der Caesaren

, 1878, pp. 125 sqq., finds confirmation of this date in Eusebius’s statement that the

martyrdom took place before Trajan came to Antioch, which was in his 10th year; in the short

interval between the martyrdom of Ignatius and Symeon, son of Klopas (Hist. Ecc. III. 32); and

finally, in the letter of Tiberian to Trajan, relating how many pressed forward to martyrdom—an

effect, as Wieseler thinks, of the example of Ignatius. If 107 be accepted, then another supposition

of Wieseler is probable. It is well known that in that year Trajan held an extraordinary triumph on

account of his Dacian victories: may it not have been that the blood of Ignatius reddened the sand

of the amphitheatre at that time?

But 107 a.d. is by no means universally accepted. Keim (

Rom und das Christenthum

, p. 540) finds

the Martyrium Colbertinum wrong in stating that the death took place under the first consulate of

Sura and the second of Senecio, because in 107 Sura was consul for the third and Senecio for the

fourth time. He also objects that Trajan was not in Antioch in 107, but in 115, on his way to attack

the Armenians and Parthians. But this latter objection falls to the ground if Ignatius was not tried

by Trajan personally in Antioch. Harnack concludes that it is only barely possible that Ignatius was

martyred under Trajan. Lightfoot assigns the martyrdom to between 110 and 118.

§ 18. Hadrian. a.d. 117–138.

See Gregorovius: 

Gesch. Hadrians und seiner Zeit

 (1851); Renan: 

L’E’glise, chrétienne

 (1879),

1–44, and Wagenmann in Herzog, vol. v. 501–506.

Hadrian, of Spanish descent, a relative of Trajan, and adopted by him on his death-bed, was a

man of brilliant talents and careful education, a scholar an artist, a legislator and administrator, and

altogether one of the ablest among the Roman emperors, but of very doubtful morality, governed

by changing moods, attracted in opposite directions, and at last lost in self-contradictions and utter

disgust of life. His mausoleum (Moles Hadriani) still adorns, as the castle of Sant’ Angelo, the

bridge of the Tiber in Rome. He is represented both as a friend and foe of the church. He was

devoted to the religion of the state, bitterly opposed to Judaism, indifferent to Christianity, from

ignorance of it. He insulted the Jews and the Christians alike by erecting temples of Jupiter and

Venus over the site of the temple and the supposed spot of the crucifixion. He is said to have directed

the Asiatic proconsul to check the popular fury against the Christians, and to punish only those

who should be, by an orderly judicial process, convicted of transgression of the laws.

32

1

 But no

doubt he regarded, like Trajan, the mere profession of Christianity itself such a transgression.

The Christian apologies, which took their rise under this emperor, indicate a very bitter

public sentiment against the Christians, and a critical condition of the church. The least

32

The rescript of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus (124 or 128), preserved by Eusebius in a Greek translation, (H. H. E., IV.

V. 8, 9), is almost an edict of toleration, and hence doubted by Baur, Keim, Aubé, but defended as genuine by Neander (I. 101,

Engl. ed.), Wieseler, Funk, Renan (l.c. p. 32 sqq). Renan represents Hadrian as a rieur spirituel, un Lucian couronné prenat le

monde comme un jeu frivole (p. 6), and therefore more favorable to religious liberty than the serious Trajan and the pious

Antoninius and Marcus Aurelius. But Friedländer (III. 492) accepts the report of Pausanias that Hadrian was zealously devoted

to the worship of the gods. Keim regards him as a visionary and hostile to Christianity as well as to Judaism.

35

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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