Epistles

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch. The Apostolic Fathers, Volume 1. Lake, Kirsopp, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1912.

Rather entice the wild beasts that they may become my tomb, and leave no trace of my body, that when I fall asleep I be not burdensome to any. Then shall I be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world shall not even see my body. Beseech Christ on my behalf, that I may be found a sacrifice through these instruments.[*](I.e. the wild beasts.)

I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; they were Apostles, 1 am a convict; they were free, I am even until now a slave. But if I suffer I shall be Jesus Christ’s freedman, and in him I shall rise free. Now I am learning in my bonds to give up all desires.

From Syria to Rome I am fighting with wild[*](His journey, and expectation of martyrdom) beasts, by land and sea, by night and day, bound to

ten leopards (that is, a company of soldiers[*](The first impression made by this passage is that leopards was the name of some regiment, and that the following words are an explanatory gloss; but there is no evidence for this use of leopard. Τάγμα is perhaps the equivalent of manipulus in the later sense of ten men. The whole passage is rendered stranger still by the fact that it is the first instance of the word leopard in Greek or Latin literature.)), and they become worse for kind treatment. Now I become the more a disciple for their ill deeds, but not by this am I justified.