Greeting and Praise for Polybius the Bishop
1 Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the church that is loved by God the Father of Jesus Christ, the holy church in Tralles in Asia, chosen and worthy of God, which has peace in flesh and spirit through the passion of Jesus Christ, who is our hope through our resurrection to Him. I greet this church in the fullness of God, in the manner of the Apostles, and I wish it abundant greetings. I have learned that you have a mind that is blameless and steadfast in patience, not from habit but by nature, as Polybius your bishop told me. By the will of God and of Jesus Christ he visited me in Smyrna, and he rejoiced with me so greatly in my chains in Christ Jesus that in him I saw your whole community. 2 So, having received your godly goodwill through him, I gave glory to God, because I had found you to be imitators of God, as I had learned.
Obeying the Bishop, Presbyters, and Deacons
1 For when you obey the bishop as you would Jesus Christ, it is clear to me that you are living not by human standards but according to Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that by believing in His death you might escape death. 2 So it is necessary, as is already your practice, that you do nothing without the bishop; but obey the presbytery as well, as the Apostles of Jesus Christ our hope; for if we live in Him, we will also be found in Him. 3 And those who are deacons of the mysteries of Jesus Christ must likewise please everyone in every way. For they are not deacons of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. So it is right for them to guard against blame as they would against fire.
Respecting the Community's Leaders
1 In the same way, let everyone respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as they should respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and the assembly of the Apostles. Apart from these, nothing can even be called a church. 2 And I am convinced that you think the same about these matters; for I received the example of your love, and I have it with me, in the person of your bishop, whose very manner is a great lesson, and whose gentleness is his power; even the godless, I think, respect him. 3 Because I love you, I spare you in this way, though I could write more sharply on his behalf; but I did not think myself fit for this, that as a condemned man I should give you orders as if I were an Apostle.
Ignatius on Pride and the Desire to Suffer
1 I have many deep thoughts in God, but I keep myself in check, so that I do not perish through my boasting. For now I must be all the more afraid, and not listen to those who would inflate my pride; for those who say such things to me are a whip to me. 2 For though I want to suffer, I do not know whether I am worthy; for the envy of the devil is unseen by many, but it fights all the harder against me. So I need gentleness, by which the prince of this world is overthrown.
Heavenly Things Too Strong for Infants
1 Am I not able to write to you about heavenly things? But I am afraid I might harm you, since you are infants. So bear with me, so that you are not choked by things you are unable to take in. 2 For I myself, though I am in chains and can understand heavenly things, the positions of the angels and the formations of the ruling powers, things visible and invisible, am not yet a disciple because of this. For we lack many things, so that we may not lack God.
Poison Mixed into Honeyed Wine
1 So I urge you, yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ, to eat only Christian food and to stay away from foreign plants, that is, heresy; 2 for these people even mix Jesus Christ into their poison, winning trust by a show of honesty, like people who give a deadly drug mixed with honeyed wine, so that someone who does not know it, suspecting nothing, drinks in death with a fatal pleasure.
Staying Inside the Sanctuary
1 So be on your guard against such people. And you will be, if you are not arrogant and if you are inseparable from [God] Jesus Christ and from the bishop and from the instructions of the Apostles. 2 Whoever is inside the sanctuary is clean; but whoever is outside the sanctuary is not clean; that is, whoever does anything without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clean conscience.
Gentleness, Faith, and Love Against the Devil's Traps
1 Not that I have learned of anything like this among you, but I am watching over you in advance, as my beloved ones, because I foresee the traps of the devil. So arm yourselves with gentleness and renew yourselves in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, which is the blood of Jesus Christ. 2 None of you should hold a grudge against your neighbor. Give the Gentiles no pretext, so that the godly community is not slandered because of a few foolish people; for Woe to the one through whom my name is slandered for nothing among some.
Ignatius on the Real Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus
1 So close your ears when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was descended from David and was the Son of Mary, who was truly born, and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died, in the sight of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth; 2 who was also truly raised from the dead, when His Father raised Him; and in the same way His Father will also raise us who believe in Him; His Father, I say, will raise us in Christ Jesus, without whom we do not have true life.
If He Only Appeared to Suffer
1 But if, as certain godless people, that is, unbelievers, say, He suffered only in appearance, while they themselves are only an appearance, why am I in chains? And why do I want to fight wild beasts? Then I die for nothing. Then I am telling lies about the Lord.
Branches of the Cross
1 So avoid those vile offshoots that bear deadly fruit; anyone who tastes it dies at once. For these people are not the Father's planting; if they were, they would be seen to be branches of the Cross, and their fruit would be imperishable. Through the Cross, by His passion, He invites us, since we are His members. A head cannot be found without members, since God promises union, and this union is Himself.
Greetings from Smyrna and a Request for Prayer
1 I greet you from Smyrna, together with the churches of God that are here with me, who have refreshed me in every way, both in flesh and in spirit. 2 My chains, which I carry around for the sake of Jesus Christ, praying that I may attain to God, urge you: remain in your harmony and in prayer with one another. For it is right for each of you, and especially the presbyters, to cheer the soul of your bishop, to the honor of the Father [and to the honor] of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles. 3 I pray that you will listen to me in love, so that my having written this does not become a testimony against you. And pray for me too, since I need your love in the mercy of God, so that I may be granted the lot I am eager to attain, and may not be found disqualified.
Prayer for the Community in Syria and Farewell
1 The love of the Smyrnaeans and Ephesians greets you. Remember in your prayers the church in Syria, of which I am [also] not worthy to be called a member, since I am the very last of them. 2 Farewell in Jesus Christ. Submit to the bishop as to the commandment, and to the presbytery as well; and each of you, love one another with an undivided heart. 3 My spirit is offered up for you, not only now but also when I attain to God. For I am still in danger; but the Father is faithful in Jesus Christ to fulfill my request and yours. May we be found blameless in Him.
An Introduction to Ignatius' Epistle to the Trallians
4 min read
Ignatius, the leader of the Christian community in Antioch in Syria, wrote this Greek letter in the first part of the second century CE, while ten Roman soldiers were taking him to Rome to be killed by wild beasts.1 He wrote it from Smyrna after a visit from Polybius, the bishop of the Christians in Tralles in Asia Minor, who very likely carried the letter home with him.2 Ignatius wrote to answer teachers who claimed secret knowledge of heavenly things and whose activity had unsettled the Trallians.3 Ignatius urges the Trallians to stay united with their bishop, presbyters, and deacons. In Epistle to the Trallians 9:1–10:1, he answers the claim that Jesus suffered only to dokein, "in appearance," a view known as docetism, the teaching that Jesus seemed to have a human body and to suffer without really doing so.4 Ignatius takes this view to deny everything said about Jesus from his birth to his resurrection, but he may not represent his opponents fairly, and he presses conclusions on them that they very likely would have rejected.5
Ignatius often echoes the letters of Paul, and in Epistle to the Trallians 3:3–4:1, he uses the language of 2 Corinthians 12:6, where Paul pairs a statement of his own restraint with a claim to know the secrets of the other world.6 In Epistle to the Trallians 5:1, he says he could write about heavenly things but holds back, calling the Trallians infants who would choke on what they cannot take in, the same image of food too solid for beginners found in 1 Corinthians 3:1–2 and Hebrews 5:11–14.7 The heavenly things he names in Epistle to the Trallians 5:2 are described in the technical language of astrology for the positions of the stars and the patterns they form, and his phrase "things visible and invisible" recalls Colossians 1:16.8 His statement in Epistle to the Trallians 9:1 that Jesus died in the sight of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth recalls the same three regions in Philippians 2:10. His claim that Jesus ate and drank usually belongs to accounts of the risen Jesus, as in Luke 24:42–43 and Acts 10:41.9 In Epistle to the Trallians 10:1, Ignatius says that if the suffering of Jesus were only an appearance, his own chains and his wish to fight wild beasts would mean nothing, and he would be lying about Jesus, an argument close to Paul's claim in 1 Corinthians 15:15 that if the dead are not raised, the apostles are false witnesses about God.10 In Epistle to the Trallians 11:1, he calls these teachers offshoots that are not the Father's planting, an image found in Matthew 15:13, and the vine of John 15:1–8 may also be echoed.11
The letter follows the conventions of Greek letters of its time, with greetings, a request for prayer, and a farewell, although its farewell in Epistle to the Trallians 13:2–3 is more elaborate than usual. Ignatius also says in his opening that he greets the Trallians in the manner of the Apostles, very likely a claim that his greeting follows the style of Paul's letters.12 When he limits his own boasting in Epistle to the Trallians 4:1, he follows Greek and Roman conventions on self-praise familiar from Plutarch, as well as the example of Paul.13 Other Jewish and Christian writings describe ideas close to those Ignatius may have been answering. His insistence that Jesus ate and drank may respond to the idea that a heavenly being only appears to eat. In Tobit 12:19, the angel reveals at the end of the story that he did not eat or drink and that Tobit's family saw only a vision, and Philo of Alexandria finds it remarkable that the three visitors to Abraham gave the appearance of eating although they did not.1415 Ignatius' reply to the teachers also resembles 1 John 4:2–3, although it is uncertain whether 1 John is responding to the same view.16 The image of God's planting is developed at length in the Thanksgiving Hymns among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Ignatius' description of believers as branches of the cross, treating the cross as a tree, also appears in Barnabas 11:6–8.17
Later Christian writers answered docetism in ways close to Ignatius. When they wrote about the life of Jesus, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine stressed the language of "true" and "truly," as Ignatius does in Epistle to the Trallians 9:1–2.18 Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, from the middle of the second century, also treats the cross as a tree, as Ignatius does in Epistle to the Trallians 11:1.19 Irenaeus of Lyons, writing later in the second century, turns the charge of unreality back on teachers who held this view, as Ignatius does in Epistle to the Trallians 10:1. Tertullian may have taken the same move from Irenaeus, although it was conventional enough that these writers did not need to rely on one another for it.20
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