IGNA'TIUS, one of the earliest of the apostolio fathers, called also THEOPUORUS. Antioch was a great seat and centre of Christianity from the vary earliest times. St. Paul resided there many years, and brought the Christian community into regular church order. Ignatius was one of the earliest successor, to St. Paul (if not the next) in the presidency over this church, or in the office of minister, superintendent, bishop, or by whatever name the connection which the Apostles and the more eminent of the early Christians bore to the churches may be designated. Ilia connection with the church at Antioch begun as early as 67, that is, before Jerusalem was destroyed, and while still there were innumerable persons living who remembered our Saviour and the cireumatauees of his life, teachings, and death. This is Inferred from what is related of him, that ho had been forty years connected with that chuzeh when, in 107, the emperor Trsjan visited Antioch, and instituted a violent persecution against the Christians. Of course Ignatius, occupying the most prominent station, would be among the first to suffer from it. They first tried to induce him to abandon his opinions and his charge, but the old man was inflexible. The issue was that he was sent to Rome, and there put to death in a very cruel manner, being thrown to the lions in a public spectacle, on one of the great festival days of the &turnstile, the 13th of the Kalende of January, or, according to our mode of reckoning, on the 20th of December 107, according to the received opinion, though some writers make the martyrdom of Ignatius to have occurred as late as 116.
What little was left of the feeble old man was gathered by a few friends and followers, and, in the spirit which prevailed so generally in the early ages of the church, removed to Antioch, and preserved there as sacred relics. It seems scarcely to have occurred to the Reformers when they set themeelvee to defame and destroy the relics of saints and other holy men enshrined in the ancient churches of Christendom, that they were abolishing one of the most valuable evidences of the reality of many facts in the early history of Christianity.
However, better remains of St. Ignatius are preserved to us : four abort epistles addressed to the Romanis, the Philadelphians, the Smymreans, and to Polyearp. There is also a reletlen of his martyr dom by some who were present. It is this relation from which the facts of his history are chiefly, if not wholly, drawn. An English translation of It, as also of his four epistles, may be found in Arch bishop Wake's ' Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers,' London, Svo, 1693. The best editions of the Epistles of Ignatius are that con tained in Le Clcres edition of the 'Patres Apostolici ' of Cotelerius, 2 vols. fol., Amsterd., 1724 ; and that included with tho epistles of Clement of Rome and Polyearp, by Jacobson, 2 vole. 'Sao, Oxford, 1838. But see as to the authenticity of the shorter epistles, and the interpolations iu all, the valuable work entitled ' The Ancient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius,' &c., by the Rev. William Cureton of the British Museum, 8vo, Lond., 1545.