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Joe Heschmeyer examines the evidence found in Ignatius of Antioch’s writings proving that the early church was indeed Catholic.
Transcription:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heme. One of the most frequent comments that I’ve heard from former Protestants who’ve become Catholic is that they were shocked at just how Catholic the earliest Christians were. Take for instance, St. Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, he’s on his way in about the year 1 0 7, to be martyred by being fed to wild beasts in the city of Rome. And along the way, as he’s going from Antioch to Rome, he writes a series of letters, one of them to his friend St. Polycarp, and then several more to the churches of different cities along the way. And these letters are just incredibly Catholic. And you don’t have to take my word for it, we’re going to hear Ignatius in his own words, but it’s also significant that the Protestant reformer, John Calvin, and indeed many of the Protestants in the years after the Reformation hated Ignatius’s letters and were convinced that they were Catholic forgeries.
So the historian John Aman Fasani, he points out that John Calvin rightly saw that the Ignatian letters were a challenge to the Presbyterian church structure that he’d established in Geneva. In other words, Ignatius can’t be right about Christianity, and John Calvin is still right to institute Presbyterianism. One of them has to be wrong. And if Ignatius is someone put in place by the apostles who was allegedly a disciple of the Apostle John who’s really proximate to apostolic Christianity, he’s called one of the Apostolic fathers, this is a problem. And so as man Fasani points out, Calvin dismisses all of Ignatius’s letters, as in Monte’s words, just so much apocryphal, flapper, dole. He also argued that bishops were not a divine ordination, but a purely human creation instituted to impose order without specifying exactly when such an instituted shouldn’t start it. And so Calvin, in his own words, says Nothing can be more nauseating than the absurdities which have been published under the name of Ignatius, and therefore the conduct of those who provide themselves with such masks for deception is the less entitled to toleration.
Now, I want to be fair to Calvin and to the early Protestants, they were right in one way. So at the time, they were discovering that a lot of things that Christians had taken for granted as authentic ancient documents and texts from Great Saints over and over again in the Renaissance. And then this leads on into the enlightenment. They were discovering that these were forgeries. And so it’s causing this real crisis of faith in the church in ancient documents and all of these things where they’re saying, well, how do we know which of these things are real in the first place? And it’s also true that some of the things Calvin was objecting to, he was absolutely right in the authentic letters of Ignatius. He doesn’t talk about lint. This is one of the specific charges. Calvin is rebutting, and so Calvin’s right about that.
But nevertheless, the Protestants go too far. So here I got to tell you a little bit of the story of the different collections called Ascensions of Ignatius’s letters. So on the one hand, we’re going to start with actually the middle tier. These are the letters that almost everybody now realizes are authentically from Ignatius. There are seven of them, and we have manuscripts of them in Greek, but that’s called the middle ascension. You also have a shorter ascension where it’s just three letters. These we found in Syriac. This was not really a part of the conversation at the time. This is more of a later kind of thing. We’re going to ignore the So-called Shorter Ascension, just acknowledging it’s out there. Those are probably like a translation and summary of Ignatius Ignatius. Nobody thought he was writing in Syriac to these Greek speaking churches. So the middle Asension is seven letters.
These are the ones we now consider authentic. At the time of the Reformation, there were 13 letters floating around. Now it was the seven original letters, some of which had been doctored in various ways. And then six more letters, which are just forgeries, that’s called the Longer Recension. So those are the three categories. So the longer ascension of 13 letters, that’s going to be the real ones mixed with fake parts and fake letters. And then the middle ascension is the authentic one. So the question faced by Catholics, Protestants, everybody at the time of John Calvin, is how many of the letters from Ignatius are real? The right answer is seven. A lot of Catholics were arguing 13. That was wrong and a lot of Protestants were arguing zero. That was also wrong. In fact, it’s a pretty fascinating story, both how, if you want to call it denominational or partisan blindness, whatever you want to call it, kept us from maybe seeing that, but also a story of Catholics and Protestants putting aside their allegiances to just try to figure out the answer to the question even if that answer turned out to be inconvenient.
So Yaroslav Pelican, who was at the time, he wrote this in 1969, a Lutheran, he later became Eastern Orthodox in his book development of Christian doctrine, tells this story really well. And he talks about how generally today that was true both in 1969. It’s also true as we’re going to see today, the accepted letters are the So-called Middle Recension, these seven letters and certain Protestant scholars were convinced because of Ignatius’s emphasis on the hierarchical nature of the church. And because he made such explicit reference to the authority of the bishop, certain Protestant scholars insisted that this version could not have been written by Ignatius who died during or shortly after the first decade of the second century, perhaps as early as 1 0 7. In fact, from Jerome, we know that he died in the 11th year of the Emperor Trajan ran, which would put ’em at 1 0 7 or 1 0 8.
So that’s extremely early on. And so understandably, Protestants reading this super Catholic thing and hearing all these very Catholic ideas, which we’re going to get into in a minute, saying, no way is this that early. Meanwhile, a lot of Roman Catholics are saying, nah, we like all of them. So Pelican says 12 is actually 13, depending on which ones you include. But there’s 13 potential ones in the So-called Long or Longer Ascension. And so as he puts it, each side began with a set of presuppositions and decided the question of authenticity in a way that was consistent with these. So these sound very Catholic, so we want to accept all of them as Catholics and Protestants want to accept none of them, but that’s not really good scholarship. It can’t just be what would be the most convenient outcome. And so fortunately, while some people are going for those easy answers, what’s the most favorable historical conclusion?
There are other historians who are patiently working at sorting through the documentary evidence, even if it’s inconvenient. So he cites several sources. On the one hand you’ve got John Pearson, the Anglican Scholar, and so John Dalai, the French Calvinist, he’s a hug. He very much argues against Ignatius’s letter. He’s on Team Zero authentic letters, and he’s rebutted not by a Catholic, but by an Anglican, who points out that there’s a strong historical case to be made for the authenticity of the seven. And on the other hand, John Henry Newman, this is 200 years later now argues against his fellow Catholics by saying that it is possible to have too much evidence that the 13, it’s just they sound so Catholic that even as a Catholic, you’re like, yeah, how likely is it that in the year 1 0 7, he’s using terms like priest and sea for the city? That kind of churchy jargon seems to be later.
And likewise, he’s quoting scripture a lot, but the New Testament wasn’t really formed. I mean, the books existed, but they hadn’t been compiled yet. And so this leads St. John Henry Newman to conclude the interpolated epistles, meaning the longer ascension quote scripture. Largely that is they’re too scriptural to be apostolic. It’s a very clever line. Their use of the New Testament is actually highlighting the fact that they’re not super early because the earliest writings, they can’t just quote the New Testament because it isn’t in one agreed upon form yet. And so that’s actually one of the things that he raises, and rightly to say, the long ascension isn’t right. So you’ve got both Catholics and Protestants who are willing to say, yeah, this is inconvenient to my side of the argument, but we can’t really argue for zero and we can’t really argue for 12 or 13.
Pelican gives some other examples. On the Protestant side, again, it was Protestant historical scholarship that vindicated the authenticity of the seven epistles, and he cites the work of theater, Zan, who was Lutheran and the Anglican Bishop of Durham, Joseph Lightfoot. So those figures are kind of the four people that play this really important role, a Catholic to Anglicans and a Lutheran in vindicating. Historically, these seven books and Pelican notes that Boon and Lightfoot use careful literary, textual and historical analysis. And so they’re mindful of things like methodology and sound scholarships such that there is now, as he says, virtually unanimous acceptance of the seven epistles in their middle ascension. Now, that’s really good news as a Catholic, because those seven letters are extremely Catholic, and we’re going to get there again soon. But I realize quoting from this Pelican’s book is from 1969. So you could say, Joe, how do we know that these are still valid?
How do we know these scholarly conclusions haven’t been totally overthrown? And the answer is, well, there’s more recent work, so I’m going to get to that in just a second. So remember, we vindicated the middle tier, the middle ascension, those seven Greek manuscripts in 2017, Ignatius of Antioch in the Aryan controversy by Paul r Gillum III comes out in which he kind of summarizes the state of the field as of seven years ago. And he says, Ignatius of Antioch was the center of scholarly controversy during the 17th through 19th centuries. That’s what we just saw. Again, he looks at people like Zan and Lightfoot and says that they’ve provided the stamina for a nearly 150 year old consensus. So he’s acknowledging this is still the consensus today. The Ignatius of the middle ascension stands head and shoulders above the Ignatius of the short or the long asension.
Now notice the idea that Ignatius didn’t write any of the letters of Ignatius, the position many of the early Protestants took. He’s not even considering that that is not where the scholarship is at at all. And he acknowledges there have been five significant works. I’m not going to get into what those five arcs. That’s way too deep in the weeds. There have been five significant works that have attempted to overthrow the consensus view established by Za and Lightfoot. So in the last 150 years, five major efforts to discredit the middle ascension view. And as Gillum points out though they have raised the eyebrows of the scholarly community, none of these works have garnered a following. So this is still very much what we’ve concluded. In fact, the major modern work on Ignatius William Shuttle’s 1985 commentary, Ignatius of Antioch, defends the work of Z and Lightfoot on the authenticity of the middle ascension.
So after the time of Yaroslav Pelican’s 1969 book, it’s only been further reestablished. So when we’re dealing with the letters of Ignatius, you’ll sometimes see on different websites, we’ll have the shorter and longer version. The shorter version is this middle ascension, and there’s seven books if you want. I’ll explain what those seven are because here’s the cool thing about all this, all that work from the 17th to the 19th century and all of the kind of affirmation of it in the 150 years since is just confirming what the early Christians had already told us. So for instance, Saint Jerome, when he is describing the lives of illustrious men, when he gets to Ignatius of Antioch, he names exactly which seven writings Ignatius has left us, Ephesians, magnesium, trillions, Romans, Philadelphians, Sumerians, and then a letter to poly carb. Those seven, he names them. In fact, so does Eusebius, who even tells us what order he’s believed to have written the works in and where he was when he wrote them.
So this middle recension view is not just the work of really good modern scholarship, it’s also the view the early Christians told us. And so yeah, a lot of Catholics got tricked into believing fake works because they weren’t listening to the church fathers. A lot of Protestants overly skeptically, rejected the authentic works. Again, ignoring the early Christians in the 19th century after Lightfoot, and you remember Lightfoot and Z are really important in establishing the middle ascension kind of view is just overwhelmingly dominant. There is William dual Killen. He is I believe a Scottish Presbyterian who argues against He is on Team Zero, authentic works of Ignatius. He writes this, he says, even the seven recognized by ubi. So you’ll notice he’s aware the early Christians like UUs. Jerome also recognize these seven books as being authentically by Ignatius. He says, even the seven recognized by Eusebius were regarded with grave suspicion, meaning during the Reformation.
And Calvin, who then stood at the head of Protestant theologians did not hesitate to denounce the whole of them as forgeries. Now, fascinatingly William dual Killen’s own view is that Pope Callistus, well prior to becoming Pope in two 19 was the guy who forged them. So what’s really fascinating about this view is even in trying to argue, no, these super Catholic letters aren’t really from 1 0 7, he’s instead arguing, no, they’re from the early two hundreds instead. So even Killen’s view is that they’re super early. He’s not saying Constantine or anything like that. He’s still saying, well, we’d have to say they’re no later than the early two hundreds. Now as it is, Killen’s view is not accepted by any scholars that I know of today. It just isn’t true. There’s good reasons to believe and to realize that these seven letters are authentically from around the year 1 0 7 or maybe a little after.
So why does that matter? Well, it matters because as I keep saying, Ignatius of Antioch is incredibly Catholic. Thanks for bearing with me through the scholarship. Let’s get into the theology now because now that we know, we can trust that these really are written by Saint Ignatius Bishop of Antioch. What does he have to say? So I’m just going to give you a sample of things taken directly from his letters. I’m going to let him speak for himself. Pretty famously, when he is talking to the church in Smyrna, he warns them about a group of heretics, probably the gnostics, what are called the gsist gnostics. We don’t need to get into all of the ins and outs of it, but he warns that they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered first sins and which the father of his goodness raised up again.
And then he says, those therefore who speak against this gift of God incur death in the midst of their disputes, but it were better for them to treat it with respect that they also might rise again. In other words, he’s just said pretty explicitly that the Eucharist really is Jesus and not to have anything to do with those who deny that because they’re incurring spiritual death and cutting themselves off from resurrection. Now, there’s a whole theology that other early Christians like Aaron Aus of Leone get into that’s based on this idea in John six, that if you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you’ll have life in you and he’ll raise you up on the last day. And so his view is that Gnostics are cutting themselves off from resurrection because they don’t believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That is very Catholic sounding.
Well, likewise, when he is writing to the Romans, he says something very Catholic sounding. He says, I do not as Peter and Paul issue commandments unto you. Now who’s he writing to the Romans? And once he just said that Peter and Paul have this role in the Church of Rome. Now that’s really big because although actually John Calvin conceded that St. Peter had gone to Roman was martyred there, you’ll find plenty of Protestants today who deny that, who say, oh no, Peter was never in Rome. Well, this is just a few decades after Peter’s martyrdom. The idea that Ignatius would be confused about that is unthinkable. So he’s taking for granted that Peter and Paul as IUs again will say in 180, build up the church throne and his letter to the magnesium, this is kind of cool. Ignatius goes through not just that, there’s Bishop Presbyter, what will later call priest and deacon, but he knows them by name in this local church.
So he greets Dames, your most worthy bishop, you’re worthy presbyters, BAAs, and Apol. And my fellows servant the deacon. So he’s not just saying there’s a three-tiered structure to the church. We actually know what the three-tiered structure to the church looks like in the Church of Magnesia. So why does that matter? Because sometimes Protestants will respond to Ignatius and his repeated emphasis on this three-tiered structure of the church and suggests that he’s trying to get people to adopt that model. But if you read Ignatius, you’ll see that’s just untrue. He’s acknowledging people who already have that model and then telling them instead to obey the clergy that they already have, not to get some new structure of church, but to obey the church leaders they already have. So for instance, to the trillions, he says in like manner, let all reference the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the son of the Father and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God and assembly of the apostles.
And then he says, and this is critical, apart from these, there is no church. If you don’t have that three-tiered structure, you don’t have the church. That’s his view. He is not saying the church is an invisible collection of all the saved, the true church is just people wherever they are. Doesn’t matter denomination. No, when he’s talking about the church, he doesn’t mean some loose affiliation of believers. He means something very organized, structured, invisible, and he is utterly clear about that. Apart from these, there is no church. So to cut yourself off from that structure according to Ignatius is to cut yourself off from the church. This idea that the church is invisible won’t exist for like another thousand years.
To the Philadelphians, he warns them about the dangers of schism. He says, keep yourself from those evil plants, which Jesus Christ does not tend because they’re not the planting of the Father. Not that I found any disunity among you, but exceeding purity for as many are as of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall in the exercise of repentance return into the unity of the church, these two shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. So before I go on to the next part, I want to speak really clear about that, that he views the church as something visible that you might leave and that you might then repent and come back to. And that if you come back to it, you can live according to Jesus Christ. You can be saved by Jesus if you come back to the church that you’ve broken away from.
But he doesn’t just take it for granted that as long as you’ve got a personal relationship with Christ, say that you’re good to go. No, that the idea that you have to be part of this visible church that is centered around in each local church, the bishop, this seems very clear and again, very almost obnoxiously Catholic. You can imagine how annoying this would be to hear as a Protestant reformer breaking away from your bishop, breaking away from the church and having Catholics pull out of their back pocket. Boom. Here are the earliest Christians telling you this is potentially going to damn you.
Ignatius. Back to his letter to the Philadelphians here, he says, do not air my brethren. If any man follows him that makes the schism in the church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If anyone walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion, meaning the passion of Christ. So it’s not just like my gloss on Ignatius. Ignatius is saying that pretty objectively. And then finally, he makes a point that the Eucharist isn’t just Jesus, but there’s also a eucharistic sacrifice. This is a controversial point because you’ll have groups like the Anglicans and Lutherans who will say, yeah, sure Jesus is present in the Eucharist. We might differ on the exact mode of how, but they aren’t just like the Eucharist is just assembled. They’ve got a richer Eucharistic theology than that. But where we tend to part company is the idea of the mass as a sacrifice.
And yet it’s very clear from Ignatius in his letter to the Philadelphians, he says, take heed then to have but one Eucharist for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup to show forth the unity of his blood. One altar as there is one bishop along with presbyter and deacons, my fellow servants. So whatsoever you, you may do it according to the will of God, or it literally says according to God. So the idea there is you don’t start some rival congregation, even if you have the Eucharist, that’s not acceptable. You’re to have one Eucharist, you’re to be in union with the bishop. But notice there the reference to there being one altar, meaning it’s not just a table of the Lord, but he understands it in 1 0 7 of being an altar. Now he’s actually amazingly enough, perhaps not the first source we have for this.
I mean, you have St. Paul comparing the table of the Lord to the table of demons, which were demonic altars in one Corinthians 10 and comparing it to the temple sacrifices. So he clearly has an altar and temple theology of the Eucharist, but you also have the diday, which references the Christian Eucharistic sacrifice in light of Malachi one 11 in the new Covenant, Gentiles will make real offerings to the Lord. All that’s to say Ignatius. And not only Ignatius, but for purposes of this short episode, Ignatius is extremely Catholic. So finally, I’d like to thank Dirk who emailed me suggesting I explore this topic. I was trying to think of things to talk about, and this was a great thing to mention. He was himself former Protestant who became Catholic and was himself astonished to learn this. So what I would invite you, if you want to in the comments, maybe share your own testimony, if you were someone who was not originally Catholic and became Catholic, what was something that surprised you and kind of helped you along on your journey? Because chances are that’ll be surprising and interesting to somebody else. For Seamus Pope, I’m Joe Heme. God bless you.