The Anti-Jewish Strand in Ignatius

Abstract

Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch, the hub of Roman Syria, at the dawn of the second century. ¹ It is speculated that Hellenistic Jewish followers of Jesus that fled to safety during the events that followed Stephen’s death (Acts 6:13–14) founded the community at Antioch. According to Acts, it was in Antioch that some of them first began to preach also to the Pagans, evidently with considerable success (Acts 11:19–21). It was in Antioch that followers of Christ were first called “Christians” (Acts 11:26). Ignatius’s episcopate was a triumph for the Pauline faction in the Antiochene community² —a community that would have been originally Torah-observant. His ascent, probably during the first decade of the second century, would have occurred in the face of considerable opposition from the founding faction and their Gentile sympathizers ³ and may reflect Paul’s evangelizing success and the demographic shift to a Gentile majority. Ignatius emphasized Jesus’s death and resurrection (not his life and ministry), championed church authority and hierarchy, ⁴ and strove for the de-Judaizing of belief in Jesus⁵ —a cluster of themes associated with the faction I identify throughout as Pauline-Lukan. Eusebius informs us that Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, following Peter and Evodius, apparently the first Gentile to rise to this status. Ignatius’s episcopate, whose background and affinities were not Jewish, was a triumph for the Paulines. Insistence on unity and hierarchy, an Ignatian maxim, became characteristic of the emerging Pauline pro-to-orthodox strand. ⁶ Ignatius, free from Paul’s complex relationship with the “Pillars” and from any emotional attachment to Judaism, articulates a more overt and unequivocal negative tone toward the beliefs and traditions of the founding fathers.