IGNATIUS, bishop of the church at Antioch, during the journey to Rome which, according to tradition, terminated in his martyrdom, is said to have written seven epistles—six to the churches in Asia Minor, and one to Polycarp bishop of Smyrna. Five other epistles, which were for some time received as his composition, are now admitted to be spurious; and even the seven genuine epistles have been grievously corrupted and interpolated. These interpolations have evidently been made by some zealous partisans of the priesthood, for the purpose of unduly exalting the episcopal dignity. In the epistle to Polycarp it is said, "Attend to the bishop that God may attend to you. I pledge my soul for those who are subject to the bishop, presbyters, and deacons. Let my part in God be with them." "All of you," says the epistle to the Church of Smyrna, "obey the bishop as Christ obeyed the Father, and the presbytery as you would reverence the apostles, and the deacons as the commandments of God. Wheresoever the bishop may appear, there let the multitude assemble; even as the Catholic Church is there where Christ Jesus is. It is not lawful either to baptize or to celebrate an Agape without the bishop, but whatsoever he shall approve that is likewise well-pleasing to God." Again—"He who honours the bishop is honoured by God; he who acts without the knowledge of the bishop is in bondage to the devil." And the Ephesians are told that "it is their manifest duty to look up to the bishop as to the Lord himself." Statements
such as these, inculcating upon the people the most unlimited and blind obedience to the hierarchical order, present such a marked contrast to the sentiments which had prevailed in the apostolic age, and which continued to prevail in the second century, that they can scarcely have come from the pen of Ignatius, who is supposed to have written about the sixteenth year of that century. A recent ecclesiastical historian, who is disposed to regard these and other similar expressions as genuine, accounts for them on the ground that it was the principal object of Ignatius to preserve the churches in strict union and discipline during the persecution which then threatened their destruction, by subjecting the faithful in rigid obedience to every order of their priesthood, but most especially to the highest. The days were then approaching, and were already come, he thinks, in which some severe system of subordination was absolutely necessary (under God's providence) for the preservation of the church.1