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Library › The Church Fathers › Ignatius of Antioch › Ignatius to the Trallians › Chapter 10

Ignatius of Antioch

Epistle to the Trallians

Chapter 10

The reality of Christ’s passion.

But if, as some that are without God, that is, the unbelieving, say, that He only seemed to suffer (they themselves only seeming to exist), then why am I in bonds? Why do I long to be exposed to1 the wild beasts? Do I therefore die in vain?2 Am I not then guilty of falsehood3 against [the cross of] the Lord?

Notes

  1. Literally, “to fight with.”↩
  2. Some read this and the following clause affirmatively, instead of interrogatively.↩
  3. The meaning is, that if they spoke the truth concerning the phantasmal character of Christ’s death, then Ignatius was guilty of a practical falsehood in suffering for what was false.↩

Translation by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and Frederick Crombie: The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 1: The Apostolic Fathers (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1870).
Text from Project Gutenberg eBook #77576, proofread by Distributed Proofreaders from Internet Archive scans. Public domain.