Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius was bishop of Antioch, the third city of the ancient world, and according to tradition he was Peter’s second successor in that see. He grew up a pagan and converted as an adult. He was condemned *ad bestias* under Trajan and taken under guard from Antioch to Rome, to be torn apart by wild beasts in the amphitheater. And it was that journey that made him one of the most important authors of early Christianity. During the transfer, at the stops along the way, he wrote seven letters to the communities he met or that sent delegations to him. They are extraordinary documents: they are the oldest Christian text we have after the New Testament, and they show us what the Church looked like around the year 107 — with the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons already distinct. It’s there that the expression “Catholic Church,” that is, universal, appears for the first time. In his letter to the Romans he asks something that has astonished readers for nineteen centuries: that they not intercede to save him. He writes that he is God’s wheat, and that he wants to be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become pure bread. He called himself *Theophorus*, God-bearer. He died in Rome around 107. His relics were taken back to Antioch and then, according to tradition, returned to Rome, where they rest in San Clemente. If your name is Ignatius, today is your name day.