Recently, I had a conversation with a friend and fellow seminarian about the hostility that the Church is experiencing in our increasingly secular age. We discussed the possibility of future persecution and even martyrdom. My friend, a young and enthusiastic soon-to-be deacon, exclaimed, “Wouldn’t it be glorious to be a martyr for the Church!” I responded, “If I’m to be martyred, it will definitely be the Thomas More route—I will take every avenue permitted by conscience, and likely a few prohibited, to avoid that fate.” He laughed, though surprised by my impiety. I thought of this conversation when reading the letters that St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in the early 2nd century on the road to his execution. What Ignatius says about martyrdom, I suspect, will sound extreme to most modern ears, even to Catholic ones. For Ignatius does not just accept martyrdom as an unplanned and unfortunate fate—he positively yearns for it. Consider the following passage from his letter to the Romans:
I am writing to all the churches and am insisting to everyone that I die for God of my own free will—unless you hinder me. I implore you: do not be unseasonably kind to me. Let me be food for the wild beasts, through whom I can reach God. May I have the pleasure of the wild beasts that have been prepared for me; and I pray that they prove to be prompt with me. I will even coax them to devour me quickly, not as they have done with some, whom they were too timid to touch. And if when I am willing and ready they are not, I will force them.
In telling his friends not to dissuade him from the red crown, and even suggesting that he would provoke animals unwilling to attack, Ignatius makes clear that he would turn down any opportunity to escape, despite the injustice of his situation. One might view his enthusiasm with suspicion, as perhaps evincing a latent Manichaeism or hatred of the body. This would be a misinterpretation, however. Ignatius hates neither his body nor the world. Rather, he simply shows what it looks like to be detached from all goods save God.
In his letter to the Trallians, Ignatius writes, “While I strongly desire to suffer, I do not know whether I am worthy.” Again, even Catholics may find this claim strange. The Church teaches that suffering is the unfortunate consequence of the Fall; thus, we might suppose, suffering is something to be avoided when possible and endured when not. But suffering as the consequence of sin is a far cry from suffering as a reward or something to be valued and pursued. We get a better sense for what Ignatius means in different passage from the same letter, when he writes, “I have many deep thoughts in union with God, but I take my own measure, lest I perish by boasting. For I myself, though I am in chains and can comprehend heavenly things am not yet a disciple. For we still lack many things, so that we may not lack God.” Here we see that for Ignatius, suffering is an antidote to pride and an important reminder of our utter dependence upon God. All sin, at root, is a form of pride—a desire to reject our creaturely status, achieve independence from God, and determine for ourselves right from wrong. To combat sin, then, we need humility, which suffering of any kind promotes by placing before us our inherent limitations.
The deeper reason, however, for Ignatius’s yearning for suffering and martyrdom can be found in his letter to the Romans: “Allow me to be an imitator of the suffering of my God.” The suffering Ignatius desires is a means to participating in the redemptive suffering of Christ and, through this process, to becoming more conformed to Him. One hears echoes here of St. Paul: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1: 24). Against the Docetists, Ignatius insists that Christ really was man and really did suffer. Were this not the case, he asks, “Why am I in chains? And why do I want to fight with wild beasts? If [Christ suffered only in appearance], I die for no reason.” Ignatius’s rationale here shows that he does not seek suffering for bragging rights or as an end in itself, but solely as a pathway to becoming configured to Christ. As he says in his letter to the Magnesians, the life of Christ “is not in us unless we voluntarily choose to die into His suffering.”
In a related manner, Ignatius views suffering and martyrdom as a test of faith. The desire for martyrdom offers tangible evidence not that one hates the body or the things of the world, but that one’s loves are properly ordered. When Ignatius says, “For though I am still alive, I am passionately in love with death,” he is not saying that he hates his life, but that he loves God to such a degree that his life means nothing to him apart from God. This, in fact, is the kind of detachment from worldly goods that all Christians are called to cultivate, not just saints. If we are taken aback by Ignatius’s passionate words, as I was when I first read his letters, then perhaps this is a sign that we are too attached to the goods of the world—we are not ready to cut ties with persons, places, and things that impede our love of God or to embrace poverty, sickness, and death if a necessary means for conforming ourselves to Christ. Again, this spirit of detachment is required of all Christians. It does not mean refraining from loving the things of the world, but placing the love of God before all things, without Whom the things of the world are meaningless anyway.
Much more could be said, of course, about Ignatius’s theology of suffering and martyrdom, but I hope the above offers an accurate overview. I began with a contrast between St. Thomas More and St. Ignatius. In doing so, I did not mean to suggest that More lacked an appropriate Christian detachment from the world. The fact that he embraced martyrdom rather than compromise his loyalty to the Church says otherwise. His lack of enthusiasm for martyrdom—at least, if we are to take Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons as true to the spirit of the man—suggests a difference in temperament from Ignatius, rather than an undue attachment to the world. The man who assured his wife, “This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made,” is the same man who chided the perjurer who sealed his death, “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … But for Wales!” In fact, I would suggest that this last line is a useful lens through which to read and reflect upon Ignatius’s letters.
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