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Ignatius Views On Martyrdom

Decent Essays

Throughout the readings on martyrdom, I noticed that there seemed to be an overlying theme of welcoming death because it seen was a way to get closer to Jesus Christ. As I tried to rationalize this from a modern perspective where countless hours and resources are spent to increase human life expectancy, it seemed atypical at first glance. However, Ignatius claims that he wants “no scrap of…[his] body to be left,” thereby suggesting that he wants to completely escape the physical world, which no longer holds any value for him (Placher 6). The only way to escape this world where he is a “convict” for refusing to denounce his Christian religious beliefs is by martyring himself. I also thought that Ignatius mentioned an interesting reversal of the meaning of death when he says that preventing his martyrdom and forcing him to live in the physical world is actually death …show more content…

I noticed when Polycarp is lit on fire the narrator claims that in the fire, he looked “not like flesh that is burnt, but like bread that is baked” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 15). This notion of comparing the martyrs’ bodies to bread was also reinforced when Ignatius claims that “I am God’s wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of the wild beasts to make a pure loaf for Christ” (Placher 6). In both cases, the martyrdoms of the bishops of Smyrna and Antioch are connected with bread, which I thought was an allusion to the Eucharist. Although there may be other explanations, I believe this suggests that martrys achieve their goal of getting close to God and Jesus Christ to such a degree that their bodies become associated with the body of Jesus Christ, because like Jesus, they suffered to protect the Christian faith. Similair to Jesus, both of the martyrs’ strength in the face of immense suffering, forced other Christians to stay true to their beleifs and remain strong even in the face of unrelentless

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