Bishop of Antioch in the latter part of the first century. He was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and was a lifelong friend of fellow bishop St. Polycarp.
Key Ideas, Good Facts and Passages to Memorize:
(1) Letter to the Smyrnaeans – Warning against Docetist heresy: “They abstain from Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father by His goodness raised up.” St. Ignatius uses the premise of the Real Presence of the Eucharist to prove that the Docetists were not real Christians. “Which” – refers to flesh – Eucharist same flesh;
(2) Letter to the Romans: “I take no pleasure in corruptible food or the pleasures of this life. I want the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ who is of the seed of David; and for drink I want his blood, which is incorruptible love.” Ignatius calls the bread of God the flesh of Christ, and he says that he wants to drink Christ’s blood. These would be odd things to write if there were not already a common understanding among the Christians in Rome that they eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood. Therefore it is evident the early Christians during Ignatius’s time (ca. AD 100) believed that the Eucharist was truly the flesh and blood of Christ.
Effective Questions to Ask When Discussing the Real Presence:
If Ignatius didn’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, what did he mean in these passages? If John, the beloved apostle who sat next to Jesus at the Last Supper, didn’t believe that the Eucharist was Jesus’s flesh and blood that suffered on the cross and rose from the dead, how did Ignatius adopt that belief, and why was it universally accepted in Smyrna, the city of Polycarp (another of John’s disciples)? Why did nobody denounce Ignatius’s writings if the early Church didn’t believe that the Eucharist was really Jesus’s flesh and blood?
Prodigal Catholic 