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St. Ignatius of Antioch saw the Judaizers as a complete rejection of Jesus Christ.
With his Letter to the Church in Philadelphia—written in the wake of St. Ignatius of Antioch and his guard leaving Smyrna for Troas, from which seaport the last of the letters will be sent before setting sail across the Adriatic to Neapolis, and then onto Rome—the vexed question of Judaism within the household of faith comes up in a more direct and detailed way than anything written heretofore. The issue is particularly grave because it threatens the unity and integrity of the Church in the most serious and unprecedented way. And unless it can be disarmed and thrown over, the threat posed by those members of the Church who have allowed themselves to be persuaded by it, the heart of the Catholic Thing will have been gutted. Nothing distinctively Christian will remain.
So, what’s the problem here? Why the insistence that, “if anyone preaches Judaism to you [i.e., the Church in Philadelphia], pay no attention to him”? Or that those who persist in doing so, who refuse “to talk about Jesus Christ,” are no better than “tombstones and graves of the dead, on which only human names are inscribed”? Why the urgency about fleeing at once such “wicked tricks and snares of the prince of this world,” as represented by the Judaizers in their midst?
Leaving aside the colorful images about “specious wolves” and such, “who, by means of wicked pleasures, capture those who run God’s race,” how exactly does Ignatius see the threat? Is there what one might call a Big Sky approach to be taken here? Some all-inclusive vision at work, to which he is especially anxious to draw the attention of the faithful living in Philadelphia?
Continued below.
crisismagazine.com
With his Letter to the Church in Philadelphia—written in the wake of St. Ignatius of Antioch and his guard leaving Smyrna for Troas, from which seaport the last of the letters will be sent before setting sail across the Adriatic to Neapolis, and then onto Rome—the vexed question of Judaism within the household of faith comes up in a more direct and detailed way than anything written heretofore. The issue is particularly grave because it threatens the unity and integrity of the Church in the most serious and unprecedented way. And unless it can be disarmed and thrown over, the threat posed by those members of the Church who have allowed themselves to be persuaded by it, the heart of the Catholic Thing will have been gutted. Nothing distinctively Christian will remain.
So, what’s the problem here? Why the insistence that, “if anyone preaches Judaism to you [i.e., the Church in Philadelphia], pay no attention to him”? Or that those who persist in doing so, who refuse “to talk about Jesus Christ,” are no better than “tombstones and graves of the dead, on which only human names are inscribed”? Why the urgency about fleeing at once such “wicked tricks and snares of the prince of this world,” as represented by the Judaizers in their midst?
Leaving aside the colorful images about “specious wolves” and such, “who, by means of wicked pleasures, capture those who run God’s race,” how exactly does Ignatius see the threat? Is there what one might call a Big Sky approach to be taken here? Some all-inclusive vision at work, to which he is especially anxious to draw the attention of the faithful living in Philadelphia?
Continued below.
From Judaism to Jesus
By Dr. Regis Martin - St. Ignatius of Antioch saw the Judaizers as a complete rejection of Jesus Christ.
crisismagazine.com
