In his
preface to his Epistle to the Romans, Ignatius of Antioch wrote:
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to
the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High
Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is beloved
and enlightened by the will of Him that willeth all things which are according
to the love of Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the
region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest
happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of
being deemed holy, and which presides
over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, which I also salute
in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father: to those who are united,
both according to the flesh and spirit, to every one of His commandments; who
are filled inseparably with the grace of God, and are purified from every
strange taint, [I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our
God. (ANF 1:73)
Some
Catholic apologists believe that Ignatius’ comment that the church at Rome “presides
over love” is evidence of Roman primacy. Notwithstanding, this is not what Ignatius was teaching. The
following commentary comes from:
William R.
Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia—A
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1985), 166:
lt follows that the verb "preside"
is used absolutely here as in Mag. 6.1-2 where it refers to those who exercise
authority in the Christian community. Since the later usage is evidently the
primary one, its application to the church of Rome is already more or less
metaphorical. The metaphor certainly leaves the impression that
the preeminence of this church is one that it enjoys in the eyes of all
Christians. But its scope is defined by Ignatius himself just below as a matter
of "presiding over love· (προκαθημενη της αγαπης). At one time Roman Catholic scholars (Nirschl, Funk) considered “love”
to be a term for the (universal) church ("Liebesbund") and
cited a number of parallels for the usage from Ignatius' letters (Tr. 13. l; Rom. 9.3;
Phd. 11.2; Sm. l 2.1). But when Ignatius says in these passages
that the love of the churches or the brethren gives its greeting, his meaning
is made clear by the genitives attached to the term. That is, not the case in
the passage before us. Rather the metaphor of presiding is extended here to
include love as the territory, so to speak, over which the Roman church holds
sway.[4] And the point has been appropriately illustrated from the letter to the
Romans by Dionysius of Corinth (in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.23.10; cf. 1
Clem. 55.2) which attributes to this church a long history of benefactions for
the poor and those in mines. The primacy of the Roman church, then, is a
spiritual one, and Ignatius singles out its love (for the outcast) precisely
because a paradoxical "fear" of that very love dominates the request
that follows (Rom. 1.2). [5] Thus Ignatius' words of
praise-exaggerated as they may seem-are not to be understood apart from the
circumstances in which he found himself and without taking into account the importance
of the city as the place in which he was to attain God. The apostolic church of
Rome, like the apostolic church of Ephesus, must play its role-a final and
decisive one-in lending significance and meaning to the bishop's triumphant
march to death (cf. Eph. 11.2-12.2). This attitude dominates Ignatius'
other comments on the Roman church in what follows (see on Rom. 3.1;
4.3; 9.1).
Notes for the Above
[4] A weakness of Protestant interpretation
of the passage (dominated by Harnack) has been the attempt to give a meaning
other than "preside" to the verb (cf. John
Chapman, "Saint Ignace d' Antioche et l'eglise Romaine," Revue
Benidictine 13 [1896) 385-400). The difficulty disappears when it is recognized
that Ignatius is working metaphorically and the text is allowed to speak its
high word of praise for the Roman Christians.
[5] lt seems much less likely that since
Ignatius has a negative attitude toward the "love" of the Romans in the
body of the letter, he must mean something very special by the "love"
that he praises in the salutation. And it seems especially strained to read the
latter as a manyrological term in light of the connections that can be drawn between
love, the love feast, the eucharist, and manyrdom (cf. Rom. 4) in
Ignatius (Reinhard Staats, "Die manyrologische Begründung des Romprimats
bei Ignatius von Antiochien," ZThK.
73 [1976) 461-70).