In his Epistle to the Magnesians 8:2, Ignatius called prophets "divine":
οἱ γὰρ θειότατοι προφῆται κατὰ
Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἔζησαν
For the divine prophets lived
after Christ Jesus. (Kirsopp Lake [“after” in the sense of ‘according to’ and
not temporally; Ignatius is not teaching post-NT prophets here])
For the most divine prophets lived
according to Jesus Christ. (William R. Schoedel)
As Schodel notes in his Hermenia commentary noted:
Ignatius calls the prophets
"most divine"—an epithet borrowed from Hellenistic Judaism (cf.
Josephus Ant. 10.35; C. Apion. 1.279; Philo Mos. 2.188).
Clearly they are modelled to a certain extent on the "divine men" of
Hellenistic piety and are thought of as transcending normal humanity (cf.
Josephus Ant. 3.180; C. Apion. 1.279). (William R. Schoedel, Ignatius
of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch [Hermeneia-A
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1985], 119)
The texts from Josephus and Philo reads as follows, for those who
are interested:
for if anyone do but consider the
fabric of the tabernacle, and take a view of the garments of the high priest,
and of those vessels which we make use of in our sacred ministration, he will
find that our legislator was a divine man, and that we are unjustly reproached
by others: for if anyone do without prejudice, and with judgment, look upon
these things, he will find they were everyone made in way of imitation and
representation of the universe. (Antiquities 3:180)
Now as to this prophet [Isaiah],
he was by the confession of all, a divine and wonderful man in speaking truth;
and out of the assurance that he had never written what was false, he wrote
down all his prophecies, and left them behind him in books, that their
accomplishment might be judged from the events by posterity: nor did this
prophet do so alone; but the others, which were twelve in number, did the same.
And whatever is done among us, whether it be good, or whether it be bad, comes
to pass according to their prophecies; but of everyone of these we shall speak
hereafter. (Antiquities 10:35)
It now remains that I debate with
Manetho about Moses. Now the Egyptians acknowledge him to have been a wonderful
and a divine person; nay, they would willingly lay claim to him themselves,
though after a most abusive and incredible manner; and pretend that he was of
Heliopolis, and one of the priests of that place, and was ejected out of it
among the rest, on account of his leprosy; (Contra Apion, 1:279)
I am not unaware then that all the
things which are written in the sacred books are oracles delivered by him; and
I will set forth what more peculiarly concerns him, when I have first mentioned
this one point, namely, that of the sacred oracles some are represented as
delivered in the person of God by his interpreter, the divine prophet, while others
are put in the form of question and answer, and others are delivered by Moses
in his own character as a divinely-prompted lawgiver possessed by divine
inspiration. (Philo, Mos. 2:188)
