Clement of Rome headed the
Christian community in the imperial capital, and around 95 he wrote a letter to
the community in Corinth, Greece, his only surviving writing. In this letter he
blames “the Adversary” for tempting people to commit sins. He uses a familiar
image of Satan but does not develop it.
A Syrian bishop, Ignatius of
Antioch, was sent to Rome around 115 to be thrown to the lions in the arena. On
his trip he wrote several letters to Christian communities. He considers Satan
to be the ruler of this age—that is, until the end—and Satan and his evil
angels try to thwart the work of Christ. But Ignatius found a particularly evil
action on the devil’s part. To a community in Smyrna he wrote, “A man who acts
without the knowledge of the bishop of serving the devil” (To the Smyrnaeans,
9)—that is, disagreement with episcopal authority reflects demonic influence
and threatens order in the community, which is an echo of the old chaos/cosmos
them. The devil also encourages heretics who disagree with the bishops and
people who leave the community rather than submit to the bishop’s authority.
Ignatius floated another idea
that would have a long history: God hid the birth of Jesus from Satan via the
virginal conception by Mary so that Satan did not realize until it was too late
that the one who would redeem the world from evil had come to earth and was an
adult. That speculation has no Scriptural justification, an early proof that
Christians would not be loath to go well beyond biblical teachings on Satan.
Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna was martyred
by the Romans circa 156. In a letter to the church at Philippi (ch. 7), he
wrote, “Anyone who does not believe that Christ came in the flesh is an
antichrist, and whoever does not witness to the Cross of Christ is of the
devil,” because the cross would be meaningless if Jesus did not have a body. The
first part of the sentence echoes 1 John 4:2-3, that is, the term “Antichrist”
can apply to more than one person. But the second part is original to Polycarp—that
is, the link between Satan and Antichrist—which is not in Scripture but
repeated by many later Christian authors. (Joseph F. Kelly, Who Is Satan?
According to the Scriptures [Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2013], 122-23)
Further Reading:
Thomas J. Farrar, "Satanology
and Demonology in the Apostolic Fathers: A Response to Jonathan Burke,"
Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 83 (2018): 156-91 (one can read Jonathan Burke’s
paper here)