Friday, December 9, 2022

Ignatius of Antioch, To Polycarp 6:2 and Water Baptism

  

Be pleasing to him whose soldiers you are, from whom you also receive your wages; let none of you be found a deserter. Let your baptism serve as (your) arms; your faith as (your) helmet; your love as (your) spear; your endurance as (your) panoply; your works are your deposits that you may have the savings you deserve. Be patient, then, with one another in gentleness, as God is with you. May I always benefit from you. (Ignatius, To Polycarp, 6:2)

 

baptism provides the basic protection and corresponds to the "arms" (οπλα) by which the soldier is protected; faith and love represent the fundamental Christian virtues (see on Eph. 1.1; 14.1) and correspond more particularly to the two important weapons named; finally, endurance corresponds to the whole armor (πανοπλια "panoply") because it must characterize the exercise of all the previously mentioned arms if they are not to fail. Endurance is probably treated as the climax here because Ignatius seeks to confirm the Smyrnaeans in their unity and their support for his cause . . . (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], 276)