Do you believe the teachings of Saint Ignatius of Antioch

[gtsecc]

Do you or do you not?
Why do you hold him in authority or not?

[Naomi4Christ]

Go on, tell us what he said!

I assume this is a controversial topic, so would it be at all possible for you to outline the key reasons for believing him and for not believing him.

Thanks :)

[gtsecc]

The main reason for believing him is that he has been regarded by the entire Church as authoritative. According to St. John Chrysostom, he was ordained Bishop of Antioch by the remaining Apostles themselves.



The main reason for not accepting his teaching is that he makes it perfectly clear that the church soley exists under Bishops, therefore many protestant reformers, who deny the necessity of the Episcopate, ignore Ignasius.

[ContraMundum]

Do you or do you not?
Why do you hold him in authority or not?

Which bits?

[Naomi4Christ]

The main reason for believing him is that he has been regarded by the entire Church as authoritative. According to St. John Chrysostom, he was ordained Bishop of Antioch by the remaining Apostles themselves.



The main reason for not accepting his teaching is that he makes it perfectly clear that the church soley exists under Bishops, therefore many protestant reformers, who deny the necessity of the Episcopate, ignore Ignasius.






I just think :sleep: - no opinion either way.

[Philip]

He was influential in my journey to Orthodoxy.

I found him particularly interesting because, as gtsecc has indicated, he was closely assosiated with the Apostles. He was a hearer of St John the Beloved. He was ordained a deacon by St Peter. He died a martyr's death. The mutual admiration and friendship between Ignatius and St Polycarp strengthen the reliablity of both.

There is a pious story that maintians that Ignatius is the child mentioned in Luke 9:47.

[Fish and Bread]

I don't believe in the infallibility of men (Other than Jesus, who was also fully divine). The Apostles, being handpicked by Jesus directly during his time on earth, I trust to have conveyed His wisdom very accurately and to have applied it in the way he would have applied it to the cultures of the places they evangelized at the time they did so. I believe that the Bishops are the heirs to the Apostles in the Church authority structure, but of course with each passing generation, they must reply more on their own personal experiences in prayer, meditation, and study than on the same type of personal knowledge and understanding the Apostles would have had, so they're inherently less reliable in that sense. On the other hand, Bishops are better equipped to bind and loose in their own time and culture than trying to apply strictly whatever the Apostles said to a time and culture where not everything necessarily still applies.

Remember, binding and loosing was not something Jesus made up. Jewish rabbis historically would commonly give this authority to people who would have the power to locally adapt the teachings of their master (bind -- i.e. hold people to, or loosen -- i.e. relax the enforcement of). I think we forget that a lot when discussing church issues.

More to the overall point of the thread, I accept some of the teachings of Ignatius of Antioch and disagree with others, or consider them inapplicable to the present age. He was a great theologian, but like any theologian, there are some things he got right and others he got wrong, in my view.

John

[gitlance]

St. Ignatius (along with St. Irenaeus) helped teach me what it means to be Catholic. Neither one of them thought that being Catholic meant you were just part of a "universal" faith. No no no. They taught that being Catholic is being katholou: being in accord with the WHOLE faith. And only the Catholic Church possesses the whole orthodox Faith.

St. Ignatius is a huge stumbling block to protestant sympathizers, because he was a disciples of St. John the Beloved, and wrote a great deal concerning the nature of the Eucharist, the Church, and the Succession. If we are to infer the he was as carefully hand-picked and taught by John as Timothy was by Paul, we can rightly believe that what St. Ignatius taught were not his own beliefs, but the beliefs of St. John. St. Ignatius was the first to call the Church "catholic." He taught that the Eucharist is indeed the flesh and blood of our dearest Lord. In fact, the Eucharist, according to St. Ignatius, is the antidote to heresy, the medicine of immortality.

No protestant, in good scholarly study, can read non-Catholic views into St. Ignatius. He was a Catholic through and through, and he let everyone know it.

Sancte Ignatius, ora pro nobis!

[akascottb]

The main reason for believing him is that he has been regarded by the entire Church as authoritative. According to St. John Chrysostom, he was ordained Bishop of Antioch by the remaining Apostles themselves.



The main reason for not accepting his teaching is that he makes it perfectly clear that the church soley exists under Bishops, therefore many protestant reformers, who deny the necessity of the Episcopate, ignore Ignasius.







Where the Bishop is there also is The Church.
that is my thought on the matter

[gitlance]

If you ignore the early Church Fathers, and throw away their beliefs, then you are forgetting what it means to be a Christian. I hate to burst some peoples' bubble, but the continental Protestants of the 1500s did not know more about the Faith than those first believers. If anything, the continental reformers brought about more innovations than they claimed the Roman Church had.

[Naomi4Christ]

If you ignore the early Church Fathers, and throw away their beliefs, then you are forgetting what it means to be a Christian. I hate to burst some peoples' bubble, but the continental Protestants of the 1500s did not know more about the Faith than those first believers. If anything, the continental reformers brought about more innovations than they claimed the Roman Church had.

Oh Git, why can't you accept that there is a perfectly acceptable evangelical wing of the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is happy are most other C of E Bishops. It really isn't on to keep trashing it - not good for one body and all that.

[karen freeinchristman]

I just think :sleep: - no opinion either way.
:amen:

[karen freeinchristman]

I don't believe in the infallibility of men (Other than Jesus, who was also fully divine).


:thumbsup:

[karen freeinchristman]

I hate to burst some peoples' bubble

I disagree with that statement. ;)

[gitlance]

Oh Git, why can't you accept that there is a perfectly acceptable evangelical wing of the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is happy are most other C of E Bishops. It really isn't on to keep trashing it - not good for one body and all that.

I acknowledge that it's there, I just also happen to acknowledge that it is in error. ;)

[ContraMundum]

Oh Git, why can't you accept that there is a perfectly acceptable evangelical wing of the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is happy are most other C of E Bishops. It really isn't on to keep trashing it - not good for one body and all that.

If the Bishops believe it, it must be true? Infallibile, are they?

I like the evangelical wing- but think they are too heavily influenced by certain versions of protestantism.

[Fish and Bread]

I like the evangelical wing- but think they are too heavily influenced by certain versions of protestantism.

I could easily someone making a similar statement about liking the Anglo-Catholic wing, but thinking they're too heavily influenced by Rome. Personally, I love the diversity present in Anglicanism. The fact that we can all still share the same liturgies and orders of ministry and take communion together is nothing short of amazing. :)

ohn

[higgs2]

I could easily someone making a similar statement about liking the Anglo-Catholic wing, but thinking they're too heavily influenced by Rome. Personally, I love the diversity present in Anglicanism. The fact that we can all still share the same liturgies and orders of ministry and take communion together is nothing short of amazing. :)

ohn
Yes it really is amazing! I enjoy being just hazy broad church because I can enjoy elements of each without being too devoted to one way. And I've been to a praise songs with rhythm instruments passed out to the congregation Eucharist the week before the installation of a bishop in a cathedral smells and bells Eucharist and I loved them both! Of course, now I'm talking about worship style more than theology but still, I also love the diversity and the fact that we all are at the table together.

[Mick116]

I believe in what Ignatius wrote.

The apostle Paul admonishes the Church to hold fast to the traditions that he passed on, whether in word or epistle. I think that the best place to find much of the content of this "oral tradition" is to find out what the next generation of Christian leaders believed - i.e. Ignatius et al.

Personally, my own beliefs tend to be quite catholic these days, although they are strongly evangelical where they need to be. Personally, I consider myself standing firmly in both the Catholic and Evangelical traditions of Anglicanism.

[xristos.anesti]

I do. Our Father among saints, Ignatius the Godbearer, Bishop of Antioch is one of my favourites, when it comes to extra-scriptural writters.

So much wisdom,
so much truth,
so much love,
so much God.

[AngCath]

St. Ignatius of Antioch, like all the Early Church Fathers (John Chrysostom, Gregory Nyssa, etc.) should be read in high regard because of their closeness to the Apostles' teachings (that of Jesus Christ himself!). We need to remember not to exalt men to a position higher than they deserve but clearly these men were guided by the Holy Spirit to continue in the Apostles' teachings and the breaking of bread and should be kept in the heart and mind of the Church of today.