07_work_0112_ignatius

The early Church Fathers, like Ignatius, believed that Jesus suffered for our salvation. Ignatius wrote against a heresy called docetism, which denied that Jesus came in the flesh. He emphasized that Jesus truly suffered, not just appeared to suffer. Ignatius was not setting up a model for the atonement but addressing the immediate threat of docetism. Many other Church Fathers faced martyrdom and their beliefs reflected this. To give you a feel for what the early Church Fathers were like on the subject, I'm going to read you a quote from Ignatius, okay? So think around 110 AD for this quote, and I already quoted this one in a previous class because the context of this quote is Ignatius on his way to be martyred, writing against a heresy called docetism, so a terrible heresy which denied that Jesus came in the flesh, right? So he says, he suffered all these things for our sake that we might be saved. He suffered all these things for our sakes that we might be saved. So then right after this he says, he really did suffer, not as certain unbelievers claim that he only seemed to suffer, just as they themselves only seem to be Christians. Do you remember that? That's like the whole reason he was saying he suffered all these things for our sake that we might be saved is so that he could get to combat docetism, right? So he's not trying to set up a model for the atonement. He was just dealing with different issues. He briefly glosses the doctrine of the atonement, suffering as a substitution for salvation. He suffered for our sakes that we might be saved, briefly, but then he goes on to combat docetism, which is why he brings up the issue, right? That was the immediate threat of the day. Now this is kind of an extreme example, but it is largely the same sort of deal that we're going to see for the rest of the quotes. I'm going to try to read to you some quotes from the guys up until Nicaea, because remember before that everybody was under the threat of martyrdom. A lot of the guys I'm going to read to you were actually martyred.