Ignatius was the Bishop of Antioch in Syria. He was arrested and led to Rome to be executed around 110 A.D. During his travels from Syria to Rome he wrote several letters to Christian churches. The following excerpt is from his letter to the Roman churches.
His captors were brutal; Ignatius says they "only get worse the better you treat them." Ignatius knows they will feed him to lions/beasts when he arrives in Rome.
Reflecting on this, Ignatius says, "Now is the moment I am beginning to be a disciple. May nothing seen or unseen begrudge me making my way to Jesus Christ. Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil -- only let me get to Jesus Christ!" (Quotations from Early Christian Fathers, edited and translated by Cyril C. Richardson (Volume I: The Library of Christian Classics), pages 104-105, in William C. Placher's Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 1, 18.)
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