The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch: Byallenbrent

429
Jnl of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 57, No. 3, July 2006. f 2006 Cambridge University Press
doi:10.1017/S0022046906007354 Printed in the United Kingdom
The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch

byALLENBRENT
If we affirm against recent criticism the authenticity of the Middle Recension of the
Ignatian letters, we are nevertheless left with the enigma of Ignatius’ relations with
Polycarp. This paper explains that enigma in terms of two distinct cultural worlds of
early second-century Christianity that come together in the meeting of these two
church leaders. Ignatius was the first great missionary bishop who reinterpreted
church order, the eucharist and martyrdom against the backcloth of the Second
Sophistic in Asia Minor, with its pagan processions, cult and embassies that celebrated
the social order of the Greek city state in relation to imperial power. Much of Ignatius’
iconography was alien to Polycarp, though the latter was finally to canonise both him
and his writings by focusing on his impressively enacted refutation of Docetism
through his portrayal of his forthcoming martyrdom.
A rchbishop James Ussher and Nicolaus Vedelius rediscovered the

Middle Recension of the Ignatian letters as a corpus in actual
manuscripts. Thus they confirmed what was previously a purely
literary hypothesis. Videlius’ discovery of a Greek manuscript (Codex
Mediceus, Florent. Lauren. Plut. LVII.7), in particular, in addition to
Ussher’s locating Grosseteste’s Latin translation (Codex Caiensis 395),
confirmed the six letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the form in which they
CA=Les Constitutions apostoliques, i–ii, ed. M. Metzger (SC cccxx), Paris 1985–7;
CIL=Corpus inscriptionum latinarum, ed. T. Mommsen, G. Henzen, J.-B. De Rossi and
others, Berlin 1862–1996; ICLV=Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres, ed. E. Diehl,
Berlin 1925; I.Delos=Inscriptions de De´los, ed. F. Durrbach, Paris 1929; I.Eph.=Die
Inschriften von Ephesos, ii, ed. C. Bo¨rker and others, Bonn 1979, vii/2, ed. R. Meriç and
others, Bonn 1981; IG=Inscriptiones graecae, ed. U. Koehler, G. Kolbe, G. Kaibel and
others, Berlin 1873–1994; IGRR=Inscriptiones graecae ad res romanas pertinentes, ed. R.
Cagnat and others, Paris 1906–27; IGUR=Inscriptiones graecae urbis Romae, i–iv, ed. L.
Moretti, Rome 1968–; ILS=Inscriptiones latinae selectae, ed. H. Dessau, Berlin 1892–1916;
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the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046906007354
430 ALLEN BRENT
JAA=American Journal of Archaeology; SEG=Supplementum epigraphicum graecum, ed. H.
W. Pleket, R. S. Stroud, and J. H. M.
Strubbe, Amsterdam 1971–; Syll.3=Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum a Guilelmo
Dittenbergero condita et aucta, nunc tertium edita, ed. W. Dittenberger, Leipzig 1915–24;
TAM=Tituli Asiae Minoris, collecti et editi auspiciis Academiae Litterarum Vindobonensis,
ed. E. Kalinka, Vienna 1901–; VCS=Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae; ZAC=Zeitschrift fu¨r
Antikes Christentum
Unless otherwise stated references to the letters of Ignatius and Polycarp are from Ignace
d’Antioche; Polycarp de Smyrne, ed. P. T. Camelot (SC x), Paris 1958.
existed in the Middle Recension.1 The text of the seventh (Romans) had
been transmitted separately.2 Since those discoveries (in 1644 and 1646), the
debate on the authenticity of the Middle Recension continued until the work
of Bishop Joseph Lightfoot and Theodor Zahn inaugurated more than half a
century of consensus on the issue. 3 That consensus, challenged initially by
Joseph Rius-Camps and Robert Joly, 4 has recently been further assailed by
Reinhard Hu¨bner and Thomas Lechner, who assert that the letters of
Ignatius are late second-century forgeries attacking a developed form of
later Valentinianism.5
I have no intention in this paper of resurrecting a modern version of
ancient Vindiciae that defend yet another previous position, in a debate that
has continued since the seventeenth century in an apparently never-ending
cycle. I am well satisfied with a number of reviewers’ comments critical of
the arguments of Hu¨bner and Lechner. 6 The letters do not contain a kind of
later Marcionite Docetism that regarded only the resurrection body of Jesus
as incorporeal.7 Their use of negative terms in the description of the
godhead does not betray a lateness reflecting the anti-Valentinian creed of
Noetus.8 1
J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, London 1889, ii/1, 72–
86. 2
Romans was absent from the eleventh-century Medicean manuscript but was found in
Codex Colbertinus n. 460 (Paris, BN gr. 1451) and related manuscripts between chs iv and v
of the Martyrium Ignatii, and not along with the other six. A great deal was made of this is
arguments that Romans was the one uninterpolated letter: J. Rius-Camps, The four authentic
letters of Ignatius the Martyr, Rome 1980, 16–23; C. P. Hammond Bammel, ‘Ignatian
problems’, JTS xxxiii (1982), 63–5. 3
Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, and T. Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, Gotha
1873. 4
Rius-Camps, Four authentic letters; R. Joly, Le Dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche,
Bruxelles 1979. 5
THE ENIGMA OF IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH 431
R. Hu¨bner, ‘Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von
Antiochien’, ZAC i (1997), 42–70, and Der paradox Eine: Antignostischer Monarchiansimus
im zweiten Jahrhundert: mit einem Beitrag von Markus Vinzent (VCS l, 1999); T. Lechner,
Ignatius adversus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu
den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien (VCS xlvii,1999). 6
Hammond Bammel, ‘Ignatian problems’; A. Lindemann, ‘Antwort auf die Thesen zur
Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien’, ZAC i (1997), 185–
94; G. Scho¨llgen, ‘Die Ignatien als pseudepigrahisches Brief-corpus: Anmerkung zu den
Thesen von Reinhard M. Hu¨bner’, ZAC ii (1998), 16–25; M. J. Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the
second century: an answer to R. Hu¨bner’, ZAC ii (1998), 214–26; H. J. Vogt, ‘Bemerkungen
zur Echtheit der Ignatiusbriefe’, ZAC iii (1999), 50–63. 7
In particular see M. Vinzent, ‘Ich bin kein ko¨rperloses Geisteswesen’, in Hu¨bner, Der
Paradox Eine, 241–86, as a commentary on Ignatius, Smyrnaeans iii.1–3, in Apostolic
Fathers, ii/2,1. My problem is that the Gospel of John can clearly be interpreted against a
backcloth of Docetism, and that the plea to Mary Magdalene: ‘Touch me not’ (John xx.17) in
contrast to that to Thomas (John xx.27) can equally be interpreted as directed against such a
form of postresurrection Docetism. Is the Fourth Gospel therefore late second-century anti-
Marcion? See also Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the second century’, 224–5. 8
Hu¨bner, Der Paradox Eine, 80–7, 101–9; cf. Lindemann, ‘Antwort auf die Thesen zur
Echtheit’, 189–90; Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the second century’, 217–19; Vogt,
‘Bemerkungen zur Echtheit’, 54–5.
The star-hymn in Ephesians has no exclusively Valentinian features. 9
Moreover, the alleged reference to aeon speculation rests on a disputed
reading in the manuscript tradition of the phrase ‘the word not proceeding
from silence’.10
The point that I wish to emphasise here is that such criticisms have not
dealt with the resolution of the fundamental enigma surrounding Ignatius of
Antioch that is the starting point of all arguments assailing the authenticity
of the letters. We need to explain why Irenaeus, and, perhaps, Origen refer
to him circumspectly and even hesitantly, and only later in the second
century.11 We need to explain the differences between the church order
implied by the Ignatian letters and that of Polycarp’s Philippians if we wish
to maintain that the latter collected together the corpus of the Middle
Recension.12 It is with a solution to this enigma that this paper will be
concerned.
Fundamental to the argument, however, will be that recent criticism has
seriously erred in assuming that the background against which Ignatius is to
be read is basically an esoteric one within the Christian community. Rather,
Ignatius’ language and project is a missionary one that recasts the
significance of the Christian ministry and the eucharist in terms
comprehensible to the pagan and Hellenistic world of the city states of Asia
432 ALLEN BRENT
Minor in the Second Sophistic. Ignatius’ world is that of pagan processions,
with chorus and lyre, singing in celebration of omJ onoia or concord in the
city state.13 It is a world in which sophists are elected as ambassadors to
conclude treaties celebrating Hellenic unity, with their attendant festivals of
sacrifice and thanksgiving.14 Part of the celebration of mysteries was also in
the imperial 9
Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, pt II (for criticism see E. Ferguson’s review
in Church History lxxi (2002), 169–70 See also Edwards, ‘Ignatius and the second century’,
222–4.
10
‘the eternal word (locoz aij dioz> ) not proceeding from silence (Sige) (oujk apj o sicg 'z
proelhvn ): Ignatius, Magnesians viii.2. See Vogt, ‘Bemerkungen zur Echtheit’, 50–3 (who
regards this as a reference to Wisdom xviii.14), and C. Lucca, ‘Ignazio di Antiochia e il
martirio: un analisi di Romani 2’, Salesianum lix (1997), 624. See also Lindemann, ‘Antwort
auf die Thesen, 187–8, and Hammond Bammel, ‘Ignatian problems’, 75–6. 11
Irenaeus (Rufinus), Adversus haereses v.28.4, ed. A. Rousseau, L. Doutreleau and
others, Paris 1965–82, quotes Ignatius, Romans iv.1 but anonymously (quidam … de nostris),
for which Eusebius gives us the Greek (tiz tv'n gmetJ ervn) in Historia ecclesiastica iii.36.12,
ed. G. Bardy, Paris 1952, 1955, 1958. Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, 69–74,
argues that Origen’s citations were before Rufinus’ Latin anonymous too, although he admits
there is a Greek fragment of Homiliae in Lucam vi, ed. M. Rauer, Leipzig 1930, with Ignatius
expressly named
(p. 70).
12
Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, chs ii, iv; Hu¨bner, Der Paradox Eine,
136–7. 13
Dio Chrysostom, Orationes xxxix.2, 4, ed. H. Lamar Crosby, Cambridge, M A.–London
1962; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians iv.1. 14
Ignatius, Ephesians iv.1–2; 13.1; Magnesians vi.1; Trallians xii.2; cf. D. Kienast, ‘Die
Homonoia Vertra¨ge in der ro¨mischen Kaiserzeit’, Jahrbuch fu¨r Numismatik xiv (1964),
51–64. See also A. A. R. Sheppard, ‘Homonoia in the Greek cities of the Roman empire’,
Ancient Society xv–xvii (1984–6), 231–2. For sophists as ambassadors see Philostratus, Vitae
sophistarum 515, 520,
cult and its own version of a mystery procession. 1 Each of these will be
represented in Ignatius’ view of Christian church order.
My evidence will be mainly epigraphic. I will show in this paper that
Ignatius’ use of such phrases as prokahgmenoz eiz tj upon , are to be read in the
context of such pagan cultic concepts as heoworoi, naoworoi and aJcioworoi.
The language of the election of diaconal ambassadors ( heopresbutai ) to
1 H. W. Pleket, ‘An aspect of the imperial cult: imperial mysteries’, Harvard Theological
Review lviii (1965), 331–47; A. Brent, The imperial cult and the development of church
order (VCS xlv, 1999), 193–201, and ‘John as theologos: the imperial mysteries and the
Apocalypse’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament lxxv (1999), 69–86.
proclaim the peace of the Church at Antioch reflects stereotyped references
to the institutions of ambassadors in relations between the Greek city states
as these are documented in epigraphic evidence. The parallels between such
terms and institutions are too close to allow us to continue to interpret
Ignatius in the context of Jewish Christianity, and to see episcopal church
order as arising from such an historical source. 2 Ignatius’ recasting of both
the vocabulary and the concepts in which church order and liturgy are
expressed represents therefore a radical secularisation in terms of
Hellenistic paganism of early Christian understanding of such institutions.
Let us now therefore explore, in the light of this background, some
specific passages in Ignatius that illustrate this general case.
Ignatius and Polycarp
If the letters are genuine, then Polycarp’s Philippians has in fact come down
to us as he wrote it without an alleged forger’s interpolations. But in this
case the enigma begins, not with Irenaeus’ references but with Polycarp’s
actual relations with Ignatius. If the letters of the Middle Recension are
genuine, and written by a martyr-bishop, Ignatius by name, his death must
be dated sometime before Polycarp’s own martyrdom, traditionally dated at
23 February 155.3 If Polycarp’s letter is uninterpolated, its account of
Ignatius’
530–1, ed. W. C. Wright, Cambridge, MA–London 1968; cf Ignatius, Philadelphians x;

Smyraeans xi.1–2; Polycarp vii.2-8.1.
procession, coming through Smyrna, and the reference to the collection of
the Ignatian corpus must be true.4 A defence of the authenticity of the
Middle Recension is thus tied to a defence of the integrity of Polycarp’s
Philippians, or if not, a thesis that we have two original, genuine letters of
2 Cf. A. Ehrhard, The apostolic succession in the first two centuries, London 1953, 48–
61, 74–82; W. Telfer, The office of a bishop, London 1962, 68–83.
3 W. Schoedel, ‘Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch’, in H. Temporini and W.
Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der ro¨mischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im
Spiegel der neueren Forschung, Berlin–New York 1992, II/27/i, 354–5, with bibliography
and various proposed dates. As matters stand, therefore, Ignatius’ journey to Rome could be
anywhere before that date, and not necessarily around AD 115 in the reign of Trajan. Given
the integrity of Polycarp’s Philippians, the authenticity thesis is not tied to the artificial
Chronology of Eusebius or to the allegedly genuine tradition of Julius of Africanus, pace
Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, 98–102.
4 Polycarp, Philippians i.1; xiii.
434 ALLEN BRENT
Polycarp combined into one.5 But if either of these alternatives is the case,
there remains still the enigma of why the church order of Polycarp’s
community is not that of Ignatius’ letters. Even if, as I believe, Ignatius
does not represent episcopal government in a later monarchical or scholastic
form,6nevertheless Polycarp shows no understanding of the former’s central
point, and its theological justification, that each individual Church must be
governed by a single bishop with a council of presbyters and attendant
deacons.
In Polycarp the three-fold order is not explicit. Polycarp does not use nor
claim to be the one epij Askopoz, and it seems strange that he should
disregard the title that Ignatius clearly gives to him in that sense. 21 There
appears to be a college of presbyters, 7 with a number of deacons8 and an
order of widows,9 as also in the Pastoral Epistles. In the latter, though the
term epij Askopoz is used, it would appear to be in a generic sense, which
suggests that there was more than one of them, as in Clement of Rome, who
appears to use epij Askopoi and presbute roi in the plural as interchangeable
groups.10
The letter begins: ‘Polycarp and his fellow-presbyters ( Polukarpoz kai oiJ
sun au jtv'/ presbute roi)’. Though these words seem to indicate Polycarp’s de
facto pre-eminence, they do not seem to suggest that he held an office
distinct from the presbyterate that he could exercise de iure, as Ignatius
claims about the bishop’s office would require. There is a suggestive
parallel here with the pseudonymous writer of 1 Peter v.1 when he says: ‘I
exhort presbyters amongst you (presbuterouz ou\n enj uJmin pa' rakalv' ) who am
your fellow presbyter (o sump resbute roz) and witness of the sufferings of
Christ (kai martuz tv'n tou' Xristou' pahgmatvn ).’
In the meeting of Ignatius and Polycarp, given the literary integrity of
Philippians, there are therefore two distinct, early Christian worlds. I wish
now to tease out the roots of Ignatian church order in the pagan context of
the Second Sophistic, with its mystery processions led by priests who bore
images of the deities that they represented. Those deities in turn embodied
5 N. P. Harrison, Polycarp’s two epistles to the Philippians, Cambridge 1936; cf. W.

Schoedel, ‘Polycarp’s witness to Ignatius of Antioch’, Vigiliae Christianae xli (1987), 1–10.
6 A. Brent, ‘The Ignatian epistles and the threefold ecclesiastical order’, Journal of
Religious
History xvii (1992), 18–32. 21
Ignatius, Polycarp Inscr.
7 Polycarp, Philippians vi.1, cf. 1 Timothy v.17, 19; Titus i.5, cf. Philippians i.1.
8 Philippians v.2–3; cf. 1 Tim. iii.8, 12; cf. Phil. i.1.
9 Philippians iv.3; 6.11; cf. 1 Tim. v.3–16.
10 Clement, Corinthians xlii.4–5, ed. B. D. Ehrmann, Cambridge, MA–London 2003, cf.
xliv.5 and xlvii.6.
the collective and corporate personality of their particular city. I will argue
that Ignatius understood both the gathering for the eucharist and his own
martyrprocession as a mystery cult of the same sort, duly sanitised and
choreographed, and that he conceptualised his view of church order on the
basis of such a model.11 Though Polycarp accepted such a procession
because it provided an enacted refutation of Docetism, he otherwise found
Ignatius’ conceptualisation of order quite unintelligible. Here we have the
explanation of the enigma of Ignatius, and the reason why he was held at
arms length, mentioned so circumspectly by Irenaeus, and his imagery only
canonised in the Didascalia and Constitutiones apostolicae at the expense of
a radical reinterpretation of his original concepts. 12
Ignatian church order
Ignatius’ highly idiosyncratic view of church order was as alien to Irenaeus

as it was to the latter’s hero, and ‘orthodox’ predecessor, Polycarp. It was
Irenaeus’ concept of one particular presbyter as a teaching successor who
headed a school (diadoxoz ), and, therefore, the one epij Askopoz de iure and
not a presbyter whose authority was merely de facto amongst his council of
sunpresbute roi that was the next stage in the development of the presbyteral
church order that Polycarp knew. 13 But for Ignatius the bishop is neither the
successor of the Apostles nor does he perform an act of ordination upon
presbyters, deacons or one who is to join him as a fellow bishop over
another congregation.14
For Ignatius, the apostolic order of ministers is to be found in the council
of the presbyterate. The bishop does not exercise the apostolic ministry but
rather that of God the Father, whose image he is to project in the liturgical
11 For an account of the choreographing of the martyr-procession see W. Schoedel,

Ignatius of Antioch: a commentary on the letters of Ignatius of Antioch , Philadelphia 1985,
11–12; cf. A. Brent, ‘Ignatius of Antioch and the imperial cult’, Vigiliae Christianae xlix
(1998), 111–15ff.
12 A. Brent, ‘The relations between Ignatius of Antioch and the Didascalia apostolorum’,
Second Century viii (1991), 129–56 See also G. Scho¨llgen, Die Anfa¨nge der
Professionalisierung des Klerus und das kirchliche Amt in der Syrischen Didaskalie, Mu¨nster
1998, 119–20.
13 For an account of order as diadoxg see A. Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in
the third century: communities in tension before the emergence of a monarch-bishop (VCS
xxxi, 1995), 420–4, 476–82.
14 Idem, ‘The Ignatian epistles’, 24–8, and ‘History and eschatological mysticism in
Ignatius of Antioch’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses lxv (1989), 311–13. See also
Scho¨llgen, Professionalisierung, 24–5.
436 ALLEN BRENT
assembly. The representatives of Christ, whether at the eucharist or in the
community generally, are the deacons.15 As Ignatius says:
Likewise let all revere the deacons ( omoiJ Avz entj repeshvsan touz dia konouz ) as
Jesus Christ (vzJ Ijgsou'n Xriston ), even as they do the bishop who is the image of
the Father (vzJ kai ton e pij Askopon o[nta t upon tou ' patroz ), and the presbyters as
God’s council (touz d e presbuterouz vz sunJ edrion heou' ) and as a band of Apostles
(kai vzJ sundesmon apj ost olvn ): without these a church cannot be summoned ( xvriz
toutvn ejkklgsiAa ouj kaleitai' ).16Similarly he says:
Be eager to do all things in God’s concord ( en oj monoiJ Aa/ heou' spoudafete p anta
prassein ) with the bishop presiding as an image of God (prokahgmenou tou' episj
kopou e iz tj upon heou ') and the presbyters as an image of the council of the
Apostles (kai tv'n presbutervn eiz tj upon suned riAou tv'n apostj olvn ), and of the
deacons … entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ ( kai tv'n diakonvn tv 'n
pepisteumenvn diakoniAan Ijgsou' Xristou').17
It is important to note that in these texts there is no mention of the later

order of Christendom in any of the concepts used. If, as Lechner argues, the
Ignatian letters had been deliberately forged in order to prove the later,
Hegesippan and Irenaean, claim based upon equally forged succession lists,
then they would have reflected that later order with which, in fact, they
have no real fit.33 Undoubtedly for Ignatius the three-fold order authenticates
the gathering of believers as the Church. But it does not do so in anything
like the sense of Hegesippus and Irenaeus since there is no model of diadoxg.
There is no trace of an idea of the bishop as teaching successor to the
Apostles being able to guarantee his validity and authenticity by the
elaboration of a diadoxg or list of teachers in lineal, chronological descent, as
for Greek philosophical schools.18 Ignatius makes no mention, any more
15 In additions to quotations in the text above see Trallians i.1–2.

16 Trallians iii.1. See also Philadelphians v.1.
17 Magnesians vi.1. I follow Lightfoot and Zahn in adopting the reading tupoz (along with
the [abridged] Syriac [S] and Armenian [A]) versions, and not topoz even though the latter is
attested by both Greek and Latin versions of the Middle Recension (G and L) as well as the
Greek (g) and Latin (l) of the Long Recension. The reading is also supported by Severus of
Antioch (c. 515). However, the reading tupoz in Trallians iii.1 is secure, which must be a
powerful support for not reading topoz instead in this similar passage. Furthermore Didascalia
ii.26 attests such an Ignatian usage, which was misunderstood by that writer as type in an
exegetical, Old Testament sense. This would explain why Severus and later scribes replaced
it with topoz which by that time described the physical space assigned to the various clerical
orders in the architectural arrangement of the basilicas of eastern Christendom. See,
however, Schoedel, Ignatius, 141. 33 Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, 110–11.
18 E. Molland, ‘Irenaeus of Lugdunum and the apostolic tradition’, this J OURNAL i (1950),
12–28, and ‘Le De´velopment de l’ideé de succession apostolique’, Revue d’histoire et de
than does Polycarp in the case of a presbyter, of any act of ordination by the
imposition of hands, or of Peter as his apostolic predecessor. The case for
pseudepigrapha or pseudepigraphic interpolations here would require
something far more like the letters of Peter to Clement, and Clement to
James which we meet at the beginning of the Pseudoclementine homilies.19
For Ignatius the public role of the bishop, with his presbyters and
deacons, is focused in, and demonstrated by, their role in the liturgical
drama.20 It is because of the character of their role-play that without them
there is no gathering as ejkklgsiAa (xvriz toutvn e jkklgsiAa ouj kaleitai' ). In the
community gathered for the eucharist the bishop, seated in pre-eminent
view (prokahgmenoz), creates the image of God the Father (eiz tj upon heou ' or
as onta t[ upon tou ' patroz ). The Seer of the Apocalypse had seen in heaven
the presbyterate seated around the throne of God, and of the Lamb, ‘slain
from the foundation of the world’. In Ignatius’ liturgical assembly, the
prominently seated Father-bishop has positioned around him the circle of
the presbyters who create the image of the spirit-filled Apostles at the
Johannine Pentecost:
Be eager to be confirmed (spoudafete ou \n bebaivhgnai' ) in the teachings of the Lord
and of the Apostles (en toij z d' ocmasin tou ' KuriAou kai tv'n apostj olvn ) … together
with your worthily esteemed bishop (meta touj ' ajiopj repestatou e pisj kopou u Jmv'n ),
and the worthily woven spiritually garlanded presbyterate ( kai ajioplj okou
pneumatikou' stewanou tou ' presbuteriAou), and of the deacons according to God (kai
tv'n kata hej o`n diakonvn ).37
We may also conclude that the deacons, who were previously described as
to be ‘revered (entj repeshvsan)… as Jesus Christ (vzJ Ij gsou'n Xriston )’, or as
‘entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ ( pepisteumenvn diakoniAan Ij gsou'
Xristou')’, create, as tupoi , the image of Jesus Christ.
According to John xx.22 the risen Christ breathed ( enewj usgsen ) the Holy
Spirit into the twelve gathered in the upper room and inaugurated the
Church as the extension of the incarnation. In a typical allusive reference to
the Johannine tradition, Ignatius refers to this scene when he says: ‘For this
cause the Lord received anointing on his head (dia tou 'to muron elaben e[ pj i
philosophie religieuse xxxiv (1954), 1–29; A. Brent, ‘Diogenes Laertius and the apostolic
succession’, this JOURNAL xliv (1993), 367–89.
19 For references and discussion see Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church, 477–
501.
20 For discussion of the Ignatian typology see idem, ‘History and eschatological
mysticism’, 311–16; Cultural episcopacy and ecumenism: representative ministry in church
history from the age of Ignatius of Antioch to the Reformation, with special reference to
contemporary ecumenism, Leiden 1992, 84–5, and
Imperial cult, 213–23. 37
Magnesians xiii.1.
438 ALLEN BRENT
tgz' kewalgz au' jtou' oJ Kurioz) that he might breathe incorruption upon the
Church (ina pn{ eg/ tg/' ejkklgsiAa/ awhaj rsiAan).’21
For Ignatius, therefore, the significance of ministerial office is that the
three kinds of office-holders (bishop, priests and deacons), create the
Church by reflecting in the images or tupoi that they wear, the corporate,
liturgical life of the community in the ongoing drama of redemption.
Flowing through the bishop is the divinity of God the Father, of whom he is
a human image or likeness, giving from his throne ‘the bread from heaven
to eat’.39 The presbyterate recalls and realises afresh the Spirit given to the
apostolic circle in John on the evening of the Resurrection. The deacons, as
they take the eucharistic gifts from the Father-bishop and give them to the
people, issuing their appropriate eucharistic instructions, thus represent the
Christ who comes from the one Father ( ton awj ’enoz patJ roz p roelhonta ) and
returns to him who is one again (kai eiz ej na o{ nta[ kai xvrgsanta ).22
This is a whole world away from Irenaeus’ view of order in terms of
diadoxg in a lineal, historical descent. There is no mention of any act of
ordination producing a legitimate succession that precludes false teachers
from any right to practice as the true diadoxoi .
We must now seek the cultural and historical context within which such a
view of church order is not even slightly understood by Ignatius’
successors, as seen in the recasting of his concepts in a far different though
to him more intelligible form by the author of the Constitutiones
apostolicae.41
What, therefore, is the origin of the apparently rather odd description of a
bishop, or the presbyterate, or a deacon, as presiding as an image
(prokahgmenoz eiz tj upon )? How, and in what context, can images be said to
preside?
tupozand cultic processions
The essential meaning of tupoz is that of an impression left by a seal or a die

on wood, stone, metal or clay; it thus comes to be used of an image on a
21 Ephesians xvii.1. Schoedel, Ignatius, 81, detects, in addition, parallels in the Odes of
Solomon
11.15, in the Gospel of Truth (Nag Hammadi codex I, 33, 39–34.34), ed. H. W. Attridge,
Leiden
22 pantez vz eJ iz ej na na{ on s unt rexete heou', vz eJ jp i en husiast} grion, epj i e na}Ijgsou'n
Xriston , ton awj j enJ oz pat roz p roelhonta kai eiz ej na o{ nta[ kai xvrgsanta : Magnesians vii.2. 41
See n. 32 above and related text.
coin or a tattoo mark or brand on an animal or slave. 23 It is also used of a
wooden
1985, and in the Gospel of Philip (Nag Hammadi codex II, 77.35–78.12), ed. F. Wisse,
Leiden
1989. 39
John vi.32.
cast for tiles that decorate scenes on an altar. 43 But it is also used to refer to
portable images of deities.
Josephus, when he uses tupoz of idols, specifically refers to portable
statues where he describes again the scene in Genesis xxxi.32 in which
Rachael has stolen the teraphim or portable gods of her father Laban. 24 Thus
Josephus refers to Rachel’s small, portable idols or teraphim as tupoi : they
are not basreliefs.25 There is here a further feature of tupoi or portable
teraphim in the cultural context in which Flavius Josephus is writing
(Domitian, AD 93–4). Rachael’s tupoi tv 'n hev'n are, clearly, patriAoi. These
terms clearly refer to the lares et penates, the gods of hearth and home
carried after the destruction of Troy by Aeneas. To his Graeco-Roman
readers tupoi were clearly portable images, which could be used to transfer a
cult and found it on new shores. Josephus followed the LXX in his
understanding of tupoz , a word that the latter rarely uses but then only of
portable images.26 But his usage was not idiosyncratic when he used the
term for teraphim, which were clearly portable, rounded statues.
23 ‘Mot issu de la meˆme racine que tuptv , un tupoz est d’abord l’empreinte en creux
(imprime´) ou en saillie (repousseé) que laisse la frappe d’une matrice, l’emble`me figure
sur cette matrice et que la frappe reproduira. Ainsi appelle-t-on tupoz le coin mone´taire et le
type imprimeé par le coin sur le flan de me´tal, cachet de bois qui sert a` timbrer, sur
l’argile fraıˆche, les amphores ou les tuiles, le fer marquer en relief, assujetti a` l’extre´mite´
d’un kautgr pour imprimer a` chaud une marque sur un animal, un esclave, un criminel. Le
tupoz est aussi le moule creux utilise´ par le coroplathe et l’e´preuve d’argile qui sortira de ce
moule, le relief obtenu au repousse´ sur une feuille de me´tal’: G. Roux, ‘Le Sens de tupoz ’,
Revue des e´tudes anciennes lxiii (1961), 5.
24 JPaxgla kai touz t upouz tv 'n hev'n (ouz s} ebein patriAouz o[ntaz n omimon g n\ , sunanelomeng
sunapediAdraske meta tg z' adelwgj z' ; peri mentoi tv'n iJe rvmatvn e kjeleuen e[reunan poieishai' .
dejamenou de Labanou t gn e [reunan, JPaxgla punhanom eng, katatiAhgsi touz t upouz e iz tj gn s acgn
.
tg z we' rousgz au jtgn kamglou : Josephus, Antiquitates 1.322 (10), ed. H. St. J. Thackeray,
Cambridge, MA.–London 1967.
25 Contrary to Roux, ‘Le Sens de tupoz ’, 5.
26 anelj abete t gn s kgngn Molox kai to a [stron tou' heou' uJmv'n Paiwan , touz t upouz au jtv'n ouz
e} poij gsate eautoiJ z' : Amos v.26 (LXX), quoted in Acts vii.44. An immovable idol is called
an eikj vn in Isaiah xl.19–20 (LXX): mg e ikj ona e poij Agsen tektvn, g[ xrusoxooz xvne usaz
xrusiAon periexrusvsen au jton , omoi Avma kateskeuasen au jton ; julon ca [r a[sgpton ekj lecetai
tektvn kai sowv'z fgt pv'z stgsei e ikj o na au'jtou', kai ina m{ g sale utai . 47
440 ALLEN BRENT
In 1838, in Rome on the Via di Ripetta, a marble base was uncovered. It
was inscribed ‘The statue of Marcianus, proconsul of Greece [sc. Achaia],
stands resplendent (Markianou' stiAlbei tupoz Elladoz anhupj atoio ).’47 Clearly
such a base did not originally support a bas-relief but a rounded statue of
Marcianus, here designated a tupoz .48 Moretti’s photograph shows the base
for the statue that was erected upon it; such a statue is called tupoz which
was not therefore only applied to a bas-relief. Similarly, the ‘statue standing
upright (tupoz o r[ hioz)’ found at Ephesus and set up again could not have
been simply a bas-relief: ‘This upright statue which you see (tou'ton
43
The Inventory of Hieropes, does mention a ‘wooden pattern ( tupon j ulinon ) for the titles
that are on the Ceraton (keramiAdvn tv'n epj i ton Keratv'na )’. The latter was an altar, described
in I.Delos 442 B.172 and discussed in Roux, ‘Le Sens de tupoz ’, 12–14.
o27{n eisoj raa z t/ upon o [rhion ) of Antoninus (Aj ntvneiAnou) concealed [in the
ground] at Ephesus, Dorotheus rededicated ( Dvroheoz Ptel eg/ hgkato
kruptomenon ).’49 In consequence we can infer from the collections of
epigrams in the Anthologie de Planude, whose autograph is MS Marcianus
graecus 481, that they are copied from similar bases on which similar lost
statues were erected.50
It must be further noted that the word tupoz is to be found on an
inscription on the base of a mutilated statue, not a flat bas-relief, a statue of
Scholastica.51 On its pedestal base we read: ‘You are looking on the image
of my godly wife, o so wise Scolastica, o stranger … ( tupon cunai koz eu
jsebouz~ liAan sowgz Sxolasti' kiAaz moi tou'to (n) v\ jene blepeiz).52 Here tupoz
clearly refers to an image in the form of a rounded statue.
Ignatius nowhere uses tupoz in the predominant, New Testament, sense of
an Old Testament figure, object, or event to be interpreted figuratively or
allegorically.53 To what extent are we entitled to interpret Ignatius’ use of
tupoz as analogous with this, pagan sense of ‘portable image’?
Ignatius describes the clerics who join his martyr-procession in the
following way:
IGUR, 67. See comments in D. Feissel, ‘Notes d’e´pigraphie chre´tienne (vii) xx:
quelques de´dicaces de statues dećerneés par les empereurs’, Bulletin de correspondence
hellenique cviii (1984), 545–58 at p. 547 n. 1. 48 L. Robert, Hellenica: recueil d’épigraphie
de numismatique et d’antiquite´s grecques, Paris 1948, iv. 16 n. 3.
27 Corinthians x.6–11; Romans v.14; Acts vii.44: kata t on t upon o {n evJ rakei =Exodus
xxv.40: kata t on t upon t on dedeicm enon soi en tvj '/ or[ ei; Hebrews viii.5.
You are all therefore (estj e ou\n) cult associations (sunodoi p antez )28, God-bearers
(heoworoi) and temple-bearers (kai naoworoi), Christ bearers (xristoworoi), bearers of
holy things (aJcioworoi), in every way adorned with the commandments of Jesus
Christ (kata p anta kekosmgmenoi en ej ntolaij z' Ijgsou' Xristou').55
Here Ignatius’ usage parallels precisely mystery cults in whose processions
officials bore various images by those described with - woroz adjectives.
Ignatius describes the Ephesians as ‘fellow initiates ( Paulou summ ustai , tou'
gciasmJ enou)’, and the Trallians as having those ‘who are deacons of the
mysteries (touz dia konouz o ntaz m[ ustg rivn)’.29
49
Corpus inscriptionum graecarum, ed. J. Franz, A. Kirchhoff, E. Curtius and A.
Boeckh, ii, Berlin 1828, 2967.
50
This manuscript forms the basis of R. Aubreton and F. Buffie`re, Anthologie
greque, II: Anthologie Planude, xiii, Paris 1980.
51
F. Miltner, ‘Vorlaüfiger Bericht u¨ber die Ausgrabungen in Ephesos’, Jahreshefte
des o¨sterreichischen Instituts in Wien xliii (1956), Beiblatt xxi, 26 abb. 15. 52 I.Eph. ii. 453.
Diodorus describes those who participated in Philip of Macedon’s
deification shortly before his death in 365 BC as accompanied by the statues
of the twelve gods in procession ‘adorned marvellously with the greatest
resplendence of wealth (kai tg'/ lamprotgti tou ' ploutou haumastv 'z
kekosmgmena)’. Thus those who accompany Ignatius as human tupoi are
‘vested’ or ‘adorned with the commandments of Christ ( kekosmgmenoien taij
z' entolaij z' Ij gsou' Xristou')’.30 The procession in which Philip is enthroned
with the twelve gods began when the crowd ‘ran together ( sunetrexen)’,31like
Ignatius exhorting the Churches to ‘run together ( suntrexein)’, to ‘form a
chorus (xoroz ci Aneshe)’ with their ‘inspired multitude ( en hev[ ]' plghoz' )’,32
28 The sunodoi are not merely ‘companions’, nor even the anachronous ‘fellow pilgrims’
of recent translations. One of the registers of meaning of this term is ‘members of a common
cult or guild’. The usual sunodoz appears as a plural here because the churches are joining his
martyr-procession through their representatives, and therefore each church individually is
viewed as its own cult. Furthermore, the term has close associations with mystery cults. For
sunodoz in this sense see SEG vi.59 (=IGRR iii.209); xliii.773.32, 33; 1135; IGUR, 143; 246.B.
2–9 (=IG xiv.253); Syll.3, 851.7–9; 26–7; IG v.2.269 and 270. 55 Ephesians ix.2.
29 Ephesians xii.12; Trallians ii.3. See also the tria must gria kraucgz' in Ephesians 19.1. For
mimgtgz in this sense see also Ephesians i.1; Trallians i.2; Romans vi.1.
30 Ephesians ix.2.
31 Diodorus Sicilicus xvi.92.5, ed. C. Bradford Welles, Cambridge, MA–London 1970.
32 Thus John Damascene reads enheon plg[ hoz' in Ignatius, Trallians viii.2, which has a
different reading in the Latin and Greek of the Middle Recension and the Coptic.
442 ALLEN BRENT
or to ‘run together to one temple-shrine of God ( pantez vzJ eiz ej na na{ on sunt
rexete heou')’.33
There is clear evidence of the role of those who bore images of gods in
procession. In 1926 a three-sided marble pillar was unearthed on the via
Tusculana between the via Labicana and the via Latina. 61 Here we have a list
of names of a Dionysiac sunodoz or hiAasoz, in columns, stating the names of
the ‘priests and priestesses (ieJ reiz' and ieJ reiai)’,34 the ‘Hierophant or of the
sacred (ieJ rowantgz )’63 and otherwise assigning each member to their role in
the mystery drama.35 Its heading clearly reads: ‘[In honour of] Pompeia
Agrippinilla the priestess (’[Acr]ippeiniAllan tgn i eJ reian) the initiants into the
mysteries who are listed beneath (mustai oiJ uJpocecrammenoi).’
From the way in which this inscription continues, we can appreciate why
and in what sense clerics who join his procession from the various Churches
are described as bearing images of God ( heoworoi), Christ (xristoworoi),
miniature shrines (naoworoi) or sacred vessels (aJcioworoi) generally. We find
these paralleled in Robert’s list of functionaries in religious rituals, where
compounds with -woroz refer quite literally to those who carry sacred
objects, such as ‘[miniature] altar bearer ( bvmoworoz)’, ‘casket bearer
(kistoworoz)’, ‘fire bearer (purworoz)’, ‘fan bearer (liknaworoz)’, ‘basket bearer
(kangworoz)’, ‘bearer of olive shoots (halloworoz)’, ‘phallus bearer
(walloworoz)’ and ‘god bearer (heoworoz)’.36 Apuleius, moreover, also gives
examples in the Isis mysteries in which ‘the foremost high priests (antistites
sacrorum proceres) … carried before them the distinctive attributes of the
most powerful gods (potentissimorum deum proferebant insignes
exuvias)’. But these heoworoi were also accompanied in the goddess’s
procession by a second group, who ‘carried with both hands an altar
(manibus ambabus gerebat altaria)’. Clearly the altar in question was
miniature; thus we have bvmoworoi as counterparts to Ignatius’ naoworoi or
aJcioworoi.37
In the Attis mysteries, the kistoworoz bore the chest containing the entrails
of the god provided by the self-mutilation of the priest in question. We have
33 Magnesians vii.2; cf. Ephesians iv.1–2; iii.2. 61 Dedication to Agrippinilla: IGUR, 160.
34 Ibid.160.IA.5–15. See also F. Cumont, ‘La Grande Inscription bachique du
Metropolitan Museúm, II: Commentaire religieux de l’inscription’, JAA xxxvii (1933), 215–
63. 63 IGUR, 160.IA.16–17.
35 A. Vogliano, ‘La grande iscrizione bacchica del metropolitan museum’, pt I, plates
xxviixxix, JAA xxxvii (1933), 215–31; Cumont, ‘La Grande Inscription’, 232–63.
´
36 L. Robert, ‘Recherches E pigraphiques: VI inscriptions d’Athe`nes’, in his Opera
minora selecta: e´pigraphie et antiquite´s grecques, i–vii, Amsterdam 1969–90, ii. 839 n. 6
(=Revue des e´tudes
37 Apuleius, Metamorphoses xi.10, ed. J. A. Hanson, Cambridge, MA–London, 1989.
a marble relief on a base inscribed in memory of L. Lartius Anthus 38who is
a kistoworoz of the temple of Ma-Bellone. 39 Indeed, like Ignatius’ heoworoz,
the title of his position and function in the cultic procession is used almost
like the cognomen that Ignatius gives himself in the inscription of every
letter.
Lartius is depicted on the relief, wearing a laurel crown decorated with
three medallions portraying divinities. In his left hand are two double axes,
and in his right a laurel twig with which to sprinkle the blood produced by
self-mutilation with the axes. On the ground, to the right of Lartius, is a
cistus with a closed lid, evidently made of basket-work.
The reception of Ignatius as heoworoz is well described as the Ephesians
heard and sent representatives to his procession as he passed along the
upper route to Smyrna via Philadelphia. His martyr-procession too is a
celebration of Christ’s death, which can be seen in Ignatius’ body. He
speaks of the Ephesians as greeting his procession and becoming part of it,
like bacchic maenads, or as we have seen, the worshippers of Attis roused
to ecstasy or ‘inflamed (anafvpuj rgsantez )’ by ‘the blood of god (en aj imati
heou{ ')’ in the drama in which they participate through mimesis: ‘being
imitators of God (mimgtai ontez heou[ ') being inflamed by the blood of God
(anafvpuj rgsantez e n aj imati heou{ ' ). … in order that I might be able to
achieve my goal of becoming a disciple (ina di{ a tou ' epituxeij n dunghv' '
mahgtgz ei nai\ )’.69
anciennes lxii (1960), 323 n. 6). See also idem, ‘Le Serpent Glycon d’Aboˆnouteichos a`
´
Atheńes et Arte´mis d’E phe`se a` Rome’, Opera minora, v. 747–69 (=Comptes rendus des
seánces: Acade´mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1981), 519–35).
We have seen how, for Ignatius, the bishop as prokahgmenoz eiz tj upon is
‘pre-eminent as an image’ of the Father. Ignatius does not always make the
later distinctions between persons in a triune godhead, and clearly his
FatherGod is a suffering god. 40 In joining the procession with its enacted
38 CIL vi. 2233. See also E. Strong, ‘Sepulchral relief of a priest of Bellona’, Papers of the
British School at Rome ix (1920), 207: ‘L. Lartio Antho Cistophoro aedis Bellonae
Pulvinensis fecit C. Quinctius Rufinus Fratri et Domino suo pientissimo cui et monumentum
fecit interius agro Apollonis Argentei Quinctius Rufinus. (C. Quinctius Rufus has made this
for L. Lartius Anthus Cistophoros of the Temple of Bellona for his most pious brother, for
whom also Quinctius Rufinus made a monument in the neighbourhood of the field of the
silver Apollo)’.
39 Ma-Bellone was the divine Mother in Cappadocia and Pontus, assimilated to the
Roman cult of Bellona from the time of Sulla when introduced at Rome. She was associated
nevertheless also with Magna Mater: Strong, ‘Sepulchral relief’, 207. 69 Ephesians i.1–2.
40 The author of the Long Recension corrects Ignatius’ ‘Patripassianism’ at this point with:
444 ALLEN BRENT
drama, they participate in the saving events of the martyr-bishop, the tupoz
of the suffering and rising God:
You are the highway of those slaughtered for God (paradoz e ste tvj 'n eiz hej on anaij
roumenvn), fellow initiates of Paul ( Paulou summ ustai ) the most blessed who has
been sanctified, who has been martyred (tou' gciasmJ enou, tou' memarturgmenou,
ajiomaj kariAstou). May I be allowed to be found in his footsteps ( ou| cenoito moi u
Jpo ta i xng eu[ Jrehgnai' ) when I attain to God (o{tan Heou' epitj uxv ).71
Ignatius does not, however, speak of himself as tupoworoz, which is not

otherwise found in any case, however much his role as heoworoz may carry
that implication. But that he does not use such terms as eikj onez or a[calmata
of what he bears may betray considerable sophistication in the way in which
he is manipulating the pagan imagery of his discourse, both verbal and
iconographic, in his reconceptualisation of early Christian ecclesial order.
We must first note that the verb worein' , from which the ending of -woroz
is derived, embraces the English concept of ‘to wear’ as well as ‘to carry’.
Though tupoworoz as the bearer of a portable image of a deity occurs neither
in pagan literature nor epigraphy, such tupoi are carried indirectly by a
stewangworoz (stewangworein' ) in a context that will now be considered.
L. Lartius Anthus, kistoworoz of Ma-Bellona, whose inscribed stele has
already been referred to,41 wears a crown, possibly originally golden, of a
laurel leaf design, which was adorned with three medallions depicting
helmeted divinities. The central medallion was probably of Bellona, with
Mars on the right and Minerva on the left. 42 Here are tupoi set in a stewanoz
worn by a priest who heads a procession. We have many examples of such
stewanoi bearing three or sometimes multiple tupoi whether of members of
the imperial family, the Capitoline Triad or gods of the city
state.43
Though a kistoworoz was not necessarily, any more than a gallus, a fully
ordained priest, Strong notes that in a different epigraph one Nonius
Elphideforus is defined as coronatus cistifer and that in the list of cistiferi
anafvpuj rgsantez e n aj imati{ Xristou'. Ephesians xii.2.71
41 See n. 67 above and related text.

42 Strong, ‘Sepulchral relief’, 208–9, and plate xxvi. See also Cumont, ‘La Grande
´
Inscription’, 51, plate ii/2. See also Robert, ‘Nouvelles Remarques sur l’e´dit d’E dit d’E
´
zira’, Opera minora, ii. 967–8 (=Bulletin de correspondance helleńique [1930], 263).
43 J. Inan-E. Alfo¨ldi Rosenhaum, Roman and early Byzantine portrait sculpture in Asia
Minor, London 1966, 128, catalogue no. 151, plate nos lxxxiii/4, lxxxvii/1–2 (Izmir
Museum, inv. no. 648, negs. E.R. xvi, 37, 38, 39); 137, catalogue no. 169, Ephesus,
Alexander Severus, plate no. xcviii/4 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Inv. No. I, 922.
¨
Neg. O sterreichisches
(kistoworoi) of Virtus-Bellona some are called sac. (=sacerdos) as well,
presumably indicated by the stewanoz.75 Thus we may say that Ignatius is the
coronatus in that he wears in the procession the tupoz of the suffering God,
as well bearing that image of God himself ( heoworoz). Those clerics who
join his procession are the tupoi in the liturgical assembly of their ejkklgsiAai
where they act the drama of replay. In the martyr-procession they may
indeed play a lesser role as naoworoi, aJcioworoi and xristoworoi, describing
that which they bear in support of the martyr-bishop, who wears the tupoz
pat roz in his own flesh.
We can see Ignatius’ imagery reflected in a decree of Oinoanda. On 5
July AD 125 the city council of Oinoanda in Lycia formalised by decree the
benefaction of C. Iulius Demosthenes, who had founded a music festival
and competition (a[cvn mousikoz ) associated with the imperial cult and
approved by a letter of Hadrian to the Termessians (29 August 124). 44 Here
we have heoworoi, now replaced by sebastoworoi, whose function it is to carry
in procession images of both the imperial family and of the ancestral god
(Apollo), as well as a portable altar:
(61) …ten sebastophoroi should also be chosen by him ( aiJreishai u' Jp j aujtou' kai
sebastoworouz iA v) (62) who, wearing white robes and crowns of celery (oi[{ ti]nez
worou'ntez eshgj ta leu' kgn kai stewa [non se]liAninon) will carry (bastasousi ) and lead
forward (kai proajousi ) and escort (kai propompeusousi ) the images of the emperors
(taz sebasti kaz e ikj onaz ) and (63) the image of our ancestral god Apollo ( kai tgn
[tou'] patrv/ou gmvJ 'n heou' Aj pollvnoz ) and the previously mentioned holy altar ( kai
ton p [rod]gloumenon i~ eJ ron bvm on ).77
But the priest who leads the procession is to wear the tupoi of the imperial
family and ancestral god (Apollo) in a stewanoz, as we learnt at the
beginning:
(51) he has promised (epgnceij Alato) that in addition (52) at his own expense to
make ready (kataskeuasai e jk tv'n idij Avn) and dedicate to the city (kai anj [aheinai tg'
'/po]lei) both a golden crown (kai stewanon xrusou'n) carrying relief portraits
(e[[xo]nta ek[ tupa prosvpa ) of the emperor Nerva Trajan Hadrian ( Aujtokrato roz
Neroua
Archaëologisches Institut, no. I. 352), and Ro¨mischen und fru¨hbyzantinische

Portra¨tsplastik aus der Tu¨rkei, Mainz 1979, 210, cat. no. 186, plates 138/1, 139, 140/3;
274 (Geyre (Aphrodisias) Grabungs Inv. No. 64–222 (Head) and 64–221 (Body) (Neg.:
E.A.R. I, 31–34; M.A.D. 1964–5). See also G. F. Hill, ‘Priester-Diademe’, Jahreshefte des
44 SEG xxxviii.1462.A.1–9. 77
Ibid. C.61–3.
446 ALLEN BRENT
o¨sterreichischen archaölogischen Institutes in Wien ii (1899), 245ff. and Taf.viii, who
identifies well-preserved busts with members of the imperial family. 75 Strong, ‘Sepulchral
relief’, 209–11, commenting on ILS ii.5432.
Traianou' AJ dria[nou']) (53) Caesar Augustus (KaiAsaroz Sebastou') and our
Leader the ancestral god Apollo (kai tou' prokahg[cet]ou g[J mv']n patrv/ou heou'
Aj pollvnoz ), which the agonothete will wear ( o{n worgsei o J acvnohj etgz ), and an
altar decorated with silver (kai bvmon pe riarcuron) which has an inscription (54) of
the dedicator (exonta e[ picj ra[wgn ] aujtou' tou' anateheij kotoz ).45
We note furthermore the appropriateness of calling such images tupoi , since

they are described as e[ktupa prosvpa . Prosvpon , of course, had a wide
application as meaning ‘face’, ‘mask’ and even ‘person’. Here the term is
entering a discourse of pagan theology that bears witness to a confluence of
polytheistic imagery combined into a kind of pantheistic order around the
imagery of the one divinised imperial family. I have argued elsewhere that
Ignatius engages with this too.79 In view of later, Christological usage, a pun
may be forgiven at this juncture: we are seeing three distinct prosvpa united
into one god-headdress.
There is a second point regarding the reason why Ignatius should choose
to use the term tupoz as the images to be created by the three-fold order of
bishop, presbyters and deacons. He is clearly not a polytheist, and he will
have no literal, plastic imagery in his procession. To have spoken of his
clerics as a[calmata or eikj onez would perhaps have been altogether too crass.
tupoz is within a rich semantic field which extends to other possible
meanings. This term can invoke cultic and processional imagery whilst
making clear that it is operating as an analogy.
tupozas bridging the phenomenal and spiritual
tupoz refers to the bridge between the carnal and spiritual order of things,
since it is the mark in phenomenal stone or flesh of a transcendental
essence. As such it will enable Ignatius to speak intelligibly to his
contemporaries of himself and of members of his entourage as bearers of
divine imagery (heoworoi), even though he cannot allow such images to be
in a plastic form. For him it is participation in the eucharistic drama of
replay, informed by the roles of the three-fold order of bishop, presbyters
and deacons, that leads to union ( envsiz{ or enJ otgz ). We shall now see how
the logic of the JudaeoChristian language game operates with such notions
at the interface with pagan philosophical theology.
45 Ibid. C.51–4. 79
Brent, Imperial cult, 169–77, 220–3, 226–71, 310–28.
There is a memorial of one Cassandrus for his wife Sentia. This, from its
dedication HK, the Greek equivalent of D[is] M[anibus] =H(eoiz' )
K(atgxhoniAoiz) would appear to be pagan: ‘She has allowed those images
(gas[ e te eikj onaz ) to be mirror impressions [of herself] (antitj upouz ) which
she bore in travail (az v} jdeisin e' ti[ kten ) in her boy children ( emj jpaisin
ajrrenikoiz' ) and reached the end of her life ( kai esxe t[ eloz biotoio ).’46 antij
Atupoz is used in precisely the same sense as tupoz has been so far in
connection with the visible expression of succeneiAa. The antij prefix here is
clearly not an indication of an opposite but a reinforcement of the sense of
tupoz as exact replica of a real original. The eikj onaz here are her children,
and they are images ( tupouz ) striking in their replication ( antij ) of her.
Similarly, in the New Testament, the ‘Holy places made with hands
(xeiropoiAgta … a{cia) are images or impressions of what is heavenly and
real ‘(antij Atupa tv'n alghinvj 'n)’.81
tupoz emerges as the ‘form of one’s true self’, convincing and real, as
opposed to an eikj vn which is an image whose correspondence with reality
is neutral, unless duly qualified as an antij Atupoz. tupoz therefore describes
an image that reflects reality, forming a bridge with eternal and spiritual
essences through its impress in human flesh, or in otherwise inanimate
stone, wood or metal. A false image that appears to be Heracles is called an
eikj vn but not a tupoz .47 Plato reminds us that one can form mental images of
both true and false belief.48
But tupoz also refers to a complete image of one’s true self, like a
phenomenal particular that mirrors its Platonic Form rather than conceals or
obfuscates it. The relationship between a deceptive eikj vn and tupoz as a true
image is also evident in Nonnos, who described Narcissus as one:
who long ago (oz p] aroz) in the dumb form of a beautiful deceiver ( gpej ropgoz'
euxoj rooz edei[ > kvwv'/ ) seeing the water changed into the complete image of his
own self (eiz tj upon au jtoteleston idj vn mo rwoumenon u {dvr ), died (kathane ), as he
46 IGUR, 1327. 81
Hebrews ix.24.
47 Lucian, Dialogi mortuorum xi (16).402.1, ed. M. D. MacCleod, Cambridge, MA–
London 1961, in which the shade bearing Heracles’s name asserts ‘For he is not dead ( ouj car
ejkeinoz' tehngken), but I am his image ( allj jecj v g J eikj vn au jtou )’. The explanation is that
this false image has been sent to the nether-world of the dead in order to fool Pluto: xi
(16).403.2.
48 Images can be either true or false as in Plato, Philebus 39c: aiJ men tv'n alghvj 'n dojv'n kai
locvn algheij z' , aiJ de tv'n yeudv'n yeudeiz' . Previously Plato has spoken of how, as we read the
words of a book, a ‘workman in our souls (dgmiourcon g mvJ 'n en taij z yuxai' z' )’ who is ‘an
artist who, following the words of the writer ( fvcrawon , o{z meta t on c rammatistgn tv 'n
lecomenvn), paints images in our soul (eikj onaz e n tgj /' yuxg/' toutvn c rawei )’.
448 ALLEN BRENT
gazed upon the shadowy phantom of his shape ( paptaiAnvn skioeidea wasmata
morwgz' ).49
We see here therefore that a tupoz is a complete image (aujtotelestoz), formed

(morwoumenon ) from a pattern in water of a real, primary image ( eidoz\ ): it
parallels the distinction made in a more technical sense between a real,
enduring, eternal Platonic Form (eidoz\ ) and the particular piece of
phenomenal matter on which it is impressed.
Wood, clay, stone, marble or paper do not of themselves communicate
the meaning of words or abstract images whether human or divine. They
require an idea (idj eai, eidoz\ ) or an image (eikj vn ) or a form (morwg) to be
represented. These images or forms, shaped into a plastic medium
furnishing clear and distinct representations of them, are called in Greek
tupo i. Thus a definitive statement in written form of a considered intention
is called a tupoz because it is the expression of words, in stone or on paper,
of a clear and distinct set of meanings and images, just as a tattoo in human
or animal flesh. tupoz forms, as it were, a mediating bridge between the
mental and spiritual and the material and physical, but partaking of the
nature of both.
Thus Philo, when describing the creation of Adam, can speak of tupoz as
such a mediating bridge between the spiritual and physical in general,
without application to a plastic medium. Adam as the archetypal human
being is described, as a result of God breathing into him his logos-Spirit, as
the bearer of the transcendental forms. Like a trained architect, God is
described by analogy as: ‘Having received in his own soul, as it were in
wax the images of each object ( v[sper enj kgrv'/ tg/' eautouJ ' yuxg'/ touz ekJ astvn
dej amenoz t upouz ), he bears the image of the noumenal city ( acalmatowoj rei'
nogtgn p olin ).’50Here, clearly, a[calma (acalmatowoj rei)' is associated with
tupoz metaphorically as a psychological description of how the individual
mind or soul can grasp the transcendental forms existing in the mind or
reasoning of God (heioz l' ocoz ).86 The nogtg p oliz is imaged accurately
because its a[calma bears the tupoi that are accurate shapes of that
transcendental world. Not every mental image corresponds as this one does
to its ajrxetupon paradeiAcma:
since images do not always correspond to their archetypal model ( epej i d jouj
sumpasa eikj vn e mwej rgz arj xetupv / paradeiAcmati ), and many are unlike it ( pollai de
eisjin anj omoioi ), he brought out his meaning (proepesgmgnato ) by adding (epeipj vn
) ‘after the likeness’ to the words ‘after the image ( tv/' kat jeikj ona t okah jomoiJ
49 Nonnos, Dionysiaca xlviii.584–7, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, H. J. Rose and L. R. Lind,
Cambridge, MA–London 1962–3.
50 Philo, De opificio mundi iv (18), ed. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Cambridge,
MA–London 1962. 86
Ibid. v (20). 87
Ibid. xxiii (71).
Avsin)’, thus showing that an accurate cast bearing a true impression ( eiz ej
mwasin[ akrj ibou'z ejkmaceiAou tranon t upon e xontoz[ ).87
Clearly, for Philo, a tupoz is not simply an eikj vn but an eikj vn kah jomoiJ
Avsin. It is to be emphasised that Philo in speaking of Adam, like Ignatius of
his clerical representations, is here speaking of a tupoz not imprinted in
stone but in human flesh that accurately corresponds with the spiritual
entity of that of which it is an image.
This is clearly the case when Philo describes the beauty of Adam. Of his
descendants (touz d e apocj onouz ) it could be said that:
participating as they did in his original form (tgz e' jkeiAnou metexontaz idj eaz) [they]
must preserve still the marks though faint ones ( anacj kaion e' ijkai amudj rouz allj
jou\n
eti s[ v/fein touz t upouz ) of their kinship with their first father (tgz p' roz t on propato
ra succeneiAaz).51
tupoz is the clear mark in human flesh of participation in a Platonic Form

(metexontaz idj eaz). It marks the resemblance of physical kinship
(succeneiAa), just as it did in the case of Cassandrus in speaking of his
deceased wife, Sentia.89 Similarly, scriptural images are: ‘not mythical
fictions (ouj muhou plasmata ) … but modes of making ideas visible ( allj a dei
Acmata tupvn ), drawing us to allegorical interpretation ( epj j allgcoj riAan
parakalou'nta) through rendering what lies beneath their surface ( kata t az di j
uJponoiv'n apodj oseiz )’.90 Thus the distinction between marks or tupoi in
human flesh that participate in the spiritual forms is now applied to the
distinction between descriptions of events that are symbolic representations
(deiAcmata tupvn ) of the spiritual that is behind them.
For Plotinus too a tupoz is a mental impression that encapsulates a real
and transcendent Form. It is what makes it possible for the individual soul,
after its purification, to grasp reality behind an appearance already familiar.
On the soul’s conversion (epistj rowg), it sees the transcendental world
because of ‘a vision (hea) and impression (kaitupoz ) of what is seen
implanted (tou' owhj entoz) and working in it (kai enej rcv'n), like the relation
between sight and its seen object (vz gJ J oyiz pe[ ri to o rJ vmenon )’. The tupoz
itself, therefore, is infallible and does not deceive. It is the unpurified
intellect that is deceived in that it cannot recognise the Form in its
phenomenal mould: ‘[The soul] had not transcendental objects ( eixen d\ e
oujk aujta), but their moulds (allj a t upouz ); it is necessary therefore ( dei' ou\n)
[for the soul] to combine the mould with the real objects of which they are
51 Ibid. li (145). 89
See n. 80 above and corresponding text. 90
De opificio lxvi (157).
450 ALLEN BRENT
the moulds (ton tupon toi z' alghinoij z' , v|n kai oiJ tupoi ).’52 Clearly tupoz here
links the two worlds of Plato and his heirs, whether Jewish or pagan, as
indicating the infallible image or mould in a sensible particular of the
transcendental Form that it contains.
In this respect it contrasts with deceptive images that Plotinus calls not
tupoi but eidvla[ .92 tupoi are made ‘from the objects that come from the
intellect (tv'n ejk tou' nou' iontvnj )’.93 The true order of the world resulted
when ‘matter (gJ ulg[ ) was inscribed (periecraweto ) with the image of the
universe (tupv /kosmou )’.94 The mind of the creator contains each real object
(eidoz\ ) that is eternal:
[The Maker] will not think of what is not yet existence ( ouj ta e n tvj '/ mgpv o nti[ ou|
toz nogsei ) in order that he might make it ( ina au{ jto poig '/ ). Those Forms must
exist before the universe (pro to ukosmou a [ra dei' einai e\ kj ei'na ), not as images (ouj
tupouz ) from things that are [utterly] different ( awj j etJervn), but as archetypes (allj
a kai arj xetupa) and primary substances (kai prv'ta) and the essence of Intellect (kai
nou' oujsiAan).53
We thus see that there cannot be tupoi of what is ‘different’ from what they
represent but must be ‘moulds in the shape of first principles ( arj xetupa)’.
Once again tupoz emerges as the bridge between the material substance of
the phenomenal world, and the world of eternal and spiritual realities.
For Ignatius tupoz clearly has this bridging function performed by the
clerical icons that express their corresponding divine and saving realities. It
is through these tupoi that the liturgical assembly find envsiz{ with the
divine, and a enJ otgz of flesh and spirit. Those in union with the three-fold
order become the spiritual and eternal that they image as tupoi . Ignatius
frequently claims that the three-fold order is the bridge uniting the fleshly
and spiritual realms:
Be subject to the bishop ( uJpotacete tv /' episj kopv )/ and to each other (kai allj gloiz )
as Jesus Christ was to the Father (vzJ Ijgsou'z Xristoz tv /' patri), and the Apostles
were to Christ (kai oiJ apj ostoloi tv '/ Xristv/' ) and to the Father (kai tv'/ patri), in order
that there may be a union of the fleshy and spiritual realm (ina e{ nvsiz g{ \/ sarkikg te
kai pneumatikg).96
Accordingly, he assures the Ephesians, ‘it is beneficial for you therefore to

be in blameless unity (xrgsimon ou \n ejstin uj Jma'z enj amj vmv / enJ otgti ei nai\
), in order that you may evermore participate in God ( ina{ kai heou' pantote
52 Plotinus, Enneads i.2.4.18–25, ed. A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge, M A–London

1966–88. 92 Ibid.ii.9.12.5–10. 93 Ibid. v.3.2.10. 94 Ibid. ii.9.12.23.
53 Ibid. v.9.5.20–4. 96
Magnesians xiii.2. See also Trallians xi.2; Philadelphians iv; vii.2.
met exgte)’.54It is by joining in the eucharist as mystery, by encountering the
human tupoi of the Christian God, that the laity become ‘infused with the
divine (enheion[ )’ and escape corruption. Union with bishop and presbyters
was with the tupoi awhaj rsiAaz.98
Whilst not literally carrying plastic images in procession, the naoworoi,
xristoworoi, aJcioworoi and heoworoi in Ignatius’ procession can by a clear and
quite systematically worked out analogy be said to bear images of divine
persons or events. At their head in the eucharist is the bishop, or, in the case
of the martyr procession Bishop Ignatius, as of the suffering Father-God.
And when I say ‘can’ in such a context, I do not mean ‘can’ as a move
permitted by the logic of our discourse in the twenty-first century but ‘can’
in terms of the discourse of the second century, recoverable both from
literary and epigraphical remains.
However much tupoz may function at an abstract level of Hellenistic
philosophical theology, it does not break with a web of meaning in which it
interconnects with pagan cultic artefacts, ritual and acts. The agonothete
who lead Demosthenes’ acj vn mousi koz wore the tupoi of his imperial and
ancestral gods in his stewanoz, as we have seen.99 Ignatius as leader of his
procession had no literal stewanoz, any more that did a bishop at the
eucharist. Yet the presence of such a stewanoz in some sense was important
for Ignatius in terms of the analogous imagery with which he sought to
reconceptualise early Christian ecclesial order. It was the presbyterate as
tupoz s uned riou tv'n apostj olvn that constituted the stewanoz in the celebration
of the Christian mysteries. The disciples that Ignatius calls the sundesmoz
apostj olvn become in its liturgical circle ‘the spiritual, crown of the
presbyterate (ajioplj okou pneumatikoz stewanoz tou' presbuteriAou)’.100
But if this is the case with tupoz , what is the meaning of prokahgmenoz eizj
tupon in Ignatius’ discourse?
prokahgmenoz and pre-eminence
The word prokahgmenoz is invariably translated as ‘presiding’, even though

the verb when used in this sense is normally followed by a genitive
indicating that over which the action of the verb is exercised. The
qualification eizj tupon was so little understood that both the Didascalia and
Constitutiones apostolicae, and the author of the Long Recension, alter the
phrase in various ways. 101 The latter reads eiz tj opon in Magnesians vi.1,
which has led to some textual corruption in the case of the Middle
54 Ephesians iv.2. See also Philadelphians ii.2; iii.2; viii.1; ix.1;
Polycarp viii.2. 98 Magnesians vi.1–2. See also n. 59 above and adjoining
text.
452 ALLEN BRENT
Recension, and removes the phrase altogether in vi.2. 55 In Trallians iii.1 the
bishop is simply described as tou' patroz tv 'n o{lvn tupoz . Clearly the phrase
was problematic for later writers.
It was difficult to see how an image could preside, or how someone
presiding could do so in order to create an image. I wish now to invoke
what I regard as a more natural sense of ‘be pre-eminent’ since the word
basically means to ‘sit forward’, and thus to ‘stand out’ from the context in
which its subject is found. A cleric can be said to be ‘pre-eminent in
creating an image’. By so construing, we can, I believe, locate the context
of Ignatius’ meaning in the world of processional images that we have
argued tupoz to form part.
One fundamental problem for our interpretation of Ignatius within the
confines of our twenty-first century western discourse is that he claims on
the
99
SEG xxxviii.C.53. See also n. 77 above and adjoining text.
100
Magnesians xiii.1. See also n. 36 above and adjoining text.
101
See CA ii.25.5 (27–8)=The Didascalia apostolorum in Syriac, i, ed. A. Voö¨bus,
(Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 401), Louvain 1979, viii (pp. 91.26–
92.1); CA ii.25.7 (39–41)=Didascalia ix (p. 100.3–21).
one hand that bishop, presbyters and deacons are images or tupoi of Father,
Spirit-filled apostolic council, and Son, and yet on the other they are
representatives of the divine, corporate life of their communities. Ignatius
frequently laid claim to being able, as a result of a mystical interchange
with the bishops who visited him in prison on his way to martyrdom, to see
the corporate personality in their individual persons of the Churches which
they represent. In Onesimus their bishop, he informs the Ephesians, ‘I
received your whole corporateness (epej i ou\n tgn poluplghi Aan uJmv'n apeij
Algwa)’.103 It is by such charismatic means that Ignatius identifies the bishop
and accordingly accepts the validity of the ecclesial community that he has
not seen.
Ignatius claims that their ‘conversation of mind ( toiautgn sun gheian )’ was
a supernatural exchange, in which he saw them in spiritual union with the
three-fold typology. He thus was able to see their ‘whole community ( tgn
poluplghiAan)’ mystically in the bishop’s person.56 poluplghiAa contained the
word plghoz' , which is Ignatius’ usual theological term for the gathered
55 For enJ vhgte tv '/ episj kopv /kai toiz p' rokahgmenoiz eiz tj upon kai didaxgn awhaj rsiAaz
LRec reads: enJ vhgte tv '/ episj kopv / uJpotassomenoi tv /' hev/' di jaujtou' en Xristv/' . For textual
corruption of tupoz for topoz in Magnesians vi.1 see n. 32 above.
56 Ibid. v.1: ‘in a short time I had such fellowship with your bishop ( ecj v e n mij krv'/ xronv
/ toiautgn sun gheian e sxon p[ roz e pij Askopon uJmv'n ) as was not human but spiritual ( oujk anhj
rvpiAngn ou\san, allj a pneumati kgn )’. 105 Magnesians vi.1.
ejkklgsiAa.105 Likewise, in Polybius of Tralles, Ignatius could see their
corporate ‘unwavering and blameless mind ( a[mvmon dianoian kai adij
akriton)’.57 Here he could rejoice because ‘I saw your whole gathered church
in him (v{ste me to pa 'n plghoz u' Jmv'n en auj jtv/' hevr shai)’.107 In his
description of the Magnesian clergy we find the three-fold typology
witnessed in relationship to the corporate personality of the community: ‘I
was deemed worthy to see you ( gjij vhgn ideij n u' Jma'z ) through Damas your
godly esteemed bishop (dia Dama ' tou' ajiohj eou uJmv'n episj kopou )’, as well
as through the presbyters and deacons.108
I will now argue that the logic of prokahgmenoz is that of gods and
goddesses, or rather their images, that stand out pre-eminently over their
cities, or at the head of their processions. Since such deities represent the
corporate personality of the city of which they are the icons, they represent
that corporate personality of the city. Furthermore, such deities are pre-
eminent in the appearance of their priests, since the latter wear their images
on their stewanoi and act for them in their cult in handling and bearing the
holy objects used in their rite. In this way pagan priests, like Ignatian
clerics, could project divine images to their people, but at the same time
represent the corporate life since such divine images were also icons of that
corporate life. The acvnohj etgz who led Demosthenes’s procession wore a
stewanon xrusou'n with one of its e[ktupa prosvpa
103
Ephesians i.3.
that of the god Apollo described as Prokahgcetgz or leader of the procession.58
Let us see how the logic of that discourse works in greater detail.
Deities are described using a variety of terms such as ( pro)kahgcemvn ,
progcgtgz , progcemvn , and heoiA propolevz , prokahgmenoi and proestv'tez etc.59
Though the meaning of the one term shades into that of the other as the
discourse develops dynamically in a social and historical context, it would
57 Trallians i.1. 107

Ibid. i.2. 108
Magnesians ii.1.
58 SEG xxxviii.1462.C.52–3. See n. 76 above and adjoining text.
59 Robert argued that proestvz , kahgcemvn and prokahgmenoz are synonymous terms: J.
Robert and L Robert, La Carie: histoire et geógraphie historique, avec le recueil des
inscriptions antiques, II: Le plateau de Tabai et ses envirions, Paris 1954, 226. See also, and
particularly, L. Robert, Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie, I: Exploration, histoire, monnaies et
inscriptions, Paris 1983, 172: ‘Les inscriptions prećisant sa primaute´ emploient les termes
suivants: eiz tj on p roe[s]tvta t~ g~[z] p[ole ]oz gmJ vn he~ on Di onuson , ou bien tou p~
rokahgcem[onoz t gz p~ olev ]z heou Dion~ usou , or tv~/ [kah]gcemoni he v~/ Dionusv /. See also J.
Nolle´, ‘Zur Geschichte der Stadt Etenna in Pisidien’, in E. Schwertheim (Hrsg),
Forschungen in Pisidien, Bonn 1992, 81–3.
454 ALLEN BRENT
appear that the terms closest in meaning to each other are the last two on
this list. Those who preside ( proestv'tez) over cities, or their institutions, such
as ejkklgsiAa, dgmoz' , boulg or cerousiAa, occupying the seats (proedriAai)
which give them their particular rank, would also be visually pre-eminent,
like the a[rxontez prokahefomenoi or Ignatius’ epij Askopoi or presbute roi
prokahgmenoi. I would argue that such a visual sense predominates when
prokahifeshai is used in place of proistanai? . The following examples may be
cited:
1. From Pergamon AD 129 there is a reference to ‘Demeter and Kore
(tg'/ te [Dg]mgtri kai tg'/ Kor[g/'), the goddesses who are predominant over the
city (taiz p' ]rokahgmenaiz [he]aiz tg' 'z p olevz g mJ [v'n)’.60
2. A bronze statue of Herakles from Seleukeia on the Tigris, with
adedication, carried by the Parthian king Vologaeses IV from Mesene
(Charakene) to Seleukeia (AD 150-1). There is a Greek inscription on the
right thigh and a Parthian (in Aramaic) on the left. The former reads:
J
‘This bronze image of the god Herakles (eikj ona ta utgn xal kgn' H rakleouz heou')
which was removed by him from Mesena ( tgn metanexhei san u' Jp j aujtou' apj o tg z'
Mesgngz ), he dedicated (anj ehgken) in this temple of the god Apollo ( ejn i eJ rv/'
tv'/de heou' Aj pollvnoz ) who sits out over the bronze gate (tou' xalkg'z p ulgz
prokahgmenou)’.61
3. A decree from Side (c. AD 220), honouring Aurelius Mandrianus

Longinus (AD 143) because ‘he acted as a priest together with his wife
Aurelia Killaramontiane Ies ( sunierasamenon tg '/ cunaiki aujtou' Eigj/ Aj urgliAa/
Killaramvtiang/'), for the goddess Athena who is pre-eminent ( tg/'
prokahefomeng/ hev'/ Aj hgna'/), for a five-yearly cycle (pentaetgriAdi)’.62
4. Dedication of P. Aelius Menekrates for Demeter and the god Men
inwhich he declares that he has
consecrated a silver basket (kahiervsanta kalahon pe riarcuron) which he has left
behind for the mystery rites (ton lei Aponta toiz mustg' riAoiz) and for Men who heads
60 Syll.3, 694, l. 50–4, and A. Wilhelm, ‘Griechische Grabgedichte aus Kleinasien’,

Sitzungsberichte. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1932), 803 (=Kleine
Schriften, pt ii, ed. W. Peek and others, Opuscula: Sammelausgaben seltener und bisher
nicht selbsta¨ndig erschienener wissenschaflicher Abhandlungen, VII/2: Akademieschriften
zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde, Leipzig 1971, 347). See also Brent, Imperial cult, 223–
48.
61 SEG xxxvii.1403.20, lines 16–23. See also A. Invernizzi, ‘He´racle`s a Se´leucie du
Tigre’, Revue archeólogique i (1989), 65–113.
62 J. Nolle´, Side im Altertum: Geschichte und Zeugnisse, i, Bonn 1993, 195, 3.2.1,
lines 6–8.
the village (kai tv/' prokahgmenv/ tgz' kvmgz Mgni ), a silver symbol which will
process before his mystery rites (sgmgan pe riarcuron tgn p ropompeusasan tv 'n
mustgriAvn aujtou').63
5. A funerary inscription from Galatia:

You see Istele ( Ijstglgn e soj ra'/z), engraven (katafvc rawon), but note (nogson ): she
occupies the tomb (g} tumbon katexei) of beautiful Tateia (TateiAaz kalgz i' eJ reiAgz)
the priestess of Artemis (Artemidoz), of the queen’s village (k[vm ]gz basilgijdoz> )
which she heads (g} prokahgtai ): whom for the sake of his grief ( gn} istoj rcgz e'
ne{ ken) her husband (anj gr eozJ ) here commemorated her (enhj ad jeteisen[ ).64
Prokahgmenoz, in its various forms, is a term extremely difficult to translate

in these examples. Clearly (2) will only admit of a visual and spatial
meaning: the bronze statue of Heracles physically protrudes out over the
gate of the city. But in the case of (1) and (3) Athene as well as Kore and
Demeter have images that likewise visually are prokahgmenai from their
temples, prominent in their city centres. Such epigraphic descriptions are no
mere abstract construals. Though they may ‘sit out over’ their cities from
their standing temples, (4) shows how a heoz p rokahgmenoz might be
portable: Men, revealed sitting over the village (kai tv'/ prokahgmenv/ tgz'
kvmgz Mgni) in the form of ‘a silver image ( sgmgan pe riarcuron)’, is carried
‘in the procession of the mystery rites (propompeusasan tv 'n mustgriAvn)’. The
firm focus that unites (1) and (3) with (2) is that the goddesses in question
have physical images, whether on temples or carried in procession, that
make their headship of their cities visually overwhelming: they ‘head’ their
city or their procession because they are visually ‘pre-eminent’.
In consequence, as we can see in (5), the description of Artemis and her
priestess Tatia, the divinity and the representative priest become fused into
one. The priestess presides or heads the cult by bearing the image of the
deity whose priestess she is (g} prokahgtai ). We find in Caracalla’s letter to
Ephesus (AD 200–5): a} de p]roepresbeuen gJ pat rioz uJmv'n heoz Aj rtemiz
=‘your ancestral goddess Artemis heads the embassy’. 65 In this passage we
see, as in Ignatius, pagan priests presiding as an image of the goddess that
they represent in a visual form so that both she and they can be said to be
‘preeminent in’, or ‘at the head of’ her procession just as bishop, presbyters
and deacons are eiz tj upon of divine persons or spirit-filled Apostles. But we
63 I.Eph. vii.1.3252.5–9.
64 Wilhelm, ‘Griechische Grabgedichte’, 803–4 (=Kleine Schriften, 346–8=TAM
ii.174E.12–13) prefers kvmgz to kourgz which I here follow. See also J. G. C. Anderson,
‘Explorations in Galatia Cis Halym, part II’, Journal of Hellenic Studies xix (1901), 306, no.
246.
65 Robert, Le Serpent Glycon, 764–5. 117
Ephesians i.3.
456 ALLEN BRENT
can also see that ambassadors, who bear a deity who is pat rioz and thus
embodies the divinised, corporate personality of the city, in so doing
represent the ‘whole multitude (poluplghiAa)’ of their community, as did
Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus.117 Ignatius characterises travelling clerics as
heopresbutai , duly elected for their representative role. 66
Thus Ignatius has taken a pagan theology of corporate personality and
removed the idolatrous features, but has retained nevertheless the essential
form of that theology. For him the office of bishop reflects the corporate
personality of the community marked by the saving acts in which the
Fatherbishop sends the diaconal Son, with the co-operation of the Spirit
through the apostolic council. Like pagan priests wearing the tupoz of his
god in his stewanoz, and acting as prokahgcgtgz of a mystery procession, the
three-fold order of the Christian community wear those tupoi , surrounded
by those who as members of the cult assembly ( sunodoz ) bear sacred objects
relevant to their roles in the mystery drama ( heoworoi, xristoworoi, naoworoi,
aJcioworoi). At the head of the martyr-procession, in which he is antij Ayuxon,
as an extension of the eucharist, he is pre-eminent as cult leader
(prokahgmenoz).
Polycarp, Lucian and Ignatius’ reception
The Ignatian letters do not represent a pseudepigraphic reply to a later form

of Valentianism, as Hu¨bner and Lechner’s thesis required. Rather, Ignatius
is a Christian missionary prophet of the Second Sophistic proposing a
highly articulate and radical secularisation of ecclesial order in terms of the
pagan theology of the mystery cults of his contemporaries. Clearly his
proposal would have seemed strange to Polycarp, and indeed Irenaeus and
perhaps even to Origen and his successors, as would other contemporary
expressions of Christianity.
Polycarp had little comprehension of the semi-pagan typology of order
that he heard in Ignatius’ words and witnessed in his acts. The only
secondcentury writer who discerned the logic of Ignatius’ conceptualisation
of ecclesial order was in fact Lucian of Samosata, whose satire on the kind
of figure that the former presented is to be found in his Peregrinus Proteus.
Lucian’s role as a commentator on Ignatius has been much discussed.
Opponents of the authenticity of the Middle Recension have claimed that
rather than Lucian having read Ignatius and fashioned his story of
Peregrinus upon him, as Lightfoot claimed, the forger had as his model
Lucian’s own account.67 Both arguments presuppose that the relationship
between Ignatius’ letters and Lucian must be a literary one. But the
66 Philadelphians x.1–2; Smyrnaeans xi.1.
parallels, though close, are hardly those of literary dependence whether in
one direction or another.
Indeed Lucian’s references to Ignatius bear the marks of oral reports of
processions of diaconal ambassadors, the election and sending of whom
Ignatius mentions in three letters.68 Lucian in turn reflects the general effect
of such arrangements on the pagan population, and popular responses, when
they were witnessed first-hand. Lucian speaks of his subject as writing
letters legislating for Christian communities. 69 He then ‘chose certain
ambassadors for this purpose from amongst his comrades ( kaiA tinaz epj i
toutv / presbeutaz tv 'n etaiJ Arvn exeij rotongse ), giving them their titles as
messengers from the dead and underworld couriers ( nekraccelouz kai
nerterodromouz prosacoreusaz )’. The heopresbutai and heodromoi of Smyrnaeans
xi.2 and Polycarp vii.2 have become for Lucian presbeutaiA who are
nekracceloi kai nerterodromoi . That these elected ambassadors should be
characterised in terms of death and the underworld shows that Lucian’s
contemporaries were ‘on message’ regarding the martyrological character
of Ignatius’ procession.
Lucian describes his Christian leader, after Ignatius, as ‘prophet and cult
leader (prowgtgz kai hiasarxgz)’, who had introduced ‘a new mystery ( kaing
teletg)’.122 Furthermore, he is a hiasarxgz whose role is associated with a
divine image. Theagnes, shortly before his self-immolation, had described
him in such words as: ‘But now (allj a nu 'n) this holy image will depart from
men to the gods (ejj anhj rvpvn e iz heoj uz t o a [calma tou'to oixj gsetai ).’123
Lucian’s sarcastic comment, in view of his earlier life, was: ‘the (divine)
image was not yet completely fashioned for us ( kai oujdepv entelj ez a[calma
gmiJ n dedgmio' urcgto)’.124 We have here, I submit, a commentary on Ignatius’
theology of tupoz cruelly distorted, as witnessed in spoken word and gesture
in his martyr-procession and not simply derived from his written page.
Furthermore Lucian is presenting a parody parasitic by its nature on an
experience of Ignatian themes: pseudo-Ignatius could not simply have
derived his bare words from Lucian’s description. 70
Yet Polycarp, given the integrity of Philippians, greeted Ignatius’
procession warmly and treated it according to the terms in which the latter
regarded it. Polycarp records the arrival of Ignatius’ procession, and, in the
67 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, ii/2, 356; cf. Joly, Le Dossier, 103–4; Lechner Ignatius
adversus Valentinianos?, ch. iii; J. Bompaire, Lucien ećrivain: imitation et creation, Paris
1958, 617–19.
68 Philadelphians 10; Smyrnaeans xi.1–2; Polycarp vii.2–8.1.
69 Lucian, De morte peregrini xli, ed. A. M. Harmon, Cambridge, M A.–London
1961. 122 Ibid xi. 123 Ibid. vi. 124 Ibid. x.
70 See also n. 15 above.
458 ALLEN BRENT
use of characteristic Ignatian vocabulary, indicates what a clearly more than
visible impression it made upon him.71 As he says:
I greatly rejoice with you in our Lord Jesus Christ ( sunexargn uJmin mec' alvz e n tvj /'
kuriAv/ gmvJ 'n Ijgsou' Xristv~/ ), since you made welcome the imitations of true love,
(dejamenoiz ta mim gmata tg z' alghouj 'z acj apgz ), and conducted forward (kai
propemyasin), as opportunity fell to you (vz eJ pj ebalen uJmin' ), those bound with
bonds that befit their sanctity (touz e neilgmj enouz toiz a' Jcioprepesin desmoiz' ) which
are the diadems of those truly chosen by God and our Lord ( atina e} stin diadj gmata
tv'n alghvj 'z uJpo heou 'kai tou'kuriAou gmvJ 'n ekj lelecmenvn).72
Thus Polycarp affirmed that the Philippians had treated him and his
entourage as a propompg (propemyasin).73 In using such language he was
interpreting Ignatius’ procession in terms of a pagan procession like that of
Demosthenes. In the latter case sebastoworoi were elected who would escort
forward (propompeusousi ) the divine images (eikj onaz ). But Polycarp works
with some diffidence since he found what must have seemed to be Ignatius’
semi-pagan representation of church order so alien to his own assumptions.
Notwithstanding his failure to understand and embrace Ignatius’ typology
of order, why did he therefore find Ignatius sufficiently acceptable and so
wish to assemble his corpus?
I would suggest that this was for one reason and one reason alone: the
anti-Docetic message of the choreographed procession that came through
Smyrna. It was a dazzling piece of enacted, sophistic rhetoric and
encapsulated a message that Polycarp found most serviceable to his needs.
The message of the martyr-bishop in his procession to Rome, despite all its
semi-pagan cultic imagery, was of
Jesus Christ … who was really born ( o{z alghvj 'z ecennj ghg ), who both ate and
drank (ewacen te[ kai epien[ ), who really was persecuted under Pontius Pilate ( alghvj
'z edij vxhg e pj i PontiAou Pilatou ), who really was crucified and died (alghvj 'z estauj
rvhg kai apj ehanen), who really was raised from the dead ( o{z kai gcj erhg apj o
nekrv'n); But if, as some atheists (ei dj e v{sper tinez a[heoi ontez[ ), that is unbelievers
(toutestin a[pistoi), say he suffered in appearance only ( lecousi to do kein' peponhenai
71 The presence of such Ignatian imagery plays a vital role in all interpolation theories so
necessary to removing the pivotal place of this letter as evidence to the authenticity of the
Middle Recension: see Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?, 6–18.
72 Polycarp, Philippians i.1.
73 propempein was used in this sense in Philadelphians x.2: ‘the nearest Churches sent
bishops, and others presbyters and deacons (vzJ kai aiJ eccista e[ jkklgsiAai epemyan[ episj
kopouz , aiJ de presbuterouz kai diakonouz )’. For the use of this term in the Demosthenes
inscription discussed above see nn. 76, 99, 109.
aujton ), … why am I in chains, (ecj v ti A dedemai), and why do I pray that I can
fight with wild beasts (ti de euxomai hg[ riomaxgsai' )?74
Polycarp clearly recognised the pagan connotations of Ignatius’
selfdescription of a bishop as the heoworoz. When, in his procession, he as
aJcioworoz visibly shook his aJcioprepeiz desmoi' A, this was an enacted, cultic
miAmgsiz that Polycarp was just about prepared to describe abstractly: the
bonds were ta mim gmata tg z' alghouj 'z acj apgz rather than the icon of a
personal deity. The symbolism of the cultic procession was for Polycarp a
breathtaking refutation of Docetism: Ignatius’ eloquent testimony of
martyrdom in the flesh justified Christ’s true birth and sufferings. All its
other features could be ignored in the light of so visually compelling a
reenactment of Christ’s real sufferings.
In the light of this discussion, the reception of Ignatius can be compared
with that of the Fourth Gospel, both emerging from the Hellenistic shadows
of the early second century.75 The theology of that Gospel was poorly
understood and, until Irenaeus’ time, treated circumspectly if not positively
rejected.7677 Nevertheless that theology was destined to provide the
philosophical model, again distorted out of all recognition, for theologically
defining the nature and character of the incarnation. Ignatius, too,
conceptualised a theology of ecclesial order that only became that of later
Christendom by a gross distortion of its original framework. The Johannine
community perhaps fares even worse than Polycarp, since he never cites the
Fourth Gospel, however much he may rely on the anti-Docetic texts drawn
from the Johannine epistles, as he relies on the visual theatre of Ignatius to
the same end.132
It was by reason of the martyr-procession, the final and spectacular
refutation of Docetism, and for this reason alone, that Polycarp was
convinced of the basic soundness of the strange and enigmatic figure that
came through. The strangeness that constitutes the enigma of Ignatius was
the product of his proximity to the culture of the Second Sophistic.
74 Trallians ix.1–2, 10.

75 For an incisive analysis of such a positioning of Ignatius see Hammond Bammel,
‘Ignatian problems’, 89–97.
76 C. E. Hill, The Johannine corpus in the early Church, Oxford 2004, has recently
challenged significantly the regnant hypothesis that this corpus was only accepted with
difficulty by the late second century. He argues convincingly that a developed ‘orthodoxy’
that rejected ‘heresies’ by the late second century did not include the Johannine corpus in
what they condemned. It does not follow, however, that that corpus did not arise in a widely
different community than other streams in early Christianity, between which there was no
clear comprehension at an earlier stage.
77 John iv.2–3 and 2 John 7, quoted in Polycarp, Philippians vii.1.

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429

The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch

A rchbishop James Ussher and Nicolaus Vedelius rediscovered the

Ignatius and Polycarp

530–1, ed. W. C. Wright, Cambridge, MA–London 1968; cf Ignatius, Philadelphians x;

5 N. P. Harrison, Polycarp’s two epistles to the Philippians, Cambridge 1936; cf. W.

Ignatian church order

Ignatius’ highly idiosyncratic view of church order was as alien to Irenaeus

11 For an account of the choreographing of the martyr-procession see W. Schoedel,

It is important to note that in these texts there is no mention of the later

15 In additions to quotations in the text above see Trallians i.1–2.

tupozand cultic processions

The essential meaning of tupoz is that of an impression left by a seal or a die

Ignatius does not, however, speak of himself as tupoworoz, which is not

anafvpuj rgsantez e n aj imati{ Xristou'. Ephesians xii.2.71

41 See n. 67 above and related text.

Archa¨eologisches Institut, no. I. 352), and Ro¨mischen und fru¨hbyzantinische

We note furthermore the appropriateness of calling such images tupoi , since

tupozas bridging the phenomenal and spiritual

We see here therefore that a tupoz is a complete image (aujtotelestoz), formed

tupoz is the clear mark in human flesh of participation in a Platonic Form

Accordingly, he assures the Ephesians, ‘it is beneficial for you therefore to

52 Plotinus, Enneads i.2.4.18–25, ed. A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge, M A–London

prokahgmenoz and pre-eminence

The word prokahgmenoz is invariably translated as ‘presiding’, even though

57 Trallians i.1. 107

3. A decree from Side (c. AD 220), honouring Aurelius Mandrianus

60 Syll.3, 694, l. 50–4, and A. Wilhelm, ‘Griechische Grabgedichte aus Kleinasien’,

5. A funerary inscription from Galatia:

Prokahgmenoz, in its various forms, is a term extremely difficult to translate

Polycarp, Lucian and Ignatius’ reception

The Ignatian letters do not represent a pseudepigraphic reply to a later form

74 Trallians ix.1–2, 10.

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