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Old November 7th, 2015 #1
Karl Radl
The Epitome of Evil
 
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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Default Saint Ignatius of Antioch on the Jews

Saint Ignatius of Antioch on the Jews


Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a first century Father of the Church and a member of the authoritative Apostolic Fathers, like many other early Christians held opinions, which would horrify his Christian institutional successors with the possible exception of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ignatius was the Syrian Bishop of Antioch, being allegedly appointed to the position by Saint Peter himself, and died a martyr in the Roman Coliseum in circa 107 AD.

As such then the statements of Ignatius on the subject of jews in the letters that are known to be his work are of interest.

By way of beginning let us get Ignatius opinion on Jesus’ origin as, to be frank, it is the most positive thing he has to say about jews.

In his ‘Letter to the Ephesians’ Ignatius declares that Jesus Christ was ‘of the flesh of the race of David’. This statement is repeated in his ‘Letter to the Trallians’, while in his ‘Letter to the Romans’ he refers to Jesus as being of the seed of David.

In other words Ignatius is saying that while Jesus is the Messiah, so as such had to be descended from King David, and his spiritual body was one with God; his corporeal body was that of the people of King David. That means, unless you are a believer in Christian or British Identity, that Jesus was of jewish origin according to Ignatius.

However this jewish origin of Jesus is clearly rooted in Ignatius’ knowledge of the necessity of Jesus being of the line of David; in order to fulfil the prophecy of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament. Therefore lending the required spiritual authority to the New Testament and by extension nascent Christianity.

Thus we can see that Ignatius’ advocacy of Jesus’ jewishness is clearly done with a theological purpose. Yet it would be incorrect to claim that Ignatius viewed Jesus through a jewish lens or jews through a ‘Jesus was a Jew’ lens (both of which are common today).

Indeed in his ‘Letter to the Magnesians’ Ignatius refers to Judaism as an antiquated, legalistic faith based on nothing now the Messiah has come and the former ‘people of God’ have rejected him.

Ignatius tells us that the jews are to be regarded as extremely obdurate and need to be actively persuaded by the Christian faithful. This is the same formula that has often been labelled as ‘Christian anti-Semitism’ by jewish hacks and historians, because, to their infinite chagrin, it regards jews as having committed and then compounded an error of judgement.

This is why Ignatius refers to Judaism as false doctrine in the same letter; since the Christian position on Judaism has always been that jews are in religious error and need to be converted. What has differed between Christians is their willingness to tolerate jewish religious fanaticism. Often Christians, like the famous reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin, start off advocating tolerance, but end up violently angry at the intractability of jews in not converting to Christianity.

Given that Ignatius talks of the ‘monstrosity’ of people speaking of Jesus Christ and practising Judaism in his ‘Letter to the Magnesians’, while in his ‘Letter to the Trallians’ referring to jews and Judaism as ‘poison’ in the Christian religious body. It is clear that he ardently despised jews and Judaism, while he sought to convert them.

Further evidence of this is found in his ‘Letter to the Philadelphians’ in which he warns Christians not to give any credence to jewish preachers and agents within their religious communities. Then Ignatius delivers his piece de resistance and refers to jews as agents of the evil one (i.e. the devil).

It just goes to show that the Fathers of the Church, who were intimately acquainted with jews and Judaism, had a far better understanding of realities than their modern successors.

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This was originally published at the following address: http://www.semiticcontroversies.blog...h-on-jews.html
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