"The early Christians were simple Bible believers. Bishops, sacraments, and 'Catholic' came centuries later." That claim can be tested. One bishop wrote seven letters on his way to martyrdom, within living memory of the apostles. Here is what he believed.
Short answer: St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote seven letters around AD 107–110 (approximate) while under guard on the road to Rome. They show Christians who confessed Jesus as God and truly man, believed the Eucharist is "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ," obeyed a bishop with presbyters and deacons, kept the Lord's Day, and called themselves "the Catholic Church." That is the Church Scripture describes as "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), already visible within living memory of the apostles.
Key verses on the faith Ignatius received
- "it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26)
- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
- "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink." (John 6:55)
- "The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16)
- "to all the holy ones in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and ministers" (Philippians 1:1)
- "I was caught up in spirit on the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
St. Ignatius led the church in Antioch, the city where believers were first called Christians (Acts 11:26) and where St. Paul taught (Acts 13:1) and St. Peter also came (Galatians 2:11). The historian Eusebius says he was "chosen bishop of Antioch, second in succession to Peter" (Church History 3.36). Condemned to die in Rome, he wrote to six churches and to St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna.
The Catechism draws on his words more than once. It defines the Church as catholic by quoting him: "Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church" (CCC 830). It describes the Church of Rome as the church "which presides in charity" (CCC 834), a phrase from his Letter to the Romans. It calls the Eucharist "the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death" (CCC 1405). And it echoes his rule from Smyrnaeans 8: "Let only that Eucharist be regarded as legitimate, which is celebrated under [the presidency of] the bishop or him to whom he has entrusted it" (CCC 1369).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That St. Ignatius is Scripture. His letters are a witness to the faith, not inspired writings. Scripture carries the argument.
- That he explains every later doctrine in full. He does not use the word "transubstantiation" or define papal infallibility. He shows the seeds, already alive.
- That his authority comes from being early. His value is that he shows what the apostolic churches already believed.
The Biblical Case
1. Jesus is God, and truly man
St. John writes, "the Word was God" and "the Word became flesh" (John 1:1, 14). He warns that "every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God" (1 John 4:2-3). St. Ignatius holds both truths together. He calls Christ "God existing in flesh ... both of Mary and of God" (Ephesians 7) and writes, "our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary" (Ephesians 18). Of Christ's Passion he insists, "He suffered truly" (Smyrnaeans 2). Against those who said Christ "only seemed to suffer," he asked, "then why am I in bonds?" (Trallians 10).
2. The Eucharist is Christ's flesh
Jesus said, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you" (John 6:53). St. Paul warned that whoever receives unworthily "will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). St. Ignatius says the heretics "abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins" (Smyrnaeans 7). He calls it "the medicine of immortality" (Ephesians 20). (See Is the Eucharist Really the Body and Blood of Jesus?)
3. One Eucharist, one Church
St. Paul says, "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body" (1 Corinthians 10:17). St. Ignatius echoes him: "Take heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop" (Philadelphians 4).
4. Bishops, presbyters, and deacons
St. Paul greets the Philippians "with the overseers and ministers" (Philippians 1:1), tells Titus to "appoint presbyters in every town" (Titus 1:5), and reminds overseers that the Holy Spirit appointed them to "tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). St. Ignatius describes the same ministry, now with settled names: "your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons" (Magnesians 6). He adds, "Apart from these, there is no Church" (Trallians 3). (See What Is Apostolic Succession?)
5. The Lord's Day, not the Sabbath
St. John received his vision "on the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10). St. Ignatius says believers raised in "the ancient order of things" were now "no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him" (Magnesians 9).
6. The "Catholic Church" and the church of Rome
Jesus promised to build "my church" (Matthew 16:18). In the earliest known written use of the phrase, St. Ignatius names it: "wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (Smyrnaeans 8). He greets the Roman church as the church "which presides over love," and tells them, "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you" (Romans, greeting and 4). He took for granted that Sts. Peter and Paul had taught in Rome. Of the six churches he addresses, only Rome is greeted as one that "presides," and he tells the Romans, "You have never envied any one; you have taught others" (Romans 3).
Objections Answered
(a) "Ignatius's letters are forgeries or full of later additions."
At its strongest: Ignatian letters survive in more than one form. A longer version contains added material and extra letters that scholars agree are not genuine. If one version was padded, perhaps the "Catholic" passages were too.
Answer: It is true that a longer, expanded version exists. But most scholars accept the seven letters in their middle-length form as authentic (this is the majority view, not a unanimous one). The external witness is early and strong. St. Polycarp, to whom St. Ignatius wrote, wrote that he had collected "The Epistles of Ignatius written by him to us, and all the rest [of his Epistles] which we have by us" (Polycarp, Philippians 13). Around AD 180, St. Irenaeus quotes the Letter to the Romans (Against Heresies 5.28.4), and Eusebius names the same seven letters (Church History 3.36). The passages above come from those seven. A later forger could not have planted the Letter to the Romans in a book written around AD 180.
(b) "Smyrnaeans 7 is about Christ's real body, not a real presence in the bread."
At its strongest: St. Ignatius is fighting Docetists, who denied Christ had real flesh. He never uses the word "transubstantiation." He also uses "flesh" as a metaphor elsewhere: "be renewed in faith, that is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, that is the blood of Jesus Christ" (Trallians 8).
Answer: Start with Scripture, which he is echoing: "my flesh is true food" (John 6:55), and "The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16). Catholics agree he does not use the later technical term. But notice his logic. The heretics stay away from the Eucharist "because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins." He identifies the Eucharist with the same flesh that suffered on the cross. If the bread were only a symbol, Docetists could have shared it with no problem. In Trallians 8 he marks his metaphor with "that is." In Smyrnaeans 7 he makes a plain confession of faith, and he adds that this flesh is the one "which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again." A symbol is not raised from the dead.
(c) "One bishop over each church was a later development."
At its strongest: In the New Testament, "overseer" and "presbyter" can name the same men (Acts 20:17, 28). St. Ignatius's Letter to the Romans names no bishop of Rome. Maybe St. Ignatius was pushing a new system.
Answer: Catholics can grant that the titles took time to settle. But St. Ignatius does not argue for a new system. He writes to churches across Asia Minor as if the bishop, presbyters, and deacons were already normal, and he names several of their bishops: Damas at Magnesia, Polybius at Tralles, St. Polycarp at Smyrna. Within a generation of the apostles, the structure stood in every church he wrote to in Asia Minor. A rival system imposed by one traveling prisoner could not have been accepted in city after city without a protest that left no trace. Its substance is already in the apostles' practice of appointing and overseeing local presbyters (Titus 1:5), and in St. Paul's charge to hand on what he taught: "entrust to faithful people who will have the ability to teach others as well" (2 Timothy 2:2).
(d) "'Presides over love' is about charity, not authority."
At its strongest: St. Ignatius praises Rome's generosity, not its jurisdiction. He names no bishop of Rome and says nothing about a pope. Reading the papacy into a greeting is anachronism.
Answer: Catholics do not claim this greeting defines papal jurisdiction. But the language is not generic. He greets Rome twice as the church that "presides": the one that "presides in the place of the region of the Romans" and "presides over love." He uses "presides" for a bishop over his flock (Magnesians 6), and of the six churches he addresses he uses it of no other church. He adds that Rome has "taught others" (Romans 3). The New Testament had already given St. Peter a charge to "strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32), and around AD 180 St. Irenaeus states it plainly: "it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority" (Against Heresies 3.3.2). St. Ignatius shows the seed; St. Irenaeus shows the plant.
The Early Church Agrees
- St. Polycarp of Smyrna (Letter to the Philippians, c. AD 110–140, approximate) sent St. Ignatius's letters to another church, saying "by them you may be greatly profited; for they treat of faith and patience, and all things that tend to edification in our Lord." (ch. 13)
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, c. AD 180) quotes him as "a certain man of ours": "I am the wheat of Christ, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God." (5.28.4; compare Romans 4)
- Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, c. AD 325, approximate) records the report that St. Ignatius "was sent from Syria to Rome, and became food for wild beasts on account of his testimony to Christ," and lists his seven letters. (3.36)
Conclusion
St. Ignatius was no medieval theologian. He was a pastor in the church where the name "Christian" began, writing in chains. Yet his letters read like a sketch of Catholic faith: Jesus is God made flesh, the Eucharist is His flesh, the Church gathers around its bishop, and that Church is called Catholic.
You don't have to take our word for it. His seven letters are short and free to read online. Read them, then ask which church today still believes what he believed: that the Eucharist is Christ's flesh, that the Church gathers around her bishop, and that she is called Catholic. We think you will find your way home.
Come home. The Church St. Ignatius wrote to on his road to martyrdom, gathered around her bishops and confessing the Eucharist as Christ's own flesh, is still here today, and she still bears the name he gave her: the Catholic Church. Christ did not found many churches. He founded one, on St. Peter and the apostles (Matthew 16:18), and that Church is the Catholic Church. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). If you are a baptized Christian, you already share "a certain, although imperfect, communion" with her (CCC 838). Every truth you already hold is a call to the rest of the way. Christ is calling you into the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
When did St. Ignatius write his letters? Around AD 107–110, while being taken to Rome for execution. The exact year is uncertain; the dating is approximate.
Did St. Ignatius know the apostles? Ancient tradition connects him with the apostolic generation, but his letters do not say so directly. Eusebius places him as St. Peter's second successor at Antioch.
Where can I read his letters? All seven are online at New Advent, starting with the Letter to the Ephesians.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Matthew 16:18; Luke 22:32; John 1:1, 14; John 6:53-55; Acts 11:26; Acts 13:1; Acts 20:17, 28; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; 1 Corinthians 11:27; Galatians 2:11; Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:2; Titus 1:5; 1 John 4:2-3; Revelation 1:10.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816; 830; 834; 838; 1369; 1405.
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 7, 18, 20; Magnesians 6, 9; Trallians 3, 8, 10; Romans, greeting, 3, 4; Philadelphians 4; Smyrnaeans 2, 7, 8 (all ANF vol. 1); Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 13 (ANF vol. 1); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.2 and 5.28.4 (ANF vol. 1); Eusebius, Church History 3.36 (NPNF2 vol. 1, ccel.org).